2 Battle Today with my new GKs

[Gentlemanloser]

The list I was messing around with was;

 

Mordrak

10 x Pallies, 4 Psycannons, 10 Halberds

10 x Purifiers, 10 x Halberds, Rhino

Vindicare

10 x Strike, 2 x Psycannon, Rhino

5 x Strike, Razorback, Psybolts

Psybolt Rifleman Dread

DreadKnight, H Incinerator.

 

Not gonna give a turn by turn batrep, just some overviews. Missions were seize ground and spearhead. I steamrolled over the codex marines, who had *nothing* to answer what my army bought to the table. While the Deldar went to turn 7. I would have won had the game ended on turn 5, but the last two turns gave the Deldar enough time to kil my remaining troops, and with no troops of his own and unable to kill my Dread and Vindi to annihalte me, the game ended a draw.

 

Things about the units I fielded I saw from the game, and impressions from my opponents.

 

The Vindicare. I thought he was ok, not great. He usually used the Turbo Penetrator each round, imobilising a LR and blowing up a few Deldar vehicles. My opponents tohught he was totally unfun to play against, and couldn't bleive the Turbo Penetrator. That being said, one roll in the two games I failed to penetrate... But the auto pen is hampered by any bad damage table rolls you get, quite often I would only shake or take off a wepaon with him, which flet like a wasted shot on the limited amount he'd get off.

 

The Paladins. The absolute rock and backbone of my list. These guys prooved deadly in shooting (my opponents were shocked by the amount of killing power 4 master crafted Psycannons put out, and that was before the Storm Bolter shots), and sucked up so much fire and CC attacks it was unreal. With I6 Halberd and IDing force wepaons, these guys prooved to be a nightmare for my oppoents to face. These were also labled as being unfun to face.

 

Mordrak. Was awesome. Ignored generally, as the Pallies and NDK took the spotlight. This allowed him to cause some backfield devestation. He's quite weak to ID attacks though. Which really limit the usefulness of his extra Ghost Knight abilites. Mordrak sohuld probably have been given EW alongside Draigo.

 

Purifiers. Fun to run, fun to face off against. This guys performed well. Cleasing Flame was /meh and I found it usually better to use thier one power on Hammerhand (I6/S5 FTW) or to activate thier Force Weapons. Really the stand out guys from todays games.

 

Strikes. Good for thier points. Were ok, but died like normal marines. Not as scary in CC as my opponents originally feared. Psycannons however are pure awesome.

 

Psybolt Rifleman Dread. As everyone has realised, a solid reliable unit. Wasn't really targetted, actually at all, with all the big guns going for the Pallies or NDK.

 

NDK: If focused on, this guy goes down quick (I lost mine versus the marines to a Bolt Pistol! Moral victory for the marines, to soothe the pain of the utter crushing defeat they suffered otherwise). Only used the Incinerator once, not actually sure how much use it, or really another of the other ranged wepaons are. Would probably be best to run them as pure CC units, but that would require the PT, which is really overpriced.

 

All in all, a blast to play, but I still need to feel how the army works, and how I want to play it. Pallies are utterly obsence. Your oppoents would have to trick thier lists to deal with them, and focus on them. The vindi I'm not sure warranted the 'unfun' label by my opponents. I'm not sold on him and would probably prefer another Dread in his place.

 

But Purifiers, they stood out for everyone involved. Great abilites, fun to use and fight against (as they weren't as stupidly durable as Pallies, and that without me running and wound allocation shenanigans). Cause worry due to easy access to I6, and can take a nice amount of Psycannons (stupidly good now! We should really try to include as many Psycannons as we can in our lists! Everywhere we can take them!). Were able to be killed and beaten (after I wiped out a 10 man assault Squad, Khan and an Command Squad near enough wiped them in return. After Khan got IDed ofc! :)), but made far more of an impact than the Strikes did.

 

Besting GKs in Assault isn't going to be an easy feat, for anyone. It seems like our 'nemesis' will be solid shooting armies, dedicated to killing MEq at Range. Pop our transports, then out shoot us.

 

Psycannons are awesome, even on PA guys shooting at Assault 2. :D

[Brother Dylan]

Came to some of the same conclusions, none of my dreadknights so far have lived past turn 2. Paladins are tanks unless you come up across Abbadon, but even he had one hell of a time trying to cleave through a squad. As for purifiers I had the complete opposite, they had been charged by a berserker squad while slaughtering his obliterators in a tall ruin, I had only 3 guys within assault range of the besekers so I decided to use cleansing flame to attempt to lesson the damage. Worked perfectly, he lost four berserkers out of a squad of 10 before combat even started, the other six attacks then killed about another three, handing me the combat. Granted I had also used hammer of rightousness on the unit allowing me to reroll wounds that roll a 1, helped more then you think it would have.

[Techmarine Harkus]

Hammer of Righteousness is definitely pretty good compared with how good you'd think it was. A 1 is only a 1/6th of the rolls you can get, but with S4 or S5(hammerhand/psybolt) you'd commonly be wounding on 3s or 4s. In that case, a 1 is actually half the fails, or 1/3 of the fails, which is a fair amount of rerolls. Way better for the Daemon Hammer you might have in yout unit, you will basically be wounding 35/36 hits he makes.

 

I've played two games (one with GK and one against). Neither list was massively competetive, as mine was just a mixture of all the units I wanted to test out on the table in 2k and my opponents was him wanting to try out a terminator only army.

