Anthem Games Battle Reports: 4-12

Took my Space Wolves out for some paper training at Anthem Games over Easter Weekend to get some practice games in before the big tournament in May.

We had 10 armies in total:

2 Space Wolves

2 Chaos Marines

2 Tyranids

2 Imperial Guard

1 Grey Knights

1 Unkown (I forgot and didn’t see what he was playing and he left after the first game)

Dark Eldar (ringer to fill in for the missing player after the first round)

My first draw was against an IG player by the name of David, he had the vehicle heavy IG list that looked something like this: Squadron of Leman Russ tanks, another Leman Russ and Exterminator all with sponsons and I think lascannons. Topped with a Command Squad with 2 bodyguards and medics with melta guns in a Chimera and a Commissar Lord with a Vet squad and a couple of other Vet squads with plasma guns with a Penal Unit in tow with a Rough Rider unit.

David, IG General

The games we played was the Nova open missions, so all games had the same elements: objectives, kill points, table quarters and victory points just the order and deployment zones changed.

The first game was Dawn of War with Kill Points, Table Quarters and VPs in that order. I won the dice and setup first with a Wolf Lord in the middle with a Grey Hunter squad in a rhino. He placed out a Chimera with Vets and Commisar Lord. David failed to seize and the game was on.

My first turn was quick, unable to spot with the vehicles and enhanced senses (due to range), most other stuff moved on and ran (namely the Long Fangs). David moved his stuff on and tried to shoot a few times, with no real impact yet due to night fighting still.

Then the game was on in turn 2. My scouts appeared and blew up one of the two squadron tanks and removed the turrent from the other. Some shooting stunned a few tanks forcing him disembark and one Chimera to become immobile. Once he was out the Lord and company went to work taking apart the Lord Commisar and Veterans, they walked down the board along with the scouts slipping down through the wreckage after they blew up the last tank on turn 3 from the squadron only to finish off a disabled Chimera towards the end of the game. The rest of the army got flanked by one of the Rune Priests and the Wolf Guard Battle Leader following behind the Lord. David had a very defensive game on his hands the entire game.

When the dust settled he had a Penal Squad, one Vet squad, a Chimera and the Exterminator tank left on the table. I had the VPs, objectives and table quarters hands down taking a clean sweep to the second round.

First Turn

Scouts suprise the Leman Russ Squadron

There was a Chimera there and a Command Squad...at least before they ran away!

Scouts kill the second tank!

The Lord and Grey Hunters take on the Exterminator Tank.

Scouts finish off a Chimera.

Epic fight at the end. IG beat the two Space Wolves in hand to hand.

My second round opponent was another regular at Anthem, forgot his name right now. Old age sucks you now! Adam I think is his name. He brought a Chaos army that was interesting and well played against my list.

Just oozes chaos eh?

He had: Land Raider, 2 Lords with Terminator armor with Lash, 1 Unit of Nurgle Marked Marines with rhino, heavy bolter and melta I think, a large block of Khorne Bezerkers (in the Raider), another Rhino with Thousand Sons, a Chosen Squad with lighting claws and a Raptor squad with some assorted weapons. He also had a trio of Chaos Termiantors with a reaper autocannon and some other assorted weapons.

I won the setup again, took my table side and this time we had Pitched Battle, he failed to seize and it was game on. The  Wolves pushed forward and the shooting worked out well for me disabling one Rhino with the Thousand Sons and blowing up the Nurgle Rhino. Then we played cat and mouse as my Rhinos got stunned or disabled forcing me to dismount and take cover to continue using my Rune Priests powers or advancing with the Lord and Pack Leader’s groups.

The game came to a peak about midway when I took out his Terminators only to have the Bezerkers swarm out of the Land Raider and chew up the Grey Hunters with the Lord. The Lord finished off the Zerkers and walked over to finish off one of the two Lash Lords. The other Lash Lord towards the end died to a missile shot and a 1 on the armor save. The Scouts died after the 1000 Sons was assaulted (after all it was the honor of Fenris at stake) and the Wolf Guard survivor turned around and finished off the Thousand Sons sorcerer and died to the Chosen when they assaulted. There was no Lashed units this game thanks to runic weapons!

The game ended up with me trying to beat down a Land Raider that my melta would not roll high enough to destroy. It was immobile and two out of 4 weapons was blown off! *sigh*

Chaos deploys!

Epic battle with the 1000 Sons and Scouts. The Chosen turn the tide of the battle and win it for Chaos.

The Lord and Chaos Sorcerer face off!

Where the hell did that base come from?

Again another clean sweep for Chaos and it was to the final round to face what? IG again! *sigh* This one was ugly…

Chris had his shooter/armored arcade of mechanized troops and tanks in this list. Something similar to what I would field.

Chris, master of the mecha...

Chris had 2 Executioner tanks with plasma and lascannons, 1 Punisher with lascannon and Pask, several Vet units with Chimeras and a single lascannon in the unit, 2 Plasma Armored Sentinels, 3 Normal Sentinels, Vendetta with a Vet squad with 3 melta guns. A command squad was somewhere with another lascannon.

He won the roll, picked his quarter, I deployed in the other as best I could. I held the Lord, Scouts and Pack Leader units behind just hoping the Long Fangs and Rune Priests would survive.

Chris had put the Vendetta in reserve with the trio of sentinels with multilasers.

The game went as expected, I failed to seize and I was cut down with a series of massed shooting. At the end of turn 3 I had only the one Pack leader left out of 3 Long Fang Squads. I was able to blow his Vendetta out of the sky on turn 2 and my scouts and Lord Unit wrecked one Chimera, Vet Squad and Executioner tank before they was torn apart by a rain of fire and turned to puppy chow. Only the Lord lived with 2 wounds left.

All said and done, Chris had the game any way we played it, I could have pushed for another turn we could have completed I feel, but all I would have been able to do is remove one squad from an objective making a tie for the primary, we would have went to secondary which was victory points that he would have won anyway. A graceful player knows how to take a loss. It sucked when my dice turned south in the game and his was on fire. That’s the way it goes though….

The amusing part of this game was the Sentinel Battle…two Walkers was blown apart by shooting and then I charged thinking a STR 5 Frost Weapon would finish the last one off…NOT! For 3 turns we wailed on one another, I was unable to kill the damm thing! And the last Long Fang Leader was fighting an Armored Sentinel with no main gun (blown off earlier) to no avail. It was just sad, he threw a krak, no 6, sentinel swings misses or would fail to wound usuall or the 3+ save would kick in….comedy at the finest.

IG Advance

Scouts make a kill or two....