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| A 'Draw Pub' Result. |
We all came in tired, some more tired than others and our Captain wandered in at 9.10am drinking whiskey. After thanking him for living up to national stereotypes I was asked if I could take a Grey Knight list with lots of infantry. I reckoned I could outrange him and play for a draw that would sneak points our way so I went for it rather than have it demolish one of our other lists or cause one of our swords to lose points.
I was paired off with Jens Gertsen and his beautifully painted Grey Knights list. It took a few minutes to sink it what it was that was causing the pairing problem for us beyond the triple Psyflemen: he could get 2+ saves for his entire army if he got his units into a ruin large enough. He chose the board so he took the one with a ruin on each half of the table, won the roll-off to choose, picked the one with the larger ruin and plopped everything bar some Razorbacks in there. To top it off he won the roll to go first and it was Dawn of War too so that I'd lose a turn of shooting at his stuff. Stuff with 2+ cover saves. Getting a draw from this suddenly went from 'likely' to 'unlikely'.
Primary Objective: Kill Points
Secondary: Seize Ground (1 objective in centre, 1 on centre line 6" from left and right board edges)
Deployment: Dawn of War
Jens' list was:
Librarian (150 pts). Psychic powers: Quicksilver (5 pts), Might of Titan (5 pts), Sanctuary (5 pts),The Shrouding (5 pts)
Techmarine (90 pts), 3 servoskulls (3*3 = 9 pts), Rad grenades (10 pts), Blind grenades (5 pts),Psychotroke grenades (15 pts) [129 pts]
Vindicare assasin [145 pts]
10 GK Strike Squad with 2 Psycannons, Psybolts, Justicar with MCDaemonhammer
Psyback (Psybolt Razorback) with Searchlight
10 GK Strike Squad with 2 Psycannons, Psybolts, Justicar with MCDaemonhammer
Psyback
10 GK Strike Squad with 2 Psycannons, Psybolts, Justicar with MCDaemonhammer
Psyback
Psyfleman Dread
Psyfleman Dread
Psyfleman Dread
Plan for him: Grab the ruins, reinforce it with the Techmarine's Bolster Defences and then have the Libby cast Shrounding for 2+ saves all round while shooting.
Plan for me: Try to sneak the KP by shooting anything outside the ruins and use the Scouts to wreck squads up close and play for the objectives while keeping out of his Psycannon retaliation range. The downside was that the Rune Priest had to be outside of 24" or he faced being torrented down by Psycannons if he was left exposed.
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| Positions at the end of Turn 1 |
Jens places everything into the ruin.
I roll on my Fangs on my left and some Razors with GH passengers out of LOS on my right so that I could set up a crossfire and force Jens to split his firepower or run into the open to get into combat to deal with me. He elects the safety of a 2+ cover save. Not cool. I also push a unit of GH in a Razor up to the left of the central grey rocky outcrop while the Scouts OBEL.
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| Bunkering assholes. They are very pretty though. |
The GK shift about in the ruins and Jens opens up with the Vindicare taking out the Razor in the centre while a Dread kills a Pack Leader or something. Basically, nothing else of note happened.
My response is to wail on atarget despite the obscene cover save and I end up wrecking the Razor on my left. Nice. Some of the Razors on my left behind the big LOS-blocking outcrop began shuffling to get shots off at stuff later while trying to claim 3+ cover.
Turn 3
The Grey Knights move out and it turns out I've gifted a Razor to one of the Dreads when he moves slightly to his left (I only have a 3+ and not a 4+ cover save) and it goes pop, pinning a GH squad while the Fangs start getting hammered as a couple keel over. Thankfully it's mostly Pack Leaders and I pass my tests. Also, the Vindicare moving out to line up better targets for next turn.
Both units of Scouts show up and I'm a bit caught for targets even though they show up where I want them but I need to drop some firepower coming at me and get rid of units where I can so I go for the Dread in the centre and a Strike Squad that I reckon I can take in combat. After I've pounded them with Rockets and Lascannons of course. The Libby suffers a Perils wound when casting Shrouding and I pound one of the Strike squads with Frags killing just enough for me to risk throwing the Scouts at them, as well as silencing the Vindicare that had poked his nose out.
