Blood Angels (Rage-Cursed) vs. Emperors’ Children (Coterie) – Warhammer 40,000 Written Battle Report

We’re back today with another Blood Angels battle report! I’m playing the same list that I took to a recent RTT because even though I think there is a variant worth exploring next, I need a break from speed painting models so I will not likely be updating the list for some weeks.

For this game, we’re playing Scorched Earth on Crucible of Battle with terrain layout 4. This is one of my least favorite missions in the tournament pack, but it’s good to get reps in on it.

I lost the deployment roll off and Chris made me deploy first. I stuck a unit of Sanguinary Guard with the Captain and the Lemartes unit of Death Company in deep strike. Chris reserved a unit of Noise Marines and left the Demon Prince with the leadership check enhancement in Deep Strike as well.

I am trying out something new to make these battle reports more legible and I would love to hear if it helps or if it makes them more confusing – units that did stuff of note will get outlined in different colors and there will also be arrows showing where movement happened.

For my deployment from top to bottom, I have Sanguinary Guard (red), Death Company Dreadnought (Pink), Scouts (bright yellow), small Death Company + Chaplain (green), Dante and Sanguinary Guard (red), Intercessors (teal), big Death Company + Fights First Chaplain (ochre) and Callidus Assassin (blue).

Chris’ deployment top to bottom is Maulerfiend (yellow), Warlord Demon Prince (pink), Chaos Spawn (hiding, teal), Rhino with Infractors and Exultant (red), Noise Marines w/ Kakaophanist (green), Demon Prince (ochre), Noise Marines (purple) and Rhino with another unit of Infractors and Exultant (blue).

There are also 5 Tormentors hiding on his home objective, but I forgot about them when I was editing pictures so they remain uncolored.

Chris pledged one for the Coterie rule at the beginning of the first battle round.

Blood Angels 1:

I drew Cull the Horde (discarded), Marked for Death (cycled) and then finally Extend Battle Lines and Cleanse.

Given that I had to be on an objective for both of those, and wanting to force his things to come to me, I poked one unit of Sanguinary Guard (red) up to the objective at the top. The thinking here was that Chris would need about 13 on 3d6 between the advance and charge on the Maulerfiend to get to them, about the same for the Demon Prince Warlord (which I was confident wasn’t going to get traded for an unled unit of Sanguinary Guard), and if he wanted to put the Noise Marines or Rhino in the center, I was very happy to trade a unit of Sanguinary Guard for them.

The Death Company Dreadnought (pink) came up behind them, and I advanced my Intercessors (teal) 12 inches to potentially follow up and sticky that objective.

I Cleansed with the Sanguinary Guard and scored Extend Battle Lines before shipping it over to Chris.

Emperor’s Children 2:

Chris drew Cull the Horde (discarded), No Prisoners, and Assassinate.

He opted for a really conservative turn here, with a line of thinking that goes something like this.

First, he has the (massive) second player advantage on Scorched Earth, so if he can sneak one of his – very fast – units around to my home objective and burn it on turn 5 that can make up ground quickly.

Second, I have not given him any real pieces he feels inclined to trade for. The Maulerfiend might get into melee with the Sanguinary Guard (which apparently math says it kills one of them) but it would lose the objective if I piled in with the second one and certainly die on the clap back. He cannot afford to give away his Warlord with no pledges completed, and trading a unit of Noise Marines and a Rhino (and possibly an Infractor unit, I could see getting cheeky with some pile-ins) for a unit of Sanguinary Guard also seems bad.

Instead, he throws an advance for his Chaos Spawn and moves them up to tie me on my expansion objective.

With that, Chris discarded assassinate and passed the turn back to me.

Chris pledged an aggressive three for his Coterie pledges.

Blood Angels 2:

I scored 5 on Primary and drew Bring it Down and Secure No Man’s Land.

With the board state functionally identical to last turn, and Chris being incentivized to kill a lot of things this turn, I decided to also not change up my positioning drastically.

I castled up in the center of the table with the big unit of Fights First Death Company (ochre) in Heroic Intervention range of everything in the middle, and pushed the Sanguinary Guard int the building.

The Callidus Assassin and Scouts came down to protect the bottom edge of the board from a rapid ingress from Noise Marines.

