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One Last Blade - Icosiel's Grey Knights Videos

Icosiel

By Icosiel
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Cleon Venerable Brother

Cleon

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I have to ask, in the late turn when you had a critical Gate and no command points left, what was the thinking of not doing Imperium domination first? a re-roll on that gate could have swung things a bit. Although except for the big Chaos tower was there any line of sight blocking terrain? it felt like the Chaos Lad raider could just shoot anything on three quaters of the battlefield.

 

Other than that it was really interesting to see the objectives actually rewarding not engaging and consolidating on your held points and firing sacrificial grabs (I have to admit, the 2nd player being able to drop in on an objective and score before the 1st player can respond, but the first player not being able to do that is actually feeling more powerful than shooting first if you have the right missions.

Icosiel Veteran

Icosiel

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If I'm being completely honest, the dramatic double 1s Perils that my Librarian rolled earlier in the game really hit me. For the rest of the game, I almost treated him as if he didn't exist, only deigning to cast his powers when he was the last guy in the phase. Not so much a tactical blunder as emotional defeat.

Most of the ruins scattered across the map blocked LOS. Thanks for watching!

 

I have to ask, in the late turn when you had a critical Gate and no command points left, what was the thinking of not doing Imperium domination first? a re-roll on that gate could have swung things a bit. Although except for the big Chaos tower was there any line of sight blocking terrain? it felt like the Chaos Lad raider could just shoot anything on three quaters of the battlefield.

 

Other than that it was really interesting to see the objectives actually rewarding not engaging and consolidating on your held points and firing sacrificial grabs (I have to admit, the 2nd player being able to drop in on an objective and score before the 1st player can respond, but the first player not being able to do that is actually feeling more powerful than shooting first if you have the right missions.

Cleon Venerable Brother

Cleon

Posted
Posted

Watched this one with some extra interest as I started a Death Guard force in 8th and never got enough of it done to actually get any games in and was a little concerned that the Death Guards rules do seem overwhelming to the opposing player, not necessarily in power, but in complexity and impacting the ability to make the right decisions (although your recent run of abysmal luck probably didn't help in that regard either).

 

Overall I'd say the Death Guard chap (Sorry I didn't catch his name) put together a solid list and played pretty well, but he wasn't that far off his army collapsing in on itself in the end (not a great deal of power projection left) and in a re-run learning the lessons of being exposed to his rules I think you'd have stood a decent chance.

 

Having said that, these I think are the key lessons out there, please don't take them as any for of having a go, but just as thing that popped out to me while watching as I had the benefit of not having to think of a hundred other things and make/amend my plan on the fly...

 

Big issues:

1 - Reserves - You did call out that you do sometimes leave too much in space, but I think in this game you really needed to deploy almost everything, for the following reasons:

  • As you discovered for yourself, the poxwalker hordes covered too much of the board, there was not the space to make 'good' drops causing you to burn too many CP and take too many risks with Dynamic insertion, also that extra charge strategm added to nullifying the advantage of deep strikes (a nasty surprise)
  • Contagion! - As the Death Guards anti-toughness Aura increases turn on turn, (1” on turn 1t, 3” on turn 2, 6” on turn 3, and 9” on turns 4+)  you need to be engaging with all your shooting quickly, units sitting out turn 1 (and in some cases turn 2) is really handing an advantage by skipping their weaker turns.
  • All in all, running a line of Terminators backed up by the Dreadknights heavy weapons across the board and focusing stormbolter fire on his front units, then the next and pushing him back as you force your way forwards may have been worth a try (although the deployment giving him most of the objectives certainly put you on the back foot) 

2 - Exchanges - Too often it looked like you were willing to swap a valuable asset for a momentary victory point swing, or just to get stuck in, As above I think that was partly not fully realising what the Death Guard brought to the game, but trading Grey knights for poxwalkers is always going to be digging a hole for later turns.

