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Millennium Games hosted a qualifier for the Feast of Blades national invitational this month. The format would be 2000pt armies with each game having a primary goal (11pts max), secondary (7pts max), and up to 10 bonus points from 5 tactical bonuses and finishing at least 5 turns (28pts possible per game). 15% after that would be painting and 9% sportsmanship. Each round was only allowed 2 hours.

I decided to take my Grey Knights for a few reasons. I haven't played them at all since last November when I started my Dark Eldar. It's a non-comp event so I'm sure every army will have special characters and other things my Nids and DE will struggle against. The GK are fully (except 1 dread) painted and also have the best chance of playing at least 5 turns in 2 hours.

My list:
Librarian + shrouding, sanctuary, might of titan, quicksilver, warp rift
Hereticus Inquisitor + psyocculum, 1 servo skull
Henchmen (11 + inquisitor here) - 2 plasma cannons, 1 hvy bolter, 2 melta acolytes, 2 naked acolytes, 2 crusaders, 1 assassin, 1 jokaero + chimera w/searchlight
Techmarine + psyko, rad, and defensive grenades
Terminators x5 + psycannon, banner, hammer, stave, halberd
Strike Squad x10 + 2 psycannons, psybolt ammo
Strike Squad x5 + psycannon, 2 halberds, hammer + razorback w/psybolt ammo, searchlight
Stormraven + typhoon missiles, lascannons, searchlight
Nemesis Dreadknight + teleporter, hvy incinerator
Rifleman + psybolt ammo
Rifleman + psybolt ammo

My first opponent was Paul and his Imperial Guard. His list (approx as I've never even read the guard codex):
Creed
Command Squad + plasma, grenades, astropath, chimera
Stormtroopers x5 + 2 melta
PCS + 4 flamers, chimera
3 platoons w/ 3 power weapons, 3 missiles, commissar all blobbed up
Hvy Weapon Team + 3 lascannons
Vets + 3 plasma, chimera
Vets + 3 melta (in vendetta)
Penal Legion x10
Armored Sentinel + plasma cannon
Leman Russ Squadron - 1 LRBT, 1 other don't remember name 36" str6 ignores cover, both with triple hvy bolters
Manticore
Medusa

The first mission was kill points as the primary goal (must win by 5 for max pts), and table quarters (must win by 3 for max). I won the roll and elected to go first. Deployment was spearhead.



I chose the quarter that would give me the high ground for firing and force him down which would give me the best cover. I fortified the ruin in my zone and put both dreads in it with 10 strike marines with the libby attached. Razorback and raven are on the left, henchmen are on the right with the NDK.



Paul deploys his blob in front, lascannons and armored sentinel on the left, russes and manticore in back, chimeras on the right. Vendetta w/ melta vets and medusa are outflanking, stormtroopers are deep striking. He fails to seize.



I shunt the NDK up the center with the raven going flat out right behind him. I did this to distance myself from the chimera squads on the right. I advance the strike squad a bit. NDK and razorback are able to take out the 3 lascannon team. Henchmen take out a few guardsmen. Dread immobilizes the lead chimera.



Paul sends the blob after the NDK (they have 4 embedded power weapons). Rear chimeras pull forward around the immobilized one. I get blasted by the manticore which gets 3 plates, 2 of which hit. I cast shrouding for 2+ cover (ruin + fortified + stealth), and still fail 4 saves on the strike squad. Russes and sentinel fail to hurt the raven. In assault, NDK kills a couple guard and takes 2 wounds from power weapons.



I can warp quake on both strike squads to deter storm troopers and lose the justicar in the razorback. Terminators bail out of the raven. Raven moves 12" and immobilizes in terrain. Chimera has no LoS so drives up and smokes. Razorback advances. Strike squad advances out of the ruin to get psycannon shots on chimeras. Raven stuns the sentinel. Everything else wiffs. Terminators assault and kill a bunch, but not enough. NDK takes 1 more wound.



Medusa and penal legion come in on my left flank to take a table quarter.



