My first game of 2011

I stopped by the Tuesday 40K club at my FLGS, with every intention of just watching since my army is still largely on sprues, but one of the club members offered to let me borrow his army for a quick game.  We went with a small size and no vehicles so I could get a handle on the new rules, and both sides played Space Marines just so I could see how different units fared.

I want to say, those who run clubs should take a cue from this.  Every came up and re-introduced themselves and really went out of their way to make me feel welcome.  I felt like taking notes for my church.

Anyways, I had some leeway in picking my small army and went with the following:

• Captain with the upgraded armor, relic weapon and storm bolter
• 10-marine Tac squad with plasma cannon and meltagun (my "shooty" squad)
• 10-marine Tac squad with heavy bolter, flamer, and veteran sergeant with power fist (my "assaulty" squad)
• Seven marine bike squad with (heavy?) flamer, sergeant with power weapon.

My opposition was the following (in broad terms because I didn't know all the details):

• Captain with terminator armor and power weapon
• 10-marine Tac squad with lascannon and plasma gun
• 5-marine Scout squad with bolt pistols and chainswords
• 5-marine Scout squad with sniper rifles
• 10-marine Assault squad with plasma pistols and veteran sergeant with power fist

The game was pretty straightforward.  We both paired up our captains with a tac squad (my assault one) and ran them up into each other on the left side of the board.  My shooty marines wiped out most of the sniper scouts, then shot up the melee scouts when they drew close.  In the center, the bikes collided with the assault marines where they locked up for the rest of the game, mostly as a result of poor dice rolling and large numbers allowing for attrition.

I managed to get the upper hand with the two "command" units in melee.  My powerfist sergeant took out his captain while my captain wiped out the regular marines.  By turn five when the game ended, I had destroyed three units and had only really banged up but not destroyed one.  In the post-op my instructor/opponent said that the bikes should not have fared so well in assaulting the assault marines.  I could see that if they had run through the bikes, they would have headed for the shooty marines, and that might have tipped the game to a tie at a minimum.  I am also considering the option of a veteran sergeant for my tac squads after they are put together.