Grey Knights v. Tau @ 750 pts

[Mani]

Well, I had a fine game at the LGS this afternoon. I'm building up a Grey Knights army, with 750 pts on the table now and hopefully 1000 or 1250 very soon (I have land raiders to build). I'm trying to follow the fine example of Silent Requiem and the fine fellows in the =I= forum who have contributed to the discussion of reactive warfare on 40k, though with only three games under my belt with GK and 5th Ed. I'm still a long way from solid.

 

The forces:

My Grey Knights detachment:

 

Brother-Captain (psycannon)

3 Terminator retinue (1 psycannon)

 

2 PAGK squads (6 knights each)

 

Dreadnought (TLLC, ML, Extra Armour)

 

 

His Tau cadre:

 

Commander in crisis suit (plas rifle, missile pod, 1 shield drone)

 

Crisis Team (3 suits, all with plas rifle & missile pod, 1 shield drone)

Stealth team (6 suits, 2 gun drones)

 

Fire Warrior Team (12 warriors)

Kroot Squad (10 kroot)

 

 

The Table

4'x4' table with a broad (18") hill in the center and smaller hills and patches of forest along the sides and corners. We rolled "Capture and Control" for mission and "Spearhead" for deployment-- that is, table quarters with a single objective marker in each deployment zone. He placed his objective deep in the back of his NW corner in a clump of trees and dropped his fire warriors on it. His commander and crisis team went just on the north side of the central hill.

 

I put my objective at the SE foot of the central hill and placed my dread back in my corner with LOS to his crisis team (but outside their range). My command squad went along the south board edge, one PAGK squad went to the east edge, and the other went tight up against the foot of the central hill, right on top of my objective. I was thinking to keep a lot of LOS to keep him from infiltrating into cover in my part of the board and planning to use the dread and the eastern PAGKs to flank him on the east while the command squad and central PAGKs kept him from doing the same to me on the west.

 

He infiltrated his kroot and stealth team into the NE corner among some hills, blocking my plan to push through on that side. I seized the initiative and went first!

 

Turn 1:

GK: I decided to use the PAGKs in my corner to try to hold onto my objective and the central squad to try to push for his. The central PAGKs and command squad push into the relatively empty west of the table and sight in the Tau commander. The PAGKs in my corner hang back; I want to try to wear down those crisis suits with my hellfire dread before my PAGKs engage on that side. In shooting, the dread prunes off the crisis team's shield drone. The west PAGK squad and the command squad hose down the Tau commander, killing his shield drone and putting a wound on him. When I measure, I find that I've accidentally put my central PAGK sqaud within his fire team's range! 30 inches is a long way on a four-foot board...

 

Tau: His crisis team and stealth suits advance slightly on the east side, and his kroot slink forward in the shadow of a hill. He uses the crisis team's missile pods to shoot at the dread but gets nothing. His commander and his fire team target my western PAGKs, but the dice go my way and I only lose one man.

 

Turn 2:

GK: In the west, my PAGKs and command squad move north toward the objective, using the central hill to screen them from his crisis team, which is now to the east. The dread stays put, and the eastern PAGKs no loner have room to stay out of range of his forces, so they slide just inside 24" and shoot for the stealth team. Lucky rolls knock down one gun drone and two stealth suits. The dread instant-deaths one of the crisis suits. My west-side forces shoot the tau commander off the table; the dice have really gone my way so far.

 

Tau: His remaining crisis suits JSJ to split their fire between the dread and my eastern PAGKs (team leader has a target lock): I lose a PAGK, and the dread is immobilized but retains good firing lanes. His kroot are lurking in the hills, but he seems to be holding them back, perhaps to grab for my objective when I have less to shoot them with... His stealth team pick off another two knights, leaving only three. His fire warriors shoot my advancing PAGKs in the west but do nothing.

 

Turn 3:

GK: My western force continues to advance and begins hosing down the fire team, pruning off three of them; they pass their morale test. The dread tries to shoot the stealth team, but can't see them! The PAGKs fall back toward my objective, trying to kite and shoot at the stealth team... but they also can't see them!! My east flank is looking bad...

 

Tau: The fire warriors shoot at my now dangerously close PAGKs, but again kill nothing. The crisis suits unload their missiles on the dread, but they do nothing. The stealth team whittles away another two knights, leaving only one from the eastern squad. The kroot are now acting as a body wall to give his crisis suits a cover save against my dread.

 

Turn 4:

GK: My western PAGKs advance and shoot his fire team, killing two more; they break and flee off the table, leaving his objective unclaimed! My command squad instead turns its psycannons on the kroot, which they now have a clear shot at from the west; the kroot go to ground, but the terminators still kill four! The dread tries to drop a frag missile on the kroot, but it scatters onto the crisis suits and wounds them both! My lone east-side PAGK shoots a kroot.

 

Tau: His stealth team finally does wipe out my PAGK squad, and his crisis suits set their sights on my other team heading for the Tau objective. With good plasma rolls they carve off two more knights, leaving three in the squad that I'm now hoping will win the game for me. His kroot are out of action because they pinned themselves in my shooting.

 

Turn 5:

GK: I need to get my knights alive to that objective! I run them the objective, in case this turns out to be the last turn. The crisis suit are now blocking my LOS to the kroot, and anyway they will probably kill my last objective-takers with their next shooting, so my command squad shoots them, and they shockingly fail five out of five 3+ saves to both come down! The dread tries to throw another blast template at the kroot, but it scatters away.

 

Tau: His stealth team jump west into a forest, losing one man to the dangerous terrain test, and unload through the trees at my PAGKs, killing... two! The lone justicar still stands on the objective. His kroot loiter in cover and still do nothing. We roll for a sixth turn: we are successful!

 

Turn 6:

GK: My lone PAGK shoots at the stealth team and gets lucky, dropping one! The terminators move up, shoot the stealth team, and charge, wiping them out (although in the assault the gun drone kills a terminator!!!) The dread still cannot seem to hit any of the kroot in the hills.

 

Tau: At this point the kroot are the only Tau unit standing, and he finally runs them out of cover toward my objective. We roll for a seventh turn, and it comes!

 

Turn 7:

GK: My dread and command squad finally find their targeters and shoot the kroot off the board, tabling the Tau force.

 

Result: Grey Knights Victory!

 

My take-aways: My shrouding did absolutely nothing for the entire game (4'x4' is too small, I guess), whereas his stealth team dodged a number of bullets. My rolls happened to be low, but still... I need to take the stealth team more seriously next time. Maybe I should have been more cautious with my east-side troops and tried to draw his forces into my part of the board a bit further; I didn't want to pull his kroot onto my objective, but I did want to distract his plasma long enough for me to secure the west side. The Tau player lost the game when he played things too safe with his kroot on the east side; his forces were massively superior to mine on that side, yet he stuck to cover and kept shooting from extreme range. If he had sent his battlesuit teams south with the kroot behind them, I could not have kept him off of my objective.

 

This is only my third game with Grey Knights, and my first win! Comments, advice, reactions?

[Oiad]

Congrats. It's not often I read battle reports of Grey Knights beating Tau these days. Normally it's GK players seem to receive a thrashing from to them. Keep up the good play! :cuss