First game I played my Imperial Fists against my mate's (let's call him Tom) Scion list with an imperial knight. He had a knight with gauntlet and gatling cannon, 3 scion squads with meltaguns in Tauroxes and a command squad in a Taurox. Two of the trucks had gatling guns and 2 had missile launchers. Scions are pretty much glass cannons. Their lasguns are STR3 but AP3 and their trucks put out a tonne of high strength shots but only have 11/10/10. The knight is a knight. The gauntlet is fun but he did get a chance to use it this game.
We playing on a cities of death table but using objective markers. The mission was the one where you can score each other's 'secure objective x' cards. He deployed just his knight. The scions have a rule where they all come in from reserves together, which must be great in apocalypse games with jets but here it was a bad call and he considered it a mistake later. Incidentally, does anyone else feel like GW is almost entirely geared towards apocalypse nowadays?
I deployed my rocket launcher squad and lascannon squad up top of a building from where they could see everything. I deployed the cannon on the ground floor to secure an objective there and my techmarine bolstered the building for a 3+ cover save. This was a nasty firebase. My Rhinos took the flanks and my Sternguard and Terminators were in reserve. I had first turn so I dropped my pod in the middle of the table and went to claim an objective in cover with the Sternguard. The devastators took 4 hull points off the Knight. He was sorry he forgot the Fists have tank hunter. Tank hunter is so broke.
The Knight was ineffectual in shooting against my devastators as I went to ground for a 2+ with the lascannon squad. He took a wound off my nearby Rhino with his autocannon and his meltagun boomed the other one. A grav cannon got out.
My turn I dropped the night to 1 and my terminators arrived off the locator beacon on the pod to get another objective. I was wracking up points here thanks to both of us drawing a lot of draw objective x cards.
His turn he failed to charge my Rhino with his knight, which was sad because he could have thrown it at my devastators using his gauntlet and done hilarious damage. His scions arrived and hurt my terminators pretty bad, killing 3 as well as killing the tactical squad whose Rhino had exploded. I popped one Taurox with rockets and special ammunitioned the men inside, who broke and ran. The other taurox ate power fist. Lysander hung back to score but he would get into the action soon. My lascannons put down the knight.
To cut a long story short, He couldn't touch my devastators who kept blowing stuff up. My tacticals died but I had a big lead on objectives and Lysander collected a punch more murdering things in close combat. I ended up winning pretty comfortably and we called it at the bottom of 5 (a pattern we repeated for all 3 games).
Lessons: tank hunters is the bomb, especially if you can give your devastators line of site. The locator beacon is 10 points well spent to give the terminators a safe drop. It also means that if people come after my sternguard Lysander will have something to punch and slingshot off. Lysander is a huge threat multiplier for terminators because he can tank wounds for them and save your power fists. The grav-cannon is great but I have to be safe with the Rhinos otherwise I don't have much to claim midfield objectives with. This list can be hurt by smart objective placement in the early game because my backfield is static and I don't have much in the middle if my sternguard and terminators drop downrange.
Game 2 he played a dark angels battle company against my also strong but not that strong Scars/Fists list. I got beat but only by 4 points in the end (though next turn I would have been tabled) but it wasn't close. I was hanging on and constantly focused on scoring. Only the death star saved the day. He just had so many units that I couldn't outflank and kill isolated units. He would immediately have 2 razorbacks full of dudes over there to hurt my bike squad and pop my Rhino. His drop pods also meant that I couldn't hide my devastator squad and scouts on the early turns and pop a few razorbacks for free. Given that the dark angels version of the battle company is one of the weakest I think match underlines the formation's power to me, but it also gave me the feeling that my list is indeed very strong. I don't know whether I should take it to the Con. I will keep thinking.
Game 3 was my second game with blood angels against his Tyranids. His list was a flyrant with devourers, the swarmlord, a toxicrene, 3 venomthropes, 30 gants, 3 neurothropes (so good against marines) and the lictor/leaper formation. It was a bloodbath and I ate it bad, though in large part because of horrific errors related to me being very inexperienced with assault armies.
We were playing contact lost (draw cards equal to objectives you control). I just went for the bum rush and did get off a nice second turn charge with my command squad and the death company, both at full strength. Unfortunately I hadn't really understood the implications of his gaunt wall and I declared charges in the wrong order, so my Librarian and Dante didn't reach combat with the Toxicrene and then one of my death company squads failed a 4" charge. His neurothropes then deleted that squad and Dante took a beating from the swarmlord. In exchange my command squad crushed some gants. Oh no! My land speeders were remarkably good at claiming objectives and being a nusance until his lictors started arriving and killing them to claim the objectives in turn. My mate's tyranid list is really quite good for Maelstrom at the Con level. The Crene and Swarmlord do great area denial in the middle while the flyrant goes around being a nuisance and the lictors score objectives. The venomthropes make you have to go to him.
The main lesson I took from this game is that I am not ready to bring blood angels to a tournament. They are a very finesse list because you rely on deep strikes, getting charges off and sub-par units. If you aren't on the charge then all your elite units are basically just assault marines. Dante is a monster but he can only take on other dedicated assault specialists if he is charging and can only take on a monster like the Swarmlord if he has full support (needing 5s to hit is painful, even with master-crafted). The death company is quite fragile because they don't have jink and landing them in cover is risky. Land speeders are great with descent of Angels but you need a lot of them, which isn't really possible unless you're bringing speeder storms as well, and then you start to go dangerously low on bodies. Predators are just total garbage - don't bother. In the future I think I'm going to run something like
Dante
Librarian
Death Company (10)
Command Squad
Scouts (5) with Cc weapons and land speeder storm with flamer
Scouts (5) with Cc weapons land speeder storm with flamer
Land speeder with 2 multi melta
Land speeder with 2 multi-melta
Land Speeder with 2 multi melta
That's the core. I don't know what else to bring. A storm Raven is okay but the transport is never worth it and it just doesn't have enough Daka. Some scouts with grav guns on the sergeant would be useful. I think you just really need allies to make this work
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