Salamanders vs Deathwing - 'Ardboyz Practice Game

Last weekend, reklawsj and I got together for another 2,500 pt game to do a little practice for 'Ardboyz, albeit without the sometimes goofy missions they come up with.  I brought the Shrike/Vulkan list I used last time with only changes being missile launchers in tactical squads instead of multi-meltas.  That list can be seen here.  My cousin brought a completely different codex, as the Grey Knights didn't really measure up in the last game.  His new list was from the Dark Angels codex consisting entirely of termies.  List included:

Belial - TH&SS

Librarian with Termie Armor and Combi-melta

6 Troop Units with 5 Terminators each including 3 with TH&SS, 1 with pair lightning claws and 1 with a Cyclone Missile Launcher and Chainfist

3 Elite Units equipped same as above.

1 of the above units had the Apothecary and Banner with Belial Attached.

The game we rolled up was Spearhead & Seize Ground with 3 objectives.  The objectives were pretty much spread evenly across board center in terrain 18" apart.  We had a large building center table and ruins spread around board.

I won first turn and setup most of my army spread around my corner to minimize deepstrikers amidst my army.  I had combat squadded all 3 of tactical squads and left the heavy weapons in cover while keeping the meltagun and combi-melta in rhinos.

He next setup 2 units in his corner with rest coming in reserve.  I then infiltrated Shrike and 10 termies in front of his 2 units.

First turn, I dropped my Dreadnought in on right objective to camp out while everything else spread out to minimize large areas that would be good for deepstriking.  I shot a few times, but no saves were failed.

His turn he dropped 4 units of termies onto board.  Only 1 of these landed in my deployment zone while others spread out to reinforce ones already on board.  A rhino was immobilized as was the dreadnought from missile fire.

After this I moved my termies up to engage, while rest of army poured fire into termie squads.  The Feel No Pain unit with Belial was a tough unit to put wounds on.  With master crafted hammers and more storm shields in my termie units, I found that I was winning combat more often, but fearless was keeping the Deathwing around.

We were only able to play 4 turns before running out of time.  This was mostly attributed to not being really familiar with Deathwing and the wound allocation and different saves on those units.  Initiative orders in combat were also ridiculous, what with characters and THs and lightning claws.

When time was called I ended up with 2 objectives while contesting the other one.  I took one with a Storm full of Scouts, another with a unit in rhino and contested his with Landraider.   I was pumped as I took down 31 of his termies in four turns with 20+ of these being killed in combat.  Another turn and he would have contested one I had with Rhino unit and probably taken down my raider, resulting in a tie.  And with turn 5 my Attack Bikes would have shown up automatically from reserve instead of missing entire game.

This was a surprising result for me, as I was pretty worried about facing down 47 Terminators, 28 of which had Storm Shields.  I know he is tweaking the list to throwdown more Storm shields for a game tomorrow.  I again will keep same list, as I like the flexibility it has and with 2 hammer units, it is pretty tough to crack.  Not to mention my bad dice rolling is not much of a factor when everything is twin-linked or master-crafted.

I'll let you know if tomorrow's games ends in victory again or if the tweaked list and different tactics change the game.  We always have an after game theory session and tactics talk to discuss where each of us could have done differently.  We both agreed that the Deathwing list needs more Storm Shields and that they would be more effective if all together in large mass.  This game they were really spread out across board and coming in different turns of game.  I was able to pick my battles, using superior numbers to push combat my way before his other units could react.  Next time, I will not be so lucky.

Well, crappy report I know, but what you think?  Is my list ready for 'Ardboyz? How would you tweak his?  Or do both suck so bad we shouldn't even show up for 'Ardboyz?