Weekend Gaming: Warhammer 40k

This Saturday I played in a local Warhammer 40k tournament with my Space Wolves.  For 1850 points I brought seven Thunderwolves – including a Wolf Lord, two Drop Pods with Grey Hunters, a Drop Pod with Melta Wolf Guard, two Lascannon/Plasma Gun Razorbacks with Grey Hunters, and two squads of Missile Launcher Longs Fangs.  There were only five attendees, so the tournament organizer played against the bye. The other five armies represented were Tau, Death Wing, two Blood Angels, and an Imperial Guard.

My first game was against the Tau with three Riptides, a bunch of Suits, and some Kroot.  The Riptides all had interceptor, so my Drop Pods didn’t last long after arriving and my meltaguns weren’t able to do much against his army.  Then I didn’t rush my Thunderwolves straight into the Tau, so he was able to weaken them up quite a bit before they reached assault.  They were able to kill a Riptide, but that was it.  In the end, I wasn’t completely destroyed, but I wasn’t able to hold enough objectives to prevent him from getting full points.

After that I ended up with the bye.  I played against the tournament organizer’s Blood Angels consisting of three Drop Pods, a Land Raider full of five Terminators, two Dreadnoughts, a Vindicator, and a fancy Landspeeder.  The mission was a modified Kill Points thing, so I just needed to destroy everything.  I was able to destroy the Land Speeder with my Long Fangs on turn one.  My melta squads lasted longer this game, but were still ineffectual.  The Wolf Guard scattered off target and then completely failed to take out the Land Raider.  The Grey Hunters were more effective, with one squad dealing the final blows to the Raider and the other taking out a tactical squad.  The Thunderwolves were the MVP, though.  They chewed through his command squad and the terminators in assault and took out the Vindicator as well.  I manage to all but table him and walked away with full points.

At this point, no one was completely out of competition for first place and there were four of us within 15 points.  I was matched up against the Imperial Guard with six big tanks, a large blob of infantry, a Chimera with veterans, and three Ogryns with grenade launchers.  My drop pod meltas actually did their job this game and while I didn’t get the best shooting results, they were able to take out a few tanks on the turns they arrived.  The problem was keeping them around.  Once they landed, he would focus fire on them and pretty much wipe them out.  Thankfully, this allowed my Thunderwolves to advance up the left side mostly intact.  Once they hit his lines, things started to get chewed up.  The overall objective was to take and hold a relic in the center of the table.  I was able to sneak in with one of my Razorback squads and take the relic into cover on the fifth turn.  I was worried when the game continued to turn six, but they held their ground and even after a seventh turn controlled the objective and there wasn’t much my opponent could do.  I won the game with a majority of the points available.

Overall I ended up in second place, while the Tau player took first.  I walked away with a new box Thunderwolves to increase my pack.

Later that evening we celebrated Nick’s birthday with his family.  We played 7 Wonders with the whole group and Firefly after his parents had left.  I managed to win 7 Wonders with a strong science collection.  Nick won the game of Firefly without hiring a single crew member after picking up a job to transport passengers across the galaxy.  He filled his cargo hold and dropped them off for a 3,000 credit payout.  After that it was a quick pick-up and delivery to satisfy Harken and he was off to pay his debt.  The rest of us had barely begun to get going.

Until next time, happy gaming!

Weekend Gaming: Rogue Trader

I didn’t play any board games this weekend.  Instead I spent most of the day Saturday playing in a Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader Tournament.  It was 1850 points and I brought my Space Wolves with an Astra Militarum allied detachment.  The exact list is below:

Primary Detachment – Space Wolves

HQ
Rune Priest

Troops
10x Grey Hunters
2x Plasmagun
Rhino

5x Grey Hunters
Meltagun
Razorback, Lascannon, TL-Plasmagun

5x Grey Hunters
Meltagun
Razorback, Lascannon, TL-Plasmagun 

Heavy Support
5x Long Fangs
4x Lascannon

5x Long Fangs
4x Missile Launchers

5x Long Fangs
4x Missile Launchers

Elite
10x Wolf Guard
2x Terminator Armor, Cyclone Missile Launcher
6x Storm Bolters
2x Combi-melta

Secondary Detachment – Astra Militarum Allies 

HQ
Company Command Squad
Company Commander with Shotgun
4x Veterans with Flamers

Troops
Veteran Squad
Chimera

Fast Attack
Vendetta Squadron
2x Vendetta

There were quite a few people at the tournament.  I think the total attendance was 12.  The armies were nicely diverse with a couple Necrons, Chaos Marines, Daemons, Tau, Space Wolves, Space Marines, and Tyranids all getting representation.

