9th ed Battle Report #1

 

Rift Wardens vs Grey Knights.

Points: 2000.

Scenario: Retrieval Mission.

Finally the 9th ed rules had come out and I had my copy of the Indomitus box in hand. Once the models were all built I challenged my friend Gary to a 2000 point game. Try out a higher points limit and see how well it played. The mission rolled was Retrieval Mission so I set awkward objective placements and then built the terrain layout around them to ensure that we had decent initial cover from one another. I picked the table edge that was to be mine but as was pointed out afterwards it may have served me better to claim the opposite side. I was thinking of ease of moving the models around but Gary was probably right.

Gary chose Psychic Ritual, Assassinate and Thin Their Ranks but I went with Slay the Warlord, Thin Their Ranks and Raise the Banners High. I did take a look at the scenario specific objective - Minimise Loses - but it didn't look like something that was going to be in my favour. A problem I see in most scenario specific objectives. 

First turn I focused on shooting as much as I could. I took down one squad and I think inflicted a handful of injuries elsewhere. I specifically moved my units to claim three objectives and to start raising those banners. The problem I had against Gary's Grey Knights was that he had brought a storm talon and a land raider - two units I would be hard pressed to deal with. I presently have no transports for my army so the marines had to advance forward on foot which meant Gary was able to start inflicting a lot casualties. 

As the game progressed the Grey Knights took control of their own three objectives and his shooting was a lot more effective than was mine. Although I expected to suffer at the hands of smite spam Gary didn't do much with it and it was in assault that he turned the tables. I don't know if it was a mixture of bad dice rolls or just bad luck, but I was barely able to do anything in assault and he was smashing my poor assault intercessors and my chapter master into fine red mist. Even my poor chapter master with his invulnerable save and 6+ ignore wounds died all to easily. 

The Grey Knights were soon pushing me back and once his grand master in dreadknight armour teleporting onto the table I knew I was in real trouble. My primaris lieutenant charged into him with the idea of using hi storm shield to keep his warlord in check and maybe if the dice were with me I might be able to take him down but I couldn't even make a 3+ invulnerable save more than once. 

Turn 5 came and my poor space marines were tabled and the Grey Knights had completed their Psychic Ritual. When we counted up the victory points Gary beat me 75 to 53. For a first game of this edition I thought I didn't do too badly as each new rules set is a learning experience. Gary won fair and sqaure but I can't help but feel that my dice let me down a lot of the game. He was always going to win I think but the scores might have been a bit closer. I really need to get myself a couple of Impulsor's so I can get my troops about the table more safely.

The Rift Wardens move to grab the objectives.

Kaldor Draigo emerges from the Warp to guide his brothers in battle.

The battlefield before us.

Outpost Raid - Cerberus

Planet: Cerberus.
Region: Cerberus Sector.

Death Guard vs Grey Knights.
2000 points.
Mission: Only War.
Deployment: Search and Destroy.

While the majority of the Imperial forces engage the Death Guard across the surface of Cerberus, a small task force deploys to the northern polar region and begin to construct a communications station to better assist the invasion. It did not take the traitor legion long to detect it's presence. A force of plague marines and Nurgle daemons led by Typhus himself soon captured the base, slaughtering the serfs and taking several Mechanicus personnel prisoner to interrogate. When a final call of help is recieved followed by silence on the comm relay, Guilliman dispatches a force of Grey Knights to investigate and retake the outpost. When it was revealed what horrors stood before them, the Grey Knights were blessed with the arrival of Kaldor Draigo. Cutting his way back into the real universe, he came to lead his brothers against the hated foe.


My first ever game of 8th edition Warhammer 40K. My friend Mike wanted to try out his Grey Knights, and as another army I rarely get to face these days I agreed. We agreed to do a nice casual game to try out the units we have. To keep it simple we played the basic Only War mission.

Neither of us really started with anything on the table as I had three units, including Typhus, in reserve and two units of plague marines in rhinos. Mike had a huge chunk of his army in reserve waiting to teleport in.

One of the things with this edition is that until you start playing you don't realise how in your face the game has become. Mike had turn one and before I had done anything he had teleported in behind my lines and gunned down one rhino with about 80 dice of rapid fire stormbolter fire! He was also across the centre point of the table and holding one objective. My turn one saw the daemons advance slowly and the renegade knight blasting a chunk out of his stormraven and then assaulting the squad atop the landing platform at the centre of the table. Titanic feet is awesome! 12 attack dice. The knight crushed six of the squad to bloody pulp!

As the game advanced Mike was straight into combat. I had expected the Great Unclean One to do a lot better but all my dice wanted to do was roll 1's on everything and over two rounds he cut the greater daemon into little bits. I tried to back it up with the plaguebearers but even with the daemonic icon they didn't last long.

Combat is very brutal now. My Knight found itself crushed by the remains of the squad it had trodden on, a dreadnought and a dreadknight tore it down in I think one round of combat. No mini-nuke explosion though sadly. I think if it had gone nuclear it would have helped me a lot more by taking out the tougher units.

My terminators and Typhus teleported in, but the terminators didn't do much good. They soon died to massed firepower. Two got through to kill a couple grey knights but then died. Typhus and Draigo decided to go man to man and I have to say that was one of the best bits of the game. Both characters hammered away at one another. He halved Typhus' wounds and I left Draigo on one wound. The following round I tried to smite the grey knight leader but it failed and then I remembered that Typhus has a start of turn area effect that caused a mortal wound killing Draigo out right! Sadly Typhus was then defeated by combined fire from the stormraven.

By the end of turn four I had little left. One squad of plague marines had been reduced to two models and another was wiped out by concentrated fire. We were running out of time at the venue anyway so I called time. Mike had 8 victory points and I had 2/

8th is definitely a very different animal and one that will take time to adapt to but I thoroughly enjoyed our game. I have to remember the new rules. The amount of times I forgot about "Death to the False Emperor" was painful and might have helped save the day. However it was a great game am looking forward to my next one.

With the enemy dead and banished the clean up process began. Draigo had been dispatched back to the Warp by Typhus but the Traveller's body was never found in the icy wasteland. The comms station was back in Imperial hands although the Mechanicus survivours were never heard from again following their "debriefing" with the Ordos Malleus.

..

A stormraven prowls the skies.

Daemons of Nurgle and a renegade knight advance.

A strike force of Grey Knights prepares to attack.

An unexpected force teleports in behind my lines.

"Incoming!"

The ruins of the comms station host a mighty battle.

Crushing the foolish minions of the false emperor!