I attended a four round local tournament yesterday (1500 points) and fielded the following Crimson Fists drop pod army:
Pedro Kantor
5x tactical Marine - plasma gun
Sergeant - combi-plasma gun
Drop Pod #1
5x tactical Marine - plasma gun
Sergeant - combi-plasma gun
Drop Pod #2
6x tactical Marine - plasma gun
Sergeant - combi-plasma gun
Drop Pod #3
4x Sternguard - 3x combi-grav & heavy flamer
Sergeant - 2x grav pistol
Drop Pod #4
4x Sternguard - 3x combi-meltagun & heavy flamer
Sergeant - combi-meltagun
Drop Pod #5
4x Sternguard - plasma gun
Sergeant
Drop Pod #6
4x Devastator - 4x missile launcher
Sergeant
Drop Pod #7
I decided to run pure Crimson Fists (Imperial Fists Chapter Tactics) since allies were not allowed and I wanted to max out on scoring units. Pedro Kantor adds some really nice perks to the army such as Preferred Enemy-Orks and makes Sternguard count as scoring, plus a +1A bubble if within 12" of Pedro. I still much prefer Ultramarines but thought this list was better suited for 1500 points and as it turned out two of my opponents were running Orks... Heh !
Each mission had two objectives—you totaled the victory points from the two to determine the winner plus there was bonus points for First Blood (or Last Blood), Slay the Warlord and Line Breaker. I made a mental error thinking that the first objective was the primary win condition and the second objective a tie breaker in case there was a draw on the primary... Oh well, that's how we learn. : (
I have only played two games so far going into this tournament so I was bound to make a few mistakes. I was looking forward to playing some different armies and gain more tactical insight into fielding a pure drop pod army... To this end I was very successful.
The first game was versus Orks. Four pods coming down the first turn did a lot of damage to wit my opponent could never really recovered. This was then followed up by the three remaining drop pods coming in the second turn which was the proverbial nail in the coffin.
The second game was versus a solid daemon army featuring a Lord of Change, daemonettes (x2), Horrors (x2), a big block of Flesh Hounds, Tzneetch Herald attached to Screamers and a Soul a Grinder with the torrent flamer... So all in all a very solid daemon list. My plan was play to the mission, focusing on killing enemy scoring units and holding more objectives. We were only able to play three turns and I won on the secondary objective holding my opponent's Emperor's Will objective marker. I was able to destroy both squads of Horrors and take one daemonette squad down to a single model. I used the drop pods to screen out the Flesh Hounds which kept them at bay a couple turns. It was a tough game but focusing on the objectives won it for me.
I was on the top table going into the third game versus Imperial Guard. This is the game where not understanding how the scoring for objectives actually worked hurt me. It was a very close game decided by one point at the end. My opponent had a blob behind an Aegis Defense Line with two Basilisks and a Manticore parked back there, two Vendettas and a Valkyrie plus some veteran squads and a platoon command squad to ride in the flyers. The first objective was the Relic while the second was Big Guns Never Tire (BGNT). Towards the end of the game I had some really bad luck with Pedro failing four Look Out Sirs and then failing his fourth Iron Halo save from a Basilisk round direct hit. I also lost all five Devastators (in cover) from one Basilisk round plus it destroyed their drop pod—they were sitting on an uncontested BGNT objective marker too... Ouch! I took the Relic easily enough and could have taken one of the BGNT objective markers for the win but a tactical squad darting out for a secondary objective marker came up a couple inches short. The Sternguard were absolutely brilliant... They brought the blob down to five or less models to contest a BGNT objective marker and destroyed one of the two Basilisks as well. Like I said it was a very close game. It only went four turns and I think if there had been a fifth turn I could have won.
The final game was versus Orks again... Two Weird Boyz, two 30 man squads of Shootah Boyz, three dakkajets, three squads of Lootaz and an Aegis Defense Line with a comms relay... So only two scoring units... But unfortunately for me one of the two objectives was The Scouring so actually five Ork scoring units. I really thought I had the advantage going into the game but made a couple of silly mistakes. For example I used two of the Sternguard squads to check his Lootaz (hiding behind a big piece of impassable terrain and untargetable by the dakkajets... I should have used them to hold the objectives in my deployment zone as they would have hands down beat the two teleporting Shootah Boyz squads. My opponent rolled for 'ere We Go for both Weird Boyz to start the second turn, which lead to a couple of very long protracted combats that lasted the entire game (four turns again). I also left my Devastators out to dry... I have found Devs to be an excellent unit but they didn't do anything productive the last two games.
So 2-2 the first time out... Not bad and I learned a lot. That's what it's all about.