40k - Grey Knights

Ok, something a little different this week - 40k 8th Edition.

Now this is only my second game of 40k and no doubt we're getting little things incorrect here and there and as this is a friendly game we're not too fussy!

Anyway, army-wise I've always liked the look of the Grey Knights and I've had some lying around for a few years, never really finished painting them so when we decided to have a game it was either them or my Imperial Fists.

The first game used the Fists but even though I pulled out a win by the skin of my teeth I felt the Grey Knights offered me more choice and as my opponent was using Space Marines as well, it would at least not end up being a clone war!

So, we decided to use power values as opposed to points, using everything I had we ended up with 78 power.

On my side this consisted of a 10-man Interceptor squad, a 5-man Terminator squad, a 3-man Paladin squad, a Nemesis Dreadknight, a GK Librarian, a Brother-Captain and a Grand Master:

My opponents force consisted of 3x 10-man Devastator squads, 2x 10-man Tactical squads, a 10-man Scout squad, 2x Captains and a Tech-Marine with a cannon.

So with my opponent having rolled for the game type etc, it ended up that I would place first and start first (no idea how, I just went with it).

After placing the 4 objectives and deciding board sides, deployment ended up looking like this:

My Paladins and Librarian were as far in towards the centre as possible, the Interceptors over on the left hand side and the remaining forces held in teleport pods ready to drop in (we realise there was the 50% rule but erred on the side of model count)

 My opponent deployed as follows:

This meant that my opponent would have control of two objectives barring nothing untoward happening, whereas I would have to advance forward as I'd placed my two more centrally on the board.

Looking at my opponents placement and knowing I had the initiative for the first turn I had some interesting choices to make.  I'd not faced the Techmarine or the Scouts with sniper rifles before so made them a priority target.  This would have the added benefit of making the objective obtainable, if not immediately then a turn or two in.  So now it was a case of selecting which units would teleport where... My Interceptors jumped towards the mass of Tactical and Devastators on the right of the picture above.  My Dreadknight and Brother-Captain teleported in next to them.

On the other side, my Terminators and Grand Master teleported in.  During the psychic phase, my Librarian used Gate of Inifnity to teleport my Paladins in, supporting the Grand Master and Terminators.

During the rest of this phase, my units used Smite to remove a couple of Scouts and some Tactical Marines.

The shooting phase began, with the Interceptor's Storm Bolters decimating the frontmost tactical squad, the Brother-Captain finished them off. The Psilencers killed a few of the Scouts.

The Dreadknight had range on the middle Devastator squad and opened up on them, killing most of them.

On the left side, the Terminators killed the Techmarine and the Paladins reduced the Scouts to 5-men.

The assault phase saw my Interceptors charge the rear-most Devastator squad, the Dreadknight charge the middle Devastator squad and my Paladins succeed in charging the Captain.

What followed was an absolute slaughter - the Devastator squad was reduced to just the Sargeant by the Dreadknight, the Interceptors reduced the Devastators to three men (the opposing Captain joined the fray at this point) and lost only three in return.

The Paladins killed the Captain on the left and consolidated into combat with the last Tactical squad:

So, after Grey Knights turn one, the casualties on both sides looked like this:

Overall, I was more than suprised as to how effective this round has been for me.  Considering how outnumbered I had been, I was now in a decent position.

First up a quick close-up shot of some of the action:

Onto Space Marines turn 1...

Not much happened in the movement phase at all, during the shooting phase the Scouts and the last Devastator squad managed to kill the Brother-Captain (some really bad rolls did not help me here).

In the assault phase, the Scouts rallied to the defence of the Tactical squad against the Paladins but were utterly wiped out by them.  On the other side, the Devastators and Captain engaged with the Interceptors reduced them to 2 survivors, in return they managed to kill off the remnants of the Devastator squad.

The power fist Sargeant managed to damage the Dreadknight further and the last Devastator squad moved into close combat with the Dreadknight.  The hammered it, reducing it to 3 wounds.  The Dreadknight finished off the Sargeant but was now in poor shape.

So after all was said and done, in turn 1, the Space Marines gained 1 victory point from having uncontested control of one of the objectives.  The Interceptors failed thier leadership test so fled the battlefield.

The kills at this point in the game looked like this:

The Interceptors were gone along with the Brother-Captain.

On the flip side, the Scouts, one Tactical squad, two Devastator squads, one Captain and the Techmarine were gone.

Grey Knights turn 2!

