Adepticon 2012, Part III: Team Tournament, Game 4 vs. Wardens of the Maelstrom

With some delay, time to tell the saga of our 4th game from the Team Tournament, in which Vince's Blood Angels joined forces with my Thunderwolves once again to wreak havoc upon the unfortunate ones.

After game 3 ended, we were definitely feeling much better. I guess swift victory and carnage will do that.. Still hoping not to face any more Grey Knights (and perhaps Imperial Guard, because they are always annoying..) we picked up our stuff and headed towards our final destination....
It was time to meet our last opponents for the event with the hope of a fun, challenging game to end the tournament with.
And then, Fate smiled upon us once again for we were destined to face..

Wardens of the Maelstrom

From left to right: Mr. Malevolent, Solar_lion, Gitsplitta, Briancj from the DakkaDakka Forums!

Yeah, fellas, that's right. I got to play against Gitsplitta. 

Now, I've mentioned Mr. Gitsplitta a couple of times here at Wolves for the Wolf God. My first encounter with him an indirect one at happened at Adepticon 2011 (his army can be seen here), where I took some pictures of his breath-taking Mantis Warriors and was left stupefied by his lovely yellows and greens, especially as seen on his Drop Pods and on his Mortis Patter Dreadnought. 

Our second clash was at Rock-Con 2011 where Gitsplitta and I played in the Gentleman's Grand Tournament where despite both of us hoping to duke it out, we were left with the hope to finally play a game at Adepticon 2012. At Rock-Con he also brought his Mantis Warriors to dispense so indiscriminate justice upon all the xenos, renegades and tons of Grey Knights..

And whaddaya know, guys? Imagine my surprise when the table that I was assigned to put me up against Gitsplitta and his teammate Solar_lion! I mean, talk about fate, chance and luck, right? Amazing stuff. Amazing stuff indeed.

But enough jibba-jabbin', lets get to it!

The Wardens' display board!

Wardens of the Maelstrom clearly had a few things in common - love for the hobby and dedication to detail were amongst them, but the first thing that I noticed was the common theme of their armies. The Wardens had 4 Adeptus Astrartes armies, all based on four different Space Marine Chapters from the Badab War Era. That's right! There were Mantis Warriors, Carcharadons (aka Space Sharks), Minotaurs and Lamenters to boot, all of which were beautifully painted and fancied themselves quite the display board..

But I'm done talking about 'em. They've got their very own thread over at DakkaDakka to commemorate their Adepticon 2012 experiences, so if you're interested you can go and shake their hands virtually at the Wardens of the Maelstrom Adepticon 2012 Recap

Vince and I were playing our Blood Bloods and Wolf Wolves combo-thing just like we did during game 3. It worked before and there was no reason to change anything. Actually, now that I think about it every Adepticon game that I have ever played with Vince as my partner has resulted in a victory. There was the minor victory against Team Sweden from Adepticon '11, then we won against Da Boyz Wolfpack. Could we keep the pain train school bus deff rollin'? 

Just your average School Bus with a Deff Rolla. Nothing new to see here, kids.

What we were against were the Lamenters of Solar_lion and Gitsplitta's famous Mantis Warriors, both of whom were using Codex: Blood Angels! Now, I've got both of their lists right here with me, but there's no way I'm going to waste your time with all the details! 

Gitsplitta's Mantis Warriors

Drop Pod of Death!

Gitsplitta's army of Mantis Warriors was led by a Librarian with Unleash Rage and Wings of Sanguinius. His little "Death Star" was a Drop Pod filled with nine angry Strenguard Veterans with a plethora of combi-meltas, meltas, a heavy flamer and their Special Issue Ammunitions. Then there were 2 Sanguinary Priests - one with a Jump Pack and the one without one was with the Sternguards. Add two 5-man Assault Squads and a Vindicator to the mix and voila, a killy Blood Angels list prepared to meet any challenge! 



 

Solar_lion's Lamenters

Completely bonkers!

Solar_lion also brought the might of the sons of Sanguinius of the Lamenter variety, except his list had even more death and sorrow! A Reclusiarch with 5 Death Company meanies in a Stormraven Gunship WITH a Death Company Dreadnought jerk-face attached to its hip! Two 5-man Assault Squads and then a Vindicator.. Oh my. Tons of delicious stuff!

