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Hi all,

I'm building a list for the 'Ard Boyz (at 2500pts). I'm going to be running most likely my Crowe-Purifier list. I'm going to be using 5 psyfleman dreads - 3 regular and 2 vens. What I'm having conflicts over is my last elite AT choice.

Should I go for the vindicare? He's awesome...but he dies too easily. I normally use him. Sometimes he does well. Other times, he doesn't. One thing he does do, though, is draw a lot of enemy fire. That buys my dreads and rhinos usually an extra turn of survival. Usually, he dies on turn 2 or 3 at latest.

However, recently, I've been considering a techmarine with conversion beamer and 2-3 servo skulls. Why? Because:

1) S10 AP1 is respectable AT.

2) Boosting terrain for 3+ cover is a valuable asset. Then add a librarian with Shrouding and you're getting 2+ cover. Sweet.

3) More survivable than the vindicare if you attach him to a squad of 5 strikers.

4) IC means that he can ride with purifiers or strike squad in their transport to get to where he is needed. This is useful in Dawn of War deployment.

5) Cheaper servo-skulls. Servo-skulls are very useful against certain armies.


So fellow dakkalites, which one do you think I should take for my Grey Knight army?

2500 points?

Screw ven psyfledreads, just bring lots of Psycannons.

Because purifiers are troops, you can bring 24 Psycannons with that slot alone.

The fill the Elite slot with Paladins for more Psycannons.

Techmarine. Servo skulls are a good investment, and I am loathe to place faith in a single T4 model that can be targetted without protection from another unit.

The tech marine would synergize with your list better. And I love servo skulls, absolutely a great piece of wargear. Keeps people from scouting and infiltrating, and allows you a bit of wiggle room with your deployment!

I like the techmarine, but not for the Orbital strike.

You realize A) It fires, on average, in a circle 14" wide? You literally cannot hit what you are aiming at! Some utility for parking lots, but still, so wasteful. B) RAW, it's not a barrage weapon. You get cover from it for anything blocking LOS just fine, despite that it comes the FREAKING SKY.

I would have to go with the vindicare over the tech marine. It's accurate ap1 fire at range. And it provides an answer to some of the more annoying things in the game.

Fateweaver, poof no invulnerable. Commissars in blob squads, sanguinary priests, or even just power fists in squads that you are going to tie up with your dreadnaught.

On a side note I think I have killed just as much stuff using the pistol as I have the rifle. Whenever I go second he infiltrates in out of los and projects an 18 inch threat bubble of death. Its a huge area of denial tactic. For dawn of war he always outflanks and forces my opponent to hunker in the middle of the table for fear of the pistol coming in off of the side.

The vindicare really doesn't last long but I think I've had 1 game out of about 15 where he didn't get close to his points back, not to mention the psychological factor on your opponent.

Warmaster wrote:I
Fateweaver, poof no invulnerable.

Sorry, it doesn't work on fateweaver. His invo is part of his ruleset, not due to wargear.

I have used both and they both are awesome. If you use them in combination, then you get a fairly respectable 2+ cover save on your vindicaire if you put him in the bolstered ruin.

Piling your dread and the vindicaire in the bolstered ruin makes for a pretty intense firebase.

I find it funny that people are justifying the techmarine over the vindicaire by pointing out his statline. the tech marine has the same statline but one less wound. And no invulnerable save!

On balance I favour the Vindicare, though he does tend to die rather quickly. But if I could find 50 points from somewhere, I'd take another Venerable Dreadnought.

Vindicare all the way. Although vindicare and techmarine is even better, bolstered ruins + stealth is awesome, and a vendread in a bolstered ruin next to a vindicare is a massive zone of control.

Either infiltrate into cover, or stick it in a rhino. The power to destoy any vehicle or remove any 1 wound model in a 36" range is pretty nasty; top it off with fact the vindicare can also run and gun at 12", and getting a little physical in assault isn't bad against small meq type squads, you can usually get stuck in for a turn to hide from shooting, after killing the sergeant with a pistol shot.

Dok wrote:

I find it funny that people are justifying the techmarine over the vindicaire by pointing out his statline. the tech marine has the same statline but one less wound. And no invulnerable save!

But which one is an IC?

True, but then you are wasting at least 100 points sitting in your backfield babysitting him. You can't give a strike squad anything to match the conversion beamers range so then you're paying a premium so that your longest range model has some ablative wounds.
I played him with a conversion beamer a couple times and he never had to make one cover/armour save.

You could attach him to a unit of psykers in a chimera (thus making use of 2 fire points), or servitors with plasma cannons or multi meltas. Provided you take an inquisitor of course.

Neither of those mesh well with a conversion beamer, and the servitors in the GK codex still mindlock, even with a Techmarine.

Both are solid choices; I think the techmarine wins out though, only slightly. The force multiplication of the increased cover saves for likely at least two dreads is worth it, plus he can repair them.

I thought I might bring the full might of my somewhat puny brain to bear on this question.

It seems to me that the Techmarine is taking up space that could be profitably used by a Venerable Dreadnought, so he has to be worth the equivalent, somehow.

Suppose he’s fielded with 3 servo skulls, rad and psychotroke grenades, making him 124 points. The idea then is that he bolsters a ruin for dreadnoughts and/or assassin to hide in, boosting their save from 4+ to 3+.

Take BS4 S8 hits against a dreadnought:

That means instead of 0.06 kills per shot, they take 0.04. That’s 25 shots for a kill instead of 17. A 50% improvement. Or worth about 65 points per dreadnought protected. Put two in the ruins and, on this basis, the techmarine has paid for himself. Of course you get one less venerable dreadnought shooting by taking the techmarine, but to counter that, you get rad and psycho grenades to help mince the enemy in combat so long as the tech stays alive.

So on the whole, I might revise my opinion. If you’re taking a 3, 4 or 5 Venerable Dreadnoughts/Dreadnoughts (+Assassin?) backbone for your force and you’re pretty confident of finding a ruin in your deployment zone (which isn’t unusual in my experience, in fact not having a ruin would be downright rare), the Techmarine is not shabby.

I'm not a fan of the conversion beamer but if you really want it take it on an xeno inquisitor lord ... only 70pts. That way you can also get a cheap henchman unit to sit him in. 3x plasma cannons servitors + 8 warriors and chimera. 187pts and a relatively tough AV12 pillbox that you can sit in cover and shoot from.