1750pts Grey Knights at the European 40k Championship

Greetings all!

I tend to lurk at the forum rather than posting but I just came back from the European Team Championship held in Munster, Germany, where I was captain of the Northern Ireland team. Against lots of advice not to, I still took my beloved gk and thought I'd see how well I could do agiainst players of the other 15 teams and I thought you might be interested in how they did?

The army size was set at 1750pts and I took a GM with sacred incense (plenty of chaos armies were going to be there!) and a pyschic hood, accompanied by a retunue of 5x terminators, with one having a psycannon. The rest of the army was basically 4x squads of PAGK (5 strong) with frag grenades, a LRC and 2x Godhammer LRs.

The competition would be stiff as many of the other teams were made up of the top 8 players from the country who had been practicing and fine tuning for this event for some time whereas my team were scattered over N Ireland, S Ireland, England and Wales and even 1 player in Germany so it was down to the individuals to actually practice against whoever they could.

I don't normally do battle reports and I've tried to be as accurate as possible but between the heat, travel tiredness, a few beers and lack of sleep things are still a little bit jumbled as to what happened when in some of the games.

Here goes, let me know if you thought they were worth reading (and I'm sorry if they're boring reads!):

Round 1 VS White Scars (Petr Yasychenko -Team Russia)

“Sorry, how many attack bikes did you say you had? Crap – I thought so...”

After being paired with an army I really didn’t like the idea of facing I thought I’d give it a go and see what my knights could do against a pure bike army. I had an inkling of what was going to happen but I didn’t realise just how quickly it would all be over…

My opponent was really friendly and relaxed and I found him very easy to get on with, especially when he saw my cigarette packet fall on the floor as I went to the table and he suggested that we have a break for a smoke before we started so we can get to know each other (he wasn’t even a smoker). Five minutes of friendly conversation and I was left thinking ‘he’s a nice guy – this should be a nice game’.

The mission was Seize Ground using 5 objectives and Dawn of War deployment. I lost the dice off and ended choosing the table edge and setting up two of my knight units in cover with the intention of trying to get them to objectives as soon as possible and hold on for reinforcements to arrive. My opponent placed his commander and 2x bike squads on the table and the game began with the rest of my force arriving on my baseline at the start of the turn. I set up the Godhammer Land Raiders with one at each of the far sides of my deployment area, and the Crusader in the middle behind a hill for cover. I was worried about the sheer number of melta guns in his force (12+ !) and knew the raiders wouldn’t last long and didn’t want the grand master and retinue caught in the crusader when it got nailed so I elected to deep strike them (hoping to fail my reserves roll and end up teleporting them onto an objective towards the very end of the game). I opened fire with everything I had but only managed to destroy a couple of bikes due to some poor ‘to hit’ rolls – including 4x lascannon shots failing to hit even with rerolls!

My opponent (I can’t remember his name unfortunately) deployed his arriving force with 8x attack bikes (with multi meltas) in front screening a mass of bikers and his chaplain and commander (on bikes as well). That niggling feeling became a sinking feeling when I saw the force laid out and I knew I was really playing a ‘how long can I survive’ game.
The bikes all shot forward towards my deployment zone and things become a bit blurred from this point as the next 2 rounds mainly involved all of the land raiders being destroyed by masses of melta shots whilst my knights were cut down with withering bolter fire from the bikes. My grand master & terminators arrived in turn 2 and I safely teleported them onto an objective in a ruined building but was soon shot at and assaulted by a bike squad accompanying the chaplain, along with 2 attack bikes.

The terminators made a good impression by destroying the attack bikes and a couple of normal bikes but, after having lost a couple of them from the melta guns just before the bikes assaulted, they just couldn’t do enough damage to dent the return attacks and fought a losing battle. To add salt to the injury I even failed a terminator armour save when I had to test for losing the combat and the grand master was left by defending the ruins by himself. The next round saw him destroy 2 bikes but in return get cut down by the chaplain leaving a board clear of any grey knight presence and there was nothing else to do but shake my opponents hand and thank him for wiping me out in such a friendly way!

Result: 20:0 Loss to the Grey Knights

*Lesson learnt: I’m not sure as I honestly don’t know what I could have done differently?

Round 2 VS Imperial Guard (Rudi, Team Austria)

“If that man survives, he’s earned his terminator honours!”

The scenario for this game was Capture and Control using the Pitched Battle deployment and as I approached the table I got my first sight of what was waiting for me. The force consisted of masses of infantry accompanied by Sly Marbo, a psyker squad in a chimera, 2x small storm trooper squads in chimeras, 2x manticores, 2x hydras and a leman russ with demolisher cannon. I tend to do OK against imperial guard but hadn’t played against them with their new codex and hadn’t even read their codex.

