Battle Report - 1500pt Blood Angels vs Chaos (x2)

My friend Seth, who was the one that pushed me into the table top hobby, visited from out of town this weekend and he brought his mixed Chaos force to do battle. We played 1500pt, Dawn of War, with one Control Point, that being my AV14 Bunker in the center of the board. It was going to be a blood bath. We played two games using this setup. The first is sort of my "all-comers" list and the second is his suggestion of an "all-comers" list, so neither were geared for killing Chaos. His forces:

• Daemon Prince with Lash
• 3x Squads of Death Guard with 2x Meltas and a PF each w/ Rhino
  
• 2x Squads of Bezerkers w/ Rhino

My Forces in Game #1:

• Lord Dante
• Carbulo in Rhino with 3 DC
• 2x 5-man ASM in Rhinos
• Sargents had PW and Melta Bombs
• 10-man Tac Squad with Las-cannon
• 3x Landspeeders with MM
• 3x Baal Preds with HB Sponsons
• All vehicles had Extra Armor

My Forces in Game #2:

• Carbulo
• 3 Death Company (foot slogging)
• 2x Land Speeders with MM and HF
• 2x Baal Preds with HB Sponsons
• 1x Furioso Dread w/ DC and HF
• 3x 10-man ASM in Rhinos
• Sargent w/ PW and MB
• 1 Plasma Pistol

To keep things short and sweet, and maybe it's obvious, but both games ended in draws. With only one CP in the center, there weren't any chances for last turn grabs and there were just too many things to kill that any one thing could contest. In the first game I used two Landspeeders that had no weapons to turbo boost in and just provide something to contest. Overall, most of my stuff died, including Dante on turn 1 from a melta (*curses old edition codex with no eternal warrior*). In the second game it was more of the same, but my units fared a bit better with surviving and killing the Chaos, but still a draw. A picture of the end of game two is below. At the bottom of 5 we just laid it out on the table of what we'd do the next couple turns and it was determined that it was impossible for either of us to get a "win" as all of our units were on top of the point, so even if he cracked open the objective and killed my marines inside in one turn, there were still Rhinos that could sit and contest that would take more than 2 turns to wreck or destroy, so we just called it.

(Click for details with text)

Some observations, instead of a turn by turn account... Chaos are crazy tough to beat. Damn DG just don't go down with what weapons I have. Plus they get 2x Meltas, which I believe to be the best weapon/most broken weapon around. It kills anything, infantry or vehicle with two "rule modifiers" that being AP1 which adds to the dmg table (and ignores all armor) and 2D6 for pen, plus it's an Assault Weapon so you can fire it on the move. This is infinitely better than the "ancient and lost tech" of plasma weapons that can actually back fire and don't get either vehicle bonus. I digress... The other thing was how it felt anything he used to attack negated any of my special rules. Meltas, Monstrous Creatures attacks, and Power Fists all ignore armor, which screw my DC with FNP and Carbulo who can heal a wound... just not those types of wounds... Chaos also has defensive grenades that keep me from getting attacks on the charge, which is the whole point of an assault army. Also, he kept rolling 2s on the vehicle pen table, which I would ignore with my extra armor... but these were always Melta shots, leading to weapon destroyed results, which my Speeders only have one, and my Preds rely on their AC to do any real damage...

I can live with the draws as they just mean we both had good results and bad results. He knows how to better set up an attack, but I'm good enough at reacting to them to hold him off. I can always do better, but he has a couple years of play on me, so it will be awhile before I could best him in strategy. I'm also learning the limitations of my army and what can work and what doesn't. And yes, the picture is quite ugly with my unpainted Marines and Rhinos, Necron and Tau proxies, etc, but we never get confused as to what is what, and this is still the learning phase for me in the hobby. Plus as you can see I'm painting plenty of other things like terrain and tokens, haha.

» Any constructive comments on my army lists are welcome, though I feel either were quite well set up, maybe it's just my overall strategy that needs work. Also, how do you handle taking on the Chaos craziness of mobile Death Guard and Daemon Princes stomping everything?