Stormraven Sighted! - SW vs BA Battle Report

My fiancee introduced me to a new opponent in the form of Jamie. From chatting to him it seems like he's got a sickeningly large collection of figures, he's started a blog over here incidentally. Anyway, we fought a 2000pt battle last night which was total carnage that came right down to the wire. Our lists were as follows:

2000pts of Space Wolves

Ragnar Blackmane

Rune Priest (Wolftooth Necklace, Chooser, Living Lightning, Jaws)

Rune Priest (Wolftooth Necklace, Living Lightning, Murderous Hurricane)

3x Wolf Guard (combi-melta, PF)

Wolf Guard Terminators w/ Arjac Rockfist (3x pair of Wolf Claws, Cyclone Missile Launcher)

Drop Pod

2x 8 Grey Hunters (Meltagun, Wolf Standard, MotW)

2x Rhino

8 Grey Hunters (Meltagun, Wolf Standard, MotW, Power Weapon)

Land Speeder (Multi-melta, Heavy Flamer)

5 Long Fangs (4x ML)

Land Raider

Each grey hunter pack was joined by wolf guard. Ragnar and the PW grey hunter pack went in the Land Raider. The rune priests joined the other GH packs in the rhinos. Arjac and his bodyguard would come in by drop pod and the land speeder was in reserve to deep strike. 

2000pts of Blood Angels

Reclusiarch

2x Sanguinary Priests (1x Jump Pack, 2x Power Weapon)

Furioso Librarian Dread (Wings & Shield of Sanguinius)

Death Company Dread w/ Talons

10 Death Company (2 power weapon, PF)

10 Tactical Marines (PF, flamer, ML, combi-melta) in Rhino

10 Tactical Marines (PW, melta, multi-melta) in Rhino <--- red thirst

10 Assault Marines (jump packs, 2 melta, PF)

5 Assault Marines (PW, combi-melta, flamer) in Razorback

Stormraven (Hurricane Bolters, Typhoon Missile Launcher, T-L Plasma Cannon, Extra Armour)

The jump pack priest joined the 10-man assault squad and the other joined the 5 man squad. The death company, reclusiarch and their dreadnought were mounted up in the Stormraven and the whole army came on straight away.

Deployment

We rolled Annihilation and Pitched Battle, nice and simple for my first game against him. Jamie won the roll off and placed his Stormraven on his right flank. The three transports and Librarian were deployed in a close formation in the centre of his deployment zone. I placed my land raider on the right, the two rhinos on the left and the long fangs on a hill in the centre. I attempted to seize the initiative and scored a 5.

Turn 1

The storm raven advanced firing off it's plasma cannon at my nearest rhino, the shot missed so a volley of krak missiles was fired but with no effect. Elsewhere the transports and dread advanced, still tightly packed, towards my lines. The heavy bolter opened fire on my long fangs and unbelievably claimed two of them thanks to every shot getting through and 2/3 armour rolls being failed. The long fangs passed their morale check.

The drop pod came screaming down next to the huddled transports. Arjac tossed his hammer and the missile launcher added a couple of krak missiles which managed to immobilise one of the rhinos. I advanced my transports with the left-most rhino popping smoke and the second rhino advancing at combat speed so that I could try and get a lightning shot off. Sadly the librarian nullified the power with his psychic hood and no other weapons on the transport were in range. The land raider fired it's lascannons at the dread but could only stun it for a turn despite penetrating it's armour.

Turn 2

The death company dread disembarked from the storm raven and de-meched the nearby grey hunter pack with it's meltagun. Through a combination of careful placement of the hunters and Jamie forgetting to move the dread forward, it would not be in assault range. Both tactical squads disembarked from their rhinos and headed towards the terminators. Luckily, the small arms fire just pattered off the tactical dreadnought armour. The resulting charge claimed 4 terminators and wounded Arjac. When Arjac tried to strike back I managed to fail to hit with a single attack even on 3+. Arjac stayed in combat though. The jump pack assault squad used melta fire to destroy one of the lascannons and stun the land raider. Elsewhere the razorback's heavy bolters claimed another two long fangs, the shock of seeing his pack killed by what is normally an ineffective weapon terrified the remaining long fang who fled the battlefield!

