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So this past weekend I got a chance to go to the St Valentines Massacre over at Media, PA. It was an 1850 tourney, and with me not having painted anything new for a year I pulled out the Deathwing again. Same kind of list I have been running for a bit now, (since the FAQ made my models work!) so at least I know what they do.

Belial (THSS)
5 Deathwing squads, 4 with THSS, sarge with Chainfist, Cyclone on a THSS. Belial upgraded 1 squad to have an apothicary and banner.
Ravenwing squad, 6 bikes with MMAB added. 2 meltas, PF sarge.
2 Typhoon Speeders with multimeltas

Missions used a 20 point scoring system with 10/6/4 for Primary/Secondary/Tertiary objectives. Primary objectives can only be earned by 1 side, but secondary and tertiary, depending on the mission, could be earned or tied by both sides.

Mission 1 was against a Tau player running plasma suits. Mission was Dawn of War, Kill points, with secondary and tertiary being 'kill all HQ and kill all troops'
My Tau opponent used 5 broadsides, 3x10 kroot, 2x8 fire warriors with one devilfish, 2x2 twin plasma/flamer crisis suits, and 2 plasma/missile HQs with 2 similar plasma/missile bodyguards for one of the units.

Let me start by saying I have a good track record versus Tau. My style of play with the deathwing is usually centered on the deepstrike, using the ability to close the distance into assault range. I was going second here, so my opponent castles on my left side. Kroot blocked part of the left side, to protect the broadsides from outflanking bikes.

I deepstruck in a half circle around his castle, and went to work. Since the kroot were in the open to protect the flanks of the suits castled in terrain in between, missile barrages caused 2 morale checks. One fails, the right hand side ones, and off the board they go. Bikes came in and got the left side that I wanted, and I just missed the assault on suits, as the Kroot forced me to go the long way, and my closest model died in the assault phase due to a dangerous terrain. However, with my army pressing on all sides, firepower on the bikes was in short supply. My opponent focused on the terminators, and while termies died, not enough to break out.

After that, more damage on kroot sent the other two units running--LD7 means that as soon as 25% casualties were done I didnt need to shoot them anymore. The devilfish, which suicided in to by time for shooting, also died to point blank cc attacks.
My opponents plasma continued to burn down termies, and in an attempt to break my rt hand side he assaulted with his 4 shield drone, 2 bodyguard and 1 HQ suit. Well, with ~1.3 saves from drones and 3.3 from the suits, tau have about a 56% chance to actually kill me if the decide to charge in (not great odds, but Tau suck in CC, so no suprise). They lose that flip of the coin, and with a failed 4++ drone killed I win combat after 2 combat phases and he runs off the board. After the big HQ went down, his elite crisis suits died to krak missiles from flanking angles that denied his cover save, and the broadsides died as termies penetrate his castle after over running his 2 tau fire teams acting as the final screen in front of them.

End result is that I score a full 20, and start the tourney with a great opening score!

After the battle, I think that my opponent suffered from some bad luck, but more than that I think he was completely taken by surprise. Kroot are great, but he could have infiltrated them to act as a better screen. Assaulting the single termie seems like a good idea, after all 10ish s5 attacks seem decent right? But in reality, poor hit chances combined with a 2+ save really limit the cc damage, and a single failed LD sent a few hundred points flying. If my bikes didnt fail their assault on the Broadsides by rolling a 1, the broadsides wouldn't have gotten to contribute to the game at all--which would have been preventable with better screening kroot.

In any event, 4 games to go!

You're Brad, right? I'd just like to say in advance, congrats on a fine finish.

I'm not surprised that Necrons won it all (sorry for the slight spoiler). Wraithwing is indeed a top-tier build. I think that his list would've given your deathwing some problems had you guys played. Not that he would've beaten you in assault, but his mobility would've given you a lot of problems.

Looking forwards to the rest of your battles.

Yeah this is Brad! If I played Eric's Necrons, I think the game would have been a lot of fun, but we would have to have played early in the event for it to matter, before he snowballed with max points over and over again.

For example, if we played in the final mission with 2 objectives, I would only need to castle to prevent his win on objectives, the worst case scenario for his wraiths. But on the other hand, in order for me to win the tourney at that point, I would need all the bonus points as well since he was maxed out with a 20 point lead on me. Thus, if he hides 1 troop unit by the end of the game, I lose some bonus points and lose the tourney. That knowledge forces me to play super aggressive if I wanted to win overall, spreading me out and leaving me vulnerable.

