I played two games this weekend - one four-player 700 points each slaughterfest, and one 700 point game against an ork army. I was a bit disappointed not to get in a third game, but everyone wanted to play Infinity (I will probably start playing next time they begin a league).
The main tactical takeaway thoughts from the free-for-all were:
1. Going last is a big advantage in such games as you inevitably castle up and everyone ignores you. You can then come out for the scraps on a divided board and conquer all. That's what I did. Not much skill was involved. In fact, I was chastising myself for deploying such that my guys couldn't even get in the action on turn one, but that simply meant that people charged other units instead of me and I could clean up the crumbs.
2. If you charge a chaos dread with two close combat weapons, you will lose a biker and then comfortably kill it with krak grenades and your thunder hammer captain.
3. Thunderfire hammers are amazing in multiplayer games because you can fire into close combat. Was doing at least 15 wounds at a time.
4. Multiplayer games are fun but you have to be fairly liberal with the rules. We rolled off for turn order at the start of each turn, with play proceeding clockwise from the highest roll.
5. Psychers suck in multiplayer because there are many times more dispel dice.
The games against the orks was more interesting. His army (from memory and not knowing the Ork Dex):
Boss w/ power claw, boss pole, boss knob with power claw
10 choppa Boys w/ one big shoota, nob with power claw
10 Choppa boys w/ one big shoota, nob with power claw
15 Lootas
My army (White Scars):
Captain w/ bike, thunder hammer
Bikes (6) w/ grav-gun x2, combi-grav, veteran sergeant, melta-bombs
Tactical Squad (10) w/Rhino, combi-plasma, plasmagun
Scouts (5) w/sniper rifles and camo cloaks
Thunderfire Cannon
We played kill points with long board edges deployment. He got his two trucks about 6 inches from my lines before I'd had a turn, which actually didn't worry me all that much, but then I had some bad rolls. I set up in one corner behind some line of site terrain so his lootas couldn't effectively shoot at me once his trucks arrived. I figured I'd deal with the boyz before driving over to the lootas and chopping them up.
My thunderfire had to make three saves at 3+ on turn one, failed two and died :-(
I disembarked my tactical squad in front of the scouts and shot the plasma guns at the truck. I rolled two gets hot, killing my sergeant. The other managed a glance. The boltguns did nothing. I shot with the other combat squad and managed another glance. I got a third glance with either my captain, scouts or the Rhino and wrecked the thing, causing his boss and boys to disembark on my lines. Meanwhile my bike squad charged the second truck and wrecked it with krak grenades. The boyz disembarked. I was pretty disappointed not to get to shoot at all at his lads all standing around in big groups, but alas.
I charged the boss and his squad with my captain. I challenged, he accepted. I figured my Captain would die, but would take his boss with him as I only need to score one wound with 4 thunder hammer attacks at 3s to hit, 2s to wound and a hammer of wrath attack. Mathematically I should comfortably survive the attacks from the boys (note that challenges don't protect your characters unless you have other models in the fight as well) before getting to swing simultaneously with the boss. My tactical squad and scouts could then feasibly handle the leftover unit. Unfortunately, my captain had to take 5 saves from the choppas on 3+ and failed three of them, so he died, and then he was dead :-(
On his turn his lootas advanced because they couldn't see anything, and everything else charged. He killed two of my bikes in shooting and assault and my counterattack was solid. I hit and ran out. He killed one of my combat squads.
My turn I started by tank shocking his boss squad with my Rhino to force a morale test. 'Mob rule' now states that whenever orks fail morale they bash each other instead of running. Tank shock can thus potentially do a bit of damage at no loss to you because the storm bolter is 360 degrees fire. He passed his morale check.
I unloaded my bolt pistols and charged. Never, ever rapid fire against orks. You get the same number of hits overall at the same strength but sacrifice AP on the close combat attacks (they get a 6+, boo hoo); in return, the Orks get less hits and have to attack at I3 S3, which sucks for them. My bikes also shot and charged at the boss' unit.
