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Mephiston & Grey Knights


Crynn

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Ok guys, it's been a while since I've posted in the is forum as I have taken a break from my Blood Angels to work on my latest army, Grey Knights, through the 30 or so competetive games I've played with GKs I've learned lots about them, and in turn how to play against them. I still get out my angels for a good stomping every now and again especially when I here this comment, 'Mephiston sucks verses Grey Knights'. Now I have played Mephiston In close to 100 competitive games and some of them have been against GKs. I can honestly say with a bit of thinking involved the Lord of Death is still a very potent model against the imperium's golden boys.

 

Recently I became a writer for the website 'www3plusplus.net' and I wrote this article on Mephiston taking on Grey Knights. So if you are one of those players who uses Mephiston, have a look and hopefully you will find something new and interesting within the article. Link is below.

 

http://www.3plusplus.net/2011/10/mephiston-grey-knights.html

 

Hope you enjoy guys.

 

Regards,

Crynn

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https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/240912-mephiston-grey-knights/
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I got tired of outlinking to anywhere thats not the B&C.

 

There are plenty of ways to mitigate the GK issues many of which in my experience trend towards getting the big guy his own personal ride. Which has its benefits and drawbacks. I think more then being Grey Knight specific its about using him in specific ways to full effect against any army. With Grey Knights they just happen to have a fair bit of what can take him on.

Hope you enjoy guys.

 

Great writeup. Looking forward to read more texts of this caliber.

 

A lot of 3++ posts are guilty of simply regurgitating stats from the codex, state the obvious (shooty unit is good at shooting!) and then spending a small part at the end discussing tactics with little to no depth or explanation. This was not one of those posts. :)

Deamonhammers are a big problem for Mr. McFistOn - unfortunately the article does not cover this problem or show how to mitigate it.

 

G :)

 

Yes it does? Several times in fact. Put the model with the hammer in base2base with a different unit so that it cannot allocate those attacks on Mephiston as per page 41 of the rulebook.

Having faced mephiston with GKs I will say 2 things hurt him in that fight.

1.) Force Weapons- they are at worst power weapons which mephiston hates, at best he gets killed for taking one wound (yes he has a hood, but unfourtuantely it is not an auto win.)

2.) Psykout Grenades- Mephiston Really does just fine so long as he gets the charge, but I find that he eventually gets countercharged, at which point he has to survive through to I1 against the aformentioned force weapons (which means he is getting hit by Daemon Hammers)

 

That said Mephy is pretty decent against non-CC grey knights (Strike squads, small puifier squads etc.) I will say I have not read the article (as I am at work and 3++ is blocked) so I'll need to read it when I get the chance.

That is just lip service though if daemonhammerz are distributed throughout the gk army. McFiston might work versus gk msu but not a paladin deathstar IMO.

 

Then it comes down to positioning, doesn't it? As for paladin deathstars nothing in our codex should go at them without some serious softening up anyway. Mephiston can't win against everything and I don't think anyone has claimed that either.

If it comes down to positioning then McFiston may not be able to run willy nilly through a GK flank which to a degree I think defeats his original purpose. Another point is that if the GK player has a Libby that is going to limit the damage potential and also force you to play more defensively. To say McFiston will simply kill the Libby is a bit unrealistic in many cases... who in their right mind is just going to stick him out there to get slammed?

 

G :blink:

Going back to the point I raised earlier, I'm afraid the article really doesn't address the basic issue of attacking an entire army armed with power weapons. The article concentrates on the Instant Death aspect and pretty much ignores the more important element of ignoring armour saves. Now of course Meph is less susceptible to this than most others due to his high Initiative (assuming he doesn't get charged) but it's still a definite problem. Grey Knights don't need to use Force Weapons against Meph when every wound they cause will get through anyway. In fact, if they can get Hammerhand off it's probably (I've not done the mathhammer) a better use of their psychic power as it doubles the chance of wounding (triples if they can manage to sneak some Rad grenades in).

 

In my opinion, when facing GK's there are better ways of spending 250 points.

Going back to the point I raised earlier, I'm afraid the article really doesn't address the basic issue of attacking an entire army armed with power weapons. The article concentrates on the Instant Death aspect and pretty much ignores the more important element of ignoring armour saves. Now of course Meph is less susceptible to this than most others due to his high Initiative (assuming he doesn't get charged) but it's still a definite problem. Grey Knights don't need to use Force Weapons against Meph when every wound they cause will get through anyway. In fact, if they can get Hammerhand off it's probably (I've not done the mathhammer) a better use of their psychic power as it doubles the chance of wounding (triples if they can manage to sneak some Rad grenades in).

 

In my opinion, when facing GK's there are better ways of spending 250 points.

 

Every wound.. when they strike last, hit on 4+, and need 6 to wound. Throw him at a squad with numbers he can handle and he'll be "fine".

