Battle Report 19th of October

The set up for this week starts with last weeks ass whooping.  Last week I played a game at 1500pts, my Space wolves against Imperial Guard.  The IG list went like this:

Pask in a Leman Russ Punisher with Heavy Bolters
Second Leman Russ in the same squadron, this time with the Battle Cannon

Basilisk

3 Veteran Squads with heavy weapons (2 Lascannons, 1 Autocannon)
1 Chimera

Vet Demolition Squad

2 Armoured Sentinels
2 Scout Sentinels

Vendetta? The one with 3 twin linked Lascannons

My list was:

Rune Priest
3 Grey Hunter Packs
2 Razorbacks with Lascannons and twin linked Plasmaguns
Pack Leader with Combimeltas and Power Fists
One Pack had the CCW and Banner
The third Pack was on foot

2 Long Fang Packs with 5 Missile Launchers each

5 Blood Claws in a Stormwolf

Deployment

This is where I lost the game.  It was ITC mission 1, and I deployed second.  I forgot to deploy my Long Fangs on the table?!?!?  WHAT?  That was 20 missile launcher shots that I missed out on.  I also forgot to deploy the Grey Hunters on foot.  I'm blaming it on the fact that I left these units on the shelf instead of on the edge of the table where the rest of my units are.  Since I forgot to deploy these, my opponent did let me bring them on turn 2 with out rolling.

My Stormwolf came on turn 2.  It then proceeded to do 0 hull points of damage against Pask with 2 TL Multimeltas in 12" range, a TL Lascannon, and a TL Hellfrost Cannon...  Super!  Next turn the IG Flyer came on the board, and then blew up my Stormwolf.

The game didn't go on much longer after that.

BUT, after this failure, I wanted to make sure I didn't embarrass myself two weeks in a row.  I took note of the mistakes I made, and wanted to do two things: deploy smarter, and get my Grey Hunters in better position.

The first could only be done in practice, but the second meant changing my list.

I changed my list to this:

Drop Pod

• Ulrik the Slayer
• Pack Leader in Terminator Armour, Combimelta/Frost Axe, Melta Bombs
• 5 Grey Hunters
• 1 Meltagun
• Wolf Standard
• 5 Chainswords
• Locator Beacon

Drop Pod

• 10 Grey Hunters
• Pack Leader Combimelta, Power Fist, Melta Bombs
• 2 Meltaguns

Drop Pod

• 10 Grey Hunters
• Pack Leader Combimelta, Power Fist, Melta Bombs
• 2 Meltaguns

Drop Pod

• Berserker Dreadnought (Venerable, Blizzard Shield, Great Axe)

Wolf Guard Terminators (5)

• 4 Combiplasma
• 1 Storm Shield
• 2 Power Swords
• 1 Wolf Claw
• Assault Cannon/Chainfist

Stormwolf

• Twin Linked Multimeltas

This solves my delivery issue.  As you can see, there is meltaguns, meltabombs, and even a can opener, for all those tanks I'm going to encounter.

ITC Mission 2-Vanguard Strike Deployment

My objectives were, be in enemy deployment, and capture Obj 3—which was deep in his unit.

Opponent's objectives were, destroy enemy unit, and cap Obj 3.

TURN 1

I kept everything in reserve turn 1.  IG had nothing to shoot at, and chose to move toward the center objective.

This list only gets two drop pods on turn 1, which had me a little nervous to be honest.  It turns out the terrain helped me quite a bit.  I don't have pictures but, I was able to drop 2 pods next to a chimera and a veteran squad on foot out of line of sight from most of his heavy weapons.  I dropped a full Grey Hunter Squad and the Dreadnought there.  

My Grey Hunters disembarked into terrain, while the Dreadnought disembarked next to the Chimera.  The Hunter pack unloaded rapid fire and meltaguns into the vet squad, reducing its size to half.  The Dread couldn't assault, so it sat there.

Scoring:1-0 IG

TURN 2

The severely maimed Vet Squad passed their leadership and held their ground.  IG shot everything he could into the Grey Hunters and killed 3 guys in one squad, and flamed 6 to death in another.  The basilisk scattered 12" into nothingness (whew).  The Chimera tank shocked the Dreadnought, causing a hull point to both of us, and shaking them.  My Hunters failed their leadership and tactically retreated 5 inches.

I rolled 1 more drop pod to arrive and placed it where it could support the other Hunter pack.  The Stormwolf also arrived.  I finished off the last remaining veterans that were in the open, while the Stormwolf destroyed 2 Scout Sentinels. I can't remember what all the tactical objectives were but I scored 2, and my opponent scored 1.