The view from the field of battle:

My Terminators and Grand Master moved towards the fray, my Librarian moved into range of one of the objectives.

During the psychic phase my Grand Master rolled perils of the warp twice, rolling 3 mortal wounds twice, killing himself.  Epic fail.

The rest of the units Smited for a few kills in total, then during the assault phase the Terminators moved into base contact with the Tactical squad.  They then proceeded with the Paladins to wipe them out, consolidating towards the final opposing forces (the last Devastator squad and the Captain).

The Dreadknight attacked the Devastator squad, causing little damage.

During my opponents turn, the Dreadknight is eliminated:

I score 2 vp's and my opponent scores 1, bringing us to 2 each.

Current casualties:

Grey Knights turn 3:

It starts like this:

I move my Teminators and Paladins into close range and open up with everything.  I manage to kill some of the marines, during the psychic phase another falls and then I charge in - the Terminators go for the Captain and the Paladins for the last remaining members of the Devastators.  The Paladins reduce the Devastators to three men and the Terminators manage to do one wound to the Captain.

During the Space Marine turn, the Devastators manage to kill one othe Paladins and wound both of the others.  They are finished off in return.

The Captain is unable to harm the Terminators... I claim 2 more VPs.

Grey Knights turn 4:

During the psychic phase, the Librarian finally manages to Gate into range - all units cast smite on the Captain, reducing him to one wound:

The Terminators attack, eventually the Justicar with the Daemon Hammer manages to score the final blow, killing the Captain and winning the day for the Grey Knights!

So, final thoughts having discussed some of this with my opponent - the fact I went first and the placement that my opponent used made it so as soon as I managed to get into close-combat I could just keep on consolidating through and steamrolling his forces.  If they had been more spread out I would have had a harder time I think.

The unit of the game for me were the Interceptors.  The speed and the amount of pure firepower and close combat damage they can throw out is horrific.

The Dreadknight I probably shouldn't have charged into close combat...  In retrospect with the weapon loadout (Gatling Psilencer/Heavy Incinerator) I should have stayed out and used it to throw as many attacks in as possible but live and learn!

Epic fail rolling of the day was the Grand Master... two perils in a row and 3 damage each time... unbelievable.

We definitely missed out on a few things, both forgetting things that would have helped but we are still learning after all!

Anyway, if you've read through all of that, thank you very much & I hoped you enjoyed it!

X-Wing Store Championships...

Ok, so this happened last weekend - the X-Wing store championship at the always awesome Gamer's Emporium in Swansea...

As you may well be aware, my record with X-Wing is not exactly stellar by any means so with great trepidation I headed into this at least wanting to destroy one ship.  Just one. Unlike the last time.  Where nothing wanted to blow up.  At all.

Having now run two Rebel lists and a Scum list I wanted to give something different a try - Imperials.

Now as far as selection goes I think the problem I'm having overall is that I can't throw enough red dice at things - nothing wants to blow up.  So, to counter my awful red dice rolling I've decided to maximise my odds by throwing as many dice as possible - two TIE Defenders with the TIE/D title and ion cannons.

So, which ones to take?  Countess Ryad is, for me at least, an auto-include.  The ability to perform a green k-turn at any speed is just too good to pass up.

The second Defender will have to be Vessery - picking up the more or less free target lock added to the focus that I will inevitably take has really good potential to enable me to hit something.

The third ship was where the big choice was going to be made.  I wanted to take a TIE of some description that could hurt something.

With only 24 points available I had the option of taking a TIE/Fo (which I prefer over the normal TIE's due to that shield) or a TIE Bomber with some shenanigans...

In the end I went for "Omega Ace" as it can, in the right circumstances, hurt something.

So, the full list is as follows:

Countess Ryad, TIE/D title, Ion Cannon, Veteran Instincts - 38 points, PS7

Colonel Vessary, TIE/D title, Ion Cannon, Adaptability - 38 points, PS7

Omega Ace, Push the Limit - 23 points, PS7

99 points in total.

This does give me the advantage of being able to mix and match which of my ships move and fire first - having a little flexability always helps...

Onto the actual games!

Round 1 vs Tony (Imperials)

An almost identical list, Tony was using Ryad with a tractor beam and the TIE/D title, Vessery with the TIE/x7 title and Omega Leader.

Unfortunately my memory card on my phone had a bit of a pout with me here and it didn't take any of the photos.  Hmph.

