They can truly make the difference in games such as The Relic, Emperor's Will and even in The Scouring, where you may be subjected to funky valued objectives "lop-siding" the board..one side loaded with 3' and the 4..the other low rent objectives no one wants.
It could be critical as well in games against armies with no Heavies or no Fasts in Scouring and Big Guns.
You guys know this though so I'll stop there. My Wolves (the 1850 version) that claimed victory recently at my first 6th ed tourney have been struggling with securing the secondaries in all missions vs a wide variety of armies.
I want to create a unit/s that can always get those secondaries for me. Now, this may not actually be possible, but we can try right?
Line Breaker:
Drop Pods and Outflank..and OBEL of course are the easiest ways. But these are not always survivable. Certainly Wolf Scouts can dart in from reserve and take the Line Breaker objective, but can they secure it? No. They are too fragile. Could they survive? Perhaps, but not in the traditional role.. what about as Snipers? Come in far away from the enemy, still in or very near their deployment zone and not pose an immediate, melta-based, threat. Come in and get set up in a partially secluded/out of sight position and snipe some stuff. This way you'll not attract as much attention and perhaps survive. In the meatime, have fun sniping at Psycannons/Fists/Meltagunners/Nobz etc.
Drop Pods? Again, they get in there straight away and force action against them. In my list, I just use a 4-man Melta suicide Wolf Guard unit. They drop in and hit a high value target before forcing a response against them. Now, it doesn't take a lot to kill 4 marines, but when they arrive in cover or out of sight to some units, smoke one of the immediate threats on arrival, they WILL require some slight movement and adjustment to plans. That will do for me. Even this slight annoyance distracts from the main thrust of the opponents force and, if they had a high value target..well.. those 100 odd points are well spent on the Suicide Squad.
What about bringing in a second pod full of Grey Hunters? Could be useful. Put pressure on early and get another volley of melta into the enemy deployment zone. They don't want to hang around for that so push up field..into the mouth of the Wolf army. They are Grey Knights and they cast Warp Quake? Either take a 50/50 to stop it with the Rune Priest or just drop out of the zone, you are still going to be where Wolves want to be, which is at least midfield.
Outflank? Conferred from Saga of the Hunter in the case of typical Wolves. Bran Redmaw can do a few funky things, but to play with him, it's too many points off the board in reserve for me. Plus on foot, they have a serious mobility weakness that can be exploited. Dedicated transports get it conferred, but this doesn't help Wolves. The Outflanking foot wolves are fun, but they definitely have speed issues.
How to get around the speed issue of outflank? The change to charging off of outflank is a biggie, so we need a unit that can really get into a good position.
We can use a Thunderwolf unit here. A Wolf Guard Battle Leader with a Thunderwolf and Saga of the Hunter (which can only be taken by a dude in Power Armour and without a Jump Pack or Bike...no mention of Thunderwolves) ..now this bitch can outflank. I want to take advatange of a few things here. I want to keep him cheap but have an impact. How about a PAIR of plasma pistols? He hits on 2's...2 x 24" range plasma shots? Not bad at all. Nice way of stripping some hull points hitting accurate side or rear armour.
Now, this little bastard is annoying, but not a huge threat. That's kinda nice for keeping him alive, but it is still pretty easy to kill him..just as easy as the Scouts or Suicide Squad.. Now, to keep him alive, how about putting him with a unit of Thunderwolves? This makes the whole idea a lot more expensive, but also magnifies the threat a great deal.
Individually, the WGBL hits assaults with 7 attacks. 1 from Hammer of Wrath, then 6 from 4 base, 1 charge, 1 pair of weapons. But with a unit of 4 thunderwolf cavalry? These guys also have 7 attacks on the charge, 1 being from Hammer.. so we can hit HARD. The volume of attacks is nice, the strength is nice, the Rending is nice.. Plus, this is a serious threat in the backlines of the enemy. Biggest issue with this unit is the cost. How much does it detract from the effectiveness of the rest of the army? That's the critical element.
Slay the Warlord?
This bad boy is about survival of your Warlord and death to his. Death to his Warlord can be tough if its Draigo or Lysander, even Calgar. Anyone else is not that tough, Crons and Nids can be Jaws'd, Most Marine stuff is I4 and can be Jaws'd or can be ID'd from Melta. Everything dies..it just depends how much you have to throw at it.
The real problem for me is that the same is also true for MY Warlord! A Rune Priest is an ok choice, but as he needs to be within 24" most of the time, means he can be shot down or slain in combat. Whilst a really, really good HQ choice, they are not all that survivable, even with LoS! rolls.
If I adopt this 'Bravestar' TWC Batte Leader, he could be the Warlord, staying off table, hitting hard with plasma when he comes on, choosing his battles with his speed and having a unit to drop wounds into or hide behind. Hmm...
With Crons, I was happy with this objective all the time, defensive castling deployment for the on board troops and AV13 with cover at extreme range is tough to get first blood on..then the Fliers come on and BOOM! I can comfortably strike out and kill a transport or single unit.
Slight issue...I'm talking about Crons there and Wolves here. Ah. So my Long Fangs are reliable at killing tranports. Sure.. but I have transports of my own. When I go second, I will lose First Blood down to a rhino. Meh. When I go first, I get the drop pod down to melta something and I can launch a missile salvo to tank a rhino.. But that is nothing more than 50/50. How do I improve that? Deployment, cover that can help..but it doesn't really do it for me, that's not enough.
One possible list then? Ok..
Wolf Guard Battle Leader - TWolf, Pair Plasma Pistols, Saga of the Hunter
4 TWC - 1 Plasma pistol, 1 MBs
10 Wolf Guard - 9 combi's, 2 x TDA/CML, Drop Pod (this setup leaves 4 CM suicide squad in pod)
3 x 5 Grey Hunters with Melta, Rhino (WG with CM)
1 x 5 Grey Hunter with Plasmagun (WG with CP)
2 x 10 Grey Hunters with 2 Plasmaguns (TDA/CML)
3 x 5 Long Fangs - 4 Missile Launchers.
Some very 'core' stuff here, but with the fun, experimental Thunderwolf unit.
What have I lost here? A second Rune Priest, 2 Lone Wolves. Different, not as lean, but could work for sure. I'll let you know..
So I find myself still down to dice in some respects with STW and FB. This pisses me off. I hate relying on dice. I try to build and play without reliance on dice. But then again, they are secondary objectives..not the main objective of the game. How do you guys deal with the Secondaries? Ignore them and hit the win on Primary is my main thought, but I still think about the Secondaries..especially in tight games/missions..
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