Monday Musings

The Future

I've seen the future man, it's murder

So, technically, I'm supposed to be saving up for a new house and a wedding. However, that hasn't stopped me thinking about buying some new toy soldiers. Reading all the new Necron rumours over at Faeit 212 this week has got me really excited about the new Necrons. However, then there's the Dark Elder which I'm still in love with. And then there's the Grey Knights. I really want to do a pre-heresy Thousand Sons army "counts as" Grey Knights. I either want to run a "2+" list with Terminators and Dreadknights as a f-you to the missile spam around at the moment or I'd write a piece of fluff about Magnus giving one of his sons a powerful, mystical sword to protect and then run a Purifier list.

Blogging

And I hope you like blogging too

Some exciting things happening at the blog this week (please note that excitement is relative, C&F can not be held responsible if you do not get excited by this week's content) There's a new feature on friday called, "Deep Thought" which will become semi-regular. I'm also going to start my long awaited (by me at least) Space Wolf "codex review" It will have all of the standard things like unit reviews and some more esoteric things too. All of it will be based on my practical experiences of playing the Space Wolves rather than what's good in theory.

We also see the return of the 10 week challenge. Now, this was an idea I had with the aim of becoming a better player - pick a list and stick with it for 10 games. The aim is to get to know the army inside out. I've been inspired to restart this by Dave with his triple Vindicator list which doesn't look optimal on paper but works because he's know it like the back of his hand.

Oh and I should hopefully finally get round to writing up Day 2 of the GW 40K doubles. I've been shamed by the speed that Mick and Andy have got their Ope War tournament reports up so I think I should finish that off since it was nearly two months ago now!!

Any thoughts about which second army I should start? Is there anything that you'd like to see on the blog that we don't do at the moment?

Open War 16 Recap - Game 2

Game 2 vs Grey Knights

HQ

Grand Master

ELITE

10-man Purifier Squad (Halberds, 2x Psycannons, Daemonhammer) in Rhino

TROOP

5-man Strike Squad (Psycannon) in Razorback w. Psybolt Ammo

2x 5-man Terminator Squad (Hammer, Psycannon, Halberds)

FAST ATTACK

Storm Raven (TL Multi Melta, TL Assault Cannon, Psybolt Ammo)

HEAVY SUPPORT

Land Raider

Dreadnought (Assault Cannon, Psybolt Ammo)

Another familiar face playing Grey Knights lined up across the table from me. Keith has been playing Grey Knights since they were Daemon Hunters and, in fact, he beat me with them the last time we played so I was out for revenge!

The mission was table quarters with a pitched battle deployment, I won first turn and picked a board edge with some elevation for my tanks and artillery. First turn was Dawn of War so I pushed forward with my units to take the centre of the table early, Keith sent his strike squad and a unit of Terminators in the Land Raider down my right flank, leaving his unit of Purifiers to hold the middle of his deployment zone.

I managed to crack the Razorback open and the Thunderfire Cannon gave it's usual love to the squishy contents and this time it would not be denied by armour saves. A single Gery Knight was left standing to be dispatched by a tactical combat squad a turn later.

Over on the left side of the board Keith's Storm Raven had arrived and disgorged it's Dreadnought and Terminator squad next to my Assault Terminators and Plasma-backs. The GKTs were dispatched with relative ease by the Assault Terminators and the Storm Raven was quickly immobilised and stun-locked (thanks to some awesome Psychic Hood action from my Librarian) until it was eventually wrecked a few turns later. The Dread caused a bit more trouble wrecking both Razorbacks before it fell to one of my Speeders.

My Assault Terminators gated off to take on the Purifiers (who they ended up wiping) and my combat squads on the left moved to secure the two quarters there. My right table quarter however, was where the game would be decided. His GM and Terminator Squad were behind a building deep in my deployment zone supported by the Land Raider with good LoS to my units. I had positioned my Preds and Speeders to protect the combat squad I had contesting the quarter, to the point where I didn't think Keith had a line of sight to them. Rather brilliantly though, Keith managed to get a shot on them with his Terminators, he killed two and they failed their leadership test fleeing off the table and giving Keith the quarter. Final score 17-13 WINNING DRAW

Last game report, same time tomorrow!

Open War 16 Game two for Simo - Blood Angels

So after a decent if not overwhelming lunch featuring Andy performing the feat of the day (balancing at least 10 sarnies on a saucer) and me sharing some of the worldly advice on women that I so often dispense at tournaments. I headed upstairs to see who my game 2 opponent was.

