Help against the Space Puppies **Batrep posted!**

[Acebaur]

So I have a game against a friend tomorrow and he's running his Space Broke Wolves We're playing a 2K game. Not sure what he's running but you can see the list I plan on here. So I look to my brothers for advice from those who've faced them? What are they like in this new dex? What things should I watch out for? Any weaknesses I can exploit? etc..

My friend is a very competitive person so I expect a top tier list. My list is open to changes though I don't have centurions or Talons so they are a no go. Otherwise I can field most anything.

Thanks Brothers!

Batrep located here

[shandwen]

I wouldnt work about their flyers much. One is a great gunship, but the stormraven has better fire arcs. Their drop pods and thunderwolf stuff is mean though. Grav guns and plasma will serve you well. And our codex is better than theirs, even if their relics are super cheap and their dedicated transports are fast attack as well. Oh, and dont let murderface murder your face. Shoot him down quick.

[minigun762]

Watching a SW vs SM battle report, the thing that won it for the wolves was a massive drop pod alpha strike. That's my biggest worry, how to survive the pods.

Mass LRCs could work as they seem to love their plasma. Ironclad would also be good as S7 isn't that scary to them.

[Acebaur]

ok, yeah I asked if I could borrow one of my friends drop pods and he said yeah if I blow one up lol. So it seems like he is planning an alpha strike list. Though in the past he did run a lot of thunderwolves so I expect those as well.  

 

 

Who is murderface lol?

[Metic]

I would say 3 vindicators. In this Scenario, it really covers all his strongest units with the exception of their new flyer. You can force his deployment type and really effect him psychologically with the threat of blowing up really anything he has to send at you.

 

If he plays pods, you can hold those same vindicators in reserves if you don't feel like you can adequately bubble wrap them.

[minigun762]

Who is murderface lol?

The bassist for Dethklok naturally.

[Sete]

Close combat dreadnought with "MURDERCLAWS" and fleas.

[minigun762]

As far as the Thunderwolves go, Vindicators are still a viable answer. I'd treat them like bikers+, same basic things that work on bikers should work on TWC, you'll just need more of it.

[Deadman Wade]

Mech lists are countered by drop pods, so I wouldn't recommend using heavy vehicles, especially land raiders and vindicators. To fight against drop pods, take your own drop pods and go second or use deep strike squads.

Also what kind of mission? In Maelstrom you can do quite good with MSU (rhinos and pods), while in Eternal War he can take something like thunderwolves deathstar and wreck your units without caring about objectives.

Fighting thunderwolves in close combat is a bad idea, when you're playing marines, so either focus fire them, if it's just a regular squad, or ignore and avoid if it's a deathstar (which is hard, considering their mobility).

Grey hunters aren't as scary as before, but they can take terminator leaders without taking Elite slot, so if you take close combat squads, think about power fist or axe for sword brother, if you don't want to rely on rending. Counter-attack is still annoying, and with their wolf banner Hunters still beat crusaders (four attacks even when you charge them!), but at least they get easily killed by terminators.

Their gunships are good, but not much better than Ravens, the best way to deal with them is to force jink saves and strip hull points by causing glancing hits.

[Marshal_Roujakis]

I had a recent game against Space Wolves... I didn't know what to expect so I brought my A-game... Sicaran Battle Tank for the Thunderwolves and other vehicles, Roc Pattern Stormeagle for the Anti-air assisted by a Stormtalon, Sternguards in Drop Pods with Grav Guns and a Plasma Cannon Deathwatch (Legion of the Damned) squad. Add to the dedicated Troops Land Raider Crusader, Ironclad Dreadnought in Drop Pod and a Tactical Crusader Melta Squad in a Drop Pod... 3 Pods (Dread, Melta and Sterguard), 2 Flyers, a 3++ Plasma Squad, 2 Big Tanks (with a 14 man Crusader Squad inside one), some backfield objective holders and a Marshal with AA, BB and Shield Eternal.

 

The Space Wolf brought Thunderwolves, Ice Flyer and Drop Pods as expected and didn't want to play against the same list afterwards...

[Acebaur]

Well I'm not 100% that he will run alpha strike drop pods, so I think it's best to be prepared for anything. With my list if he does run pods is it better to spread out as much as possible to force him to land near one thing or another or risk spreading himself too thin?

 

 

Also what do you think of my list? Any suggestions for it or is it pretty solid as it stands?

[minigun762]

Also what do you think of my list? Any suggestions for it or is it pretty solid as it stands?

Looks solid to me. I only had minor thoughts. I would consider putting the Vindicator in reserves to keep it safe.

[Acebaur]

 

Also what do you think of my list? Any suggestions for it or is it pretty solid as it stands?

Looks solid to me. I only had minor thoughts. I would consider putting the Vindicator in reserves to keep it safe.

