Open War 15: Game 2 vs Necrons

So Mission 2 was Raid – opposite table corners in an L-shape deployment 12” in. There where 4 objectives (2 each) but each player could not put any of his in their own quarter, and each one had to be 12”+ away from the others, board edges and deployment zones. This alone made them spread out almost in a line from neutral corner to neutral corner. Each one was worth 2 points if captured by a scoring unit, and 1 point if contested with a scoring unit. A 3+ difference was needed to win. The game would last 6 turns. You can see my list here.

Now when I saw I would be playing Necrons I almost did a little happy dance – I would soon pay for my Blood Claw-esc arrogance...

The Necron Army was:

Nightbringer

10 Warriors

11 Warriors

2 pairs of Heavy Destroyers

3 Units of 5 Destroyers

Looks like a cake walk on paper....

Deployment:

The Nercons won the roll off and set up fairly aggressively towards the middle of the board, after much thinking I did the same bar a unit of Long Fangs on the cusp of a hill on my left. He kept his Warriors in reserve and I kept my Land Speeders in reserve to deep strike and the Scouts would do their thing.

Turn 1:

In a display of dice rolling that would have mathhammer fans crying cheat, the Destroyers took down all my Long Fangs bar 1, cracked open a Rhino and a few Grey Hunter’s inside. It was brutal, and simply soul destroying – but fluff wise that’s what Necrons do!

In my turn the surviving Grey Hunters ran into cover and are joined by the Jaws Rune Priest in a attempt to drop some Destroyers down a hole, but he failed. I advance down the left of the large building hoping to stop Nightbringer over the next turn or 2 before he can eat my army. I push my Rhinos forward 6 to take some pop some shots off with Living Lightning and meltas vs Nightbringer but not to much avail.

Turn 2:

The Destroyers open up and pretty much erase the previously disembarked Grey Hunter unit from existence and take down the Jaws Priest too. Nightbrininger closes the gap and will hit combat with something the next turn... meanwhile a unit of Warriors walk on to the board.

My turn 2 sees a unit of Scouts come in behind the Warriors, and fluff combat against them. 2 Land Speeders come down, 1 to help down Nightbringer and 1 to annoy the Destroyers over on the right flank. I failed to kill Nightbringer and only reduce him to 3 wounds with pretty much everything that can fire at him letting loose...

Turn 3:

The second unit of Warriors came on and break the Scouts in combat who run off. Nightbringer hits combat and eats a unit of Grey Hunters, who thankfully decide to run off. Thankfully the Destroyers move to taking out my Land Speeders to no avail – the dice start to desert them at this point.

My last unit of Scouts and Land Speeder come in, but I roll a 2 for the Scouts board edge, but despite being out of the main fight they are in position to take on some destroyers. The Speeder comes down to help out vs Nightbringer, and despite only having 3 wounds left takes every single last shot and is still left standing on 1 wound. With only my Rune Priest left to cast living lightning, he gets 5 shots, all hit and inflict 2 wounds and in a flash of lighting and blinding light the C’Tan god finally drops but not before his exploding essence takes down 2 more Marines...

Turn 4:

The Necrons start to retreat as what remains of my Space Wolves push forward. 2 units of Destroyers try to take out some of my remaining transports but can only stun them at best, while the third unit reduces the Scout squad on the right down to 2 men who then decide to run off.

Thankfully for me the Scouts rally in my turn and thanks to the new batch of Q+A’s can consolidate 3, move normally and they even manage to make combat so they can get some pay back! I throw what I have left into trying to get the Warriors down in number but not much happens. Meanwhile the Razorbacks and Land Speeders start to make a real difference against the Destroyers, but I’m running out of time, men, and guns.

Turn 5:

The Destroyers rip open my last Rhino and in a return of luck for the the Necrons take out 4 Grey Hunters in the explosion! Fortunately my Scouts in combat finish off the Destroyers but are left with nothing to do for the rest of the game. Thankfully in my turn I manage to force a Leadership test on a unit of Warriors who fail and flee of the board! Multiple Hits from Land Speeder Heavy Flamers start to take their toll on the destroyers but We’ll Be Back limits it.

Turn 6:

He Takes down a Razorback, but reduces my last large unit of Grey Hunters down to 4 men so I could not conga line them to take 2 objectives in the middle. In my turn I push towards a Land Speeder and a Razorback with 1 Grey Hunter forwards to contest the objective he holds, and I finally take the one in the middle.

So at the end of the game there was 1 Unit of Warriors, a Razorback with a Grey Hunter, along with a Land Speeder all contesting the same objective, and 4 Grey Hunters sat on 1 other objective, which under this missions rules makes it 3-1 to me but it is only enough for a Draw. If the game went on any further the Necrons would either would have wiped me out or I would have phased him out. So 10 points for the draw and 10 for the amount of victory points killed, so 20 out of 25 still isn’t too bad!

Conclusion:

An object lesson in that there are no easy games; regardless how poor a enemy army may seem to be.

In hindsight I should have refused flanked again, as having the Warriors in reserve meant he could only ever really hold 1 may be 2 objectives and due to the L-shape deployment that “guaranteed” 1 objective was 13” away from the edge of my deployment zone – I should of rushed it and try to hold it against all comers.

But it’s all could of, should of, would of....

As long as I learn something from a game I am happy and it all goes towards making me a better player. As long as one can look back over games and think objectively then one can only get better as a player overall.

Next week will see my play against.........

Space Wolves! It’s a fight of 2 similar, but yet different Space Wolves armies!

Wolf and Sister Part 4

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2011 UK 40K GT Space Wolves VS Blood Angels

Game 5: Capture & Control, Spearhead
Opponent: Peter, Blood Angels

After crushing Tim's Tyranids, I was sent rocketing up the tables and finding myself drawn against the kind of Blood Angels army Brad had once warned me about.

I've never played competitive Blood Angels before, so this would be interesting. But if Brad had told me one thing, it was to kill any Furioso Dreadnoughts before they got into close combat with you.

As for Mephiston, I had a whole squad waving combi-weapons just for him!

Here's what Peter had brought to play with:

Mephiston
Corbulo
Librarian
Assault Terminators in a Land Raider Redeemer with extra armour
10 Assault Marines with power fist and 2 melta guns
5 Assault Marines with melta gun
5 Assault Marines with melta gun
Storm Raven
Furioso Dreadnought with extra armour

The Game
The 5 objectives were scattered about fairly liberally, then we rolled to see who goes first.

Peter won the roll and deployed his Land Raider and Storm Raven as far forward as possible to surge forward on the first turn.

Mephiston was in the Storm Raven with the Furioso hitching a ride. Meanwhile the assault terminators led by the Librarian and Corbulo were in the Land Raider Redeemer. The rest of his army was in reserve and would come on using Descent Of Angels.

Fortunately none of his units had been effected by Blood Rage. But either way, the assault terminators, Land Raider Redeemer, Mephiston and Furioso Dreadnought were going to slam into my lines very quickly. I might have had just 1 turn, maybe 2 turns if I was really lucky to pour everything I had into them before I took horrendous casualties.

Splitting my forces wasn't an option due to the Spearhead deployment, or I'd have hit his armoured units from the flanks.

Instead I spread everything out in my quarter, just out of range for a first turn charge.

Wolf Guard Land Raider in the middle, flanked by Grey Hunter Rhinos. Long Fangs and Razorbacks behind. Land Speeders ready to hit the Land Raider (or Furioso) with multimeltas.

I rolled to seize the initiative. Failed.

The Storm Raven zoomed forward. The Land Raider sped forward and fired its smoke launchers.

"Bring it."

Turn 1
The Space Wolves army backed up and opened fire with everything at the Storm Raven.

It exploded spectacularly while the rest of the Space Wolves fired at the Furioso, blowing one of its arms off.

