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Grey Knight Battle Reports


Lord Hanaur

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I fell behind on this but to recap, I played T'au Empire (Suit heavy) and managed to win it.  Lot of Drones to get through, and a lot of dakka, but it was Vanguard deployment and he did make one deployment error which I was able to exploit.  Remember kids, the order you deploy in is pretty important.  This was one of the few games where I started my Brother Captain Stern on the table on the table.  I figured I was going to need his range early.  It was the 6 objective mission so his dudes were all over the table taking things, and because he got aggressive with taking things, i got aggressive with killing them.  The battle was bloody and as is the usual, I lost a ton of my forces by games end.  His Riptide never did die and neither did his Broadsides, so i am somewhat pleased with myself for finding a way to win.  Final score was 33-12.

My other game was a contest against the forces of Deathguard.  This was a league showdown and for a chance to go to the "finals".

His army is pretty aggressive by its nature but he wisely stood back and took the shots he could except for Nurglings who played speed bump on my left flank fairly successfully.  They got obliterated but it forced me to have to deal with them and left me in poor position so in retrospect it was an odd deployment but it went well for him.  

The rest of my army had to churn through endless Plague Bearers.  I mean...  he started with 60 I think, but then used some "Grey Knight only" stratagem to bring 30 more on.  Then another group rained in, and so at the games end I had KILLED 120 plaguebearers, all his characters and the nurglings. 

His 2 Plagueburst Crawlers and an engineer unit were all he had left at the end of the game.  It was a tremendously large amount of models to have to remove, but we got through them.  Final score was 27-17.

 

 

 

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5 hours ago, Lord Hanaur said:

The rest of my army had to churn through endless Plague Bearers.  I mean...  he started with 60 I think, but then used some "Grey Knight only" stratagem to bring 30 more on.  Then another group rained in, and so at the games end I had KILLED 120 plaguebearers, all his characters and the nurglings. 

Always forget about that stratagem. Yeah, Daemons have a stratagem that allows them to bring GK-destroyed units to full strength. Doesn't work on Daemon Named characters, but that's it. It's there to counterbalance the rather substancial bonuses GK get against daemons. And it doesn't have be troops, I can get back bloodthristers with that stratagem.

The main weak point of the stratagem is that it only concerns units destroyed by GK, so if you had allies (like an assassin, for example) and killed the final model in an enemy unit with the non-GK, then the stratagem is useless. 

Sounds like a pretty epic battle. 

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3 hours ago, paxmiles said:

Always forget about that stratagem. Yeah, Daemons have a stratagem that allows them to bring GK-destroyed units to full strength. Doesn't work on Daemon Named characters, but that's it. It's there to counterbalance the rather substancial bonuses GK get against daemons. And it doesn't have be troops, I can get back bloodthristers with that stratagem.

The main weak point of the stratagem is that it only concerns units destroyed by GK, so if you had allies (like an assassin, for example) and killed the final model in an enemy unit with the non-GK, then the stratagem is useless. 

Sounds like a pretty epic battle. 

Oh it was epic, yes.  I had control for most of the game, but he played it smart, denied me a fair number of points and still managed to score some himself.  I REALLY was not sure I could get through that many.  I was spread WIDE ENOUGH that I could get shots from different sectors to help thin the herd, and of course not get swamped as he would have preferred I be (in the middle he did swamp me and I had to Psyker phase my way out of it and then have Drago go off twice and even then it took the Assault phase and blah blah blah).  I had to pull out every stop and risk everything to make those units explode.

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Alrighty just some update action.  

My friend came up from Oregon to get a game in and pick up an army he purchased.  We played his Dark Angels with a couple of Dark Shrouds which was interesting.  I had seen that done at a tournament as well against my Sisters so I was familiar with them.

He Brought about 30 Primaris, a Vindicare, a couple Librarians and Lieutenants, as well as Reivers which I hadn't seen for a WHILE so I was interested to see how those performed.  He had two units of Hellblasters so a lot of firepower to sling. He had a Drop pod as well to drop in some Space Wolf nasties on my head and reach out for Recon and a Land Speeder Storm for the same reason.  His scouts sort of took up a central position to be able to fire on Castellan Crowe while the rest sort of broke into two pieces and lined up ready to fire on either side of the LOS blocking terrain in the middle.

