6000pts Assault on Terra - Wolves/Bloods Angels vs Guard/Daemonhunters

Well it's been a while since I posted what with being in Ireland for Christmas with my fiance's family. Luckily I brought my camera with me so I can bring you the report from our epic battle at Warhammer World. I'd never been to the place before and I have to say I was impressed. For some reason I'd imagined the gaming arena to be bigger but the quality of the boards was amazing. I'll get to the board we were on later but the other boards have some nice pieces. There's a large Cities of Death board with really densely packed structures, a field full of drop pods, a bridge across a dry river bed, an ork scrapyard (which you may have seen on the Space Wolves blog) and a few other fantasy ones that I wasn't as interested in.

Our board was called Assault on Terra (at least I think it is). Some of you may remember that the old Warhammer World site had an article about it's design and construction which now seems to have been lost to the warp. Since that article they've now covered the entire board in snow. In my opinion they've made a really good job of it and it's inspired me to get round to making my snowscape game board when I get home (which I'll do a series of posts about of course). Anyway, on to the battle itself. As I've mentioned before we had 6k on each side but using the conventional FOC instead of any Apocalypse stuff. I'll add the lists later when I'm back on my own computer but suffice to say I had Logan, Arjac, Ragnar and 2 land raiders and Matt had Dante, a librarian and 2 land raiders of his own.

With so much going on it was difficult to keep track of the game on a turn-by-turn basis. Therefore I'll just give you some of the highlights. The background of the mission was that the Space Wolves and Blood Angels had discovered an ancient Eldar Warpgate which they believed would lead them to maiden worlds rich with resources. Natrually the Ordo Malleus had become aware of the discovery and knowing the Space Wolves attitude to the Inquisition had decided to enlist the help of a local militia in order to secure the artifact. Fluff aside this basically meant that Matt and I had to deploy within the walls of the structure and defend them from Alex who would win if he managed to get any models past a line behind the fortress walls.

Alex had something in the order of 20 tanks/dreads for us to take down along with 2 squads of grey knights and 2 squads of grey knight terminators each lead by a grand master. The DH units would no doubt teleport behind the walls in order to steal the objective at the last moment. We decided to have the Blood Angels forces go out to meet the attackers head on whilst the Space Wolves would provide fire support and defend against the teleporting grey knights.

We decided that it made sense for us to have the first turn as we reacted to the advance of the attacking army and also since we'd deployed first! The first thing to do was bring the drop pod in behind the Imperial Guard command squad lead by Castellan Creed. The dreadnought came out of his transport and unleashed a burst of flame and a hail of assault cannon fire into the squad. This left only creed and a wounded lascannon team. Elsewhere our forces advanced towards the hordes of tanks yet failed miserably to destroy a single one with lascannon fire from the land raiders. We didn't do much better in the following turn either. The whirlwind landed a missile squarely in the middle of the rough riders and brought the 8-man team down to 1.

Alex advanced his force towards the walls. The heavy weapons teams immobilised the dreadnought and stopped it from firing for a few turns but they weren't able to destroy it. The basilisk landed a shell in the middle of the grey hunters team which guarded a breach in the walls and killed off 4 of the space marines. Despite our heavy weapons failing the rune priest unleashed living lightning on a Leman Russ team and despite only producing a single bolt of lightning it managed to immobilise the tank (which counted as wrecked as it was in a team). Just goes to show it's always worth a go!

The land speeder arrived just when we needed it and although it didn't manage to destroy the basilisk it did render it's earthshaker cannon impotent for the rest of the game. It then blasted up the field to help thin out the lines of the Imperial Guard. The vindicare & calidus assassins (we allowed Alex to have both) made short work of Matt's devastator squad before being brought down by the long fangs and grey hunters. At the end of turn two Alex had dropped a lot of grey knights in, had stunned the whirlwind and whittled down it's grey hunter support and had forced on of the assault squads to retreat. Not to mention the destruction of all but one of the death company! It didn't look promising for us since we were unable to take down his tanks which were getting ever closer!

