Blood Angels land on the Planet of the Apes

I got to Vassal tonight to play a game and you won't believe the army I played.  It was a GK army led by Coteaz boasting 8 units of 5 jokaeros and an additional inquisitor! After reading Sandwyrm's article on making sanguinary guard more competitive, I decided to take a hybrid list of our two ideas, thus my army looked like this


Mephiston
Dante


5 Sanguinary guard- powerfist, 2x infernus pistols
5 Sanguinary guard- powerfist, 2x infernus pistols
5 Sanguinary guard- powerfist, 2x infernus pistols
5 Sanguinary guard- powerfist, 1x infernus pistol


Landspeeder- multi-melta/heavy flamer
Landspeeder- multi-melta/heavy flamer

5 devestators- 3 missiles, 1 plasma cannon
5 devestators- 3 missiles, 1 plasma cannon


I made the changes from my previous list to try out speeders and to have a long range AP2 threat with the plasma cannons. 


My opponent took:


 

Corteaz

Inquisitor with Artificier Armor  

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

Let me tell you, when I saw this list, it took me by surprise.  It has unparalleled torrents of high strength fire.  My only saving grace were the jokaeros' BS 3.  Hopefully they would miss the predicted 1/2 of their shots and I could use cover to protect my advances.  These 8 units though, can shoot lascannons, multi-meltas, or heavy flamers as they see fit!  40 lascannons in a single army!  To add on to it, some of the squads had rending due to the jokaero's rule for customization.  Others had an increased range by 12".  Imagine 36" meltas.  Yikes.

We played capture and control with dawn of war deployment.  I deployed a sanguinary guard unit and mephiston.  My opponent kept everything off. 

Nothing special here, but a stupid mistake on my part.

You may not see my mistake yet, but you will.  Turn 1 was uneventful as turn 1's usually are in dawn of war.  That is 8 chimeras getting ready to blast stuff.

There's the big mistake.  I thought I had Mephi behind the LoS blocking terrain appropriately, but my opponent could just see him with two chimeras.  Dead Mephi.  Ugh...  All of my deepstrikers managed to come in though, and they took out two chimeras and harmed a few jokaeros. 

Turn 3 started to get brutal.  Rending heavy flamers and melta really whittled my squads down.  In the end though, I was able to take out all of his right flank and start to move towards his center keeping cover between our armies.  I was also able to take out a central unit of jokaeros due to some shooting and a failed morale test.

Things started to heat up as my upper sanguinary unit went for my own objective and my opponent start to whittle down my devs.

My lower units of sanguinary guard took tons of casualties, but two units of one man and two men respectively made it into assault and started whittle down his troops. My upper sanguinary guard made it to my objective and camped out ready to go to ground if necessary. 

After all of his shooting, he couldn't take out my upper sanguinary guard and my speeder rushed up to contest getting me the win. 

So Sandwyrm almost has me eating my words.  It was the landspeeder that won me the day in the end, but the landspeeders in general didn't contribute much to the game.  That last turn rush to contest saved my bacon, though.  Otherwise, we would have had a straight up tie. The plasma cannons were a worthless  investment for the most part. I got one great shot that killed 4 jokaeros and ultimately helped to cause the squad to run and die.  Otherwise, I think the saved points could be used better elsewhere.   

I really liked how the guard held up even though they were severely whittled down.  With cover and sanguinary priests, they really are pretty resilient, even in the face of loads of high strength shots. 

If I hadn't lost Mephiston on turn 2 due to idiocy, I would have had a frontal threat as well.  He would have really put pressure on my opponent and caused him to move forward to handle my army.  Unfortunately, I didn't think that through as well as I thought I had. 

On the other side, those jokaeros are murder from range, even at BS3.  Since you can take some many and they all act like they have lascannons, they are ugly.  But they die easily. Not a single jokaero made a wound on any of my models in combat.  Ultimately, I think the monkey train is a gimick list, but man it can be nasty.

**Update- As I look over this, I realize the list may have been illegal.  Coteaz' rule states that henchmen can be taken as troops and that puts a max limitation of 6 squads on the army.  My opponent couldn't play 8 units.  Hmmmmm.....oh well.  Shows me that I need to read the rules better. 

Another good game that was won by the narrowest of margins.