Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Thoughts beget Heresy, Heresy begets brainstorm...

What the 41st Millennium has come to...

Now, I dont have the codex on me yet. I hope to rectify this soon, but for now, some brainstorming.

*Any Points values might be off my ten or so points but that doesn't matter at the moment*

I want to get the most out of this time though so I have taken the opportunity to review the interwebs and have combined it with the few hours of looking over the codex and army list and will do some Theory-hammering.

First lets see what we have to work with... And I don't want henchmen (see picture above)

GREY KNIGHT (POWER ARMOR)

Well, I guess one size fits all doesn't it? I can have my strike, purgy, intercepting, and purifying flavors. Right now though lets see what just 20pts can get you.

Its a simple marine, just with a storm bolter, a force weapon, and str 5 with Holocaust...

No big deal right? Wrong, This changes everything.

Why? Because a simple marine is used just to buy a razorback (sad but true) a Grey knight is there to pound some 24" hate into the enemy and then hit someone with his shiny beatstick. Now Games Workshop seems to finally understand something about codex design as Grey Knights come with the best heavy to support them, Psycannons. At 10 pts a pop these suckers are defiantly soul squishes. Str7 with rending is a beautiful piece of work and 2/4 shot if you move or not is just nice and flexible.

The best part, 5 dudes and one psycannon are 110pts. 10 are double at 220pts for just the basics. The ten man unit can pelt a target at 24inches with 16 storm bolter shots and 4/8 Psycannon rounds. Dear Goodness, what an awesome objective sitter. They are a huge Frak-Off unit and as I move along with my brainstorming you will defiantly see them all over the place.

A word about close combat though. Grey Knights are not a close combat army (I think the interwebs understands this now, I knew it just from my first glance). They ARE however a perfect bait and rush army. What does that mean? Well, in many ways the army is similar to a LoganWing. Logan wing armies have small squads that have a good moving heavy weapon (just like Grey Knights do) and while better in combat than most units tend to not want to go toe to toe with true close combat units. Instead, the loganwing (at least with my own experience) is all about shooting the enemy, limiting their mobility and isolating the close combat units, then throwing a number of small units into the enemy and tearing them down by weight of numbers.

Grey knights will be doing this as well, but have the advantage of being able to pound many shots into these scary units halfway across the board. And not only that but if you have a few units of 10 guys sitting around each other, well that gets pretty scary.

Some costs to put things in perspective,

5 Grey knights, one psycannon 110pts
5 wolf guard, one with Terminator armor, Cyclone missile launch, chain fist 150pts
10 Grey Knights, 2 psycannons 220pts
10 wolf guard, 2 in term armor w CML 270pts

Did I mention that Grey Knights can combat squad, think about how awesome they are as a foot army.

I feel right now that my first few Grey knight army ideas will begin to have a lot of my Logan wing feels to them, just one catch though. The Army works at 24" instead of 48" like a logan wing. What does that mean? well it means that the army has to aggressively push into midfield and then just pelt out shots, thank goodness we have a wonderful army book with units like Grey Knight Terminators and Interceptors to help seize the midfield and hold it for the strike squads.

I have work to get done so I will leave you with this but next I think I will get some ideas out of getting to the middle, creating an anchor there and holding out till the last turn when they grab and contest everything.

As usual thoughts are cool, I have 19 followers, at least one of them should have something to say ^_^

3 comments:

  1. I honestly think that Strike Squads look amazing on paper, but aren't that great on the table. Psycannons are amazing, but only part of the picture. Put those Marines up against the Wolf Guards and there is no question who comes out on top (barring some crazy dice).

    While GKSS are awesome, they're pretty much Tac Squads with some flavor. Purifiers might be a different story, though. :)

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  2. I have to disagree, ok i only played one game but still the firepower they put out is amazing, feels way more then Logan wing can do.

    The combination of Heavy Bolter Razorback/psyammo + a strike squad is a beauty. :) Drive 6, disembark and you can shoot 6 inches into the enemy deployment zone.

    Purifiers on the other hand seem overpriced you don't need the extra melee power, especially since anything that puts wounds on a GKSS also will kill a Purifier squad dead.

    "Put those Marines up against the Wolf Guards and there is no question who comes out on top (barring some crazy dice)."

    The wolf guard guys only have a BP and CCW, so no damage over 12" inch, a GKSS puts wounds on at 24 and when it's head bashing time the GK can easily chop up the rest that arrives. If you gear up the WG they start to cost a lot more then GK for in my opinion less power per point.

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  3. @ Sgt.Brisbane

    Yeah they aren't the best and do need support, for a start they are certainly a good place to begin. I know that adding support elements to the army will be vital and even these guys are support as well.

    Instead of viewing Grey Knights as troops with support like I would with the Blood Angels, Space Wolves, and Chaos Space Marines I view everything in the Grey Knights codex as a different support unit.

    I will cover my views of army building with Grey Knights next as that would help me and the readers.

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