7th Edition 40K - New Grey Knight Codex Review - Draigo, Brotherhood Formation and Conclusion

This is the last guest post from Matt (something I hope he'll do again as it saves me A LOT of time). I'll add my own thoughts on the book at the end but here's the final bits from him.

Kaldor Draigo

My joint favourite character in 40K (tied with Mephiston). I actually think that he has gotten better, even better than he was in 5th edition. Yes his stats have dropped, but this really does not matter at all, except maybe the T5 to T4 drop a bit, but this is nothing compared to the improvements.

Firstly he always hits at S7 AP2 I5 and his weapon is Master Crafted. If he uses Hammerhand this becomes S9 AP2 I5!! Don't forget that he is also Eternal Warrior and has a Storm Shield. 

But that's not it. Attach to Draigo's squad (or just to Draigo) either Stern or a Librarian with Sanctuary and Draigo can now have a 2++ save!! 

But that's still not it, make the squad they are attached to a Paladin unit with an Apothecary and now Draigo has FNP 5+!! Basically he can become The Emperor if you want him to be. Yes I know to buff him to that level costs a lot of points, but I'm just saying that it is possible. 

However, there is one other thing that is great about Draigo and that's the fact that he knows Gate of Infinity. This means that he can be attached to any squad (not just GK squads remember) and teleport them around the board all game. This brings about many possibilities (not least of which is easy last minute objective grabbing) and if just used within the GK codex means that the unit he is attached to can start on the board and still Deep Strike into the enemy lines.

I love him more than I used to (and believe me he really does love him, almost as much as I love Arjac - Alex).

Grey Knights Brotherhood Formation

I'm not going into this because it's a bit rubbish. If you are playing a game with this many points then you won't want all the units listed here. The bonus you get of harnessing Santic powers on a 3+ isn't even close to being good enough to offset all the rubbish units you have to run.

Conclusion

I really like the codex overall. I think that GW have done a decent job of separating the Grey Knights out and making them good enough to run on their own in 7th edition without the need to run Inquisition alongside them. There are some obvious choices within the codex like Dreadknights for Heavy and Purifiers for Elites, but there are many decent HQ and special character options which means that many different types of list can be put together. For example, you could have a Deep Strike heavy list with the prospect of everything arriving from turn one, or you can run a mechanised list with land raiders and rhinos. Both types of army can make for good, even competitive lists. I will certainly be trying them out at tournaments myself.

I have to say I agree with Matt that they've managed to keep GK unique and powerful enough for you not to need to run Inquisition. In some ways it's a shame that a lot of the funky special rules have been lost but it makes for a simpler army and takes away some of the avenues for cheese that existed before. I know some may not be a fan but this has seemed like the way GW were going to go for a while. There are some that don't like the new SW or Ork books either but if you plan on playing competitively you just have to swallow the bitter pill and move on. I was certainly negative about the SW book when I first read it but I'm really starting to love it now. There's no question the GK book is all about Purifiers and Dreadknights but I think this was pretty much the case before anyway.

That's your lot then. Two codexes wrapped up in the space of a month. GW are certainly keeping me busy (well Matt this time). Rumours have it that DE are next with a possible Inquisition update also suggested. After that it's BA and hopefully Matt will step up again as they're another one of his long term armies.

7th Edition 40K - New Grey Knight Codex Review - Heavy Support

Once again this is a short section when you remove the Land Raiders. They're the same as the other marine books again and as with the Rhino/Razorback they no longer have any GK extras to set them apart. Whilst this might be frustrating for GK players it does make sense and removes some of the silliness that we saw in late 5th edition. Anyway, here's Matt.

Purgation squad

Same problem again here with special weapons. Psycannon and Psilencers work best when the unit doesn't move, but the problem is they are 24" range, not good. However, 4 incinerators in a squad is good. Night Vision special rule? Why? Shame they didn't give them Relentless or Slow and Purposeful instead, if they had then these would have sometimes been selected over a Dreadknight…

Dreadknight

This is the star of the codex, just as it was in the last codex for me. I've always loved these guys, I've run two of them in an army on countless occasions and taken them to many tournaments, they were always a solid choice with a Personal Teleporter and Heavy Incinerator. Both of which have remained the same thankfully. Everything else about this guy has gotten better though.

Firstly, he now comes with Sanctuary as standard and so can boost his invulnerable to 4++, this makes him much more survivable especially when in combat against other MCs as he will usually strike last but also usually strikes harder due to his Force weapon. Which leads me onto his melee weapon options, you will always need to upgrade your Dreadknights to either the sword or hammer, just so that they have a force weapon, you will thank me next time your Dreadknight is facing off against a Wraithknight. If the 4++ keeps him alive and his force weapon is active then whatever MC he is fighting against will die, be it a Wraithknight, Hive Tyrant or even a Bloodthirster.

But the best improvement on this unit has to be the ranged weapons. All 3 options are now great. The Heavy Incinerator, as already mentioned, stays the same and so remains a solid choice, even against 3+ armour or better the fact that it's Torrent always allows you to score a lot of hits, obviously it shines against 4+ or worse though. The Heavy Psycannon used to be a Large Blast S7 Rending, pretty rubbish if you ask me, that firing option remains, but the second firing option is to have it fire 6 S7 Rending shots, great for a bit of anti-tank and against well, pretty much anything really. The Gatling Psilencer, however, used to be rubbish against anything non-Daemon. But now it is a 12 shot S4 ranged Force weapon which is an awesome idea! 

Now I’ve read many people saying that the Psilencers just aren't worth it as strength 4 is just too low to kill anything. I agree if talking about the regular version, but the gatling version on a Dreadknight pumps out 12 shots on the move, that's 8 hits and around 3 wounds on a T5 MC such as a Daemon Prince, therefore if said MC has 3+ armour he will statistically fail one save and therefore die due to force!

Basically these are now even more awesome and everyone running GK will run them, it's just a shame they didn't get another wound as I'm awful at rolling 2+ saves…

Another unit I'm not looking forward to facing. The saving grace is that if a GK player goes for a GK-specific detachment he'll only be fielding two Dreadknights. Nevertheless with a whopping price reduction they seem like an automatic choice. I'm generally not a fan of this but having used them as part of our old doubles list I can't hate it that much!

One last post to go in this GK review where Matt will be looking at Draigo and the codex formation before wrapping things up.

7th Edition 40K - New Grey Knight Codex Review - Fast Attack

Another short section today. Once you take away the dedicated transports you're left with just the Interceptors and Stormraven. Anyway, over to Matt.

I'm only going to cover units unique to Grey Knights as everyone knows what a Rhino and Razorback do. There's no difference now from the SM version as Psychic Pilot, The Aegis and Fortitude no longer exist. They may get mentioned within some unit reviews though.

Interceptor Squad

When I learnt that a new GK codex was coming out one of my first thoughts was that I don't own any Interceptors and that they may end up being pretty good due to their manoeuvrability. However, due to special weapons not working well with power armour (as mentioned in previous posts), Interceptors are not as good as expected. Don't get me wrong I do think these guys are still a viable choice due to their manoeuvrability and the fact that they are essentially space marines with force weapons. They are your best chance of getting foot soldiers into combat without using a Land Raider or Stormraven. I still don't think they will get much use though, mainly because they are 24 points per model which is 1 point less than a purifier… (We get it, you love Purifiers - Alex).

Stormraven

I will briefly talk about this as it used to be unique in the previous codex due to Mindstrike missiles and psybolt ammo. I used to run mine with hurricane bolters and psybolt ammo, this gave it a hell of a lot of S5+ shots, but made it cost more than a land raider. I did used to like the Mindstrike missiles, but only sometimes (i.e. when the opposition had a psyker or two). However, I do actually think that with the loss of psybolt ammo the replacement of Mindstrike with Stormstrike is actually a good thing. This is because Mindstrike were practically useless if the enemy didn't have psykers, and were also useless against the Stormravens primary targets, other flyers. Psybolt ammo used to mitigate this deficiency by allowing you to spam S7 and S5 shots, but for a premium price. Therefore I am saying that if we can't have psybolt then we should have Stormstrike over Mindstrike as this gives the Grey Knights a solid anti-air gunship.

