Handling GKs with the new codec

[AL-PiXeL01]

I was wondering if any if you could provide some advice on how to deal with GKs with our new codec.

I thought about sitting back of flooding the intervening area with lascannon beams and plasma bolts, but that'll make me very static. I also thought about fielding either heavy bolters and Dakkafiends to drown the knights in shells even further.

 

As you can probably tell I have little to no experience going up against GKs so anything would help, especially in the tactics area.

[FallenOne]

I handle Grey Knights the same asI do with my Tyranids. I just pack up my models and wait for the next opponent...

[zyl-]

Outshooting them at range is the way to go.

[FallenOne]

Yeah, just shoot them. They go down with lots of shots. Now that the wound allocating look out sir thing is gone, they are really just very tough, very cheap marines. Do not go close combat with them, and leave the prince at home. You will be fine.

[Kol Saresk]

THIS had some suggestions in it. After that, I would say go through the Liber Victorum, look for battle reports involving the Grey Knights and either see what worked or try to figure out what others did wrong. Battle reports are great for learning from second hand use of first hand experience.

[crimsonhand]

Plasma chosen are nice?

 

Also Noise Marines w/Sonic seem decent. LOTS of shots. For every 2shots they get, you're getting 3.

[Brother Ambroz]

Up against paladins, Ectofiends are very nice. As for the rest, if you know you'll be facing GK I'd load up on plasma, aka plasma chosen, havocs, bikers etc.

[totgeboren]

I faced GK a few days ago. I had some termies with power axes/fists/combi-weapons lead by a lord in a Land Raider, oblits, a ac/lc/havoc Predator, cultists lead by a lvl 2 sorc, havocs with autocannons (and a lascannon), and a 5ed CSM squad (extra wepons, meltaguns, camp with PF, rhino).

 

He was really lucky with his sniper assassin, managing something like 10 saves in a row, but on average, the Havocs should have taken that dude out in one turn, maybe two. As it was, it survived two turn of fire, and took out my Land Raider. If it wasn't for the sniper, he would have been hard pressed to do anything vs AV 14 I realised.

 

Other than that, the GK player had some bad luck and ran away a lot. I just shot his dudes to pieces. Even the autocannons took a toll on his terminators, as I think they killed maybe 5 termies over the course of the battle.

 

Close combat was rough, but remember that most of his dudes will have Ap3 close combat weapons. He only has access to slow Ap2 weapons, which are expensive too. We have access to really cheap terminators with power axes and combi-plasmas who will make a mess of GKs.

 

My Predator killed a lot of dudes too, but the unit the GK player feared the most was my Terminators. Point for point, our termies will totally destroy their termies, as long as we have the right gear (which is cheap).

Oh, and Oblits are still really nice. Even better than with out last codex. Having access to assault cannons was great, and when the GKs come close, you can unleash a world of hurt from twin-linked plasmas. Remember that SaP does not make you move slowly now. It only stops you moving fast, so from my perspective, Oblits are faster and more reliable now too.

 

Cultists work well as a distraction, provided they are in cover. GKs have some impressive anti-horde firepower, and I think most GK players will have a hard time resisting cultist bait, as they are so easy to kill. Unless you are in cover that is, then they are just wasting their precious shots on nothing. For example, it took my opponent three shooting phases to kill off my 30 unit of cultists in ruins, and he fired with at least three different units each turn, one of which was a Dreadknight with that long-range flamer. He used maybe 700 pts to kill 170 pts over three turns.

 

Anyway, he was wiped out at the end of turn 5. I had some great luck, and he had some bad luck, but termies, heavy firepower and cultists to take the hits and you should be alright.

[Lieutenant Steel]

I'd second the use of Terminators with Power Axes (and probably combi-Plasma if you have the points); when I overheard a GW employee talking up Grey Knights I said I disagreed that they were good against MEQ armies (as he was saying to the kid that they were) precisely because outside of close combat they have *very* few weapons above AP2, and even in H2H they don't have that many which won't strike at the same time as Power Fists/ Thunder Hammers- so a Chaos Terminator Squad will shrug off practically all the shots they have and then mess them up with the Axes when they do engage. A bigger unit would be necessary to ensure they retain their punch after taking a lot of Storm Bolter shots, but if your opponent is pouring shots into your Termi's then the rest of your infantry should emerge unscathed (as it will take a lot of shots to put down a large Nurgle/ Tzeentch Terminator Squad).

