Caledonian Day 1 (Brad's report)

In not so many words “Worst Tournament ever!”

Just kidding it was absolutely brilliant what I should have said was “ Bradimus Prime’s worst tournament performance ever!” As you know I ended up taking a full fat Logan Wing army, originally I submitted the list where I had two Thunder wolves decked out with storm shields and power fist’s. I intended to use these guys like Lone Wolves but in the few practice games I had I just couldn’t get on with the list. So in a panic I ended up re submitting my list and took a -10 point penalty for the pleasure, that was my first mistake.

I ended up going for my original idea and submitted my Logan-bomb-lite list with a pack of 5 Long Fangs in a pod and a pack of 5 Wolf Scouts. How did it do? Pretty rubbish to be honest. I had a string of bad match ups and even badder luck (is badder a word? God knows) My final placing was 63 out of 110 so it was a bottom half finish for Bradimus. I scored a full 30 points on painting and the usual 18 for sportsman ship but that -10 penalty cost me 20 places by my calculations so that will be the last time I do that, lesson well learned. Anyway here’s my game by game account:-

Game 1
Matt Robertson Blood Angels
Mephiston
5 Assault Termies, Land Raider Redeemer
4 x 5 Assault Marines in Flazerbacks
3 x Preds, AC/LC

My intial thoughts are oh dear, Deathstar termis and Mephiston to boot! From past experience my Space Wolves don’t like Deathstar Terminators and definitely don’t like Mephiston. Matt’s a good player but I don’t think he has used this army before so that may just have given me the edge. The game went well though. Matt wins the roll of and gives me first turn so I can’t Logan bomb his land Raider. It was dawn of war so I deployed a small Wolf Guard unit up front and in easy reach tempting him with an easy kill point.

Mephiston deployed on the board in my face ready to pounce turn one on that Wolf Guard unit. I had expected him to roll up behind that Land Raider and take my army to pieces as he pleased turn two or three so this was a nice little opportunity.
So Matt took the bait and flung Mephy forward, he piled into the Wolf Guard and chopped up four of them as I cock blocked his psychic powers and denied his re rolls, I would have like him to be unengaged next turn so I could blast him. This wasn’t a problem though I just piled Logan and two Lone Wolves into him to make sure the job was done. With Mephiston gone I had a lot of pressure relieved so I got to work de-meching Matts assault Squads, the scouts come on and tried to pop the Land Raider but it got lucky with some cover saves.

The game went back and forth for a turn or two and it could have gone either way, it changed slightly when matt misjudged the Charge distance for his Terminators and left them stranded in the middle of the board, I retaliated and got rid of the Terminators with a mass Wolf Guard assault whilst the Lone Wolves jumped on the Land Raider. At this point I thought I was doing rather well until I lost half my army to some excellent shooting and shitty cover saves, I was knocked down to one Wolf Guard unit 2 Long Fang packs with the Lone Wolves still rampaging around.

Things got worse when I failed to damage Matt’s final Razorback, he sped it across the board and in the space of two turns wiped out two Long Fang packs with 5 assault marines and a Sanguinary Priest! It was those two cheeky kill points that made the game a draw for primary objective and a win for Matt on the Secondary objectives.
After game thoughts? I should have deployed the Logan bomb a bit more centrally to give Matt something to worry about I was a bit cautious about it getting blown off the board early doors or wiped out by Mephiston turn 1. Other than that it was a tough game and considering the match up I think I managed alright to get a draw out of it.

Game 2
Dave Walcot Grey Knights
Mordrak, 4 ghost knights
Crowe
3×5 man Purifiers (double psycannon, halberds & MC hammer) Rhinos (dozerblades)
10xInterceptors (MC hammer, double incinerator, psybolt ammo)
3xPsyflemen dreads

I’ve met Dave a few times now as he is in the same 40k team as me so I knew Dave was a fairly new player but he was being mentored by some of the best players in the country, he’s also got a few tournaments under his belt so I wasn’t going to go into this over confident.

Surprisingly Dave gave me first turn after he won the roll off, I really thought he was going to cock block my Logan bomb with warp Quake. I set up in aggressive positions to push forward and use my weight of fire to cripple those small squads and Rhinos whilst the Logan Bomb and Scouts went into reserve.

