Tourney Result and Grey Knight Discovery!

So I can say firmly that I am very pleased with the Grey Knights. I play in a local tourney run in the local GW by a buddy of mine. 1500 points with the list I had in the last post. It was a knock down, drag out fight every step of the way but I had a blast the whole time.

The set up was single round elimination, so you go until you lose. I ended up having a bye for the first round then immediately got thrown into the fray.

Round 1: Jay with Necrons
This is the first time I've ever played against Necrons. I was trying to figure out how they would capture objectives with only a few scoring unit types. It turns out its because they are irritating to get rid of. We'll be Back and a Monolith tricks can make things really annoying. The pivotal moment came when the jetbike guys flew up, hit Coteaz's Chimera and popped it. I lost a bunch of henchmen from the blast then they panicked and ran (leadership 10, BTW). His plan was to escort them off the board. My plan was to take the Purifers I had close by and smash them into tiny pieces. My plan worked. Riflemen Dread did his duty and shot up something awful every turn. Kill Point mission: Win by 2. By The Way: deep striking interceptors near a Monolith = terrible idea.
Match MVP: Purifers. Two Psycannons and an Incinerator within assault range is dead nasty (Yo!).

Round 2: Brian with Meat IG
I have played lots of games with Brian but never against him. Multiple heavy weapons teams, a huge blob unit that went across the board, PBS with Overseer, and a flyer with a vet squad in it. First turn, I lost both Chimera and had to walk my henchmen up. It came down to me being able to shoot better and not get within range of specific squads with my head down. My Rifleman got up into some terrian piece up high and started sniping out heavy weapons. It got a Kill Point every, single turn. Brian managed to kill a Purifer with a single Psyker with a low STR, AP1 shot. It was pretty amazing, honestly. On my last turn, I finally managed to get my jump troops to leap over a building and assault the far right side of his huge blog unit, pulling them entirely over away from an objective. One troop unit sitting on an objective, another there, and my last unit freed itself from a separate combat and massarced over to a third. Finally swung a vehicle over to contest his objective: Win 3 to 1.
Match MVP: Rifleman Dread. How can he not be the MVP getting a KP every round? He's going to need a nickname if he keeps this up. Possibly a pith helmet and a monocle, too. Don't put it past me.

Round 3: Final against John's Blood Angels
John is a very experienced player who won a recent local tourney in the area. A very strong list indeed: Death Co in Rhino, 4 man bike squad, 2 preds, another rhino with assualty unit and a chaplain, a tactical squad, and a razorback squad. I knew it'd be uphill the whole way, but the crowd had died down a lot so it was just me and him on the tables to duke it out with Thomas (the TO) watching. Kill Point Mission. I take the first turn to deploy out. First shot of the game from the Rifleman - pop a full rhino, kill four of the ten marines and make them walk. Execellent opening shot. The Dread kept up the firing the whole game and made the other vehicles stay back and safe. Fortitude is amazing. Most of the time you can rely on a couple shots at least stopping a vehicle from firing. Yeah, not so much. Pivotal moment: Coteaz's henchmen squad lose the chimera, start up walking towards the 8 man Death Co rhino with my hit squad protecting incoming fire. I lose their transport, Death Co walk up and assault the henchmen and the hit squad. Here's where things got bloody: Coteaz triggers Sancturary (2 Death Co drop), 3 Death Cult Assassins with Coteaz's Hammerhand (since he's Mastery 2, I got both powers off), kill off 5 or so more Death Co leaving the Chaplain by himself, Chaplain targets Coteaz and murders his face, Fearless wounds kill off the Chaplain. That's an 8 man Death Co with a Chaplain killed in the turn that THEY assaulted. Later on, Thomas commented he knew I had something up my sleeve, "No one walks TOWARDS Death Company." The rest of the game was a ranged fight for the most part, just trying to kill off his massive squads with my small ones. Final result: Win by 2 kill points.
Match MVP: Henchmen. 3 DCA's doing their thing is gross. The unit I built could not only charge well, but take the punch and be a threat with Melta. Its going to require a little tweaking to optimize (dropping Arcos, sorry guys), but it could become the best unit I got soon.

So I ended up winning my first solo tourney. It was a great time with some pretty memorable moments. I promised John another game sometime because I feel I got crazy lucky and he couldn't make a FNP roll to save his life (literally, I guess). What helped keep me afloat was any time I had a unit out of a transport, I had to use terrain and LoS blocking correctly. One turn over extended and you give a kill point or two, that's the game there.

Lessons learned about Grey Knights:
-Never drop Interceptors in through Deep Strike. Really now, everytime I DS'ed they got murdered that turn. I lost a lot of points by over reaching the survivablity of power armor and it put me behind 272 points in most games.

-Riflemen Dreads are going to be crazy popular. If you're  playing GK's and you haven't gotten one converted, do it. This guy will more than make up his points. Fortitude will keep him firing and moving every turn. The amount of attention this guy gets is unreal. Since I've always been a fan of them, I think I might do a post on the Grey Dreads soon.

-Purifers are deadly until the very last man. Move 6", use the Incinerator, Assault, Purifying Flame. That's one model who caused about 7 wounds by himself. If you have a Purifers unit with an Incinerator in it, make him the last to die if you can get an extra turn out of it.

