Holy crap! Grey Knights!

I've challenged a player to a game a few days ago and found out he'll be fielding the knights.

All the research i've done tells me they're a midrange army with ridiculous saves and decent toughness, but they go down like any other marine.

I run two squads of hellions, two squads of beastmasters, two venoms, three ravagers and two groups of dakka/blasterborn, for a total of well.. a lot of boosted attacks, a crapton of rending attacks, a few good high strength attacks, three power weapon attacks, 6 cannons, and fourteen lances.

now, what's the best way of handling these guys? long range sniper battle? hide in cover and gank them when they get close enough? bury them in splinterfire? all out rush or deepstrike craziness?

Their "Psyfleman" (Rifle Dreads w/ Psybolts) Dreadnoughts are AV12, shoot out 4 Twin-linked BS4 S8 shots per turn. They will drop a vehicle per turn if left to do what they want. You should direct your lances into them and run your Beasts at their transports. Venoms should boost up and open up any transports hiding Grey Knights so you can shower them with Splinter fire.

Terminators doesn't matter because forced wounds and AP2 will do just fine, but Paladins have 2W with Terminator armor and a possible FNP if they take the Apoth. For them, I would shoot them with Lances and shower them with wounds. If they have Paladins (they're expensive!) they probably won't have too much else.

Their strongest is <24", but Night Shields makes their guns 18" so it gives you more flexibility. Beware of their grenades if they have a Grand Master. Their Librarian can also give units around him Shrouding (+1 cover save). Rad Grenades are especially deadly because they make you -1T (meaning S4 can instant kill you). Psychotroke Grenades just have all kinds of terrible effects for you if you get in combat with them. So... if you see a unit of Paladins/Terminators with the Grand Master, just shower them with wounds until you can assault them and win.

well i finished the game and well.. it was DISGUSTING!

what I did was deepstrike ravagers and venoms right behind his psyflemen, maybe 8 inches away or so. I either blew them up or stunlocked/immobilized them. and he could not take out a single ravager until late in the game when they were full of holes.

the beasts were hilarious against both his transports and troops. If there was somehow a way to get them up to str6, they'd be my el cheapo can openers.

duke with seven carbineborns and two cannonborns deepstruck beside one of his IC's and just drowned him with fire, and when the duke got into close combat with one of his other IC's in the following turn, it was all over but the crying.

the baron got a little taste of blood too. he was reduced to one attack, but managed to poke a marine in the eye, dropping him where he stood. I think he's gonna get a special trophy for that.

it ended up six to three, my favor. go beasts and dakkaborn!

What was his/your list?

Great job! I to would like to see your list. I played my buddy and hi GK and got smoked both times.

I've also played GK and it wasnt a pretty sight for my DE thats for sure

Duke sliscus with 7 carbineborn and two cannonborn
Raider with sail, prow and flickerfield.

Baron and two groups of seven hellions

two aggie beastmasters, each in their own FA slot. both with clawed fiend and maximum razorwing flocks.

2 groups of five trueborn, 4 with blasters and one with cannon

two venoms with the extra cannon.

Are you sure you're running your Beastmasters correctly?

It may just be the way you're phrasing it - but a Beastmaster only gets one allotment of Beasts each, and after that the unit needs to buy another Beastmaster.

maybe this will clear it up then.

Quote :

FA slot 1
Beastmaster, agonizer
> clawed fiend, 2 razorwing flock

FA slot 2
Beastmaster, agonizer.
> clawed fiend, 2 razorwing flock

that help?

You need a beastmaster for each of the beast types, as indicated in the codex. So it'd be:

FA 1
Beastmaster, agonizer
---Clawed fiend
Beastmaster
---2 razorwing flocks

FA 2
Beastmaster, agonizer
---Clawed fiend
Beastmaster
---2 razorwing flocks

They are, of course, still one unit. It's just that you need more beastmasters in it.

Don't worry, I thought the same thing, it really is a poorly worded rule. I think there is a discussion somewhere on this forum about the nitty gritty of it but the general consensus was that one beast master can only take one type of beast. Therefore one beast master can take 5 kymerae because its all the same beast type however he cannot take 2 razorwing flocks and a clawed fiend because that's two beast types. If you still don't believe us, Google it. You will find a lot of similar discussions.

"Each Beastmaster may be accompanied by ONE of the following options"

Seems pretty clear to me.

I played in a tournament yesterday and I annihilated him, he had the inquistor on the throne, a librarian, dreadknight, full squad of Grey knights, 6 termies and a dreadnought. I had Duke Sliscus, 4 Trueborn, 3 10 man warrior squads on raiders, a wyche squad on raider, 2 ravagers and a razorwing with dissies and splinter Cannon. It was a massacre for him, I tabled him on turn 5.

Lots of Dark lances and poisoned attacks won the day for me, 8 Wyches versus 10 Grey knights = 10 dead Grey knights...

VS GK if you run a large ammount of raiders you may easily add nightshields and after you destroy his dreads you can easily out range him.

Siticus the Ancient wrote:

You need a beastmaster for each of the beast types, as indicated in the codex. So it'd be:

FA 1
Beastmaster, agonizer
---Clawed fiend
Beastmaster
---2 razorwing flocks

FA 2
Beastmaster, agonizer
---Clawed fiend
Beastmaster
---2 razorwing flocks

They are, of course, still one unit. It's just that you need more beastmasters in it.

bleh. and here I was thinking it worked like a retinue. ah well, time for a change in the list.

As my own post has been closed (http://www.thedarkcity.net/t2897-dark-eldars-vs-grey-knights), i'll post it here. Sorry if its a little bit out of the OP idea.

How do you guys destroy psiflemens?

