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It was just a crazy lucky game to be honest. I generally bring decent amount of anti-air including a storm raven, icarus lascannon, divination monkey team with lascannons, and twin linked psyfleman dread (all of which hit but I couldn't roll a 3+ to pen more times than I can count and I even misfortuned the dragon and it still passed almost all its invul saves despite that (sometimes people get lucky and roll 12 5-6's in a roll)

but of course the new FAQ lets the dragon just flame whatever it wants and vector strike ignores cover saves so basically nothing is safe and the times I needed to not roll a 1, I roll a 1 and coteaz just instant deaths lol. Bad luck but still a very strong unit to fight against overall.

 sudojoe wrote:
It was just a crazy lucky game to be honest. I generally bring decent amount of anti-air including a storm raven, icarus lascannon, divination monkey team with lascannons, and twin linked psyfleman dread (all of which hit but I couldn't roll a 3+ to pen more times than I can count and I even misfortuned the dragon and it still passed almost all its invul saves despite that (sometimes people get lucky and roll 12 5-6's in a roll)

but of course the new FAQ lets the dragon just flame whatever it wants and vector strike ignores cover saves so basically nothing is safe and the times I needed to not roll a 1, I roll a 1 and coteaz just instant deaths lol. Bad luck but still a very strong unit to fight against overall.

I hear ya', in the tourny I had my GM and coteaz eating as many baleflamer wounds as I could to save my psycannons for as long as possible. Sometimes you just have to risk that coteaz instadeath lol

So after taking draigowing to a tournament I have these points:

1: The deathstar does not die, Only one game did I lose the entire 10 pallys + draigo + coteaz, and thats because I lost Draigo and 4 pallys turn 1 to jaws. Other than that there is not much that can take on this that unit.

2: Coteaz is kind of important, with re-rolls to hit, and then either 4++ save or ignores cover, this unit will kill anything it even looks at.

3. Not enough range, my list also inlcuded a sqaud of interceptors and vendetta with meltavets, however all my opponents had gunline armies, and moved kept moving out of the 30" bubble of the paladins and knocking them of one by one.

4.One flyer is not enough, with all the AA now in new codexs and forgeworld, and tricks like fuegen on quad or BS5+ models on lascannons. My vendetta woould never survive very long, take 2 flyers or dont really bother imo.

So...

I think 10 pallys is to much in all honesty, yes the unit will not die, but its a lot of points tied up in one unit that can only touch 30" and when a waste when you can only hold one objective with them. I think allies is the way to go, even maybe as the allies, that way you sont have to take a second troops choice, although you lose coteaz. Necrons, tau, dark angels or guard are all going to be good. Just waiting for the new tau codex before deciding as thinking 3 broadside on a bastion for long range At. However for the moment, I just have pure gk to play with.

I have a 2k tournie next month and am thinking this:

Draigo
Coteaz

5 paladins, 2 psycannon, bro banner. 2 hammer, 3 sword.
Solodin
Solodin

Stormraven, melta, lascannon
Stormraven, melta, lascannon
10 Interceptors, incinerator, psycannon, halberd

Dreadknight, teleporter, incinerator
Dreadknight, teleporter, incinerator


Both solodins go in raven. First turn draigo casts psychic communion for the ravens coming in T2. Interceptors and knights shunt. Priority is any AA interceptor my oppponent has.

Draigostar moves up and lays down supporting fire, woth 2 Mc's in my opponents face his squad should survive a bit.

Anyway its a rough list open to improvements, but being only 1 of about 3 gk players at NZ's biggest tounie. I'm determined to make them work and start placing highly.

I played against 3 Grey Knight armies in a row at the Bay Area Open, including against Blackmoor's Draigowing list. I brought my tyranids.

First GK opponent was Ben Cromwell's (Dr. Insanotron from Sinister Wargaming) striker=spam GK's with dual stormravens. After that, I played against Blackmoor's Draigowing with paladinstar and 20 interceptors. And then my last game of the day was against another Draigowing player, Bobby (aka Grey Therion). He brought a smaller paladinstar with soladins, 1 stormraven and 3 dreadknights.

For more info on how the games went and the GK lists, you can find them in my BAO battle report thread (Games #5,6 & 7):


1750 - Jy2's Road to the Bay Area Open GT - Hive Fleet Pandora

I am going against Dark Eldar this week at 1850 points. Any thoughts on units and tactics (I believe paladins aren't a wise choise ). Haven't played against them a long time now.

