Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Enter the Grey Knights

No, I'm not starting a new army. This is actually a quick recap of my second WH40k league game, which came against a Grey Knights army.

My opponent from my first game gave me a heads up that this would be the army I would be facing in the second game, so I read up as much as I could about the GK units and abilities, and I set out to counter them as best I could.

My revamped list was as follow:

HQ - SM Librarian x 2
With Force Dome and Smite

Troops - SM 10 man Tactical Squad in Rhino with Meltagun and ML x 2

SM 5 man Tactical Squad in Razorback with TL Lascannons x2

SM 10 man Scout Squad with 5 sniper rifles, 4 shotguns and upgraded the Sgt to Sgt Telion

Heavy: Vindicator x 2, one with Sgt Chronus

5 man Devastator Squad with 2 ML, 1 Lascannon and 1 Heavy Bolter

Elite: Dreadnought x 3
- one AoBR Dread
- one Dread with Heavy Flamer and Assault Cannon
- One dread with TL Autocannons and CCW

The mission was Pitched Battle with 5 objectives. I won the initiative and deployed first. I set my scouts 3" from the center objective nearest my table edge.




One Rhino and the AoBR dread on my left flank to rush an objective, a Vindy and Razorback to the right flank, with the Flamer Dread, and the other Vindy up the middle to draw fire.



My devastators were deployed in a building inside my deployment zone which meant that I could camp them and cover the rest of my units from that position right off the bat.




The remaining Razorback was deployed two feet from the left table edge.

I put my librarians each inside one of the Razorbacks and made sure that I had "coverage" over most of the battlefield with my Psychic hoods to try and disrupt psychic abilities.

I reserved my last Rhino, thinking it would be able to come on later and try and contest an objective.

My opponent was able to use one of his ICs to grant pretty much all of his units the ability to be Troops, which turned out to be my downfall.

He placed a Vindicare assassin and a Psyfleman dread on his closest center objective, a Land Raider with GK termies to my left, a regular 5 man squad on my right, and a combat squad interceptor squad hunkered down in cover. And a Storm Raven with 5 interceptors on my far right.

His HQ was Mordrak with a squad of Ghost Knights and a Librarian in Terminator armor deep striking first turn.

He attempted to seize the initiative, but failed, so I got to go first and started executing my battle plan, with all my units moving into their Pre-planned positions. The initial volley of vehicle fire took out one Interceptor, but nothing else.

Fortune smiled on me early during my opponent's turn, as his Land Raider was immobilized on a crater after moving one inch. His assassin took a shot at Telion, but missed, which he would later regret.

His HQ squad teleported in behind my right flank and did their job by harassing my rear armor. To no immediate effect.

A lucky psycannon shot destroyed Chronus' vindicator's main gun and immobilized it, turning it into a stormbolter armed pillbox.

I managed to hold my own for three rounds. Holding or contesting 4 out of the 5 objectives.

My scout snipers killed the assassin, and held their own on close combat after being assaulted by the interceptors.

I managed to kill Mordrak and his squad by pretty much throwing my whole right flank at them. Thankfully he didn't get any reinforcements from his ghost knights.

My librarians frustrated his psychic abilities for a good while, and one of them even killed his termie Librarian with his force weapon. Force dome kept giving me a small fighting chance with some invulnerable saves, but I never did get to Smite anyone... I'll have to remember that next time.

In the end, his force weapons wiped out all my contesting troops, and the game ended at turn 5 with him controlling all of the objectives and having 13 KPs and me only having 4 KPs.

I had a lot of fun, and I think my preparation helped a lot, especially having a Pre-planned deployment strategy. If I played him again, I would definitely have a better appreciation for what his army can do, and I would have to come up with a way to bottle up his deep striking termies and not let them roll me up from behind.

My opponent was very helpful, and he gave me some much needed advice, especially when he saw that I was making a grave tactical error here and there.

So after the first month I'm 0-2 as expected, but I'm feeling more confident in my army and my grasp of the rules. And having no wins puts me in the bottom of the pairings where hopefully I'll be facing others of similar ability.

Now I get to keep painting and preparing...

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