 

 

yeah if I don't get 1st turn that is probably going to happen

[Acebaur]

Ok so here's a bat rep for my game last night with my friends wolves. He ran two HQ's and two squads of TWC, which incidentally if anyone is wondering are still just as broken as ever. It boggles my mind why the wolf's strength(5) benefits from the space marines powerfist. Anyway I digress. He also brought 3 pods with two dreads in two of them(one of them was murderface). He had two bloodclaw packs as well. (one in a pod) and two of their new flyers

 

So he won the roll off and deployed first and then let me have the first turn. We played the Maelstrom mission that used the secret objecctives. So I decided to leave the Sternguard in reserves and drop the dread and crusaders. I dropped them onto two objectives that I needed to score.  Both hit and I grabbed two points on turn one.

 

His turn one his dreads came in.  The MM dread dropped near my ironlcad but managed only to glance it. His other dread was Murder Fang and managed to cause a couple of wounds against my crusader squad but their armor was proof against such attacks. Then his TWC moved up the field ready to pounce the next turn. 

 

On my turn 2 both my sword brethren and storm raven came in.  I dropped the sternguard near murderfang, but I got greedy and split them so that there was two melta shots in each squad(not my usual plan) I was hoping to blow both the pod and the dread. Well I whiffed with the first shots so had to use the others to kill the dread. Murderfang was reduced to Murderslag :lol: First blood to the Templars! I also scored an extra VP for one of the maelstrom objectives. The raven was innefective in trying to kill the other dread however I did immobilize it so that was good.

 

Then it was his turn 2. The wolves charged forward engaging my crusader squad and sternguard. He rolled well on saves and both my squads were toast. His drop pod came in but he decided to land it in the backfield to claim an objective. 

 

At this point the pods and wolves were crowding the field since we had the short table edges as our deployment.  So keeping objectives in mind and not focusing on the carnage wrought by the TWC I dropped off one of the combat tactical squads on an objecctive and raced up the table. Unfortunately my LRC and vindy were kind of blocked in so I made a bold move. Using my best General Veers voice I announced that "All troops will debark for ground assault" and plopped my crusader squad and marshal on the table. They charged the wolves knowing their almost certainly doomed fate but determined to hold them for as long as possible. Well that round of combat went exceptionally well for me. I rolled well on attacks crushing his TWC sgt in a challenge with my Marshal. He rolled terribly with his saves and I killed about half the squad while losing about 6 marines in process. One of my neophytes was the hero here tanking 8 wounds for the squad. Unfortunately I don't have enough experience with wound allocation in 6th and 7th and so my two power weapons ate it because I had them too close. 

 

His flyers finally came in and unleashed their weaponry on my vindy and my rhino.  The rhino was blown to smithereens and the vindy weathered the storm but was stunned in the process. Meanwhile the ironclad suffered the loss of an arm. fresh from their victory over my sternguard the TWC assaulted my LRC and with their broken S10 PF's killed it. Things were looking grim here my Marshal challenged one of his HQ's and but he rolled well on his saves. and the crusaders were whiddled further. However, I still held the advantage in VP's so the light of the Emperor still shone.

 

Not much happened on turn 4, my Marshal and his squad finally succumbed to weight of attacks and the combat squad holding the backfield objective got overrun. My shooting was innefective and my vindicator bit the dust. 

 

By the top of 5 we are all tied up however I with some luck I could score two points.  The first was easy, having a unit inside his 12". My Raven dropped into hover mode and grabbed that point.  It had jinked the previous turn and so could only snap shot. The second point to earn would not be so easy. I had to kill a vehicle. With my only viable shooting left being the Raven I banked around and unleashed hell!  I fired everything, all 4 missiles and the TLLC and TLMM at his flyer. I rolled a couple of 6's and with a stormstrike missile hitting a fuel tank the ship exploded in a shower of glory!

 

Now I'm up 2 points with his turn to play. We'll both get linebreaker so that's a wash. So to win he'll need two maelstroms. He gets one for sure with capturing an objective and then needs to kill a character and blow a vehicle to win. He manages to achieve both but I'm satisfied because that was probably the best game I've ever played against him(he usually mud stomps me) 

 

All in all it was a great game and came down to the last turn(the store was closing so no need to roll for additional turns).  I really like the Maelstrom missions, they make the game dynamic and ever changing, just like in real war.  Makes me realize just how much I hate kill point missions. These are so much better. I think from now on I'll be asking to play these. 

 

I think overall my list was pretty solid even if the vindy failed to do anything productive. I do see some mistakes I made. For one thing I should have put half the tac squad and the dread in the raven and then murdered his blood claws in the backfield. Also I was too greedy with the Sword Brethren. I should have kept all the melta in one squad and then fell back with the other to ensure he couldn't dual charge them. Finally I think I should have been more aggressive with my LRC and vindy and pushed up the table so as not to get trapped behind the pods and all the wolves. But considering it's only my second game in this edition and I only played a handful in all of 6th I think it's just a matter of getting used to new tactics (like flyers) and such.