Stormtroopers drop right in front of the raven.



Fate smites the guard here as the russ squadron takes an immobilized result while moving for LoS, destroying the LRBT. Other chimeras move for shots. The medusa kills 3 from the strike squad on foot. The manticore knocks the squad down to 1 man and the libby. Stormtroopers wiff on the raven. In assault, the termies and NDK finish off the blob and consolidate.



Termies head for the stormtroopers, NDK heads for the last russ, razorback dumps out the small squad and libby advances with the lone marine.



One dread heads for the medusa and that quarter. The dread blows off the medusa's cannon. All other shooting wiffs and I am only able to stun creed's chimera. Termies assault stormtroopers and wipe them out. NDK assaults the russ and only shakes it.



Creed's unit bails to try and plasma the last wound on the NDK. Russ backs away from the NDK while the sentinal comes up to plasma it also.



Vendetta comes on my right and explodes my chimera, killing several henchmen. The manticore kills the libby and last strike knight. Creed's plasma gunner kills himself and the sentinel wiffs on the NDK.



I break off the techmarine and put him inside the stormraven, he later repairs it during the shooting phase. Termies go after the sentinel. NDK goes after Creed's unit. Razorback loads up again, moves forward, and smokes.



Dread on the left advances again and explodes the medusa. The other dread wrecks the vendetta and pins the melta vets. Henchmen unload on them and kill a few. Techmarine repairs the raven which blows the rockets off the manticore. Termies wiff with the psycannon and in assault against the sentinel. Creed's unit gets killed by the NDK.

My camera or memory card seems to have malfunctioned and I lose the rest of the pictures from this report and half of the next one.

Paul manages to kill the NDK, I get the sentinel, manticore, and PCS by the time the game ends on turn 5 (ran out of time but finished that turn).

We tally everything up and I have won kill points 9-4 for a massacre and 11/11pts. I also have 3 table quarters for 7/7pts. My army only has 3 scoring units so it was hard to get bonuses so I got 6/10 there for a total of 24/28pts. 4 players scored 28/28 so I would be paired against a ghaz/snik/battlewagon ork list next.

I've only faced guard 2 or 3 times so I don't know what I would have done differently, but I think I won that one in the deployment phase and with my first turn moves. Either way it was a fun game. I'm always weary going up against a "top teir" codex and Paul has beaten me several times so I was pleasantly surprised to pull out so many points in such a complicated mission with extreme scoring requirements.

Rough game for the guard,usually you can throw some units in the back corner, but that ruin actually really hurt him by blocking all the fire lanes for his blob squad.

NDK (when it survives) with a Flamer is brutal, I very much dislike that thing.

Great batrep!!

hyv3mynd wrote: so I would be paired against a ghaz/snik/battlewagon ork list next.

And proceed to annihilate with out batting an eyelash lol.

i love reading your battle reports btw

First off I really like your Batreps and Your blog, I find your tournament nid reps really interesting and entertaining, as well as the tactical insight and analysis you give.

cool list, I really like the look of your army. The army composition is interesting tho because its alot of everything. Balanced, Good Shooting, great mobility, good CC. Only thing that I find curious is the Acolytes. Why do you have them? I also found the 2+ cover save highly amusing, Although Im curious why you didnt use it on your storm raven?

I really dont like the guard players list, I also think his gameplay was silly. He didnt need to reserve, and he didnt use his army together, he split it up and stuff came in 2 late to make a difference.

nice game1.

Great batrep. Even greater looking army. :-) Do you have a Showcase Painting & Modelling blog that I can peruse more of the army look?

Nice win, and great looking army!

Great report, thanks for writing up with good photos and of course grats on a crushing victory

Thanks all.

@ smitty0305 ~ There's 4 acolytes in the henchmen unit, 2 with melta in case I face a land raider and 2 naked for taking wounds. The unit is designed to work with the inquisitor who makes them bs10 against psykers mainly for the plasma cannons. I use it as my jack-of-all-trades unit as it has long range shooting and a moderate close combat threat with the embedded assassin and crusaders.

