Sisters of Battle - The First Game (Wraithwing) Part 1

'I don't want blood. I can take your blood.

I am asking for souls. Only you can give me your soul.'

-Dolan Chirosius, Sermon on the road to Gathalamor

Let's get stuck in shall we. Saturday night i ventured to Mikes house and we played a game of what we lovingly call Floorhammer. Those of us that started the hobby at a younger age will be familiar with the setup.

It comprises of a 6'x4' area either marked out on the floor or with some sort of mat laid out. I don't remember it hurting my back so much when I was younger. Anyway - trips down memory lane aside this was an interesting match up.

Mike was using Wraith Wing - you can see the army list in my previous post here.

The game was Dawn of War, 5 Objectives, Night fight first turn.

The terrain was evenly spread, with 2 ruins in each deployment zone, a few bits of area terrain on our flanks and mid table and a fairly large piece of LOS blocking terrain in the centre (about enough to cover 2/3 wraiths).

Mike won the roll off for objective placement. We ended up with some fairly spread objectives. 2 were close together in one deployment zone, 2 quite far away in the other and 1 mid table.

I deployed first and placed my aegis covering the 2 objectives that were close together back board in my deployment, the quad gun there too. I placed 2 Exorcists behind a large ruins to the right of the board, my Rhinos and foot slogging sisters with Saint and Uriah centre table behind the defence line and the last Exorcist behind a ruin to the left. Coteaz sat with the henchman unit and their multimeltas with the quad gun. The Dreadknight behind the Rhinos ready to pounce with the Saint.

Mike set up his Wraiths spread across the board one centrally, and 2 either side flush to the 12 inch deploy line. The lords sat inside the two flanking units hiding behind for now. The barges were placed behind 1 wraith unit each and the Immortals back field ready to camp in area terrain with the deployment objective.

I won the roll offs and opted to go second allowing me a turn of shooting against any last gasp objective snatching attempts from the Warriors in their Nightscythe. 

It turned out to be night fight which was a great help for me denying Mike first blood. His first turn involved jumping the wraiths pretty much straight forward spread across his battle line. The barges shooting was noneffective thanks to the range he was at, giving everything a 2+ cover save.

My aim for this turn is to take out 1 squad of wraiths and their lord whilst going all out and charging the central unit with the Saint and the Dreadknight.

I move my blob squad forward and to the left. Both my rhinos move forward 6 inches and I jump out my 2 squads in rapid fire range. My offensive tag team jump forwards leaving about a 5/6" charge for both of them. My exorcists to the right move back leaving around a 22-24" charge for the wraiths in the next turn. I was happy with the odds there. I spread them out to ensure they can't be multicharged whilst staying behind the ruins.

My shooting phase started with my focus firing the wraith squad down. All 3 units were faithful and it indeed took all 3 to take down the 6 wraiths in the squad, it actually went down to the last save!

Now you can't kill whats not in range of your squad, so if I was firing 10 boltguns at rapid fire range I would only be able to kill whatever was within 12". Thanks to my Multimletas in the squads being able to fire on the move now, my maximum kill range was 24".  That means I only need to move far forward enough to have my boltguns in rapid fire range of the first model, leaving them further away and less open to retaliation. This is why you don't take heavy flamers.

2 of my Exorcists opened fire on the remaining Lord in the squad taking him out. The Exorcist to the right fired some shots at the right hand side wraith unit facing it and took 1 down. The lord from the left hand unit that died got back up. You win some you lose some!

Now was crunch time, lets see how good Saint and the Dreadknight can be. They both made the charge into Wraiths. Saint didn't need to challenge the lord this turn as his MSS wouldn't come into play. Saint did balls all to the unit which I was expecting. The dreadknight managed to hit with all 5 attacks and wound with all 5, taking down 3 wraiths. The lord and wraiths moved into the Dreadknight and did 2 wounds.

Not bad, not bad at all.

2 Nightscythes came in on Mikes turn and proceeded to shoot the place up. The first destroyed a Rhino, the second shot at the furthest forward Battle Sisters squad along with the Annihilation barges and Immortals - They took the squad down to 1, she passed her leadership.

The Lord that got up moved over my defensive line towards Coteaz and his Henchman unit on my left flank.

The Wraith unit on the right flank moved forward to within charge range of an exorcist albeit a 11/12 inch one. They failed the charge and prepared to get shot!

The lord charged the Henchman unit - I managed to get a hit with my Prescience'd Multimeltas and took him out before he got to swing. He didn't get back up.

Stay tuned for the epic conclusion in part 2 - coming soon.