Why Tempest's Wrath rocks!

The selection of Space Wolf Psychic powers are some what varied but normally all you see on the table top is Jaws of the World Wolf, and Living Lightning. Occasionally you might see Murderous Hurricane - normally if the Wolf player is using two Rune Priests.

But with the advent of Blood Angels, Dark Eldar, Grey Knights, Necrons and now oddly other builds designed to combat mainly Grey Knights the Sons of Russ are left behind in the speed department. So how does Tempest's Wrath combat this?

Well lets look at it's effect:

Space Wolf Codex Page 37:

Tempest's Wrath
The Rune Priest brings the rage of the storm to a roaring climax, frost-fingered wind spirits whipping those who intrude upon their domain out of the skies and smashing them upon the stony ground. (fluff)

Used at the beginning of the rune Priest's turn. Until the beginning of the Rune Priest's next turn, all enemy skimmers, Jet Bikes, jump infantry and units deploying by Deep Strike that finish their move within 24" of the Rune Priest treat all terrain, even clear terrain, as both difficult and dangerous.

So that's a lot of potential threats effected - Jump Pack Blood Angels, Drop Pod Marines, All kinds of skimmers, old School Seer Council Jet Bike rocks, Vendettas, Storm Ravens, 80% of the Necron Codex etc.

Verses skimmers it's only a 1 in 6 chance to get immobilised but against a skimmer heavy army like Dark Eldar make them roll enough dice and bad things will happen. This can make the enemy think twice about moving flat out with his transports as he risks losing the transport and the unit inside!

Against DoA Blood Angels/Jump Infantry this can be devastating, not only will 1 in 6 marines drop dead from the sky, even in the assault phase they are rolling for difficult and dangerous terrain, so will Blood Angel Librarians and Mephiston with Wings activated. In addition to the dangerous terrain tests your opponent has to roll for each individual model so he has to roll for the Sergeant, special weapons etc, and even if the only casualty is the Sergeant with a power weapon/fist that's enough to turn a combat into your favour.

Against Jet Bikes it can devastating as any unit with the Turbo Boost USR can only do so if they do not start, end, or at any point go through difficult terrain. So for example against the Jet Bike Seer Council of Doom you have just brought yourself an extra turn or 2 of shooting at them and denied them their cover save of 3+!

But more than anything else it's a psychological weapon, if your opponent starts to thing about what ifs and maybes then it's going to make your life a lot easier.

GT Army List Time

Well it's nearly that time of year again - the UK Indy 40k Grand Tournament. The whole reason why just over a year ago I started blogging to get my Space Wolves finished.

This year I was planning to use Blood Angels but time and money is against me but this is what I wanted to use:

HQ:
Librarian = 100


Troops:
Assault Squad, no jump packs, power weapon, melta gun = 125
Dedicated Land Raider Redeemer (-35), Searchlight, extra armour, multi melta = 231


Assault Squad, no jump packs, power weapon, melta gun = 125
Dedicated Land Raider (-35), Searchlight, extra armour, multi melta = 231

5 Scouts, Camo Cloaks = 90

Fast attack:
Baal Predator, Assault Cannon, Heavy Bolters, Searchlight = 146

Baal Predator, Assault Cannon, Heavy Bolters, Searchlight = 146

Baal Predator, Assault Cannon, Heavy Bolters, Searchlight = 146

Heavy Support:
Predator, Autocannon, Lascannons, Searchlight = 136

Predator, Autocannon, Lascannons, Searchlight = 136

Predator, Autocannon, Lascannons, Searchlight = 136

Total: 1748

I have all these models but I just haven't enough time to build the Land Raiders, magnetise them, and then paint the lot. I have the predators build and fully magnetised with all options.

So alas I have gone back to old reliable - my Space Wolves, but they have changed since my last post about them. I have squeezed much more out of the points and considering what's hot at the moment (Necrons and Grey Knights), and boosted how I like to play them - a sort of aggressive counter attack.

