Round 3 ‘Ardboyz Battle Report - IG vs SW

Okay, so two games down and I’m still in first place with 39 pts.  Second had 35 it think.  I needed at least some type of lead to help me place in the third round.  The army I was running had 38 killpoints in this mission, thanks GW.  My opponent would be the other Space Wolves player, but with only 2 transports/fast units, doh.  He had around 20 killpoints to give up, so again I would be forced into going for the table or probably draw at best.  His list consisted of the following:

Wolf Lord – Terminator, SS, TH – walking with Wolf Guard Termies

Rune Priest – walking with Wolf Guard Termies

Ragnar Blackmane

10 GreyHunters in DropPod – 2 meltas

10 GreyHunters in Rhino

15 Blood Claws in Crusader – Ragnar on board

3 WolfGuard Termies on Foot

Arjac Rockfist – slogging with above WGT

5 Scouts – meltabombs

5 Scouts – Heavy Bolter, sniper rifle

6 Long Fangs – 2 Heavy Bolters, 3 Lascannons

I wasn’t very impressed with the list in the beginning, but it was made tougher by him getting first turn of course.  There was a large hill just off center of the table that would block line of sight to some things from one side.

For his setup he just placed the Long Fangs on a hill, with the Rhino, Crusader and Termies in center of board prepared for charging into center of my lines.  One Scout squad and pod were in reserve.  One Scout squad infiltrated to hill in center board. 

My setup, I placed down all my infantry in firing lines with heavy weapons behind them.  I then placed Chimeras between them in intervals for frontline support.  Leman Russes flanked one side and Pask in Vanquisher in the other corner.  The Medusa lined up for a shot on the Crusader center table.  The Ratlings infiltrated into a bunker.  My army took up pretty much the entire deployment zone, which gimped part of units on right side due to the large hill near center table.

Turn 1

I fail to seize the initiative.  He drops his pod full of Grey Hunters in just about 12 inches from my Leman Russ squadron and Inquisitor.  I promptly roll 8 inches on 4D6 and don’t get to annihilate them with both templates, damn this is gonna be tough.  He rolls forward in Rhino and Crusader and shoots a couple guys with the Long Fangs heavy bolters.  The three Lascannons in Long Fang squad then blow turrets off both my Leman Russes firing at front armor. Wow.

My turn comes and I move nothing, instead gearing up for shooting.  I knock Assault Cannons off the Crusader and fail to hurt the Rhino even with loads of heavy weapons.  I explode the Drop Pod and go to work on the unit that hopped out.  After firing 1/3 of my army at them three are still standing, not good.  I also kill the Scout unit that had infiltrated to hill.

Turn 2

Again he rushes forward with Rhino and Crusader and disembarks all passengers, just in front of my lines.  The remaining Grey Hunters from pod move up preparing to melta a tank.  His termies are slowly moving closer with Rune Priest firing Living Lightning each turn, zapping guardsmen while I fail to stop him with my Psychic Hood.  His meltas explode a Chimera killing several surrounding guardsmen.  The Grey Hunters from Rhino fire all weapons and take out a unit of guardsmen.  Ragnar and Blood Claws prepare to charge.  They annihilate a unit and consolidate.  Somewhere in here another Chimera was immobilized.

My turn and I have lots of targets, but with poor placement on my part and some well timed immobilizations and wrecks cause my Chimeras to be blocking line of sight with no way to move out of the way.  This keeps me from bringing my entire army to bear in a single phase of shooting.  This turn I take out the Crusader with Medusa.  I also shoot a few Long Fangs from the hill across the board.  The Rhino I cannot destroy but I do immobilize it and blow off the storm bolter, I need those 3 KP.  My big move of this turn was tossing two demo charges from Special Weapons team among all his guys who were clumped up from previous assaulting.  I kill all but a couple of the Blood Claws with Ragnar and a majority of the Grey Hunters from Rhino.  There is also one GH left with a meltagun from Drop Pod unit.  I’m still ignoring the Wolf Guard Termies.

