Battle Report: RayJ vs raptor1313

Saturday I got in a game of 40k against Rob, better known to the internet community as raptor1313. As he explained over on Spite for the Dice Gods, the mission we rolled was Spearhead Annihilation (Table Quarters deployment for Killpoints).

The list I was running is the Logan-Wing list I built based off of Chumbalaya's NOVA Open list. The list is available in the Kicking Puppies thread.

Here is what Rob was running:

Hive Tyrant with pair of Twin-Linked Devourers
3 Venomthropes
2 Tervigons with Catalyst
2 Termagaunt Squads (10-strong with Devourers)
2 Harpies with twin-linked Heavy Venom Cannons
2 Tyrannofex with Rupture Cannons
1 Carnifex


Setup:

We dice off for choosing table edge and raptor1313 wins. He then makes his first (and biggest) mistake by granting me first turn and my choice of table quarter. Rob's pretty unfamiliar with Space Wolves on the table under 5th Edition and I have a feeling he wanted to find a means of reacting to my initial setup.

I deployed my mini-rock units forward at the edge of my deployment towards the center with the rest of the army getting cover behind. My missile squad was perched in a building towards the center of my table edge, and one of the las/missile squads was perched up on some rocks with grey hunters providing protection. My Watcher in the Dark (Chooser of the Slain) was set up in the enemy deployment zone to give me celar line of sight everything that would be there.

In reaction, raptor1313 set up his army to get cover from his venomthropes and to allow some MCs to shield others. The army was tightly packed so that everyone would get coverage from the venomthropes.

Rob rolls the dice in an attempt to seize, having realized just how many long-range weapons I can bring to bear. He fails this roll and so I start the first turn.

Turn 1:

I declare to Rob that Logan will have Relentless on my turn and Fearless on his own until I state otherwise to keep things simple and let the game move forward. My rear Rune Priest uses Tempest's Wrath to deter his Harpies from closing in too soon.

I move my line of melee distractions forward and get good difficult terrain rolls throughout. The wolf guard, Logan's long fangs, and the forward grey hunters squad move forward to get better firing positions and keep the cover of the advanced wave.

My shooting pretty much entirely goes into a Tervigon sitting on my right side, and takes him out along with a big chunk of the nearby gaunt squad. Rob's saves were a little below average and things would pretty much stay that way from this point on.

Raptor1313 responds by shuffling some units around to keep the venomthropes hidden and then returns fire onto my melee units. His second Tervigon spews out about 14 guants but rolls double 5s and shuts off on the first roll of the game. They position themselves as a cover screen for the more expensive guants behind them.

The remaining Tervigon uses catalyst on an MC (I think the tyrant) to allow it to move into firing position and get the wound on the TWC. Masses of firepower just bounce off the 3++ save and I end up with just a single wound on my right cavalry model.

Turn 2:

I move the melee units forward and set the cavalry up for assaults into the tyrannofexes if my shooting goes well. I continue to push my mobile firepower around a little bit, as the giant missile silo in the center is providing 4+ cover to some of his monstrous creatures.

I start the shooting phase by lobbing 4 frag missiles into the gaunts on my left in an effort to clear an assault path to the tyrannofex on my left. After shooting the missile squad (and taking out about 8 or 9 gaunts) I realize my best path to clearing out those gaunts is to take out the Tervigon behind them.

I spend the rest of my firepower that turn unloading on him and leaving him with 1 wound remaining. If I hadn't made the mistake of firing on the gaunts I would have probably opened up the zone and killed even more gaunts when the Tervigon exploded.

In the assault phase, since the gaunt screens are still in place, I charge in against them. My left cavalry model takes dangerous terrain from the venomthrope and fails his invulnerable save. The right one makes it in without hazard, as he multi-assaults the remaining members of the right guant squad and the very-streched out squad the Tervigon spawned on the previous turn.

The gaunts attack first since I am running with powerfists, but raptor1313's Tervigon does not have glands or poison, so they only get counter-attack. Needing 6s to wound, he manages to get a couple of wounds in, but I make my armor saves and proceed to throw 4 attacks into each squad. After all is said and done, I get 5 wounds in (3 on the samll squad and 2 on the large one) and both squads take 5 fearless wounds. The results of the fearless wounds are the small squad dead and the larger one with just 4 models remaining, but locking me in close combat.

Rob retaliates by moving some monstrous creatures in for combat support and then taking some shots at my lone wolves. Gunfire bounces off of me except for the large blast template being fired by the tyrannofexes. One scatters into the close combat and kills off 2 of his gaunts and bounces off my cavalry.

In his assault phase, a harpy attacks the left cavalry model, while the carnifex runs into the right squad toa ssist the gaunts. The harpy succeeds in taking out his cavalry model, while the right cavalry model puts some wounds on the carnifex. Fearless wounds kill off one of the remaining gaunts.

Turn 3:

I move my units forward some more and prepare the lone wolves for charging in to combat. The left lone wolf will take vengeance upon the harpy while the right one intends to multi-assault the carnifex and a tyrannofex. On my shooting phase, my forward rune priest boxcars his psychic test and takes a wound. I finish off the tervigon with some missiles and send the rest of my heavy weapons into the tyrannofex on the right that I intend to assault with the lone wolf. The lone wolf has taken one wound up to this point, so I'm hoping to limit his time in close combat, as he is far better at surviving Rob's firepower. Rob fails 3 out of 6 2+ armor saves while my lascannons fail to hit or wound.

On the assault, I manage to inflict only a single wound to the harpy. The carnifex and cavalry model kill each other and the lone wolf on teh right inflicted 2 more wounds on teh tyrannofex, leaving it at 1 wound. My storm shield saves kept the lone wolves in and each had 1 wound remaining at this point.

Rob retaliated with a vengeance. Since I had been inching my grey hunters up to support the assaults on my next turn, they were no in range of the remaining short-range firepower in Rob's list. He managed to destroy 8 standard grey hunters and the wolf guard attached to them in his shooting phase.

In the assault phase, I believe he brought a venomthrop into assist the assault on my right. At the end of combat his tyrannofex was dead along with the harpy on the left.

Turn 4:

I switched Logan to Preferred Enemy and moved him out fo the long fang squad and into the now miniscule grey hutner squad to reinforce them and give them the edge they needed to take the last gaunts. I threw most of my firepower into the tyrant with a couple shots from lascannons going into the remaining tyrannofex.

The assault phase saw one meltagunner die (possibly to dangerous terrain, I don't remember), but the squad prevailing over the gaunts. The lone wolf on the left charged the remaining tyrannofex with 4 wounds remaining. He infliced 2 more wounds before dying, while the lone wolf on the right destroyed the venomthrope he was engaged with.

Rob retaliated by shooting with his harpy and using his final venomthrope as a speed bump. He took the tyrannofex into Logan's squad with a venomthrope to assault.

At the end of the assault phase, he managed to kill off the grey hunter squad, but lost his venomthropes and tyrannofex due to assaults.

Turn 5,

With the harpy being the only model left on the table, Rob offered to concede, as my entire firebase would be able to take it down anyway. Thus the game ended with rob having scored 4 kill points (both cavalry, the grey hunters, and 1 lone wolf still alive).

Conclusions:

With the venomthropes and the large missile silo in the center of the table, raptor1313 had tons of cover. Unfortuantely the dice continually pounded him and he lost things much faster than he should have. Average rolls and retaining first turn would ahve given him the ability to react better after the game got started. As things were, the game sort of played itself out after turn 2 with Rob trying to make the most of a bad situation.

I'm sure the next time we get a game in he'll be better prepared for the Logan wing. Now if he could only get the favor of the dice gods...