Space Wooooolves

From Miniatures

It's been a while since I posted some juicy photos of my Space Wolf army!

From Miniatures

From Miniatures

1850 Tournament Battle Report

My List

This was the first time I'd played Thunderhorse cavalry, so it was quite an experience. My list was essentially designed to be as in-your face as possible. I had no guns with a range greater than 24" and honestly very little anti-tank for 1850 points.

• wolf lord / thunderhorse, wolf claw, storm shield, runic armour, wolf tail talisman
• wolf priest / wolf tail talisman
• rune priest / wolf tail talisman, murderous hurricane, storm caller
• wolf guard pack / x3, 3x power fist, 2x combi-melta, combi-plasma
• grey hunters / x8, wolf standard, power weapon, plasma gun (RP goes here)
• rhino / dozer blade
• grey hunters / x8, wolf standard, mark of the wulfen, meltagun (WP goes here)
• rhino / dozer blade
• grey hunters / x9, wolf standard, mark of the wulfen, meltagun
• rhino / dozer blade
• thunderhorse cavalry / x4, powerfist, storm shield, melta bomb
• fenrisian wolves / x10
• vindicator / dozer blade
• vindicator / dozer blade
• vindicator / dozer blade

Versus Eldar

My opponent was playing an interesting hybrid mech Eldar list. Clearly he was going to outmaneuver me and his seer council would probably beat my thunderhorses in combat if I gave them a chance.

• Dire Avengers in Wave Serpent x2
• Fire Dragons in Wave Serpent x2
• Farseer & Seer Council on jetbikes
• Pathfinders
• Fire Prism

The mission was a Spearhead deployment objective mission with five objectives - one in each quarter and one in the center. At the end of each of your opponent's turns you got a point for each objective you controlled. I deployed on my left quarter parking-lot style with my Vindicators shielding my Rhinos, which was a mistake as he immobilised a Vindicator and blew up another one first turn with his Wave Serpents' bright lances. He spread out his Dire Avengers, grabbing the two objectives adjacent to his deployment zone and holding his home objective with the Pathfinders.

I left my Wolf Priest at the home objective as he was blocked in by wrecks, and sent my thunderhorses and lord towards his edge of the table and advanced toward the center and side, intending to take the center, wipe him off his other objective, and contest the left. The Thunderhorses and Lord managed to mangle two wave serpents and wipe him off the upper objective before succumbing to his seer council, who entered the game late because he was reticent to send them into combat without Fortune up (my Rune Priest kept cancelling his casts). On my left the Vindicator was destroyed before managing to do much and the squad I had sent to the objective had their Rhino wrecked by a lucky Pathfinder shot and got bladestormed, fire prismed, and sniped as they trudged on toward the objective, eventually getting wiped. My rune priest and squad managed to command the center with some lucky Demolisher shooting and using the Rhino to keep his Fire Prism from getting clear shots at the squad. The game ended with my opponent scoring 10 and me with 6. Underwhelming, although honestly without any long range shooting at all, I was lucky to do as well as I did.

Versus Tau

My opponent was playing a classic 5th-ed hybrid list which looked pretty potent. It was great to play against a competitive Tau player, but the mission made it a bit lame. I was primarily concerned with not getting my thunderhorses gibbed by plasma and railguns, but it didn't end up being much of an issue - he concentrating on my Vindicators and Rhinos first, as he should have, but it took him a long time to take them down.

• 2x 2-Piranha squadrons (fusion blasters)
• 2x Broadsides
• 2 Krootamari blobs (10 Kroot, 7 Kroot Hounds each)
• 3x Fireknife Crisis teams + Fireknife Shas'O
• Hammerhead
• Pathfinders + Devilfish
• 6x Fire Warriors

The mission was a curious (and ultimately pretty annoying) one with diagonal pitched-battle deployment and three objectives spaced evenly along the diagonal bottom-left to upper right. In the first two turns of the game they were impassable within 7" radius and gave 4+ cover to shooting going through that area, in turns 3-4 they were difficult/dangerous and gave 5+ cover, and in turns 5-6 they were just objectives.

With such a cramped deployment space we both basically just deployed in lines, him using the Kroot as bubble-wrap to protect his suits from assault, although this didn't end up mattering a whole lot. The first four turns of the game essentially consisted of trading shots across the table and not accomplishing much. I killed his Piranhas with Vindicators, and they managed to destroy one and immobilise two more. My thunderhorses and lord just held back until turns 5-6 at which point they utterly dominated the center field and helped me win that objective. On the right he didn't try to control (as he only really had one mobile scoring unit in the Fire Warriors, on the left) but tried to eliminate my Rhino squad with a fireknife team, which didn't work out very well. The game ended with him contesting the left objective with Fire Warriors and my controlling the center and right.

Versus Space Marines

My opponent was fairly new to the game (as you may be able to tell from the list) and I had to help him a bit with rules as we went along. He was very good about it, though. My primary concern this game was delaying his Terminators long enough to eliminate other elements of his army, as really only my Vindicators could do anything about them.