Meanwhile my techmarine fired his flamer at the boys in front of him and then charged, but he died to a power claw without doing any damage. If he'd survived a turn it would have been a big tempo boost.
The scouts failed the charge range of 7 because they were moving through difficult terrain (they were five inches away). The lads did a decent job, killing 4 boyz and taking no wounds, but then the nob crumped three of them. My bikes killed the warboss with their hammer of wrath hits (forge that narrative!) but then only killed his nob despite eleven attacks. He passed his morale check, which was to become a theme.
On his turn his nob killed two of my bikes, his boys did bugger all and his other squad managed to get stuck into my scouts, killing two of them. I hit and ran from all encounters. Throughout the evening I rolled a four on every single one of my hit and run initiative checks. Weird.
My turn I was feeling pretty desperate. I tank shocked him again. He passed the morale check. I unloaded bolt pistols and bike guns and charged the orks again. Some damage was done. If I recall correctly I wiped one of his mobs this turn but lost bikes to claws.
Fast forward to the end because that's what I remember (I think somewhere along the line he killed my bikes with his looters). He had a lone nob standing in my deployment zone staring down some scouts. I turbo boosted my Rhino into his deployment zone to get linebreaker, which Rhinos can now do because they are scoring. I tried to kill that nob with my remaining 6 bolter shots but failed. Didn't even do a wound. The game was a draw at 9-all.
Some thoughts:
1. Lootas aren't that scary if you have power armour. They will smoke your Rhinos though. One of my few lucky moments was when he only put 2 hull points on my Rhino.
2. Space marines can take orks, as they should given they cost more than twice as much. Don't be afraid of charging a mob, but do fear that nob. Hopefully your opponent leaves his power claw exposed and you can charge it directly.
3. Losing the thunderfire sucked. I think I would have won easily had that not happened (assuming the shot didn't scatter too much, but I had line of sight and BS4). I would have thinned one of his squads substantially because of how bunched up it was after the trucks got wrecked.
4. Losing the captain also sucked, but I could hack that. If he hadn't died those hammer of wrath attacks would have ate that squad of boyz.
5. THE BIG ONE: Space marines really struggle to kill transports. I've reflected on this before with reference to killing wave serpents. Plasma guns from tactical squads don't really cut it, even against paltry armour ten. Krak grenades always work, but then you are left to bear the brunt of the contents, which is never pretty even if it's just ten guardsmen. The problem is simple weight of fire. Marines are all about quality over quantity. We can kill tanks easily with melta-bombs, but tanks cost a lot of points and don't spill a unit onto the board. Having to charge a truck with a melta-bomb is mega-lame.
What are some units that can kill transports effectively: stormtalons, legion of the damned, sternguard, lascannon predators, centurion and regular devastator squads, autocannon dreadnoughts.
Stormtalons and legion don't come in until turn 2, but which point Ork transports have already done their job, and other transports have at least secured board position. In the case of legion, 155 points to pop a 50 point model and then be left stranded isn't really worth it. Sternguard do a good job because one combat squad can melta/plasma the tank and then the other can 2+ wound the contents with rapid fire. But then you've also got a 300+ point unit standing around. Granted Sternguard can be pretty nasty firing 24 and hugging terrain. I would be satisfied with this in a drop pod list, but not the scars list I'm running. Lascannon predators are too expensive and die too easily. Wave serpents will find that side armour no problemo. I have a soft spot for autocannon dreadnoughts, but they die horribly to krak grenades in close combat and any dedicated anti-tank will make short work of them, so they are really only good against Ork trucks, and even then the lootas will make you pay. Centurion squads are too expensive and don't gel well with any 7th edition list I've thought of. Ditto for devastators (Ultramarines tactical spam with Marneus blows now that ATSKNF doesn't grant free movement).
That leaves tactical responses, upon which I will ponder...
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