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I'm new to GK and was wondering how people deal with Mephiston and Longfangs with GK. Here are some ideas I've come up with, but they dont seem cost efficient...

Mephiston:
Librarian w/ hood- expensive, would have to take him and Coteaz if I wanted a Chimera to put him in (b/c I'm not taking terminators)
Stormraven- anti-psyker missiles- another expensive unit that would be effective, but at a big cost
Psyk-out nades- really hard for me to get the assault off when Meph is jumping around...

Longfangs:
Ven. Dreads w/ plasma cannons- expensive especially when I want to take 3 psyflemen dreads in addition
Servitors w/ plasma cannons- may have LOS issues, need inquisitor with them
Deep-Striking paladins or terminators- REALLY expensive, lots of points off the board for 2-3 turns
Massed psybacks- possibility, but I really like firing 2 psycannons out of rhinos...

Some thoughts... how do you guys deal with these units?

Well a few thoughts.

Meph:

Psycannons: These will wound him and can rend, he has no ++ save if memory serves.

Long Fangs:

psyriflemen: These guys will put out plenty of wounds and they will fail eventually.

Interceptors with incinerators: Jump 30 inches into range and fill them full of flames and bolters.

Gunning him to death with massed fire will work. You can always go with Interceptors to jump around the board after him or deep strike near him and stormbolter him to death. I usually have my interceptors with psybolt ammo and in two squads of six each so 10 strength 5 shots should put up a few wounds on him. The last 2 strength 7 shots from psycannons should drop him and that's just from one squad. Also I think interceptors do have psyk out grenades. If the other squad comes in as well then I have 20 strength 5 shots and 4 strength 7 psycannon blasts to light him up.

With longfangs interceptors work great there too. Same thing gun them to death with massed fire. Deep strike near them and shoot them up with psybolt ammo.

any AP2 weapons you have will take down mephiston easy and since he has no ++ save it make it even easier.

In terms of long fangs i would sugest anything with lots of shots. 3+ saves are good but will fail if taken En masse.

Yea- I tried interceptors, maybe I made tactical errors- but seems like a REALLY expensive suicide unit. 300 points that MIGHT kill a (I think longfangs are like 140 points usually) and then get annihilated by the rest of the army. Or deepstrike, but deploy with 300 points off the board and give the hvy weapons a bunch of turns to fire at the rest of the army.

Bertimismaximus wrote:Yea- I tried interceptors, maybe I made tactical errors- but seems like a REALLY expensive suicide unit. 300 points that MIGHT kill a (I think longfangs are like 140 points usually) and then get annihilated by the rest of the army. Or deepstrike, but deploy with 300 points off the board and give the hvy weapons a bunch of turns to fire at the rest of the army.

Don't think of units point per point. You have to think about how much taking out those longfangs are going to help your army win the game. Also it doesn't have to be a suicide mission. With a 30 inch shunt you should be able to get into such a position as to hit the longfangs and still get a coversave from at least some incoming fire next turn. Don't forget you can shunt into cover, just have to test for dangerous terrain.

Meph:bait him with a vehicle, and counter assault preferably with a hq. Meph is a bit tricky because of his psychic hood, but the lack of an invo combined with rad grenades should kill him. His high init also isn't a problem because of pscyout grenades.

My gk book is at home and I am out of state right now so correct me if I am wrong. Doesn't a vindicare remove 1 save with it's special ammo. Not 100% if meph's 2+ from artifacer can be removed.

Long fangs should be storm bolter magnets, especially if the rest of the army is mechanized. Just don't go wasting precious long ranged anti tank rounds on long fangs in cover while transports are still alive.

Yea interceptors are really the most mobile of the GK. They are almost like speeders in my opinion. When they are kitted out they can be quite fierce. They are expensive but the hit harder if used correctly. Taking out that group of Long Fangs can be a game changer.

schadenfreude wrote:
My gk book is at home and I am out of state right now so correct me if I am wrong. Doesn't a vindicare remove 1 save with it's special ammo. Not 100% if meph's 2+ from artifacer can be removed.

