Angels Practice: Every Man Counts!

I had the chance to square off last night in a practice game of my Sanguinary Guard list.  Played against a really well rounded ultramarine list that had a ton of shooting power.  I was extra lucky on my saving throws, which really puts emphasis on the point that every man counts.  For reference, this is what my 1850 list contains:

HQ: Dante
HQ: Sanguinator
Troop: 5 Sanguinary Guard with 2 infernus pistols, 1 Chapter Banner
Troop: 5 Sanguinary Guard with 2 infernus pistols, 1 Power Fist
Troop: 5 Sanguinary Guard with 2 infernus pistols
Troop: 5 Sanguinary Guard with 2 infernus pistols
Troop: 10 Assault Marines, power weapon & infernus pistol sgt, 2 meltaguns
Elite: 2 Sanguinary Priests with jump packs and power weapons.

My opponent castled up with two thunderfire cannons and marine squads and deployed his "bait" of a sternguard squad in the middle of the board along with a land raider with 5 TH/SS Terminators.

I stole the initiative and all but Dante's squad (with sanguinary guard) moved up.  Way too aggressive move on my part since it put me in to a first turn charge with his terminators.  I got lucky and killed off a terminator but they killed all but one man from the sanguinary guard unit... very bad rolling from my opponent.  Turn 2 I proceeded to drop in Dante (who doesn't scatter) who nuked the land raider, and my two other squads converged and killed off the terminators.  The Sanguinator charged the entire sternguard squad solo.

Needless to say it was downhill from here for my opponent as I proceeded to move at all his units.

Some learnings though:

Thunderfire cannons are nasty.  With the one round that causes the unit to be in difficult terrain... meaning I would take dangerous terrain tests when the unit moved the next turn.  I lost 4 guys in my own turn jumping. That's over 10% of my list since I only have 34 models!!!

Stacking bonus is key: This list is all about synergy between the Sanguinator giving +1 attacks and the two priests giving feel no pain / furious charge.  I need to really be careful about the placement of the priests.  Many times I got a unit just outside of the priest's range.  Every model counts.

Time to make some markers: It's easy to forget who got rage, and which bonuses are distributed.  I think I'm going to make up some counters to help remind me what's going on in the battle.

I'm lucky that I'm getting a second game in this week against another strong opponent.  It may end up being a blood angels vs. blood angels matchup.  I'll bring the real camera this time so I can make a proper battle report.  I'll leave you with my purgatory shot; aka the death pile of marines.