Grey Knights Vs Imperial Guard

Grey Knights Game One

So I had a small grey knights force that I used as allies for my battle sisters.  Then I expanded it a little to make it more usefull.  Then I expanded it again to use as allies for my Tau in a ArdBoyz style 2500 pt tournament (which I have yet to blog).. Then I realized that if I just assembled the 2 boxes of terminators I'd gotten that it would easily make an 1850 list of it's own.  So that's what this is brief photo battle report represents.  My first outing with a pure Grey Knights list.

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail as I don't have a copy of my opponents list, and there were some rules confusions with what units could blob together, and how a squadron of tanks can be fielded..  Either way, the mission was emperors will and the deployment was Dawn of War.  We decided to try a narrative terrain, so I set up this battlefield using more or less nova open style terrain.  I know, I know, I was just bitching about Nova Open terrain, but I don't usually do narrative terrain so I wanted to make it more or less "fair".  We treated everything as either Ruins, Hills/impassible, or forest.   My opponent went first, and the game went 6 turns.  We didn't roll for turn 7 as it was pretty clear I'd won after 6.  Final score 8-1.  Here are the pictures and some captions hopefully more or less in order:

Deployment.  He was all on the board, I had a stormraven with a squad
of terminators including Justicare Thawn and a techmarine embarked on it.
I also had a second terminator squad in reserve deepstriking.

My techmarine boltered this ruin to a 3+ save so I deployed mostly
behind it.  It was night fighting, we both rolled the warlord trait to
make it so, he chose not to, but since I was going second I chose to
have it be night fighting turn one.

Totally hiding my Dread Knight.

See all that plasma?  That's why we're hiding.

This looks like end of turn one.  Not much happend other than
him killing a Jokaero and a crusader.

My turn one, this dreadknight flamed the command squad
atop the ruin (bastion) killing all but his commander.

I shunt moved but kept it short to try to get some cover from
the 2 tanks to the left here.  The incinerator took out 7 guardsmen
behind the line there.

In case I foget to mention it, the 6 Jokaero with Coteaz giving
prescience all game failed to take off a single hull point from his tanks.

Turn 2 he shoots the henchmen.  Both my reserves fail to arrive.

This is bottom of turn 2.  As you can see he killed most of the henchmen
squad.  I flamed most of the guardsmen after realizing he had blobbed his
heavy weapon squad in with the rest of the platoon.  We just treated them as
separate units after that.  I tried to assault with the dreadknight here and he managed
2 wounds in overwatch with Plasma or Lascannons and I failed both invulns. 
Dead DreadKnight #1

At least it took most of this unit with it.

This Dreadknight jumped over 12 then assaulted this tank
causing it to explode.  This should have given me first blood until
he mentioned this tank was part of a squadron.  Notice the other tanks
are spread across the board.  Again, we just treated them as seperate
after that even though it would have meant he had like 5 heavies?

I forgot to take any pictures of turn 3.  My reserves came on.  The stormraven flew straight at the squad sitting on his objective and shot the heck out of them.  My terminators deep struck onto my objective.  Not a very exciting move, but I chose to play it save and play to the mission.  I didn't think the henchmen squad would last till the end of the game so I needed a troop to hold my objective.  My 2nd dreadknight flamed the troops on that side of the board then from around the corner of the ruin declared a charge.  Again with the super lucky overwatch and two lost wounds and a dead Dreadknight..  :(  I did take out 7 troops and 2 bases from the heavy wpn team.

Bottom of turn 4.  Stormraven went into skimmer mode and moved 6".
Troops disembarked and set up to multi assault the two leman russ tanks.
Storm Raven Exploded the far left tank, and POTMS the heavy team with
the assault cannon killing one base.  The terminators and Tech Marine
assaulted the other Leman Russ which hadn't moved, and with 5 str 10 attacks
auto hit, auto penned and blew it up as well.

The basilisk continued to try to displace the terminators on my objective
on turn 5.

The storm raven moved 12 and put 4 assaultcannon and 1 mmelta
shot into the remaining tank on this board side.  The melta again exploded it.
The troops killed a base of heavy wpns and the remaining base
broke and fell back off the board.

The Basilisk continued to shell the terminators on my side, while
the platoon by the bastion tried to kill the other terminators.  The previous
turn he had "killed" justicare thawn, who got back up on my turn.  He
killed him again, but he got back up on my turn 6 as well.

Turn 6 coteaz and the remaining Jokaero ran to help secure my
objective just in case the basilisk was successful on turn 7.

Thawn and the sole remaining member of his old squad accompanied
by the tech marine both grabbed the sabotaged objective on his side.

As a matter of good practice, the storm raven flew over and
killed his commander with the autocannon and multimelta on turn 6.

We decided at that point that with not troops able to contest, and
no real likelihood that he could kill 2 squads of troops from each of the
two objectives, that there was no point to roll for turn 7.

