Space Wolves of the Aurora -2024 Tacoma Open Day 1

Hello and welcome to a tournament report for the 2024 Tacoma Open!

Normally, I would have posted a lot more battle reports as I iterated on my list heading up to this event, but this year I had six weeks to paint and practice before the event and I simply did not have the time to write reports, paint, and play games.

I went into this event with a realistic goal of making the top 32 – I’ve consistently placed in the top 16 of events for the last year and change – and the pipe-dream goal of winning best overall for the entire event. This would be a back to back win of best overall at Tacoma, and also qualify me for worlds.

Before moving on to the game breakdowns – there are four for the first day – I will start with my take on the Wolf Jail archetype, explaining my list and choices.

List Breakdown

If you came here from the Goonhammer article, you can probably skip this bit.

Champions of Russ

Logan Grimnar (on foot)

Canis Rex

Bjorn

6x Thunderwolf Cavalry w/ Storm Shields
– Wolf Lord w/ Power Fist
– Battle Leader w/ Power Fist

6x Thunderwolf Cavalry w/ Storm Shields
– Wolf Lord w/ Power Fist
– Battle Leader w/ Power Fist

6x Thunderwolf Cavalry w/ Storm Shields
– Battle Leader w/ Thunder Hammer
— Black Death (Anti -Monster and Vehicle 4+)
– Harald Deathwolf

Space Marine Scouts (Sniper Rifle, Rocket Launcher, 3x Shotgun)

Space Marine Scouts (Sniper Rifle, Heavy Bolter, 3x Shotgun)

The core of the list is basically the classic “wolf jail” archetype, with 24 Thunderwolves forming the main part of the army. I have a slight variation starting here, with one of my Battle Leaders eschewing the power fist in order to take a Thunder Hammer to go with the Anti-Monster/Vehicle 4+ Enhancement. With its native Devastating Wounds ability, this meant that he would be taking big chunks out of hard targets.

I chose to put this enhancement on the Battle Leader in this unit because Harald Deathwolf gives his unit Devastating Wounds on the teeth and claws from their mounts, which in turn would give the battle leader dev wounds on a 4+ against those targets as well as the enhancement gives it to all melee weapons on the model.

Logan Grimnar is the beating heart of the list, it doesn’t really function without his once per game re-roll all charges and melee attacks ability.

Bjorn is a powerful disruption element, with a 12″ vect aura (strats cost more within 12 basically) and an insanely potent defensive profile.

Scouts are there to body block people into their deployment zone and/or do actions for me throughout the game. I took them over Combi-Weapon Lieutenants or Infiltrators for their extreme ability to move around the board by going back into reserves repeatedly.

Finally my biggest variation from a “normal” list is the big knight himself, Canis Rex. I chose this model for three main reasons.

Second, I’ve played Chaos Knights for the entirety of my two years playing Warhammer prior to this event, and I’m extremely comfortable with the titanic knight play patterns. Titanic knights like him also received several buffs in the most recent dataslate, and being able to move through terrain as well as action and shoot were both big draws.

Third, and perhaps most important, is that painting a single titanic knight to a very high standard is easier and less time consuming than painting multiple tanks and infantry or just 30 Wulfen, and I only had six weeks to paint this list prior to Tacoma. Given that I finished everything about 36 hours before I got into the car to drive over, this seemed like a prudent choice as well.

Tournament Report Day 1

I got over to the event hall for early registration on Thursday night, and played a game with the first scenario against a good friend of mine named Kenny running Sisters of Battle. I lost badly, as he went first and I didn’t really understand how his list operated. The advance and shoot detachment that the Sororitas get access to is really something, and I would go on to play against it two more times this event.

I won’t go into massive detail here, but this was the deployment and scout moves.

And this was what the end of turn one looked like.

Basically, even though I’d saved very well on my top unit of Thunderwolves and had Canis Rex in reserves, I was trapped in my deployment zone facing down reactive moving Dominion units and Immolators.

I did manage to get forward a bit, as shown here:

But the following turn I whiffed almost all of my saves and my whole army exploded, and I didn’t quite have the ability to take down the tanks, the reserved Morvehn, etc.

With a sobering lesson from that practice game, I checked into my room and waited for the next morning.

Preface: I took a lot more pictures than last year (I took one last year), but I was intensely mentally fatigued this weekend due to a lot of external factors and I forgot much of the time. I will do my best to narrate the missing pieces.

Round 1 vs. T’au

For this round, I was paired against James and his T’au. We were playing The Ritual on Hammer and Anvil deployment with the Stalwarts mission rule, which was basically a pure buff for him and did absolutely nothing for me.