Instead, Chris chose to use rapid ingress to drop his third Demon Prince into the center to score some primary. Unfortunatey, my ochre unit of Death Company had advanced to get where they were and I had not spent a CP to let them do so and charge, so I had to live with the Prince existing.

Despite Oaths on the Chaos Spawn, my shooting bounced off, so my Sanguinary Guard had to charge them to finish them off, consolidating around so only one of them was within an inch of the wall.

I scored 2 on Secure No Man’s Land and pitched Bring it Down for a CP.

Emperor’s Children 2:

Chris still had No Prisoners, drew Extend Battle Lines, and scored 10 on Primary.

This was the big go turn. Chris threw an advance for his newly arrived Demon Prince (dark purple) and it screamed out into my side. The Maulerfiend (yellow) came up to tango with the Sanguinary Guard, and Chris put more stuff in the middle to charge into the Fights First Death Company unit and not let it heroic into the other Demon Prince.

He also disembarked and advanced the bottom unit of Infractors to try for an 8 inch charge on the Scouts and moved his Rhino (blue) out to take pot shots at Death Company.

I used the free Captain stratagem to rapid ingress the third unit of Sanguinary Guard (dark purple) on my home objective so that I could follow up into the Infractors if they made it to my Scouts.

The shooting phase passed without much of note – the the purple highlighted Demon Prince did kill three Intercessors with shooting – and Chris’ charge phase kicked off with the ochre Demon Prince charging into the Death Company so they could not use heroic intervention into his other one.

The purple Demon Prince charged Dante’s Sanguinary Guard and rolled 7 mortal wounds killing the front two Guard and leaving an entrance for my Dreadnought (pink) to heroically intervene, which it did.

The Infractors at the bottom failed their re-rollable 8″ charge into the Scouts.

At the start of the fight phase, Dante’s scary aura made the purple Demon Prince battleshock, and I chose to use the fights first enhancement on the Death Company, half killing the ochre Demon Prince.

It proceeded to kill a handful of the Death Company back, and the purple Demon Prince did 2 damage after Feel No Pains to the Dreadnought. The Maulerfiend got to re-roll all hit rolls into the Sanguinary Guard, and they popped Armor of Contempt. Between the -1 to hit and Armor of Contempt, I didn’t lose a single member of the unit.

The clapback was pretty brutal, with the Death Company Dreadnought leaving the Demon Prince on 4 and the Sanguinary Guard leaving the Maulerfiend on 4 as well.

I picked up the Scouts and the Callidus Assassin.

Chris pledged 3 again.

Blood Angels 3:

I got to score ten points thanks to the Sanguinary Guard banner making the unit out OC the Maulerfiend, and drew Display of Might and Storm Hostile Objective.

This was my go turn, and I started off by choosing the Demon Prince engaging my large Death Company unit as my Oaths target. I wanted to shoot it to death so that the Death Company could charge the Infractors behind it.

Dante and friends moved up to have the biggest possible Battle Shock aura, the small Death Company unit moved to support the Dreadnought, and my Captain Sanguinary Guard unit advanced and used his free ability (new battle round, yay!) to advance shoot and charge for free.

The Scouts came back to screen my backline, and the Callidus dropped to get the Infractors on the bottom edge and the middle Demon Prince in her vect aura.

Chris used rapid ingress to bring in his Noise Marines on the bottom edge to overwatch my Sanguinary Guard.

My shooting phase did take the central Demon Prince down, but left the other Demon Prince and Maulerfiend on 1-2 wounds each.

I got charges into the Demon Prince, the Rhino, and the Infractors in the middle, as well as making my charge into the bottom edge Infractors with the Sanguinary Guard and the Maulerfiend with the Dreadnought.

Dante battleshocked the central Infractors and the Rhino, so I started off with the Sanguinary Guard at the bottom which handily killed the Infractors and consolidated into the Noise Marines.

Chris interrupted with the remaining Demon Prince – which I’m now realizing was a mistake on both our parts as it had battleshocked in the prior fight phase – and killed a few Death Company.

The middle Death Company killed off the Infractors there, the Dreadnought up top murdered the Maulerfiend, Dante and his Sanguinary Guard buddy left the Rhino on 2, and the small unit of Death Company polished off the other central Demon Prince.