Anyway, it went a little like this - a joust to begin with  with neither squadron inflicting a massive amount of damage on the other, but ions being thrown around a bit which managed to get me into position on his Ryad allowing me to finish her off.  I then lost Vessary but not before Omega Ace got off the critical effect attack on Omega Leader.  Ryad then finished off Vessary for the win.

100 - 38, my first tournament game win in some time!

Round 2 vs Andre (S&V)

Andre was running Fenn, a Contracted Scout and a Mandalorian Mercenary.  Photos this time!

The initial setup:

Fenn was being placed on the far side of the table in this photo.

My squadron stuck together like glue in this match, I made a choice early on to just ignore Fenn and take out the others first - there was a lot of barrel rolling going on on the other side of the table and I had decided that the first target would be the Mandalorian Mercenary:

As you can see - I was starting to get Ion tokens on the Firespray at long range, and with Fenn too far out to hit me I knew I had to get it off the board quickly.

The following turn I made more progress on hunting down the Firespray:

Another Ion token on the Firespray and I knew exactly where it was going next turn - my best chance to finish it before having to deal with Fenn, who was by now in range and starting to hit Vessery.

The next turn:

This was the end for the Firespray.  Taken down in the end by Ryad this put me in a good position going forward.  Unfortunately Fenn was hammering Vessery by this point and he was in bad shape...

Shortly afterwards Fenn took a couple of hits but managed to finish off Vessery.

Two turns later, Omega Ace had focussed and target locked the Contracted Scout at range one, using its effect rolled three critical hits on the Scout to take it off the board.

This left the board looking a little like this:

Fenn went hunting for Omega Ace but it took time getting behind him and when Omega Ace eventually went down Ryad had managed to get a side-on Ion hit on Fenn, now down to one hull and without a return shot.  The next turn Ryad had free reign to take on an out of position Fenn - the Ion shot went through eliminating Fenn!

My second win of the day, 100-61.

So far so good... However, all good things...

Round 3 vs Chris (Rebels)

Dash and Nym.  This was just an epic failure on my part.  I landed Ryad on a rock and it just exploded without firing a shot.  Omega Ace followed shortly afterwards which left Vessery up against an undamaged Dash and a hardly damaged Nym:

Nym kept dropping bomblets and I kept landing on them!  I did manage to keep Dash at range one for a few turns but I just couldn't escape the bombs in the end...  a loss, 100-0!

Last round vs Steve (S&V)

Dengar and Nym... Hmm... Nym...

So, here we go... aim of the day - kill Nym first worry about Dengar later.  Joust in, didn't realise Nym had autoblasters and accurancy correcter, three turns in and Omega Ace was gone.  In retaliation Ryad and Vessery wiped Nym off the board but Dengar was in position to smash Vessery, taking all his shields off and leaving me in a bad shape.  I managed to block Dengar for a turn but an excellent 5 hit shot with torpedos on Ryad basically finished me off in this one.  Next turn Ryad was gone and Vessery was running for his life, unfortunately I just couldn't run fast enough or hit hard enough to outfly Dengar - the higher pilot skill made it really difficult to outmanouver and in the end I couldn't get it done.  A loss but with half points from Dengar - 100-68.

11th place overall, although postitions 11-6 were all 2-2 on the day, points scored being the decider.

I was really happy with my games on the day, with the exception of the third game where some really silly decisions lost me the game before I even started.

To sum up, my best X-Wing performance to date and I have found a new favourite ship - the TIE Defender is awesome. 

I may also need to get my team shirt re-done as for once it was incorrect:

Anyway, until next time, hope you enjoyed the read!

Rebel Assault...

Another quick report, Star Wars Armada again, this time with a couple of added ships!

300 Point Rebel vs Imperial, the Rebel fleet has received the support of the MC80 "Defiance" and the Imperial fleet is being led by the "Interdictor"...

After the first turn, the fleets start lining up for their attack runs:

After the first round of combat, the Interdictor has taken some hull damage and one of the CR-90's has no shields left at all.

During the start of the third round the fleets started off in the following position:

The Rebel fleet activated first, which meant the "Defiance" had a point-blank Ackbar enhanced volley at the now defenceless side arc of the "Interdictor"...

Seven hits and two Accuracy results later, the "Interdictor" was floating debris:

The second shot went into the front of the Victory Star Destroyer, reducing the shields to nothing and causing slight hull damage.