HQ:
Rune Priest, Jaws, Tempests Wrath = 100

Elites:
5 Wolf guard, 3x Power fist + combi meltas, 2x Combi meltas = 175

5 Wolf Scouts, melta gun =85

5 Wolf Scouts, melta gun =85

Troops:
8 Grey Hunters, Wolf Banner, Melta Gun = 135
Rhino =35

8 Grey Hunters, Wolf Banner, Melta Gun = 135
Rhino =35

8 Grey Hunters, Wolf Banner, Melta Gun = 135
Rhino =35

5 Grey Hunters, Flamer = 75

5 Grey Hunters, Flamer = 75


Heavy Support:
6 Long Fangs, 5 Missile Launchers = 140
Razorback, Lascannon, Twin Linked Plasma Guns = 75

6 Long Fangs, 5 Missile Launchers = 140
Razorback, Lascannon, Twin Linked Plasma Guns = 75

6 Long Fangs, 5 Missile Launchers = 140
Razorback, Lascannon, Twin Linked Plasma Guns = 75

Total: 1750

Basically I have dumped Mark of The Wulfen (which saddens me), and the Land Speeders to get a second 5 man Grey Hunter squad and upgrade the Bolter-back to las/plas and bring in two more las/plas razorbacks which belong to the Long fangs for Dawn of War purposes but will get hijacked by the 2 5 man squads. Also as Space Wolves we get free searchlights and acute senses which are going to be vital vs Necrons.

I have been really enjoyed using Tempest's Wrath on my Rune Priest I think its highly underrated and I think that's due to people still thinking about using shooting powers such as Jaws, Living lightning and Murderous Hurricane, but with Grey Knights, Necrons and Dark Eldar on the scene now I think Tempests Wrath is going to be really useful. In fact I think that's a blog post for another day!

Caledonian Uprising Report - At last...

So I took my foot slogging IG to the Caledonian Uprising and as a quick reminder here is my army list:

HQ
Company Command Squad, Regimental Banner, Lord Castellan Creed= 155
Company Command Squad, Regimental Banner = 65

Elites
5 Storm Troopers, 2 Melta Guns = 105
5 Storm Troopers, 2 Melta Guns = 105
5 Storm Troopers, 2 Melta Guns = 105

Troops
Platoon 1:
Platoon Command Squad, 2 Melta Guns = 50
Infantry Squad, Autocannon, Plasma Gun = 75
Infantry Squad, Autocannon, Plasma Gun = 75
Infantry Squad, Autocannon, Plasma Gun, Commissar = 110

Platoon 2:
Platoon Command Squad, 2 Melta Guns = 50
Infantry Squad, Lascannon, Plasma Gun = 85
Infantry Squad, Lascannon, Plasma Gun = 85
Infantry Squad, Lascannon, Plasma Gun, Commissar = 120

Platoon 3:
Platoon Command Squad, 2 Melta Guns = 50
Infantry Squad, Lascannon, Plasma Gun = 85
Infantry Squad, Lascannon, Plasma Gun = 85
Infantry Squad, Lascannon, Plasma Gun, Commissar = 120

Platoon 4:
Platoon Command Squad, 2 Melta Guns = 50
Infantry Squad, Missile Launcher, Plasma Gun = 80
Infantry Squad, Missile Launcher, Plasma Gun = 80
Infantry Squad, Missile Launcher, Plasma Gun, Commissar = 115

1850

Game 1: Dawn of War. Kill Points primary, Multiple Objectives secondary.

Opponent: Josh Roberts, Cortez Henchman and Razorback spam with 20 Purifiers and 4 Psy-bolt Dreads.

I played like a total muppet, some misjudged distances and his Purifiers were into me. He rightly picked on my 5 man command squads with his Razorbacks and Dreadnoughts and started to rack up the kill points fast.

I got 2 points out of it and wasn't tabled! But my stormtroopers making a suicide pact was pretty funny. A educational loss.

