Jump to content

Tournament Report: GKs (almost) Win Con of the North RTT


number6

Recommended Posts

In my first RTT -- and only the 2nd non-free-or-cheap, non local-store-sponsored tournament I have yet entered (Adepticon 2008 being my first ever of this sort) -- I went 3-0, took 2nd place overall (missed 1st by just 2 points!), and won Best Sportsman. The list I took was:

 

BC, psycannon, unguents of warding

- 4 GKT retinue: 1x psycannon, 1x TH/SS

8 PAGKs, frags, targeter, unguents of warding

7 PAGKs, incinerator, frags, unguents of warding

7 PAGKs, incinerator, frags, unguents of warding

Land Raider, smoke

Land Raider, extra armour, smoke

(1500 pts on the nose)

 

I put unguents everywhere under the theory that psyker powers -- especially Lash of Submission -- would be common. As it turns out, I needn't have worried. Read on for the skinny, if you dare!

 

 

Saturday Night Warmup

 

I got there Saturday night and played a warmup game a Space Marines player who had a DIY Ultramarines knock-off.

 

Cassius

2x 10 Scouts with BP/CCW

5 Scouts: sniper rifles (missile launcher?)

2x 10 Assault Marines: power fist

Land Raider, multi-melta, hunter-killer missile

Land Raider Crusader, multi-melta, hunter-killer missile

Vindicator

 

We rolled Seize Ground (4 objectives)/Pitched Battle on a table with a good amount of jungle scattered everywhere and a large Imperial landing pad off-center as the only sight-blocking terrain. He won the roll-off and forced me to deploy first, but stole the initiative to take the first turn. The landing pad kept him from getting good looks with anything, and his shooting was therefore largely ineffective. I sent one Raider and GKTs slowly around the right, luring his Crusader and trailing assault marinees over toward them. After he swallowed, I charged my left raider full tilt into the center of everything, disgorged GKs, and ate his assault marines. I turned the other raider around and barrled it back around the left side full speed, in the wake of the first raider. He pounced on my exposed GKs with his other assault marines and shots from the Crusader and Vindicator, wiping them out. I then rammed his Vindicator with the leading Raider, removing the demolisher cannon. The trailing raider then took its spot, disgorged GKs, and slaughtered the other assault marines in a virtual repeat of the earlier scrap.

 

Meanwhile machine spirit shots had immobilized and blown most of the weapons off his normal Raider, my footslogging PAGKs were holding an objective free and clear, never challenged, never called into action, and it was clear they were going to sit tight and keep it to the end. The GKTs danced around the landing pad in the early part of the game, safe from everything, but then made a run toward an objective in the same direction they had traveled at the beginning of the game. I sent the victorious GKs onto the landing pad to claim a 2nd objective, ran one raider to contest the one held by some scouts, and the other raider and GKTs contested the 4th objective. He was able to kill 4 of the GKTs and damage the other raider with the Crusader, but it was too late. GKs win 2-0 in the 6th turn.

 

 

Sunday: Game 1

 

I'm assigned to the same table upon which I played the previous night's warmup game against Imperial Guard. This is what I recall of his list.

 

Command Officer in a squad, including a Commissar

Armoured Fist unit with lascannon

Armoured Fist unit with autocannons

Ogryns in a Chimera

2 Sentinels: autocannon, lascannon

3 Sentinels: autocannon, lascannon & HK missile, ???

Hellhound

Leman Russ

 

The game was Sieze Ground (3 objectives)/Spearhead with a secondary objective of killing the opponent's HQ. He won the roll-off and forced me to deploy first. I deployed most of the army out of sight behind the landing pad -- my footslogging PAGKs just had to walk 4"-5" to claim an objective but would otherwise be entirely safe from enemy fire -- but with one raider and GKTs on the right flank. His autocannon team took root in some jungle with clear line of fire to two objectives, the lascannon team parked on an objective with decent sightlines to that half of the board. He screened them with the sentinels, had the leman russ and ogryns behind them centrally, and the hellhound and a chimera (carrying troops?) were on his right/my left behind the autocannon team ready to go wherever. His HQ and a Chimera were deployed deep into his deployment quarter.