  • The Dynamicly inserting the dreadknight to finish off a few Poxwalkers and feeding it to the Lord of Contagion - consider  instead dropping it the other side of the poxwalkers, create a credible force combined with the terminator squad to advance with next turn so now he has to dea with Terminators AND a Dreadknight
  • The initial Terminator drop - Isolated in the back corner, all they achieved was contesting a few victory points and distracting the possessed (again ouch the possessed got a power bump)
  • The Interceptors - Not sure if this was just not realising how horrific melee Plague marines were at the early point in the game, but effectively you gave the unit away for 2 CP, really they needed to hang back and work in concert with Sir Mandis (sorry I think I mangled his spelling) and his paladins, force the Death Guard to take the pain by engaging both at once.
  • Alternatively - at the point the Interceptors are 7 man, consider running them at 5 man, using their manoeuvrability to snag the objective and free up the Terminators who were behind the Inquisitor and other Dreadknight. Once they are stationary in cover, ther armour is nearly as good as the terminators and their stormbolters are just as good.

Smaller issues - I did sense at times you were getting overwhelmed by all the death guards rules and it was driving some suboptimal decision making, so just a few points for you to consider:

  1. 2 wound death guard with Disgusting resilience (effectively you need to do 2 individual wounds, 3 at once, or 2 sets of 2) Makes the interrupt decision basically between the Grand Masters flat three wounds and the Paragons demon hammer, the halberd Paladin was not likely to drop many if any Plague marines with his D3, the Grand Master was the right choice, not the 2 Paladins
  2. Shooting and melee sequences. A number of times you threw a krak grenade at a unit with a wounded model and then fired storm bolters afterwards, wasting the higher damage ad effectively making it damage 1 instead of D3 as the wounded marine would take the hit. (3 wounds from the Krak grenade and 1 from the storm bolter can remove 2 marines if the bolter goes first, but only 1 and wound a second if thee grenade goes first), similarly you weren't optimising the order of Nemesis hammers, using them first even if there was a wounded model.
  3. Psychic Sequences: - similar to the above this time you had a command point in the bank (and can only do one re-roll per phase, but you did the Librarians smite before the Dreadknights, making the guy with the extra bonus and the re-roll have the easier cast value, resulting in the dreadknight failing (although seriously what is going on with your powers, you're rolling a ridiculous number of perils, 2 double perils on re-rolls in 2 games? what?)

As I say above, not trying to rip your play apart, just offering some thoughts from a less occupied mind.

Cleon Venerable Brother

Cleon

Posted
Posted

Well, Ouch.

Honestly I don't think there was any way for you to pull that back after the Paladins effectively spent your entire turn killing one intercessor. I know you had a plan, but was there no way you could get another unit in close and double smite that intercessor to death? Whatever it cost you in not striking elsewhere you'd have got back in the Paladins not being engaged and the full units storm bolters and then charge while they were still at high numbers, even if it meant they were without sanctuary on purpose (instead of a botched psychic test.)?

 

Obviously forgetting to fire the Dreadnought hurt, but also the terminators with storm bolters hitting the intercessors or the redemptor dreadnought is only a difference in taking wounds off on 5+ to wound over 4+ to wound hits and saves are the same - you have the 24 inch range, all you did by shooting the intercessors was reduce your own damage by costing you the charge. Add the Dreadnought and those bolter shots and that's possibly/probably a Redemptor down.

 

Final point Oh god, the luck you've had recently on psychic tests and you re-roll a success on the Apothecary? that was a true 'What?' moment.

  • 3 weeks later...
Cleon Venerable Brother

Cleon

Posted
Posted

A quick few games there, first of all - I thought you'd thrown away the game with the Drukhari when you didn't select the Paladins first and the Talos killed them, congrats for holding on and getting a win on the channel.

 

The other two games sort of show up a problem with modern 40k for me, the small table/deployment shenanigans and a blender (Asurman/Patriarch) dominating the battlefield as they kill everything they touch so just don't take any damage.

 

Fire dragons are just nasty on a board that small, but the big wall sections really played into the Eldar's short ranged guns and superior manoeuvrability while nerfing your Storm Bolters and forcing you to close into their killing ground to be effective, the only thing I'd really point to is I think you got caught up in the opportunity to inner fire twice and didn't maybe realise that actually a smite taking the Falcon down to six wounds would mean two hammer wounds through kills it - a better chance than doing seven mortals with inner fire and the Apothecary survives to maybe tank more fire next turn.

