The Future is...Grey

Ok.

http://www.motifake.com/image/demotivational-poster/0901/grey-knights-grey-knights-warhammer-40k-space-marines-demotivational-poster-1231564907.jpg

Played my first game against Grey Knights today.

I ran a 2000 pt Deathwing army;

Belial

5x 5 man Terminator squads with a mix of TH/SS, Power Fists, 2x Assault Cannons, and 3x Cyclone missile launchers.

2x Tactical squads with a meltagun apiece.

Land Raider - stock

10x sniper scouts

He ran 2005 pt of the following;

Draigo

10x Terminator Paladins w/a Apothecary

Land Raider - stock

Dreadnaught w/ TL Lascannons

10x Grey knights

Paladins were carrying a mix storm bolters, 3x psilencers, 1x psycannon. The regular squad also rocked a psilencer and a psicannon.

1x Vindicaire Assasin

1x Culexis Assassin (I think that is the name, the one that comes out of YOUR squad)

We played annihilation from the short table ends. Deployment zone was 18 inches deep.

He walked everything. LR was empty.

I had mucho terrain to hide behind. I castled up and let him walk to me. I shot him up the entire walk, AND he did walk for about 30 inches.

Krak Missiles WILL double out paladins IF he fails his armor save AND his FNP roll. Final tally - 16 missile shots (13 total hit and wounded) resulted in ONE paladin death (7.69 % success rate).

I had marginally better luck with the lascannons. I managed to take eight lascannon shots against him. This resulted in three paladin deaths (37.5% OVERALL success rate).

He lost no other paladins to me. Period.

He ate four of the five terminator squads. Flat out killed them. The psilencers (12 shots per round) killed me. When in range he was getting off 50 shots (36 psilencers, 1x psicannon, and 12 storm bolter shots). The psilencers were getting 16-18 wounds on my five man terminator squads by themselves. Even 2+ armor saves cannot hold up to that type of punishment.

My own rolls for the day ran in the 38-46% success range, so a little below the statistical average.

In the end we played out 7 full turns and I had killed one assassin and five paladins. I had Belial and his terminator squad left, as well as an immobilized LR that had a TL heavy bolter left.

Perhaps armoring up will be a better tactic.

Against the paladins you either need to kill them with weight of fire, which frankly, any type of space marine has trouble doing. OR go for the double out using high strength low AP weaponry.

Either way, expect a LOT of grey knight armies to be showing up in the future.

Who's afraid of the big bad bug?

This Saturday saw an impromptu apocalypse game happen at the local GW. I had my Void Legion marines and my son brought his Tau. As is the usual these days we found ourselves as opponents.

On the side of Order we had; Steel Legion (rocking no less than 20 tanks), four space marine armies, and Sisters of Battle with IG allies.

On the side of Chaos we had; Chaos Marines, Tau, Eldar, two traitor IG, and four (yes, four!) Tyranid armies.

I am not going to go into a blow-by-blow account but I did want to share a few observations...

Deep Striking Mawlocs and Trygons will not survive if they are unsupported. Neither of the two that popped up survived past their first round of combat. Granted, I fired everything I had in my army at the Trygon in my sector, but the results were still the same; one dead Trygon. All it managed to do against the back armor of a Dreadnought is stun it (then the Trygon died).

Psyker powers on the Tyranids seem pretty tough. However, I did not see the results of any of the powers because the Sisters of Battle HQ chicky stopped their powers, all of their powers, cold. Not one Tyranid power manifested the entire game. Go Sisters!

Termagants are still really easy to kill. Full tactical squads with bolters in rapid fire range will decimate a brood. For an added bonus kill the Tervigon synapse creature before you shoot them up and they will pretty much run away without the "fearless" special rule to support them.

Combat tactics are going to play a larger part in my strategy against the bugs. In close combat, I am going to take casualties, period. But the ability to break away and get another shooting phase before getting tangled up again is going to be priceless.

Use terrain. There are so many models in an infantry brood that if you can funnel them, when they hit your line most of the brood will be out of close combat range (ie, more than 2" away). This will reduce the attacks against you and possibly allow your entire (smaller) unit get all of your attacks against them.

The game ended on the fourth turn when all of the Tyranid players pulled their armies off of the table, stated that they felt outnumbered, and in general acted a bit upset that we had broken their new toys. So it goes...

The new Tyranids are a tough army to fight. Once the players get some wicked unit and tactics combinations under their belt they are going to be even more deadly. I predict a second coming for the long-range pieplate firepower of the Whirlwind and Thunderfire Cannon.

Range = Unlimited

We had a great day at our local Tanksgiving. We discovered that the hunter-killer and seeker missiles really did have unlimited range.

On round three the forces of order launched every hunter-killer missile they had. From the south of Texas the missiles roared until they found a target in Gig Harbor, WA. Once on target, they inflicted severe damage to a Warhound Titan.

If you are the player from Washington whose titan was damaged by a missile salvo from Texas, please let me know. We want to hear from you.

Did anyone else make a longer distance shot during their Tanksgiving?

Tau for the win!

Harrison (my son) took his 1500 point Tau army out for a spin this weekend against the Emperor's finest, the Ultramarines.

The mission was Annihilation and the deployment was Dawn of War.

Tau for the win, six kill points to two.

The MVP units of the game were the Kroot squad with Shaper (12 strong) and the Gun Drones (8 strong).

Tau forces

Shas'o with Fusion blaster, plasma rifle, and cyclonic ion cannon. HW drone controller; x1 shield drone

x12 Kroot with shaper

x12 Fire warrior squad

x1 Devilfish with smart missile system

x1 Hammerhead with burst cannons

x1 Ionhead with burst cannons

x3 stealth suit team; one with a fusion blaster

x8 gun drones

x2 piranha; one with a fusion blaster



Ultramarine force

x20 space marines

x1 dreadnaught

x10 terminators

x5 assault squad

x5 command squad with chapter master

x1 drop pod (command squad was in it)

There were more space marine forces. I am just not sure what they were.