Prot's Thin Grey Line: 1K Grey Knights batrep

[Prot]

Our ongoing campaign is going to be wrapping up soon, but before it does I wanted to get some games in with my new Grey Knights.

It was definitely a learning experience, and I'm not sure how I feel about it, but first on with the batrep:

The Game(s):

Although this is one batrep there are actually 2 games played. Both were against Nids, and the first was just an Eternal War mission:

We played the Relic. My 1K is posted on the Grey Knights army list forum and is extremely basic and small. I had one week of trying to assemble this army after work. It was a hectic week but I managed to not only put the army together but also magnetize 20 backpacks! They do wiggle a bit, but I think it's worth it.

+++ My 1K Grey Knights, defending humanity from the.... errr.... bugs.

+++ 1K of bugs. Not shown are deep striking Rippers. Otherwise, you've got your Tervigon which is very potent at 1K giving those extra bodies. And the shroud bug as well, with a Flyrant, and carni with twin Devourers which hurt.... It's a good list he's done pretty well with it.

EARLY GAME:

+ He gets first turn. And even though I saw no benefit in it, I tried to seize the initiative and I did! Darn... lol So I advance my 2 Dreadknights which are the only things I have on the table. This was a mistake. I had crappy targets, and did minimal damage to just a few Gaunts. He trickles forward with bugs spilling forth, and the smelly Tervigon births the maximum in turn one: 15 Gaunts! ugh.

+ He is surrounding me quickly. One thing on my side is the psychic dice, he does get off the power that reduced my WS/BS by D3 though.

+ Immediately it becomes apparent he can shoot like crazy. He pelts the Dreadnights with a truckload of twin Devourers causing a LOT of wounds... I manage to get really lucky and only suffer a wound.

+++ Grey Knight Reserves come in, and stay behind the Dreadknights.

+ I don't get the Interceptors in. The Librarian gets off Purge Soul on the Flyrant, causing a wound, but no Grounding is failed. I make a mistake by using 'Force' on the Psilencer Dread and watch him flail away uselessly at the Flyrant. I won't be trying that tactic again!

+ I get desperate because I just can't seem to kill anything aside from what my single Heavy Incinerator is doing and he's picked up the Relic with his big fat Tervigon which is finally locked up on turn 3. My desperation has me roll 5 dice on Vortex, I peril, but pass with a wound to show for it. The Vortex puts 2 wounds on gaunts, and a wound on the Tervigon. Not great.

+ The Flyrant and Carnie unload a ton of firepower at one of the dreadknights, and it falls.... On average he's getting 10+ wounds on me from each creature. Too much... The Grey Knights gotta figure something out here..

+++ Desperate times call for desperate.... stupidity?

MID GAME:

+ Turn 4 my Interceptors finally come in. The incinerator kills one gaunt. I roll a 1" run. And am promptly destroyed to a man taking a zillion Nid snot balls to the face until the interceptors are dead (actually if I recall a Warp Blast did a lot of damage to them). They do manage to turn the mini-horde away from my Dreadknights.

+ The Vortex is still wandering around. It takes out 2 gaunts.... wanders somewhere else. I realize this is very stupid as I cast it right between us and I am equally endangered to it at this point.

+ The Nids still have the Relic, but I know I gotta do something because my shooting isn't doing anything while he's receiving cover benefts. Between his Hive Guard, and the dual Devourers I am getting smoked. I decide to cast Hammerhand, and Force. The Nids cancel Force! D'oh.... Still the Librarian rushes in.

LATE GAME:

+ Interceptors are dead, Dreadknights are down. They got nowhere near their 235~ points each back. So the Librarian, rushes in. Combat is good. Sanctuary keeps me alive against the poo flingers.

+ I get off Sanctuary, Hammerhand, and Force. He can't deny it.... Force swords buzz through the air, hacking limbs off of big bugs. The Tervigon goes down, killing gaunts around it. The Carnifex goes down, and so do some gaunts. This assault round is pivotal as it caused far more to die than I anticipated. Striking at initiative is huge here.

+ Next turn, in my movement, I grab the Relic. I can't touch his Flyrant, and it is still pew-pewing, but it won't be enough.... He still has some rippers, and Hive guard as well.

+ Nids concede so we can start our game. I do end up with first blood, but neither of us get slay the warlord, and with the relic I win 4-0.

