Tournament Time...

2 Saturdays ago marked our local GW's Single elimination tournament. A 2000 points win at all costs tournament in which a loss means your out. The TO of this tournament did the same setup when he did the kill team tournament that he ran a couple of months ago. I wasn't expecting this type of setup, I at least wanted to be guaranteed 3 games and me being so new with my army, I wasn't expecting to win it. What I can say is that I prepared for Kill points and pitched battle as the TO told us that the tourney would be using these setups and my army was very stingy in the kill point department with my opponents needing to kill squads to give up one and only having 1 vehicle which was my venerable Dred. My list consisted of the following -
Wolf Lord on Jugger...ah thunderwolf with frost weapon, belt of russ, runic armor, bolt pistol
Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf with Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield, runic armor
Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf with Frost weapon, Storm Shield, runic armor, and saga of the wolfkin
All 3 had 2 wolf body guards and joined a 14 Wolf squad
Rune Priest with Murderous Hurricane and living lightning
Blood claw pack (13) with power weapon
2 Grey hunter packs with power weapon, plasma gun, melta gun
Venerable Dred with Assault Cannon
2 Long Fang squads, 1 with 3 missile launchers and 2 Plasma Cannons, 1 with 3 Lascannons and 2 heavy bolters.

My First game was against an Ork player. Again all I can say is OMG!!! My opponent brought a tough list with 2 15 ork commando units, one led by Snikrot. I gave him first turn as I wanted to see what he was going to do and I wanted to deploy my Long Fangs in the best position that I could. He deployed his hammer unit of Nobs with his warboss in the center of the table. This was the unit that I need to make disappear as I know the power of the unit. Big mistake my opponent did was not to deploy them in his battle wagon opting instead to have them go on foot. He put his big unit of burnas in the wagon which I immobilized in turn 2 thus causing my opponent to have to footslog it.

After taking out his nob squad and then the unit of 3 killer kans, the rest was clean up. The only threat my opponent had was his 2 commando squads which didnt come in until turn 3 and were thus left with taking out just a long fang squad that I let him have. My Wolf lords performed exactly like they had in my last 2 games, just destroying everything they touched. By turn 4, my opponent conceited the game and I scored a mighty 8 kill points and he scored 1. Another victory for my chaos space wolves.

Next game was against the guy who ended up winning the tourny who played a blood angel army that amongst my opponents would be the toughest I would face. The game was pretty even with both of us having a very good hammer unit that if used properly could change the outcome of the game. I started very strong by killing 1 of his Baal Preds and stunning his landraider. He responded by taking out my blood claws and a grey hunter unit with my rune priest. This was just dumb, as he lost 3 jump troops including his Sang priest due to murderous hurricane. My opponent just rolled incredible and I just rolled horribly. This one assault squad accounted for both my Grey Hunters squad and would have kept going if I didn't split one of my lords from my hammer unit to deal with them.

I wasn't the only one rolling badly, my opponent actually ended up immobilizing his landraider and his other Baal Pred. Even though I had lost 3 of my units, it still was a close game until I made a huge mistake. I didn't account for the 2 inches that a unit gets for disembarking from a vehicle, that 2 inches gave my opponent's death company and chaplain to reach one of my lords dogs as I had broke from cover trying to assault another one of his assault units which I couldn't reach due to a bad fleet roll. After the assault phase was done, I had lost all of my dogs as he got his death company and his assault squad in assault with me and put 2 wounds on my 2 lords. My lords fought back and cut down almost half of both huge squads but were eventually brought down. If my 3rd lord was still in the unit, the assault would have definitely gone my way. The game went on until turn 6 with me almost tying it but again due to a low fleet roll, couldn't get to his last baal pred with my remaining Wolf Lord. I lost 7 to 6. Ah well, it was a good game but it goes to show that my army is not unbeatable. Its definitely a hard list and one that is fun to play. It was a great tournament and even though I didn't win I was awarded a Black Library book and an audio book. Pics are of my almost finished Thunderlords and 5 of my 15 Bloodclaws.

Test 2...

