2024 league Guard Vs Space wolves

 My second game in the 2024 league was against a dread heavy Space Wolves list. The list itself consisted of 4 dreads, with a Ballistus and Redemptor dread supporting two Wolves dreadnoughts. These were in turn supported by a Stormfang Gunship, a terminator squad and a Wolf Guard terminator squad, an eliminator squad, Aggressor Squad and two intercessor squads. The force was lead by a Captain and Librarian, both in terminator armour with Arjac Rockfist and finally an Iron Priest to round out the list. There was nothing that I was overly worried about going in to the game, but there was a lot of tough units that could cause me some problems. I decided that the best way to deal with them all was to try and focus on just a couple or even just one at a time and to hope that this was enough.

The mission.

At this point I would like to say, I hate “Deploy Servo Skull” as a mission. This is the first time i have actually played it and if I had known what it would be like, I would have re-rolled the mission selection! However, this was the combination that came up, so that what we played.

The Board, the extra objective makes the board very busy.

Deployment

My opponent deployed pretty much as I expected, although the aggressors in the Stormfang was unexpected. I had thought he would put one of the intercessors in there and push them up early on to an objective. The terminators are in reserve. 

At the end of turn one, things were pretty even, the storm fang was down as were the aggressors, but the knight was down to just a couple of wounds, 8 if i remember correctly. One of his wolfen dreads was damaged, but the other escaped thanks to a stratagem enabling him to pull back. I did however have some good board conrtrol over the midfield objectives. 

Turn 2 was equally exciting, with the knight finally going do to a hail of overwatch fire from the redemptor dread, thanks to oath of moment and a command point re-roll chipping of the last two wounds. Also, my rough riders were respawned after the wolfen dread chopper them to bits, coming on to take out the newly arrived wolf guard terminators. By this point I was comfortably in control of the two objectives on my right hand side of the board, the ones on the left were still contested, meaning I could start clocking up primary points. 

Turn 3 and I was running out of punch but not troops. My tank commander went down this turn but not before dishing out some punishment to the receptor. The space wolves were starting to run out of assets at this point, having lost almost all their infantry units. 

Turn 4 was pretty quiet as by this point the Wolves were starting to run out of units. They still had some punch with the Captain and Rockfist causing some problems for the scions on the left flank. The terminators that came in in my deployment zone finally got in to combat with the Leman Russ Exterminator and bounced. I spent most of my time just shuffling units up on the right flank and scoring the primary. 

Turn 5 was very quick, the wolves pulled some bad cards and so really didn’t do much, just moved to grab what objectives that they could. My turn was even quicker, as I didn’t bother shooting, just grabbing objectives and scoring points. There was little point in doing anything else as the cards I pulled were about grabbing objectives, as is the primary. 

Overall, I think this was a good game, partly as I won, which i as always nice but mostly because I feel that the game went well with few mistakes on my part. Most of the mistakes were around me being a bit to hasty and not thinking things though in my excitement to be winning! 

Score card

As I said, I don’t think I made many mistakes here. The main mistakes I think were pretty minor, such as charging my Tech-Priest in to combat, which didn’t go well but apart from that there is nothing that springs to mind as a mistake. There are certainly somethings that I could have done better but really none of them would have changed the game. The key to this game was managing to gain momentum at the beginning and then maintain it through out the game. Making better use of the reinforcements stratagem this time around certainly helped.

Next up are more space marines of the White Scars variety. 

Imperial Guard Vs Space Wolves - Tournament warmup game 1

 These are a bit out of time here but this is the first of four battle reports that I played before the Northern Invasion tournament. These were just small scale games of 1000 points to get my head around some of the rules changes for 10th before the tournament. This was the first game that I played, against Space Wolves, the same player I ended up playing against when I got to the tournament. The list i played against was pretty similar to the full tournament list, with some thunder wolf cavalry, blood claws, grey hunters and intercessions, with some eradicators, which didn’t make the final list. My list on the other hand consisted of the infantry, breachers in Valkyries and a Field Ordnance battery with heavy lascannons. 

We played a leviathan mission, Sweeping Engagement, Take and Hold with scrambler fields. The scrambler field had no effect on the game, due to neither of us having strategic reserves. Take and hold should have been easy for me, but I really failed to take advantage of the mission. 

Guard Deployment

Space wolf deployment 

Blood Claws and Ragnar pushing up the centre

Blood Claws

The blood claws and Ragnar went charging up the field turn one, engaged and destroyed a full 20 man guard squad with ease and then proceeded to just sweep through my battle lines almost completely unopposed. 

The empty battlefield.

The flyer trying to do something useful

The flyer and everything on the right is dead.

