Next up, we have my game against Brian Hudson. He plays a very nicely converted Space Wolves army called the "Lords of Oblivion". I had met him the previous evening on the Nova Open bar crawl and chatted a bit about how our armies would be the polar opposites fluff-wise. So I thought it a little funny that we got paired together. The first thing I noticed when I sat down, was the fact that Brian seemed a bit angry and/or "off". He mentioned that he was slightly hung over, as well as being angry about how his first couple games went.
I knew right away that this game could end up being a long one, because I knew my opponent right away was in a bad mood. Coming into a game with a bad attitude can only cause problems and really dampers the mood of the game. I did my best to cheer him throughout the game, but it didn't seem to take. This was the only game where I scored an "Average Game" from my opponent (all the rest were Excellent Games). It was also the game where I had the best LOS to my opponent, but it wouldn't matter, as you will soon see! :D
Game Three -- Brian Hudson
HQ:
* Wolf Lord w/ Powerfist, Storm Shield, Runic Armor, Wolf-Tooth Talisman, Wolf-Tooth Necklace, Thunderwolf Mount, Saga of the Bear, and 2 Fenrisian Wolves. [290]
* Wolf Guard Battle Leader w/ Frost Blade, Storm Shield, Runic Armor, Wolf-Tooth Necklace, Thunderwolf Mount, and 2 Fenrisian Wolves. [220]
* Rune Priest w/ Jaws of the World Wolf & Living Lightning. [100]
ELITES:
* Wolf Guard: 4 Wolf Guard w/ 3 Powerfists, 1 Power Weapon, and 4 Combi-Meltas. [162]
TROOPS:
* Grey Hunters: 9 Grey Hunters w/ 1 Meltagun, Wolf-Standard, and Mark of the Wulfen. Mounted in a Rhino. [200]
* Grey Hunters: 9 Grey Hunters w/ 1 Meltagun, Wolf-Standard, and Mark of the Wulfen. Mounted in a Rhino. [200]
* Grey Hunters: 9 Grey Hunters w/ 1 Meltagun, Wolf-Standard, and Mark of the Wulfen. Mounted in a Rhino. [200]
* Grey Hunters: 8 Grey Hunters w/ 1 Flamer, Wolf-Standard, and Mark of the Wulfen. Mounted in a Rhino. [180]
FAST ATTACK:
* Thunderwolf Cavalry: 3 Cavalry w/ 2 Storm Shields and 1 Powerfist. [240]
HEAVY SUPPORT:
* Long Fangs: 5 Long Fangs w/ 4 Missile Launchers. [115]
* Long Fangs: 4 Long Fangs w/ 3 Missile Launchers. [90]
Total: [1997]
Mission Goals:
P) Kill Points
S) Table Quarters
T) Objectives
Deployment was Dawn Of War.
We roll to see who was going to go first and Brian wins the roll. He decides to go first and begins deploying his forces. He places his Librarian in the smallest Grey Hunter unit and deploys that Rhino, plus another right next to each other behind some BLOS terrain towards the middle of the board. At this point, I mention he can only deploy one unit, as a transport was ruled to count as one of your troops units in DoW. He gave me a hard time of it, so I said whatever and let him do what he wanted. I just took advantage of the same "mis-reading" and deployed two of my Crusader squads and their Razorbacks centrally behind terrain, but with clear fire lanes to most of the board. Thus begins this wonderful game.
The third turn arrives and Brian continues the advance. He knows I have a turn before the hammer falls, so he moves everything full speed ahead. The Rune Priest Rhino shoots around from behind the terrain in the middle and disembarks the unit (moved 6"). In addition, the now footslogging Grey Hunter squads slowly start hoofing it towards me. His remaining Rhino speeds around to my right flank and disembarks it's unit. Brian tries once again to fire Living Lightning at me, but is again blocked by "Abhor". His frustration at my psychic defense is starting to show. However, the rest of his turn goes well. He's able to ping my left-most terminators with a lucky storm bolter shot from Rune Priest Rhino and they fail their Righteous Zeal test, falling off the board. Ouch! That hurts big time. The rest of his shooting takes down a couple more terminators from the other unit, blowing up my right-most Razorback, as well as destroying my right Typhoon. He was also able to shake my right-most Predator with his one Long Fang dude. Because of a poor run roll, Brian is unable to successfully charge around my Typhoon, so decides to just prep for the next turn instead. However, he was able to charge my now disembarked Crusader squad and eats them with his Grey Hunters.
My turn is critical, I need to stop those TWC or the game is over. I move one of my right Razorbacks forward, in the attempt to both block advancement towards my squishy Crusader squads, as well as getting a clean shot at the Rhino sitting on my right flank. As it currently stands, nothing has a shot at it so I need to move or it stays safe. The mission is kill points after all, so Rhino kills matter just as much as unit kills. My movement of the Razorback forward blocks the LOS of the Predator, but it can't shoot this turn anyway. The Terminators will be going after the TWC, so that doesn't matter either. I then shoot at the Rhino. And miss. Because it's twin-linked, I get a re-roll....and miss again. Okay, it happens. Moving on to the rest of my forces, they shoot literally everything at the TWC. I manage to take out two TWC, but the full weight of all of my shooting doesn't even barely dent the unit. I was missing left and right on easy shots/wounds. My dice had left me. It got so bad that Brian made the comment that he noticed that the closer the enemy was to a Space Marine army, the worse they got at shooting. This was in full force now, with over 70% of my army's firepower failing to kill off an already fully wounded TWC unit. It didn't matter what shot (bolters, lascannons, plasmaguns, etc), it was either missing to hit or rolling ones when I needed a two to wound. The wounds I did cause did not force the unit to fall back, unfortunately. I knew that was game over, as I put everything into those TWC and failed to stop them.
This game was my only lopsided loss at Nova Open. It was horrid how badly the dice had left me. The only thing that managed to go my way was the fact that I blocked Living Lightning with "Abhor" four of the six times it was cast on me. Early game looked like I was going to do just fine, because of that, I got over-confident on my right flank. I figured that my Crusader squad and Typhoon would be able to stall out the advance on that end long enough for my forces to kill off the TWC and move on to the rest of Brian's forces. I didn't realize how wrong a decision that was going to be. In retrospect, I should have started flying my Typhoons forward much sooner to block those TWC and spent my time firing at the rest of his forces as they came out from behind the terrain. That might have netted me enough kill points to win at the end, but there would be no guarantee he'd leave the terrain to come for me. In the end, it wouldn't have made much difference as my dice were crap after turn two. Even still, I joked around about it with Brian but I was unable to get him to even smile.
There wasn't much that Brian could have improved on, other than not being grumpy the whole game. His list was very point and click, and that is what he did. I don't know what would have happened if I had average rolling throughout the whole game, but there isn't much use thinking about it. Bad dice games happen and Brian did a good job of taking advantage it. His target priority mid-late game was flawless, taking down the critical parts of my army. The untimely loss of a terminator squad hurt me especially, as I was counting on them to put wounds into those TWC. It really fell apart after that, with a pretty close game sliding quickly into a rout. But such is the game of Warhammer 40k. ;)