The Lion and The Wolf - Battle report.

[Wolf_Lord_Hardrada]

My forces, PL 60 I think? (Small learning game)

• Ragnar Lothbrok Blackmane
• 9 Bloodclaws
• Rhino
• 9 Bloodclaws + WGPL
• Rhino
• 5 Plasmafangs
• Razorback
• Venerable Dred + Assault Cannon
• Dread with Lascannon+Missiles

His forces...guessing as this was a day or so ago

• Ezekiel
• 5 Scouts with snipers + H.B.
• 10 Marines + Plasma gun
• 4 Bikes + 1 Attack Bike
• 4 Bikes + 1 Attack Bike
• Dreadnought + MM
• 5 Terminators

Well, as first forays into 8thEd go it wasn't so bad. The Fangs ate it on the first turn to deep striking Termies (lesson learned there!), but they took one out with overwatch so it wasn't totally bloodless for them! His bikes started pushing my flanks, with my Vendred countering on the left by assaulting them and making them disengage, the cowards. Ragnar and his pack jumped from their rhino and eagerly avenged the Long Fangs...even though it took about 3 turns to do so! The right wing bikers met a wall of metal bawkses but found a gap to sneak through, the second Rhino having pushed up to take a control point and let the Claws advance against a second point held by his Tacticals.

  Ezekiel made a right nuisance of himself with his warp-witchery, but still managed to have half his wounds eaten by tentacles early on. After failing to destroy his Dred at range (though knocking it to 1 wound with a lucky lascannon hit), my Venerable was moved into close combat with his counterpart, but fell in glorious combat in a single round.

  With his left flank bikers now clear to advance, and supported by his Dred they pushed towards the Jarl of Fenris, vainly hoping to cut his thread short. Gladly, his Dred tried to charge my Las-Dred, and was swiftly overwatched into the next world, such is the power of FREEEEM. His bikers somehow allowed themselves to be charged by Ragnar and his Claws, they were ended swiftly!

  By this point however, he had accumulated many more objectives than I, having camped three from the start (I hadn't realised we were adding them up, thought it would be who holds most at the end!). So as we headed towards the end of turn 5, I'm down to Ragnar, 5 Claws, 1 Dred, 2 Rhinos and a Razorback on half points, my other squad of claws having torn their way through the Tacticals, but been brought low by vile psychic tricks, leaving just enough of the Angels left to cap the point. He was down to 3 Tacticals, 5 Scouts and Ezekiel, all others having fallen to the Sons of Russ.

  On the last turn though, a final salvo of missiles brought Ezekiel low, but leaving Ragnar now unable to charge and at least claim the last point (which was, to be fair, at maximum distance).

 

The game ran pretty close, he won by 3 control points at the end of turn 5 and it was good to play against an old opponent again, next time though, I'll protect those Fangs better I think!

[Kasper_Hawser]

My forces, PL 60 I think? (Small learning game)

• Ragnar Lothbrok Blackmane
• 9 Bloodclaws
• Rhino
• 9 Bloodclaws + WGPL
• Rhino
• 5 Plasmafangs
• Razorback
• Venerable Dred + Assault Cannon
• Dread with Lascannon+Missiles

His forces...guessing as this was a day or so ago

• Ezekiel
• 5 Scouts with snipers + H.B.
• 10 Marines + Plasma gun
• 4 Bikes + 1 Attack Bike
• 4 Bikes + 1 Attack Bike
• Dreadnought + MM
• 5 Terminators

Well, as first forays into 8thEd go it wasn't so bad. The Fangs ate it on the first turn to deep striking Termies (lesson learned there!), but they took one out with overwatch so it wasn't totally bloodless for them! His bikes started pushing my flanks, with my Vendred countering on the left by assaulting them and making them disengage, the cowards. Ragnar and his pack jumped from their rhino and eagerly avenged the Long Fangs...even though it took about 3 turns to do so! The right wing bikers met a wall of metal bawkses but found a gap to sneak through, the second Rhino having pushed up to take a control point and let the Claws advance against a second point held by his Tacticals.

  Ezekiel made a right nuisance of himself with his warp-witchery, but still managed to have half his wounds eaten by tentacles early on. After failing to destroy his Dred at range (though knocking it to 1 wound with a lucky lascannon hit), my Venerable was moved into close combat with his counterpart, but fell in glorious combat in a single round.

  With his left flank bikers now clear to advance, and supported by his Dred they pushed towards the Jarl of Fenris, vainly hoping to cut his thread short. Gladly, his Dred tried to charge my Las-Dred, and was swiftly overwatched into the next world, such is the power of FREEEEM. His bikers somehow allowed themselves to be charged by Ragnar and his Claws, they were ended swiftly!

  By this point however, he had accumulated many more objectives than I, having camped three from the start (I hadn't realised we were adding them up, thought it would be who holds most at the end!). So as we headed towards the end of turn 5, I'm down to Ragnar, 5 Claws, 1 Dred, 2 Rhinos and a Razorback on half points, my other squad of claws having torn their way through the Tacticals, but been brought low by vile psychic tricks, leaving just enough of the Angels left to cap the point. He was down to 3 Tacticals, 5 Scouts and Ezekiel, all others having fallen to the Sons of Russ.

  On the last turn though, a final salvo of missiles brought Ezekiel low, but leaving Ragnar now unable to charge and at least claim the last point (which was, to be fair, at maximum distance).

 

The game ran pretty close, he won by 3 control points at the end of turn 5 and it was good to play against an old opponent again, next time though, I'll protect those Fangs better I think!

 

Well done, although it seems that like me, you have also need to control your bloodlust and desire to charge and murder everything in favour of overall objectives.

