realspace raid advice (greyknight and guard opposition)

Greetings fellow archons.

If all goes to plan - I will particiapte in a realspace raid tomorrow evening.

I am after advice on what I am likely to expect from my opponents (2v2) as I have yet to face Grey Knights in their new incarnation, and also against imperial guard.

The game is to be between 1250 - 1500 pts per army (so 2500-3000 per side)

I was originally planned to be teamed with a Nid player - but I think he might use his dark angels instead.

I am limited in my army choice - as a lot of my stuff is currently in storage.

The game was originally planned at 1250 each - but the grey knights player has asked to increase to 1500 as "quote" he cant get a decent army with 1250pts. lol

So I am assuming I'll face nasty stuff. I dont know what he owns either - but I doubt there will be much duplication (e.g. 3 dreadknights) and he'd try a little of everything.

For me - I was thinking of dropping the Archon (just incase there's a Vindicare) and using a cheap succubus and haemo.

Then I was planning on the following;

2 x 10 warriors with cannons
9 wyches with heka, agoniser, blast pistol, PGL, raider (succubus goes here)
10 wyches with heka, power weapon, blast pistol
5 incubi (haemo goes here) raider with dissie
5 scorges (2 haywire blasters)
talos
cronos


This comes to around 1250pts. The only vehicles not in storage are my old stuff. 1 raider 1 ravager (was gonna use as a raider) and 2 original talos.

I do have Drazhar, Archons, more old wyches, some more old warriors, 5 metal hellions to choose from.



What should I worry about? I was thinking a shattershard on the Haemo would be useful against nasty grey knight terminators etc.

Try and get wyches against his strong assault units and incubi against the rest. Splinter fire against imperial guard. haywire and dark lances against nasty vehicles. Cronos to help provide some resiliance (due to lack of transport) Talos to tackle dreadknights and well, anything really.

I suppose I could be vulnerable to blasts from the guard player without transport. Woul a WWP be a good idea?

thanks for advice, I'll bring back some souls.

Footslogging your stuff is going to be hard. Despite what you might think Grey Knights excel at range, those Storm Bolters will cut a swathe through your army unless you can tie him up in combat. Grey Knight Termies go down the same way as regular termies, chuck lots of dice at them and watch them fail those saves. Pretty much like all opponents the DE need to strike hard and fast, stay out of his LOS for shooting and them hit his line in an concerted CC effort so that should you destroy a squad your guys aren't left in the open to get shot up.

Considering how much stuff you have an how few vehicles, I'd consider taking two Haemies and two WWPs, load them into raiders and zoom forward and drop those portals. Hopefully you get your assault stuff turn 2 and can leapfrog into his lines, this also allows the rather slow Cronos to get in among the Grey Knights where he can really do some damage. You can then chuck a Haemie back in the Raider and zoom around to find the best place to drop that Shattershard, that or a Liquifier gun can make a mess of all that armour.

Watch out for the Purifiers with their S5 storm bolters, 4 psicannons each and their horrid psychic powers that enhance them in combat. Wyches really hate S5 power weapon attacks.

Watch out for castellan crowe who makes them core as well.

I agree with using webway, your footslogging squads will be meat and drink to these guys.

3 words 'crucible of malediction' might not do anything but for 20pts in a target rich enviroment it's too much fun not to.

Good point, Strange Dude! Indeed, against an army of psykers, you feel the need to try at least once.

Sadly it will only kill 1 GK per squad at most (the way their rule works is the squad counts as a single psyker and perils and other anti-psyker attacks are resolves againt the justicar or a random model if no justicar is present) and won't work on vehicles at all.

yeah - I didn't get the impression the crucible was worth it. Thought shattershard sounded a better buy.


Unfortunantly I've had to postpone the game until next week, as solicitors have confirned the house is ready and I can move.

Which means I can get my stuff out of storage this weekend, and ammend my army list. Maybe my venom will arrive too.....


thanks for the help guys - i'll keep you updated.

Nomic wrote:

Sadly it will only kill 1 GK per squad at most (the way their rule works is the squad counts as a single psyker and perils and other anti-psyker attacks are resolves againt the justicar or a random model if no justicar is present) and won't work on vehicles at all.