Turn 2
Mephiston flew over the wall of Space Wolves vehicles and into close combat with the nearest pack of Long Fangs. Fine by me! lol.

The Furioso made slow progress through difficult terrain, unable to charge any of the Grey Hunter Rhinos.

The Land Raider Redeemer continued its advance.

Meanwhile Blood Angels Assault squads landed on the far side of the board, running to claim many of the objectives.

The Space Wolves form a wall of Rhinos in front of the Land Raider Redeemer and fire all their melta guns and combi meltas at the Land Raider and Furioso.

The Land Raider Redeemer loses its multi melta. Meanwhile the Furioso is unharmed. But thankfully the Long Fangs destroy it with their kark missiles.

Finally, the Razorbacks and Land Raider immobilise the Redeemer with their lascannons. Can nothing kill this thing?

Mephiston kills the remaining Long Fangs from the first pack and consolidates towards the Long Fangs in the rocks.

Turn 3
With their transport immobilised, the Blood Angels Terminators and Librarian disembark from their transport and charge the Space Wolves Rhino wall with little effect. Corbulo stays inside the Land Raider Redeemer.

Mephiston butchers the Long Fangs and consolidates towards the Space Wolves Rhino wall.

Now was the time to layeth the smacketh down.

All the Grey Hunters disembarked.
All of them used their Wolf Standard.
All of them opened fire.
All of them charged the Blood Angels Assault Terminators.

But not before the Rune Priest cast Jaws Of The World Wolf, catching 4 of the squad. Every terminator passed the Initiative test, apart from the Blood Angels Librarian who plunged screaming into the depths of the world itself. Heh heh.

The Space Wolves crashed into the Terminators. Two Grey Hunters were cut down by lightning claws before the Blood Angels were swept away in a torrent of dice.

I've NEVER seen so many dice lined up for armour saves in my entire life. Peter didn't even get on to the invulnerable saves before the unit was wiped out.

Meanwhile the Land Raider drove towards Mephiston, the Wolf Guard Terminators got out and fired their combi-weapons....missing spectacularly.

With nothing left to lose, they charged into close combat. Mephiston was down to 2 wounds. Maybe, just maybe they wouldn't get wiped out and could take him down? Mephiston killed 3 of them before the Chainfist tore him apart in gorey chunks. It was certainly satisfying.

Turn 4-6
And now things started to go horribly wrong for the Space Wolves.

After butchering the Blood Angels terminators, I rolled very low for the Grey Hunters sweeping advance and they felt the full fury of 2 Flame Storm Cannons from the immobilised Land Raider Redeemer.

Suddenly half of my Grey Hunters were gone.

I spent a turn trying to take down the Redeemer with melta guns, lascannons, everything I had left. But nothing could stop it as it torched more and more of my Grey Hunters.

In the end my squads scattered, running for the objectives.
The game ended with 2 objectives in my possession, 2 in Peter's and 1 contested.

CONCLUSION
Due to the deployment and my opponent getting the first turn, there wasn't a great deal I could do in this game except hang back and play for the draw.

Due to Corbulo sitting in a Land Raider Redeemer which simply would not die while giving all within 6" Feel No Pain, I couldn't turn the game into one massive ruck. Certainly not with Mephiston and a Furioso Dreadnought running about.

If I'd had the whole board edge to play with, then this would have been a very different game. Unfortunately putting stuff into reserve wasn't going to help me here either. I needed everything on the board to take out his hard hitting units as quickly as possible.

I was a bit silly trying to take out the Land Raider Redeemer with close range melta guns, but I could hardly ignore it. Finally, when it was immobilised, it took a heavy toll on my Grey Hunters with its Flamestorm Cannons.

Could I have played better?
In hindsight, I shouldn't have stuck a Land Speeder out on the right flank. It ended up fighting with 5 Assault Marines and losing when they finally hit it with their melta gun. That lost me a multi melta which could have been used to deal with the Land Raider Redeemer.

Considering how much Peter complained about me blasting his Storm Raven out of the sky, soon followed by the Furioso Dreadnought and then Mephiston, the Land Raider Redeemer more than made up for it. It simply wouldn't die!

That said, going back and doing the mathammer, with so many melta blasts and lascannon shots, there would have been something seriously wrong if the Furioso and Storm Raven hadn't gone up in smoke.

As for Mephiston. The Wolf Guard Terminators should have gunned him down with their combi-weapons, but my rolls were pretty terrible. So they had to dangerously resort to taking him apart in close combat. It was only the chainfist that finally killed Mephiston.

But all the same, the game went to plan in the best way I could make it. I played for the Draw, because the odds were stacked against me from the start. I simply made the best of a bad situation. And sometimes that's all you can do.

Some thoughts on Grey Knights

The other night I managed to get a couple of games in against the new Grey Knight codex. Whilst I didn't have time to take notes for bat reps or take pictures I just wanted to share some thoughts and experiences from the battles.




So my opponent was running a 99% Pure Grey Knight army or as known on the internetz "PGK". I say 99% because he had a Vindicare Assassin stuck in the list thus spoiling the purity of the list.

The List from memory was as follows, it may not be 100% accurate as this is from memory :-

Grandmaster
Rad and Pyschotroke Grenades

5 Purifiers
Halberds
2 x Pyscannons
Rhino

Vindicare Assassin

5 Grey Knight Terminators
Deamon Hammer
Halberds

5 Grey Knight SS
Halberds
Pyscannon
Rhino

5 Grey Knight SS
Halberds
Pyscannon
Rhino

Dread Knight
Teleporter
2 x Doomfists

Dread Knight
Teleporter
2 x Doomfists

Land Raider Redeemer
Multimelta

Ok so lets talk about this list quick. I can hear all the Alex's amongst you screaming out in pain at the lack of three Psyflemen dreads and Henchmen with 20 Meltaguns. My opponent Tim is a good player the fact he recently won Open War 15 and is currently in Ireland playing for Team England ETC backs up this claim.

Tim has built this army with a purpose and aim for each unit that all fits into the synergy of the army. I have never seen anyone play Land Raiders as effective as Tim and his lists always include one because that is what he knows best so I am always wary of them when playing against him.

Just by looking a the list I can see the GM will be riding with the Terminators. Those Dread Knights are going to get the "scout" USR and if he roll's good the purifiers will become scoring. That Vindicare is going to sort out any Storm Shield saves I have and will jump all over my Rune Priest if he gets out of a Rhino.

So onto the games, first game we played Capture and Control with pitched battle. This ended in a draw but the Grey Knights took a real pounding with only the two Grey Knight strike squads left on the field. I just couldn't push my Hunters far enough in turn 5 to contest that objective thanks to some nifty Rhino blocking on Tims part.

Second game was Seize Ground with Spearhead deployment and also ended in a draw but I took a more severe beating this time round. Tims assaults went like clockwork. Every assault he did ended up in one or two of my models being left alive meaning the combats went on into my turn thus stopping me from vaporising his units, it was very frustrating. In the end I managed to contest an objective with a Rhino thus turning the game from the loss to a draw.

I want to share some thought on individual units from both the Grey Knights and our own codex.

Dread Knights

Simply put these boys are the bane of Long Fangs. Being given the scout USR allows them to get into position for a nasty turn 1 charge. I allowed Tim to use the shunt move in the scout phase because for me the argument for and against is 50/50 and I wanted to see how I faired against them. My missile launchers do diddly squat against them forcing me to to pour Lascannon and Plasma fire into them essentially diverting that fire power away from his transports.

Turn 1 he charges my Long Fangs, he kills all but two and the Long Fangs decide to stand their ground. Not good because now I cant shoot them, the Dread Knight has just the right amount of attacks to pull this off. He isn't going to wipe the squad out but cause enough damage to kill them off the following turn whilst staying relatively healthy.

