Round 3 'Ardboyz Semi-Final Battle Report - IG vs Daemons

Okay, so after the break we are waiting on pairings and reklawsj and I know we both have the same amount of points and are hoping to get paired up so we can make the trek home early since we were already out of contention for a top spot.  Well not to be, I was paired up against one of the 2 daemon players that were there.  I was just happy to play against an army with less models than Horde Orks so it didn’t take so long.  I have never played daemons and know very little about what they can do besides deepstrike everything.  His list consisted of the following:

Bloodthirster

Lord of Change

3 Flamers of Tzeentch

4 Bloodcrushers

2 units of 8 Bloodletters

2 units of 9 Pink Horrors

Soulgrinder

2 Daemon Princes

His army was fully painted to a good standard and had lots of nice conversions which was a nice change of pace from the Horde O’ Gray Orks from the last game.  I should have taken some pics of more of his army in hindsight.  His first wave was going to consist of Lord of Change, Bloodcrushers, both units of Pink Horrors and the Soul Grinder. 

The mission for this round was Killpoints with Dawn of War deployment, minus the night fight part.  An add-on for this was having more of an L-shaped deployment for reserves, though you didn’t know which side until after deployment.  I took this to mean actual reserves, like the ones you roll for, not the units you move onto the board first turn.  In the ruling it said “reserves” and in Dawn of War it states that any units not kept in reserve move onto the table in your first turn.  This seems clear, right?  It didn’t matter in my game due to playing daemons, but many other games guys were rolling on their nasties from the board edge in the first turn.  Also, there were 2 objectives for addition battle points.  Again, my opponent rolled and got first turn and deferred it to me.  These 3 games for me should have been an Imperial Guard player’s dream tournament, but I couldn’t capitalize.  The pic above was taken after he dropped his first wave in turn 1.

Turn 1

I roll on most of my army keeping a Platoon Command with Chimera, Vet Squad in Chimera, and the Sentinel Squadron in reserve.  This turn I move some things around, but have nothing to shoot at.  I should have castled my army up in the middle, I guess, so I could concentrate more firepower as he deepstriked.  This I thought of later in the game after I noticed he only had 11 KP to give up and I had 28 KP to give up.  This meant I needed to table to have a chance.  So, with my army spread out I was already screwed.

His turn, he drops in his initial wave and his Lord of change shoots at a couple units and takes down some infantry.  His Pink Horrors also shoot down a couple men and the Soulgrinder scatters off target.  Not much happened, but his shooting kinda surprised me by how much he had.  I thought they were a more assault-oriented army.

Turn 2

Only some Veterans come in from reserve and I roll them on mostly near the Bloodcrushers and center board to start protecting my objective. Some combined shooting from Pask and some Vets take down 3 Bloodcrushers.  I also shoot a lot of heavies at the Soulgrinder and cause no damage.

This turn only his Bloodthirster drops from reserve due to very poor rolling.  He lands within Mystic range and the Hydras cause 1 wound.  His Horrors finish off two of my infantry squads and his Soulgrinder finally hits and takes out my Company Command Squad leaving only the Regimental Standard, who promptly passes Leadership.  His remaining Bloodcrusher charges my Medusa and rips off my main weapon.  His Lord of Change breathed on some of my infantry and then charges them.  He whiffs and they hold with some insane Ld rolling.

Turn 3

Only my Sentinels remain in reserve and the rest roll on this turn, reinforcing the center of my army.  A unit of vets finishes off the last Bloodcrusher and the Hydra Battery finishes the job on his Bloodthirster before he gets a chance to move.  I finally have a chance to fire into the Horrors and kill a few.  I am pretty much letting the Lord of Change run amok the entire game and never shoot at him.

