Feeling No Pain...

For Sanguinius!

After a string of harrowing defeats, the Blood Angels had finally managed to reestablish a secure base of operations on Angamar.  Mephiston had retired to the orbiting Battle Barge to better coordinate the campaign against the Xenos, leaving Brother Decartes as the tactical commander of the Blood Angels' forces.  During the previous battles, Brother Corbulo had managed to identify a signature emitted by the relic fragments that could be tracked from orbit.  Descartes's first mission would be to secure one fragment located deep within territory under Dark Angel control.  Based on their experience with the Brothers Penitent, Mephiston knew this would not be an easy fight...

 

Sammael and the Ravenwing had received word that the corrupted Blood Angels were advancing into territory already secured by the Dark Angels.  With so many threats on the planet, the Blood Angels had no legitimate reason to be intruding into already pacified areas.  Obviously, the Fallen were still working deep within the chapter and needed to be cleansed.  The Ravenwing would run them down where they stood...

 

Blood Angels vs Dark Angels (Summary and Pics by Jeff)

Jeff vs Noah

Army Lists – 1500 pts

Blood Angels (1600)

HQ

Librarian - jump pack, Shield of Sanguinius, Smite

Elite

Sanguinary Priest - jump pack

Troops

10x Assault Squad - flamer, lightning claw
10x Assault Squad - 2x meltagun
10x Assault Squad - 2x plasma gun
7x Death Company - 2x power axe, power fist
5x Sniper Scouts - missile launcher, camo cloaks

Fast Atack

Attack Bike - multi-melta
Attack Bike - multi-melta
 

Heavy Support

5x Devastators - 4x missile launcher
5x Devastators - 4x missile launcher

Dark Angels (1500)

HQ
‘Speeder Sammael
Ravenwing Command Squad - Standard of Devastation

Troops

4x Ravenwing Bikes - 2x plasma gun
- Attack Bike

4x Ravenwing Bikes - 2x plasma gun

- Attack Bike

4x Ravenwing Bikes - 2x plasma gun

- Attack Bike

3x Ravenwing Bikes - 2x meltagun, combi-melta

- Attack Bike - multi-melta

3x Ravenwing Bikes - 2x meltagun, combi-melta

- Attack Bike - multi-melta

Fast Attack

3x Black Knights - 1x grenade launcher
Darkshroud

Assets

Blood Angels receive 100 point advantage for a 1 territory deficit and a manufactorum.
Dark Angels receive options for 2 USRs for a 2 bastion advantage -- mistake, Noah only had 1 bastion.
Dark Angels receive +1 for Deployment roll for a 1 power station advantage

Mission + Deployment

The Scouring + Dawn of War
No Night Fighting
Dark Angels win roll-off, elect to deploy first

Game Notes

- Dark Angels split off most of the attack bikes creating lots and lots of small, turbo-boosting scoring.  A good chunk of units held in reserve including the Plasma Talons.
- Blood Angels eat rapid fire all game.  BA shooting had almost zero effect with the Dark Shroud lending to either a 2+ or 3+ cover save for most the game.
- Dark Angels scout move closer to the red wave to get in better firing position.  This made a Turn 2 assault for Blood Angels feasible.
- Traditional Cat-and-Mouse game.  Having lots of shooting in reserves and not so good reserve rolls, limited the shots the BA Assault Marines had to face.
- Dice rolls were far from rolling average.  Noah had terrible rolls.  Jeff had great rolls.  This really tilted the match.

- Possible game changing mistake: Standard of Devastation made his TL bolters into Salvo 2/4.  We forgot that that relentless on bikes ignore the moving factor so Noah had to decide whether to sit still for Salvo 4 (and bypass getting a jink save) or moving for a jink save and shoot at Salvo 2.

Result
Dark Angels conceded after Turn 4
Blood Angels score 12 points - 4-pt, 3-pt, 2-pt obj; First Blood; Slay the Warlord; Linebreaker
Dark Angels score 2 points - 2-pt objective

Game Highlight

Blood Angels hade never scored a Slay the Warlord point; this game they had tunnel vision on Sammael.  Despite the Dark Angels trying to screen their commander, the Blood Angels found an opening and assaulted Sammael with multiple units resulting in 45’ish attacks.

Attacks were rolled in batches, Noah rolled saved individually since his rolls were much better than when he rolled batches.  First 40 attacks result in just one glancing hit on Sammael.  Noah made about 15 consecutive (and individual) saves.  Sammael seemed pretty safe but fell to the last 5 attacks. 

 

 

The Ravenwing had descended on the Blood Angel jumpers with a roar of engines and a fusillade of bolter and plasma fire.  The initial volleys had scythed down a number of the Blood Angels in the opening moments of the fight, and Ravenwing Bikes threatened to punch a hole through the Blood Angel lines.  However, the mettle of Brother Descartes and the Blood Angels would not be broken so easily.  The Blood Angels launched into close combat with the Ravenwing, knocking Dark Angels from their bikes with chainswords and bolt pistols.  As the chaos raged across the battlefield, Brother Descartes sighted Sammael's landspeeder raking the Blood Angels with deadly accurate firepower.  With a shout, he screamed "To me Brothers!" and launched himself into the air with a burst from his jetpack.  Like a furious missile, he screamed towards Sammael's landspeeder in a thundering descent.  He slammed feet-first into the canopy like a hammer, knocking the landspeeder into an uncontrolled descent.  Before Sammael could regain control, Descartes threw a krak grenade into the gunner's canopy and launched himself from the plummeting vehicle.  Seconds later, the landspeeder exploded into a massive fireball.  Obviously shaken, the surviving Ravenwing disengaged from the fighting and left the Blood Angels in full control of the battlefield.  The area secured, Descartes and the Angels set to work searching for the relic fragments.  As they worked, they did not notice a shadowy form extract himself from the landspeeder wreckage and slip away into the darkness...