April 20, 2002.

Cold Wars, Bartertown Showdown

Lancaster, PA.

Red Baron and I had been planning on meeting up at Cold Wars. We knew each other from the Bartertown forums, and were both going to Cold Wars, so decided to bring our 40k armies and meet up for a little showdown. Naturally, this was preceded by a little bit of friendly smack-talking on the forums.

We played a 1500 point Cleanse mission. Here's the set up:

My Death Guard army consisted of squads of 7 figures each, 3 squads of Plague Marines, 1 squad of Plaguebearers, and a Lord plus his Plague Marine retinue, all in terminator armour (!!!) I also had a Nurgle infested Predator stacked with las-cannons.

RB's Space Wolves had a Wolf Priest, Land Raider, Venerable Dread, Whirliewind, Razorback, and about one each of the basic squads (Grey Hunters, Blood Claws, Long Fangs). A pretty versitile force.

The Game

Well, I think I screwed up right from the start. Having my terminators out in the center was probably not the best idea. But that land raider RB placed so far forward was just such a tastey looking target! Plus, I really wanted to get my Lord & Retinue into melee in a hurry.

Unfortunately, the land raider doors popped open, and out charged the wolf-priest, who managed to power-weapon my retinue to pieces. Unfortunately, my Lord repeatedly rolled like crap, and it took a couple turns for him to put the priest in the ground. (This in spite of being stacked with master crafted lightning claws and spikey bits...)

My luck at taking down the land raider with the predator also failed, as shot after shot bounced off the hull, until finally putting it out of commission around turn 4. With the land raider operational, plus a dread and a razorback with heavy weapons (not to mention the long fangs!) I was in a hurry to get the troops deployed. I drove up to the wolf rhinos and deployed, planning on popping them open with my melta-guns. No such luck. They all held, and withdrew slightly, leaving my troops out in the open.

One squad got shot up a bit, then was charged by the dread, which I could do nothing about. Since my troops are Fearless, I couldn't even run away.

The center then turned into a parking lot brawl as most of the remaining troops fought among the pile of four disabled rhinos and the burning land raider. My Lord did ok, but not good enough. RB's abundand power-weapons soon took him down, leaving a couple of half strength DG squads to take down as much as they could before dying. It didn't help that I forgot about my Blight Grenades in every combat but one.

In the end, the only thing I had standing was the predator. All I had taken down were the land raider, the wolf priest, and probably a bit over half of the space wolf infantry.

But, it was a fun game, and I got to play against one of the previously "faceless" names behind the Bartertown forums. A good time was had, and Nurgle even "blessed" me with a nasty cold the next morning.