How do you 40K again? 1500 points vs Space Wolves

With reinforcements in the form of some veterans from the Pakeshi sector, I thought it was time to give my Guard army an outing. So, I asked one of my Guard officers to call some chap with a fur cloak called Nigel a bunch of rude names, and soon enough, the Space Wolves were attacking...

Nothing unusual in the army, really - 20 man combined squad, some conscripts, a couple of veteran squads and an assortment of tanks - I held the demolition team in reserve in a Valkyrie. Beyond that, I was facing Void Claws and Drop Pods, so spread the infantry out for area denial.

The Void Claws dropped conservatively and safely, well out of tight of the main line. One of the drop pods, however, decided that something would have to be done about the Hellhound.

Meanwhile a small squad of Grey Hunters went to try and get the Ratlings out of their firing position. Off camera, a whirlwind rocket landed directly on the conscript's commissar, and they wisely decided to high tail it off the field.

Short ranged bolter fire is horribly effective.

But a mix of flamers and a battle cannon at short range left the Grey Hunters a fraction of their previous strength.

But more Grey Hunters were coming in from reserve, both by drop pod...

.. and by flyer.

Unsurprisingly, the first target was the Hydra, before it could do something horrible to the flyer.

The Void Claws turned the corner and cut the combined squad down, with the exception of a stubborn priest, protected by his Rosarius (and refusing a challenge and hiding at the back).

With nowhere left to hide, the priest was finally cut down.

Leaving Njal, Arjac and the Void Claws to hunt down the few surviving Guard alive on the table.

Bravely, the CO faced down a horde of angry fur draped Terminators.

On reflection, perhaps calling them names had been a poor plan. In a panic from the death of his Astropath by flung hammer, he fled the field before they could catch him.

Finally, the air cavalry arrived, peppering the Whirlwind with multilaser fire.

The Bombard destroyed by the Space Wolf flyer, the Leman Russ soon faced the same fate.

The Veterans disembarked as the Valkyrie took out the Whirlwind. While the flamers cause the Long Fangs hiding in the building some casualities, the demolition charge sadly only weakens the building and doesn't destroy it.

The Valkyrie is shot from the sky, and while the Veterans grab another couple of objectives, they are quickly surrounded and taken out.

After action thoughts

Well, that went . . . poorly. The Guard were wiped out, and were down double digits of victory points to three... My army seems to lack both AP2 and the ability to deal with drop pods in any large numbers.

I'm already having a think about what to add to even the odds a bit.

Space Marine Back Banners: A Learning Experience

"Hey, Responsible One, that photo is pretty terrible, even by your standards! What's going on with that?"

"Well, noble reader, it turns out that while assembling the Stormclaw set, I varied too far from the instructions and made a stupid rookie mistake. Also, I was being slack on taking my photos and just using overhead light, but given that emphasises the problem, I'm going to pretend that's a deliberate choice rather than laziness."

So, here's the photo that shows what the problem is. By choosing to give the guy a wolf cloak, I've forced him to lean forwards. By giving him the back banner as well, this then shades his banner and his face to most natural light.

This does lead to some thoughts...

Firstly, back banners are actually an absolute pain in the what's-name to lug around. Just ask a LARPer or cos-player. While they can be useful as devotionals and look kind of cool on small miniatures, I'm not sure if they have much historic precedent because I'm reasonably sure in the real world, they're just too much of a pain to move around with!

Secondly, if you are putting one on a model, you need to make sure the miniature is standing up pretty straight, otherwise it will cut out most of your overhead light and obscure the areas you want to put detail into.

Failure to launch

Here's a better picture of the Prowler with Spitfire. I really need to not rush taking photos for the blog!

Over the bank holiday weekend, I did some work on the Grey Hunters from the Storm Claw boxed set.

I really didn't get very far at all! I was originally going to make this post a bit of a moan about not getting things done, but with the benefit of hindsight, I was properly wiped out at the start of last weekend and really needed the break. The fact I got a little progress is a happy bonus.

What else I've been up to

With life being so busy, I've not had much time to post as much as I'd like. So, I'm taking the bank holiday weekend as an opportunity to get a couple of posts "in the bag" and scheduled to post.

I've finished assembling the Blood Claws from the Stormclaw boxed set. These are the first Space Marines I've ever really assembled, apart from a push fit Marine once for a painting lesson. I upped their base size to the new 32mm, because I think it looks better.