My opponent deployed first and placed his objective on the baseline in the centre of his deployment zone before surrounding it with the infantry – if I was to get to it I’d have to fight my way through a lot of bodies, he then placed a manticore and hydra on each flank with a storm trooper chimera beside them. In return I placed my objective in the extreme left of my deployment zone behind a small hill. I then deployed a godhammer on each flank with the one on the left placed beside my objective and having a knight unit aboard to claim/contest the object as needed. The crusader was placed in the centre with the grand master and terminators aboard (hoping to go full speed towards his objective and use the hurricane bolters and terminator assault to cut through the infantry guarding his objective), and placed the 3 knight units in as much cover as I could.

After shaking hands, the game began and started with a bang! The demolisher cannon made short work of the godhammer on my right by destroying it with its first shot and one of the manticores managed to destroy the Godhammer on the left leaving the remaining manticore to immobilise the crusader in the centre. Not a good start for me and I hadn’t even had my first turn! All I could do on my first turn was send 3 knight units and the terminators forward and get the knights from the destroyed godhammer into cover nearby. If I could use them to keep any of his models away from my objective while advancing with what was left of my force towards his objective it would put pressure on my opponent and a win/draw was still on the cards. My shooting was mainly at the mass of infantry around his objective but without the hurricane bolters on the crusader, I realised I wouldn’t be able to clear enough to make the eventual any easier for me.

His turn 2 started with both stormtrooper chimeras moving towards my objective with the nearest one disembarking a small squad of stormtroopers with melta guns and the one further away disembarking its stormtroopers towards the centre of the board. The demolisher cannon then targeted and killed 2 of my terminators. Sly marbo had also made an appearance in the woods near the immobilised crusader and I knew where he was heading. The psyker squad in the chimera tried their foul sorceries but were stopped by the grand masters psychic hood (they never managed to actually get off a psychic power throughout the game! ). His guardsmen then moved forward slightly and opened fire on the nearest advancing knight units resulting in them being wiped out, before the hydras and manticores accurately opened fire and mauled the other two advancing squads. The disembarked stormtroopers then opened fire and killed 3 of the knights defending the objective. I knew things were looking pretty grim for me but I thought at least I would fight this out to the end and try to contest both objectives to force a draw.

My turn began with the remaining terminators and knights advancing towards his objective and shooting down more of the defending guardsmen (still not enough for my liking but beggars can’t be choosers!!) and the knight and justicar by my objective shooting and then assaulting the disembarked stormtroopers. The dice seemed to be changing as I managed to wipe out the unit before consolidating back towards my objective and ending up on the small hill in front of it.

My opponent was pretty decisive at this stage and both chimeras headed directly for my objective – with the nearest one parking on top of it behind the hill and unsuccessfully trying to shoot down my knight and justicar, and the further one managing to just get on the hill. My objective was now contested by both chimeras and I hadn’t even started to get close enough to his objective to even threaten it yet. His remaining firing from the stormtroopers in the centre of the board, along with the manticores and hydras destroyed the last of the knights and then he taught me about the ‘third rank fire’ rule by opening up on the grand master and retinue. Thankfully my saves only resulted in the loss of 1 terminator but I had been given a bit of a shock!

I started my turn with very few options open to me: if I kept the grand master and terminators back from assaulting they would probably be shot down as I couldn’t rely on lucky armour save rolls again, and the remaining justicar and knight had to get rid of the chimeras on and by my objective. All I could do was assault and hope for the best! The grand master and terminators made a good impression by racking up a healthy body count before failing several armour saves and leaving the grand master by himself surrounded by guardsmen and a commissar. The justicar and knight hit the chimera and the justicar managed a penetrating hit resulting in a 6 on the vehicle penetration chart. I was delighted but then realised I had to do armour saves for the justicar and knight and I know its these kind of moments when luck seems to forget your even there. The knight fell to the blast but the justicar was still left standing.

With my turn over very quickly, it was back the imperial guard. Sly Marbo moved directly towards the crusader and threw his demolition charges but failed to penetrate the armour. The manticores tried to see the justicar on the hill by the remaining chimera but failed the shrouding roll (I could have yelled with delight when I saw them fail that!!) and the chimera opened fire on the justicar resulting in 3 wounds that were saved by his power armour. The grand master put up a good fight by scoring 4 hits but only managed to wound 1 guardsman and in return he took 2 wounds and failed his armour save for losing combat.

We were starting to get a few onlookers at this stage as other players that had finished came over to see the struggle. I was really enjoying the game even though I was losing as it started to have a kind of ‘story line’ feel to it and I knew that I had lost as I was down to the last model. I then remembered that the immobilised crusader finally had a target as sly marbo was still standing in front of it (I think my opponent had thought it would be destroyed and no threat to him). Hurricane bolters rapid fired and quickly removed the threat from sly leaving only my justicar to assault the chimera by my objective. After hitting 3 times he managed to get 2 penetrating hits and scored another 6 on the vehicle penetration chart resulting in an armour save that he passed. Quite a few people where now gathered around the corner by my objective and I was told to award the justicar terminator honours if he survived the game!

