Gonna keep this short, as there's lots to do this weekend. More on that, later. No pics of the battle, alas, but I wanted to record this seeing as I was experimenting with using my old Land Raider Redeemer
My Blood Angels:
Reclusiarch with infernus pistol
Furioso Dreadnought with frag cannon and heavy flamer
6 Sternguard Veterans with 3 combi-meltas, 2 combi-plasma and a heavy flamer
7 Death Company with 2 infernus pistols and 2 power axes
Land Raider Redeemer with multimelta and extra armour
Death Company Dreadnought with Blood Talons
2 Stormravens with twin-linked multimelta, twin-linked assault cannon and hurricane bolters
Predator with autocannon and lascannon sponsons
Land Speeder Typhoon
This is a departure from my usual method of fielding Blood Angels. I have to admit, putting 7 Death Company, a Reclusiarch and a DC Dreadnought all in one Stormraven did make me somewhat nervous. That's 700 pts (!) sitting in an AV 12 vehicle. Granted, odds are pretty slim that a salvo from even a quad-cannon will take it down (about 9.5% of that happening, I believe), but that's still 40% of my army sitting in a neat little package. Given that 200 pts worth of Saber platform have almost a 50% chance of nuking those very precious 700 pts, I figured I'd best hedge my bets and put the Reclusiarch and his men in a somewhat tougher metal box.
Edwin's Nid:
Hive Tyrant with Heavy Venom Cannon, Bonesabre & Lashwhip, Old Adversary, Regeneration and Armoured Shell
Tyranid Prime with 2 Bonesabres, Devourer and Regeneration
3 Tyrant Guard
3 Hive Guard
3 Hive Guard
Death Leaper
Tervigon with Crushing Claws, Toxin Sacs, Regeneration and 2 psychic powers: Onslaught & Catalyst
10 Termagants
Tyrannofex with Rupture Cannon and Regeneration
Mawloc
This comes to 1,760 pts, I believe. I like pitting an army against Edwin's Nids, especially when I want to test my army's ability to handle a serious Death Star unit. 13 T6 wounds hiding behind the Tyrant's 2+ Armour Save to chew through, and nigh-unparalleled close combat lethality. To make things worse, if that thing has Iron Arm and 2 of the Tyrant Guard are taken down, then the unit comprises one T5 Prime, one T6 Guard and potentially a T9 Tyrant. I am led to understand that in the event that there is no majority Toughness value, then the whole unit uses the highest Toughness in the unit, meaning a unit of possibly 9 T9 wounds that's just bad news to fight in close combat, unless you're carrying mindshackle scarabs to even the odds a bit.
Mission: Big Guns Never Tire. 3 Objectives.
Deployment: Vanguard Strike. I won the roll off and deployed first. Night fighting was not active on the first turn.
Edwin keeps Death Leaper and the Termagants in reserve. Death Leaper saps 3 Ld from my Reclusiarch. I keep the Death Company and the Reclusiarch on the board, in the LR Redeemer. The Predator and LS Typhoon are also present, while the Furioso rode in Goldraven and the DC Dreadnought and the Sternguard were in Blackraven.
Turn One:
Token potshots were exchanged. The Land Speeder lost a hull point. A Tyrant Guard and the Tyrannofex each lost a wound.
Turn Two:
Both Stormravens arrive and gun straight for the Tyrannofex. Even with Feel No Pain granted by the Tervigon casting Endurance, the Tyrannofex went down. Return fire from the Tyrant Guard failed to harm the Stormravens. Death Leaper popped out behind the Land Speeder and blew it up. The Mawloc popped up behind the Predator.
Turn Three:
The Stormravens unloaded their cargoes and backed up, going into hover mode to better focus their firepower. Shooting from the Furioso, Sternguard and Blackraven took down 2 Tyrant Guard. Blackraven and the DC Dreadnought took down one squad of Hive Guard. Return fire from the Hive Guard downed Goldraven. The Prime charged the Sternguard, took a wound from overwatch fire and failed his charge. The Tyrant and his Guard charged and smashed the DC Dreadnought. The Predator tried shooting the Mawloc and failed miserably. The Mawloc charged the Predator and met with similarly dismal luck, missing with all attacks. Meanwhile, the Redeemer turned right round to unleash the Death Company on Death Leaper. A bit much, I know, but I figured it had to die before he caused some real damage. Death Leaper was handily blasted to goo with the Redeemer's multimelta. The Death Company shrugged and headed back to the Redeemer.
Turn Four:
Black Raven zoomed over to the other side of the board to help the Predator take down the Mawloc. Between it and the Predator, that was quite enough to slay the Mawloc. The Tervigon charged the Furioso and managed to take down 2 hull points. The Tyrantstar now turned their attentions to the Sternguard, who, supported by the Redeemer, had mauled the remaining Hive Guard brood with hellfire bolts.
Turn Five:
The LR Redeemer backed up and headed over to the melee between the remnant of the Tyrantstar and unloaded the Death Company in their direction. The Death Company performed spectacularly, saving 3 Feel No Pain rolls from the Tyrant's big horrible bonesword and destroying the Tyrant and his remaining Guard. Totaling up the points, I had 4 - Slay the Warlord, First Blood and 2 from killing Mawloc and Tyrannofex. Edwin had 4 - 3 from the Termagant swarms camping on an objective, 1 from downing a Stormraven.
A draw! Ah, well. I think we both knew that if things had carried on to Turn 6, my remaining forces were quite enough to take down a Tervigon and some Termagants. Of course "some" Termagants actually meant about 30 of them, but that's still no biggie to a LR Redeemer and a Stormraven, eh?
