Tournament Results

[Jarl Deathwolf]

So I went to Bugeater last weekend where about seventy people showed up for six rounds over two days. I took my Space Wolves to the ITC tournament. Not only was I the only Space Wolf there, as far as I'm aware I was the only Space Marine army there. And one of the few pure, monocodex armies there. Now, I've been out of the loop up until a couple months ago, when I started doing practice games to get myself back into the game. I had realized that Space Marines had taken a hit, but those battles really drove home how much we got hit. 

 

Still, it isn't all doom and gloom. I knew what I was getting into and my goals were less about winning and more about earning glory and enjoying myself, both of which I succeeded in. I'm going to walk you through my battles as well as I can (I only have two enemy lists on hand since I was apparently the only one who actually printed off multiple lists like the instructions had asked of us Halfway through typing this, I remembered that all of the army lists were sent out in an email, so I'll be using those to refresh my memory. I can post those lists if asked, but I don't see much reason to do so), and give my take away for what worked for me and what didn't really impress. I realize that others have probably done this before and better, but I hope that there is something to learn from my experience. I also took pictures, but they are just barely too big to post, I think. 

 

Here is the army that I lead:

 

HQ

 

Bjorn the Fell-Handed

 - Twin-Linked Lascannon

 

Rune Priest Jurgen Windcaller on a Bike

 - Runic Sword, Psychic Hood, Storm Bolter (Frostfury)

 

Iron Priest Ulf Blackbrow on Thunderwolf

 - Thunder Hammer, Bolter, Armor of Russ

 

Wolf Priest Rejvik Flametongue 

 

Troops

 

x3 9 Grey Hunters w/ Wolf Guard Pack Leader

 - Blood Howl: 2 Melta Guns, WGPL w/ Combi-Melta, Frost Sword

 - Sun Wolves + Sagacallers: 2 Plasma Guns, WGPL w/ Combi-Plasma, Frost Sword

 

Elites

 

5 Wulfen

 - 4 TH/SS

 - Pack Leader w/ Frost Claws

 

Fast Attack

 

3 Cyberwolves

 

Heavy Support

 

5 Hellblasters

 5 Plasma Incinerators

 

Flyer

 

Stormwolf

 2 Lascannons, 2 Twin Heavy Bolters, Twin Helfrost Cannon

 

Dedicated Transports

 

x3 Rhinos

 

I ended up with 8 command points because I goofed and had an extra HQ, who I had to add to my list with a -1 cmd point. A tragedy, but not insurmountable. The first command point would always be spent on an extra relic for Frostfury, leaving me with 7 command points to work with. Without further ado, let's get into the battles themselves.

 

Round 1 - Craftworld Eldar

 

This, the very first round, made me realize that I had a major flaw in the build of my list. Specifically, if I couldn't assault a thing, then I couldn't do a lot of damage to it. Three flyers and a Scorpion (a Lord of War flyer) was a hassle to deal with, but I was doing pretty well in the first couple turns. I might have won it had I not underestimated Eldar speed - I sent my Stormwolf barreling into enemy lines to get my Wulfen as close as possible, but their small ground forces (rangers, a couple tanks, and some characters) were able to surround the Stormwolf. When it died, the Wulfen were slain without ever touching the ground. Even so, I mauled their forces. One tank was killed when the melta grey hunters walked out of their rhino and blasted it apart in one volley. All of their characters sans their Autarch warlord were killed, and even then he survived solely because he had the Phoenix Gem. Two flyers were killed by Bjorn personally with the help of Keen Senses, but even the Trueclaw himself can't take 4d6 shots at S14, AP -4, 1d6 damage a piece. 

 

I took some consolation when I talked to the Eldar general later and discovered that his next opponent had fielded his exact list, except the Scorpion had been replaced with other models. My old foe lost to the modified list. 

 

Which brought me to something that annoyed me in the tournament in general - there was a lot of repetition. Out of 16 Imperial lists, 8 were almost exact copies of each other (3 Knight Crusaders, 4 assassins, 32 Guardsmen + x3 3 Mortars). Thankfully, my opponents all were pretty different. 

