GK Bulletstorm

[Gentlemanloser]

So while weathering the usual jibes while showing off my nice new codex yesterday (careful, the codex is so powerful is burning my hands... that sort of stuff), and just mulling over what the GK can do.

 

The guys got a little fixated with our ability to drop multiple max sized Strike squads within rapid fire range turn 1.

 

And now "even bolters can kill transports", dropping say 30 strikes to pump out 120 shots both awed and got them shaking heads and asking if Ward wrote this codex as well.

 

So who am I to disappoint. >;)

 

I'm now thinking about how to really show them what we could do with this (wait till they find out with a few GM as well the strike are rerolling 1's to hit. Let alone the existence of Psybolt Ammo!)

 

No real army list yet. Just ideas.

 

At 2k, you can comfortably fit in 2 GM and 40 strikes. In order to have 6 units deployed, you could do something like 3 razors worth 5 purgation squads (4 psilencers each, naturally! ) for even more bullets!

 

That's dropping 160 bolter shots, rerolling 1's to hit. With 72 Psilencer shots on top.

 

If that's not enough pew pew and dice rolling to satisfy, I don't know what is! ;)

 

I wonder if disembarkation counts as moving. Not sure, as you can move normally after disembarking. Maybe it's a nice way to get round the heavy status of the Psilencer. Move up embarked, next turn disembark, don't move, and shoot without the -1.

Edited August 13, 2017 by Gentlemanloser

[Gentlemanloser]

I tried to explain that facing a transport heavy enemy even dropping 60 strikes would only kill a single rhino on that first turn.

 

But it's hard to get past 240 shots from 60 gits T4 in 3+ saves!

[Helycon]

Deepstriking or disembarked counts as having moved for the purposes of hitting with heavy weapons.

[Gentlemanloser]

Bah at disembarking.

 

I like purgation squads less now.

 

Strikes all the way.

[Yossarion]

Just remember that massed volume of storm bolters sounds good, in practice it doesn't play nearly as well. Especially if you try to pop 2+ saves with no ap. Also big blobs of marines are very unwieldy it's difficult to move them around a board and PAGK can die very easily when forced to take saves.

 

I think having 10 Interceptors is strong, and I think with astral aim purgation squads might not be too bad with psilencers. I do think strikes are very over hyped and when they are brought up they never bring up the negatives, being 1 wound models with a 3+ save is very easy to kill. 

[Myunch]

Just remember that massed volume of storm bolters sounds good, in practice it doesn't play nearly as well. Especially if you try to pop 2+ saves with no ap. Also big blobs of marines are very unwieldy it's difficult to move them around a board and PAGK can die very easily when forced to take saves.

 

I think having 10 Interceptors is strong, and I think with astral aim purgation squads might not be too bad with psilencers. I do think strikes are very over hyped and when they are brought up they never bring up the negatives, being 1 wound models with a 3+ save is very easy to kill.

Sadly I have to agree here. The offensive capabilities of strike squads are wonderful for the points. However, I've found in many of my recent games that they have almost zero staying power after the initial onslaught (even in ruins).

[Ninjoe42]

Has anyone tried giving every single member of a strike/interceptor squad Hammers? I've always wondered how much damage that might inflict practically.

[Seizeman]

Has anyone tried giving every single member of a strike/interceptor squad Hammers? I've always wondered how much damage that might inflict practically.

Not much. 10 Strikes with hammer cost 340 points for 11 attacks, hitting on 4+. That's exactly the same points than a 5-man Paladin squad with 5 hammers that has 15 attacks (3 of them with the paragon) and is infinitely more durable. Hammers on strikes are not much better than falchions.

 

I would not even give hammers to justicars, with only 2 attacks.

[KGatch113]

This has me thinking about how the game has shifted. 

Years ago, I ran a TAC Blood Angels list. I won my first RTT with it, but faced 3 Marine armies, two of them being Deathwing. ( One by a repeat tournament winner, another guy who has been described by his peers at GW as the best player they have seen).

The next tournament, the first army I faced was a Tau list, who shot me enough times that I was forced to make a gazillion armor saves. Death by a thousand cuts.

 

That was really the beginning of the end of PA armies dominating the scene, the realization that a high volume of firepower guaranteed to cause wounds beats marines. 

Now granted, bolter fire isn't the same as Tau Str 5 weapons, or Eldar shuriken catapults or multilasers etc. Are we saying it really isn't as good?

I'm in the camp that any negative to the armor save helps tremendously, even a -1. But are we saying death by papercut is not effective?

[hmk17]

This has me thinking about how the game has shifted. 

 

Years ago, I ran a TAC Blood Angels list. I won my first RTT with it, but faced 3 Marine armies, two of them being Deathwing. ( One by a repeat tournament winner, another guy who has been described by his peers at GW as the best player they have seen).

 

The next tournament, the first army I faced was a Tau list, who shot me enough times that I was forced to make a gazillion armor saves. Death by a thousand cuts.

 

That was really the beginning of the end of PA armies dominating the scene, the realization that a high volume of firepower guaranteed to cause wounds beats marines. 

 

Now granted, bolter fire isn't the same as Tau Str 5 weapons, or Eldar shuriken catapults or multilasers etc. Are we saying it really isn't as good?

 

I'm in the camp that any negative to the armor save helps tremendously, even a -1. But are we saying death by papercut is not effective?

