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jy2 wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:like the list.

I really wonder why all the Crowe hate?

he seems like a solid character, makes some very tough(and not too expensive) units troops, and is decently killy in CC.

He is pretty cheap compared to other GK heros so he will be better at lower points.

Rending on 4s is pretty powerful. who cares if he only has a CCW.

I think it is mainly due to the fact that he gives bonuses to the enemy and also because he is not a Independent Character. Thus, he may never join a squad a la Mehiston.

An0maly1 wrote:This new codex is making me really want them to come out with a new tau codex. Because if they make that new codex as absurdly powerful (relative to the old) as they have their new codex...es. Then maybe we'll get a crudload more shooting strength. I would be content with S5 AP4 pulse rifles.

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what they do with the new Tau codex. The current one is still competitive in the hands of a capable general. I'm sure the new one will include cheaper suits and fire warriors. That seems to be the trend - you get more stuff or you get cheaper units (or both!). But you're probably going to have to wait until after necrons and witch hunters come out. Also, I can see them getting something like the Dread Knight - basically, a monstrous battlesuit unit.

I doubt we'd get a dreadknight.

The dreadknight fills a hole in the grey knights, fluff wise and armament wise, something big and heavily armed.

But think about the tau battle suit. The only justification for a dreadknight like suit is for heavier armament. What could they possibly put on a mobile suit that could be more destructive than a broadside and still make sense tactically such as to avoid overkill?

I think the kroot may get an upgrade. Maybe some sort of exoskeletal suit.

But the interesting thing is in the fluff. The tau are always advancing. Basically with every other codex they are basicaly saying "even though there are 'new' units, they aren't actually 'new' they've always been there we just never included them." (this is fluff wise).

With the tau they can actually say "since the last codex new advancements have been made." That could mean anything from new rifles, to new special ammunition, to new suits. But I doubt a dreadknight like suit, and if there were one I wouldn't take it.

If I had to make a bet, It'd be on robots, not drones, but actual robotic androids. Like the iron men from mankind's (in game mind you) past.

Especially if they could fill in the massive gulf between kroot and hardcore assault units like terminators. Feel no pain, 3+ armor save and 6++ invulnerable (like that bionic limbs rule for space marines how they get an invulnerable in case the bullet hits it rather then the actual organic body, but in this case representing how it can hit a part of the robot thats non vital). Maybe a single battlesuit weapon system. Not support, but dedicated weapon, possibly a single wargear only slot.

What I want to see is various different robots, not just androids, creative bot designs.

Grey Templar wrote:200 points for essentially 4 missile launchers that have a "once in a blue moon's" chance of missing seems undercosted to me. especially when it can't be stunned into uselessness.


We are talking high point games, but thats what is the norm.

you might not be able to go for 6 Dreds all the time, but you could easily do 3-4 dreds at a time.

'Ard Boyz will likely see a bunch of GK Riflemen lists showing up.

Yea well, for 25 points more I get 3 hydras to blow up your 1 dread! For all your fancy stuff you are still a fragile vehicle.
It's powerful for sure, but not that overwhelming.

An0maly1 wrote:
Especially if they could fill in the massive gulf between kroot and hardcore assault units like terminators. Feel no pain, 3+ armor save and 6++ invulnerable (like that bionic limbs rule for space marines how they get an invulnerable in case the bullet hits it rather then the actual organic body, but in this case representing how it can hit a part of the robot thats non vital).

Just pointing out that bionics don't give you an invulnerable save, it's more akin to a 6+ FNP.

Jackster wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:200 points for essentially 4 missile launchers that have a "once in a blue moon's" chance of missing seems undercosted to me. especially when it can't be stunned into uselessness.


We are talking high point games, but thats what is the norm.

you might not be able to go for 6 Dreds all the time, but you could easily do 3-4 dreds at a time.

'Ard Boyz will likely see a bunch of GK Riflemen lists showing up.

Yea well, for 25 points more I get 3 hydras to blow up your 1 dread! For all your fancy stuff you are still a fragile vehicle.
It's powerful for sure, but not that overwhelming.

