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A surprise ending! With the amount of shooting the GK's had available at first I really expected a one-sided match. I suggest continuing to tweak the GK list, though it does look pretty nice at 1500pts. As Hulk mentioned though perhaps a couple of Dreadknights would have been better than the Dreadnaughts. Mray is using them really well and they received a big buff in 6th.

Congrats on the win Janthkin.

The dreadknights indeed would've helped out in assaults. What with their crushing high strength attacks, it'd be easier to break those combats early. Seems like the longer you stay in combat with Necrons the harder it is to win decisively. Didn't help that you had bad rolls. Good game though, really enjoy your bat reps.

Great report!

I personally have found Dreadknights to be the absolute bane of Necrons.

With their Heavy Incinerators they can evaporate entire units of Scarabs in a single shot. Add in the fact that there is so little AP2 weaponry and most of the weapons lean on the low to mid range of Strength, they can take so much punishment and just keep rolling on through.

Plus, it is just fantastic when the Dreadknight punks Overlords with a single hit.

I only see the intro part in the OP...where is the rest of the report?

Congrats to Janthkin I would've never thought that the Necron list used could've beat the Grey knight list. Always enjoy a good battle that goes against my expectations.

Well played Janth, well played

Nice one! Great report!

Do you guys have any constructive feedback about the BAO scenario? I'd love your input if so!

Good battle report.

Nice catch on the Scarabs not being able to harm Quad Gun.

I lost against Janthkin's Necron list twice. AP3 nerf really hurts the Grey Knights. Necron Overlord with MSS is extremely effective.

Congrats to Janthkin for crushing victory.

Thanks for sharing!

POST-GAME ANALYSIS:

Grey Knights:
Whoa.....

What just happened there?

Necrons beating the grey knights in assault?

I am now 0-3 in 6E with my grey knights?!?

Has the world gone mad???

Ok, calm down, calm down....


Let's try to see where it all went wrong for the knights.


1. No hammers. Without hammers, I couldn't really do much against his tough, tough lords in combat as I couldn't wound him and when I did, he still had his 2+. Originally, my list had hammers and other upgrades but no 2nd HQ. So the trade-off now is a slight buff in combat versus a slight buff in shooting thanks to psychic powers. My opponent then denied my psychic power (Misfortune) twice and I could have used a hammer (on a regular infantry, not the justicar) in combat against his lords. Should I give up the 2nd psyker or perhaps some infantry to get some hammers into my units? Hmmm....this is a tough call.

2. Did I dedicate too much of my shooting onto his flyers? On Turn 2, I fired at his doom scythe with my psyfleman and my buffed-up unit. Originally, I had planned on shooting at his infantry, but when Misfortune got denied, I decided to go after his flyer instead. Thereafter, I just ignored his night scythes because they were not as big a threat as his troops and spyders. However, my concern about the necron flyers caused me to play a little more defensively than I would have liked by castling up in the center. It's ironic that the less-assaulty necrons are advancing and putting the pressure on the more shooty-&-assaulty grey knights but that's exactly what Janthkin did. Basically, he turned my Maximum Threat Overload strategy back onto me.

3. Necron alpha-strike. This is one of the greatest strengths of the new necrons - their ability to almost always get the alpha-strike on the opponent. Thanks to their flyers, my opponent was basically dictating the action. I was just reacting (though for the grey knights, that isn't necessarily a bad thing). He came in, disembarked all his immortals and then proceeded to take out 1 dread and 25% of my forces (or 33% of the models that was on the board at that time). That really hurt.

4. Maximum Threat Overload. Basically, Janthkin used my own strategy against me. He boxed me in and threw everything at me almost all at once - his spyders, doom scythe, night scythes, his Warlord and the 2 blocks of immortals. More importantly, he was trying to control the board by boxing me in, thus achieving Positional Dominance against me. Positional Dominance is my philosophy of trying to gain an advantage in objectives-based missions by establishing the more advantageous positions over your opponent. However, I was expecting this, which was why I deepstruck 1 unit of strikers into his deployment zone to threaten his forces there instead. And I think my counter-strategy had a good chance of working if only I could kill something in assault.


But throught the turbulent times, there were a couple of bright spots.

1. Divination with shooty GK's is just sooooo good. I actually managed to blow away 14 scarabs in 1 turn! Thats 42 wounds I did with shooting! And it could have been much worse for my opponent had he not denied Misfortune twice!! It is powers like these why a good army should consider having some type of psychic defense. It is also because of psychic powers like these why you will see good tournament players who are not running necron flyers or MSU ally in eldar or space wolves into their army.

