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Tomb King wrote:

NeutronPoison wrote:Well, my super-tailored anti-GKs is:

Tervigon, AG/TS, Catalyst, Scything Talons, Cluster Spines - 200

3 Hive Guard - 150
3 Hive Guard - 150
2 Hive Guard - 100

10 Termagants - 50
Tervigon, AG/TS, Catalyst, Scything Talons, Cluster Spines - 200
10 Termagants - 50
Tervigon, AG/TS, Catalyst, Scything Talons, Cluster Spines - 200
7+1 Genestealers, Broodlord
6+1 Genestealers, Broodlord

Trygon - 200
Trygon - 200
Trygon, AG - 210

I've tabled Crowe / Purifiers / Dreads with this. It seems like most people don't quite understand how many psycannon shots it takes to drop a FnP Trygon, or how little this Tyranids list actually needs the Trygons (once you've shot down the Trygons, the Tervigons, 'Stealers, buffed-up gaunts, and Hive Guard chew through Purifers pretty easily, since Cleansing Flame is more or less a non-factor under Shadow at Ld 7 due to 2 stacking Auras of Despair off of the Broodlords.

Granted, this list runs out of steam against SW and flails ineffectively against DE. I do think it exposes GKs weaknesses pretty nicely, though. I imagine Jump BA would present similar problems to Crowe / Purifier / Dreads (although maybe not to a Paladinstar).

My TAC is pretty different from this, and tends to wind up getting ground down by Psycannon fire against smart GKs players (not-so-smart GKs players don't keep their distance and get eaten in CC), but that's really more because of how many concessions I have to make just to feel like I have a chance against DE.

Alright for the masses this game has been scheduled on vassal:

alright so:

JY2's MSU mech purifier spam(per his request I will be running this list) vs above nids list on wednesday February 8th on vassal at 7:30 EST 8:30 CST. If you all would like to observe the game. The mission is modified annihilation. If one nid model survives the game he wins. Further info is listed in my previous post.

Posted a battle reports thread for this showdown: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/428826.page I am secretly rooting for the nids here as I really hope the GK cant board wipe even a tailored list. I am stoked for the game and hope to see some of you all there.

Tomb King wrote:Posted a battle reports thread for this showdown: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/428826.page I am secretly rooting for the nids here as I really hope the GK cant board wipe even a tailored list. I am stoked for the game and hope to see some of you all there.

I think you set the goal a little high. As well, I don't know that one vassal game means anything, but good luck to you.

GK are very strong and very versitile, but SW and IG are still the better books and the GT results for the past year still reflects that paradigm. Anyone arguing otherwise is simply ignoring the empirical evidence in favor of wallowing in internet hyperbole and butthurt.

Agree.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hulksmash gave this thread a shout out!

http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2012/02/dark-star-list.html

Damn, someone stole my favorite GK list that I have been using for ages now.
lol

I actually took an "odd" GK army to a 1K tournament. Odd in that it consisted of just 3x10 psybolt strikers and 1 librarian instead of my usual paladins or purifiers. BTW, this was the 1st time out of 8 of these mini-tournaments that I brought my GK's.

Anyways I ended up 1-1-1, beating orks, tying with tyranids and losing to tyranids. Basically, in those 2 battles with tyranids, I got out-assaulted both by furiously charging, poisoned termagants in 1 game and by genetstealers (charging through Sanctuary!) in another.

Moral of the story - strikers won't out-assault more assaulty armies.

GK are very strong and very versitile, but SW and IG are still the better books and the GT results for the past year still reflects that paradigm. Anyone arguing otherwise is simply ignoring the empirical evidence in favor of wallowing in internet hyperbole and butthurt.

Or it implies a rock paper scissors meta in the top 3 books which places GK solidly in second depending on the number of mech guard lists that get to tournaments end (which is another thing that the empirical evidence suggests). GKs are a solid counter to books like DE, BT, and BA and are part of the resurgence of IG power at top tables. They seriously dampen the possible scoring results for both blood angels and necrons, two books which should do better than they appear to and they appear to be a gateway that strong anti heavy mech armies have a very hard time getting by (helping mech guard drift up where they then beat the GKs).