 

Ending score: 11 to 30

 

Round 2 - Tau

 

The result of this match was practically carved into the Wyrd, but not for the reasons I had expected it to be. It wasn't the guns of the Tau that proved to be my downfall, it was the drones. 36 drones, in 3 squads surrounding the three Riptides. The ones that can burn a wound to either get more shots or improve their invuln? Anyway, that was the only thing in their list that mattered - the Crisis suits, Ethereal, tiny Fire Warrior squads, and even Commander Shadowsun didn't do much of anything. But no gun could really hurt the giant suits - the only thing that was hurting me - and my bolters weren't sufficient to mow down the drones. Most of them (8 in each squad) seemed to have a 4++ save and a 5+++ save, making a single drone tougher than a Grey Hunter! Even with a full plasma pack rapid firing on a drone squad, I only killed 4 or 5.

 

Although, my favorite part of this match was that I got first turn and managed to get off Stormcaller, Cloaked by the Storm, Tempest's Wrath, and popped Smoke. During the entire first volley of fire that the Tau sent my way, only the Stormwolf went down - everything else was completely untouched. 

 

Even so, this was the one match where I didn't really kill anything big or important - I reduced a big suit down to two or three wounds, but that was with Bjorn clawing at its legs. As it turns out, a 3+ invuln is hard to get through, even with Bjorn. 

 

Ending score: 13 to 23

 

Round 3 - Daemon Circus

 

A theme I know well, since Chaos has been one of my oldest match ups over my last ten or so years of being in 40k. This list had 9 characters. There was a council of three Chaos Marines - a Chaos Lord (the warlord), and two sorcerers, all with jump packs. Three Daemon Princes - two of which were 1k Sons and the third a Khornate Daemon. Ahriman on a Disc. Two Daemon characters I'd never heard of - the Sloppity Bellpiper and the Changecaster. Surrounding that core of models was a whole lot of chaff - 45 Plaguebearers in two squads, 30 Pink Horrors, and x3 10 Cultists. 

 

Again, I did pretty well up until I wasn't. I met Chaos in the middle of the board and unloaded with my Grey Hunters while using my characters and Wulfen to hunt down the circus. His sorcerers were killed by the Wulfen, a 1k Sons Daemon Prince killed the Wulfen, and then the Wulfen, in dying, killed the 1k Sons Daemon Prince! The Grey Hunters had done well in blasting apart Plaguebearers  - a few meltas even slipped in and incinerated the Warlord. But then Bjorn was dragged down by mortal wounds, and the Pink Horrors showed up and things took a bad turn. There was a few good responses after that - my favorite of which being Ahriman dying to overcharged overwatch plasma guns and frost swords - but it was downhill from there. I'd say there was about 15 Plaguebearers left in two squads, the Pink Horrors and three surviving characters at the end. Jurgen, alone out of all the Space Wolves survived, surrounded on all side by Pink Horrors that he was slowly killing. 

 

This was the first match where the heroic intervention really helped. Bjorn made it into the daemons on my opponent's turn, Ulf Blackbrow killed a tide of cultists trying to contest my objective, and Jurgen moved in and out of combat very efficiently. Maybe too efficiently - all that falling back often denied me the use of Frostfury, but I considered it worth it to get some hits in on enemy characters. 

 

An annoying thing about this match was that he avoided Jurgen for two turns in order to milk me for eight extra points at the end. 

 

Ending score: 13 to 33. 

 

Round 4 - Genestealer Cultists

 

This one was an annoying fight simply because I won initiative and for the first two turns I had nothing to fire at. There was Hive Guard hidden behind a corner ruin, some rippers, and a couple zoanathropes. Not much else was on the board until suddenly EVERYTHING was on the board. I'd list what was there, but they were a ringer, so their list wasn't included with the rest of the lists. Suffice it to say that by the time they arrived, I had spread out a little to get objectives and do some damage, leaving me in a prime spot for ambush. 

