Visual Battle Report
Blood Angels vs. Eldar
1500pt Ambush Mission
May 21, 2002

Page 5
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Blood Angels Turn 4

movement - our last tac squad moved up closer to the Eldar on the hill, in preparation for an assault. The devastators were supposed to hold still but guess what.... they raged again, one inch... so they moved right back into cover and did nothing (which allowed those Banshees to live).... the whirlwind however did sit still and DID fire a shot to full effect! Multiple warheads raining down upon the Guardian squad at the feet of the Wraithlord - the barrage killed every Eldar in the unit :) My speeder raced across the field in a desperate attempt to avoid the Eldar guns.

After the whirlwind took out the guardians there was no point in my last tac squad trying to assault the two eldar nearest them (their hope had been to wipe them out into assault and then sweep into the Guardian squad) so they just gunned down the last two Eldar guardians where they stood.

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Eldar Turn 4

The Wraithlordmoved forward, as did the remaining viper, Banshees and the falcon (it's guardian squad still inside). Every unit the Eldar had fired into the trees in an effort to destroy the Devastator squad, and they almost did, but one Blood Angel with a missile launcher remained alive :)

The Ambush Scenario is a random game length scenario, so we rolled to see if the game continued and as fate would have it the battle stopped right there - no Eldar had exited the far edge of the board! whoohoo!! :)

End of Game

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Victory Points

Eldar 781

Blood Angels 394

Yes, the Eldar won - the tide had definitely turned
against the Blood Angels, but we had certainly taken a chunk out of 'em! :)

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Lessons Learned

~ Blood Angels ~

I've seen again the value of shooty tac squads, their missile launchers and bolterfire really tore into the guardian squads - we should use more of them.

Speeders should always operate in pairs, so that one enemy can only kill one - leaving it very vulnerable to the second speeder - thus protecting them both by operating in pairs.

My Chaplain should have a powerfist, or perhaps even a pair of lightning claws when fighting Eldar just for the sake of being able to kill wraithlords (and anything else he gets his mits on!). I've seen Sanguinary High Priests kill a Wraithlord in one turn with a pair of lightning claws, I just wasn't thinking about Wraithlords when I made my list - but I will next time!

The Death Company (and any powerful assault unit) has a great power to affect enemy movement before they strike - I took a gamble and threw my Death Company forward to inflict some casualties and tie up the enemy center before it veered forward to hit my devastators - the assault was not ideal, and reaching it I had to assault up 3" of difficult terrain which my DC failed to do - resulting in the ultimate death of the Death Company. Had I moved them a bit ahead of the enemy the DC would have taken some enemy fire - but might well have then been in a better position for a more effective assault. The wraithlord still would have killed them - but next time (as I said earlier) we'll be bringing lightning claws to the next party!).

The black rage - has never pestered me too much before, but my bill came due in this game. I'm convinced this was a fluke, and remain a big supporter of shooty Blood Angel armies. One of the things which did make a difference was that I had to change my list at the last minute from a 2000pt list (in which I had 2 matching devastators squads) to a 1500pt list (where I only had one). Inmy 2000pt list it's not as bad when one dev unit rages because the other onw generally won't so at least one of them WILL fire, and as I usually have them shoot at the same things this works out well. In this 1500pt game though I could only take one dev squad, and things didn't go so well....

Banshees - sweet Emperor don't EVER let them assault you! but they die nicely to bolterfire so get them out on the field and gun them down.

The Eldar skimmers are the most important thing to kill in the Eldar army - devote all of your firing to drop those vehicles as quickly as you can - they have highest target priority.

This was a really fun game to play, the scenario offers a lot of unusual challenges! I hope you have a chance to play this mission sometime soon, and I hope these notes have helped you :)

~ Brother Edward

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Lessons Learned

~ Eldar ~

coming soon!

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end of page 5 - end of Visual Battle Report 5

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