Prot's Deathwatch Quickie-Rep: 1850 Maelstrom vs. Eldar

[Prot]

So here we go again. In an attempt to share some insight and try new things, I'm still trying to do battle reports on some of my games particularly against varying foes of xenos origins!

This was a Maelstrom against a friend who hasn't pulled out his Eldar in a while and it seemed like a good match up for this game because I felt my Deathwatch were definitely under performing, and ironically, they have the most trouble with Xenos.

But my opponent wanted to just do a medium powered list involving some fun units himself, so that worked out great. He didn't take a Wraithknight (he usually does) and just played that Battle Focus formation from his codex.

The heinous Eldar:

Avatar of Khaine

3 WC Farseer

3 blobs of Guardians with Exarchs and Missile launchers

1 squadron of 3 Walkers

1 squadron of 3 Vypers

1 Serpent with 5 Fire Dragons inc. Exarch w/flamer

1 squadron of D-Artillery

1 squad of Warp Spiders

1 squad of Dark Reapers inc.Exarch

The Emperor's Will: Deathwatch:

Black Spear:

Watchmaster - Beacon Angelis

Watch Company: 3 Aquilas, 1 Malleus (1 Drop Pod)

Artemis Bombus Minimus

Ancient Dreadnaught: Assault Cannon/Hvy Flamer (Drop Pod)

Corvus Blackstar with the sky fire swap out (Blackstar Rocket Launchre) and Infernum Halo Launcher.

I did have 2 Libbies in this list too. One in Termie armour is my fave config: ML2/Force Axe/Tome of Ectoclades.(included in Aquilas)

THE GAME: Set Up and first turn:

- I win the roll to deploy/go first. I take it. I set up my single 3 Frag Cannon Squad in their Rhino. They are in my far Eastern fringe off a hill top for Angelis Antics.

- I deploy my second squad; Aquila with 4 Stalker bolters, 1 Terminator (cyclone) and 1 Infernus Hvy Bolter.

Xenos Deploy:

- Typical. Cowardly. Like every game I play... the filthy Xenos hug the edge of their world, lined up on the back wall as tight as they can with only the D-battery squad on the second level of a factory building.

+ Xenos doing what they do best: Hugging the back of the world for dear life. +

+ Half of my deployment: Termie gets ready to tank the onslaught. +

FIRST TURNS:

- I get Objective 5 right in front of him. I verify he has no Obsec. I get another 2 objectives, but one is right where my Rhino + 3 Frags are. This is where having no models sucks... I can't 'alpha strike' AND hold this objective at the same time and only have one unit coming in. I feel I need to take a risk here, and forgo the sure point and use my Angelis tactics....

- So trying to be aggressive as you can tell I am MASSIVELY out numbered with no clue what to prioritize on. As you can see by the blob formations, anything I may have success against will result in me taking D batteries to the face. If feels like -nearly- all of his shooting can go through my armour so I go for the unit that is easily going to rip me apart: The Dark Reapers.

- With the order given, the Watch Master and Termie Lib touch down and do the Angelis teleport of the Rhino squad, leaving their objective behind....

+ The Alpha Strike hits hard... but is it enough? +

- The Alpha Strike:

- Libbies are both in, Pod squad1 has Watch Master. Mission Tactics: Kill the troops?!?!

- Libbie 1 rolled on Librarius, attacks an Exarch with his power, and kills him. Take that xenos witch.

- Libbie 2 with Artemis doesn't know what to do... fires the Primaris Blast into the Factory to try to take a chunk out of the D-batteries, scatters too far.

- Pod Squad 1: Fires all weapons, 2 Frag Cannons tag the Warp Spiders as well due to my positioning. We realize he could have Flickered out, but then I would have targeted the Guardians primarily and hit almost as many spiders anyway. LOTS of cheap guardians die, and all but 1 Spider.

- Rhino squad Artemis: 3 Frag Cannons go off on the Dark Reapers and they are most certainly fried. First Blood.

The Alpha hit fairly hard but that was a 400+ pt squad and a 357 pt squad PLUS Art and Master. Ouch.

- Stalker squad takes pot shots at Avatar, calling poison rounds and the Crack Missles at the Avatar. I forgot his army is fearless unless Avatar goes down.... I take all but one wound off with luck. (A few rends gave him invulns only)

- I did okay, but did not kill nearly as many guardians as I hoped because.... he had a single Exarch tank about 5 wounds on a 4+ invuln from the Frag Cannons!

