Cal and I have managed to get a game in between his fantastically painted space wolves and my dodgy, proxie heavy, Thousand sons.

I'll Get Cal to confirm his list but it was something like this:

Reaver
Great Coy + Long Fangs, Landraiders, wolf priest
Great Coy + Long Fangs, Hunter, wolf priest
Predators
Predators
Land Raiders
Wolf guard + Wolf Lord, Landraiders
Landspeeders + 2x Typhoons
Skyclaws
Thunderhawk

With my TS I took the following:

Scarab Occult + Magister Templi, 3x Thralls, Pact, Icon
Rubric Fellowship + Icon, Pact, Rhinos
Rubric Fellowship + Icon, Pact, Rhinos
Rubric Fellowship + Icon, Pact, 3x Deciever, 3x Dreadnought, 2x Thrall
Armour (4x LR) + 2x Deciever
Armour (4x Pred) + 5x Pred
Silver towers (x4)
Greater Spire + Pact, 2x Thralls (Thanks Luca 77)
Deamon pool (1x GD, 13x LD)

Objectives:
Blitz were both fairly central and almost directly opposite each other.
TS objectives were closer together on the TS centre and left flank, SW objectives were more spread in the centre and fairly deep on the TS right flank. (see pic)



Deployment:
No Garrisons or spacecraft

SW deployment:

A fairly neutral deployment with hvy armour across the table whilst the blood claws and Thawk waited off board.



TS deployment:

I basically kept the towers & spire central, armour and rhino mounted forces on the left. The Rubric Fellowship on foot would attempt to hold the right while the Scarab cult and daemons were in reserve.



Turn 1 to follow.

Turn 1

No teleports.
TS get the initiative and force the SW to go first.

SW Great Coy 2 start off by advancing toward the airfield on TS right flank - no shots.

TW Rubric 1 double up the board toward the TS objective 1 on their left flank, no shooting, infantry foolishly remain inside vehicles.

Sensing an easy prey, the Thawk and skyclaws air assault Rubric 1 and mob the rhinos preventing the TS inside for getting out.

The assault is somewhat one sided but SW only cause 4 hits and 1 MW which destroys the rhinos and 2 TS marines including the iron bearer. In return a single hit is caused by the rhinos but its saved. Being all fearless the TS remain in place. SW consolidate into cover and in BtB with the Thawk.

Seeking vengance the TS Predators advance over the hill near this combat and fire on the Thawk blowing it up.

On the other flank the landspeeders advance up with Great Coy 2 on the outskirts of the airfield.

In reply, Rubric 3 walks towards the SW Obj on the airfield.

SW Predator 1 also advance towards the airfield and end up on the flank of Great Coy 2.

In the middle, Rubric 2 double up toward the centre of the table and the TS obj on the road junction. They attempt to hide behind the hills.

Now back on the left Great Coy 1 in landraiders double up in support of the skyclaws and fire on the TS predators. Fire cause 2 hits and results in 1 KIA.

Then the TS Landraider & Decievers double over towards the TS preds, ready to square off against Great Coy 1 in turn 2.

Doubling down the center road, SW Predator 2 formation lines up rubric 2 hiding near the trees. Their fire kills 2 rhinos and a TS marine in the explosions.


In response the Silver Towers double over the hill they were hiding behind and wipe out the predators with some fancy shooting. Booya!

Then, the Reaver finally activates, and doubles into the open space across the river from the TS armour formations. His fire is accurate, causing 7 hits on the Landraiders and Decievers but the gods must be watching because all saves are successfull, including 2 invulnerables on the daemon engines.

Without any decent targets this turn, the greater spire marches across to support the TS armour formations in turn 2. This ends the TS activations.

To finish off the turn, the SW landraiders double up the road and also fire on Rubric 2 but cause no hits.
Finally the Wolf lord and bodyguards follow up after the landraiders and sit on the TS objective on the centre road.

With the turn finished, all TS formations rally, putting them in a good position for turn 2 and hopefully the chance to strike back now the distance between formations is much closer. SW have no rallies to make as the Thawk and preds 2 were the only units that took fire and both were wiped out.

Turn 2.

Hoping to open up the TS's left flank, the scarab cult teleports in approx 20cm from the remaining skyclaws and manages to avoid any BMs. The intent is to burn some thralls and rip apart the skyclaws with daemons.

At the initiative roll its goes bad for the TS, rolling a 1 vs the SW 5. To add further insult, 3 lesser daemons are lost from the pool as Tzeentch's attention is focused elsewhere.

The SW start by having Great Coy 1 sustain fire on the TS Landraiders and Deceivers. Shooting results in 8 hits but again the formations luck is incredible and they only take a single KIA.

