PRE-GAME — We ended up playing an ITC formatted mission, as this the standard in my area and we both knew them really well. We rolled and got Mission 6: Crucible of Champions which is a five objective game with kill points, a host of secondary points and bonus points that required Characters to take objectives throughout the game. I was fortunate enough to be able choose to go first or second and decided on second and react to Alex’s army placement. Alex decided to castle on one flank leaving me with ability to hide my army behind a center piece of terrain. 

Turn 1 played out as I had hoped with Alex unable to kill anything, he move his castle into a better position for future turns, moving close to the center of the board and taking his Repulsors further up the flank to get better angles. My 1st turn went as well as I could from a getting points level, but terrible from a tactical level. I forgot my Warlord trait and moved my Scout Bikers up to encircle one or two of Alex’s Intercessor units. All I needed was 6″ charge to pull of this trick, but instead I rolled a 4 and 1 and re-rolled the 1 back into 1 again. This left with my Scout bikers completely exposed. 

Turn 2 the Space Wolves turn went then as expected with Logan Grimnar and a Lieutenant buffing other units to delete my Scout Bikers and two other Scout units with ease. I hugged terrain as best as I can, and moved up to focused on taking objectives especially the bonus ones, since my only hope now was to always claim more objective points while Alex won the kill game. I only dropped down 1 unit of Assault marines and hid them behind terrain, but everything about my turn was about positioning. 

Turn 3 Alex kept his fire base picking off a few targets I used to screen my characters, while on my turn I had to bring the rest of my force down and kill Intercessors, while the bulk of Alex force was left untouched because of the Wulfen and Logan he kept back to counter assault any tricks I tried.  

Turn 4 was a issue of bad placement for myself as Alex was just barely able to see my Inceptors and took them apart easily with his Repulsors and Leviathan. My turn was still about scoring more objectives and bonus points which I had done for the entire game. My only problem was I was getting low on units fast. 

Turn 5 had the Space Wolves bring out the Wulfen as the final nail in my coffin, able to move fast catching one of my Captains and mowing down my Intercessors in the previous turn. This left me with about 3 units left and the bulk of Alex’s army still intact. I grabbed as my points as I can and hid my Warlord in the corner while he waited to be hunted down by the Wulfen.

Turn 6 with the game lost it was just about clean up before we called it, I still did get a crap ton of points, but Alex’s dedication to not being baited out of his auras and one bad charge really did me in. I also could have had my Inceptors on the board to start and take out at least one Repulsor, which would have certainly helped as well. 

Alex’s list was super nasty and looked great, and with the Angels of Death Rule coming it will make the Wulfen even more nasty. I can’t wait to break out the new White Scars rules, and I have planned to change my list to exploit it accordingly. I should be taking them to a local tournament coming up and see how the new rules fair. So look for my next report to feature the new rules and some insights about how they play!