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Wierdly enough I'm slowly building a daemons list as well just because I see so much of it from the GK standpoint as well. Plus, I like the fateweaver model. I have one just sitting around, no army to go with it though.

On the flip side, I can also use them in fantasy games (though very different builds)

but yes, I agree, daemons definately need some upgrades. Here's hoping 6th edition will change deep strike rules. Maybe let you assault out of it or something.

berglin wrote:So, I picked up a Knights army when they were re-released earlier this year and a friend of mine decided to extend his already extensive CSM army with a pure daemon list.

After a couple of games I'm just confused. The GK are supposed to be the ultimate weapon in fighting daemons, yet most of their special abilities do nothing or very little against an actual daemon force. The general consensus seems to be that GK vs. Daemons is an auto win, but I just don't see it. I'm starting to think I'm overlooking something essential.

Force weapons: All daemons have inv. save and eternal warrior.
The Aegis: Daemonic abilities aren't psychic attacks.
Preferred enemy: You don't want to get into CC with daemons. Or is the reroll really that effective?
Daemonbane: An LD test for wounded models. Most daemons seem to have rather high LD.
Psy grenades: Again, you really want to shoot them before they arrive.
Warp quake: Only effective if you go first, and then only partially.

Don't get me wrong. Most of the GK specials are good, but they don't seem to be particularly effective against their chosen foe. I basically have no problem with this, but I don't understand why the GK are considered auto win.

Please correct me if I'm missing something, or if I'm overlooking the effectiveness of anything.

Thanks.

I dunno, this sounds kinda whiney, for one thing Greys Knights are pretty powerful anyway, they have enough good things for anti-daemons, and if they had to much daemon raping things, it would be no fun at all for the daemon player =/

As a Deamon player, I don't have a whole lot of problems with Grey Knights. But what I do have is a very restricted build if I'm constructing a tournament list. And I have to take the chance that my opponent will spam strike and interceptor squads, and/or go first. If GK's tool up against Daemons, and go first, the Daemon player auto-loses. It's that simple. Despite that...I really don't mind too much. If I had any grievances, they'd be as follows:

#1 - Warp Quake. If the GK player has six warp quakes, and go first, they can essentially block off the entire board.

#2 - psyk-out grenades on damn near everything. That means that I have to design a list around either not getting charged, or getting charged on my own terms. That's pretty much it.

What that means is in a competitive, take-all comers environment, you have to essentially concede a 50% guaranteed loss, with a hard-fought battle on the other 50% that could go either way (you may be able to stack that in your favor, but you could also screw that up.

Those two, combined, essentially dictate the Daemon build I've been using recently. (massed fiends and seekers, with Skarbrand [and recently, Fateweaver] if you're wondering). I've theorized that there are two and a half other potentially viable daemon builds. The weaker would be an MSU Tzeentch force, the other a Bloodthirster/hound force, and thehalf would be a variant of what I'm running now sans skarbrand/fateweaver. None of which I really have any interest in collecting and building. IMNSHO, the emergence of grey knights essentially made anything with Nurgle and bloodcrushers essentially useless in a competitive list.

To be honest, the one saving grace with my Daemons is that the competitive GK lists in my local meta tend to lean more towards purifiers/paladins, instead of spamming storm/interceptor squads. (psyriflemen too, but my builds don't really care about them). The only reason I can see why is that spamming storm/interceptor squads, if you don't know what you're doing, opens you up to weaknesses against other tournament armies if the other army gets to go first.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
By the way, IMNSHO, the only thing that Daemons really need is anti-psyker ability. . . they're creatures of the Warp, for Pete's sake! There's stuff I'd like, but in general I don't have too many consistent problems.

Yes, if you knew that you were playing Chaos Demons, Grey Knights can load up against them.
But in a take-all-comers game or tournament a GK player will not take anti-demon wargear because it is a waste of points.

