Two BATREPS for the price of one--my first two games with the new Codex

Greetings, fellow denizens of Commorragh!

I'm a long-time lurker, first-time poster.  I've been playing WH40K since 5th ed., DE since 6th ed., and reading this forum since about then, but only now with the 7th ed. DE Codex drop have I felt the strong desire to share the tale of blood and woe I have carved into the flesh of my foes in my first two games with the new codex.

I played both games this past Saturday at the local GW store.  In both games I played the same list:

Kabbalite Raiding Party Formation (p. 97 of the DE Codex):

Archon with Agonizer, Shadow Field, The Animus Vitae (145)
Archon's Court:  3 Sslyths in a Raider with Night Shields, Splinter Racks, and Dark Lance (165)
3 squads of 10 Kabbalite Warriors each in Raiders with Night Shields, Splinter Racks, and Dark Lance (170 per unit; 510 total for the 3 units)
3 squads  of 5 Kabbalite Warriors in Venoms with extra Splinter Cannon (105 per unit; 315 total for the 3 units)
1 squad of 4 Incubi with a Klaivex in a Venom with extra Splinter Cannon (155)
1 squad of 5 Scourges with 4 Haywire Blasters (120)
1 squad of  5 Hellions (65)
1 Ravager with 3 Dark Lances, Night Shields (140)

Total for the Formation:  1615

Realspace Raiders Detachment (p. 110 of the DE Codex):

Succubus with Archite Glaive (95)
2 squads of 5 Warriors (40 each, 80 for both squads)
1 squad of 3 Reavers with Heat Lance and Cluster Caltrops (53)
Razorwing with Dark Lances and Night Shields (155)

Total for the Detachment:  383

GRAND TOTAL: 1998

The Archon (who was the Warlord) and the Succubus ride with the Sslyth at the start of the game.

My first game was against Grey Knights.

Grey Knights List:

Grand Master with Cuirass of Sacrifice, Soul Glaive, and Psycannon (240)
Librarian with Mastery Level 3 and the Domina Liber Daemonica and a master-crafted Daemonhammer (175)
Strike Squad with 10 PA Marines, 1 Daemonhammer, an Incinerator, and a Psycannon, embarked in a Rhino (265)
5 GK Terminators with two Halberds, a Daemonhammer, and a Psycannon (199)
5 GK Paladins (including one upgraded to an Apothecary) with two Halberds, 1 with Falchions, 1 Daemonhammer, 1 Psycannon, 1 Incinerator, Melta-Bombs, and the Nemesis Banner--and all of their melee weapons were Master-Crafted (409)
Land Raider (250)
Storm Raven with Hurricane Bolters, TL Multi-Melta, and TL Plasma Cannon (230)
Storm Raven with Hurricane Bolters, TL Multi-Melta, and TL Lascannons (230)

GK Total:  1998

(NOTE:  The Grand Master was technically an illegal "build" since he had two relics and the Grey Knights, just like the Dark Eldar, can only take one relic per character.  I pointed this out to my opponent at the start of the game when we were reviewing lists, but I told him it was fine and he didn't need to change it since it was just a friendly game; just to watch out for it for future games.)


Game Summary:

The board had a lot of terrain on it.  Probably about 6-8 multi-story ruins, and 2-3 forests.  The terrain was fairly evenly distributed, with the tallest ruins in opposite corners of the board.

Deployment was Hammer and Anvil.

The mission was Crusade.  We had a total of 4 objectives to place.  He placed his within his deployment zone, one on each side of the table.  I placed one of mine roughly in the middle of the board, and the other to the right (so there were 3 objectives relatively close on my right side of the table and only one on his, and it was all the way across from me).

He won the roll-off and chose to go first.  He deployed his Strike Squad (embarked in the Rhino) on the objective in his deployment zone on my right, behind an LOS-blocking ruin (it had no windows).  He deployed his Land Raider, empty, on the objective in his zone on my left.  He deployed the Terminator squad with the Librarian attached in the ground of ruins all the way to my right, backing up the Rhino/Strike Squad.

I deployed my units spread out across my line, all of them hiding as best I could behind ruins or trees, with only a couple of units left more or less in the open as "bait" (he didn't take the bait, unfortunately).  I thought about deploying as a "denied flank" but I knew his Librarian had the Gate of Infinity (teleporting) and Cleansing Flame (nova blast) psychic powers so I didn't want to bunch too much on the right.  Plus, his heavy armor (the Land Raider) was on the left, so I put my Ravager on the left facing it (behind a screen/ruin).  On my left I put the Ravager, a Raider with Warriors, and a Venom with Warriors.  On my right I put my Reavers in the upper floor of a ruin, and in the bottom floor the Raider with my Archon, Succubus, and Sslyth Court, adjacent to a Venom with Warriors and another Raider with Warriors.  Spread out through the middle of the board I put the rest of the Raiders and Venoms.  All of my Warriors were embarked in vehicles except for two 5-man squads, which I pushed as far forward in the middle of my DZ as I could, intending to move and run them to the central objective.  I kept the Scourges, Hellions, and Razorwing (obviously) in reserve.

