The 11th Company BLOG

Game Play Tip: Exposing Yourself Properly

2012-01-27T07:43:00.000-08:00

I decided not to start this article off with a Google searched, related image!

Let me put your fears aside about what this article is about and define where I am going with it. One very advanced tactic that can be useful in a game of 40K is knowing how to maximize the potential of units by knowing when to expose them to the enemy. This is a very basic concept to explain, but as with many advanced tactics, it's easy to learn and hard to master.

The idea of exposing a unit to the enemy is simply put as holding back until the right time to strike. The concept of "holding back" is where this moves from a simple tactic to an advanced tactic.

Let's start with a simple example. Suppose I have a Dreadnought in a Drop Pod with a Multi-Melta (DDM). The simple tactic for a DDM is to deep strike him next to your opponent's valuable vehicles, and destroy one. You want to deliver a crippling blow right away, one in which your opponent may not be able to easily counter.

So, the part that's critical to this game play tip is, you are exposing your Dreadnought to the enemy for the chance to destroy an important target.

What are the downsides of the DDM?

Easy. You drop in, you roll a 1 to hit, and now the enemy greases your Dreadnought and his drop pod, picking up 2 easy kill points and brushing away 140 points of your army.

But wait! There's more!

There are other downsides as well. What if your opponent doesn't have a good target for your DDM? What if you can only get into melta-range of a group of worthless rhinos? What if he bubble wraps? What if he reserves? And on and on.

Where Simple Becomes Advanced

So, very often, when someone has a simple tactical plan for attack, such as our DDM scenario, a good player will simply counter the tactic. As mentioned above, maybe he bubble wraps. Maybe he reserves. Maybe he does any number of things.

The DDM player, his tactic now being thwarted, all to often shrugs his shoulders and just drops the Dreadnought anyways. Maybe he'll get a sweet rhino kill! Maybe he'll not die on the opponent's turn and get to assault something! Who knows? The plan failed so just press on.

Sometimes, like with he DDM scenario, the trick, suicide, alpha strike is the best plan. Often, the opponent will counter thus nullifying the advantage. What if, then, instead of just throwing our Dread away, we place him and his drop pod elsewhere on the board where the opponent won't just LOLroll him on his turn?

Drop him away from the enemy? Drop him behind terrain where he can't be seen? He might not be useful right now, but later on in the game, he could become useful.

How?

Now, rather than just tossing him away because your initial plan didn't work, you have a resource in your list you might be able to leverage. Maybe, later on in the game, you start to whittle away at your opponent's melta fire or his long range fire. Maybe, the Dread can stand behind terrain in board mid creating a threat bubble to prevent your opponent from advancing.... afterall he can't shoot you if he can't see you.

This is a simple idea, but it gets more complex. What to take away from this DDM scenario is not a better way to use a DDM but to understand the concept of WHEN and HOW to expose your units to the enemy. Above all, don't just throw them away.

LOLZOMGT3rrib4d!!!!11

There are a lot of very good 40K players out there, and many have very eccentric army and unit choices. A common mantra of many great players when questioned about some of their choices is, "they are good. People just don't know how to use them."

I've heard people defend everything from Wraithlords to Scout Bikers and beyond.

Now, once you get over yourself and realize that these guys really are very good players and not just lucky, the next logical question is, how in the heck are they making this crap work?

Does this line of thinking sound familiar?

- Dude, I'll just blow _____ of the table. It sux.

- ______ doesn't kill XXXX or YYYY and is a waste.

- My army will LOLZpew _____ away.

So, if something looks so bad on paper or to the internet arm chair general, why does someone else, often a very good, proven player, think it works?

Unit Exposure

It's easy to dismiss a threat as not credible. However, if the opposing player is actively seeing to note expose a unit to you until the time is right, things change dramatically.

Wraithlords are LOLZERZ to melta guns, right? What if the Eldar player just waits to bring the Wraithlord out until the melta guns are dead? Now, what are you going to do to stop that T8 monstrous creature?

Marbo sux because he just jumps out, maybe kills something and dies? What if your opponent places him behind terrain where he can't be seen.... but funny, close enough to maybe contest an objective next turn? Now what are you going to that you have to commit forces to see him or take him out?

See where I'm going with this?

The reason why this is an advanced tactic, although simple concept, is because the amount of tactics and thinking that has to go into not exposing the unit until the right time. Is there enough terrain? Can you leverage LoS or the movement phase well enough to make it useful later? Can you see how to eliminate key threats to the model before it comes out on Turn 3?

Hope that gets you thinking for today. The bottom line is, never throw a unit away unnecessarily and NEVER assume you will just herpADerpPEW some kind of threat away from you... especially when a player who is as smart or smarter than you is actively seeking to make sure that doesn't happen.

Why Wraith-Barge Necrons Work

2012-01-25T11:16:00.000-08:00

One thing that has really been running through my mind of late when it comes to working towards my own flavor of Necrons is...

Why are Wraith-Barge lists working so successfully? Honestly, on paper, they don't look that good! (Need evidence that they work? The UK Masters was just won by a Wraith-Barge list.)

What is a Wraith-Barge list? I've already posted one twice here even as I was trying to decide what I wanted to play, and I feel like, seeing as how many other people are using it, it's the "common" Necron list at this point. (Especially now that the whole Scarab fever seems to be done.)

A "Wraith-Barge":

HQ:

Anrakyr/Overlord + Warscythe in Command Barge

Overlord + Warscythe + Command Barge

Royal Court #1:

Pulsetek

(Optional other Teks, especially a Veiltek)

(Optional other Destructeks depending on list)

Royal Court#2:

Pulsetek

(Optional other Teks, especially a Veiltek)

(Optional other Destructeks depending on list)

Elites:

None

Troops:

3-4 x 5 man Warrior or Immortal Squads

(Possible Night Scythe transports)

Fast:

5-6 x Wraiths with some wound allocation

(Possible 5-6 x Wraiths OR 5-10 x Scarabs)

Heavy:

3 x Annihilation Barges

(Possible Spyders for a mini-scarab farm)

The core of the list combines Command Barge, Annihilation Barges, and Wraiths. These are married to some cheap troop choices which will either contribute supporting fire via attached Destructeks or Night Scythes.

Sometimes, you can build a mini-Scarab farm into the list to by dropping a Anni Barge or 2 for some Spyder Units to beef up a Scarab swarm. This is points dependent.

Why Does This Look Bad on Paper?

Yes, your eyes deceive you.

There are several reasons this list looks bad on paper. The first is a big weakness to melta weaponry.

It doubles out wraiths. It kills Barges. Barges all have 24 inch range which makes it very easy to get into melta range in 2 turns. So much so it would appear like a solid Mech Guard build should really just run this list over.

Yet, even in my play testing, the exact opposite happens. I've found that Mech Guard is actually the one getting run over. What's going on here?

It's Messing with You

This list functions exactly like this:

Step #1) Place Wraiths in a position to create a sizeable 18 inch threat bubble. Wraiths are sturdy and won't die very easily.

Step #2) Flank or position Anni Barges to get good side shots or fire support.

Step #3) Turbo Barges up to create a massive threat bubble.

Step #4) Use Solar Pulse to help ensure the enemy can't put to much fire on your Turn 1.

Step #5) Hang giant HIT ME sign on your Command Barges and Wraiths while placing your Troops in the most unassuming way possible.

Step #6) Hope your opponent reacts exactly like he would against a normal Marine army.

The overall goal is to distract your as much as possible with a credible Wraith and Command Barge threat while peppering away at you with sub-par fire support. From there, use Solar Pulse to try and mitigate return fire.

Also, reserve or give up first turn.

Lastly, specifically target the portions of the opponent's army which will be the biggest late game threat to your Troops, generally by destroying the enemy mobility or long range support.

In a nutshell...

Act exact like a Hammer list with solid Fire Support just without the expensive hammer.

The thing is, it's not a hammer list. Wraiths, although good for their points, aren't a very credible hammer. They will die in droves to concentrated fire or real hammer units.

But against Guard or more shooty oriented lists, they sure look like one. They rend. They are S6. They have a 3++. They are decently difficult to kill with shooting.

And Command Barges! How annoying these can be! Living metal combined with a rule to "heal" immobilized results. Further, it's 13 armor!

The Solution

The solution to this list is to do EXACTLY what the "on paper" tells you to do. This include not getting intimidated by the pseudo-hammer and red herrings running around.

Your melta really can take out those Wraiths. Command Barges really do die a horrible, horrible death after their sweep attack because they will now be in counter-range with Melta guns. You really can tie up and destroy Wraiths with dedicated assault units.

Close support is the key as well as a forward push.

My play testing thus far against Guard players has shown that the Guard player resorts to base instinct when faced with this list. He wants to go to corners, split his force up, or focus way to much on killing Wraiths.

Instead, the better approaches are to treat this exactly like you would fighting Space Wolves. Sacrifice a few Chimeras where you have to, counter with the heavy hand of a plethora of melta when they get close, and otherwise, remove their long range support as quickly as possible.

Building my Necron List Part 3

2012-01-20T06:52:00.001-08:00

Thank-you for a FAQ! Best part is, the Necron FAQ is, in my opinion, one of the best first pass FAQs GW has ever released. It answers many of the burning, hot-button questions, and it does so pretty succinctly. There are still several problems, but at this point, I can now at least stamp the dex as PLAYABLE!

Because of the FAQ, many a thing has changed about my list building theories. Before I get to that, though, let's discuss some things that I think are working and why.

Also, keep in mind that the UK Masters (if you don't know what that is, that's where the top ranked 16 players in the UK battle it out each year to determine the best of the best!) was won by a Necron player this year.

At 1750, the list he used is very similar to the Night Scythe build I was talking about in the last post, but there aren't any Night Scythes in it. INSTEAD, he was using dual Destructeks in small warrior squads as his fire support..... something I couldn't do because no FAQ was present yet to allow me to do it. Now that the FAQ allows us to put 2 Crypteks in a single squad (this is a great ruling!), it's better, in my opinion.

So, here's why the list is working in my opinion and why!

Here's the short of the list @ 1750:

Anrakyr + Barge

Lord + Barge (warscythe etc.)

2 x Royal Courts with 4 destruteks each, 2 being pulseteks)

4 x 5 man warrior squads.

A couple Wraith squads, and a small Scarab Squad.

3 x Anni Barges.

The new BRB FAQ now blocks Anrakyr from using his "Mind in the Machine" ability while aboard his barge. At time this wasn't true. However, now due to this, Anrakyr has lost most of what makes him worth his points!

In play testing, prior though, Anrakyr was a beast, especially against heavier Mech Armies. What the FAQ DID DO, though, was to now confirm that you can sweep attack, jump out, mind in the machine a target, then assault a different target.

Anyways, the FAQ now allows 2 Crypteks to be in single squad. This means that 5 Man Warrior squads can now become fairly reliable fire bases with 2 S8 AP 2 shots each that, more importantly, can move and fire This is pretty decent anti-tank with 2 shots, instead of 1.

In play testing a similar list, here's how this list works.

- It creates enormous threat bubbles that distract the enemy from shooting your troop units.

The Wraiths absorb a lot of shooting as do the Command Barges. Since they can absorb so much melta and anti-tank fire, this leaves the Anni Barges largely unmolested most of the game and the anti-tank troops free to hang out in the back.

Remember that Night Fight is going for the first, critical 2 game turns. This means the Wraiths get right up on you to be a huge threat. It also means the enemy can't see troop choices to fire on them.

Thus, the list can disable your long range threats early and then play the objective games once your long range and mobility is hampered when the night fight lets up.

- It confuses target priority for most experienced players.

Most experienced players think "if I kill the hammers, the game ends." So, they want to target the Wraiths and the CCB's early.

Meanwhile, the Necron player is going to use his fire power and CCBs to surgically disable the opponent's ability to handle his troop choices and Anni barges in turns 3+, when the Night Fight ends.

I recognized this right away in play testing. As the Necron player, it just seems like the natural course of the game. However, for my opponents, I would find that they would expend an inordinate amount of energy to deal with what basically amounts to Red Herrings which would net me a close win in the end.

Experienced players are going to have to learn to do the opposite of what they "normally do" when fighting Necrons. This is a window that can be exploited by a canny Necron player.

On to the FAQ

The FAQ has opened up a new list type for Necrons that I think will work beautifully. It's going to be next shot at a list type.

The KP Denial List

Working with these FAQ answers:

- Crypteks now allow Imotekh to re-roll Night Fight. Since this is allowing a re-roll during the "start of the game turn" which is no phase in my book, they basically set the precedence now that the Chronotek will allow a re-roll pretty much whenever. :P

- Veilteks can now come on the board with deep strike instead of walking on.

- 2 Crypteks can now join squads.

Here's the core concept. Let's build a list around very sturdy blocks of troops packed with Crypteks. The core concept will be to abuse Veils to stay away from the enemy, leverage the ability to now greatly prolong Imotekh's Lightning with a Chronotek re-roll, Veils to claim/contest late game, and basically, the snag easy KPs while denying your opponent the ability to counter.

You can't kill what you can't see!

So, here's the basic strategy:

- Stay off the board.

- Teleport squads around behind LoS terrain and/or leverage Night Fight to prevent the enemy from ever getting close to spot light, assault, shoot, etc.

- Wrack up easy KPs with Imotekhs lightning.

- Otherwise use Wraiths as a Red Herring and to prevent the enemy from getting close.

- Tie Objectives/Win KPs

HQ:

Imotekh (Mr. Lighting)

Zahndrekh (Because I want Obyron and still have 2 courts :P)

Obyron (Because has a pimptastic, get me out of combat veil)

Royal Court #1:

Veiltek (needed for veil)

Chronotek (of course!)

Pulsetek (want one to keep night fight going all the time)

Royal Court #2:

Veiltek (right!)

Chronotek (you'll see in a second)

Optional Pulsetek (if you have points)

That's a ton of points in to HQs! But remember, the idea will be to run away not to stand and fight.

Troops:

10 x Immortals

(3, 3+ save troops to teleport around with which are hard to kill)

Fast: (options)

5 man, wound allocated Wraith Squads (great for blunting assault units or keeping the enemy at arm's length)

5 man Tomb Blades (great for dumping a ton of S6 fire and/or turbo-contesting in the late game)

The idea would be to use Wraith Squads to block, Veilteks to teleport units to safety and basically leverage Lightning + Light Shooting to wrack up easy KPs on things like vehicles.

Chronoteks get used for all kinds of trickery .... like....

- Rerolling scatter on veilteks

- Rerolling Imotekh's lightning.

- Rerolling failed saved.

- Rerolling failed RP rolls

And more.

Internet Strike

2012-01-18T08:32:00.001-08:00

Don't really know how to make this site shut down for the strike. So, figured least I could is provide a link to the strike.

http://sopastrike.com/strike

Nightwish: Holy Concept Album Batman

2012-01-17T12:54:00.001-08:00

Anyone out there a Nightwish fan and listened to Imaginaerum yet?

Now, I realize that they changed their sound a good bit in Dark Passion Play (after Tarja left), but holy crap, it's like an entirely different band on this one. Clearly, this is a concept album as the whole thing, musically, is actually very good and comes off to me like the sound track of a movie or a play.

Seriously, though, been waiting on a new album for a few years here, and uhm, wanted more Nightwish goodness or what? On top of that, I think they had lost a lot of the core fan base with the sound change in the last one. Have a feeling like anyone who was hanging on there is going to be gone after this one!

It's not bad, it's just completely different! If you are into a very well orchestrated CD which borders on neo-classical, you'll love it. If you are into some sweet Finnish symphonic metal.... gonna recommend you ignore this one.

There are just a few songs on there that are reminiscient of what one expected, but I guess like the DVD said, that era has ended?

Also, should add, if you used to like Nightwish before Tarja left.... this band is for you.

http://www.epica.nl/

Dear Internet...

2012-01-17T10:19:00.000-08:00

I am very thankful for the new Necron FAQ. I think this is one of the best first round FAQs GW has ever produced.

It really only left me with one very burning, unanswered group of questions:

1) Do Royal Court members who are attached to a squad count as separate Kill Points?

2) Do Royal Court members who are attached to a scoring unit themselves count as scoring, even if the entire squad save the Royal Court members is wiped out?

Building my Necron List Part 2

2012-01-12T06:11:00.001-08:00

More thoughts and moving forward with a 'Cron list. Several new things came up over the past few days as I delved deeper into a new list which I think are worth sharing. I'll also hit ever so briefly on the troop choices.

- Imotekh and reserve.

- The Dark Eldar Problem

- The MSU Melta Problem

- The Anni Barge Problem

- Scarab Farm

- Night Scythe

Let's start with the Troop Choices:

Keeping in line with most of the GW codices, the troop choices for the Necron codex really just make you want to cry in some ways.

Seriously, why do some codices get troop choices that actually lift their own weight and others don't?

Some codices get troop choices that are actually useful outside of the transport option they have. (Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Imperial Guard, Tyranids, Orks, etc.) Unfortunately, Necrons are one of those codices where the troop choices are good for little else except their scoring and providing access to their transport.

Now, I realize there is an argument out there for putting a huge block of warriors or immortals on the field and attempting to glance someone to death. I can even one up that and say that doing this with a Veiltek is even better.

At the end of the day though, we need to understand the common baseline here that glancing something, isn't "to death". Indeed, most Grey Knight players are just rubbing their hands together in that evil, maniacal way going... "yes, believe that glancing hits will stop us!"

you are aware we have fortitude right? And that for most armies, we really don't care if you blow the gun off because we can just bum rush and kill you in assault anyways?

My fellow Necron enthusiasts. Please never forget that more Marine players don't need to shoot you to kill you. So, knocking the gun off a Razorback, unlike for most armies, doesn't eliminate it as a threat. It can still bum rush you and set up assaults which will easily kill you.

Anyways, here's what has been working for me as far as troops:

- Take small troop squads so you don't waste points on them.

- Take a Night Scythe, probably the most useful thing out of the troop choices.

- Or, take larger bricks for a unit which is very hard to kill, will be extremely stand off-ish, and score multiple objectives. Seriously consider a Veiltek here so you can teleport out of trouble.

- The Ghost Ark doesn't do anything, at least on paper. I haven't tested it yet, but it looks pretty awful. It has crap for guns. It can regenerate troops that I likely won't shoot at. It's 13 armor but no threat at all.

One last thing on troops.... DUDE CAN I GET AN FAQ? I need to know if we can put members of both royal courts in the same squad. If we can, troop choices get a LOT better. I'm having to assume we can't at this time, and it sucks.

Now, on to very brief discussions about problems I have noticed building lists....

Imotekh and Reserve

As I mentioned in the previous article, I think Imotekh has potential to do a lot of damage. (He's rocking the house if you can use him in conjunction with a Chronometron.... but alas, WE NEED AN FAQ! Did I mention that already?) Imotekh also brings Phaeron to the table which is very handy with a Veil squad which play testing has shown me are very good.

Alas, he has a fatal flaw which I think most players will learn to exploit. The best way to handle Imotekh is to give the Necron player first turn and then go into reserve. Odds are in your favor that the Night Fighting will end before you come on the board, and if not, you'll only suffer one turn of it. This completely neuters Imotekh, and for that reason, I have decided that he is probably better off not in most lists.