Turn 3

His other scout squad come in behind my army and kills Inquisitor and retinue.  Ragnar and the few remaining marines begin moving in and start dismantling my remaining men and tanks with krak grenades.  I never thought these were worth even carrying around, but in this game he killed at least 4 of my Chimeras with them.  Again though, he was lucky only wrecking my tanks instead of them being removed from board. 

So with his guys taking up positions behind wrecks and immobilized vehicles in the center of my deployment zone I begin making my way over with some support Chimeras and their cargo.  My Sentinels came in this turn and killed a couple more of his Grey Hunters from Rhino unit leaving 1 remaining.  I also take out the Rhino this turn finally.  Some infantry on the left side near the Scouts shot a couple of them while others finished off the Long Fangs across the board.  His termies are getting closer.

Turn 4

He moves up termies again and uses Rune Priest as normal.  One remaining Grey Hunter with meltagun continues to hide, while the other remaining Grey Hunter does same.  Ragnar and one Blood Claw continue to walk around destroying everything they touch, including my 3 Sentinels.  The Scout squad also blows up both my Leman Russes, killing several guardsmen in the process.

My turn and there’s little I can do besides continue to get closer trying to take a few shots at hiding marines and Ragnar and Blood Claw.  I do finally cause enough wounds to kill the last remaining Blood Claw and wound Ragnar.  Marbo comes in from reserve and I place him behind the unit of Wolf Guard termies, hoping he will turn back to deal with them.  He makes 2 Storm shield saves from the demo charge.  I finally start shooting at Wolf Guard termies causing about 10 wounds, all of which were saved.  End of turn 4 he has Rune Priest, Arjac, 2 Termies and Wolf Lord walking.  He is also hiding the last remaining Grey Hunter from each of his 2 units preserving those killpoints.  Ragnar is still on the move slaying everyone and everything in his path.  He is also hiding the 3 Scouts preserving their precious 1 killpoint.

Turn 5

His Wolf Lord breaks off from unit and destroys a Chimera.  Ragnar is still beating on tanks.  Little else going on, he has very little left.

I continue to jockey for shooting positions and fire a few shots at what I can see, all of which he makes saves for with ease.  I also shoot Marbo’s pistol at Rune Priest who had broken off from unit, wounding him.  I then charge the Rune Priest with Marbo causing 3 wounds, all of which are saved by power armor.  Rune Priest then kills Marbo with his whopping 2 attacks causing 2 wounds.

Turn 6

Again little goes on from his side due to low number of marines on the table and him not risking any more killpoints.

My turn I move a Chimera with unit to center table to claim the Battle Point he had forgotten about.  I also take more shots at what I can see, watching him make all saves and at any wounds I threw at him.

End game showed he ended with 21 killpoints to my 12 killpoints.  He only had 9 models left on the table to show for the massacre he handed me.  I still had about 35% of my army remaining on the right side of the table that never really got in position to help me out due to the wrecks in between blocking passage and line of sight.  What bothered me most about this game was the fact that regardless of how many wounds I caused on a unit he would make 90% of the saves.  Sometimes I would cause 10 wounds at once and he would roll the same 2 to 3 dice at a time until all were passed.  I feel that if you take 10 wounds on similar geared unit you should roll 10 dice, not the same 2 or 3 dice, 4 or 5 times.  This really got annoying when I saw that in 3 turns of shooting I only killed one Blood Claw and wounded a Rune Priest.

Oh well, tournament ended and I had dropped to 3^rd place with 41 points.  The SW player that just massacred me finished 1^st with 57 points and reklawsj finished 2^nd with 55 points.  I feel bad giving up a massacre and taking 1^st from my cousin.  I really wanted 1^st for myself but the last mission was tough to get past without tabling. 

So we then collected our loot and hit the road for home.  I took home an Astrorath the Grim blister that I will convert to Nightlords army that I’m gonna finish up using the new Blood Angle codex.  Reklawsj took home a Skyshield Landing Pad to flesh out his collection of Planetstrike terrain and because it was the closest thing to $40 without going over he could find.

‘Ardboyz was fun this year and I’m looking forward to Semis if they ever announce the venues and it’s not ridiculously far away.  My pregnant wife and 2 year old will not let me go for more than a day.