2. I like the resiliency and shooting of foot-knights. Sure they all died in this game, but had I brought my purifiers, with only about 25 troops at 1.5K, I may have possibly loss even more quickly. And their shooting was just phenomonal despite the fact that Janthkin was making a decent amount of saves (at least for his 3+ guys). The shooting of this army, especially when augmented by my psychic powers, is truly a threat to any army out there.


So despite the spanking I received in this game, I still very much think that my GK build is a viable one. I also had a lot of fun with them so you can be sure that there's going to be a lot more games and a lot more beatings to come before this army is done.

 Reecius wrote:
Nice one! Great report!

Do you guys have any constructive feedback about the BAO scenario? I'd love your input if so!

Personally, I like it. I like the multiple-paths-to-victory route. It helps to balance out the game in the case of bad matchups (i.e. MSU armies in kill point games, deathstar armies in the Relic, etc.). It also makes it more exciting because if you know your army is getting killed in 1 mission, not all hope is lost. You can concentrate on the other missions to still have a chance to win it. Overall, the multiple-missions scenario acts as a check and balance to more evenly level the playing field.

I also like the fact that you guys did it with a minimal amount of change to the core rules. This should help satisfy the more hardcore by-the-book players. There are a very few changes to the rules, but I think those changes actually make the game more enjoyable.

Overall, you guys did a great job on your new 6E BAO rules. It is basically almost the same as the 5E BAO rules, and yet you guys managed to keep it simple.

Now the only thing that is probably needed is a home-brew FAQ to address some of the rules issues currently, at least until GW releases some updated FAQ’s. Either that or borrow from one of the GT FAQ’s that is already out there (not sure if INAT is updated for 6E, but you can consider the Golden Throne, Nova, ETC, Socal, etc. FAQ’s or just publish your own).

 Lukus83 wrote:
A surprise ending! With the amount of shooting the GK's had available at first I really expected a one-sided match. I suggest continuing to tweak the GK list, though it does look pretty nice at 1500pts. As Hulk mentioned though perhaps a couple of Dreadknights would have been better than the Dreadnaughts. Mray is using them really well and they received a big buff in 6th.

Congrats on the win Janthkin.

Ok, I'll give the dreadknight a go in my next game with my foot-knights.

 gpfunk wrote:
The dreadknights indeed would've helped out in assaults. What with their crushing high strength attacks, it'd be easier to break those combats early. Seems like the longer you stay in combat with Necrons the harder it is to win decisively. Didn't help that you had bad rolls. Good game though, really enjoy your bat reps.

I find it ironic that grey knights with force weapons would lose to necrons without wraiths in assault. Still, I would do it again in the future. Really, it's only the MSS lords and spyders who are a threat in assault. Scarabs are also dangerous, but more so as a tarpit unit.

 pretre wrote:
Great report!

Thanks!

 Unholy_Martyr wrote:
I personally have found Dreadknights to be the absolute bane of Necrons.

With their Heavy Incinerators they can evaporate entire units of Scarabs in a single shot. Add in the fact that there is so little AP2 weaponry and most of the weapons lean on the low to mid range of Strength, they can take so much punishment and just keep rolling on through.

Plus, it is just fantastic when the Dreadknight punks Overlords with a single hit.

Ok, ok, I'll give him a go next time. My only concern is that he won't do much against a necron scythe build, but that's just the gamble you have to take with such a list.

Also, one thing to note is that, depending on interpretation (discuss with your opponent first!), some people play it that MSS can "force" its victim to activate its force weapon, especially now that force is a special rule. That means that the lord can "force" the dreadknight to force weapon himself to death.

 y0disisray wrote:
Congrats to Janthkin I would've never thought that the Necron list used could've beat the Grey knight list. Always enjoy a good battle that goes against my expectations.

Thanks. This just goes to show that, despite being probably the best army right now, most people still under-estimate how resilient and how good the crons are, especially when run by a good general.

 SabrX wrote:
Good battle report.

Nice catch on the Scarabs not being able to harm Quad Gun.

I lost against Janthkin's Necron list twice. AP3 nerf really hurts the Grey Knights. Necron Overlord with MSS is extremely effective.

Congrats to Janthkin for crushing victory.

Thanks for sharing!

Honestly, it's not so much the AP3 nerf as it is janthkin's generalship. He is a damn good player and our battles are always challenging. Despite forgetting about power weapons being only AP3, he still charged his Overlord into 6 grey knights! Lol.

What's also interesting is that I haven't beaten his necrons yet (and he hasn't beaten my necrons yet as well). So you are not alone in being winless against his crons. Lol.

