Batreps versus Grey Knights

[x01848m]

I managed to get 3 games in against a Grey Knights player, taking my Blood Angels to the table for the first time in 6th edition. I figured that I would share the batreps, for what they are worth, as I figure out how to play my Blood Angels in 6th - thus comments and constructive criticism are quite welcome.

 

In 5th edition I was consistently frustrated when facing Grey Knights and found myself struggling just to get the tie against them. I am happy to say that in my opinion 6th edition has really done a lot to help balance the scales with Grey Knights. They are still a great army, but I no longer find them so ridiculously hard to beat (well, at least in these 3 games that was the case). The changes to power weapons and rapid fire weapons and shift in FNP has really helped opposing forces against them, including Blood Angels. Anyway, on to the batreps.

 

I should offer the following caveats:

 

1. There is a big debate about how to play Dante's power axe and the glaive encarmines of Sanguinary Guard and there is no need to revisit that here. Suffice to say for our games we used the ruling of treating them as power weapons and what you see is what you get as we commonly play in 2 GW stores which both rule that way.

 

2. We used the Nova house rules for Warlord Traits - ie pick 2 tables, roll once on each, and then choose between the 2 traits rolled. This helps mitigate the random luck of one player getting something really useful while the other just gets hosed.

 

3. We consistently forget to roll for night fighting (yeah, go us!). So you won't see that element in our games unfortunately.

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

Looking forward to your batreps. It seems like everyone and their dog took up Grey Knights after their codex was released, so I expect to face them a decent amount.

[x01848m]

Game 1:

 

Blood Angels:

Librarian (Epistolary) - 150

Reclusiarch w/ PF - 145

Corbulo

Furioso w/ Talons and extra armor - 140

Death Company x 9 w/ 3 x PF - 255

DC Dread w/ Talons - 125

Tac Squad x 10 w/ PG and PC, Sgt w/ SB - 188

Tac Squad x 10 w/ PG and PC, Sgt w/ SB - 188

Devastator Squad x 10 w/ 4 x LC - 270

Stormraven w/ EA, MM, LC - 215

Stormraven w/ EA, MM, LC - 215

 

Grey Knights:

Grandmaster w/ Orbital Relay, Halberd

Librarian, lev 3, w/ Hammer, Shrouding, Sanctuary, Daemon Hammer

Techmarine w/ Harness and Rad Grenades

Purifiers x 10, Psycannon x4, Halberd x5, Daemon Hammer, Psyammo

Purifiers x 10, Psycannon x4, Halberd x5, Daemon Hammer, Psyammo

Strike Squad x 10, Psycannon x2, Halberd x2, Daemon Hammer, Psyammo

Strike Squad x 10, Psycannon x2, Halberd x2, Daemon Hammer, Psyammo

Rifleman Dreadnought w/ Psyammo

Bastion w/ Quad Gun

 

Mission: Big Guns Never Tire (4 objectives, 2 on each side)

Deployment: Vanguard Strike

 

I won the roll for deployment/first turn. I set up my devastator squad in a ruin. 6" in front of this were my 2 tactical squads accompanied by Corbulo and my Librarian. My DC, DC Dread, and Reclusiarch were in one SR while the Furioso was in the second SR. I took divination powers for my Librarian - Prescience and Misfortune (just what I wanted!). My Librarian took the warlord trait intimidating presence (useless for this mission).

 

The GK started with a strike squad split into 2 combat squads manning the battlements and the first floor of the bastion, accompanied by the Grandmaster on the battlements. The 2 squads of purifiers and the dreadnought took up fire positions in the ruins. The Librarian and the techmarine went with one of the purifier squads. The last strike squad was held in reserve to deep strike in. He used grand strategy to make his 2 purifier squads scoring. His grandmaster took the warlord trait that gave me -1 to reserve rolls (bad for my Stormravens).

 

On turn 1 my Devastators did just what I took them for - my Librarian cast prescience on them and they destroyed the bastion, thus removing a big threat to my Stormravens before they arrived. The resultant collapse of the building also managed to kill most of both strike squad combat teams, which was awesome. Yes, it might have been better to get that Rifleman Dread, but as my opponent deployed second he wisely positioned it out of LoS of my Devastators. But bringing down that bastion was fun and did a hell of a lot of damage. The survivors did an emergency disembarkation. My tactical squads moved up, minus the plasma cannon dudes who stayed stationary, and wiped out the bastion survivors except for the Grandmaster. This was the one of the only two times in three games where my plasma cannons worked for me, but I will get back to that.

 

He opened fire with 2 purifier squads on my tactical squads and killed a couple of guys in each squad. But overall it was relatively little damage thanks to armor saves and feel no pain.

