Lions vs Wolves, Oh My
Sunday at the cave saw just Sheri and I there to play, so we wound up playing against each other this time. I wanted to give my Dark Talon another go, so I played my Night Angels. Sheri played her Space Wolves.
My list contained a lot of my old chestnuts - Interrogator-Chaplain Gideon on a bike, Ravenwing Command Squad, two 10-man Rhino-mounted Tac Squads with combi-melta, melta, and grav cannons, Venerable Dreadnought Ancient Absalom, and Relic Sicaran Fusilier. New elements consisted of my Dark Talon, my Nephilim jet fighter (dubbed Fateslayer after it shot down Fateweaver in a tournament), and Predator Annihilator Relentless (the name earned after exchanging fire with a Chaos Land Raider for several turns way back in 4th edition).
Sheri's army was designed around her newly-assembled Stormwolf, carrying 15 Blood Claws and Lucas the Trickster. Along with the Stormwolf, she also had Harald Deathwolf, Njal Stormcaller, Murderfang, her usual Thunderwolf Cavalry, a Rhino full of Grey Hunters, and a 5-man unit of Wulfen.
You can see our deployment above. One of my Rhinos, my Predator, and Ancient Absalom were all behind the mesa in the near right corner. I put my Scouts on the midfield objective. Sheri's Wulfen were way the heck in the far left corner. Njal and the Iron Priest are behind Murderfang mid-field. The mob of Blood Claws are in reserves in the Stormwolf.
Because our two forces have been allies in the past, we called this game a "training exercise", with senior officers of the two chapters overseeing.
We just played a straight up Eternal War: Crusade mission with Dawn of War deployment. Sheri got first turn.
Turn 1
Sheri's first turn was unremarkable - she moved up with everything. In her psychic phase, Njal killed a couple Scouts. With no shooting to speak, her turn ended quick.
My first turn was similar. I moved up my two Rhino-mounted Tac Squads, and had my Scouts shift to my right flank with the notion they could counterattack the Wulfen. I had my Ravenwing Command Squad lateral to my left, because I knew they were the only thing in my army with any chance of overcoming the Thunderwolves. I actually had a shooting phase, but all it did was wreck Sheri's Grey Hunters' Rhino.
On the other flank, I had a demi-squad disembark from their Rhino to absorb a charge from the Wulfen, and moved the Scouts to counter-charge. In the center, I had my Rhino-mounted Tac Squad move up to the center objective.
In my shooting phase, I was able to whittle down one Wulfen.
Yeah, those are old-school Wulfen. I used to have a 13th Company Space Wolves list, from the old Eye of Terror list. I still had the Wulfen minis kicking around when Sheri jumped into being a Space Wolf player with both feet. I converted a few of them, one to have a thunder hammer+storm shield combo, and two others to have great frost axes. I managed to bring down one of them with my shooting.
Turn 2
Sheri moved up on all sides again. Her Stormwolf didn't come in this turn. The most remarkable event of her turn was to charge my Predator with her Thunderwolves. Predictably, they wrecked it. Her Wulfen also massacred my deployed demi-squad.
On my turn, both my flyers came in. I flew my Dark Talon over her Thunderwoves, dropping its stasis bomb on them for a direct hit. I also moved my RWCS into position to strike the Thunderwolves. I had Ancient Absalom clear a path for the Ravenwing. I had my Nephilim come in at the shallowest angle I could, wanting to be able to turn it and engage Sheri's Stormwolf next turn.
My RWCS fired plasma talons on the Thunderwolves. They were able to absorb it with mimimal loss, but it got Harald down to his last wound.
In my assault phase, I charged the Thunderwolves with my RWCS and Ancient Absalom. Between the two of them, they tore through most of the unit, leaving just two that couldn't strike back. Holy cow, is a stasis bomb effective! I had the RWCS Hit & Run out, leaving the Thunderwolves locked with Ancient Absalom.
In the center, I immobilized Murderfang with a grav cannon shot.
The fighting on the other flank went more Sheri's way. I charged the Wulfen with my Scouts, and the net result was I lost most of my Scouts.
Turn 3
This was a rough turn for Sheri. Her Stormwolf still didn't come in, so she had to slog on with what she had. She was able to remobilize Murderfang, but she charged my RWCS with her Grey Hunters, and that proved disastrous. I had a good round of overwatch, leaving Sheri with not enough Grey Hunters to swamp the RWCS, who cut themselves out without any losses, and Ancient Absalom bopped down the last two Thunderwolves. The Wulfen, at least, finally wiped out my Scouts.
On my turn, I had Ancient Absalom start moving towards the left-side objective on the ridge line, and had my RWCS speed over it. I had my Dark Talon enter hover mode so it could shoot at Murderfang, but I had the Nephilim bank off and go into active reserve. I tried to move my Sicaran to bring its guns to bear on the Wulfen, but it got immobilized. My shooting phase wasn't very impressive - I whittled off a couple of the Wulfen, but didn't get all of them.
