Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Well, now that Luke is out it doesn't seem like anybody is reading this any more, but here goes:

I am in the semi finals with my grey knights - and I will be facing grey knights.

It will be best of 3 games and their list is as follows (about)

Crowe
Inquisitor with Rad and Psychostroke Grenades

Purifier Squad [9], 2 psycannons [?] 2 Hammers, Warding Stave

4 x Purifiers [5] 2 psycannons, maybe hammer or warding stave i am not sure

2 x las backs
1 x psyback

2 x psyflemen Dreads
1 x Landraider

9 man unit and inqisitor act as deathstar in land raider, rest of army is fire support.

My analysis - I am worried about the deathstar unit and the landraider, my army does have a problem with AV 14, however i do have a lot of psycannon shots.

He basically has 5 las cannons and 4 autocannon shots per turn, as his psycannons are in transports with no fire points (unless he gets out)

I have 6 autocannon shots, and 10 psycannon shots...

Target priority is as follows:

my Ven Dreads - to go after his las backs then after his dreads

Be non- agressive, wait for him to get within 24 with his landraider and unload all my psycannons at it - should pop it

Then the goal is to shoot the hell out of the squad inside until that inquisitor is dead - she just gives his purifiers too much of an advantage on first round of combat.

If i fail to immobilize the landraider, i will have to send a suicide squad to bait them out of the vehicle

I am assuming that he runs the land raider ahead of the rest of his army - if he is very conservative, also good for me as i can start shooting down his army.

The armies are really, even, he has a lot more STR 9, but I have a lot more "usable" psycannons as i can shoot from inside my Rhinos.

any other thoughts on how to play the game?

Mark

Well, potentially can sit back and shoot at range, depends how he goes against your dreads. The Chinese like to keep a dread giving a cover save to the lr so not too sure it will go head on into your 24" firing range.

Heh, basically your plan is stand and shoot. Go Matt Ward.

Good luck with the games, when is the first?

Last time I played against GK's, it was a Purifier mirror-match almost. This was at the 2011 Ard Boyz Semi-finals (2500pts) where we brought pretty much the same army, except I had 2 vendreads and he had Mordrak + Ghost Knights. What happened? Due to my superior shooting and isolating Mordrak away from the rest of his army, I was able to table him. First priority is to take out his transports. Then, focus on his infantry and make sure you don't get charged. Have your dreads close to your army for counter-assault and make him think twice before assaulting. I think with your experience and army list, you'll probably do fine against his army, land raider or no.

I do see a distinct disadvantage in a KP game. His shooting at long range outclasses you. Sure your dreads are Venerable, but he really only needs to silence them and you HAVE to go to him. His Landraider and deathstar in that particular match would be a bit of a nightmare. You do haemorrage KP's quite a bit with all the Rhinos you are packing and he has the tools to deal with them.

Objective games...play the game, not your opponent. Just focus on the mission and you should be fine.

Lukus83 wrote:Objective games...play the game, not your opponent.

Hmm, obviously get your point, don't know if the cliche is correct though ;-P

Eh...was rushing this morning.

Hey Lukus,

I have a game coming up today against Janthkin's new necrons. What's he playing? Scythe-spam. 3-4 night scythes and 2 doom scythes along with Immotehk and other stuff. This should be interesting.

BTW, there is going to be a role reversal. Normally he plays nids and I play crons. This time, it's going to be the other way around as I see how my slow nids are going to deal with his fast crons.


Oh, and good luck, Mark.

Ok...I'm now curious to see your nid list. Will be putting my thoughts up when the report comes out for sure.