 

Just like Saturday night's warmup, my opponent siezed the initiative and took first turn. In the early going he approached with his sentinels and took shots at my exposed raider with them and the lascannon while the GKTs too fire from the autocannons, Chimeras, leman russ, and anything else that he could bring to bear. AV 14, the shrouding, and terminator armour all conspired to keep damage minimal. I moved the hidden raider into the open on my left flank (far side of the landing pad), giving it shots to the side armour of the Russ, where for the rest of the game it did nothing but stun or shake the tank despite multiple penetrating hits (typically two per turn). The other raider and psycannons from the GKTs slowly dismantled the sentinel units, though I had an uncanny ability to roll 1s and 2s for damage, so one sentinel from the 3-model unit survived all the way into turn 4.

 

Thus distracted, he was able to bring swing his Ogryns around toward the GKTs, where they unloaded and opened fire to no effect. I disgorged GKs from the nearby raider and chomped them, though it took three assault phases and I lost four GKs during the process. The GKTs also started dying to freakishly poor armour save rolls, though 2 survived all the way to the end. His hellhound was never in a position to fire on anything it could hurt until, in the 5th turn, I finally exposed my footslogging PAGKs to claim their nearby objective. They took a few casualties, but by then my leftmost raider had gotten pretty close so I loosed the GKs from inside. They assaulted the tank and blew it up. They then proceeded to eat the autocannon unit after suffering heavy casualties from it in the ensuing shooting phase. On turn 5 I finally managed to blow apart the Russ, the GKTs contested a central objective otherwise claimed by whatever was inside the Chimera there, and my other raider was contesting the objective held by the lascannon team. On turn 6, it was 1-0, Grey Knights, but no secondary objectives for either side, though I did earn another one of the secondary bonus points.

 

 

Game 2

 

I'm assigned to an ice table with large pumping stations connected by raised pipes zigzagging roughly across the center of the table and a few scattered forested hills. My opponent is the B&C's own Inquisitor Rex, who as it turns out used to live where I do played regularly at the game store I regularly frequent. He was very cool and had an amazing, mostly Forgeworld, gorgeously painted and detailed IG army themed to be Elysian Drop Troops. To the best of my remembrance, it was:

 

Command Squad

Malleus Inquisitor w/2 mystics in a Land Raider

Drop platoon (Troops), 3 squads

Heavy weapons platoon (Troops, 2 squads), autocannons

Drop unit of two squads, demo charges

Infiltrating/outflanking unit (not sure what weapons were)

Sniper team

Squad with 3 missile launchers

Leman Russ

 

The game was Capture and Control/Pitched Battle with a secondary objective of getting more of your units into your opponent's deployment zone than he does to you. He won the roll-off and forced me to deploy first. I deployed into one corner, footslogging PAGKs holdng my objective on a forested hill and flanked by both raiders and GKTs. His objective went behind a pumping station and claimed by one of the squads of his autocannon platoon, backed by those autocannons, land raider on his left flank, leman russ, snipers, and missile launchers on his right flank. Everything else went into reserve.

 

Then, for the 3rd time in a row, my opponent successfully siezed the initiative! In the first two turns, I failed 4 out of 7 armour saves on my GKTs and was left with just one guy with a stormbolter as a result, though my land raider managed to shrug off most of the shooting directed at by his land raider. I had just started to advance my raiders -- earning an immobilized result on his leman russ -- and GKT(s) forward when he dropped the 3 squad platoon directly around my objective and PAGKs sitting there. He inflicted several casualties, but then I chomped them easily with shooting and a clean up assault from one of my raiders and their GK cargo, as well as the objective-holding GKs. His other drop troops came on in front of my objective and nearly wiped out a unit of GKs with the demo charge. I elected to Go To Ground with them but it didn't help. The remaining GKT and footslogger GKs and shots from the land raiders took care of them. His infiltrators came in on the wrong table edge and were useless. I lost the final GKT, the savaged GK unit, and several other GKs in the ensuing turns from all the shooting he could bring to bear. He also exploded one of my raiders with lascannon fire from his raider. However, I was able to screen the surviving GKs with a pumping stating and the remaining Raider and approach his objective pretty free and clear from shots. I tank shocked the platoon squad on the objective, they failed their morale check and ran off the table. Though there were a few turns left -- we went all the way to turn 7 -- he couldn't kill the raider or completely finish off the GKs and I slaughtered the last of his Troops units. GKs win 1-0 and claim the secondary objective as well with both the raider and remnants of a GK unit in his deployment zone.

