First Game of 8th - Ultramarines vs T'au - Power Level 50

So my brother and I managed to get our first game of 8th Edition in. 

We picked two quick Power Level 50 lists to use and played the standard mission.

The objectives were placed, and then three removed once one was revealed to be the relic. 

I don't have a full blow by blow, but I will talk though some of the highlights, first our respective lists: 

Ultramarines: - 47 Points
Command Points: 4

Captain in Gravis Armour
Primaris Lieutenant - Power Sword

Intercessor Squad
Intercessor Squad

Contemptor Dreadnought - Kheres Assault Cannon

Primaris Ancient

Hellblaster Squad

T'au: - 50 Points
Command Points: 6

Commander - Shield Generator, Burst Cannon, Missile Pod
Cadre Fireblade - MVI Gun Drones x 2

Strike Team x 10
Breacher Team x 10

XV8 Crisis Battlesuits x 3 (Plasma Rifle & Missile Pod each)

Pathfinder Team x 5 (Ion Rifles)

TX7 Hammerhead Gunship

The Highlights:
To begin with I actually forgot that Primaris Marines had 2 wounds.... easily rectified but what a mistake! 

Running at T'au gunlines still sucks, much as you would expect! Although the changes to their BS via movement & heavy weapons does help out somewhat! 

The Contemptor with a base move of 9" is pretty damn quick! He scooted round the flank to come in and deal with the two Characters my brother had back there, although his shooting was lack lustre! 

The Hellblasters managed to help take out the Hammerhead, before it was finished in combat, an interesting unit, that only managed to kill one of its models due to overheating!

Battlesuits, being unable to double these boys out, an 8" move, fly and two weapon systems a pop these guys are hard to deal with, with a load of fire power thrown out it they are more on my watch list than ever before! 

The picture below shows my surviving models, not a huge amount left after the game! 


Here my Lieutenant strikes second against the T'au (not because of a charge, but because of my mistake!) with only 1 wound left... nervous times as this is when I expect the T'au to be amazing in combat, fortunately that was not what killed him... that was two Battlesuits knocking 4 plasma shots into him in the following turn! 

Thoughts
Morale Phase - only matter once, when the Breachers were in combat and got massacred by the Lieutenant & Captain.

Outside of that the T'au ability to pass on a 6, and the low model count in my squads meant that while we needed to take the test due to casualties, we were never able to fail it before that. It will be interesting to see how this goes on in the future. 

Command Points -  I used all 4 of mine, mainly to try and re-roll charges, or 4+ I get to shoot again roles.

The T'au only used 3 of theirs, and I think this is something that we will all need to work on, using the command points at the right time! 

Combat - the you go I go nature of combat makes sense and worked well for me, but was a bit of a change for my opponent to get their head around, another game or two and I am sure it will be fine (plus he plays T'au so they tend to ignore that assault phase unless it was for their jetpack moves....)

Points vs Power
So as you saw at the top I had 3 power less than my opponent making me the underdog, from a points perspective it was:

Ultramarines 835 v T'au 973, meaning I was out pointed by 16%, we played power levels for speed of getting us going, and will likely continue unless engaging in tournament practise.

However a 16% points disadvantage could have proved decisive, in the old game consider these tournament points:

1500 - 16% would be 1747
1750 - 16% would be 2039
1850 - 16% would be 2155

It shows why power levels shouldnt be used except for Narrative play, because at higher points levels it adds up to bigger differences. 

I have seen some people saying they will only ever play power levels (and to be fair some of these are people who didnt used to play, so its great to see them back in the game!), but the same people have said that actually points are a waste of time. 

I think (and I will write further on this with more games of course) that points are still going to be required where you want a competitive game and no disadvantage in points, in my game being 16% less in points meant I would have gotten another Intercessor squad (for 100 points) in there, another full 5 guys, with 10 wounds, and I would still be outpoint! 0 at this point I would have 3 power more than my opponent! 

All in all the three ways to play I can see me playing two of them, Power Levels & Points, but I am likely to that much more comfortable playing points because I know I am not giving myself or my opponent an advantage! 







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