Against the GreyKn: Alpha Legion vs Grey Knights

Hotspur has returned! Facemasks in place, we faced off in person for the first time in many months. His second 9th Ed game, and a new army to try. 

New weapon rules are in effect for both of us, but our marines are still on their original wound values for now. Come on, GW, hurry those codices along!

Quest for the Holy Greyl

Grey Knights seem to have recovered from their 8th Ed plight, rather. The last time I had anything to do with them, they were terribly overcosted for what they could do, and even if they could do what they did pretty well, you'd never have enough of them to do much of it. 

But times have changed, and the forums are a-buzz with rumours of their now terrifying prowess. Hotspur has only played them once before, where he suffered under a heap of Orks, but he's taken notes and has some ideas of what works and doesn't. 

Not knowing the army all that well meant that the walkthrough and explanation we started with mostly just sounded scary without my managing to remember much of it! But it was enough small troops units to cover a decent amount of ground, with the cheapest characters available, a very hard hitting Paladin Terminator unit and a pair of armoured walkers. 

The list has excellent light firepower, brilliant melee and lots of duplicated psychic tools (so the right one is usually available at the right time), at the cost of few bodies on the ground. The warlord can stand at the back and generally buff the army's performance, taking stock of what Tide they might need, whilst everything else mops up the foe. 

Here's what rocked up to the table as far as I recall:

Grey Knights Battalion, 1000 Points

• HQ - Librarian in Terminator Armour, Warlord with Lore Master trait, Artisan Nullifier Matrix relic, Edict Imperator, Warp Shaping and Empyrean Domination powers, some kind of Nemesis Force blade
• HQ - Castellan Crowe, all his standard gear, Hammerhand power
• Troops - 5 x Strike Team, a pair of halberds and a pair of blades, a Psilencer, Gate of Infinity power
• Troops - 5 x Strike Team, same as above but with Astral Aim
• Troops - 5 x Strike Team, same as above but possibly a different heavy gun? And Astral Aim again
• Elites - 4 x Paladin Terminators, standard gear and the Sanctuary power
• Elites - Dreadnought with Multi-melta and Missile Launcher, Gate of Infinity power
• Heavy Support - Nemesis Dreadknight with Heavy Psilencer and Heavy Psycannon, twin fists and the Gate of Infinity Power

We Are Many (Comparatively) 

The Alpha Legion seem like the most fitting foes from my stable for the Grey Knights, so let's give them something to get all Inquisitorish about. 

The first draft of the list had plenty of Daemons, but I reconsidered this after wise council. I still kept some, I didn't want to be completely unsporting! And anyway, most of my meanest Alpha Legion stuff is Daemonic. But I certainly wanted to make sure I was outnumbering the Knights, pouring firepower into them from distance and swamping the objectives. 

So lots of small Cultists and Chaos Marines squads, backed by the Noise Marines in two groups. An Obliterator for heavy shooting, a Venomcrawler and Master of Possession for a forward rush/counterstrike group and a sniper Lord with a similar role. Weaken them with shooting, hit them with charges, take the ground with sneaky strats and win the game!

Alpha Legion Battalion, 1000 points

• HQ - Chaos Lord with Storm Bolter and Thunder Hammer, Warlord with Headhunter trait, Viper's Bite relic
• HQ - Master of Possession, Cursed Earth and Sacrifice powers, We Are Alpharius strat for the Master of Deception trait
• Troops - 6 x Chaos Marines, autocannon, Champion has lightning claw and combi-melta
• Troops - 6 x Chaos Marines with Astartes Chainswords, plasma gun, champion has power axe
• Troops - 10 Cultists with autoguns
• Troops - 10 Cultists with autoguns
• Elites - 5 Noise Marines with sonic blasters, one Blastmaster
• Elites - 5 Noise Marines with chainswords and bolt pistols, Champion has lightning claw and doom siren
• Heavy Support - Venomcrawler
• Heavy Support - Obliterator

Mission and Terrain

An overgrown supply base is the ground for tonight. A random roll in the Grand Tournament book gives us Centre Ground. Four objectives to squabble over, with a bonus secondary for holding on to the middle ground. And plenty of woods (Dense and Difficult) and buildings (Cover on the roofs if they have rails) that all provide Obscuring if they're over 5". 

Grey Knights Secondaries:

• Deploy Teleport Scramblers: Perform Actions in all three zones of the table for a big haul of VPs at the end
• Pierce the Veil: Perform Psychic Actions by the enemy's back table edge for another end game bonus
• Linebreaker: Two units in the enemy's deployment zone. 