- I miss-calculate my alpha slightly and not enough Guardians die for me to claim Objective 5. But I do get first blood.

XENOS Retaliation:

- He makes use of his mobility here he has to. His Psychic phases were bad... really bad, but he didn't need them really. He positions everything to basically hit the biggest threats on the board; 2 of my alpha strike squads.

+ The Eldar are hit hard but Fire Dragons and the rest of the army converge on two squads. Talk about a thin black line. +

- To be safe, he doesn't get too terribly close with the Guardians to my Pod squad because he unloads the D-Cannons. They get a direct hit. We play modified ITC rules on ranged D, but it doesn't matter. The squad is gone in a blink of an eye. Not enough invulns are made and easily the squad is destroyed.

- His Fire Dragons then roll out of the Wave Serpent. It all fires at Artemis' squad. Only Artemis, the Librarian with 1 wound, and the Rhino survive!

+ All that's left after one turn of shooting.... well at least he couldn't shoot everything at me! +

- At his turn end he gets 2-3 points I think.

- At this point I honestly lost about 1000 pts of stuff, with 3 units stuck in reserves. I was pretty ready to call it. But I thought this would not be fair to my opponent and decided to play it out.

Mid Game:

- By 'mid game' I mean.. turn 2. lol

- What can I do? I have nothing potent left. I pull cards and have a lot of work to do.... On the plus side with the Flyer rules I do get +1 to reserve rolls and my Dread/pod, Corvus, and Aquila come in.

- The Stalker Bolter squad is the only thing I have that's isn't half dead. The Termie was picked off of course. I think he made 3 saves, and died.... oh well. They move up, snapfire, and try to get a point.

+ The rather limited reserves come in to save the day??? +

- I snap fire and shoot the Infernum Heavy Bolter and rip the Avatar apart. At least Fearless is gone!

- Now here's where I really don't know what to do.... I have WAY too many targets and far too few models. I take shots where I can, but starting with the Psychic Phase, I try a hail mary shot. I use the Beam Psychic Power and rake through 3 of his Vypers, and the first one has a Pen + explodes, the next one takes the remaining 2 hullpoints and goes down!

- The Dreadnaught tries his Heavy Flamer on the backside of the Walker squad, and Heavy Bolter. Two Walkers go down. Super lucky.

- The newly arrived Aquila gets a bullseye and doesn't wander, and shoots poison at the D-Battery which has his Warlord/Farseer attached. He gets almost all look out sirs passed, and has his only wound from a previous Perils of the Warp fail.

- The Corvus takes pot shots at the Guardian squad, maybe killing 1-2 models. The template deviates far off its mark. Typical corvus!

- A big moment... Artemis runs up and with the Libby, they try to assault the Fire Dragon squad that just about wiped them out, they take 2 wounds on Overwatch the Libby dies, it's all up to Artemis! He fails to wound anything, and close combat is a tie!!! (At least I'm tied up)

- I steal a few points and am down at the end of Turn2 about 5-3.

-Eldar turn involves lots of shooting, the Corvus doesn't jink. And the Dreadnaught somehow loses all but 1 hullpoint!

- I take my Rhino and ram the side of the Wave Serpent and strip a hull point. I park the Rhino in an important place, setting up an assault for later...

+ A long, lonely walk for Artemis as he has witnessed the destruction of his brothers that will haunt him for a good 15 minutes or so... +

+ But fear not... Artemis makes new friends who promptly run away.+

- Artemis goes for the assault, trying to draw the Guardians away from Objective 5. It works, but he takes a wound. Artemis wins the close combat and I tried to position this so that when/if he breaks the Rhino will cut off his retreat.. it works and the squad can't make it around without doubling back and all must die as a result.... talk about trying to do as much as you can with nothing left. ;)

- Stalker squad partially walks to an objective, I snap off a few shots at the D-batter, before my Dreadnaught charges in.... The Corvus fires at the Guardians who are after my Heavy Hammer Aquila squad, but only kill 1 model. (Blackstar blast deviates too much again)

- Dreadnaught actually makes it into close combat with 1 Hullpoint remaining, but fails to wound anything. At least I tied up the D-batteries!

- I get Objective 5 and tie the game.