This turn he does a little better with reserves, but still not good for him, getting only 1 unit of Bloodletters and one prince in.  This time the Mystic guided Hydras put 2 wounds on the Daemon Prince.  He wisely dropped the Bloodletters behind some terrain.  This time the Soulgrinder smacks a direct hit on my lascannon team killing them and finishing off my CCS.  The Lord of Change takes down some Ratlings and they turn and run off the board.  He then rips the Vanquisher cannon off Pask’s ride.

Turn 4

My Sentinels walk on this turn and do little.  I finish off the Daemon Prince this turn with the Hydras before he gets to act.  They now have two big kills in this game.  A lone special weapons squad member with demo charge suicide runs toward his Horrors killing five, before assaulting them and tieing them up with no kills for either of us.  I finally use some heavies to take the battlecannon off the Soulgrinder, stopping it from slaughtering more of my guys.  I was happy I finally damaged it.

His remaining reserves drop this turn including another daemon prince, 3 flamers and another unit of Bloodletters.  This time he stays out of Mystic range with everyone.  His shooting starts hot with the second Horror unit taking out my Missile Launcher teams.  The Lord of Change then puts the Bolt of Change into Pask’s ride wrecking it.  The Soulgrinder finally got close and charges my Hydra Battery exploding one.  The Lord of Change then charges my Sentinel Squadron and destroys all of them.  The LoC is becoming a menace and is wrecking everything he comes in contact with.  He has taken down my whole left flank and I haven’t even wounded him yet. 

Turn 5

Turn 5 already and I need some killpoints.  I haven’t bothered to count at this point.  My melta vets whiff their shots at the Soulgrinder, but glory was mine when one remaining lascannon explodes it finally in a shower of daemonic shrapnel.  I use multilaser fire from a couple Chimeras to put a couple wounds on his remaining Daemon Prince.  I then jump a Platoon Command out and cleanse the big Horror unit with flamers.  The other Horror unit kills my demo charge guy in assault.

Those 3 Horrors then shoot up my Platoon Command killing four and sending the last one off the board.  His flamers finish off the Lascannon that took out his Soulgrinder.  His Bloodletter units are finally making it to my side and tear apart the Psyker Battle Squad’s Chimera with the ensuing explosion killing 6 of them.  They pass Ld and hold in the crater.

Turn 6

I move around to clean up as many units as I can to try to get killpoints even though I know I can’t kill all his Bloodletters because they are mostly full strength since they took the long way around to get to my army.  I run 2 Vet units up and finish off his only daemon prince with melta fire.  I use a couple Chimeras to finish off the only remaining Horrors and use the Hydra Battery and Soulstorm from PBS to destroy the Flamer unit.

His turn the Lord of Change makes it to the middle of my deployment after reaping 5 killpoints from my left flank and charges my veterans.  He kills a few but they hold their ground.  His Bloodletters then charge my remaining Psykers and finish them off.  Game Ends.

At this point I have my objective firmly controlled so at least 1 point to me.  He has left his behind to harvest some souls,  I like his style.  We start counting killpoints and I only get 8.  He gets 17 from me getting a massacre.  After also totaling VPs, in case he ties with someone, I have almost 1,900 and he has around 1,800.  Those are the perils of playing guard.  Have a close game and kill almost the entire opposing army and hold 1 objective, while still being massacred and getting zero points.

Overall, this was a fun game with a great opponent that had a nice looking army who helped me with his rules along the way because I knew nothing about daemons.  I wish I had castled up more forcing his units into a mass of gunfire with help from Mystics.  Instead I spread out and he spread out also taking my army apart while receiving minimal fire in any direction.  Also, this table had a huge LOS blocking terrain piece in the middle protecting his Bloodletters on my right flank until he had worn down my units over there.  I feel like I took down the large monsters pretty easily, only letting the Lord of Change and Soulgrinder get to me.  I was really surprised at how much shooting the daemons bring to the table, it was impressive at times.

Finally, semi-finals are over and we went home before awards.  I think I placed high in the lower half.  I’m happy with that as the 6 games at ‘Ardboyz this year are the only ones I have played with the new IG codex.  I didn’t use the orders rules at all during semis, but probably should have.  Oh well, time to devise an army with less dudes so I can play faster next year.