 

On turn 2 one Stormraven arrived - the one with just a Furioso. It took shots at the Dread, but cover saved him from any damage. The Librarian again cast prescience on the Devastators and they killed the Grandmaster, who was standing out there all alone. The Librarian tried to cast Misfortune on a purifier squad, but the Dread -4 Aegis protection stopped that. My tactical squads each killed a few purifiers, but the plasma cannons scattered wildly.

 

His Dreadnought opened fire on my SR. I jinked and even used Corbulo to reroll a cover save, but unfortunately he brought it down. But it only had a Furioso in it, which survived the crash with no issues. The purifiers each killed a few tacticals.

 

On turn 3 the second Stormraven arrived. Like the last one it let rip on the Dread, and just like the last one failed to do anything. That Dread was getting really annoying by this point. With my stormravens coming in and being up in points with first blood and kill the warlord, and with linebreaker imminent, I decided to pull my tactical squads back on to objectives. Again, the damned plasma cannons scattered. I moved my devastators down from the top of their ruin, intending to get them somewhere where I could shoot that dread. The Furioso ran up to try and get into position.

 

His Dreadnought opened fire on my SR, and again I jinked. This time, thankfully, I weathered the fire. His strike squad deep struck in on to an objective and fired on my Furioso, but failed to do anything to it. The purifiers fired on my tactical squad, but now I had Corbulo out front of the tactical squad closest to his units - I was a bit reluctant at first to do this for fear of losing Corbulo, but man oh man, he is so ridiculous. He stopped every single shot from both purifier squads. Talk about a frustrated opponent!

 

On turn 4 my SR went to hover mode and dropped off the DC and their Dread. The SR finally managed to destroy the Dread! Unfortunately I then failed my two charge attempts against his strike squad with the DC and DC Dread. I also failed my charge attempt with the Furioso against the same strike squad. They were in cover, and apparently my entire army couldn't run through rubble very well. This was quite a moment of saving grace for my opponent.

 

He moved back with his strike squad towards a different objective, getting away from my DC Dread and DC. But he did manage to immobilize my Furioso with their psycannon shots. Sad face. One purifier squad stayed in place and fired at my tacticals, with the second Purifier squad with Librarian and techmarine moving through cover to move into position to flank my tactical squad. Corbulo again weathered a ton of fire and saved it all.

 

On turn 5 my SR moved onto the objective his strike squad had abandoned. The tactical squads and devastator squad pounded away at his purifier squad in the ruin. By now they were down to 2 men. The DC chased after the strike squad and again failed their charges. Stupid rubble. I was trying for 7-8" charges through difficult terrain, which is quite hard. Probably should have just ran. The DC Dread moved and ran towards the Purifiers which were maneuvering in on my tactical squad. Oh, and his librarian blocked misfortune.

 

His Purifiers charged into my tactical squad (apparently the rubble couldn't slow the GK down!). He wiped out Corbulo and the tactical squad. The strike squad again ran away from my DC.

 

On turn 6 my SR and Devastators finished off the 2-man purifier squad. My DC Dread tried to charge the Purifier/Librarian/Techmarine squad, but he cast sanctuary and I failed my dangerous terrain test, resulting in a second immobilized dread. His Librarian blocked misfortune.

 

He took shots at my Devastators, but did nothing noticeable.

 

Then the game ended, 9 points to 3 as I had 2 objectives and all 3 secondary objectives while he had one objective (he never quite got the strike squad onto that second objective).

 

So what worked well:

 

1. Corbulo was the ultimate bullet sponge. He soaked up so much small arms fire it was ridiculous. My opponent really hated him.

 

2. The Devastators did their job quite well. Yes, they are more expensive then the preferred missile launcher set-up, but I think 6th edition has really given them a boost. That +1 damage chart roll and AP2 are great. I think these guys are here to stay for me. Now I ran them at 10-men, thinking they would be top priority targets. But my opponent only shot at them once all game as there were too many other threats, so perhaps I can trim them down a bit.

 

3. I haven't used tacticals since 4th edition, but they seem to be good again. Especially with a priest like Corbulo to help them out. I wanted plasma cannons for AP2 fire and to keep them focused on an anti-infantry role, but those plasma cannons scatter way too often for my taste. I think the missile launcher or heavy bolter is probably the way to go. The missile launcher might have been nice for opportunity shots against that crazy riflemen dread, but with the abundance of cover in 6th edition I am leaning towards the heavy bolter to keep them focused on ranged firepower versus infantry.