 

 

Game 3

 

I'm assigned to the top table, where a crash-landed, wrecked Dark Angels Thunderhawk is the centerpice terrain unit! It's absolutely stunning and has to be most expensive piece of terrain ever, supposedly donated to the Con after GW pulled the GT out of Minneapolis several years ago. Otherwise there's not much there other than little boulders and swamps, so hardly anything to block line of sight ... though that Thunderhawk, angled in one of the table quarters, was a real monster.

 

My opponent was, unsurprisingly, Orks. To the best of my remembrance:

 

Warboss, nob/painboy retinue, all in a battlewagon with deff rolla and zzap gun

Big Mek with shokk attack gun

10 Slugga Boyz

30 Shoota Boyz

12 Boyz in Trukk

12 Boyz in Trukk

10 (?) Grots

Storm Boyz

Biker Boyz

I think one more unit of something, can't remember what...

 

The game was Sieze Ground (3 objectives)/Dawn of War. The secondary objective was to claim one of the objectives that you have secretly chosen to be worth double for you if you kept it. My opponent was a very fun guy who used cookies that he'd frosted with the Bad Moons symbol as his objectives, giving them to his opponents after the game. He won the roll-off and deployed the small Boyz unit as far forward as he could -- within reach of an objective -- and the Big Mek and grots on an objective closer to his table edge. The final objective was tucked behind the Thunderhawk and I wrote it off immediately as unreachable and likely the one he chose to be worth double for him. It was all going to be about the one in my half of the table near his small Boyz unit -- which I had selected as my double value objective -- and the one claimed by his grots opposite that by about 28". I deployed only my footslogger PAGKs, backed by the GKTs, into the far left corner about 20" away from the near objective and behind the only cover -- a smallish forest -- on my half of the table.

 

I tried but of course failed to sieze the initiative. :P His Boyz walked onto the objective and hunkered down in the light cover of the crash trench it was situated in. One truck caromed around the far side of the Thunderhawk and the other Trukk raced forward to back up the Boyz on the objective. His battlewagon lumbered on the left table edge, driving straight for my deployed GKs. The bikes were between the battlewagon and Trukk, the stormboyz held tight behind the thunderhawk. He either failed night fighting or failed to hit/wound so I was full strength going into my first turn. I maneuvered my deployed units over toward the objective and though the GKs failed to spot the 12" distance the GKTs didn't and put hurt on the Boyz. Combined with machine spirit shots from a land raider, only 3 Boyz were left though they stayed put. The raiders blew up the central Trukk and stunned the other Trukk. I had deployed the GKs down the front hatch of both raiders in case Boyz were exposed, and they slaughtered most of the boyz from the wreckage of the destroyed trukk, forcing them to fall back and off the table.

 

