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Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Grey Knight Grand Masters - Strategy begets victory


So I'm back again.... My Grey Knight codex review is still on the back burner, as I furiously get games in prior to my last three tournaments of the year. I'm trying fairly hard to garner a spot in the Queensland Masters, and only getting lots of games in (and not having my town flooded again -_-) stands in my way.

When discussing GK HQ's, there really seems to be four things people talk about. Three of these modify your FOC and they will be covered again elsewhere. The fourth is the ubiquitous Librarian - that little box of utility gold that any GK army can use to its fullest extent, with wonderful powers such as shrouding and sanctuary, and unit buffs like might of titan and quicksilver (not to mention a psychic hood).



However, when looking at HQ's, the majority of the lists we see floating around the interwebs ignore the humble Grey Knight Grand Master. He is a reasonable combat character with a solid statline, hammerhand and psychic communion to boot. He comes with decent equipment (but no Power Armoured option, goddamnit), and can be given those precious grenades that techmarines exist to provide, as well as a single platform psycannon or add-on incinerator for a heavy hitting unit. The reason anyone looks at the the GM, and often passes him over, is Grand Strategy.

What can it do for me, and why does that justify 175pts worth of HQ, in a game where the rule for HQ's is "less is more" ?

Lets look at the abilities first and foremost, and discuss their applications-

Hammer of Righteousness - rarely taken, but often useful, this allows you to reroll 1's to wound for the duration of the game. Handy for adding that torrent of wounds to your opponent, especially with psybolt ammo and hammerhand. This means your chances of putting the hurt on any given unit are increased significantly, as you will only totally whiff on a roll to wound of 2 (assuming 3's to wound - crazy mathematicians, if you could throw down the improved odds in the comments, that would be great. I'm shit at maths.)

Shield of Blades - Space Grey Knight Wolves anyone? Granting the Counter-attack USR to the units in question, it allows for a more defensive stance.... which is totally useless to us in all cases, unless your playing a map that has nothing but difficult terrain to assault through. I honestly cannot think of a situation where Counter Attack is useful, as GK's are either retreating to maintain fire superiority distance, or assaulting to finish off a unit, counter attack seems silly and redundant. I have a sneaking suspicion Cruddance snuck this in here while Ward wasn't looking.

Spear of Light - Now we are getting somewhere. Grants the "Scout" USR to the unit, which is handy-dandy in an army that consists of 24" weaponry. Get your 10 man unit of paladins, Scout them, combat squad them, and all of a sudden its VERY hard to hide from those mastercrafted psycannon on turn 1. Same logic applies for purifiers/Strike squads - Move the unit up so that it doesn't have to move on its first turn, allowing you to unleash a full salvo from your usually Assault 2 psycannons, increasing your first turn damage output. It also allows you to reposition things that are important to your first turn - Rifledreads and the like that may or may not be able to see important targets (Ravagers come to mind) given your initial deployment, but may be able to draw a bead (or better still, get side armor shots) on something with a 6" scout move, plus a 6" move first turn.

Improving Spear's usefulness further, you are now able to outflank units that can not normally do so - again, incredibly handy in an army with such mid-range potential. Coupled with the use of Psychic communion, you are able to get these units into a position to ravage an enemies flank, with psycannon and stormbolter fire, or better yet, venerable multi melta dreads with heavy flamers. This sort of deployment is unusual for the units in question, and can be used as a deterrent and efficient counter for castling armies such as guard and Tau.

Unyielding Anvil - Just before we go too much further. I TOLD YOU SO, NAYSAYERS. When the codex was released, I made the point several times that regardless of the BRB's explanation, the codex overrides it, in spirit, if not in wording. Now that its been clarified, we have the wonderful option to make things like Dreadnoughts scoring, which is pure gold. Anvil up your rifledreads, and sit them on your home objective - now, if that dread is arm less, and immobilized, and stunned, its STILL holding your home turf, and being resilient while its at it. Couple the ability with a venerable dread, or dreadknight, and you have a very resilient contesting unit for midfield objectives, and in the case of the Dreadknight, one that can shunt back to an objective to contest or capture it late game. Scoring also benefits units like Paladins and Purifiers, who cannot usually do so in a normal list, and other excellent things like Interceptors, who can happily bounce out of assault and rapid fire range on a distant flank, and move to capture an objective or contest it late game.