 Capamaru wrote:
I am going against Dark Eldar this week at 1850 points. Any thoughts on units and tactics (I believe paladins aren't a wise choise ). Haven't played against them a long time now.

You need to bring a shooty All-Comer's list. Paladins can work, though don't make them the focus of your offense (in other words, don't make them too big). Rather, I would go for a more Coteaz-based list with psyfleman dreadnought support and psyback henchmen units. Something like this (assuming you are ok with henchmen armies):


Draigo
Coteaz

5x Purifiers - 2x Psycannons, 2x Halberds, 1x Hammer, Rhino w/Search - 190
5x Purifiers - 2x Psycannons, 2x Halberds, 1x Hammer, Rhino w/Search - 190

5x Paladins - 2x Psycannons, hammers & halberds - 315
3x Henchmen - Razorback w/Psybolt Ammo - 62
3x Henchmen - Razorback w/Psybolt Ammo - 62
3x Henchmen - Razorback w/Psybolt Ammo - 62
3x Henchmen - Razorback w/Psybolt Ammo - 62
1x Paladin - Hammer - 55 (in Stormraven)

Stormraven - TL-MM, TL-Lascannon - 205

Psyfleman Dread - Searchlight - 136
Psyfleman Dread - Searchlight - 136

1850


The mini-paladinstar will be more for counter-assault purposes (beastpacks, Vect, incubi, wyches) as well as for relentless shooting. Draigo will be in front to tank those insta-killing darklance shots. If you put Coteaz with them, they will also be your anti-deepstriking defense unit. Purifiers are your everyman unit which you can sacrifice. They have good shooting, decent assault and are a threat to hordes with Cleansing Flame. You've got a flyer to deal with mech or other flyers. Finally, you've got a respectable amount of firepower to take on mech as well as other flyers, most of which are twin-linked. Finally, you've got a healthy amount of scoring and can get even more with Grand Strategy.

I believe this army should do ok against most dark eldar builds. It'll even do ok against most of the other armies. After all, it's supposed to be a Take-All-Comer's list.

Psybacks are still very good vs dark eldar so henchmen spam is still viable. Dk's don't last too long vs poison and lances though but psyflemen are great. DE aircraft are actually pretty sweet so you may end up facing all sorts of high damage things. Just be careful of ranges and pre-measuring with night shields. That always messes me up.

I'm gonna work on some more topics for the first page too but so busy experimenting with daemon builds lately lol

I'm not sure I entirely have an answer to FMC + helldrakes + noise marines and fast daemons just yet but I'm still working on the daemon side so I've yet to really push the test games. Will update again soon after a few test games.

Great reads on the BAO games JY2! So are you going to be comming back to revisit the GK purifiers again now?

The Draigo + coteaz purifiers build with some solodins actually plays extremely well in my experiences too. I'm thinking it will be very close to the higher end of TAC for GK as long as you got your air defenses figured out.

Also looking forward to see what the new Tau super suit will be doing along with their new fliers. I'm itching for some new opponents to further refine the GK's.

Thanks.

I was planning to revisit my knights....and then the new daemons came out! Lol. Sorry, the GK's are going to have to wait a little longer. I'm trying out the new daemons as well. I may have a practice game between them and my grey knights.

Sigh. After daemons, I just may have to try out the new Tau. I've always been interested in Tau (another Xenos army!) and my friend just happens to have a large collection of them. So the GK's may have to wait until summer.

But I will keep reporting on how my "armies" fare against grey knight opponents to give you (the readers) an idea of where the knights currently stand against the plethora of new armies.

I am actually finding good succes with a GK "horde" army,

3X maxxed interceptor squads with pysbolts,

coteaz+ xenos inquisitor providing 2 preciences

maxed out troops with bolter henchmen, and a mini death star of death cult assasins/crusaders

2 psyfyle men and a, DK (may be 3 psyfle, but the DK absorbs a LOT of shooting for 130 pts, and distracts the enemy)

so I have 6 scoring units, on has a 3++
and 3 more scoring units in either special mission,

first turn the enemy takes 40 rerollable st5 bs 4 shots + 20 bs4 st 5 normal shots, almost guarantees 1st blood with that and the psyflymen