The turning point came in turn three. Two of Matt's land raiders and one of mine (containing Ragnar) formed a line across the field and with the true grit of the Adeptus Astartes they resolved that none would pass this point. Matt piled out his librarian and assault terminators who were undoubtedly the stars of the Blood Angels army. They managed to wipe out a rhino, vindicator, chimera and several squads of guard including an inquistor without taking many losses at all. There was a point near the end where they were struggling to find anyone else in range to kill! Having said that both the flame tank (I forget it's name) and the vindicator took some fire and in fact the flame tank survived until the end of the game. One of grey knights squads came in right next to Logan's land raider redeemer which unleashed it's flamestorm cannon and killed the entire squad.

Alex brought on sentinels to finished off my grey hunters and I turn brought my wolf scouts on to destroy them but not before they'd reduced that squad to two. As if to prove my point the scouts survived to take down a dread and some more troops. However, I must say that it'd be hard to choose between the land speeder and the scouts in terms of effectiveness in this game. The land speeder went on to help the dread kill off Creed and a team of lascannons and it survived for the game.

Alex had put a team of two leman russ in reserve in order to outflank (because one of his characters allowed this) but they came in right at the end of the game so were of little effect. Well in fact they were quite devastating for the turn they were there. Dante came in from reserve and tried to aid the Space Wolves in dealing with the two grand masters, their terminator bodyguards and a squad of storm troopers which had landed behind our walls. The fire of the stormtroopers coupled with the leman russ team was enough to wipe out Dante's honour guard and score two wounds on Dante himself. Dante still managed to deal with the stormtroopers on his own though but it was by no means easy for him thanks to some appalling rolls from Matt.

Once we'd got into combat the epic battle in the middle of the field never seemed like it would go any other way. Ragnar's team took some punishment and in the end the Wolf Lord stood alone. We prevented the guard army from entering through the breach in the wall and one of Alex's inquistorial stormtroopers seemed to excel with their plasma gun killing of a good number of marines. The whirlwind somehow survived a lot of punishment from two dreadnoughts and killed off at least double it's points value. Only in the last turn did Alex manage to destroy the turret. Despite the carnage we'd wrought upon our enemies in the middle of the field and the mounds of dead that we'd amassed this was not where the battle would be won or lost.

Both Grand Masters and their retinues had dropped in behind cover inside the fortress. I'd deliberately left Logan's land raider inside in order to react to the inevitable incursion. It trundled forward at full pelt and Logan, Arjac and their terminator brethren smashed out and piled into combat after unleashing missiles and Arjac tossing his hammer. If they could not stop the grey knight terminators then the battle was lost.

In the first round of combat Logan struck with the grand masters and should managed to remove several of the bodyguard, miraculously Alex managed to pass all three 5+ saves though. The grandmasters finished off a couple of my wolf guard but then Arjac hit back and instantly killed the grand master with his hammer which also swung in the direction of his retinue bringing two of them down. After the first bout of combat Logan and Ragnar stood together but their brethren had perished. One of the grey knights remained from one squad but the other was at full strength.

In the second phase Logan finished off the lone grey knight but was wounded by the grand master. The rest of the team managed to bring down the mighty Space Wolf. Arjac suffered a wound but this only brought forth the beast within him and he killed more grey knights. A wounded Arjac must now fight alone against the grand master and the fate of the battle rested on his shoulders. In the final round of combat the grand master fumbled and only managed to score a single blow on Grimnar's Champion which Arjac deflected with his shield. He turned the favour by smashing his hammer into the daemonhunter and claimed his life.

Victory to the Space Wolves and Blood Angels then? Well sort of. We'd never really specified whether or not vehicles counted as units in terms of passing the line. Alex had his two reserved Leman Russes (if that's the plural) past the line so we decided to call it a draw to avoid argument!

Six turns of absolute carnage. Early on it wasn't clear who was going to win but there's no chance for the guard when facing space marines in combat. The sheer volume of troops that the BA assault terminators waded through was astounding. The grey hunters were inside the fortress so never really got to show their prowess with the exception of Ragnar's squad that is. Both times they charged they managed to get 3 bonus attacks allowing them to make light work of their enemies. Alex definitely gave us a scare since we seemed totally incapable of destroying tanks. After the rune priest had shown the way to do it they seemed to fall easiliy enough (that and our melta weapons and power fists came into range). The distraction of the dreadnought and land speeder certainly protected our midfield troops. The Basilisk was put out of contention pretty early which definitely saved a lot of space marines.