The rune priest near the death company dread tried to unleash a burst of lightning but this was again nullified by the hood of the librarian. The rest of the squad were more successful as melta fire left only a smoldering crater where the DC dread had been. This did however, leave the grey hunters badly exposed, especially considering there was a stormraven full of death company hovering ominously above them. The land raider doors swung open and Ragnar and his pack ran out guns blazing. They charged into combat with the jump pack assault marines but, to my frustration, didn't benefit from Ragnar's insane bravado. Ragnar killed off the priest but the second one was nearby so the squad could still claim FNP, never-the-less the rest of the squad killed all but two of the assault marines for minimal casualties. Elsewhere the tactical squads failed to take the remaining wound from Arjac who this time lashed out with his hammer killing several tactical marines. The squad with red thirst took additional casualties but the other squad fled the combat.

Turn 3

With Arjac and the drop in close proximity the tactical squad ran straight off the board. Sadly the remaining squad just managed to finish off Arjac this time. The death company disembarked from the stormraven and a combination of relentless bolter fire, plasma cannon and power weapon attacks left only the Wulfen model alive. Luckily he broke free of the combat which meant the dead company would be forced to chase him off the board over the crater left by his rhino. The melee in the centre of the field became carnage as the librarian dread and 5 man assault squad waded in. The dread instantly killed off Ragnar who was unable to score a single wound on the remaining two jump-packers. Effective use of the wolf standard meant that the grey hunters were only reduced to 4 men who fled the combat. The librarian retreated to a safe distance, the assault squad stayed close to their transport and the remaining two meltagun jump packers closed in on the land raider.

The land raider saw the threat and fired off it's remaining weapons to try and remove the threat of the assault marines. Cover saves and FNP meant this was ineffective and therefore the remaining Rune Priest unleashed a murderous hurricane which claimed one of the marines. The land speeder descended from the skies and, despite scattering, it was able to blow up the librarian dread. The grey hunters regrouped and charged straight back into combat with the assault squad but despite killing the priest they perish.

Turn 4

The remaining tactical squad responded to the loss of the furioso dread and in combination with the heavy bolter they managed to stun the landspeeder and destroy it's multi-melta. The death company fired at the wulfen grey hunter and took his life. The storm raven immobilised the remaining rhino and destroyed it's storm bolter. Mercifully the meltagun marine misses his (massive) target.

The land raider moves so that the assault marine won't get a cover save from the lascannon which it fires to deadly effect. The grey hunters and RP disembark separately from their stricken rhino. The grey hunters charge into the assault marines and bring them down for minimal losses but only get a single inch to consolidate. The rune priest moves to get cast a murderous hurricane in the direction of the death company which he manages now that there are no psychic hoods to spoil his fun. Unfortunately not a single DC falls but the dangerous terrain may claim some soon as they'll be forced to move by their rage special rule.

Turn 5

The death company are forced to advance towards the stricken rhino but sadly on a single model falls to the dangerous terrain (reclusiarch takes a wound). To avoid pushing his luck Jamie elects to shoot at the rune priest rather than trying a potentially costly run. The shooting is ineffective but luckily for him the krak missiles from the stormraven finish the job. The tactical squad charge into combat with the grey hunters but their charge is ineffective thanks to the Wolf Standard and they suffer several losses.

The land speeder gets to safety and the land raider tries to take down some of the transports but can only shake a rhino and immobilise the razorback. The grey hunters remain locked in combat but numbers on both sides are thinning fast as we find out we'll get a 6th turn.

Turn 6
The death company shoot into the rear of the rhino and finish it off. The grey hunters are finally triumphant against the tactical squad but only the wulfen and wolf guard remain. The mobile rhino moves away to try and get a cover save from the inevitable lascannon fire.

After a quick totting up of KPs I know I've got to kill some transports to claim victory. I line my landspeeder up behind the razorback to try a flukey heavy flamer shot. The land raider positions itself so the rhino won't get a save and the grey hunters get ready to charge the immobilised rhino. With 3 KPs up for grabs I'll need one for the draw and 2 for the win. The landspeeder fails to penetrate the armour. The land raider can only stun the rhino. So it's down to the wolf guard's power fist to seal a draw. Since he's autohitting at S8 the rhino explodes claiming the wulfen. The game ends here.

Final result: 9 KPs each so an honourable (if bloody) draw. VP-wise SW scored 1,345 vs 1,547 for BA.

Conclusion
That heavy bolter made mincemeat of my long fangs thanks to some awful armour rolls (I need to get better at power armour saves). This meant that their target, that stormraven, managed to cause havoc until the final turn. Arjac and his squad were unlucky with their armour saves as the four terminators all failed 2+ saves! He proved his worth though even if it took a little luck. An eternal warrior with 2+/3+ saves is hard to shift.

My use of murderous hurricane might have seemed ineffective but the fact that the DC didn't advance any further probably saved some of my other units.