(GAME 2 - Maelstrom):

+ We did play a second game but I didn't get pictures. I got hammered pretty bad. My opponent picked up from our first game that his Flyrant was untouchable and he was wounding me about 10-12 times from two models. That's just too many saves to make. I had to concede the second game. He simply outshot me to death.

+ I did have one bright point in Game 2: I got force off on the Psilencer in turn 2. He caused only 1 wound to the Carnifex, which failed his FnP and died on that single wound. Otherwise I was pretty slaughtered though. Interceptors didn't come in until turn 4 again! They lasted a little longer but that was only because they were largely ignored until it mattered.

+ Small model count and the inability to deal with the Twin-linked devourers were my undoing. I couldn't get any Maelstrom points while even thinking about dealing with the deverorer Carnifex. (I wrote off the Flyrant, I just couldn't touch it.) The game was over in turn 3 I was losing quite badly but we continued so I could just get some practice with the Gk's.

AFTERMATH:

+ Some good, some bad. I do find in some areas that the Grey Knights are thought of as one of the most powerful armies out there, and I think unless I'm facing an elite style army, that the very common, spammy Xenos are still king.

+ Again I complain of terminator armour but what can you do? I Love terminators, but aside from Grey Knights, I probably wouldn't use them.

+ We play 90% of our games as Malestrom. I'm not sure this army is going to work in Maelstrom. The range is so incredibly short that it's almost automatic that I'm going to have to decide on going after a kill or holding an objective. I won't have the luxury of Predators, or whirlwinds, or Thunderfires, or Dev squads sitting deep, on objectives, shooting across the table.

+ I'm not sure where I'll go with the army. The interceptors felt horrible to be honest. I'm sure I could have used them better.

+ A definite plus is these guys feel great in close combat - if you get all your stuff off!

+ I took the Liber Daemonica for only one reason: To try to ensure I get Cleansing Flame. I didn't get it in either game. I am thinking of getting rid of the Interceptors for 5 man Purifier squad in a Rhino to ensure it, and have bonus cc, and have 2 scoring units.

+ A lack of Objective Secured seems magnified greatly in a small model count army. I play a lot of Maelstrom and just taking 2 x 5 man Tactical squads in 2 Drop Pods is huge for ObSec in my Ultra's. This army could not take one of those objectives without wasting turns trying to bash Drop Pods to death. Maelstrom is probably giving me the greatest cause of hesitation with the army.

+ Psychic stuff is really fun in this army, but the downside is having a 2 wound Warlord that almost seems guaranteed to lose a wound a game just on basic functions.... kind of a double edged sword.

All in all I enjoy the look and feel of the army, but I'll have to decide how far I go as I can see great limitations and we don't ally a lot... plus I just am old school I suppose. But I have to wonder, although I find a great 'cool factor' with the army, when the shine of 'new' wears off, will there be enough diversity in the codex?

Again, really enjoy the models and background though.

Thanks for reading!

[Lucien Eilam]

Feel No Pain doesn't work against wounds with Instant Death.

[ChaoticEric]

Any particular reason why you deep strike your interceptors? They can shunt 30" once a game and that gets you practically wherever you want to go with no risk of scatter, mishap or delay.

 

And two dreadknights and a flyrant in a 1k game? You guys are playing some pretty hard models in 1k :)

[BetterOffShred]

Hive guard with impaler canons, dakka-fex, flyrant, 2 zoanthropes and a tervigon.. that's just basically the Dakka standard nids list. Those are basically the models I use but I usually add a Tyranofex because it's so absurd to kill (regeneration wins). It looks like you did pretty good though for the first go!

I would have shunted the interceptors and tried to get everything stuck in at once. That army really only has a couple of things that can damage you once CC ensues.. Sure a Carnifex is going to kill a dude or two each round of combat, but you only need one force sword, and they have miserable initiative as you pointed out, and lower WS than us.

I haven't played my knights yet so It's all just conjecture, but I opted to go with purifiers from my strike squad box and in a week when the Stormraven arrives that will be that. I think you would have really benefited from Cleansing flame for sure, it would annihilate all the Termigants and probably put some wounds on the flyrant too if you were in range. It seems to be popular in the "How to kill a flyrant" thread

Thanks for sharing Prot.

-Brett

[Zembar]

You shouldn't be deep striking the interceptors. Shunt them instead and you're guaranteed to get them where you want without worrying about reserve rolls.

