Prot Mini-Batrep: Grey Knights vs Nids 2K (pics)

[Prot]

So once again, for an army with mini-smite, I bring you yet another mini-batrep.

Key Moment of the Game:

+ Early in the game, my Warlord, the GMNDK, is literally abandoned, on a suicide mission to distract the Hive Mind. He has withstood tons of phlem, acid, feces, projectiles of ANY description. But now he is surrounded by an angry Carnifex, and a Toxycrin. The end is near for this hero of Titan.... or is it? +

Game:

Maelstrom - Escalation - 2,0000 points.

Tyranids: (guessing on a lot of this).

Flyrant,

2 x Dakka fexes (95 points each?!?)

30 gaunts

Tervigon

3 poison clouds dude with -1 to hit Nids aura.

1 giant thing with Tentacles that looks like it should be in an anime show

1 Mawloc

3 warriors

3 Hive guard

3 Zoanthropes

1 Broodlord

10 Genestealers

1 Deathleaper

1Mawloc (deepstrike)

2 units of 3-4 Raveners? (deep strike)

2 units of 3 spore mines (deep strike)

Grey Knights:

Voldus

GMNDK

3 x 5 strikes

5 Purifiers

1 Apothecary

5 Interceptors

1 Doomglaive Dread

Stormraven

-------

Greyfax

Acolyte

Culexus

Eversor

Here's what my forces look like.

Sorry for the WIP's! I'm scared to finish painting any 'new' GK until I see the Chapter Approved in case they make any changes to the (largely unused) close combat weapons. Also after selling my old GK army, I am still painting my new Stormraven... almost done though: Also waiting for Doomglaive in the mail... borrowing my Deathwatch Dread to proxy for now.

+ Grey Knights... Roll out. Assassins are ready to go, Purifiers are ready to test out their abilities in the new Stormraven.+

The Deployment is Vanguard.... so at an angle, corner vs corner. Here's the Nid Deployment:

Early Game:

+ We both roll a 1 to go first, but since I have the +1 I get to go first. lol

+ I don't have a heck of a lot I can do. Since we are playing escalation, my single card on T1 is to defend an objective literally right in the middie of the swarm... the Emperor works in mysterious ways, but I prefer living to fight another day.

+ The Stormraven stays up in the sky and zooms over, my GMNDK joins him in the corner. This is to see if it's worth getting the Nids to move towards that edge, and see if I can poke any holes. T1 I also bring in one set of Strikes, and the assassins. What a mess.... I shoot and psychic attack a squad of Gaunts. It takes everything I have to kill 10 gaunts (I don't want them reviving with the Tervigon). I do this for first blood as I figure this is going to be a very tough game for points.... Other than that my Stormraven and GMNDK do very, very little. They try to take on the threat to the Stormraven: the Hive Guard. But with -1 to hit almost the entire Nid army at this point, I can't really cause damage. End of my turn I score first blood, but I think I'll pay in blood... for that first blood.

+ Nids come take the bait on the GMNDK, but I may be in over my head. The Toxicryn? (big tentacle anime bug) waddles up, so do the 2 remaining Hive Guard, and 2 Dakka Fexes! Wow... it gets hot here. The GMNDK has Sanc up thank the Emperor so he only takes a couple of wounds, the Stormraven takes one as well. BUT on the left flank of the table my first blood would put my assassins and Strikes in danger....

+ Here we go... Flyrant, Broodlord, Genestealers... they're all tripping over themselves to get at the Strike Squad and 2 Assassins. Isn't this the Deathwatch's job? When's the next bus to Titan coming? +

+ A super weird moment here... the Genestealers have 3 D6, pick the highest (Kracken) and assault. So they easily make it. The Broodlord is a bit stuck behind the Flyrant, and the Genestealers easily make it in, but somehow I don't lose a dude... seriously... not a one. I made 487 saves in this close combat... or at least that's what they'll hear on Titan. The Eversor, and Culexus hit back hard, but the 3 remaining Strikes completely whiff.... they have apparently filled their boots with 'fear'.