The GH on my right and left have moved toward the objectives near the board edges while the Razors move about a bit again, being joined by the ones waiting in Reserve. The Scouts net 2 more KP: one bags a Dread from behind with Meltas while another dives into the mangled Strike Squad and destroys it in combat when it runs off the board. I know both units will die but I might get lucky enough to drag some units into the open with poor movement and consolidation rolls where I can hammer them with shooting. Like my Razors do when I bag another Psyback.
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| Wolf Scouts: All your base are belong to them. |
The GK are pretty much confined to their ruin now and will lose out on the Secondary objectives so that's 4 points for the team collected already. The infantry decide to wail on my poor Scouts while the two Dreads bag another two Razors (one on each flank) despite my 4+ cover saves. One Scout unit is shot into oblivion while the other is charged by a near-full Strike Squad, who are forced to risk clambering over a Psyback wreck or stay in the open. They opt for the latter and destroy the Scouts but not before losing another few models and roll poorly to consolidate leaving them stranded outside 6" of the Libby.
I push the GH onto their respective objectives and try to get more KP. I had the choice of a Dread or Psyback and opted for the latter but should have shot the former in an attempt to wreck it and reduce the incoming fire leaving the softer one for later. Thankfully I destroyed the tank. The Long Fangs opened up on the Strikes in front of them and killed over half which caused the rest to leg it off the board. Jens had a bad headache and I think that had made it much worse.
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| Bunkering down: Anything you can do I can do better... |
The GK firepower had been reduced to two Dreads and a Psyfleback with few places to hide so they opened up on a Razor on my right, bagging it and going one-up on the KP score. Those flimsy AV 11 hulls were beginning to piss me off but there was little I could do about it apart from try to keep the pressure up.
That, however, would be very difficult to do as the GK line looked like this:
We rolled and the game continued.
Turn 6
The Grey Knights hunker down behind terrain to try to cockblock the Long Fangs while shooting Grey Hunters but do no significant damage.
My Long Fangs are now in range to wail on a Dread but with cover and Shrouding it's a tall order. Still worth doing though - the Vindicare went down to a hail of bullets of earlier after all. Sadly this time nothing happens as I only glance but can't wreck the Dread. Thinking back on it, I might have been better off to drop a pile of Frag missiles on him so that they might have scattered into the tightly packed Strike Squad and forced a Morale test. We roll and the game ends.
Post-game analysis
It results in a 13-7 scoreline as I've got the secondary and I'm well ahead on VPs as all of my destroyed units are relatively cheap while his aren't. I was very happy with that by the end of it as my army was so shooty and had to contend with 2+ saves while my combat units couldn't get into assault as they'd be murdered by fire before they ever got close, as my Razorbacks will attest to.
I should have played more defensively with some of the Razors by hiding them completely for a while longer rather than exposing them to fire from the Dreads as a single Lascannon is never going to beat 4 S8 Autocannon shots (all shots twin-linked) when you consider that it's AV12 and pretty much ignoring stunned/shaken vs AV 11 on top of that.
As for the team results, I remember Tangney doing a fantastic gypsy job on a Guard army despite losing a Seer Council in his first turn and Quigley's Dark Eldar falling flat against the Danish Captain's Wolves on the table next to me - there was a Land Raider that had everything thrown against it for 3 turns and only lost a Weapon and was Immobilised while any return fire took something out.
Draw Pub
Then there was Baz (in the opening photo) who was too hungover to play against his opponent and got a 10-10 'draw pub' result: this is where you agree not to play but instead run off for pints and call it a draw. I wasn't happy at the time when he called it as I thought he could take his opponent, and the Danish player confirmed my thoughts while chatting with his Captain (in English) about this and said the same thing before they realised I had heard them. Thinking about it now, it was probably the safest course of action for the team at the time as the heat (it was 30-odd degrees) and inevitable dehydration would have resulted in poor concentration levels and up to 10 points being pissed away by silly mistakes. Or thrown up all over the table.
Again, evidence of the benefits of hindsight. Oh, and before I forget, the round was a draw giving us 1 Team Point for 4 points in total.
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| Absolutely shattered. |
Nice write up Merv. Good tactics. I'll be sure to nick them!
ReplyDeleteAm I reading correctly? Did he move and shoot with his Vindicare in turn 2? Surely that Razorback wasn't in pistol range?
ReplyDeleteNo Jay, that's my bad. He took the Razor out in turn 2 and moved about in Turn 3 before being shot. I'll have to jiggle that about a bit now. Good catch.
ReplyDelete