In the ensuing turns he charged the battlewagon down the side and dropped the warboss and nobs right on top of my PAGKs. Though I rolled really well for once, they were easily chomped and he only lost one nob, though several wounds were scattered around the unit afterward. I shot up the bikes and forced them to flee the table. I immobilized the battlewagon with shots through its side armour and blew up the remaining Trukk and took a few Boyz down with stormbolter fire as well. While the nobs were victorious in the forest I pumped fire from the GKTs, a land raider, and a GK unit now sitting on the cleared objective into them, peppering them with regular wounds and the occasional loss of a nob through that kind of attrition. The other GK unit embarked on the other raider and I moved that slowly forward into his territory, just passing the thunderhawk and putting a few wounds into the shoota boyz. He jumped his storm boyz toward my objective, but I shot them down. I put my GKT unit -- still at full strength -- between his nobs and my objective and dared hm to assault them through cover as I continued to put wounds and the occasional casualty into them. He never did pluck up the courage to do anything else with them. The GKs holding my objective were taking casualties from shoota boyz and the big mek but still managed to have two models left at game's end on turn 5, so I kept it. On the bottom of turn 5, his shoota boyz and grots were still holding one of his objectives and the boyz from one of the destroyed trukks were holding the Thunderhawk objective. I charged both land raiders forward, dumped GKs out, inflicted a crapload of wounds with the incinerator and stormbolters, engaged both the grots and stormboyz, inflicted 4 wounds onto the grots and 7 into the shoota boyz during the assault and took no wounds in return (I arranged the charge such that only about half of his shoota boyz could get engaged; land raiders is big!). He needed snake eyes to keep the units on the table, failed, and the GKs ran them down, end of game. Victory for the GKs, 3-2.

 

 

Wrap-up

 

Inquisitor Rex, my round 2 opponent, took 1st place (best overall) even though I beat him because of the absolutely stunning appearance of his army. He took all 20 pts for army appearance -- the only player at the Con to do so -- which is more than can be earned by winning any single game. He also maxed out his other categories and managed to win his other games (2-1 record) and edged me out by 2 points because of my average paint score. (I only earned 12 out of 20, mostly because my bases are pathetic.)

 

This was a really fun Con, and the tables were genuinely excellent, and sometkimes spectacular. A truly excellent mix of terrain and themes, many of the tables had a story to tell (e.g., the Thunderhawk table, a Titan manufacturing facility). I was surprised at the mix of armies. About 40% marines, 25% Orks, and a mix for the remainder, though a number of armies weren't present at all. No Tau, no Tyranids, no Dark Eldar, no Witch Hunters (not even allied).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

WOW MAN! Really nice bat rep. It was a great read man. Not over detailed and not under detailed. Just enough information to give the reader a clear picture without wasting to much time. Ill be honest man I have read alot of bat reps that at the 3rd turn of the second round im tierd of reading. And I come back later or the next day to finish it. You really held my attention the hole way through and I was never confused about the strategic situation. Big props on the report man. Now as far as your proformance? Even bigger props man. I play Blood Angels and I have been intrested in a Grey Knights Army for a wile now. I recently picked up a bunch of models to paint up, but when I try to work out a list I always feel it is lacking something. But after reading this I see that a Grey Knights list played rite can be victorious. I was truely horrified by the small numbers I came up with in my list(34). And here you did great with only 29. Outstanding man. Good Job. Oh and if you can post some pics of your army that would be nice. Not for nothing 12 in painting is a great score.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Everyone: You are too kind. :) I was nervous going into the tournament, as competitive play isn't really my cup of tea. But I had a really fun time, all four of my opponents and everyone else I met were champs so ... I may have to try these things more often. It was nice to prove to myself that the Grey Knights really are the Emperor's Finest. :)

 

I think what I enjoyed most at the Con was having literally dozens of people come over to see my army, chat me up, and even take a few seconds out of their games to see how I was playing. To a person, none of them thought that a DH army had much of a chance though it was "a very cool army". By the 5th turn of my final game against the Orks, there were actually a few people standing around to witness the end of it. Very gratifying experience.

 

As for pics, I don't have any of the Con, but supposedly the organizers there will be posting pics they took "soon". When they have them, I'll link to them in here.

 

Regarding pics of my army ... I've been reluctant to post because I consider myself only an average painter. I do get regularly complimented on my models, but I am being completely honest when I say that my basing is "pathetic". Frankly, I have very little interest in basing -- am not terribly artistically creative, to be brutally honest -- so I just do a basic flock on them so they look good on a gaming table. I didn't deserve any more than 12 out of 20 for paint, and was glad to get that much. Inquisitor Rex's army really was spectacular. He earned that 1st place finish.