 

4. The Divination Librarian was awesome. He made my Devastator Squad a bunch of snipers with his prescience every turn. Unfortunately the Aegis and a lev 3 librarian with hood blocked his misfortune power, but oh well.

 

What didn't work well:

 

1. As mentioned above, the plasma cannons on my tacticals were pretty lackluster, with only one good round of shooting all game. This was especially problematic with his squads in ruins, arranged out on different levels, leaving me small targets.

 

2. The stormravens did okay, but I was lucky. If his dread had shot down the one with the death company, that would have been a lot of points lost in one go. I will give them another try sometime, but it is quite a risk. I am leaning towards just carrying Furioso Dreads in them.

 

3. The Dreads did not work for me, but that was horrible luck. Poor rolls while trying to charge through difficult terrain, and two immobilized before they ever got into hth. I am just chalking that up to bad luck, and still look forward to using them for their mulching appeal against GK infantry.

[x01848m]

Game 2:

 

Blood Angels:

Dante

Sanguinary Initiates x 2 w/ JP and Power Swords - 180

Sanguinary Guard x5 w/ Banner and IP x2 - 250

Assault Squad x10 w/ Flamers x2, Power Sword - 215

Assault Squad x10 w/ Flamers x2, Power Sword - 215

Assault Squad x10 w/ Flamers x2, Power Sword - 215

Attack Bikes with MM x 2 - 100

Attack Bikes with MM x 2 - 100

Devastator Squad x10 w/ PC x2 and LC x2 - 250

Devastator Squad x10 w/ PC x2 and LC x2 - 250

 

 

Grey Knights:

Draigo

Librarian Lev 3, Hammer, Shrouding, Sanctuary, Daemon Hammer

Purifiers x 10 w/ Psycannon x4, Halberd x5, Daemon Hammer, Psybolt Ammo

Purifiers x 10 w/ Psycannon x4, Halberd x5, Daemon Hammer, Psybolt Ammo

Paladins x10 w/ Psycannon x 4 (master-crafted), Psybolt Ammo, Falchion x1, Halberd x 6, Daemon Hammer x 2.

Strike Squad x10 w/ Psycannon x2, Daemon Hammer, Halberd, Psybolt Ammo

Rifleman Dreadnought

Rifleman Dreadnought

 

Mission: Crusade

Deployment: Hammer and Anvil (4 objectives rolled)

 

I deploy and go first. Dante, the SG, and one priest go into reserve, all together as one unit. Everything else starts on the board and everything I have that can combat squad does so, making 2 lascannon teams and 2 plasma cannon teams out of the devastators and 3 flamer teams and 3 close combat teams out of the assault squads. BTW, I decided to replace all of my meltas and PF's on the assault squads, which were pretty much mandatory in 5th edition, with flamers and power swords to try and see how they do in 6th edition. I put 2 assault squad combat squads near my objective, and line up the other 4 (with all the flamers) supported by a priest and 2 attack bike squads to move towards 2 objectives in the middle of the board. The devastator teams are all in cover, over-watching my objective and the middle 2 objectives I plan to take.

 

I forget my warlord trait, which means it was useless. His was also useless, so that was okay.

 

He puts Draigo, the Librarian, and the Paladins in reserve to deep strike in as a deathstar. The two riflemen dreads go way back, out of LoS of my lascannon teams, but with LoS to the middle 2 objectives. The strike squads guards one objective in his deployment area, back behind a set of ruins, while the purifiers remain just out of range of the two middle objectives. He uses grand strategy to make the purifiers both scoring.

 

Turn 1: My 4 assault squad teams, priest, and 2 attack bikes head towards the middle objectives. The attack bikes kill a purifier. Unfortunately my Devs have nothing to shoot at and do nothing.

 

The now 9-man Purifier squad moves up just into range to shoot at my assault squad guys and kills some - only 2 of his guys can see my assault troops and FNP and cover help me out. The other purifier squad is moving up to get into range, occupying a ruin. The Dreads begin to move to get into LoS of the Assault Squads. So this round was really a whole lot of nothing.

 

Turn 2: My attack bikes take shots at his 2 visible purifiers and kill them as the 4 assault teams and priest continue to move up. Devs move around, but still no targets; damned this long board with lots of ruins - LoS is easily blocked, and he is hiding like crazy.

 

His now 7-man purifier squad moves up so now everyone has LoS and unload on a combat squad with the sanguinary priest, wiping them out. That hurt, and gives him first blood. Draigo madness lands near the objective in my deployment area and wipes out a plasma cannon team. The strike squad is out of range and LoS of anything. The other purifier squad is occupying a ruin as a fire base and moves a bit closer to the action.

