40k Tourney Report: New Codex Space Marines - 1500 Points, Gamers Sanctuary

This past weekend Gamers Sanctuary hosted a 40k tournament. Eight attendees showed up with 1500 points each. The breakdown of attendees:


First place: Iyanden Eldar / Bike Orks
Second Place: Blood Angels mech
Third Place: Necron wraith / flyer netlist
Dark Eldar 
Imperial Guard with three flyers
Space Marines balanced
Chaos Daemons
Mantis Warrior Space Marines with bikes (moi)

Cerberus did great with his Eldar / Orks to take first and Brother Jeremiah took second with his BA.

Here is my list:
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1500 Point List

• Chapter Tactics White Scars

HQ (240pts)

• Chapter Master (240pts)
  And They Shall Know no Fear, Chapter Tactics, Independent Character, Orbital Bombardment
  Artificer Armor, Auspex, Bike, Power Weapon, The Shield Eternal

Troops (736pts)

• Bike Squad (Troops) (257pts)
  And They Shall Know no Fear, Chapter Tactics
  2x Meltagun, 6x Space Marine Biker
  • Attack Bike
    Multi-Melta
  • Biker Sergeant
    Biker Veteran Sgt, Power Fist
• Bike Squad (Troops) (252pts)
  And They Shall Know no Fear, Chapter Tactics
  Grav-gun (Graviton), Meltagun, 6x Space Marine Biker
  • Attack Bike
    Multi-Melta
  • Biker Sergeant
    Biker Veteran Sgt, Power Weapon
• Bike Squad (Troops) (227pts)
  And They Shall Know no Fear, Chapter Tactics
  6x Space Marine Biker
  • Attack Bike
    Multi-Melta
  • Biker Sergeant
    Biker Veteran Sgt, Power Weapon

Heavy Support (520pts)

• Centurion Devastator Squad (290pts)
  Chapter Tactics, Decimator Protocols, Move Through Cover, Slow and Purposeful, Very Bulky
  2x Centurion, Centurion Sergeant, 3x Chest Missile Launcher, 3x Grav-cannon and grav-amp, Omniscope
• Stormraven Gunship (230pts)
  Assault Vehicle, Ceramite Plating, Power of the Machine Spirit
  Hurricane Bolters, Storm Strike Missile, Twin Linked Lascannons, Twin Linked Multi Meltas

Created with BattleScribe

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The idea was to leverage all the toughness five bikes I had painted in the last few weeks to see what I could do. I thought this fast force could get out there and lay down some firepower, hit in close combat, then leave combat during their turn and fire more.

It ended up not working too well. Scott and Josh offered me some opinions: move the attack bikes out of the squads, add in some speeders perhaps, and focus the squads into two so I could combat squad them.

These options would definitely help. I had intended the ABs to join the squads to provide more wounds, basically. They also add two attacks in close combat.

Things that worked well: Hammer of Wrath is actually nice when you have a ton of models doing it at strength five. Hit and run is amazing with special weapons and bolters soaking the enemy. 

Things that didn't work as well: graviton weapons really have some poor matchups. Game one I went up against Necrons and wraiths just don't care about graviton weapons. Game three I went up against Daemons and besides the DPs they don't care either.

Game Summaries:

Lineup for game one

I went up against a Necron netlist in the first game. Two units of wraiths, destroyer lord with scarab thing, multiple min warrior units in scythes. It was rough because I couldn't take down the wraiths and Necrons don't care about grav. I got tabled by turn three I think. I went forward as fast as possible thinking target saturation would help me out. It didn't work out.

My second game was against Scott's Space Marines. This was a good matchup because I felt my mobility and special weapons could do some work against the marine armor. He brought a little of everything - tac squads, thunderfire cannon, vindicator, terminators, a dreadnought, etc. 

In turn one we had night fighting but he lit up one of my squads and caused enough wounds for a morale check. I felt that my nine LD would be fine but I rolled an 11 and they ran off the board. I lost two grav guns that were going to target his terminators next turn. That was a gut punch.

After that he did well at removing a lot of my models quickly. I managed to do some late game kills but it was way too little too late. Highlight of the game: one vindicator shot taking out all three of my centurions. Yay.

My final game was against Daemons. This game was a slog. My opponent had to roll on 70 different charts every turn and his turns took longer than the government shutdown. I raced forward to get the Relic in the first turn but was counter attacked by Khorne dogs.

I had no idea the things had two wounds. He also gave them a 3+ invulnerable save and they had 5WS, 4S, 4T. Rough. It took four turns to finally kill them all, even with hit and runs. 

Once the centurions came on he had grounded his DPs to fight in combat. I had hit and run so my centurions shot bullet hoses at the DPs to kill them. I did pretty well at killing almost everything he had except for his warlord (Nurgle GD) and some plague bearers which I ignored.

Anyhoo it was a fun tournament and I learned a ton about my bikes and how to use them. Look for more on the rest of my new marine models coming shortly.