Test Battle #1

Last night I took a smaller version of Khuster's Cav out to test the potency of the Libbies, and my death star command squad.  It was a 1500 list, so I only took 3 ML 2 Libbies, and the core of KC. 

My friend Dave brought his Tau, which included a buffy commander, a unit of Crisis suits, couple units of Fire Warriors (each with the new support drone), three Broadsides, and a Riptide.  Not a bad force.  He had enough marker drones to make me sweat, but I knew my death star unit would give everything he had some hassle.

I ended up learning a few things from the inevitable defeat.  First, I am still struggling with my deployment.  He had no template weapons, so I should have stacked everything at the line to rush forward.  But I didn't, and ended up turbo-boosting half my army in the first round to get in range.  I have to work on that.

I also have to work on playing to the end game.  I get caught up in the battle the first few rounds, and then have to play catch up to try and win, while Dave knew what needed to be done from the get go, and won the game because of it.

I love my psykers.  Before now, I didn't even touch them, because I thought they weren't worth the points.  But now I love them.  Especially this Librarius Enclave!  I stacked them with Iron Hands chapter tactics, and put all three in with Khuster and the Command Squad.  The Iron Hands get to add 1 to their FNP rolls, so with the Apothecary, they get FNP 4+ and have IWND!  Not bad to stuff into a squad carrying Storm Shields.  All said, he only managed to peel off one veteran and put a single wound on a Libby (who gained it back the next round).  It helped that they also had Invisibility each round.

Dave played his cards very well, pushing instakill hits like my Orbital Strike to the drones through Look Out Sir, and soaking a good amount of damage to Invulnerable saves and FNP from his stims.  I have to play better to my strengths and his weaknesses.  I felt scattered and confused for most of the battle, and only killed most of his drones, when I should have racked up more destruction on the table.

In the end, I conceded when our time ran out in turn three.  I had too few bikes to tie for objectives, and he already had me 0-3 in KPs.  So it was a hard loss, but I can only really blame myself. 

I need more time with this army, and I need to learn from my lessons and start winning.  This army has the potential to be competitive, but not if I keep making big mistakes.