So in this game I found out that flyers are not quite as good as they use to be and when I say not as good, what I mean is useless. You can see the blood claws as the very bottom of the table having slaughtered their way through two 20 man catachan squads and the field ordnance battery. 

The guard almost tabled 

The lone assassin sitting on his perch 

The final result was a resounding victory for the space wolves. I was completely unable to move anywhere on the board, without getting absolutely slaughtered by the space wolves. This game was good though for a number of reasons. The first thing I learnt was that no matter how much I like the idea of 20 man guard squads, 10 man squads are the way to go I think. This means that there is less chance of all 20 guardsmen getting wiped out in a single turn of firing or combat. The second lesson learnt is that flyers are not very resilient, with no natural -1 to hit and even with the extra toughness and save, they are still quite easy to remove. The last thing i learnt was less about the game and more about the system as a whole, that guard are either really over priced or space marines are over powered, as there were as many space wolf units on the table as there were guard units! I’m use to outnumbering the enemy by several units, but this time around I was actually outnumbered!

As a result of this game, I decided to thin down the squad sizes and look at getting more movement options in the list. I wish I could have tried playing this list again with an updated list but there was just no time. I did change the list for my next game, adding in a couple of vehicle to see how that does.

Northern Invasion game 3

So, on to game three and another hard game but one I though I might do better in. The game was against Space Wolves and I reasonably well rounded list at that. The list consisted of Logan Grimnar on his sleigh, Murderfang, Ragnar, an Iron Priest, lieutenant, a blood claws, 2x grey hunters, 2x intercessors, incursors, skyclaws, thunderwolf cavalry, fenrisian wolves, a redemptor, a vindicator and 2x wulfen dreadnoughts.

This game was going to be tough, but in a very different way to the last  the mission here was going to be problematic, as with purge the foe, victory points are gained for holding one and holding more plus kill one and kill more. Hold one and hold more were not going to be much of a problem, kill one was not going to be to much of a problem but kill more was going to be very difficult to do or deny.

Again with this game, I pushed right up to the line with the aim of moving forward to take some of the central ground. I also had to hang back a bit with the threat of the skyclaws.

My opponent mirrored my deployment, pushing up to the line, ready to charge forward and take the fight to me.

I got turn one, pushed up and only killing one unit, the fenrisian wolves for some easy points. 

We clashed in the in the centre and there were some obvious results, with a couple.of units wiped in the first turn,only to be recycled on the Reinforcements train! 

The wolves kept pushing forward and I took the opportunity to drop in behind, claiming my opponents home objective, forcing his skyclaws to drop in behind, only to fail a charge and then be annihilate by the scions that dropped in behind. A dreadnought tried to come back to reclaim the objective but with terrain and positioning he couldn't quite make it. 

By the end of the game, on turn 4, the wolves were in my deployment zone and could be a real threat and had good board control across the middle of the board. However, I still had a chance to clear out some of the centre and had option to recycle some more units that would inevitably get destroyed.
 

Overall the game was very close and I think turn 5 could have gone either way, however, there was no way that I could have actually won. As you can see in the score sheet the secondary scores were very close. I think a minor mistake was holding on to bring it down, I failed to score it in one round and took a gamble I could do it in the second round but failed. I think maybe I should have just binned it after not achieving in one round and drawn another. I don't know if that would have helped or not but either way 25 to 27 was a close score. The primaries however is a different story, I was 12 point down on the primary, all of which are due to the kill more. In total I was 16 points down due to kill more and if you took the kill more points out then the score.would have dropped to 67 to 65, a guard victory! Although if you take the hold more points out as well, then it's a 63 to 65 loss! Either way it was the kill more points that really hurt me.

Despite this, it was a very good game and I really enjoyed myself. So after 3 games on the Saturday, I found myself ready for game four to decided who came 7th and who came 8th. Oh, and I was to play my son. So all the way south, to play my own son!

Game 2 recap - wolves

 I was really looking forward to this game after the lost one, as I felt that I could actually compete and give a good account of myself. I was not expecting to win but I was hoping to keep the gap between scores a little closer. My opponent for this game was a space wolf army, comprised of mostly first born marines, the only primaris model being a redemptor dreadnought.

The actual list itself contained a number of different element, including Grimnar and sledge, two 6 man units of blood claws and two 6 man units of grey hunters, two long fang squads, thunder wolves, wolf guard terminators and a terminator chaplain, a tech marine and then a whole bunch of dreads, Bjorn, murder fang, a redemptor and two venerables. The only advantage I had with the vehicles and most other units in the list was their slow movent, mostly 6 inches, with only the redemptor (8"), thunder wolves and Grimnar (10" each)  being quicker. Luckily the deployment map favoured me here as it opened up the no man's land to around 27 inches due to its diagonal nature. 

