The list will require some tweaking once we get final points revealed, since right now it sits around 175pts too much; however, many units did drop in price. I can remove a few GKI bodies and an Apothecary if necessary.
There's still a lot of strats to read and figure out how to apply, and the order of Tides is now very important. (I'm thinking start in Shadows, move to Celerity, end in Convergence. Although there's probably a good case for flip-flopping the order of the latter two.)
I've had a decent read through the codex now and am in two minds about it.
The raw power of the datasheets is very good, we are efficient at killing in all phases of the game at a base level with decent anti-infantry guns, great melee against all targets and generally decent psy powers backed up by everything having proper smite. We can make powerful armies and should be able to mix it up well with most.
on the flip side in giving us such powerful base units they seem to then have removed many of the interesting additional abilities and optional extras that make an army more interesting to build and play.
For instance we have many things that boost our abilities to Deny powers but very few to boost our ability to cast powers - at base we are great at denying I don't see the point is spending resources making us better given the chance we won't be facing psykers. There is no way to up the number power powers our characters can cast so they are a little limited in choice of powers which is annoying especially on the libby - its not a big deal but is obvious by its omission - we can't make anything as versatile or as reliable at casting as a standard marine player could from their book.
Character wise Draigo is great but a little vanilla - couldn't he have had some kind of ability to make him feel a little special? Hes a chapter master who's great in combat - good in game but not that interesting.
Voldus is incredibly similar to draigo - similar stats, same psy ability, very similar weapon, not a chapter master and not a 3++ so why take him ever? He needed a rule to make him offer something different.
Our basic strike squads are so efficient it makes our terminator look pretty poor by comparison which is a shame.
Lastly there is an issue where the points in the book are quite a bit different to the points in the 2021 MFM - at the moment it is unclear which should be used as the codex is the newer publication but upon release of the MFM they said that the GK codex should have already been out.
Hey, I think it seems decent, as the strike squads are so much improved (full smite, buffed nemesis weapons, extra wound and attacks). How do you plan to use deep strike? I'd like to include my own list here, for tactics discussion and improve it.
My plan is to start with the tide of shadows, and during the turn 2 onwards the tide of convergence. I'm only starting the game with 2 models on the table (fliers with strike squads and librarians inside) and paladins with Draigo are in deep strike. The strike squads are deployed in to objectives from fliers, and paladins are going for a fight.
Lastly there is an issue where the points in the book are quite a bit different to the points in the 2021 MFM - at the moment it is unclear which should be used as the codex is the newer publication but upon release of the MFM they said that the GK codex should have already been out.
Are the points in MFM21 (IE: the ones that were linked to the post-Codex army, not the stopgap one they released) even different?
Overall the GKs got a big buff that they sorely needed and it's great that they finally are starting to live up to their lore a little bit. Atm, I still plan to field a Terminator Heavy Army and the biggest? I have still is what weapons to give my Terminator and Paladin Squads. As well as which ranged weapon to go with the Hvy. Psycannon on both my HQ and Hvy Support Dreadknights.
Are the points in MFM21 (IE: the ones that were linked to the post-Codex army, not the stopgap one they released) even different?
Admittedly I'm looking at blurry youtube images of the codex but yes the points seem quite a bit different with some units having options baked into their cost or paying extra for them, dreadknights are about 20pts different and various other things. I made a 2k list from the book and it is 2075 when put through the MFM21. Its mainly special weapons that seem to cost alot more and bare bones stuff is slightly cheaper so it will have a significant impact on lists.
The list in the codex is alot cleaner - all rounded to 5 points and more option included in the base cost.
Ironwolf45 wrote: the biggest? I have still is what weapons to give my Terminator and Paladin Squads. As well as which ranged weapon to go with the Hvy. Psycannon on both my HQ and Hvy Support Dreadknights.
Putting one Stave in each squad gives them the option for the Zone of Warding strat, which grants a 5++ to PAGK or a 4++ to TDA. Then fill out with a mix of swords (for the -3AP) and halberds (for the S6); falchions aren't as good now that everyone has an extra attack in the profile, and we really want the better strength and AP. If you have the points, try out psycannons: D2 is a solid choice against anything with FnP...which is a lot of stuff these days.
For GMDK, I'm doing psycannon and psilencer--the psycannon is the best gun we have (aside from the few lascannons we can field on some vehicles), and it's now S8 AP-2 D2. The psilencer isn't quite as good, losing Dd3, but now it's base S5 AP-1, and the range is good to make the GMDK a shooting beast.
With NDKs I'm going to try out psycannon and incinerator, unless I need the points in which case I'll drop the psycannon. At BS4 when moving, 2d6 auto-hits is really good. I also like sticking NDKs into DS and popping out with an incinerator.
I believe Falchions are primarily good for fishing for mortals in the tide that gives you mortals on 6's. Combine them with the Rapiers brotherhood and possibly a Brotherhood Ancient for 6 attacks per Strike Marine or Interceptor.
Psychic powers are a lot harder to get off without the +1 to cast. I am not sure if the Warp Charge values have gone up for some of them, but you just can't rely on something like Gate of Infinity going off unless you put a lot more resources like stratagems or the Gem relic into it.
Anti-tank is kinda hurt now, seeming to reside mostly in Dreadnaughts, Dreadknights, Psycannon (24'' range?), and oddball choices like the Stormraven. Melee has a decent chance of doing the job, but getting into melee with a Leman Russ tank line with a bunch of infantry in front of it is an iffy proposition.
bmsattler wrote: I believe Falchions are primarily good for fishing for mortals in the tide that gives you mortals on 6's. Combine them with the Rapiers brotherhood and possibly a Brotherhood Ancient for 6 attacks per Strike Marine or Interceptor.
That sounds like a good list to run, although keeping the Ancient in range of all the models has traditionally been very difficult for me.
getting into melee with a Leman Russ tank line with a bunch of infantry in front of it is an iffy proposition.
This has always been an issue, but now that NDKs are wounding those guys on 2s (Hammerhand), and PAGK can wound on 4s (sword/halb + Hammerhand), and Sanctic can be applied to multiple units, I think it will be easier to get wounds. Still not ideal, but softening it up with some psycannons first should finish off a tank a turn.
Edit: don't forget that everyone has smite, too...so if you'd rather get mortals and bypass the high T and Sv, try that! (Although you won't get HH, which is a bummer...but perhaps those further back units that won't make the charge anyhow can still contribute damage.)
This has always been an issue, but now that NDKs are wounding those guys on 2s (Hammerhand), and PAGK can wound on 4s (sword/halb + Hammerhand), and Sanctic can be applied to multiple units, I think it will be easier to get wounds. Still not ideal, but softening it up with some psycannons first should finish off a tank a turn.
A basic 5-man Strike unit with Swords plus Hammerhand in Convergence will kill a Russ equivalent more often than it wont. Add in an Ancient, Word of Power and reroll support (of the Draigo or Master variety) and that squad kills a Knight equivalent more often than it wont. If you want to nearly guarantee it, add in Empyric Amplification.
If the lads can make combat, they're going to blend damn near anything big they touch.
The list will require some tweaking once we get final points revealed, since right now it sits around 175pts too much; however, many units did drop in price. I can remove a few GKI bodies and an Apothecary if necessary.
There's still a lot of strats to read and figure out how to apply, and the order of Tides is now very important. (I'm thinking start in Shadows, move to Celerity, end in Convergence. Although there's probably a good case for flip-flopping the order of the latter two.)
Thoughts?
Just so you know, NDKs don't take the heavy penalty in 9th anymore! So I would definitely recommend the psilencer+psycannon if you can afford it, with the empyric amp buff, sword bearer buff, and rerolls nearby they can lay down some serious hurt.I would also for sure take swords on all the ndks, the 10 attack sweep is way too good to give up imo
bmsattler wrote: I believe Falchions are primarily good for fishing for mortals in the tide that gives you mortals on 6's. Combine them with the Rapiers brotherhood and possibly a Brotherhood Ancient for 6 attacks per Strike Marine or Interceptor.
That sounds like a good list to run, although keeping the Ancient in range of all the models has traditionally been very difficult for me.
getting into melee with a Leman Russ tank line with a bunch of infantry in front of it is an iffy proposition.
This has always been an issue, but now that NDKs are wounding those guys on 2s (Hammerhand), and PAGK can wound on 4s (sword/halb + Hammerhand), and Sanctic can be applied to multiple units, I think it will be easier to get wounds. Still not ideal, but softening it up with some psycannons first should finish off a tank a turn.
Edit: don't forget that everyone has smite, too...so if you'd rather get mortals and bypass the high T and Sv, try that! (Although you won't get HH, which is a bummer...but perhaps those further back units that won't make the charge anyhow can still contribute damage.)
Just a note, Hammerhand is no longer +1 to wound and Dreadknights can't take it.
bmsattler wrote: I believe Falchions are primarily good for fishing for mortals in the tide that gives you mortals on 6's. Combine them with the Rapiers brotherhood and possibly a Brotherhood Ancient for 6 attacks per Strike Marine or Interceptor.
That sounds like a good list to run, although keeping the Ancient in range of all the models has traditionally been very difficult for me.
getting into melee with a Leman Russ tank line with a bunch of infantry in front of it is an iffy proposition.
This has always been an issue, but now that NDKs are wounding those guys on 2s (Hammerhand), and PAGK can wound on 4s (sword/halb + Hammerhand), and Sanctic can be applied to multiple units, I think it will be easier to get wounds. Still not ideal, but softening it up with some psycannons first should finish off a tank a turn.
Edit: don't forget that everyone has smite, too...so if you'd rather get mortals and bypass the high T and Sv, try that! (Although you won't get HH, which is a bummer...but perhaps those further back units that won't make the charge anyhow can still contribute damage.)
As a note, Hammerhand is now re-roll wounds not +1 to wound.
bmsattler wrote: I believe Falchions are primarily good for fishing for mortals in the tide that gives you mortals on 6's. Combine them with the Rapiers brotherhood and possibly a Brotherhood Ancient for 6 attacks per Strike Marine or Interceptor.
That sounds like a good list to run, although keeping the Ancient in range of all the models has traditionally been very difficult for me.
getting into melee with a Leman Russ tank line with a bunch of infantry in front of it is an iffy proposition.
This has always been an issue, but now that NDKs are wounding those guys on 2s (Hammerhand), and PAGK can wound on 4s (sword/halb + Hammerhand), and Sanctic can be applied to multiple units, I think it will be easier to get wounds. Still not ideal, but softening it up with some psycannons first should finish off a tank a turn.
Edit: don't forget that everyone has smite, too...so if you'd rather get mortals and bypass the high T and Sv, try that! (Although you won't get HH, which is a bummer...but perhaps those further back units that won't make the charge anyhow can still contribute damage.)
Just a note, Hammerhand is no longer +1 to wound and Dreadknights can't take it.
Hammerhand is on Dreadknights from default according to Art of War 40k's batrep.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Regarding swords or halbreds, the math generally finds the halbred out performing unless you're fighting Marine Stat line with no invuln OR ignore AP-2 (Skitarii).
Are the points in MFM21 (IE: the ones that were linked to the post-Codex army, not the stopgap one they released) even different?
Admittedly I'm looking at blurry youtube images of the codex but yes the points seem quite a bit different with some units having options baked into their cost or paying extra for them, dreadknights are about 20pts different and various other things. I made a 2k list from the book and it is 2075 when put through the MFM21. Its mainly special weapons that seem to cost alot more and bare bones stuff is slightly cheaper so it will have a significant impact on lists.
The list in the codex is alot cleaner - all rounded to 5 points and more option included in the base cost.
My apologies!!!!!
I was checking the points against the MFM2021 completely forgetting that there have been two MFM this year and I should have been looking at the MFM2021 MK2 !!!
Such a stupid way of doing points - put it online and keep it updated!!
I have now checked the correct MFM book against the codex and more or less everything is the same other than the base cost of Landraiders and stormravens. I suspect we should be using the cheaper MFM cost for these as it was a game wide adjustment of their costs.
In tide of shadows with their psy power active they will be sitting on a 1+ save, add in the fact that they are our best ranged anti-tank options and they will do work.
I favour either a twin lascannon/missile launcher for real back field work or just a multimelta/DCCW which is likely the better choice on the smaller tables being cheaper and decent in a fight.
wuestenfux wrote: Well, in the above lists nobody interested in Dreadnoughts?
I think the issue is that they're largely outclassed by Dreadknights. Remember that VenDreads are Honored Knights, and as such won't benefit from anything requiring the <Brotherhood> keyword (which is a toooooon of buffs).
wuestenfux wrote: Well, in the above lists nobody interested in Dreadnoughts?
I think the issue is that they're largely outclassed by Dreadknights. Remember that VenDreads are Honored Knights, and as such won't benefit from anything requiring the <Brotherhood> keyword (which is a toooooon of buffs).
Lol Honored Knights, that feels a shame, looks like Venerable Dreadnought are made of half dead Paladins not the half dead Company Officers Lol. But they don't get that one more attack not the ability to take two powers. So they are only valuable for sitting and moving at the back and shoot long range weapons. but in doing so, their potential 1+ save, -1dmg and 6++/5++ do make good protection.
Lol Honored Knights, that feels a shame, looks like Venerable Dreadnought are made of half dead Paladins not the half dead Company Officers Lol. But they don't get that one more attack not the ability to take two powers. So they are only valuable for sitting and moving at the back and shoot long range weapons. but in doing so, their potential 1+ save, -1dmg and 6++/5++ do make good protection.
There's definitely a case for their use, it's just that for 25 points(ish) more you can slam a 2+/4++ Dreadknight down that is actually capable of interacting with most of the army-wide rules.
I think the proliferation of HK is probably my biggest bone to pick with the codex (outside of certain strat and upgrade choices that are glaringly lacking in comparison to baseline marines). Having some of the most iconic GK units just standing there outside the underlying rules structure, despite them being ostensibly the best of the best in the hierarchy, is just odd design.
I wonder now will be the melee weapon of choice for people. Falchions were all the rage before but I think swords might be better now, maybe halberds (still not sure on the mathhammer between the two).
wuestenfux wrote: Well, in the above lists nobody interested in Dreadnoughts?
I think the issue is that they're largely outclassed by Dreadknights. Remember that VenDreads are Honored Knights, and as such won't benefit from anything requiring the <Brotherhood> keyword (which is a toooooon of buffs).
They're still pretty much the only source of long-range Anti-Tank/MC now. Two lascannon shots at BS2 are nothing to sneeze, especially since some armies will melt any NDKs before they have a chance to get close.
Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote: They're still pretty much the only source of long-range Anti-Tank/MC now. Two lascannon shots at BS2 are nothing to sneeze, especially since some armies will melt any NDKs before they have a chance to get close.
2 lascannon shots aren't actually very good. With Astral Aim turned on (so you get a hit reroll), against a Rhino profile (T7 Sv3+) it does an average of 3.75 wounds.....bleh. Against a 4++ monster it does 2.25 wounds. Against anything with -1 to hit, it does 3 wounds. So not that great.
The reason they had a niche previously was that they could be un-targetable while sitting on an objective and still getting to contribute shooting. As an army, we are near the bottom in terms of long-range shooting, which means most of our opponents will be better at it that we are. If your Dread shows its face to find a target, it will get smoked. Dreads aren't particularly survivable, with no invuln, Sv3+, and 9.33W (base wounds plus average of 6+++). A las/missile Ven Dread is going to be roughly the same cost as an NDK with two guns, but the NDK has 2+/4++, 12W, and impressive melee.
I'd rather have 3 NDKs bearing down the field that the enemy CANNOT ignore, than 2 NDKs and a Ven Dread.
I've seen the whole dex at this point but cant wait to have a psychical copy so my brain can come up with builds better.
Right now the issue I have with making list is HQ's. So I am thinking I am going to need 2 detachments.
Crowe I think is too good not to take/Yet he provides no dominus access.
Chaplain is pretty essential to IMO - Can give reroll all hits aura in melee and also has a massive damage ramp for 6's to wound count as 2 wounds. (sucks no nemesis weapon but he literally doubles the damage of units with his litany...it is not needed)
Brother Captain is essential +1 to cast stratagem (pricey at 2 CP but an absolute essential)
Draigo (only downside is can't take a relic or warlord trait) 2 dom powers and abolsute beat stick + he gives the reroll 1's aura (gotta have at least one - and a 1 reroll all hits per turn) Hard not to include him but you could substitute a librarian too I think.
Thats the 4 HQ's I think I need to make the best list possible but have another HQ spot.
Figure a Librarian is a good choice for a 5th HQ but could also go without.
This build would require 4 troops (no issue strike squads are probably the best unit in the codex anyways).
With HQ limitations though I think you are better off taking standard NDK (who can benefit from reroll 1's to hit and cost a lot less than grandmasters to boot for the same durability).
For spells - I like everything in dominus but it's gonna be hard to get all of it.
1. Gates - Autoinclude
2. Empiric Amplification - Autoinclude
3.Scantuary - Autoinclude
4. Vortex - Best of the non autoincludes
5. Warp Shaping - not worth giving up any of the above.
6. Ghostlybonds...Pretty good but also in last place I'd say.
Oddly enough I think these spells are actually ranked in order of their power level in the codex LOL.
This has always been an issue, but now that NDKs are wounding those guys on 2s (Hammerhand), and PAGK can wound on 4s (sword/halb + Hammerhand), and Sanctic can be applied to multiple units, I think it will be easier to get wounds. Still not ideal, but softening it up with some psycannons first should finish off a tank a turn.
A basic 5-man Strike unit with Swords plus Hammerhand in Convergence will kill a Russ equivalent more often than it wont. Add in an Ancient, Word of Power and reroll support (of the Draigo or Master variety) and that squad kills a Knight equivalent more often than it wont. If you want to nearly guarantee it, add in Empyric Amplification.
If the lads can make combat, they're going to blend damn near anything big they touch.
Correct analysis. The issue is going to be getting there. This is why dreadknights are so good. They pretty much insure the rest of your army is ignored by putting them in their face.
I am really excited about the changes in this book. I am thinking of starting an army of grey knights, based off of terminators for troops. I am thinking...
5x5 man term squads
3x3 palidine squads
2x dreadknights
1 squad of the heavy weapons guys
Stormraven
But thats as far as I have gotten. I am thinking deep strike the storm raven so t2 it comes in and can get the 4++ save from the sword bearers wl trait, give it plasma and multimeltas and then between +1 to hit and wound spells/strats it should be able to make short work out of something that needs to die.
I am not sure what hq's to take or how competitive this idea would be though, I am just looking at a way to make stormraven playable. Thoughts?
The strength of this book is largely in the trading potential of the power armor units, IMO. Almost nothing in the game has the trading potential of a strike squad with convergence up, they will blend everything from hordes to knights with no problem at all, and you can even take them in 10s to hedge against the possibility of coming up against a dark angels terminator block or something like that, and then just combat squad them if you want to MSU that game instead, with the only cost being in losing a squad leader in one squad. Interceptors and purgation squads also look like they have a serious place. I'm not as sold on dreadknights as a lot of people, but that may be my irrational hatred of the model showing through.
Cheap characters who can throw out a lot of MW look good too - Crowe, a souped up librarian, etc. And Draigo, more for the chapter master buff to put on whatever unit of strikes you send out to trade than anything else, though he's useful enough even aside from that.
Indirect fire would really screw with this army though. It might be worth including a pair of rhinos just to make sure you have somewhere to hide power armor squads that start on the table, so they don't get blown up before you can trade with them.
So is this gonna be the edition of GKSS spam? Given how versatile these guys seem to be when properly supported with the right HQs/Stratagems, seems like the goal will be to field as much of these guys are you can while having perhaps a couple of NDKs for the tankier stuff.
The one big weakness from a melee perspective is no fights last; strikes will get carved to pieces by a lot of stuff if they get hit first. There is a fights first, but it's both a relic *and* a psychic action, with only 3" range to boot too. It sucks how many layered limitations they've piled on here - 1CP for a relic, giving up your psychic phase, being within 3" in the psychic phase rather than say the command phase, etc.
Terminators in general look kind of over-priced to me. Paladins lost a lot of the specific stuff that made them really tough in the previous codex, and gained the ability to swap out psychic powers with a stratagem instead. Honestly it looks like the big winners in the 9th edition codex are DreadKnights, Power Armor marines, and some of the characters.
yukishiro1 wrote: The one big weakness from a melee perspective is no fights last; strikes will get carved to pieces by a lot of stuff if they get hit first. There is a fights first, but it's both a relic *and* a psychic action, with only 3" range to boot too. It sucks how many layered limitations they've piled on here - 1CP for a relic, giving up your psychic phase, being within 3" in the psychic phase rather than say the command phase, etc.
This is exactly why I say we aren't a melee army. We have melee and in certain matchups we can lean on it, but we have to build other phase tools into the list. If we hit an army that can actually control the tempo of the fight phase, it's rip.
It's definitely not a monophase army, and you couldn't really build it that way even if you wanted to because all squads come with significant shooting output and psychic abilities. But I don't think fight priority is that big a concern. Fights first isn't that big of a deal unless it's on literally the whole army because you still get the first activation when you're charging. Fights last is a bigger problem, but a lot of those effects are either very close range or keyed off psychic powers that GK have a very good chance at denying. So it's really only stuff like a whirlwind that's super scary. But that is another reason to consider taking a rhino, so you have some place to hide a few squads where you can be sure they won't get debuffed or whittled down before you send them in to do their trade.
Flipping through the codex and IMO Termies and Paladins need like a 5 point reduction. That or Paladins need to be 4 wounds like I was hoping they'd be (pipe dream, I know, I know).
GKSS and Purifiers just bring so much to the table and are so powerful in psychic, shooting, and melee when properly supported that I just can't justify paying almost double per model for the extra durability of termies. GK are already a low-model army as it is, sacrificing even more models from a 2+ save in the era of AP modifiers just isn't worth it.
Purifiers, like Paladins, don't get brotherhoods, which is a pretty significant limitation. Strikes, interceptors and purgation squads are my picks right now. Being able to put interceptors in rhinos is really interesting in terms of giving you melee threat range on the board that the rest of the army doesn't have.
Purifiers get a really good psychic damage power and a -1 damage strat, so they have their own uses. I kinda like two of them in a Rhino jumping out for flat 6 mortal wounds on top of their shooting. That also leaves the Rhino's empty to dump a squad of shoot-then-move Interceptors into.
The power's 1MW more than smite on average, at half the range; not sure it's a great reason to take a squad over strikes who have a lot more options for buffing melee, and still have the option of a smite if they want it. -1D is interesting in that it's flat 2CP no matter how big the squad is. If I was goin to take purifiers, I'd probably take a 10-man squad, and just combat squad them and use them as strikes in matches where it didn't make sense to leverage the strat. Though I'm not sure that even with the -1D they're actually something you would want getting shot. I may be wrong, but at this point the book looks to me like you're better off going MSU and trading than trying to keep anything alive once it exposes itself.
Should a list have more Grand Master in Nemesis Dreadknights, Strike Squads, or Nemesis Dreadknights? Or is it too soon until tournaments show? Thankee thankee. Thank you.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's definitely not a monophase army, and you couldn't really build it that way even if you wanted to because all squads come with significant shooting output and psychic abilities. But I don't think fight priority is that big a concern. Fights first isn't that big of a deal unless it's on literally the whole army because you still get the first activation when you're charging. Fights last is a bigger problem, but a lot of those effects are either very close range or keyed off psychic powers that GK have a very good chance at denying. So it's really only stuff like a whirlwind that's super scary. But that is another reason to consider taking a rhino, so you have some place to hide a few squads where you can be sure they won't get debuffed or whittled down before you send them in to do their trade.
I mean, Drukhari are all over the meta right now and grisly trophy supported Incubi will strip that charge bonus right off you, kicking you down to normal initiative (assuming you get to charge the Drukhari, who are quite fast themselves). Drazhar and an Ancient Evil Archon give them 5 sources of this potentially.
Anyway, we're basically in agreement that you need to be well supported in all 3 phases. If you go wide on melee and hit a real melee army that can smash your tempo, you're toast.
