Here is my list:
Baal Strike Force (+1 Initiative on the charge)
Dante
Librarian with fusion pistol, jump pack, ML1
Tactical Squad (5) in pod with combi-melta, meltagun
Scouts (5) with bolters
Furioso Dreadnought with meltagun in pod
Furioso Dreadnought with 2 heavy flamers in pod
Death Company (10) with jump packs and 2 power fists
Command Squad (5) with jump packs, champion (sword), apothecary, 3 meltaguns
Land Speeder with 2 meltaguns
Land Speeder with 2 meltaguns
Land Speeder with 2 meltaguns
I themed it around Dante's descent of Angels warlord trait, which lets you re-roll reserves and only scatter D6 when deep striking. Land speeder aren't great, but they were okay over the weekend. Some bike squads would probably have been better so as to get some grav. The meltas always miss.
The Dreadnoughts were pretty great. Some games they just died to massed melta, but in many cases they had the armour and smoke save to survive shooting and then just rampaged around being invincible in close combat. And the double heavy flamer was amazing in 3 games.
The display board was called 'The Awakening'. This is the blurb for it:
Beleaguered by the Orc Invasion and with
few bodies left with which to stem the green tide, the remaining brethren of
the Emperor’s Ghosts deploy to a remote shrine in the Asachean Foothills. There
they offer their blood to the chalice of redemption, seeking the Emperor’s aid.
As the chalice detects the Astartes’ gene seed it begins the activation
sequence for the warriors in stasis, long thought mere statues by the monks who
tend the shrine. Brother Theo is the first to awaken, no stranger to the
process after centuries in his steel sarcophagus. “At last; back to war...”
All the blood angels specific units are painted to look like statues. The Death Company are limestone, the company champion, Dante and Librarian are sandstone and the Dreadnoughts are black marble. The black marble came out OK, but could have been better. Everyone else has my standard emperor's ghosts colour scheme - baremetal armour, bronze gilding and white faces.
On to the games!
Round 1 - tactical escalation against an Iron Hands Battle Company with no vehicles
As my display board had lots of skulls I was sent to play game one on the fantasy theme 'MOAR SKULLS!' table. My opponent was running a double battle company but without any vehicles. A lot of 5-man squads, some bikes, no grav and his command squad was full of attack at initiative weapons, which made my dreadnought very threatening.
I had first turn (my luck was pretty great for pre-game rolls the whole weekend). I didn't leave anything to deep strike because he didn't have any vehicles to put melta into. My death company got behind the central ruin, my command squad got into a different ruin next to them, and my dreadnoughts came down to stop some face, hiding as best they could from massed melta and sniper fire. The dreadnought you can see off to the left was ready to charge his command squad and lock it in combat.
My squads took some casualties from his first turn of shooting but weathered the storm pretty well i.e. no immobilised results on my dreadnoughts and no dead power fists. I couldn't pass a feel no pain roll to save my life, but it didn't matter a whole lot. In a bad moment, my librarian blew his brains out with a perils of the warp (off 3 dice!) and then I drew harness the warp next turn. Sick burn.
On my second turn I started to make base-to-base contact and it was a wash after that. Dante and his tactical marines joined the remnants of my command squad in combat against his squad but it was basically a draw thanks to some great storm shield saves on his part and bad attack rolls in reply. Dante hit and ran out and my dreadnought made combat, where he was invincible. I scored quite a lot of cards with my land speeders and assault death machines and eventually tabled him.
Round 2 - Steal your opponents objectives against 30K Salamanders with short table edges
My opponent was one of the best players in the country running a deceptively tough list that I had faced before. It is basically designed to weather an initial attack and then deliver a devastating counter-hit while some quality jetbikes and land speeders outflank and score objectives. Salamanders get str5 heavy flamers and twin-linked meltas and they are in turn resistant to melta and flame, which was pretty devastating for me. With the short board edges it was going to be very hard for me to reach combat, and my dreadnoughts were unlikely to survive the drop against all his melta. I had two choices, either play lame in my table half and hope for good cards while he came forward, or just bum-rush and not give a shit. I opted for the latter.
