Ultramarine Scouts First Night Out

Last night the Ultramarines faced off against Carl's Grey Knights. Unfortunately my army is still a vanilla build of vanilla Marines. Combine that with the fact that one of Carl's Venerable Dreadnoughts and a Land Raider exploded one Vindicator and immobilized another in the first shooting phase and you have one very sad bunch of Ultrasmurfs. I wonder if it wouldn't have been a lot more effective to hold both Vindicators in reserve, thus encouraging him to move his Purifiers and Paladins closer to my troops, and then roaring the tanks in to deliver some mid-field blasts. Come to think of it, anything would have been more effective than getting my heavy support blasted to kingdom come in the first round of shooting.

*sigh*

On a much more positive note, my recently completed sniper Scouts had a pretty decent first outing. I had originally intended to sic them on a Dreadknight, but when Carl brought two Venerable Dreadnoughts instead, I had to change my plans. The five snipers were able to do some damage to a Purifier squad, which nearly earned their points right there. Unfortunately, I soon failed four 3+ cover saves and lost most of the squad in a single turn, leaving one sniper and Telion. Despite those losses, that lone sniper would have finished earning back the cost of the squad had Carl not made a cover save against a rending shot.

He's got a bolter round with
your HQ's name on it

However, the Scouts' shining moment came when Sergeant Telion used the Eye of Vengeance rule to target Castellan Crowe in the middle of his squad and knocked a wound off him. If you count a half-wounded Crowe as a half-value Crowe, Telion earned his points in a single shot. Had a couple of Telion's later rolls been rending, my 50 point sergeant probably would have killed a 150 point HQ.

I definitely need more sniper Scouts.