Well I got the chance this Wednesday to try out my army once again before the big tournament. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my lovely wife allowed me to purchase 2 6 by 2 tables which when put together form a nice 6x4 gaming table, of course after I lay down my battlemat and some terrain. As our living space is limited, the only place to play confortably is in our patio and as the temperature had dropped significantly would be nice to play outside after work. Wednesdays is our weekly gaming/painting meet between my wife and my best friend to talk strategy, paint some models, and play some games. We rarely play 40K until our weekly Saturday club meetings at our FLGS so this was definitely a chance I couldnt pass up. My friend is also going to be in the tournament and will be taking a tough as nails Chaos list. This list consists of 2 squads of terminators, a chaos terminator lord, deamon prince, and a greater daemon. Along with these hard hitting units he is also bringing with him oblits, a defiler, landraider, and vindicator. I love this list as having all of these options makes it hard for an opponent to know what to shoot at first I mean do I go after the defiler, the vindicator, the daemon prince, or the landraider; not to mention the rhinos full of chaos space marines and chosen. This is where long fangs just shine, with their ability to split fire I could potential take out 3-4 vehicles a turn or put a lot of wounds on a daemon prince. My friend deployed first with his most hard hitting units in the center getting ready for the charge. I deployed my super unit in the center to soak up some damage with my long fangs squad deployed on each side of my deployment area (we were playing kill points/pitched battle like the tourney).

My Grey hunters were also deployed in this way along with my blood claws and Dread. What we both didnt expect was that I would steal the initiative and take out his defiler and vindi in the first turn!! My super unit did what they do best and took out some rhinos, the land raider, and some terminators. His daemon prince actually did pretty well against my lords actually killing one of them and killing all of my dogs. This I expected as a slaaneshi daemon prince with warp time is still very deadly. By the time turn 5 came around, my friend only had his greater deamon and a rhino filled with 9 chaos marines. I cant say that I should take all the credit as my friend was for the most part rolling pretty bad, especially his reserve rolls with his greater daemon not coming out until turn 5 and his terminator lord with his retinue not coming until turn 4, still my list performed brilliantly and I will definitely go on record with saying that as it stands now, the Space Wolves are without a doubt the strongest codex out there. Now to see how I do in the tournament as I will be facing blood angels and definitely space wolves. Wish me luck...

Test 1...

Today was the first day I took out my Chaos (space wolves) army for a "test drive". All I gotta say is OMG!!! This first game with my Space Wolves was definitely a surprise for me, I knew that the list was going to do well but I expected to tie or lose until I got the hang of the list.

What I didn't count on was how forgiving the army was. My first game I played a very good Black Templar player who has been using his army for years now and is a very accomplished player.

I actually played him during a tournament last year and he soundly beat my Thousand sons army with the same army. I deliberately held my "hammer" unit of the 3 thunder lords and their dog retinue on the right side of the table away from his sword brethren terminator squad in a landraider whom he deployed on his right side. I threw them a bone by letting them munch on my blood claws squad which he charged and killed all but one of them. I then assaulted them with my venerable dread after shooting them up with a squad of grey hunters. My Dread actually ended up holding up the squad until turn 5 which effectively took them out of the game until my lords could get over to that side. My 2 mistakes was deploying my 2 long fangs squads with for all of their trouble only killed 1 rhino and maybe 6 neophytes. They really didn't contribute much to the game as by killing the landraider the game would have been easier for me. My second was a missed assault with my dogs and my lords by failing a roll to assault 3 squads at once having him in return assault me.

This action killed all of my dogs thus giving him a kill point and possibly could have lost 1 or 2 of my lords, thank goodness for 2+ saves as my opponent put about 15 wounds on my lords, wounding 2 of them. After these mistakes though my 3 lords accounted for 48 dead marines including the emperors champion and his marshal. I hope to have more of the army painted before next Saturday in time for the tourney, at least I dont have to have the whole army done by then as the tourney organizer just wants the armies to be WYSIWYG... Pics are of my 3 Thunders lords about 40% done.

Back to Chaos...

Last Saturday was the last week for my planetary empires campaign and wow was it full of surprises... Overall with almost 13 titles our local Eldar player took it beating out both a blood angels and space wolf player for the top spot, maybe their is something to this idea that its the player that makes the list and not the list that makes the player.

The missions varied as well and not all objective based so these wins were not easy. Of the 8 players I thought that it would come down between the Blood angel, the Space Wolf, or the Chaos player who plays a solid Slaaneshi themed list and who in fact tied the eldar player who besides the tie went undefeated. I unfortunately wasn't able to play as yet again all of the players showed up. No pick up games either as all the tables were being used.
Oh well, this week began with me concentrating on getting back to my Chaos/Space Wolves army and actually finishing my first 20 Grey Hunters/Chaos space marines. Now I need to concentrate on my 15 man Bloodclaws squad, my 2 Long Fangs squads, and my 4 HQ's which I already started on.

I have a 2000 pt tourney that I might be a part of and I would love to take this army, but we shall see as I would like to have more of it done before I take it for a test drive. Pics are of my Finished Chaos marine/Grey Hunters (just got to do the trim around the bases). Let me know what you think...