I was able to eventually gun one down with Plasma guns whilst the other was put to rights by a Lone Wolf. All in all the Dread Knight isn't a death star unit we should be worried about but he can certainly cause some grief in the Space Wolf back field.

Grey Knight Terminators

This was the unit I was worried about the most when combined with the Grand Master. Striking at initiative 6 and wounding on a 2+ (Hammerhand + rad Grenades) they are going to chew through Grey Hunters like there's no tomorrow.

I dealt with these guys by softening them up with a bit of AP2 fire and them hitting them with Multiple packs and Lone Wolves. I made sure the Lone Wolf went base to base with the GM. The sheer weight of attacks and bodies combined with Wulfen and fist attacks just overwhelmed the 2+5++ saves. The Lone Wolf insta gibbed the GM taking him out of the picture.

This tactic cost me as I lost at least half a dozen Grey Hunters in the process but when I weight up consequences of not sorting them out early on it is worth the sacrifice. I learned this lesson in game two when this unit rampaged through my lines killing squad after squad unhindered.

Overall they are a very nasty unit that can hit hard but the lack of 3++ saves hurts them. I reckon Assault Terminators give me more problems as we can easily get past those 2+5++ saves with the tools available to us.

Lone Wolves

Ah my new favourite unit! I run a pair of these boys in in Terminator armour with Chainfists and Storm Shields. Against Grey Knights I was very wary about having to take multiple 3++ saves against all those power weapons. Because of this I played a bit conservatively and got the Lone Wolves into favourable combats, the Dread Knight combat for a start was one I liked the odds in. With a re roll to hit and wounding on 2+ I was able to put some real damage onto them whilst my Storm Shield and eternal warrior kept me alive.

Vindicare Assassin

Thanks for the kill point! This guy has probably got to be the most underwhelming unit in the list, my Long Fangs really enjoyed blowing this little cretin up. The Vindicare just did not seem to bother me too much, I keep my Rune Priest hidden in Rhinos at all times and I just don't have any juicy targets for him to bother.

Rune Priests

I'll state the obvious and say that the Rune Priest was very useful against Grey Knights. He sat in his Rhino in the middle of the board and just C%$k blocked their Pyschic powers all game, one or two got through but he really put a downer on the party. Hey I even Jaws'd a Dread Knight too!

Purifiers

A really good unit but we all knew that already. Cleansing flame plus three Halberd attacks on the charge really hurt my units. The only down side to this was the small unit size which didn't like lots of bolter fire. If I were to run Grey Knights I'd take lots of these. In future games if I see these boys running around the field I will be super wary of them. They can pack a crap load of Pyscannons too which make them a decent support unit.

Long Fangs


Apart from a couple of Rhinos I was really struggling to find decent targets for my Long Fangs missile Launchers. The Vindicare was a no brainer but against things like Dread Knights and the Land Raider it was hard work. Luckily one of my packs had two Lascannons in it so all was not lost, a worthy investment just for the AP2.

That about all I can think of for now. All in all I enjoyed playing the Grey Knights and the challenges they brought to the table. I don't think they are an overpowered army at all at this point but I'm sure there will be some nasty combos come to light in the near future.

Open War 15: Game 1 vs Imperial Guard

So two weeks after the Indy GT where I came a some what disappointing 74th out of 113 there was the 1st Company Veterans Open War 15 Tournament. I was using the same army list as the GT, but the missions where more like a mix of 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th, edition missions, but I will explain them in each battle report.

So my list was:

HQ:

Rune Priest, Living Lightning, Murderous Hurricane, Chooser of the Slain = 110

Rune Priest, Living Lightning, Jaws of the World Wolf = 100

Elites:
5 Wolf Scouts, Melta Gun = 85
5 Wolf Scouts, Melta Gun = 85

3 Wolf Guard, 2 With Power fists and Combi Meltas, 1 with a Combi Melta and a Bolt Pistol = 109

Troops:

10 Grey Hunters, 2 Melta Guns, Mark of the Wulfen, Wolf Banner = 180

Rhino = 35

10 Grey Hunters, 2 Melta Guns, Mark of the Wulfen, Wolf Banner = 180

Rhino = 35

6 Grey hunters, Flamer =  90

Rhino = 35

5 Grey Hunters, Melta Gun = 80

Rhino = 35

Fast Attack:

Land Speeder Tornado, Multi Melta, Heavy flamer = 70

Land Speeder Tornado, Multi Melta, Heavy flamer = 70

Land Speeder Tornado, Multi Melta, Heavy flamer = 70

Heavy Support:

5 Long fangs, 4 Missile Launchers = 115

Razorback, Lascannon, Twin Linked Plasma Gun = 75

5 Long fangs, 4 Missile Launchers = 115

Razorback, Lascannon, Twin Linked Plasma Gun = 75

Total: 1,749

Game 1: Seize Ground vs Imperial Guard

This mission was good old fashioned table quarters which only troops/scoring units could contest and capture. Also the set up was Pitched Battle from the BRB but with only Troops and HQ's starting on the board, with 6 turns to be played.

Game 1 saw me take on Pete Delafield’s Imperial Guard which had:

Company Command Squad, master of the fleet, heavy flamer, standard, lascannon, in a chimera

Commissar Lord with a Camo cloak who was with....

A Blob of 3 Infantry Squads with 3 Lascannons,

Platoon Command Squad with 4 flamers

Special Weapons squad with 3 flamers

Both of which were in Vendettas with heavy bolters

2 units of melta Veterans in Chimeras

1 unit of plasma Veterans in Chimera

1 unit of Veterans with Carapace armour, 2 melta guns, plasma gun, plasma pistol, in a Chimera

Leman Russ Demolisher with 3 heavy bolters

Not quite the SIGAFH (Shooty Imperial Guard Army From Hell) or Leaf Blower.

Set Up

So the set up sees Pete win and set up his Vets behind the big set of ruins will his Platoon makes the most of the multi level ruin in his zone. I set up on the far right avoiding his veterans and hoping to make the most of the night fight rules in turn 1 – classic refused flank, with deep striking land speeders.

Turn 1

Sees his Vendettas come in the middle as the Demolisher rolls in at 11”. His Command Squad tries to take it down on to his Platoon Blob at the closest Rhino, but alas not even the officer could see the Rhino, never mind order! In my first turn a unit of Long Fangs take up cover in the ruins in my zone (whit the help of running) while the 2^nd unit sets on the cusp of the hill in my zone. I push every Grey Hunter Rhino 12” full ahead up the right flank.

Turn 2 

Sees him push his Veterans forward again with the fact they have no targets yet. His Lascannons (all 10) only manage to kill a single rhino. My turn sees 1 land speeder and 1 unit of scouts in. The land speeders goes behind his Chimeras full of Veterans but ends up nearly scattering off the board, but it ends up being a peach of a spot - right in melta range of a Vendettas rear! It shoots and blows up the vendetta. One of my Rune Priests leaves his Rhino and joins the Long Fangs in the ruins whom combine to take down his 2^nd Vendetta! I try to jaws the Commissar Lord, a sergeant and a Lascannon team but all dodge the hole. The Scouts do nothing.

Turn 3

2 of his 3 unit of Veteran Squads jump out and reduce the unit of Long Fangs on the hill to 1 man, and destroy their Razorback. The Demolisher scatters far and wide and I pass the only cover save I needed to take. His Company Command Squad, Chimera and Platoon HQ light my scouts up on fire.

My turn 3 sees another Land Speeder come into play. A 10 man unit of Grey Hunters make combat with the Platoon Blob who yet again pass all their tests for Jaws :/ The commissar is reduced to 1 wound and I fail only 1 armour save but it was a 1 so I got to re-roll it thanks to the Wolf Banner and it was passed. I manage to shake the Demolisher in combat. The Long Fangs and Rune Priest in the ruins unleash a hail of frag and lightning at a unit of Veterans leaving only 2 left. The lone Long Fang charges the other unit of veterans and manages to win the combat but the Veterans hold.