My first game was against a Space Marines player using the Ravenwing rules.  He had four Rhinos and a Razorback full of Marines that scouted halfway across the board.  Going first, I had setup to pound them with my missiles early, but he ended up stealing the initiative and going first.  That swung the entire game.  He was able to destroy or neutralize all of my tanks in the first turn.

With all of these marines sitting right in my face, there wasn’t much I could do.  I took down a few of his tanks and started into the squads, but there were just too many to deal with.  My Vendettas didn’t come in until turn three, and by then there wasn’t much left.  I conceded the loss on turn four when all but my Vendettas were dead.

My second game was against Tyranids with four units of Genestealers, six Carnifexes, a flying thing, and a Tyranid Prime.  The game was a modified version of kill points where the unit that got the kill received the kill point and each unit could only score a single point.

I deployed first and we had short table edges.  I was able to get into some ruins and had a nice setup.  I wasn’t able to kill anything completely first turn, but I did weaken one of the Carnifex units.  He then couldn’t assault with his Genestealers in the first, so they were left fairly exposed.  My Vendettas actually made it on second turn and shot up his flyer, while my marines shot up the Genestealers, but failed to kill them all.

He got a couple of easy points from my tanks, and then the Genestealers got into combat with the marines and killed them off after a few turns.  I was able to finish off three of the Genestealer squads after the combat ended and one unit of Carnifexes.  The game ended turn 5, denying me the opportunity to shoot more and resulted in use getting a draw.

My final game was against Necrons with two Monoliths, a Nightscythe, Deathscythe, Anarath in a Command Barge, some Warriors, Immortals and a Ghost Ark.  The mission was to secure five objectives, one in each quarter and one in the center.

Again I decided to go first and setup with my Long Fangs on a hill with good firing lanes to wherever he deployed.  Sadly he stole the initiative and again I was left in the open.  His monoliths were able to use their large blasts to decimate my Long Fangs and Wolf Guard.  Then on my turn, I rolled up to one his Monoliths with my melta-guns, and promptly failed to hit with all of them.  Those Grey Hunters promptly died on the next turn.

The only things I managed to kill the entire game, was a unit of Deathmarks and a unit of Immortals that I was able to get into close combat with.  The only positive was that after my Vendettas arrived on turn four, they survived and due to some misplacement on his part I was able to switch them to hover mode and claim the center objective.  I had the objective in my quarter claimed as well, and contested another.  So we each held two objectives, but the center was worth an additional point.  Had the game ended then, I actually would have managed a win even after getting destroyed.  Sadly the game went on to a sixth turn, and he was able to mop up the little that was left. and took the win.

The Tau player ended up taking first with a Farsight Enclave army.  For being the first games I’ve played with 7th edition and the first games in over two years, I played pretty poorly.  That said, my opponents were great and the games were fun.  I am really glad that Paradox has started hosting them again, and I am looking forward to the next one in November.

Until next time, happy gaming.

Warhammer 40k Report

I played in a Warhammer 40k tournament on Saturday with my Wolves.  Sadly only five other people showed up, but we still played and had a good time.  There were two Codex Space Marines armies, Orks and Nids.

 

 

In the first game, I was matched up against my friend Nick and his Orks.  We were playing the Kill the Alien mission with Hammer and Anvil deployment.

 

I had managed to kill off a wagon, two trukks, his Warboss, the Mek and two squads of boys.  He had scared a squad of Wolf Guard away with a tank shock and they didn’t get a chance to regroup.  My Thunderwolves died to the nobs and both of my Lone Wolves survived.  I ended up winning by a couple points.

Next up, I was playing against the Tyranids going for 5 objectives with Dawn of War deployment.

 

He had two Trygons, genestealers and some Zoathorpes in reserves.  I made the mistake of moving my Thunderwolves too close to his Swarmlord, and they got assaulted on the first turn and slaughtered.  His Tervigon only managed to make 8 gaunts before tiring, and the rest of the game pretty much went my way with all of my missiles.  I was able to take down all of his big creatures except the Swarmlord.  Logan’s squad did their best against it in assault, but didn’t last long.  Logan had a valiant last stand, but failed the his last save on a reroll and perished.  By that point, though, the bugs didn’t have any troops left and I was able to secure three objectives to win.

Things were a little weird at this point.  Because of my victory points, I ended up with the bye for the last round.  I probably should have questioned it at that point, but I didn’t.  I did end up playing the tournament director and his Necrons in a smaller game.

 

 

It was my first attempt at playing Necrons and it was a wake-up call.  I was having a tough time keeping anything down, while my Thunderwolves just caved to the Tesla fire.  I also had an impossible time assaulting.  He had two squads of Deathmarks drop into my backfield and kill my Long Fangs.  I managed to assault one squad and kill most and get it running.  I couldn’t sweep because of my Terminator, so they ran and then regroup.

On the next turn, I tried to assault both squads, and only managed to roll 2’s or 3’s for my charges and came up short with three different squads.  It was pathetic.