The Dark Eldar Problem

This army annoys me like Demons! They are stupid good versus certain kinds of lists but stupid bad against others and thus not altogether a good tournament army. Unfortunately, against Crons, they are stupid good.

The Dark Eldar problem is very simple. They have almost everything they need to completely cripple almost any Necron force. The only thing they don't have an immediate answer for is killing big blocks of Scarabs, but do they really care since they can just avoid them?

The mass of poison can easily wipe out squads to prevent Reanimation Protocols as well as kills Spyders and Wraiths. The Lance weapons giggle at Quantum Shielding. Their fast movement means they can easily stay out of your 24 inch kill zone with guns. Their ability to turbo right into your grill with Wyches means they can very easily setup assaults on you. The have night vision. Everything about Dark Eldar screws Necrons.

I'm having the hardest time trying to build a list that can even remotely compete here on paper.

The MSU Melta Problem

One big problem with Cron lists I'm trying to overcome is how do you stop a Space Wolf Razor Spam player from going, "You know what, screw this night fighting crap. I'm just going to bum rush you with my Razors, hop out when I get there, melta whip all your tanks, and assault what gets out?"

The Anni Barge Problem

Has anyone had any luck play testing these things yet? So far in my play testing, they have been very lack luster. :(

Scarab Farm

To combat a lot of problems, I've been looking at 2 lists to play test next. The Scarab Farm is one of those lists.

The Scarab Farm would seem to work best, on paper, in a more defense "hold mid" kind of fashion than a rush out and kill fashion. Back this up with Wraiths, some Veils, some Phaeron shooting blocks, and I think you got something that will work against most armies (not Deldar).

The reason is that the best defense against Scarabs is to bubble wrap and out-assault them. This won't work if you can leverage decent anti-infantry fire with Phaeron bricks against the bubble wrap and back the Scarabs up with Wraiths in assault.

You also take Imotekh here to provide you with 2 solid turns of Night Fighting plus the ability to seize. This allows you to wind up the Scarab Farm for a couple of turns as you advance.

HQ:

Necron Overlord + Phaeron + Warscythe - 120

Imotekh - 225

1 x Pulsetek - 55

2 x Veiltek - 120

Troops:

10 x Immortals w/ Gauss Blasters - 170

5 x Warriors - 65

Fast:

5 x Wraiths + 2 x Coils + 1 x Caster - 200

10 x Scarabs - 150

Heavy:

3 x Spyders + Gloom + Claw - 175

Night Scythe

Unfortunately, this may end up being the better Necron list as it may have fewer bad match-ups. (Deldar still annihilate this but at least it matches better versus Tyranids!)

I say it's unfortunate because all you are basically going to be doing is MSU 'Crons which is what most Marine armies already do very well!

This army does have CRAZY speed though, like Deldar. As such, it makes you have some serious advantages versus Demons and Nids which otherwise really wreck most Necron builds.

I'll expand on this more as I get a chance to play test and see how it works.

HQ:

Anrakyr - 165

Barge - 80

Necron Overlord + Scythe- 100

Barge - 80

2 x Pulseteks - 110

1 x Veiltek - 60

1 x Stormtek - 25

Troops:

5 x Warriors + Night Scythe - 165

Fast:

10 x Scarabs - 150

5 x Tomb Blades + Beamers - 150

Heavy:

Anni Barge - 90

Defensive 40K and Sisters

2012-01-10T05:19:00.000-08:00

I'm still trying to take time off from the 40K smashing army that is the Grey Knights. Part of that is looking for a new way to play 40K. One thing I have truly realized about playing the top tier armies is that they are all very, very good at just smashing the opponent. More often than not, the easiest solution to most of their problems is to simply crush it. A great grasp of rules and tactics makes these armies go from good to great. In the few times where you can't just smash your way out of a problem, you generally have just enough tools to think your way out instead. One thing I noticed right away as I have started play testing new army ideas both on the table and off, is that I often look at a problem and go, "you know, if I had my Grey Knights right now, I would just kill those threats and there wouldn't be a problem." Alas, when you step down into the murky waters of non-top tier armies, eliminating threats isn't always an option.

This very idea has led me down a road, more like spiritual journey, towards a new play style model... new to me not to 40k of course... that I refer to as the defensive model of play. Speaking to the basics, the entire concept is to turn the power of the top tier armies against themselves by blunting their ability to just GREY KNIGHTS SMASH! their way out of a problem. If one can somehow prevent themselves from getting swatted away, you can drag them down into the murky depths of tactical play and hopefully onto a more level playing field.

If they can't break down the wall, they'll have to think of some canny way to get past it, and let's face it, Guard and GK players rarely have a reason to sharpen their skills at thinking around a problem!

I'm not really sure if walking this path will bear fruit at the end of the day, but I'm giving it the college try. A lot of this thought process came from writing that long series of articles for the RALPH project on the podcast.

One of the things that I know Guard and Grey Knights, more than Wolves really, will struggle with is a defensive style horde. When you simply don't care about the Vendettas, Manticores, Psybolt Dreads, and Melta Vet squads, that will turn the majority of power lists on their head. So, how do you go about not caring about these things?

Superior Numbers!

But not just superior numbers, you need superior durability too. (See the RALPH articles).

The explanation is actually quite simple! If I have 100 models on the board, and you fire at me with a Vendetta, you will likely cause 2-3 wounds. I will get the same cover save as any other model. You will kill 1 model per Vendetta. If you have 3, firing at me for 7 turns, you'll get 21. That's a very slow return! You are hoping that I don't kill your Vendettas before then!

The reality of most top tier lists is they gear themselves to fight other top tier lists. This generally includes a healthy dose of anti-tank. Taking something from the Horde Ork play book, you know that army that everyone always says you should worry about but nobody secretly does because no one actually takes that army to a tournament, you can defeat anti-tank measures simply by not having any useful targets for them to shoot at.

We live in a good time in the meta for this. The reason is that the most effective anti-infantry armies generally fall on their faces trying to fight heavy mech armies. Thus, the meta has driven them into near obscurity on the tournament scene. Further, because Grey Knights are so adept at annihilating hammer units with Paladins, Purifiers, Death Cultists, and Psyko-broke grenades, those lists are trailing away as well. The fact is, Blood Angel terminators in a Storm Chicken actually kind of suck pretty bad now when a Psybolt Dread or 5 can take out the chicken and a pack of 10 Death Cultists backed up by a grenade battery will cut through your Terminators like a ginsu.

So, I'm going to give this concept a shot and put my money where my mouth is. (Also because the Necron codex is just frustrating me to no end because of lack of an FAQ and lack of models!!!!!)

I'm going to be play testing some Sisters of Battle list ideas along with my 'Crons. Why Sisters? Two reasons. First, because it's the army nobody plays. Second, because they can horde up pretty well with infantry which is a cross between Imperial Guard foot lists and Space Marine armor saves.

My first stab at this is going to be as follows:

HQ:

Kyrinov

7 x Death Cult Assassins

Saint Celestine

Troops:

10 x Battle Sisters w/ Multi-Melta and Melta Gun and Power Weapon

Fast:

10 x Dominion Squad w/ 4 x Melta Guns

Rhino

10 x Dominion Squad w/ 4 x Melta Guns

Rhino

Heavy:

10 x Retributors w/ 4 x Heavy Bolters + Simulacrum

I know, it looks crazy, and crazy bad to boot. Here's the notes, and I'll report back once I get some play testing done.

- Kyrinov is a requirement to keep my girls from running away, especially due to shooting casualties or the likes of psychic abilities like PBS or FotD. Yes, I really want little Jake for the faith reroll, but unfortunately, I only have 2 slots and right now, Saint Celestine is really just to awesome to pass up.

- Saint Celestine is the ultimate harass and contest unit in the game. Hard to pass her up.

- Dominions can scout or outflank and provide also an emergency suicide melta unit to take out things like Land Raiders.

- The small DCA is there for counter-punch only. The goal with them will be to hide behind terrain and only come out of their hole when a now fearless battle squad ties something up.

- Retributors can roll their faith before they choose a target. So, if they succeed, shoot a tank, else shoot infantry.

Remember, the idea is to overwhelm objective with bodies and in KP missions, to simply deny KP while plinking away to get my own.

I'll report back to let you know how it goes!

Necron Playtesting Breakdown #1

2012-01-09T06:23:00.000-08:00

I'm going to be writing articles about my list choices as I go forward and probably doing a segment on it. Here's the first article which is a pretty good read on my thoughts going into play testing.

http://11thcompany.blogspot.com/2012/01/building-my-necron-list-part-1.html#comment-form

So, I got 2 games in this weekend with Crons. One was against an elite BA jump army that Pat was trying out. The other was against Steve who went all out with his Guard and built an extremely nasty Mech Guard list which was basically melta vet spam with trip manticores and trip vendettas.

Here was my list:

HQ:

Anraykyr + Command Barge

Imotekh

2 x Pulseteks

2 x Veilteks

Troops:

10 x Eternals (Immortals)

9 x Immortals

5 x Warriors

Fast:

5 x Wraiths + 2 x Whip Coils

8 x Scarabs

Heavy:

3 x Spyders

Anni Barge

Here's what I got so far:

1) Imotekh easily paid for himself in both games with his Lightning Strikes before the night fight let up. As I predicted so far, the lightning ability does a lot of damage to mech. It wasn't very useful in the game versus a DoA list of course. However, the Phaeron ability on top of that to make my immortal units be able to fire at full distance was useful, and in both games, Imotekh actually bailed my immortals out of a couple of fist fights they got into. Granted, Imotekh can barely fight his way out of a wet paper bag, but the extra wounds helps. You aren't going to get your immortals stuck in a position against a dedicated assault unit anyways.

So far, Imotekh has been paying off. He has been a good buy. Also, due to command barge performance thus far, he probably will still be a better buy than another command barge.

Here's a rules question:

Does imotekh have to be on the board for the lightning strikes to go off? Nothing in the rules says anything about his presence being required and actually seems to imply the opposite.

2) Anraykyr did very little in both games. Not his fault in the IG game because I had to reserve him because Steve got first turn, and he didn't come on the board till turn 4. Had he come on Turn 2 or even Turn 3, his potential to snag a manticore and do some big time damage was high. By the time he finally did show, it was too late.

Anyways, the command barge is a lot harder to use than it looks on paper. The reason is that it's actually pretty hard, even with a 24 inch move, to be able to move over a unit and have enough movement left to land some place that is 1 inch away. Furthermore, you will almost invariably take a few melta guns to face because you are now so close. This makes you want to hang it back and use it surgically, but in doing so, you are missing valuable turns of potential sweeps to pick out units.

Overall, not enough data on Anraykyr in barge to make my mind up. He was lack luster in both games, but a large part of that was dice fail. I will have to keep playtesting.

I do know that although Anraykyr was my top choice for HQ, if he ends up not being that good, I will take Zahndrekh next most likely.

Rules question:

Can I sweep a unit that is engaged in an assault? Nothing seems to imply that you can't.

3) Shooting from Troop Choices was as bad as it appears on paper. Many times, I couldn't even get effective range or did no shooting at all.

What was surprisingly bad was my decision to put my two pulseteks into my 2 warrior squads. In both games, my warriors were so busy cowering to try not to die, the pulsetek was barely useful.

I really, really hope we can put 2 court members in a single squad. That would help me make my Crypteks very much more useful.

If a unit runs off the board due to shooting casualties, but the cryptek had already dropped due to shooting, does he get to stand back up?

4) Scarabs, in the not crazy aggressive way I was running them are awesome. They are much, much better in this role than as an assault role. Wraiths are also very good so far.

5) Annihilation Barges did very little in both games. I've very disappointed here because they look so good on paper. Although my anni barges did help me win the game against Pat with some late game shooting, this was only because I had worked so hard to kill Priests so they would do something. Also, because they are such a non-threat, nobody even tries to kill them.

My next test game, I will be dropping both barges and adding another 3 tomb spyders with gloom.

6) Veil of darkness is even better than it is on paper. This ability is what put me in contention for both games.

7) My list was extremely terrain dependent in my game versus Steve. Had terrain not been in NoVA format for that game, he would have easily blown me off the table. No sweat. I was absolutely reliant on LoS blocking and area terrain to function.

This makes me very nervous about the 'Crons. So long as I take them to events that have enough terrain, they are fine. If I go to an event with little LoS blocking terrain, which is so very common at FLGS events, IG will blow me off the table. If IG can do it, then so can GKs.

8) Necrons are leaps and bounds harder to play than GKs. Having spent last year playing GKs, in both of these games there were several scenarios where looking at it I was like, "if I had my GKs right now, this would be easy." GKs can handily eliminate threats. Necrons have to use shenanigans to avoid them. This also tells me that if 'Crons struggle where GKs don't, that also by almost default means that IG and Wolves are going to be better too.

9) Stun locking won't win you a game against a heavy mech opponent.

Building my Necron List Part 1

2012-01-06T06:06:00.000-08:00

Building my Necron List Part 1

So, I’m still in the process of building and digesting what will be my Necrons for 2012. Thus far, most Necron discussion and lists I have seen doing well have been doing so, in my opinion, due to gimmicks. What I mean by that is that the list is/was doing well most likely because the opponent had little to no knowledge about the gimmicks. This type of “bear trap”, works great when you play against people who haven’t studied your codex and thus step right into it. When you play against people who know your book as well as you, it’s a whole different ball game.

The best discussion I’ve seen thus far on building that balanced Necron list comes from “The Voice” on the 40KUK blog. Most of the thoughts he suggests I’ve independently started to arrive at myself. Further, his list idea presented there is basically the same kind that I am arriving at. So, by this, I’m stating two things. First, he has beat me to it. Second, it’s another good resource for discussion.

*edit*

I should also recommend Mike Brandt's recap on the Necron codex on the Whiskey and 40K blog some time ago. This is also reflective of the thoughts I have arrived at, and he beat both Gary and I to the punch so far!

*edit*

Before starting on my thoughts about how I am going to proceed, let me cover a few bases first.

- A lot of the Necron models I want to play with haven’t released yet. This is SERIOUSLY putting a damper on some more vehicle heavy lists that I want to run because of the lack of a Night Scythe. Hopefully this will get fixed soon. Second, the Wraith has also not been released yet! AAARGH! Because that’s the other unit I really, really need in order to make a list without a Night Scythe work!

- Scarabs only work because people get lucky. The fact is, people have already started figuring out that the easy button way to kill Scarabs is to bubble wrap and kill them in assault. Scarabs get a lot of attacks, but when you need 4’s followed by 5’s, each base of Scarabs only produces about 1 wound on the charge. That means every 3 bases kills a single marine. A dedicated CC unit, usually swinging first, will destroy scarabs.

The other big deal is the terrible need for an FAQ for Necrons. For the record, here’s how I am assuming the rules will be FAQ’ed.

- You will not be allowed to put 2 members of 2 different courts into the same squad. The word “the” in the “the royal court” is intended to mean the entire court, as in both units. I’m 95% sure this will be faq’ed this way otherwise we have the first codex EVER that allows two sergeants in the same squad. If it doesn’t get faq’ed this way, that’s great too as it will give me more options, but I really think it will.

- I expect the chronometron will not be allowed to be used for Imotekh’s night fight. I think this is RaW already as the start of game turn is not a phase, but I digress.

- I actually do not think Writhing Worldscape will stack with Orikan or Tremor Staves. I hope it does! However, I don’t think it will.

So, using that as a basis, let’s move on!

HQ:

First off, right away, I think Anraykyr in a command barge has got to be one of the best choices out of the slot. I was laughing about him the other day as he is the only unit in 40K that has a chance, albeit ridiculously small, of destroying an entire parking lot, single-handedly, in a single game turn. The short is, he has a GREAT shot at killing 3 tanks in a single turn by doing the following:

- Command Barge Sweep Attack across one vehicle with S7 + 2d6 penetration on the rear armor, hitting on a 4+. He hops out.

- Controls a vehicle during his shooting phase to shoot and destroy another vehicle, highly likely in the rear armor with no cover because you will properly select the right firer.

- Assaults into another vehicle and destroy it with S8 + 2d6 armor penetration on the rear.

However, when I make a movie about Anraykyr and all his awesomeness, here’s what will happen:

- Anraykyr flies over a Vendetta and sweeps it to death, hopping out.

- He snags a Manticore and fires it off into the midst of a IG Chimera parking lot, getting 3 shots that scatter, hitting Chimeras on side armor, rolling 2d6 take the highest armor pen, and exploding, tossing Guardsmen everywhere who break and run.

- Anraykyr assaults the Manticore destroying it.

Anraykyr single-handedly destroy the entire Guard army. Flawless victory!

More seriously, the command barge, at least on paper, looks like one of the best units in the dex. Not only did they give you an easy button way to kill tanks, you can even snipe models like Sanguinary Priests or Power Fists, out of a unit. (Or Melta Guns which is important to protect all those 13 armor vehicles!)

What I really want to do in a lot of lists is run Anraykyr in a barge followed up by “Red”, his Necron Overlord buddy in his own barge with warscythe.

However, Imotekh may end up being a better choice. At first, I wasn’t a big fan of Imotekh, but the concept of him has started to grow on me. I’m not saying at this point I will or will not drop “Red”, but play testing will tell. The thing about Imotekh is the lightning. I, more than anyone, know what having to roll “6”’s means. I also know that in the mech heavy environment of 40K, most mech armies bring around 10+ vehicles. This basically means that the lighting attack will hit at least one vehicle a turn with a good chance at 2. Since you won’t get a cover save against it, and it is on side armor, this is a very compelling reason to take him. Since Imotekh can also be hidden, he’s basically like having an unstoppable Long Fang pack that ignores cover in your army. Yes, 225 is a bit much, but not if he snags 4-6 vehicles in a game. The other thing is that it’s roll of the dice. What about the one game where you go totally WILD, roll a bunch of 6’s, and destroy your opponents most important vehicles like Vendettas or Manticores on Turn 1?

The thing about Imotekh is you can’t STOP IT. That’s why this idea is so very compelling. You can’t shut it down. You can’t deflect it or blow it off. The best you can do is smoke your tanks for a turn. Lastly, Imotekh will have a very fancy hole to hide in with Anraykyrs super duper special immortals.

I’m going to have to play test with Imotekh to see if I like him.

To wrap up, I need to discuss the royal court. This one is actually pretty easy:

- You are required to take 2 crypteks with Solar Pulse.

Don’t think about using your pulse at the start of the game, especially if you took Imotekh. Think about using them at the 5^th or 6^th turn, while you are holding objectives or barely winning on KPs, and now, your opponent can’t see you to do anything about it. Then, think about combo’ing it with this:

- Take 2 crypteks with Veil of Darkness.

I really think any list I take will consist of this. The Veil is just stupid useful for contesting, getting out of trouble, claiming, etc. Without a Night Scythe to work with, this is what you get for mobility.

