Grey Knights 'Ard Boys List

[celestialatc]

So here is what I am thinking of bring to 'Ard Boyz for Grey Knights

Draigo - 275

Xenos - Power Armor, Rad and Psy Grenades, Psyker - 93

2 X 10 GKSS, 2 Psycannons, 1 hammer, Rhino, Psybolt Ammo - 580 (290/squad)

2 X 6 Purifiers, 2 Psycannons, 4 halberds, Rhino - 424 (212/Squad)

1 X 6 Terminators, 1 Psycannon, 3 Halbards, 2 Falchions, 1 Hammer, Psybolt - 295

1 X 6 Paladin, 2 Psycannons, 3 Halbards, 1 Hammer, 1 Sword, Banner, Psybolt Ammo - 415

2 X 1 Psyrifle Dreadnought - 270

Vindicare Assassin - 145

2497

I think I have a good mix of tank busting and anti-infantry. The Paladin's would be with Draigo and the Xenos Inquisitor, walking up the board and blasting anything I see. The Terminators would be going up a flank (or out flanking if draigo gives it to them). The GKSS protect my back field and the Purifiers go where I need them.

I am not sure if I should drop the assassin and get a tech marine or another Dread. Or should I drop the Vindacare and just make the other Terminator's into another Paladin squad? That would give me 20 or so extra points for vehicle upgrades. C&C welcome!

[DarkLink]

I would go for a 3rd Dread, as the vindicare is too fragile and 3 Dreads is a minimum requirement. But other than that, my only thoughts are drop the falchions and get Halberds, and get 3 servoskulls. It looks like a solid list overall.

[celestialatc]

Thanks Darklink! I think I will be dropping the Vindicare for a third dread! That gives me 10 extra points (13 in total since my list was only 2947) to get three Servo Skulls (which will be great for deepstrikes if I decide to do that with terminators) and then get some searchlights on my Rhinos....And I will give serious consideration on droping the Falchions...but not sure what I would do with the extra 10 points yet....

[Sinistermind]

im gunna have to disagree on the vindicare, he's extremely versatile, Ive used him to pop laindraiders, get rid of 3++ saves hidden in units(space wolves), Commisars!!!!, single heavy weapon in tac squads... usually there are plently of safe(ish) places to place him, the only downside besides being fragile are DoW missions where he has to walk on, so although he can be fragile i think hes worth taking over a 3rd dread

definitely get rid of falchions..

other than that i like it

[chicop76]

im gunna have to disagree on the vindicare, he's extremely versatile, Ive used him to pop laindraiders, get rid of 3++ saves hidden in units(space wolves), Commisars!!!!, single heavy weapon in tac squads... usually there are plently of safe(ish) places to place him, the only downside besides being fragile are DoW missions where he has to walk on, so although he can be fragile i think hes worth taking over a 3rd dread

definitely get rid of falchions..

other than that i like it

You can still outflank with his pistol and blow up a landraider in DoW. Although I've found myself assaulting heavy weapons teams with the Vindicare due to DoW. That scenerio really hurts that model and an 18" range with the same profile as the rifle helps, but not much. Yes the pistol is 12" and the model move 6" for a threat range of 18" on the pistol.

I'll drop the falchions thanks to the stupid Faq and use Halbreds instead, although a mix of regular and master crafted swords would help in cl9ose combat giving you a +4 invulerable.

[celestialatc]

OK so the falchions are out. I will either replace with halberds or swords....I am still on the fence about the assassin. I think it would be great to have him for the almost guaranteed land raider popping but the Dreads are just so awesome against everything else.

[plawolf]

That's very similar to the list I normally run, but I am at 1.5k and I always make a point of finding room for a Vindicare. Although at 1.5k, there is less pressure to take 3 psyrifles.

The vindicare is a massive force multiplier. You just need to resist the temptation to gamble and go for long-odds shots and you will seldom be disappointed.

Against every list, you can be sure that there are squad leaders or special/heavy weapons guys that can cause you a lot of damage.

Normally those guys would be the very last to be removed, so they stay on the field for as long as the squad is alive and can put a lot of hurt on your guys before they are dead.

Take them out with your Vindicare's first shot and suddenly the effectiveness of that enemy squad plummets from 'threat' to 'annoyance', and a lot more of your guys and vehicles will stay alive longer to do more damage themselves.

I would take two vindicares if I could.

As for the rest of your list. I would drop the falchinors as there is no reason whatsoever to take them now.

Maybe consider dropping 1 GKSS squad, and use the points to boost your two 6 men purifier squads up to 10 men with max psycannons, and find 40pts needed to make the other 10 men GKSS squad into purifiers.

