Matt and I attended the 40K doubles this weekend at Warhammer World. After play-testing the missions we completely changed our army list as we realised that most of the missions were heavily biassed towards the Aggressor (if you want to read them they're over on the GW website). Therefore if we were to have any chance of doing well we'd need an army that could hold it's own as the Consolidator. Given the current state of the game (i.e. plenty of anti-light armour firepower) we decided to try and get a couple of land raiders in. Anyway, we came up with the following:
TITANIC FENRISIANS
875pts of Space Wolves
Rune Priest w/ Chooser of the Slain (Murderous Hurricane, Jaws)
6x Wolf Guard: 1x Combi-melta & power fist, 5 terminators w/ 2x combi-plasma & claw, 2x combi-melta & claw, 1x chain fist & shield
Land Raider Redeemer (multi-melta)
7 Grey Hunters w/ meltagun, Mark of the Wulfen, Wolf Standard in Rhino
Land Speeder (multi-melta & heavy flamer)
875pts of Grey Knights
Inquisitor Coteaz
9 Purifiers (2 psycannon, 7 halberd)
6 Death Cult Assassins
Land Raider Crusader (psybolt ammunition)
Psyfleman Dreadnought
The idea being that if we had to survive a torrent of fire then terminators in a land raider was the way to go. Coteaz presented several advantages with the Death Cults as troops, re-roll failed seizes (and force your opponent to re-roll successful ones) and finally that any reserves arriving within 12" would get hit with two psycannons in our opponent's turn. Otherwise the list is pretty self explanatory I think. Lots of heavy hitting combat stuff and no "filler" units that would struggle to prove their worth.
Game One vs. CSM & Traitor Guard
Being the consolidators meant that my Space Wolves would have to survive long enough for Matt's GKs to save me. Our opponents weren't hugely familiar with the rules, having recently returned to the game, and so we felt confident. Our opponents largely ignored out Land Raider hoping that their Leman Russ's would be able to deal with it. Luckily for us they failed and we were able to drive up to them and charge the terminators in their direction. The terminators dealt with both Leman Russ tanks but thanks to some lashing from their Daemon Prince they had a lot of walking to do each turn. They took their revenge though and gunned down the Daemon Prince the next turn.
The Grey Hunters found themselves in the crater that was once their rhino and failed to reach any of the guardsmen before they were gunned down. The Redeemer introduced both the raptors and bikers to flamestorm cannons punishing them for their failure to hit with their meltaguns/bombs by wiping them all out. The purifiers came on and made a mess of the chaos space marines.
Our opponents were taking an extremely long time to do anything (turn 1 took the best part of 45 mins) and we knew we'd not be getting the full game length. Luckily our land speeder and Dealt Cult land raider came on in turn 4 and made for an objective. With 15 mins to go our opponents started turn 5 which saw them claim an objective right in front of both land raiders (the other 2 objectives were contested). Having spent the first part of turn 5 sending a text whilst his team mate tried to ask him what to do they finished their turn with 1 minute on the clock. We asked them if we'd be getting a full turn 5 regardless and they said we'd have to play to the time limit (just as it hit zero). After a heated argument for five minutes where one of them insisted they'd won because we couldn't have a turn 5 we got frustrated and offered to give them a draw on objectives and KPs (even though we'd have won on KPs).
In hindsight we should've called over a judge who'd have either told us to roll it back to the end of turn 4 or insist that we be allowed to play a quick turn 5 (all we needed was for the death cults and both raiders to kill off a squad of guardsmen). Either of these situations would've resulted in a definite win for us. We're pretty annoyed that we didn't do this and gave them a draw. Marvellous thing, hindsight.
Game Two vs. DA & Guard
We managed to get the first turn in this mission which we knew would be crucial. The DA army consisted of 12 bikes, an attack bike, speeder and Sammael. They scout moved their bikers towards our land raiders to get them in melta range. Our opponents rolled to seize and got a 6. Coteaz had other ideas though and they re-rolled and failed.
With the bikes lined up right in front of our land raiders we felt like it was Christmas. The terminators and death cults both got out and made short work of all of the bikers. The death cults didn't last much longer but they'd done their job. The attack bike fell to the dreadnought and with that our land raiders were pretty safe. Their land speeder blew up and only Sammael was left. The guard army arrived piece by piece and was easily dealth with by the Grey Knights and land raider.
The grey hunters had lost their rhino however and were being pounded by guard and Sammael shooting. The land raider swept over to pick them up and they positioned themselves between two of the objectives claiming both thanks to the land raider's sheer size. As the only remaining survivor in their army Sammael survived a torrent of fire and moved in to contest the central objective to draw the primary mission. However, he wasn't aware that we were in fact claiming both and we won 1-0.
Game Three vs. Double Orks
This mission was the one we based our army list around. If we were consolidators then hopefully the land raiders would survive and provide cover for the rhinos and if we were aggressors they'd ensure we'd get first turn charges on anything in the middle.
We found ourselves as consolidators and deployed the land raiders with rhinos hidden behind to stop the lootas having a target. Our opponents came on and slammed power klaws into the Space Wolves force. Despite only penetrating the dread, rhino and land raider once each they destroyed all three (with no big explosions unfortunately). The grey knights came out unscathed.
Our vengeance was swift. The grey hunters cut down the warboss and his mob, the terminators dealt with another mob and the purifiers killed two killa kans with their psycannons. The death cults were unlucky to immobilise their land raider though stopping them reaching the lootas. The following few turns saw our opponents wipe out the grey hunters and terminators. The rune priest used murderous hurricane to great effect causing an ork mob to flee from the table and the land speeder took down the battlewagon with a deep striking melta shot.
We were still pretty convinced we were losing though as the rune priest fell and after killing the lootas the death cults were hit by Snikrot and his kommandos. However, at the end of turn 4 we added up the KPs and found ourselves with a 9-8 lead. They'd need to kill 2 out of the raider, rhino, purifiers and coteaz for the victory. They failed to kill off the purifiers and the rhino smoked to keep it alive. The purifiers destroyed a trukk and we finished the game with an unlikely 10-8 victory to end the first day.
In situations like your first game I would have talked to my opponent and tried to end the game on even turns. At the speed they played there was no way you would both get a turn. If you couldnt agree id then seek out a judge, unfortunately that might take longer than fifteen mins but you need an impartial ruling.
ReplyDeleteI find that once you let something happen or slide it's very hard to get a player or judge to backtrack