BA vs Grey Knights

[Tynskel]

While I am familiar with the Grey Knights codex, I am not familiar with tactics that work against them.

I am finding it difficult how to deal with them, maybe it is a composition issue.

But, the Psy dreads thrash my transports, and the Halberds kill my furious charge.
Then I get warp quaked.

ect.

[Warpath]

I haven't fought them yet, but of the top of my head i can think of Furioso Dreads, DC Dreads, Vindicators, The Sanguinor, TH/SS Termies (not the best idiea imo), if you wanna dump a huge ammount of points, get Lemartes, altho its again not the best idea. To try and counter warp quake try and get a librarian in there, and si if you can counter it, a Furioso Librarian could work too.

[plawolf]

Halberts and army-wide force weapons really screw with BA as they negate their primary CC advantage (furious charge and FnP), so you cannot just charge your guys into CC and expect them to auto-win.

If you wanted to build a list against GKs, then either predator and/or dreadnaught spam should give them plenty to think about. Psyrifle dreads will struggle against AV13 as they need 6s to pen.

If you just want tactical advice on how to beat them, we need to know what kind of list/units you normally run with. The main point is to use your superior mobility to stay out of range until you are ready to strike, preferably with overwhelming force to destroy his army piecemeal.

Try and take out his psyrifle dreads ASAP as they will likely be his only long-ranged weapons. After they are gone, your guys will not have to worry about incoming fire unless you are within 24".

[Tynskel]

Well, composition wise, I am attempting to make an all comers list, because I dont just fight Grey Knights.

A vindicator and and librarian are some things I am looking to add next time.
I have noticed that death company really need a transport. It is far too easy for grey knights to control the charge against them, and if grey knights get the charge off, the knights are likely to kill DC first.

I have thought about using a storm raven, but I am starting think that taking two is much better than one: my reasoning is that the psy dreads can too easily kill one, but with two you have a good chance of killing 2 dreads right away with 8 missiles and other firepower that the ravens brings. However, that's a chunk of points!

[KingStuart]

As has been pointed out BA really shouldn't be assaulting GK terminators with halberds, they are almost no better than regular marines. Shooting them works really well though as their lack of storm shields means they obly get a measly 5++ so if you can get them out of cover your big guns should do the job.

As for the Psyfle Dreads, these are the guys you want in combat. Of course that's a lot easier said than done. Even if the squad charging doesn't have a fist don't worry, you just want to tie them up, and try and multi assault as many of them as possible, even if he turns around and kills the squad next turn that's one turn you've stopped them shooting and you've distracted a big squad from coming at you.

As for warp quake, nothing you can really do. But the strike squads are the kind of thing you can charge with your assault squads (unless they have been given halberds and even if they have they only get 1 attack each so aren't a massive bother.)

Hope that helps :)

[MaltonNecromancer]

Don't forget BA get cheaper Devastators than Vanilla marines; I believe 4 Lascannon trump a Psyrifle most days of the week.

Also, a Deep Striking Land Raider Crusader is excellent for dealing with Halberd-wielding GK's. All those twin-linked bolters and the Assault Cannon make a beautiful mess at 12" range; the Redeemer is also nothing to be sniffed at - str 6 AP3 is brutally efficient. Even moreso if the Land Raider in question full of something horible and unexpected like an honour guard squad equipped with 4 flamers (or 4 plasma guns); put enough wounds on that GK unit and they won't make it to Assault in the first place...

[plawolf]

I am unsure about unit selections that would only work against GK since the OP said he wants a balanced list.

Devastators are a good shout, as are keeping storm ravens back for a turn or two to try your luck with missiles.

Other things to consider are, if you are taking Dante in a DoA list, remember he can adjust the reserve roll up AND down. Don't be afraid to hold your units in reserve a turn extra. Its only GKSS that have the warp quake power, and often elites such as Paladins and Purifiers would split off to do their own thing half way through the game.

When they are outside of 12" of GKSS would be the best time to drop in and blast them, and it is times like this that inferous pistols really make their mark.

Pin-point DS with Dante and a inferus pistol packing honor guard squad (as is often taken as standard with BA lists) can instant kill a good number of Paladins with their S8 shots, and if you took a few storm shields in that squad, those I6 halberts won't hurt quite so much.