I was surprised and rather happy to see a Kau’yon list, as I’m pretty comfortable with that detachment and I know how to fight it (don’t let them have any scary threats by turn 3).

We both deployed and I won the roll for first, which was important. I chose to put myself into Saga of the Warrior Borne because I was going first and because he had put a Ghostkeel about 18 inches away from my bottom unit of Thunderwolf Cavalry.

To start my turn, I drew Assassination and Marked for Death, also known as “free CP” and went to work. I picked his Ghostkeel as my Oaths of Moment target.

I moved Canis Rex over the terrain he had deployed behind, and advanced the bottom unit of Thunderwolf Cavalry up the board. I hid the other unit behind the terrain, and started a Ritual action behind Canis Rex in the ruin.

Rex dropped the bottom Riptide down to 6 wounds.

I spent my free Captain Stratagem on the bottom unit to advance and charge after they moved, and annihilated the Ghostkeel (it was basically where the bottom Thunderwolves are in this picture). They consolidated into Kroot and Stealth Suits.

I pitched both of my secondaries for a CP, and unlocked Saga of the Beastslayer.

James drew Engage on All Fronts and Overwhelming Force. He moved his unit of Pathfinders up to my side of the table on the top edge of the board, withdrew from my Thunderwolves with everything and lined up a ton of shots into them.

His first Skystrike took out a wolf, and I tried to use their reactive move to engage the Kroot, but rolled a 1. This did let me pull them out of line of sight of the second Skystrike waiting in the wings though.

Things shot at Canis a bit as well, and by the end of the turn I was down to a wolf and a half plus characters in the exposed unit, and Rex was at about 70% health. James scored Engage for 2 points. I think he copied my Ritual token placement as well.

This turn, I drew Cull the Horde (discarded), Extend Battle Lines, and Cleanse. I oddly don’t have myself marked as scoring Extend Battle Lines here, which is very odd because I believe this was “go” turn and I put Logan on my home objective when he deep striked in.

In any case, I was able to set up Cleanse on the center objective and the one in the back that I’d made last turn. Canis Rex moved up and put another objective down behind the wall where he’d be relatively safe. I moved the mostly dead unit of Thunderwolves up to say “hello” to Commander Shadowsun.

The other unit made a very long advance to make eyes at his second Riptide.

My shooting phase was kind of mediocre, the first Riptide living on 2 wounds, but my charge and fight phase were splendid, with the small unit of Thunderwolves tearing Shadowsun and the Ethereal hiding behind the wall to shreds and consolidating into lots of things, and the big unit ripping the Riptide in half.

I scored Cleanse for max (and also ten on Primary), unlocked Saga of Majesty, and shipped it back.

This turn, James brought in both units of Broadsides and disembarked his Breachers from his Devilfish. He scored 5 on Primary and drew Assassination and Extend Battle Lines.

I used Rapid Ingress to put a whole new unit of Thunderwolves on the bottom edge of the table.

James did kill a good chunk of my army this turn, and put down another Ritual marker way off on the top edge of the board, but it wasn’t really enough to dent my forward momentum.

I scored max on primary for my turn, and drew Defend Stronghold and Behind Enemy Lines.

My plan for this turn was extremely simple – choose violence. I picked his back Riptide as my Oath’s Target in case I got into combat with it with something big and it survived the Wolf Lord that was coming for it. Canis Rex moved up and blew his Devilfish up, my wolf units both moved up their side and either completely destroyed everything they touched, or barely made contact and left the top Broadside unit on one model. I took all of the objectives away from him aside from his home objective, and at the end of my turn James had a Skystrike, a couple of Stealth Suits, Kroot, and a mostly dead Riptide.

On his turn, James scored zero for primary and drew Behind Enemy Lines, Marked for Death (which he immediately discarded) and No Prisoners. He failed to kill any units and called the game there. I drew out my remaining secondaries, which I would have easily scored, and the end score was 90 – 27 in my favor.

Round 2 vs. Aeldari

Round 2 I was paired into a lovely gentleman named Ryan and his Eldar.

I played Eldar for a hot minute before worlds last year, and I was surprised to see how much worse and expensive everything was.

Still, he had lots of firepower, good mobility, and some decent answers to Thunderwolves.

We were playing Purge the Foe on Tipping Point deployment with Smoke and Mirrors as the mission rule.

We deployed as shown, with me reserving a unit of Thunderwolves and Logan again, and Ryan putting one unit of Swooping Hawks into deep strike.

I won the roll off for first (huge) and moved into things choosing Saga of Warrior Borne again as my Saga and picking his Warp Spiders as my Oaths target. I drew Marked for Death and Establish Locus. I’m so tired of Marked for Death.

