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Background
It was Apoc day at GW and Eric asked me if I wanted to play a game with him afterwards against his Word Bearers. I said “sure” and then he asked how many points I had. I said “oh, you know, around 5000”. Meanwhile, another Marines player nearby said he had even more on him, and asked if he could join in. We said sure – he and Eric vs my whole army. This is the first time I've ever been able to field my whole army since getting over 2000pts (about 4 or 5 years ago, at least) so I was very interested to see how it would go!

Space Wolves
(I made a few mistakes here because I was trying to speed things up a bit and forgot certain rules – my Rune Priests were all equipped the same, I accidentally put 4 Grey Hunters in one squad, I gave 2 Wolf Lords the Saga of the Bear and I put 2 Wolf Guard as pack leaders for my Blood Claws... relatively minor, but just figured I'd point that out since someone else would probably do it later.)


Forces of Chaos (Approximates)


DEPLOYMENT
Since we were using so many units we decided to do Pitched Battle with 3+D3 objectives. We rolled and ended up with 4 objectives total. We then rolled to see who would go first, and I lost the roll-off. However, Eric decided to let me go first so they could react to me. Luckily, they didn't steal the initiative.

(Sadly, I didn't bring my good camera to this game so I'll have to use VASSAL to illustrate entirely.)



Turn 1 – Space Wolves
I started the turn by moving my Iron Priest inside of an unoccupied Razorback and rumbled forward with the Land Raider and Ragnar-bomb. My Thunderwolves sought cover from the Vindicators (which were using the Siege Breaker Apocalypse formation) while the Venerable Dreadnought and Skyclaws surged forward.

My Shooting Phase was absolutely pathetic. 3 squads of Long Fangs, 2 Lascannon Razorbacks and 4 Rune Priests only manage to destroy the Whirlwind's main gun, stun the Land Raider Crusader, destroy the main gun on the Terminus Ultra and kill 2 Tactical Marines. Slightly better – Njal cast Storm Caller to give some protection to the Thunderwolves caught in the open.



Turn 1 – Chaos
The Chaotic armoured column advanced cautiously, presenting a wall of tanks for me to break through. One of the Command Squads moved ahead to get into position to fire on Ragnar and his squad. The Devastators and Scouts didn't fire because they were moving up their structures (I guess the guy controlling them didn't realize he could deploy inside the building or something). The Techmarine also moved back to repair the Whirlwind.

Considering how much firepower they could bring to bear, the Chaos shooting phase was rather lacklustre. Most of their shots bounced off of my Land Raider's armour. However, they did manage to kill one of the Lone Wolf's Fenrisian Wolves, and 1 of Canis'. In addition, the Line Breaker Vindicators fired an Apocalyptic blast at Njal, the Long Fangs and Grey Hunters huddled around the objective. Amazingly, I only lost 3 Long Fangs and 3 Grey Hunters, and the building remained intact! Whew!



Turn 2 – Space Wolves
My Wolf Scouts arrived this turn and came from behind enemy lines. I sent them straight after the stunned Land Raider Crusader. I decided to keep my Land Raider where it was so that it could fire more of its guns at the units nearby, while the Lone Wolf went after the Terminus Ultra and the Ragnar-bomb went after the nearby Command Squad. Elsewhere, the TWC, Ven Dread and Grey Hunters Unit Beta went after the Vindicators. Finally, the Skyclaws moved to attack the nearby Tactical Squads.

My Shooting Phase was far, far more successful than the last. Grey Hunters Unit Beta took out one of the Vindicators with their Meltaguns, and the Long Fangs took out another. Ragnar and the Rune Priests even got in on the action, killing more than half of the Command Squad.

In the Assault Phase, the Lone Wolf attacked the Terminus Ultra, but failed to damage it. The Venerable Dreadnought fared similarly, failing to damage the last Vindicator. However, the Skyclaws were shockingly effective, killing 6 Tac Marines and forcing the Sergeant to flee from the battle, while suffering only 1 casualty in return. Not bad for a unit I've only used two other times!



