Aka, How to beat up on poor Newbies.
I have been itching to play with a 2,000pt. Space Wolf list since I have converted up some new models. I went on to Vassal for a pickup game and came across an IG player. At the time, I didn't know it, but he is fairly new to the game, so this ended up being a fairly nasty rout. I will start with a run down of the lists and go from there.
I took:
Rune Priest- living lightning, jaws of the world wolf, chooser, wolf tail talisman
Rune Priest- living lightning, murderous hurricane, chooser
-Each rode with an 8 man grey hunter squad
5 scouts- meltagun
5 scouts- meltagun
7 wolf guard
- 4 with pistol/power weapon (with grey hunters)
- 2 with combi-melta/power weapon/meltabombs (with scouts)
- 1 in terminator armor with cyclone missile launcher, power weapon, and storm bolter (with long fangs)
5 grey hunters- meltagun, lascannon/TL plasma razorback
5 grey hunters- meltagun, lascannon/TL plasma razorback
8 grey hunters- meltagun, wolf standard, mark of the wulfen, power weapon, rhino
8 grey hunters- meltagun, wolf standard, mark of the wulfen, rhino
Thunderwolf cav- thunder hammer, storm shield
Thunderwolf cav- wolf claw, storm shield
Thunderwolf cav- powerfist, storm shield
5 long fangs- 4x missiles
5 long fangs- 4x missiles
5 long fangs- 4x missiles
So, the idea I had here was that my army tends to move forward way to slowly with maxed out razorbacks, so I have added in an extra rhino squad that I can throw forward agressively. This helps put the pressure on my opponents and also allows my rune priests to get closer in for more psychic power options. Everything else is my normal fare.
My opponent took:
company command squad- commander with plasma pistol/powerfist, vox, medic, 2x bodyguards, master of ordinance
8 ratlings
infantry platoon- commissar
- special weapons team- 2x plasma, 1x melta
- special weapons team- 2x sniper, 1x flamer
- heavy weapons teams- 3x lascannons
2x vet squads- 4+ armor upgrade, 2x chimeras
3x Leman Russ Executioners
3x Leman Russ Punishers
So, as you can tell, not a good list. The leman russes didn't have any sponson weapons and took up a huge chunk of his firepower. The vets didn't have any special or heavy weapons. This just seemed really odd. Looking back, I should have known that this guy was new to 40k.
My opponent wanted a fairly densely populated board, so here is a picture of our map. For clarification, whole buildings blocked LoS and were impassable. Ruins provided 4+ cover, were difficult, and obscured vehicles. The forest provide 4+ cover, but didn't obscure.
We rolled capture and control for the mission and dawn of war deployment. My opponent won the first turn and this how we deployed.
My opponent started the game by bringing on his punishers in a really odd place. They were hampered pretty badly by his slow movement of the left most chimera. They didn't shoot on turn 1 or 2. Thanks to good old night fight rules, he managed to do absolutely nothing this turn. Even his master of ordinance managed to scatter away harmlessly from my rhino.
In my turn, my forces rolled on and I sent my thunderwolf cav as far forward as possible. My forward rhino shot around the middle building and smoked. I was hoping to blow up the rightmost chimera early on (yet again, should have known he was new when he didn't put the vet squad in its chimera).
Shooting saw me take out 1 lascannon heavy weapon team, but they passed morale. Below is the game as it stood before turn 2 started.
My opponent continued to slowly push up his punishers behind an equally slow chimera. He also moved up his pedestrian vets and their chimera, though neither shot. In shooting, he managed to plink off a wound from my wolf claw thunderwolf. Otherwise, I remain unscathed. This is where my opponent made a huge mistake that showed his lack of game knowledge. He didn't shoot his punishers and when asked if he would like to go back and do so, he said that the thought they were out of range. I think he could have possibly been in range of my thunderwolf cav, but he insisted on moving on.
In my turn, both scout unit came on, one coming on behind his punishers while the other came on behind this command squads. My forward rhino moved around the building to shoot at his chimera and other things generally advance. I also hopped a 6 man grey hunter squad out of their razorback to go sit on my objective for the rest of the game. In shooting, my meltagun and runepriest in the forward rhino managed to stun the chimera. My leftmost scout unit blew up a leman russ and my other scouts managed to pick off a single model from the company command squad. In all this was not a great turn of shooting for me.
In assault, my left scouts managed to blow up another leman russ with a well placed meltabomb. This cost them 2 of their number to do. The other scouts managed a 2 wound, 1 on a bodyguard and 1 on the commander and took 2 wounds back, drawing the combat.
In this turn, my opponent really started feeling the pressure that my scouts had created. In fact, he used just about every bit of shooting possible to try and eliminate them. His executioners came on the board and roll up in the same alleyway that his punishers came on (once again I was scratching my head). Both special weapons squads moved up to shoot the leftmost scouts, while the platoon command squad turned to face my scouts in combat. In shooting, the remaining lascannons managed to kill off my wolf claw thunderwolf. The combined might of 3 executioners and 2 special weapons teams finally did enough damage to take out my left most scout squad. The punisher and chimera poured a stunning 26 shots into my powerfist thunderwolf and managed to do a single wound.
In assault the platoon command squad went in to my scouts and lost one of their number as well as the company command squad. The scouts were then beaten and powerfisted for their trouble.
