10 Week Challenge - Week 1: After Action Review

Gav celebrates his win in Week 1

Well, that went remarkable well. When the worst thing that happens in a game is that your squad don't get wiped out by a Dreadnought so that you can shoot it to death you know you've had a good one. Usually in these articles I'd be beating myself up about small tactical mistakes but I'm actually feeling pretty good about myself and here's why

Deployment

I'm usually rubbish at deployment. However, I seemed to have an epiphany last week where I actually thought about where all of my vehicles were going to move in the first 2 turns. Normally, I'd stick my Rune Priest Rhinos at the front so that I can shoot unimpeded out of the top hatch. This time I realised that if I stuck them behind two of my suicide Melta Rhinos then not only could they not be blown up if I had the initiative seized but I be able to move the two front vehicles out of the way on turn 1 and still be able to shoot with the Priests. I did all of the simple things right - set up pretty centrally opposite from the enemy Objective and didn't spread my army too thinly. I was able to have a vanguard of three Rhinos backed up with shooting from the Rune Priests and Long Fangs while the other Rhino protected by right flank.

The one thing I didn't think about was the Space Marine Scouts. In the end I was out of charge range because they couldn't roll a 5 on their assault through cover. Obviously, I didn't know that they would be outflanking when I deployed but I should have given it some consideration.

Attack Vectors

This is the thing I really love about this army. The Wolf Scouts and the turn 1 mini alpha strike from the Drop Pod, backed up by 3/4 Rhinos of disposable guys means that I will have something in my opponent's face by turn 2 at the latest. The fact that Dave had to turn his Terminators around to take care of the 1st squad of Scouts meant that they never had a chance of getting near my Objective.

Small Squads

I was a little unsure about these and, in many ways, I still am. However, I do love the 5-man squads who sit with the Priests since I feel that I can have them sit on an Objective all game without thinking that they're a huge point-sink that I should really be sending at the enemy.

Focus Fire

As I've said before, a useful mantra is "Play the Mission"  and for once I actually lived up to this Golden Rule. Usually, with my Long Fangs, I'd be quite haphazard with my shooting. In this game I decided early on that I was going to focus my fire on one Tactical Squad until it was destroyed and then I'd start on the second. With 14 Missiles per turn, I knew I could do enough damage to both squads so that my Scouts could finish them off in assault. Plus, I knew that if I concentrated on them then I couldn't lose the game since they were never going to be able to get to my Objective in sufficient strength to hold it.

Army List

One final point, more about Dave than myself. We arranged the game pretty late and I only informed him that it would be 1750 points after we got to Warhammer World. I assumed that he'd used the same list he used the other week against Keith but instead he took his tried and tested 1500 point list and added a Land Raider. This gave me a big juicy target for my Drop Pod Combi-Meltas. This meant that his Termies had very little impact in the game and I was able to ignore them for nearly all of the game. Normally, they Deep Strike in and that could have worked out much better for Dave. As it was, he had nothing that could really get anywhere near my Objective.

Is thinking about deployment cheating? Ever had a near-perfect game? Did you get the subtle Frankie Coccozza reference?