+ Something new... my opponent's first time with new nids.He asks to go back to the ensuing close combat at try a Strategem.... we're both learning the new nids so I say go for it... it turns out on every death of a genestealer he rolls a D6 and on a 6 I suffer a mortal wound.... he kills the 3 Strikes, and puts 3 additional mortal wounds on the 2 Assassins! Wow.

TURN 2-3:

+ I get lucky score 2 points in my zone... I still don't know what to do with the Flyer.... I zoom back to my zone and get away from the shooting Fexes, and leave the GMNDK to fend for him self... .basically he's screwed.... unless the Emperor chooses to spare him.

+ Back in my zone the amount of Psychic stuff he can do kind of blows me away... he stripped "Gate" off of a squad of Strikes, and I take a fair amount of Smite wounds, and he gets Catalyst off. My denial rolls suck and my Culexus is definitely in range, but it is having about a 20% success rate... The Broodlord annihilates the Eversor, and ties up the Culexus.... Unfortunately my opponent had his rules a bit off, and my Culexus would have been dead a long time ago, but survives til turn 5 (simply because he had the damage wrong for his wounds for the game.)

+ The Stormraven came, dropped every on off at the (Gene) pool and took off... The Purifiers get their chance to shine... or die. +

+ Now I have no choice, deep strikers are in, the Nids are pushing forward. Every one gets out and this is a total mess... The Purifiers get off Smite, but it's 3 wounds. I take 7 in return from the Mawloc with some assistance from the Flyrant, and they are wiped. I lose the Strike squad to 5 more Mortal wounds. Some of this is coming from the Mawloc (he rolled a 6 when he came up).

+ I see the Flyrant with his Psychics are getting really annoying, plus my -1 to hit is really hurting me here. I unloaded my ARMY on 10 Gaunts, and the Stormraven on the Deathleaper. I did no wounds to the Deathleaper, and killed 9 of 10 Gaunts. I decide to take the Lascannons to the Flyrant, and it passes 9 of 11 Catalyst saves from the Stormraven..unbelievable. Really all I can do is shoot up the small bugs. I can't seem to really damage the core of stuff behind his poison cloud, and psychics.

+ Remember when I left the GMNDK out to die on the right flank? Well.... he's got a goal here... to block off the Toxicryn from getting a point.

+ The GMNDK is down to 6 wounds and steals one point for me, but he's in trouble. He shoots down one Dakkafex, but a second one charges in as well as the Toxycrin. Getting off Sanctuary was HUGE here, the GM lives with 2 wounds, but hammers the poop out of the Toxycrin. I got pretty lucky here on my Invuln saves, and had to use a command point to keep him alive. So the GMNDK denies a point to the Nids here.

+ The GMNDK is my warlord, I've abandoned him, he's down to 1 WOUND, and he's all alone against the rest of the Nid core..... the Nids don't stand a chance. +

+ The push falters from the Nids a bit. The psychic stuff is still strong though. The Apothecary heals up Voldus, and the Doomglaive dread clears out all the deep strikers in shooting and CC. He advances on towards the Broodlord whom we have figured out his actual rules, and has now slain the Culexus without issue.

+ The Tervigon still lives, I but I think I killed the Flyrant here, and it was his last super mobile threat, but my Strikes are all dead from mortal wounds mostly ,and dakka shooting. The Interceptors were finished off by Mortal wounds. I still couldn't deny anything... UNLESS this is some cruel joke, I'm feeling like the Culexus is trolling me.... or is it Greyfax who will save the day???

+ The GMNDK is really getting on the nerves of my Nid opponent. He's thrown a LOT of fire power at him. I get off Sanctuary on him, but it is cancelled by the Zoanthropes. This is not good... down to one wound, but the Zoanthropes get off WARP BLAST on a 11!!!111!! The GMNDK looks like his day is finally done... but off in the corner I hear the squeeling of an angry woman who hates all the psykers in this game.... Greyfax. She is within range of the Zoanthropes and adds 1 to her denials.... the old witch rolls a 12!!!! And saves the GMNDK! I thought this was absurd, but my opponent was livid. The GMNDK Just . Would. Not. Die.