 

Bjorn's moment of glory came when, through the use of strategems, a group of bikers infiltrated within 3" and threw demo charges at him. He survived, heroically intervened, and killed them off. Since the guy had 18 command points, though, he tried again later. I didn't get to intervene that time though since he assaulted with a Genestealer Patriarch - a fight he sadly lost. Wulfen and the Wolf Priest were surrounded by twenty models with handflamers, a tactic that cost me three Wulfen (man those guys are tough!). The Priest then heroically intervened and although he didn't do much damage, that DID prevent overwatch and let the Wulfen charge in without fear. The Grey Hunters did their best, but between repeated bombardment and an assault by a swarm of twenty acolytes(?), they were overwhelmed. 

 

Ending Score: 15 to 32

 

Round 5 - Adeptus Mechanicus

 

I hadn't faced AdMech before this battle, but I was acquainted with the faction thanks to battle reports and my friend using them. What this means is that while I wasn't in the dark about them, target priority was unclear for me, at least at first. 

 

And there was a lot of big targets to be had - a bunch of kataphron destroyers, Castellan robots, and Ironstriders with twin lascannons. The reliable tactic of Stormcaller/Cloaked by the Storm / Tempest's Wrath worked beautifully. Even with the AdMech strategem that lets Ironstriders hit with a +2 bonus, he was hitting on 4+ against my vehicles. It gave me time to close the distance, but the remaining army blasted my transports open and killed most of the Grey Hunters before they could really do anything. By the top of Turn 2, I thought that the battle was over. 

 

But then the Wulfen assaulted. I assaulted around a corner, sparing me from most of the overwatch. I declared my assault against the Castellans, Belisarius Cawl, a couple Enginseers, and the kataphrons. They connected with the kataphrons and an Enginseer first and with the Wolf Priest's re-rolls killed them all and piled in closer to the rest of the lines. Then I paid for Honor the Chapter, activated them again and piled into the unit of four Castellans - killing them all in one go. 

 

That proved to be the start of a major comeback. The Wulfen absorbed the next turn of shooting - obviously. But they didn't have any other shooting left once my characters were open, and their only close combat thing was an eversor standing over the ruins of my Hellblasters. So the council of priests advanced behind Bjorn, taking pot shots at troops choices to keep them from leaving their deployment zone and getting objectives. Bjorn killed Cawl in melee, then piled into the Ironstriders. The priests slowly died off - nearly killing the eversor in melee while they were at it - but the Ironstriders could never get far enough away from Bjorn to prevent him from heroically intervening. And they were the only things really capable of hurting the Fell-handed. At the end of the game, during his time as my only model on the table, he'd killed all the Ironstriders, a unit of rangers, and the Techpriest dominus. Unfortunately, I still lost, although it was the most enjoyable game I had that day.

 

Ending score: 20 to 30.

 

Round 6 - Aeldari

 

Or, more appropriately, Dark Eldar and friends. While the Craftworld reinforcements were significant - Hemlock wraith fighter, Farseer on a bike, Eldrad, etc. - most of the points were in Dark Eldar things, specifically skyweavers, venoms, and wyches. 

 

The start was pretty strong since, again, I got Storm Caller / Cloaked by the Storm off, making my vehicles pretty impervious to the Eldar first turn shooting. I barreled towards where the HQs had been set up to kill off their psykers and get points for Head Hunter. This ended up meaning that I got surrounded on all sides by the Eldar and my Grey Hunters split up to keep each flank standing, with each flank supported by HQs. The reason I did this was because the objectives were all on the edges of these flanks and if I held those three (out of 4), then I'd at least get a leg up on the points generated by objectives.

 

Bjorn lead the Sun Wolves into the heart of the enemy fleet of jet bikes, same as the Wulfen - whose mission was to kill the biker farseer warlord. My original push was maintained by the Sagacallers, Jurgen, and Rejvik, the last of whom got left behind by the Wulfen when he failed a 6" charge with rerolls. Finally, twenty wyches and 6 skyweavers deepstriked on a third flank and were mostly repelled by Ulf Blackbrow, the Hellblasters, and Bloodhowl. 

