Dark Legionnare Posted June 5, 2011 Share Posted June 5, 2011 ---------------------------------------------------List-spanning Success overview--------------------------------------------------------- I've played a total of 18 games now with my Obsidian Knights. 9 with the older list, and 9 with the new list. Per army victories were close to even. Old List= 7/Wins 1/Draw 1/Loss New List= 6/Wins 2/Draws 1/Loss --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The 2 battles below were played using the list at the beginning half of the first post. I've taken to the habit of making little stories out of my 40k games in the last year. It makes the logic of Imperium vs. Imperium usually much easier to believe and it's always fun to have even more imagined image and depth to a battle. :devil: So if reading around 2-3 paragraphs of "Story" per battle report isn't your thing then get out. ---------------------------------------------------Game 1--------------------------------------------------------- First game: Pitched Battle, - Annihilation - Versus Blood Angels - I won roll to go first. I would not make the same mistake I did last time facing this player. I bunched up much closer, but not shoulder to shoulder, than I did last time. In the last game (not the one listed farther down) he exploited a gap made in my forces by an assault and we ended up tying in a bloody battle to the death. My Knights fanned out in a staggered and stoic line, guns at the ready while my Stormraven was off to the left of my forces by 14 inches. The Angels deployed in a mainly standard line formation with some flanking elements on the left of their side, all well out of range and sight of my guns. We met on the field of battle once more. Mephiston and his bloodthirsty angels were picked up entering the planet's atmosphere via observation cogitators. The Obsidian Knights loaded into teleportariums, donned their jet-black helms, and chanted their prayers. These Khorne-tainted "Angels" weren't fit to serve the Emperor anymore and the Knights would see them dashed against the soil of the world below. The "Angels" were still preparing their planet-side holdings when off in the East of their base 31 black-armored figures suddenly appeared on the red soil with a crack and pop of artificial spacecraft air pushing aside the denser planet's atmosphere. A Blood Angels scout rode out to meet the visitors. The initiate slowed his bike to a gravelly halt 50 feet from the figures. Seeing them armed the scout demanded their identity, but there was no answer. There was obvious tension and the scout keyed his vox bead into the Blood Angels tactical frequency. As he alerted the base to the Knight's presence a Stormraven gunship screamed down through the air and came to a halt, and gentle landing, in front of the assembled knights. Out from the craft's assault ramp in thunderous steps strode a man of unmistakable psychic might. The shaved blonde man clad in tactical dreadnought armor looked over the pale, vampiric-looking initiate in front of him and frowned. Truly they were lost and didn't even know it. The Librarian raised his storm-bolter and dispensed the Emperor's justice with a crack, a thud, and then an explosion of gore. In the distance another gunship took off from the Angel's base and 42 Astartes flew into the sky upon the roars of jumpacks. Turn 1: My paladins and Librarian are embarked in the Stormraven. The rest of my forces shuffled about for the most part. They all moved a careful 4 inches closer towards the enemy, he'd placed his forces farther back than I thought and I wanted to make as many safe moves as I could before his wall hit mine. I moved my Stormraven just enough distance to reach my forces, the 14 inches it had deployed away, to get the cover save. All of his forces are still behind a hill(completely obscured) so there was no shooting this turn from me. Blood Angels Turn: His forces all climb out of his deployment half of the table up the hill enough to be as close as possible without revealing their brazen-yellow heads to my gunners' sights. His Stormraven, as predicted, zooms 12 inches across the table to my side. Inside my gunship Brother Taylon's chants fill the walls and hull of the craft, to the enemy it seems to disappear and reappear in and out of a haze to the enemy, Shrouding is cast successfully. Two Bloodstrike missiles tear across the battlefield and pass through the immaterial-looking, black gunship. The 3+ cover save saves against a penetrating hit. Turn 2: To slow down Mephiston's advance and start to bait a trap I position Purifier Squad Primoris 4 inches towards the enemy Stormraven, about 8-9 inches out of range of it, and to it. My Stormraven flies 13 inches towards the middle of the table to get the cover save once more. I fan out my lines a bit more to try and hammer any assault squad that comes over that hill, I'm about 30 inches from his troops I'd wager. My turn ends with little event, again. Blood Angels Turn: He knows damn well I'm not coming to him so the call goes out to hit me with force. The 42 bulky, armored figures soared through the sky with a speed that belied their immense physique. The obsidian invaders looked, to the airborne angels, to be standing still in the distance as the Blood Angels tore through the air with chants, battle cries, taunts, and the ever-present roar of jump packs. Usually the enemies of man broke ranks and ran in the face of the cloud of red now blotting out the system's star. "Curious" Mephiston thought as the lines of blackened figures stood their ground. Archived records finally came up on the view-screen inside the gunship's compartment and the Blood Angels librarian finally found out what he was facing, the forces of Titan were here. A coarse and cruel whisper filled the Lord of Death's mind, "They know..." it hissed. He calmly turned the view-screen off and yelled at the pilot to face the enemy. Mephiston's transport sped across the field, afterburners screaming. As it neared the unwavering lines of the enemy the final 2 Bloodstrike missiles again failed to knock the enemy's phantom gunship from the sky. (Shrouding saved a glancing hit) The 42 Astartes landed with loud impacts on the ground and then continued to RUN towards the enemy as their jump packs cooled and readied for another jump. Turn 3: My Stormraven moves 12 inches back to my lines, over my forces, and disgorges my Paladins and Taylon. The rest of my forces stand still. I was hoping the Stormraven would be able to do all the work and keep Purifier Squad Primoris from having to fire on the enemy gunship, and it did! Through the hail of assault-cannon and multi-melta fire I was able to silence the enemy gunship's guns (Crew Shaken) and destroy the assault cannon with 3 glances. That threat neutralized, as far as I wanted it to be, I concentrated all remaining fire on the approaching angels. Both Purifier Squads, both Strike Squads, the Paladins, and Taylon fire on the enemy angels. I'm concentrating on Kill Points so I target the 2 squads with an apothecary. All of my psycannons and storm bolters manage to kill 5 marines from one squad, 5 from the other. I'm extremely satisfied with this, with cover saves negating ALL of my rendings and Feel-no-pain negating a TON of the unsaved armor saves. A tsunami of shots crashes against the Angels' armor, they scream for blood as 10 of their brothers fall to the hail of fire from the black figures in front of them. Blood Angels Turn: The Assault blob roars up into the air once more, comes down, and slams against my lines. Mephiston's Stormraven moves a foot closer and the Chief Librarian leaps from the assault ramp and lands in a swirl of red dust, without pause he immediately runs and trips, only moving 1 inch with his run. (It would of been a close call has he run 3 or more because he was still going to have to difficult terrain to assault my Purifiers, but that made me happy because it left him 7-8 inches away from my Purifiers.) Bolt pistols fed the chorus of battle with accurate overtures and almost all of the bolts ricochet harmlessly off the knights' armor. One catches in the neck of a Strike Squad knight and erupts in his neck, blowing his head clean from his shoulders. His lifeless torso drops to the ground and his crimson essence mixes with the red of the soil below. Invigorated, but at the same time intimidated by the murder of only 1 foe the Angels initiate a whirling melee of close combat. The growl and screech of chainswords contacting battle-plate fills the air. Accompanied by the hum and sizzles of power weapons both weapons rend armor and life alike. The din of battle is accentuated by the thunderous bursts of Daemon Hammers every so often, a wave of pressure that is felt in the bones of all around the burst of energy. The Obsidian Knights lose 9 knights, each Strike Squad reduced to 5 men now. Psycannons lay on the ground, their wielders slumped upon them, slain in battle by those more equipped for close combat. The Angles are not unscathed though, the Knights fight back with the matter-slicingly sharp and powerful weapons at their disposal, 8 angels are cut open, life spilling from the cracks in their armor and bodies. (He missed a lot of to hit rolls, a very large number. This could of easily been different if he had better "to hit" results. He made bout 80-85% of his to wound rolls, so that would've definitely changed this game is his luck maintained for that.) Both my Strike Squads are engaged are as all 4 of his assault squads. I remove casualties in a way to allow a gap for my Purifiers to touch into close combat with. Turn:4 As the battle approached the Obsidian Knights lines the true foe approached from the flank. As he directed his knights fire an unimaginable psychic pressure suddenly encroached onto Taylon's mind. He spun to face the disturbance as the Astartes slammed into his brother's lines. A figure clad in cape and red garb fell from the assault ramp of the enemy gunship. His eyes were terrifying pits of agony and death, but this didn't phase one of Titan's chosen. They knew no fear, no intimidation, and could not be culled by any psychic powers. The Librarian directed his Paladin bodyguards to the aid of their brothers in combat and then threw his ornately designed suit of nigh-invincible armor towards this beacon of malice and psychic disturbance. The Paladins chanted and trudged off to face the enemy horde alongside the Purifiers who ran to join their brothers. Taylon called into his vox for the Knight's gunship to switch targets and focus on the man that was fixated by bloodlust and charging towards their lines, he pointed a gauntleted finger at Mephiston and the pilot confirmed his order. With the scream of propellant 4 missiles fell from their mountings on the gunship and streaked towards the Lord of Death. They impacted on the ground around the mighty foe and their psycho-reactive munitions went to work. The Psyker roared in agony as the essence of the warp fed backwards from his mind. The perils of the warp were made manifest four times over and each time they sapped Mephiston's body and mind of strength more and more. (4 wounds caused by perils. The Assault cannon shots were all saved against, and the multi-melta missed, twice...) Brother Librarian Taylon arrived at the kneeling form of the enemy and raised his bolter to dispatch the foe. The Lord of Death roared and threw his arms out, a wave sent the librarian in his terminator armor skidding backwards on his feet, his footing not lost, but his bolter cast from his grip. He looked to the enemy and his face was half-twisted, more vampiric than ever before. Khornate symbols were emblazoned on the side of the psyker's possessed face. As the demon charged at Taylon he summoned all his might and opened forth a cone-shaped tear in reality. The fabric of the warp bled through, the enemy gunship was aged in an instant and sucked into the rift in a cloud of dust as the metal crumbled like it was eons old. The demon-chief-librarian roared in defiance as the warp took