Playtesting the Codex: Final Impressions

[Vindicatus]

....why did Mephiston survive the first round of combat? He's a psyker and thus would go at Initiative 1 the first round of combat, and with the amount of power-armour ignoring swings coming back his way that are force weapons, he should have been gibbed several times over.

[Rinion]

With Mephiston flying, it's more probable that he'll get the charge anyway =/

[Vindicatus]

=_=

 

Considering I have a friend at my LGS who does nothing but tout how Mephiston is going to pound my forces into the ground with his face, I've adopted the mantra of 'charge him first'. :\

[Battle-Captain]

Yep that's what happend. The bugger hid behind a fast rhino and jumpped out allong with a assault squad and jump sang priest and charged in at I7 and ate my paladins.

:P

[Marmande]

Pure Grey Knights!

 

Game 2 posted vs. BA w/ a different list.

Enjoy the read!!!

http://lkhero.blogspot.com/2011/03/pgk-battle-reports.html

 

Not bad, looks like the Paladins made a huge difference, though I wonder now how the army performs against a more shooty/gunline matchup. One big mistake I noticed, though: the Grandmaster can only give one special rule to d3 units, not pick and choose.

[RedemptionNL]

A quick lessons learned on the use of Paladins. Don't let Mephiston charge them, his sanguine sword power and unleash rage power equals dead paladin unit.... :cuss

 

Psyk-out grenades = Sanguinus attacks at I1, if you take your Paladins with a Banner he would be dead if you manage to wound him once before he does anything, right?

[RedMoon]

exactly i dont see how he survived at all. i played a game last night against my buddy who runs mepheston and he charged my 5 pallies with banner and they caused one would and he died he next game they proceeded to kill the swarm lord the same way lol

[Vindicatus]

A quick lessons learned on the use of Paladins. Don't let Mephiston charge them, his sanguine sword power and unleash rage power equals dead paladin unit.... :cuss

 

Psyk-out grenades = Sanguinus attacks at I1, if you take your Paladins with a Banner he would be dead if you manage to wound him once before he does anything, right?

 

 

 

Correct, however, you need to charge him for the psyk-out's to work. It's reasons like this that I have absolutely no qualms about charging close-combat beat machines like Mephiston or the Sanguinator with a unit of standard dudes. All I need is to hit you once..particularly Mr. I-have-no-invulnerable-save Mephiston.

[RedemptionNL]

Ah, only works on the charge, aye that changes things. :cuss

[HERO]

I choose to give Scout (rolled a 3 on d3 again) to 2x of my GKSS squads and I gave re-roll 1s to wound for my Paladins (they were in reserve for DS).

 

You can't do this unfortuneatly (unless TGS has changed from the PDF). All units need ot be given the same 'Role'.

 

It would be awesome if that has changed, making TGS even more beneficial and game changing. ;)

 

Yah. I actually forgot to use it the entire game so no biggy :cuss

[Battle-Captain]

Yep Psyk out grenades only work on the charge so 6 st10 WS7 hitting on 3s with with rerolls for the unleash rage preferred enemy power and kills on 2's equalled 4 instant killed paladins. The one lone surviving paladin died in the next round same as his brothers. Definitely a lesson learned....

[boreas]

I've got a question about the psy-rifleman. Why two TL-autocannons? The way I see it, inside 24" a TL-autocannon and an autocannon would be more effective. Is it just because of range? Since the dread moves 6", the effective range is 30". Almost all games I play, all vehicles get inside 30" pretty quickly...

 

Phil

[ToI]

it's the Twinlinked, and the fact that AC with psybolt ammo are S8 at 48" range...which is huge, they become effectively TL missile launchers againt vehicles and ID weapons against T4

[RedemptionNL]

And the fact that 2 big barrels on either side looks more symmetric and cool. :D

[Resv]

Pure Grey Knights!

 

Game 2 posted vs. BA w/ a different list.

Enjoy the read!!!

http://lkhero.blogspot.com/2011/03/pgk-battle-reports.html

 

I like the list you used in the latest battle report quite a bit. From what it looks like, switching out Drago for a Grand Master and all of his wonderful equipment options was a good choice. Well played over all!