 

was this a matched play though, which mission is this? I've only played the ones that most resemble the "eternal war" missions from 7th, I don't remember any of them being cumulative.

 

Careful deployment is very important now due to the very accurate deepstriking and potential charging now. Always have a 9" bubble denial in mind when you see something that can potentially turn up near you. I've lost quite couple of games to Grey Knights now due to allowing him to deepstrike all his stormbolter dudes and give a withering amount of bolter fire.

 

Glad you had a good game. I think in future, just park the dreadnoughts next to the Fangs to ensure no backstabbing and they should survive long enough to shoot.

[Wolf_Lord_Hardrada]

I'm not overly sure which mission we used tbh, and we may well have misread how points scoring works, I thought it was an odd system though. The charging headlong (I AM playing Ragnars Great Company after all) did almost work, though given how I didn't end up putting the Fangs in the Razorback I could have taken something more useful for the points perhaps. We did talk about how neither of us brought fliers, for which I was glad, as I don't have any...

 

As for bubble wrapping, I think in another thread I saw someone recommend using Wolves Wolfs as cheap 9" denial.

[Kasper_Hawser]

I'm not overly sure which mission we used tbh, and we may well have misread how points scoring works, I thought it was an odd system though. The charging headlong (I AM playing Ragnars Great Company after all) did almost work, though given how I didn't end up putting the Fangs in the Razorback I could have taken something more useful for the points perhaps. We did talk about how neither of us brought fliers, for which I was glad, as I don't have any...

 

As for bubble wrapping, I think in another thread I saw someone recommend using Wolves Wolfs as cheap 9" denial.

 

Not sure where that thread is mentioned, but yeah, a few Cyberwolves here and there to deny.... problem is that they'll end up being easy first blood depending on mission.

 

i'm considering getting a razorback for fangs next round too for some mobility or at least, protection against alpha strike. Then next turn they can come out and blast the assassins to smithereens.

[Dantay VI]

I thought bike squads could no longer have attack bikes with them?

I remember my friend bemoaning the nerfs his Ravenwing had taken and he couldn't mix bikes in his units was one of them.

[Kasper_Hawser]

It's not the joining of the Attack Bikes he should be complaining about. Its about the fact that bikes and land speeders lost their relentless rules so now nearly always hit with heavy weapons on 4+.

 

I'm very confused why GW felt it necessary to nerf the fast units which wielded heavy weapons. Sadly thanks to the damned Curse of the Wulfen Great Companies, I made it a point to invest in a large number of land speeders, which now are of dubious effectiveness thanks to the Heavy Weapon firing penalty. And if I'm suffering from this, I can't imagine how Dark Angels would feel when their elite ravenwing suddenly forgot to wield their multimeltas and assault cannons accurately, even from a vehicle like their land speeders and flying cathedrals.

[Karhedron]

 

Glad you had a good game. I think in future, just park the dreadnoughts next to the Fangs to ensure no backstabbing and they should survive long enough to shoot.

 

Yes, DS protection can consist of either bubble-wrapping or a sufficiently punchy counter-charge unit that an enemy will probably lose whatever he sends in to silence your big guns. A termie squad costs about the same as a Long Fang pack (maybe a little more) so if he trades 1-for-1, that is not much of a gain on his part. Also he needs to make a 9+ charge roll to get into combat as a single squad of shooting Terminators are not likely to kill more than 1-2 Fangs, particularly if they are in cover.

[Wolf_Lord_Hardrada]

I didn't even think about attack bikes not being able to join bike squads, but to be fair, it makes sense for them too so I would probably rule of cool it anyway.

 

I should have really kept them in the Razorback for the first turn, maybe been more aggressive with them early on but I see a hill, I want to put big guns on it..

 

In other better news, whilst grabbing models for this game I found my Leman Russ tanks! Which I thought I'd lost, so might be time to trawl ebay for the new turret/weapon options as the ones I have are from the 90s, and have the paint jobs to show for it....I also found a bonus basilisk which I'd completely forgotten I owned.

[Kasper_Hawser]

I didn't even think about attack bikes not being able to join bike squads, but to be fair, it makes sense for them too so I would probably rule of cool it anyway.

 

I should have really kept them in the Razorback for the first turn, maybe been more aggressive with them early on but I see a hill, I want to put big guns on it..

 

In other better news, whilst grabbing models for this game I found my Leman Russ tanks! Which I thought I'd lost, so might be time to trawl ebay for the new turret/weapon options as the ones I have are from the 90s, and have the paint jobs to show for it....I also found a bonus basilisk which I'd completely forgotten I owned.

 

Cool. Might be useful to try have a small Spearhead detachment of Tank commanders and Leman Russes. Still battle forged and you get another CP out of it. Not too sure about the costs though. Also Battle Cannons are not as killy as they used to be.

[Wolf_Lord_Hardrada]

Yeah its a shame about BatCannons, but hence the ebay search for the newer turret kits. Though in reality I'd probably only want one or two Plasma Russ so could just buy them new. I would like an Annihilator though, for old times sake.

[Kasper_Hawser]

Yeah its a shame about BatCannons, but hence the ebay search for the newer turret kits. Though in reality I'd probably only want one or two Plasma Russ so could just buy them new. I would like an Annihilator though, for old times sake.

 

for cheaper deep strike denial gun platforms though, I think the best option is the humble rhino with 2 Storm bolters and a hunter killer missile for good measure.  Let them waste their charge on a Rhino, which can pump out up to 8 Storm Bolter shots. (2 Storm bolters with Rapid Fire 2) These days I'm beginning to appreciate how much damage a Storm bolter can do despite having no AP, yet it now pumps out more dakka than it ever did in the last 3 editions.