Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Cry Havoc
The Saga of Harald Deathwolf

It's been a while since the last Cry Havoc. I decided to restart regular articles with a topic that is close to all memebrs of the Rout's hearts: Sagas.

When I speak of Sagas I don't mean the mechanic for characters in the Space Wolves Codex, although the two are not mutually exclusive. Rather I'm referring to the notion of building a legend for your character. For example, although a telling of the full the Saga of Harld Deathwolf would take many pages, here we can at least recount one of this Son of Russ' most glorius deeds. While taking part in a raid intended to recapture an Ork held planet the forces under Harald's direct command were pitted against an Ork Stompa. Realising that the Stompa would decimate his units if left unchecked, the Deathwolf cjoined the murder-make with the mighty Ork walker, howling out a challenge that was echoed by his massive thunderwolf Icetooth. The Ork behemoth accepted and the two were locked in single combat until more reinforcements could be brought to bear.

Those of you that were not present at Legions's Games Orktoberfest may be wondering exactly what transpired on the table top. Well, the game was winding down Harald Deathwolf and his thunderwolf mounted Wolf Guard attempted to cut the thread of a badly damaged Stompa. The Space Wolves had few melee weapons capable of damaging the Stompa but there were other packs of the Rout hunting in the area. My goal was to hold up the super-heavy walker long enough to assault it with a couple of nearby Grey Hunter packs and hope that the melta bombs, power fists, and thunder hammer could the Stompa down. After killing most of the Thunderwolf Cavalry, the Ork player focussed his attacks on Harald. Harald's frostblade (Str 6) was incapable of inflicting any significant damage to the Stompa whereas a single blow from a titan close combat weapon would cut the Wolf Lord's thread. The Belt of Russ warded the Wolf Lord from harm and the Stompa was unable to claim the killing blow. When the game ended two turns later Harald Deathwolf was still locked in combat with the Stompa.

The Saga of Harald Deathwolf is full of engaging stories of battle heroics and triumphs. Each game that I play provides an opportunity for the skjalds to add new verses to the Wolf Lord's saga. All Warhammer player's immortalize their heroes victories (and defeats) in some way. You may not create narratives, like the one above, for each of their triumphs; but who doesn't fondly recall the time that one of their sergeant made nine armor saves to hold an objective that won them the game. These are the stories that we joke with our friends about, after all someone has to be on he other end of that heroic victory...

Fell free to use the Comments section to post some of your Heroes greatest triumphs.