Turn 4 

Doesn’t see much from the Guard other than a general retreat and the Veterans killing the Long Fang in combat, but he did his job of holding them there for a turn so when my turn started I brought my last unit of scouts in to finish them off. The Grey Hunters win combat but failed to kill the Commissar Lord so the blob hold.

Turn 5

The Grey Hunters finally kill the Commissar and chase down the blob in his turn – to no losses after a staggering 53 attacks over 3 turns not one marine fell! In my turn I get that unit back into a Rhino and head off after his Company Command Squad and Demolisher. I spend this moment to finish off his special weapons squad and platoon command as they are scoring units, leaving 2 units of Veterans way over on the left behind the large ruins.

Turn 6 

A few pot shots from the IG, but there sheer weight of numbers of Wolves bearing down is too much. In my turn 6 I send a unit into teach table quarter – 2 to contest, 2 to capture. The unit of Grey Hunters who took care of the blob dismount, melta the Command Chimera, and then mop up the survivors leaving only the officer to flee far, far, away.

The game ends with me with one of his and one of my own table quarters while I contest the other 2, so that makes a 3-0 win to me, which with the extra points of victory points leaves me with 22 points out of a potential 25, not too shabby!

Next week in Game 2 I will face Necron Destroyer Spam and is a lesson in "There are no easy games"

Wolf and Sister Part 3

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2011 UK 40K GT Space Wolves VS Tyranids

Game 4: 1 each, Pitched Battle
Opponent: Tim King, Tyranids

At the end of Day 1 the tournament organisers posted the next day's match ups and I was pleased to see myself drawn against Tim King.

He'd narrowly drawn against me at Open War and apparently I'd sworn revenge for my wolf brother Brad (No, I don't remember doing this either!) for his defeat against Tim's Tyranids at Toy Soldier

Well, the Nids were back! And fortunately one of the guys I'd made friends with at the tournament kindly told me Tim's army composition, as he'd just been eaten alive by him.

Tim staggered over to join the conversation, very drunk, didn't recognise me at all and slurred something about how he sets up to deny his opponent getting near his objective by making them go first. I have no idea how he wasn't painfully hung over the next morning. It was only 7pm at this point!

Either way, it was all coming together oh so nicely for a win in game 4...

Tim's Tyranids
Tervigon (HQ)
2 Hive Guard
2 Hive Guard
2 Hive Guard
Tervigon (Troops)
Tervigon (Troops)
10 Termagaunts
10 Termagaunts
10 Genestealers
Trygon
Trygon
Trygon Prime

The Trygons were Tim's offensive stuff. The Tervigons sat back and spawned while the Hive Guard blow up your tanks and all the little creatures just hold you up so the Trygons can come and stab you in the face.

The Game
I won the roll off and made Tim go first. Realising I could rush him without caring about getting cornered, he deployed his objective in the centre as far back as possible.

Meanwhile I placed my Objective in the centre, as far forward as possible.

He deployed his force. Trygons out front, around the building, Tervigons up the back, Hive Guard on the flanks.

In response I deployed across the centre, keeping my Rhinos only 6" on, so I'd be out of range of his Hive Guard on Turn 1. The Land Raider deployed as far forward as possible. The Land Speeder were placed around the centre to counter any swarms that might need flaming.

Long Fangs deployed on the flanks with their Razorbacks. Meanwhile I deployed one Razorback far to the left flank, around a building to deny Tim infiltrating his Genestealers too close to my lines.

Turn 1
The Tyranid swarm advanced, the Tervigons spawned lots of Termagaunts while the Hive Guard found themselves out of range of any viable targets. One brood fired at the Land Raider with little effect.

The Space Wolves mechanised force drove forward as one, firing their smoke launchers.
Meanwhile the Long Fangs, Land Raider, Land Speeders and Razorbacks took aim at the approaching Trygons.

The top hatch of a Rhino slammed open (I hadn't fired the smoke launchers) and the Rune Priest cast Jaws Of The World Wolf at the nearest Trygon and only just touched the base of the Tervigon behind it.

Tim rolled a 6 for the Trygon, who fell down a hole. Followed by the Tervigon who also fell down a hole.

Meanwhile the rest of the Space Wolves army crippled the other Trygon and wounded the Trygon Prime hiding behind the building.

Turn 2
After another turn of fire the Trygon was dead and the Trygon Prime was in a bad way.
Meanwhile the Hive Guard were doing their best to disable my transports.

A swarm of little Tyranids were massing on both flanks, but were being held back by a combination of bolter fire and frag missiles.

Turn 3
Desperate, Tim surged everything forward with the Trygon Prime in the centre. The Hive Guard blew up a couple of tanks, but it didn't make much difference.

The Space Wolves advanced in return, gunning down the Trygon Prime and crashing into close combat and sweeping away the swarm before them.

Meanwhile the Rune Priest cast Jaws Of The World Wolf again, killing another Tervigon.

Turn 4
By now it seemed all over for Tim. Despite almost wiping out a pack of Grey Hunters with shooting and managing to immobilise the Land Raider, his offense elements were gone and the Space Wolves were out of their transports, advancing on foot without a care.

His Genestealers sat in cover, taking casualties while his Hive Guard were jumped on by Grey Hunters and gunned down by Wolf Guard Terminators.

The Rune Priest cast Jaws Of The World Wolf. Another Tervigon fell down a hole.

Turn 5
The last Genestealer leapt off a building into combat with a pack of Grey Hunters. The Wulfen tore it apart in the frenzy and the squad swept towards the 10 Termagaunts on Tim's objective, charged into them and butchered them all.

CONCLUSION
I was very happy with my win. I'd gotten revenge for our last game and avenged my fallen wolf brother Brad. All in a day's work dontcha know?

Tim's swarm had been wiped out. I'd lost 2 Rhinos, 2 Land Speeders and most of a Grey Hunter pack.

Tim's a great guy to play against, but we both knew he was going to struggle with this one.

Space Wolves are practically designed to nail monstrous creatures and with repeated castings of Jaws Of The World Wolf his Tervigons were definitely in trouble.

No one could have expected a Trygon to fall down a hole on Turn 1, but once it did, I suddenly had nothing for half my lascannons and missile launchers to fire at. So I don't feel it changed the game that much. I shot at the Hive Guard instead and did very little damage.

Tim made one mistake during the game. He kept running his Tervigons back towards his objective, but instead of running them around the back, he kept running them straight across. Each time they were just within range for Jaws Of The World Wolf and who could resist?

But Could I have played any better?
Funnily enough, I could have given into temptation on Turn 2 and played a lot worse.

I had been tempted to surge forward, get out and shoot, shoot, shoot.

But would I have drowned in a swarm of little Nids? What if I couldn't kill the big creatures with my guns? What if they fired back en masse?

It all seemed a bit too risky. So rather than leap into the fray, I bought my time with another turn of long ranged firepower. Then the Tyranids were ready to meet face to face!

It's a dilemma I often face playing Space Wolves. Knowing when to rush in and kill is incredibly important.

Too soon and you suffer horrendous casualties. Too late and you may not be able to rush in at all.

Unfortunately, in my next game I wouldn't get that choice...

SALUTE 2011

Hi guys, I went to Salute yesterday with Marc and James to have a look round, play some games and generally be surrounded in all manner of wargamer geekery.

It was a really good show and the painting competition entries were simply breath taking.

But as we browsed the stands and were tempted by stunning miniatures that could drag us down into building whole new armies, there was one thing on our minds...

The Inquisitor Challenge
Since getting his Grey Knights Codex, Marc has really fallen in love with all the Inquisition stuff, especially the Eisenhorn and Ravenor books. He's even gone and bought the old Inquisitor source book as well as the Inquisitor game book.