I don't remember his Warlord Trait, it must not have mattered much.  Mine was from the DE table, and gave me Hatred.  I rolled +1 Strength for Combat Drugs (for the Reavers, Hellions, and Succubus).  Not too bad.

I tried to seize the initiative, but failed.  Rolled for night fighting, but failed that too.  Apparently my DE prefer to fight defensively in direct sunlight.

GK Turn 1:

The first turn was really rough for the DE, no question.  The GK player did not move any of his units, and went straight to the Psychic phase.  In the Psychic phase he rolled a 5 to generate Warp Charges, which meant he had 10 WC and I had 5 to try and negate his abilities.  He used Gate of Infinity to teleport his Librarian with the GK Terminators from behind his cover to directly behind my army on my left flank, positioned behind my Ravager, a Raider with Warriors, and a Venom with Troops.  It was a pretty risky teleport, if he had scattered only about 7 inches he would have either scattered onto one of my units or off the board.  But he rolled bullseye so he stuck the landing.  He then cast Cleansing Flame and nuked the heck out of my left flank.  For those who don't know, Cleansing Flame is a Nova psychic attack that hits every unit within a 9" radius (including flyers and FMCs if there are any in the radius); each unit stuck takes 2d6 hits at S5 AP4 with the Ignores Cover rule.  So Jinking would have been worthless, as was the bonus cover save from the Kabbalite Raiding Party Formation's Strike from the Shadows special rule. I threw all 5 of my Deny the Witch dice at trying to deny his Cleansing Flame, but failed.  The Cleansing Flame blast put 4 Hull Points on my Raider with Warriors on my left flank, but fortunately didn't cause it to explode, just wrecked it, and they disembarked behind the wrecked Raider and mostly out of LOS from the GK Terminator squad.  The CF also got a penetrating hit on my Ravager, but fortunately all it did was make me fire snap shots the following turn; could've been worse.  It did 1 Hull Point on my Venom, would've been 3 but I made 2 Flicker Field saves.  And one of my units of 5 Warriors that was not in a Raider was just barely in the 9" radius of his blast and ended up just being completely wiped off the table.  So the GKs got First Blood (by destroying the Raider, and by killing the dismounted Warrior squad).  And they were already set up to claim Linebreaker if the GK Terminators stayed where they were to the end of the game (which I was pretty sure they wouldn't do).  In the Shooting phase he tried for a long shot from his Land Raider with both lascannons into my Ravager, I Jinked (since I already had to make snap shots anyway from the vehicle damage table result from the penetrating hit, so it was a no brainer) and made both my 3+ Jink cover saves.  His Terminators chose to run so they could spread out and wouldn't be clustered so tightly together for a blast template.  The Strike Squad in the Rhino were out of range to shoot anything, and just stayed behind the LOS-blocking ruin camped right on the objective in his DZ on my right flank.

DE Turn 1:

I moved my squad of 10 Warriors out from behind their wrecked Raider on my left flank.  I toyed with the idea of using them to assault the Terminators, but then thought better of it.  I moved the damaged Venom on the left flank a little further away from the Terminators, but still in Rapid Fire 12" range for the Warriors riding in it.  I moved my Ravager up and forward, over the ruin and into the open, angling for a better shot on the Land Raider that wouldn't give it a 4+ cover save from the ruins it was parked behind, but I couldn't line up a good shot.  I moved the dismounted Warrior squad directly forward, then ran them so they would reach the objective in the middle of the board next turn.  I moved my entire middle and left flank forward an to the right, lining up two Raders for Dark Lance shots at the Land Raider and two more for DL shots at the Rhino.  In the shooting phase, I fired a total of 42 splinter shots into the Terminator squad on my left flank and removed a whopping total of ONE Terminator after saves.  That's right, ONE Terminator.  He rolled 2+ Saves a lot better than I do, that's or sure!  My Ravager and two Raiders fired at the Land Raider, but failed to put a single HP on it.  Two Raiders bracketed the Rhino and got one penetrating hit with the result that the Rhino could not move and could only fire snap shots.  The Venoms didn't have a viable target, so I moved them flat out forward and to my right, hiding behind cover as much as possible to screen them from the inevitable GK counterattack.  The Reavers turbo-boosted to get into the LOS-blocking ruin above the GK Rhino parked on the objective.  Overall, not a very good beginning to this game, but I really wasn't all that worried yet.

