GK » Prometheus at War

Feast of Blades list, Tau & GK allies.

40K, Allies, Grand Tournament, Grey Knights, List Building, Tactics, Tau 4 Responses »

Sep 282012

Been a while since I’ve posted (~2weeks) and I’ve been thinking over a few things. I’ve qualified for the Feast of Blades in Denver, and lists are due Oct 1st, so, enough procrastinating. This is the list I’ve been working with for maybe a month now (before Tau vehicles got a 3+ cover save, 2+ when turbo-boosting, so that’s all Gravy now) and it’s been working pretty well.

Basic idea is that the Shas’El goes on top of the Bastion, with the pathfinders, and mans the Icarus Lascannon. Broadsides go inside, so we have a nice, fairly nasty fire base there with cover on the battlements and AV 14.

Purifiers rush up (18″) to midfield and just sit there in their rhino as a deterent with 8 psycannon shots, and happy enough to assault you if you ask for it.

Coteaz goes with GKSS and they move up the field on foot behind the purfiers acting as the main Dakka unit, with Coteaz using Divination and Precience on them.

Psykers move up however far is required to get within 36″, drop Str 8 AP1 pieplates.

Tau Firewarriors get in their Devil Fish (steal one from pathfinders) and probably don’t really get out until last turns, just scooting around with a 3+ or 2+ cover save as required.

Hammerheads do their thing, mostly their for the pie plates.

Dreadknight is there for disruption, counter-attack, and just outright breaking units when required.

Thoughts on the list:

Anti-tank: I feel pretty solid. I have 5 Railt guns and the icarus lascannon available for first turn initial strike, a strength 8 Ap 1 large blast, 4 psycannons that should be in play turn 2+, and many str 5 shots. Hopefully the hammherheads won’t be needed for their anti-tank and can be left for pie plates, but they’re there if needed.

Anti-horde: Super solid. 3 pie plates (2 str 6 and 1 str 8), the Heavy incinerator off the Dread knight, Cleansing Flame if required from the purifiers (I think not) and lots of Dakka.

Durability: Great. AV14 bastion (vulnerable to Railguns, Lances, and deepstruck Meltas, but that’s about it). 2 Av 13, 2 AV 12 (which should have 3+ saves) vehoicles. Weakspots are the rhinos, easy first turn kill sif I’m not careful.

Mobility: Descent. 4 transports, GKSs can deepstrike if they want to (probably will not) and NDK can be wherever it wants to. (but will almost certainly make itself a big fat target)

Scoring: This is what I’m worried about. I have 4. The GKSS are 10 strong and tough, but they’re walking and can get shot up if the opponent makes a goal out of it. The FW will be pretty hard to kill inside their 2+ DFs, but accidents happen, and there’s only 6 in each. I wanted to do a big squad of 12 but didn’t know what to give up. Psykers are scoring, technically, but are very delicate. So, 3 of those scorers really, really don’t want to get out of their vehicle until the last minute, and truth is the psykers rhino will probably be shot out form under them, anyway.

If it’s nightfight first turn, things are going very well for me!

Thoughts?

2000 Pts – Tau Empire Roster – Matt Bennett, FoB list 2012

Total Roster Cost: 1998

On the use and care of Stormravens in 6th Edition (tactica)

40K, List Building, Tactics, Unit review 2 Responses »

Aug 222012

Note: I’m writing this from a GK pov, but a lot of it is applicable to Blood Angels as well.

Ah, the flying land raider. Using a Stormraven was pretty simple in 5th edition, at least for Grey Knight players. Blood Angels sometimes got tricked into using it as a gun boat, because of their fancy schmancy Bloodstrike missiles, but it’s use to GK players was very clear: Deliver Termiantors and maybe a psychic dreadnought to your opponents face.

I basically used my Stormraven like a really expensive drop pod in 5th edition. I’d load in Draigo and either some paladins or purifiers (later it was purifiers, because I decided I need the fearless in case of tank shock) and just ran the thing straight at the enemy first turn. 24″, get a 4+ cover save (librarians and shrouding were popular to make it 3+, but I had neither the points nor the room) and melta some poor tank, just because I could. That usually failed to hit or pen for whatever perverse reason despite the demands of statistics, but who cared? Draigo was now on the enemy door step.