Since the tournament ended for me I have decided to mix up the pure Scythe spam list. While the Scythes bring efficiency they also suffer from a problem...too much of 1 thing. Something I noticed was having a single lascannon shooting at them was fine. The odds of it doing something significant are well within safe ranges from my PoV. But when you give your opponent no other targets for units that pump out multiple S8 or more shots (think Long Fangs or Psyfleman Dreads) you have a BIG issue. So my Elites slot of Deathmarks and Scythes will probably be replaced with 2 units of Wraiths. It's beginning to look like MTO Necrons, but I doubt I will be dropping any more Scythes as I like the firepower and mobility too much. The aim is really to just run as many threats as possible which the Scythes really allow you to do, as well as give cover saves to the Doom Scythes from certain angles of retaliation.

Of course I may not even be running Necrons for the next tournament. It's becoming obvious the Chinese players are onto our wily ways of bringing really tuned lists and have begun doing it themselves, as well as bringing anti-meta lists along. Someone who could well take the whole thing is a girl called DiuDiu. Not only did she knock out Cmac, but her list is tuned to take on GK's. 2 Librarians and 2 Landraiders. Purifiers are gonna be in for a rough one.

Okay - so game 1 of best out of 3 has been played:

Mission Capture and Control(?) (one objective each)
Dawn of War Deployment
Initiative - Grey Knights (haha - j/k my grey knights won initiative)

Here are the pics:

Deployment - I pushed Crowe in Rhino as far up as I could so that i can use the spot light to highlight his key targets - assumed of ocurse i would lose the rhino but crowe can manage. one strike squad on my objectvie

- he put one purifier squad on his objective (3 upstairs, 2 downstairs) and crowe's evil twin in the lasback.

Turn 1 was abismal for me - my entire army comes on - I light up crowe's evil twin's las back and imobilize and stun it...this is with my army shooting :( he did have cover though.

His turn - he blows up Crowe's Rhino - that's it...

My turn 2-

Crowe stays where he is - shoots his storm bolter at his purifiers holding his objective...kills 2 - yep...crack shot
I fire at the front Psyback immobilizing it.... and that is my turn 2 shooting

His turn 2 shooting is equally abysmal, although his psyback squad disembarks - his landraider moves up the side of the board.

Note - in my movement phase i position 3 of my rhinos to be able to shoot at his land raider should he move forward, which he did next turn will be good.

Turn 3 is when things started going my way-

1) strike squad shoots at LR - nothing
2) Purifier squad shoots at LR - 2 Penetrating hits - 1 result of 5
3) My ven dread shoots at his dread - Explodes
4) shoot at his deathstar - 7 purifiers and 1 inquisitor go down
5) Crowe assaults his Purifier sqaud - kills one also loses a wound

Return fire - he destroys one of my Rhinos and I beleive immobilizes and knocks the weapon off my most forward Rhino

Turn 4 - now that his LR is popped i can run towards his objective

Highlights -

1) He has a laz back under the ruins - the squad was out to my right - my purifiers charge that squad and whipe them out - in his last turn his other las back moved behind his objective - just a not because in his turn he counter charnges and wipes out my purifiers
2) I blow the las back under the objective
3) Run forward with most of my army
4) part of my army whipes out his final 2 guys from death star
5) combat with Crowe and Purifiers is drawn

Evil Grey Knights
1) Crowe's evil twin gets out of his laz back and charges Crowe - they kill crowe - i cast my power to take a guy with me - i wanted to take out the last of his psycannons, but fail my psychic test :(
2) his purifiers charge my purifiers - i lose - his purifers go to the top of the ruins
3) he blows up one of my Rhinos - killing 2 guys in shooting phase

Turn 5 i clinch it...

1) I run my psyback up 12 inches next to the ruins and his objecive, disembark under the objecvie - (the psyback has been running up 12" last turn and this turn)
2) Strick squad blows up his razorback behind the building
3) My entire army shoots at his squad holding the objecive and it is wiped out.
4) i also shoot at the purifiers in the (my) left side of the building - they only have the 1 psycannon left
5) shoot at the purifiers that took out my crowe - they are on my left far from objective - 1 psycannon left

He concedes as he cannot recoup...crowe is too far away and his two singly guy units cannot see my strike squad nor could he get to them to assault...