-Psycannons are no joke. Extremely shocked how well these things work.

-If you run henchmen, go for balance, not spam. If I had gone for just DCA and Crusaders, I would have lost out on a lot of killing potential with the Banishers and Warriors with Melta guns. Go for what you're comfortable with them doing and build to that. The DCA spam will not survive: I don't care what the Internet says.


With all of that being said, I am now building a 2000 point list. Following my non-traditional build standard, it will again be a mix of Grey Knights and Inquisition. This time around the focus will be on the Grey Knight side of the equation. Updates to follow.

Until then, thanks for sticking around. Roll high.

Grey Knights/Inquisition 1500 pts.

There's been a big trend of Special Character lists that rely on the one-trick the character brings to the table. In a tourney coming up on Saturday, I'm running a Coteaz list. The big reason for this is the point limit is only 1500 points. I like to have a little bit of a barrier to throw in some bodies for when we start hitting late-game strategies.

The main idea with this list is to have solid, cheap troops and support them with vehicles and power armor. So here's the breakdown

HQ
Coteaz (duh)

Xenos Inquisitor
-power armor
-power sword
-rad grenades
-needle pistol
-servo skulls x 3
This guy designed to compliment Coteaz in another unit. Five attacks on the charge, stubborn, and has an AP 2 pistol. Once he's in range, pretty solid performer.

Elite
Purifer Squad - 6 man
-Psycannons x 2
-Incinerator x 1
-Hammer x 1
-Halberds x 2
Razorback w/Heavy Bolter and Psybolts
Classic unit. Can support or fight aggressively against most things. Dump the infantry out and create a nice little fire base that will go until the last man.

Troops
DCA x 3
Crusaders x 2
Arcos x 2
WAR w/Carapace Armor and Melta x 2
Banishers x 2
Chimera w/dozer
I made two units exactly like this. Now, I know a lot of people are going to question the Arcos and the Banishers. I like the Arcos to be honest. I think that any of them that get a chance will tear though things. The Banishers have the big chainswords too. The reason I've set the units up like this is that they have an advantage in every phase of combat. Melta guns inside of a chimera are plain annoying. Combine this with the two IC's into those units and they will likely stick around for a while. DCA's are very, very strong and useful but you hit dimishing returns on the unit if you take 12 of them. DCA's tear up, then the Crusaders and Arcos with the WAR if they're still in it. Finish it off with the Banishers and you're set. You can easily fight it out regardless of when you are going in the assault round.

WAR w/Carapace Armor and Plasma x 3
WAR w/Carapace Armor and Hot-shot x 3
Razorback w/Assault Cannon and Psybolt
Fast shocktroop unit with a good support transport and the ability to melt faces. Hot-shot wounds are icing on the cake. Roll forward, blast, duck for cover. I think this unit turned out to be within the 150 point range. I might have to invest in more units like this later on.

Fast Attack
Interceptor Squad - 7 man
-Hammer x 2
-Falchions x 5
-Psybolt ammo
A relatively expensive unit at 272 points, but will reek havoc in the backfield. Skulls will assist with the landing. Psybolts will let them pop lighter tanks like transports. Most jump infantry can get the charge on a unit if played correctly. On the charge, the unit generates 14 STR5 shots, 15 attacks at I4, and 5 attacks at I1. Power weapons and Hammerhand included with that can be pretty nasty.

Heavy
Rifleman Dread
-Psybolts
Tried and true. Its hard to pass up a cheap tank popper when everything else is so expensive.

Its not a typical list. I had a chance to test it out last week and I was happy with what I found. It can take out big nasties, tease out units in mid-range, and handle blob units. The main power is coming from the shooting phase, and being a Tau player as well, I'm OK with that.

I think the only real way to find out if the list is strong enough is to get it out in the field and try it. After Saturday, I'll let you know what I learned. Until next time, roll high, duck low.

Nemesis Force Coma

Oh man, its been a while. So here's what's been going on for me:

insane amount of job related stuff
holiday stuff and family trips
moving into a new apartment
and just adopted a dog

Busy is an understatement. I think in the last 6 months or so I've gotten in about 5 games. Recently I've been going through a revival of my gaming spirit. Painting for the last 6 months has left me itching for a few fights and a wargaming wishlist item actually came true: Grey Knights released.

I had always liked the idea of a special forces version of the Marines but the book was so outdated and the models all metal made it difficult to bridge that gap away from Fantasy and my 40K Tau army. In addition, I dig the whole concept of a future Inquisition.

So yep, you guessed it: I am definitely an agent of Formosa. I managed to find the Coteaz model at a FLGS before the re-release. Since the model count is so low in the GK book, just throwing Coteaz down gives you the options to double the count fast with cheap units. Customizable henchmen units and new (old) models can give the army a really fantastic look on the table.

I've gotten one game in so far with the new book and a tourney in May. I dig the models, dig the strategies I've been developing, dig the painting that's come out of it. I dig digging.

Stay tuned, and I'll throw up what I'm thinking at 1500 points for a mixed GK/Inquisition list.