Battle Report: Vogrin's Grey Knights vs. Seven's Craftworlders!

Seven bringing you a Battle Report of a clash between the Craftworld Eldar and The Grey Knights of Lord Inquistor Vogrin.  Our Battle was an 1850 point match.

We rolled Pitched battle, and 5 Objectives.

My list:

Dire avenger squad <10 man> with a wave serpent armed with bright lances and spirit stones

Exarch, dual catapults, bladestorm

Farseer with doom, runes of witnessing attached.

Dire avenger squad <10 man> with a wave serpent armed with bright lances and spirit stones

Exarch with Diresword and shuriken pistol, bladestorm and defend

10 man Fire Dragon squad with a wave serpent armed starcannons and spirit stones

exarch with tank hunters, crack shot and a dragon’s breath flamer.

Eldrad and Warlock council with embolden, enhance, 2 destructors with a wave serpent with shuriken cannons and spirit stones.

10 man striking scorpian squad

exarch with stalker, shadowstrike, and a scorpian claw.

His list I won’t be as accurate on

Vogrin Brought:

Purgation squad with 4 psycannons

7 man Grey Knight terminator squad

10 man Strike squad in a rhino

Vindicare Temple Assassin

2 Rifleman Dreadnoughts (dual twin-linked autocannons with psycannon bolts)

A stormraven containing a purifier squad with a Librarian and also a Dreadnought.

Also two servo-skulls.

Both us brought  a mere 2 scoring units per side which didn’t hurt either of us excessively.

Deployment.

 I won the roll for first turn and deployed my 4 squads in transport castled up and the Scorpians infiltrated. Vogrin setup kiddie-corner to me and left his Terminators to arrive via deepstrike.

Turn 1

Vogrin immediately seized the iniative. He boosted his stormraven along his board edge and took a pot shot with a assault cannon from the power given by machine spirit. His purgation squad took up positions in some ruins and between the efforts of both the purgation squad and the stormraven, 2 striking scorpians died.

His riflemen dread took a bite out of the wave serpent mounted starcannon. The other rifleman dread didn’t cause any lasting damage and his vindicare took a shot at the scorpians and failed to wound.

Eldar rebuttal

Eldrad fortune’d up his and the fire dragon’s wave serpent. The other seer had no valid targets.

Eldrad’s wave serpent took off at maximum speed along my board edge towards where the majority of vogrin’s forces. The fire dragons’ boosted to support striking scorpians. The scorpians retreated a little further from the purgation squad to get outside of the nasty fire power those psycannons bring.

My other two wave serpents moved up 12 and shot their bright lances. One shot failed to kill the vindicare and the other failed to damage the storm raven.

TURN 2

Vogrin’s terminators did not decide to show up just yet.

Vogrin boosted his storm raven front and center, to the heart of my forces. He shot with the stormraven’s machine spirit and shook a bright lance on a wave serpent. His purgation squad was just out of range giving the scorpians some respite.

The rifleman dreads managed to wreck Eldrad’s wave serpent, exposing my very expensive unit in a horrid position nearly 10 inches from the nearest cover and they (pun intended) were not fortunate. The vindicare tried to capitalize on Eldrad’s exposure but failed to wound, so therefore Eldrad’s invuln save continued to protect him for a little longer.

More fire power was brought to bear on the warlocks, a total of 3 chumps fell before it was over. Eldrad who had stored his booze in that wave serpent screamed “They took the bar! The whole f****** bar!”. The warlocks seeing how infuriated eldrad was didn’t dare break.

Eldar Rebuttal

Eldrad tried to cast three psychic powers while almost exactly 24 inches away from the stormraven which still had the libby. The libby shut down every one of eldrad’s powers that turn.

The other seer still had no valid targets.

After some shuffling around the fire dragons and the diresword wielding Avengers bailed out.

The fire dragon’s transport which had already lost its primary armament, decided to Ram the strike squad’s rhino. In epic fashion, the rhino exploded taking 3 grey knights and the hit back failed to damage the wave serpent. Off in the distance, Eldrad mumbled something about “Those circus midgets can NOT hold their booze!”.

Eldrad and his non fortuned squad tripped forward an inch towards terrain. The remainder of my forces formed a semi circle around the stormraven.

The bright lances didn’t manage to bring down the storm raven (despite my error, one lance had been acutally been shaken.) The fire dragons though, came through in great fashion and managed to only destroy the storm raven, convient since I had many models in range of an explosion.

The dreadnought bailed out directly in front of the fire dragons and dire avengers. and the Purifier squad jumped out the back side of the raven.

The dire avengers assualted the dread nought in the hope they could hold out through one assualt phase to give the fire dragons some time to reload.

The scorpians assualted the purifiers and Librarian, their psychic powers suffered heavily from the runes of warding. The halberds managed to drop 3 striking scorpians, the scorpians whiffed and only got 1 wound through despite having 4 attacks apeice. The amazing badass exarch though came through in great fashion and gave those marines the CLAWS, killing 3 at I 1. Leaving only the Libby to face the surviving 3 Scorpians remaining.

TURN 3

The Terminators still didn’t feel that their presence was quite mandatory yet. Vogrins unit mostly milled around, notably his strike squad began to conga line out over 2 objectives.

The strike squad, riflemen dreads, and vindicare laid into eldrad and the boys. This shooting phase was a huge whiff for Vogrin and the warlock council still stood with fair numbers left.

In the ensuing combat phase, the librarian was hacked apart. The Dread nought managed to perfectly fall into my schemes, by killing two dire avengers and breaking the squad. The avengers got away and the dread consolidated around the destroyed stormraven in an attempt save it from the full fusion-gun toting squad.

