--------------------------------------------------------------
Deployment:
Here we have the objective inside the large
LOS-blocking terrain in the center of the map.
Grey Knight deployment. I combat squad both of my strike squads so that I have a total of 8 scoring units. No reserves. Warding stave units start off disembarked. Striker combat squads or Crowe will take their rides - the psybolt razorbacks, or psybacks - on Turn 1.
Another perspective of my deployment. I use my transports and dreads to shield my infantry in case he infiltrates behind the central terrain and attempts a 1st turn assault.
The only thing Janthkin deploys is his small squad of 8 stealers, which he infiltrates inside terrain and out of
LOS. He leaves the rest of his army in reserves, where they will come in at +1 on the reserves rolls thanks to the Swarmlord. Last time he used this tactic against me, he had great success with it.
Even though I was very tired in the game (from working 12 hours just prior to it), I was also very wary of his deployment and played very cautiously. Still, I made a number of careless mistakes throughout the game (like forgetting about things).
My opponent doesn't bother to try to seize the initiative and we begin.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Grey Knights 1
My movement. Most of my vehicles move at cruising speed. I decide to play aggressive and take the fight to my opponent. I need to go towards him anyways. Might as well try to take the middle first and defend it instead. Crowe gets into 1 of the psybacks. I take great care in the positioning of my transports and dreads so that they are "touching cover", wasting about 10 minutes of moving when I could've done it in half that time normally. I even went so far as to pop smoke on 1 of my vehicles.
What I totally forget, however, is that his whole entire army (besides the small genestealer squad) is in reserves and won't even come in this turn.
Kevin, if you're wondering why I was so careful with my movement, it was because I was thinking Dawn of War deployment and that your entire army would be coming in on Turn 1.
LOL.
Tyranids 1
Tyranid movement phase. This is where I find out it isn't Dawn of War.
LOL. Genestealers stay still. Well, maybe they were playing house in the ruins. I couldn't tell because I couldn't see.
Grey Knights 2
I continue advancing, taking care to position my vehicles so that I would get cover from his hive guards. 2 more tanks pop smoke.
Crowe's psyback makes it to the ruins where his genestealers lie. Here I make a mistake of moving 1 unit (the interceptors), then moving my dread and then going back to re-adjust my interceptors' position. Kevin politely reminds me that since we were simulating a competitive tournament game, you can't do that, and he is right. They would end up getting assaulted next turn as it turns out they were in his genestealer's threat range.
So far, it's been 2 turns and I have yet to kill a single tyranid.
Tyranids 2
Ymgarls come out of hiding from the rear terrain.
His army comes in and castles to his right. All but his Swarmlord, large genestealer block, small termagant unit and gargoyles. His small unit of genes finally move and get a mighty 6" of movement. Tervigons
FNP 1 unit of hive guards and his unit of 20 termagants.
Ymgarls head towards my right flank.
It takes 2 tyrannofexes and 1 unit of hive guards to wreck Crowe's psyback. Genestealers fleet forwards.
His other unit of hive guards weapon destroy and immobilize a striker rhino. I did not get cover to his shooting from that angle.
Ymgarls assault my regular dread. They increase their strength by +1....
....and explode him. 3 ymgarls die in the explosion.
Finally, his stealers multi-assault my interceptors and regular dread. I make a mistake by moving my interceptors into their threat range.
Stealers kill 3 interceptors, including my hammer-sergeant and psycannon, as well as weapon destroy and immobilize my dread. My interceptors fail morale but luckily get away from his stealers. That means they will be able to auto-rally next turn.
So far, Kevin has taken out 2 of my dreads - 1 destroyed and the other tied up in combat - as well as kicked the crap out of my interceptors. I have yet to do anything to his army, though I do have the positional advantage currently. Can I still pull through with a win? Stick around and find out.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Grey Knights 3
My interceptors regroup. Knights advance. Crowe and warding stave purifiers go after his smaller stealer squad.