I assault 2nd turn,

anything left over is creamed by the DCA/crusader squad and or DK/psyflmen

easysauce wrote:
I am actually finding good succes with a GK "horde" army,

3X maxxed interceptor squads with pysbolts,

coteaz+ xenos inquisitor providing 2 preciences

maxed out troops with bolter henchmen, and a mini death star of death cult assasins/crusaders

2 psyfyle men and a, DK (may be 3 psyfle, but the DK absorbs a LOT of shooting for 130 pts, and distracts the enemy)

so I have 6 scoring units, on has a 3++
and 3 more scoring units in either special mission,

first turn the enemy takes 40 rerollable st5 bs 4 shots + 20 bs4 st 5 normal shots, almost guarantees 1st blood with that and the psyflymen

I assault 2nd turn,

anything left over is creamed by the DCA/crusader squad and or DK/psyflmen

100x this. I've won sooo many games via the DKs intimidating presence alone. I usually field 2 and put them in positions to challenge my opponents shooting. Any game where these bros take 2 whole turns of my opponents guns away from my strikes is a good day.

jy2 wrote:

 Capamaru wrote:
I am going against Dark Eldar this week at 1850 points. Any thoughts on units and tactics (I believe paladins aren't a wise choise ). Haven't played against them a long time now.

You need to bring a shooty All-Comer's list. Paladins can work, though don't make them the focus of your offense (in other words, don't make them too big). Rather, I would go for a more Coteaz-based list with psyfleman dreadnought support and psyback henchmen units. Something like this (assuming you are ok with henchmen armies):


Draigo
Coteaz

5x Purifiers - 2x Psycannons, 2x Halberds, 1x Hammer, Rhino w/Search - 190
5x Purifiers - 2x Psycannons, 2x Halberds, 1x Hammer, Rhino w/Search - 190

5x Paladins - 2x Psycannons, hammers & halberds - 315
3x Henchmen - Razorback w/Psybolt Ammo - 62
3x Henchmen - Razorback w/Psybolt Ammo - 62
3x Henchmen - Razorback w/Psybolt Ammo - 62
3x Henchmen - Razorback w/Psybolt Ammo - 62
1x Paladin - Hammer - 55 (in Stormraven)

Stormraven - TL-MM, TL-Lascannon - 205

Psyfleman Dread - Searchlight - 136
Psyfleman Dread - Searchlight - 136

1850


The mini-paladinstar will be more for counter-assault purposes (beastpacks, Vect, incubi, wyches) as well as for relentless shooting. Draigo will be in front to tank those insta-killing darklance shots. If you put Coteaz with them, they will also be your anti-deepstriking defense unit. Purifiers are your everyman unit which you can sacrifice. They have good shooting, decent assault and are a threat to hordes with Cleansing Flame. You've got a flyer to deal with mech or other flyers. Finally, you've got a respectable amount of firepower to take on mech as well as other flyers, most of which are twin-linked. Finally, you've got a healthy amount of scoring and can get even more with Grand Strategy.

I believe this army should do ok against most dark eldar builds. It'll even do ok against most of the other armies. After all, it's supposed to be a Take-All-Comer's list.

I don't have access to inquisitorial henchmen or stormravens but he hasn't got any fliers too so I don't have to worry about anti air. I like the purifiers two units idea cause they make good use of the rhinos fire points and they can shoot their psycannons.

sudojoe wrote:Psybacks are still very good vs dark eldar so henchmen spam is still viable. Dk's don't last too long vs poison and lances though but psyflemen are great. DE aircraft are actually pretty sweet so you may end up facing all sorts of high damage things. Just be careful of ranges and pre-measuring with night shields. That always messes me up.

I'm gonna work on some more topics for the first page too but so busy experimenting with daemon builds lately lol

I'm not sure I entirely have an answer to FMC + helldrakes + noise marines and fast daemons just yet but I'm still working on the daemon side so I've yet to really push the test games. Will update again soon after a few test games.

Great reads on the BAO games JY2! So are you going to be comming back to revisit the GK purifiers again now?

The Draigo + coteaz purifiers build with some solodins actually plays extremely well in my experiences too. I'm thinking it will be very close to the higher end of TAC for GK as long as you got your air defenses figured out.

Also looking forward to see what the new Tau super suit will be doing along with their new fliers. I'm itching for some new opponents to further refine the GK's.