As you can see, there were plenty of dangerous elements in the Wardens' arsenal. Two Vindicators and a Death Company Dreadnought were something that I was definitely not too excited to face with my cavalcade of Thunderwolves, but I knew that Vince and I had it in us.


Mission #4 was Bloodbath in Paradise! Probably my favorite mission!
Deployment was standard Spearhead with an Objective markers in each neutral corner - controlling them was the Tertiary Objective. Secondary was having the most units entirely within the opposing Team's deployment zone (table quarter). And the Primary Objective was the Marked for Death Annihilation thingamajigger, similar to game 5 from Adepticon 2011! Basically, each Coalition picked an opponent whose army was the only part of the Coalition worth any Kill Points.

Since Gitsplitta had less vehicles and more Kill Points, we chose him to be our Marked for Death target, and the Warden's targeted Vince's Blood Angels as theirs. Now, Vince and I had some experience with this scenario, having played against a team of Space Wolves and Blood Angels before with basically the same set of rules and objectives... We didn't get to play together during that game, but we knew what we were doing for sure. And this time we were the hybrid team playing against and all-Blood Angels team.
Oh, and Command Tokens definitely had a unique ability, which I'm guessing was added this year to give armies without any Psychic protection an edge against Psyker-heavy armies *cough*Grey Knights*cough*.. A unit with a command token had the following ability: "All enemy Psykers within 12'' of the model bearing a Command Token must roll and extra die when taking Psychic tests, suffering Perils of the Warp on any roll of 12 or above."
My Thunderwolves and one of Vince's Assault Squads took a Command Token each.

Deployment: 
We got to set up first, I believe. My Long Fangs I put on top of some cliffs, my Rhino was positioned behind some cover and my Thunderwolves were eager as ever to eat some Blood Angels... but preferably not Vince's. I can't remember what Vince did with his Blood Angels, but I am pretty sure that they were on the table, although one of his Assault Squads could have been Deep Striking.

The Wardens deployed everything. Two Vindicators behind terrain, a Stormraven too far for my Long Fangs to reach it and a bunch of tiny Assault Squads all over the place.

Turn 1

Vince's Honor Guard! Ready to rumble!

Nothing in range for my Long Fangs..

We went first and the first turn was pretty uneventful, because my Longs Fangs were out of range and Living Lightning didn't do anything. My Rune Priest's Rhino was slowly moving towards the opponent's Deployment Quarter. Vince positioned his Death Star in some cover, knowing that the enemy had a Drop Pod with some veeeeeeery shooty dudes. The question was - were they going to commit those 3 Kill Points to killing Vince's 3 Kill Points and then do their best to stay away from my army or were they going to try and get rid of my Thunderwolves with a good round of shooting? OR were they going to send the Drop Pod in their very Deployment Zone?

A picture's worth a thousand words, they say..

The picture above should give you a concrete answer. Gitsplitta decided to go Baals Deep and purge Vince's golden Honor Guard+Librarian+Sanguinary Priest nonsense. This is actually identical to what happened during game 4 to my Thunderwolves in '11.. but I digress. The Drop Pod landed a few inches away from their target and some of the Wardens' elements also moved.. all over the place. Their Vindicators were afraid of my Long Fangs for some reason, so they kept their distance and LoS. The Stormraven shot a Plasma Cannon towards Vince's Angels but cover saves were made..
And then Gitsplitta unleash a torrent of AP3, AP2 and Melta stuff into the Honor Guard and we got to teach our opponents a lesson in wound allocation when there are many types of shots. We were able to minimize casualties by carefully assigning all the low AP stuff on only a couple of models and after a ton of cover saves and Feel No Pain saves were made, Vince's unit was definitely hurt but still standing, which was unfortunate for Gitsplitta.

Turn 2 
Time to deal with the Sternguard problem.

