Vivax Revisited #2

After some thoughtful consideration and a few tips from the 40k Online Tyranid forum, I've changed up my 2000 point tyranid list a bit, and I completed necessary conversions on 8 genestealers (used to have scything talons) and the dakka tyrant today. Now I need 2 more zoanthropes, a new plastic carnifex, and one more Macragge set of bugs.

The main point of this list will be to busy the opponent with 86 gaunts and genestealers while the scream choir/dakka elements move up and start "encouraging" reduced leadership checks. The sniperfex and zopes try to bring down mobile armor as they advance. I'm really excited about the first time I'll get to shoot with the tyrant. 12 twin-linked shots at BS 4, S5, AP5 that reroll to hit and to wound! Beautimous. The only thing I might do later is switch the lictor out for something else, maybe 2 raveners, tyrant guard, or a cheap living wall/screamer-killer 'fex so that I can put my beloved old model to use. I did change up the lictor's arms so that the rending claws are the top-most limbs, with the talons moved down underneath them. The look is a little different from the classic lictor pose but it matches the rending claws on my old warrior models as well as the genestealers. I had to do the same thing to the warriors because the newer devourer arm set didn't fit well on the top of the old pewter bodies. I think they all came out pretty cool. Everyone's waving their big ass claws around in the air. Hopefully when the time comes, they're going to party like it's their birthday, maybe even drink bacardi like it's their birthday.

Tournament: Battleforge Games 6-09-07

I played in a tournament at Battleforge Games today. It was my first time playing there, all in all a positive experience. I took a 2000 point Imperial Guard list, heavy on the armor and light infantry. Well, fuck light infantry. Only two of the three missions even allowed infiltration and while it is nice to move more easily through terrain, I don't think I should be moving much anyway. Sharpshooters, on the other hand, worked like a charm. I think I would keep it even if it was proven to me that it isn't statistically worth the points. It works wonders for those times when a fistful of ones would otherwise ruin your morale. It turns a frown upside down, is what I'm saying.

There were quite a few people present, something like 12 or 13, including Pat, who brought his mess of greenskins. I walked by his table a few times and his big mobs seemed to be hanging in there pretty well. I myself held a draw for the first two matches and then lost my third game by a decent margin.

Game 1: Space Marines

A. was rocking the Black Templars paint scheme but was playing a vanilla marine list, with a good mix of infantry and armored units supporting the centerpiece: a 12-man squad of terminators. It was probably going my way until his terminators rolled up my left flank. I saw it coming but had a few bad turns with shooting. Even with tons of lascannons and ordnance, it takes a long time for guard to kill 12 terminators (I only managed to get 6 or so before they started chewing up my line). In the end I think I was a little ahead in points but not enough for a victory. My favorite moment was when his 3 (just 3!) attack bikes absorbed shooting from over half of my forces for two turns before finally dying. I just barely saved my demolisher from meltadeath, even though it would be destroyed later.

Game 2: Space Marines

I had faced F.'s Ultramarines once before, and I knew about what to expect - a lot of heavy weapons fire from a lot of space marine infantry, followed up by assaulting veterans and jump troops. I think both of our plans were foiled when the mission was announced: patrol. Each army deployed only one troops unit with everything else arriving from reserve. That meant that most of our squads had to take at least one turn to move into position from off the table before they could do their jobs: shooting the hell out. Still, it made for an interesting pace, early turns blowing by with things thickening up late in the game. One assault team made it into my deployment zone in the final turn (a game objective), and I just barely had time to bring it down below scoring. It took a while, but I also enjoyed bringing down the lightning-clawed jump captain. Light infantry never came in too handy for this game and I began to regret not switching in mortars when I was thinking about it before the tournament.