2 questions JY2 from a neutral observer:

Do you thiink you and perhaps your immediate gaming group has become fixated with the flyer threat/recent flyer changes to 6th?
That is in no way an indictment about your group or exp but you admit:

2. Did I dedicate too much of my shooting onto his flyers? On Turn 2, I fired at his doom scythe with my psyfleman and my buffed-up unit. Originally, I had planned on shooting at his infantry, but when Misfortune got denied, I decided to go after his flyer instead. Thereafter, I just ignored his night scythes because they were not as big a threat as his troops and spyders. However, my concern about the necron flyers caused me to play a little more defensively than I would have liked by castling up in the center. It's ironic that the less-assaulty necrons are advancing and putting the pressure on the more shooty-&-assaulty grey knights but that's exactly what Janthkin did. Basically, he turned my Maximum Threat Overload strategy back onto me.

I've read a lot of your and Reeses reps and whilst I agree (somewhat about flyers) I wonder are they a huge distraction to players in 6th - rightly so in some cases but psychologically in others???[u]
I might have (perhaps wrongly) pounded his troops into the ground, 2x man foots? Not too tough and thats -2 obj caps?

Just throwing ideas out as I really enjoy your tactical comments.

Secondly:
I know in your other lists you take Rhinos for protection and or manoeuverability, do you think one or maybe two here would have helped? Your list looks solid but its a min-max imho, 40 shrikes slogging with backup?
I have actually questioned your other lists that are Rhino heavy (due to easy KPs) - perhaps a mix is the way to go in 6th?

eg - solid firebase and defense but with 1-3(?) fast and survivable units in transports to cap/contest Obs?

Just food for thought really

 jy2 wrote:

 Unholy_Martyr wrote:
I personally have found Dreadknights to be the absolute bane of Necrons.

With their Heavy Incinerators they can evaporate entire units of Scarabs in a single shot. Add in the fact that there is so little AP2 weaponry and most of the weapons lean on the low to mid range of Strength, they can take so much punishment and just keep rolling on through.

Plus, it is just fantastic when the Dreadknight punks Overlords with a single hit.

Ok, ok, I'll give him a go next time. My only concern is that he won't do much against a necron scythe build, but that's just the gamble you have to take with such a list.

Also, one thing to note is that, depending on interpretation (discuss with your opponent first!), some people play it that MSS can "force" its victim to activate its force weapon, especially now that force is a special rule. That means that the lord can "force" the dreadknight to force weapon himself to death.

Thankfully, it is trivial to stop this from happening: Just burn your only Warp Charge for Hammerhand or Dark Excommunication. And if it is your turn, you can always decide to resolve MSS before using HH, so you don't even have to risk perils for no gain.

hehehe I was about 0-6 with GK's in the first few weeks of 6th before I started to figure things out. (of course 4 of those was vs the necron air force and 2 were against eldar + DE...)

Stuff has changed alot definately. Really playing my knights a whole lot more differently now.

Ah, some very good questions.

 Ratius wrote:
2 questions JY2 from a neutral observer:

Do you thiink you and perhaps your immediate gaming group has become fixated with the flyer threat/recent flyer changes to 6th?
That is in no way an indictment about your group or exp but you admit:

2. Did I dedicate too much of my shooting onto his flyers? On Turn 2, I fired at his doom scythe with my psyfleman and my buffed-up unit. Originally, I had planned on shooting at his infantry, but when Misfortune got denied, I decided to go after his flyer instead. Thereafter, I just ignored his night scythes because they were not as big a threat as his troops and spyders. However, my concern about the necron flyers caused me to play a little more defensively than I would have liked by castling up in the center. It's ironic that the less-assaulty necrons are advancing and putting the pressure on the more shooty-&-assaulty grey knights but that's exactly what Janthkin did. Basically, he turned my Maximum Threat Overload strategy back onto me.

I've read a lot of your and Reeses reps and whilst I agree (somewhat about flyers) I wonder are they a huge distraction to players in 6th - rightly so in some cases but psychologically in others???[u]

The way Reece and I build our lists is that they have to be Take-All-Comer's (TAC) lists (with the exception of themed unbalanced lists like his world bearers or my MTO necrons). Basically they need to be able to handle everything from hordes to deathstars to MSU to flyers. In this regard, shooting is king. You can never have enough shooting. So IMO my army wasn't geared especially towards flyers. It just had the tools to deal with them.

What the flyers did, however, was to make me alter my tactics slightly. Instead of advancing aggressively towards the objectives to try to establish Positional Dominance like I would normally do, instead I stayed behind cover due to his deathray. So I didn't play as aggressively as I normally do.

