Templar Drop Pod Thoughts and Game

So I've mucking about with my Templar and thought I would try to tweak my 1850 to see if I could make it feel more like a lean mean killing machine.

The main goal I wanted to do was to try to get out more, though be it smaller, troop squads.  I also wanted to add a more choppy choppy HQ over the Chaplain I had been running.

Of course this requires points.  So I had to look at where to cut.

-Land Speeders: Some times they do ok, they always die, and they are easy kill points.  I feel like I need them as they give me my only mobility and lord know the MM/HF are also desperately needed.

-Adamantite Mantle- Sometimes it comes up in games, most times it doesn't.  I'd say about 1/3 of the games it has a use.  But at 35 points if I'm going dual Marshal I figure cut it.

-Deathwinds- Probably 1 out of 10 games they have been awesome at destroying hordes in the open.  The rest of the games are either non-hordes and they are far less useful or horde in cover.  When you're talking about 7-8 pods that's a lot of points that can go to nothing.  So I thought I'd cut these and see how it goes.

That let me put together the following 1850 BT Pod list.

Emperor's Champ, AACNMTO
Marshal, Terminator, TH/SSMarshal, Terminator Honors, Twin Claws, Melta Bomb, Iron Halo

Venerable Dread, MM/HF, Smoke in Drop Pod
Dread, MM/HF, Smoke in Drop Pod

5 crusaders, Fist/Melta, 1 Neophyte in Drop Pod
5 crusaders, Fist/Melta, 1 Neophyte in Drop Pod
5 crusaders, Fist/Melta, 1 Neophyte in Drop Pod
6 crusaders, Fist/Melta, 1 Neophyte in Drop Pod
6 crusaders, Fist/Melta, 1 Neophyte in Drop Pod
6 crusaders (Bolters), Fist/plasma, 1 Neophyte in Drop Pod

Speeder MM/HF
Speeder MM/HF

1850

I would have liked to get Terminator armor on the other Marshal but I thought giving up the 4+ Invul was kind of a wash for the 2+ save.

So last night I got a game against Dave's bugs.  I was actually glad to play bugs as I could see how my list which had just cut a bunch of Deathwinds would do.

His list looked something like:
Tyranid Prime
3 Hive Gaurd
9 Genestealers with Broodlord
10 Gants
10 Gants
Tervigon
Tervigon
2 Zoes in Pod
Tyranofex
Tryanofex

All kinds of the upgrades that I can never remember.

We rolled for the 4 objective mission and corner deployment.  All of the objectives were mostly tucked into one quarter.  Dave won the roll off and debated what to do.  Normally you would decided to make me go first.  However with all the objectives in one deployment he could basically camp on them and make me fight him off them.  He decided to make me go first and use his first turn to start advancing on the objectives.

Of course on my turn 2 I had 7 of my 10 drops come down and pretty much built a wall of pods to get through.  He eventually did but the game ended on turn 5 in a draw, with both of us having troops on and objective and one being contested by troops in combat.

I really took a beating though if we looked at kill points or Victory points.  Granted I played aggressive knowing those were NOT the objectives.  I made a few errors that I will make sure I don't forget in upcoming games (like deepstriking pods need to be hit on 6s in CC the turn they land).

Of course while it was great to see the list did pretty well I can look back and say:

-I really missed having the deathwinds. There were plenty of times they could have done great, but of course they could have also totally failed.  The Storm Bolters on the pods did pick off a few bugs, and the 24" range is nice but BS 2 is tehsux.  Still I'd like to keep them out and play more games to see how I really feel.

-Adamantite Mantle would have saved my Termie Marshal.  He and his squad owned the Hive Gaurd, but he was killed by upgrades from the Tyranid Prime that cause intant death.  That would have been really nice to have kept.

-My non Termie Marshal was brought down by Gaunts in the first round of combat.  2+ save would have been great.

-A few more guys in each squad would have kept combat going just a bit longer, which would have been huge for me.  Granted I had a few rounds of really horrible saves...

-Venerable was added 'cause I had the 10 points.  The Zoes dropped, shot rear armor thru the pod, landed one pen, failed cover, he rolled a 6, then rerolled a 5.  That was silly. :)

So did it work?  Well more or less, but I think I might make some changes.  I think I might scoot to 5 troops and add a few more bodies to each squad.  I also think I'm going to muck around with that 2nd Marshal, or maybe even drop in a GK GM.

Got to play with some points and see what's what.