Speedy Swiftclaw Biker
Edinboro, PA
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Yesterday marked a 2000 point combined arms tournament at the Erie FLGS. My partner failed to make it because some dregs from a drunken party the night before (college town on a holiday weekend, good times) smashed a window out of his car and he was forced to spend the afternoon dealing with the police and insurance folk. The day before, however, we played practice matches against each other and then against another team who lived nearby. The board was home-made and very nice, with lots of trenches and terrain and modular with 2x2' squares. Here are the summaries of those.
My List (Names included for the fluff I wrote them later, the Great Company I have neither named or designed their shoulder pad symbol):
Wolf Lord Rolf Silverfang w/ mastercrafted lightning claws, runic armor, belt of Russ (4+ invulnerable), wolf pelt, and a wolf tooth necklace
--11 Blood Claws w/ a powerfist and two power weapons. This pack had a drop pod.
Wolf Priest Eirik Ulfsson w/ a frost blade, healing potions, and a plasma pistol
--9 Blood Claws with a powerfist and a power weapon
9 Grey Hunters with a Wolf Guard pack leader
1 Meltagun, 2 power weapons, pack leader has a powerfist. All kitted for true grit.
4 Wolf Scouts
1 Meltagun, 1 plasma pistol
His list (from memory, a bit sketchy):
Captain Lysander
--10 or 11 Sternguard Veterans, all in a Land Raider. Sternguard shooting AP3 ammo with bolter drill is a mean, mean thing, at least for MEQs.
10 Tactical Marines
1 Missile launcher and 1 flamer, in a Rhino.
6 Scout Snipers, one of whom is a sergeant.
Some wargear goodies I can't remember.
Battle 1. Table halves deployment, table quarters control is the primary objective with anything non-vehicle counting as scoring for that purpose. Secondary is control table center, tertiary is kill opponent's most expensive unit. He wins deployment and turn, and deploys fairly far back, breaking his tac squad into two combat groups. I deploy the wolf priest's pack and the grey hunters as close to the table center as I can get, and we begin.
Turn 1
He pushes the land raider and rhino up a full move after embarking the combat squad with the flamer, I move both squads ahead and run a bit. ML combat squad pops a frag missile at the Grey Hunters but it scatters out of template range. His scouts shoot each turn until they are comprehensively blown away in the bottom of three but never manage to inflict an unsaved wound, so I won't mention them past here.
Turn 2
He moves the Rhino ahead a full 12", aiming a bit to my left to try to pass the Wolf Priest and his squad. The land raider moves 6", turning to my right to engage the Grey Hunters with a burst of heavy bolter fire and a lascannon shot. My marines save all of the bolter wounds but one is vaporized by a lascannon hit. I roll for reserves and my scouts arrive, the drop pod does not. Thanks to the wolf scout special rule they appear from his table edge and within assault range of his missile launcher squad. They pop one with a melta blast, the plasma pistol overheats but the scout makes his armor save, and the bolt pistols don't wound. The grey hunters fire their meltagun at the land raider, missing. In assault, the scouts kill two more of the combat squad and break them, taking only one casualty despite not having frag grenades. They get away, rolling something rather large for flee distance, and the scouts get a 1" consolidate. Rats, I had hoped to chase that squad off the table. The grey hunters assault the land raider and remove the heavy bolter with a powerfist hit, and between the wolf priest's frost blade and the squad's powerfist they only manage to shake the rhino. Not a good turn for them.
Turn 3
The rhino dashes past the priest's squad and parks itself firmly in my left table quarter, with its scoring cargo debarking into a nearby crater. The fleeing two marines rally and fire a frag missile at the scouts that chased them off their vantage point, but cover saves keep them standing. The land raider backs up 6" and fires both lascannons at the grey hunters, popping another one. Lysander and his sternguard then debark and double tap into the grey hunters with their AP3 ammunition, killing 6 thanks to so-so wounding rolls leaving the pack leader and the meltagunner. My drop pod comes on, and lands on target within assault range of his sternguard next turn (also in double tap range, but I was hoping the CC prowess of my Wolves would make up for the inevitable losses. They manage to wipe out the scouts between a volley of bolt pistols and storm bolter fire from the pod. My wolf priest and his pack turn and chase after the rhino, only managing to get within pistol range of the group, and between the poor accuracy of BS3 blood claws and power armor, they cause no deaths. The scouts move to try to pop the land raider with their meltagun since I would have to take two difficult terrain tests to assault the other squad and I wasn't sanguine about rolling at least a 5 each time, but only shake it, so I lose that gamble. The grey hunters shoot into the sternguard and kill one with the melta, then assault in an attempt to whittle that group down to something that won't waste me off the board next turn, but Lysander chastises them both soundly with his thunder hammer and only two sternguard fall to the powerfist.
