Plague Marines VS Blood Angels- The Rematch

I'm about a week or so late posting this battle report. Sorry...

This would be the second meeting of my Plague Marines and Demitra's Blood Angels- the first meeting can be found here.

I decided to go with a more "powerful" build for my Plague Marines after getting my Deathwing butchered at the hands of Demitra's jump pack / missile launcher army. I cut down on the size of my Plague Marine squads and dropped the Vindicators in favor of three squads of two Obliterators each. The final build looked like this:

2 Daemon Princes with wings, the mark of Nurgle, and Warptime
2 squads of 6 Plague Marines with 2 Meltaguns, a Personal Icon, and a Plague Champion with a Power Fist mounted in a Rhino
6 Plague Marines with 2 Flamers, a Personal Icon, and a Plague Champion with a Power Fist mounted in a Rhino
6  Plague Marines with 2 Plasma Guns and a Personal Icon mounted in a Rhino
3 squads of 2 Obliterators

Demitra took the following:

Librarian with Jump Pack, Blood Lance, and Shield of Sanguinius
5 Sanguinary Guard with 2 Power Fists, Infernus Pistol, Plasma Pistol, and Chapter Banner
3 Sanguinary Priests, 2 with Jump Pack and Power Weapon
3 squads of 10 Assault Marines with 2 Melta Guns and a Power Fist
2 squads of 10 Devastators w/ 4 Missile Launchers

This build has four of the toughest squads in the game ready to bunker up inside their APCs and grab objectives, plus the Obliterators firepower combined with the Daemon Princes' assault punch are capable of thinning out just about any squad and breaking up hand-to-hand combats.

Note the handy-dandy cookie sheet for easy transport!

We rolled up "Capture and Control" for our mission, and Spearhead for our setup The board looked like this:

Look! I even marked off deployment zones!

Demitra won the roll off to be the first player, and decided to take the top-right corner of the map. This left me with the fairly open bottom-left corner. I set up my objective marker in the swamp, and Demitra dropped his in the ruined building. We then commenced setup. Demitra piled all of his Assault Marines into the gap between the forest and the swamp in his quarter, and then dumped every last Devastator Squad into the house.

My deployment saw me hiding most of my Rhinos behind the large hill accompanied by the Daemon Princes, and my last Rhino (the one with the Plasma Guns) was set up in the swamp over the objective. My Obliterators were placed in a position between my Plasma Gun squad and the Assault Marines. I was hoping to at least thin out and pin down the squads long enough to allow my other squads to take the objective away from the Devastators, and hopefully long enough to give my Plasma Gun squads a chance in hand-to-hand, thus contesting one objective and claiming the other. Realistically I thought I was looking at a draw.

Setup

I managed to seize the initiative and set about sending my Rhinos in a sweep around the forest. One was left exposed and it popped its Smoke Launchers. The shooting saw all six Obliterators firing Plasma Cannons into the bunched up Assault Marines, killing ten of them- five each from two squads.

The top of turn one.

The Blood Angels surprised me by going after the Rhinos instead of rushing my objective. This would buy me some time, so I was just fine with that. Shooting went pretty much as I expected it to, with amassed Missile Launcher fire taking out the Flamer squad's Rhino, but luckily leaving a wreck for the other vehicles to hide behind.

Why is this sideways? The mysteries of Blogspot are many.

During my second turn I continued to push forward with my Rhino convoy as my Flamer Marines pushed forward into the forest. The Daemon Princes high-tailed it behind the Rhinos, terrified of the eight Missile Launchers. With a bit more distance between me and the Assault Marines, the Obliterators began to advance so as to keep their Plasma Cannons in range. Firing into the amassed Blood Angels slew a few more, but with their cover saves I didn't take out nearly as many as I'd have liked to.

As my next photo is of the bottom of turn two, I'll describe that here as well. The Blood Angels continued to run around the back of the board, and a small squad (three) of Assault Marines broke off to come after the Flamer squad in the woods. The Missile Launchers began to pound on my Obliterators, but after some abysmal rolling on Demitra's part, and not a single failed armor save on mine, the squads remained unfazed.

Two turns in one!

Now was the time to strike. After the brown one took a wound from Perils of the Warp, in a rather risky move, I hurled my Daemon Princes at the full ten-man squad of Assault Marines. The Rhinos hung back in cover waiting to see what would happen in close combat, and my Flamer squad pushed through the woods. My shooting phase consisted of my Obliterators returning fire at the Devastators with one overheating and wounding itself, and I managed to thin them out a bit. Hand-to-hand combat saw the Assault squad reduced to only the sergeant (he passed all of his No Retreat wound saves).

Go Princes, go!

In Demitra's turn he launched his assault. The Sanguinary Guard rushed my Daemon Princes, and his remaining Assault Squad went after the lead Rhino. Another salvo of missiles saw off the wounded Obliterator. The Assault Squads Meltaguns caused a Rhino to explode, taking a Plague Marine with it. The remaining Plague Marines hid from any forthcoming assault. In melee the Sanguinary Guard inflicted a wound on my green Daemon Prince, and two on my brown one. The four remaining Sanguinary guard then evaporated under the attention of the green Daemon Prince, and the Power Fist armed sergeant was torn apart by the brown one.

That brown Daemon Prince ain't lookin' so hot...

As the Flamer Marines continued on their way after finishing the Assault squad the previous assault phase, the now Rhino-less Plague Marines began to advance on the Assault squad responsible for them now having to finish their trek on foot.  The Obliterators continued to push toward the Devastator Squads. Shooting saw the end of a couple Assault Marines and a few more Devastators. In hand-to-hand combat the Daemon Princes finished the Librarian and Sanguinary Priest. In a slugfest the Plague Marines and Assault Marines mangled each other, but the Plague Marines came out ahead.

Only one scoring Blood Angel left...

In the bottom of turn four the Blood Angels turned their attention toward the closing Daemon Princes. The brown one took a salvo of missiles and succumbed to his wounds. Other missiles took out several of the Flamer Marines. In the following hand-to-hand combat the sergeant of the last remaining Assault Squad fell to the combined efforts of the Plague Marines, and the game was called.

The end of the game.

I won this game, but to a certain degree I have to thank Demitra's dice. Those Devastators missed far more times than they should have.

That's the end of my first complete battle report. Hope you enjoyed it.