I came third in the Infinity Slow Grow League in the end - Infinity has proven bad for doing battle reports as it's simply too time consuming to take the photos unless you're doing it as a dedicated thing for a battle report!

We had a quick multiplayer game of "Infinity Hunger Games" to celebrate the end of the League. 75 points, no more than 3 figures, and a few special rules. I took Zoe, Pi-Well and a Total Reaction remote. This made some people very sad. Here is an angry werewolf mercenary in a kilt jumping up to take revenge.

Pi-Well made it to the centre and looted a MULTI-Rifle, but was gunned down shortly afterwards. Still, despite the brutal kicking I received, it was good fun, and I'd try it again some time.

Astra Militarum (and a Helbrute Mayhem Pack) vs Space Wolves Battle Report

The other week my darling wife arranged a couple of games for me to play at Dark Sphere. The first of the two games was against a friend of mine who normally runs Chaos Space Marines with a Nurgle bent, but at the moment he's trying out some Space Wolves.

I had two unusual things in this list - the first was that I was using the Forge World rules for Manticore rockets, rather than "upgrading" them to Storm Eagle Rockets. This also, in theory, allows you to run in squadrons of 3, but I only own one model.

The other unusual item in the list was a Helbrute Mayhem pack - these were the three Nurgle Chaos Dreadnoughts I bought at the Overlords Bring and Buy.

My first pleasant surprise was a delivery of a Space Wolf dreadnought right into my lines. My veterans ran up and Demo-Charged it's drop pod for first blood, but it wiped them out in revenge.

Meanwhile, Bjorn the Fell-Handed, the Warlord, pottered his way up the field, with a Land Raider to keep him company.

The Land Raider does take a couple of hull points of damage from the Manticore and the Demolisher Cannon, but it certainly proves a tough nut to crack.

The flank objective turns out to be booby-trapped, so the Guard run away from it, having not drawn it as a tactical objective this turn!

The dropped Dreadnought slowly whittles its way through the guardsmen on the right flank.

Suddenly, surprise Helbrutes! My cunning plan of having put a homing device on the Demolisher failed, as it was blown up before I had the opportunity to use it. A third Helbrute came down behind the Land Raider with the intention of running up behind it and punching it with a Thunder Hammer, but then the Manticore rocket deviated onto it and blew it to smithereens.

I think I deserved that.

(I blew up Bjorn at some point around here, so the battle wasn't a total disaster.)

The priest holds it together for the Guard on the right flank, but lacking close combat anti-tank, it's only a matter of time.

Oh, Njal Stormcaller has decided to visit. How nice.

And a Wolf-Storm-Thingy-Bird. And Arjac Rockfist and pals.

Well, that's one Helbrute wrecked. The Chimera will soon follow.

Blown to pieces! Quick, run away and throw a Helbrute at them!

Oh dear, that didn't work. Maybe throw the Guardsman in their way? Will that work?

The priest tries to keep going, but eventually, he runs out of guardsmen to feed into the blender, and his Rosarius finally fails him.

Arjac cuts down the company commander for his dealings with Chaos, and the vengeful remnants of his squad bear down on the few guardsmen left (briefly) alive on the table. It was soon all over...

Conclusions

Operation: Surprise Helbrute did remarkably well. Sadly, I was up against a list for whom they were a diversion rather than a serious problem. I couldn't bring enough heavy firepower to deal with a list made up of Terminators, Land Raiders and Dreadnoughts. More anti-tank is definitely needed.

Also, the Forge World Manticore rules are just plain better than the ones in the Codex. When I take a Manticore from now on, I'll be using them provided they're allowed in the setting I'm in. But probably not one for a casual game without warning, I will say!

Space Wolf Battle Report Retrospective

So, earlier this week I talked about a battle against Space Wolves I had back in February. Now, interestingly, at the time, my friend James commented, having seen some of the photos, that it wasn't really to his taste because it didn't appear that much game was actually being played.

Now, in many ways, I think James was right in that there were some mistakes Paul and I made in how we set up the game. There are two important ones.

The table is pretty sparse for terrain, but that happens sometimes - for all I'm obsessed about terrain, I mostly own a lot of unassembled stuff! We had done the system in the 6th ed rulebook for placing terrain pieces, but chance had meant we'd rolled very low. We should probably have tweaked up the amount of terrain.