Str7 against AV12.

5 to glance, 6 to Pen.


you will only average 1 damage result per Hydra.

Grey Templar wrote:

Jackster wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:200 points for essentially 4 missile launchers that have a "once in a blue moon's" chance of missing seems undercosted to me. especially when it can't be stunned into uselessness.


We are talking high point games, but thats what is the norm.

you might not be able to go for 6 Dreds all the time, but you could easily do 3-4 dreds at a time.

'Ard Boyz will likely see a bunch of GK Riflemen lists showing up.

Yea well, for 25 points more I get 3 hydras to blow up your 1 dread! For all your fancy stuff you are still a fragile vehicle.
It's powerful for sure, but not that overwhelming.

Str7 against AV12.

5 to glance, 6 to Pen.


you will only average 1 damage result per Hydra.

Which, combined with Venerable, gives the dreadnought a reasonable chance to live to fight another turn. Not to mention what happens with said Hydras if the Dreadnought gets first turn...

Grey Templar wrote:

Jackster wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:200 points for essentially 4 missile launchers that have a "once in a blue moon's" chance of missing seems undercosted to me. especially when it can't be stunned into uselessness.


We are talking high point games, but thats what is the norm.

you might not be able to go for 6 Dreds all the time, but you could easily do 3-4 dreds at a time.

'Ard Boyz will likely see a bunch of GK Riflemen lists showing up.

Yea well, for 25 points more I get 3 hydras to blow up your 1 dread! For all your fancy stuff you are still a fragile vehicle.
It's powerful for sure, but not that overwhelming.

Str7 against AV12.

5 to glance, 6 to Pen.


you will only average 1 damage result per Hydra.

Still sounds good to me, thats 3 damage results a turn.
Hydras also have 72" range versus your 48".

Dashofpepper wrote:

Hulksmash wrote:He ran his DE. An 8 Venom, 3 Ravager and 1 Raider list w/a beast squad w/the Baron in it. We were on the way to a Tie most likely unless he rolled uber crappy in the assault phase we had to stop at due to wife aggro.

He made a few target priority mistakes and I made some decent mistakes of my own by not combat squading in an objective mission against vehicle spam DE along with a few others

If you're interested in knowing, Shane stepped in to finish in your stead. Here's what happened.

1. I killed your lone gunman and everything else got dumped into your last troop choice until they were dead.
2. My two troop choices over by my objective hunkered down in their 5+, and just to be safe, 4 of my venoms went over and made a wall between your dreads and my objective - which also happened to give those troops a 4+, turned into a 3+ for going to ground.

With 4+ cover on my vehicles, 3+ cover on my troops, and your dreads too far away to begin contemplating my objective, (and I got one of your dreads with my last trueborn unit before they died), the game ended 1-0. I realized as you were leaving and I was contemplating my moves that I could scoot a vehicle or two over to give my objective campers a 3+ cover.

=D

Nonetheless, its a nasty, nasty list.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hulksmash wrote:Lol, I'm not surprised honestly. I saw it shaping up as a tie or a loss for me. Just the idiot mistake of not combat squading to start hurt like a bastard when I really started looking at it. Oh well, learned some stuff which is why I wanted to run that list. Got some tweaks in mind

As a side note it's likely every GK army I field will contain at least 2 if not 3 Dual TL-AC Dreads w/Pysbolt.

Next time, try to leave me something to work with!

Dash made a point that you werent there for. If you would've combat squadded, he may have been able to get to your psycannons quicker.

@Deadshane

Hehe, it's possible. As the first time up playing GK's and all foot I'm quite happy. I made a bunch of mistakes

But I do think 2-3 Dreads are gonna be a standard in most GK's armies.

Fetterkey wrote:Venerable Psyflemen suffer from several major issues, the main one being that they cost 200 points. Much of that cost differential goes to upgrades that you don't even use-- +1 WS and +1 BS can be big on normal dreads but do almost nothing for the "rifleman" (Mortis-pattern) configuration. Overall, 3x ven psyfleman 3x regular psyfleman is cute and all, but you just spent half your points on suppression/anti-transport units and don't have a real army.

