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Having joined 40k a year ago, I picked up Grey Knights while missing the apparently 'Overpowered' phase. I have a wide selection of models and have faced all types of armies. I've won some and I've lost some. But against Tau and Eldar, I've yet to have anything left of the table past turn 3. I have tried everything I could think of from dreadknight spam, interceptor spam, terminators, vehicle rushes, etc. Every game ends the same with me being utterly out gunned by AP2/3 weapons and having nothing left on the table turn 3. I don't need to be told about the horrible days of 5th edition when Grey Knights dominated the game. I wasn't around then, all I know is Grey Knights seemingly being a subpar space marine army missing all the things that make marines good (Melta, plasma, drop pods, bikes.)

How does a Grey Knight army (not Inquisition, but Grey Knight,) deal with the new Tau and Eldar? I've researched a lot, been given lots of advice which I've tested (which in the end didn't seem to help,) and now I'm at a total loss. How do I survive when I'm out-gunned, outmanoeuvred and outnumbered all at the same time? Advice is greatly appreciated

Terrain.

Theres a stupid, stupid terrain 'culture' in 40k that sees boards as flat rolling grasslands of open space. Also known as a shooting gallery.

Cover the board in terrain that blocks line of sight, and bam, game is much more balanced

I haven't seen even very crowded boards stop Eldar and Tau. Tau can ignore the cover, and Eldar use weight of fire, not quality of fire.

And battles do take place on flat rolling hills as well.

The OP is just in the same boat as most of the lists in the game right now.

Well for one...don't spam...and if you must spam...spam purifiers with mucho mucho psycannons.

Land Raiders will still reign pretty supreme against both of those lists...it's a callback to 4th Ed but Bolter and Chainswords Triple Godhammer lists still works fantastically against them.

But then you face SW and your face falls off...but we gamble.

I've tried Purifiers and found them very hit or miss. Sometimes they've worked, (usually against marines and guard,) and others they failed utterly (against Tau and Eldar.) I feel what is letting me down is my lack of ranged AP2/3 weaponry and lack of reasonable quantities of 24''+ guns. I'm dead by the time I get to 24''/assault distance. Vehicles just seem to be free first blood to the opponent and maybe an extra 6 inch move before it blows up taking a couple guys with it.

have you tryed psyflemen??
4 land raiders still works well assuming the eldar dont have a crap ton of brightlances and your not facing a 3 hammerhead list
ally in some drop pods??

your biggest issue is your codex s designed for a time when getting to Close combat range was easier. So now you either need to find ways to get in range quicker, provide higher priority targets, or completely change armies.

remember that games work shop does not believe in balance but how much money they can make. and unless you can convince ever flavor of the month player to stop. we will all suffer this dilemma.

Terrain, deployment, threat saturation, target priority

Depending on his list, he should really only be taking out a unit or two per turn. most likely a guaranteed first blood so you will probably need to factor that into your battle plan.

You should do Really well with shunting incinerator dread knights, erasing pathfinders or other things.

two or 3 of them, then charge something on the field to get locked on the next turn.

As well you can DS a chump squad to bait out interceptor. if you go first, it effectively removes his shooting for two turns which is great.

But what exact list or models are you facing?

You could try a pair of Land Raiders and StormRavens.

I posted an AV14 Spam list at one point in time that should do pretty well. Though I would replace the Firestorm Redoubt with another StormRaven in your case.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/542372.page

jy2 posted a link to a LR Spam list in there as well along with a tournament battle report.

As a Tau general I hate, let me repeat... hate Stormravens and Land Raiders. Use cover to your advantage, even though markerlights make that difficult and concentrate on objectives not total domination.

A vindicare assassin does wonders.

Deep striking a librarian with the flamer template power that forces and int test or die is great vs tau MC, and the other powers are good too.

GK are an elite army, tau are great at killing elite armies.

Also tau are bad at killing land raiders.

That said eldar are another thing, though the standard that they are good at killing elite armies stays.

If you are only taking terminators, then a change of plans would include psycannons, great for taking out big things. You should also look into taking a few of the other assassin types, they really help out.

Just identify what's killing you and adjust your setup to deal with those easier. That's it really. Oh and don't take autocannon dreads, it's just stupid.

Well its a 50% chance to out right kill a LR with long strike. better with ML for no cover and BS10

But as he is unique, it will take a while to kill all 4.

As well not a lot of people run them anymore but you can run into drop crisis suits with TL-FB, plasma, that can open up your LR. even more so in the farsight book.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/555395.page

Have you tried anything like this? It has worked out pretty well for me as either the serpents don't shoot their shields in which case I control the board and slowly kill the serpents or they do shoot their shields and I get to blow them up with MMs.

