Thursday, 5 January 2017

Rise of the Wulfen - Cadia

Mission: Black Crusade.
Deployment: Special.
Points: 2000 points.
Death Guard vs Space Wolves.

Cadia will fall! After some severe set backs the traitor advance across the battlefields of Cadia has begun anew. On the fields outside of Cadia's second city the Death Guard had successfully secured a number of vital objectives. As they looked to the skies, a torrent of drop pods ploughed into their lines. Ragnar Blackmane entered the war with a contingent of Wulfen at his command. Typhus barked orders to his battle brothers to pull back and prepare to engage!

Yesterday I got my first 40K game of the new year against my nephew. I was trying out a 2000 point list with the new Death Guard rules from Traitor Legions and he was proxying a random mix of models to see if he wanted to get into playing Space Wolves (using the new Wulfen rules) - hence the random mix of models on the table.

My list was the Verculium (or however it is is spelt), with a Chaos Warband, Lord of the Legion (a sorcerer) and a two flyer Heldrake Terror Pack. 1996 points in total. I lost track of what strange formations and detachment he was using. Only that it was based around Ragnar and had a turn one all drop pod assault and some Wulfen formations. Mission rolled was Black Crusade from the Altar of War book.

Straight away I may have made a small mistake. Knowing that he was playing the drop pod assault I decided to bunch everything together with the idea that I would everything to hand to repel borders. Benjo thought it a bad idea but I tried it out. Initially luck was with me as half of his drop pods deviated away giving me a chance. First turn was over very quickly with no casualties except for my chaos land raider which decided to immobilise itself on a wall but it proved a suitable wall to block line of sight.

Turn two and all my reserves came in at once. The raptors dropped down behind him where his two deviated drop pods had fallen. Flamers and bolt pistols cut down several and gace him pause. The heldrake terror pack swooped in together and spat baleflame into some small units but storm shields ensured that he suffered no casualties. I did managed to cut down some small squads and by the end of turn 3 I had chalked up 3 victory points but from here on everything started to go down hill.

Turn 4 his units hit my lines and hard. Even with toughness 5 and feel no pain on everything my chaos marines dropped liked flies. He close combat he was a monster. Even my helbrute was not immune. As it charged in to assault Lukas the Trickster’s squad, a lucky plasma shot ripped the power claw from it and condemning to a slow and drawn out assault for the rest of the game.

The Black Crusade rules mean that any infantry unit destroyed walks on from reserve on the next turn. This just meant that he pummelled squad after squad down when they walked back on. I could have had them arrive away from the mosh but they wouldn’t have done anything in the game. It was a case of damned if I did and damned if I didn’t.

The Heldrakes were a bit of a waste. They took down three squads but one lost it’s baleflamer to a flakk missile and their turning arcs meant they were rarely in a position to do much more. They were probably the only units that didn’t really earn their keep this game.

By the time the game ended Benjo was on 11 victory points to my 4. It was a disappointing game but I put the blame more on the mission special rules which just kept giving him victory points. Maybe if I had spread my units during deployment things may have been different. But for the first game with the new Legion rules I can’t grumble.

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