Round 3: Dark Angels
Welcome back to our final round of my first tournament of 10th! If you have been following along with this series you will know I was victorious against Blood Angels and Space Wolves, and now you are here for the exciting conclusion! I was very excited for two specific reasons going into the match up, the first one being I didn’t have to play against the Wraith Knight, and the fact that I was finally getting to play against this player! He has won a couple of tournaments and always places really well in events, so I knew it was going to be a challenge and he didn’t let me down!
His list was very strong, it didn’t look as intimidating as it actually is, massive land raider with decent damage output, and untargetable sniper squads with Lascannons! I figured if I could just take out the land raider then I could just mop up the board like the previous two games.
List
Darkness (990 points)
Space Marines
Dark Angels
Incursion (1000 points)
Gladius Task Force
CHARACTER
Librarian in Phobos Armour (90 points)
• 1x Bolt pistol
1x Force weapon
1x Smite
• Enhancement: The Honour Vehement
Primaris Apothecary (65 points)
• 1x Absolvor bolt pistol
1x Close combat weapon
1x Reductor pistol
• Enhancement: Artificer Armour
Primaris Captain (105 points)
• Warlord
• 1x Bolt Pistol
1x Master-crafted bolt rifle
1x Master-crafted power weapon
• Enhancement: Bolter Discipline
OTHER DATASHEETS
Eliminator Squad (95 points)
• 1x Eliminator Sergeant
• 1x Bolt pistol
1x Close combat weapon
1x Las fusil
• 2x Eliminator
• 2x Bolt pistol
2x Close combat weapon
2x Las fusil
Land Raider (275 points)
• 1x Armoured tracks
2x Godhammer lascannon
1x Hunter-killer missile
1x Multi-melta
1x Storm bolter
1x Twin heavy bolter
Scout Sniper Squad (75 points)
• 1x Scout Sniper Sergeant
• 1x Bolt pistol
1x Close combat weapon
1x Scout sniper rifle
• 4x Scout Sniper
• 4x Bolt pistol
4x Close combat weapon
1x Missile launcher
3x Scout sniper rifle
Scout Sniper Squad (75 points)
• 1x Scout Sniper Sergeant
• 1x Bolt pistol
1x Close combat weapon
1x Scout sniper rifle
• 4x Scout Sniper
• 4x Bolt pistol
4x Close combat weapon
1x Missile launcher
3x Scout sniper rifle
Sternguard Veteran Squad (210 points)
• 1x Sternguard Veteran Sergeant
• 1x Close combat weapon
1x Combi-weapon
1x Sternguard bolt pistol
• 9x Sternguard Veteran
• 9x Close combat weapon
7x Combi-weapon
9x Sternguard bolt pistol
2x Sternguard heavy bolter
Deployment
The deployments were pretty good for both of us, he chose to stay up high and have good firing lanes. I chose to hide in the shadows and hope that I can weather the storm from him. I see I am going to have to fight for the center, and it’s the Ritual so there is only one in the center, we have to control this point and prevent him from gaining the lead. This will be difficult as he clearly wants me to be in the center with his big squad of sternguard in the land raider.
As Vect would want, I will go first and try to clear off what I can!
Turn 1
Area Denial and Capture Enemy Outpost, you can’t pick a better hand to start a game off with, because you know you’re going to have 3 Cp turn one! I believe in my frustration of the mission I forgot to take a picture of round one! That’s okay I have noticed a lot that I have been missing out, and am going to take better notes so I can give you guys more information! The basic idea here being kill the sniper squad on the point to stop them from spreading objectives and bring down the land raider to expose the Sternguard inside and have them die in a bombing run. Venoms are going to move up to be within 12″ of the scout squads to try and remove them off the objective.
Looking back at how the game would unfold, I believe I should have just ignored the center and gone outside like the plan was from the last article. However, I can’t think that far ahead so we are just going to keep playing the center like we are Custodes or something like that. The fact that you can’t target these sniper guys is very frustrating for a list that doesn’t want to get too close, this is where I kind of started thinking about my upcoming list.
Dark Angels turn one he draws Engage on all fronts, and A Tempting Target. He drew about half as well as I did, Engage wasn’t possible with his build and he just had to not move off the objective and he would control it. Moving up with the land raider set up to be in position to flip the point if he needed to. Shooting he killed a venom and a Ravager, that is to be expected. He made a massive charge with the land raider to put it’s big butt on the point. Now with him being closer it’s our time to shut him down!