At the end, I hadn’t finished off and Necron squads and he had killed 5 of mine.  It was an ugly game for me and my dice came up very short when I needed them most.

The tournament games finished up and the winners were announced.  After a little bit of confusion due to the way scores were tallied, I ended up in first with an undefeated record.  It was a little weird, but it was the director’s first tournament and some kinks needed to be worked out.  The games were a lot of fun, and everyone had a good time.  Nick’s Orks ended up winning Best Painted and the Tyranids took second.

Now here are the rest of the pictures from the day.  Until next time, happy gaming!

 

 

2000 Point Space Wolves

This is the list I intend to play at tomorrow’s RTT:

HQ:
Logan Grimnar

Wolf Guard Battle Leader
– Thunderwolf
– Wolf Claw
– Storm Shield

Rune Priest
– Jaws of the World Wolf
– Murderous Hurricane

Elites:
Lone Wolf
– Terminator Armor
– Chainfist
– Stormshield

Lone Wolf
– Terminator Armor
– Chainfist
– Stormshield

Troops:
Wolf Guard x10
– Terminator Armor x2
– Cyclone Missile Launcher x2
– Power Fist x2
– Power Armor x8
– Storm Bolter x8

Wolf Guard x5
– Terminator Armor
– Cyclone Missile Launcher
– Power Armor x4

Wolf Guard x5
– Terminator Armor
– Cyclone Missile Launcher
– Power Armor x4

Wolf Guard x5
– Terminator Armor
– Cyclone Missile Launcher
– Power Armor x4

Wolf Guard x5
– Terminator Armor
– Cyclone Missile Launcher
– Power Armor x4

Fast Attack:
Thunderwolf Cavalry x4
– Meltabomb

Heavy Support:
Long Fangs x5
– Squad Leader
– Missile Launcher x4

Long Fangs x5
– Squad Leader
– Missile Launcher x4

Logan and the Rune Priest join the big squad and threaten the center of the board with the Lone Wolves and the Thunderwolves.  The Long Fangs are backfield support, while the four smaller squads blast away with missiles from the edges and move in to take objectives.

It’s not a ton of bodies on the board, but they are pretty resilient and 20 missiles per turn is nothing to sneeze at.  The addition of 22 Storm Bolter shots from the big group should be sufficient to take down big groups of Orks and Guard.

Lone Wolves

We received our camera back from repair yesterday, so I was finally able to get some pictures of the Space Wolves that I’ve been working on for the past few weeks.

First up are my two Lone Wolves.  Their bases haven’t been finished, but otherwise they are complete.

Einarr Ulfson:

Vali Homgeirr:

WIP: Warpath Marine as Imperial Guard

Here is one of the Warpath Marines painted in the winter armor colors that will be used with my Space Wolves army.  It was my first attempt ever at doing a white scheme, and I think it worked out rather well.  I might change the color of the gun to black, but that’s about the only significant change I can see.

 

 

 

And here’s a picture with him next to a Wolf Scout and Rune Priest.  I think his smaller size works well to contrast the more normal proportioned Guardsman to the hulking behemoths that are Space Marines.

WIP: Wolf Guard Terminators

I’ve been back in the painting mood again and started working on some of my Space Wolves.  These are the Cyclone Missile Launcher equipped Terminators that lead my squads of Wolf Guard.

Group shot

WIP: Wolf Scouts

First nearly complete member of my band of Wolf Scouts.  There’s still some detailing and highlighting to be done, but I think he turned out pretty nice.

Weekend Gaming: RTT Report

On Saturday I played in a 40k RTT.  It was kind of an odd setup, where each person brought a 1500 point army and then in each round we were paired up with another player.  So in each game there were two 1500 point armies facing off against each other.  I was playing the first list from this post.

In my first game, I was playing with a Grey Knights player against Orks and Tyranids.  The game was Kill Points and the Orks and Nids had first turn.  They setup with a big squad of Nob Bikers on one side and some normal bikes on the other.  The Nids had Hive Guard in a building, a Tervigon and Tyrant behind the Nobs and a Trygon, Genestealers and Zoathorpes in a pod in reserve.  We setup with the Grey Knights with their Terminators across from the Nobs.  I setup on the opposite side to get the most shooting as possible.

The Nobs zipped forward and the Grey Knights Terminators met them head on.  That assault went on for the first few turns.  While that happened, my Rune Priest lost his ride, but managed to get forward and use Jaws on two of the Hive Guard.  His squad got shot and assaulted by the Ork Bikers and while his squad was wiped out, he survived and actually managed to sweep the Orks off the table.  The Dreadknight tried to flame some hormagaunts, but didn’t do much.  The Gaunts then managed to swarm the Knight and take him down.