So - victory to the Grey Knights - 2 - 0

Sorry there were fewer pictures at the end...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Basically I was waiting for his landraider to come up into my army so I can rend it to death - after that point i was free to move up to take/contest his objective.

I think it was bad that he was not agressive enough, but i think this is a flaw of using razorbacks with purifiers vs. rhinos. I was able to put pressure on him while, once his landraider was gone, he was not able to pressure my objective.

Well, we have up to two more games...will post the next report here too.

Well done, when is the next one?

So yeah congrats on the win. It certainly seems the other GK player is winning based on the strength of his list rather than how well he plays. Not to take anything away from you but had he played conseravatively he could have just sat back with Razorbacks, knocked out rhinos and your Dreads and waited for you to walk across to him. He could then counter attack with the contents of the Landraider and use his mobility to annihilate 1-2 squads at a time. Ignore the primary of taking your objective and just win on VP's. Not as easy as it sounds I know, but it perhaps would have been a better way to play from his perspective. Definitely sounds like you outplayed him so congrats again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ooh...just noticed. Crowe (both of them) can't start the game in the transports. Rhino's and Razorbacks are dedicated transports so they can only start the game carrying the unit they were bought for.

Luke - yeah, basically let's assume they started out and got in - just didn't show it (although we did make a mistake - but we both made the same one so meh)

Also Luke - you seem to think I don't have any long range shooting in my army - not to argue your logic but -

12 Str 8 Shots vs 5 Str 9 and 8 Str 8Shots (total 13) -

-- he has one more shot than I do - yes, he has Str 9 on five shots, but all but 2 of his long range guns are a lot easier to take out than mine (e.g. Razor backs vs. Ven Dreds) Also, you make it seem like getting into a 24" range is tough. 1 turn of movement with smoke and I am there...

Adding Psycannons, I have 10, he has 8 - although his are sitting in razorbacks... and if they are out i am shooting at his troops from inside my Rhinos (most likely)

Also, I actually feel i would win the Long Range shooting showdown, or at least it would be close enough where your argument that he would just knock out the rhinos sit back and counter attack is flawed.

If you notice in this game, except for his Land Raider and except for 1 Rhino that i was moving up on my right, we were both sitting back and shooting - who won the shooting match? Keep in Mind his Land Raider was shooting at least one of its guns each turn...

Anyway - maybe you can copy his list and we can try it out after the tournament.

Agree with Luke on the pure long range due to the sources he has them shooting from. Getting into 24" is not difficult usually but getting that alpha down would help, the LR will always fire 1 gun but would be a bit more scary if it gets the second T/L las. Ven dreads may be the difference, but the 1/9 chance from a pen of death can happen and weapons can be blown off. 3 sources of long range firepower isn't great.

Comes to dice and positioning to get the cover saves to mitigate damage.

A replay of that match? GK v GK?

Lol, that sounds fun
I'm sure Matt Ward would enjoy it

@mray:

Well played. I think your experience and savviness won you the game, though I think your opponents will adapt in a short time. It's good to see how the locals are evolving.

I'm slightly confused. In his list, it shows 2 lasbacks and 1 LR, buy you keep mentioning 5 S9 shots. Is that because he actually had 3 lasbacks? Anyways, psyflemans rock. 2 TL S8 shots are better than 1 TL S9 when you're a rhino.

There's 2 reasons why I prefer purifiers in rhinos than razors, but most people don't seem to get it. Besides the obvious protection a rhino affords while still allowing the guys inside to fire, a drawback of razors is that they actually discourage movement or shooting. Either stay inside the razors and you don't get to use your psycannons, or disembark to use them and now you've lost a great deal of mobility. The Movement phase is definitely something that just too many people under-estimate.

I think you misunderstand my point. It was a 2 objective game. You both had similar mobility and guns. The difference was you could ONLY deal with his Landraider once he was in your 24" range (S8 shots from Venerables are wasted since the Razorbacks are much better targets and once popped the Purifiers are still better targets than a Landraider). By putting it inside 24" himself he was basically committing suicide. Not only was he allowing you to sit still with psycannons (doubling your shots), he was also giving away a load of VP's in the case of a draw.