I have done well with Grey Knights, but I am scared of facing a Demon army.
Do you know why? Blessing of the Blood God! You know, in all of your listings of what Grey Knights can do, you forget that Demons with the Blessing get a 2+ save from them in assault. That is why when I see Fateweaver and a Bloodthirster hanging out together I know I will be in for a rough game.

And really you do not see much Warp Quake out there. Strikes suck and Interceptors are over-costed. That is why you see purifier spam, henchman armies and draigo wing. You very rarely see a competitive list with Strikes as troops that do anything other than hang out at the rear of the table and hold an objective.

And really you do not see much Warp Quake out there. Strikes suck and Interceptors are over-costed. That is why you see purifier spam, henchman armies and draigo wing. You very rarely see a competitive list with Strikes as troops that do anything other than hang out at the rear of the table and hold an objective.

Blackmoor, I pointed out in another thread that strikes and interceptors are NOT overcosted. Not even in the GK book compared to other choices.

Some things not touched on. First is Sanctuary. Sanctuary means that any daemon without grenades (most of them) will strike last, after taking dangerous terrain. Second, while a lot of people mentioned the 2+ armor save Dreadknight with Dark Excommunication, what about the 2+ armor save Coteaz with Dark Excommunication and Sanctuary!

Even if you dont meta against daemons on purpose, many builds run Coteaz as he is a fantastic value, unlocks more troops, and he also happens to be great versus daemons.

If you take a strike squad/interceptor list, barring odd dice or bad play you should win.

If you run Coteaz, barring odd dice or bad play you should win.

If you run Dreadknights, ect ect.

Really, you need to build a very specific kind of Grey Knight force to be able to lose to Daemons. An all terminator force (so no warpquake), with HQs that do not have sanctuary (so the daemons can actually manage an assault), with no Dark Excommunication in the list (no coteaz or dreadknights) and no cover to hide in.

Even then, at 1500 points your looking at 30 GKT, or some Draigo/Paladin list which can both still be hard as nails.

Blackmoor, you happen to run Draigo right, and if I remember you only had, what, 6 models with warpquake? Or did you also have 10 interceptors to go with the 6 strikes? Considering 5 Strikes and 10 interceptors are good to great units for Draigo armies, and that those 15 models on foot can block the entire board with warpquake when combined with the large footprint of Draigos unit, how are you scared of Daemons?

Centurian99 wrote:As a Deamon player, I don't have a whole lot of problems with Grey Knights.

What Grey Knight players have you faced that have comparable play skill to you?

What that means is in a competitive, take-all comers environment, you have to essentially concede a 50% guaranteed loss, with a hard-fought battle on the other 50% that could go either way (you may be able to stack that in your favor, but you could also screw that up.

That's a hard thing to concede in an environment where one loss puts you out of the winners bracket (most tournaments lately) and GK are popular as they've got such a good game against everyone else too.

Blackmoor wrote:Yes, if you knew that you were playing Chaos Demons, Grey Knights can load up against them.
But in a take-all-comers game or tournament a GK player will not take anti-demon wargear because it is a waste of points.

Apart from the anti-daemon stuff that's just thrown in for free.

I have done well with Grey Knights, but I am scared of facing a Demon army.

Are you saying you haven't yet? I don't think you have much to fear, honestly.

Do you know why? Blessing of the Blood God! You know, in all of your listings of what Grey Knights can do, you forget that Demons with the Blessing get a 2+ save from them in assault. That is why when I see Fateweaver and a Bloodthirster hanging out together I know I will be in for a rough game.

If they can land fateweaver and a bloodthirster together and not lose one, or both, to GK shooting, you're potentially in for a hard game if they get into assault with you. On the other hand, if you have one model with dark excommunication (which, interestingly enough, Coteaz comes with, as do dread knights), you turn off his Blessings of the Blood God, along with most of his other tricks. To be fair, if Coteaz is alone, the bloodthirster probably squishes him...

And really you do not see much Warp Quake out there. Strikes suck and Interceptors are over-costed. That is why you see purifier spam, henchman armies and draigo wing. You very rarely see a competitive list with Strikes as troops that do anything other than hang out at the rear of the table and hold an objective.