him with the ship, his body sucked into the pure sea of emotion that was the warp. The rift sealed back up once more and Taylon fell to his knees panting, exhausted. (Mephiston was killed, along with the gunship. Truthfully, I just wanted to kill the enemy gunship and then nuke Mephiston with my gunship next turn, but it turned out to be a win-win! :lol:) The Paladins martial prowess and psychically-imbued strength mixed with the psychic powers and blows of the Purifiers felled even more or the damned Astartes. (I stopped counting who made what casualties at this point because I was so floored that my "trap" had worked against Mephiston. I love those mindstrike missiles. <3 I didn't finish off the enemy in this turn, but the Paladins did wipe out a squad of 8 and consolidate into another. Blood Angels Turn: They continued to fight back, but didn't do too much damage. From both my, and the enemy's turn, I lost another 4 Knights and he was reduced to 12 total marines, a squad of 5 with Priest and a squad of 6. Turn 5: My Paladins failed their difficult terrain test, they were too busy bro-fisting and high-fiving Taylon I'd guess, so they didn't get into CC. My turn ended losing another 2 knights, losing a strike Squad, with him losing another marine to Daemon Hammer hits. Blood Angels Turn: No one killed anyone.... laaaaaaaaaaaaame. Game ended. Obsidian Knight VP's= 5(Gunship, Assault Squad, Assault Squad, Mephiston, Priest.) Blood Angels VP's=1 (Strike Squad) I love playing against this guy because our lists always have fun together. It just turns into a melee brawl every time. One side almost always gains the upper hand. In our last game together that gap in my forces turned into death, he ATE my forces alive. D: We always have fun and he's probably the best spirited player in my CT playgroup. Victory for the Emperor, burn the heretic! NEXT GAME I'LL REPORT IS A LOSS!!!! But I'm too pooped to type game two, so you'll have to wait. The 5 of you that actually read these. The 5 battles below were played using the list located about halfway down the first post. ---------------------------------------------------Success overview time--------------------------------------------------------- Games played so far with this list = 5. Games won = 5. ---------------------------------------------------Game 1--------------------------------------------------------- First game: Spearhead, Seize Ground - 4 Objectives - Versus Space Wolves - I won roll to go first. His deployment was not wise, had his Land Raider and Dreadnought so close I was able to use Psycannon "Heavy" firing modes first turn. And he used deep strike units, something I've come to see most people refrain from doing when fighting Grey Knights now. Turn 1: First turn, Strike Squad Primoris moved up to go for the objective while Secundus held my initial one. The purifiers did their jobs and tore the Sons of Russ' armor to shreds. His Land Raider was blown up by Purifier Squad Secundus and then his Dreadnought, which was now incapable of hiding behind the Land raider, was immobilized by Purifier squad Primoris in my first shooting phase, killing the tank and effectively taking the melee dread out of the fight. My 3 dreads proceeded to tear the living heck out of all the Grey Hunter's rhinos, wrecking (sadly no explosions) all but 1. And last but not least the Vindicare Assassin turbo-penetrated one of his Librarians that popped out of one of the destroyed Rhinos, killing him in one hit. Space wolves turn: Moved towards my lines and his Longfangs spammed missiles (as they usually tend to do) at my dreads. Psychic pilot's Fortitude saved me the embarrassment of having 2 non-shooting dreads as a result of vehicle stuns. Nothing of note other than that. Turn 2: Both Strike squads successfully activated Warp Quake and Primoris moved up further to take a second objective; I now controlled 2 out of 4 objectives. Dreads also moved forward as well. Shooting phase was more death for the deemed heretical Wolves. The purifiers continued to spew psychically charged death; 16 shots fired at one squad of grey hunters, 12 hit, 12 wounded, squad failed 5 armor saves. Both strike squads overwhelmed another grey hunter squad. So many S5 shots and Psycannon shots made mincemeat of the other squad, wiped out every last wolf. Dreadnought Primoris cracked open the last rhino to reveal the squishy marines, and their attached Librarian, within. The other 2 Dreads finished off the grievously wounded Grey Hunter squad with only 3 marines left, wiping that squad as well. Vindicare Assassin once more turbo-penetrated his last Librarian to death. (I got lucky with both of those Librarians failing cover saves.) Wolves turn: Units arrive from deep strike, scatter just outside of Strike Squad Primoris' warp quake range. (DAMN!) Last 2 squads of Grey hunters moved closer and nothing else moved. Longfangs tried to kill some purifiers but thanks to Janus' "The Shrouding" they shrugged off the Krak missiles. Deep striking speeder scattered too far to hit a dreadnought so he fired at, and killed no members, of Strike Squad Primoris. The closest remaining Grey Hunter squad made a futile attempt to dislodge Strike Squad Primoris. They got close enough to assault and then killed one Knight with combined melta and pistol fire. Primoris got Hammerhand off (thank god all his power cancellation was dead.) I used to put halberds on my squad leaders so the Justicar hit first, killing 2 wolves before they could even swing. Wolves killed one more knight, and all the power weapon wounds back proceeded to kill 4 wolves. Other grey Hunter squad remained holding their objective. I control 1, he controls 1, and we both contest one. Turn 3: Not even worth going into detail. Janus moved up with Purifiers as they moved up, so did dreads. All 5 units combined firepower annihilated the Longfang squad (couldn't see the Grey Hunters holding the point well enough so I decided to off the biggest threat. Assault phase, Justicar with Halberd finished off the remaining wolves (that was delicious rolling 2 hits and 2 wounds!) End of my portion of turn 3, I control 2 points, him 1. He concedes. ---------------------------------------------------Game 2--------------------------------------------------------- Second game: Spearhead, Seize Ground - 3 Objectives - Versus Chaos Nurgle Renegades (No defined chapter affiliation but lots of Plague Marines in the list.) - I won roll to go first. He deployed smart. Like me he's one of the veteran players of my local playgroup so he knows when and where to not make silly mistakes. First things first, having to fight against Plague Marines without my own FNP(I play Blood Angels as my other main army) SUCKS. This game went on so much longer than it had to just because of those damn, hardy Plague Marines. Turn 1: I deploy rather tight together but spread out enough, 2 defiler blast templates worry me so I wanted to get the most out of "The Shrouding" to save me from all the plasma guns, pie plates, and Obliterators. Strike Squad Secundus starts deployed on my nearest objective while Primoris carefully navigates tank traps and pseudo-trenches towards the middle objective with Janus attached, but at the back of the squad to give max "The Shrouding" coverage to other units. Dreadnoughts scooted forward a bit, I wanted to make SURE they could target those Obliterators and not fall a fatal few inches short. Purifiers remained stationary. All enemy targets were out of Psycannon range (No turn 1 shooting massacre *sadface*.) It wouldn't be my list without some terrible, terrible damage dished out by ranged firepower. Dreadnought Primoris and Secundus targeted the farthest away Obliterators, killing both Obits, while Dreadnought Tertius killed one Obliterator in the other squad of two on the right flank. Nothing in the assault phase. Not a grand entrance, but taking out 3 Obliterators in turn 1 is a god send. Chaos Turn: 2 squads of Plague Marines move up into some nice positions by moving, and then running. They're in ruins with a kill field of open ground around the entire ruin.(Obviously blocking me from a power-weapon-Feel-no-pain-negating close combat slaughter-fest. Not risking an assault with so many plasma guns.) Remaining Plague Marines take up positions closer to me by moving towards and then running into some woods.)The plasma gun-line is now set to spit hell at anyone dumb enough to get within 12 inches or try an assault.) Defilers sit still, remaining Obliterator moves up a tad. Typhus and terminators remain in reserve. His shooting phase had me worried with those defilers but one scattered away from my dreadnought and killed my Vindicare Assassin; the other Defiler shot only wounded 3 knights in Purifier Squad Primoris. (All 3 of which were saved thanks to "The Shrouding", I love 3+ cover saves!!! <3) Obliterator's Lascannon shot misses. Chaos turn ends. I hold 1 objective, Chaos holds 1. Turn 2: Here my list shines, somewhat. Both Strike Squads get "Warp Quake" off. Strike squad Primoris doesn't move, opting to hunker down and get that "Heavy" Psycannon firing mode. Dreadnoughts move closer to defilers. No one else stirs, not Janus, not even a mouse. I open up my shooting phase gloriously by taking out the left flank Defiler's battle cannon with Dreadnought Primoris, wrecking the other defiler with Dreadnought Tertius, and finishing off that last Obliterator with Dreadnought Secundus. Both Purifier Squads' combined firepower cuts down 6 plague marines in the right-most squad with bolter fire, 16 Psycannon shots, with 13 Psycannon hits!!!, and 12 Psycannon wounds!!! Strike Squad Primoris and Secundus focus all their fire on the left-most Plague Marine squad, killing 7 out of 10.(Now here's what people have to take into account. A total of 36 S5 bolter shots and 16 Psycannon shots only killed 7 plague marines. That's a hell of a lot of firepower to only kill 7 guys... I HATE FNP WHEN I DON'T HAVE ANY OF MY OWN! x,x ) I rolled Janus' shots as red dice(just for heroic story purposes) and his shots killed one of those 7. Seems he's certainly more skilled than his brethren and has his rank for a reason. No assault because I'm not that stupid. Chaos Turn: He fails his reserves roll. Heavy firepower pretty much all gone he crawls his wounded and mostly useless remaining Defiler forward. (Much to my crap-eating grin.) Janus gets off "The Shrouding" and all 4 squads of my infantry enjoy 3+ cover saves while 1 out of 3 Dreadnoughts gets his simpering 6+. Plague marine bolter fire kills one knight in Strike Squad Primoris and I save all the plasma wounds thanks to Janus. Strike Squad Secundus suffers a wound as well from bolter fire, but manages to save all plasma gun wounds, once again thanks to Janus! One of his Plague Marines liquefied himself (somehow further considering they're already suits of armor containing a congealed mass of pus and disease that somehow forms a marine) with a "Gets Hot!" role. (And that's why I avoid using plasma weapons like the plague because my luck is just as bad if not worse.) Turn 3: Both strike squads once more get "Warp Quake" off and don't move. Both Purifier squads finish off the remaining 4 marines in the right most enemy squad. (Barely, it was down to the last 2 "FNP" rolls.) Strike Squad Primoris kills 2 Plague Marines in an untouched squad in the ruins while squad Secundus finishes off 2 of the 3 remaining Plague Marines in the left-most squad.