vs Ynnari

A daemon to slay!

It's been a minute since my last battle report. Sometimes life gets busy and there's less time for wargaming than one would like.

A few weeks ago I played against Ynnari for the first time since the very beginning of 8th edition. I would have posted about that battle earlier but, as mentioned, life got busy and finding the time to write has been difficult. As a result, well, I don't remember as much about this game as I should, so this post will be more of a highlight reel.

My first memories of Ynnari aren't really memories of fighting against Ynnari. One couldn't really fight Ynnari very effectively back then--they just killed you immediately and you accepted that with a smile. Back then, I was new to the hobby and hadn't yet grokked the nuances of movement and cover. My Grey Knights were far more vulnerable in those primal days. I don't remember much about that battle except that a squad of Shining Spears annihilated half of my army in the first turn with Soulburst, and since that day I gag involuntarily whenever anyone mentions Dark Reapers.

It turns out that Ynnari are not the same bugbears these days. On top of that, the current iteration of Ynnari rules is still pretty recent so my opponent didn't have as good of a grasp on them as he could have. They got some changes in the recent Psychic Awakening book, I believe.

All this being said, it was a pretty close game. I didn't get trounced but I still lost. However, I only had one goal this game: kill the Yncarne.

The Eldar forces.

The Yncarne is a daemon! It has the DAEMON keyword! I don't know if anyone knows this, but the Grey Knights have special bonus when fighting daemons. I was actually going to get to use my special rules in this game! I got so excited about facing an honest to God daemon that I even brought my Ordo Malleus Inquisitor.

Inquisitor Felencia and her retinue.

I knew I was going to face my usual problems against this list. One of my most frequent opponents plays Craftworlds so I am very accustomed to facing Eldar. I saw that my opponent was bringing Shining Spears (he had just recently finished painting them) so I knew I had to annihilate them at my first opportunity.

The battlefield. We played Scars of Battle with Dawn of War deployment.

Brought my anti-flyers to try and fuck up Shining Spears immediately.

We had mostly great success!

There were a ton of Dire Avengers in the way, but we cleared a path to the foul Neverborn.

pop

This valiant hero dropped the Yncarne to 1 wound before he was slain.

An interesting facet of the Grey Knights Codex is that we only have to pay 1 CP for Only in Death Does Duty End, whereas other Chapters have to pay 2 CP. This has been a clutch piece of tech in numerous situations, including this game when my Apothecary with a Nemesis Daemon Hammer died and took the Yncarne down to 1 wound as he fell. It's one of the few genuine benefits that the Grey Knights have over vanilla Space Marines, and it make me wonder why all of our other stratagems are so goddamn expensive.

Priority Orders Received is a dumb fucking Tactical Objective.

Striking Scorpions all up in my backline.

Paladins forming a defensive line around the Inquisitor.

Doom befalls the Eldar commanders.

This was a fun casual game that I definitely worried too much about. I eradicated his Shining Spears early on and my opponent was sad that his new unit was gone so quick. In retrospect, I shouldn't have feared them as much as I did. I'm used to them being piloted by someone who has been playing Shining Spears for years, and I should've realized that Jon here wasn't going to play them as cunningly. He made some clutch plays (killing a servitor to summon the Yncarne right into my gunline), and ultimately he won. I look forward to playing against this list soon.

Another battle report in the books! I'm playing against Raven Guard tonight, so expect another batrep tomorrow.