The only issue now that I am having is running out of points! No matter which route I go, I sink a full third of my army into the HQ slot. Right now, though, this is what I am thinking:

HQ:
Anraykyr – 165
Command Barge – 80

“Red” – 90
Warscythe – 10
Command Barge – 80

2 x Pulseteks (crypteks with solar pulse) – 110

2 x Veilteks (crypteks with veil of darkness) – 120

Total: 655

HQ:

Anraykyr – 165
Command Barge – 80

Imotekh – 225

2 x Pulseteks (crypteks with solar pulse) – 110

2 x Veilteks (crypteks with veil of darkness) – 120

Total: 700

More thoughts to come in another article!

Defeating the Beast: Fighting Grey Knights Article #9

2011-12-16T06:31:00.001-08:00

The Horde Approach

This will be the last article in the series and covers the final approach that I think works very well when considering how to defeat Grey Knights. In a lot of ways, this final approach actually works very well with a lot of other armies as well. The Horde Approach is really an extension of the Sustained Durability approach. I’m singling it out as a special type because I think it warrants further discussion.

The Horde Approach is probably NOT the first thing that comes to your mind. When I say Horde, most people go directly to Orks and Tyranids. Both of these armies can execute some portions of the Horde approach, but honestly, they don’t fit every aspect of what makes the most effective Horde Approach. When thinking about the Horde Approach, you should be thinking about the combination of a ton of durable bodies, the sustained durability portion, and some withering style firepower or assault. This was all touched on in the Sustained Durability approach as well, and probably refreshing yourself on that article will help as this article moves forward.

How It Works

The best mindset for making the Horde Approach work is to NOT think of it in terms of overwhelming your opponent. Instead, you should be thinking about FRUSTRATING your opponent’s effort to defeat you. The concept of overwhelming your opponent comes from that Ork mentality where I put 180 boyz on the board and execute ORK WAVE ATTACK to wash over my opponent like an unstoppable tsunami. Although this type of approach will work against some GK lists, against Purifier spam, probably the most common type, it will fail due to cleansing flame.

What we want is to cause our Grey Knight opponent to become frustrated. The Horde Approach excels at this tactic because while you maintain a Horde, it is very difficult for your opponent to shift you, by that meaning force you to move any given direction or to “kill you” off a certain portion of the board. You’ll constantly be contesting objectives as you add more fodder to the fight. You’ll constantly be occupying portions of the board and making yourself as annoying as possible to kill.

Let’s run a thought experiment on what I would consider a good Horde list. The Blood Angels infantry horde would consist of a ballpark of 70-80 MEQ bodies backed up by a few points of Feel No Pain. Further, a sprinkling of heavy weapons will allow the Horde to apply a withering firepower to the enemy over many turns.

Take this example army and deploy it widely across the field. Against Grey Knights, recognize that their main threat range is 24 inches. Past that, the majority of GK lists only bring two types of long range firepower, Psybolt Dreads and Psybacks. If I stay out of potential 30 inch threat range (30 because they can move 6 and fire) during deployment, this will force them to be more aggressive or lose a turn of shooting. That loss of a turn plays into my hands because it’s yet another turn that he isn’t taking down models. The bottom line will be, as you see, that the less models he takes down, the more you win.

He can fire his long range guns, but Psybolt Dreads will only average about 1 Dead MEQ a turn. That’s not even going to be a dent in the Horde. Psybacks will most likely be blown off in droves due to the 3+/FnP. Now, let’s further frustrate him by putting lots of our models out of line of site, in reserve, or against the back table edge. Each turn I go where he isn’t killing a substantial number of models frustrates his ability to win the game.

Further, and this is why this approach really works versus GKs, once he steps into that 24 inch kill zone, he is also in your primary kill zone. As a Blood Angel Horde, you also have a lot of Bolters. They aren’t very good, but 70-80 of them will kill Purifiers, very slowly. And the beauty of this is, you will take infantry losses a lot slower than he does.

Finally, your withering long range fire power will be slowly bleeding him. The goal is to outlast and frustrate. The last tactic will be in a Kill Point game, when a squad gets near death, hide it. Since you don’t have any easy to claim KPs and HE DOES (because of vehicles), you can seriously deny his ability to claim them.

The Assault

A Grey Knight player forced into this predicament really only has two tactical options. (One of the greatest things about this approach is that it really controls how your opponent will end up playing.) Your opponent will either attempt to claim mid-field objectives and keep you at bay, or he will be forced to assault you. The reason is that assault is generally the easiest way to kill off multiple models. Before I address the claiming of mid-field, let’s talk about his assault options.

Most GK lists that you will find dedicate one or two assault units. The rest are general MSU squads. The thing is, a 5 man Purifier Squad is no threat to the horde in assault. Only 3 of the guys have real weapons, and against a 10 man squad, they are going to be toast so long as you brought a fist or power weapon of your own.

The goal when dealing with the dedicated assault units is to forego all shooting at other targets and fire everything into the assault units. You will have the ability to do this effectively because you aren’t concerned about shutting down other targets to prevent losses. You are already very sturdy thanks to the Horde. Whittle them down, and then swarm them when they finally get there. Coincidentally, use the “swarm” assault to allow for consolidation moves to help slingshot you into mid-field for late game objective grabbing.

The Mid-Field Objectives

Here, the name of the game is that hopefully your withering firepower has disabled a lot of his long range guns. It’s not time to execute the “Human Wave” attack that you have been purposefully holding back for this long. The tactic in this case should be to overload one objective so that you can clear it and otherwise to simply contest the others. Contesting might be moving one squad up to contest. The game doesn’t end? No sweat, that squad dies and then another steps up. Use the squads which have been depleted for this kind of task.

And lastly note that if you can simply overwhelm most GK units, especially if they are MSU units or have been properly “withered” by your fire power.

Playing the Mission not the Game

The real reason why the Horde approach works is because you are playing the mission and not the opponent. You have the luxury of doing this because your army is so sturdy. The Grey Knight player will generally not have such a luxury, especially in a Kill Point game. Deny him kill points. Claim a few of his and run. Don’t play friendly on this one.

For Roll Dice and Tie, play for the Tie. That’s the best advice I can give with the Horde approach, and playing for the tie should be easy. Buffer your objective with all of your troops, and he’ll never chop his way to it.

For objectives, overload to claim and other wise contest as described above.

Example Armies

So, here are some example armies to help you see where I am going with this.

Horde Blood Angels:

HQ:
Librarian – 100 (Shield for extra cover saves, Unleash for a swarm attack)

Elites:

3 x Sang Priests – 150 (to be distributed around effectively for FnP bubbles)

2 x 5 x Sternguard + 2 x Lascannons (simply there to add withering fire at vehicles, easy to get KPs)

Troops:

10 x Assault Marines + Power Fist – (for a counter-assault if you need one)

10 x Tactical Marines + Lascannon + Plasma + Fist – 210 (more withering fire)

Heavy:

10 x Dev Squads + 4 x Missile – 210 (see a pattern yet?)

10 x Dev Squads + 4 x Missile – 210

Total: 1985 # of Bodies: 84 (don’t forget you can combat squad against other kinds of opponents)

Horde Sisters of Battle

HQ:

Kyrinov – 90 (Fearless bubble will keep you from running if shot up or assault)

5 x DCA + 5 x Crusaders – 150 (counter assault unit)

Saint Celestine – 115 (best SC in the game. Talk about an objective contesting unit!)

Elites:

5 x Celes + Multi Melta – 90 (withering fire)

Troops:

10 x Battle Sisiters + Multi Melta + Melta Gun + Power Sword – 155 (they score, lots of bodies, more heavy weapons)

10 x Battle Sisiters + Multi Melta + Melta Gun + Power Sword - 155

Heavy:

10 x Retributors + 4 x Heavy Bolters (super durable and can kill tanks or Purifiers with ease)

Total: 1990 # of Bodies: 117

Horde Space Marines (Keep in mind that Space Marines and CSM don’t do a good a job of this as newer books because they currently need updates to adjust their point levels more appropriately)

HQ:

Darnath – 200 (beat stick plus can tie up heavy assault units) - 200

Elites:

5 x Stern Guard + 2 x Lascannons – 155 (withering fire)

Troops:

10 x Tactical Marines + lascannon + plasmagun + fist – 215

10 x Tactical Marines + lascannon + plasmagun + fist - 215

Heavy:

10 x Devs + 4 x Missiles – 230

10 x Devs + 4 x Missiles - 230

Total: 2000 # of Bodies: 76 (see how BA does this better ??)

Horde Dark Eldar – (keep in mind that a 4+ cover save is still pretty good for cheap units)

HQ:

A few Haemoncs

Elites:

Harlequins make an excellent counter assault unit which is almost impossible to kill at range.

Troops:

20 x Warriors w/ 2 x Dark Lance (huge block that can have FnP and provides withering fire)

10-15 Wyches – (tie up units and are very frustrating)

Fast:

Beast Packs make an excellent hold back and harass unit

Scourges can be both anti-infantry and anti-tank

Conclusion

There are more lists of course, and you can always go with Orks and Tyranids who can do this very well. Orks especially as they have more shooting capacity than Tyranids. The point is to follow the concept. This will play 40K a lot differently than what most people are used to. It can work though if played properly.

Finally, as on the podcast we are briefly discussing certain armies and how they would be played against Grey Knights in different ways. Although our podcast will cover this last article, on the final installment of RALPH (RALPH 10), we will cover the remaining armies which is not done here on the BLOG.

Defeating the Beast: Fighting Grey Knights Article #8

2011-12-12T06:49:00.000-08:00

The Matching Firepower Approach

This is article number 8 in this series, and as the previous two articles, this article will discuss yet another strategic approach to taking down the Grey Knight scourge that is plaguing the galaxy. The two previously discussed approaches more or less relied on simply outlasting the Grey Knights in a fight and winning based on the mission. This will be the first approach which seeks to win the game by simply killing the enemy.

The Matching Firepower Approach seeks to win the game by simply matching the Grey Knights, blow for blow, with your own firepower. From there, the trick is to then be able to leverage cheaper units to achieve that net result. In this way, you can seek to leverage the Grey Knight weakness of “spendy” units.

Before I begin truly addressing this approach, I wanted to first issue a disclaimer of sorts. The ability for this approach to succeed will depend very highly on the type of list the Grey Knight player is seeking to run. This approach works wonders when you are playing against a “Purifier” list, Paladin list, or Grey Knight Hammer list. It loses strength when playing against a more MSU heavy Grey Knight list or Henchmen list. Dreadnought Spam lists, depending on the match-up, may also be your bane. The reason why I even consider this a valid approach, however, is that basically the approach works except in some special cases. Even in those special cases, if your list is properly optimized, you generally still have a fighting chance to simply out-play or out-roll your opponent. So, it’s validity as an approach is in that the majority of lists you face won’t be your anathema, and even if they are, you still have a fighting chance of outplaying your opponent.

Matching Firepower

The idea here is simple. Either simply outshoot him or match his firepower! This is really only possible for very certain lists. Mostly, I think Space Wolves, Imperial Guard, Black Templar, and Dark Eldar. Of course I’m known for hating on the Dark Eldar (jokingly so), but see the disclaimer above as to why I think that they can make this work.

So, how do these armies go about matching the Grey Knight fire power? It’s really simple. Use the same kinds of MSU, spam lists you already know exist. Use them well. Here’s how it works.

Personally, I play a henchmen based, dread spam list which basically seeks to outshoot my opponents. I am exactly the Grey Knight player that you DON’T want to try this approach against. However, tournament after tournament, list after list that I see, go for Purifiers or Paladins which is exactly what you WANT to play against. Conventional “internet” wisdom tells Grey Knight players that they don’t “need” more than three Psybolt Dreads. Now, I could pose all kinds of reasons why that logic fails, BUT this is an article on how to defeat Grey Knights… not how to build Grey Knights!

The Rock on Rock

At the end of the day, the Matching Firepower approach should be more seeking to burn the Grey Knights out rather than trying to obliterate them. The idea is that both of your lists smash each other to pieces, but at the end of the day, you win because you have a lot of cheap units still functional to take objectives, pick up a few last KPs, or what have you. Guard and Wolves exemplify this type of play. After the smoke clears, you simply want more bodies than your opponent has to hold and contest. Be thinking about this as a war to crush each other rather than a battle in which you will attempt to table your opponent.

As a GK player, I want my opponent to focus on killing me rather than winning the game. The reason why is that he will make moves and sacrifices to that end rather than to the objective of the game. This type of maneuvering makes it easier for me to operate with my own scoring units as well as to counter my opponent’s moves.

Lastly, and I haven’t said this enough, stop trying to throw in that “fun” hammer unit. (Specifically, Space Wolf Players, Thundercav don’t work. Period.)

All Hail Razor Wolves

So, they are still quite functional! This seems like an about face from all the advice I have delivered thus far about not running walls of AV 11 vehicles. It’s not, though, for several reasons. First and foremost because the entire back bone of this strategic approach is gambling that you won’t run into a henchman MSU spam list. This may or may not be a safe gamble for your local meta. However, every list takes a gamble. At the end of the day, though, Razor Wolves, properly built, still bring a tremendous amount of fire power to the table that even my henchmen spam lists will fear. Let’s face it, 15 split target missiles backed up by 9 or so lascannons and Wolf scouts is still an equation that works. As a Grey Knight player, I know that if I roll badly, get my fortitudes shut down by an annoying Rune Priest, and so on, I can easily lose that match-up.

Yet, let’s focus on what most of us see in Grey Knights. Purifiers. These guys rely on short-ranged Psycannons to do the dirty, else they are assaulting. Now, if you are a good Razor Wolf player, I shouldn’t have to cover the topic of how to handle assaulting units. The Psycannons though need to be addressed. The tactics here are deceptively simple. First, use scouts to disable Dreads (take melta bombs, they work and that comes from experience getting nailed in the face as a GK player). Second, constantly move so that they can’t fire their guns in Heavy mode. And as a result, target their Heavy Bolter backs, first. Third, stay in cover. Heavy Bolter backs are decent, but at the end of the day, they aren’t that great. I know. I run a lot of them!

Honestly, the easy way to beat Purifiers, especially the MSU kind, is to force them to keeping moving. Meanwhile, putting anti-infantry fire into them that causes wounds to wrap around in the squad helps a ton. Razor Wolves can do this easily. Another “pisser” for Purifiers is that they will want to target your tanks. This leaves your infantry actually pretty darn safe to just stand there and plink away at them or to threaten with assault. This seems “dumb” to most Razor Wolf players who are used to cowering in their metal boxes, but think about it for a bit, and you will realize that a hidden weakness of Purifiers is that they combine their anti-infantry and anti-tank into a single unit which can only do one or the other in a given turn.

Paladin lists are a bit more trouble because your lascannons will always get shuffled onto Draigo. At the end of the day, though, this is still a winning gambit for you and a situation in which you can outplay your opponent. This would sound dumb but consider tanking shocking repeatedly with all your vehicles as a valid tactic. Keep in mind he’s probably got 800 or so points wrapped up in that unit so having to lose a few pawns to take down the queen is totally valid.

Dark Eldar, really?

Are you playing a well optimized Dark Eldar list? If not, then don’t even read the rest of this statement. If you are, then you should realize that with the amount of Dark Glance (read also Blasters) shots you have, you should be able to match them. Once again, we are working with an underpinned assumption about Purifiers and Paladins. An MSU Grey Knight will still probably destroy you. That being said, at least you have a fighting chance in this case. Even with my henchmen spam lists, I still sweat if I have to play a DE player with 25+ Darklight shots who has first turn on me. I know, I should just reserve right? See, smart Dark Eldar players want you to do that so they can line your board edge with vehicles.

I’m not saying this will work all the time, but it is a thought. Indeed, I think it will work most of the time against most Grey Knight lists I see. I still consider this though to be a weak match-up against more optimized GK shooting lists.

Guard

This is easy. The more cover save ignoring shots you have (read Manticores), the easier you can pull this off. Really, Guard have all the tools they need or ever needed to fight GKs. This should sound like a reoccurring theme at this point!

Templar

Because the amount of S9 Missiles hurt! A lot! Combine that with the potential to suicide some melta pods in later turns to kill Dreads. This one is straight forward as well. The most likely rumor right now too is that Templar are getting a sweet Phil Kelly dex in the next few months anyways.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, the point of this approach is really easy. You seek to smash the opponent and win in later turns. This is the “no duh!” approach, but it’s still valid to consider that even as powered as that Grey Knight dex is, it’s still quite possible to defeat it straight up. The biggest reason for that is generally surrounding the types of lists that players are actually taking.

Article Number 9 will cover the “Horde” approach specifically. No, I don’t mean Orks. This is an extension of the “Sustained Durability” approach which deserves its own article. That will be the last approach in the series.

Defeating the Beast: Fighting Grey Knights Article #7

2011-12-02T07:53:00.000-08:00

Continuingon the discussion from Article #6 on strategic approaches to defeat Grey Knights, this article will discussion another strategic approach to playing again against the Grey tide. The last article was about the AV 12+ approach which mostly applies to Guard, Blood Angels, Eldar, and to some extent, Necrons. The strategic approach in this article I’ll name the “sustained” approach.

As an aside, these strategic approaches not only work individually but also in tandem. Any time you can combine two more strategic approaches in your list or game, your overall effectiveness in taking down Grey Knights will actually improve.

The “Sustained” Approach

Two of the weaknesses found in the typical Grey Knight that were previously discussed were the lack of AP 1 & 2 weapons as well as lack of significant ranged fire. When we combine these two thought processes, we land on a strategic list building approach which can leverage both of those weaknesses to create a list theory which will rely on simply outlasting the Grey Knights, and the way in which that will be accomplished is by combining durability and range to create a long-term, or sustained game, in which you can whittle the Grey Knight player down. Over many game turns, eventually, you can either overcome them or chop them down to size so that you are on equal footing and able to compete in any mission type.

So, what will this approach look like? It will either generate a superior durability or combine moderate durability with fire reduction principles and playing the missions. Let’s talk about what this means in general before getting to the approach punch list.

Superior Durability

The first thing that should come to mind is a 2+ save. Before we even consider rolls to hit and wounds, a 2+ save immediately reduces all incoming fire power from Grey Knight armies by 83%. The reason why is that Grey Knights just don’t have any AP 2 guns. Continuing that thought, you don’t really need Storm Shields unless you plan on engaging the Grey Knights in Assault where their Power Weapons can now be leverage. See, a Grey Knight player, if faced with having to take down 2+ save models in mass would prefer to assault you UNLESS you also have storm shield. In that case, shy of Death Cult Assassins, he doesn’t have a lot of options for easily taking you down. This line of thinking is getting way off course, but it is worth handling upfront.

What I really want to point out is how good a 2+ save is versus Grey Knight shooting. However, it isn’t THAT great. Grey Knight armies generally lay down some ferocious anti-infantry fire. A 2+ save will help tremendously, but it isn’t enough by itself to have superior durability. The reason why is that a model with a 2+ generally also has a very high price in points.

