DarkLink
05-21-2011, 06:24 PM
So I finally played my first game with my Grey Knights against IG. It did not turn out as expected.
We played one of the Socal Slaughter missions, with 4 objectives and diagonal deployment zones with a 24" gap. Each player places two objectives (plus one bonus tiebreaker objective). Tricky thing is, each player secretly bids on what objectives are worth points, and the other player doesn't know until the end of the game. So they can zoom up to contest your objective at the last minute, only to find out that it was one of your worthless objectives.
Since the purpose of the game was prep for the tournament, and to see how I would do against mech Guard, I took my tournament list and my opponent had his full mech IG.
Grey Knights
Librarian, 2 Skulls, Warp Rift, Shrouding, Sanctuary, Might of Titans, Quickening, Summoning
Coteaz
10 Terminators, 2 Psycannons, Psybolts, Brotherhood Banner, 2 Hammers, 1 Sword, 6 Halberds
2x 10 GKSS, 2 Psycannons, Hammer, Rhinos
3x 5 Acolytes, 2 Meltaguns, Razorback, Psybolts
3x Dreads, Dual TL Autocannons, Psybolts
IG
7 Veteran/Command Squads, 3 w/ melta and 4 w/ plasma, Chimeras
3 Vendettas
3 manticore (d3 str 10 large blasts, I always get the IG heavy support stuff mixed up)
Deployment
He wins the roll to go first, and deploys in his corner. I decide to fully reserve (though I don't have Psychic Communion in this list).
Turn 1-2
He spreads out (a bit of a mistake on his part) so he will be able to hit me if I move on the far side of the board. He keeps his manticores hidden in a back corner behind a couple of chimera and strategically smokes so everything will have cover.
I get 1 Dread, the Terminators with Librarian and Coteaz, 1 Strike Squad and 1 Acolyte squad. I bring everything on the table corner right across from the manticores, spreading out the Terminators and jumping out the strike squad 12" in, once again spread out as much as I could manage. I manage to blow the guns off two of the three, which is exactly what I needed. Unfortunately my anti-tank luck does not last.
Turn 3
As he is spread out, he is out of position to hit my force. His Vendetta try to hammer my vehicles, particularly the Dread, but only succeed in immobilizing the Dread. 3+ cover thanks to the shrouding saves everything else. The rest of his shooting does little more than kill one Terminator, and maybe puts a wound on Coteaz.
I get a second Dread, Strike Squad and Acolyte squad from reserves. I put the acolytes on the far corner on their own, where they can get a side shot on a Chimera and force him to deal with him or give me a free objective. My Strike Squad drives on and jumps out, and the Dread hides behind them. My units already on the board move forward as far as they can.
I then proceed to cause about 10 penetrating hits on various vehicles, only for him to make every single cover save.
Turn 4
He moves forward to bring his army to bear. He unloads a bunch of plasma, three vendetta and his manticore, and kills a grand total of maybe 2 GKSS, the razorback in the far corner and my immobilized Dread. Once again, 3+ cover saves everything that manages to get through. He also moves his useless damaged manticores up, intending to block and tankshock me away.
I move forward, and try and shoot his vehicles. I fail. Or to be more precise, he once again makes every single cover save.
Turn 5
He blocks me with his vehicles again, and again I fail to kill any of them with shooting. I manage to hammer one manticore to death, but fail in all my other assaults to do anything. This is a direct result from failing both of my Might of Titan psychic tests (including one Perils).
Turn 6
He tries to tank-shock me back, and I keep assaulting his vehicles. The Librarians perils to death casting Shrouding, but it doesn't end up mattering. This time I manage to blow up the ones contesting my most valuable objective, so I'm holding it uncontested. Luckily for me, he doesn't have any troops on his valuable objectives and the game ends.
GK victory
The game did not go at all how I expected. I lost about 8 GKSS and 1 Terminators to enemy fire, and the Librarian died from Perils. I think by the end of the game I had one Dread, one Rhino and one Razorback left, and two Acolyte squads.
This being the infamous mech-Guard-uber-broken-leafblower list, I had expected to take heavy casualties at the least. I've played against it before with the old GK codex (and actually won both games), but old GKs relied heavily on Land Raiders which not only suck against Guard but severly reduce the number of bodies you have, meaning that one Veteran squad with plasma can kill 1/3 of your bodies in one round of shooting.
This time, however, the Psyrifle Dread's ability to damage vehicles and 3+ cover on stuff from the Shrouding meant he couldn't kill very much of my stuff when it mattered. I lost models here and there, but usually not even enough to force leadership checks. He was only able to keep my contained in my corner by hemming me in with vehicles that I just couldn't kill due to bad luck.
With this experience, in retrospect I might have deployed everything but my Acolytes. The Shrouding would have mitigated the damage from his stuff (though I'd still have to worry about the Manticores). I then would have had full firepower to knock out his key units, in this case Chimera and Manticores, and I would have been much closer to him and right in the midfield on top of the objectives where he would have had trouble budging me.
Either way, my concern with Guard is no longer getting wiped, despite having relatively few bodies and vehicles. Instead it's about killing his vehicles, but frankly he made so many cover saves that nothing I could have done would have killed his vehicles outside of CC. Even when I did get a clear shot on a vehicle I never did better than shaking it.
So, Guard are still a tough army to face, but any concerns I had about them are (mostly) laid to rest. Leman Russes are still a pain for GKs (luckily they're not that popular in competitive lists), and it's somewhat difficult to pop that many vehicles, but a Librarian with Shrouding goes a long way to beating Guard. So take that, Duke (http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/05/dukes-lounge-recap-5-15-2011.html);).
