Battle Report #6 - 1500 vs Space Wolves

Some what of an impromptu game vs a guy that I played a few weeks ago. I gave him some advice about his list then, and he seemed to take "some" of it on board. He has admitted he can get a little stroppy during bad games, but in both against me he didnt, fair play to the lad.

LISTS

I used the same list as Thursday night - though I dropped the combi melta on the sang priest for infernus pistols instead of hand flamers. Also went back to blood lance, though I still think I prefer fear.

His list was:

WGBL - Frost Axe, Hit on 3+

x1 Lone Wolf - TDA / x2 WC
x10 Scouts - Melta/Flamer
x1 Dread - Plasma/DCCW

x10 GH - x2MG Mark of Wulfen WC - Walking
x10 GH - x2 MG Mark of Wulfen WC- Walking
x10 GH x2 MG Mark of Wulfen- WC Rhino
x5 BC's Mark of Wulfen - Lucas - TLLC Razor (WGBL Here)

x4 LF's -x3 ML's

His list was not the best, he prefers foot lists, so I told him about the logan list which is really easy for him to make with his models (he needs 1 logan, a few cyclones and some misile guys, bout it, rest he can use his normal models for).

MISSION

Deploy: Pitched
Mission: 3 Objectives
Table/Terrain - 4x4 - we had x3 ruins in a "triangle" where one is on the center right flank, then I had one near the front of my center left side (in the center of a 1x1 tile) and he had the same mirrored on his side (so both ruins faced each other with the center being on the other flank, center).

The 3 objectives were in each of the buildings - we pre-determined this.

I win to go first, and I pick the slightly better side - he has a more open flank that he might be forced to be deployed in.


DEPLOYMENT

I choose to go first. I setup around my objective. I kind of setup as if its spear head. I put the lasplasrazors up into the board edge corners, then the AC razors just in front in cover behind the ruin. The daka pred covers the right side of the building, the autolas pred's cover the left hand board edge and the right hand center "flank of my force". I put my x2 baals about 14" away on the right side of my board - "eldar" style and they eventually scout up about 16" back towards my force, but near the center of the board, hiding 1 behind the other, popping smoke on the lead.


He deploys with his LF's and GH on foot in his ruin with the objective, then puts his razor/rhino on my right flank facing my baal's - clearly going for that "lone" objective. His dread is behind this with a GH squad.

THE PLAN

I felt quite confident about the game. He'd split his forces and clearly was looking to load up on that right hand objective, while it seemed a "good choice" for me to take, he'd have to split his slower forces to go for anything, where as I could "fake" going for that objective then use mass AV13 to block off his objective and mine. I knew his scouts would come on to try and contest, but I was not worried about that, they would be so isolated that x1 razor and 1 squad could handle them quite easy. I had a lose plan around this.

THE BEGINNING:

So he tries to seize and fails. From my setup I shift forward, everything moves 6" forward to get all the AC's into threat range, the dakka goes 12" to barrier up completely my mid field; he cannot enter the midfield without blowing up a few tanks, but I make it so he should be out of double pen range w/ melta. My early plan is to remove his mobility and ranged threats. I couldnt get clear shots on the razor and dread, so I dont risk it, imob his rhino instead. I put some shots into his GH's out in the open and drop a couple. I put most of long range into his longfangs, I manage to drop them.

In return he moves his GH up a bit, he gets his GH's out of the imob'd/shaken Rhino and runs forward, he moves his razor 12" w/ Lucas to the center objective, and runs his dread. He doesnt have any shooting except a pot shot at my dakka pred - which I think he shakes in this turn.

In my T2 I move back a little bit and reshuffle for some shots - still firmly in the midfield. I put a lasplas and autolas onto my left flank (12" and 6" move respectivily) and wreck his razorback. The left flank autolas explodes his dread. I still want to elimate his troops if I can, so I try to take advantage of him having x2 squads in the open while I can. I put the baals and x1 AC raz into them, managing to drop 1 squad to 4 guys and another squad to 4 or 5. The other AC raz and the left flank lasplas fire at his grey hunters but do nothing due to cover saves.

In his T2 he doesnt get his scouts. He moves his squads into cover on the objective - and takes fire. 1 squad wrecks the Baal - leaving it blocking LOS to the midfield / where my tanks are, also making quite a big piece of terrain to move over/around. Other than that his shooting was ineffectual.


THE MIDDLE:

At this stage I move back a tiny bit away from melta range to really blitz him out of positions. I fire 1 tank at his reduced GH squads, they do fail their leadship and run (I am not 100% but this may have happened in T2 not T3, I really need pictures, I did use a razor to set it up so he couldnt rally and he ran off the board). I fire a couple more at his other squad and leave him with 1 melta/mow guy. I anticipate his scouts coming on near my objective so I pull back the autolas/lasplas near my objective. I now go to work on the troops in his objective, I put ALOT of fire into them, nearly everything, but he makes a fortune of cover saves, and I drop 3 or 4 out of 10. However, he fails leadership and they run off the board (double 6, bad luck on his part really). At this stage in my mind I've won, his scouts could make life harder for me, but I've essentially blocked in him on 1 objective and have a pathway between two objectives with 8 tanks up and all my squads.

