Last Man Standing

Last thursday my magna marines AKA Sons of Malice AKA Blood Angels got their first outing on the battlefield, 1500 points, Kill points, quarters deployment. I didn't take any photo's I'm afraid, partly due to the exitement of the first outing, partly due to the very unpainted nature of my dudes...

My oponent was Imperial Guard, and as per every other time I've faced them this edition ( i.e 3?) I was shocked just how much you can fit into 1500!

CCS, astropath, naked chimera
2 X Vet squad, missile, 2 plasma
2 Infantry platoons, all with missile launchers, flamers, Chimera
Sludgehound (Banewolf, that I now dislike with a passion)
Vendetta
Valkery

8 Chimera chasis and 2 flyby's... This was nasty.

I took

Librarian, jump
Honour guard, 3 meltas, jump
2 X 10 man Jumpers with 2 meltas and PF serg
1 X 5 man jumpers with flamer and PW serg
5 Vanguard Vets with mixed weaponry
10 Devestators with 4 ML
2 Sang priests, one camped with the deve squad, 1 dropped with none librarian unit.

He deployed and went first, reserving flyers and banewolf. I deployed devestator squad in the open (uh oh) and sang priest. First turn he chipped a couple of ablative wounds off the deve's, I killed a chimera.
His second turn was a repeat, and in mine most of my squads come in, all combat squaded, all dropping within melta range of the rear of his Chimeras. Nothing scatters more than 2 inches (woohoo!). In fast forward... the turns get blurry...
I kill most of his chimeras, 1 is alive at the end. His flybys come in turn 2, my final squad (honour guard comes in turn 3, kills vendetta, his banewolf comes in turn 3 kills my honour guard. Ouch!

Deve's kill valk, and most of the contents on next turn. I kill myself alot due to being too close to exploding chimera's, and he kills my squads down to 2 or 3 members with pure lasgun blindingness. I think, hey, 2 marines can take on 7 or 8 guards? Surely? Bah! Major fail on all combat counts. Come to turn 5, I've got one dude, left. Just a dude. Singular. He's out in the open. He thinks its a great idea to go and bat a measly lonesome guard sergeant around the head. Fails.

We roll, turn 6 goes on! He rolls for attacks, bounce, I roll kill!

Now he's still got a bunch of guns, the nastiest of which belong to the vehicle now dubbed sludge wolf. Plus enough guns to get past marine armoour.

We roll, game ends! I win on kill points, 10 or 11 to 9. Yes its close!

...

What he should have done... His shooting was largely unfocussed, I don't think he concentrated fire enough to take out whole squads of only 5. His choice of reserves were reasonable - if he'd left the banewolf on, it would have been target number one, but if it had survived, it would have rampaged. Same with the flyboys, I think.

My mistakes... I think I failed to account for my ability to roll ones and twos for... Everything!
I should have probably kept the squads at 10 men - they wouldn't have been able to split fire, but I think they would have maintained more combat effectiveness. I also dropped the honour guard out in the middle of nowhere, basically panicing about the 3 twin linked lascannons on the vendetta. That resulted in the sludgewolf killing them in one hit. This may have been a mistake, or it may have been providence that took it out of danger range.

I've also got to study the wound allocation, deep strike, Descent of Angels and vehicle damage rules alot more closely. I think I would have more, and he would have had less... But there you go!

Nice chap, good mech army, with a bit to learn about target priority. He said himself that he was a serious fantasy player, and 40k was his 'fun'. Hopefully I'll get a whole assault squad painted for thursday, and get another battle in (with pics this time!).