 

Very few people are concerned with making tailored lists. The point is to illustrate how Mephiston can be useful in an all comers list when you are up against GK.

 

Good article. one thing though. how is Meph getting FnP? he doesnt have red thirst and he cant be joined by any other unit.

You keep him within 6" of a chalice.

Nice article very informative, I like it. Crynn mentioned using multiple charges in support of Mephiston and the melee stats were good.

Its worth factoring in the shooting element. BA get FNP FC I am assuming a priest here in the RAS squad. Mephiston would benefit from that too and the fact that the BA while probably getting shot a bit between 24 and 12 will be letting loose 2-3 of melta guns plus their pistols at point blank. If there is a building LOS blocker for them to use the shooting quickly goes in the jump pack troops favour.

 

When I ran Mephiston in my Jump pack list I ran him with an melta guard just as a bubble wrap for that reason

Some one mentioned FW Vs Hammer hand Powers as far as usefullness.

 

First up is the fact that against Mephy you only really have a 34% chance of getting either power off with any non Character unit in the GK army (so not terribly likely.)

 

Then take into account that Mephy has I believe 5 wounds and T 6.

 

Assuming the GKs charge (if mephy charges many GK squads they are done for especially the 5 man squads most people run.) and that the squads is 5 Strikes with the standard Hammer and Psycannon. That means on the charge you are swining with 6 Pw attacks (which is the only thing hammerhand helps against meph) You hit 3 times (50%) and wound 1/3 of those so 1 wound. (You get 2 regular attacks which likely do nothing), Then the hammer swings 3 times hits 1.5 and wounds 1.25 times for a total of 2.25 wounds (so probably 2), and that is if you get the power off If not you end up with 1.75 wounds (about 2). SO with hammerhand (in a 5 man strike squad) You have a 34% chance of doing an additional 0.5 wounds. With the force weapon you have a 34% chance of doing an additional 2.75 wounds. At least in this instance the force weapon is better. This is due to the fact that the hammer does most of the damage in this fight.

 

I don't think I can see any reason why it would ever be better to use hammer hand against meph instead of the force weapon, 34% chance to do more wounds is always worse than the same chance of killing him outright. Now if you are in a multi-assualt this might change, or if you have an attached IC that can either use a force weapon or cast hammer hand.

Some one mentioned FW Vs Hammer hand Powers as far as usefullness.

 

First up is the fact that against Mephy you only really have a 34% chance of getting either power off with any non Character unit in the GK army (so not terribly likely.)

 

Then take into account that Mephy has I believe 5 wounds and T 6.

 

Assuming the GKs charge (if mephy charges many GK squads they are done for especially the 5 man squads most people run.) and that the squads is 5 Strikes with the standard Hammer and Psycannon. That means on the charge you are swining with 6 Pw attacks (which is the only thing hammerhand helps against meph) You hit 3 times (50%) and wound 1/3 of those so 1 wound. (You get 2 regular attacks which likely do nothing), Then the hammer swings 3 times hits 1.5 and wounds 1.25 times for a total of 2.25 wounds (so probably 2), and that is if you get the power off If not you end up with 1.75 wounds (about 2). SO with hammerhand (in a 5 man strike squad) You have a 34% chance of doing an additional 0.5 wounds. With the force weapon you have a 34% chance of doing an additional 2.75 wounds. At least in this instance the force weapon is better. This is due to the fact that the hammer does most of the damage in this fight.

 

I don't think I can see any reason why it would ever be better to use hammer hand against meph instead of the force weapon, 34% chance to do more wounds is always worse than the same chance of killing him outright. Now if you are in a multi-assualt this might change, or if you have an attached IC that can either use a force weapon or cast hammer hand.

 

Spot on!

 

Thanks for the positive feedback guys, i really apprecaite it. People like the first poster who don't read the article and then comment on it really doesn't do much except dilute stupidity into a reasonably reliable forum. Too everyone else who agreed or disagreed thanks heaps! I appreciate you taking the time. The idea of the article was never about how Meph smashed grey knights rather that he is far from useless aginst them. Of course Meph isn't going to go crashing into a Draigo + Paladin unit and come out the other side, but what is? I was just trying to demonstrate is usefulness against GKs especilly seeing he is commonly taken in BA armies and GKs are now a common force on the battlefied so I thought it would be relevant.

 

Thanks for having a read guys.

 

Regards,

Crynn

The reason I didn't read the article was because it all looks good on paper until it actually happens on the battlefield. I wasn't talking about the article, I was talking about Mephiston Vs Grey Knights in general.

 

He is completely useless against Grey Knights as he can be taken out by basic Troops and also because he has no Inv Save and not immune to Instead Death.

 

Put Mephiston against some of the common GK lists and watch his crumble.

 

I was making my point clear

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