So why is the Grand Master so useful? I mean, its not like any of these things is game winning, correct? Well, looking at it simply, no, they aren't. The D3 roll means you can't bank on how many extras your units will get (Hi there Shunt-scout Dreadknight lists, how we miss you). What Grand Strategy allows us to do, and is worth the points for, is skimp on Troops choices. That's right, min troops, max elites/fast attack/heavy support.

Why is this an effective option? So many 5th edition army lists revolve around a solid core of MSU or 1+1 troop choices, to get the most out of their army, whilst utilizing the FOC efficiently. This is generally the sign of a solid list - Enough scoring units to maintain a real presence in objective missions, whilst getting the "toys" you require from the elites/fast attack/heavy support sections to threaten your opponents army, and remove the things that counter your army.

Grey Knights have the express advantage of being able to dictate their troop numbers before the game, via Grand Strategy. It is quite feasible to simply take 2 x 10 man GKSS units in Rhinos as the core of your army, and build the rest of the list around Heavy, Elite, and FA choices. If you come up against an objective mission, as any tournament player is expecting, you have the option to increase your number of scoring units via grand strategy, without sacrificing points to do so. In non-objective missions, where troops are less important, you have the option to further increase the potency of your damage dealing units, via deployment with scout/outflank, and re-rolled wounds as required. Things like dread-heavy lists, and Interceptor filled armies, become viable, because you don't have to spend quite so many points on Strike Squads/Terminators to ensure that you can compete in objective missions. The Grand Master kind of contests the greatest issue the GK codex has, as an expensive generalist army - high points costs. Any GK players knows its extremely hard to get all the units you want into that 1750/2k list, and still maintain a balance of troops vs threats.

There is a downside - the mighty D3. This is people's biggest gripe, and why the GM gets a bit of a bad rep. Daemon players can tell you the variable of the 1 in 3 chance messing with your game plan - they deal with it every deployment. With Grand Strat, you have to take the good with the bad - simply factor that most of the time, you are going to get at least 2 choices, and if you get 1 or 3, either deal with it or rejoice, as the situation requires.

Next on the list will be a return to the GK codex review - comment away, contest, and discuss. Contention forces us to think, and makes us better players.

Comments (14)

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Matais Yohansen's avatar

Matais Yohansen · 705 weeks ago

I imagine the Counter-Attack choice would be useful in very select scenarios. The one I'm thinking of in particular is deep striking something down, away from the opponent's guns but in range of their assault units. If you plan on deep-striking somewhere and can guess with some certainty that you're going to get assaulted right away, Counter-Attack would be fairy useful, I imagine.

That being said, the other three options are almost always worth it instead.
2 replies · active 705 weeks ago
In a Draigowing, counter-attack is often useful when facing very offensive, CC oriented armies.
I could see the relevance of counter attack against fast moving assault units- that's about the only time I think it's relevant. That's really what the GM is about- the ability to somewhat modify or "tailor" your list prior to every opponent and mission.
NChomsky3d's avatar

NChomsky3d · 705 weeks ago

Shield of Blades is actually pretty useful in a non-objective Dawn of War mission against units with long charge ranges. (I know, kind of specific). You can't scout with much, so that becomes useless, and you don't need to make troops scoring, so if you know the enemy has something that will be the one charging you, it can be effective.
If you wound on a 3+ your chances of scoring a wound the first time are 4/6, your chances of rolling a 1 are 1/6, so your additional wounds for every hit are 1/6*4/6, or 0.111. You go from 0.666 wounds per hit to 0.777, an increase of about 16.7%.

(I'm skipping the periodic numbers).
2 replies · active 705 weeks ago
Keep in mind this allows for an extra (if small) chance for rending as well, and if you get a bad string of 1s it can really help you take things back.
WestRider's avatar

WestRider · 705 weeks ago

Not adding to the math here, but I just wanted to say that, from my experience playing with various Tyranid Units with a single pair of ScyTals, and playing against Space Wolves with Wolf Standards, re-rolling 1s when you only need a 3+ is pretty cool.