Turn 4
Nothing of his moves this turn, and the battlefield rings to the fury of volleys of double tapping bolters. When the dust settles my pod pack has been reduced to two blood claws and the wolf lord (his wound rolls were a tad bit better that turn, and I was even forced to make four saves on the wolf lord. Thank you, runic armor). The wolf priest's pack fares little better, the wolf priest using his healing potions to save one of the four failed armor saves among his pack between flamer and bolters. The missile team is on target this time, wiping out another scout. My wolf priest and his pack move to within easy assault range (it would need a difficult terrain check, but when I measured for the charge it was only about 2 1/2 inches) and take out one enemy marine with a barrage of pistol fire. The scouts make another attempt at blowing up the land raider as they are the only ranged anti-armor I have left and it was my tertiary, but miss cleanly this time (ugh, you'd think they could hit a 22, 24 foot tall tank, but no). The wolf lord's pack and the pod unload some bolt fire into the sternguard, but he saves it all, and they make the terrain check to charge. I get my wolf lord into btb with Lysander, and manage to wound him five times with the lightning claws, to which he replies with five passed invulnerable saves. Not good. The blood claws manage to put down three sternguard before they are wiped out, and Lysander bashes my wolf lord into paste with his hammer as my invulnerable saves come up snake eyes, and they consolidate toward their land raider. The wolf priest and blood claw pack double charge the rhino and its tac squad, two of whom die at the cost of one blood claw, but they make their test and lock up. The rhino is easily mashed by the powerfist blood claw.
Turn 5
The missile team takes out another scout, and the last one is murdered by a single-tap volley from the sternguard, leaving him the far right table corner from my perspective uncontested. The land raider fires at the pod, but only stuns it. In assault my wolf priest mops up the remaining tactical marines, clearing my near left quarter, and they consolidate into the crater to gain cover against the sternguard. We roll for turn 6, and don't get it.
We each had one uncontested quarter, and he claimed the primary until I reminded him that my drop pod had the far left quarter contested. He still won though, because neither of us had the secondary and he made the tertiary by slaying my wolf lord, where I couldn't down that bloody land raider.
Game 2
This one was a 4 objective take and hold with friendly side objectives worth three points and enemy side objectives worth seven, the secondary being to kill your opponent's most expensive HQ and the tertiary to have three scoring units in the enemy side of the table. We put the objectives roughly in the center of each quarter, and I won deployment and turn. I set up with the wolf priest at the center of the near and far left boundary line, and the grey hunters in a trench guarding my objective in the near right. My opponent placed his rhino pretty much dead center of his side, and the land raider in line with it near my left table edge, his right. He didn't break his tac squad into combat teams this time, for some reason, leaving himself only one scoring unit for this game.
Turn 1
My wolf priest and his squad moved ahead and got a full 6" run, making it well onto his side of the table towards the objective opposite them. The grey hunters held position in a protective fashion, going to ground to give them good cover saves against any rending sniper shots. His snipers predictably fired on them to soften them up for his mechanized troops, knowing that he needed as many of his tacticals alive to hold that objective as he could get, trusting in Lysander and his sternguard to table my remaining units. That plan went sour almost immediately, however. His land raider had been deployed atop a trench, and when it tried to move off it immobilized itself. Lysander and his squad debarked, miles and miles from their objective, and were stuck with nothing to shoot that turn. The land raider tried a lascannon shot at the priest's squad, but they had cover due to intervening terrain and made the save. The rhino came straight ahead and then hooked to my left, trying to pass under the wolf priest's pack but coming up out of movement before making it by.