To my surprise and happiness I see a Chaos space marines army facing me and just as we swap lists and I smile to see double lash and minimal scoring units which I feel I've got a good chance against with my 2 Rune priest list an announcement comes over that someone made a mistake with scoring and that isn't who I am facing. DAMN.

My new opponent is a Blood Angels army owned by Brett from The Good the Bad and the Dudley.

Over my tournament career I have played a number of players from this team and they have all been really good lads so I was hopeful of a nice friendly but competitive game and I certainly wasn't disappointed.

I'm a little bit fuzzy of the list but I will try my best.

I believe James had
1 Librarian with the preferred enemy power and the sword of sanguinius
1 Sang Priests
1 5 man scout squad
3 10 man assault squads
1 assault terminator squad
a land raider redeemer
3 autocannon lascannon preds

The mission was table quarters (2 points for holding an opposition table quarter with troops 1 for 1 of your own and you had to win by three points) with a dawn of war spin, you could deploy as many troops and HQ's as you want including dedicated transports but nothing else.

I won first turn and Brett decided to reserve his entire army and roll on with the raider and preds first turn and DOA the troops.

Because I had no idea where he would deploy I split my forces, used the turn to run my long fangs into the cover (which is so much better at Maelstrom than WHW) and stuck my dreadnought in the centre of the board in the hope that it would be able to threaten the entirety of the board and if nothing else tie up a assault squad minus a power fist in combat.

Brett brought his land raider on straight in front of a rhino with double melta and a speeder, hope of destroying it if at least one of those units can survive? Unfortunately no plan survives contact with the enemy, the land raider missed, my speeder but then I was reminded that all blood angel vehicles not just the Baal preds are fast and 3 predators firing later my speeder was a crater and my rhino was a hulk.

My turn two left me with my usual choice, do I play the mission or avenge my speeder and rhino with the squad, surprisingly I unwolfyly turned tail and ran so to stop the threatening terminators from quickly leaving me a squad down. The other half of my army continued to push forward to claim quarters while my long range fire power pumped shots into the front armour of the predators, eventually a missile shot got through, bounced around inside and left a smoking hull on the table, some sort of a result at least.

Brett's turn two saw his scouts and 3 combat squaded units come on, the scouts took the quarter that my unit had just made their tactical withdrawal from while the DOA troops landed in order to threaten my rhinos with their meltas, luckily for me one squad landed on a rock and was destroyed out right but the other two made light work of my las plas back and one of my rhinos leaving only one remaining. The big implication of this round of shooting was that my las plas squad were pinned and a flamestorm cannon was looking menacingly at them.

Turn 3 saw me move my dreadnought into position to get a side shot on a pred that it immobilised, took a weapon off and stopped from shooting so a result while my second speeder who had skirted the side of the board appeared 23 inches away from the rear armour of the remaining predator, one melta shot later and it was a steaming pile of molten slag, a lack of enemy long range fire power could perhaps turn this certain draw into a win. My fleeing squad continued to flee from the approaching raider.

Brett's turn 3 saw the inevitable flaming of my squad leaving me outnumbered on scoring units just about 2-1, he failed to bring down his remaining squads but that was no issue for him, choosing not to re roll in the guarantee that they would be on the table the shortest amount of time.

My turn 4 saw my speeder head towards his scouts who were hiding in a corner, they went to ground when the long fangs turned their missiles on them and survived the salvo crouching in their fox holes. The dreadnought finally finished the job it started on the predators and moved to repeat its first game job of slowing terminators. The two remaining squads of assault marines on the table died to a combined grey hunter assault and missile launcher bombardment. I now bettered the scoring units on the table controlling 2 of my quarters and 1 of the oppositions but as we know there were two units to come down.

Brett's turn four saw the remaining units fall but surprisingly they made sure of the draw rather than the win, the terminators, priest and librarian finally got out and assaulted the squad that had been playing cat and mouse for the game, surprisingly the grey hunters made a good account of themselves with the rune priest cutting down the librarian with a force weapon attack and my wulfen biting through a few inches of ceramite to chew down on a lightning claw wielding terminator. I lost combat but only required a 8 to stay in which I did, result!

The game didn't have a random end, it was definitely going to go on for 6 turns but the end was in site, a draw was going to be the outcome unless something catastrophic happened on either side. I moved a squad into the centre of a quarter out of line of site to guarantee the point and continued to move my speeder to the scouts which fell just short of flamer range. I also shot 15 missile launchers at his land raider glancing it once and stopping it from shooting.

