Battle Report: Grey Knights + Deathwing vs Space Marines

So today got a game in with Vince so decided to take some pictures. Acotez + Deathwing against Lysander Marines. We rolled a random mission and got Relic with Vanguard deployment. Night Fight in effect Turn 1, Warlord trait useless for Vince, Move Through Cover within 12" of my Warlord. Lists are below.

Space Marines:

Lysander
10x Shootynators w/2x CML
2x Rifledreads
2x10x Tacticals w/meltagun, MM, combi-melta, Rhino w/Dozer
5x Scouts w/heavy bolter, snipers, cloaks
2x1x Speeder w/2x MM
2x Dakka Preds

Grey Knights & Deathwing:

Coteaz
2x8x Psykers, 1x Aco, Chimera w/searchlight
5x Acolytes w/bolters, Psyback w/searchlight, Dozerblade
3x6x Acolytes w/bolters, Psyback w/searchlight, Dozerblade
3x Psyfledreads
Belial
2x5x Deathwing Termies w/CML, 1 Apoth

Deployment

Relic mission is really just a cute name for 40k dog-pile which is anything but not cinematic! Vince won roll-off and elected to go first for the opportunity to get First Blood in case neither of us controls the Relic (quite likely). He then deploys his double Tacticals directly across from the Relic with the Terminators nearby to support them. The goal here is to dump said Tacticals in midfield and have one squad scoot away with the Relic - Terminators provide a screen. The Preds & Dreads were off to the sides to limit my ability to hide behind the central terrain piece.

My deployment plan is likewise similar though I'm looking to ferry in my Deathwing units and due to my weaker Troops elsewhere. I use my RBack hulls to protect the Deathwing models and the Chimeras - trying to show as much AV12 as possible despite the far flung Preds & Dreads. My Psykers can really ruin the day of the Tacticals + Terminators so I want to keep them safe. My Dreads bookend my army so they can move into midfield, pressure side armor of Preds & shoot around central terrain piece. I fail to seize and thus lose the opportunity to Relic sit.

Space Marine Turn 1

Vince's first turn is all about getting his Tacticals into position and protecting those Rhinos - so both Rhinos move up behind the central piece of terrain. One combat squad with an MM jumps out however to try a snap shot at a Razorback which fails (the Rhino then flat outs in the movement phase to protect said squad). One Speeder follows the Rhinos to try its luck with double MMs whilst the 2nd speeder jumps behind the building on the left to protect itself. The Terminators move up keeping themselves in the gap between the central terrain piece and building on the left to shoot at the Grey Knights. Both Preds & Dreads spread out to get better firing lanes.

Shooting sees the right most Razorback lose a hull point and the left most Dread (who also loses an arm). The left most Razorback is wrecked after Night Fight cover saves failed to stop the damage. The Acolytes inside are pinned and Space Marines get First Blood.

1-0 to SM

Grey Knight Turn 1

Night Fight stopped a lot of shooting there which was nice but it will likely stop a lot of my shooting back. I'm very aware of the anti-infantry firepower the Space Marines have and want to ensure my Terminators can get to the middle of the board and still be strong enough to smack his Terminators & Lysander around. With this in mind I move two of my Razorbacks up on the far left to cover shooting from that entire side and move the Deathwing up behind them. The hull point damaged Razorback on the right moves up as well with the Deathwing walking behind it. The Dreads spread out and both Chimeras reverse a little bit to clear shooting angles.

Everything opens up with my Razorbacks opting to snap-fire due to twin-linked. I manage to take down the right most Rhino to one hull point and shake it and drop the midfield Speeder. Both my psychic blasts failed to go off unfortunately. I also shot my Terminators when I really should have run them and then determined what to do with my Razorbacks (i.e. flat-out to protect them?).

1-0 to SM

Space Marine Turn 2

The push to the Relic continues with the Tacticals & Rhinos moving up onto the central piece of terrain - the Rhinos in a V position to allow Tacticals to still shoot out. The right Rhino is now empty with the melta/combi squad jumping out whilst the left Rhino has the MM/mgun still inside and the Sarge + four plebs outside on the Relic (Relic held by Sarge). The Terminators move up but not too far to make sure the Deathwing isn't going to smack them next turn.

Remaining Speeder zips in to a position where it can melta many a target whilst the fire support elements wiggle for best shooting. All the melta then opens up on the leading Razorbacks but it takes them all to drop just one. But that's enough for shooting to now converage on the left-most Deathwing squad with Belial & the Apoth. Mass shooting ends up killing three whilst the Tac MM on foot drops the right most RBack containing Coteaz & co - half the Acolytes inside die.