Dismissing Paladins at this stage seems extremely hasty. Storm shields don't seem necessary in Codex: Grey Knights-- not when you have Shrouding Librarians distributing easy 3+ cover.

+1 WS on a rilfeman dread is a waste.
+1 BS on rifleman dreads is a waste. The chance for a miss goes down from 11% to 2.7% It's increasing the price (by what nearly 50%?) for an 8.5% increase in firepower.

3 rifleman dreads is enough for a GK army. There are plenty of other great things they could spend points on before blowing 600 points on 3 venerable dreads that can't do anything in CC.

Now if you want a dread list what does everybody think of 3 regular rifleman dreads + 3 dreadnights?

schadenfreude wrote:
+1 WS on a rilfeman dread is a waste.
+1 BS on rifleman dreads is a waste. The chance for a miss goes down from 11% to 2.7% It's increasing the price (by what nearly 50%?) for an 8.5% increase in firepower.

Don't forget about the part where they are venerable and very highly survivable.

schadenfreude wrote:
3 rifleman dreads is enough for a GK army. There are plenty of other great things they could spend points on before blowing 600 points on 3 venerable dreads that can't do anything in CC.

But the point of the rifleman dreads isn't that they will kill you in assault. Furiosos, ironclads and death company dreads do that much, much better. It is that they will weaken your army with shooting and then when you are close enough, lock up your assault units in combat so that the grey knights can deal with the rest of the your army (which will probably be much "softer" than the assault units that are locked in combat with the dreads). In reality, the rifleman dread is a shooty, tarpit unit.

Now I'm not saying that grey knight players should always take vendreads over regular dreads. The are much, much better but taking them depends on 3 main factors:

1) Do you have the spare points? If not, just go for the regular dreads.

2) Do you want to take purifiers, paladins or assassins without having to take Crowe or Draigo?

3) Do you also want to take land raiders, dreadknights or purgation squads in your army?

schadenfreude wrote:Now if you want a dread list what does everybody think of 3 regular rifleman dreads + 3 dreadnights?

I think that is a viable build...however, I must admit the role of the dread knight is not very clear in my mind. Whereas the rifleman dreadnought has a very clear, well-defined role in a GK army, the dreadknight is, as we say in sports-terminology, a 'tweener unit. He is not really an assault-specialist nor is he a shooty gun platform. What he is IMO is an anti-infantry, counter-assault unit. But in a grey knights army where almost every infantry unit is good at infantry suppression as well as assault and counter-assault, isn't the dread knight's role superfluous? I guess only time and experience will tell.

Venerable survivability bonus in a 6 dread list is over rated.

There are 3 dreads without Venerable that will go first.

In an AV target saturation list Ven dreads just won't be shot at with long range weapons.

When the opponent closes in to close range melta>Venerable.

I just don't see Venerable as being worth it on a long range support dread.

As far as counter assault units go a list that spends 600 points on 3 venerable rifle dreads is going to be lacking a lot of points for assault/counter assault units. 6 rifle dreads takes a lot of points.

@shadenfreud: You can't have 3 Regular dreds and 3 Dreadknights as they are both Heavy Support.

Venerables are Elites.


I think Venerable dreds are better with Tl-lascannons and missile launcher. less chance fo the missile launcher missing as it isn't twin linked.


or you have the Venerable dreds have DCCWs and Assault Cannons(with psybolts) and be combat dreds. Venerable massivly increases survivability.

Grey Templar wrote:@shadenfreud: You can't have 3 Regular dreds and 3 Dreadknights as they are both Heavy Support.

Hmmm....can't believe I missed that. Lol.

Grey Templar wrote:@shadenfreud: You can't have 3 Regular dreds and 3 Dreadknights as they are both Heavy Support.

Venerables are Elites.


