BATTLE REPORT THREAD: Tournament of BLOOD-Blood Angels vs Tyranids 11/15/2017

Mission:
Set Up: The Arena, before placing terrain mark a 12″ by 12″ space in the middle of the table, 18″ from each long edge and 30″ from each short edge. This is the Heart of the Arena, no terrain may be placed in it, otherwise set up as normal.

Victory: Glory Seeker

Special Rules

The Gods Want Blood: All units suffer a -1 to hit rolls when targeting a unit more than 12″ away.

The Eyes are Upon You: Units in the Heart of the Arena automatically pass leadership tests.

Wining the Crowds Favor: Whenever a Character slays a model with a melee attack the control favor gains a favor point. One point is gained for each model killed in melee by a character and points are gained immediately when the enemy model is removed. There is no limit to the number of points that a player may have. During the course of the game players may spend their favor points for the following effects:

1 Favor Point: A character may re roll dice.

2 Favor Points: Increase a single characters Attack value by 1 for the round.

3 Favor Points: Pick a friendly character, they regain a single wound.

5 Favor Points: At the end of the fight phase pick a friendly character within the heart of the arena, they may attack again. A character can only be affect by this ability once per round.

Rile Up The Crowd: At the start of each fight phase any character within the Heart of the Arena can attempt to rile up the crowd and earn their favor. In order to do so the controlling player must give a short speech. If the crowd (chat) agrees that they did a good job the player is awarded one favor point. Any number of characters can attempt to rile up the crowd each fight phase but each may only do so once. If both players have characters that wish to rile up the crowd they must alternate giving speeches.

Army Lists
Blood Angles 3rd Company

Captain Ollivander w/ Jump Pack and Blade of Bees – 6

(The Blade of Bees is an ancient relic recovered by Captain Ollivander. This sword if made out of a strange crystalline materiel of unknown provenance. Though honeycombed with small chambers the blade is light and exceedingly sharp. The blade is also home to a hive of strange bee like creatures, though if they are living or mechanical is unknown. At a thought from the wielder of the blade the bees fly forth and wreak havoc among any target. When first recovered there was debate over wither the blade should be used or destroyed as all corrupted xenos artifacts should be. The debate was solved when it was noted that the markings on the back of each “bee” bore a striking resemblance to the Imperial Aquila.”
In combat the blade has the following profile:
Melee S: +2 AP: -3 D: d3
Ranged, Rage: 8″ Type: Assault D6 S:5 AP: -1 D:1 Special: This attack automatically hits it target. )
The Sanguinor- 9

Brother Corbulo -5
Chaplain w/ Jump pack -6
LT w/ Jump pack, power fist -5
15x Death Company -29
5x Vanguard Veterans -7
5x Tactical Squad -5
5x Tactical Squad -5
5x Tactical Squad -5
10x Assault Squad -9
10 x Assault Squad – 9
PL 100 6/6 cp

Tyranids
Battalion Detachment – Gorgon
Swarmlord
Broodlord
Tyranid Prime – Scything Talons, Lashwhip Bonesword
Genestealers x 15 – Toxin Sacs, Rending Claws
Genestealers x 15 – Toxin Sacs, Rending Claws
Haurspex
Tyrant Guard x 3 – Lashwhip Boneswords, Rending Claws
Trygon – Toxin Sacs/Adrenal Glands
Trygon – Toxin Sacs/Adrenal Glands
Warriors x 9 – Scything Talons/BoneSwords
PL 101 6/6 cp

So I was going over a few things I think I could have done differently, but I think ultimately, this was not a battle the Blood Angels were gonna win. At least with the rolls I was making. By turn 2, I was already pretty well surrounded.

At no point did I feel like attacks I was making were wasted or futile. Aside from the first assault with the Death Company, I did a good job of keeping my commander bubbles in the spots I wanted them. If I had managed to get the command squad in faster, I would have killed that one trigon and saved a few death company on the retaliation attack.

If I had thrown the death company into the genestealers instead of the trigon, more genestealers would have died, for sure. The vanguard vets and the assault squads just didn't have enough attacks to really whittle the genestealers down. I suppose I could have deathballed a little more and just kept all my guys together more but in a full assault army, that's not really as effective.

I'm curious what other people think I could have done differently. Like I said, by turn 2, I could tell this was not a game I was going to win. I didn't expect to be tabled though lol. I think I would have preferred more death company or maybe splitting that squad, rather than having the tac marines.

You have to try very hard to keep your guys within the command bubbles of your leaders for the good times to happen. When you need to make 11-12" charges with your commanders to keep the bonuses, you should probably do something different. Look at about the one hour mark (just as JR's stealers counterattack your assaults and murderizes them). Your commanders are out by themselves after having failed long charges. That's not a position you want to be in.

Things I might have done differently include:

• trying to use your tac marines as a screen for your assaults and vanguards at the start of the game, trying to bait the stealers forward on their first turn, then going in with your assaults and vanguard on the turn after. Holding your tac squads back took them out of the important part of the game.

• don't try to fight the whole enemy line at once. You mention that you considered keeping all your dudes together - that's sort of what you need to do; both for the command bubble and also so you're not spread out from a-hole to breakfast time trying to kill everything at once. With marines, you usually want to hammer blow a section of enemy at one time and then (if possible) move on to the next bit. What I would have tried to do would be to get rid of the stealers first by using the bait/screen, then charged in with one lot of jump pack dudes from the front while taking advantage of the other jump packs mobility to use your move to bounce over the stealers then charge them from the back.

Don't be afraid to castle up and pick your fights with marines, man. You'll never have the numbers to swamp anyone.

You also didn't seem to have any specific anti-monster weapons anywhere (powerfists or t-hammers and stuff) so dealing with swarmy/trygons was always going to be an uphill battle. (I think the same sort of thing arose on Monday - Drakhar survived the whole game because the BA's had nothing that could reliably and quickly take him out; Abe was relying on weight of attacks). So... with my 20-20 hindsight strat, what you might have done was bait out the stealers and hit them hard with the deathball in your turn 2, then try to roll up the side of JR's force, or hit whatever bit of his army he threw at you next - hopefully some of the warriors, and then somehow take on the big-bads that would have been left. The swarmy, in particular was always going to be a major headache for you. Nothing you could about that.