The stormraven can hold the 5 termies and either techmarine or libby. My thought for this game was the fortify the ruin with the techmarine and shroud it for 2+ cover on my dreads and strike squad. My opponent ended up ignoring the dreads and the strike squad was out of range with the psycannons so I moved them up and they got pounded by the medusa and manticore. The techmarine in the stormraven worked out well tho as he was able to repair the immobilized result.

@leoheart ~ Painting and modeling stuff can be found here on dakka: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/384172.page

or here on my blog: http://synaps3.blogspot.com/p/grek-knights-daboyz-gt-project-army.html

Nice battle report. Your Grey Knight army is beautiful.

My second game was against Duncan's orks. His list:
Ghazkull
Big Mek + kff, burna
Burnas x10
Kommandos x10 + snikrot, 2 burnas
Lootas x14
Meganobz x5 + 2 kombi-scorchas, 2 kombi-rokkits, dedicated battlewagon + rpj, riggers, rolla, armor plates
Boyz x15 + klaw, sluggas, rokkit
Boyz x15 + klaw, shootas, rokkit
Grotz x10
Battlewagon + rpj, rolla, riggers, armor plates
Battlewagon + rpj, rolla, riggers, armor plates
Battlewagon + rpj, rolla, riggers, armor plates



The second mission called for 4 set objectives 18" from the closest long edge and 24" from the closest short edge, creating a 12"x24" rectangle in the middle. The table was then divided into 5 areas starting with the rectangle in the middle and 4 trapezoids created by drawing lines from table corner to objective. The primary objective was to control areas, needing 3 or more than your opponent for max points. Secondary was objectives needing 2 more for max points. So my elite army is outnumbered about 4 to 1 in an area control/objective mission. I've got a bad feeling about this, but I've had more practice against wagon orks than any other army so I've got that going for me.

***Some terribly wrong happened while downloading my pics from this event. For some reason, I had 53 on the memory card, but only 36 ended up in the folder. It appears the first half of this game was lost forever.***

Duncan wins the roll and elects to go first. Deployment was pitched battle.

He deploys his 4 loaded wagons in a block dead center with burnas and boyz up front, ghaz and boyz in back. Lootas were central in terrain. Grotz were on the left out of sight.

I split my army in half and deploy deep into each corner. This is to get as many side shots on the wagons as they will have to turn one way or another to get to me. In my left corner, I put a rifleman, hemchmen, and stormraven. In my right corner goes the other rifleman, razorback unit, NDK, and strike squad on foot with attached libby. I choose not to steal the initiative.

Turn #1 Orks. Wagons all advance 13" mostly up the middle but they split slightly towards each side but remain close enough to stay in kff range. Lootas wiff.

Turn #1 GK. Raven advances 6". NDK shunts up the right flank to about 11" from lootas. My entire army fires at wagons and I'm able to wreck the lead wagon with the big mek and burnas. Foot squad guns down a couple burnas. NDK kills about 8 lootas but they pass morale.

Turn #2 Orks. Snikrot's kommandos arrive on the left and block the chimera's exit. One wagon pulls back towards the NDK and unloads shoota boyz. Ghaz's wagon and slugga wagon both advance towards the right. Kommandos assault the stationary chimera, wreck it, and kill all henchmen and inquisitor as they can't get out. Lootas stun the raven. The shoota boyz fail to wound the NDK and are slightly out of assault range.

Turn #2 GK. Raven fortitudes off the stun. Termies jump out and surround the kommandos. On the right, the razorback squad jumps out and their ride drives up to block a wagon. NDK jumps up next to the shoota boyz that just disembarked. All of my anti-tank shooting is blocked by cover or downgraded by armor plates. Termies wipe out snikrot's unit. Strike squads wipe out the burnas, leaving the big mek who fails morale and falls back. NDK burns 7 or so boyz and assaults, killing a few but we lock.

