Grey Knights vs Blood Angels (a summary)

[knife&fork]

stuff

 

A lot of people seem to have the idea that deep strike means that you can only touch down in front of a tank/transport with some melta and hope for the best. In fact the most important tool you get with DoA is the possibility to have your units anywhere on table in turn 2. Not only that, your jumpers also have superior mobility once on the ground, and it's not dependent on a transport that can be taken out with a lucky shot. Deep strike capable doesn't mean giving up all shooting beyond 12" either, there's stormravens, dreads and terminators to fill that gap.

 

There are some units, gear and powers that works as hard counters to DoA lists, but those aren't very common atm. The typical (and much more common) autocannon and melta spam that works so well against MSU lists simply doesn't do the same job vs DoA.

 

Playing DoA really serves to remind you of how important the deployment phase is. Flexibility is the key, I don't have to deepstrike everything, but I can. I'm not forced to deploy a unit unless I want to and I don't have to play it in a certain way. So no matter what scenario I'm playing or if I go first or second I can react and adjust to what my opponent does. That's the strength of DoA.

[SnorriSnorrison]

How odd that the OP didn't response after the increased input from more and more forum members...

 

So, to other things:

A lot of people seem to have the idea that deep strike means that you can only touch down in front of a tank/transport with some melta and hope for the best. In fact the most important tool you get with DoA is the possibility to have your units anywhere on table in turn 2. Not only that, your jumpers also have superior mobility once on the ground, and it's not dependent on a transport that can be taken out with a lucky shot. Deep strike capable doesn't mean giving up all shooting beyond 12" either, there's stormravens, dreads and terminators to fill that gap.

 

There are some units, gear and powers that works as hard counters to DoA lists, but those aren't very common atm. The typical (and much more common) autocannon and melta spam that works so well against MSU lists simply doesn't do the same job vs DoA.ot forced to deploy a unit unless I want to and I don't have to play it in a certain way. So no matter what scenario I'm playing or if I go first or second I can react and adjust to what my opponent does. That's the strength of DoA.

 

Playing DoA really serves to remind you of how important the deployment phase is. Flexibility is the key, I don't have to deepstrike everything, but I can. I'm n

 

 

+1

 

In my opinion, DoA is more flexible than RB spam.

 

 

Snorri

[breng77]

I never said that you had to deep strike in to take things out, but if you deep strike away from me, you still need to be within 12" to actually hurt me, which means that we play the movement game of adjusting ranges, while you eat shots and I don't. DOA loses (at least in my experience) badly to GK dread spam, because of what is backing the dreads up (Grey Knights with power weapons, Death Cultists etc.) The dreads ignore FNP making then kill the jumpers like regular marines, and if the BA get close they get chopped up by Grey knight CC units who are better in the assault. As for Dreads, termies, and storm ravens, they really work no better (worse in some cases) than Devs in a Jumper list. The dreads don't deepstrike, so either need a pod which means if everything else gets reserved then they are alone on the table turn 1(or top of 2), same as Devs, or they need to be in the storm raven which if in reserve is 50-50 to hit the table. Terminators are not great long range shooting for the points (most people use them for assault, so not much there). The issue I have (unless you are going hybrid mech-jumpers, not DOA or full jumper) is that by adding vehicles to your list you now give me an easy target for all my anti-tank guns (do you really expect the storm raven to live against most armies these days if it is the only target for all the Auto-cannons in the world), the whole point of a jumper list (IMO) is to play against the mech meta-game and generally let your opponents anti-tank go to waste. IF that is where you are going with it then you have limited options for long range support (Sternguard, Devs, Tacticals, Scouts, and Attackbikes generally). NOw if you are playing more hybrid, I can see the argument you are making. Lastly, the fact that you can be anywhere turn 2 really does not worry me all that much if I genuinely don't need to worry about you killing me until I have had a chance to hurt you.

[Leonaides]

That would be where you're wrong Breng - If I DS within 18" of you you have a problem. If I DS within 18" of you in more than 1 direction (2-3 units) then you cannot simply move away - as you cannot get away form all 3 units. If I DS within striking range of one of your shooting units that you have in (to you) prefect position, that then means you have to move your unit away from wehre you want it to be or accept that I will destroy it next turn. I eat 1 turn of shooting, while you get driven away from terrain you wanted to hold, or you stay in those positions and I kill you wehre you stand in my next turn.