Psybacks are gonna be nice against DE as long as they stay alive. I am gonna use them as a mobile cover for 6 men GKSS with a psycannon deployed outside of them. I have access to land raiders (crusader / redeemer) and 3x psyflemen dreads but my dreadknights aren't build yet (big conversion plans :( ). Should I go 2x dread and 1 x raider or the raider will be a waste of points against DE. I must say that this is a friendly game and the DE player is not super competitive in his builds, mostly he takes units he likes regardless of effectiveness.

Well game went well. I took a GM with 6 paladins 2 GKSS a unit of purifiers a LRC and two psyflemen. The later did a ton of damage since they where put way back on the table and he didn't manage to get enough weapons into effective range in order to take them out. Paladins embraced cover in the mid of the table claiming an objective on the same time. LRC wasn't even scratched cause he chose to ignore it but in return he created considerable firepower. I tried to focus on his transports because my eldar experience tells me that if you take their mobility away they are easy to fight against and win. By far his most annoying unit was the jetbikes that refused to die. Anyway till next time

hehe, GK's generally have done decently well vs DE stll. It's the CSM and necrons and nids now that I seem to have the most trouble.

In terms of new power stuff, I've been twiddling with some daemons + CSM lists that have been doing pretty good vs GK's mostly in terms of overruning the air power side of things.

It's basically noise marines + helldrakes + oblits as big shooty lists. It's essentially all spam but it's been tough to beat down. Blastmasters mess up my Power armor guys/henchmen/light vehicles and have taken out my psyflemen pretty handidly. Oblits see off my DK's and terminators and helldrakes are of course annoying as well.

and

Lord of Change/Bloodthirster
plaguebearers
plaguebearers
plaguebearers
Prince
Prince
Prince
(suffice it to say, everything has wings and just going from LOS to LOS blocking cover till I can get to assault. being able to fly and / walk at will helps alot to stay on the enemy blind side, you end up charging just about whatever but can wreck anything you do get a hold of.)
and I tend to throw in some seekers if there's room

These new builds have given my standard lists a pretty rough time and I'm not finding enough stuff to really do well vs them since they play very differently from eachother and I bet will be around soon at tourny level.

Necron airforce can fight these guys alright with MSS helping alot and wraiths/air power but I'm having a tough time getting enough anti-air power by pure GK's themselves now a days. Maybe ally in some guard saber platforms or go half necrons in the origional side builds on the bottom of page 1.

The GK+SW idea is still somewhat viable vs the above but it's quite a bit harder to deal with so many FMC or just sheer redundency out of a 3 type unit army to really benefit as much.

Gonna wait till the new Tau dex drops (which I'll be buying the giant robot and I bet some fliers) so I'll see what that will do vs the humble GK's. The more I'm seening new codexes, the more out gunned I'm feeling lately especially if rumors are true that they are giving railguns a beam type effect.

Have you tried the Modrak - Belial first turn strike idea? The more I think about it the more it is growing on me .

It can be fun to just muck about on the enemy's half of the board I suppose with some shunting DK's and termicide them to death but so few models on the board scares me lol

Lack of sweeping advances also make me fear MSU builds but I can do some test games to see how it'd go down.

The problem I see with this is that you will probably going to have to reside on inquisitorial troops in order to have points left for shunting DK and deathwing termies. On the other hand deepstriking and shunting everything on your enemies face on turn one is priceless .

I've played against a FMC list. Boy, let me tell you what a joy it is! It's just not possible to down them all from the air before 2-4 (luck depending) crash into your ranks and really fart up the place. Nurgles insta death balesword or whatever it's called, instadeathing DKs is so fun. Tzeentch beams all over da' place. If it wasn't for challenges to slow down the pain it would be much worse IMO haha

 Goat wrote:

I've played against a FMC list. Boy, let me tell you what a joy it is! It's just not possible to down them all from the air before 2-4 (luck depending) crash into your ranks and really fart up the place. Nurgles insta death balesword or whatever it's called, instadeathing DKs is so fun. Tzeentch beams all over da' place. If it wasn't for challenges to slow down the pain it would be much worse IMO haha

I can certainly build a list just to handle FMC but it starts to go ally heavy really fast and start to get alot less all comers using alot of fliers with either necrons or IG or SM mains (storm talons with drop pods) with GK allies thrown in for the counter assault/support shooting roles. That build is unfortunately kind of what I'm probably gonna gravitate towards to in the future I think except of course whatever Tau comes up with of course in a month or so. When I do those, I start to get a bit messed up vs big hordes and psy nids get pretty uppidy in my face. I might have to build more warding staffs into my builds for the future.

