[40K] Grey Knights VS Blood Angels

This was the beginning of our new league. I decided to give it a whirl, and after a lot of debating, decided to play the Grey Knights (or "Cheese" as my buddy FunDave calls them). 

I played against a guy I've known since the day I was introduced to gaming. He's new to the league, but has been stopping in to watch for almost a year. Our guys know him, but might not know his idiosyncrasies as well as I do. 

He's an old grognard/neckbeard, one of those guys that takes perverse pleasure in reading, examining, questioning and just generally ingesting games of all kinds. He also discusses games in a strange hybrid of kvetching/arguing that many people could easily view as misanthropy. I've gotten used to it over the years and don't think twice about his rumblings- I sort of hear them on another wavelength. 

Having effectively taken care of customers, I found a table and broke out my dudes, and my friend broke out his. His list was something like this:

Baal pred

2 las plas razorbacks 

2 five man assault squads melta powerfist

and here's what I brought: 

storm raven

4 terminators (troops) with a psilencer 

1 Justicar Tharn 

I was a little absentminded when we were setting up the table, and I sort of missed something important. Take a look. 

Notice anything? (Besides my hand on the right.) Yeah, there's not a lot to see.

We rolled mission and deployment. He won first but held off and kept his guys in reserve, letting me go first. We had to score an objective, and his was behind a ruin. Mine was on behind a bunker to the way left from what you see here. 

I moved forward towards the objective. He waited. I moved forward again.

I actually scooted around the ruin and sat on the objective.  I thought I was in good shape, and I was trying to follow the "keep the guys in the armored box" rule I keep hearing.

Yeah. Then he rolled all 3 reserves on and the one that was flanking came in on the side my bird was on.

The bird got blown up- totally exploded. The guys inside- 3 lived.

My poor, poor raven!

Then my guys ran away because they lost more than 25% of their squad. And at least one of them got blown up by the barrage of shooting he threw at me.

And you know, I never learn. I charged right at those tanks- with just 2 guys.

The roll to hit. This was probably the only thing that made the night not entirely terrible on a game standpoint.

I got completely surrounded. And the psicannon just refused to die. He was pretty crafty. Thawn died - a lot.

Of course the rolls to pen weren't so good. Can't win 'em all, right?

The game came down to 2 Lasplas Razorbacks and a Ball Predator shooting Thawn every time he got up. And then he didn't, and my friend won.

Overall recap: My friend got lucky with his reserve and shooting rolls. I didn't suck as much as I have in the past. I still lost.

About my opponent: I sort of covered this in the bat rep above, but I like him and get along with him fine. I know other people find his tendencies to discuss things to death somewhat annoying. 


What I learned: Trying new stuff is ok. Even if you lose.

In all seriousness, I was trying to apply some things I've watched or heard. I was debating between BT with a LRC and dudes inside or a StormRaven, and you know... I really wanted to play it. It was a birthday gift and I really like it. So I went with GK. I definitely need to read the Codex more thoroughly.

There's next week to try again at 500... I don't know what I'll bring yet.

[40K] The 500 Point Dilemna

Our local 40K group is doing an escalation league. I'm pretty excited about getting in on the "ground floor" of this, and I am fairly confident that GW won't be dropping any FAQ bombs on me during the duration of the league; mostly because I will be playing a faction that's already got one. (At least I think I am....)

I'm considering something other than my lovely Black Tide, and man is Big Sword yelling at me. I'm kind of considering something similar, but with a little more GW love....

Yeah, I'm thinking about Grey Knights. My main issue is that I don't have the codex yet, so making a list is an entirely hinky proposition. So at the moment, I am still thinking BT- but I am open to other ideas.

However, making the list for the league is a new kind of thought puzzle entirely- the first two weeks  will require some creative thinking.

For the first two weeks, we have to build our armies using the Kill Teams organization rules- but our missions will come from the Big Red Book.

My initial thought was to use a Ven Dred and some Termies, and bam! I would be done. However, after re-examining the board with the league rules, I realized we're not using KillTeams for anything except force org in weeks 1 and 2.

So I need troops and something kill-y in order to have a shot at winning. So maybe a LRC with some space doodz inside??  I don't quite know- I need something with troop selection, but good defense capability.

Ideas welcome as always, and GK thoughts are still running through my head. Or maybe Orks. I miss the green guys and their craziness... and their red paint, and their trukks....

