Spring Fling Tournament: Final Thoughts

 At the end of the day, it was an Ork player that ended up with the most points. He had a biker heavy army with a Gorkanaut, but I'm afraid I don't know much about his army beyond that. It's also worth noting that the Genestealer Cult went undefeated throughout the day. That is a seriously strong list, and I look forward to playing it again and trying to figure out how to combat it.

As for my army, I definitely need to play it more if I want to be competitive at all. Even so, I realized there were a few changes I need to make to the list.

1) Since the Battle Demi-Company doesn't allow the Captain to be upgraded to a Chapter Master, I noticed that my Command squad lost a lot of its power. It absolutely needs a Chaplain's re-rolls to maximize the impact of its relatively small number of strong attacks. In addition, I don't think the Shield Eternal is worth it on a Captain. With only 3 wounds, he's easy enough to kill without Instant Death, and with T5 from the bike, relatively few things can instakill him.

2) I think 2 Devastator squads was overkill, at least at 1,500 points. I often found myself without high value targets to shoot at after the first turn. Also, the flakk missiles are very expensive and not worthwhile unless you're facing a lot of flyers (which I didn't).

3) I still enjoy having all of the Tactical squad bodies on the field. It's great for target saturation and board control. I think I'm going to switch the flamers to something with better AP. In the Sternhammer Strike Force, the re-rolls on bolters are a strong enough defense on overwatch that I can drop the flamers without much loss. Some melta or plasma would be very helpful in dealing with harder targets, especially if I'm dropping one of my Devastator squads.


Based on all that, here's my revised list:

Battle Demi-Company

Captain w/ bike, power fist, storm shield, artificer armor = 170
Command squad w/ bikes, Apothecary, 4 storm shields, 2 power fists = 230
10 Tactical Marines w/ meltagun, heavy bolter, Rhino w/ dozer blades = 200
10 Tactical Marines w/ meltagun, heavy bolter, Rhino w/ dozer blades = 200
10 Tactical Marines w/ flamer, heavy bolter, Rhino w/ dozer blades = 195
Land Speeder w/ heavy bolter = 45
5 Devastator Marines w/ 4 lascannons = 150

Command
Chaplain w/ bike = 110

Ordnance
Thunderfire Cannon = 100
Thunderfire Cannon = 100

At the cost of the missile Devastators, some durability on the Captain, and the heavier armament on the Land Speeder, I pick up much more hitting power on the Command squad, some melta on the Tacticals, and an extra Thunderfire Cannon to add some redundancy (which I desperately missed during the tournament).

Thoughts?