There were the odd couple of things that really didn't go my way. Both our damage table rolls were poor except for the rhino for Jamie and the Librarian for me. Had those transports gone down earlier (like when Arjac used his hammer) then the land raider could've been taking potshots at the stormraven.

So what are my impressions of the stormraven? Well I have to say I think it's awesome. Despite what others might think I love the model and I think it fits in with a space marine army well. I'm slightly gutted I can't field one for Space Wolves but to be honest it wouldn't be quite as effective since dreads and jump packs aren't so readily available. Jamie admitted he was a bit too cautious with it but that's because he was concerned about meltaguns (until he remembered they aren't as effective against it. It puts out a sickening amount of fire though and we only realised at the end that Jamie had forgotten to fire off a single Bloodstrike missile so god knows what would've happened if he had!

Grey Hunters - Equipment & Wargear Choices

Without doubt the most important units in any Space Wolves force are its grey hunters. Whenever I'm writing a list I base it around a solid core of grey hunters and everything else is basically going to support them in their role at taking and holding objectives. Obviously, our other option, the Blood Claws, have their merits but really the ability to have a standard weapon and still have two close combat weapons along with WS/BS 4 instead of 3 is always going to make the Greys win out. The other crucial difference is in their wargear selections. Let's discuss these and then talk about typical load outs for grey hunter packs.

Weaponry

Straight out of the box our Grey Hunters come equipped with a bolt pistol, chainsword, bolter, frag and krak grenades along with the ever-reliable power armour. We also get acutes senses (only useful in the first turn of Dawn of War), Counter-Attack (always nice) and the ubiquitous ATSKNF. 

One grey hunter can have a special weapon and in a 10 man squad we get another of these for free. The options are flamer, meltagun and plasma gun. Most people would go for the meltagun and I'm no different but here's my reasoning so you can make your own mind up. Grey Hunters are an assault unit which means that anything that might prevent them from getting the charge isn't ideal. Now counter-attack goes a long way to mitigating a failed attempt to get the charge but as I've already talked about it's important to deny our enemy the chance to charge. Since the plasma gun is a rapid fire weapon by firing it we're committing ourselves to shooting and not charging. If we're in rapid fire range then we're also in charge range of our enemy so you better believe they're going to come at you next turn. Therefore we really want an assault weapon, both the flamer and meltagun can be fired without giving up our charge but I wouldn't normally take a flamer because in some ways it's too effective. If we score a lot of kills our opponent will probably remove models at the front which means we might not get to charge. Personally I think it's a toss up between melta and flamer but what sways me is that our army doesn't really have anything to deal with AV14 without it.

I'd never bother with the plasma pistol because I think it's too expensive. The power fist is debatable but I'll get to that later. If I had Ragnar leading my squad then I'd take a power weapon for it since up to 5 extra S5 I5 power attacks are nice!

Other Upgrades

On top of the weaponry we can also give our grey hunters a Wolf Standard and one model can succumb to the Mark of the Wulfen. The Wolf Standard doesn't seem that great at first, or at least it didn't the first time I read it, because it only lasts for a single assault phase. However, think about what it means, for one assault phase you can re-roll any 1s you get for hits, wounds, armour saves, initiative for sweeping advance and also the number of attacks the Wulfen model gets! The armour saves alone are more than worth it. It might not be quite as effective as FNP but you'd be surprised how invincible it makes your Greys seem for that combat phase. The key to using it is to choose your moment. For starters you have to declare you're going to use it in the preceeding Shooting Phase (be it in your turn or theirs) and sometimes your opponent may decide not to charge you to ensure that you waste it! 

Mark of the Wulfen is pretty awesome too. For only 15 points you get upto 8 attacks for one of your Grey Hunters and what's more these attacks are rending too! Obviously luck has a lot to do with it but you're nearly always going to get more attacks than the standard model.

Both of these upgrades are, in my opinion, a no brainer. The other no brainer is that your greys need transport. Your choices are Drop Pod, Rhino or Razorback. I think the drop pod is nice for a surprise bit of in your face action but otherwise I'd stick to the dependable (and cheap) rhino. Whilst razorbacks add to your long range firepower I'm really not a fan of the multiple small units tactic as I think 5/6 man grey hunter squads are too easy to take out.