That's not how that ability works. I thought it was good too until I actually read it, all it does is stop an enemy unit from benefitting from aura abilities. It doesn't actually turn auras off, so it does nothing against grisly trophies. It's still quite useful in some cases, but unfortunately it's not nearly as useful as it could have been if it was worded a little more generously.
But every unit in the book has 20 bolter shots from within 12", that's your solution for incubi. Dunno why you'd want to charge them, unless there's only like 1-2 left and you just want to use them as a slingshot to get somewhere.
yukishiro1 wrote: That's not how that ability works. I thought it was good too until I actually read it, all it does is stop an enemy unit from benefitting from aura abilities. It doesn't actually turn auras off, so it does nothing against grisly trophies. It's still quite useful in some cases, but unfortunately it's not nearly as useful as it could have been if it was worded a little more generously.
But every unit in the book has 20 bolter shots from within 12", that's your solution for incubi. Dunno why you'd want to charge them, unless there's only like 1-2 left and you just want to use them as a slingshot to get somewhere.
Yeah, good catch.
Processing everything will take some time. This Codex plays differently.
yukishiro1 wrote: That's not how that ability works. I thought it was good too until I actually read it, all it does is stop an enemy unit from benefitting from aura abilities. It doesn't actually turn auras off, so it does nothing against grisly trophies. It's still quite useful in some cases, but unfortunately it's not nearly as useful as it could have been if it was worded a little more generously.
But every unit in the book has 20 bolter shots from within 12", that's your solution for incubi. Dunno why you'd want to charge them, unless there's only like 1-2 left and you just want to use them as a slingshot to get somewhere.
Incubi have an innate 3+ and you can double their cover bonus with a strat. You're much better off trying to use MW to weaken them.
Charging you might be forced though since they are almost always in a Raider which may absorb the shooting phase.
If they're in cover, sure. If not, smite + the shots from a 5 man squad kill 4 incubi and bring the klaivex down to a wound on average (or wipe the squad if you knocked them out of a raider). Storm bolters are surprising effective even against 3+ saves as long as the thing isn't in cover. There's the +1S -1 AP strat too when you need it.
No. I mean, they're not terrible, but they're not nearly as competitive as the power armor stuff. Paying almost twice the points for something that basically just gets +1W, +1 save and a 5++ is a pretty hard pill to swallow.
I am working on a custodes/GK soup right now, I think it has real potential. GK also have major soup potential with sisters, ad mech or guard IMO. Anything that gives you something GK don't have - custodes gives you resilient stuff, guard and ad mech give you cheap bodies and shooting, sisters give you effective screens, etc.
What you lose by souping is significant, but not nearly as large as most armies lose.
I do think in general (sisters and ad mech aside) GK are more soupable into other imperium armies than vice versa. I.e. it's more attractive to put 500 points of GK into a custodes or guard army than it is to put 500 points of custodes or guard into a GK army.
Gonna dust off my GK which haven't seen the light of day in years (other than one game when I tried out the psychic awakening stuff) for a game tomorrow. What can I do to really buff up a 10-man strike squad? Let's say I had to kill a 20-man necron warrior unit
Well, Strikes have a nice offensive potential but I find them too fragile when the enemy hits back.
Footslogging them is a slow way to die.
Deep-strike or transporting them (my favorite is the Razorback) is the only way to go.
necron99 wrote: Gonna dust off my GK which haven't seen the light of day in years (other than one game when I tried out the psychic awakening stuff) for a game tomorrow. What can I do to really buff up a 10-man strike squad? Let's say I had to kill a 20-man necron warrior unit
Nothing? In Convergence with either a GM or Bro-Cap's rerolls the expected outcome of a 10-man Strike team into a 20-bot brick is...all the robots die. All of them.
Wow... yeah, I just ran the numbers on that: all the strike squad needs is hammerhand, average shooting, then a charge and average melee and all the 20 necron are dead! That's pretty savage!
leerm02 wrote: Wow... yeah, I just ran the numbers on that: all the strike squad needs is hammerhand, average shooting, then a charge and average melee and all the 20 necron are dead! That's pretty savage!
Which weapons?
Running the numbers...
Shooting 40 shots
80/3 hits
40/3 wounds
20/3 failed saves
40/9 dead after Reanimation
Melee, All Halberds 31 attacks
217/9 hits (RR1s)
1,736/81 wounds (RRAll)
8,680/486 or 4,340/243 failed saves
No Reamination, because they're all dead.
And, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't there Mortal Wounds in there somewhere too?
I ran the numbers with swords rather than Halberds, but yeah: 6 in one hand, half a dozen in the other...
Poor necrons!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Addition: Honestly, it does make me feel a little better about Grey Knights STILL not having storm-shields at least...
And, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't there Mortal Wounds in there somewhere too?
6's to wound in melee from Tide of Convergence cause 1 MW in addition to other damage.
leerm02 wrote: I ran the numbers with swords rather than Halberds, but yeah: 6 in one hand, half a dozen in the other...
Against Warriors Swords win out due to nulling the save. Immortals, Lichguard and other T5 targets it's a toss up with save / invuln being the determining factor. Lichguard for instance Halberds are preferable as the extra AP is negated by the shields, while the S6 of the halberd shifts the wound roll.
And, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't there Mortal Wounds in there somewhere too?
6's to wound in melee from Tide of Convergence cause 1 MW in addition to other damage.
leerm02 wrote: I ran the numbers with swords rather than Halberds, but yeah: 6 in one hand, half a dozen in the other...
Against Warriors Swords win out due to nulling the save. Immortals, Lichguard and other T5 targets it's a toss up with save / invuln being the determining factor. Lichguard for instance Halberds are preferable as the extra AP is negated by the shields, while the S6 of the halberd shifts the wound roll.
I did Halberds specifically BECAUSE it's probably the worst option you'd see used commonly.
Accounting for Mortal Wounds, a buffed Strike Squad can solo a 20-man Warrior blob with melee alone.
Halberds 31 attacks
217/9 hits (RR1s)
1,736/81 wounds (RRAll), 434/81 of which have an additional Mortal Wound
8,680/486, or 4,340/243, or 17.86 failed saves plus 5.36 Mortal Wounds
No Reamination, because they're all dead.
Let me see what they do to a Knight... Because those Mortals are good.
Halberds vs. Knight 31 attacks
217/9 hits (RR1s)
1,085/81 wounds (RRAll), 1,085/162 of which have an additional Mortal Wound
2,170/243 failed saves
4,340/243 or 17.86 damage, plus 6.70 Mortal Wounds
Just over 24 damage, or enough to one-round a Questoris
Checking Falchions, since they wound on 6s and have a bonus attack...
Falchions vs. Knight 41 attacks
287/9 hits (RR1s)
3,157/324 wounds (RRAll), all of which do an extra Mortal Wound
6,314/972, or 3,157/486, or 6.50 wounds plus 9.74 Mortal Wounds
Only 16 wounds. So Halberds definitely are better for non-hordes.
A 5-man Rapiers strike squad can kill a 20-man warrior blob or a knight with tide of convergence, hammerhands, the chaplain litany that turns a wound of 6 into two wounding attacks + 2 MW, and the 1CP strat that turns 6s into two hits. It's far and away the most absurd damage potential of any unit in the game for the points cost. And that's not even adding in rerolls to hit from Draigo, or +1 damage on the weapons from a dominus psychic power, or +1 attack from the brotherhood ability.
I'm not sure GW really understands how multiplicative damage increases work.
I was actually at 1467, so I could've added another Purifier and a HK on the Rhinos...but it was a lot of new powers and traits, so whatever. I spent 2CP on extra traits and 3CP on the Vanguard, starting me at 7CP. My secondaries were Stranglehold, Minimise Losses (the mission special), and Assassination
His Necrons: Custom Dynasty, 5+++ vs mortals Skorpek Lord Nightbringer 2x Chronomancers 2x3 Skorpek Destroyers + 2 plasmacytes 2x20 Warriors Shooty Destroyer with big fething gun
He started with 12 CP. Necron secondaries were Engage on All Fronts (EOAF), Abhor the Witch (AtW) and Assassination
Spoiler:
We played Retrieval (long deployment, 6 objectives, special secondary is have your army alive at the end of the game). I started deployment. There was a big ruin in the center of the table. Purfs in the Rhinos, servitors on the back objective, Termies and 4 Characters sandwiched nicely between the two Rhinos. I started in Shadow Tide. He deployed melee and characters opposite me so that we couldn't see each other. Shooty Destroyer was on a ruin in backfield. One unit of Warriors started on an objective, the other started behind an objective in a ruin. T1 Top He went first and move Nightbringer up to threaten my Termies. It has a Smite bubble thing that did a wound to each Rhino, 2 to a Termie, and 1 each on two characters. The 5+++ we have already paid off! He then did a second power that took the Rhino down to 3 wounds or something. All in all, it was not super effective somehow. (I've been fearing that thing and I wasn't too impressed). His Destroyer plus a few Warrior shots killed the left flank Rhino. No passengers were killed, but the wounded Termie took another from the explosion. I put my Purifiers down outside of Nightbringer charge range. His other Warriors plinked a bit against the other Rhino, actually taking off 5 wounds! Nightbringer tried to charge the Termies and I did OW, causing 2 wounds. It failed the 10" charge. Necrons scored 2 for Engage on All Fronts. T1 Bottom I moved everyone up. Termies were fairly centered, ready to charge the C'Tan and also to (sadly) receive a charge from both Destroyer units on his next turn--but there wasn't much I could do about that, since he has superior movement and a ruin blocking LOS. Purfs on left were set to flame the Nightbringer. Purfs on right disembarked and moved towards Warrior block on objective, needing an 8" charge. Rhino inched forward to hold an objective, settling me on 3 objectives to his 2. Purifiers cast Flame on the Nightbringer, causing 3 (and capping his damage for that phase). Termies put HH on themselves. Apothecary gained a CP (I really like the Divination trait on a single cast support character, the Apothecary is key I think bc otherwise he'd just smite). Draigo gave the Termies a 4++ and didn't cast again (bc Nightbringer was closest). Libby was positioned to see some Warriors but not Nightbringer, and gave them a smite. Bro-Cap was the same, and gave the same squad some mortals. Purfs on right got a super, and killed 4 Warriors; I then gave them a second cast, and they killed a few more. In shooting, Purifiers gave Nightbringer 3 wounds from their 7 flamer hits and 4 SBs. The other Purifiers killed about 6 Warriors. The Termies split fire between the two Warrior squads (since the big ruin prevented them from all seeing both), and killed a few in the backfield and a few more in front of the Purifiers. Characters shot at Warriors and put down a few more. His forward Warrior squad had around 6 models left, so I had already removed half the unit. Termies charged the Nightbringer and easily finished off his 1 remaining wound. I strung them out a little to take advantage of all the auras (Draigo, Bro-Cap, and Apoth). Purifiers failed their rerolled charge and took a wound from OW. (Two wound Marines make me so happy.) The depleted Warriors failed morale and several ran, leaving 2 out of the original 20. I scored 3 for Stranglehold and 3 for Assassination.
T2 Top He scored 10 for holding 2 objectives. Skorpeks all moved forward. Chronomancers buffed the two units with 5++. Plasmacytes also buffed them, although one died. Back Warriors moved onto objective. Depleted Warriors shot at Purifiers in front of them, and other Warriors shot at leftside Purifiers (giving me a 3+ save against his -1AP, thanks Shadows!), where I lost a model. Shooty Destroyer put down the first Termie. Both Skorpek units charged the Termies. I OWed, and did 2W with a psycannon. At this point, I had spent so much CP on various stuff that I only had 4 left, making me choose between Interrupt and Transhuman (err, Truesilver Armour, sorry). I debated back and for a minute, thought about some numbers, and decided to Interrupt. I think this was a poor choice, bc I lost 3 Termies from the first unit. I interrupted and killed one Skorpek in the second unit, who smashed back and took me down to three models. Instead of losing 6, I think I would've lost 4 if I had used Truesilver. And still probably killed one Skorpek....soooo....that was a good learning experience! I removed casualties so that a Skorpek unit wasn't engaged. I passed morale. T2 Bottom I scored 15 for holding 3 objectives to his 2. Righthand Purifiers moved in a wonky fashion to get a charge on those two little Warriors while also being in Flame and flame range of the unengaged Skorpek unit. Leftside Purfs moved to be in Flame and flame range of the other Skorpek unit. Characters all shuffled up to get charges on Destroyers while Terminators stayed stuck in. Apothecary raised a Termie and healed a Termie. The rez strat is my 2nd favourite of the new ones, the first being Haloed in Soulfire (which I haven't used yet but the mental image is just fantastic). Purifiers poured all their psychic into Skorpeks. Between that a smite, I killed off the engaged unit, freeing up my Termies, and dented the other unit, leaving a single guy and his trailing Plasmacyte. Draigo failed Sanctuary but passed Warp Shaping, and I moved into Convergence (I wanted it for shooting at the Shooty Destroyer, with psycannons who was kinda far back; against Warriors I don't need extra melee damage, since Rez Protocols doesn't care about multi-damage weapons). My characters were still kinda behind a wall, since I didn't want to tempt the Skorpek Lord, but I did get some smites and storm bolters to kill a Chronomancer. Vortex got turned off, boo. The Apothecary got me another CP. (I gained 8 total over the course of the game and I used every single one, so again, he was pretty crucial.) All my shooting went into the big Warrior block, except the psycannons which killed the Destroyer (yay D2 upgrade ily!). As I mentioned, a Chronomancer went down. In melee, Draigo killed the final Skorpek Destroyer and the Bro-Cap killed the Plasmacyte. Rightside Purfs charged and murdered the two Warriors and stood on an objective. Morale lost him a couple more Warriors. I scored 3 for Stranglehold and 3 for Assassinate.
T3 Top He scored 5 for controlling 1. Lord and Chronomancer skittered towards the rightside Purfs. Warriors shot at Terminators and killed no one. Chronomancer smoked a Purifier. Both characters charged the Purifiers and I got the Lord down to 2 wounds from OW (flame on). The characters hit hard, leaving me with the lonely Knight of the Flame, engaged with only the Chronomancer, and he murdered that guy. T3 Bottom Another Termie raised from death. They all moved towards the Warriors. Purifier failed to Sanctify the Lord. Buffs went up and also Draigo failed Sanctuary for a second time. Smites killed some Warriors. Shooting finished the Warriors, leaving just the Lord. Purifier charged and whiffed all his attacks lol, getting decapitated in return. I scored 3 for Stranglehold and 3 for Assassinate. He scored 3 for Abhor.
T4 Top Lord ran at the Rhino and blew it to bits. He then consolidated towards my innocent Servitors! T4 Bottom I scored 15 primary. I ran the Termies towards the Lord and repositioned three characters so that I could smite the Lord's 2 wounds. I succeeded! But them my friend remembered that the Lord should've regenerated a wound per turn, so I gave him two back, leaving him at 2. I smote again and succeeded again! But then my friend remembered a strat that could raise him on a 4+. Fortunately he failed that roll, because that would've been some baloney bs! I scored 3 more for Stranglehold, totaling 12 I scored 10 for Minimise Losses, since I had lost three units out of 10--the Rhinos (which is what they were there to do, so good jeorb boys) and a Purf squad. I scored 4 for Assassination, totaling 13.
End score: Grey Knights 90, Necrons 30.
MVP: Servitors! They did absolutely nothing the entire game--I literally didn't move them--and got me 20 Primary points by themselves while contributing to the "Hold More" for another 20. More seriously, I like resurrecting Terminators. In a bigger game or a game where my opponent has a better list, I'd be worried about them getting killed. However, I'd have NDKs in a different game, so that would detract from them dying. I like Purifiers for the super smite and a +1 to cast. I like the Apothecary CP farm.
I really liked playing again with my GK, which I haven't felt in a while due to their just utter lack of power. (I went to a tournament in June and lost all three games to flyer AdMech, new Orks, and Drukhari; I feel like things would be different with all the tricks I have now....)
Automatically Appended Next Post:
bmsattler wrote: Grey Knights don't rely as much on their Tides as they did in the previous version. They are much more soup-able into other Imperium armies.
I think this is true for NDKs, but for the PAGK and TDA, Shadows helps us survive T1, while Convergence lets us blend tough targets once we get there. Without those two things, we are much less effective.
NDKs are tough enough to do that on their own without the tides, especially since, with their small number of attacks, Convergence doesn't snowball like it does for the infantry units.
Can Grey Knights take mixed detachments of Brotherhoods? Say if I wanted most of the units to benefit from Rapiers but wanted access to the CP regen ability in another Brotherhood?
Depends what you mean by that. It's by detachment. You can take one detachment of Rapiers and one of Wardmakers, but you can't mix them in the same detachment.
I mean technically you can mix within a detachment per the rules...but then you don't get access to any of the rules for any of them, and it even makes your army no longer battle-forged. So you'd never want to.
bmsattler wrote: Can Grey Knights take mixed detachments of Brotherhoods? Say if I wanted most of the units to benefit from Rapiers but wanted access to the CP regen ability in another Brotherhood?
If you haven't got the book, then you should definitely do so, since Dakka isn't a replacement for the rules!
p45 states that you don't unlock the unique Brotherhood power, trait, and strat unless every model in the detachment is the same brotherhood.
p 80 states that to be Battle-forged, every unit in the detachment must have the same Brotherhood.
So you can only do it if you're Unbound, and even then you don't get the special stuff.
I think you guys are too down on the terminators. They are an important anchor unit IMO. They come stock with a +1 save power. With a 1+ save and a warding stave in the unit you can give them a 4++ (pretty stout with 15 wounds) Plus the realistically will have twice the firepower as strike squads at 24". I think 1 5 man does the trick as most the heavy firepower will be going at your dreadknights and anti infantry fire really isn't doing anything to a 1+ save.
IanMalcolmAbs wrote: I think you guys are too down on the terminators. They are an important anchor unit IMO. They come stock with a +1 save power. With a 1+ save and a warding stave in the unit you can give them a 4++ (pretty stout with 15 wounds) Plus the realistically will have twice the firepower as strike squads at 24". I think 1 5 man does the trick as most the heavy firepower will be going at your dreadknights and anti infantry fire really isn't doing anything to a 1+ save.
Unfortunately, only Paladins know the +1 armor spell. Only Paladins and the Librarian can even take that spell too. It's also a self-cast only spell so the Libby can't throw it on anyone I believe.
Sadly, not much point to Terminators. At only 5PPM more, ish, unless your point budget is REALLY tight and you NEED that troop slot, you should just always take Paladins over Terminators. Our best warlord trait will make them ObSec anyway.
IanMalcolmAbs wrote: I think you guys are too down on the terminators. They are an important anchor unit IMO. They come stock with a +1 save power. With a 1+ save and a warding stave in the unit you can give them a 4++ (pretty stout with 15 wounds) Plus the realistically will have twice the firepower as strike squads at 24". I think 1 5 man does the trick as most the heavy firepower will be going at your dreadknights and anti infantry fire really isn't doing anything to a 1+ save.
Unfortunately, only Paladins know the +1 armor spell. Only Paladins and the Librarian can even take that spell too. It's also a self-cast only spell so the Libby can't throw it on anyone I believe.
Sadly, not much point to Terminators. At only 5PPM more, ish, unless your point budget is REALLY tight and you NEED that troop slot, you should just always take Paladins over Terminators. Our best warlord trait will make them ObSec anyway.
Dreads have armored resilience too, though in their case it only gets them to a 2+, so it's much less attractive.
IanMalcolmAbs wrote: I think you guys are too down on the terminators. They are an important anchor unit IMO. They come stock with a +1 save power. With a 1+ save and a warding stave in the unit you can give them a 4++ (pretty stout with 15 wounds) Plus the realistically will have twice the firepower as strike squads at 24". I think 1 5 man does the trick as most the heavy firepower will be going at your dreadknights and anti infantry fire really isn't doing anything to a 1+ save.
Unfortunately, only Paladins know the +1 armor spell. Only Paladins and the Librarian can even take that spell too. It's also a self-cast only spell so the Libby can't throw it on anyone I believe.
Sadly, not much point to Terminators. At only 5PPM more, ish, unless your point budget is REALLY tight and you NEED that troop slot, you should just always take Paladins over Terminators. Our best warlord trait will make them ObSec anyway.
Dreads have armored resilience too, though in their case it only gets them to a 2+, so it's much less attractive.
Haha, Dreads are so poor I hadn't even looked at them. Fair point, Dreads have it too.
leerm02 wrote: Wow... yeah, I just ran the numbers on that: all the strike squad needs is hammerhand, average shooting, then a charge and average melee and all the 20 necron are dead! That's pretty savage!
It is conceivable that another psyker Gates the unit and the unit gives itself HH and then makes a charge first turn.
Then in return, your valuable GKSS unit will be dead next turn.
You've lost more than you got.
Fight between GKSS and Warriors is more at an abstract level.
More often than not, they will face each other in straight way.
Larger Warriors blocks are not no longer in the focus of a successful Necron army.
Then in return, your valuable GKSS unit will be dead next turn.
You've lost more than you got.
That's quite literally how the army is built to function. If you're looking for a durable, resilient force that plods along soaking up damage 9th edition GK is *not* the army for you.
I didn't add up points, but I'd be inclined to remove the psycannons from the strike squad, drop a purifier squad, and replace it with a 4 psycannon purgation squad, and/or if you can find the points, upgrade the GM to a dreadknight, to give you a little bit of anti-tank capability. Right now that list really doesn't have a way to do damage to resilient targets at range. I'd also probably drop the incinerators on the interceptor squad because you have to trade in your melee weapon for them, but that's up to you, it doesn't really matter.
I'm not sure a brotherhood champion really gets you anything, either; I'd be inclined to swap it for a chaplain or apothecary or librarian or something like that is more than just a melee threat in an army full of melee threats. A chaplain in particular who can give you access to the extra wounds and MWs on a 6 to hit will really let you leverage your melee ability in the list.
So for a 2k list here is what I have come up with.
Personally I think this army is really dependent on stratagems to really shine. In particular the +1 to cast aura from Brother Captain and Psibolt.
I really can't do what I want to do with 3 characters so already starting down 2 CP to bring a partol and I gotta bring extra relic and 2 warlord traits is 3 CP. So starting with 7. Rapiers might be better overall offensively but I think persistent brethren bring good offense and utility. reroll 1's to hit and wound will be great for buffing melee units that get into combat without aura support and it will also allow me to divide the army up a little bit and still get good damage on the key units that get dug in.
Patrol
Chaplain (Words of power) Sanctuary
Librarian Relic(Artisan Nullifer Matrix)(2x Warlord Trait - First to the Fray/Psychic Epitome) + (Gem of Inoktu (+2 to cast 1 time use) (Powers - Vortex of Doom - Gates)
Elric Greywolf wrote: An Apothecary is a very good support unit. Resurrecting a Terminator or Striker is quite powerful, in addition to the 6+++.
Just off my experience as a Custodes, a 6+++ does not help that much. If I take 10 wounds, it stops 1.5.
Now make him a Preserver, go a brick unit, and drop a 5+++ on it. That has some play if you want to kind of play like Death Guard and make a big, annoying, wedge out of 3 objectives on the board.
Elric Greywolf wrote: An Apothecary is a very good support unit. Resurrecting a Terminator or Striker is quite powerful, in addition to the 6+++.
Just off my experience as a Custodes, a 6+++ does not help that much. If I take 10 wounds, it stops 1.5.
Now make him a Preserver, go a brick unit, and drop a 5+++ on it. That has some play if you want to kind of play like Death Guard and make a big, annoying, wedge out of 3 objectives on the board.
IanMalcolmAbs wrote: Hes good for sure I think you will get more impacts out of a chaplain though.
The main issue I have with a Chappie is that he uses an HQ slot. I already have Draigo, Libby, Bro-Cap. If I want a Chappie I now have to take a second detachment, so his cost is 2-3 CP + his points. The Apothecary is cheaper all around, doesn't take a high demand slot, and will resurrect 80-140pts in models, depending on what you stick him with. Litanies are good, but it's definitely a steep cost to bring them.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, can anyone point out why we cannot deep strike from the Teleportarium on T1? I'm sure I missed something....
I'm also confused on the current rules regarding deep-strike on turn one. Where do I find that particular ruling? How many units can I place in teleporters when I do initial deployment? Ect.
