Monday, June 13, 2011

Grey Knights "Core" Shenanigans, How Far Can You Stretch It?

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Trust me, it's in your best interests to reserve your hotel room (and doing so is FREE) now. :)

So,

I've found that you can do a lot with a GK list if you make the "mandatory" core as follows (and this is "duh" to some people by now) ...

Coteaz - 100
5 Acolytes w/ Storm Bolters, Psyback - 85
5 Acolytes w/ Storm Bolters, Psyback - 85
5 Acolytes w/ Storm Bolters, Psyback - 85
5 Acolytes w/ Storm Bolters, Psyback - 85
5 Acolytes w/ Storm Bolters, Psyback - 85
5 Acolytes w/ Storm Bolters, Psyback - 85
Psyfleman - 135
Psyfleman - 135
Psyfleman - 135

That's 1,015 points, and gets you 18 twin-linked S6 shots, 60 s4 storm bolter shots, and 12 twin-linked s8 ac shots, and it's 9 vehicles and 31 infantry models.  This is actually quite sufficient to "tangle" with most armies, and it's difficult to table, but more importantly - you have 985 points to burn.


You can also "save" 120 points total by dropping each aco squad to 3 guys w/ bolters ... and I'd never go lower than that; you'd be surprised how little they get focused on with any real effect, and how effectively they are chucking 15 bolter shots at marine squads or the like ... every kill is a bonus.


Nominally, you do not want to supplement this core with something fruity or silly or over the top, but ... could you?  Would it really hurt your capacity to compete ALL that much if you threw in an absurd deathstar or something similar?  Fiddle about with it yourselves, if you're of a mind ... and you might be surprised.  Even 10 paladins w/ apothecary and Karamazov doesn't actually ... "Fail" when combined with this, and ... well, it can be.

A lot of people are "hesitant" to do a Coteaz list b/c they don't want to be following the crowd or whatever, but the simple fact is that a Coteaz list doesn't HAVE to be a "Coteaz" list ... you see a lot of those, with each henchman squad backed up by meltaguns and death cult assassins, trying desperately to pull off what a simple mech meltavet straken build does better for IG (aka mobility, shorter range firepower advantages backed up by long range reliable firepower, and ability for every squad to charge and dust off opposing squads w/out requiring FF support from other units).

This type of list is actually spending as little as 895 points on your "mandatories" and having between 1105 and 985 points to spend on ... well, whatever the heck you WANT your list to really be.

Food for thought, though I know a lot of folks are already "here" with their build processes.

15 comments:

  1. This is basically where I'm at in the build process as well, however I run either 2 or 3 storm bolters on each 5 man squad.

    If the transport blows (which for me is the dominant reason boots touch ground), you're looking at losing 2-3 guys, who I'd prefer to be as cheap as possible.

    I clock in at 9 points cheaper per squad, meaning 54 points less total.

    Then, I build from there as you said.

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  2. I had this conversation just the other day. Coteaz isnt the enemy of fluff... he lets the fluff nuggets run what they want and have a shot at winning.

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  3. Bingo. If you're a fluff bunny, and don't want to run a Coteaz list, but want a shot at winning, model up 3 henchmen per razorback as "Crew," and have the razorbacks be the combat transport/logistics support elements of your force on the move. Whatever else you spend your points on will work better for their presence, and can be the true fluff and background of your force. Hooray!

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  4. I'm a fan of 2 wounds and a meltagunner for 22 points. Sometimes they get a bus, and sometimes they're just whining about walking. In any case, at least half of them are going to start in Reserve and walking for me anyway.

    I do have DCAs, though, because they are good clean fun (and I like the idea of s8 chicks in tee shirts = coteaz + librarian (hh+moh) + techmarine).

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  5. I ran a list with pretty all razorback troops before and it died pretty quickly. Once those guys are out the transports they die to a stiff breeze.

    Atm, I'm running 2x 10man GKSS squads + Rhino and 2x Warband squads in razors + 2 5man purifier squads in razors, in my 1750 list which has been getting me results.

    I'll give this a try out when I actually have 6 razors, but I personally feel I need 2 "beefy" troop choices

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  6. Absolutely incisive. Do you use Army Builder? I keep cores like this saved as lists and then load and adapt them as wanted.