Round 2 'Ardboyz Semi-Final Battle Report - IG vs Horde Orks

After round 1 I’m sitting in the top 10 and feeling pretty decent about my next game.  Then I get put on a table with Horde Orks.  I don’t know how I’m going to kill 175 Orks in one game and that’s pretty much what I will have to do to have a chance at claiming the objectives.

The set-up is Pitched Battle with the objective deepstriking in after setup with the one closest to the middle counting as two objectives.  Again, we roll for first and he gets it, but the defers to me.  That’s two first turns in a row for IG.  I wish I had some Manticores and some Valkyries full of flamers.  So his list consisted of the following:

Ghazkull

Big Mek with Kustom Force Field and Power Klaw

2 units of 15 Lootas

1 unit of 13 Kommandos with 2 Burnas and Snikrot

1 unit of 10 boyz in Trukk with Ghaz – Nob PK

2 units of 30 boyz with Nob PK

1 unit of 29 boyz with Nob PK

1 unit of 30 boyz with Nob PK and 3 Rokkits

3 units of 3 Killa Kans with 2 Rokkits and 1 Grotzooka in each

Above are some picks of my deployment and his.  I attempted to bubble wrap some of my tanks with infantry because of Snikrot, he just filled his side of the board up with the KFF in the middle.  He’s the silver guy behind the trees and Lootas.  The objective closest to the center scattered into my deployment zone in front of the Hydras and the other 3 were clumped to my right in front of Pask and some infantry.

Turn 1

It didn’t take long in this game for me to become really discouraged and pretty much give up.  The back corner of the shop we were in was really hot and I was sweating pretty much the whole game.  My opponent was nice enough and I really didn’t have a problem with his attitude toward the game, I just got bummed out and didn’t have much fun til later in the game.  I started my shooting as normal and killed only enough Lootas to force both units to Go to Ground.  The rest of my shooting was useless because of his Super Mega Awesome Kustom Force Field that covered his entire army.  The way he deployed each unit he was sure to string a few guys back toward the KFF.  This made sure that every model on his side of the table received cover save.

His turn he began advancing a few models and shooting his Kans at the Ratlings killing a couple.

Turn 2

Marbo comes in and I decide to Demo charge Ghaz’s Trukk and make him walk toward me.  Well he sucked it and missed everything.  I also shot everything I had at rest of army, again forcing one of the Loota units to Go to Ground and killing a Kan finally.  Still the massive amounts of cover saves he was taking/making were killing me. 

His turn Snikrot comes in behind my Hydras and more of his army advances slowly.  The Boyz in the trukk jump off and own Marbo.  Ghaz speeds off to center table.  His shooting is again useless.  Then I see the error of my bubble wrapping technique.  I had spread them thinly and apparently as long as your base will fit through the gap it is fine to go within one inch of enemy models when assaulting.  So Snik and boyz destroyed my Hydras and 2 units of infantry in one assault.

Turn 3

I finally decide to shoot the unit the Big Mek was attached to hoping to make them run away.  I don’t kill enough and he continues making saves and few are killed.  The only bright spot was I killed Snik’s squad down to about 8 guys and put Weaken Resolve on them forcing Ld 2 check.  Haha they’re gone, or not he pops Ghaz’s Waagh and makes them fearless so no check.  At this point I mentally give up.  My sentinels had came in behind his army and started knocking down a few boyz.

His turn he continues advance but at lightning speed with Ghaz’s Waagh and his boyz are getting close.  His shooting still stinks but he has Snik in my lines and he continues the slaughter.

Turn 4

On the left side of the board I have lost a few guys and 70 boyz are coming around the house so I decide to block the hole between the two buildings with 2 chimeras putting about a third of his army out of the battle.  I just leave the few units I have over there and let him eat them.  At least that part of his army won’t be in contention for the objectives.  My right side continues shooting and I kill more boyz but not enough to force Ld checks.  I do destroy the trukk and put Ghaz on foot.

