Grand Master of the Whiff

[Lord Cornilius]

So played my second DH game last night, this time against Orks.

 

Turn 2 - mean Power Clawed Warboss and 10 of his closest friends (Nobs) charged my Land Raider Crusader and through incredible rolling managed to cause 7 penetrating hits (yes, out of 9 power claw attacks htting on 4's). No problem I thought, my GM and his 3 Silver friends packing 2 incinerators, will hop out, hose, and destory them in close combat.

 

So they hop out, hose him with promethium and bolts and kill only 3 nobs (6 wounds). Still alright, knights swing their Force Weapons and chop down another 2 1/2 nobs. GM proceeds to target the big, bad Warboss with 5 force weapon attacks and I guess the incense smoke got in his eyes as he only hits with 1. Still ok, only needing a 3 to wound and then into the warp he goes, a 2 pops up. Warboss snips 2 knights in half, and would've got the GM as well, but the emperor (for some unknown reason) saves him on a successful invul save. Nobz managed to bring another knight down with a spectacular Armour Save roll of a 1. Grand Master says I'm not done yet and Holocausts another 2 1/2 nobz leaving 2 nobz and Warboss against my GM. I win combat by alot and he holds on a 3.

 

Redemption time next combat phase, I think. GM swings first allocating 2 attacks to warboss and 2 to the Nobz, he can singlehandily wipe em out here. Alas it wasn't to be, despite needing 3's to hit, I hit only once - on the warboss, who then proceeds to make a 5+ invul save. GM's head is cleanly snipped off. So just in case you weren't following along - 7 GM NFW attacks against a Warboss and NOTHING!

 

How embarrassing.

[Hinti]

*ouch*

That hurt's.......but hey that sounds familiar to me :) :) ;) ;)..........The God of the Dices ist NOT on my Side......

[Charred Heretic]

Bad dice is... bad dice.

Nothing more to say on that.

 

Unfortunately there were a lot of eggs in your basket when the bad dice fell.

That's the reality of an elite army, I'm afraid.

 

I don't mind fails to wound near as much as I hate multiple whiffs.

It's enough to make you master-craft, even when you understand its inefficiency.

 

But hey. You had a "gamey" game.

The unusual happened.

 

And I'm sure you know that if this bothers you too much, you can always throw on the

training wheels and build a marine list with a bunch of assault Cannons.

[Lady_Canoness]

Haha I have a Canoness (all tricked out with the Blessed Weapon, Cloak, and jump pack) charge 5 zombies.... it wasn't pretty. She killed 3 over 3 rounds. They ate her over 3 rounds.

 

I think I may have fainted at that point. :unsure:

[benmothershaw]

1 Grandmaster and 3 GKT?

You should always move 12" if you know somet hard is going to hit, the hurricanes can still fire at 12" and the machine spirit too.

GrandMaster attacks the Independant character and the GKT attacks the guards. Never split.

IMO bad rolls, a few more GKT and you would of certainly pulled through.

Don't forget the GM's retinue rule!

 

Don't worry though, I've had equally embarassing happenings. 1 GKT and GM left, I then decide to take a armour save on the GM declaring without thinking, rolled and got a 1. Then realised I shouldn't of declared the GM!

 

Blessing of the blood god (kahrone) is extreemly annoying, 2+ against all my GM attacks :P.

[Grand Master Tyrak]

Lord Cornilius Posted Today, 03:39 PM

So just in case you weren't following along - 7 GM NFW attacks against a Warboss and NOTHING!

 

7???? The max attacks you can get with a GM is 6! 4 basic, either +1 for charging or +1 for Holy Relic, +1 for extra ccw. Makes 6!

Bad dice hurt. Always. Still, at least you died to the HQ unit. My GM once missed all his attacks, and then got eaten - by Nurglings. NURGLINGS!!! How bad is that going to look on his roll of honour? "And then in the year <records missing> did Grand Master Tyrak fall to the small giggly minions of the Plague God . . . " :)

[Chengar Qordath]

Lord Cornilius Posted Today, 03:39 PM

So just in case you weren't following along - 7 GM NFW attacks against a Warboss and NOTHING!

 

7???? The max attacks you can get with a GM is 6! 4 basic, either +1 for charging or +1 for Holy Relic, +1 for extra ccw. Makes 6!

