Lessons from 1500 point Maelstrom games

This weekend it was raining so my usual Sunday afternoon tennis sessions were cancelled, which meant I could play twice as much Warhammer! So I had two games at 1500 point Maelstrom. The first was against Chaos Space Marines, where I won in a slaughterfest. The second was against Eldar, where I lost in a slaughterfest. The Eldar guy is probably the best player in our club, and he uses some unusual stuff (e.g. shadoweavers and vipers). I learnt some things

In the CSM game we played mission three - tactical escalation. A few things to note about tactical escalation:
1. Each turn you draw up to the turn number of tactical objective cards. So on turn 2 you have 2 objectives in hand at the start of the turn, on turn 5 it's 5 cards. This means that you can quite safely spend the first two turns getting on top of the game and focus on killing your opponent before swapping your attention to objectives in the late game.
2. If you play by the book, which we do, the mission uses short board edges, so assault armies have a lot of ground to cover.

We played on a desert board again, lots of small bits of LOS terrain but also plenty of open ground. I put objectives into open ground. In the first game I managed to get them all concentrated into the midfield and my opponent's deployment zone, which is what I want. In the second game my opponent placed his in the deployment zones, which is annoying for me because I don't leave units at home.

First Game:

My List:
(IH) Chapter Master w/fist, artificer armour, storm shield, bike
(WS) Khan w/bike

(WS) Bikes (5) w/ 2 grav guns and a veteran sergeant with a power fist
(WS) Bikes (4) w/ 2 grav guns, a combi grav gun and an attack bike with a multimelta
(WS) Bikes (4) w/ 2 grav guns, a combi grav gun and an attack bike with a multimelta
(IH) Tactical Squad (10) w/Rhino, meltagun, combi-melta
(IH) Tactical Squad (10) w/Drop Pod, meltagun, combi-melta

(IH) Thunderfire Cannon
(IH) Storm Talon w/Skyhammer

His List:
Abbadon
6 terminators
Chaos Sorcerer
8 plague marines in a Rhino with close combat weapons
10 cultists
10 cultists
10 Chaos Space Marines with boltguns and 2 cc weapons
Defiler with battlecannon, autocannon, heavy flamer
Helldrake with baleflamer
obliterator

I got first turn and scouted everything up. I needed to score objective 6, which his cultists were standing on (I  think cultists should almost always be left in reserve if there is a backfield objective because they are made of paper). I dropped the pod nearby so that it gave cover to my bikes as they drove through. The marines got out and blasted the cultists. My thunderfire blasted the cultists. My pseudo command squad came through and boltered them some more so almost both squads were dead and the ones within 3" of the objective were dead. My last squad turbo boosted onto the objective, which was 18" away from any of his units so not rapid fire reprisal (though they did cop a plasma cannon template). My other bike squad boosted behind some rocks ready to meltagun his defiler next turn. My Rhino drove up.

His turn he did some ineffectual shooting, though his battle cannon managed to kill some tactical marines.

My turn my talon came on and all the grav-guns came to town and slaughtered a lot of stuff. His CSM squad got destroyed by the command squad. I killed his obliterator. I fired my talon into his plague marines instead of his Rhino, which I think was a mistake, but in hindsight it proved useful because it meant I could easily get big game hunter in a later turn. My 4 meltaguns and a krak grenade firing at point blank failed to explode his defiler, which still had 2 hull points left even after I charged and threw another 5 krak grenades at it.

His turn his drake came on and vector struck my power fist sergeant, but then only managed to kill a chump and put a wound on an attack bike with his baleflamer. T5 makes a big difference. Abaddon deep striked off the board and he rolled a 3, which meant that I got to place the squad wherever I wanted. In a tournament I would have placed it in my back corner, but as that would have been boring I placed them so they couldn't rapid fire anything but were otherwise near the thick of things on the edge of the board edge they scattered off. They shot at my surviving tactical marines from the drop pod and killed them. The plague marines assaulted the command squad and we trade blows. My lads died and so did his. I hit and ran out with Khan and the chapter master, leaving 4 plague marines. The defiler killed another two meltagunners but they held moral and then failed to hit and run out. Lame!

I charged the defiler with the Chapter Master and the plague marines with Khan. I backed up the bike squad and did large wounds to Abbadon's squad. My Rhino was running around scoring objectives in the backfield. My Chapter master failed to kill the defiler and it ate my last two bikes who took wounds so the chapter master wouldn't have to risk being instant killed (that's what happens when you don't have a shield eternal). Khan killed a plague marine. Next turn the same thing happened but he took two wounds, so I hit and ran him out and charged the last two cultists with him. He was killed by a stray shot from a plague marines bolt pistol.

His Helldrake failed to kill my thunderfire cannon. My second tactical squad disembarked to kill his Rhino and then got burnt to shit by the helldrake. Perhaps an oversight on my part as I was way up on VP anyway. My chapter master and his defiler killed each other. Abaddon failed to make his charge after I overwatched his last two terminators. He died next turn having done nothing. Always take land Raiders for terminators kids.  

The game ended shortly after, on turn 5. I had a tonne of VP but not many units. He had a helldrake and 2 plague marines, and maybe 2 VP. So I won by a lot.

Lessons from game 1:
- While krak grenades are amazing they don't work so well against anything above armour 10. Armour 12 is a bridge too far.
- Blowing stuff up with meltaguns is nowhere near as reliable as it used to be, especially if you can't reroll to hit or some such (sometimes I miss playing Ultramarines).
- If I don't run White Scar Rhinos then I think the drop pod is a good addition as it allows for some forward  cover and a distraction.
- Plague Marines are tough. I always need to remember that.

GAME 2 vs. Eldar

We played the same mission - draw cards up to the turn number, short table edges.

His Army:
Farseer on Jetbike
6 Shining Speers with an exarch
10 Dire Avengers
10 Dire Avengers
3 heavy support platform w/ shadoweavers (like a thunderfire cannon with rending)
1 Doomweaver (the tank)
10 warp spiders
3 jetbikes
3 jetbikes
1 Vyper
5 dark reapers in a
1 Bunker with ammo store

I'm probably off on a few things with his list, but that's pretty close.

I went second and made the critical mistake of not scouting. I deployed to one flank which was smart, but then I should have just driven everything forward. On a long table edges game I think you can effectively decline to scout because you can still easily drive into grav-gun range on turn 2 and that way you suffer very little shooting, but on short table edges you need to cover the distance to get to mid-field, especially against Eldar who just constantly run away and outflank. I made another mistake of dropping my pod on the other flank to kill the doomweaver, which was silly because 2 meltaguns just aren't going to cut it. If I keep the pod I think I'm going to swap to plasma guns and go after elite units rather than tanks with that squad. I should have dropped it on the other side between his dire avengers (who were threatening my bikes as they came forward) and his shadow-weavers and just toasted the weavers, which caused me a lot of pain in the game. This would have given him a choice about who to take on with the avengers. If he went for the tactical squad then the bikes would have arrived largely unharmed, with any shooting soaked by the commander. Having decline both of these smart tactical moves most of my guys just died making their way across the board thanks to long range shooting from vypers, charges from the spears, the various weaver templates and a squad of deep striking warp spiders. It isn't a pretty sight.

I will put a small part of my loss down to lack of experience playing marines vs. eldar. Eldar will shoot the shit out of you. Their guns laugh at power armour and toughness 5. But in close combat they aren't much. Some of their units can hit and run though, or flee 3D6, which is a pain. In any case, next time I play against the Eldar I'm going to use my Chapter Master as a meat shield to get everyone else up close and then try to spend as much time in Combat as possible.