Guard Deployment

You can just about make out the random model to the left of my tape measure, that's a priest that's sitting out to deny the deep striking terminators. My Hellhammer is also sitting back to put as much distance between him and anything that might want to shoot at him as possible turn 1. As it happened, I got turn 1 and he moved up on the left flank.

The board 

The central ruins, marked by the two large and two smaller building sections were obscuring terrain, so my Hellhammer couldn't see through them but could be seen nonetheless. This did give me some issues but nothing I couldn't get around.

Space wolves deployment

Another view of the guard deployment

This time round I think the placing of objectives was significantly better and as a result I was able to hold at least 2 objectives pretty much all game, only failing in the last turn, partly due to some unlucky\lucky dice rolls but we'll get in to that later. My opponent placed his objectives down very sensibly, with the middle objective in the centre being placed in the central ruins furthest from me, thus making it a lot harder to get at for me. 

Turn 2

I can't remember what shooting happened in turn one, but it wasn't very much, mostly due to the distance between the armies. I know my mortars chipped a would each of the blood claws but I think that we about it. By the end of turn two though things were a little different. My Hellhammer and survived remarkable untouched by the long fangs and the twin lascannons of Bjorn, the missile launcher long fangs actually did the majority of wounds over the game, mostly as the lascannon armed ones were removed in my second turn, one shorted by the big Hellhammer cannon. In general the there had been little damage inflicted on either side by the end of turn two. The only thing of note was the charge of Grimnar in to an infantry squad on the left and his subsequent removal from the board by the secondary armament of the Hellhammer supported by various infantry squads. 

Turn 2

Some of.my scions dropped in turn 2 and tried to take out the big guy at the back but failed, reducing him down a bracket though. This is one of the mistakes I made in the game, holding on to the bring it down card for an additional turn. I should have ditched it as soon as I failed to score it in turn 2, I could have drawn an additional card I could have achieve in turn 5 as a result. If I could have drawn a line of sight from my Hellhammer it could have been very different but the two buildings in the middle prevented this.

Turn 3

Turn 3 and things were starting to heat up. The wolves were getting close now, one unit already being in combat but a number of failed charges meant that I'd had a little bit of extra time to whittle them down even more. This meant that I could take down a number of thunder wolf Calvary, dropping two but not quite managing the third. I also made a second mistake with the cards here, as I forgot I had "no retreat, no surrender" and fell a unit out of combat. I could easily have go the 5 points, even if it would have meant loosing a few more models, but it might also have changed where the terminators also dropped in, although unlikely.

It was at this point that the new abilities of the marines came in to play, their sticky objectives. In turn 3 when the MT command squad had dropped in on the backfield objective near my opponents deployment zone, he had been forces to send a squad of blood claws after them and abandon the central objective. However, with the sticky objective rule he still held on to it and scored points, without this rule he would have lost at least 14 points or been forced to pull another units, a dreadnought realistically, to hold it. This could have changed the game quite a bit and there wasn't really anything i could do about it.

Turn 3

Turn 4

It was in turn 4 that the game started to finally swing in favour of one of us. Until this point it could have go either way but there were a few moment where things didn't quite line up for me and the wolves just showed that extra resilience over the guard. For me the two moment in this turn that set the scene for the wolves victory were the terminators clearing out the centre of the last guard resistance and the failure of the Hellhammer to Clare the blood claws at the back of the table, enabling them to charge and wipe out the MT command squad and claim the objective. To be honest, there was little I could do about the terminators in the centre as I had little to reinforce my units with. The blood claws in the top corner however I could do something about. I fired the Hellhammer cannon, which up until this point had basically eliminated a squad every turn (apart from the thunder wolf Calvary, where it still took enough wounds to remove a 5 man unit but not enough to wipe the Calvary squad), doing enough wounds, 8 I believe, to realistically kill the squad when saving of 5+'s. My opponent didn't see it that way and rolled 6 5+ saves, only killing 2 marines leaving enough to wipe out the 5 man command squad in his turn. This dropped me to just a single primary in my final turn and denied me vital points.

Turn 4

End game

Turn 5 and the last few plays of the game. This was a short turn and again we didn't play out all of it, as there was little need. The one part we did play out was the final death throws of the Hellhammer. With bring it down in his hand my opponent needed to try and get the last few wounds off the big guy and after shooting everything that it could in to it, I was on 1 wound left. Charges were declared and so was overwatch. I knew that this was a long shot and wasn't going to stop the inevitable result, as there were two breads within easy charge range. The first one though tried his luck and was the second (or maybe even third) dread to be brought low by the mighty weapons of the Hellhammer, mostly the 4 heavy flamers, which really proved their worth this match. Bjorn however didn't fail and made short work of the Hellhammer.

