Hi Dobbsy,
Sethanon and I had a quick 3k game with the wolves on thursday night, unfortunately we had a bit of a technology fail so no pics of the event however the wolves went down 2:1 after some sneaky last turn antics by the tricksy eldar.
I wanted to try the wolves in a different manner to how we typically see them so I took a list based around dropping from a strike cruiser on turn 1.
List was:
Great coy + wolf lord + 2 long fangs + hunter + razorback
Great coy + rune priest + 2 wolf guard
Great coy + wolf priest + 1 wolf guard
Wolf guard + wolf priest + dreadnought
Landspeeders
Landraiders + hunter
Strike cruiser
Fenrisian wolves
Scouts
Eldar was something like
Guardians + 3 hvy wpns
2x bikes
3x SOV
Revenants
Aspect warriors + Autach + wave serpents
Wavespinners
Nightwings
I forced a corner setup and put my objectives fairly close to the eldar blitz, eldar were spread out. No Garrisons. Strike cruiser bombardment was set for the short board edge deployment zone with the wolf guard coming down in that spot whilst he 2 other coy were around an obj close to the eldar.
1st turn I teleported in the scouts to hold the eldar in place but then lost the initiative. The eldar used two activations to see off the scouts and then the aspect warriors escaped and took off towards a corner. I then brought on the cruiser, killed some bikes with the bombardment and then did more damage with the drop pod attacks. By the time they were done, one SOV was broken, as were the guardians and some other units were carrying BM. I then retained and sent the rune priest in to assault the revenants. They killed one by I rolled a bag of 1s for saves to in the end the Great coy was wiped out (2 rnds of aslt) and the eldar BTS broken. The eldar then tried to kill off the second great coy before it could aslt. Thankfully the night spinners only caused a hit (which saved) then then a formation of eldar bikes engaged them. Counter charge brought all the coy to into FF range and it went to a second round. In the second counter charge a SOV unit was contacted. The wolves did well and wiped out both the eldar units for the loss of 2 or 3 grey hunters.
This Great coy then used it consolidation and engagement move to assault the night spinners which they broke, but they also lost some more hunters in return and became broken. I was then going to assault with the wolf guard but thought a advance toward the aspects might be better for the next turn. 9 assault cannons into a unit of bikes should have seen them off but they saved every hit
Next the final SOV moved up to shoot the wolf guard but the hits were saved.
By this stage the eldar were either done or broken and their only units left to activate was the night wings and bikes the wolf guard fired on. I should have thought this through better but I marched up the landspeeders next to support the wolf guard and pin in the bikes, but foolishly this took them outside my AA umbrella. The nightwings pounced on them and I lost 3. I used their withdrawal move to hold up the bikes but the bikes then engaged the speeders. They lost 2 units each so the LS were all dead and the eldar bikes broke and moved 30cm away from any SW.
The remaining activations were all march moves as I moved up the wolf lord's Great Coy, Landraiders and wolves into positions for turn 2.
Eldar only rallied the guardians and maybe a SOV? the rest of the eldar moved away from the SW. My broken Great coy failed but that was the only SW unit with BM or broken I think.
Turn 2
The eldar farseer birthed the Avatar but SW got the initiative.
Not wanting the aspects to get away the landraiders doubled up to support the wolfguard against the avatar and guardians but fired into the fleeing aspects. They killed 2 waveserpents and 3 aspects. The wolfguard then charged in to the remaining guardians and the avatar. The guardians were wiped out and the avatar died but only a stand of wolfguard remained after some ordinary saving rolls. A single dire avenger lent supporting fire so the BM he gained plus the BM from the avatar's death broke the aspects and killed some unrallied bikes etc. The eldar didn't do much else in turn two but the nightwings did kill the Hunter attached to the Landraiders. I moved up my great coy in rhinos and killed off a SOV unit that was broken, the revenant was too far away and the aspect had broken towards my blitz. I send the wolfs after them and despite a few making CC with aspects due to infiltrator they got pasted (2nd stupid move of the game)
End of turn most of the remaining eldar rallied as did the SW.
Turn 3 I got the initiative.
Having thrown away the landspeeders and wolves I was going to struggle to contain the eldar. The landraiders went after the aspects again and broke them. I ended up using the mech great coy to take the blitz and the wolf guard and remaining drop great coy to take both T&H objectives but the eldar had a rallied SOV unit and a single revenant that earned them T&H and Blitz. Then a rallied bike unit I couldn't get to earlier in the turn raced out of hiding to contest both T&H obj so I lost 1:2.
This was a fun game for both of us and the first time we had tried a SM drop force. The brutallity of the first turn was pretty intense and made for a completely different 1st turn that what we are used to with eldar. With a couple of better decisions the eldar shouldn't have had a chance to get back in the game. As it was Sethanon was very clever with his choice of activations that he had left after the drop and managed to hold onto just enough left overs to claim the vital objectives despite having a taken a full strike cruisers worth of angry SW on turn 1.
We did agree after the game that the SW were pretty unlucky with their saves and "statistically" should have done better in some of the first turn assaults. In saying that the eldar need to be contained if you want to beat them and I failed to do this well. I should have also picked some other units instead of the landraiders and wolves as supporting choices as they were too slow or unsuited to supporting the drop elements.
So first time I've used this wolves list myself, as opposed to playing against it, and I feel its pretty competitive. Doing this again I would change the list some and aim to make use of the pack mentality rule a bit more.
List wise I still dislike the ability to take large units of skyclaws, "this is not how RUSS intended us to fight!" and apart from warhounds and teleporting terminators the list doesn't seem to loose out much (in comparison to other SM alternatives IMHO) but otherwise it represents the SW fluff well. I think the points/abilities are pretty good balance wise. We didn't find anything OTT, but i think the SW are well setup for this kind of aggressive in your face attack due to increased unit size and the ability to get some Wolfguard into each Great coy.
Cal001's group are looking to help as well.
