DEMI-COMPANY - White Scars
Kahn on bike
Command squad on bikes with 4 grav guns and an apothecary
Tactical squad (10) in Rhino with flamer and combi-flamer
Tactical squad (10) in Rhino with flamer and combi-flamer
Tactical squad (5) in Razorback with plasma cannon
Bikes (4) with meltagun x2, combi-melta, attack bike with multi-melta
Devastator Centurions with lascannons and rocket launchers
COMMAND DETACHMENT
Chapter Master with bike, artificer armour, storm shield and power fist
First, some notes on the list. The demi-company has nice bonuses but I don't think this list makes good use of them. The tactical doctrine is a bit moot because most of my guns are twin-linked already (lascannons, bike bolters, razorback bolters). It helps the melta a bit and the grav but it's meh. The assault doctrine is similarly only useful for when the command squad charges and I almost never get to use the devastator doctrine before the cents are dead. Objective secured is similarly nice but the bikes and tacticals (the bulk of the list) would have it anyway and everytime I've used Khan or the CM to capture objectives they have killed everything standing on them beforehand, so they don't need ob-sec. I will keep playing around with it.
Lascannon centurions are dead average. I think predators and regular devastators would be better unless you can take Imperial Fists tactics, in which case regular devastators (2 squads for 280 points 4 lascannons and 4 rocket launchers and ablative wound) are much better. I find they take a hull point and a wound off here and there, but mostly they just slowly die as my opponent concentrates fire on them. They are fairly robust but without an invuln save there is a lot of stuff that knocks them over (notably plasma guns). They just don't have enough dakka for the points. I'm going to swap to grav cannons, which makes me sad but that will make my list WYSIWYG, so at least that's a plus. The best option I think would be to swap them for a thunderfire cannon and a librarian, but then I would have to take a CAD and I don't want to do that. A bit more playtested and we will see - maybe I will take a devastator squad and pump up the third tactical squad.
Speaking of tactical squads, razorbacks are just so shit. Unless you are running a battle company (perhaps even then), a rhino with a heavy weapon firing out the hatch (which you can buy for the 20 point differential) is so much better. Indeed, with grav-cannons I think it is the way to run tactical squads in 7th edition. Historically, the problem with tactical squads is that they don't have enough killing power, but with a grav gun and grav cannon firing out a hatch, especially with a scout move to mid-field, suddenly they are quite good. A bit too good for this tournament I think.
The flamers have been working well. People always seem a little surprised when my combat squad puts 7 wounds on their infantry. Casualties usually aren't high because there is no AP but I find it the most points effective way to use these guys other than going full grav. You get great results when people pop your Rhino using melta or krak grenades. I find my combat squads are mostly just taking objectives and trying not to die (scouts would be better but I'm running a mediocre company). With flamers they become effective at moving other such units off objectives, For example, I managed to nail some rangers in one game.
White scars are even more amazing in 7th edition than before. The re-roll run makes you fabulous at scoring objectives. The Centurions don't get stuck in combat because you have hit & run, and outflank with the bikes and tactical squads is your break and butter. Let's turn to that now with some battle reports.
Against Eldar we were playing tactical escalation (draw up to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 etc cards), which uses short table edges (hammer and anvil). In this scenario the way to play my list (unless the opponent has pods) is to put everything into reserve except the Centurions and maybe a Razorback in case you draw a back-field objective. Your opponent can't reach you to kill you dudes and then you can outflank your bikes to attack isolated units and your Rhinos to capture objectives as you start to draw a lot of cards. I followed this tactic in this game but didn't commit to it. My opponent's list was quite unusual:
Autarch on bike with some shining speers
3 full squads of dire avengers on foot that started in reserve
a squad of warp spiders
A guardian squad full of shadow weavers
A doom weaver
Squad of reapers in a bunker (real nasty against my bikes because they ignore jink)
5 rangers
It is an odd Eldar army because it turtles. It has the barrage weapons and reapers (hard to hurt in their bunker) to hurt you downrange and the dire avengers smoke anything that comes close. Meanwhile the speers outflank and the spiders drop in deep to grab objectives. I was a bit fixated on using scout moves to get close to the midfield objectives from the beginning, not realising that the mission meant that I was unlikely to be drawing any of those objectives in the early turns. I ended up losing tactical squads to lame reaper fire and barrage. My bikes did a good job but got slowly wittled down. Eldar pseudo rending really punishes marines. In hindsight, I think deploying the Centurions and the razorback squad while outflanking everything else would have been the go. I have to play very conservatively with this list against everyone but guard and tau, and even then.