[40K] This Game is Fucking Terrible

Real Quote from The Boy.

He has played before, but usually in Apocolypse games. He enjoyed it then, and laughed and had a great time. No complaints.

He recently played in our local tournament. I asked if he wanted to play, and he said yes in a pretty positive and happy manner. There was no coercion going on - it was totally his choice.

I paid for him to play and loaned him my models. I offered him the choice of Black Templar, Space Wolves or "Vanilla" Marines to field since those were the factions I had a Codex for. He picked Templar and made a list.

I ran errands and did other things at home while he played. A few hours into the day, I got a text stating that he hated 40K, and that the game was awful. He was not having any fun.

What amuses me about this is that he owns an army and used to play. He was a big Tau fanatic (owns the FireWarrior video game) and had a blast and a half with the drones.

After some question and answer, I discovered that he just hates Marines- especially the ones that assault. Poor kid got turn 1 assaulted, and lost 2 entire units within a moment of play beginning. He also had the unfortunate luck of having Abhor The Witch against Grey Knights... NOT good news.

So is he right? Is 40K terrible if you don't like Marines? Are you totally hosed if you are a Xenos loving, tentacle having, Dis-integrator gun wielding fiend?  Please chime in, oh cult of not-Marines, and tell me like it is.

[40K] Eldar/IG vs BT/GK

This was the last week of league, with my partner and I scheduled to face the Eldar/Star Wars IG army.

My good friend Tom came with his Eldar, but his partner of the "Ballerina Darth Vader" had to work. Tom got partnered with a different IG player, who brought TONS of mech. My partner brought Justicar Tharn, some Terminators to back him up, a Dreadnaught, a Rhino with some guys in it, and a small squad of elite guys.  I went with a "silly" list suggested by a friend, full of nothing but Terminators and a small CCW Squad of Initiates.

I got stuck at the counter for a bit with customers, so deciding first turn (them), deployment (standard), mission (seize ground)  and even setup was pretty much all done when I finally arrived. I got my doodz out of the bag and promptly rolled to seize. It worked!

On our first turn, we blow up a Vendetta and an artillery piece, which was pretty important to prevent template death. (That was pretty fun!)  Our opponents shot at us with a metric crapton of guns. That was pretty fun, too. Watching all those dice hit the table is always a good time. It does stink when your guys get blown up, though.

Turn two, I moved my Initiates across the board from cover towards another area of cover and shot some more. I refused some shooting by those Xenos and Heretical scum with my CMLS (yay), and got blown up by template weapons (boo).

Turn three was the GK show, with all kinds of shooting and IG death-dealing going on over the opponent's corner. A Demo squad got eaten up some, and then they shot at us.My contribution was support, along with deep striking the ThunderHammer/Storm Shield/Lightning Claws Terminators in close to their objective.

Turn four, my little CCW squad was headed towards the objective (a two-pronged assault on the area, wow!) when they got SHOT UP. Of course, this made my guys run the other way (towards the enemy), and put them pretty close to hand-to-hand range. They wound up taking on WarWalkers and having a little snack, but the big news was that my squad of Terminators at the back of the board (sporting CMLs) was shot up and they FAILED THEIR LEADERSHIP CHECK. (They have a 10! It's pretty hard to do on 2D6!) Then, I rolled 11" for fall back, and they ran right off the board. UGH. This was of course, good news for the other guys.

Turn five was pretty grim looking over all: We were down to the GK Terminators holding our objective and a few of my Assault Termies.Tom had a ton of Eldar troop doodz and was shooting the ever-loving bejezzus outta me with them. He shot them off the objective, which made me kinda sad, but my partner saved the day by staying put with his guys on ours, and when Tom rolled to end the game, we were up by 1 objective.

What I learned: Maybe I should be playing GK. Those guys kick serious butt. I pretty laughingly said that my job all league was to die so my partner didn't. But it was true. His guys were there to kick rear, take names and chew some bubble gum- and they were all outta bubble gum.

What I can improve on: I can really work on being a better distraction (heh). Maybe paint my guys pink or something (serious joke.)


About my opponents: Tom is a class act, a ton of fun, and has the loveliest models I have ever laid eyes on in person. His partner was very effective with his army but not so much fun.

I was all set to show you Tom's magnificently pretty Eldar, but my camera is acting up and I can't upload pictures. BUMMER.

