Battle Report: Space Wolves vs Tau (1,750)

Yesterday was the 40kForums meet and after the last one in September last year and the 1000pts mini tournament we had then my Imperial Guard suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Commandojimbob's Tau so like any good Guardsmen I called in the Astartes to solve my problem!!!

So in the Red Corner hailing all the way from the Eastern Fringe is CJB's Tau!

Commander Battle Suit - Missile pods and plasma rifles, 1 shield drone

3 Crisis Suits, Missile Pods and plasma rifles, 2 shield drones

3 Crisis Suits, 2x Twin Missile Pods and 1x Missile Pod / Fusion, 2 shield drones

4 Stealth Suits with Targetting Arrays and a Gun Drone

6 Fire Warriors with a Devilfish (fully upgraded)

6 Fire Warriors with a Devilfish (fully upgraded)

10 Kroot

Hammerhead Gunship with a Rail Cannon

Hammerhead Gunship with a Ion Cannon

3 Broadsides with 2 shield drones

..and the challengers in the Blue corner all the way from the Ice Wastes of Fenris....... MC Tic Tac's Space Wolves!

Rune Priest, Living Lightning, Murderous Hurricane, Chooser of the Slain

Rune Priest, Living Lightning, Jaws of the World Wolf

5 Wolf Scouts, Melta Gun

5 Wolf Scouts, Melta Gun
3 Wolf Guard: 2 armed with a power fist and a combi melta each, 1 with a combi melta and a bolt pistol
10 Grey hunters, 2 Melta Guns, Wolf Banner, Mark of the Wulfen, with a Rhino
10 Grey hunters, 2 Melta Guns, Wolf Banner, Mark of the Wulfen, with a Rhino
5 Grey Hunters, 1 Melta Gun, with a Rhino
6 Grey Hunters, 1 Flamer, with a Rhino
3 x Land Speeder Tornado, Multi Melta, Heavy flamer
5 Long Fangs, 4 Missile Launchers
Razorback, Lascannon, Twin linked Plasma gun
5 Long Fangs, 4 Missile Launchers
Razorback, Lascannon, Twin linked Plasma gun.

We rolled for Mission and got, Capture and Control (1 objective each) Pitched Battle. I  won the roll and set up first.
I set up my Rhinos line abreast roughly in the centre, with the Land Speeders behind the Rhino line - as I would not know how CJB would set up himself despite his objective being on my right as their is plenty of good cover on my left and in the middle. My Long Fangs made good of the tower and barricades in my deployment zone.

CJB set up mainly around his objective but with his Broadsides up in the tower in his zone and his commander behind it's barricades. His stealth team infiltrated behind the landing pad on my far right - very much a refused flank.

I put my objective right next to the Tower with my long fangs in, just behind the barricade.
CJB out his just out side of the ruins in his deployment zone.

I forgot to take a pic of our deployment Do'h!!

CJB didn't steal the 1st turn (thankfully for my SW).

Space Wolves Turn 1:

I push my Rhinos with the 10 man melta squads ahead 12 and pop smoke, but I send them around the crater with the disturbingly wrecked Rhino! The Land Speeders turbo boost 24 straight down the gullet of the Tau hoping to draw fire away from the Rhinos. My Rhinos with the smaller squads in with the Rune Priest push 6 forwards hoping to zap some tower with psychic powers.

Shooting began with my Rune Priest on the right using Jaws of the World Wolf to take down the 1 broadside *just* in range. The Long Fangs open up and mange to wreck the Hammerhead with the Rail Cannon! So 2 units shot and 50% of the Railguns gone! Living Lightning from my second Rune Priest manages to wound 2 Crisis Suits and a shield drone hiding behind the now wrecked Hammerhead - not too shabby for turn 1.

The 3rd Land Speeder is on the other side of the middle tower

Tau Turn 1:
The Ion Cannon Hammerhead pushes down the right flank and kills the closest Rhino and kills 2 Grey Hunters in the blast who end up pinned! The Broadsides split fire and destroy the Rhino with the Jaws Priest in and the Razorback way out on the right flank. The wounded unit of Crisis Suits immobilise and thus kill the middle land speeder. The unit of suits in the ruins shaken the lead rhino and some how the other 2 land speeders avoid any damage.

The view from the Crisis Suits in the ruins

Space Wolves turn 2:
I split the Jaws Rune Priest off from his unit so he can advance and sink another Broadside with Jaws as well as a Drone, the unit he was with jump in the empty Razorback that is behind their wrecked Rhino, which then scoots of behind the middle tower. The Land Speeders both mover over to the right and one manages to rip of the Ion Cannon from the last Hammerhead. The rest of my shooting pays for it's good round earlier and gets nullified by the Tau disruption pods - ie CJB kept rolling his 4+ cover saves!

