http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/17.page JForum - http://www.jforum.net
I brought 1000 points of Dark Angels, consisting of: a company master; 2 tactical squads; a 7 man squad of terminators; 3 Ravenwing bikes; and a dreadnought. He brought about 30 guardsmen; a Leman Russ; a Lone Wolf; a Runepriest; some named Space Wolf dreadnought; and an inquisitor with retinue, all from a bunch of books, including, I believe, Space Wolves; Imperial Agents; Fall of Cadia; & maybe Astra Militarum? It was my first time using tactical objectives, and all in all, it was good fun, if not a little one sided. We basically both had gunlines, with his gunline outgunning mine. My bikers did pretty good, getting an early objective and getting the terminators in without scattering, but ultimately, the extra hits his guardsmen got from prescience, overwhelmed my Ravenwing's re-rollable jink. After watching my footslogging tactical marines get blown to pieces by his Leman Russ, I now realize why the first thing the guys over on the lists forum recommended were Rhinos. Although it felt a bit like he was getting a lot more bang for his point than me after we set up, I feel like I would have performed much better had my marines been given transports. The one thing that did stand out as being a bit off during the game was the Jokaero in the inquisitor's retinue (warband?). Despite costing only about 35 points, this guy killed my 145 point Company Master in one shot ! Halfway through turn 5, I decided to concede the battle as he was leading 9 to 5 in victory points and it was clear I wasn't going to be able to make up the difference.

Anyway, in the long term I'm looking to build towards the Battle Demi-company to get some of that sweet BS3 overwatch, but for now, my next purchase is going to be a couple of Razorbacks to use as Rhinos for those tactical squads. The guy I played with suggested drop pods, but I'm not a big fan of the models. And you can be damn sure that in our next battle, I'm going to dedicate a lot of fire power into killing that monkey.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/715323/9155184.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/715323/9155184.page GMT
#1 - Use that Cover. Your 3+ is great, but a 5+ or 4+ (or even 3+!) cover will about double your survival against these hits. Think how much longer you'd be in the fight when only taking half as many casualties.
#2 - Keep Spread Out. The biggest strength of a pie plate is also its biggest weakness; it only hits what's under the template. When you're keeping models close together, you're going to suffer a lot more hits. Get used to measuring that maximum 2 inches... because it's pretty big! If maximally spread out, your opponent's small blasts will only ever hit 1 guy on a hit, and their big blasts will be lucky to hit more than 3.
#3 - Less Terminators, more Bikers. You hadn't mentioned it, but your Terminators don't sound like they contributed much to the fight. Take fewer of them, or even none of them, and stock up on Bikers. As you saw, just 3 of them needed a firm commitment of guardsmen to get past their rerollable jink save. That's far better than the Terminator's 2+/5++ saves when you also factor in just how fast those Ravenwing are able to move.

Good luck in your future games!]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/715323/9155477.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/715323/9155477.page GMT