Lysander the bystander

I decided to try out Lysander again last night.  His job was to give my Sterngard re-rolls to hit with their spiffy special-issue ammo bolters, plus discourage anyone from getting into close combat.  I started with a 2000 point list, but had to go down to 1850 due to time constraints:

Daranth Lysander

Captain

Relic Blade

Bike

Assault Terminators (6)

Sterngard (10)

Combi-melta (5)

power fist

Drop Pod

Locator Beacon

Tactical Squad (10)

meltagun

Multi-Melta

sgt power fist

Drop Pod

Locator Beacon

Tactical Squad (10)

meltagun

Multi-Melta

sgt power fist

Drop Pod

Bike Squad

2 bikers

2 meltaguns

sgt power fist

Command Squad on bikes Company Champion Lightning Claw

Well, I wanted to have it all I guess.  There were several dumb things I did, though I think I only made one major tactical mistake (which of course is usually all it takes).  Starting off, and in no particular order: the list.  Terminators and a biker command squad?  Meh.  I should have taken one or the other.  Transports?  I took three drop pods.  The good part was that 2 pods could come down on my turn one - the bad part is that I had very sh*tty reserve roles.  Cases in point: the last drop pod and the terminators didn't come down until turn 4.  By that time, the other two pods - the ones with the locator beacons - had been destroyed.  My lesson learned: unit point cost should be proportional to deployment control.  The more a unit costs, the more I need to be able to control the time and place of their use.  I'll give that a shot for the next few games, I think.

The basic premise of the list was to use the bikers as a Quick Reaction Force.  If one of my stubborn units (Lysander makes all units stubborn, so that was everybody) got into combat, the QRF would swoop in and bail them out; hopefully opening the door to counter-attack the next turn with shooting help from the now freed unit.  I didn't have any particular plans for the terminators.  I just wanted them to do what they normally do - smash face as much as possible.  Deep striking them makes that somewhat feasible, more so if those whose faces require smashing are close to a beacon or teleport homer.  Still, they spend the turn they come in running, not assaulting and probably getting shot at with nasty things (a vindicator, 2 multi-meltas, a couple of combi-plasmas and about 8 bolters in my case) before finally being able to assault on my following turn.  My feelings on deep-striking assault terminators are rather mixed.  As of now, I don't like it a lot.

I'll give a Lysander list another try, but it won't be this list.  The mission last night came from the Special Missions book.  As we both had MEQ armies(my opponent was playing Space Wolves), we randomly selected a Space Marine mission and wound up with what I call "King of the Hill:" put an objective in the middle, the defender (which was me) could deploy within 12" of it.  Each player deploys one unit at a time, the defender can only put Fast Attack and units that can Deep Strike in reserve.  My bikes deployed in the center of the table as the captain's mounted assault rule made them count as troops, not Fast Attack.  The command squad was technically an HQ unit, and also wound up in the table center.  It wasn't quite the optimal mission for my list.  Add to that my craptacular reserve rolls and some less-than-good leadership tests (Lysander ran away, but took the remnants of a Grey Hunter squad with him) I considered myself fortunate to come out of it with a draw.  And I only got that because we didn't go to turn 6.  I'll post up a revised list sometime later.