Game 3: Thousand Sons (Chaos)

My last game was against C.'s uncomplicated but effective thousand sons force, consisting of several decent-sized rubric marine squads, two tricked-out defilers, and a 3-man obliterator team. It's always fun to drop tons of MEQs with my rocket launchers, but I made a huge error in allowing one of his defilers to scuttle up my left flank. I've never seen one fielded as an assault vehicle before and it took me a little by surprise. We called it a little early because he had to go to work but it would have just gotten worse for me anyway. Cool terrain in any case. The objective was a mite screwy but it kept things interesting.

Overall I think the guard did OK, they lived up to their strengths but unfortunately they aso lived up to their weaknesses. I had plenty of frustratingly poor rounds of shooting, even after I bought some new dice to match the guard green. Fuck! I'm hooked on this silly shit! At least they were on the cheap side. After my first Battleforge tournament I'm almost positive I'll be playing there regularly now; everyone I talked with was friendly and really into the hobby. Plus there's a lot more open space, the prizes for winning are more generous, and maybe most importantly it appears to be the most popular spot in town right now for 40k gaming.

Wolftimes

After this loss and another just like it, I was finally able to defeat c2’s witch hunters last night with my space wolves drop pod force (the 1500 point version). I was going to switch the terminators out for a venerable dreadnought and 5 long fangs, and that still might be the best way to go, but I wanted to give the 3-pod list one more chance. For the first two games, I think I was concentrating the surprise attackers too much in one place. The terminators, grey hunters, and wolf scouts can do good damage on their first turn, but often the surviving elements of the witch hunters would swarm me with flamers and divine guidance, reducing my best units to dust in less than 2 turns. One-on-one, the wolves are easily superior, but if the more numerous witch hunters gang up on isolated or crowded elements, they can combo almost anyone to death very quickly. For the last game, an annihilation scenario, I was a little more careful with my deep-striking. I tried to land them just far enough away from the sisters swarms, my major goal being to split up the major threats and refrain from needlessly sacrificing anyone to the mass flameage. In the end the wolf guard terminators were destroyed, but the rune priest hobbled away wounded and the blood claws and vindicator cleaned up the offending seraphim and cannoness to make it a crushing victory for the sons of Russ.

If I did switch out the terminators for a ven dred and long fangs, I would still have two drop pods of grey hunters, but it would amount to a much different kind of force. In that case I think the main strategy would be to hold back and snipe, make the enemy come to me, and then use the deep-striking grey hunters to capture objectives or join the wolf scouts for rear-echelon disruption attacks.

I changed out the 5 ratlings in my 2000 point imperial guard force (the 14th Tiefwalder) for a third sentinel, to be attached to the command HQ squad. That gives me three lascannon sentinels that operate independently, sniping at vehicles and heavy infantry and grabbing objectives at the last minute (if they survive). I eschewed any vehicle upgrades for them, so they’re still pretty vulnerable, but if folks are shooting at them and not the tanks, it’s all gravy anyway. That gives me 9 armored units and 73 infiltrating or deep-striking infantry, 3 ordinance weapons, 7 lascannons, 7 missile launchers, 9 heavy bolters, 5 meltaguns, 4 plasma guns, a couple of multilasers and flamers, and finally, a demolition charge in a pear tree. Mmm, that's good squishy.

Imagifer, Uragifer

Imagifers cost 20 points per squad for Battle Sister squads. Squads of seraphim count as having one if led by a veteran sister superior. I was curious as to their exact benefit, so I did a little math (for the odds on 2d6 see this post) Here are the odds for Acts of Faith that require you to roll squad size or below, such as divine guidance:

2 ... 7% chance of success (4% more than 2d6)
3 ... 20% (+12%)
4 ... 36% (+19%)
5 ... 52% (+24%)
6 ... 68% (+26%)
7 ... 81% (+23%)
8 ... 89% (+17%)
9 ... 95% (+12%)
10 ... 98% (+6%)
11 & 12 ... 100% (+3%)

For those Acts that require you to roll squad size or greater, it's the same numbers the other way around (2 & 3 is 100%, 12 is 7%). Imagifers are most helpful at a squad size of 6 or 7.