It didn't work out. Dante's squad detonated the heavy flamer rhino and a lot of its contents, but he managed to wipe out all of the ablative wounds with his flamers and then dante died to about 20 bolter rounds. My command squad was basically wiped out by two rapier batteries. My dreadnought survived 4 twin-linked meltas but was immobilised. My death company failed the 8" charge on turn 2 and that was a wrap.
Round 3 - Team game against Tyranids and Harlequins
In our club tournament, the third round is always a paired game with your round 2 opponent as your partner against 2 other players in 'capture the flag with guns and tanks'. You are required to get the relic into your opponent's deployment zone. It's meant to be a fun shit-fight in the middle of the board, but I've never had it go down that way. In my first year my bikes were paired against a tau gun-line (ouch) and we completely annihilated two foot-slogging lists. Last year one of our opponents just kept running away from the objective, resulting in a draw.
This year the Harlequin player did pretty much nothing with his death star for three turns except cast invisibility and sit in 2+ cover before attempting to win by hit-and-run with the objective. So lame. We killed the genestealers who run forward, and then threw everything at the death star, eventually killing it on the last turn. It was pretty boring to be honest, and the death star player was being a little salty, which I found odd given he was running a death star.
Round 4 - Deadlock against Imperial Guard with Diagonal deployments
My opponent was running catachans with the heavy bolter special character, the iron arm special character, some russes, three of the basilisk artillery pieces and some chimeras. I won first turn, which was pretty much all that mattered. My death company and command squad braved difficult terrain to land in ruins while my dreadnought and Dante arrived in his backfield to threaten a leman russ (stunned) and his artillery batteries.
I took some casualties first turn, especially from the STR9 AP3 artillery, but then I hit his line and it popped, as guard lines are won't to do. I was scoring enough cards along the way to win, but I had him tabled by the top of turn 5.
Round 5 - Unbound pheonix lord power rangers in contact lost with long edges
No picture here I'm afraid. The enemy list was every pheonix lord plus a farseer in a death star. I could kill stuff once they split up, but not in close combat. You also can't tie them up because they have hit and run and they kill pretty much anything in a turn, which meant that this ended up being an extremely lame game. I realised from deployment that attacking was pointless and wouldn't even be a fun charge, so I played lame, claiming all but 1 of the objectives and building a massive lead on cards. I ended up getting tabled. If I had dropped my tactical squad pod into a distant corner I may have been able to make it to turn 6 and get the win, but by turn 3 I was totally over it.
Round 6 - Traditional imperial guard in regular maelstrom with short edges
Another game where the lack of interceptor in Imperial guard made the game an almost auto-win for me. I put everything but the death company in reserve. He seized the initiative, which I thought would be devastating because the company was very squished up, but he only got one battle cannon shot off and I had cover against most of it. He also pushed a big blob of dudes forward to score a point, which gave the DC something to charge.
My turn I dropped a flamer dreadnought in and lit up his command squad, taking away his orders, then hit his command tank in the side with Dante's melta squad and popped it. My DC wiped the infantry squad of 20. His turn he did some shooting and nearly killed the DC and wiped Dante's tactical squad but not the big boss man. My turn his line starting exploding as I reached close combat. In the final moments of the game his Valkyrie arrived with some veterans but I got behind it with 3 land speeders and shot it out of the sky, causing all the contents to die. It was a turn 3 table. Shiiiiiiiittt.
Some thoughts
I was playing a very average codex with nothing unbalanced - no grav, no 2+/3++, T5 eternal warrior dickhead, not an avalanche of pods, jump packs not bikes etc. And yet the results were always either a one-sided murder fest to me against other straightforward lists, or one-sided murder fests against me when my opponent brought something even a little bit reminiscent of the bullshit unbalanced death-machines that characterise 40K nowadays. I can't say I really enjoyed any of the games. Impressively, a dude running Slaneesh chaos marines came third, so maybe there's hope, but I doubt it. Infinity shows that you can maintain a lot of flavour and complexity in a game without unbalancing its factions. 40K hasn't even tried to do that, so it's dead to me. I've got a bunch of stuff still left to paint, but I ain't spending another dollar on this shit-house game and I'm unlikely to play this event, the best event in the Australian 40K calendar, again next year. So sad.
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