A thought against traditional knowledge...

The common knowledge in regards to target priority against GK is simply shoot the psydreads first. However, it is easy to get carried away with this and in the end not end up damaging it in a significant way due to its AV12 and fortitude. That being said, wouldnt it be better to shoot at the rhinos and razorbacks first because you have a higher change at breaking open the contents and hosing them down. Lets say you do manage to blow up a psydread, then what? you save yourself from the 4 autocannon shots, but your venoms are left with nothing to shoot at. However, if you pop a rhino or razorback, the contents are forced to come out. The contents of razorbacks/rhinos are often purifiers or other units with equal or even greater firepower that the psydread.

am i missing something in all this because the internet seems pretty bent on killing the psydreads first?

Psydreads have a larger range threat bubble that tends to toss them higher in threat priority. The rest all depends on your list - if you have a lot of splinter fire that will be wasted in a given turn if you don't have infantry to shoot at than most assuredly you should target some more transports. This also holds true in certain objective games where you want to lock down his forces.

i should of stated that i had the standard venom spam list in mind when i posted this question. in regards to DE and our transports, im pretty sure that most units in that book will do the same thing to our boats and thats blow them up in one turn of shooting so thats why i didnt quite understand the emphasis on psydreads. because with the philosophy that all their units will blow up a boat then psydreads are really nothing special because they just have a more specialized role of blowing up our boats which are immortally doomed anyways by the razorbacks, psycannons, and even the s5 storm bloters.

Good insight.

Psydreads are always saved for last, for me. I'd much rather have stranded Purifiers.

As much as it pains me to not shoot at a Psyfle Dread initially, usually he's getting cover saves/Fortitude so if the cover allows it, I'll maneavor in a way that gives me a save from the return fire - and shoot up the Razorbacks.

You could sit your Rav's back and fire at the Razorbacks, and blast your TB Venoms forward. The opponent then has a serious choice to make.....Kill the TB Venoms (with a 4+) or the Ravagers (with a 5+). He can't bring down (presumingly) all 6 skimmers that are going to eat the Dread.

In my WWP list, I use Wyches and Reavers to take care of these Dreads. Good opponents make it hard for me to get the charge when exiting the WWP, bad opponents walk their Dreads closer towards the WWP, and when the Wyches bust out on turn 3, they are straight in there grenading the hell out of it - some guys, still to this day, cannot believe it LOL

1++ wrote:

You could sit your Rav's back and fire at the Razorbacks, and blast your TB Venoms forward. The opponent then has a serious choice to make.....Kill the TB Venoms (with a 4+) or the Ravagers (with a 5+). He can't bring down (presumingly) all 6 skimmers that are going to eat the Dread

the messed up thing is that your ravs/ venoms/raiders are screwed anyways. it doesnt matter if they have cover or not. you could turbo boost everything and everything would still die from return fire. the only real chance is to go balls to the walls and fire everything, do some damage, and rely on that flickerfield instead of cover

As with many a game, I find the troop transports are more important. Depending on how many psyflemen there are they can only take out one target a turn (so be it) but a mobile GK force is more daunting, knock out their main mobility.

Consider this:
Each time psyfleman shoots he will destroy one of your ttanks/ransports. How many turns do you want that to happen. Kill them now.

kenny, any of his units will kill a transport most likely a turn, it doesnt matter if its a psyfleman or a tactical squad. by popping the transports your are potentially killing two birds because you get the transport AND the units inside opposed to just one psydread

blackoutcs wrote:

kenny, any of his units will kill a transport most likely a turn, it doesnt matter if its a psyfleman or a tactical squad.

Those have the same range threat?
That's still a big difference with our mobility.

a valid point thor. i assumed that due to our darklight being a maximum of 36" that most likely most of their opposing firepower would be within range to retaliate, but by all means it is wise to stay out of range if possible.

blackoutcs wrote:

kenny, any of his units will kill a transport most likely a turn, it doesnt matter if its a psyfleman or a tactical squad. by popping the transports your are potentially killing two birds because you get the transport AND the units inside opposed to just one psydread

The idea is as, Thor says to limit return fire by moving so that the transports and units cannot get you, either due to range or LoS. Concentration of force in one area is a valid, if not essential, tactic for DE.
If he brings Stormravens then I would agree about taking them out first as they have the mobility and threat range to trouble you. However in general Psyflemen are the biggest threat to DE due to range and efficiency of shooting.

For me, if I can kill the Psyriflemen first, then it is good thing. IF the psyriflemen are hiding, then I will hunt the other things such as a Razorback or Chimera. Failing that, everything else.

The longest-range guns that can reliably gun down any of my transports every turn will have to die first before the unreliable ones.