Anyway, because Necromunda got a bit competitive, he proposed an idea of us all playing the Inquisitor game in 40K scale. Obviously, we'd all have to sit round and agree on the rules for all our characters, but I think it could be a lot of fun. Although we've already agreed to run it a bit like a Saturday morning kids cartoon, so that no one actually gets mutilated, crippled or killed.

To limit the cheese factor (aka: James just wanting to win at all costs), we were set a challenge to buy our entire warband at Salute. This would consist of a single 'leader' and 4 'henchmen'. And no two henchmen could be exactly the same. Plus you had to use whatever weapons that model was equipped with. So creating a characterful warband was the first priority! Although some minor converting is allowed.

James announced that he'd create a Radical Inquisitor and warband who would use the weapons of chaos for the good of the Imperium.

Marc then revealed that he'd been planning a Tech Priest Magos and retinue, charged with discovering the secrets of lost STC while dabbling in forbidden xenos technology.

As for me, the 'Privateer Godwin' model from Hasslefree Miniatures had been on my wishlist for a while and I managed to grab the penultimate resin cast before they were all sold out. So I was to recruit a band of mercenaries, pirates, schemers, xenos and ne'er do wells to my Rogue Trader's side.

The Warbands Assemble

James:
Dark Age Priest (with buzzsaw) - Radical Inquisitor
Dark Age female (with 2 meat cleavers) - Deathcult Assassin
Freebooter Miniatures Miedo a Morir - Daemonhost
Helldorado mutant (with pliers) - Mutant
Hassle Free Miniatures Jotun - Huge Gun Servitor

Marc:
Micro Arts, Iron Brotherhood, Angel - Tech Magos
(X2) Micro Arts, Iron Brotherhood, TTP-07 - 2 Tech Priests
Micro Arts, Iron Brotherhood, LTRU-02 - Track Unit Gun Servitor
Micro Arts, Iron Brotherhood, Ubiquitous Servant - Ubiquitous Servant

Adam:
Freebooter Miniatures, Captain Rosso - Rogue Trader
Freebooter Miniatures, Teniente of the Armada - Pistolier
Hassle Free Miniatures, Privateer Godwin - Swashbuckler
Heresy Miniatures, Painless Joe - Moody Hammer with heavy stubber
Games Workshop, Jokaero Weaponsmith - Jokaero Weaponsmith

Yes, I spent an absolute fortune on my warband! Marc got his from Micro Arts for about £20 and James spent about £35.

It'll be a little while until we have all these built, painted, with rules and ready to play. Especially considering how much time I'm going to take on mine.

So in the meantime, it's back to the Space Wolves, but stay tuned for some 40K scale Inquisitor very soon!

A New Saga Begins!

Gather round Brothers and I will tell you of my Saga so far........

Hi I'm John and a few may know me from my own blog Blood Claw which I started late last year. Since then after my victories and defeats with my Space Wolves and the odd mad ramble in between Adam has kindly invited me to join the team here Space Wolves Blog.

So you could say I've gone from Blood Claw to Grey Hunter now!

As a gamer I have been playing since 2nd edition and I have dabbled with Vanilla Marines, Eldar, Imperial Guard, Blood Angels, Ultramarines 1st Company (Loganwing) and obviously Space Wolves. As a gamer I can go from fluffy to competitive and back again as I believe both ways of playing are both fun and equally valid ways to enjoy the game. I love to build and convert my models but I'm not natural artist.

Over the following weeks and months I will be bringing you battle reports from the 1st Company Veterans Open War 15 Tournament, as well characterful and competitive army lists based around certain special characters. Also I'll be taking a peek at how to keep those pesky Grey Knights at bay!

For Russ and the Allfather!

Wolf and Sister Part 2

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2011 UK 40K GT Space Wolves VS Space Wolves

Game 3: Annihilation, Spear Head
Opponent: Michael, Space Wolves

In the third round I found myself drawn against Michael from the Claws And Fists blog. it was time to show him who the Big Dog is.

A quick look at his list showed me a lack of lascannons, lots of points poured into Thunderwolf Cavalry and two large Long Fangs packs.

I won the roll off, choosing to go first and blast him apart at range. Cruel as it may be, his list was much weaker when it came to heavy weapons. Thanks to the mission I could simply sit back and shoot, then pounce on him if he came too close.

His list included:
Rune Priest with Jaws and Lightning
Wold Lord with runic armour, frost axe and storm shield riding Thunderwolf with 2 wolves
5 Thunderwolf Cavalry with a mixture of stuff
10 Grey Hunters with 2 plasma guns, mark of the wulfen, power weapon and standard
Rhino
10 Grey Hunters with 2 melta guns, mark of the wulfen, power weapon and standard
Rhino
10 Grey Hunters with 2 melta guns, mark of the wulfen, power weapon and standard
Rhino
Long Fangs with 4 missile launchers, 1 lascannon
Long Fangs with 4 missile launchers, 1 lascannon

The Game
I deployed everything in a nice big firebase, just outside of any potential Thunderwolf charge range off the starting line.

The Michael rolled to seize the initiative and got it. Unfortunately he'd deployed very defensively, expecting to get the second turn, so wasn't in the best position to take advantage of the first turn. Although I feel he should have rushed me with everything he had. It was clear he wouldn't survive at range, even playing defensively.

With the first turn lost, the confident grin was wiped off my face as his Long Fangs opened fire...

...and immobilised 2 Rhinos.

Erm, okay. I thought he was going to kill my Long Fangs, but he'd attempted a crack at easy kill points early on.

My Space Wolves returned fire, hammering one of his Long Fang packs with 8 frag missiles and an assortment of lascannons. In the end only a single Long Fang with missile launcher was left standing, after passing a lot of cover saves.

In the following turn his remaining Long Fangs continued firing at my tanks with little effect.

My Long Fangs and tanks shot back, killing his Long Fangs.

His Thunderwolf Cavalry advanced. I fell back a little bit.

His Wolf Scouts rolled a 2 for their Operate Behind Enemy Lines and appeared on my left flank. They got charged by some Grey Hunters and killed.

With his transports now coming under fire and his army not moving fast enough to intercept all my shooting units, Michael charged out the Thunderwolf Cavalry into the middle of my army.

They blew up a Rhino and stunned the Land Raider. He was only just (just!) in charge range for the Land Raider, but the Rhino had been placed there to hurry things up, bunch his guys together and act as bait. Big, juicy bait.

The Grey Hunters in the blown up Rhino called on their wolf standard, opened fire and charged.

The Grey Hunters led by the Rune Priest got out of their Rhino, called on their wolf standard, opened fire and charged. Not before the Rune Priest killed a Thunderwolf with Jaws Of The World Wolf.

And finally, the Wolf Guard Terminators got out of their Land Raider, fired all their combi-weapons and also charged.

Meanwhile every other available gun in the army fired at the Thunderwolves as well.

By the time all those Grey Hunters and Wolf Guard charged, there wasn't much left.

The Thunderwolf Lord butchered a whole pack of Grey Hunters, only to be beaten down by the remaining Wolf Guard with a Power Fist.

Meanwhile the remaining two Thunderwolves were despatched by the Rune Priest and Grey Hunters to the South and the Wolf Guard Terminators to the East without any casualties.

Erm... it was pretty much over after that.


CONCLUSION
The rest of the game Michael fed some Grey Hunters to me piecemeal, which I graciously killed. Although had things gotten hairy (which was unlikely by this point), I could have simply driven away, fat with Kill Points.

By the end of Turn 5 only a pack of Grey Hunters led by their Rune Priest remained and the game ended. I'd lost a 2 Land Speeders, 2 Rhinos.

8 Kill Points to me, 4 Kill Points to him.

So Where Did He Go Wrong?
We had a chat after the game and he was at a disadvantage due to the mission and the number of lascannons in my army.