[the jeske]

I was wondering if any if you could provide some advice on how to deal with GKs with our new codec.

I thought about sitting back of flooding the intervening area with lascannon beams and plasma bolts, but that'll make me very static. I also thought about fielding either heavy bolters and Dakkafiends to drown the knights in shells even further.

 

As you can probably tell I have little to no experience going up against GKs so anything would help, especially in the tactics area.

I dont understand the question . which build and with IG ally or without them .

[Spaz431]

That is the real question. Do you know what kind of build your opponent normally uses? Paladin spam is not as OP as it once was due to no longer wound allocations. At a 1500 point game he is likely to have 7-9 paladins with draigo. Purifiers right now are the better build, yes they do not have W2, but a lot of the same capabilities. Yes crow is not a good as draigo. I know I have been harping on ADL's lately, but seriously setting 1-2 with lascannons and lascannons havocs will mean you are likely to drop a paladin minimum each shooting, and you would have 4+ cover. Plasma load outs are generally optimal.

[derpasaurus]

volume of fire of any type, specifically plasma, plasma, and more plasma. melta also works if you're afraid of nuking yourself, but plasma obviously gives you more fire. i have yet to get a forgefiend, but i'm super excited for one because they sound awesome. heldrake would be nice, they'll get their saves but it's super hard to hit. vector strike and baleflamer seems to work wonders.

 

mobility is key, too, in my experience. watch out for teleport shunts, you want to keep your distance. this is one reason i advise against too many heavy weapons. sure at least they can still fire now, thank god, but full bs is always preferred.

 

basically anything you can do to keep them at arm's length and eating bullets. they're challenging and obnoxious, but manageable. my new favorite thing ever is to hate on the dreadknight. specifically how we have to challenge that stupid thing. tzeentch protect you if that gets into combat.

[brindley]

You guys talked a lot about GK as a pure actual grey knights force but you didn't mention the most broken parts of their codex. I gurantee you that most competitive grey knight armies will have coteaz with lots of henchmen giving them massive amounts of offensive potential. I wouldn't be able to tell you how to combat that with a normal army since I usually have lots of nurgle units and try to take them apart as fast as possible while keeping my army alive.

[Brother Ambroz]

Jeske would give the best advice on fighting a coteaz list.

[the jeske]

play SW/Ig ? but to be honest a proper IG/GK or SW/GK mix is very tough to play against . they counter infiltrating and/or deep striking , win in melee , have tons of cheap plasma and if they ally with IG they also have an edge in flyers.

[AL-PiXeL01]

Thank you for all the insights into going up against GK. I appreciate it!

 

What I got was:

 

Plasma all around.

Let them come to you and gun them down.

Run away! Stay out of melee.

Start playing SW as they have all the answers especially with IG allies.

[Kol Saresk]

Start playing SW as they have all the answers especially with IG allies.

And with that, the Chaos Gods died a their power was consumed by Fenris, which conveniently went critical mass and created a segmentum-wide warpstorm that caused all if the Space Wolves to become murderous Wulfen.

[brindley]

you should never get an army just because it is good in a current meta unless you have lots of money and love winning. While space wolves arent as bad compared to GK or daemons right now for being op they would actually be handy for using as allies if you ever had a list that required it.

 

Chaos is really quite underwhelming for all of us and it's frustrating how GW really couldn't give a *&^$ about any of us. Chaos gets screwed against GK

[Kol Saresk]

I don't know if SW are on a comparable level to GK anymore. I've been seeing more battle reports with Chaos winning against SW than I have of SW winning against GK. Everything except Necrons is screwed against Gk it seems. Although, at least we have a chance against GK... B)

[AL-PiXeL01]

Nah, I don't plan on giving up on my CSM.

Nor do I go for cheese or the super competitive scene.