So anyway, after round 1 I got paired with Dameon Green's Khan based marine force themed on 1ksons. Dameon and I were 1 to 1 going into this match based on prior tourney run-ins, so I was excited to break the deadlock and avenge my previous Deathwing's loss to his same list.

He had Khan, 2 full bike squads with MMAB, 2 meltas, and Pfist sarge. He also had 2 scouts in speeder storms with CCW/Pistol and meltabombs, with a typhoon speeder as his 3rd fast attack. Finally, he had 3 twin auto dreads and 3 thunderfires.

The mission was 5 objectives, placed every 12 inches along the center line of the table. The mission deployment was pitched, and the secondary and tertiary was to have an HQ and troop unit in your opponents deployment zone.

Dameon deployed 1 thunderfire and 1 dread on my left, and 2 thunderfires and 1 dread on my right. 1 Dread was in the middle. All the terrain was ruins, so everything was getting 3+ cover... meh. His non-Khan bike squad combat squadded, and both bike squads along with all 3 speeders went on the right with 2 thunderfires. Khan was outflanking with the other full bike squad.

In response, my plan was to put both speeders on my far left, so only 2 dreads and 1 thunderfire would be able to shoot them. The bikes were combat squad-ed and on my right, facing off against his army, save for the MMAB on the left to stay out of melta range and in assault/melta range of his leftsided dread. My thoughts were that with wound allocation, t5 and 3+ saves, at least 1 bike should live to my turn 1, where his teleport homer would drop 3 units of termies into his firebase and into assault by turn 2. If Khan didnt come in on his turn 2, I would have the game in the bag, as his bikes would have to be out of cover to turbo boost away on his turn 1, which they wouldnt be with missiles potentially coming in.

So instead, I lost both speeders with just 1 dread shooting each. I then lost all the bikes other than the MMAB, who was the furthest to the left. Now, the math of course says that this was a potential, but it was not a likely potential--which is why I took the gamble.

Now on my turn 1, I am down 4 kill points, and the tiebreakers for the mission are kill points. In addition, I have to run my termies when they drop, thanks to thunderfire cannons, meaning I have a single multimelta shot my turn 1, and with no teleport homers I cant deepstrike into his right sided firebase. So, using my last bike, I deepstrike on the left off the multimelta attack bike and exchange my plan of turn 2 assaults for cat and mouse missile fire and turn 2 assault on his left 2 shooting units. Whats worse, my multimelta wiffs, and so I assault the dread to tie it up and prevent shooting until my nearby termies assault his lines on turn 2. He promptly kills the 2 wound bike in his turn, so I lost 5 kill points, all my starting units, and all 5 kill points did nothing useful for my force.

Anyway, the rest of the game Belial sits on my left, in his deployment zone with his termies to make sure I at least score the 10 bonus points. He does the same on the right in my deployment zone with Khan, for the same reason. Thunderfire and dreads and speeders and bikers all shoot my termies from turns 2 to 6, knocking my 4 other squads to nothing. In responce, termie missile fire kills all three speeders and 1 dread, plus 1 bike squad dies to dangerous terrain. Booring exchanges, but I hold 3 objectives to his 2, and hold bottom of the turn.

So turn 5 his 1 scout squad are strung out on 2 of the right objectives, Belial's on the left most objective and everything else is strung between the central an mid left objective. He contests the central objective by assaulting a bike combat squad and his second scout squad into the 2 depleted termies left. He holds, and the game continues.

He continues to hold on turn 6, as I just dont have enough termies left. Finally on turn 7 one of my termie squads (both single models at this point) dies to the bikes, and at this point with only 1 model to hold 2 objectives, and him winning the tie breaker of kill points thanks to my terrible turn 1, game goes to Dameon. Grrr! At least Belial in the deployment zone with his squad get me 10 points.

In hindsight, I could have played the exact same game without the bikes and speeders deployed. The extra 5 kill points would have put victory easily within grasp. Forget even the kind of damage the speeders and 6 bikes would have had if they could have shot even 1 time.