Turn #3 Orks. Ghaz's wagon rams the razorback but only stuns it. Ghaz and manz jump out. The slugga wagon drives around the razorback and unloads on the right near both strike squads. Big mek continues to fall back. Lootas stun the raven again. Orks declaire WAAGGGHH! Ghaz, meganobz, and slugga boyz multi-assault both strike squads and libby. I kill 4 meganobz with force weapons and take many casualties. Libby makes every invuln against ghaz. The 5 man strike squad falls back off the board, but libby stays locked with 3 knights and the rest of the orks. NDK fails to finish off his boyz who remained locked due to the waagh.

Turn #3 GK. Razorback and raven both fortitude off the stuns. Termies jump back in the raven which moves 12" towards the center of the table. Dreads also shift forward towards the middle trying to have access to several scoring areas. Razorback drives around to get rear shots on a wagon. The raven explodes ghaz's empty wagon and one dread immobilizes the wagon closest to the NDK. Ghaz and the orks finish off the libby and knights, but I'm able to kill the last meganob.



Turn #4 Orks. The slugga's wagon rams the razorback and wrecks it. Ghaz joins sluggas and they try to chase down a rifleman dread but don't get far enough. Grot riggers repair the immobile wagon. Lootas fail to damage the raven.



Turn #4 GK. NDK goes after lootas and stays close enough to the mek to keep him running. Rifleman on the right backs away from the orks.



On the left, the raven heads for the grotz that are hiding behind the forest.



The raven explodes the wagon closest to the NDK. The NDK assaults lootas but wiffs and we lock. I'm unable to damage the remaining wagon.

Orks turn #5. The remaining wagon heads for the dread on the left.



On the right, ghaz breaks off as the game could end here and he needs to claim an area. Boyz fail to reach the dread on the right again. NDK and lootas remained locked.

GK turn #5. I move the raven over 12" and dump out the termies.



On the right, the dread backs away again.



Combined fire immobilizes the last battlewagon. Termies kill 4 grotz but they pass morale. Duncan rolls for the end and we play on.

Orks turn #6. Ghaz repositions. Boyz assault the dread on the right but the klaw is out of range to swing so we lock. NDK finishes off the lootas and heads for grotz.

GK turn #6. Dread on the left backs up, raven and termies head towards the middle.



My shooting explodes the last wagon. Dread on the right survives against the klaw nob. I roll for the end and we continue to turn #7. NDK finishes off the grotz.

Duncan has 2 units left, ghaz and a few boyz locked with the dread. Ghaz shuffles around and the nob is unable to kill the dread.

My last turn. The NDK positions to capture duncan's deployment zone area. Termies take the middle and spread out for both left objectives. Raven goes flat out to capture my deployment zone area. Dread on the left captures that area.

The game ends with me holding 4 areas and 2 objectives. I earned a couple bonus modifiers for a total score of 25/28. This would put me in 4th out of 20 and I head to table #2 to play Shaun K who was the captain of our ATC team last year and on USA's ETC team for the past 2 years.

This was a pretty textbook game for how to beat battlewagon orks by splitting forces and getting side shots. I focused on the burnas first to eliminate their templates/power weapons. I knew I would lose whatever side ghaz went after and Duncan chose properly going right as the foot unit would be an easy target. I got lucky in that my most mobile and durable units survived long enough to capture areas. I was also lucky that the game went 7 turns for me to get everything into position.

I assume this was a modified table quarters so you took an area with victory points?

nice game, I usually hate dividing my army but it works against orks.

Yes areas were captured with straight VP's. Troops are always worth full and damaged vehicles and characters worth half. Ghaz took a single wound so was only worth 113vp, easily countered by my full termie unit.

damn Grots could not even old off a Dreadknight. psh slimy bastards.

Yeah, darn grotz. Kinda impressed that the lootas got burned and passed their morale, then held up the Dreadknight for several assault phases.

So, after two hard fought battles and major victories I was sent to table #2 to play the captain of our (DaBoyz) 2011 ATC team, Shaun. He was playing a newly acquired Space Wolf army. Maybe you've seen it around.