[Dropsik]

of course he will not move away :P he will move towards one unit, kill it, and wait for other two. it's not like those units are invincible. I'm in a camp that believes DoA armies to be a little to predictable and limited in options. you can't win firefights, you can't win by using your vehicles smart, you can't win by simply playing defensively. but maybe i'm wrong, as I never played DoA.

 

cheers!

[breng77]

Except you don't against most good armies, sure if I have say long fangs in cover and you are within 18" of them with 3 units (unlikely) then I have a problem. If I have Say a mech GK list, I just move toward 1 squad, blow that squad away and you might have one squad in range to do something to me next turn, so that squad can jump in toward me, get its one turn to doing something, then get stomped in the counter assault. That is the issue I have with that idea. Or if I have a land raider full of Assault termies and you have squads within 18" I assault them and kill them (yes you won't do this, but if the rest of my army is nearby, you cannot be within 18" on several sides and beyond 18" from all my threats.).

 

Also you try to deep strike 3 squads at 18". Odds say 1 squad will be 18" away, 1 squad will be slightly closer one will be slightly farther, and you will run to even it out, but what if my army is spread out from a central point, you the DS and I fall back away from you to be beyond 18".

 

But we can do this all day, I'm just saying I have not seen a DOA list that chose to deepstrike everything, do well against what I would consider the top tier lists I see at tournaments.

[Leonaides]

Within 18"... within being the important word. Moving towards 1 unti and away from the other 2 - sure, maybe. But now that is moving into a whole other realm of make-believe and dependant on where the rest of my army is, where my supporting units are, etc......

 

As for a whole army DOA/exclusive Deep Striking deployment - personally I find it a remarkably daft 'tactic' to use, since it relies so heavily on luck - a few DS units working around a solid deployed force, now thats a much better idea IMO...

[Mezkh]

That is why 5 or 10 Vanguard are pretty important in an effective DoA.

 

Playing pure DoA I use Death Company, Vanguard Vets, and Assault Marines working together - not just Assault Marines on their own.

[breng77]

As for a whole army DOA/exclusive Deep Striking deployment - personally I find it a remarkably daft 'tactic' to use, since it relies so heavily on luck - a few DS units working around a solid deployed force, now thats a much better idea IMO...

 

which is exactly what I was saying. If you don't deepstrike your whole army Devastators fit just fine, and as you indicated more often than not deepstriking your whole army is not a great tactic. It sounds like we agree, my response was directed toward an entire deepstriking list where if you only have 3 or 4 units it is easy for me to deal with them as I see fit. If you have 2 or 3 units deepstriking and the rest of your army depolyed normally then it is harder to deal with the deepstrikers, or if I choose to do so I then leave the other units alone. IT is why I think a hybrid style list is probably better than straight jumper lists, as you have more options, strict DOA/all jumpers have a lot of holes tactically that are easily exploitable.

 

As for within 18" that is the narrow gap of beyond 14" of my assault units, and within 18", not impossible to achieve, but one slight miss means death to the unit.

[SevenExxes]

So what happens if I deepstrike within 12" of a GK army?

[knife&fork]

It's not like you always have to take a lot of shooting either. There's usually some kind of cover available. Other units both enemy and friendly, terrain, wrecks, craters. Not to mention the opponent will often have to block LoS for his other units in order to attack. Having a few agile units can be an advantage because they are easy to hide. Doesn't matter if you have one or ten tanks if only one can line up a shot.

[Dropsik]

it's not about shooting only man, I think that on tournament tables, and also in casual gaming there are a lot of armies that can deal with 2 big units of marines deep struck nearby. I use mephiston and DC in LR - virtually I can wipe out 1 squad with DC, engage and propably destroy in next turn a second unit and decimate third with my shooting. now thats theory, but you see the point. DoA works well against IG for example, when your CC is clearly superior.

 

cheers!

[SevenExxes]

Warp Quake states that:

"All enemy teleport homers and other items of wargear that prevent Deep Strike scatter cease to function"

 

Lord Commander Dante has a special rule that prevents scatter, not wargear.

 

Tactical genius for the win.

[AbusePuppy]

Unfortunately Dante doesn't stop the Mishap that Warp Quake causes, so you still get junked by that.

[SevenExxes]

Unfortunately Dante doesn't stop the Mishap that Warp Quake causes, so you still get junked by that.

 

Back to the drawing board ... :)

[Jorre]

Wow just opened this thread and read the whole lot. Some really great discussion.