The main issue I have with a Chappie is that he uses an HQ slot. I already have Draigo, Libby, Bro-Cap. If I want a Chappie I now have to take a second detachment, so his cost is 2-3 CP + his points. The Apothecary is cheaper all around, doesn't take a high demand slot, and will resurrect 80-140pts in models, depending on what you stick him with. Litanies are good, but it's definitely a steep cost to bring them.
If GK had a Chief Apothecary option it would make sense. But the rez requires CP for this army. That's a *steep* opportunity cost.
I'd take a chaplain over a brother-captain any day of the week TBH. Reroll 1s to wound is nice on paper I guess, but this army seems so set up around trading that I don't think you're really gonna have many times when the thing you send out to trade is going to be able to get much advantage from the aura. Even the shooting stuff tends to max out at 24" range, maybe 30" with the tide. Whereas Words of Power is a buff that travels with the unit (and can be applied at the start of any phase for 2CP if you can't apply it during the command phase) and is one of the most powerful buffs they've ever put in the game when combined with the tide. To the point where I kinda expect it gets nerfed, and that would be my main concern with it - if it gets nerfed in the first FAQ, a chaplain suddenly doesn't look nearly so attractive, as none of the other litanies are even a fraction as good.
1CP for a +1 to cast 6" aura is pretty nifty I guess, but there's so much other stuff to spend CP on in this army.
Hi Grey Bois, I've made a reference spreadsheet of the new stuff. They are organized in 3x2 rectangles that you can print, cut out, and insert into card sleeves. I use these to keep track of all the persistent effects on the battlefield and to easily rifle through my strats in the heat of battle.
yukishiro1 wrote: I am working on a custodes/GK soup right now, I think it has real potential. GK also have major soup potential with sisters, ad mech or guard IMO. Anything that gives you something GK don't have - custodes gives you resilient stuff, guard and ad mech give you cheap bodies and shooting, sisters give you effective screens, etc.
What you lose by souping is significant, but not nearly as large as most armies lose.
I do think in general (sisters and ad mech aside) GK are more soupable into other imperium armies than vice versa. I.e. it's more attractive to put 500 points of GK into a custodes or guard army than it is to put 500 points of custodes or guard into a GK army.
I'm considering something like this myself, either doing Sisters+GK or Deathwatch+GK. Mostly it's for reasons of "I think it'll be a cool army notion" but I am curious if you'd think there's any actual tactical advantages to doing so?
Then in return, your valuable GKSS unit will be dead next turn.
You've lost more than you got.
That's quite literally how the army is built to function. If you're looking for a durable, resilient force that plods along soaking up damage 9th edition GK is *not* the army for you.
Well, I know how GK plays as I made several (friendly) games in the former edition.
Every fallen Grey Knight hurts a lot.
I'm looking forward to field a GK army together with an allied force.
yukishiro1 wrote: I am working on a custodes/GK soup right now, I think it has real potential. GK also have major soup potential with sisters, ad mech or guard IMO. Anything that gives you something GK don't have - custodes gives you resilient stuff, guard and ad mech give you cheap bodies and shooting, sisters give you effective screens, etc.
What you lose by souping is significant, but not nearly as large as most armies lose.
I do think in general (sisters and ad mech aside) GK are more soupable into other imperium armies than vice versa. I.e. it's more attractive to put 500 points of GK into a custodes or guard army than it is to put 500 points of custodes or guard into a GK army.
I'm considering something like this myself, either doing Sisters+GK or Deathwatch+GK. Mostly it's for reasons of "I think it'll be a cool army notion" but I am curious if you'd think there's any actual tactical advantages to doing so?
Sisters...maybe? Deathwatch I don't really see. IMO the potential advantage is bringing in something GK doesn't have that opens up other options for how you play. So what doesn't GK have? Tour things IMO: (1) survivable anvils that can live through almost anything - e.g. a Telemon, (2) cheap, effective 1W bodies for screens, actions, etc - e.g. Guardsmen, (3) indirect fire, and (4) fight priority manipulation, i.e. good fights last / fights first. I think anything that brings one of these is something to think about tactically. With the caveat that you need to think carefully about if what you're losing makes what you're souping ineffective. E.g. a block of 20 vanguard or rangers isn't going to be a good idea because losing doctrina imperatives really hurts that unit.
If I were going to try to make a Sisters/GK list work, I'd probably start with something like a valorous heart patrol with the canoness who can ignore invulns and make everything fight last once a game, backed up by some sacrestans. That gives you three things you don't have in GK - good fights last, ability to ignore invulns, and models that are a massive pain to kill. Then kind-of go from there re: what you can take from each codex that complements the other. I'm not at all sure it'd be stronger than going mono-faction with either list, but it'd be different and interesting and worth toying with. Edit: Oh blah, you can't get the ignore invulns without miracle dice, which you only get for being pure. It's still a 3" fights last which is pretty good, but that lowers the value of that model quite a bit.
I think where you'll see the most benefit is in adding a bit of GK to something that doesn't currently have a purity bonus - i.e. custodes or guard. A GK detachment of like 500-750 points - a super librarian who can put out 10MW a turn, and some power armor units that can add a bunch of efficient trading units - adds a lot to both those armies that they don't have, while they don't actually pay anything for it since they don't have a purity bonus. Guard benefits tremendously from efficient melee, something the book just doesn't have, while custodes benefit a lot from the trading potential MSUGK squads have, both melee focused and something like a purgation squad that can offer a DS-based ranged threat at less than half the price of venetari.
I ran some numbers on how to leverage the Tide of Convergence the best.
This is definitely a best case scenario, as there are many moving parts and several areas that could fail.
This requires a 10 man squad of Rapiers Infantry, Draigo, and a Chappie.
Command Phase: Draigo gives them full rerolls to hit and Chappie gives them Words of Power (wounds of 6 do 2 wounds and a mortal).
Movement Phase they set up a charge.
Psychic Phase the squad casts Hammerhand on itself (wound rerolls) and play Mental Focus Strat to also cast Symphonic Strike (+1A for each model). Then make sure you're in Tide of Convergence (wounds of 6 do a mortal) via Warp Shaping.
Shooting Phase n/a.
Charge in and fight. Play Rapiers's Deadly Efficiency Strat (hits of 6 do an extra hit).
At this point, you have spent 2CP, cast 2 powers, and passed the Chappie test. That is three things that could fail, so you may want to have auto-passed the Litany instead (for an extra CP) and perhaps rerolled a failed test (for another CP).
The unit has 41 attacks hitting on 3s with rerolls. This results in 15.91 hits on a 3-5 and 8.33 hits on a 6, generating an additional 8.33 hits, for a total of ~32.5 hits.
Rolling to wound, fishing for sixes via Hammerhand's full rerolls gives you 9.93 sixes to wound.
So that's roughly 20 mortals and 20 saves at AP-2 or -3 D2, plus the damage from the other wound results (and how many you get depends on the target's T, but anywhere from 0 to 20 additional).
It's a real shame we lost the fight twice Strat...but this is probably why we did.
It's actually a lot better than that. With all those buffs you're looking at like ~50 wounds against T4, or ~35 vs T8. Each at -3AP 2D. Plus the 20ish mortals. It's absurd to the point where you'd never need anywhere near that much damage. Even a 5 man squad with all those buffs kills just about anything in the game. Or a 10 man with quite a bit fewer of them.
Elric Greywolf wrote: I ran some numbers on how to leverage the Tide of Convergence the best.
This is definitely a best case scenario, as there are many moving parts and several areas that could fail.
This requires a 10 man squad of Rapiers Infantry, Draigo, and a Chappie.
Command Phase: Draigo gives them full rerolls to hit and Chappie gives them Words of Power (wounds of 6 do 2 wounds and a mortal).
Movement Phase they set up a charge.
Psychic Phase the squad casts Hammerhand on itself (wound rerolls) and play Mental Focus Strat to also cast Symphonic Strike (+1A for each model). Then make sure you're in Tide of Convergence (wounds of 6 do a mortal) via Warp Shaping.
Shooting Phase n/a.
Charge in and fight. Play Rapiers's Deadly Efficiency Strat (hits of 6 do an extra hit).
At this point, you have spent 2CP, cast 2 powers, and passed the Chappie test. That is three things that could fail, so you may want to have auto-passed the Litany instead (for an extra CP) and perhaps rerolled a failed test (for another CP).
The unit has 41 attacks hitting on 3s with rerolls. This results in 15.91 hits on a 3-5 and 8.33 hits on a 6, generating an additional 8.33 hits, for a total of ~32.5 hits.
Rolling to wound, fishing for sixes via Hammerhand's full rerolls gives you 9.93 sixes to wound.
So that's roughly 20 mortals and 20 saves at AP-2 or -3 D2, plus the damage from the other wound results (and how many you get depends on the target's T, but anywhere from 0 to 20 additional).
It's a real shame we lost the fight twice Strat...but this is probably why we did.
There's more to do here.
Don't forget since you have Draigo/Chap already, have one of them cast Empyric Amplification (+1 damage). Now you're Strikes are flat 3 when they punch through, even without MW.
Sisters...maybe? Deathwatch I don't really see. IMO the potential advantage is bringing in something GK doesn't have that opens up other options for how you play. So what doesn't GK have? Tour things IMO: (1) survivable anvils that can live through almost anything - e.g. a Telemon, (2) cheap, effective 1W bodies for screens, actions, etc - e.g. Guardsmen, (3) indirect fire, and (4) fight priority manipulation, i.e. good fights last / fights first. I think anything that brings one of these is something to think about tactically. With the caveat that you need to think carefully about if what you're losing makes what you're souping ineffective. E.g. a block of 20 vanguard or rangers isn't going to be a good idea because losing doctrina imperatives really hurts that unit.
If I were going to try to make a Sisters/GK list work, I'd probably start with something like a valorous heart patrol with the canoness who can ignore invulns and make everything fight last once a game, backed up by some sacrestans. That gives you three things you don't have in GK - good fights last, ability to ignore invulns, and models that are a massive pain to kill. Then kind-of go from there re: what you can take from each codex that complements the other. I'm not at all sure it'd be stronger than going mono-faction with either list, but it'd be different and interesting and worth toying with. Edit: Oh blah, you can't get the ignore invulns without miracle dice, which you only get for being pure. It's still a 3" fights last which is pretty good, but that lowers the value of that model quite a bit.
I think where you'll see the most benefit is in adding a bit of GK to something that doesn't currently have a purity bonus - i.e. custodes or guard. A GK detachment of like 500-750 points - a super librarian who can put out 10MW a turn, and some power armor units that can add a bunch of efficient trading units - adds a lot to both those armies that they don't have, while they don't actually pay anything for it since they don't have a purity bonus. Guard benefits tremendously from efficient melee, something the book just doesn't have, while custodes benefit a lot from the trading potential MSUGK squads have, both melee focused and something like a purgation squad that can offer a DS-based ranged threat at less than half the price of venetari.
Yeh I have no interest in guard really, or custodes. Just thought some flamer sisters and some grey knights would make for a cool army haha, and then trying to figure out how to make it actually work in reality!
It's probably not a bad combo as far as those two factions go, flamers don't really get much advantage out of miracle dice which is the huge thing you lose from souping. It's not something GK really lack - incinerators are pretty good, and storm bolters are kinda like flamers in that they put out a lot of mid-S, low AP volume - but rule of cool is worth a lot. If it moves you, try it! It probably wouldn't be *bad*, just not top-tier competitive.
So, what are people think with regards to Nemesis Weapons? I think Falchions are out now that GKSS got more attacks, so now its between swords and halberds (with Justicars/Paragons/Knights always getting Hammers when possible).
I play mostly other SM factions and perhaps soon Necrons if my friend jumps back into the game, so I think the extra AP on the sword will be more valuable to me overall.
Swords are definitely the best choice on strikes IMO, having access to reroll wounds lowers the value of strength significantly, and they'll blend anything in the game pretty much anyway - except stuff with a 2+ that ignores AP-1 and AP-2, if you don't have the AP-3 from the swords to bypass those abilities. On interceptors halbreds become more interesting since they don't have reroll wounds, and that brings you to wounding on 2s vs DE and Ad Mech, which is significant.
Taking one stave may be worth it for the option of the 5++ strat; it's certainly worth it on a 10-man IMO.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's probably not a bad combo as far as those two factions go, flamers don't really get much advantage out of miracle dice which is the huge thing you lose from souping. It's not something GK really lack - incinerators are pretty good, and storm bolters are kinda like flamers in that they put out a lot of mid-S, low AP volume - but rule of cool is worth a lot. If it moves you, try it! It probably wouldn't be *bad*, just not top-tier competitive.
I don't think you can have widespread incinerators (unfortunately - full squads of incinerators might be cool). Though I may be wrong on this. I'd also want to add in something like Celestine - something to go with a Grand Master Dreadknight as an imperial Daemon Prince tag team. .
You can take four in a purgation squad of 5, if that's your jam. But yeah, Celestine sounds like another good fit, she's a very survivable piece, and suffering and sacrifice is an excellent strat for cross-faction synergy since it doesn't depend on what you are protecting being SoB. There's actually some really cool stuff you can do re: using her as a way to protect your deadly but squishy strike squads from getting killed in melee - 6" heroic with her, pop the strat, and they have to go onto her, leaving your strikes the chance to slice them up.
She even gives your GK infantry a 6+ invuln, a really rare example of actual cross-book synergy. It's not a lot - you need to be getting shot by -4AP to make it do anything - but it's something.
The more I think about it, the more I think that's probably the thing you build around in a sob/GK list. Still not sure it's going to win any tournaments, but it's a really cool interaction.
yukishiro1 wrote: You can take four in a purgation squad of 5, if that's your jam. But yeah, Celestine sounds like another good fit, she's a very survivable piece, and suffering and sacrifice is an excellent strat for cross-faction synergy since it doesn't depend on what you are protecting being SoB. There's actually some really cool stuff you can do re: using her as a way to protect your deadly but squishy strike squads from getting killed in melee - 6" heroic with her, pop the strat, and they have to go onto her, leaving your strikes the chance to slice them up.
She even gives your GK infantry a 6+ invuln, a really rare example of actual cross-book synergy. It's not a lot - you need to be getting shot by -4AP to make it do anything - but it's something.
The more I think about it, the more I think that's probably the thing you build around in a sob/GK list. Still not sure it's going to win any tournaments, but it's a really cool interaction.
Doubt I'll ever play in a tournament, unless it's a TTS one haha. Only friendly / competitive crusade games online with some groups and friends. Just thought it'd be a fun theme army.
Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote: Anyone else feel like Paladins should be 4 wounds? Or is that overkill?
4 wounds and 4++, with with small points hike, would actually make them viable I think.
The 4++ would be a good idea, but I'd rather have a 5+++ instead of an extra wound, specifically because of the proliferation of D2 weapons at the moment. Having an odd number of wounds lowers the efficiency of the enemy significantly. Since the damage is costed into the weapon, that essentially makes them waste points. Adding an extra wound per model for us would definitely cost more points than adding a 5+++.
If we're wish-listing, another interesting idea to differentiate Paladins would be they could cast a power once and it never expires, and the enemy could attempt to deny once per your psychic phase if they are in range.
Imagine turning on Sanctuary or Hammerhand T1, casting your second power T2, and then T3 the enemy tries to turn off one of them...and when they succeed you just turn it right back on.
Paladins and normal termies are both just overcosted, they'd be fine if they went down a little bit in points. Paladins being able to know two powers of their choice instead of being locked into a particular one, being WS2+, and getting another attack is enough differentiation IMO. If each went down by 3-5ish points per model they'd be a real choice.
yukishiro1 wrote: Paladins and normal termies are both just overcosted, they'd be fine if they went down a little bit in points. Paladins being able to know two powers of their choice instead of being locked into a particular one, being WS2+, and getting another attack is enough differentiation IMO. If each went down by 3-5ish points per model they'd be a real choice.
Are they really that useless right now, at their current points?
I guess that depends on the definition of "useless." They're not competitive at their current points cost. Does that make them useless? Maybe from the most cutthroat tournament point of view. Can you still win games with them? Sure. Can you still make a somewhat competitive list that includes a unit 5-man unit if you really like them? Sure, you can do that too. Can you build an entire GK terminator army right now and win tournaments with it? Almost certainly not. Does the "best" GK list have any terminators other than characters? Unlikely.
yukishiro1 wrote: Paladins and normal termies are both just overcosted, they'd be fine if they went down a little bit in points. Paladins being able to know two powers of their choice instead of being locked into a particular one, being WS2+, and getting another attack is enough differentiation IMO. If each went down by 3-5ish points per model they'd be a real choice.
Are they really that useless right now, at their current points?
Not so sure there is any major over costing problem on terminators, troops/obsec/psychic is enough to justify brotherhood terminators being slightly more expensive than codex space marine terminators, and paladins as they are are just fine - barebones with hammerhand they have better damage output than basic powerfist terminators for about 50 points less per unit, and are a nice cheap durable option for just deepstriking into a table quarter/objective and using armoured resilience to just survive and score.
IMO terminators only look bad when compared to how amazingly cheap strike squads are for what they bring.
Nobody (well, except DA, and that's because of the massive buffs they get) uses those terminators either, though, suggesting basic space marine terminators are also overcosted. And the more important comparison is re: power armor models, i.e. a choice you can actually take in the same book.
Now maybe power armor GKs are too cheap, in addition to terminator being too expensive...but it works out to the same thing re: which is the more competitive choice.
yukishiro1 wrote: Nobody (well, except DA, and that's because of the massive buffs they get) uses those terminators either, though, suggesting basic space marine terminators are also overcosted. And the more important comparison is re: power armor models, i.e. a choice you can actually take in the same book.
Now maybe power armor GKs are too cheap, in addition to terminator being too expensive...but it works out to the same thing re: which is the more competitive choice.
Yes this is the case. So I guess in the next FAQGK as a whole will have points twisted, probably with GKSS and other power armor units goes up by 5pts to 10pts, and Terminators went down maybe only 2pts to 5pts. Lol.
The good thing is that all our datasheets are strong now, it's just that some points adjustments is required for internal balance.
Termies/Pallies at 39/44 points vs Strikes/Purifiers/Interceptors at 25/26/27 points makes it more fair. Ideally termies/ pallies need an extra defensive strat e.g. 1/2CP for -1 to wound against them for the phase, but since FAQs/MFM don't add strats, better hope for points adjustments - which they actually do.
I don't think power armor GK squads are that undercosted. Maybe a point or something. If they're really undercosted by 5 points, we'll see GK performing like DE or Ad Mech, and I don't think this book is that strong.
PAGK are definitely not 5+ points undercosted, but I'd also say more than 1 point undercosted. That's why I'd bump them up 2-3 points, and drop Termies by 3 points as well.
The book looks like B-tier for an average/new GK player. A-tier (tournament challenging) for a really good GK player. GK is still playing on Hard mode. that hasn't really changed. I'd never have wanted the 9E Codex to be Drukhari/Admech level. Can you imagine all the meta-chasers suddenly bandwagon and hoping into GK...? No thanks.
Waking Dreamer wrote: PAGK are definitely not 5+ points undercosted, but I'd also say more than 1 point undercosted. That's why I'd bump them up 2-3 points, and drop Termies by 3 points as well.
The book looks like B-tier for an average/new GK player. A-tier (tournament challenging) for a really good GK player. GK is still playing on Hard mode. that hasn't really changed. I'd never have wanted the 9E Codex to be Drukhari/Admech level. Can you imagine all the meta-chasers suddenly bandwagon and hoping into GK...? No thanks.
*Has flashbacks the Ward dex of 5e and all the hilarity that resulted*
They're certainly points efficient, possibly too much so, but it seems too early to me to make a judgement that they are that undercosted. Especially in comparison to other new releases. I don't like GW's power creep, but they are committed to it, and in the context of overall codex creep, power armor GK models don't strike me as particularly egregious.
yukishiro1 wrote: I don't think power armor GK squads are that undercosted. Maybe a point or something. If they're really undercosted by 5 points, we'll see GK performing like DE or Ad Mech, and I don't think this book is that strong.
Every Strike thata dies at the battle field is one Strike too much, and 25 pts is a lot.
I don't think I will go with GK to a tourney, only if find an appropriate ally force.
PAGK, especially GKSS are perfectly costed imo. For as powerful as they can be on the offense, defensively they're still T4 3+ models with no invuln that can die very easily to a crapton of things.
Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote: PAGK, especially GKSS are perfectly costed imo. For as powerful as they can be on the offense, defensively they're still T4 3+ models with no invuln that can die very easily to a crapton of things.
Well, this is an issue.
Every fire that comes back can kill them.
I'd opt for cheap allied units that can hold objectives and provide distraction.
Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote: PAGK, especially GKSS are perfectly costed imo. For as powerful as they can be on the offense, defensively they're still T4 3+ models with no invuln that can die very easily to a crapton of things.
Well, this is an issue.
Every fire that comes back can kill them.
I'd opt for cheap allied units that can hold objectives and provide distraction.
Such as?
Also, is there no way to give them an invuln? Does the invuln even matter? They'd have to be hit with AP2 weapons minimum to even end up with the same save as most of the 'cheaper' units that people use these days, and I'm not sure how many AP3 anti-infantry weapons are out there.
Skitarii of course being the outlier here, as they are too cheap for what they are, but you can't compare everything to the outlier and expect balance. Asking for admech to be toned down is much more sensible than demanding every other army in existence gets buffed to match. (imo)
You can give them a warding stave, and that gives you the option of spending 1CP (2CP if 6+) for a 5++ in any phase. Kinda expensive and not that effective, and it requires taking a weapon that is not generally the best choice from a damage point of view, but it technically exists.
They're actually quite resilient if you have tide of shadows up and are getting shot from 12" or further, +1 to save and quite possibly a -1 to hit go a long ways towards keeping them alive. It's melee where they really melt, which is what makes them a trading unit.
Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote: PAGK, especially GKSS are perfectly costed imo. For as powerful as they can be on the offense, defensively they're still T4 3+ models with no invuln that can die very easily to a crapton of things.
Pretty much this. Strikes are probably the most accurately costed power armor unit in the game at the moment (the other being the humble Battle Sister), and frankly should easily be the benchmark that others are adjusted against.
yukishiro1 wrote: You can give them a warding stave, and that gives you the option of spending 1CP (2CP if 6+) for a 5++ in any phase. Kinda expensive and not that effective, and it requires taking a weapon that is not generally the best choice from a damage point of view, but it technically exists.
They're actually quite resilient if you have tide of shadows up and are getting shot from 12" or further, +1 to save and quite possibly a -1 to hit go a long ways towards keeping them alive. It's melee where they really melt, which is what makes them a trading unit.
Those strategems are far better utilized on Termies/Paladins as they make already strong defensive units nigh-unkillable. Using them on PAGK (except Purifiers since you need them to survive to get into melee at all costs) seems like a waste of CP.
The value is more in the threat than the actual execution. By taking a stave, you preserve the opportunity to give yourself a 5++, which requires your opponent to commit more resources than they would otherwise if they want to be absolutely sure of killing the unit, e.g. if you have a 5-man strike squad on an objective and they absolutely have to kill all 5 because they need to take the objective off you but don't have ob-sec to do it.
You don't have to actually use it for it to be effective, and in fact, you usually don't want to. The damage loss is so marginal that I think I'll be taking one stave on all my strike squads, and on the justicar in my purgation squad, because it's not like that squad has any melee potential anyway. I probably wouldn't bother with interceptors since they don't have ob-sec and are more of a strictly trading unit, and I'm down on purifiers generally and can't really see myself taking them at all TBH.
It's one of the gifts. IIRC it's only like d3 mortal wounds on a 2+ the first time a unit enters an area terrain feature you name secretly before the game, it's pretty terrible honestly.
Temporal Bombs. It's d3 mortal wounds total, one time only, the first time an enemy unit starts or ends a move in the nominated area terrain, which can't be in their deployment zone. As I said, it's not good.
Damn he said it was D3 mortal wounds per model. It wiped my unit out. I thought it seemed totally overpowered at the time. I’ll have to kindly inform him of that mistake.