Coteaz, with the right unit nearby, is almost as good as Warp Quake, and better in some ways (doesn't rely on first turn, doesn't need to pass a test). As mentioned before, you don't need to warp quake the entire board, preventing daemons landing close enough to assault the next turn is good enough (and probably why Bill's lists have evolved towards fiends and seekers, as he mentioned).

Grey Templar wrote:Maybe if Daemons got to have 1/2 their force on the board to start with and then have another 1/2 come in by deep strike.

or if Deep Strike was just an option that they could choose to use.

only a D6 scatter would be a good thing too. Maybe certain units could assault after deep striking?

This could work.

To add to it, you could make it that Chaos Icons nullify Warp Quake when used to deep strike in. Maybe give Daemons a similar thing akin to Psyk-out grenades as Redbeard suggested.

Iranna.

Ok, I think Redbeard and a couple of others have summed up most of it, but as someone who plays both sides (mostly Daemons lately), I just had to chime in, because this is a topic that I have discussed at length with my gaming group.

The conclusion we have come to is that it is an uphill battle fighting GK as Daemons period. There are some builds that are really unfair, and some that aren't much of a problem for Daemons at all. If someone runs Crowe-spam with some Dreads...not much to fear. Sure, they get preferred enemy and psyk-out grenades. That makes it tougher, but I have tabled a GK player with a Purifier list. As far as skill level, he placed higher than me at NOVA.

With that said, if you tailor for Daemons, it is EXTREMELY difficult to have much of a chance. The basic abilities are bad enough, but if you take two squads of Interceptors, combat-squadded with scout, and two squads of strikes, then the Daemons might not be able to land AT ALL. This is just plain unfun and unfair.

If you don't tailor, but have an all-comers list with Coteaz and maybe some Techmarines with your DCAs, then it's also an uphill battle, because you can't drop near Coteaz, and there are units that will shred you if they get the charge off (and they will if they sit safe in a land raider), and if you do manage to get near Coteaz and even charge him, he turns off your special abilities. Another all-comers list I've seen floating around billed as competitive has multiple Dreadknights; their effect on Daemons has been discussed already, so I guess I won't :shrug:

At any rate, if you're worried about Daemons with your all-comers list, just throw a couple of Dreadknights in your list and you'll probably be fine; you've got plenty of tools.

Last thought: I don't understand why an army that is FORCED to DS is worse at it than Green space marines, red space marines, Imperial Guard (?!), Chaotic Space marines, etc. I just want a mechanic that lets me deepstrike better. If that means that one or two units can assault after deepstriking, or if they automatically go back into reserve when they mishap, or if they only scatter 1d6 (or 2d6 pick the highest would be better)...I don't care. Just don't make us so bad at it when it's our only option.

Ok, I'm done now.

6e is potentially around the corner, and will feature all new daemonic threats for the GK to deal with (2 new chaos codices according to rumor) and the rumored 6e rule changes may make more sense as to why the GK have the abilities they have (e.g. if preferred enemy applies to shooting).

I thought it was weird that NFW was the default weapon for GK considering daemons all have invulnerable saves and eternal warrior; but it will probably make sense in 6e as well.

Against the 5e GK; Daemons are screwed by Warpquake, and if the GK only had that, it would probably be enough to give them a long list of Ws for every rare L.

If Preferred Enemy applies to shooting, as well as assault, then I cannot conceive a situation in which the Daemons book as it stands will have any chance against GK. (especially with cover rumored to go to 5+).

Combat against them can be rough, but the issue is more getting into combat with enough of your army intact to actually win.

A strike squad on Bloodletters with Psybolt Ammo (no Psycannons included) will get 20 shots, 16 hits, 11 wounds with 4 saves that means you have 2 or 3 letters left...that is absolute murder...

