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Just had a 1K quickie today with some interesting results. It's getting late so I'll just post up the lists and poll first. Actual battle report will be out tomorrow. Let me know what you guys think.....


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1000 Draigowing Grey Knights vs Ravenguards


1K Grey Knights

Lord Kaldor Draigo

10x Paladins - 4x Psycannons (3x MC), 1x Hammer, Brotherhood Banner
1x Soladin


1K Ravenguards

Shrike

10x TH/SS Terminators

10x Scouts - Camo Cloaks, Snipers, 1x Missile Launcher
5x Scouts - BP+CCW, 1x Meltabombs, 1x Power Weapon

Land Speeder Storm - Multi-melta
Land Speeder Storm - Multi-melta

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Mission: Annihilation

Deployment: Spearhead

Initiative: Grey Knights


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[bDeployment:[/b]

Map of the terrain.



Grey Knight deployment. Soladin hides behind a rock.

With Grand Strategy, my opponent gives his paladins Scout. That is because he wants to see where I deploy so that he can then react accordingly. What he fails to realize, however, is that I will be infiltrating my army. Thus, no matter where he moves with his Scout move, I can still infiltrate 12" or 18" from him.


Ravenguard deployment. After he does his scout move, I then infiltrate Shrike and terminators out of LOS behind the terrain. I am easily within charge range....if only I had 1st turn. 10-man sniper scouts infiltrate into the ruins.

My 2 speeders (with combat scouts) will be outflanking.

I fail to seize the initiative.


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Grey Knights 1

He scoots to his left. Less than half of his squad can see my terminators and so I survive his shooting without so much as a scratch.


Space Marines 1
I then move and fleet my termies.

Scouts see and shoot at his soladin. He goes to ground and I only cause 1W.

I then easily make the charge against his paladins. Unfortunately, some of my terminators are outside of combat while all his terminators and Draigo get to attack after piling in.


He kills 7 terminators and I insta-kill 5 paladins. We stay locked in combat.


Grey Knights 2
No movement or shooting. His soladin is pinned.


He insta-kills Shrike and 2 more hammerfiers. I kill another 2 paladins.

GK: 1, SM: 0


Space Marines 2

Empty speeder comes in and tries to melta his soladin to death. I miss. Snipers then shoot down his soladin.

In combat, he finishes off my single terminator.

GK: 2, SM: 1


Grey Knights 3
He shoots down my land speeder.

GK: 3, SM: 1


Space Marines 3

My speeder with scout squad comes in but from the wrong table edge.


I have nothing left to lose as I will lose.

I fire my scouts at him. The missile launcher insta-kills 1 paladin!

He then rolls for morale and get


Draigo and pallies run off the board!!!




Victory to the Ravenguards!!!

Going for the TH/SS Termies here, as your wound-allocation shenadigans can't save you from Instant Death.

I think TH/SS termies have this, though in an annihilation mission it will be closer than objectives. They can infiltrate and have fleet so no way you can outrun them. Also don't get enough turns to shoot them up on the way in.

If GK have good shooting phase and they can charge they will win i think

It can come down to luck then cant it? Depending how the GK go in their shooting phases, they could change a game completely but if they fail... well you can imagine the results. But I'd have to choose the Ravenguard in my own opinion.

TH/SS strike at initiative 1, so the paladins will hit first, combined with shooting and I reckon the grey knights may just about win this. Alternatively JY could just kill the speeders and scouts, and laugh as his opponent can't do anything better than draw on KPs

With the mission, easy win for the GK.

Paladins.

Many reasons:
1) More attacks overall, hitting on 3's, wounding on 2's (assuming you cast HH twice)
2) No Psychic defense
3) tons of shooting to whittle down the termis so it won't be a head on contest
4) You have 3 KP total to his 6... he'll probably have to table you to win.