See, durability should not be measured in terms how survivable a given model is. It should also be measured in the quantity of models. The easy way to think about this is that a single Marine is fairly durable in terms of the 40K universe. However, 10 Marines in a squad is very durable. 10 Plague Marines are SUPER durable with a 3+, 5 toughness, and FnP. Digging deeper, a single Plague Marine isn’t as durable as 2 Space Marines. However, 10 Plague Marines is way more durable than 10 Space marines. Get where I’m going with this? Think about how durable a 30 man Ork mob is in cover. Even more than Plague Marines!

Having a few models with a 2+ save is great! Having 30 of them would make you have superior durability. Now, there aren’t too many lists that can pack those kinds of numbers.

We need SUPERIOR durability. To do this, we need to combine quality and quantity into the most efficient anti-infantry shirking force we can. This should combine elements like FnP, a decent save, rerolls, unit size, wound allocation, special rules, and a mass of other things to create durability.

The last thing to consider here is that durability should also be measured in your ability to reduce the incoming fire power throughout all turns. For example, my standard GK lists can usually down around 13 MEQs on average a turn. That’s great at full bore! However, if you are shooting back at me, and I’m taking casualties, I should stay at full firing power for very long. When my fire power starts going down, your durability goes up. Get it?

This concept leads into the next discussion…

Fire Reduction

Because reducing enemy fire makes you more durable, most lists will need to incorporate the kinds of fire power which will seek to reduce the firing potential of the Grey Knight list. This could take on many forms. For example, manipulating the effective 24 inch range of a Grey Knight player is Fire Reduction. If your army can stay out of the 24 inch bubble, you are severely reducing the ability of the GK player to kill you.

Fire Reduction could also be specifically taking units which, even if suicidal, will significantly reduce the enemy’s fire effectiveness. For example, a DDM (Dreadnought in a Drop Pod with a Multi Melta) is generally designed in most lists to serve this roll. (I don’t actually think they are very good at it, but the point is easy to make.) They drop in, pop something nasty, then die. In the case of a Grey Knight player, that suicide drop would probably be against a Psybolt Dread, which isn’t a bad trade provided you kill it.

Fire Reduction could also just purely be lots of “pew pew” on your end. After all, if the GK player is taking losses, his fire power is being reduced, right?

It could simply be hiding out of LoS. That one is easy if you play with enough terrain.

The goal of Fire Reduction is to mitigate the casualties you take throughout the game. This increases your durability. The long you know you will be in the game allows you to manipulate the final point which is…

Playing to the Mission

The last goal of this approach will be to play the mission. This might mean playing the length of the mission, taking a few losses, and then leaping out on turn 5 to claim/contest some objectives, and win. It might be killing a few Grey Knight Razorbacks to claim some easy KPs then run like a school girl to hide in the corner.

The longer your army can stay near max efficiency, the more options you will have late game to play to the mission.

A Final Word

The Sustained Approach isn’t going to be the cup of tea for everyone out there. So many of us play this game for the carnage and dramatic battles aspect. The sustained approach is generally more like the slow, plodding, turtle approach. It wins races, but it doesn’t generally look good doing it.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t some armies which can leverage the sustained approach very well versus Grey Knights and still do a lot of damage. Black Templar come to mind here as does Guard, of course. Demons also come to mind, in some ways. However, many effective sustained approaches might end up being kind of boring looking like Blood Angel gun lines, MEQ Hordes, or others.

The key to really mastering the sustained approach is to think first about how you will weather the storm and win in the end before you think about how you will kill the enemy.

Key Points to the Sustained Approach

- You need to achieve superior durability. Do this through either staying out of line of sight, providing a QUANTITY of survivable models, or a combination of withering fire power and survivability. Examples: A MEQ horde with durable fire support like a Blood Angel MEQ horde with FnP, or a Space Marine horde in general. A bucket load of gaunts, so thick as to be impassable. An army of terminators. Even better, an army of terminators with Feel no Pain. A blocking, suicidal, or fierce army with just a few elements which can be killed due to LoS or target saturation that will win in the end.

- It is highly preferable to achieve some kind of withering and sustained fire power. Think 10 man squad of Devastators with FnP in cover. They will be shooting for most of the game and require a ton of fire to silence. They are generally pretty good for silencing one GK gun a turn. Vehicles or units that can fire over 24 inches and stay out of prime GK fire range are also good examples.

- You need to be able to play to the basic mission types of Kill Points and Seize Ground. So, that means you need a way to mitigate your KPs in a KP scenario and also able to claim late game objectives or contest. Remember that a lot of GK lists function best as MSU lists and thus also give up a lot of KPs. This could be part of your strategy.

- Mobility is generally key to this kind of list type. You need to be able to move, not early in the game but LATE in the game. That’s the hard part.

Examples

I realize that the discussion behind this approach has been fairly cerebral. So, here’s some examples.

Suicide “Dar

I had a list concept running for a while which combines small squads of Guardian Jetbikes who provide a durable element by going into reserve, then using JSJ to stay out of LoS. It achieves superior durability because the other 75%+ of the points going into hyper-directed suicide units designed to cripple the effective shooting elements in an army. Think fire dragons, warlocks, etc. whose job it is to make a mess of the enemy for 3-4 turns which when the dust settles leaves them with little to shoot at bikes with. This achieves superior durability through target priority and list.

MEQ Horde

Think about how hard it would be to kill 70 or so Marines if you had nothing to do it with but Storm Bolters. Exactly. Grey Knights will want to assault this kind of list, but you can mitigate that with speed bumps, rhinos, your own counter-assault elements, etc. Make sure that some of this Horde can plink some long range shots to slowly whittle down enemy vehicles and also stop a Land Raider, and you got yourself superior durability. The key here is to focus on winning the mission, not killing the enemy.

Black Templar Terminator Lists

Here’s a great specific example. Black Templar have the ability to take 4-5 squads of Terminators with Tank Hunter Cyclones. This is great because it combines a lot of 2+ save bodies and sustained fire reduction. You will be killing a few GK vehicles a turn, while staying away from the enemy to leverage your 2+ save. You don’t need storm shields because you will avoid combat. It also has storm bolters so you can return the favor and whittle down GK squads.

The relatively not hungry Nid horde / not so WAAAGHY Ork Horde

Say what? You know how most Nid players think “CHARGE!” What if you thought, “sit in mid and make them come to me while I hide and/or spawn a bajillion termagaunts?” This goes for Orks too. Every tried shooting up an Ork mob that goes to ground in cover? It laughs at you. You’ll need a plan to manage Purifiers, though. So, keep that in mind. Nids are better at this than Orks when it comes to GKs. Orks, though can manage the suicide bit similar to the ‘Dar above much better, though.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, what most MSU Grey Knight lists don’t want to see is an army that can actually absorb all of its fire power. The reason is because they don’t have much to fall back on. Now, this is not true of Grey Knight Hammer Lists, but it is certainly true of the spammy Purifier and MSU lists. The truth is, GKs only bring a mediocre HtH punch to the party with the exception of Death Cultists. So, when you can absorb all that shooting and still make a game out of it, they start to run out of options.

Defeating the Beast: Fighting Grey Knights Article #6

2011-11-17T13:14:00.000-08:00

Effective Approaches

So far in the series, we have covered the various archetypes of Grey Knight armies, the true strengths of Grey Knight armies, and the weaknesses of Grey Knight armies. Now, it’s time to put all of this discussion together into some cohesive approaches for how to defeat the Grey menace.

I’ve already hinted at many of the elements that are effective against Grey Knights. These include things like higher than 11 armor values, to avoid traditional hammer lists, to quickly dispatch Dreadnoughts, to plan around range manipulation, and a few more. What I’m going to do now is discuss how to put all of these elements together into a cohesive list building approach that will up your game versus Grey Knights. These approaches can then be used to list build around the problems areas and to leverage your strengths versus their weaknesses.

An approach, better called a strategic approach in this case, is simply a game plan that one might run with that combines list building with game play tactics. This is an important distinction because as with any good list building technique, you should be combining your codex with the rules to match units with tactics. It’s also worth noting that not all strategic approaches will apply to all codices. I will try and point this out as I move through them.

A Note on Approaches

A strategic approach should not be thought of as a way to table your opponent. It is thought of as a way to win a game of 40K. This may involve winning on objectives, kill points, or other conditions. Grey Knights can of course be tabled like anyone else, but many of the approaches I am going to discuss revolve around winning objectives or kill points rather than just kill your opponent.

The AV12+ Approach

Several armies can bring quite a bit of AV 12+ to the party which severely hampers the average GK build. This obviously leverages the GK weakness of most of their long range shooting being moderately ineffective versus those armor types. Armies which can successfully build these kinds of lists can bring AV 12 vehicles in large amounts and effectively lay down fire power. Since a lot of GK builds do bring melee weapons which can crack these types of armor, one key point is that your AV 12+ build should either be bringing an even more lethal amount of short range fire power, assault power, or just simply have the ability to dual at range. Here are the key points to this approach:

- Bring AV 12+ vehicles in large amounts, generally 8+.

- Bring an effective answer to kill 1-2 Psybolt Dreadnoughts in the first turn or two. You don’t need to kill them all, but taking a couple down will severely limit the GK ability to take you down.

- Has the ability to trade blows at a range of greater than or equal to 24 inches for several turns with the GK player.

- Has the ability to either stay at range for almost the entire game (thus very effective ranged game) or has the ability to assault MSU GK Squads, or has the ability to bring an effective short ranged, MEQ killing, shooting game.

- Has an effective “hammer slammer”. A hammer slammer is a unit or combination which is extremely effective at annihilating an enemy hammer unit like a group of Terminators, Thunder Lords etc. This might be a plasma toting squad, your own Terminators, etc.

Let’s work our way down the list of key points to this approach. The first should be obvious. It isn’t an AV 12+ approach if you don’t have a lot of AV 12+ vehicles. This could be Dreads, Chimeras, Wave Serpents, Predators, Land Raiders, and now, many Necron vehicles. The critical point here is that you need a bunch of them, not one or two. One of the first failings in this strategy will be to assume that you can run a Land Raider or two and then fill out the rest of your force with Razorbacks. This doesn’t work for two critical reasons. First, whatever is inside your Land Raider is probably very easy to counter with a group of Death Cult Assassins. Second, your Land Raiders can be managed by Psycannons or the odd melta gun leaving the biggest threat being you’re very easy to kill Razorbacks which is what the smart GK will focus on.

The second point is quite possibly the most critical. Your list or game plan needs something in it that can reasonably shut down a Dread or two very early in the game. The point is, the quicker the Dreads die, the more survivable your AV 12+ becomes. This becomes even truer if your game plan can leverage a long distance shooting game versus the GKs which outstrips their 24 inch base range for most of the fight. You can basically kite them once the Dread is dead (kiting being an MMO term which means running and shooting so that the enemy can never catch you and eventually dies). A plan for killing Dreads will vary from army to army. For example, Eldar might just suicide some Fire Dragons into them. Guard might just use a couple Manticores to get the job done or simply point a mass of Hydras and Vendettas at them for a turn. Blood Angels might put all their Lascannons into them for a turn or leverage something sneaky like Vanguard or a DoA bomb.

The next point attempts to leverage that most GK fire power is 24 inch range that is capable of really killing tanks. Sure, Psybacks can kill tanks, but they can barely dent armor 12+. So, we are talking now about having to deal with Psycannons. Now, not only do they need 6’s to penetrate your vehicle wall, they have to get to a shorter range to do it. Thus, the critical piece here is as stated above, kill some Dreads right away. Now, vehicles that can move and still fire become priceless. Take a Blood Angel predator as an example. Being able to back up 6 inches and still fire all of your guns mean that you can start and stay out of GK Psycannon range for quite a few turns, constantly doing damage to them.

The next point needs a little clarification as to the purpose. The basics of what I’m trying to state is that if your army can simply hang at range and blow the GKs off the table, do it! This is especially true if you can shut the Dreads down early. Basically, though, the only army I know that has a prayer of this is Guard. For everyone else, note that if you have to get close to them to lay the hammer down, say to claim objectives, make sure you bring something that is very effective at killing marines close in. Basically, you don’t want to get close, kill a couple, then, have your precious AV 12+ vehicle take a Hammer to the face. Either way, this kind of consideration is basically for objective games. You will at some point have to close with the enemy to take objectives. My advice then is to carry just a couple things that can easily clear one objective while you contest the rest. For example, a troupe of plasma gunners.

The only reason I’m telling you that you need an effective Hammer Slammer is to fight against other armies other than GKs. The biggest weakness of most of these kinds of stand-off, shooty lists is a solid hammer like a Thunder Lord crushing you. Bring something that you can repel them with. This will also help if you play a more off-center GK list like with Mordrak, some Terminators, or possibly a small Paladin squad. Guard basically have no options here as is their main weakness in the book, but books like Blood Angels and even Eldar certainly do have some options.

Next article, I will continue into another strategic approach which I’ll call the “durability” or “out last” approach. To wrap up, I’ll talk briefly about yet another codex and ways it can handle Grey Knights.

Space Puppies

So, the biggest thing about the Space Pups is that they have spent a couple years now being top dog, with little to no bad match-ups save for Guard. Usually, a Space Wolf Player’s biggest concern was another Space Wolf player. Times, they have changed! The biggest piece of advice I can give a Space Wolf player is that it’s time to re-examine the way you have been playing and instead of just assuming that you will out shoot everyone with Razor Spam and Long Fangs, that you are actually going to have to use some other parts of your codex now. Grey Knights Book > Space Wolves Book in general. Hate to call it, but it’s true. The quicker we start to accept that the better off we will be as Wolf players. However, there are still many things a Wolf codex can do to Grey Knight player. The point is that a lot of these kinds of “small” things would have been overlooked previously because Space Wolf players were simply used to dominating with their own “over-powered” codex.

Let’s start with NJal. I’m not going to lie, Njal is beast versus GKs. The biggest use for him would be to stuff him in a small squad, in a Rhino, in mid-field. Since GKs are mostly a 24 inch army (see scouts below to handle Dreads), they will come into that sweet 3+ denial range. Then, in late game, when the storm is ready to really rage, charge him forward and deposit him for max damage. I really think every Space Wolf player should seriously start considering Njal, maybe even as a must take. At a minimum, you will need a Rune Priest.

Start seriously considering taking scout squads with melta bombs. This is heresy, I know, but 2 scout squads with melta bombs are a total PITA for a Grey Knight player because it leaves his Dreads exposed. In fact, Wolf Scouts can be so disruptive for the typical GK gun line that it might be worth taking even more. Sure, they will get chopped up by Purifiers, but they actually fight just fine versus Strike Squads. Furthermore, if they bag a Dread or 2, it’s totally worth it.

Likewise, Lone Wolves are EXTREMELY annoying to a GK player. Why? 2+ Save, Eternal, and FnP. A GK player has to dump a lot of precious fire power into them to make them stop advancing, and each shot is a Long Fang or Razorback that didn’t get tagged. Also, because a Lone Wolf can easily stand up to a small Strike Squad or Purifier Squad, and he can easily wreck Dreads, Land Raiders, you name it.

The biggest mistake right now I think a Wolf Player can make is to try and run Thunder Cav. I know they are cool, and they are so darn effective against almost everything. However, they are dog meat to a squad of Death Cultists. The only realistic way you will make these work versus a seasoned GK player is if you somehow bring enough guns to kill the DCA before your dogs get there. Good luck with that!

Another big tip I have for Wolf players is to play a lot more defensively than you are used to. Fact is, if you are in mid-board, the GK player is going to have a hard time dislodging you, and frankly, your Wolf boys can tackle most GKs in assault, even with their power weapons. This is especially true with someone like Njal shutting down those hammerhands.

Razorspam still works! But only with a Rune Priest there (preferably Njal) to stop Fortitude rolls. Then, you got a game. Right now, were I to run a Wolfy Razor List, it would probably look like this:

HQ:

Njal

Elites:

5 x Scouts + Melta Bombs + Melta Gun

2 x Wolf Guard + PFist + Melta Gun (scouts)
4 x Wolf Guard + Combi-Melta

Troops:

5 x Grey Hunters + Melta Gun
Lasback

7 x Grey Hunters + Standard + Power Weapon + Melta Gun
Rhino

Heavy:

4 x ML Long Fangs
Plasback

Otherwise, I would even be really tempted to run the Missile Spam Logan Wing lists which I can talk about a little with the next strategic approach.

11th Company Tournament Results

2011-11-16T07:42:00.000-08:00

You can find the excel spreadsheets as well as this same explanation here: http://the11thcompany.freeforums.org/11th-company-2011-tournament-results-t3021.html

Here are the results of our tournament:

Best Overall: Gabe Dobkin (Cobra Commander Imperial Guard)
Best General (Bracket #0 Winner): Kyle Cox (Imperial Guard)
Best Appearance: John Ross (Dark Eldar)
Best Sports: Jason Driver (Sisters)

Bracket #1: Jay "Shrek" Steinberger (Tyranids)
Bracket #2: Edwin Rankin (????)
Bracket #3: Chris Freudiger (???)
Bracket #4: Stephen Fore (Blood Angels)
Bracket #5: Timothy Marteleire (????)

Of note:

Gabe Dobkin did more than just take Best Overall. He actually won Best Appearance by 0.5 points, tied for Best Sports with Jason Driver, AND played in Bracket #0 on Day 2. Gabe has also won Best Overall at NoVA 2011 this year. He exemplifies the 40K player that we are all striving to be and is the total package.

Not mentioned here but should be is Devin Schafer. Devin was battling it out on our top table with Kyle Cox for Best General. I know Devin previously from NoVA 2011 where he ended the tournament on table #2. To top it off, Devin was not on our top table with your traditional tournament list. he brought Eldar with only 3 vehicles and a unit of 10 Wraithguard. Because Gabe already has a ticket to the NoVA invitational, I have extended our next invitation to Devin.

Working with Rankings:

Attached is the Spreadsheet which shows the scores for all participants. Remember that in the NoVA format, you really need to look at things in terms of 4 separate "tracks".

Overall Tract - This is the Overall Score column. This combines your Sports, Appearance, and Battle Score. Your Battle Score also incorporate your OVERALL win/loss record. Sports, Appearance, and Battle Score all count as 33.33333% of your overall score.

Bracket Tract - Day #1 should be more considering as a preliminary or qualifier day. Day #2 then was your actual tournament bracket. Thus, your "place" within that bracket is determined first by your Bracket Win/Loss record and then by your Battle Score.

Your Bracket is intended to be consisting of your peers. Thus, your position in your bracket will tell you where you "rank" among your peers.

Sports Tract - This is your sports score in relation to everyone else. Your score is the sum of all the points awarded to you by your opponents. So, if all of your opponents gave you a "6", the top value, you would have scored a 36.

Appearance Tract - This is your army appearance score. It is based entirely off the NoVA rubric. We had 2 judges calculate your Overall Score, Best Mini, and Best Conversion. The average of those two judges' opinions become you score. Your Overall was then multiplied by 2. Thus, the top possible score is 400 points.

A lot of people will want to know.... well what place did I come in?

THERE IS NO SUCH AS PLACE. Get it out of your head.

What there is only your position in one of the 4 above tracts. Remember, because of the Day 2 bracketing system, you were no longer in competition with the ENTIRE room at the start of day 2 in terms of the Best General prize.

