Badab Wars preparation: The Massacre at Bellopheron’s Fall

As work continues with construction on the army, albeit at a slow place, I have begun to focus more on how the army works in each mission. To this end, this week I gave Matt a battle with the list for the first mission.

The objectives for the battle were a little different to most. As the loyalist player, Matt had to take 3 independent character HQs which he needed to keep alive and it was my job to kill them. Each was worth one objective, and in addition, whoever scored the most kill points earnt one objective. Furthermore, at the beginning of each tur, on the roll of a 4+ the rest of the battle would be fought with Night Fighting in effect.

Typically, Matt rolled a 4+ straight away so it seemed i was doomed to have to fight this battle close and personal. Even with the Deathwing, this thought daunted me against the Blood Angels.

Matt deployed his two predators, his furioso and regular dreadnoughts and the Land Raider Redeemer with a unit of Assault Terminators and a chaplain (the first HQ). the rest of the force was held in reserve. another requirement of reserve was that only deep strikers could be held in reserve, and Blood Angels being Blood Angels, Matt had plenty of Deep strikers. Two Assault squads, a Vanguard squad and a Sanguinery Guard squad. The other two HQs were a Librarian and Dante. I didn't really hold much hope for killing him.

After an outstanding start whereby I destroyed the reg-dread, immobilised the LRR, and immobilised one predator and destroyed one of its sponson Lascannons, we remembered that Night Fight was in effect, so in the interest of an accurate test i rolled for each unit that did anything worthwhile. only one weapon destroyed remained with almost everything turning out to be beyond sight. One thing I really need to do in future battles is risk a searchlight. I didn't in this battle though i kept wondering whether i ought to. I think perhaps with vehicles quite close to the enemy by the time it is the shooting phase, i may as well use their seach lights, as chances are by the opponents turn, even with Night Fight, i'll be close enough for even a low scoring sight roll to be in range!

After initial successes, albeit not as much as hoped, luck once more swung against me, and Matt capitalised on his increasing numbers. In the end, he won convincingly scoring easily enough kill points withought even working them out and in addition, having two of his three HQs alive (and unwounded). He played well and I really enjoyed the battle but it taught me a lot.

Firstly, the Dark Angels just cannot compete with any of their newer codex cousins. Simply, they cost too much and their units are not as solid. I had intended to retain with them for theme - I liked the idea of Belial and his command squad and the Ravenwing working together in a pincer movement to take out the enemy command. Indeed each mission had a theme of some form culminating in my favoured combination of the Ancient Assault Force and the Strike Eagle drop pod force in the apoc mission (which is still very much acheivable with C:SM.)

Changing to Vanilla marines will mean i can squeeze more out of the points in most missions and can give me a wider range of options. One amendment i would make would be to include a librarian with Vanilla marines as the powers are significantly better and complimentary than the Dark Angels powers. Another amendment I shall be making will be to reduce the bikers to three and swapping the flamers to plasmaguns. I had discussed this with Ben the other week, and although the flamers may increase the number of targets, the plasma guns will give more bang for buck against power armour.

I do generally need to keep the lists as they are, but hopefully with a bit more of a flourish.

If anyone has a Marine army and can get to Hulls Angels at some point before the end of June, and wishes to try out one of the scenarios, let me know.

Next scenario i wish to try is Vengeance at Gargathea III. The army composition can be found here. This is the only mission not to be taken from the Imperial Armour book, so the rules in the website are all there is to it.