So together, this is a strong plan to rush my deployment zone and perform a lot of actions for a lot of points. Ballsy! Can a small army afford to lose the firepower of one or two units a turn, whilst teleporting to the other side of the table and also holding the primaries? We'll see!

Alpha Legion Secondaries:

• Centre Ground: the mission special. You need to hold one or both of the middle objectives and perform an action on them for points
• Engage on All Fronts: Get in all the board quarters
• While We Stand We Fight: My most expensive models must survive, and that's the Chaos Lord, the Venomcrawler and the Obliterator

Predictably, I'm trying to be everywhere at once. It's less of a plan than the Grey Knights clearly have, but it's also going to be easier to spread out, shut down their teleports with Alpha Strategems and then bog them down with the numbers game. Or so I hope!

Deployment

We're appearing from opposite corners. I get the south west buildings, and spread out across the whole area, keen to stop any early teleport assaults. 

Hotspur keeps about half of his units in deep strike (two Strike Teams, the Paladins, Castellan Crowe) whilst the others cautiously hide in cover and prepare to grab objectives. 

This done, I use my Alpha Shenanigans to shunt the chainsword unit even further backwards into my deployment zone (I missed a spot!), then Forward Operatives to plonk a Cultist mob on one objective. 

Winning the roll-off, I decide I'd like the Grey Knights to go first so I can see where they end up and stamp on them appropriately. To war!

Grey Knights Turn 1

The Tide of Shadows covers the board as the Grey Knights go to work. No turn one teleports, just a general advance across the board on to the nearest pair of objectives. 

And then they really get cracking, as the dreaded Psychic Phase kicks off!

After generating a CP with Empyrean Domination, the Librarian grants Edict Imperator to the Dreadknight. The Grimdark Babystroller has moved through the trees to spot the nearby Cultists, and with his free shoot-then-move trick, easily mows all but one of the squad down before nipping back in behind the tall bamboo. 

The Strike Team near the Librarian cast Astral Aim on themselves, then the Dreadnought uses Gate of Infinity to reposition. I screw about with this, though, using Scrambled Coordinates to keep it out of my back line, but it can still draw a bead on the Venomcrawler. 

As the psychics powers set in, the last Cultist is easily cleaned up by guided stormbolter fire across the table, then the Dreadnought manages to splash three shots harmlessly off the Venomcrawler's daemonic aura. 

Not a bad start - good positioning, and my early land grab has already failed. But on the other hand, all they've killed are Cultists, and there's always more where they came from!

Alpha Legion Turn 1

My plan here, broadly, is to spread out. Ideally, I'd send at least one unit sneaking away to redeploy later, but the minute there's a hole in my backfield, I'll get sanctimonious marines buggering about in there. So my line sprawls across the deployment zone, leaving only a very small gap in the bottom corner uncovered. 

The Chainsword Noise Marines advance to the objective the Cultists just died on, and the Venomcrawler and MoP head forwards, thinking of engaging the Dreadnought. 

In the Psychic Phase, I manage Cursed Earth to boost the 'Crawler's save, but my Smite gets shut down. Shooting's quite the bust too - the Obliterator and Chaos Lord between them take four wounds off the Dreadknight (-3 AP on Viper's Bite! I didn't see that when I picked it, that's very handy), but everything else either gets lost shooting into the trees or bounces off armour. No fair! I'm supposed to be the sneaky hidey army, not the Greys!

Grey Knights Turn 2

Hammer time, is the feeling I get from Hotspur. The Knights already present shuffle on to objectives or bunker down (the guys at the back start placing Teleport Scramblers), then it's time for the deep strike party. We're also scoring primaries - he's got one to my two right now, so scores 5. 

It doesn't go quite as planned. When the Paladins attempt a Dynamic Insertion (arrive 3" away), they fall foul of Scrambled Coordinates and have to plonk down on the northern objective instead. In the woods, not quite the favoured terrain for Terminators. One Strike Team drops in ahead of the Noise Marines, the other just manage to squeeze into my back corner. Damn! But that leaves nowhere for Crowe, so he bides his time. 

The Psychic Phase is more or less a repeat of the previous one, although the Librarian doesn't quite manage any more CPs, but he does change the Tide to Convergence. The only good news is that I Deny the Strike Team's attempt to Pierce the Veil when they roll low. Hurrah!

