The World's Smallest Violin

40k night comes around but once a week at the moment, usually meaning a game a week for all involved with someone else rotating in for two games. Last night it was my turn for two games and boy what mixed emotions were felt.

First up I played annihilation and was faced with a rather dangerous looking crimson fists list packing:

-the usual hammer drop pod full of sternguard 
-venerable dread [plasma cannon and heavy flamer]
-5 sniper scouts [with missile launcher]
-vindicator
-mechanised tactical squad with a librarian [illegally riding in the rhino i might add :P]

While I had:

2x 8 grey hunters [melta gun, wolf guard with power fist and combi melta]
2x rhinos
10x skyclaws [power fist, wulfen]
Rune Priest [Jaws, living lightning]
Wolf Priest [Jump pack, wolf tooth]
Wolf scouts x5 [meltagun, wolf guard with powerfist and combi melta],


I decided to attempt to nullify the usual infantry holocaust of the sternguard drop pod by keeping all of my non-mechanised infantry off-table, leaving the two rhinos full of grey hunters and a rune priest to take on the sternguard after they'd totalled my transports. This ultimately worked pretty well after only losing one rhino and the grey hunters managed to shoot down a few sternguard before mopping them up in close combat. Besides a few decent shots from the crimson fist gunline taking a steady toll on the grey hunters the early parts of the game were looking decent for me. I got pretty lucky finishing off the sternguard with one grey hunter pack in rob's turn, consolidating six inches towards his vindicator before hoofing it another six inches to within melta range. I managed one glance off two melta shots but thankfully rolled a 6 so it ended up being a wreck.... my lucky streak would soon run out.

As my skyclaws had jumped far enough into the field to make sure the vindicator was taken down they were left open to be driven at by the rhino full of tactical marines with an avenger wielding librarian. Needless to say much face melting was done leaving only the wulfen and the wolf priest standing. That was my hammer unit wrecked in one fell swoop so rather than try to take the tacticals down in combat i decided to risk a jump into nearby ruins to take on the far less numerous sniper scouts. The duo performed very well, killing all of the scouts but unfortunately the wulfen went down, leaving the wolf priest to mill around afterwards, unable to hurt the venerable dread, too scared to attempt charging the tactical marines and librarian with only one wound left and it seems massively incapable of planting a decent krak grenade onto the back of a rhino.

My wolf scouts came on hoping to add their fire to the nearby grey hunters and rune priest shooting at the tacticals. After a decent round of shooting i left them to follow the rhino, hoping to melta it down for one easy kill point.... weapon destroyed from two meltas, on the back, on a rhino and within melta range. Not so good.

While my scouts were failing to blast the rhino down my heroic full 8 man grey hunters squad with a wolf guard decided that enough was enough from the upstart librarian and his meagre tactical squad. After gunning a couple of them down with bolt pistols they charged into close combat, attempting to either wipe out the crimson fists or at least pin them, blocking any escape route to the rhino. Battle cries on their lips astartes met astartes with sharpened steel and the crimson fist tactical squad was overcome by sheer space wolf brutality. In my mind. The reality: I missed with about 60 percent of my attacks then only caused 5 wounds which were all saved. The tactical squad retaliated but failed to cause any damage. My power fist missed on all three swings. The only combatant to kill anything was the librarian who decapitated a single grey hunter. It was this kill that won the game as my grey hunters failed their leadership test with a woeful roll of 11 before being cut down in a sweeping advance by the tacticals. With my biggest squad gone i was left with a rune priest with 3 grey hunters in a rhino, my wolf priest milling around some ruins and four wolf scouts.

Next turn the combined fire of the dreadnought, the librarian using smite and the tactical squad killed off my wolf priest and flame grilled my scouts. My lonely remaining rhino reversed slowly into my corner, the rune priest ineffectively casting living lightning at the venerable dread while praying that the plasma cannon wouldnt melt the tank.

Final score:

Space Wolves: 4 kill points
Crimson Fists: 5 kill points

Dice karma be damned

Pack Focus: Dreadnought -Mjolnir

I've pretty much always tried to incorporate a dreadnought into any marine list I take, not because they're particularly effective, they're just very cool in regards to models and fluff. For those of you not long enough in the tooth to remember this model it was originally the Bjorn the Felhanded model from waaay back in second edition. I'm not cheeky enough to use him as Bjorn now though, that particular walking coffin is going to take an extra special modelling project....


