Chaos Daemons vs Imperial Fists 2014.11.29

I'm digging up my old pictures of games played, and try to recreate the flow based on memories and Facebook comments.
This one is the first Warhammer 40k game I've ever played. It lasted several hours, despite having 500 points armies, and featured lots of arguments and looking-up rules. However, it made quite an impression on all of us (two players and a spectator - indeed, he started assembling his models right away!) and made us want to play all the more. Here goes.

Mission: Purge the Alien (or, rather, we just played to kill units)
Map: Dawn of War (as we later found out it's called)
Lists:
* Although we established 500 points, the Space Marine player wished to use all of his shiny, newly-assembled units. I went ahead and we played at 666 points, an auspicious omen for the daemons!
Daemons (I can't remember exact numbers): 

• 16-18 Bloodletters, fully upgraded
• 12-14 Daemonettes, fully upgraded, in Deep Strike Reserve
• 5 Seekers of Slaanesh, in Deep Strike Reserve
• 3 Screamers of Tzeentch
• 10 Plaguebearers
• 1 Herald of Khorne, lesser gift (template weapon)

Imperial Fists:

• 4 assault terminators + Lysander  * This wasn't an exactly legal unit, but we went ahead with it anyway due to lack of models.
• Dreadnought, twin linked lascannon
• 2x 5-man tactical squads, one flamer, one plasma gun

Deployment:
For a 500 point game, we thought to halve the table sizes (half width, half length), and it resulted in a tiny playing field. We learned to do better next time.
Also, no terrain whatsoever. We had enough rules to learn without that.

Turn 1. I made the first move.
The field was in fact so small, that I got the screamers across the table (12" + 24" jetbike movement) and made some kills with slashing attacks.
The Bloodletters, Herald and Plaguebearers advanced slowly.

 The marines shot at whatever they could, killing some bloodletters and a screamer.
*We didn't have a big enough table, so yes, we played on the carpet. You can see the delimiters: bottle caps, a PS2-to-USB adapter, and the carpet's natural "borders".

Turn 2. Due to the terribly small field and a very badly placed icon bearer, the Daemonettes landed on top of the Bloodletters. Mishap roll: 6. Everything dies. Well, there goes a chunk of 150 points... and the Seekers did not come in. I did not see any other choice but to charge. The Bloodletters and Plaguebearers started hacking into the Terminators... failing miserably. The Screamers charged the Dreadnought. More failure.

The Tacticals, having nothing to shoot at, also charged into battle. From then on it was a grind that slowly eroded the Bloodletters (I think I killed one Terminator at most. But I did kill the tactical squad thanks to AP3). The Dreadnought also absolutely murdered the Screamers.

The Seekers came in next turn...

...but got shot to pieces. Only 1 reached melee. This one's the final state of the field on turn 4, before I surrendered.
Things we learned.

• Learn the rules before playing the game :D
• The best way to learn the rules is to play (notice the paradox?)
• Keep in mind the rules you learn (don't forget overwatch, template weapons bestowed by Daemonic rewards, grenades etc)
• Don't charge Terminators with anything non-AP2 (or at least something very tough)
• Walkers are excellent in close-combat (and Screamers don't stand a chance)
• Daemonic instability killed more of my units then the enemy
• ... and so on. Better luck next time!