I found the time to make it to the FLGS's monthly 40K tournament on Saturday. 1000 point event, and I brought the following:
HQ
Chaplain in TDA, with Primarch's Wrath.
TROOPS
10-man Tactical Squad with multimelta, flamer, veteran sergeant with power axe and pistol
6-man Scout Squad with sniper rifles and camo cloaks
ELITE
5-man Terminator Squad with two chainfists
HEAVY
10-man Devastator Squad with 4 heavy bolters
10-man Devastator Squad with 3 missile launcher and a lascannon
I ran these guys using Imperial Fists chapter tactics. I have decided that in the next few events I make it to, I'll rotate through all of the chapter tactics. Thus far I've run Ultramarines, White Scars, and now Imperial Fists. Next time will probably be Black Templars, since they are next on the list in the book.
I built the list largely to benefit from the IF tactics. Lots of bolt weapon shots that reroll 1s to hit and some Tank Hunting Devastators. I also grabbed Primarch's Wrath on the Chaplain for fun, and it turned out to be pretty damned good!
My first game was against a pretty standard modern Tau list. Farsight, a unit of Crisis Suits, two 10-man Kroot units with sniper rifles, a missile Broadside, a Riptide, and a ton of drones flying about. We were working on scoring units in the enemy deployment zone as primary, kill points from Troops as secondary, and capturing a central objective using a heavy, fast, or elite unit as tertiary. We had night fight in the first turn, and I went second. I tried to hide damned near everything out of LOS of the Riptide to avoid all the AP3/AP2 weaponry with 72" ranges. Unfortunately, I made some poor choices on where I sent one of my combat squads, and failed a couple key charge distance rolls. I lost primary and secondary, and split tertiary. I landed a bonus point, for a total of 4 for the round.
Second game was against a Space marine drop pod list using Imperial Fists tactics. The whole army is built and modeled to represent Blood Ravens from the Dawn of War games. It included a captain with thunder hammer (Gabriel Angelos?) and artificer armor, a 9-man tac squad with plasma/combiplasma, 8-man tac squad with melta/combimelta, a 5-man Sternguard with grav weapons mixed in, a Dread with multimelta/DCCW, and a Stormraven. Everything that wasn't the Stormraven was in a pod. We were playing for objectives that you had to defuse by standing in claim/contest range and giving up your shooting/assault with that unit for the turn, then kill points, then having more denial units in the enemy deployment zone. I ended up tabling the opposition except for some of his pods, and I think the deciding factor were my Devastators. I had massed heavy weaponry, while my opponent only had short ranged special weapons. I was able to maul each unit after it arrived with heavy bolter and missle/las. The Stormraven came on the board in hover in order to put out more shots and I shot it down in the next turn. 31-0 for me. I'm looking forward to seeing that force painted and modeled though. Their owner even went so far as to model up a wreck marker for the Dread that mimicked the pose and condition of the Dread from the DoW game. Very cool.
Final game was against Thor from Creative Twilight. He ran a Warpsmith, two units of CSM (one plas, one melta) in Rhinos, two Helbrutes, and a Forgefiend. We were playing for shielded objectives (you had to tag a central objective to make one of your own objectives active and claimable), scoring units in the enemy zone, and then kill points. It was a city fight board, with lots of obscured fire lanes. In the end, we tied on primary and secondary, and Thor took tertiary.
A good three games on the day, and 1000 points is actually a nice, quick, easy series of games. I ended up taking home the Best Sport prize.
I really like the IF chapter tactics, though all of them are fun as long as you build your lists to capitalize on them. I learned that Primarch's Wrath is awesome on a bike or Terminator platform. 5 shots a turn that reroll 1s to hit, a single two (master crafted), and all to-wound rolls is great. I also discovered that a Devastator Squad with four heavy bolters can glance a Rhino to death in a single turn with proper luck. 12 shots that reroll 1s to hit, and then reroll all failed glances due to Tank Hunters! You can even make one set of heavy bolter shots BS5 with the sergeant's signum, though I often found myself just firing the bolter instead, since I was hitting so reliably at BS4 and rerolled 1s.
The day before the event, I was reading some fluff on the Celestial Lions, which included a synopsis of Aaron Dembski Bowden's "Blood and Fire". I am half-tempted to paint a test Lion to see how they'd turn out as a small IF ally attachment. Of course, I'd also looked at the Subjugators and Iron Fists in the past, and nothing ever came of it.
it was great to finally get to play 40K again, and I was very happy that I had three enjoyable games. I'm continuing work on my drop pod, and waffling again on my Nids. It's funny how I get so down on Marines until I play some games, then I'm right back into it and down on the Nids.
