Battle Report Ultramarines vs The Iron Angels

Hey guys it's time for a battle report and the first one on the blog! I have decided to make a blog so I can post battle reports, tactics,etc. I can go more in depth in my thinking throughout battles such as tactics, mistakes, strategies, etc. This way when people watch my vids they have the option to go to my blog and read the specific details. Okay so here goes!

We played a battle mission called scorched earth. We didn't play with the armies in the exact mission but we played the rules of course. The store manager Josh set up the terrain for table quarters so no player had an advantage in choosing a side. If you aren't familiar with battle missions don't worry. We played a seize ground game with 4 objectives and it was a modified spearhead deployment with a 9in center instead of a 12in center. Terrain was either smoking, or falming and was decided on a random roll off. I can't remember which terrain piece was smoking or flaming. Smoking counted as adding a +1 to cover saves and burning counts as dangerous terrain. But here's the catch, units can't SHOOT thorough smoke or fire which was my very first mistake. Sean and I rolled for who goes first and I won the roll off. It was an objective game and contesting on turn 5 would have been a decent option but I wanted to alpha strike  and attack first before I get blasted, However it didn't turn out that way. Here's deployment:

As you can see, I set up my Predators on my front line so I can alpha strike Sean's devastators with missile launchers, my only real long range anti tank threat to worry about. My snipers set up on the tallest ruin on my side so they can get a +1 cover so my scouts had a +2 cover save without bolster defences from my master of the forge. I wanted to use Telion to snipe out mulitmeltas, powerfists, and meltaguns from Sean's tac squads. My rhinos and dreadnoughts were ready to move on Sean's left flank. That was where two objectives were placed anyways and it was heavily fortified with marines. I wanted to push them off the objecctives while the Preds and scouts offer fire support. Landspeeders are on my left flank are ready to move to Sean's right flank since moving towards the middle of the table seemed too suicidal with all the marines with smoking bolters. Plus if Sean had his assault squad and tac squads move up I can intercept them and slow their movement down immediately. I had a rhino and a tac squad sit back and sit on an objective. The other objective was next to my baby blue pred (that metallic gray rectangle thingy). I wanted to use my dreads and rhinos to move up one flank( where the metallic thingy was) so I can cause trouble with Sean's platoon with two objecctives. The other flank was with the speeders which was more of a defensive flank but it also seemed like an offensive one. So I had planned a pincer movement with my army while the scouts and Preds served as a supportive defensive center. If marines tried marching to my center my whole army was ready to challenge any opposition in a pinch. If they Sean tried to flank me I had Rhinos, marines, dreads, and speeders at the ready to disrupt enemy movement. All in all I had a solid deployment planned out, but there was one fatal flaw...I couldn't shoot through smoke and fire. This screwed my scouts and preds in the long run of the game. I had to reposition all predators to my left flank with the speeders, and my scouts could only guard my left flank. Let's see how that affected my game.

Turn 1

I repositioned my preds, moved up my speeders, and mobilised the rest to my right flank as you can see in the picture above. I can't remember what turned this happened but this was the result. There's that metal thingy so I secured that objective. I disembarked a tac squad on my objective where my scouts were and moved a rhino, to tank shock my opponent's formation. During Sean's turn he moved an assault squad to my left flank(where the speeders were) along with a Librarian in termie armour with a thunder hammer and storm shield and a captain with double powerfists. Both were attached to a tac squad with a powerfist, multimelta, and a meltagun. The assault squad had a sarge with a power weapon and it was a ten man strong unit. Sean shot his missile devs at my baby blue pred and exploded it. I had popped smoke on it but one penetrating hit went through out of two pens. He shot a plasma cannon at one landspeeder and destroyed it even with one cover save. He shot one plasma cannon shot at a rhino and did nothing.
Turn 2

I continued to move my preds in a firing position to fire at the enemy tac and assault squad. My lone landspeeder moved to the fray and heavy flamed them, killing a few marines from both squads. I moved the second landspeeder squad behind the trees in the corner. They were now protected by smoke from the trees so no shots came through. I wanted them to speedbump the troops after the lone speeder died. My rhino on the left flank came in, disembarked and fired a flamer with bolters at the dev squad. I kept a dread behind the rhino and popped smoke to prevent missile shots. Sean rapid fired marines from tac squads and fired missiles at my marines, leaving two left. They took a leadership check and passed, Two plasmacannons shot at an empty rhino from my left flank, and nothing happened because of my smoke from that rhino. Marines fired on the tank shocked rhino and it exploded, causing more difficult movement to the objective on a burning hill and the one on the crater.

Turn 3

My second speeder squad came in (the same picture previously) and flamed the crap out of the tac and assault squad. The lone speeder was assaulted and killed from the previous turn. One pred moved while the other pivoted a little and fired at the tac squad and didn't do much. I moved another rhino and disembarked, friing bolters and flamed a tac squad, killing a few. The two man squad's rhino tank shocled, forcing many marines to be pushed back. My two man squad assaulted and the dread as well. The dev squad came down to two men, and another enemy tac squad assaulted. They survived the onslaught. Meanwhile the assault and tac squad shot a meltagun at one predator, shaking it.While the captain and librarian, along with assault marines assaulted the speeders. Surprisingly they did nothing since my speeders made it by moving at cruising speed, allowing them to get hit on 6s.

Turn 4

I moved a second rhino (the baby blue) to cover tac marines on my metal objective and a dreadnought. Meanwhile I moved an empty rhino from the previous tac squad on my objective at the beginning of the game and tank shocked. The explosion was from a dreadnought. I moved a second dreadnought and fired at the two man dev survivors and killed a missile marine. I had to test for difficult terrain. The marines from a rhino came moving behind the baby blue rhino for cover, and their rhino tank shocked again, but it wasn't as successful as the first one. My speeders moved six and fired multimeltas and flamers at the tac and assault squads alike, killing a few. I shot both predators, wiping the tacs out, and a few assault marines. A dreadnought moved in between my metal objective and the baby rhino to help guard the spot and contest the objective in the crater. The other dreadnought assaulted the lone dev squad sarge, killing him and consolidated 1in. Sean's turn came, and he moved the assault squad combined with the Librarian and Captain towards the speeders. Tac squads moved in and shot at Rhinos, doing nothing. One tac squad shot at the dreadnought that killed the sarge, wrecking the robot. The tac squad next to the rhino with the arrow assaulted that rhino, doing nothing. The assault squad with the ICs wrecked both speeders, consolidating towards the Preds.

Turn 5

I moved the baby blue rhino and popped smoke over the objective on the crater. to contest it. The tac squad moved behind it. My last dread moved closer to the objective. Enemies moved to the sides, claiming one objective on the hill. My Preds were attacked and one became wrecked and the other weapon destroyed. My scouts finally got to attack the assault squad, shooting all but one, the sarge. The sarge attacked one pred and the ICs attacked the other. I claimed 3 objectives and Sean claimed 1. I got my revenge win and instead of bragging about it like Sean did when he beat me, I said It was a fun game and ended it like a true player. I hope you enjoyed reading and learned from my mistakes. Read carefully at those blasted battle missions, and remember, sometimes even dull and fragile units like Rhinos can save the day!