(I HATE FNP!!! DX ) Dreadnought Primoris finishes off that one damnable Plague marine, I've now wiped 2 out of 4 full squads and wounded a 3rd. Somehow Dreadnought Tertius manages to miss EVERY SHOT this turn?! HE'S GETTING CROWBARED OUT OF THAT SARCOPHAGUS TO BE REPLACED BY SOMEONE ELSE; maybe "Hapless Knight A" who fell to the first round of chaos fire. Dreadnought Secundus managed to wound 4 and kill 2 more Plague marines in the already wounded squad in the ruins. No assaulting because those plasma guns in the 2 ruin squads are still alive and glowing menacingly. Chaos Turn: Janus once again casts "The Shrouding" successfully. He succeeded his reserve roll, scattered into "Warp Quake" range and was sent back to reserves with the mishap roll. (Commence "Oh, so sad. Better luck next time" face. As well as "Thank God Typhus didn't land within psychic power range of my troops" forehead-sweat-removal gesture.) Defiler crawled closer, like a wounded and rubber-band-clawed (aka harmless) crab. Plague Marine fire killed one more Knight in Strike Squad Primoris. With the fallen Knight's body put on a craft to head back to Titan, the Chaos turn ended. Turn 4: Both Strike Squads once again successfully cast "Warp Quake." Strike Squad Primoris moves towards the 3rd objective while Secundus remains stalwart and motionless on my initial objective. Everything else doesn't move. Strike Squad Primoris runs, and successfully captures the middle objective. A column and chorus of divine ranged fire echoes out and all 3 remaining infantry squads and 3 Dreadnoughts proceeds to wipe out all but 6 plague marines on the entire board. (Seriously, these damn Flu-sacs are IMPOSSIBLE to put down easily, gah!) No assault because I fired heavy weapons and there's still 2 plasma guns glowing threateningly in those ruins. Chaos Turn: Fails his reserve roll. (I feel bad for the poor guy. Failing a reserve roll on turn 4... that sucks, big time.) Plasma gunfire kills 2 Purifiers with Janus out of range because he's taking the objective. (I figured I had it in the bag already so I didn't waste time rolling "The Shrouding." I also didn't want Janus to "Perils of the Warp" himself needlessly to only give cover to his own Strike Squad.) Defiler stampedes out of the brush angrily, making a dash for Strike Squad Primoris. End of Chaos turn. Turn 5: Everybody's favorite "Warp Quake" goes off on both squads again while everyone remains still. As ever a anti-climatic end as there could be to that wounded defiler... It dashed out of the bushes to put a stop to Strike Squad Primoris' capturing, but was promptly shot in the butt by Dreadnought Tertius. A shell went right up his exhaust and the defiler exploded creating a MASSIVE 1" explosion!!! 2 remaining Dreadnoughts and 3 infantry squads proceed to kill 5 more plague marines. 1 Plague Marine left... I honestly don't know how he survived so many armor save rolls and FNP rolls. Statistically he should of been dead 9 dice before the end... He lives, BAH!. No assault because I THOUGHT I could finish off a measly 6 marines. I hold 2, Chaos now BARELY holds one. Chaos Turn: Reserves automatically arrive, scatter into "Warp Quake" range and mishaps right into oblivion. (That poor, poor man... So much work to get Typhus out, and he spirals off into the immaterium. Well, at least his house is somewhere in the warp. I'm sure he can find a cab.) Not wanting to concede he moves up his Plague Marine in a valiant offense and fires off his last remaining marine's plasma gun. Gets a wound, and then dies from the "Gets Hot!" on the second shot. For "Let's see what happens" sake, I saved the plasma gun wound. VICTORY TECHNICALLY BY ANNIHILATION! (Though I had the capping in the bag too. Harumph...) ---------------------------------------------------Game 3--------------------------------------------------------- Third game: Pitched Battle, Capture and Control - 2 HQ Objectives - Versus Orks (Mostly footslogger army with some Nob Bikers)- I lost roll to go first. Turn 1: Ork player deployed en masse as close as he could to the 12" barrier from the table's center line. Mostly spread out, the bikers are off to the far left side. Ready to take advantage of some impassible terrain cover as they will almost assuredly sweep around behind it to flank my guys. Movement phase, EVERYTHING moves up. Shooting phase, all his troops "Run." One of the boyz squad only got a 1" run. (Hehe) No assaulting. Obsidian Knights Turn: I deploy in a somewhat wedge formation with both squads of purifiers taking up front-most position. I don't move, as the Ork has put a good number of his stuff within 24", sadly he was smart enough to avoid open ground. (Damn smart players... :P) It wouldn't be my list without a colossal wall of fire spewing across the board in the shooting phase. The almost hundred divine shots (Quite literally! Each strike squad has a total of 24 shots. Each Purifier squad has a total of 14, Janus has 2, and each Dreadnought has 4.) spit death at the vile green skins. That much high strength firepower as well as S5 bolter shots fells boyz in droves. I don't remember the exact numbers. But I'd say at least 20 - 30 boyz died in that shooting. The Vindicare Assassin managed to kill one of two nob bikers sticking out from behind the impassible terrain with a "Turbo Penetrator" round. No assault, I will wait for the Orks to close in to dish out death and righteousness with sword and hammer. Turn 2: The green tide (literally in this footslogger army) moves closer, their difficult terrain rolls are a bit shoddy, max was only 5 inches while the rest were all 3's and 4's. (I think these terrain rolls saved me from a second turn "Waaagh". Though, I was prepared for it with my wedge deployment.) The bikers move ever closer, hugging that obscuring terrain, they're now completely untargetable. All the Ork guns are silent again as the seething mob of green chants and yells as they "Run" closer to my lines. His HQ is empty and not held. Mine is held, however the tide is closing in. Obsidian Knights Turn: All my forces tactically retreat away from the closing tide. Except the two squads of brave Purifiers who slog towards the green tide yelling divine litanies. The shooting phase is yet another massacre of green skin numbers. The purifiers fire on the two separate mobs of boyz they will later assault. All other firepower tears into the left and rightmost squads of boyz, thinning their numbers while not jeopardizing the Purifiers' assault range. The Vindicare Assassin hits and wounds the Warboss with a "Hellfire" round but he makes the cover save. All in all the Orks lose probably another 15 or so boyz from ranged fire. With a fire in their hearts the Purifiers slam against the mob of Orks, denying them the "Furious Charge" they would of gained if they were on the offensive. Both Purifiers assault in such a way as to each engage 2 separate mobs of 24+ boys. Before sword, gauntlet-clad fist, and hammer can tear the Orks asunder a chant rises up from the smothered knights' ranks. A blinding flash of fire spreads from Purifier Squad Primoris, searing its way through both mobs of the Ork boys. "Cleansing Flame" goes off and 15 boys are instantly incinerated from the ranks of both squads of boys. Another flash of fire spreads outwards from Purifier Squad Secundus, searing another 10 boys into charred remains. Blows are finally dealt by the Purifiers, fists and swords dealing another 8 deaths between the two squads' combined fights. With these 8 casualties the Ork player wisely breaks the ability for each Purifier squad to touch 2 squads each by removing key positioned Orks. The remaining 7 or so boys in each squad finally fight back and Purifier Squad Secundus loses both its psycannon knights. (So deep in enemy lines it would of been foolish of me to hold onto the psycannons hoping I could shoot some more if I ever broke assault. I wanted power weapon damage dealing swords instead.) The daemon hammers hit, killing a 2 boys from each squad. My turn ends, incredibly severe damage done to this now waning Waaagh! Turn 3: The Ork player licks his wounds, speeds his bikes into assault range of Dreadnought Primoris, the remaining mobs of boys WISELY avoid getting into combat with the Purifier squads, opting to instead keep heading towards my remaining forces. Shooting phase arrives and the Warboss raises his weapon yelling "Waaagh!" loudly. Soon, every other boy raises his voice into a cockney chorus of "Waaagh!" All Ork units that can, run closer to my Strike Squads, Janus, and Dreadnoughts. Before the Orks can close the gap with my forces Janus raises his sword, yells out, "You shall not pass!", and cracks form in the ground at his feet. These cracks soon start speeding off in jagged lines towards the Ork mobs. "Sanctuary" was successfully cast and the ground splits into craggy, deadly fissures at the boys' feet. The Warboss' squad fails it's difficult terrain roll with only a max of 4". The other Ork boys successfully pass the difficult test and slam against Strike Squad Secundus, however they lose 7 boys to the fissures. (30+ model squads having to take Dangerous terrain tests.... Me like....) Strike Squad Secundus turns to face their aggressors, chants emanate from their intimidating helms and suddenly all of their gauntlets, swords, and hammer glow with a bright light; "Hammerhand" goes off. Knights hit first and kill 6 Orks. The "Furious Charge" imbued Orks finally get hits in. The 17 remaining boys (Only 8 or 9 able to hit) kill 5 knights in strike Squad Secundus. I pass Leadership and suffer no unsaved wounds from the remaining fighting. (I sacrifice both psycannon knights once more and 3 normal knights.) Nob Bikers engage, destroy both autocannon mounts, but don't kill Dreadnought Primoris. The entombed warrior fights back with two MIGHTY S6 HEADBUTTS, wounding a Nob who promptly saved against the wound. The Purifiers both cast "Cleansing Flame" again and combined with their higher initiative hits manage to finish off their respective Ork squads. Both Purifier squads Consolidate towards the Orks engaging my troops. Ork turn ends and I've taken some hurting. Obsidian Knights Turn: Emboldened by their brothers' noble sacrifices and seeking to recover their bodies and send them back to Titan the knights continue to fight! Strike Squad Primoris moves 6" further away from the Warboss' squad. Dreadnought Secundus and Tertius waddle away from the nob bikers chewing up their fellow entombed brother. Janus moves to, and attaches himself to the front of Strike Squad Primoris. Both Purifiers move to aid their beleaguered brothers in Strike Squad Secundus, both getting 5" difficult terrain rolls. (THANK THE EMPEROR) Both Dreads, Strike Squad Primoris, and the Vindicare Assassin fire on the Warboss' squad. The Vindicare's "Hellfire" round again wounds the Warboss, but once again gets saved against. (Damn cover saves.) Combined fire shaves off 12 boys from the Warboss squad. Assault phase. The bikers still don't kill Dreadnought Primoris, stunning him twice and shaking him 3 times with glances, immobilizing him with a pen, and armament destroying nothing with another penetrating hit . He managed to headbutt back twice and again not deal an unsaved wound to the nobs. (He'd doing his big bulky job of keeping those jerks tied up, so I'm not complaining.) Both Purifier squads catch up with the tail end of the mob swarming Strike Squad Secundus. Both "Cleansing Flames" go off once more and all but 6 Orks are burnt to a crisp by the psychic fire. The combined close combat prowess, and higher initiative, of 3 squads of knights finishes off the measly 6 Orks. The entire Waaagh is now down to 9 nob bikers with power klaws, the Warboss and his bodyguard of boyz. Turn 4:Warboss moves up with his boys. Shooting phase, a couple slugga shots and Warboss shots don't kill a single knight in Strike Squad Primoris. Assault phase, Janus fails to cast Sanctuary. (Drat...) And the Warboss and his boyz make it into combat with the Strike Squad and Janus. The strike Squad casts "Hammerhand" successfully and Janus activates his force weapon. The Strike squad targets the boyz while Janus focuses all his might, and attacks, at the Warboss. Not as many boyz as I would've liked died, however Janus successfully managed to wound the Warboss once. The psychic backlash from his weapon ran though the Warboss like a current of electricity, frying the Orks soul and mind in one strike; he slumps over a lifeless, as well as soulless, corpse. The boys hit back, killing 4 knights. The Nob bikers finish off Dreadnought Primoris (finally) and consolidate towards Janus and his Strike