The game moved very quickly, which was pretty interesting to me. I've been really catching on the rules and doing better, but I caught a couple mistakes and a few moments where I didn't know what was going on.

[40K] SW/SW vs BT/GK

We're almost done with our team league, and this game we played the Space Wolves +Chaos (counts as) Space Wolf guys (but he didn't use his pretty Chaos guys this time)

This team had been playing Terminators and Thunderwolves, but they made a change to their list, anticipating that they would play a different team. We also made a change- my partner didn't bring Terminators for the first time in 2 leagues!

We brought a TINY list as far as bodies go. Something like:

Brotherhood Champion
Xenos Inquisitor
Purifier Squad (2 Psycannon, 3 Halb)
Vindicaire Assassin
Rhino
Strike Squad (Psycannon)
Razorback (TLLC)
Dreadknight (Teleporter, H Incinirator)
Dreadnaught (Ass Cannon, TLAC, Psy)

and my list was even smaller. Really. Here's what I brought:

And 2 Land Raiders.  That's it.

The other guys had 6 drop pods full of Long Fangs- some with melta and some with las. 4 Land Speeders, Missile launchers, all kinds of long range firepower. They had bodies all over the place, probably outnumbering us 2-1 if not more.

We got pitched battle, sieze ground- but if we had gotten Annihilation I probably would have asked for the one allowable re-roll. They just had that many bodies. My partner did not seem worried at all- but I didn't see a way to get through all their guys. [He showed me.]

We deployed in cover, with the Land Raiders lining up along side the objective, and my Terminators elevated in a ruin on the far left corner. The Dreadnaught and DreadKnight escorted our rides on the field. We shot at the Land Speeders and a small fire support squad, destroying 3 Speeders and killing a couple missile launcher guys.

Their turn 2 brought on 4 of the pods. The special psychic ability provided by the DN that kept them 12" away from our forces REALLY helped- but they still came in to assault us. One squad landed right behind my Terminators, and the other just outside our 12" bubble. Another came in more towards the middle of the field, trying to block us a lane to their objective and wanting to kill our Land Raiders. The last came in kind of on the side of our column of mech, hoping to dump fire along the side arcs.

Purifiers on the objective, DreadKnight killing guys in front and on the side. Land Raiders distracting.

Turn 3 my Terminators assaulted the Long Fangs that popped out of the pod and sent them running. The rest of the turn was spent shooting at any melta or las on the board and taking out heavy hitting targets.

Their pod full of melta failed to arrive, and the other scattered to the board edge, which resulted in us being able to place it. We put it so that the guys inside had at least 3 feet to move before they could get to any action, and the DreadKnight continued to destroy the troops set against him.

Turn 4 was a lot of harassing fire on both sides.if I remember right. I know their Melta drop pod failed to arrive. We sent a Rhino to the other side to get rid of the last of the melta.

Turn 5, The Rhino we sent over towards their side of the board got busted open and the guys inside came out to do some damage to the troops hidden in cover at the manufactoium type thing. They break the Wolf Squad right up and begin the slow escort off the board. I continued to provide fire support with my CML Termies and the Land Raiders.  Their last drop pod fails to come on AGAIN. At this point, the other guys decide to concede, as they don't see any way to even get a draw.

What I learned: My guys make really good body guards, and maybe a mech heavy list isn't so bad, if it is done right.  Cover matters and using my mech to defend something big and important CAN work if there's either enough of it or enough support.

What I need to work on: Thinking long term. My partner knew just by LOOKING at the board that the worst we could do was a draw. I had no concept of how he came to that conclusion.

About my opponents: Man, they were fun! One player is new to SpaceWolves, and the other was trying a non-Terminator list for the first time in a while. They tried something new, which was a challenge- and they were super good sports. They teased me a lot about being the best bodyguard in the league, which is honestly kind of true. I provide distraction so my partner can get things done.

It was a fun game and I am really looking forward to next week when I get to play my buddy who is also just getting back in after many years of being on the sidelines.

[40K] IG/BA vs BT/GK

This week's league game was against the team I forgot about- IG &BA. The team is composed of the youngest players in the league, something I really didn't notice until the LO pointed it out.


I was worried about a lot of shooting, and for good reason. We lost, even playing pretty aggressively. My partner summed it up pretty accurately- it was frustrating. Rather than just my snapshot, let's see how it went.

