Grey Knight Game Reports

[Tralador]

Date: 1/30/2020

Game 1:

Grey Knights vs Dark Angels

Grey Knight List overview:

GrandMaster Dreadknight w/ Hammer

Brother Captain Halberd/Stormbolter

Librarian Halberd/Stormbolter

Voldus

3x10 Interceptors w/psilencer (two combat squadded)

6x5 Strikes w/psilencer

3x5 Purgators w/psilencers

 

Dark Angel List Overview:

Apothecary on Bike

Talonmaster

Lazarus

Lieutenant

Techmarine

2x Leviathan Dreadnought

1x Contemptor Mortis Dreadnought

2x5 Tactical Squad

2x5 Infiltrator? (omniscrambler guys)

1x8 Deathwing Knights

Deathwing Ancient

 

Mission: Whats Yours Is Mine

Deployment: Front-Line Assault

Grey Knights Player 1

 

I deployed centrally with my foot guys and my HQs and flanked with Purgators and interceptors.

 

Turn 1:

Edit: Started in Tide of Escalation.

-Top

Edit: Switched to Tide of Shadows, but it didn't help much because I failed at positioning.

Aggressive interceptor shunts saw them way too close and way to exposed.  Killed 2x Tactical Squads and 2x Infiltrator squads almost entirely with smites.  Gate on the GMDK was relic denied by the DA.

-Bottom

Dark Angel 30' Leviathan dreads hurt, a lot.  2x Interceptor and 1x Purgator squads were deleted and another squad was mostly crippled.

 

Turn 2:

-Top

Edit: Switched to Tide of Escalation.

Grandmaster gates in and the last interceptors jumped for combined charges.  The Purgators entered some magic boxes for some astral aim dakka, and the strikes and HQs moved up to hold objectives and throw some smites out.  Vortex of doom landed with a 12 and did ~15 distributed mortal wounds, smites landed intermittently due to LOS terrain and were largely mitigated, but he had no troops so all the objectives were held.  Grandmaster and 1 10 man interceptor charge in and demolish a leviathan.  Heroic interventions from Lazarus, Lieutenant, and Apothecary throw out a few damage on the interceptor squad that made it.

 

-Bottom

The Talonmaster jumps out and drops off the Deathwing knights 6" from 2x strike squads.  In shooting, the other leviathan and Contemptor fire everything into the GMDK and take it down for warlord.  The Deathwing knights delete two squads of strikes in close combat.  The leviathan makes a cheeky charge against some flanking objective holder and promptly leaves my perception for some reason.

 

Turn 3:

-Top

Edit: Used Escalation then switched to Convergence.

Having completely forgotten the Leviathan, the units line up a mind bullet firing line and fire smite after smite into the Deathwing terminators until they stop twitching.  The HQ's and squads move up and put enough bolter fire downrange to finish off the Contemptor, the techmarine, and the Talonmaster.

 

-Bottom

That sneaky leviathan strolls back around the corner, much to my chagrin, and promptly lights up 2 units of Marines.  The Ancient falls back into a magic box.

 

Turn 4:

-Top

Edit: Switched to Escalation

The ancient is his warlord, so we maneuver into position to charge the magic box and then push through on turn 5 into the leviathan.  We push in and don't manage to kill either unit.

 

-Bottom

Leviathan deletes a strike squad and a purgator squad.

 

Turn 5:

Edit: Stayed in convergence.

-Top

The smites finish off both the leviathan and the ancient.  Game ends.

 

Score 24-20 at the top of turn 5.

Errors:  I played the interceptors way to aggressively and they got punished, hard, for it.  Also, I completely forgot about Bring Down the Beast to buff my shooting.  Psilencers didn't do much at all over the course of the game.  Switching for psycannons for the next game.  One Brother Captain was spread too thin trying to give everyone the 24' smite bubble. 

Good things: Voldus and the Librarian were amazing for the power usage.  Smites are king.  Interceptor mobility is amazing, if you don't jam them right in front of a leviathan in the open /facepalm.

 

Edit: Added tide information.

Edited February 7, 2020 by Tralador

[L30n1d4s]

Great report here, thanks!

 

Did you use Tide of Escalation most of the game for better Smites?

[Tralador]

Date: 2/6/2020

Game 2:

Grey Knights vs Chaos Knights

Grey Knights:

2x Brother Captains with Psycannons/Halberds

2x Librarian with Stormbolters/Halberds 1 with Artisan Matrix

Voldus

Chaplain with -1 AP Chant

2x5 Purgators with 4x Psycannons

3x5 Interceptors with Halberds

9x5 Strike squads 7 with Psycannons

Triple Battallion for 17 CPs after relic.

 

Chaos Knights:

2x Armigers 1 with Graviton 1 with Tesla?

2x Big scary close combat knights

2x Shooty Knights with Battlecannons, Thermal Lances, and Missile Launchers.