Fluff

Mjolnir was elevated to the sarcophagus after a particularly brutal battle during the First Armageddon War. While attempting to evacuate an overcrowded hab-block in Infernus Hive Mjolnir's small force of Space Wolves was ambushed by a large daemon force materialising amidst the panicked citizens. The screaming bloodletters ran amock through the crowd, butchering all within reach of their blood-wet blades, their carnage twisting the boundaries of the immaterium, threatening to open a rift through which more unspeakable monstrosities could pour through. Without hesitation Mjolnir's pack made their way through the fleeing crowds, the Grey Hunters towering above the terrified hivers, sending bolt after bolt into their crimson assailants, battle cries on their lips. Close combat was met, the overwhelming numbers of daemons pushing at the embattled Grey Hunters with animal frenzy. Seeing his pack brothers fall Mjolnir whispered a death oath, breaking from his brother's tight formation in an attempt to pull the daemons away. Knife and pistol in hand he slammed into the beasts, skewering daemon-flesh and blasting apart leering faces. The mass of unnatural beings buckled, their assault losing momentum but it was too late for Mjolnir, surrounded by crazed red beings, covered in thick black warp-blood he fell to his knees, a daemon weapon protruding from his chest. By the time reinforcements arrived it was clear that Mjolnir's final stand had carried the day, his selfless actions giving his pack time to regroup and the refugees to reach safety. His body recovered, his brothers bore him to a Wolf Priest for last rites and seed reclamation but it seemed a trace of life still remained within his broken shell. A testament to his ferocity, his resistance to chaos-forged weapons and his pure stubbornness in not dying it was deemed that his saga was not yet done. Handed over to the techpriests he was interred into a dreadnought sarcophagus, becoming an engine of war for centuries to come.

Tactics

There are only really two ways I roll Mjolnir out:

Drop pod shenanigans! Does exactly what it says on the tin (pod). Since I only have one drop pod at the moment he's coming down my first turn every game in the enemy deployment zone just to cause some havoc. Generally pods are used to deploy a heavily armed one shot killing machine units like sternguard or grey hunters, melta weapons carving out tanks like they're over-ripe pumpkins. Now this is great in theory but a lot of people are getting wise to the old drop pod anti tank bomb meaning that when my grey hunters do get out with their microwave guns theres nothing there for them to take out before they get shot/assaulted/bagged by the entire enemy army. The beauty of the dread is that he's almost completely expendable, he lands, if he gets to take a few shots great, if not then he can stomp around for a bit making my enemy back off in the fear of their weedy regular troops having to take on a massive opponent they cant harm on the front armour in close combat the turn after he arrives. If he gets taken out by shooting that's also usually a lot of shots soaked up that would generally be sowing havoc with my advancing army.

Hold the line! With this tactic my dread is generally spearheading a footslogging advance into enemy lines, drawing the heavy fire off more valuable units like long fangs, wolf guard or any rhinos that I might be using. Having a dread in the middle of your advance is also pretty good for deterring enemy assault troops attempting to break into your grey hunters. Throwing the dreadnought into an ongoing combat can often break the back of the enemy assault, even if your grey hunters flee he'll be there taking names, allowing your boys to regroup and get back into the fight.

Pack Focus: Wolf Scouts - Memkel

 Fluff

I have always loved the idea of Wolf Scouts - dark humoured, brutal and silent, sowing the seeds of havoc and confusion behind enemy lines. Peerless trackers and huntsmen, they strike where the enemy least expects them yet where they can do the most damage.
   My scouts are led by a grizzled and brooding old Wolf Guard named Memkel, a master of fieldcraft, marksmanship and survival. He is my great company's master tracker and lead scout, Wolf Priests, Rune Priests and even the Wolf Lord deffering to his knowledge and experience of tracking when planning raids, ambushes or scouting missions. After finishing his aspirancy as a Blood Claw he was inducted straight into the Wolf Scouts, his cold demeanor fusing seamlessly with those of his new peers. After decades of murderous service to his company he was finally gifted the mantle of Wolf Guard after the infamous battle of Svarlbad wherein he and his squad infiltrated and destroyed 50% of a traitor guard artillery position that was hurling explosive murder down on his comrades in the snowblinding Hel valley below. After dealing with the initial traitor artillery he and his squad set about gutting the command bunker of the enemy position, going room to room with frag grenade and hunting knife before marking the remainder of the enemy guns for orbital bombardment.

Tactics

On the tabletop I like to stick with the fluff, my scouts almost always operating behind enemy lines in an attempt to get into the back of the enemy army. The squad typically packs in a melta gun with Memkel taking a combi melta, melta bombs and a power fist just to make sure that any tanks the squad comes into contact with get scrapped asap. It might seem a bit strange to take both melta bombs and a powerfist for a primary tank hunting unit but I've found that if there are no tanks around for me to melt there always seems to be an almost inexhaustable amount of infantry nearby waiting for a bout of fisticuffs. The melta bombs are only really ever used for land raiders (which anyone who plays against space marine players on a regular basis knows - they crop up a hell of a lot for such an expensive unit) or even walkers at a push.

Besides tank hunting I find that the unit plays a very good role in distraction. They're often seen as a kind of bogeyman unit, people get itchy when they know you have them in reserve and so play more cautiously. Then when they do come on its very common for an entire army to turn around and throw everything at them to gun them down. This is pretty awesome if you're packing a footslogging army as it gives your front line a free turn of movement in which to close with the enemy. As long as your scouts can take down their intended target before they get swamped they've usually made their points back.

Pack Focus

As I get more and more of my Space Wolf packs fully painted and based I'm going to start adding articles focussing on the different packs of my army. In these I want to include a few bits and pieces to do with why I chose them; from both fluffy and tactical viewpoints along with a few pictures. You'll have to forgive me for now for using a terrible camera phone to snap my minis with, I'm hoping to have a new camera in the next month or so so bare with me!

I'm hoping these focus posts give my army a more personal feel to it, these are Space Wolves after all and they're all about charisma and personality!