I play mostly for fun, but prefer to have a chance at least :huh:

[the jeske]

I don't know if SW are on a comparable level to GK anymore. I've been seeing more battle reports with Chaos winning against SW than I have of SW winning against GK. Everything except Necrons is screwed against Gk it seems. Although, at least we have a chance against GK... :D

 

your basing this on wrong perception . most of the GK armies in 5th were draigowings , because they were cheap and effective. Post faq nerf draigo wings are bad armies . So people dont play them . What is left [and good] are cortez builds[with or without henchment or IG ally] , the problem with those amies is that they cost a lot more then draigo wings . So chaos players get to play against a limited number of GK armies and if they do , those armies are superior . On the other hand SW are played by a lot of people , good/bad players , some people even with 5th style armies . Now we have to go and check what people write regular reports about their armies . Is it the causal people that just started? no . they dont play offten enough , to do that. As SW go there is little to report about SW vs chaos [check how few if any "how to deal with" were made on all forums around the world when codex chaos came out] , because the raports were already done when SW players were writing about mirror matches.

 

chaos on the other hand has a lot of "new" units to check how they work against other armies . bikes , drakes , lords/sorc , havocks or hurons .Because of all those "new" units , raports will be writen more offten [at first it will stop after a few months].

 

As wining losing goes . all chaos has over SW is hell drakes to kill LF or slogging wolfs . All it takes is for the SW to play a drop pod , play logan wing or even mecha and the SW player will struggle . our infiltration tech , good against other armies doesnt work against SW[chooser] , buffing sorc/DPs have problems with the rune staff . long fangs are better then havocks both points and number of weapons wise .

[Kol Saresk]

Let me start with this; I didn't say SW weren't in the same shape we are, I said I don't think they are comparable to GK anymore. They aren't on the same level, the same tier, the same ranking, etc etc.

 

Now let me see if I get what you are saying. If there are ten battle reports of Chaos vs GK and six of those are wins and there are ten SW vs GK battle reports an only three of those wins, there are more battle reports because Chaos is trying out "new" units? Shouldn't there be more SW battle reports as well since they have to try "new" lists?

[the jeske]

Wait your claiming that SW/IG is a lot worse then GK/IG , so much worse that comparing SW builds to GK builds makes no sense for players , because GK are so much better or SW are so much worse ? Because If you do then the claim is false . SW/IG are still one of the 4 best codex to build your army on . the utility that rune staff and SW psychic powers brings easily balances the cortez special rules .

 

 

If there are ten battle reports of Chaos vs GK and six of those are wins and there are ten SW vs GK battle reports an only three of those wins, there are more battle reports because Chaos is trying out "new" units?

no Am saying that you would need more chaos players and more games to get 6 wins vs GK ,then you would need with SW.

To build your data on just battle reports you would need two groups of 200 games for both chaos and SW and you would need a spread over 5% between both the main data patch and the control group . Now I doubt you have such data .

[Kol Saresk]

Not entirely too sure what the first bit said. Pretty sure I got the second bit. If I got it right, it's coming from a belief "the numbers never lie man!" So I'll just leave that alone and cut out here.

[Agent Purple]

I have to back up Jeske in that looking at the outcome of on-line battle reports is probably not a good way to gauge the general power level of codexes, just like looking at the outcome of a single game isn't a good way to judge the power level of codexes. You are really just looking at a snapshot.

 

As a start, battle reports do not generally reflect player skill, if any rules errors were made during the game, and the games may not have been executed from a competitive stand point from the beginning.

 

You would also need to make an assumption that the battle reports and outcomes are, in general, representative of the game as a whole. This is inhibited by a number of factors since players making battle reports might be concerned with things like production quality (using painted miniatures to have better photographs / videos) or making choices for a narrative perspective rather than a competitive perspective. Several players do not bother with battle reports due to the time and effort required to prepare them, so the fraction of players who post battle reports on line is probably not large enough given the total number of people who likely play the game to provide meaningful results on trying to determine 'the state of the game.'

 

There are also other biases, such as familiarity with the opponent and tactics, familiarity of each player with the army the used in the battle, luck during the game in terms of rolls etc... to make a statement like 'Chaos is better than SW against GK' based on a pool of only 20 games to look at, where the relative skill of the players and intent behind the game cannot be determined.

 

Tournament standings would probably be a better place to look for meaningful data in this regard, since they would combine the results of several games played in a competitive perspective.