His list:
Rune Priest - LL/Jaws
Lone Wolf + terminator armor, chainfist, combi-melta
Lone Wolf + terminator armor, chainfist, combi-melta
Wolf Guard x5 + power fist x5, combi-melta x5 (one in each hunter squad)
Grey Hunters x9 + power weapon, melta gun, mark, standard, rhino + hunter killer missile
Grey Hunters x9 + power weapon, melta gun, mark, standard, rhino + hunter killer missile
Grey Hunters x9 + power weapon, melta gun, mark, standard, rhino + hunter killer missile
Grey Hunters x9 + power weapon, melta gun, mark, standard, rhino + hunter killer missile
Grey Hunters x8 + power weapon, melta gun, mark, standard, rhino + hunter killer missile
Land Speeder + hvy flamer
Land Speeder + hvy flamer
Long Fangs x5 + 4 missiles
Long Fangs x5 + 4 missiles
Long Fangs x5 + 4 missiles

Interesting contrast in lists huh? At this point I have a sinking feeling in my gut. This mission called for 5 objectives, 4 of which were 18" set from each table edge and one in the center of the table. The secondary goal was kill points. Deployment was dawn of war. I'm outnumbered 49 scoring bodies to 20, but I have a slight advantage with kill points. We roll off and I decide to go first. Not the best idea in an objective game, but based on lists I doubt I'll have the option to tank shock anything late in the game. I'd rather get a head start with kill points and try to even the numbers a bit. I actually did something I don't normally do and made Shaun switch sides with me for different terrain options. I would need every advantage I could get.

I deploy the 10 man squad split into combat squads. Both psycannons go into one in a ruin on my right with the cannons near the halfway mark. The justicar goes with the other half on the left behind a skyshield. The libby joins the psycannon half. I fortify a ruin close to my table edge and will roll everything on turn 1. Shaun elects to deploy nothing. Jokaero gives the henchmen 12" further shooting.



Everything comes on. The NDK had an accident as this table had no room for display boards, but his base represents where he is for now. He jumps up the middle with the chimera and raven going flat out into libby range. One dread moves on and runs up a level on the right into the fortified ruin. The other dread is in a ruin on the left.

Space wolves roll on in a solid brick.



The front 3 rhinos pop smoke, the rune priest is in the rear right. Long fangs are on each side and in between rhinos. The lone wolves are behind the wall on the right. One speeder comes on flat out on each far flank behind buildings. He searchlights some strike marines but the storm bolters don't do anything.

I'm thinking this formation is good for me, but nothing to do except try to pick it apart.



Storm raven shifts 12" to the right behind that nice tall ruin. Psycannons on foot stay stationary to gain extra shots. The razorback shifts 6" right to spot a speeder and dumps out the squad for a couple psycannon shots. The NDK jumps up onto the skyshield.



My dice get hot and Shaun's start the game poorly. I'm able to explode the lead rhino on the right, then the rune priest's rhino. The henchmen let loose aided by the psyocculum and I slay a bunch of hunters, but lose a plasma cannon servitor. Chimera adds a few casualties as well. Razorback and the disembarked squad wreck a speeder. NDK shakes a rhino with its incinerator. Here's a (blurry) pic after my shooting.



Space wolves advance at speed.



Long fangs split fire and the libby shrouds the raven. I take a couple stun results, but they get fortituded off next turn.

I guess it's time to make my stand. I start with quicksilver from the libby to the terminators in the raven, which moves up 12" and unloads.



I also drive up the chimera and unload it to get melta shots on the lead rhino. The razorback re-loads its squad and shifts 6" left. The NDK shunts to Shaun's table edge where his rune priest is the only thing that even has a chance of killing it. The dice gods decide to even things out and all of my heavy weapons fail to open up the lead rhino. Riflemen and meltas all wiff. If I remember correctly, one rifleman rolls 4 misses and then 4 more after the twin link. NDK burns long fangs, but they also make every save. Terminators multi-assault the grey hunters on foot and rhino. Only 1 hunter remains and runs, but I can't catch him with terminators. The hammer only stuns the rhino.

