Prot Quick N Dirty Batrep: Grey Knights vs Dirty Eldar!

[Prot]

Hey guys,

I'm pressed for time as I'm on my way to another game..... but last night I had a Maelstrom at 1850 vs the new Eldar.

I tried a very basic list you've all seen a million times. lol

Draigo

2 Libbies (WL3 / WL2) - no relics/wargear... no points for it

5 Termies, 2 Flachions, Hammer, Psycannon

5 Termies, same as above

5 Interceptors, Incinerator, Hammer.

2 NDK's... loaded Psycannons/Hvy Incinerators

5 Purifiers, Incinerator, Falchions, in reserves with:

1 Stormraven, homing device, MM, Assault Cannon.

Eldar 1850:

a couple of warlocks, Farseer (used eldar powers)

3 guardian squads + free hvy platforms

1 5-6 man squad of dark reapers

2 Vypers

2 war walkers

1 sqd swooping hawks

1 sqd of warp spyders

1 Wraithknight ( 2 * D weapon mounts)

1 squad of D cannon artillery batteries.

The Game:

(Sorry this has to be brief, but it was a fast game)

We played Maelstrom, he got to pick sides, go first, etc. He basically castles up knowing I am going for close combat and he has little of it aside from his WraithKnight.

His Wraithknight protects the West Flank, and he bubble wraps the artillery on the East Flank behind ruins, protected by many out of work artists from some dumpy craftworld. ;)

I get my Warlord trait of choice: the one that ensures I come on first turn with warlord unit in first turn with re-roll on scatter.

Knowing this, I keep him off the table. Good news: both Libbies get Gate, so the other squad is also on the table, behind rocks so I can gate in without worrying about reserves. The Warlord and Draigo are in reserves. The rest is deployed on the East flank ready to Shunt.

First Turn;

- He draws up 3 cards. This is Steal Objective X. He draws some sweet cards, shoots one wound off of a NDK.... although I have no real casualties, it's not looking good as he's go 4 points in turn one. And has spread out a lot to prevent accurate gate.

- In my turn I draw a card I instant discard because of a house rule, the 2 others are hard.....but I have to keep them. Only one is an objective marker, and it's in his zone... right beside his artillery! But he's up a lot, and can steal this one, so I make a big decision here.

+This is his deployment. Like every game of 40K I ever play, I will be leaning over the board, chasing my opponent to their back edge.

+ The black thing towards the west is the Wraithknight. Behind the ruins on the East is the hidden artillery and the shiny (necron) coin I must get to in order to prevent a runaway game....

+ My eastern Deploy

+ My western deploy

My Turn:

I jump up NDKs, the 5 man Interceptor squad TP's out of the rocks, I take dangerous tests, one dies, we randomly allocate it is... the Incinerator dude. D'oh!

Here is the big moment... the game comes down to this move. I use my Warlord trait and decide (backing up a bit here) that in reserves I am putting Draigo and the warlord Libby plus terminators right on Objective 4, high on the Eastern corner. This has to go off well or it's all over....

+ I drop in a tight ball, roll a bullseye. I am surrounded by the superior, sickening smell of self superiority and... cheese... something smells here, and I know Draigo put his deodorant on.

HUGE moment #2: Psychic Phase.

- I roll a 6 for psychic dice, but my opponent has lots of dice too with warlocks and Farseer (sorry I can't remember the exact number he had).

- I roll to Gate the Terminators that were WAAAY out of the action on 3D6, fail.

- I roll Sanctuary x 2 on the NDK's who are facing EXTREME firepower (intentionally). I fail one, pass the other, and the Eldar cancel it out!

- I realize with no successfull casts, I need to take 5 D6 on Cleansing Flame from my Warlord here since I am in a pit of doom here.... I pass, but Perils! Take a wound....

Cleansing Flame completely whiffed here. I did about 4 wounds per squad, did nothing to walkers, nothing to Gaurdians in ruins, and nothing to the Artillery squad.

This is where I overestimated myself. Artillery is always getting hit. So my to wound is against T7, now if I wound him, it goes to the closest guy, and in this case it would be a simple Guardian manning the closest artillery piece, and he would be at a poor save.

I fired everything from that squad including the Psycannon to do anything to get rid of the D Artillery... I caused one wound on one guardian.

I do maybe 3 or so attempts at Hammerhand/etc, and everything fails or is canceled. One other power does go off on a whim... Draigo's Purge Soul, I put a wound on the Artillery unit.. ugh.

Turn 2:

This is it.... I take 3 wounds on one NDK, the other takes 1. I take 3 D weapon templates, One Terminator dies, but I put Draigo up front intentionally. I don't have Santuary but I have him tank all the other hits. The D cannons get 3 Bullseyes! Using direct fire, this means the closest model is wounded. He hit 9 times.....

Terminator 1 "bob" is dead.

Draigo takes the next hit, gets D3 wounds, takes one wound.

Draigo takes next hit... gets hit with a 6. He's gone....

Terminator Warlord takes D3, is gone.

Squad is wiped.

My Turn 2:

Terminators 'out of the action' attempt Gate. Fail again.