I feel the Terminators should have been moved up more. Yes, Belial & co might have gotten to them but it means they weren't munching on Tacticals. And if they munched on Tacticals, the Terminators were at full liberty to mess around with my entire army. Push the threats to the fore - keep the Troops safe.

4-0 to SM.

Grey Knight Turn 2

The Tacticals on the Relic need to die - or they are going to move off with it and there's not much I can do about that. This means dropping the right most Rhino and pouring as much firepower as I can into those measly guys. My two large blasts should be useful here... Both Deathwing squads move up and Coteaz being silly tries to join them. Except he's not allowed. Woops! The remaining RBack moves in front of the enemy Terminators to minimise their return charge/shooting potential. The Acolytes jump out before this and setup in the crater of another RBack to provide more bolter firepower. The Dreads start to move forward from their firing positions and the back most Chimera immobilises itself.

To begin shooting we start with the Psyker blasts. Both go off but one misses towards my guys but only nicks the RBack who passes his cover save. The other blast is on target and drops four Marines + the damaged Rhino. This allows the rest of my shooting to come to play from that side of the board. But first, the undamaged Psyfledread drops the other Rhino on the PC-CDROM hill which forces the Tacticals out in front of my lines. Extra shooting sees one Tactical completely destroyed, the other reduced to two men and four men but the Space Marine vehicles are untouched.

The damaged Psyfledread therefore throws himself at it in combat and drops it whilst the Deathwing kill three of the newly disembarked Marines who escape (we forgot Stubborn!) leaving Vince with eight Tacticals left in total.

1-0 to SM.

Space Marine Turn 3

The fleeing Tacticals rally and move back towards the damaged Dreadnought with a meltagun left. The other Tacticals all move up onto the hill to layer against the one guy who picks up the Relic and passes it to Lysander as he joins the squad and moves into Base to Base contact with him. The Terminators again edged forward but didn't really press up leaving the Tacticals at the forefront of the fight.

Shooting does very little, dropping the Razorback in front of the Terminators and one Deathwing from the right most squad. Coteaz luckily gets away with being all alone. The rallied Tacticals fail to drop the Dread with their meltagun so decide to assault and get hit by two Overwatched autocannons! Luckily the Cinematics held and they passed both their saves only to fail to damage the Dreadnought, lose a guy to a chest bump and then flee. The Dreadnought consolidates behind the building on the left.

4-0 to SM.

Grey Knight Turn 3

Tacticals are exposed - must kill. Both Deathwing squads move up to the central terrain piece, Belial's squad on top to get at the Relic & Lysander, the other squad down below to get the Tactical squad not on the hill. Dreadnoughts continue moving forward and now would have been a good time to bring in all my Psykers + Acolytes as well to try and flood the Relic with bodies. I didn't however as I was still very much aware of the Terminator squad. Too cagey.

Shooting sees all but the fleeing Tactical and the Tacticals not on the hill removed and I get some lucky damage rolls against Lysander to drop him to two wounds. One Terminator also dies from a scattering Psyker blast (only one went off - this was the last one to go off all game). Both Deathwing squads assault with the Tacticals on the ground being wiped out (leaving the one fleeing meltagunner) - they consolidate away from the Terminators. The other squad reaches Lysander and Vince forgets to challenge (we had talked about challenges moments before so I thought he was aware of them). Lysander kills the extra two Deathwing Terminators but all combined they drop Lysander's final two wounds. Belial consolidates onto Relic (we rolled the challenge to see what would have happened and Belial lived, Lysander lost a wound and then failed his Leadership...so similar result thankfully).

1-1 draw (claimed Warlord secondary).

Space Marine Turn 4

Terminators move up to exact revenger on Lysander and the meltagunner Tactical hides as best he can. The Dreads and Preds position for best shooting and throw everything at Coteaz who manages to save all of his instant death wounds but takes two normal wounds from Heavy Bolters and is thus left with one wound. The Terminators drop Belial handily but lose two guys to do so.

1-1 Draw.

Grey Knight Turn 4

Coteaz moves back down and joins an Acolyte squad for ablative wounds. The remaining Deathwing squad moves around to engage the Terminators whilst trying to avoid needing to go through terrain. Dreadnoughts keep moving up looking to help the Terminators out. Acolytes re-position for better shooting and once again, I don't get Psykers out so they are just sitting pretty in the back.

