warrenhammer40k Posted July 31, 2021 Share Posted July 31, 2021 Hello! Long time lurker, first time poster. I wanted to share my experience at a local GT over this past weekend. I’m a fairly casual player and prefer narrative game to competitive ones, but every once and awhile I’ll show up to a RTT or GT in my area just to have some fun and roll some dice. This past weekend was a little bit different as there was a side quest in the GT that was actually attainable for me. Having written this from memory, it is not incredibly detailed, but I hope to post these with some regularity in the future and I’ll try to be more thorough going forward. Hope y’all enjoy it! THE EVENT This GT was the regular 1st, 2nd and 3rd and had some additional prizes for best xenos, best chaos, best imperium, a “Rule of Cool” (best painted) and most importantly, a Master of Melee prize. One could only qualify for the Master of Melee by selecting preapproved units from a spreadsheet provided by the tournament organizer and by not upgrading any guns in your army (no plasma guns, no blasters). Some armies, like necrons, were allowed to bring troop choices that had decent shooting since they didn’t have many options otherwise, but almost all of the other approved units prohibited dedicated ranged units or units that clearly would have an advantage (dark reapers/mortis dreads). For simplicities sake, all Hq’s and transports were allowed. Thankfully for me, contemptor dreads made the list of approved units, as did redemptors and regular dreads provided they did not upgrade any ranged weapons. In addition to all of this, there was no painting score, so the highest one could score in any game was 90 points. 64 players in total and out of that only 8 of us signed up for the Master of Melee side quest. The winner of the side quest would be decided by who had the most points at the end of the tournament and by win/lose ratio. There was the expected amount of Ad Mech and Dark Eldar in the main player pool, but also a surprising amount of Chaos Knights, Tyranids and Necrons. THE PLAN So, my plan was to shoot for the Master of Melee! I only really play Space Wolves so bringing them was a foregone conclusion. I figured that even if I lost a game, all I needed was to score high on points. Of the 8 of us that signed up, there was one World Eaters player, one Chaos Demons player (who happens to be one of the best players on the coast), one necrons player, myself and a few who sadly knew they were out of the running after day one (I don’t remember their lists). Because of the way my list plays, I expected to get tabled by turn 4 almost every game, so I tried to stick to scoring early and scoring heavy. With that in mind, I figured warriors pride would always be a safe secondary pick as the extra movement of the charge would help me spread out. Additionally, oath is almost too easy to score with cyberwolves so I kept that one in the back pocket as well. THE LIST The 13th Company - Battalion Space Wolves Successor Chapter w/ Born Heroes and Whirlwind of Rage 1998 points / 8 CP Chaplain w/ Jump Pack, Benediction of Fury, Bolt Pistol, Wise Orator, Aura of Majesty, Canticles of Hate, Litany of Faith, Warlord Rune Priest/Librarian w/ Jump Pack, Force Sword, Bolt Pistol, Armour of Russ, Murderous Hurricane, Storm Caller, Hunter 2x5 Grey Hunters w/ Chainswords 1x5 Grey Hunters w/ Chainsword, Wolf Standard 3x5 Wulfen w/ 4 Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields 2 Contemptor Dreads w/ Multi Meltas 7 Wolf Guard w/ Jump Packs, 3 Thunder Hammers, 4 Chainswords, all have Storm Shields 2 Cyberwolves 5 Thunderwolf Cavalry w/ Lighting Claws and Storm Shields 2 Land Speeder Storms As my army is meant to be the 13th Company, there are no Primaris and everything is modelled with Horus Heresy models. There are obviously some better choices to pick in a competitive environment, but this is what I had on hand and I didn’t want to tech my list out at the expense of my theme. If you not familiar with what this list does (though I’m sure you are), let me break it down for you. Whirlwind of Rage stacks with the Space Wolves super doctrine, so in the assault doctrine 6’s to hit do 3 hits instead of 1. Wulfen always count as being in the assault doctrine. You can spend 1 CP for Bestial Nature to put a unit into the assault doctrine. With the Chaplain’s reroll all hits aura for the Thunderwolves and Wolf Guard, you can reroll everything that is not a 6 and start fishing. This translates to murdering anything you can get into combat with. It is glorious. THE TABLES All of the missions were hold one, hold two, hold more for objectives. The terrain was mirrored with each side having some variation of a large “L” piece, two forests, and two line of sight blocking buildings. Because of this, there was not much advantage in picking a side, so I normally choose Attacker each game if I one the roll off just to see what my opponent’s placement would be and plan accordingly. All of the tables were set up beautifully, nicely painted terrain and nice mats. GAME ONE VS SALAMANDERS Opponent’s List Chapter Master on Bike w/ forge master, storm shield, thunder hammer, relic that made him T7 and very unkillable Primaris Librarian w/ Chief Librarian, Veil of Time, Psychic Fortress, Null Zone, Sword 2x5 Assault Intercessors 1x5 Infiltrators 1x5 Intercessors 5 Flamestorm Aggressors 5 