The distilled top table results don't accurately reflect the totality of power in the book. That they repetitiously place that high is telling and that they are so meta breaking against a significant number of codexes in the game places them solidly beyond just being "strong and versatile". It's closer to "easy and often nearly free wins until you fight heavy av12+" and lose. It's external balance as other posters have said before is god awful. Likely the worst in the game (barring all mech guard possibly).

Hulksmash wrote:I'm funny.....

And GK's still aren't OP, just a solid codex in a block of solid codexes.

Do you want me to actually go to the effort of breaking down Death Cult Assassins vs Howling Banshees?
Or 15 points for some servo skulls that stop your enemy from infiltrating.
etc etc.

@Pyriel

Good to hear you've been using something similar. It's a list I've toyed with building for months and had 90% of in my closet. It just took a tournament not allowing an army I'd had painted by a commission service to get me to paint the bloody things. I'm super excited to give it a go.

@Joey

We're going to have to agree to disagree. I can't say anymore than a lot of people have already said and a lot of opinions aren't changing.

Joey wrote:
Do you want me to actually go to the effort of breaking down Death Cult Assassins vs Howling Banshees?

That wouldn't be very useful. Banshees are terrible compared to pretty much everything. They shouldn't be used as any bar of comparison.

@Shuma-
So your argument is basically "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?" then?

Guard seriously flattens Grey Knights of any variation. And virtually every SW variation out there is more efficient than any GK army you put it up against, with the possible exception of GH Spam vs Draigowing, and even then a single Runepriest packing JotWW can seriously tip that one. Actual tournament results back this statement, including every single Nova type event (and Hard boyz) that was held this year.

So your argument is basically "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?" then?

No, my argument is "this gak is complicated and you aren't looking at it very hard".

Guard seriously flattens Grey Knights of any variation. And virtually every SW variation out there is more efficient than any GK army you put it up against, with the possible exception of GH Spam vs Draigowing, and even then a single Runepriest packing JotWW can seriously tip that one. Actual tournament results back this statement, including every single Nova type event (and Hard boyz) that was held this year.

Thank you for restating what I wrote. I'm sure it had to be said twice after you apparently disagreed with me. I'd also argue that wolves have a much more difficult time with GKs then you state, but thats a semantical argument and you made a pretty silly statement implying that they're more efficient in "virtually every variation". That doesn't even mean anything.

Phazael wrote:Guard seriously flattens Grey Knights of any variation. And virtually every SW variation out there is more efficient than any GK army you put it up against, with the possible exception of GH Spam vs Draigowing, and even then a single Runepriest packing JotWW can seriously tip that one. Actual tournament results back this statement, including every single Nova type event (and Hard boyz) that was held this year.

This year? You mean since starting in January? Because this would be the first full year tourney season with GK. Time for people to paint up the army and play it, unlike last year when it was new and we didn't have time to paint an army. So far the Colonial had a 1st and 3rd place finish for GK's. Do we count Templecon as the second of this year?

In Chicago, home of Adepticon and 6 million in the Cook County area, Grey Knights have wiped virtually all Imperial Guard and Space Wolf armies off the tournament tables. The amount of henchmen deathstars + potent firepower has made mince meat of most everything else. The last Adeptus Windy City tournament was our first of 3 straight Adepticon Championships preview events designed for players to practice their 1850pt lists for the Championships in April. I want to say 44% of the field was Grey Knights. It was so crazy that the tourney paired all GK vs. GK round 1 to thin the heard.

Of course this is just the first of three Championship preview events. I am fascinated to see the army spread next month. And to everyone who says IG are better, I guess you are right. With all those GK armies at this event, an IG player won. Interestingly I think he didn't play any GK lists all day. Best General was a half painted GK list.

Another important thing to consider. Some of the highest rated players from Chicago were all talking and they, almost to a man, had decided NOT to play a GK army under any circumstances ever. They felt the codex was to powerful and they wanted to make a statement. I wonder how long that will last. So with the highest rated players in Chicago not playing GK, GK still won best General.