I notice I often make the same mistake when playing. I look at the move that gives the greatest reward assuming the models make average saves. I should instead be looking at moves that give the least risk. This was a classic example. With the bikes at max coherency, and him with not a lot of ranged firepower beyond the thunderfires, I only saw the turn 2 game winning assault on his right side firebase. Instead, I could have full reserved, as my deepstrikes had plenty of safe locations as long as I am not going for turn 2 assaults--turn 3 assaults would have been fine, when supported by bikes and speeders coming in from reserves as well.

Alas, live and learn! Last time I lost to Dameon, my mistake was not running after deepstriking. Sure I got to shoot the cyclone, but in our previous game he just 3+ saved with his thunderfires versus my cyclones and responded with 20 wounds to each termie squad. This time I learned that without LOS blocking terrain, my bikes and speeders can not be counted on to survive if my opponent has nothing better to shoot at--and since my plan revolved around the bikes surviving, that plan needed work.

Interersting reports so far. I heard an interview on the 11th Co. months ago about that exact Khan biker list. Back then, it sounded like the guy had played the army quite a bit. If it's the same person, he likely knows the ins and outs of that army and how it fares against nearly any matchup. I'd wager this was one of your harder games.

Cool reports. Bummer that there were no pics of the event.

Sarigar, while the game versus the bikers was my only loss, it was not my hardest game at all. Dameon's army does some very specific things very reliably. AKA, lots of twin linked s7 and s4 shots, lots of blast templates, bikes not slowed by terrain. However, everything is a known quantity in theory. Khan is the only wildcard, but bikes lose in assault versus termies even with Khan if assaulting a full squad. No, I think my hardest game was versus double lash in round 5, as no matter what you try and plan for, lash just ruins your plans--lash is such a chaotic power on the otherwise very stable termie backbone.

Really versus the bikes, I made a gamble that would have paid dividends, but was not necessary to winning the game. Had I reserved those 5 kill points the outcome would have been very, very different. Live and learn.

Edit: as to the no pics, that does stink indeed. I could have snapped some cell phone pics at least, but I completely forgot. I even have a digital camera from christmas that I planned on being my 'battle report camera,' and i didnt even bring it with me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So on to game 3, I am not out of the running as I still have 30 points, while some of the double winners with no bonus points only had 20. I get matched up versus Al Edel's lower KP guard army. Mission was spearhead deployment, objective was capture and control with bonus for killing HQs and holding the table center.

Al's list had 2 Manticores, 1 Bastion Breacher Medusa, 3 vendettas, 3 vet squads with 2 melta/hflamer/pfist/ shotguns, psyker battle squad, and 2 HQ commanders with 4 special weapons and master of ordinance in each. 3 Chimeras total. So only 15 KP but still completely mech'd, with max firepower in those 15 KP.

I won the roll for first, and there was a LOS blocking piece of terrain in the center. I deployed speeders behind it, and the Bikers on either flank. Al castled in his opposite corner, with everything deployed. Nothing was in their vehicles.

So I scout forward, with the same intention I almost always have with guard--use teleporting termies on both flanks and in the center and shoot side av 10. In addition, the scouting bikes charged a vet squad and a psyker battle squad, and with bolter shooting plus the assault I wiped both out. The speeders and 2 termies shot down the medusa, 1 vendetta, shook 1 vendetta, and stunned a chimera. Finally, Belial ran for turn 2 assaults and blast protection.

So I think on Al's turn 1 he realized his mistake. While its true reserves might not have been kind to him had he reserved everything, other than siezing the initiative my bikes with scout would be assaulting something and my termies would be in assault range immediately thanks to deathwing assault. He was boxed in his deployment zone surrouned on all sides by termies, bikes and speeders, and some of his firepower was already gone. To his credit he makes a good effort of it, and if I rolled a few sets of terrible stormshield saves and my termies died before assaulting he would be ok. Alas, that does not happen. Termies on my right assault his manticore, HQ squad, and vendetta that I immoblized with shooting. Speeder shooting kills the other vendetta. Termies stall in difficult terrain for a turn, but surivive the counter shots and hook up with yet another termie squad to kill his troop and HQ on my left.

At one point, he could have loaded up into a chimera and tried to drive away with 1 troop, but because the mission was table quarters, and I had 5 scoring units to his 3, he played aggressive to kill the termies and even the troop count. So while I thought he could have been more defensive, that means losing shots and only prolonging the game. If my termies dont die, even if all 3 of the vet squads survive he still loses, so his plan was sound in a way.