End game

At this point there was little on the table, however it was mostly space wolves and some chunky units at that, including Bjorn, 6 terminators and a redemptor, who while injured had his attendant tech priest following him around. If the game had of gone on longer the weight of power would only have tipped further towards the wolves.

The score card

In the end it the space wolves claimed victory and there wasn't really much o could have done about it. Even if I had played the cards slightly differently, if I had ditched bring it down earlier and not fluffed "no retreat, no surrender" and if I had managed to take out the last of the blood claws, there is still no guarantee that I could have altered the final score of my opponent. The real game changer was the sticky objectives, as it would have brought the scores down by at least ten points, possibly more when factoring in the different cards that were drawn. However, I was really please with how well the game went and really enjoyed it. My opponent was great to play against and played very well, making full use of his rules. I believe that my next game is against Sister of Battle followed by the Eldar. It will be interesting to see how the Hellhammer does against these T3 armies.

Stone Dragons

 The next force on the paint table was the Stone Dragons. Now, the Stone Dragons have had a bit of a convoluted  development, switching from ultramarine successors to space wolf successors, from system based to fleet based and back to home world based. One thing that hasn't changed is that the chapter is a crusading chapter, formed of many small crusading forces, such as this one. 

This force is based around the Phobos armour and stealth, a classic hunting party is you will. Lead by a Captain and a couple of Lieutenants, this force is the largest of the 500 point forces, coming in at 19 models in total. 

An incomplete family photo

Another angle

The force works in a number of ways but it mostly works around infiltrating and the unit of reavers and infiltrators backed up by the suppressors and eliminators. Now, there was a slight change of plan with this force, the suppressors were actually supposed to be part of the Eagle Knights but by the time I realised this they were already painted and transfers applied! So they are now part of a slightly bigger Stone Dragons force. 

The aforementioned suppressors with their eliminator buddies.

The eliminators are still headless as originally I wanted something classically Blood Angles but now I guess they will have to get the Space Wolf treatment and some wolf themed helmets. 

Headless warriors.

As with the previous marine forces I have tried my hands at transfers and I think that after some practice with the others I'm finally getting the hang of it. Ok so there not perfect, not by a long way, they are better than the first ones I did. I have tried to add in lots of details and extra little markings, to try and signify some of the deeds that they guys have done, I did think of adding in a lot more and I might go back and adds more later but for now they will do. 

Some of the transfer details. 

Eliminators

The eliminators are different from the rest of the force as they are a lot plainer, loosing a lot of the yellow markings, except their chapter badge and also a lot of the silver\metal parts. In addition, these guys are not finished as I really want to camouflage the cloaks to blend in to the grass basing and battle mat that i have. I had a go at doing some camouflage patterns on spare parts but I have yet to master the art. What I have decided is that I want a stippled effect but I have been struggling to get the right colour and intensity to the pattern. I have been asking around at the club and I think I've got a plan, I just need to try it out and see if it works, I'll let you all known as I'm brave enough to try it out!

Some of the extra details

Infiltrators

The infiltrators form the one half of the main force and are designated for ranged interactions. There was a slight error made here that I need to correct, as the Comms array man has his markings on his shoulder but the sergeant is missing his (the bloke holding his pistol), he has his Sgt insignia just above the chapter badge but no flashes below. I could probably just leave it but then it would fall foul of the lore, as no marine would reach Sgt without having claimed some sort of battle or personal honours. Apart from this minor issue, the squad is sorted.

Reavers

The reavers are very similar to the infiltrators but at least the Sgt has the right markings on. The only issue with these guys is that I really should have stripped a couple of the guys as the paint \ primer on them is very thick and not particularly flat in places. Luckily this isn't to noticeable from a distance and so it won't be noticeable on the table, it just annoys me that I didn't spend a bit more time preparing them.

The commanders

The leaders of the force are made up of a Captain and two lieutenants, one reaver and one infiltrator or Phobos armoured one. As usual I've taken a bit more time and care over these guys and I think I've done a good job. I've also gone and added a few more transfers, especially to the Captain.

Stranger details

More details

All in all, I really like these models and think that this is the best paint scheme of all the smaller marine force. The classic grey and yellow really works and stands out with out being to much. I will base these up with all the others when all the marines are finished, that is after I have dipped them in quick shade! 

Next up are the Dark Guardians, however, this may take a little longer than planned. We are currently away from home for a wedding, however we had to fly earlier than planned due to predicted weather issues, so we headed south several days earlier that originally booked and as such I didn't get a chance to finish the models and get pictures to post. I will try and get them done as soon after the new year as possible but that might be a few weeks away yet.