Working on Grey Knights...

I know the vast majority of you are tired of Grey Knights just like everyone else who is complaining about bandwagon jumpers. I'll point out it's not exactly new and every time a properly released army is re-done, lots of people jump onto the new codex. It's how Games Workshop stays afloat through the year and whether or not people are jumping onto the new codex because they like the models, have played the army for years, are just getting into the game based on it or are looking for the 'next best thing' doesn't really matter, they are playing it and you'll play that army a lot over the next several months until the next army book drops. It's not new, yes it's annoying - particularly with Draigowing seeming to be 'the thing.' It's particularly annoying lately since Games Workshop has released a lot of new Marine books, updated the two others and completely screwed up one of the most notable Xenos books, Tyranids.

Then Necrons will drop and we can see other forums light up with whining about OP they are, followed by Matt Ward is terrible and we should let people like Cruddance, who gave us Tyranids, write more, which will be concluded with months of people complaining about how many people play Necrons who aren't really Xenos as their statlines used to be like Marines. People just like to complain okay. You know what I'd really love? People to just stop complaining and try to enjoy what we have. There's providing feedback (which Games Workshop doesn't listen to), providing constructive criticism and then there's bitching. Like what I'm doing right now :P.

Ok sick rant over, sorry (I imagine 50%+ of comments will focus on those two paragraphs rather than those below...). Luckily we at 3++ have lots of authors so after the first couple weeks of hammering out the new book, you don't see them so much. Unfortunately for you, Grey Knights are one of the armies I play, so you're still going to hear about them - just like you do with Vanilla and Blood Angels (and Tau and Eldar when they come out. And Dark Eldar). Anywho, with my latest tournament being quite a disaster with not only being sick but going an essential 1-3 with Tyranids, I've pretty much decided to hang them up for the time being from competitive play. I'll whip em out and beat up on Vince regularly worry not!

Anywho, so the question is what army do I start taking to tournaments? I've pretty much got my Marine and Blood Angel lists sorted with trusty old magnets, it's just a matter of painting the Marines (since the vehicles are nearly all done) and Bikers. This of course leaves the trusty old Grey Knights - everyone's favorite ranting stick of late. Now my mixed MSU Grey Knight list has two major issues I've been looking to address over the past several months.

1. It's firepower is all wounds based. I force the opponent to take lots of saves on every unit which is generally reliable. Sometimes though, one cannot punch through high armor/FNP units with reliability. The same goes for tanks - lack of AP1 can be a pain sometimes.
2. No real combat presence. I don't have a beatstick I can use if the shooting dice go sour.

So the obvious answer is to add some melta and a combat unit. With that in mind I also want to try and use the following units:

• Grandmaster
• Terminators/Paladins
• Interceptors

whilst having Purifiers and at least seven+ psycannons and the usual large number of vehicles and Psyfledreads. I like this stuff and I want to use it and I've got some old metal Grey Knight Terminators I want to use (with about 12 more coming my way with 200ponies and Vince selling me some). With this in mind and knowing I need melta, I need Coteaz as well. The problem of course...all of that whilst maintaining at least seven Psycannons and three Psyfledreads just isn't going to work. Let's see what the points would have been for giggles.

Coteaz

Grandmaster w/Incinerator, MC Halberd, Blind Grenades, Rad Grenades, Psychotroke Grenades

3x5x Purifiers w/2x Psycannons, Hammer, Rhino

10x GKT w/2x Psycannon, 2x Hammer, 5x Halberds, Brotherhood Banner

3x5x Acolytes w/3x meltaguns, Psyback

2x5x Acolytes w/3x Plasmaguns, Psyback

10x Interceptors w/2x Psycannons, MC Hammer

3x Psyfledreads

2555 points - yikes! There's really no way to trim that list without losing something I want. So what am I going to lose? We'll drop the Interceptors for now. I love the concept of scoring 30" shunt guys but without being able to get even remotely close to two full squads, for now we'll leave that utility tool at home. Dropping them rackets the points down to 2260 - still well over a squad of anything (other than the GKT) so we are going to need a list fiddle. Let's look at the evolution of some of my thoughts. Here was a first draft.

List 1

Coteaz

Grandmaster w/Incinerator, MC Halberd, Blind Grenades, Rad Grenades, Psychotroke Grenades

3x5x Purifiers w/2x Psycannons, Hammer, Psyback

5x GKT w/Psycannon, Hammer, 3x Halberds

5x Acolytes, Psyback

2x3x Acolytes, LasPlas

2x3x Acolytes w/3x Meltaguns, 2x Psykers, Rhino w/searchlight

3x Psyfledreads

2000 points, 43 infantry, 11 vehicles

This list seems to have a nice balance of options. You've got LasPlas, Psybacks and Rhinos supported by Dreads with seven Psycannons and six meltaguns. Only 43 infantry though so a bit light there and the GKT as a five-man squad aren't exactly scary. With Coteaz and the Grandmaster tagged along they are a bit more punchy, particularly with the grenades, but still...lacklustre. Couple crappy rolls and bang - gone. Add in a lot of my firepower is tied up with just 15 Purifiers, and let's face it - dropping three tanks + 15 MEQs isn't that hard for many armies. So, let's look at list 2 with some help from AbusePuppy.