 

Personnely when I first read the new ba codex I was disappointed with death company. I have only just started using them again with mixed results. I think the underlying reason for me being disappointed was not that it's a bad unit, but simply because giving them jump packs is not feasible and the loss of rending. Now rending wasn't a huge loss since we have access to power weapons, but I still would of loved a reasonably priced jump pack option.

 

Anyway once I actually look at the squad again now, they are pretty kick ass! But like has been mention before they really need to get the charge. You also have to be mindfull of your enemy's counter assault abilities as death company aren't that scary when you assault them.

 

Last game I played vs chaos demons my 5 man death company + lemartes managed to take out a bloodthirster on the charge. The bloodthirster was under kairos invul reroll bubble so I was pretty damn impressed! Of course they the. Got vaporized by a squad of flamers but I thought it was a good trade.

 

I am now a death company convert even if they don't fly through the skies

[Morollan]

Last game I played vs chaos demons my 5 man death company + lemartes managed to take out a bloodthirster on the charge.

 

I assaulted a daemon prince with 8DC and a Reclusiarch last night. They lost a couple due to the DP hitting first but then inflicted 13 normal wounds and 7 power weapon wounds. Statistically, that DP was dead more than twice over.

 

The fact that he made 18 of the 20 saves therefore really annoyed me. :angry:

[breng77]

It's not like you always have to take a lot of shooting either. There's usually some kind of cover available. Other units both enemy and friendly, terrain, wrecks, craters. Not to mention the opponent will often have to block LoS for his other units in order to attack. Having a few agile units can be an advantage because they are easy to hide. Doesn't matter if you have one or ten tanks if only one can line up a shot.

 

In my experience on most tables, it is hard to hide, and still be in range to present a significant threat, and it is not that easy to hide 10 marines. Furthermore I have never seen a circumstance where only one tank could see a target that was anywhere nearby, as the tanks move and if that was the case chances are I can get far enough away to be safe. Agile units are easy to hide, but not often while deep striking.

 

Also cover only sometimes matters, if I don't ignore your armor, I don't care if you have cover. The fact still remains though that unless your idea is to stay away and use mobility to try to control/contest objectives, eventually you will get into range to take damage, and against some armies you simply won't hold up.

[knife&fork]

and against some armies you simply won't hold up.

 

So what? That's true for any army in this game. There is no flawless, automatic win every time, list. Some do it better than others but if you go looking for hard counters and special circumstances you'll always find something to support your cause. That's good and part of analyzing the game but you can't forget that what you'll actually face on the board is a rather limited selection of everything available.

 

As for the other points it's very hard to discuss these things without photos or diagrams. I can tell you that my four or five units benefit from facing an opponent with two or three times as many units, but I'm not going to change your mind unless I can illustrate how it works, will I? Let's just say that with a 25% terrain coverage and 5-10 vehicles on the boards there are a lot of things to get cover from and block LoS.

 

Another thing that's different about DoA (compared to a more spammy approach) is that since you have more invested in each model, and a lot of them are key components (meltas, fits, etc) you have play the odds a bit differently to protect your investments and can't rely as much on statistical averages. Let's say I'm facing mech IG and I have to chose between exposing a full strength assault squad (with FNP coverage) to either a unit of melta vets or something that'll cause more hits and wounds (flamers, blob of first rank second rank lasguns or whatever) but allow me full saves and FNP rolls. Even if I will take less wounds on average vs the latter I'll gladly expose myself to the former because that gives me less potential wounds and full control of where to allocate them. With a maximum of 4 marines dead I know that the most important models will be left and the squad will continue to function, although with a slightly reduced effectiveness. When you start to roll buckets of saves there's no telling who will fail and who will pass.

[breng77]

While that last statement is true, it is not often the case where you expose your self to just one unit. I never said you could not get cover from things, but if I just force you to roll buckets of dice against your armor save, as you say, no telling what will happen, and it is even worse when there are good assaulting units that ignore both armor, cover, and feel no pain. The issue is that while you can mitigate some things (straight DOA, not hybrid mech, or DOA supported by long range elements) fails against (what I consider) top tier army builds, from many codices, because your threat range is simply too small, and when you move in to threaten/attack something you end up exposing your self to multiple units. That said without actually playing a game/having diagrams as you mention it is hard to show this. I am just speaking from the multiple times i have played DOA style lists and almost every time they end up tabled either against my GK army or my Daemons, unless they have some way to hurt me beyond 12" away. Now it could be that you are a great player (or at least better than those I have faced), but great players can win with "less than optimal" armies if they are better than their opponents.

