Alamo GT Batreps

[montegue]

Greetings! These battle reports will be fairly bare bones. I'm playing the Alamo GT this weekend, and wanted to record my progress. 

 

List - 

 

Lord, Thunder Wolf. Frost Axe, Runic, Storm Shield, Wolftooth Necklace, Wolf Tail Talisman, Saga of the Bear, 2 Fenrisian Friends

 

Rune Priest, Master of Runes, Runic Armor, Plasma Pistol

 

TWC (3), Storm shield (2), Plasma Pistol (1)

 

3 units of 10 Gray Hunters, Standard/Mark, various weapons

 

1 unit of Long Fangs - 2 Lascannons, 1 Missile Launcher, 1 Plasma Cannon

 

5 Wolf Guard Termies, various weapons, drop pod. 

 

 

 

Battle 1) 

 

Opponent - Dark Angels 

 

General List - 

 

Belial w/10 Terminator buddies

 

2 units of Marines

 

1 Command unit with the Bolter banner. 

 

Land Raider

 

Drop Pod with a Dreadnaught

Aegis Defense Line

 

2 Rhinos

 

Might have had some other odds and ends. He had a psyker somewhere, I think. 


 

Battle: Crusade (5 objectives)

Deployment - Modified Hammer and Anvil (lengthwise table, deploy catercorner to one another)

 

My opponent won the deployment roll and chose to deploy first. He secretly jotted down that Belial and his company of naer do wells would come in on Turn 2. 

 

I rolled a 3 on the Personal table for Warlord traits, giving my Thunderwolf cav and my lord Outflank for the battle. I deployed my objectives in the center of the field, hoping to draw him in so I could counterpunch. 

I rolled a six to seize the initiative! This would give me two full turns of not worrying about an assault from the Belial death star. 

 

On turn 1, I fired a lascannon shot into the Land Raider and immobilized it. This kept his psyker and special banner locked far away from the battle, and that was a good thing. My Terminators dropped in next to his Aegis Defense Line, and opened fire on the Marines manning the station and the Librarian that stood with them. I killed a few models, and prepared for next turn's return fire and possible assault. 

On his turn, he opened fire in response, killing a terminator and doing some minor damage to the Gray Hunter units down range. Nothing serious. 

 

On turn 2, my Wolf Lord and his friends came in from my opponent's board edge, just where I wanted them to after the Acute Senses Reroll. They moved into position to hit the other group of marines near the immobilized Land Raider. Plasma Pistol killed one marine. The Terminators fired again, and then assaulted, killing the enemy Marines to a man. Onther Terminator was lost, but the Chainfist bearing Wolf Guard remained alive. That was a good thing - I needed him to carve up the Land Raider. 

 

His turn two saw his 10 terminators and Belial teleport onto the field. I was geninely worried. He wisely took his command unit out of the doomed Land Raider and moved them as far from the incommong Thunder Wolves as he could. Shooting occured, and there was some more death (his terminators took a decent chunk out of my central Grey Hunter unit, the unit sitting on an objective). His dreadnaught also dropped in and further threatened my Troops. 

 

On Turn 3, My TWC and Lord charged the remaining Marine Unit. IN the assault phase they would kill them nearl to a man and get stuck on them for a turn. My terminators charged the rear of the Land Raider, but failed to destroy it that turn (destroyed a weapon only). Marines opened fire on his Terminator squad. The Long Fangs took out the Dreadnaught with some help from the Gray Hunters. One or two terminators were killed, and the newly killed Dreadnaught made for excellent cover. 

 

On his turn three, he ran his command squad further away from the TWC. His terminators fired at the wounded unit of Gray Hunters, killing a couple more Marines. However, he failed his charge into dangerous terrain, and so his Terminators stayed put. Up the field a bit, my Lord cut down the remaining marines. My opponent had run out of troop choices besides Blial's unit, so I knew I had to slaughter them to ensure victory. 

On my turn 4, My Thunder Wolf Cavalry moved into position to charge Belial's company of Terminators. I did a bunch of shooting to varying degrees of effect. My opponent had basically run out of targets for me to hit, and it all came down to killing Belial. 

I should point out that on the far side of the board, my third unit of Hunters were having a stand off with two Rhinos. I would eventually destroy one. The other would try to contest the objective my Hunters were guarding, but would not get close enough to do so. 

