It’s always fun until someone loses an eye or gets sucked into the warp…

This weekend the weather sucked so I headed over to the LGS earlier than usual and got in a couple of 1500pt. games. I put together a new list for Round 2 of the league and wanted to try it out in case I needed to make changes before next weekend. The list included all of the components from my 1000 point list but I added another Dreadnought and a Land Raider Crusader. I adjusted the three Terminator squads so that they all have Assault Cannon and Chain Fists and I added Extra Armor to my existing Dreadnought.

My first game went really well in that I played the same Space Wolf player from last week. Again like last week, the game was really fun and I had a great time playing him. The game was interesting this time around in that I lost Belial and Sergeant to the ‘Jaws of the Wolf’ spell on our first real round of shooting. I again focused my fire onto single units in an effort to remove them completely before moving onto the next one. This seemed to work really well throughout the game in that I was able to eliminate a squad of Long Fangs, two Rhinos and half a squad of Grey Hunters in my first shooting attempt.

I did my best to remain focused and not get too excited or frustrated and in the end I won that game 7 – 3 KP and I still had a Terminator, the LR Crusader and both Dreadnoughts on the table. My efforts were successful in nibbling away at his army because he only had a single Wolf Guard and six-man Grey Hunter squad left at the end of the game. The Deathwing army is really performing pretty well in the lower point games but I’m a little concerned about what happens when we get to the bigger games.

My second game didn’t go exactly as planned in that I ended up losing that game but I learned a valuable lesson about how best to play my army in a Secure and Control mission. I learned that I should have held two units in Reserve instead of setting up a squad of Terminators on the objective and just sitting there as my opponent picks them off with his long range heavy weapons. If I had kept them in Reserve I could have walked them onto the table in a latter round and dealt with some of his units before they got to my objective. I also learned that in a Spearhead mission, units can walk onto the table from your long board edge not just from the long edge of your table quarter.

Sadly, I also learned that I should have kept Belial with the squad mounted in the Land Raider instead of trying to Deep-strike him behind enemy lines. You see, he scattered off the table and then I rolled a one on the mishap table which resulted in wiping him and the squad out completely. So I ended up playing the game with a LR Crusader, a Dreadnought and one Terminator squad but still managed to take out 40 Guardsmen, a Dreadnought and part of a bunch of marines.

All in all, this the weekend was a good one in that I decided that my 1500 point list should do well in the next round provided that don’t make any deployment mistakes and remember to keep focusing my fire.