The end of the game saw me running with 1 termie squad back toward the center of the table to get the bonus points. This was my one big misplay, as I should have started moving those termies 1 turn earlier. If I had rolled a poor run roll I would not have made the objective, as it was on the second level of a ruin. Fortunately, I got a 4, allowing me to climb the ruin just in time, giving me 20 points and a final score of 50/60 for day 1.

Very good so far. That's a very different Khan biker army you faced. Not very many bikes at all.

Sorry about the delay in report 4 and 5, going to try and get both up tonight to finish this off.

So game 4 I was matched up with Matt's seer council eldar in capture and control. We both rightly feared each others army; me because his tanks can shock me off the objectives and him because the termies many missiles can kill his mobility before getting in position.

He had Eldrad, Bike Farseer with fortune and doom, 7 bike warlocks diversified with 2 emboldens, 2 jetbike squads of 4 with a warlock each, 5 dire avengers, 7 fire dragons in a wave serpent with all the trimmings, 2 night spinners and a falcon.

As its capture and control, we each put our objectives in the far corners away from each other. I am going first, a blessing and a curse in these kinds of missions, and fortunately he does not reserve. He deploys central, and my 5 termie squads all deepstrike to home in on the scouting bikes. He has his 2 bike squads in reserve, and keeps his farseers and tanks on the board for turn 1 fortunes.

Turn 1 my shooting doesnt really kill much, but I do begin to surround his forces. He can boost of course, but due to the distance involved he has to move laterally along his edge to stay out of assault range. Thanks to shaken results, return firepower is light, and thanks to overlapping termie coverage he cant send in the bike seer council without great risk from countercharge.

So I send most of my termies towards his objectives, keep one kind of central and one back towards my objective within a move. His bikes come in and play keep away, always targeting my lead termies going for his objective, killing the lead unit off.

In return, my shooting kills his falcon on his back board edge in the middle of nowhere, leaving the scoring unit of dire avengers out in the cold. I also wreck a night spinner by assaulting it, pulling me off my objective unless the game goes to turn 6. His waveserpent and other spinner take minor damage losing weapons, but keep mobile for a turn 6 contest.

So the game comes down to his assault of my termies with his seer council, since he can contest my objective and holds his with his 2 bike squads. He has to assault belials command squad as well as another termie squad to keep them about 6 inches from being able to get to the objective. He holds on his turn, and again in my turn, but in the 3rd round of combat I deal enough wounds to allocate a save onto both of his emboldens. He fails the rerollable 4++ on both, loses combat by a total of 3, and breaks on an 8. My termies consolidate and charge Eldrad's fire dragon squad screening the objective, wipe them, and consolidate onto the objective. He tries to kill the termies with his 2 bike troops, but I still contest as the game ends on 5. So with neither force in control of the objective, the game goes to victory points, which I win simply by killing the seer council and eldrad.

Now, because the game ended on turn 5, my one termie squad was off the central objective (for bonus points) trying to kill vehicles. Belial also failed to get into his deployment zone with a failed difficult terrain assault move, meaning I didnt get those bonus points either. So I won, but only earned 10 points, which kept me tied ironically with the Eldar player, who had 3 big wins going into our match. Thus, for the final round there is a 3 way tie for 2nd, with me at 60, Dameon's Khan bike list at 60 (after beating me and losing to Matt's Eldar), and Matt's bike eldar (who beat Dameon and lost to me).

Edit: Now, as an aside, I came really close to losing this game. If his seer council held, I was done for, as I would not have killed enough VPs. He knew that charging the termies was a losing combat, but it should take a long time to lose at the very least. I was so elated after beating the seer council that in my turn I went straight to the assault against the fire dragons screening his objective. This kept me off my objective, though it didnt matter, kept me from closing in on the center objective, which I needed turn 6 to get anyway due to his 2 live vehicles, and also prevented me from shooting his tanks. However, none of that mattered, as the seer council death gave me the contest and the VPS i needed, but the mistake could have been severe had my termies flubbed versus the fire dragons.

Since most of us in the top bracket played each other already, Matt's eldar advance to table 1 to play the Necrons. I play a 56 point dual lash player, as I cant play Dameon again.

