#58: 40k Battle Report - Titans Game One "Jaws of the Wolf"

Day one was finally upon us. A crowd of players had decended upon the venue, and were ready to throw dice and chew bubblegum. 

The TO had offered round one grudge matches, and a friends team wasted no time in throwing the gauntlet. It looked like match ups were locked in and I would be facing off against a mental Tau list, but at the last second, my team captain pulled a switch and pitted me against a significantly powerful Deathstar.

It consisted of a formation of Fenris wolves, four iron priests, two wolf guard battle leaders, Sammael, Azrael, and a Sanguinary priest. All in the one unit; it now benefited from Feel No Pain, Hit and Run, and a 4+ Invulnerable save.

The rest of the list consisted of scouts to fill the obligatory troop slots from the allies. 

I knew that I didn't have the hitting power to take the Wolf-star head on; I knew that if I wanted to survive past turn three. I was going to have to play smart!

The wolf brick scouted up, and in their first turn, pushed up even further toward my side of the board. Turn one, my Terminators dropped on the right hand side of the board, and five interceptors arrived in the back corner to clear some unfortunate scouts off an objective. I know that my Terminators wouldn't survive an all out assault from the wolf star, so my left-hand Dreadknight charged into the far left flank of the unit forcing it to pile in and consolidate toward one side of the board (away from Draigo's retinue), while choosing a spot where I was in no danger of being hit by power fists or similar weapons capable of ignoring my 2+ armour. 

Content that I would be able to tie up the unit indefinitely (thanks to being wrapped in wolves, I'd need to kill several before worrying about scary combat characters ruining my day), I began to focus on claiming maelstrom cards and trying to clear out any exposed scouts. I knew that it would be difficult to bleed any kill points from the big unit, but I was happy to sacrifice a combat squad of interceptors for the opportunity to incinerate some scouts for quick points. This is exactly what my 'Ceptors in the back corner did, running onto the objective, then flaming the scouts off said objective. 

Then he Hit & Ran, giving himself the freedom to do so as he pleased. This caught me a little off guard, and resulted in him repositioning, and...

Charging both the Interceptors and Dreadknight with predictable results. I had lost two units already, but had managed to confine the wolf star to one side of the board. For now.

As more and more units arrived from reserve, it became a game of deep striking to claim an objective or kill point (as you can see, the five man squad in the centre of the table managed to drop onto a crucial objective AND cleanse the ruins of some pesky scouts! 

They then got royally stomped into the ground. 

Now, the scenario was a combination of Kill Points, Maelstrom and Eternal War, meaning that, while I was cranking out Maelstrom Points and killing as many units as I was losing, i needed to end the game holding as many objectives numbered 1-4 as I could. Unfortunately for me, 1, 2 and 4 were the yellow tokens all situated under the wolf star. With a footprint as large as its, I was not optimistic. 

As the game progressed into later turns, it became a bit of a stalemate. I held objective 3, but my opponent would simply split characters off to hold the other three vital points on the board, and dominate the final score. 

In a series of unfortunate events, some lucky psychic powers and some truly terrible save rolls, I managed to pull off a huge play! At the end of turn five, my opponent divided his unit in anticipation of end of game. 

I unleashed the full wrath of my remaining guns upon the handful of characters holding the right-most of the three objectives. In a series of unbelievably unlucky rolls, several characters died, opening up the objective for Draigo and his retinue to Gate of Infinity across the table and claim three points at the tail end of turn seven! 

The game ended. After the dust had settled, and the points rallied, it was an 11-9 win to my opponent. This was a great result, as I don't think anyone, least of all the opposing team, was expecting me to pull as many points as I did. It was a hard fought game, and it really made me think, but caution and luck won nine points for my team! Again, in team tournaments, a skin-of-the-teeth loss isn't terrible, because my captain had instructed me to try and be a speed bump for the wolf star and scrape as many points as I could. And I managed to get almost half the points on offer.

Overall, our team lost. Narrowly, but we did lose, putting us into the bottom half of the player pool. But with 4 games still to come, we were optimistic! 

It was a great start to my weekend, and a solid kick-off into competitive 40k again! 

Keep an eye out for more games from the weekend. 

Thanks for reading,

Gabe