A Drop Pod crashed down on the battlefield behind enemy lines, Wolf Lord Ragnar Blackmane and a unit of elite Blade Guard step onto the battlefield.

In response, Redemptor Brother Sven sprints to intercept them.

But let's back up a bit!

Introduction

Good day, this is Zak Ludick here from Cape Town, South Africa. This is the popular tabletop board game Warhammer 40,000 and in this post I will be sharing a little Battle Report of a game played between myself and my friend Marnus aka @xenowolfza!

I switched out my Detachment I have been playing consistently since the start of 10th Edition with my Space Wolves - Champions of Russ, for one of the new Detachments found in the Space Marine Codex that was released not too long ago.

While I was playing the Champions of Russ, I played a total of 6 games of which I won 5 and lost 1.

I have now switched to the Ironstorm Spearhead pretty much because it suits my army even better than the Champions of Russ one. This is because this Iron Hands type Detachment better supports Vehicles and Dreadnoughts... I field a lot of Vehicles and Dreadnoughts!

The Thunderwolf Cavalry and its two big Characters with special enhancements made it possible for me to achieve the Deeds Worthy of Saga, but the rest of my army did not particularly benefit from being in this Detachment. When I did achieve the Deeds, they helped me a bit, but it was more my drive to achieve them that really hurt the enemy!

So the Ironstorm Spearhead does a better job for the rest of my army and it does nothing for the Thunderwolves and two Characters so they were dropped. The Ironstorm Detachment has Enhancements that work specifically on Techmarines so I took a combo of Space Wolf Iron Priest and the standard Techmarine.

These two characters were then given the buffs to make vehicle shooting better around them. However, there was one enhancement that had a bit of a limited use case and thus I would then swap it out for another Enhancement that would make the tanks near it harder to kill.

Battle Report

So in my debut match with this new army, I took on Marnus. He was fielding the Stormlance Task Force. This Detachment is currently the most popular among Space Wolf players who focus on a large amount of close combat specialists as it gives them the ability to Advance and Charge!

We picked randomly from the Leviathan Cards to choose our Deployment and Mission and got:

Dawn of War Deployment
Supply Drop Primary Mission

Thus we were playing across the whole board with the main contention focussed on the three objectives in the middle of the board.

In Supply Drop there are two objectives that disappear as the match goes on and as they do, the remaining objective counts as a higher Victory Points reward.

The location of these fading objectives is determined at the start of the Battle and thus, after Deployment has been made.

This means that in order to win this Mission, you need to have units in all positions that can fight over objectives that are on the flanks and the center. If you deploy too much on one side or another, then you may struggle to win.

Also, Marnus and I had a look at each other's armies and I selected Fixed Missions with Assassination and Bring it Down for my Secondaries. Marnus chose Cleanse and Behind Enemy Lines.

Deployment

A long line of vehicles and dreadnoughts line up to take on all objectives on the battlefield. For the first time in a very long time, I deploy infantry on the battlefield at the start of the battle... in this case, the Iron Priest and the Techmarine as they are supporting the vehicles.

Plus, as long as they remain within 3" of a vehicle, they gain the Lone Operative ability!

On my left flank I have Bjorn the Fell Handed, Brother Sven, the Techmarine and a Razorback with Grey Hunters.

In the middle I have my Land Raider, Stormspear (the one Vindicator), the Ballistus Dreadnought and the Iron Priest. Inside the Land Raider is the Blood Claws Pack.

On my right flank I have the other Grey Hunter Pack in a Razorback, the Wulfen Dreadnought and the other Vindicator.

On Marnus' right flank are a Pack of Thunderwolves led by Canis Wolfborn, Bjorn the Fell Handed, a Grey Hunter Pack, Vindicator, Redemptor Dreadnought....

... A squad of Aggressors led by a Apothecary Biologis, a Pack of Blood Claws, a squad of Outriders, A Ballistus Dreadnought...

... And a pack of Fenrisian Wolves.

In reserve is kept:

A Pack of Wolf Guard
Ragnar Blackmane attached to a Bladeguard squad in a Drop Pod.

Battle Scenes!

Marnus managed to snatch first turn and declared Oath of Moment on my Land Raider, then shot at it with his Vindicator. I of course responded with popping a Smoke Screen for a command point and in total he managed to do 5 wounds of damage to my tank.

Other than that, he moved up the board and took up a better position.

In my first turn, I healed 2 wounds that were lost on the Land Raider with my Blessings of the Omnissiah!

I then Charged forward with Land Raider, buffed with the Target Augery Web and put my Oath of Moment on his Vindicator. I blew that up. He attempted to use Smoke as I had, but I had too many Lascannons and other weapons that they eventually came through and dropped him.

The Blood Claws Charged the Redemptor but they did nto manage to kill him!

On the Right Flank, Grey Hunters clash with Outriders and Bjorn kills the Fenrisian wolves. The blacklash is that Marnus' Blood Claws kill my Grey Hunters but then Bjorn comes into that combat as well.

Elsewhere on the Left flank Grey Hunters fight Grey Hunters and the Thunderwolves are blown to bits, the Wulfen Dreadnought attacks those that remain and only Cnis is left standing.

My Blood Claws pull back on the second round to shoot at the onrushing Space Wolves. However... there was another threat for me to counter...

Ragnar and the Blade Guard had Deep Struck into my deployment Zone and are declared the target of my Oath of Moment.

I blow them to smithereens! Even though I had brought Sven so close I was ready to take them on in combat. This was not necessary as they were blown apart with shooting. Poor Ragnar.

Marnus managed to get his Bjorn and the last surviving Aggressor into combat with my Land Raider and...

... destroyed it!

In the end of the match we had come to 3 turns and our Victory Points tallied thus:

40VP for Zak's Ironwolves (50VP if we include painting)
21VP for Marnus's Stormlance Wolves (31VP if we include painting)

Should the game have played to a 4th and 5th round then it would likely have ended with around 73VP in my favour with an indeterminate number of points for Marnus since I had then really pulled his teeth.

Bjorn had died on his side as had the Aggressor with Biologis. Canis had died and most of the Wolf Guard Terminators we down as well. His ability to score was depleatinf and most importantly, I had dominance over the section of the board that had the Omega Objective and thus scoring me a fat 15VP in the 5th round.

All in all I learned a lot and I think @xenowolfsa learned a lot as well!

Onwards to the next battle!

Cheers!
@zakludick

Hive South Africa