Really starting to feel the rock paper scissors spock lately lol.

 Capamaru wrote:
Have you tried the Modrak - Belial first turn strike idea? The more I think about it the more it is growing on me .

The Mordrak Shunt-punch list is somewhat of a one-trick pony list (only with Belial and friends instead of Interceptors and dreadknights). It relies on an alpha-strike which may overwhelm opponents not prepared for it, but against a more balanced TAC list, it will have some trouble. Any list that relies on a particular unit (i.e. deathstar) or tactic is not a very balanced list. Now that is not necessarily a bad thing because they do have the tools to win - and usually even dominate - their opponents. But with such a list, you are more prone to matchup problems, especially in a tournament environment where you won't know what type of army you will be facing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Goat wrote:

I've played against a FMC list. Boy, let me tell you what a joy it is! It's just not possible to down them all from the air before 2-4 (luck depending) crash into your ranks and really fart up the place. Nurgles insta death balesword or whatever it's called, instadeathing DKs is so fun. Tzeentch beams all over da' place. If it wasn't for challenges to slow down the pain it would be much worse IMO haha

Draigowing combined with cheap inquisitorial henchmen of IG allies and some psyfleman shooting may give this type of list some problems. Against flying daemons, the more units you have, the better your chance is of grounding them. Combat squad those 10-man striker units. You need a lot of shooting to combat flying daemons. Luckily for us, shooting is one of the strengths of the GK's.

The GUO is so slow that he is no threat until the later turns. If he deepstrikes them, your DK should be able to kill him. Grey knights have a few advantages:

- Prefered Enemy vs daemons.

- Psyk-out Grenades. When you charge a daemon with your knights, he is striking at I1.

- Psykers coming in from reserves (i.e. deepstriking) can't cast Iron Arm on the turn that they do. Thus, the deepstriking GUO should be vulnerable to a charging dreadknight. You charge him, he strikes at I1, you strike at S10 and then you force weapon him to death. Not the case, however, he if starts on the board and footslogs.

- Psyfleman dreads and Reinforced Aegis. That is -4 on Daemon psychic tests with any powers that target the knights, after which, you get a 5+ or even a 4+ Deny the Witch save. Psyfleman dreads are going to make a comeback thanks to daemons. Reinforced Aegis, their ability to shoot down flyers and their ability to insta-kill multi-wound daemon fast units will make them popular once again.


While it won't be an easy fight, the knights do have the tools to take on daemons.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 sudojoe wrote:

 Goat wrote:

I've played against a FMC list. Boy, let me tell you what a joy it is! It's just not possible to down them all from the air before 2-4 (luck depending) crash into your ranks and really fart up the place. Nurgles insta death balesword or whatever it's called, instadeathing DKs is so fun. Tzeentch beams all over da' place. If it wasn't for challenges to slow down the pain it would be much worse IMO haha

I can certainly build a list just to handle FMC but it starts to go ally heavy really fast and start to get alot less all comers using alot of fliers with either necrons or IG or SM mains (storm talons with drop pods) with GK allies thrown in for the counter assault/support shooting roles. That build is unfortunately kind of what I'm probably gonna gravitate towards to in the future I think except of course whatever Tau comes up with of course in a month or so. When I do those, I start to get a bit messed up vs big hordes and psy nids get pretty uppidy in my face. I might have to build more warding staffs into my builds for the future.

Really starting to feel the rock paper scissors spock lately lol.

Flyer-heavy armies isn't the way to go against daemons IMO. I am of the opinion that you need more boots on the table, though I do see GK's bringing in allies - namely IG allies - to help them get the job done. I also see the comeback of the psyfleman dread (see above).

Also, interested in seeing what the new Tau comes up with.

And 6th Ed. has and will always be a rock-paper-scissors edition. There's just too many combinations in this edition. Likewise, because of all the combinations, it is also easier to build counters in particular builds.

