Today I faced a very strong Witch Hunter army - SabrX's Witch Hunters - so I decided to bring my A-game. I've played his sisters several times and they are a very good army. SabrX himself is a very capable general.
I brought my future competitive Grey Knight army - the dreaded Dread-spam knights.
My list:
Grey Knights 2K
Castellan Crowe
Venerable Dread - 2x
TL-Autocannons, Psybolt Ammo
Venerable Dread - 2x
TL-Autocannons, Psybolt Ammo
Venerable Dread - 2x
TL-Autocannons, Psybolt Ammo
5x Purifier Squads - 2x Psycannons, 3x Halberds, Rhino
5x Purifier Squads - 2x Psycannons, 3x Halberds, Rhino
5x Purifier Squads - 2x Psycannons, 3x Halberds, Rhino
5x Grey Knight Strike Squads - 1x Psycannon, Rhino - 150
5x Grey Knight Strike Squads - 1x Psycannon, Rhino - 150
Dread - 2x
TL-Autocannons, Psybolt Ammo
Dread - 2x
TL-Autocannons, Psybolt Ammo
Dread - 2x
TL-Autocannons, Psybolt Ammo
Witch Hunters 2K
I don't have SabrX's list, but this is approximately what it is. SabrX, if you read this, please
PM or email me your list and I will change it here.
Canoness - Book of
St. Lucius, Eviscerator, Bolt Pistol
5x Celestian retinue - 2x Meltas, Immolator w/Extra Armor + Smokes
5x Celestians - 2x Meltas, Immolator w/Extra Armor + Smokes
5x Celestians - 2x Meltas, Immolator w/Extra Armor + Smokes
10x Battle Sisters - Book of
St. Lucius, Braziers, Heavy Flamer, Flamer,
VSS, Rhino, Extra Armour (Imperial Armour Vol II)
10x Battle Sisters - Book of
St. Lucius, Braziers, Heavy Flamer, Melta,
VSS, Rhino, Extra Armour (Imperial Armour Vol II)
10x Battle Sisters - Book of
St. Lucius, Braziers, Heavy Flamer, Melta,
VSS, Rhino, Extra Armour (Imperial Armour Vol II)
7x Seraphims - 2x Hand Flamers, Eviserator, Book of
St. Lucius
7x Seraphims - 2x Hand Flamers, Eviserator, Book of
St. Lucius
Exorcist
Exorcist
Exorcist
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Mission: Seize Ground - 4 Objectives
Deployment: Dawn of War
Initiative: Sisters win, but forces Grey Knights to go first.
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PRE-GAME ANALYSIS:
Grey Knights:
This is going to be a shooting gallery. I think I should be able to disable my opponent's mobility. It'll be killing his infantry which will be a problem. He doesn't fear my force weapons as almost each and every sister unit can become invulnerable with Spirit of the Martyr. Seraphim's ability to automatically hit and run will be a big nuisance....I won't be able to tie them up with my dreads when necessary. I will out-shoot the sisters but I won't out-assault them. My priority will be to take out his mobility and shoot down his transports. My dreads will almost always be in cover hiding behind my transports.
In annihilation, I think I have the advantage with my superior ranged shooting. In capture and control, Witch Hunters should have the advantage as they will be the ones advancing whereas I will be stationary for at least 1-2 turns to take advantage of my psycannon shooting. With Seize Ground, it's a toss-up. I've got more troops. However, the Sisters have more units able to contest, including 2 seraphim squads who can become invulnerable and hit and run
3D6".
In Pitched Battle and Spearhead, I should have the advantage with my ranged shooting....that is, if I go first. Otherwise, I'm dealing with tranports in cover. Dawn of War should benefit my opponent as he is using Imperial Armour II rhinos. Why? Because they have special searchlights which automatically illuminate 1 vehicle.
Witch Hunters:
He's got to be really concerned about my ranged
AT. My shooting is a nightmare for him. He needs to be able to use his smokes or he doesn't have much of a chance to survive my shooting. Going first or Dawn of War deployment will help him immensely. He needs to get close to me as quickly as possible. Battle sisters are deadliest when they're within 12" of the enemy where they can use their meltas and rending rapid-fire bolters/flamers. If I do not cripple him on turn 2, then he will get into range to do some damage, but if I do, then he may be in trouble. He may actually have the advantage in assault. His sisters may become invulnerable so my force weapons won't be of much use. On the other hand, his eviscerators spell death to my grey knights without warding staves. And I can't lock his seraphims in assault with my dreads, which means they should be able to contest my objectives unless I wipe them out completely.
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Deployment:
Sisters win initiative but forces me to go first. We both deploy nothing. The Grey Knight terminators are used as objectives.