Wow, seems like we're rattling through this book at a fair old pace. It's quite obviously a more specialised army than the Wolves were but that makes sense from a fluff point of view and it was always going to be the case when they removed Inquisition entries. Anyway, heavies are next.

7th Edition 40K - New Grey Knight Codex Review - Elites

Onto the Elites section today and there's a lot more to love than in the Troops section. It makes sense that the GK-specific detachment has limited Troops but extra Elite slots. Anyway, I'll hand over to Matt and he can explain in more detail.

Purifiers

So this is the unit that everyone is excited about, mainly due to them having the Cleansing Fame psychic power as standard. This is quite a big deal, it's a 9" Nova that is essentially a heavy flamer with Soul Blaze (i.e. S5 AP4 Ignores Cover). Against some armies this could turn out to be really brutal, for example Orks, AM or Tyranids troops will all die in droves on a 2+ with no saves. Even units in heavier armour have to worry if there are lots of Purifier units around all with the ability to blast out 2D6 heavy flamer hits to all units around them. It is worth remembering that a Nova automatically hits all enemy units within its range, this includes FMCs and flyers and even units locked in combat! Of course this all sounds great but the problem is that the power is only 9" range and Purifiers are just marines in power armour when being shot at so it is difficult to get them close enough. A good tactic though is to stick them in a rhino, because the power is a Witchfire it can be cast from the rhino hatch, also Purifiers can be taken in a squad of 10 and put inside a rhino at the start of the game. They can then combat squad into 2 five man units doubling the generated warp charge and Cleansing Flame casting in the process!

There is much more to Purifiers than just Cleansing Flame though. I've already mentioned warp charge generation and because they are ML2 a few small Purifier squads really start to add dice to your warp charge pool. Also when compared to a Strike Squad they have 1 extra attack, are all Fearless and their close combat attack have Soul Blaze! All this for just 5 points more per model than a Strike Squad member. This is why you want 4 Elite slots.

Paladins

These guys are the GK elite. I love the idea of them and they are pretty mean considering that they are all 2 wound terminators with weapon skill 5. The problem with these guys is the cost, just as it was in the previous codex. They are 55 points each and when you consider that 2 regular terminators are 66 points you begin to wonder if they are worth it. What I mean is that the rest of the stats are the same, so you are only getting 2 attacks per model just as you are with a regular terminator, so if you instead buy 2 regular terminators instead of one paladin you will have twice as many attacks and the same amount of wounds, but the paladin can be instant deathed, whereas you would only lose one regular terminator to a strength 8+ wound.

However I am certainly not saying that I wouldn't run them, there are plenty of upsides to running Paladins when compared to regular termies. For example you can take 2 special weapons for every 5 models with Paladins, this means that they could go in a Land Raider and carry 2 specials into battle, whereas you would need 10 terminators to do the same. Also they are WS5 and so hit most things on a 3+, that's quite a big deal. But the biggest bonus for me is the fact that you can upgrade one Paladin to an Apothecary which gives the entire unit FNP, this can make the unit seem almost invincible against some armies.

I think that overall Paladins always seem very attractive until you start to write a list with them in, where you quickly realise just how many points you can sink into them. Just like all ground troops they suffer from the lack of mobility, I certainly don't like the idea of keeping them off the board in reserve and even with Gate of Infinity you can't risk deep striking them too close for fear of a mishap, so they just end up too far away and struggle to catch things in combat (enemy units tend to stay away from paladins for some reason), of course this is not always the case and with multiple units close to the enemy lines they can often get in but it is often a problem for a flashy expensive close combat unit such as this. Even with 2 Psycannons they are not worth the points to be used as a ranged unit, so ideally it would be good to have them in a Land Raider, but of course this makes the points problem even worse and before you know it you've spent half your army's points on one unit!

Dreadnought

These used to be standard fare in a 5th edition GK list. Everyone ran them with 2 twin lined autocannons with psybolt ammo (which raised the strength of the autocannons to the magic 8). However psybolt sadly doesn't exist anymore and even if it did those Dreadnoughts are nowhere near as effective due to autocannons being unable to destroy any non-open topped vehicles without stripping all the hull points. So basically this turns into a regular SM dread with mastery level 1 and the ability to give itself a 6++. Not great when you consider the other Elite slot options available but possibly still worth considering to mix it up a bit. Dropping or charging from a Stormraven is still a good tactic and dreadnoughts are generally better now due to the increased durability of vehicles in 7th.

I can't say I'm looking forward to playing Purifiers in our next game (which will have already happened when this post is scheduled to go up). I already experienced them in the FAQ'd version of the old book against my Orks and Cleansing Flame proved disgustingly good. It's a shame they feel like an auto-include but I can't pretend I don't love the way they look with the white helmets!

We're around half way through the book now and I'm hoping people can see the positives despite the negativity that has surrounded this book.

7th Edition 40K - New Grey Knight Codex Review - Troops

With only two options and no special characters to talk about this is going to be a pretty short post. Nevertheless I hope you enjoy it...

Strike Squad

Basically these are space marines with mastery level 1, the ability to Deep Strike and all start with an AP3 Force sword. They are 20 points per model and actually for the cost are not that bad. Their problem is that they are not Relentless and so can't utilise the special weapons effectively but more than that they are only 5 points cheaper than Purifiers which are 23 times better plus 7th doesn't care about Troops as much. Also terminators are a better troops choice…

Terminator Squad 
These are only 13 points more per model than Strike Squad models and are twice as durable against small arms fire and infinitely more durable against AP3 or better weapons when not in cover. Plus they have 2 attacks rather than the 1 that Strike Squad guys have and of course they are Relentless so can move and fire the Psilencer and Psycannon to full effect and then assault. It is also worth remembering that Grey Knight terminators carry both frag and krak grenades unlike regular space marine termies and so can still strike at full initiative with their Nemesis weapons when charging through terrain. In fact I would say that their only downside when compared to a Strike Squad is the fact that they cost more and the special weapons also cost more (by 5 points each), but also they can't sweeping advance which is a fairly big deal sometimes, but in no way off sets all the positives.

In conclusion don’t bother with strikes, load up on termies (by that I mean fill your 1 minimum troop selection with a 5 man terminator squad!)

As Matt says, in 7th edition Troops aren't as relevant as they once were. In the Wolves book you'd probably want some of them anyway but here I think there are better units to spend the points on. Of course, this assumes you're using the GK-specific detachment so Objective Secured isn't an issue.

The next post will cover the Elites section of the book and I have a fair idea which unit will shine there!

7th Edition 40K - New Grey Knight Codex Review - HQ

Today Matt moves onto the HQ section of the codex, as I said in the previous post there aren't tons of options so it's reasonable to cover them all in one post. Once again, please feel free to comment and Matt will try to respond when he can. 

Brother-Captain and Grand Master
In the old codex nobody took a Brother-Captain. They used to be similar stat-wise to a Grand Master but were missing the Grand Strategy special rule which the Grand Masters had. Therefore everyone paid the extra points for a Grand Master. However now Brother-Captains are looking a little more attractive as they only lose one attack and one mastery level when compared to a Grand Master. Don't get me wrong most people will probably pay the extra 35 points mainly to get the extra mastery level, but at 150 points it may be worth taking a Brother-Captain if you are tight on points.

Brother-Captains and Grand Masters I now think are better than they used to be due to the ability to generate powers from many different disciplines, this makes them both like a space marine captain and librarian rolled into one! The only difference is that this space marine captain/librarian can be either S7 I5 or S10 I1 in combat if attached to a squad! I think the difficulty with these units is choosing which psychic discipline to go with. Obvious choices may be either Divination or Santic to boost themselves and the squad they are attached to (Santic also gives the chance of getting the best offensive power in the game too of course – Vortex of Doom). However, Telepathy is also tempting for the chance to get Invisibility, but personally I think it is not worth the gamble as Santic and Divination both give you much better chances of getting decent powers. In fact if the BC or GM is attached to a terminator squad I would go with Santic as the only power that’s not that great for that sort of unit is Purge Soul (and even that isn't horrendous).