Turn 2
The reserve rolls are with me this game, and both reserves come on. The scouts hop in about two inches behind the land raider and began blasting away at it with the meltagun (thanks to capricious damage table rolls they never actually kill the thing, but keep it stunned or shaken for the whole game). The drop pod comes in, again right on target right next to the trench containing his scout squad, in fact roughly the same place it did the first game. The pack within boils out, grabbing the objective without needing to move and taking out two of the nearby scouts with pistol fire. The pod fires storm bolters into the sternguard and takes one down. The wolf priest and his blood claws fan out to block the rhino and the priest puts a plasma shot into its side armor and immobilizes it, leaving all of his scoring units trapped barely halfway to midfield. I don't assault, and he debarks the tac squad from the immobile rhino into a nearby crater and moves the sternguard up a few steps. Shooting sees his snipers whiff the blood claws not inches from their faces, the sternguard double tap into the wolf priest and his squad but between cover saves (there was a hill between them) and a healing balm only two fall. The stranded tactical squad also double taps at them, but armor saves pretty much nullify that round of shooting, he might have killed one, I forgot. The rhino makes its self-repair check. He doesn't assault, knowing full well that space wolves are as nasty on the defense as they are on the assault, and hoping that a failed difficult terrain check in my next assault phase would keep my priest and his claws able to be shot at.
Turn 3
The grey hunter with the meltagun moves as far forward as he can while maintaining squad cohesion and fires on the repaired rhino at maximum range, immobilizing it again. The wolf priest and his pack dump some mostly ineffective pistol ammo on the marines in the crater and prepare to assault. Drop pod bounces some bolt shells off sternguard armor, and not even bothering to shoot first the wolf lord charges and obliterates the scout snipers before the blood claws even catch up to him, and they all consolidate 2" towards the sternguard. Wolf priest makes his terrain check and gets stuck into the tacticals with his blood claws. They beat six down in a flurry of blows and lose two. The Fists make their leadership check and they all lock up. Left with a bunch of blood claws just out of double tap range Lysander separates from his sternguard vets and heads for the big furball in the crater to back up his brothers, but a biffed difficult terrain check leaves him with a risky assault. The sternguard move away from the wolf lord and his pack a short distance, making sure they are fully out of assault range and making ready to shoot something up next turn. In the assault phase, he makes a lucky 6" terrain check to charge and gets Lysander stuck in with the wolf priest and his claws, unfortunately provoking their counterattack and allowing them to chew up the rest of the tactical squad with one dead blood claw and one wound on the wolf priest with the extra attacks. Lysander splatters one blood claw and I choose to take the other hammer blow to the wolf priest, who makes his invulnerable save. Leadership is passed, and the remaining blood claws pile in on Lysander.
Turn 4
The wolf lord and his pack make a full 6" test and head forward, howling for blood and seeing Lysander locked up and alone dead ahead. The drop pod throws more storm bolter fire at the sternguard, ineffectively. The melta-wielding grey hunter pops the rhino this time, leaving a crater that didn't explode far enough to hit anyone in CC. In the big Wolves vs. Lysander brawl the wolf lord and his pack charge on in, and the big guy in yellow takes and makes a perfectly obscene amount of 2+ armor and 3+ invulnerable saves, coming down to initiative 1 with hammer ready and one wound left. He pulps another claw in the wolf priest's squad, and to preserve the scoring unit the wolf priest takes the other for his remaining wolf brothers. Trusting in the power of the Iron Wolf, I throw the die and pass the save! Then, the powerfist-wielding blood claw in the wolf priest's squad, taking umbrage to the hit leveled at his leader, punches his power fist into Lysander and he fails the invulnerable. The wolf lord consolidates back 4", leading his pack firmly onto the objective again, and the priest consolidates 5" towards the right side of the board, towards the other far objective. They make it into the shadow of the drop pod, much too far away from the objective to make it even next turn but in cover to deny the sternguard the kill. My opponent, looking at the board, realizes his options are entirely nil for victory at that point with only one elites choice on the field (not counting the chain-shaken immobilized land raider), and concedes. I win both the primary and secondary objectives, (my third scoring unit was defending the objective back on my side of the field, my contingency plan, and were not far enough forward to make the tertiary. Oh well.) for a good bloody vengeance for round one's tail kicking that I received. We traded jokes and boasts, and got ready for the team practice.
