Grey Knights vs DE

Battle Report #4 1250 points: Grey Knights vs. DE.

This was an impromptu game so the lists are not the best thought out, but it was a very fun one regardless. I will apologize up front as I know next to nothing about Grey Knights, their lore or their units, so I may have some names wrong.

The armies:

HQ
Duke Sliscus
Haemonculus Hexrifle, venom blades
Haemonculus Hexrifle, venom blade

Troops
9 Wyches, RF in a Raider
5 Wyches, HWG in a venom with SC X 2
9 Warriors, HWG in a Raider, SR, night shields

Elite
4 Incubi in a venom, SC X 2

Fast
5 Scourges HWB X2

Heavy
Ravager
Ravager

Grey Knights
HQ
Some large paladin dude with a big warhammer who had a two plus save with a 3+ FNP and lots of special rules.

Troops
Grey knights squad of 6 with heavy weapons.
Grey knight squad of 6 (grey squad)
Grey knight squad of 6 (red squad-not sure exactly what these were, but had a power hammer and a power sword among other stuff)

Elite
5 paladins in a land raider (HQ here too)

Heavy
Grey Knight Nemisis Dreadkinght


Mission: Purge the Alien
Deployment: Normal
Special Issues: None.
Warlord Traits: He rolled and got the furious charge in my deployment zone
I then rolled and got the reroll reserve rolls. Big help with no reserves

Terrain was already there. A couple of buildings and some hills.

I won first deployment.

He failed to steal the initiative. My combat drugs were +1 strength. We forgot about night fighting.

I deployed split between the two far corners where there was cover. In the far right I put a ravager, the raider with wyches and a haemonculus and the venom with wyches. In the far left I put the raider with warriors and the duke all around them. Next to them was the venom with the incubi and a haemonculus around it. The scourges were in the building in the corner that the vehicles were behind.

He deployed a squad on the hill in his far right corner with the squad with the psycannons behind it. His land raider and his dreadknight were near the middle back and his other squad was in a building on his far left.


Turn one DE: First I did a switch and loaded the Duke with the Incubi on the venom, leaving the pain token behind and loaded the warriors and the Haemy on the raider, leaving the 3+ poison shots with them. I moved all my vehicles to just at 36 inches and spread out. My scourges went to the mid point on a hill to try and keep some cover but could not quite get in range of the land raider. A venom put 12 SC shots into his dreadknight and he took one wound. My raider to my right could only see the dreadknight and gave it a second wound with the DL. My ravager wiffed at his land raider. The haemy on the right took a shot with his hexrifle at the dreadknight and missed. On the left of the board concentrated fire took out the front squad of grey knights completely (the grey squad).


Turn one Grey knights: First he used an orbital bombardment (apparently GK can have that as a weapon) and it exploded my raider with the warriors-I only lost one or two to the explosion. He move his dreadknight and his land raider forward. His heavy weapon squad remained stationary and he moved his other squad out of the house but still in cover. He cast some psychic power to make his heavy weapons squad be able to hit anything within 24 inches despite line of sight, but they were out of range of everything. His land raider put a HP on a venom and killed two scourges. His dreadknight put a hull point on a ravager. I made a lot of jink saves that round (but pretty much failed them the rest of the game).


Turn 2 DE: I moved everything some, just to keep line of sight and jink. On the right side of the board my ravager exploded his land raider. My raider wiffed but my hexrifle hit the dreadknight but he made his save. My venom fired into his paladin squad that came out of the raider getting 4 wounds but he saved them all. On the left my ravager killed a paladin. My scourges fired their weapons into the paladins but did nothing.


Turn 2 GK: His orbital bombardment wrecked my venom with the incubi but failed to kill the scourges. He moved his paladin squad forward along with his dreadknight. His other squad (red) came around the corner and his heavy weapon squad stayed where it was. He wrecked my venom carrying the wyches after hitting with one pen and several glances. Saved the pen (preventing an explosion) but got hull pointed. His heavy weapons unit destroyed my ravager over on the left that I had moved a bit too close to them in order to get the shots off that turn.


Turn 3 DE: My wyches that exited the wrecked venom in mid-back field moved 6 inches strait at the paladin squad. My lone surviving ravager moved a little. My scourges moved forward a bit. My raider on the right moved forward a bit. In the shooting phase, my scourges failed to do anything of value. My ravager killed his dreadknight. I unloaded everything else into his paladin squad but came up empty. My wyches rolled a 2 on the run roll so I rerolled and got a one…


Turn 3 GK: His red squad shot up my raider managing to immobilize it. His heavy weapons unit killed all but one scourge who ran. He shot into my 5 wyches sprinting at him managing to only kill three.


Turn 4 DE: My 9 wyches and Haemy unloaded from the immobilized raider towards his red squad. My incubi and the duke moved forward to get ready to assault the paladins. My two wyche unit moved forward for the same. The warriors moved up close enough to get in rapid fire range of the paladins. My scourge ran away a little more. In the shooting phase my one raider wiffed as did my ravager. My squad of wyches on the right fired their splinter pistols into the red squad killing one and the haemy killed one with the hexrifle. The squad of two wyches and the warriors failed to kill any paladins, but the haemy with the hexrifle on that side killed a paladin. The duke failed to wound with his blast pistol. The 9 wyches and haemy on the right assaulted the GK squad. His overwatch failed to kill any and the wyches killed them all, taking no wounds. The squad of two wyches charged, making him expend his paladin overwatch on them-failing to kill either of them. Then the incubi and the duke charged. He used some kind of psychedelic grenade that made my two wyches initiative one and my incubi/duke leadership 2. In the combat, the duke was base to base with his HQ they managed to wound each other a few times but both made all their saves. The incubi managed a wound on a paladin. His other three remaining paladins managed to kill one wych. The last wych with the RF managed to actually kill a paladin. I won combat, but he was fearless and doesn’t run.


Turn 4 GK: His heavy weapon squad did that magic shooting around corners thing and killed 4 or 5 warriors. Close combat was a draw.

He then conceded as my other squad of wyches were about to join combat and my ravager and warriors were going after his heavy weapon squad. Very fun game, but GK have a lot of interesting rules and psychic stuff that he cast all along causing a lot of interesting effects. I have decided I like hex rifles, after all, and FNP is still valuable enough to bring a Haemonculus or two.

Sounds like a great game.

Grey Knight have a lot of tricks up theirs sleeves, definitely one of those armies that if you don't know their rules inside out can really surprise you.

Thank for sharing (added the report to the sticky).

Great fight! Good work!

Your list is very similar to mine, and the GK list is virtually identical to my buddy's, so this was a valuable read. Thanks for posting!

Good read, I always liked seeing GK get beat since a rich kid at my school bought a GK army when they first came out!
I'm learning so much from these reports.

Hmmm... The Grey Player used his orbital bombardment wrong, you have to remain stationary when using it and I'm pretty sure it can't be fired out of a land raider. The firer must also have LoS to the target. That might have helped, especially since it was ripping your vehicles apart early game.
The Grey knight one isn't as good as the current marine version, it can just be used all the time.
It's the old rules where it scatters even on a hit, though with the space marine one, I'm pretty sure it hits dead on.

You did really well and I'm glad you stuck out the win

What would you done differently if you gave it another go? Maybe target the heavy weapons squad (purgation squad) earlier? They kind of mauled your vehicles a bit.