The only threat to the paladins in the space marine list is the big block of th/ss termies. The landspeeders don't stand a chance against four psycannons and the scouts single missile launcher isn't scaring them. So if Jy2 can effectively block them with draigo and the soladin, to slow them down, then he should get enough rounds of shooting off to wittle away till they are at a manageable level. So my vote goes to the paladins. It all goes down to how deployment goes though, and the tactics of each player. Either list has the potential to beat the other.

Paladins will have 2 rounds of shooting max...provided they infiltrate. It might not be enough time to whittle them down. I guess it comes down to how effective their first shooting phase is.

Well, on their own, I'd say Paladins win with shooting+assault.

But his army is better supported, the scouts and speeders are a decent tactical setup.

I love paladins but your "nothing but" list is very one-dimensional, no depth.

Okay, let's say Draigo gives his boys counter-attack but let's discount their shooting as we'll say that will be directed against the speeders.

8 paladins (minus hammer and banner) then produce 32 attacks, around 21 hits, say. Of those hits about 18 will wound if hammerhand is cast twice, 14 if it only goes off once (let's say 15 as it makes the maths a little easier).

18 3+ saves is 6 dead terminators.
15 3+ saves is 5 dead.

Let's be generous and assume the terminators got the charge (but be generous the other way too and assume all psychic powers and counter-attack 'went off')

So 4 terminators remain to do 12 attacks, 6 hits and so 5 wounds. We may assume one 2+ save (warding stave), 2 4+ (swords) and two 5+. Say only the stave and one sword pass. That's 3 dead paladins, 6 wounds.

Paladin hammer gets four attacks, say two wounding hits, probably another dead terminator.

We'll assume Draigo and Shrike fight each other.

The paladins, with no shooting have either drawn or won the combat. In the next assault phase they will have 15 attacks, ten hits, say 8 wounds, 3 more dead terminators (the hammer will chip in too so I'll discount its attacks and err upwards here). In exchange maybe one more dead paladin.

Next assault phase the terminators are wiped.

Now that's in a vaccuum but it's wrong to think that TH/SS terminators are going to win this combat without the paladins being whittled down first. they might win it with some fortunate dice but the odds are rather more on the side of the paladins squad vs squad in close combat.

Did I forget to mention that....

I'm Ravenguards in this game


My strategy is to infiltrate my block of termies in an advantageous position, most likely behind LOS-blocking terrain so that I don't get shot up. Then next turn, try to make the assault.

And I agree with Artemo. In a straight-up fight without support, my terminators will probably lose unless I roll well on my storm shield saves.

1k is not enough points top draw a conclusion for bigger games at 1850 and up.

-666- wrote:1k is not enough points top draw a conclusion for bigger games at 1850 and up.

Ultimately, no, its not.

But its good to see how the AT's would do without interferance

Draigo at 1000 is silly! Should be a good read though. Whenever I don't have a Libbie with Paladins I feel naked.

Snipers will pin the large block of Paladins. They will stay pinned for the rest of the game.

Seriously though, fighting Draigowing in a KP mission is silly. I expect a bunch of paladins to die, but it will be a tie at best. Those 2 land speeders are going to be a huge liability.

I'd have to agree with what many other people have said, in that it will come down to how good each sides shooting is before the massive assault begins with the termies. If grey knights down enough termies and the land speeders in the first two turns I think they'll have it for sure. But if the raven guard are exceptionally lucky in their shooting phase and clever about keeping the termies in cover they'll come out on top. It will be much easier to judge once deployment is made and we know who is going first. Should be a good match though!

Null zone would have been huge... I also think a couple iron clads to tar pit would be funny, in a diifferent game of course. one hammer vs AV 13 walkers is bad.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If draigo goes scout and seizes this game is over stupid fast

gotta go with draigowing....to many force weapons going first for those hammers to cripple that squad even at full strength

Battle report completed.


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This battle underscores one of the major weaknesses of a Draigowing build....their Leadership. Force them to take enough LD tests and eventually they will fail. If they do so, then you have a very good chance of beating them.