Also, if you were in our top bracket, your games were naturally harder than had you have been in Bracket 4. This is why your battle score is probably lower than people in other bracikets.

The best way to describe your "position" in terms of generalship is like this:

Your Day 2 bracket is full of your peers. First, compare your W/L then your Battle Score. That will show you have you rate versus your peers.

People who were not in your bracket did not qualify in the same position as you. In some sense, you could consider that they did not "place" as high as you. Although, this isn't technically true. I would wager that our Bracket #1 winner could have competed just fine in Bracket #0.

So, if you wanted to use that sort of rating to determine your "place" in terms of generalship, sort like this:

First by Bracket, Second by W/L, Third by Battle Score.

I have included a copy of the excel spreadsheet sorted in this manner.

Defeating the Beast: Fighting Grey Knights Article #5

2011-11-10T12:46:00.001-08:00

Henchmen Builds and Weaknesses

This is part #5 in a series. Last time, I talked about the weaknesses of Grey Knight-centric lists. As promised, I will cover Henchmen lists and weaknesses next. To start talking about henchmen weaknesses, though, it’s useful to first understand the types of henchmen you might run into.

Acolytes

Acolytes should be thought of as regular Guardsmen because they have the same stats. They will come in three flavors in a GK list. There is the minimal scoring unit, the special weapon unit, and the storm bolter unit.

The minimal scoring unit is generally 3-5 acolytes. They are stupid cheap at 12+ points. They can score. Their sole purpose in life is to score. Generally, they go into reserves, and when they come on the board, they will find a razorback to crawl into or a wall to hide behind. Grey Knight players use these to skimp points on scoring so that they can effectively dump the rest of their points into more lethal units.

The special weapon unit is generally 3-5 acolytes, but this time, they are packing melta guns or flamers. That’s right. Acolytes can get 3 melta guns in a 3 man squad. Yes, it’s ridiculous, I know. In all reality though, these still act as more a scoring roll than a combat roll because they are so weak. Usually, the addition of the guns is just to make the unit lethal “just in case”.

The storm bolter acolyte squad is also intended to be a cheap scoring unit. However, it will come packing 5 or so storm bolters to add some 24 inch range anti-infantry. This way, the squad can remain relatively safe while still adding a few guns to the fight.

Acolytes are just weak. Their weakness is EVERYTHING. One thing I would highly recommend when considering fighting a GK list would be to dedicate a small unit or two of anti-infantry to shooting these guys up. The basic strategy for a GK player is that you won’t shoot his acolytes because if you do, you are neglecting killing something that is far more lethal. However, a heavy bolter here, or a multi-laser, may pay off, especially when they are LD 8. Just keep it rolling around in the back of your head.

Psykers

Some lists carry psykers in numbers and almost always in a Chimera. When you get about 8 or so Psykers, they can lay down S 10ish AP 1ish blast templates out of the back of that Chimera. Ouch!

Psykers can be sick if you let them be sick. However, they are still LD 8. This means a few things. First, they fail a lot of psychic tests just because of that. Second, if you have a hood in range, they aren’t casting squat. You need hoods if you got em! For those armies who can’t have hoods, it’s sad face. Your only choice then is to blow up the Chimera and kill them like you would any guard player. That’s when they are at their most effective. Otherwise, get a hood into range often and early.

This is actually one of the areas where Space Wolf Runic Weapons aren’t as good as hoods, not even close.

Death Cult Assassins

These are the ones you should fear. Death Cultists, as described, are the most broken unit in 40K in my opinion. At face value, they are a Bloodletter, deadly but manageable. It’s when they get stacked with Hammerhands and Grenades that they get stupid.

Death Cultists, if given the chance, will assault and kill anything. Their biggest weakness is their 5++ save and lack of grenades. However, a seasoned GK player will mitigate this. He will attempt to tie you up with Dreads first and then assault. Or, he will use a Land Raider. Or, my personal fav, simply abuse the assault rules to ensure I only assault into the one guy who has just his small base portion poking out of terrain so I don’t need grenades.

The common solution I hear for Assassins is, “well I’ll just blow up their ride and shoot them”. That’s a great theory, but it doesn’t work in practice. Yes, you can do that. However, in doing so, you are more than likely putting fire power into a unit that isn’t hurting you back at range.

You should understand that unless they are in an assault vehicle or in a Storm Chicken, they aren’t that much of a threat to you. DCA are a much better counter-assault unit than an assault unit. The biggest problem though is that they still score with Coteaz.

If you are an assault heavy army, you must find a way to deal with them. In that case, I would say that you must shoot and kill them. They should be target priority, put every gun you got into them. If you have no guns, you better get some. DCA will annihilate things like Terminators. They aren’t scared at all, and they are so cheap, the seasoned GK vet will gladly sacrifice them to kill your hammer units.

If you aren’t an assault list, you can basically ignore them unless they are coming after you. Food for thought.

Crusaders

Only found in DCA squads, I actually recommend to most people that they aren’t worth their points. People take them though because they have a 3++, and they will put them with DCA so they can wound allocate to them. They have S3 Power Weapons which aren’t much of a threat, but it’s still something to consider. They are best used when you are trying to “just shoot up the DCA”. You can see why you may need to reconsider that strategy.

Major Henchmen List Weaknesses

The first major weakness is LD 8. This means you can break them with tank shocks, shooting, etc. This couple with the second major weakness which is lack of And They Shall Know No Fear. Get them to break when they are below half, and there is no coming back. Even better, they’ll drag an IC with them off the board if they break in that situation. Just remember, though, that And They Shall Know No Fear applies to the whole squad if an IC in the squad has it.

Explosions are your friend! Anytime you can get a vehicle to explode with Acolytes or Assassins in it, you will kill a lot of them. This forces LD 8 pinning and morale checks. Bonus! Yet another reason to be packing a reasonable amount of AP 1 if you are planning on going GK vehicle hunting.

In the end, though, the biggest piece of advice I have for dealing with Henchmen lists is to think of it more like playing Imperial Guard. They are basically the same army. Whereas guard packs in Vendettas, Grey Knights bring Dreadnoughts. In a lot of ways, they aren’t even as good as Guard.

This leads me back to one of my number one pieces of advice. In a Grey Knight world, if you can beat Guard, you can beat GKs.

Orks versus GKs

When I first saw the GK book, I hung my Orks up for good. I thought, “that’s it. Orks are finished”. Cleansing flame shuts down mobs, and Force Weapons shut down Nobz. Dreadnoughts massacre Killa Kanz. I got nothing left.

Now that I’ve had some practice with my GKs, I think a little different.

Battle Wagon Orks are actually a decent match-up for most GK lists. The reason is the combination of the 14 FA, the KFF, and the ability to pick your fight. Purifing Flame a problem? Ghazzie doesn’t think so! Force Weapons got you down? Boyz don’t care about power weapons. Flamers also love to chew on GKs, and most of all, Henchmen builds have very little to combat Orks with. DCA will do okay, but they will drop to a concentrated assault by Boyz.

Horde Orks is more of an issue because stacked cleaning flame + your lack of ability to choose fights, hurts. If the GK players don’t have Purifiers, though, it’s on like donkey kong!

Another thing to remember with Orks, especially against the likes of Paladins, is to know your multi-assault rules like the back of your hand. Realize this, if I drive up with 2 Wagons, one full of 20 Boyz, the other full of Meganobz, how can I slaughter Paladins with losing very little?

Assault with the Boyz first, putting someone into BTB with all the Paladins. Step 2, manipulate your ranges such that the Mega Nobz barely make into BTB with one model. Now, the GK player can’t pile in because he’s already in BTB with worthless Boyz. He now has one Paladin to kill a Mega Nob, and the rest of the Mega Nobz will now send their S8 Paladin killing claw attacks through the rest of the Paladins which they chop up a Boyz squad.

Lastly, in a GK world, Lootaz suck. That’s the end of the story.

Defeating the Beast: Fighting Grey Knights Article #4

2011-10-28T13:29:00.000-07:00

So far in the series, I’ve gone over what I believe to be the areas where Grey Knight draw their strengths as well as what I see as the 4 basic list archetypes that is the basis for most efficient GK builds. Your mileage, as with anyone’s opinion, may vary.

The next obvious thing to discuss in my opinion is the biggest weaknesses of the Grey Knight codex. Surely, if we want to be able to do well in a Grey Knight dominate world, we should always keep some thoughts in the back of our minds on exploiting some chinks in their armor.

Armor 12+

The first and most obvious weakness of Grey Knights is a definitive weakness in taking down Armor Value 12 and higher targets. There are a couple of key reasons why this is true.

First, once you hit the Armor 12 range, you are now negative any ability for a Psycannon to really hurt you on anything other than a “6”. Granted, once the “6” is roll, you are going to get hit with a penetrate. However, you will note that once you factor in a BS of 4, needing to roll a “6”,followed by a standard 4+ cover save, the statistics tell us that the Grey Knight player has a 1 in 18 chance to land that penetrating hit.

Now, a 1 in 18 chance isn’t all that bad when you consider a Psycannon in Heavy mode fires 4 shots. Basically, you fire 4 Psycannons in Heavy mode, and you have a decent chance of penetrating. This might seem “okay” at face value, but you will see in the next two ‘weakness’ categories that I will introduce why this is a big problem!

Other than Psycannons, Grey Knights have access to Psybolt Dreads and the odd multi-melta on a Storm Raven or Land Raider. Since any codex has access to those same multi-meltas, let’s set those aside as neither a strength nor weakness. However, Psybolt Dreads are one of the GK’s biggest strengths. So, this one is important.

Against a 12 armor value with a cover save, it will take about 2 Dreadnoughts firing on average to reliably score a penetrating hit. When shooting at something like a 55 point Chimera, this is a horrible waste of fire power. When shooting at a 200 point Storm Chicken, it’s not so bad. So, right away, the kind of 12+ armor is also a consideration.

At the end of the day, Dreadnoughts can and will destroy 12+ armor, but they won’t do it quickly. Thus, the weakness here is to deal with those Dreads early on. Then, they are relegated to just Psycannons or assaults. Also note that Dreads can easily stun higher armor value vehicles just to knock them out, a common tactic for a GK player versus things like Vendettas, Predators, etc.

Next, the Psyback is extremely ineffective against AV 12 and completely ineffective against AV 13. Since a lot of GK players take Psybacks in spades (see the standard archetypes), you can actually make a large portion of their spent points fairly worthless if you bring this type of armor in numbers.

Then, of course, there is the AV 14 issue for GKs. Here, they have terrible odds of taking down a Land Raider, and are best at in assault or with a psychic power like Might of Titan or Warp Rift. Stay out of range for assaults and a Land Raider is very reliable versus Grey Knights mainly because of….

Short Range

Grey Knights function best in a 24 inch world. The obvious exceptions here are Dreadnoughts. You must also take into consideration that most Grey Knights unit can move and fire. So, consider it more like a 30 inch world.

If it hasn’t been a theme yet, it should be. If you want to try and manipulate the range element of Grey Knights, you need to shut down the Dreadnoughts. Once you do that, you can hang back outside of that 30 inch range to maximize damage.

Consider things like refusing flank to shut down their power. Consider putting your long range elements in corners to be out of range. If you stay away from the Psycannons and Storm Bolters, they can’t hurt you.

Points Spendy MSU

The next and probably biggest weakness to Grey Knights, in my opinion, is the nature of how many points they must spend to field special weapon types. Now, in the assault, Grey Knights get a BARGAIN BASEMENT BLOWOUT on their equipment versus point cost. However, when it comes to special weapons, namely the Psycannon which is their only real option, they pay a premium to field a single Psycannon. For example, a Space Wolf player can get access to a melta gun in a Grey Hunter squad for 80 points. A Grey Knight player must fork out a minimum of 110 to get his special weapon. Compare that to a Melta Vet squad which gets 3 Melta Guns for 100.

Because of this “point spendy” nature, that makes Grey Knights actually quite susceptible to massed anti-infantry fire. Funny that probably the best army in the game at anti-infantry fire is also weak to anti-infantry fire. As those wounds wrap around and tag a Psycannon guy, they suddenly have a decent amount of “dead weight” sitting around. ( I use the term loosely because they still have Force Weapons and Storm Bolters, but in a Mechanized World, those things are fairly irrelevant.) For you non-mech players though, this is a much bigger deal. Still, at the end of the day, Grey Knights die just like any other marine to shooting. Except, each time one bites it, it’s a significant amount of points and power lost.

Lack of AP 1/AP 2

Grey Knights, just in general, have very little access to low AP Weaponry. Crazy this, but if you combine this knowledge with the weakness I just mentioned, suddenly a plain jane Terminator with Fist/Storm Bolter suddenly looks like a great option for fighting Grey Knights. His 2+ save doesn’t care about Grey Knights, and he puts out a lot of Grey Knight anti-infantry killing potential. Likewise, armies like Loganwing Missile Spam are in a pretty good spot versus Grey Knights because they always get their saves.

Grey Knights do have plenty of power weapons, though. So, let’s be careful about getting into Assault.

LD 9 Psychic Powers

Many of the most annoying Grey Knight psychic powers are rolled on models with a 9 Leadership. Force weapons, hammer hands, cleansing flames, warp quakes, and on. If it’s not an IC or Vehicle, it’s rolling on an LD 9. Why is this a weakness? Because Psychic hoods, save for some terrible exceptions, come on LD 10 models. LD 10 hoods dominate in a psychic war versus LD 9 psykers. Further, Eldar Warding Runes just dominate here since the average rolled on a 3d6 is 10-12.

Lack of Storm Shields

Grey Knights do not have Storm Shields. Grey Knight players will try to make up for this weakness on their Terminators usually by including a Librarian with Shrouding and relying on cover. However, one failed psychic test (or hooded test for that matter) and a lot of AP 2 can make a mess of Grey Knight Terminators and Paladins in a real hurry! The best part of this is that their Terminators are 40+ points (55 for a Paladin at minimum) each time you take one out.

That’s enough discussion on weaknesses for one article. In the next article, I’ll address the weaknesses one finds in the Henchmen builds which are just as important for consideration. In the meantime, here’s some reflections on Eldar fighting Grey Knights.

Using Eldar versus Grey Knights

Eldar have a TON of advantages versus Grey Knights and one BIG weakness. First and foremost, the most effective Eldar builds are almost always completely mechanized. I can’t speak the Foot ‘Dar lists because they generally don’t perform well in my experience. So, this is a caveat for this discussion.

The big weakness for Mech ‘Dar is that Grey Knights can still shake/stun your vehicles. That means you can’t shoot back, and GKs generally bring enough shooting to get it done. My best piece of advice here is to Tank Shock and RAM a lot!

Now, let’s talk strengths. First, you come packing an all AV 12 force. That’s a huge advantage. Second, you come packing the best suicide melta units in the game, Firedragons. And using those Firedragons, you can very quickly take out Dreadnoughts. This is a one-two punch against Grey Knights. Take out the Dreads quick. Rely on AV 12 to survive the rest of the army. Combine that with most of your vehicle guns being 36 inch range or higher, and you are seriously leaning on a lot of GK weaknesses.

Then to top it all off, you have access to Runes of Warding. This will shut down fortitudes, hammer hands, cleansing flames, and many other useful GK abilities as well.

In fact, Eldar may well be one of the best match-ups versus Grey Knights. Here’s an example 2000 point list I am thinking about running in the near future to combat the Grey Knight world.

HQ:

Eldrad

Elites:

3 x 5 xFire Dragons in Wave Serpents w/ Dual cannons, Spirit Stones

Troops:

3 x 5 x Dire Avengers in Wave Serpents w/ Dual Cannons, Spirit Stones

2 x 5 x Dire Avengers

Heavy:

3 x Falcons w/ Dual Cannons, Spirit Stones, Holo-Fields

Defeating the Beast: Fighting Grey Knights Article #3

2011-10-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

This is Part 3 of a series.

Draigowing

The third common type of Grey Knight list is the Draigowing. The concept behind this list is to leverage the Paladin’s uniqueness as a rock style unit and of course, Draigo. These types of lists will focus on getting you to focus on Paladins. From there, the actual goal should be to claim objectives or win on kill points. This list was really made famous by Blackmoor’s performance at the NoVA 2011, but there are key reasons for that which I covered in another article. In general, to think about defeating a Draigowing, the worst mistake you can make is assume that the general “this is how you beat a rock list” strategies are all that apply. There is some common wisdom there, but Draigowing’s bring a lot more to the table than the standard rock style list.

An optimized Draigowing will look something like this:

HQ:

Draigo

Librarian (Shrouding, Might of Titan, Sanctuary)

Troops:

10 x Paladins w/ 4 psycannons, and a smattering of swords, halbreds, hammers, and master crafted-ness for wound allocation.

A couple 5 man strike squads or a 10 man or so.

Elites:

Techmarine w/ Rad, Psybrokes (optional here)

Fast:

10 x Interceptors (Blackmoor wisely chose this unit and I think they are great for this list, but not necessarily common)

Heavy:

2-3 x Psybolt Dreads for long range support.

First, to briefly analyze the list, let’s analyze some of the key elements this list brings as well as the Grey Knight strengths that it leverages. First, with so few squads, Draigo’s Grand Strategy will be good to make something like Interceptors an additional scoring unit if needed. Otherwise, the ability is just marginally useful and is a Red Herring as described. The Librarian, however, is almost a requirement. The reason is psychic defense, Shrouding, and Might of Titan. Clearly, the biggest weakness of a Paladin is the lack of a 3++ like other Terminators. Shrouding will fix this against shooting attacks so long as the Paladins are in cover. Might of Titan also shores up another big weakness which is potentially getting bogged down by Dreadnoughts or other walkers. Yes, the Paladins can Hammerhand up to S10 with hammers, but they still only get 2 attacks, and that doesn’t strike fear at all into a Venerable Dreadnought.

The most self-defeating thing you can do is say, “oh this is just another newb rock list.” This list actually leverages some true GK strengths that other rocks cannot. For starters, the 4 Psycannons. How many rock units bring a set of guns that are almost guaranteed to take down a Land Raider at 24 inches? How many rock units can lay down that plus 6 Storm Bolters in anti-infantry defense and before they charge another rock unit? How many rock units can wound allocate an ENTIRE squad without spending a ridiculous amount of points?

Not only can Paladins dominate most units in assault, they can out-shoot most units as well. And lastly, the wisdom in taking the 10 man squads is because you can always combat squad in objective games, but in KP games, you can deny KP like crazy.

This type of list leverages the Paladin, Anti-Hammer/Counter-Assault, and Duality as great strength. It also packs in a lot of very noticeable weaknesses like lack of fearless, ability to be double-tapped out, etc. The problem that I always see though is that it’s easy to “arm-chair general” those weaknesses, but people don’t actually put thought into their list to actually accomplish those goals.