[I absolutely failed to get any sort of idea of their army list. I'm guessing here-

1 Chimera,
1 artillery tank thing
1 Predator (?) with TLLC
1 Vendetta
Dev squad with 4 plasma cannons
Mephiston
IC of unknown stripe (bronze with wings) and jumper crew
IG squad with Demo and melta inside small tank
Drop Pod
Furioso Dreadnaught]

We brought something kinda like: ( I can't completely remember. We made a last minute change from our pre-determined list that might not have been so wise)

EC (Accept any challenge)
5 Terminators w 2 CML and tank hunter
Crusader Squad (9)w LRC (dozer blade on the LRC)
Crusader Squad (5)
Razorback w/ TLLC

Grand Master
Purifier Squad in Rhino
Terminator Squad of GK doom
Librarian

We had Spearhead with Seize Ground, 4 objectives. We finally got first turn and they declined to attempt to seize. (One of my opponents said that in objective games, it's better to go second. I have never found this to be true, but I really don't have a lot of experience.) We deployed across our deployment zone something like this:

Then we use a psychic scout move thing to advance a couple units some more. They put everything in reserves. On our turn,we move some more and then sit tight since there is nothing to shoot at. They can't come in, so turn 2 comes around very quickly.

We mostly sit tight again, waiting for something to do. Of course we move towards objectives, acting in a fairly aggressive fashion since there's really not a reason not to. The drop pod comes in behind my LRC, and out comes Furioso.

The rest of their units fail to come in on turn 2, so it's turn 3. We shoot at Furioso and the pod, do a little more scooting and getting onto objectives, but wait it out again. On turn 3, they STILL don't come in except for the artillery thing whose name I don't know. Of course, I shoot at it with my LRC.

Turn 4. Finally things to shoot at and things to do.  He brings in his Purifiers on a Rhino, as well as move through cover to get better shots and get on objectives. We shoot a lot- and get shot in return. My Termies go down pretty fast despite being in area cover. This was a big victory for them as the CML are a big part of our army. Then the IG blob comes in and takes out a ton of the GK termies. The tide is starting to change...

I missed almost the entirety of turn 5 due to being at the counter with a regular customer. Luckily, I have a great partner that I trust to kill heretics and mutants with much more effectiveness than I can. I came back and I was still alive- which was good news in my book, since his crew was kinda shaky.

Turn 6. My troops from inside the LRC are contesting an objective, but there's a vehicle on it so of course, we assault it to actually HOLD it. His last couple GK Termies are in HtH with Mephiston (uh-oh). I destroy the vehicle and bunker up on the objective, and then his GK are down to one.

After Mephiston wins in HtH with a Grey Knight terminator.

Turn 7- The last of my guys were in assault combat with Mephiston due to his jump move, and well- we got eaten for breakfast. We held on as long as we could, because my LRC was pushing towards the objective- but the IG guys immobilized it and this game was a wrap with them winning 2-0.


What I learned: It wasn't anything I did- I learned something really awesome by watching. My partner's use of cover to keep his guys within 50% or more of cover was amazing. He moved carefully and stretched his Terminators to the absolute maximum of the 2" coherency to get guys in a "conga line" across area terrain to area terrain and still stay "in cover"-it was masterful. In addition, his REMOVAL of GK was brilliant- he was careful to keep 50% or more of the unit in cover at all times- so when he had to take guys off the field, he always took guys that didn't hurt his cover ratio. I would never in a million years think of something like that if I had not seen him do it.



What I need to work on: With both my partner and I fielding small, expensive armies, I need to use everything I have to my advantage and not take silly stuff. A lasgun might not be the best choice against some of our opponents to come.

About my opponents:  I honestly don't mind losing to younger players- as I've said before, my son smokes me pretty often when I (rarely) play Warmachine. They were very pessimistic the first 3 turns- but when the guns started blazing, they got really into it. I enjoy the enthusiasm- they had fun. Their army was pretty tight, and set for Termies- which did not help us a lot. Despite some communication gaps between them, they did well and played a tough game.


I am looking at making a big change to my army... but I haven't decided yet. We'll see what my partner says and go from there...

[40K] IG/Eldar vs GK/BT (with a question)

My camera is MIA! No pictures! Suckage.