I think Venerable dreds are better with Tl-lascannons and missile launcher. less chance fo the missile launcher missing as it isn't twin linked.


or you have the Venerable dreds have DCCWs and Assault Cannons(with psybolts) and be combat dreds. Venerable massivly increases survivability.

Oops yea I was off there on force org.

Psybolt assault cannons hit 83% of the time=3.3 S7 rending hits per turn
Venerable rifleman dreads hit 97% of the time=3.9 S8 hits per turn

Is S7 rending or S8 better? Depends on the target. The AC is better against MEQ, TEQ, and AV14. S8 is better against AV10-13, T4 FNP models, and T4 multi wound models. Pure S8 is better against armies without any need for S7 rending, but a mix of the 2 is a more flexible list.

Venerable dreads are really good in CC. Is the loss of their CC ability worth an extra 0.6 hits per round?

schadenfreude wrote:
Venerable dreads are really good in CC. Is the loss of their CC ability worth an extra 0.6 hits per round?

With regards to being good in CC....not really, with only 2 Attacks base. What they are good at with their Nemesis Weapons (besides the greatswords), however, is squishing non-Eternal Warrior IC's or forcing weaponing them to death with the Greatswords.

Dreadnoughts are good at killing vehicles in CC.

they are also good at tarpitting the enemy or saving your other squads.


if you have a squad in CC with something they really shouldn't be fighting, you can charge the dred in and if you lose the squad might fail their morale test and get away while the Dred can stay and take the heat.


Against foes that don't have any ability to hurt AV12 they can also be a good tarpit. Ork Mobs for example. a PK nob(not on the turn he charges) will average just one hit per round with only a 33% chance of a Pen and a 16% chance of a glance with the Dreadnought forcing a reroll on any undesirable results. the Ven dred will be hitting on 3s and wounding on 2s so he should average 2 dead orks himself. every point he wins combat by is a dead ork from a fearless wound too.

There seems to be some kind of perception that Dreadnoughts with DCCWs are bad in CC. This is quite the error-- I've been running a very Dreadnought-heavy SM army for more than a year now and in my experience Dreadnoughts are quite fearsome indeed. The fact that they only get a few attacks doesn't mitigate their effectiveness as much as one might think-- similarly to Seer Councils, their main strength comes in the fact that it is incredibly difficult to actually hurt them. In fact, most models can't do anything to them, and thus even if you only kill one guy per turn you'll be consistently winning combat. Further, even if the enemy sticks around and remains in combat forever, a ~125 point Dreadnought is a good trade for almost any squad that would plausibly be tying it up.

I do think that Dreds should get +1A accross the board. 2 attacks is kinda lame for such a venerated battle brother in a massive metal body.

And they arn't slow or anything, DoW animations makes them pretty swift.

Grey Templar wrote:I do think that Dreds should get +1A accross the board. 2 attacks is kinda lame for such a venerated battle brother in a massive metal body.

And they arn't slow or anything, DoW animations makes them pretty swift.

Eh. I'd say Vendreads should get 3 attacks, but I'm fine with normal Dreads having two. If you think about it, 2 attacks is what a Sergeant, Librarian, Chaplain, or Master of the Forge has on profile, and thus seems appropriate for a Dreadnought as well.

Fetterkey wrote:There seems to be some kind of perception that Dreadnoughts with DCCWs are bad in CC. This is quite the error-- I've been running a very Dreadnought-heavy SM army for more than a year now and in my experience Dreadnoughts are quite fearsome indeed. The fact that they only get a few attacks doesn't mitigate their effectiveness as much as one might think-- similarly to Seer Councils, their main strength comes in the fact that it is incredibly difficult to actually hurt them. In fact, most models can't do anything to them, and thus even if you only kill one guy per turn you'll be consistently winning combat. Further, even if the enemy sticks around and remains in combat forever, a ~125 point Dreadnought is a good trade for almost any squad that would plausibly be tying it up.

It's not that dreads are bad in CC. It's just that in a Grey Knights army - where everyone can have S5 power weapons or I6 force weapons - there are better. The dread is not needed to excel in combat, only to protect the more fragile knights from assault units which can easily kill them.