 

Turn 3: I use DOA to bring in Dante and crew next to his Paladins. I also bring back one of my assault squad teams that had been previously moving forward towards my back objective in case the paladins start wrecking house and kill the two teams I have in my backfield intended to hold that objective. But then Dante and SG melt 2 paladins, the two attack bike squads move back and melt another 2 paladins and the lascannon teams zap 1 more paladin plus the librarian (one killed both guys, while the other moved and missed with snap shots). The remaining Plasma cannon team does a wound with one shot and scatters with the other. But overall that was a devastating round of shooting for the BA. I should mention that I deliberately placed the objective in my deployment area out in the open and occupied all the surrounding cover with my 4 devastator teams and 2 assault squad teams, creating a kill zone by tempting him with an objective while giving him no cover to land in. In hindsight he realized what a trap it was, but at the time he was still feeling pretty immune with his Draigo deathstar from the 5th edition days and more importantly really underestimated how much firepower I would be able to quickly bring to bear (ie quickly repositioning two MM attack bike squads and dropping in dante and SG with IPs for a total of 7 melta shots). Meanwhile back at the middle of the board, 2 assault squad teams jump in, burn the purifiers with 4 flamers, and then charge to finish the last 2 purifiers off.

 

His other purifier squad and the 2 riflemen dreads go to town on my assault squads, killing off one team and leaving 3 guys in the other. Draigo and the remaining 5 paladins charge Dante and crew, with a Draigo/Dante challenge. In hindsight he realizes this is a mistake, however fluffy and epic it is. Dante and his SG own the Paladins in close combat, which is hilarious (at least for me). He expected to roll right through me, but Dante has an axe and 3 of my 5 SG have axes. He kills the priest and then 2 SG with the hammers (the only things that hurt me), but I kill off 3 more paladins and put 2 wounds on Draigo. I then use hit and run to jump Dante and crew out.

 

Turn 4: My 3-man assault squad team out in the middle of the board moves back onto an objective and tries to hide. My lascannons and Dante meltas blow Draigo and friends off the board. The attack bikes turbo boost towards the strike squad.

 

His Dreads whittle my assault squad out in the middle down to 1 man. The purifiers are not in range as I have at least managed to jump back and hide from them, although there is no escaping the Dreads.

 

Turn 5: All surviving devastators move and run to try and get into position to shoot at something. Dante and 2 assault squad combat squads jump and run towards the middle of the board.The attack bikes move in and unload on the strike squad, killing 4, including the 2 psycannon guys (should have placed them better, but he thought they were safe where they were, hidden back in some ruins - he again underestimated my attack bikes).

 

His dreads finish off the last assault squad guy in the middle.The strike squad shoot at my attack bikes, but just cause 1 wound.

 

Turn 6: Dante and SG jump onto one objective. The other two assault squad teams jump and run towards the other. One Dev combat squad shoots and kills 2 strike squad guys while the others keep running. My attack bikes finish off the last 4 strike squad guys.

 

He keeps shooting at assault squad guys, taking out one of the two teams, and moves his last purifier squad towards the same objective they are running towards.

 

Turn 7: My attack bikes melt a dread. The assault squad guys jump on an objective and fire pistols.

 

The purifiers move in and kill the assault squad I just moved in, taking back that objective.

 

Game ends with a BA win, 8pts to 4pts.

 

What worked well:

 

1. Dante and SG are so hard now with their 2+ saves and the changes to PW. It would have been unthinkable for them to take on Draigo and Paladins in 5th, but in 6th they beat up on them.

 

2. The attack bikes were awesome. Great maneuverability, durability, and firepower. And they allowed me to take flamers on my assault squads by filling the melta gap. I really liked that as it kept things efficient - assault squads focused on killing infantry and attack bikes focused on killing tanks (although the attack bikes did an amazing job of killing infantry, too. They probably did better then they should have, not to detract from how awesome they are.)

 

3. The lascannon teams didn't get many shots, but they hammered the Paladins. A fair showing for them.

 

4. The assault squads with flamers in combat squads did well. In hindsight I should have deep struck with the flamer teams. He only had one strike squad on the board, so I didn't really need to worry about that too much. Dropping in on the purifiers right away with 2 or 3 flamer teams (possible with DoA) might have really changed things in the mid board early on.

 

What didn't work well:

 

1. Again those plasma cannons really let me down. They scattered and just didn't do much.

 

2. Hammer and Anvil is really hard when it comes to providing fire support due to the distances involved and because the abundance of terrain is made worse when you look down the board lengthwise - in some cases I had 2 sets of ruins between my devs and their targets, completely blocking LoS. The only reason my devs got good shots is because Draigo tried to drop in with impunity to take my objective. That was a big mistake for my opponent - otherwise my devs might have been a waste of points rather than hammering paladins off the board. I still like Devs, but probably one squad is enough, just with lascannons.

