BatRep: 3x 500pt mini games, my first 40k for 14yrs ...

[Chodjinn]

Hope this is in the right section ... Finally got round to playing a few mini games to get me back into playing after over 14yrs off lol, and also to get my mates up to speed on the 6th edition. There were 4 of us playing each other in 500pt games. I decided I wanted to have a bit of fun so ran;

 

Space Wolves

10 Grey Hunters, dual plasmaguns, standard, MotW, power sword, Rhino

6 Grey Hunters, meltagun, razorback

3 Lone Wolves, gunslinger plasma/bolt pistols and a wolf each (one had 2 wolves)

 

Opponents were;

 

Dark Eldar

20 strong squad with a couple of those nasty heavy 6 weapons and a leader that grants FnP

Ravenger

6 Mandrakes

 

Tau

5 Pathfinders

2 Crisis Suits w/missiles

Devilfish with two gun drones

Large squad of Fire Warriors

10 Kroot

 

Chaos

2x 6 Plague Marines with flamer/plasma, leader, in rhinos with Havoc launchers

6 lesser demons

 

The scenario was two objectives, kill pt for first kill etc. 4x4 tables playing diagonally. I nominated one of my lone wolves to be the warlord, a decision that would be costly ...

 

First Game

 

Wolves vs Dark Eldar

 

He deployed everything in a forest and the raveger behind that, mandrakes in reserve. I stuck my tanks and lone wolves as far out as I could, razorback on the left flank and rhino on the right, lone wolves straight through the middle. The two objectives were in the middle of the table about 15" apart, evenly from either of our deployment zones.

 

Turns 1 & 2

 

I basically ran everything forward, disembarked the hunters and grabbed both objectives with the lone wolves running up behind slowly ... Dark Eldar sat in the forest and took pot shots at both tanks, taking a hull point of the razorback and the ravenger moved out of cover blowing the rhino to slag just as it got to the right hand objective. My 10 hunters all took hits from the huge explosion but I only lost 1. The mandrakes come on and move into a small piece of cover near the razorback hunter squad. but they're at least a turn away from charging distance.

 

Turn 3 & 4

 

I sit on the objectives whittling down the big squad in the forest, those damn FnP saves are a pain!! I only managed to take down a couple of them each turn. The razorback moves back a bit to allow the hunters to surround the objective in heavy cover. The mandrakes take a pounding from the razorback, losing half a squad but not breaking. The ravenger moves up my right flank and takes down three of the hunters on the right objective, half a squad left but they pass their leadership check as well. The lone wolves are now charging headlong through the middle of the two objectives straight at the forest, one fenrisian wolf goes down to Look out Sir! and one lone wolf is in charging distance for next turn ... he takes a heap of fire from the forest only inches away ... and brushes them all off!! My turn for some FnP luck!

 

Turn 5

 

The razorback and hunters on the left flank finish off the mandrakes who have done nothing other than get chewed to pieces, they're sitting pretty on the objective with good cover so I decide to leave them there. The other hunters shoot at the forest for a final time before I charge in the first lone wolf, I'm having no luck with the dual plasmaguns they've only killed two eldar all game! The other lone wolves are closing in for an assault on the forest as well. The raveger takes down two more hunters and they leg it off the objective about 5" ... enough to be out of LoS from the ravenger but I lose an objective. Now for the fun bit, the lone wolf charges in with his fenrisian wolf buddy and rips the eldar to pieces. The fenrisian wolf scores three clean kills but goes down to Look out Sir! while the lone wolf doesn't kill anything he takes hits from something like 12 eldar & leader but only takes a wound. We both forget about the Challenge rule (for the entire game, actually) which could have made a difference, but with the roles we both had in this turn prob not.

 

Turn 6

 

The hunters stay put on the left objective while the razorback moves out to provide cover from the ravenger if it decides to move towards the other objective. My fleeing hunters sort themselves out and I make a fatal mistake of deciding to try to take down the ravenger. Two plasmaguns fire off and the bloody ravenger has some evil warpish device that cocks up my range, but I cross my axes and hope for the best ... snake eyes ... and one of the plasmaguns turns one of the hunters into a pile of gloop. Damn! In the assault phase my lone wolves go mental ... the remaining two fenrisian wolves go down easy, but the lone wolves take four eldar out. The guy who was already in combat loses his last wound, and a wound is taken off each of the others, could have been more but I made a host of FnP saves. Oops. The raveger takes another hunter down.

 

The game ends with me on 3 as I still had one objective, dark eldar 4 (one for first kill, one for killing the warlord and two for the remaining lone wolves). If I'd have moved the grey hunters back on the objective rather than shoot at the raveger then I might have taken it, but there's no guarantee that the raveger wouldn't have ripped them a new one on the last turn. Also, the plasma guns were bad due to awful rolling on my part, but then two lone wolves survived through countless FnP saves, losing one more FnP roll in the last round of combat would have given me a draw.

 

Overall, apart from being fun as hell, I think I had the right overall plan. I knew the dark eldar wouldn't come out of the forest as it was giving them good cover saves throughout the game, but he also rolled badly for difficult terrain for the first 4 turns so hardly moved anyway. I used both scoring units to take the objectives and the lone wolves did their job - scary enough not to ignore and tied up the big eldar squad for two turns. It might have been a different story for the dark eldar if the mandrakes hadn't been killed off so quickly, but he knew he wasn't getting either objective by turn 3 so just proceeded to do what dark eldar do well, shoot the crap out of you!!

 

That was the best game for me. I lost the other two as well but they were all great fun and the guys are vastly more experienced than I am, hopefully that will change soon when get used to the different teeth of the wolf ... Everyone helped each other out and we didn't do any rule-mongering at all, generous with cover saves & line of sight shots etc.

 

 

The Lone Wolves cost me each game in terms of victory points, as my commander was killed first each time at a 2 vp loss so never really did much in the 2nd/3rd games. However, I'm glad I took them over the rune priest I was going to run, as they were hilarious. In each game they easily made back their points and then some, plus there is the huge distraction which meant my hunters took less shots. Against the Tau they didn't do so well as it took until the last turn to get one into combat, so they were a waste but he did take down a pricey crisis suit. However, against the nurgle marines they faired very well, even though I forgot about the Beastslayer reroll, one guy lasted two full rounds of combat killing 3 that were sitting on an objective and another wiped out all 6 lesser demons in two rounds. I'll never take three again unless it's a big game, but power armoured gunslingers are great, and I would always use at least one fenrisian wolf ... one of mine made more kills than a lone wolf, but in the other games they died within the first two turns. Can't wait to try Lone Wolves with TDA and a storm shield!!

 

Grey hunters performed exactly as expected, they were solid in every game pretty much, but I never got to use the meltagun, standard, MotW or the power sword!! So in future, objective sitters are going in cheap. When I start using pods I'll tool them up with the usual gear. And I've fallen in love with razorbacks they're brilliant, so I might get some more for my long fangs.

 

If I play 500 pts again I'd swap out the lone wolves for missile long fangs, the lack of anything heavier than a plasma gun meant I didn't have anything other than the heavy bolter razorback for range or hitting the big stuff. Maybe take two smaller GH squads and use three razorbacks. Anywya enough of my rookie ramblings, I've got long fangs to build!