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Grey Knights 1
My forces comes in. Front rhinos pop smoke. Sentinels are heavy support dreads, while dreads are vendreads.
Witch Hunters 1
Witch Hunters come in almost directly across from me.
Rhinos illuminate 2 of my rhinos and exorcists explode one of the purifier rhinos, killing 1 grey knight in the explosion.
Grey Knights 2
Grey Knight's movement phase. Darn it! My strike squad rhino immobilises itself on terrain. Strike squad then gets out and move forwards so they can shoot.
My shooting wrecks the front immolator, shakes and weapon destroys the other front immolator, shakes 2 rhinos, immobilises the left exorcist and weapon destroys and stuns the right exorcist. He escapes a lot of damage thanks to cover and me rolling low on the vehicle damage tables even though almost all the rifleman shots (the dreadnoughts) hit.
Witch Hunters 2
Sisters advance, with the front vehicles popping smoke. As we didn't take pictures this turn, I believe he did destroy another purifier rhino but don't think he did anything beyond that (I could be wrong, though....don't quite remember).
Grey Knights 3
I move the dreads up but the rhinos stay still so that I could fire 4 shots with each psycannon. My purifiers move up to his celestians.
In my shooting phase, I explode his canoness' immolator and the middle battle sister rhino, shake the right, weaponless immolator and wreck the left battle sister rhino. 2 celestians, a couple of battle sistsers and I believe 1 seraphim die in the explosion.
Purifier then multi-assaults his celestians and battle sisters (unfortunately for me, only 1 knight makes it into combat with his battle sisters). He calls on Spirit of the Martyr to make his celestians invulnerable. I then cast Cleansing Flame, but both celestians and battle sisters block it with their Shield of Faith.
I kill maybe a couple of celestians, but due to a very stubborn army, we stay locked in combat.
Witch Hunters 3
Sisters movement. He throws almost everything at my purifiers....including the kitchen sink. Some of them become invulnerable. Right battle sisters and celestians disembark to try to take out my dreads.
Left battle sisters go after my empty rhino.
Sister shooting blows off one of the autocannons on my right vendread (looking at it from my perspective) and explodes my middle heavy dread. Left battle sisters blow up my left empty rhino.
This is the second time against SabrX where my guys get gang-raped by a bunch of girls. Now some may say that you can use Cleansing Flame each and every assault phase, but I felt somewhat dubious about that. If there is controversy regarding a rule, then I tend to go with what I felt was the intent of the designers or the stricter intepretation. Thus, I did not cast Cleansing Flamer on the near-30 models locked in combat with me. I did, however,
forget to cast Hammerhand.
As a result, my purifiers are still hurting til this day.
Grey Knights 4
Grey Knights movement. Purifiers heads towards seraphims and celestians. All three vendreads move towards the sister's transports.
Shooting sees me blow up both transports by my vendreads, taking out a few sisters in the explosions. Also, concentrated fire by my purifiers and left strike squad against his seraphims causes them to fall back. Doh! Huge mistake on my part, as now my purifiers are exposed without a unit to assault (they shot at the seraphims). I also send the right unit of celestians falling back. Damn. There goes my plan to Cleansing Flame the seraphims and 2 squads of celestians. Instead, now my purifiers are sitting ducks outside of cover!
The only assault that occurs is that Crowe (proxied using an assassin) charges his battle sisters on the lower-right corner. Once again, I make a mistake in not casting Cleansing Flame nor Hammerhand and only manage to kill 1 sister with rending.
Witch Hunters 4
Sister movement. Both the seraphims and celestians regroup. One unit of seraphims go after my left strike squad. Middle sisters move to within flamer range of my exposed purifiers, and canoness and celestians go after my dreads. His weaponless exorcist heads towards my objective but immobilises itself in terrain.
Sister shooting blows up my left rhino, takes off 1 autocannon from my left vendread and kills 3 from my purifiers (I made a lot of saves for them!). So canoness is forced to deal with them. In assault, 2-woman celestian unit charges my vendread to lock it up, canoness' unit charges my purifiers and his seraphims charge my left strike squad.
His canoness whiffs against my purifiers, and in turn, I can't get past his celestians' invulnerability for a drawn combat. Vendread and 2-celestians don't hurt each other. Crowe kills 2 sisters and my strike squad only kills 1 invulnerable seraphim while losing 2 grey knights to their eviscerators.
Grey Knights 5
Now here is the situation with the objectives. Right now, I have only 1 objective - my right objective. Sisters have 2 objectives - their left objective and the middle objective. I need to hustle to those objectives if I don't want to lose!