Shaun advances his lone wolves.



The raven is still there, I just took it off the base to move models around better. All the other wolves come out to play.



Carnage ensues. The two disembarked units on the left shoot down the combat squad in between them, but allocation and fickle dice leave the justicar alive. However, he fails morale and runs. Long fangs split fire again and the dice decided the chimera would die, but the raven would live. Both lone wolves assault termies and we exchange wounds but lock. I botched up badly here and forgot rad and defensive grenades. The central hunter unit pops its standard and assaults the libby's unit and henchmen, we exchange casualties, and I lose the whole strike squad and libby but henchmen stubbornly hold with a few models. Rune priest assaults the NDK in a last ditch effort, but pays with his life.

I'm quickly running out of bodies so I need to throw everything into the mix.



The raven shifts 12" left. Razorback squad disembarks and prepares to charge. The NDK jumps between two long fang units. Both dreads leave their ruins to add what they can to the melee. Justicar continues to fall back.



The raven drops 6 missile templates on the freshly disembarked hunters in the middle, causing 32 hits and only 3 survive after all the dice fall. The razorback squad rolls in hot and finishes off those grey hunters saving the remaining henchmen. My termies let me down tho, going down before the techmarine finishes off the lone wolves. The dread on the left survives a phase against the embedded fist and mark that rolls up 8 attacks. The NDK also wiffs and locks with long fangs.

We're running out of time due to the insane amount of dice we're throwing at each other and the intense assaults with initiative steps from 6 down to 1. We agree turn 5 will be our last and pick up the pace.



Shaun loads up the 3 survivors from the middle squad and drives behind the skyshield. The rhino from the unit locked with the dread drives over the skyshield to try and contest. The lurking speeder also makes a break for the middle. Long fangs fail to bring down the raven. A surviving grey hunter with a melta gun fails to drop the techmarine. Hunters on the left finish off the rifleman and consolidate onto that objective. NDK finishes off one unit of long fangs and heads for the rhino unit on the rear objective.

This will be my last turn so I need to move for the win if possible.



Justicar falls back again. The raven goes flat out onto the skyshield and hopefully contesting range. The NDK jumps up to the rhino and onto that objective. The razorback squad drives onto the right objective. If I can just hold for one more turn, I win. Combined shooting and assault destroys every single rhino and the speeder.

Shaun's last turn begins and a lone grey hunter jumps out from behind a ruin with no windows. He was a survivor with the rune priest that broke off turn 2 and hid, and I had forgotten about him. He runs onto the top right objective. Shaun puts 8 missiles and 2 melta guns into the raven and finally brings it down.

The game ends due to time. Shaun has the bottom left and top right objectives, I only have the bottom right objective. That's a minor victory for Shaun and 8pts. We tally up kill points and I've got it 10-7 which is a major victory and 7pts. We each earned a few bonuses and it tallies up to 15-13 in Shaun's favor.

Wow, what a game! I had no confidence going into this based on lists alone and I know Shaun very well. Dice screwed him in the beginning and me in the middle. We both made some mistakes as we started to speed up the game to get through 5 turns. It was downright sloppy at the end. Either way, it was great fun and the perfect way to end the day. I was elated to earn a draw against an optimized tournament list with my fluffy list.

When the painting and sportsmanship scores were loaded in, I ended up 3rd overall and qualified for the FoB invitational, but it's doubtful I will be able to go at this point. Thanks for reading as always, hope you enjoyed following as much as I did playing.

hmmm you consider your list fluffy? What would you add/take away to optimize the list?

Overall yet another group of batreps that were very well done! Although I do miss the nids a little bit.

Solid 3 games, solid Strats. I would say the MVP of your list was the dredknight, every game it wrecked havoc, and every game your opponents really didnt have anything to deal with it.

Nice army and nice playing.