The Honor Guard had to get the heck out of there - it was time for it to hide for the rest of the game. Our shooting was too little, too late.
My Thunderwolves decided to take a detour and get a free consolidation move after slaughtering the Sternguard, while one of Vince's Assault Squads decided to pitch in with some meltas, destroying the Drop Pod. Skarvald and his retinue charged into the ranks of the Mantis Warriors, slaying many before they could respond to his ferocity and with almost no casualties, the Thundewolves dealt with the Sternguard problem, getting a nice 6'' consolidation for their troubles.



With the Marked for Death race at 3-0 in our favor, the Wardens had to react. Their Vincdicators moved forward, but were still very careful. The Storm Raven was now in the lower right neutral corner, taking pot shots at Vince's Assault Squad and actually killing quite a few with its Plasma Cannon.



Turn 3
A slightly uneventful turn, if I remember correctly.

The Thundewolves spread out and moved forward, guarding the Rhino, which was also moving forward. At this point my Long Fangs were not in range and decided to book it towards the enemy. Turned out to be the right move later in the game. This is where Vince's Assault Squad moved towards the enemy, ready to pounce on it and pounce he did, eating a small 5-man Assault Squad, completely aware of what was going to happen next.

Like I said, my Thunderwolves were not petty spread out at this point, expecting one or two S10 pie plates headed their way by the scary, scary Fast Vindicators... This is what our opponent's lines looked like, by the way: 

Wardens of the Maelstrom's Turn 3 was a turn of counter-charges and some revenge. The Storm Raven moved towards Vince's Assault Squad and unloaded it's deadly cargo. Just the Death Company Dreadnought was enough to rip the already hurt squad to shreds, though.
The Vindicators were unsuccessful at damaging my Thunderwolves. Cover saves and a Storm Shield for the win, baby! At this point, the Wardens had us in their territory and we had to be careful!

Vince's 10-man Assault Squad was not moving from the top left Objective Marker, though.

Turn 4

The Rune Priest's Rhino moved full speed ahead, popping smoke! the Thunderwolves moved forward and ran, hoping to assault one of the Mantis Warriors. At this point I actually decided to spread the love and sent Skarvald himself towards another pack of Blood Angels, but I don't remember of what color, haha. The Grey Hunters disembarked and shot at the Vindicator, but I don't really remember if I destroyed it or if I got a Weapon Destroyed result. Either way, it was now useless.







 After this the game is kind of a blur. A few lucky shots from my Long Fangs immobilized the Death Company Dreadnougth and my Thunderwolves ate a unit of Mantis Warriors while Skarvald chewed through an Assault Squad of Lamenters. Or at least I think it was a Lamenters squad.

Oh, oh, oh! I should also mention that Solar_lion's Stormraven totally got immobilized on top of impassable terrain and then died! That was a sad turn of events for him... For us? Not so much! 

The last moments of Stormraven Gunship "Hammer"

The Reclusiarch finished off my wounded Thunderwolves and then survived the shooting that came from the Grey Hunter and killed them as well. Skarvald eventually died in combat, but not after killing many more Blood Angels. He couldn't slay Gitsplitta's Librarian, which was unfortunate, but at this point. Honestly, the game was filled with tons of sweet battles, challenges and just bloody massacres. Like it should be!
We definitely had the most Kill Points during that game, so the Primary was ours. The Secondary objective was also ours, since we had my Rhino in the Warden's deployment zone, which was more than they had in our zone. The Tertiary was also ours, because we managed to corner and surround the Wardens, pushing them away from their objective, while at the same time they never sent any resources towards our objective. With all three objectives secured we had achieved yet another..

VICTORY

Man, the Wardens of the Maelstrom were seriously some cool opponents to play against and I am totally mad that we can't play games like that on a regular basis due to distance and whatnot. It's actually pretty impressive how the four of them managed to organize themselves as a Team using DakkaDakka, especially with such impressive results. The armies were great. The generals were great. The game were great. There was definitely some smack talk and a few laughs during our game. I don't think any of us played for the win, at least not in a WAAC kind of way - it was the 4th and last game, we were all very, very tired and/or innebriated (although I was not as drunk as I should have been or I wanted to be...). I hope to play against Gitsplitta and his crew again in the future, simply because this is what wargaming should always be.

And with this battle reports I end my Adepticon coverage. I might blog about the convention itself in the next couple of days, though. We shall see. We shall see.