Brother-Captain Stern
Again nobody used to take Stern. He had interesting rules but the strength test thing wasn't much use and a regular Grand Master was a much better option. I have a feeling things may change. At first glance he looks like a mastery level 2 Brother-Captain with a few mediocre special rules. The first of which is called 'The Strands of Fate' and is exactly the same as in the old book, basically he gets a re-roll but so does your opponent in his turn, in my opinion only worth using if you are desperate, giving away re-rolls to your opponent is dangerous. The second makes the Banishment power into a 12" nova, good if you are playing Daemons, useless otherwise. So what is good about him then? One thing, he gets the Sanctuary power as standard. This means he can be placed in terminator or paladin units and boost their invulnerable to a 4++, or even better he can be attached to Draigo….

Brotherhood Champion
In the old book these guys were cool and were the cheapest HQ, but again not many people bothered. They didn't do enough and died to easily. That may still be true here, but they have now got 2 wounds which is a massive improvement plus their Perfect Warrior rule got much better. They can now either have Smash, which not only makes them AP2 but also gives them the option of making a single S8 attack that re-rolls armour pen, or they can choose to re-roll all saving throws and with 2+ 4++. That is pretty amazing when it means he can still attack. Sounding like an auto-take right? Well no, the perfect warrior rule can only be used in a challenge and he costs 150 points, don't bother.

Castellan Crowe
Crowe is basically a Brotherhood Champion with better stats (WS8 and +1 initiative and attacks) and mastery level 2 plus he uses both rules from Perfect Warrior in a challenge. People used to take him so that they could unlock Purifiers as troops but he doesn't do this anymore. However, he can now be attached to squads and he is Fearless which is nice. Also as chief purifier he obviously knows the Cleansing Flame power (one of the best powers in Santic). In fact his only real downside is that he insists on carrying around a weird sword whose power he refuses to use, therefore it just counts as a close combat weapon and so is not AP3 and nor is it Force. But because he is in artificer armour and can therefore sweeping advance he may be worth choosing over a Grand Master to bolster a power armour squad. For example, attach him to a Purifier squad for double cleansing flame! (I can't wait - Alex)

Librarian
This is probably going to be the go to HQ in this book. The Librarian has had a massive points reduction from the previous book to bring him in line with space marine librarians. However a Grey Knights librarian can be upgraded to mastery level 3 which gives him a good chance of picking up quite a few of the decent powers in the discipline of your choice, which again should probably be Santic or Divination. However, with mastery level 3, Telepathy may be worth a punt for the gambling types and sometimes Shrouding can be useful depending on what you are facing. He can be given the Domina Liber Daemonica in order to generate another power (but must be from Santic) and also allow all units in 6" to re-roll 1s when manifesting Santic powers, pretty awesome! Also it shouldn't be overlooked that he comes with a warding stave as standard which gives him and his unit Adamantium Will, so that coupled with his mastery level 3 will mean his squad often deny's powers on a 3+. In addition, the Aegis special rule (which all Grey Knights have) allows you to re-roll all 1s when denying the witch, therefore the librarian's squad becomes all but impossible to target with
psychic powers.

Techmarine
Basically the same as an SM Techmarine with a servo harness. Only difference is that he is mastery level 1 and can take force weapons. However it is worth noting that he can still take a conversion beamer. He doesn't take any slots so he can be used as a way to get a Hammerhand caster into a squad.

That's the HQ section sorted. Of course it'll be Troops next which is a particularly short one! I'll stick to the same schedule as the Space Wolves review with a post every other day. I'm certainly finding these an interesting read as I check them over before posting so I'm sure you guys are getting something out of them. With GW taking a short break from 40K at the moment I might even get chance to post something other than codex reviews. Hopefully I'll have some hobby content for you once this review is out of the way.

7th Edition 40K - New Grey Knight Codex Review - General Overview

Since I don't play Grey Knights and I'm struggling to find time to blog right now (I'm busy painting Space Wolves) I've enlisted the help of my good friend Matt who's been playing them since they were Daemonhunters and knows the army inside out. He's the guy I team up with for the GW doubles events too. Anyway, the format might be a little different from my reviews but comments are welcome as always and Matt will endeavour to respond when he can. The first post will cover some of the general rules for the new book including the warlord traits and wargear. Over to Matt...

Army Wide Special Rules
The Aegis – all GK non-vehicles units and dreadnoughts have this and it means that if a GK unit is targeted with a psychic power then that unit can re-roll 1s when attempting to deny the witch. Combine this with the fact that every GK unit that has The Aegis is also at least ML1 and you will deny on at least a 5+ re-rolling 1s. This makes it very difficult to target GK units with psychic powers.

Purity of spirit – Just a rule to clarify that all GK units manifest Santic powers with perils only occuring on a double 6.

Warlord Traits

1. Daemon-Slayer - good for fighting daemons, useless for everything else.
2. Hammer of Righteousness – Hammer of Wrath isn't that great especially when the unit has a base strength of 4…
3. Unyielding Anvil – Stubborn is pretty useless, many GK units are or can be made Fearless plus they all have ATSKNF, rubbish warlord trait (and it's the one Stern has).
4. First to the Fray – excellent trait when used with the correct unit guaranteeing a turn one Deep Strike is great and would be nice to combine with a few other deep strikes using the GK detachment rules (see below).
5. Perfect Timing – Counter attack – not bad I suppose but not great. Not many units will be charging a GK unit with your warlord in it and if they are then Counter Attack is unlikely to help you…
6. Lore Master – excellent trait and one that I will be hoping to roll on my librarian so that it can be combined with ML3 and the Domina Liber Daemonica and therefore allows him to know all but one of the Santic powers!

Wargear
Nemesis Force Weapons
All the melee weapons below have the Daemonbane special rule. The Daemonbane rule is much improved in this codex. If you are fighting daemons then it allows the bearer to re-roll all failed to wound and armour pens as long as the Force power has been manifested. This is much better than the old leadership or be removed rule as now no daemons are Eternal Warrior so if they suffer a Force wound they are dead anyway. Therefore having a re-roll to wound gives the average Grey Knight a very good chance of banishing large daemon scum back to the warp.

• Sword – this is just a force sword (with Daemonbane of course)
• Falchion – These are basically 2 nemesis force swords and so gives the bearer an extra attack for 4 extra points.
• Halberd – I did falchion first as I suspect many people will think that they are the best choice on most GK troops and elites. They will say what is the point in having +1 strength when Hammerhand gives you +2 and therefore you will wound most things on 2+ anyway. The point is that in these days of 7th ed getting Hammerhand off is in no way a given, you will fail it often due to wanting to manifest other powers and so not using many dice and so a base strength of 5 is excellent. If you do get Hammerhand then strength 7 is great if you're up against MC's or vehicles. Even better is double Hammerhand using an Independent Character within the squad to give you strength 9 and the ability to penetrate armour 14 and make Wraithknights go away. But another argument for using halberds over falchions is that often you can have too many attacks in a GK squad, more often than not your GK unit will hopelessly outmatch the enemy unit in combat and so all the extra attacks will do is destroy said enemy unit and leave your Grey Knights out in the open to get shot to bits. Much better to cause less damage and kill the unit over 2 turns allowing your squad to exit combat in the enemy turn. Many times in the past I have purposefully not cast Hammerhand to try to prevent my GK unit from killing the enemy unit too quickly. Plus the halberd is only 2 points per model (half of the falchion cost).
• Hammer – Still a good choice and everyone will still run one or 2 in a unit. With Hammerhand it is a S10 force hammer, so yeah pretty good.
• Stave – Force staff but gives the bearer Adamantium Will. Excellent rule to have when combined with the psychic defence GK units already have. A unit that contains one of these will deny on at least a 4+ re-rolling ones. This gives them a better chance to deny than the caster has to get the power off (assuming they both use the same amount of dice).

Ranged Weapons (I’ll only cover the weapons unique to GK)

• Incinerator – S6 AP4 flamer – great and will see more use due to nerfing of Psycannon.
• Psycannon – used to be auto take on all squads in last codex. Now stats are same but it's gone to salvo 2/4 which means that GK in power armour can only shoot 2 shots at 12” if they move and then they can't charge. Not good at all. However, I will still run some on small purifier squads as I often found myself standing them still to fire 8 heavy shots before which hasn't changed. Plus I often didn't fire before charging to ensure I made it into combat so not all bad. Plus they are exactly the same on terminator models and so they will still be an auto include in those squads.
• Psilencer – Used to be rubbish. Now have the potential to be awesome in the right circumstance. A ranged force weapon is very exciting but I can’t see me using it on power armour due to it being heavy and I can’t see me using it on terminator armour due to a Psycannon being a more useful gun. I can see me using the gatling version on a Dreadknight though..

