Monday, May 9, 2011

What is the best Anti-Chaos Daemon Grey Knight build?

by Spaguatyrine


So I have this guy at my game store who is I believe the best daemon player in North America.  He also plays what I think is the toughest build in all of 40k.  I have played him twice with the new grey knights and only barely won both times.  This brings me to question all of you......

What is the best army build against a Fatecrusher Chaos Daemon list.  Now before all of you who think Daemons suck, really think about what a Fatecrusher list is:

Fateweaver-Who allows any Daemon to re-roll any save within 6"
Bloodthirster-Who has a 2+ Invol against force weapons!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4 bloodcrushers x2 or 3 (Kitted out for wound allocation.)
A Daemon Prince with bolt, flight, etc x 1 or 2
5 man plaguebearers x2 or 3
5 man pink horror with changeling -Sometimes
Seekers x 10 - 14  or  Fiends x 5 -8

When you put a list like this into a genius level's hands, most people get rolled fairly easily.  That being said, in a league we are running I have the benefit of tailoring my army to play his.  As I was re-reading my codex, I was trying to see what we have that can combat the awesome sauce of the Chaos Daemon list above. 

I would like to open this up for discussion. My thoughts are this: 

Bloodcrusher-3+2++- The only thing that can stand up to this guy is the Nemesis Dreadnight or Lord Draigo.  The psychic power that can make things easier to deal with is dark excommunication, which would remove his 2+ invol save.  Even though I normally wouldn't play a dreadnight, I will probably get one because I love the model and if Dark Excommunication goes off, it could be closer to an even fight.

Regular terminators won't do it against him because they need 5's to hit and 5 or 6 to wound.  And unless you can remove the 2+ invol that is re-rollable with fateweaver near by, he will never die!

That also brings me to the idea of banishers.  Even though they only have a 6" range, putting a unit of them in a storm raven or chimera puts a larger footprint on the board. 

Fateweaver-3++ re-rollable -The best thing to fight him is obviously the banisher and lots of storm bolter fire.  I expect I will need at least 3 banishers so that makes me take Coteaz. 

Bloodcrushers-3+ 5++-The heart and soul of the souless army.... Nearly impossible to kill with small arms fire near fateweaver, and deadly in close combat and especially on the charge.  Sanctuary and halberds can help with these guys. If you don''t have a banisher in range, they are very hard to kill even with Init 6 str 5 power weapons.  Which leads me to using either paladins or draigo. 

I normally play a librarian because he is the best thing in the codex, but I feel to play anti-daemon, I might have to drop him for Draigo and Coteaz.

Daemon Prince-3+4++-With a great close combat ability and vehicle popping ap1 shot, he can be hard to deal with as well. He is a little easier to deal with than the bloodthirster since he is not weapons skill 10 and as strong or tough.

Fiends or Seekers- These guys are super fast and can be killed fairly easy with high rates of fire or flame templates.  That being said if they get to you, well that unit is probably going to die. 


He is known as the "dodger3"
In conclusion,

Dark Excommunication combined with banishers and I6 halberds seem to be the best three pronged approach to hurting the fatecrusher build. 

What are your thoughts?

37 comments:

  1. Shoot the bejeezus out of it? Dark Excommunication to get rid of chaos gifts (nifty side note, Hellblades count as daemonic gifts), and shoot the things! You have enough firepower to seriously hurt Fateweaver - lots of S5 firepower should shoot him off the board even with his 3++ rerollable. GKSS with Warpquake makes sure he doesn't drop anywhere near you, so you should be able to get at least two turns of firepower before they get close.

    Seriously, this is a list where I wouldn't worry about close combat. Just shoot him and mop up remnants if you have to. Alternately, even the BT hurts if you use Dark Excom. and rad+psykotrope grenades, and again with Warpquake you should get the charge.

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  2. As much shit with Warp Quake as possible. Spread out on the table with units in Land Raiders and watch him miss-hap everywhere on the table except in the small corner you afford him. Then shoot the crap out of him before your Interceptors etc get to him.

    Seems pretty easy to me.

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  3. I'll save you the trouble:

    It's impossible to lose to Daemons with a tailored GK list.

    Unless I go buy sixty Flesh Hounds.

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  4. Yeah Warp quake is so disgusting against them. The other thing to consider with fatecrusher is it's fairly immobile, at least the deathstar bloodcrusher part. If you can get fateweaver to pull away from the bloodcrushers to support his fast seekers then you can plink off the Bloodcrushers much more easily.

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  5. I think you're better than tailoring.

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  6. Really?

    Are you really scratching your head trying to figure out how to beat Demons with Knights? If they are REALLY bothering you that much run a squad of 10 interceptors.

    9/10 demon players will go second against most armies. When they see interceptors They will want to go first. Anytime you can force your oponent to change their game plan is great imho.

    For arguements sake I'll defend my 10 interceptors idea. Are they expensive, ummmm yes, duh why wouldn't they be? Run 10 interceptors with incinerators. Why? well lets go over the obvious things they do against demons then I'll justify why it's not simply "list tailoring" and can be used against other armies.

    Against demons you depoly the interceptors on your 12 inch mark in a line with roughly 1 1/3 inches between each model. Jump them turn 1 30 inches forward. Quake. Repeat quake often while running the rest of your army forward surrounding the rest of the board and quaking. If Fateweaver mishapps and you get to place him put him where you want him shoot him go on about your day. Questions?

    What about regular armies, ummm combat squad them in objective games, duh. Why? well turn 5 you jump 30 inches onto two objectives hit the squads holding them with an incenerator and stormbolters each. If nothing else you are contesting the objective. Forcing the enemy off makes things even better.

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  7. QFT
    "I'll save you the trouble:

    It's impossible to lose to Daemons with a tailored GK list.

    Unless I go buy sixty Flesh Hounds."

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  8. "Unless I go buy sixty Flesh Hounds."

    it isn't like you're spending all your winnings on paint...

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  9. To reiterate...

    You're, according to yourself, already beating the best Deamon player on the continent.

    And now you want to tailor your list to be better against him.

    ... right...

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  10. OK. I'll educate the masses. We have a campaign going on at our LGS which allows you to play a different army list each game. So all the sarcasm about tailoring is moot. Spags, I think you've been doing fine. Don't over analyze it.

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  11. The league we play in is a league where the top player must defend his position against challenges from other armies successfully 7 times to retire his army. As it is nearly impossible to stay on top for the required 7 challenges from the next 2 players who can take your spot, some list tailoring is expected. Can you imagine having Dodger3 and Scottydont clawing at you to pull you off the top of the mountain. I barely got on top this past weekend and know I will be pulled down screaming from Scottydont or Dodger3 any day now. So yes we play this league for fun and tailor for each other from time to time. Relax a little!


    This is also an article that shows the strength of the daemon codex even in the face of grey knights.

    Winning by luck is not the same as winning because of tactical prowess and superior decision making. ;)

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  12. Lol I butchered a khorne horde at 1850 without losing an ork, and you're having trouble as GREY KNIGHTS? Doh...

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  13. Wow Da Warboss,

    You must be an awesome player to not loose an ork at 1850 against a khorne horde without loosing 1 ork......

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  14. lol nothing to it...battlewagons full of shoota boyz and tankbustas rolling 7" with red paint so he needed 6's in melee. The wave of two bloodletter units that came in first got shot to shit in short order, leaving skull taker on his own. Uraka the warfiend (Forgeworld guy)fell to tankbustas. The one time I put anyone outside the wagons was when my nobz charged the only non-khorne unit, some horrors with the scribe. His blood crushers arrived late and got 4 deffrollas followed by shooting and rokkits. The only guy he had left by end of round 4 was skulltaker who ran and hid...Khorne will have a few things to say about that. I'm sure...

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  15. No offense to whoever you played, but that's a joke list.

    Skulltaker makes it a joke list. The Blue Scribes makes it a joke list.

    Uraka the Warfiend, which most people won't even be familiar with, DEFINITELY makes it a joke list. They haven't put out a worse Imperial Armour unit for us than Uraka.

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  16. I suppose if you're really concerned, you want Warp Quake squads, Libbys with Dark Excommunication, Sanctuary. (actually, Coteaz would do nicely as a substitute, and allow banishers)
    termies with Psilencers for wounding daemons

    I suppose you could put psilencers on your Strike squads as well.

    Maybe Purifiers with more psilencers.

    You've already got the I1 grenades, Preferred enemy, Demonbane...

    Purifiers with falchions might be pretty mean to use...

    I'd be less worried about daemons as I'd be about someone who brought some GK StormRavens and WH inquisitors with unlimited hoods and Hammer of the Witches.
    all those perils checks are going to add up and hurt.