Bad dice hurt. Always. Still, at least you died to the HQ unit. My GM once missed all his attacks, and then got eaten - by Nurglings. NURGLINGS!!! How bad is that going to look on his roll of honour? "And then in the year <records missing> did Grand Master Tyrak fall to the small giggly minions of the Plague God . . . " :)

 

I think he means seven attacks over two rounds of close combat.

[Grand Master Tyrak]

I don't see how that works - 7 isn't divisible by 4? :P

[Chengar Qordath]

I don't see how that works - 7 isn't divisible by 4? :P

 

First round the GKGM charged and directed all of his attacks at the Warboss. 5 attacks.

 

Second round the GKGM used two attacks vs. the Warboss, two attacks vs. the Nobz. 2 attacks.

 

By the by, in my games my Grey Knights Grandmaster seems to suffer from a terminal inability to land attacks with his theoretically awesome NFW; it's rather annoying that my opponents have the bad habit of making 4 5+ invulnerable saves and similar feats of awesome rolling. For some reason the Dice Gods seem to hate Grandmasters...

[Gentlemanloser]

Second round the GKGM used two attacks vs. the Warboss, two attacks vs. the Nobz. 2 attacks.

 

Can you split your attacks like that? :/

 

I thought this would be a thread about SM Chapter Masters being bumped to WS6, ut the elite of the elite GKGM still only having a 5....

 

:P

[Lord Cornilius]

I don't see how that works - 7 isn't divisible by 4? :yuck:

 

First round the GKGM charged and directed all of his attacks at the Warboss. 5 attacks.

 

Second round the GKGM used two attacks vs. the Warboss, two attacks vs. the Nobz. 2 attacks.

 

 

Exactly

[Gentlemanloser]

Can you split your attacks like that? :/

[Thaelion Hexis]

Can you split your attacks like that? :/

 

I don't think you can.

[number6]

Can you split your attacks like that? :/

 

I don't think you can.

Actually, you can. From p. 41 of the BRB,

 

Models that were engaged with more than one enemy unit at the beginning of the combat (before any model attacked) may split their attacks freely between those units. Declare how they are splitting their attacks immediately before rolling to hit.

[Mal]

of course you need to realise that any IC not in a retinue counts as a seperate unit for CC purposes (with the exception of morale tests)

 

Which is really funny if you can make them break at under half strength as the character cant leave the unit while its fleeing and at under half strength it cannot rally... buh bye mr warboss

[Gentlemanloser]

So the GKGM would have to be in base contact with both the IC and the Unit?

 

Hmm.. People are going to *hate* this.

 

Run your GKGM up to Marneus (or other Big Gun) and his squad of Whatever. Split your attack to have one (with a Master Crafted NFW for safety) on the Marneus, and the rest on the Squad.

 

Hit Marneus once, wound on a 2+, then use your Force Weapon to kill him outright (no Eternal Warrior for you), and us the rest of your attacks to land Power Weapon hits on the squad.

 

I can forsee a lot of crying over this.

 

Models that were engaged with more than one enemy unit at the beginning of the combat (before any model attacked) may split their attacks freely between those units. Declare how they are splitting their attacks immediately before rolling to hit.

 

Do they mean here that if a 10 man squad is engaged with two squads, you can split the number of mini that attack each squad? Like 3 mini's on one, the other 7 on the rest.

 

It seems really strange to split the number of attacks a single mini has over two or more squads.

[number6]

Models that were engaged with more than one enemy unit at the beginning of the combat (before any model attacked) may split their attacks freely between those units. Declare how they are splitting their attacks immediately before rolling to hit.

 

Do they mean here that if a 10 man squad is engaged with two squads, you can split the number of mini that attack each squad? Like 3 mini's on one, the other 7 on the rest.

Yes, within the limits of how those models are engaged, of course. At the beginning of combat, before any dice are rolled, you need to determine which models are engaged with which units. It's likely that you'll have three conditions (assuming you have two units attacking your one unit):

 

* x number of models are engaged with unit A

* y number of models are engaged with unit B

* z number of models are engaged with both units A and B

 

x and y models won't have any choice about where to direct their attacks. However, z models will get to decide how to split their attacks. You must declare how they're doing this before you roll any dice.

