Surviving the New Year - Blood Angels Style - Hard Work Ahead...

I've been on a Blood Angels bender since the codex came out, reading and re-reading it and even purchasing the last three White Dwarf weeklies so I'd have the new formations as well (not to mention the cool cities of Death Maelstrom cards).  About the only thing not in my hand (yet) is the current Blood-Angel related Shield of Baal campaign and fluff supplement.  Maybe that will be next.

Yep, here at my man cave, I got a pile of Blood Angels that have been sitting around and not played for over a year (or more).  RippedDragon collected most of them, and I owned some of them before that.  Included in the collected are the old original metallic death company metal marines, and I'm almost ready to start painting.  Here are some pictures of the collection for reference.

It is a pile of stuff!  Of course, now I need to go and design some lists, in order to see what we might be missing.  I already ordered the Mephiston model from my FLGS just to complete the character collection.

As can be seen, there is alot of stuff to repair, paint, fix, swap, clean, finish, and such, so I think I'll start with a basic list and then move forward from there.

Weekend work has been keeping me from playing tournament games for the past two months or so, and for the past two weeks, holidays and meetings have kept me from playing on club nights. In January we begin the next league, however, so I need to get busy!  I hate playing with unfinished models!

I've also been trolling a bit more at Frontline Gaming, in relation to their podcasts.  I love listening to their podcast, but it is always interesting how quick they can try to look for rules to be abused in order to create "winning netlists" at any cost.  Case in point is the discussion there on the BA formation from White Dwarf that consists of 3 Stormravens and 3 10-man tac squads with 3 teleport homers.  Of course the discussion immediately went off the hook on trying to find a way to alpha strike you with other units coming in from reserves.  Overall, I'm hoping they achieve a just conclusion to the discussion, but we'll see.  I've made my case fairly clear in my comments there.

Locally, I went to the FLGS last week and there were a good few people playtesting the Blood Angel Codex, and one player has already used it to win the monthly tournament (although I don't know if he used the new codex - it seemed to recent to allow it).  Regardless, I think we will see alot of Blood Angels come out to play in the area, which is pretty cool.

New Projects Underway and a Loss to Tau-Dar

I have not really been posting much on the non-tactics or non-battle elements of the game, but with ski season looming it gets more difficult to find time for games.  Having an entire basement available for games and hobbies helps though, and I always have paints out on the bar.

There is a lot (sort of) going to happen here at Defenders of Calth! 

I has no real knowledge of this until recently.  In the lore, the Blood Angels Chapter "actually" sent a company of their marines to assist the Ultramarines after hive fleet Behemoth had invaded the Ultramar system, and those Blood Angels remained there to learn as much as they could from the experience.  Regardless, I have access to an unfinished Blood Angels Army and am getting the new codex today!  Look for the Blood Angels 5th Company to share the scene with the Ultramarines 3rd Company soon!

Overall, I have the following projects getting underway:

1.  A gamer I met a few months back had a limited edition Ultramarines Captain still on the sprue from Games Workshop. I'm going to get the model assembled and painted - and look for it to be entered in the Fratris Salutem painting competition in the Spring.  I might have him represent a different company....

2.  I have a box of Centurions.  Now that it seems to be that the unit is not going to be included in the Blood Angels Codex, it is time for them to get built as 3rd Company Ultramarines.

3.  Attack Bike.  Ultramarines.  This will get me to three of them. On the other hand...maybe as a Blood Angel.  But that will mean getting more bikers to complete a squad of them.

4.  5th Company Blood Angels.  There is alot to do!  I'll probably create a 1500 point army list first and then start on what i need to get that table top ready.

Then there is the gaming itself:

1.  Winter 40K League...extends from January to March.

2.  COD....

As for what I have been up to...missed out on a few weeks of 40K due to other obligations.  I did get in to Crossroads for a game this past Wednesday.  It was vs Tau-Dar!

Maelstrom Mission #1, 1750 Points 
My opponent had something like:

Eldar CAD
Wraithknight with upgrades (as his warlord). Shooty.
2 units of jetbikers, each including a seer of each type (for a total of 4 psychers, 10 or 12 jet bikes total)
Wave serpent
Small unit of Guardians

Tau Allies
Commander in suit, marker drones, plasma loaded.
3 Heavy suits, more drones, missile and plasma loaded.
Fire warriors on foot, about 10.
Large Tau-Bot, plasma loaded

Having been a while, I only had brought a 1650 PyroTiggy list - which I upgraded to 1750 by swapping out two missile launchers for two heavy bolters and adding in two attack bikes.

Overall, it went all experimental for me.  Although I knew taking down the wave serpent and jetbikes would be very important, I decided to change my target priority to the heavy suits followed by the wraithknight.

My opponent had first turn, which he used to collect 4 points right off (first blood, 3 objectives).  My card draw was weak, so when I dropped in I got one point, but eliminated his heavy suits.  First bood was from using the wave serpent to eliminate my landspeeders with it's turret weapons and shield (no cover save....wow...).

On his next turn, he had another good draw, and the jetbikes scored him 3 more points, and I got nothing.  At that point I'd tried to shoot then assault his wraithknight, failing to cause a scratch while losing the sternguard sergeant.  My reinforcement pod went back into ongoing reserves after deviating 12 inches.  I scored nothing.  All the cards were for things I could not accomplish.

On turn 3, he shot down my stormtalon with some lucky Tau-bot dice rolls, and he eliminated my attack bikes and two rhinos.  He scored on two objectives and a d3 roll of 3 (card for killing units) for another 5 points, getting him to 12.  My reinforcement pod arrived, and the combined firepower of my two tactical squads failed to dent his wave serpent.  Tiggy and the two remaining sternguard failed a 3 inch charge on the Suit commander...I scored a d3 of 3 points for having a card that got me some objectives, taking me to 4 points. I had more cards that were useless.

We called it at the end of turn 3 with the score about 12-4 or so.  We might have continued, but I was bleeding off kill points and running out of ways to stop the jetbikes from just racking up more points.  My opponent thought he'd eliminate Tiggy and his bodyguards, and just wrack up more points in a gap I'd never close.  
 
Remember what I said a few posts ago?  Ignore the big stuff and kill the other stuff.  Or come with a list tailored to just kill big stuff...I'd done neither again, which meant the outcome was certain.

Until next time...

Ming