In T3 He gets his scouts on, and they go where they like, so he gets them coming on my left edge right by my objective. He choses to run them into the objective, interesting since he could go to ground for 3+'s etc... to be hard to shift. I made life very hard for him, and he goes for it with the lone melta, who has moved to cover, who fires and misses at my razorback w/ my libby in it.

My T4 I start to move now, the libby squad gets out near the far objective and ploughs Lance/Infernus/Melta into the melta, and an Assault Cannon, he goes to ground for 3+ and lives. I fire 1 baal at his GH in the ruins and they fail leadership and run. He didnt actually need go to ground as he made the 4+ cover save but who can blame him. The rest of my army fires at his scouts who "strategically" remove to the point I dont want a failed charge. I kill about 5 of the 10. I decide to run with the FNP squad and get a 4 - enough to charge, damit (I thought it was about 5", a long 4 at best).

In his T4 he moves the scouts up 1 level in the ruins, interesting, I do think this was a decent move, I could fail to kill them / charge them in T5 and they contest, and it could be a 1-1 - however it was unlikely. Other than that he really cant do much.

THE END

At this stage I can ice the game for sure here. I create the AV13 / 11 wall w/ the AC pred, empty AC raz, empty lasplas raz, Autolas and the wrecked baal so that his lonewolf / trickster cant get near either objective in T5 at all. I deploy 2 squads near his scouts (1 was already in cover w/ the priest). I move my libby out 2 or 3" so he can charge the melta guy, I run the squad he was with right into the back of the ruins rather than shoot as now they are x2 difficult terrain rolls away, the libby didnt fire either as I wanted him to charge into cover and consolidate into blocking of LOS (to avoid counter charge by lucas in T6 if he could get through a tank + consolidate far). The rest of my army just fires at his scouts, I drop them to the PW one, and manage to get a 5 on my charge roll (only needed 3 to get up a level) - with FC from the 5" bubble in the other squad I drop him with only a 4+ to save him. The libby in the other combat kills the melta who doesnt do anything in return.


His T5 and its pretty much over, he really cant do anything, if it ends on T5 its a win, nothing can get across in time. He "lines out" lucas and his Bc's so they hold his objective but Lucas can charge the AC razorback near my libby. His LW moves to my autolas near my objective - in theory he could consolidate and contest in T6 if I shoot terribly. The LW does nothing to the autolas, and I make the 5++ cover save from shield on the razorback, he charges, but does nothing.

Game Doesnt End - but my opponenet gives up.

Had it gone to T6 he now has his only scoring unit out of cover w/ alot of rending/AP2 things to hit him plus I could charge with a couple of squads and probably mop him up. Same with the LW which would have had only its 5++ to cover him.

CONCLUSSION

*EDIT* There are some miss timed events up there, I cant remember when I shot and made the smaller GH squad run off with my razor, I felt like it was late game but they ran twice, I think it was T2 I shot them, T3 I moved the razor.

I played this guy with my last game of my DeathStar Term squad - and he has made some improvements since then. He's dropped down to only 1 BC squad, and while he got lucas, it was an improvement over his last list. He brought a lot more melta to the party, and when one of the spectators told him "plasma is the way to go" he told him to shut up. Fair play. I've told him to give Loganwing a go - he wants a foot army and really thats the best SW foot army imo.

So I've told him to rock w/ Logan / x4 WG squads (min) with x1 cyclone in each, no other terms. x2 (min) LF squads with ML's OR 1 squad of melta's with Logan moving forward (and then maybe having x2 more LF squads with 2 or 3 ML's in them) and then a couple of lone wolves w/ SS/CF's - it wont take much for him to make that army at all - just the devs really.

Back to the game; over all it was a pretty easy game, I made mistakes though. I think I was correct in the way to eliminate his troops out of cover first then blow his covered troops next, and my deployment was pretty decent. I should have been a bit better with positioning in the midfield, and think sometimes I had chosen bad targets so that I ulimately ended up with say 1 lascannon firing at a squad w/ cover. I think my Lasplas's should have been further forward.

Over all it was baby seal clubbing time, but you have to find mistakes no matter how small or weak an opponent just so that you can magnify them before someone else does.


LIST:

I am still not sure if this is the list I want. I like the priest and I dont like him. FNP could be great for objective sitting and he has saved my bacon in that necron game, and I see a few situations I do want it in. However, dropping that 50 points + dropping the HB's off the AC's gains me another Baal w/ no sponsons (x3 ACs vs x2 + x4 HB's - interesting), and this would make for a more natural transition to 1750 where I'd add a libby, drop the 3rd baal, add another AC Razor squad and add back the sponsons. Certainly need to think about it.