Escalation League army lists

Hola. Haven't posted much recently because I've had exams, then post-exam vacations and then the club was cancelled because the Australasian philosophy society needed the room - there must be hundreds of rooms at the university! Why ours?

Anyway, so I haven't been playing much either, so my thinking hasn't progressed much. Also, the next tournament I'm playing is a social tournament at 1500 points. Apparently, 1500 might be common in 7th edition because games apparently take longer. I wouldn't know because I've only played a half dozen games in the new format and all but one of them was at 500 points in our escalation league.


So at the moment I'm planning to run this for the tournament:

WHITE SCARS

Chapter master w/ thunder hammer, artificer armour, bike, shield eternal
Khan w/ bike
Command Squad w/ bikes, apothecary, grav-gun x4, melta bombs x4, storm shield x3

Tactical Squad (10) w/ Rhino, flamer, combi-flamer
Tactical Squad (10) w/Rhino, plasmagun, combi-plasma
Tactical Squad (10) w/Rhino, plasmagun, combi-plasma

Storm Talon with Skyhammer missile launcher
Storm Talon with Skyhammer missile launcher

It's a mini death star with a lot of objective secured scoring and some flyers. I want to test a few things over the course of the escalation league:

1. Whether death stars really are dead, even mini death stars
2. Whether the command squad is necessary. Four grav guns kills monstrous creatures much more consistently than 2 and a combi; similar sentiments for 4 melta bombs instead of one on a bike sergeant, but bikes are cheaper and scoring
3. Whether storm talons are right. They do anti-air, anti-infantry and anti-transport really well and can hunt down pesky backfield objective secured units in the late game. But they don't come on until turn 2 at the earliest, and I'm a bit worried that this list can't kill tanks. There are almost no flyers in my group, which means the talons have free reign, but also that they are a touch redundant. I wonder if Vindicators would be better. I will also be trying thunderfire cannons, legion of the damned, MOAR BIKES and predators to see what fits best. Oh, and autocannon dreadnoughts. I like blowing up transports.
4. Whether Deathwing works at all

With that in mind, I'm going to be trying the following lists over the coming weeks. We have 600 points this weekend:

600:
Captain
Bike Squad with grav-guns
tactical squad with plasma
thunderfire cannon

700:
Captain
Bike squad with grav-guns
scouts with sniper rifles
tactical squad with plasma
storm talon

800: (this week and 900 are the most interesting to me)
Captain
Bikes
Tactical w/ plasma
Tactical w/ plasma
Storm Talon

900:
Captain
Command Squad
tactical
tactical
storm talon

1000:
Chapter Master
Command Squad
Tactical
Tactical
Storm Talon

1100:
Chapter Master
Command Squad
Tactical Squad
Tactical Squad
Storm Talon
Thunderfire Cannon

1200:
Same
Predator

1300:
Belial
Terminator Squad (6) w/ Cyclone, Chainfist
Land Raider Crusader
Terminator Squad (5) w/cyclone
Land Raider Godhammer

1400:
Chapter Master
Khan
Command Squad
Tactical
Tactical
Tactical
Storm Talon
Legion of the damned