 

I'm a bit disappointed in how your GKSS squads manged in the first two turns especially against assault. If you don't mind me asking, why did you have them exit the Rhinos in the first place? You could have used the Psycannons out of the roof and also warded off some of assault. Popping smoke on your transports seems like it would have also helped a bit. In assault though it seems like the BA squads were almost unstoppable, which might not needed to be the case exactly. In the List you have written, all of your close combat power seems to have been centered on your Paladin Squad. Your GKSS were relegated to a fire support role only with no other upgrades. I would have cannibalized some points from the rest of your army to just sneak in some upgrades to your Strike Squads in the form of Halberds. I know it might seem silly as your standard Gray Knight only has one attack but two or three Halberds per squad might of helped them hold out for a little bit longer, or at least take a few more Blood Angels down with them before being slaughtered. I probably wouldn't have ran everyone right into the melee but I do have to admit it worked out very well for your Paladins since everything was jumbled together. The Blood Angels player made a similar mistake to what happened in your first battle report, he didn't spread out his forces at all. He kept it all huddled up to engage you when he could have used his superior mobility to take out your more vulnerable units.

 

The Gray Knight codex is kind of set up to lull players into playing mainly in two ways. First is centralization of power, spending tons of points on one or two units that (as we see in Hero's game) are almost required to be on the board to win the game. Hero's Paladin squad decimated the BA list which is GREAT! However, if he had screwed up his DS roll or the unit had been denied another turn before showing up the rest of the army would have suffered and perhaps Hero wouldn't have been able to catch up in kill points before the game ended. The second way that I have seen players and am sure will continue to see players build armies with the new codex is the "Super Elite" army or, more bluntly, the small army. This is a huge investment of points into just a few units. We got to read about this in action in Hero's first battle report when he used his all Paladin army against his Blood Angel opponent. This army too has some faults that your opponent might easily exploit, keeping mobile and out of range for instance. "Super Elite" armies might be great at killing ten man units of Power Armor Troops but generally they don't do attrition well. The loss of one or two model's per unit might drastically bring down it's killing potential.

 

These tropes that are so easy to fall into generally lead to "unbalanced" lists. I put "unbalanced" in quotes because it isn't necessarily always a bad thing. We see in Hero's bat-reps that with some skilled maneuvers and a bit of luck the limitations in his lists don't hamper his ability to win. This is why I think Gray Knights are going to be down right devastating in a clever general's hands.

[boreas]

And the fact that 2 big barrels on either side looks more symmetric and cool. :P

 

I't funny that you mention this, because what got me asking is the fact that FW's Dread autocannon are different :D I was thinking about putting a psycannon (assault-cannon w/psybolt) and an autocannon. Now, I know TL is good, but 4 shots and rending is better. You lose range, but on a 72x48, a 30" is usually good enough). The big loss is ID vs T4. But most T4 multi-wound models have 3+ or 2+ so they aren't the best targets for the rifleman anyways...

 

Phil

[HERO]

I'm a bit disappointed in how your GKSS squads manged in the first two turns especially against assault. If you don't mind me asking, why did you have them exit the Rhinos in the first place? You could have used the Psycannons out of the roof and also warded off some of assault. Popping smoke on your transports seems like it would have also helped a bit. In assault though it seems like the BA squads were almost unstoppable, which might not needed to be the case exactly. In the List you have written, all of your close combat power seems to have been centered on your Paladin Squad. Your GKSS were relegated to a fire support role only with no other upgrades. I would have cannibalized some points from the rest of your army to just sneak in some upgrades to your Strike Squads in the form of Halberds. I know it might seem silly as your standard Gray Knight only has one attack but two or three Halberds per squad might of helped them hold out for a little bit longer, or at least take a few more Blood Angels down with them before being slaughtered. I probably wouldn't have ran everyone right into the melee but I do have to admit it worked out very well for your Paladins since everything was jumbled together. The Blood Angels player made a similar mistake to what happened in your first battle report, he didn't spread out his forces at all. He kept it all huddled up to engage you when he could have used his superior mobility to take out your more vulnerable units.

 

I took a gamble with GKSS squads and failed. I'm really good at judging distances but I was 1" wrong and it cost me a GKSS squad because he got just within 6" to assault me. It was a good move to deploy the GKSS squad into cover on first turn. In pitched battle, this gives you 2 turns of shooting, 1 with 4 shots cause they just disembarked and the other with 8 cause they're standing still. Most of my squads sat in their Rhinos and shot from the hatch, but that one squad needed to be on the field for more damage. You would think in round 2 when I had 12 Psycannons shooting at targets they would do more damage. Sadly, it was just bad rolling.