 

Despite being constantly surrounded having my rhino blown up, I reaped a fearsome tally in this match while stubbornly holding onto two objectives. Sadly, twenty wyches outnumbered me on one of those objectives, despite the fierce Hellblaster melee. The match ended at Turn 3 since we ran out of time (the enemy shooting was heavy and he didn't know his list perfectly), but if we had continued then I am fairly sure I could have gotten all the objectives, or possibly tabled him. 

 

As it stands, I won my last match of the tourny

 

Ending score: 19 to 10.

 

Conclusions

 

There were a few tactics in my list that worked really, really well. Storm Caller, Tempest's Wrath, and Cloaked by the Storm, all surrounding a biker Rune Priest is a combo that made first turn shooting very easy to endure. Once I started keeping the Stormwolf close enough to benefit from it (Round 3), it would usually survive long enough to get a second turn.

 

Bjorn being the warlord is also helpful - 9" bubble of reroll ones was very important when I had 11 plasma guns of various types in my army, and was another reason that keeping the stormwolf close on the first turn was so useful. Twin lascannons gave Bjorn an excellent reach, but it was when he attacked something in melee that he really shines. With his rerolls, he is almost guaranteed to cause 5 saves on an enemy, each doing d6 damage. And as a character moving 8", he got there more often than not. 

 

Armor of Russ on the Iron Priest was a good choice - and not just for the 4++, although that saved him plenty of times. In almost every match, the slowing effect was put to great use since he would often be right behind the transports or near the troops, and thus heroically intervene into a fight and let my grey hunters punch back before the assaulter can swing. Besides that, the 3 thunder hammer strikes and 3 thunderwolf bites made him equally useful for fighting back squads as he was smashing vehicles or killing characters. Besides that, just the ability to heal Bjorn proved useful.

 

The Wolf Priest was alright - my only problem was him keeping up with the Wulfen since he can't run and assault. Still, he was a good investment for the points. Next time, I might field him using a jump pack - at least then he can deploy out of the stormwolf further away. Most of the time, his biggest contribution was healing the other characters, usually the Iron Priest. 

 

Biker Rune Priest is excellent, especially if given Frostfury since it lets you shoot even if you turbo-boost. And with that turbo boost, I can get where I need to go to provide cover or decide where my smite hits. Psychic hood is almost a must since he was my only source of denial and with it I shut down two or three extra spells in the first match.

 

As for the other units, I didn't really suffer all that much from having a full 10-man Grey hunter pack. Morale was almost never a problem since whatever shot at Grey Hunters either only killed 2 or 3, or killed them all. And I don't really care what you're fielding, 30 grey hunters disgorging all at once and firing hurts. Especially when nine of them have good guns. They make excellent firing squads when characters are in range and can usually take a fair number of wounds off all but Lords of War. 

 

Hellblasters didn't impress me much since they were seldom in good range or just got blown apart. More often than not, they were just there to keep Bjorn from being the closest model. Cyberwolves did more simply because I hid them well and no one wants to allocate shots against them when I have so many more targets to fire at. They scored me plenty of objectives points while rarely giving up a kill point. That being said, they were also the only unit to ever run away due to morale in six matches.

 

I had been debating about having a Stormwolf or having two packs of 5 Long Fangs, but in the end I think I prefer the stormwolf. I lose out on objective holders / innate rerolls, but the loadout that I gave the stormwolf was just so useful for picking up slack in the army. Besides that, there were multiple times were I would zoom the flyer next to a character and blow him up in the least stealthy assassinations ever. It also saved me 1 or 2 command points as I didn't need to outflank the Wulfen, command points better used on Honor the Chapter and Cloaked by the Storm. 

 

Anyway, that was my first experience on the tournament scene and it went about as well as I was expecting. 

 

Thoughts? Comments? Did I do everything wrong and I should have done so and so instead? Let me know! 