Yeah, I don't know why anyone would think 6E will give Daemons a boost. All of the most consistent rumors seem to be negatives for Daemons...I'd read about changes to DS where you'd scatter more/less depending on how close to an enemy you are, but I can't see that making much difference against Warpquake---especially not if GK shooting is set to get more effective.

Of course no one knows for certain what will actually change rules-wise, but I think if any advantages come Daemons' way, they will be accidental. GW has no appreciable interest in keeping Daemons balanced in 5E. Why should that change in 6E? We may as well be Codex: Red-Headed Stepchildren in the big scheme of things. If Daemons get a fix, it will come in a new codex. I'm sure GW is tirelessly working on it as we speak.

the 6E boosts would be in the daemon codex itself.

Daemons not needing to Deep Strike, Daemons only scattering 6", Daemons allowed to assault out of a Deep Strike, Deep Strike mishaps becoming less horrible, Daemons getting better saves...

Any or all of the above would be good changes for Daemons.

I just can't get over the fact that daemons got nothing in the gk book. I like either daemons being allowed to deploy versus grey knights (daemonic infiltration) or sustained assault rules for the second wave (daemonic invasion). Those are fluffy options, super easy to have included in the gk book, and make up for powers like warp quake (allowing daemons to deploy regular) and free preferred enemy (instead of deploying you get unlimited reserves, but only of the second wave, which has to die and give up a kill point first)

Grey Templar wrote:the 6E boosts would be in the daemon codex itself.

Daemons not needing to Deep Strike, Daemons only scattering 6", Daemons allowed to assault out of a Deep Strike, Deep Strike mishaps becoming less horrible, Daemons getting better saves...

Not sure what you mean here. I've heard rumors that suggest things like this, but nothing Daemon-specific.

If daemons only scatter 6 and can assault you will see a huge amount of daemons come back. Though you will also hear alot of "I can't sit in my parking lot cause those buggers are in your face turn one!" lol

I'm just saying that it really wouldn't matter if the bonuses were in the Daemon Codex or in the main rules. You really need to see how the 2 work together to see a benifit and for that you would want to see the Daemon Codex. We have a few 6th ed codices out already so we can pretty well surmise what some rule changes are going to be(when we also take stock of Rumors)


We can guess that you will be able to reroll rerolls(Brotherhood Champion's apparently useless Digital Weapons)

It has been rumored that you can take multiple saves against wounds, which combined with Warding Staves being stupidly expensive would make sense putting 2 and 2 together.

The turn system might go to a "You go I go" system where players will move, then shoot, then assault in succession of each other. This is from the Necron dude that lets them immediatly deep strike everything that can if their opponent Deep Strikes something.

Flyers have been rumored to be included. This would explain the sudden glut of models using the Valkierie flight stand which had been what Flyers used(and the Valk was originally an Appoc Flyer)

Grey Templar wrote:I'm just saying that it really wouldn't matter if the bonuses were in the Daemon Codex or in the main rules. You really need to see how the 2 work together to see a benifit and for that you would want to see the Daemon Codex. We have a few 6th ed codices out already so we can pretty well surmise what some rule changes are going to be(when we also take stock of Rumors)

Ah, I see what you mean. That is more or less what I meant by the boosts being "accidental". I can see some rules being modified in ways that will benefit Daemons, I just didn't think they'd do anything in the BRB to specifically re-balance Daemons. We can cherry-pick rumors now and see a bright future for 4E Daemons, but I'm pretty sure they are nothing more than an afterthought in any 6E design considerations. They are, after all, an outdated, unpopular, oddball army. So we might get some coincidental boosts from 6E, but I don't think we'll see a real fix for Daemons until they get their own 6E codex.

I had not heard about rolling multiple saves though...my Bloodcrushers and Daemon Princes think that would be pretty neat...

Is this a troll?

How can deamons ever hope to beat GK?