Grey knight strike squad goes to help out my lone purifier locked in combat with the canoness. Both vendreads go to contest the middle objective (with the middle vendread popping smoke) and the right vendread goes after his celestians. It's not in the picture, but my left dread runs towards his left sisters on their objective, popping smoke in the process.
I believe it was on this turn that my dread either wrecks list last exorcist or blow off its gun. In any case, there is no more shooting from any of the exorcists.
His seraphims kill 2 knights whereas my knights can't do anything to his invulnerable seraphims. They then do a move which catches me by surprise. They hit-and-run and springboard off of my justicar 13" to go after my other purifiers on my right objective.
Witch Hunters 5
Battle sisters back up so that if my dread assaults should there be a turn 6, I won't be able to pull them out of claiming range of their objective. However, what he fails to see is that if my dread assaults them, I'll most likely be in contesting range of his objective. Of course, this is all assuming there is a turn 6.
Seraphims and battle sisters move forwards.
The other unit of seraphims go after my purifiers on my left objective.
The battle sisters shoot down my lone justicar, and the rear celestians immobilise my green vendread with their melta.
I can't believe it, but his 3-seraphims shoot down 2 knights! Unfortunately, it wasn't the 2 that were in his assault range.
Charge! He pulls me off of my objective and kill 1 knight. I forget to use Cleansing Flamer or Hammerhand and my justicar whiffs in return.
His seraphims charge my strike squad, killing 2. In return, I whiff against his invulnerable seraphims. Canoness wipes out the lone purifier, who whiffed in return, and Crowe finally finishes off the 2-battle sisters. Also, his celestians assault my middle vendread to lock it up so that it cannot move.
At this point, he's got 1 objective (his own, left objective) while I have none. If the game were to end now, the Grey Knights lose. We roll to to see if the game ends and, fortunately for me, it doesn't.
Grey Knights 6
Crowe goes after his Canoness. My right vendread heads towards the middle objective. My immobilised vendread pops smoke in anticipation of some melta in the back.
Left dread goes after his battle sisters on objective.
Crowe charges his canoness and I make another mistake here, casting Hammerhand rather than waiting for Heroic Sacrifice. Anyways, Crowe whiffs seriously and gets pwned by the canoness' eviscerator. My left vendread lends a helping hand to the vendread-celestian combat but they go nowhere. Finally, my justicar whiffs against left seraphims, they kill 1 knight and then hit and run out of there.
Dreadnought joins into the justicar-seraphim melee.
A recurring motif in this game is that my justicars just can't fight! I don't know how many times now, but my justicar whiffs for the umpteenth time and gets clobbered by the seraphim's eviscerator. They then hit-and-run out of combat with my dread.
Lastly, my dreadnought shoots and kills 1 sister. SabrX makes a mistake here and removes the central model closest to my dread. This ensured that when I charge his sisters, that I will be even closer to his objective. That is exactly what I do.
Witch Hunters 6
At this point, it is most likely a draw as my left dread is highly likely to be contesting his objective. So in order to win, SabrX needs to kill my dread.
Sister's movement. Left seraphims go dread hunting. Battle sisters go after my last grey knight. Right seraphims go after my vendread and canoness gets ready to melta my immobilised dread.
Battle sisters fail to shoot down my last knight, so canoness' unit has to do the job. Her melta also fails.
Without any faith left to become invulnerable, his canoness (with 1W left) charges my justicar, knowing full well that he can't even kill a fly. Sure enough, my justicar whiffs completely and then dies.
Seraphims assault my vendread but fail to kill him.
Seraphims assault my contesting dread.
His eviscerators are magic against my grey knights, killing many, many knights. Now, they also have the accolade of claiming the life of a dread.
Sisters win, killing all my troops and claiming 1 objective.
Victory to Witch Hunters!!!
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Post-game Anaylsis:
Like I predicted, I was pretty much able to disable all the Witch Hunter vehicles. The only 2 vehicles still alive at games end were 2 immobilised, weaponless exorcists. However, my guys just were not able to overcome his invulnerable celestians, seraphims and canoness....even when the sisters ran out of faith! My knights were whiffing like crazy in assault and he was making most of his saves in combat. There were many instances in the game where if my knights could have just killed one more sister, it would've made a big difference....and I'm talking about power weapons wounding on 3's against non-invulnerable sisters! My assault phases were complete failures, whereas his combat were really good for the most part (except when his canoness totally whiffed with 4 eviscerator attacks). It's very ironic that my grey knights were out-assaulted by a sisters army. In the future, I may have to consider putting Warding Staffs in my more expensive units.