So going into the last round, I am playing dual lash chaos. He has 2 bike lash sorcs, 9 oblits, 3x10 berzerkers with pfists, and a greater daemon. Obviously, the issue here is lash, and my opponent opts for the 2nd turn.

The mission is 5 objectives, and the reserve rules in play say that you must have the deepstrike or outflank reserve rule (or some other reserve rule like Lictors or Marbo) to go into reserve. Basicly no regular reserve.

So I opt to outflank the bikes, deepstrike the termies and both speeders and hide from lash a bit, since Lash +9 plasma cannons is kind of an issue, and I can not turn 2 assault like I normally do again thanks to Lash. In hindsight, after seeing how he deployed, I probably would have been fine had I assaulted a berserker squad with 7 bikes to tie up an attached lash, BUT that means I would need to stay locked in combat versus 10 Berserkers + an init6 forceweapon sorc. If they died in the combat and freed up the lash, it would have been over.

Anyway, instead with nothing on the board my opponent castled up in the center. My turn 1 I opted not to DWA, so again nothing. His turn he stays central, which means he is nowhere near the objectives, but with lash he doesnt really need to worry that much.

So starting on turn 2, my army comes in, and I make a big push on my right side. All 4 termie units other than Belial end up going on this side over the course of the game, where he has just one berserker squad. His oblits on that side I used my bikes and speeders to kill with failed coversaves to melta or armor with krak missiles.

So predictably, lash plus plasma cannons kill about half of the termies in each unit on my right, despite my best efforts to run when I came in from deepstrike. I try to assassianate the Lash sorc with 1 termie from a shot up squad, assaulting in, and I die to berzerkers. He gets his Greater Daemon in, charges a 4 man termie squad, and kills all of them somehow with me dealing no wounds back. That Greater Daemon also kills a 2 man termie squad on the right. Fortunately, my final termie squad managed to make combat with the berzerkers mostly intact by round 4, wiping them out. They go on to kill the Greater Daemon finally, and survive with 1 member left moving in on the other 10 man squad with a lash sorc.

Meanwhile, Belial has been moving up, and thanks to Belial soaking up some plasma, they are still 4 strong plus belial. Belial squad, both speeders, the last surviving bike's multimelta, and the 1 man termie squad's cyclone all target his 10 man squad with a sorc. My opponent had left them out of cover, and I moved and fired in the proper order so basicly nothing got a cover save. I smoked 8 of the 10 berzerkers with that shooting phase, and my single termie charged in and killed the final sorc before dying to the powerfist on the berserkers.

So fortunately, I killed off both his lash sorcs, killed 1 oblit squad, and thanks to all my shooting up to this point he was left with 2x2 berserkers, and 2x3 oblits. I had belials squad on the mid objective, a speeder contesting the only other objective he could get to, another speeder ready to go where it was needed, and a multimelta attack bike.

So my opponent sent one of his berserker squads with a fist into the attack bike, one to the objective with the speeder though they were just in range to contest, and the oblits after the other speeder and belials squad. The speeder died to oblits, though the other one lived on the objective, and belial's squad bounced the plasma. The oblits failed their charge, though the attack bike died. Very close, but I have the lead.

The game continues, and belial charges both squads of oblits and the 2 man berserker squad. The speeder kills 1 of the 2 berserkers on the other objective, the powerfist one. I wipe one oblit squad, the berzerkers, and kill the other oblit squad after fearless saves. In return, I lost 3 of my 4 remaining terminators, but belial lives yet. I consolidate onto the objective.

In the final turn of the game, my opponent tries to kill the land speeder on the other objective, but fails, giving me the win on primary. I get the secondary points by winning on kill points, but the tertiary bonus, kill all troops, eludes me by 1 berserker. The final score is 16 points to me, which puts me as the highest scoring in battle after Eric's necrons with their perfect score of 100.

I end up losing 2nd place to Andrew Gonyo's 66 battle points to my 76 however, as his paint, coupled with my inability to get any bonus points from the eldar player plus not getting the final tertiary objective off the dual lash player, puts him 2 points higher than me total. Still, not a bad showing for the deathwing.