[minigun762]

Sounds like our expectations of the list were pretty accurate. I agree that the rather insane stat bumps from the giant puppies is a little crazy. Coupled with their superior power weapons, you can have things like Wolf Lords with dual wolf claws packing a metric ton of S6 Rending Shredding attacks.

 

So what's your take on their new toys compared to ours?

[Toldavf]

They are a nusense to deal with I usually have to grav cannon them dead no other optio is realy that effective. Its a shame you couldn't demolisher cannon them at least once would of made the assault go easier.

 

I think 1vindi is to much of a target you need 2 ,^^

[Acebaur]

Sounds like our expectations of the list were pretty accurate. I agree that the rather insane stat bumps from the giant puppies is a little crazy. Coupled with their superior power weapons, you can have things like Wolf Lords with dual wolf claws packing a metric ton of S6 Rending Shredding attacks.

 

So what's your take on their new toys compared to ours?

 

 

Their flyer is very similar to the raven, nothing that our air power can't take down. it's really the TWC that are a giant pain to deal with. They have no disadvantages, multi-wound, truckloads of attacks, power weapons, SS's, cavalry, busted rules for the powerfists. I think even if I took grav centurions they would have  hard time dealing with them because they get in your face so fast.  

 

The fast attack pods are nothing but utility because they lose Objective secured even if you have troops in them. 

[minigun762]

Can't help but feel like more Vindicator love would solve the TWC issue. Models are huge so you'll hit something. S7 makes for a good clean weapon since you're still wounding on 2's and they'll just get their 3+.

[Honda]

Models are huge so you'll hit something. S7 makes for a good clean weapon since you're still wounding on 2's and they'll just get their 3+.

 

 

Actually, do they get their 3+? Vindi is S10 right, so even if they were T5, the Vindi is double, so no save unless cover or some sort of Invul?

 

Do I have that right?

[minigun762]

 

Models are huge so you'll hit something. S7 makes for a good clean weapon since you're still wounding on 2's and they'll just get their 3+.

 

Actually, do they get their 3+? Vindi is S10 right, so even if they were T5, the Vindi is double, so no save unless cover or some sort of Invul?

 

Do I have that right?

I was referring to the S7 shots. Assuming something like an autocannon.

 

Demolisher should double them out with no armor save and I doubt everyone will be packing a storm shield.

 

Assuming it's a fairly large squad, hitting it with a few Vindicators and pouring some autocannon shots into it should get it down to a reasonable level to finish off with bolters.

[Acebaur]

He ran two full squads of TWC each with an HQ attached and he had at least 3 SS's in each squad. He also spread them out adequately enough that I could only hit one model under the template. Fitting another Vindy in there is something to consider though I'd drop the relic status of the one to help make room(it would be a priority over the other vindy anyway)

[minigun762]

He ran two full squads of TWC each with an HQ attached and he had at least 3 SS's in each squad. He also spread them out adequately enough that I could only hit one model under the template. Fitting another Vindy in there is something to consider though I'd drop the relic status of the one to help make room(it would be a priority over the other vindy anyway)

Doing quick math, that's nearly 1000 points spent on puppy riders and HQ. Pretty considerable amount of his army.

[knife&fork]

He ran two full squads of TWC each with an HQ attached and he had at least 3 SS's in each squad. He also spread them out adequately enough that I could only hit one model under the template. 

 

I don't think that's possible. The large blast i 5" across right? Coherency is 2", so you should always be able to fit at least 2 under it. Blast only has to cover a model with the central hole, it doesn't need to be centered on a model. 

 

How about thunder fire cannons? Forcing some dangerous terrain is always a nice bonus. 

[minigun762]

 

 

He ran two full squads of TWC each with an HQ attached and he had at least 3 SS's in each squad. He also spread them out adequately enough that I could only hit one model under the template.

I don't think that's possible. The large blast i 5" across right? Coherency is 2", so you should always be able to fit at least 2 under it. Blast only has to cover a model with the central hole, it doesn't need to be centered on a model.

 

How about thunder fire cannons? Forcing some dangerous terrain is always a nice bonus.

Aren't cavalry immune to dangerous terrain?

[knife&fork]

 

Aren't cavalry immune to dangerous terrain?

 

 

On the contrary. They are never slowed by it but treat difficult as dangerous.

 

It's a really nice way to knock some wounds off a TWC unit during a game. With proper placement you'll force a ton of test since they need to get into combat. 

 

Beasts are the ones that ignore terrain and automatically passes tests.