Last night I played a Grey Knight army. The army was pretty straightforward and in your face. Sorry I dont have any pics. Forgot to pull out the cam. I used my standard list. The GK had 2 Land Raiders and a Land Raider Crusader. Inside were two 10 man GK squads, and in the LRC was a 9 man squad with a Brother Captain in Terminator armor. The mission was loot counters with Dawn of War deployment. I grabbed a central terrain piece and placed my Tac squad split into combat squads, and my assault squad, along with Dante. He placed his 2 troop choices and his commander on the far edge. I gave him first turn.
Turn 1 he moves in his last troops and the land raiders. The troops embark. One LR moves up and attempts to fire, but the DoW stopped him. My lascannon fires back, is able to reach him, hits, but fails to penetrate. I rolled my Vindicator into the terrain piece I was holding central, and moved then ran my Dev squad split into combat squads to get them into position for turn 2. Every else moved up and into or behind cover.
I made a huge tactical error. I failed to place one of my tactical combat squads in range to hold a loot counter that I had deployed on my side. I could have put him right next to it, and out of line of sight. This error would cost me the game.
Turn 2 My opponent fired, but only stunned my Vindicator. One Dread comes down. I choose to keep him in the pod. He cannot fire out but is safe. I drop it right in front of the LRC. I move up Dante, VAS and AS behind the pod, leaving Dante LoS on the LRC. I am forced to move my Lascannon Dev squad up in a building to give them LoS. I also moved my plasma cannons into better position as well. Dante immobilizes the LRC. I moved up my DC and Honor Guard in mutual cover formation on the right flank.
Turns 3 and 4. My opponent fires most of his guns at Dante, faiing to wound him. He fired at my DC and HG, but grimaced when I explained that they give each other cover saves... In his assault, he disgourged the commander and 9 GK from the LRC. They assaulted Dante, the AS and the VAS. Dante and the Commander killed each other. Dante delivered 5 Wounds with the Axe of Mortalis, and the commander failed 4 saves. The commander only managed to get one wound past Dante's defenses, but it was a force weapon. The psyker used his powers to instant kill Dante. Oh well, he did his job. The rest of the GKs remained locked in assult with the surviving assault marines. On my shooting turn, I opened up. First of all, my second dread came down. I dropped it infront of the LR on the left side and popped out the Furioso. The first furioso to come down also popped out. This was classis... I deployed him within 2 of the pod, moved him 6, fired his meltagun at the LR on the right flank, and popped it. In the meantime, I had moved up my DC to help deal with the guys in side. The LR exploded and my opponent placed all of his GKs on the very back edge of where the LR was, conveniently on the very edge of assault range... I fired 2 las cannons at the LR on the left. One got through and popped a Lascannon sponson off it. Not happy with that, I hit it with my vindicator. That got it. The LR was destroyed. The guys deployed and were within range of a loot counter. My plasma cannons fired on the clustered GKs at the right, killing a few and knocking them out of assault range for my DC. On the next turn, they would assault the DC And get locked in combat.
On turn 5, my HG moved in to free up the Assault squad who was locked in combat since round 2. There was one scoring marine left and I put him into position to jump onto a loot counter turn 6. The Furioso on the left rolled double 1 on his assault and was unable to contest the counter, or engage the GKS sitting on it.
Here is what SUCKS. We rolled to see if the game ends at the end of turn 5, and I rolled a 2. Ending the game there. All said and done, I lose 4 assault marines, 5 veteran assault marines, and 3 Death Company, and Dante. My opponent only had 6 Grey Knights left on the table, and a disabled LRC. However, none of my troops choices were in range to hold an objective. One of his was. He got the victory. Lesson learned! Had I simply placed my combat squad on that loot marker, the best he could have gotten was a tie. Instead he lucked out and got the victory.
Oh well. :(
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11 comments:
Could you explain that "Mutual Cover Formation" to me? It sounds like I would grimace too, if it's what I think it is ... but I don't know exactly what happened.
Mutual cover formation:
Intermixing two squads so that 50% of each squad is blocked by the other squad. Set up 1 five man squad like the 5 pips on a die when you roll a 5. Mix in another 5 man squad. If the shooter declares one sqauad, at least 3 of those models should have a member of the other squad in front of it. Yes, they will be really close together in regards to blast templates, but they will all get a 4+ save. You can run two assault squads or more right up the middle of an open field and get them all cover saves. Who cut the cheeze?
4th edition had a similar rules exploit where if you had two units intermingled in tight ranks, no one could charge either of the two units in close combat due to that you can't reach any model without being more than 1" away from a model from another unit.
