Best 40K Game of All Time

Interrogator-Chaplain Boreas of the Dark Angels was brooding.  His mood was so foul this night that even his servitors and cherubs seemed to flit away from him in the darkness of his sanctum.  He had been certain he would have found one of the Fallen hiding in the abandoned fortress below.  Instead, his forces found Blood Angels and Doom. Not only was he injured, but nearly his entire assault party was injured or dead.  Precious time had been lost.  Why had his forces been called down to the planet? Could it be the unthinkable? Could it have been that the sergeant who had called down the assault and provided the information that misled Boreas been one of the fallen? That sergeant had been turned to cinder from a lascannon blast.  Boreas sent out a comm that the remains of the sergeant were to be retrieved and brought to him. Even in death, the fallen must pay...

1650 Points, Maelstrom Mission #3 - Tactical Escalation

OPFOR - Dark Angels
Interrogator Chaplain Boreas (Warlord)
Terminator Librarian, Level 1, FS
Devastator Squad, 5, 2x plasma cannons
Tactical Squad, 5, plasma gun, MB
Tactical squad, 10, 2 plasma guns, plasma pistol, MB, drop pod, beacon
Tactical squad, 5, melta gun, plasma pistol, MB, drop pod, beacon
Assault squad, 5, MG, jump packs
Command biker squad, TLPGs, hammers/swords
SableClaw Landspeeder
Deathwing Terminators, 5, CML
Deathwing Terminators, 5, CML
Attack bike, MM
Attack bike, MM

5th Company - Blood Angels
Epistolary Librarian Angelus, Level 2, FS, PP, jump pack
Sanguinary Priest Marus, PAxe, jump pack
1st Squad, 5 Tacticals, flamer, las-plas razorback
2nd Squad, 5 Tacticals, flamer, las-plas razorback
7th Squad, 10 assault, 2 MG, IP, PF
8th Squad, 5 assault, 2 MG, drop pod, deathwind
Baal Predator, TLAC/HB
Predator, TLLC/HB
Stormraven, TLMM, TLLC, SSML
Death Company Dreadnought, SB/MG, 2xBTs
Death Company, 5 Marines, PF, PA, PS

Assessment
The battlefield would entail an abandoned citadel on and ice planet.  Overall, the Blood Angels were (deployed first), holding the ruined walls of the former fortress.  They would deploy to try to minimize impacts from Dark Angel alpha strikes.  The Blood Angels held the Stormraven bearing the Death Company, and Squad 8, in reserves.  The last time these forces clashed, you might recall, the Dark Angels had so much plasma fire, the Blood Angels were fairly trapped in their deployment zone and severely beaten.  In this game, the assessment was to make sure the Blood Angels went first, looking to spread out and dominate the area quickly, so it would be more difficult for the Dark Angels to be as mobile or collect as many points.

The Best 40K Game of All Time
C'mon, you have to admit, you are curious.  This report is in fact for the best game of all time...well...until next week when I play again, of course! This game was alot of fun to play, and it went back and forth between us.  And it was a slug fest!....

Note...I'm getting a new i-phone soon, so am hoping for better pictures in the near future. Here we are soon after deployment.  The Blood Angels are deployed in the foreground, razorbacks are in the corners in mutually supporting positions.  The Dark Angel warlord and devastators are in  a crater in the upper left, spying in on the Bloood Angels and ready to call in the strike force.  One Dark Angel tactical squad and assault squad are hidden from view in the upper right behind that last ice pile.  Angelus and Marus are attached to 7th Squad.    

Turn 1

8th Squad pods down next to Objective marker 6, and between combined fire of the pod, the squad, and a nearby Baal predator zooming up my right flank, the DA tacticals take casualties and the survivors break and run off the table.

In response, the DA counter-pod-assault into my deployment zone and marker #5, next to the razorback.  Although the razorback is damaged, it is not wrecked.  Here the pod is being placed...I'd focus firepower on that squad on Turn 2, and make them break - to then have them rally.  1st Squad, on the ice pile, would assault them Turn 3...and then remain that way for the game locked in combat.

Score on Turn 1 was 2:1, BAs lead.

Here in turn 1, the DA assault squad remnants charge into the BAs, in a smack-fest that went into Turn 5.

FAaaaZOOOOM...with a bright flash, the Deathwing Terminator Assault begins in Turn 2!

In addition to the two Deathwing Terminator Squads, command bikes, assault bikes, the SableClaw, and another podded squad arrive!

 7th Squad and my HQ units are sorely pressed to make their saves.  Here we are around the back end of Turn 3...the Dark Angels are about to put Angelus AND Marus out of action (After they'd wiped out the DA command Biker Squad).  The score was around 6:4 BAs leading at the end of Turn 3, but the DA's had some special tactical cards they were holding in secret....

This is around the middle of Turn 4. I'm whittling away at the Deathwing, and I'd completely destroyed the DA warlord and devs back at the crater.  The Stormraven was off doing other good work at this point.  By the end of Turn 4 the score was about 10:8 BAs leading.

  Another shot of turn 4.  The DC dread had stomped of toward Objective 4.  The DC were heading over to Objective #6 to put an end to the fighting there.

  Turn 5.  The BAs have several things going on - Squad 8 will hold obj #6, the DC are heading back towards Obj #2, the DC Dread is heading off to assault the DA tacticals, and we are putting firepower onto the surviving terminators.  In reality, at the end of Turn 5, the DAs were now winning, approximately 15:14.  But the game dice say...play on!

Turn 6. The BAs had some great Maelstrom tactical cards!  All they had to do was...kill one DA unit, and they'd get 6 or more points for the turn!  Instead, they got 4...in response, the SableClaw flies over the DC (who had failed their charge), killing three!  The DC dread had charged the DA tacticals, but lost one HP for one tactical, so it failed to score on my turn.  On the DA turn, the DC dread finished off the tacticals...in the lower right, we still find two 1st Squad tacticals slugging it out (since turn 3) with the DA sergeant...the Stormraven failed to pop a drop pod in two turns of trying!   The DA turn goes ok...scoring 3!

The game ends at the bottom of Turn 6 with a DRAW!!!!!!

Yep. Throw in Linebreaker, and it was a 19-19 draw.  Sometimes the best game is the one that goes the distance, you try everything you can, and nobody loses....

Crazy....