Hey everyone, Chaplain Sam back with another mini battle report. So the last vote had me the underdog (again) and Chris the favorite to win. Come on guys! Where is the love? Well, we actually played the matchup twice instead of just once because Chris is really trying to hone in on a list he wants to commit to. As a reminder, here are the lists we ran:
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Sam's Four Fangs
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Sam's Four Fangs
Company of the Great Wolf Detachment:
Wolf Guard Battle Leader - Thunderwolf, Runic Armor, Shield, Hammer, 1 Fen Wolf
Wolf Guard Battle Leader - Thunderwolf, Runic Armor, Shield, Hammer, 1 Fen Wolf
Wolf Guard Battle Leader - Thunderwolf, Runic Armor, Shield, Hammer, 2 Fen Wolf
Wolf Guard Battle Leader - Thunderwolf, Runic Armor, Shield, Hammer, 2 Fen Wolf
Iron Priest - Thunderwolf
Iron Priest - Thunderwolf
Thunderwolf Cavalry x 3
Thunderwolf Cavalry x 3
Skyshield Landing Pad
Tau Firebase Support Cadre
Riptide - IA, early warning override (EWO)
Broadside x 3 - Missiles, EWO
Broadside x 3 - Missiles, EWO
Chris' Dropturions - Game 1 (list from memory, probably not 100% accurate)
Sentinels of Terra
Lysander
Command Squad - Melta spam - Drop Pod
Librarian
3 x Centurions
3 x Centurions
3 x Centurions
Tactical Squad - Drop Pod
Tactical Squad - Drop Pod
Flesh Tearers
Librarian
Scouts - Drop Pod
Drop Pod
Drop Pod
Drop Pod
Battle Report - Once again the underdog, I was eager to prove that both myself and the Four Fangs list had a chance. I won the roll off and elected to let Chris go first, rather than waste a turn when he had nothing on the table. Chris deployed nothing on the board, in true drop pod alpha strike style. I deployed a line of wolves right in front of the Sky Shield Landing Pad with the Tau detachment standing watch, their trigger fingers itching to fire intercepting shots at anything entering the battle field. Chris' drop pods poured onto the battlefield, all three Centurion units in range to unleash a fury of Grav-weaponry. Lysander and his Command Squad veered way off course, landing right in front of the full force of wolves.
Without hesitation, the Tau detachment peppered the Space Marines with interceptor fire as the Drop Pods crashed to the Earth. One Broadside unit and the Riptide fired upon the Centurions, but their armor and cover (and the Emperor apparently) protected them and only a single Centurion fell. The second Broadside dedicated its fire towards a drop pod, reducing it to a pile of rubble and securing the Four Fangs First Blood!
The Centurions unleashed their arsenal of a truly fearsome amount of twin-linked (Prescience) Grav shots. Thanks to the Fenrisian Wolves, the Wolf Star units were majority 6+ save, which meant that the Centurions needed a 6+ to wound the unit.The Wolf Guard Battle Leaders tanked wounds with their invulnerable saves. When the dust settled a few Fenrisian Wolves and Thunder Wolf Cavalry were lost, diving in front of their leaders to protect them fire (Look Out Sir!).
Time for retaliation! The drop pods landed close, too close. The wolves split off into separate groups and assaulted two of the three Centurion units. The Thunder Wolf Cavalry charged into battle against Lysander's unit alone, without a leader and to their likely doom to delay the great warlord. However, by the grace of Russ Lysander's hammer missed it's target and his armor failed him several times. The leaderless Thunder Wolves won combat.
The Four Fangs (Wolf Guard Battle Leaders) swung their great Thunder Hammers mercilessly, erasing Centurions, their armor proving ineffective this time around. The next round of Drop Pods joined the battle (Chris turn 2), but they were largely ineffective.
In the next turn the Four Fangs cleared the remaining Centurions, a Tactical Squad, and the great Lysander fell in combat to the Thunder Wolf Cavalry. Recognizing defeat, what remained of the Dropturions fled from the battlefield.
Space Wolves Victory!
Wow. That went better than expected! Lysander was horrible this game, but aside from that there weren't any devastating failures. The Fenrision Wolves 6+ saves sparred the majority of my force turn 1 and once I got into combat it was game over.
Chris adjusted his list and game 2 was on!
Chris' Dropturions - Game 2 (list from memory, probably not 100% accurate)
Sentinels of Terra
Lysander
Librarian
3 x Centurions
3 x Centurions
3 x Centurions
Scouts - Drop Pod
Scouts
Flesh Tearers
Mephiston
Scouts
Drop Pod
Drop Pod
Drop Pod
Chris dropped the tactical marines, the Command Squad and picked up Mephiston, Lord of Death, and 30+ scouts.
Battle Report - I'll keep this one brief since I had a bit of fun with the other one. Chris won the roll off this time and elected to go second. Bummer for me as it essentially costs me a turn. I rolled Master of Ambush and infiltrated one Wolf Star into Chris' deployment zone (Mistake 1). The Wolves moved a little, but otherwise waited for Chris' to drop down. Chris came down again, positioning himself far from the Wolf Star in his own deployment zone, but within range of the Wolf Star in my deployment zone. The Tau detachment fired their interceptor shots from the Sky Shield but Chris failed 1 of 30+ saves (Ugh), fortunately the Riptide forced him to take some cover saves and took out 2 Centurions. I got greedy and opted to try to remove the last one rather than taking the guaranteed First Blood by popping a drop pod (Mistake 2), but he passed his saves. This time he targeted the Tau detachment instead of the Wolves and utterly erased them, both Broadside units and the Riptide (Damn). In my turn I multi-charged two units of Centurions with the Wolf Star that was in range. After that it was mostly clean up. The Wolf Star in range basically killed Chris' entire army by itself and just ignored Lysander's unit. The other group of Wolves cleaned up some scouts. However, I waited a bit too long and some bad run rolls kept me off objectives (Mistake 3). We rolled to see if the game went on. If it ended, we'd tie. It went on and Chris conceded.
Phew! Despite some poor play on my part I was able to sneak out a win. I think Chris was happy with his play, but I believe he is going to drop Mephiston. He's still considering what to do with the Scouts and Lysander as well.
As for me... I love the Space Wolves! It's just the kind of army I would like to add to my shelves because I'm short on a close combat oriented army. Something with a real punch. More than anything though, I've loved the look and fluff of this army for a long time and that's what counts. It may not be a tournament winner, but I'll still win some games and have blast doing it. With that said, I'm happy to announce that Space Wolves will be my 2015 Army!
Stay tuned for army building updates! Chaplain Sam signing off.