The Saga of Lors the Grim: Space Wolves 2000 pts

HQ:

1 Venerable Dreadnought - plasma cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor, smoke launchers

1 Rune Priest - terminator armor, lightning claws, wolf pelt
4 Wolf Guard (retinue) - 4 terminator armor, 2 assault cannons, 2 bolter/plasma, 2 power weapons (combi guys), 1 chainfist (AC guy), 1 powerfist (other AC guy)
Drop Pod

1 Wolf Guard Battle Leader - frost blade, bolt pistol, wolf pelt, frags

ELITES:

4 Wolf Scouts - 2 power weapons, 1 meltagun, frags

TROOPS:

8 Grey Hunters - 2 powerfists, 1 plasma gun, 1 plasma pistol/ccw
Wolf Guard Leader - power weapon, bolter, wolf pelt
Drop Pod

8 Grey Hunters - 2 powerfists, 1 plasma gun, 1 plasma pistol/ccw, wolf totem
Wolf Guard Leader - power weapon, bolter, wolf pelt
Drop Pod

8 Blood Claws - 1 powerfist, 1 power weapon, 1 flamer
Wolf Guard Leader - power weapon, bolt pistol, wolf pelt, frag grenades

FAST ATTACK:

2 Attack Bikes - 2 multimeltas

HEAVY SUPPORT:

4 Long Fangs - 3 rocket launchers, 1 lascannon
Pack Leader - bolter/ccw

1 Vindicator - power of the machine spirit

The list tries to take advantage of the whole bag of Space Wolves tricks: spring into action, do moderate damage, and hold on tight: venerable dreadnought leader re-rolls for first turn, wolf scouts attack from behind, true grit, the mediocre yet enthusiastic blood claws, no Ld modifiers from being outnumbered, and counterattack, augmented by wolf-pelted squad leaders with power weapons. I will also typically use the drop pods to restructure the battlefield and close bothersome firing lanes.

There's two elements to this force: the ground contingent and the reserves. The ground forces are my heavy weapons, plus a squad of assault buggers in a rhino. I will typically break them down further into pack elements: dreadnought supporting the long fangs, vindicator and bikes supporting the rhino. The blood claws are the only ones in the army I really need to worry about charging, since all the other infantry units perform the same in assault whether they charge or not. Usually I'll try to grab an early objective with them while the rest of the elements take heat.

The drop pod elements (see this old post) are best against light to medium armored foes, and are almost guaranteed to get at least one good round of shooting, but they are always vulnerable to high initiative power weapon (also chainaxe/choppa) attacks. The multiple powerfists have to survive and triumph in the first round of CC or else they're usually finished off before they get a second chance to hit.

The main problems with this list? Low model count, everyone's on the expensive side (especially the Rune Priest's squad - 393!), plasma overheats (ouch), ever-present vunerability to high-initiative power weapons, and the Long Fangs only have one (expensive) buffer before I have to start removing heavy weapons. These are all issues I have to overcome with strategy, since the list includes virtually every Wolf model I own (excepting the land raider and a few others), and I'm pretty loathe to convert or paint any more of them.

A guy I met playing at Funny Papers back in the day hooked me up with a big box of old pewter Wolves models on the cheap, and I augmented that collection over the years with vehicles and bikes, as well as some of the new plastics. It's a mix of model generations - all but two of the bolter models are the new style, and the vehicles are all the old style - but I kinda like it that way. I converted the bolter-plasma guns from storm bolters, and used a catachan sword to turn an older generation terminator powerfist into a wrist-mounted power weapon, and the dreadnought's plasma cannon is actually ex-chaos gear. I actually did a decent job on my Ulrik the Slayer model (not pictured), but I never used him as the special character and I stopped using Wolf Priests after just a couple of games. Without all the special gotchas that other marine chaplains get, I don't really see the point. Rune priests and their cover generation ability are a much better value.