The game ended early in my opponents turn as he apologised for opening fire with everything he had within range and killing the justicar. If he could have held out that little bit longer the game would have been a draw but I really didn’t mind losing because it was such an exciting game against an excellent opponent.

Result: 18:2 Loss to the Grey Knights

* Lesson learnt: make sure you read all new codex before going to a tournament to avoid nasty surprises

Round 3 VS Dark Eldar (Toch - Team Czech Republic)

“Let me get this right… you’re telling me that it’s a friendly army that has just got a ‘few’ Dark Lances & Blasters in it... hmm…whatever…”

The third and final round of the day and we were looking a little exhausted during the pairing up of the team players. With the amount of dark lances present in the army none of the team fancied taking the dark elder player on so with genuine reluctance I agreed to do it. My reasoning was simple – in all of the games I have played with my knights I’ve have yet to beat an elder army and, although I hadn’t played against dark elder before, I expected them to be very similar and it was better for the team if a less competitive army (i.e. mine) dies to them than one of our stronger ones .

The mission was Annihilation using the spearhead deployment. Because his team had put him up as attacker in the team pairings, he chose the board to play on and went straight to one with several ruined buildings on it.

We rolled for sides and Toch chose the one with the most terrain leaving me with a couple of large ruins to try to hide my troops. He was a very friendly player who went through the capabilities and stats of his army while I just looked at the amount of raiders, ravagers and reaver jet bikes. He had 3x ravagers, 3x raiders loaded with warriors aboard, 1x raider with wytches on it and 3x squads of 3 jetbikes each along with a few squads of warriors. I noticed that each group of 3 jetbikes had 2 models with funny looking weapons on them. When I asked what they were and he explained that they were just 12” range Str 8 AP2 weapons that reduce armour like dark lances! My land raiders and terminators where going to be lucky to survive this game…

He deployed in the right-hand half of his deployment zone, with his raiders arranged around the ravagers and the jetbike units as far forward as possible but still being screened by ruins from where I would be deploying . I then deployed my godhammers as far back as I could (in the far right-hand corner of my deployment zone), placed the crusader screened behind one of my large ruins, elected to deep strike the terminators and placed my 4 knight units in as much cover as I could . With a clear corridor without ruins running diagonally through the board it looked as if the dark elder were advancing down a street in a ruined city and the grey knights were about to ambush them after tempting them forward with the 2 visible land raiders. I like playing narrative type games and this one began to appeal to me even though I didn’t fancy my chances of winning.

After wishing each other luck and shaking hands the game began with most of his jetbikes turbo boosting in a wide arc towards my godhammers but finishing their move out of line of sight of my force. The raiders moved down the ‘street’ and the front one disembarked its warrior unit, who ran into a nearby ruin. He couldn’t see the majority of my knight units so targeted all of his non-dark lance fire power on the one unit he could see, leaving the justicar standing by himself in a ruin. The dark lances on the raiders opened up at the godhammers and either bounced off the armour or rolled 1’s on the vehicle penetration chart.

My turn began with the full strength units of knights moving through the ruins to better firing positions and the crusader coming out from behind the wall it was hidden by and turning to face the raiders coming down the street. It was then that it dawned on me that the raiders were only AV10 at the front and my storm bolters were str4 so even they could damage them! I was itching to fire my godhammers and crusader (now within 12”of one of his raiders) but though I’d try my luck by shooting with the knights first - but only managed to immobilise one of the raiders and destroy a dark lance on another. Moving to the godhammers I then realised my mistake – the godhammer that would have to fire its lascannon using its machine spirit had a clear view down the street but the other Godhammer had one of its lascannons blocked by the crusader in front thereby wasting a shot! The 2 shots fired resulted in one wrecked raider and one that exploded and killed nearly half the dark elder aboard. The crusader was then able to target the ravagers skulking behind the raiders and fired the melta gun (resulting in a miss) before machine spiriting the assault cannons to fire, causing 2 penetrating hits that wrecked the ravager. End of my turn and I was 3 Kill Points ahead as well as possibly blunting his assault!

His response to losing a fair chunk of his vehicles was to shoot the crusader with one of the remaining raiders, immobilising it, and shoot several of his infantry held dark lances (I think there were 6 of these), destroying the melta gun and assault cannon. He then fired the dark lance that was still on the immobilised raider at a Godhammer and immobilised it in return. Toch also moved his infantry from the destroyed raiders into a few of the ruins and shot at my knight units causing a few casualties. I was more concerned about the raider with the wyches aboard that had moved to a ruins near one of the knight units but wasn’t quite in range for an assault when they disembarked.