My partner and I played against our local Bat-rep extraordinaire dude and his partner, the Jet-Bike Eldar of DOOM. (Seriously) The IG guy who writes glorious reports has decided to take a break from writing (apparently it took him scads of work) and so we were going to be left with my and my notoriously less-than-stellar reporting abilities. AND, of course, my camera goes missing. GAH.

So we faced an army composed of something like:

Seer Council on Jetbikes
Autarch on Jetbike
3 Squads of Jetbike Guardians w/ 2 Shuriken Cannon/squad
2 of the Hellhound variants with the Multi Meltas, forget the name…
3 Leman Russ Demolishers with LC and Plasma Sponsons

and we brought something like:

EC, AAC
Terminator Squad w/ 2 CML and Tank Hunter
Large squad of CCW/Pistol Marines
2 Line Squads, 1 ML, 1 Las Cannon
Vindicator
Librarian
10 man Terminator squad w/ 2 Psycannon, Banner
DN w/ 2 TLAC and Psybolt ammo
Dreadknight w/ Teleporter and Heavy Inferno

We got Spearhead with Annihilation - and they got first turn.

Knowing this was KP was sort of a kick in the teeth for me.I brought extra feet because so many of our battles have been close due to not enough troops, and now I have a LOT for them to shoot at. Can't win 'em all, right?

I'm skipping ahead to my usual wrap up chatter here, for reasons explained shortly.

What I learned:  Having dedicated fire squads actually can and does work. Also, hiding Termies is MUCH better than leaving them in the open.

What I need to work on: I'm addressing that later on in this post.

About my opponents: One of them has smoked me right off the board before. The other has consistently been at the top of the league for months. I was not super confident, especially when they had so much mech and I had a ton load of dudes. However, they are fun players and I enjoyed seeing certain parts of the game in action,


My partner did a pretty effective write up here . Rather than repeat his efforts, I'm going to cover an issue that came up in the game a lot.

I do not understand how damaging vehicles works. Every time I think I have a handle on it, I am wrong. Something about the strength and armor and facing just confuses the crap outta me. Help a girl out, will ya? 

[40K] BT/GK vs IG/DE

All right guys, my long winter's nap is  over! I have been down and out and I have a lot to catch up on. Hoping to get this on the board before Wednesday is over, and then get to work on my writeup for Friday. 

Week one of our team league  was actually pretty fun. My partner (who bless his heart is trying to blame his codex for any "gimping" we get rather than me) and I spent some time via email/FB planning ideas and whatnot, and we had something of a coherent idea for our game. (Rather than aimless meandering, which I do a lot)

We were paired against a pretty tough team- both players are very smart and well versed in their armies. They had lists something like this: 

IG-

2 Vendettas (4 las ea)

1 melta squad

two 30 man squads

1 Chimera

1 small squad on obj.

DE

2 venom

2 ravagers

2 raiders

assortment of dark lances, blasters, decimators 

(I know there was something else but I am blanking on what it might be)

My partner ran Grey Knights, with something like this:

assasin

Inquisitor in Terminator armor (Psycannon, null rod, teleport homer)
Henchmen squad w/MM, Plasma, Mystics, sages, etc...
Chimera
Grey Knight Squad w/ 2 Psycannon
DN (TLAC)... Rifleman class DN

a couple other goodies but again not sure what 

I had my Templars suited up like so:

5 man unit Las,

5 man unit missile

9 man power weapon, flamer

EC

Land Raider

5 man squad terminators, 2 CMLw/TH

We rolled for deployment and got spearhead, with capture & control mission. After looking at the terrain, my partner commented that this would probably be a draw. I shrugged, not ever having done spearhead before. 

Here's the right side with a LOT of flying crap.

My team didn't have access to a Whirlwind (really, I don't get that) so we had to do some real interesting target priority to blow up the mobile gun platforms. Our deployment sort of included our ideas on that. 

You can see MOST of our set up here- although this is a later pic and my Termies have died some =(

I deployed my 2 little units on top of  the objective in cover, with my Terminators in some cover in the ruin there, and my Land Raider (with the BIG CC squad) hid between two hills. The DN, Chimera, and small squad were all deployed with cover as well. 

This game was full of surprises for me- We built and used good cover- and it actually mattered...

We attempted to sieze, failed. 

and now onto the best synopsis I can make given my really bad memory and inability to keep track of ONE army, much less 4...(If I forgot something important or left out your favorite part, I apologize!)