Thanks Bitz Box
In a previous post I talked about how the Grey Knights were going to change army lists. I talked about how any non Grey Knights trying to play AV 11 and 12 were going to be in trouble. So in preparation for what I would probably face if I went to the third game in a position to win, I dropped my razorbacks and played 4 land raiders.
My list:
Mephiston
My termy death squad with 4 claws and 1 hammer
Reclusiarch with melta pistol
Priest with PW
land raider crusader with mm and extra armor
3x assault sqauds with melta gun, god hammer land raider with MM and EA, one had a HK missile
So on with the games! Sorry I have no pics this time. Forgot my cam. I did get some video though. I will try to put some of that up.
Game One:
KP /DOW vs Mech IG.
Interesting game in that to get full points you had to win Kill Points by 5. (Earn 5 more KP than your opponent) This was going to be a a tough one to max out on!
To his credit, my opponent was not playing the "net list". He had a lot of chimeras with vets and melta/plasma, but instead of all the Vendettas he went with more heavy tanks.
The game was a shootout for two turns since he had no shortage of fire power. But my Crusader and Mephiston hit his ranks on turn two thanks to a nice LoS blocking terrain piece in the center of the table. Shortly after that most of his stuff was dead. Mephiston went tank hunting and ate a psyker battle squad while the terminators had Vet Crunchies and claimed all their melta and plasma guns for the Blood Angels armory. It was a good harvest. :)
I ended up scoring 12 points out of a possible 13. I did not want to be on the top table in game two so I did not take any of the objectives to score the third bonus point.
Game Two:
Table Quarters/Table Corner deployment (Have more victory points in the quarters at the end of the game to claim them.)
My 12 point plan left me with what appeared at first to be a lopsided matchup in my favor. Foot Templars. (And it kept me away from Nick Nanavati playing... wait for it... Psy Cannon heavy GKs and Fritz's "Marine Killer" Nid list) They both scored max points turn one because Nick predictably obliterated a mech list and Fritz gorged himself upon a generic marine list. Oh and Nick nearly tabled Fritz. All those psy cannons were to much for the bugs. Nick's GKs would march to the final round with full points.
Back to my opponent. Upon closer inspection I saw that his army was much more dangerous than I first thought. All of his guns had Tank Hunter. He had 4 or 5 five man crusader squads with Las Cannons and a couple in Rhinos with melta guns. He had a couple 5 man terminator squads with dual missiles and a 10 man hammernator squad with the Emps Champ and a Chaplain with Retinue attached. About 16 models total. He had a High Marshal attached to one of his shooty terminator squads.
To start the game he began with a discussion about the ruling concerning Righteous Zeal. The spirit of the rule is that Templars charge forward in the face of enemy firepower. Taking losses only makes them madder and provokes them to either charge forward, or failing leadership, flee the field. But of course poorly written 3rd edition rules allow for abuse of the rule. I didn't quite understand what my opponent was saying at the start of the game in how he intended to use the rules. So I accepted whatever he wanted. He said it was supported by the INAT FAQ. (Which tends to lean towards Rules as Written over Rules as Intended as far as I know.) Any way. I figured out what he meant the first time he used the exploit.
It seems that Black Templars can go to ground when they are taking fire for a 3+ cover save, and so long as the squad lost a member, use RZ to get back up. The models move a fraction of a hair and stay put since the rule does not specify how far they must move. Then they are able to fire on their turn. By the rule as written, it works. No huge issue, but still rules abuse none the less. More RZ shenanigans would happen later as my opponent would try to avoid getting assaulted by my terminators. Using his chaplain to give himself the power to direct his RZ move, normally they must RZ towards the nearest enemy unit or some such, he instead wanted to try to use it to get away from my terminators. Again, nothing illegal, but definitely defies the spirit of the rule.
The funny part about this was that before the game my buddy Alex Fennel from the Cold Stone Mercs, a New England gaming club told me to "be nice". I guess my opponent was a nooby? Well if he was he certainly knew what he was doing. Being mentored by one of the best players in the world (Alex) doesn't hurt either. :) I planned to go easy so as not to the noob stomp like my poor buddy Jim the Stout Smurf got at The Colonial. (He left there pretty dejected after getting nearly tabled in all five games.) Any way, the first time he used RZ to go to ground then get back up and shoot had me taking off the gloves. Plus I would need to once I saw that this "noob" was not playing a noob army, and in fact one no doubt designed to slaughter people as created with the help of Alex.
He reserved his rhinos with melta crusaders inside. I spread out my god hammers and ran my crusader right up the middle. All of his stuff was in the left corner. I moved up my crusader and hid it behind a nice big lumpy terrain piece that looked like a demented pound cake. My god hammers opened up on his las cannon crusader squads, provoking the RZ go to ground trick.
By the way, I want to take nothing away from my opponent here. To his credit, he used full disclosure to explain what he intended to do before the game began, and gave me the option of declining it. Or at least dicing it off. I respect what he did and do not fault him for using the tactic. He was a good sportsman and honest player. Most guys would not tell you up front and wait until the situation occurred to "spring" it on you. I did not agree with it, but had my chance to do something about it. For that, I salute my opponent. Besides, the ambiguous rule did support what he wanted to do as does the INAT.
So I killed a terminator in his big squad with shooting, prepping them for the assault. I could handle 5 to 8 of them, but that would be pushing it. 10 would be tough indeed.
On his turn he advanced them after I said I had no intentions of holding back. I was going to go up there and assault next turn. He wanted to meet the challenge. His shooting caused a shaken to one of my god hammers. Poor rolling on his part.
So on my turn I went for the jugular. I did not need to move my crusader much since he moved up his termies with his RZ move. I got out and moved and prepared for assault. But before doing so I needed to whittle down the odds a bit. I managed to kill two more with shooting. And shot up some of his other boys as well. He entertained the thought of zealing away from my assault range, but realized that no matter what he would not escape. My guys were to close. He was committed, and so was I. Time to charge.
Mephiston led the way in, but was unable to get B2B with an IC so he took on the terminators. My chaplain went after his Champion and my claws locked down his chaplain. My priest with PW jumped into the fight too. I would need those PW hits. Meph delivered 6 wounds on the charge. Two or three would die. My chaplain killed the Emps Champ on the charge with 4 wounds forcing two failed saves. And my claws and priest would deliver about 10 more wounds to the hammers and 3 to the chaplain who was already wounded. All would die. But his chaplain managed to take down 3 of my termies in his death throws.
My boys massacred back to the cover of the Land Raider.
On his turn he brought in his two rhinos on my right side and opened up on my god hammer holding that corner. He immobilized that, and my crusader and put some wounds on Meph. Immobilizing the crusader forced my hand.
On my turn I finished off a crusader squad with one of my god hammers after advancing it, and assaulted one of his melta squads on the right with my guys from inside the god hammer. I needed to slow them down to hopefully reduce the melta shots by half coming at the god hammer and giving it time to take down this transports. I did not hurt either of the transports, and lost combat with the squad... :(
I also found out something that I had been doing wrong for years. At Mechanicon two years ago my opponent wanted to assault me. I had one guy out of terrain and the rest of the squad in. He asserted that so long as the first guy did not have to roll difficult terrain to get B2B, the rest of the squad did not have to and could move normally, essentially ignoring terrain. The judges upheld this and I have been playing it this way since. The situations where that occurs are rare so it did not come up often. After consulting a couple people, and then checking the book, it was actually clearly written. Yes if any member of the squad would have to enter terrain, I must roll. You learn something new every day!
It had no effect on this game one way or another. It was just one of those interesting "Duh" moments.
From here the game came down to a scramble. How fast could I slaughter all his troops, and how long could he dodge me. Meph would eventually die to terminator power fists, but I wiped out all the termies. The hero of the day was my priest leaving the Crusader after the rest of my termeis and chaplain died, and assaulting the last member of the squad that killed him... he killed the terminator then got back in the crusader to lend his victory points to claiming the quarter. I dropped off the infantry in my left god hammer to claim the near left corner, and advanced it into his corner to claim that one. All he had left was a single crusader squad. My right side god hammer turned around and started shooting at the two rhinos. He finished off my third god hammer and the troops that were inside. But my immobile crusader would take that quarter.
I destroyed one of his Rhinos and reduced a squad below half. Giving me the edge in all four quarters and that is how the game would end. A blood bath! As should be expected with Templars vs Blood Angels. I got max points. It was a fun game and a whole lot harder than I expected at the start.
That set me up for the showdown I expected. I was going to be playing against Nick and his AV11/12 psy cannon heavy GKs.
I don't know exactly what he had but it was something like:
Inquisitor Coteaz
3 squads of 3 henchmen in Chimeras with meltas.
3 squads of 5 Purifiers in Rhinos with 2x psi cans
3 squads of 5 strike GKs in HB Razors with master crafted hammers and max psi cannons.
3 Psyfleman dreads
Lots and lots of psycannon shots.
Based on the amount of punishment my land raiders took this game, I can say without a doubt that I would have been tabled had I played my razor list.
Objectives was the mission, and 12" deployment. He won the roll and surprisingly gave me the first turn.
My plan? Demech him and assault all of his knights at once. Or at least as many as I could line up.
Turn One:
He clustered his guys, forming a line with his three dreads shoulder to shoulder on his deployment line, and the line extended by two razorbacks with their sides facing me. Every thing else was grabbing cover behind them. Seeing an opportunity to stall him in his deployment, I decided to go for his psy dreads. I knocked the guns off one and immobilized the other two. I thought I had him boxed when I stunned both of the lead rhinos. (The dice gods failed me big time in this game, rarely rolling over a 2 to damage vehicles.) In hind sight, I should have focused all of my fire on stopping his transports. It turns out the damned Purifiers were the biggest threat in his army. STR 7 rending is way better than STR 8 Auto Cannons vs Land Raiders. With all the shots going at his transports, getting no cover saves, I should have definitely killed at least three of them. Plus taking the guns off that one dread would come back to haunt me in the end, big time.
On his turn he moved up and popped smoke with some of his transports, creating a nice cover wall, and opened fire at me. He lit me up with Psy cannon shots, shaking one of my hammers and immobilizing the other.
On my turn two I adjusted. I actually pulled back a bit, wishing to get a good chance at demeching him in the middle of the table and clustering him for a devastating assault. I only killed one of his transports with all of my shots... Crap. On his turn two fire, he rended and destroyed my crusader, forcing my hand. He moved up his razors again creating a wall. But he left a lane of assault to the demeched squad for Meph to get in.
Turn Three:
I had to explode two razorbacks that had already popped smoke the previous turn. I had 4 twin linked las cannons, 2 multi meltas, a melta pistol, 6 heavy bolter shots and a plasma pistol with which to do it. I wrecked one, and failed to damage the other. Epic fail. I needed to explode the transports and assault the guys inside. The GKs from the wreck of course disembarked on the other side of the wreck, out of my assault range. I was forced to assault a single immobile razorback with my entire termy squad. I killed it and the GKs disembarked on the other side. Meph got in on three knights and wiped them out and massacred back over the wrecked razor. Not good at all.
On his turn three, the game ended. He assaulted my termies with his gunless dread. Crap. They were tied up the rest of the game. He assaulted Meph with 3 squads of knights. I tried my best to make sure he made as many difficult/dangerous terrain tests as possible going through those recked razorbacks... but it would not save me. He got in on me with two master crafted hammers, and dealt a wound. Made his psy test and I failed to block with the hood. Dead Meph. Locked down termies. Game over. I would make a battle out of it by taking out some of his other transports and assaulting Purifiers with my naked squads out of desperate measures, but we both knew it was over at the bottom of three.
Grey Knights victory, maximum point tournament win.
Sure, he needed an epic fail on my part to do it, but he did it. :)
Some one posted on my recent article talking about GKs ending AV11. He stated that an AV11 GK list won and space wolves and IG got 2nd and 3rd. (He was contending that my opinion was wrong or something.) I think that his comment proved my point! First of all, I referred to the fact that GKs would still be able to get away with their AV11 and 12 so the fact that they won using them does not matter. But more importantly, 2nd and 3rd might seem close on paper, but neither of them were close to Nicks result. Getting Maximum points in this tournament was nigh impossible. He did it with relative ease. Claiming that those SW and IG armies disproved my article because they got 2nd and 3rd in this tournament is like bragging that Oprah and Jerry from SubWay got 2nd and 3rd in a three man 100 meter race vs Usain Bolt. (Google him)
Soon there will be a dozen in every GT. I'm gonna go ahead and call it right now.
Nova Open Top 16: At least half will be GKs. I am banking on 10. You heard it here first!
So there you have it folks! GKs are legit. My list, designed to beat his, barely made a game of it. (Granted chance went the wrong way and if we played again it would have been different, but still.) Even Land Raiders need to fear them. He destroyed two of them, and immobilized the others and I was getting cover saves off at least half of the shots due to terrain! The sheer volume of fire nearly tabled Fritz's big bug list that routinely spawns 120 Furious Charging, Poisoned gaunts and is designed to devour normal marine armies like Nick's. Fritz had high hopes for a surprising Nid win. I don't know but I think Nick tabled his first opponent.
It was a day of complete and total GK domination with only one real GK army in the tournament. And frankly, I'm happy to see it. One thing for certain is that they will definitely shake up the power lists. Plus I have lots of Razorback Turret Assault Cannons, Terminator Psy Cannons and Dread Auto Cannons for both sides! Email me if you want some.
Guys will be forced to adjust to the GK reality or go home crying. Lucky for me BA at least have a sort of answer. Now I know what I am bringing to Nova! Ridiculous looking "twice as tall as the tank" banner poles and overly done hand painting and all.
More to come...
Jawaballs
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40 comments:
Geez...looks like it's time for some chaos land raiders to hit the tables, no?
Maybe Chaos LRs will help give the codex a rebirth!
Your Black Templars opponent was wrong on both counts I'm afraid. The updated Templar FAQ on the GW website clears up the issue of RZ and going to ground. If a unit goes to ground they do not test for RZ. Second point, a righteous zeal move is made towards the nearest enemy unit, a chaplain allows you to select which unit you move towards for a righteous zeal move as opposed to moving in any direction.
Was good of your opponent to let you know his intentions before the battle though.
I've been having success with rhino rush...then again, i've never played GKs, they aren't that popular in my area's meta.
Grey Knights being the top army is something I can live with... I kind of feel like an ass playing them, even though I'm not playing a massive AV-spam army.
I WILL BE AVENGED!
Firewasp, Yah I just found out it was FAQed in the BTFAQ. Not sure if I described his RZ move with the Chap right. He was contemplating moving towards a land raider which was pretty much in the opposite direction as my Termies, which were the closest unit. He would have been right to do so because the Chaplain was in the squad. But that still defies the spirit of the ability.
This is why I post this stuff! Good info.
As far as chaos marines goes what is your opinion on an army with 3 heavy support land raiders, 2 terminator squads with land raiders, 3 small chaos marine squads, and an hq. would struggle in certain situations but against the prevalent tournie str 7s/8s torrent types however.
I have stayed at the top of the contenders rankings because I make the most of the codex I have available, and because I build lists that are intended to beat the power lists that I will most likely face, not every list I face.
Lots of guys love to point out lists that will beat yours. And they are right. But the fact is that while that list might be good at beating my tournament list, it can't do any thing else and you won't see it in a tournament.
I know on Fritz's blog he put up a tournament list and some blow hard denounced him as an idiot and came up with the perfect counter list for his... one you would never, ever see in competitive play.
To the point, a Chaos list, as you describe, should do well vs the GKs. I forget, do Chaos raiders get machine spirit? You have enough las cannons to put a hurting on GK transports, and claw termies should be able to finish off any stragling GK units. If he is focusing on foot Psy cannons, you have a lot of shots that will force him into cover saves. He will still only have 35ish models. 10 Lascannons a turn should kill 4 or so non terminator GKs in cover.
Im sure a dozen of you instantly have the stats. But the point is that a squad of 5 Purifiers in cover is vulnerable to that many las cannons.
I think the bigger question is in your opinion would it be able to go up against other tournie lists you would likely see? I rarely play tournies myself so I am just curious. I would like to see chaos space marines surprise someone and punch super net listers in the face but this is mostly a theoretical exercise. That and I love land raiders lol
Well yeah there were a couple other GK armies there but one I saw was a termie spam and the other was semi optimized but had storm ravens bulking down the list...but from what I saw more than half of them ended in the top half of the tournament....Nick was a tournie contender at the Colonial and he brought a mean list, I wasnt surprised by him winning... but it does come down to luck of the draw you drew him and not another table...I think its Cold Steel Mercs btw...still an awesome tournament, glad I wetn regardless of my poor preformance. On a side note Im bringing chaos Raiders to a game scheduled againt my GK buddy, see how that goes
Cool reports, it's nice to finally see some good GK lists in action on the internets! My LGS has literally 10 GK players now (I'm not one of them), but none of them is very good yet.
I'm not sure that Land Raiders are the answer to their withering firepower. After all, S7 Rending is actually still quite effective vs. AV14. Slightly less effective than AV11, but not much different at all from AV12 (both require 6's to pen, though the Raiders require another 3+ to actually get through).
Instead, for Blood Angels I would advocate lots of bodies with FNP and Furious Charge. Sure, rending will claim a few dudes, but they're pretty damn resilient to small arms fire like the GK's have. And since we're mostly seeing small squads in GK armies, the Furious Charge will kill the squad before they can strike back. Against big purifier squads with halberds, shoot them with pistols and melta as much as you can, and then have I7 Mephiston (or maybe Sanguinor is a good option as well vs. GK?) rush on in and wipe them out.
As to Land Raider types, if you went that way, in order to tool yourself up against Grey Knights? I'd pick 4 Redeemers, or maybe one Crusader, since you want your unit of death all together in there :-p
GK's have a lot to fear from Redeemer cannons, and the Raiders still have nearly equal tank-hunting capabilities as the Godhammers, since TL Assault Cannon + Multi-melta is pretty good vs. a somewhat lackluster 2 Las Cannons. They even have the 36" threat range, since they can move 12" and machine spirit something. Sure, Mephiston can be insta-deathed, but Redeemer cannons are merciless vs. T4 3+ saves :)
Wow, that was a long-winded comment. Hopefully I don't get too many TL;DR's lol
Agreed on the Redeemer out of all LRs comment. As a GK player, there is nothing I fear more for my infantry than the Land Raider Redeemer. Wipes out squads with one shot, sometimes. It can be tough getting it close enough, though...
Still not sure if Land Raider spam is the way to go against Psycannon spam. I almost feel like really long range Guard could deal with them, but I'm not tournament whiz. It's just the short GK range can be shut down with long range Heavy Support and you can keep them away with Chimeras.
I think the issue with taking things like 4 redeemers, or lots of FNP bodies is that while they may do well against GKs, they tend not to do nearly so well against armies like wolves and guard. Either way, the tournament was great. I had a lot of fun (even though I apparently was gorged on by Fritz's Nids :) )
Anyway, Jawa here is the link I promised to post about tournaments at Gaming Etc in stratford.
http://gamingetc.com/2010/12/30/warhammer-40k-events/
Besides the force weapon on Mephiston, was there any other psyic troubles. How mandatory are librarians in a competitive list nowadays?
Bringing 3+ land raiders is the oldest trick in the book, I can't say I'm surprised that it failed in the clutch.
It was not the raiders that failed. They were the only reason I was in it at all. If only a few of the 2s I rolled on the vehicle damage table were 5s instead, I win that game. I must have rolled 1 or 2 at least a dozen times after penetrating his razorbacks.
Are you sure? I mean, looking at your own battle report it seems your turn one shooting unleashed 6 TL lascannons, a HK missile, and maybe a MM/Assault cannon salvo. 12 shots nets you 6 pens (2x Weapon destroyed, 2x Immobilized, 2x Shaken), pretty good considering the assault cannon needs 5's to pen and any rhinos you shot at were covered by his dreads. Two out of six penetrating hits ended up being shaken/stunned results...that's perfectly average.
You didn't get into the specifics of turn two shooting but it's pretty obvious what happened. The GK's had a turn of movement to pop smoke and provide cover where needed and you're a Land Raider short in the shooting phase (I know, PotMS, but given your low unit count you needed every shot you could get).
It's game over by the bottom of two. The Knights have had two turns of movement to get their psycannons into position and now they're dictating terms. If their shooting works they press the attack, if they whiff they make an orderly retreat and come back for another go. Is there something I'm missing here?
What's the verdict Jawaballs? Is bringing four raiders a bad idea or is Nick's tournament win invalid because your dice were crappy?
I think I was pretty clear. Nick will agree because we talked about it. On turn one if I shoot his transports instead of his dreads, scoring 3 immobilized results, (the exact same results I scored on the dreads, two immobilized and two weapon destroyed actually, same difference on transports) This game goes very differently.
You will see where I talk about my hindsight, I state that I should have shot the transports instead of the dreads. Replace the three dreads I shot with two Razor/rhino and a chimera, and the game ends in his deployment zone. I sit back out of his range and pummel him.
My bad luck didn't come into play until I was forced into assaulting transports on turn 3 when by all probability there should have been juicy troops for me to kill. Nick will also agree that was the moment he won.
The Verdict?
4 raiders WAS a good idea. It was the only thing that kept me in that game. Plus it got me there. The IG would have destroyed my razors with their shooting making it more of a game, and the BT would have blasted me off the table with all those STR 9 Missiles. After our assault forces were dead it was the Land Raiders that finished off his entrenched forces.
Nick's win was VALID. (Your comment is unnecessarily aggressive by the way. I'm not sure if you are being playful or not.) I made a tactical error on my opening turn, which Nick and I both knew was going to be decisive. The subsequent two rounds of my shooting where I rolled almost all 1 and 2 on the damage table sealed it. (A dozen was not an exaggeration.) Nick was more shocked than I was at my amazing ability to roll 1s.
I don't think your early target priority was that much of a game changer. Trying to bottle him in with his own screen and keep him out of range was a good move, you just didn't have the firepower to do it. If you shifted your fire to the rhinos and chimeras instead of the dreads you're firing at vehicles with cover. That gives you what, 3 pens instead of 6? Probably fewer with your opressively terrible luck. That doesn't translate to 3 stopped transports.
The raiders failed you in the last game because your multi-raider list banks on your opponent being unable to deal with av14. The fact is that in a good Grey Knight list 80% of the army is able to deal with av14 and that's exactly what happened here, you gave Grey Knights maximum victory points and the tourney win.
As for the raiders carrying you to the final round I've read the battle reports. No offense but a bad IG army and a brand new player with a tenous grasp of the rules running a BT netlist don't sound like tough competition. The road to the top table was paved with seals.
I can't understand why you didn't put your trust in a solid mech BA list over Raider spam. Preds and razorbacks have good firepower coupled with impressive mobility, both very important when your opponent is limited by a 24" range. Naked Baal preds are cheap and would be low on the target priority totem pole, making them perfect mobile cover for your av11 while still able to supplement your firepower (albeit moderately). Finally a large core of versitile troops would have served you much better than four huge targets with a modicum of troops and two isolated deathstars. The list basically writes itself and it would have handily beat your early opponents while still serving you better in the final round.
As an aside, I'm sorry if you took hostility from my "invalid" comment. I was making a play on your own opinion that SW and IG's presence in the top 3 was "irrelevant" since it was purely based on their luck and therefore didn't provide any sort of counterbalance to your argument that the GK codex is king. I say the GK were lucky enough to face a round 3 opponent they had precisely the tools to beat and handily did so with max battlepoints.
blah blah blah
Gah! Sorry, ignore that comment. I wrote a huge response and lost it to internet issues, that was supposed to be a preview test post. Delete it if you can, I'll re-write my response when I get home.
Jawa, you said razorspam wouldn't have performed very well, but what about an AV13 spam? Baals and Autolas/Vindicators? Perhaps 1-2 Landraiders in the mix. You think that would work out any better against GKs?
And Chaos-android, wtf is your deal?
Jawaballs, Chaos just got into contact with me and told me that the "blah blah blah" comment was a test because his posts weren't going through.
Here is a comment submitted by Chaos-Android: I have no clue why it did not post. It did appear in my mail box. Jawaballs
I don't think your early target priority was that much of a game changer. Trying to bottle him in with his own screen and keep him out of range was a good move, you just didn't have the firepower to do it. If you shifted your fire to the rhinos and chimeras instead of the dreads you're firing at vehicles with cover. That gives you what, 3 pens instead of 6? Probably fewer with your opressively terrible luck. That doesn't translate to 3 stopped transports.
The raiders failed you in the last game because your multi-raider list banks on your opponent being unable to deal with av14. The fact is that in a good Grey Knight list 80% of the army is able to deal with av14 and that's exactly what happened here, you gave Grey Knights maximum victory points and the tourney win.
As for the raiders carrying you to the final round I've read the battle reports. No offense but a bad IG army and a brand new player with a tenous grasp of the rules running a BT netlist don't sound like tough competition. The road to the top table was paved with seals.
I can't understand why you didn't put your trust in a solid mech BA list over Raider spam. Preds and razorbacks have good firepower coupled with impressive mobility, both very important when your opponent is limited by a 24" range. Naked Baal preds are cheap and would be low on the target priority totem pole, making them perfect mobile cover for your av11 while still able to supplement your firepower (albeit moderately). Finally a large core of versitile troops would have served you much better than four huge targets with a modicum of troops and two isolated deathstars. The list basically writes itself and it would have handily beat your early opponents while still serving you better in the final round.
As an aside, I'm sorry if you took hostility from my "invalid" comment. I was making a play on your own opinion that SW and IG's presence in the top 3 was "irrelevant" since it was purely based on their luck and therefore didn't provide any sort of counterbalance to your argument that the GK codex is king. I say the GK were lucky enough to face a round 3 opponent they had precisely the tools to beat and handily did so with max battlepoints.
Chaos, thanks for clearing that up. As I am well aware, sometimes tongue in cheek comments get missed. :) That's why I mentioned it.
I do have to say though, if I was playing my Mechanicon mech list, I would probably have beaten the IG player, but the Templar player would have sat back and obliterated me. His tank hunters would have simply blasted my razorbacks, cover or no. I have played seals, and I would not use that word to describe either of my first two opponents. They both knew their armies, and were more than a challenge.
I want to clarify his setup. I wish I had taken pictures. He had his three dreads shoulder to shoulder facing me, at the limit of his deployment zone (closest to me), pretty much starting in the middle of the table. From his point of view, the right side of the right dreads base was on the middle line of the table. And the other two were going to the left. He then had two razorbacks extended down the line from there, bumper to bumper, with their sides exposed to me. So he had a wall made up of three dreads and 2 razors parallel and on the edge of the deployment zone. Neither razor had cover from any of my shooting, and both would have been immobilized. Actually I believe I got a couple glances vs the dreads that would have penetrated the razors. Can't remember. The third, one of the chimeras in the next rank, would have gotten cover from it's immobilize shot.
Any way, failing to hit those razors hard is what failed me. It allowed them to then move, and pop smoke, then move again and force me to assault them.
As far as fire power goes, I believe that this list actually has more than other lists I have won with in the past. Only it is carried by AV14 boxes that can fire no matter what.
You make a solid point about heavy infantry and Baal Preds. Some sort of list taking advantage of them will be my next try. However, I am officially kissing my razorbacks good bye for a while. :)
And reading Xethic's comment, I think he is right about the redeemer... Hmmm
Strange, one of my own comments failed to post. Tell Chaos that Blogger does not allow the blocking of individual commenters (Though I wish it did) and I don't have comment moderation on. Blogger is being weird. I suspect we will get a bunch of them posting up at once later on!
What I don't understand is this belief that seems to have swept up lately that 6 lascannons and 8 melta shots is a lot of shots and that it is adequate anti-tank shooting.
My space wolves throw down 12 rockets, 4 lascannons, 11 melta shots, 4 twin-linked plasma guns, 4 regular plasma guns and 2 heavy flamers. This is what I feel i an adequate amount of shots. I know there are armies that can put out more but for power armor this is where I feel comfortable.
JB I very much enjoyed reading your battle report specifically regarding the GKs. With 5e razorspam, I pretty much gave up on the tournament scene.
I took a (mostly) foot guard list to Adepticon and my first game in the 40k champs was against a BA player with 6 razorbacks and 6 predators - nothing started on foot! I am hoping that GK will shake things up enough that this type of list won't be such a tournament "no-brainer".
Of course, as a dyed in the wool DH player, I am not looking forward to the influx of mounted GK lists like the one you faced. At a local 12 person tourney, fully 1/3 of those playing were using Grey Knights!
I think your assessment of how to shut down the mounted GK is best - kill the razorspam! My foot GK has had great success against the BA razorangle 5 man lists.
Redeemer is pretty hot (pardon the pun) and I have gravitated to that as my go-to GK land raider.
Fair enough, dude. I only had the blog info to go on so I missed some details. I wasn't at the tables, I don't know the exact lists, and I didn't see the players in action so I really can't call them seals even if it suits my argument. All I can say is when I look around the competitive 40k scene I see more seals than sharks.
Bad luck Jawa. Anyway, your list is very solid, just few questions:
Why did you play Mephiston? Face it: is a moster... but is a monster that suffer ista-death and nowadays istant death powers are a must for most of tournament list, things like GK, DE, nyds... are all able to manage the old Mephy. It is even susceptible to wolf's Jaws.
Why did you play the reclusiarch without a death company unit? Take a librarian instead, with Rage and Lance, it's cheaper and more effective than 5 init. 6 attacks that reroll to hit only in charge.
One last thing... The termies. Aren't they better in a 4 TH/SS-1 claws configuration? 2+/4+fnp or 3++ save means that they only suffer from low AP weapon or rending weapons. But if your adversary use psycannons on your terminator it means he don' t use them on your veicles
Bah, and me just getting my Blood Angels down. I think I'm going to move towards 2 Razors with TL Lascannons to fill the troops and some Baal Predators (maybe time to re-investigate Assault Cannons).
"The Initiate" - calmbeforewar.blogspot.com
Nikkin, good questions:
Mephiston: He is still a monster. And for all the fear of GK force weapons and his loss of effectiveness against them due to instant death, he still has a psychic hood and absolutely slaughters monstrous creatures, walkers, vehicles and small units. I have to relearn how to use him vs GKs but he is still a no brainer.
The Reclusiarch is a super chaplain. For 30 more points (Than the Elite BA Chap) I am buying a faster, tougher base HQ than most marine armies can field. Worth the points. Plus, more important than rerolls or any of that other stuff, he makes the squad fearless. Librarians cannot do that.
Lance is ineffective at best. Psychic powers are unreliable and always fail you when you need them most. They can be blocked,(very easily vs Eldar and Wolves) or failed out right. The chaplain reroll on the charge coming out of a land raider is guaranteed and over powering. Plus the chaplain has a 4+ invul.
Playing hammernators goes against what makes the Blood Angels good. These days, initiative is boss. Going first wins and against the majority of tournament armies, (power armor) I go first. Playing all hammers makes furious charge worthless and generic marines do it better.
My terminator squad, with Reclusiarch and priest coming out of the land raider is one of the deadliest assault unit combos in the game. They easily deal 20+ power weapon wounds on the charge. You don't need a 2+/3+ when every thing dies at initiative 5! :)
In competitive tournament play you rarely see units they cannot slaughter on the charge. I use them like a scalpel and only by very bad chance do they get taken out before dealing a devastating and usually crippling blow to my opponent. If things are going that bad, storm shields probably won't matter any way!
Here's my issue with taking AV14 to try and "dull" the impact of Psycannons, vs. AV12 (Chimeras) ...
1/6 psycannon hits penetrate chimeras and predators ... so AV13 is the same as AV12 vs. psycannons
Only subsequent 1's and 2's on the rend roll fail to also penetrate land raiders ... so 2/3 of the hits that penetrate chimeras and preds also penetrate land raiders. Advantages are gained more realistically in what Jawa is now seeing - if he could have de-meched the psycannons and such in Nick's deployment zone, and used land raider range to go at them while using machine spirit and AV14 to shrug off dreadnaught autocannons a bit longer, he'd have been in net better shape ... b/c he'd have been able to keep the 24" psycannon range off him a bit longer.
That's not necessarily an argument FOR land raiders, as I think you're still putting a lot of eggs into each basket, but it's the better approach. The problem is, going 2nd you can't really do anything to keep the psycannons from getting to midfield and beginning to pummel your raiders, and you lack the model count to aggressively go after grey knights in midfield at that point. Your strategy then becomes hoping for bad pen and damage rolls, and hope is not a strategy.
$.02
I think it's not a bad idea, but I don't think it bucks the metagame as much as it could otherwise; you want to screw with grey knights, take triple monolith or something ... but as has been hinted at elsewhere, you're suddenly disadvantaged against numerous OTHER opponents.
- Mike
Good input mike. Now if only Blood Angels had access to Chimeras! Honestly, I don't think marine armies are going to be able to do much vs the GKs at all. You are right about the baskets. Land Raiders will probably not do in versatile competitive play.
I don't really know what will counter the GKs and remain competitive vs the other armies. I think that the GKs will change what the other armies are playing, so the variables are many. But I do think that coming up with an army that handles GKs well first is a good place to start for future GT lists.
I have to bust out army builder and come up with a jump pack and baal pred list. That will be my next post! :)
I think the thing you want to focus on / realize is that GK are not very good in combat, and getting there with large #'s of guys and units is a big deal; psycannons are as effective against rhinos as autocannons are, which means not very good, unless the GK can set up in midfield, stop moving, and hurl 8 shots/squad/turn at you.
Mephiston, double honor guard in rhinos with melta and pweps, bunches of 5 man pwep melta rhino troop squads, and predator support to mess with how well meched he is and/or screw up the dreads is how you want to go about it. Also, aside from rends, the GK don't have a lot of ways OTHER than those dreads to gun down FNP marines.
K.I.S.S. ... look at Mark Ferek's runner up list at the NOVA last year ... 5 or 6 troop rhinos with melta/melta pistol/power weapon, 2 honor guard with double melta, all in rhinos, and like 5 predators, with Mephiston. The GK aren't going to gun that down, and if you outplay them for the charge you're going to mess them up in combat ... even purifiers aren't THAT great, and those little 5 man squads only still have 6 power weapon attacks unless they're charging you ... your sarge on the charge throws 4. IN short, nemesis force weapons or not, if you're charging GK with BA you're winning ... if you're trying to have some kind of meta-game bucking shootfest with them, you're going to be in trouble, b/c at the heart of it GK are basically marines that shoot a bunch of stuff at you ... and their weakness is range.
The same kind of BA army nuanced above ALSO does better against ... well, almost everyone/anyone else to boot ... surprise surprise, good armies are good armies, and you may not need to try and play hinky metagames to rock the house down with your BA.
Just a thought, hope it comes across right tonewise ... so easy to sound know it all ish on the internard!
PS - the fire you do throw down on things like purifier or GKSS prior to charging is going to get allocated to the FORCE Weapon models, b/c people will sell the house to avoid losing their psycannons, and the psycannons are even worse in combat, so by the time you charge after a few pistol and melta shots and spare dakka, you're actually going to often be going against one or two power weapons, and a couple of heavy weapon dudes ... it's very winnable, and the GK's dudes all cost more than yours.
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