Slow Grow Week 2 vs Blood Angels

We are now in week two of the Darksphere Slow Grow. This week the Swiss Paring kicked in, so players who won last week were paired against other winners. Hence, when scores are posted on Sunday we should start to see some people pulling ahead.
This week I played against Iron Hands Successor marines. The mission was Maelstrom Deadlock.
Still on 400p so my list was the same as last week (basic Librarian; basic Strike Squad; Dreadknight with Heavy Incinerator and personal teleporter).
My opponent has a basic Librarian; one squad of Scouts with bolters and a heavy bolter; one squad of Scouts with sniper rifles and cammo cloaks; and a ...:

 Yep, a bloody Storm Raven. This would be interesting.

I rolled Sanctuary and Cleansing Flame for the Librarian; and Daemon Hunter for Warlord trait (clearly the Iron Hand Successors were tainted in some way to have attracted the attention of the Inquisition's daemon killers, but had evidently not gone far enough down the path of damnation for Daemon Hunter to be very useful).

My opponent won the right to set up first and took it. This was the situation at the beginning of Turn 1:

Iron Hands' Stormraven in reserve (obviously). My Librarian in reserve with the Strike Squad.

Not much happens in Iron Hands' turn one. His sniper scouts move forward to claim an objective and take a few pot shots at the Dreadknight which miss.
I then seem to have not taken a picture at the end of my turn one, but I shunt the Dreadknight forward (as per the arrow. My Liberian and Strike Squad come in, scatter slightly, but not too badly (The two blue dots).

In the Psychic Phase the Librarian casts cleaning flame which thins out the Bolter Scouts considerably.
In the shooting phase the remaining Bolter Scouts are killed (First Blood), and the Sniper Scouts whittled down by the Dreadknight's Heavy Incinerator.

Much to my dismay my opponent's Stormraven comes in in Turn 2:
The Storm Raven fires all its missiles at the Dreadknight taking off two wounds. The Iron Hands Liberian casts Psychic Shriek on the Dreadknight, but is denied. At the end of Iron Hands Turn 2 this is the situation:

 In my turn two the Dreadknight takes a few Steps toward the Librarian preparing to meet out some close combat pain. The Grey Knight Librarian and the Strike Squad move forward to get a line on the Sniper Scouts.
In Shooting the Sniper scout squad is wiped out, and the Dread Knight Fails to wound the Iron Hands Librarian. Both my units cast Sanctuary.
In Assault the predictable happens:

Facing six S10, AP2 attacks it does not go well for the Iron Hands Libby...
The rest of the game then ends up in a cat and mouse situation between the Storm Raven and my units - two moments of which are below:

At the end the Storm Raven kills the Dreadknight, but the game ends before the flyer can kill my Librarian and Strike Squad unit.
The final tally is Grey Knights 7; Iron Hands 4. The Iron Hands held a number of objectives at appropriate times, and got a point for killing the Dreadknight. The Grey Knights got First Blood, Kill the Warlord; Line Breaker, a point for casting a Psychic Power, a point for killing a character, and a point for killing a Psyker (which means that the Iron Hands Librarian gave away three points!!)

 

Slow Grow week 1 vs. Iron Hands Successors

After a rather long absence I am back, yay.

The reason for my return is that Iron Father Mike, a veteran of Darksphere has organised another Slow Grow League. This is the second time Mike has organised this, but the first time I had to drop out. This time I am determined to not only complete the Slow Grow, but also to document every game.

The Slow Grow is three games each of 400p; 750p; 1000p and 1500p. 

So, here is Game one 400 Points.

My List:

Grey Knights

Librarian

Strike Squad (5 GKs)

Dread Knight

Opponent's List:

Blood Angels:

Librarian with jump pack

2xTactical Squad with Missile Launcher

Vanguard Jump Squad

The Game was Maelstrom: Deadlock; with Vanguard Strike Deployment.

I got Purge Soul and Gate of Infinity as my Psychic Powers; and First to the Fray Warlord Trait.

Blood Angels won the right to decide who should deploy first, and they decided to go first.

After deployment:

My opponent deployed all his army. I deployed only the Dreadknight. The Strike Squad and Librarian went into reserve (seemed a safe bet as my warlord trait would guarantee first turn arrival).

I then proceeded to steal the initiative!

This was the situation at the end of my Turn 1:

My Dreadknight has Shunted towards the Tac Squad in the top middle of the picture and incinerated two of them to death. The Librarian and the Strike Squad had Deep Strike'd in the open space in the middle. The Grey Knight Librarian used Purge Soul to take a wound off the Blood Angels Liberian. who was then finished off by three Psyk-out Grenades in the shooting phase.

This is the situation at the end of my opponent's Turn 1.

Shooting and close combat took down two members of the Strike Squad. However, three Vanguard also die in close combat. The Tac Squad facing the Dreadknight cause no damage.

At the end of my Turn 2 the table looks like this:

The Dreadknight has stomped all over the Tac Squad (top left). The remaining Vanguard have fallen with no damage to the Strike Squad. However, the Grey Knight Librarian did manage to peril, although got away with just a lost wound. Not seen on this picture the Dreadknight and the Strike Squad Consolidate towards the remaining Tac Squad.

The Tac Squad manage to kill another Strike Squad marine:

In my turn the Strike Squad and the Librarian get into close combat with the Tac Squad. the Dreadknight fails his charge. At the end of the turn the Tac Squad has been reduced to one bolter marine and one missile launcher marine.

 Nothing much happens on the Blood angels turn. He fails to wound and I fail to wound.

