June Tournament Game #2: Grey Knights vs Blood Angels 1500pts

 The June tournament at Millennium Games was a 1500pt event with comp penalties for duplicated units, transports, and special characters.  I had decided to build my Mordrak Shock list before the comp penalties were announced so I decided to stick with it.  Each mission allowed players to choose their primary and secondary scoring conditions from kill points, table quarters (vp's), and 5 objectives.  Primaries could only be chosen once, secondaries could be used twice.

My second opponent was Buffalo Bill himself from the Buffalo based Beef and Wing gaming club.  I've only played Bill once before, last year at DaBoyz GT primer but his BA and my GK were much different back then as it was a heavy comp event.

Bill's List (approx):
Astorath
Death Company x5 + thunder hammer x1
Tactical Squad x10 + melta, infernus pistol, lascannon, drop pod
Assault Squad x10 + flamers x2, thunder hammer
Death Company Dreadnought + blood talons
Stomraven + multi-melta, assault cannons (death company, Astorath, and dread in here)
Land Raider Crusader (assault squad in here)



My List:
Mordrak
Ghost Knights x5 + hammer x1, halberd x1, swords x2, banner
Strike Squad x5 + psycannon
Strike Squad x5 + psycannon, razorback w/psybolt ammo
Stormraven + typhoon missiles, lascannons (strike squad here)
Interceptors x5 + mc hammer, halberds x2, psycannon
Nemesis Dreadknight + teleporter
Nemesis Dreadknight + teleporter

***Note: My list is gimmicky and built to pull off an alpha strike with the grand strategy and teleporter units.  I don't want to win games with it by catching people unprepared, so I make sure to explain to them how the grand strategy works and the capabilities of the teleporter units as well as all of Mordrak's special rules.***

I won the roll and chose to go first.  For scoring, I chose table quarters for primary and kill points for secondary.  Bill chose objectives and kill points I believe.  Deployment was spearhead.

I chose scout for the grand strategy and gave it to both NDK's.  Everything deployed on the front edge of my semi circle with NDK's at 3 o'clock and 6 o'clock shielding the razorback and interceptors respectively.  The stormraven was more central and Mordrak would be deep striking.

Bill deployed his loaded land raider on his semi circle despite me explaining the mechanics of grand strategy and personal teleporters.  His drop pod is arriving turn 1 and he reserved his fully loaded stormraven so mine doesn't shoot it down.  I scout both NDK's towards the raider and he fails to seize.

Mordrak and his ghosts arrive near the center just over half way to provide counter assault.  The NDK's move up to the raider.  The interceptors, stormraven, and razorback hold the backfield quarters.  I forgot to use warp quake.

 The ghost knights run to form a screen and all my shooting bounces off the raider.  The NDK's get 10 auto-hits though and wreck it.

Bill's drop pod comes down behind my razorback.

And the assault marines come around for revenge.

The tac squad out of the drop pod explode the razorback with melta squads, killing 1 knight.  He puts 2 wounds on the nearest NDK with shooting and assaults in.  I get lucky and smash 4 marines and break them in combat.  I fail to pursue but consolidate close enough to keep them running.

I bring the interceptors over to lend a hand in the backfield.  The stormraven goes flat out to gain a cover save and into my weak table quarter in case it does get shot down.  In the middle, the ghost knights and NDK's form a wall to receive the stormraven's units (but hopefully out of assault range).

Combined fire from the strikes and interceptors drop several tac marines.  Ghost knights knock out 3 more assault marines with bolters.  Interceptors assault the tac marines and I lose the justicar (and mc hammer) to perils attempting hammerhand.  I kill several more assault marines, lose another knight, and we lock.

Bill's 600pt+ stormraven bundle doesn't arrive.  The broken assault marines fall back but remain on the table.  We move right into assault and the backfield brawls gets down to 3 interceptors vs 1 tac marine.

I let the broken marines get away as I don't want to get punched when the stormraven arrives.  My stormraven goes flat out for cover and lands near the table quarter split.

My interceptors finish combat and consolidate towards the right.

Bill's stormraven fails to arrive again.  His 3 tac marines regroup and duck into cover.  Nothing else on the table.  Oh, I think the drop pod snipes one strike knight in the crater.

I continue to hold the center and bring my stormraven up to the middle line this time.  It looks like I'm kinda castled up, but everything is on the border of table quarters so I can capture next turn.

A couple pot shots put down the last assault marines.

Bill's stormraven finally arrives!

He fires some bloodstrike missiles at my stormraven but only stuns it (I fortitude it off later).

Now the top of turn 5, I push all my units to capture 3 table quarters.  I take a couple shots at his raven but fail to penetrate.  The strike squad wrecks the drop pod.

Bill gets out Astorath's death company to hold his backfield and moves his raven towards one of my table quarters.

And the game ends at the bottom of turn 5.

I hold table quarters 3-1 and have kill points 4-1.  Not the most exciting game ever due to lack of action, but fun to play anyways since Bill is always a nice guy whether he's winning or losing.  This was pretty much a textbook example of what can go wrong when a small elite army reserves and comes in piecemeal.  I definitely won that one in the deployment phase when the land raider ended up being in first turn assault range after scout moves.  I had already cleared the far side of the table and pulled back to a safe distance by the time he started making his reserve rolls so the only thing his raven could have accomplished when it arrived was firing a couple missiles.

With 32/32 battle points, I head to the top table to face ChrisP and his infamous (around here) tyranids.