As the dust cleared, I scored Display of Might and Storm Hostile objective and shipped the turn back.

Emperor’s Children 3:

Chris scored another 10 on Primary and drew Display of Might and Sabotage.

His Rhino in the center fell back and died to the desperate escape roll. The other Rhino moved back so the engaged Noise Marines could hop into it and still shoot.

His purple Noise Marines moved up to do bad things to my Sanguinary Guard.

The last Demon Prince came to the middle, and the Noise Marines there stayed put. I used rapid Ingress to bring Lemartes’ unit down in the top, well hidden from everything.

Chris’ shooting phase took out all the Sanguinary Guard except the little unit hiding in the top left ruin, and the charging Demon Prince obliterated the Death Company unit in the center.

Chris scored Display of Might and pitched Sabotage for a CP. He also unlocked the first two Coterie buffs so he was rerolling 1s to hit and wound now.

Blood Angels 4:

I scored ten more and drew Behind Enemy Lines and Overwhelming Force. The remaining Demon Prince became my Oaths of Moment target.

Something I love about this list is the ability to have multiple “go” turns, and I got to do that here with the second big unit of Death Company and the Dreadnoughts.

All of the Death Company (red) staged up in the ruin to avoid being overwatched by the Noise Marines. I also snuck one onto Chris’ home objective to unsticky it at the end of the phase.

The top Dreadnought spent a CP to advance shoot and charge but become battleshocked, and the Noise Marines fired overwatch at it. Despite their best efforts, the big guy took no damage.

The other Dreadnought came up to the ruin edge to threaten the Demon Prince.

The Intercessors (teal) advanced to get the Grenade Launcher a line on the Demon Prince as well, and my small Death Company unit (green) zoomed back to my home objective to threaten Chris’ expansion objective and stop him from getting cute “burn your home” ideas.

I dropped the Callidus (blue) and Scouts (yellow) in Chris’ deployment zone, with the Callidus covering both the Noise Marines and the Demon Prince with her vect aura.

In my shooting phase, I left the Demon Prince on 1 and the little Sanguinary Guard unit that could started to burn the top objective.

My charges all went through except the top Dreadnought, and I tank shocked the Demon Prince to death – completely forgetting it had a stand up rule and that this was the correct play – and killed it. Chris failed the leadership check to get up.

My Death Company obliterated the Noise Marines, and I scored Overwhelming Force for 3 and Behind Enemy Lines for max.

Emperor’s Children 4:

Chris scored 5 as I’d stolen his home, and drew Recover Assets (discarded), Establish Locus, and Engage on All Fronts.

He sent the Rhino (blue) over to drop out its Noise Marine cargo and the Tormentors (pink) came up to try and kill Lemartes with precision to make the Death Company Dreadnought in the center OC 0.

The Tormentors did manage to wound Lemartes with the melta, but I rerolled the failed invulnerable save to a success and he didn’t go down. When the entire unit of Noise Marines failed to kill more than a couple of Death Company thanks to the 5+++ stratagem, Chris had me roll the advance on the small Death Company unit on the bottom edge to see if they would get a charge into his Noise Marines (I rolled a 5 advance and then made the charge as rolled) and we called it as I would trivially table him the following turn, score 10 on primary, and walk the Callidus Assassin on his home objective to burn it as well.

The projected score for the end of the game was 89-44.

Post-Game Thoughts:

We both agreed after the game that the Maulerfiend should have probably tried to reposition for later in the game and not gone into the Sanguinary Guard. It was unlikely to kill enough to matter, and it threw away the one piece in his army that reliably kills a Death Company Dreadnought.

Dante’s battleshock aura has now been highly relevant two games in a row – is this a fluke?! Who can say.

I am really enjoying this list – it’s flexible, has lots of good offensive profiles, and the speed lets it play missions really well too. Unfortunately, it gets kind of dumpstered by C’tan, and that seems like a fairly critical vulnerability in the current meta.

I’m thinking that something in this vein will be my “going into 11th” list, as most of the units here are unique to Blood Angels and won’t be overly changed by the inevitable new Space Marine codex, but that could always change.

As always, thanks for reading – let me know if the colors and arrows are useful for understanding the game pictures.

See you next time.