Then, always, the enemy would fire basically their entire army at it. They had to, because if it didn’t go down, draigo was going to get to charge whatever he wanted, the SR was going to go nuts shooting, and it would be pretty much an auto-win for me. Since I was often fighting fellow GK, I’d really look forward to shooting the mindstrikes, but that rarely ever happened.

Stormravens are tough, even in 5th ed, but most of the time, they’d be able to bring it down. (how many shots does it take to get to the center of a SR? ”most of whatever you got”, honest assessment at the time.)

That was fine, though, because 1) It usually took a full turn of shooting to do that. 2) Draigo and friends, again, is on your doorstep. They’d just climb out of the wreckage, and murder everything within arms-reach. Turn 2 charge.

Now, keep in mind, that was easily a 700-800 pt investment in that one Stormraven, 200 pts of which usually got blown up on the way in. But still, totally worth it.

Soooo……..flyers are awesome in 6th, and the SR is a Flyer. The Stormraven was good in 5th, so it must be total broken-sauce in 6th, right? Uh……..yes and no. The truth is trying use my SR in 6th has left me a little conflicted and confused.

Firstly, let’s be clear, it is a flyer, and flyers are gross. If your opponent doesn’t have appropriate counter measures (which are hard to come by, absent their own flyers, at the moment) you’re going to run rough shod all over them.

But how are you going to use it? How are you going to use those 205-260 points to further your goals in winning the game?

The Problem with Psychic Disciplines and Rulebook powers in 6th Edition 40k

40K Comments Off

Aug 172012

So everybody having fun with your new psychic powers out of the main 6th ed rulebook? They’re fun, right? You got them basically for free, and they’re shiny, new, interesting, and fun to try out. Fun is important. This is a game, and we play it for fun, so if that’s your only concern, this in’t really the article for you. If you’re the kind of player who plays orks because you get to roll on lots of tables, roll big handfuls of dice, and shout “waagh!!!!!!!!” at least once a game, then the basic rulebook powers are exactly what you’re looking for. The real problem is that from a competitive standpoint, they suck. They A) mostly aren’t very good (with the exception Divination) B) aren’t even vaguely balanced (as illustrated by everyone talking about Divination). I’m going to start with some facts, some stats, some major points of discussion, and then go into more depth from there. We”ll go into this in more detail later, but to start the conversation off, the main problems with the powers are:

Randomness, far more random than for spell lores in Warhammer Fantasy. Most 40K psykers only have 1 or 2 powers, while fantasy wizards can have anywhere from 1-4. Additionally, fantasy wizards get to choose whenever they roll the same power twice — 40k psykers just have to roll again. Games Workshop, as a company, clearly does not appreciate how un-fun randomness is for many players.
Multiple points of failure: First you have to roll to cast it, then often to hit, there’s a deny the witch roll, and often additional defenses beyond that (Grey Knights, Eldar, Space Wolves, and Tyranids. Necrons have a small defense you’re unlikely to see. SW can layer 3 different types of defenses, if you read the rules liberally! Great rules writing again, GW!).
Utter lack of balance. Some powers are great nearly all the time. Some are awful. Many are great, but only in specific situations. Which you have absolutely no chance to plan for, because you will at best only get the power you want 50% of the time! Disciplines that have a good Primaris Power (the only really good one is for Divination) are clearly favored over the others.
Warp Charge and Psyker Mastery Levels. The vast majority of psykers in the game are Level 1. It’s all fine and good to formalize the process for determining how many powers (including force weapons) you can cast a turn, but Warp Charge 2 powers are distributed among the disciplines in a very haphazard way. There are four warp charge 2 powers (two of which suck) but two disciplines don’t get any and one gets two (and those are the only good ones). If you decided you needed a “second level” of powers, wouldn’t it make sense to make sure that each discipline got one each? They seem to have been randomly judged and assigned levels by completely different person after they were written.
Wild inconsistency in how you defend against spells. Is there anyone who thinks rune weapons remaining the same while psychic hoods were drastically nerfed wasn’t an oversight? I doubt many people begrudge Tyranids their Shadow of the Warp, but while it certainly makes sense for Eldar to have powerful and sophisticated anti-psyker methods, doesn’t everyone agree the “whole board” is a bit much?
Primaris Powers. Or rather, the fact that because selecting powers is random, and cannot be planned for, a discipline’s worth is primarily determined by how good the Primaris Power is.