Shooting sees several (aka 3) Terminators dropped as all my firepower goes into them with an assault follow-up by Deathwing and a Dreadnought. The Dreadnought takes a hull point of damage and one Deathwing dies (plus one from Overwatch, doh!) but two Terminators die (leaving three remaining) for a drawn combat. I pile-in one of my Terminators so the lone meltagunner cannot move to claim it.

1-1 Draw.

Space Marine Turn 5

Little the Space Marines can do at this point other than try to kill Grey Knight Warlord (Coteaz). Scouts have been doing the same as Psykers and just sitting in the back all game long so aren't really in a position to do anything to swing the game unfortunately. Dreads + Preds again position to drop Coteaz who loses all his Acolyte buddies (after they go to ground) but still manages to shrug off all the firepower directed at him. Insane.

In combat one Terminator from both sides falls over so combat continues on its merry way.

1-1 Draw.

Grey Knight Turn 5

I attempt to move my mobile Chimera to a position where it can flat out in front of Coteaz but it immobilises itself, leaving Coteaz out in the open to get trashed unfortunately. Dread on the right moves behind Space Marine Dread on the right for some rear shot action whilst the Acolytes there move up onto the hill in case they can take the Relic or move into the Space Marine DZ. The other Acolytes shuffle sideways to shoot through the gaps at the lone meltagunner Marine and the Psykers finally jump out of their rides and start moving though far too late.

Shooting sees the lone meltagunner die from the bolters and the right most Dreadnought. Combat continues where we both fluff and smile happily at each other.

1-1 Draw.

Space Marine Turn 6

Game goes on for a Turn 6. Fire support units against position to shoot down Coteaz as well as the Acolytes on the hill which could capture the Relic. The Acolytes die in a hail of fire but Coteaz just stands there and laughs, passing all his saves (insane man). Combat sees one Terminator die but doesn't flee. Scouts cannot take the final hull point off the damaged Dreadnought's rear.

1-1 Draw.

Grey Knight Turn 6

Coteaz hides on the right of the central terrain piece where he cannot be seen. Psykers continue moving but too slowly whilst Dread on the right moves into side arc of the Pred to shoot and assault follow-up if necessary. The damaged Dreadnought moves up to assault the Scouts and the rest of the Acolytes move forward as fast as possible to the centre of the board for the Relic/enemy DZ.

Shooting sees the right Pred dead and nothing else - most things are running forward at this point. The damaged Dread assaults the Scouts and kills one but they stay and do no damage in return. Pillow-fisted combat in the centre also does no damage and the game ends on a 1-1 Draw.

Conclusion

An interesting game and what we will commonly see with the Relic - secondaries decide the game as everyone just ends up dog-piled on the damn Relic. Still not sure about the Acolyte based list for 6th - once again the extra Troops were doing the hefty lifting though the Acolytes got a lot of bolter firepower thrown in this game, any time they were looked at funny they died. And the Psykers passing a whole three tests the entire game made them a useless paperweight. In terms of mission design extra secondaries, objectives, etc. would have made this more interesting. To the actual game :P.

The Dreads and Scouts for Vince never moved in - I'll take blame for that as we were trying to make this a learning game to bring Vince up to speed but by leaving them in the backfield they never contributed in the melee around the Relic. An extra unit or two could have swung favor in any direction. Same with my Psykers though each time I tried to advance, I immobilised the Chimeras, the Psykers still should have gotten out and started moving forward. In the end I had few Troops near the Relic and this is part of the list design I feel. I was too afraid of their fragility to commit them.

Both of us played a bit too cagely as well - I think Vince should have been more aggressive with the Terminators and moved them around the Tacticals to stop my from assaulting them and allowing them to move backwards with the Relic. Yes they'd have died facing all that shooting and Deathwing in combat but it would have allowed the army to hold onto the Relic and kept me pinned down for a while. I think Vince was afraid of what the Deathwing + Psykers could do and I was relying on the Psykers to do more - but as we saw they are unreliable (though I must say, this is the worst I've seen them in 6th so far. Newbs).

Also interesting to note despite the Internet crying foul on vehicle durability...there were four Dreadnoughts, a Predator and two Chimeras left at the end of the game. Despite some 12 autocannons (+ psybolts), 11 heavy bolters (+ psybolts), 8 missiles, two S10 AP1 blasts, two multi-lasers and a lot of PFists + Kraks in combat. It's really the same as before - the mobile stuff dies because it's generally high on the opponent's priority and does so much but the fire support stuff unless it gets in the way generally doesn't. Again, killing vehicles is just more reliable - no more "damnit I got three pens but got three shakens!"

Anyway, GG Vincey and still need to work out what to do with my GK... And Vince needs Allies :P.