The Jaws Rune Priest fancies his chances - Not!

End of Space Wolf Turn 2 and things don't look so good for them as their line starts to falter

Tau Turn 2:
The Last Broadside dispenses some revenge and kills the Rune Priest who killed his 2 squad mates.
The central lead Rhino gets blown up and between the explosion and pretty much all the Tau fire power only the 2 Grey Hunters with Melta Guns survive, but get pinned! The Kroot turn up on the right flank and between them and the pesky Stealth Suits wreck the Land Speeder that took out the Ion Cannon on the last Hammerhead. Said Hammerhead goes on to the Land Pad - going over to contest the SW objective if it gets the chance to.

Overall a very good turn for the Greater Good!
(sadly I missed a pic of this turn of devastation!)

Space Wolf Turn 3:
The Wolf Scouts arrive! One unit form CJB's Board edge and one from the right.
My last Rhino put's it foot down so to advance and threaten the Tau objective and hopefully draw some fire away from the dismounted Grey Hunters. The disruption pods continue to annoy the Long Fangs, but hey do kill the last Hammerhead on the landing platform. The Scout's melta shooting manges to immobilise a Devilfish which they then krak open in combat while the other unit fluffs their combat vs the Crisis Suits in the Ruins, but hold.

A bad turn for the Space Wolves......

Start of SW turn 3...

A blurry pic of a unit of scouts sneaking up on a devil fish

The other unit of scouts get the drop on the Greater Good's finest....

The aftermath of the sudden appearance of the Scouts.

Tau Turn 3:
With the enemy in their midsts and behind them the Tau turn tier attentions to the unit that destroyed the devil fish and erase the scouts from existence while the Wolf Guard who was with them runs off! Mean while all the Commander and last Broadside can do is stun the last Rhino. In combat the Kroot pile in to the Scout & Crisis Suit combat and solve the remaining scout problem. The last Devil fish pushes forward to block the last SW Rhino and kills 1 of the 2 Grey Hunters with Melta Guns and the lone Grey Hunter runs away!

The Kroot solve the scout problem:

End of Tau Turn 3:

Space Wolf Turn 4:
I disembark my Rune Priest and his unit. The Long Fangs kill the wounded unit of Crisis Suits the where hiding behind the wreckage of the Hammerhead. The lone Melta Gunner rallies, advances and destroys the Devilfish that killed his mate! The 6 Fire Warriors lose 2 to the explosion but before the survivors gather their senses 2 units of Grey Hunters and a Rune Priest rip them to pieces and their consolidation sees them just able to contest the Tau objective.

End of Turn Space Wolf Turn 4

Objective in sight

Tau Turn 4:
The remaining unit of Crisis Suits kill the Rune Priest's unit and the last Broadside shoots him in the back and kills him. The Kroot advance but fail their terrain test to charge the last unit of Grey Hunters.

Space Wolf Turn 5:
The last unit of Grey Hunters make a bee line for the Kroot. 1 Unit of Long Fangs launch 4 frag missiles at the last unit of Fire Warriors and CJB rolls poorly and the Fire Warriors get fragged to death. the 2nd unit of Long Fangs try the same trick on the Kroot but only kill 4, while the Grey Hunters kill another 1 with their pistols. IN combat the Grey Hunters easly kill the remaining Kroot leaving the Tau with no scoring unit's left.

The Grey Hunters pile into the Kroot as the Stealth suits look on...

....... and after as the Stealth Suits jet pack away from the angry Grey Hunters!

.


Tau turn 5:

With noting but pride left to play for the Crisis suits reduce the last unit of Grey Hunters to a man and then charge...... The Grey Hunter counter charges back and wounds a battle suit. The battle suits cause 4 wounds on the lone Grey Hunter who ducks and dives his way to safety to win the combat! CJB then rolls a 11 for his LD test and the Suits try to flee but the last Grey Hunter cuts them down in bloody revenge for his squad mates!!

The Crisis Suits pile in.......

.. but the lone Grey Hunter has other ideas as he runs them down!!

.


Turn 6 ends up being the Stealth suits killing all the lone survivors of the Grey Hunters as the Long Fangs try to shoot them.

At the end of Turn 6...................

My objective safely held.....

The Long Fangs overlook what remains of well everything!!!!!!

So after a very bloody game the Space Wolves hold and take the day, but the costs where very, very high! So high in fact if it was kill points the Tau would of won!

Overall a very good game that swung back and forth but the sheer bloody mindedness of the Space Wolves kept them strong till the end. A great game against a great opponent in Commandojimbob and I'm sure he will want to get his own back next time!

Death by a Thousand Cuts

Over the last few weeks while getting in practise games of 1,750 points I have manage to (inadvertently) convert my friends to 1,750 over our regular 1,500pts.