GK Turn 2:

He rolled for reserves and both his Storm Ravens came on.  One was empty, the other was carrying his Grand Master and Paladin squad.  He moved both onto the table a little over 18" and then disembarked the Paladins with GM using the "Skies of Fury" special rule (or whatever it's called) where they can deep strike in even if the Storm Raven has moved more than 6". He once again rolled a bullseye for scatter, and the squad arrived about 4" behind his Storm Raven, well within shooting range of a large portion of my army.  His Psychic phase was lackluster; he failed to teleport his Terminators, and failed to cast Cleansing Flame; he did successfully cast Sanctuary to improve the Terminators Invulnerable Save to a 4++, and the same thing on the Paladins as well; the Terminators also activated Force.  In the Shooting phase, the Storm Ravens together managed to blow up one Raider (killing 3 Warriors inside who made their LD test to avoid falling back, but failed their Pinning test so they couldn't move and could only fire snap shots), and put 1 Hull Point on the Raider with my Archon, after all Jink saves were accounted for (it could've been worse, 3+ Jink saves are pretty good!  I made more than one Jink save by rolling exactly a 3, which would have been a failure without the Night Shields' bonus, obviously).  The Terminators shot my 10-man Warrior squad and inflicted 2 casualties, thanks mostly to me making a couple of Feel No Pain rolls.  One more casualty and I would have had to make a LD test for them.  The Grand Master and Paladins shot at my Archon's Raider and managed to get one glancing hit through my Jink saves, so the Raider was now down to its last HP.  The Land Raider tried to kill the Ravager, but failed to damage it; I had a 3+ cover save from the ruin + Night Shields at this point and so didn't even have to Jink.  In the Assault phase, the Terminators then charged my Warriors on the left flank.  My guys went first at I5, and even managed to do a couple of wounds, but the Terminators made all their 2+ Armor Saves.  Then the Terminators cut down 4 of my Warriors, who then had to take a LD test at -4, which they promptly failed; Terminators can't make Sweeping Advances, but I rolled a 12" for my fall back distance and the remaining 4 Warriors promptly ran off the table.  The Terminators consolidated towards my Venom.

DE Turn 2:

None of my reserves came in!  Ouch.  I moved the Venom on my left flank rightwards, just enough to stay within 12" of the Terminators.  I wasn't going to devote any more resources to the Terminators as I was sure they would just teleport away next turn anyway (turns out I was right).  I moved my Ravager forward and to my left, and now was lined up for perfect shots at the Land Raider that would deny his cover save.  The Reavers moved down from the LOS-blocking ruin to fire into the rear armor on the Rhino. I moved my remaining two Raiders forward and to the right, lined up so they could shoot at either the Land Raider or the Rhino, depending on how well the Ravager and Reavers did.  One Venom moved 6" towards the Rhino and the 5-man Warrior squad in the Venom disembarked and got set to assault the Strike Squad in the Rhino (assuming I could wreck or explode it).  My 5 Warriors in the middle moved forward to claim the objective in the middle of the board.  In the shooting phase, the Ravager did really well, managing to put 3 HP on the Land Raider and destroying one of its weapons (rolled randomly and blew up the TL Heavy Bolter;  was hoping for one of the Lascannons, oh well).  The Reavers fired into the Rear armor of the Rhino with the Heat Lance, and got a penetrating hit, but failed to explode it, so I fired the remaining Raiders' Dark Lances into it and finally got one more HP off of it, wrecking it.  The Strike Squad inside were forced to emergency disembark, right into the line of fire of 3 Venoms and my newly disembarked Warrior squad.  All 3 Venoms and their passengers.  It was a total of 66 Splinter Shots.  In total I managed to remove 3 Strike Squad models from shooting, his saves were just that good.  BUT:  I was able to remove the model with the Incinerator, meaning I had a good chance of making the assault with my Warriors (who chose not to fire, as they only have Rapid Fire weapons).  I wanted to use the Animus Vitae on them, but my Archon's Raider was out of the relic's 8" range of them.  Instead, the Sslyth fired all their shots at the Paladins, as did the 10 Warriors in the remaining Raider, 1 Venom and its 5 Warrior occupants, and the 5 dismounted Warriors now camped on the objective in the middle of the board.  That was a total of 70 Splinter shots (38 Twin Linked!), but again he made saves like a boss--plus the Paladins had Feel No Pain from the Apothecary.  After all the massed shooting, he only had to put a whopping total of ONE wound on one Paladin; didn't even have to remove it as a casualty as they have 2 Wounds each!  Ouch.  On my left flank, my Venom and the Warriors inside fired 22 Splinter shots at the Terminators, and actually managed to kill one.  After all his amazing 2+ saves, I was happy to at least kill only 1 of them with roughly half the firepower I had devoted the turn before.  In the assault phase, I charged his Strike Squad with my newly-disembarked Warriors, and with the Reavers; the Warriors went first to soak up Overwatch, ended up taking a Wound from Overwatch, but I made my FNP roll (thanks to the Formation's special rule they were already rolling on a 5+ FNP, not bad).  The Reavers' Hammer of Wrath rolls were really lackluster.  I didn't get any Rending hits, and only managed to do a couple of wounds, which he saved.  Combined between my 9 attacks at S4 from the Reavers and the 10 attacks at S3 from the Warriors (all at I5 at least) I only managed to kill a single Strike Squad member.  He put all his attacks back into the Reavers, but didn't roll very well, and I made a couple of FNP saves, and then used Hit and Run to move 13" away from them so I was lined up to shoot at and assault the Paladins, or just go back to assaulting the Strike Squad if I wanted; I could have even gone after the Land Raider if I needed to, but I didn't think I would need to.  Turn 2 went a little better than Turn 1 for me, but I still felt like I wasn't doing all that great, and he was making a ton of 2+ saves.  But I wasn't too worried, I figured I still had a good shot at taking this game.