#1. Why did he not take counter attack? He is facing 10 infiltrating, fleet, terminators that can't shoot. What else are they going to do but charge in?
#2. Why didn't the scout squad's missile launcher get applied to Draigo?

First off, well played. You had a game plan to take on a stronger opponent and even though the plan failed you stuck through it and got the win. Good example why you should never quit early.

I have to be honest though. As a demonstration this has to prove that the paladins are much stronger and here is why.

Your opponent after realizing it was KP should have attached Draigo to the Soladin, he would have then rendered the melta on your speeders useless and drastically decreased the effectiveness of your snipers, again taking the ID way from the missile and allocating the odd rend to Draigo.

He then should have realized that unless you seized the initiative all he has to do is move 6 inches away from your Terminators and even with a 6" fleet, you can never reach combat (infiltrate more then12" out of site) effectively neutralizing your Haminators. Now all he has to do is shoot down one speeder, two if you are lucky and gib the soladin attached to Draigo with pot shots, and he wins the game.

Now, albeit boring as hell. This demonstrates that in KP his list should not lose pending remarkably unaverage rolling on both sides and even then he should be looking at a draw.

I have always said LD is Paladins weakness and this demonstrates that fact but I feel this was over confidence playing a large part again in the GK players decisions.

Wow, failing moral test and fleeing off the table, I didn't see that coming!

To be honest, I'm not surprised Paladins won combat against Terminators. I myself tried fielding 20 BA Assault Terminators against your own version of Draigowing and lost in the skirmish. Draigo is a wrecking ball and Paladins striking first wins over 3++.

Good job fighting till the end. Had the Draigowing not turn tail and fled, it would have been extremely difficult finishing off Draigo.

Thanks for sharing!

Blackmoor wrote:#1. Why did he not take counter attack? He is facing 10 infiltrating, fleet, terminators that can't shoot. What else are they going to do but charge in?
#2. Why didn't the scout squad's missile launcher get applied to Draigo?

1. I agree that taking Scout was a mistake. I actually asked him if he was sure he wanted to take Scout instead of the re-roll 1's (my favorite). I guess he wanted to be able to react to my deployment.

2. Another mistake on his part. Besides the missile, there were some other wounds, including 1 rending. He chose to put the rending on Draigo and figured that with a 2+, his normal paladin should have survived the missile. Again, I asked him if he was sure he wanted to do that instead of putting the missile on Draigo.

Red Corsair wrote:First off, well played. You had a game plan to take on a stronger opponent and even though the plan failed you stuck through it and got the win. Good example why you should never quit early.

I have to be honest though. As a demonstration this has to prove that the paladins are much stronger and here is why.

Your opponent after realizing it was KP should have attached Draigo to the Soladin, he would have then rendered the melta on your speeders useless and drastically decreased the effectiveness of your snipers, again taking the ID way from the missile and allocating the odd rend to Draigo.

He then should have realized that unless you seized the initiative all he has to do is move 6 inches away from your Terminators and even with a 6" fleet, you can never reach combat (infiltrate more then12" out of site) effectively neutralizing your Haminators. Now all he has to do is shoot down one speeder, two if you are lucky and gib the soladin attached to Draigo with pot shots, and he wins the game.

Now, albeit boring as hell. This demonstrates that in KP his list should not lose pending remarkably unaverage rolling on both sides and even then he should be looking at a draw.

I have always said LD is Paladins weakness and this demonstrates that fact but I feel this was over confidence playing a large part again in the GK players decisions.

I agree that paladins are stronger. I actually played my Draigowing agains SabrX's Blood Angels with 20 FNP paladins. My paladins just cleaned house, wiping out all his terminators while only losing 2 guys.

In annihilation, I would've just left the soladin in reserves and used Draigo's Psychic Communion to delay his entrance. If/when he comes in, I would've tried to get him into cover.

