Blood Angels (Rage Cursed) vs. Emperor’s Children (Coterie) – Warhammer 40,000 Written Report

We’re back with another Blood Angels vs. Emperor’s Children battle report today!

If you have read any of my last report or my tournament recap, you will note that this list is a tiny bit different – instead of a Callidus Assassin, I’ve got the Combi-Weapon Lieutenant and a Scout 6″ enhancement on a Chaplain.

This time, we were playing on Supply Drop, also known as “Alpha and Omega” on the Tipping Point deployment zone and terrain layout six.

I ended up deploying first, so I put the Captain and Sanguinary Guard in deep strike along with Lemartes and his unit.

Top to bottom, I have Combi-Lieutenant on the top objective, Dante’s unit of Sanguinary Guard behind.

Both Death Company Dreadnoughts are hanging out centrally with the scouting unit of Death Company there. The big unit of Death Company with Fights First enhancement are below that, with another unit of Sanguinary Guard. My home objective has Intercessors hanging out, with Scouts and the Callidus Assassin hiding in the back.

Speaking of, top to bottom there is a Rhino with Infractors and a Lord Exultant in it above a unit of six Noise Marines, a Demon Prince with the point and scare enhancement, and two Chaos Spawn.

The unit with the Kakaphonist is in front of the Warlord Demon Prince, and the second Rhino with Infractors and Lord sit at the bottom. There are five Tormentors primed to sticky up two objectives if Chris goes first, and he has a Maulerfiend and Noise Marines in reserves, with a Daemon Prince in Deep Strike.

I – very unfortunately – won the roll for first, but (fortunately) won the roll off so that the first objective to disappear would be Chris’ natural expansion.

Chris pledged 1.

Blood Angels 1:

Secondaries this turn were Overwhelming Force and Area Denial.

I scouted up towards the top of the table, because there was a decent chance I could get a charge into his top unit of Noise Marines with an advance and charge. I opted to put my dreadnoughts out because I felt like he would have to severely overcommit to one to kill it, and I needed something to kill his middle Tormentors with.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten about a key stratagem, so when Chris reactive moved his Spawn closer to my incoming Death Company, I didn’t change course and prepare to charge the Rhino, I instead multi-charged the Noise Marines and the Spawn, and I positioned everything to maximize attacks into the Noise Marines by basing a couple of models with other models that were in turn basing the Spawn.

Unfortunately, Coterie has a “fight me” stratagem that I had completely forgotten about, so I could only fight the Noise Marines with one Eviscerator and it whiffed pretty hard, hitting twice total and killing two Noise Boys.

I did murderize the Spawn though so..consolation?

My Death Company Dreadnought in the middle also performed sub-optimally, and it did not finish the Tormentor unit off.

If I could re-do this turn, I’d have staged the small Death Company unit aggressively in the middle and used a tank shock plus the charge plus some small arms fire to clear all the Tormentors and just exposed a single Dreadnought, rather than giving up my small Death Company unit completely.

I scored max on Area Denial, and pitched Overwhelming for a CP.

Emperors’ Children 1:

After drawing Establish Locus and Marked for Death, Chris brought out all the toys to play, putting Infractors out from the bottom towards the center, his Demon Prince out to the center, and bringing out his Noise Marines in the center as well.

He did the famous fall back into a Rhino that isn’t engaged trick with the Noise Marines, and dropped the Infractors out of that same Rhino to polish the Death Company off.

He took some Noise Marine shots into my Dreadnought, which Blood Surged into the Infractors, VERY far away from the Daemon Prince. His other Noise Marines mostly killed the Death Company unit up top, which was promptly charged by the Infractor squad.

Both Exultants went crazy mode this turn, and the Death Company Dread killed four Infractors, taking about 4 damage back, while the other Infractor unit murdered the Chaplain and remaining Death Company to get Chris his round 1 pledge.

He scored a small Establish Locus and a gamma Marked for Death.

Blood Angels 2:

I scored 5 on Primary (thanks Combi-Lieutenant) and drew Extend Battle Lines and Tempting Target.

This was a “go” turn, so I had to kill a bunch of things. Big Death Company unit came out to play, the other Dreadnought popped up the board, and I staged Sanguinary Guard behind the middle ruin. In hindsight, this wasn’t a good play, and they should have staged behind the wall next to my Dreadnought on the bottom, as I needed to screen out the Maulerfiend that rapid ingressed a lot more than I needed to worry about Noise Marines.

My shooting phase was pathetic, and I didn’t manage to chunk through the Lord Exultant so my second Dreadnought stayed in combat.

I did manage to charge and kill his Daemon Prince and his big squad of Noise Marines + Kakaphonist, which was great, and the Exultant chipped another couple damage off my Dreadnought before he died.

I scored both Tempting Target and Extend Battle Lines for all the points before shipping the turn back.

Emperors’ Children 2:

I had kept Chris to zero primary here, and he drew Behind Enemy Lines and Overwhelming Force.

His movement phase was pretty simple, with his last Noise Marine unit dropping in his backlines, his Daemon Prince walking up, and his Maulerfiend similarly walking up.

His Rhino trundled up and dropped his remaining four Noise Marines from that unit where they could see the Combi-Lieutenant and Dante’s unit.