1

He got to go first and pounded a Rhino into near oblivion (8 wounds) and wounded another.  he unexpectedly lost three Hellblasters over charging the guns which was unexpected serendipity.  His scouts moved up to see me and shot Crowe, doing a wound (the ruin was not doing them favors as LOS went).  He got recon with his Drop Pod and his Storm.  The Drop Pod was on an objective and his unit actually managed to make the charge on my hidden Dreadnought I had planned to Astral Aim.  So he forced me not to shoot on my turn of course and since I was a shooty Dread, I didn't do anything to him during the charge.

On my turn I was limping to cover, forming a wall with Purple and Yellow Squads behind their Rhinos. Using the central LOS blocker to shield me largely from his Hellblasters which were mostly on the left side.  SHELTER!  Orange Squad disembarked and split up, one going towards the Dreadnought to free him and the other to the objective the Drop Pod was squatting on.   The limited Smites i got off were enough to kill the Landspeeder Storm in the Psyker phase.  Thanks to the Psycannons, and Smite, the charge was a success against the Drop pod and that Orange Combat Squad made it entirely into cover while killing the wounded Drop Pod.  They would neevr move again during the game as they held that objective fast.  Castellan Crowe did what he does and destroyed the Scout Squad in the center.  Other than the Orange Squad and the Dreadnought, most of my army was now in the center.

2

The Dark Angels were forced to move their Hell Blasters to my left to get shots down the way at my damaged Rhino and it was executed as you'd expect.  The Primaris Marines coming up on my right killed half of Purple Squad.  Njal StormCaller deep struck into my backfield, and took station on an objective but close enough to try and kill the Rhino that moved to take it, not yet close enough to take it himself.  The Vindicare Assassin shot at the Rhino since it couldn't see Crowe.  The Hellblasters then made an unexpected charge into the Rhino on the left that was in the ruins,   locking it up.  I think the hope was to avoid the ensuing fusillade Drago might allow me and to hide as many of them as they could from it.  He managed to get the Recon point doing it as well, thanks to Njal which was another reason he did it.  I think he planned to use the Stratatgem for falling back with them afterwards.

On my turn, Brother Captain Stern showed up to support the range of the Purifiers from behind them.  I unleashed 5 Smites on the Hellblasters and wiped them out despite some miscasts.  Njal stopped my Astal Aim which made my Dreadnought useless for the second time!  Bully for him.  Payin' dividends.  The other Purifiers fired on the Primaris Marines approaching to my right and they managed to kill 4 of the 5 man unit in front despite the Dark Shroud.  Dragon alighted to the ground behind the enemy lines with three Strike Squads.  Collectively they put 3 wounds on the Assassin and Draigo killed a Lieutenant in the Psyker phase.  Not one of the four units made their charges, nor did the Purifiers save for one combat Squad (the Psycannon half of the unit)!  Bad luck.  The Psycannons did manage to strip one wound from the last Primaris in the front unit and then Tri-pointed the unit behind it.  The unit behind it was larger but had no Power Fists so the Grey Kights lost only two of their number despite a withering amount of hits.

 

Njal moved up into the ruins to tie the objective with the Rhino in my right side deployment zone, giving up his chance to fire things off for denial.  The Dark Shrouds were forced to go after the Recon point, advancing forward.  The Primaris that were tied up couldn't move, even with the Stratagem because they were tri-pointed.  The Assassin fired at Drago and missed, which was sort of insult to injury.  The last Librarian tried to cook his goose and he took 3 mortal wounds!  The Lieutenant ordered his troops to light the leader up but it was not to be and his dice went real cold on that volley.  Still he scored points.  His Primaris Marines gave the Grey Kights that charged them a beating and sent them packing.  The assassin had nowhere to run but it took the shot and I saved.  