GK Turn 3:

In this turn, he moved his flyers around a bit, moved the Paladins towards the center objective, but couldn't get to it without going through a Venom I had parked in his path, and pivoted his Land Raider to point straight at my Ravager, without moving off of the objective.  In the psychic phase, he successfully teleported his GK Terminators + Librarian to land right behind my Archon's Raider and close to my remaining Warrior Raider and the Venom with Incubi (yep, another Deep Strike bullseye--that was his third in a row!).  I was nervous about his Cleansing Flame, and he threw 5 dice at it (it's a Warp Charge 2 power), but failed to cast it, so I wiped the sweat off my brow.  He managed to cast Sanctuary to improve their Invulnerable Save to a 4++, and the same on the Paladins.  He tried to cast Hammerhand on the Paladins, but he failed.  My attempts to Deny the Witch were again feeble and laughable.  In the shooting phase, the Land Raider fired both lascannons at the Ravager, which managed to make a Jink save vs. one penetrating shot, but took 1 HP from a glancing hit (and was now down to its last HP, and could only fire Snap Shots in my upcoming shooting phase); that Land Raider had been a real thorn in my left flank for a while now.  The Storm Ravens shot at both remaining Raiders and two Venoms (with Power of the Machine Spirit you can split fire) but I made several 3+ Jink saves on the Raiders, and even a couple 5++ Flicker Field saves on the Venoms, losing a total of 1 HP from the Incubi's Venom (along with losing one Splinter Cannon due to a "weapon destroyed" result on the vehicle damage table), which had previously not been damaged.  The Terminators shot at the Archon's Raider but failed to do anything significant to it, and couldn't assault since they just teleported.  The Paladins shot at and put a HP on the Venom in the middle of the board, and then assaulted it and wrecked it, but didn't hurt the Warriors inside, who made their Pinning test after an emergency disembarkation. (Due to somewhat poor positioning of the Paladin squad, he was unable to use his Incinerator to fry the Warriors with the "No Escape!" rule, as he was unable to place the flamer template without touching any of the models in his squad.  I was not displeased by this.)  The remaining Strike Squad members and the remaining Warriors fought for another round with neither side causing any unsaved wounds (well, after Feel No Pain rolls, anyway), and thus stayed locked in combat for another turn.  I'm not sure why he completely ignored my Reavers, but he did.

DE Turn 3:

Finally this turn things started to shift decisively in my favor.  I made the Reserves roll for my Scourges and my Razorwing; the Hellions stil didn't come on.  I Deep Struck the Scourges near the Land Raider, which was actually kind of risky because the LR was near the table edge and they could have mishapped; they scattered, but not too far, and I did not mishap.  I moved the Ravager 12" over the LR and pivoted, so I could shoot at the LR from the other side but be nearer the center of the board for next turn.  I thought about throwing the Animus Speculum at the Terminator squad with the Librarian, but didn't like the odds of getting an unsaved wound through their 4++ Invulnerable save (assuming I even caused a wound; if I'm doing my math right I have a 47% chance to actually, cause a wound on a T4 model, before any cover or invulnerable save, meaning I had about a 23% chance to actually wound him after a 4++ Invulnerable save).  So instead I moved the Archon's Raider and the remaining Warriors' Raider closer to the Paladin squad, so I could shoot a ton of splinter fire at them this turn and then disembark and assault next turn.  I disembarked the Incubi and moved them right up to about 2" away from the Terminator squad, then moved the now-empty Venom closer towards the center of the board to line up for a strafing run on the Paladin squad.  One Venom moved 6" closer to the Strike Squad locked in combat with my Warriors on the objective in his DZ on the right flank, and the Warriors in the Venom disembarked and moved 6" so they were only about 7" more from the Strike Squad; I planned to get them into the assault to see if I could shift the odds in my favor in that fight that had already lasted through several assault phases.  I moved the Reavers until they were only 2" away from the Paladins.  I moved both 5-man squads of Warriors in the center of the board to get around the wrecked Venom and move in to assault the Paladins.  Yes, that's right: I planned to assault Paladins with Warriors.  I figured I'd rather get the assault (especially now that I had Furious Charge!) than let him get the charge on his next turn.  I moved the remaining Venom with Warriors inside closer to the Paladins.  In the shooting phase, my Ravager failed to get any Snap Shots, but the Scourges managed to score 3 hits with their Haywire Blasters and finish the Land Raider off--finally!  Both remaining Raiders fired their Dark Lances into the Paladins, but one failed to hit and he made his Invulnerable save vs. the other.  Then I started shooting Splinter fire.  I fired a total of 18 shots (1 from the damaged Venom, 1 from an undamaged Venom) into the Terminator squad, not really expecting much since I had already fired 64 shots at them (turns 1 and 2 shooting combined) to remove a total of 2 models, but I rolled pretty well and he rolled not so well and lost another Terminator, leaving the Librarian standing there with just 2 more Terminators facing my squad of Incubi who were champing at the bit to get into assault.  My Razorwing fired two Dark Lances into one of his Storm Ravens; I asked if he wanted to Jink but he said no, and I hit with both, penetrated with both, and blew up the Storm Raven, which then "crashed and burned" onto my remaining Warriors' Raider, causing a glancing hit which I did not attempt to save.  I then focused the rest of my fire, including one Heat Lance shot (from the Reavers) and a total of 83 Splinter shots (35 Twin Linked) into the Paladin squad.  After his 2+ armor saves and FNP rolls he lost a total of 4 wounds, on 4 separate Paladins since I was firing from 4 different directions and the wounds were placed on the closest model--still hadn't lost a single whole Paladin yet!  In the assault phase, I charged 5 Warriors at the Strike Squad, who now had 10 attacks on the charge hitting at S4 due to Furious Charge, and combined with the 5 Warriors already in the combat they managed to kill 2 Strike Marines, the remaining Strike Marines killed 2 Warriors so it was a tie and they were STILL locked in combat.  The Incubi charged the Terminators, weathered the Overwatch without taking any casualties, and then proceeded to deal out 13 S5 AP2 hits to the Terminators before they even got a chance to hit back, killing both Terminators and putting a wound on the Librarian.  The Librarian swung back, needing 4s to hit, and whiffed.  In the center of the board, I fed the two 5-man Warrior squads into the Paladins one squad at a time.  The Paladins wiped out the first squad with Overwatch; Incinerators will do that.  But that meant the second squad had no problem, and then the Reavers hit and this time their Hammer of Wrath attacks were pretty good.  I ended up rolling a 5 for the number of hits from the Cluster Caltrops, and then got a total of 3 Rending hits (total for the squad counting both Cluster Caltrops and Bladevanes) plus a few more wounds that required a 2+ armor save.  After armor saves, invulnerable saves, and FNP rolls, the Hammer of Wrath attack actually killed one of the Paladins, and it was the one carrying the Nemesis Banner, which was excellent (as that banner grants +1 attack to each model in the squad).  The Warriors, the Reavers, and the Grand Master all went simultaneously at I5, with the Warriors dishing out 10 S4 attacks and the Reavers dishing out 9 S5 attacks (Combat Drugs and Furious Charge!), managing to kill the Apothecary!  No more Feel No Pain for the Paldins!  In return, the Grand Master tried to kill the Reavers, but since they had not activated Force or Hammerhand I was still able to take my FNP rolls and didn't lose a single Reaver!  The remaining 3 Paladins then wiped out the Warriors, which was to be expected, and I used Hit and Run to get the Reavers out of there.  All in all not a bad assault for me.  I had lost 80 points of Warriors, sure, but removed over 150 points of Paladins (including the Apothecary and Banner upgrades).

GK Turn 4:

The tide had definitely turned in my favor.  In total, all he had left on the  board was the GM + 3 Paladins (each with 1 wound on them, and no more FNP for the squad), the Librarian (who was locked in combat with the Incubi), one Storm Raven, and 2-3 Strike Knights locked in combat with 8 Kabbalite Warriors.  I thought he might concede at this point, but to his credit he stuck it out for one more round.  In the movement phase, he moved his GM + Paladin unit onto the central objective.  He had to drop his Storm Raven out of Zoom mode or it would have flown off the table and gone back into Ongoing Reserves, but then was able to pivot it a full 180 degrees and move to line up to fire at the Razorwing.  But his other units were already locked in combat and couldn't move.  In the psychic phase he tried to teleport out of combat, but for the first time I managed to make a Deny the Witch roll and he was stuck with the Incubi.  He then cast Cleansing Flame and I was out of dice to attempt to deny, so just had to take it.  The Incubi took a bunch of hits, but made almost all of their 3+ armor and FNP rolls, ended up losing a single Incubus.  The Cleansing Flame also wrecked the Archon's Raider and the remaining Warriors' Raider, but didn't cause them to explode and both units made their Pinning tests.  Pretty effective Nova blast for his part, all things considered, but it could have been worse for me, too.  Finally he improved his Invulnerable save on his Librarian and the Paladins, and then attempted to cast Hammerhand on the Paladins, but once again failed the roll.  The Paladins shot the Archon's unit, but were out of range for the Incinerator but managed to kill 2 Sslyth with their massed Psycannon (8 shots) and 2 Storm Bolter shots.  The Archon's squad really only survived because he chose to attempt the Storm Bolter wounds before the Psycannons, and he had a hard time making the To Wound rolls vs. majority Toughness 5 with S4 Storm Bolters; if he had used the Psycannons first he could have killed the 2 Sslyth first, reducing the majority Toughness to 3, and then the Storm Bolters would have been more effective, possibly even killing the last Sslyth; I told him that after the game.  The Storm Raven shot and destroyed the Razorwing, despite my attempts to Jink.  The assault phase went in my favor, with my Incubi finishing off the Librarian before he had a chance to swing back (they consolidated towards the Paladins, natch), and my 8 Warriors vs. his 2-3 remaining Strike Squads killed 1 more Strike Marine without losing any more Warriors in return; he failed his Leadership, but due to the And They Shall Know No Fear roll I was not able to kill the unit in a Sweeping Advance, and they remained locked in combat for yet another turn.

