Versus Grey Knights

Got a 1500 pts battle coming up thursday and I was wondering if any of my fellow archons have any experience dealing with them in 6th?

What are do's?

What are don't's?

I've understood night shields is a must? Since most stuff doesn't have such a long range? Try to hold off assault for as long as possible? Tie up dreads with Wyches with Haywires? Go Dark Lance crazy in your list like the olde days?

vsGK: Get disints, get lances, force a lot of saves on N.Dreadknights, use prmesesure to ensure they have to roll 12 for the assault, so you can safely use blasters. This is the only time i take out and dust off my blasterborn, use my blaster archon, and unpack my venoms!
Use ap2, use a volume of shots, just dont get in to CC with them, for they will murder you! The only cc unite i woulduse is 3 hwnade-wych-sqad for the Psydreads
I would also recomend a jetseer for anti-psy. Put her with some gjb and an enbolden lock for rerolling your psytest, give her a fortune and gjb cannons for 36" poking.

tlronin wrote:

Try to hold off assault for as long as possible?

In my experience GK are a lot better at shooting then at assault. They are the perfect target for wyches, as they have 1-2 power weapon attacks per model (1 for GKSS, and 2 for GKT). If you get into assault you can stop those bolters/psybolters (S4/S5) and psycannons for firing. The only scary unit they really have in assault are purifiers with their cleansing flame power (I don't think dodge works against it). Also keep an eye out for their sneaky grenades that work on the charge and when they get charged (rad grenades in particular).

As for shooting watch out for their razorbacks as they are both cheap and effective (psyassault cannons being S7, and psybolters being S6 and having more range). Watch out for divination powers especially prescience (re-roll to hit) on cheap grenade caddy inquisitors. Or the much fear Ordo Malleus Sniper: Malleus Inquisitor, terminator armour, psycannon, psycker (prescience) - 110pts (who can put out four S7 AP4 rending twinlinked shots that benefit from precision shot. Though normally inquisitors are kept cheap. The GK storm raven can put out a lot of fire with a psybolt upgrade 12 S5, 3 S6 and 4 S7 twinlinked shots, they also have mindstrike missiles that can easily snipe a shadowseer out of a unit (making harlequins a no go). Finally most GK armies will bring three psyfleman dreads (two twinlinked autocannons, psybolts) which will make short work out of most of our transports (and in some ways makes night shields rather pointless). These will be the priority target of most of the DL weaponry in the army.

What to expect? A good/popular GK list in 6th at 1500 points will have three psyfleman dreads, and 6 GK strike squads with Psycannons mounted in psybolter razorbacks (that comes to 1365pts without a HQ choice). That list can put out 12 S8 twinlinked shots at 48", 18 S6 twinlinked shots at 36", 24 S7 shots at 24" and 48 S4 shots at 24". The list also has 6 scoring units (9 in big guns never tire). Fingers crossed you won't have to deal with something like that...

I hope that helps.

well, if he faces draigo wing, then he wont see much shooting, more paladins, n.dreadknight, and a lot of hard to kill termies.

The thing with Draigowing is not really that good in 6th, it was good in 5th because it excelled in kill point missions. But it has always been bad at objective missions, with the change to 5/6 missions being objective based it doesn't really bode well. The changes to wound allocation hasn't helped either.

Dark Eldar have always been strong against Draigo wing as it brings less of what DE are scared of (psycannons). Lances are perfect at taking out those 2 wound paladins, and with the changes to wound allocation and DE mobility in general, circumventing Draigo becomes somewhat straight forward. If you really want to be cruel use a shattershard.

As for Dreadknights they are pretty bad when it comes to monstrous creatures, and DE poison weapons and lances do a good job at killing them, even with their 2+ save. Not to mention they compete with psyflemen dreads.

So I don't think Draigowing will be a problem. At least in my experience.

@Enfernux: Thnx for your replies. You have helped alot with deciding what to take in my list. Let's see how much DLs en Dissies I can cram into 1500 pts.

@Mushkilla: Thnx for your replies aswell. You have helped alot with target prioritisation. Plus according to your post it's ok to bring along my Haywire Wyches and Archon+Incubi.

As for "Cleansing Flame", I júst read at 5th edition Grey Knight threads right here in the Dark City that cleansing flame is a close combat attack. Therefor we get our 4++ (credits go to Tiri Rana). So that's good news.

I've been toying with the following list in my head:

HQ
- Archon + PGL + Huskblade + SF

Elite
- 4 x Incubi in Venom (+ SC + NS)

Troops
- 10x Warriors + SC in Raider + NS + SR
- 10 Wyches + Haywires + (Hekatrix + PGL + Agoniser) in Raider + NS
- 5 Wyches + Haywires + (Hekatrix + PGL + Agoniser) in Venom (+ SC + NS)
- 5 Wyches + Haywires + (Hekatrix + PGL + Agoniser) in Venom (+ SC + NS)

Heavy
- Ravager w/ DLs
- Ravager w/ DLs
- Razorwing w/ Dissies

This should leave me with about 200 pts short (top of my head). I was thinking to upgrade the Razorwing's bombs, plus Trueborn DL snipersquads.

