5 replies to this topic

[killersquid]

So, I just finished painting a few more terminators for my Grey Knights, and I now have an eagerness to send them to battle. I Built the army around a Grand Master and Stern (two force weapons) and their Retinues. I felt that two six man terminator squads would be a good size. The rest of the points are spent on Troops and a landraider. The Raider, I felt would be a good way to keep my troops safe, and Can help with tank busting as well. I was thinking of two Dreads, but I like the mobility the Land Raider can give me, plus it's added mobility. I made sure both termiantor squads had access to hammerhand, as well as Holocaust. To deal with armour, and hordes.

I can see the army mostly going on foot, but agaisnt more static foes the Terminators will deep strike, and pray for the best.

Another good thing, is that there is not a whole lot of kill points in the army, at least thats something.

Any sort of advice? Either on how to use the army, or ways on playing with the organization? I could split the terminators into three squads, (adding a thirteenth terminator to the elites squad) for added versatility. But I am unsure about that. Plus, it'll suck away some (A lot of) points.

Grand Master-180
-Hammerhand
-Psychic Hood
-Sacred Incense
-Retinue
X5 Terminators-250
-Holocaust Power

Brother Captain Stern-141
Retinue
-X5 terminators-255
-X1 Psycannon

Troops (410

Grey Knight Squad-205
X6 Grey Knights
+Justicar w/Meltabomb

Grey Knights-205
x6
+Justicar W/Meltabombs

Heavy Support(255
Land Raider Crusader-255pts

[Vindicatus]

In my honest opinion, there are three possibilities.

1) Your plan works, and things get crunchy for your enemy.


2) Things go horribly wrong due to dice malevolence, the gods being angry at you, or you wore the wrong pair of shoes, so one if not both squads end up mis-happing themselves into oblivion, or worse, into disadvantageous ground to you, and the enemy gets to eat them for free.

3) You face down a foe that has 4x your number.

You literally don't have enough firepower to take on anything but an evenly matched force, because you're banking almost entirely on the fact that your terminators are going to make it to the enemy. As soon as those things show up on the table, everything within 18 inches is going to turn it's attention to it because your PAGK's aren't going to cause the sort of wounds that those terminators are going to inflict, IF they make it there.

Drop Stern - while he's pretty, there's no purpose to having him there with another squad of Terminators. If you want to put the hurt on, you're going to have to make it so your enemy REALLY has to think about what they want to shoot at, charge at, or even go remotely close to. I say that with the thought of 'If I can see them, they can see me. If I can shoot them, they can shoot me.' If you're really that dead-set on having Terminators, add in a psycannon or an incinerator or so; you get close, you hose them down (I'm a particular fan of the incinerator; no cover or invuln, what what?), you hit them in CQC, consolidate either into a concealed position, or get ready for the next assault next turn. Otherwise...you really need more bodies on the table.


Granted, this ~is~ only a 1500pt list. It could really go anywhere. Only way to know for sure is to try it out and see how it feels. If it feels clunky, or that you're getting punched up by heavy armour valued targets, you might want to consider some IST's rolling around with meltas in a rhino, or if you're deadon for a pure GK list, a dreadnought or two with some L-Cannon/melta/plasma. I run 3xIST rhinos with meltas, and I tell you, nothing makes my opponent think twice more than figuring out if they want to try to take a popshot at my Grandmaster and risk doing nothing, or let that Rhino creep closer.

Edited by Vindicatus, 06 January 2011 - 04:27 PM.

[killersquid]

Right, so I tried out the list. Stuck with my plan of Terminators flanking the landraider, one squad of Knights inside, one behind. Two games against Blood Angels. One I won (by quite a lot). Things got very crunchy for my opponent, and also to be honest the dice loved me. The other game, I lost mainly as I had one squad of Grey Knights leave the Land raider, and then they got double charged and died. So, lesson is...Never leave the landraider.

Also had a third game against Daemons with three Khorne heralds on Juggernaughts (One skull taker), one Daemon prince, and the rest was squads of horrors. Mostly a curb stomp game where I annihilated my opponent and lost no units.

Mainly, as long as I stuck to the plan of keeping my units within range to support each other, I should be fine. My main problems came up, when I tried to split my army up, which hurt once things got committed. The Blood angels game I won, I did so because I used the terrain smartly, and I kept the army close enough to support each other, and keep the troops alive. Most of the time, I care not if the Terminators die (Within reason) as long as my troops live.