Now I agree Purifiers should be in Rhinos, but since he did put them in Razorbacks he should have played to his own strength. Namely, sitting back and dealing with your Dreads at range. He had 5 lascannons from 4 sources able to shoot at 5 targets a turn. First priority should have been the Venerables. Then your psycannons are heading towards his gunline with no support. He has the same number of psycannons as you (8), so once you move in it's a psycannon battle with one side still having dreadnaughts and lascannons in support. Which side wins?

Again I'm not saying it would be easy to achieve, just saying that's how he should have played it.

Lukus83 wrote:Ok...I'm now curious to see your nid list. Will be putting my thoughts up when the report comes out for sure.

Since the tournament ended for me I have decided to mix up the pure Scythe spam list. While the Scythes bring efficiency they also suffer from a problem...too much of 1 thing. Something I noticed was having a single lascannon shooting at them was fine. The odds of it doing something significant are well within safe ranges from my PoV. But when you give your opponent no other targets for units that pump out multiple S8 or more shots (think Long Fangs or Psyfleman Dreads) you have a BIG issue. So my Elites slot of Deathmarks and Scythes will probably be replaced with 2 units of Wraiths. It's beginning to look like MTO Necrons, but I doubt I will be dropping any more Scythes as I like the firepower and mobility too much. The aim is really to just run as many threats as possible which the Scythes really allow you to do, as well as give cover saves to the Doom Scythes from certain angles of retaliation.

Of course I may not even be running Necrons for the next tournament. It's becoming obvious the Chinese players are onto our wily ways of bringing really tuned lists and have begun doing it themselves, as well as bringing anti-meta lists along. Someone who could well take the whole thing is a girl called DiuDiu. Not only did she knock out Cmac, but her list is tuned to take on GK's. 2 Librarians and 2 Landraiders. Purifiers are gonna be in for a rough one.

Sorry, but no report on this one due to the number of proxies by my opponent. But I will give a brief synopsis here.


His list (at 1850):

Nemesor Zandrehk (he decided to play-test Zandrehk instead)
Royal Court - 3x Lance-teks, 1x Pulse, 1x Lord w/Mindshackles and Warscythe

10x Immortals - Gauss, Night Scythe (Zandrehk and Lord here)
5x Warriors- Night Scythe
5x Warriors- Night Scythe
5x Warriors- Night Scythe

10x Scarabs

Doom Scythe
Doom Scythe
Monolith


My 1850 shooting nids:

Swarmlord
1x Tyrant Guard - 1x Lash whips

3x Hive Guards
3x Hive Guards
3x Hive Guards

Tervigon - Adrenal Glands, Catalyst, Cluster Spines, Toxin Sacs
13x Termagants
Tervigon - Adrenal Glands, Catalyst, Cluster Spines, Toxin Sacs
13x Termagants

3x Biovore
3x Biovore
Tyrannofex - Cluster Spines, Desiccator Larvae, Rupture Cannon


We played Spearhead, Annihilation. I went first. Janthkin reserves his entire army.

Turn 1 - I spread out and spawn termagants. 1 tervigon runs out. I did this to force him to deepstrike his doom scythes further out.

Turn 2 - Just waiting for me.

I believe 2 night scythes, the monolith and both doom scythe comes in. Mono and doom scythe lands on target. Focus-fire wipes out 1 unit of hive guards.

Turn 3 - I destroy 1 doom scythe and weapon-destroy the other. I might have knocked out 1 night scythe.

The rest of his army (except scarabs) comes in. He continues to focus on my hive guards and knock another unit down to just 1 model. He also does some minor damage to my other units, including killing off Swarmy's tyrant guard.

Turn 4 - This turn, my hive guards shake/stun 1 scythes and immobilize another. I make a huge mistake here and charge Swarmy into his HQ unit, forgetting about mindshackles. Luckily, Swarmy survives....