Turn 2 – Chaos
The Forces of Chaos moved in to try to take the upper hand. The Chaos Land Raider disembarked its Terminator occupants to go after my Land Raider, which they surrounded so that most of the squad would be destroyed if the Land Raider was Wrecked! Uh oh!! Meanwhile, the Space Marines disembarked a Rhino beside Grey Hunter Unit Beta's Rhino to assault them (I didn't realize at the time that they had moved and wouldn't be allowed to legally). The survivors of the Command Squad and a Combat Squad also went to try to whittle down the Ragnar bomb.

In the Shooting Phase, the Techmarine repaired the Whirlwind's main gun and fired it at Ragnar (I misread the Techmarine's repair rule), killing 1 Blood Claw. However, the rest of his units ganged up on the squad, killing everyone except for Ragnar, Lukas, the Wolf Priest, a Wolf Guard and a single Blood Claw. The Land Speeder also managed to get behind my lines and blew up Grey Hunter Unit Beta's Rhino before 3 squad members were gunned down. The Terminators also managed to get their Wrecked result on my Land Raider... except that they were using Meltas, so they actually got Explodes instead! Whew, that was close! Luckily, no one died in the blast. The Chaos Marines also went after the Scouts and Thunderwolves, but only killed 3 Scouts and wounded the TWC Wolf Lord once after a really poor shooting performance.

In the Assault Phase, Ragnar and Lukas destroyed the Command Squad and Assault Squad before they even had a chance to fight back. The Wolf Scouts were destroyed as well, but not before killing 2 Chaos Marines, surprising everyone. The Skyclaws were wiped out as well, as a Space Marine Captain and Dreadnought joined the fight, sealing the deal. Grey Hunters Unit Beta was assaulted by a Tac Squad as well, losing 3, but they wiped out the Tac Squad in retaliation. The Venerable Dreadnought was still in combat with the Vindicator (I guess the Marine player forgot to move it, or maybe it was stunned and I just can't remember), and wrecked it easily. Finally, the Terminators assaulted Logan and Andilus' unit, but didn't even get to swing – Logan killed 3 of them single-handedly, and Andilus killed the last 2.

Well that was a really eventful turn! It looks like I'm in a very good position to pull ahead and win this thing if I can steamroll their objectives...



Turn 3 – Space Wolves
My Space Wolves continued to advance, my Deathstar units sweeping away everything in their path. Wanting to get more bonus attacks for Ragnar (he currently had 2), I sent his squad towards the nearby Tac Squad, while the Lone Wolf continued to pursue the Terminus Ultra, and Logan and Andilus went after one of the Chaos Space Marine squads. Meanwhile, Canis' squad went after the other Chaos Space Marine squad. Finally, the Venerable Dreadnought went after a nearby Rhino for lack of anything better to do.

I didn't do much in the Shooting Phase, aside from blow both arms off of the Las/ML Dreadnought, and kill 2 Tac Marines. In the Assault Phase, Ragnar killed a ton of Tac Marines (bringing his total number of attacks up to a whopping 13!!!), wiping out the squad nearly single-handedly. Andilus and Logan also destroyed the Chaos Space Marine squad by themselves, while Canis and the Wolf Lord wiped out the other squad as well. As for the less-interesting assaults, the Lone Wolf failed to do anything again (S8 vs AV14 isn't all that great a match-up after all I guess... :/) and the Dreadnought failed to wreck the Rhino, only knocking its storm bolter off and stunning it.



Turn 3 – Chaos
Chaos forgot to roll for their reserves last turn, but didn't this time. Everything came in – a Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, 2 squads of Assault Marines and a Terminator Librarian, which landed on either side of my left-most objective.

