Partick Crucible Tournament Results & Battle reports

Partick Tournament Results


So as you probably notices prior to the weekend I had a 1000 point tournament. 4 Games in one day.


This was my first solo 40K tournament, and was against a group of gamers that I knew to be good list builders who were well versed in their armies strengths and weaknesses.


I spent a large chunk of time figuring out a 1000 point list… not the best experience in the world as Grey Knights at a 1000 points force some interesting decisions.


The list I finally settled on was:


Inquisitor, 3 Servo Skulls, Ulmeathi Plasma Syphon


Grey Knight Strike Squad (10), 2 Psycannons


Grey Knight Terminator Squad (6), Psycannon


Dreadknight, Personal Teleporter, Heavy Incinerator


Dreadknight, Personal Teleporter, Nemesis Greatsword


Total: 999.


I have read a lot of Internet hate against the Dreadknights, but in every game I have played they have made a huge difference. Trying to kill two of the beasts at T6, 2+, 5+ Inv, 4 Wounds is doable, even with small arms fire, but people have to dedicate a lot of firepower into them.


The 4 games we were playing were predetermined games as follows:


Game 1: Capture & Control & Spearhead-

My first game was against Jamie and his Space Wolves. His list was something like:

Rune Priest, Living Lightning, Jaws of the World Wolf.
Wolf Guard x 3; Combi-Meltas
Lone Wolf, Mark of the Wolfen
Grey Hunters x 9; Meltagun, Rhino
Grey Hunters x 9; Meltagun, Rhino
Grey Hunters x 8; Meltagun, Rhino
Long Fangs x 6. 5 Rocket Launchers.

Below are some of the photos I managed to take in this game.

This first one is of the battlefield pre deployment.



And here we have my deployment.

 This time it shows both of our setups.


The Grey Knights Advance!



The game was very fun and enjoyable and was probably a bit of a mis-match for Jamie. He did manage to kill one of my Dreadknights, but then I had the Terminators & second Dreadknight in combat and I managed to leave him with only an Immobilised Rhino at the end of turn 5.

Result: Win, 2 Objectives, 7 Kill Points, Net Kill Points +6.


Game 2: Sieze Ground (5 Objectives), Dawn of War

So in the second time I was playing Finlay and his Eldar, now I have managed to play him at 1750 points, but not at a 1000 points before, and with 5 objectives on the table and only 3 scoring units (if I combat squaded the Strike squad), I saw this being a tough match up.

FIns list consisted of:

Eldrad
Avatar
Guardians w/ Bright Lance
Dire Avengers
Harelquins
3 War Walkers
(I think that was it).

Again here are a couple of Photos from the game... you can see I was getting less focussed on my Camera now.

This first one shows the right hand flank of the battlefield. You can just see the huge forest on the right... this did basically mean we fought our battle on this side of the table.



The Grey Knights deployment.

The Eldar advancing after the Grey Knights shunting!

In the end it came down to my Dreadknight surviving 4 rounds of combat with Harlequins, while Doomed. I just kept passing Invulnerable saves. While I did lose both Dreadknights in the end, their aggressive positioning force the Eldar back away from the objectives, in the end I had a 3-0 Victory.

Result: Win, 3 Objectives, 3 Kill Points, Net Kill Points +1.

Game 3: Annihilation, Pitched Battle

In the third game I played Sean and his Salamanders. His list ran to the tune of:

Librarian
Ironcald in Drop Pod
Tactical Squad x 10, Rhino
Tactical Squad x 10, Plasma Cannon
Thunderfire Cannon
Predator (Auto & Las)
Predator (Auto & Las).

His setup was to castle in a corner making me walk as far as possible. For the first two turns it worked out quite well for him.

Below is a shot of the setup we both had.

Followed by a couple of shots of the game in progress




I lost one of my Dreadknights in the first turn, and by the end of his turn 2, my second Dreadknight was down to 1 wound. However from then on it all went good. The remaining Dreadknight got me 4 Kill points before dying, killing the Ironclad, Librarian, Tactical Squad & a Predator.

My Strike Squad immobilised a Rhino and managed to survive combat against the Marines inside it for several turns before eventually killing them off.