ELDAR:

The Eldar still seemingly have lots left. We go into turn 5 and Artemis was hoping to get into CC upstairs with the D-battery but he is shot to death without making it. (he had to make about 3 invulns on one wound left.)

- The Eldar D-battery and Farseer throw a Singing Spear and it destroys the Dreadnaught and he never did a darn wound. My stalker team did kill off 1-2 of the D Batteries but they are now free, and with one shot they get a bullseye on the Heavy Hammer squad that just game in, and vape the squad.

- The Corvus is forced to double jink, and with almost no targets on the table it takes a LOT of hits. Eventually a stupid Warp Spider with twin link shoots it down in his end. He got amazingly lucky there with double jink on I essentially lost all 3 hull points and he never had skyfire.

- So here's where I lose the game, and I tell my opponent too.... I take my Rhino, which has one hull point left, and I ram the Wave Serpent again.. for no reason. I realize RIGHT after I make this move, that I left the 12" deploy zone of his, thus denying myself Line Breaker.

I immediately tell my opponent what an incredibly stupid thing I did. He goes, 'oh yea, you can't score that now because the Corvus just went down'. "But I can score it" he says, and turbo's his wounded Wave Serpent to my 12" deploy and the game ends. He wins by one point... Line Breaker.

Post Game:

- The good news? I guess I went from wanting to concede at bottom of turn 1 to nearly winning the game (should have tied at the least, obviously with my stupidity.) I am actually quite proud of the fact I took something so incredibly lop sided after turn 1 and put up a fight. The problem was I was trying to do way too much with way too little. Oh well.. hard fought.

- The Bad news? Corvus killed about 2 models and took one hull point of a final Walker. Watch Master died as usual doing nothing worth writing home about. Artemis did what any 110 point captain could do. Dreadnaughts.... it's too bad the Black Spear forces one.

- My opponent made some bad tactical errors, and I played above my pay grade in that game so I can't take credit for the finish. Also his list was sub-optimal and intentionally so. I can at best... add 2 squads to my list and pull the Corvus and some HQ fat.

- The Deathwatch continue to scrape by close games in every outing, but it's always an uphill battle. My biggest blow out was Tau, so this wasn't bad. It certainly isn't like my Ultra's though. This is much more akin to my Grey Knights.

- Very fun army though. Tons of character and thematic too!

[Vel'Cona]

Great batrep, Prot! It's good to see you're still eking out some results versus easily more powerful/tuned armies out there, especially in your tough local meta. FWIW I doubt I'd do any better versus an army like that, and I'm impressed you stuck it out after the disastrous turn 1. Overall, I think the challenge inherent in C: DW is why I'm so eager to get mine on the table, not to mention not having to carry around that many models.

- The Deathwatch continue to scrape by close games in every outing, but it's always an uphill battle. My biggest blow out was Tau, so this wasn't bad. It certainly isn't like my Ultra's though. This is much more akin to my Grey Knights.

Hmm, I think this is a comparison I made very early in the C: DW release. They feel like a similarly elite, high point-per-model army with tons of flexibility but limited competitiveness versus more numerous, equally flexible foes. I think this puts C: DW smack in the middle with IG, BA, and other "not truly terrible but not top of the pack" books.

[Prot]

I think so too.

 

Aside from the odd 'mistake' I think they made in the codex, it -feels- like they turned this one down to be around the level you mention. But now with the new BA stuff (some of those artifacts!) I don't know about BA being with us.

 

This is a very similar conversation I had with a friend my last game (not my opponent, but someone else who plays BA). And we both agreed it feels they went crazy with a few books: Necrons, Tau, AdMech(WarConvo specifically), Daemons, Eldar (twice) and SM Battle Co (specifically). Most of the other stuff is in a different class. It seems to work together, but not against that top tier stuff.

 

My biggest beef is some of the units I want to use the most really don't work at all. I risk getting my teeth kicked in every game if I play these units, and unlike my Ultra's, if I wanted to include (ObSec) dreads for example, I could, because I still had 50 models on the table and Grav is the great equalizer on cheaper models. (Which BA get now btw).

 

I don't want my experiences to come off as all negative though. I truly love the background and appearance of this army. Clearly I am finding though I have to play my butt off to eek out close games against anything remotely competitive.

[Vash]

I hear you. 

Its hard to play the game in a certain way you want, and it just doesn't work/cooperate. 

