G. takes a win in Winter League Round 1

G. took his 1500 pt Blood Angel List out against a Space Wolf army for his round 1 match for the Winter League.
It was a six-turn game with pitched battle deployment with VP victory conditions (200VP= minor = 13 battlepoints/600VP= major=17battlepoints/1000VP= massacre= 20 battlepoints) and with up to 6 bonus points, 1 for killing an enemy HQ, and 5 for having uncontested control of the single objective in the middle of the table at the end of each turn from 2-6.

He fielded:
Librarian with Fear of the Darkness and Shield of Sanguinius
2x Furioso Dreadnought with Blood Talons and Magna-grapple
3x 5-man assault squad with a power weapon and a meltagun in Las/plas Razorbacks
1x 7-man assault squad with a power weapon and a meltagun in Rhino (bodyguard for librarian)
Baal Predator with Flamestorm cannon and Heavy Flamer Sponsons
2x Dreadnought with double TL-Autocannons

Opposing him were (iirc)
1 Rune Priest in Terminator armor with Tempest's Wrath and Jaws
1 Rune Priest in Power armor with Living Lightning and Jaws
1 Heavy Wolf Guard squad - 4 cc terminators with the termie RP, 2 Powerfist/combimelta who joined the Grey Hunter Squads, 1 Cyclone ML terminator that joined the Long Fangs
1 Lone Wolf - terminator armor, thunderhammer and Storm Shield.
2x10 GH - melta, plasma, plasma pistol, mark of the wulfen
1x 6 Long Fangs - Sergeant, 2x Plasma cannon, 1x missile launcher, 2x heavy bolter
Land Raider Crusader.

The Space Wolves deployed first, with the Landraider central with a GH squad waiting to embark. The Heavy squad (WG termies + RP termi) took his far left flank in a trench. Lone Wolf between the two units. On the far right the other RP deployed with the second GH squad and the Long Fangs camped in a ruin just to his right of the LR.

G. made a spread deployment across the whole width of the board with the Librarian's Rhino on his far left, then the Baal Pred, the Rifleman dreadnoughts, 2 Razorbacks, the Furioso's then the last Razorback opposite the WG heavies.

The S.W. first turn saw the GH squad embark into the LR which moved up 6" and fired, wrecking a razorback. The long fangs fired on the other central razorback shaking it and taking out the lascannon.
The foot GH squad and the Lone Wolf moved forward.

G. rushed his remaining vehicles forward, with the Baal Pred and the Rhino heading for the GH squad, the dismounted marines, a furioso and the damaged razorback moved up towards the objective. The flank razorback zoomed 12" back towards the center to boost the firepower now lacking there. The second furioso headed for the lone wolf.
The shooting phase resulted in a bunch of shots bouncing off the landraider, and the autocannon dreadnoughts picking off both heavy bolter longfangs.

Turn 2 - the GH foot squad moved up and fired on the Baal Pred, doing nothing. The Landraider killed 3 of the 5 dismounted marines, including the sergeant and the meltagun marine. The squad fails morale and retreats 7" behind a big concrete wall. Lone wolf continued to advance. The Long fangs had to move to regain coherency so could not fire.

G. moved the 2 razorbacks forward again firing on the Landraider for no effect. The Central furioso fired on the LR for no effect after closing to within 6" for a good melta shot. The Baal pred closed and flamed 3 marines with the flamestorm cannon and 5 with heavy flamers, but with poor rolls only killed 3. The librarian used Fear of the Darkness, and got past the runic weapon, but the LD test was passed. The casualty LD check was failed though and the GH squad fell back 8". On the other flank the Furioso charged and killed the Lone Wolf before he could swing, thanks to an extra attack from the Blood Talons! The dreadnought consider consolidating towards the WG heavies, then decided to head for the center of the board. The Autocannon dreadnoughts continued their assault on the Long Fangs, killing a plasma cannon and the missile launcher marine. A failed morale check had them running back 6 inches and out of their ruins.

No bonus point from the objective as it was contested.

Turn 3
The GH and LF squads auto-regroup. Firing from the GH squad takes out the flamestorm cannon on the Baal predator. The landraider explodes the nearby Furioso dreadnought. The WG cyclone missile launcher fires at the intact razorback to no effect.

G. makes the right move and rolls both razorbacks up to 6" from the landraider, turning sideways. The assault squads jump out and take aim on the landraider. In the shooting phase everything goes right: The first assault squad explodes the landraider with a meltagun shot. The razorbacks, the furioso and the other assault squad shoot the surviving Grey hunters inside down to just the Wolf Guard alone. The autocannon dreadnoughts continue to shell the Long Fangs, killing the last plasma cannon marine, leaving only the sergeant and the WG terminator.
The Baal predator moves up and again flames the marines, killing a couple more. The librarian again gets a Fear the Darkness off on the GH unit, causing it to break and run back again.

Turn 3 ends with a BA assault squad controlling the objective for 1 bonus point.

Turn 4 sees the lone WG in the raider's crater charge the nearest assault squad. The WG heavies finally move out from the trench, then run forward to get into the battle. The LF squad moves towards the center, firing missiles to no effect at the razorbacks
The GH squad finally kills off the Baal predator in another explosion from a side melta shot.
The Wolf Guard valiantly charging in the center is cut down before he can swing his powerfist.

G. moves his assault squads into the craters of the landraider and the Furioso dreadnought and they fire along with the razorbacks at the long fang squad. That kills off the sergeant.

On the flank the Librarian's squad shoots a GH dead with a meltagun, and the librarian gets off Fear the Darkness again (3 failed runic weapon tests in a row!) which causes the squad to break 8" towards the table edge. Fire from the autocannon dreadnoughts kills two more, causing another morale check (which automatically fails) routing them off the board.

At the end of turn 4 G. picks up the HQ-kill bonus point and the objective bonus point. There are only 6 Space Wolf models on the table (all terminators though). The remaining two turns see little effect due to bad rolling.
The cyclone missile launcher termi kills 2 assault marines, then dies to lascannon/plasma fire from the razorbacks.
The Rune Priest gets two Jaws of the World Wolf abilities off, killing only two assault marines in the undamaged squad.
The rest of the Blood Angel shooting in turns 5 and 6 are ineffective from bad rolls and good terminator saves, killing only one of the wolf guard.

End result. Blood Angels win by 735.5 Victory points for a 17 point major victory with 5 bonus points. A total of 22 out of a maximum of 26.

Paperhammer 40k

The cardboard tank factory finished Rhino number 3 today. Due to not being able to run up a large deficit budget, equipping both G's Blood Angel army and my Space Wolves army with genuine GW Rhinos, I have resorted to building them from posterboard using the the templates from the bwc-archive yahoo group.

Results are very satisfactory so far. From a distance they blend in very well and you have to look twice to notice they aren't the real thing.

I just stuck down the templates onto the next sheet of posterboard for numbers 4 and 5, so within the next few days I'll have enough vehicles for the 1500 point list for the first round of the winter league.

Experiments with making turrets for Razorbacks have been less successful. I have 4 lascannon turrets now which are.... adequate.... I guess. They should look OK painted but are a bit tall. I'm sure someone will accuse me of deliberately modeling them high for better LOS, but they were just assembled out of stuff I had at hand.
Next I need 8 spare plasmaguns to add on to the turrets so they will be WYSIWYG for las/plas.

On another topic: All my Skyclaw marines elected to defect to the Blood Angels this weekend and went bathing in brake fluid. They are now enjoying their spiffy new red paint job and are actually agreeing with the orks that it does make them go faster!