I basically just moved up aggressively with the whole bottom edge of the table, keeping Canis Rex very safe and piling Thunderwolves into the hidden little alcove on the top of the center. My middle scouts Established a Locus in the middle.

My bottom scouts moved up, shot a Windrider down with the Heavy Bolter, and then charged into the Warp Spiders from outside Line of Sight so that they could not overwatch.

From this moment, I felt pretty confident I was going to win this game, for a few reasons.

1) The Warp Spiders were Ryan’s best way out of the Wolf Jail plan, and they were tied up.
2) The Swooping Hawks were probably going to have to stay there and shoot at the Scouts.
3) The Fire Prism on the bottom edge of the table was NOT going to be able to move out to the bottom corner to provide Line of Sight for the other one, which meant his Fire Prisms were effectively doing nothing turn 1.

I pitched Marked for Death, scored 2 on Locus, and shipped the turn back.

Ryan drew Storm Hostile Objective and Bring it Down. He basically conceded he was scoring neither of these, and began the process of whittling me down. His Windriders moved up to shoot at my Thunderwolves, as did the Shadow Specters, and everything else dealt with the Scouts.

Thanks to Armour of Contempt, the Thunderwolves only took one casualty. I opted to use their reactive move this turn, because if I could get a 3 I could get onto the objective and score more points on primary, but I rolled a 1 again.

Ryan used many CP on Fire and Fade on his bike unit, pitched Bring it Down, scored 4 from killing my Scouts, and passed the turn back.

On my turn, I scored 8 on Primary thanks to my home objective and the middle, drew Assassinate and Behind Enemy Lines, and chose his bikes as my Oaths target. Then I proceeded to advance the bottom unit of Thunderwolves after the Windriders.

Everything else basically hid. Bjorn flamered and then charged the Ranger unit, consolidating back wholly onto the ruin for cover. The Thunderwolves killed the Windrider unit without breaking a sweat, and basically sat in front of the chokepoint and asked Ryan what he wanted to do about it.

I pitched Behind Enemy Lines as I felt like I was going to need many CP the next turn.

Ryan had kept Storm Hostile and drew No Prisoners. He scored 4 on Primary.

His turn was basically the top Fire Prism coming forward and the Avatar of Khaine and Guardians moving up to charge wolves.

I used Rapid Ingress to drop a whole unit of wolves 9 inches away from his Fire Prism.

The Fire Prisms bounced off Bjorn, who, with Armour of Contempt and cover, saved against them on 4s, reduced their damage to flat 3, and then had a 5+ Feel No Pain on top. I think he took three total damage. The exposed one used Fire and Fade to get out back to the home objective.

The Avatar and Guardians gutted the wolf unit down to just the Battle Leader, and Ryan and I had both killed a unit that turn, but I had killed 3 to Ryans’ 2, so I got 8 on Purge the Foe and Ryan got 4.

With two objectives against Ryan’s 1, I scored 8 on Primary and drew Containment and Storm Hostile Objective.

My Battle Leader fell back to the center objective, my big unit in the center threw a 15 inch advance to get up into things (spending a CP for advance and charge), and the other unit just followed the Fire Prism backwards into the enemy deployment zone.

Canis finally stepped out, and finally Logan dropped into the top objective (doing a Containment action). Rex did a few damage to the Avatar in shooting, and Bjorn killed off a surprising number of Storm Guardians with his flamer. Logan screamed at his dudes to get good at charging and fighting and my whole list surged forward.

Bjorn charged the Shadow Specters, the top Thunderwolves got into the Fire Prism, and my middle unit of Thunderwolves engaged the Avatar and the Storm Guardians AND the Wayleaper.

To put it simply, every single thing died except the Shadow Specters, and I used the 6″ consolidation stratagem to engage the Swooping Hawks on the bottom objective AND take it away from them.

I unlocked Saga of Majesty here, had killed 4 units for Purge, and shipped it back to Ryan after scoring 3 on Containment and 4 on Storm Hostile Objective.

On his turn, Ryan scored nothing on Primary and drew Engage on All Fronts and Overwhelming Force.

His Wayleaper came into the center, and all of his gun stuff at the top sort of blobbed up, hoping I wouldn’t roll a 3+ to engage his Fire Dragons as they came out of the Falcon.

Sadly for Ryan, I did roll a 3+ and his shooting phase was abruptly cut short. The Wayleaper did kill the Battle Leader, so he got Overwhelming Force and a tick on Purge, but he was now down to basically two tanks, a unit of half dead Swooping Hawks, and a full unit of Swooping Hawks for his Wayleaper to command.