It does seem that the Dreadnoughts are more useful as a gun platform.


I see the only reason you would want Venerable dreds to be shooty is if you want 6 shooty dreds and have no other way to do it.


you wouldn't run 3 Venerables without running 3 regular dreds first(unless you want Riflemen and some other heavy support)

If 6 rifleman dread lists become as popular as people say they will it might being back the LRBT.

It's not hard to avoid side shots by deploying near the corners.

At 2k or less a 6 rifleman dread list isn't going to have much to spend on melta acolytes, acolytes are fragile, and melta acolytes will be the priority target. Psycannons would be the next priority target.

GK could still win games against a triple LRBT list without killing any of the tanks, but that's a lot of firepower to just take on the chin.

If 6 rifleman dread lists become as popular as people say they will it might being back the LRBT.

Good thing that those GK armies will also have a bucketload of meltas.

At 2k or less a 6 rifleman dread list isn't going to have much to spend on melta acolytes, acolytes are fragile, and melta acolytes will be the priority target. Psycannons would be the next priority target.

Huh at 2K you say. In 1750 I already bring 6 psycannons, 3 lascannons, 3 tl plasmas and potentially 18 meltas in six Chimeras alongside the line of S8 Riflemen. At 2k points it just gets worse.

I have no doubt that GK will be able to outshoot IG especially considering they have fortitude on a lot of vehicles and can re-roll the dice to seize the initiative.

Of course the IG can outshoot the GK as well if they get the first turn and their army is built right. The answer isn't AV14 though. I'd just go with 6 Hydras and a Manticore plus the parking lot of Chimeras.

The Hydra nearly matches the firepower of psy-Riflemen point by point but beats them by simply being a lot harder to finish off (the more tanks for the points the better).

Warrior Accolytes can only take 3 special weapons so both lists need correcting.

Big issue I see with venerable riflemen besides cost is you lose the strength 10 close combat weapon. The basic with the multi melta makes more sense as you advance and fire your multimelta and get in combat with the little squads people tend to run with no fist and kill them. Even with a fist you make them reroll damage and they still have to hit and penetrate you. Only 2 attacks isn't that great but when they aren't likely to hurt your venerable dread unless they have melta guns.

MSU-MEQ armies have already surpassed IG in terms of ranged shooting (check out my MSU-Space Wolves versus competitive IG batrep). While IG can no doubt be configured to be a very shooty army, their most competitive builds - melta-vets in chimeras, or chimelta-spam - is mainly a mid-range shooting army. They cannot compete with MSU-MEQ lists in a purely ranged firefight, at least not without taking 9 hydras and 3 vendettas....and even that is not a guarantee. You won't see a shift to Leman Russes because that is not an answer to MSU-MEQ spam. While they are more survivable against missile-spam, they just cannot do enough damage against a typical MSU-MEQ build with 9-12 vehicles at 2K.

Avariel wrote:
Big issue I see with venerable riflemen besides cost is you lose the strength 10 close combat weapon. The basic with the multi melta makes more sense as you advance and fire your multimelta and get in combat with the little squads people tend to run with no fist and kill them. Even with a fist you make them reroll damage and they still have to hit and penetrate you. Only 2 attacks isn't that great but when they aren't likely to hurt your venerable dread unless they have melta guns.

That's not an issue at all. The role of the dread in a GK army is a gun platform that will protect the GK army by tarpitting enemy assault units. That is one of the main differences between GK dread-spam and other dread-spam armies. Grey Knights can fend for themselves in assault with their power weapons against many foes....however, they still cannot take on assault-specialist units (i.e. bloodcrushers, bloodletters, wyches, incubi, genestealers, monstrous creatures, assault terminators, banshees, furious charge units, etc.) Against these units, they need the protection of the dreadnoughts to tarpit these units. They don't really need the dreads to be killy in assault, just to lock down these units so that they cannot do damage to the rest of the army. If they do need to kill the unit locked in combat with the dreads, then the grey knights will just counter-charge them.