Although TBH, I would not focus too much effort in trying to take on his death star head to head. BA should have the mobility to avoid that unit and pick their battles.

Pick off the easy squads first to make sure you at least have draw before going head to head with Paladins/purifiers, if at all.

[Warpath]

Umm, excuse me, but im confused, can you explain this please?


Other things to consider are, if you are taking Dante in a DoA list, remember he can adjust the reserve roll up AND down.

Afaik, Blood Anges only reroll FAILED reserves rolls when arriving by deepstrike, and Dante does not have any rule that lets you modify that reserve roll. He only gives you pin-point deepstrike and hit and run rule to himself and the unit he is with. Unless i really missed something.

I agree with what you say about picking the easy units first tho. Usually, BA and GK fight outnumbered, since they only deploy like 30-40 models top. Killing the "easy" units first can give you the number superiority and with higher mobility you can try and pick the fights a little better.

[fuzzbuket]

outmanuver, out gun and assalut the squish bits! now you 5 man 300 pts unit has I6 and 15 attacks

my 300 pts unit is A DC dread/ mephy/ 10 man assault squad


big assault squads in drop pods or lots of land raiders is a good bet, and you cant go wrong with a dread or two. just dont go for mid range combat, and pimped libbys (with psy hoods) are fun too!

[DarkLink]

GKs don't care for THSS Terminators, and they don't care for things that can shoot them to death before I6 ever happens. Predators are great and fairly tough against GKs.


Don't forget BA get cheaper Devastators than Vanilla marines; I believe 4 Lascannon trump a Psyrifle most days of the week.

But how many points is a Devastator squad, and how many points is a Psyrifle Dread? And the only thing Devestators can do is shoot. Dreads are mobile firepower, and can tie up enemy units if need be. Better bring enough thunderhammers in you Death Company squad.



Also, a Deep Striking Land Raider Crusader is excellent for dealing with Halberd-wielding GK's. All those twin-linked bolters and the Assault Cannon make a beautiful mess at 12" range; the Redeemer is also nothing to be sniffed at - str 6 AP3 is brutally efficient. Even moreso if the Land Raider in question full of something horible and unexpected like an honour guard squad equipped with 4 flamers (or 4 plasma guns); put enough wounds on that GK unit and they won't make it to Assault in the first place...

If you're talking power armor GKs, then yes, though they have Warp Quake so flamers are useless and they have Rhinos so TL bolters may be as well.



outmanuver, out gun and assalut the squish bits! now you 5 man 300 pts unit has I6 and 15 attacks

Well, 5 man 300pts with 2 wounds each, a couple psycannons, str 5+, etc. Paladins aren't an assault unit anyways. That's what Purifiers and regular Terminators are for, though they're not really true assault units either.

Anyways, it's tricky to outmanuver a GK army even if you're faster, because the GK army can move as one unit due to its small footprint and ability to move and shoot to no detriment. You get close enough to shoot/assault one GK unit, and you're in range of the whole GK army. The GK army doesn't even have to turtle down in a corner like other armies, they can march to the middle of the board to take objectives and at least force a tie.

[Tynskel]

Warp Quake!!! Blargh!

Yeah, Grey Knights are cool.

Hmm... I was thinking about possibly taking a Stormraven (typhoon and lascannon), Baal predator, Vindicator, and Predator Destructor with lascan sponsons. This gives me some rounded firepower, and the Stormraven and Predator Destructor can hunt down units like the Psy Dreads when they enter play.

I want to keep the Death Company Stormraven (5 JP, Lemartes, DC Furioso) in my list (because I made some sweet models, and I really want to use them), but it might be at the expense of Assault Terminators.

[Image]

Mephiston, though you still need to worry about Force Weapons.

Furioso Dreads with Blood Talons, but you still need to worry about Hammerhand/Daemonhammers.

Devs with missiles (usually don't see too many LRs, at least in my experience) to outrange most shooting threats.

Sang. Priests for FNP against most shooting.

Drop Pods? O.o

Personally, I'm a fan of the SR as it ignores all those S5 SB shots and forces psycannons/psyflemen dreads to shoot at it. This protects your other elements and is particularly useful if you go 1st. If you don't, keep it and reserved. Based on it's speed and weapon load out, it's debatable as to whether you should DS it or not.