List 2

Coteaz

Grandmaster w/Incinerator, MC Halberd, Blind, Rad, Psychotroke Grenades

2x5x Purifiers w/2x Psycannons, Hammer, Psyback

10x Purifiers w/3x Psycannons, 2x Hammer, 5x Halberd, Rhino

2x3x Acolytes w/LasPlas

2x5x Acolytes w/3x meltaguns, Rhino w/Searchlight

5x Acolytes w/3x meltaguns w/Psyback

6x Acolytes w/Psyback

3x Psyfledreads

2000 points, 49 infantry, 11 vehicles

We keep our Psycannon numbers are seven yet up our infantry count to 49 (though average durability is a little lower) and meltaguns to nine. The ten-strong Purifiers are a lot scarier than the five Terminators but they are being asked to do quite a bit with both shooting and combat as options. No Terminators makes me sad though I do love me some Purifiers so that makes up for it. Coteaz + Grandmaster special sauce with the Purifiers gives them an awesome amount of options. 20 Purifiers isn't much better than 15 for localised firepower but since we've got some increased threats from more Acolytes (another meltagun unit) this minor increase in numbers here is okay (plus the GM + Coteaz are likely with them now instead of the Terminators unless they outflank). Still, target number one is them (particularly if they become scoring) and I'm not a fan of naked Acolytes - also a problem from list 1. Let's look at the next evolution.

List 3

Coteaz

Grandmaster w/Incinerator, MC Halberd, Blind Grenades, Rad Grenades, Psychotroke Grenades

3x5x Purifiers w/2x Psycannons, Hammer, Rhino

5x GKT w/Psycannon, Hammer, 3x Halberds

2x5x Acolytes w/3x meltaguns, Psyback

5x Acolytes w/2x meltaguns, Psyback

2x5x Acolytes w/3x Plasmaguns, Psyback

3x Psyfledreads

2000 points, 47 infantry, 11 vehicles

Back to the three small Purifiers and Terminators but now with all the Acolytes in Psybacks with melta-weapons. I like this a bit more as I've got five Psybacks, seven Psycannons, three Psyfledreads, 8 meltaguns and six plasmaguns with a reasonable amount of infantry. The Acolytes are now all threats so if the opponent focuses on the Purifiers the Acolytes can actually do something. The small Terminators are still annoying though as they really aren't that scary. We can change them to Paladins (and change a Purifiers to a Strike Squad) which gets us Warp Quake and a scarier combat unit but we lose some special weapons from the Acolytes and the Paladin unit is very vulnerable to S8 firepower. It would look like this...

List 4

Coteaz

Grandmaster w/Incinerator, MC Halberd, Blind Grenades, Rad Grenades, Psychotroke Grenades

2x5x Purifiers w/2x Psycannons, Hammer, Rhino

5x Paladins w/2x MC Psycannon, Hammer, 3x Halberd (1 MC)

2x5x Acolytes w/3x meltaguns, Psyback

3x5x Acolytes w/Psyback

5x GKSS w/Psycannon, Psyback

3x Psyfledreads

2000 points, 47 infantry, 11 vehicles

So the question is: are two meltaguns, six plasmaguns and Warp Quake worth changing the Terminators to Paladins? Also having the naked Acolytes doesn't tickle me nicely - even when I aco-spam I want them to have at least Storm Bolters to provide extra firepower yet here three squads have nothing. A melta-bomb on each wouldn't be amiss... Anyway, at this point I'm really not sure so play-testing will have to be used but I'd love to hear your opinions and tweaking ideas. The list looks solid on paper but they just don't feel right at times...

Oh and before we go, there is of course me throwing out my want for the Grandmaster completely and doing something like so...

List 5

2x Ordus Malleus Inquisitor w/Terminator Armor, Hammer, Psycannon

2x3x MM Servitor, 4x Acolytes, Chimera w/Heavy Flamer

2x5x Purifiers w/2x Psycannons, Hammer, Psyback

5x GKT w/Psycannon, Hammer, 3x Halberds

4x5x GKSS w/Psycannon, Psyback

3x Psyfledreads

2002 points, 51 infantry, 11 vehicles

Though points need to be trimmed and we have to ask what the hell five Grey Knight Terminators are going to do without IC support. Beyond that though we have 11 psycannons, six meltas, 50+ infantry, six psybacks + two chimeras and three dreads with a much more impressive number of stormbolter shots over others. Dropping the GKT for another GKSS frees up more points for the henchmen squads to get more bodies and some meltaguns/bombs as well. This really moves away from what I want to use model wise though but if anyone can think of how to fit such into this, I'm all ears.

Anyway discuss away whilst I wallow in my sick bed :). At this point List 3 and 4 are what I'm looking at in terms of satisfying my personal and gaming needs whilst List 5 is probably the best in terms of actual gaming.