Dealing with World Eaters

[Skywrath]

So I have a game with a World Eater player tommorow (who's a friend), and he's bringing in a Lord of Skulls. Not only that, he runs:

 

1. 3 x Rhinos,

2. 30 x Berserkers

3. 1 x Lord discordant,

4. 1 x Maulerfiend

5. 1 x Red Butchers (Terminators) 

 

And a black legion detachment with a sorcerer/Abbadon and something else to deal with. The BL detachment I can deal with, but I'm looking for a list that deals with all those elements succinctly. 

 

I speculate bringing 2 GMNDK's would be good, as well as a Land Raider Redeemer, maybe paladins, but other than that, I'm stumped. How would you deal with those elements (in a list-building sense)?

[Icosiel]

The Disco Lord, Lord of Skulls, and Maulerfiend should all be pretty easy to deal with. You're smiting them for 3-4 damage and rerolling wounds against them in melee. I've never faced Berserkers, personally, but from what I understand taking out their Rhinos and forcing them to foot-slog across the table hampers them significantly. Maybe a VenDread or two with the classic lascannon/missile launcher combo. If you have a squad of ten Terminators or Paladins and you pop Psybolt Ammunition on them they should be able to handle a squad of Berserkers pretty quickly. 40 heavy bolter shots will easily chew through 1 wound CSMs.

... Although you probably already played at this point. How'd it go?

[Skywrath]

No, unfortunately on the day, 1hr before the game I managed somehow to pull my shoulder, so the game was postphoned, and the date TBD. I did have a game a few days after with a Tyranid Player and a Necron Player, and effectively got tabled by turn 2. Damn tyranids and their anti-psyker shenanigans..

 

Onto the topic. I completely forgot that our smite does 3 flat wounds to demons, so that is definitely the way to go it seems. Perhaps more units such as interceptors would be appropriate, for more smites? 

Berserkers are.. nasty. I had a blob of 10 paladins engaging them in melee, with transhuman physiology and a 3+ invuln, lost 7 of them on the first round, 2 more on the second, and the last one failed morale. They are no joke either, with 2 rounds of attacks, ST 5 baseline and with Khârn and the other dude rerolling wounds. However, that is an interesting idea though, ven dreading the closest rhino, and GoI any close squads so they would be useless.. oh that would be glorious. Yeah, that game was my first after Nurgle's plague ended, so I completely forgot about that stratagem. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

Any more advice?

[Corvus Fortis]

I'd go for "fight after death" stratagem on paladins, if they are engaged by berserkers. At least, they will murder them in return. And, since both activations are separate, they will have less attacks too. Armored resilience is also very good, IIRC, they wound you on 3+ base with their axes, so you will conserve CP. As mentioned above, you need 4, I think, successful smites against maulerfiend and lord discordant to kill them, if you have tide of escalation on. LoS may look scary, but he's just a single model. If you kill everything else, you will simly win on objectives. In general, GKs are in advantage against elite armies, which want to get close to us.

[Skywrath]

Yeah, admittedly that game was my first one after a 6 month break, and even back then I was fairly new to the game, let alone Grey Knights (was playing DA at that time). I wonder whether I should change the apothecary from the inner fire sniping character machine, to an armoured resilience, reinforce paladins machine with that logic. Could be worth trying out. 

 

What would you consider an elite army out of curiosity? Anything that has a lot of elite slots, I presume?

[Corvus Fortis]

I like apothecary with IF for many reasons - he is very cheap, he always pays off his points, he applies pressure to your opponent. It drains you out of Precious CP pretty quickly, but otherwise he is great. He is the only thing I don't consider changing. I even think of bringing two apothecaries - one to IF-bomb and one to support paladins. 

 

What would you consider an elite army out of curiosity? Anything that has a lot of elite slots, I presume?

 

 

Any army with lower model count, 2+ wounds on most models, high saves. It is more about builds, than factions, because most of armies could be built that way. All kinds of marines and custodes, battlesuit-heavy tau, necrons, if they are not spamming warriors, etc.

[Icosiel]

Apothecary with Inner Fire is such a fun little thing to do in games. I've brought him in almost every game since Ritual of the Damned. As Corvus said, he always makes back his points (unless he is denied). If he survives, that's just a bonus.