Scoring:2-2

TURN 3

The vendetta arrives and unloads on the Stormwolf.  Still with a bad taste in my mouth from last week, I don't jink, and watch as he rolled enough 1s to only do 1 HP and nothing on the pen chart.  IG shoots once again everything at the first Hunter Pack, leaving 3 survivors.  Once again the Basilisk miserably fails, with another whopping 12" scatter.  

After weathering the storm the tide begins to turn for me.  My remaining pod with Ulrik and is gang of berserkers come down, next to a Veteran Squad, well within his deployment zone.  At this point I have abandoned my home field objective, and am going for kill points, and the IG objective if I can manage it.  The locator beacon on the last pod insures that my Terminators arrive nice and softly, right up in his face.  At this point, my whole remaining army is on the board with about 6 casualties.

I send the Stormwolf next to his Vendetta to try to melta it on my way by.  No such luck, as my hits don't glance even.  

My Hunters start munching though his Vet Squads with Ulrik, re-rolling all my 1s.  I cause a squad to break and run.  It was something silly like 24 total attacks on the charge, 5 with a Crozius, 4 with a Frost Axe.  They would mop up the rest in his assault phase.

Some Hunters are able to get into assault, and do some major damage too.

Forgetting some of the details, the score is as follows: 4-3 Wolves

TURN 4

IG vendetta goes into hover to try and finish off the Stormwolf.  Poor rolling leads to only 1 more hull point stripped off, with ample opportunity to get off the table.  

The game at this point starts to look about over, as most of my stuff is locked in combat and can't be shot at.  Except the terminators are now in range of the Punisher cannon.  With all those 2 up saves I only lose 1 terminator.

Since we knew that this was going to be the last turn, I keep my Stormwolf on the board moving it into melta range of the basilisk.  I explode it.  Power of the machine spirit fails to shoot the hovering Vendetta in the rear.  But it did blow something up at least.  Two would have been better...

Score:

Main objective: Unclaimed

Maelstrom: 6-3 Wolves

Tertiary: Linebreaker- 1-0 Wolves

Slay the Warlord-Unclaimed

Big Game Hunter-1-0 IG

Final Tally: 7-4 Wolves

Bran Redmaw Company List

I've nailed down a list to start with that maximizes my outflanking. Let's begin:

Bran Redmaw the Cursed Lord
Fenrisian Wolves (13)
314 pts

Grey Hunters (10) 257pts
Pack Leader with PF and combi-melta
Melta gun (1)
Chainswords (8)
Wolf Standard
Rhino

Harald Deathwolf 446pts
Fenrisian Wolves (2)
Thunderwolf Cavalry (3)
Storm Shield (3)
Hammer, Power Fist, Wolf Claw

All of the above outflanking. With the following as support:

Grey Hunters (10) 250 pts
Pack Leader with PF and Combi-melta
Plasmagun (2)
Rhino

Grey Hunters (10) 250 pts
Pack Leader with PF and Combi-melta
Plasmagun (2)
Rhino

Long Fangs (6) 165 pts
Missile Launcher (5)

Long Fangs (6) 165 pts
Missile Launcher (5)

Total of 1847 pts.

The glaring weakness is that there is no anti air, which is disappointing since I just built a Stormwolf...  The other thing I wanted was to include Ulrik with the long Fangs. It is fluffy and it boosts their effectiveness.

Comments and critiques welcome.

Out.

Redmaw Great Company list

This is the beginning of my Redmaw Great Company list brew. 

The goal is to maximize the number of outflanking units, and utilizing acute senses to get them where I want them, while remaining true to the space wolf theme.  I have never seen this list anywhere on the internet, which draws me to it.  I am also painting my army as Redmaw's Great Company.

My first thought is to go with Brand Redmaw as an HQ. He is a wolf lord with outflank that will eventually turn into a monstrous creature.  He also has a special rule, The Patient Hunter.  The Patient Hunters rule allows a single Grey Hunter pack the outflank rule.  Awesome.  I think this means he can outflank one unit in addition to the unit he joins (am I correct in this interpretation?).  If a model within a unit has outflank, he confers it to the unit.  If that is the case, we have 2 Grey hunter packs outflanking; the one he joins, and the one he gets with his special rule.  If that is not the case, maybe he joins 15 Fenrisian wolves instead.

The other character with outflank is Harald Deathwolf.  He can bring a large unit of Thunderwolves with him too.