Squad Leaders

Independent characters aside it's always good to throw a Wolf Guard in as a squad leader. For 43 points you can get a combi-melta and power fist in your grey hunter squad. He'll also benefit from any special rules granted by characters that join the squad. A Wolf Guard with these weapons is only 3 points more than a grey hunter with a power fist which is why I said it's questionable giving a fist to a grey hunter. The Wolf Guard also gets 3 attacks with it on the charge which makes it far superior. The combi-melta shot can be crucial in helping you de-mech a unit. In addition the Wolf Guard increases the leadership of the squad to 9. Don't forget you're using an elite slot for them though.

Our other options are Rune Priest, Wolf Priest or special character. When using a Rune Priest the grey hunters essentially just act as a bodyguard for him but his extra power weapon attacks are handy. The Wolf Priest is a nice choice as Preferred Enemy and Fearless make your hunters even more deadly.

Ragnar is an excellent choice for grey hunters. Although he's pretty pricey he gives the squad Furious Charge and D3 bonus attacks when launching an assault. Sadly the most recent FAQ made him a little less amazing but I still think he's worth his points. Try assaulting a normal unit of marines and see how long they last when you throw a ludicrous number of I5 S5 attacks their way. In this case I'd be tempted to take a land raider as transport to make sure you get that devastating charge.

The Typical Pack

My standard equipment for Grey Hunters (after trying quite a few permutations) is as follows:

8 Grey Hunters with Mark of the Wulfen, Meltagun & Wolf Standard - 150pts

Wolf Guard with combi-melta & power fist - 43pts

Rhino - 35pts

TOTAL 228pts

I personally think that's a bargain. It's easy to field several of these squads even in low points games and they'll prove their effectiveness time and time again. The reasons for having 8 grey hunters are simple. Firstly because with the wolf guard you make a 9-man squad which for morale checks will have to lose 3 models instead of just 2 and also because then if we want a character to lead our squad we can still fit the whole thing in a rhino.

Alternatively, if you can't spare the elite slot then I'd go for:

10 Grey Hunters with Flamer, Meltagun (both of which are free), MotW, Standard, Power Fist & Rhino -  235pts.

Slightly more expensive and not as effective. The flamer will help you deal with hordes or entrenched guardsmen/eldar though and 10 grey hunters is nothing to scoff at! If you wanted you could have two meltaguns but this pushes it up to 240pts.

As with everything on this blog I encourage you to try things for yourself rather than just taking my word for it. The wolf guard can be easily created using the Wolf Pack kit and a bit of conversion work for the combi-meltas. Speaking of which I'll do a post soon showing my attempts at this. I'll also finally get round to showing you how I paint my grey hunters (although you're almost certainly a better painter than me!).

Doubles Warm-up at Warhammer World

Matt and I travelled down to Warhammer World on Saturday to have a few warmup games before the big 40K doubles event there in a couple of weeks. We'd invited along the C&F guys as our sparring partners and while we were waiting for them we had a quick 1500pt game of Matt's BA vs my Eldar. Unsurprisingly, I got pasted but this was perhaps due to me having forgotten pretty much everything about Eldar. There were a couple of instances where I got the order wrong. For example, my farseer successfully killed a Sanguinary Priest with Mind War but not until I'd already had an unsuccessful Bladestorm from a full squad of Dire Avengers. With the priest alive Matt passed an ungodly 4/5 FNP rolls which, after the priest's death, would've all been dead marines!

Towards the end of the game Gav and Darren arrived and we set about our warm-up game. They fielded a combined Chaos Daemons and CSM list. I've never actually played against Daemons before because none of our little gaming group has them. Since the actual models they were going to use in the doubles were away for painting it was predominantly a counts as army with a variety of WHFB, Tyranid and Ork models standing in for Daemons. The CSM models were present apart from obliterators but SM terminators sufficed. There's been some debate about "counts as" armies recently and I have to say that I don't really have a problem with them. However, with a daemons army it's nice to be able to look across and see what's yet to come in from reserve. Mind you I wouldn't know what they were even if they were the correct models anyway!!

Space Wolves & BA vs Chaos Daemons and CSM

We rolled Dawn of War and Annihilation as our game type. I'm not a huge fan of Dawn of War because I feel it slows the game down a little and encourages people to place too much of their army in reserve. Anyway, we deployed a rhino with grey hunters and a rune priest inside it. This was positioned as close to the centre of the board as terrain would allow because we knew we'd be relying on Jaws to try and take down the Great Unclean One. We reserved a land speeder but everything else would come on in turn one.

