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So the local store has a pretty competitive meta, games are pegged at 2000 points and there's one Tau player who consistently brings 3 riptides, 2 stormsurges and a commander accompanied by 6 or 7 crisis suits. There's also an Eldar player who uses 4 wraithknights. I understand that it's not really feasible to win against these armies, but I'd like to be able to make our games a little less boring and not be forced to refuse games simply due to being on the "wrong" tier. I play Grey Knights because I like the minis but I'm working on a Space Marine army that's a little more competitively focused. I was thinking of running the following list until I have enough minis for a full skyhammer:

Grey Knights Nemesis Strike Force:

HQ
Librarian with storm bolter, liber daemonica, nemesis staff, ML3 (165)
Librarian with nemesis falchions (135)

Troops
5 man strike squad with 4 halberds, 1 incinerator (123)

Fast Attack
5 man interceptor squad with 3 falchions, 1 daemonhammer, 1 incinerator (157)

Heavy Support
1 Nemesis Dreadknight with Hammer, heavy psycannon, heavy incinerator, teleporter (220)
1 Nemesis Dreadknight with Greatsword, heavy psycannon, heavy incinerator, teleporter (225)


Ultramarine CAD

HQ
Chief Librarian Tigurius (165)
Terminator Captain with cataphractii armor (120)

Troops
5 man scout squad with pistol + close combat weapons (55)
5 man scout squad with pistol + close combat weapons (55)

Heavy Support
4 Centurion Devastators with grav cannons, 1 omniscope (330)
5 Devastators with 2 grav cannons, 1 combi grav, drop pod (150)

TOTAL: 1900 points


So I have to decide what to do with the remaining 100 points. The general idea is that the cataphractii captain drops with the devastators to give them S&P. It's pretty gimmicky and might not work at all, but if they get wiped out by Tau interceptor fire then I don't have to worry about those battlesuits shooting at me next turn. Tigurius and the GK librarians join the Cent squad, I fish for invisibility on Tigurius and gate on the liber daemonica librarian. The centurions go invisible, gate and try to wipe out as many suits as possible on turn 1 with help from the devastators, if they survive. The GK units shunt and torch soft targets like pathfinders/marker drones, charging on turn 2 if anything lets me get close enough.

For the remaining 100 points I could expand the devastator squad so it can soak up more shots, add an inquisitor with servo skulls to assist deep striking, add some wargear like melta bombs for sergeants and a claw for the captain, cut the captain and devastators and go for more librarians instead (maybe a conclave,) trade strike marines and interceptors for terminators, maybe even throw in a vehicle (note: any vehicles will die very quickly.) There are a lot of options. Only things I'm set on are the two dreadknights, Tigurius and the centurion squad. Any suggestions?

CCW scouts are actually very good but need the LSS in my opinion! (Which is also very good + it's cheap)
I spend a few points extra for a MMelta and Combi-Melta but that's not absolutely necessary.

HF or HB LSS x2 = 80 points
Or you could spend the full 100 for 2 MMelta Storms......
My view is blinding your opponents cheaply and being able to deploy your CCW scouts where they are needed is worth the 80-100 points, plus they will be a low priority target and underestimated. But with no delivery mechanism they are just going to be dead and dead quickly.

Hm, sounds like a tough meta. All I can say is grav. The WKs, Riptides, Stormsurges and Suits will all hate grav. Just out of curiosity, what are the WKs equipped with?

Shadowscream wrote:
CCW scouts are actually very good but need the LSS in my opinion! (Which is also very good + it's cheap)
I spend a few points extra for a MMelta and Combi-Melta but that's not absolutely necessary.

HF or HB LSS x2 = 80 points
Or you could spend the full 100 for 2 MMelta Storms......
My view is blinding your opponents cheaply and being able to deploy your CCW scouts where they are needed is worth the 80-100 points, plus they will be a low priority target and underestimated. But with no delivery mechanism they are just going to be dead and dead quickly.

I was just thinking of the scouts as a 110 point tax on the marine detachment, possibly camping on backfield objectives. If I free up 20 additional points somewhere then I can use two tac squads with meltaguns and drop pods instead. Blinding does sound incredibly useful though. If I'm reading the codex right, Stormsurges don't have blacksun filters so apparently with I2 they can be blinded pretty easily.

 snykyninja wrote:
Hm, sounds like a tough meta. All I can say is grav. The WKs, Riptides, Stormsurges and Suits will all hate grav. Just out of curiosity, what are the WKs equipped with?

I haven't been unlucky enough to play against that person yet, but his wraithknights are partially assembled so he's probably just going to decide weapons on the spot and act like they were on his list all along. I think I saw a couple with swords and a couple with no arms. Apparently a lot of players don't bother to glue wraithknight arms on because the models are so delicate. Honestly I'm thinking about just going home if I get stuck playing a game against this guy.

The Interceptors seem pretty sub optimal here. They are going to have limited targets of opportunity and are squishy and expensive. I'd drop them in favor of the two LSS suggested earlier. With the remaining points I would give the Captain a SS so he can tank some interceptor for the devs and try to squeeze another grav cannon in there to make your investment for SnP yield better returns. Consider swapping the 2nd librarian for Draigo for Auto Gate. Or you could try to fit a conclave around Tiggy for better reliability in the psychic phase.

I've been wondering about the storm shield upgrade. RAW says a cataphractii captain can reroll any invul save on a 1 just because he's wearing the armor. So if he has a storm shield and a librarian in the same squad casts sanctuary... good lord, that's cheap. With the shield eternal he could easily survive over 100 wounds.

Maybe I should skip the pod full of devastators and just make a deathstar out of grav cents with Draigo, Stern and a couple of cataphractii stormshield captains. If it weren't for blast weapons I wouldn't even need invisibility.

You need at least 2 units with Drop Grav. If you're going to use the Devs, you should try Skyhammer, since the Devs will be able to drop in and fire as Relentless. Plus, Assualt Marines are great are charging Windriders, Fire Warriors or smaller Tau Suits.
Or, you need to do 2x 3 Grav Centurians with Drop Pods (just buy 2 empty Fast attack pods).

The only downside to this is that the Riptides will almost assuredly have Intercept AP2 Large Blast, but if you can Pod down and disembark into cover and spread out at max coherency, you might only lose 1 Centurian.

 Galef wrote:
You need at least 2 units with Drop Grav.

That's what gate is for. I can fit more than 3 centurions in a squad that way as well as some psykers or other characters with storm shields who can tank, including ones who aren't from the same faction, and the squad can't get intercepted. If I use 2 pods without skyhammer then only one can drop per turn. I just wish I could come up with way to guarantee access to sanctuary for a drop squad with a cataphractii captain.

Brother Captian Stern comes stock with Sanctuary.

Why can't the squad be Intercepted? Intercept happens after your move phase, so the Centurians would have to disembark and be an available target

 Galef wrote:
Brother Captian Stern comes stock with Sanctuary.

Why can't the squad be Intercepted? Intercept happens after your move phase, so the Centurians would have to disembark and be an available target

Stern can't ride in a drop pod because Grey Knights don't have access to drop pods and you are no longer allowed to deploy inside a battle brother's transport.

A squad that uses gate instead of drop pods for mobility can't be intercepted for two reasons. One is that interceptor only works during the movement phase. Gate happens during the psychic phase. The other reason is that interceptor only works against units arriving from reserve. I'm talking about gating a squad that deploys at the start of the game.

Obviously model dependant, but you can run fit 6 NDKs into 2000pts via 3x NSFs if you want to go the monster mash route too.