Some basic stats that are important for a discussion of psykers and psychic powers in 40K:

A normal psyker has a 1/18th chance of suffering a perils of the warp. (1/36 of double 1′s, 1/36 of double 6′s =2/36=1/18) This is, just to give you a feeling, the same odds that a marine will kill himself with one shot of plasma. (1/6*1/3=1/18)

Chance of passing Leadership 10 (i.e., successfully casting your power, to start) is 91%. This is the leadership of basically all psykers that are worth talking about.
Chance to pass ld 9 is 82.7%. Aside from primaris psykers for IG, there are barely any psykers with ld 9. Grey Knight Justicars are (and the squads are often ld 8) but that’s a little outside this discussion. (Ooo! Dark Angel Librarians. Which are clearly a relic. Does anybody take those? Didn’t think so.)
Chance to pass Ld 8 is 71.7%. This really only comes up for weird things like henchmen psykers (which are stupid cheap for what they do, so few complain) and GK techmarine.

Chance to hit Ld 5 is 27.5%. Bonus pts for figuring out why that matters. (it’s what you need to pick the model you want with a focused witchfire) Basically we’re talking about double the normal chance of a precision shot, that’s it.

There are, just so you know, exactly three kinds of powers. No, not witchfire’s, blessings, novas, et al.. The three types of powers you need to worry about are Buffs, debuffs, and Damage.

Assault versus shooting in 6th Ed 40k (and implications for Grey Knights)

40K 6 Responses »

Aug 142012

So, 6th edition. I remember shortly after 6th ed came out, a lot of folks were talking about what that means for assault versus shooting, principally revolving around Random Charge Length and Overwatch, with most people thinking it was a net nerf for assault based armies, but some folks pointed out that on average, you got 1″ extra when charging. (If you’re interested in other people’s thoughts, check out Kirby’s analysis here.)

Well, now we’re about a month and a half in, I’ve been through 2 tournaments myself (and hey, I qualified for Feast of Blades Invitational, yaaaaayyyy……….) and a number of weekly games, and I’ve had time to toss things around in my head a bit, and I’ve come to a conclusion:

Assault is significantly hurt in 6th edition, at least for expensive, elite armies (like Grey Kngihts) but it has little to do with Random Charge Length nor overwatch. It mostly has to do with Morale, Fearless, And they shall know no fear (ATSKNF) and wiping out units.

6th ed and Grey Knights part 3: A unit by unit analysis and Tactica

40K Comments Off

Jul 242012

So, continuting my series from last week (Parts One and Two) I wanted to continute the discussion of how 6th edition affects Grey Knights. On to Fast Attack!

Stormraven

Upsides of 6th:

Flyers are broken (at the moment), didjya hear? Seriously, it’s messed up, but there is almost nothing more important than how many Flyers you can bring in 6th edition
The Stormraven is quite tough for a flyer.
It has a lot of guns, and can be given a fair bit of variety to it’s guns\
It is also a transport, with an assault ramp no less
If you’re worried about it crashing with your dudes inside, they can always jump out the back

Downsides of 6th:

It’s quite expensive, the most expensive flyer by far.
Using it as a transport is much harder in this edition
Dual Gunship/Transport function means you are wasting some of it’s capacity now.

Continue reading »

6th edition 40k, and how it affects Grey Knights: A unit by unit analysis and Tactica

40K 4 Responses »

Jul 182012

So……6th edition. I thought I’d make my first post, in just about a year, with it, but I wanted the time to digest some of what is coming out of it. I have lots of thing to say about 6th edition itself, but I wanted to discuss the effects on various GK units more, merely because that is so high at the top of my mind. I think there’s no where else to start but the top.

Generally: Grey Knights were generally considered at the top of the heap at the close of 5th. Personally, I think Necrons were probably right up there with them, but I think this fact was in general underappreciated–mostly due to Necrons needing a fair bit of finesse and synergy between units, while GK units tend to be a lot more general purpose, self-sufficient, and of course they’re marines (they didn’t use to be, dammit!) which makes them a fair bit fail-proof. Well, that’s gone now, at least to a degree. Which is good! Grey Knights certainly got their boosts in 6th, but so did most other codexes, some to a far larger degree than GK. Again, I say this is good. I’m sure there are some power gamers out there who want their “I win” button (it was never really there) but personally, I get tired of people assuming I’m beating them just because I brought Grey Knights. I think most players are similar.