Tau are a little more difficult but I have found that draigo can usually tank the riptides long enough for me to start shredding their markerlights and troops with my stormravens.

I don't suppose you are interested in necron allies as Jy2 runs a really nastly list that he even has batreps to show you how to use.

 ansacs wrote:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/555395.page

Have you tried anything like this? It has worked out pretty well for me as either the serpents don't shoot their shields in which case I control the board and slowly kill the serpents or they do shoot their shields and I get to blow them up with MMs.

Tau are a little more difficult but I have found that draigo can usually tank the riptides long enough for me to start shredding their markerlights and troops with my stormravens.

I don't suppose you are interested in necron allies as Jy2 runs a really nastly list that he even has batreps to show you how to use.

I've been trying to avoid allies (which to me are one of the big mistakes of 6th edition and exists only to sell more models,) as I believe that a codex shouldn't need to have allies to take on another codex without them. But since I've all but given up on Tau and Eldar I am willing to get allies. I'm just not sure what. I did consider Necrons and Space Marines. I'm almost refusing Tau and Eldar allies out of principle that I shouldn't need to rely on broken OP codex's to win games.

I would recommend checking out Jy2's batreps. He is a very good player and he has some pretty cool grey knight lists

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/558183.page
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/547392.page
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/540850.page

You should be aware that GW is releasing codex inquisition this month (about a week till) which should provide a few extra options to a GK list. No telling what yet but keep an eye out.

I am wondering if you play with forgeworld at all? If you do FW recently indirectly provided some huge benefits to GK in the form of the red hunter chapter tactics.
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/F/FWchaptertactics.pdf

You can fit a lot of GK into an allied detachment (coteaz, small paladin wing, 2 strike/purifier squads, and a dreadknight) and you can even use your stormravens as SM stormravens which are better AA. BTW if you are taking 3+ Sv models I feel it is almost mandatory to bring 2 elements; (1) something that can put down a hellturkey the turn it comes on and (2) something to block or mitigate the beta strike damage. Transports can mitigate the damage for you and a SM stormraven has a 50% chance to kill a turkey.

I should state my biases here which may change your estimation of my advice. While I do not feel that GK alone are a GT winning army. I do think that GK are more than capable of dealing with a local tourney or competitive game. I also believe the codex's should be used however you wish to reflect your army. So if I have no compunctions about using an allied force to represent a GKs only army who use their wealth and influence to gain weapons better suited to fighting the heretical scum. I feel that the if a GK commander goes to fight a CSM incursion which is sporting a hundred helldrakes he is not going to load up a bunch of purifiers into his stormravens and not procure some decent AA missiles on his flyers or at least recruit some aid from the rest of the IoM. I like the allies system and think it adds variety to the game which is much better than IG leafblower and BA priest/jetpack spam for every game. I also feel that saying a codex is OP is a cope out and should be avoided.

Sorry for all the text.

Why would Tau hate Stormravens? Tau have like a million skyfire shots .

Martel732 wrote:
Why would Tau hate Stormravens? Tau have like a million skyfire shots .

Really? How so.

They have the Skyray, great, but no interceptor. On average it will take two Skyrays to down a single Storm Raven.
They have Riptides with VTs and HBCs... not terribly common.
Broadsides are Twinlinked and can have Interceptor, but no one gives them VTs and they are relatively immobile.
They can Snap Shot Markerlights... or use Sky Ray Markerlights if they are lucky.


Where is all of the Tau Skyfire coming from again?

I've seen a lot of Broadsides with skyfire. Are these players cheating then?

No they just cost 25 pts extra for skyfire and interceptor and they do not benefit from markerlights nor do the drones benefit from skyfire.

Honestly Tau interceptor is meh without the buff commander to back it up. The unit with the buff commander has a 36" range and has to have LoS. If you are running a draigowing down their throats then the broadside unit is probably not going to hang out in the middle of the board. You should also have some form of LoS blocking terrain on the board.

So they don't benefit from marker lights. 24 or 28 or whatever it is BS 3 S 7 shots will demolish a Stormraven trivially.

CoughbroadsidescanonlyhaveskyfireORintercepter,neverbothcough for the billionth time.

At any rate, I don't think there's any way to get ignores cover on the psyriflemen, which is ideally what you would want. GK have their best firepower on a range bracket that WS can evade for a large par to the game.

Maybe try dumping your fancy elite stuff and bring lots of the cheaper guys with force weapon/stormbolter. Whatever they are called.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Desubot wrote:
CoughbroadsidescanonlyhaveskyfireORintercepter,neverbothcough for the billionth time.