To look at it from a slightly different perspective, that means you get Re-Rolls on half your failed Rolls on average. Even for Units that normally need a 3+ on a give Roll, a full Re-Roll for it is generally considered a pretty big deal. Half that benefit is still very solid.

OK, I lied, I am going to add to the Math: If you just needed a straight 2+, with no Re-Rolls, you'd get .83 Wounds per Hit or so, only about a further 7% improvement over getting to Re-Roll the 1s.
The one thing which was glazed over which I think is necessary to add is combat squads. Even if you roll a 1 on Grand Strategy you can still affect two squads since it's done before deployment and thus before combat squading. You therefore really have the potential to affect 1-6 units which can be very powerful.

As a note as well, if you can make a list with cheapish Troops such as Acolyte spam or MSU GKSS and put a decent amount of them in your list, you don't need to rely on the Grand Master to make more scoring Troops in objective missions and can always use the other options like Scout. Being able to first turn shoot Heavy 4 psycannons is pretty effective and I'd love to use that in all my games rather than 1/3.

Good article :) .
I religiously use a Grand Master in my army. He provides grenades without being on a 1 wound char with no invuln, provides combat punch, absorbs wounds and makes my 10 man paladin unit always coring if i need it to be not to mention a ven dread as well on most occasion. If I don't need scoring counter attack is actually very usefull against cc armies however most of the time I use re-roll 1's to wound. He also gives me servo skulls as well as providing a 2+ save with 3 wounds in a DCA unit which means when they are shot between him and coteaz the first 2 bolters don't kill DCAs. I fins psychic communion fantastic for when I deepstrike either strike knights or my paladins and an extra cast of hammer hands is always good. Mine comes in at 220 pts with all the grneades and 2 skulls and he always does his job. The difference between my pladin list and draigo ones is I save 55 pts on a char who make the whole squad significatly better in combat because of all the grenades. I loose toughness but that is it. He is fantastic.
1 reply · active 704 weeks ago
Tratchenberg's avatar

Tratchenberg · 704 weeks ago

@ Crynn: You also lose out on troop paladins for that 55pt saving. Being able to deploy them in the middle of the table in dawn of war is great.

As a general response: Personal favourite for me in re-roll 1s. Strike squads increasing their torrent damage and making the hammers a lot less likely to fluff it (the hammer part is theory, I normally can't hit even when they're MC'd).

Second use is scouting. It puts you in the sweet spot for GK engagement range from the word go rather than needing the first tun to get in position. And yes extra psycannon shots :D Been thinking a lot about scouting interceptors since watching NOVA as well.

Third is scoring but I'm running Draigo with 5 pallies with 2 full strike squads in my 1850 list so this doesn't see much use here.

Last, counter-attack, I just don't see the point in this to be honest *shrug*. Good example was the final game at NOVA, counter attacking pallies which never got charged - You are relying on your opponent to get any use out of this one where the others are always useful.
GM combos nicely with interceptors. Scouting and (usually) coming on on turn 2/3 with communion on a flank catches a lot of people out. 18" charge range against weaker things like long fangs or tervigons, or entire board range with shooting and shunt. Scoring unit for these guys is insane also, combat squad and keep them off for end game objective grabbing with the shunt. I also take a dreadknight and scouting greatly increases his utility, with or without teleporter. Both of these and intergral to my force without rhinos/RBs/LRs or SRs. As I run 2 x 10 man GKSS and a 5 man GKT squad for troops I don't have to resort to anvil every time. Hammer of righteousness is fantastic against orks and nids for example.
The best thing about the GM's abilities is that they cannot be blocked by rune priests/eldar runes/psychic hoods etc.
There's nothing for the codex to "override" in the BRB regarding Unyielding Anvil. The BRB states that vehicles that are Troops are not scoring. The codex states that Unyielding Anvil units are scoring. There is nothing anywhere about scoring vehicles not scoring, so no conflict whatsoever.
1 reply · active 704 weeks ago
SneakyDan's avatar

SneakyDan · 704 weeks ago

FAQ proved me right. That is all. :)
Counter attack is good for those armies that are just flat out faster than you - eldar and dark eldar. They can get to you even if you are retreating and shooting on the way.

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