Next, the Dreadknight lights up the Noise Marines, the Astrally-Aiming Strike team behind finish the job with Psybolt Ammunition (thanks, Tide of Convergence!) and the Dreadnought, which is cautiously advancing away from the Venomcrawler, connects to take four wounds off the spidery thing. 

My one consolation is seeing the Strike Team in the back line entirely fail to kill anything with a round of fire - between the Alpha Legion trait and their cover, the traitors on the nearby roof are fireproof. But losing the Noise Marines, whilst not entirely unpredictable, stings a bit. Their apocalyptic bolt pistol music fails to take anyone down, of course, and I've lost the objective again. 

Alpha Legion Turn 2

I've only got the one objective, so five points for me. Now I know where the Knights are, though, I can commit to a counterstrike, although I'm not in a great position for it, sadly. 

All the same - the Venomcrawler rips into the trees and prepares to assault. The Chainsword legionnaires go to intercept the Grey Knights in the bottom corner, and everyone else shuffles forward apart from the Blaster-armed Noise Marines, who can see both the enemy walkers. 

My psychic phase is a non-starter, failing to cast Cursed Earth and then getting denied a Smite. Shooting, sadly, also fails to impress - those damn trees! It's like that scene from Predator out here, a lot of shredded greenery and not much blood. The Dreadknight takes a few solid hits, but the Obliterator's guns are currently on Giant Pea setting, and it's not as damaging as I'd hoped. 

Combat isn't exactly a delight either. The Venomcrawler romps into the Paladins, the Chainsword guys hit the Strike Team. But they roll low, and I can't get them all in, although the round of Overwatch I take on the way in at least patters harmlessly off. 

Not so much the Force Falchions. I use the Venomcrawler first, gifting it Daemonforge, and eat two of the Paladins, but then Hotspur interrupts and half the Chaos Marines are sliced apart. The Champion and his valuable Power Axe are left out of combat, even after piling in, so the two remaining Alphas have to do all the hard work. Two of the Knights die, but that's not great news for next turn, I know which of those two sides I fancy for the win there!

So that was a damper squib than I needed. Killed a lot of bushes, though, the Imperial Gardeners won't be pleased. 

Grey Knights Turn 3

The Grey Knights have three objectives to my one, so they're into the big money. And as Castellan Crowe rocks up in my backline, they'll also be scoring Linebreaker this turn unless that fight in the corner goes really south. 

Spoiler - it does not. The Strike Squad smites two of the Chaos Marines away, leaving the Champion out of combat, where they can hose him away with bolter fire. 

Aware that there's a Daemon engine eating his valuable elites, Hotspur pulls the Paladins out of combat, then changes the Tides to Escalation with the Librarian, who also slams a Smite into Spiderboy for good measure. The Dreadnought then smites the Venomcrawler in the back with a great big Rites of Banishment, and that's goodnight from him. No explosions either, sadly. Crowe also manages to perform his Pierce the Veil psychic action after I waste my Deny on trying to stop that Gate opening.

Aware that the Dreadknight is likely to explode fairly soon, it pops through a Gate of Infinity and appears in the backline. Where it can't shoot straight enough to connect, but can charge the Chaos Marines on the roof (after a reroll). Three of them are tossed to the ground in short order, and although the Dreadknight is left on a single wound thanks to the Champion's Lightning Claw, it's already made its points back. 

Deprived of better targets, the Dreadnought starts shooting Cultists, bumping off three of them with a Krak Missile. He's been blessed with Astral Aim, though, and reserves his Multimelta for the Obliterator. Two good hits, one gets through, but it's only a pair of wounds. Until Hotspur rerolls it, and boils the poor lobsterman in his shell. 

Alpha Legion Turn 3

Hoo boy, I'm much thinner on the ground than I'd hoped! The last three Chaos Marines fall back, then Renascently Infiltrate. They're a bit of a last hope, but better than none at all. 

Rather than plowing forward, I'm actually going to have to fall back and try and deal with those wretches in my deployment zone. I can't afford to bleed Linebreaker on top of the Primaries, and I don't remotely have the bodies in position to get the Primaries under control this turn. The Master of Possession hides in the shrubbery, the Chaos Lord runs for Crowe and the Noise Marines crank everything up to 11. 

Once again, my psychic arts are denied to me. Doesn't stop the Noise Marines and the Chaos Lord between them first of all finishing off the Dreadknight and then murdering Castellan Crowe where he stands. This does take up the last of my current CPs to get a second round of shooting with the Cacophony strat, but then that's my lot. Very little actually done, and the Grey Knights are building up an ominous head of steam now.