I see from your lists and battle report(s) that your a fan of the Master (mostly of the kick ass model design), and the Corvus. In my honest opinion they are just not worth it. They are way to situational. 

 

They will from my understanding, be both a point sink and underperforming. I can accept one of the two, but not both results. 

 

The dreadnaught, how do they fair these days with the new rules/FAQ? Worth the cost and our attention?

[Vel'Cona]

The dreadnaught, how do they fair these days with the new rules/FAQ? Worth the cost and our attention?

 

Indeed, I'd like to hear as well.  From what I can tell it looks like a pure tax on the BSSF for you, though a less expensive one than the middle-of-the-road Corvus Blackstar.  I have a hard time with ANY Dreadnought that isn't FAV 13, though.

[Prot]

I hear you. 

Its hard to play the game in a certain way you want, and it just doesn't work/cooperate. 

I see from your lists and battle report(s) that your a fan of the Master (mostly of the kick ass model design), and the Corvus. In my honest opinion they are just not worth it. They are way to situational. 

 

They will from my understanding, be both a point sink and underperforming. I can accept one of the two, but not both results. 

 

The dreadnaught, how do they fair these days with the new rules/FAQ? Worth the cost and our attention?

 

 

- I agree. I have this thing where I try everything in the codex. With Ultramarines I played all but 2 Auxiliaries before deciding for myself what works (I discovered a bizarre affection for Assault Centurions this way!) So I very much agree, there is no way if you're in a competitive environment that I'd recommend a Corvus Blackstar and a Watch Master.

 

But I still side with the Watch Master because I still have to get a multi wound model in the Black Spear that is a good 'host' for the Angelis Beacon.

 

The codex basically would be instantly nerfed massively if they change how we seem to understand the Angelis works. I'm finding it is one of the few things that makes not having Drop Pods kind of work. The idea of getting that Landraider into play is still tempting (I just have no delusions it would last more than a turn.)

 

Anyway, the Corvus is middle of the road too, however....

 

 

 

The dreadnaught, how do they fair these days with the new rules/FAQ? Worth the cost and our attention?

 

Indeed, I'd like to hear as well.  From what I can tell it looks like a pure tax on the BSSF for you, though a less expensive one than the middle-of-the-road Corvus Blackstar.  I have a hard time with ANY Dreadnought that isn't FAV 13, though.

 

 

 

My disdain for how GW treats walkers is well known. lol I hate how you can one shot them, stun them, shoot of an army, immoblize them, and none of this applies to MC's. They're still super bad choices but they're in every box set for every army that can take them!

 

That being said, the sad thing is I'm finding the Dreadnaught actually kills just as much as the flyer. Yup, no joke. By turn 3, on average, both units have the same kill count. The one favourable part of the Flyer is survivability, and +1 to reserves (flyer rules).

 

But for economy I side with the far cheaper Dread. It's still a throwaway unit, and really gives your opponent a great shot at first blood.

[jaco331r]

- The Bad news? Corvus killed about 2 models and took one hull point of a final Walker. Watch Master died as usual doing nothing worth writing home about. Artemis did what any 110 point captain could do. Dreadnaughts.... it's too bad the Black Spear forces one.

Actually a BSSF only requires 1 auxiliary choice, this can be either a "dropship" (corvus) or an "ancient" (dread) so it doesn't actually require you to field a dread.

[Prot]

- The Bad news? Corvus killed about 2 models and took one hull point of a final Walker. Watch Master died as usual doing nothing worth writing home about. Artemis did what any 110 point captain could do. Dreadnaughts.... it's too bad the Black Spear forces one.

Actually a BSSF only requires 1 auxiliary choice, this can be either a "dropship" (corvus) or an "ancient" (dread) so it doesn't actually require you to field a dread.

Right... what I meant is you're forced to take one of those options anyway so... I'd opt for the cheaper one (dreadnaught) if you're stuck on playing a Black spear like I appear to be. ;)

[jaco331r]

- The Bad news? Corvus killed about 2 models and took one hull point of a final Walker. Watch Master died as usual doing nothing worth writing home about. Artemis did what any 110 point captain could do. Dreadnaughts.... it's too bad the Black Spear forces one.

Actually a BSSF only requires 1 auxiliary choice, this can be either a "dropship" (corvus) or an "ancient" (dread) so it doesn't actually require you to field a dread.

