Sorry for not getting this up sooner. I had an extremely busy week at work and at home. If you can recall, a couple weeks ago I went up with my crew to CarnageCon to play in a tournament. My third and final game was against my good friend Mike Begin. He was playing his Black Legion as Space Wolves. Now, before I get to his list, a little about the history between Mike and I. Since I've started playing competitively, Mike has been one of my hardest opponents. He plays just like I do - brutal, go for the throat, maximum bloodshed. It comes out worst when we play one another. In addition to that, we literally trade wins. Meaning that if I win a game, Mike is most definitely going to win the next one, 100%. Unfortunately, I won the last game between us. Mike's list looking like this:
Logan Grimnar
Rune Priest with Living Lightning, Murderous Hurricane
5 Terminators with assorted weapons
5 Terminators with assorted weapons
2x10 Grey Hunters with 2 meltas, powerfist, rhino
10 Grey Hunters with 2 meltas, powerfist, drop pod
2x5 Longfangs with assorted heavy weapons
Land Raider Redeemer
I apologize for not having a more accurate count of what he had, it's been a while since the game. The deployment was Spearhead.
Primary Objective: Secretly choose three units in your opponent's army, you get a point for each one you kill. Dedicated transports can't be singled out.
Secondary Objective: Killpoints, I believe.
Tertiary Objective: Victory points.
This missions is sort of designed to mess with certain armies. Mike is obviously going to pick my three speeders. I picked his rune priest and two long fang squads. We roll to see who goes first, and I do. Mike doesn't seize.
Turn One - Max
Trying to capitalize on the success I had against Adam, I make the decision to deep strike my terminators against Mike. I start with the Land Raider on the table, and I keep my speeders in reserve to try and avoid the inevitable. So, I try to start the game off by putting terminators behind the long fangs in the corner, giving me a good position to get some points quickly. Mike's terminators are too far away from them to support them before I take them out. I place my first terminator squad about 9" from his long fangs, and roll for scatter. They scatter just enough to mishap on top of his long fangs, and get destroyed. Off to a good start. I'm sticking to my plan though, as I need to do damage to him in order to have a chance. I place the second squad in the same spot as the first, and they mishap on his long fangs as well. Mike places them in my corner behind my land raider. I'm sticking to my plan, there's no way I'll mishap three times in a row. I place Belial's squad in the same spot...and they mishap on the long fangs as well. Mike, seizing on my bad luck, puts them right in the middle, where he can bring his entire army to bear on them the next turn. I back up my land raider to pick up my other mishap squad next turn. My dice are in open rebellion.
Turn One - Mike
I'm reeling right now with such awful luck, but Mike knows better than to sit back and be complacent. Our games are won against each other by keeping the murder pedal to the floor at all times. His drop pod squad comes in to the left of Belial's unit, to make sure he can shoot. His walking terminator squad moves up to get into shooting/assault range, Logan and company move up in the raider and disembark, and a grey hunter squad disembarks and moves up to lend their fire as well. His shooting phase begins, and his army unleashes hell on Belial's squad. When the smoke clears, only Belial and the High Chaplain are left standing. Mike then assaults them, and removes them from existence.
End of turn one picture:
Turn Two - Max
I'm 800 points down at this point, and I need a miracle to pull off a victory. I roll for my reserves, and a single speeder comes in. I move it along the far table edge, to avoid being knocked out by Mike's long fangs. My terminators get in the crusader, and move towards the middle building. All of my shooting misses.
Turn Two - Mike
Unfortunately, with all of my stuff coming in piecemeal, the action slows down. Mike moves his walking terminator squad into the middle building, along with the drop pod hunters. Logan and company get back in the land raider, and the other grey hunters get back in their rhino. Mike doesn't have a whole lot of targets, or range. His lascannon and missile launcher long fangs manage to take the multi-melta off the land raider. His rune priest tries to cast living lightning on my speeder, and manages to get a perils of the warp. We have a good laugh, our shitty luck always goes both ways.
End of turn two picture:
Turn Three - Max
I roll for my reserves, and I get a terminator squad and speeder. I place my terminators a ridiculously safe distance from Mike's long fangs and roll my scatter...I roll box cars with an arrow right towards his long fangs. Another mishap, fortunately, these go back in reserve. At this point, the game has just become an exercise in trying to pull anything out of certain defeat. My other speeder moves up alongside the first, and my crusader moves up to do damage to the middle building. My shooting does nothing again. I assault his middle terminator squad with mine, and kill three. He kills one and return, and fails his morale check. I consolidate to keep his terminators running away.
Turn Three - Mike
Mike moves Logan and company into the building to take out my terminator squad. His grey hunters in the middle hold their ground. His rhinos shuffle to get in position to stop my crusader. Mike's shooting is nearly ineffective, he managed to immobilize one of my speeders with living lightning. He charges my terminators with Logan and his squad, only killing two. I kill one in return, and we stay locked in combat.
End of turn three picture:
Turn Four - Max
I roll for my reserves, and my final speeder comes in, along with a terminator squad. The terminators deep strike near his long fangs, and close enough to keep his broken terminators running. I roll a direct hit this time. My final speeder moves up to hang out with his counterparts. The land raider moves up to get shots on his long fangs. Shooting sees me take the weapon off his drop pod, and stun the rhino his rune priest is in. My crusader unloads on his long fangs, killing two. They pass their morale check. Logan finishes off the last of my terminators in assault.
Turn Four - Mike
Turn four starts for Mike with his redeemer immobilizing itself on the middle ruins. His rhino moves to block my crusader from rampaging on his long fangs. Logan's squad tries to move through terrain in order to get to my newly arrived terminators, and rolls low. I'll be safe for this turn. The shooting phase sees Mike shoot at my terminators, knocking down two. He also manages to destroy my crusader with melta guns.
End of turn four picture:
Turn Five - Max
My final terminator squad comes in on the other side of the long fangs, and scatters away from them. Damn. My speeders move forwards to try and get better shots. My three man terminators move towards the long fang squad nearest to them. My terminator squad that just arrived manages to explode Mike's rune priest rhino. My speeders frag six of the newly disembarked grey hunters to death. I'm trying to get the rune priest alone, in case it goes to turn 6. On to assault, I need to make it into assault with his long fangs in order to stay in this, and I roll snake eyes. We aren't surprised, that's how our games are.
Turn Five - Mike
Capitalizing on my gamble, Mike manages to blow up two of my speeders, kill three of the terminators that just came in, and assault the ones that failed the charge. A solid win for him.
End of game picture:
End of game thoughts:
What a rough game. Mike is already a player I can't afford to make mistakes against, and my luck was just awful. Had my deepstrikes gone as planned turn one, it would have been a very different game. Mike played it perfectly, he capitalized on my garbage luck, and had the game well in hand from turn two on. My plan now is to dodge any games with him until the next GT, just in case I have to play him. Overall, I was pretty happy with how my army did at CarnageCon, and I feel good shelving them for a bit now after a year of constant play. I've been messing around with my codex space marines for the last month or so, and they really aren't working out for me. I went ahead and bought a small Blood Angels army that I plan on building and painting before the next big event. More details in my next post. Comments are always welcome, except from Mike. Fuck you, Mike.
Max
Watching your guys luck against each other is a comedic act. Well the deathwing had a good run but now its time for change. I'm in the same boat for Chaos as most know and now to make some Templars work out, or may even dabble in the art of space marines.
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