Although I felt that he'd poured too many points into his Grey Hunter packs and Long Fang packs.

But he hadn't coordinated an attack between his Grey Hunters and Thunderwolves very well.

Also, he should have targeted my Long Fangs early on, as they were the real source of my anti-infantry fire power who later laid waste to his Long Fangs, Thunderwolves and even Grey Hunters after my other guns had exploded their Rhino transports, leaving them bunched together in the wreckage. All nice and ready for a few frag templates.

Regardless of what he did, due to his army composition he was going to have a tough time.

Could I Have Played Better?
I had a clear strategy right from the start and stuck to it. Knowing when to take on the Thunderwolves was the trickiest part. Although I don't believe they're that fantastic in close combat, the Wolf Lord butchered a whole Grey Hunter squad on his own! It was better to shoot them lots, then finish them off with a big charge to get the job done proper.

I had to use a bait unit to make it difficult for the Thunderwolves to manoeuvre, so they'd have no choice but to take it. Otherwise they'd just sit around for another turn while I could fire all my big guns at Michael's transports.

I'd like to play Michael again in a friendly game and send everything straight at him to see what happens. It'd be a complete bloodbath, but I believe that the better composition of my units and the Wolf Guard Terminators would cut a bloody swathe through his army all the same.

But more than anything, this game demonstrated why I'm not a fan of Thunderwolf Cavalry.

Michael poured a ton of points into them and a Thunderwolf Lord to lead them, but they spent most of the game hidden behind terrain to stop me from killing them with all my krak missiles and lascannons, then it was difficult to get a good charge out of them without having the plough straight into the middle of the enemy formation.

That said, when the plastic models come out, I'll almost certainly buy some!

Indy UK GT Day 1 - Killswitch's Side

Hello everyone. So, as many of you know, we had the UK’s first Indy GT a few weeks ago. What an event, certainly a great ride all the way through. Met some new people and put a few faces to names which was great. Also had the chance to meet a few blog followers which was nice. Some of the armies there looked fairly familiar, and it was nice to see people using the lists I have been writing as of late. Not to fear, there will be plenty more to come.

So, the event itself was fantastic to say the least. Well run, great atmosphere, and best of all, had a bar at arms reach. There was perhaps only 2 flaws I could see with the tournament, but hopefully something which may or may not be remedied for the next event.

First was the terrain. I was rather disappointed to see some tables completely imbalanced in terms of “competitive” play. For example, on table 2 there was 2 giant (I literally mean giant) buildings in the center, not only blocking line of site, but impassable to boot. These could easily hide an entire army which made for a fairly un-optimal game for some.

Table 1 was also a bit of a nuisance, as there were 2 fairly large LOS block pieces (not as big as table 2), and fairly little of anything else. This meant that Guard players had little trouble gaining lanes of fire, which in turn affected me which I shall detail next time.

Second was the VP difference scoring system? Basically, the difference in VPs is used rather than the overall VPs you gained. For example, my opponent kills 900VPs worth of my army, and I kill 1100 VPs of his. This clearly shows a fairly tight game, however, I only receive 200VPs, whilst my opponent gains -200. This is extremely unfair for my opponent who has had a great game, and its come down to the wire, yet in the long run his penalized for not smashing me. Then we look over to a Guard player who has completely wiped away his opponent just by sitting his army in a corner and roll dice, tabling him without hardly any loss. This game gives the Guard player full VPs and his opponent gets thrown into the bottom tables, just because either his dice rolls were poor, or his army is simply not built to face such an army. Even if that player was to kill a vendetta or two, he should gain those 250+ VP’s to assist in later games. I think its fair to say, simply keeping a total of VPs gained over the course of the weekend is a much fairer system to implement, and hopefully something which will be implemented in next years event.

List

Rune priest: 110pts
Chooser, Living lightning, Jaws.

Lone Wolf: 85pts
Chainfist & storm shield.

Lone Wolf: 85pts
Chainfist & storm shield.

5 Wolf Guard: 195pts
2 Power fists & combi meltas.
2 combi meltas.
1 termie armour & cyclone.

7 Grey Hunters: 160pts
Meltagun, banner, Rhino with dozer blades.

7 Grey Hunters: 160pts
Meltagun, banner, Rhino with dozer blades.

5 Grey Hunters: 155pts
Meltagun, Las plas razorback.

5 Grey Hunters: 155pts
Meltagun, Las plas razorback.

5 Grey Hunters: 75pts
Flamer.

6 Long Fangs: 215pts
5 Rockets, Las plas razorback

6 Long Fangs: 215pts
5 Rockets, Las plas razorback

6 Long Fangs: 140pts
5 Rockets

Total: 1750pts.


This is the list I took in the end. It was based around 2 fairly strong combat units supported by the Lone wolves. These were my counter elements and would push up midfield. Although fairly small in terms of most wolf lists, my fire power was more than adequate to make up for this. The razorback squads performed multiple roles in terms of my opponent, deployment and mission. Most of the time they would hang back, moving up slowly. Other times they would simply sit on objectives.


Game 1 Day 1

I’ll try covering these as quickly as possible; don’t want too many posts on this.

I was drawn against a fairly unusual BA list. He had Mephiston (duh), 10 assault marines with flamers & fist in a Crusader with a priest, 8-10 (cant remember how many) Death company in a storm raven with an assortion of p.weps & fists, a Dev squad with rockets, 2 5 man rhino squad and a DC dreadnought. It was Dawn of war sieze ground 5 objectives. I setup fairly spread out and pushed the center with my rhino squad. His army came on and poped a few smokes. I decided to balls up and meltagun the raider which worked. The sotrm raven then took everything else I had (yep 4 lascannons and 17 rockets) and was only stunned…. and had extra armour…great! Mephiston slapped the rhino squad which took out his raider and his DC dread slapped a long fang squad (only 1 hit but he kept hitting and wounding…damn claws). Time for some pay back. Lone wolves start racing up. One crushes the DC dread and the other kills a 5 man squad with the Rune priest’s help after his rhino got popped by rockets. The storm raven lost a few guns and turbo’d into midfield. Mephiston tried to counter my lone wolf and priest’s advanced but rolled a 1 to fleet. This left him out in the open to get shot to death. Turn 4 become a brawl with a lone wolf and hunters moping up assault marines and my left flank finally killing his storm raven and assaulting the DC with my other lone wolf and hunters. As the smoke rose, the Wolf banner flew high. Win for the Wolves

Game 2 Day 1

Moving my way up the tables, I see I am pitted up against Spiky James with his gorgeous Wolf army. I can tell the look on James’s face his not best pleased. Seeing the amount of firepower my army has, and the missions being Killpoints, he knew he had his work cut out for him. Deployment was Spearhead and I deployed in a fairly aggressive stance with long fangs covering fire lanes and my grey hunter & lone wolves up front.
James’s army contained 2 Lascannon/DDCW dreads, a Wolf lord with wolf guard buddies in a Drop pod, a rune priest with Grey hunters and WG in another pod, and another pod with more hunters. Backed up with this he had another hunter unit in a rhino and a another in a razorback. A fair amount of Grey Hunters, which was a slight concern as I am lacking in the anti-infantry department. Relying on my own combat potential will prove difficult, so some serious target priority will be needed for this match.

