Unit of the Week: Grand Master Voldus

[Skywrath]

Welcome to the Grey Knight unit of the Week, where we analyse the Grey Knights units strength's and weaknesses. The unit for this week is the the psychic powerhouse - Grand Master Voldus. Each week a different unit will appear, with the idea being that we discuss how best to use that model on the battlefield.

 

Questions:

 

1. General first thoughts and impressions of the unit?

 

2. How would you use said unit, to compliment a list, or to build a list around? 

 

3. What other units/strategems synergize with it to give it that extra shine?

 

4. Miscellaneous use/Tips and Tricks?

 

 

BONUS: Creative ways to use units that wouldn't be obvious at first. 

 

[Trollbeard]

Voldus is great! He’s an auto include based on his cast amounts imo. I frequently make him my warlord for knowing an extra dominus power for some added redundancy.

 

Other then that his re-roll aura is handy with Paladins and terminators to make use of the “Fury of the Proven”.

 

He usually starts on the board to give my army re rolls as he is usually the only source of it.

 

He’s a solid beat stick character and his demon hammer is really nice without the -1 to hit.

 

And he’s got an awesome model!

[corwindal5]

It is really hard not to take him just because he is such a swiss army knife. He is great in psychic phase because of knowing 3 powers, he is great in shooting because of his reroll 1s aura, he is great in assualt because of his reroll 1s and his hammer.

 

The negatives are if you rely on his powers too much for your army they you will probably need to take a Librarian with the Artisan Nullifier Matrix. So then you are really spending 265 pts for him.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[The Woodsman]

Funnily enough, he's not an auto include at all in my lists. He does bring a lot of psychic utility in a single model, plus a re-roll and good combat capacity, but to me the fact that he cannot take a relic kind of sets him aside. I find myself often freeing up 30 points and taking Draigo instead, for the better re-roll. I do tend to run a fair few characters however, there's always a Librarian in the mix (who usually takes Warp Shaping, Empyrean Domination and either the Shard or the Matrix) and a support character or two that will take the other Dominus powers I want (Edict and Ethereal Manipulation - Armored Resilience depends if I'm running a big Paladin unit tbh). 

 

That being said, when RotD came out, the first thing I did was get myself a Voldus model... I used to run GK really character-heavy, with a couple of GMDKs, sometimes both Draigo and Voldus... Since 9th edition points increases and detachment rules I do prefer to run cheaper, more utility-driven characters. Plus, since I don't thematically play my army as the 3rd Brotherhood, it kind of sits ill with me to have Voldus around all the time. 

 

Still, an awesome model that definitely has a spot in a lot of lists, its just a shame that he has no psychic buff, sure he's got lots of spells, but he's not actually any better at casting them. 

[Skywrath]

It is really hard not to take him just because he is such a swiss army knife. He is great in psychic phase because of knowing 3 powers, he is great in shooting because of his reroll 1s aura, he is great in assualt because of his reroll 1s and his hammer.

 

The negatives are if you rely on his powers too much for your army they you will probably need to take a Librarian with the Artisan Nullifier Matrix. So then you are really spending 265 pts for him.

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

Ironically, that exact same reason is why I don't take him. There is a librarian that can do the same thing, and giving him the LM WL trait is enough to put him on par with Voldus for what he does, on top of giving him a relic. That and he's about 30pts cheaper. I'd only run Voldus if I need the librarian to do other tricks such as being a supporting caster to Paladins with AA or perhaps some Vortex/Purge shenanigans. The other reason if I have the points to upgrade my BC, and I don't need the smite range increase. 

 

Funnily enough, he's not an auto include at all in my lists. He does bring a lot of psychic utility in a single model, plus a re-roll and good combat capacity, but to me the fact that he cannot take a relic kind of sets him aside. I find myself often freeing up 30 points and taking Draigo instead, for the better re-roll. I do tend to run a fair few characters however, there's always a Librarian in the mix (who usually takes Warp Shaping, Empyrean Domination and either the Shard or the Matrix) and a support character or two that will take the other Dominus powers I want (Edict and Ethereal Manipulation - Armored Resilience depends if I'm running a big Paladin unit tbh). 

 

That being said, when RotD came out, the first thing I did was get myself a Voldus model... I used to run GK really character-heavy, with a couple of GMDKs, sometimes both Draigo and Voldus... Since 9th edition points increases and detachment rules I do prefer to run cheaper, more utility-driven characters. Plus, since I don't thematically play my army as the 3rd Brotherhood, it kind of sits ill with me to have Voldus around all the time. 

 

Still, an awesome model that definitely has a spot in a lot of lists, its just a shame that he has no psychic buff, sure he's got lots of spells, but he's not actually any better at casting them. 

Very much my train of thoughts  - Kaldor > Voldus. However as you know fitting Draigo into a list is an achievement in itself (as he's 190 points), and sometimes I do find myself not having enough characters to cast Dominus powers. That's the third and final reason when I take Voldus over Draigo. 

 

On the unconventional ideas front, has anyone thought of this idea: Give Voldus Armoured Resilience, Inner Fire and either Ethereal Domination/Manipulation/Warp Shaping and park him onto points with purifiers guarding it? Anyone daring to charging the 3++ invuln purifiers is going to be in for a very nasty surprise.