Henchmen MSU

Similar to Grey Knight MSU, Henchmen MSU leverages similar principles but does so using the extremely points efficient henchmen squads. In my opinion, these are the most devastating and optimized Grey Knight lists for the meta. These lists will look something like this:

HQ:

Coteaz

Libby or GM or OXI or even OXM w/ Terminator Armor

Elites:

1-3 Venerable Psybolt Dreads

1-3 5 x Purifier Squads w/ Rhinos or Psybacks + 2 Psycannons

Troops:

1-2 Squads of Death Cultists + Crusaders (potential)

1-2 Servitor Squads in Chimeras with Multi-Meltas, Plasma, etc. (depends on # of inquisitors)

3-4 Warrior Acolyte Squads w/ Psybacks ranging for 12 point 3 man squads to Melta Squads to Storm Bolter Squads

Fast:
0-3 Storm Chickens

0-2 Interceptors

Heavy:

2-3 Psybolt Dreads

0-1 Land Raiders

Now, I don’t say “makes the best GK lists” lightly. The reason why I’m really saying this is because, outside of Paladins, these lists leverage every Grey Knight strength. It packs in vehicle spam with Psybacks, leveraging Fortitude, it packs in Psybolt Dreads, combined packing in a more than average amount of anti-vehicle and anti-infantry fire, and Death Cultists/Purifiers make for a crazy good counter-assault element. Let’s face it, this is like running Imperial Guard except in an alternate dimension where Ogyrns are Terminators killing machines.

The other thing about this list is that since so little points is put into any one unit, you can continuously pack in more and more units. For example, Acolyte squads are so cheap, you could easily see lists containing 9-10 Psybacks and still have 3 Psybolt Dreads. Or, you could easily see a list containing 6 Psybacks and 6 Psybolt Dreads AND still have enough Death Cultists in it to swat aside any assault unit.

The big thing to notice about this kind of list, though, is that it, like Imperial Guard, is entirely reliant on its vehicles. Take down the vehicles, and they have a problem. Recently, I’ve been getting a chuckle out of the idea that Tau are actually a good match-up for this kind of list, and it’s true! Think about how much damage 9 Broadsides with Target Locks would do to this list!

Also, as an aside, the worst plan EVER is to assume you are just going to march up there with a bunch of Terminators like you can with Guard and stomp face. Death Cult Assassins, even in small numbers, backed up by Hammerhand, will utterly annihilate you. You will have to think outside the box.

Notice the lack of AP 2. Notice the lack of Melta. Notice the lack of units. These are the things to focus on which we will in our continued discussion.

Putting it all Together

So, now, I’ve covered the 4 basic GK list archetypes. Honestly, the only other type of list you will likely see are simply non-optimized versions of these lists. You might see something like BIG Purifier squads or multiple small Paladin units. If you plan to beat these more optimized versions, those lists shouldn’t be much of a threat.

So, hopefully your mind is in the right spot now when considering your way forward. Here are some key points to trigger off of when building your lists to take into account the Grey Knight scourge:

1) Do you have an actual plan in your list for Paladins? To kill them? Ignore them? Stall them? Not an arm-chair general plan, but A PLAN.

2) Can you safely ignore or deal with 6-9 Psybacks in cover, with fortitude without having your lunch money taken? Makes those Razorspam lists not look so good doesn’t it?

3) If you are relying on a few vehicles, do you have an answer to shut down Psybolt Dreadnoughts QUICKLY?

4) Can you beat a Mech Guard list that has the most broken, over-powered assault unit in the game to back it up? (Hint: stop trying to use Hammer lists. They don’t work :P)

5) Did you bring any Psychic defense?

Here’s a Black Templar list I really badly want to build. I’ll explain why I think it would be great for the current GK Heavy scene. I’m not completely satisfied with the list yet, but I wanted to share the direction I am going with it as it pertains to this conversation.

HQ:

Marshall + LCs + Terminator Armor + SS + Tank Hunters – 370

4 x Terminator Command Squad + 2 x Cyclone Missile Launchers + Tank Hunters

Emperor’s Champion – With Uphold or Suffer Not

Elites:

5 x Terminators + 2 x Cyclones + Tank Hunters – 265

5 x Terminators + 2 x Cyclones + Tank Hunters - 265

Troops:

5 x Crusaders + Multi-Melta – 90

5 x Crusaders + Multi-Melta - 90

5 x Crusaders + Plasma Cannon – 100

5 x Crusaders + Plasma Cannon - 100

And more points to go probably into either another command squad or Drop Pods/Rhinos for the troop choices. Maybe 3 Land Speeders. Etc.

So, why would I want this to play Grey Knights with?

First, this list brings 16 S9 anti-vehicle shots. S9 means Dreadnought killing and Razorback smashing. The shots are also dispersed across multiple infantry squads which are packing a 2+ save. This basically means that I will be able to out-shoot most GK vehicle heavy lists, and I am bringing a ridiculous amount of fire power to overwhelm cover + fortitude.

This list does not attempt to assault. It attempts to “out last” the enemy at range. Thus, I don’t need to sweat the counter-assault potential of a GK list. You want some? Come and get it because I’m not coming to get my face chewed off by Death Cultists or Purifiers.

If it has to fight a Hammer style list, it can easily bust up Land Raiders and Storm Chickens at range, and if I have to tango with a Dreadnought, S9 Power Fists FTW. Possibly, if I take Uphold, it’s Preferred Enemy S9 Power Fists. If I take Suffer Not, that’s S10 Power Fists.

Against Paladins, I have a veritable cornucopia of S8+ shooting. Just with this concept list, 19 shots with more to come when the list is done. So, I can trade shots with them for a couple of turns to soften them up to either make them hit less hard or eventually to assault big with a bunch of Powerfists once they are whittled down.

What I wish I had in this list is some psychic defense. But, Templar can’t have that. I also wish I had some more resiliency in my Troop choices. That may come with points though in the form of Rhinos, melta guns, Drop Pods, etc.

Can this list beat Guard? Absolutely. It will outshoot Guard off the table.

Now, that’s just an example of the kind of thinking that you need to be having. In the next few articles, I’m going to dive into every Codex and discuss the types of lists that will stack up well versus GK or give you the honest truth if your dex doesn’t have a prayer.

Battle for Salvation Recap

2011-10-11T06:28:00.000-07:00

First, I wanted to recap on the BFS then do some short battle reports. I'll be going a bit more in-depth with Stephen in Episode 89.

First, as to the tournament, I thought it was excellent. Bob told me a few times that they had had a couple of hiccups here and there, but as a participant, I didn't notice any of it. The only potential place I noticed a hiccup was that the time table would be a little off here and there, but honestly, I would only notice that just in passing.

The event was great. It was well run. Prize support was spot on. The location was awesome. It was plenty big, near easy access food (a mall food court even!). We actually drove in both Saturday and Sunday as we were staying with Dan (from Ten Inch template) whilst there. The drive wasn't bad either day.

The BFS, in my opinion, was very low stress/key, and it's exactly what you want in a good GT. It was simple to follow and straight forward. I know that some tables around me had some rules disputes, and from what I could tell, they were all resolved with a more than adequate amount of discussion and thought.

The only quibble I can offer to help them improve was on the terrain issue about the center piece not being area as well as the open hills. I think that most players were confused, one way or another, about the terrain announcement. Really, though, I only had the discussion once throughout the day about resolving any confusion.

Note that I am a fairly laid back guy when it comes to events. So, that's where my opinion comes from.

On to games...

Here's the list I settled on. I did take the 2nd Land Raider, even though it hurt my soul, but I made it useful in some occasions. I was glad it got some use before it rots on my shelves, but I will definitely be dropping it in the future.

HQ:

"The Unshakeable Will/The Manslayer" Coteaz - 100

"Smiley, Vanquisher of Armies" The Librarian - 170 (Shrouding, MoT, Warp Rift, Quicksilver)

Elites:

3 x Ven Dreads + Psybolts + Autocannons - (195 ea.)

Troops:

4 x 3 x Warrior Acolytes + Bolters - (66 ea.)

Psybacks + Searchlights

7 x DCA - 105

7 x DCA - 120

1 x Banisher

Heavy:

1 x Dreadnought + Psybolts + Autocannons - 135

2 x Land Raider Redeemers + Psybolts + Multi-Melta - 260

Total: 1999

So, list notes.

For starters, I didn't remember my LRR's even had Psybolts until round 5. A funny story actually. I also forgot I took searchlights. Lastly, the Banisher was really a d-bag move. In retrospect, I would have felt really bad had I played a demon player, and he will be coming out of this list.

Otherwise, the Dread + DCA combo continues to be devastating to many lists. Having now gone through the GT, I will be reverting back to my older style list though with more shooting and a few more DCAs.

Let me go ahead and apologize to my Round 1 opponent whose name I don't recall. :(

Short Battle Reports:

Round 1, and I drew a Space Wolf player playing what I would call the traditional Razorspam Wolves. His list looked something like:

HQ:

Rune Priest

Thunder Lord with Axe + Warrior Born and the trimmings

Elites:

2 x Scout Squads w/ Melta

Wolf Guard to split out

Troops:

5ish or so 5 melta hunters with Backs (mostly las/plas some tl las)

Fast:

Fenrisian screen for the Thunder Lord

Heavy:

3 x Long Fangs with missiles

Right away, going into this, you have to understand I have had about 3 hours of sleep. I'm feeling extremely nauseated and am not looking for the rest of the day. My demeanor is okay, and my opponent was funny. I'm only stating this because I actually felt bad because I was so sluggish he would tell me jokes that would take me entire seconds to process and get. All I want to say is I hope I didn't come off as unfriendly, but the reality was, I felt like I was moving in slow motion. :P

Anyways, this guy had a great stock SW list. He played it to the best of his ability. It was a giant shooting match. As I expected when I took the damnable Land Raiders, I lost one right away. The second got immobilized on Turn 2. Go Land Raiders! Already I'm mad at myself for taking them. :) This will change over time though.

My opponent got first, and we basically traded shots throughout the game. His Wolf scouts both completely whiffed on the turn they came on and gave up free KPs to me via my DCA who were now stuck in the backfield thanks to their ride getting smashed. I slowly started winning the shooting war as I whittled down Long Fangs and killed Razors. Late game, his Wolf Lord made a valiant attempt to come back field but was cut down by DCA. The game wore on, and I eventually just won the attrition war on KPs.

Round 2: Mike Sommerville (SP?)

Anything but Mech Guard... Anything but Mech Guard! DOH... :)

I faced Mike before at NoVA 2010. This was a rematch and we both were playing different armies. Right out of the gate, this was the most fun game of 40K I have played in a long, long time. This was an epic, knockdown, drag out, war which was the proverbial "just a couple dice rolls" from having gone either direction.

His list approximate:

HQ:
CCS plasma I think

Chimera

Elites:

None?

Troops:

One platoon squad in chimeras with meltas

Several melta vets in chimeras

Fast:

2 x Vendettas

1 x Valk (yes really!)

Heavy:

2 x Manticores

1 x LRD

As you can guess with my list, my goal, knock out the Manticores and Vendettas. As this was objectives, I figured if I could do that and still have enough army last to fight, I could just hold back and take objectives. I got first turn! This could happen.

I shot and he cover saved all but one damage result. All I did was stun the LRD. Not looking good for the home team! I had not rushed forward with the LRR (a huge mistake) but instead tried to find cover for shrouding on my movement. I had just moved the Dreads into position to try and space out from Manticore fire and shake/kill vendettas. His Turn, Smiley's LRR goes down to a Manticore, I lose a Dread to melta vets in the Valk, and another dread to the Vendettas. I lose a gun off a Razor. I’m thinking, this isn’t going well!

Decided that I’ve pretty much lost the alpha strike war and that the game is over, in my turn, I just risk it and drive my final LRR up over the middle terrain, and deposit The Manslayer out the front door to assault the LRD. My Dreads take down one Vendetta and one Valk. My LRR takes a crack shot at a Manticore and kills it with the Multi-Melta. I did a lot of damage here, but unless he whiffs horribly, it won’t be enough.

Then, he whiffs horribly. I forgot to mention he had reserved most of his Chimeras which was smart. Had they have come on Coteaz would have been greased as with my other Raider. He failed every reserve roll, and his shooting was entirely ineffective. The game was back on.

Turn 3, the LRR rolls up to his other manticore and small chimera wall. The girls jump out, Coteaz walks over and rejoins, the LRR takes out a Chimera, they will assault into another to kill it. Smiley and his remaining girls take out the small vet squad that was in the Valk and consolidate into cover near an objective. I start moving units to mid to take objectives and the long walk (we were playing Spearhead) commences with my remaining Dreads moving across the board towards another objective. My dread gets another crazy, crack shot off and takes the gun of the remaining Manticore. The Other Vendetta is gone.

His reserve come on. The LRR, Coteaz, and the girls all get cooked. Smiley get shots down to just his lonesome. He starts racing elements forward to be able to contest.

The next few turns are all about position and me trying to use my remaining fire power to stop him from getting into my quarters. The game is foremost quarters, and I need to tie him on this. I get some lucky immobilizes in from both his dice and mine to slow the advance enough to keep my quarters. Now, it becomes about objectives.

It comes to this, he holds one Objective after Smiley bites it finally. I hold one objective in my quarter. He then takes another in his corner. Now, he need to contest the one on my side of the board away from my deployment and mid, at which I have scoring units on both. He will contest the left most with a normal Infantry Platoon that has walked over under fire. He will contest mid with Chimera full of melta vets.

First, I try to get a Dread over to assault the infantry platoon. He whiffs his difficult and won’t make it. I then try to tank shock with a Razor, but he passes his LD test. I then shoot him to force a morale check which he will pass. I explode the Chimera in mid, killing some Vets, but he passes LD. And lastly, I try to assault the remaining vets with my Acolytes there for a glimmer of hope to miraculously win, but he cuts them done. Mike thusly holds 2 to my 1 and takes the win. At this point in the game, neither of us have very much left and it was a very back and forth game. Excellent fun!

Game 3: Alex Fennel’s Deathwing

Game 3 I played against Alex Fennel. He brought his Deathwing.

Approx:

HQ:

Belial

Troops:

6 x Terminators w/ Cyclones + 1 x LC (apothecary squad in there too)

Fast:

1 x Land Speeder

6 x Bikes w/ 2 x Melta + Attack Bike w/ MM

As you can imagine, this was a horrific match-up for Alex. To make it worse, his dice to hit/wound were absolutely abysmal. As to game play, it was very straight forward. I got first turn. I shot him up a little and moved my LRRs forward He had reserved his bikes and Land Speeder (smart move as he knew I would just them right away to get rid of the melta). He fired back with abysmal dice. Turn 2, I whittled some more Termies down, drove up, hopped out, and multi-assaulted Terminators with DCA. It was a slaughter. I did eventually lose some DCA as he put more Terminators into Coteaz’s fight, but Smiley’s girls chopped through Belials Command Squad and another Squad with relative ease. His reserve failed him. They finally came on when he had very little left. We played one more turn where he lost even more Terminators in a horrific roll in a fist fight with 2 Dreads, and I shot up some bikes. We called it as the game was not going to go anywhere in later turns.

Alex is known for being great to play with. He’s a tricky guy too being able to reach deep into a bag of 40K rule shenanigans to pull off great moves. Always a blast to play with and learn from.

Game 4: Jawaballs Blood Angels

So, my next opponent is the famous Chris Dubuque otherwise known as Jawaballs.

Approx:

HQ:
Mephy

Sanguinor

Elites:

Few sang priests

5 x Terminators with Claws/Shields + Land Raider Crusader

Chappy

Troops:

2 x 10 Assault Squads w/ Meltas

2 x Scout Squads, one with snipers and other for CC.

As you can also imagine here, horrific match-up for Jawaballs. We both recognize that right away. He can’t stay away from me because I have a heavy amount of shooting. If he pulls forward, my DCA will eat him. He spends a turn or so just plinking at me knowing that charging will be fruitless, and finally he just say, “hell with it, let’s do this!” and charges. He can’t win at range. So, when the blood and gore settles, Smiley and his girls are Dead, but Coteaz and his girls rule the day. It was a glorious massacre, and we called the game after all the combat finished. Jawaballs was very personable and fun to play with. Bad match-up is bad match-up. The Emperor himself couldn’t have won that one I don’t think.

Game 5: Ryan’s Grey Knights

I had played Ryan before at BFS 2010 at my final game there in the Bronze Bracket. He’s a personable guy to play with, and given some critical dice fail in this game, his ability to not start cursing loudly should be applauded!

Approx:

HQ:

Coteaz

OXI + Rad

Elites:

3 x 5 Purifiers + Psybacks + 2x Psy

Troops:

10 x Terminators + 2 x Psy

5 x 5 Acolytes w/ Storm Bolters + psybacks

Heavy:

3 x Dreads w/ Autos

So, Ryan set up mid board as it was Dawn. The primary was KP. At face value, my Dreads beat his Dreads, and if I can take down his Dreads, I’ve basically got open season on easy Razorback KPs. Also, if his Psycannons do not stop my Land Raiders, my DCA will mostly likely just roll over him.

So, it goes like this. He shoots all his Psy at my Land Raiders. They epically whiff. My LRRs drive forward, disgorge DCA and chop up the Terminators, a Purg Squad, Coteaz, and the OXI. From there, it’s basically all over but the crying. We do some more shooting but my DCA and LRRs are pretty much unstoppable wrecking machines as he whiffs a couple more times with Psycannons. Eventually, I have enough KPs that there is no coming back and we call the game.

Game 6: Eric with White Scars

This was against Eric from the White Scars blog. Two things. First, I’m extremely excited to finally get to see one of these White Scars guys in action. I have been wanting to see how they do well with this army because honestly, I don’t get it. Second, I am now absolutely destroyed. I have had no sleep in two days and am literally spacing out as we are playing this game. I actually owe Eric several apologies because I was so spaced out, I was actually frustrating him by forgetting things, doing idiotic things, and a host of other problems. As an example, at one point I specifically remember, he had to about bash me over the head explaining why if I took saves on DCA that I couldn’t kill the Banisher, and it literally took me like half a minute to understand what he was trying to tell me. It did not reflect well on me, and I apologize. I drank a copious amount of coffee after this game because I knew that I couldn’t continue like that. :P I also inadvertently started a rules discussion which I will talk about in a second when all I wanted to do was confirm that I could use the same rule because it was a genius move by Eric.

Approx:

HQ:

Bike Captain + Claws

Pedro

Elite
5 x TH/SS terminators + LRR + Multi Melta

2 x 5 Stern Guard w/ Combi Meltas + Lascanons + Rhinos

Troops:

3 x Bike squads w/ 1 x Melta + Attack Bikes w/ MM

1 x Combat scouts

Heavy:

2 x thunder fires

So, I get first turn. I plink some shooting at him and destroy a Thunder fire and kill a couple Sternguard forcing a morale check. I pull up with my LRRs, flanking the middle LoS blocker as I have been doing in most games, blow smoke, and prepare to Shroud.