He is advancing 2 units of boyz and Ghaz toward me and they are the only real threat of capturing objectives in this game, everything else is out of range.  He assaults some Chimeras and kills some guys, but I am still holding the center objective and one other.

Turn 5

Boring I know, but I shoot more boyz but still not enough die to force Ld checks.  I’m just trying to hold out til game ends now.  This is the last turn as we are almost out of time.  I am holding one objective with vets in immobilized Chimera and the one closest to center.  I try to run with Sentinels but fall an inch short of contesting one objective.  I also start shooting one of the Boyz squads and force them to run away with Weaken Resolve.  Ghazkull is in charge range of my objective so I open fire on him with Vets and Hvy Weapons squad but fall one would short of killing him.  After the first 3 were taken I put 5 more wounds on him but no ones came up.

His turn Ghaz kills my unit on center objective so no one has it and he spreads his only unit out taking 2 objectives and contesting the other.

Game ends with his 2 to my none so Minor Victory for him.  I take 7 from this game and have 22 points total putting me middle of the pack.  I wish I had been more into this game early on and I think I could have pulled it closer.  I was just demoralized when he passed every cover save it seemed for his whole army.  That 6” KFF was ridiculous with the guys strung out like that.  I never thought about using it in that way and he did say he wished they would change the wording to not allow it.  Well played on his part even though I think he should have advanced his army earlier on and weathered the fire, he probably could have tabled me.  He put the Lootas in the front and they march blocked the half of his army that was on the side of the table as the objectives.  Next game puts me against Daemons, whom I have never played against.

Round 1 'Ardboyz Semi-Final Battle Report - IG vs CSM

For the semi-finals reklawsj and I traveled to Greenville, SC to a store called Borderlands.  It was about the same distance to drive as Charlotte but was a fairly large store with plenty of game tables and mostly good terrain, even if some of the boards were on the heavy side of to much terrain.  I think 28 people showed up for the tourney. 

In the first game I drew a Chaos Space Marine army and the ice board shown above.  His listed consisted of:

2 Winged Lash Princes

1 Greater Daemon

2 Units of 3 Obliterators

1 Vindicator

3 Chaos Dreadnoughts with 2 CCW each

2 Units of 10 CSM with 2 melta, powerfist, Icon of Chaos Glory

2 Units of 10 CSM with 2 flamers, powerfist, Icon of Chaos Glory

1 Unit of 6 Raptors with 2 meltas

My list was a slight variation of the one posted earlier, with the Hydras and changes to how my infantry were arranged.  We rolled for first turn and of course he won it, but DEFERRED to me.  Alright, I like going first, so I thought.  I deployed in my corner like the pic above and he only started the Oblits, the 3 Dreads and 1 of his CSM units on the board.  The Oblits took up firing positions in far corner on hill and the others hugged the center behind a terrain feature.  All else was in reserve. 

The mission was “Da Fog of War” Scenario which set up in spearhead deployment, but with fog in non-deployment quarters that could dissipate with dice rolls in subsequent turns.  The objectives were in center table and one each center of opposite quarters hidden in the fog.  The center objective was worth 2 and the game was 6 turns.

Turn 1

During the first turn I fired everything I had at what I could see and did zero damage.  Either because he made cover saves on obscured vehicles or my Catachans were freezing. 

Luckily, he did no damage in return, though he did move forward with evertything and frenzied one dread getting 6” closer.  I guess marines get cold to.

Turn 2

Second turn my reserves in the form of Marbo and 3 Sentinels come on the board.  Marbo appeared behind 1 of the Obliterator units and demo charged 2 of them into oblivion.  The sentinels came on board firing and wounding 1 obliterator.  The Medusa also fires across the board and kills 1 Obliterator from second unit.  However, all my other shooting phase rolls were awful, including both of my plasmaguns overheating and killing the firing model. 