In Brett's turn he consolidated one of my quarters by finishing off the rune priest and grey hunters them taking 1 thunder hammer terminator with them.

We decided to call it a day there, both of us had just made it onto the next point bracket for VP's so we weren't going to gain another one and neither of us would be pushing for the win, it was just too dangerous. When the points were totted up I had killed 100 more points of units than Brett so I ended the game with 16 points and Brett with 15.

Overall it was a really enjoyable game. I didn't see any glaring errors, I split my forces and perhaps if I hadn't it would have been easier to kill the Land raider that caused so many issues but I had have done it would have been far easier to pen me in. In the end the problem lay with the mission, unfortunately it wasn't a good one. It was too weighted towards the draw, it was a story that was heard all over the hall, to guarantee a win all you had to do was bubble wrap one squad in one of your opponents quarters, as soon as that happened, it was virtually impossible to win. Having spoke to the organisers I know that this will be sorted for next Open War so I'm not grumbling too much.

Unit of the match was probably my rune priest that cut down an enemy librarian, he also blocked the only psychic power of the game so it was a double victory although again my dreadnought decimating a predator made back its points by far.

Open War 16 Recap – Game 1

This weekend was Open War 16, and since my wooden spoon performance back in Open War 12, I've been a real fan of the event. This year the usual suspects of Epic and Fantasy Battle were represented alongside 40k but the 40k numbers were down pretty significantly from last year, due in no small part to a little tournament called Throne of Skulls which was also being held this weekend. Despite the slightly lower numbers than usual, the Tournamnet was a great success with the usual high standard of play and sportsmanship I've come to expect. On with the details!

My list:

HQ

Librarian (TDA, SS w. Null Zone &Gate of Infinity)

ELITE

2x Dreadnought (2x TL Autocannon)

7-man Terminator Assault Squad (2xTHSS, 2x LC)

TROOPS

10-man Tactical Squad (Meltagun,Multi-Melta, Combi-Melta) in a Rhino

2x 5-man Tactical Squad in Razorback(TL, Plasmagun, Lascannon)

FAST ATTACK

Land Speeder (Heavy Bolter, TyphoonMissile Launcher)

Land Speeder (Multi-Melta TyphoonMissile Launcher)

HEAVY SUPPORT

2x Predators (Autocannon 2x Lascannon)

Thunderfire Cannon

Game 1 vs Grey Knights

HQ

Grand Master w. Psych-o-joke and RadGrenades and MC Psycannon

Librarian w. MoT, WR, Shroud, Sanc,and maybe a few others

ELITE

Venerable Dread w. 2x TL Autocannon &Psybolt Ammo

TROOP

6-man Terminator Squad (Hammer,Psycannon, Halberds)

2x 5-man Strike Squads (Psycannon) inRazorback w. Psybolt Ammo

HEAVY SUPPORT

2x Dread w. 2x TL Autocannon &Psybolt Ammo

Land Raider Crusader w. Psybolt Ammo

The mission was to control three objectives placed diagonally across the centre of the board. The deployment zones were set up diagonally 18” down from the top right-hand corner and 18” in from the bottom left corner. Kel got first turn and put me in a zone with little cover but a hill which gave me some elevation for my TFC and Preds. I've played Kel before and he really uses the terrain on the board in combination with shrouding to ensure that his critical units never having anything less than a 3+save from anything that shoots in their direction.

So what I'm trying to say in around-about way, is that this was an uphill struggle, made even more difficult by the fact that Kel's dice did not seem to roll 1's! For example, over the course of 2 turns, the TFC put 28 wounds on his 5-man terminator squad with resulted in 1 dead terminator and a wound on his Grand Master. In fact, over the course of the game those were the only wounds I put on that squad despite getting some close attention from the Preds and the Plasma-backs!!

But it wasn't all about my opponent's hot dice, I did have some measure of success, taking out a Dread, both Razorbacks and a Strike Squad. But at the end of the game all I had left was a Predator with an Autocannon and Kell had all of the objectives. Final score 8-25 LOSS

Game 2, same time tomorrow!

A year on after the virginity was lost Game 1 - Open War

So yesterday was Open War 16 and Andy and I headed over to Maelstrom to play in it (Darren came as well but as he's being a whiny bitch and is 'off' 40k he played Blood bowl for a few hours).

