Weekly Battle Report #2: Wolfstar vs. Khan Double Land Raiders

Hello, and welcome to my 2nd weekly battle report!  I'm trying to give a battle report every week, and though I won't always use the same army, you'll have plenty of battle reports from which to see how my various lists play.  Here's a link to my battle reports page and to my previous week battle report.  The game I played today was against a double Land Raider list with Khan outflanking shenanigans, played by my buddy Vince.

 So, here are our lists (at 1850):

Wolves:

Wolf Lord w/ Saga of the Bear, Thunderwolf Mount, Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield, Wolftooth Necklace, Wolftail Talisman

Wolf Lord w/ Saga of Majesty, Thunderwolf Mount, Wolf Claw, Storm Shield
Rune Priest w/ Living Lightning and Jaws

8x Grey Hunters w/ Melta Gun, Wolf Standard, Rhino
8x Grey Hunters w/ Melta Gun, Wolf Standard, Rhino
7x Grey Hunters w/ Melta Gun, Wolf Standard, Rhino

3 Wolf Guard w/ 3x Power Fist, 3x Combi-melta

4x Thunderwolf Cavalry w/ 2x Storm Shields, 1x Thunder Hammer (one had both TH and SS)

5x Longfangs w/ 4x Missile Launchers
5x Longfangs w/ 4x Missile Launchers
4x Longfangs w/ 3x Missile Launchers

Khan's fierce horde:

Kor'sarro Khan
Librarian w/ Null Zone, Avenger

5 Marines w/ lasplas Razor
5 Marines w/ lasplas Razor
5 Marines w/ lasplas Razor

5 Terminators w/ 1x LC, 4x TH/SS, Land Raider Crusader w/ MM, EA
5 Terminators w/ 1x LC, 4x TH/SS

MM/HF Speeder
MM/HF Speeder
Land Raider Crusader w/ MM, EA

It's a tricky list to play against, if he does his all-reserves thing (which he does almost every game).  When you have outflanking Land Raiders, it's hard to know where to react, and deepstriking speeders are guaranteed one good shot before they go down.  He's a little light on troops, but being as they just sit in the razors and score, I think they're just fine the way they are.  Vince ended up getting best general at Tacticon this year, and my games against him are usually pretty hardfought.

We agreed beforehand that the game would last exactly 6 turns.  Most tournaments have a predetermined game length, and since we're both tournament players, it's generally best to 'practice' for what you're going to be facing.

That said, we rolled for mission:  seize ground w/ 4 objectives, with spearhead deployment.  We placed three of the remaining objectives on the left side of the board, and he placed one over on my right hand side of the board, presumably to outflank onto.  The two I placed were in the center of the board, hoping to keep him from simply outflanking onto objectives on turn 4 or 5 and making my life hell.  You'll be able to see all 4 in the deployment picture below.

We rolled off to see who got to pick, and he won the roll.  Since it was objectives, he opted to go second.  The single advantage that gave me was that I got to pick which side to deploy on, and I picked the corner with all the objectives.  My reasoning was that if he DID go all-outflank like he usually does, my guys would already be on/near the objectives, which would help me to at least contest them.  It also offered a juicy target for the termies in my Longfangs if he wanted to send them in.  He'd wipe them of course, but I could then get the counter-charge and wipe a squad of termies with my wolfstar or grey hunters.  One other useful advantage to me was that I was able to get my longfangs into position to see 3 of the 4 objectives.

To my great surprise, he decided to deploy everything on the table.  He attempted to sieze and failed.

Here's our deployment.  Note that I kept one squad of Grey Hunters in reserve, and he kept a Razor in outflank.  Everything else is on the board.

Wolves Turn 1:

I just moved up, hoping to keep his Raiders away from the objectives, and controlling the center.  Longfangs on the right moved into the cluster of rocks to the right of them, since they couldn't see anything.

The plan was to get the rhinos up close enough that even if he killed them both, I'd be in range to 6" melta the Raiders, and potentially assault the termies.  Get the termies out of their ride, and oftentimes I can win the game.  If I can't it's generally a crapshoot.

Shooting killed one of his speeders behind a Land Raider, and then it was his turn.

Also, I popped smoke on both rhinos.

Marines Turn 1:

He moved up close, and shot everything at my rhinos.  I managed 3 cover saves (3/3).  He popped smoke on his final raider.

Wolves Turn 2:

He had only moved his raiders up 6".  I moved my two unharmed rhinos up into 6" range and shot, but failed to even scratch the paint.  Other shooting involved me stunning/weapon destroying (melta) the speeder, and wrecking his closest Razorback.

In assault, I multi-charged his two Raiders with my wolfstar, a single thunder hammer on both.  I only needed 4's to hit, and rolled very well with my 11 S10 attacks, exploding both Raiders.  Pretty lucky on my part, since I rolled average to hit, but then ended up with like 5 total pens out of the 6 hits I got.

Also, my reserve Rhino came in.

Marines Turn 2:

Vince had no choice.  He moved his termies up and prepared for assault.  He tried for Null Zone, got it off, and my Rune Priest rolled to block it.  It was one of the bigger rolls of the game, since my Wolfstar relies on their stormshields.  The roll was:

(if you didn't know, Rune Priests just get a single roll against any psychic power, and on a 4+ it's dispelled)

Whew!  He charged in anyways, and my wolves didn't do much.  I ended up killing a single termie, and Khan made all (2) of his 4+ invulnerable saves from my hammer.  I lost combat by like 4, but got a 5 on my leadership and stuck.

You really can't see a whole lot of the big action, can you.  I need to take better pictures of it.  9 termies, Khan, and a Librarain who is trying to avoid combat are surrounding my poor beleagured Wolfstar.

Wolves Turn 3:

I got everyone out of their rhinos, and assaulted the termies.  Shooting popped his other razorback in the corner, and immobilized the speeder.

In combat, I ended up being able to kill everyone except for a single surrounded termie, after he tried to flee and I caught him.

My rune priest assaulted the 5-man tactical squad, and killed 2, but they stayed.

Not looking great for the termies.

Marines Turn 3:

His razorback came in, and on my side of the board.  He shot at my rhino with the Lascannon, and I saved my smoke roll, again.  In combat, I killed his Termie, and consolidated.  Rune priest whiffed, lol.

Ready for my next turn charges.

Wolves Turn 4:

I got my wolfstar into his 5-man unit in the back, and the grey hunters helped the rune priest kill his tactical squad.  My 'in the back' rhino moved backward, disembarked the troops, and shot at the razor.  I forget if it was them or the Longfangs but I ended up killing it.

He has only his 5 tacticals left at this point.

We decided to call it here, as these dudes were all he had left.

So, we talked about the game afterward, and he told me he was hoping to get both units of termies into my Wolfstar, and finish it, since he really did have like 600 points of termies/Khan.  He figured he'd win that fight, and when he didn't, it cost him the game.

Usually he's hard as hell to fight, since all of his guys come on the board at different times at different places, and you gotta watch out for it.  He's won tournaments doing that sort of thing, and I think in general it's a good idea to stick to what you do well.  It was a friendly game though, and I think he just wanted to try something different.

Nothing wrong with trying something different, as long as you learn from it.  In this case, we both learned that even 10 terminators + Khan can't kill a strong wolf-star :P

Hope you liked it, feel free to comment or ask questions!