Grey Knights Turn 4

They keep trucking, too. The Strike Team at the back deploys scramblers as they hide behind the buildings, the one in the middle consolidates on the objective and the one at the back kicks back, opens a good book and chills. The Paladins and Librarian hide deeper in the woods, and the Dreadnought idly wonders who to shoot next. 

The Psychic Phase is fairly quiet this time, lots of low rolls. That's still enough to switch the Tide back to Shadows and also generate another CP, mind you. 

There's also a brief lull in the shooting - most of the Knights can't see much, or are out of range. I'd like to claim that their over-confidence is their weakness, but my faith in my fiends is also clearly misplaced. 

The VPs are rolling in for them, too - plenty more progress on their Secondaries as well as full whack for Primaries. Not good. 

Alpha Legion Turn 4

I have very little left, but I'm also losing at the moment. So it's crazy gamble time!

The Noise Marines advance, firing as they come towards the Paladins. The Chaos Marine infiltrators appear in the Grey Knight back field, trying to make their motley gun assortment look bigger than it is. And the Master of Possession pulls up his big boy pants and charges towards the Strike Team on the bottom objective. 

Psychic Phase - a Covid-style lockdown. Shooting phase? A lone wound plinked off the Paladins by the Chaos Lord. The Alpha boys in the back line shoot the moon, which looks cool but achieves little. And the MoP, angry at having his Smite denied, risks a Daemon Shell. Which bites off his own leg. For three wounds. 

The Marines at the back don't make their charge either, but everyone else is in. Especially the Noise Marines! 12" through the trees! Shame they can't crack Terminator armour, but neither can the Paladins manage to hit them, they're too surprised. 

The MoP hobbles painfully into combat, somewhat hampered by the gnawing bolt Daemon in his thigh. Here, he dispatches a pair of Grey Knights with his stave before the others calmly mop him up. 

Grey Knights Turn 5

With a calm and brutal efficiency, the Grey Knights continue their deep cleanse. As the forward infiltrators Pierce the Veil, the midfield team plant Scramblers. The guys at the back smite away the Chaos Marines, the centre field smite off the Noise Marines (Apocalypse Bolt Pistol Revenge Kills Caused: Nil) and the newly freed Paladins wipe out the remaining Cultists with glib aplomb.

That just leaves...

Alpha Legion Turn 5

...the Chaos Lord, who in typical style tries to kill the enemy warlord out of spite more than use. He's not even on that back objective, the lunatic. The Viper's Bite nearly does it, too, but that silver armour is a tough nut to crack! 

The devastated forest slowly settles back to calm as the Grey Knights finish their missions. Just the final reckoning to do, and after that butchery, the final score is in no doubt.

Result: Grey Knights Victory, 67-20

Points breakdown: 

Grey Knights 45 on Primaries, 4 on Linebreaker, 8 on Pierce the Veil, 10 on Deploy Scramblers

Alpha Legion: 15 on Primaries, 5 on While We Stand We Fight

Locker Room

Well, that was a lockdown for these lockdown times! Pinned in my own deployment zone, my attempt to play static gunline was misplaced. The Grey Knights are hard to shoot off stuff with their tides and armour, and my lack of mobility led to the inevitable results. 

Hotspur played this very well - planned out to perfection, and that risky choice of action-heavy secondaries really came through. Even if I'd been actually threatening the centre line, I suspect I wouldn't have beaten him overall. 

So what went wrong? Well, not moving forward, as I said. And having a slightly toothless army - my small squads just didn't have the hitting power to outmatch the Knights at either the close range firefight or melee where the action all happened. Actually, my first choice list might have done better despite the extra daemons! It had more forward motion (a Daemon Prince with Mindveil, a Helbrute, fewer but larger Marine squads), and could probably have bossed the midfield rather more. 

Also, mobility. A Rhino, or somebody with Warptime, or even using the reserves rule. Or my original plan of reverse infiltrating a steady stream of squads! All of that might have got me where I needed to be (the middle!) so I could have distracted the Grey Knights better instead of trying to keep him out of my deployment. 

Mind you, I underestimated the Grey Knights too. 'They're more or less just Tactical Marines' was my initial though, I reckoned I could chew them up much faster than I actually could. About as fast as they scythed through my lines, ironically enough! 

Good game, and well done to Hotspur and his shiny men. Great paintjobs there too, which my photography as ever lets down. Here's to the next time, when I'm sure I'll get my revenge!