Round
8: 2300 points
Anton
(Space Wolves)
Wolf
Lord w/Thunderwolf, Artificier Armour, Power Fist, Storm Shield
5
x Wolf Guard w/5 x Thunderwolf, 5 x Storm Shield, 3 x Power Axe
Rune
Priest
10
x Grey Hunters
10
x Grey Hunters w/2 x Meltagun, Drop Pod
10
x Grey Hunters w/2 x Meltagun, Drop Pod
10
x Grey Hunters w/2 x Meltagun, Drop Pod
6
x Long Fangs w/5 x Lascannon
Dreadnought
w/Twin-Linked Lascannon, Missile Launcher
Land
Raider
Yet
again I found myself going up against the forces of the Imperium, and
for the first time since week two there were wolves on the far side
of the table from me. Anton's forces were drop-heavy, as is common
amongst the wolves of Black Knight Games, but with three heavy
support choices and a pack of wolf-riders, he had a strong on-table
presence from the beginning. I expected a tough fight, though I was
hoping it wouldn't be quite as tough as the last time I went up
against the wolves.
Commander
w/Iridium, Stims, Shield, 2 x Plasma, Relics (Hit & Run, +1A,
+1WS/BS for squad)
Commander
w/MSSS, C&CN, PENchip, 2 x Twin-Linked Flamer
Ethereal
Cadre
Fireblade
XV104
w/Ion Accelerator, Early Warning Override, Stimulant Injector
3
x XV8 w/6 x Missile Pod, 3 x EWO
3
x XV8 w/6 x Missile Pod, 3 x EWO
3
x XV8 w/3 x Plasma, 3 x Twin-Linked Fusion Blaster
9
x Fire Warriors
9
x Fire Warriors
9
x Fire Warriors
12
x Fire Warriors
12
x Sniper Kroot
5
x Pathfinders
5
x Pathfinders
Sky
Ray w/Disruption Pod, Blacksun Filter
Hammerhead
w/Disruption Pod, Blacksun Filter
Hammerhead
w/Disruption Pod, Longstrike, Submunition
Aegis
Defence Line w/Quad Gun
I
won the roll-off, and opted to go first; I wanted to put the hurt on
the Wolves first, if I could. My warlord Commander and his assault
team started off in deep strike reserve, and my Kroot were set to
outflank, while the rest of the army arrayed in a line along the
board, as far back as I could. The Ethereal anchored the middle of
the board, with the Fireblade in the twelve-strong squad, hanging out
on the Quad Gun. They were surrounded by the Sky Ray and one of the
Fire Warrior units, while the deathrains were on the edges of the
centre, midway between the three detachments. On my left flank, the
Riptide and the support Commander hung around with the ionHead and
one of the Fire Warrior squads, while on the right flank the railHead
and the third small Fire Warrior squad guarded the edges. The
Pathfinders went down last, settling in behind the Aegis centre-left
and inside a copse of trees on the
In
response, Anton set his Dreadnought on my left, behind a copse of
trees, his Long Fangs on a tall ruin in the centre, and his Land
Raider, with Rune Priest and Grey Hunters, on the right, while the
Wolf Lord and his retinue settled in between the Dreadnought and the
Long Fangs. Everything else settled into their drop pods, waiting to
fall in on my head at their earliest opportunity.
Night
Fight actually kicked in this game, though of course it wouldn't
hinder most of my shooting, and having failed to seize, Anton handed
off to me for my first turn.
And
good heavens, did I put it to good use.
The
only real movement was my tanks, to make certain they generated their
cover saves; everything else was basically already where I wanted it.
My shooting phase started off with my Riptide, backed up by the
support Commander's Ignores Cover/Twin-Linked, obliterating the
entirety of the Long Fang unit in a single shot. After that, my
Pathfinders on the left lit up the dreadnought, giving my deathrains
there a perfect BS5 shot into it which, even with the forest in the
way, ended up with the Dreadnought reduced to a smoking pair of
stumpy legs. And last, but not least, Longstrike took careful aim,
and with the Land Raider neatly exposed from his vantage point, sent
a single slug straight into the engine core, blasting it to
smithereens and leaving the Rune Priest and his Grey Hunters standing
in a crater. My right-flank Fire Warriors took a few potshots at the
exposed Marines, and my ionHead dropped its blast on the Wolf Lord
and his retinue, but neither managed to do more than put the odd
wound into the unit once accounting for armour saves and unreliable
Tau shooting. Still, even with those two HQ-supported units
essentially untouched, Anton had lost the entirety of his Heavy
Support choices, and all of his long-range firepower. It was about
as decisive as a turn can be.
