Sunday, April 15, 2012

Feast of Blades Qualifier: Game #1 Grey Knights vs Imperial Guard


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, the NDK kills a couple guard and takes 2 wounds from power weapons.


I cast warp quake on both strike squads to deter stormtroopers 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 sentinel 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.

2 comments:

  1. Nice work. I was pretty sad I could not make this tournament, but I had to work.

    Sounds like an interesting event and you fared rather well. It's cool that you switched up your army on this one.

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  2. Very nice game, and such a beautiful army you have their. I cant wait for the other reports.

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