Tough School (but not tough enough)

Being public-spirited, and always on the lookout for an easy win, last week I offered to play someone relatively new to 40K who lacked confidence in his grasp of the rules. He duly turned up this week and we got down to a 1250 point game. I had the Blood Angels with my, as usual, with what was basically my standard list but with Mephiston left on the bench (and clearly deserving a rest after his tireless efforts over the last few months).

My opponent had a slightly eccentric Marine army with two Captains, two plasma’d-up tactical squads, two dreadnoughts of different configurations, a floating rhino, some terminators and a whirlwind. I put him in to deploy first – the mission was to seize a single enemy objective in their deployment zone. He basically deployed as a firebase, although a lot of things were in the open and nothing was actually contesting his objective.

I deployed similarly, though I had the Death Company and Furioso lining up as a big left hook with the Captain and Assault squad in reserve. The Marines went first and launched a slightly stately advance, with everything on foot (the rhino was acting as a mobile sight-screen) and the terminators attempting to climb a building in a neutral table quarter (my opponent later confessed he didn’t deep strike them as he wasn’t sure of the rules…).

Footslogging Marines in the open make plasma cannon gunners happy and most of the squad in question was duly blown away. The Death Company motored up to give themselves various options for the following turn while the missile launcher combat squad guarding my objective took the first of many ineffectual shots at the Marine vehicles.

The key action of the battle occurred over the next few turns, with the Death Company rhino being blown up and the squad itself being punished by the rest of the enemy army. The vampire marines eventually assaulted the footslogging marines, supported by the Furioso, and wiped them out, but an attempt to press on towards the enemy objective ran out of steam as the Death Company were whittled down and the dreadnought was gradually deprived of all its weapons and mobility before being blown up. My fire-support dreadnought duelled it out with its Marine counterpart before getting toasted near the end of the game.

This had ‘draw’ written all over it from very early on with neither of us being capable of mounting an assault in force on the other’s objective. I played it pointlessly safe when deep striking the Assault squad, coming in nowhere near enough the objective. In the end I was compelled to attack the terminators and wiped them out, but by that point a Marine dreadnought had got stuck in and despite my Captain passing four iron halo saves and sticking two meltabombs on the damn thing I just couldn’t get an effective damage result against it. The game ran out in a stalemate, just as we’d predicted (the second Marine squad hustled into position to hold their objective in the final turns).

Still, it was played in a great spirit and was thoroughly enjoyable. My opponent was already planning to rewrite his list, and it’s just adding to my certainty as to what I need to do to mine: more troops, more mechanisation and more anti-tank power. Regular readers will know as much already, but with my summer break looming it’s just a question of what, if anything, actually gets done.