What do you guys think?

If you really want snipers, get a farseer with fortune and 5 pathfinders - 2up cover is INZANE! and with fortune, its rerollable and is only 205 pts

Sounds great, but I don't have any of those models.

get counts as models, unless this would be for a tourney ^^

Mmmyeah... I don't know the guy that well (yet). So I rather not. But thnx for the tip.

hmmm.....

From my experience, GK is only dangerous in either CC or shooting but they can't do both. If they have a CC army, it's just a matter of run & gun. If they go shooty, force them to divide their firepower. NS are as MUST since they can get really nasty within 24". I like your list, but I would change the disentegrators on the razorwing to darklances- in case they bring a stormraven, which is what I often have to deal with in my area. Change one of the ravagers to a Disentegrator boat, since ravagers don't have to deal with positioning like the Razorwing does. If you are going to upgrade the missiles, I recommend necrotoxins. 2+ wounding and pinning can really screw with their ability to maneuver, especially if you have a Telepath farseer ally. Trueborn with blasters on a venon are great too. Shattershards are awesome, as was mentioned before.

That's my two pain tokens worth

@Vaxian: read the rules for ravagers and abuse the rules.

I got a game in against shooty Grey Knights yesterday, the battle report is in my signature if anyone is interested (pictures as per usual).

Mushkilla's report:
http://www.thedarkcity.net/t4001-the-black-buzzards-vs-gk-razorspam-1500pts
Give it a read. Mushkilla came out on top versus a VERY nasty GK list.

Although I enjoy Mushkilla's bat reps immensly (he must know that by know) it unfortunatly does little for me right now. I have completely different models than Mushkilla (I own 6 Reavers, thats it lol). So I play very differently. Would love to try some games like Mushkilla though. I enjoy my Reavers each time I field them so.

But yeah, my match against GK is tonight. I've decided to mainly go shooty with my Archon+Incubi and Wyches as the go getters. By buffing the rest of my army with agonisers, night shields and so on I only had points left for a 3 man Trueborn squad with 2 DLs which I'll place in a fortress or ruïn and have them shoot when they can.

The idea is to be annoyingly out of range for him for a turn or 2. Those 2 turns I'll be able to get in position for assault and hopefully shoot the crap out of those nasty dreads and razors if he has any. Hopefully by turn 3/4 any exposed GK infantry unit will be killed by my Razorwing's dissies and bombs and I'll be in assault with my Archon and Incubi and Wyches while my 'gunboat' keeps my deploymentzone in check.

tlronin wrote:

it unfortunatly does little for me right now. I have completely different models than Mushkilla (I own 6 Reavers, thats it lol). So I play very differently.

Very true.

tlronin wrote:

But yeah, my match against GK is tonight. I've decided to mainly go shooty with my Archon+Incubi and Wyches as the go getters. By buffing the rest of my army with agonisers, night shields and so on I only had points left for a 3 man Trueborn squad with 2 DLs which I'll place in a fortress or ruïn and have them shoot when they can.

The small trueborn squads are actually quite good this edition if you get the in an area terrain ruin (or wreckage/ rubble ). That way they can go to ground for a 2+ save if they get shot at. Your opponent then has an interesting dilemma of whether to waste shooting on a 3 man squad with 2+ saves, or get shot by two dark lances.

tlronin wrote:

The idea is to be annoyingly out of range for him for a turn or 2. Those 2 turns I'll be able to get in position for assault and hopefully shoot the crap out of those nasty dreads and razors if he has any. Hopefully by turn 3/4 any exposed GK infantry unit will be killed by my Razorwing's dissies and bombs and I'll be in assault with my Archon and Incubi and Wyches while my 'gunboat' keeps my deploymentzone in check.

If they are not geared for assault, grey knights are not that strong in close combat. They do however all have S5 power weapons (hammer hand & force weapon), so they will cut through your incubi rather well. Hopefully you will kill enough of them on the charge to be able to tank the remaining power weapon attacks on your archon (grey knights only have one attack each), although if he fails a save it will most likely result in instant death (if I remember correctly though if he expended a warp charge to use hammer hands, he won't have any warp charges left to cause instant death).

@Mushkilla

Oh dear, I didn't know about the S5 powerweapons. I'll indeed need to kill most of them on the charge or else have a slain Warlord on my hands. Well I do tend to soften up targets with the SCs on the Venoms which delivered the assaultunits. Hopefully he'll fail a save or 2 here and there.