We played one of the Socal Slaughter missions, with 4 objectives and diagonal deployment zones with a 24" gap. Each player places two objectives (plus one bonus tiebreaker objective). Tricky thing is, each player secretly bids on what objectives are worth points, and the other player doesn't know until the end of the game. So they can zoom up to contest your objective at the last minute, only to find out that it was one of your worthless objectives.
Since the purpose of the game was prep for the tournament, and to see how I would do against mech Guard, I took my tournament list and my opponent had his full mech IG.
Grey Knights
Librarian, 2 Skulls, Warp Rift, Shrouding, Sanctuary, Might of Titans, Quickening, Summoning
Coteaz
10 Terminators, 2 Psycannons, Psybolts, Brotherhood Banner, 2 Hammers, 1 Sword, 6 Halberds
2x 10 GKSS, 2 Psycannons, Hammer, Rhinos
3x 5 Acolytes, 2 Meltaguns, Razorback, Psybolts
3x Dreads, Dual TL Autocannons, Psybolts
IG
7 Veteran/Command Squads, 3 w/ melta and 4 w/ plasma, Chimeras
3 Vendettas
3 manticore (d3 str 10 large blasts, I always get the IG heavy support stuff mixed up)
Deployment
He wins the roll to go first, and deploys in his corner. I decide to fully reserve (though I don't have Psychic Communion in this list).
Turn 1-2
He spreads out (a bit of a mistake on his part) so he will be able to hit me if I move on the far side of the board. He keeps his manticores hidden in a back corner behind a couple of chimera and strategically smokes so everything will have cover.
I get 1 Dread, the Terminators with Librarian and Coteaz, 1 Strike Squad and 1 Acolyte squad. I bring everything on the table corner right across from the manticores, spreading out the Terminators and jumping out the strike squad 12" in, once again spread out as much as I could manage. I manage to blow the guns off two of the three, which is exactly what I needed. Unfortunately my anti-tank luck does not last.
Turn 3
As he is spread out, he is out of position to hit my force. His Vendetta try to hammer my vehicles, particularly the Dread, but only succeed in immobilizing the Dread. 3+ cover thanks to the shrouding saves everything else. The rest of his shooting does little more than kill one Terminator, and maybe puts a wound on Coteaz.
I get a second Dread, Strike Squad and Acolyte squad from reserves. I put the acolytes on the far corner on their own, where they can get a side shot on a Chimera and force him to deal with him or give me a free objective. My Strike Squad drives on and jumps out, and the Dread hides behind them. My units already on the board move forward as far as they can.
I then proceed to cause about 10 penetrating hits on various vehicles, only for him to make every single cover save.
Turn 4
He moves forward to bring his army to bear. He unloads a bunch of plasma, three vendetta and his manticore, and kills a grand total of maybe 2 GKSS, the razorback in the far corner and my immobilized Dread. Once again, 3+ cover saves everything that manages to get through. He also moves his useless damaged manticores up, intending to block and tankshock me away.
I move forward, and try and shoot his vehicles. I fail. Or to be more precise, he once again makes every single cover save.
Turn 5
He blocks me with his vehicles again, and again I fail to kill any of them with shooting. I manage to hammer one manticore to death, but fail in all my other assaults to do anything. This is a direct result from failing both of my Might of Titan psychic tests (including one Perils).
Turn 6
He tries to tank-shock me back, and I keep assaulting his vehicles. The Librarians perils to death casting Shrouding, but it doesn't end up mattering. This time I manage to blow up the ones contesting my most valuable objective, so I'm holding it uncontested. Luckily for me, he doesn't have any troops on his valuable objectives and the game ends.
GK victory
The game did not go at all how I expected. I lost about 8 GKSS and 1 Terminators to enemy fire, and the Librarian died from Perils. I think by the end of the game I had one Dread, one Rhino and one Razorback left, and two Acolyte squads.
This being the infamous mech-Guard-uber-broken-leafblower list, I had expected to take heavy casualties at the least. I've played against it before with the old GK codex (and actually won both games), but old GKs relied heavily on Land Raiders which not only suck against Guard but severly reduce the number of bodies you have, meaning that one Veteran squad with plasma can kill 1/3 of your bodies in one round of shooting.
This time, however, the Psyrifle Dread's ability to damage vehicles and 3+ cover on stuff from the Shrouding meant he couldn't kill very much of my stuff when it mattered. I lost models here and there, but usually not even enough to force leadership checks. He was only able to keep my contained in my corner by hemming me in with vehicles that I just couldn't kill due to bad luck.
With this experience, in retrospect I might have deployed everything but my Acolytes. The Shrouding would have mitigated the damage from his stuff (though I'd still have to worry about the Manticores). I then would have had full firepower to knock out his key units, in this case Chimera and Manticores, and I would have been much closer to him and right in the midfield on top of the objectives where he would have had trouble budging me.
Either way, my concern with Guard is no longer getting wiped, despite having relatively few bodies and vehicles. Instead it's about killing his vehicles, but frankly he made so many cover saves that nothing I could have done would have killed his vehicles outside of CC. Even when I did get a clear shot on a vehicle I never did better than shaking it.
So, Guard are still a tough army to face, but any concerns I had about them are (mostly) laid to rest. Leman Russes are still a pain for GKs (luckily they're not that popular in competitive lists), and it's somewhat difficult to pop that many vehicles, but a Librarian with Shrouding goes a long way to beating Guard. So take that, Duke (http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/05/dukes-lounge-recap-5-15-2011.html);).