From here, the game entered clean up mode. I killed everything on the table except one unit of swooping hawks on my next turn so that I could still score Purge the Foe on the last round, scored some more secondaries, and we talked it out to see what I’d get at the end. The final score was a comfortable 88 – 43 for me, and I have to say that Ryan was a lovely opponent, who was more than excited to show me a picture his friends had taken of my name on the Warhammer trophy from the previous year.

It was more than a little strange seeing that up there when I went to look for myself, but the goal was to be up there again so on we went to game three!

Round 3 vs. Adepta Sororitas

Sisters of Battle is one of the matchups that I’m the most concerned about with the version of the list that I was playing for the event, having been thoroughly schooled by Kenny in my pre-event game and feeling like the matchup had to be extremely uphill if going second.

My opponent this round was a lovely gentleman named Kaden, and he and I had a good laugh about the rhyming scheme of our names before getting into the game itself. His Sisters army is beautiful, and I know that it’s the canon scheme for one of the Sisters’ groups, but I might steal it to paint some Grey Knights later this year.

His list was extremely similar to Kenny’s, which concerned me even more.

We were playing on Scorched Earth, which isn’t a scenario I particularly love with the tiny number of actions I bring to the table, and our deployment was Crucible of Battle which I’m fairly ambivalent about. Once again, I reserved a unit of Thunderwolves and put Logan into Deep Strike. Kaden surprised me by starting everything on the table except the Dominion units that got split into the various transports.

I lost the roll for first, which to be completely honest was fairly agonizing. Fortunately, I had deployed my Scouts really aggressively and spread them out with their scouts move to basically say “no” to any plans he had of coming to the middle. I opted to start this game in the Saga of the Bear.

Kaden drew Overwhelming Force and Marked For Death (hey, free CP is nice right?), and proceeded to obliterate both of my Scouts.

Unfortunately for him, he’d staged his unit of Novitiates, the Callidus, and a Mortifier in the top ruin, and I had drawn both Assassination and Secure No Man’s Land which gave me tons of incentive to punish this extension. On turn 1 I was able to use my reduction Captain Stratagem to put the top unit of Thunderwolves into Saga of the Warrior Borne, Advance, and pay the 2 CP for advance and charge thanks to the Callidus making everything more expensive.

Because I charged the Novitiates, the Callidus was unable to use its fight first ability as it was not in combat, so my Thunderwolves piled into her and the Mortifier and killed every Novitiate, the Assassin, and the Mortifier before consolidating back behind the very hard to see ruin piece on the top edge there and onto the objective.

Kaden had also played fairly conservatively with his Morvenn Vahl unit, which meant that Canis Rex could pop out and blast down a tank without too much fear of reprisal, which he did.

I opted to stick an entire unit of Thunderwolves on the center objective and see if he could deal with it, as it offered the most protection from his long range guns and he would have to come much closer to deal with it if he wanted to. It also helped me score max on Secure No Man’s Land, and killing the Callidus had scored Assassination for me.

On Kaden’s second turn, he scored a scant 5 on Primary and drew Bring it Down and Storm Hostile Objective.

His entire army moved up to unload on the poor central unit of Thunderwolves, and they died to the very last attack that he had to put into them. I was able to use Rapid Ingress to bring in my last unit on the bottom edge of the table, quite close to his Castigators, and on my turn I scored 10 Primary and drew both Defend Stronghold and Storm Hostile Objective in return.

This turn was clearly Logan Grimnar’s turn to come down, and he popped to my home objective while everything else surged up the table. Simply put, almost everything relevant died here, with only Morvenn Vahl – alone, so no rerolls – and a couple of nearly dead Castigators locked in combat living through the assault.

Kaden played out his next turn, but he accomplished very little, and he conceded the game at that point. We both drew out our remaining secondaries and determined together which would be likely scorable or not, and I finished day 1 with a 3-0 record!

Kaden was a lovely opponent, and we had a couple opportunities to briefly say hi on the subsequent days of the event. We both agreed that putting his Callidus so far forward and not being slightly more aggressive with Vahl and the Paragon Warsuits were large mistakes that I punished severely.

I still do not particularly love this matchup, especially going second, but it is nice to know that it is beatable.

This is where we will break for the time being. At the end of day 1, I have a 3-0 record and need one more win to make the top bracket. There are still a number of beautiful armies in the undefeated category, which means that I need to continue to be on point for the next three rounds if I want to take best overall again.

As always, thank you very much for reading, and check back soon for part 2 of the 2024 Tacoma Open event recap!