During his turn his Raptors are the only thing coming in from reserve and they fly up to right objective.  His remaining Obliterator, from one unit, turns and twin-link meltas Marbo to the face.  The other unit fires at my Hydras and wrecks one of them.  This turn both of us were rolling horrendously and neither of our armies were hurting because of it.  Though him only getting 1 unit of raptors out of 8 units he had in reserve would start to make a difference soon.

Turn 3

This turn I moved a couple Chimeras around and began my shooting phase.  Pask fired the Vanquisher first and smoked a Dreadnought finally.  A heavy weapons team finally wrecked a Rhino forcing the unit to disembark.  I had hoped for this and had already unloaded my Platoon Command to be ready.  The 3 flamers and a heavy flamer cooked the majority and the rest were finished off by a nearby infantry squad.  My veteran squad was in position to fire from the hatch at the Raptors killing the majority of them.  The Heavy Bolter squad finished off the unit.  Also, the Ratlings put 3 wounds on his Obliterators killing 2 of them.  Now my dice were finally heating up a bit.

His were still pretty dismal and he did little besides move the dreads and miss some shooting, because only one unit of CSM in reserve came in this turn.

Turn 4

This turn I again moved little just easing over toward some objectives.  At this point I controlled all of them, but half his army was still off the table.  First, I melta’ed a dread with my Vets then destroyed another with Lascannon fire.  I finished off one unit of the Obliterators with a Hydra from across the board.  My other vet unit exploded the other Rhino full of CSM.  I attempted to wipe them, but killed only 9 with Soulstorm from my Psyker Battle Squad.  The only one left was a Champion, Doh.

In this turn, his reserves finally come in with 2 units in Rhinos coming in on my left side, the Lash Prince, Vindicator on the right and also the Greater Daemon.  The GD popped into the only Champion on the board who was the last man standing from his unit.  The prince lashed a unit of infantry forward and the GD charged them and ran them down. 

Turn 5

In my turn I had a Lash Prince 1 inch away from a Chimera full of Vets and a Greater Daemon in my lines.  I concentrate the Vets fire and Lascannon fire at the Prince and send him back to the Warp.  The GD I decide is a small threat so let him continue rampaging through my lines.  The other Veteran unit destroys one Rhino, forcing the unit out.  I then use Weaken Resolve from PBS on this unit and pour some Sentinel fire into them before they run for the board edge. 

This turn his other Lash Prince comes into the same spot as earlier beside the Vets Chimera.  He charges and destroys it leaving the Vets sitting in the smoking crater left behind.  His only unit of CSM make run for middle and flamer my Vets to death before camping about 10 inches away from objective.  His demolisher fires at my advancing Special weapons squad missing them.  The GD destroys Medusa this turn in combat, exploding it and killing several guardsmen.

Turn 6

At the beginning of this turn I am sitting on left objective with a Platoon Command in Chimera being screened by my 3 sentinels, with no way for him to contest.  I am also camped in my Chimera crater with a full Veteran squad, though with a Lash Prince 2 inches away.  I have an advancing infantry squad about 10 inches from center objective, with 2 partial units of CSM in striking distance of it.  First off, the vets kill the lash prince with one volley.  Next I attempt to suicide the Special weapons squad on the Vindicator, but the meltagun misses and one demo charge comes back killing 3 of the unit and the other demo charge only shaking it.  It is within tank shock range of my Vets on right objective, but I can’t immobilize it or anything helpful.  I try to move and run for the center objective but only run 3 inches needing 4.  I also try to block one unit of CSM off from center using Chimera but it is immobilized on a wreck from earlier Rhino kill.  However, it is within 2 inches of objective.  The missile launcher team destroys the last rhino, taking cover from nearby unit.  I then use Weaken Resolve on unit of CSM closest to center and run them out with heavy weapons fire, putting them out of reach of the objective in center.  Then I just had to sit and wait on his moves.