Squad. Obsidian Knights Turn: Everything, besides Janus and Strike Squad Primoris unloads on the nob bikers. Combined Vindicare, Dreadnought, and knight fire fells only 1 nob, but puts 1 wound on every other nob. Janus and Strike Squad Primoris both cast "Hammerhand" and wipe out the remaining boyz. They consolidate away from the bikers. I hold my HQ with Strike Squad Secundus, his is empty with no one within miles of it, friend or foe. Ork player concedes. ---------------------------------------------------Game 4--------------------------------------------------------- Fourth game: Dawn of War, Annihilation - Versus Blood Angels - I lost roll to go first. All right, now for this game I remember his list entirely, because it's rather simple and I've played against it a lot. (I've beaten it every time with my Blood Angels, but this was a trial by fire for the Obsidian Knights.) His list is 4 x 10 man Assault squad, sarge with melta-bombs, 2 marines in each squad with melta-guns. 2 x Sanguinary priests with Jump packs attached to an assault squad each. Mephiston (a.k.a. "The Beat Stick"). And last, but not least, a Stormraven with Multi-melta, twin-linked Lascannon, and Extra Armor. He usually plays a DoA list and deepstrikes all of them, but "Warp Quake" does mean things to deepstriking lists. So he opts for regular old deployment. Nothing of his gets "Red Thirst." Like it matters... with those Priests nearby. Turn 1: He gets the slightly better side of the table. (It's slightly better because it had that big impassible hill on it. ( The one where the Nob Bikers hid the previous game.) Mephiston and two assault squads are deployed on his side of the board far back, he knows Grey Knights enough to avoid any unnecessary psycannon fire. The rest of his forces arrive, all 4 assault squads move up into safety terrain, aka, the woods and behind the hill. The Stormraven (thank god unable to hide because of its redonkulous base) zips 12" behind the hill, only obscuring it. Mephiston moves to the back of the Stormraven, obviously hidden by the hill and gearing up to climb in that bad-boy next turn. Shooting phase is a "meh" as some of the assault troops "Run" and the SR (I'll be calling the Stormraven "SR" from now on to save on typing space.) Lascannon hits, but I save against it. Obsidian Knights Turn: I KNOW he has to come to me with an assault based army like that, so I'm not doing him any favors. I keep my strike squads hunkered down in trenches with Janus attached to squad Secundus. (Don't want the Lascannon, multi-melta, or Bloodstrike missiles to one-shot him in the open.) My dreadnoughts walk onto the field and waddle into some ruins. Dreadnought Secundus almost immobilized himself with a roll of 2 on the dangerous terrain test. (I think I'll attach mini dozer-blades to each of his shins from now on.) The purifiers move up as far as possible towards the trenches. Shooting phase. The purifiers run, getting to the rubble behind the trenches. I am NOT taking chances so all 3 Dreads open up on the SR. The dice-gods truly must've hated me this phase... Even with the re-rolls, I only hit 6 out of 12 shots. (Ugg) I penetrated twice, glanced once, and didn't even scratch with the other 3. I got a "Vehicle Wrecked" on the pen, much to my joy, a stun, and an immobilize with the glances. I was feeling pretty confident, until he pulled off all 3 cover saves... fudge... My turn ends with no activity in the assault phase, and my opponent chortling and poking fun at me and my troops as well as gloating for saving all 3 on the SR. (Update now, I really dislike this guy for a number of reasons. He's a bit smelly, he's not too smart with treating other people, he band-wagons every new army (Though if he loves the game enough I can see it as not band-wagoning, except for the fact that he always goes for "tournament lists" or local "legend" lists instead of making his own. He copied my Blood Angels list to a "T" a couple months after the new dex came out and I refused to play against an exact copy of my list. Wouldn't a lot of other people? My biggest pet peeve is his propensity to gloat at ANYTHING that's in his favor. Like he's some sort of tactical demi-god. I dislike gloaters... I really don't like this guy, so you all may notice some unintentional venom in my words, I apologize beforehand. :( But anyway, back to the game. </rant>) Turn 2: Mephiston pops into the SR (duh) and the SR zooms off another staggering 6" to the left, getting closer but still staying obscured. All the assault troops move up and hug the back of that hill like it's their life-line. (It kind of is considering the amount of firepower that will fire at them should they so much as sneeze while outside the cover of that hill.) Shooting phase. Janus chants, raises his hand into the air, unfolds his fist, and mist spills forth to swirl around all friendly troops. Including my dreads! :) The SR unleashes a hellstorm of fire, 3 Bloodstrike missiles target Dreadnought Primoris, and 1 missile, along with the Lascannon, target Dreadnought Secundus. Dreadnought Primoris get's both his Autocannon mounts blown off and stunned. (Seems to be a recurring pattern forming here...) Dreadnought Secundus gets blown up in a fire ball of 4" diameter, luckily not reaching any of my troops. Neither dread got their 6+ cover save. My opponent laughs some more and then ends his turn. Obsidian Knights Turn: I knew I could goad this jerk into clumping up his attack force if I made the target area juicy enough. I rotate Strike Squad Secundus, attached Janus, and the two purifiers Northeast from the trenches into some bushes and rubble. It's hard to describe without a diagram, but what I've effectively done is now relocated the bulk of my army to the right, requiring this guy to now take at least 2 turns to get Mephiston to assault range instead of being able to slam in with a Mephiston SR drop next turn and then move all his troops forward in the chaos. (Insert me giggling maniacally in my head.)Shooting phase, my 3 squads run farther Northeast, further away from the Marine blob situated behind a hill. A hill that with my lucky 5" run will now be open to 5 psycannon's fire next turn. (I couldn't fit the 6th guy far enough forward, poop...) Dreadnought Primoris waddles back towards my lines with both of his arms billowing smoke, Dreadnought Secundus is still a flaming crater, but Dreadnought Tertius redeems his brothers by Stunning the SR, twice, as he runs away from the SR as fast as his stubby legs will take him. I'm now geared to unleash a whole lot of fire on those marines if they don't commit to an assault, which 2 Assault squads are in range of, or run backwards. If they run away this would also allow my Dreadnought to further harass and damage the SR until it runs away, or runs closer and gets popped. If it gets popped, that would end up leaving Mephiston open to being chewed apart by focused fire. End of turn. (Getting in range of an assault on purpose may seem dumb, but remember those purifiers? Yeah..., they're scary, and he knows it. >:3 So he's either going to commit, and get "Cleansing Flamed" like a mofo while getting tactical control of the board, or running away leaving me to spread out and solidify a gunline that will chew up any assaults he tries to make after that, gaining tactical control of the board. Turn 3: (I would like to say that a grimness fell over his face as he realized the ultimatum, but that's not true. XD) He's smart enough to know what I've "Chess maneuvered" him into. So he does the best, and really only, option if he wants to win; that big blob of marines commits. 42 angels suddenly rise up on plumes of smoke and noise, rocketing through the air towards the line of jet-black knights. The SR zooms ever closer, Mephiston inside. Shooting phase opens up with a thump of bolt pistols picking away at my cover and troops as well as the easily recognized "hiss" of melta-guns. Not one knight dies to bolt fire, but one does die to a meltagun in Strike Squad Primoris. (Thank The Emperor that's all, I need all the hands I can get in the ensuing charlie foxtrot.) The other 2 squads of Assault marines "Run" closer to guarantee an assault next round without needing to Jump into the area, as well as dangerous because of Jump-pack rules, terrain behind me. Just like with the Orks, Janus once again "pulls a Gandalf" (Refer to the Ork game for that joke to make sense) and casts "Sanctuary" The two squads of Assault marines within range move for the assault, one of them gets a roll of 2" for the "new" difficult terrain Janus has made, failing to get into combat with Strike Squad Primoris.. The other squad makes it into combat with Strike Squad Secundus, losing 2 marines to dangerous terrain. (I love Janus... He is easily the MVP of my entire list.) Secundus' hands, swords, and hammer glow with divine fury, as does Janus' sword, "Hammerhand" goes off for both units. The squad that hadn't made it into combat had an attached Sanguinary priest, so every Blood Angel, I MEAN ALL 42, are FURIOUS. They hit first and kill 1 knight. (I love Space Marine vanilla close combat weapons versus MEQ armies...Coincidentally, I also love having all power weapons in my squad except for the power weaponless psycannon knights; one of which I just sacrificed. :D) I hit back and kill 4 marines with my knights' swords, Janus kills none, and the Justicar with hammer kills 1. He passes morale, but suffers no further losses for staying in the fight. End of his turn. Obsidian Knights Turn: My remaining dreadnoughts waddle ever closer towards my troops. Strike Squad Primoris moves towards the embattled Blood Angels, the only squad that made combat, and glares menacingly at them. Shooting phase, the Purifiers unleash all their fire on the Blood Angels Squad that hadn't made it into combat the last turn. Not many die to the normal fire, but 2 do fail cover saves against the 3 rendings I got. The Dreadnought aims skyward, hits his mark all 4 times, and... AND!!!! Stuns the SR again... (That damn thing is just impossible to kill this game) My armless dread "Runs" towards the SR. (I'm hoping I can goad him into going for the Kill Point by letting out Mephiston.) Strike Squad Primoris, along with Secundus, and Janus all cast "Hammerhand", fight in close combat, and wipe out the remaining Blood Angels in that squad. They both consolidate back towards my Purifiers. (I'm hoping to get some distance to let Janus' "Sanctuary" get some more fails and kills off on the enemy.) He now has 1 Kill point, as do I. (Logic would say you should attack troops with "Furious Charge" yourself to deny them the bonus. But, I took advantage of my knights' hardiness and power weapons so I could bunch up the Blood Angels so "Cleansing Flame" could do mean things. As you'll see later on, that does not go as planned. *sadface*) Turn 4: Movement phase was obvious, SR zooms closer (Not dropping Mephiston and leaving my armless dread in the dust. My dread is now sad no one loves him and I'm sad I couldn't goad him into a free Kill Point to buy time. DRAT) Mephiston pops out. Janus shields his allies in mist once more with "Shrouding". Shooting phase causes a casualty to Purifier Squad Secundus as well as Strike Squad Secundus and Primoris. (I'm getting whittled away. D:) Mephiston runs closer with vigor and a terrifying gleam in his eyes, like an escaped prisoner who sees a car with the keys still in it. "Sanctuary" is cast by Janus once more. (How I love that power...) I thought I had made my lines tight enough, but he found a way, with the aid of onlookers siding with him in the argument, to get into combat with Purifier squad Secundus. (It was a really, really, REALLY close call... I mean, there was probably a MICROMETER gap between his Blood Angel and the bases of my two Strike Squads' edge-most knights.) Dangerous terrain tests kill 2 marines from one assault squad, 2 from another, and 1 from the squad that engaged the Purifier squad as well as Strike squad. Mephiston wades into the Strike Squad with Janus. The "poop-storm" begins... "Cleansing Flame" fails with a doubles roll. Not only does it not go off, but I lose the Knight of The Flame. To add insult to injury, my force weapon roll for Janus' strike squad fails. WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!?!