After failing my reserves roll for the grand master and terminators I started my turn by unheroically pulling back my knight units to put a bit more distance as I could between me and the dark elder. I chose not to run them though as I needed a good round of shooting to reduce the numbers of warriors moving towards my unit. My shooting was nothing exceptional and only managed to inflict a few casualties amongst his troops. The godhammers both shot at the ravagers and wrecked one of them and I was about to hand the turn to Toch when I remembered the hurricane bolters on the crusader could still fire – and there was a unit of warriors directly in front of the crusader. I remember feeling a little guilty rolling 12 re-rollable shots that killed on 3+, especially as it wiped out the whole unit including 2 warriors carrying dark lances!
Toch started turn 3 by moving the wyches into assault range of the crusader before firing at the godhammers with some dark lances carried by the infantry and destroying a lascannon on one of them. His jetbikes shot at a knight unit in cover and, thanks to the cover saves, failed to do much damage to them. He had also forgotten to make his reserve roll for his beastmaster and hounds but I was happy enough for him to take it now as I thought there was very little 1 eldar and 3 hounds could do to my knights, even if they assaulted next turn (I was very wrong about that one!). His remaining infantry shot at the knights and killed a few but all my units still had members of them left on the board and, as yet, weren’t worth any Kill Points to him.

I finally managed to roll for my grand master and retinue and they teleported into shooting range of the remaining ravager – I was hoping that the str6 psycannon could do some damage and hopefully prevent it from shooting next turn. My remaining moves generally involved moving the knights back towards my godhammers instead of sitting isolated and easy targets for his jetbikes. I started my shooting phase by firing the godhammers at the remaining ravager instead of trying with the psycannon first. The lascannon shots destroyed it, and the knights shot and killed a few more of the warriors but the crusader had no targets within its bolter firing arcs. I only just remembered the terminators and couldn’t see anything they could shoot at until I actually got down to the models level and saw parts of one of the jetbike units through the windows of a ruin. Toch was unsure if I could see them so I actually got out one of those silly gadgets you buy and never use – the laser target indicator! As soon as I used it, it was clear the jetbikes were a legitimate target and they were blown away in a volley of storm bolter and psycannon shots.

There was little Toch could do now to even the Kill Points so he moved his remaining warriors into cover and to shoot at any grey knights that got in LOS, moved the wyches within assault range of the crusader and the packmaster and beasts towards a unit of 3 knights, before flying the jetbikes at the terminators. In the shooting phase I lost all of the terminator retinue to both the jetbikes and the warriors in range, before the wyches assaulted the crusader and used a haywire grenade to penetrate and destroy it. The packmaster finished by assaulting some knights in the ruins and, at the end of the combat, there was only the packmaster still standing.

I began this turn by moving the grand master into cover and shooting the packmaster while the rest of the knights and godhammers shot at anything they could see before Toch rolled to see if we got another turn but the game, and day 1 of the tournament, ended.

Result: 17:3 Victory to the Grey Knights

*Lesson learnt: Even when outclassed it’s worth hoping for your opponent to have an unlucky round!

3 more battle reports from Day 2 to follow (and I'm glad to say that I did a lot better on day 2!! )

Very good read Brother Khargor. It seems it was a very enjoyable tournament despite the losses. The missions you were tasked with unfortunately did not favor the numerical inferiority of grey knights.
I tend to agree with you in that I'm not exactly sure how I would deal with lots and lots of bikers (I run a very similar 1750 list to yours except I only have 2 GHLRs and slightly larger sized PAGK squads).

And I also agree that knowing at least something about your opponent's codex really helps (I know it helped me against 1750 IG army).

Still, great batreps! Can't wait to read the rest

Well-done batreps Khargor. I don't understand why people cry foul against multiple Land Raiders these days as they seem to die easily enough. I could just get a sense of how deflated you must have felt when the IG player did a number on your Raiders before you even moved them. Looking forward to the day 2 report.

Very nice report, maybe a little better luck against IG on that horrible 1rst turn and thing might have gotten diferently.

And about the 1st game against Scars, We don't manage very well against mobile oponnents.

Excellent report Brother Khargor! It is good to see a faithful one such as yourself pulling in pure Grey Knights into such a tournament; I only wish that they day had favored your first two matches. But at the least, you had fun and met with good people, so at the end of the day its far from loss.

I like your set up; it's a shame that your raiders didn't seem too survivable, namely against IG. I look forward to your next report Brother!

A great read!

Depressing that the only army Daemonhunters can win against competitively are ones even more outdated than us.

Thank you for your encouraging comments brothers

And about the 1st game against Scars, We don't manage very well against mobile oponnents

I definately agree with that, but a tau player on one of the other teams had the perfect solution: when the russian player elected to keep all of his force in reserve instead of deploying them before the game, the tau player used kroot to block his baseline and stop everything coming on!! They're still debating this move on the warhammer.org forums but it really must have come as a shock to the w.scars player. He came over to me 5 minutes after a round had started and told me what happened - I laughed because I thought he was joking until I realised he was pretty down in the dumps about it!!