- First of all they outrange us.
- Coteaz usually means that they can seize the initative and bring the pain on our ravagers if we try to alpha-strike them. So I usually have to go 2nd and hide far away or even go full reserves.
- On average we need 13.5 DL shots to wreck an AV12 vehicle (without cover), and we can't stunlock it. This means (at least for my list) that we have to shot every single dark lance at them with clear shots to statistically wreck 1 of them.
- If our opponnent is smart enough he will hide his dreads out of LOS or at least behind cover (razorbacks)
- If you go flat-out near them you will be on heavy-psycannon range.. not a good idea IMO.
- Being on 36' range of psyflemens (wich usually deploy behind razors) means that we're on psybolt range (36') even with NS.
- We NEED to bring them down ASAP or they will damage (usually wreck) 1 vehicle each turn.

So.. what are your thoughts?. This is my main problem when facing GK, so I hope someone can help me on this.

Thanks in advance.

Sirio_Julio wrote:

- If you go flat-out near them you will be on heavy-psycannon range.. not a good idea IMO.

IDK bout that. If that means my Wyches threaten the Rifleman on my next turn, that's usually a trade I'm willing to make.

yeah i went full reserves and when it came to deployment, i deepstruck as many ravagers and venoms as I could about a foot right away, right behind his psyflemen.

it was about one of the ballsiest moves i've done but it worked out really nice.

@ Captain, what did you do with quake? I've tried this tactic 2 or 3 times but its really easy for my opponent to have 2-3 strikes near the psyflemens, and then DSing on blaster range is near impossible.

@ Raneth: They will only threaten a Rifleman if they survivie, pass pin test and those riflemen didn't move far away behind some blocking razor. Anyway, after reading your thoughts i'll try aethersail wyches arriving from reserve. Maybe I can force bad movements on my opponent using NS ravagers/raiders and wait for the wyches to come. Then alpha strike with blasters and try to overwhelm.

Thanks for your opinions. Any advice is really appreciated.

he never did quake.

though if he did, i would have used the aethersails to mitigate scatter. because if i'm out of position or exposed, I can try and get to cover at least.

Wyches with Haywires and shardnets and impalers are the best defence we have against psyflemen. Make sure they have FnP before trying to blow up the dread to help against the possible resultant explosion damage

Sirio_Julio wrote:

As my own post has been closed (http://www.thedarkcity.net/t2897-dark-eldars-vs-grey-knights), i'll post it here. Sorry if its a little bit out of the OP idea.

How do you guys destroy psiflemens?

- First of all they outrange us.
- Coteaz usually means that they can seize the initative and bring the pain on our ravagers if we try to alpha-strike them. So I usually have to go 2nd and hide far away or even go full reserves.
- On average we need 13.5 DL shots to wreck an AV12 vehicle (without cover), and we can't stunlock it. This means (at least for my list) that we have to shot every single dark lance at them with clear shots to statistically wreck 1 of them.
- If our opponnent is smart enough he will hide his dreads out of LOS or at least behind cover (razorbacks)
- If you go flat-out near them you will be on heavy-psycannon range.. not a good idea IMO.
- Being on 36' range of psyflemens (wich usually deploy behind razors) means that we're on psybolt range (36') even with NS.
- We NEED to bring them down ASAP or they will damage (usually wreck) 1 vehicle each turn.

So.. what are your thoughts?. This is my main problem when facing GK, so I hope someone can help me on this.

Thanks in advance.

while the Psyflemen outrange us, nothing else in his army does. Use that T1~T2 as a chance to focus all your darkmatter onto those dreads. Sure you will lose a vehicle for how many dreads he brings, but there is always a chance your flickerfields will save or he will fail to pen (It does happen) Just keep focus-firing and you will be fine.

Coteaz shoudlnt be a big worry. His re-roll just gives them another 1/6 chance to get it. Its possible, but nothing you should bank on working.

The best way to kill them as well is to throw wyches at them. Their 4++ is going to do work against their S6 2attack model, and if you throw a shardnet, they are going to have a hard time to do anything. With haywires your bound to immobilize it sooner or later, and with that itll be the end of the dread. If the opponent tries to save his dread by assaulting you with a unit, then all that means is you have more stuff to chew on with your venoms

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2012/04/40k-meta-what-weve-become.html

Some basics:
Grey Knights at 22% equaled the total of the bottom 9 codices!
Grey Knights, Space Wolves, and IG equaled 50% of the field.
Not one Tyranid player was on the floor - not one.

Shadows Revenge wrote:

while the Psyflemen outrange us, nothing else in his army does. Use that T1~T2 as a chance to focus all your darkmatter onto those dreads. Sure you will lose a vehicle for how many dreads he brings, but there is always a chance your flickerfields will save or he will fail to pen (It does happen) Just keep focus-firing and you will be fine.

Coteaz shoudlnt be a big worry. His re-roll just gives them another 1/6 chance to get it. Its possible, but nothing you should bank on working.

The best way to kill them as well is to throw wyches at them. Their 4++ is going to do work against their S6 2attack model, and if you throw a shardnet, they are going to have a hard time to do anything. With haywires your bound to immobilize it sooner or later, and with that itll be the end of the dread. If the opponent tries to save his dread by assaulting you with a unit, then all that means is you have more stuff to chew on with your venoms

first off: i hardly expected this thread to turn into what it is now....

second: Ever since I tried out the razorwing flocks, i've loved how they work. so many little models to throw at them and it doesn't matter if you lose a few on the way. the ridiculous amount of attacks (300 on the charge if conditions are ideal) that you can pop off should make even paladins/purifiers worry. If I end up facing GK again and I see those, I'm going to make sure my birds and 'masters get to them, to see how many I can take down before they can hit back.

I wonder if the birds can benefit from FNP if I give them a paintoken...

Nope as they do not have PfP as per the FAQ