Battle Report - Team Training

Imperial Fists & Space Wolves vs. Blood Angels & Grey Knights

This last weekend, Tom and I had a rare and fun opportunity to test out our new team list against a veteran player who is a tournament organizer at our local friendly game store. With our fantastic success using Land Raiders and Terminators at the last tournament, we thought we'd build upon that list for this event as well. With the split force org. required for this event, it's one of the few competitive builds we can throw out there. The force org. looks something like this:

1250 Points Per Player, 2 Players Per Team. Army List Required

Modified Army Composition
Player A:
1 HQ
1-4 Troops
0-1 Elites
0-1 Fast Attacks
0-2 Heavy

Player B:
1 HQ
1-2 Troops
0-2 Elites
0-2 Fast Attacks
0-1 Heavy
So, by taking Wolf Guard Terminators as troops with Logan, I can focus on the one thing my codex does best, Assault Terminators! Tom and I managed to concoct a way to take 3 Land Raiders while meeting the requirements, as well. So, we wanted to throw this list up against a tougher player to see how veteran opponents might take it on and here's how it unfolded....

Enemy deployment

So, upon our arrival, we were shocked that our opponent had coincidentally assembled a force with 3 Land Raiders, as well. At that point, we knew we were in for one hell of a match. His list consisted of 3 Assault Cannon Razorbacks full of Purifiers, a Land Raider with Purifiers and a Techmarine inside, 2 more Land Raiders full of Assault Marines, and a Lascannon Predator. Tom and I won the roll for deployment, a rare event, and chose to go second as our play style is better suited to reactive play. We were faced with the parking lot you see above and made the decision to deploy in the left of the table, so as to maximize our mobility. The mission required you to make it to your opponent's deployment zone (pitched battle) in order not to surrender Kill Points.

Deployment. The Dreadnoughts were our counts-as TWC as Tom forgot his models at home

We favored the left side as it had the fewest obstacles for taking dangerous terrain checks with the Land Raiders; something we discovered really hurt us at the last tournament. With everyone embarked, we were pretty safe from the firepower across the table.

Top of turn 1

Our opponent responded by shifting his whole force further toward our deployment zone while providing lanes of fire. A veteran opponent indeed! This left us pushing the left flank and hoping we could engage him before he slid around behind us.

Bottom of turn 1

We gain some ground and throw a few shots across, but the few that hit are saved by Sanguine Shield. So, not super eventful.

Bottom of 2

So, with the next turn, we push forward some more to gain more ground whilst our opponent decides to sit still and take shots at us. Again, a pretty uneventful turn, but things are about to heat up!

Bottom of 3

We move forward to engage and lose the white Land Raider on the left. The Thunderwolves slowly creep up the side while the WGT move up to engage an Assault Squad that got out of the wrecked blue Land Raider in the middle. Lysander engages the blue Land Raider on the left after departing his wrecked Land Raider and manages to immobilize it. The WGT hit the Assault Marines and attached Librarian hard and force dangerous terrain checks through the wreckage.

WGT assault!

The WGT win the assault and the Assault Marine squad is forced to run. These victories are shortlived, however, as the next turn gets pretty brutal for us.

Bottom of 4. Ouch!

Turn 4 winds up hitting us hard. We lose our yellow Land Raider and the Assault Marines from the Blue one above prepare to engage them. Fortunately, Tom saved me from that blunder by deploying them at the rear of the crater. The TWC move up to support my poor little Tactical Squad and Lysander moves over to chase the Assault Marines and Librarian off the table. The WGT got assaulted by the Purifiers with Techmarine and were completely wiped thanks to grenades. :(
I've also lost several Terminators at this point from massed shooting. Those Assault Cannons are brutal.

Another angle on Turn 4

There's my poor yellow Land Raider sitting out of the rest of the game in the bottom right and Lysander at the top, ensuring those marines keep on running.

Bottom of turn 5

Turn five was another brutal affair. I lost the rest of my Terminators including Lysander. :( The Librarian did finish running off the board, however. My Tactical squad shot half of the Assault squad up before the TWC finished them off and Crowe decided to hop out of his Razorback to bait us into attack. Our last Land Raider put some wounds on the big Purifier squad and killed the Techmarine.

Bottom of 6. Victory!

So, in turn 6, the TWC blew up the blue Land Raider, we backed our remaining Land Raider into the deployment zone, and our other squads held their ground. We wound up winning because we had more of our units in our opponent's deployment zone.

So, what to take away from all of this? Our list does seem to posses the hardiness needed to combat other lists that have similar structures, but we need to be very aware of our mobility. I get the impression that our opponent had decided from the beginning not to play to the mission, but to see how durable his army was. Aside from that, everything seems to be working quite well. This is definitely one of our top contenders for the final build we bring to the event.

For those who were curious about the specifics of what's in the list we used for this game, I'll be posting them in their own List Review article along with the others.

And on a side note, here's a couple pictures of Donovan and Chris facing off against one another.