Right... what I meant is you're forced to take one of those options anyway so... I'd opt for the cheaper one (dreadnaught) if you're stuck on playing a Black spear like I appear to be.

Well you're already taking a corvus so why take the dread if you dont want to? thats a stalker bolter unit right there.

[Prot]

Right. So I'm going to assume it's my typing too many things at once, and it's entirely my fault for not being more clear.

 

Originally I was taking both for experiment's sake. I always took the Corvus in every game regardless because I friggin love the model and cool factor.

 

So I believe this far down the road, I am done experimenting with certain units, and right now I would say with current flyer rules, and points cost considered, I think that to fulfill the Black Spear requirement I will not be taking the Corvus in the near future.

 

You're right, that's a stalker bolter squad. I have to say that Stalker squad did some real work.

[jaco331r]

Oh okay, disregard then

[leth]

I personally like taking the dread as the auxiliary because it gives me access to a drop pod for additional flexibility. Going second? Null deploy and have the pod come in bottom of turn two. I also take an Angelis squad in a pod so if I don't want them in turn 1 I can delay till turn two and have them all come together. From what I observed you basically dropped 1000 points right into max effectiveness range of 1850 points of fire power. I wonder how things would have gone differently if you had planned for everything on turn two?

 

Very cool battle report, look forward to seeing more in the future and thanks for your insight. I really want to own three Corvus blackstars because I can just see myself humming ride of the Valkyries as they come in.

[Prot]

Leth, I actually seem to like 2 pods overall in my Black Spears. It seems to be a vital component to line up Frag Cannons. I go back and forth between giving the Dread a Pod and just giving it to a secondary Kill team.

 

The Dread obviously doesn't make all my lists but with a heavy flamer/Assault cannon he's not bad in a pod, he's just a cannon ball really. One shot, usually dead.

 

On your observation:

 

I really had to think about this. In Maelstrom often a strong lead carries my Deathwatch through the game as the army seems very prone to strong starts, and fades very fast.

 

When I Alpha'd in to his front lines, I tried to 1: manipulate my Pod + Angelis pulled squad out of LoS of Walkers/Avatar/Farseer BUT I also needed to get as close as possible because I knew no matter what he would have the D-shots at me, and I would hope against hope for a deviation on to his Guardians/Spiders. (He stuck 2 bullseye's out of 3 templates wiping them out.)

 

So in hind sight he would have spread out, but he's famous (infamous?) for hiding behind the range of his D-batteries which are just incredibly resilient (Artillery is gross in 40K), and extremely destructive. I think the results would have been almost identical except I would have had less units to put under my templates, because he would not have been bunched up at the 12" line. (For example, I never would have caught all but one of his Warp Spiders- More importantly 6" away was his Dark Reaper squad which I wiped with overkill from Frag Cannons. Those Reapers would have probably wacked my  Stalker Bolter unit easily which ended up nearly winning me the game and he had limited range).

 

The bad part of the way I did it is I traded a higher kill zone, for a higher retaliation zone.

 

This is Eldar though... I rarely got to roll saves in this game. It felt like everything was AP2, AP1, or D! Add in all the 'rending' Guardian shots and I might as well have shown up for war in my underwear!

[Silas7]

Great bat rep, sadly that blackstar didn't help much.

[leth]

Yeah man j feel you on those points, I think this is where having a sacrificial first turn pod unit possibility in your list is clutch, go wipe out that d cannon battery, two frag cannons shou,d be plenty it's 200 points for a pretty solid alpha strike list.

[CrimsonReign]

if you want to use the killteam formations, and not the dreadnought - why not use them outside the BSSF?

personally im going to be adding one or two to a small CAD 

[d@n]

a cad is the way to go imo. 3x10 veterans in drop pods with frag and infurnus heavy bolters,gives you a potential of 6 scoring units. it gives you bodies  and it gives you options. you could of used the chapter tactic to target heavy support and combat squad  a pod, drop it behind  the  dark reapers and use one combat squad with frag cannon on the dark reapers and the other with the poison amo infurnus heavy bolter  to target the artillery. do the  same thing on the other side of the board with the walkers and artillery.

[Prot]

Yeah man j feel you on those points, I think this is where having a sacrificial first turn pod unit possibility in your list is clutch, go wipe out that d cannon battery, two frag cannons shou,d be plenty it's 200 points for a pretty solid alpha strike list.