(Fudge, again...) Mephiston can't reach Janus (Thank God) but does do nasty things to the strike squad and cancel Janus' "Hammerhand". Mephiston fells a couple knights single-handedly. Each Blood Angels Squad does some okay damage, I lose 2 knights from both Strike Squads, and another from the Purifier squad. I strike back, ironically killing the same number of Blood Angels in each squad. Each Blood Angels squad loses 2 marines. I don't even try to wound Mephiston with S4 and no force weapon effect, Justicar is out of range. No leadership losses or following wounds to speak of. Both sides are hurting. Obsidian Knights Turn: My armless Dreadnought once again weeps and moves towards the fight on the right flank as does the other. My Purifier squad moves around to be able to assault Mephiston and the marines in the squad nearest him. Shooting phase, nothing... EXCEPT!! My remaining Dreadnought FINALLY kills that SR; it falls out of the sky in a fiery heap. The remaining not-in-combat Purifiers assault Mephiston and the marine squad. Mephiston cancels their Force Weapons activation. (ARRGH) The other Purifiers cast "Cleansing Flame" roasting a few marines, Janus' Hammerhand is cancelled out, and so is his Strike Squad's Force Weapons. I don't remember which wounds went to which squad, it was a madhouse with all that close combat.... But 2 Blood Angels squads are wiped out, the only Blood Angels left alive are the squad near Mephiston, and Mephiston himself. My other Purifier Squad survives with 2 knights, and my now free Strike Squad is left with only 4 knights. Janus' Strike squad is wiped out except for one knight. Mephiston closes the gap with Janus and his knight. Turn 5: Nothing of note in Movement or Shooting. Janus gets his force weapon cancelled, as do the Purifiers, however the remaining Justicar in Janus' strike squad succeeds his. Mephiston proceeds to cleave Janus in two when I didn't cancel his "Unleash Rage" for the first time all game. Janus slumps to the ground, felled by another Psyker. The Purifiers direct all their attacks at the marines, who direct their attacks back and at the Justicar. I lose a Purifier, the Justicar lives, and the Blood Angels squad is left alive with just the Sergeant. The Justicar then avenges Janus in the most spectacular way by caving in Mephiston's head with his Daemon Hammer... Justice was served (Puts on glasses and plays the CSI theme. Get it? The Justicar killed him. :D) The remaining Blood Angel passes his morale, and then is killed by the ensuing "I won the combat" wounds. Game over. Opponent, 2 kill points, ALMOST a third. Me, 6. I won this BARELY. ---------------------------------------------------Game 5--------------------------------------------------------- Fifth game: Pitched Battle, Annihilation - Versus Salamanders - I won roll to go first. Because this was my latest game I remember the list very well. It's only the second time I've played against it, but I beat it with my Blood Angels the first time so I'm confident. His list is 3 x 10 man tac squads with multi-melta, flamer, Sergeant with a power fist, and a bare-bones Rhino for each squad. He runs 3, yes 3, Thunderfire Cannons for his heavy support. Vulkan for his HQ, and 8 assault termies with Storm Shield and Thunder Hammer for his elites. It's a pretty hardy and versatile list. (This guy shies away from playing against me for some reason. I'm not sure why exactly. He's a very competent player, I think the absolute shut down I gave him on Turn one with my BA in our first game may have created this shyness towards me? *shrugs* This was the first time we'd played in almost a year and he had come up to me, of all people it was him, I was shocked. He asked to have new Grey Knights explained to him so I explained all the units I had, psybolt ammunition, and my Psychic Powers. I explained all he had to look out against in my list, "Shrouding", "Sanctuary", "Warp Quake", "Cleansing Flame", and "Psychic Pilot.") Seems that a lot of people want to play against a list with such a low body count. They seem to really want to tear my poor knights apart with superior numbers I'd guess. Too bad the Obsidian Knights don't give up or roll over. These 35 brave souls are not something to be mocked or thought weak! (There's my token grimdark pre-battle narration, now read on further for BATTLE!!!) Turn 1: For once I'm, gladly, not fighting on the table with the impassible mountain-hill-majiggers. It's a pretty open table with some tall ruins being the only real line of sight blockers. I'm a tad worried about those Thunderfire Cannons so I deploy a good deal spread out. Not a HUGE spread, but wide enough to make sure those templates don't do mean things to me. My Strike Squads and Janus are placed to give maximum "Warp Quake", "Shrouding", and "Sanctuary" coverage. The Dreads are set up as usual, spread apart in the back lines of my army, Janus is attached to Purifier Squad Secundus, and the Vindicare Assassin is sitting pretty in a ruin in between my Strike Squads on the front lines. (Normally I'd have him further back, but those Thunderfires are going to hit him wherever he is, so I might as well guarantee him area terrain cover and better shot opportunities.) My opponent deploys all his squads in their respective Rhinos at the back of his side, Vulkan hides behind the middle Rhino, the Terminators are held in reserve, (despite me warning him about "Warp Quake") and the Thunderfire Cannons are sitting in ruins, all bunched up. (Oh how I wished I had an orbital bombardment or Vindicator right then... But to be fair, if he deployed any farther away his side's tall ruin would block the Thunderfire cannons from firing on anything except my left-most Dreadnought.) I open up the game by moving nothing, that's right, I sit still like a big gun-lining girl. I open up the shooting phase by having the Vindicare turbo-penetrate the left most Thunderfire Cannon.(This is the farthest one away and this makes sure that if I kill it, that left one couldn't run out of range of the Vindicare on the next turn if I killed a different one.) Round hits, comes up as a 19 armor pen, and kills the gun. (Bit overkill...) Dreadnought Primoris wrecks the left-most rhino, (+1KP) Dreadnought Secundus stuns the middle Rhino, and Dreadnought Tertius explodes the right-most Rhino, twice. (+1KP) No Salamanders die from the Rhino explosion and avoid being pinned, my turn ends. Salamanders Turn: The two Tactical Squads crawl away from their respective destroyed transports, crawling horizontally into cover, still out of range of my foot soldiers' guns. Vulkan stays hidden behind the still alive Rhino, he's not dumb enough to pop him out and get him insta-killed by Dreadnought fire. The now free from cannon duty Techmarine moves towards the stunned Rhino. Nothing else moves. Shooting phase. In an ungodly testament to the sheer firepower Thunderfire Cannons can dish out with "Hit" rolls, the remaining 2 target Purifier Squad Secundus. Of the 8 shots, 7 "Hit" and one scatters into nowhere. I proceed to have to save against 21 shots on a 6 man squad... ouch. Janus makes all of his, but my luck runs out and EVERY Purifier in Squad Secundus is wiped out. (That HURT.) No other shooting to speak of. I've 2 kill points, my opponent 1. (This was a mean turn 1 for both sides. He lost his ability to get to me, stranding his squads and Vulkan on his side of the board, and I lost an entire Purifier Squad... arggh...) Turn 2: A chorus and light rises up from the Obsidian Knights' lines. The air shifts, the ground shakes, the very immaterium itself ripples with their Psychic might. Both Strike Squads activate "Warp Quake." Contrary to the awesomeness of that last line about "Warp Quake", Janus squeals like a girl and makes a dash for Purifier Squad Primoris after witnessing everything, and everyone, around him get blown to smithereens. Nothing else moves. Shooting phase, it's retribution time... For the fallen!!! Dreadnought Primoris proceeds to snipe the Techmarine of the, now, left-most Thunderfire Cannon. (all 4 shots hit the crew. >:D) The gun, now without a crew, is useless. (+1 KP!) Dreadnought Secundus kills the only remaining Thunderfire Cannon, but not its Techmarine. Dreadnought Tertius stuns and wrecks the last remaining Rhino. (+1KP, and he's now stranded across the board with no firepower to reach my Dreads.) The Vindicare Assassin scans the battlefield with his helmet's enhanced cogitators and sensory equipment. He spies a green marine clad in servo-harness ambling across the field with a purpose and urgentness in his step. He lifts the Exitus rifle up to a firing position, bracing his shoulder against the ruin's window frame, and lowering his head behind the powerful scope. Amidst the fire and din of battle he exhales smoothly, the barely visible frozen cloud of his breath lightly disperses into the air around him. A loud shot rings out, the sonic boom of the round echoing around the ruin's chambers. Across the battlefield the Techmarine sweats profusely inside the hot confines of his stifling helmet and bulky Artificer armor, he runs ever closer to the Rhino wreck, seeking cover. Just mere feet away from cover his helmet, and indeed his head, explodes open in a spectacular shower of metal, wire, brain-matter, and flesh. His corpse slumps to the ground. (+1KP) My shooting phase, and turn, ends. Salamanders Turn: His reserves arrive, he puts them about 3 inches outside of "Warp Quake" range near a thicker ruin, this would allow him to obscure his Terminators from fire for the turn, a good deployment. He scatters 7 inches to the slight Northwest. His squad lands in the "Warp Quake" (Uh oh... >.>) A "4" is rolled for mishap. I place his Terminators on his side of the board in his area terrain forest. He loses a Terminator to the dangerous terrain test. But the real killer, he's now in the far back, left corner; about 40 inches away from my nearest unit. (I know... I'm a jerk... -.-) With nothing else to do, he moves all his Tactical Squads up into the rubble on the edge of dirt road, forming a line and getting to about 20" away from my Strike Squads. Vulkan no longer hides behind the Rhino, he's attached himself to the middle Rhino's tactical squad, moving up with them away from their wrecked Rhino. No shooting from him, turn ends. Turn 3: I move my Purifier Squad, with attached Janus, closer to the front lines. Shooting phase rolls around. With a quick jerk of his aim the Vindicare brings his aim onto Vulkan's torso. Underneath his mask the assassin grins, he loads a round that faintly glows blue into the rifle, and fires. Seeing the glint of a rifle scope facing right at him, Vulkan raises his drake-scale mantle to shield his body. The round flies towards its target and sends sparks in every direction as it sheers right through the scales like butter and passes clean through Vulkan himself. "Shield Breaker" round takes out his invulnerable save, and a wound from him. I focus all of both Strike Squads' firepower, as well as that of the 3 Dreadnoughts onto the squad with Vulkan. The marines are DECIMATED. All but 2 of them are killed, the multi-melta, Sergeant, and Vulkan are the only things left standing. (He didn't allocate any autocannon wounds to Vulkan, drat...) All the leaves, trees, ground, and rubble around them are pocked with bolt-holes and dust swirling about from the firestorm's impacts. Salamanders Turn: The Terminators move closer now, a long way from their targets, and home. (Pretty sure they're not in Kansas anymore.) The last remaining Techmarine trots towards his allies, and that's all that moves. Janus casts "Shrouding" The shooting phase sees his return fire kill 2 knights in Strike squad Primoris, and none in Secundus. The multi-melta marine attached to Vulkan shoots, hits, and wounds the Vindicare assassin, but he makes the cover save. (Thank you "Stealth") The Techmarine "Runs" closer to his allies. End of his turn. Turn 4: The Purifiers move up, just a bit. Shooting phase. The remaining Purifiers get revenge by gunning down the Sergeant and multi-melta marine attached to Vulkan, leaving the Forgefather naked. (+1KP) Dreadnought Primoris tries, and fails to kill Vulkan. Dreadnought Secundus, however, hits and wounds Vulkan 4 times. Vulkan kneels to the ground, shouldering the high caliber rounds flying his direction. Four autocannon rounds ricochet off his masterfully crafted armor into different directions. It seems the storm has lifted until another round slams into his armor, then a second round clips his shoulder and spins him around to the right with its force, still not puncturing his armor. A third round bounces off his shoulder once more, and then the final round hits him square in the chest; he's blown wide open and splatters rib-plate, organs, tissue, and gene-seed all over the ground. Vulkan is down with 1 autocannon wound not saved from Dreadnought Secundus, "Instant Deathing" him.