Last nights game needed some fluff to explain the battle. Dark Angels versus Dark Angels. (we were the first two players to arrive, that's all!). Instead of admitting that Dark Angels could be conned into fighting each other by the evil machinations of Cypher, we agreed it was merely a training exercise. Using live ammunition, obviously.
1,500 points was a larger game than normal, but this did allow me to field the full 10-man assault squad (the additional five men being finally finished), the Deathwing squad and two full tactical squads (one with plasma cannon to try it out).
I won't go into a full write up, as it's tricky to remember in enough details. However, a few key moments are listed.
Opponent's Land Raider stops at the objective and out pops a squad of assault Deathwing. They can't my assault squad me due to the range, but I don't really want to let them charge me. Preparing to sell themselves dearly, every man and his dog opens fire at the Deathwing. When the dust settled, all five had been killed, two by the plasma cannon.
My dreadnought (with no close combat weapon) managed to blow away the oncoming enemy dreadnought (fully equipped for close combat).
My Interrogator Chaplain gets charged by his Librarian in terminator armour...I roll four hits and three wounds; the librarian trips over his force axe and misses complexly, then fails to save. Oops. :)
My squad of Deathwing finally arrive on turn four, in the middle of the enemy's deployment zone. Taking fire from three combat squads (including a plasma cannon), they calmly advance, take two of the squads down to below-half (i.e. non-scoring) with shooting and wipe out the third who was daft enough to charge them in an attempt to slow them down. On my final turn they march up to the objective.
Lessons Learnt:
Plasma cannon are useful. Of the three on the table, only one managed to kill himself from the Gets Hot! rule. This was despite on guy rolling a 1 to hit on every turn. Whilst I was pleased to kill two terminators (three were hit) with the plasma cannon hit, I was grateful not to lose any of my own when they were clumped together on arrival. My single plasma cannon was responsible for two terminator kills, a Land Raider and three marines. Not bad.
Remember the objective. My opponent seemed to forget what the objective was once his main assault force was gone. With careful fire control, I am sure he could have whittled my scoring units down so they would not count - instead he concentrated fire on squads that were already down below half strength. I caught myself almost doing the same, but fortunately remembered what we were trying to achieve. Whilst I was happy to wipe out the main threat, I ensured some fire power was directed at the combat squads to the rear of his deployment so as to prevent them from running forwards to grab the objective at the last moment.
Don't send assault squads into the objective on the first turn...I was carried away by the massive squad of ten men, and they ended up fighting around the objective with little support. They were ineffective against the Deathwing, and couldn't kill the Land Raider. Whilst they did wipe out one squad and the Librarian, this was what my 'usual' five-man squad would do. I should have sent them down one flank to take out the sniping heavy weapons. Here, they would not have been taking so much fire, and would have swamped any squads they charged.
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