Icosiel Veteran

Icosiel

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Good observations as always, Cleon! If I'm being honest about the Drukhari game, I didn't play my hardest there. That was my buddy's first game in a couple of years and he was playing a new Codex so I maybe fed him a few units just so he could play with his new toys.

 

Separately, here's this weeks game!

 

Cleon Venerable Brother

Cleon

Posted
Posted

Well, yes. The less said about feeding the second Dreadknight to the unit that killed the first the better....

 

More interesting the difference in lethality and survivability between the (especially the new) Primaris units and the Grey Knights is quite painful, No grey knights unit can match the 2+4++ of the Bladeguard who carry swords that mix and match the best aspects of the Nemesis weapons with str 5 of the halberd and -3 of the sword on a solid D2 instead of swingy D3... and no grey Knight unit can point at a Dreadnought and delete it like the Eradicators can to a dreadnought. Add that to the extra wounds on every model (especially that 7 wound Chaplain) and to be honest you did well to survive as long as you did. I might look slightly dubiously at sending the Paladins out on their own to get ganged up on, but to be honest with that arrival strategm the assault centurions were going to hunt them wherever they went.

 

As they stand Marines just do what grey knights do, better, but as you say, considering how little GW charged Death Guard and Marines for the 2w power armour and 3w Terminators that'll be a major upgrade when it comes.

 

I agree completely with your assessment that dreadknights need a rework and really I hope 2+4++ is in their future, although as you proved, the gatling psilancer is actually deceptively effective against marines with great saves.

  • 2 weeks later...
Cleon Venerable Brother

Cleon

Posted
Posted

Nice game, I have to admit I do like these more basic 'take and hold' style games, while all the secondary managing does do a good job of giving players more options to score and stay in a game, there is something pure and simple about 'fight your way over there and hold it' that calls back to the simpler days where all that mattered was the fight and the winner was obvious without book keeping (darn I feel old now)...

 

For the game, it was interesting to see how a good run of saves helped you really stop his momentum from  building when all his reserves came in and left him tied him up with the Grand Master letting you pull support in on that anchor and prevent him from escaping. Also I really like what you are doing with the Razorbacks to free up terminators from having to babysit objectives, it feels like you have an extra squad each game now.

 

It wasn't really clear from the video (yay 2d...) but was there something preventing the Terminators at the end from shooting up the Magos on their way in to the Patriach like the Ancient did or was it just forgotten in the enthusiasm to get the smash on?

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
Waking Dreamer Veteran

Waking Dreamer

Posted
Posted
Btw, MFM points for GKs have been leaked (no Primaris). BUT with the points for 2W GK marines 3W Terminators (and the same for Paladins but cheaper now), will your next Batrep use these points and buffs...? Do you think the +1W and +1S in the force weapons (and things like the in-line 12" range Incinerator etc) can make a difference already?
Icosiel Veteran

Icosiel

Posted
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Btw, MFM points for GKs have been leaked (no Primaris). BUT with the points for 2W GK marines 3W Terminators (and the same for Paladins but cheaper now), will your next Batrep use these points and buffs...? Do you think the +1W and +1S in the force weapons (and things like the in-line 12" range Incinerator etc) can make a difference already?

 

 

Man, I hope so. I'm very confident that Incinerators are going to be awesome. Only a 5 points increase!

Vs the new AdMech Codex this week!

 

Waking Dreamer Veteran

Waking Dreamer

Posted
Posted

^ It's great that you guys talked about the switch in points for the NDK's Greatsword and the Great Daemonhammer.

 

For my thoughts on that I mentioned it here:

 

Ideally, based on the new points the profiles would be:

 

Great Daemonhammer:

10 points = S12, AP-4 D3+3 Damage (-1 to hit)

 

Greatsword:

15 points = S10 AP-3 D3+3 Damage

 

^ There's now way getting sliced by that huge sword should inflict less damage than that of the infantry-size Daemonhammer. lol

 

So I think they're both the same damage profile now, but the Hammer keeps the +2S, +1AP for that -1 to hit while being cheaper.

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