    FWIW I don't see how people can go past the sheer efficiency of 3-man aco squads.

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  7. I think thats the point. You can still fit in a beefy core by simply dropping acco squads. It's not like you have to keep all 6. Consider:

    Corteaz - 100
    5xhenchmen /w 5xstormbolter, psyback - 85
    5xhenchmen /w 5xstormbolter, psyback - 85
    5xhenchmen /w 5xstormbolter, psyback - 85
    5xhenchmen /w 5xstormbolter, psyback - 85
    10xTerminators /w 2xpsycannon - 450
    10xTerminators /w 2xpsycannon - 450
    3xpsydreads
    Total: 1745

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  8. I'm curious that you take the psyback route for henchmen rather than the Chimera that has five fire points.

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  9. Of course sadly AB doesn't have GK scripted in yet. I was looking forward to taking MVB's core and seeing what could be fused to it. Paper is so much slower. Anyone know of any other good tools for making lists?

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  10. I did use Excel before getting AB. You've got to admit the former isn't a patch on the latter. I'm just spoiled I guess.

    So GK will be taking the tournament then? How can other lists match this?! Here is a challenge for you MVB: tell us what list will beat GK (without being tailored to only beat GK and crap against everything else.)

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  11. Lists don't beat lists....

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  12. What Rich said is highly accurate; that said, I've continued to be successful against all GK build archetypes with the same Straken guard build I used at BFS (though bolt pistols x 2 and GK BC turned into lord com w/ cloak and extra kit).

    I also actually think that some nid builds do alright against them; not fantastically, but alright; they have to do it with dakka, 9 hive guard, and plenty of tervigons, but it's very doable. Catalyst natch also helps. Any nid build requiring combat gets owned horribly, or seems to, especially when purifiers are present in any kind of healthy quantity. Blah blah.

    Frankly, I could go through every dex, but I think any top notch build out of almost any dex is going to do fine against GK. Also, kinda ironically, many GK lists you see do very poorly against triple monolith, even this one if you don't addendum it properly. You'll notice a huge # of people who don't take many hammers or other sorts of things, and when they run up against liths they are kinda boned ... 3d6 s5 gauss can do a number on a parking lot and a bunch of dudes.

    GK are very strong, in that it's not hard to build a good list, and their basic dudes can often carry a very utility weapon in the Psycannon ... strong against all armor types w/ lots of bullets for all anti-infantry work.

    The GK do force you to up your list game even more, however, and their ability to torrent and crack open light armor makes things a little riskier for 5-man MSU marine type builds in transports. For my own part, Vets are still perfectly functional in their anti-armor and anti-marine roles as long as 4/10 are alive per squad ... and with the abundance of cover, orders, and going to ground, GK have a harder time dealing with 10-man vet squads hiding trips melta than they do dealing with 5 or 6 man marine squads as often as not ... their weapons don't struggle to put wounds down on things, after all, regardless of T in many cases.

    I could ramble on, but it's for another article, or someone that styles themselves more of an internet 'expert' (which I do not). Suffice to say I haven't seen GK change the balance of codices, so much as put a greater onus on all to up the level and caliber of their lists.

    Ironically, I think that may be as much of an issue as any - I did not feel any stress at ALL on anyone's already decent list in terms of dealing with Dark Eldar, Tyranids, or Blood Angels, though all 3 codices can be played in very nasty and terrifying fashion. With GK, though, the frank ease with which people can build strong lists, and the flexibility to be fluffy and still torrenty and competitive a la the above "core' ... all combine to create a much more 'real' pressure on the global player base to up their game than did codices before GK which I feel are just as competitively capable.

    I suppose, said in short, the GK dex makes bad players better more readily than most others, b/c putting down a list that can hurt people with some psyflemen dreads and a bunch of psycannons or psybacks is really not all that difficult to do.

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  13. Army Builder released 5E GK awhile back. Here's the web address to go grab it.. it's about 15 up from the bottom...

    http://www.wolflair.com/rightframe.php?context=army_builder&page=anticipated_release_dates

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