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Last month, I attended Blog Wars 9 for three fantastic games of 40k against three great opponents. The first game was against Nathaniel and his thunderwolf cavalry heavy Space Wolves army (Blue in maps). His fantastic looking army (along with some lovely conversions) consisted of:

Two units of 5 thunderwolf cavalry- with wolves and storm shields (T1 and T2)
One Wolfguard battle leader on thunderwolf (WBL)
Two Iron Priests on Thunderwolf (IP1 and IP2)
Tactical squad (TM1) with two plasma guns in rhino (R)
Tactical squad (TM2) with two meltaguns and combi-melta in drop pod (DP2)
Dreadnought (D)- blizzard shield and great axe in drop pod (DP3)
Arjac Rockfist (A) and 4 terminators (T)- mix of thunder hammers, storm shields and combi-meltas in drop pod (DP1).

I haven't played space wolves in a long time and have never played thunderwolf cavalry, but have heard how fast and tough they are. I wanted to keep out of combat as long as possible and hope my firepower could whittle down his army.

My army (white and red) was:
Chapter Master- Bike, power fist, shield eternal, auspex (CM)
Kor'sarro Khan on Moondakken (K)
Two units of 5 bikers- 2 grav guns, sergeant with meltabombs (B1 and B2)
5 bikers- 2 meltaguns, sergeant with meltabombs (B3)
10 Tactical marines (TM)- meltagun, sergeant with combi-melta and meltabombs in drop pod (DP)
10 Devastators (D1 and D2)- 4 missile launchers in Rhino (R)
3 Grav centurions (C)
Stormtalon (S)
5 Scouts (Sc)- sergeant with meltabombs in landspeeder storm (LS)
Two attack bikes with multimeltas (AB1 and AB2)

My warlord trait gave me 3 units and the warlord to infiltrate, very handy!

The mission was essentially kill points, we would score points based on how much of the enemy army was destroyed (as well as for the secondary objectives).

I won the roll for deployment and chose the side with the two bastions (to keep the wolves out). I also won the roll for deployment and chose to go first.
I combat squaded the devastators, putting the heavy weapons on top of a bastion and the other unit in the Rhino on my left. They were joined by two units of bikers and Khan. An attack bike was deployed in the middle. I held back the Chapter Master, Centurions, another bike squad and an attack bike to react to Nathaniel's deployment.

He deployed a Rhino in the ruins on his right, and one unit of cavalry on each side, an Iron Priest in one and the Iron Priest and Battle leader in the other. In response, I put the Centurions on top of the other Bastion and the bikers and attack bike on the right. For my scout moves, I moved the left hand units backwards and towards the middle of the board as a sort of pseudo-fast castle. Nathaniel failed to seize the initiative and I got first turn.




TURN 1

In my first turn, the drop pod landed behind the ruins in the enemy deployment zone and the tactical marines get out behind the rhino. I moved some biker units forward to get their bolters just in range, so that the cavalry would need at least a 10" charge.


I fired at the Rhino with the tactical marines, but a combination of poor rolls and great cover saves from Nathaniel meant I caused no damage to it. Not a great start. The chapter master fired his orbital bombardment at the Wolf Leader's unit, despite causing 4 wounds, only a single wolf died as he made all his storm shield saves (a pity as a wound would have caused instant death). The devastators fired frag missiles at the Leader's unit, but could not penetrate the armour. The Centurions did better, killing two thunderwolves in the other unit. They failed their morale check and fell back (almost off the board, but not quite!).

In Nathaniel's turn, the terminators and tactical squad arrived in their drop pod in my deployment zone. The Wolf Leader's thunderwolf unit advanced on my Chapter Master's squad, while the other advanced on the newly arrived tactical squad. The Rhino advanced out of the ruins. The shooting phase saw the loss of two bikers (one from Khan's unit, two from the meltagun unit) and a single tactical marine thanks to some awful rolling from Nathaniel and some great jink saves from me.
In the assault phase, the Wolf Leader's unit failed a 9" charge on the Chapter Master's unit, despite the fleet re-roll. The other wolf unit charged the tactical marines, killing 8. I failed my morale and fell back towards my board edge.
Not a great first turn for either of us. No-one got first strike (like first blood, but we can both score it in the first turn only), my tactical marines achieved nothing and his drop pod units didn't do much either.

TURN 2

For my second turn, the bikes retreated from the thunderwolves and terminators. The scouts and attack bikes moved to attack the drop pod. The Stormtalon arrived and moved towards the 2nd cavalry unit.
In my shooting phase, the meltagun tactical marine immobilised the Rhino, allowing the sergeant to charge in and blow it up with meltabombs in my assault phase. The Centurions killed 9 of the newly arrived drop pod tactical marines and the meltagun bike squad finished off the lone survivor. Massed fire from the two bike squads, landspeeder, attack bikes and devastator squad killed 3 of the terminators and took Arjac to a single wound. The scouts assaulted the drop pod and the sergeant's meltabombs blew it up.


Nathaniel advanced with the terminators on Khan's squad, while the Leader's thunderwolf unit advanced on the nearby scouts. The dreadnought arrived in its drop pod in front of the Devastators. The tactical squad from the Rhino killed one centurion with massed bolter and plasma fire. The Leader's thunderwolf squad attempted to charge the scouts, but again, Nathaniel failed an 8" charge, even with fleet re-rolls. Arjac and the single terminator charged Khan's bike squad. I lost four bikers for no wounds in return. Khan failed his morale check and fled off the board.
Turn 2 finally saw some carnage. Khan and a bike squad were gone, but Nathaniel failed another charge. I managed to wipe out a tactical squad and drop pod as well as a few wolves and terminators.

The rest of the battle (including more in game photos) can be found at my blog http://standwargaming.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/blog-wars-battle-report-game-1-space.html

Great game and well played !

Cheers, it was a really fun game. I like battles that are close, rather than one side stomping the other into oblivion.