DE Turn 4:

I tabled him this turn, which was really not all that surprising at this point considering how few models he had left.  My Hellions automatically came on.  I attempted to Deep Strike them near the Paladins, but they scattered onto the Paladins, mishapped, and promptly went back into Ongoing Reserves.  My Scourges jumped 12" towards the Storm Raven, and the Ravager moved towards the Storm Raven as well.  The Incubi moved and then ran towards the Paladins as they were too far to assault this round, but they would be ready to bat cleanup next round if needed.  I separated the Succubus from the Archon so that the Archon + Sslyth were now back to "majority" Toughness 5 (ties go to the higher Toughness) and then both separate units moved towards the Paladins.  My remaining units all converged on the Paladins.  I fired both the Ravager and the Scourges at the Storm Raven, which was no longer zooming and thus didn't require 6s to hit, and took it down.  I fired everything I had left at the Paladins, including the Animus Vitae, which not surprisingly didn't do anything (he took the save on his GM's improved 3++ from Iron Halo + Sanctuary).  But the combined fire from my remaining Warriors, Reavers, the one remaining Sslyth, and the Succubus managed to kill 2 more Paladins, leaving only 1 Paladin (with the Incinerator, unfortunately for Overwatch purposes) and the GM (who was down to 2 wounds at this point).  In the Assault phase I charged the Paladin squad with 10 Warriors (3 died to Overwatch), 3 Reavers, the Succubus, and the Archon with his remaining Sslyth bodyguard.  The result was predictable.  The Hammer of Wrath hits did not get any Rending hits, unfortunately, and he made a couple of 2+ saves, but the combined weight of attacks benefiting Furious Charge finished him off anyway.  He issued a challenge with his GM, which I accepted from my Succubus, who had 5 attacks at S5 AP2 (including the +1 from the Archite Glaive and Furious Charge),  and she promptly proceeded to cut him to pieces.  He needed to make 4 Invulnerable saves, and even with the 3++ he only made 2, he failed his FNP rolls, and died before he could even hit back.  The rest of my guys then dished out 7 attacks from the Archon wounding on 4s with re-rolls due to Furious Charge and the Agonizer's poison, 21 S4 attacks from the Warriors, 12 S5 attacks from the Reavers [who also had Combat Drugs for an additional +1 to Strength], and I didn't even bother rolling for the Sslyth.  In something of an anticlimax, the 7 Warriors engaged in a long-lasting brawl with the remaining 1-2 Strike Squad Marines finally managed to pull them down without suffering any more casualties.  And that was the game.

The Grey Knights scored 1 point from First Blood. I scored 1 for Linebreaker, 1 for Slay the Warlord, I controlled two objective to his zero objectives, and most importantly I completely tabled him.  So although I may have gotten off to a rocky start, I recovered quickly and once I started putting the pressure on him he never really recovered.  On the other hand, it is worth pointing out that the Grey Knight codex has some problems, having been hit with the nerfbat at least as hard as the DE codex.

END BATREP 1.

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This second BATREP will be quite short, as it was not much of a fight.

My next game was against Dark Angels.  It was a different player, but we used the same table and terrain to save on set up time.   He fielded an army mixed from the Deathwing + Ravenwing.  He had 3 squads of Terminators (the Shooty kind, not the Assaulty kind), including Belial, and a whole bunch of Bike squads (including 1 squad of Ravenwing Knights armed to the teeth with Plasma weapons) and a solitary Attack bike with a multi-melta (I guess in case he fought an army with a Land Raider?); but he only had 2 vehicles (a Land Speeder and the Dark Shroud skimmer vehicle). He had no regular infantry, no other vehicles, and no flyers.  He did have a Librarian on a bike, and Sammael on a jetbike (he had 3 HQs because he was using two CADs).

The mission was the Relic.  Dawn of War deployment (again).

My Warlord trait was +1 WS, which was pretty useless; he made Belial his Warlord and I think that he had a fixed Warlord Trait to Deep Strike without scattering.  Combat Drugs were +1 Initiative this time, which was also worthless.

He won the roll to deploy first, I failed to seize the initiative, and failed to get Nightfighting, again.  He deployed his bikes in a line right at the edge of his DZ, with the Dark Shroud and Land Speeder in the middle of his formation, and kept the Terminators in reserve.

I deployed pretty similarly to how I had in the previous game, keeping everything screened behind ruins as much as possible, except my 2 squads of Warriors who didn't start with a ride, who were in a forest at the edge of my DZ.  I even deployed the Hellions and Scourges this game, so the only thing in Reserve was the Razorwing (obviously).

