First Howling Griffons game

My first five-man squad of Howling Griffons now means I can start playing games with my new force.  I did just that on Tuesday with a 450-point game at the school club.  My entire force was up against two five-man tactical squads, a captain and a dread.  As we rolled four objectives, that pretty much occupied all the troop choices on the board, whilst my assault squad quickly chewed through one squad and then the other for a comfortable debut victory.

Keen for some more practice with Space Marines, my Salamanders had an overdue outing at GW Newbury's Veterans' Night on Thursday, playing a 1000pt battle against Tom's Necrons.  With a big hill in the centre of the board, I made the mistake of advancing my Devastators for better LOS, only to be jumped by his Tomb Stalker (which he has modelled bursting through a wrecked landspeeder).  Some atrocious armour saves early on also cost me half of the Tactical Squad on my objective.

After the initial setbacks I recovered to kill the Tomb Stalker and two Annihilation Barges.  I even got as far as contesting his objective, before being ground down and losing 2-0.

Despite my poor rolls on amour and also leadership throughout the game, I did seem to have more luck against his Mindshackle Scarabs, making my first three Ld tests on 3d6 before missing the fourth one.  I also tried out a Librarian with Might of the Ancients.  Again, I failed to make two psychic tests (although I avoided perils), before wrecking one of the barges.

With new White Dwarf out this weekend, complete with new flyers, I am contemplating how useful a Stormtalon would be, given that I already have a Fast Attack choice.  The Escort Craft rule makes it quite interesting with reserves and a 36" Supersonic move would be very good for last-minute contesting objectives.  However, I didn't like the model at first glance.