All in all, I was mostly pleased with my list.  However, I'm not convinced the Henchman squad pulled their weight.  Part of that was due to my opponent not having any reserves, and never encrouching on my half of the table.  Part of it was just that even lascannons have a hard time with av14..  I may drop them for a a couple smaller units next time to better hold objectives.  The two squads of terminators didn't feel like they did a lot either.  I may keep the Thawn squad but try to do something different with the other 275 points.  I may even try adding celestine and some sisters in just to work that respawning nuisance angle.

Tau Vs. Orks 1850  - A rematch

Bottom of Turn 2 after thrust moves

For the second weak in a row I played Zac and his Orks Friday at Battle Front Games Friday Game night.  He ran the same list as last week, while I was testing out a Farsight Enclave + Tau allies list based off my usual Tau + SM build.. We got the kill point mission with hammer and anvil deployment.

I ran Farsight plus bodyguard all with dual FB + target locks w/ 11 gun drones and one Shield warscaper drone and the Amulet, 4 3 man crisis teams with dual MP all as troops, as allies I had a commander with the Puretide chip, cnc node and multi phasic sensor and 2 10 man kroot teams.

I'm on the fence about losing my SM Librarian ally.  I don't like putting 1200 pts in reserve and hoping they show up on turn 2.. I've lost a game before because my reserves didn't come in and was tabled at the top of turn 4..  But coming in on turn 2 it isn't bad.. I miss the mobility of the 24" GOI every turn, but with farsight not scattering when he arrives you can get his bomb where it needs to be pretty readily.  I killed something like 17 shoota boys, and exploded 2 battle wagons and took a hull point of a third with just the command team the turn they came in.  Also the 4 scoring crisis teams managed to kill a looted wagon on turn one for first blood.  I'm not sold on the dual MP suits either.. It's nice to have range, but when his mega-nobz came out to play, I'd rather have had dual Plasma to throw at them..  I'm considering actually running (and it makes me cringe to say so) Fireknives as troops instead.. 

The game only ended up running through turn 4?.. maybe we called it after turn 3.. Don't recall.. Zac was left with his warlord and a squad of boyz by that point while he had killed 4 crisis suits (2 from 2 different teams) and a squad of kroot..  I'd wiped out his 2nd squad of boyz after they assaulted my command team and got swept, and I then killed the remains of both teams of mega-nobz and the third wagon..

From now on I'll have to make sure to bring enough Tau to run 2 lists.. While I'd like to be able to test my tournament list some more before the Michigan GT, it doesn't make for a very fun friendly game for anyone..

Just another view of my team after turn 2.  The kroot were in the ruin to the right off screen to the left having outflanked.

Tau Vs. Orks 1850 = Victory for the other green horde!

So it's been a while since I posted anything to my blog but I got a game in Friday against Zac's Orks and remembered to take a few pictures so I thought I'd throw them up here.  Our game was played at Battle Front Games in Grand Rapids where we are trying to get a regular Friday night Games night started.  This was the second week and we had 40K, Warma/hordes and XWing players all gaming.  Hopefully this catches on and we'll finally have a regular game night in Grand Rapids again.


Zac and I were both running new lists for this battle.  He was trying out 3 battlewagons and 2 teams of mega-armored nobs plus a couple warbosses to make the nobs scorring, a looted wagon and a 3 squads of boys. 

I put away the farsight bomb and ran an infantry heavy list with 3x12 firewarriors, and 3x20 kroot (the missing kroot team outflanked to briefly contest his center objective by the looted wagon before being wiped out).  I also had 2 teams of pathfinders of 6 and 7 models.  I knew I'd be facing the battle wagons in advance but had hoped the piranha, Riptide, and two teams of 4x stealth suits with a fusion blaster in each would be enough to take them out.    It didn't work out that way, but even after 7 turns and with two wagons still on the board I managed to pull out a win by contesting the center objective and having first blood.  We both controlled the 2 objectives in our respective deployment zones.


Don't really have time for a proper write up, but I'll just mention that the Riptide continues to disappoint me.  Nova Charge Failure turn one, got hot turn 2, and got assaulted and wiped out top of turn 4.. I don't think it killed a single model all game.. For 220 points I'd rather put 5 crisis suits on the board with weapons that actually fire every turn.  SOOoo glad I cancelled my order for 3 of them and only bought the one.  He'll look nice sitting on my shelf with the other models I don't bother running.

Forgot to mention the two Skyrays also failed to do anything useful (as did the piranha) lacking any flyers in Zac's list.  The str 8 seekers were worthless vs AV14, and the two marker lights each had could have been replaced for 28 pts of added pathfinders in the pathfinder teams.  The only use I got out of them was that Zac actually bothered to waste a turn to assault and kill one of them saving my other units from suffering said fate for a turn..   The skyrays and piranha will be rejoining the Riptide on the shelf of shame.

At the end of the game despite my riptide/skyrays/piranha sucking arse, I have to say it was still a fun game.  We went 7 turns and it was a tight game up till the end.  If I hadn't rolled a 6 for my Kroots run roll, I would have failed to contest the center and he'd have won 9-7..