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| And you thought Rune Priests were important before... |
I have seen people all over the internet freaking out about the new Grey Knights codex. But in all their freaking out I have encountered a few complete misconceptions that have entered into my keys to defeating them. I am going to discuss these keys and how I think they are going to go against some peoples misconceptions. There are several keys to beating the new Grey Knights codex which should serve people well.
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| No, not really. |
2. Dreadknights are just Daemon Princes with a better armor save. If you have ever killed a Daemon Prince you can kill a Dreadknight. I don't suggest attempting to bolter them to death (although you certainly can), but taking more plasma guns in your list will certainly help. Las Cannons are good against them but Plasma Cannons would be best. Long Fangs with Plasma Cannons are great, obviously you wouldn't want to take 3 squads all with PCs making it 15 PCs but taking 3 in one squad gives you some great anti MEQ firepower. The Dreadknights base is large enough that scattering with the PC isn't as big of a deal. 3. Grey Knights have to get close to you to be effective. The army operates the best when it is 24 inches away from you. This means you need long range firepower, all Space Wolf armies should have the close range handled with their Grey Hunters, but you'll need that long range firepower to take out their Rhinos/Razorbacks/Stormravens early on. Drop pods aren't such a good idea against Grey Knights. You need the several turns of shooting to bring down the numbers of those GK getting to you, if you drop in you're just feeding your guys to full sized units of Grey Knights and that is definitely inadvisable.
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| If you use Razorbacks take this many. |
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| Not this many. |
5. You need Psychic defense! There is a huge movement on Dakka/BoLS/Warseer that is spouting that Grey Knights make taking psykers stupid. Sorry, but that is stupid. The Grey Knights abilities to target Psykers for destruction in CC, a few other shenanigans, and give them a -1 on their tests is not a deal breaker. I can agree that if your psyker provides no form of Psychic defense then perhaps you'll want to shelve them, but Librarians and Rune Priests are so much more important now, and they were almost compulsory before. Grey Knight units rely on the buffs they get from Psychic powers to win combat, keep their vehicles running, and pretty much do most of anything. Being able to turn those buffs off make it so that, in close combat, the Grey Knights are only slightly better than regular Marines, and if you've taken my other advice and whittled them down then they will be understrength when they get to you too. Njal will be finding his way into a lot of my lists if Grey Knights become as popular as it seems, being able to nullify psychic powers used within 24inches of him on a 3+ is amazing. The 24inch bubble for Runic Weapons/Psychic Hoods is also the range in which the Grey Knights operate the best, so the shorter range of the modern "hood" is not as big of a deal. If you play Vanilla Marines and you see lots of Dreadknights, then Null Zone became an almost indispensable psychic power.
I have found the greatest misconception to be the need to drop your Librarians and Rune Priests from your lists in order to effectively combat Grey Knights. On the contrary I think the "hoods" are essential and while I am not a fan of the "gunline" Space Wolf army, I think it is one of the most effective counters to the Grey Knights I have found yet.
Psilencers make your Psykers cry. Sorry, you're wrong, taking librairans and rune priests against GK is just dumb. At least with gk bein in tournaments now I won't have to worry about running into rune priest spam anymore.
ReplyDeleteSure psilencers are good against psykers. But you need to take up an Heavy Support spot to spam them in Purgation squads or you can but some on Dreadknights. But the Dreadknight is a much better assault platform than shooting one. I guess if people were to tailor their list against me then sure, but I talk about competitive gaming. Purgations/Dreadknights spamming psilencers will NOT be competitive.
ReplyDeleteOW, you seem to have left out addressing the Shunting ability, which kinda kneecaps your point #3. Any thoughts?
ReplyDeletehow does a plasma cannon deal with a dreadknight better than a lascannon?
ReplyDelete3 to wound instead of 2? no that cant be it.
higher chance to miss because of scatter?
i actually plan on taking a librarian in my DA just because of og GK sure they have stuff agains psykers but they won't be able to target him (unless they bring the assassin) and being able to shut down their powers is going to be a huge boon against them.
ReplyDeleteas for shunting thats cool they can do it once and if they want to be in charge range they take a massive chance of mishapping and most of the time i'll still get 2 rounds of shooting before they get there. also we will probably see only one or 2 units get that on the norm, if they kit their whole army out with it then they will most likely have less than 25 models on the board and i'm fine with that
"taking 3 in one squad gives you some great anti MEQ firepower."