General Upsides of 6th for GK:

Psychic powers are far more important now, and Grey Knights have a ton of psykers, and possibly the most powerful on average, in the game. Only a few models can switch out their power for basic rule book powers, but it’s still more than most armies get.
Massive nerf to psychic hoods means that GK will get their powers off far more often. Most of our native powers are buffs, meaning Deny The Witch and Psychic Hoods are inapplicable.
Conversely, we’re now one of the best psychic defended armies in the game. Because of how Deny The Witch works, a GK unit (not henchmen) will almost always get a 5+ save against powers, very often 4+ (if they include a Psychic Mastery level 2 IC, which is going to happen a lot), and this is on top of The Aegis. That’s pretty powerful, and unlikely to change through FAQs or new codexes (which you should expect with Space Wolves and Eldar, eventually)
Generally speaking infantry Dakka is much more important, and Grey Knights, particularly Strike Squads, are really good at Dakka.

General Downsides of 6th for GK:

Fortitude is much weaker now. This is part of the general nerf to vehicles, but we had really good vehicles, and Fortitude was a little broken. Still, the change hurts us more than some others.
You no longer win the shooting match quite as definitively with rapid firers like Tac Squads, as they can at least hit you at the same range, and are much cheaper.

So, that sounds like a much larger upside to downside, but keep in mind almost everyone else got a similar list. Much was given in 6th, very little (besides vehicles was taken away).

So let’s look at it unit by unit, shall we? We’ll start with Troops.

Ard Boyz battle reports!

40K, Battle Report, Grand Tournament 15 Responses »

Aug 182011

Let’s go on to the game by game battle report, shall we? 40k Preliminary Ard Boyz missions are here. I should mention that our T.O. had ruled, ahead of time, that Infiltrate and Scout were universal rules that were active in all missions.

Game 1:

So, I hope the kid never finds this blog, because I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but my round 1 opponent was a 17 year old puppy we’ll abbreviate as J. And I stomped the puppy. Nothing noble in it, but I took it for the opportunity it was to get full battle points.

I came in 2nd in the 40k Ard Boyz

40K, Grand Tournament, Grey Knights, Tactics 4 Responses »

Aug 172011

So, I went down to my local store this past weekend, where I am in fact a paying club member, to play in the 40k Ard Boyz preliminaries. I came in second, out of a fairly small 13 people, just narrowly missing first with a 61-58 battle points ratio. Two other folks tied for 3rd at 48 pts. I think the day mostly went pretty well, and I’m ok with coming in second, since it qualified me for the semi-finals……but in the semi-finals I need first, so I know I have a little work ahead of me.

Here’s the list I took:

OK, look, NFW Halberds are not as great as you think.

40K, Grey Knights, List Building, Tactics 20 Responses »

Jul 202011

“ZOMG, Halberds are so awesome!” The Internet raves. ”It should be like, all Halberds, all the time!” Hokay, now, calm down. Yes, NFW Halberds are good. Going at Initiative 6 puts you before the whole wide world of MEQs (like 60% of 4ok, at least), even before those with furious charge. Since they’re power weapons, that are often at a boosted strength, you are really fairly likely kill a lot of the enemy before they get a chance to swing. But, of course, not everything is a MEQ (just as not every vehicle is a rhino), and even against a MEQ (Marine EQuivalent) there are times when the the +2 initiative isn’t going to be helpful. Perhaps, more importantly, all the other Nemesis Force Weapons can be pretty awesome, though costs and cost effectiveness for all of them vary widely by unit. So let’s talk about when to use NFW halberds, and what the real cost/benefit of them is. First, let’s get two things out of the way.

Yes, you are pretty much alway going to get them on Purifier Squads. 2 pts (!!!) is stupid cheap, and it’s not just that low cost alone, it’s that it’s augmenting 2 attacks, so you’re really only paying 1pt per attack to make it Init 6.
No, you should pretty much never get them on Strike Squads. 5pts isn’t so cheap, especially for a unit that only has 1 attack, and wants to fighting in CC as a distant second to using it’s ranged firepower.