I might have (perhaps wrongly) pounded his troops into the ground, 2x man foots? Not too tough and thats -2 obj caps?

Just throwing ideas out as I really enjoy your tactical comments.

His foot troops are deceiving. Normally with all the other threats out there, you would ignore his weak 5-man troops. However, I actually made a play for them with my unit of strikers. Perhaps I should have gone after the 2nd 5-man warrior unit instead of the spyders, but I felt the spyders were a bigger threat. Honestly, I should have been able to clear that side of both the 2x5 warriors and spyders....but it just wasn't my game that day.

Secondly:
I know in your other lists you take Rhinos for protection and or manoeuverability, do you think one or maybe two here would have helped? Your list looks solid but its a min-max imho, 40 shrikes slogging with backup?
I have actually questioned your other lists that are Rhino heavy (due to easy KPs) - perhaps a mix is the way to go in 6th?

eg - solid firebase and defense but with 1-3(?) fast and survivable units in transports to cap/contest Obs?

Just food for thought really

No. My personal belief is that you either go vehicle-heavy or infantry-heavy in 6E. Either give them more mech than they can handle or none at all so that their heavy weapons are wasted. That's just my personal list-building philosophy. Hybrid lists (partial mech) can definitely exist, but I only use those in the case where there's an advantage to doing so (i.e. necron flyers, drop pods, a unit that can outflank with its transport, ultra-weak troops in a deathstar army, etc.). Otherwise, my lists tend to be more extreme, though they are still TAC lists.

In the case of this GK build, rhinos actually hamper it. Firstly, it reduces its firepower. If I take transports, I will have less guys and thusly, less S5 firepower. Secondly, it reduces its firepower. If I mech up, then those S5 stormbolters will be wasted as long as I am embarked. Lastly, this is actually a "themed" list and the theme is a GK horde infantry list.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

Luide wrote:

Thankfully, it is trivial to stop this from happening: Just burn your only Warp Charge for Hammerhand or Dark Excommunication. And if it is your turn, you can always decide to resolve MSS before using HH, so you don't even have to risk perils for no gain.

Right. That is always what I do when I go up against MSS crons with my knights. If I have a character in a challenge against them, I cast Hammerhand first. However, thanks for the 2nd tip. That I was not aware of.

 sudojoe wrote:
hehehe I was about 0-6 with GK's in the first few weeks of 6th before I started to figure things out. (of course 4 of those was vs the necron air force and 2 were against eldar + DE...)

Stuff has changed alot definately. Really playing my knights a whole lot more differently now.

Yeah, if not for a little bad luck on my part, I should have won all 3 of my games with my knights.

Honestly, I only felt like an underdog in my game against a 9-flyer Necron Airforce. The other 2 games, I felt that I could have won it. But all 3 were against great generals who played really well so I don't feel bad losing to them.

Ouch, I figured the Necrons would win, but not quite so badly. I can't wait to get some more varied 6th ed games in, so far I've only gotten to take on IG and BA. Definitely want to see how GK and Necrons have changed with the new edition, and this gives me some ideas on how to approach them.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:
Ouch, I figured the Necrons would win, but not quite so badly. I can't wait to get some more varied 6th ed games in, so far I've only gotten to take on IG and BA. Definitely want to see how GK and Necrons have changed with the new edition, and this gives me some ideas on how to approach them.

Well, GK's are still good but they aren't quite as "OP" as they used to be in 5th. Necrons, on the other hand, is a top-notch army depending on what you run.

Now that I'm back from vacation, a few thoughts of my own:

Honestly, the only things that surprised me about the battle were:
1) Jy2's deepstriking squad (I didn't catch that he was reserving them for that purpose, and it had potential to really swing the outcome);
2) How quickly the Scarabs evaporated; and
3) How good jy2's 3+ saves are!

Jim likes to talk about positional dominance, which is a great term. I never labeled it, but this is precisely the technique my Tyranids used to be successful last edition - if you envelop your opponent, they are forced to react to your movement in their Shooting or Assault phases, rather than moving to the objectives in their Movement phases.

Here, Jim's turn 1 was spent dealing with the Scarabs, and Turns 2 & 3 were focusing on Spyders. By Turn 4, he no longer had the option of moving for the objectives - his forces were locked down, off the objectives, without the necessary force concentration to deal with Necron resiliency.

As to the GK list - the problem is that Strike Squads, regardless of their force weapons, are NOT effective assault units. At 1 attack base, a full squad of them is only likely to drop 2-3 Necrons in a round of assault, and some of those Necrons are going to get up again. Meanwhile, a Lord or Overlord in those Necron squads (or a Spyder) is giving the Necrons a significant advantage.