• Chapter Master
• 3x Tactical squads, 1 in a Drop Pod, the 2 others had lascannons
• 1 5-man Tactical squad
• 10-man tactical Terminator squad w/ Terminator Chaplain
• Venerable Dreadnought with Plasma cannon and Twinlinked Autocannons
• Predator with lascannons

The mission was a simple pitched-battle Annihilation mission, using VPs instead of KPs. I took first turn and didn't do a whole lot, advancing towards his line and popping smoke for the most part. On his turn his lascannons were quite lucky and managed to take the gun off two Vindicators, which got me pretty nervous about dealing with his Terminator death-star. His ven dread popped a rhino and the contents were hit with an orbital bombardment, killing half of the squad inside (but fortunately not the Rune Priest). His pod dropped behind my lines and killed a bunch of wolves, but the rest of the game essentially of the wolf priest's squad running amok killing tactical marines, the lord killing the pod squad and then beating on the predator for a few turns, the thunderhorses making the chapter master and his squad run off the table and them fighting the dread for a while, and my rune priest kiting the terminators with Murderous Hurricane while they tried to actually destroy the two Vindicators that were running around as mobile cover without cannons. The game ended with me scoring ~1400 VPs, and him with ~700.

I finished the tournament in second place, which was honestly more than I expected. All of my opponents were enjoyable to play with and I'm looking forward to the next match!

Lessons Learned

My thunderhorses performed about as well as I had expected - murdering non-MEQ troops and ultimately winning against MEQs. I took care not to engage them with uber-cc units, preferring to deal with those using Demolisher cannons and Murderous Hurricane. I really missed the lack of long-range shooting power, but it crippled me a lot less than I had thought it would.

Lord of Tempests

For some undiscernable reason, the GW FAQ for Space Wolves contain the following ruling on Njal Stormcaller's Lord of Tempests special rule.

Q. How do Njal Stormcaller’s Driving Gale and Living Hurricane effects work if the Space Wolves player is the player going second?
A. These two abilities have no real effect in games where the Space Wolves player is going second – the tempest is yet to rage.

A lot of people seem to interpret this as meaning that those two effects never have any effect if the Space Wolves player is going second. However, a simple reading of the Lord of Tempests rule should set this misconception to rest. Under Lord of Tempests we read that its effects last a game turn. In the BRB we read that "game turn" means two player turns. In this case, that means that the effect will last through Njal's turn and the opponent's subsequent turn.

The only possible rationalization I can think of for the FAQ article is that they are explaining that if Njal is going second, Lord of Tempests has no effect on the first player turn of the game. Any other reading flatly contradicts the codex itself.

Razorbacks

I've seen quite a lot of people advocating the lascannon/plasma Razorback recently and I was personally curious to see if it outperformed the assault cannon variant for close-in firepower. Obviously the twin-linked lascannon Razorback is the go-to for long-range punch, which is why I play one to supplement my other ranged firepower - Vindicators and meltas fill the close-range firepower well enough.

Using my mathhammer spreadsheet I did a binomial distribution to approximate the probability of getting at least one destroyed or immobilised result with each razorback turret, at each range bracket that's relevant: 1-12" for plasma rapid fire, 13-24" for plasma and assault cannons, and 25-48" for lascannons.

Past 24", obviously, the twin-linked lascannon is best.

Inside 24" the assault cannons start showing off how awesome they are, but the lascannon/plasma is competitive as well. You'll notice that the twin-linked lascannon is actually the worst against AV 11 and 12, which are the two most commonly encountered values, and the twin-linked assault cannon is very close in terms of Land Raider-killing ability.

Things get really interesting inside 12". The lascannon/plasma turret is awesome at this range because the plasma is rapid-firing, but the catch is that if your razorback moved at all, you have to choose between firing the Lascannon or the plasma gun (per the Space Marine FAQ, they are separate weapons). That means that it's a better generalist than the twin-linked lascannon or assault cannon turrets, but it's not suited to a specialist role.

My final verdict is that the best turret is the one suited to the role you have it playing (surprise!). If your Razorback squads are going to be played aggressively, your best option is to take twin-linked assault cannons, because you can move 6" and shoot, giving it a 30" threat range which is plenty for an army that is advancing. If your Razorback squads are going to be played defensively, like mine, you're best off with the twin-linked lascannon variant. I use my Grey Hunters in Razorback to support my Long Fangs if my opponent has outflanking/deep striking threats, so the Razorback is perfectly happy moving 6" or less a turn and pumping out lascannon shots. If troops in Razorbacks occupy the majority of your list (Razorback spam ahoy) then you're probably best off taking the lascannon/plasma turret. Because you have more Razorbacks you can afford to have slightly less optimal shots in any given instance, and because your game may be more defensive or more aggressive depending upon your opponent, you have the versatility to be moderately effective in either instance.