Next game is againt Tau. Mission is contact lost (draw cards equal to number of objectives you control). This is the best mission for my list because I can scout forward onto most of the objectives and draw a tonne of cards, building an early lead that I can hopefully hold onto late with depleted but still mobile squads. He went first but I seized. Ouch. He had deployed refuse flank, but he had left his crisis and missile teams out on the edge rather than deep in the clump with the firewarriors. I was consequently able to pick them off with my first and second turn shooting with the bikes. After killing two crisis suits the remainder of the squad, including his commander, fled the board. Ouch. My tactical squads sat in their transports holding mid-field objectives. My chapter master passed 5 saves to neuter the riptides one big pie-shot and then my grav dusted it. I then slowly chewed through his army, holding five objectives to his one. I think the final score was something like 18-2.
Third game a close one against space wolves with some pods. His list was something like:
Wolf lord on wolf with wolf claw (wolf wolf wolf), artificer armour and storm shield
Rune priest with force axe ML2
5 thunderwolves with 3 storm shields and 2 thunder hammers
10 Grey hunters with fist, 2 meltas in pod
10 Grey hunters with fist, 2 plasma in pod
10 Grey hunters with axe, 2 plasma in pod
6 Long fans with 5 rocket launchers
Mission was regular maelstrom - draw three cards per turn, diagonal deployment. I knew from the get go that I would need to weather the pods and then I could capitalise on my mobility to win in the back-half. Surviving the pods was difficult though as I didn't have much of a chance to castle. I've also, funnily enough, never played against pods before, so I didn't really know how to castle. I left the bikes and an empty razorback in reserve. The Centurions sat in cover and were shielded by the Rhinos, which backed onto the cover to present front and side armour. The drop killed one Centurion and put a hull point on a Rhino. So far so good. One of my Rhinos tank shocked and fled the scene. The other tried to but was caught by the third pod and popped. Fortunately it proved enough of a distraction to my opponent that he sent his thunderwolves over there, leaving all my other units safe and sound down the other side of the table. My melta bikes came in an didn't do much to his long fans, who did as much damage in reply. I decided to focus on using them to capture objectives as their melta guns weren't doing the damage. My command squad then came on turn 3 and I played them quite conservatively, which proved favourable as they didn't take any casualties and killed a hunter squad (including the rune priest) and (over 3 turns) the remaining thunderwolves. I had enough transports left threatening to score and get linebreaker that he couldn't make perfect moves with his thunderwolves. Because I was conservative Khan managed to live and give up neither slay the warlord nor another objective he had to kill an independent character. On turn 5 I was winning by 1 thanks to linebreaker. On turn 6 I won by 3. Turn 7 I think I would have tabled him.
I don't actually have a lot of bodies in this list so it is critical that I play conservatively and play to the objectives. Scouts should be used to re-deploy to objectives or just to ruin your opponent's plans, rather than to get an alpha strike off. You use the melta and grav squads to score things like blood and guts and big game hunter, not to go trolling (though they can sometimes do that). Outflanking is the bomb and should be used as much as possible. Only exceptions are in contact lost and the draw downward mission (6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1), where you need everything on the table straight away to capture objectives. I suspect the key to the draw down mission for me will be keeping the chapter master alive to late game to avoid getting tabled as the other squads will die on suicidal scoring runs to objectives.
Next game I might try and replace the Centurions with a devastator squad full of rocket launchers and then put grav into the tactical squads (flamers into the razorback squad).
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