The undisputed star of the show was Arjac Rockfist. Whilst I believe that the grand masters will get a buff in the rumoured new DH codex they are pretty formidable in combat. It's only because they aren't Eternal Warriors that they're not unstoppable. Arjac absolutely excelled himself, you can't argue with 4 thunderhammer attacks, eternal warrior and a 2+/3+ save. It's skirmishes like that which firmly establish why I like to use special characters. The combats in the middle of the field were interesting but were no where near as fun as using Arjac and Logan together.

Sorry if this is a massive wall of muddled text but we found that in such a massive battle it was difficult to keep track of what happened and when. There's probably a lot I've missed out. Whilst it was an enjoyable experience I don't think it's one we'll repeat soon. Even though the was a lot of carnage it actually came down to a couple of thousand points of troops fighting in a corner of the field. In the future we'll stick to more smaller battles. I hope you enjoyed reading about this one anyway!

To get a real impression of the battle I've uploaded about half of the ton of pictures I took during the carnage to a web album which you can view here. Speaking of which I now desperately want to finish painting my Wolves so they look better in photos. Arjac needs a nice paint job in particular!

Land speeder vs Wolf Scouts - Sticking up for the Little Guy(s)

I read this post last night by Adam from the Space Wolves Blog. It's started a strong debate in the comment form about land speeders being superior to Wolf Scouts. I was originally going to join in the debate on the comment form but then I found I was writing far too much so here I am.

As you tend to find with most debates on t'internet about 40K, they focus around a single situation and then argue about which unit is better. What I'd like to do is explain the pros and cons of both so that you can make a proper decision and not just go with the crowd. I'll try not to show any bias but I think it'll be clear which I prefer (though I often take both).

For starters to anyone not so familiar with the Space Wolves army it may seem like a strange debate. Why are we comparing an elite choice which in other armies gets used as cheap firepower to a fast attack choice which is often a deep striking anti-tank platform? Well the Wolf Scouts (unlike any other SM scouts) get to outflank behind enemy lines (OBEL) which gives them the opportunity to come in behind your opponents line of tanks and hit the rear armour. Hopefully you're still reading if you found that a bit patronising.

Equipment and Costs

So people tend to equip the land speeder with a combination of heavy flamer and multi-melta for a piffling 70pts. This means that you can nearly always squeeze a land speeder in without sacrificing anything else. Very few people use the other Fast Attack options (but I'll discuss them in another post anyway). The scouts on the other hand have to compete with some rather nice units for their Elite slot (the likes of terminators, dreads and lone wolves). If we're going to use the scouts in an anti-tank role (and I'll discuss other options too) I'd use the following loadout:

5 scouts w/ meltagun, plasma pistol, mark of the wulfen and 4x melta bombs.

= 135pts

Clearly that's nearly double the cost of the land speeder so the scouts lose out in this round! It's worth noting that since they already have krak grenades the melta bombs aren't essential but they're nice to have incase you need to wreck a land raider. However, let's now consider what may happen in a game situation. I'm not going to mathammer since I've already expressed my opinions on that but I will briefly mention some probabilities because it's unavoidable in a game based on dice rolls.

Getting to the target

Equipped as they are you're pretty much always going to deep strike the land speeder and OBEL the scouts. Depending on density of terrain (and we use quite a lot) the land speeder may struggle to get in at all. It has a 2/3 chance of scattering which potentially could put it out of 12" range to make the most of the multi-melta.

The scouts have a 2/3 chance of coming on from any table edge of your choice. Most of the time if you roll a 1 or 2 then there's a chance you'll find a target providing it's early on in the game. The scouts must walk on from the table edge meaning the target has to be less than 12" from the edge for the melta gun to be effective and for any assault to be possible.

Bring it down!