[knife&fork]

While that last statement is true, it is not often the case where you expose your self to just one unit. I never said you could not get cover from things, but if I just force you to roll buckets of dice against your armor save, as you say, no telling what will happen, and it is even worse when there are good assaulting units that ignore both armor, cover, and feel no pain. The issue is that while you can mitigate some things (straight DOA, not hybrid mech, or DOA supported by long range elements) fails against (what I consider) top tier army builds, from many codices, because your threat range is simply too small, and when you move in to threaten/attack something you end up exposing your self to multiple units. That said without actually playing a game/having diagrams as you mention it is hard to show this. I am just speaking from the multiple times i have played DOA style lists and almost every time they end up tabled either against my GK army or my Daemons, unless they have some way to hurt me beyond 12" away. Now it could be that you are a great player (or at least better than those I have faced), but great players can win with "less than optimal" armies if they are better than their opponents.

 

AV13 spam is probably the most competitive way to currently run BA. "Pure" DoA (jump packs only) struggles, for reasons you've already touched upon. When you include both jumpers and deepstrike capable support that's when it shines, because you can maximize the benefits and flexibility with deep strike deployment while not limiting yourself to a 18"-24" threat range.

 

It's not really about DoA being the optimal build as much as it's a build I enjoy playing. Does it leave more to chance? Yes, at least initially. Steep learning curve? Yes. But the perceived weaknesses of it are often misunderstood or greatly exaggerated.

[JamesI]

It's not really about DoA being the optimal build as much as it's a build I enjoy playing. Does it leave more to chance? Yes, at least initially. Steep learning curve? Yes. But the perceived weaknesses of it are often misunderstood or greatly exaggerated.

Well said. Pure jumpers is my favorite way to play, while spamming my Vindis, preds, baals is probably more competitive.

[breng77]

Certainly if you like an army competitiveness is not a reason to give it up, unless you just really want to win. But it should also come with an understanding that there will be some matchups (some against fairly common builds, and others less common) where if you are matched up against an equally skilled player you will almost definitely lose, i.e. have almost no chance to win the game. This does not mean you won't win, against certain armies if you outplay your opponent, simply that against a smart player with one of your bad match-ups you should expect to lose (sometimes badly), and be very happy when you play a close game. Trust me as a Daemon player I am all to aware of this (if I fight venom spam dark eldar piloted by a skilled player, in reality barring rediculous dice, I have no chance of winning the game.) the same is true of DOA, it works just fine against most lists, and if you are a good player you should do fine most of the time. But you will have games with pure jumpers (against Daemons for example, who are better than you in CC, and many times faster than you.) where you will have almost no chance of winning because of the match-up. This is not generally a problem, but it is something for people to keep in mind.

[knife&fork]

But you will have games with pure jumpers (against Daemons for example, who are better than you in CC, and many times faster than you.) where you will have almost no chance of winning because of the match-up. This is not generally a problem, but it is something for people to keep in mind.

 

I'm usually running assault squads, Dante, honor guard and tactical terminators with TDA priest. Out of the normal competitive builds (sub 2k) we see, which ones do you think would dominate me? Not trying to be a smartass, just curious.

[breng77]

BY sub 2k do you mean less than 2k or 2k and less, though most of this holds true for either.

 

Cotaez GK builds with 4-5 Dreads (ignore your FNP, and can tie you up in combat) and multiple Death Cultist Squads (who eat your army in CC) Draigowing could also be problematic for you.

 

Almost any good Daemon list (the fast stuff catches you to tie you up, then the heavy hitters come through to finish you off.), you really have no good way to kill Fateweaver unless you can assault him (but he should be bubble wrapped by units that will kill you).

 

Battle Wagon Orks could be an issue as their threat range is better than yours.

 

A well played SM bike army often will beat you but it won't dominate anything but the movement phase in most cases.

 

Dark Eldar in general (venoms = lots of wounds, blasters = no saves, they have faster better assault units, and they are faster than you in general, so it is eary for them to adjust to your plans)

 

Those are the matchups I think are pretty poor for you, there are plenty of others that are more 50-50 most standard Mech IG builds(though if IG wanted to build to fight DOA they could, but they don't), Space wolf lists (Thunder Cav Heavy lists would be tough I might think, but they die to lots of other armies), in fact most other codices I think fall into this category.

 

That said it all comes down to player skill and dice for all of this, if you are better than your opponent you will even win some bad match-ups, and if your dice are good and your opponents are bad anything can happen.