In my turn 4 the Dreadknight gets into close combat, with predictable results...:

The game ends with no Blood Angels left and three Grey Knight models left on the table. That is a 100% casualty rate for the Blood Angels and a 57% loss rate for the Grey Knight, A high loss rate all round.

Significant elements of this game were:

- I managed to steal the initiative which had a major impact on the game. It basically meant that the jump Vanguard were pinned in their corner. I.e. pure luck there.

- On three occasions a Blood Angels Krak missile needed a 2+ to wound (and on two occasions autokill), yet rolled a 1! Again, good luck for me.

- Despite being a Maelstrom mission not a single Tactical Objective point was scored. The game ended with 3/0 to the Grey Knights: First Blood; Kill the Warlord; and Line Breaker.

  

Darksphere Kill Team League Day 3

Day  of the League went better. I lost once and won twice.
Again I failed against the pesky Chaos Bikers, here seen at the beginning of the fight:

Saving grace was that Brother Courage did manage to kill the biker leader in close combat earning him another Gold Medal.
I then won against Space Marine Stern Guards with a Rhino. The picture shows the last move of the fight, where my surviving team members bravely shoot up an empty, immobilised, all weapons destroyed Rhino:

It may seem OTT to spend time on killing a helpless Rhino, but it earned me a clean sweep, and thus a valuable League point.
Brother Courage again kills the enemy leader, this time with his stormbolter earning him a Silver Medal.
Final fight was against Tau:

My leader finally manages to get into close combat, although Brother Horizon robs him of a leader kill:

The only black mark in an otherwise good fight was that Brother Overkill manages to get himself killed in close combat with a Tau firewarrior. Needless to say this is not an impressive event for a Grey Knight. He thus earned himself the order of the Golden Rabbit...

...which he shall wear until such a time as he redeems himself with a suitable heroic act. He did manage to destroy the Tau skimmer by himself - BUT that really is what he is there to do, so no special credit on that one!
Brother Courage with his three Medals:

Brother Horizon with his Gold Medal:

My leader got +1 BS (the servo skull) and +1S on the Stormbolter (now S6 - and symbolised by the skull barrel):

All told my leader now has: Fleshbane; Fleet; Stealth; +1 LD (LD10); +1 WS (WS5); +1 BS (BS5); gets +2I (I6) from the Halberd - which is also an AP3 Force Weapon; and carries a S6 Stormbolter. He can therefore dish out some serious hurt both in shooting and in CC. However, with just 1 wound he is also rather fragile. My hope is that I will be able to earn him an extra wound or two and/or some extra Toughness.

Darksphere Kill Team League Day 2

Day 2 of the league did not go so well...
I lost twice and sat one round out (uneven number of players)
My brave leader got him self killed twice.
The first time a Chaos biker Hammer of Wrath-ed him to death. This is moments before the inglorious death

My leader is in the bottom right hand corner. The biker about to do the fell deed is just to the right of the round building. I then lost.
Then my leader tried to charge a Plague Marine, and got himself Wall of Death'ed to death.

Here my leader is just about to spring the fiendishly clever trap, which goes seriously ploin shaped, and I loose.
The only mildly impressive thing of the night was Brother Courage standing up to two chaos Terminators. He takes three AP2 wounds, and has only his 5++ save to get him through. Slim odds indeed...

But he bravely fights on through!
Then he dies and I loose.
My leader gets +1WS (as symbolised by the book on the halberd:

...and +1S on the stormbolter (as symbolised by the new gun with gold tipped bolts):

I still, somehow, manage to end up in Third Place, mainly due to a lot of people from day 1 not turning up.

The Darksphere Kill Team League Table Day 1

The League Table for after day 1 was published a few days ago:

I am ranked 5th - which I am resonably happy with. I think I can do better, but I am ok with that as a start. This was only Day One out of Eight, so a lot can happen before the end!

Darksphere Kill Team Tournament post-Day 1

One of the fun things about Kill Team is that your Leader can roll for extra abilities and special rules after each game. On Day 1 of the League my leader, Inquisitor Contrebis got: +1 leadership; Fleet; and Stealth. He also had Fleshbane from the beginning.

I have tried adding things to the model to symbolise these bonuses and abilities (and will continue to do so throughout the time of the League - Contrebis should be quite a sight by the end...)

Brother Courage got a Golden Skull for defeating an enemy Leader in personal combat (Death Company Veteran marine).

Brother Overkill got a Silver Skull for shooting an enemy Leader (an Ork).

So, after Day 1 I have one draw, one defeat and one win. Not sure where I am overall in the League. The Day 1 scores are yet to be made official.

Darksphere Kill Team League Game 3 vs. Sternguard Veterans

In the final game I am up against Sternguard Veterans.
Deployment:

My opponent's main tactic is basically to stay well back and let me come to him so he can throw as many AP3 Vengeance Rounds at as possible. I did not pay enough attention to the power of the Vengeance Rounds in this game, which was stupid considering I player this list just the week before.
Anyway, I move Brother Courage forward and jump Brother Overkill onto the roof of the red shed-like building for a shot at the Razorback. For some reason I keep the other four Interceptors back.

Brother Overkill scores a glance and a pen on the Razorback, but it has Shrouded and the hits are saved. Brother Overkill is then shot of the roof.

Brother Courage moves further forward and the rest of the Interceptors finally make a move.

Brother Courage is killed by combiplasma and combimelta shots.
I try to get my remaining force within charge distance...

...I fail all my charges and am then gunned down by Vengeance rounds for a comprehensive defeat.