Rebuttal

Eldrad fortuned his unit, doomed the vindicare. The second farseer was still twidling his thumbs inside his wave serpent with no valid targets to doom.

The scorpians made their way towards the vindicare in hopes of glory. The fire dragons sprinted into position so they could unleash liquid hot magma (puts pinkie to corner of mouth) upon the dread nought.

Eldrad tried to mind war the vindicare but the temple assassin’s will was momentarily greater than the aged Farseer. The warlock’s pistols were capable of putting a wound on the vindicare though. The fire dragons lit up the dread nought exploding it. The bright lances were ineffective this turn.

I managed to neglect my weaponless wave serpent which could have become a vital contesting nuisance, although I did manage to remember it in time to fire off its catapults.

Turn 4

The Terminators made their grand entrance inside some area terrain ruins directly behind my fire dragon squad, no models died from the terrain checks, and the terminators now had a cover save to give them some time to survive a round of shooting to bring their mighty close combat into the game.

The strike squad finished its conga line over two objectives. The vindicare sprinted out of his ruins to get into position behind the stationary wave serpent. Using a turbo-penetration round, the vindicare wrecked the wave serpent.

The strike squad opened up on eldrad’s squad again, leaving only 3 warlocks and the undamaged eldrad alive. Amazingly, embolden and enhance both were still alive at this point (as well as a chump).

The Purgation squad, a riflemen dreadnoughts, and the terminators launched a volley of fire upon the fire dragons who in their haste to blast a dread nought to smitherins, left themselves outside of cover......only the exarch survived.

The other rifleman dread ace’d two of the three remaining scorpians leaving only a chump left to take on the glorius challenge of killing a operative of the lords of terra, all to him self.

Rebuttal

Eldrad got his warlocks fortuned once again. He also doomed the Vindicare again and prepared to call a storm down. In his concentration, the warlocks were unable to coax him to move along too far.

The other farseer still was impotent, and was just outside of range to doom the newly arrived terminators.

The scorpian made the lonely trek towards the nearby terrain where a Vindicare had just blew apart a wave serpent.

The other squad of dire avengers bailed out from their Wave serpent and both dire avenger squads prepared to unleash a torrent of shurikens.

The lone fire dragon exarch discharged his flamer and two squads of dire avengers bladestorming put the hurt on the terminators, leaving only 1 left standing and the wave serpent’s lances managed to ace the last one.

And finally Eldrad brought his psychic fury down upon the strike squad in the hopes of pinning them, despite causing 5 wounds only one grey knight fell, sadly a storm of pure psychic power killing a comrade is one of the things grey knights come to expect, So they did not drop to their knees like backstreet betty does for 15 bucks.

The lone scorpian charged the vindicare and had only he passed one more armor save, he would have been given his chance for glory, but instead died before he could swing.

Turn 5

Vogrin’s Strike squad is stretched across two objectives giving him the lead.

His vindicare finally managed to get his sniper to wound eldrad and negate the invuln save provided for him by his armor. All remaing units flipped on full auto on the 3 warlocks and eldrad, And as if being watched by the spirits of their ancestors not even 1 wound got through. Eldrad hab been inside area terrain and made each and every cover save.

At this point Vogrin had gotten noticeably annoyed by this run of luck. I fully endorse his frustration, after putting nearly 20 wounds on a rerollable 4+ save. There was not one failure.

Rebuttal

Eldrad doomed the strike squad and fortuned his own unit. The other seer finally got to feel useful and doomed the vinidcare from his roost on the third deck of some ruins inside a tettering wave serpent.

Eldrad’s squad closed in on the strike squad, one squad of dire avenger embarked inside a wave serpent and moved in to hold a objective, the other dire avenger squad moved up on a objective and reloaded their weapons after offloading their entire magazines the turn previous.

The lone fire dragon ran across the short gap and flamed the vindicare, but was unable to cause a telling blow.

Eldrad poped the head of a psycannon sporting grey knight and charged in. Eldrad cut 2 grey knights apart and a couple more dropped from the warlocks. Only 2 grey knights managed to survive the charge and between them could only cause1 wound on eldrad despite eldrad having no save.

The game happened to go on to

 Turn 6

Vogrin shot up the dire avengers who didn’t embark with the one operational rifledread, purgation squad, and the Vindicare, But was unable to cause the dire avengers to flee.

In the next round of combat Eldrad failed to cause a wound, but his warlocks came through in fine fashion and cut apart the 2 remaining grey knight models that were scoring.

At this point vogrin acknowledged that he lost the capability of a tie.

Summary

At this point vogrin had a wounded vindicare, a purgation squad in the belfry of some ruins, a undamaged riflemen dreadnought, and a immobile rifleman dread.

His mobile dreadnought was well outside of charge range in order to contest.

On my side of the table there was eldrad with 3 warlocks, a wave serpent with 7 dire avengers(holding an objective), a squad of 6 dire avengers(also holding a objective), a wave serpent stuck onto of third story of some ruins with a farseer still inside, and a fire dragon exarch encroaching upon the vindicare’s personal space.

Post-Battle Report

This game held particular importance to me since, I have never beaten Vogrin before. At our flgs, there are no players that go into a  game with Vogrin and expect a victory, such is his reputation and anyone who has played him knows of his ability as a strategist. His lack of luck with the dice and my extreme luck brought a clear victory for the eldar this time.

Both of us brought lists that we felt would be fun to play, I fear that the next time I face vogrin, the kid gloves will be taken off and I will end up being mashed up into a fine pulp.