That puts us here:

Bran Redmaw

Fenrisian Wolves (2)

Grey Hunters (10)

Chainswords (8)

Wolf Standard

Pack Leader

Rhino

Grey Hunters (10)

Pack Leader

Rhino

Harald Deathwolf

Fenrisian Wolves (2)

Thunderwolf Cavalry (6)

Storm Shields (6)

Axe, Claw, Fist

at about 1300 pts depending on Cavalry weapons

or

Replace one Grey Hunter Pack with 15 Fenrisian Wolves (depending on rules interpretation) at about 1188 pts depending on Cavalry weapons

Thats either 32 or 38 models outlanking with re-rolls to come on the board. 

What do you think as a starting point for the list?  It is a strong theme, but also think it could be decently hard to play against, albeit not top tier-which is not my goal.  Do you think I interpreted Redmaw's rules correctly?  What would you think would help round out the rest of the list to bring it up to 1850?  Right now, I am thinking about filling the rest of the list with mechanized Grey Hunters a la 5th edition play style.

It was the wolf in me...

Possible Bran Redmaw Model?

I saw the new Ariadna release for Infinity.  Take a look:

Either one of the warewolves would be a fantastic model for when Bran transforms.  Replace the gun with an axe and boom, done.

We begin the hunt tonight...

Scibor Celtic Shoulder Pad Review

I have put most of the Scibor Celtic shoulders on my wolf guard terminators.  The overall sculpts are really good.  They have fine detail but all of the relief sculpture on all of the pads is perfect.  This suits me fine since my painting/theme is beat up and battle worn.  But if you're looking for perfectly crisp detail, it might not fit the bill.

 Each pack comes with eight pads, two of each of the four varieties.  It is a little unusual since the terminator boxes have 5 models.  But the variety is nice and each one is uniquely identifiable from the others.  One set is larger than the other three, making it an obvious choice for a sergeant or special character.

 The sprues are thick and must carefully be sawed to reduce the chance of cracking.  I made the mistake of trying to clip one out, and chipped part of the pad off.  Like I mentioned before, this probably helps my aesthetic, but might not help yours.  It will not be noticeable from normal view however.

Here is my TH/SS from all angles.  He is going to be my Lonewolf/Arjac stand in for now.  I gave him the large ornate set of pauldrons.  

These are probably not the best bits for a beginner.  Working with resin is quite different than plastic, and these need to be shaved down to fit the terminator arms.  I used an x-acto knife to hollow out the inside of the pauldrons little by little.  Test fitting after a few layers until they fit over the arm.  Test fitting is not super necessary, since if you shave too much, green stuff can be added to get the perfect fit.  This was the only downside I found.

The shoulders have a combination of celtic knots, runes, and diamond shaped gems that fit nicely with the Space Wolf theme.  They do not have any fur on them.  I can't wait to paint these up for the full affect, and will not hesitate to try out other Scibor products.

Conclusion:

Pros

• Nice detail
• Unique design
•  Space Wolf Motif
• Easy to find online and in stores
• Other varieties available

Cons

• Some cutting required for proper fit
• Come in an 8 pack instead of 10

Would I recommend to a friend: YES

Overall quality: 9/10

Hope you enjoyed my review!

*I was in no way incentivised to give these a good review.  I paid my own money, and have no affiliation with Scibor Miniatures.

Thunderwolf Idea

I don't have any Thunderwolves yet.  Come to think of it, I don't have any Fenrisian wolves either.  I think that both of these are important to the fluff, and important to the overall theme of a Space Wolf army (go figure).  I was planning to get some Thunderwolves and model them up like normal, but I started to think hard about it.  I stumbled across some forum threads from before there were models back in 5th ed, and listened to the points people made about Space Marines riding wolves. 

I tended to side with the people who thought it was a little over the top to have SM riding wolves.  Not because of realism or because it was ridiculous looking, but because I am a dog lover, and I feel like these warriors are too.  They have their pet wolves accompany them into battle, and they jump in front of bullets, and lay down their lives for their masters.  These wolves are not saddled and ridden, they are comrades, and fellow warriors, and hunters.  They probably live with the marines and eat with them.  I wouldn't saddle my friend.  But I'd go to war with him...

As I thought of how I was going to model them up, I came across some Space Wolves riding Chaos Knight steeds.  This conversion was born out of the lack of models for a unit in the 5th ed. codex.  Take a look:

These look amazing to me.  Don't get me wrong, I love the wolf model of the Thunderwolves, I just don't like a marine riding it.  I was going to field just the wolves alone, and maybe a few guys along side the base or something, but then how would they keep up? But if hey are on a horse, it's obvious how they keep up. 

I plan on getting a box of Chaos Knights, which has 5 horses, and a box or 2 of the Wolf Cav, and fitting the wolf riders onto the horses.  All the models will represent TWC but it will look like a marine unleashed his giant wolves and is following them in the hunt.  This is way more interesting to me.  The stat line of the TWC represents the rider and the wolf both attacking the target.  I feel like it would be impossible to hit something while riding an agile canine who happens to be mauling your target.  But to let the wolf maul some guy and you ride up beside it and smash it, that's more like it!