It can be, if there is too much skew in the probabilities. It really comes down to what you are trying to papercut.

 

Without a reroll, statistically you are going to hit about 2/3 of the time on 3+. SO if there 120 shots, then about 80 should hit. 

 

The skew on that is vs toughness. Against Eldar, IG dudes and other humans that's about 53 wounds. With Bog standard marines and other T:4; roughly 1/2 should wound. If you are shooting a Razorback or anything else T:5 -7 range, then that's about 27 wounds.  On a Landraider, Knights, or other bigguns; that drops to about 13 wounds. 

 

Then come saves. With that many shots going at a unit, you will probably wipe them out. Anything T:3 with a 5+ will probably fail around 35 saves. Sisters of Battle would fair the best with the 3+ save failing about 18. 

 

T:4 and a 3+, statistically will fail about 13 saves. In the case of a 10 man unit of Primaris marines, there should be 4 of them still up. For Terminator types, the 2+ makes it math out to about 7 wounds. So if running 10 man units of terminators, that extra HP really does keep you in there. Our Paladins fair even better. Orks should fail about 33 saves. 

 

For the 5+ to wound crowd, that's about 9 wounds if you have a 3+ save. So you can pop a rhino or razorback with this and a little luck, but you will kill a Dreadnought. Guilliman with his 2+ would take roughly 5 wounds. 

 

For Knights, Leman Russ Tanks, or Predators, they should take about 4 wounds. And a Landraider should take maybe 2 wounds.

 

 

So while the potential to bulletstorm someone is there, it probably would best be used in a scalpel-like method to erase certain mid-toughness elements. With Interceptors being able to deep strike, then shunt, and then shunt again via the Stratagem. That's 3 turns of strategic placement to drop anything they want as long as you can get 30 models within 12".

Edited August 14, 2017 by hmk17

[Beams]

The big thing is grey knights don't actually have that much shooting.

 

A single Dominion squad (5 sb, 5 Bolters) puts out 15-30 shots and can fire twice for 30-60. They cost 110 as compared to the strike squads 105.

 

Guard can easily shoot more than that, just with weaker weapons, but if your trying to scratch a land raider, that doesn't even matter.

 

Grey Knights specialty is hitting things and ignore the saves. The storm Bolters seem like a nice bonus/add on to it, but I'd rather focus on optimized melee than mass storm Bolters.

Edited August 14, 2017 by Beams

[Reclusiarch Darius]

In my mind besides dedicated anti-tank like Ravens and Venerable Dreads (which we share with Marines), GK can deal with tanks and other big stuff in melee fine. Grandmaster DK's in particular will bring the pain, just need to deliver them. 

 

Our firepower is mainly geared towards clearing out enemy hordes, which we can get bogged down with (and dragged down by with enough forced saves). Makes sense thematically, we've always finished the job up close. 

 

Storm bolters are just about the most efficient anti-infantry in the game. As others have pointed out though, once the enemy has a decent save and Toughness, they start tanking entire squads worth of firepower. For clearing Ork Boyz or Guardsmen though, its perfectly fine and to have it default on everyone is fantastic. 

 

Psilencers, gatling psilencers and heavy psycannon (don't take the infantry version its bad) supplement storm bolter by dealing with multi-wound efficiently. They're kinda like our plasma equivalent, but instead of imposing heavy save penalties, they just force saves and any fails remove 2W models reliably. Different methods, same outcome. Once you apply the dakka strategems to either weapon type, they get significantly deadlier (S5 AP-1 psilencer in particular is gonna mow down Primaris quite efficiently). I'm keen to give Psilencer Purgators a go now, even with the inevitable hitting on 4's. Now that they can be teleported via strategem, I think they can offer a lot to the alpha strike. 

 

However, vehicles and monsters still kinda shrug off all this stuff, either by virtue of high Toughness+decent save, or just having too many wounds for kills to be reliable (unless you focus inefficiently). That's why your list needs either shooty options to deal with it (Ravens, Venerable Dreads, even Razorbacks), or you go for the throat with your melee options. Either works and can be supported, but it's difficult to fit both into a list. Personally, I think Grandmaster GM's kinda lean things towards melee, because they're still significantly better there than as a gun platform. 

 

I'm very happy with our dakka options in this edition though (barring infantry psycannon, which can only return if we regain Relentless somehow). Just don't expect to be dropping things the weapon in question isn't designed to handle. Blast a path, finish the job in melee. 

[Seizeman]

In actuality, storm bolters are not THAT bad vs vehicles. A 5-man squad deals a couple of wounds to a rhino or dreadnought in a shooting phase. Yes, it is not efficient at all, but it is infinitely better than the 0 damage they would do in the past edition. If you are shooting vehicles with bolters is because you have no good targets anyway, so a couple of wounds is better than nothing.

 

But anyway, the volume of fire a GK army can deal is amazing. Between bolters and assault cannons, it can become tiresome to roll and reroll so many dices sometimes.

 

One of the big changes that makes us better vs infantry, is that we can charge wathever we want no matter what we shot at. In 7th your bolters were basically useless as you could only shott them against the unit you wanted to charge, wich would usually be tough targets, almost inmune to bolter fire. It was the melee and the psycannons that did all the work.

 

As Darius says, it is so easy to kill guards and orks (and tyranid infantry) with grey knights that it feels unbalanced at times.