The rest of my army advances, moving at cruising speed. Striker combat squad disembarks from their immobilized rhino and moves away from his ymgarls. I ignore his ymgarls for now.
In my Shooting Phase, I concentrate my entire army - 3 psyfleman dreads and 2 psycannon purifiers - into his tervigon. Almost all of them hits and wounds and my opponent fails almost half of all his armor saves. His tervigon is reduced to only 1W left.
Crowe and purifiers assault his genestealers. Due to no Shadows, I get both Cleansing Flames off and end up wiping out his unit, losing only 1 psycannon knight in the process.
Tyranids 3
Overview of the bottom of Turn 3.
The rest of his army comes in. Holy sheets! That's a lot of dangerous bugs coming in. I make another mistake here. Because I've been playing so aggressively, I am now within the threat range of his units in reserve, including his Swarmlord! Somehow, I think I might have stepped into a trap....or did I? Let's just say that I have a plan, and at least they will be hitting my transports on 6's.
The rest of his nids move. 1 tervigon spawns 10 termagants without rolling doubles. Tervigons cast
FNP on this block of gargoyles and genes.
Spawned gants then go after Crowe.
Hive guards explode 1 rhino, killing 1 striker in the process. They get pinned. His gargoyles then shoots down all but 1 of the strikers. His other unit of hive guards weapon destroys and stuns the middle hammerfier rhino.
Then it's off to assault. Gargoyles wipe out the lone striker. Genestealers and termagants multi-assault the 2 rhinos, trying to surround them so that if he wrecks it, my guys will have no place to disembark. Swarmlord's unit also charges into the battle. Luckily for me, my opponent didn't (or maybe he forgot to) cast Furious Charge on his stealers with his Swarmlord.
Overall, the only thing he manages to do is to shake 1 rhino. This, boys and girls, is why you don't want to rely on assault as a form of
AT. It is neither reliable nor efficient, though on the plus side, you do get additional movement by doing so.
BTW, his gargoyles consolidate forwards.
Finally, his unit of 10 termagants, instead of assaulting Crowe, just surrounds and screens him out. His ymgarls assault my vendread. They will stay locked for the rest of the game.
Grey Knights 4
My hammerfiers disembark from their stunned and moves away from his units and behind the center terrain.
BTW, I make another mistake here and forget to cast Fortitude on my stunned rhino. My purifiers surround his termagants and my central rhino moves at combat speed behind my venerable. The rest of my army repositions itself to get better shooting angles.
-- EDIT --
Actually, Kevin was nice enough to let me still cast Fortitude even though I had already moved my transports. I then fail both attempts due to Shadows.
Rear perspective of my Movement Phase. Right hammerfiers who had just disembarked from their rhino will be going after his gargoyles.
Front rhino tank shocks through his 3 monstrous creatures, who all just move out of the ways. Then it is off to shooting. Notice anything missing in the photo above? That's right....both of his tervigons are missing. I focus the entire shooting of my army at them. I roll well (though I didn't get a single rend on my psycannons) and he rolls poorly for their armor saves. The explosion takes out about 10-12 termagants out of 30 (from the squad of 10 and squad of 20). Ladies and gents, I am back in the game.
Finally, Crowe assaults his smaller unit of gants.
Cleansing Flame without the protection of Shadows and No Retreat wipes out all but 2 gants.
Purifiers assault his gargoyles. Because I moved out of Shadows range, I easily get off Cleansing Flame. However, thanks to
FNP last turn, I only kill about 5 with
CF. Combat and No Retreat then knocks off a few more gargoyles. In the melee between his ymgarls and my vendread, the ymgarls manage to knock out 1 weapon from my vendread as well as shake it.
-- EDIT --
Actually, I fail to cast Cleansing Flame when I rolled a natural 10 for my psychic test. I still kill 5 gargoyles, but that is after combat and No Retreat saves.
Finally, because I didn't (or rather, couldn't) move my stunned rhino, his stealers still in base contact with it auto-hit and blow it up. The explosion takes out 1 stealer. It would've been 3 if not for
FNP.