Bladeguard Judiciar w/ Rites of War Primaris Apothecary w/ the regular load out Redemptor Dread w/ Heavy Onslaught Gatling Cannon 2x3 Eradicators 5 Plasma Inceptors 2 Land Speeder Storms MISSION PRIORITY TARGET: 5 Objectives, one in the center, Secondary is score 3 for either of the priority objectives or 5 for both at the end of your turn. Diagonal table edges, all missions are hold one, hold two, hold more. SECONDARIES Warriors Pride Oath Engage DEPLOYMENT Going into the mission, I was very hesitant to stay in my deployment zone as I wanted to score as high as possible even if I lost. I was slightly scared of his shooting with the aggressors and the eradicators, but I figured I should go for broke. Because of Oath and Engage, I wanted to spread out. I put all of my wulfen on the line and positioned my Thunderwolves to get to the middle. I wanted to maximize my first couple of turns as I figured I would get tabled at some point. Dreads went for the flanks, cyberwolves and grey hunters went in cover (this would be a theme of the event) and speeders tried to stay out of line of sight. THE GAME I don’t remember much about his deployment or secondaries, so this will be brief. I believe he took oath and engage, but I can’t remember his third one. Highlights include making a long bomb charge with my wulfen into his aggressors that had been murderously hurricaned (no overwatch) and wiping them out completely, using the speeders and cyber wolves to push the warriors pride secondary and mulching anything he put in the center. I killed his captain and judiciar with some wulfen and started taking names after round 2! Alas, the final score ended up a loss, as I did indeed get shot off the board, but I gained 73 points (I believe he ended with 80). A solid start and an absolute gentleman of a player. I was very happy with this result. GAME TWO vs. DEATH GUARD/CHAOS OPPONENTS LIST Death Guard Spearhead Malignant Plaguecaster Tallyman 3 Plagueburst Crawlers Demon Battalion Great Unclean One w/ some relic chain, exalted demon strat and plaguefly Hive warlord trait Poxbringer Epidemius 3x4 Nurglings 2x5 Beast of Nurgle 1x7 Plague Drones w/ Demonic Icon MISSION RETREIVAL MISSION: 6 objectives, one in each deployment zone and 4 in no man’s land, 10-inch deployment from the short edge, secondary was minimize losses, which is garbage for me SECONDARIES Warriors Pride Oath Engage DEPLOYMENT Same as last game, I deployed all of the wulfen and Thunderwolves on the line. The Thunderwolves went right and the wulfen went to hide behind the large “L’s” in the center. I knew the plague burst crawlers would be a problem, but I figured if I scored well enough in the first few turns, I could live with getting tabled (which seemed like an eventuality). He put the Great Unclean One and a unit of beasts on my left flank (which was mirror to my dreadnaughts and a wulfen unit), the other beasts on my right flank (mirror to my T-wolves and chaplain) and the plague drones smack in the middle, also where his two action scoring sorcerers were. I made the mistake of underestimating how durable Nurgle demons are (more on that later). Everyone else went into cover to hold objectives. Since the crawlers ignore line of sight with their mortars, I figured it didn’t make sense trying to hide. This was a big mistake as my opponent took advantage of the firing lanes in the terrain to crush me with the rest of their guns. He hid his crawlers well and even though I knew I couldn’t reach them it ended up going very well for him. THE GAME I had never played against these units before, so my initial plan was to throw everything at him, confident that my wulfen and thunder wolves would do the job. He picked a psychic action that went off on 3’s as a secondary and I don’t remember what else, but as my plan was to lose high if I had to, I wasn’t concerned with denying him points or a win (MASTER OF MELEE BAYBAYYYYY). First turn I moved the contemptors to the left, advanced all the wulfen and rune priest to the middle and left the grey hunters and cyber wolves to die the backfield, hopefully holding objectives for as long as they could. The speeders moved up for warriors pride and engage. The Thunderwolves and chaplain went right flank to get the objective, which was blocked by 5 beasts of nurgle using their bases to move block me with terrain. Nothing major turn one. He did his psychic action and moved up accordingly, very smartly using the beasts on my right flank to block my Thunderwolves from touching his objective. He killed a unit of grey hunters, a speeder and a cyber wolf with indirect shooting. In turn 2 I went all in. Thunderwolves, 3 units of wulfen, wolf guard, contemptor and both characters… So, WOW, Nurgle demons are durable. I managed to pull some models from both beasts units and the plague drones, but it was not enough. In addition to the terrain preventing me from brining all of my attacks to the front, he had a lot of buffs going and my plan just did not work out. From there on out it was just me picking up models. I SEVERLEY underestimated how resilient Nurgle demons are. For all that, my opponent was another stellar player and was as nice of a guy as you could ask for. He won large around 70 and I was left with a paltry 35. GAME THREE VS NECRONS OPPONENTS LIST Spearhead Catacomb Command Barge 10 Warriors 2 Triarch Stalkers 3 Tesseract Arks Spearhead 2 