The very next turn, the "Defiance" and the VSD ended up in perfect broadside position of each other:

Again the "Defiance" activated first and hammered the VSD with an Ackbar enhanced attack reducing it to a single hull point remaining.  The "Defiance" then moved outside of the VSD's front arc, which limited the amount of damage that could be done to it in return.  It took a shot from the side arc and from the rear arc which reduced it to three hull points remaining.

Unfortunately for the VSD, it was unable to move far enough to miss the debris field - this gave it two damage directly to the hull which was enough to destroy the ship:

So in the end, a clear victory for the Rebel fleet.  I've skipped a lot of the squadron action here but the X-Wings were instrumental in tearing down the shields of the "Interdictor" early on which allowed the "Defiance" to finish it off.

A quick shot of the surviving fleet:

The MC-80 "Defiance":

The "Interdictor":

So, until next time, hope you enjoyed this quick little report and thanks for taking a look!

Our first catch of the day...

Something a little different today... Star Wars Armada.

I've had this for a while but never actually gotten around to playing it.  At the moment I only have the core game and a CR-90 expansion so I managed to cobble together one Rebel and one Imperial 200 point fleet to try out.

So, after one little read-through of the rulebook and creating the fleets I just dove straight in...

The Imperial fleet:

The Rebel fleet:

I wanted to stay clear of using too many squadrons for my first play-through, just wanted to get used to the mechanics and see if it was worth investing a bit more time and effort in the game or if I should just stick to Attack Wing & X-Wing.

Initial setup was on a 3x3 table with only 4 obstacles, smaller fleets, a little less room should get the action started more quickly.  Also, I was going to play until one fleet was destroyed, not bothered with the 6 turn limit (not sure how long a smaller fleet game should run but hey-ho!).

Turn 1:

Basically, every ship moved closer with the two CR-90's attempting to rush off to the near side of the table in order to get better position on the VSD in following turns:

Turn 2:

The CR-90's continued to move into flanking positions on the VSD, with Dodonna's Pride being swarmed by the TIE squadrons:

Turn 3:

The CR-90's open up on the TIE squadrons, doing significant damage to them but not finishing any of them off.  Dodonna's Pride managed to knock off a couple of the VSD's shields at extreme range and took a bit of a beating in return.  After all ships and squadrons had activated it looked a little like this:

Turn 4:

Dodonna's Pride activated first and opened up on the TIE squadrons, managing to eliminate three of them before turning its weapons on the VSD, taking a few more shields off it.  I actually forgot to move the CR-90 at this point, but live and learn!

The VSD then activated, taking a point blank range shot at the Dodonna's Pride:

This was enough damage to overload the remaining shields and destroy the Dodonna's Pride.

With its next shot, again from the front arc thanks to the gunnery team, the VSD took aim at Jaina's Light:

Having already taken some damage from the TIE's this was enough to wipe it off the board.

The Nebulon fired at the VSD, tearing through it's remaini shields and causing damage to the hull.

After movement, the remaining ships ended up at point blanks range of each other:

Turn 5:

This was a very interesting situation.  The Nebulon activated first, ripping though the remaining shields of the VSD and causing damage straight to the hull.  Its second shot proceeded to pile on yet more damage and when it came to moving, there was no position it could get clear of the VSD, so they each took a point of hull damage due to the ram.

The VSD only got the one shot in return, and most of that damage was redirected to the port shields.  Again, not fast enough to clear the Nebulon, a ram and hull damage to each ship... Hmm...

Turn 6:

Two shots for the Nebulon, this being the second:

Coupled with the damage from the ram, this managed to destroy the VSD, leaving the Nebulon on  one hull remaining...

Well... a win for the Rebellion by the slimmest of margins and I must say considering the limited ships at my disposal I quite enjoyed the game.

Learning when to use the correct command dials is going to take a bit of getting used to and the continuous ramming during those last couple of turns was very odd.  Other than that, I think I will be picking up a few more ships shortly...

Thanks for having a look, I'll be back soon with another report of one form or another!

In a Mirror, Darkly... OP

Let's take a little trip in time and space... through the looking glass...

In a Mirror, Darkly is the last OP event scheduled at our local store for the meantime, so there was no way that I was going to miss out!

Normally I tend to take lists that are quite complex and have a lot of "moving parts" as it were, so for a change I wanted to run something simple.  Something that wouldn't tax my tiny fragile, little mind too much!