But
of course, much of his army hadn't even been on the table turn 1; I'd
hit him hard, but he had a chance to hit me right back. Two of his
pods came in, landing in my lines and disgorging their contents. Of
course, that just gave me more targets, since I had four different
Interceptor-toting units available. My Riptide dropped its pie plate
on the unit on my left flank, killing half the Grey Hunters
(including one of the meltaguns), while the deathrains on my right
flank stripped out a handful of models as well, though none of the
really important ones. I also tried to replicate a regular feat,
pouring my second deathrain team's fire into the drop pod to try and
force an explosion and kill more Grey Hunters that way, but it seemed
I'd exhausted my dice; they offered up a couple of glances, and that
was that. The Quad Gun, on the other hand, did put down the drop pod
on my right flank, taking out a couple more Grey Hunters in the
process. Finally, out of guns, I had no choice but to invite a
rather shell-shocked Anton to continue his turn. Marshaling his
forces as best he could, Anton lit up the back of Longstrike's
Hammerhead with a couple of meltaguns, flash-frying the Tau tank ace,
the only casualty my forces sustained that turn. Which isn't nothing
of course, but given the loss of so much of the Space Wolves, it
wasn't much, either.
With
so much of my long-ranged firepower already spent on dealing with
deep striking threats, my second shooting phase was a bit less
decisive than my first. With a Fire Warrior team sweeping up around
a large ruined farmhouse on my left flank, and my reserves refusing
to arrive, I still managed to find enough firepower to wipe out the
survivors of the left-flank Grey Hunters squad, and most of the team
on the right, as well. More important in the long run, however, the
Fireblade-boosted Fire Warrior team in the centre managed to peel off
two of the approaching Wolf Guard, with the Wolf Lord out of position
to tank for them. In his turn, Anton's third drop pod arrived on my
right flank, scattering right up against the hill top my right-most
infantry were on. The Riptide's ion accelerator had been recharged,
but unfortunately I was a little less accurate with the scatter this
time; the Riptide's final tally, once all the rolls were in, was
three-quarters of a Pathfinder team, a handful of Fire Warriors, an
exploded drop pod and, by extension, two Grey Hunters. The lone
surviving Pathfinder broke, heading back towards the table edge at a
leisurely jog, but the Fire Warriors remained committed. With the
drop pod out of the way I fired on the Grey Hunters with my
right-flank deathrain suit, but only forced a handful of minor
causalities.
After
a long period of taking a beating, however, Anton was finally in a
position to give one back. The original right-flank Grey Hunter
squad, who'd dropped in first turn, had hustled towards the centre of
the board, where they found their luck strong enough to get into
charge distance of my central Fire Warrior squad. You know, the one
with the Ethereal and the Fireblade? Considerable amounts of
Overwatch ensued, further whittling down the Grey Hunters to just a
handful of models, at which point they were too few to kill enough
Fire Warriors to overcome the Ethereal's LD10 advantage when it came
to dealing with their break test for losing combat. The Wolf Lord
and his surviving retinue thundered in, wiping out my left-flank
Pathfinder team, though that simply left them consolidating into
relatively open terrain once they predictably overkilled the infantry
squad.
That
would turn out to be especially bad for him, because at that point I
had almost no targets for much of my army other than the Wolf Lord
and his retinue. Aside from the Fire Warriors and deathrain team on
my right (plus their lone Pathfinder, who rallied), and my Kroot who
came in well up on my left flank, in Anton's deployment zone, every
gun in the army was levelled against them. Faced with a torrent of
fire from two Fire Warrior teams (one boosted by Storm of Fire), my
ionHead, my Sky Ray's SMS (its missiles had been volley-fired to
finish off the nearby Grey Hunters turn 2) and a deathrain unit, even
artificier armour couldn't hold up, and the Wolf Lord, his guard and
their monstrous beasts were left smoking on the snowfields. In my
assault phase I lost a few more Fire Warriors, but managed to kill a
couple of Grey Hunters in return, and once again my Ethereal kept
them in the fight. The Space Wolf attack had been fierce, but it was
blunted, and now the Tau's superior firepower was winning out.
In
his third turn Anton had almost nothing to do; a few pot-shots from
his drop pods, which accomplished nothing, and his Rune Priest and
Grey Hunter squad hustling up for one of the distant objectives, more
a formality than anything else. In the end, however, he did get to
at least win a moral victory, as his Grey Hunters finally dragged
down my Ethereal and his bodyguards, grinding one of the spiritual
leaders of the Empire under his fur-clad boots. The Grey Hunters
hustled back towards the Quad Gun, desperately trying to grab hold of
its firepower, and Anton passed off to me.
It
being turn 4, my Commander finally turned up, dropping neatly in
behind the Rune Priest's squad, the whole of my army on the table at
last. Back in my deployment zone I manoeuvred to put an infantry
model on all three of the objectives, splitting my support Commander
from the Riptide just in case I needed to send the former for the
objective and the latter for the Grey Hunters, but it turned out the
Space Wolves' armour couldn't stand up to concentrated pulse fire any
better than their leader's. Across the board, my Commander and his
team took careful aim and, with a flurry of plasma bolts and fusion
blasts, utterly eradicated the entire squad, Rune Priest and all.
With the Wolves dead, my Commander's team used their assault move to
hop forwards, putting them neatly on top of the last of the five
objectives. At the end of turn 4, Anton had two units left on the
table, both drop pods, and we decided to call it there. I'd claimed
all five objectives, scored all three secondaries, denied the two
share-able ones to Anton, and even killed his Wolf Lord to seize a
Fearless-granting relic for my warlord. I literally could not have
done better.
Just
one more week to go. The final showdown, with the man who'd stayed
ten points ahead of me, in first place, nearly the entire time...
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