I've also just signed myself up for the welsh 3 feathers tournament in 8 days time so I'll put a push on with the remaining battle reports and see if I can get some photos up of my GK

Awesome reports!
Sad to hear of some GK set backs, but unfortunately thats the name of the GK game, especially with their current rules and reliance on LR's, you can have 5 games with no one touching a LR, and then have then die in the easiest fashion imagineable!

Can't wait to see the next reports!

Just out of interest you don't seem to deply all your squads inside LR's? (Or am I misreading)

I haven't had a chance to sit and do the next battle report but I've found the missions sheet and most of my opponents army lists (after games a lot of us handed over the lists to each other to check & if needed keep) so it will make it a bit easier to put it all in proper order and get them done. I've also found my first opponents name (Petr Yasychenko) and updated the bat rep.

Just out of interest you don't seem to deply all your squads inside LR's? (Or am I misreading)

I tend to leave the godhammers empty of troops simply because I try to keep them as stationary as possible and maximise their firepower, but if I'm going to park them by an objective at the start of the game then I'll put a squad aboard to be able to claim it. The AV14 cover provided by being aboard the raider helps to keep them alive and fairly safe from a lot of the long range firepower that can come in during the early turns as the opponent tries to remove annoyances. If it looks like the opponent is going to try to grab the objective with something the knights can deal with I bring them out and use their firepower to add to the raiders (though I prefer firing both lascannons at middle to far threats and machine spirit the h.bolter to fire at whatever the knights are shooting at)

Hey, I enjoyed your bat-reps, I also enjoy the feel of play you give which is quite battle theme orientated which allows much imagination!

Can I ask if you use smoke launchers on your LR's/LRC? I imagine they could of been quite handy on some turns.

Ohh ok, I was thinking you might play Water Warrior (By Silent Requiem) style, but you seem to play a slightly different variation of similar lists

Sorry its taken a few days for this but I meant to post it before I had to go away for a couple of days & I forgot

For those of you that haven't given up reading them, here's the next instalment:

Round 4 VS Tyranids (Thomas Brutscher - Team Switzerland)

“You lot reckon I should go team champion this time? Come on guys, give me a break - I’ve got grey knights...”

At the ETC, a Team Champion is a players who is secretly nominated and not matched with an opposing player during the pairing at the start of the round and, after everyone is paired up, they go and play each other on the only board left. This cunning idea means you are never sure what armies will be put forward during the pairings and because the champion has to face the opposing champion, there was no chance of avoiding armies that your own army would have problems going against. Due to this, the champion tends to have the hardest army in the team and, so far, their games tended to be quite brutal.

For the previous 3 rounds we’d discussed who would go champion each time (teams can change their champion each turn if they wish) and each player that had stepped forward had faced armies that generally made the rest of us shudder and scuttle away laughing to ourselves that we had been lucky! Now we were having trouble convincing someone to go as champion because we all knew what was waiting for them and no-one really likes being the lamb sent to be slaughtered! It was even suggested that I should do it because it might be better for the team if one of our ‘weaker’ armies got butchered by their champion than waste one of our stronger ones. If there wasn’t a volunteer then, as team captain, I would have to nominate someone and they would have to step up to the chopping block. A look at the faces of those that hadn’t played as champion yet and I knew I’d have to make a quick decision so, to everyone’s’ surprise (including my own!), I nominated myself.

As soon as the words ‘I’ll do it’ came out of my mouth I knew that I’d be in for a rough ride this round! I watched the pairings between our teams and was absolutely gutted when I saw their daemon player be selected as a defensive player on the last pairing which would have meant, if I hadn’t been team champion, I could have finally got to grips with an army I would have felt confident against. Instead, when the champions stepped forward, I was going against a tyranid army with quite a few big gribblies in it that would make short work of my precious land raiders.

The scenario was Capture and Control (1 objective in each deployment zone, winner is the player with the most uncontested objectives at the end of the game) and our deployment was ‘Dawn of War’. We went towards the last remaining board in our row and, after a handshake and 5 minutes of friendly chat, rolled for sides. Thomas won the roll but due to both sides being equally dense in terrain it really didn’t make much of a difference which side a player was on. He placed his objective in a small woods about 5-6” from his baseline in the left hand corner of his zone. Knowing I had to keep him away from my objective for as long as possible to maximise my shooting I placed mine about 1” from my baseline and behind a small hill right in the corner of my left deployment zone so the objectives were diagonally opposite each other.