He dropped his Daemon Prince in his backline because he had nothing left to screen with, but I found a hole on the bottom corner and brought in my Sanguinary Guard plus Captain for free with rapid ingress.

His shooting phase took out five of my Death Company in the center, but his other unit of Noise Marines entirely whiffed, doing no damage to the Combi-Lieutenant or the Sanguinary Guard unit.

He charged into my central Dreadnought with both the Daemon Prince and his Infractor unit, which I heroically intervened into.

He then rolled a very good charge with his Rhino to get it into melee with my Death Company marines in the middle.

His Maulerfiend charged and Tank Shocked my other Dreadnought.

I used the fights first enhancement on the Death Company unit and wiped the Infractors and Lord Exultant, even through the “must fight me” stratagem on the Rhino, and I left that Rhino on 2.

Going into combat with my Dreadnoughts, I had decent odds of one of them living. The Daemon Prince needed to do 4 damage, and six attacks hitting on 2s with a reroll and wounding on 5s should hand me two wounds (it did) and I should save one of them and live on 1-2 and then have a decent chance at cracking the Prince back hard enough that Sanguinary Guard could clear it out.

Unfortunately, I failed both saves and the reroll and the Dreadnought died.

Similarly, the other Dreadnought was on about 8 wounds, and with the AP2 and Armor of Contempt putting my saves on 3s, if I could save 3/4 projected wounds it should live. Sadly that didn’t happen either, so I lost both Dreadnoughts.

Chris got his Overwhelming Force but pitched Behind Enemy Lines.

Blood Angels 3:

I scored nothing on Primary here, and drew Cleanse and Behind Enemy Lines.

I decided not to fall the Death Company in the center back because Chris’ remaining models are actually faster than them, but in hindsight that may have been a mistake.

Sanguinary Guard came in and murdered Noise Marines top and bottom, but bounced horrifically off the Maulerfiend, and then my Death Company all died to the Daemon Prince in melee aside from the Chaplain.

I scored Behind Enemy Lines with my Sanguinary Guard and Scouts.

Emperors’ Children 3:

Chris scored 10 here, drawing Display of Might and Secure No Man’s Land.

He flung one Daemon Prince after Dante’s unit, but I used the Reactive Move from the Lieutenant to stop the Daemon Prince from having a charge lane, and then flung the other one after the Captain’s unit of Sanguinary Guard.

The barely alive Rhino mosied back to the home objective.

I was able to drop Lemartes’ unit on the center objective because the Rhino there had not charged in yet.

Charging Daemon Princes killed a Combi-Lieutenant and 3 Sang Guard/Captain respectively, and my Sang Guard engaging the Maulerfiend left it on a couple wounds and then died horribly.

Chris did consolidate the other Daemon Prince into Dante’s unit and they swung into it for like 2 damage.

Chris scored Secure No Man’s Land for small, but didn’t get Display of Might.

Blood Angels 4:

I scored 16 on Primary here, and fell back Dante’s Unit.

I advanced and opted for advance and charge on the Intercessor Unit to get into the center. I also moved Lemartes’ unit to go after the Daemon Prince.

My brave boys in the middle tied up the Rhino and out OCed it, and Lemartes’ unit just ripped the Daemon Prince in half, scoring me Assassinate and Bring it Down, but it stood back up on a handful of wounds.

Emperors’ Children 4:

The Maulerfiend failed its battleshock test so Chris scored zero on Primary. He drew Sabotage and Storm Hostile Objective.

This was a pretty simple turn. Daemon Prince murder things top left, Daemon Prince did a Sabotage middle right, Maulerfiend advanced and ate Intercessors in the middle for Storm Hostile.

Blood Angels 5:

I scored no primary here, but drew Defend Stronghold and Storm Hostile Objective.

Given that the center was the only one left, and I had 8 OC worth of Dante and friends to go murder things, I felt like that was pretty doable.

Things flailed at the Daemon Prince, which refused to die thanks to Armor of Contempt, and Dante and friends killed the Maulerfiend but didn’t get the Rhino, so I scored Storm Hostile Objective and mathematically couldn’t lose my home.

Emperors’ Children 5:

Chris finished his Sabotage, drawing Defend Stronghold and No Prisoners.

A victim of his own success, all I had left to kill were Scouts and Dante’s unit. The still alive somehow Daemon Prince up top went to go kill the Scouts (and did) and the other one came to the middle, killed the three Sanguinary Guard but not Dante, and Dante plinked back for a measly one damage and the game ended with Chris getting 15 points on Primary at the end of the game.

This was a slog of a game, with some pretty big mistakes on both sides (going in with my Death Company, shooting my Dreadnought with his Noise Marines, etc) and some weird flips.

I am getting very tired of second turn advantage in this mission pack, I hope this is something that GW cleans up in the next edition/mission pack. I was up by 30 points at the end of my 5th turn and it was still barely enough to win the game there.

Chris reserving the Maulerfiend and getting good use out of the “fight me” stratagem was massive this game, and it’s been fun watching him flex his muscles with a really difficult to play faction and getting steadily better at them.

For me, I’m playing in another RTT next weekend where I’m bringing the list with the Scout enhancement to keep iterating (unless I chicken out and bring the Callidus instead because Vect Auras are life).

Thanks for reading, see you next time.