Dark Angels Hammer of Caliban - lessons learned

After my last game I was feeling very confident about my DA , but knew I would be in for a tough test against Oli a couple of days later.  He has a notoriously tricksy and mobile DE list with lots of skimmers, poison and lances.  Having tried out a Ravenwing list, I want to trial a Greenwing army myself, so went for a Demi-Company with a Hammer of Caliban, consisting of a Land Raider Redeemer and 3 Vindicators.  I had to proxy a few models from other armies and de-chaosify another part-built Vindicator I had picked up somewhere along the line.  (Don't tell the Inner Circle...)

To summarise, I did everything wrong in this game.  I managed to box in my killer formation and struggled to manoeuvre the raider and other tank through a very narrow gap.  Once I finally lined up a shot it, it scattered and failed to kill off anything.  I only managed to get off the one Apocalyptic Blast, before Oli destroyed one of the 3 vindicators, thus preventing any more apoc shots.  After this, firing 2 demolisher shots proved to be overkill on their targets, so I ended up ramming Oli's skimmers instead.

We were playing the maelstrom mission where you generate cards based on how many objectives you control.  Oli's mobility made it very hard for me to keep hold of many markers and the cards I drew were often useless.  Kill a psyker is not easy to score against pure DE, for example.  Oli on the other hand, pulled out multiples of the same objective he was holding comfortably.  Don't get me wrong.  I have always thought maelstrom is one of the best things about 7th Edition 40K, but this game got a bit frustrating.

Towards the end of the match I charged out of the Land Raider, which was on its last HP, with a tac squad, tech marine and company master at 3 separate targets.  The tac squad failed its charge and the 2 characters both whiffed in combat against a venom and a raider.  The tech marine with 4 servo-arm attacks on the charge was particularly disappointing.  Of course, these were all shot to pieces in the next turn, which left me with little more to do than perch my remaining vindicator on top of a wrecked comrade, just to get line of sight.  This actually killed a ravager, but skylined my tank nicely in the last turn.

The final score was an impressive 24-0 whitewash for Oli!

I made the mistake of putting too many units into one formation.  The formation by itself came to 740/1500, and I also put the company master and a tac squad in the land raider too.  This left my other minimal units struggling to make a scratch.  My planning before the game was to deny Oli jink saves with flamers and the apoc blast, which also ignored cover.  Whilst the Redeemer toasted the passengers of a venom very nicely, this was not enough.  I had forgotten my own guideline of 'boys before toys' I tell any new Ork players.  A squadron of vindicators would be more viable without the land raider and tech marine needed for this formation.  This  might mean I would take a CAD below 1500 points.

I am starting in a map based campaign soon, which begins at 1000 points.  I already have quite a few options of built models from which to choose, as I decide my first list for this competition.