Wow. That's pretty lame. I am reading it right now and having trouble seeing how anyone could have misread it to say that, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he's just very bad at reading.
And I guess it shows why you should always ask to read the text yourself if something sounds weirdly powerful.
Considering I'm already playing 3 squads of Interceptors which could also want to use the strat, are Teleporters on my 3+1 Dreadknights worth it?
I could consider it on my Grand Master but i think using them on heavy weapons (or to squeeze in an additional unit) would be much more useful
And to add another question: Brotherhood Ancients.
Since the Paladin has been relegated to only buffing his buddies, what's your opinion on them? I think they can be quite useful as a buff-beacon, especially if given the Obsec Warlord trait and deep struck behind a unit of Interceptors that's ready to charge something after being deployed. We like characters since they spread more evenly the Dominus powers and give us more options for Mental Interrogation in games in which we go for that instead of purifying objectives. Giving him the "always fight first" TimeKeeper and the "a unit within 12" can intervene precognition could be quite interesting as an area control instrument to follow up our alpha-strike
Zompa wrote: Considering I'm already playing 3 squads of Interceptors which could also want to use the strat, are Teleporters on my 3+1 Dreadknights worth it?
I could consider it on my Grand Master but i think using them on heavy weapons (or to squeeze in an additional unit) would be much more useful
And to add another question: Brotherhood Ancients.
Since the Paladin has been relegated to only buffing his buddies, what's your opinion on them? I think they can be quite useful as a buff-beacon, especially if given the Obsec Warlord trait and deep struck behind a unit of Interceptors that's ready to charge something after being deployed. We like characters since they spread more evenly the Dominus powers and give us more options for Mental Interrogation in games in which we go for that instead of purifying objectives. Giving him the "always fight first" TimeKeeper and the "a unit within 12" can intervene precognition could be quite interesting as an area control instrument to follow up our alpha-strike
You can go without it but don't forget the teleporter keyword also let's them fall back and shoot/charge with a strat
Zompa wrote: Considering I'm already playing 3 squads of Interceptors which could also want to use the strat, are Teleporters on my 3+1 Dreadknights worth it?
I could consider it on my Grand Master but i think using them on heavy weapons (or to squeeze in an additional unit) would be much more useful
As stated the wargear opens up a tooooon of flexibility. For an army that doesnt have much on the board, not being pinned down is a major asset. Worth it every time IMO.
And to add another question: Brotherhood Ancients.
It's...intriguing. The force multiplication is obviously massive (albeit suffering from the usual delivery issues that most melee auras do, but that's 40k for ya), and there's some very interesting play in the relic Banner (admittedly requiring a CP and an FAQ). The issue is that GK are super hard up on character slots already, and I don't know that what it brings to the table is enough to justify the opportunity costs. I definitely plan to use one, but I'm not entirely certain how well it'll do. Needs additional data.
It's hard for me to imagine a situation where I'd want a brotherhood ancient over just taking another strike squad. This army seems set up to trade so hard that I don't see how you really leverage the ancient without throwing him away, and it's not worth it unless you can get that buff for several turns, even before considering the relic banner.
So it looks like swords are the way to go with GKSS, but I'm wondering if for Termies and especially Paladins, falchions might be better. If I equip Falchions and use Tide of Convergence, that is a LOT of chances for me to inflict some MWs, especially on Paladins with their 5 attacks each...
Paladins are way too expensive to be using as a mortal wound roulette.
Falchions are a decent pick on strikes if you want to take them in Rapiers and combo it with a chaplain to fish for double MWs on 6s to wound rerolling, otherwise they're pretty outclassed by swords or halberds. Losing a point of S, a point of AP, AND a point of damage in return for going from 3 to 4 attacks is just not a very good trade. If they kept the S+1 -3AP statline of the swords but just went to 1D instead of 2 in return for the extra attack, that'd be more of a real choice.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's hard for me to imagine a situation where I'd want a brotherhood ancient over just taking another strike squad. This army seems set up to trade so hard that I don't see how you really leverage the ancient without throwing him away, and it's not worth it unless you can get that buff for several turns, even before considering the relic banner.
I'm running Prescient Brotherhood. So will be using this guy to be my warp changing guy and when he isn't changing my tides he will be gaingin me +1cp a turn hopefully.
In a pinch he can also cleanse an objective, I think he helps me gain additional Dominus powers without having to spend too many CP's getting another detachment. So few HQ slot's it's frustrating.
I might take an apothecary in that role rather than an ancient, just because his aura gives you more if he's sitting back doing other stuff. But I can see the ancient there too.
I am currently just biting the bullet and paying the 2CP for another patrol. Wardmakers is really good for that, you can take a 5-man strike squad and a librarian who can then switch out powers as needed if necessary with the brotherhood strat, which gives you a lot of flexibility. I think it's worth the 2CP personally. Draigo can slot in there too if you want to save space in the main detachment for stuff that gets the detachment bonus, though 4 characters seem like the sweet spot for me.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's hard for me to imagine a situation where I'd want a brotherhood ancient over just taking another strike squad. This army seems set up to trade so hard that I don't see how you really leverage the ancient without throwing him away, and it's not worth it unless you can get that buff for several turns, even before considering the relic banner.
I'm running Prescient Brotherhood. So will be using this guy to be my warp changing guy and when he isn't changing my tides he will be gaingin me +1cp a turn hopefully.
In a pinch he can also cleanse an objective, I think he helps me gain additional Dominus powers without having to spend too many CP's getting another detachment. So few HQ slot's it's frustrating.
This is how I played my first game.
The +1 CP was very helpful but just as you mentioned - you are likely giving up the warpshaping power to do this + a psychic power per turn. Next game I am going rapiers and taking warp shaping instead plus taking 2 warlord traits instead of 3. So it nets me +1 CP to start the game and will give me another power to cast a turn. It will be very nice to start in the tide of shadows.
2 detachments is pretty much mandatory if you want to take crowe or a chaplain - which imo are more than worth starting 2 CP down to include.
Managed to snag 2 Dreadknights at a decent price and wondering how to equip them when they arrive. One is gonna be a Grand Master, of course, and in that case I'm wondering if for melee the hammer would be the best choice for him since with his aura it more or less becomes a 2+ WS again. Regular DK should be sword I think since with Hammerhand it can pretty much melt anything.
As for ranged weapons, I'm torn on whether to give them one or two. Heavy Psycannon feels like a must because there just aren't many other units in a GK army that pumps out that kind of heavy damage. But then the Heavy Incinerator is also great for softening up whatever I'm going to charge while also not affected by the degrading BS when they take damage. Really want to take both guns, but that is a lot of points...
The aura doesn't effect himself. The sword is pretty much always the best pick because of the sweep option, it helps with getting tarpitted with cheap junk, which is otherwise a problem.
If you're loading up a grandmaster with the 3++ invlun, sigil that lets you teleport upon being shot, etc you may as well max out the weapons too.
I don't think normal dreadknights are very good honestly, but if you are going to take them, I'm not sure it's worth buying two heavy weapons, I'd probably take them just with the cannon and sword.
yukishiro1 wrote: The aura doesn't effect himself. The sword is pretty much always the best pick because of the sweep option, it helps with getting tarpitted with cheap junk, which is otherwise a problem.
If you're loading up a grandmaster with the 3++ invlun, sigil that lets you teleport upon being shot, etc you may as well max out the weapons too.
I don't think normal dreadknights are very good honestly, but if you are going to take them, I'm not sure it's worth buying two heavy weapons, I'd probably take them just with the cannon and sword.
I've been running my GMDK and three NDKs in a Swordbearers Spearhead detachment. I load them all identically, with the sword, psycannon and psilencer. If you can land the brotherhood power (Empyric Lodestone, +1 to wound at range for Swordbearer vehicles), and the Dominus power Empyric Amplification (+1D on psi and nemesis weapons), You're wounding T8 on 3+/4+ for the psycannon/psilencer, with the
.
I played a couple games in person over the weekend, and was able to nuke a dangerous unit immediately if I went first. With rerolls on the NDK (from Draigo or the GMDK) the GMDK and one NDK can usually take a Knight down, even if it rotates ion shield. If I wasn't running them as Swordbearers, I might not bring the weapons, but stuff just dies with that brotherhood power on it.
yukishiro1 wrote: The aura doesn't effect himself. The sword is pretty much always the best pick because of the sweep option, it helps with getting tarpitted with cheap junk, which is otherwise a problem.
If you're loading up a grandmaster with the 3++ invlun, sigil that lets you teleport upon being shot, etc you may as well max out the weapons too.
I don't think normal dreadknights are very good honestly, but if you are going to take them, I'm not sure it's worth buying two heavy weapons, I'd probably take them just with the cannon and sword.
In the hammer's defence, without any buffs being applied to the GMDK it is better than either sword profile against anything tougher than a generic marine (3W marines, -1D defenses etc), it combo's well with augurium scrolls and is a powerful anti tank option in an army without many alternatives. If you are worried about tarpits all of your guns and smite can be fired into combat (or gate away).
The sweeping profile on the sword however is great against everything if you invest in hammer of righteousness and can cast empyric amplification reliably.
yukishiro1 wrote: The aura doesn't effect himself. The sword is pretty much always the best pick because of the sweep option, it helps with getting tarpitted with cheap junk, which is otherwise a problem.
If you're loading up a grandmaster with the 3++ invlun, sigil that lets you teleport upon being shot, etc you may as well max out the weapons too.
I don't think normal dreadknights are very good honestly, but if you are going to take them, I'm not sure it's worth buying two heavy weapons, I'd probably take them just with the cannon and sword.
I've been running my GMDK and three NDKs in a Swordbearers Spearhead detachment. I load them all identically, with the sword, psycannon and psilencer. If you can land the brotherhood power (Empyric Lodestone, +1 to wound at range for Swordbearer vehicles), and the Dominus power Empyric Amplification (+1D on psi and nemesis weapons), You're wounding T8 on 3+/4+ for the psycannon/psilencer, with the
.
I played a couple games in person over the weekend, and was able to nuke a dangerous unit immediately if I went first. With rerolls on the NDK (from Draigo or the GMDK) the GMDK and one NDK can usually take a Knight down, even if it rotates ion shield. If I wasn't running them as Swordbearers, I might not bring the weapons, but stuff just dies with that brotherhood power on it.
My problem with that is that it's super short range (12" to get all the debuffs), and yes, you'll blow up a single unit real good...but then what? You have ~550 points of stuff sitting out there to get destroyed. If you're fighting knights maybe that's a good trade, but against the MSU that is dominating the game right now, that's going to be a trade your opponent bites your hand off to take.
I don't think it's terrible or anything, but it doesn't address the basic problem with the dreadknights, which is how quickly they evaporate as soon as something targets them if they don't have the 3++ and the option to teleport away from shooting. They're expensive, short-ranged glass cannons and I'm not sure there's a lot of room for that in the game right now. Not having the -1D just hurts them so much IMO.
yukishiro1 wrote: The aura doesn't effect himself. The sword is pretty much always the best pick because of the sweep option, it helps with getting tarpitted with cheap junk, which is otherwise a problem.
If you're loading up a grandmaster with the 3++ invlun, sigil that lets you teleport upon being shot, etc you may as well max out the weapons too.
I don't think normal dreadknights are very good honestly, but if you are going to take them, I'm not sure it's worth buying two heavy weapons, I'd probably take them just with the cannon and sword.
I've been running my GMDK and three NDKs in a Swordbearers Spearhead detachment. I load them all identically, with the sword, psycannon and psilencer. If you can land the brotherhood power (Empyric Lodestone, +1 to wound at range for Swordbearer vehicles), and the Dominus power Empyric Amplification (+1D on psi and nemesis weapons), You're wounding T8 on 3+/4+ for the psycannon/psilencer, with the
.
I played a couple games in person over the weekend, and was able to nuke a dangerous unit immediately if I went first. With rerolls on the NDK (from Draigo or the GMDK) the GMDK and one NDK can usually take a Knight down, even if it rotates ion shield. If I wasn't running them as Swordbearers, I might not bring the weapons, but stuff just dies with that brotherhood power on it.
My problem with that is that it's super short range (12" to get all the debuffs), and yes, you'll blow up a single unit real good...but then what? You have ~550 points of stuff sitting out there to get destroyed. If you're fighting knights maybe that's a good trade, but against the MSU that is dominating the game right now, that's going to be a trade your opponent bites your hand off to take.
I don't think it's terrible or anything, but it doesn't address the basic problem with the dreadknights, which is how quickly they evaporate as soon as something targets them if they don't have the 3++ and the option to teleport away from shooting.
It's also not needed. Most the time you want to charge a unit at 12" so debuffing to shoot it doesn't make sense. It looks better on paper then it will untimately be.
Empyric amplification and psyshock ammo (whatever the +1 str and ap stratagem is) plus some form of rerolls is pretty powerfull in it's own right. Persistent brethern have reroll 1's to hit and wound stratagem as well. I used that to great effect in my first game.
I think the only thing interesting about swordbearers is their warlord trait for a 4++ to a vehical - plus those buffs really help a landraiders shooting too. Can give that to a rhino or storm raven or landraider and still have a sanctuary on your big 10 man strike. It's also a hassle because that brotherhood offers nothing for your infantry so it kinda forces you into a double brotherhood situation which is not only tedious but needlessly complicated. Something like Rapiers of persistent brethren is very simple and effective.
yukishiro1 wrote: My problem with that is that it's super short range (12" to get all the debuffs)
You can extend that range by 6" for 1CP. I'll put my GMDK with the Sigil of Exigence within that range to get the two casts off, then port him if he's shot at. The other NDKs can shoot from 30" away in Convergance.
While the Gattling Psycannon might be good on the GMGK, for the regular GK, I think the Heavy incinerator would be better if only because it autohits so you don't have to worry about the degrading BS.
Though if forced to only take one gun, I'd still take the Heavy Psycannon over either.
Incinerators are unfortunately pretty much junk on dreadknights, because they aren't psi weapons, and therefore don't get the bonuses from either the power or the strat.
I mean, they're not great period TBH. But if they have a place, it's not on a model that really wants to have the option to benefit from the strat and the power.
Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote: With the changes to the number of attacks on units are Falchions worth taking on any unit now?
The falchion is pretty trash now - it's the equivalent of an AP-2 chainsword that has to compete with the equivalent of mastercrafted power weapons that are also free. You could try and convince yourself that all the melee buffs available could make them good - but those same buffs also work on the superior sword/halberd loadouts.
My rule of thumb for loading out units is now pretty much:
1. If it has hammerhand, swords
2. No hammerhand? halberds
3. If it is a GMDK or min size paladin unit, take some hammers
Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote: With the changes to the number of attacks on units are Falchions worth taking on any unit now?
The falchion is pretty trash now - it's the equivalent of an AP-2 chainsword that has to compete with the equivalent of mastercrafted power weapons that are also free. You could try and convince yourself that all the melee buffs available could make them good - but those same buffs also work on the superior sword/halberd loadouts.
My rule of thumb for loading out units is now pretty much:
1. If it has hammerhand, swords
2. No hammerhand? halberds
3. If it is a GMDK or min size paladin unit, take some hammers
Sounds good. Do you still give hammers to the Justicars on units whenever possible?
Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote: With the changes to the number of attacks on units are Falchions worth taking on any unit now?
Unfortunately now I think the falchions are only better than other GK melee weapons in killing the non-Nurgle minor Daemons (maybe will be ok aganist Nurgle minor Daemons if Nurgle Daemon also change their DR to be in line with Deathguard) ..... It fits the fluff though, but it is too narrow.
Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote: With the changes to the number of attacks on units are Falchions worth taking on any unit now?
The falchion is pretty trash now - it's the equivalent of an AP-2 chainsword that has to compete with the equivalent of mastercrafted power weapons that are also free. You could try and convince yourself that all the melee buffs available could make them good - but those same buffs also work on the superior sword/halberd loadouts.
My rule of thumb for loading out units is now pretty much:
1. If it has hammerhand, swords
2. No hammerhand? halberds
3. If it is a GMDK or min size paladin unit, take some hammers
Sounds good. Do you still give hammers to the Justicars on units whenever possible?
I'm using hammers sparingly - if you have some points left over to spend then by all means go for them but they are not going to be an auto take on all units for me. I'll probably be using Rapiers Brotherhood the most, so for me I probably won't bother upgrading from basic swords on hammerhand units, but on the brotherhood units without hammerhand (probably just Interceptors) they could use symphonic strike quite effectively with a hammer justicar mixed in.
So uh, are Purifiers worth running anymore? Seems to be the unit people are talking about the least right now. Lack of access to Brotherhoods (without the buffs to WS and powers that Paladins have to make up for that) and needing a transport to actually survive getting into flame range makes me think they're pretty crap at the moment.
Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote: So uh, are Purifiers worth running anymore? Seems to be the unit people are talking about the least right now. Lack of access to Brotherhoods (without the buffs to WS and powers that Paladins have to make up for that) and needing a transport to actually survive getting into flame range makes me think they're pretty crap at the moment.
The buff to casting Puriflying flame isn't bad per se but for pretty much the same price as 5 of them you can just take 3 paladins with it AND the +1 to saves armor. Now that we have full smite on everyone the flame isn't good enough to warrant a unit dedicated to casting a slightly stronger smite.
What's really silly for MW output is a Librarian with the Gem, the apposite warlord trait and Smite+Flame+Vortex.
Just drop him next to anything and he'll output 13 MW on average with just 2 CP (1 for the additional cast and 1 for extended range on the flame).
I think Purifiers are worth it. Take a squad of 10, combat squad them, and put them into a Rhino. Their purifying flame can be cast multiple times and get a +1 to the cast. Once you cast Smite a few times you get to an 8 or 9 and you probably won't get many more. Purifiers let you switch over to another kind of power and continue to lay in the psychic hate.
It's actually much worse than that - lots of tedious details in the GK rules.
Gem only gives +2 to cast dominus powers. (only vortex is dominus)
Psychic Epitome only gives +1 mortal to witchfires (smite is not a witchfire)
Purifying flame has only 9 " range too ehh...pretty much useless. You are better off using your bonus castings on your core abilities (entropic amplification/Gates of infinity/sanctuary) with the 3d6 to cast drop the lowest stratagem + gem for a turn - you drastically improve their cast rates.Dont get me wrong - I do like the nuclear librarian but I just don't think it's worth getting gem and the +1mortal trait for him. Just take vortex + gates on him.This way he can reliably teleport nuke with vortex/smite. Or gates him in with something else and in that cast youd be best off with vortex/smite/purge soul (cant be spending a cp to give 1 abilitiy out of 3 +6" range)
I was thinking you could take the Librarian plus Vortex and Purifying Flame and the Epitome WL trait and then use the "cast another power strat" on him so he can cast smite. I also think you should give him a combi-melta to add insult to injury.
I have fooled around with 3 different lists.
Lesson I have learned is CP is hugely valuable in this army. So despite the awesomeness of Crowe and a chaplain they are simply to expensive to include due to detachment costs.
For brotherhoods - it's just a spell you probably wont be using much and a stratagem you wont be able to afford later in the game because you are buffing your librarian up for more reliable powers. At least that is how my first 3 games have gone. Out of CP by turn 2 and every turn after that I am using 1 cp to get 3d6 to cast gates and sanctuary for my support libby - because those spells are so important.
The best ability we have is empiric amplification - it massively buffs damage against a single target so strategies that make use of this power the best will be most effective.
Min 5 man strike squads are the best unit in the army. Swords most the time /halberds some of the time. I see no reason to ever give them a heavy weapon because they will be moving literally every turn. I'd recommend 1 or 2 10 mans and combat sqaud them msot the time - it is nice to have a big opening play with a 10 man on turn 1 and it's also great to gates a 10 man into action later in the game with sanctuary (can be a game winning play).
Have not actually fooled around with tides much so far (just starting and staying in convergence all game) this I feel might actually be a hindrance. The +1 armor tide I would be getting a lot more out of as our units already hit so hard and there is so much short ranged damage in this army - mortals on 6 to wound is kinda overkill (unless you are playing custodians or something obviously) I would really recommend bringing warp shaping in your list. Literally no idea where to put it though.
Just some things I have learned and observed so far. Still far from making a perfect list.
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LesPaul wrote: I was thinking you could take the Librarian plus Vortex and Purifying Flame and the Epitome WL trait and then use the "cast another power strat" on him so he can cast smite. I also think you should give him a combi-melta to add insult to injury.
You can.
here is the issue though. Epitome WL trait does not give +1 damage to smite (not witchfire) - Gem only gives +2 to cast for dominus powers (so just vortex in this case) - you will also have to pay 1 CP for + range just to benefit purifying flame. So 3 CP now for 3d6 cast +1 power and +6 range. You will likely do about 10-11 mortal wounds. Where as a Libby with just vortex and smite will probably do about 5.
Just think about it. For 3 CP you could play 2/3 other stratagems.
That +6" range power is probably better used apply empyric amplification from a safer position out of deny range and the damage stratagems for our psi weapons and storm bolters are also quite good.
I sincerely believe that the strength of the Grey Knights codex is in it's power-armored troops. Strike Squads, Interceptors, Purifiers, and maybe a GMDK. A couple of Rhinos and Servitor squads to taste, and as few characters as you can get away with. I may be wrong, but that seems to be the strongest mix to me.
bmsattler wrote: I sincerely believe that the strength of the Grey Knights codex is in it's power-armored troops. Strike Squads, Interceptors, Purifiers, and maybe a GMDK. A couple of Rhinos and Servitor squads to taste, and as few characters as you can get away with. I may be wrong, but that seems to be the strongest mix to me.
No, its true, and it sucks. GK Terminators IMO are some of the best models GW has ever made but the units themselves haven't been competitive since like 6e. I still take them, but I'm handicapping myself by not taking another GKSS instead.
Anyway, managed to find a box of GK Termies at my FLGS. Thinking about making them into a Apothecary, a Brotherhood ancient, and 3 Paladins with hammers. Should I give the Apothecary any weapon instead of the sword? I was thinking about a hammer but he's only WS 3+...
So, thought I would share a couple of dumb ideas I've been thinking about. While looking through less optimal units to see if they have any unusual options, I started looking at what a Stormraven could do besides acting as the required transport to make purifiers work and came up with these:
1. Psybolt Ammunition is not <CORE> or <INFANTRY> locked, and the Stormraven is a unit of less than 6 models, so could benefit from buffed hurricanes/twin heavy bolters for the discounted 1cp version.
2. The core rulebook FAQ on warhammer community (page 2, "Psychic Actions") seems to confirm that psychic actions are equal to psychic powers in all respects... The Stormraven would make a good delivery system for an Ancient with banner of refining flame who could use Powerful Adept to make that a 12" radius MW nuke (about 15% coverage of a minimum size table).
For all intents and purposes, when a unit attempts a psychic action, this is treated the same as if they were attempting to manifest a psychic power, and as such triggers any rules that interact with manifesting a psychic power
**edit, undercooked table coverage of the nuke, including base size into blast radius it gets even worse
2. The core rulebook FAQ on warhammer community (page 2, "Psychic Actions") seems to confirm that psychic actions are equal to psychic powers in all respects... The Stormraven would make a good delivery system for an Ancient with banner of refining flame who could use Powerful Adept to make that a 12" radius MW nuke (about 15% coverage of a minimum size table).
As nice as it sounds it's still just d3 mortal wounds. Had it been a Smite you could've hoped for a d6 mortals bomb, maybe sniping out some charachters but as it stands it's hardly worth building around. Maybe just a nice addition if you were already dropping people off the Stormraven and wanted to bring the Ancient along
The relic banner action is d3 on each enemy unit in range though, so it can stack up quickly when that range is pushed out to 12", and like purifying flame it is another low warp charge alternative to smite. Sniping isn't a bad idea though, as both purge soul and severance bolts can be targeted, so potentially a reasonably reliable 3d3 MW's thrown at a choice character.
Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote: So...should I be looking for how to spam as many librarians as possible? Like 3 or something?
Lots of good characters but only so many have 2 spell casts. Just draigo/ Voldus/ and libbys have cast 2 powers standard. Libby is by far the cheapest option.
They all combo really well for 2 CP to cast 3 powers at 3d6 drop the lowest. I haven't had a turn yet where I havnt used that combo if I had the CP.