 

This is essentially where the Saga ends, and in victory for the Sons of Russ. The Terminator squad and their horde of Power Fists killed all of the Thunder Wolf Cavalry. At the end of the First turn, seven Terminators stared at my Lord, who bellowed a challenge to Belial. Belial was pulled to the rear by his men. Enraged, my Wolf Lord lay about them with his Frost Axe, killing every Dark Angel to a man. Finally, with no where left to run, and bleeding from a wound delivered by a Fenrisian Wolf, Belial accepted the challenge and died with Honor. 

 

Victory to the Space Wolves. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[montegue]

Battle Two  - Tau. 

 

I wish I could say this game was even close. Tau seem really broken to me right now. The other player even felt like it was almost ridiculous what he was able to do. 

 

Turn one - 14 markerlights on my Longfangs. Dead in a couple of shots. Rune Priest with them.  Turn two, he guns down the entirety of the Thunderwolf Crew, including the Lord (make 27 saves...no, seriously. It's hilarious. From a single unit). 

 

By turn three he had killed everything I had save a handful of marines. I called it quits at that point. Not much else to say here. Nice guy, apparently an amazing player, but the Tau codex is not something I'm interested in playing against again any time in the near future unless they get some serious FAQ nerfing. Markerlights plus missile pods mean you get to watch the other guy play. It's such a simple thing for the tau player to make his drones BS 6 or more, and then just decimate any unit with massed fire. Killing the Pathfinders is next to impossible, because their cover save is ridiculous. 

Whirlwinds are the only real answer I can come up with. Hide outside of 36", put any available objectives in your own deployment zone, and hope he can't kill your whirlwinds and Longfangs. 

 

[montegue]

Battle Three - Dark Angels (apparently, Belial was unsatisfied with our last encounter)

 

 

This game was interesting - basic stand up fight, with purge the alien as the rule set. 

Opponent had two missile batteries from forgeworld I'd never seen before. He had a Bastion, and in it, a small cadre of Grey Hunter scout allies. Standing on top of the Bastion was the single most badass sniper to ever pick up a rifle. There was a named psyker inside, casting divination. 

He had 2 land speeders with missile launchers, and then 4 hardcore groups of 5 Terminators, including Belial's group. 

 

I  got turn one, and very foolishly dropped my Terminators across the board to go deal with his landspeeders. They failed, and were then stuck out there for the rest of the battle, trying to slog back into usefullness. 

 

On his turn, all of his boys came into play. He committed heavily to my left flank, as far from my Thunder Wolves and Lord as he could. He dropped Belial right behind my lines. 

 

My boys turned about, and gunned Belial's unit down to a man. The TWC charged across the field to get to the enemy while the Gray Hunters desperately held them off with bolters and hand to hand combat. The Long Fangs were decimated by sustained fire from the bastion and terminators. In the end, however, only a single Terminator remained. The Thunder Wolves delivered the Lord to battle and from there to victory. 

 

Games  4 and 5 tomorrow. Wish me luck! 

[ZayWolf]

Glorious battles wolf brother, I too know the anger from fighting the tau foe :( keep up the goodfight and may Russ lend his strength to your cause

[sigvals redfist]

Great battles brother, my recommendation for the tau issue is drop pod in a squad with flamer and have a good ole' fashion fish fry with those pathfinders, and when you kill them your life will become drastically easier. That is at least my experience with the tau

[montegue]

Greetings- 

 

Two more battles fought. I wish I had more recollection of the details, but here they are in short - 

 

Battle 4 - Blood Angels with Guard Allies. 

 

This Blood Angels player had a squadron of three Basilisks, which meant a massive, nasty pie plate of death Ordinance barrage every turn. The S9 AP3 barrage really made me nervous, and caused me to make some serious mistakes. I put my Wolf Guard terminators into his backfield, in the hopes of killing his ADL defenders, the Guard allied, and beating down the squadron of artillery. Unfortunately, I failed a panic roll at an inopportune time and retreated too far away to get into the heavy artillery in time. 

I began to run my Wolf cav down the field to his backfield. This was foolish. I should have just hunkered down, hoped the Armor and Storm Shields held out, and waited for Dante and his crew of angels to come down and pick a fight with them. 

He dropped a Pod in front of my Aegis Defense Line, and popped a Furioso Dreadnaught in my face. This was an excellent tactic, because he decimated the longfangs and bought his artillery all the time in the world they needed. Good thing for him, too, because my Rune Priest rolled the "ignores cover" Psyker power. 

