There's been a lot of discussion lately on how Grey Knights are not a combat army. There are units which are pretty good at combat but are hindered by poor overall weight of attacks, weapon skill and lack of a good invulnerable save. For the most part, combat is a secondary aspect of a Grey Knight army with shooting being the primary function. However, there is one model which hasn't really been discussed in these posts and that is of course Death Cult Assassins. These guys have crappy armor with only a 5+/5++ but with A2, strength 4, initiative 6 and weapon skill 5 (not to mention two power weapons), they pack a helluva punch in combat for 15 points per model. That's pretty bloody good and although they aren't survivable, with the amount of damage output DCA have, this doesn't really matter except when they are shot. They also lack frag grenades to make use of their high I which is a huge drawback but we can work around that. Let's see if we can't build something based around this unit.
First off we're going to want two of these units obviously for redundancy but the question is how do we access them. Do we take Coteaz and make them Troops or run two Inquisitors and run them as bonus Elites. Both of their advantages. Coteaz gives our base units Troop status which means we don't have to sink as many points into surrounding these units with scoring options and ability to crack open tanks. Coteaz is probably cheaper than the two Inquisitors after they have been given gear as well. On the other hand, the two Inquisitors bring grenades and grenades can make the DCA much, much scarier. For the moment though let's got with Coteaz as points are going to be an issue.
Coteaz 100 points
Now we need to work out how our DCA are going to be transported. Land Raider Crusaders are the obvious choice (or Redeemers) as they provide frag grenades on the turn they charge out of the Crusader. This is very helpful in dealing with units in cover whilst also providing all the usual Land Raider benefits of AV14, assault vehicle, bunch of guns, power of the machine spirit, etc. Two of these with MMs costs 530 points. Extra Armor is probably needed for the guaranteed ignoring of stunned but for the moment we'll leave it off and gamble on Fortitude.
Land Raider Crusader w/MM 265 points
Land Raider Crusader w/MM 265 points
We then obviously need the DCA to go inside. We've got two real options here. Run the DCA by themselves and suffer from the dodgy survivability and highly likely overkill issues or attempt to increase unit survivability with Crusaders. Crusaders bring storm shields (and power weapons) to the table for the same cost as DCA. They are no where near as offensiely potent as the DCA nor as survivable as many other units with Storm Shields (they are T3 after all and no 2+ armor save to back it up) but it does increase the unit's durability by some margin. I think a mix of seven DCA and five Crusaders is good as you're still getting 28 WS5 power weapon attacks on the charge and now have five 3++ models. Each of these units will set us back 180 points.
7x Death Cult Assassin, 5x Crusader 180 points
7x Death Cult Assassin, 5x Crusader 180 points
We've so far used 990 points for our HQ and two 'rocks' so we are roughly on par with what you'd be looking to pay for this in other Space Marine books (i.e. Vanilla) but everything else in the GK codex is more expensive. Luckily our 'rocks' are scoring units so we don't have to worry about that as much. Let's see what we can do to fill out the army around these two units then.
We want to add to our Troops first and foremost. We have two options for this. Run henchmen units which are generally cheaper, give us access to a Razorback, meltaguns and give us a lot of bodies which aren't very durable. Sounds like a cross between an IG and SM list. Archnomad has done a list along this construct here. The other option is to use Grey Knight Strike Squads. We can go either full squad or MSU and I think we'll go MSU here. It adds more firepower due to the Razorbacks and saturation which we could use since 1000 of our points are dumped into what is essentially two units so far. Filling out or FoC with these squads uses 640 points and looks like this.
5x Grey Knight Strike Squad, Psycannon, Razorback w/Psybolt Ammo 160 points
5x Grey Knight Strike Squad, Psycannon, Razorback w/Psybolt Ammo 160 points
5x Grey Knight Strike Squad, Psycannon, Razorback w/Psybolt Ammo 160 points
5x Grey Knight Strike Squad, Psycannon, Razorback w/Psybolt Ammo 160 points
This takes our points total to 1630 which means we don't have much for Elites or Heavy Support. This probably isn't enough so we may have to end up using Henchmen as our whole Troops but for the moment let's continue on and see what we can add.
We obviously need more anti-tank and there are many ways to get this in a Grey Knights army. I'd love to go with the ever boring Psyflemen Dreadnought but unfortunately we've already used two of our Heavy Support slots for Land Raider Crusaders. Bummer. We could take a Venerable Dreadnought instead with the added 60 point tax per Dreadnought but I'm a little loathe to do that. Instead, let's go with Purifiers and run them MSU style with double psycannon and a Psyback. This adds to our S6 firepower as well as bringing more psycannons to the table. Each squad costs 190 points so we'll start off with two.
5x Purifiers, 2x Psycannons, Razorback, Psybolt Ammo 190 points
5x Purifiers, 2x Psycannons, Razorback, Psybolt Ammo 190 points
This takes our total to 2010 points. I feel we're still a bit lacking in the anti-tank department so let's look at what we've got so far. 12-24 S7 rending shots, 48 S4 shots and 18 S6 shots plus the two Crusaders isn't too bad but probably not going to reliably pop armor which means our DCA mini-rocks are going to be hung out to dry. The question is, how do we access this firepower? Let's drop the GKSS squads for now and replace them with Warrior Acolytes. A full squad of these guys with three meltaguns and a Rhino costs 110 points or if we went the minimalist route, a squad of six with three meltaguns and a Razorback costs 104 points. The GEQ bodies aren't as durable obviously but do provide us with more anti-tank firepower in the meltaguns but probably lose overall firepower with the disappearance of the Psyback, Stormbolters and Psycannon. Is it worth the shaving of 50 points? Yes and no as it really depends on what we can access with those extra points. For now, let's drop all the GKSS in place of Rhino based Melta-acos.
10x Warrior Acolyte, 3x Meltagun, Rhino 110 points
10x Warrior Acolyte, 3x Meltagun, Rhino 110 points
10x Warrior Acolyte, 3x Meltagun, Rhino 110 points
10x Warrior Acolyte, 3x Meltagun, Rhino 110 points
With these squads instead of the GKSS our point total drops from 2010 to 1810 which means more points can be spent on something else! 190 points is just enough for another Purifier squad which means our net-loss is three Psybacks and two psycannons whilst gaining the 40 GEQ bodies and 12 meltaguns. The list therefore ends up looking like this:
Coteaz
5x Purifiers, 2x Psycannons, Razorback, Psybolt Ammo
5x Purifiers, 2x Psycannons, Razorback, Psybolt Ammo
5x Purifiers, 2x Psycannons, Razorback, Psybolt Ammo
10x Warrior Acolyte, 3x Meltagun, Chimera
10x Warrior Acolyte, 3x Meltagun, Chimera
10x Warrior Acolyte, 3x Meltagun, Chimera
10x Warrior Acolyte, 3x Meltagun, Chimera
7x Death Cult Assassin, 4x Crusader
7x Death Cult Assassin, 4x Crusader
Land Raider Crusader w/MM
Land Raider Crusader w/MM
Totals: 1990 points
Tanks: 9
Bodies: 78
Not bad overall and with 60+ GEQ scoring bodies our objective capturing ability isn't horrendous. With some point tweaking as well (drop a Crusader and DCA from each mini-rock squad) we could turn those Rhinos into Chimeras so we can always use the top-hatch and not need to disembark the Acolytes to shoot three meltaguns. This is preferable and although you lose Fortitude, makes those units much more durable and adds a bunch of ranged dakka to your army as well. Edit: this has been done in the list above.
In the end the list isn't exactly a rock list as the assault units are no where near as survivable as a true rock but they do pack quite a punch on the charge. There is a lot more durable midfield support in this list compared to a Vanilla list as well, particularly in terms of scoring ability to compensate for this decrease 'rockness.'