Grand masters do know 2 spells though can just cast 1 - so they also aren't a bad place to use the combo - you just miss out on the smite.
Are Brother-Captains worth considering? Getting a re-roll to wound, even if just on a 1, without having to risk a psychic test on Hammerhand for multiple units seems tempting.
Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote: Are Brother-Captains worth considering? Getting a re-roll to wound, even if just on a 1, without having to risk a psychic test on Hammerhand for multiple units seems tempting.
I think he is worth considering if you are taking more than one Purgation Squad. The GK powers/stratagem offering reroll to wound usually don't apply to shooting. But his buff covers shooting.
Bringing a Paladin deathstar this weekend. 4x Psilencers and plan to buff it's shooting every turn.
Running as Mardmakers so I can get empyric amplification off every turn with the undeniable 8+. to boost Their damage and draigo will be giving them reroll all hits as often as possible.
Their spells are +1 save and ignore cover but they can always forget a power and learn whatever power they want for 1 CP- probably will do this to get hammer hand at some point. They all have halberds.
Does a 10-man Paladin deathstar like the DraigoWings of old still have a chance?
Thinking of a 10 man group, 9 hammers, 1 warding staff, 4 psycannons. 600 points but anything it shoots or assaults is dead, end of story. Only thing I can't decide is what their second psychic power should be after hammerhand.
Well, Strike Marines as well as Interceptors in 10 Man group also kill anything they touch, and you can have almost 3 squads of them for the 1 paladinstar squad.
Jabberscythe wrote: Well, Strike Marines as well as Interceptors in 10 Man group also kill anything they touch, and you can have almost 3 squads of them for the 1 paladinstar squad.
Well yeah but they die quick to everything. 10 paladins with staff, Armored Resilience, and if needed Truesilver Armor are pretty going to tank anything thrown at them.
Jabberscythe wrote: Well, Strike Marines as well as Interceptors in 10 Man group also kill anything they touch, and you can have almost 3 squads of them for the 1 paladinstar squad.
Well yeah but they die quick to everything. 10 paladins with staff, Armored Resilience, and if needed Truesilver Armor are pretty going to tank anything thrown at them.
I think if you are going for Armor Resilience, you don't need warding staff. 1+ armor means even against AP-3 you still have 4+ save, so unless the enemy can spam lots of multiple shots AP-4 weapons, your enhanced armor save is better than 4++. Also if you are standing in terrain, great, enemy need Ap-5 weapon to drop your save below 4+ now.
Idk if they die quickly? 60 wounds total, with option to have 4+ invul, being able to trade in 3 diffrent places, more firepower to clear screens.
If your opponent have a unit with similar dmg output and he delete one of your units you still have 2 for trade, if he delete paladins you will not have much left to fight, they were super strong when you could stack multiple defensive powers and stratagems to make them nearly unkillable, they lost a lot of those tools which makes them not worth the points in my opinion, unless You play a game for fun and just want this draigowing to be alive
So I'm thinking of putting together a themed Dreadnought list of Grey-knights, (heavily converted sci-fi psychic storm-giants,) mostly because I love dreadnought style lists and wanted to give the new grey-knights a go.
My proposed start to this endeavor is a simple 1k list that I put together using battle-scribe, and can currently afford to get all the parts for. Here is the list:
1x Grand master in Dreadknight: Sword, Heavy Incincerator and Heavy Psycannon (prob with the warlord trait that gives obsec to core units within 6'')
x2 Dreadnought w/assault cannon and close
combat weapon
x2 Ven. Dreadnought w/Multi-melta and close
combat weapon
x1 Dreadknight with sword, Heavy Incinerator and Heavy Psycannon
All this comes out to around 1k points. What I want to know before I might actually put this together is: will it be mildly competitive in a casual setting? Not "beat everyone and make them hate me and my army" style competitive, I'm not looking for that, just: "will it provide a good game" type competitive.
(also: If there are small things you can think that would fit within the theme then please let me know!)
It will not, dreadknights are competetive but dreadnought’s and vendreds are not.
If you dont want to play any other models beside robots, go for imperial knight’s or chaos knights.
If you want to play grey knights you will need some heroes and regular Dudes aswell just to be able to play missions (primary and secondary objectives)
What you can do is including swordbearers brotherhood detachment with GMNDK and 3 NDK for a total of 4 big robots, this should be strong.
The only weapon you should be giving dreadnoughts are twin Lascannons as long-range heavy firepower is the only thing they do that other GK units don't do better and/or cheaper.
Grand Master in Nemesis Dreadknight [10 PL, 215pts]
Selections: 2: Empyric Amplification, 4: First to the Fray, 4: Vortex of Doom, Brotherhood Psyker Power, Dreadfist, Dreadknight teleporter, Gatling Psilencer, Grand Master Chapter, Heavy Psycannon, Nemesis Greatsword, Sigil of Exigence, Warlord
Lord Kaldor Draigo [10 PL, -1CP, 180pts]
Selections: 1: Daemon Slayer, 1: Gate of Infinity, 3: Sanctuary, 5: Warp Shaping, Frag & Krak grenades, Master-crafted storm bolter, Psyk-out Grenade, Shield of Humanity, The Titansword
I think you might be better off with dropping the dreadnaught and adding a squad or two of servitors for screening and cheap actions. I would use the rest of the points for various prognostications if you don't have those yet.
bmsattler wrote: I think you might be better off with dropping the dreadnaught and adding a squad or two of servitors for screening and cheap actions. I would use the rest of the points for various prognostications if you don't have those yet.
Indeed, two units of Servitors would be fine instead of the Dread, but unfortunately I don't have the models (at hand).
I'll probably try 5 Termies instead of Techmarine and Dread.
Another option would be a 2nd GMNDK but I dont have the model yet.
The last 210 pts are a bit questionable consisting of Techmarine and Dread. They should usually stay in the backfield.
Thoughts?
Psycannons make little to no sense on Inceptors, their job is to move behind midfields ruins turn 1 to pick off easy charges on any opponent's unit that moves into their threat range or to just grab midfields objectives (altough shunted dreadknights/gated do that much better for the purpose of Stranglehold/Ritual since they're tankier). You don't want them in the open shooting at stuff and once you've closed the gap trading off your melee weapon for a cannon isn't worth it.
Assuming you can swap their backpacks or people simply won't notice I'd swap the 4th strike squad for a third Inceptor squad. They're just that much better for the price.
Swapping out the Dread and rhinos for a small squad of paladins (always worth the price over Terminators if you're just "bringing an extra squad of dudes") would be better imho. Dread simply isn't worth it and rhinos aren't necessary for your guys holding objectives in the backfield, while Inceptors and NMDK should be the ones taking the field, together with whatever you placed in reserves.
Rhinos are really useful only against weird lists like the 9 Squigbuggies one (which I feel will only be an issue for a short period and mostly on TTS/Tournaments that allow for Proxy and therefore not something one should plan ahead against), for everything else units will either be standing in the deployment zone or teleporting/shunting/flying.
bmsattler wrote: I think you might be better off with dropping the dreadnaught and adding a squad or two of servitors for screening and cheap actions. I would use the rest of the points for various prognostications if you don't have those yet.
Indeed, two units of Servitors would be fine instead of the Dread, but unfortunately I don't have the models (at hand).
I'll probably try 5 Termies instead of Techmarine and Dread.
Another option would be a 2nd GMNDK but I dont have the model yet.
I want to run Servitors, but the current models are finecast AND ugly.
This is the part where I chime in with words like: "Proxy" and "kitbash" :-)
Seriously though: the only excuse I see to be still running ugly models in 2021 is if your store/tournament/whatever won't let you run anything 3rd party or kitbashed :-)
I might be iterating what I said but cutting one rhino to upgrade the termies to Paladins will be worth it under 99.9% of scenarios.
And I say this assuming Dreadknights are full kit already (sword, ranged weapons and teleporter), in case they aren't it's IMPERATIVE to drop a METAL BAWKS and properly dress them up.
I might be iterating what I said but cutting one rhino to upgrade the termies to Paladins will be worth it under 99.9% of scenarios.
Losing ObSec for an extra pt of WS and knowing an extra power is definitely not as easy a choice as you're making it--it certainly isn't in only 0.01% of scenarios that ObSec is the better choice. Having a 2+/5++ on an objective, or a 1+/4++ properly buffed and with Shadows up/in cover makes for a very solid anvil for the enemy to try and dislodge. They can't steal it from you without killing the unit to the last, and most other troops in the game aren't cut out to take on that kind of clapback.
And I say this assuming Dreadknights are full kit already (sword, ranged weapons and teleporter), in case they aren't it's IMPERATIVE to drop a METAL BAWKS and properly dress them up.
Your NDKs won't usually need a teleporter. It's handy when you happen to need it, so it's worth considering, but putting one or two on four NDKs, instead of all of them, saves you some points for upgrades or bodies. In the same vein, giving the psilencer to normal NDKs is imo a waste on their worse BS. Give them the flamer (which is a decent choice) and the psycannon (which is really our only anti-tank so we want as many as possible). And paying points for a melee weapon on models that likely aren't even going to see combat is an iffy choice. We all WANT to see our NDKs in combat...but no enemy will charge them unless the enemy is sure he can kill it before it swings back, and coming in from DS you are probably gonna get whacked after a single turn of shooting anyhow.
I might be iterating what I said but cutting one rhino to upgrade the termies to Paladins will be worth it under 99.9% of scenarios.
Losing ObSec for an extra pt of WS and knowing an extra power is definitely not as easy a choice as you're making it--it certainly isn't in only 0.01% of scenarios that ObSec is the better choice. Having a 2+/5++ on an objective, or a 1+/4++ properly buffed and with Shadows up/in cover makes for a very solid anvil for the enemy to try and dislodge. They can't steal it from you without killing the unit to the last, and most other troops in the game aren't cut out to take on that kind of clapback.
I do think it's quite an easy choice tbh.
The best use for a Terminator squad is to be placed in a ruin holding a backfield objective while being thougher to shift than a Strike Squad doing the same thing.
If you're aiming to send them inside an opponent's objective there aren't that many obsec units that will stand a charge from 5 Paladins (or even better the paladins AND the "first to the fray" grandmaster that joined up to ease their charge from deep strike). And the few things that can hold out (a Redemptor dreadnought getting it from a character for instance, assuming you have no "Amplification" in range) then you're probably better off not dumping a quite expensive unit into them.
It's obviously a bother when a guardsmen squad that was conscripted half an hour ago runs onto your objective and steals it from a unit of elite veteran warriors but with such a gap in efficency AND versatility I'd always gladly pay the price for the pallies over the "4th troop slot terminators"
Your NDKs won't usually need a teleporter. It's handy when you happen to need it, so it's worth considering, but putting one or two on four NDKs, instead of all of them, saves you some points for upgrades or bodies. In the same vein, giving the psilencer to normal NDKs is imo a waste on their worse BS. Give them the flamer (which is a decent choice) and the psycannon (which is really our only anti-tank so we want as many as possible). And paying points for a melee weapon on models that likely aren't even going to see combat is an iffy choice. We all WANT to see our NDKs in combat...but no enemy will charge them unless the enemy is sure he can kill it before it swings back, and coming in from DS you are probably gonna get whacked after a single turn of shooting anyhow.
You can save the teleporter on Dreadknights that you know you're going to deep strike if you're sure you'll always keep one "safe" in the sky for future interventions but as long as they start on the field moving one turn one and MAYBE another one turn 2 with the Shunt stratagem is something you should consider a given.
"inferior" BS is still a 3+ with rerolls from either Draigo/GrandMaster/Prescient Brotherhood so I don't really see how you could see it as a bad BS unless you only play Custodes as your other army.
Incinerator isn't a Psi-Weapon so it doesn't benefit from the +1S/AP stratagem or Amplification and those 2d6 even out to 7 hits which is pretty much what you'd get anyway with the Psilencer AFTER you've been bracketed/engaged in combat. So you're only gaining 1 point of Strenght which you can just get back with 1CP if you really need it while also buffing your ap AND the psycannon AP.
As for your last point unless you're playing on planet bowling ball against only AdMech or 9 Multi-Melta Assault Bikes lists they will see combat. T6 doesn't help but a 2+(or 1+) save with a 4+ invuln DOES help shrug some fire and when you can have 2 in your opponent's face turn 1 (gate+shunt) you do have a certain statistical solidity in assuming that one of the two will make it in combat.
Losing ObSec for an extra pt of WS and knowing an extra power is definitely not as easy a choice as you're making it--it certainly isn't in only 0.01% of scenarios that ObSec is the better choice.
I'd always gladly pay the price for the pallies over the "4th troop slot terminators"
This is where the disagreement lies, which is fine. I would be using Termies in a Patrol slot so I can take some NDKs as a different Brotherhood. The 10-man Terminators, with all those SBs, will then be able to benefit from the Swordbro combos that my GMDK and friends are applying. They are also great protection for my characters.
Your NDKs won't usually need a teleporter. It's handy when you happen to need it, so it's worth considering, but putting one or two on four NDKs, instead of all of them, saves you some points for upgrades or bodies. In the same vein, giving the psilencer to normal NDKs is imo a waste on their worse BS. Give them the flamer (which is a decent choice) and the psycannon (which is really our only anti-tank so we want as many as possible). And paying points for a melee weapon on models that likely aren't even going to see combat is an iffy choice. We all WANT to see our NDKs in combat...but no enemy will charge them unless the enemy is sure he can kill it before it swings back, and coming in from DS you are probably gonna get whacked after a single turn of shooting anyhow.
"inferior" BS is still a 3+ with rerolls from either Draigo/GrandMaster/Prescient Brotherhood so I don't really see how you could see it as a bad BS unless you only play Custodes as your other army.
Incinerator isn't a Psi-Weapon so it doesn't benefit from the +1S/AP stratagem or Amplification and those 2d6 even out to 7 hits which is pretty much what you'd get anyway with the Psilencer AFTER you've been bracketed/engaged in combat. So you're only gaining 1 point of Strenght which you can just get back with 1CP if you really need it while also buffing your ap AND the psycannon AP.
It seems like you're using your NDKs in a very different fashion than I am. I shove them forward as fast as possible to threaten as many targets as possible, which means they usually aren't in re-roll range since I don't clump them together. Having the auto-hits after they've degraded is a big improvement. They Gate and DS into the corners of the enemy army so they can't be ignored and so they soak up the enemy firepower while my more valuable infantry moves onto objectives. Since we're also super-hungry for CP, and since I have a GMDK with dual psiguns who always uses the strat, I don't use it on regular NDKs for two reasons: when the GMDK is alive he's being buffed; and when he's dead (which does take a few turns with his 3++ and Shadows), I want to spend my CP on other things than making a BS4 model (bc the NDKs have taken wounds) without rerolls get an extra pt of strength. My current 2000pt list has a GMDK with sword+psi+psy on the table supported by a NDK with sword+psi+psy, and two NDK with fists+psy+incin in orbit. None of them have teleporters. I get two into the frontlines using the Sigil and Gate. I've lost 2-4 every game....but I've also won the eight matches I've played with the new book, so sacrificing them for your infantry to achieve objective points seems like it's working! My last game against Ulthwe was 78-16, and the game before that against custom Necrons (with a 5+++ against mortals) was 90-30.
Not being a psi weapon makes the incinerator a non choice IMO. It would have merit if it was. Empyric amplification is really the only thing we got going for us to deal heavy damage so you should build around it on your dreadknights.
The 10-man Terminators, with all those SBs, will then be able to benefit from the Swordbro combos that my GMDK and friends are applying. They are also great protection for my characters.
The only 10-man squad which I'll use with this book is the Interceptor one, simply because unless I'm playing on a gakky table they can rush behind a mid-field ruin and from there ambush anything that gets close. And also because I tend to play Prescient Brotherhood so it's nice to have a perfect unit to use the stratagem/draigo's friendly jerking onto.
10-man termies (or strikes or paladins or purifiers) simply have no place in this meta/edition since you're always better off playing Minimal-size squads for the additional smites/psychic actions/charge rolls from reserves.
It seems like you're using your NDKs in a very different fashion than I am. I shove them forward as fast as possible to threaten as many targets as possible, which means they usually aren't in re-roll range since I don't clump them together. Having the auto-hits after they've degraded is a big improvement. They Gate and DS into the corners of the enemy army so they can't be ignored and so they soak up the enemy firepower while my more valuable infantry moves onto objectives.
That's kinda the point though, by giving at least some of them Teleporters you're going to threaten your opponent turn 1 with 2 (or 3 if he's dumb enough to shoot at your GM at the wrong time) NDKs.
Deep Striking them is obviously a viable tactical option but it unless the table is impossible to navigate (which is going to make it deep strike as well) or you're facing 8 Leman Russ Demolishers on a "green pasture" table reserving more than one is probably a waste of damage output opportunities.
I think that smite battery is still a bit viable. We lost the +1 to cast and the 24" of the brother captain but on the other hand if we stack the chaplain +1 to cast aura and the brother captain +1 one we can get up to +2 to cast.
Just considering 2 units in range + 2 extra smites from the brother captain and the chaplain is an average of 10.8 MW. If these 2 units in range are purifiers then the average increase up to 14.2 MW. And this is on top of the combo of the librarian or the 12" d3 damage aura combo of the ancient.
And I placed 2nd at a 30 people tournament last Sunday but that's just anecdotal evidence at best
Congratulation!
Wanna tell us a bit more about army list, scenarios, and battles?
Sure, my list was
Spoiler:
Draigo (Amp, gate and warp shaping)
Librarian (PSychich Epytome WL Trait, vortex of doom and purifying flame)
GMNDK with the 3++, THE OLD SWITCHEROO, +1 to charges and +1 to wound in the first turn of combat
5x Paladins (because 10 of my power armor models are still being painted) with Resilience and Flame
Everyone with just swords and bolters
Tables were pretty crap, small ruins in corners and one medium to big blocking piece in the center, with some sparse "craters" on the "axis" edges. So Almost bowling balls.
We played 3 6-objective missions (can't recall which ones exactly but I never took the mission secondary anyway so doesn't really matter).
First game was Against Dark Eldar 3ravagers+2raiders with lances, 10 incubi but no drazzar, two units of grotesques and some other units.
Notable point was starting in the choppy/shooty tide since Shadows was going to do Jack aganinst lances (which in the first turn the grandmaster tanked anyway with his 3++ thanks to a reroll), NDKGM bouncing badly on 4 Grotesques and getting whiped turn two by their melee, draigo dying to 5 witches over two turns of combat and chocking on his own sword after the charge.
I cleared the table and scored 88-69.
Second game against ultramarines, two redemptors with gatlings, Leviathan with Storm cannons, TWO Eradicators squads, one bladeguard squad, tigurius and then chaff.
I pretty much ignored the two redemptors the whole game since he deployed them poorly and gatlings were a non-issue (he needed to fire both of them at a squad to whipe it out so who cares). He kept the eradicators in reserves since he was afraid I'd pick them off too easily which actually allowed me to deploy much more forward and take the field. Game ended up 90 to something even if it took me FIVE turns to kill a bloody captain (the tanky one with the shield). I had picked assassination and he kept Tigurius+Lieutenant "safe" behind the two redemptors but at the last turn he moved them forward so i shunted a NMDK behind them ninja style and removed them.
Last game was the tense one. Chaos List with Emperor's children Terminator Bomb (all claws and combi-meltas), Belakor, lord discordant and 3 Decimators with petard shooters (4d3 shots, mortal wounds on wounds on rolls of 2+). They would've been quite the issue IF WE WEREN'T THE AEGIS.
Since most of his juicy stuff had the Daemon Keyword I just played our trump cards, both as the secondary objective and by just starting in the "Tide of rerolls" and sitting in it the whole game.
I went first, removed his unit of cultists (because he had octarius and only cultists+a unit of deamonettes to score it with) and dealt 4-5 wounds to Belakor.
Belakor dived for my NDKGM turn one and dealt 20 damage to him, he fought in death and chocked hard. But then the librarian went "BOOK SAYS NO" and dealt 12 MW to Bellakor sending him back where he came from.
Decimators were a pain but boy oh boy did the 5+++ shrug come into play.
MVPS: Draigo surviving the terminators charge with 1 wound left and a squad of interceptors whom:
-got charged by a dreadclaw drop pod, 3 dead
-got shot by three melta shots and 12 bolters, one last guy on one wound (and you can bet it that i rerolled the only failed armor save on the last bolter shot) hiding in the center for two turns casting Warp ritual and then flying off onto a corner obective securing me both Stranglehold and Hold more in the subsequent turn pretty much winning me a close game.
All in all a fun game, especially the last one because we finished much later than everyone else (and probably way out of time limit) so we had a crowd around the table who just went wild when I shrugged 3 out of 3 mortal wounds on the single wound Interceptor holding an objective (obviously after declaring "The emperor protects").
What melee weapon should I be giving my Librarian(s) and Apothecary? They have a good number of attacks and are bound to get in the thick of at some point (Apoth more so) so I want them to be able to do some damage. Is it worth giving either of them a hammer?
wuestenfux wrote: Thanks for the inside. Nice list. How large has the Termie bomb been?
Ten Terminators.
They did take out one dreadknight, one strike squad and my librarian in shooting (poor placement by me allowed one melta to get in range to him and he failed his save) then another strike squad and (in two turns) draigo.
They pretty much cleared out my deployment zone because Belakor was pretty much in the middle of it and I didn't notice the gap that would remain by killing him before charging him
Can anyone help me out? I'm returning to 40k and played a few 9th edition games with the old book. Looking to figure out what to do with the new rules.
I wanted to play an all terminator list, but I think that dream has died.
Here's what I'm thinking about running:
3x10 Strikes, 10 Interceptors, 1 GMNDK, 3 NDKs, and 2 characters. Can't figure out if I want a Librarian and Chaplain or Librarian and Bro-Cap. I feel like the Chaplain is better, even if he's supbar in melee, but I think the Bro-Cap's Psychic Locus will help with spamming spells on repeat.
I think I want to use Silverblades for the versatility of falling back and shooting as well turning the stormbolters into pistols for some melee dakka.
I don't know if I want to bother with Warding Staves since I need to spend CP for the invul and Sanctuary offers a flat 4++ for Strikes.
I'm thinking it might be nice to combat squad the units. Give 1 unit x2 Psycannons and put them on a backfield objective while the Justicar and 4 dudes charge forward. Another unit with x2 Incinerators to deep strike and burn something.
Not sure what to arm the Interceptors with, probably incinerators or nothing since they'll be on the move (and fast).
Not sure if I want to give my NDKs the teleport ability since the brotherhood allows them to fall back and shoot w/o having teleport, although giving them teleport gives me more options for the 2 strats and gives them the option to charge after falling back which the brotherhood strat does not.
Iggy88 wrote: Can anyone help me out? I'm returning to 40k and played a few 9th edition games with the old book...
Welcome back Brother.
While all-Terminators armies aren't cutting edge, one or two squads are fine, especially for backfield objectives holding; You could either play two 5-men squads of terminators (if you don't feel like buying all those Strike Squad boxes) or 5 Paladins (much better bang for your buck). Two squad of termies sitting in the backfield are also a great option for While We Stand We fight since neither artillery nor "light" deep strikers are gonna shift them easily (they have a 1+ in cover after all).
Psychic Locus isn't worth bringing a Captain for. It wouldn't be too bad if you castle up the psycannon combat squadded marines but he's just gonna be too slow to keep up with the NMDK AND you want your "shooty" squads spread out on the objectives on your side so there'll be too few instances of him spreading his love properly (and Psychic Locus isn't worth 2 CP PLUS the capain's cost PLUS his slot, just use those for the 3-dice cast or straight up rerolling).
I'd go for a Librarian+Chappy (or Librarian+Apothecary if you feel like playing terminators).
Don't bother with the incinerators on the interceptors, their job is to rush a midfield wall and from there move 12", charge the THIQQEST unit in your opponent's army and erase it with their 30ish nemesis weapons attacks.