Thomas’ army contained 2x tyrants with venom cannons and a load of biomorphs, 3 carnifexes (2 combat and 1 with venom cannon), a unit of 7x warriors with a variety of shooting weapons as well as some lash whips and scything talons, 2 units of ‘stealers with tendrils and one with scuttlers and finally 4x units of gaunts (2 units of 20 with fleshborers and 2x units of 8 with devourers and without number). Plenty of scoring troops and plenty of big things to assault with so I could have problems…

Deployment was simple – he placed a venom cannoned tyrant and 2 big units of gaunts in his zone, as close as possible to my area. In return I placed 1 unit of knights around my objective behind the hill (After losing my raiders before my first turn in a previous game, I’d learnt that there’s no point letting someone shoot my army before I had my turn!) followed by another knight unit in a large wooded piece of terrain to the right and about 8” away from the hill. That would give me 20 stormbolter shots per turn until my reinforcements arrived – not much when there are about 40 models facing you and ready to run straight forward!

Thomas began by moving the gaunts down his right flank and towards my objective while the tyrant moved towards the woods containing the other unit of knights. His shooting phase was pretty quick and ineffective so I began the game with no casualties but a slight feeling of urgency – I had to get rid of the gaunts quickly but couldn’t afford to ignore the tyrant. Trusting their armour to save them from the venom cannon shots next turn I moved the knights up from behind the hill and concentrated all my firepower into the closest gaunts. Massed stormbolter fire at a lightly armoured unit can be pretty impressive sometimes, and I can remember the relief of watching Thomas taking a large handful of models off the board. I then realised I wasn’t quite so clever when I saw that I hadn’t concentrated on just one unit so both units were still a threat rather than having a strong and a weak one coming at me, making target allocation a lot easier in the next turn.

Turn 2 began with the arrival of the other tyrants and the 3x carnifexes. His models had a stunning tortoiseshell pattern on their carapaces and on a number of occasions I found myself more interested in looking at the patterns and not concentrating on what the models were doing! The models that were able to shoot did so, but didn’t do any effective damage.

My reinforcements arrived almost all at one time with the 3 raiders (crusader with grand master & terminators aboard) and another knight unit making their way onto the battlefield. I could do little with the crusader this turn so I decided to bring it on right beside the hill hiding my objective, but the godhammers were tasked with carnifex-cracking and I deployed one in the centre of my baseline and the other in the right hand corner and away from any supporting troops. Shooting went particularly well with the crusader scoring a multi-melta wound on the closest venom cannon tyrant using the machine spirit while the assault cannon and hurricane bolters shot up some more of the gaunts that had moved towards my objective. The closest were still at least 2 turns away from my objective so I wasn’t too worried at this stage. The godhammers both shot at the same carnifex and left it on 1 wound, leaving the knights to open fire on the gaunts that had been sniped at by the crusader and resulting in several more of them being killed, and both broods looking at lot smaller and more manageable for when it came to the inevitable assault in a couple of turns.

Thomas was luckier with his reserves phase this turn and the 2 remaining gaunt units arrived as well as one of his genestealer units. I wasn’t paying too much attention to their deployment as I was discussing the carapace patterns with Pat (one of our team members), until I realised the ‘stealers had been deployed behind the remnants of the gaunt units meaning they would be coming straight at my objective very soon. There’s nothing like a brood of ‘stealers coming towards you to focus the mind! The broods all began moving forwards down the flank towards my objective while the carnifexes turned their attention to the godhammers and began to move towards them. I was pretty relieved to see the tyrants rolling low for their move distance through the cover that he was using, at least that would buy me some more time until they get to me! Again the venom cannons shot but did little damage (I’m pretty sure I only lost about 3 knights and a couple of terminators to venom cannon fire throughout the game).

My turn 3, and the remaining knight unit turned up. I had intended to put them on my right flank and move them towards the tyranid objective but, with the carnifexes heading towards the godhammer on that flank, I was pretty sure it would just mean that I would be sacrificing them. Eventually I decided to bring them on beside my objective and strengthen the firebase of the other 2 knight units and the crusader. It was then that I remembered a bit of background fluff about a land raider going off on its own and fighting a guerrilla war against the enemy after all its crew had been killed and came up with a cunning plan – I could use the godhammer on my right flank to contest his objective if it could evade the carnifexes! Deciding it was time I put a bit of pressure on Thomas, I moved the crusader at full speed straight towards the gaunts and genestealers directly opposite it and parked it about 8” away from the gaunts in the front of the brood before the grand master and retinue scrambled out - if my plan went wrong then the ‘stealers would make short work of them but sometimes you have to hope. The remaining knights began pulling back towards my objective with the intention of at least be able to support the firebase if it gets assaulted. My shooting phase was pretty spectacular – the crusader opened fire at sort range at the gaunts and totally destroyed one of the broods, leaving the grand master, terminators and machine spirited assault cannon to open up on the ‘stealers and wiping them out as well. The 2 units of knights by my objective fired upon the few surviving gaunts from the original large units and killed them as well leaving the area of board around my objective clear of any gaunt troops (but still with 3 tyrants lurking around). I wasn’t sure whether to try to use the godhammers to kill the carnifex with only 1 wound remaining or to shoot at the carnifex nearest the Godhammer racing to his objective. In the end I used the centre Godhammer (which hadn’t moved) to shoot its heavy bolters and lascannons at the closest one to my objective-grabber and machine-spirit one of the lascannons at it from my moving godhammer. It was enough to bring down the big gribbly and keep the moving Godhammer from being assaulted the next turn.