Eric pulls up with Bikes, takes down a Dread. At this point, in my stupor, I start thinking about moving Coteaz + Girls away from center to chase down some bikes and scouts he had infiltrated. I’m thinking that maybe I got assault range on those Bikes. I test the move and eyeball the assault range. After a painfully long time, the gears in my brain finally stop turning, I realize it’s a dumb move, reset, and then decide on a better course of action. My thought was, I got 2 Raiders, he’s got 1. If I risk it, don’t blow a dangerous test, and take down his LRR with my Multi-meltas, I’ll probably eat some return fire, lose a Raider myself, but then be able to assault with DCA and lay down the hammer blow to kill all his terminators and bike command. This is basically what happens, and we get embroiled in a big battle in center involving the Terminators, his bike command, a few bikes, and my DCA. The battle lasts for many rounds, but the DCA eventually come out on top. Some more shooting takes place in the meantime, and eventually he gets worn down in attrition. We call the game as proceeding after that wasn’t going to net any new developments.

The inadvertent rules discussion was around his LRR that exploded. His interpretation of the rules was that his Terminators could be placed such that only the smallest fraction of his base would be where the LRR was. We always played that you had to be inside, as completely as possible, the resultant crater. I thought this idea of his was awesome because that meant you could easily get out of terrain for an assault, beautiful for my DCA. So, I checked the rule book, and it looked like he was right. A judge was nearby, and I wanted to confirm it in the FAQs so I just asked to see the FAQs. What a dumb move that was. The judge then wanted to get involved in the discussion, but I had no interest in arguing it. (It was entirely irrelevant to the outcome of the game.) But now, being an idiot, I had just created a rules discussion where none existed. /facepalm. We kept played while judges discussed (because I really didn’t care what they said the answer was for this game).

Anyways, after all that, forgetting a lot Fortitude rolls, a morale check, and Eric having to beat me over the head to explain why my Banisher wouldn’t die if he didn’t take a wound (/facepalm), I needed some coffee BAD. I also want to get another game in with Eric sometime so he doesn’t think I’m a complete idiot. ( Just partial would be fine! )

Game 7: Mike Brandt’s Guard

Anything but Mech Guard… anything but Mech Guard… DOH!

For starters, I am still amazed today at how Mike can manipulate a game of 40K with so much forethought after having played 7 games with little sleep. The only thing keeping me going this game is coffee because I am totally wasted.

Approx:

HQ:

Straken + CCS w/ Melta, Astro, Med Pak, Chimera

Elites:

Marbo

Troops:

Big Al’s Platoon, all Chimera’ed up, with Melta

5 x Melta Vets in Chimeras

Fast:

3 x Vendettas

It’s funny because I think Mike said I was a bad match-up for him. I’m of the exact opposite opinion because I think he is a bad match-up for me. My experiences versus Guard with my list so far are a total mixed bag. The more 12 armor on the board, the harder the game, and this list is completely spammed out on 12 armor. The reason for this is that it’s not easy for my Dreads to reliably stop 12 armor with a Cover Save. I actually do better in most cases versus Guard that carry more points into different kinds of Vehicles. Mike’s list just has piles and piles of sacrificial melta guns that he could hurl at Dreads and my LRRs where I trying to plink shots off of Chimeras to stop it.

He’s looking at this like, WTF Dread-Spam + Side Shots with Razors. So, it’s easy to, I think, see why would we think that about each other.

Any event, I got first turn. Mike surprises me by not putting his Vendettas in reserve. I realize that those are the only thing he’s got to kill my Dreads with so long as I stay away from suicide melta and the edges of the board (to avoid Big Al). So, Turn 1, I resist the urge to scream forward with my LRRs just to die to a fusillade of melta vets and hold them back. Instead, I just want to position myself near mid-board to contest/hold and get ready for later pushes to more objectives. I really give myself terrible odds of winning this game given that he has 8 mech-ed up scoring units to contest and hold with. I start plinking Vendettas and shake 2, wreck 1.

His turn, he moves up with Chimeras around some terrain. One gets stuck. He flat outs his Vendettas again. I plink at them again, shaking one and wrecking one.

At this point, I have to give credit to Eric because I was discussing my woes versus fighting this mech Guard army prior. Eric said one thing that stuck in my mind and that was “shoot the lead Chimera”. If you can immobilize or wreck it, that will force those behind it to get all clogged up and need to roll for terrain. So, my 2 psybacks that I had kept in reserve come on and immobilize the front Chimera. This forces lots of terrain rolls through the game and causes him to have to move around it. Good advice!

At this point, he suicides 2 melta vet squads on my LRRs. One goes down, the other lives miraculously. Thus begins the tale of Coteaz The Manslayer. Not wanting to risk my DCA to being shot up, I just hop Coteaz out to deal with one squad of suicide vets. He does so mercilessly. Smiley’s DCA, being the LRR that bit it, get out and clean up the other melta vets and then consolidate onto the hill mid. I will just leave them there to control the objective. Smiley gets on board the other LRR and moves up slightly still pushing slowly towards an objective but staying in shrouding range of the DCA on the hill.

Big Al comes in much to my relief. Board center is getting crowded. :P He comes in on my left to threaten my Psybacks and take the objective. I figure this objective is basically lost, but I can contain Big Al there with my Dreads. Now, what I want to do is focus on KPs. I figure, all I have to do is hold my right objective, contest mid, and take his left most objective, which he is only threatening with 10 melta vets on foot, and I got this. I actually think I got this won pretty handily at this point because he has no suicide melta vets left to come get my second LRR, and I will be in charge range of those aforementioned melta vets on my next turn to mop up and claim the objective. The reason why I think this is because I think one of his Chimeras is immobilized that apparently isn’t. This Chimera comes over on his turn and disgorges more suicide melta vets. Mike whiffs epically for a 2^nd time, but does one glance. He rolls the “6” to destroy it. Super lucky both for me and him depending on you look at it. Lucky for me he whiffed. Lucky for him he still squeezed in the destroy. If that had not of happened, the game would have been basically over right there. Coteaz, angered at the disruption gets out of the LRR and starts playing Croquet with Guardsmen in this new squad.

So, I still have this 10 man squad near the back objective. I try to shoot it up a little to get it to fall off the board, but he passes. My Dreads are just slowly moving and plinking towards my left most threating to contest that objective. My real goal is just to hold up Big Al in that corner and keep them out of mid. This would force Straken + whatever was left to come mid and keep them out of my other objectives. Again, I want to tie objectives and win KPs which Coteaz is single-handedly winning for me.

I’m missing some turns in here somewhere, but basically, it rolls on to turn 5. All game, Mike surprises me with his crafty plans in all kinds of weird ways that I’m still amazed by. (Especially being as tired as I am I can’t even imagine it). First, he stretches his one melta vet squad out from his corner to mid to claim both objectives. He kills the DCA off the hill with Multi-laser fire and Straken moves in to threaten. He uses Chimeras to block up the corner Al is in to keep my Dreads out from contesting. He tank shocks his Chimera onto my back objective. We roll to end. If it ends here, Mike handily wins on objectives.

It goes on. I needed this extra turn badly. Having this extra turn meant that I could shore up the win for 6 and 7 and reclaim lost ground by Mike’s big push. (Half of which I didn’t even see coming. Mike has an uncanny grasp of movement and situational awareness. It’s very impressive.) So, one Dread moves into contesting range of Big Al’s objective. This is a long shot for me, but I have just a ton of faith in my Ven Dreads to blow off melta shots and keep on kicking. They won’t let me down! I come rolling up with a Razor to contest mid now, but I have a problem. They will just melta it away with Straken’s squad on the Vet squad’s one melta in range if I don’t stop it. So, after much thinking, I send a Ven Dread into the maw of the beast that is Straken. I know my Ven Dread can do it. They never let me down! I need to tie up Strake to prevent his meltas from killing my Razor and hopefully survive the single melta shot. Meantime, my remaining dread is hauling tail towards mid to throw more bodies into contesting. My Ven Dread gets immobilized by Straken but holds the line. I love my Ven Dreads!

Coteaz, still raging, now goes after the Vet squad near the other objective. He pounces on them like an animal and cuts them down. I figure I got this objective easy now till my charging DCA + MoT whiff and don’t kill the contesting chimera. They do stun it though, and I figure I got this on his turn anyways.

Now, Mike is in trouble. Mid is contested. He’s likely going to lose his Chimera, and I got a Ven Dread sitting on Big Al’s objective. He’s now likely going to lose objectives and even if he pulls a tie, lose on KPs. He needs a lot of things to go his way. He starts off by throwing the kitchen sink at my Ven Dread contesting the objective in the corner. My Ven Dread gets immobilized but he holds true! I love my Ven Dreads! He resorts to assaulting with Marbo and melta bombs, but the Ven Dread still holds. He then puts fire into the contesting Razor in mid but doesn’t quite kill it. Straken still does not kill the other Ven Dread, taking off an arm. Coteaz finishes off his next meal, and I get a huge consolidate of 6 inches. It occurs to me that with a that + move + a good difficult terrain assault move, Coteaz could potentially assault into the Vets that are strung out to hold mid and his corner. If it goes to Turn 7, that will be the nail in the coffin. Smiley and the girls take down the Chimera and control the objective.

At this point, they call time. Now, if the game ends, I win on objectives, 2 to 1. The problem is, we never got a time call when it was approaching last turn. In other words, we never got a “last turn” call at the start. So, neither Mike nor I knew the game was about to end. I did not want to end the game like that because it would basically have robbed Mike of the opportunity of an epic comeback. They agreed to let us continue if we both wanted it, and Mike rolled off to move onto Turn 7.

Coteaz rampages up to Board center, makes his assault roll, and snags the Vet Squad dragging them into the Death Maw that is The Manslayer (who is now walking through 40 guardsmen this game if you are keeping count). My other Ven fends off Marbo for another round, while my other Ven there assaults into Big Al’s squad hoping to take him down and contest. Mike is making a game of it yet again (he sees so much of the board it’s scary to me :P) by taking pot shots at my back objective with Chimeras trying to wipe off my Acolytes there. But they survive it.

His turn, comes. Marbo still can’t kill the Ven Dread. Straken polishes off his Ven Dread plus another I forgot to mention I had assault in. Coteaz polishes off the final vet squad. The game ends 2 objectives to 0.

Watching Brandt play really is awesome. You have to struggle just to stay on par with the angles that he comes at you with, with that list. Recommend lots of coffee if you are going into a game against him just so you can try and keep up.

Defeating the Beast: Fighting Grey Knights Article #2

2011-10-07T09:26:00.000-07:00

Red Herrings

As I said in the previous article, there are a ton of Red Herrings in the Grey Knight dex that for most armies only serve as a distraction. This does not hold true for certain armies like Orks, Tyranids, Demons, and sometimes Dark Eldar. However, for the mass of Space Marine variant players out there, here’s the list of Red Herrings.

Force Weapons – The fact of the matter is that Strike Squads are weak in Assault. Purifiers are substantially better. The bottom line is, they have Power Weapons and that is what most Marines care about. They are also Strength 5 Power Weapons. This is somewhat concerning to many MEQ players because you want to avoid assault, but how hard is that to do, really? Since Grey Knights die just like any other Marine, you can soften them up substantially before they get to you, and then, they aren’t so bad when they lack attacks. Grey Knights players, just in general, do not build their list around those Force Weapons, even the I6 ones. It’s a consideration, certainly, but not a place where they truly derive power.

Grenades – Once again, just like the Force Weapons, this is an assault based element of the Grey Knights. Grenades for Grey Knights just make already existing Death Stars even more of a Death Star. Usually it’s overkill. This may frustrate you immeasurably with your own Death Star units, but the real power is that Grey Knights are just exceptional at defeating Death Stars, grenades or no. Once again, it’s time to rethink those hammer lists.

Grand Strategy – This is the ability a Grand Master uses to make certain units outflank, scout, score, or what have you. Although you could potentially be tricky with this, you could also roll a 1 and only get to manipulate one unit. More often than not, the GK player is using Grand Strategy only because he took the GM for Grenades OR because he took Draigo/Mordrak. They don’t build their lists around this ability because it’s not very reliable.

Shrouding/Sanctuary – Shrouding is a big issue for some players. However, as a Grey Knight player who uses a Librarian, the upgrade from a 4+ to a 3+ isn’t that substantial. It’s Fortitude (see the 3+ save I get from Fortitude + Cover already) that really pays the bills. You can also hood me or as a Puppy player, Rune Priest me which has to be THE most annoying thing to fight against. The fact is, quit trying to out Mech me with your Marines. You can’t. What you need to be focusing on is denying me cover, not worrying about Shrouding. Or just shutting down Psychic powers. Sanctuary, although annoying, is not usually a game changer. It is if you rely on big Death Stars, which I’ve already told you to stop running.

Warp Quake – Yes, this can be a game changer versus Drop Pod armies, DDMs, Demons, and DoA lists. If the GK player gets first turn. If he doesn’t fail the roll or perils at an inopportune time. Warp Quake is somewhat of a safety blanket for some GK builds. However, with experience, I know that over the course of a game, its usefulness obviously wanes. If your desired army will rely very heavily on Deep Striking, you need to consider its effects, especially if you are slow. (Looking at your Fatecrusher builds). Otherwise, just plan accordingly.

All of the Red Herrings have a commonality in unreliability. Force Weapons aren’t that reliable if you aren’t getting the assault or if you need to Hammerhand. (Or just roll bad!) Grenades are generally overkill and only truly needed against certain units. Warp Quake is only good if you are a heavy deep striker.

Also, some of these, like I said, are bigger deals to certain armies. Warp Quake is certainly a much bigger deal for Demons. Force Weapons are much bigger deal for Tyranids. Sanctuary is much bigger deal for Orks. I will mention these bits for certain armies when I talk about them specifically. For now, let’s move on to the 4 basic types of GK lists.

4 Basic GK List Archetypes

There are 4 basic variations on the Grey Knights list types for one to consider. Ideally, your thoughts on how to best use your army to defeat Grey Knights will address at least some aspects of each of these 4 lists. Three of these lists leverage the power of the GK dex as I described in the last article in one form or another. You should be able to see how some of those elements apply to each of these generic list types.

It’s important to know the archetypes because this will give you a foundation for consideration when looking at how to build your own list. Rather than sitting around going, “THEY COULD BRING ANYTHING!”, you can use these archetypes to help direct your thinking.

Grey Knight MSU

For lack of a better way to describe it, the Grey Knight MSU build places many small Strike Squads, Purifiers, or both generally into Rhinos and/or Psybacks. These lists are also usually backed up in the Heavy Support section by Psybolt Dreadnoughts. Headquarter selections may vary greatly from Librarians, to Grand Masters, to Coteaz, and of course, Crowe. Librarians bring Shrouding and Psychic Defense. Grand Masters can bring Grenades and the Grand Strategy ability to add some scouting, scoring, or outflanking shenanigans. Coteaz bring the sieze reroll and sometimes bring the ability to pack the Troop choice with some cheap acolytes or possibly a Death Cult squad. He also bring Sanctuary and the “I’ve Been Expecting You” rule. Lastly, Crowe allows the MSU Grey Knight builder to use his Purifiers as Troop choices.

Lastly, these MSU squads will generally be equipped with a Demon Hammer and Psycannons.

The typical list looks like this:

HQ:

Crowe, Coteaz, Librarian, or GM

Elites:

2-3 x 5 Purifiers w/ 2 x Psycannons, Demon Hammer + Rhino or Psyback

1-2 Venerable Psybolt Dreads

Troops:

5-6 5 Strike Squads w/ Psycannon, Demon Hammer + Psyback

(Potentially Purifiers here if taking Crowe)

Heavy:

2-3 Psybolt Dreads

The intent of this list is to clearly exercise several of the true Grey Knight strengths listed previously. It packs in Vehicles, maximizing Fortitude and general GK mech dominance, Psybolt Dreads, Duality, and of course, a plethora of anti-tank capability in Hammers and Psycannons.

Primarily, this type of list relies mostly on Duality with a special emphasis on destroying AV 10 – 11 Mech.

This type of list forgoes the strength of being able to take down Death Stars. It doesn’t have much a counter-attack element. Indeed, this list, overall, is decently weak in Assault save for Purifiers heavy lists which may be armed with Halbreds. Still, Halbreds aren’t much of a threat to models with a 3++. Also, in assault, they have no real defense versus a “Horde”, once again unless it’s Purifiers with Cleansing Flame.

Grey Knight Death Stars

Very similar to a lot of Blood Angel builds you might see, Grey Knights have the ability to pack in some Death Stars into Storm Ravens and Land Raiders to come at you. These lists will attempt to generally leverage Librarians, Grenades, Assassins, Purifiers, Dreads, and potentially Terminators. The good news here is that if you are already quite adept at fighting against these kinds of Blood Angel lists, these are functionally the same thing.

Typical List:

HQ:

Librarian (Shrouding, MoT, etc.), Inquisitor w/ Nades, GM w/ Nades, Coteaz, Crowe, Draigo

Elites:

Large Death Cult Squads + Crusaders (maybe troop choice with Coteaz)

1-2 Venerable Dreads w/ Multi Melta + Fist (storm ravens)

1-2 Techmarines w/ Grenades

Troops:

1-4 Small Henchmen Squads for Scoring, Possible Psybacks w/ Coteaz

Possible Death Cult units w/ Coteaz

1-2 Squads of Purifiers as Death Stars w/ Crowe

1-2 Squads of Paladins w/ Draigo as HQ

Fast:

1-2 Storm Ravens (transport Death stars)

Heavy:

1-2 Land Raiders

Psybolt Dreads

The large variation in list types here depends on the type of Death Star the GK player wants to use. Some like Death Cultists with Crusaders. Some like big Purifier squads. Some like Paladin squads or Terminators. They use Grenades on Techmarines, Xenos Inquisitors, or GMs, to bolster their Death Stars.

Basically, the kind of list eschews most of the actual strengths of GKs in favor of just running the plain old rock list that a lot of other codices can do just as well. It adds GK flavor by sprinkling some cheap troops, some Psybolt Dreads, etc. Basically, though, it has the same strengths and weaknesses of any Death Star/Rock List backed up by some ranged shooting.

Nothing really special to consider here above and beyond what you should already be considering in how to deal with rock lists.

To be continued

Defeating the Beast: Fighting Grey Knights

2011-10-06T06:25:00.000-07:00

I wanted to start a new series of articles on “how to defeat _____”, and I figured I would start with Grey Knights since that seems to be the talk of the town given how prolific they seem to be.

I’ve already read a few articles on other sites already talking about the best way to defeat Grey Knights. Quite possibly, the common theme and impetus for those articles has been that those authors are tired of hearing whining about “OP Grey Knights!’ and how all the band wagon jumpers are moving to Grey Knights. The theme of some of those articles has been thus, and I think that this detracts somewhat from the conversation as a whole. In fact, Grey Knights ARE a very powerful codex, arguably better than even Space Wolves, and I think that the first step in a discussion about defeating Grey Knights at large is to accept that this is a power codex in the grand scheme. Not only is it highly competitive, it also has a lot of easy to use builds which fit the “every man” of 40K. Further, the Grey Knight codex has a LOT of builds which fit the competitive bill. This means that any discussion pointed at “defeating Grey Knights” needs to also take into consideration all the potential kinds of Grey Knights you might see.

