The Last Night

"How many?"
"Three"
"Four"
"Three and a half"
"Two"
"Two?! What have you been shooting at?"
"Old Dead Eye Olaf!"

The five of them laughed before the Wolf Guard's voice cut through, "well, I've got three as well."

"It's not enough is it? We're going to die on this Throne-forsaken world aren't we?"

The Wolf Guard shot him a look that would freeze blood in the vein, "and if we do, then our saga shall tell of our glorious death. It will go down in legend how many of them we took with us. They will tell tales about us running out of ammunition but never taking a backward step, about losing our combat blades and fighting with our bare hands. And, when we do finally die, there will be a place for us in the Halls of Russ. Then, when the End Time is upon us, Russ will come to pick his chosen and we will be the first picked. He'll say, 'I know you five, I have heard your saga sung many times. Today you will fight with me, my brothers'"

The four Grey Hunters' backs straightened as they felt the pride swelling in their breast. As they looked at the Wolf Guard, they weren't sure if the fire in his eyes was a reflection from the camp fire or something burning deep inside.

Suddenly Olaf spoke up, "never mind magazines, how much ale do we have left?" They all laughed again. The Wolf Guard filled their drinking horns and then spoke again, "when they do come, they will find us - the Vlka Fenryka and, by the Allfather, they will regret it!"

Just a little fluff piece about some Wolves preparing for a last stand; hope you enjoy.

Back To The Future

Doc shows his surprise after a trip to the future is spent reading the new Necron Codex

After our game last week, Dave and I ended up chatting about Rhino tactics. He told me that back in 4th Edition, he ran a Khorne Beserker list in Rhinos. He said that his basic plan was to drive forward 12" and then get the squad out and hide them behind the vehicle. Then next turn they'd drive 12" again. The reason for hopping out is that if the vehicle is subsequently blown up, you don't have to take a pinning test and any explosion hits are only S3.

I have to admit that this isn't something I've ever seen before or even thought about to be honest. I think the most useful way of doing this would be to go 12" on turn 1 and pop smoke. Then drive a further 12" on turn 2 and dis-embark. Then you should be in assault range for turn 3 and nicely hidden. All you need to do is drive the empty vehicle out of the way (if it survives) and get stuck in. You could of course do it the other way around (hop out turn 1 and then smoke turn 2) but if your vehicle gets destroyed turn 1, then you're a lot further away from the enemy.

There are a couple of issues that I can see with this tactic though. If sets you up to have your Rhino and squad muti-charged. A fast enemy (eg Dark Eldar) could drive around (or over) the Rhino and still be able to pour lots of shots into your poor disembarked Marines. And you could end up having the Rhino Wrecked rather than Exploded which would mean that you'd either have to walk around it or risk a Dangerous Terrain test to walk through it.

Having said that, I think it's a tactic that could work but would be pretty situational.

Anyone seen this before? Anyone tried it? Does it work or is it an outdated tactic?

To Shoot or Not To Shoot

Annie, get your Missile Launcher

A couple of examples from my Wolf Scouts in last week's game with Andy. Both squads were identical and they both went BEL and I rolled well enough to be able to bring them both onto Andy's board edge...

Unit 1

Come on next to a Rifleman Dreadnought and a 5-man Combat Squad of Tactical Marines featuring a Missile Launcher.

Unit 2

Come on behind two Predators and a Rifleman Dreadnought.

Unit 1

Shot at the Dreadnought with a Meltagun and Combi-Melta and blew it up

Unit 2

Didn't fire and multi-charged the Dreadnought and 2 Predators.

What's the point?

So, the point is that by shooting at the Dreadnought with the 1st unit, I denied myself any chance to charge into combat. Subsequently, I got charged by the Combat Squad and they managed to wipe me out. In fact, I should probably have shot the squad and then multi-charged, ensuring that my Power Fist was against the Dread.

Similarly, Andy had assumed that I was going to fire before charging with the 2nd squad but having learnt from the first instance, I wanted to make sure that I could get into all three enemy units.

Obvious lesson is obvious

It really is this simple - sometimes you're better off not shooting before you charge! And you're always better off charging, since if you're locked in combat, then you can't be shot. As Elton John would say, it's the circle of life...



Ever shot and wished you hadn't? Or not shot and wished you had?

Monday Musings

Monday Monkey lives for the weekends

Tyranid Fortnight

Well, the bugs are gone and it's back to normal here on Rending Claws and Spinefists.  A few quick links off the back of it:

1) Darren's awesome Mycetic Spores
2) Warfrog's fantastic blog on modelling Tyranid beasties
3) Graham's step-by-step guide to creating your very own Tervigon

Hopefully everyone has enjoyed this year's xenos week. If we're still here we'll do something similar next year so get your requests in early...