The land speeder that's just deep-striked (deep-struck?) can only use one of his weapons thanks to his speed. If you're near a tank then it's obviously going to be the multi-melta. I don't know about you but whenever I roll a melta shot I feel like I'm going to miss and indeed you have a 1/3 chance of doing so. There's nothing you can do if you miss except die a little inside.

The scouts come in and assuming they're in range they also have a 2/3 chance to hit the target and the same chance of blowing it up but again it's wasted if we miss. The difference is we also gave them a plasma pistol which against AV10 (like the rear of a lot of tanks) you have quite a good chance of doing some damage. Let's assume for the sake of argument that we fail with our shooting. This is where we have an advantage over the land speeder, because we were in range for the melta shot we know we can charge too. That gives us 4 melta-bombs and potentially 8 Wulfen attacks that could rend. If we didn't take the melta-bombs the krak grenades will have a 50/50 chance of hurting AV10 rear armour. Bear in mind that if there's two tanks close by or a unit of tanks then you might be able to kill more than one!

The other advantage here is that should we find ourselves behind a tank with occupants e.g. an eldar falcon and we manage to blow it up with the shooting we can possibly charge in and make a mess of the occupants too. The land speeder won't have that option and may take hits from the no doubt angry occupants.

Living to Fight Another Day

Both units will aim to pick something juicy and pay for themselves by blowing up more than their points value. Clearly this is easier for the land speeder as it's so cheap. Successful or not it'd be nice to move on and cause some havoc but your opponent get's a turn before we can do that. Both units will attract some attention especially if they're just blown up your opponent's trophy tank. This isn't always a bad thing as it can draw attention away from your other units and it's surprising how much punishment both units can take sometimes.

The land speeder that dropped out of the sky will gain no advantage against shots but will only be hit in combat on 6s. If you picked your target well there'll hopefully be no troops around to cause a problem but if there are (or some angry occupants like I mentioned) then they're likely to have some S4 or better shots at you. With AV10 all the way around it's unlikely this will go well as most damage table results go against you. The only result that isn't a total loss is Crew Shaken which allows you to move away. Obviously we need to factor in cover but since you're probably in the middle of their army most things will make a mess of you. Your opponent may even try a charge if he's got a unit with a decent number of attacks or a power fist etc. If you do survive then your impressive speed means you can either blast across the board at full tilt and get yourself a cover save as you move to another target or maybe move a full 12" and be in range of something else that's juicy.

It's a bit more complicated for the scouts. If you were forced to charge in, or you were particularly close when you shot, then there's every chance you were caught up in an explosion. It's quite likely that one of your scouts will be claimed by it. If you lose a couple then you might run away. If there wasn't a big bang then you're gonna take some hits from the rest of the army. You may be in cover (since you're able to pick where you come on) but again you're unlikely to have much left. There's a lot of things that can punish a unit with T4 and a 4+ save. In combat at least you might counter-attack and do some damage which obviously the land speeder can't do but you may get annihilated or be stuck in combat for a while. If you survive then you better hope there's another target nearby (which there should be if you picked your spot right) because if not it could be a long and treacherous walk to your next target.

What if there aren't any tanks for me to hit?

The land speeder is equipped with the heavy flamer for just this reason. It can make a mess of bit hordes of orks/guard/nids and gives you an alternative against armies that don't have a lot of tanks.

The scouts on the other hand can really excel even when there aren't tanks. A lot of armies have heavy weapons teams (devastators, broadsides, lootas etc) which you can disrupt with a well time assault. The land speeder might be able to flame them but the survivors will still shoot whereas the scouts can keep them locked in combat.

Both units have a good shot at contesting objectives too but the land speeder's ability to cover ground makes it better in this situation.

Final Thoughts

This has turned into quite a wall of text so I best draw to a close. As I've said before the units you take are dictated by the way you like to play. Both of these units complement an army which assaults or one that sits and shoots. As I mentioned in my list building post they're the kind of units which distract your enemy. They mean that your opponent will see them on your list and play differently because they're there. If they've got any sense they'll space out their tanks and in the case of the scouts they'll probably try and keep them away from the table edge. This means you're more likely to be in range with your long fangs which is good.