I was there and I don't think anything else could have come close to beating some of the GK lists, except another GK list. BUT this might have something to do with our local environment. Let me explain. We play at the Downers Grove Battle Bunker and it has recently undergone some renovations. In those renovations all the old terrain was scrapped and the store only has Games Workshop terrain on the tables and lots of it. That means virtually every table has multiple large ruins from the cityfight expansion and lots of it. GK techmarines can't walk 6" without tripping over reinforced ruins. Those 3+ cover save ruins are quickly shrouded for a 2+ cover save from incoming fire. Oh and the GK lists don't really have many psycannons in them at all. I think the 3 bests GK lists at the event had 4 psycannons in total amonst the three of them. All of them had a multitude of longer range guns most likely to take advantage of all the ruins everywhere.

This is a fact of the tourney environment around the Chicagoland area and it plays very well into the hands of the Grey Knights. Just as a sparsely terrained table in some other city would play into the hands of an IG list. These environment factors contribute to our experiences with Grey Knights and either enhance them or diminish them in our eyes depending on where we live and were we play.

Compare the real world cost of a competitive Grey Knight 1850-2000 point army to pretty much any other competitive army. That alone makes them popular, regardless of any effectiveness.

Want more variety? Insist on smaller point games. 1000 points of Grey Knights doesn't go nearly as far.

LunaHound wrote:

gendoikari87 wrote:

LunaHound wrote:

Draigo wrote:On a side note about sisters.. Those organ tanks are obnoxious when running a walking pally list when your opponent keeps rollin 5-6s shots with all 3..

The example of your arguments to what I considered fallacy, you always pick the numbers, units that favors your arguments without logic.
Since the Exorcist Launcher is D6, the average is 4. However to make it seem more favorable for you, you make it go higher.

One can do the exact same thing in a counter point of saying they are so bad with 1-2 shots only.

Yeah even 12 str 8 ap1 shots are going to wreck a pally list, especially when the only reliable anti tank they'll have is max range 24", unless you spring for some psydreds, and then your down to like.... 10 scoring models.

Sir, I think you just missed the point of my post. Im not debating the average of 4.......

Im saying when his logic is picking the numbers above average to make it favorable,
one can do the same, pick the numbers for below average as a counter.

Please re think it over.

Oh I got what you were saying, it was however, pointless as the same effect in either case is that it wrecks paladins.

So I'm struggling on what to bring to an upcoming tournament - Mech Vanilla Marines or GK's (Can do normal or go full-slow w/ Crowe + Purifiers).

I take it that to up my chances more, I should go for the GK's...

Voodoo Boyz wrote:So I'm struggling on what to bring to an upcoming tournament - Mech Vanilla Marines or GK's (Can do normal or go full-slow w/ Crowe + Purifiers).

I take it that to up my chances more, I should go for the GK's...

I think posting your specific army lists rather than posting your Codex is probably a better idea if you're trying to figure out which army will give you a better chance.

Ok here's what I was deciding between. What scares me about the GK's is that while it's a crap-ton of firepower, it's 4 Rhino's, 3 Dreads, and then a Termy Squad. I could forgo the Psychic Defense, spend more $$$ to buy another Dread+Arms and Razorback to get a Ven Dread + a 5th unit of Purifiers, but that almost makes me throw up in my mouth a little (kinda like Mech Eldar in 4th).