....but not for long. On his turn, Swarmy commits harakiri. Tesla-destructors continue to do some damage, including wiping out the single hive guard. Scarabs come in and multi-assault some gants and the tervigon, wiping out the gants and stripping my tervigon of its armor. Luckily, I had FNP on him. I spawn a unit of termagants and run out. My termagants, however, assault and break a unit of warriors, who would later run off the board.

Turn 5 - Hive guards take down a night scythe only. My biovores aren't doing too well. They either scatter all over the place, or my opponent makes his saves/RP tests. Another unit of termagants charge the scarabs to help out my tervigon.

He wipes out 1 terivgon and kills some biovores, causing them to fall back. In assault, I am killing his scarabs more quickly than he is killing my termagants.

Turn 6 - Tervigon casts Dominion but fleeing biovores are just slightly out of range. T-fex shoots and then assaults his HQ unit but fails my MSS test. Hive guards fail to kill another scythe. Tervigon and termagants wipe out those scarabs.

He doesn't do much and the game ends.


Janthkin's necrons beat my nids 8-7 after a hard-fought battle. If only my 3 hive guards managed to wreck his night scythe on Turn 6 (I got 3 pens but rolled 1's and 2's on the damage charts), it would've been a draw. I felt I had a superior list and more experience than my opponent, but I've gotta give him props for beating me with his very first game with the necrons.

BTW, this list (or something very similar) is what he will be bringing to Adepticon.

@ Luke - I have 10 Psycannons, he has 8.

If he deals with the Ven Dreds, he is not shooting at my rhinos, thus i am in 24".

Anyway - Potato Potato (doesn't work as well when typing). his advantage is only slight and very easy to mitigate. and of course the only way i can effectively deal with his LR is with the Psycannons - wasting the Dreads on it is silly as he has plenty of lasbacks and dreads to shoot at.

Of course dice also play a big part, as does cover and positioning.

I don't think one extra shot with a laz cannon a turn would have made much of a difference, but...anyway

I do think you are playing up his LR too much and you think he has a definitive advantage at range, in reality, his advantage is only slight. It is not that difficult to get within range.

of course if he were to say, Castle up protect his objective and just try and shoot me for the draw/ win on VP - well, maybe he could have done that..then again, i owuld have just needed one squad to get close to his objective to contest.

Anwya, we will see on the next game

@JY2 - 2 Lazbacks with T/l lascannons, and 1 with las cannon and t/l plasma... also his big squad does not have psycannons.

I'm really only saying a couple of things:

1. Landraiders (or all round AV14) is something Purifier builds struggle with. Where are the meltaguns when you need them?

2. Your opponent didn't play very well.

Really that's it. He handed his Landraider to you on a silver platter (throwing it forward into the only weapons that can actually wreck it and are more effective if stationary is stupid. It's a ton of VP's and was never going to make it to your objective). If he had sat back and shot everything at the Ven Dreads he would have at least forced your Purifiers to keep moving and then choose: Shoot at Lasbacks or shoot at the Landraider. Less shots from the Purifiers and a tough choice to boot.

I'm not saying he would have won, what I am saying is that it would have been a better way to play.

But anyways. Good luck in the next round. Hopefully your opponent isn't reading this...

Game 2 of 3 played. Luke, he uses your strategy, sat back and shot at me.

...one objective each...

Game was a draw, so we to VPs... He lost 1007 to 630...

He had a lot of half units of mine. Camera / phone ran out of power l. Will try and post some pics tomorrow

C&C again? I hope you don't get that 3 games in a row.

He's not going to win a shooting match against your army (assuming average dice).

Well done Mark

Don't think there will be game 3 JY2, the win on the VP's probably makes it 2-0 so Mark will go to the final.

Who is Diudiu playing? Has that been done?