Do you know if GK has acces to armoursaves of 2 and/or Flamertemplate weapons?

tlronin wrote:

@Mushkilla

Oh dear, I didn't know about the S5 powerweapons. I'll indeed need to kill most of them on the charge or else have a slain Warlord on my hands. Well I do tend to soften up targets with the SCs on the Venoms which delivered the assaultunits. Hopefully he'll fail a save or 2 here and there.

Do you know if GK has acces to armoursaves of 2 and/or Flamertemplate weapons?

S5 is only if they cast a psychic power (Hammerhand). Bring a Farseer ally to make his psychic tests that much more interesting!

The GK's certainly do have 2+ armour as they have terminators as troops. They can also bring template weapons in the form of incinerators but these tend only to be used on Dreadknights as the psycannon is usually a better option on infantry.

Wait, wait... Termi's as troops?! What the... Oh my dark muses! If he sits them on an objective I'll only have my dissies on my Razorwing to really shift them.

I'm going to try to outrange the psycannons for as long as possible. They are 24" right? The templateweapons always annoy me because they ignore coversaves.

tlronin wrote:

Do you know if GK has acces to armoursaves of 2 and/or Flamertemplate weapons?

All their character come in terminator armour except inquisitors. If he wants to be fully mechanised he needs an inquisitor HQ (or run a storm raven/land raider). However GK armies naturally lean to ward being hybrid armies (mix of footsloggers and mech) because of their HQs coming in TEQ armour. If he does bring a hybrid list you will have a mobility advantage, but will have to deal with 2+ saves, though the foot element of his list could well deepstrike.

They do have some nasty flame template weapons (all S6 AP4), fortunately they compete with psycannons so are almost never taken. Their most intimidating one(works similar to IG hell hounds) being limited to dread-knights (Which as a rule are expensive and not very competitive). The other platform which can take flamers are dreadnoughts, but again these normally come with two twinlinked autocannons and psybolts (4 twinlinked S8 shots). So the only place you will be guaranteed to see incinerators is on terminators/paladins as they are a lot cheaper then psycannons in these unit entries (and as The Count mentioned terminators are troops). Unless he is running a terminator/paladin army in which case he will need the psycannons for AT.

Also watch out for librarians/inquisitors with prescience (re-roll to hits in shooting and CC), and grandmasters with grand strategy (D3 units choose one, re-roll 1s to wound, have counter attack or are scoring) this often leads to scoring dreadnoughts.

EDIT: Yes psycannons are 24" range but the S8 psyautocannon dreads have 48" range and the S6 psyheavybolter razorbacks have 36" range so watch out (both eat raiders with ease).

Most GK firepower is 24" with the notable exception of psyfleman dreads (2 x twin-linked S8 autocannons per dread).

GK lists tend to fall into 3 broad categories. First is Draigowing, which is essentially a deathstar of Paladins (elite terminators) led by Draigo (unkillable uber character). They have, if anything become even more ridiculous in 6e due to the new wound allocation, meaning that Draigo tanks everything with 2+ armour, 3+ invulnerable, sometime FNP (if they take an apothecary), 4 wounds and Eternal Warrior. As the entire unit are characters, anything he doesn't fancy taking he can Look Out Sir onto someone else on a 2+. Oh, and they all have 2 wounds or more.

Next list is basically Razorspam, with 5-man GK Strike Squads (power armour guys) in Razorbacks with S6 heavy bolters.

Then we have Coteaz lists, which usually don't actually feature any Grey Knights at all. Coteaz lets you take inquisitorial henchmen as troops, which gives you ridiculously cheap troops who can be kitted out pretty much any way you want.

All list will usually be backed up by 3 x Psyfleman dreads and you might also see a Vindicare Assassin, although they tend to be less useful against DE than alot of other armies.

Hope this helps.

@Mushkilla + Count Adhemar:

Let me start with the fact that all information helps ofcourse. But my head is spinning with information right now. Lol.

Ofcourse I read some stuff before here and there. Like the Draigowing and the Psyfleman dreads, the fact that you can outrange them quite easily and that we are far more mobile.

But it's difficult to remember each little thing.

I guess I'll just have to see what I'm facing this evening.

Thanks a lot for your contributions to this thread.

To whom it may concern, I defeated the GK in the end. It was a close one.

'Cause despite the fact I could stay out of range and shoot the hell out of 'm, he had a squad assassins on my objective (it was mission 5) by deploying them with a flyer.

So I would do a few things differently. But the long distance shooting and the night shields stay!

tlronin wrote:

To whom it may concern, I defeated the GK in the end. It was a close one.

So I would do a few things differently. But the long distance shooting and the night shields stay!

Congratulations on the win! I'm finding more and more that DE as a distance-shooting army can be startlingly effective. What units did you use/how did they do against specific GK units?

gg, would like a batrep on it also. I will recalculate shooty, but i am still in love with the assault phase