So..... if broadsides have skyfire, they gimp their own firepower against ground targets? I think I've been cheated. More than once. That's what I get for believing anything that comes out of the Tau codex.

Not exactly. I still have to come on within 36" of the unit (which is usually in the corner of the board). They then have to be full strength and have spent an extra 75 pts for that ability on an already expensive unit. Finally they have to have no LoS blocking terrain for my to hide the stormraven behind. For that privilege they then have about a 70% chance to kill it. 30% failure is not trivial.

How many shots do they actually have? I've never bothered to count the buckets the Tau roll against me.

There are 4 shots each missile pod, for 8 shots per missileside.

Let's 24 shots, 12 hits, 4 glances/pens on a Gaussian weighted average. That seems, from a back of the envelope calculation to be a better than 70% chance. The Gaussian is weighted at *four* glances, and they only need 3. This also doesn't factor in the rare explode result.

Actually my percent chance assumed interceptor+skyfire...which broasides cannot have. The actual chance is 1.6 HP on average. I really shouldn't have bothered dancing around them so much. I will reserve that for O'Vesa deathstars from now on.

Also the gaussian distrubtion between 3-5 HP is 68% that is where I estimated 70%.

But you're assuming interceptor and not skyfire? Is skyfire not a popular options anymore? I still see it.

If it is skyfire then I get to shoot first. Against a regular missile side unit I will average almost a dead unit with shooting just a single of my stormravens at it. Even with drones 2 stormravens should kill the unit.

Do you take stormravens in your BA army? They get the best AA version of it. With something to strip the drones away the BA version can kill a missileside unit with ID shots.

Ok, there is a ton of misinformation about the Tau Codex going on.


Broadside come stock with the Twin Linked Heavy Rail Riffle(Heavy 1 S8 AP1 60" Range) and a Twin Linked Smart Missile System(Heavy 4, 30" Range Homing, Ignores Cover).
They can swap the Twin Linked Heavy Rail Rifle for a Twin Linked High Yield Missile Pod(Heavy 4, 36" Range, S7). This is the most common setup.

Broadsides are Infantry, and have to remain stable to avoid Snap Shotting with all of their weapon.

Broadsides can only take one support system, this is almost universally the Early Warning Override which Grants Interceptor for 5pts. Velocity Trackers can be taking granting optional Skyfire for 20pts, this is rarely seen.

Broadisdes can also take missile drones with are Heavy 2 S7 at 36" Range at BS2. Missile Drones cannot be granted Intercept nor Skyfire through any means.

Each broadside can make 8 shots, but half are only S5 and irrelevant against AV12 Flyers.

Each Broadside on Intercept only deals .4 HP before Cover Saves vs AV12.


Where HYMP Broadsides are amazing at downing flyers is when three of them are taken and a BuffCommander is attached along with a compliment of Drones. TankHunter is a huge bonus here. .7HP/Broadside.

So a full squad with Drones and BuffCommander can deal 4HP/Turn to an AV12 Flyer with no Cover. This still will average a Storm Raven and likely a Helldrake in a single Turn.

With Markerlight Support this greatly improves. One markerlight, 7.2HP. Two markerlights 9.9HP/Turn.


There is the math.


StormRavens can risk EWO Broadside shots and effectively nuke the entire unit. If they have Velocity Trackers for SkyFire instead then the StormRavens can AlphaStrike them without issue. Otherwise, they can target something else and remain outside of 42" of the Broadsides. A StormRaven's primary target is a SkyRay, then HYMP Broadsides with Velocity Trackers, then HYMP Broadsides with EWO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ansacs wrote:
There are 4 shots each missile pod, for 8 shots per missileside.

j

Absolutely incorrect.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Let's 24 shots, 12 hits, 4 glances/pens on a Gaussian weighted average. That seems, from a back of the envelope calculation to be a better than 70% chance. The Gaussian is weighted at *four* glances, and they only need 3. This also doesn't factor in the rare explode result.

You've been supplied incorrect information, divide in half. And this assumes they took Velocity Trackers for optional Skyfire, this is rarely seen and if taken they cannot have Early Warning Override for Intercept. This gives the Storm Raven one unmolested Turn to nuke the Broadsides. Its one of the reasons EWO is taken more frequently on Broadsides.

Yeah, wow. I don't know what I was thinking. Thanks for the correction Zagman. Now I need to stop posting without a codex.

Either way SkyRays are definitely my first target with stormravens. Those things are some of the nastiest AA in a Tau list.

I also am finding the O'Vesa Star is a major annoyance. It can kill a raven a turn and I cannot hurt it with the ravens. Which means I need to kill it/corral it with the draigowing. It is like riding herd to a group of cats.