Open War was the first tournament I attended nearly a year ago (see out picture with a fresh faced me and Andy still having his overly youthful looks, Gav hasn't changed, he still looks like Jesus) and back then I was disappointed with my result mainly because I didn't pay enough attention to the missions and it let me down. This would be a good base to decide how I had improved after a year of Tournament playing.

My list has been shared on here many times so no need to do it again so on to the day.

Open War uses three made for purpose missions which I am told are based around some previous addition missions.

First game saw me come up against Ian and his Vanilla Space Marines (just a reminder in the Autumn open war no Special Characters are allowed) He had a librarian as his HQ, a big scout and a big tactical squad which he combat squaded, 2 speeders a vindicator and a dakka predator and then in drop pods he had a dreadnought, a large stern guard squad and then deep striking a terminator squad.

The mission was a diagonal deployment (if you want to see the missions check them out on the first company vets website, just google it and click on open war 16 and the rules pack) with three objectives in no mans land.

Ian won the roll off, the new dice I got from Vegas in the summer did me no favours all day and he set his units up in such a way to quickly take advantage of first turn. This however was a mistake and I stole the initiative. 15 missile shots later, 1 speeder was destroyed, 1 speeder had no weapons and was immobilised his razorback was similarly dispatched of its weapons and immobilised and one of his tactical squads had taken two wounds and legged it straight off the board.

He fired back with his stern guard landing just in front of my long fangs and the avenger being shot at them killing 4, the vindicator fired on another squad of Long fangs had a direct hit but my long fangs made a sensible tactical decision of getting behind some cover and only one died.

My shooting destroyed his vindicator with a side shot from my rifleman dread and one of my long fang squads put some inconsequential shots into the predator.

Next I made my biggest mistake of the game, the Stern guard had combat squadded on deployment and I had both squads of 5 surrounded by a squad of grey hunters accompanied by wolf guard and rune priest, the first squad I decided that 5 sternguard and a librarian would be dealt with by 5 missile launchers and a rapid firing squad with 2 meltas and living lightning, unfortunately life didn't work like this and 3 survived including the Librarian and I was left with an avenger toting librarian looking nastily at my bunched up Grey Hunters.

I didn't make the same mistake with the other squad so I fired bolt pistols, had my Jaws cancelled by a psychic hood (I had every power that could be stopped stopped on the day) and unfurled my wolf banner, unfortunately my boys fluffed their lines and we drew the combat thanks to an epic failure from my power fist and a good showing from Ian's.

Turn two started with a roll for reserves, the dreadnought failed to appear, he forgot about the terminators as did I and the scouts arrived very close to my recent failed combat.

Shooting was fairly inconsequential with only the scouts and the predator left and a long fang died. He also tried to avenger the bunched up squad, he rolled a psychic test, double 1, loses a wound but still get the power off, it was at that moment that the wyrd started to billow around my Rune Priest and the warp was sapped of its strength ( a game changing roll? Perhaps).

The scouts had a choice to shoot at my remaining fully capable long fang pack or support the stern guard in combat who surely shouldn't be able to survive. The scouts chose the latter and headed in to combat, my grey hunters and the stern guard exchanged blows whittling each other down but his scout sergeant with a power sword was excellent killing 2 grey hunters, grrr another drawn combat.

It was then time for my difficult choice, this was the only mission that was random turn length, I had one objective secured as I saw it, I also was pushing towards the other but the issue with the Open War list is that to make sure of a win you at least need to get 2 and contest the third, I only have 4 scoring units so the question was do I go and support my grey hunters and finish the Stern Guard or make sure I make an objective as secure as it could be. I chose to think back to game three of last year and secure the objective, I did support my grey hunters however in the most unlikely way, one of my long fangs pack had been decimated leaving 1 missile launcher toting lad, he ran in swinging his launcher, cracked the scout sergeant over the head and killed him dead, with that the rest were swiftly dealt with and the squad moved on after exchanging hearty congratulations with a new lone wolf.

Next turn the dreadnought and the terminators arrived, the terminators really should have rolled on the mishaptable but I didn't push the matter and the dreadnought crazily didn't contest an objective but came down to take on a speeder who had done very little all game but try and destroy the immobilised razorback which had lost its heavy bolter. It did immobilise my speeder but by doing so showed its rear armour to my long fangs and it went boom. I now had 3 objectives with nothing threatening them except a squad of terminators on the objective that was being held by my smallest squad in a las plas. The Terminators again shot at my speeder with their cyclone missile launcher (???????) they obviously couldn't assault so it was over to my turn 5.

