Email in: bat rep blood on blood

Here is a lovely full picced bat-rep from Wouter. My comments shall be in pink. I don't know what point values (can everyone please include these always in emails!). There are a lot of large (13) pictures in this post btw. Dial-up beware (does dial-up even exist still?).
I’ve added the pics a attachments too, don’t know what you prefer, in the email or as attachments.
Let me know for future reference. In-email is fine as I can then easily identify where they go :).

Hello Kirby,

Excellent Blog, very helpfull, love the blood rodeo!

Thanks to the miracle of magnets I've been able to create multiple armies with a single set of models:

Here's how it was as a Spacewolf Las/Plas Razor "spam": (note, this is not as I deployed in that particular game :) )

Here is the army as mech Blood angels: Its an adaptation from Steleks list: http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2010/06/blood-angels-cooking-mech-1-of-2.html

Here is the Swiss army knife Honour Guard + Librarian, wysiwyg thanks to magnets:

My list: You identify the main problem of this later with the Honor Guard. Duality is great but on a sacrifice unit? Not always. A couple of meltaguns backed by flamers is fine as you can fry or melta whatever you need but don't go all over the place. I've added this up as 1700 points and you need to use your Heavy Slots whether with Rifledreads or Preds as this list is designed for. At this points level I'd drop the HG, Scouts & maybe sponsons on the Baals which should give you enough for 3 dakka Preds or Rifle-dreads. This list is generally about keep away at 24" rather than heavy assault.

HQ:
Librarian w/ Jumppack, Handflamer, Blood Lance, Shield
Honourguard w/ 2x Meltagun, 2x Plasmagun, 3x Flamer

Troops:
4x 5x Assault Marines w/ 1x Meltagun, Sarg has Infernus pistol/Handflamer
Razorback w/ TL-Assaultcannon, HK Missile

5x Scouts w/Rocket Launcher, 4x Sniperrifles, 5x Camocloak

Fast:
3x Baal Pred w/H.bolter sponsons

His List (is not optimized, he's playing with what he's got): Not optimised by any means but he plays it well. Won't comment since he was playing with what he has unless someone wants me to.

HQ:
Dante
Honorguard, w/ 3x SS, 4x Meltagun

Troops:
10x Assaultsquad w/ 2x Melta, PF
5x Assaultsquad w/ Melta-sarg w/ Infernus pistol in black Rhino
10x Tact squad w/ Melta-Multimelta, sarg w/PW in red Rhino

Fast:
Vanguard Veterans. sarg /2x LC (Sarg is for painting competition)
Baal pred w/Bolter sponsons

Heavy:
5x Devastators-squad w/ 2x Lascannon (in the building between his tanks)
5x Devastators-squad w/ 2x Missile (is way over in the building to the left)

Deployment:

White lines for tanks
Red lines for infantry
Striped lines are shooting

His deployment is about as good as he can hope for but he should of screened his Rhinos with scouting Baal. His Dev deployment allows him side shots if you move into midfield and you should of refuse flanked him since it was Kill Points and made the missiles hoof it acorss the board to contribute. Your deploy is fine other than that but you have left yourself only once place to go en mass, to the right.

His turn 1 move/shoot:

I deployed to present only av 13 to his fire, making sure my tanks were out range of his rockets on the right.

He took a scout move with this pred, I declined.
He moved up, shot my scouts, my scouts went to ground and I lost a single guy.

My turn 1 move/shoot:

I had to prepare for his turn 2 decent of angels deepstrike. You did this well but again, you've only left one avenue of mass escape (which I would of taken) and which puts you in range of the MLs.
I moved everything a little to clear lanes of fire, enlarge my footprint and make room for my own infantry to move.
I stunned his Black Rhino so it was blocking the red one, and force his guys to get out to shoot their meltagun.
Killed 3 of his devastators including his sargeant. He made his moral check.
Attempted to shake his pred but failed.

His turn 2 move:

Here is my deepstrike defence:
Landing in blue means I will be getting cover saves. There is not enough roomfor him behind my tanks by the way..
Landing in orange means he might scatter off the board.
If he uses Dante to land on target he’ll be out of range with his Honourguard-priest. He didn’t take the bait.
He choose to land in front of my army, normally this would be fatal. That is, without FNP.. That's what BA are all about. You defended your castle well (though moving a pred forward and smoking might of been even better) and you have the firepower to drop the HG unit with all of your dakka, but most of that dakka can move and shoot... He did exactly what he needs to, force you to move through terrain or to the right where his ML can hit you more reliably.

His turn 2 shooting:

He shot no less than 5 melta’s into the Pred on the left, missed 4(including Dante´s BS5 mastercrafted pistol), failed to pen with the one that hit.
His Pred managed to stun it though.
He took a weapon of my smoked Razor on the right, immobilized my center Pred.
Very whifftastic indeed..