Turn 4
You may notice a drop-off in photos at this point. I started taking them because I intended to write a batrep for the game for the blog. I stopped a this point because things were going so poorly for Sheri at this point. I figured I wasn't going to write the batrep, as no one likes to read about a complete rofl-stomping, which is what the game looked like up to this point, but it would turn around.
It didn't this turn though. Her Stormwolf finally showed up, and she flew it to midfield. She did manage to wreck my midfield Rhino with her Stormwolf, and also put a couple hull points on my Dark Talon despite its rerollable Jink save. However, when she tried to have Murderfang charge my Tac Squad, I destroyed him in overwatch. Her remaining Wulfen wrecked my other Rhino, forcing the demi-squad still embarked to deploy.
I had an uneventful turn. My Nephilim came back in from active reserve, and my Dark Talon powered off. Ancient Absalom tried to get up the ridge line to the objective on top of it, but the loose scree proved poor footing for the venerable war machine (rolled poorly for Difficult Terrain). My RWCS roared up to bring plasma talons to bear on the Stormwolf, and my Nephilim angled in on it as well. I put two hull points on it in my shooting phase, but failed to bring it down.
Turn 5
Sheri's biggest asset remaining on the table was her Stormwolf full of Blood Claws, which she positioned as carefully to deploy her Wolf Claws in the best position possible, using its hover mode to do so. She was in little danger of having it shot down by my Nephilim, because it was close enough to make my interceptor overshoot it. She moved her last remaining pesky Wulfen to grant its Curse of the Wulfen bonus to her Blood Claws. Plus, Njal and the Iron Priest moved up on my Tac Squad sitting on the center objective. On her turn, her Blood Claws failed to charge, but her two characters piled into my Tac Squad, killing all but one of them.
On my turn, my Dark Talon came back in, and I had my Nephilim zoom off the table, since it was overshooting the Stormwolf anyway and I couldn't get it to bear on anything else worth attacking with it. I broke Interrogator Chaplain Gideon off to go after Njal and his Iron Priest buddy, and drove my RWCS right up the Blood Claws' noses.
Then I shot with my Dark Talon. The Blood Claws were nicely packed together, an ideal target for its rift cannon.
I'm sure you see where this is going.
The rift cannon shot took a bad scatter, hitting my RWCS, killing 2 of them. There wasn't much for it but to carry on, so I had them shoot, then charge the Blood Claws. They did some damage in the shooting phase, but Lucas the Trickster's presence in the squad was decisive. They wiped my RWCS with little in the way of return damage. As for Gideon, I overestimated his ability to deal with a pair of 2+ save characters with an AP3 close combat weapon. No damage to any character, but my remaining Tac Marine did bite the dust.
And, just like that, it was a game again.
Turn 6
Sheri's chances of winning the game didn't look too bad anymore. I didn't have so many boots on the ground anymore, and her Blood Claws were still at a fairly robust strength, not to mention the Stormwolf being a not-so-bad gunship. She had her Blood Claws move towards the objective on the far right and had her Stormwolf shoot at my Dark Talon, forcing it to jink, which was all she needed to do. I had one or two Tac Marines left, which let Sheri have the Blood Claws charge them, wipe them out, and sit on the objective. Also, Njal and the Iron Priest - particularly the Iron Priest - managed to put Gideon out of the fight, leaving them claiming the center-field objective.
On my turn, it was time to shuffle flyers again. I had my Dark Talon zoom off the table, and my Nephilim came back on. I was able to finally get Ancient Absalom up to that ridgeline objective, but I needed to clear the other two in order to win. I was able to shoot Njal and the Iron Priest off the midfield objective (my Sicaran's accelerator autocannon couldn't bear on much else), but I wasn't able to wipe out the Blood Claws, and they passed their leadership check. The Random Game Length roll came up a 2, ending the game.
That left each of us sitting on one objective. We mis-remembered who got First Blood, thinking Sheri got it when her TWC destroyed my Predator - it was actually when my Predator wrecked her Rhino, which I didn't remember till I reviewed the photos writing this batrep. But, on the strength of that, with no one having Linebreaker and both of us having gotten Slay the Warlord, we declared Sheri the winner!
Afterthoughts
Sheri deserved the win more than me anyway. I gave her a couple chances to opt out of continuing, but she insisted on pressing on. The second time, she said I'd have to table her to get her to stop playing. As it turned out, her (dare I say it?) dogged persistence paid off. I'm quite content to go with the result as we thought it was on Sunday. We can say the two chapter officers made a judgment call in the Wolves' favor.
This game was the first time I was able to drop a stasis bomb on a unit, then have Ravenwing Knights charge it. It turned out to be quite the one-two punch! I'm not sure if it makes the Dark Talon a competitive choice, but I've been thinking a combination of Ravenwing Knights, Sisters of Silence, and a bombing run from a Dark Talon could put a serious hurt on the psychic deathstars that tend to pop up at tournaments.
As for Sheri's army, I was pretty impressed with the Stormwolf. It's got good transport capacity, a lot of firepower, and heavy armor for a flyer. Having Power of the Machine Spirit is also a major benefit. I'm also starting to be impressed with Lucas the Trickster. That sucker is a mean little surprise to hide in a unit of Blood Claws.