The last several games I've played have been against GK and I've always been concerned about Halberds and the NFWs. But, NFWs are something you just have to deal with, hoping you do enough damage with FC. Halberds I usually see on Purifiers, so I match up Meph, Furioso Dread with talons against those targets. BA are quite versatile and have options that work well against GK and other armeis equally. GK just throw a real wrench in the face of most BA armies because they negate the majority of their strengths. Engaging GK with a cautious attitude, I think, is ideal; you really need to match up your assaults well and avoid stupid assaults that will hurt you more than them.

As with any army, know your opponents strengths/weaknesses and know your own. :)

[Tynskel]

Sounding good.

I have been thinking about fielding two storm ravens. One with a blood talones furioso, the other with a frag cannon Melta and Magna grapple.

[Anggul]

I struggle to think of anything other than Wyches that can take GKs in close combat due to the bloody halberds. Blood Angels, Incubi, Aspect warriors, they all get poked in the face before they get to do anything.

I think the best way is just to throw a ton of high-end heavy weaponry their way and watch them die. Dark Eldar can accomplish this rather well with all of the dark lances etc. they can pack, but for most armies it's not so simple. This is rather sad, as Blood Angels are obviously meant to be combat-heavy, but in his frenzied determination to make his latest Spehss Mahreens the best at everything ever, Mat Ward has even codex creeped his own past codex.

I think perhaps for the Angels, slagging a couple of them with your meltaguns and infernus pistols to reduce the number of halberd attacks coming your way might help, but honestly it'll take a decent amount of firepower to reduce them to manageable levels.

[A Barb]

I have thought about using a storm raven, but I am starting think that taking two is much better than one: my reasoning is that the psy dreads can too easily kill one, but with two you have a good chance of killing 2 dreads right away with 8 missiles and other firepower that the ravens brings. However, that's a chunk of points!

One good think about about stormravens is that meltas don't gain the extra D6 armour penetration. It seems everybody has meltas now. Also just plan your moves out so the GK can't charge you.

[Luke Licens]

I'm confused by all of these people talking about using superior mobility to control the flow of the battle, especially in regards to DoA lists. Jump infantry have a max charge range of 18 inches. Knights can shoot 24. The only thing that can charge them without getting shot is Vangaurd Vets, or something coming out of a Landraider.

You can't even shoot them with bolt pistols without winding up in counter-charge range. Vindicators and Stormravens have the speed and the firepower to be a threat, as do Predators (Baal or otherwise), but they must weather the wrath of the Psyflemen. Honestly, your best hope is to try for local firepower superiority, which is hard against an army with such a small footprint.

[DarkLink]

Against GKs, you need to use movement to pick your assaults. GKs are very, very flexible with their shooting, so in the hands of a good GK player it won't do you much good to try and circle around them or flank them or whatever. The GK player can just turtle his army and march it as one unit wherever he needs it, all while maintaining his full firepower.

A faster army, however, can pick their assaults, which you can capitalize on much more than trying to pull off some fancy maneuver that the GK player will just ignore and turn around and shoot you all the same. But if you can assault and kill the right units, you can start to break up the GK formation. Once you've done that, then you can start to use superior mobility to do whatever.

[addamsfamily36]

I was about to start my own thread titled " A Blood angels vs Grey knight boxing match" but then i saw this thread so i figured i would just contribute my experience of BA vs GK.

I had my first game against Grey knights on Thursday night against an undefeated opponent and i was using my Blood angels who have only had 3-4 outings since the new codex (being a student took up more time that i had anticipated)

Anyways, I was prepared to lose hands down.

my list:

Mehphtistion

2 x 10 assault marines both with melta/flamer and power weapon. One in Rhino one with jump packs.

Rhino

Razorback (las plas combo)

Furioso with blood talons

2 x Baal predators

Sanguinary priest with jump pack

Honour guard - Noviate, regular guy , 3 with power weapons and banner.

6 x Death company - 3 power weapons , 3 infernus pistols
Lemartes

As you can see i favour a combat based Blood angels force.

Now my opponent was playing (and you'll have to excuse my lack of knowledge of GK)) This sort of list :

Draigo

10 Paladins (terminators) - pretty much everyone had different equipment, couple of psycannons, halberds, falchions, a stave, an apothecary etc.

10 Paladins (terminators) which combat squaded. Similar as above unit.

Dreadknight with Psycannon thing and sword.


Right so we were playing objectives and to cut a long story short i managed to get a draw. (which i was very pleased about as its the best anyone has done against him so far:) )

Blood angels Main strengths:

Mephiston - went straight for the dreadknight and back handed it into next week. With fleet wings and the GK's going first, Mephiston was on the job by turn 2. My opponent also sent out Draigo to take down mephistion which he did, but only after he had been reduced to one wound which the death company made short work of.

Lemartes - on the charge initiative 7 :D

Meltas - without draigo taking the sacrificial hits on himself due to him being dead, meltas were amazing at taking out the 2 wound *******s.

Speed - Simply out maneuvering the GK's played a big part.

So My suggested tactics for taking on Gk's if you are going to assault is this: Take as many Initiative 6 and 7 things as you can. Power weapons power weapons and more power weapons. The amount of invunerable saves my opponent made was a joke. 20 odd power weapons attacks i killed one guy!!!! but against someone who isn't as jammy i would have wiped the unit off the table. Meltas, i often find infernus pistols too expensive for their range, but they come in handy. SPAM AV13 EVERYWHERE LOL. But the most important tactic, Don't try to take on grey knights as a whole army. Target a unit, shoot the **** out of it and charge it, you have to take them out individually ASAP, then you move onto the next unit and so on.

Obviously we were playing two very specialist lists, but mine is my everyday all comers list and it did pretty well.


I hope any of this information is of use, if anyone has any questions please ask away.

[w7west]

Make him roll 30 3+ saves each turn

[DarkLink]

Make who roll 30+ saves each turn? Because Grey Knights are a lot better at forcing tons of wounds than BA are.



Anyways, I went to the bay area open last weekend and one of my opponents was a descent of angels player. He had Mephiston, 40 assault Marines, 2 priests, 2 chaplains and a reclusiarch. I had a Grand Master with grenades, Coteaz, 6 Paladins, 20 GKSS, 2 melta acolyte squads and 3 psyrifle dreads.

Thanks to all my power weapons, he couldn't drop in anywhere close to me, or I'd just assault him and slaughter him. So he dropped behind a big center building containing the center objective. I marched my army up around to claim a second objective, then slowly moved in on his building. I basically shot two assault squads to death, assaulted and killed Mephiston easily, and the game ended turn 6 in a tie.

I had needed to move forward just one turn earlier to contest the center objective, and I had parked all my rhinos on the third objective and he hadn't been able to kill them all. Had I moved forward a turn earlier, I would have completely wiped him off the center objective and held two of the three objectives solidly. My mistake.

He had an extremely well painted army, though, so that was nice. He won the overall painting award. And the turn before all the assaults was an awesome picture, with my Grey Knights lined up outside the building and his assault Marines lined up inside. It looked like a GW promo picture (though most of my models aren't fully based, just fully painted).

[Tynskel]

You might want to review the rules for BA. 3 IP in DC with 6 guys doesn't seem right.

[DarkLink]

But the most important tactic, Don't try to take on grey knights as a whole army. Target a unit, shoot the **** out of it and charge it, you have to take them out individually ASAP, then you move onto the next unit and so on.

Bingo. Good GK armies operate as a single unit, taking apart the enemy piece by piece. If you want to beat them, you need to find a way to kill a chunk of the GK army without exposing yourself to retribution from the rest of them.

[addamsfamily36]

You might want to review the rules for BA. 3 IP in DC with 6 guys doesn't seem right.

WOAH my bad!

Iv'e never made a rules mistake as bad as that before. its ok though, ill spread the pistols cost onto something else.

[sps62487]

Bingo. Good GK armies operate as a single unit, taking apart the enemy piece by piece. If you want to beat them, you need to find a way to kill a chunk of the GK army without exposing yourself to retribution from the rest of them.

And that is why you whipe the Terminators/pallys in one turn after you bait them out.

[addamsfamily36]

And that is why you whipe the Terminators/pallys in one turn after you bait them out.

You make it sound so easy lol :)

[sps62487]

I run mostly assault marines w/ Jump packs mobility is not a problem :p.
Plus running 6-10 multi guns you can go all in. Some call me crazy but i like to run dev squads. So much better in a BA army then 3rd edition. Plus if you take out the storm raven first turn the pallys/terminators lose a lot of their effectiveness. While 4 assault squads and 2 baals work on their dreads and troop choices :P.