Marines
Libby w/ Terminator Armor, Storm Shield, Null Zone, Avenger (S6 power)

Dread w/ Extra Armor, Assault Cannon
Dread w/ Extra Armor, Multimelta
5 TH/SS Terminators
Land Raider Crusaider w/ Extra Armor & Multimelta

3x Tac Squads w/ Melta & Missile Launcher
3x Rhinos

2x Vindicators
1 Pred w/ Auto Cannon + Las Sponsons

Grey Knights - Purifiers

Crowe
Libby w/ 3 Servo Skulls, 3 Powers (Might of Titan, Sanctuary, Shrouding)

5 Terminators, 1 Hammer, 2 Halberd, Psycannon

3x 6 Purifiers w/ 2 Psycannons + Hammer
3x Razorbacks w/ TL Assault Cannons + Psybolt Ammo

5 Purifiers w/ 2 Psycannons + Hammer (Crowe Goes Here)
Razorback w/ TL Heavy Bolter + Psybolt Ammo

3x Dreads w/ 2 TL Autocannons + Psybolt Ammo

Voodoo - if you could turn that crusader into regular land raider, then I would say go with the vanilla marine list.

DarthDiggler wrote:Voodoo - if you could turn that crusader into regular land raider, then I would say go with the vanilla marine list.

Fun question - Why?

First why the normal LR? I can't put the Libby w/ the Assault Terminators then, and frankly he needs a bodyguard.

Second, I keep wanting to find a reason to take the Marines, but I just can't come up with a good reason to over the GK's. They have less targets, but they put out considerably more firepower.

I did think about dropping the LR outright, since games become about protecting/delivering it, but then I'm kind of at a loss over what to replace it with, I have a crap-ton of options there though (I have a lot of marines...).

Slightly off topic:

Vanilla Marines normal LR can hold 12, so you can fit the Libby + TH/SS Termies.

Also, Crowe is NOT an IC so he can't join squads.

I personally like the GK list better only because I am not a huge fan on non-BT/BA (Power of the Machine Spirit or Fast) Vindicators. You have almost nothing with more than a 24" range except for a couple of MLs and the Pred. If you want to play that close in, then the GK list is your best bet. IMO, Marines do better when they play to their strengths of long-ranged firepower plus mobile MMs (Attack Bikes or Landspeeders).

Phazael wrote:

In Chicago, home of Adepticon and 6 million in the Cook County area, Grey Knights have wiped virtually all Imperial Guard and Space Wolf armies off the tournament tables. The amount of henchmen deathstars + potent firepower has made mince meat of most everything else. The last Adeptus Windy City tournament was our first of 3 straight Adepticon Championships preview events designed for players to practice their 1850pt lists for the Championships in April. I want to say 44% of the field was Grey Knights. It was so crazy that the tourney paired all GK vs. GK round 1 to thin the heard.
.

So you Paired GK together to "thin" them out but also thined out the non GK also by pairing them?

Voodoo Boyz wrote:

DarthDiggler wrote:Voodoo - if you could turn that crusader into regular land raider, then I would say go with the vanilla marine list.

Fun question - Why?

First why the normal LR? I can't put the Libby w/ the Assault Terminators then, and frankly he needs a bodyguard.

Second, I keep wanting to find a reason to take the Marines, but I just can't come up with a good reason to over the GK's. They have less targets, but they put out considerably more firepower.

I did think about dropping the LR outright, since games become about protecting/delivering it, but then I'm kind of at a loss over what to replace it with, I have a crap-ton of options there though (I have a lot of marines...).

The vanilla Godhammer can hold 6 terminator models so you can still mount up your counter assault force and extend your null zone range. The Godhammer also gives you the ability to target 2 more armored targets at range. This increases your ability to deal with DE vehicles and it can force most GK armies to have to come to you. In other words you can better win the range war with GK and force them to move closer to you to get better damage results. Moving closer to you is what you want as that allows your 2 Vindicators and 2 dreads to get into the action.

Keep the LR. It can provide mobile cover for your other vehicles, increase your long range firepower, reliably deliver the counter assault unit, protect the Libby inside from sniping and increase his null zone bubble. Most importantly it is not a linchpin of the list and you can afford to lose it and still win the game. When your opponent has to dedicate a ton of shooting to remove a tough unit that is not a linchpin or a scoring threat, that is a good thing for you.

I would recommend replacing one vindicator with another 48" range threat. Thunderfire cannon or predator would be fine. But ymmv on that one.

Here are some recent Grand Tournament results that might help clear some of these misunderstandings up.