 

In the end, victory was his. I conceeded around turn 4, having no real way to kill him. The artillery barrage was just to much to handle. 

 

 

 

 

Battle 5 - Dark Eldar - 

 

This was a slugfest. His DE could shoot like hellions, and they did. However, the skill of the longfangs and the endurance of the Grey Hunter units carried the day. He had all of his men in transports, and the transports had nasty venom cannons. At one point, he had three fliers on the board (having mulched my ADL with a venom cannon - watch out for that). However, it was not enough to claim victory. I won my last game, earning an overall record of 3-2. Not bad for my first GT. 

 

 

 

Thoughts - 

 

 

Thunder Wolf Cavalry - When they get in, they are rockstars. When they get gunned down, it's demoralizing. I believe adding two more, if possible, would ensure they get to combat pretty much every game. 


Wolf Lord - total rockstar when he gets into combat. Must be deployed with his unit centrally so he can go anywhere, including behind your own lines. if playing against an army with a lot of deep strike threats, I think it's best to use this guy as a counterpunch and an artillery draw. The Frost Axe, as pretty as I painted it, needs to be replaced with a Thunder Hammer. No one can convince me, after the raw number of 3+ invul saves that guy made on the dot this weekend, that a Belt of Russ is a better call. :P T-hammer is 5 points more than the frost axe, and instagibs anyone T5 or less. 

Rune Priest - Was lovely. Taking him as a Master Psyker was a nice way to play around with a couple of powers a turn. He got into combat a bit, gave rerolls when he needed to, and did some other odd jobs. He was also singled out and decimated several times. A lack of an invul save makes him very, very squishy. 

 

Wolf Guard Terminators - Meh. They were Ok, but not great. Likely dropping them (pretty as they are) for a Whirlwind. 

 

Long Fangs - The games I lost were games in which the Long Fangs were killed in the first or second turn. That says a lot for the unit, and I need more. I like them with las cannons. I know it's more expensive, but it makes penetrating shots more likely to blow up a vehicle, and the range is such that it's hard to hide from them. Will probably ditch the plasma cannon for a mix of Las and Missiles in two different units. 

Gray Hunters - Definitely need at least one unit if a transport. Either a Drop Pod or a Rhino. Tired of these guys having to footslog through terrain to get to anything useful. I need them in my enemy's zone quickly for many types of scenarios. 

[Fenric]

Fun reports but don't despair with Tau. I just played my first ever game vs Tau this weekend and came out with a win. He had the aegis defence line and 3x10 fire warriors a commander with 2 suits and some drones and a riptide and an Ethereal. I dropped in 2 drop pods one behind his line and the other just in front and did some shooty damage and then they got lucky and survived his shooting phase with a few left. His riptide even shot at them and scattered onto his Ethereal which failed look out sir and died :P

Anyways tau is a pain but if you can manage to distract them for a turn you will kill them really fast in melee or in my case with frag missiles from my long fangs+I had a whirlwind.

 

Still wondering how your Wolf Lord slayed his terminator squad to a man after Belial refused the challenge or isn't a Frost Axe +1str and ap3? I could have missed something since I just recently returned to play my favorite army again.

[montegue]

The Frost Axe is S +2, AP2, and unwieldy. :) It's a terminator slayer. So is a Thunder Hammer, though, and the T-hammer also has the extra added benefit of preventing FNP on units it can instakill. 

[Rift Blade]

Thanks for the Battle Reps. As the others have said, don't despair about Tau. The trick is to get into cc as fast as you can. If you can do that with any half decent force & pick you combats, they die fairly quickly. Seeing as your area is playing with Forge World stuff, try a Lucious Drop Pod with a any type of Dread. It lets you assault the turn you deep strike it with a simple dangerous terrain test. I've used it twice against Tau, tying up his Crisis suits & Riptide & went on to decimate the rest of his army. 