We only made it to turn four, but the assault and Jaws were definitely strong points.  The low point for me was the Genestealers popping out in the building where my Long Fangs were holed up and eating them.  The game ended with us barely winning on kill points 11 to 10, but that was only good enough for a draw based on mission points.

The next game had me paired with another Space Wolves player against the same Orks as game one and an Imperial Guard player.  The mission was 5 objectives, with a Spearhead deployment.  The odd thing with the deployment was that the teammates were in opposite corners and the opponents were in the other two corners.  We won first turn, so we took the corners that held two nice buildings.  We then agreed to basically stay away from the Orks and converge on the IG.  The thing was, both of us had Rune Priests with Jaws, so on the first turn our Priests headed toward the Orks and just hammered them with Jaws and Missiles.  By the end of the first turn there were 4 Nob Bikers left and my Thunderwolves were dug into a pile of Guard.

After the Orks were pretty well wiped out, the Guard didn’t last much longer.  They did have a nice shot with a melta blast that took out two Rhinos, but that was the limit.  My wolves spent all game eating Guardsmen and we were able to gather up all the objectives.

Going into game three I was four points behind the leader (the other Space Wolves player).  I was playing with another Grey Knights player against a mech Imperial Guard and a horde of Orks.  The mission was Capture and Control, but where each team selected an HQ to be the objective.  If the HQ died, then the objective would fall on the ground.  We put our objective with Draigo and he just holed up in a building all game.  The Ork Warboss held their objective.

Being Dawn of War, the first turn was rather uneventful.  We did pop one Chimera, but that’s it.  They managed to down our Stormraven carrying a load of Paladins.  On the second turn, my Rune Priest managed to peak through a window and snipe the Warboss with Jaws, but that’s the closest we’d get.  My Thunderwolves slugged it out with a squad of Boyz, but eventually fell to the power fist.  We just could kill enough Orks in the three turns we had, and we weren’t quite able to get to the opponents’ objective.

The Paladins did quite will eating up Orks, and our dice were hot blowing up tanks left and right, but it just wasn’t enough.

In the end, I finished with a win and two draws.  The other Space Wolves play managed to win Best General, while the Ork player I played in the first two rounds took Best Sportsman and an Eldar player won Best Painted.

The tournament was a lot of fun, but 3000 points per side was a bit much.  Things ran a bit slow and very few people managed to finish their games.  I’d love to play another team tournament in the future with slightly smaller armies.

Now for pictures!

1500 Space Wolves Lists for RTT

Tomorrow I am playing in a Doubles RTT.  The unique thing about this RTT is that the teams won’t be the same all day.  Each round I will be paired with someone different.

I am bringing my Space Wolves, but I’m torn over two lists.  The lists are very similar other than the inclusion of Wolf Scouts in one and Thunderwolf Cavalry in the other.  I like the Scouts, but there are some reserves-shenanigans in one of the proposed missions, so I don’t know if they will be effective in all games.  That and they aren’t painted, so they would be one of the only units that isn’t painted.  Anyways, here are the lists:

HQ
Runepriest	Jaws of the World Wolf Murderous Hurricane	100
Troops
Grey Hunters, 8	Meltagun Wolf Standard Rhino	170
Grey Hunters, 8	Meltagun Wolf Standard Rhino	170
Grey Hunters, 5	Meltagun Razorback, Heavy Bolter	120
Grey Hunters, 5	Meltagun Razorback, Heavy Bolter	120
Elites
Wolf Guard, 10	2x Terminator Armor 2x Cyclone Missile Launcher 4x Combi-melta	290
Fast Attack
Landspeeder, 1	Multimelta	60
Landspeeder, 1	Multimelta	60
Thunderwolf Cavalry, 3	Powerfist Meltabomb	180
Heavy Support
Long Fangs, 5	4x Missile Launcher Squad Leader	115
Long Fangs, 5	4x Missile Launcher Squad Leader	115

 

HQ
Runepriest	Jaws of the World Wolf Murderous Hurricane Chooser of the Slain	110
Troops
Grey Hunters, 8	Meltagun Wolf Standard Rhino	170
Grey Hunters, 9	Meltagun Wolf Standard Rhino	185
Grey Hunters, 5	Meltagun Razorback, Heavy Bolter	120
Grey Hunters, 5	Meltagun Razorback, Heavy Bolter	120
Elites
Wolf Guard, 10	2x Terminator Armor 2x Cyclone Missile Launcher 4x Combi-melta Combi-melta and Power Fist	315
Wolf Scouts, 6	Melta Gun 2x Power Weapons	130
Fast Attack
Landspeeder, 1	Multimelta	60
Landspeeder, 1	Multimelta	60
Heavy Support
Long Fangs, 5	4x Missile Launcher Squad Leader	115
Long Fangs, 5	4x Missile Launcher Squad Leader	115