Grey Knight FAQ

It's here.

All the rulings are fairly reasonable.  The only WTF one was that units with more than 6 monkeys get no Inconceivable Customization.

Looks like my Dread Knight is only strength 6 with Doom Fists.  Le sigh.  Looks like I'll be buying hammers and swords for them from now on.  Very disappointed in this one; though, I was fooling myself to think it would go any other way.

The Ulumeathi plasma siphon should be renamed the "F-U Tau plasma siphon".

And to everyone who said Coteaz lets you take unlimited henchmen, I would just like to say, "I told you so."

Other things to note: no warp shunt during scout moves, and Grand Masters can make vehicles scoring.

I wish GW would do something about the 2 months of ambiguity after a codex release.  I don't see how 75% of these questions could not have been anticipated.

Gamers DMZ Tournament 4/23

Came in sixth place today going 2 and 1 with my GK deep strike list.  I changed up my list a little for the tournament. I replaced the dreadnought with a second Dread Knight, and took the conversion beamers out of the list.  I gave the inquisitors psycotroke grenades and made all the Justicars' weapons master crafted.  Master crafted weapons for the Justicars are very much worth the 5 points.  I think that I'm going to run rad grenades instead of psychotroke next time though.  Psychotrokes are too random, and I was continually rolling results that where of no use.  Inquisitors with grenades and a couple of crusaders are one hell of a CC unit. Overall, I'm happy with how my list is working.

My first game was against Blood Angels.  He was a casual player, and I let him call it on the top of turn 5 with a squad of marines left.

My second game was against Tyranids, and it was a brutal close game.  I kept my army in one block to focus fire and to keep half of his army out of the game.  It hurt me because it meant that I had to give up on 3 of the 5 objectives.  It came down to having to kill two tervigons on the last turn.  My inquisitor made his psychic test and instant killed one, but my dread knight periled and lost his last wound fighting the other one.  He won 2 objectives to my 1.  I killed most of his army though.  He had only 10 gaunts, 2 hive guard, and a tervigon left at the end.  I killed 73 gaunts in the game.  He was a good opponent, and it was a fun challenging game.

The third game was against orks.  I was the highest ranked 1-1 player so I played the lowest ranked 2-0 player.  The game started out really bad for me.   I was missing just about every roll, and the ork player was rolling phenomenally.  It changed up in the fourth turn.  I was able to counter attack affectively and finally roll above a three. I ended up almost tabling him at the end of turn 7.

I was only about 180 points behind the 2-1 player that got to go into the final round.  If I had been a dick and tabled my opponent in round 1, I would have gotten at least 4th place.

It was a very fun tournament.  I feel bad for the locals though.  90% of the hard core Indy tournament players showed up, and beat a whole bunch of local kids in the first round.  We had 4 G2D4 regulars show up and play locals in the first round, and all of us ended in the top 6.  Of the other two, one was from Muncie and the other a north side player.  Even though I'm a hardcore competitive format proponent, I think the locals could have benefited from a more hobby friendly event for their first tournament experience.

My GK 1500 point list

I got the opportunity to try out my Ultra-Honor-Grey-Guard-Knights last Saturday.  I played a game versus Shrike Marines and another one versus Space Wolves.  I was able to pull off wins in both games, but I'm still not confident in the list as it has some weaknesses.

Here's was my list.

Xenos Inquisitor w/ Conversion Beamer, Psychic Mastery 1 (Psychic communion), 3x Servo Sculls
Xenos Inquisitor w/ Conversion Beamer, Psychic Mastery 1 (Psychic communion), 3x Servo Sculls
Henchmen w/ 4x Crusaders, 1 Mystic
Henchmen w/ 4x Crusaders, 1 Mystic
Vindicare Assassin
5 man Strike Squad w/ hammer, psycannon
5 man Strike Squad w/ hammer, psycannon
5 man Strike Squad w/ halberd, psycannon
5 man Strike Squad w/ halberd, psycannon

5 man Strike Squad w/ halberd, psycannon

5 man Strike Squad w/ halberd, psycannon

Dread Calgar w/ heavy incinerator

Dreadnought w/ 2x twin linked auto-cannons, psybolt

Yep, a deep striking foot GK list.   Pretty simple setup.  The two inquisitors deploy with the henchmen and hide for a turn.  On turn two they cast Psychic Communion and deep strike all the Grey Knights on a 2+.   The Vindicare and the  Dreadnought are not final elements of the list.  As soon as I get a second Dread Knight I'm going to swap it for the dreadnought.  I'm still undecided about the Vindicare.  There aren't very many targets in this list on turn 1; making him very vulnerable. He does provide the best anti-Land Raider ranged firepower in the list though.  I'll either swap him for a Calidus  (since communion adds or subtracts per die roll, I can hold her in reserve longer than the rest of the army) or a third Dread Knight.

I'm think I'm going to cut the conversion beamers from the army.  I need the inquisitors to survive until turn two, and giving them firing lanes where they can see and be seen is counterproductive to that purpose.  It's also 45 points for a ST 8 template 90% of the time.  I think a combi-melta would be more useful. 

Dread Calgar Walks!

I couldn't get Calgar's torso bit to fit even after cutting off his cape.   The arms fit rather nicely once some of the bolter feeds where dremeled off..

Sprinkles it is

After some deliberation and receiving the bill for a recent emergency room visit, I've decided that starting a full army from scratch while still building up my Tau would not be a financially prudent choice.  I can build a counts as force fairy cheaply.  I think I could make it work with 2 or 3 strike squad boxes, a tactical squad box, and a of course a Dread Knight box.  With that much, I should have no problem putting out a 1500 point list with the help of a few chapter assets for support.

I don't have ready access to the codex, so I've been trying to guesstimate an army based on the few minutes I looked at the codex on Saturday.  I'm hoping that I can squeeze the following into 1500 points:
Grand Marshal
Libby
Purifier Squad(The cool honor guard)
Vindicare Assassin(Telion)
2x Strike Squads(The not quite as cool honor guard)
Psy-Rifleman Dread
Dreadnight(Calgar)

I'll probably have to go light on the upgrades, but the plan is to make the squads 10x men strong with rhinos.  Arming them with psycannons, psybolt and hammer for the strike squads and hammer, halberds, and incinerators for the purifiers.  I'm also thinking of taking a heavy incinerator for DreadCalgar.  I may have to drop the Vindicare or reduce the purifier squad size to make the army work.  For 2000 points I want to add in another psy-rifleman and a Storm Raven.    

Should I add sprinkles to my vanilla or get butter pecan?

I really like the fluff and the models for the Ultramarines Honor Guard.  As more Grey Knight rumors became available, it started to seem like their new codex would make a good basis for a Honor Guard counts as army.

It seems like an easy enough thing to do, but playing a count's as army can be rather trying.  For instance; the only HQ model that could lead an honor guard force is Calgar, but you can't equip a grand marshal with two powerfists.  Now you have to explain to your opponents every game that those two really big fists are actually a demon hammer and psycannon.  It can be confusing for your opponents, and I don't want to be accused of being a flavor of the month player.

There are advantages to running the counts as army.  I already have most of the support units I'll need, like rhinos and dreadnoughts.  I probably will only need to buy a tactical box and grey knight strike team box to fill out a basic 1500 point army.  I'll probably get a Dreadknight and a Stromraven too, since I like the models.

Dude....I could convert Calgar as the driver for a Dreadknight!  That could totally work!  Wait, now who am I going to use for my Grand Marshal?

So what do people think?  Should I go down the counts as route, or start a Grey Knight army from scratch?

Transform and Roll Out!

I was tentatively committed to doing an Ultramarines Honor Guard counts as Grey Knights army. Mostly I wanted an excuse to buy some Stormravens. Though now GK's apparently can take Optimus Prime as a heavy support choice.

There's no passing that up.