One thing I missed (on the report not on the game) was that the scouts did manage to glance my dreadnought and rolled a 1, it now couldn't shoot. I then decided to be brave, my las plas shot everything into the terminators killing 2 and my dreadnought piled into them in the hope to slow them down so they couldn't assault my scoring unit. My dreadnought hit and wounded 3 times, killed the two remaining power fist terminators and was left in combat with a power sword armed terminator RESULT.

The game ended on turn 5, had we had another turn or 2 I may have gained an extra bonus point but in the end I was delighted, 15 points for the mission, 8 bonus points for VP's and some well deserved lunch on the way.

Unit of the match without a doubt the rifleman dread, taking out a vindicator is good enough to start with but then to stop a terminator squad from threatening me at all. Excellent.

Game 2 tomorrow, thanks for reading and I look forward to comments.

The Problem with Plasma Guns and Power Weapons

I'll have a "P" please Bob

As I was putting these lists together, I realised that I was putting in some things that I never use - Power Weapons and Plasma Guns. Rapid-firing S7 AP2 guns and ignoring armour in close combat; what's not to love? Well, that brings me to my only major gripe with the 5th edition rules. Sure, there are some minor things that need tidying up but nothing like this:

You can be too killy

Imagine the situation where you're rapid firing at a 5-man Grey Hunter pack containing one guy with a Meltagun. You manage to do 2 Plasma Gun wounds and 4 Bolter wounds. So, now I can stick the 2 AP2 wounds on the unfortunate Meltagun guy and then take 4 saves against the four remaining guys. In essence you've "lost" a wound.

Power Weapons have the same issue since they go at the same initiative step as the rest of your normal attacks.

Now, I know that some people say that this is realistic, since if you're firing your Plasma Gun twice, you're just as likely to hit the same guy twice. However, we're playing a game featuring 8 foot tall genetically engineered supermen from 38,000 years in the future so realism doesn't really come into it!

Plus, when it comes down to it, people prefer the strength-doubling properties of Power Fists and the vehicle destroying goodness of Meltaguns...

Hopefully, we'll see a tweak to wound allocation in 6th edition that means you have to allocate armour-denying saves first and then allocating other wounds afterwards. It would be nice to see Plasma Guns and Power Weapons becoming a viable alternative to the ubiquitous Melta and Fist if only to give some variety to the armies you come up against.

Proud of Plasma? Pulling for Power Weapons? Let us know

Nobody Does It Better



Nobody does it better, well, apart from Connery

I played a couple of games last week against standard Space Marines and I got to wondering what similar lists would look like from the Space Wolves codex. The reason for this article is to show that Space Wolves aren't necessarily better than vanilla Marines, just different...

1500 Points - Dave's List

Dave runs two full Tactical Squads on foot, a Captain with a Relic Blade, a Venerable Dreadnought with a Plasma Cannon, a regular Dreadnought with an Assault Cannon, a 5-man Sniper Scout squad, a 5-man TH/SS squad and 3 Vindicators. Let's Wolfy it up...

HQ
Wolf Lord, Belt of Russ, Frost Blade

Elites
Venerable Dreadnought, Plasma Cannon
Dreadnought, Assault Cannon
5 Wolf Guard, 5 Terminator Armour, 5 Thunder Hammers, 5 Storm Shields, Drop Pod

Troops
10 Grey Hunters, Power Weapon, 2 Plasma Guns
10 Grey Hunters, 2 Plasma Guns

Heavy Support
Vindicator, Dozer Blade
Vindicator, Dozer Blade
Vindicator, Dozer Blade


This comes to 1475 so there are still 25 points to play around with. I couldn't fit the Scouts in due to lack of points and FOC restrictions. I've also gone for Dozer Blades on the Vindis rather than the Siege Shields that Dave takes as I'm a skinflint when it comes to points and I'll take my 1in36 chances (although I'd never let Andy roll the dice for me!)

Dave likes to Deep Strike his Terminators in so that they can threaten enemy heavy support while the Vindicators play a pretty defensive roll. To mimic this, I've had to put them in a Drop Pod. Now, this does give the bonus of always arriving on Turn 1 and there's always the option of dropping empty and deploying the termies as a Thunderbubble.  

