5th Edition, Does your list have the tools to win?

I recently played a Kill points tournament with my Sister's of Battle. I took pretty much my normal mech list with a small change. While this list preformed pretty close to my win ratio for kill point matches in general, 33%, it gave me incite to my Fists list I'm building . Specificaly it highlighted what units or unit abilities you need to win kill point missions in 5th.

My first match was vs BA with the Sanguinator, stormraven, 2 landraiders, assualt marines, and sternguard. What I learned from this matchup was, sternguard are good. Looking back at the matchup, I can see the lesson I learned in games 2 and 3, but reversed. I deployed on the board and he reserved just about everything. He was worried about loosing his transports right away. I took the middle and positioned my melta for when he came on. And like I planned, it so happened. Of coarse one dreadnought with bloodtalons almost cost me the game, but over all my plan was solid.

Game 2 I faced a necron army. He ran Nightbringer, monolith, destroyer lord, 5 heavy destroyers, and 3 reguluar destroyers. The rest didn't matter for the fight. I got to choose sides and deploy first. I set up hopping to make him reserve some, and deployed in a string across my side (rookie move by me). He then deployed everything and stole the initiative. /sad face me. He knocked out 2 rhinos, destroyed an exorcist, and two units were pinned. More importantly looking back was the turboboosting necron lord coming for me and the Nightbringer at mid field. These 2 units can kill my whole army, and I'm guessing he had been doing that to his past opponents. It took 2 turns for me to deal with those 2. Meanwhile his monolith took mid field and thus my chances for any win. He slowly racked up kill points and it was close till I had to try and drive past the monolith. That thing glanced my armour to death. I learned I needed some way to get across the board in addition to mech. Mech is ok till you face a shooty army that stays on thier board edge. Kill point missions allow them to "turkey shoot". In objective missions, the objectives are usually only midfield or slightly further. That extra 12 inches is pretty huge.

Thats why I had an advantage in game one. He had to come at me because he did not have the tools he needed. One drop podding dreadnought would have changed that whole battle. I would not have been able to focus on the transports due to having to deal with a drop pod. Outflanking would have helped also, and maybe given him another option.

Game three was dawn of war vs Tau. I got off a turn one assualt but he ran. I didn't catch him and my units were murdered the next turn. The rest of the game can be summed up by him popping my transports and slowly killing my footsloggers. I also rolled really bad but, I don't think it would have helped. I simply did not have the tools to get to him.

Ding!

Ok so what did I learn? Well, I learned I only win about 1/3 of my kill point games. Wait I aready knew that. I learned WHY I loose 2/3 of my kill point games. I used to think it was having too many kill points. Having lots of units is acually an advantage not a disadvantage. I learned it was my list not having the tools to deal with shooty armies in kill point missions. Not having a unit that can infiltrate, deepstrike, or outflank is huge in 5th.

5th edition is not about mech like everyone says. 5th is about being able to move. It is about being able to be where you need to be,when you need to be there. Watching the greyknights do it with 30 inch teleporting opened my eyes to what my army needed. I think the grand master will be huge for GK. The ability to give units the usr they need is huge.

So my tournament finished right where I thought it would. 1 win, 2 losses in a kill point tournament. Looking back and playing the battle over in my head with my Fists instead of my SoB, I can see so many more options. There are so many more ways the new list would deal with those shooty lists.

Well that's my 2 cents.




Inquisitor_Dunn