So with it being a pretty much auto-include on Purifiers, and a never-include on strike squads, and therefore interceptor squads, as well, (can we all admit that people don’t really use purgation squads?) what we’re really talking about is when to take them on Terminators squads (including paladin’s) and how much. And that’s what has really been making me pull my hair out, people saying termies should have all halberds, all the time. Well, no, they shouldn’t, and I’ll tell you why. Continue reading »

Does GW even care about rules? Not really, but maybe they’re getting better. New FAQs out.

40K, FAQ 5 Responses »

Jul 112011

So, another round of GW FAQ updates is out, fixing various problems, clearing up questions, most of which shouldn’t have been asked, ALL of which shouldn’t have needed to be asked.

They very noticeably come much faster now, for which, many would argue, I should be grateful. The last Grey Knights and Main Rule Book FAQ was only a month ago. And I do, in way, feel grateful, but as soon as that feeling wells up, I grow bitter, because truth be told, these FAQs should largely be unnecessary. If Games Workshop play-tested in any sort of reasonable manner, most of these ambiguities wouldn’t exist. Unleash your average cynical gamer on something like the new Grey Knight Codex, and inside an hour, I think most of them would have had at least 80% of the questions I finally compiled. Only about half of which were answered by the original FAQ, and only a tiny fraction more were answered by the recent update. The fact that the original codex had so many ambiguities, and the FAQ only answered half the questions, is reflective of a fundamental un-seriousness in Games Workshops rules process. Don’t they care about rules, balance, a game that works?

No, they do not. Games Workshop is simply un-serious about rules. They design their rules around 12 year-old boys, and older gamers drinking beer and eating pretzels. You want a tight game, a game that cares about rules, what they mean, and how they can affect the outcome of two adults competing with each other in game of wits, that also happens to involve prettily painted toy soldiers? Go play warmachine. I’m serious, that’s GWs answer.

You know how I know? First new bit in the Main Rule Book FAQ: “Q: When two special rules or effects contradict each other how is this resolved? (p2) A: Roll off using ‘The Most Important Rule!”

Fuck off, GW. You plan to fail. If you wrote rules like they mattered, as if the game, which sells your models, was based upon them, you wouldn’t put forth answers like this. You’d seek to resolve the inconsistencies, ambiguities, and outright conflicts one by one until there simply weren’t anymore.

If you’re not aware of how much better and more logical a system warmachine is, you simply haven’t read the rules. Oh, I’m not saying you have to like the game, overall, aesthetics certainly has a lot to do with it, but the fact that rule system is tight, barely ever open to interpretation, and balanced, is unquestionable. If you are familiar with the system, how many times can you think of that people were unsure of how a rule worked, even in a complex interaction with another rule? How much and how long was somethign strongly unbalanced allowed to persist for? Oh, it has happened, I can think of a few instances. Count on one hand kinda “few”. How many can you think of has happened with Games Workshop rules?

Many hundreds, at least. You know it’s true.

Yes, the new FAQs come much faster. Yes, that’s progress. I’m reasonably sure they’ve been driven to this by Warmachine’s rise in popularity, and the acknowledgement that a lot of that is probably driven by a sensible ruleset.

And even with these changes brought about by Privateer Press eating their lunch, still they’re so lackadaisical? I am almost literally disgusted.

Rules are important. Rules matter. Rules lead to a system in which “tactics” can flourish. And as a intellectual, macho gamer — I basically play this game to measure my brain against my opponents — tactics are far and away what I care about.

And games workshop, which just happens to own the most popular war game system at the time, does not. And it pains me.

Let’s look at what the recent changes brought, shall we? Nothing momentous at all, but yes, it is good they’re making efforts.

Older Entries

Prometheus at War

The Problem with Psychic Disciplines and Rulebook powers in 6th Edition 40k

Assault versus shooting in 6th Ed 40k (and implications for Grey Knights)

6th ed and Grey Knights part 3: A unit by unit analysis and Tactica

6th edition 40k, and how it affects Grey Knights: A unit by unit analysis and Tactica

Ard Boyz battle reports!

Game 1:

I came in 2nd in the 40k Ard Boyz

Here’s the list I took:

Does GW even care about rules? Not really, but maybe they’re getting better. New FAQs out.

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Game 1:

Here’s the list I took:

Contact me:

Part of the following Blog networks

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Admin