At the end of the day both units have their advantages and both can easily slide into to your army. I like both of them for different reasons. Your list will be a lot more potent with at least one of them involved. It's also worth thinking about what you could do with the spare 65 points you'd save by taking a speeder instead of scouts. Either way these units are a bit of a glasshammer. They might do a lot of damage but they won't last long after that.

The important thing to remember though is to try them for yourself and not rely on what I say (or anyone else says). If they don't suit you then don't use them but I'm not going to say either is pointless. We probably all have a set of scouts since I suspect most of us who've only recently got into SW bought the Battleforce so give them a go!

Army List for Warhammer World

As I mentioned in my previous post we're going to Warhammer World next week to have a 6000pt game on one of the nice tables they've got there. Pretty sure we'd not even be able to deploy on my usual 8'x4' table! The aim of the game is just to have a laugh and bring units we wouldn't normally bring just to enjoy the carnage that will no doubt ensue.

I actually found it pretty tricky to cram what I wanted into 3,000 pts but here goes: 

3,000pts of Space Wolves

HQ

Logan Grimnar

Ragnar Blackmane

Njal Stormcaller

Rune Priest (Necklace, Living Lightning, Murderous Hurricane)

ELITES

Wolf Scouts (Melta bombs, MotW, plasma pistol, power weapon)

TROOPS

3x Wolf Guard (Combi-melta & power fist)

2x 10 Grey Hunters (Meltagun, plasma gun, power fist, standard, MotW)

8 Grey Hunters (Meltagun, power sword, standard, MotW)

Wolf Guard Terminators (Arjac Rockfist, Cyclone & PF, 3x Pair of Wolf Claws)

Land Raider Redeemer (multi-melta)

FAST ATTACK

Land speeder (multi-melta & heavy flamer)

HEAVY SUPPORT

6x Long Fangs (Power weapon, 2x lascannon, 2x missiles, 1x plasma cannon)

Land Raider

Whirlwind

Let's get the obvious out of the way first. Logan goes with Arjac and the terminators in the redeemer. Ragnar goes with the 8 Grey Hunters in the other Land Raider. Njal will either sit with the long fangs or the grey hunters. Rune priest will go with whichever Njal doesn't. Power armour wolf guard go with the grey hunters. We know that we'll be defending the base so there's no need to spend points on transports for the GHs.

Obviously having two land raiders made it very difficult to squeeze stuff in since thats 500 pts gone already. However, Matt is planning on bringing a couple of them too so we're going for the "hey that'll be cool" thing rather than thinking too much about it. I also wanted to make sure that I used all four HQ slots since it's something I've never really done before. I piled in as many SCs as I could but didn't get a fourth one in cos I couldn't spare the points. Other noteable things that I didn't include but wanted to were a dreadnought, another squad of terminators, a drop pod and my vindicator. Doing this list has made me realise just how many points I've got. I can comfortably field a 4500pt list which is pretty scary!

Anyway, the plan is to have Matt's BA charging out to meet the Imperial Guard head on whilst I predominantly sit back and shoot it out. Having infinite range attacks from my psykers has got to be a good thing on a large table but also I like using Murderous Hurricane against IG as it kills quite a few initially and then pretty much prevents them moving unless your opponent is feeling brave. I'll also have to deal with any Grey Knights that teleport in behind us. That's why I've thrown a couple of plasma weapons in here and there. I've perhaps over-equipped some of the squads so I may end up changing this list slightly.

We all like the idea of line after line of Imperial Guard bravely striding forwards toward our lines (and hopefully being gunned down). My only concern is that he'll apparently have at least 15 vehicles in there! We definitely need more fire power than we've got but I'm hoping the land speeder and scouts can come on and cause some havoc nice and early. I'd give the scouts a meltagun but I don't have the time to convert one to carry it. On the subject of things I need to do before then. I need to finish painting my land raider redeemer and the turret from my whirlwind. I need to assemble and paint a long fang with plasma cannon and finally I'd like to at least base my terminators and Logan.

I'm looking forward to it already!