Silverblades simply aren't that great. Remember that even if you can shoot with the strat you won't be eligible to Smite (which for your small squads is probably gonna do more damage anyway FOR FREE) and since you should put the teleporters on your dreadknight anyway most of your army will be able to do it better in the first place. Worst case scenario will be having to shoot a NMDK at something he's engaged with if you have multiple fights you'd rather back out of but that's not worth losing the potential of better brotherhoods (swords, rapiers or precogs).
Would the 5 Paladins be used the same as the 2x5 Termies? As backfield objective holders? Would they really be better than putting some strike squads back there? Or is the advice mostly because I already own them?
My list currently has a Librarian, Chaplain, and Apothecary. It's the HQ slot that concerned me more than the characters themselves; it's easy to fit an Apothecary, although I only added it because I had 155 spare points. How do I make the most out of the Chaplain and Apothecary? Should I play them as if they were attached to a squad or try to spread the love with them? Like, should I build the Chaplain and a specific unit to be a combo, or should it be more free flowing? Same with the Apothecary. They both have to be so close to other units and all the other units kind of want to be in a lot of different places.
Swordbearers seems like a very powerful brotherhood, but I don't want an all vehicle list and that seems to be what Swordbearers are made for. I like the idea of having 2 4++ invul spells, but I'd need to take a rhino, dreadnought, or land raider in order to benefit from the Swordbearers' warlord trait. Maybe it doesn't matter. Rapiers seems nice. If by "precogs" you mean Prescient, that one is probably my favorite in terms of concept.
I made my list and actually had points to spare, which was lovely:
GMNDK w/ sword, psiguns, teleporter
Librarian w/ halberd
Chaplain w/ Words of Power
10 Strikes w/ 2 psycannons, 8 halberds
10 Strikes w/ 2 incinerators, 8 halberds
10 Strikes w/ 10 halberds
10 Interceptors w/ 10 halberds
3 NDK w/ sword, psiguns, teleporters
With the spare points I added an Apothecary w/ halberd
I don't think the list is perfect and I haven't figured out how to best allocate the spells to the characters.
Would the 5 Paladins be used the same as the 2x5 Termies? As backfield objective holders? Would they really be better than putting some strike squads back there? Or is the advice mostly because I already own them?
I've used them offensively in a tournament as explicated not too many posts ago
:you don't pay for them to sit in the backfield, you send them forward to be a nuisance (especially if you can deep strike in a ruin or similar for that swee 0+ armour save). A terminator squad isn't terrible for holding an objective that could get a bit more "attention" from your opponent (due to lines of sight or terrain) since a strike squad in the open is just dead while terminators can take a bit more punishment.
My list currently has a Librarian, Chaplain, and Apothecary. .....
Yeah if you're bringing a Chaplain along you should plan out what he's going to do and grab his prayer in accordance. I honestly wouldn't bring him in the first palce to accomodate for more bodies. Apo is ok with terminators (especially for the "While We Stand" secondary if you go down that route) but kinda falls off in efficency with strikes.
Swordbearers seems like a very powerful brotherhood, but I don't want an all vehicle list and that seems to be what Swordbearers are made for. I like the idea of having 2 4++ invul spells, but I'd need to take a rhino, dreadnought, or land raider in order to benefit from the Swordbearers' warlord trait. Maybe it doesn't matter.
You don't take the walrord trait power anyway, you're taking it to make your dreadknights hit on 2+ (which I honestly always forget to do) and have a +1 to wound. Not much else.
Same kinda goes with Prescient, the warlord trait is "ok" if you have spare charachters to invest one cp into hoping to get more back through the game but in my current lists I just pick it for the stratagem (since I keep forgetting to use the power)
I made my list and actually had points to spare, which was lovely:
GMNDK w/ sword, psiguns, teleporter
Librarian w/ halberd
Chaplain w/ Words of Power
10 Strikes w/ 2 psycannons, 8 halberds
10 Strikes w/ 2 incinerators, 8 halberds
10 Strikes w/ 10 halberds
10 Interceptors w/ 10 halberds
3 NDK w/ sword, psiguns, teleporters
With the spare points I added an Apothecary w/ halberd
I don't think the list is perfect and I haven't figured out how to best allocate the spells to the characters.
Incinerators are kinda bad, you should just go double psycannon on both 10 man strikes if you're just gonna combat squad them. And you MUST take the Psycannon on the NMDKs, it's your only anti-tank.
Unless you really love the model I'd drop the Chaplain, lower the third strike squad to 5 guys and either bring more Interceptor squads (they win the game for you on plenty of Secondary Objectives) or take some "distraction" paladins.
GMNDK - sword, psiguns, teleporter. Unsure what warlord trait to give him. I gave him Divination for the CP but otherwise I think First to the Fray or Unyielding Anvil are good. I just don't know how useful Unyielding Anvil would be on a DK warlord. Unsure what spells to give him either, currently he's holding Empyric Amplification and Warp Shaping.
Librarian - halberd, Gate, Sanctuary. I want to give the Librarian the Gem, and so I want him to have the most important spells so I can get the most out of the gem.
10 Strikes - swords, x2 psycannons. Combat squadding the psycannons on an objective and likely deep striking the other half.
10 Strikes - same as above
5 Strikes - deep striking with the other 2 5-man squads.
2x10 Interceptors - halberds
3x1 NDK - sword, psiguns, teleporter. Probably deep strike 1 or 2 of them. Might Gate and Shunt 2 of them towards the mid-field early on, especially if I don't go first and if my GMNDK is shot at and teleports using the Sigil. Then I could have 3 baddies near the enemy early on.
The downside to losing the characters is that I'm getting a lot less Dominus spells now. Also, if I took a 3rd character I could turn the 4 DKs into a Spearhead detachment as Swordbearers and then keep my infantry detachment Rapiers or Prescient.
I've started playing with 1k lists since I'm new again and also since I don't have all these models, so I thought it might be better to start small.
GMNDK & Librarian (both basically the same as in 2k)
5 Strikes w/ swords
5 Strikes w/ swords
5 Strikes w/ swords
5 Interceptors w/ halberds
1 NDK w/ sword, psiguns, & teleporter
The 1k list is essentially the 2k list divided in half, more or less.
GMNDK & Librarian (both basically the same as in 2k)
5 Strikes w/ swords
5 Strikes w/ swords
5 Strikes w/ swords
5 Interceptors w/ halberds
1 NDK w/ sword, psiguns, & teleporter
In view of deployment, three units must start at the battlefield.
Remember that footslogging is a slow way to die.
3 units? I thought I needed at least half my units and half my points on starting on the field.
The GMNDK, Librarian, and NDK would be starting on the board, as well as the interceptors and probably 1 of the Strike squads to hold the backfield objective.
I guess I'm new to power armor, since previously I was exclusively using terminators and no land raiders so no transports. But deep striking and teleporting seemed to be enough. I've never really felt like I'm footslogging with GKs despite having no transports just due to how easy it is to camp on objectives from basically turn 1.
Split one of the 2x10 Interceptors - halberds into 2x5, you can only buff up one anyway and it will give you more versatility. You can still combat squad them ofc but that's what you should be planning on doing anyway with one team.
The +1 to wound in the first turn of combat works greatly as a second WT on the Sword Grandmaster since the swipe is only S6.
Don't forget that the Prescient WT is actually a psychic ACTION, that means no other powers for it so I'd just skip it altogether on a librarian.
Splitting into two detachments is nice and it would allow you to grab another GMNDK but remember that we eat CP like a diabetic that spent the night submerged in insulin eats candy, so that extra detachment plus the extra warlord traits that you want around the field could bite you in the ass a bit.
So, what's actually good about the brotherhoods? It seems people are liking Swords, Rapier, Prescient, and Ward, but what is it about each of these that's actually wanted?
For swords it's the stratagem and the spell, but not the warlord trait? Is it the same with Rapier? Is the +1A spell worth more than Hammerhand? I know you can use a strat to combo them, but it seems that that spell overlaps with Hammerhand a bit. With Prescient, I like the universality of the stratagem but it doesn't seem as powerful as the others.
I'm trying to pin down a brotherhood and when comparing them it would help to know what parts of the brotherhood I should actually be using and which parts aren't relevant to the comparison.
Iggy88 wrote: So, what's actually good about the brotherhoods? It seems people are liking Swords, Rapier, Prescient, and Ward, but what is it about each of these that's actually wanted?
For swords it's the stratagem and the spell, but not the warlord trait? Is it the same with Rapier? Is the +1A spell worth more than Hammerhand? I know you can use a strat to combo them, but it seems that that spell overlaps with Hammerhand a bit. With Prescient, I like the universality of the stratagem but it doesn't seem as powerful as the others.
I'm trying to pin down a brotherhood and when comparing them it would help to know what parts of the brotherhood I should actually be using and which parts aren't relevant to the comparison.
For Rapiers hammerhand is generally much better than +1A, but there are very good units that do not have access to hammerhand. A lot of successful tourny lists so far have featured multiple units of Rapiers Interceptors, who can easily cross vast distances in a turn using their move/shoot/move power, and then next turn when things get close they can combo the Rapiers +1A power and exploding hits strat.
So the question is whether I want to give my Interceptors +1A and exploding 6s to hit in melee or give my DKs +1 to hit and +1 to wound with ranged attacks? I'm guessing the Prescient strat isn't as good as either, but has more opportunities to be useful (melee and shooting as well as being useful for any unit).
Do I have that right?
What I'd like to do is pick something that helps to balance the army's effectiveness in the shooting and fight phases. I feel like the army is quite powerful in the fight phase, and the shooting phase could use a bit of a buff. I think the buffs to the DKs hitting and wounding in the shooting phase would pair nicely with some of the other things that are basically auto-includes, like Tide of Convergence and Empyric Amplification. I could put Empyric Amplification on my GMNDK, teleport within 12" of an enemy, Mark it for Death and use Empyric Amplification, then hit it with another unit with Empyric Lodestone and, with Tide of Convergence, my other DKs could light it up.
That feels like it has more going for it than buffing the interceptors, particularly because the army feels like it struggles to reliably take down tough targets from a distance and the Sword stuff helps to fix that. Whereas they're already very powerful in melee.
I also think, even though Swords mostly only affects vehicles, the fact that it's not a buff to my own units but a debuff to enemy units, it makes it easier to MSU the army and still be able to enhance multiple units. Marked for Death could even be a convenient way to cancel out the movement penalty for moving PAGKs with psycannons.
Both Swordbearers and Rapiers can be good, but look at the Warp Charge values. Even Gate of Infinity isn't nearly as guaranteed as it used to be. Swordbearers are good against large units, whether vehicles or big squads of like Terminators. You can pick one thing and really be fairly sure it will die. That doesn't do much if the opponent is running MSU.
There have been people who did really well with other Brotherhoods that leaned more into the utility abilities like redeploys and getting extra CP. It seems to be down to individual preference, with Rapiers being easier to use but not necessarily the most effective overall.
Both Swordbearers and Rapiers are decent.
The first is for shooty boost and the second for melee support.
As GK are equipped with both decent shooty and melee weapons, the choice is more personal preference and play style.
I usually like to keep the enemy at arm's length and go for the (melee) kill if enough softened up.
I feel like I'm probably going to want to use Swordbearers to buff the DK shooting, especially since the spell practically turns the heavy psycannons into lascannons, 2+ wounding t7 vehicles/monsters and 3+ wounding t8 stuff. And since the DKs and infantry have Hammerhand for melee. I plan to have almost 800 points worth of DKs, while my Interceptors would only be about 500 points worth of my army. It was helpful to note that the debuffs won't work as well against MSU enemies, but I feel like anything that would be super tough and hard to destroy would already be a single model, whether the enemy is MSU or not. I imagine the rest of the army would be strong enough to take down targets that aren't super tough now that the heavy psycannons are s8 instead of s7.
Ideally, I would like a brotherhood that helps with more universal/utility stuff, but I don't feel like I'd be able to effectively utilize redeployment and I think the Prescient rerolling 1s for hitting and wounding overlaps too much with auras and Hammerhand. I like the Fatal Precog spell, but I don't know how practical it would be given that it's 12". I feel like if I'm within 12" of an enemy I'd rather be casting Hammerhand.
My new list only has 2 characters, GMNDK and Librarian, which is enough to include all of the spells that I feel I absolutely want to include: Gate, Empyric Amplification, Sanctuary, and Warp Shaping. I'm wondering how to best organize those 4 spells between the two characters. I want to make sure that the Librarian has the correct spells to make the Gem worth giving to him and not be wasted. I'm thinking Gate and Sanctuary on the Librarian, since they both have 18" range and he'll be the slowest guy in the army, and because I can see both of those spells wanting to be cast practically every turn. And then I can give the GMNDK Empyric Amplification and Warp Shaping, since I'll only want to cast Warp Shaping once or twice, and I'll want to cast Empyric Amplification when he's within in range but can still use Smite when he's not in range. These spells definitely feel hard to get off, warp charge 7 without +1 to cast isn't super reliable. Are people using CP nearly every psychic phase to ensure the spells go off?
My new list only has 2 characters, GMNDK and Librarian, which is enough to include all of the spells that I feel I absolutely want to include: Gate, Empyric Amplification, Sanctuary, and Warp Shaping. I'm wondering how to best organize those 4 spells between the two characters. I want to make sure that the Librarian has the correct spells to make the Gem worth giving to him and not be wasted. I'm thinking Gate and Sanctuary on the Librarian, since they both have 18" range and he'll be the slowest guy in the army, and because I can see both of those spells wanting to be cast practically every turn. And then I can give the GMNDK Empyric Amplification and Warp Shaping, since I'll only want to cast Warp Shaping once or twice, and I'll want to cast Empyric Amplification when he's within in range but can still use Smite when he's not in range. These spells definitely feel hard to get off, warp charge 7 without +1 to cast isn't super reliable. Are people using CP nearly every psychic phase to ensure the spells go off?
Instead of a Librarian I use Draigo for Sanctuary, Gate, and Warp Shaping,
while the GMNDK gets Empyric Amplification and Vortex of Doom.
My new list only has 2 characters, GMNDK and Librarian, which is enough to include all of the spells that I feel I absolutely want to include: Gate, Empyric Amplification, Sanctuary, and Warp Shaping. I'm wondering how to best organize those 4 spells between the two characters. I want to make sure that the Librarian has the correct spells to make the Gem worth giving to him and not be wasted. I'm thinking Gate and Sanctuary on the Librarian, since they both have 18" range and he'll be the slowest guy in the army, and because I can see both of those spells wanting to be cast practically every turn. And then I can give the GMNDK Empyric Amplification and Warp Shaping, since I'll only want to cast Warp Shaping once or twice, and I'll want to cast Empyric Amplification when he's within in range but can still use Smite when he's not in range. These spells definitely feel hard to get off, warp charge 7 without +1 to cast isn't super reliable. Are people using CP nearly every psychic phase to ensure the spells go off?
The Gem is a one-use thing like most visions/gifts. Think of it like a souped-up Warpstone Token from Fantasy Skavens if you will.
So it's good for the crucial turn but in general what I do is use the 3-dice cast stratagem on someone that's going to put out two important powers (the Grandmaster Amplyfing something after shunting or draigo casting Sanctuary on my 10-men Interceptors), especially if there are enemy denies in range, and save the Gate-fling CP reroll for the guy in the back outside deny range.
Warp Shaping is a one-time-only power in almost all games which is why i like to keep it on Draigo as he casts 2 but knows 3 powers.
Your main amplification should be the Grandmaster since he will be in your opponent's face as long as he's alive and with the rangeboost+ his 9" of movment + Not giving a feth about being out in the open he can make sure you drop it wherever you want. Librarian as a second power carrier isn't terrible but I don't feel like he's going to be in crucial positions that often. Unless he tries to Gate+Amplify something in an heroic sacrifice.
As for Rapiers vs Precient I'd like to point out that in order to give +1A all around you'd need to either be in the worst tide from the previous turn (so no shadows) or skipping going into Convergence (so no mortal wounds) so it's not as widespread as it seems.
And the prescient stratagem actually gives you more wounds on your target (and more reliability) if you don't have access to rerolls because of positioning/opportunity/Hammerhandless-unit. While the table is small and draigo rerolls are juicy, we must be sure that our trades go trough favourably and therefore the "safer" option of "let's just make sure i don't get screwed over by rolling 10 ones on these 16 attack rolls" is, imoh, the best way to go with this type of army.
And this comes from an Imperial Guard player, where the mindset is "who cares if this demolisher missed all his shots, I brought 7 more exactly for these scenarios)
Is there EVER a good reason to give PAGK or Termies any special weapon other than Psycannons? They've always just felt so much more useful than the other two that I'm straining for a reason to ever give a unit Incinerators and especially Psilencers.
MAYBE a 10-man unit of Purifiers I'd give 4 Incinerators to, but anything else, I don't think so...
Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote: Is there EVER a good reason to give PAGK or Termies any special weapon other than Psycannons? They've always just felt so much more useful than the other two that I'm straining for a reason to ever give a unit Incinerators and especially Psilencers.
MAYBE a 10-man unit of Purifiers I'd give 4 Incinerators to, but anything else, I don't think so...
Not sure if it is a good enough reason, but as bit of a benchmark a Psilencer Purgation squad and Judicar with generic 2 damage nemesis weapon is the same points cost as Intercessors with a 2 damage power fist Sergeant. Both units can fight about the same, but the intercessors would have to stack tactical doctrine, the 2cp rapid fire stratagem and be carrying auto bolt rifles to put out a similar volume of strength 4 ap-1 shots. They seem like an ok unit to just have sitting around on objectives or doing psychic actions, occasionally benefitting from empyric amplification or psychic onslaught if you have no better options available.
For any other units, I'd be a bit hard pressed to justify it though, often even the Psycannon is a tough sell.
Iggy88 wrote: So, what's actually good about the brotherhoods? It seems people are liking Swords, Rapier, Prescient, and Ward, but what is it about each of these that's actually wanted?
For swords it's the stratagem and the spell, but not the warlord trait? Is it the same with Rapier? Is the +1A spell worth more than Hammerhand? I know you can use a strat to combo them, but it seems that that spell overlaps with Hammerhand a bit. With Prescient, I like the universality of the stratagem but it doesn't seem as powerful as the others.
I'm trying to pin down a brotherhood and when comparing them it would help to know what parts of the brotherhood I should actually be using and which parts aren't relevant to the comparison.
You make a real good point. The brotherhoods are a very very minor thing. Were talking about a stratagem you might use once or twice in a game instead of other stratagems which are very good / A spell you will almost never use (hammerhand and smite are usually better options) and a warlord trait (some of which are bad and most situational and or have an opportunity cost).
Id say Persistent Brethren has the most benefit. it can buff an isolated dreadknights shooting for essentially free every turn (when you factor in the warlord trait - which is the reason you take this brotherhood). It's also good for allowing you to spam your other offensive stratagems as well. The spell is really not great but if your smites are high you might consider casting it?
Swordbearers main appeal is it the +1 to wound spell. Which while good - only affects other vehicles and has a 12" cast range. So who is gonna cast this power - your GMDK? Well he was already probably casting emperyic amp...Which honestly that target was already getting a lot of heat anyways...not really seeing the need for this? The +1 to hit stratagem is just too expensive to even consider IMO. Warlord trait is terrible.
Raipiers looks great on paper but ifs not like you are struggling for melee damage. plus with MSU the exploding 6's doesn't really hit that hard anyways. power is weaker than hammerhand and WL trait is garbo.
In any case...I really doubt any of this is going to make or break you. And they are all situational.
Wardmakers I initially thought was the weakest of them but it's kinda growing into my default. As the only thing that really scares me is my powers being denied or losing a crucial power for the rest of the game. The Warlord trait for 8+ to cast is undeniable is very good for a GMDK casting empyric. The spell can be situationally awesome vs some armies and the stratagem allows you to actually consider taking warpshaping in your list and take real advantage of the tides. It took experience to figure this out. Then again my main opponent does play a lot of TS.
I am wondering about the viability of allying, specifically with Imperial Guard. The Brotherhoods just don't seem very appealing. They're not useless, but they don't feel essential. I would, however, lose access to the Tides. Those are the only things that I'd lose if I allied with Guard, right?
I definitely don't want to be a Guard player with Grey Knight allies; I'd want to be a Grey Knight player with Guard added to the force, mostly for bodies, objective campers, and long range firepower.
It seems like most people aren't taking Warp Shaping and are just sitting in either Convergence or Shadows for the whole game. So is losing +1 armor save & -1 to hit, or +6" range and mortal wounds on 6s in melee worth exchanging for some guardsmen and tanks?
Also, if I took roughly 50% of my army as Guard, would that allow me to deep strike my entire GK force?
I don't play super competitively, but how much worse would my army be if I decided to ally with Guard instead of staying pure?
Iggy88 wrote: I am wondering about the viability of allying, specifically with Imperial Guard. The Brotherhoods just don't seem very appealing. They're not useless, but they don't feel essential. I would, however, lose access to the Tides. Those are the only things that I'd lose if I allied with Guard, right?
I definitely don't want to be a Guard player with Grey Knight allies; I'd want to be a Grey Knight player with Guard added to the force, mostly for bodies, objective campers, and long range firepower.
It seems like most people aren't taking Warp Shaping and are just sitting in either Convergence or Shadows for the whole game. So is losing +1 armor save & -1 to hit, or +6" range and mortal wounds on 6s in melee worth exchanging for some guardsmen and tanks?
Also, if I took roughly 50% of my army as Guard, would that allow me to deep strike my entire GK force?
I don't play super competitively, but how much worse would my army be if I decided to ally with Guard instead of staying pure?
Not that much worse. Take Strike squads in rhinos and you pretty much lose nothing of value for your GK portion of the army. You wont have the 6's in melee being mortals (doesn't matter - strike squads still win in combat vs pretty much everything that isn't wyches) The rhinos weren't getting tides of shadows anyways. All you lose is some access to stratagems from brotherhoods. However you still have access to a host of excellent stratagems. Guard aren't particularly strong at antitank though or anything - so you are just adding in weaker units at this point.
If I was gonna bring an ally with GK. It would be admech with lazer chickens (whats stupid is you would still get ALL your admech rules lol).
Or perhaps - take Imperial knights and spam armigers.
I am toying with the idea of bringing Gman with GK. He has a 12" +1 to charge and reroll 1's to hit for all imperium so strike squads deep striking get a lot out of it.
I just played against Nurgle Daemons army and got mullahed. We are not the Daemon killer we used to be. Only 1 model (Draigo) any good against daemons and although we have 1 tide just cannot do much against them.
Played a 2k game as follows
Kaldor
Grand Master
Brother Captain
2 x 5 Terminators
1 x 5 SS 10 Interceptors
10 Purifiers
Dreadnought
2 x Dreadknights with Greatsword. 1 had heavy psycannon and the other had a gatling psilencer.
The amount of recover wounds characters, disgustingly resilient saves he made was a joke and then for 2cp whatever I killed he could bring back how do you beat that?
The problem is not army itself, but more like your list. Terminators are bad, purifires are worse than interceptors, grand master should be in Nemesis dreadknights.
We have plenty of tools to deal with daemons.
All psi-silencer and stormbolter shots are super efficient in killing their infantry.
Psycannons with empyric amplification and nemesis weapons are super efficient at killing their multiple wound models.
On top of that we have access to army wide good save which they will struggle to break becouse they dont have much of good ap in their weapons.
Just build army list better, start somewhere around GMNDK and 3 NDK all with both psycannons and psisilencers, get a techmarine and some mixture of strike marines, interceptors and buffing heroes.
You will do much better
I actually have a similar list! In my last game, I took down a Monolith in one round of shooting by swapping Tides to Convergence (so that all my heavy guns were in range) and then cursing it with Empyric Amplification.
5 NDKs, 2 of them GMs. The amount of board presence is usually shocking to other players--they're still used to GK being slow and plodding. But with a shunt, a Gate, Vanguard, and a Sigil teleport, I am suddenly everywhere straightaway. I think maybe I should put the Sigil on the non-warlord GMDK, so that the first one gets a vanguard move and the second gets a teleport.
Played another game on Friday against IF, and I did mix up the relics.
He had (roughly) Grand Chappie, Master Apothecary, Killy Lt, and Judicator for characters. 3x5 vanilla Intercessors, 2x6 bolter Inceptors, 3x bolter Agressors, 4x Eradicators, a Redemptor with plasma, and a big shooty Primaris laser tank.
