Broadside Bash Comp, Chaos Demons, and me!

So I have decided to play my Tzeentch demons army at the Broadside Bash next month. Why am I doing it? Well for a couple of reasons. As I said on the 11^th Company podcast I like armies that are rare and more of a challenge to win with. Demons fit that to a tee! Not only have they always been very rare (especially in the US) but I will play a pure Tzeentch list.

So why the pure Tzeentch list?

Grey Knights vs Space Wolves, let's break it down!

In my last post I claimed that Grey Knights did everything that Space Wolves did only better, and so...

Abuse puppy said this:
>Grey Knights do everything that the Space Wolves do only better.

Grey Knights are worse against hordes (except Purifiers.) Grey Knights can't bring as many bodies, and are thus less resilient. Grey Knights have worse fire support. Grey Knights have minimal access to Meltaguns. Grey Knights don't have the same kind of fast, strong assault units. Grey Knights don't have backfield disruption in the vein of Wolf Scouts. Grey Knights do not get Land Speeders or anything even vaguely like them. Grey Knights don't get the same cheap utility HQs that SW have.

Grey Knights are not just "better SW." Both of them are midfield shooting/assault hybrid armies, but GK uses torrent shooting and elite models, whereas SW uses torrent melee and backfield support shooting.

 Let's break it down.

Where have all of Wolves gone?

I was talking to the 11^th company guys and I think I know why you never see Space Wolves around anymore. The reason why is that most Space Wolf players are band wagon jumpers because prior to the new codex there have not been any Space Wolf players after 4^th edition killed their rhino rush. So what happened to all of them? Where did they all go? Who killed them all off?

I think the answer is the Grey Knights, and it was murder!!! Grey Knights do everything that the Space Wolves do only better.

For an example let’s take the top Space Wolf builds and compare them to the Grey Knights.

Loganwing is good, but not as good as Draigowing.

Thunderwolf Cav? If you are looking for a deathstar, paladins do it better.

Razorspam? Grey Knights have strength 6 shooting razorbacks, and fortitude. Not only that but they get 12 point troop units to sit in them.

Grey Hunter spam? That is done better with Crowe and Purifiers.

So that is my thinking behind why we do not see the Wolves as much as we use to.

Eldar for an RTT this weekend, and some batreps

Well, it looks like I left Part II of my Space Wolf thoughts on my computer at work.

So here is some batreps for you.

As I said a couple of weeks ago I played against Monster Rain’s Necrons and Magilla Gorilla posted up a video batrep of our game. You can see it here.

I learned a lot in this game. 

I got to try out my anti-Imotekh strategy. Since my brand of Grey Knights can's see in the dark I had Monster Rain go first and held my army in reserve and I deep struck just about everything that could. I did this for a few reasons. 

#1. There is a 40% chance that I don't have to bother with night fight. (It ending on turns 1 or 2)

#2. If it is night fight and I can get close to him so I can see them in the dark. 

#3. There is a 90% chance (Night fight leaving after 3 turns) that I will not have to roll to get hit by the lightning. 

My plan worked well because night lifted on turn #2.

I also learned when you are going to charge a unit of immortals with paladins, and assault a unit of destroyers with Draigo, do not shoot at the immortals. The reason why is that after they reanimate, they can be placed so that they block Draigo from his charge.

Here is another batrep for you. I wrote one up over on Dakka Dakka. It had been a long time since I did one over there and I thought I would do a very detailed batrep. 

You can read it here.

It was the last game of the Wild West Shootout and it was against Dave Fay’s Black Templar:

The last thing I have is that I have a local RTT on Saturday. I am going to play my foot Eldar again. It has been over a year since I have played them and I will get to see how they do against some of the newer armies. The one advantage I have is that no one here plays Eldar so it will be interesting to see what they think.

Oh, and one more thought. I was building a Space Wolf army and it has a lot in common with a lot of other builds that I have done. I like a good death star unit, and it pretty scarce when it comes to vehicles.

For the wolf time, for Russ!

I played in a 2 day 5-game GT over the weekend put on by battlefoam (a few batreps forthcoming) and one of the prizes that I won was 5 Thunderwolves from Mr. Dandy.

Returning to the Fang.

So this got me thinking about space wolves. As I have said, space wolves were my first army ever and they got me into this game. I had been eagerly awaiting a new codex for years and when it came out it seemed to be very powerful and popular. I kind of grew disinterested because I don’t like armies that are too good and too powerful (Ironic I know coming from a Draigowing player), and that is the reason why I have put the Grey Knights aside unless I want to really win a tournament.

