Grand Master-Analysis

Looks like I'm in the mood to talk about units in the Grey Knight codex and my opinion on them.  So today I will talk about the most vexing unit in the 'dex.

The Mighty Grey Knight Grand Master.

Once upon a time he was a must for a GK army.  Now he's an expensive optional "if you need him" sort of guy.  This is what bothers me the most.  He damn expensive.  If you take a base model Gm its only 175 points. Which is expensive for a non-named HQ.

What you get is a very powerful stat line:
-6's in WS/BS
-3 wounds in termie armor and an Iron Halo.  Meaning a 2+/4+ save.

And some okay gear.  This by itself isn't anything to sneeze at.  With his special rule and psyker abilities he can be a great keystone unit to build an army around. Grand Strategy is a very versatile and useful power that can really vary how an army functions.  Depending on the scenario and your roll you can add special rules to units.  From 1-3 units can be given 1 rule each.  Need more killy?  Reroll 1s to wound.  Playing a CC army? Add in some counter attack USR.  Want a forward position?  Scout those Paladins.  And lastly (probably the most focused on use); do you need more scoring units?  The GM has you covered.

I personally have had success using the Scout USR to outflank with a set of Paladins.  Combining it with Psychic Communion you can better control when a reserve unit comes in to cause destruction.  Fun stuff.

Now lets look at the options-

• Melee Weapons first- Base load is a sword but I prefer the halberd to the sword (but that's for another post).  Giving him a staff is 35 pts which is too many even fr the 2+ I save in CC.
• Ranged Weapons- Storm Bolter for free, Incinerator for 5.  Not bad, but with a psycannon for an expensive 45 points he is utterly devastating.  BS of 6 gives a reroll, and the 5 points to Master Craft makes him nearly unable to miss.  It happens but it is hard to accomplish.  
• Grenades....all of them available.  Rad grenades please, blind grenades too if you have the points.  Brain mines and  psyko-stroke or melta bombs are all low on the cost/benefit list.  
• Servo-skulls?  yes please!  Easier deepstrike placement and keep the bad guys' infitrators further away during deployment...exellent.
• Orbital Relay?  This depends on your build strategy...if you buy this then there are no other upgrades needed as you will be parked the whole game.  If you want this I suggest looking at a tech marine in a bolstered ruin, or Karamozov.  This isn't my style but I may try it in a for fun game in the future.  The possibility of cooking multiple LeMann Russes with a Lance blast is awesome.
• Master Crafting or a level 2 upgrade can be useful.

Obviously this guy isn't for those "Army on a Budget" games.  As my preferred load out of  Psycannon, 2 skulls and Rad Grenades is 250 points.  Without Eternal Warrior a stray Lascannon can wipe him off the map, so always stick him into some protective wrap.  I prefer to run him with a termie or paladin squad with attached banner.  This gives him 5 attacks on the charge, with stacked Hammerhand for STR 6 power/force weapon on Init 6 he is a force of power.  Or just marching forward as an additional psycannon in the squad, he makes a great deterrent to keep the enemy from charging you.


Sadly at his cost level, he rarely sees action below 2k points.  

Incinerators!

Burn the heretics!

Incinerator Termies

Incinerators are the extra special flamer of the Inquisitorial sects of the Empire.  The new GK codex has them as Str 6 AP4 Template Assault Weapons.  We all know that template weapons ignore cover.  The old Daemonhunters Codex had the Incinerator as a Str 5 but ignored Invul saves also.  Which was great for Eldar psyker hunting, I was on the receiving end of that stick a few times.

Metal Incinerator with attempts at designating as a Purifier

Interceptor with Incinerator

These days though the "wounds nearly anything on 2+", "penetrates soft vehicles" qualities of STR 6 make this weapon just as fun. 

There are a few fun tactics that the unique capabilities of Grey Knights (interceptors in particular) makes for some excellent tactics not available to other armies.

I hope everyone knows about basic template/flamer placement tactics.  Things like using your own figures to alter the required placement to one side or the other to hit more than one target unit, tank shocking infantry to line them up for roasting.   These are not the tactics I am talking about.  