Aw, dang it. Could have made hilarious moments.

Nomic wrote:

Sadly it will only kill 1 GK per squad at most (the way their rule works is the squad counts as a single psyker and perils and other anti-psyker attacks are resolves againt the justicar or a random model if no justicar is present) and won't work on vehicles at all.

The vehicle is a psyker therefore it works, browser is dying but I'll be back to edit in some arguments.

from ba faq

Q: A Furioso Librarian counts as being Leadership 10 for
all psychic purposes. What exactly does this mean? (p29)
A: It means that for Psychic tests, for using a psychic hood
and for being affected by psychic powers, special rules or
wargear that affect psykers and require a Leadership
value, they are counted as being Leadership 10.

Quote :

Sadly it will only kill 1 GK per squad at most (the way their rule works is the squad counts as a single psyker and perils and other anti-psyker attacks are resolves againt the justicar or a random model if no justicar is present) and won't work on vehicles at all.

I'm not sure of this, if I remember the rule when only the justicar is affected is when they want to activate their power weapon.

So each one of them being a psycher, they should be all be affected by the crucible

The Strange Dude wrote:

Nomic wrote:

Sadly it will only kill 1 GK per squad at most (the way their rule works is the squad counts as a single psyker and perils and other anti-psyker attacks are resolves againt the justicar or a random model if no justicar is present) and won't work on vehicles at all.

The vehicle is a psyker therefore it works, browser is dying but I'll be back to edit in some arguments.

from ba faq

Q: A Furioso Librarian counts as being Leadership 10 for
all psychic purposes. What exactly does this mean? (p29)
A: It means that for Psychic tests, for using a psychic hood
and for being affected by psychic powers, special rules or
wargear that affect psykers and require a Leadership
value, they are counted as being Leadership 10.

It's great that the Crucible will work on Furioso Librarians; however, that is not the Grey Knight codex. It's helpful to quote from the relevant rules section.

Grey Knight Codex wrote:

Psychic Pilot: A vehicle with this special rule is treated as being a psyker (Mastery level 1) and Leadership 10 for the purposes of Psychic tests and psychic hoods. If the vehicle suffers the Perils of the Warp, treat it as a glancing hit. "

That's it. The Crucible does not work on Psychic Vehicles, as written. They may FAQ it to be different later (lord knows they've done that in the past), but the rule is quite clear as written.

For all you people wanting the Crucible to affect the entire Grey Knight squad, not just the Justicar, I bring more knowledge.

Grey Knight Codex wrote:

If the Grey Knight unit suffers the Perils of the Warp, or any attack that specifically targets psykers, it is resolved against the Justicar or Knight of the Flame (if he is alive) or against a random non-character model in the squad if the Justicar or Knight of the Flame is dead.

Let's put these both to bed.

Hashmal wrote:

Grey Knight Codex wrote:

Psychic Pilot: A vehicle with this special rule is treated as being a psyker (Mastery level 1) and Leadership 10 for the purposes of Psychic tests and psychic hoods. If the vehicle suffers the Perils of the Warp, treat it as a glancing hit. "

That's it. The Crucible does not work on Psychic Vehicles, as written. They may FAQ it to be different later (lord knows they've done that in the past), but the rule is quite clear as written.

Let's put these both to bed.

Nope if it were as simple as quoting the rule concerned it is not

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=300938&highlight=crucible

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=299707&highlight=tanks

http://the11thcompany.freeforums.org/grey-knight-faq-issues-and-gimics-t2082-30.html

http://greyknights.forumotion.com/t1935-compiled-gk-rule-questions

http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=86196&highlight=crucible

These are all lengthy well reasoned (well parts of them it is the interwebz) both for and against there exists no consensus of opinion and the camps are fairly evenly split (with some extremists on both sides).

You were correct to point out that the wording from ba to gk codex has changed I was merely using the BA faq as an example of a very similar question.

I will not put this to bed however I will agree to disagree till the faq comes out.

I have to admit - after reading most things I will be using the following rules should I ever use the crucible on him.

Justicar only tests, and only him removed if fails.
Vehicles immune.

It's the impression I get of how it works. Although if a FAQ comes out and makes it better then great.