Technomancers (one with the Veil of Darkness) 3 Doomsday Arks Ghost Ark MISSION BATTLE LINES: Four objectives, one in each deployment zone and two 14” from the center in no man’s land opposite of each other. Vital Ground, the mission specific, would be good for me as I need to score primaries and might as well grab more points for doing it. SECONDARIES Warriors Pride Oath Vital Ground (2 VP for each center objective and 3 for objective in opponents deployment zone) DEPLOYMENT He castled everything up and I deployed on the line. I wanted to max warriors pride and stay on top of the mid field objectives for as long as I could. I knew I had to act fast before he shot me to death. THE GAME Going into this one, I figured I had zero chance of getting around quantum shielding (only wound on a 4/5/6) so I resigned myself to playing the mission and getting tabled by shooting. This ended up working very well for me in hindsight. To make a long story short, I ended up killing one vehicle and maxing most of my secondaries. I did a lot of charging and killed almost nothing. Because I was so aggressive, my opponent did poorly on primary and conceded a lot of ground to me by staying castled up and not scoring, so I ended up taking a win being tabled turn 5 at 76 to 40. Highlights included a 10-man warrior squad using the veil of time to bully my backfield objective on the 3rd turn and in the next turn, the 5 grey hunters holding it (in the assault doctrine) murdering them and his character with the relic (netting me a nice point for oath and warriors pride). Another highlight was the thunderwolves sergeant, being the only model of the squad left after turn one, maxing out warriors pride for me for the rest of the game. Seriously, this man would not die. My opponent was absolutely amazing and very casual about everything. We ended up hanging out after the game and sharing stories of older edition battles. A solid end to the first day. GAME FOUR VS AD MECH OPPONENTS LIST In a nutshell: Hq’s 3x Large Blocks of Rangers 3x7 Serberys Raiders 2 Archaeopter Fusilaves 4 Las Chickens 2 Skorpius Disintegrators Plus some 5-man vanguard squads MISSION SURROUND AND DESTROY: 6 objectives, 2 in each players deployment zones and 2 10” away from the center mirroring each other. Deployment zone were long edges of the board. Mission specific secondary is controlling opponent’s objectives which is never going to happen for me with his 60 rangers. SECONDARIES Warriors Pride Retrieve Data Engage DEPLOYMENT Thankfully, both of my deployment zone objectives can be held in line of sight blocking cover, so I stuck the grey hunters in there with a cyber wolf each and prayed they lived long enough to score. Everything else tried to hide behind the large center “L”’s until turn 2. Since there were no center objectives, Oath would have been a terrible choice. R.O.D. seemed much more feasible so I kept a unit of grey hunters in outflank solely to come in turn 3 and grab it. THE GAME OH GOD. This is what I was dreading. A nightmare of a list that I ended up pairing with due to my decent win last round. I had never played ad mech before, but I knew what they could do (or at least, I had read what they could do). Thankfully, my opponent was stellar and we talked through few things before the battle so I didn’t get “gotcha’ed”. I was fairly certain that if I went second, it would be a wash and lo and behold, I WENT FIRST! My plan was to get 8 points for retrieve data by putting one unit of grey hunters in outflank (the other two being safe in cover on my two objectives). I resigned myself again to playing the mission and not trying to “win”, just rack up points. Because of the deployment, I figured any charge is points, kill or no kill, so I went fast and loose. Got first turn, killed some cavalry with some wulfen, retrieved some data and bided my time. I forgot to auto pass my 5++ on mortal wounds with my chaplain first turn as his 9” aura covered a lot of ground but it ended up not swinging things one way or the other. I was very worried about the planes doing mortal wounds so I should have made this a priority, but I was too focused on scoring and forgot. Because his planes needed to be in my deployment zone to mortal wound me/ score engage, I was able to almost max out warriors pride with the speeders, wolf guard and characters. The game went as you would expect with me being completely tabled round 5. However, I played to the mission and ended up with a very high loss. 85-67. I felt good about this one. Yes, I didn’t kill much more than 2 planes and 3 cavalry squads, but I stuck to the plan and got secure data for 8, warriors pride for a near max (love those speeders) and engage for a decent amount. Being able to get 10 primary almost every turn also helped a lot. The placement of objectives was very good for backfield to hide and score. A side note, dear god is ad mech oppressive. I’m very happy I played against a wonderfully patient opponent who was nice enough to explain his army. GAME FIVE VS ULTRAMARINES OPPONENTS LIST Primaris Captain w/ Relic Shield Primaris Chaplain Primaris Librarian w/ Chief Librarian upgrade 3x5 Intercessors 5 Boltstorm Aggressors 5 Bladeguard Redemptor Dread w/ Heavy Gatling Cannon 2 Relic Contemptor Dreads w/ Twin Volkite Culverins 2 ATV’s w/ Multi Meltas 3 Outriders 3 Eradicators MISSION OVERRUN: 6 objectives, 3 in each deployment