New Space Marines; game one

Yesterday I got my first game in using the new Space Marine codex. It was a fun 2000 point game vs Brian and Blake and their Emperor's Children and Nurgle Plague marines. I took 2000 points of Crimson Fists lead by Pedro Kantor and Capt Cortez in terminator armor. I'm not going to give a play by play but I do want to hit on some of my first impressions after using the codex.

My list;

Pedro Kantor
Capt in terminator armor with relic stomach shield and thunder hammer
6 man honor guard with chapter banner in drop pod
9 stern guard in drop pod
10 tactical marines in drop pod vet sarg with power weapon and mm and melta
10 ccw scouts with vet sarg and power weapon
Ironclad dreadnought
Storm raven
Hunter
5 bolter scouts in land speeder storm
5 terminators. One assault cannon

Things I tried to do or see on the battlefield. I wanted to see chapter tactic in use. I wanted to use honor guard as they went down 10 points apiece! I wanted to try out the hunter before I picked up the kit. I wanted to use the new eternal warrior shield on a character.

Lessons learned so far.....
My first time out with the Hunter was less than impressive. Blake and Brian did not have any fliers, skimmers, or flying monstrous creatures, so I was snap firing the whole game. This was ok as I expect to have games where this will be the case.  I hit once the whole game and rolled a double ones for armor pen.... Lol.

As for chapter tactics, my luck was a little better. I did not take a lot of units that benefited from it but I was able to see it getting used. It was definitely not over powering, especially in the age of guide far seers and divination libbies. White Scars with Khan is looking to be the beast chapter.

Honor Guard were good. I lead them with the relic shield captain. They killed a lot of noise marines but struggled vs plague marines.  Lesson learned is I need to finish my power ax honor guard to beef up their killing power. They were a great gun line unit with bolsters, bolt pistols, and power weapons. I'm not sure Blake and Brian like this unit.


Things I want to try out...
I want to make a shield captain in artificer armor and a bike captain with bike command squad. Bikes got so cheap, and look like a lot of fun. Centurions look like fun and I definitely want to run a list centered around heavy bolter devastators and bolter drill.

Ally options look insane, and I would like to see how tough Iron Hands dreadnoughts are.

This was just some quick thoughts I had on the new dex. I think it is good but not meta breaking. These are not another grey knight codex. I do think hey will tone down the Tau and Eldar lists.

October I plan on making the trip to Omaha for the Khornhusker RTT. This will be fun as I have not played any tournaments for a while. This also means I need to put some thought into what I want to run!