Square One

Last Friday night I finally got to playing my first 40k games ever starting off with four good games that yielded two draws, a win and a loss. My army list for the four 750 point games was as follows;
HQ
Shas’el CS (122) – Cyclic Ion Blaster, Missile Pod, Targeting array
HW Drone Controler, HW Multi tracker
2x Shield Drones

Troops
5x Shas’la + 1x Shas’ui FW (80) 6 x Pulse Rifle, 1 x Markerlight
5x Shas’la FW + 1x Shal'ui FW (70) 6 x Pulse Rifle

Elite
3x Shas’ui CS (201) – 3 x Plasma Rifle, 3x Missile Pod, 3x Multi-tracker
2x Shas’ui CS (110) – 2 x Burst Cannon, 2x Missile Pod, 2x Multi-tracker

Heavy Support
Hammerhead (165) – Railgun, Disruption Pods, Smart Missiles, Landing Gear, Targeting Array

Total = 748

Throughout the night I collected draws against Micros Imperial Goblin Guard (which probably warrant a blog of their own) and a Tau player where is both instances I simply setup and dug in around my objective wiping the floor with anyone who dared to get too close. At this stage I was a little unsure of what else I should be doing since, for some reason I was terribly afraid of losing battle suits even though, as I now know, battle suits exist to be lost in Capture and Control battles.

Following the pair of draws I fought an annihilation battle against a Daniels Space Marines where I managed to skilfully snatch defeat from the jaws of almost certain victory by forgetting that I was playing for kill points and sending my two squads of Fire Warriors to their death for no good reason despite previously decimating over half of his forces with the loss of only one suit. A worthy lesson was learned though that the stat line of Fire Warriors can not truly communicate just how incredibly bad they are in close combat.

With that brain-fart out of the way I moved on to another Space Marine player named Adam for whom nothing could seemingly go right. In the first two games I had well learned that the combination of plasma rifles and being aggressive with battle suits was a very powerful union. This tactic, despite rolling a 1 to hit for my Hammerhead in two successive turns, ensured that by the end of turn three Adams army amounted to one very lucky Dreadnought, one very lonely squad of Assault Marines and half a squad of very lost Scouts. The suits ensured that the Assault Marines didn't remain lonely for long and with the objective cleared I was able to claim my first ever win in Warhammer 40k. Go me.

Since tyhe learning process never really ends I include a 'What I Learned' section after my battle reports.

What I Learned:
The Rules
Plasma Rifles are, in fact, the best rifles
Don't forget to jump in the assault phase
Don't forget to run in the shooting phase
Don't forget that your Fire Warrior teams exist and leave them hiding behind a wall for most of the game