That's how I got beat in a 1750 point tournament this last weekend. My first game (Capture & Control, DoW deployment) was against Blood Angels running two Storm Ravens, one of which was simply a Mephiston Delivery System. With Twin-linked Assault Cannons and Multi-Meltas. The other raven was an Assault Terminator + priest Delivery System, armed identically to the first. Long story short on that game, I got tabled quickly. My second game - Blood Angels, again (Kill Points, Spearhead). This one was Razorback spam. 4 TLLC Razors, 1 TLAC Razor and one TLHB Razor. All of the Razors except the TLHB carried Assault Squads, three of which had priests attached. The TLHB Razor carried my new favorite special character, Mephiston. He managed to seize the initiative and I damn near got tabled this game, too. Game 3, Tyranids (Seize Ground w/ 5 objectives, pitched battle). What, no Mephiston? Anyway, this one was a wash too. My opponent was a very nice guy I'd played at a tourney last year who played very well today. His Tervigons pooped out so many 'gaunts (the ones that shoot, whichever those are) that he ran out of models and had to start using some Necron warriors he brought along. By the time he finally rolled doubles on one of his Tervigons, it was too late for me to recover. I should have deployed better here.. The deployment phase is by far the worst for me, and I feel that it's one area where I really need to improve. My main lessons learned were a) make sure to find out if my opponent has infiltrators (genestealers destroyed a Vindicator before it could do anything on Turn 1) and b) protect important units during deployment, either by reserving them or covering them with other units.
My list:
| Librarian |
| Terminator Armor - Storm Shield |
| Null Zone, Gate of Infinity |
|
| Tactical Squad (10) |
| meltagun |
| Missile Launcher |
| sgt power fist |
| Rhino |
|
| Tactical Squad (10) |
| meltagun |
| Plasma Cannon |
| sgt power fist |
| Rhino |
|
| Tactical Squad (10) |
| plasma gun |
| Multi-Melta |
| sgt power fist |
| Rhino |
|
|
| Assault Terminators |
| Land Raider Redeemer |
| Multi-Melta |
| Extra Armor |
|
| Land Speeder Typhoon |
|
| Land Speeder Typhoon |
|
| Vindicator w/ Siege Shield |
|
| Vindicator w/ Siege Shield |
My intent was to pop open transports and shoot at the occupants with templates, or hit them with the terminators. This list is pretty "slow and plodding." My Vindicators had a very tough day - now that I think about it, all of my units had a bad day.
I'm having a really hard time grasping Space Marines, and I feel like an idiot saying that as they're pretty simple to play: their stats are simple, they don't have a lot of obscure rules and they're resilient. I suppose the "complex" part is using the units at the right time, and for the right purpose? Anyway. I'm damn close to shelving the Ultrasmurfs altogether. Just frustrated, I guess.