[Pascalnz]

thanks for the reps it's great to read:).

 

just insert usual rant about the axe mortalis and glaive encarmines having special rules therefore not able to use the what you see is what you get table, add in the unique section on rules in the BAcodex plus the FAQ on blood crozius and kharns axe being wysiwyg and that the axe mortalis isn't even though it's identical to the crozius.

 

Anyhoo, as long as your opponent was well aware and happy how you ran things brilliant! :cuss

[Drunken Angel]

Yes thankyou for those great batreps, interesting angle on the axe comments, nice to see Dante is looking good. I wonder how Astorath would go ? DC with axes led by Astorath. Very good to hear how librarians can pretty much cast twin link on anything shooting or CC and they work well.

 

Dante and SG owning Draigo ? makes me happy I invested in a third Sanguinary Guard squad.

[Morticon]

Drunken Angel- remember, they only took out the pallies cause of the Axe house rule. Wouldnt be the case "normally"

[Drunken Angel]

Drunken Angel- remember, they only took out the pallies cause of the Axe house rule. Wouldnt be the case "normally"

 

Not even Sanguinius can tell you what "Normally" on GE's means now. You have convinced me what it means but now could you please work on the rest of the 40k world.

I intend to play my SG with all AP3 weapons and Initiative/Strength = model statline. If I encounter a house rule I am fine with that as the weapons become AP2 which is golden.

 

Back to the batrep I think axes/mauls on DC combined might be something to explore reading these batreps what do you think ? Axes are great anyway. Mauls ? I am trying to find a use for mauls I think I see one. AP3 is superior to AP4 on 3+ saves that changes on terminators. Mauls with +2 strength concussive are superior to AP3 strength = model against 2+ saves. The GK guy can try to LOS successful successive hits on paladins but each hit spread makes them I1 and exposes them to axes. Lemartes/DC concussive hits at I6/I5 followed by axe attacks at I1. (Lemmy at S8 ID's paladins if he gets one through anyway)

Just a concept still thinking on this. :unsure:

[x01848m]

Well, just to muddy the waters a bit more, the Nova FAQ has GE and the Axe Mortalis as modeled, ie ap 2 +1 str. I am still considering what I will bring to the Nova (ie BA with IG allies, IG with BA allies, or Orks), coming up in 2 weeks time, but I am glad that I am using the as modeled rule to prepare me for the Nova.

 

I really don't like power mauls. I applaud your attempt to try and find a good use for them, but they are just so subpar when compared to the other options. As soon as I saw the new power maul rules, my first thought was oh great, now my Deathguard Terminators are all just about useless against everything except maybe Necron Warriors, Chaos Daemons, and bypassing FNP saves on Dark Eldar. Str 6 is usually overkill on IG and Craftworld Eldar, who commonly use AP 4 or worse. And if you are thinking about stunning someone with unsaved wounds, why not just concentrate on killing them in the first place? Sorry to rain on your parade, but I just don't like mauls. I plan on ripping them off of all of my CSM terminators (just waiting on any changes until I see the new Codex - crossing my fingers).

 

I will try to get the 3rd batrep up soon - man, they take a while to write up..

[Drunken Angel]

x01848m good input and very relevant you are not raining on anything you are adding to collective BA knowledge on mauls, Thanks

[Morticon]

Man, I wont lie, i wouldnt mind having AP2 weapons on 2+ save stuff ><; kick bum

[x01848m]

Game 3:

 

Blood Angels:

Mephiston

Corbulo

Tactical Squad x10 w/ PG, PC, Sgt w/ SB - 188

Tactical Squad x10 w/ PG, PC, Sgt w/ SB - 188

Scouts x5 w/ Sniper Rifles and Camo Cloaks - 90

Scouts x10 w/ CCW, Sgt w/ PF - 165

Baal Predator w/ SHB - 145

Baal Predator w/ SHB - 145

Baal Predator w/ Flamestorm Cannon and Dozer Blade - 120

Predator Annihilator - 180

Vindicator w/ Dozer Blade - 150

Devastator Squad x10 w/ Lascannon x4 - 270

 

Grey Knights:

Grand Master w/Orbital Relay Strike and Halberd

Vindicaire Assassin

Techmarine w/ Harness and Rad Grenades

Purifiers x10 w/ Psycannon x4, Halberd x5, Daemon Hammer, and Psybolt Ammo

Purifiers x10 w/ Psycannon x4, Halberd x5, Daemon Hammer, and Psybolt Ammo

Strike Squad x10 w/ Psycannon x2, Halberd x2, Daemon Hammer, Psybolt Ammo

Strike Squad x10 w/ Psycannon x2, Halberd x2, Daemon Hammer, Psybolt Ammo

Rifleman Dreadnought

Dreadnought w/ twin-linked lascannon, Heavy Flamer, Psy-ammo for the flamer

 

Mission: The Scouring

Deployment: Dawn of War

 

Here is a very rough sketch of the map, with the numbers representing the placement and value of each of the objectives. BA are in the south and GK are in the north. Squares/rectangles are ruins and circles are forests.

 

http://i1078.photobucket.com/albums/w497/x01848m/61c0697f.png

 

I deploy first. I put my devastators in the ruins near my 1-pt objective and the Predator Annhilator and Vindicator out front of this. On My 2-pt objective I put a tac squad, a baal predator, and Mephiston. On my 3-pt objective I put a tac squad, corbulo, and a Baal Predator. The hth scouts and flamestorm baal go into reserve. I say I am infiltrating with the sniper scouts and so I wait to place them after his deployment, but during his deployment we get to talking about rules and a staff member comes over to talk for a bit, so stupidly I get really distracted and forget about them until we are well into the 1st turn, and therefore they end up in reserves. Anyway, I plan to hold with the tac squads on 2 objectives and provide fire support, adding to all of the firepower of my tanks and devastators torrent of fire and attrit him down. Meanwhile Mephiston will be the punch to go clear out that 4-pt objective, and then the scouts supported by the flamestorm Baal will hopefully walk onto an objective. My warlord trait does nothing useful.

 

He uses the techmarine to bolster the ruin near the 4-pt objective, and then plops down the techmarine, 2 dreads, and vindicaire assassin in it. He uses grand strategy to make the two dreads scoring. The Dreads and techmarine are up on level 1 while the assassin is in the second level of the ruin. Meanwhile in the 3-pt objective area he puts down two squads of purifiers and one strike squad, split between the ruins and the forest. The Grandmaster goes by himself high up in the ruins, planning to use his orbital bombardment. He also gets the warlord trait where his entire army gets stealth (ruins). So he is set up really well for cover in this game. His plan is to have his assassin and dreads pound anything that tries to go across the open ground to get at the 4-pt objective, with his techmarine to fix up any damaged dreads. And last, in the center, is one strike squad to hold that 2-pt objective.

 

Turn 1: Mephiston jumps out and runs towards the 4-pt obj. The Tac squad on the left shoots with the Plasma Cannon at the Assassin, but he melts himself with gets hot. The Baal Pred, Pred Annihilator, and the Devs take shots at his Assassin, but cover stops it all. BTW, this Baal Predator immobilizes itself going over a little ledge, but at least it stops in range of the enemy, even if it won't move for the rest of the game (doh!). The Vindicator moves up and pops smoke, looking to get into position. On the right flank the tac squad and corbulo move forward, except for the plasma cannon guy who stands still and actually hits and kills 2 Purifiers. This was the second time in 3 games where a plasma cannon actually did something a bit decent. The Baal Predator moves up and kills a few more purifiers.

 

His Assassin shoots Mephiston and drops 2 wounds on him with a turbo-penetrator. One Dread blows a heavy bolter off of my immob Baal Pred, and the other fails to do anything to my Pred Annihilator. On the right flank one purifier squad fails to damage my Baal Pred, Corbulo soaks everything from the other purifier squad and a strike squad. The center strike squad is out of range of anything. The grandmaster calls down a bombardment on the western tac squad, but only kills one guy.

 

Turn 2: Mephiston fails his psychic test for wings and slogs forward, but thankfully is pretty far forward already. The immob Baal Pred, Pred Annihilator, Devs, and the tac squad (who just moved up) take shots at the Assassin, but do nothing due to his 2+ cover saves (ruins, bolstered, and stealth is an ugly day). But Mephiston uses fleet of foot to charge into the ruin and destroy the lascannon dread. I had shelved Mephiston as soon as the new GK codex was released and I read through it, figuring he didn't stand a chance against them. But with 6th edition I have brought him back out of retirement to take advantage of the new 2+ save rules. I am happy to say that he is a ridiculous beast once more and viable against GK. As you can tell from the deployment, my opponent was afraid to fight him with strike squads and purifiers. Anyway, after wrecking the dread he is now also out of LoS of that damned assassin. On the right flank my Baal Predator with flamestorm cannon comes in and burns 4 purifiers. Meanwhile the tac squad and gunboat baal pred continue to torrent down purifiers. In the center my Vindicator kills 3 strike squad guys.

