PRE-GAME ANALYSIS:
Grey Knights:
At first, I wanted to try out a fun
GK footlist, but against guards, I had to bring my future tournament, shooty list as there probably wouldn't be a chance in hell my foot knights would survive (don't worry, I'm taking them tomorrow against Tyranids!). This is not going to be an easy fight for either of us, especially with all the terrain on the board. Almost everything should be able to get cover if they really wanted to. My main concern, however, would be his manticore....up to 3 S10 shots
without cover for my vehicles. I need to try to take it out as soon as possible. After that, I need to take out the vendettas, then the medusas, then the devil dogs and then the veterans. I'm going to ignore the leman russes and try to stay out of their
LOS with any disembarked infantry if possible.
To my advantage, he has a whole lot of vehicles and not much manuevering space due to all the terrain. My other advantage is that I have 5 scoring units to his 3....but he has a lot of vehicles that could contest though. I actually feel that my ranged
AT is a little stronger than his, but then again, he does have first turn.
Overall, I am confident I can hang with
IG with my dread list, however, I will be playing a conservative game. One of the strengths of
IG is actually their mid-range shooting. If I try to rush his army with my knights, I don't think it will end up well for them. I need to force his troops out of their vehicles (by wrecking those chimeras) before I rush them.
Imperial Guards:
Mike is new to guards, but I'm sure he's played against them many times over. I don't think he will be making too many newbie mistakes. His list isn't really optimized, but then again, he's playing with the models he has. He is experimenting right now, trying out all sorts of different units (medusas, devil dogs, leman russes, master of the ordnance, etc.). In time, after he swaps out the leman russes, medusas and devil dogs for another vendetta, more manticores, a psyker battle squad and more troops, he's going to wreck house
IMO.
I feel that he should try to take out my rhinos and the non-venerable dreads first. The vendreads are just too hard to kill and suck up too much firepower. But as someone who has never played against the new Grey Knights yet (which is actually probably 99% of all
40k gamers), I anticipate that he will probably concentrate on my dreads first. That will just buy me time to shoot some more. With only 3 troop choices in an objectives game, he can't play too aggressively with them. Good for me.
Overall, our firepower is very close. In the end, it'll probably come out to whoever makes the most cover saves....and there will be a lot of them.
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Deployment:
The river and any patch with trees in it are considered area terrain. The tall tower we played as impassable.
We used the grey knight terminators as our 4 objectives.
IG deploys 1 unit of plasma-vets. I deploy nothing. I know his trick. He will probably use that chimera to searchlight any unit I deploy so that the rest of his army can destroy it when they come in. There will be no reserves on either side.
I didn't try to seize the initiative.
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Imperial Guard 1
The entire
IG force rolls in and chills. There are a number of proxies. He is proxying the 2 hydras as medusas and the turretless leman russ as his manticore. Also, all hull weapons on his vehicles are heavy bolters.
Grey Knights 1
All my guys come in as well. My front knights decide to stop and take a smoke break. I try to bait my opponent by climbing my vendread onto the building. Even without cover, he should have a decent chance to survive my opponent's fire. He will be my sacrificial goat.
I am proxying the
IG sentinels as regular heavy support dreads. Also, all special weapons in my grey knight squads are psycannons.
Some of the dreads run. I do not spot any of the enemy so there is no shooting.
Imperial Guard 2
IG movement. Almost all tanks move into some type of cover. Oh, joy.....
Manticore fires 2 shots at my regular dreads. He rolls well and blows up 1 while stunning the other.
He fires at my vendread outside of cover with his vendetta, medusas and leman russes and only manages to shake it. The devil dogs fire at my purifier rhino and immobilise it.
Grey Knights 2
Grey Knight movement. My right strike squad rhino pops smoke. All my rhinos move at cruising speed to get into cover. My vendread passes his Fortitude test to ignore the shaken result, but my regular dread re-stuns himself when he fails his psychic test with box cars (6,6).
My dreads blow up his left vendetta (from my perspective). I also stun (downgraded to shaken) one of his medusas but don't do much else.
Imperial Guard 3
IG movement....or rather yet, lack of movement as almost every tank stays still.
His manticore scores 2 hits on my vendread, blowing off one of its autocannons and shaking it. His vendetta then wrecks my purifier rhino and my knights spill out onto area terrain. He then focus fires his 3 chimeras, plasma-vets and plasma command squad onto my purifiers. I am forced to go-to-ground and lose 3 knights.
Again, his medusas and leman russes concentrate on my vendreads on the rooftop without cover and manage only to shake one of them (he climbed up there on my last movement phase). He then fires his devil dogs at my purifiers (who disembarked out of the immobilised rhino last turn) and only kill 2.
Grey Knights 3
Not much movement on my part except for a few dreads shifting around. My vendread shakes off his Shaken status.
My dreads fire and blow up his other vendetta. I also immobilise his manticore and blow off one of the medusa cannons as well as shake it. I then fire my psycannons at 2 of his chimera's side armor (with cover), blowing off the multi-laser on one and shaking the other.