He can remove on invulnerable save granted by equipment or wargear. He cannot get rid of an armor save.

@ melchiour actually think of units per points a 300 point interceptor sqaud taking out a 140 ML longfangs are a bad idea as they do cost 300 points and the SW can affors to lose all longfang units if they kill 900 points of interceptor. by the way what if Sw assualt then you get no cover save. and before you go all force wapon blah blah. They get 1 attack when charged so a 10 man sqaud of GH with power weapon wolf standazrd and Motw with 2 MGs should kill 2 through shooting and then vs 8 power weapon attacks hits on 4 average 4 wounds wounds 4s 2 wounds 2 dead SW but they still get to retaliate. So with rerolls of ones space wolves attacks with 24 basic attacks hits on 4s reoll ones 13 hits 7 wounds with rerolling ones is 2 dead Gh much more expsenive and then power weapon 1.5 hits reoll ones .75 gh dead so probably another strike marine and the motw with 6 attacks which is average 3 hits reroll ones 4 hits 1 rend 1 wound so to resolve you have 4 dead grey knights at the end of combats and 2 dead sw with space wolves being much cheaper this is totally acceptable for SW player. the GH sqaud is 195. in other words Bertimismaximus dont listen to dumb advice.

meph: inquisitor with psyocculim attached to a shooting unit, crowe suicide, any of the perils causing weapons in the GK codex such as stormraven missles, massed psycannon fire.

Long fangs: Incerceptors, Dreadknight with teleporter, stormraven delivery wagon filled with just about anything, massed autocannon fire from dreads, deep striking line librarian with portal power could drag a unit to go meet them. Deep striking morty or terminators, squads of 1 or 2 paladins can do the job too.

rovian: sometimes sacrificing a unit despite point value is a good idea, 5 incerceptors should be able to take 5 long fangs and if you break the base of the enemies long range shooting you can water warrior around the whole game, if you can pull 3 turns of the majority of your army stormbolting things, you should win.

If you only ever look at what you can kill point wise you won't win games. At times you have to sacrifice a unit or put it in danger to take out a strategic resource. Are the longfangs the biggest threat? Can you get into a position to hit them with little coming back at you? If your Grey knights only attack units that are cheaper than they are they won't attack anything.

You need to look at the situation you are in and what it will do for the rest of the game. Don't simply say oh noes my expensive troops will be in danger I cant do that, and let the heavy weapons eat you alive.

So i would advise using riflemen and quite a few gooday CHAPS


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Grundz wrote:
rovian: sometimes sacrificing a unit despite point value is a good idea, 5 incerceptors should be able to take 5 long fangs and if you break the base of the enemies long range shooting you can water warrior around the whole game, if you can pull 3 turns of the majority of your army stormbolting things, you should win.

Actually 5 interceptor should not be able to considering you have to wait a turn before assualt so no 3 stormbolters plus 4 pycannon shots will not kill 6 longfangs in cover.

@melchiour just use pyriflemen i am not opposed to sucidal choices strategically but this is bad choices hes asking for a nwsers and psyrfleman are less expinesve more effective and better in an all comers list
but pysrifleman are more effective vs more armies other than intercpetors which are useful aganist shooty lists otherwise not so much.

In my previous match with a BA with Meph, I took him out with a sqd of 5 DCAs + 1 Xenos Inquisitor charging out of a T/L Las-back. The Inquisitor + DCAs + Razorback totaled up to roughly 17pts cheaper than Meph himself.

Are they (HQ + Sqd + Transport) worth their points? Hell yeah!! Apart from killing Meph, the T/L Las-back shot down a Storm Raven & a DC Dredd!


Against LFs, I agree that mass shots will eventually take them out. The problem is, normally SW players will field 3 units of LFs all camping in some sorts of cover-giving terrains - quite difficult to handle if the only long range firepowers that you have are the Psy-Dredds.

