Battle Report: Blood Angels v Tau

(Image taken from www.danscottart.com/Images/BASquad.jpg)

Batrep time!

I got a game in yesterday at the LGS. I took my new Blood Angel jump-pack army for a spin. All I can say is wow! I had high expectations of the list, and they were met entirely. Maybe it was the poor army list I went up against, or the “out of practice” player I was playing, I don’t know. But the army did very well, with lots of versatility built in.

My list was the Descent of Angels list I had posted earlier on the site.
My opponent was running Tau. It wasn’t an optimized list, but there were still some things I was afraid of. His list was this:
Farsight with 7 bodyguards. 3 had missile pods and fusion blasters. 4 had plasma rifles and missile pods.
2x full Firewarrior squads on foot
1 Hammerhead with smart missiles
1 Broadside team with 2 suits, 4 shield drones and 1 marker drone
1 Piranha squadron with 3 Piranhas. 1 with fusion blaster and 2 with burst cannons
3 man Stealth suit team with a marker drone
1 squad of Pathfinders with 3 rail rifles (str6 AP3) and obligatory Devilfish

Mission was 4 objectives, with Spearhead deployment. Tau won the roll and decided to go first.

Turn 1 - He set up in his corner with Broadsides 3 stories up in the deepest corner, and a squad of firewarriors on the second floor, and an objective just below them. Fish was on the right flank of the building and the Hammerhead on the left. Further towards the middle was the Farsight Deathstar. Middle of his table edge was the second firewarrior squad, and the Stealth suits were in a building flanking the Farsight blob. He scouted his Pathfinders way on the left side of the board in another building. I deployed nothing, reserving all my units.

Turn 2 - He moves a bit to widen the board out (bad idea) and get some movement on his vehicles so they aren’t auto-hit in combat (good). On my half of the turn, 6 of 8 of my squads are rolled in. 2 extra ones coming in on the re-rolls from Descent of Angels rule. I first try to place my Librarian, Sang Priest and meltaguns from a combat squad in between the hammerhead, Farsight and the Fish. And mishap. I scattered into the Hammerhead engines. Had the squad not had 2 extra IC’s in it, it would have survived, but oh well, the dice Gods are fickle. So I lost about 1/5th of my army on the first scatter. I was pretty demoralized, and almost felt like calling the game there and then. But I’m a fighter, and wanted to see if my Angels could rally from the loss. All my other squads came down safely. The two Honor Guard squads and a combat squad with meltas landing where I tried to land the first squad, and the other two combat squads landing further towards the center in between the middle FW squad and the Farsight squad. Shooting saw me unloading everything into Farsight and his cronies. I had one bolt pistol wound in there, and he lost 2 suits to all the meltas. His 4+ invul saves were off the chain. Good rolling for him. No Vanguard came down so no assaults.

Turn 3 – He opened up on me. I lost both of my combat squads in the middle of the table and one marine each from the other 3 squads. Undeterred, my Blood Angels began to exact their vengeance. My two Vanguard squads landed in close proximity to Farsight and his overpriced suits. One Honor Guard squad took out the Stealth suits, one headed for the Broadsides. The remaining combat squad went for the central FWs and their objective. Librarian detached and went after the Hammerhead, and the Priest detached to join one of the Vanguard squads. I couldn’t shoot his XV-8s because I would lose charge range. Stealth suits were wiped out to a man. FW’s lost combat and were run down. Broadsides held with their stupid 2+ save. In the Farsight combat, most of my Vanguard failed, only managing a few wounds that were all saved. They struck back with Farsight whiffing completely, and the other suits’ blows were fended off with disdain. Full of disappointment in my pricey Vanguard, the two powerfists stepped up to the plate. Between their 6 attacks, 5 landed and all of them wounded, he then failed all of his 4+ saves, watching as his fancy suits were turned to mangled heaps of scrap and pulped blue alien. The one remaining suit promptly fled and was cut down mercilessly. On a side note, the Librarian only managed to immobilize the hammerhead with 4 str 10 attacks.

The game was over at this point, but we went one more turn to be sure, and a turn 3 walloping is not so fun, for the other guy at least.

Turn four saw my Librarian eat 24 pulse rifles and not survive, and I lost one Vet to a rail rifle from the corner. And that was it. Combat was lost by the Tau on top of the building. The suits fled from the fight and were executed as they turned their backs on the Emperor’s finest. Bottom of turn 4 ended with no Tau left on the board. Both tanks dropped to meltaguns, Firewarriors lost combat and were massacred as they tried to flee the Emperor’s justice. And the Piranhas also were scrapped by melta fire and a well placed Infernus pistol shot. Lastly, the Pathfinders were lost to the blades of the other Vanguard squad.
Complete Victory for the Blood Angels!

It was a good starter game for my new list. Lots of fun. The other list really just didn’t have a chance against mine. He needed two turns of shooting at me at least, but because of my deployment he only got one. Had my vanguard landed 2nd turn, it would have been even worse for him as I tied up Farsight in combat. But when I lost that first squad he had a fighting chance, although he couldn’t capitalize. His target priority was poor. Had he killed an honor guard squad with Farsight, it would have gone better for him, but the chips were not in his favor either way. Also, he shouldn’t have spread the board against me. It opened up spots for me to drop in and kill his dangerous squads, rather than forcing me out of his deployment and only offering up Firewarriors or Piranhas to my assault next round.

MVP for me was the Sanguinary Priests. They are so very powerful. Furious charge and Feel No Pain are very hard to deal with when they encompass my whole army. I made about 90% of my FNP rolls. His pulse weaponry was wounding me often, but my power armor and FNP just shrugged it off continually. Runner-up goes to my Vanguard squads. They were great. Very versatile unit as they are equipped to handle most anything, and assaulting out of deepstrike is absolutely invaluable in this list.

I love this list. It plays exactly how I like to play 40k. Dropping in where I want, shooting big things down, and then getting right into the mix with strong assault units. If I get the chance to play in ‘Ard Boyz, which I doubt, I will be using an expanded version of this same list. I need to keep playing it to get better at judging distances for my deepstrikes, so I don’t mishap so often.
Thoughts, comments, and criticisms are always welcome. Don’t be a stranger. If you visit, then leave me a comment, if nothing else than to tell me that I need to take more battle pics and paint my army!

Until next time!