The Terminators destroyed a Drop Pod of his, before advancing on the remainder of his army.

Result: Win, Kill Points 6-3, Net Kill Points +3


Game 4: Annihilation, Pitched Battle

The final game was the match up I had been trying to avoid. It was Tom’s Space Wolves, who I had struggled against at these points values.

The only thing running in my favour was that he hadn’t had time to paint all the Lascannons he needed so he only had 3 of them on the table.

With very little cover to speak of it was going to be a painful game. No pictures for this one... I was too tied up in the game although if Tom has any I will shoehorn them in here.

In the end this game down to me having 7 Kill points to his 4, and I only had my Inquisitor left on the table with 2 wounds, the Inquisitor who had been chasing a Rhino trying to kill it with Krak Grenades (and failing).

In the first turn I lost my Greatsword Dreadknight (he has yet to survive a 1000 game!). I decided to Deep Strike my Terminators & Strike Squad. So that left me with both Dreadknights on the table and my Inquisitor hiding in the back hoping he would see out the game.

My other Dreadknight shunted across the table and Incinerated a Long Fang pack. This killed 4 out of the 5 of them, although the survivor didn’t flee.

In his second turn he took two wounds off my remaining Dreadknight while one of his Squads & its Rhino zoomed towards my Inquisitor.

On my Turn 2, my Strike Squad deep striked in next to a long fang squad, managing to cause very few casualties, however the Dreadknight go the Charge on the remaining Long Fangs to at least get me on the board with a Kill Point.

In his Turn 3, his Rhino came on towards the Inquisitor, while the squad disembarked to deal with the Strike squad that had arrived, again his shooting proved ineffective against my Dreadknight. On my turn my Terminators turned up, Deep Striking infront of his Dual Lascannon Long Fang pack, and they managed to Immobilise one of his Rhino’s. My Strike squad charged the Long Fangs next to them and wiped them out. The Inquisitor charged the Rhino but failed to hurt it.

In turn 4, again more shooting at the Dreadknights & Terminators resulting in no losses, meaning in my turn I managed to multi Charge his Grey Hunter pack & his Rhino with the Terminators, and charged his Rune Priest with the Dreadknight. The ensuing combats resulted in my Grey Knights killing the Rhino, Rune Priest and Grey Hunters (a bad thing). On the far flank my Strike squad got stuck into the Grey Hunters over there, by now both squads were weakened and I lost combat but kept passing my Morale check. The Inquisitor lost a wound a this time from the Rhino’s shooting but again failed to hit it with his Krak Grenade.

Turn 5, had more shooting at my Dreadknight, this time enough to kill it, while my Strike squad stayed in combat with the Grey Hunters from the previous turn. My return fire managed to wing another of the Razorbacks, while the Strike squad was again whittled down but the Grey Hunters in combat.

Turn 6, This time the Terminators bore the brunt of Tom’s firepower with 3 of them dying leaving a Daemonhammer and a Psycannon alive. The Strike squad still survived combat over both rounds but dropped to only 2 models left this time. And the Inquisitor was shot at, wounded, but saved it with his armour before throwing himself at the tank to once again miss it.

Turn 7.
This time it was make or break for Tom. I had 5 models left if they all died he won by Tabling me. However he only had 1 model to shoot at my 2 wound Inquisitor, his Rhino opened up and promptly missed, basically handing me the game. However given the fact that Kill Points would be the decider for joint positions Tom continued the game to try and reduce how many points he lost by. In his shooting & combat he killed my Terminators & Strike squad. Which left me just my Inquisitor to charge the Rhino, and fail to hurt it.

Result: Win, Kill Points 7-4. Net Kill Points +3

In Hindsight

I won the tournament and the wonderful trophy pictured below. I had four fantastic games against four fantastic opponents. All good sports, and all of whom did their very best.

Why did I win? Well the dice. The sheer number of Inv saves my Dreadknights passed was astounding. Without them I couldn’t have won.

In hindsight, I dropped Psybolt Ammo from both my Squads (Strike & Terminators) in favour of a 6th Terminator. This is something I shouldn’t have done, because the extra point of strength would have made a lot of difference in every single game as I did a lot of shooting.

Overall I am very happy with the list and its performance… bring on next year!

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