First Game of 8th... sort of.

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

So I played my first game of 8th out in the local meta(jungle).  I went to a local gaming hub and it turns out that they were holding a tourney that day.  I mingled a bit but then found some space to play in the back with 2 other guys.  One had a hipster imperial army with Custodes, Celestine, and other assorted stuff.... I think it was a mix of guard/sisters.  The other guy had a fairly beardy ultramarines list.  I said hello and we just made a up a game of 2v1.  I partnered with the hipster Custodes list.  We barfed up an ad hoc army of mostly infantry without really adding up points.  Our list was just plain bad.  We had little anti air and no redundancy.  The table had plenty of terrain for cover but nothing to block LOS.  Our army was something like this....

 

HQs

Celestine

Shrike

 

Troops

2 10 man Raven Guard Tacticals with tripple plasma

1 5 man tactical squad... Blood Ravens IIRC.. no wargear

 

Fast Attack

10 man Raven Guard Assault marines with packs, 2 flamers and an eviscerator on the sarge

3 Inceptors(Blood Ravens)

 

Elites

1 Raven Guard dreadnought with assault cannon/heavy flamer

1 Custodes contemptor Dread... not sure about the loadout... but it had 2 melee weapons

5 Custodes with a mix of spears/shield+sword

 

Heavy Support

5 man Raven Guard devastators, 4 las cannons

 

We faced.... UltraSmurfs in all their blue snowflake glory.  Our opponents list was something like...

 

HQ

GirlyMan

Primaris LT

 

Troops

5 man primaris squad

5 man primaris squad

5 man tac squad

 

Fast Attack

5 bikers... 2 grav guns

3 inceptors

 

Heavy Support

2 Fire Raptor Gunships with something hideous for a loadout... Im unfamiliar with FW but the guns were high volume with a mix of low dmg and high dmg.  It looked like an all purpose loadout.

 

I dont recall what mission we played but it was a maelstrom with dawn of war deployment.  There were 6 objective markers... 3 in each deployment zone.  None in the middle.

 

The Smurfs deployed with Girlyman in the middle of their deployment zone with the fireraptors in the rear.  We deployed onto objectives in our zone.... with all our stuff in cover.  Our ASMs and inceptors were in DS reserve.  Shrike deployed in between the lascannon devs and the plasma tacs... giving both rerolls.  

 

Since our team was doubles, a format neither of us had played, we had poor coordination and a list softer than microwaved cheese.  So the game started with a complete disaster with the Smurfs finishing deployment first.  On turn 1 we lost our devs,1 dread, a bunch of tacs leaving us with no real way to do dmg to the Smurf flyers.  In our first turn we had no effective way to target anything but we did managed to get stuck in with our inceptors/ASMs which did no dmg to much of anything.  Our opponent basically just did what his list was designed to do... melt 1-2 squads/units a turn with dakka fire raptors rerolling everything.  However bad our list was we did get crazy lucky on objective cards and tied the game in the bottom of turn 3... securing a "friendly" draw.  We kept getting "secure objective X" when we were already sitting right on it with tacs.  We also rolled flawless for "gain d3 victory points".  

 

Things that really messed us up;

1.  Poor list planning... we were not redundant enough to take a punch.

2.  Poor target priority.  Using any shooting on the fire raptors was pointless since there was zero chance to take either down.  It would have been better to take everything else out.

3. Poor list planning... we needed first turn to have an actual chance in a full game.  Having 1 extra drop in the game was powerfully awful.  I think if we dropped our raven guard dread and added 5 more devs into our lascannon squad and another las cannon into the 5 man tac squad that would have made a huge difference.  

 

Highlights from the game;

1. Robot Girlyman.... a fornicating bargain at 350 points.  If you play ultramarines and do not take Guilliman in every list over 1500... you are dong it wrong.  

2. Shrike:  This guy is a complete animal.  You can get some serious value parking him in the backfield and just zipping around with is jump pack to grant his reroll to hit aura and his charge reroll aura for jump packs.  Additionally... you can use him to thrash units as tough as bikers in a single turn.  In a single fight phase I had shrike shred 4 bikers.  I can hardly wait to get him stuck into some nob bikers or other HQs.  

3. Tacticals with plasma+shrike:  2 tac squads with overcharged plasma and rerolls make short work of primaris marines/bikers and can tickle a heavy flyer.  

4. ATSKNF is still very good.  We got bailed out by morale rerolls in every turn.  Never forget this reroll.

 

Epic Fails from the game;

1. Assault Marines with 1 weapon capable of damaging armour is obviously awful.  In 7th you could justify taking an eviscerator on a sarge since he could 1 shot most vehicles with it.  In 8th... this is an awful, horrible, 4th rate choice.  Assault marines are objective grabbers, GEQ killlers, and skirmishers.  Do not take eviscerators on them.  From now on my evis sarge is wielding a chainsword or two with an eviscerator proxy. 

2. If you insist on 5 man dev squads for anti tank/monster/air... you must go first.  Better to spread out the guns or have 10 man squads.  

3. If you bring a beardy list with heavy flyers, don't ignore objective cards.  Our team secured a sporting draw because our opponent made some silly errors in the final turn.  He attempted to table us which was probable but not guaranteed.  By not playing the mission he failed to secure to victory.  

 

Overall it was fun and everyone was gracious and had fun.  Sorry for the lack of photos and garbled description.  From a gaming perspective this game just wasnt that interesting so I tried to frame it terms of what I experienced/learned out in the local 40k wilderness.  More to come later.  I will play some real game this week with my own list.

 

 

[NiceGuyAdi]

Thanks for writing this up, man. As someone who is gearing up to play for the first time in a long time, reading batreps with reflections on good/bad decisions make interesting reading.

[Race Bannon]

I agree.  Raven Guard are well-known for their post-battle analysis.  A humble man, is a rich man, is a man who can learn.  There is food for thought in this game.

 

My take away:

Eviscerators - they are already being panned around here, and although one game does not make the rule, the armchair general discussion seems supported by experience.

Assault Marines - I'm leaning to agree that one should not "all-comer" these guys.  Use them against infantry.