The Imperial Fist player's friends arrive, and unload their daemons and and necrons, and we add two more segments onto the table to make a 6x4. Here are their lists as I remember them:
Necrons:
Lord w/ veil and orb
--10 warriors
10 warriors
4 Destroyers
3 Heavy Destroyers
(I remember this list's phase out was at 7 models, at least)
Daemons:
Skulltaker with a few goodies
--10 or so bloodletters, musician and icon
Khorne Herald
--10 or so more bloodletters, musician and icon
Soulgrinder with all the fixin's
4 pink horrors
Game 3
We rolled deployment and objectives for this game, and got annihilation and pitched battle. They won deployment and first go. The necron made himself a nifty gunline with all his warriors and lord in a big trench, and the destroyers up behind them, about five inches in from their table side and near the right side of the table (their left). We put down the land raider w/ Lysander and sternguard opposite the necrons, with the grey hunters sheltering behind it. The rhino went down roughly opposite the land raider on our left side, with the priest and his claws behind it.
Turn 1
The daemon player got his preferred wave, the soulgrinder and skulltaker's mess of khornate ugly. Both popped in right on target, the bloodletters near cover which they took, and the soulgrinder right next to his rhino. The necrons don't move, and the soulgrinder blows the rhino away with a nasty phlegm shot after whiffing the tongue. It blows up 3", catching a few of my blood claws, but only one wound is rolled for me and he saves it. Two marines inside the rhino aren't quite as lucky, and they pile out into the crater between them and the soulgrinder to get cover from the templates. In a horrendous amount of gauss fire the necrons manage to blow one of the lascannons off the big yellow beast and stun it, but it grinds forward a full 12" anyway thanks to the machine spirit even while the crew rub at the new lumps on their noggins. The grey hunters jog after it, but roll 1" for the run check. This proceeds to happen all game, and they don't wind up doing much. My wolf priest and his claws are in a little bit of a precarious place however, with their way forward hindered by difficult terrain and a failed check leaving them all within template range of the soulgrinder with the Fists. I take it anyway, and sure enough they wind up right next to their yellow-armored brethren as my comrade and I wince. Next phase, however, they roll a good 6" run and bail it on out of there, headed for the necron lines about 12 or 14 inches away by my estimation. They wind up in a nice little pocket between two hills with a clear line to run next turn. Lysander and his sternguard debark their land raider about three inches by the assault measure later that turn and elect to prep for assault rather than rapid fire, hoping to take advantage of the necron low initiative and give them a sound thrashing in assault. Pistol fire knocks one over (it gets back up next turn), and he makes his difficult terrain check to charge. 2" doesn't get him there, and he is left in a very sorry position staring down every single green glowy weapon in the necron force without cover. This is not looking good for us, not at all.
Turn 2
The soulgrinder doesn't move, having every template in range to have a good fun time with the boys in yellow. His reserves both land, and the other bloodletters move up so they will be both in range to assault next turn, Skulltaker's squad eyeing the trapped Fists and the other one watching my Wolves. The horrors land right between them, and score four wounds in shooting on the wolf priest's pack. I roll three ones and a two for armor saves, but at least healing potions saved one. Good ol' soulgrinder treats the Fists to every template he has and a tongue lick for good measure, killing six in total thanks to a template scatter and some cover saves, but they make their morale. The bloodletters run towards the diminished pack and the Fist tacticals, ready to cause some serious unpleasantness next turn. On the other side of the board, things go no better. In a tidal wave of green light Lysander's sternguard is reduced to three models, and Lysander himself has to make two invulnerable saves vs. insta-death heavy destroyers, which he makes. Unfortunately, he rolls 11 for his morale check and they break, running back about 5" and burying themselves in a crater. No assaults follow. My scouts fail to arrive, but the drop pod arrives. It scatters slightly forward of where I wanted it, but inertial guidance stops it from having a mishap and it offloads its very angry cargo. The wolf priest and his squad, knowing the odds are slim to nil to get to Lysander's aid without falling short and getting shot up and then assaulted by the bloodletters anyway consign their souls to Russ and the Allfather and prepare to weather the bloodletters in place. I get a flash of insight however, and in a somewhat canny tactic (or at least I hoped so, if I was wrong it was suicide) I move my pack onto one of the hills, toward his bloodletters, while he grins evilly at me for making it easier for him to charge. They whiff a lot of pistol fire mainly fired to provoke the daemons further rather than score kills, and the wolf lord's pack and pod storm bolters knock over three necrons, one of whom gets back up next turn. Tac squad pops the soulgrinder with a krak missile and immobilizes it, yay. Next round is going to be messy, and I knew it would decide the game.