 

His rifleman dread destroys my Vindicator. The Assassin shoots the sergeant out of my tac squad (he could have shot the Pred Annihilator, but I think he just wanted to concentrate on whittling down troops choices and figured the cover was adequate to protect him from my vehicles). The techmarine charges Mephiston, and with his psyk-out grenades they both go at init 1. His servo harness PF's put 2 more wounds on Mephiston, and my opponent goes nuts when I tell him Mephiston's stat-lines (he has never played against Mephiston before, since everyone has been too afraid to take him against GK in 5th edition). I don't know whether to laugh or feel like a bully when I fully explain Mephiston's stats and abilities. Anyway, Mephiston is still alive, and hacks up the techmarine in retribution. The Grandmaster bombards me, killing a couple more tacticals. On the right flank he charges and destroys my Flamestorm Baal with one purifier squad (the one I just burned). The other two squads unload on the tacs, and once again Corbulo soaks it all. Man, he is so friggin ridiculous.

 

Turn 3: The Devs, Pred Annihilator, and Tac squad all combine fire to finally kill that crazy assassin (kill goes to the devs). Mephiston charges and kill the second dread. Both of my scout squads come in on the left flank, having no interest in going into that mess on the right flank, and move towards the 4-pt objective. On the right flank I continue to torrent away, whittling him down.

 

His grandmaster calls in a bombardment on my two scout squads and kills 3 sniper and 5 hth scouts. It is ugly. Unfortunately when they came in there wasn't enough room in that small ruin, so they had been out in the open. The snipers run. On the right flank Corbulo continues to soak everything thrown at him.

 

Turn 4: The scouts all move into cover and hold the 4-pt objective. The Devs shoot that Grandmaster and vaporize him. Should have thought of that 3 turns ago, but I was fixated on his 4-pt objective. The Pred Annihilator repositions. On the right flank torrent madness continues, with tac squad and Baal Pred continuing to attrit away purifiers and strike squad guys. The Plasma Cannon keeps scattering off target, but the Baal Pred and tactical squad are enough to steadily wear him down.

 

He concedes at this point. Mephiston and Corbulo have thoroughly demoralized him, I am winning 11 pts to 6 pts, and he sees no way to turn the tide.

 

What worked well:

 

1. Baal Predators (gunboat version) put out a tremendous amount of firepower, and unless your opponent can get around for side shots, are pretty tough (especially in cover). He should have spent more effort taking the one down on the right instead of shooting at corbulo, but he just hated Corbulo so much.

 

2. Speaking of Corbulo, it was a tough call whether to call him or Mephiston the man of the match. Corbulo once again soaked so much damage it was ridiculous. He pretty much effectively held my right flank together against the firepower of 2 purifier and 1 strike squad.

 

3. Mephiston took some damage, but cleared out that 4-pt objective, which enabled the scouts to come in and claim.

 

4. Devs did their job. They were the ones responsible for killing that assassin and they also killed the grandmaster. Took a while with the cover, but they were decent in this game. Not over-powering and a bit lucky, but I am always happy to have them around.

 

 

What didn't work well:

 

1. Stupid placement of sniper scouts. But that was an oversight. Got to pay more attention next time. I think they are a good choice, even if my mistake meant that I did not use them as intended.

 

2. HTH scouts. Yeah, I realize they are pretty weak. And I didn't have time to reconfigure them away from hth before this game (ie trade out the ccw and pf for something else), so I just used them as is to see how they would do. I like them in this list for sneaky objective grabbing once everything else in my list has done their job. No where near as good as tacticals, but infiltration is their saving grace as a useful gimmick. I plan to reconfigure them with bolters and either a heavy bolter or missile launcher and perhaps a combi-flamer on the sarge. They are not a competitive choice, but they can be fun and do help sometimes, if used carefully.

 

3. Flamestorm Baal. Caused a little disruption and it is fun to flame purifiers sitting in cover, but only killing 4 purifiers was not really worth it. I just wanted to give it a try, because I like the concept. But probably not worth it for competitive play as they are a one-hit suicide unit.

 

4. Plasma Cannons - always letting me down. I think I will be taking them out of my lists from now on. Probably will just stick with the missile launcher, even if I like the concept of the heavy bolter.

 

Other notes:

 

1. I like the stormbolter on the tactical sergeants. It is such a cheap upgrade and gives me an extra shot at range, where I want my tacticals to be. I also forgot to mention in the first batrep that I used precision strike with the SB to good effect to snipe out a psycannon. Yeah, it was only a 1 in 18 chance per turn with 2 shots, but it does happen sometimes, and with how cheap it is, why not?