My turn 2 move:

Now I had the choice:
Move away while shooting or be bold and go all out… I choose the latter ofcourse. I'd of moved away :P. Leave a sacrificial lamb where the right most RBack is so he can't jump there and then flee the rest of your forces to the right and shoot as much as possible on the HG to remove the FNP/FC bubble. This is two-fold. He has to run after you and you can block his landing zone with vehicles and he jumped some ASM out of a Rhino. Win/win for you.
This sentence goes through my head when I play:
l'audace l'audace toujours l'audace
or in english:
Audacity, audacity, always audacity
besides, I wanted to try out my new handflamers and all those large blobs were just too tempting.
I deep struck my Honourguard close to the blobs to use my triple flamer templates, it was sooo tempting.
I unloaded all my guys, then moved my tanks into position making sure the Razors moved >6”
My weapon destroyed Razor became mobile cover against his 2 missile devs on the right.

My shooting/assault turn 2: (pic is actually start of turn 3)

Here I feel I made the biggest mistake:
I should have focused on his Honour Guard to remove his FNP aura. I didn’t and paid the price.. Agreed. Since you didn't move away you need to take down the FNP bubble so you're shooting becomes much more effective. As it is you are hoping for poor rolls on his behalf or lots of rendings. With focus fire you should of been able to drop a 7 man squad w/Dante or at least poke the priest (famous last words :P). Rest of my comments after the end of report.
My goal was to reduce the squads so I could beat them in CC.
My honourguard laid down the smack on his 10x assaultsquad, doing 25 hits with 3 flamer templates, resulting in 12 wounds, killing a whopping 2 guys…
My Plasmagun whiffed.
Bloodlance killed 1 more.. Libby buys it in the process, snake eyes->perils + Dante’s ability = dead Libby.
I let my guys first shoot into the squad I wanted them to assault.
Handflamer vs. Marines.. not so hot.. maybe I should have used the Infernus pistols but he had 4+ cover..
Then used the tanks to whittle down the squads as much as possible.
My assault was pretty succesfull actually but the FNP aura was extremely effective.
I learned a valuable lessen here..

His turn 3:

His Vanguard come down, scatter 1”, he assaults my Honourguard, kills everyone with the dual claws.
His shooting manages to kill the far right weaponless Razorback.
Dante+HG move to a central location, multicharge into the 2 combats, kill everyone on the left.
One squad of mine manages to kill their foe, on the right flank far away from the FNP aura. (grey cross) They’ll live on to kill Dante eventually..

My turn 3 move and shooting:

I forgot to take pics after this so its getting kind of confusing now.. so this will be the last one.
The orange circle is the location of his HG, the yellow one of his VV.
I withdrew 2 squads into the safety of their transports, ready to get out again in a later turn.
Moved the pred to get sideshots into his pred.
Moved my razors and pred to get out of range of the missile devs.
The tankshock was unsuccesfull but I made some room to move for myself.
Having seen the light I decide to paste his HG, I shoot everything and my mom at Dante + HG killing 3 guys I think. He has dante+priest left.

In the last turns I nailed Dante with an infernus pistol after shooting up his VV.

I loose the game with 8-6.

His Rhinos survive thanks to their 18”move getting out of range quickly..

Lessons learned:
#1: Remove FNP bubbles asap.
#2: Remove FNP bubbles asap.
#3: goto #1

I wasn’t too impressed with My swiss-knife Honourguard, they come down, shoot something dead and die.
I’m thinking about changing them up for rifle dreads.

Anybody got some tips?

Greets,
Gravmania

Wouter Gravesteijn

Kirby speaking now with no pink! I stopped commenting when the two armies locked horns and Wouter didn't down Dante's FNP priest buddy. Whilst the end result was close Wouter should of won handily (sorry mate :P) because his list overmatched his opponent's quite heavily. The reason he lost? He let his opponent dictate the game. Wouter had two avenues of escape with his tanks and his opponent could only reliably make one of those avenues scary. He did this correctly by planting all of his deepstrikes + Rhinos in front of Wouter's army and since Wouter stayed there, he had the advantage with more models and better cc since his army was built for it. Wouter's army is much like a mini-Eldar force where you want to keep your opponent at arm's length and keep shooting and whilst moving away would of brought him into range of the ML's, that was good deployment by his opponent and much better than being melta'd/beat face in combat which ended up happening. Whilst it was a close game in terms of KP, Wouter never really dictated how the game went.

So some things of note. Target priority and know how your army operates. Wouter did a great job and placing his models just so and defending against deep strikes but he was reacting to his opponent. So Wouter, I challenge you to challenge the guy to a rematch and when you have the option of staying and fighting or moving and shooting, go with moving and shooting with this list. It's what the list was designed to do. Fire and move.

Thanks for the bat rep though and I hope you appreciate/learned something from my comments (and any others that are posted below). Send more of these in people!