2-18 loss
Josh came 4th Overall

Game 2: Table Quaters,
Primary Objective: Table quarters
Secondary: bore draw

Opponent: Mark Furniss Chaos marines. 3 land raider chaos full of berserkers and Kharn and the customary unit of Plague Marines to sit at home!

I some how managed to win this one. But one of his land raiders with dozer blades getting immobilised turn 1 kind of helped.

I just bubble wrapped up in my corner and fed the berserkers 1 unit at a time and whittle them down with mass gun fire until none where left. I bobbled up the missile launcher platoon to take a table quater as well.

15-5 win
Mark came 71st overall

Game 3: Pitch battle set up but diagonal.
Primary objective: 4 objectives (2 in each deployment zone).
Secondary: Head hunter - kill points but HQ and Elite units count as 2 kp each.

Opponent: Chris Swaine - Blood Angels, Double Land Raider Redeemers. 5 Assault Terminators and 5 assault marines with a Priest in the land raiders. 3 Auto-las predators and 2 assault squads in Razorbacks. Oh and Meph...

I played Chris at Blog Wars 2 in December and lost, but thanks to 10 plucky outflanking Guardsmen (CREEDDD!!) I managed to snatch a large win this time around thanks to some appalling luck of Chris's part which included FnP terminators being killed by lasguns and guardsmen in assault!!

19-1 win
Chris came 77th overall

Game 4: Dawn of War, but the middle line goes from corner to corner.
Primary objective: Seize Ground 5 objectives
Secondary: Kill points

Opponent Harry Allen - Leafblower IG, playing one of the best painted nominations is always a joy. Harry spent the whole game pounding my army but I blobbed up due to the Sanctioned Psyker squad and kept going to ground and using "Get back in the fight" to shoot in my turn while hiding in cover.

I just sneaked a 11-9 'win'
Harry came 15th overall

Game 5: Some kind of crazy L shape set up that goes up to 24" in and 36" across but 12" deep.
Primary Objective: Hold the middle of the board
Secondary: Bore Draw.

Opponent: Graeme Simpson, Grey Knights, same as Josh's army but with a Land Raider Reedemer holding 8 Assassins, a libby and Cotez.

Que a action replay of my game vs Josh, but this time my melta guns went on strike after flawlessly killing 5 out of 5 land raiders so far. It was the prefect game type for his army vs mine as I had to stop the Land Raider full of Assassins and the 20 Purifiers before I could even think about holding the middle of the board, but I couldn't.

Luck came back to haunt me in this one.

1-19 loss                                                             
                                                                                      Graeme came 27th Overall.

Game 6: Pitch Battle
Primary: Kill Points
Secondary: 3 objectives spaced out along the centre line

Opponent: John Jasinski, Necrons. The Traveller and a Lord both in Command barges, 2 Tryarch Walkers, C'Tan, a mini Scarab farm, 8 Immortals, 2x5 Warriors and 3 Lance Crypteks and 2 Shroud Crypteks.

At one point I thought my Stormtroopers where going to win me the game, but I started to pass/fail leadership tests at the wrong moment! The mini scarab farm was educational to play and took a real toll on my blobs but since we where both far down the ladder we both made a game of it. I got my arse kicked but it was my first game vs the new Necrons. Guardsmen on the charge can kill Scarabs with Furious charge on them via Creed or Straken, but can easily get bogged down fast.

17-3 loss.
John came 32nd overall



So 3 wins and 3 losses, and came 66th out of 110 so mid table obscurity strikes again.

I think I can walk away happy with that especially with only 2 practises game with the lists, and I would play any of my opponents again in a heartbeat. I quite liked the scoring system as it always gave you something to go for no matter how bad things where.

As ever from a Tim King event (TM) it was great fun and ran really well, and my round 5 Opponent Graeme Simpson actually got picked for the Scottish ETC team as a result of his performance at this tournament so well done to him!


Now back to magnetising 6 Predator Tanks!