Grey knights.... here we go again ...part deux

I played Harry tonight and his Guard/Chaos list.

Chaos.

Flying khorne prince axe

Flying nurgle princes mace

2 x 10 cultists

3 x Heldrakes

Guard

Primaris psyker

platoon command

50 man blob squad,5 axes,5 melta bombs and 5 autocanons with commissar.

vendetta

aegis defence line with comms relay

My list is unchanged from my previous post:-

Coteaz

Ordos inquisitor,power armour,lvl 1 force sword,rad and psychobroke grenades!

3 stormravens

2 redeemers melta psybolt ammo

god hammer melta psybolt ammo

7 deathcult+3 crusaders

7 deathcult+3 crusaders

4 crusaders

3 crusaders

3 crusaders

Harry needed help and a full evening to test his army and learn more rules whereas I needed to test my list and theories against Heldrakes.

Now if im honest I have to admit that Harry's list is pure filth! 4 flyers(probably the best in the game) 2 rock hard daemon princes and a very hard hitting blob squad. 

Now the real interesting part of this match up is that I'm very strong inside my vehicles and have a very good chance of surviving most attacks,yet my real punch is when I disembark from my vehicles and get into combat.Now here's my problem,what ever I assault is most likely going to die and be left out in the open.Then I'm open to vector strikes and multiple flamer templates so I have to plan my movement and assaults perfectly.

Harry keeps his powers and rolls +1 to my reserves.

Coteaz gets prescience and re-roll saving throws malediction ,the ordos also gets re-roll saving throws malediction .My war lord trait is to outflank my war lord..useless!!

So our game is bore draw(single base each) and vanguard set up.Harry sets up his defence line on his deployment line. I'm going first so I set up 3 land raiders on my line.I have the 2 big squads with an inquisitor each in the redeemers and a 4 man crusaders squad in the god hammer.

Harry sets up his blob squad behind the aegis.I then remind him that my raiders can move 18" and in turn 2 I'm BBQ'ing and assaulting his blob.I offer him the chance to take it back but he says that the mistake has been made and it a learning game so carry on.

Turn 1

So I bomb forward 18" and he moves and runs backwards to his corner.

Turn 2

Both storm ravens turn up ( I roll a 5 and 6 !!) and move onto the board at an angle so I don't get vector striked by the heldrakes,The 2 redeemers move 18",the god hammer hits a blade of grass and breaks down so moves 1/2 " lol

The storm ravens shoot mind strike missiles at the blob squad targeting the primaris psyker and promptly kill him with perils of the warp and removing a further 3 or 4 guardsmen.

So I now have 2 redeemers 2" away from the blob and I'm ready to smash face!

Harry rolls like a champion for his reserves and everything comes on except the vendetta(phew) and 1 unit of cultists.

The 3 heldrakes fly right up to my storm ravens so I have no choice but to fly over them next turn.His 2 daemon princes zoom on in front of coteaz's raider to "cock block" the raider to stop it going further into the blob and flaming the crap out of it.

Now me being me I kinda forget the odd thing in a game like erm....errr....oh shit the blob has melta bombs......bugger :-(

The blob squad not only surrounds my second redeemer but blows it to smithereens!!.

So yes I'm gutted for not thinking,but maybe its not so bad after all.......

Harry wounds most of the unit but yet again the crusaders tank most of them and protect my deathcult.The resulting explosion kills 5 or so guardsmen and gives me the opportunity to pull off something in turn 3....

Turn 3

The ordos inquisitor casts his malediction spell on the khorne daemon prince. I'm hoping to drop him so coteaz and his squad(who just disembarked ) can assault him.

I fly the 2 storm ravens over the helldrakes so I can shoot the daemon princes.The crusaders get out of the god hammer to assault the 10 cultists who came on from reserve.

The first storm raven shoots its assault cannon and multimelta at the khorne daemon prince and kills it thanks to it re rolling its initial saves!! Boooom!!!

The second raven shoots the nurgle prince and takes him down to 2 wounds, result!

My crusaders assault the cultists,except i forgot they have 2 attacks not 1 :-( crusaders fail and only kill 1 cultist and I end up running away.Both the inquisitors assault the blob squad after the crusaders take on a multitude of over watch shots!

The blob is no more but I'm now left out in the open.

The vendetta and cultists come on.I suggest to Harry that the cultists should creep up the right flank to gain line breaker and give me more problems.The vendetta lines up against 1 raven while the 3 heldrakes vector strike the other raven.As I predicted the heldrakes blow up the raven and vendetta completes the task killing the second raven.

My crusaders are all wounded in the explosions and all 6 survive! 3++ is awesome!

Best of all one of the ravens explodes and scatters towards Harry's objective!

His nurgle prince vector strikes over the ordos squad and his 9 man cultist squad goes in for the kill with pistols and the platoon command squad that's been sitting and shooting at the relay comes in to shoot my girls.

The 3 heldrakes shoot and wound the 3 crusaders from the raven they collectively killed.2 crusaders die and the remaining guy fails his LD test and goes for a run.Luckily I can still rally even with 1 man left(33% of squad).These truly are an amazing little unit.

The 4 hit vector strike is negated again by epic crusader saves as is the cultist shooting.

Turn 4

Its looking a bit one sided now unless I pull off something awesome.I have the 2 inquisitor units and 3 man crusader unit moving around Harry's objective.I spread the remaining crusaders as best I can to take hits from all sides but I know my luck (and crusaders) will run out very soon through weight of fire.I shoot what I have left at nurgle prince and he survives and now wait to see how bad I'm gonna get hurt.

Harry flies his nurgle prince to assault coteaz and his gang and the heldrakes come in to flame everyone around his objective.

I take a bucket load of wounds and its just to much from all angles and I lose (to Harry's delight) most crusaders and my deathcult now start to vanish into plumes of flame!

The vendetta nails my single crusader (on its way to my objective) but he went down a hero!

So its assault time! The nurgle prince comes in through cover and I decide to use axes and go at I1 but get +1S. After all blows the prince is down to 1 wound and I lose 2 girls. We stay in combat.

Turn 5

It boils down to combat! Harry's Daemon prince fails out with his weapon and they turn on each other lol So now hes WS1 and takes a wound that he then saves! He goes first but is hitting me on 5's and fluffs it.I need to remove 1 wound to make this a proper victory.I wound him twice and saves both!!!!

GAME OVER

So I win very narrowly on secondary objectives taking first blood and line breaker.Harry takes line breaker.

My faith in crusaders is now fully justified.They are possibly the best troop unit I've ever used.They are fantastic protection for other troops and can hold there own against most things.If I didn't have them then Harry would have had this game done and dusted by turn 4..easily.

They are the difference between a full unit assaulting and 30-40% assaulting.

The land raiders are still great but I really need to think more about my placement and the threat of melta bombs as they are fantastic in 6th ed and if I'm honest should be an auto take in any army that can take them.

Storm ravens still do a great job.Sniping pyskers out of units is game changing and proved game winning vs Harry.They are very vulnerable to vector strike but so is every other flyer in the game so that's just something I will have to deal with.

Harry's list is brilliant.It has lots of options even though its low on scoring units.However you only need 1 scoring unit if your heldrakes have killed all your opponents!