Well people, we should really be looking at working out the optimal designs for our forces for the Horus Heresy in September, since the main flaw of the 954th Expeditionary Fleet was that our armies had little or no collective synergy!

Things which I noticed:

1) Almost every single army I saw took advantage of either Super-Heavy or Legendary units. My army relied instead on lots of small units, on the idea that the big guns would have trouble taking them out en masse - who uses a shotgun to swat flies?

2) The big winners planned their armies collaboratively with other players. The French guys (including Alaric!) did so well because they put in the effort beforehand.

3) Big rushes and bold heroic moves won the games, playing conservatively in the short time limits did not.

Therefore, it seems we need to start working on tactics which play to the same format as last time, and tweak them as Planetstrike etc is revised. I'd like to hear what everyone else saw/thought, but from my perspective I plan to bear the following in mind:

1) Scout Bikers FTW. Seriously, these guys are awesome. I might make two more units of them, and really go all-out with Drop Pods etc using the Locator Beacons.

2) Imperial Army got teeth in the new codex. I'm going to take Valkries and Penal Legion troops, as well as my regular platoons. I will however be keeping the heavy weapons OUT of the main Infantry squads and keeping them as separate support units instead, because a Lascannon that moved is just a big 20pt target next turn!

3) Big squads. Oh my gods, 5-man Assault squads get turned into a fine paste by Ork mobs, even armed with shootas! I need 20-man units, with no heavy weapons, all moving as quickly as possible.

4) Drop Pods are vital. Got to get everything on the table as quickly as possible, and I think a first wave of weapon pods followed by regular squads and dreadnoughts afterwards will be a spectacular blitzkrieg tactic.

5) Angron is definitely coming along next time! In retrospect, I needed him so many times, and he would have been 450pts well spent, with his Devourers right at the front.

6) Snipers pay for themselves. I only pinned ONE unit during the whole weekend, but I think I racked up something like 80+ kills from Sniper fire, including bikes and open-topped vehicles. Bang bang.

7) Getting behind a super-heavy with your meltabombs seems just as good as shooting it with your own super-heavy. I think the WE tactic of being IN the opponent's deployment zone by the end of the first turn will serve me well, and make them think twice about using those D-weapons...

So what do people think? Do your armies fit well with my ideas? What can we improve collaboratively?

Good idea Shroud, even if it looks like were going to be playing sperately this time it will be good to throw some ideas around. What I learned last time was:


Primarch - Well worth the points even if I did only use him in the two HAF games, he was pretty much my only answer to the nobs bikers + painboy tactic which was going round. Its a shame he wont be coming out in this one but who knows, I may decide to turn traitor for the next one.


Drop Pods - Seem to be the best option for getting your troops where you need them and Deathwind pods just seriously crap all over your opponents day.


10 Man Squads - Minimum! I took a 5 man squad of Vanguards for the MBF game and they got eaten alive, took the same squad but 10 men for Deathblow and they chewed through about 20-25 Orks before going down.


Legion Tactics - Are there to be abused so do it. My legion tactic of "Re-roll Ordinance Scatter" was all very well and good but when you only have one ordinance weapon its a little pointless.


Bravery wins the day - As Shroud said, you can't play conservatively/defensively and hope to win. My tactic revolved around setting up gunlines with my veterans in the center and the dreadnaughts to anchor the flanks and hope that I killed enough stuff before it got to me. Not great with hind sight.


What I am doing for this one:


Abusing my FOC - I've got 6 Elite choices so I am going to make use of it, except for Vanguard as thats the sort of "testing the water" game so I'm happy to go out on a limb with that one. As it stands my HAF game will include 4 squads of Vanguard Vets and 2 Terminator squads, one of which with a land raider.

Drop Pods - As many as I can get painted between now and then. Hopefully all my units will get them(Terminators the obvious exception)

Bikes/Jetbikes - having at least one speedy unit in the list is a must. I kept finding myself jsut out of reach of an objective on the last turn.

Be aggressive - The best defense is a good offence so I may not be able to fire as far but I'm not going to sit and wait for the enemy to come into range. Move up and get the best firign positions and concentrate fire on units I need to get rid of.

I would guess that Landspeeder Storms are going to be very useful when defending planetstike due to all their jamming beacons. I'll probably post my planned lists in my blog a bit later today.