1750 point battle against Grey Knights - another attempt at Storm Troopers

So, back in January, I arranged for a 1,750 point game against ClauseIV1918's Grey Knights. I decided I wanted to keep trying Deep Striking Storm Troopers, so I used the same list I had earlier in the month with a couple of extra units to round it out. Meanwhile, ClauseIV1918 was trying out Cypher to see how he worked.

Knowing that a lot of Deep Striking would likely be coming my way, I spread out a large number of conscripts on the right flank, while I sent the main infantry platoon up the centre to capture the Relic. As my opponent had no fliers at all, the Hellhound ruthlessly used the Hydra as mobile cover.

Here you can see the Relic hidden away on the first floor of the ruin, with a servo skull floating ominously, stopping me from sneaking any infiltrators up onto the objective itself. And what's that behind the building?

Ah, Cypher has cheerfully persuaded a unit of Grey Knight Terminators that clearly he's a senior Inquisitor, and perhaps they'd like to infiltrate onto the battlefield with him?

Meanwhile, my Ratlings decided that being Very Far Away was an excellent idea, with a nice view of plenty of heavily armoured targets to put holes in.

A Grey Knight Techmarine with an orbital strike relay hid in a building with some unit or other - which I never really saw much of apart from hideously inaccurate pie plates missing me for most of the game...

Battle commenced and the Terminators rushed forward to grab the Relic.

Heavy fire left my long ranged firepower distinctly unwell.

A lot of heavy firepower was out of commission one way or another in the first round of shooting. This was not good news for the Guard!

The Ratling Snipers noticed that Cypher had accidentally left himself the nearest model to them, so helpfully shot him in the back, although sadly, not fatally.

The conscripts advanced up the field, intending to provide some level of distraction from the main part of the operation.

The main operation: the infantry platoon, supported by the Hellhound advance on the Relic.

Already snap firing most of its guns, the Hydra roared forward to act as mobile cover for the more dangerous flame tank.

Things quickly started looking a little dicey as Terminators teleported onto the battle field.

They were quickly joined by a power armoured Grey Knight squad.

What's worse than Terminators?

Terminators with added Cypher. He ran out of the unit with the Relic and went to join the Deep Striking squad.

The Demolisher, which has previously taken a high toll of Grey Knight casualties, was singled out for particular attention, and was wrecked.

Storm Bolters and Psycannons ripped into the infantry platoon tasked with capturing the Relic, costing the squads both their sergeants, so the Commissars assumed command in the hope of salvaging the operation.

At this point I played my ace in the hole - two large squads of Storm Troopers grav-chuted onto the battlefield to wreak havoc and mayhem. Sadly, I had completely forgotten that Inquisitor Coteaz has a really rather extensive spy network, which, among other things, allows him to "expect" you. And shoot you. Along with his unit, which in this case was a squad full of Servitors with Plasma Cannons. Two Storm Troopers, one from each squad, survived the hail of plasma, and both broke and fled for my board edge.

The conscripts lined up to shoot up the Terminators, but despite buckets of dice, failed to have any impact at all.

The survivors of the infantry squad, undeterred, headed forward. They were joined by their Lieutenant, who I'd handily forgotten to deploy and now had some ground to catch up.

One of the Deep Striking Grey Knights units finished off the Manticore, and started eyeing up the Hydra and Hellhound's rear armour thoughtfully...

Yet more reinforcements arrived amid the fleeing Storm Troopers.

A typical moment in the game - my Hydra took aim at a Dreadnought....

Everything hits (with snap fire, it only hits on 6s)...

For no damage. Hopefully a few more rolls like this will convince ClauseIV1918 that his dice aren't that bad.

At this point, I demonstrated why no-one likes the Hellhound. Using its Torrent ability, it neatly slotted a jet of flame through the open door of the ruin, cremating a terminator and the good part of a Strike Squad.

Sadly, this wasn't enough to stop the Terminators grabbing hold of the Relic and starting to withdraw back to their own lines.

The command chimera was blown to pieces by the concentrated fire of the Grey Knights, manfully ignoring the flash lights being shone in their eyes by the cowering conscripts.

The survivors of the Chimera explosion were swiftly and effectively gunned down.

The surviving Guard advance on the ruin, perhaps unaware that it was already gone.

And the sole surviving Grey Knight Terminator escapes with the Relic!

This was definitely a good fun game, even though I was comprehensively thrashed. Cypher was a grade A pain to deal with, especially as things like Shrouded started to come into play later in the game. My blundering error with the grav-chuting Storm Troopers which saw them all evaporated will definitely not be repeated.

One of the things I am going to want to start thinking about is coming up with an army list which actually has a relatively solid plan for dealing with each of the rulebook missions. At present, Relic is one of the weaker points, as short of air dropping a squad out of the Valkyrie onto it, most of my units have trouble making the distance to reach it before the enemy.