Fighting Angron

In my practice game yesterday I played against a CSM 30K list featuring Angron and 4 tactical squads. Each tactical squad has an apothecary - that's something unique to Heresy Era World Eaters. It's kind of cool in that it let's chaos play the way Games Workshop seems to think they should - as a horde of infantry running at the enemy lines. No tanks, no support planes, just bodies. The apothecaries mean all the tactical marines are 3+/5+FNP, which is pretty tough. Angron is a total beast. I7, STR9 on the charge, AP2, fleet, 6 attacks plus rage or something like that, eternal warrior, 5 wounds. His only weakness if that he's 3+/4++, so he needs some ablative wounds about the place.

Not so many lessons

I played a game this week but it was a bit uneventful. It was against a lovely guy who I've played about a half dozen times now and he's just really bad at playing the game. Amazing painter, very poor general. I suppose those things do tend to go together. His list has improved over the months and I even brought a fairly toned down list, but it was a slaughter.

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

Lessons from 1500 vs. Astra Militarum

Got in a 1500 point Maelstrom game over the weekend against what I imagine is a fairy conventional Astra Militarum Army. I won fairly convincingly, but it may have been because my army is cheese and Astra Militarum is one of the weaker codexes. I also thought marines was not a great match up because you get armour saves against just about everything and his guardsman need 4s to hit and 6s to wound against bikes.

Anyway, on to the analysis:

Some more lessons - placing objectives

I spent more time thinking about why I lost my game on Sunday and I realised that a big issue was that I had not placed my objectives to suit my army and hamper his.

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.

Lessons week 3

So we were up to 900 points last night but since the tournament is not so far away and the player's pack is now out, I managed to secure an opponent for a 1500 point Maelstrom game last night. My first time playing Maelstrom, and also my first time playing against Necrons. An interesting game. Very close - I lost by 2 points - but I can't quite figure out where I went wrong, other than some shocking rolling on turn 2.