I would like to point out that Daemons against GK is a reaaly tough match-up for the poor warp spawns... But it's not an isolated one! Let's think about tyranids... Nidzilla or tervigon spam will die horribly to every respectable GK army with psyflemen obliterating any zoanthrope, warriors and any t4 multiwound monsters and HQ MCs attacking sadly last thank to psycotrokes only to be miserebly instagibbed by FW... And how much they struggle also against the poisonous DE...
We can also talk about Tau against orks and in general against enemies with good numbers...
I'm trying to say that sadly there are and there will always be bad matches... This one at least is fluffy...

punkow wrote:I'm trying to say that sadly there are and there will always be bad matches... This one at least is fluffy...

I disagree with both of these points.

You claim there will always be bad matchups. Only as long as the current inept GW designers are writing the books. They have writers making rules, not specific rules people. Fluff and rules should never be written by the same people, as they're intrinsically different left-brain/right-brain problems.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to perform basic black-box tests, to run numbers, to gather data and rebalance. GWs issue isn't that they cannot get rid of bad matchups, it is that they have no desire to. Their rules design is led by the desire to sell models, not to write a balanced game. They don't playtest, they play, and call it testing, and they clearly don't perform any significant analysis on the results of their play, nor simple statistical analysis. If they did, we'd never see a unit like Long Fangs priced so much lower than near-identical choices in other books.

Basically, what we're experiencing (a game with 'bad matchups') is not the natural result of good game design, it's the result of bad game design, careless testing and it's what happens when you let the guy you hired to do Italian translations write the rules. Most of the issues we see could easily be addressed with a stricter application of 'availability' and a more stringent approach to setting unit (and upgrade) costs. We used to see availability restrictions, when Chambers was running the show. Units would be 0-1. They wouldn't overprice something to represent that it wasn't common (this leads to unbalanced games when people take them anyway). They wouldn't underprice units to show that they were commonplace, they'd make them 1+, or make them troops.

Consider the parking lots that we see in 5th. People take minimum squads of men in order to get the dirt-cheap transport. Does this sell higher-margin vehicle kits? Sure. Does it lead to an enjoyable balanced game? Not even remotely. If you're on foot, you're at a disadvantage. We see 5-man squads of DE so that they can have a venom, 5 man squads of marines so they can have their razorback. Perhaps, given the relative difficulty of harming vehicles in 5th, they should have made them cost more, not less. 50 point rhinos weren't bad because of their cost. They weren't even bad because of the 4ed damage tables. The issue with rhinos before was the inherent risk of having your guys auto-disembark and auto-entangle. Without the 5ed damage changes and point costs, transports would still be valuable as long as they didn't get the squad inside screwed. In 5th ed, we don't see basic men outside of boxes except for a couple of codexes that can't really put them in boxes: Daemons and Nids, and really big masses of orks. If men are outside boxes, they're almost always either in terminator armour or on bikes, or wearing jump packs.

If they hadn't screwed up vehicles so bad, maybe we'd still see infantry armies from time to time. Then an assault army like daemons has something to do besides bang harmlessly on the hull of a 35 point vehicle that moved last turn. Daemons weren't killed by GKs - they're just the final nail in the coffin. They were done in by mechhammer.

As to the second point, "This one at least is fluffy", well, I think that it's more important to balance the two forces in a natural rivalry than in other cases. As a Grey Knight player, you should want to fight daemons. Not because it's an easy win, but because, you know, it's the reason your army exists. And, as a daemon player, you should want to fight Grey Knights, you should want to drag their asses down into the warp with you. But because the matchup is so skewed, it just doesn't happen - the daemon players shelve their armies, and, when it does, it's not really any fun for either player. It's just not good game design.

whigwam wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:I'm just saying that it really wouldn't matter if the bonuses were in the Daemon Codex or in the main rules. You really need to see how the 2 work together to see a benifit and for that you would want to see the Daemon Codex. We have a few 6th ed codices out already so we can pretty well surmise what some rule changes are going to be(when we also take stock of Rumors)

Ah, I see what you mean. That is more or less what I meant by the boosts being "accidental". I can see some rules being modified in ways that will benefit Daemons, I just didn't think they'd do anything in the BRB to specifically re-balance Daemons. We can cherry-pick rumors now and see a bright future for 4E Daemons, but I'm pretty sure they are nothing more than an afterthought in any 6E design considerations. They are, after all, an outdated, unpopular, oddball army. So we might get some coincidental boosts from 6E, but I don't think we'll see a real fix for Daemons until they get their own 6E codex.