The vindicator rolled over difficult terrain and tankshocked my Vets.  They promptly rolled 11 and ran for it instead of getting one last melta shot to destroy it with Death or Glory.  His only remaining CSM moved for center and used a charge move to assault my Chimera.  Even though it moved 12 inches in the previous turn it became immobilized on the wreck so he hit automatically with lotsa krak grenades and a powerfist destroying it easily.

So at games end, he had the middle objective and I had one other while the last was only contested with a Vindicator.  We each had 1 objective so the draw went to player with most killpoints.  Luckily, I had 14 and he only had 10, giving me a Minor Victory.  I also received Bonus points for killing his highest point scoring unit and keeping mine alive. 

Overall, this was a good game with a good opponent.  It would have been a lot closer if his reserves would have been a little more reliable.  I know he would have started more on the board if he could have known how bad my rolling would be in the first couple turns.  Our rolling collectively for the first couple turns was so bad we were both laughing about it.  Once my rolling started getting better things started to die and I could tell my opponent got a little discouraged while watching me roll dice for 20 minutes per turn while he removed models from the board.  It is a little boring for both players when playing IG for that reason.  This is one reason I stopped playing with them for so long and just started doing more armies that had character and cool units that went with the fluff.

 I was happy with the changes I made to my list taking the Hydras and the Psyker Battle Squad.  Both performed great in this game.  I was still learning things to do and not do with this army, being only the 4^th game I had played with this codex.  Scoring 15 points for the game put me barely in the top 10 players going into the next game.  Next battle reports pits me against Horde Orks.

2,500 pt "BusBoy" IG List for Semis

Okay, so ‘Ardboyz Semi-Finals is in a few days and I have been thinking about revamping my original list a little for the next round.

 I saw a few things in semis that were a little weak and need some improvement.  First, was the Inquisitor with LD 9 Psychic Hoods sucks it.  I only stopped one psychic power out of about 9 attempts.  Another was that I used my melta vets too sparingly.  I should be throwing them at the enemy sometimes and blowing up the LandRaiders before they get to me instead of waiting till they’re in range then popping them.  I also saw that squadroned Leman Russes are kinda weak and that one of these lives almost as long, especially when Wolf Scouts and Snikrot and Kommandoes are sneaking in behind my static gunline every game.  Having not played my IG in 5 years, my eyes were opened to a few things I hadn’t experienced in 5^th edition playing a more gunline style army.  For example, if you know the enemy has things that can come in behind your army at least move the juicy targets a little to make it harder to plant meltabombs.  And if you know they will come in behind I should string my infantry along the board edge to prevent them from entering the back edge.  I can also castle some tanks at edges to prevent outflanking deep into my territory. 

With these few things in mind I made some changes to make the list seen below.  The PBS I added because I hear how great they are online and want to see this for myself.  I think they’re shooting power can be strong and the Weaken Resolve could work to help me pin Nob Bikers and such if I get lucky with the 14 Sniper Rifles in the army.  I also stole the CCS Chimera to give the PBS for extra protection.  Check out the list and at bottom I have a few more options I want some input on.  And the Chimera that Infantry Squad #3 has is actually the ride for the Special Weapons Squad that hop in at beginning of game. 

