Battle Report

Nova Prime.
Tyken Sector.
The dissapearence of a Salamander battle barge in the Nova system has a relief force dispatched to find out what has become of them. A system recorder is located on the surface so a force drops to the surface to investigate. Upon arrival, the company is set upon by a force of Dark Angels. What would turn brother against brother?

So, Saturday night I played my nephew Benjo under his first game of 6th edition. Though he plays Blood Angels, Tyranids or Sisters of Battle he wanted to see how Dark Angels played so he went with a proxy army.

At first we had a conflab because he wanted to play a couple Forge World models, the Dreadnought drop pod and the Stormeagle. The Stormeagle I didn't have a problem with but the Dreadnought drop pod is really just silly and a little broken. But to stop him grumbling I agreed this once.

We rolled the Relic mission with the Hammer & Anvil deployment. A mysterious forest was placed in the centre with the Relic in the middle, and to one side we put an Archeotech Artifact. He was jammy and managed to seize the initiative.

Straight away the DDP descended, and on turn 1 before I got a chance to do anything he had assaulted my land raider redeemer and caused it to explode! My point made really. Everything else of his just moved forward.
On my turn 1 my librarian moved forward with with one of the new Pyrmancy powers sent Benjo's dreadnought straight to Hell with a nice melta power. Vengeance was mine! Everything else moved forward.

Turn 2 and Benjo dropped Azrael and some terminators from deep strike close to my lines. Otherwise his turn was ineffective.
My turn, and I had the librarian join my terminators (with terminator chaplain) and surged towards his terminators. My 5 man squad climbed down the ruin they were in with plans to reach his deployment zone.

Turn 3. Benjo got his Storm Eagle in, it zoomed in and took out one rhino. His shooting was dire again.
On my turn, the squad that had been in the wrecked rhino lept out and into the forest, disturbing a razorwing nest. The alien beasts did nothing. That squad ran and grabbed the Relic. The other Rhino reached the Archeotech Artifact and was protected by a 4+ invulnerable save due to alien technology within. Yay! I also assaulted the DA terminator squad.

Turn 4. Storm Eagle hovered and unloaded everything into my rhino but the alien shielding protected it from everything. A plasma cannon also targetting the rhino was stopped. Benjo was not a happy bunny. Terminators vs terminators dragged on. Azrael took two wounds despite having a 2+ armour save!
My Legion of the Damned finally arrived! I dropped them down by the plasma cannon squad and dropped two of them with bolter and lascannon fire. The squad in my rhino lept out, and the squad with the Relic jumped in.

Turn 5. Benjo finally dropped the last of my terminators and consolidated towards my rhino with the Relic. Again, his shooting was foiled by the alien energy field though the Rhino did lose a storm bolter.
My turn I drove the Relic back into my deployment zone and got the remainder of my 5 man squad into his deployment zone.

We asked Mike to roll the dice and the game ended. Victory to me.

Me: 3 for the relic, 1 for his warlord and 1 for linebreaker = 5 vp.
BJ: 1 for the warlord, 1 for first blood and 1 for linebreaker = 3vp.

There was much grumbles from Benjo on how he hates this system and much arguing on rules. I do have to give him one bonus point for correcting me on something I missed under Look Out Sir! Fair do's.

This game I enjoyed a lot more than the last two I had. I didn't feel quite so under pressure and so could relax. Thankfully we agreed to ignore challenges as they do not work very well. Benjo went away grumbling and it will remain to be seen if he bothers to play under 6th edition.