The Necrons are coming

I'm sure everyone has seen the pictures of the amazing looking new Necron models by now and by all accounts they should be up for pre-order at the end of the week. I have to admit I am slightly tempted since drybrushing is about the only painting technique that I've come close to mastering. The thing is, I see the Necrons as mainly a foot army. They march towards you and they're really hard to put down and, if you do put them down, they just get back up. So I'm not sure how to feel about the new vehicles even though they look awesome. To be honest I don't really have the time, money or energy to put together a new army but if I did it would be a straight choice between Necrons and Dark Eldar...

Did you enjoy Tyranid Fortnight? Are you looking forward to the Necrons?

Bug Out: Anti-Tyranid Tactica

Since Graham was good enough to write a Tyranid Tactica piece, I figured the best thing to do would be to write a riposte from the Space Wolves point of view. First things first, Space Wolves almost seem to have been designed to take on Tyranids. Let's see why:

Missile Launchers

Every Space Wolf army you see will have between 8 and 15 Long Fang Missile Launchers. Plus with the option of Wolf Guard Cyclone Missile Launchers, you could be looking at 21 S8 AP3 shots before we even think about Hunter Killer Missiles. The Tyranid army has a lot of T6 monsters in it but they only have 3+ saves (apart from the Tyrannofex but, for some reason, no-one seems to like him) and quite a few multi-wound T4 creatures. So, we're insta-killing the T4 things and wounding the T6 things on a 2+. Plus, it's very hard to get cover for a monstrous creature. With 10 Missile Launchers, you are looking at killing an MC a turn on average.

Jaws of the World Wolf

Tervigons are officially awesome. Thing is seems to have been designed specifically to kill them. Even with +1 on your dice rolls, you're going to struggle to make (m)any initiative tests at I1. Carnifexes have the same problem and even though the smaller bugs are I4, if there are a lot of them, you can still do a lot of damage.

Lack of AP3

I do wonder how 'nids would fair against 'nids. There is literally no AP3 shooting in the whole codex so I've no idea how one horde would deal with another. Still the lack of AP3 is a real boon for any Marine army. It means you can afford to be a bit more reckless when it comes to leaving squads in cover. Although, speaking of which:

Lack of Assault Grenades

With only a couple of units able to take Frag Spines in the Tyranid codex it means that you can sit in cover and strike first if you get charged. This is especially a problem for Genestealers as with only a 5+ armour save they are Bolter bait and so need to hug cover to survive. This means that their I6 is largely wasted if you hide from them.

So, in general, we're just better than them. However, there are still some things we need to consider:

Lack of Anti-Infantry Firepower

Wolves do anti-tank and anti-MC really well, mainly due to Missile-spam as mentioned above. However, we can lack a bit when it come to A-I shooting. A clever opponent will set up their units to minimise damage from Frag Missiles while rapid-firing Bolters are pretty limited due to range. Dealing with large enemy squads at range is going to be tough so you're probably better sitting in cover, double-tapping and then taking the charge. You'll be going first and if you get your Counter Attack roll then you'll hopefully do a fair bit of damage before they even swing.

Deployment

The Tyranids have so many different deployment options that you really have to be on your toes.They can Infiltrate, Outflank and Deep Strike. A Chooser of the Slain really comes in handy when it comes to Infiltrators. Make sure you don't leave anything isolated for Outflankers - think about how far they can assault from the board edge and make sure you move any tanks that are in potential charge range to ensure that they aren't being auto-hit (this last piece of advice might seem mind-bleedingly obvious, but it is something that I have forgotten in the heat of battle) As for Deep Striking, try not to leave anywhere that is easy to Deep Strike into or if you do, use it as a trap.

Target Priority

When I posted a 'nid list yesterday, one of the things I talked about was giving your opponent difficult decisions when it comes to target priority. Now, this will come down to the exact details of your army but in general, I would shoot at the larger creatures first. If your Grey Hunters are in cover then they'll have a decent chance at holding their own in combat against the smaller organisms. They will have no chance against the MCs though so you need to try and take them out before they arrive. Basically, Missiles into big bugs (especially synapse creatures), Bolters into smaller bugs...


Anyone with any more Wolfy tips on killing 'nids? Anyone with any Tyranid tactics against Wolves?