 

To lesson to learn here is that GKSS die just like regular Marines to BA assault squads.

 

My love of Terminators is what keeps these guys in the game. Whether I run a big squad of 10 or a Paladin squad depends entirely on my army list, but so far I have no been disappointed.

 

Paladins are one of those units which certain army lists have to adapt or die. Another thing about these semi-invincible units is that most players try to fight them. Through experience they will find out that picking away at the lesser components of the army is a lot easier than trying to kill the anvil in the middle. Except, I know of this weakness and that's why when I had a few units left, I kept everything close to the Paladins.

 

I know that:

1. I'm already ahead in kill points so I'm forcing him to come to me.

2. Paladins can still shoot, and 8 MC Psycannon shots is no small thing.

3. HE CAN'T KILL THEM.

 

This forces the scenario of: "come get it" for me and "I can run away and still lose" for him. Win, win situations for me.

[RedemptionNL]

And the fact that 2 big barrels on either side looks more symmetric and cool. :P

 

I't funny that you mention this, because what got me asking is the fact that FW's Dread autocannon are different :) I was thinking about putting a psycannon (assault-cannon w/psybolt) and an autocannon. Now, I know TL is good, but 4 shots and rending is better. You lose range, but on a 72x48, a 30" is usually good enough). The big loss is ID vs T4. But most T4 multi-wound models have 3+ or 2+ so they aren't the best targets for the rifleman anyways...

 

Phil

 

Aye, Forgeworld only has the right MK IV Autocannons, but it does have both the left and right MK V Autocannons. Regardless, I intend to use the quad autocannons from an Aegis Defense Line, a la:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/core/gallery-vie...p;m=2&w=800

Now that's what I call Reinforced Aegis! ^_^

 

As for the gameplay reasons I'd take quad autocannon over a combination of psy-/autocannon:

• Longer effective range. Yes, you can move 6" and shoot, but then you're also moveing your dread into the enemy's medium ranged anti-armour. Remember Murphy's Laws of War: if your enemy is in range, so are you! You're also more likely to be tied up by the enemy in close combat, and remember, you don't have power weapons anymore.
  
• More effective against its intented target. S7 Rending is only better than S8 against AV14, as you'll already penetrate AV13 on a 6 with S8 anyway. But shooting Riflemen dreads at AV14 is a gamble anyway, even with the Psycannon.
  
• I'll probably already have plenty of 24" S7 Rending shots in the rest of my army, long range anti-armour is a niche in a GK army list.
  

[boreas]

Ha! Now, I'm convinced! (plus that aegis TL-autocannon is badass!)

 

Thanks!

 

Phil

[Resv]

To follow up on the Psy-Rifle Dread over a "Psycannon" dread, I couldn't agree more with Red's analysis. Also, in really any GK army you should expect at least one if not two Psycannons in just about every unit you field. You are really not going to be hurting for mid-range fire power. Longer range fire power is worth it's weight in gold however as there are only 4 Gray Knight units that have access to anything with a range higher than 24 inches.

[BrotherWasted]

There's more than that, if you're willing to not go Pure GK.

 

Dreadnoughts

Land Raiders

Ordo Malleus Inquisitor + Hell Rifle

Inquisitor Karamazov

Henchmen Servitors

Techmarines

Razorbacks

Stormraven

Chimera

Jokaero Weaponsmiths

[bertboxer]

There's more than that, if you're willing to not go Pure GK.

 

Dreadnoughts

Land Raiders

Ordo Malleus Inquisitor + Hell Rifle

Inquisitor Karamazov

Henchmen Servitors

Techmarines

Razorbacks

Stormraven

Chimera

Jokaero Weaponsmiths

 

don't forget the wonders of a well placed vindicare, unless he's 24" now and nobody informed me

[hmk17]

36" if sitting still

 

12" if on the move

[Resv]

I was mainly talking about Pure GK, though I do I think I might have left out the Techmarine as I never take them.

[biglou666]

techmarines get orbital strike relays now. they will get alot more use with the grey knights dex now, i can promise you! :D