First let me say that this article is just my ideas on how I am going to take on Grey Knights in these early stages of the codex being released. It is by no means an attempt at a be all and end all, ultimate guide to the destruction of the Grey Knights. I welcome any and all comments and criticisms on these ideas since it will help everyone who reads the article and comments formulate their own ideas on how to deal with this meta-busting army. One other caveat I would like to apply. I do not come from the camp who thinks that 3 Grey Knight Dreadnoughts with Autocannons and Psybolt ammunition are going to be the standard. On the contrary I think the scout/shunt turn 1 charge shenanigans are going to be where it's at in the codex; so that will be the angle from which I am writing. Maybe I will be wrong but, naturally, I don't think so.
The main problem a lot of armies are going to have with Grey Knights is the 2+ armor saves that are so prevalent army wide. Normally a lot of terminators isn't a big deal, truly it isn't. Massive amounts of fire into a squad of terminators coupled with a few low AP shots and you can usually torrent the unit to death. This still applies for Grey Knights but the problems come in two forms. The first is the potential for turn 1 charges, the second is the Dread Knight won't die anywhere near as easily as a squad of Terminators plus if you give it teleport homers it can jump into your face turn 1; if you can't kill it in 1 turn of shooting than you are SOL. So what is a 40k general to do? Throw your arms in the air and run around crying 'broken! broken! broken!" To anyone who will listen? No. Adapt, as we always do, to the meta changing facts about Grey Knights.
1. Don't abandon all your meltaguns just yet. Yes, plasmaguns should be deployed more often now so you can deal with GK when you draw them in a tournament. But don't forget, meltaguns are AP1 and can melt terminators into slag just like a Plasmagun; also remember plasma is strength 7 and can kill all those AV11/12 transports out there too.
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| I love using this squad, now I may have a real reason too. |
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| Rune Priest Spam! |
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| I don't really need any more reasons too take Land Raiders... |
5. If you have some way in your army of insuring you get the first turn or can seize the initiative better and you find yourself running into Grey Knights then you'll want to use it.
I have some other thoughts and ruminations on the new Grey Knights codex and how best to take them on but I want to get a few games in against them and test things out. Sand is building a Grey Knights army so I will have the chance to take them on pretty soon. I am currently working on a new army, Tyranids, so once I have had time to test them out I will put up a post about how I think I will run them in the new Grey Knight infested meta-verse. I gave some thought to Orks but I figured since Dis is the true CnC Ork guy he may have better insight into them then I would! Stay tuned for more on the Grey Knights and some other new features from Capture and Control.
So how do you see Grey Knights affecting the game? Do you think my ideas for going after them have merit as a starting off point or am I completely daft? How are you beginning to tool your lists to take on the heroes of Titan?
Hi,
ReplyDeleteFor those who have only had a chance to glance at the codex could your explain the "scout/shunt turn 1 charge shenanigans".
I noticed that they don't get storm shields so I thought meltaguns would be very good against the paladins (the W2 terminators) because they will instant kill them if they fail the 5+ inv save, and ignore any Feel No Pain they might have.
They seemed very expensive, so I was thinking having slightly more units than normal (by having less wargear of having smaller units) would help. GKs could smash a unit, but it's loss wouldn't seem as bad if it was less points, and the expensive GK units would have to pull off more charges to make their points back.
Rathstar
From what I understand several units have scout and infiltrate USRs and when you combine that with Shunting using personal Teleport homers to shunt forward you get an entire army in your face turn 1 with a few units that can even charge.
ReplyDeleteHere is an example. 3 Storm Ravens full of GKT scout forward, 3 Dread Knights teleport forward turn 1, raven move up 12, Dread Knights/Storm Ravens lay down crippling fire into your ranks. Then the GKT charge in. Pretty devastating if it is true you can do it.
The Grand Master can give d3 units certain abilities at the beginning of the game, one of which makes them count as a scoring unit, and another grants them Scout. These abilities cannot be conferred to vehicles, so the Scouting Storm Ravens move isn't legit. And, honestly, using Dreadknights as fire support platforms seems to be a poor use of them. If you want guns, you have Rifleman dreads with psybolt ammo for that. The shenanigans are: GK go first; d3 Dreadknights get Scout; They teleport shunt 30" forward during the Scout move; the opponent has a chance to Seize the Initiative; if not, the Dreadknights move 12", then Assault 6", destroying whatever they touch, particularly vehicles since they are have 4-5 autohitting, S10 attacks, with 2d6 armor penetration. Not including whatever else the GK player has to do that turn. Potentially very game-changing, especially with all the IG parking lots and RB Spam castles that're out there.
ReplyDeleteThese are all sound decent ideas for dealing with Grey Knights in general. But how, specifically, are you going to deal with scout/shunt Dreadknights and interceptor squads?! I am quite interested to hear about it.
ReplyDeleteThey can't Scout Shunt. See here.
ReplyDeleteThe only wording that can possibly prevent this goes as follows.
1) You are allowed to use the personal teleporter ability once per GAME.
2) Each Deployment tells you that the GAME BEGINS after you are done with deployment. By the rules, a game does not actually start until after deployment.
Some people claim the "Start the Game!" clause in each Deployment Scenario means something other than actually starting the game, but we play by RAW, and start the game means exactly that; Starting the Game.
- The game has not started
- You cannot use abilities that restrict the use "during the game" yet
- The Game Starts!
- Turn 1 starts, and there you go, now you can Shunt away!
The idea is you cannot do something "during the game" if the rules tell you the game has not even officially started yet.
Remember, turbo boosting does not have this "do it during/per game" clause, so you can use it freely with scouting, hence why this issue never came up before.
Before you all jump on my back, I am not taking sides here. I am just presenting the argument that Nanowired may be talking about.
That's a great point. I'll have to look into that to see if there's any other precedent.
ReplyDeletei was thinking something very similr to that that the game hasn't started when the scout move is made, i will be intersted to hear what u find DIS
ReplyDeleteAnonymous beat me to it on this one. I was actually hoping to get to play a game against "someone" and pull that out and see what the ruling would be right then and there. Fortunately for Sand you posted this and now I can't attempt to Ninja his list in a truly TFG WAAC fashion... Jerk :)
ReplyDelete