 

It seems really strange to split the number of attacks a single mini has over two or more squads.

Not so much. Just think about the character deciding to split his focus across a number of people who are within reach. The only reason it's "weird" is because this is a game, and you have to be clear which models you want to attack with which attacks before rolling dice. It would be unfair to roll the dice, and then decide afterward how to split the results up.

[Thaelion Hexis]

Can you split your attacks like that? :/

 

I don't think you can.

Actually, you can. From p. 41 of the BRB,

 

Models that were engaged with more than one enemy unit at the beginning of the combat (before any model attacked) may split their attacks freely between those units. Declare how they are splitting their attacks immediately before rolling to hit.

 

Hmm, damn my quick skimming of that rulebook. Back to reading!

[Imperialis_Dominatus]

Had the same problem with ostensibly killy wargear such as powerfists (especially these), lightning claws, Furious-Charging-power weapons, and meltaguns. Considering that's the meat of my force beyond the bolter, it hurts when all those low rolls show up. ;) :tu: :cuss

[Thaelion Hexis]

Oh, I have horrendous luck with dice, except when using my Eldar. Then my luck is rediculous, Avatars and Wraithlords lasting for ever.

 

An eample of my bad luck would be my 5 man BT assault squad, which I risked dropping into a crater to line up an assault. I rolled 4 1s for dangerous terrain...

 

Or my 6 terminators. Recieved 6 wounds from a Necron squad. I rolled 6 1s....

 

A little off topic there, but...

[Lord Cornilius]

Oh! How earned his incense back?

 

 

Turn 2 charges out of Crusader with 5 of his closest friends and lops the head off the warboss without even needing to use "The Force". The boys slaughter 4 out of 10 Nobz, but awesome power claw rolling snips the heads off all 5 of his retinue (5 out of 6 hits and wounds, and I fail all invil saves). GM runs down the remaining Nobz and eventually jumps back in the Land Raider.

 

Turn 4 jumps out of Crusader by himself, invokes Hammerhand, and charges 2 Killer Kans. One explodes and the other has it's DCCW ripped off. Next round he finishes it off.

 

Turn 5 charges 12 boys with Claw weilding Nob for fun (actually he dived in in order to pull the orks away from their objective). Slaughters 3 orks, takes no wounds from boyz, Nob wounds with one power claw attack, a Storm Shield save is all I need but sadly I roll a 3. Had I rolled a 4, Holocaust would have covered the whole mob....ouch. Orks hate Holocaust.

 

So he's back at the side of the emperor.......until next week at least.

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Turn 2 charges out of Crusader with 5 of his closest friends and lops the head off the warboss without even needing to use "The Force". The boys slaughter 4 out of 10 Nobz, but awesome power claw rolling snips the heads off all 5 of his retinue (5 out of 6 hits and wounds, and I fail all invil saves). GM runs down the remaining Nobz and eventually jumps back in the Land Raider.

 

Just remember, you can't Sweeping Advance in Terminator armour, so that would've changed the result a fair bit. Instead of running down the fleeing Nobz, he would've simply consolidated. That would've given them a chance to charge him anew and hopefully get a powerklaw attack through to instant death him.

 

Turn 4 jumps out of Crusader by himself, invokes Hammerhand, and charges 2 Killer Kans. One explodes and the other has it's DCCW ripped off. Next round he finishes it off.

 

Nice. Hammerhand really comes into it's own when applied to enemy walkers, as showed by your battle. I'm considering dropping the psychic hood on the GM for HH myself...

 

Turn 5 charges 12 boys with Claw weilding Nob for fun (actually he dived in in order to pull the orks away from their objective). Slaughters 3 orks, takes no wounds from boyz, Nob wounds with one power claw attack, a Storm Shield save is all I need but sadly I roll a 3. Had I rolled a 4, Holocaust would have covered the whole mob....ouch. Orks hate Holocaust.

 

Yeah, two mistakes here. Firstly, never charge Ork mobz with a lone character, the hidden powerklaw is pretty near-guranteed to nab him. I find roasting them with incinerator-toting PAGK squads a better option, not to mention their extra attacks and storm bolter is likely to clean up the whole enemy unit before they can swing. Plus they can Sweeping Advance, unlike your GM who may get charged again by the remnants and still fail to kill the Nob before he gets his poweklaw attacks in (due to other Boyz absorbing the damage).