The Purifiers come in, but have no means of making a difference. The game is over and I know it. But I want a piece of that Wraithknight... you know, something to drag back to Titan just to say, 'Yea we lost, but look at my new lucky Wraithknight foot".

Stormraven wounds Wraithknight, but FnP saves them..... Purifiers do the Sky Fury thing and use the Homer to lock into place. The cast Cleansing flame against Hawks, and Guardians, it passes on 3 dice. Eldar cancel it. (ugh)

I cast 2 x Santuary, actually pass one that isn't canceled on the NDK.

This is very ugly. The Purifiers can only pew pew at the Hawks which roasted some interceptors pretty bad with their bomb, and shooting. It takes termies, and purifiers to get the exarch down to one wound, but I cannot kill him...he flies off the table. lol

My opponent is up 9 points to 2.

ENDGAME:

We go through the rest anyway, I don't want to concede.

I take what I have left, assault on 3 fronts. The Purifiers are wiped off the planet by Reapers. D cannons are finally assaulted by NDK and ripped apart. NDK #2 takes down a final Warwalker.

I futher rush the Guardians in the ruins to destroy them.... with 3interceptors left, I wipe them win a challenge, score a point... And move into a 'safe' corner, but the NDK blowing up the walker makes it explode killing an interceptor!

Finally, I reach the Wraithknight who has been bubble wrapped by guardians.... I try for Force... fail. I try for Sanctuary, I get it...! Finally!!! But on perils! D'oh.... then the Eldar cancel it!!! D'oh!!

I literally looked to the sky at this point, and said "Dear Emperor... I am going to charge this god foresaken Wraithknight... make me a 'god'!" I rolled a 6 on the Perils chart and laughed maniacally.... My NDK now had 3+ invuln, fleshbane, etc, etc....

Yea that really happened. My opponent laughed, but unfortunately I wouldn't have the last laugh. Fate is cruel, I ran into CC and rolled a fist full of misses... hit twice with the re-roll, (hitting on 3's btw) and then rolled only one wound as the other was a 1...

He did fail the save/FnP. And I took 3 wounds back, passed them all.

I had to laugh.... we went back at it and my NDK finally died, but not after taking him down to 3 wounds. (in retrospect we forgot stomp)

I called it at that point since I had 5 models on the table..... which kept failing/canceling Gate.

POST GAME:

I challenged him to a Draigo-off. His Wraithknight accepted. I said for 3 CC turns, let's pretend Driago has Force, Sanctuary, and Hammerhand. Eldar player says 'sure'.

Draigo destroys the Wraithknight (who does not have a D CC weapon btw)

I say, let's go again, but this time, Draigo has no hammerhand, no sanctuary, no force.

Draigo destroys the Wraithknight.

Unfortunately we kept forgetting stomp... or he I should say he did. As I never use anything with it.

Anyway, I gotta run. I had more thoughts on the game, but the next one awaits....

Thanks for reading this mess. :)

[BetterOffShred]

That's just one of those games where you have to say 'Balls..' with almost every dice roll.   At least it sounds like it was still pretty fun!

 

-Brett

[SyNidus]

Lol, that really sucks dude. Nice try though. The only thing I'd do differently is i would've shunted everything right up from the get go. Also would've put the termies in one big squad instead of splitting them up, that way you can bring the whole unit in together. The interceptor incinerator would've been key to putting wounds on the artillery unit.

 

Other than that, just not your fortune :P

[Bionicman]

Bummer.

 

Artillery can be a ** and shooting it with your NDK is a big waste. S7 3+ is soo difficult to kill for GK so CC is probably the best option. That means at least one round of Eldar D shooting, haha.

[jeffersonian000]

No man is an island, even if Draigo can be a bit of a peninsula.

 

SJ

[Prot]

Lol, that really sucks dude. Nice try though. The only thing I'd do differently is i would've shunted everything right up from the get go. Also would've put the termies in one big squad instead of splitting them up, that way you can bring the whole unit in together. The interceptor incinerator would've been key to putting wounds on the artillery unit.

Other than that, just not your fortune

Yea, maybe a full shunt on turn 1 might have made a difference, but I recall he had the cheap guardian junk insulating his juicy center. But the combining of the termie squads is something I never even considered... well I guess I would have had to make it one squad then combat squad it. But yea, since I got the "First to the fray' or whatever it's called, for a warlord trait, I probably could have done it... that would have been big....

It also means I could have rolled on Divination perhaps for one Libby. But yea, that's a really interesting thought to have all 10 and 2 Libbies w/Draigo tied together for the whole game in that corner, while the rest did the Maelstrom leg work.

Bummer.

Artillery can be a ** and shooting it with your NDK is a big waste. S7 3+ is soo difficult to kill for GK so CC is probably the best option. That means at least one round of Eldar D shooting, haha.

You're right. It's one of the few 7th edition changes I don't understand. It used to be at least somewhat random where you had a chance of hitting the either the arty or the dude pulling the trigger. Now it's made that the unit is far more resilient until you cc it. I was surprised after a full round of shooting and psychic attacks from termies + 1 NDK that only 1 guardian died, and one wound came off the Artillery....

No man is an island, even if Draigo can be a bit of a peninsula.

SJ

Yea, he was due for a '6' on a D weapon since I didn't vortex that game. lol