Blood Angels vs. Chaos Marines 1850

Frosty and I had another enjoyable game last night.  I brought the list posted yesterday, and he brought something like...

Sorcerer - lash
Demon Prince - lash

Chaos Marines 10
Chaos Marines 10
9 Beserkers

Land Raider
Defiler
3 Obliterators

Nothing too fancy here, but solid enough power armor setup to have a good game.  Clearly, he's anxious for the new book before really deciding what other models to pick up and really work on a competitive list.

We had the diagonal deployment with Crusade (4 objectives).  He placed both of his objectives in ruins firmly in his corner.  I placed one in ruins fairly close to those two, and the other on the opposite side of the table, midway across the board, still in my DZ.

He went first, placing a marine squad in each ruin on each objective, and the defiler behind them for ranged support.  The obliterators and land raider were as much front and center as you can with the diagnal deployment.

I deployed very conservatively.  I placed the scouts on the far lone objective and hid my 4 combat squads of assault marines out of line of site. Devastators were close to the middle of the board in cover.  I left the LRC, Librarian, Death Co., Stormraven w/ Honor Guard and Vindicator in reserve.  Still not overly fond of the limitation of only up to 1/2 of the units being allowed in reserve, but combat squads certainly helps meet this requirement.

Then I seize the initiative...I shouldn't have even rolled and realized it as soon as I rolled it, there was no advantage to me going first at this point.  I would have been much better off letting Frosty start to maneuver and play his hand a bit.  I only had the snipers and plasma cannons to shoot with so there wasn't much benefit there.  Given that it was objectives, I would have been happier having the game end after my turn instead of his later on as well.  A mental slip, but was glad it didn't end up costing me the game.

Turn 1
My first turn I didn't move anything.  I shot the snipers at the obliterators and the plasma cannons took a would off of the demon prince, that's it.  His shooting whiped out the plasma cannons and took out 3 marines from one of the combat squads.  His land raider moves front and center.

Turn 2 the vindicator and my land raider both come on.  I bring the vindi on to my far right, out of LOS of the obliterators.  The LRC come on in the middle with enough cover for a save.I try to lure the Land Raider with the zerkers over.  Since I don't get out he'll likely be out of charge range and need to cap the land raider to get at the DC inside.  The vindicator glances his LR for a HP.  I keep sniping, ineffectualy at the oblits.

Frosty falls for the feint with the Land Raider and cruises forward about 8" away from my LRC.  He manages to take a hull point of of it with a Las shot.  His Termiantors also deep strike in and shoot up 4 assault marines from the other combat squad I had in the area.  This leaves me with a 1 and 2 man assault squads for troops on the right side of the board, where there are 3 objectives.  This is not where I wanted to be!

Turn 3 Stormraven shows up and the honor guard float down.  I take out several termies and knock another hull point off.  Death Co. get out and get ready to take out the Zerkers in the LR.Vindicator repositions to hit the terminators and clip his LR for another hull point. MM on the LRC at point blank range to get at the zerkers and I roll a 1 and 2 to pen.   So there I have my DC sitting in the open with nothing to do.

Frosty lights up the DC with the obliterators, the defiler and some shooting from the zerkers before they charge in.  This was devastating.  Enough DC survive to lock him down for a few turns, but I'm pretty demoralized at this point.  The terminators whipe out the 2 man squad on the objective.

Turn 4 The honor Guard plasma the terminators off the board.  a 5 man squad assaults the obliterators.  Seerg inflicts a wound, but the other 4 die. Stormraven takes out the defiler.

Chaos doesn't do much during the shooting phase.  During the assault the oblits whiff and the Sergeant manages to finish off the first oblit and wound another.

Turn 5 I move my honor guard in to contest one of his objectives and try to shoot his marines off the other with the Stormraven.  I managed 4 kills, but the pass their morale test. At this point I can tell that I am in a great position for a turn 5 win with a 50/50 chance on turn 6.

His 5 he is spread too thin to contest either of the two objectives I am holding.  In CC my sergeant finishes off the oblits...this is a regular assault sergeant, with no wargear BTW.  He consolidates just shy of one the Chaos objectives.

Game ends on turn 5.  Another really fun game.  I have 2 objectives (6 points) to his 1 (3 points), he has first blood, units in my deployment and slay the warlord.  I have the unit in deployment and slay the warlord so I'm up 8 to 6.

I was really happy to try out several units in 6e for the first time, LRC, DC with bolters and Plasma Cannon Devs.  The only one I am not sold on is the LRC.  This was also my first game ever using a vindicator.  Absolutely loved it.  Might try to fiind room/points for a second one.

We talked a lot after the game about what worked well and what didn't for each of us.

Chaos
1. Obliteratos and Lash, its what they do well...until the new book comes out.
2. Zerkers needs the LR and don't need the Sorcerer attached
3. 10 man squads can't sit on objectives for 5 turns and do nothing else.  They need to engage early then fall back later in the game.  There was nearly 400 points of spectators that really could have made a difference early on when he had a clear advantage.

Blood Angels
1. If you bring an Assault unit that's main strength is in the charge...make sure you get the charge.  In this case bring more reliable anti tank, maneuver better, or I should have baited the zerkers out of the LR with a sacrificial unit.
2. Vindicators did a great job getting things done.
3. 5 scoring units was completely necessary.  May need to find a way to get the same effect with less points or find points to give them gear so they are more effective than just objective holding.
4. Need to test more with the LRC to decide if I should keep it or swap out for another vindicator and DC, or a hell of a lot more DC.