Our opponents deployed a Daemon Prince (lash of course) behind a rhino full of CSM. We brought our long fangs on into some pretty awkward cover behind some trees. Basically we'd rely on them being able to split fire because two missiles could see left but not right and vice versa. Mephiston and his BA cronies came on to our right and the remaining rhino cruised onto the board and popped smoke. The Rune Priest's rhino moved forward and he attempted to get off Living Lighting. I managed to roll a double 1 causing him to lose a wound and then another 1 for the number of shots which meant we could only stun the rhino. This at least prevented the lascannon marine inside from firing but we'd have rather destroyed it of course. 

With some shocking dice work by Gav the daemons didn't get their preferred force so two units of plague bearers deployed right near their board edge and a unit of hounds deployed near the centre. All three units scattered! The obliterators walked on from their table edge and popped a couple of plasma cannon shots off towards the Blood Angels but I think only a single marine fell. The rhino and daemon prince advanced but the rune priest nullified the daemon's attempt to use lash on the BA. The chosen marines powered down our right flank.

The long fangs managed to blow up the CSM rhino and kill a couple of marines in the process. The CSM were then charged by Mephiston but Matt rolled three 1s when trying to wound. This meant that although Mephiston won the combat he was left with a single remaining wound thanks to the power fist. The obliterators fired at him but couldn't get past the handy cover granted to him by the rhino wreckage. Mephiston returned the favour by killing one of the obliterators and a single long fang missile was enough to instant kill the other thanks to a failed armour roll.

The Great Unclean One came on near the chosen rhino and luckily for him a Jaws attack from the rune priest failed to hit him. Unable to get into combat straight away he waited near the rhino hoping that the BA assault marines would get closer. The Daemon Prince charged into the assault marines but the sheer weight of attacks were enough to bring him down but only after heavy casualties from the BA. The chosen marines waded in to avenge the prince but despite claiming a few marines they too were cut down. Things went from bad to worse for our opponent as a second Jaws attack was more successful causing the Great Unclean One to fall down a hole.

Elsewhere my grey hunters had powered up the left to try and finish off the hounds which had immobilised the land speeder after it came in by deep strike and rather unsuccesfully flamed them. There were 4 hounds left after a torrent of fire from the grey hunters and long fangs. Gav's flamers came on and killed 8 of the grey hunters apart from the standard and the wulfen. These two remaining grey hunters went on to kill off all the flamers and the remaining hounds.

The other grey hunters were charged by Gav's Fiends but a very successful counter-attack under a wolf standard meant that the fiends were wiped out with minimal casualties. At this point with only the plaguebearers (minus a couple of models) left our opponents decided to throw in the towel.

It genuinely felt like we weren't going to win this one but mainly because Darren seemed pretty clued up and because we had no idea what to do against daemons. Just goes to show you how hardy Grey Hunters can be. I'm pleased I've now got standards for my packs.

Space Wolves & Guard vs Space Wolves
Finally, after some Fat Bloke burgers, Matt and I teamed up again to play Gav and 1500pts of his Space Wolves. I fielded my Wolves and Matt put together 750pts of guard with a couple of Leman Russes (appropriate when fighting with Space Wolves), a lot of guardsmen and a few heavy weapons.

We played Seize Ground with Pitched Battle deployment. There were three objectives with two on our left and one to our right. Gav fielded 4 razorbacks with 5 grey hunters in each, a rune priest, rifleman dread, 2 squads of ML long fangs, some scouts and two land speeders.

The fight felt pretty one sided early on. We took out most of one of the long fang packs, the rifleman dread and a land speeder (thanks to a deep strike mishap) and felt like we were going to walk it. However, our opponent seemed unphased by the losses and we began to see why when grey hunters started advancing in their razorbacks. My hunters dealt with the full strength long fang squad whilst my long fangs finished off the remaining members of Gav's depleted pack. Although the razorbacks took quite a lot of hammer the grey hunters inside managed to clear the guard from the centre objective whilst his scouts came on near the left hand objective and got stuck into the heavy weapons team and guardsmen that were controlling it.

Thats the problem with guard armies. You feel pretty good when you get some juicy kills early on but if your opponent makes it to your lines then your men fold like a deckchair. The game was suddenly a lot closer with both left hand objectives being contested and the right hand objective being held by guardsmen.

Sadly at this exciting point in the game Gav said he had to leave as his missus was nagging so we were forced to end it after Turn 4. We could debate all day how it would end but obviously we felt that we still had the upper hand.

All in all a very enjoyable day at Warhammer World and good to get us back into 40K after a few excursions into Blood Bowl etc. Speaking of which I've now got an Orc team which I'm going to try and paint up after my TWC. We still feel pretty good about our list for the doubles but we'll have to wait and see who we get drawn against! Only just over a week to go and I've got to get my land speeder finished by then!