I had not heard about rolling multiple saves though...my Bloodcrushers and Daemon Princes think that would be pretty neat...

GW has used the core rules to re-balance a specific book before; 8th ed fantasy did alot to nerf daemons while powering up everyone else. (of corse, 8th ed has utterly killed undead as a consiquence)
So it's not totally inconvcievable that the new rules might have some specific buffs to playstyles that are desperately crying for it. (ie: swarmy assault armies like 'nids & the woefully inept design of daemons)

Still, the GK codex is a slap in the face to daemon players. (my guess is, Ward doesn't know the difference between fantasy & 40k daemons! )
The ability to play an 'auto-win' should never be allowed to happen, and simply smacks of crap games design. Add on the other crap that GK's can pull with broken upgrades like psycho 'nades & clensing flame, and it's no wonder most non-GK players hate the prospect of having to play against the army.

But then, I find very few highly competitive 'uber beatdown lists fun to play against, so it's not like GK's have suddenly introduced anything new to the game in this respect. They're simply 'the best' at being highly obnoxious right now.
I'm sure when Chaos as a whole finally gets some love, we'll hear every non-chaos player decrying the new book as broken & un-fun to face. At least at this point, if/when I get a new Daemon codex, I can turn around and stick it up the poo-hole of all those jerk-off GK's players who've been ruthlessly 'quake-shunting' the little 12-year old daemon player. (who was almost reduced to tears at one point by these idiots)

Redbeard wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:As a Deamon player, I don't have a whole lot of problems with Grey Knights.

What Grey Knight players have you faced that have comparable play skill to you?

There's a handful of players I've faced locally that I'd consider top-tier players, although they don't travel much. My results have been pretty consistent - spammed warpquake means the 50% chance of a guaranteed loss. Anything else I can deal with reasonably well, especially with my Skarbrand/Fateweaver/Fiends/Seekers build.

I don't worry about coteaz - I'm dropping far enough away that it doesn't matter, and I'm still on them in one turn. Taking down dreadknights is simply a matter of charging them with two units at once. Paladins, I just jump on them with 3-4 units and they go away. And one of their greatest strengths - psyriflemen - matter not at all to a Daemon build like mine.

Redbeard wrote:

What that means is in a competitive, take-all comers environment, you have to essentially concede a 50% guaranteed loss, with a hard-fought battle on the other 50% that could go either way (you may be able to stack that in your favor, but you could also screw that up.

That's a hard thing to concede in an environment where one loss puts you out of the winners bracket (most tournaments lately) and GK are popular as they've got such a good game against everyone else too.

I suppose that's true, I just don't worry too much about it, because with my build, if they've spammed enough to cover the board and go second, I'm generally going to overpower them in hand to hand if I go first, so going first for me is almost an auto-win. Plus, there's dawn of war, in which case I also win regardless of whether I go first or second, because they're limited to two warp quakes. So the way I consider it, I've got over a 50% chance of winning right off the bat, which is really good enough for me.

Oh I agree with you redbeard... a better game design would avoid such situations... but sadly , evn at the times of Chambers (which I rmember with a lot of nostalgia) codex creep, bad balance and bad match up were there... The fact that 40K evolve so slowly with codexes not keeping the pace with the edition will inevitably lead to problems like this... I just wanted to say that there are other very bad match ups around there (tyranids have lots of enemies against which they simply autolose... I mention them because I'm forced to leave my GK on the shelf when I play with my Tyranid buddy... But surely there are other examples...) and this one appears as one of the more reasonable...
Personally I would recommend special missions in friendly games. In a competitive environment... well... gak happens... it's undeniably an uphill battle... but are there any TACTICAL suggestions for Daemon players here? because saying that GK hve an unfair advantage will not make the disappear from the tournament scene... Centurian... I don't know... my friends are not that good with daemons, but I keep tabling daemons, even allowing 'em 25% more points and the Build I faced is actually the one you've described... pallies can tackle pretty everything in the Daemons dex in cc while their firepower is enough to take down most lesser daemons.
Cheers!
Punkow

