3000pt Wolves Vs. Chaos

[Reichfaust]

Greetings Brothers of Fenris, I just played my largest game of 40K to date against Chaos and thought you'd like to hear how it all went down.

 

As I said, it was a pretty sizeable game at 3K points. And for the first time, I decided to go all out and take all 4 HQ choices--a wise decision indeed, as it turned out! My list was as follows;

 

HQ

Logan

Ragnar

Rune Priest - naked w/Living Lightning & Muderous Hurricane

Wolf Lord - TWC, T.Hammer, S.Shield, Saga of Bear, Wolftooth Necklace, WTT

 

Elites

Dreadnought - Plasma Cannon, Heavy Flamer, Wolftooth Necklace

Dreadnought - Plasma Cannon, Heavy Flamer, Wolftooth Necklace

Dreadnought - 2x Twin-Linked Autocannon

 

Troops

Wolf Guard x5 - 5x TDA, 4x Wolf Claw/S.Shield, 1x Cyclone ML, Land Raider Redeemer

Grey Hunters x10 - 2 Meltaguns, Rhino

Grey Hunters x10 - 2 Meltaguns, Rhino

Grey Hunters x10 - 2 Flamers, Wolf Standard, Rhino

 

Fast Attack

Thunderwolf Cavalry x5 - stock

Heavy Support

Long Fangs x5 - 4 Missile Launchers

Vindicator - Siege Shield

Vindicator - Siege Shield

 

The Chaos player was taking a pretty all-rounder list that consisted of a Tzeentch Daemon Prince, 2 squads of Plague Marines, Berserkers, Khorne Termies in a Land Raider, Nurgle Bikers, Havocs, a Defiler, 3 Obliterators and a Lascannon Pred.

 

I won't bore you with the entire turn-by-turn run through of what every single unit did, but I'll give you the highlights;

 

Tank Block: I deployed my Vindicators on either side of my Land Raider, with the 3 Rhinos behind them, creating an AV13/14 wall for the Rhinos to hide behind as I advanced to midfield. The Land Raider did quite well in it's first two turns, wrecking a Rhino and burning the crap out of some Havocs/Plague Marines, but sadly it asploded before it got into assault range so my Death Star unit had to footslog for two turns before it finally got into combat in turn four! The Vindicators did fair, with one suffering a weapon destroyed after a single shot, whereas the other got two shots off before sucumbing to a barrage of stunned/shaken that eventually got it wrecked.

 

Long Fangs: Sadly they suffered a single wound from the defiler early on, and I chose to allocate it to my squad leader, as I didn't want to lose the potency of 6 missiles. I don't think it was a bad decision, as they didn't really make good on the shots they fired anyway. Their performance was all over the place, from the fantastic; insta-killing 3 obliterators in cover with 4 krak missile shots, to the horrendous; failing to kill two berserkers, not in cover, with 8 missiles over two shooting phases. guys. Taking the Wolf Guard w/Cyclone was a fantastic choice though. They did manage to kill Khârn from across the map, however.

 

Thunderwolves: I could have played these guys a *lot* better. I charged them into combat with the Daemon Prince, which wouldn't have been such a big deal, but then some berserkers w/Khârn the betrayer piled in and they just got swamped. Thankfully my Wolf Lord did kill the DP, but was himself eventually swamped by berserkers. So sad, I really wanted him to charge that Defiler...

 

Dreadnoughts: The Plasma Dreads got utterly destroyed by berserkers and Khârn, and sadly didn't really get a chance to do much in the game. Once my Thunderwolves were dead, the 'zerkers and Khârn split, and went after my two Dreads. I was very said, especially seeing as I bought the Heavy Flamers and Wolftooth Necklaces for them...

 

Grey Hunters: 2 squads basically sat in their Rhinos all game, just shooting out the top-hatch with Meltas when enemies were in range, and camping on the objectives when I got there. One squad did get their Rhino exploded by the Tri-Las Pred, and then lost all but two members to a well placed battlecannon shot from the Defiler. The two remaining Melta Hunters eventually rallied and tried to assault the three remaining berserkers late in the game, but sadly I rolled a 1 and a 2 for their Melta shots, and they got chewed up in CQC.

 

Uber Death Star Unit: Logan, Ragnar, the Rune Priest and four Wolf Claw/S.Shield Terminators, who sadly didn't get to ride their Redeemer into the fray as per my battle plan, but they did eventually get into combat (on turn *four*...), and when they did, boy oh boy did they bring the pain. They charged Plague Marines, which negated Ragnar's nifty +D3 attacks on the charge ability, but it didn't matter. Thanks to Furious Charge & Preferred Enemy, the two of them cut down all the Plague Marines before anyone else got to do anything. My opponent responded by dropping the Khorne Terminators out of his Land Raider and assaulting me, but I passed the test for counter-attack and killed all five of them with Logan & Ragnar before any retaliatory strikes could be made. Then, in his final turn, Logan wrecked the Land Raider with a swing of his axe, thereby making the nearby control point uncontested.

 

After six turns it was a victory to the Wolves with me holding 2 points and my opponent holding none. I must say, I learned some valuable lessons about playing Wolves in a larger-scale battle, as opposed to the 1,500pt games I am used to. Next week I am fighting an Eldar army @ 2,500pts. I can't wait to see how that goes down!