So, it has been a while since I have played, but I've gotten 3 games in 7th edition in the last 3 weeks, so I throw out some thoughts on my experience with Blood Angles in 7th. The first game I played in 7th was against IG, or whatever they are called now - Militarium?
It was a tank line behind an Aegis defense line, with some special forgeworld rules. The IG played had a 30 man platoon bubble wrap between the tanks and the wall, so I could not drop pod my Sterngaurd or either of my 2 Furiouso dreads close enough to get a good melta shot off. I made good use of enemy's ADL, and all my stuff that was not in a pod is in 1 LR or 2 Razor backs, but all the vehicles got popped, and then it was bunch of marines being pounded with AP 3 barrage. Death Company did ok - by that I mean they lasted 2 turns of getting pounded before dying without killing anything.
- The biggest lesson I re-learned from this game was that I should have drop podded my stuff into the ruins on the flank, instead of landing in front of wall and trying to chew through his infantry to get to the tanks (with the Furiousos did in 2 turns, but not fast enough to open gap for other melta before they were destroyed.
-The other lesson was that, since we were playing with tactical objectives, and I had the advantage early, I should of stayed out of range. It would have been a fast, not very exciting game, but I let myself get sucked into trying to destroy stuff, and charged into his tanks -instead of using my speed to take the points I could, and then making HIM change HIS game. (instead I lost by 1 point, even though the game ended on turn 5 and all I had left was 2 drop pods and 3 space marines)
I used the same army for the next 2 games. It was 4 Assault marine squads (5 men), each with a land raider (2 landraiders and 2 crusaders), 2 Furiouso dreads with claws (for counter charge), and a stormraven with meph.
The first game I played against chaos space marines allied with demons, and did not get iron arm with Meph, so he stayed in the plane until it was shot out from under him. Besides Typhus, there were 2 demon princes and at least 1 greater demon. He had very little that could punch through my armor (in fact he glanced 1 land raider, 1 time). This was a pretty well matched game, because my opponent, although he couldn't kill the Raiders, almost tied because he played the tactical objective very smartly - for example, when I grounded a demon prince, and locked him into combat with my dread, that demon summoned a squad of horrors to take the objective. all of my stuff did what I expected, and I even used one of the 5 man squads to clear some demons off of an objective - too late to stop him from getting tactical points though.
-The game was a lot of fun, and really close, but not a lot of lesson to learn, I won, and every unit did what I wanted - the LR kept stuff safe, the Furiouso's locked up demon princes (or kept them from landing). Although I wasn't playing the monsters, it was worth noting that the change to making smash attack only 1 attack (instead of half) took a lot of threat out of demons princes against armor and dreads - they are not really a threat to heavy armor). Also, if Mehpiston is going to sit in the plane all game, I could save a lot of points with a cheaper HQ.
The second game, I was caught off guard by an Imperial knight. I wasn't expecting a super heavy (we never really discussed the list, beyond that they would be 2k points), but I was game - (good thing, because I found out that not only did he not have enough IG without the knight, but that he had bought and put together $250 worth of guard the night before, so that would have enough points to play. Once my Land Raiders got popped (all by turn 3 I think), things went down hill fast. In the end, the game ended on turn 5, and I lost 11-1, but the momentum was finally turning in my favor, and had there been a turn 6, I am pretty sure (baring some stupid lucky - or unlucky dice, I would have won 6-5)
Lessons from this game: -
- mostly about the imperial knight. The armor, the shield, nothing special - I did not realize that they could move 12, and that their chainsword did "D" damage. His cannon didn't do anything, but he killed 2 of the land raiders in melee in 2 turns (I had moved in to get the melta shot bonus)
-If you are close enough to hit the knight with the melta bonus, you are probably close enough to take a "D" hit from the explosion when the knight dies - I lost a squad of infantry and a furiouso dread to the explosion.
-Mephiston is pretty tough. With iron arm, las cannons needed 4's to wound, Meph took 4 to the face, and kept trucking, and almost single handedly won me the game (in another turn). The problem was that it took him too long to be useful. He came in on turn 2, but the stormraven had to attack the knight. The next turn, the stormraven zoomed to the drop zone (with the intention of hovering on turn 4 so meph could charge), but the stormraven got stunned, and Meph had to "fall from the skies", which meant to charge until 5. Like I said, he took 4 LC shots, killed a LC squad, and was poised to clear an objective (and probably take out the enemy warlord with a pskyker attack). Again Meph proved how tough he was, but if it takes him 5 turns to charge, he is going to have a hard time leveraging that toughness. Maybe I can put him in one of the Land Raiders (then he would almost be guaranteed a turn 2 assault, which would have made a big difference in that particular game.
-Also, a rule note that I had not seem mentioned - how damage is allocated to a squadron. It might have always been this way (I don't fight squadrons much). Once you score hits, you assign them, and resolve them one at a time - I always thought it was roll all penetrating and glancing, and then allocated them - it doesn't make a big difference, unless some of the shots are at a different facing, but then it might.
Edit: It is worth noting that if the Land Raiders had contained full squads, it might have been closer in my favor. Granted that this was IG, but I still was able to break 3-4 units in charges (usually with only 3 marines (that's all that was left before the charge), but then I would get shot down to 0-1 guys; 5 more bodies in each of those charges might have let me keep one of the objectives (as it was, 3 marines almost defended an objective from 3 units of guardsmen, and probably could have if it wasn't for the hotshot lasers)