 

Mission: Nexus Control

Deployment: Hammer and Anvil

GK Secondaries: Behind Enemy Lines, Kingslayer, Titan Slayers

Knight Secondaries: The Butcher's Bill, Headhunter, Old School

 

Knights finished deploying first /gasp.  Terrain was lots of buildings.  I holed up in some buildings several inches back from the line and hid almost everyone  I declared escalation because almost everything was hidden.  Knights deploy on the line and blare the warhorns.

 

Turn 1:

-Top

The Knights charge up into ~22-26 inches from most of my units.  The two shooty knights move up the far side of the board and kill two squads in cover and he scores first blood, butchers bill, and old school.  One melee knight moves along the close side of the board and one moves up the middle.  The two armigers move up in the middle of the board.

Kill more, hold more, kill 1, hold 1, The butchers bill, old school.

 

-Bottom

One squad of interceptors shuts into the Knight backfield for behind enemy lines and to grab the objective once they are more fully occupied.  The rest of the army forms two groups around the two brother captains and librarians.  The Smiting begins.  The right melee knight is pounded to 14 hull damage and the nearby armiger takes 6 as well.  On the far side, the closest shooting knight takes 14 hull damage and the nearby armiger takes a little as well.  The chaplain litany went off, so the purgators on the close side had -1 ap as well.  Purgators cast astral aim and Voldus CP farms and changes the tides into Convergence.  A librarian targets the close edge melee knight with a storm bolter and declares Bring Down the Beast.  The purgators in the building fire all the psycannons and leave it with a couple of hull points.  The rest of the squads on the close side finish off the melee knight and bring the armiger down to 4 hull points.  On the far side, the closest shooting knight is crippled by smites being cast by LOS masked troops.  I don't hold objectives this turn or get kill more, but am well placed and my characters are nicely hidden behind 2-3 units each.  Titan slayer was maxed immediately with 1 more for Kill and Behind Enemy Lines.

 

Score: 6-6

 

Turn 2:

-Top

The middle melee knight moves up to within 6, the unwounded shooting knight moves to get some angles and cover the far objective.  Both armigers move in close to try to do as much shooting damage as they can and charge.  The injured knight moves to try to fire, but hitting on 5's is bad times.  The knights split their fire hoping for multiple kills, but end up leaving 4 squads heavily wounded and none dead.  The melee knight fluffed his 6' charge, but even if he hadn't there were 3 strikes screening the rest of the forces to prevent multi charges.  The two armigers made combat, but no ap saw the two strike squads left with 2 and 3 men respectively.

Kill 1, hold 1.

 

-Bottom

The close board edge group began to move towards the far edge.  The interceptors in the opponents DZ grabbed that objective and another interceptor unit jumped to within Vortex of Doom range and grabbed the closest objective.  Strike squads grabbed the objective in my deployment zone and the top interceptors jumped out close to the other shooting knight.  The chaplains litany goes off again and the closest purgator squad had astral aim and Edict Imperator cast upon them, allowing them to bring the remaining melee knight down 8 hull points before we shift to Escalation.  Smites remove the remaining armiger on the close board edge, the armiger on the far board edge, and the melee knight.  Vortex of doom lands with a 10 on the two ranged knights and does 2 mortals and 1 mortal.  Shooting sees the wounded knight brought down with another Bring Down the Beast and the last remaining shooting knight is mostly tickled for a few hull points.

Kill 1, Kill More, Hold 1, Hold More, Kingslayer, Behind Enemy Lines

 

Score: 15-8

 

Turn 3

-Top

The final knight holds onto his objective and goes for 3 different squads with his guns hoping for some victory points.  Tzeench abandons the poor knight as his shooting, but he manages to pick off two wounded squads.

Kill 1, kill more, hold 1, The Butchers Bill

 

-Bottom

The Grey Knights move into smite range, and the last Chaos Knight's cockpit explodes with psychic fury.

Kill 1, Hold 1, Hold More, Behind Enemy Lines

 

Final Score 29-12 (not counting rounds 4,5,6)

 

Lessons learned:

Psycannons are definitely the way I am going from now on.  Two brother captains are great.  Interceptors are great mobility and need to be used carefully.  Two Purgators were perfect.  Good coverage, but not wasting a squad with no buffs.  40+ Mortal wounds is still ridiculously good.  Board control and damage output are very, very nice, but we are still fragile, so placement and power usage are critical.

Edited February 7, 2020 by Tralador

[Tralador]

@ L30n1d4s yes, I was mostly in Escalation, but a lot of mistakes were made and I didn't use either Shadows or Convergence quite right in the first battle.  Part of it was that it was my first fight with the new rules and part of it was that the terrain was terrible.  The enemy was behind a wall of medium height buildings with fairly defined firing lanes.  Also, thank you very much for the read and the comments :)

Edited February 7, 2020 by Tralador