Open for Business

So, next weekend is Open War and last weekend was the deadline for entering lists. Since it's Tyranid "Week", I've decided to post a thought experiment - what would I take if I was going to take 'nids? Now, I'm going to give myself two limitations;

a) No Special Characters

This is an Open War regulation since for some reason the people running it don't like special characters. So, no Doom and no Swarmlord. Sad Panda.

b) Only take units for which there are models

This is my own rule. I'm not that good a modeller, so I'm restricting myself to just units that have official GW models. Yes, this means no Tervigon but, look on the bright side, I can take Pyrovores! Oh...

I've talked before about my preferred Tyranid list just being full of little bugs but clearly that's not going to be competitive in the slightest. So, I'm going to try and come up with a list that has some small bugs and some bigger bugs with the intention of giving an opponent some tough decisions about what to shoot first. I'm also going to ignore Graham's advice about not just rushing forward. I'm going to forgo shooting with the intention of getting forward as fast as possible with the hope that I have too many wounds to be dealt with before I can get into combat. Now, this will make the army a bit of a rock/paper/scissors army since against certain shooty builds my lack of any suppression fire will really hurt me. It should be a fun list to play though, and I'm hoping that it will really have a proper Tyranid flavour - can you stop the bugs before they get you?

First up, what would we like to take? Let's ignore the 1750 point limit and brainstorm what I'd like to see in the list. A Hive Tyrant with Hive Commander and a couple of Guard. A couple of Lictors or some Ymgarl Genestealers so I can have something jump out at the enemy. A Venomthrope to give some cover to my main advance. A couple of units of Genestealers that can infiltrate and be my first wave. Some Hormagaunts and Raveners as a really fast second wave to support the 'stealers. Two Trygons and a unit of two Carnifexes as a battering ram (at this point, I'd like to point out that I've not seen the 4th edition Tyranid codex so I don't know how cheap Carnifexes used to be but I used them last week and I rather enjoyed it)

Hmm, all that comes to over 2000 points. D'oh!

Okay, so let's ditch the Raveners, the Lictos and the Carnifexes and see what we've got...

Hive Tyrant, Hive Commander
2 Tyrant Guard

Venomthrope

30 Hormagaunts, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs
12 Genestealers
12 Genestealers
10 Termagants

Trygon
Trygon


I've gone for a big unit of tooled-up Hormagaunts as I know they're going to take casualties on the way in but I still want them to hit hard when they get there. The Termagants are there to be kept in reserve so that they can walk on and claim an objective late in the game.

All that come to 1,456. After seeing a Venomthrope get frakked by a scattering Vindicator shot last week, I'm tempted to a take a second as back-up. I'd also like to take a third Trygon. That give me enough points to take a couple more Genestealers and give the Hive Tyrant Adrenal Glands. So, the list in full:

HQ
Hive Tyrant, Hive Commander, Adrenal Glands
2 Tyrant Guard

Elites
Venomthrope
Venomthrope

Troops
30 Hormagaunts, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs
13 Genestealers
13 Genestealers
10 Termagants

Heavy Support
Trygon
Trygon
Trygon


So, it's quite an unsubtle list - set up as far forward as possible and then run at the enemy as fast as possible. However, with the Genestealers ability to infiltrate and Hive Commander allowing a unit to outflank, it give some interesting deployment options. Plus with the Trygons being able to start on the board or deep striking, it can be more of a scalpel and less a blunt instrument. I think a lot of the choices would depend on going 1st/2nd, opponent and mission but it's always good to have the options.

So, what do you think? Does it have a chance or would it be shot to pieces before it even arrived?

A return to the Wolves

Last night I had my first game for around 6 weeks.

I was hoping for a Open War practice, just to remind people Open War is a week tomorrow and for the October Open War there are no special characters allowed. However the idea that it was Open War practice was miscommunicated.

There are many links to my list on here but just to remind people

2 rune priests both with Living lightning one with Jaws the other with Murderous Hurricane

3 wolf guard fists and combi meltas

2 speeder

4 squads of grey hunters

3 squads of long fangs

A fairly standard wolf list

I've said it many times I'm not a good battle report writer but I thought I'd comment on a few points.

1. I should have given Graham first turn. It was pretty much a wasted turn.

2. You can't beat using Murderous Hurricane on stealers that want to move

3. Grey Hunters really do stand up to anything in combat, 2 squads of grey hunters and their wolf guard charged by a very badly wounded carnifex and some stealers, who came out on top? The Grey Hunters

So not a long post but it was good to get back playing although I am very tired, hopefully get a game in next week before Open War.