Paul's list was pretty sensible from a Space Wolf perspective. If we'd arranged a more narrative game, we might have either gone all drop pod, or had a few more troops in Rhinos on the field at the start of the game. But historically, my Guard artillery happily spends the first turn taking all his troops out of Rhinos, so I don't blame him for not taking them!

Here's the two big problems, in one shot.

Firstly, that I had not taken anywhere near enough infantry to be able to do very much with the majority of the table - I was in a situation where my Guardsmen were going to be outnumbered by Grey Hunters, and that is a terrible place to be in for the Imperial Guard.

Secondly, as a result of that lack of model count, I had ended up placing the two objectives incredibly close to each other, all at one end of the table - resulting in a very tight packed game without much in the way of tactics and manoeuvre. It was a short range brutal punch up that took quite a long time. Its an absolute credit to Paul as a person and a gamer that this was still an enjoyable way of passing the time - but looking back, I get the feeling that with a different list choice on my part and a little more planning, it could have been even more enjoyable for very little extra effort.

We had a smaller points value game against Paul's nascent Dark Eldar force straight after the Guard fight - and that was a marked improvement. You should see that up on the blog soon.

Battle Report: Fighting Space Wolves (6th Edition)

On a pleasant day in February, I travelled to the wilds outside London to a small settlement known to its inhabitants as "Reading". (Pronounced as if it were spelled "Redding" for anyone not native to these shores.) My 'regular' Space Wolf opponent Paul had recently moved house, and wanted to show off his nice new gaming space.

The kitchen table was an excellent space, with room still to sort out food during the break.

We were playing a 1,500 point game (6th edition), and this is what I was facing - a lot of Grey Hunters and Dreadnoughts in drop pods, with a Vindicator and a Whirlwind to deal with.

Now, I'd gone really light on my basic infantry this game - with just a 20 man infantry platoon and my Veterans squad - no conscripts today! Given the worry about drop podding Marines, I set up a defensive perimeter on one flank - this involves carefully spacing infantry around the tanks to provide a shield against anti tank (particularly melta) getting up close to the tanks, and forcing the pods to come down further away.

Meanwhile, right at the far end of the field, I left my Manticore - this was to put Paul in a dilemma - he could easily put a Drop Pod down onto the Manticore and wreck it, but he'd then have a squad or dreadnought effectively out of the rest of the game as it was so far away from anything else. You can also see the Whirlwind and the Vindicator parked up neatly out of sight.

I decided to infiltrate my Storm Troopers. One squad took the flank in cover a distance from the Whirlwind, with a brief to run over and blow it to pieces.

The other Storm Trooper squad went and sat on one of the two objectives (both were on my right flank - the other is up past the barricade). They couldn't hold it, but it would cause problems for Drop Pod folk walking right in and claiming it.

And five Ratling snipers went and sat on some awkward bunker battlements in such a way as to cause grief to most of the battlefield until rooted out.

The first Drop Pods came down, and it was apparent it was going to get ugly fast.

The left flank Storm Troopers got pinned down by the Whirlwind, taking some casualties.

Some of the Space Wolves tried to deal with the Demolisher, and failed, while the Dreadnought and the others nearly annihilated the Storm Troopers, leaving the sergeant to flee into them.

The Manticore had a stellar shooting phase, turning the Vindicator into a crater, and seriously damaging the Drop Pod and Dreadnought.

The return fire from the Guard platoon was relatively effective, causing the Grey Hunters some significant casualties.

But it quickly became apparent from the reinforcements that this was going to go poorly for the Guard.

The firing was brutal...

And the squads that had arrived the previous turn charged into the tanks to get their revenge.

And the Demolisher was down! Fortunately, with only four Grey Hunters left to to assault the Chimera, it managed to just cling on for another turn.

The Ratlings did manage to distract an awful lot of Space Wolves...

The command HQ were rudely removed from the Chimera.

But they were clearly not long for this world.

The Ratlings didn't make it.

The Valkyrie and the Command Squad finally arrived from reserves.

But while the melta guns of the Command Squad took a harsh toll on the Wolf Guard Terminators, revenge was swiftly had.

The battlefield was swarming with Grey Hunters now, and I had few forces left on the board.

The isolated Storm Troopers had not done well with their uneven duel with the Whirlwind.

As the game drew to a close, I had my Veterans make a play to claim one of the objectives.

And while the short ranged firepower was enough to wreck the squad and even forced them to flee, it wasn't enough, and the field was lost to the Space Wolves.