Incidentally, I'll cover all Dreadknight weapons when I review the Dreadknight.

Nemesis Strike Force Detachment
This GK special detachment requires only 1 HQ and 1 Troop and allows up to 4 Elites but limits you to only 2 Fast and 2 Heavy. I think this is great for 2 reasons, firstly I don't want troops because they are rubbish compared to the Elites and therefore I want more Elites because they are better than the Troops.

The detachment also allows you to call in your reserves from turn 1 rolling for them as normal on a 3+. However, if they come in by Deep Strike they can Battle Focus on the turn they arrive (run and shoot in same turn) which is great for getting closer to the enemy or spreading out a bit. Personally though I will only put my squads in Deep Strike reserve if I don't manage to somehow have the ability to cast Gate of Infinity on the squad because GK units are expensive and leaving a load of them off the board is risky even with the ability to come on turn 1. I've played many games where I've had multiple reserves not arrive until turn 4. Therefore starting them on the board and casting Gate to Deep Strike them into position is much better and you can throw loads of dice at it if you really need it to go off. This is of course if you haven't managed to roll warlord trait number 4.

That's it for the first post then. I'll be posting Matt's stuff up in the same order I usually do my reviews in so HQ will be next. There aren't a vast array of choices though so the generic and special HQs will all be rolled into one post. I hope you've enjoyed the first post. It's certainly been a nice break for me and given me some insight into GK to help me when I play them next (which is Thursday incidentally).

Battle Report - Big Stuff Game (Tau/IK vs. Eldar/GK - 1,850pts)

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I don't like to cast judgement on any new units until I've had a game or two with or against it. Obviously you get a fair idea from reading the rules but often there are things that you haven't considered when considering the unit in a vacuum. Anyway, the unit in question for this battle report was the Imperial Knight. Since I haven't persuaded myself to buy one yet I was borrowing Jamie's (head over to his blog to read more about it).

Whilst we want to test the Imperial Knight in tournament like conditions we couldn't resist the opportunity to field a ton of big units. Here's a group shot of the big guys in question (I quite like how Matt's wraithknights look like their posing for the photo!):


Anyway, my list was essentially the same as in Monday's batrep but with one less fire warrior unit and a few upgrades on the suits etc. Matt's list featured the same two wraithknights but this time they were joined by an avatar and a dreadknight along with some extra wave serpents and dark reapers.

Battle Report

We'd be playing a 3 objective Crusade on Dawn of War. Matt would be taking the first turn but just in case he castled up his forces in the centre of the board. Of course with Coteaz involved I failed to seize. Matt's dreadknight advanced towards one of my riptides whilst incinerating some pathfinders on the way. The rest of the army focussed on the Imperial Knight stripping away half of it's hull points before it'd even moved. Elsewhere more pathfinders died but neither ran denying Matt First Blood. Thanks to some poor target prioritisation on my part I failed to get it either. I managed to wound both the dreadknight and one of the wraithknights but neither fell. All the Imperial Knight managed to achieve was a single wound on the wraithknight but he was advancing towards his foe hoping to get stuck into combat.

It wouldn't get much of an opportunity though. The wraithknights fired at it bringing it down to a single HP before charging in. One of them took the remaining HP with Hammer of Wrath and that was that. Bit of a damp squib but that's how it goes sometimes. The resultant explosion took a wound each from the wraithknights but it was hardly making it worth the 375pts! I managed to get some revenge by downing the dreadknight but one of my riptides followed shortly afterwards. At this point I was feeling very much on the back foot. The firepower from the avatar on the lascannon and all those wave serpents was simply too much for my Tau. Shadowsun and her team weren't even able to down a wraithknight when they arrived which didn't help matters. Especially not when it made her pay by killing her in combat (again!).

The other wraithknight had a couple of rounds of combat with my remaining riptide but once that fell I was all but defeated. There was a brief highlight for me though. A squad of outflanking kroot were able to down a wave serpent by glancing it to death with rear armour shots but it was too little too late. With both wraithknights free to smash what they liked the game was lost. I couldn't kill off Matt's troops and mine were soon gone. We played it through to the end and my inevitable tabling.

Conclusion
It's a shame to have lost this one. Before I saw Matt's army I felt pretty confident having managed to squeeze a knight into an already strong Tau list. Once I'd seen Matt's list though I knew I'd struggle, especially without First Turn. The result felt pretty much decided from the start which is a shame since one-sided games are rarely fun for either player.

The point of the game though was to test out the Imperial Knight. Despite what you might think (since they aren't permitted at BW7) I was really expecting much from it. Of course it's tough for some armies to kill but against others it'll die just as quick as most vehicles. Matt's list had a disgusting amount of high strength fire power. Those S10 shots from the wraithknights are perfect for bringing it down. Once in combat their I5 and S10 makes them probably the best way of downing one. It's a shame that one of them kicked in the shin (Hammer of Wrath) before it got to strike. I'd have loved to smash up a couple of wraithknights before it fell.

I initially thought that the Paladin was the better of the two variants since the rapid fire battle cannon would be great against massed MEQ infantry. I'm now leaning towards the Errant though. The 36" large blast melta seems far better now I think about it. I don't actually know what made me think the Paladin would be superior actually. With so many wave serpents around (and I'm sure a lot of Leman Russes after the AM book) having the melta makes it that much more potent. This is especially true when you consider it'll be those vehicles that create the biggest problem for both it and the army it fights alongside.

The Imperial Knight may have died pretty easily in this game but I can still envision it cutting swathes through various other armies. I suppose, like anything else, there'll be a rock-paper-scissors kind of thing. For some armies it'll be no problem and others it'll be their worse nightmare. I think the key is that, like any big model, it proves a huge distraction for your opponent. They can't simply ignore it which means the rest of your list gets a bit of a breather. Pack the list out with mech and your opponent's presumably limited anti-tank weaponry will be left with a choice. Kill the knight and spare the rest or vice versa.

Our last game of the day was a somewhat fluffier affair (to my relief). I'll be writing that up on Friday night so be sure to come back after the weekend to see how the Inquisition fare against an Ork horde led by a warboss with a dark secret.

Battle Report - Blog Wars Warm-up - Tau vs. CSM/Daemons & Tau vs. GK

Matt and I have been working on our Blog Wars 5 lists (tickets still available from the link on the right) for a while now. I've switched from DE to DA to Tau and Matt has been trying to find a CSM/Daemons list that he's happy with. Today was another test game for us. Matt would be trying out a new Chaos list followed by a Grey Knights alternative and I'd be using my "backup" Tau list that requires less painting than my planned list. Oh and it's cheaper too as I don't need to buy any broadsides. Here's what I'm running:

1,850 pts of Tau
Commander (fusion, plasma, TL, VRT, iridium)
Ethereal

12 Fire Warriors w/ Devilfish (d.pod)
12 Fire Warriors
12 Fire Warriors
11 Kroot plus hound
11 Kroot plus hound

3 Crisis Shas'ui (twin-linked fusion, plasma)
2 Crisis Shas'ui (MP, twin-linked MP), Shas'vre (2 pods, PEN)
Riptide (ion, fusion, EWO, VT)

7 Pathfinders
7 Pathfinders
Sun Shark (twin-linked MP, decoys)

Hammerhead (Longstrike, subs, SMS, spines, d.pod)

I'll run down how the list works in another post but I'm pretty sure you can imagine. Anyway, onto the battle reports.

Game One - Tau vs. CSM/Daemons
Matt was running 2 princes, lord of change, pink horrors, typhus, 2 x 10 zombies, 2 heldrakes, 3 solo obliterators. We were playing Relic on Vanguard. I won the first turn and there was no Night Fighting.

With the daemon princes fearing S10 insta-death they were safely behind a building. Therefore I brought as much fire to bear as I could on the lord of change whilst he wasn't swooping. I managed to bring him down to two wounds and kill off  handful of horrors and zombies. Matt moved his daemon princes forwards as quickly as possible with one taking cover behind a building. The other deployed the portalglyph which spawned some horrors which used their bolt to kill a line of 4 fire warriors. The other horrrors attempted to kill some pathfinders but they passed their Deny the Witch roll. The lord of change incinerated 4 of the other pathfinders though.