zone, 10-inch deployment zone up from the long board edge. Secondary is points for controlling your opponents’ objectives, which sounded good, but I decided to pass. SECONDARIES Retrieve Data Warriors Pride Oath DEPLOYMENT Considering there was no center objective, I was hesitant about taking oath. However, I knew how it played and figured there was a better chance of me scoring high on it than taking something I might be unfamiliar with. This ended up being the correct choice as one cyber wolf moved up turn 1 and sat behind cover to scored me 2 points every round. I set up all of the Thunderwolves and wulfen on the line to pounce turn 2. Grey Hunters and cyberwolves sat in cover to hold objectives. One Grey Hunter unit went into outflank to score retrieve data round 3. THE GAME The game opened with me getting the first turn and pushing a cyber wolf into the middle of the board behind one of the large L’s to score 2 points on oath. All of the wulfen moved up to get a second turn charge and the thunder wolves on my left flank moved up to try and tag something next turn. Grey hunters on the left flank got some data and sat in the ruins. I tried to use the large L terrain in the center to shield most of my army from his shooting but he cut some nice angles in his turn. Thunderwolves lost a few models from his contemptors’ shooting in his turn and then he put his blade guard in the center and charged them, killing two and leaving the sarge alive. And then the wheels fell off. In my next turn, all of his characters were 6” away from the blade guard on the line to give them buffs. This allowed me to hop out of the ruins with my chaplain, rune priest, wulfen, wolf guard (who deployed on the center line and moved up T1 to get into the large L) and T-wolf sarge (who had been left out of combat by pulling the thunderwolves closest to his blade guard) to charge the blade guard, characters (chaplain, captain and librarian) and one volkite dread (who had been murderously hurricaned) and rain down the fury of Fenris. The near center and his deployment zone became a blood bath. After the onslaught, I maxed almost everything and picked his army up by turn 4, minus some aggressors he put into outflank. All in all, it was a “feel bad” win, as I rolled hotter than the sun and he couldn’t seem to make a saving throw. That said, he took it in stride and was amazingly good humored at his dice rolls. We all know what it’s like to roll like trash and I really happy my last game was against someone who didn’t take it personally. End result was a SW win 80-61. THE RESULT At the end of the second day, I felt pretty good about the weekend. Not everything went according to plan, but I ended up having a great time. When it came to awarding the Master of Melee, me and my friend who played the World Eaters were a bit worried. The Chaos Demons player was first up for it by a long shot. In the end he placed third, which opened the prize up to one of us since the tournament organizer doesn’t double up on prizes. The final score was… WORLD EATERS – 313 SPACE WOLVES – 331 I had won on points! Or so I thought. Because I went 2-3 and my heretical friend went 2-2-1, his draw counted up and he took home the gold. We both celebrated and I congratulated him on his performance. I was happy that it at least went to one of us in the end, even if it wasn’t me. All in all, even though I didn’t get the master of melee prize, I had a great time and learned a lot. With the right units, warriors pride is almost an auto include at the mid-level tables. I never scored less than 12 in every game. Having the speeders and cyber wolves helped a lot with this. I mean, we’re Space Wolves! We have to charge! It even mentally feels better in a way. My biggest mistake was totally underestimating the Nurgle demons. I’m used to my wulfen being kamikaze bombs that delete what they touch but the beasts and drones were a hard counter to that just by being so resilient (possibly disgustingly so?). Also, getting mortared by plague burst crawlers for three turns wasn’t fun either, but what are you gonna do, right? Next time I’ll have a bit more experience against that list and hopefully do better. I’m very happy my friend ended up with the master of melee and it ended up being a great weekend. FOR RUSS! svane jotunsbane, XeonDragon, NightHowler and 2 others 5 Back to top Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/371158-space-wolves-local-gt-report/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
TiguriusX Posted July 31, 2021 Share Posted July 31, 2021 Was a worthy showing! My favorite part "This translates to murdering anything you can get into combat with. It is glorious." For future games please note you can't take Warrior pride and Oath together. They are both in the No mercy category Hope to see more of your batreps! XeonDragon 1 Back to top Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/371158-space-wolves-local-gt-report/#findComment-5725277 Share on other sites More sharing options...
warrenhammer40k Posted July 31, 2021 Author Share Posted July 31, 2021 Whoops! Thanks for pointing that out. Shows how often I play tournament missions lol. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/371158-space-wolves-local-gt-report/#findComment-5725322 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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