Thomas began his turn by bringing on his last gaunt unit and scuttling genestealers. He rolled for the table edge that the ‘stealers would appear on and they were arriving on his left flank – the worst place possible to assault my objective defenders! After a brief pause he then moved one of the smaller gaunt broods onto his objective and placed his ‘stealers nearby – if he wasn’t going to be able to claim my objective there would be no way I would claim his! His shooting was more effective this time and I lost 2 terminators and several knights to the tyrants and his warriors (they had moved to the centre of the board and sat there taking pot shots for most of the game to prevent me from moving my knights toward his objectives). He then moved the carnifexes, with the injured one moving to block off my raider and the un-injured one following behind it. Two of his tyrants changed direction and started to move to the stationary godhammer. I think it was obvious that he knew my so-called cunning plan was to get the moving godhammer to contest his objective whilst keeping everything away from my own. I think he had decided to use the tyrants to destroy the stationary godhammer and prevent it from killing any more of the carnifexes because, if he could get a ‘fex to destroy the moving godhammer the worst the game could end for him would be a draw or, if he could get a tyrant by my objective, he could contest mine and then claim a win.

My turn 4 involved very little movement apart from getting the grand master and his retinue back on the crusader and reversing it slowly back towards my objective (thereby allowing me to fire all of its weapons at the nearest tyrant) and moving towards his objective, but to do this I had to pass 2 separate dangerous terrain rolls as I thought swinging in a hook direction would keep me out of reach from the closest carnifex assaulting next turn and place the difficult ground between them and the godhammer to hopefully slow it even more. My shooting involved the moving godhammer machine spiriting a lascannon at the canifex with one wound and failing to wound it while everything else opened up on the tyrants and warriors. Not as effective as previous rounds but the race was on to his objective and all that could stop me was the wounded carnifex – and that would need 6’s to hit and then an immobilising or destroying roll after penetrating. Feeling pretty happy about the general situation I handed over to Thomas and waited to see what he would do.
Thomas then took me totally by surprise when he reminded me about the variable game length and asked if I would care to roll to see if the game carried on. I had forgotten about this and looked at my secure objective and my godhammer that was almost close enough to contest his. As I rolled the dice I knew that, with my luck, the game would end now - just when I was so close to a win. With a sigh I looked down to the dice on the table and saw that the game had now finished. I was gutted and it must have shown because Thomas came around the table and patted me on the shoulder before shaking my hand. It had been a fantastic game and probably one of the best I’ve ever played! The result was a draw as we both had uncontested objectives so it would go down to victory points (although not used in this edition of 40k, the ETC still uses them to adjust the weighting of a win/draw/loss) but the difference in these was only 108pts resulting in a solid draw. Looking back I’m glad we drew against each other because Thomas was such a great player and the game was so enjoyable that it seems right that it ended this way.

Result: 10:10 Draw

*Lesson learnt: Background fluff can have a use on the battlefield!

Such an amazing game brother; had you just had one more turn you would have certainly earned a crushing victory! And think, the Grey Knights certainly proved their worth, contesting and holding more then their own against a champion army of Tyranids.

Those Land Raiders... Throne keep 'em, they're just so useful.

Another great report, I hope there are more.

I can tell you for sure that from here on in you'll remember the variable turn rule. I know I did after a similar situation. You still did quite a number on the 'Nids though considering it was the champion army. I salute you. Just like brother Rivan, how you can remember such detail about the battle blows me away. I noticed a number of your units were showing up later in the game. Were you aware that in a DoW scenario all units not on board at the start and not voluntarily declared to be in reserve come on in turn 1? A lot of people still think the off-board units come on as reserves, but it actually states they enter from the table edge on turn 1 following the rules for how reserves enter the table (ie. page 94, Arriving from reserve...). My apologies if you already new this but I'm figuring you didn't as GK's are hard-pressed already for numbers even when our entire army is on the board.

Were you aware that in a DoW scenario all units not on board at the start and not voluntarily declared to be in reserve come on in turn 1?

Ah crap - I didn't know that!! That will make a big difference in future because I don't like dawn of war set up as I hate coming on in dribs and drabs. Thanks for letting me know, I always appreciate help and guidance

I've also found some photos of the event that have been put up here. Petr (Team Russia) and his white scars army is in photo 10, and you can see me stooping over the table in the back (right hand side) of photo 12 (Round 5: I was playing the italian jetbike seer council army and clinging on for grim death in that game!)