Finally updated the first page with some stuff. Interestingly enough the new death from the skies allows GK storm ravens to take the locator beacon. With the changes to FAQ 1.3, we now have skies of fury with the following rules:

Page 37/93 – Stormraven Gunships, Shadow Skies.
Replace this rule with the following:
Skies of Fury: If the Stormraven has moved more than 6",
passengers can still disembark, but they must do so as follows:
Nominate any point over which the Stormraven moved that
turn and deploy the squad as if it were deep striking onto that
point. If the unit scatters, every disembarking model must
immediately take a Dangerous Terrain test. If any of the
models cannot be deployed, the entire unit is destroyed, as per
a Terrible Accident result on the Deep Strike Mishap table.
Models that disembark using the Skies of Fury special rule
cannot charge in the turn that they do so.

This could potentially allow stuff like purifiers or henchmen drop out of the raven without scattering. Not completely sure if legal yet but it's a fun idea to fiddle with anyway.

Flyer-heavy armies isn't the way to go against daemons IMO. I am of the opinion that you need more boots on the table, though I do see GK's bringing in allies - namely IG allies - to help them get the job done. I also see the comeback of the psyfleman dread (see above).

Also, interested in seeing what the new Tau comes up with.

And 6th Ed. has and will always be a rock-paper-scissors edition. There's just too many combinations in this edition. Likewise, because of all the combinations, it is also easier to build counters in particular builds.

While MSU will have an edge in getting down FMC I just feel like vs other flier spam like AV 10 storm talon spam for example or necron spam, it's not as nearly as effective unless you can get enough high str weapons in there. IG forgeworld with their saber defence platforms are an excellent choice in this if you want to go ground forces. I do like the coteaz + draigo builds lately and some solo-dins have been fairly good with a relatively immobile fire bases of henchmen/dreads.

I'm just debating on getting saber platforms or not right now as I have a feeling the IG dex will be out later this year and I'm still going to be buying a bunch of Tau soon. Doubt I'll get enough time to paint/build it all. Does frontline gaming do orders from overseas?

Last knight I went against demons on 2000 on a single OC. All I can say is that a flying circus kind of army can give a lot of troubles but besides that they aren't a big threat. He deployed first and I stole the initiative so he suffered heavily from shooting and he was tabled on turn 4. GK's are a really hard match up (preferred enemy is really annoying) for them and dreadnoughts with reinforced aegis are pretty handy. They have a lot of nasty template psychic powers but flamers aren't anywhere near that great anymore and bloodletters need herald in order to be effective. Also on each of his shooting face he was rolling on a table with 2d6 (storm in the warp or something like that) but most of the effects were working against him .

I will try to play again against him since I didn't manage to see a lot of his army potential and give back some feedback .

phew, flurry of activity lately organizing tau and before I get that thread updated I just wanted to share some thoughts I had when test playing against tau with my typical GK henchmen gunlines.

These guys are really good counter to most of what my Gk army brings. My traditional survival tools have been cover saves and with proper markerlight spam (i.e on everything lol) I really just started to see squads melt away. The new commander is also a big pain to take down. With a horde of BS5 drones, he was single handedly sweeping my henchmen squads one by one.

The DK still does well vs them but only really a threat if I use a teleporter and go up the sides. Running through midfield as a distraction unit is ok but be prepared to eat alot of missle pods and broadside AP1 guns.

Twin linked stuff like plasma and such are really annoying to survive for my terminators and my DK didn't fare better either.

Lacking drop pods, I have a tough time closing with alot of our assault assets unless I go necron allies or the such. Usually I can't get much love out of a land raider but a squad of DCA +crusaders + techmarine is so fun to roll up on them. Just gotta go for a corner or far edge assault to deny alot of the linked overwatch. (it was vs a tau foot lists with alot of broadsides testing missle spam and almost no vehicles)

I don't pack enough of a punch with my 1 storm raven to survive the amount of sky fire I typically seem to encounter in a tau list now so I really gotta play conservatively and hope the tau deploy in a bigger line for me to abuse range. For all the talk of mobile firepower, I've seen mostly static formations and gunlines from the way pathfinders tie up the units and slow movements of the hammerheads or immobile (essentially immobile if you want to shoot) broadsides. Castle formations seem popular with Tau clustered in a corner which is really making me want to try IG allies to ignore cover pie plates.

My traditional fire base of coteaz with a bunch of monkies and acolytes and plasma servator on top of a bastion is not nearly as good as it used to be due to markerlights and ignore cover smart missles. It's making me want to try a DA alliance and throw a techmarine with power generator inside (also to buff some other ruins to force the tau to waste some more marker lights at least hopefully) with some cheap devestators and a liby leading some suicide assault elements to soak shots. *not like they will get to assault but at least Tau fire priority is easy to pick out*

Psycannons vs suits is not my cup of tea now a days. Too many drones and shots (and ignore cover) generally wittle alot of my firepower and them things have 2 wounds making it annoying to actually kill off crisis suits in my back corner. I really need to get some more str 8 ap3 stuff from somewhere. maybe more lascannon monkies or something.

I kept thinking to myself I'd really love a vindicare in this list somewhere to take out all the tau buffing things like etherals and commanders with drone controllers however I keep going back to "How do I keep him alive??" and the only solutions vs tau and markerlights seem to be the DA power generator. I'd love some other opinions on this. Other than that, I'd have to really use like 1-2 rhinos a turn to block LOS with flat out moves to keep him going and usually he's in an elevated position.

Anyways, just my initial thoughts on the state of things. I'm interested to see how to work tau into my GK lists or more likely vice versa actually as Tau really could benefit from some deep strike protection like drop pod meltacide and Tau still struggle a bit vs MC's unless they use some rip tides. Honestly no one got one built yet to try around here but from the paper specs I think it'd be much better fight with ion guns on the thing.

Haven't read the codex and haven't played against them yet, but how difficult is to get rid of staff carrying ML?

I haven't read the Tau dex yet but I have a jist of what is going to go down in a game. I think two porting DKs is almost manditory. My first tactic is to ruin as many things shooting markerlights as possible. This new book is really looking to be a force once synergized with itself(through player experience). The battle report with the kroot meatshielding almost all the other units and allowing a mass almost army wide overwatch, some at BS2. Yikes! LoL I want to sit down with the book and try to make lists that would ruin my GKs and see how I could stop it.

Capamaru wrote:Haven't read the codex and haven't played against them yet, but how difficult is to get rid of staff carrying ML?

The markerlight carrying stuff is usually pathfinder teams. More often than not anyway. I have a personal feeling I'll be running some tetra squadrons instead actually and really just using one squad of pathfinders for ion rifles and some markerlights. Last FA slot probably going to some suicide piranha with fusion blasters (meltas) to go after AV 14/13's. The tau fliers so far feel underwhelming (proxied in just 2 games so don't take my word on it just yet, time will tell - btw, I do plan to update the Tau thread as well but I want to post solid info that's been battle tested like the GK thread instead of just wild guessings which is why it's still back on the 5th page or what not)

Goat wrote:I haven't read the Tau dex yet but I have a jist of what is going to go down in a game. I think two porting DKs is almost manditory. My first tactic is to ruin as many things shooting markerlights as possible. This new book is really looking to be a force once synergized with itself(through player experience). The battle report with the kroot meatshielding almost all the other units and allowing a mass almost army wide overwatch, some at BS2. Yikes! LoL I want to sit down with the book and try to make lists that would ruin my GKs and see how I could stop it.

2 DK's with incinerators and teleporters will definately make most conventional (i.e. non-forge world tetra users) cry since so much is dependent on marker lights. The marker drones and pathfinder teams are really susceptable to incomming fire and AP4, ignore cover templates will kill alot of them. Most of the truely good things about tau are tied up with markerlights. With good Tau lists, I'd imagine it'd be more spread out like some in the elite slots, some in the troops, and alot in the fast attack but they are what allows most of the interesting tau tactics to work properly.

The old trick to just kill enough tau to force leadership is a bit non-functional now though as the etheral is a great ld10 bubble that will keep most of their depleted foot troops on the board even in the back but with good positioning, twin DK's have a good shot at taking them down anyway.

I'm thinking my all comers GK lists will start to look like psyfleman dread (If I'm running any strike squads/purifiers) + 2DK's with tele and incinerators for my heavy slots or...

a LR crusader + psybolt + DCA's/crusaders and techmarine grenade caddy + 2 DK's if I'm running more shooty henchmen back line and maybe a psybolt vendread if I really want the reinforced aegis vs nid spam.

AV14 is surprisingly not that bad if played right I've found out. *i.e. don't go down the center but roll up a flank on just about anything using cover saves to good advantage setting up a charge on turn 3 or so* Also just alot more fun in my opinion but it'd be totally different synergy for the list.

Or better yet, ally in just enough DA to get a 4+ invul save land raider, really annoying to do anything about lol.

Has anyone come up with some good ideas to use Tau with GK? I feel like Tau can bring a lot of long range firepower which GK have always lacked.

 Red Comet wrote:
Has anyone come up with some good ideas to use Tau with GK? I feel like Tau can bring a lot of long range firepower which GK have always lacked.

Oh definately, there's quite alot of possible synergy between the two shooty armies.

Essentially it comes ina few flavors I've been finding out:

GK+Tau gunline with a few broadsides or a hammerhead+longshot. Needs at least one squad of fire warriors to camp (or kroot with sniper rifles work pretty darn good actually.

Pathfinders team x1 or a tetra squad is almost obligitory to make them all work. HQ's wise I'd take either crisis commander for plasma/melta to replace some squishier henchmen (but is more expensive). Or I'd just keep it cheap and use etheral kroot to camp objectives with sniper rifles.


Alternativelys, you can use a Tau gunline and support it with outflank protection with coteaz and strike squads to guard against deep strike.

From a few proxy games (as I've not yet finished building a riptide), I'd almost always want a riptide to provide for bullet magnet or long range AP2 fire power. He is just such a good distraction. I'd build him with long range fire support or just go pure durability with FnP or both if I got the points to spare. Tau Heavy and Elite slots provide us with decent sky fire.

Incidentially the more synergy you want from tau, the more tau you must take. On average, the more successful Tau addons I've had to my GK's amounted to some at least 600-800 points as they need other tau units to really perform well.

For tactics against tau, Im thinking something quick would be brutal.

Mordrak + ghost knights
2 10 man interceptor squads with 2 incinerators
3 dreadknights with incinerators and teleporters.
Strike squads

Most tau look to not be taking mech, or much mech. Pathfinders are so important with markerlights, but to use them they have to be on foot.

Turn 1 you are putting down 7 S7 Ap4 templates, thats going to kill a lot of kroot, parthfinders, firewarriors.

Yes you will get shot up by tau next turn, but...tau are still so bad in combat, getting just mordrak and a few knights into combat Turn 2 should be bye bye tau. Strikes combat squad and start in reserve, come down and take objectives, mordrak makes interceptors scoring.

Will try it on a local tau player next week.

I feel like Tau really need Markerlights to work well, or at least everything they fire needs to be twin-linked with that in mind I made this 1850 list, but I'm not sure what I want to do with Coteaz and its about 100 points short.

Grey Knights with Tau 1850

HQ:
Coteaz 100

Troops:
10 Strikes with 2 Psycannons, 1 Hammer, Psybolt and a Rhino 290
10 Strikes with 2 Psycannons, 1 Hammer, Psybolt and a Rhino 290
10 Strikes with 2 Psycannons, 1 Hammer, Psybolt and a Rhino 290

Allies:

HQ:
Commander with Iridium Armor, and Multi-spectrum Sensor Suite 130 points

Elites:
Riptide with Ion Accelerator, Plasma Rifle, Interceptor, and 2 Shield Drones 240 points

Troops:
6 Fire Warriors: 54 points

Heavy Support:
3 Broadsides with Skyfire 255 points

Aegis with Quad Gun 100

Total: 1749

I feel like the list's biggest issue is AV14 and that Coteaz is alone. One of my friends suggested adding a 5 man squad for Coteaz to hang with, but I feel like 5 marines sitting in the back won't really contribute much to the board. Would Psykers or Jokaeros be a better option? I was considering dropping the Shield Drones from the Riptide if push came to shove with points.

Also the strategy with the list is to have the Commander sit in front of the Broadsides with no weapons that way the Broadsides completely deny cover to flyers or any vehicles on the ground. The Commander will tank wounds for them as well since he's not T5 and 2+. Fire Warriors remain in reserve to hold an objective. Rhinos with Strikes move up the board with fire support from behind. What do you guys think?

Why not give a unit of 3 plasma cannon servitors, and then acolyte cannon fodder/jokearo?

I feel you really are paying a tax with the compulsory HQ and troops just to get all the toys in, 6 fire warriors is first blood giveaway, they are so squishy, and I dont get why you would take a commander just to block the broadsides when surely good deployment and aegis can do that anyway?

Why not maybe 2 full man firewarriors squads with an ethereal behind, give them the 1 extra shot ability so will be firing 3 shots each at 15, 2 at 30. Thats some better firepower.