(+1KP) Focused fire from both Strike Squads shaves 6 marines off of another Tactical squad, and once more the Vindicare Assassin guns down a bulky and hapless Techmarine with a "Hellfire" round.(+1KP) Salamander Player concedes. Total Kill Points, Warp-tainted(Supposedly) Salamanders: 1. Obsidian Knights: 7 (Those dedicated transports KILL YOU in Annihilation games.) ---------------------------------------------------Summary Notes--------------------------------------------------------- I was going to write out all 5 games but this took a lot longer than expected. I'll write the fifth one tomorrow. Game 1: List worked like I designed it. Janus didn't come into support as often as I have him included to do in the list, but he saved a good number of purifiers from being turned to anti-tank-missile-impaled goop. The sheer wall of high strength firepower overwhelmed and made a mockery of the heretical Sons of Russ' famed close combat prowess and melta-spam. (Don't hate, Space Wolf players. You're one of my favorite chapters, I'm just being dramatic and grimdark.) Game 2: Janus did his part in this list. He went where no Librarian has ever gone before! Not really, he just saved a lot of Knights from ending up fried or blown up with his mystical voodoo. My list still works really well, it just kind of slowed to a grind against so much FNP. That would be easily negated by assaulting with those power swords and hammers, but knowing my luck I would of failed the difficult terrain role by 1" and then get promptly roasted by those plasma guns rapid firing. All in all, Chapter 666 once again prevails over the foul taint of Chaos. Daemons and heretics will fall before us. STRIKE THEM DOWN WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT! Game 3: This, hands down, is a display of power for "Cleansing Flame." That power saved my bacon. This game was also a show of how powerful "Sanctuary" can be. All in all, an amazing game from both sides. First time I've ever played against an Ork "Tide Army" and I did pretty well I think. Lost a good number of knights and a dread, but that's a small price to pay to win. Their sacrifices will be written, and their bodies brought back to Titan. For the Emperor, kill the alien! Game 4: Oh right, I forgot to mention the Vindicare Assassin. He was pretty much worthless. Every time he fired, they cover saved against his shots... And that's why he wasn't in the report, he did, NOTHING! :D Mephiston cancelled way more powers than he statistically should of. My Dreadnoughts, for the first time, didn't shine in that game. And Janus also died for the first time. I was hoping for a heroic "He slayed the beast named "Mephiston" action with his force weapon, but oh well. Also, I beat smelly again by using some ballsy tactics. >:3 *fist pump* (There's my token insult/meanness. I HATE THAT GUY. DX< ) Game 5: So I don't know about you guys... But MVP goes to that Vindicare Assassin. He was worth his points, EASILY. As is always the tactic, I seek to take out enemy long range firepower first and foremost, as well as maneuverability. Those Dreadnoughts really do their part with dealing with both. They pretty much always cripple transports like Rhinos or rip them open, great anti-AV11. Not much to say other than, "I apologize in advance to the world for being such a jerk with those Terminators. After my formative games are done, where I flesh out the list, I will be less mean from now on, I promise." That's the last of the games. Hope you all enjoy the battle reports mixed with a bit of storytelling. Go forth brothers, fight for the Emperor and all of mankind. Burn the heretic, death to the foul legions of Chaos!!! ~Dark Legionnare and his Obsidian Knights Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
nurglez Posted June 5, 2011 Share Posted June 5, 2011 Rather funny. But my name is Janus. Was rather strange to find out that I was the first grandmaster. But you learn something new every day heh. Good win. I'd like to try out a list like this. Nice amount of str 8 shots to pop transports. And psycannons are lovely. Looking forward to the next reports. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2783123 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Legionnare Posted June 6, 2011 Author Share Posted June 6, 2011 Second game up on first post of the thread. Third to come later tonight, or tomorrow. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2783250 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oiad Posted June 6, 2011 Share Posted June 6, 2011 Wow, it seemed so... one-sided. Sounds heretical but I almost felt sorry for Typhus and chums. Shows how well-written the reports are and I can't wait to read the about other three games. Keep up the good work! Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2783546 Share on other sites More sharing options...
the jeske Posted June 6, 2011 Share Posted June 6, 2011 game 2. 3 oblits dead on turn one then 2 . and 2 defilers that 4 hvy support choices Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2784056 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Legionnare Posted June 6, 2011 Author Share Posted June 6, 2011 Really? My home state playgroup never really hounds about Force Organization. I've never really questioned people's force deployment charts either, I've thought until now that they were elite choice. That'll teach me for not buying a Chaos codex I guess. I will harp on this bearded fellow next time I see him. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Though I don't think it will change him much. He'll probably just put them in one squad. XD Also, game 3's up. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2784182 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Xeones Posted June 6, 2011 Share Posted June 6, 2011 Very enjoyable read-throughs! :D Yeah, cleansing flame is beastly on things like orks and nids. I expected the purifiers to do well in the third game, but the sheer number of bodies they chewed though is still very impressive--especially for such a comparatively small force. I hope you write up those other two reports. I'm honestly surprised how well your dreadnoughts have done at staying alive thus far. Only one casualty in three games has certainly helped you out I'd think. Do you attribute their longevity on good placement and cover saves, Psychic Pilot, or their ability to out-range and gun down other threats? Perhaps a combination of all three? Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2784254 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimtooth Posted June 6, 2011 Share Posted June 6, 2011 I was under the impression that yiu always hit the front armor of a dreadnought in close combat, despite no matter beijng immobilized. It helps when placing grenades, but does not change the armor facing. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2784268 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Legionnare Posted June 6, 2011 Author Share Posted June 6, 2011 Very true Ramses! I meant more so hitting him in the butt, than rear armor. This was back when Janus was my anti-walker with a Daemon Hammer. Wasn't reliable so I gave every squad the means to hurt walkers. Xeones: I attribute their survival to focusing on taking out all enemy heavy firepower first and foremost. Defilers, Obliterators, Land Raiders. The one game I didn't of the 3 so far was leaving the Longfangs alive. That success was attributed to Psychic Pilot. In the 4th game, against Blood Angels, the Dreads do not survive so well. >.> Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2784284 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimtooth Posted June 6, 2011 Share Posted June 6, 2011 This is an honest question regarding your opponents and not at all directed at you or your tactics; Have you found any of your successes more linked to your opponents not truly knowing what a GK army is capable of versus your use of superior tactics? I only ask this because your reports seem to paint your opponents as somewhat clueless against GK, even the veteran player. Firstly, I have seen this at my own club in tournaments that have happened since the GK release. People are losing to GK more out of not knowing the army versus any other reason. I am fairly known as a pretty decent SW at the store I play at and have had a few GK players express that they were glad to have not faced me because from conversations out of game, they know I have done my homework with the GK codex. Secondly, I have read various battle reports on several 40k sites that clearly show a lack of understanding of the GK resulting in losses. This is spread across several different match-ups and builds. As if noone has even read the codex and know what units in a GK army are capable of doing. So while you have a well thought out list, it is really not a 5-0 list against knowledgeable oppononents. Do you think this list will carry you beyond the, "new army" stage or will you be destined to make changes once your normal group of opponents do a little more GK research? Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2784412 Share on other sites More sharing options...
