Last week (or the week before? Damn...I can't remember shit anymore!) I played against Mordrak and a bunch of GK...something like this:
Mordrak with 1 Ghost
Librarian
2 LRR
Terminators
Strikes
2 Interceptors
I was using the list with 2 Grinders.
I won the roll and had my opponent go first. Mission was Big Gunz, Dawn of War. He set up most of his infantry on my right, with the LRRs and Interceptor Combat Squad on the left.
Since I have little way to deal with the Raiders, and he had little way to deal with the Grinders, I put only a few things on the left, just enough to entice him to stay there...everything else went right. Unusual for me, I did not deep strike anything, it all walked.
FYI we were treating the Lava as Difficult, but not Dangerous.
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| Plagues and Nettes keep him occuped as Mordrak drops in to be friendly. |
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| The bulk of my meanies on the right, after the Hounds scouted forward. |
The Hounds were really not that great against the GK. Between the lack of AP3 and the Force Weapons and/or Daemonbane, I struggled to win fights and bled dogs a lot faster than I liked.
The game ended with a fun dance around the right end of the bridge, as the Land Raiders and the Soul Grinders were jousting with each other, one Grinder living with 1 Hull Point left. I lost the objective in the left of my deployment zone (as expected) but maintained the one on the right, one on the bridge (Grinder!) and his Terminators and my Bloodletters were fighting over the last objective in the right of his deployment zone. A very enjoyable game. Preferred Enemy and Daemonbane makes Grey Knights a very scary prospect now! Still, the speed and pressure I was able to apply kept him reacting to me and going where I wanted able to kill off what I needed.
Of note in that game was a charge by the Seekers thru terrain to help out Fleshhounds against a full Strike Squad...of the 19 Seekers 7 of them died to Dangerous before swinging at all. Boo. The flip-side of that, the Herald killed off 5 marines herself, so it was a fair trade :)
The week after that, I finally got a game against Bobby Sinnot! I've known him for many years now, consistently ducking him at tourneys we both attend, so we finally whipped it out and had a game!
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| General Sinnot reviews his troops! |
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| The Necrons and Knights, ready for action! |
He had Necrons Primary with Grey Knights allies:
Nemossor Zandrekh
2 Stormteks
10 Immortals
2 units of 5 Warriors in NightScythes
6 Wraiths
9 Scarabs
3 Annihilation Barges
Coteaz
5 Acolytes (some with Storm Bolters) in a Chimera
10 Strikes (Psybolt, 2 Psycannons)
and a Dreadknight (Jumpy with Incinerator)
I was using the latest evolution of my Daemons:
Slaanesh Herald on Steed with Greater Reward and Locus of Beguilement
3 Fiends of Slaanesh
10 Nettes
10 Nettes
10 Bloodletters
10 Plagues
10 Plagues
18 Flesh Hounds
18 Flesh Hounds
19 Seekers
Soul Grinder - Slaanesh, Torrent
Soul Grinder - Slaanesh, Torrent
Soul Grinder - Nurgle, Phlegm
Now it can never be said that I'm not blonde and scatter-brained. After rolling for this and that and all was ready, I won the roll for going first, and despite it being 5-objectives and there being no real advantage to my doing so, I chose to go first. I'm sure I had a good reason at the time, but that reason was quickly forgotten and I was left as befuddled as Bobby was.
But, being one to make of whatever situation I've screwed myself into, I deployed centrally, Seekers front and center (I'd rolled MTC Warlord trait...a beautiful thing!), flanked by Grinders, flanked by Hounds. Plagues went on the rear objectives, and Nurgle Grinder hid behind ruins a bit (Note: this was a mistake, as he was out of range of everything.)
Bobby put the Wraiths front and center, with the DK to their left. On his left objective went Coteaz and the Strikes, with Coteaz to the fore to tank any shots I might throw at him. Similarly, the Immortals and Zandrehk went on his right objective, with The Big Cheese front and center. One Barge went left of the Strikes, the others and the Chimera were behind the Wraiths. The Scarabs hid in the ruins behind the Strikes.
So my threat evaluation: if I can get some stuff in Melee, I should do ok. The one problem I really felt was if he dropped off warriors late-game to take away my backfield objectives I'd have trouble...to that end I wanted to get those Warriors on the ground. The Stormteks were his best bet to shoot down the Grinders (though Scarabs and DK were probably more potent threats, they required melee). So I intended to shove the Grinders in his face and paint Shoot Me signs on them.
I also didn't really want to tangle with the Strike Squad in melee. They'd eat the dogs in melee; the seekers too, as they'd have to charge thru cover. I decided to ignore that corner and that objective, and started shifting everything to my left - his right.