So the heat from the Space Wolves has died down from them being overpowered now that the Grey Knights are on the scene, and they seem like they have almost completely disappeared so maybe it is time for the re-birth of my wolves.

Building a Space Wolves army

Here is some insight into how I build an army. I take a unit I like (no matter what it is) and I build my army around it. When I was playing my eldar it was the mighty guardians, and with my Grey Knights it was paladins of course.

So what units out of the space wolves’ codex do I want to build my army around? Wolf Scouts!

The nuances of 40k part II: Greed is bad

Here is part II of my series on how small mistakes cost you games.

I played in the Nova Invitational last September and my very first game was against a Deathwing army played by Alex “The Everliving” Fennel. Alex is a member of the England ETC team and a very good player. I played him a few years ago at Adepticon and I get a lucky break and managed to beat him.

Here are the units in play:

Deathwing

5 Terminators w/Cyclone Missile Launcher

Various Ravenwing bikes.

Grey Knights

Draigo

Paladin w/Psycannon, Sword

Paladin w/Psycannon, Halberd

Paladin w/Sword

Paladin w/Halberd

Paladin w/Demonhammer

The set up

So I was pushing Draigo and 5 paladins up a flank and rolling him back. He reserved his Ravenwing bike squad and he outflanked with them and came in from the side with Draigo. He took some shots at my paladin squad and he manages to wound my paladin with a psycannon. Draigo splits off to take care of the bikes while the paladins continue to punish his deathwing terminators. Draigo kills the bikes, and rushes to join back up with his squad stringing them out and keeping Draigo in the rear.

Here is Draigo on the left taking care of business with the ravenwing bikes, and the paladins in the middle.

The unstoppable force vs. the immovable object

The paladins have a deathwing squad that they have knocked down to only 3 models in front of them and they charge! With all of these power weapon attacks hitting on 3s and wounding on 2s they should go down pretty quick. Well, I did about 6 to 7 wounds and they made all of their 3+ invulnerable saves but 1. They strike back and does 1 wound in return. Since it is with a thunderhammer it will insta-kill a paladin.

Here I am before I shot and killed the missile launcher, and before I went in for the kill!

The dilemma

I have 2 choices:

#1. Put the wound on my wounded psycannon and even if I fail the save the combat will be tied, but I will lose a valuable psycannon.

#2. Put the wound on the paladin with a sword giving me a 4+ save, but if I fail the save I will lose a model that is expendable but I will have to take a leadership check because I lost the combat. 

So what did I do?

I put the wounds on the sword and I failed my save. I lost combat by 1 and I had to take a morale roll and I rolled an 11 and fell back. He then followed up keeping me within 6”. I kept falling back for the next 3 turns and never re-grouped. With that blow he neutralized 600 points (over 1/3 of my army), and I lost the game.

Here I am running away.

Lessons learned

At the point where I took the morale roll the game was well in hand and I was rolling up the flank. Draigo would have been in combat the next round and he and the paladins would have dispatched the 2 remaining terminators without too much of a problem. I should not have taken the chance on a morale roll because although psycannon would have been useful, it was not worth the risk of losing the game if I failed my save and my morale roll.  

Lesson: Never take a morale roll unless it is critical to winning the game. The risk/reward of failing a leadership check is devastating to such an expensive unit.

A winning Draigowing list in under 20 models!

My List

2000 Points of Grey Knights

HQ

Draigo

Librarian w/Might of Titian, Quicksilver, Sanctuary, The Shrouding, 2 Servo Skulls

Elites

Venerable Dreadnought w/2 Twin-Linked Autocannons, Psybolt Ammunition, Searchlight

Venerable Dreadnought w/2 Twin-Linked Autocannons, Psybolt Ammunition, Searchlight

 

Troops

10 Paladins w/4 Psycannons (1 Master Crafted), 2 Hammers, 3 Halberds (1 Master Crafted), Warding Staff, 1 Sword, Brotherhood Banner

1 Paladin w/Demonhammer

Heavy Support

Dreadnought w/2 Twin-Linked Autocannons, Psybolt Ammunition, Searchlight

Dreadnought w/2 Twin-Linked Autocannons, Psybolt Ammunition, Searchlight

Dreadnought w/2 Twin-Linked Autocannons, Psybolt Ammunition, Searchlight

So there it is…18 Models