Game 3 I dont like the landspeeders in your opponents list as they serve no purpose, but meh. When he got out all of us troops I was like O dear lord, but you were able to clean them up pretty well.

Shrouding on a stormraven is so overpowered, As if its shrouded with a cover save its virtually impossible to do anything to it, so good job implementing that into your list.

The techmarine giving you a 2+ cover is also something ive never seen used.

great batrep!

great reps hive, love the look of your army. I have to ask; do you air brush then paint? Some of the effects you use are crazy and look airbrushed to me, but I'm not that great at painting :*(

Thanks guys.

@ smitty0305 ~ My list was designed to be sort of a GK all star's collaboration using all the things that struck me as fun from the codex. Storm raven, libby with lots of powers, techmarine with tons of grenades, tricked out termies, and of course a NDK. Nids were my first army and these guys were my second, so I wanted a taste of everything Nids can't do.

I agree about the speeders with flamers and we talked about it after the game. I should have probably lost that one, but I got lucky exactly when I needed it.

@ Zid ~ This army is completely hand painted. I didn't start playing with an airbrush until i started the DE. All the force weapons are blended with a wet palette.

hyv3mynd wrote:Thanks guys.

@ smitty0305 ~ My list was designed to be sort of a GK all star's collaboration using all the things that struck me as fun from the codex. Storm raven, libby with lots of powers, techmarine with tons of grenades, tricked out termies, and of course a NDK. Nids were my first army and these guys were my second, so I wanted a taste of everything Nids can't do.

I agree about the speeders with flamers and we talked about it after the game. I should have probably lost that one, but I got lucky exactly when I needed it.

@ Zid ~ This army is completely hand painted. I didn't start playing with an airbrush until i started the DE. All the force weapons are blended with a wet palette.

Yeash, you have so much paint skill makes me sick :( great work!

Just wanted to say it was great seeing a battle report for GKs that involved variety beyond Draigowing or Purifier spam, and it was also great seeing the Dreadknight and Stormraven in use.

Definitely a great looking army too!

Nice work, and a very nicely painted army.

I too feel bad for your initial guard player, what with the 1's at the worst possible times. The game against the wolves player looked fantastic, even if you didn't win as much as you'd have hoped.

Thanks for the compliments.

@ nobody ~ Nothing depresses me more than seeing people pick up a codex full of fluff and a diverse selection of units, only to build an army that consists of nothing more than rhinos, purifiers, and dreads.

@ Ailaros ~ True about the IG, but it's the dice that change our games from chess matches to epic narrative battles. It's the unexpected chains of 1's or 6's that create the stories we share with friends after the games. It's also one of the reasons you will notice my lists are more diverse and less spammy. Not much fun reporting on a battle saying "my first two units of purifiers botched up, but not to worry, my other 3 units of purifiers came to the rescue".

The game against Shaun's SW was awesome and fun. I would have liked to see what would have happened if the game went on. He had a lone grey hunter holding one objective in the open that I could have cleared and I bet my NDK could have finished off another unit if we had more time.

I agree with you about non spam lists. I think it's a difference in play style really. Spam lists attempt to level out probability so you have easy decisions and can plan ahead. I prefer synergy (the other option) myself where you need to have back up plans and use different unit types in concert. I think it can be more effective because your plays are less predictable and you can play on the fly more easily. Obviously the dice can shatter you but with surprise on your side I think it;s more worth it. I have played spam lists too myself but I also find that I get lazy and relied on preset plans and strategies and when the dice failed even with that redundancy I'd get crushed. Also I find you run into more rock, paper scissors match ups with spam lists because you have no other outs.

That's my take anyway.

hyv3mynd wrote:It's also one of the reasons you will notice my lists are more diverse and less spammy. Not much fun reporting on a battle saying "my first two units of purifiers botched up, but not to worry, my other 3 units of purifiers came to the rescue".

Hah, see, I actually like it that way. Perhaps that's why I'm a foot horde commander than a GK player.

The first twelve waves failed? Hah! Send in the thirteenth wave! Forward you abblative fools!