To say James’s dice were abysmal was an understatement. Over the course of 5 turns, he could only pop 1 rhino with his long range fire power, constantly either rolling a 1 or 2 for his pen rolls or a 1 to pen in the first place. So, onto the game. His pods came down, and the rest of his army loitered in the back field taking pot shots. I popped his rhino early on, putting that unit out of the game. I stun locked and immobilized one of his dreads throughout the game, finally killing it. The drop pods gave me some fairly easy KP’s being so close to my meltaguns & rockets. The wolf guard & lord had their work cut out for them with both Lone wolves going in for the kill. This combat lasted a while, and I even had to assault 2 squad of hunters who not only bounced off, but lost combat and fled!!! The lone wolves stayed intact, killing all the wolf guard and putting the lord on 1 wound before finally dieing. Epic combat there. The other pods dropped down and did some damage to my squads, with 1 of my fleeing units routed due to being within 6 inches due to a clever drop on turn 4. Unfortunately for James, it was difficult to pick up the pieces with soo many meltas, frags and kraks aimed at his marines. Without the option to assault on landing, he had to take a whither of firepower followed by multi assaults which led to his loss. Great game and even with poor dice rolls, James kept his cool and took it to the chin. Win for the Wolves.

Game 3 Day 1

I was matched up against the Welsh’s ETC captain Stu Robertson. Perhaps one of the best Dark elder players I know of, I knew this was going to be a tough game. I was also a bit nervous about the Capture & control as with his fairly fast army, I will have my work cut out to prevent him claiming my objective. I deployed first taking a central approach and spread my Long fangs out to cover all lanes of fire. I left my razorbacks on my objective in the corner and my 5 man cyclone squad aswell to give him some worry. Stu’s army looked like this: 2 Large units of Hellions, one led by the Baron, 2 Venoms with wracks, 2 Ravagers, a Bomber (not sure which, the big blast one), 2 Humonculi, a unit of Reavers, and I sware he had something else but for the life of me I can’t remember. He deployed basically everything in one corner directly opposite my objective bar 1 ravager on the other side hiding. I was a little worried by this aggressive approach as it would pit me into a fairly defensive approach which wasn’t my plan. The game was of two halves. First I destroyed all his long range support, and killed his 1 unit of Hellions and Reaver bikes, things were looking good.

Then I had the Barons squad…which wouldn’t die. I tried tank shocking them with a rhino full of hunters, not realizing they were str 5 on the charge, and paid for it. He exploded my unit and because the rhino was surrounded, only 3 marines could get out the wreckage who were then pinned. They then moved up and multi assaulted some razorbacks, causing some damage. Then killed a lone wolf, then got shot up and only lost a few because of stupid stealth, then went on to slowly kill my defensive line. I had never faced DE at this point, and at about turn 3 I knew what I should have done. The hellions weren’t great in assault against marines with no p.weps and not many attacks. I should of charged them with everything at once rather than throwing a unit at a time to slow them down. By this point it was too late and he was on my objective killing everything in the way, and with little effort I sent one of my own rhino squads onto his who only had a unit of wracks on them. We ran out of time for a 6th turn, which may or may not of effected the game as I had little else to contest unless the game went onto turn 7 in which I hard a fairly good chance. Best part of the game was 1 long fang getting caught up in a multi charge against my razorbacks by the Hellion unit without the Baron, killing 2, winning combat and proceeded to run the whole unit down…. GO LONG FANG!! Draw for the Wolves.

Conclusion

So end of Day 1 I was with 2 Wins and a Draw and a fair amount of VPs. Stay tuned for Day 2 where I am pitched up against not 1, but 2 horrible Guard armies. Will the Wolves come out triumphant? We shall see soon enough

Killswitch

True Scale Land Raider

These true scale Land Raider pictures were sent in by Space Wolves blog reader Mike from Germany.

He built this armoured behemoth using parts from a Bane Blade super heavy and a Land Raider and a half!

I asked Mike if he was making true scale Space Wolves to go with it. Confused, he asked me what true scale was before telling me that this was merely his personal transport for Logan Grimnar named "Steel of Armageddon".

Look closely and you can see that this anything but a simple conversion.

Mike has used very carefully trimmed pieces of plasticard to finish the tracks and blend them with the tanks hull.

He's also magnetised the sponson weapons so that he can swap them out for whatever he needs.

This is something I've been considering for my own Land Raider conversion.
I was thinking of doing something 'different' and when I saw Mike's conversion my eyes really lit up.

James was round here painting at the time. He noticed I had that crazed look in my eye and firmly told me "No" for being quite, quite mad.

Still, if you don't think about the gaming impracticality of having such a large tank (and target), this is an awesome model.

Not sure if I can personally justify the cost, but it presents some excellent ideas for anyone inspired by the Horus Heresy illustrations of enormous Land Raiders.

I was keen to see what else Mike from Germany creates for his Space Wolves. Then he suddenly emailed me the following day with a couple of photos of his Blood Claws buggy.

Yeah, you know you want one!

The Blood Claw driver is obviously having a good time too.

I have no idea how Mike has attached the wheels and created a suspension system, but I'm determined to find out!

Maybe if we ask very nicely he'll do a conversion tutorial for us all?

Space Wolves Win at Adepticon 2011

Good news. Space Wolves have won first place at Adepticon 2011.

I'm a little late on this due to flu dragging me down, but it's been interesting to see Adepticon following so closely after the UK 40K GT.

There's been a lot of discussion already about the Adepticon final, between Space Wolves and Imperial Guard. Many have cheered both players for running army lists which aren't the standard cut n' paste net spam.

That said, the Space Wolves list is very similar to what many brought to the UK 40K GT, while the Imperial Guard army...really isn't. So I'm not surprised that the Space Wolves player won the final. From the video, the Imperial Guard player doesn't seem to play too well either.

1850 points Space Wolves list that won Adepticon

Njal Stormcaller
5 Wolf Guard with Combi-Melta and Power Fist, 2 have Meltabombs
5 scouts with meltagun,
(X2) 8 Grey Hunters with meltagun and standard in Rhino
(X2) 7 Grey Hunters with melta gun and standard in Rhino
(x2) 5 Grey Hunters with flamer in a las/plas Razorback,
(x3) 5 Long Fangs with 4 missile launchers

As you can see, the list is very similar to the kind of stuff we run at the Space Wolves blog, with the omission of Land Speeders, the extra pack of Long Fangs and upgrading the Rune Priest to Njal Stormcaller.

He's also got a lot more Grey Hunters, but Adepticon is 100 more points than the games we usually play.

Essentially he's taken the meat and potatoes of the Space Wolves Codex and unsurprisingly, it works very well.

Having seen a few guys run three packs of Long Fangs at the UK 40K GT, I'm tempted to take any extra squad for a spin myself. Even if I do feel the need for more lascannons.

Njal Stormcaller needs some play testing too. Although I've never bothered with him much in the past due to his high points cost.

Anyway, you can see the video of the final round Here. The commentary is awful and difficult to hear. I'd recommend letting it load for a bit, then dragging through the time bar to play it at speed so you get a better idea of what's going on.

I've played against tough Imperial Guard armies at Open War and Botch with Space Wolves. You just have to accept that you're gonna get shot and do your best to hug cover. Which is exactly what the Space Wolves player does. He plays very well.

But what on earth was the Imperial Guard player doing? He feeds 3 of his tanks to the Space Wolves right at the start. He just keeps bringing stuff forward, right into the jaws of the Space Wolves army.

I dunno about you? But I'm fired up for more games of 40K!

Wolf and Sister Part 1

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Wolf and Sister Starts Tomorrow!

That's right, the Space Wolves and Sisters of Battle comic starts tomorrow evening. 7pm UK time.

In the meantime, here's the Index which you should book mark (and link to) in case you ever miss an update.

Remember that Wolf & Sister updates every Wednesday.

Now go forth into the forums and spread the word! Your weekly dose of comic book action is coming.

2011 UK 40K GT Space Wolves VS Necrons

Game 2: 1 each, Pitched Battle
Opponent: Andrew, Necrons

After lunch I found myself facing Necrons. Beautifully painted Necrons in fact.

But that didn't soften the blow when I saw two Monoliths and the Night Bringer across the table.

My army seems to struggle against armour 14 vehicles and that's with melta guns getting their extra D6 penetration roll, which the Monolith denies.