I keep reading in these "discussion" sections where people complain about how GK always destroy daemons, but whenever I read a bat rep they all seem to be rather close even when the GK player is experienced (jy2) or when they use "cheese" tactics (there was a father-son bat-rep a while back, and the daemon beat down the quake-spam army).

If there more of the one-sided bat rep (with pictures to back it up) that would be nice to see.

In addition, I do not recall seeing any bat rep using quake-spam GK army owning any army, period. Sure, it will work as a tailored list, but no one who's serious about beating other armies besides daemons seem to use it.

Strike squads dont make a tailored list

Also, the Nova Invitational winner ran 4x5 strike squads. You cant claim he played against noobs, and its not like 4x5 strike squads are bad.

Consider Crowe for 150, plus 2 purifier squads at 185 (rhino) each. Puts you at 520.

Without crowe, taking 175 (razor) point strike squads, you get 3 strike squads for 525. The Daemon hammers are MC now, and you get a psyback in place of the rhino.

In combat on the charge, you trade 6 regular attacks, 6 pw attacks, and 3 hammer attacks on the purifiers for 2 regular attacks, 6 pw attacks, and 3 MC hammer attacks on the strikes. So you lose 4 regular attacks, and gain an extra hammer attack most likely from MC.

So this 4x5 strick squad is sufficient to deny the entire board from daemon DS?

Cladmir wrote:So this 4x5 strick squad is sufficient to deny the entire board from daemon DS?

Well, it's enough to stop the Daemon player deep striking anywhere in the GK deployment zone and most of the middle of the board if the GK player deploys far-enough forward. Effectively, the daemon player would have to footslog to get into assault range, after getting shot up by a round of GK shooting of course.

Iranna.

Cladmir wrote:So this 4x5 strick squad is sufficient to deny the entire board from daemon DS?

No, but it doesn't have to be. As others in this thread have noted, it denies enough of the board that Daemons are left in a hopeless situation wherever they're able to deploy. I wouldn't call it an auto-win, but it would take a real dunce of a GK player to screw up that matchup.

Iranna wrote:

Cladmir wrote:So this 4x5 strick squad is sufficient to deny the entire board from daemon DS?

Well, it's enough to stop the Daemon player deep striking anywhere in the GK deployment zone and most of the middle of the board if the GK player deploys far-enough forward. Effectively, the daemon player would have to footslog to get into assault range, after getting shot up by a round of GK shooting of course.

Iranna.

Yeah, but in order to have that kind of coverage the GK will have to essentially spread put his 4 troop choices across the board? After the first wave of daemon DS, then what? There will undoubtedly be a group of daemon moving up to those metal boxes. Does the GK player leave them out there to die to deny further DS or do they redeploy them and lose the coverage? What about the PAGK squad(s) that is/are far from action? If the game is not an objective based one, or forbid, the objective is not in the deny zone, do you just park that squad(s) out there not able to support your army?

Cladmir wrote:
Yeah, but in order to have that kind of coverage the GK will have to essentially spread put his 4 troop choices across the board? After the first wave of daemon DS, then what?

One of the things about GKs is that they fire surprisingly well on the move. If I've got 4 strike squads, I can block off where I want to set up my position, and deny anyone landing close enough to assault me except, as Centurian has mentioned, hounds, fiends and seekers. I can then pull my guys back while shooting. 4 strike squads is 40 bolter shots on the move, and that's if there are no upgrades, more than enough to hurt most lesser daemons. By moving back, I buy myself yet another turn of shooting, and can prevent the next round's drops from getting close again.

It's like making a shell that retracts some while fighting off whatever landed.