 

For deep striking GKPA you might as well go for normal strike squads.

 

Another tip for when you get some more points is putting 70 of them into an aegis defense line w/ comms relay. Then you won't have turn 4 problems at least.

[Flint13]

Sweet!

 

I'm always happy to see another of your Bat-reps, Prot.

 

Is one was entertaining!

[Prot]

Feel No Pain doesn't work against wounds with Instant Death.

- He never rolled FnP against instant death. I don't know why I wrote that.... just so used to everything getting FnP lately... My mistake. Thanks anyway though.

Any particular reason why you deep strike your interceptors? They can shunt 30" once a game and that gets you practically wherever you want to go with no risk of scatter, mishap or delay.

And two dreadknights and a flyrant in a 1k game? You guys are playing some pretty hard models in 1k

- I like deep striking interceptors to make the game as hard on myself as possible.... ;) No, I'm not sure why, I guess I didn't want to be stuck back with no purpose and wanted to get stuck in, with good shots and then using the formation's run move after.

Obviously, I'd never do it again. It was pretty stupid.

As far as what we take at 1K, you have to realize, short of allies, we try to kick each other's arses. It's all in good fun. But yea, there are no 'light' lists here. It's trial by fire.

Sweet!

I'm always happy to see another of your Bat-reps, Prot.

Is one was entertaining!

- Thanks as always Flint. I appreciate your being entertained! Time for you to paint up something loyal as well. :D

[Flint13]

Have you seen my Black Templar? 

 

They are the loyalest of the loyalists. :P

[Emicus]

Tyranids can sure put out a lot of shots! Buy Tervigons and Carnifexes shiver in their chitin at the though of a dreadknight up close. Psilencers are gravy if you get lucky, in melee you won't have to be lucky at all. I wouldn't even dream of trying to get lucky shooting down a flyrant when there is the 2 other delicious targets on the table.

 

For Maelstrom I suppose you either slaughter everything or go interceptor heavy.. Could do Maelstrom with ultra and GK with eternal war? :p

[Prot]

Haha yea I could switch armies between games but Iam really trying to get experience with the grey knights.

 

Again with the interceptors my original concern was the flyrant. He always started him high on the board behind cover then hovered him up 12 inches. This gave him pretty much the entire table to shoot at on our 4x6 table for these 1k games. Don't forget he got first turn each game so the threat of me losing nearly the entire squad on turn 1 seemed real.

[SyNidus]

Good stuff right there Prot. Grats on the first win.

 

As mentioned before, there's no need to deepstrike the interceptors. Shunt is awesome! And it's also the reason why I play so many of them. Also, shunt does not trigger dangerous terrain tests, so feel free to sit in cover with your interceptors.

 

One tip I can give is definitely to get into CC ASAP against this army. However, don't be afraid to use your mobility to stay 24" away and plinking away at the with your storm Bolters. I recently learned to do that, especially against armies which want to be advancing towards you. The GK can put out a lot of shots. There have been games where I would only use shunt towards the end of the game.

 

Don't feel like you need to deepstrike, it's a nice bonus, but not always necessary. My GKT would usually be using gate of infinity to move about the battlefield.

[Prot]

Wow, didn't know about the Shunt no difficult/dangerous thing. Excellent.

 

Yea, I wouldn't deep strike them again. I did deep strike the termies, and it went very well because he never knew where to go in the first turn.... but having Gate, I really didn't have to do that either.

 

I'm not going to change the list, and adapt to this playstyle a little better. I'll try the same thing next week at the campaign games.

[SyNidus]

Agreed, don't change the list first, the only thing i would add would be to put a teleport homer on the interceptor justicar, that way when you do get gate of infinity, you can precision gate onto the interceptor squad. I do this and it really changes the quality of my army from a slow moving force to a highly mobile force with the ability to be anywhere on the table.

[jeffersonian000]

Agreed, don't change the list first, the only thing i would add would be to put a teleport homer on the interceptor justicar, that way when you do get gate of infinity, you can precision gate onto the interceptor squad. I do this and it really changes the quality of my army from a slow moving force to a highly mobile force with the ability to be anywhere on the table.

This, definitely this. GK can be extremely mobile, without any vehicles, by using the tools in our codex to move and maneuver wherever, whenever. I hardly ever Reserve any of my squads these days, unless a null deployment is advantageous, or I need a 5man GKT squad on the other side of the table on turn 1. With Jump, Shunt, Gate, and Homers, GK can be as aggressive or mission focused as needed.