He could've played defensively - the denial game - and probably win, but maybe he had confidence that his paladins could take on my hammerfiers and win. Also, if he had played the denial game, I would've done the same....deploy my speeders as far away from his paladins as possible. Then the only thing he would've been able to shoot up were my terminators.

No matter, my terminators would have most likely been able to assault by Turn 2 even if he had moved them back 12" (6" scout + 6" move). And if Draigo had joined the soladin, he would not have been able to contribute to the offense (with extra attacks and Hammerhand) and I might have won that combat.

SabrX wrote:Wow, failing moral test and fleeing off the table, I didn't see that coming!

To be honest, I'm not surprised Paladins won combat against Terminators. I myself tried fielding 20 BA Assault Terminators against your own version of Draigowing and lost in the skirmish. Draigo is a wrecking ball and Paladins striking first wins over 3++.

Good job fighting till the end. Had the Draigowing not turn tail and fled, it would have been extremely difficult finishing off Draigo.

Thanks for sharing!

I've seen enough fleeing paladins (and dreadknights!) to know that not being Fearless is their 1 big weakness. After all, I was the one who made a lot of paladins fall back. Though in this game, it came as a pleasant surprise. He had the game...if only he didn't allocate the missile on his normal paladin. Survive and hide behind the rock with his comfortable lead and there would've been nothing I could have done about it.

Yeah, with only 10 terminators versus his paladinstar, I felt that I was the underdog in this game. The only thing that could've saved me was if I made better-than-average rolls for my saves. Instead, I rolled about average. BTW, IMO fleeting terminators (and infiltrating) > FNP terminators.

Had the paladins not break, I would've lost plain and simple. There was no way I could've killed that unit with what little firepower I had left. He still had his 3 master-crafted psycannons!

With scout, couldn't the paladins have then outflanked? This would have nullified your infiltrate. At the very least I thought he should just deep strike in. This gives you a sure fire way to have 2-3 turns of shooting at the terminators before they charge.

I agree the wound allocation that last turn was not good. It was a very simple easy mistake.

I lol'd!

Epic end to a game he had well in hand at that point!

WOOOOOW that was pretty crazy at the end. I would say the loss went down to his poor generalship for the most part, and your good generalship, seeing his weaknesses and taking advantage of them.

jy2 wrote:
2. Another mistake on his part. Besides the missile, there were some other wounds, including 1 rending. He chose to put the rending on Draigo and figured that with a 2+, his normal paladin should have survived the missile. Again, I asked him if he was sure he wanted to do that instead of putting the missile on Draigo.

I assaulted a Deathwing squad with Draigo and my Paladins and he ended failing only one save and I did only one wound.

He strikes back and he only hits me once with a thunder hammer. I had a psycannon model that had one wound on him but I wanted to keep the psycannon alive and so I put the wound on a regular paladin who failed his save and dies.

I ended up losing the combat by 1, and then I failed my morale roll and Draigo and his squad gets escorted off of the table and it costs me the game.

Now I know that you must never take a leadership check with paladins unless you have to.

Blackmoor wrote:

jy2 wrote:
2. Another mistake on his part. Besides the missile, there were some other wounds, including 1 rending. He chose to put the rending on Draigo and figured that with a 2+, his normal paladin should have survived the missile. Again, I asked him if he was sure he wanted to do that instead of putting the missile on Draigo.

I assaulted a Deathwing squad with Draigo and my Paladins and he ended failing only one save and I did only one wound.

He strikes back and he only hits me once with a thunder hammer. I had a psycannon model that had one wound on him but I wanted to keep the psycannon alive and so I put the wound on a regular paladin who failed his save and dies.

I ended up losing the combat by 1, and then I failed my morale roll and Draigo and his squad gets escorted off of the table and it costs me the game.

Now I know that you must never take a leadership check with paladins unless you have to.

ouchies