Dark Angels Turn 1:

Prior to beginning the movement phase he used the Scout rule to move several bike squads 12" forward.  Then the Terminator squads appeared by means of the Deathwing Assault rule.  None of them scattered; 2 were close enough to the bike squads to benefit from their Teleport Homers, and Belial and his unit didn't scatter either from a special rule or his Warlord trait (not sure which it was).  All of their Shooting was then twin-linked in the phase they came in and they had the Split Fire rule.  He moved all the rest of the bikes up, and the Dark Shroud and the Land Speeder.  The bike squad with the Librarian stopped at the Relic and picked it up.  He tried to move them Flat Out after picking up the relic until I showed him in the rules that he couldn't do that, and that the squad could now only move 6" per turn as long as it carried the relic.  In the psychic phase, he made the bike squad with the Librarian Invisible, but that was it.  In the Shooting phase he shot up a bunch of my units, killing both squads of 5 Warriors in the woods, and put a couple of Hull Points on other vehicles (I made several 3+ cover saves including the bonus from my Night Shields, which is an awesome piece of wargear).  So he got First Blood, but overall it was not as bad of a shooting turn as it could have been, mostly due to the excellent positioning of my units behind good cover screens.

DE Turn 1:

Everything moved forward and the bloodletting began.  He had moved so close that I was immediately in Rapid Fire range for all of my Splinter Rifles, and within easy assault range for my Reavers, Incubi, Hellions, and Scourges (if I wanted to assault with them).  With my 45 remaining Warriors, my 4 Venoms, my Hellions, my 5 Sslyth, my Reavers, and my Succubus, I was putting out 153 Splinter shots (76 twin-linked!), and my Ravagers and Raiders were putting out 7 Dark Lance shots (and 1 Heat Lance from the Reavers).  (Plus the Scourges had 4 Haywire blasters to play with.)  I took a chance with the Animus Vitae and managed to wound a Terminator (I figured wounding on a 4+ was better than trying to wound a T5 biker on a 5+) who failed his 5++ Invulnerable Save, so now I was a full 2 turns ahead on the Power from Pain table.  My Ravager and my Scourges combined fire to take down the Dark Shroud first, thus canceling out his army-wide Shrouding and Stealth buffs. The 4 Raiders then fired Dark Lances into a single Terminator squad, which failed 3 out of 4 Invulnerable saves, leaving only 2 Terminators in that squad.  After that I just started deleting his units with massed Splinter fire.  I didn't care too much that his bikes were T5, that's the beauty of Splinter poison, amirite?  After the brutal shooting phase, my Reavers and Hellions assaulted the Deathwing Knight squad (sending the Hellions in first to weather the Overwatch), and the Reavers did pretty well with their Hammer of Wrath and killed a couple Deathwing Knights right off the bat. Then the Reavers and the Hellions killed a couple more from regular attacks before they could hit back.  The Deathwing Knights killed a Hellion or two, lost combat, but were Fearless so we would have stayed in combat.  I opted not to Hit and Run, but then he succeeded at his own Hit and Run roll so I guess I should have gone ahead and tried it; oh well.  I assaulted an already-weakened Terminator squad with the Incubi, who managed to kill a couple of Terminators and lose only 1 Incubus in return, so they stayed in combat, too.

DA Turn 2:

At this point he knew he was in trouble, having already lost several units of bikes and 1 unit of Terminators, and 1 was locked in combat with my Incubi.  He started to backpedal across the board towards his DZ, trying to keep the Terminators between my army and the bike squad with the Librarian.  His shooting was scattered and fairly ineffective this turn, although he did kill a couple of Hellions (finishing the squad) and 1 Reaver.  He did force me to take some Jink saves, but that was not really a big deal.  The Librarian again made his squad Invisible, and I again didn't really care.

DE Turn 2:

I failed the Reserve roll for my Razorwing, but didn't care too much.  I continued shooting units off the board with abandon, then killed a couple more units in assault.  7 Dark Lances (Ravager + 4 Raiders) bracketed Belial's Terminator squad and killed 3 Terminators, then I fired a couple of Venoms and a gunboat at him to finish the squad off and get Slay the Warlord in the process.  The Incubi finished killing the last Terminators in their battle.  The Scourges and the Reavers together assaulted a squad of bikers, using the Scourges as meat shields to soak up Overwatch (as there really wasn't much point to Haywire blasters anymore).  

DA Turn 3:

He kept moving backwards, and his Librarian made his squad Invisible.  Again.  He finally managed to kill one of my gunboats, forcing the Warriors to disembark.  He then fired a bunch of shots at the now-disembarked Warriors and killed several of them, and they failed their Leadership test and fell back, but it wouldn't save him in the end.