One thing I do want to clear up right here and now, though, is that the Grey Knights dex is not “OP”, “broken”, etc. The Grey Knights dex, in my opinion, is the example of what ALL codices should look like. Extremely viable. Many, many competitive builds, a decent amount of which should be easy to play and accessible by the “every man”. Fun to play. Interesting to think about.

As to the cries of “OP” or “everyone I know is quitting because they can’t stand the Grey Knights!”, these individuals should have already processed this when Demons came out, Orks after that, IG after that, Space Wolves after that, and what I’m sure will be Necrons or Chaos Legions after this. Stop whining about how good the GK dex is and let’s start discussing what you can do to compete with it. (And for Pete’s sake, don’t be that guy who says he only plays for “fun or fluff” and then complains when he can’t win games against a top tier dex. This is counter-productive and will only put you in the wrong mind set.)

On to the discussion.

Grey Knight List Potential and Power

Intelligence is critical to almost any plan. The more you know, the better prepared you will be. To me, it’s useful to first analyze where Grey Knights are actually drawing their power from so that we can understand the best ways to apply that knowledge in taking them down. Also, this part of the discussion is critical because Grey Knights have access to a lot of different, effective builds. So, how to best defeat a Grey Knight army, as I will talk about next, is best defined as how to analyze how your list will do against the varying types of GK builds.

The first key here is to firmly analyze where Grey Knight builds, in general, draw their power. The answer is not “Strike Squads with flippin’ Force Weapons!” or “Festooned with Grenades!” It’s a good bit deeper than that. One thing that makes the GK dex interesting to analyze is the amount of Red Herrings in the dex which serve to distract from where the real power in the dex lies. It is exactly things like Force Weapons and Psyko-brokes that detract from real power and provide a “smoke and mirrors” concept which serves to crush you by forcing you to focus on things that don’t really matter.

It’s things like, “OMG FORCE WEAPONS!” which serve to distract you. It’s almost like, “LOOK AT THE BIRDY!”, while the Dreads, for example, are the things that are actually doing all the damage. So, let’s take a look at where the majority of GK lists actually draw their greatest strengths.

The Psybolt Dreadnought with Autocannons

For many mech players, this unit takes the cake. Recognize that the Psybolt Dread actually puts out more anti-tank fire on average than a 5 man Long Fang pack. The reason is the twin-linking. A Dreadnought has an 89% chance to hit with each shot. A Long Fang as a 66% chance. Using poor man’s statistics, that means 5 Long Fangs hit 3.33 times. (Incidentally, if you are a Space Wolf player, this is why your 5 man squads always seem to always only hit with 3 missiles.) A Psybolt Dreadnought hits with 3.56 shots. Now, this is poor man’s statistics, but the point should be getting across.

Think of it this way. Each Psybolt Dreadnought in a GK army is equivalent to a 5 man Long Fang Pack.

If the GK player brings 6 Dreads, that’s like fighting a Space Wolf player with 6 Long Fang packs. Ouch!

The next thing to realize is that when a Psybolt Dread can reliably put down 4 S8 shots, against AV 10-11 vehicles, he doesn’t care about your cover saves. He will penetrate the vehicle 1-2 times in most cases, regardless of your 4+ save.

Simply put, the morale of this story is, you are a player who likes to run spammy style AV 10-11 (here’s looking at you Deldar, Razor Spam, Rhino Rushers), you need to plan right away for how you will shut the Dreads down and FAST.

Fortitude

It’s more than just annoying as an opponent of Grey Knights. Hey Dark Eldar players, you know how annoying that Flickerfield can be right? Well, look at it this way, every Grey Knight vehicle comes equipped with one. Don’t think so? Mathematically, by effectively ignoring 33% of the damage table, GKs basically receive the equivalent of a 5+ save versus the entire damage chart. And, yes, just like a Flickerfield, this applies to all damage results: CC, shooting, rams, and on.

But wait, there’s more! It’s BETTER than a Flickerfield because unlike a Flickerfield, the GK player gets to take his cover save in addition to his 5+ save. That means, when shooting at a GK vehicle in cover, that vehicle effectively has a 3+ save. (No, I’m not kidding. It really is a 3+ save). Now, factor in shrouding for extra giggles!

To make it worse, GKs barely pay any points for this ability.

So, what does this mean at the end of the day? Well, you could “rage” about it as being ridiculous, and it really kind of is, or, you can integrate this into your plan. First and foremost, this means that GK vehicles are hard to shut down, especially stopping them from shooting.

So, if you are going to play against lists of GK which bring a ton of vehicles, you need to bring some tools you might not have normally brought. Either you pack in a lot more anti-vehicle shots, OR, pack in a lot more AP 1. AP 1 almost negates the Fortitude bonus. Also, you need to consider how you could attack those vehicles while denying them cover saves. Or, could you pack in psychic defense to help shut this down?

It also means that Grey Knights are as good at mech lists as Imperial Guard.

Ranged Anti-Vehicle Fire

Grey Knights are unparalleled in their Ranged Anti-Vehicle Fire as it currently stands in 40K. Bet you thought that was Guard, didn’t you? It could be if I defined “ranged” as any shooting attack. When I say “ranged”, I mean anything 18 inches and higher. Psybolt Dreads, Psybolt Razorbacks, and Psycannons mean that GKs can pack an anti-AV 10-11 shot in EVERY. SINGLE. UNIT. Guard have BS 3 Chimeras with Multi-lasers. GKs have twin-linked Psybolt Razorbacks. No contest.

Unless the GK players are shooting at Guard. Funny how that works?

Save for the occasional rending off a Psycannon and the Psybolt Dreads, GKs really don’t bring a lot to the table that is really effective versus AV 12+ vehicles….. which Mech Guard carry en masse.

What does this mean? This means that in the world of GKs, you need a real plan of what to do with your masses of Razorbacks and Rhinos. Razorspam at face value simply won’t work versus GKs who can sorely outshoot you. Rhino Rushing only works if you can entice the GK player to shoot at something other than Rhinos.

A GK army can easily disable/destroy 5-8 AV 10-11 vehicles IN COVER, a turn depending on what’s in their list, and that’s WITHOUT considering Psycannon units.

The Paladin

A nod to the Paladin builds out there. Paladins are NOT your traditional rock style unit. People want to classify them as such, but they simply aren’t. Why?

Traditional rock units generally sorely lack in the shooting department. Think about it. Assault Terminators. Tyranid Death Stars. Thunder Wolf Cav.

Paladins can pack in storm bolters and 4 Psycannons which always shoot in “heavy” mode. On top of that, they can also fight pretty well in assault. They are not your traditional rock unit and should not be treated as such.

Make some considerations about what your list might do if you run into a 10 man block of Paladins. How will you mitigate them? Ignore them? Kill them?

Anti-Hammer/Counter-Assault

I know, hammer lists are fun. Nothing says fun more than charging 3 Thunder Lords across the board and wrecking face!

Well, actually there is something more fun than that. Counter-charging with a 100 points worth of Death Cult Assassins and a stupid tech marine with Psyko-brokes and kill all 3 Wolf Lords before they get to swing!

Grey Knights EXCEL at destroying Hammer Units. Access to Force Weapons, Hammerhand, Initiative 6, Psyko-brokes, Death Cult Assassins, and other things mean that if Grey Knights have a need to lay down a serious pimp hand, they can get it done. Worse. They can get it done on the cheap.

Likewise, Grey Knights excel at Counter-Assaults. Like Guard, most GK lists are happy to sit back and shoot, letting you get close, and then laying out aforementioned pimp hand. Guard have a pimp hand too, but it is not nearly as strong.

Save for some exceptions which I will discuss in another article, it’s really time to start reconsidering those Hammer lists.

The Purifier/Duality

The last real power of the Grey Knight dex (that I can think of at the moment anyways) is the duality of every unit, best show-cased by the Purifier.

What is Duality? Duality is just a word used to describe a unit’s ability to be both Anti-Armor and Anti-Infantry. Even the lowly Strike Squad can bring a Demon Hammer and a Psycannon to the party while also packing lots of shots with Storm Bolters. Even the Psybolt Razorback can handily take down AV 10-11 vehicles while adding 2-3 reliable wounds to the anti-infantry party.

The Purifier (and even the Paladin) exemplify this kind of Duality. Indeed, the Purifier is probably THE SWISS ARMY KNIFE of the 40K. He can bring Psycannons and Hammers for anti-tank. He brings 2 Attack S 5 Force Weapons. He brings Cleansing Flame for killing hordes. He brings Storm Bolters for anti-infantry. What else do you need?

So, lists which contain a lot of “Grey Knight” units bring a lot of duality to the party. The Grey Knights do not have a straight forward weakness. Their weakness is in their point cost

Conclusion

That’s enough for one huge article. I purposefully did not mention: Psyko-brokes, Warp Quake, Librarians, Grand Masters, and other things which are commonly mentioned. I’ll explain why in another article.

A Little Psychology: Your Poker Face

2011-09-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

Just a little thought on some above the table tactics that work very well but aren't underhanded in nature. Your Poker Face.

Don't let them see you sweat. When you start getting agitated, irate, a little red faced, flustered, blubbering, insolent, a little more quiet than usual, etc., I can tell, as your opponent, that I've got you on the ropes.

Now, you might think, "of course I know when I got someone on the ropes! It should be obvious by looking at the board!"

Have you ever finished that game where you though, "holy cow I was losing so badly and then all of a sudden my opponent did some things that caused me to win!" You turn around and ask the opponent and he says, "man, I was losing the whole time. Knew I couldn't win it so started moving some things around."

So, who was really losing the whole time? You or him?

When people feel like they are in a bad position, they tend to react a little more off center than usual. Heard of "flight or fight"? Well, it's not quite that primal, but when people feel like they are not doing well, they tend to make more mistakes, overlook things, and more importantly, give away tells. What's a tell? A tell is when you inadvertently give away information such as signals that you think you are doing poorly or losing.

There's a few things I can do with the potential knowledge that my opponent doesn't think he's doing well.

First, I'll become a little less risk adverse. I know that my opponent thinks that things are not going well and so will react a little more erratically, possibly missing key elements, possibly making bad decisions... you know... the kinds of things that make taking risks pay off!

Second, it also tells me that if I tighten the screws, I might be able to break his will and make him give up. Maybe I'll focus a little more effort on killing more units, giving the appearance of an oncoming tabling, and he'll just throw in the towel! Secretly, I can wipe the sweat off my forehead going, "IF ONLY HE HAD STAYED IN IT... WHEW!!!"

Third, I also know that my opponent's behavior is also about to become a lot more risky. He's much more likely to go for broke when he thinks he has no options left. You can use this knowledge to help you predict what he might do on the next turn.

So, what's the 40K Poker Face look like? The #1 key is to not let bad situations play on you. Lose your Land Raider on Turn 1? Respond with "On to turn 2!" instead of "oh, man, that screwed me bad! I hate my dice." Lose a critical combat? "Okay, on to this combat over here" instead of "oh man, I got screwed. I'm going to lose!"

Other tips.

No, the fake sportsmanship thing doesn't work on someone with half a brain for social skills. When you play off the "I'm acting super nice!!!!!", I can tell. If you can't tell, learn to tell. This is even better for you because your opponent will have a super hard time keeping up the charade when he thinks things aren't going his way. It's much better to be cool and calm.

Likewise, no, I'm not fooled by the "oh man I'm screwed .... (but secretly I'm not I just want you to make a mistake thinking I'm going to give up!) ....". You shouldn't be either.

Think either of the last 2 scenarios don't happen? I haven't been to a tournament yet where I haven't had at least one opponent actively try to engage in psychological warfare across the table top either feigning ignorance, acting overly zealous, feigning a loss, bullying for rules, etc.

It happens. So, use it to your advantage.

Tyranids Aren't That Bad vs. Grey Knights

2011-09-28T07:14:00.000-07:00

When the Grey Knights dex came out, many of us thought that one of the biggest losers were the Tyranids. We already know that Tyranids got hammered hard by the Dark Eldar release, and let's be honest, it's widely considered the most under-powered dex in 5th Edition. However, I wouldn't necessarily throw my Nids out the door at the moment because, after watching a lot of the Grey Knight lists flesh out, Nids really aren't that bad of a match-up.

Before I even start talking about the match-up and talking about what I now see as some misconceptions about the match-up, I want to quickly address the Dark Eldar. Dark Eldar completely maul Tyranids in a competitive scene. It isn't hard to figure out why with all the poison shooting and AP 2 shooting from dark light weaponry. For this reason, if you are a Tyranid player, you may have packed up your models a while back. However, things are actually looking up ever so briefly because Dark Eldar get mauled by Grey Knights. Why? Grey Knights can pour on a ridiculous amount of S6, S7, and S8 shooting which annihilates Dark Eldar vehicles. Indeed, most GK lists I see pack a weapon capable of shredding a Dark Eldar vehicle in EVERY, SINGLE, SQUAD. Heck, even mass Storm Bolter shooting can stun lock them.

What I'm saying then is that the Dark Eldar presence on the tournament scene is going to drop like a rock. (It already has in a lot of areas).

The Tyranid Match-up:

Just like everyone else, when the GK dex came out I was saying, "welp, that's it for Tyranids. Right after the Dark Eldar, too. It's over!" Why?

Initiative 6 Force Weapons - Insta-gib monstrous creatures before they even get to swing!
Mass Anti-Infantry Shooting - Storm Bolters, Incinerators, Psybacks, oh my!
Mass Mid-Strength Shooting - Pours out wounds on Monstrous Creatures.
Cleansing Flame - Deserves a mention all by itself.

So, having been playing with the new GK dex since its launch, a lot of things have changed. I've also had the opportunity now to play against some good Nid players and see how wildly different the reality of this match-up is than it looks on paper.

Yes, You Will Have to be Good with Your Army

So, no. You aren't going to be able to do well with your Nids versus GKs if you don't have a solid army or solid skills with your army. This is true of any army.

The Misconceptions

To begin, many of the biggest potential match-up issues are taken care already not by Tyranids but by the Grey Knights need to play against other armies. Grey Knights lists basically look like either Henchmen/Purifier spammy kinds of lists with Psybolt Dreads as back-up and lots of Psybacks. There will also be a smattering of Psycannons with the Purifier style lists and likewise, Death Cultists littered about in Henchmen style lists.

Grey Knights need all kinds of anti-vehicle shooting, just like Nids, to be competitive against things like Razor Spam and Mech Guard.

Thus, even with Purifier Spam, what you will start to see are small, MSU squads of Purifiers, potentially with a Demon Hammer, a couple psycannons, and usually in a Rhino or Psyback.

The first, promising, misconception is that Grey Knight shooting will shred Tyranids. It certainly will kill its fair share of Genestealers and Gaunts, but only at 24 inch range. Dreads and Psybacks can certainly do some damage to, but with cover saves, it doesn't amount to really more than Guard can do.

However, you know what Grey Knights can't really kill at range? Monstrous Creatures. Toughness 6, combined with a 3+ save, combined with Feel No Pain is a nightmare for GK shooting. For example, I usually carry 5 Psybolt Dreads in my list. Shooting at a Tervigon w/ FnP, I will average about 2.5 wounds. That's not promising for me at all, especially if you have 2-3 of the buggers backed up by some things like Trygons. I can't shoot through that before you get to me. Not even close!

The second misconception is that Grey Knights will blow you off the board. GKs can't kill monstrous creatures at any range because they lack AP 2 weaponry. So, they can shoot at your gribblies, but that can't do both. When Tervigons make gribblies as fast as I can kill them, I don't like my prospects when shooting at Nids.

Third, the Force Weapons. There are a couple issues here for consideration. First, most GK squads, unless they contain an IC, can't both Hammerhand and Force Weapon. This means that those I6 Halbreds, need 6's to wound MCs. Second, most GK squads, unless they contain an IC, are LD 9 or less. Shadow in the Warp is a beast for a GK player! Trust me on this one. So, even if they do get a wound, which they can with a Demon Hammer certainly, they have less than a 45% chance for the force weapon to even go off. So, time to change your strategies around how you use your MCs and overlapping Shadows. Cleansing Flame a problem? Shadows is a great answer to this problem. Likely, those Purifiers only get one shot at it because of this next reason....

Numer 4, Grey Knights bring nothing to the table versus Gribblies than normal marines. Genestealers and Gaunts dominate Marines in HtH. Do you care about their force weapons? Not really. Your saved already sucked! Grey Knights don't have a lot of attacks, and their save is only a 3+. Furious charging, poison gaunts will dominate in that fight, point to point. Not to mention, devil gaunts can seriously rake GK units over the coals.

This leaves us with the Death Cultists. So long as you make them charge through cover, you win.

Do Grenade toting assault units still hurt, a lot? Indeed. Just like having to deal with a pack of 10 TH/SS terminators, as a Nid player, you will have to use your tools and guile to shoot, tie up, assault, or what have you, these types of units. Things haven't changed for you at all in this department.

The point of all of this is, Nids are not a bad match-up for Grey Knights. They are what I would call, an even match-up. It's going to be all about who out plays the other guy, and that's exactly where you want to be.

NoVA Battle Reports: Game 5

2011-09-19T11:38:00.000-07:00

So, I wisely decide to go to bed Saturday night rather than trying to stay up to late. I still didn't get enough sleep, but I was way better off rolling in on Sunday than I was on Saturday morning.

I was thinking coming into Day 2 that I would be in one of the upper 3/1 brackets. I figured I would have a hard day but a good chance at winning my bracket. However, that wasn't what the cards had in store for me. Rather than being in a 3/1 bracket, they had me bumped up into the 4/0 "Tournament Ace" bracket. Doh! This would mean that rather than, in my opinion, playing against my peers I would be playing against a whole group of guys who are better than me. Oh well! At least when your expectations are low, there isn't a whole lot of pressure. This helped me out a good bit in Game #1. Whereas my opponent had full expectations of being able to take home the 8-0 prize and win it all, my expectations were to lose all 4 of my Day 2 games. So, I wasn't really sweating (for the game that is... more on this later) at all.

Good thing too because they have placed me as the last seed in the 4/0 bracket. This meant that I was paired up against the #1 seed coming into Day #2, Nick (yermom) (http://thebrownpaintbrush.blogspot.com/). Nick is the guy who had just won the NoVA Invitational on Friday, and he is a known killer on the GT circuit.

Let's up the ante for me and put us on Table #1. Cool! So, now I get to have my ass handed to me LIVE using my OWN recording equipment.

So, on to the game.

I didn't have to look at Nick's list because I already knew what it was from following his BLOG. It was kind of humorous to me that I had had a lot of considerations about running a list similar to his. I knew that my list could stand up to his in terms of fire power, but it was a big ??? for me as to if I could he would simply outlast me given all the Marine bodies. This was going to come down to me outnumbering him with Dreads and more useful Dreads, Venerables, at that. I also knew right away that this was going to be a slug fest ala Rocky IV where we just beat the crap out of each other and see who is left standing.

Nick's list is this:

HQ:

Coteaz

Inquisitor ????

Elite:

5 x Purifiers + Hammer + 2 x Psycannons

Rhino

5 x Purifiers + Hammer + 2 x Psycannons

Rhino

5 x Purifiers + Hammer + 2 x Psycannons

Rhino

Troops: