So I actually got 1.5 games in before our mega battle for our escalation league today against ....
Against,
Big Daddy Jim and Dodger3
I don't have a full battle report, but do have my pro's and con's of my list and the Grey Knights.
The first game was against Big Daddy Jim. We rolled seize ground with 5 objectives and spearhead. I won the roll and elected to have him go first.
He had something like:(I think. This only got to 2 turns)
Fateweaver
Bloodthirster
4x bloodcrushers
2 Daemon princes
3 Flamers
3 Units of horrors
By making him go first, I deployed with a giant bubble wrap around my Raven in a back corner to prevent a drop and go with bolt.
We had to go to our mega game so ended the game. Now Big Daddy did get flipped, but I believe if we would have finished the game, he would have had a hard time to stop the firepower of the list.
The Storm Raven did very well getting a 3+ save from the Librarian, then shooting the bloodthirster down a few wounds.
*VIP Award goes to the halberds. Even though they cost more points, they made up for it in every combat. 2 points per purifier should be on each guy you can get!
*The rifleman dread did a great job hitting the princes. He is a keeper.
*Purifier squads are great vs horrors and flamers.
*Having your guys in Rhino's in non-negotiable. Moving 12", jumping out to flame or psycannon a unit and wrapping around the Rhino for a potential cover save is great if you have halberds to still hit first in assault!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Second game was against Dodger3, who happens to be the best Daemon player I have ever seen.
He had:
Lord of change
Fateweaver
2x 4 bloodcrushers
2 5 man plague bearers
11 Seekers
1 Daemon prince
The battle was the same with Seize ground 5 objectives and spearhead. He won the roll and made me go first. I deployed in my vehicles and moved flat out with the Raven and popped smoke on 2 front RHino's, also casting Shrouding and having 3+ saves to the three.
Of course dodger3 got flipped against me. (which seriously happens 50% of the time I play daemons) The big guy upstairs is looking out for me :).
He dropped what he had and didn't do much. He dropped bloodcrushers, 2 plague bearer units, the seekers, and 4 bloodcrushers. I made a daring move and moved both purifier squads forward 12, jumped out and flamed the seekers as well as shot a lot of storm bolters at them. I killed 7 of 11 in the shooting phase. Other shooting from the Storm Raven, and the dreadnought with the assault cannon put the crushers down to 2 having wounds.
He dropped his lord of change and a prince. His bloodcrushers assaulted my 5 man purifier squad in the front and wiped them up, but I killed 1 crusher and wounded another before dieing horribly. My other purifier squad was assaulted by the remaing seekers.
Cleansing flame killed 2 and my 2 halbeds killed a 3rd leaving him with only 2 left which I killed after he had his attacks. Without the cleansing flame, he would have wiped that unit also. So the moral of the story is take halberd with your purifiers for hoards. I also read the psygrenades wrong as I thought they worked even if I was assaulted. I would not have gotten out to be easy meat for the crushers if I hadn't made that mistake.
The rifleman dread took out the prince pretty easily. The psycannon purifiers stayed back to claim 2 objectives.
The game ended with the Grey Knights having 3 objectives the the daemons 1.
Changes I might make and what I learned:
*Take out Crowe as his not being an independant character is kind of blah.
*Keep the Librarian for now but find a way to get a grandmaster with psychotroke grenades in the list to make the purifier's scoring, or the dreadnought. (I know some disagree with the wording). If I take out the 150 for Crowe I would probably just remove some points to get what I wanted.
*One savings is to drop 1 purifier squad and make 1 unit 10 strong with the 4 free incinerators saving 40 points. I would have to take a basic strike squad which might make the list a little more balanced against deepstrike.
*The Storm Raven got exploded on his turn 3 which kind of sucked for me as I couldn't roll very high to get out of terrain, but overall the army did very well. I want to try it against a regular MEQ or Guard army to get a better feel for it.
*The terminators are incredible in close combat. The 4+invol with the swords is awesome and the init 6 works great. The might and hammerhand combo is also awesome to make a unit even higher strength. I am going to look at possibly doing this list with Paladins at 1750, or fitting them in with only 1 dreadnought. The dread on the Storm Raven was just ok.
Back to the drawing board and more test games coming up.
Thoughts?
What exactly is the wording? Does it say expressly that dreadnoughts become scoring units?
ReplyDeleteThe wording is "can claim objectives as if they were Troops". Since vehicles taken as Troops choices can't claim objectives, the argument is "as if they were troops" prevents the Dreadnought from scoring. I personally think the operative term is "CAN claim objectives".