I split one of the GKI so that I could hold objectives a little better. I got first turn and killed the tank, the Agressors, 4 Inceptors in one unit, and a unit of Intercessors. Empyric Amplification is I think enough to kill big targets, which is one of the reasons I've been taking Blades of Victory instead of Swordbearers--I don't need the Sword power, and I really want the BoV warlord trait. I held 3/4 objectives and shunted a NDK into his backfield (where he had left a large hole). I pushed to midfield with my 10 GKI, when then got mobbed by 3 Bladeguard, a Lt, a Chappie, and a Judicator. With shooting and the attacks, the entire 10x GKI went down! The NDK in his deployment also went down. The Redemptor did 6 wounds to my GMDK warlord (even with a 3++) and then died in close combat against the two GMDKs. 5x Intercessors shot down one GKSS on an objective and then lost 4 in the fight phase when they charged me (why you would charge -2AP 2D weapons with Intercessors, when all you have is flat cc, I have no idea...I guess he really really hoped that he could flip that objective?)
In my turn, everything moved forward. His Bladeguard had consolidated in such a way that his four characters were now open to all the DK shooting, so I killed three of them (Apothecary first, then Chappie, finally Lt.) My reserve NDK plopped into the corner where it could benefit from a GM aura and finish off some Inceptors. I moved the wounded GMDK warlord away from the Eradicators and Gated him into a position to fire on the Bladeguard and Inceptors that were still alive. The other full health GMDK moved towards the Eradicators, and I killed 2 of them. I wiped the last Intercessor and the closeby Inceptors, securing my objective with 4 GKSS and 4 GKI.
On his turn, bottom of 2nd, he tried to retaliate against the GMDK that had shot at the Eradicators, but I used the Sigil to jump away! He ended up punking two GKSS, which imo is a huge waste on his part and a decent trade on mine. He charged the GKI with 2 Bladeguard (one had died to mortals) and Judicator; I intervened with the Apothecary. Because of how he allocated his attacks, he killed only two GKI and did 4 wounds on the Apothecary. The Judicator whiffed and the GKI killed him. The Apothecary killed a Bladeguard.
We called it, since he had a Bladeguard and two Eradicators left. I played out the objectives and end score was 89-16. I maxed out Primary, and had taken Teleport Assault (which I only got 6), Stranglehold (15), and Assassination (13). I'm not sure how I feel about Teleport Assault, but I do like Stranglehold and Assassination.
Now we have seen a few GK army lists with 2 GMNDKs.
It appears that such lists contain
2x GMNDK,
3x NDK,
2x 10 Interceptors,
3x 5 GKSS (may vary) and
some further HQs.
In view of the HQs, I'm a bit indifferent as the choices vary from 2x Techmarine to 1 Chappy and 1 Libby.
Not sure what to do with the Techmarines? They are slow and can hardly keep up with the units (NDKs) to be repaired.
I've been running the 3+1 dreadknight/GMNDK list with interceptors, 3x5 strikes, chappy, Draigo and and purifiers for their purifying flame. I think the fifth dreadknight would be worth it.
Four games in and 3-1 so far,
As much as I love Draigo, I'm not sure I'm getting the 180 points value out of him versus a different HQ.
I wish there was a way to speed up the techmarines, I have one but have not tried him out for the reasons you stated @Wuestenfux
I do like the chaplains litanies for buffing a big squad of interceptors, but he suffers the same issues as the other HQs, just too dang slow.
Played a great game on Friday against my friend Matt Evans, who is currently #68 on ITC. He's been into Tyranids for as long as I've been into GK, so he's quite dialed into his army. This was my most competitive game so far with the new book. (Four kids makes it difficult to have time for lots of games.)
He brought a Leviathan detachment and a GSC patrol.
Swarmlord, Broodlord, flying Hive Tyrant, some forgeworld beastie with 18 wounds, Malaceptor, 3x Warriors, 6x Hive Guard, 20 genestealers
Magus, Shooty assassin cowboy, and 3x6 cultists with hand flamers.
My list is a Prescient Patrol and a BoV Spearhead
Techmarine with healing relic, psipsy GMDK with sword and sigil and Noble Death, 2x5 GKSS, 2x10 GKI, Apothecary with Divination
Libby with Gem and Matrix (Gate/Vortex), psipsy GMDK with hammer/shield and FttF/Vanguard Aggression, 2x psycin/Teleport NDKs, 1x psipsy NDK with sword, 4x servitors
We played 22 Sweep and Clear, he got first turn.
I took Purifying Ritual, Stranglehold, and Assassination
He took Engage Fronts, ROD, and Direct Assault (the mission one)
As an aside, the Techmarine healed 12 wounds in this game, and all four times putting the dreadknight up a bracket, which imo is definitely more value than the Chappie I'd been running.
As another aside, after writing this report, I noticed I didn't mention any Stratagem use. I'm not going to add that in, but I did use Buff Guns on a GMDK every single turn, as well as Cast on 3 and Deny on 3. I used Transhuman once and Cast Again once or twice. I rerolled invulns against high damage attacks, with mixed results.
Buff Guns is my most-used stratagem, with Cast on 3 coming in second and Transhuman being my pocket play (although I've found it really difficult to judge the efficiency of this strat, since the high damage attacks you want to protect against are usually low volume, making off-the-cuff calculations hard to perform in a time crunch).
There was quite a bit of terrain, so I holed up in a building with my infantry and arranged the NDKs around that, splitting one of the GKIs and reserving one of the GKSS. I moved up my Vanguard and friend, and he moved up the went first.
Top of T1
Spoiler:
Flyrant moved into position to charge my scouting NDKs. Genestealers advanced and set up to charge my Prescient GMDK and another NDK next to him. He got catalyst onto the Hive Tyrant and failed/denied the rest. He shot my PAGK with Hive Guard, and since I was in shadows it was -1 to hit although I didn't get my +1sv because of Hive Guard sillyness. They shot twice and removed 3 GKSS and 2 GKI from one of the small units, both of who passed morale. Something big shot at my Blades GMDK, who popped his Shield. (Note: the shield works for the remainder of the turn, which two people argued with me about until I showed them the book...so be aware of your strengths!)
His Flyrant charged the psipsy NDK, avoiding the shielded GMDK, and I did a wound in OW (which was a foolish choice on my part). His Genestealers charged both the DKs they had set up for...this is where I should've overwatched, since the flamer would've removed several models. I took quite a few wounds in the stealer combat, getting down to 7 on the GMDK and 6 on the NDK. The other one did quite well, failing a single save for 3dmg. In return, I swung back with the sword and put 4dmg total onto the Flyrant. The other two killed a lot of stealers, leaving six-ish (the greatsword is pretty awesome). My opponent was quite upset at not killing anything, and honestly I think probably one of the NDKs should've died but he didn't roll as well as he should've, and I passed more 4++s than I should've. I need to remember my flamer for OW.
He scored 2pts for Engage.
10-12 his favour
Bottom of T1
Spoiler:
5 man GKI moved towards the objective on his board edge, outside his deployment. 3 man GKI shunted to the other objective outside the deployments, hugging a ruin. GKSS stood still and the untouched NDK set up for some shooting. The Techmarine ran forward and gave 3 wounds back to the sword GMDK, who had taken several from stealers. I failed a lot of psychic, because of Shadows and his insane deny rolls. I popped the Gem to ensure a Gate and a Vortex from the Libby. I got a perils on my limping NDK, and while the smite killed a genestealer, he took 2 wounds :/ I teleported the 5 man GKI onto the objective so that I was sitting on 4 total--mine, middle, two in the corners. I was denied on 3/4 Rituals, so I only got 1pt. I did some smites that chipped some wounds on big monsters.
In shooting, I didn't do as much as I would've liked. My NDK did quite poorly against the stealers, getting them down to three models. The engaged sword GMDK then shot the psycannon at a big guy and the psilencer at the stealers, thinking I could remove three models with my 12 shots. Wrong! and there was one left, making me waste the psycannon. The NDK with the Flyrant did around four wounds, which was pretty good, and the other GMDK did wounds on the Maleceptor (although he was also making 4++s like a boss).
In assault, GMDK charged Flyrant, finishing him off with the hammer.
I scored Stranglehold and Assassination.
17-12, my favor
We each had only 2CP remaining at this point in time.
Top of T2
Spoiler:
Opponent held 1 objective, scoring 5pts on Primary. He stated that his intention this round was to deny me any Primary points. Broodlord lurked in a ruin, Malaceptor and FW monster inched up to touch the center objective (and therefore contest it with my GMDK), and Magus hid behind the bigguns. 3x Warriors moved towards the right objective, which had only 3 GKI on it. The gunslinger and a cultist squad appeared by the left objective, which was held by 5x GKI, and another cultist squad appeared within 3" of me, taking my back objective! He got off Catalyst on the Broodlord and did some psychic damage on DK, though my 5+++ really helped there. After a lot of shooting, the crippled NDK had with only 2 wounds remaining, the 3x GKI on the right objective were dead, the 5x GKI were dead to flamers and pistols, the servitors were dead from 6d6 hand flamers. In assault, I finished off the remaining single stealer tying up my NDK and GMDK. The NDK consolidated backwards towards the backfield cultists (since he was so damaged) and GMDK moved towards the FW monster.
He got 3 more for Engage and 3 for Direct Assault.
17-23, his favor
He had only 1 CP left
Bottom of T2
Spoiler:
My sword GMDK moved over to the right objective, and my GKSS dropped onto this. I popped Noble Death aura so that I would definitely hold that one. Both flamer NDKs moved to tackle the cultists in the backfield. I planned to use the full-health NDK to hold this one, since I thought it was unlikely that Hive Guard would kill him in one turn. The hammer GMDK in center field set up to charge the Malaceptor. My 10-man GKSS moved onto the left objective and spread out in a ring with the objective at the middle, so that he couldn't pop up and take it like last time. Mr Techie healed for 3 wounds, and the Libby ran onto the center objective to put another body there. In psychic, I got off 3/4 Rituals, earning me 4pts! I also put Amplification onto the Malaceptor. I wiped both cultist units but left the gunslinger alive. The Warriors on the right flank were toasted, and the Malaceptor survived with 6 wounds to 2x psipsy DKs with Amplification.
Mr Hammertime charged the FW monster, who had a 3+ and no invuln, T7 with 18 wounds. I swung with my 6 attacks, hitting 5 times and wounding 4. With my damage rolls, I got 21 damage, insta-gibbing the scary beast (whatever it was). My opponent was pretty salty. A bystander said that no matter what, it's always hilarious when something takes 20+ damage in one go, and I had to agree in this case! Statistically I should've done only 10-16 damage, so killing it outright was lucky on my part, but I suppose my Victorious Grand Master had had ENOUGH!
I scored 3 for Stranglehold.
24-23, my favor.
Top of T3
Spoiler:
He scored 5 for Primary. He brought in the final cultist unit to support the gunslinger on the left objective against the 10x GKI. He moved up the Swarmlord to try and take the center objective against my Libby, Techie, psipsy NDK, and hammer GMDK. Psychic did a number of wounds to various DKs and managing to kill, through psychic and shooting, the psipsy NDK. The Hive Guard split their fire and took down the two little GKSS on my back objective, 1 of the GKSS on the right objective, the Libby in center field, and some GKI. The cultists, Hive Guard, and gunslinger killed 4 of the 10 GKI and they passed morale, leaving me on 3 objectives with the center contested. He charged the Swarmlord into hammer GMDK, and didn't kill him. I swung back and mopped him up. GMDK had 4 left. Magus charged the Techmarine and managed to do nothing, and was punked in return with the Omnissiah's blesssed axe.
He scored 2 for Engage.
24-30, his favor.
Bottom of T3
Spoiler:
I got 15 on primary this time, holding 3 objectives and contesting the middle. My sword GMDK moved into center field and shot at the Malaceptor, killing it finally. Again, a lot of denies and fails, with only 2/3 Rituals working. NDK shunted to support the GKI, and they together killed the cultists and Gunslinger. The Hammer shot at and killed the Broodlord in a ruin.
I scored 3 Stranglehold and 13 for Assassination, maxing out that latter secondary.
55-30, my favor.
Top of T4 and end game
Spoiler:
He shot with the Hive Guard and then called it, after killing the Techmarine and the limping NDK.
I played out my turns and got 15pts on T4 and T5, maxing Primary. I also maxed Ritual and Stranglehold.
So that was my first 100pt game with the new book, and it was against a highly-rated player who is taking that exact list to the GT later this month. I was very pleased with my performance, and saw ways to further improve.
Do you think that the heavy bolters on the Razors are a good addition to your list? Why take those instead of basic Rhinos? I personally don't think that 5 points for one S5 AP-1 D2 shot is worth it (30pts over the transport for the 6-shot gun)
Grey Knights Spearhead, 0CP, 880pts
Blades of Victory
HQ Librarian – 105
Dominus (Gate, Sanctuary), Gift (Gem of Inoktu)
Stave
Grand Master in NDK – 225, Exemplar of the Silver Host (-1CP)
Warlord (Anvil, Vanguard), Dominus (EmpAmp, Bonds), Relic (Scrolls), Gift (Servant)
Psycannon, Psilencer, Greathammer, Dreadfist
ELITES
Servitors, 4 – 30
HEAVY
Dreadknight – 175
Psycannon, Psilencer, Greatsword, Dreadfist
Dreadknight – 170
Psycannon, Psilencer, Dreadfists, Teleporter
Dreadknight – 165
Psycannon, Incinerator, Dreadfists, Teleporter
We played Scouring, which was a little tough against so many fast daemons. I didn't score Primary on T1, and I missed Stranglehold and Purifying Ritual on T1 also. I obviously took Destroy the Daemon and got full points on that, with full primary, 12/15 Stranglehold, and 14/15 Purifying Ritual.
The things to take away are: Belakor supported by the advance+charge aura is pretty nuts. He killed a Librarian and a NDK in one fight phase....and then died a horrible death, but still.
My opponent did not bring back a single Keeper, instead opting for the units of Fiends that I kept destroying. I think that was a huge tactical error on her part, she just got excited to use the strat each time. The second time it happened, she thought that two GMDKs couldn't kill a wounded Keeper with a 4++/6+++ in one shooting phase...but I did
I managed to lose 1 NDK in my first combat phase. It had been wounded and cursed to fight last, but I thought that a double team on a KoS with two NDKs (one of them with Hammerhand and Sword) would make it out alive. Sadly, it did not. Keepers have a LOT of damage on their weapons, so each failed save is a big deal.
I stayed in Tide of Banishment the whole game (of course), and while I didn't do a whole lot of mortals, the rerolls EVERYWHERE was very nice.
Overall, it was done by the bottom of T3, at which point I had killed everything except a unit of Furies. The game would've gone a bit longer if she had brought back Keepers instead of Fiends, but dropping in and failing a charge is probably what would've happened, and then the Keeper would have been shot by everything on the board.
So it was fun, but I'm not too worried about facing this in the tournament this weekend. I'm more concerned by the Ramshackle list that's in the event, which I practiced against and LOST horribly on T1. I had to pick up a GMDK and two NDKs, as well as half my infantry. After I took my turn and killed two planes, leaving all the buggies on the board, we decided it was over.
I'm having a lot of success with running a 10-man Preserver Terminator squad with 3 characters - Apothecary, Ancient, and Draigo. Draigo gives rerolls, the banner gives +1 attack! and an extra leadership for passing morale (so important), and the apothecary to literally just raise them from the dead for 1 cp and make them super tanky with the 5+++.
Each character chooses spells that either buff the squad or provide utility like Emp Amp, Ghostly Bonds (for preventing and setting up charges) and ofc Sanctuary.
Rerolling all hits makes hammers super deadly, and I always take one on the Justicar (5 attacks).
_SeeD_ wrote: I'm having a lot of success with running a 10-man Preserver Terminator squad with 3 characters - Apothecary, Ancient, and Draigo. Draigo gives rerolls, the banner gives +1 attack! and an extra leadership for passing morale (so important), and the apothecary to literally just raise them from the dead for 1 cp and make them super tanky with the 5+++.
Each character chooses spells that either buff the squad or provide utility like Emp Amp, Ghostly Bonds (for preventing and setting up charges) and ofc Sanctuary.
Rerolling all hits makes hammers super deadly, and I always take one on the Justicar (5 attacks).
This looks really good.
How expensive is this unit (for the lazy reader)?
Sticking all eggs into one basket can also fail, can't it?
_SeeD_ wrote: I'm having a lot of success with running a 10-man Preserver Terminator squad with 3 characters - Apothecary, Ancient, and Draigo. Draigo gives rerolls, the banner gives +1 attack! and an extra leadership for passing morale (so important), and the apothecary to literally just raise them from the dead for 1 cp and make them super tanky with the 5+++.
Each character chooses spells that either buff the squad or provide utility like Emp Amp, Ghostly Bonds (for preventing and setting up charges) and ofc Sanctuary.
Rerolling all hits makes hammers super deadly, and I always take one on the Justicar (5 attacks).
This looks really good.
How expensive is this unit (for the lazy reader)?
Sticking all eggs into one basket can also fail, can't it?
It's at 820 points right now.
The rest of the army is 5 Dks lol.
The list and all its variants have been a killer.
Here's where I am right now:
Brotherhood Librarian [8 PL, -1CP, 135pts]: 4: Purifying Flame, 4: Vortex of Doom, 6: Psychic Epitome, Foretelling of Locus, Shield of Humanity
. Nemesis Warding Stave
Grand Master in Nemesis Dreadknight [11 PL, -1CP, 235pts]: 2: Empyric Amplification, 4: First to the Fray, 6: Ghostly Bonds, Dreadfist, Dreadknight teleporter, Gatling Psilencer, Heavy Psycannon, Nemesis Greatsword, Servant of the Throne, Shield of Humanity
I just added the Libby to the Terminator deathstar for the Mortal Wound ejaculations. I also upgraded with the Heroisms Favor in the likely event my characters are charged.
We played Scouring, which was a little tough against so many fast daemons. I didn't score Primary on T1, and I missed Stranglehold and Purifying Ritual on T1 also. I obviously took Destroy the Daemon and got full points on that, with full primary, 12/15 Stranglehold, and 14/15 Purifying Ritual.
You can't take both purifying ritual and destroy the daemon. You are only alowed to take one of the codex secondary objectives.
We played Scouring, which was a little tough against so many fast daemons. I didn't score Primary on T1, and I missed Stranglehold and Purifying Ritual on T1 also. I obviously took Destroy the Daemon and got full points on that, with full primary, 12/15 Stranglehold, and 14/15 Purifying Ritual.
You can't take both purifying ritual and destroy the daemon. You are only alowed to take one of the codex secondary objectives.
Oh, I haven't heard that before! On p68 of the GK Codex, it says, "Like all other secondary objectives, each of the secondary objectives listed below has sa category, and they follow all the normal rules for secondary objectives (for example, when you select secondary objectives, you cannot choose more than one from each category...)."
"Destroy the Daemon" is from the Purge category, and "Purifying Ritual" is from Warpcraft.
Can you quote the rules I missed stating that you can only take one codex secondary?
We played Scouring, which was a little tough against so many fast daemons. I didn't score Primary on T1, and I missed Stranglehold and Purifying Ritual on T1 also. I obviously took Destroy the Daemon and got full points on that, with full primary, 12/15 Stranglehold, and 14/15 Purifying Ritual.
You can't take both purifying ritual and destroy the daemon. You are only alowed to take one of the codex secondary objectives.
Oh, I haven't heard that before! On p68 of the GK Codex, it says, "Like all other secondary objectives, each of the secondary objectives listed below has sa category, and they follow all the normal rules for secondary objectives (for example, when you select secondary objectives, you cannot choose more than one from each category...)."
"Destroy the Daemon" is from the Purge category, and "Purifying Ritual" is from Warpcraft.
Can you quote the rules I missed stating that you can only take one codex secondary?
"If every model in your army (excluding Agents of the Imperium and Unaligned units) has the Grey Knights keyword, and your Warlord has the Grey Knights keyword, you can, if you are playing a matched play battle that instructs you to select secondary objectives (e.g. a mission from the Eternal War mission pack in the Warhammer 40,000 Core Book) select one of them to be from the Grey Knights secondary objectives listed below".
I think that's it. Every faction is limited to just one (except sometimes Space Marines because they take one from Codex: Space Marine and then one from their Supplement if they have one).
Can you quote the rules I missed stating that you can only take one codex secondary?
Just the paragraph above the one you quoted:
"If every model in your army (excluding AGENTS OF THE IMPERIUM and UNALIGNED units) has the GREY KNIGHTS keyword, and your WARLORD has the GREY KNIGHTS keyword, you can, if you are playing a matched play battle that instructs you to select secondary objectives (e.g. a mission from the Eternal War mission pack in the Warhammer 40,000 Core Book), select one of them to be from the GREY KNIGHTS secondary objectives listed below."
It's the same for all factions, except for space marines, which can take one from the SM codex and one from their chapter supplement.
We played Scouring, which was a little tough against so many fast daemons. I didn't score Primary on T1, and I missed Stranglehold and Purifying Ritual on T1 also. I obviously took Destroy the Daemon and got full points on that, with full primary, 12/15 Stranglehold, and 14/15 Purifying Ritual.
You can't take both purifying ritual and destroy the daemon. You are only alowed to take one of the codex secondary objectives.
Oh, I haven't heard that before! On p68 of the GK Codex, it says, "Like all other secondary objectives, each of the secondary objectives listed below has sa category, and they follow all the normal rules for secondary objectives (for example, when you select secondary objectives, you cannot choose more than one from each category...)."
"Destroy the Daemon" is from the Purge category, and "Purifying Ritual" is from Warpcraft.
Can you quote the rules I missed stating that you can only take one codex secondary?
"If every model in your army (excluding Agents of the Imperium and Unaligned units) has the Grey Knights keyword, and your Warlord has the Grey Knights keyword, you can, if you are playing a matched play battle that instructs you to select secondary objectives (e.g. a mission from the Eternal War mission pack in the Warhammer 40,000 Core Book) select one of them to be from the Grey Knights secondary objectives listed below".
I think that's it. Every faction is limited to just one (except sometimes Space Marines because they take one from Codex: Space Marine and then one from their Supplement if they have one).
Well derp. I suppose Destroy the Daemon is probably better against Daemons, since they usually have at least one psyker who can potentially deny your Ritual...and since you'll be clearing objectives anyhow, may as well get points for it!
Elric Greywolf wrote: Played a great game on Friday against my friend Matt Evans, who is currently #68 on ITC. He's been into Tyranids for as long as I've been into GK, so he's quite dialed into his army. This was my most competitive game so far with the new book. (Four kids makes it difficult to have time for lots of games.)
He brought a Leviathan detachment and a GSC patrol.
Swarmlord, Broodlord, flying Hive Tyrant, some forgeworld beastie with 18 wounds, Malaceptor, 3x Warriors, 6x Hive Guard, 20 genestealers
Magus, Shooty assassin cowboy, and 3x6 cultists with hand flamers.
My list is a Prescient Patrol and a BoV Spearhead
Techmarine with healing relic, psipsy GMDK with sword and sigil and Noble Death, 2x5 GKSS, 2x10 GKI, Apothecary with Divination
Libby with Gem and Matrix (Gate/Vortex), psipsy GMDK with hammer/shield and FttF/Vanguard Aggression, 2x psycin/Teleport NDKs, 1x psipsy NDK with sword, 4x servitors
We played 22 Sweep and Clear, he got first turn.
I took Purifying Ritual, Stranglehold, and Assassination
He took Engage Fronts, ROD, and Direct Assault (the mission one)
As an aside, the Techmarine healed 12 wounds in this game, and all four times putting the dreadknight up a bracket, which imo is definitely more value than the Chappie I'd been running.
As another aside, after writing this report, I noticed I didn't mention any Stratagem use. I'm not going to add that in, but I did use Buff Guns on a GMDK every single turn, as well as Cast on 3 and Deny on 3. I used Transhuman once and Cast Again once or twice. I rerolled invulns against high damage attacks, with mixed results.