 

SJ

[Reclusiarch Darius]

We're a tiny army. The only things you should Reserve are your Raven (it has to, unless you buy a Skyshield) and Terminators (who get all the benefits of 'Rites of Teleporation' and are Troops anyway so why not?). Everything else should be on-table, Shunting or meching up the field. 

[Adeptus]

We're a tiny army. The only things you should Reserve are your Raven (it has to, unless you buy a Skyshield) and Terminators (who get all the benefits of 'Rites of Teleporation' and are Troops anyway so why not?). Everything else should be on-table, Shunting or meching up the field. 

 

So, everything except the Dreadknights then? :P

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Interceptors can Shunt ;)

[Prot]

Thanks for the additional feedback. I will try to wedge a Beacon on the Interceptor justicar..... and then I can pretty much start the entire army (13 models!) on the table. lol

 

In this case, I imagine the only benefit I'm getting from the formation at this level is just so I only need one troop? Interesting side note, if I just took two squads of Termies, I could just play a normal CAD, get re-rolls on other warlord tables as well... but I have to stick this out anyway because it's all I have assembled.

 

As the game finished, I really wondered how much I'll put into this army but the background and figures really drew me in. I'm putting some serious paint time into them this week. Sort of challenging myself to see how much I can get done at a decent table top quality in a week. It'll be interesting to see.

 

Now to see if I can wedge in that beacon.

[Zhukov]

Thanks for the report, your reports are always nice to read.

[Adeptus]

I find the best part of the NSF is the null deployment and the first turn deepstrike. Null deployment can really agitate a lot of players and going second (and forcing them to waste a round of shooting) is always a good thing IMO. Then we can deepstrike in our first turn (with a re-roll, because don't leave home without your Comms Relay!) and commence with the face punching. A lot of players find it really hard to deal with 20+ Terminators and 2 or more Dreadknights suddenly appearing on one of their flanks. By the time they've recovered you've often broken the back of their army.

 

Of course there are times when you want to deploy more models, times when you have Gate and think you can risk it, but I really like the flexibility to do a null deployment if I want to (and the run+shoot thing is nice) so I really like the NSF detachment.

[Prot]

No deployment is a consideration for sure, however, at 1K I don't think I'll try it. As you say I need comms to be safe, which is very hard to fit in a 14 model list.... And to take a risk on trickling in is not an option.

 

As I've seen the spammy xenos poo flingers give me problems with weight of dice. I now realize at 1K, and 14 models, I can't afford to hold back. I need everything on the table ASAP at this level.

 

Back at 1850 I can see doing no deployment... enough room for comms, and I guess a few more units reduce the risk.... the Comms do work without anyone on the table though right? I guess I do risk my opponent deep striking on the Aegis, and taking over the comms.

[tomsev]

No you have to have some one (insert DK here) manning it, so you can almost null deploy, and get all your guys in the enemies face turn 1, the ndk manning the comm relay just shunts up after you rolled reserves... abandoning it to rust away in to nothing...

[Prot]

Ah okay. Well I'm kind of thinking two ways about this. Holding everything back (except let's say Interceptors with Comms) is really good in some cases but the combined cost of about 70pts is too heavy for me considering I may not use it.

 

The other side of me thinks starting everything on the table and gating around would be really fun, and avoiding the whole reserve rolls issue.

[ChaoticEric]

Agreed, don't change the list first, the only thing i would add would be to put a teleport homer on the interceptor justicar, that way when you do get gate of infinity, you can precision gate onto the interceptor squad. I do this and it really changes the quality of my army from a slow moving force to a highly mobile force with the ability to be anywhere on the table.

I'm sorry but I don't think a teleport homer works for GoI as it states it only works for models arriving from deep strike reserve and GoI only uses rules for deep strike, not deep strike reserves.

 

On the flipside, GoI doesn't trigger interceptor as you're not arriving from reserve.

[jeffersonian000]

Just a note: "Null Deploy" does not mean "no models on the table". What it does mean is to deploy with an open space that encourages your opponent to fill it, such as putting a small amount of models in cover in the corners, leaving the middle exposed. In the case of GK leave a unit on the table with a Comms Relay while the rest is Reserved is a Null Deployment.

 

Just Say'n.

 

SJ