There are two main themes of a Space Wolf army, space Vikings, and warewolves.  I tend to lean more toward the Viking aspect and don't get too heavy on the warewolves.  I like Bran, so I may make an exception for him, but that's it.  These models scream Viking to me.  Throw in some axes and shields, and you got yourself some real space Vikings.

Here's to some sweet TWC conversions, cheers!



Update on Special Weapons

This is the first time that I am going to put the guns on after I paint the torsos.  I keep hearing how it is basically cheating, but usually I'm in too big a hurry to get them on the table.  I don't have a problem playing with plastic or basecoated models most of the time.

I gave a chainsword to one of the meltagunners because... hes a viking.  'Nuff said.

Since I used some Black Reach Terminators to make Wolf Guard, I am short several sets of Terminator shoulder pads.  My local FLGS carries Scibor so I am going to pick up a few of these:

These are the Celtic #2 set for Terminators 

These are the ones for regular Power Armor.  

I want to put these on my special weapons for some added uniqueness.  I forgot how fun these models are to put together.  The wolf models have so much more opportunity for customization compared to the codex marines.

Hopefully more progress to come!

I had 12 Space Wolves new on the sprue from when I started this army.  I wanted to keep some guys in case I needed some new options. I have taken the opportunity to start building my Grey hunter special weapons to fill in some gaps in my infantry choices.  I had built four wolves with melta guns in 5th ed.  One for each pack, since the pack leader wasn't an upgrade, and he didn't count towards the unit to get the second weapon.  In 7th ed that has changed.  I can now take six in my three squads.  I would also like the option of bringing some plasma guns.  I am building four to start.  That will give me up to two packs with dual plasma guns, and one with melta for some mid field tank hunting.

I think the plasma are a little more fluffy since the Space Wolves are supposed to be the Space Marines that kill other Space Marines when the need arises.  AP 2 here we come!

This also got me thinking about these guys:

I have all my turrets built as twin-linked lascannons.  This add-on looks great, and  I am a huge fan of kitting my Wolves out to the max (just look at my Wolf Guard).  They also have some great claymores that I want to kit out some more infantry with.

These look amazing.  They really have a future greatsword/claymore  feel to them.  While poking around I also stumbled accross these:

I'm not a fan of all of them, but one handed axes are not as easy to come by as I would have hoped.  I have also thought about cutting the upper hand off the 2h axe that comes in the SW sprue.  I will give it a shot and see how it looks.

Pictures to follow.

Made it to Adepticon

Adepticon has come and gone, and it was a great weekend.  I was lucky enough to snag a quick game with Jon from The Overlords Podcast.

It was me vs. Jon and my friend.  They both brought 750 of AM each.  I can't remember the entire army list but they had a Vendetta and a Valkyrie, some heavy weapons squads, and several veterans.  I want to say Sgt. Harker made an appearance and possibly Strakken.

I brought a pretty competitive Tyranids list that I have been working on over the last year and a half.  I had the usual two Flyrants with TLDwBW to start.  That was accompanied by my brand new Hive Crone to round out the flying monstrous creatures.  My troops were two squads of termagants, and I had a Dakkafex, which finishes off the CAD I brought.  The remaining points were invested into the Living Artillery formation, which is comprised of an Exocrine, three Biovores, and 3 Warriors.  They all may re-roll their scatter dice if they are within 12" of the Warriors.

We played the mission with two objectives, one per side, and I won by first blood on turn five.  We called it because Jon had another game to attend, but had it went on the Nids would have eaten everything.  It was way too harsh a list on my part. SORRY JON!

I ended up playing two more game on Saturday, and two more on Sunday for a five game weekend. Not too bad considering I commuted and didn't stay in the hotel.  Next year will be different.  I'm going all out.

Adepticon 2015

Adepticon is 45 days away and the paintshop (i.e. Me) is hard at work completing my Salamanders list.  This army has the most complete, by far, which is why I am just going to finish it up and bring it.  It also can fit in 1 GW case which is a bonus.  I will hopefully get this back up and running  with my hobby progress.

This week I brought up my Sternguard up to a table top quality in just a weekend.  It's amazing what gets done, when I just put paint on models.

Last year I was able to get about 1200pts of Tyranids done, and this year I hope to finish a 'Nid army that I can field, and my entire Salamanders army.  I have added about 10 bikes, and 2 Thunderfire cannons to the army, so I am not as close as I once was to completing it.  Some monstrous creature purchases also means that my ,Nids aren't that close either.  A detailed list with pictures to come.