a brief distraction

Yesterday I headed down to the GW Surrey battle bunker. They were holding the final Hall of Heroes tournament for the 2008/09 season. I was looking forward to catching up with a few friends that I'd not seen in a while and battling with 2000 points of my Wolves.

I took a Wolf Priest, Wolf Lord, Ven Dread, two full size units of Blood Claws, one small unit in a Rhino, minimum Grey Hunters, Wolf Scouts, Exterminator, a three-Las Predator and two Land Speeders with Assault Cannon/Heavy bolter. Terrain as a bit sparse, so I was concerned about my vulnerability to mass fire.

Game 1
Opponent - Kyle – Imperial Guard
Mission – Annihilation (Primary), Breakthrough (Secondary), Deployment - Pitched Battle

Well this table bought my fears to life... not only was I facing guard with THREE Leman Russ Battle Tanks, and THREE Hellhounds, there was almost NO cover down the middle of the table! Kyle got to set up (and go) first - I wanted to see what he was going to do with his troops on the back board edge. He pretty much kept them forward, and left me a few gaps for my scouts to come in. Hopefully I would be able to exploit and/or widen those gaps. The first three turns were bloody for me... I did very little damage, on the other hand Kyle ripped both my blood claw squads to pieces with battle cannon fire, and very cleverly managed to kill my scouts by blocking their deployment as they came in from reserve on turn 2.
Turn 4 I started to get stuck in - an immobilized speeder, that ended up surviving 3 rounds of Hellhound pounding, forced his mortars to go to ground, and then on turn 4 made them flee from the table. A unit of annoying lascannons was finally dealt with by the Exterminator, one Leman Russ was destroyed, and other one stunned. I also got to clear out a couple of his smaller "sacrificial" units.
After turn 5 Kyle rolled for the end of game... done!

Result - Space Wolves Victory! 11 battle points gained.
I won the primary objective (7KPs to 6), and the secondary was tied (neither of us was able to get to the other's deployment zone). A 6th turn could have spelled doom for me, so I was pretty happy to pull the win out. I found the use of 3 LRBTs and 3 Hellhounds a bit excessive, but with the current Guard codex they really need to bump up the armour at 2000 points!

Game 2
Opponent - Adrian – Necrons
Mission – Capture and Control (Primary), Sharpshooters (Secondary), Deployment - Spearhead.

Ah Necrons... only the 4th time I'd ever faced them! Sharpshooters would make the game interesting; you receive a point for each time you cause 25% casualties from shooting, whether the unit pass/fail/is fearless.
Adrian bought two Lords with Res' Orbs, two full size Necron Warrior units, a unit of 5 Immortals, a unit of 3 Wraiths, unit of 3 destroyers... and two Monoliths. With four potential las cannon shots per turn I was hopeful I could take the 'liths down. This was raised when Adrian chose to keep one in reserve, along with one Warrior squad/Lord.
I managed to seize the initiative and with my first round of shooting took the wraiths, immortals and destroyers down enough to cause leadership checks. The WBB rolls would prove to be a disadvantage in this scenario for the Necrons. I was racking up secondary mission points fast! By turn 2 I had taken down the Destroyers, one Wraith and immobilized the Monolith on the table; I'd also racked up a few more "sniper" points and was about to take down the Immortals. I also got my scouts in close to his objective. They won combat, but could not break the unit; it would have been sweet to make them run off the board freeing up the objective! Damn Ld10.
Adrian got his second 'lith in and dumped it right onto my tanks! The warriors also arrived, but due to the scatter they came in through the immobilized 'lith in the middle of the table.
I managed to immobilize and wreck the deeps striking monolith with all four lascannons opening up on it. Apparently that messed with Adrian's plan a little! I also finally destroyed the Wraiths, which made it impossible for him to win the Primary objective. There were two rounds of HtH in the shadow of the Monolith, with the Necrons in both cases being pulled through the 'lith.

Result - Space Wolves Victory! 11 battle points gained.
The primary was tied, and I took the secondary 8-5. The game "winner" for the Necrons was the scouts battle, loosing a power weapon due to a shooting phase plasma pistol over heat (squad has not been reconfigured for the 5e casualty rules) hurt my HtH, and the Lord taking away all charge bonuses also cut down the attacks I could do. Also Ld 10 is not too shabby! The two monoliths were a bit annoying, but other than that the list was pretty soft.

Game 3
Opponent - Steve – Chaos Space Marines
Mission – Seize Ground (Primary), No Quarter Gained (secondary), Deployment - Pitched Battle (with Night Fight the whole game!).

I've played Steve before and he had a terrifying Eldar army back then, When I saw him pull out a winged Daemon Prince I immediately thought I was going to face a Daemon army... followed by "oh, crap...".
This time he had a nicely balanced force! CC Daemon Prince, two Autocannon/Lascannon Predators, two units of terminators, daemon pack, Chosen, 2 Obliterators and 3 units of CSM mounted in Rhinos.
I allowed Steve to set up first, hoping to seize turn 1... which of course I failed to do. We had set up the objective counters in such a way that we would be fighting a lot of HtH in the middle of the table.
Battle went pretty much to plan - Steve refused to charge my Wolves as my Counter Attack would give me more PW attacks that if I charged! He relied heavily of plasma and melta weapons to thin my numbers. His DP lasted all of one charge. The two squads of terminators about the same. The real thorn was the daemon pack and a late coming CSM unit. In the end Steve held one objective, two were contested and the final one was uncontested. Steve also held one table quarter.

Result - Space Wolves Loss. 5 battle points gained.

Pretty good day's gaming! Two wins is always a good thing.
I also walked away with Best Appearance. I may get high enough in the HoH rankings to get an invite to the GT...