 

2nd bad idea is Holocaust. I always find the incinerator on the retinue a better option; it never backfires, you can only make 3+ or 2+ saves against it (unlike Holocaust which allows pretty much any save to be taken), and it can eliminate a problem unit (Genestealers, Harlies, Daemonettes etc) or torch them down to size (large infantry units like Ork mobs). I find that when Holocaust kicks in, you've either won the combat or lost regardless, the extra S5 hits are largely meh (and there's always the possibility that even if you don't roll Perils, you fail your save against the S5 hit on the GKT's).

 

In your case, you could've activated Holocaust anyway, because it's resolved at I1 (ie same time as powerklaw). So, you would've still fried them, but they would've won anyway (cos your GM died).

[Grand Master Tyrak]

Reclusiarch Darius, why take a psychic hood in the first place? The Aegis gives you one for free! True, it only works on your unit, but all the other GK units get one too. Do you include a lot of non-GK units perchance?

I find Hammerhand to be the only psychic power my GM ever needs - it tend to run too many Terminators with the GM to make Sanctuary useable.

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Reclusiarch Darius, why take a psychic hood in the first place? The Aegis gives you one for free! True, it only works on your unit, but all the other GK units get one too. Do you include a lot of non-GK units perchance?

 

I do, but the way I see it, there's several reasons to take a psychic hood;

 

1. Blanket coverage; Aegis only works against 'targeted' powers, like Doom, shooting attacks etc. 'Buff' powers, which are more common and troublesome (Warptime, Fortune, Guide, Might of Ancients, Quickening etc) can't be deflecting with Aegis. The psychic hood is invaluable at blocking these powers.

 

2. Protection of vehicles/non-GK's; Only PAGK and GKT's get Aegis, everyone else is vulnerable to Lash etc like any normal unit. Thus, a psychic hood provides virtually you're only line of psychic defence for these Inquisitional units.

 

3. Unlimited range; The new vanilla psychic hoods face a real problem with 'AOE', in that they only project a 24" radius of protection. Smart opponents will ignore/tie up the Libby and target other units outside his 'umbrella' with Winds of Chaos, Bolt of Tzeentch etc. DH psychic hoods work no matter where the model itself is, thus effectively shutting down psychic powers at will. The new Libby's have to be much more tactical when facing psychic armies like Chaos or Eldar; we simply function like we did in 4th edition.

 

The price tag may seem hefty (we should really get them for free on the Hero at the very least, and more probably every Brother-Captain as well), but it's the most powerful general-purpose anti-psyker device we possess. Aegis can be useful but the psychic hood is better.

 

I find Hammerhand to be the only psychic power my GM ever needs - it tend to run too many Terminators with the GM to make Sanctuary useable.

 

Also the brokeness of Sanctuary is another reason not to :D you do want re-matches with Daemon players, if only to totally demolish them once more (ah, Mystics+psycannons = lol ).

[Grand Master Tyrak]

Reclusiarch Darius Posted Today, 11:28 AM

Also the brokeness of Sanctuary is another reason not to you do want re-matches with Daemon players, if only to totally demolish them once more (ah, Mystics+psycannons = lol ).

 

I have developed a nice anti-daemon strategy for Apocalypse, which involves two cheap Inquisitors both always using Sanctuary standing next to each other. Daemon Player uses Major Possession with Angrath (or whatever the big badass Bloodthirster's name is), on Inquisitor gets possessed, Bloodthrister promptly appears in Sanctuary radius and auto-dies. :D

 

Back on topic, my old Grand Master used to be even worse than my new one (who I mentioned earlier). My luck isn't great at the best of times, but he never did anything, I simply could not roll dice for him. So I purpose-built my new one, who I can roll average dice for. The downside is that my bad luck is now spread out over my entire army, instead of being confined to one model. :D

I can never roll 2+ saves when I need to. Though that is made up by every game in around 20, when nothing, and I mean nothing will get through my Terminator Invulnerable saves. It dirves my opponents nuts. ;)