His Necron army had several foot units, one of which couldn't get back in its transport. If his barge moves its gun becomes a bit meh. His jetbikes are fast but they will die as soon as I shoot at them with anything that isn't scouts. That leaves his mini-barge, which is also a bit flimsy once I get around the front armour. Taking these factors into consideration, I need to put objectives out in the open. It will take his OS units ages to get there on foot and if he captures such objectives with other units they will expose their rear armour or flimsy bodies.
Consider some other benefits of objectives in the open derived from the nature of my army (or any bike army for that matter). I have lots of low-ap shots and speed. I want to minimise his use of cover saves and maximise the amount of time he has to spend between LOS blocking terrain features. I can jump between such features and stand on an objective for just the one turn that I need it before bailing back into LOS cover. My armour saves are better than cover saves and my bikes carry a 3++ around with them when necessary (when the CM isn't there to tank). If he's in open ground I can shoot the shit out of him while staying out of rapid fire and charge range. Ergo: I don't need cover, he does.
So the take away point is - minimise your opponent's cover and place objectives so that foot units spend at least one turn standing out in the open if they want to grab an objective.
One other thing that I dwelt on was placing objectives for scouts and the thunderfire cannon. These guys worked great as a team in 6th edition - the thunderfire bolsters a ruin and both squads encamp in it - the thunderfire gets a 3+ cover save and the scouts get a 2+ cover save (because of camo-cloaks) and can score the objective there. This dynamic often prompted me to put objectives in my deployment zone in 6th. But now that the thunderfire can score the scouts seem a bit redundant. They can grab a relic or midfield objective turn 1 with infiltrate, but then they are very likely to die immediately. So I'm thinking I need to swap the command squad for an extra scoring bike squad (with a fist on a veteran sergeant to compensate for the loss of melta-bombs) and use the leftover points to turn the scout squad into a combat squad with a Rhino. Rhinos can retreat quite effectively in later turns once they have lost hull points to hold objectives and can also do wonderful things with blocking LOS and obstructing movement. This set up would net me an additional tough OS, fast OS unit (the Rhino) and give me no reason to place objectives anywhere other than out in the open in the midfield.
So now I have (from my last post):
COMBINED ARMS DETACHMENT (Iron Hands)
Chapter Master w/bike, artificer armour, shield eternal, power fist, digital weapons
Tactical Squad (10) w/Rhino, meltagun, combi-melta
Tactical Squad (5) w/Rhino, meltagun, combi-melta
Thunderfire Cannon
Storm Talon w/ Skyhammer Missile Launcher
ALLIED DETACHMENT (White Scars)
Khan w/bike
Bikes (5) w/grav gun x2, combi-grav, veteran sergeant, power fist
Bikes (4) w/grav gun x2, combi grav, attack bike with mult-melta
bikes (4) w/grav gun x2, combi-grav, attack bike with multi-melta
1498 points
Some options/thoughts
* The 5 man squad operates just like the command squad. Same number of bodies, a little less toughness because of the loss of the apothecary, similar level of tank-busting CC because of the fist (though now cannot take on Land Raiders/Super Heavies), similar level of killing in CC because of the fist (lose 4 attacks) but gain strength 8 AP 2) and a similar number of grav-gun shots. This squad will drive forward, shoot some stuff (orbital and grav-guns), then split into two and charge two different targets, potentially three targets if Khan has something suitable nearby (like a scout/combat squad or some such).
* Would be nice to get veteran sergeants into the other two bike squads as I don't have a company standard to give everyone re-rolls to morale (fleeing objectives with bikes is a bit annoying). Only place I can see points though is taking the meltaguns out of the MSU squad, which seems like a bad idea (or dropping the talon for another Thunderfire).
* Might be worth running this all White Scars. My guys are painted differently, so the current set up is mostly for fluff (though the IWND FNP commander gives a bit more durability to the command squad sans apothecary). I have found scouting Rhinos to be very useful for screening bikes on turn 1 and hit-and-run tactical squads to be nothing short of amazing. IWND on Rhinos and 6+ on tacticals ain't that hot. They still die to all the stuff that kills them at the moment.
More playtesting!
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