Dave set two of his three Dreads up on a hill in the back field and his Rhinos central, Mordrak and his ghost knights went into reserve ( I think they have to?) and the Interceptors split into combat squads.

First turn and down comes Logan and crew, unluckily I only managed to stun one dread and blow and arm off the other. My mass of missiles wreck two rhinos and stun the third covering the rest of the army as they advance central. Dave repositions and fires what he can but the most of it bounces off my armour saves, luckily Logan and the fangs are hidden by the hill the dreads are stood on but some interceptors manage to zip over and flame the unit killing two Long Fangs, Dave then charges his Dreads into Logan’s units probably thinking its better to charge than be charged. The Combat ended in one Dread being wrecked and the other being stunned.

In turn two the scouts come on and assist Logan by piling into combat. One of my Lone Wolves gets into charge range of the third Dread thanks to a 6” run move the previous turn. He charges into cover and rips the Dread a new one with his Chain Fist.

My missile cloud wipes a unit of Purifiers out and wrecks the final Rhino.
After this the game was pretty much mop up duty, I have to admit I had problems shifting Mordrak and his Knights as they landed in some woods and combined with a 2+ save and a 3+ cover save they proved pretty hard. Eventually pure weight of fire forced enough 1’s to wipe the knights out followed by a volley of Krak missiles double tapping Mordrak out.

After game thoughts? Getting first turn was a bonus, Dave realised his mistake half way through the game as we chatted. To be honest even if I had got second turn I think the Logan Bomb would have been able to come down somewhere and do some damage, my weight of fire proved valuable here as it decimated the small 5 man units and light transports with ease.

Game 3
Bernard Lee Space Wolves
Logan
2 x Rune Priests
2 x Lone Wolves, CF, SS
10 Wolf Guard, 2 Cyclones
2 x 8 Grey Hunters, Rhino + usual upgrades
1 x 5 Grey Hunters, LC/TLPG Razorback
3 x 6 Long Fangs, Missiles

First thing to mention about this game was the terrain, it was awful. There was basically bugger all apart from a HUGE mountain with a bastion mounted on top of it in the centre of the board, thank Christ I wasn’t playing Dark Eldar. Bernard took first turn and set up the best he could, I was pleased in a way because I could now refuse flank him and deny him half of his missile fire, broke back mountain made this easy.

I set up everything on the right flank and then the bad luck began. Bernards first turn was mostly his units re positioning to get better shots but he did some damage to my Long Fangs in his shooting phase. My turn one and down comes Logan, I’ve got a lovely plan of landing to the right of one of his Rhino’s and then working up his flank pretty much shielded from any return fire. The pod then scatters 12” and lands right in the middle of my only firing lane so I’ve now got Logan and the Melta Fangs facing a torrent of missiles and Grey Hunters, they however manage to pop a Rhino through the tree’s.

From this point on it became a “rocket” off with both me and Bernard chucking as many missiles at each other as possible. Our Lone Wolves piled into each other and began what is possibly the longest known combat to man lasting right until the last turn, it was pretty epic to be fair as the super human monsters smashed chunks out of each other.

The game ended with me suffering probably the most horrendous bout of bad luck I have ever suffered in a game of 40k. We are currently both holding two objectives each, I decide to break the deadlock with my 10 man Wolf Guard unit. Under the cover of Rockets I advance on a Grey hunter pack which is decimated by fire leaving only a single Grey Hunter alive.

The plan? Charge this Grey Hunter, kill him, consolidate onto the objective and hold it. What actually happened? I charge the Grey Hunter fail to cause a single wound with a bucket full of attacks and 4 power weapon attacks. It’s ok I’ve got three Chainfist attacks this will see him off, nope all three miss. The lucky Grey Hunter punches my Rune Priest in the nose and causes a wound, he fails his armour save.

You know what’s coming right?

Leadership test..... 11.. flee... he fails to catch me...flee 10 inches...cue Bernard laughing his tits off doing Bruce lee impressions and Brad crying like a girl.

Good Game lol.

That massive fail cost me the win which caused the game to end in a draw, oh well I did see the funny side and have since ridiculed my Rune priest for being a jessy.

Day two coming soon.

P.S My Lone wolves ended up battering his Lone wolves so I claim the hardest Lone Wolf award. Wraaarrg!