For me, I usually assign my 3 Psy-Dredds to target 1 sqd. The Razorbacks + Psykers-Henchmen sqd would target the 2nd LF sqd. Finally, the Vindicare + Callidus (yup, I'm fielding this chick in my list) will target the 3rd LF sqd.


Pts by pts, LFs are the cheapest & cost-effective among the Devastator-class units. Its difficult if you make comparison pts v/s pts against them.

Interceptors can't just shunt into the middle of a SW deployment zone on turn 1 next some long fangs and expect to kill them. As pointed out before a squad of grey hunters will just shoot them, and then assault the interceptors. It wouldn't even be trading interceptors for long fangs, it would be throwing a squad of interceptors to the wolves.

What they can do is wait until turn 2 or 3. By then with combat squads 2 squads of 5 interceptors can shunt next to 2 packs of 6 long fangs. They have to shunt into cover, but by then the grey hunters have most likely moved away from the long fangs and nobody is around to assault the interceptors. If no grey hunters are in position to assault the interceptors on the turn they shunt in then no the long fangs will be dead before the grey hunters can backtrack to save them. Also note the use of the term "next to the long fangs" is used pretty liberally since interceptors do have an 18" assault range, and being within assault range is good enough to be next to them.

Agreed schadenfreude as I previously stated i think blatant waste of interceptors is a bad idea.

rovian wrote:Actually 5 interceptor should not be able to considering you have to wait a turn before assualt so no 3 stormbolters plus 4 pycannon shots will not kill 6 longfangs in cover.

Properly played and with cover, you would shoot at them at cover, they might return fire to interceptors in cover, then be shot assaulted by power weapons that they will lose fairly badly.
The idea for me, isnt to "SUPPRISE COCKFAGS!" and jump down their throat to blow them away in one shooting phase, longfangs are good beacuse dedicating those kind of points to killing a small unit is exactly why space wolves are a good army. At the very worst, you are focusing a good amount of firepower on a 5 man unit (or dreadknight) in cover while continuing being mulched by stormbolters and autocannons to wipe them out before they eat your fangs.
The idea of the plan for me at least, is to force you to use your firepower where it isnt necessarily most effective or suffer consequences.

Nearly every Grey Knight has a force weapon. Mephiston has no invulnerable save and is not an Eternal Warrior. He dies in assault with Grey Knights; this could take longer than instantly if he keeps getting lucky with the psychic hood, but his death is pre-ordained.

Grey Knights kill Longfangs the same way they kill any other marine. No special tactics needed.

Long fangs Die pretty well to Jumping dreadknights. You have to beware the grey hunters coming back to blast you with melta and plasma.
Mephiston will most likely eat whatever he assaults so feed him something and then blow him off the table. Or set him up for a counter assault. Getting psychic powers off will be hard since you are down 1 on ld but if you get a few units in after softening him up, it shouldn't be too hard.

I find that killing Meph' is much easier said than done by the above methods. A lot of the BA players I face hide him behind a tank for turns 1&2, and after that keep him within 6" of a sang' priest. Because he has toughness 6, any AP 3+ weaponry only has a 1/12 chance of putting hurt on him.
Counter charging him is also not that easy if the enemy knows what he is doing; usually he consolidates away from my troops and some other HtH baddies are laying around as protection or to counter assault the counter assault (and they have FnP too!!! Very infuriating!!) And he's hooding my psyker powers... etc. He's an excellent counter to GK unfortunately.
Sure, I've killed him with large unit counter assault and actually managing to get my psychic test off (not easy as it has been mentioned), or getting some DCA in contact while an Inq carrying rad grenades is accompanying them. But this only when the initial turns have gone sour for BA, when my shooty has rolled above average, requiring of BA some more desperate tactics. Else he bides his time.
One tactic not mentioned here is; he's much, much easier to kill if not near a Sang' priest. If you heavily rely on auto dread's like I do, nuke the priests unit for a couple turns; they don't get FnP against s8 (booya!). Then Meph eats his first unit turn 3, and can be shot to high hell in your turn, as now he is bereft of his bloody save.
I find a psychic hood of your own to be the best response. It means he's not getting preferred enemy+ flying + s10 all the time.