The Dreadnought finally got its Astral Aim off and took all but one wound off of a damaged Dark Shroud, which then got finished with some effort by a couple of the Strike Squads which moved forward and readied to charge.  Strike Squads used Psyker powers to damage the Assassin further with 1-point Smites.  Drago went after the Lieutenant and very last Hellblaster and wiped them out.  The Yellow Squad used its smites and cannonade to wreck the other DarkShroud on my left which had gained the Recon point.  Tough to take down, took everything I had left.  The last of Purple Combat Squad The Orange Squad which was in the far rear failed their charge on Njal but got closer.

4

All that remained was Njal, the Reivers in the diametric opposite corner holding an objective, and the Primaris Marines essentially, which were whittled but pretty close to full strength.  he pulled them out of combat and used the strategem to be able to fire them but did not kill anything. 

Astral Aiming Dreadnought killed Njal and at that point he capitulated and I offered him terms of surrender which he accepted.

Grey Knight victory.  

The use of terrain is just so key, and my army definitely brings that point home.  Unreliable charges were a thing but I still managed to pull it out.  Going second is rough on this list and i am definitely glad i USUALLY have the +1 to go first.  Popping Smoke makes such a big difference in my ability to maintain my mobility.  Rhinos are not weak, but they aren't indomitable either and anyone dedicated to the task will usually kill one if I can't "raise my shields" on them.  Too many crazy weapons and Doctrines and all that to counter.

My first turns are just always hilarious non-eventful.  I was surprised to actually have something to do in turn one for this game.  He could have denied me the kill in turn one to his scouts, but the Recon did force the Storm to do its thing and die (I dont choose Old School because its just so hard ot get First Blood with this army).  The Scout move forward was necessitated by terrain but he might have been able to avoid that by placing the scouts last.  It's little things that can sometimes make the difference.

Stern as usual did little more than add some range, but it did matter in this instance, so hooray.  I probably couldn't have gotten as many smites off since Purifiers have a whopping 3" smite.  Lol.  It's kinda sad but true.  Interestingly if his Hellblasters had not charged, I could have had Stern closer and would then have been to try another charge ON them without overwatch.  There were a lot of pros and cons to that Hellblaster charge plan.  I don't know that I would have done it, but I suppose I could have just vacated that space by rolling the rhino out and then just collapsing in on them anyways.  Still I migfht have missed some smites the other way.  We'll never know.

It was fun seeing him again and we had a nice breakfast beforehand before we settled in.  he went home with a new Eldar army, so he'll have new toys to play with.

 

 

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2 hours ago, Lord Hanaur said:

Alrighty just some update action.  

My friend came up from Oregon to get a game in and pick up an army he purchased.  We played his Dark Angels with a couple of Dark Shrouds which was interesting.  I had seen that done at a tournament as well against my Sisters so I was familiar with them.

He Brought about 30 Primaris, a Vindicare, a couple Librarians and Lieutenants, as well as Reivers which I hadn't seen for a WHILE so I was interested to see how those performed.  He had two units of Hellblasters so a lot of firepower to sling. He had a Drop pod as well to drop in some Space Wolf nasties on my head and reach out for Recon and a Land Speeder Storm for the same reason.  His scouts sort of took up a central position to be able to fire on Castellan Crowe while the rest sort of broke into two pieces and lined up ready to fire on either side of the LOS blocking terrain in the middle.

Did he use the "Lion and the Wolf" stratagem? DA have a stratagem that boosts a DA character and a SW character pre-game, but only if you have both. I've debated getting SW in a small capacity for just this.

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16 hours ago, paxmiles said:

Did he use the "Lion and the Wolf" stratagem? DA have a stratagem that boosts a DA character and a SW character pre-game, but only if you have both. I've debated getting SW in a small capacity for just this.

He did, yeah.  His drop pod had wolves and they charged my dread into silence in that turn one.  Even put 3 wounds on it.  Pretty decent for 5dudes against a dread

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Got another game in.  This time I added Assassins in officially into the list.  They seem to really help.

 

As for the Battle, I will summarize here. It was agains Jason Rider, who is number 2 or something for Adeptes Astartes ranking.

He outclassed me in firepower and range vastly. He could do all kinds of re-rolling. The Devastator Doctrine was insane when applied to his 2 Iron Hands Repulsor Executioners and his Leviathan.   His list also featured perfunctory scouts which were Salamander I think and he had a White Scars Vanguard Vet Detachment.

