Grey Knight Commission: The Big Three and others

Well, the holidays are always a great time for me to make a little extra cash as I have more time to sit down and paint through commissions.  My latest job includes a pretty decent portion of a friend's Grey Knight army.  It includes the big three: Draigo, Crowe, and Coteaz, all in the finecast (which suprisingly was in that bad of shape.  I also had to magnetize three forgeworld dreads and add autocannon arms, two sets of forgeworld arms and one set of from the aegis defense line.  Next I had to paint and build 3 razorback/rhinos, all fully convertible from TL lascannons to TL heavy bolters and two convertible also to rhinos.  The final part was to rework the magnetization of the stormraven turret gun that I had previously built and painted. Nothing new there.  So, here is the work:

I will be the first to admit that while I don't like playing against GK (mostly because that is all it seems I get to play against currently), they are spectacularly fun to paint.  I hope you enjoy these images.  I would love feedback.  Thanks for reading.

Other models I have finished:

Blood Angel Librarian Complete

Dante Gets a Facelift
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Black Friday Beatdown- BA v. GK

Jawaballs' Mephiston Conversion

In my last post, I talked about the fact that I have few new commission jobs slated for the holiday season of which one is a continuation of a Grey Knight army I am working on for a friend.  He had to drop off a final piece to me today, so we used the exchange as an excuse to play a game of 40k.  I have been really excited to try out my Blood Angel Beatstick list, so I decided that the Angels would roll out today.  I had no idea what my buddy would be taking, but I should have guessed it would be Grey Knights since he was dropping off GK models to me. 

So, if you didn't check out the link above, I was taking my beatstick list which contained:

Mephiston

5 Assault Terminators- 3x lightning claws, 2x thunder hammers, LRC
3 Sanguinary Priests- 2x naked, 1x jump pack

10 Assault Marines- 2x meltaguns, 1x powerfist
10 Assault Marines- 2x meltaguns, 1x powerfist
10 Assault Marines- 2x meltaguns, 1x powerfist

Landspeeder- multi-melta, heavy flamer
Landspeeder- multi-melta, heavy flamer

5 Devestators- 4x missile launchers
5 Devestators- 4x missile launchers

My buddy took a somewhat interesting list which I am dubbing the psybolt candy list:

Grandmaster- warding stave, psycannons, blind and rad grenades
Librarian- teleport homer, shrouding, sanctuary

8 Purifiers- 2x psycannons, 3x daemonhammers, psybolt ammo

10 man Strike squad- 2x psycannons, psybolt ammo
10 man Strike squad- 2x psycannons, psybolt ammo
10 man Strike squad- 2x daemonhammers, 2x falchions, 2x halberds, justicar with warding stave, psybolt ammo, rhino
6 terminators- 4x halberds, 1x sword, justicar with daemonhammer, psybolt ammo

Stormraven- assault cannon, heavy bolter, psybolt ammo

So, quite an eclectic list with a lot of interesting choices.  My buddy has always made interesting lists that work well for him. This one can really punish an army from the midfield and then counter assault with terminators and purifiers. 

My own strategy involved moving my LRC up as mobile cover for my terminators, Mephiston, and an assault squad.  If they can close the distance, they will jump out of hiding and assault everything within sight, hopefully using a sanguinary priest to give out FNP and FC.

Our tabletop had two buildings in each quarter of my side about equidistance from the edges.  There was also a building in my opponent's side about a third of the way from my left side. There was a two tier hill in the middle of the board and a scattering of over debris and forests.  One forest, directly in front of the left building on my side would hold one of my opponent's strike squads. As a resource, I have added a simple Vassal picture for reference.

We rolled annihilation and spearhead for our game.  My opponent took the upper left hand corner while I had the lower right hand corner.  It is good to note that all ruined buildings were at least 2 stories tall if not three. 

My buddy put a strike squad in the building, the rhino squad behind the building, and the final strike squad in the forest.  His GM and libby went with the purifiers in the stormraven behind the strike squad forest.  He put his terminators into reserve for deepstriking. 

My devestators deployed with a sanguinary priest in the ruined building for good fields of fire across the table. My terminators went in the LRC with another priest next to the building behind the hill and I put Mephiston and an assault squad behind the LRC.  My other two assault squads, sanguinary priest, and landspeeders went into reserve. 

My opponent won the roll for first turn and I failed to sieze. 

This game really centered around the middle of the table with his purifiers w/GM and libby and his terminators and my terminators and Mephiston.  Things happened elsewhere but the main action happened to the immediate left of the hill. 

My opponent sought to come in aggressively with the stormraven moving forward at full speed to just southwest of the hill and shooting to no avail with it's assault cannon.  In response, I shot the LRC's mult-melta and 4 missiles at it which caused an immobilized result.  Since he moved forward flat-out, it counted as wrecked.  However, I wasn't aggressive enough and when the squad got out at the back of the raven, I couldn't close the distance to assault it.  This turned into a 1-2 turn stand off until my opponent allowed me to assault. In the meantime his terminators came in to the direct left of the hill.  Shooting would take my assault squad that shadowed the LRC down to two men who would fail morale, flee, rally, and then use the LRC for cover for the rest of the game.  The LRC was also immobilized by a lucky psycannon shot. 

The big moment came when Mephiston made a big move around the south side of the wrecked raven to assault the terminators while my terminators and priest moved around the north side to crisscross Mephi's path and assault the purifiers who I had shot down to about 4-5 purifiers and the two characters.  This combat saw my opponent fail to remember to use his blind grenades (forgot that he had them) until too late.  This cost him 2 purifiers, a dead librarian, and a wound to his GM for only a single lost lightning claw terminator on my part.  The fearless wounds killed another purifier or two leaving only the GM and a daemonhammer left.  In Mephiston's assault, psych-out grenades cost me the initiative and my opponent rolled well enough to get hammerhand off.  Luckily, Mephiston suffered no wounds from the 10 halberd and sword attacks coming at him.  However, the daemonhammer knocked off two wounds.  I killed a single terminator due to some great invul saves, but passed my morale test. 

In the next round of combat, Mephiston took out all but the daemonhammer who failed to add any wounds, but passed all of his fearless saves after failing morale and being swept.  In the other combat, I was able to take out the final purifier and when the GM failed to wound, I was able to break him and let him run.  

The final straw came when my immobilized LRC was able to use its multi-melta to insta-kill the GM as he fled.  The terminators then assaulted into the lone daemonhammer terminator and killed him easily. 

While this epic scrum happened, I was able to immobilize his rhino strike squad as it advance on the right.  I then was able to drop an assault squad and a landspeeder in front of it to take care of that flank. The strike squad got out and shot at my assault marines, only killing 1 or 2.  In reply, the landspeeder flamed and melta-ed the squad down significantly leaving only 3-4 models of which the assault squad was able to easily mop up in combat. 

On the left, my final assault squad with priest came in and helped shoot up the strike squad in the forest.  it would flee and rally only to be shot again the next turn and flee again with two remaining models that would again rally at the board edge. 

At the end of turn 4, my opponent had a rhino that was immobilized with no weapon, 2 fleeing strike squad members, and a lone strike squad holding a building as my Blood Angels surrounded the building preparation for assault.  We called it there.  In the end, the score came out to a landslide 6-0 kp advantage to the Blood Angels!

This game was fun and helped me to start being a bit more aggressive with my armies.  I tend to be a cautious player, but the Beatstick was meant to be played aggressively, so I pushed forward into my opponent's face and he could handle my units when I got there. 

Psychic powers were really hit or miss with Mephiston and the librarian canceling out quite a few of the powers played.  Funnily enough the rhino strike squad failed its very first psychic test and lost the warding stave justicar to a perils of the warp.  Otherwise, there weren't many adverse effects.  We mostly just experienced the headache of having our powers canceled when we needed them most in combat. 

The real kicker for my opponent was forgetting that he had the blind grenades until after the turn that they counted.  Had he remembered my terminators would have had many fewer attacks and wouldn't have had S5, I5 for that first round of combat when I took out a good few of his purifiers before they could attack.  That really cost him big time.  Otherwise, I think my Blood Angels were just better at getting to grips with his army and using their combat ability to shred things.  Mephiston is a beast and can easily handle whole units on his own. I threw him into the terminators knowing that he would be able to weather their attacks easily and begin to knock them out a few at a time.  That second round of combat was insane with me scoring 5 successful wounds and then his daemonhammer hitting twice, but rolling two 1s to-wound.  Once the purifiers and terminators were taken care, the game was set for me and it was a matter of mopping up.  I think my opponent should have played a bit more aggressively as he was relying on high initiative attacks and grenades to save the day and then he didn't remember to use those things. 

The Beatstick is super fun to play and I love furious charge/feel no pain terminators and Mephiston.  They are just a nasty, nasty combo. 

Other Battle Reports:
Space Wolf Razorspam vs. Horde Orks- a Vassal Report
Sanguinary v. Grey Knights
Vulkan Ain't No Joke
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Grey Knight Terminator Army, Take Two

A week or so ago, I played my most recent Grey Knight list against a henchman spam list.  I didn't fare well at all.  The dreadnoughts were taken out quickly and then they terminators had to wade across the board to get to his more mobile firebase.  It seems to me that the list needs some revamping.

After looking at my list, it doesn't suffer from the ability to lay out a high volume of high strength shots or even combat ability.  It's biggest hurdle was mobility.  Even when you have 27 terminators moving 6" every turn, it will take awhile to get across the board and that is if your opponent even wants to let you get near to them.  So, here's what I've changed to accomodate a more mobile all terminator force.
First, though he is a beast and grand strategist is nice, I just can't afford to drop 255 points on a Grandmaster. That is another full squad of terminators plus some. For that matter, with a terminator force points are at a premium, so I dropped the libby as well. That leaves me without an HQ.  I need something really cheap, that can contribute to some portion of my army's overall makeup (ranged attack or close combat).  How about an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor.  If I give him terminator armor and a psycannon, he comes in at 80 points and can contribute to my shooting.  Done. Overall savings from dropping the Grandmaster and Librarian and adding an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor is 370 points.  Not too shabby

Now I need to add some mobility to the army.  In order to do this, I need to create some units that can get across the board and wreak havoc amongst my opponents' lines.  What's the quickest way across the board besides deepstriking? Stormravens.  Yep, I am going to switch two of my 5 terminator squads to full on close combat (with no psycannons) and put them in two stormravens in order to quickly get them across the board.  The stormravens will also act as gunboats and anti-tank platforms once their payloads have been dropped. 

So, here is what I'm thinking about. 

Ordo Malleus Inquisitor- terminator, psycannon- 80pt.

5 Terminators- 4x halberds, hammer, psycannon- 225pt.
5 Terminators- 4x halberds, hammer, psycannon- 225pt.
5 Terminators- 4x halberds, hammer, psycannon- 225pt.
5 Terminators- 4x halberds, hammer- 200pt.
5 Terminators- 4x halberds, hammer- 200pt.

Stormraven- twin linked multi-melta, twin linked assault cannon, extra armor- 220pt.
Stormraven- twin linked multi-melta, twin linked assault cannon, extra armor- 220pt.
Dreadnought- 2x TL Autocannons, psybolt ammo- 135pt.
Dreadnought- 2x TL Autocannons, psybolt ammo- 135pt.
Dreadnought- 2x TL Autocannons, psybolt ammo- 135pt.

2,000pt on the dot. 

I am unsure as to what turret weapon to put on the stormravens as they are all tempting.  I am definitely going with the TL multi-melta though as I can machine spirit and blast a tank if I need.  Currently, I like the lascannon option for it's range and ability to be fired immediately, but it doesn't mesh with the multi-melta well.  That would lead me to one of the other options.  I like the plasma cannon because I can blow up a transport and then use PotMS to drop a template on the disembarked squad on the inside.  Then again, the assault cannon can do a lot of damage to infantry and can take out light mech well too.

Either way, the general strategy is to deploy the three shootier squads, dreads, and inquisitor and walk them across the board and shoot while the stormravens turbo-boost across to drop off "combat" terminators to sow discord and act as bullet magnets which will hopefully throw my opponents into disarray. If they can't take down the stormravens, then they will commence with shooting up tanks and infantry to add pressure along with the other units.  I am hoping this two pronged approach will protect my advancing terminators and dreadnoughts from incoming fire or at least dillute the fire coming at them.

So, what are your thoughts?  Will this army stand up? It still isn't optimized Grey Knights, but it is highly resilient and can apply pressure quickly, especially against armies that have to close with you to be effect (tyranids, orks, blood angels).   Post your comments and tell me what you think.

Other articles you might find useful:
First Game Playing with Grey Knights: Shoot Out
Psycannons: Why They are Game Changing for Grey Knights
Grey Knights, Psycannons, Halberds, and the Sanguinary Guard

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On the Workbench this week

One really neat thing about being off of work for the summer (teacher here) and having a baby that necessitates staying around the house is that I am getting a lot of time in front of my painting table.  As such, I have quite a few things going on right now. 

Awhile back, I posted here that I had a commission from my FLGS's owner.  He is attempting to put together an all Slaanesh daemon army that can be played both in 40k and Fantasy.  As such I have been working on his daemonettes.  Here is a picture of the lovely ladies.

I still have 2 more units of 20 to paint up before I am done with this initial commission.  I believe that I will have some additional models to paint for this army before all is said and done. 

I also posted a few weeks back, here, that I received a well magnetized Dreadknight model to paint.  This has been a fun model to paint.  He is super well modeled and the weapon are just cool.  So, here is my take on a Nemesis Dreadknight. 

Kitted out with both a psycannon and a incinerator.  These are both magnetized at both the forearms and to the pistons on top.

Here you can see him with his daemonhammer. 

Another view.  You can see his shoulder shield.  That was done freehand and is a fairly common Grey Knight motif.

Here is a picture of a freehand inquisition symbol.  I got the basic idea for this from the GW site.  The white greave with the red stripe was taken completely from the picture found in the product information site. 

Finally, the big, bad sword. I love the greatsword.  I know that it isn't cost effective, but man, it looks good. 

Onto my own personal projects.  I am currently putting together my Sanguinary Guard army and have decided to make the bases rocky.  This is a simple effect to pull off and I hope to have a tutorial up soon.  Not only is it easy, but it is also super cheap!  Stay tuned for that article.

Why Vindicare Assassins just got alot worse

...to play against, that is!

Was perusing the GW FAQ for the main rules and saw this little tidbit.

Q: How does Rending work if you get to roll multiple

dice for the Armour Penetration roll? (p31)

A: The player gets to add a D3 to the total for each
dice that comes up with a 6.

Combined with the Vindicare's exitus weaponry and the turbo-penetrator round, this means that you can add a possible maximum of 4D3 to your shot (granted that is if you roll all 6s). 

So let's look at the averages really quick.  An exitus is a sniper weapon so counts as S3 and rending for armor penetration. A vindicare is BS8, so will hit almost all the time.  He then counts as S3+4D6+ a possible D3 for each six he rolls. 

Bog standard averages say that he will roll 14 on four dice (two 3's and two 4's) + the S3.  So, the rending really isn't even needed.  However, you stand a 16% chance of rolling at least one 6 and a 2% chance of getting 2 6's.  If you were to roll three 1's and a single 6, you could still pen AV14 if you rolled a 5 or 6 for the rend.  Though it seems remote that you would roll multiple 6's, this guy is going to almost always penetrate armor, even AV14.  Combine that with AP1 and he is very reliable at blowing up mech of any sort. 

Though he weighs in at 145pt, this model can do quite a bit of damage with a fairly strong statistical chance of blowing up a vehicle a turn, including AV14.  I think the price tag is warranted.  Provided with cover, this guy becomes an absolute nightmare to deal with. 

Just an interesting thought there.

By the way, there are updated FAQs on GW's site.  Check them out here: GW FAQs.

Grey Knights are changing how people build their list...but why?

The GK fervor has really and truly hit.  Bartertown is full of GK models being bought, sold, and traded.  Blogs are ranting about how good they are or how unfair they are. 

Recently, I read an article by Jawaballs on his thoughts on GK versus AV11.  It was a really interesting article.  I encourage you to read it.  Then from there I encourage you to read his tournament report about his army list answer to the GK.  Very good read there.

So is the sky falling?  Nah.  Do GK change the way people will play against them?  Yes, but who tailors lists all of the time?  I could see that if your only gaming partner only played GK, then you might resort to that, but you won't come across that in most cases.  However, I do agree with JB's assessment that, for time being at least, GK will be a majority portion of armies in attendance at competitive events.  So they will change the way people plan for major competitive events. 

Jawaballs said that GK have changed how people create army lists, but why do they change this?  I think it is because they have an answer to a major element of the game, namely armored transports.  With the advent of the 5th edition armor/transport rules, it became much easier to bring multiple transports and in reality very desirable.  Armies without transports have suffered greatly in 5th edition.  I am thinking of Nids and Necrons.  We have even seen the trend towards MSU in which we saturate our opponent with large(ish) quantities of cheap transports.  Consequently, armies that can bring them, bring transports in quantity.  That has become the norm of 5th ed. 40k.  In fact, it is a major dynamic of the game.

GK change this because they have the ability to torrent high strength shots easily capable of taking out armor.  The strength of MSU is that you have so many targets that your opponent can't reasonably take them out without himself taking losses in great numbers.  Unfortunately, GK can handle a target rich environment.  They can do this to the point that missile spam Space Wolves or Leafblower IG do a double take.  Bloggers and naysayers have mentioned their high cost per model and the midfield range of their guns to show how they are truly a balanced army.  While I don't think that GK are broken, I don't think they are as balanced as they could be for the reason that I have mentioned.  They have an answer for massed armor.  When a 200-250pt. squad can take 8 rending S7 shots, this army shows it has the ability to laugh off all armor with relative ease.  That is why GK are changing army lists.  That is why people are sweating and crying and ranting about GK.  This is, in turn, backed up by decent combat ability and devestating psychic abilities. 

I posted awhile back about why the psycannon will be game changing for GK and I stand by that.  The evidence is immense. 

Of course, in JB's tourney report his GK opponent is a great player.  We have to remember that average and poor players will also be playing GK and so GK will be beatable in many situations.  This isn't a case of an unbeatable codex.  In fact, many people may have already developed an opinion about how hard GK are based on beating a newer, less experienced player.  So, the perspectives can lean both ways.  GK in a competent player's hands are a real threat while in a poor player's hands aren't any scarier than any other army. 

In the end, 5th ed. 40k will remain 5th ed. 40k.  I think the new codex smell will eventually wear off of GK and/or the next new thing will take away from their focus, but as a whole, I think we will trend back towards normalcy in the end.

Awesome

As a commission painter, I get a privilege that many gamers don't, namely getting to look at, handle, and paint tons of different types of models.  So, I was super excited when a friend of mine, the owner of my FLGS, farmed me out to do a commission job.  On a Grey Knights piece.  On this piece.

Suffice it to say that I am stoked about this job.  The dreadknight is one of the cooler looking models and up close it looks amazing.  I am impressed continually by the detail of GW's models.  Though we all complain about their prices and the injustices of their corporate machine, the products they produce are really second to none.  Simply amazing. 

On top of that, this baby came to me completely assembled and heavily magnetized, as you can see from the pics.  My customer did a great job magnetizing the parts for easy weapon swaps and storage.  Even the servo framework on the arms is magnetized.  This is sweet.  Watch out for more pics on this guy as he comes along.

This has gotten me thinking.  It is hard for me to pin down one absolute favorite model, but it would probably be either the current Emperor's Champion or the terminator Chaplain.  What is your favorite model out right now? 

You be the Judge: Grey Knight tourney list submission

I have a friend who has been collecting Warhammer models since the dawn of time.  He has an extensive collection.  That said, his collection is somewhat limited in terms of models that he can field and maintain WYSIWYG.  So, when he started putting together his Grey Knight lists for a GT, I knew that they wouldn't be optimized.  However, my friend is an excellent player, regularly ranking in the top ten places at major WFB tournaments, if not obtaining best general.  He asked me for advice on two lists that he thought about taking and while money isn't an issue for new models, time, assembly, and painting are, so buying more models isn't possible. Below are his two lists and then you will see my response. 

List 1
HQ- Inquisitor w/ term armor, psycannon, 3 servo skulls, level 1 psyker - 119 points
HQ- Librarian w/ digi weapons, Mastercrafted thunderhammer, sanctuary, warp rift 170 points

Elite- Vindicare Assassin 145 points
Elite- Purifier Squad w/ 5 add troop, psycannon, psybolts 270 points

Trp- Strike Squad w/ 5 add, 2 psycannons, halberd, hammer, falchion, psybolt 265 points
Trp- Strike Squad w/ 5 add, 2 psycannons, halberd, hammer, falchion, psybolt 265 points
Trp - Term Squad w/ 5 add trps, sword, hammer, 8 falchions 400 points

Hvy- Purgation squad w/ 1 add troop, 2 psilencers, 2 psycannons, homer 185 points
Hvy- Purgation squad w/ 1 add troop, 3 psilencers, warding stave homer 180 points

1999 total

List 2
HQ- Librarian w/ digi weapons, Mastercrafted thunderhammer, sanctuary, warp rift, quicksilver 175 points

Elite- Vindicare Assassin 145 points
Elite- Purifier Squad w/ 5 add troop, psycannon, psybolts 270 points

Trp- Strike Squad w/ 5 add, 2 psycannons, halberd, hammer, falchion, psybolt 265 points
Trp Strike squad 2 as above 265 points
Trp - Term Squad w/ 5 add troops sword, hammer, 8 falchions 400 points

Fast Attack- Storm raven w/ assault cannon, hvy bolters, psybolts 225 points

Hvy - land raider 255 points

1999 total


My comments are posted below.

"I am just going to go ahead and post comments for both lists here. I think they are both interesting and the real question, which is the same for all GK armies, is how to get as much infantry on the table while not sacrificing mobility and threat.  I think we can do better with a combination of both lists.

"First, I think you need to have vehicles. Grey Knights die like any other marine, so some protection is needed. That means we need to trim the fat in some places. A bonus to this army is its ability to deepstrike just about everything in, so you have a bit of mobility through that. Your sweet spot is going to be just inside the 24" range where you can chew things up with your booku amount of shots while still staying out of assault range until you can charge in and assault for a certain victory. That said, I think we can modify your units just a bit and keep their potential while also adding in some threat with a vehicle.

"The librarian is going to be your best friend. Everyone seems to think that he is awesome out of all of the generic HQ choices. I agree. If you are giving him a hammer, don't give him digital weapons as they provide rerolls to wound and he is already wounding on 2+. I would use those 5 points to get another psychic power. In this case, I would either get shrouding or summoning. If you get summoning take a teleport homer off of one of your purgation squads and put it on him so that when he summons, things land where you want them.

"The inquisitor will be nice too. With TDA and a psycannon, he is a great model. I assume you will give him hammerhand? I think that is all he can get, but can't remember. Anyway, he is great just for the additional psycannon and servo skulls. 

"I think the vindicare will be super nasty, but will attract a lot of attention. He would be a good reason to give the libby shrouding as that will provide him a 2+ cover save in terrain. I would caution you to be careful, though. 4D6+a possible D3 for pen could be nice, but it is far from dependable. You could roll low. I think he is going to be great for taking out mid-weight AV. For the AV14, I would mass psycannon fire or try to get hammerhand and a daemon hammer into the vehicle.

"Next up we see the purifiers. Everyone I have seen run these in an army does so with halberds. I know you are limited in model range, so that isn't possible. You may look at cutting them down to five guys to help make room for something else if you need the points elsewhere.

"The strike squads look good and I think they will be pretty solid. It is also nice to be able to combat squad them for additional troops to grab objectives. On KP or victory points missions, I would leave them in 10 man squads and again use them in terrain under shrouding to creating a nasty gunline.

"I love the terminator squads. They rock. A lot of people aren't fans, but I think they are amazing troops.  In your instance, it looks like you are going for a nasty combat threat. So, I would change them up a bit. Since you have the halberd models, take a squad of 5 with 4 halberds and an MC hammer. Drop the other 5. That gives you 200pt. If we can trim a further 25-30, you can get a stormraven to put them in, and I think that would be a good combo. The falchions look nice on paper for the +1A, but having I6 is always going to be nice. Besides, on the charge, the terms will have 3 attacks and if they are in a stormraven, they should be getting off the charge. You won't need the falchions as much in that case. Being able to kill even ICs before they kill you is great. I would go that route.

"To get the remaining points, I would drop the 1 additional model from each purgation squad dropping them down to 5 models each. Also drop the warding stave as it only works in combat and you don't want those guys in combat. They need to be at that 24" distance pumping shots in the opponent's army. With the savings from them and the terminators, you could probably put together a stormraven with assault cannons, heavy bolters, hurricane bolters, and psybolt ammo and that is just nasty.

"So, ultimately, I propose a combination of the two armies with a few minor changes to some units. Something like this:

HQ- Inquisitor w/ term armor, psycannon, 3 servo skulls, level 1 psyker - 119 points
HQ- Librarian- Mastercrafted thunderhammer, sanctuary, warp rift, shrouding, summoning 175 points

Elite- Vindicare Assassin 145 points
Elite- Purifier Squad w/ 5 add troop, psycannon, psybolts 270 points

Trp- Strike Squad w/ 5 add, 2 psycannons, halberd, hammer, falchion, psybolt 265 points
Trp- Strike Squad w/ 5 add, 2 psycannons, halberd, hammer, falchion, psybolt 265 points
Trp - Term Squad w/ MC hammer, 4 halberds 205 points

Fast- Stormraven- assault cannons, heavy bolters, hurricane bolters, psybolt 255 points

Hvy- Purgation squad w/ 2 psilencers, 2 psycannons, homer 165 points
Hvy- Purgation squad w/ 3 psilencers, teleport homer 135 points

1999 total

"This gives you a fast hammer in the terminators in stormraven. It is backed up by all sorts of shooting. You can also choose to advance your purgation squads a bit and use their homers to bring the strike squads in, but if terrain is advantageous, I would just deploy everything and shoot away from turn 1. Once the terminators are stuck in, the stormraven needs to go gunship on anything it can find. If it can get rear armor visibility, it should be able to shred some armor as well, especially AV10 rear armor.

So, let me know what you think."

Internet readers, hopefully you can get an idea of what models my friend has to play with from his lists.  He can't go optimized as he doesn't have the access to psycannon models and halberds everywhere.  However, again, I think from what he has, he has a very nice selection.  So, what do you think?  Is my proposed list better?  Do he have enough to make a decent showing at a GT?  You be the judge.

Grey Knights finished

Hey folks.  I just wanted to post a quick link to my commission blog that is in the works.  I have pictures of my completed Grey Knight commission available to view there.  It is a walk down memory lane for those of you who have been in the hobby for awhile.  There are 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th edition models in the commission.  Check it out here: Grey Knight Commission

Blood Angels land on the Planet of the Apes

I got to Vassal tonight to play a game and you won't believe the army I played.  It was a GK army led by Coteaz boasting 8 units of 5 jokaeros and an additional inquisitor! After reading Sandwyrm's article on making sanguinary guard more competitive, I decided to take a hybrid list of our two ideas, thus my army looked like this


Mephiston
Dante


5 Sanguinary guard- powerfist, 2x infernus pistols
5 Sanguinary guard- powerfist, 2x infernus pistols
5 Sanguinary guard- powerfist, 2x infernus pistols
5 Sanguinary guard- powerfist, 1x infernus pistol


Landspeeder- multi-melta/heavy flamer
Landspeeder- multi-melta/heavy flamer

5 devestators- 3 missiles, 1 plasma cannon
5 devestators- 3 missiles, 1 plasma cannon


I made the changes from my previous list to try out speeders and to have a long range AP2 threat with the plasma cannons. 


My opponent took:


 

Corteaz

Inquisitor with Artificier Armor  

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

5 Jokaeros and Chimera

Let me tell you, when I saw this list, it took me by surprise.  It has unparalleled torrents of high strength fire.  My only saving grace were the jokaeros' BS 3.  Hopefully they would miss the predicted 1/2 of their shots and I could use cover to protect my advances.  These 8 units though, can shoot lascannons, multi-meltas, or heavy flamers as they see fit!  40 lascannons in a single army!  To add on to it, some of the squads had rending due to the jokaero's rule for customization.  Others had an increased range by 12".  Imagine 36" meltas.  Yikes.

We played capture and control with dawn of war deployment.  I deployed a sanguinary guard unit and mephiston.  My opponent kept everything off. 

Nothing special here, but a stupid mistake on my part.

You may not see my mistake yet, but you will.  Turn 1 was uneventful as turn 1's usually are in dawn of war.  That is 8 chimeras getting ready to blast stuff.

There's the big mistake.  I thought I had Mephi behind the LoS blocking terrain appropriately, but my opponent could just see him with two chimeras.  Dead Mephi.  Ugh...  All of my deepstrikers managed to come in though, and they took out two chimeras and harmed a few jokaeros. 

Turn 3 started to get brutal.  Rending heavy flamers and melta really whittled my squads down.  In the end though, I was able to take out all of his right flank and start to move towards his center keeping cover between our armies.  I was also able to take out a central unit of jokaeros due to some shooting and a failed morale test.

Things started to heat up as my upper sanguinary unit went for my own objective and my opponent start to whittle down my devs.

My lower units of sanguinary guard took tons of casualties, but two units of one man and two men respectively made it into assault and started whittle down his troops. My upper sanguinary guard made it to my objective and camped out ready to go to ground if necessary. 

After all of his shooting, he couldn't take out my upper sanguinary guard and my speeder rushed up to contest getting me the win. 

So Sandwyrm almost has me eating my words.  It was the landspeeder that won me the day in the end, but the landspeeders in general didn't contribute much to the game.  That last turn rush to contest saved my bacon, though.  Otherwise, we would have had a straight up tie. The plasma cannons were a worthless  investment for the most part. I got one great shot that killed 4 jokaeros and ultimately helped to cause the squad to run and die.  Otherwise, I think the saved points could be used better elsewhere.   

I really liked how the guard held up even though they were severely whittled down.  With cover and sanguinary priests, they really are pretty resilient, even in the face of loads of high strength shots. 

If I hadn't lost Mephiston on turn 2 due to idiocy, I would have had a frontal threat as well.  He would have really put pressure on my opponent and caused him to move forward to handle my army.  Unfortunately, I didn't think that through as well as I thought I had. 

On the other side, those jokaeros are murder from range, even at BS3.  Since you can take some many and they all act like they have lascannons, they are ugly.  But they die easily. Not a single jokaero made a wound on any of my models in combat.  Ultimately, I think the monkey train is a gimick list, but man it can be nasty.

**Update- As I look over this, I realize the list may have been illegal.  Coteaz' rule states that henchmen can be taken as troops and that puts a max limitation of 6 squads on the army.  My opponent couldn't play 8 units.  Hmmmmm.....oh well.  Shows me that I need to read the rules better. 

Another good game that was won by the narrowest of margins. 

First group of Grey Knights

I am continuing my work on my friend's Grey Knights.  They are coming along well and I thought I would share them.  These first 6 are a selection of special character types, so I gave them blue force weapons.  The rest will not have them as the previous parts of the army I painted for my friend came before the entire army had force weapons.  That said, these pictures are also pretty cruddy, but my wife is having trouble with her blog so I thought I would try to throw up a post of my progress to test Blogger.  So, here are the pictures.

 Here is Cool and the Gang.  Notice that these models range from the 2nd to 4th edition.  My friend has quite the extensive and eclectic collection.

 You can't see him well, but the guy in the back is a 3rd or 4th edition apothecary.  Since the old terminators are smaller and you can only take an apothecary with paladins, we threw this guy on a 40mm base. 

 The homemade converted lightning claws will count as falchions. 

I am proud of this hammer.  I completely scratch built it from bitz I had laying around as I didn't have any spare thunder hammers at the time of getting this guy prepped. 

So, there you have them.  These are the first crop.  I have around 22 more and a land raider to finish up in the next week or two.  Stay tuned, same bat time, same bat channel as I finish up the Grey Knights.

Grey Knights: The next step for me

After really looking at the army and how it performed against Tau, I have decided to think towards a few changes for the army. If you read my battle report, you will see some repeat information here.

The things I noticed as ineffective were:

The librarian sounds good at 5 points per power, but I found that he didn't use all of them.  I decided to drop warp rift as it has a limited range and didn't come in to effect at all during the game.  His primary roll was to buff his unit and the surrounding units. 

I also dropped a servo skull from the libby.  There are a few reasons.  #1 against shooty armies, I want infiltrators further forward so that I can catapult my army forward through assaulting and consolidating.  This will allow me to get into an opponent's lines without taking too many casualties.  #2 is the self destruct rule.  I found that by placing the skulls, my opponent simply had to move up and in the first turn or two ( I had the bottom of each turn) he was able to neutralize them by getting within 6".  Thus, I decided to keep two in order to maintain some control over infiltrators and scouts, but ultimately by time I would be ready to deepstrike, most if not all of the skulls were already removed. 

The venerable dreads just didn't produce for the points I invested in them.  As I have mentioned, the venerable reroll never works for me, so I decided to drop them and add a third regular psyfleman dread. 

With the points I saved, I added a 5th terminator squad with the same setup as the others with the exception of the MC Hammer.  I needed the 5 points. 

I dropped the incinerator and digital weapons from my GM and decided that another psycannon would be nice to fill out the gap left by my missing 4th dread.  Finally, to provide some flexibility, I added a teleport homer to my libby in the event that I felt that I needed to deepstrike in some terminators. 

So after all changes, this is what my next step looks like:

Grandmaster- MC NF Sword, psycannon, psychotroke and rad grenades- 255pt.
Librarian- NF Sword, 2x servo skulls, Quicksilver, Might of Titan, Sanctuary, Shrouding, teleport homer- 195pt.

5 GK Terminators- psycannon, 2x halberd, 1x MC hammer- 230pt. 

5 GK Terminators- psycannon, 2x halberd, 1x MC hammer- 230pt.

5 GK Terminators- psycannon, 2x halberd, 1x MC hammer- 230pt.

5 GK Terminators- psycannon, 2x halberd, 1x MC hammer- 230pt.
5 GK Terminators- psycannon, 2x halberd, 1x hammer- 225pt.

Dreadnought- 2x TL Autocannon, Psybolt Ammo- 135pt.

Dreadnought- 2x TL Autocannon, Psybolt Ammo- 135pt.
Dreadnought- 2x TL Autocannon, Psybolt Ammo- 135pt.

2,000pt on the dot.

This boils down to more troops, more bodies in general, and for the cost of 1 dread's worth (4) of S8 shots, I have added a possible 8 S7 rending shots.  Ultimately, I think that this will produce more tank kills and make my GM more useful at range.  This also firmly establishes my librarian as a support character and as such will change how I play him a bit, mainly by keeping him out of combat where possible so that I can use him to buff my units. 

Ultimately, for any army with no elite or fast choices, I think the army has a lot of depth as it can compete in all phases of the game.  I do think it will struggle with fast armies, but still stands a good chance of doing some damage as there simply isn't enough AP2 and 1 firepower in most armies to seriously hampers so many 2+ saves. 

First Game playing with the New Grey Knights: Shoot out

I got in a game last night with the Grey Knight list I put together for Vassal testing.  It was a fun game.  I was table to test the list against a Tau army.  Let me tell you, for a small, elite army, it took a ton of punishment and dealt quite a bit out in return. We played at a 2,000pt level, so I used my proposed list that is as follows:

Grandmaster- MC NF Sword, incinerator, psychotroke and rad grenades, digital weapons- 230pt.

Librarian- NF Sword, 3x servo skulls, Quicksilver, Might of Titan, Sanctuary, Shrouding, Warp Rift- 190pt.

Ven Dred- 2x TL Autocannon, Psybolt Ammo-195pt.

Ven Dred- 2x TL Autocannon, Psybolt Ammo-195pt.

5 GK Terminators- psycannon, 2x halberd, 1x MC hammer- 230pt.

5 GK Terminators- psycannon, 2x halberd, 1x MC hammer- 230pt.

5 GK Terminators- psycannon, 2x halberd, 1x MC hammer- 230pt.

5 GK Terminators- psycannon, 2x halberd, 1x MC hammer- 230pt.

Dreadnought- 2x TL Autocannon, Psybolt Ammo- 135pt.

Dreadnought- 2x TL Autocannon, Psybolt Ammo- 135pt.

My opponent took:
Ethereal
Shas'El-airbusrt frag projector, bonding knife, fusion blaster, missile pod, 1x gun drone

3 crisis suits- 1x missile/plasma, 2x missile/fusion, 2x gun drones
6 stealth suits- unit commander with markerlight

12 firewarriors- devilfish with 2 gun drones, disruption pod
12 firewarriors- devilfish with 2 gun drones
11 firewarriors- unit commander with markerlight
11 firewarriors- unit commander with markerlight
20 kroot- 14 carnivores, 1 shaper, 5 hounds

1 Piranha- fusion blaster, 2x gun drones

Hammerhead- railgun, burst cannons, disruption pod
Hammerhead- railgun, burst cannons, disruption pod
Sky Ray- Seeker missiles, Smart Missile, markerlights, disruption pod

This is perhaps my third game total against Tau, so my knowledge of their equipment is lacking, a deficit I need to remedy.  This game boiled down to an old fashioned OK Corral shoot-out.  We rolled annihilation with pitched battle deployment.  My opponent decided to not use his superior range and close with me.  I think this was to get him close enough to use the plasma and fusion weaponry to bypass my 2+ save.  This was to be his downfall, though, as I was able to get close enough and weather enough fire to assault in and begin to take apart his army.  We ended at turn 5, but his shooting phases were beginning to tell quite a bit.  By the end of the game, I had a GM on 1 wound, a libby on 1 wound, a single terminator, and 3 dreads.  He scored 4 KP on me and I killed his skyray, the piranha, the kroot, 12 warriors, two devilfish, and the stealth suits for 7 KP, most of these because they got too close instead of slowly backing away from my advancing flank elements. 
                                     

Here you can see the deployment.  Typical gunline fashion for him.  I decided to deploy in the central forest to help utilize Shrouding for cover saves if my armor was negated.  From the outset, I had a ton of poor rolls, but my 2+ armor proved very resilient.

After turn 1, I had lost a few models, with my opponent only immobilizing his own skyray and losing a few drones.  It was a pretty poor showing for both of us.

After turn 2, things began to heat up.  I started losing models, but this is also when he got too close with his devilifish meaning that I had the opportunity to assault in, on the left with my GM and squad and on the right with a single squad.  In both cases, he paid with the loss of the devilfishes.  On the left, a fortunate passed LD test on his last firewarrior meant that my GM and MC Hammer were protected from fire until my turn.

By turn 3 his crisis team was getting close and able to use plasma and fusion weapons on me to great effect and my forest bunker dwindled rapidly.  My first dread was blown away during this turn as well, despite his venerable roll.  On the right, my GM was able to assault into the stealth team, but due to poor rolling and being unable to sweeping advance, the 4 got away to regroup and shoot later.  The hammer tried to smash another vehicle, but couldn't connect this time.  On the left, after shooting away 6 kroot, a low roll on a difficult terrain test kept me from getting the assault on them and the piranha this turn.  I missed by about 1/2 an inch.

Turn 4 saw the bunker get eaten away with the exception of my wounded libby (due to a perils, not enemy fire.  I rolled 3 perils on him during this game, but only suffered a single wound!) and three dreads.  They continued to pound away at the crisis team, but just couldn't get through the armor saves.  My GM finished the job on the stealth team, though I lost my Hammer on the left due to enemy fire.  My black squad was reduced in size, but what got through, took out both the kroot and the piranha this turn. By the way, I believe I immobilized the piranha in turn 1, so it was easy prey.

Turn 5 saw my black squad reduced to 1 man who failed morale only to flee away and rally.  We actually ended on my turn 5 as we were out of time and at that point, I was clearly winning so didn't need to work through my own turn.

Wow!  Grey Knights are cool.  That Grandmaster is sick.  With him throwing rad and psychotroke grenades at units in assault phases, then getting to cast hammerhand, most combats are an autowin with him.  If only I could take 2 of this guy.  His incinerator was able to drop the left side firewarrior squad down by 8 models in one shot, but otherwise played a minimal roll.

The libby was a mixed bag.  On the one hand, he allowed me to feel protected with Shrouding, but ultimately not many shots negated my 2+ save, so it was largely unnecessary.  I am thinking about trimming this guy down a bit, but I need to play some other armies before I pass judgment.

The terminators were great.  2+ armor saves and a smattering of invul saves make these guys a pain in the butt to kill, even when I only have 20 of them.  Their ability to return fire at 24" in fairly large volumes is also nice.  The psycannons didn't pull too many rending wounds, but fear of them did help me out in many situations. 

The dreads were a mixed bag.  I think I may drop a ven dread down to a regular dread, drop the other ven dread altogether and use my points to try for another unit of terminators.  They did well, but nothing special.  I think 3 would work close to as well as 4.  The venerable reroll never works for me.  I always end up getting a worse result when my opponent rerolls! 

Ultimately, I was surprised when 26 models outgunned and outfought twice their number of treacherous xenos.  Grey Knights really do have the ability to be pretty shooty! They also have the ability to shoot well and then lay down the smack in combat.  Facing 2A models with force weapons is tough at the best of times.  With the buffs that can be bestowed by the libby and various rules given by Grand Strategy, the terminators become downright unpleasant to have to remove.  They are hard to shoot away and if you get close, they have no qualms with assaulting in and smashing face.  I also, like the survivability of the terminators and their ability to fire the psycannons to full effect. This army does a disproportionate amount of damage while not giving up many KP.  It is definitely a form of points denial as the terminators are extremely hard to kill.  Weighing in at only 10 KP, it can easily draw out KP from opponents while not giving up many itself.  In the end, I really enjoyed playing with this list and look forward to playing some more test games soon. 

Psycannons: Why they are game changing for GK

Shiny force weapons are reflected in my eyes.  Psychic powers are on my mind.  But, the armory of the new Grey Knight codex is truly where it's at.  Through it, a great selection of HQ choices become positively beastly!  Through it, the already brilliant rifleman dread gets better.  Through it, almost the entirety of the army has access to the new and, in my opinion, greatly improved psycannon. 

What does a psycannon bring to the table?
A psycannon has two firing modes, assault 2 and heavy 4.  At both, the cannon fires at S7.  Essentially, on a regular power armor marine, you have a mobile autocannon.  The shennanigans really start when you drop this baby into heavy mode.  Alongside the Heavy 4 comes rending.  That means if you have a terminator carrying a psycannon or if you have a power armor model that is stationary firing the cannon, it becomes a behemoth of troop and, yes, armor killing potential. 

This is where the true potential of the psycannon lies.  When firing in it's Heavy 4 rending mode, you can shred even elite infantry with high armor saves and it has the potential 29% chance of damaging even the vaunted AV14. 

The fact that terminator armor bestows the "relentless" rule means that terminator wearing models can move in their movement phase and still fire the psycannon in its heavy 4 rending mode.   If you look back at my small elite force that I army listed out a few days ago (Linky), you can see that I tried to make use of this as much as possible. 

Another marvelous way to run psycannons in a GK army is to steal a little tactic from our friends the Sternguard vets who double up heavy weapons in rhinos.  By putting a ten man power armor squad of any kind in a rhino, you can take 2, if not more, psycannons in that rhino and set up a midfield bunker shooting 8 shots at S7 with rending when stationary.  On the move, it can still fire 4 S7 shots!  Amazing!

What the psycannon offers for the GK codex is unparalleled mobility while still retaining a high number of high strength shots.  This definitely doesn't push them up ahead of IG in terms of shooting potential, but it certainly makes them far more competitive, light years in fact, than they were previously.  I would gladly trade the extra 6-12" range for the capabilities that the psycannon now has at 24".  That said, I think this gun alone is going to make Grey Knights scarier.  It also makes running a pure Grey Knight army viable and competitive. 

So, what your thoughts?  Do you think psycannons are that deadly?  Am I just dreaming?  I am anxious to hear what other people think.  On paper and in games that I have played, the gun is just monstrous.