Okay, so let's look at the differences. Dave's Captain comes with an invulnerable save as standard and has +1 strength compared to the Frost Blade. The Terminators are waaaaaay cheaper with the Space Wolf ones clocking in at a whopping 63 points each! However, this is the easiest way of bringing the points down in this list. Power Fists are 5 points cheaper than Thunder Hammers and in most cases are just as effective. There's also a question about whether you need 5 Storm Shields. This is the real benefit of the Space Wolf Terminators - the ability to mix and match weapons. If I wasn't copying Dave's list, I'd probably go with a couple of Power Weapons, maybe a Power Fist or two, just the 2 Storm Shields and something shooty, probably a Cyclone Missile Launcher so that I could threaten something when I stepped out of the Pod. Saying all that Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield Terminators are amazing for their points in the standard Marine 'dex. Pretty much everything bounces off them and they crush anything they charge. The other big difference is in the Troops section. Dave has 3 scoring units that can be combat squadded down into a maximum of 5, I have 2. The other big thing is that Dave's Troops are all Leadership 9 as standard. Ld8 is nothing to be sniffed at, but it makes easier to break or even Tank Shock, and when you only have 2 scoring units, that's a problem. Dave can also take a heavy weapon in his units compared to my 2 specials although it's situational as to which one of those is better.

So, which list is best? I don't really think there's that much in it. The fact that I always get my Terminators on turn 1 is a real advantage as is the fact that I can put them pretty much wherever I want. There is always a chance that if they Deep Strike that they could arrive on Turn 5 and then the game ends or they could Deep Strike Mishap. However, Dave's ability to combat squad would give him an advantage in Objective missions and with his heavy weapons his shooting has more range than mine. There's no doubt though that playing these lists against each other would be a close game and would probably come down to luck.

1750 Points - Andy's List

Andy is running what I call a "first principles" list as it features Dread 'n' Preads which seemed to be the go to when the Space Marine Codex came out. He has a Librarian (Avegner, Null Zone), 5 TH/SS Termies in a Redeemer, 2 Riflemen Dreads, 2 10 Tactical Squads with Las/Plas Razorbacks, 5 Scouts, 2 Auto/Las Preads and a Thunderfire Cannon (Andy loves his TFC!)

HQ
Rune Priest, Storm Caller, Living Lighning

Elites
Dreadnought, Twin-Linked Autocannon, Twin-Linked Autocannon
Dreadnought, Twin-Linked Autocannon, Twin-Linked Autocannon
5 Wolf Guard, 5 Terminator Armour, 5 Thunder Hammers, 5 Storm Shields, Land Raider Redeemer, Extra Armour, Multi-Melta

Troops
5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Razorback, Lascannon/Twin-Linked Plasmagun
5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Razorback, Lascannon/Twin-Linked Plasmagun
5 Grey Hunters, Plasmagun
5 Grey Hunters, Plasmagun

Heavy Support
Preadator, Lascannon Sponsons
Preadator, Lascannon Sponsons

This is 100 points short this time and is again missing the Scouts due to FOC restrictions. We also don't have the TFC since Wolves can't take them. Andy usually combat squads the Tac Marines with a Meltagun in the Razorback and a Heavy Weapon sitting back - this is why I have taken 4 units of Grey Hunters rather than just 2. In general, it's a sit and shoot list while the Redeemer rides out and dumps TH/SS killyness in your face.

Again, we have the huge point discrepancy between the Terminators and the issues around Combat Squadding (ie in a Kill Point mission Andy could put his Tactical Squads down as two Kill Points; the Grey Hunters are always four) Plus I don't have the option of the TFC. Now, I don't really rate it as a unit but it is pretty good against hordes (something Wolves are traditionally weak against) and if it gets blown up you have a Techmarine walking around fixing your Preads 'n' Dreads. I took Living Lightning on the Rune Priest to make up for some of the lack of firepower (NB he has Stormcaller so that he could be deployed in the Land Raider and give it a 5+ save)

So, who'd nick it in the head 2 head? I think Andy's might if only because he could start the Termies outside of the Land Raider then stick the Scouts inside and have a very difficult to destroy scoring vehicle. There's not a lot of Melta in the list so shifting it would be very hard. Kill Points would probably again go down to the dice.


I think that this article could be summed up by pointing out the fact that Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield Terminators are awesome and at 200 points for 5 you reall can't go wrong. Hopefully, I've also shown that regular Marines do have some advantages over their Wolfy brothers. Combat Squadding allows you to be really flexible and automatically getting Ld9 without having to use up an Elites slot is golden.