The Space Marines player disembarked his other Tac Squad from their Rhino and moved them to fire at Grey Hunter Beta's survivors. They rapid fired and wiped out them handily. The Daemon Prince fired Bolt of Change at one of my Rune Priests, killing him instantly. The Land Speeder manoeuvred behind my Venerable Dreadnought and blew it up with its Multimelta. The Multimelta Dreadnought fired at Grey Hunter Unit Alpha's Rhino, blowing it up. The Tac Squad also fired at one of my Rune Priests, killing him from a volley of fire. The Space Marines' Devastators fired at my wounded Long Fangs squad, wiped out the last 3 Missile Launchers. The remaining units ganged up on Ragnar's squad, killing everyone except for Ragnar and Lukas. They were then assaulted by a Command Squad, which killed Lukas (unfortunately... or perhaps fortunately... he did not get The Last Laugh), but the whole squad was wiped out by Ragnar except for the Captain, who was wounded once.



Turn 4 – Space Wolves
Damn, now that their reserves are in, my objectives are finally starting to get in danger... time to fix that. Grey Hunters Unit Gamma disembarked to fire at the Daemon Prince with help from the Iron Priest. Meanwhile, Logan and Andilus went towards the Scout's objective to capture it for Turn 5. Finally, Canis' squad spread out to multi-assault the Techmarine, Terminus Ultra and Whirlwind.

In the Shooting Phase, my Plasma Cannon Long Fangs wiped out one of the Assault Squads, while the Missile Launchers Stunned the MM Dreadnought. Grey Hunter Unit Gamma, the Iron Priest and Long Fangs also managed to destroy the Daemon Prince. Something of mine also managed to kill a squad of Scouts (I might have done this in a previous phase and didn't remember though).

In the Assault Phase, Ragnar finished off the Space Marine Captain (his 2nd Captain of the match, and 15th kill thus far) and consolidated into the building housing the Scouts. Canis' squad also failed to kill the Techmarine (he made all of his Invulnerable saves!) and Terminus Ultra (AGAIN) but wrecked the Whirlwind easily.



Turn 4 – Chaos
The Forces of Chaos moved to pull the game in the favour, sending their squads in to attack my objectives. One of their Tac Squads moved up to their objective and captured it – plus they were on a higher floor, so my Thunderwolf Cavalry wouldn't be able to reach them to pull them off of it. CRAP!

In the Shooting Phase, the Chaos Land Raider tried to insta-kill Ragnar, but he dodged the shot. Also, my Thunderwolves managed to kill the Techmarine. Everyone else ganged up on Logan's squad, wounding Andilus twice and killing the Lightning Claws and a Storm Shield.

In the Assault Phase, the Assault Squad and Librarian wiped out my Grey Hunters on one objective, while a Tac Squad and armless Dreadnought attacked Grey Hunters Unit Alpha. The Tac Squad was wiped out, but 1 Grey Hunter died. Worse, they were now locked in combat with the Dreadnought...



Turn 5 – Space Wolves
Dammit, I thought I had this one, but it's looking more and more like it is in their favour – I can still win it, but they may actually win now too! We did these last 2 turns quickly since the store was closing in less than a half hour.

I moved Logan's squad and Ragnar into the Scout's objective and wiped them out with ease. I then fired everything I had at the Tactical Squad on their objective to make them take a morale check. Unfortunately, they passed it. Dammit, looks like a tie...



Turn 5 – Chaos
...or not. Eric noticed that there was a Predator and Razorback right beside my objective, so the Space Marines player just moved those over to my objective and contested it... DAMMIT.



Total objectives:
Space Wolves – 0
Chaos – 1

VICTORY FOR THE FORCES OF CHAOS!!!

AFTERTHOUGHTS
Damn, I thought I had that one until Turn 4 rolled around. I guess Eric's Word Bearers got the revenge they were looking for... Oh well, I got to kill a ton of them and made it as much of a Pyrrhic victory as possible (18KP to 12KP – +1 if you count the surviving Lone Wolf)!