 

EDIT: I have posted pics of my army here for the truly curious.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now that's a battle report. Warmup and first two games you have to deploy first and get the initiative siezed from you (which from Grey Knights, i would normally highly doubt) but you still managed to come out top gamer. Peace through superior Firepower my friend!
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow, number6, just wow.

 

First of all, congratulations on some very well fought battles, and some great batreps. These are all the more valuable for the highly competative metagame you were in. It is really great to see Grey Knights do well at a tournament, especially when they are piloted by someone from this board.

 

Second of all, good grief man! You need to work on those bases! How frustrating for Grey Knight players everywhere, living their tournament experience vicariously through you, to win every game and not take home top prize. On second thought, I smell a rat. Clearly, as a minority army we are being unfairly discrimintated against. Lets sue the tournament organisers! :ermm:

 

Again, great work.

 

-Silent Requiem

 

PS. I shall clearly have to add this to my list of tactica links. Water Warriors everywhere will take heart, and also want to study your tactics in more detail.

 

PPS. If you had to could anything about your list or playstyle for this tournament, what would it be?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Second of all, good grief man! You need to work on those bases! How frustrating for Grey Knight players everywhere, living their tournament experience vicariously through you, to win every game and not take home top prize. On second thought, I smell a rat. Clearly, as a minority army we are being unfairly discrimintated against. Lets sue the tournament organisers! :P

Heh. Inq Rex and I met in the morning before we started playing, and between all of the games we found each other, sat around and chatted. After the final game ended (mine, as it turned out), during the waiting period while the judges tabulated, he and I were swapping stories and I said that if I didn't win, I was gonna yell, "Shenanigans!". He was genuinely shocked when they announced his name. When he came back I congratulated him, and he said, "Man, you beat me! Shenanigans!" :huh:

 

[shrug] I didn't care. I just wanted to effectively compete in a tough environment. The Best Sportsman trophy means more to me than taking 1st place.

I'm entirely satisfied. B)

PPS. If you had to could anything about your list or playstyle for this tournament, what would it be?

It's funny you should ask that. It was a college buddy of mine that strong-armed me into accompanying him to the Con and on the drive back home he asked me exactly that question. Honestly ... I don't think there's a single thing I would change. The army I put together gave me lots of confidence. I felt equally capable of playing defensively or offensively, of shooting down enemies or getting up in their grill. I felt I had resilience and even a bit of speed. It was a jack-of-all-trades force capable of doing anything I might ask of it.

 

Primarily, I wanted an army that would allow me to dictate the positioning of the enemy. I felt that, in a tourney environment, the key to winning was not so much in analyzing shooting or assaulting (i.e., when to do so in which game situations against which Elemental enemies), but in controlling the board space. If, wherever I maneuvered, the enemy felt pressured, I felt confident in my ability to ratchet that pressure up as the turns advanced. If I did that properly, the choice to shoot and/or assault (or even to do neither) should be a simple matter of patently obvious follow-through, no thought at all required. Move appropriately, and everything should flow naturally from that.

 

If I could mobilize in ways that continued to narrow my enemy's "safe" mobility/positioning choices, the odds would continue to swing my way; I would be increasingly favored to win. I actually had some pretty miserable strings of dice luck -- especially in game 2 against Inq Rex (I didn't mention everything that went poorly in my batreps, even that one) -- but I tried to mitigate that by always being the one to dictate where my enemy felt safe. Knowing that, I could work to limit their options one turn at a time until, by the time turns 5+ rolled around, victory was all but assured.

 

My warmup game against Marines is emblematic of what I was aiming to achieve. If the marine player didn't accept the bait I threw him on my right flank, I would have bottled him up. The game would have played out very differently from that point, but I still would have been the one dictating the game. However, I ensured that the positioning of my own units were still mutually supporting, so that if he did accept the bait -- as actually happened -- he opened himself up to receiving a massive thrust into the heart of his army that was designed to eliminate the basis of his strength (namely, his assault marines). Once I had removed the teeth from his army, it was a simple matter of letting the clock wind down and hand me the victory. I never even had to use my GKTs or my footslogging PAGKs in that battle.

