Well, that went a little better then last week's game.
1,500 points versus Grey Knights (with Imperial Guard storm troopers and an Inquisitor supporting them) - those pesky Inquisitors just won't leave us alone, investigating the Horus Heresy and whether or not our forefathers turned traitor.
Fluff aside, it was a larger game than normal using the Take and Hold mission (Objective is to get troops within 12" of the centre of the table, marked here by a bunker).
I deployed the Deathwing and Librarian in the centre, supported on either side by a Tactical squad with fire lanes down either side of the bunker. The left flank was held by the Assault squad and Predator, whilst the Dreadnought provided heavy support on the right flank. The Land Speeders were both on the right where they could make best use of the cover to harass that side. The plan was that the centre would advance in or behind cover without engaging so that they would be intact on the last coupe of turns. Meanwhile, the Fast Assault and Support units would provide covering fire to reduce the number of enemy advancing, and removing the Imperial Guard "screen" of weak troops.
The Grey Knights deployment was pretty much as expected, with the storm troopers being deployed opposite my right flank as a shield to one of the Grey Knight squads and Dreadnought. The other Tactical squad was opposite my left flank, whilst the Terminators were held in reserve to teleport in later.
Turn 1
I lost the roll for first turn, so advanced to make use of cover where possible. The Land Speeders moved forward, with the Assault Cannon one positioning itself to fire at one of the storm trooper squads skulking in a wood, and managed to kill 2. The only other shooting was from the Dreadnought, who managed to snipe at a storm trooper.
The Grey Knights then advanced, bringing the dreadnought out of cover to fire at my own, which survived unscathed. Fairly uneventful.
Turn 2
I continued the advance on turn two, moving both Land Speeders to finish off the Storm trooper squad on the right. Despite firing everything they had, I only managed to kill three more of them. The Predator, with one of the fired at the other Storm trooper squad, and wiped out two of them. Meanwhile my other heavy weapons fire was not especially noteworthy - i.e. they missed.
The Grey knight Terminators arrived on turn two, a little early for my opponent, but ideal for me - if I know where they are I can kill them! Since he was teleporting in to a homer beacon, they ended up back within the enemy lines behind the Storm trooper shield. Firing was at my exposed vehicles, shooting down the HF/MM Land Speeder and destroying the Lascannon on the Dreadnought.
Turn 3
On the right, meanwhile, I pulled the remaining Land Speeder back out of range of the Storm troopers, and used it to engage the Dreadnought, which it destroyed without any problem. The Predator took out another three of the Storm troopers who were daft enough to still be in the open.
Firing from my tactical squad on the left took out a couple more of the Storm troopers (leaving only the sergeant), which opened up a line of sight from one of my Deathwing to the enemy terminators. Fortunately, I had seen this coming and had ensured that this guy was one with an assault cannon. The hail of bullets tore through one of the Grey Knights, and even the heavy Terminator armour wasn't enough to save him.
In return, the Predator was destroyed by a psycannon shot from the troops opposite my left flank. The surviving storm trooper sergeant meanwhile passed his "Last Man Standing" check, and coolly ran towards the bunker objective, firing a shot off at the Terminators as he went.
Turn 4
Advancing towards the objective, the Deathwing calmly opened fire at their Terminator counterparts, but only managed to kill one more. the Librarian's psychic attack was also nullified.
On the other side of the field, my Tactical squad and Dreadnought were able to kill a couple of Grey Knights advancing towards the objective.
Back on the left flank I took a gamble and my Chaplain led his squad into the charge against the Grey knight tactical squad. I wasn't sure how this would go, as I was outnumbered 10 to 6, with several of them having close combat weapons. The Chaplain had clearly not eaten his weetabix that morning (too busy chanting, I suspect) and only killed one opponent on the charge. His squad faired a little better, killing one more - but I lost two in return, drawing the combat.
A slight tactical error on my part meant I had left my Deathwing in charge range of the Grey knight terminators. I lost two of the squad to shooting, then three more in the ensuing combat, but the Librarian was able to kill the two remaining Grey knights, leaving just the Inquisitor lord. This left me with the Librarian and one assault cannon Terminator.
The Lone Heroic Sergeant again passed his Last Man Standing check (could this be "Lucky Jim", that legendary trooper?) and advanced into the centre of the bunker. Whilst shouting that ancient war cry of "My spot!" he fired at the nearest Tactical squad. In my opponents turn, I lost another assault marine in the continued combat whilst the Chaplain failed to even hit an enemy. I also lost the Dreadnought to meltagun fire from the remaining storm troopers.
Turn 5
The Assault squad managed to kill two more opponents, but lost the last two troopers in return, leaving the Chaplain on his own.
On the right, the Tactical squad killed the remaining storm troopers that were in front of them, whilst the Landspeeder poured a hail of fire into the Grey Knights squad, killing a couple.
The Tactical squad on the left charged into the combat in front of them to support their Librarian and comrade. Not as suicidal as first thought, since the Lord would only be able to attack one of the three targets (Librarian, Deathwing or Tactical squad) and so could not kill everyone! As it was, their support was not needed as the Librarian succeeded in a psychic attack in combat, sucking the Lord's soul into the warp. In the follow up move, he and the lone trooper moved to engage the Grey Knights in the bunker, and the tactical squad moved into cover as well (but did not engage anyone in combat)
The Chaplain, meanwhile, finally lost due to sheer weight of numbers and was killed.
Turn 6
Last turn! Since I had engaged the Grey Knights in the bunker with the Librarian and Deathwing, I wasn't able to shoot at that squad. So the Land Speeder and both Tactical squads levelled their guns at the Sergeant Lucky Jim and opened fire. Yelling defiantly to the last, Not-So Lucky Jim earned eternal respect in the roll of honour.
The Librarian and Deathwing killed a couple of Grey Knights in combat, reducing the squad to below half strength (so was no longer a scoring unit).
The remaining Grey Knights charged my Tactical squad, and killed four - not enough to reduce them to half strength.
So, the final score was 3 to me (Landspeeder and two Tactical squads within 12" of the objective) to 0.
A well-fought battle that was very close to the last turn.
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