He stayed back as much as he dared, and kind of was willing to concede the "Held More" thing for the first three rounds it took for my Deep Strikers to announce themselves, as he feared Drago could take an Executioner in one go (and he's right). I wisely left them in reserve UNTIL turn 3, and so kept the game at least close, although he was clearly formidable and definitely took the lead i nthe first three as I fired only two Assassins in those three rounds along with the Astral Aiming Dreadnought and nothing else!!!  I made the most of cover and retreated full on since his Repulsor Executioners could move 14" and did!

Some of my Purifiers cowered where they deployed that entire time. The first three rounds were like two boxers sizing one another up and not throwing a lot of careless punches. He positioned himself to JUST be in range and then blasted the Bejeesus out of two of the rhinos in succeeding turns and by that time the third Rhino had gotten out of his reach.  I bee-popped away to the extent I was able until that fourth turn. I literally hid from him, and forced him to move in order to shoot me, further and further apart, but I was not doing any damage at all save for a lucky shot from the Assassins.

My Deep Strikes came in and then he flooded the objectives.  He was done letting me have "held more". No longer threatened by the possibility of Drago.  Jason used the Repulsor Executioners craziness to cause Drago to fail his charge after striking, even though he rolled 10".   Jason had intentionally made sure to use them to block off any other avenue of attack for Drago BUT into them, which was savvy.  He rapidly took the fight to me with his amazing speed, moving his Vanguard like 18 inches forward in one bound.  He closed in and assaulted but that was when the battle turned a little more towards me. I was able to start scoring points.

Knowing that "killing" him was not going to be incredibly viable from the word "go!", I had chosen other Secondary Objectives that didn't really rely on me killing him.  That foresight paid off.  His strategy involved trying to deny me points as long as he could (kind of a theme of his armies), while scoring enough himself to take a lead.  Because he was doing this, his ultra fast units that were cloistered in a corner had to scream forth and try to engage around turn 4. The ensuing Psychic backlash was impressive and took it's toll. As Turn 5 came to a close, the tanks were finally wearing some of the damage I was doing, as they were now too far from the Iron Father.  They had split up to take up better position and to fire down on me.  But now the Executioners were not shirking tons of wounds anymore. There was the outside shot that if I could just hang in there with Castellan Crowe, I'd be okay.  He had the lead on me but I had a plan.

He tried to annihilate Crowe, the few remaining Purifiers on the field and my Assassins. He was largely successful except for Crowe, and in turn 6 I had to rack my brain to see if there was ANY way to pull off the impossible comeback. Step one was to try and kill the Repulsor that had now gotten all the way to the objective to the northeast. Yellow Squad of Purifiers climbed out and I missed killing it by ONE wound, when he made a lone Feel-no-pain roll out of 9. Just enough. Because of the geometry, I was forced to use half the Yellow Squad to hold an objective or I would have smitten that ank dead!  But that was okay because I still held that one.  I then had to weather ALMOST an entire Repulsor worth of shooting with Castellan Crowe after Brother Captain Stern and Crowe flaminated it...  and then Crowe killed it. Okay. Now we were rolling. Then my two assassin fought fisticuffs with his Chaplain, who had made an improbable charge in the southeast corner building and thew two of them narrowly got the last wound they needed on the Chaplain. Finally the Blue Squad had to Gate of Infinity over to the Iron Father, shoot him, and charge him to get to an objective. They made it and the Iron Father was dead.  He and the Chaplain gave me two Head Hunter points after killing none for 5 turns, and the charges gave me two more objectives for Ground Control.  Final Score: Grey Knights 23-21 win.

The entire game was SUPER intense, and we had some rules things come up, but it got resolved the correct way at the end of the day. One thing was Astral Aim. I need to look that up and see EXACTLY how its worded but we rolled it off and it went Jason's way. He contends that he was somehow obscured even though I ignore intervening terrain and LOS in general. Anywho he won the roll off ("The Most Important Rule") and away we went. Also had a charging question. I got that one wrong so his Chaplain was able to live to fight another day. Nothing that mattered in the end, since the Assassins eventually killed him after rolling oh so many ones.