SW retain with the blood claws assaulting the remains of Rubric 1 before they are drowned in Daemons. The skyclaws cause 5 hits + 1 MW but armour saves result in only a single kill. Rubric 1 can only cause a single hit in return but the TS supporting fire kills 4 whilst the SW great Coy 1 assists in killing and additional TS marine. Assault result is 11:9 to the SW and rubric 1 again stays in place.

Now the scarab cults consumes two thralls and brings forth 1 GD and 2 flamers. They assault what is left of the skyclaws and wipe them out for the loss of the lord in Rubric 1 who is dragged into the engagement by the SW countercharge.

Retaining, the Silver Towers go into overwatch covereing any enemy advances through the mid field.

Feeling brave, the reaver advances on the silver towers but before he can fire the silver towers drop his shield, cause a DC and cause a reactor fault. In response the Reaver drops 2 silvers towers and they withdraw back over the hill.

Holding the high ground overlooking the SW objective, rubric 3 go onto overwatch,

In response the SW Landraiders double down the centre road toward the bridge and kill the Greater Tower thanks to a lucky critical.

Rubric 2 then summon 2 flamers and 2 horrors and double through the swap to the rear of the SW landraiders now near the bridge.

Retaining the TS landraiders and deceivers assault the SW Landraiders, getting into BtB contact with 2. SW cause 1 hit + 1 kill, whilst TS kill 1 from 8 hits. Combat result kills a further SW landraider and the survivor flees back up the centre road. The blast makers sustained also break the TS Landraiders who move back towards the TS Blitz. Rubric 2 spreads out to try and block the centre road.

The SW wolf lord attempts to clear the road by doubling on foot down the road towards the deamons of rubric 2. A stack of assault cannons only manage 1 BM.

The TS predators then advance on Great Coy 2 killing 2 Landraiders but failing to cause a single AP hit from 14 dice!

On the right, SW pred 1 continue to advance towards the SW obj at the far side of the airport.
Great coy 2 also advances and the hunter manages to spy a deceiver and kills it with a HK missile at almost max range.

The last move is from the SW landspeeders who also advance up in support of Great Coy2 .

In the rally phase:

SW manage to remove 3 from Great Coy 2, The Reaver takes a further DC from the reactor breach.
The sole surviving land raider also rallies.

The TS fail with Rubric 1, remove a BM from the scarab occult. All other formations do well except the silver towers which fail to arrive.

Turn 3 to follow in a few days (once we play it...)

Very nice set-up and models !

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Yeah Cal's table is wide alright, I'm 193cm tall with long arms and I struggle to reach sometimes but it does allow some awesome terrain setups.

I always feel bad though because usually I take some hardly painted WIP army which looks terrible against the terrain and nicely painted armies Cal has.

My only saving grace is that I've generally painted more of my army than Cal has of his

We should have turn 3+ out after Friday.

How did the two forces "feel" against one another balance-wise?

Dobbsy,

For me the game feels balanced, I think the Spire is a little fragile, it was owned by one round of shooting. The Engagements have been fair with no clear advantage to either side. Geoff has been lucky with saves and I have had some bad luck so far, hopefully turn three will be batter.

Cheers
Aaron

Turn 1 will probably be painful for most TS builds as they lack the fire power and arty of other forces. Once they can get into assaults though they are tough as nails and the daemons, used right, can drastically swing an engagement in the TS favour.

Having not played with TS for a while I struggled to come to terms initially with how I should advance in turn 1 and I also regretted not having any cheap activations to force Cal's hand early on.

So far this game is fairly well matched, SW dominated turn 1 & TS evened things up somewhat in turn 2. Now it will depend on how Cal's large formations can impact the game in turn 3 as they're postured for a objective grab into TS territory.

As for the TS the towers are proving to be "glass cannons" whilst the standard rubric formations are extremely resilient against attacks, though there are minimal MW attacks in Cal's force.

In hindsight I'd probably take a rubric formation and maybe the scarab cult in land raiders for resilience and to benefit from the SC reroll in turn 1. Then look to take some flyers and smaller armour formations to boost activations as well as give more reach early on. The deceiver's AA bubble isn't much chop unless you take them in bulk but some doom wings might be a better AA choice.

We'll see how the game wraps up, then I might have some other thoughts, but basically SW are cheese...

@ Orton - Where did you get you terrain from? The mat sections are very cool

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Walk softly. And carry a big gun.

Mate,

The tiles are high density insulation foam from DOW. They come as 2600 x 600mm sheets. I had them cut down to 500 x 500mm. They were then painted with render effect paint and flocked with a mixture.

Cheers
Aaron

Aaron. I will give that a try, thank!

_________________
Walk softly. And carry a big gun.

How did turn 3 end up?

not so good for the TS.

I will dig out the notes and finish this off tonight if family allows.

Cool. Do you have any pics of the Greater spire you used?