Coming up next:
The final confrontation - the big fight in the middle - and the conclusion to the game....
--------------------------------------------------------------
Tyranids 4
Death approaches in the form of his Swarmy and a bunch of stealers.
His units surround my rhino.
Shooting by 1 unit of hive guards wreck one of my striker rhinos. His other hive guards manage only to destroy one of my vendread's weapons (after re-rolls, of course).
His genestealers fleet to get ready for a large 4-unit multi-assault. They would then assault into my warding stave purifiers, 2-man interceptor unit, vendread and newly-disembarked striker combat squad, moving through terrain in order to do so. Swarmy casts Preferred Enemy on the stealers.
Swarmlord's unit would assault Crowe. My opponent plays it brilliantly. Only his tyrant guard makes it into base. Swarmlord does not. Thus, I would not be able to use Heroic Sacrifice to take him out if he was to kill me. I opt to parry and cast Cleansing Flame instead but fail because of Shadows. Unfortunately, the Swarmlord hits and wounds Crowe with all 5 of his attacks and insta-kills him.
Then I catch a huge break. In the face of Shadows, my purifiers manage to successfully cast Cleansing Flame against his genestealers! I down 7 before battle even begins and then because his stealers had to charge through cover, I down another 5 stealers with my nemesis force weapons.
When combat is done, I've only lost 3 strikers and 2 purifiers from my warding stave unit. In turn, I wipe out all his genestealers! That just gave me the victory there.
BTW, he fails to wreck/expode/immobilize my hammerfier's rhino with shooting and assault from both t-fexes and 1 squad of termagants. His ymgarls and my vendread continue to stay locked in combat for the rest of the game.
Grey Knights 5
GK movement. I am going after his Swarmlord with everything I've got. I fire almost everything I have at his
HQ unit and put 1W on the tyrant guard and 2W on Swarmy himself.
My 2-man interceptor unit fires at and then assaults his unit of 2-termagants, wiping them out.
I then charge my vendread into his Swarmlord to tie it up for a while.
Swarmy hits my dread all 4 times, but only manage to take off its other arm and stun/shake. My vendread survives!
In other combat, my hammerfiers in combat with his gargoyles manage this time to cast Cleansing Flame outside of Shadows range and wipe them out.
Finally, I make another mistake here and totally forget about my other hammerfiers in the rhino surrounded by his t-fex and other units. Because I forget to move my rhino, his t-fex automatically hits it, but somehow, my rhino still survives! His t-fex stuns my rhino and rips off its stormbolter.
Tyranids 5
Overview of the bottom of Turn 5.
His units move towards the objective. All his units are still within the Swarmlord's 18" synapse.
T-fex finally blows up my rhino. 1 purifier die in the explosion. However, I position my guys so that he cannot use his dessicator larvae or cluster spines without the template/blast touching his hive guards as well.
Hive guards shoot down 2 purifiers....
....and 1 striker. I pass morale.
His t-fex then charges my purifiers (only 1 was able to fit in there). My hammer scores a hit (my re-roll for the "non-master-crafted" master-crafted hammer was another miss). I am out of Shadows range, but roll another 10 for my psychic test to try to force weapon his t-fex to death.
He kills 3 of my purifiers.
His Swarmlord finally manages to wreck my vendread.
So far, I've got claiming the objective: 2-man warding stave unit, 3-man warding stave unit, 5-man striker combat-squad (with the blue swords), lone surviving striker (with the orange sword), 5-man hammerfier squad (of which 3 is visible and 2 is behind the ruins)....
....and another 5-man striker combat squad behind the terrain for a total of 6 scoring units claiming the center. My opponent has no scoring units within 6" of the objective.
We roll to see if the game continues and the result is a 1. Game ends
Massacre for the Grey Knights!!!
.....Bay Area Open GT 2013 - Best Tyranids 
.....LVO GT 2014 Team Tournament - Best Generals
2,000 6th Ed 1-0-0
2,000
Chaos Marines
Death Guard 5100 pts.
Daemons 3000 pts.