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| After the scout move... |
I scouted everything left, then moved a bit more. I put one Hound unit forward enough that he could charge with Wraiths and DK if he wanted, with Seekers and Grinder behind: I figured I'd trade Dogs for those two fast potent threats. The Warpstorm chart was interesting, Slaanesh was angry, and hit all three Soul Grinders, doing a glance to two of them and a Pen to another, immobilizing it! He also ate two of my dogs, but that's how it goes! I don't think Warpstorm did anything else this game.
That worked well, as he would rather charge than be charged. His shooting put a few wounds here and there, and the DK and Wraiths gave it to the dogs. After Instability I'd lost over half the dogs, but the plan was engaged!
I assaulted the DK with Fiends, the Wraiths with the Grinder, and Seekers combo-charged on to both. The DK challenged, my Herald refused, and the DK (who was dropped to I1 thanks to the Fiends) was torn apart by Seekers. The Wraiths ended up with 1 wounded and 1 full model left. The Fiends were unable to pile-in so consolidated out. Same with the Soul Grinder, he just couldn't fit in, so bounced out towards Zandrekh.
At the same time, the other Hound unit went in to the Immortals with Zandrekh. Overwatch did minimal damage, the melee damage was minimal before the hounds struck. He'd taken away their furious charge, so they only did 16 wounds on the charge....all of which were tanked by Zandrekh, who died on the final wound, but then got right back up. Dammit!
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| Wraiths and Knight beating up my Hounds |
His turn 2, both Scythes come on, and as expected the occupants got out to try to kill Grinders. The Grinder on my right died, but the one on my left (near all the dogs fighting) saved enough to not die! The Fiends were blown apart.
His Seekers went in to the Hound/Immortal fight, but needing 5s to hit and 5s to wound limited their damage, and a few Immortals went down. The Wraiths were finished off, and off we went to turn 3...
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| Breakthru achieved! Time to eat the troops! |
Apologies, from here out I forgot to take pictures. There wasn't much movement from here anyway...
My Nurgle Grinder, who I'd deployed in a ruin to enjoy a big cover save, had done nothing so far as he was too far to shoot and couldn't run. He finally weighed in this turn...I wanted to kill the Warriors from the Scythes, or the Scythes themselves. On my right, where a Grinder had died, I sent the Seekers to kill off the Warriors there, knowing they'd then die to the Strike Squad, but that was ok...
The other Warrior unit I set up to charge with the last Slaanesh Grinder...it would be a longish charge (8" or so, I think) through terrain. But before commiting to that charge, the Nurgle Grinder fired at their Night Scythe...3 hits!! Bobby Jinked, one glance, one pen! Both saves were failed, and I rolled a 6 for the Pen! Papa Nurgle was pleased! The Wreck scattered away, and the Warriors were stranded...
So the Grinder went in to the Immortals instead, and the surviving Hounds from the first unit went in to the Scarabs. Seekers killed off the Warriors and their Stormtek; Immortals and Scarabs lost a lot, but failed to break.
On his turn 3, his Necron Warriors fired at the Daemonettes that had deep-striked near them that I forgot to mention...killing all but 1, I believe. Everything else shot at Seekers, and no surprised they were wiped out. In the Immortal/Scarab melee, the Necrons took heavy damage, the Immortals broke and ran...the Grinder was the only thing unengaged to sweep them, and he rolled a 1...but so did the Immortals, so they died!
Top of 4, I got more reserves in, putting some Bloodletters in my backfield to prevent losing their Kill Point (this game was 4 objectives primary, KP secondary) and to threaten anything that zipped back here.
Nurgle grinder lobbed Phlegm at the Strike Squad, but missed; Slaanesh Grinder fired at then assaulted and killed the Necron Warriors and Stormtek. Hounds finished off the Scarabs.
So we were short on time here, and both played quickly and just did the juicy stuff. The short version, due to laziness I didn't move Bloodletters or Plagues to where they should have been, so got shot off one of the objectives in my deployment, and he shot off the daemonettes trying to hold the objective in his deployment zone, so we tied on objectives; secondary was kill points, and I won with a healthy margin (having lost 7 counting bonus for Warlord, and killing 13 counting bonus for Warlord and Linebreaker).
It was a great game, lots of use of "implied threat" (as defined by Xareth) by both of us. I think Bobby was a bit taken aback by how fast the army as a whole moved...he commented with disgust how I'd completely redeployed to a 'refused flank' style deployment with one swift move.
A lot of things fell my way when I needed them: killing the Night Scythe was more than a little bit helpful; Getting MTC as my warlord trait was huge. On the other hand, playing quick and focusing on the 'action' I ignored the backfield stuff that I'd not do normally, which was nearly disastrous.
Thanks to my BFS friends for some great games at the club these last few weeks! I've had a great time and learned a lot about my army and what I can do!
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