Space Wolves VS Grey Knight Draigo Paladins

Had a quick game last night using my Blog Wars list (meh!) against Marc's Grey Knights Paladin army led by Draigo.

Marc borrowed James' Deathwing army to represent it, as he's frantically building and painting all his Grey Knights terminators.

This was a friendly 'fool around' game to see what works, what doesn't, how and why.

The game was pretty short, so I'll summarise:

SUMMARY
We got 4 objectives and a pitched battle deployment. I won the roll off and set up first, deploying with Long Fangs on the flanks, Grey Hunters and Wolf Guard in the middle, with Njal (in a Rhino) and the Wolf Guard (in their Land Raider) to the right.

Marc placed Draigo and 10 Paladins opposite Njal and the other 10 Paladins to the left of the first unit, near to the cluster of 3 objectives.

Yes, I chose my table side rather poorly. But what the heck.

The Battle
Psycannons went through the Land Raider like a hot Frisbee through butter!
He shot the hell out of my army with so many psycannon rounds, so I had to close with him as quickly as possible, with as much as possible.

It was really tough getting enough units together to fire at and charge him at once, but considering I was able to give his depleted Paladins a good kicking with just 2 Grey Hunter packs (using their Wolf Standards) proves that they're not impossible to fight in close combat. You just end up taking a few casualties in the process.

I lost combat and all my Grey Hunters ran.

Had my Wolf Guard Terminators got into the combat as well, then it would have been a different story.

In the following round Draigo assaulted the Wolf Guard Terminators and cut them all down without any effort, then started herding the two Grey Hunter packs off the board. Joy...

While all looked lost, I realised that IF I could kill Draigo and his 1 remaining Paladin with my Long Fangs and Razorbacks, I could get the Grey Hunters back, then sit back and pelt Marc's other Paladin mob from afar, wittling down his numbers so he'd be unable to claim more than 1 of the 3 clustered objectives.

Krak missiles fired en masse. Draigo lost his last remaining wound and the Paladin beside him was blown apart too. No one could pass all of those 2+ saves - Death By Statistics!

Finally, the Razorbacks turned their lascannons on the other Paladin mob, killing 2 of them and forcing them to lose 1 of the 3 clustered objectives as they were forced to reform their squad coherency in the following turn.

The Paladins sat tight, hoping the game would end.

Njal and his Grey Hunters got into their Rhino and parked on one objective.
Krak missiles and lascannons killed more Paladins, forcing their squad coherency again so that they could only claim 1 of the 3 objectives.

CONCLUSION
It was late and Marc had to go home, so we called it a Draw there, but it had been a seriously tough going game, mostly due to Draigo deflecting (and absorbing) lots of melta gun and lascannon blasts that would have otherwise greatly reduced his Paladin mob.

I'm just glad Marc didn't run both Paladin mobs together in a big Blob. Although that's probably because of Jaws Of The Wolf, frag templates, etc.

Could I have played better?
This is something I always ask myself. In this instance, I could have sat outside of his 24" range for a turn to soften him up. But then I'd have to get stuck in next turn...only from a greater distance. So that wouldn't have been so good.

One thing's for certain, smoke launchers will not save your tanks from rending Psycannons. The Land Raider bought it straight off the starting line.

In hindsight, I could have arranged my units better to fire and charge together, not piecemeal. If the Wolf Guard Terminators had gotten into close combat, things would have been quite different.

I guess that's what making space for Njal casting JAWS gets you. I should have used one of his other powers instead. Wolf Spirits would have been good for the AP2.

Until next time!