That shooting war comes down to who gets the alpha imo, then dice tell the rest of the story. I mock GK due to the ease of use of most of the lists ( [Psydreads, really Matt?, it's like 4th ed Falcons. Well I can shoot at this but it probably won't do much unless its AP 1]), but the movement and positioning are valid strategic differentiation points. Mark is obviously doing this well (and has a Tau army - albeit a Forgeworld one ).

To be honest, its all almost getting to the point where it doesn't matter. Maybe GW intentionally breaks the game just before a new edition to push sales and then slightly nerfs dominant stuff and pushes previously weak stuff to sell more models! I may ease off on buying and painting (lol, I like my armies to be grey, black or white and playable) until the next edition.

Congrats again Mark. I'm gonna hazard a guess you are playing DiuDiu in the finals. Be sure to let Lilian know you won't get back till like 3am, lol.

And the strategy isn't really mine...just another (and I think better) way of him playing his GK's. His list isn't tuned but you work with what you have. At least he did better with it than last time (came down to VP's instead of a crushing victory) so perhaps that particular way of playing it has some merit. I didn't see the game but regardless I'm guessing you outplayed him and you definitely have a stronger list, though as Cmac says, having only 3 sources of long range shooting is low. Your 5 Dread list in my opinion is much scarier.

Good luck in the finals. If you are playing DiuDiu you are gonna need it. As you said to me before, her list is designed to hurt GK's.

When's the game?

Hey All,

JY2 - yes, no 3rd game and Yes will be playing Diu Diu in the final - she played and beat the Necron player yesterday.

Luke, we have a picture for you have his Scythes, we even took one together with yours...i will post here once i get it to shame you....

He went first and deployed first...will post pics later today - i realize i have up until turn 4 or 5 (went to turn 6) . He had one land raider and one razorback and purifer squad on his left, the rest of his army and his objecive on his right... i put my entire army to face off against his LR and Purifiers squad... my dreads knocked out his razorbacks and one of his dreads...although in the ned i had 2 immobilized dreads and only 1 t/l autocannon among the three.

There was no close combat and it was literally just a turkey shoot.

Oh no I'm burning up already. What am I going to do...

cmac wrote:
Don't think there will be game 3 JY2, the win on the VP's probably makes it 2-0 so Mark will go to the final.

mray01 wrote:
JY2 - yes, no 3rd game and Yes will be playing Diu Diu in the final - she played and beat the Necron player yesterday.

Well, in that case, I guess the 3rd game will have to extend to the game against Diu Diu.

BTW, I love that name, or at least the romanization of it. It just sounds so cute. However, if that was pronounced in Cantonese, then it means something pretty bad....


-----------------------------------------------------------------


At all:

If I was Mark's opponent, I would have advanced in both games, even in the face of all those psycannons. My reasons?

- Only stand and shoot if you have superior firepower. With all those psyflemans and psycannons, Mark's purifiers had the better firepower. It would have been more advantageous for Mark to trade fire as he showed in game #2.

- In an objectives game, the one who advances towards the enemy objective will be playing for the Win or the Tie. The one who stands will be playing for the Tie or the Loss. Of course this is assuming that both parties have relatively equal firepower. You can pull off the win if you have superior firepower (since there was a tie-breaker in the form of VP's). Unfortunately however, in my opinion, Mark's opponent did not. This is basically a strategy I refer to as Positional Dominance. You establish good positions early so that your opponent with have to be battling from behind. If you advance and he stays still, only his objective will be threatened while yours remains relatively safe. Thus, the game is his to lose and yours to win.

- Although his LR got destroyed in game #1, psycannons aren't really that reliable in taking them out. Play aggressive with the LR as it has a decent chance to make it to Mark's objective. Otherwise, his 300pt purifier unit is just sitting in there and not contributing to the battle at all.


Looking forwards to the DD battle. She sounds like a good player, though with BA vs GK and Mark's experience, I'm going to have to give this one to Mark as long as he doesn't forget to keep moving in an objectives game (don't let those angels box him in).