nurglez Posted June 6, 2011 Share Posted June 6, 2011 Really enjoying these, especially funny seeing myself do so well to cast psychic abilities and killing an Ork Warboss :D Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2784416 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Legionnare Posted June 7, 2011 Author Share Posted June 7, 2011 Ramses: I do whole-heartedly believe that the only reason I won against that green tide army was because he didn't know what Purifiers were capable of. In a spearhead game where I could've been farther away, I might've won. But if that Ork player had spread out his squads a little better, it would've been a whole different story. Especially in a pitched battle deployment like that where the distance to me was only 24-30 inches. That's an easily closed distance with stuff doing nothing but moving and running, which is what that Ork list is designed to do; especially with a "Waaagh." If he hadn't allowed me to touch both those squads at once, those Purifiers probably would've died on the next turn. I might've been ready by then, but who knows. :/ I don't believe much else was really "Don't know what shiny new army can do" except for that Land Raider in the first game. However, if I hadn't of killed it I would've focused fire on that Land Raider with more stuff to take it out, dreads to stun, shake, immobilize, etc...; and if that wasn't enough, a Turbo Penetrator from the Vindi. The Chaos game, and Wolf game were for the most part, I think, just my list's sheer amount of high Strength firepower in a 1500 point game overwhelming their ability to counter the dreads. I place my success on the Dreads mainly. As soon as the stuff that can reliably take them out is gone I usually find it to be smooth sailing. The Blood Angles game, which is the next one I'll be writing later tonight, was a real test of mettle. He's a man I've grown to dislike for band-wagoning every single new army. But hey, if he has the money and loves the game enough, maybe it's not band-wagoning for him. Anyways, he also plays Grey Knights so he knew what my powers, guns, and units could do. Against him, I BARELY scraped out a victory because he was exceptionally tactical. There was a lot less "squat and unload" in his game than there was the others. The vs Blood Angles game was a "think 2 turns ahead and plan for it" type deal. It was really close, but you can read later tonight. He usually plays a DoA list, but he knew the meanness that "Warp Quake" can do, so he didn't fall into that incredibly easy vice. As for most of my opponents, not to toot my own horn, but my local playgroup is a wee bit less on the "Great players" scale. My personal friends John-Paul and George are smart lads like myself(And always give me the biggest runs for my money.) But the common store riff-raff doesn't seem it. My Blood Angels record, in my sig, is a testament to my home state play group. Out of all those wins and losses I only played 10 games out of state up in VT. And out of those 10, 4 of those were draws; 3 of which were VERY CLOSE draws with both sides almost being massacred. In the end, it all comes down to dice rolls. I've had games go down the tubes wicked fast because of crappy rolls. Take the Space wolves game for example. He could've cancelled out a LOT of powers which helped me win if he hadn't failed the cover saves for his Librarians. He would've most likely negated both my Psychic pilots, shrouding, etc... If there's anything I've noticed out of all these games, including the 2 unwritten ones, those squad-wide power weapons really seem to scare folks. I'm not sure why, because they're easily beatable by a squad of say, Death company, or a cleverly charged walker. I'm sure as I play this list more there will be a lot more "Skin of my teeth" victories and maybe a few draws and losses. I'll be expanding this army to 2500 points eventually, like I do with all of them. So there'll be some variety in a half year or so. Edit: I LIED. I'm too beat. Game 4 will be up tomorrow. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2784490 Share on other sites More sharing options...
worloch Posted June 7, 2011 Share Posted June 7, 2011 First off, let me say I like the BR's. I enjoy reading them and can tell you put some work in to it, and they also help me to theorycraft for my own play. However, the real reason I'm posting here is because I noticed something that stood out in your game 3 write up, that I wanted to ask about. You posted: Nob Bikers engage, destroy both autocannon mounts, but don't kill Dreadnought Primoris. and The bikers still don't kill Dreadnought Primoris, stunning him twice and shaking him 3 times with glances, immobilizing him with a pen, and armament destroying nothing with another penetrating hit . If I'm reading that right, your dread had both weapons knocked off in 1 round of combat, and then took an immobilize and weapon destroyed in the next. That should have killed him, I believe, as if you are immobilized and have no weapons left, the next immobilize or weapon destroyed result becomes a wrecked a result instead. Am I reading that right, or am I missing something there? To me it is an important distinction because if those Nob Bikers had finished the Dread in your turn 3, they would have had their turn 4 to move up and assault again, rather than finishing off the Dread in their turn 4 and getting shot up on your turn 4. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2785181 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Legionnare Posted June 7, 2011 Author Share Posted June 7, 2011 If I'm reading that right, your dread had both weapons knocked off in 1 round of combat, and then took an immobilize and weapon destroyed in the next. That should have killed him, I believe, as if you are immobilized and have no weapons left, the next immobilize or weapon destroyed result becomes a wrecked a result instead. Am I reading that right, or am I missing something there? To me it is an important distinction because if those Nob Bikers had finished the Dread in your turn 3, they would have had their turn 4 to move up and assault again, rather than finishing off the Dread in their turn 4 and getting shot up on your turn 4. Aha! Good call mate. Though I'm not 100% sure about numbers and results in the Ork game. There was so much going on it's hard to recall from memory exact effects, shooting deaths, and happenstance. I definitively remember the two initial "Weapon destroyed" in the initial assault. I also 100% know he got immobilized in the second wave, but I'm not 100% about all the other results. I know that through all the power klaws smacking him about, he did receive a ridiculous amount of stuns and shakes, there may, or may not of been a "Weapon Destoyed" after the Immobilize. If my memory is crap, then it might've not happened. If my memory is right, and we ignored that part of the damage results rule, we most likely got caught up in the fact and overlooked that foot note that's not present on the "Quick Ref" part of the 5th ed book. Either way it looks like some egg on my face, so, whoops. XD Though, even if they had broken away earlier I don't think they would've been much of a help. They had another turn of moving to assault to get to their closest target even if they won a turn earlier. By then things would of been mopped up, they might've been able to massacre the Strike Squad and Janus but would take wounds back in CC, and then still get shot to crap. But the dice gods are fickle, so we'll never know. D: Also, surprise Networking job today in an hour and a half; so the versus Blood Angels report will be up later tonight. (Sorry for the delay.... again, lads. D:) Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2785206 Share on other sites More sharing options...
worloch Posted June 7, 2011 Share Posted June 7, 2011 Yeah, it can be hard to remember details like that so long after the fact - I'm impressed that you can remember as much as you did :D My Dreads get targeted and killed right away in the games I've played. My gaming group just hates to see them I guess ... Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2785269 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Legionnare Posted June 8, 2011 Author Share Posted June 8, 2011 I'm awake, typos fixed, game 4 up, cheers. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2786109 Share on other sites More sharing options...
T3mpl@r Crusade Posted June 8, 2011 Share Posted June 8, 2011 really enjoying these batreps Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2786491 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Legionnare Posted June 9, 2011 Author Share Posted June 9, 2011 really enjoying these batreps Thank you very much. A good number of battle reports tend to bore me when I read them, so I decided to liven mine up with a bit of dramatization and such. Glad to see it works! :D Also, game 5's up and I am out of here!!! (Until I come back to check for typos.) Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2786698 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reclusiarch Darius Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 First off, been really enjoying these battle reports, very entertaining. Just having read Game 5, I can't help but feel sorry for the other guy. He took a very...nuanced list shall we say. You deserved the win (good target priority, better manoeuvring), but what he brought just wasn't good enough. Once the Thunderfires and Rhinos died, he couldn't touch you. It was bad luck to lose his Terminators like that, but you did warn him, and Deepstriking Stormhammer is always a bit iffy anyway. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2786828 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morollan Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 My personal friends John-Paul and George are smart lads like myself You're not called Ringo are you? :devil: Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2786989 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Legionnare Posted June 9, 2011 Author Share Posted June 9, 2011 First off, been really enjoying these battle reports, very entertaining. Just having read Game 5, I can't help but feel sorry for the other guy. He took a very...nuanced list shall we say. You deserved the win (good target priority, better manoeuvring), but what he brought just wasn't good enough. Once the Thunderfires and Rhinos died, he couldn't touch you. It was bad luck to lose his Terminators like that, but you did warn him, and Deepstriking Stormhammer is always a bit iffy anyway. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by nuanced, but I think I have an idea. The thing is, his list puts a real hurting on a lot of other people in my home-state playgroup. My new Obsidian Knights list is practically the only all ranged army around, aside from a Pedro Kantor Sternguard list. He's used to people coming at him, where his list shines. He's not used to lists that outrange him, and can't adapt to those kind of armies well at all. My BA are super maneuverable, and a Furioso and Death Company do mean things when they pop out of a SR turn one or two and start to tear through someone's lines. This allows me to steadily move up with everything else while the DC and Dread soak up fire every time they're not in close combat. That tactic usually overwhelms a lot of people in my playgroup and allows me to adapt to assault, or gunline armies. (Having a Land Raider instead of a SR in non-melta games also does mean things.)This game his weakness was, and will be until he updates the list, a lack of long range anti-vehicle. Those multi-meltas are nice, but they're not going to cut it against 6 twin-linked autocannons hammering you with immunity. Also, the real one-two punch for his list is those terminators. That's 8 guys that I can't negate the armor saves of except in close combat. And then you've the 3+ shields against my power weapons in close combat. I'm sure I could've chewed up a couple of them in focused ranged fire, but again, we'll never know. So, as soon as I threw them of course by about 10 miles, the game was in the bag. (In my mind at least.) He could've done a lot better if her got turn one and flat-outted those Rhinos to my front lines. Though I still had all of my infantry squads not firing, so I might have been able to alternate fire and get all the Thunderfire cannons turn 1. If he could of put those cannons farther away without jeopardizing their line of sight, he would of done a hell of a lot better. I still hate having that Purifier squad insta-killed... Hopefully he updates his list and doesn't shy away from me again. My personal friends John-Paul and George are smart lads like myself You're not called Ringo are you? <_< No, why? XD Edit: Wait! After Googling, I get it. (Beatles joke. Never listened to them actually. D:) John-Paul is one person, not two. Though it would be cool if he could split into two people... And I break the circle with not being a Ringo. :P Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2787131 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reclusiarch Darius Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 I'm not entirely sure what you mean by nuanced, but I think I have an idea. I was my way of saying 'god awful' without being that harsh :tu: The thing is, his list puts a real hurting on a lot of other people in my home-state playgroup. My new Obsidian Knights list is practically the only all ranged army around, aside from a Pedro Kantor Sternguard list. He's used to people coming at him, where his list shines. He's not used to lists that outrange him, and can't adapt to those kind of armies well at all. No Guard or Tau armies in your area? Because I know for a fact that even their