 

GK v Necrons ... Paladins rock. I took 5 + Grandmaster in a Storm Raven. Bit of an eggs in one basket, but I wanted to try and guarentee they got into combat ASAP. Shot forward 24" right next to his massed warriors in turn 1, and thanks to cover save managed to weather the large amount of 'glances on 6s' fire without being immobilised. It did however lose both its real guns. The paladins were then left able to splatter his warriors. They took down 1 unit of 10 warriors, then because of their placement, were able to charge 2 units of warriors and a tomb spider symaltaniously. The spider only had 1 wound from failing to spawn scarabs, so it, along with the warriors got wpied out. They then went onto the lord and the last unit of warriors, ending the game on Phase Out. It was an Annihilation Game, and even without phase out, I'd have been looking pretty good for a win on Kill Points (which I detest); he scored 1 from a terminator squad, and that was it.

 

Rifleman Dread was clearly cool, but thanks to cover, armor saves and resurection orbs and the like, he probably only got a few kills in.

The SS I used did just fine. It got shot up pretty badly by some Necron Destroyers, but in all honesty those 10 destroyers have been the bane of every game I've played against him with my marines. The Rhino made an excelent safehaven/piece of cover, so for 40pts I'd definitley cosnider it a good upgrade on power armor. Forittude means that the psycannons being fired from the roof can keep shooting even when the vehicle is being pelted with anything that isn't seriously AT.

I also had 5 Terminators in addition to the pallys. No comment on these guys. They lost 3 in turn one from the afforementioned Destroyers (not eve from bad rolling) and promptly rolled a 12 for their Ld test, and a 10 for their flee distance. Being turn one, the sizes of their bases played against them; being deployed the full 12" onto the board didnt save them.

The NDK I had was pants, mainly because I forgot MCs could run, and he got shot to death by those destroyers.

 

 

The game where I was using my Nids v (the same guys) GK Terminator list

 

Vindicare, finished off the Hive Tyrant on turn 1 from a Turbo Penetrator shot, and wound allocation from stormbolter fire. He spent the rest of the game either locked in combat with a single gaunt, or just adding wounds here or there. He wasn't a force multiplier, and didnt achieve anything too impressive. He almost died to the one gaunt that attacked him :D I let my opponent roll for the Synskin FNP roll he forgot, posthumously, and he lucked out and was placed back on the board (the second wound came from No Retreat, so he didnt have to take it).

A Librarian acompanied the paladins. He did poorly in combat, and despite being loaded up with quite a few powers was massively stunted by the Shadow in the Warp.

Paladins... didnt do a lot of rocking out. There were 5 I think, who got stuck into 3 Raveners and an enraged Tyrant Guard. They took a few wounds, but because of Shadow in the Warp and terrible rolling, it took them the remainder of the game to take care of them.

Two NDKs in this game, were in my oppinion kitted out poorly with a Heavy Psycannon and a Psilencer each. They survived because there wasn't a lot I could do to take them out at range, and he avoided combat (sensibly, since poisoned guants could ruin a NDK). Despite my dislike of the Gatling Psilencer, it did quite obviously rule against Guants and force plenty of saves on warriors and the like. I couldn't comment on the Heavy Psycannon really, because it missed horrifically on over half of the shots and didnt cause a lot of wounds inbetween.

The two Terminator squads... one did as you'd hope, facing off against 9 Tyranid Warriors, losing a few through shooting, and finishing them off in sosme turn 4 melee. I figure that although it's not points for points, it's not bad for a 3 turn investment. Turn 1 was spent wiping out some guants the NDK couldnt finish off. Psycannons rock.

Terminator squad 2, another 10 man had a rough time taking on 10 Ymgarl Genestealers. He should have been hurt by their charge, but he rolled really well on his rending 4++ saves and only took a few wounds. The second unit of Ymgarl Genestealers did what the first was supposed to, and ruined terminators the next turn in a combat that dwindled on after the turn 3 charge to the end of turn 5. The remaining genestealers went on to kill the other terminators, which it turns out the Warriors lured into charge range.

I (Tyranids) won because he had no scoring troops, and I had like, 4 Termagants on my objective in cover. That was a 5 turn game, and should have been a draw but for a turn 5 blunder on his part. He didn't want to shoot at my Termagants who'd go to ground straight away, just incase he didnt manage to kill them off. Instead he tried to get into charge range for a guarenteed kill. In order to do so though, he didn't shoot. If he did, I'd just take off the front model and deny the charge. His estimation of 6" turned out to be his undoing, because he was out of range. He then rolled a 1 allowing the game to end in my favor. It was a win by luck, and if it went on longer would have been a draw.

 

Conclusions (in case you dont end up reading all that)

 

Paladins - Can rock. If you give them the opportunity.

SS - Would probably thank you if you bought them a rhino, but only based on very limited experience.

Terminators - Need to be used carfully because there aren't many more where they came from.

Dreadknights - Completely situational. Can easily die and do nothing (or even do nothing and finally die), or cause massive hurt.

Storm Raven - Did the job as a fast transport. No other comments really. Mindstrike missiles are rubbish against necrons?

Rifle Dread - No comment, didn't get the opportunity to do anything, didnt die either.

Librarian - Potential utility is clearly there and rather valuable... but not if he's dead or being muted (o rly?).

[RedemptionNL]

You used Mordrak without any Ghost Knights?

[Gentlemanloser]

Yup.

 

Didn't have the points for any. And during both matches, he spawned two extra Temrinators, making his cost a modest 120 points. ;)

 

The Marine player did ID him to a lucky Krak Missile though, killing Mordrak and the two Ghosts. But that was after Mord had destroyed his Thunderfire, which was keeping my Pallies static by hitting them with the subterrainian burst.

 

Had to love Mord DSing into the Bolstered terrian the Thunderfire was using! So, Mordrak gets the benefits from the increased cover save, right? ;)