[ZayWolf]

with the rune priest in your list i would drop the wolf lord as well as the termies and beef out the thunderwolves to a 4man(5 if you have the models) give one a hammer/shield(still stregnth 10 with 5 normal attacks on the charge 6 with hammer of wrath)

 

and rift blade is right about the Lucius drop pod+dread combo highly devastating best to take in pairs and spend the extras on pods for the grey hunters

 

OR

 

with the extra points get some drop pods for your grey hunters, maybe another rune priest and some long fangs, then let the good times roll

[montegue]

I don't think I could bring myself to drop the Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf. I heart him too much. :) 

 

Here's the thing with getting into close combat with Tau. There's no way to get there with enough bodies to do the job. You charge one unit, and six other units fire overwatch. On BS better than 1, because of markerlights. You charge, you die. You can't do anything to that army until  you kill the markerlights. They will take your cover, they will overwatch you to death if you charge.

Seriously, if they show the batreps for the guy who won overall, I think you'll see just how much of a horror that codex is now. Dual whirlwinds *might* be enough to take out the markerlights before their army annihilates your list in three turns. It really is genuinely that bad. 

[montegue]

Here's a pic of my Wolves in action during game 3. 

 

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-04uwTR6ej9w/UZjMUyKeM4I/AAAAAAAAGkI/vzbHC7jm4e4/s1600/DSC00725.JPG

[Grimtooth]

Tau markerlights are such a crutch for the army that kicking it out from under them hurst them immensely. However, you seem pretty lost at how to deal with a gunline, much less a Tau one as you also got tore up my an allied IG gunline as well.

 

It isn't so much as run headlong into fire praying that something gets through. Your opponents are always facing the dilemma of target priority, especially gunline. The trick is not giving them the target they want, but giving them a target they cannot ignore.

 

Wolf Scout: They took a hit in 6th due to not being able to assault from Reserves, but are still useful for getting points for being in opponent deployment zone and in this case getting up close with markerlighting units. Are they going to wipe out a markerlight unit the turn they come on? Maybe. Will they force that markerlight unit to do something other then markerlight the rest of your army? Definitely.

 

Outflanking GH/BC: See above regarding getting close fast to markerlight units.

 

Bikes/Jetpacks/Cavalry: Fast, high threat targets. While you really want to get them into a gunline to max damage against foot sloggers, sending them after markerligh units is not a bad thing. The idea that a pricey unit needs to kill its own value in points is a fallacy. If taking out a markerlight unit then allows two packs of GH to chew through squads of Firewarriors, they earned their points in saving lives, not just taking them.

 

Lastly, while a Whirlwind or two is useful, it is really not the answer. Facing dedicated gun lines with subpar whirlwind munitions is like using a Nerf gun against an AR15. You are just outgunned period.

[montegue]

Ok, so walk me through it. The reason I reached for the Whirlwind is that it has the ability to ignore cover at range, which is what's so irritating about the Pathfinders. Killing them is exceptionally difficult. Why would that be sub par? They can park outside of the 36" death bubble, and fire into the pathfinders with incendiary munitions. If I recall correctly, those are large blast and get two shots. That's a lot of S4 AP5 wounds for a unit of Pathfinders to deal with. 

 

I just don't see how we can get close and survive without softening up their ability to take away cover and make snap shots crazy accurate. Their ability to have overwatch buddies makes melee combat a fools errand, as far as I can tell. 

[Fenric]

Tau markerlights are such a crutch for the army that kicking it out from under them hurst them immensely. However, you seem pretty lost at how to deal with a gunline, much less a Tau one as you also got tore up my an allied IG gunline as well.

 

It isn't so much as run headlong into fire praying that something gets through. Your opponents are always facing the dilemma of target priority, especially gunline. The trick is not giving them the target they want, but giving them a target they cannot ignore.

 

Wolf Scout: They took a hit in 6th due to not being able to assault from Reserves, but are still useful for getting points for being in opponent deployment zone and in this case getting up close with markerlighting units. Are they going to wipe out a markerlight unit the turn they come on? Maybe. Will they force that markerlight unit to do something other then markerlight the rest of your army? Definitely.

 

Outflanking GH/BC: See above regarding getting close fast to markerlight units.

 

Bikes/Jetpacks/Cavalry: Fast, high threat targets. While you really want to get them into a gunline to max damage against foot sloggers, sending them after markerligh units is not a bad thing. The idea that a pricey unit needs to kill its own value in points is a fallacy. If taking out a markerlight unit then allows two packs of GH to chew through squads of Firewarriors, they earned their points in saving lives, not just taking them.

 

Lastly, while a Whirlwind or two is useful, it is really not the answer. Facing dedicated gun lines with subpar whirlwind munitions is like using a Nerf gun against an AR15. You are just outgunned period.