At Gottacon, the top five overall armies were Dark Eldar, Space Marines, Blood Angels, Space Marines, and Space Marines, while the top five armies in terms of battle points were Blood Angels, Dark Eldar, Eldar, Grey Knights, and Dark Eldar.

At TempleCon, the top five overall armies were Necrons, Necrons, Dæmons, Orks, and Blood Angels, while the top five armies in terms of battle points were Necrons, Necrons, Dæmons, a different Blood Angel list, and Orks.

In the light of results like these, Grey Knights don't really seem like the totally dominant force that some people in this thread claim them to be...

Also from BoK http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2012/01/06/tournament-circuit-what-army-lists-have-won-so-far/

4 Space Wolves

3 Space Marines

3 Orks

2 Dark Eldar

2 Grey Knights

2 Black Templars

2 Imperial Guard

1 Chaos Space Marines

1 Blood Angel

1 Dark Angel

1 Eldar

That is more Space Marines than GK.

Dok wrote:
That is more Space Marines than GK.

That's it. I'm starting a new thread 'Codex: Space Marines is the most overpowered book GW has put out in a decade.'

edit: To be fair though, that's the 2011-2012 season, so May to May. The contention is that now that folks have had a chance to digest it and make armies they will be bigger in 2012. I don't buy it, but that's the rationale.

pretre wrote:

Dok wrote:
That is more Space Marines than GK.

That's it. I'm starting a new thread 'Codex: Space Marines is the most overpowered book GW has put out in a decade.'

edit: To be fair though, that's the 2011-2012 season, so May to May. The contention is that now that folks have had a chance to digest it and make armies they will be bigger in 2012. I don't buy it, but that's the rationale.

Agreed with your last statement; if people have had more time to create armies, it also means that people have had more time to adapt.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

pretre wrote:

Dok wrote:
That is more Space Marines than GK.

That's it. I'm starting a new thread 'Codex: Space Marines is the most overpowered book GW has put out in a decade.'

edit: To be fair though, that's the 2011-2012 season, so May to May. The contention is that now that folks have had a chance to digest it and make armies they will be bigger in 2012. I don't buy it, but that's the rationale.

Agreed with your last statement; if people have had more time to create armies, it also means that people have had more time to adapt.

Yep. Codex adaptation works both ways.

The prevalence of SM leaves us with many explanations:

SM were "just that good" all along, and the book stood the test of time
SM were good, but became worse, and now they are good again because of the metagame
There are so many SM players that they will always have enough pro players to place highly
"codex orks 3e" syndrome where only the people pro enough remain with the book and compete in tournaments

Without more placings we'll really never know.

Well the shift to many light armored vehicles from hordes can't hurt thats for sure. Load up on lascanons, missiles and melta since you know its far more likely to face sm/sm variant. Then have to worry about how to kill big blobs of orks, nids etc.

I know some tourneys that dont allow big blob armies due to the players having issues moving that many models in the time limit. Hard to decide who wins after only 2 rounds.

Fetterkey wrote:Yep. Codex adaptation works both ways.

Very true. No army remains unbeatable after people figure out how to play against it. If you (the general you, not fetterkey specifically) refuse to learn and adapt then it's your own fault that you are not winning.


The list of winners definitely doesn't prove or disprove anything other than the statement "GKs are winning all of the tournaments"
But it's still an interesting list.

This isn't fair on us old GK players, we've waited years for a decent pure GK book, I haven't bothered buying much new (only Dreadknights). They still have the cons of an elite army, standard GK only have 1atk, halberds etc can get very expensive, yes Termies/Paladins are good but they aren't that hard to kill at range which is especially where GK fall down. HQ's can be over 300pts if you spec them monstrously.

I think the GK book is nicely rounded and well done by Matt Ward. Everyone said the BA book was OP but it has some great new ideas. Necrons and BA siding was strange but in the upcoming UK Doubles GK and Necrons can side together with no penalty, WTF?

I think DE are the overlooked ones here, they are owning everyone at all the tournaments I have been to since they came out.