[TiguriusX]

good showing and a pretty accurate assessment of the current meta. according to statistics SW are bottom 3 of all factions i believe. it is not easy being fenrisian

 

your list definitely has shades of early 8th meta. Cyber wolves have gone from useful screen to never take bc they are an easy ignore LOS kill point. Almost every Imperium list includes mortars and wyverns to mulch a cyber wolf

 

i am preparing for a GT as well and have 10 versions of a pure SW list i keep debating.

 

your tales of bjorn and heroic interventions may help me decide on a particular style

 

FYI you could have assigned the 3 cyber wolves and 4th HQ to an outrider detachment and earn a CP. keep it in mind for the future

[NightHowler]

Thanks for the batreps. Very concise and nicely written.

[Jarl Deathwolf]

I almost forgot to mention something about the Ad Mech battle that I found hilarious. As the Mechanicus was lining up ten lascannon shots into three of my five models still on the table (the priests, a cyberwolf and Bjorn), the Mechanicus player told me 'Magnus did nothing wrong.' Cue everyone surviving his shooting phase, and Bjorn brutalizing his warlord and half his surviving army. I get the feeling Bjorn, who participated in the Burning of Prospero and who personally blasted a plasma cannon into Magnus the Red's face, took offense.

 

 

good showing and a pretty accurate assessment of the current meta. according to statistics SW are bottom 3 of all factions i believe. it is not easy being fenrisian

your list definitely has shades of early 8th meta. Cyber wolves have gone from useful screen to never take bc they are an easy ignore LOS kill point. Almost every Imperium list includes mortars and wyverns to mulch a cyber wolf

i am preparing for a GT as well and have 10 versions of a pure SW list i keep debating.

your tales of bjorn and heroic interventions may help me decide on a particular style

FYI you could have assigned the 3 cyber wolves and 4th HQ to an outrider detachment and earn a CP. keep it in mind for the future

 

This is very true. But, where there is no risk, there can be no glory! If I can't win the game as written, then I'll play my own game and win at that - hence my quest of hunting warlords and killing monsters. Which was fun until the T'au, as usual, ruined it. 

 

Surprisingly, the cyberwolves often lasted a long time. Partially because I never faced a Guard-heavy list, but also because that the few LOS-ignoring guns the enemy had tended to be focused on the armored convoy slamming into their main lines. Nobody wanted to divert guns to the cyberwolves - who effectively had a Primaris statline when they were in cover - when more pressing targets were available. That being said, they didn't do much besides kill some cultists and hold objectives. Which i suppose is fine since the only reason they were in the list to begin with is because I couldn't find anywhere else to spend 45 points. 

 

I'm glad to hear it! Bjorn really was something else - a hidden ace that could do a surprising amount of damage yet even if he never got in combat his rerolls and highly accurate twin lascannon were always helpful. Since he usually survived till late game, everything that could kill him was already dead, leaving him free to slaughter. Other than that, I found characters and their interventions to be incredibly helpful. Or even game changing if it happened to be the Iron Priest with the Armor of Russ. 

 

Ah, I see, that would've been a really good idea. The flaw was pointed out to me in my second game, so I had to make a snap judgement that I stuck with for the rest of the tournament. But thanks for pointing it out! It's something to keep in mind while I work on this list some more. Two extra command points means more Keen Senses, Talismanic Shield, or re-rolls for damage on the lascannons. 

[TiguriusX]

 

I'm glad to hear it! Bjorn really was something else - a hidden ace that could do a surprising amount of damage yet even if he never got in combat his rerolls and highly accurate twin lascannon were always helpful. Since he usually survived till late game, everything that could kill him was already dead, leaving him free to slaughter. Other than that, I found characters and their interventions to be incredibly helpful. Or even game changing if it happened to be the Iron Priest with the Armor of Russ. 

 

 

 

I am basically creating a list based around that exact concept you just described

 

The core of the list is Bjorn and 3 chaplain venerable dreads

8 BS2 lascannons with character protection and devastating melee

 

An iron priest with the armor of russ will be in the vicinity to shut down a smash captain rush and I should be ready to party

 

Decent offense

Ultimate defense

And a strong counter charge element with plenty of heroic intervention options

 

I may kill 1 unit a turn but if all goes well I won't lose anything either