HQ

Company Command Squad

Company Commander

Bolter

Sniper Rifle x 4

Ordo Malleus Inquisitor Lord

Bolt Pistol

Psychic Hood

2 Mystics

1 Acolyte

Elites

Ratling Squad

10 Ratlings

Guardsmen Marbo

Psyker Battle Squad

10 Psykers

Chimera - Dedicated Transport

Multilaser

Heavy Bolter

Troops

Veteran Squad #1

10 Vets

Shotguns

3 Meltaguns

Heavy Bolter

Vet Sergeant

Plasma Pistol

Power Weapon

Chimera - Dedicated Transport

Heavy Flamer

Heavy Flamer

Veteran Squad #2

10 Vets

3 Meltaguns

Chimera - Dedicated Transport

Multilaser

Heavy Flamer

Platoon Command Squad #1

Platoon Commander

Meltabombs

Flamer

Flamer

Flamer

Heavy Flamer

Chimera - Dedicated Transport

Multilaser

Heavy Bolter

Infantry Squad 1

10 Guardsmen

Plasma Gun

Autocannon

Infantry Squad 2

10 Guardsmen

Plasma Gun

Autocannon

Infantry Squad 3

10 Guardsmen

Grenade Launcher

Heavy Bolter

Chimera - Dedicated Transport

Heavy Flamer

Heavy Bolter

Special Weapons Squad

2 Demo Charges

Meltagun

Platoon Command Squad #2

Platoon Commander

Bolter

Power Fist

Meltabombs

Heavy Flamer

Flamer

Flamer

Chimera - Dedicated Transport

Multilaser

Heavy Bolter

Infantry Squad 1

10 Guardsmen

Grenade Launcher

Lascannon

Infantry Squad 2

10 Guardsmen

Flamer

Missile Launcher

Heavy Weapons Squad

3 Heavy Bolter Teams

Heavy Weapons Squad

3 Missile Launcher Teams

Heavy Weapons Squad

3 Lascannon Teams

Fast Attack

Sentinel Squadron

3 Sentinels

Multilasers

Heavy Support

Leman Russ Vanquisher

Lascannon

Heavy Bolter Sponsons

Knight Commander Pask

Leman Russ Squadron

Leman Russ #1

Heavy Bolter

Medusa

Heavy Bolter

Bastion Breacher Shells

Okay, if you got this far would you make any of the following changes.  I found a couple of the twin-linked autocannon sets from Planetstrike and am thinking about quickly converting these into a couple Hydra Flak Tanks.  To get the points I would have to give up my Leman Russ, but I think the trade-off is worth it.  To me the

PROS are: 

8 Str 7 shots for shooting transports, walkers, jetbikes, etc. 

Twin-linked makes up for BS 3. 

Long Range

Takes advantage of some of the Eldar strengths(jetbike boosting)

CONS are: 

Squadroned

Armor 12 so 1 less Armor 14 to take opponents attention. 

Takes away template that I was using with Inq. and Mystics combination.

My next change is taking the 5 infantry squads from the 2 platoons and making them into 4 infantry squads(still in 2 platoons) and a heavy weapons squad using the following loadout:

Infantry Squad 1A – Plasma Gun

Infantry Squad 2A – Plasma Gun

Infantry Squad 1B – Grenade Launcher, Missile Launcher

Infantry Squad 2B – Grenade Launcher, Heavy Bolter

Heavy Weapons Squad – 2 Autocannons, Lascannon

To me the

PROS are:

Can now blob up the A squads and/or B squads to make them harder to for morale checks.

The weapon loadouts make them more specialized in their role if blobbed

Heavy Weapons Squad now specialized

Don’t lose all the lasgun shots when I fire an entire squad with Lascannon at tank

Save 10 pts

CONS are:

Lose 4 Guardsmen overall

Heavy weapon squads with 6 guys are easy to kill and/or force morale on with little shooting

Those are the two major changes I was thinking about and actually I really like both of them, but will probably only do the Infantry.  Unless, you have a good reason why two Hydras are better than one Leman Russ that I can tell the wife so she lets me convert them before Saturday.

 So, what do you think about the list and should I make the said changes?  Have any of you had any luck blobbing up just 20 guys or do you need more?  This will be my first time using PBS, what ideas do you have to make them work better with the given list?  Also, do infantry grant cover saves to friendly units behind them or is that way off?  And lastly,  does each platoon count as a kill point or every unit in the platoon is a separate killpoint, so about 6 or so KP per Platoon?  Dang, I need to play more games.