I agree with you fully and it was how I won my latest game vs Tau. Dropped in Greyhunters behind his gunline and caused annoyance. But I dissagree that the whirlwind would be bad vs gunlines. It's rather cheap and can cause alot of hits and wounds sicne they are all so gathered in one spot. Like vs tau they would get a 4+ save either way behind the aegis so I shot with the str 5 and caused alot of wounds. A whirlwind+frag missiles fromt he longfangs ate up his firewarriors. Cause over 25% losses to one fire warrior unit and he has to make a ld 7 test or possibily run off the table. Just wish our Whirlwind costed 65 points like for the Dark angels :P

[eyeslikethunder]

You could give the Terms some combi flamers so they drop in and flame the pathfinders

 

i would expect whirlwinds to be very good against tau they have to clump up to get the massed overwatch meaning they are likely to take heavy casaulties or spread out meaning less overwatch. Either way you are forcing them to pick a comprise option rather than their prefered option

[montegue]

I was thinking about that idea as a shock force - 4 WGTDA with Combi Flamers and a mix of power weapons or just straight up chainfists for everyone. Drop them right on top of the pathfinders, burn them out, and move on. Put a heavy flamer in the unit for AP4. In fact, I think I might test that out soon. :) I don't want to specify vs. Tau too much, so I like soultions that have other applications. Giving them chainfists would be expensive, but could turn them into a "murderize the ADL guardian unit, then charge any artillery" group. 

[ORKILL]

The problem with the TDA is there is only four of them and the Tau opponent will use interceptor before you shoot. We spoke in the bar after your game. I played jWolf's Tau list the Thursday before Alamo, it is a murderous list and he is a top tier player. I managed to put two pods out of his line of site, ran the T-wolfs up as a distraction and he still managed to kill everything. I flamed one squad of pathfinders and then died.

[Fenric]

I'm thinking of dropping a dreadnought with double flamers with one being twinlinked. Cheap and super killy. Might soak a few shots nenst turn as well. Does tau normally go with alot of intercept though? My opponent had one with his riptide but he has to pay a fair amount for every unit with it. Haven't played any tourneys or so so not sure about the current meta.

[eyeslikethunder]

 

what is the tau list by the way?

[ORKILL]

I'm thinking of dropping a dreadnought with double flamers with one being twinlinked. Cheap and super killy. Might soak a few shots nenst turn as well. Does tau normally go with alot of intercept though? My opponent had one with his riptide but he has to pay a fair amount for every unit with it. Haven't played any tourneys or so so not sure about the current meta.

They will hit the dread with interceptor before the dread fires. Although the Smart Missiles are only S7, they are twin linked and both Tau players I played so far run a ton of them......and they have broadsides and plasma, as well. Long story short the Dread will probably die. Supporting fire is a tough nut..... now multiple dreads might work.

[Fenric]

Tbh though it will most likely take quite a few shots to bring down the dread with inteceptor(can always be unlucky though) and all that shooting can't shoot you in his shooting phase in his turn if he uses inteceptor. Meaning sure you may loose a 115p dreadnought without it shooting but it means alot less can shoot your thunderwolves or other guys moving across the field. His firewarriros can't hurt the dread so they will need to use their missile's that glance on 5's and pens on 6es and then it's not sure they even kill it(big chance though if they use enough).

I agree it's better versus non tau but if it can soak enough fire i'd consider it a win  and if it soaks and don't die you will flame possibly a whole firewarrior squad to death for example.High risk but also high reward. ALso don't forget you can try and put the dread so the drop pod gives him cover vs a riptide or maybe a suit squad if he doesn't decide to use his pathfinders as well. In that case he's using up alot of shooting resources to kill your one cheap dread.

[Rift Blade]

Throwing this out as a rough list idea for you to chew over. Dread naught in a drop pod(Lucius or other wise) minimal pack of Wolf Scouts, & 2 packs of TWC as a basis for the rest of the army. Dread comes in 1st turn gunning for the markerlights while TWC moves  as fast as it can forward. 2 units gives the Tau multiple targets including the dread. THe Scouts should make him think about the risk of him moving his markerlight units to the back for protection. Another idea is drop podding 2 RP in with Jaws & see what happens. Should be able to get multiple units that way.

[montegue]

Overall results came back for the GT and I tied for 10th. So that's pretty cool. 

[Rift Blade]

Congrats.