ReplyDeleteThat's how it is better than a Las Cannon, you can use it to effectively kill more than just the DK. Try reading carefully before trolling anonymously.
They can Shunt into me all they want, they can't assault after shunting and therefore I can unload all my melta/plasma/lascannon fire into them before they get the chance to charge on their next turn. A DK charging is a little scary, a DK with 1 wound left charging isn't scary at all, especially if you've prepared yourself.
1. Psilencers... don't do anything useful against psykers. The Psyocculum, now, that's a different matter...
ReplyDelete2. Psychic defense is super-useful against GK, yes. It's worth the 100pts on a Libby or Rune Priest just to shut down half their stuff. (Runes of Warding are even more incredible.)
3. Plasma Cannons are bad and you shouldn't use them. A 40% chance of hitting the target is not good for Space Marines. Monstrous Creatures are not afraid of your blast weapons, I can't see why you would think they are.
4. How is taking three Razorbacks more survivable than six or nine Razorbacks? I don't understand. Razorwolves is a different build than SW with Rhinos full of nine/ten-strong Grey Hunters advancing into midfield, and I think Razorwolves will do better against GK because it can hold back at range and has the guns to put serious hurt on them. (Don't get me wrong, though, it has weak matchups of its own.)
5. Having superior numbers is a big thing when fighting GK, though, yeah. Wear them down- GK can't afford to fight an attrition war, nor do they have a lot of good long-range shooting. Break their tanks, shoot them down as they advance, charge when you have them down to 2-3 squad members, same as any other MEQ army.
its also hard to outshoot an army when nearly everymodel has a stormbolter or better
ReplyDeleteclearly by disagreeing with you that plasma cannons are naff i am indeed a troll.
ReplyDeleteyou jelly?
Plasma Cannons are not bad, they are just bad if you try spamming them instead of Missile Launchers, but taking 3 of them in a squad of Long Fangs or a few mixed into Tac squads is a good idea, they are relly quit good against Meq opponents, which is what play in all the tournments anyways.
ReplyDeleteReally though OW. You could have just made the title: "Want to beat Gery Knights? Play Space Wolves" and saved us all a read.
"4. How is taking three Razorbacks more survivable than six or nine Razorbacks? I don't understand. Razorwolves is a different build than SW with Rhinos full of nine/ten-strong Grey Hunters advancing into midfield, and I think Razorwolves will do better against GK because it can hold back at range and has the guns to put serious hurt on them. (Don't get me wrong, though, it has weak matchups of its own.)"
ReplyDeleteI wasn't saying I think 3 RBs is more survivable than 6. What I was trying to say is that 3 Razorbacks for my Long Fangs makes sense to me, but MSUs of GH in Razorbacks doesn't make sense to me because the larger GH squads are exponentially better than 5 man ones. I find RB spam to be an easily beaten list if your opponent has played against it a few times. The weaknesses of the army are, in my experience, to easy to exploit once you understand the army. I have exploited those weaknesses and had those weaknesses exploited enough that I am just not sold on the MSU RB spam. Too many people have played against it now and the shock factor has worn off.
It also fit into number 5 on my list. If you understand that outnumbering the GK is important than you should also understand that razorspam isn't going to do as well against them. That was the point I was trying to make, not that 3 RB is more survivable than 6, next time I will be more clear.
WTF are my poor tyranid pskers supposed to do. I mean my shadow in the warp is great, but I rely on my zoanthropes and hive tyrants to command the hordes. Also I drop pod in most of my list. If drop pods are ineffective against them my strategy is even more effed. Should I just take non psyker synapse creatures like tyranid warriors/primes and trygon primes to get shadow of the warp without the vulnerability of the psyker rule. Also if I don't use my psychic powers am I still vulnerable to the greay knights abilities.
ReplyDeleteSorry for deviating from your "what should our space wolves do thread" , but I want to be ready against grey knights. I mean I don't like losing to anyone, but at least against space wolves I win or lose in close combat which is something tyranids understand and are equipped to deal with. Having my psker monstrous creatures obliterated at range with pyschic magic is unnerving to say the least considering that without them my little monsters tard out and go all "Blood for the blood god" or "screw you guys im going home" depending on what they are.