In the Necron list, my eventual plan involves dropping the Lord, in favor of a Destroyer Lord - he will be a great asset when attached to a Night Scythe-carried Destroyer Lord, as he can enter the battle, soak fire for the Immortals on the turn they arrive, and then go running off to cause havoc on his own. And I absolutely have to get a Gloom Prism back in the list!

 jy2 wrote:

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:
Ouch, I figured the Necrons would win, but not quite so badly. I can't wait to get some more varied 6th ed games in, so far I've only gotten to take on IG and BA. Definitely want to see how GK and Necrons have changed with the new edition, and this gives me some ideas on how to approach them.

Well, GK's are still good but they aren't quite as "OP" as they used to be in 5th. Necrons, on the other hand, is a top-notch army depending on what you run.

Yeah seems to me that they can really abuse the lack of skyfire... I'm not sure how good they'll be when skyfire becomes more common though.

 Janthkin wrote:
Now that I'm back from vacation, a few thoughts of my own:

Honestly, the only things that surprised me about the battle were:
1) Jy2's deepstriking squad (I didn't catch that he was reserving them for that purpose, and it had potential to really swing the outcome);
2) How quickly the Scarabs evaporated; and
3) How good jy2's 3+ saves are!

Jim likes to talk about positional dominance, which is a great term. I never labeled it, but this is precisely the technique my Tyranids used to be successful last edition - if you envelop your opponent, they are forced to react to your movement in their Shooting or Assault phases, rather than moving to the objectives in their Movement phases.

Here, Jim's turn 1 was spent dealing with the Scarabs, and Turns 2 & 3 were focusing on Spyders. By Turn 4, he no longer had the option of moving for the objectives - his forces were locked down, off the objectives, without the necessary force concentration to deal with Necron resiliency.

As to the GK list - the problem is that Strike Squads, regardless of their force weapons, are NOT effective assault units. At 1 attack base, a full squad of them is only likely to drop 2-3 Necrons in a round of assault, and some of those Necrons are going to get up again. Meanwhile, a Lord or Overlord in those Necron squads (or a Spyder) is giving the Necrons a significant advantage.

In the Necron list, my eventual plan involves dropping the Lord, in favor of a Destroyer Lord - he will be a great asset when attached to a Night Scythe-carried Destroyer Lord, as he can enter the battle, soak fire for the Immortals on the turn they arrive, and then go running off to cause havoc on his own. And I absolutely have to get a Gloom Prism back in the list!

Thanks, Kevin.

I'll use this bit as your Post-game comments.

Yeah, by Turn 4, I had no choice but to charge your units. As "sucky" as my assault was, my plan was this. If you had a lord/overlord, I would challenged or accepted the challenge with my justicar. Then, with 2A on the charge, I was hoping the rest of my squad could do enough damage to the rest of your squad to force Morale and possibly sweep you. That almost happened as I beat the immortals by 4...however, you made your morale! But honestly, I really didn't want to charge you without the numbers advantage, but I had to in order to make a play for the objectives (and to kill your scoring units).

You played well, and this game was just meant to be yours. Don't worry....I will take it next time.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:
Ouch, I figured the Necrons would win, but not quite so badly. I can't wait to get some more varied 6th ed games in, so far I've only gotten to take on IG and BA. Definitely want to see how GK and Necrons have changed with the new edition, and this gives me some ideas on how to approach them.

Well, GK's are still good but they aren't quite as "OP" as they used to be in 5th. Necrons, on the other hand, is a top-notch army depending on what you run.

Yeah seems to me that they can really abuse the lack of skyfire... I'm not sure how good they'll be when skyfire becomes more common though.

They'll still be good. They won't be crazy good like they are right now, but they will still be a upper-tier army IMO. I see them being somewhat akin to MSU from 5th to 6th. In 5th, MSU was crazy good. They've been nerfed slightly in 6th IMO but they are still a very strong army build.

And besides, I was somewhat dominating with my necrons back in 5th when they didn't have any flyers.

How did the necron player make those night scythes im interested they look pretty cool !

 necronsftw wrote:
How did the necron player make those night scythes im interested they look pretty cool !

Necessity is the mother of invention? I needed Night/Doom Scythes for Adepticon this year, prior to release of the real model.

Took a piece of foam, cut out the wing shapes, then applied a thin layer of an epoxy resin over that (which allowed me to sculpt in the line details). Then made molds of both wings, and cast them in resin. The center section is a one-off sculpt each time.

I need to repaint them. Modeling took so long that I literally had one hour spare to paint them, before getting on an airplane for Adepticon.