Game 4 – The Space Wolves Have the Artefact!Mikhael’s efforts had finally come to its fruition. The Eldar had come to reclaim their lost treasures, the war centuries past now renewed. In a round-about way, Mikhael knew their arrival at Chigetto had been the price to pay to locate his final objective. Another Eldar force had landed and secured his objective.
After a rampaging campaign of destruction, the Eldar had faced off against the Space Wolves. The Sons of Russ had waged a battle of ferocity unlike anything the Xenos had yet encountered. In the aftermath, the Eldar treasure lay firmly in the hands of the Space Wolves. Mikhael had presented his rosette and by the Emperor’s authority claimed the artefact. The reply had been typically brusque and unrefined. What had been so shocking had been their outright refusal to hand it over.
“Let it be so,” Mikhael muttered to himself. “I will simply claim it by force.”Space Wolves (4th overall with 89/120)HQ: Wolf Lord - Frost Blade, Storm Shield, Thunderwolf, Wolf Tail Talisman
HQ: Rune Priest - Jaws, Murderous Hurricane
EL: 3 Wolf Guard - Combimeltas, Powerfists
TR: 7 Grey Hunters - Meltagun, Mark of the Wulfen, Wolf Standard, Rhino
TR: 8 Grey Hunters - Meltagun, Mark of the Wulfen, Wolf Standard, Rhino
TR: 8 Grey Hunters - Meltagun, Mark of the Wulfen, Wolf Standard, Rhino
FA: 4 Thunderwolf Cav - 2 Storm Shields, Thunder Hammer, Meltabomb (Wound allocation shenanigans – opponent’s text, not mine)
HS: 5 Long Fangs - 4 Missile Launchers
HS: 5 Long Fangs - 4 Missile Launchers
Primary Objective: Seize Ground (5 objectives)
Secondary Objective: Victory Points (what are those)
Deployment: Dawn of War (yeah…). Mitch places a Rhino-borne Grey Hunter squad right up the middle, limiting my options. IST Squad Beta deploys behind some rubble, IL squad into over-watch in a ruin center-right.
Deployments (Space Wolf Rhino center, IST Beta foreground, IL retinue in building to the right)
T1 SW: Long Fangs go far left, all else on the right flank. Nothing else occurs.
T1 DH: IST Alpha deploys far right, the LR and PAGK left of IST Beta, the Dreadnaught tucked in behind the central tower. Shooting from the IL squad fails to do more than scratch Rhino paint.
Turn 1 movement and little else occuring:
T2 SW: Both Hunter squads move around the ruin my IL squad occupies, disembarking and blasting the IL squad down to the IL and a heavy-bolter servitor. The Long Fangs each fail to to anything, his Thunderwolves rolling 2s for difficult terrain (this would become a theme). His other Grey Hunters move to claim the central objective.
T2 DH: Things aren’t looking too good. The Dreadnaught tries to pop the central Rhino to no effect, the Land Raider moves up and fires into the Thunderwolves to no avail. IST Beta fires into the right-flank Long Fangs and kills one, while IST Alpha closes with the two tightly packed Hunter squads near the IL; two flamers made a mess of both units and saw each losing five or six models, making their Leadership checks. Nothing else happened worthy of note.
To quote a bystander: "This is gonna hurt ya'." Yeah, it did.
IST Alpha gets payback for the Inquisitor Lord:
T3 SW: The right-flank Grey Hunters move to shoot and assault, one to the IL squad, the other to IST Alpha; obvious results being both of my squads wiped out. The Thunderwolves again failed to roll higher than a 2 for difficult terrain, while the Long Fangs failed to have any impact. He disembarks his central objective squad and takes a pot-shots with melta and combi-melta at the LR, failing to roll high enough to damage.
T3 DH: Not to keep relying on good rolls, the LR moves up, firing shots into the central Rhino, immobilizing it, its other LC and the Dread firing into the Thunderwolves, failing to wound. The PAGK squad disembarks, fires and charges in at the Thunderwolves – I find out the hard way why this unit is 400 points and why it hasn’t lost a single model thusfar in the tournament. I actually wound and kill two of them, losing six in return (frikkin’ Wolf Lord thus dubbed Commander Velveeta). I move IST Alpha’s Rhino around the ruin and pop smoke, looking to contest the right-hand objective later on.
PAGK meets Thunderwolves - not pretty
T4 SW: Apparently the game is afoot. His Thunderwolves make short work of the PAGK squad, his Wolf Lord finishing them off at I5. The central Hunters again failed to damage the Land Raider, while his right-flank Hunters shuffle around a bit onto the right-hand objective but don’t do anything else. Long Fangs once again have no impact.
T4 DH: Callidus arrives (now dubbed princess Velveeta), templates and assaults her way through the central Grey Hunters, wiping them out, leaving the Rune Priest and freeing an objective from Space Wolf control. The Terminators arrive and scatter between IST Beta and IST Alpha’s Rhino; this actually the ideal location as it turns out. The GKT shoots into the Thunderwolves, killing one.
The beginning of Turn 4
Note the distinct lack of PAGK and the Callidus in pre-shooting and charge position
T5 SW: The Wolf Lord splits off and charges the Callidus but she manages to kill off the Rune Priest. The Thunderwolves move across the Long Fangs frontage and decide to toss the meltabomb at the LR, the explosion wounding one of them. Nothing else much affects anything.
T5 DH: These Thunderwolves have run roughshod over much of my army; until the GKT squad gets the charge; lots of dead puppies, no dead Grey Knights. Nothing else occurred, because I see the only objective he is claiming is actually contested by my Rhino, while IST Beta sits on one uncontested. Time was over, so the game ends.
Rhino contesting the right-hand objective:
GKT post-charge into the Thunderwolves
Note the distinct lack of Thunderwolves, retribution for melta-bombing my Land Raider
Shot from IST Beta's perspective, the lone Scoring Unit holding an Objective
Yes, blurry, but that was partly due to hitting a fourth Victory, only player in the tourney to do so
Overview: Minor Win for the Daemonhunters (Won the Primary Objective 1 to 0, with less Victory Points remaining). The new Space Wolves are a mess to play against. I’m confident one more turn would have seen little change in the overall outcome; those GKTs would simply have redirected and charged into the right-hand objective if the Rhino had been taken care of, end result it still being contested. My opponent was a friend I hadn’t seen in almost 4 years, so to come to heads for the top spot was pretty cool – trash talk aplenty.
;francois
