40k Tactics: "The Second Front" aka My little Italy - Part 3

For the final part of my tactica on how I play my Blood Angels, I will give some examples.

Example 1: 

Game vs Tyranids.  It was 2 objectives, and pretty much it was a textbook example of how my game plan works.  He castled in a corner, protected by terrain. I couldn’t do much to him on the way in because of this, which created the situation at the end.  He then proceeded to push everything right at my objective.  I had enough firepower, cc ability, and resiliency to take whatever he put out..for a while.  However I was staring to get whittled down.

Then he realized he had my jump pack squad, 2 attack bikes and a predator pushing for his objective.  He literally turned everything around to deal with all this, leaving nothing but 3 genestealers behind which were quickly killed.  The result was that I was able to hold my objective, but he had too much left and was able to wipe out my advance.  If I had been able to shoot more at the start, or if he had not committed everything to defend his, I probably could have won that game.

Example 2:  

This was against a far superior army.  By all accounts, I should have been tabled. Ending on turn 5 was what really helped more then anything.   But again, the jump pack guys suddenly appearing in the back made my opponent turn his Thunderwolf Calvary away from my objective and deal with them.  I was able to delay them long enough for the game to end.  I should note here my army isn’t build to be a hyper-competitive army, but is built specifically for a comp tournament held every year which is the most important event around. So being outmatched in general play isn’t anything new to me.

Example 3:  

Again, matched up against a far superior army.  However I was able to stall his advance by immobilizing a large portion of his army, plus concentrating on taking out the weaker scoring units left me at an advantage I didn’t realize I had at the time.  Breaking off the 2^nd Purifier squad to deal with the jump pack guys left him with not enough army left to push me off objectives.  Combined with a little luck (a single lascannon shot taking out a land raider) gave me a solid victory.  Even if the game had gone on past turn 5, he would have wiped the jump pack guys but he had only 1 scoring unit left while I still had 3.  I think I could have held out for nothing worse then a tie even with 18 Purifiers left on the table.

To reiterate, the key points in my “little Italy” list are:

1. Create a solid, mutually supportive firebase to act as ‘bait’ to bring my opponent’s main force to me, leaving weaker support units behind.
2. Bring in a decent threat to that support system as early as possible
3. Have some of my opponent’s army turn around to deal with the new threat.
4. This will sufficiently divide his forces so that my firebase has enough power to take out his main push while;
5. Leaving whatever he sent to take out the jump pack guys horribly out of position.

Countering the plan.

The main counter to this is simply not to take the bait. Either don’t push forward at me, or don’t worry about the jump pack guys. The first solution leaves me with nowhere to utilize the jump pack squad, as I like. If I think I might face this kind of army, I will deploy the jump pack unit.  

The second solution is a lot tougher for me. Just a few weeks ago, my cousin did just this with his Deathwing. Having the choice of sending a unit of terminators to an objective or to move away from it to assault my jump pack unit, he chooses the objective.  This was a great move on his part. Even though it gave me the charge on him, TH/SS termies are good enough where the fight was a stalemate and the objective contested.  If he had gone after the jump pack guys, it would have left the objective open to one of my fast vehicles.

Summary.

I’ve found the most important thing when building an army is that finding one you’re comfortable with and able to utilize to the fullest extent is more important then playing on sheer power.