Overall I was VERY impressed with the Iron Hands. They scored a lot of points for a loss. It took every bit of mental focus I had to even stay in the game long enough for the comeback, because: Grey Knights. So few to lose.

CRAZY game, but gratifying to be able to find that path to victory despite adversity against such a good opponent!  Definitely epic.

 

++ Battalion Detachment +5CP (Imperium - Grey Knights) [56 PL, 841pts] ++

Brother-Captain Stern [8 PL, 105pts]: Sanctuary

Castellan Crowe [7 PL, 80pts]: 2: Hammer of Righteousness, Hammerhand, Warlord

Strike Squad [7 PL, 105pts]: Gate of Infinity
. 4x Grey Knight (Halberd): 4x Storm Bolter
. Grey Knight Justicar: Nemesis Force Sword, Storm bolter

Strike Squad [7 PL, 105pts]: Gate of Infinity
. 4x Grey Knight (Halberd): 4x Storm Bolter
. Grey Knight Justicar: Nemesis Force Sword, Storm bolter

Strike Squad [7 PL, 105pts]: Gate of Infinity
. 4x Grey Knight (Halberd): 4x Storm Bolter
. Grey Knight Justicar: Nemesis Force Sword, Storm bolter

Dreadnought [8 PL, 125pts]: Astral Aim, Missile launcher, Twin lascannon

Rhino [4 PL, 72pts]: Storm bolter

Rhino [4 PL, 72pts]: Storm bolter

Rhino [4 PL, 72pts]: Storm bolter

++ Vanguard Detachment +1CP (Imperium - Grey Knights) [66 PL, 904pts] ++

Lord Kaldor Draigo [12 PL, 180pts]: Purge Soul, Vortex of Doom

Purifier Squad [18 PL, 243pts]: Hammerhand
. Knight of the Flame: Nemesis Daemon Hammer, Storm Bolter
. 5x Purifier (Halberd): 5x Storm Bolter
. 4x Purifier (Psycannon): 4x Psycannon

Purifier Squad [18 PL, 243pts]: Hammerhand
. Knight of the Flame: Nemesis Daemon Hammer, Storm Bolter
. 5x Purifier (Halberd): 5x Storm Bolter
. 4x Purifier (Psycannon): 4x Psycannon

Purifier Squad [18 PL, 238pts]: Hammerhand
. Knight of the Flame: Nemesis Daemon Hammer, Storm Bolter
. 6x Purifier (Halberd): 6x Storm Bolter
. 3x Purifier (Psycannon): 3x Psycannon

++ Vanguard Detachment (Imperium - Officio Assassinorum) [15 PL, 255pts] ++

Vindicare Assassin [5 PL, 85pts]

Vindicare Assassin [5 PL, 85pts]

Vindicare Assassin [5 PL, 85pts]

++ Total: [137 PL, 2,000pts] ++

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6 hours ago, paxmiles said:

3x special characters and 3x vindicate assassins - the forth edition player within cringes.

Looks fierce. 😄

Yeah all I did was pull a Purgation squad out for the Assassins.  My range just sucks.  Needed something to force the action towards me.  They don't do a lot of damage to most units but they are good at what they ARE designed to do.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Have you tried combining brother captain stern with purge soul and a banner boy with the relic banner as a symbiotic relationship?  The  +1 to leadership helps the purge soul and the psychic locus from stern gives the banner of refining flame a 12" reach.  Perfect for dropping out of deep strike.

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On 10/23/2019 at 8:42 PM, Seiken said:

Have you tried combining brother captain stern with purge soul and a banner boy with the relic banner as a symbiotic relationship?  The  +1 to leadership helps the purge soul and the psychic locus from stern gives the banner of refining flame a 12" reach.  Perfect for dropping out of deep strike.

Yes.  The Banner was suggested by several people.  You lose two assassins doing it though, or you lose the Dreadnought.  Probably cool, but not that cool.  😃  Those represent everything that has range in my list!

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  • 4 weeks later...

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