Petrs whitescars and the board we played on can be seen in the middle of this photo (Petr & myself had gone for the smoke because our game was over so quickly!). The player in the green top on the left is one of my team mates (Tim) with his Nidzilla army. We organised 'home' and 'away' tops for the team and wore green ones on saturday and white on the sunday.

To help me remember what happened in the games I try to jot down the major occurence on the back of my army list during and after the game so in future I can see what I used, who I played and what happened. It does mean that I have to print a dozen army lists before I go to an event (1 for each opponent and 1 for my records) but its worth it! I'd recommend that to anyone as its great to look back over 'big ' games you played over the years and wallow in nostalgia!

Honestly Brother Khargor, you have such a great memory of the battle. Glad to see some of the pictures; pretty swanky armies

Thanx for the pics. Seemed like a pretty cool event with all those 'team' shirts. With so many countries did the language barrier ever get in the way or did most people speak English?

Finally managed to type up the 5th game and I'll try to get the final one done quickly as I'm at the welsh 3 feathers 40k tournament tomorrow and sunday (would you be interested in battle report & photos from that?).

With so many countries did the language barrier ever get in the way or did most people speak English?

The ETC has set its tournament language to english and the players were required to use UK editions of rulebooks and codex. Thankfully I never had a problem as the standard of english was remarkable - with the only exception being some of Team Italia who didn't speak english well and had bought their wives with them! My eldar opponent had the italian eldar codex and at one stage there was a comical debate as he tried to explain to his wife that he had wraith bone armour on his warlocks giving them the invunerable save, she then tried to convert that to english and tell me, for me to have to explain how psycannons remove invunerable saves. After getting her head around this she had to relay it back in italian to her husband. I was really impressed by her - especially when she explained that she doesn't even play the game! It must have been a long weekend for her as she sat reading her novel when she wasn't needed.

Round 5 VS Eldar (Team Italy)

“2 Eldar Seer Councils on jetbikes with the rest in falcons & wave serpents? Guys you realise I’m going to get my butt handed to me on a plate…”

This mission was to be ‘Seize Ground’ using the spearhead deployment against the very competitive Italian team. They had already been awarded a team yellow card and, for another incident, had also had points deducted from their team score. We (the N Ireland team) knew that we were going to be up against some really tough opposition who were seriously playing to win the event. Add to this mix the fact that most of our team, including myself, were mainly warhammer fantasy players that enjoyed an occasional game of 40k and we realised we were going to be in trouble!

Looking at the Italian teams army lists I knew there was nothing I fancied playing and in our 5 minute team brief before pairings we decided that we would sacrifice some of our less competitive armies against their most competitive ones to give our better armies more of a chance against any ‘weaker’ italian armies (not that there were many of these in their team!). I volunteered to take on the elder army to try to remove it from the selections and was placed against them.

His army had 2 units of seer council with both having a farseer and 6-7 warlocks in (sorry but its one of the army lists I didn’t bring back so I’m not a 100% sure of exact numbers), falcons and wave serpents carrying a guardian squad, a dire avenger squad and a squad of fire dragons.

We placed the objectives and rolled to see who would choose sides & deploy. I ended up deploying first and kept as much as I could screened by the terrain. He deployed and, after the customary handshake, the game began.

To be honest it was over so quickly that there isn’t much to say. The highlights included the grand master nullifying the majority of the elder psychic powers, the seer councils wrecking every unit they came across, the fire dragons jumping out and destroying raiders and lots of shruiken shots bringing down the knights. If the truth be told, I was out-matched and out-classed by an army that was razor sharp and being played by one of the best Italian players.

At the end of the game I had only managed to destroy a wave serpent, kill the fire dragons and one of the farseer and warlock jetbike units. In return I lost everything apart from the grand master and my psycannon-armed terminator and was left contesting one objective. To give you an idea of how fast it was, we were finished and watching our team mates by the time that they were finishing their 2nd turns.

After we had all finished playing the Italians we had a chance to discuss how we felt they were to play against, especially as they had had problems against their opponents in previous games. To be honest, none of us had any problems with them and found them to be very competitive but also friendly – it was only when another team reminded us that its easy to be nice when your taking an opponent apart that we wondered if we had gotten off lightly!

Result: 18:2 Lose

*Lesson learnt: Avoid playing elder armies in general, and seer council ones in particular!

I've heard about that list, although normally people complaining about the cheese factor
Must have been an awesome sight all those mounted Farseers and Warlocks though!

Tabled by Eldar? Been there, done that. My first time the execution was so swift I never even had time to get depressed.

>_< That is too bad Brother; better luck next time. It is a real shame you didn't get to curb-stomp them. At the very least you didn't have to deal with many pysker powers...

As they say, a picture paints a 1,000 words -here's a photo of my russian opponent when he found out that the Kroot had blocked his army from deploying



edit: having problems embedding the image in the post - can anyone show me how to do it?