 

All of my games worked out similarly in that I controlled where the enemy felt safe in attacking, pressuring, or countering me. In almost every case I simply slipped away from that response and pushed even harder at another point of the battlefield, always with the aim of narrowing the amount of safe board space available to them. In the game against Inq Rex, I patiently waited for him to expend his surprise elements (the drop troops and infiltrators) before using just one land raider and about 4 GKs to tie up the entire rest of his army around his own objective, keeping them occupied and away from my own objective, the one I had designated as my game-winner. He may have inflicted the most casualties -- even more than the Orks did, surprisingly -- and really stretched my ability to remain patient and not panic, but in the end I was still the one dictating where he was willing to fight me.

 

Blah blah blah. :lol: I hope this long-winded response answers your question.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

congrats! Its nice to see daemonhunters get some credit. The breakdown of players seems very marine centered, I must say, how many people were there overall?

 

Finally, how does the experience rate to adepticon you mentioned in 2008... I have been trying to plan a trip to adepticon at some point, but my schedule is rather unflexible from now till july, so cons such as this may be a better solution, as 1 day of gaming is easier to manage than 3+!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

congrats! Its nice to see daemonhunters get some credit. The breakdown of players seems very marine centered, I must say, how many people were there overall?

At least 30, I think as many as 36.

Finally, how does the experience rate to adepticon you mentioned in 2008... I have been trying to plan a trip to adepticon at some point, but my schedule is rather unflexible from now till july, so cons such as this may be a better solution, as 1 day of gaming is easier to manage than 3+!

I'm returning to Adepticon this year because the 40K Team Tourney was just about the most fun gaming I have ever had. (In fact, I'm even playing in the fantasy team tourney on the following day!) Bringing my (new) Tau army this time, though, so don't expect any batreps from it here. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am sooooooo with you on the whole basing thing number6. My bases always looked like hammered crap from a kindergardener, flock always falling off - etc, etc, etc. I ended up getting my hands on a FW Dreadnought base and got a crazy idea to mount my Grand Master on it. Then I started to notice some things: hmmm...actual vertical textures on the bases...easy to work with, just paint...no flock (YEAH!). I began to think - what if I got all my models on resin bases? The search was on like donkey kong.

 

I finally came across these guys on the web: http://www.back2base-ix.com/index.php

 

I HIGHLY recomend them! I have ordered a total of ~70-80 bases from them on 2 different occasions. Even though they are in Australia, I have gotten my shipments with no errors in 10 days or less.

 

Currently using the "Slate" line for all GKs, the "Ruins" line for Sisters, and "Dirt" line for Stormtroopers.

 

The price is right (~$5-8 USD for five 40mm or ten 25mm bases) and they have a great selection of styles. You could probably base your entire army for the price of one box of GKTs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was at Con of the North running Dark Heresy, and I took a moment to wander through the gaming area during a break between sessions.

 

I happened to see number6's army, and it is definitely attention-getting! GK's being a favorite army of mine, I made sure to stop by and compliment him on how they looked.

 

Awesome-looking army, number6, and congrats on your performance! I wish I could have stayed to see more of your battles. :lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

PICTURES!

Be sure to click around to see the terrain on those tables. I thought it was superb.

 

Here's my army on display.

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w286/Terrain-Specialties/Con%20of%20the%20North%20Pictures/l2009%20COTN/40K%20RTT/RTT%20Armies%20and%20Game%20Pics/DSC05472.jpg

 

Closeup of the GKTs.

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w286/Terrain-Specialties/Con%20of%20the%20North%20Pictures/l2009%20COTN/40K%20RTT/RTT%20Armies%20and%20Game%20Pics/DSC05473.jpg

 

And a wonderful picture of me holding my trophy plaque.

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w286/Terrain-Specialties/Con%20of%20the%20North%20Pictures/l2009%20COTN/40K%20RTT/RTT%202009%20Champions/Dsc05578.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.