I'm also not a fan of big nasty things that tend to kill all my blokes before I can bring them down.

Sure, I've got Jaws Of The World Wolf for that, but it's always a gamble -especially when I need my opponent to roll a 6 for said 'big nasty' to fall down a hole.

Anyway, Andrew had:

The Nightbringer
Lord with resurrection orb, 4+ invulnerable save
10 Necron Immortals
10 Necron Warriors
10 Necron Warriors
4 Necron Destroyers
2 Monoliths

I won the roll off and set up first, placing my objective in the centre. Meanwhile Andrew placed his objective top right.

I then deployed my army in the centre with one pack of Long Fangs on the left flank, to hit his forces from the side if they advanced. Meanwhile the Wolf Guard Terminators in their Land Raider deployed on the right flank.

They would go after his objective. With their 2+ saves, they'd be able to shrug off whatever was thrown at them -even the big blasts from the Monoliths. Meanwhile their power weapons and combi-weapons would make short work of whatever Necron type they encountered.

When Andrew came to deploy he placed 10 Necrons on his objective in the corner, then parked a Monolith in front of them...where it stayed for the entire game. I was quietly relieved. I doubted I could keep 2 Monoliths and The Nightbringer at bay.

The Nightbringer and 10 Necron Warriors were deployed in the centre while the rest of his army was gathered around his objective.

Turn 1
The Space Wolves advanced on mass with the Land Raider sweeping around the building on the right and speeding towards the Necron objective, firing it's smoke launchers.

The Grey Hunter Rhino with Rune Priest advanced slowly while the other Rhinos parked up alongside the building to the left.

The Landspeeders zoom into the centre of the board to absorb enemy fire.

The Long Fangs on the left flank embarked into their Razorback and sped up the left flank in search of a better firing position.

The Rune Priest cast Jaws Of The World Wolf at The Nightbringer, who floated over the gaping chasm. But two Necron Warriors weren't so fortunate and fell into the depths of the world.

The Necron army advanced as one, firing at the Land Raider, but inflicting no damage.

The Nightbringer fired a bolt of darkness at the Rune Priest's Rhino, blowing it up and leaving him and his Grey Hunters stood in the wreckage, unscathed.

Turn 2
On the right flank the Land Raider rumbles forward, the assault ramp slams down and the Wolf Guard Terminators disembark, combi-weapons blazing.

They gun down a handful of the Necron Immortals, but find themselves just outside of charge range.

Unable to do much, the two Land Speeders speed towards the Monolith in the top right hand corner.

On the left flank the Razorback skids to a halt, firing its smoke launchers while the Long Fangs disembark into cover and take up firing positions to take on the Destroyers next turn.

The Rune Priest and Grey Hunters stay in their tank wreckage for fear of being blasted apart by the nearby Monolith's flux arc.

The Rune Priest casts Jaws Of The World Wolf at The Nightbringer once more. (What else can he do?) and Andrew rolls a 6. The Nightbringer falls down a hole and is removed from play.

Suddenly the game just got a whole lot easier for me!

The Monolith pulls the Necron Lord and his Immortals through the portal and they emerge in front of the Rune Priest and his Grey Hunters.

The guns around the Monolith fire. The 10 Necrons advance and rapid fire, while the Necron Lord and his Immortals also open fire on the Rune Priest and Grey Hunters, killing 5 of them and wounding the Rune Priest.

The Monolith guns stun one Landspeeder and shake the other.

The Destroyers fire everything they've got at the Long Fangs, but don't inflict a single armour save due to some very jammy saves on my part.

The Monolith parked on the Necron objective fires its crystal matrix at the Land Raider, but fails to damage it.

Turn 3-5
The Long Fangs on the left flank make short work on the Destroyers over two turns.

Missile launcher and lascannon fire from the Long Fangs and Razorbacks in the centre patter harmlessly off the Monolith.

All three Grey Hunter packs disembark and charge the Necron Warriors, Necron Lord and Immortals, butchering them all before blasting the Monolith apart with their melta guns.

They need a 6 to glance, followed by a 6 on the damage chart. Thankfully one of the 6 melta blasts makes this happen.

Meanwhile the Wolf Guard Terminators have spent the entire game punching the parked Monolith with the occassional glancing hit to keep it from firing.

The two Landspeeders hover either side of the Monolith and due to their elevation, can see the Necron Warriors hidden behind it. After two turns of Heavy Flamer bursts and Multimelta blasts, they whittle the squad down to 7 models -just enough to make the Necrons phase out on Turn 5.

We roll to see if the game would have continued and roll a 1.

CONCLUSION
This could have been really tough for me. But thanks to the cautious nature of my opponent, I only had to face down 1 Armour 14 target while The Nightbringer was completely exposed and fell down a hole very early on in the game.

I'm surprised Andrew didn't hide him behind the Monolith. That said, I don't think he knew exactly what Jaws Of The World Wolf did. Not until it was too late!

I played perfectly. No really, I did.
Okay, there was one turn I wasted where the Wolf Guard Terminators got back into their Land Raider. But once the Necron Lord and his Immortals were smashed to pieces, they weren't needed.

Still, it was incredibly close at the end. The Necrons phased out on their exact phase out number. If Andrew had rolled just one my 4+ We'll Be Back result, the game would have ended in a draw, which is what he'd been playing for since the start.

For the next game I found myself drawn against Michael from the Claws and Fists blog. It was time to see who was the top dog.

Why It's Great to Play Space Wolves

It's Sunday, I'm down with the flu and I've just finished my pre heresy Space Wolves Rune Priest. I still need to tidy up the base, but otherwise he's done.

Illness has always meant it's 'art' time. I think this stems from when I was a kid with tonsilitis, a sketch pad and a pencil. As I grew up, it also became time for disease induced random rants and deeper philosophies of the world.

So while I keep seeing what could be beautiful impressionist paintings in the garden and flipping through the Grey Knights Codex that Marc has lent me, I can't help but think why it's great to play Space Wolves.

I love their character, their background and their playing style. Plus their fierce, positive attitude that they can kill anything. Even if it takes all of them to do it.

Adam, what is best in life?
"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of James (as I beat him again)."

The UK 40K GT reawakened my love for the Space Wolves. Alex, Mike, Brad and myself were gathered together for the first time and it was great to meet the guys face to face. They also enjoyed meeting James, or "Dark Angels beat-stick" as Brad called him.

But unlike the players of other armies, Space Wolves players seem to share a sense of comradery, coarse humour and a mentality to simply kill as much as possible before even considering claiming any objectives.

No one seemed to care about Blood Angels or even Grey Knights for that matter. They're just something else for us to figure out how to kill. In fact, I don't remember any of them mentioning any defeats.

Instead we swapped stories about how many things we'd killed with Jaws Of The World Wolf and recounted our glorious charges of the Thunder Wolf Cavalry.

There's a certain sense of pride when it comes to playing Space Wolves, which I've never experience with any other army. And I've played a lot of armies during my time as a 40K gamer.

"Hi Adam, what have you brought with you?" someone would ask.
"Space Wolves!" I'd confidently answer. Then kick their arse.

Are Space Wolves overpowered? Certainly not.
But if they're played well, as a cohesive force, they can be amazing.

Stay tuned for more battle reports from the UK 40K GT (please bear with me, as I'm ill) and don't forget to tune in on Wednesday for the first installment of Wolf & Sister!

Wolf and Sister - Warhammer 40K Web Comic

The Space Wolves comic "Wolf and Sister" is here!
Updated Every Wednesday at 9am ESTLink to and bookmark this page. This will be the index for all episodes.


Note: This is the cover art. A new page will be posted every Wednesday as it's made.
Click on the numbers below to view the relevant page.



Wolf and Sister Season 1:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25

Wolf and Sister Season 2:
26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69