You can lay bait for Mephiston. A grenade toting GKGM hiding behind a unit waiting for him to assault should do the trick. MSU lists work better for this since you don't want to sacrifice anything too valuable.

Aternatively as others have said you can use DCA with someone else who gets access to rad (and preferably hammerhand), or some other specialist assault unit that can charge out of a transport.

Long Fangs I find are easy prey for S6 multilasers, psybolt heavy bolters and psybolt autocannons. Admittedly I run a gunline with a GKGM as my single counter assult unit so Mephiston may be an issue (though I do run a lot of melta) but Long Fangs go down very quickly to 9 TL heavy bolters and 12 Multilasers and 12 TL autocannons. They are a threat that need dealing with since they can easily wreck multiple vehicles a turn. Their razorbacks may get a slight reprieve but after a couple of turns guns get turned towards them.

Against longfangs with 5-6 melta hunter rhino's tearing towards you and a tonne of lasplaz razor's, I find one of the easiest to perform, and most difficult to refute, tactics is to wreck as many vehicles in their LoS as possible.
Beyond blowing up those 10-12 AV11 vehicles that the SW player brought, throwing your own at them, as you would be anyways if you're attempting midfield domination, ensures that the middle of the board is a vehicular graveyard. In objective missions this means the undercosted missile bastards can't draw LoS on your troops, and your autodread's are always getting 4+ cover.
Meltahunter squads earn their name against GK by melting before our vastly superior >24" firepower. Without their longfang pals the game is yours, baring err and one sided dice rolling in your opponents favour.

Mephiston: Brotherhood Banner is nice. Auto-passing that wound test helps.

Long Fangs: I agree that the hoppy-Dreadknight is a good call. He can actually live through rockets shot at his face and should crush them and be able to move on to other targets.

Only my opinions though.

If memory serves right, mephy is not an eternal warrior. A lucky Force weapon wound would kill him, since he has no invul save.

In fact, it is a very very bad idea to charge any GK unit with force weapon with mephy, allowing you to ignore him entirely.

As for long fangs, it depends on the army setup of your opponent.

You can use a rhino filled with 10 strike squads, rush 12", disembark an extra 2" and shower with 20 shots of SB fire. should kill 2-3 longfangs in 1 go.

You can threaten them also with outflanking purifiers (assuming you have them and a GM).

Mephy is at his worst match up against GKs. he will be I1 if he gets charged, has no invuln(meaning the universal power attack will just need to wound), and can be ID'd.

Psycannons can put a few wounds on him at range and force weapons will see him dead in CC.



Long Fangs are just marines. Interceptors or Dreadknights will drop them VERY quickly, possably even turn 1 if you go first and scout them forward(not shunting, normal 12" move is more then enough)

A stormraven can potentially do both jobs. Mindstrikes will kill almost any psyker if you volley 4 of them and a plasma cannon will be effective against the Long Fangs. Alternatively, as Long Fangs tend to cluster near board edges in my experience, Outflanking via Grand Strategy could do for them. I'll never forget the look on a SW player's face when ten paladins appeared on his flank, fired and multi-charged his Long Fangs, a Dreadnought and two Rune priests...

Of course nothing's foolproof but most GK lists have decent ways to take out annoying units at an accepotable level of risk.

Thanks for the help everyone, the BA players I've encountered are really experienced with Meph- so I haven't been able to get a counter assault off for psyk out nades, and he hides until in my lines. Also- they kill squads down to 5 troops or less to guarantee meph kills the squad before they get their force weapon swings. The librarian is expensive (the same cost as a purifier squad w/ 2 psycannons in a rhino!) but I think I'll have to take him to defend from uber-characters like meph.