Post by kerotanfrog on Sept 13, 2012 1:05:01 GMT
Battle Report:
Hi everyone,
I played a Grey Knights player the other day with the list below:
HQ
Hive Tyrant
Wings
Twin-linked devourers with brainleech worms x2
Hive Commander
Toxin sacs
Replace all psychic powers with Biomancy, Biomancy
TROOPS
Termagant Brood of 10
Termagant Brood of 10
Tervigon
Toxin sacs
Replace Stinger Salvo with Cluster Spines
Catalyst
Tervigon
Toxin sacs
Replace Stinger Salvo with Cluster Spines
Catalyst
ELITES
Ymgarl Genestealer Brood of 8
The Doom of Malan’tai
Mycetic Spore
HEAVY SUPPORT
Trygon
Toxin sacs
Trygon
Toxin sacs
Total for army – 1499pts
The two trygons, the Doom, the Ymgarls and the Flyrant start in reserve, coming in in the obvious fashion in each case.
We rolled for mission, which was a 5. He told me this was purge the alien, and only afterwards did I check the rulebook and find that a 5 is The Emperor's Will. He was probably lying since his army consisted of about 5 units tops, all of which are hard as nails, and so kill points suit him.
So we played kill points. I decided not to spawn any termagants unless I needed them, as I didn't want to give easy kill points. He had a dakka squad of purifiers at the back and an assaulty squad deepstriking, along with a massive unit of grey knight terminators deepstriking. He also had a Vindicare assassin I think, and one of those techmarine things with the infinite range gun.
He went first. Skipping to turn 2, his terminators didn't show up, his purifiers did. My Ymgarls then showed up at the back, right behind his dakka purifiers, and my Flyrant and doom also showed. Even with Hive Commander both my trygons didn't show up. I dumped the doom right next to his assault purifiers and got a good scatter, leaving him within 6" of them. I kept the flyrant in my deployment zone, but in kill range of the assault purifiers, and I had a nearby Tervigon give it FnP. The assault purifiers passed the dooms leadership test, and denied cataclysm (on a 4+ for being super psychic). The flyrant swatted a few assault purifiers with his devourers. I tried to tarpit the assault purifiers with two units of gaunts, one of which got finished off by overwatch, and the other didn't make the range. My Ymgarls were able to escape terrain before charging, and so (for once) were not striking at initiative 1. However if I'm remembering right, I lost 3 of them to overwatch (a (please do not swear) rule btw), and so I charged them in and chose +1T as my biomorph. I lost another to an I6 force halberd, then slashed 3 or 4 purifiers, then lost another 2 Ymgarls to a thunder hammer at I1. I think I won combat, and the fight continued with a dissappointing 3 Ymgarls left.
On his turn 3, his terminators still failed to come in, and his purifiers passed their test from the doom yet again. He then shot the doom with his purifiers and killed it without inflicting ID. I lost another 2 Ymgarls in assault, and my last one ran away. It fell back into synapse range, and we decided that this meant it automatically regrouped (not too sure about that). In my turn 3, my trygons came in, and put one in reach of his dakka purifiers, and the other in a safe patch in the middle of the table. My flyrant glided and got FnP again, and despite force weapons I decided to charge my flyrant with some gaunts into the squad of assault purifiers, as I figured shadow in the warp would at least give some defence against force weapons. The flyrant did pitifully in combat, not killing anything that round, and he didn't manage to wound, so just mashed a few gaunts.
On his turn 4 his terminators came in near my trygon in the safe spot in the middle of the table. In assault my tyrant had a more normal round, killing 3 purifiers I think, and even a gaunt got a kill on one. he wounded the flyrant, and thankfully failed his psychic test on 3D6 to activate his force weapon. I think there were one or two assault purifiers left at this stage. On my turn 4, I decided to charge one trygon with the one remaining Ymgarl in to finish off the dakka purifiers. My other decision (the bad one) was to charge my trygon and a tervigon (with a splattering of gaunts) into his terminators; the tervigon being there to provide shadow in the warp. I knew the termies were I6 with their bent force halberds, but what I didn't know about was the utterly bent banner thing carried by his HQ that means that they don't need to roll to activate their force weapons. This along with the fact they have frag grenades means that tyranid MCs have literally NO WAY WHATSOEVER of getting a single attack (other than HoW) against a grey knight terminator squad. Even Hive Tyrants with lash whips will die before speaking in such a combat, since lash whips only reduce the initiative of those in base contact. So inevitably both my trygon and tervigon bit the dust in one round of combat.
The outcome of the game looked pretty clear, but the guy had to go anyway, so ended it there. He basically had nothing left alive other than the termies (the assassin and techmarine thing were dead next turn from the other trygon), however was well up on kill points I think. He had killed the Doom, one or two units of gaunts, got first blood, a trygon and a tervigon, and I was looking at two units of purifiers and his assassins and techmarine at the back. So maybe it was a bit closer than I let on, but it certainly felt like he was winning.
Conclusion on Grey Knights:
Everyone knows that to say grey knights are overpowered is a massive understatement. It seems they have absolutely every angle covered, at least against nids, as they are almost always striking first, and even with the nerf on power weapons, they are ignoring all our armour (as nothing, except the useless T-fex, and an unwinged tyrant can get a 2+ armour save), and that is not even mentioning that almost everything in their codex has force weapons, and nothing in our codex is immune to instant death, NOTHING, not even the Swarmlord. Before the battle, I weighed it up in my mind and concluded that the only defence we had against them was shadow in the warp, but after discovering that their terminator death star units don't even need to take a psychic test, I concluded that they are absolutely untouchable, broken and unfair. People moan about Robin Cruddance, and yes, he has made an underpowered codex in comparison to the average, but the wealth of the blame lies with Matt Ward, for making the most overpowered codex imaginable; such that people taking grey knights don't even need to think. This is why about 40% or so of tournament armies are grey knights.
So what can we do? Well, all nids players should know that if you get drawn against grey knights, you are not going to be able to play usual nids tactics of "engage quickly at all costs, everything is expendable", as they will rip through your MCs so quickly in CC that you will be dead before turn 4. In a game of nids vs grey knights, you are going to have to struggle along, and be very objective minded (which of course you always should, but even more so here). Basically in any game except Purge the Alien (kill points), there are a lot of things that can be done, but in any game, I think the following are very good ideas:
1. Do not under any circumstances attempt to kill a squad of grey knight terminators in combat; it's not going to happen, accept it early and get over it. In non kill point games, you can perhaps tarpit them with gaunts, however these gaunts will often be better spent running for an objective or something. It's probably best to tarpit them late game when they are threatening to move onto an objective. Basically try to delay and hold up the terminators as much as possible, and shoot at them if there's nothing you can expect to kill elsewhere, or (better still) drop the doom near them and hope. Come to think of it the doom seems about the best unit we have to deal with them, but usually you just want to ignore them.
2. In any combat with MCs, make sure you have some nearby synapse and (most importantly) shadow in the warp. This is invaluable and increases their average roll to 10.5, above their usual leadership of 9; so whilst still being a reasonable risk to your MC, at least the odds are in favour of your MC not getting instantly killed.
3. In games with more than one objective, be prepared to give up one objective to their deathstar unit, or another annoying unit without putting up a fight. If all they get out of a squad of grey knight terminators for the whole game is a single objective, then they've wasted their use. As nids we should always be fielding a lot of scoring units (spawned or unspawned), and they will have at most 3. These 3 scoring units will also make up a large bulk of their shooting and assault offence, so it is perfectly reasonable to commit most of your army to taking out two of them, and avoiding the deathstar unit, and just mopping up the rest of the objectives as the game progresses. Of course this is easier said than done, and most grey knights players probably won't let their terminators just sit idle on an objective for the entire game; but unless your army is heavily geared towards shooting, don't waste ages of time trying to get their terminators off an objective, as it just won't happen.
4. Play the secondary objectives strong. By this I mean first blood linebreaker and warlord. Of course if their HQ is in their deathstar like the guy I played, then warlord is basically unattainable, and first blood is always going to be hard if you have even one unit of gaunts scuttling around. But linebreaker is always on the cards for nids, and if they have a transport or something easy to go for early, then consider fighting hard for first blood and protecting your weak units early. This is especially valuable in kill points games, as due their very low number of units, victory points will be in very short supply.
That's my verdict and advice on playing against grey knights. I haven't gone into what units are best against them, as I don't believe tailoring your army to play well against one particular codex; a good army should be capable of at least 'managing' against any opponent, after all you can't change your list in a tournament based on your opposition.
Let me know of differing opinions on grey knights vs nids
Cheers,
Tom
Hi everyone,
I played a Grey Knights player the other day with the list below:
HQ
Hive Tyrant
Wings
Twin-linked devourers with brainleech worms x2
Hive Commander
Toxin sacs
Replace all psychic powers with Biomancy, Biomancy
TROOPS
Termagant Brood of 10
Termagant Brood of 10
Tervigon
Toxin sacs
Replace Stinger Salvo with Cluster Spines
Catalyst
Tervigon
Toxin sacs
Replace Stinger Salvo with Cluster Spines
Catalyst
ELITES
Ymgarl Genestealer Brood of 8
The Doom of Malan’tai
Mycetic Spore
HEAVY SUPPORT
Trygon
Toxin sacs
Trygon
Toxin sacs
Total for army – 1499pts
The two trygons, the Doom, the Ymgarls and the Flyrant start in reserve, coming in in the obvious fashion in each case.
We rolled for mission, which was a 5. He told me this was purge the alien, and only afterwards did I check the rulebook and find that a 5 is The Emperor's Will. He was probably lying since his army consisted of about 5 units tops, all of which are hard as nails, and so kill points suit him.
So we played kill points. I decided not to spawn any termagants unless I needed them, as I didn't want to give easy kill points. He had a dakka squad of purifiers at the back and an assaulty squad deepstriking, along with a massive unit of grey knight terminators deepstriking. He also had a Vindicare assassin I think, and one of those techmarine things with the infinite range gun.
He went first. Skipping to turn 2, his terminators didn't show up, his purifiers did. My Ymgarls then showed up at the back, right behind his dakka purifiers, and my Flyrant and doom also showed. Even with Hive Commander both my trygons didn't show up. I dumped the doom right next to his assault purifiers and got a good scatter, leaving him within 6" of them. I kept the flyrant in my deployment zone, but in kill range of the assault purifiers, and I had a nearby Tervigon give it FnP. The assault purifiers passed the dooms leadership test, and denied cataclysm (on a 4+ for being super psychic). The flyrant swatted a few assault purifiers with his devourers. I tried to tarpit the assault purifiers with two units of gaunts, one of which got finished off by overwatch, and the other didn't make the range. My Ymgarls were able to escape terrain before charging, and so (for once) were not striking at initiative 1. However if I'm remembering right, I lost 3 of them to overwatch (a (please do not swear) rule btw), and so I charged them in and chose +1T as my biomorph. I lost another to an I6 force halberd, then slashed 3 or 4 purifiers, then lost another 2 Ymgarls to a thunder hammer at I1. I think I won combat, and the fight continued with a dissappointing 3 Ymgarls left.
On his turn 3, his terminators still failed to come in, and his purifiers passed their test from the doom yet again. He then shot the doom with his purifiers and killed it without inflicting ID. I lost another 2 Ymgarls in assault, and my last one ran away. It fell back into synapse range, and we decided that this meant it automatically regrouped (not too sure about that). In my turn 3, my trygons came in, and put one in reach of his dakka purifiers, and the other in a safe patch in the middle of the table. My flyrant glided and got FnP again, and despite force weapons I decided to charge my flyrant with some gaunts into the squad of assault purifiers, as I figured shadow in the warp would at least give some defence against force weapons. The flyrant did pitifully in combat, not killing anything that round, and he didn't manage to wound, so just mashed a few gaunts.
On his turn 4 his terminators came in near my trygon in the safe spot in the middle of the table. In assault my tyrant had a more normal round, killing 3 purifiers I think, and even a gaunt got a kill on one. he wounded the flyrant, and thankfully failed his psychic test on 3D6 to activate his force weapon. I think there were one or two assault purifiers left at this stage. On my turn 4, I decided to charge one trygon with the one remaining Ymgarl in to finish off the dakka purifiers. My other decision (the bad one) was to charge my trygon and a tervigon (with a splattering of gaunts) into his terminators; the tervigon being there to provide shadow in the warp. I knew the termies were I6 with their bent force halberds, but what I didn't know about was the utterly bent banner thing carried by his HQ that means that they don't need to roll to activate their force weapons. This along with the fact they have frag grenades means that tyranid MCs have literally NO WAY WHATSOEVER of getting a single attack (other than HoW) against a grey knight terminator squad. Even Hive Tyrants with lash whips will die before speaking in such a combat, since lash whips only reduce the initiative of those in base contact. So inevitably both my trygon and tervigon bit the dust in one round of combat.
The outcome of the game looked pretty clear, but the guy had to go anyway, so ended it there. He basically had nothing left alive other than the termies (the assassin and techmarine thing were dead next turn from the other trygon), however was well up on kill points I think. He had killed the Doom, one or two units of gaunts, got first blood, a trygon and a tervigon, and I was looking at two units of purifiers and his assassins and techmarine at the back. So maybe it was a bit closer than I let on, but it certainly felt like he was winning.
Conclusion on Grey Knights:
Everyone knows that to say grey knights are overpowered is a massive understatement. It seems they have absolutely every angle covered, at least against nids, as they are almost always striking first, and even with the nerf on power weapons, they are ignoring all our armour (as nothing, except the useless T-fex, and an unwinged tyrant can get a 2+ armour save), and that is not even mentioning that almost everything in their codex has force weapons, and nothing in our codex is immune to instant death, NOTHING, not even the Swarmlord. Before the battle, I weighed it up in my mind and concluded that the only defence we had against them was shadow in the warp, but after discovering that their terminator death star units don't even need to take a psychic test, I concluded that they are absolutely untouchable, broken and unfair. People moan about Robin Cruddance, and yes, he has made an underpowered codex in comparison to the average, but the wealth of the blame lies with Matt Ward, for making the most overpowered codex imaginable; such that people taking grey knights don't even need to think. This is why about 40% or so of tournament armies are grey knights.
So what can we do? Well, all nids players should know that if you get drawn against grey knights, you are not going to be able to play usual nids tactics of "engage quickly at all costs, everything is expendable", as they will rip through your MCs so quickly in CC that you will be dead before turn 4. In a game of nids vs grey knights, you are going to have to struggle along, and be very objective minded (which of course you always should, but even more so here). Basically in any game except Purge the Alien (kill points), there are a lot of things that can be done, but in any game, I think the following are very good ideas:
1. Do not under any circumstances attempt to kill a squad of grey knight terminators in combat; it's not going to happen, accept it early and get over it. In non kill point games, you can perhaps tarpit them with gaunts, however these gaunts will often be better spent running for an objective or something. It's probably best to tarpit them late game when they are threatening to move onto an objective. Basically try to delay and hold up the terminators as much as possible, and shoot at them if there's nothing you can expect to kill elsewhere, or (better still) drop the doom near them and hope. Come to think of it the doom seems about the best unit we have to deal with them, but usually you just want to ignore them.
2. In any combat with MCs, make sure you have some nearby synapse and (most importantly) shadow in the warp. This is invaluable and increases their average roll to 10.5, above their usual leadership of 9; so whilst still being a reasonable risk to your MC, at least the odds are in favour of your MC not getting instantly killed.
3. In games with more than one objective, be prepared to give up one objective to their deathstar unit, or another annoying unit without putting up a fight. If all they get out of a squad of grey knight terminators for the whole game is a single objective, then they've wasted their use. As nids we should always be fielding a lot of scoring units (spawned or unspawned), and they will have at most 3. These 3 scoring units will also make up a large bulk of their shooting and assault offence, so it is perfectly reasonable to commit most of your army to taking out two of them, and avoiding the deathstar unit, and just mopping up the rest of the objectives as the game progresses. Of course this is easier said than done, and most grey knights players probably won't let their terminators just sit idle on an objective for the entire game; but unless your army is heavily geared towards shooting, don't waste ages of time trying to get their terminators off an objective, as it just won't happen.
4. Play the secondary objectives strong. By this I mean first blood linebreaker and warlord. Of course if their HQ is in their deathstar like the guy I played, then warlord is basically unattainable, and first blood is always going to be hard if you have even one unit of gaunts scuttling around. But linebreaker is always on the cards for nids, and if they have a transport or something easy to go for early, then consider fighting hard for first blood and protecting your weak units early. This is especially valuable in kill points games, as due their very low number of units, victory points will be in very short supply.
That's my verdict and advice on playing against grey knights. I haven't gone into what units are best against them, as I don't believe tailoring your army to play well against one particular codex; a good army should be capable of at least 'managing' against any opponent, after all you can't change your list in a tournament based on your opposition.
Let me know of differing opinions on grey knights vs nids
Cheers,
Tom
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