Lastly, I blow off one of the chem cannons on his devil dog with my dread.
Imperial Guard 4
Again, the Imperial guards skip their movement phase (except for the devil dogs, which move 12").
Manticore fires at my dread. I don't quite remember if it was 1 shot or 2, but he immobilises my regular dread and stuns my rhino.
This time, his leman russes and medusa manage to shake 1 of my vendreads and immobilise the other out in the open. He also fires at my purifiers in cover again, but bad rolling on his part combined with me going-to-ground again leaves 1 survivor (the psycannon knight).
Grey Knights 4
Grey Knight movement. Crowe (proxied using Ragnar) slowly sneaks through the creek towards his chimeras. My vendread ignores his Shaken result.
My rhino moves 12" and pops smoke. My purifiers then disembark. My other unit of purifiers go after his devil dogs.
In shooting, my dreads blow up 1 medusa and shake the other, weapon-destroyed medusa with 2 successful penetrations. I also immobilise and shake his plasma-vets' chimera with 1 dread and psycannons, and my other psycannon unit stuns the right chimera.
Shooting with 1 dread (with cover) and psycannons (no cover) to the rear of the devil dogs blows off the the chem cannon on the other devil dog.
I then assault the devil dogs with both squads of purifiers, casting Hammerhand for S5 Nemesis force weapons. I make a mistake here and illegaly assault with the unit that had just disembarked from my rhino. We both miss it (I only caught it while writing this report). Luckily, I fail to do any damage at all. Better yet (for the
IG player), my guys are now out of cover (area terrain) and vulnerable to his leman russ battle cannons.
Imperial Guard 5
His devil dogs move 12" and tank shock my 3-man purifier unit, blocking my path to his objective. Here's a neat trick for
IG players - one of the devil dogs pop smoke (thus, providing cover for both). His chimeras move and disgorges his melta-vets.
I get real, real lucky. After 2 battle cannon pie plates (with no cover!), 18 heavy bolter shots, 3 meltas (also no cover!) and rapid-firing lasguns, I still have 2 knights left standing. Wow.....
On the other side, his manticore blows up another regular dread as well as takes off my rhino's stormbolters. Again, he fails to kill my solo purifier.
Grey Knights 5
My strike squad go to contest the objective, popping smoke in the process. Crowe stealthily moves towards the
IG force. Lone purifier decides he doesn't want to be
IG target practice dummy anymore. He makes like a banana and splits.
Both of my dreads advance. 2-man purifiers go for payback on the melta-vets.
Rhino then goes to contest the middle objective.
My shooting (I believe it may have been the psycannons) blows up the plasma-vet's chimera, killing 6 in the explosion. Too bad Crowe ran, so he won't be able to assault.
Shooting by 2 dreads and purifier psycannons only manage to take off 1 heavy bolter from the devil dogs. Grrrrrr......... Other purifier unit shoot down 1-2 veterans.
Assault! 3-man purifiers and dread fail to do anything to the devil dogs. 2-man purifier unit casts Cleansing Flame and kill 4-5 veterans. I then kill another vet and sweeps the entire unit (yes, Cleansing Flame counts towards combat resolution).
We make another mistake here. We thought this was only turn 4 and go on to play another turn without rolling.
Imperial Guard 6
This would turn out to be the last turn, as Mike would have to leave after this turn (but he didn't tell me this until after I finished my turn).
Devil dogs move 12" again, this time popping smoke on the other devil dog. Chimera gets out of the way so that leman russes can shoot at my purifiers.
Chimera moves 12" to try to block off the right objective. It then pops smoke. Plasma command squad disembark and other plasma-vets head towards Crowe. His commander issues the order to make Crowe re-roll all successful cover saves.
But Crowe is very, very sneaky and pulls a disappearing act....after he gets pelted by a ton of plasma.
Purifiers don't get lucky 2 times in a row, as the Leman russes blow them away.
Finally, his plasma-vets in chimera shoot the stormbolter off of my rhino.
Grey Knights 6
I didn't know it at the time, but this would turn out to be the very last turn. I also thought it was only turn 5.
My strike squad disembarks and moves towards his command squad. My rhino then goes to contest the right objective. My vendread moves forwards.
Lone purifier moves towards my objective but won't quite make it.
My other purifier squad also moves towards my objective (the justicar was shot down last turn). Dreads advance. Regular dread goes to block the path of his devil dogs.
My strike squad shoots down 3-4 from his command squad.
Charge!!!
Where'd his command squad go? Unfortunately, I fail to destroy his chimera with my shooting, only managing to shake it thanks to smokes. Game ends. This objective is contested.
IG objective is also contested.
No one has troops on this objective.
However, thanks to running, my purifiers are claiming my own objective (I also shot down his chimera by this objective with my vendread).
Aftermath of the battle.
Victory to the Grey Knights!!!
Coming up, Post-Game Analysis.....
.....Bay Area Open GT 2013 - Best Tyranids 
.....LVO GT 2014 Team Tournament - Best Generals