We are starting tomorrow (Wednesday) a Kill point based campaign - prizes are for most wins, most Kill points earned and the Lemming Award - most Kill points given away. A wipe out victory will always give you 1 more kill point than what you lost in that game for balance and to stop people "hiding".

With this focus on Kill Points everyone is bringing out their Death Stars while I'm locked in to my 1,750 Space Wolf Tournament army which has 19kp. During a practise game last week vs my friends Tau, and a Commander Farsight Death Star which only had 9 KP I won 7 - 3 (could of been 4) despite having Farsight and 9 Battle Suits shoved in my face from turn 1 onwards

What some people don't understand is how sometimes a Death Star won't work vs a player who knows what they are doing.

Going with the Farsight example which was around 800pts or around 45% of his army - all it killed in my army was 1 Land Speeder which was 70pts or 4% of my army. But with 4% of my army dead I responded with 96% of my army vs 45% of his, which over 2 turns I killed to no further loss.

So by turn 3 I had roughly 85% of my Army left vs my opponents 40% over a 2-1 advantage - the rest of the game they say was history. My only further losses where my 2 Wolf Scout units who took out Broadsides and a unit of Fire Warriors before being pulse rifled into Valhalla.

More so in kill point games if you can bring your army (or most of it) to bear on a small part or even 1 unit of your enemy's force at a time you *should* annihilate it quickly and the more on to the next target. Being able to suppress part of your enemy's force (shaking/stunning tanks or pinning/ forcing LD tests on infantry) while most of your force is killing another part works really well. Sure potentially killing a unit or tank in 1 shot *could* happen but more than likely won't - but being able to stack the odds in your favour in any given situation will always give you an edge.


So this brings us MSU's or Multiple Small Units, which basically means using as many small units as possible, but all have/use the maximum killing potential available to them. The idea works that armies with larger (and thus fewer units) can only target 1 unit at a time so the enemy's larger units is only killing small units who's los is only a a small pin prick in your over all force, and you can concentrate all you units onto one/two/part of the enemy's force - so death by a thousand cuts.

This works even with a balanced army vs a Death Star.




Oh while I'm here and it's my blog I would like to point you towards real hero. This Gurkha took on 40 train robbers and sent them packing!

Bishnu Shrestha, sir you are a true Hero. 

My Tuppance Worth: GW vs Chapterhouse studios

Well we know now that GW are taking Chapterhouse studios to court over Copyright/IP infringement and well I reckon it's pretty clear cut - Chapterhouse are screwed.

Regardless of what you may think of GW or Chapterhouse - be it Fanboi, hater or anything in between, Chapterhouse have no one to blame but themselves. They have and still do use copyrighted GW material.

Yes GW have taken many "Ideas" from elsewhere, but they where smart enough to change it enough to be something 'original' and what they didn't change they paid for the rights, or just using stuff as insipration.

Paying for rights and adapting is very different from blatantly copying.

Many other sites and companies make items and upgrade packs for "28mm" or "Heroic Scale" minitures - we all know they are for GW kits but they never use GW owned names.

Also that massive disclaimer at the bottom of Chapterhouse's website appeared 24 hours after the news of legal action broke.

GW would of never taken action if they knew they could not win, they have done this many times and are experienced in taking out any potential rip off merchants - I have a friend who use to do this kind of ear marking potential violations for GW ("Yeah woo John you know someone who use to work for GW" - yeah well I have even used Jervis Johnson's toilet - true story).

I'm sure they guys at Chapterhouse studios are nice guys who wanted to share their impressive hobby skills with fellow gamers, but sadly they have shot themselves in both feet by not getting legal advice *before* starting their business.

And that's My Tuppance Worth!

Army Update 2

Well over the last week I have gotten to the stage of dipping and basing the remainder of the army.

I'm pretty happy with how it's gone (with the odd exception), but my inexperience with dipping shows on the vehicles with the odd blob of varnish - but it's done now.

Over all it certainly gives the army a more darker and gritter look, but the snow on the bases can certainly do with 2 layers so it doesn't look thin/grey.


Meanwhile on the table the Wolves have won their first two games at 1,750pts, first one was verses Blood Angels in Capture and Control (5 objectives) and table quarter deployment. I tabled the BA in turn 6 while holding 4 out of 5 objectives, but I will say the Blood Angels had some appalling luck.

Game 2 was on Vassal vs Necrons, Annihilation with Table Quarters again. He had Nightbringer, 2 Monoliths, lord, 8 Immortals and 30 Warriors, until turn 4 I was losing badly on KP 7-2 (cos I could just couldn't kill Nightbringer) but in turn 4 the Wolves managed one massive combat on the 30 Warriors to force the Phase out, though sacrificing a rune priest to Jaws of the World Wolf the Necron Lord did help a bit.

So I wonder what tonight's gaming will bring......