ReplyDeleteYa I don't think the dread will be able to claim objectives. I have dread troops, Death company dread. No body lets me hold objective with it. Vehicles cannot hold objectives, doesn't matter if they are troops or not. But the Dreadknight is game
ReplyDeleteAlso, Spag, if you want to get a game in against my blood angels, I wouldn't mind. What point level is this list at?
We will see where the decision goes on the dread, but I will play by ear. Playing this list I am going to make the following changes and re-test.
ReplyDeleteGrandmaster-190 pts
Psychotroke Grenades
Librarian-170 pts
halberd
Might, Warp Rift, and Shrouding
4-Paladins-225 pts
1-Halberd
1-Hammer
1-Swords
1-Halberd-Master crafted
Storm Raven 210
TL Assault/Mmelta
Psybolt Ammo
Dread-130 pts
Assault Cannon
Doomfist
Psybolt Ammo
Dread-135 pts
TL/Autocannon x2
Psybolt Ammo
Strike Squad-285(Combat squad)
2 Psycannons
2-Halberds
5-Swords
1-Justicar w/Halberd
Rhino
Strike Squad-160
1-Psycannon
1-Halberd
2-Sword
1-Justicar w/Halberd
Grand Master and Libby w/Paladins in Raven potentially with the CC Dread. Still has 3 troops after combat squading, with a potential 3 more with the Grandmaster.
Another thought is to give the Storm Raven Scout and alpha strike on first turn with the dread and terminators! Nasty Business!!! But I like it!
@Gravemind, the difference is that Grand Strategy says they the unit can claim objectives as if troops. Giving permission that overrules the rulebook.
ReplyDeleteThis is 1500. We can get a game in.
I'd wait for the FAQ before crafting any lists around objective claiming dreads. Ork dreads in Mek lists, BA like G-mind said, and speeders attached to Ravenwing squads in Dark Angels are similar. Those "may be taken as troops" or similar wordings have historically NOT overridden the Core book's prohibition on vehicles counting as scoring units.
ReplyDeleteThey can claim them as troops sure, but it doesn't say they count as non-vehicle troops.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty confident this will be a no-go in the FAQ, so I wouldn't count on it. But it looks like a pretty mean list!
Awesome so you beat Demons? With all due respect I don't see how any pros or cons can be gathered here. When you take a codex like GK that is designed to never let demons win and play it against demons of course the outcome will be heavily in your favor.
ReplyDeleteI think you hit the nail on the head when you said you need to try against a mech or guard army. I would also be curious to see just how well they'd do against something like thunderwolves. I just feel it fitting to try a GK list against something that's not demons before you say what's good or bad. :-D
I agree with Rionnay, you can't really gather any info from beating an old codex that yours is literally designed to beat from the ground up.
ReplyDeleteIf you are going to go out of your way to make your army a tournament beast, you don't go playing against Daemons, you play against Space Wolves and Guard. If you build a GK list and ask yourself "can I beat my own Thunderwolf list or Chimera spam IG" and answer no, scrap it.
I've read online that some people are looking to the GK book to uncover the IG/SW "killer", lol good luck to those people, I won't be holding my breath.
Well,
ReplyDeleteSince I play space wolves and Guard, I am pretty confident in what they can do. I will still have to play a game or two of course, and it just happened to be that the 2 daemon players wanted to test themselves against GK. Iniative 6 strength 5 power weapons will kill Thunderwolves. That is a fairly simple to understand. You give them Str 6 with might from a libby or might them at str 5 and use the squad to turn them into force weapons and instant kill them then that works also.
@Rionnay,
When are you going to stop talking and put your army on the table against my Space Wolves?
@Thegravemind- I do think the paladin list at 1500 is scarry nasty. Just imagine the alpha strike from that unit and the dread!
To all, this is a work in process, I don't know if the GK will ever be better than my Wolves, but I am going to try and find out.
I will happily play when I am in town, unfortunately I'm only there in the summer and on breaks. ^_^ Either way lol beating tyranids with space wolves isn't a far cry from demons with Grey Knights.
ReplyDeleteHave to ask (because I still have yet to read the codex at all), what makes GK's the anti-Deamon army this time around?
ReplyDeleteThe previous version ignored Inv Saves with a number of weapons, and had a slew of special rules and wargear. Of the few rumblings I've heard, nothing like this is still around.
If all goes well, I should be getting my first game against some GK's soon... definitely looking forward to it.
@foodie
ReplyDeleteit's the ignores Eternal warrior on daemons and psykers, and preferred enemy daemons for this edition.
there's actually about as much anti-psyker stuff in the GK book as there is actual anti-daemon.
I see. Do Daemons still get a boost at all, or is it just kicks and giggles?
ReplyDelete