+ Angry beyond reason (I didn't think Nids had such emotions!) they throw a pile of low end Warrior shots at the GMNDK, he passes about 6 saves on a 2+. Finally the last Hive Guard fires, hits, wounds the GMNDK but he rolls a 6 for his invuln! Still... not... dying.

END GAME:

+ I drew a claim objective 6, + Defend Objective 6 (earlier in the game) and I drew a card which forced my opponent to pick an objective and I had to get it (this was earlier too)... he picked objective 6. I mention this now because I've been waiting... waiting, and now is the time. Obviously Objective 6 is deep in my opponent's original deployment zone. So... I cross the table with the Stormraven, and Voldus would roll on gate, and BARELY pass (my +1 is negated by Shadow in the Warp) I Cannot have this denied so I use my last command point to re-roll one of the dice, and get an 11.

+ (Opposite side of table in Nid deployment zone:) Voldus Gates to the Objective 6. The Stormraven guards him from being shot, and an undying hero of Titan, on one wound, in a Nemesis Dreadknight, still refuses to die. +

+ Bottom of Turn 5, the Nid player cannot do anything about Voldus, and the Stormraven isn't worth anything. So he wildly plops off anything he can at the GMNDK, and he passes all his saves, and continues to hang on to a thread of life.

+ With Voldus' last turn Gate, and the heroics of the GMNDK, the GK pick up 5 points to win the game 12 to 9.

A crazy finish.... ridiculous in fact. Although I felt the Nids were very potent, my opponent seemed to disagree. He feels I have 2-3 unkillable models every game. I felt I hung on by sheer luck, and a bit of bad luck on his part. There was a time, at about end of T2 where I felt so violated by the sheer volume of mortal wounds I took... I couldn't believe it. Also his Psychic phase is solid, and just having normal smite on 5-6 units seemed MUCH more potent than having 7 units that are throwing baby smite. Luckily the Culexus worked on about 25% of those smites he threw. (I had so much trouble denying anything until the last turn super Warp Blast deny by Greyfax on a 12!)

I thought it was a crazy close game, and my opponent felt the nids were underwhelming. I reminded him that it was his first game with the new dex. But he feels confident he played the army to maximum efficiency and his long history with the nids makes up for the new codex learning curve... so he left the game perhaps feeling a little underwhelmed with the new codex.

Of course me having my typical finish of having under 6 models on the table is always hair raising.But it's how Titan rolls! I had a blast.

[Vel'Cona]

Amazing game!  The DK really was the model of the game by a huge measure; absolutely mind-blowing keeping him on the table under all that bug-hate  :)

 

So how do you feel the 'Nids faired as a codex, on the whole?  Good/bad/neutral?

[Gentlemanloser]

That's my psychic phase experience.

 

Were the hive guard using the anti vehicle guns? They rip apart ravens and GMNDK.

 

Also you were lucky not to face any exocrines!

 

But our psychic phase... how i miss you.

[WarriorFish]

What a great read, well done on the victory! I think maybe your opponent will probably realise that it was a fair bit of luck (and good planning, of course - the dice gods don't win alone ), likely just the anti-climax of a new strong codex and not winning by the skin of your opponent's teeth Surely your DK has earned himself a nice 'nid trophy on his base?

[skarn]

I really like these batreps you are putting up.

As for the new nid book, its becoming more and more clear that GK are the weakest codex by a long shot. If we dont get significant points drops on almost every unit or full smite, we will soon be unplayable without allies - every win I've had since the ig and eldar books is a scrappy hard fought thing, even when I've had really good luck or played a lot better than my opponent.

Ive also lost quite a few games by just having expensive models with horrendous efficiency.

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Fantastic game man, I have a local Nid player that I want to take on soon.

 

GW seem to be giving mortal wounds out a lot lately. Every army books seems to have some way to proc them on 6's or via strategems. Our 1 wound Smite seems kinda underpowered by comparison (especially because I tend to Peril 1 in 3 attempts).

 

I can relate with GMDK being MVP in pretty much every game. They always seem to cling onto life once you're down to a few wounds. 'Heed' and 'Sanctuary' are such great tools for keeping them alive.