It’s been years since I fought Space Wolves. And that was in 5th edition. A new player came to the store today eager to play. And funny enough he hasn’t played since 5th edition either.
So we built 1,500 point lists. I selected an easy mission (Eternal War: Big Guns Never Die) and we started deploying.
Deployment
The store manager at our Games Workshop has been working on a 2 by 2 board for kill team. A nice big tower to view basically the whole board. I play Imperial Fists – we have awesome devastator squads – so I had to take that side of the table.
I put terminators + Lysander on one flank. A my beefier tactical squad with a dreadnought on the other. And I held my Legion of the Damned in reserve.
The Space Wolf player deploys in cover and puts his terminators, thunder wolves, and wulfen on the side with my terminators. It’s going down.
Turn 1
I move my guys forward, take a couple pot shots, remove a couple models and that’s about it.
The Space Wolf player does what all Space Wolves do – charge!
He moved his wulfen, terminators, and thunder wolves up. The wulfen might get a charge but the thunder wolves look out of range.
He decides to charge my terminator squad with his thunder wolves and rolls box cars. He made a 12″ charge – wow!
The good news is that they get in the way of the wulfen. Making it harder for them to charge in. And they don’t make the distance – pfew.
Amazingly enough the Thunder wolves only kill 3 terminators. I rolled really way for my storm shield saves. And I was able to inflict 5 wounds back on the them (unlucky storm shield saves). They lost combat and ran away.
I don’t ever think I’ve seen thunder wolf cavalry run away.
Turn 2
I decide to play aggressively. I bring in my legion of the damned. I’ve planned that they’re going to shoot the wulfen to pieces and my assault terminators are going to charge his shooty terminators.
Unfortunately the best made plans often go awry. I kill only one wulfen. 🙁
I wanted to neutralize that squad. But I barely touched them. Now I have to decide between charging the thunderwolves, wulfen, and the terminators. The thunderwolves still have thunder hammers, a lot of attacks, and storm shields. But I’m terrified of the wulfen so I go after them.
After a bloody fight. I lose a few terminators but he loses his squad. Again if he could have had a few better storm shield saves they could have dragged on for a few more rounds.
On his turn he charges his terminators in towards my legion of the damned and his thunder wolves into my terminators.
He rolls double 1’s for his terminators. The legion of the damned gun down 1 terminator and they don’t even get charged. Huge boon for me.
And the thunderwolves don’t fare too well either. Two of them are cut down by my terminators and the last one runs away.
The stormfang gunship comes in and starts taking hull points off my rhino and kills a devastator.
Turn 3
Assuming there’s no crazy die rolls here I mostly mop up. I ignore the lone thunderwolf and go after his space wolf terminators. Between shooting from the legion of the damned. And the assault from my terminators they go down.
We called the game at this point. There were a few things we could have played out.
The entire left flank shot back and forth all game. I killed a lone wolf terminator and some blood claws. And their plasma guns took off a few hull points.
Conclusion
I had headhunter (my devastators sniped his lord while he as in the open) and 3 objectives. My opponent had 2 objectives.
So close game. And had his storm shield saves gone a different way. Or if he could have made a few more charges it could have been a very different game.
I have to give my opponent props. He gave me a run for my money and he hasn’t played in years. I think with a bit of list tuning he’ll make one of those space wolf lists I dread.
Over all great game. Great opponent. 🙂