The Templar Wolves Ride Again: The Severe Beating of A Blood Angel Army

Now don't go reading the title and thinking that I am cocky, over-confident, and a show off.  I had a fun game against a nice guy who was in town on leave from England.  We played an 1,850pt annhiliation game with spearhead deployment. The table was setup as closely as possible to a city-fight setup.  There were lots of multi-level buildings with a few open spaces around the board.  I took my most recent tournament version of my army.  It looks like this:

Rune Priest: chooser, living lightning, jaws of the world wolf

5 scouts- meltagun, combi-melta wolf guard
5 scouts- meltagun, combi-melta wolf guard
6 wolf guard- 2 with combi-melta/power weapon, 3 with pistol/power weapon, 1 in TDA with a cyclone missile launcher

5 grey hunters-meltagun, in TL lascannon razorback, pistol/power weapon guard
5 grey hunters-meltagun, in TL lascannon razorback, pistol/power weapon guard
5 grey hunters-meltagun, in TL lascannon razorback, pistol/power weapon guard
10 grey hunters, 2x meltaguns, power weapon, wulfen, wolf standard, rhino

thunderwolf- thunder hammer, storm shield
thunderwolf- wolf claw, storm shield
thunderwolf- ccw, storm shield

5 long fangs- 4x missiles, TDA guard with cyclone (rune priest body guard)
5 long fangs- 4x missiles
5 long fangs- 4x missiles

My opponent took:

Reclusiarch with jump pack

DC Dread with talons, heavy flamer, meltagun
10 DC- jump packs, one power weapon
10 Assault marines- sarge with power weapon and plasma pistol
10 tac marines- meltagun, sarge with power weapon, in rhino

Baal pred- assault cannon, heavy bolters
Baal pred- assault cannon, heavy bolters
3 multi-melta attack bikes

Predator- lascannon, heavy bolters
Predator- lascannon, heavy bolters

So, as you can see, this was a game of an optimized (more optimized) army versus perhaps one of the worst excuses for a blood angel army I have seen.  I noticed two things.  First, my opponent admitted that he normally played Tau.  Second, he had a 2,500pt list and just cut out models from it to get to 1,850pt.  This included a drop pod, terminators, and some other much more desirable choices than the list selections above. 

I won the roll to deploy first and took it.  I deployed most of my fangs in the tops of buildings, with one unit going on the ground floor of a building to guard the approach across a courtyard.  My rhino and razorbacks turtled and positioned for good lanes of fire.  My thunderwolves spread out and to rush anything coming at me head on. 

My opponent deployed in a fairly tight fashion with his baals on the far left side, his lascannon preds in the middle of his deployment, and his DC units on  the right side towards the edge of his deployment zone. 

Then my opponent scouted his baals ahead and decided to run them around the edge of the board away from the rest of his army.  He then siezed the initiative and proceeded to send his attack bikes, assault squad and lascannon preds through the middle, while the DC unit went to my right and his baals continued around the edge.  As you can tell, my opponent didn't know his army well and splitting them up didn't help. 

I was summarily able to shoot down his baals with two of my razorbacks.  His assault squad killed a thunderwolf and then was chewed up by two grey hunter squads.  His attack bikes were whittled down by the ccw thunderwolf and then shot down by my long fangs when the thunderwolf died.  The rhino was blown up and the tac squad was killed by my wolf claw thunderwolf.  The lascannon preds were melta'd by my scouts and the DC units with melta'd and shot down and then charged and killed by my large grey hunter squad. The reclusiarch, who was with them, went down too.   

In then end, I gave up two kill points on thunderwolves and completely wiped his army by turn 4. 

So, again, not bragging.  This was a fun casual game at the LGS, but nowhere near a competitive game.  My opponent was a nice guy, and seemed to know general rules, but just wasn't good with the army he was playing. 

Stelek just wrote an article about considering whether you are a good player because you are clubbing baby seals or because you are actually commpetitive player playing competitive players.  This would definitely be a case of false confidence if I thought I were a good player because of it.  Luckily, I don't place much stock in my own abilities.  I just not that good.  I am competent and put up a good fight, but I don't contend on the level that many of the power players do.  So, I will chalk it up to a fun game of Warhams and dice rolling. 

If you can take anything away from this game, don't take that blood angel army and don't consider yourself a good player based on a good game.  Make a name for yourself playing competitive players and being a good player.