Anyways, that's besides the point – it was a lot of fun getting my entire army out for a game, it's something I've wanted to do for a while now! No one under-performed, and a merry blood-bath was had by all!

I'll do a unit breakdown here for how each of my units performed, just for the fun of it:

Logan Grimnar: The old-fart's a one-man wrecking ball... so it's a lot of fun to put him inside a squad and steamroll anything I feel like. A
Andilus Greatsword: He's probably too expensive for what he does, but I love my Wolf Lord. He did fairly well this game too, whenever Logan failed to kill something, Andilus always mopped up for him. A-
Ragnar Blackmane: Probably my MVP of the game, I still don't understand why people don't take Ragnar more often. Heck, I didn't even use any of his assault buffs, just Saga of the Warrior Born and Insane Bravado, and he still killed 15 models (including 2 Captains), more than making back his points. A+
Wolf Priest + Blood Claws: They did fairly well, but were whittled down too early to truly perform, and even when they got to combat they were beaten to the punch by Ragnar. Far from a bad unit, but I had so many HQs to distribute that they overshadowed their effectiveness.C+
Canis Wolfborn + Thunderwolf Cavalry: Absolutely amazing Death Star, probably my 2nd MVP after Ragnar. I only lost 1 unit in the whole game, and it was a Fenrisian Wolf. Like a morbid version of King Midas, everything they touched turned to blood instantlyA+
Ulrik the Slayer: I didn't really give him much of a chance to do anything, but he killed a couple Tac Marines when he needed to. His rules are still very underwhelming though... C
Njal Stormcaller + Rune Priests: I didn't really do much with them during the game, but they provided some help when I needed them to. If they had more psykers, they would have really come into their own. On the plus side, they only failed 1 psychic test all game, and never Perils'ed. B
Venerable Dreadnought: Did fairly well, although I really should have taken out that Land Speeder instead of the stupid Rhino. Might have even cost myself the game for that... B+
Iron Priest: These guys are really crappy, but my Iron Priest was pretty dependable all game. He fixed 2 immobilized vehicles and provided a nice distraction with his Razorback. B-
Wolf Scouts: These guys did their job above and beyond the call of duty. Not only did they make back double their points, but taking out 2 Chaos Marines in assault was just the icing on the cake! A
Lone Wolf: Did pretty bad this game. My fault though - I shouldn't have wasted him attacking the Terminus Ultra, he would have been better hunting the Devastators... For 100pts though you can't go wrong with a walking tank. C
Grey Hunters: Did fairly well, as you would expect a main-stay to. B+
Skyclaws: These guys were real surprise. I've used them 2 other times, and they always did poorly, especially for their cost. However, this time they way outperformed my expectations. Not bad for a squad I was basically committing suicide with! B-
Long Fangs: Aside from the first turn, these were dependably deadly. B+

If you enjoyed this, be sure to check out my other battle reports!

I thought you had them, too. I've never read the SW codex, so I think my eyes bugged out of my head when I saw how many attacks Ragnar had!

P.S - Great report!

Thanks, I wish I had brought a proper camera... I'll have to make a point to bring it from now on.

And yeah, the Space Marines player just kept feeding Ragnar units, giving him more and more bonus attacks every turn (he gets +1 attack for each model he killed in the previous assault phase). After chewing through 2 command squads and a full Tactical Squad, he was putting out a ton of attacks.

It was entertaining, and makes me want to save to build up my own respective Angelic Host to 5000 points.

It was mildly pleasing to see your wolves get beaten, but at the same time it was a shame. It's mostly because I WANNA BEAT THEM.

But....we'll see. In due time. I technically haven't lost to them at least

Really cool report, cant beat a big old rumble.

Ratius wrote:Really cool report, cant beat a big old rumble.

Yup, so glad I finally got to have one. Next time I'll make sure my units are spaced out a bit better though (like, I kind of wasted some of my units by assigning them inefficiently).