Tuesday night I played against the ineffable Col. Dracus and his Chaos Marines. He's already written his version of the report here, but I have pictures! I took my nids and we decided to play a test game of this rumored PDF. We played 1250 points because we knew we'd have to look up a ton of things. Here's some pictures of the game, and what I learned. I took the pictures on my 3DS so excuse the blurriness.
We played a standard mission type. I figured I would dominate the objectives game with my masses of troops choices. I should have put the spawned Termagants over by the third objective. It wouldn't have made a difference in this game, but in a closer game it could have made the difference.
He massed up prepared to advance.
My Trygon arrived via deep strike and was shot by the Berserkers. It took two wounds and charged them in the same turn.
...aaaaand then it took a powerfist to the knee. Trygons don't even have knees!
The Berserkers got killed by my T-Fex and Prime, but then they killed the Fex and the Prime got shot to death. I almost got tabled, but I still had a lot of objective points. You can see the lone Termagant hiding behind the hill.
In the end, I lost. For most of the game I was in the lead on objective points, but the fact that at the end you get double what you currently hold is what did me in. If that hadn't done it, the kill points would have. We didn't even total them up, but I'm quite sure he won on those.
Here's what I learned:
*Tyrannofexes can now hit stationary tanks on a 2+. I immobilized his Rhino on the first turn. It would have been a wreck, but the -1 modifier for being a tank saved it.
*Going first is important. The opponent hasn't moved yet so you get a bonus to shooting. Night Fight will be a commonly selected stratagem for those going second.
*Cover only being a 5+ is rough. Sometimes I could get the 4+ by having less than half the squad visible, but it means a lot more casualties.
*Having your own MCs get shot up easier isn't good. Strategies are going to have to change, I think the missile launcher will still be king.
*Dropping the Doom into the middle of a ton of troops isn't a good idea when they can use defensive fire. If you're going to drop him he has to be supported. *Post Edit: The Mycetic Spore is immune to defensive fire. The Doom would have been alive.
*Having more control of your reserves is excellent. I loved being able to pick where my Genestealers came in (I had them outflank).
I also learned that the rules need some serious editing and polishing. I like them and I like the ideas that are taking place here. If this is a fake, can we get the guy who wrote them to publish his own rule system?