Battle Report from Last Wednesday (sort of)

Wednesday is the night that I go to my local Games Workshop store to play a game of Warhammer 40k.

This particular Wednesday we were doing scenario two out of the White Dwarf scenarios taking place on Fenris (or something like that, I was just there to play a game)

We used 1500 points, a perfect chance to try out my army list (in my last post).

Before anything let me say that I failed. Epicly.

My opponent was the Space Wolves, defending a fortress wall, all I had to do to win was to destroy it with one hit at AV 16. (if only I had drop pods!)

He was using Nijal, Ragnar, a land raider, a squad of terminators, two squads in rhinos and one squad of something (I am not familiar with the Space Wolves units at all, sorry!) with Ragnar inside the Land Raider. He also had a squad of Long fangs with two lascannons, a heavy bolter, multimelta and a plasma cannon on top of the wall.

My plan as I set up was to just get my veteran assault squad up to that wall as quickly as possible. However, like most of my pre-game plans, it completely passed out of my brain in the first turn as the heat of battle overtook me.

With that in mind I deployed most of my forces in a line on the very edge of my deployment zone. I wanted to get it over with fast.

He deployed his Long Fangs on his wall, And squarely in front of his wall was his Land Raider, filled with Fenrisian Death, flanked by two Rhinos. Nijal hid behind them.

I got first turn, and my Angels rushed out of the starting gate. My left flank, consisting of Corbulo and the Death Co. inside a Rhino, the Assault Squad, and my Furioso, moved forward only 6 inches. I did not want those wolves assaulting me. (In reflection, maybe I should have gone all the way. He could not have assaulted out of his Rhinos and his Land Raider could have only chosen one direction. Neither of them could have probably reached me anyway, but then... it was a very small board.) On my right flank, My Veteran Assault squad rushed forward. Just next to them my vindicator moved 6 inches forward. One combat squad and the other Tactical squad followed it. (the other half of the tac squad with the plasma cannon stayed back in some ruins to provide some fire support. This may have been another mistake because there were four boltguns/wounds in that squad that did nothing for me the entire game). That plasma cannon shot his long fangs, killing one.

Then his turn came. He moved his Land raider forward 6" with one rhino next to it. The other rhino went off to my left towards Corbulo and Co. His squad with Ragnar disembarked from his Land Raider and assaulted my 5 man combat squad, massacring them. My vindicator was in trouble! His long fangs shot half at my Vindicator, half at my Furioso, doing nothing to either of them.

I won't regale you with the rest of the specifics, it was nothing more that assault-y fun-ness. My angels were destroyed pretty much to the man.

I made several fairly detrimental mistakes. For instance, I forgot- two turns in a row- to use smoke launchers on my Furioso. He ended up doing nothing but providing some cover for Corbulo later in the game.

I assaulted his Ragnar- unit with tactical marines instead of rapid-firing at them, this was probably a mistake as well. I did manage to kill his LR with my vindicator, although that's all the vindicator did the whole game. Still though, I suppose he earned his points back from just that.

I think that I should have sent my Veteran Assault Squad on the left flank with Corbulo, because they would have benefitted much more from the furious charge than the RAS did.

Other than that, it was a great learning experience, and I hope to put all of this knowledge to great use in the future!