DE Turn 3:

My Razorwing came on this turn.  Now that anybody that mattered had Feel No Pain, Furious Charge, and Fearless, I went ahead and disembarked my Archon + Sslyth + Succubus to get into some assault goodness.  I sent the Archon's now-empty Raider back to pick up the Incubi to ferry them forward for another assault next turn.  I shot and killed a couple more bike squads, and the Archon's team assaulted and wiped out 1 more.  At this point he only had a few models on the board, including the Librarian and his bike squad, the Land Speeder, and maybe one or two other badly-mauled bike squads.

DA Turn 4:

He moved his units back again and, more importantly, failed to cast Invisibility this turn.  He shot at my Archon's unit and killed a Sslyth and put a wound on 1 other Sslyth, but that was pretty much it.

DE Turn 4:

I kept pressing forward with my whole army (including a move + Flat Out move for the Incubi's Raider to set them up for an assault the next turn, if necessary).  I fired just about everything I had at his Librarian squad, unloading all 4 missiles from the Razorwing plus shooting from the remaining Raiders and Venoms.  At the end of all that shooting the Librarian's squad was down to 1 bike and the Librarian had 1 wound left, but they were Fearless and so didn't fall back. My remaining Scourges went ahead and shot down the Land Speeder.  My Reavers assaulted the Librarian's squad (they were the only unit in range), danced around the Overwatch, and killed the last biker with Hammer of Wrath, and then finished off the Librarian before he could swing back, thus claiming the relic.  The DA player conceded at that point, as he only had maybe 5-6 models left on the board (in separate, scattered bike squads), whereas I still had well two thirds of my army left.


Lesson learned:  It would appear that massed Splinter fire is a hard counter to a mostly-bike army.

So after these two games, I definitely like the Kabbalite Raiding Party Formation.  There are still a few kinks to work out with our new codex, but it is definitely playable.  

Thanks for reading, I know this was kind of long (although I tried to be concise, I found that difficult to do and still describe the action sufficiently clearly).  I'd be happy to hear any thoughts from anyone interested in critiquing my performance, with any suggestions for how to improve my tactics for the next realspace raid I launch.

v/r

--Vorenus

Hu... I should try that raiding party... looks nifty.. good games!

Two great battle reports! Glad to hear how well the new dark kin are doing across battlefields everywhere. Look forward to more reports and lastly welcome to the land of the posters! Happy to have you creep from the lurk and join us in the light....errr dark....twilight?.....Commorragh!

Wow Vorenus, most epic first post EVER! Greats games, looking forward to more!

Quote :

In the shooting phase, the Ravager did really well, managing to put 3 HP on the Land Raider and destroying one of its weapons (rolled randomly and blew up the TL Heavy Bolter; was hoping for one of the Lascannons, oh well).

Not bad for 3 snap shots...

Sorry, Charondyr, I guess that wasn't as clearly written as I thought. The Ravager didn't fire Snap Shots during Turn 2 as it had a 3+ cover save from ruins and night shields without having to Jink, and it took no damage that turn dur Oki ng the GK turn. It did fire Snap Shots in rounds 1 and 3, but round 2 it was firing at full Ballistic Skill. Sorry for the confusion.

Hot diggity dog! Awesome batrep, awesome first post!
Super fun to read and descriptive, I could see the battle in my mind no problem and that means you done a great job sir!

Batrep 1, GK turn 4 - The Librarian isn't allowed to cast a Witchfire power while locked in combat, so he couldn't have hit you with Cleansing Flame while stuck in with the Incubi.

I'm very impressed with how well you formed plans of attack and stuck to them. Not assaulting with your Archon/Succubus unit until FNP & Furious Charge were up and running, things like that.
It looks like solid decision making and target priority won you both matches.

Congrats!

Thank you, Laughingcarp. And thanks for the tip about the Cleansing Flame. I went and re-read the rules, and on p. 27 of the core rule book it says that Nova powers target "all enemy units within range regardless of line of sight or if they are engaged in combat". I guess we interpreted that to mean that the unit manifesting the psychic power could do so even if it was engaged in combat, but now I realize that it meant that it could target units that were in combat, not the caster. (Not sure I explained that very well...) Anyway, thank you, and thanks for the tip!

v/r

--Vorenus

You explained it plenty fine, and you're welcome!
Yeah the trick is that while a Nova power may actually be able to target units loved in cc, Witchfires still definitely can't be cast while the psyker is locked in CC since they all qualify as shooting attacks regardless of profile.
Just means you won even with a little bit of a handicap!

A Nova power is a "Nova" and not "Witchfire". Both follow different rules.
Cleansing Flame is "Nova", not "Witchfire".

Quote :

Nova
A nova power automatically targets and hits all enemy units (including Flyers and Flying Monstrous Creatures) within the psychic power’s maximum range, regardless of line of sight, being locked in combat, intervening models/terrain and so on.

Quote :

Witchfire
Witchfire powers are shooting attacks. Indeed, they are often referred to as psychic shooting attacks, and many have profiles similar to ranged weapons. Just like when shooting a weapon, a Psyker must be able to see the target unit (or target point) and cannot be locked in combat if he wishes to manifest a witchfire power.

Quote :

Cleansing Flame is a nova power with the following profile: