Pure Grey Knights or Deathwing?

[tedwin183]

Ok, so I am having a debate with myself (sounds crazy) over which is the better army. Now, I KNOW neither of these are tournament hard-hitters. That's not the point. The point is to have a themed army, completely and utterly themed. So, in a series of, let's say 20 fights, which army wins the most? My ideas are this:

 

Grey Knights are a Brother Captain, a couple squads of GKT with appropriate and necessary upgrades, 2-3 PAGK squads and some LR's or LRC's for the GKT to ride in. I have read that Psycannon spam can be decent.

 

For the Deathwing, I was thinking ALLLLLLLLLLL Termies. 7 squads, 6 of which are troops, 1 of which is elite and then Belial and either a termie libby or chap. One squad is the command squad and the squads are broken into assault cannon forward squads and cyclone launcher objective holders. I think 37 terminators on the board would be great fun.

 

I also debated whether bringing 3 Land Raiders and nixing a few of the squads might be good.

 

All of these builds are for 2000pts, with the intent to be scaled to 1500.

 

 

So, let me know what you guys think.

 

Also, any optimum loadouts/tactics necessary to make either of these armies more effective would be great. (Again, I know these aren't tournament level armies.)

[Hellios]

I think Deathwing has a slight Advantage over grey knights on the basis that your terminators can hold objectives however neither armies are that easy to use so I don't know what your experiance at 40K is but don't worry if it takes a while to win espcially if the metagame is tough where you play :angry:

[jeffersonian000]

I concur. Both armies have their pros and cons, and both are equally difficult to master; yet both are equally fun to master. Personally, I went with Grey Knights because they have the best looking terminators and can be allied into other Imperial armies, giving them a more flexible use from my point of view.

 

SJ

[Vel'Cona]

Beyond backstory and thematic interests, the real question for GK vs. DW is whether you like the idea of lots of white Termies (with blended ranged and CC abilities) or a mix of PAGK and GKT in shiny silver. I'd argue both have a similar level of mobile firepower, both have plenty of access to transports and the ability to Deep Strike, and both can deliver some really nasty HQ choices. GK have the advantage of some old school rules that override newer codex re-writes (like their Nemesis Force Weapons and some wargear), while DW gets Combat Tactics (not so useful with Termies) and a greater number of scoring choices.

 

jeffersonian000 probably had it right: both lists are difficult to play, but fun. One thing to consider is that building DW may be easier on the wallet, as they're mostly plastics and there won't be much conversion work needed; in contrast GK are all metal (which is ridiculously pricey in GW's current pricing schema).

[ASDF_]

Do people still run tri-raider lists with deathwing? those types of lists are wut i want to start and was also deciding between pure GK or DW. does one of the armies do the tri-raider list better?

[jeffersonian000]

I commonly a run Tri-Raider list with my GK; however, I have not seen any Tri-Raider DW lists in my local area.

 

SJ

[Wolf Guard Nostromo]

I concur. Both armies have their pros and cons, and both are equally difficult to master; yet both are equally fun to master. Personally, I went with Grey Knights because they have the best looking terminators and can be allied into other Imperial armies, giving them a more flexible use from my point of view.

This was exactly the route I took and I haven't regretted it. I have about 2k of Grey Knights which I'm enjoying learning to use at the moment. They are a very different challenge to my Space Wolves, particularly as teleporting is central to one and impossible for the others.

 

Randomly, I do have a couple of Deathwing squads too, but its Grey Knights all the way for me.

 

Tri-raiders lists... Only with my Wolves, so no real comparison I'm afraid except to say that they do work. Mostly :D

[jeffersonian000]

I play a GK Tri-Raider list at 1500pts and up, which has been quite fun to play as my local metagame tends towards mech armies and melta spamming or horde armies with freakishly tough shock units that are difficult to break. I do well versus the mech lists in most games, not so good versus horde lists in objective games.

 

Of courese, I'm looking at fielding a 4th Land Raider at 1500pts, just because I can. :unsure:

 

SJ