I also decided to hamstring myself this tournament and am fielding a 50/50 mix of Dark Angels with the usual Space Wolves. Being the T/O with access to the fog map and what-not, I'm merely opting out from being able to pick who I attack. As such, my territory was one of the last to be invaded. An Ultramarines/Salamanders teamup.
Each person was allotted 200 points as per standard kill team rules, resulting in a nice little 400 point mini-game at each table.
My opponents fielded some sternguard, a fair number of sniper scouts with a missile launcher and a landspeeder tornado.
I Brought a Lone Wolf Terminator with a combi-plasma and wolf claw, 2 thunderwolves (one with a stormshield and a wolf claw, the other with nothing.) While the Dark angels brought a Landspeeder typhoon and an assault cannon Dreadnought.
Specialist rules were in play, so they gave their missile launcher scout relentless and... some other stuff that never actually made a big deal
1. There was a great deal of complaining about the uberness of Thunderwolves...
After which point they infiltrated their scouts exactly 18 inches away from the cavalry
2. *sigh* The missile launcher did deploy to get a good shot at my landspeeder, though.
I gave the equiped wolf Feel no Pain, the lone-wolf Fleet, and the landspeeder Stealth.
I didn't sieze the initiative, and they took their first turn. Every sternguard moved toward the cavalry
3, and the snipers and landspeeders all divided their fire up between the two wolves and the terminator
4. The missile managed to shake the speeder. A couple of stenguard were in range to fire on the lead thunderwolf and opened with....rapid firing Kraken Bolts
5, while the landspeeder managed to put a wound on the unequipped one.
On my turn I turbo-boosted the 'ol speeder into a corner with some scouts where the missile couldn't see it. The Dreadnought and space wolves advanced. The sternguard had come far enough forward that I could rapid-fire my combi-plasma into them, resulting in a casualty, while the assault cannon on the Dreadnought cut down several snipers. Needless to say, the forwardmost sternguard were charged and mopped up.
Everything without a heavy weapon advances
6, firing more Kraken Bolts into the woofs, again dividing fire. This time they put a wound on the equipment heavy cavalry unit.
7 The scouts by the landspeeder move out of cover, shoot at it with pistols, failing to penetrate then charge it, failing to plant any grenades.
8
My turns were pretty fast at this point. Heavy bolter and Cyclone launchers vaporize the scouts, Assault cannon dread scares the other landspeeder away, more marines get charged.
They start morale checks next turn, Make 2, but don't have anything left by the end of my fourth turn.
Spoiler
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1 - This mission type lets you basically tailor 3 of your models to your opponent's army. If it isn't making a big difference, or at least remotely memorable, you're doing it wrong.
2Thunderwolves have a freaking MINIMUM 18" charge range. I've played this guy enough he should know this. Sniper rifles have double the range of your closest infiltrate distance, it's not that hard of a conclusion to come to, is it? Pay attention to your enemy's threat range!
3 Yes. Move closer to the close-combat army with your shooty marines, surely that won't end terribly.
4For those of you paying attention, torrenting is extremely important, especially when you can prioritize threats. Yes, it'd be cool if your assault cannon shots all hit, all wounded, and I failed all my armor saves--or you could put 1 wound on 1 guy.
5I know Gets Hot! is unattractive, but Vengeance Rounds are GOOD--those units had no cover from the sternguard. If you're gonna wuss out at least fire hellfire rounds, which are also GOOD.
6 More moving toward the CC army. It worked last turn, after all!
7Basically Point 4 again, driven home.
8So, shooting the bolt pistols at the speeder wasn't a bad idea but they could have done that from cover. Those scouts could have at least claimed a cover save versus the AP 4 coming for them, but that speeder just had to be assaulted. I can appreciate the desire for a long shot here, at least.
I hate to come off as a jerk, but the guy who was making nearly all of the tactical decisions on this team started playing a month before I did, has played in almost every local tournament, league and campaign and really has no excuse to be making that many gigantic mistakes. I just hope any of you new guys reading this can at least acquire a little tacitcal acumen from the problems I pointed out.