And there are a variety of reasons for this; most of those reasons are regarding much more important time commitments and so I'm certainly not upset about the frequency of my games. But when I do have the chance to deploy an army and throw down with a mate, I always enjoy it!
So, one afternoon that I had free last week, I seized my Grey Knight carry case and headed to the local store to play a game against a friend who has been pushing for a match for a long time.
"Not... Not Sons of Orar?" I hear you say, dear reader. No. When I first started painting Grey Knights, the one thing I knew I didn't want to do was paint them silver. Everyone painted them silver and, if you have seen my Necrons, you know I'm not one to paint a conventional colour scheme. Besides, the models are far too impressive to tarnish with a Leadbelcher base coat and a black wash. As you can see, this mini-strike force is not fully painted, but it's an absolute pleasure to play!
Mastery Level 3 Librarian with a Staff
5 Grey Knight Terminators with four halberds, a hammer and a psycannon
5 Grey Knight Terminators with three halberds, a sword, a hammer and a psycannon
2 Nemesis Dreadknights, each with a personal teleporter, a heavy psycannon and a Gatling Psilencer
This army is small, but it does three things very, very well.
#1: Having a static warp charge bank of 7 means in 1000 points, I can usually push through the powers I really need. To top it off, most units come with set powers, which allows me to react with surety to tough situations.
#2: 2+ armour saves everywhere. With a measly model count of 13, I have gone for quality over quantity, only choosing the most tenacious units to run in my army.
#3: Killing daemons! These guys are after all, the best of the best at fighting all things evil, and they have a plethora of special rules and abilities to go with this title. Every model has a force weapon, and my army dumps out 20 psycannon shots a turn, which is nothing to sneeze at. A wargear choice that I get challenged on all the time is my purchase of Gatling Psilencers on my Dreadknights. 12 S4 shots isn't anything special, until you see "Force" listed under its special rules. Yes, I can, have and will continue to instant kill characters, monstrous creatures and multi-wound models from a comfortable 24" away. People only laugh at this gun once. Then it pops their precious Lord of Change on turn one and they forever fear it!
But I ramble.
My Librarian rolled on the Telepathy table, hoping for Invisibility, but instead getting Dominate, Shrouding and Hallucinate, none of which are particularly useful in this game. Luckily, all of my other units had fantastic powers.
My opponent deployed first, dropping 11 pink horrors in the right-hand woods, a Nurgle soul grinder in the centre, and a pack of twenty flesh hounds with two Heralds of Khorne on Juggernaughts, complete with Etherblades and Instant Death gifts as chance would have it. He held a second unit of horrors in reserve.
I deployed quite defensively, sitting back off my deployment line to avoid getting into combat too quickly. I needed to thin out that Hound pack before it hit, or I was going to have some serious problems!
His turn was largely uneventful, rushing forward with his Khorne pack, failing to cast anything of use, and killing a single terminator from the Librarians bodyguard with the Soul Grinder's blast.
My half painted knight shunted his full 30" behind the hounds in an effort to draw them away from the bulk of my army, casting Sanctuary on himself to better weather the coming onslaught. My librarian and his squad in the centre shuffled back to better utilise their range, while everyone else took up firing positions. The Libby's companions pushed through Banishment on the hounds, making them far easier to kill, but after all of my guns finished firing, there was still far too many hounds, and no damage on his lethal heralds. My right-most squad did manage to take a hull point off the hulking soul grinder which was some small comfort.
In his second turn, things began to get messy. His second unit of horrors dropped right in front of me, and managed to blast away two more Terminators with Flickering Fire. The soul grinder fired upon my rightmost squad, but scattered off the board. But most importantly, my Dreadknight took the full brunt of his Khorne star, and while he managed to survive both heralds thanks in no small part to Sanctuary, the sheer volume of attacks generated by the raging dogs brought him crashing down.
This was a huge blow. The Dreads are my heavy lifters and primary fire platforms and one had been torn to pieces with next to no effort from my opponent. Retribution must be swift!
With the hounds isolated on the far side of the board, I had bought valuable time with the heroic sacrifice of my Dread. I wasted no time in handing out justice, with my remaining Dread and The Librarians squad unleashing a hail of death upon the recently arrived pink horrors, the Heavy Psycannon racking up a huge toll thanks to a direct hit and a well-timed Banishment. To add to the damage, my remaining squad of terminators charged into his Soul Grinder, casting Hammer Hand on the way in, boosting the strength of the Halberds in the squad to 7 and the Hammer to 10, meaning everyone could hurt the monstrosity. For all my efforts though, I stripped only one more hull point, and he ignored the damage result of Shaken with ease, killing two terminators in return. 
His horrors backed away cautiously, while his Hounds streaked across the field at breakneck speed, determined to find their next victim. His soul grinder laid another terminator low, but suffered a third hull point, leaving him with but a single one remaining. 
Realising that I was in a terrible position, I shunted my knight up the board and activated force on his Psilencer. The Librarian split from his doomed comrades and ran backward to save the Slay the Warlord point, and his two brothers cast Banishment once more upon the Hounds. At this point, I managed to swing the game back into my favour. All available guns were directed at the hounds, killing all but four and instant-popping his lead herald. A huge blow, but was it enough to save me?
My terminators in combat with his soul grinder failed to land the killing blow and were pulverised. I braced for impact. 
His turn could be summarised with two charges. His surviving hounds slammed into my terminators, killing them with ease, and consolidating even closer to my cowering librarian, now lurking in the very corner of the table. His soul grinder decided to lay the hurt on my Dreadknight, but in the single most hilarious overwatch ever, my knight raised his arm, and put a single Psycannon shot through the head of the Grinder, finding grim satisfaction as it faltered and crumbled. 
Once again, my knight activated Force, and wiped out the remaining herald and hounds with terrifying efficiency, and my librarian breathed a sigh of relief at being saved from inevitable death.
All that was left to do was to shut down the psychic barrage of the remaining horrors and butcher them in close combat with the Dreadknight, who well and truly claimed man of the match with one herioc deed after the other!
A hilarious, and very back and forth game! Hope you enjoyed it.
Thanks for reading,
Gabriel
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