Turn 2
Secure No Man’s Land and Deploy Teleport Homers were my secondaries this turn, which I felt they were achievable, I would just need to spend more time in the center. Failing to kill the Land Raider turn one was a huge let down and now I was down a Ravager. Luckily my opponent pointed out to me that you could shoot vehicles when they were in combat, this was a huge revaluation for me, just remember kids READ A BOOK! This would help me to shift around with the two remaining ravagers and fire some pot shots on the Land Raider and hopefully take it out. Venom and lilith are going to clear the center board and I did bring in the Voidraven Bomber around where the stern guard are in the picture below. I do believe that this is the round I didn’t snap a picture, it’s hard to tell which turn is what so I’m going to have to come up with a better way of getting these pictures into shape.
I spend all my weapons and clear the land raider finally, but I am not left with any shots from the Voidraven to go into the Sternguard, so this is going to be a problem for me. The Venom on the second objective spawned another objective and the mandrakes held onto it for the turn. With the middle objective being mine it cleared the path to score my secondaries!
Time for Dark Angels to slap me back now, he drew Assassination and Secure No Mans Land. Not much movement, Stern Guard move into position to shoot down Voidraven and launch and assualt on the cronos defending the two ravagers. He proceeded to shoot down the Voidraven and then charge into my cronos, things were not looking good from here. The best part about this match had just started, after all the dust cleared the Cronos took 1 damage, and I remembered I had a minus one to wound on Coven units, so this was going to be the plan for the rest of the game. Scoring Assassination and throwing the other one away to get his CP, Dark Angels are starting to look like they might turn this thing around.
Turn 3
Here we go, halfway to hopefully sealing out this tournament. Drawing Cleanse and Overwhelming Force, I figure I can make use of my ability to delete a unit and cleanse an objective or two, and keep the Cronos alive. I move the Ravagers to be in range of the Eliminators there are only two so I figured they could mop them up, mandrakes are moving to spawn more objectives and the one venom in the back is just chilling on home objective.
Shooting saw the Eliminators finally go away, really securuing the area for the ravagers and the Voidraven if I had just waited and stuck to my original plan of clearing the battlefield for it. We made some objectives and the Cronos is still in combat with the Sternguard! This is looking like a good turn.
Dark Angels have a lot of work to do if they want to keep the Dark Eldar from capturing this important outpost! Drawing Capture Enemy Outpost, Investigate Signals and Cleanse he hit all the Secondaries that his list just couldn’t get to at the current state. He pokes some models around, the libraian clears the middle and the Sternguard still can’t finish off the Cronos. He did not fall back at any point and I’m not sure about why, I believe he could have moved them around to finish off pieces of the board and start controlling objectives. At the end of his turn he discards all Secondaries.
Turn 4
As we start winding down in the game, I score 10 on primary, draw Assassination and Engage on all Fronts. Kill the librarian and be in a table quater, that’s all I have to do. I set up in position to score my Engage but can’t finish off the Librarian in time.
Dark Angles draw Area Denial and Extend Battle lines, these ones are going to be hard for him as well seeing as I was deploying objectives over where his units weren’t. This would be another turn where I deny my opponent points but he still has more than enough firepower to chew through what little I have. He finally killed the Cronos, and what an event that was!
Turn 5
Last turn, I score another 10 on primary, now I just have to close out two secondaries and I should take home the game. Defend stronghold, and no prisoners are what I drew. Had to give up No Prisoners only because I had virtually nothing on the table so what could I do with that? I burn it and draw into Extedn Battle Lines! There it is, now I just have to complete these with my brief turn and then hold on and I should bring in the win!
Dark Angels draw Behind Enemy Lines and No Prisoners, the first one being hard to complete with his models on the board, and he is in a position to pick me up off the field, killing all my units will earn him 5.
Conclusion
What a close game that was! I even managed to get tabled, however through denying primary and getting lucky on my secondaries I was able to maintain a lead throughout the match. I don’t like the Ritual, however with Multiple Small Unit builds there shouldn’t be any means for the score to always be this low. Rather you could just have your opponent drop the objectives and then you sweep in and take them for your own! We will dive deeper into that thought one day, but I am worn out from all this typing!
Summary
That’s it! I did it, it’s been a long time since I’ve brought home the win. Hopefully I’ll be able to do it again in the 2k brackets. I have been brewing some list up and will share one of them tomorrow when I talk about the over all structure of the list and how to glow it up to 2k. I believe it has a few staples but there are a few units that really need several paragraphs to describe how they should play. I have been preparing scourages to paint I will keep everyone updated on that. I might be playing some 40k this weekend, don’t know when or where but reach out and maybe it can be you! Please let me know what you think of the site, I really want to start and grow a community of like minded and skilled players!
See you guys on the battlefield!
Derek
Scrubs Against the Meta 