Buff Guns is my most-used stratagem, with Cast on 3 coming in second and Transhuman being my pocket play (although I've found it really difficult to judge the efficiency of this strat, since the high damage attacks you want to protect against are usually low volume, making off-the-cuff calculations hard to perform in a time crunch).
There was quite a bit of terrain, so I holed up in a building with my infantry and arranged the NDKs around that, splitting one of the GKIs and reserving one of the GKSS. I moved up my Vanguard and friend, and he moved up the went first.
Top of T1
Spoiler:
Flyrant moved into position to charge my scouting NDKs. Genestealers advanced and set up to charge my Prescient GMDK and another NDK next to him. He got catalyst onto the Hive Tyrant and failed/denied the rest. He shot my PAGK with Hive Guard, and since I was in shadows it was -1 to hit although I didn't get my +1sv because of Hive Guard sillyness. They shot twice and removed 3 GKSS and 2 GKI from one of the small units, both of who passed morale. Something big shot at my Blades GMDK, who popped his Shield. (Note: the shield works for the remainder of the turn, which two people argued with me about until I showed them the book...so be aware of your strengths!)
His Flyrant charged the psipsy NDK, avoiding the shielded GMDK, and I did a wound in OW (which was a foolish choice on my part). His Genestealers charged both the DKs they had set up for...this is where I should've overwatched, since the flamer would've removed several models. I took quite a few wounds in the stealer combat, getting down to 7 on the GMDK and 6 on the NDK. The other one did quite well, failing a single save for 3dmg. In return, I swung back with the sword and put 4dmg total onto the Flyrant. The other two killed a lot of stealers, leaving six-ish (the greatsword is pretty awesome). My opponent was quite upset at not killing anything, and honestly I think probably one of the NDKs should've died but he didn't roll as well as he should've, and I passed more 4++s than I should've. I need to remember my flamer for OW.
He scored 2pts for Engage.
10-12 his favour
Bottom of T1
Spoiler:
5 man GKI moved towards the objective on his board edge, outside his deployment. 3 man GKI shunted to the other objective outside the deployments, hugging a ruin. GKSS stood still and the untouched NDK set up for some shooting. The Techmarine ran forward and gave 3 wounds back to the sword GMDK, who had taken several from stealers. I failed a lot of psychic, because of Shadows and his insane deny rolls. I popped the Gem to ensure a Gate and a Vortex from the Libby. I got a perils on my limping NDK, and while the smite killed a genestealer, he took 2 wounds :/ I teleported the 5 man GKI onto the objective so that I was sitting on 4 total--mine, middle, two in the corners. I was denied on 3/4 Rituals, so I only got 1pt. I did some smites that chipped some wounds on big monsters.
In shooting, I didn't do as much as I would've liked. My NDK did quite poorly against the stealers, getting them down to three models. The engaged sword GMDK then shot the psycannon at a big guy and the psilencer at the stealers, thinking I could remove three models with my 12 shots. Wrong! and there was one left, making me waste the psycannon. The NDK with the Flyrant did around four wounds, which was pretty good, and the other GMDK did wounds on the Maleceptor (although he was also making 4++s like a boss).
In assault, GMDK charged Flyrant, finishing him off with the hammer.
I scored Stranglehold and Assassination.
17-12, my favor
We each had only 2CP remaining at this point in time.
Top of T2
Spoiler:
Opponent held 1 objective, scoring 5pts on Primary. He stated that his intention this round was to deny me any Primary points. Broodlord lurked in a ruin, Malaceptor and FW monster inched up to touch the center objective (and therefore contest it with my GMDK), and Magus hid behind the bigguns. 3x Warriors moved towards the right objective, which had only 3 GKI on it. The gunslinger and a cultist squad appeared by the left objective, which was held by 5x GKI, and another cultist squad appeared within 3" of me, taking my back objective! He got off Catalyst on the Broodlord and did some psychic damage on DK, though my 5+++ really helped there. After a lot of shooting, the crippled NDK had with only 2 wounds remaining, the 3x GKI on the right objective were dead, the 5x GKI were dead to flamers and pistols, the servitors were dead from 6d6 hand flamers. In assault, I finished off the remaining single stealer tying up my NDK and GMDK. The NDK consolidated backwards towards the backfield cultists (since he was so damaged) and GMDK moved towards the FW monster.
He got 3 more for Engage and 3 for Direct Assault.
17-23, his favor
He had only 1 CP left
Bottom of T2
Spoiler:
My sword GMDK moved over to the right objective, and my GKSS dropped onto this. I popped Noble Death aura so that I would definitely hold that one. Both flamer NDKs moved to tackle the cultists in the backfield. I planned to use the full-health NDK to hold this one, since I thought it was unlikely that Hive Guard would kill him in one turn. The hammer GMDK in center field set up to charge the Malaceptor. My 10-man GKSS moved onto the left objective and spread out in a ring with the objective at the middle, so that he couldn't pop up and take it like last time. Mr Techie healed for 3 wounds, and the Libby ran onto the center objective to put another body there. In psychic, I got off 3/4 Rituals, earning me 4pts! I also put Amplification onto the Malaceptor. I wiped both cultist units but left the gunslinger alive. The Warriors on the right flank were toasted, and the Malaceptor survived with 6 wounds to 2x psipsy DKs with Amplification.
Mr Hammertime charged the FW monster, who had a 3+ and no invuln, T7 with 18 wounds. I swung with my 6 attacks, hitting 5 times and wounding 4. With my damage rolls, I got 21 damage, insta-gibbing the scary beast (whatever it was). My opponent was pretty salty. A bystander said that no matter what, it's always hilarious when something takes 20+ damage in one go, and I had to agree in this case! Statistically I should've done only 10-16 damage, so killing it outright was lucky on my part, but I suppose my Victorious Grand Master had had ENOUGH!
I scored 3 for Stranglehold.
24-23, my favor.
Top of T3
Spoiler:
He scored 5 for Primary. He brought in the final cultist unit to support the gunslinger on the left objective against the 10x GKI. He moved up the Swarmlord to try and take the center objective against my Libby, Techie, psipsy NDK, and hammer GMDK. Psychic did a number of wounds to various DKs and managing to kill, through psychic and shooting, the psipsy NDK. The Hive Guard split their fire and took down the two little GKSS on my back objective, 1 of the GKSS on the right objective, the Libby in center field, and some GKI. The cultists, Hive Guard, and gunslinger killed 4 of the 10 GKI and they passed morale, leaving me on 3 objectives with the center contested. He charged the Swarmlord into hammer GMDK, and didn't kill him. I swung back and mopped him up. GMDK had 4 left. Magus charged the Techmarine and managed to do nothing, and was punked in return with the Omnissiah's blesssed axe.
He scored 2 for Engage.
24-30, his favor.
Bottom of T3
Spoiler:
I got 15 on primary this time, holding 3 objectives and contesting the middle. My sword GMDK moved into center field and shot at the Malaceptor, killing it finally. Again, a lot of denies and fails, with only 2/3 Rituals working. NDK shunted to support the GKI, and they together killed the cultists and Gunslinger. The Hammer shot at and killed the Broodlord in a ruin.
I scored 3 Stranglehold and 13 for Assassination, maxing out that latter secondary.
55-30, my favor.
Top of T4 and end game
Spoiler:
He shot with the Hive Guard and then called it, after killing the Techmarine and the limping NDK.
I played out my turns and got 15pts on T4 and T5, maxing Primary. I also maxed Ritual and Stranglehold.
So that was my first 100pt game with the new book, and it was against a highly-rated player who is taking that exact list to the GT later this month. I was very pleased with my performance, and saw ways to further improve.
Techmarine was really valuable.
How about units staying in reserve in turn 1?
I run the Battlefoam Magna Racks for my Grey Knights. I can fit four or five dreadknights on one tray and the remainder of the army on another. Makes it efficient from a space standpoint, and much easier to deploy/remove from the table that traditional foam.
I love the Cidadel cases (I have one of each), but I'd imagine the Dreadknight is more like a War Dog (I've not built my Dreadknight yet), and I use custom foam for those.
Can I get some competitive suggestions on how to build some kits? For context, I sold a beloved GK army from 5th Ed several years back, and am now rebuilding it. We own tons of armies ranging from pure casual to ITC filth. In this case I want to build super competitively at least initially.
I just picked up eight Strike Squad boxes (plus five DKs, and several heroes).
What would be a wise way to build the infantry.
My inclination is at least 20x Interceptors to play the mission, but weapons, etc seems hard to parse any clear winners.
Brotherhood Librarian [6 PL, 105pts]: 1: Gate of Infinity, 3: Sanctuary, Nemesis Force Sword
Grand Master in Nemesis Dreadknight [11 PL, -1CP, 235pts]: 2: Empyric Amplification, 4: First to the Fray, 4: Vortex of Doom, Dreadfist, Dreadknight teleporter, Gatling Psilencer, Heavy Psycannon, Nemesis Greatsword, Servant of the Throne, Shield of Humanity, Sigil of Exigence
Strike Squad [6 PL, 110pts] x5 w Nemesis Force Swords
Strike Squad [6 PL, 110pts] x5 w Nemesis Force Halberds
Strike Squad [6 PL, 110pts] x5 w Nemesis Force Halberds
Interceptor Squad [14 PL, 240pts] x10 w Nemesis Force Halberds
Interceptor Squad [14 PL, 240pts] x10 w Nemesis Force Halberds
So, I am entertaining playing as Rapiers, and leaning into volume of dice, and Mortals on 6's to wound. I would think dual falchions would be good to that end, but no one ever seems to take them. Why is that?
NewTruthNeomaxim wrote: So, I am entertaining playing as Rapiers, and leaning into volume of dice, and Mortals on 6's to wound. I would think dual falchions would be good to that end, but no one ever seems to take them. Why is that?
You lose Strength, AP, and Damage. And you already have so many attacks baseline, it's not really worth it.
NewTruthNeomaxim wrote: So, I am entertaining playing as Rapiers, and leaning into volume of dice, and Mortals on 6's to wound. I would think dual falchions would be good to that end, but no one ever seems to take them. Why is that?
Against their best profile (T3, 1 W) they have roughly the same effective output (same # of models killed) as just Halberds. Falchions are awful.
wuestenfux wrote: How about the choice of three Patrols at the 2000 pt level with one GMNDK in each Patrol?
I know it's been done at a high level, but ultimately failed.
I'd love to have a 3rd, but at that point, there aren't enough upgrades or spells to make him special or different...
and I'd have to take more troops, which always feels bad.
wuestenfux wrote: How about the choice of three Patrols at the 2000 pt level with one GMNDK in each Patrol?
I know it's been done at a high level, but ultimately failed.
I'd love to have a 3rd, but at that point, there aren't enough upgrades or spells to make him special or different...
and I'd have to take more troops, which always feels bad.
Indeed, too less useful spells up to the common smite and its better to have more flesh bodies.
Thankx!
Something that's bothering me.
"Each time the bearer fights, if it is equipped with one or more Nemesis falchions, it makes 1 additional attack using this profile.''
If you have two equipped, you still only get 1 more attack.
I think the best way to bring falchions back into relevance would be to add 2 attacks, 1 per dagger.
That way they'd be more like lightning claws, complete with rerolls thanks to hammerhand.
I've got a 1,000 pt list that includes Crowe, a GMDK, a Strike Squad, a Purifier Squad, an Interceptor Squad and a Stormraven. The latter needs Sanctuary, so I'm taking that power with both Crowe and the GMDK. I'm also taking Empyric Amplification with the GMDK, which means I'm not taking Gate...
I'd like to take Gate too, but I don't think there's a strat or relic that allows a psyker to take an additional power is there? In any case, the GMDK has a teleporter and the Sigil, and the Interceptors have teleporters too, so perhaps with Shunt I don't need it?
Anyone aware the new Tau Railgun? I think it spells doom to our GMNDK and basically all vehicles. Are we just gonna to switch to more interceptor and less Dread Knight?
I think* we'll see three of them in basically every Tau list. But yeah, going to seriously reduce the efficacy of Dreadknights, Dreadnoughts and basically anything high wound.
Considering that 9th edition has pushed infantry heavily, this further push away from vehicles doesn't look healthy for game balance. I hope to be wrong.
talljosh85 wrote: I think* we'll see three of them in basically every Tau list. But yeah, going to seriously reduce the efficacy of Dreadknights, Dreadnoughts and basically anything high wound.
Well, I battled Tau a lot in local tourneys during the last editions with my Eldar.
Never lost. Was always an easy matchup.
The key is to destroy the marker lights asap. Then its an uphill battle for Tau.
talljosh85 wrote: I think* we'll see three of them in basically every Tau list. But yeah, going to seriously reduce the efficacy of Dreadknights, Dreadnoughts and basically anything high wound.
I heard that the points for Hammerhead would be somewhere around 200pts only. So in 2000pts game, expect to see three Hammerheads plus Hammerhead Longstrike frequently, total of 4 Railguns on the table for no more than 900pts. So the rest 1100pts can be used for those AP-2 Dmg 2 missiles, marker lights and obsec infantries.
The work horses in an actual GK army are the NDKs.
Without NDKs (and Dreads), there are no more heavy long-range hitters
since the light versions of the heavy weapons (psilencers, psycannons) are not good enough.
wuestenfux wrote: The work horses in an actual GK army are the NDKs.
Without NDKs (and Dreads), there are no more heavy long-range hitters
since the light versions of the heavy weapons (psilencers, psycannons) are not good enough.
You could run a vehicle like a Land Raider or Storm Raven though as long as you can cast Sanctuary on it. Not that it'll protect you against the new Railgun of course.
Railguns aside, does anyone have any comments on my previous question?
dreadblade wrote: I've got a 1,000 pt list that includes Crowe, a GMDK, a Strike Squad, a Purifier Squad, an Interceptor Squad and a Stormraven. The latter needs Sanctuary, so I'm taking that power with both Crowe and the GMDK. I'm also taking Empyric Amplification with the GMDK, which means I'm not taking Gate...
I'd like to take Gate too, but I don't think there's a strat or relic that allows a psyker to take an additional power is there? In any case, the GMDK has a teleporter and the Sigil, and the Interceptors have teleporters too, so perhaps with Shunt I don't need it?
dreadblade wrote: I've got a 1,000 pt list that includes Crowe, a GMDK, a Strike Squad, a Purifier Squad, an Interceptor Squad and a Stormraven. The latter needs Sanctuary, so I'm taking that power with both Crowe and the GMDK. I'm also taking Empyric Amplification with the GMDK, which means I'm not taking Gate...
I'd like to take Gate too, but I don't think there's a strat or relic that allows a psyker to take an additional power is there? In any case, the GMDK has a teleporter and the Sigil, and the Interceptors have teleporters too, so perhaps with Shunt I don't need it?
Wardmakers have a possibility to take for a turn another Psychic power from the Dominus discipline.
Crowe is not ideal in a competitive list.
wuestenfux wrote: The work horses in an actual GK army are the NDKs.
Without NDKs (and Dreads), there are no more heavy long-range hitters
since the light versions of the heavy weapons (psilencers, psycannons) are not good enough.
Just suppose that there were no NDK. Given this constraint, which with the incoming Tau codex perhaps is not a totally crazy scenario, which will be in your opinion the most optimal list?
wuestenfux wrote: The work horses in an actual GK army are the NDKs.
Without NDKs (and Dreads), there are no more heavy long-range hitters
since the light versions of the heavy weapons (psilencers, psycannons) are not good enough.
Just suppose that there were no NDK. Given this constraint, which with the incoming Tau codex perhaps is not a totally crazy scenario, which will be in your opinion the most optimal list?
Looking at a new, very shooty Tau army, NDKs seem to be rather vulnerable as some Tau weapons ignore inv. saves.
Here is my approximate list without vehicles (just one subfaction):
I definitely think there might be some play in NDK-less lists. Obviously people rightly latched onto maxed NDK+Interceptors, but it feels like list building innovation stopped there without mining other possibilities. With Tau and Eldar poised to make vehicles/centerpiece models moot, I think infantry-heavy, mortal-wound heavy lists might see new value.
I am quitting 40k for the foreseeable future.
What they did to GK with this detachment change was two-fold.
1st, the number of DKs we could take went from 6>4.I typically only use 5. They were not overly broken and a point increase would have been good.
2nd. I lose the ability to take 2 different KEY brotherhood spells, Aegis and Lodestone. I had these two different detachments designed for one to be very tanky and the other one very killy. Now that is completely F--Ked.
I do not see this changing anytime soon and I understand the need for balance, but the difference in power I now possess feels too bad to continue.
Spamming DK's feels gamey to me, so I'm happy to see it go. Following the treatment of Ork Buggies, you can't be too surprised they limit us to 4 per detachment
We aren't alone in losing the benefits of dipping multiple sub-factions, and losing powers hurts. That said, I like having to pick a brotherhood and love it, warts and all.
It's debatable but I believe this affects Orks, Sisters, AdMech, and guard worse than it affects us. Prescient Brotherhood and Swordbearers remain viable as solo sub-factions still, and our greatest strength lies in our datasheets.
wuestenfux wrote: The work horses in an actual GK army are the NDKs.
Without NDKs (and Dreads), there are no more heavy long-range hitters
since the light versions of the heavy weapons (psilencers, psycannons) are not good enough.
Just suppose that there were no NDK. Given this constraint, which with the incoming Tau codex perhaps is not a totally crazy scenario, which will be in your opinion the most optimal list?
Looking at a new, very shooty Tau army, NDKs seem to be rather vulnerable as some Tau weapons ignore inv. saves.
Here is my approximate list without vehicles (just one subfaction):
I like the idea of the paladins. In my humble opinion, the biggest issue GK always got is resilience. Our units are more expensive but they die as easy as the other factions cheaper ones. Physic awakening helps us give to our Paladins a bunch of buffs that make them almost indestructible. 9th edition switches Paladins by NDK thanks to granting them 4+ invul saves. Without NDK I think that our best bet is paladins with a +0 save. Luckily things are not as daunting as pre Physic awakening as at least our troops have 1 extra wound across the board.
Is somebody knows if at least our vanilla terminators will see some points decrease?
NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:I definitely think there might be some play in NDK-less lists. Obviously people rightly latched onto maxed NDK+Interceptors, but it feels like list building innovation stopped there without mining other possibilities. With Tau and Eldar poised to make vehicles/centerpiece models moot, I think infantry-heavy, mortal-wound heavy lists might see new value.
I think that this is actually a cool idea. Besides our beloved kamehameha librarian, which other cool combos do we have for this strategy?
Point increases concern competitive choices of GK armies.
But it's good to see Paladins going down 2 pts which provide a decent substitute of the 5th GMNDK when it comes to single subfaction.
I played SW, and took Crowe, a GMDK, a Strike Squad, a Purifier Squad, an Interceptor Squad and a Stormraven. Teleport Shunt and Sigil of Exigence let me take out a unit of dug-in long fangs with the GMDK on turn 1, and Sanctuary protected the Stormraven once it arrived on turn 2, allowing it to take a Stormfang down to 3 wounds. Purifying Flame from the Purifier Justicar then finished it off! The Purifiers and Interceptors took heavy losses, but took out a unit of thunderwolves before they could do any damage. It was then all over by the end of round 3 when the GMDK, supported by the Stormraven, took out Bjorn for the win
What do you think about the latest balance data slate? as I have understood it,
armoured resilience won't be affected and therefore we can combine it with the new buff of AP reduction. Am I wrong on this?
No, that's correct. Rules which reduce AP lock you out of armour of contempt but bonuses to your save are a different bonus which isn't affected (unless it cones from a storm shield).
Armoured Resiliance Paladins can therefore get a 2+ armour save even against tactical doctrine bolt rifles or thousand sons warp bolters, which combined with their wounds per model means dropping them with small arms takes a hell of a lot of doing.
Glad to see Paladins are back on the menu after basically being shafted on not being able to gain access to Brotherhood rules. It was kinda weird seeing GK basically being relegated to only PA and Dreadknight units when being able to suit up the entire chapter in TDA was kind of their thing.
locarno24 wrote: No, that's correct. Rules which reduce AP lock you out of armour of contempt but bonuses to your save are a different bonus which isn't affected (unless it cones from a storm shield).
Armoured Resiliance Paladins can therefore get a 2+ armour save even against tactical doctrine bolt rifles or thousand sons warp bolters, which combined with their wounds per model means dropping them with small arms takes a hell of a lot of doing.
An armoured resilience Paladin in Light Cover (either actually or through the Tide) worsens incoming AP by 1 and gets +2 to armor saves. That means against AP-3, he's still making a 2+ check. It takes AP-4 to get him to 3+ and AP-5 to reach 4+. You don't even need/want Sanctuary on him at that point.
I played SW, and took Crowe, a GMDK, a Strike Squad, a Purifier Squad, an Interceptor Squad and a Stormraven. Teleport Shunt and Sigil of Exigence let me take out a unit of dug-in long fangs with the GMDK on turn 1, and Sanctuary protected the Stormraven once it arrived on turn 2, allowing it to take a Stormfang down to 3 wounds. Purifying Flame from the Purifier Justicar then finished it off! The Purifiers and Interceptors took heavy losses, but took out a unit of thunderwolves before they could do any damage. It was then all over by the end of round 3 when the GMDK, supported by the Stormraven, took out Bjorn for the win
I've played another couple of games with this list since, narrowly losing to Orks (by 1VP) but tabling them in the process, then against an IG tank list yesterday using the new Tempest of War missions...
That game I lost conclusively (70-45), but had an absolute blast with the Stormraven. Despite Crowe and the GMDK being taken out before the Stormraven arrived from reserves (so no Sanctuary!) the combination of Hard to Hit, Marked for Death and Empyric Loadstone (from a lone Interceptor Justicar in cover in the centre of the table) meant that the Stormraven flew around and took out three Leman Russes and a Manticore in the remaining 4 turns! You've got to love Swordbearers
I know it can be done, but do we think it's a good idea for GK? Or do they not need the super-heavies? I already run a Stormraven which dishes out a fair amount of damage and can be protected with Sanctuary.
I played a GK player today and he spammed smite on 5's over and over and murdered so much stuff. What is the current rule on using smite more than 1 time per turn?
warpedpig wrote: I played a GK player today and he spammed smite on 5's over and over and murdered so much stuff. What is the current rule on using smite more than 1 time per turn?
Not legal.
You should tell him to also apologize at the very least.
He did. I think he hasn’t played them in a long time and wasn’t aware of the last update. Not a big deal.
Automatically Appended Next Post: How do Temporal Bombs work? I can’t find their description anywhere? Can they be used in the enemies deployment zone?
warpedpig wrote: He did. I think he hasn’t played them in a long time and wasn’t aware of the last update. Not a big deal.
Automatically Appended Next Post: How do Temporal Bombs work? I can’t find their description anywhere? Can they be used in the enemies deployment zone?
TEMPORAL BOMBS
Havens of the unclean and sites of purity are sanctified with these soul-reactive devices. Seeded in a hallowed moment within the floes of the churning warp, they transition into realspace without causing a breach, using the power of that shift to detonate.
Before the battle, select one Area Terrain feature that is not within your opponent’s deployment zone and note it down secretly on your army roster. The first time an enemy unit starts or ends a move on or within that terrain feature, reveal your choice and roll one D6: on a 2+, that enemy unit suffers D3 mortal wounds.
dreadblade wrote: Has anyone considered running a super-heavy auxiliary detachment with an Imperial Knight?
It's not really worth it. Knights die very easily in the current meta. You are almost certainly better off using those points to add more obsec troops to your list to help you score vps more easily.
dreadblade wrote: Has anyone considered running a super-heavy auxiliary detachment with an Imperial Knight?
It's not really worth it. Knights die very easily in the current meta. You are almost certainly better off using those points to add more obsec troops to your list to help you score vps more easily.
A single Knight is hard to justify unless you have a plan.
However, its fluffy for a GK army.
Since AP is king at the moment, Swords are the best all-rounder choice. A Hammer on a Paragon is not terrible, but on others it takes their WS to 4+, which is a bad choice IMO.
Psilencers are a decent consideration, but they only give you 2 more shots than what the model comes with and the AP is negated largely by AOC.
If you know you're fighting hordes, Incinerators are fun but not essential.