I got all four of my reserves with the kroot squads arriving on my left flank to gun down some zombies. The suits dropped into the centre and the flyer dropped its drones before targeting one of the daemon princes. Sadly it failed to harm the prince despite grounding it. The spawned horrors weren't around long as the disembarked drones from the devilfish killed them. The lord of change was cut down by massed firepower after being downed. Longstrike turned his railgun's attention to the downed prince but depsite wounding the beast it passed its invulnerable save and avoided death. The recently landed crisis team was able to finish it off however whilst the commander closed the portalglyph down permanently with his fusion blaster.

Not a pretty sight!!

Matt dropped two obliterators in brave positions next to Longstrike but could only strip two hull points and destroy the SMS with their twin-linked meltaguns much to Matt's annoyance. The daemon prince turned around and smashed down the entire crisis team including the commander for slay the warlord.

The fire warriors and riptide combined to easily remove the obliterators whilst the bomber dropped its payload on the zombies but could only kill a couple. Sadly despite heavy firepower the daemon prince survived thanks to tzeentch re-rolls of 1s on its armour save. Typhus arrived with another obliterator along with the pair of heldrakes. Never a nice sight! The dragons started by vector striking my bomber down with ease between them. They then incinerated the ethereal's squad but thanks to some good fortune the ethereal survived whilst his squad perished. The obliterator failed to hurt the hammerhead just like his late colleagues. The daemon prince dispatched the other crisis team as easily as he had the first.

The Tau hit back killing the daemon prince and destroying the baleflamer on one of the heldrakes. Sadly the other was unscathed though. The fire from the Tau gunline was enough to leave Typhus on a single wound. In return, the obliterator charged the hammerhead after failing to destroy it with his melta again. The power fist was enough though and the vehicle was wrecked. Typhus attempted to charge the riptide but with only a single wound remaining he was cut down. The horrors gunned down the pathfinders thanks to rolling well on their power.

One heldrake zoomed off to the left flank to deal with the kroot but only killed a handful. In return the kroot were incredibly lucky and stripped two hull points from the flyer. There was very little left on the table now and the game was coming to an end fast. Sadly I'd totally forgotten all about the objective. The kroot managed to kill one of the zombie squads but sadly the other was able to claim the objective. With Matt scoring slay the warlord too it was enough to give him a 4-2 win. With very little chaos left on the board this was probably against the run of play but as ever I need to play the mission!! My riptide was all off half an inch from contesting though!

Game Two - Tau vs. Grey Knights
Matt was running 3 (yes 3) dreadknights, coteaz, a 10-man strike squad, a stormraven, draigo and 4 solo paladins. Certainly not a horde then! We'd be playing Big Guns on Dawn of War and once again I was lucky enough to take first turn and there'd be no Night Fighting.

Basically I wanted to try and put as many wounds on the dreadknights as I could. The crisis team used a couple of markerlights to become BS5 and with Monster Hunter from the chip they were able to force the dreadknight in the centre to take 8 saves. Somehow Matt managed to roll four 1s and I'd killed a dreadknight in a single volley!! Draigo was at the front of the strike squad. With Coteaz acting as a Look Out Sir tank for any S5 or less shots. The riptide and hammerhead managed to put a couple of wounds on draigo and kill a couple of strike marines. To do as much damage as I could I fired some 30" pulse rifle shots from my fire warriors at BS5 (thanks markerlights). They managed to score 8 wounds with Matt rolling LoS for half. He then had 4 2+ saves on Draigo who somehow died too!! That has to be one of my best openings ever, Draigo and a dreadknight down at long range!!

From this point onward Matt was fixated on the number of 1s he was rolling. I'm not suprised! Anyway, the remaining dreadknights advanced and incinerated both pathfinder teams with the remnants running off. No more markers for me but I could hardly complain. The strike squad cut down 6 fire warriors too.

My crisis team, bomber and one squad of kroot arrived. The kroot, interceptor drones and crisis suits lined up the dreadknight on the left whilst the crisis team dropped in next to the other. The commander and his team were easily able to destroy their target but the other dreadknight survived with a couple of wounds. Matt brought in a couple of paladins but despite attempting to intercept them with the dreadknight I'd failed to Nova him so a single melta shot ended up not being enough. The ion accelerator was able to remove a wound from one though. The stormraven arrived and failed to harm the hammerhead with it's multi-melta but it did manage to kill a crisis suit. The dreadknight managed to stay locked with the crisis team to save it for a turn.

One paladin was finished off by the fire warriors but the other survived on a single wound. I managed little else but was able to block the paladin with my gun drones and use the devilfish to prevent the dreadknight from charging my riptide once he was out of combat. The dreadknight now finished off the crisis team as expected. This cock-blocking prevented the paladin from charging my fire warriors and instead he headed towards the kroot. The dreadknight incinerated some fire warriors and then found himself out of charge range. The paladin had similar problems. The stormraven decided to hover for another shot at the hammerhead but despite hitting this time Matt snake-eyed the penetration rolls (more 1s!!).

Longstrike failed to down the storm raven as it passed it's Jink save! The crisis team did the job on the now hovering flyer and blew it out of the sky. I failed to kill the paladin and dreadknight who were now passing their 2+ saves with ease. A third paladin arrived and managed to lose a wound to dangerous terrain (1 followed by a 1). The riptide then intercepted to take it's remaining wound!! The paladin charged the kroot forcing them to run. The dreadknight incinerated the rest of the ethereal's squad and charged him down too. Despite my early luck this was now looking a lot closer that it seemed. Luckily I managed to kill the paladin with my gun drones before the interceptor drones dispatched the dreadknight. God I love killing things with drones!! The flyer zipped off hoping to return should there be a turn 6.

If I hide behind my shield he won't see me!

Matt wasn't done yet though. A final paladin arrived and controlled the kroot objective. Meanwhile the strike squad lined up to charge the other kroot as Coteaz split off to try and kill some fire warriors. He killed enough to put them out of range of the objective. The strike squad failed the charge luckily for me. I'd got an objective with my hammerhead, Matt had one with his paladin with the other contested.  If the game ended on turn 5 it would've been a draw as we'd both got 2 secondary VPs. With Matt rolling so many 1s (and having rolled for it game 1) I rolled and got a turn 6.

I tried to play for the tabling now. A pair of fire warriors had jetted over to the paladins objective in a devilfish and with help from the kroot they killed off the paladin controlling it. The kroot opened up on the strike squad killing the remaining two marines. I just needed to kill Coteaz for the tabling. The riptide hit him with an ion shot but Matt went to ground. He failed his initial 6+ but thanks to Precognition he passed the re-roll and with the game ending there I'd just missed out on the tabling.

After Action Thoughts

Well the first game was yet another lesson in play the mission. Had we played on for another turn then it would've been an easy Tau win but I need to remember to play for turn 5. Otherwise the game felt fairly one-sided. Having said that Longstrike didn't do what he has in previous games and instant kill any daemon princes. In fact in both games he was pretty unlucky. I missed with him several times despite BS5 and when I did hit things made their saves. I still think he's worth having though as he should do a lot better.

For the entire first game I forgot all about my interceptor units. The riptide really should've been dropping those obliterators and maybe even heldrakes before they even struck. It was a pretty major mistake and I was just lucky that Matt wasn't able to punish me for it. Still, I've not been using Tau long I suppose.

The second game I've dubbed "A Game of Ones" and Matthew of Greenwood (probably not the "first of his name") really didn't enjoy it. Once you've decided you're rolling a lot of 1s you do notice them more but seriously he was rolling wayyyy more than he should've been. I mean the obliterator wounding itself on dangerous terrain and the stormraven's snake-eyes with it's melta. That being said it's always going to be the way in massed fire versus elite army games. The sheer volume of shots is usually enough to deal with 2+ saves without low AP.

The riptide is really growing on me. I was sceptical at first but I think with interceptor and skyfire he's pretty awesome. I wasn't sure about the velocity tracker but the potential to fire two twin-linked melta shots at a flyer before it's even fired is far too tempting. Still he did manage to cause 5 wounds on himself across the 2 games thanks to failing Nova!

These games were great for me as they allowed me to test out my crisis team substitute for HYMP broadsides. I don't really want to buy 3 of the new models so I thought I'd try the team listed above. They certainly don't have the firepower of the broadsides and are only 3+ armour but they make up for it in manoeuvrability. This helps to compensate for the 36" range. With the puretide chip they're pretty good for dealing with vehicles and MCs alike. The main thing they lack is Interceptor though. The riptide and interceptor drones provide some help but it would be nice to have all those shots against Necron flyers for example.

Ultimately there isn't a world of difference between the two when you take everything into account. The main thing is that I don't have to buy, build and paint three broadsides if I take the crisis team. That means I only have pathfinders to paint and leaves me some money spare for Eldar perhaps.....

Battle Brothers Game 2 - Titanic Fenrisians vs. GK/IG

Top of turn 2 - not much left to kill

We were looking around the room at the start of the day and to our relief there weren't many lists with flyers in them. Unfortunately, we managed to get some anyway! This time we'd be playing Dawn of War and Emperor's Will. Our opponents Darren and Sean (Crusade of the Lost Souls) were fielding (from memory/pictures):

Primaris Psyker

10 Veterans in a Chimera

Manticore

Vendetta

Aegis line with comms relay

Coteaz

3 Warrior acolytes

2 big squads of death cults and crusaders

Techmarine

2 stormravens

This was going to be tough. Our best chance of winning was to wipe out the Imperial Guard before the flyers could arrive and win by default. If they managed to get even one of the flyers on it was going to be VERY difficult.

Battle Report

We again got first turn and with Coteaz cancelling Coteaz they didn't manage to Seize. This would give us two turns to kill off the guard before the flyers and the nastiness inside arrived. We deployed everything in a similar fashion to game 1 and they stuck 3 acolytes on top of a derelict bastion with the aegis line abandoned (they used a wall of martyrs as you can see in the picture). The chimera and manticore went on the other flank. 

So we knew what we had to do. The drop pod came in and unfortunately only wrecked the chimera. One dreadknight jumped forward and incinerated the acolytes on top of the bastion (able to hit level 3 thanks to being a jump unit - worth remembering). The dreadknight managed to incinerate a handful of guardsmen but they passed their leadership test. Lucky for us they were pinned thanks to their emergency disembark (the back door of the chimera was against the table edge). The manticore killed the drop pod and a handful of grey hunters. We now had turn 2 to get rid of a handful of guardsmen and the manticore. This was achieved with a combination of the outflankers arriving (a bit too early for my liking) and blowing up the manticore and then the dreadknight killing off the guardsmen with help from the grey hunters without needing to charge. 

So far so good really. We'd have preferred to kill everything on turn one but they had just enough on the board to stop this happening. Even so if by some chance they didn't get a flyer on we'd still win at this point....

Obviously they managed it with one stormraven and the vendetta coming on. We'd deliberately placed our army as far forward as possible to try and make it difficult for them to hit us. So this is where the argument comes in. The vendetta wasn't really an issue but the stormraven was going to be easily able to kill our dreadknights thanks to Mindstrike missiles. They brought it on at a pretty shallow angle but when they started to shoot at our dreadknight I questioned whether or not it was in their arc. I've already talked about the argument but suffice to say once the ref had ruled in their favour it all started to go wrong. They managed to hit with all their shots and with help from the vendetta they dropped the dreadknight. Now obviously it's difficult to know how significant this was but I'll get to that in the conclusion.

Why would we do this? No matter how good it looks.

With the flyers on the board our only hope for killing them was the psycannons or charging them when they hovered. Matt got off Prescience and fired the psycannons at the stormraven. Sadly although he hit twice he failed to penetrate only scoring a glance I think. We were pretty worried about the loss of the other dreadknight and the fire from the flyers hurting the thunderwolves so we stuck them together in a ruin. I decided this looked cool so took a picture and ironically it allows me to show you our biggest mistake of the tournament.

They hovered the stormraven and vendetta whilst the second stormraven blasted on. With them hovering our wolves and remaining dreadknight should easily gimp them with S10 attacks. Sadly we'd put them right next to each other allowing the deathcults to drop out and multi-charge. Granted we forgot they shouldn't have got the charge bonus but with rad grenades and hallucinogen making us Initiative 1 it wasn't really going to end differently and we were easily wiped out. 

This picture pretty adequately shows our problem here.

From this point forward we were left with only one chance. With our Coteaz now dead (thanks to the other Stormraven - which we'd again failed to kill) they'd got Slay the Warlord and would easily have Linebreaker. We'd got First Blood and Linebreaker. If we were lucky we could keep the second squad of deathcults (with Coteaz) away from our objective and use the Space Wolves to contest theirs giving us a 5-2 win. Slim chance but you have to play for it.

Sadly it didn't pan out. The grey hunters failed to move far enough through terrain to get close enough to contest and the death cults swept through our lines and contested our objective. With the other deathcults on their objective they took victory 5-2.

Conclusion

A very hotly contested but enjoyable game. The only reason for this was Sean and Darren's good humour about the argument. I'm not sure Darren was quite as amused as Sean but even so they could've been a lot more hostile and made the game miserable to finish out. We had a great laugh with them and it was easily our closest game all weekend. 

All over from this point forward

Ignoring the debatable dreadknight kill, the deathcults definitely won the game for them. We threw it away by leaving our two best chances of killing the hovering flyers so close to each other. From that point on we were clutching at straws and never really had much chance of winning. We were unlucky not to down the second stormraven once we'd hit (although it still isn't likely with S7 vs AV12). 

Once the guardsmen and tanks were dead the space wolves didn't really take part in the battle. The grey hunters spent most of their time out of range of everything and the thunderwolves were cut down easily in combat with the deathcults. They stuck their objective centrally which really hampered our outflanking. I don't think we did too much wrong (except what I've mentioned) and we left the game feeling cheated by a frankly incorrect decision. 

Nethertheless we'd taken 2 points despite losing and even if it had been Swiss pairs we'd have expected to be in this position after game 2! Once again, thanks to Sean and Darren for an enjoyable game even if it was for strange reasons!

First Gaming of the New Year

Matt was over today for our first gaming session of the new year. We managed to fit in two games of 40K and two bloodbowl matches. Here's a brief rundown of the games.

Game 1 - SW/GK vs IG/Daemons (40K) - 1500pts
As testing for the Battle Brothers tournament at the end of the month we pitted our Titanic Fenrisians against IG with daemon allies. The game was The Scouring on Hammer and Anvil deployment. I took the first turn with the SW/GK.

A drop pod slammed down near one of the traitor guard's chimeras. The occupants made short work of the transport and the occupants took casualties in the explosion causing their nerve to break. The two dreadknights teleported forwards and incinerated further heretical infantry. The bloodthirster and daemon prince arrived in Matt's first turn. The bloodthirster scattered leaving him impotent for a turn. The daemon prince incinerated 5 grey hunters with its Breath of Chaos. Fire from the guardsman wounded one of the thunderwolves.

The purifiers who'd been advancing up the centre failed to blow up the remaining chimera meaning the thunderwolves were forced to charge it to destroy it. The grey hunters in the centre managed to shoot down the deamon prince and cause it a wound as it slammed into the ground. The dreadknight set it alight but caused no damage. The resulting combat saw the dreadknight defeat it over a couple of turns. The other dreadknight incinerated a heavy weapons team. The thunderwolves took casualties to the guardsmen who'd been evicted from the chimera. The bloodthirster then easily finished off one of the dreadknights. A little while later it did the same to the other dreadknight.

The thunderwolves only killed a single guardsman in combat and somehow managed to die in the process. This would be the turning point of the game. The plaguebearers arrived on a 4 pt objective controlled by some warrior acolytes. Over the remaining turns the vendettas arrived and dealt some damage. The bloodthirster killed off the purifiers and with the grey hunters struggling to shift the plaguebears the match was comfortably won by Matt's army.

Game 2 - Orks vs Humans (Bloodbowl)
As a bit of a warmup to remind ourselves of the rules we played the classic matchup of humans and orks. My humans struggled from the start with me failing crucial rolls left right and centre. The orks scored one touchdown in each half and I struggled to even make a consolation point. The problem I have is that I'm simply not used to playing games with passing teams as I usually favour dwarves or orks.

Game 3 - DE vs IG/CSM - 1750pts

Matt fielded a typhus zombie horde, 57 strong, with a heldrake, obliterators, daemon prince, vendettas and plenty of guardsmen in support. I'd be fielding my current favourite DE list with Duke Sliscus and trueborn in a raider, 2 wych raiders, 3 kabalite venoms, 3 ravagers and 9 reavers. I managed to get a free pain token for my Combat Drugs and also seized the iniative which filled me with hope, at least at first....

The ravagers did what they always seem to do for me and missed most of their shots (I think the forget they're BS4). They could only wound the daemon prince once. The trueborn and the venoms were equally pathetic and only managed to kill a handful of zombies. The return fire from the guardsmen killed a venom and two raiders but with minimal casualties. The wyches were charged by the daemon prince and failed to cause any wounds resulting in their deaths after a second round of combat.

In their second turn the reavers swept from their position on the left flank and hit the guardsmen on the quad gun with bladevanes wiping out the squad. The ravagers continued to be pathetic but between them and the kabalites they did at least kill both of the obliterators. The rest of the army continued to chip away at the zombies. The remaining wyches had managed to avoid being charged by the second horde and therefore easily wiped out an infantry squad. They were then successfully charged by the horde and finished off over a few rounds of combat. The reavers were easily eradicated by the daemon prince and things were starting to look bad. Duke Sliscus and co. were evicted from their raider and hit by the heldrake's baleflamer. The remaining trueborn managed to kill more zombies but little else before they were wiped out by a second blast from the now hovering heldrake.

The DE vehicles were slowly picked off by the guardsmen and with me now lacking the firepower to kill off 30+ zombies in time the relic was safely out of my reach. The only consolation might be that Duke could kill Typhus in combat if he made enough Shadowfield saves. Despite taking Typhus down a couple of wounds Matt kept passing 5++ saves and eventually Duke's shadowfield flickered out and he was instantly killed.

Game 4 - Dwarves vs Skaven (Bloodbowl)
Hoping to at least come away with one victory from the day I was pleased when Matt failed on two successive turns to pick up the ball. I was able to keep the rat ogre down with my troll slayers (though kept failing to break through his armour) and capitalised on Matt's fumbling by scoring a touch down.

Over the next few turns I was able to smackdown more rats and things were looking good as we neared half time. With the final act of Matt's turn 8 he managed to pick up the ball within 4 squares of his endzone, run forwards and throw a long bomb (needing a 6 which he did thanks to a Pass re-roll) to another rat who unbelievably caught the ball despite being in two tackle zones and then dodged out of the tackle zones and went for it twice to score! That's a pretty ridiculous amount of luck on Matt's part and at the half way point I was shocked that the score was tied.

In the second half more gutter runner shenanigans saw me going a goal down. Sadly we ran out of time shortly after but by this point Matt had injured both of my runners and I was struggling to keep on top of his agile rats with 9 men.

Conclusion
Well that's a hell of a start to my gaming in 2013. Nothing from 4 games! I think the Bloodbowl games were actually pretty close on reflection and both were pretty enjoyable with some great moments. It's made me more determined than ever to get my dwarves painted up and start playing more games. They're nearly finished so hopefully I'll get photos up this weekend if I managed to get them done.

It's a shame I couldn't have won with the dwarves. The main problem was with armour rolls. I put down rats left, right and centre but you know things are going badly when you've got more dwarves injured than skaven!! Back to the xbox for some more practice I think!

The 40K games were prett demoralising really. Both felt like they were promising early on but reached a turning point after which I felt like I had no chance of winning. Granted this is normally me attitude in 40K and I accept that it's part of the problem but still I can't say I enjoyed the games.

The zombies have met a mixed reception on the internet. Some think they're brilliant whilst others see them as a gimick that doesn't work in competitive play. I have to say that particularly in games with minimal objectives (especially Relic) they're nigh on unstoppable. If you don't have templates of some description then you'll struggle to chip away at them. Granted I was using mostly 4+ poisoned fire so some armies would find their T3 less of a problem. My wyches really needed a bit more punch to deal with them in combat and S3 didn't really cut it.

As with any horde they require a large volume of fire to put down. The difference with these guys is not only do you have to shift 30 bodies but also they're Fearless. Now, I think the changes to the Fearless rules are the biggest mistake in the 6th edition book. Allowing units to gain a significant benefit from a rule without an obvious downside is always frustrating. In 5th edition you could hope to cause a lot of casualties in combat but now you can settle down for a looooong slog to try and whittle them down.

Well let's just hope that my second day of gaming in 2013 (tomorrow with Jamie) works out a bit better or I might have to rethink this hobby malarky!!

Post #250 - Battle Report - Goodbye Gaming Loft!

For quite a while now I've been lucky enough to have the attic room of our house set up as a permanent gaming loft. It's great not having to put everything away after a battle and gives us a massive space to play our games in. However, all good things must come to an end and, since we'll shortly be moving house, the time has come to say goodbye to my gaming loft. We finished as we started, testing army lists for a tournament. This time around it was Matt wanting to test his list out for Open War. Sadly I can't go as I'm away for a friend's stag weekend (the same one that pushed Blog Wars 4 back!). We therefore played a couple of 1,750 point games. Both gave me a chance to try some things out for myself as well. Matt was fielding a GK list with BA allies:

1,750pts of GK/BA
Coteaz
5 Purifiers w/ 2 psycannons, 2 halberds
4x 3 Warrior Acolytes in Razorbacks
2 Crusaders and 7 Death Cult Assassins in a Stormraven with sponsons/psybolt
Dreadknight w/ personal teleporter & heavy incinerator
2 Psyfleman dreadnoughts

Mephiston
5 Assault marines w/ jump packs, meltagun, power sword

Game One - DE vs GK/BA
I've been wanting to give my Blog Wars list a trial run. Obviously for this game I had to ditch 100pts but it didn't really change the list too much. In both games I wanted to present Matt with a strong challenge. His list relies on two toughness 6 models with a 2+ save (Mephiston/Dreadknight) so my massed poisoned and darklight weaponry would cause him a lot of problems. Here's my list:

1,750pts of DE
Duke Sliscus
2 Haemonculi
9 Trueborn (2 blaster, 2 splinter cannon, 5 shardcarbines, haywires) in Raider (disint, trophies)
3x 5 Warriors (blaster) in Venom
2x 9 Wyches (haywires) in Raiders (disint, trophies)
9 Reavers
3 Ravagers

There's a few things here that I haven't really tried out much such as disintegrators and trophies on my raiders and Duke Sliscus with a large trueborn unit. Anyway onto the game.

We were playing The Scouring with Vanguard deployment. I won the roll off for both deployment and first turn. Duke's drugs re-roll allowed me to give all my drug units an extra attack (I fully expected to roll snake eyes!). Matt was keeping his stormraven and BA marines in reserve so I wanted to chew threw a lot of the rest of his army before they arrived.

I fired my ravagers into his vehicles but despite stripping some hull points I failed to destroy either of the razorbacks I'd targetted. This meant the reavers would only be able to bladevane Mephiston who was unlikely to ignore the attack. Sure enough he lost a wound but then charged them down in Matt's turn and wiped them out. Elsewhere Duke and his unit fired a punishing amount of poisoned/darklight fire into the dreadknight leaving it with two wounds. I'd failed to score a First Blood kill though and I knew Matt wouldn't have the same problem.

Sure enough Matt took down Duke's raider and one of the wyches raiders too. I positioned both units extremely carefully to minimise the damage from the heavy incinerator and to hopefully prevent the purifiers from charging the wyches. I measured the range to be about 5" for them to be able to get in. With Matt having to go through the wreck I thought I'd have a good chance of keeping out of combat. Sadly I'd missed one of the purifiers that was actually closer. When Matt rolled 5, 2, 1 giving him 3" range they were still in. A pretty costly mistake as the purifiers easily wiped out the wyches. The dreadknight was not so lucky though. I hit him 3 times with overwatch fire but it all pinged harmlessly off it's armour. He then charged in and challenged Duke. Thanks to his drugs Duke hit with 4 attacks and wounded with 3. Crucially he'd rolled two 5s meaning the dreadknight could only make invulnerable saves meaning it died before getting to strike!

I lined up my remaining forces to put a withering amount of fire down on the purifiers who were hiding in the raider's wreckage. When the dust settled Coteaz was alone on a single wound! I got the reamining wyches out of their raider to try and charge one of the dreadnoughts with their haywires. Sadly I couldn't find the range even with a fleet re-roll (I re-rolled a 1 and got the same again!). They were then lined up as Mephiston's next victims. In Matt's turn 2 the Stormraven and BA marines arrived. The BA killed a ravager with their meltagun and the stormraven and dreadnoughts made light work of the other two ravagers. I'd now struggle to deal with the dreads and flyer.

From this point on it was an uphill struggle. I scored a flukey hit with one of my warrior squad's blaster but couldn't penetrate. The stormraven went onto kill the venoms with help from the dreadnoughts. Duke Sliscus was gunned down by a razorback causing instant death and we called it there since I'd have little hope of winning with my sole remaining 5-man warrior squad!!

Game One Conclusion
Despite losing I really enjoyed the game. Matt and I agree that 6th edition seems to have a lot more interesting things happening. Even when you're on the losing side you find the game entertaining. Perhaps it's just because Matt and I are increasingly evenly matched though as I finally start getting better at the game!

Anyway, I think my list performed pretty well and it was a couple of costly mistakes that made the difference. In the first turn I should've focussed all my ravagers on a single target to ensure I got First Blood. I should've blasted the second wych raider flat out to ensure they got into range rather than fruitlessly firing the disintegrator cannon. A haywire armed wych squad could've made a mess of dreads and razorback alike. The other wych squad would've survived if I'd measured the purifiers' charge range more accurately. They'd also have gone on to haywire some vehicles.

The reavers should've either been kept in reserve or should've held back for a couple of turns to wait for a better target and avoid being charged easily. So in summary I'm pretty pleased with my list. Duke's unit works well with all that 3+ poisoned fire making a mess of the dreadknight. I already prefer him to Baron. The disintegrator cannons on the raiders seem to be a good idea. I never find the raiders last long and if they can kill a couple of terminators then they're probably doing ok. The grisly trophies aren't worth it but they aren't in my BW list anyway so it's of no concern but good to know.

Game Two - SW/Tau vs GK/BA
I've been playing around with the combination of Tau and Space Wolves ever since 6th came out. Here's my current offering:

1,750pts of Tau/SW
Shas'el (Fusion, Plasma, Shield, HWMT)
2 Bodyguard (Fusion, Plasma, TA, HWMT)
2 Crisis suits (TL Missiles, Flamer)
2x 9 Fire warriors in Devilfish (DP)
8 Fire warriors in Devilfish (DP)
2x 2 Broadsides (ASS, DC, 2x Shield Drones, TL, Blacksun)

Rune Priest (Divination)
10 Grey Hunters (Plasma, Melta, Standard, MotW) in Drop Pod
6 Long Fangs (5 Missiles)

This list basically has an incredibly strong fire base from the broadsides and long fangs (who can re-roll to hit thanks to Prescience) and then three devilfish full of firewarriors to push up to objectives with support from the suits and Grey Hunters.

We were playing Hammer & Anvil and the Emperor's Will. In this mission the Secondary Objectives are crucial as they are often the only thing separating the two armies. Matt won the table side roll off and we both put out objectives in ruins centrally in our deployment zones. I again won the roll off for first turn and Matt again failed to seize with his Coteaz re-roll.

The drop pod slammed in behind one of the dreadnoughts and a combination of meltagun and bolter fire (the plasma missed) left the dread as a smouldering wreck. The broadsides did what they do best with the other dreadnought which exploded catastrophically. Matt's shooting was frustrated by my newly buffed Disruption Pods giving my devilfish a 3+ save. The dreadknight leapt forward and incinerated 4 fire warriors causing them to flee. Mephiston responded to the grey hunters attack on the dreadnought by charging into combat with them but not before losing a wound to overwatch fire. The lord of death killed a handful of grey hunters but was wounded twice by the wulfen.

The commander and his bodyguard dropped in from high above the battlefield and opened up on the dreadknight leaving it with a single wound. The nearby fire warriors used their pulse rifles to take it's remaining wound (Matt wasn't best pleased to lose it so easily again, especially not to Fire Warriors!). The broadsides took down two of the razorbacks (one squad of acolytes ran off the board) and immobilised a third. Mephiston killed more grey hunters but was down to a single wound as the wulfen rended again.

Turn two for Matt saw both the Stormraven and the assault marines arrive. The flyer blasted at full speed to attack the commander. The assault marines tried a risky deep strike near the broadsides and mishapped meaning I could deploy them. I shoved them out of range of anything and in the open so that I could hopefully kill them off next turn. The stormraven left the commander and one of his bodyguard on a single wound but couldn't kill them and the purifiers were again frustrated by the disruption pods.

Having come close to the edge of the board my fleeing fire warriors regrouped on the second attempt. The stormraven was out in the open with a lot of firepower bearing down on it. Sadly, although one of  the broadsides hit they could only glance but at least forced an Evade roll. The long fangs, despite having prescience failed to hit with a single missile! Fire from the commander and his team stripped another hullpoint though. The assault marines took a torrent of fire from the good old Fish of Fury style attack leaving them with just 2 models left. Mephiston finished off the grey hunters.

The stormraven was forced to hover to still be able to hit something and allow the death cults to dismount. The death cults made short work of the crisis command team. The stormraven penetrated a devilfish only for the disruption pods to strike again. In order to protect the warrior acolytes on Matt's objective from the drop pod's storm bolter he decided to charge it with Mephiston. He decided that S10 would help so roll for Sanguine Sword and double sixed it killing the lord of death!! On the other side of the board the assault marines declared a charge on the fire warriors only to be gunned down by overwatch fire as Matt failed both armour saves! From this point there was little hope for Matt but we carried on all the same.

The hovering stormraven fell to the first volley from the broadsides killing a death cult in the explosion. The death cults were gunned down by a combination of double flamers from the crisis suits and torrents of pulse weapon fire. The fire warriors who'd killed the BA jumped in their devilfish and sped off to contest the enemy objective. The purifiers managed to kill the missile crisis team but it was too little too late. Sadly the game ended on turn 5 so I was unable to push for the tabling. Despite it looking very much in my favour we were only separated by the First Blood point as my Fire Warriors weren't quite in range to contest!

Game Two Conclusion
Matt's been given a lot to think about by this list. Granted it's pretty much his worst nightmare. No-one likes broadsides and especially not when combined with long fangs. I was trying out a new role for the rune priest here by using Divination and deploying him with the rockets. The nearby ammo dump meant I was re-rolling 1s to hit so his Perfect Timing power allowed me to Ignore Cover and helped kill a razorback. Prescience should've helped with the flyer and I was unlucky not to get a single 6 with ten rolls! In a game like this where Matt struggled to get to my back line the Rune Priest was well protected. The only issue here was that his psychic denial was wasted as it was never in range.

When you look at it in the cold light of day 100pts is quite a lot to spend on letting your long fangs re-roll to hit. Even so it's certainly another option. The drop pod grey hunters did their job well, killing a dread and eventually causing the death of Mephiston. They add a dynamic element to what is otherwise a pretty static gunline.

On the Tau side I think all the units performed perfectly. The broadsides didn't hit as often as I would've like but they were still destructive. The stabilisation systems are pretty much a must have these days as they no longer slow their movement (when are you ever going to run broadsides?!). I'm very glad to have target locks back!! The crisis team gave me another option for killing vehicles and the flamers came in handy. They're probably a weaker part of the army though and with the long fangs and broadsides they are a bit redundant. I could perhaps ditch them and spend the points on some SW stuff.

Finally, the Disruption Pods need FAQing. I can understand how GW intended them to work but at the moment for 5pts you get a 3++ save on your vehicles if they move and 5++ if they don't. What they should've done is made them a 5+ invulnerable save so that you still get a save even if the vehicle hasn't moved. Basically like a Flickerfield but cheaper. For a 5pt upgrade to make a vehicle more resilient than a land raider is a bit ludicrous. Even as a Tau player I think it needs to change.

Two fantastic games to send off my gaming loft then! Matt's going to have a rethink of his list but apart from a couple of little tweaks I'm really pleased with mine!!