 

Yea, I dunno. I guess it's plausible that the tactic might have worked.... I keep looking at that first turn picture and there's about 6" behind his front line, and then the edge of the table... from the ground, I'm assuming I could cover approximately 3 models per flamer? T7, 3+ save... It's still a dice roll away from going sideways or working out. ;)

 

 

if you want to use the killteam formations, and not the dreadnought - why not use them outside the BSSF?

personally im going to be adding one or two to a small CAD 

 

For background we use ITC for some things when we play for fun, and we do have ITC tournament events as well as normal stuff, but the ITC 3 Detachment rule is in effect. But yea, you could do that.

 

I think the Black Spear is a bit of a bust... there I said it. The Black Spear itself really as a detachment is underwhelming. BUT the Chapter Watch is something I think worth investing in. It's not game breaking as most of the time you're using poison, but it's expensive. The tax of making it a Black Spear to just take advantage of that "I don't need a drop pod" rule is pretty much a dreadnaught.

 

 

a cad is the way to go imo. 3x10 veterans in drop pods with frag and infurnus heavy bolters,gives you a potential of 6 scoring units. it gives you bodies  and it gives you options. you could of used the chapter tactic to target heavy support and combat squad  a pod, drop it behind  the  dark reapers and use one combat squad with frag cannon on the dark reapers and the other with the poison amo infurnus heavy bolter  to target the artillery. do the  same thing on the other side of the board with the walkers and artillery.

 

Well it's a trade off. If I did a heavier take on infantry, I feel I could do 6 infantry based squads in 1850, plus the dread, plus the HQ requirements and artifacts and I get the advantage of all squads re-rolling to wound. I get the advantage of not needing (but taking 2) Pods. 

 

I'm not sure if vanilla kill teams gives you enough reason (in game terms) to not just play Ultramarines or something like that where you can easily flood ObSec with Grav,  

 

But it might actually be the way to go. I'm not sure if I want to give up the squad genetics I've grown to like: Hammer Termies in squads with extra Libbies, and shooty Termies mixed into the generic Frag Cannon squads.

[d@n]

I  have had some success against the grav gladius by bunkering my veterans down in cover to somewhat mitigate the grav  using the drop pods to grab objectives and then its a battle of retrition, between the tactical squads and vets firsts.which with 6-8 ap 3 reroll able vets a squad i tends to win as there getting no saves and are missing more due to not getting rerolls and have less shots generally. I use a fully loaded with power weapon bike squad to charge the most dangerous unit. which is normally either a grav devastator squad or grav command squad. after that its really down to which axillary your opponent took.

 

the playing style of deathwatch is not trying to build a list to be stronger then your opponent. but by making your opponent weaker  

[Prot]

I like it don. I really don't know if I believe it will beat a Gladius (Battle Co) grav force. I mean I was taking down top tier Eldar, and Tau lists with mine. I just have trouble seeing it take apart something of that level. But you know what? I never dismiss anything without trying it. I have a few games scheduled....

 

Maybe... maybe, it's time for a CAD? I don't know. Darn I would miss my termies/libbies/Vanguard. lol

[d@n]

any of those army's will be hard to beat.

 

I normally spend around 900-1000 points in a 1750 point game on vets and then the rest go on hq, melta fist termies and bikes

[leth]

Personally I have just accepted it is not designed as a stand alone force and have built accordingly.

 

I either have it as a CAD with a solid core of veterans with allied hammer

 

OR a black spear that is around 1100 points and the rest is OS allies/small Anti-Garg/SH detachment

[Prot]

 

Personally I have just accepted it is not designed as a stand alone force and have built accordingly. I either have it as a CAD with a solid core of veterans with allied hammer OR a black spear that is around 1100 points and the rest is OS allies/small Anti-Garg/SH detachment

 

 

But... it is a stand alone force! It is a fully functional codex and should be able to operate as one. I am going to keep trying.

 

 

 

any of those army's will be hard to beat.

 

I normally spend around 900-1000 points in a 1750 point game on vets and then the rest go on hq, melta fist termies and bikes

 

I am playing a couple of more games this weekend. I have two scheduled for sure and tried making a CAD I like... I just can't seem to make one that looks mildly competitive.

 

I went back to a light on fat Black Spear and got 6 squads in it, plus a Dread. Still a little HQ heavy but I'm really hoping the better dispersion of Heavy Weapons and bodies makes the difference.