Blog Wars X - My Battle Reports (Part 2 of 2)

Let's continue going through my battles from Blog Wars X. It was so good to be able to play and get to chat to people. I didn't really need to make many rulings, I think this was in part down to people being quite relaxed about the whole thing. Anyway, onto my battles:

Game Two: Space Wolves vs. Space Wolves 

After a reasonably strong win in the first game (25/30 TPs) I was around the top end of the mid tables on table 7. My opponent would be Daniel Johnson with his Khornate Space Wolves including a stunning Chaos knight conversion (a cut'n'shut of a lord of skulls and a knight) which you may have seen on the conversion competition post. It was effectively a mirror match then with both of us fielding Space Wolves accompanied by a lone Imperial Knight. The big difference was that Dan's Warden had the crucial D chainsword. Not only that but a pile of thunder hammer toting TWC that would equally make a mess of my IK. 

We'd be playing Emperor's Relic on Vanguard Strike. That meant there wouldn't be much distance to close for Dan to get stuck into my army. On reflection I should've deployed far less aggressively and made this TWC come at me for a couple of turns whilst peppering them with fire. This would've also protected myself better from this drop pod. The key thing though is that I wanted my games over quickly so aggressive was the way to go. Dan deployed spread across his lines with TWC on one flank and the Knight on the other. I deliberately placed my Knight opposite the TWC hoping that I'd be able to hammer them with all of my firepower and maybe kill a couple before they got stuck into me. I'd then hope I could at least take a load of them down with me with some stomps. 

Dan dropped his pod of wolf guard in straight behind my Redeemer and Arjac and his melta-toting veterans made short work of one of my land raiders (I wish I'd remembered Stealth from Night Fighting!). This left Ragnar and co. pretty vulnerable to the Warden's gatling cannon leaving just a couple grey hunters supporting their Lord. The Knight let rip at the TWC but could only kill one. The Knight headed into combat and managed to take another before being literally hammered to death. I again rolled 3 stomps but that elusive 6 didn't appear and the S10 catastrophic explosion scattered 11" out of harms way. I was now massively on the backfoot. 

The other grey hunter pack hopped out of their land raider and were joined by Ragnar and the remnants of his squad in charging Arjac and his squad leaving just Arjac standing after Ragnar passed all his invulnerable saves (including one with a re-roll). The triumph would be short lived though as the TWC were inbound. The TWC helped Arjac finish off the rest of the grey hunters whilst he finished off Ragnar. The Khorne Knight charged the land raider and made short work of it (Dan's Stormfang had missed it's shots) and that was the end of Dan's turn 2 with me effectively tabled! If I failed my reserves roll I would be.

The Stormwolf blasted onto the field and downed the Stormfang. With no real anti-air threat Dan was resorting to krak grenades and hoping for 6s followed by 6s from the gatling cannon. My Stormwolf therefore carried on to all but annihilate Dan's Wolf Guard holding the central objective whilst the Helfrost cannon had a cheeky shot at Arjac and finished him off. Still zooming the flyer headed to Dan's objective whilst the Helfrost cannon finished off the central squad. I was able to cut down a couple of Wolf Guard but I'd now need to hover next turn to get the Blood Claws out to try and finish them off. The Blood Claws charged into combat but cancelled themselves out against the Wolf Guard leaving two of each alive. The flyer turned against the TWC but its fire was deflected away by their storm shields.

Leaving the rest of the TWC to hold the central objective the Lord charged at the hovering flyer and smashed it apart with his hammer. The last remaining Blood Claw was still holding on until the Lord charged into the combat and ended things with a tabling for Dan and a 33-1 win.

Game Three: Space Wolves vs. White Scars

Dropping down to table 15, I found myself facing David Seago's White Scars army with another Imperial Knight in tow. I'd be struggling again as this time it was an Errant but again with a D chainsword. We'd be playing Maelstrom on Dawn of War. 

In my first turn the Knight was doing a grand job of making the bikes jink whilst chipping away at them. This didn't last long though as the Sternguard arrived and immobilised my Land Raider. The other knight charged mine and we sat in stalemate. That was enough to stop mine firing though allowing the bikes to had free run of the battlefield. One squad of grey hunters disembarked and took on the Sternguard (who hit and ran like cowards!) the other Redeemer blasted forward so Ragnar and his squad could get stuck into Khan's command unit (who also hit and ran!). 

My knight was soon finished off by the other one who was now on two HPs remaining. The blast was on target this time but I rolled a 1 for it's strength! Typical! The command squad shot and charged Ragnar's squad again and finished them off over the next couple of combats. The knight now ripped into the immobilised land raider and destroyed it. The Redeemer turned it's attention to the sternguard and with help from the grey hunters finished them off. The problem was that whilst all this was happening David had racked up a 10-2 lead in VPs as I kept drawing awful cards and his bikers had no trouble sweeping round the objectives. The Stormwolf kept away in reserve too which probably saved his Knight as I could've get crossfire on it. 

When it eventually arrived the Knight managed to pass all of its invulnerable saves and live to fight another day. With the battle pretty much over by that point (it was now 15-2) I thought I'd put an end to things and hovered the flyer for another shot at the Knight and to charge some bikes with the Blood Claws. The Knight fell this time but not before it had wrecked the remaining land raider and finished off the grey hunters. With the Blood Claws being cut down I now just had my flyer left and that didn't take long to remove since it was hovering. We still made it to turn 6 though giving David a 27-5 win leaping him up to 16th and dropping me down to 42nd!

Conclusion

Well the main thing with these games was to get them over quickly. The first game didn't need to be such a rush as I've got lunch to do the results but I needed to enter both the round results and painting competition votes so my second and third games had to be over sharpish. I'm not saying I threw the games by any stretch but I did do some things that I wouldn't have. Frankly I'd have taken a whole other list in the first place! Probably one that looked more similar to Daniel Johnson's or even my Tau.

There were some highlights to my games though. The utter dominance of the Knight in the first. The ridiculous flyer antics in the second and the Ragnar vs. Khan showdown in the third. I was also spoilt in all three games by playing against some great opponents with stunning armies so thank you to them on both counts.

As I said in the previous post, this was my first time using a Knight competitively and it was fun to try out the Crusader variant. Clearly against armies without D-weapons it's going to shine but if there's another Knight in there I'd be better off with the sword. I think a Warden with autocannons is probably the way to go as it gives you a decent anti-air combo and threatening light vehicles and MEQ alike. 

Well with that over, and apparently no major controversies this time (eyes the comments section nervously), it's onto the feedback discussion in the next post. Obviously this won't be for another BW event but I still want feedback on a few things that will be use in the new events. Stay tuned for that and have your comments and criticism ready.