The army I lost against, was a Decent of Angels army. (Chappy, Librarian, Priest, Sanguinary Guard, Vanguard, Assault marine squads). The force I was successful against had armour and more of a fire base. No units in reserve. He had a Vindicator, which was forced to shoot the landraider due to using it's bulk as a wall. Eventually I got a side armour shot with my assault cannon, which immobilized it, then terminators and Grey Knights chewed it up.

I know I can expect to play against a Green Horde army with Gazghull, and I was hoping to get a game against that guy to see how things would go. Unfortunately, we did not have the chance. However, I am bringing the army to a Tournament on Saturday, so I'll see how I do.

I was rather expecting the army to perform horribly, for the exact reasons you mentioned. I am hopeful. For hight point games I'll drop in a couple of Dreads for fire support. So far the Anti-tank limitation has not been too much of an issue. However, I expect that to come up. Stern is important, because he's the only way I can get a Second Force Weapon wielding Grey Knight. I need the added 'umph he gives if I am running two squads. The added I5 attacks I've discovered are crucial. I would like to add in a second psycannon, but I cannot see how I can realistically do that. I could drop numbers on one of the Troops squads to pack more psycannon heat, but that makes them more venerable to attacks. Could help alleviate the issue to fire support though.

[Vindicatus]

I'm glad that it all worked out for you in the end. Like I said, you won't really know how it'll go with your particular idea until you give it a try. Grey Knights, it seems, have a similarity to the Skaven of old in WFB:

You either do amazing....
....or fail spectacularly.



Not a whole lot of in-between.

[killersquid]

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Your mileage will vary with Grey Knights for sure. At least they look Badass, winning and loosing. Thanks for the advise eh? I've been slowly collecting more models for the army, and I'll take your advice as ways I'll expand.

[Stormshadow]

I’ve had extreme success with a group of 8 terminators that include a Grand Master and Stern in 1750pts tournaments. A big deferens for me is that in Sweden we have FAQ’ed all war gear to be the same fore both old and new codex, so I have 4 SS in the squad, one on the GM and three on the Terminators. As I understand this would give you an extra attack on the GM but not 4 3++ saves as it dose for me. Even so, it would help you sins you will get 9 I5, 9 I4 and 9 I1 attacks on the assault, this will hopefully allow you to get passed the enemies storm shields at every initiative stage. 18 of which your opponents rely don’t want to place on a multi wound model . Stern is great in this group because of his re-roll. If I have a Teleport Homer on the table I use it for the reserve roll when the group deep strikes, if not I save it fore when they do come in so I can re roll the scatter (only one of the dice though).

I would recommend to always master craft the GM’s weapon, every S6 force weapon attack that hits is EXTREMELY important, and always give him Hammer Hand. I would also recommend you to use an Incinerator ore a Pcycannon rather than holocaust on the retinue as long as you have Stern in the mix, Perils of the Warp on 8 terminators is sooooo bad.

A squad like this will almost never die, and almost never come down to half strengthen. So its immense point cost is often more of a strengthen than a weakness. I could tell you of more then a dozen epic slaughters of enemy death stars or half of entire orc armies, but one of the most epic battles is actually one they lost. I was facing Blood angels and my terminators were charged by 10 Death Company with a Reclusiarch (with an obscene amount of power weapons and fists), a Capten, two times ten man squads of assault marines, a Furioso Dread with Blood Talons and a Librarian Dread. The Reclusiarch with one wound left and six assault marines were the only ones that walked, or should I say crawled, away from that one .

And after all that dravel comes the suggestion .

Grand Master-200
-Hammerhand
-Psychic Hood
-Master Crafter weapon.
-Sacred Incense
-Retinue
6 x Terminators-301 (with your own preference of Th/SS)
- Psycannon

Brother Captain Stern-141

Troops

Grey Knight Squad-240 (This squad rides in the LR)
6 x Grey Knights
2 x Incinerators. (I’m guessing you have two Incinerators left over if you bought the 5-man box)
+Justicar w/Meltabomb, master crafted weapon ( = more wounds then two charging veterans with Power Weapons)

Grey Knights-270
8 x Grey Knights
+Justicar W/Meltabombs, Master crafted Weapon

Heavy Support(255
Land Raider Crusader-255pts

This lives you at 1407 pts. From her you could ad extra terminators to your “super” HQ unit, or you could loos a PAGK ore two and ad a dread, preferable with plasma cannon.

Hope it helps!