Friday, July 8, 2011

Grey Knights vs Raven Guard at 1000 points.



Another fun game, quick too when you only play 1,000 points and elite armies.  Apologies for just one crappy photo. I Completely forgot until too late.

The Grey knights
Inquisitor with rad and psychotroke grenades.
Venerable Dreadnought with Assault Cannon and psybolt ammo.
6-man Purifier squad with 2 psycannons, 3 halberds, and a master-crafted daemon hammer.
5-man terminator squad with daemon hammer, halberds, psycannon, sword.
10-man Strike Squad with 2 psycannons, 3 halberds, justicar with master crafted falchions.

The Ravenguard.
Chaplain
10 Assault Marines, sgt with power fist and storm shield
10 Scouts loaded for close combat
10 more scouts loaded for close combat
5 more scouts loaded for close combat, riding in a Scout Landspeeder
An Ironclad dreadnought in a drop pod.

Game type was Seize ground with 5 objectives, deployment in the corners.  I won the roll off and elected to go second.





The assault marines and chaplain deployed near the middle.  The GK strike squad deployed to the left, near where the assault marines would move, hoping to get some shots on them.  The purifiers and venerable dreadnought deployed near the middle to threaten whatever came up.
The 3 sets of scouts all infiltrated.  One squad and the speeder squad arrived near the purifiers, the other on the back corner, behind my troops.  They all scout moved forwards.
RG Turn 1.
The droppod lands behind my dreadnought, but the ironclad gets out to one side to chase down the strike squad.  The assault marines and scouts all move forward, and bolt pistol fire from the scouts kills one of the purifiers.  Melta and heavy flamer fire from the ironclad kills one of the strike squad.  Heavy bolter fire from the scout speeder is ineffective.
GK Turn 1.
Before the game started we’d decided that all the mad made terrain (ruins and such) would be line of sight blocking, but not difficult terrain.  The assault marines looked really close to my strike squad, and the scouts even close to the purifiers.  Both moved off towards the incoming enemy forces.  The dreadnought opens fire on the landspeeder, stunning it.   The purifiers open fire on the scouts and despite two psycannons and 3 stormbolters, kill just one.  The strike squad hold their fire as it is borderline if they are in assault range and I don’t want to kill the closest marine and then fall short.
The assaults start, the purifiers reach the scouts.  Cleansing flame goes off, but only manages to kill 1 scout.  The purifiers only kill one more as well.  The squad was strung out so the back two are out of assault range.  The scouts attack back and kill two purifiers, drawing the combat.
The strike squad are in range by about ¼ inch and so the assault is on.  Hammerhand works, and coupled with rad grenades will give the knights wounds on a 2.  Psychotroke grenades panic the Ravenguard who will be limited to 1 attack this round of combat.   Four Ravenguard die and a wound is put on the chaplain.  The Knights only take a few hits a make their saves.
RG Turn 2
The scouts disembark from the stunned speeder and head towards the purifiers.  The other scout squad in the back corner move forward towards the objectives.  The ironclad moves towards the strike squad, but has nothing to shoot at as there is a wall between it and the venerable the could be its other target.
In the scout-purifier assault, cleansing flame goes off again killing a total of three scouts and the purifiers themselves account for a couple more.  The mass of attacks coming from 10 scouts is enough to drop the remaining purifiers.  A poor showing from the elite of the grey knights.
In the other assault a perils of the warp kills the justicar although hammerhand is still successful.  Three more ravenguard die to just one knight.
GK Turn 2
The terminators are hanging out back on the strike cruiser, no show just yet.
The venerable moves for a better line of fire on the scouts that killed the purifiers.  It opens fire and kills the last of the 10 man squad that beat the purifiers.
The assault continues.  The inquisitor finishes off the chaplain with his chainsword after the power weapon armed grey knights manage to miss.  The knights kill another marine, but the Ravenguard again hold it together for leadership.
RG Turn 3
The three remaining scouts on the left jump back in the landspeeder.  It opens fire on the venerable but does nothing.
The 10 man scout squad reaches to top of the hill.  Lots to see but nothing to shoot as they just have bolt pistols.  They run on towards the nearest control point.
The assault continues.  The Ravenguard are reduced to a single marine after the sergeants storm shield finally fails, but his leadership holds.

GK Turn 3
Justicar Thawn insists on finishing his coffee.  No Terminators yet.
The venerable shoots at the crowd of scouts coming over the hill and kills a couple.
The last Ravenguard finally dies.  One round too late as the strike squad now won’t get to shoot, and look a bit too close to the ironclad even after consolidating away.

RG Turn 4
Now it is the Ravenguard turn to have luck on assault range.  The Ironclad moves forwards towards the strikesquad.  In the assault phase it manages to get in base to base with the inquisitor by about the same margin I’d reached his assault marines.  Not good as the squad has nothing that can hurt AV13 in close combat.  Probably my fault as well that the assault reached.  I’d consolidated in to some cover to give them a bit of protection.  If I’d consolidated directly away he would have been out of range.  I should have recognized that that was really the bigger threat.  The dreadnought easily kills the inquisitor and another of the knights.
The landspeeder opens fire on the venerable’s rear armor, stunning it.
GK Turn 4
The terminators finally arrive.  They drift 8 inches and barely escape landing in impassable terrain.  Wanting to make an impression they open fire on the landspeeder which is wrecked, killing one of the remaining scouts.
The venerable shakes off the stunned result and opens fire on the scouts again.  Cover reduces the impact and they only loose two.  They fail leadership and run towards the board edge and away from a control point.
In the assault, two more knights die to the ironclad.  One remains and he makes his leadership.
RG Turn 5
The two remaining scouts on the left move back into cover behind the wrecked speeder.  The 5 remaining scouts on the right regroup and move in towards an objective but are too far away.  The Ironclad finishes the last off the strike squad.
GK Turn 5
The terminators move forward, getting within range of one control point and then stringing out towards another.  A decent run from them puts them uncontested on two points.  The venerable moves forward and gets shots on the 5 remaining scouts who are left without cover.  Six dice come up with 5 ones and a two.  The only hit (from the stormbolter) needs a 3 to wound.  Another 1.  Ah well.
And there is no Turn 6 which gives the game to the Knights, 2 points to 0.
If it had carried on things weren’t looking good for the Ravenguard anyway.   The terminators would have easily finished of the two scouts down their end of the table, and the venerable and ironclad were an even match.  I still had almost half my points on the table at the end of the game.
Considering that the big deal for Grey Knights is supposed to be their mid-range firepower, the fact that the purifiers and terminators only got one round of shooting each and the strike squad didn’t fire a shot is a bit of a bummer.  And makes it more surprising I had a convincing win.
Once again I forgot I have some mastercrafted weapons.  If I’m not going to remember ever I should really spend the points elsewhere.  A daemon hammer could help out in the strike squad as well.

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