Also, I made a lot of mistakes in this game. Many, many times, I forgot to use Hammerhand and a few times, Cleansing Flame. I had a chance to use Heroic Sacrifice against his canoness but messed that up by using Hammerhand. Also, I'm not sure why I exposed 2 of my rhinos to get melta'd by his sisters. I guess I was trying to reach his left objective, but that may have been poor playing on my part. I should not have focused fire on his seraphims, causing them to fall back and then leaving my purifiers out in the open (either that or I should not have shot at his seraphims with my purifiers). But I guess there's not much you can do when your opponent fails his LD9 at the right time and with the right unit.
But what I felt may have been one of my largest mistakes is something that is unavoidable with this army. Basically, it is the inherent nature of psycannon-spam....I stayed back and shot. While my dreads were advancing for the most part, my infantry were standing still in order to be able to fire their psycannons with 4 shots. Multiple-objectives mission favor the more aggressive, advancing army. If they have the resiliency to survive my shooting, then they naturally have the advantage as they are already on the objectives. Gunline armies suffer if they don't have the means to go after objectives in the late game. I had nothing that could really reach his left objective besides my rhinos (which were easily disabled) and my left dread. Therefore, even though I was destroying his vehicles with ease, I was way out of position to do much about it. Advice to psycannon-spam knights: in objectives-based games, especially in multiple-objectives missions, don't hesitate to move when you should. Do not just sit back and shoot. At least we have this advantage over other
MEQ armies - they can't move and shoot with their heavy weapons. We can. Advance your entire army, using your dreads to protect your infantry.
Also, I found that using dreads as a tarpit unit is a double-edged sword. In this game, he tarpitted my dreads instead with his 3-5 model units, locking my 195pt vendreads with 30-60pts worth of sisters. Luckily for me though, by that time, they were already within contesting range of his objectives so that assaulting them just prevented him from shooting them with his meltas.
Now onto the units themselves.....
Castellan Crowe: B-. He is necessary in a purifier-based army. I did not utilize him to his full potential due to my unfamiliarity with him (this was my first time using him) as well as the many mistakes I made with him. But I wouldn't say he is as useless as most people make him out to be. Sure he can't join a unit, but his weaknesses is all the more reason why he will survive to make it into combat in most games. People just don't see him as much of a threat and tend to ignore him in order to deal with other more dangerously-perceived threats. So as long as you protect him, either with cover or by keeping him out of
LOS, I guarantee he will make it into assault and surprise a few people.
Venerable Dreadnought: A. These guys are ridiculously good at what they are supposed to do, and that is to take down enemy vehicles. My vendreads did not miss all game! You're talking about 12 S8 shots a turn all hitting. Fortitude is ridiculously good as well. 2 or 3 times throughout the game, I ignored shaken/stunned results because of it so was always firing each turn. Given cover behind my rhinos and I can't blame SabrX for deciding to focus on my rhinos instead of my dreads. Also, they were hit 3 times by meltas that should have finished them off. Instead, their venerable status saved them with 2 weapon destroyed and an immobilised result instead. Just a very, very efficient and durable unit.
Purifiers: B. If only they did not do so bad in assault, I would have rated them higher. Their shooting was decent. It's just that their assault was below par. In their defense though, almost every unit they faced in assault had 3++ invuln's. Otherwise, purifiers are a great unit with awesome potential. You will be seeing a lot of these guys in pure grey knight lists. Better assault, more guns and an awesome psychic power to boot, these guys are the quintessential grey knight.
Strike Squad: B-. These guys are necessary in my Grey Knight army just because of their anti-deepstriking defense. But in this game, they weren't particularly impressive.
Dreadnought: B+. Their shooting was solid. Not quite as accurate as the vendreads, but they would average 3-4 hits a turn. Fortitude is a boon on grey knight walkers (as well as vehicles). If only my dread had survived the seraphim's eviscerator at the end, I would probably have given them an A-. Otherwise, they did their job and they did it well.
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MVP's:
Grey Knights:
Venerable Dreadnought: My infantry failed this game. My dreads didn't. It was an easy decision. Basically, the dreads counted for most of the vehicle kills.
Witch Hunters:
Seraphims: Also an easy decision. The seraphims brought the Sisters back from the brink of domination by my shooting. They wiped out both of my knights on my objectives. They then went on to destroy my contesting dreadnought for the win. While I knew what the seraphims were capable of, I just wasn't expecting them to do this much. Bravo. Sisters steal one from the new grey knights.
.....Bay Area Open GT 2013 - Best Tyranids 
.....LVO GT 2014 Team Tournament - Best Generals
Thousand Sons 4000+
Your end has come. The sight of us will be your last. We are Wrath. We are Vengeance. We are the Rainbow Warrioirs."
Same list, different army 