The Strange Dude wrote:

Nope if it were as simple as quoting the rule concerned it is not

It very much is. For once, the rule is written pretty clearly. Justicars eat attacks targeting Psykers. The Crucible of Malediction does this. GK vehicles count as Psykers only for the purposes of Psychic tests and psychic hoods. The Crucible of Malediction neither is nor causes either of those things.

I'm going to need help with some of these links, though, as there's clearly something I'm missing.

The Strange Dude wrote:

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=300938&highlight=crucible

Possibly the most relevant of the posts, it argues that the Crucible is not an attack as it is not defined explicitly as such. Nitpicking, sure. However, it ignores a very clear oversight: there's absolutely no differentiation between an attack and an effect in 40k; ergo, the Crucible can be both or neither. Unfortunately, there isn't sufficient evidence provided to prove that the Crucible is, in fact, not an attack.

The Strange Dude wrote:

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=299707&highlight=tanks

This just argues that things can be Psykers without the Psyker special rule, which is spottily applied across codices. I agree. That doesn't mean the Crucible works on vehicles, though.

The Strange Dude wrote:

http://the11thcompany.freeforums.org/grey-knight-faq-issues-and-gimics-t2082-30.html

This only has one or two posts discussing the Crucible, then it wanders off into other topics, and doesn't tread new ground.

The Strange Dude wrote:

http://greyknights.forumotion.com/t1935-compiled-gk-rule-questions

This doesn't even mention the Crucible by name or have much to do with Psykers at all; not sure why this is here.

The Strange Dude wrote:

http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=86196&highlight=crucible

Again, an argument that relies on GK vehicles always being a Psyker, which is not noted to be the case in the language used through the Psychic Pilot special rule.

As an aside, I'll tackle this one now. You cannot fail nor pass a characteristic test you're ineligible to make, so even if these arguments are assumed to be true, the Crucible still doesn't work - it requires a Leadership test and vehicles do not have a leadership characteristic!

Evidence? Let's look at the old Talos, a truly odd beast. The old Talos had no Leadership characteristic. Now, there are a few instances where even Fearless things still had to take Leadership tests. Charging a C'Tan, for example, required (and still requires) one. Could the Talos never charge the C'Tan? Quite the opposite. He could always charge the C'Tan and never had to test, as he was ineligible to take the test to begin with.

I never said the Talos was bright, charging a C'Tan and all...

Same thing exists with characteristic tests versus vehicles now. In the odd event you hit them with something that requires a characteristic test that they cannot make, they don't test and thus can never pass or fail.

The Strange Dude wrote:

I will not put this to bed however I will agree to disagree till the faq comes out.

Do you actually mean you're going to play it that the Crucible removes squads of Grey Knights and their vehicles wholesale?

Hashmal wrote:

Do you actually mean you're going to play it that the Crucible removes squads of Grey Knights and their vehicles wholesale?

No I agree with the wording on gk squads (only one of them suffers) but vehicles (in my opinion) are psykers and will be affected (I'm not in the extreme section that believes they don't have the stat so they auto-fail). I am hoping that the GK faq when it comes out will confirm this (with the ba faq being similar though not the same).

I've used the crucible on gk in 4 games and even with torment grenade launchers all I've managed to bag is one justicar.

Just finished night shift been awake far too long please excuse any incoherrency

Finally managed to get this game sorted. It was 1250pts each 2v2. Guard and Grey KNights v DE and Nids.

We didn't get as many turns in as we'd have liked - but it didn't matter as we pretty much wiped them out, and had 2 out of 3 objectives.

Things I noticed, Grey knights have a lot of fancy stuff. 2+inv. saves, Initiative 6 weapons. S5 psychic powers. Luckily they all have power wepons which cost a lot of points - and are wasted against wyches.

The S6 flamer hurt though - instant killing my Succubus and ignoring the cover save she had and feel no pain. She had already with the help of a squad of wyches, run down a Comissar Lord and 30 conscripts though - so job done.

I used wych squads without special weapons - and I cant say I missed them at all.

Scorges and haywire blasters were great at nuetralizing the nasty sstuff (Leman Russ, Razor back) until other things could take them out.