mediocre lists blast most Marines off the table in a shooting battle. Hell, even regular Marines wouldn't find it too hard to beat his army. Some cheap Typhoons to break open the Rhinos and Thunderfire's, and then plasma cannons on the Tactical squads to squish his Marines. Even having said that, I find it strange that close-combat armies don't beat him. Multi-meltas might scare any tank dumb enough to get in range, but infantry and monsters largely don't care. 30 Marines sounds like a challenge but when they're all Tacticals, beating them isn't that hard. His Terminator rock would be problematic to a static shooting line if it lands well, but anyone with mobility or tarpit units will just delay/run away from them. Also, the real one-two punch for his list is those terminators. That's 8 guys that I can't negate the armor saves of except in close combat. And then you've the 3+ shields against my power weapons in close combat. I'm sure I could've chewed up a couple of them in focused ranged fire, but again, we'll never know. So, as soon as I threw them of course by about 10 miles, the game was in the bag. (In my mind at least.) And thats his central problem. He's focused too much on one rock (which I agree is a pain to remove), but if he lucks out with Deepstrike, they're worthless. Likewise, on foot, all they can hope to do is keep enemy assaults from hitting the Tactical squads as he advances, they're too slow to be used aggressively. He could've done a lot better if her got turn one and flat-outted those Rhinos to my front lines. I don't think so. Those Rhinos would've dissolved to your massed psycannon, and his disembarked Tacs are no match for you in close-combat (the Sarges might take a few Knights down but they'll still get rolled hard). It would've made his Thunderfires more painful, but next time all you need to do is mech up and his Thunderfires become largely worthless. Against foot-sloggers they're golden (although only wiping out one squad is pretty pathetic, given he's invested more than a Landraider and all 3 Heavy slots for them), but aside from Orks, Nids or Guard, the trend for other armies is to mech up. I still hate having that Purifier squad insta-killed... Hopefully he updates his list and doesn't shy away from me again. Nah I think he did the right thing. You easily outmatched his shooting prowess, so he camped back and hoped that when the Terminators arrived, they'd distract and tie up your army long enough for him to soften you up with Thunderfire, then move in and melta-snipe those Dreadnoughts. When the Terminators epically failed, he lost the momentum of the fight and had no real counters to your list. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2787612 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Legionnare Posted June 10, 2011 Author Share Posted June 10, 2011 My friend John-Paul has Tau. But he hasn't played them in a very long time, opting for Chaos usually, and if not that then Orks. I wish I had some guard in my group. I haven't been able to fight guard in almost 2 years. I haven't had a glimpse of 5th edition guard and it makes me sad. D: (That was going to be my next army, a 5th ed Guard army using Death Korp of Krieg models. But then the ol' rumor mill said "Grey Knights Definitely" so I went with that.) The tactical acumen of taking 3 Thunderfires does indeed seem a bit dense. But I'm telling you right now, he does that because he is god with scatter rolls. You saw how he "Hit" 7 out of 8. Now I don't believe in any magic mumbo jumbo, but that man has got something watching over his shoulder... He never scatters more than 3 of those Thunderfire shots if he fires all 12. I can't explain it, just some happenstance. (Reoccurring happenstance, which is all the scarier...) This is why he loves them I believe. Too bad for him, he was forced into putting them close to me or else they wouldn't be able to dent me. But that was why I deployed how and where I did, to make sure those things didn't sit back and snipe me. As for the Terminators. Yeah, I agree. You can't rely on one solid punch. You have to have contingency plans and units. His list is far too static. I designed this Grey Knights list to not be some "Oh god invincible tournament army" I just designed it in a way I thought could handle anything that came at me. Footslogger, ranged mech, melee mech, etc... It's not nearly as maneuverable as my Blood Angels, but it can relocate and react when it needs to and so far it has proved to be able to adapt to every opponent. I've offered to help him build a more flexible list before but he wants no part of it. People can be stubborn. :/ I'm going to expand mine to 2500 eventually; so there will be variety in my future, and bigger games! I can't wait to start theorycrafting and proxying some Paladins, Grand Masters, etc... Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2787693 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reclusiarch Darius Posted June 10, 2011 Share Posted June 10, 2011 I wish I had some guard in my group. I haven't been able to fight guard in almost 2 years. I haven't had a glimpse of 5th edition guard and it makes me sad. D: (That was going to be my next army, a 5th ed Guard army using Death Korp of Krieg models. But then the ol' rumor mill said "Grey Knights Definitely" so I went with that.) They're pretty fun to play against actually, 'oh noes Leafblower' internet moaning aside. Rather like Tau, if you get in their lines, they're screwed. But, if you're dumb enough to try and make it a shooting war, they wipe you off the board by Turn 3. So, it's all about maximising cover saves (so those pesky battle cannons and artillery fail to kill you), and eating their fragile puny human soldiers in close-combat. Srsly, once the tanks start to die, he starts to cry :tu: The tactical acumen of taking 3 Thunderfires does indeed seem a bit dense. But I'm telling you right now, he does that because he is god with scatter rolls. You saw how he "Hit" 7 out of 8. Now I don't believe in any magic mumbo jumbo, but that man has got something watching over his shoulder... He never scatters more than 3 of those Thunderfire shots if he fires all 12. I can't explain it, just some happenstance. (Reoccurring happenstance, which is all the scarier...) This is why he loves them I believe. Too bad for him, he was forced into putting them close to me or else they wouldn't be able to dent me. But that was why I deployed how and where I did, to make sure those things didn't sit back and snipe me. Yeah me and him probably have the 'never scatter' gene or something. I have the same luck with my large blast templates (although my quirk is that small blasts always miss by over 9,000 inches in the wrong direction, sometimes onto my own dudemanz). People laugh at me for taking Hammerheads over Broadsides, then swiftly start gunning for them with rage when I remove entire squads from diagonally extreme board edges :) . I can see the logic, and like I said against footsloggers people will hate him with a passion, but in a more balanced list (or against mech), Thunderfires are an own goal. Tell him to try auto-las Preds or maybe a Vindicator or two. As for the Terminators. Yeah, I agree. You can't rely on one solid punch. You have to have contingency plans and units. His list is far too static. I designed this Grey Knights list to not be some "Oh god invincible tournament army" I just designed it in a way I thought could handle anything that came at me. Footslogger, ranged mech, melee mech, etc... It's not nearly as maneuverable as my Blood Angels, but it can relocate and react when it needs to and so far it has proved to be able to adapt to every opponent. I've offered to help him build a more flexible list before but he wants no part of it. People can be stubborn. :/ Beat him soundly a few more times, then he might change his mind. He can't just pin it on you after 5 successive defeats (well at least not entirely). I'm going to expand mine to 2500 eventually; so there will be variety in my future, and bigger games! I can't wait to start theorycrafting and proxying some Paladins, Grand Masters, etc... Paladins I've used at 1.5k, and even as a 5-man they are solid. 8 psycannon on the move, they take so much damage and keep coming, and they won every combat I've put them into thus far (unlike my Troop Terminators, who have whiffed a lot. WS5 doesn't sound like much but it ends up making a huge difference). A teleporter+greatsword Dreadknight is another must-have, he rocks in smaller games. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2787980 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Legionnare Posted June 10, 2011 Author Share Posted June 10, 2011 They're pretty fun to play against actually, 'oh noes Leafblower' internet moaning aside. Rather like Tau, if you get in their lines, they're screwed. But, if you're dumb enough to try and make it a shooting war, they wipe you off the board by Turn 3. So, it's all about maximising cover saves (so those pesky battle cannons and artillery fail to kill you), and eating their fragile puny human soldiers in close-combat. Srsly, once the tanks start to die, he starts to cry ;) I've wanted to test 5th Edition Blood Angels against them so bad. In 4th ed I would tear through their lines like paper with my CC units, I want to do so in 5th. :lol: The only IG player in our group hasn't been around the store in those 2 years, I hope he's okay. But last time I played him he only ran 1 Leman Russ. So, I'm fairly confident about melting through his troops like butter with either knights or angels, unless he bought another one. Yeah me and him probably have the 'never scatter' gene or something. I have the same luck with my large blast templates (although my quirk is that small blasts always miss by over 9,000 inches in the wrong direction, sometimes onto my own dudemanz). People laugh at me for taking Hammerheads over Broadsides, then swiftly start gunning for them with rage when I remove entire squads from diagonally extreme board edges :D . I can see the logic, and like I said against footsloggers people will hate him with a passion, but in a more balanced list (or against mech), Thunderfires are an own goal. Tell him to try auto-las Preds or maybe a Vindicator or two. I only have that scatter luck with plasma cannons, and Vindicators. Everything else always misses, except those 2... don't know why... And I have tied to talk him into some "Gun Platform Preds", more than once I've told him that 1 cheap Vindicator can add a HUGE punch to a list, not to mention 2. Beat him soundly a few more times, then he might change his mind. He can't just pin it on you after 5 successive defeats (well at least not entirely). It's not just me. I've seen it fail to other people before because it can't react well enough to losing those Rhinos and Thunderfires. I'm not even sure why he runs Vulkan with only just 3 multi-meltas and flamers. I was going to help him flesh it out, take advantage of those twin-linked multil-melta dreads, Land Raiders, etc... Paladins I've used at 1.5k, and even as a 5-man they are solid. 8 psycannon on the move, they take so much damage and keep coming, and they won every combat I've put them into thus far (unlike my Troop Terminators, who have whiffed a lot. WS5 doesn't sound like much but it ends up making a huge difference). A teleporter+greatsword Dreadknight is another must-have, he rocks in smaller games. It's an immediate "Hit on 3+" in close combat versus almost everything else in the game, including all MEQ units that aren't fancy, Heroes, or super CC oriented. 3+ is where it's at! I've seen the mean things Dreadknights can do, but the model just seems so... "foreign" to me. It doesn't feel like Grey Knights, it doesn't even feel like 40k. I don't know, I don't want to use it for that reason, but I might eventually. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/231385-6-battle-reportsmini-stories-with-grey-knights-updated/#findComment-2788103 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.