I really got lucky versus the lash player, as he chose to clump me up to shoot and assault me. Had he focused on keeping the termies at arms length while making a play for the objectives himself, it would have kept more of my termies alive, BUT would have preserved his lash sorcs for last second lashes to move me off important objectives. Also, he did not expect to lose 8 berserkers to my limited shooting, despite not being in cover. I had a total of 11 potential shots that would bypass armor--a few less if speeders moved 12, 2 storm bolter shots and 2 twin linked bolter shots. With that, I wounded the sorc with a bolter shot and killed 8 zerks with no cover save.

Earlier in the game, cyclones killed 8 of his other berserker squad thanks to him being clumped in cover, so perhaps he wanted to avoid frag templates.

Great report! Only thing that could make it better would be remembering your camera.

Yeah... considering I have a camera for battle reports all ready to go, PLUS a cell phone camera. I have been trying to train myself to snap pics in friendly games, and even then I tend to forget about half way into a game (once it gets exciting) to keep taking pics.

Part of the issue is that my deathwing constantly requires my input, even on my opponent's turn. Wound allocation and saves abound, as every gun in the game can force a save on terminators. A list with more vehicles, on the other hand, has more free time, as very few dice need to be rolled by the defending player--really only cover saves if you happen to have them, and vehicles make a lot less fewer saves than t4 2+/3++ termies I realize.

Hey Brad this is your fourth opponent. Thanks for the gracious words about our match. I really wish one of those last saves on the council would have been saved on the re-roll. It's been eating away at me.

Brad was a competitive and friendly opponent, one that I would happily play again.

Nice batreps Brad, good to see you are doing well still. Rocking the deahwing as I remember.
Maybe someday we will have another game

Heh, you gotta come up for a tourney near here! You were not at wfn, what about colonial in a few weeks?

Oddly enough I live farther north than you, I am from CT so I would come down to a tourney near you guys.
Nah i was not at wfn sadly, i am in school right now and dont play until the summer really. I am in the process of making a necron army for this summer, But I will be attending the ATC and NOVA, hopefully more big ones in between. Sadly I did not get ticket nor does the timing work out for the colonial. How did you, Nick, Rich and the rest of the guys do at WFN?
I hope to see more batreps of yours soon.

Congrats on 3rd Brad.

I actually got some pics of your army and your game 3 vs Al

Brad's Black Dragon's counts as Deathwing Army


Brad's game 3 vs Al's Imperial Guard










As far as pictures of the event

Armies
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-5770-24266_Svdm%20Gt%202012%2040k%20Armies.html

Pictures of random game 3's going on after I finished my game
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-5770-24529_SVDM%20GT%202012%20Other%20Game%203%27s.html

Thanks vinnie for the pics! You got a good shot of my army on its display board! The final pic also shows the IG player boxed in his corner of the deployment zone that I mention in the report, though at the time of the pic most of his army has been dispatched by termies and most of my army is back on my display board after dying to stall the IG.

Also got some pics of your game 5

The bottom pic is right before belials squad moves up and assaults 2 units of oblits and the 2 man berzerker squad. In my opponents turn here he drops down from the upper level with the oblits, moves onto the 2 objectives (the wooden discs, hard to see) with his two berzerker units each with 2 models, and tries to hold out for a turn.

Also, I need a hat... my hair (what hair?) is tragicly bad. Stupid bald spot was much worse at Nova under the camera on table 1. That is a really bad angle, straight down!

Good showing for your dwing! Way to go

A question about your list: Do you think it would benefit from having one termie squad equipped with fists/stormbolters? To be used as an objective holder or perhaps soften up a squad before it was charged by another of your units? Also, now that the tournament is over, are there any changes that you'd like to make to your list and why?

This is Jesse by the way, we met at the WFN. Your army looks great and the dragons look awesome. Your display board was truly unique as well.

Sorry for the late delay, was out of town for a week and had no access till today.

As for the Deathwing, I find that I really miss stormbolter shots, BUT whichever squad that lacks stormshields will be the squad that is targeted. The army does 2 things, cyclone shots as decent anti-armor attacks, and s8 attacks in cc to bust up infantry and vehicles. Losing stormshields means the squad can no longer deal with certian threats, like a powerweapon squad that strikes at init 2+. This in turn reduces my total s8 close combat attacks.

Likewise, not having stormshields versus an enemy like dark eldar means they can do extra damage to that squad with all thier ap2 weapons, which normally have no really great targets to shoot at.

Finally, 8 additional stormbolter shots wont tip the scale in my list versus several match ups, so its not going to be a net positive switch in damage dealing.