Never Ever Assume

So here it was, a late night scheduled game at a buddies house was to be my first game playing my Grey Knights. I ran a Coteaz list, with lots of fun things. Venerable Dreadnaughts with assault cannons, Psy-riflemen, Purifiers, and Psyker squads in Chimeras. With all this, I learned one very important thing before the game even began. I will never make that mistake again.


I normally make many of my decisions on the game table or in list building on assumptions based on probability. We all do it to some degree. I know for instance that if I fire a full squadron of Hydra Flak Tanks, that I should get somewhere between 8-10 hits.

I won the dice roll, and decided for show, that I would go first. I set up of course in the middle, and knowing that I have Coteaz, figured that a seize the initiative against me was downright impossible since I can make him re-roll his seize the initiative. So I set up with Venerable Dreads really not in cover, and had rhinos and chimeras set up for forward movement. The impossible is sometimes very probable.

I was seized. Yes, my opponent rolled a 6, followed by another 6 to seize the initiative. Yes, my game should of been over after such a poor set up. At once I felt very noobish, while my opponent literally began to rip me apart with shooting.

The Game
My opponent was set up with 3 Blood Angel Furiosos, 6 predators, and 6 Razorbacks. Yes, there was some librarians etc as well.  Some cool things happened though, my single Jokaero rolled a pre-game 2, which meant that I had 4 36" melta guns in a chimera. I literally did not get to use these, as they were targeted for first round seized destruction. The same goes for one squad of 7 psykers. A roll of double ones, and their heads popped. To make it worse, I was in range of a psychic hood, so no ability got off.

To make a long story short, my list did very good even after such a bad start. My turn my army came alive and started ripping into the tanks, leaving hardly a stone unturned. Things that got too close were on the short end of too many psycannon shots, and the dreads took care of everything else. Round after round, my shooting was tearing apart his tanks.

It was a good game, and I really enjoyed it. My list proved strong, and rending armour value 13 was not an issue. I believe I took a victory home with the final score of 3-2, as we were playing an Ard Boyz mission with a center objective. The game ended on the horrible random game length 5th round, or I think I could have finished him off in 6.

The Point:
Always assume that a seize is possible, even if you are making your opponent re-roll the dice.