Turn 3
Sure enough, this round got messy, but much of it was beyond our wildest expectations. The bloodletters moved toward their respective targets again, and the destroyers repositioned to fire on my newly-arrived claws, who were (rightly) perceived as a much greater threat to necron integrity. The soulgrinder, immobilized and out of range of the flame template thanks to some creative casualty removal, hawks a big daemon loogie at the tac squad again. The wind takes it, however, and it scatters back towards the soulgrinder 6 full inches and splatters squarely on Skulltaker's pack of bloodletters. Ouch! We all laugh, our two opponents somewhat nervously, and after wound rolling and saves only Skulltaker and 2 disoriented bloodletters remain! It licked one of the marines out of existence, however, and they failed their 25% casualty check and broke about 6 inches towards the edge. The necrons shoot the everliving crap out of my blood claws, but I debarked them in a manner that they had cover against about 30% of the shots and his warriors rolled terribly to hit and wound. At the end of the shooting phase only four claws had been gaussed down, leaving the very angry wolf lord (he had taken three saves to protect as many of his men as he could, and passed them all) and the blood claws howling for vengeance for their fallen brothers. In the daemon's assault phase, we caught our other big break. Predictably, he charged his bloodletters into my hurting claw pack and priest, so all those I5 WS5 power weapons could ruin my day. He started gathering up his dice, but I checked him and asked if the daemons had frag grenades. He checked his codex and sure enough they didn't (phew! What a guess!) and my wolf priest and the blood claws had themselves some vengeance as the daemons struggled up the hill toward them. By the time his initiative came around, only three demons, Icon bearer and Herald included, still stood and they killed only three blood claws thanks to warp-cursed wounding rolls and the wolf priest's iron wolf talisman's 4+ invulnerable. He failed one of his fearless saves, and only the icon and herald remained. Their turn had gone as badly as our turn 1 had, and it was up to us to capitalize on it. Capitalize we did, as my wolf priest slew both daemons remaining before they could strike him back, and the wolf lord and his pack phased out the necrons in one terrifying double charge assault that left only their lord standing with one blood claw dead at his metal feet, after which he promptly broke morale and was torn down in the ensuing rampage. (Poor Lysander's squad had auto-rallied, moved back up, and then rolled snake eyes on the assault test! At least he got to watch.) The remaining destroyers weren't enough to keep him in phase, and out he went. With only horrors and a few daemons left, the daemon player conceded and faded back to the warp as well. Rolf Silverfang lost the necron lord's arm which he had claimed as a trophy due to the phase out, and was unable to find anything else as all the felled demons had returned to the warp, so Lysander got a good chuckle as the wolf lord ranted about the lack of prizes to hang in their feast halls.
All in all a series of very fun games, especially the last one, that was a tense and exciting brawl from the get-go. If their turn three hadn't been so completely catastrophic, such as necrons killing too many blood claws to phase them or the soulgrinder's big phlegm whoopsie, they would have squashed us thanks to our sad, sad turn 1. It was a rough board for both armies, though, due to the very limited number of places that allowed free running room without terrain tests (for us), or deep strikes or teleports to have had any margin of safety at all (for them). The necron couldn't veil away from the impending blood claw attack because anything big enough for his full unit to arrive was either occupied by the land raider, the fleeing fists squad, was too far away from anything to be of any use, or was occupied by my slogging grey hunters (the only good thing they did all game, the bums) and he didn't want to risk a mishap zogging them all up anyway, so he tried the vape them all and let Russ sort it out approach. Unfortunately for him, Russ sorted it out in favor of his chosen. We were looking forward to playing in the tourney the next day, and I was completely bummed out by the business about his car's window holding him back. We would have had a good chance of placing at least third, if we had played well. I went up anyways, and took some pics of the various armies involved, and some of my Wolves sitting lonely and bored on a side table. When it was all done a Crimson Fists/Sisters shooty team took home the gold, with a bike/speeder Ultramarine and a really, really swordy Black Templars list getting second and a Nid/Orc tidal swarm getting third.
If anyone was able to make it through this massive text wall, I'm a bit of a forum noob and I'm not sure how to upload the pics I took. If anyone could give me the info (or call me a moron and show me where I missed the on-site instructions) I'm all ears. Also, from now on I'll attempt to have the presence of mind to take the digital camera and pencil/pad to each battle for more comprehensive battle reports from here on out.
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Rolf Silverfang's Great Company
Kharn the Betrayer and his Delightful Companions
Warhost of the Summer Sidhe 