 

2. Putting the twin-linked lascannon on the Predator Annihilator very much goes against the common advice of taking the AC/LC Pred. It is 180pts versus 135pts for the two versions of the tank, so yes, it is expensive. But with the new vehicle damage rules I decided to go for it. Lascannons are awesome now, and AC don't help against the AV 13 and 14 and 2+ save abundance I expect to see. most would still say it is too expensive of an upgrade, but I think I will continue with it for some more games.

[Red Fury]

Nice batreps! I have only read the first one so far and just wanted to comment before I forgot:

 

Like the last one it let rip on the Dread, and just like the last one failed to do anything. That Dread was getting really annoying by this point. With my stormravens coming in and being up in points with first blood and kill the warlord, and with linebreaker imminent, I decided to pull my tactical squads back on to objectives. Again, the damned plasma cannons scattered

Did your storm ravens shoot 3 missiles and a TL lascannon each at the dread? I'll assume the MM was out of range but that means 2 missiles plus the TL Lascannon PLUS another missile using POTMS. X2 for two ravens, seems unlikely you didn't clobber that dread.

Did you remember to reduce scatter by 4"? I know silly, but they were all over the place and even the scatter marker has 2 HIT marks. Just bad rolls?

 

The DC chased after the strike squad and again failed their charges. Stupid rubble.

DC dread has FLEET for rerolls to charge.

 

I look forward to reading the other batreps later today!

[x01848m]

I failed to mention in the first batrep that his techmarine bolstered the ruin where he put his Dread and two purifier squads. So the dread had a 3+ cover save. Both stormravens fired 2 missiles and 1 lascannon. The multimelta was indeed out of range. As for POTMS, yeah, that was an oversight. All I remembered at the time was that you can only fire 2 missiles per turn and wasn't thinking about how POTMS could over-ride that to fire a 3rd missile.

 

Yes, I adjusted the Plasma Cannon for BS, but I still scattered terribly. The ruin was 3 levels tall (well, a ground floor and 2 levels, depending upon how you want to look at it). He had one purifier squad back a bit - the one with the techmarine and librarian he was planning to use for assault. The closer purifier squad was split between the 3 levels, so the small blast had to pick a level, only shooting at groupings of 2 or 3 guys, which is a pretty small target. But I definitely had consistently bad luck with my plasma cannons to boot.

 

Yeah, fleet wasn't good enough to help me in that case.

[Red Fury]

Oh ok. Just didn't want you missing out on anything.

 

3++ on a dread....that's tuff.

 

-UPDATE-

 

Cool so just finished the other reports. Ha I thought 3++ was bad, that last game the dreads where really dug in. Mephy is boss though!

I really liked how you had three different stylized lists. I liked all three of them, but man, Dante and the SG laid the smackdown on those Palidins!

 

Well done sir.

[x01848m]

Thank you, although to be fair if my opponent had played things a little bit differently, things could have turned out very different.

 

In Game 1, he perhaps should have been more aggressive with the purifier squad accompanied by the librarian and techmarine. He simply couldn't afford to have Corbulo soaking wounds like he did and needs to be taken out in close combat quickly - but my opponent did adjust to that, albeit a little late perhaps. But then again, he had to see where I was going to bring my stormravens in, with their deadly cargo, so who knows. Overall this was a solid win for me, though, so I am not sure how much it would have helped. For the other 2 games, however...

 

In Game 2, I think he should have used grand strategy to give the 2 purifier squads scout and outflanked with them (a combat squaded strike squad and 2 dreads would have been enough to hold that one objective in his backfield). Then he could have used dark communion (I think you can use that from reserves, right?) to have had his 2 purifier squads and Draigo/Paladins/Librarian come in all at the same time (2+ rolls), probably taking out 3 devastator combat teams instead of just 1 and then leaving me with 3 tough units to counter instead of just 1. This would have not left me the ability to so efficiently focus and take him on so piecemeal as I did, and would have put a lot of pressure on me.

 

In Game 3, he should have stuck the orbital strike relay on his techmarine, put his grandmaster with one of the purifier squads, and moved aggressively forward with the 2 purifier squads and grandmaster to shoot and charge Corbulo, the tac squad, and the tank. I would have been able to bring some fire support to bear from the devs and pred annihilator and probably would have been forced to bring the hth scouts on to the side of the board, but all in all it would have been a fight that he probably would have eventually won, resulting in my right flank folding. He put a lot of strength on that side of the board that he didn't use to its full potential.