Logan's Run: Space Wolves vs Eldar in 7th Edition

This weekend I played with J in my first 7th edition game of 40K.  We played 1500 points of his Wolves against my Eldar.  I think the game ended in Turn 4 with no more wolves standing on the board.  So this is less a battle report and more just me commenting a bit.

As far as the battle goes, J's biggest disadvantages were an old codex and expensive units.  I hope that the 7th ed version of Wolves gets a lot cheaper and catches up with everyone else in their badass-ery and diversity.  J basically had four units and three vehicles on his list.  I had two HQs, all six of the classic aspect squads, two vehicles, and some bikes.  He was already outnumbered in Turn 1, and then in Turn 2 I jumped out of my transport and brought three more units in from reserve--hawks, scorps, and my walker.  Not pretty.

The Avatar was without a doubt my MVP of the game.  J spent a full third of his points on two models: the Land Raider Crusader and Logan Grimnar, over priced superhero of the galaxy.  My 205 point Avatar killed both of these with one blow a piece (thanks in no small part to some great rolling on my part and bad rolling on his).  Turn 1 Old Avvie waded up to the Land Raider, threw two melta bolts at it for no effect ("fast shot" warrior power), then drove his flaming Doom That Wails monster-sword (AP1) into the assault cannon ammo mags.  This was a smash attack, which is just one attack now in 7th ed (an understandable change), but it was enough.  I rolled a 3 to hit, a 6 to pen, and a 6 for damage.   KA-BOOM.

(J's awesome Logan conversion. Super-badass!)

The explosion killed a few bloodclaws inside and pinned the squad (thanks to Lukas the Trickster being a bad influence and bringing their leadership down to 8).  Turn 2 the Avatar attacked, along with his squad of howling banshee cheerleaders.  Logan was itching for a challenge so I gave him one...  and killed him before he could even swing back.  (That's 525 pts worth of crap the Avatar killed in the first two turns.)  Lukas did kill the banshee exarch in a challenge though, and then went on to challenge Old Avvie, hoping to trap him in his stasis bubble when he died.  And he very nearly did, but I rolled a 5 vs J's 2, so Lukas was forced to die alone.  The banshees finished the bloodclaws and the Avatar went on to give Steve Austin (J's bare-chested, wavy haired, bionic lone wolf) the monster fight he was looking for.  Unfortunately for Steve, he was out matched.  He did, however, manage to inflict a power fist wound on the Eldar god, which was more than anyone else had managed at that point.

The other Space Wolf units--two grey hunter squads and their rhinos--didn't stand much of a chance against the vast number of guns and scorpion chainswords I threw at them.  By Turn 4, the Wolves were wiped out.

The score, however, was a tie!  I did like the new tactical cards and changing objectives.  We also played the secret mission, so we didn't know what the other was after, which is how I think it should be every time.  J scored more with his objective cards, but I tied it up with line breaker, first blood, and slay the warlord.  We figured tabling the wolves was a tie-breaking result.

The only other noticeable difference for us this game between 6th and 7th was in the psychic phase.  He didn't have a psyker, but I brought a farseer and a warlock (both on jetbikes) just so I could play with the new rules.  And I liked it for the most part.  It's fun to budget out your dice and decide what powers you want to gamble on.  I did end up with a perils result, but the farseer's ghost helm nullified it.  (Wasn't sure how to proceed with that either; the rule is you cancel the wound by spending a warp charge.  I figured the fair way to do it was to spend dice from my pool and roll.  So it was more like a saving throw by way of spending a warp charge.)

All in all it was a quick but fun game, and from what little I've seen of 7th (I must admit), I like it.