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  17. actually, Ven Dreads with truesilver armor and DreadKnights with gatling psilencers are mean as well.

    Take your strike squads 10 strong and put 'em in Truesilver rhinos. So even when he gets to you, it hurts to get you out of the metal boxes.

    heck, put truesilver on your Storm Raven while you're at it.

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  18. Oh, there's NO doubt the list could be way better.Even so, if orks can handle this melee-heavy list with ease, and grey knights are so much better vs daemons than orks....

    A few soul grinders would have made a big diff. Or that ghey Fateweaver heeheh

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  19. I ran against this list at Kokomo a few weeks ago, and to be honest it's a pretty solid list. I ran a fairly cheesed list (well as cheesed as chaos space marines can get anyways lol) ran the Lashdicator, and honestly, I didn't answer fateweaver well at all. The key to beating this army has already been mentioned, shooting it to death, as soon as my noise marines got blasted out of my rhino I finally put enough wounds on it to kill it. That is the best/only real way to answer that list. Or you can let his list take care of itself by rolling the wrong half on at the beginning.

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  20. By killing it, I meant Fateweaver, and that was about it lol

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  21. @Da Warboss,

    No offense, but you have no idea what you are talking about.

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  22. I'll second that. We're not talking about the same thing at all.

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  23. Actually, I think I remember Dodger3 saying an ork horde was kind of tough.

    Orks kill the demons through shear brute force of weight of attacks, and numbers of wounds. More attacks thrown = more invuls failed, even with re-rolls.

    Throw lootas at Fateweaver (or whatever big baddie Demons brought) and WAAGH! the large boyz squads into things.

    or charge them with Kans.

    The biggest advantage Daemons have vs. GK's is invul saves.

    That which chops up most armies is just another attack vs. daemons.
    I believe Daemons fear weight of attacks more than power weapons.

    everyone else fears power weapons.

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  24. @farmpunk,

    By his account he shot a daemon army down, and only assaulted 1 unit. That has nothing to do with weight of attacks and a horde army. Battlewagons, shoota boys, skorchas, and tankbustas aren't horde either.

    Just saying!


    And they are orks!!!!! Orks can barely shoot down tyranids.

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  25. Jesus Christ. So I'm making this shit up? If you beleive ork shooting sucks, you're off your nut, Spag. Orks are the PERFECT foil to daemons. Lootas and tankbustas (the latter who do not have to shoot vehicles unless you brough a soul grinder)will OWN your princes/bloodthirsters (AP 3, so much for Iron Hide).

    Most of your crap will need 6's to hit a wagon in assault, I can deff roll your grinder in short order and its spiddle/vomit/whatever I can ignore @ least 50% of the time with kustom Force Field. The only ace a daemon player will ahve vs orks have is fateweaver and crushers or, of all things, tzeench screemers (who I will happily sit at 18" away and gun them down with massed 40 shots assault 2 shoota/bigshoota fire before they get close enough to bite). Yeah, orks hit 1/3rd the time, but thats still 14 hits, more than enough to turn them into ray-burgers. And that's from one squad of shootas.

    Daemons will own me in melee? Maybe if the bloodletters can get close enough. I'll laugh at the plague bearers with my 4 attacks on the charge str 9 powerklaw. If I'm running a 'ard boyz mob, the plague beares won't last more than two rounds.

    Be the daring daemon guy who thinks he needs to take a few hits and will still get in close so his second wave will be able to approach unmolested. Won't happen. And if I run a kan mob with 9 kans using grotzookas, you can watch in joy as 18 STR 6 small blasts devestate your ranks or crushers.

    Don't fekking tell me I don't know my orky buisiness.

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  26. hrm. da Warboss beat me to the rebuttal.

    anyhow. Ork shooting can still be a weight of attacks equation. Even decent rolls from a shoota boys squad can land a lot of hits.

    Shoota and skorchas in battlewagons are a shoot horde. they can throw a lot of shots, and whittle things down. couple that with deffrollas, and you've thrown a lot of attacks at the daemons.

    khorne dies that way.

    but I obviously don't know what the frack I'm talking about, and probably noone else does either.

    I forgot the intarwebz declared orkz horribad. They also declared daemons shiat. Which is what you were needing desperate help beating for a third time in a row with daemonhunters.

    just saying!

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  27. Just saying! Really?