GW later put out a FAQ saying that using such an expoit wasn't in the spirit of the game... I guess it's just a matter of time until this is the subject of another FAQ clarification?
It does sound cheesy.
Well, there are different levels of cheese. What you just mentioned is a whole can of easy cheese. It makes no sense for an enemy to not be able to charge a unit, because it is within 1" of another.
But this marching formation is drawn from classic military doctrine! Napoleonic era soldiers used to march into combat in close ranks. This served two purposes. First of all, it massed their fire into a wall of lead to increase the accuracy of crappy guns. But also, marching in close ranks meant that guys in front took wounds, assuring that the lines of guys in the second or third rank would arrive at range to be able to fire point blank. This is the same concept. The guys in the front are giving the rest of the squad saves by creating a moving wall of intermeshed armor. And they can still take wounds... they just get a cover save.
guys in front covering guys in back is not what's at issue. In that scenario, I'd say shoot the guys in front. You'd be telling me that the guys in front are getting cover from the guys in back as well.
It makes no sense to me that I can't shoot at 10 dudes out in the open because they're all covering for each other. Someone's in front. Screening a more important unit behind a lesser unit is a legitimate tactic... but that lesser unit can't partake of the same cover, shady deployment or not.
I was doing some more looking into this when I got home with the rulebook, and you are correct in that you can do this, but I still see it as exploiting the rules.
As a side note, if someone is deploying two units intermingled like that to provide both units with cover, according to page 11's Models In The Way rule, neither unit can move either. No model can pass through the space between two models of another unit, friendly or not. ...and since a player has to finish moving all models in one unit before moving on to the next unit to move, perfectly intermingled units would essentially tarpit each other.
I agree that it's some stinky cheese, but in the grand scheme of things it's probably not the worst we'll see... especially in serious tournaments.
On the upside, isn't it great that this is probably the worst exploit people have come up with so far? It's been relatively quite a long time since the new book came out (not long according to the calender, but with so many eyes looking for rule wording to re-parse for loopholes), and there've been very few screaming fits of "teh game is broken!!1!!" on the various forums... but maybe I'm looking in the wrong places?
True with the movement through each other. But in this case, they are jump troopers, so they can jump over each other. Its when they are about to shoot and assault that they need to fan out... I probably wont use the tactic at the Grand Tournament because my opponent will nail me on sportsman points. We shall see. But seriously, at gamesday I think 10 of the top 12 armies were the same Nid list give or take a unit of warriors. Playing those lists might not have been exploitive of rules, but it sure wasnt sportsmanship. I faced one with my BA and it was a joke. If I were to play them again, I will cut every brick of cheese I can lay down...
I guess there is some merit to using swiss against cheddar, and 3 Land Raiders is some definite cheddar.
Didn't think of the jump troops part. Oh well, I guess it's something I'll keep in my hat for the occasional intermixed mob of Boyz that try to pull the same.
Oh, considering the movement issue, I think it is more likely that the Orks will just be running a mob of Grots in front of their boys. Though they will greatly benefit from a 4+ save... Might be too much temptation to resist. Where marines are concerned... it is merely protection from the two or three las/plas shots that may come their way. When there are only 5 guys in a squad, every little save counts.
Brother, I am gearing up for monday's game agasint said GK player and will be watching out for this trick. Do you know if his list has a psychic hood in it, as that is really the only thing that can shut me down.
Plans? Drop the land raiders first with brightlance, prism cannon, and singing spear shots. Second, send my jetbikes around the right to flank, vypers around the left and storm guardians/ dire avengers down the center meeting in the middle. This cover save BS will hurt my star cannons but 16 shuriken catapult shots, and three cannon shots from my jetbikes- guided and doomed on one squad will make short work of that- and when I get shot back- re-roll all my saves from fortune with either a 3+ regular save, 4+ cover, or 5+ inv. from the warlock.
Ahh my Eldar Ally. Normally I would not advise you against my battle brothers, but the knights of the inquisition are not to be trusted and they seem to have used ruinous powers quite flagrantly to have been able to defeat Dante and his forces. Perhaps he has made a pact with a dark god. Regardless, you should be able to crush him. He runs his LRs right out in the open. Gun them down and the soft meat inside is open. If they are not destroyed, he will keep The Grey Ones inside of them until he has to disembark to claim objectives. I do not know if he has a psychic hood. I believe not. He uses a high ranking brother captain in terminator armor as his leader. He rides in a LRC with 9 Grey Knights. If you pop his tanks, he will disembark them on opposite sides from where your shots are, so be sure to position your vypers where they can move to get clear shots on the knights.
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