First Game with CSM

So, I was worried about my list, with 3 Heldrakes, being over the top.  The was not the case today - I lost 2 games today, 1 to Necrons and 1 to Orks.

In the Necron game, even though I was making an All Comers List (ACL), I knew that I would be playing his Necron army, so I at least wanted to make sure that I had enough to cover the threats I knew he would bring.

His list - and I didn't get it from him, was Immotek and another Lord, 2 Courts (each one had a guy that allows rerolls, a guy with the staff that is Str 8, AP 1, targets leadership, and one other guy (with Str 8, AP 3 staff).  There were split into the different units, the guys with the AP1 Flamer staffs each joined a unit of death-marks.  He had 2 Heavy Flyers (with the Str 10, AP 1 beam) {I have the codex, I just don't want to look it up, plus my brother - who I want to help with this blog, wouldn't know the equipment by its name, so I'm putting why it is dangerous instead.}

He also has 2 units of death-marks (in transports)
3 units of Immortals (1 has a flyer, but it is not used as a transport)

I had Aegis Defense Line (ADL) with Comms relay
a unit of cultists on the relay, inside the ADL, along with 3 obliterators with Mark of Nurgle
I had a deamon prince of Nurgle as an hq
3 units of CSM in Rhinos
2 squads of 2 Oblits
3 heldrakes

My thinking was that the Heldrakes would be the anti-personnel (ignoring armor and cover), so I would just need to worry about being able to get people out of their vehicles (deep-striking oblits seemed like a good answer, and might have been against different armies.

Anyway, Immotek managed to keep this game in the dark all the way through turn 5, and his lighting had some good rolls from time to time (finishing off a Heldrake)

I proxied everything, so I have no pictures, so this isn't so much a battle report as it is lessons learned.

1. 3 Heldrakes do not carry an army, despite what the internet says.  If your opponent has anti-air, or flyers of his own, the heldrakes will go down without some anti air support.

2. Vector strike is not reliable anti-air, especially if the enemy has more than one flyer (when I was building my list, I was imagining vector striking, then flaming the back (pretty sure I got this idea from the forums), but once the game started, I realized that flamers can't target flyers, even if coming from another flyer).

3. Oblits with mark of nurgle are pretty good, but but dropping them into enemy deployment zone to assassinate an enemy heavy support is  an expensive suicide mission.  While that was my plan, to drop into rear and kill vehicles or other threats, so that my dragon could do their thing, they generally died the turn they landed - even if they killed a vehicle, it's trading one unit for another, and mine is probably more expensive (although I can see where this could be useful).

4. Having 3 units of nine - 10 guys in a Rhino with no heavy weapon (waiting to strike out on turn 4 to score), means that I am playing with 400-600 less points for 2/3 of the game. (Granted, this strategy would have won me the game had the game not gone to turn 7, or had it been any mission other than the scouring).

5. My demon prince did pretty well, he soaked a lot of shots, and wiped out 1 unit and gave me line breaker. He might have won be the game, but, since it was close, I flew him away on turn 5, not wanting to give enemy slay-the-warlord, which is the problem with having a warlord that is a one man killing machine - if you use him like you are supposed to (which aggressively, since you pumped so many points into making him a melee killing machine), you are practically giving your opponent slay the warlord.  I think I am going to save my killing machine characters for when I have two HQ, so that the support character can be the warlord.