What I am talking about is using the Interceptor's shunt movement to gain prime broiling position from 30" away.   Being able to threaten any blob of troops from half way across the board can really alter how a game plays.  I have used the interceptors with a pair of them combat squadded out to be in a single set of 5 with the other 5 having a hammer or 2.  Using them this way you can spread the love out over a large area. 

Timing things correctly you may be able to-
1.  Open a transport, collecting the juicy bits inside in a small area
2.  Jump over on the following turn, while they huddle in the wreckage (pinned or using it as cover) and flambe them!
3.  Rinse and repeat.

The Dreadknigit's heavy incinerator has an even larger threat range with the 12-30" move plus up to 12" distance you can place the small end.  Which can be fun for shooting around corners at troops lined up on a wall for cover/concealment.  Sadly I have no pic of a Dreadknight as I have not had the coinage to rub together to get one.

Another trick I have used is in combination with a Libby with Teleport Homer and Summoning psychic power.  Call the incinerator armed troops to you from across the board and let the fun begin.  I find that summoning a Land Raider full of paladins kitted for assault with a pair of incinerators will wreck an opponents day.  I have to try this with a redeemer some day.

Anyways....its an extra strong flamer.  But can Vanilla marines really use it from 30" away?

Value of a unique weapon- the psycannon

The psycannon:  What is the value of this excellent weapon?

24" range Str 7 AP 4 Rending Assault 2/Heavy 4.  Basically a midfield can-opening super tool.

My old school metal PAGK with Psycannon

 

But the ultimate question is how many points is it worth?

The humble generic Grey Knight Strike Squad pays 10 pts for one, so do Purifiers and Interceptors.  Purgation squads pay double that at 20 pts each, but can take 4 in a squad 5 or more, while GKSS and Interceptors get 1 per 5 and Purifiers 2 per 5.  Normally you want to keep troops moving so you will be getting 2 shots per turn per psycannon. 

Now terminator armored folks get the relentless USR so end up doubling the rate of fire.  But do they pay for double the price?  Normal GK termies pay 25 per at 1 per 5 and Paladins pay 20 at 2 per 5.  Averaged out that is more than double.

Grand Master Greyen

 
So lets look at HQs-
Grand Masters pay a whopping 45 points!!  But maybe that's due to the BS of 6?  Nearly guaranteeing hits, especially if you Master-craft it.
Brother Captains (BS5) pay nearly as much, 40 points.
Ordo Malleus in Terminator Armor can get one for 15 points.

In the end is a psycannon worth the points?  Yes.  Every time.  No question about it.  I may take incinerators on my interceptors (despite higher cost) but that's due to the tank shock & shunt/jump shenanigans that are really fun.  It is also really fun to get a penetrating hit on a Rhino or other soft transport's rear armor with a flame template.  I'm digressing.  Psycannon's true power is in its kill rate and wide variety of uses.  It is the true Swiss army knife weapon of the GK codex.  A special weapon that can open AV 14 while mobile and in the hands of normal troops is pure gold.   At a relative/average cost of 1 shot per 5 points of investment it pays for itself every time.

Do I wish the old rules still applied?  Sometimes.  The 18 inch range assault 3 or 36 inch heavy 3 was very useful.  What else changed?  Used to ignore invul saves (I do miss this with the incinerators too).  But it got a str bump and now rends which is a good trade.  If you were lucky you could glance AV 12 before, now you can reliably penetrate it.

Hard to do a flame job on the new ones.

New question...Why did they change the look of them?  They look better in the old metal models in my opinion.

Intermission

Nothing to report this week, we were on vacation.

Callidus Assassin - reciever of the New 'Dex Nerf Bat Award

This is GW's pic of their Callidus.  I can't paint this good.

So, once upon a time the Callidus Assassin's Polymorphine looked like...
"Polymorphine: The Callidus Assassin is always placed in reserve, even in missions which do not normally use the Reserves rule. When she becomes available, she may be placed anywhere on the battlefield, and can move and fight normally in the turn she arrives."

Now she just deepstrikes to within 3" of her target with no scatter.  This greatly removes one of her biggest advantages....assaulting on the turn she hit the board.  The trade for what is effectively a bombing run against a unit upon hitting the table is nice but is it really worth it?

I ask this as I have the model, which I painted to be Deadpool-esque.  I used to love using her to foul the other payer's deployment with the "a Word in Your Ear" rule and then general harassment until she got shot off the board a turn or two later.  Great to draw off a unit or two from the opponent and or strike hard at a hard unit for a a couple of guaranteed dead enemy heavies.  The C'Tan sword with no saves and a high init often would be good for a clean kill on a HQ in base to base.  I have used her to great effect against many named characters, draining that 200pt HQ down a few notches and maybe even killing him.

But these days, she is at best a speed bump.  She drops in, splatters a few dudes with her grenade, hits them with the shredder (which is still awesome) and stands there to get swatted.  145 points for a one use model is too much.  It is possible to infiltrate and move her in on foot, shredding and then assaulting.  But this trades for the polymorphine bomb.

Is it really worth it?  I do not think so.

So I award her with a Nerf Bat.  Only to be used in games where I have no reason not to throw 145 points at the wind.

Battle Report - 3000pts GK vs. SM (dressed as Dark Angels) - part 2

At the top of this pic we see the building my termie blob is getting shot out of, the purifiers cadillac (with an extra marker for smoke).  in the bottom we see my GM and one of my dreads in a building they are using for cover at the opening of turn 2.  The right edge of the pic is effectively the right board edge.


2nd half of Turn 2-
Thrawn gets up, but fails at doing much else.  He ends up just hanging out in the building for the rest of the game as I forget about him in turn 3 and Turn 4 he's too far away to do anything.  My Deadpool themed Callidus and her nerf bat come in on the left to harass and slow down that side.  She drops the polymorphine and neural disruptor on a tact squad killing about half.  Then due to the new codex....sits there to die.  My Raider moves forward and drops off the paladins, but is otherwise largely ineffective.  The paladins get out in the center of the table and flame the building 2 of his tactical squads are holed up in, then assault into it, wiping one squad and consolidating into cover.  Termies move forward without any motivation due to difficult terrain and buildings.

Turn 3 - We have his 2 termie blobs moving forward firing on my paladins to little effect, wound allocation shennigans with FNP really make these guys survivable.  His disarmed ven dread moves to meet his Master of the Forge for some fixing (which doesn't end up working anyways).  His LR backs up and eradicates my Assassin and fires melta ineffectually at my Raider.    His tact squad and command group fire into my termies but Shrouding and cover save the day there.

Here we see his 2 termie blobs about to assault my paladins.  His las cannon squad in its vantage point.  Before the assault I had lost no paladins.

After the assault I lost 1 paladin and he lost 2 termies and failed leadership on both sets of termies...funny stuff there....20 vs. 6 and 6 win by sheer luck of leadership rolls.  I think he rolled 11 both times for them.

Here is the left side - My assassin about to be eaten by massed bolter fire.  From the LR and the tactical squad.  He meltas my LR wrecking it.

My turn 3 is fun.  Both of my GKSS squads come in one on the left and one on the right, both hit on target and end up being simple speed bumps.  The Libby and termie advance out of the building to get into it with his command and tact squad on the right top.  Paladins move to get into it with his las cannon squad.  Purifiers get out of their metal box to mix it up with his termie blob to the top center.

Deepstriking 10 GKSS isn't the best plan, should have known better but oh well they did fine.

Shooting goes well for most.  Purifiers end up being unable to do much to the termies.  GKSS whittle away at their respective targets.  Paladins flame and assault the las cannon squad reducing them to 3 remaining but are unable to route them (unlike the termies earlier - ironic).  Dreads and GM whittle his termies in the center and finish off his ven dread.

Turn 4 - the final turn
We almost don't even start this turn due to time but the shop was staying open late.  Its nice to have a good LGS now.  To the right you see his termies and tact squad remainders on the left.    The termies and tact squad will wipe away this GKSS set in a moment.

Just like they do on the other side.  But on the right side they have help from the command squad also.  On this side the funny part is that a single halberdier remains after shooting and he assaults him with his Master of the Forge, only the MoF though.  The lone halberdier kills the MoF on I6 with the power weapon then force weapon activates for the final wound.

Here you see the pain aimed at this last GKSS Blob.
Which wipes them.

In the assault on this side the paladins finish off his las cannon squad.













Sadly that is the last picture.  It is a near forlorn hope that has a little bit of silver lining as I have little left with which to challenge his termie blobs.  But! and it is a big butt, which I cannot deny (ha!). I do have a few tricks left.

Final segment of the game has a few moves left for me.  The GM and Dreads advance some for LoS and shooting.  Libby advances on his command squad and my paladins move out of the building to his larger/closer termie blob on the left.  Shooting see the incineration of his termies, softening them and the use of Warp Rift on his command squad.  Mighty Mighty warp rift and crap rolling on Stu's part.  All that remains of his command squad after shooting and the warp rift is a lone banner carrier, who passes leadership and recieves an assault.  The dreads and GM shoot up his termies on the center and do little.  Paladins multi-assault the termie blob and the hammer jumps on his Crusader.  His termies lose 2 and the LRC explodes gloriously.  Libby assaults and smashes the banner carrier.


He cedes the game as I have more kill points left and the bulk of his forces are at less than half.

All in all fun game.    Analysis later.

Battle Report - 3000pts GK vs. SM (dressed as Dark Angels) - part 1

Yesterday was a fun day.  First came a large game (talked about here) and then part 2 will be in the next post.

So my buddy Stu and I met up at the new LGS (new to me at least) which has a much better vibe and overall better general game store goodness.

Here's the problem, I forgot to bring batteries for my camera and also when I went to take pictures it was already into the first turn.  Cest la vie!  Out comes the phone and snaps happen.  Anyways, onto the lists.

I'm running nearly every model I own.  Which breaks down into the following...

GM w/psycannon & halb
Libby w/ Hammer (Shrouding, Sanctuary, MoT)
2x 10xGKSS w/ 2 psycannon, 7 halb
10x  termies w/ banner, 2 psycannon, halbs, & Thrawn
Calidus Assassin (more on her and her nerf bat later)
5x Purifiers w/ 2 incinerators in rhino
6x paladins with 3 halb, 3 swords, 2 incinerators, apothecary, and MC variety for wound allocation shennanigans
Land Raider (standard pattern) w/ multimelta and HK missile
2x Riflemen Dreads w/ psybolts
5x interceptor with hammer, incinerator

Stu is running and experimental Vanilla Marine set dressed as Dark Angels (he's in process of converting lots of ebay goodies to be dark angels)

Command Squad with chapter master, and retinue
Master of the Forge
4 10x tactical squads 2 with plasma cannons, 1 las gun, 1 heavy bolter, all with plasma pistols and melta
2 10x termie squads w/ 2 assault cannons each
Ven Dread with Assault cannon DCCW
Land Raider Crusader
2 Dreads with TL Las and DCCW

We set up on a standard 4x6 with 4 large 10-12"x14-18" busted buildings (one in each quadrant) and some other smaller bits of terrain.  Nice destroyed urban foot slog.  Sadly my pic of the terrain is jacked due to dead camera batteries.  But you can see the bits in the later pics.

Anyways we roll for mish and get spearhead:annihilation.  Works for both of us and he gets first turn.

He sets up with the las squad and heavy bolter in his building with a tactical squad and termie squad flanking it.  The command squad and LR go behind to the left and right respe3ctively.  The three dreads go up front on the front face of the building.

My deployment... reserve the 2 GKSS for deepstrike in later with GM assist. With no objectives and just kill points up, no worries about expending them for something more meaningful (bad plan but it works out in the end, you will see how later).  My GM goes up atirs in a window in my building for psycannon harassment of those dreads and whatever else wanders into mid field.  Dreads go into the pack corners away from him to save them from being shot at.  LR gets set up on the forward line with the paladins in it, l n the same side as his LR.  Termies w/ libby attached get Scout from GM an infil up into the building near his side.  Rhino w/ purifiers gets parked behind the building for cover.  Interceptors go in the building ready to jump out for first turn fun.

Turn 1... he moves forward and proceeds to shoot the crap out of my termies  and LR.  LR looses a las cannon sponson and is shaken.  Termies, despite 4+ cover and 2+/5+   lose 5 basic halberdiers (lame!), and of course Thrawn but are other wise okay.  Then its my turn...LR moves up to block his LR advance and bottle neck his mass of bodies for easier duck shooting.  Dreads advance to the corners of the building for cover saves and the Rhino shoots north pooping out smoke as she goes.  Shooting has the GM wrecking a Dread, another is exploded by a rifleman, and the Ven dread gets disarmed despite rerolls by my other dread (love the rifleman dreads as fire support!).   My termies move forward gettting the psycannons up to a shooting point and realatively do squat, Thrawn dissappoints by laying down on the job.

Here we see the Ven dread (old metal red one) center stage.  Sorry about the blur, I'm bad at photo snapping.  My LR in the bottom left and the corner of his on the left.












You can see my interceptors with their unlucky deepstrike scatter.   I tried to jump them into his building to lay the smack down on his clustered troops with the incinerator, but scattered 10" out directly into line of fire for his LR.  Speed bump here we come.





Turn 2 - He advances more, shooting a bunch at the LR and more death to the termies.  Speedbump wilts to Plasma and LR fire.  All that is left of the termie blob is the Libby a Psycannon wielder and a normal halberdier. 

---Hmm Real Life intrudes....more tomorrow--

3000 point game

So I have arranged for a big game this weekend.  Against a guy who I have played a few times.  He has Ork, IG and Deathwing armies all available to him.

Now the question to you all is what should I bring?  3k Eldar mixed list?  Pure GK fun?

What i am thinking is something like-

GK-
Grandmaster w/ psycannon & skulls (might try mordrak/draigo, or a orbital bombardment set-up instead)
Libby w/ hammer & 4 powers

10x blob of termies w thrawn and all fixing
2 5x blobs of GKSS

6 assault paladins inc apothecary w/ incinerators
2 10x purifiers

2 dual autcannon dreads w psybolts
land raider

interceptors as points allow
(I'd do a Storm raven if I had one  ...hehehe...  soon...)

Compared to the 10 tank hulls and 3 huge 'toons of IG that he fielded last time we did this, my army was small.   But I still won last time as he bottled himself on deployment, due to excessive bubble wrap.

 his Orks I have yet to face, but his Deathwing army was whittled down by fire and maneuver.  I was able to stay out of reach in that game due mostly to a large LOS blocking piece of terrain in the center that we orbited during the game.

Anyways look for pics nd battle report on Monday....probably.

Grim Death of an LGS

Hmmm... karma bites some days.

So the LGS I was griping about prior to this post is fixing their screw up...cool.  This makes me happy that the owner is doing the right thing.

BUT!  And its a huge one, he will be closing his doors very soon.  He cannot support the store with his customer base disappearing.  This is a common problem in my area as the largest population of people with semi-disposable income is military folk.  We military folk move around a bit and often wander off into the desert for periods of time longer than a month or twelve.  This can be really hard on local small businesses that rely on our money.  If we aren't there to spend they can't pay the rent.

So I am now heading toward a new LGS (new to me) that hosts a much better space and more solid community of gamers.  I know this as this as I have been there a few times (like a cheating lover).  One problem, its 45min to an hour away.  Which means that I will be reducing my game days to every other weekend for the most part.

So Karma from griping about a shop comes back to bite me.  Cest la vie.  I doubt any of my 4 regular visitor/readers are in the swamp with me but...meh.

Tournament List

Interesting Tournament on the horizon-


Here's the set-up, its call the Army of "One" Event.

1.  You need to fill a maximum and Minimum of One unit in each type of force org slot.  Meaning you have to have one and only one HQ, Troop, Elite, Heavy, and Fast Attack.  It breaks the rules a bit but makes you think a little more about what to take.

2.  You have 1111 points, yes, thats One thousand, one hundred eleven points to spend.

This makes things very interesting in the army building department.  I am intending to take Grey Knights but the idea of taking my Eldar did cross my mind.

My first build is something like this-

HQ- Librarian w/ MC hammer and 4 powers (Sanctuary, MoT, Warp Rift & Shrouding) - 180 pts

Troop - 10x termies - all halberds - 495pts
-banner
-2 psycannon
-hammer

Elite - 5x purifiers (2x psycannon, 2 halb, 1 hammer)  -140pts

Heavy - Dread w 2x TL Autocannon w/ psybolts & searchlight 136pts

FA - 5x Interceptor (2x halb, 1 psycannon)

Concept of the build is to combat squat the Temies into a firebase and an assault set.  Attach Libby to the Assault set and push them forward with purifiers screening and providing fire power.  Dread and firing termies sit on an objective as necessary.  Interceptors move to distract and or contest.

List idea #2
HQ - Grand Master w/ Halb, Psycannon, Rad grenades

Troops - 10 PAGK w 7 halb, 2 psycannon, Rhino w/ searchlight (gotta do something w/ that last point)

Elite-  10x Purifiers 4 psycannon, 5 halb

FA - 5x Interceptor (2x halb, 1 incinerator)

Heavy - Dread w 2x TL Autocannon w/ psybolts 135pts

Grand Strategy to make thing scoring or otherwise depending on mission objectives.  This list puts 5 more bodies on the table but at the cost of 2+/5+ to 3+/-.  It also adds 2 more psycannons and an incinerator for fun.

What to do....maybe a paladin build?

Pics of my GK

Alright I finally broke out the old camera and attempted to take some pics of my nearly completely painted GK army.

Hopefully the images worked out well enough.

No worries, I will still envy most of you all and your mighty brush skillz that I am missing.

Rhino and some interceptors

Land Raider 

How to fix a failed campaign...

So here's the scenario (one I am currently stuck in)...

The club/shop has planned a long term campaign with prize support for the winner.  Entry fees are paid and rules etc have been published to the participants.   But....and it is a whopper of a but...the organizer drops off the face of the earth in week 4 of a possibly 10 week long campaign.  No one else was keeping score, no one has access to the last 4 weeks of scoring.

    So the shop owner picks up the slack and tries to reset/restart the campaign.  Problem- he doesn't know the old scores and doesn't know how to keep score for 40k any ways.  Can't tell the difference between Kill Points and Victory Points. 

The question here is...is the campaign savable?

The answer on many of our lips is No.

How do we recoup our entry fee and possibly get some prizes too?   We hold a closed tournament.  Closed as all of the participants already have paid and are all chomping at the bit because of the whopping $35 entry fee.  That's nearly $500 worth of possible prize support, not including the store's included prize support.

With a small shop, only able to put up a maximum of 5 (maybe 6 tables) and some of the players in the campaign only able to field 1500 points this becomes another problem.  I can field 3500 points worth of GK, do I want to field that many in a tournament? No but 2K is nice to play for me, I like how the army works at 2k. 

How do we make it fair and even for everyone? 

We have 14 players, ages and experience vary widely.  From late middle age to a 12 year old, from long time players to guys who own little more than 1400 points of 2 battle forces and some small stuff who is still learning what the lingo is. 

Tournament is the only answer, but punishing those with small model counts is bad form.  Do we make it a speed tournament (1250pts with a 1.5 hour time limit)?  Or do we make it a 2k/1500 tournament, everyone brings a list for 2k but keeps a 1500 list for back up to play the low model count new guys?  But then how about scoring?  Keep the Massacre/Major Victory/Minor Victory/Draw/Loss scoring set?  Possible bonus points for secondary objectives?  I dunno.

These are the things that plague me today.