In my turn, I move my forward rhino up to start a push towards my opponent's corner while still keeping the chimera in sight. My back rhino moved up and dropped off its squad of grey hunters + rune priest to shoot at the vet squad advancing. My thunderwolves moved up to cause damage to his left chimera and the remaining punisher. My grey hunter squad also made it to our home objective and hunkered down for a long wait.
In shooting, I accomplished a lot. The forward rhino wrecked the chimera next to it. The grey hunters in the forest shot/living lightning-ed the vets taking out half of their number causing them to flee after a failed morale test. The razorbacks took out the lascannon teams and an astounding amount of frag missile hits took out one of the special weapons teams completely. The leftmost fangs wrecked the left chimera as well.
In assault, my powerfist thunderwolf was just short of the left vet squad and safety from enemy fire with a low difficult terrain roll. The black thunderwolf assaulted the punisher in front of him. In combat his thunder hammer managed to shake, immobilize, and destroyed the gatling gun on the punisher making it almost useless.
The game was now becoming very desperate for my opponent. He knew that he needed to do some damage quickly. With that he moved his executioners forward down the alley while everything else prepared to shoot at my army. In shooting, my powerfist thunderwolf was shot by a lucky lasgun shot and taken down. The executioners opened up on my left razorback only managing to shake it. The ratlings managed to kill a single marine from the big grey hunter squad in the trees while the vet squad next to them were ordered to get back into the fight. The remaining special weapons team opened up, but managed to do absolutely nothing to the last thunderwolf due to his positioning behind the leman russ. Finally, a last call in for orbital bombardment saw the template scatter off of my right most long fang unit onto my objective holding grey hunters. Thanks to cover, I was able to save all but two of them. They got pinned, but didn't mind as they were just camping out anyway.
Since the punisher was all but finished, I decided the executioners would need some attention from the thunderwolf. He moved up through the building to get into assault range. The grey hunters in the middle forest got into their rhino and it charged straight through the forest to get closer to the command squad. In order to win this, I would have to clear that platoon command squad off of the objective. The forward rhino let out all of its crew save the rune priest. They moved towards the ratlings in hopes of assaulting this turn. The rhino moved on with rune priest to get him into LoS for some living lightning next turn. My shaken razorback smoked.
In shooting, my grey hunters shot at the ratling snipers and managed to kill three. The snipers panicked and ran off the board. Other shooting took its toll by killing all but the platoon commander from his squad, despite them going to ground. On the far left the vet squad went to ground and only took one casualty. The vets near the company command went to ground and managed to save all of their wounds.
In assault my thunderwolf managed to stun (downgraded to shake) the executioners preventing them from doing much of anything useful next turn.
My opponent knew he needed to take out the thunderwolf, so he moved up his special weapons squad to point blank range. This was the sniper/flamer squad. In shooting, through some tricky orders, almost everyone managed to stand up from being gone to ground. Despite this, not much was capable of dealing damage to my mech. The special weapons squad, though at point blank range, managed to do nothing to my thunderwolf.
In my turn focused fired began to really take its final toll. My thunderwolf once again moved up to assault the executioners. My grey hunters outside of their rhino moved up to shoot at the vets on the right of the main ruin. My razorbacks moved to get good lines of fire on his platoon commander without blocking my long fangs' shots. In shooting, frag missiles accounted for half of the veteran squad on the left. They failed morale and ran. The missiles also killed all but one of the special weapons squad. He also failed morale and ran. My razorbacks managed to kill off the platoon commander, opening up that objective while my other shooting managed to wipe out the other vet squad and kill enough of the company command squad to force a morale check. They passed. I also managed to take off the heavy bolter of the punisher making it completely worthless.
In assault, the thunderwolf wrecked two of the executioners while the third would be stunned for the rest of the game.
At this point it was about over. My opponent failed to rally his two troop units and the vets ran off the table. The single special weapons model stayed on and was ordered to get back in the fight. He was then ordered to run, run, run in range of the home objective. In shooting, the master of ordinance tried a bombardment and failed while the company commander tried to pop a wound off of the thunderwolf with his plasma pistol.
In my turn, everything turned towards a relevant target to try to remove my opponents' entire army. The thunderwolf moved towards the last executioner. The razorbacks angled to shoot at the lone special weapons model. The left most rhino disgorged its squad into the ruin so that they could get to within possible assault range while the other grey hunters moved up to get into shooting range of the company command squad. I opened up shooting with my left most fangs managing to get an immobilized result on the punisher which was enough to wreck it due to its already being immobilized and having no guns (definitely needed some sponson guns). I then focused fire into the special weapons model. He went to ground and passed both razorback saves. Then the rune priest and grey hunters in assault range living lightning/melta/pistol-ed him to death. This is where my opponent called it. At this point, I had three company command squad members left of which the commander had already taken two wounds. I also had a stunned executioner with a thunder hammer wielding thunderwolf staring at it.
Win for the Sons of Russ! This was a fun game, but it didn't feel as great since it became very obvious during game play that my opponent was very new to 40k. His army selection, deployment, and poor tactical choices really cost him. At no point during the game did I not have full control of the game, something I struggle with when playing IG. In the end, fun game, but nothing tactically exciting to write home about. Does anyone else out there have the experience of playing a lot of newer players on Vassal? I am having trouble finding good veteran players. Anyway, please leave any comments. Thanks for reading!
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