    Warboss,

    Your post said:
    "Lol I butchered a khorne horde at 1850 without losing an ork, and you're having trouble as GREY KNIGHTS? Doh..." (Jab)

    You then posted:
    "lol nothing to it...battlewagons full of shoota boyz and tankbustas rolling 7" with red paint so he needed 6's in melee. The wave of two bloodletter units that came in first got shot to shit in short order, leaving skull taker on his own. Uraka the warfiend (Forgeworld guy)fell to tankbustas."

    Now where does this say you have lootas? You would think that if it was "nothing to it" you would mention that portion of your explanation. A bloodthirster only needs 1 6 to wreck your open topped battle wagon, and you don't get a cover save against template weapons, but I am getting off the subject. You are the one making boasts how you can eliminate a 1850 point Chaos Daemon army without loosing a single ork model! (Not me!)

    Orks are good against Daemons yes. But not that good! And a 4+ cover save doesn't work everytime. But I am glad you can take out a 1850 point Khorne army without loosing a SINGLE MODEL! I am obviously not at your level in terms of playing ability. :)

    Maybe you should come down and school me on how to be as successful as you are. In fact, I would pay to see you trounce dodger3.

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  28. I read the whole thing, but the only thing that stuck was that he's afraid of Screamers.

    What?

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  29. they're about the only melta in a daemon srmy.

    As for not losing a model, I explained it already.It happened as i described it. I'm thinking Spaug is used to facing nothing but green horde. Do I think losing no models will happen every time? Of course not. Still, I'd face a daemon horde with 50% more points than my force more readily that facing Thunderwolf/longface spam.... Orks don't have access to Grey Knights weapons that can ignore Invuls, so i don't see how they can be giving his knights such a hard time, since Grey knights are more about shooting than they are about their formidable assaulting, and daemon armies HATE shooter heavy armys...he really MUST suck

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  30. There aren't any Grey Knight weapons that ignore Invulnerable saves anymore.

    And you seem to be making the (incredibly common) mistake of assuming that just because you've only played awful Daemon armies, that there only ARE awful Daemon armies.

    People like you are exactly who I love drawing at tournaments. Turn 3, you think you're well on your way to beating some more LOLBAD DAEMONS and Turn 5 you're wondering why the hell none of your Orks are on the table anymore.

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  31. @ Warboss

    GK's don't have shooting that ignores invuls anymore.
    The new book did change some things. I think that now GK's have more and better tools to deal with daemons. they have to do it differently.

    that being said, It sounds like you ran into a fluffy build, that was not really optimized for 'competitive-ish' play. But, it is what it is.

    the first few Daemon armies I played were fairly poor. I tabled a Nurgle themed, and a bloodletter themed force. I thought they weren't too bad.
    That #$%@(& Fateweaver is a bit different though. So are Tznench (or however it's spelled) daemons.

    I don't doubt you tabled a Khorne list. You should be more afraid of a shooty daemon list, coupled with some tough armor save models that re-roll their saves.


    @Spag
    I read that. Stop being a jerk. Warboss' experience is possible. It's a different experience withdaemons, and it's a statistical outlier, but so are TWC making 10 3++ saves in a row against meltas.
    We're here to discuss and educate. Belittling and dismissing someone does neither.

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  32. @Scotty

    I'm heavily moderating this. I'll re-iterate what I told Spag...

    Don't be a Dick.

    Yes Warboss, that goes for you too.

    There are misconceptions abound. Discuss.

    If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

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  33. Seconded.

    Constructive arguments are fine and encouraged. We love those. Argue away. But name calling and dick waving are out of line.

    This isn't YTTH or BoLS. Stay civilized.

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  34. hey wait, why are you MrG now?

    I used to be called the G-man.

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  35. That was my moniker back in Louisville when I taught college. Google must have consolidated an old identity into my profile. Stupid Google.

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  36. Ok. Ok. Sorry. But those of us who have played with or against orks/daemons knows better. At a recent tournament I was paired against someone playing the same codex as me=codex space marines. We both have similar lists but he has a LRC and a vindicator. Story short I tabled him and only lost 2 units. Now is that to say the army sucks. No. Well then the player sucks right? No. He made some mistakes and had 1 horrible unit in his list(legion of the damned). The point is that this is the first mention I've made of that game. Period.

    But back to the original post...Dodger plays his army as well as anyone. Almost never makes mistakes.

    Any advice to you Spags would be to NOT assault the Bloodthirster..EVER.

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