So, without further ado, my list for this event was as follows:

Klingon Starship (Vor'cha Class) [26]
- Jean-Luc Picard 9 (Captain) [7]
Ship Total: 33 SP

Klingon Starship (Vor'cha Class) [26]
- Gul Dukat 7 (Captain) [6]
Ship Total: 32 SP

Muratas [22]
- Degra 4 (Captain) [3]
- Thermal Chamber [3]
- Particle Beam Weapon [4]
Ship Total: 32 SP

Klingon Starship (Vor'cha Class) [26]
- Karr 8 (Captain) [6]
Ship Total: 32 SP

Fleet Total: 129 SP

A simple list, Jean-Luc Picard and Dukat both give two actions, Karr has his automatic re-roll and a good chance of an extra attack die.  Lastly the Muratas is there to pack a punch and hopefully distract attacks away from the Vor'chas.  It won't last long, but the seven attack dice are a nice distraction...

So, onto game one vs a nicely themed list, featuring the I.S.S. Defiant with Mirror Riker, the U.S.S. Defiant with Hathaway Riker, the Negh'var with Benjamin Sisko and the Regent's Flagship with Mirror Sisko... I loved the take on the theme here, really nice...

So a quick shot of the two fleets lining up:

 Turn one movement, slowly advancing those ships that are able, cloak.  The Tholian web starts to close:

 After the fleets close, the U.S.S. Defiant falls to combined fire, finished off by Karr:

 Dials set, the web closes:

 Karr finishes off the Regent's Flagship with a horrific volley of fire, in return the Muratas is wiped off the board.

 A very mixed up set of manouveres later, Dukat eliminates the I.S.S. Defiant, in return it was destroyed by the Negh'Var:

After the last round of movement and firing, the last ships survive until time is called:

Result of the first game, 90-64, a well fought win.


Game two vs a mixed Borg and Romulan fleet, with a tactical cube, the Avatar of Tomed and Prototype 01, here is a quick shot of the ships:

 The second turn in, both fleets converged and the combined fire of two Vor'chas and the Muratas managed to destroy the Tactical Cube before it even managed to fire a shot.

 After return fire, and a round of movement later, everything seemed to collide in mid-space, with damage meted out to all ships - the Muratas was destroyed and Karr's Vor'cha was hammered.  The Avatar received damage in return but not enough to kill it:

 The next turn gave a free round of fire to the Prototype which managed to finish off Karr:

 The remaining Vor'cha's had by this time managed to move into position to start attacking the Avatar in earnest, finally removing the last remaining shields:

 The Prototype pulled a 180 degree manouver but unfortunately that left it in point-blank range of both Vor'chas... Two shots later and it was gone.  I had taken a small amount of damage from the mines but I was now in an excellent position to chase down the Avatar...

 The last round of the game saw Picard eliminate the Avatar:

A very entertaining game, for once the mines didn't hamper me too much and my target selection was better than it usually is.  So a second win, 130-64.

Onto the last game, versus a Galaxy Class fleet supported by Hayes... the Enterprise-D, the Mirror Enterprise-D and the Venture, with the Raven in support (Kelly looking amused in this photo!):

 So onto the game!

 The fleets approach each other at a slow and steady pace, this was going to be a bloodbath, Hayes on one ship, Holo-Projector on another, and the Galaxy-wing talent...

 So... it went a little bit like this... two of the Vor'cha's targeted the Mirror-D eliminating it before it could fire.  The Muratas and the remaining Vor'cha eliminated the Venture, but not before it and the Enterprise-D managed to destroy the Muratas and cause a significant amount of damage to Dukat's Vor'cha, it ended up looking like this:

The Enterprise-D jumped over the Vor'cha's but the Raven performed a come-about manouver, needless to say it did not survive the combined attacks from the Klingons:

 All the while this was happening the Tholian web was closing in, I would have to play this carefully:

 Picard's Vor'cha managed to get a shot in at the extreme edges of range three, knocking a shield off the Enterprise-D:

 Picard started to close in on the Enterprise, taking off the remaining shields and causing one damage to the hull:

The Enterprise reverses, giving it a free shot, which does little damage:

 Finally, Picard gets the Enterprise Target Locked and with a Battlestations token at range one, a dice roll later and the Enterprise falls:

So, the final battle of the day, 130-32 and a final win.

Overall, 1st place with 3 wins on the day, two complete wipe-outs and three very hard fought games.  The dice quality coming from Picard and Dukat was exceptional.  In conjunction with the Muratas drawing fire in each of the games this list worked out very well.  Karr was just icing on the cake.

So, until next time, thanks for havng a look & hoped you enjoyed the little write-up!