You already have Draigo making the Paladins troops, and with the termie squad, you have your minimum troop choices, and you can always use Draigo's grand strategy to make some purifiers troops if you are playing objective games.

With purifiers, your CC potential is more than doubled compared to GKSS, and so is your psycannon firepower in shooting. With Draigo making them scoring, there is pretty much no downside to them compared to GKSS. Unless maybe if you were facing a massed DSing army I guess.

But GKs should do ok against Daemons, and helberts 'exists to show the middle finger to BA', so you should be ok even without GKSS.

[DarkLink]

I personally don't care for the vindicare simply because he is so much more fragile than a psyrifle dread, is more expensive, is less mobile and can't tie up bloodcrushers and the like in close combat. And he's not immune to small arms fire like the Dreadnought.

And keep in mind that, while the vindicare is almost a guaranteed pen on a Land Raider, that doesn't mean it's a guaranteed kill. After rolling to hit, pen, cover and damage, you can still be looking at a ~20% chance of immobilizing or killing it on any given shot.

And the only time I've ever seen a vindicare, it died first turn before it ever got to shoot. Had the player had first turn, I suspect that the vindicare would have gotten exactly one shot before dying. A trio of psyrifle dreads, however, usually lives through the game in my experience.



So, sure, the vindicare is a very useful tool in some situations. But it is a less reliable one than a Dreadnought. Your choice on how much you want to gamble.

[Sinistermind]

yea he definitely is fragile and 10 pts more than a dread, but the only time he died early out of 10 or so games ive used him so far was a game where i thought we agreed a certain way on what is and isnt area terrain, so i infiltrated him in what i thought we were counting as 4+ cover(so 3+ with stealth), then on his first turn take double lascannons from a landraider and my oppenent procedes to demand he never said that was area terrain..... so of course im not one to say oh well i get to re-place him then, and he rolled one 3 and one 5 for his invuln

as far as taking a vindicare over a rifle dread is preference and playstyle,dont get me wrong im never one to leave home without at least one rilfe-dread but what im saying is i think having a vindicare as opposed to a THIRD dread is more advantageous

[chicop76]

yea he definitely is fragile and 10 pts more than a dread, but the only time he died early out of 10 or so games ive used him so far was a game where i thought we agreed a certain way on what is and isnt area terrain, so i infiltrated him in what i thought we were counting as 4+ cover(so 3+ with stealth), then on his first turn take double lascannons from a landraider and my oppenent procedes to demand he never said that was area terrain..... so of course im not one to say oh well i get to re-place him then, and he rolled one 3 and one 5 for his invuln

as far as taking a vindicare over a rifle dread is preference and playstyle,dont get me wrong im never one to leave home without at least one rilfe-dread but what im saying is i think having a vindicare as opposed to a THIRD dread is more advantageous

I don't see why you can't take 3 and the vindicare anyway if you really wanted to. I take a vindicare, ven dred, reg dred, 2 dreadknights and I don't have problems. I also sometimes take a techmarine so my vindicare have a +2 save and my marines would have a +3 cover save.

[DarkLink]

If I were to take a vindicare, that's what I'd do right there. In my experience 3 psyrifle dreads are the sweetspot, where you have enough firepower to win most gunfights but aren't spending too many points. Adding the vindicare on top of that gives you those tools without compromising your reliability.

[celestialatc]

I think I am going to take your advice Darklink. I am going 3 dreadnoughts. I believe my final list is going to be:

2 X 10 GKSS, 2 Psycannons, 1 hammer, Rhino (search-light), Psybolt Ammo - 582 (291/squad)

2 X 6 Purifiers, 2 Psycannons, 4 halberds, Rhino (search-light) - 426 (213/Squad)

1 X 6 Terminators, 1 Psycannon, 5 Halbards, 1 Hammer, Psybolt - 285

1 X 6 Paladin, 2 Psycannons, 3 Halbards, 1 Master-Crafted Hammer, 1 Master-Crafted Sword, Banner, Psybolt Ammo - 425

3 X 1 Psyrifle Dreadnought - 405

Draigo - 275

Xenos - Power Armor, Rad and Psy Grenades, Psyker, 3 Shervo Skulls - 102

This puts me right at 2500 and since 2 out of the 3 scenarios are using nightfighting rules for a turn I will need the search-lights.

[plawolf]

I personally don't care for the vindicare simply because he is so much more fragile than a psyrifle dread, is more expensive, is less mobile and can't tie up bloodcrushers and the like in close combat. And he's not immune to small arms fire like the Dreadnought.

And keep in mind that, while the vindicare is almost a guaranteed pen on a Land Raider, that doesn't mean it's a guaranteed kill. After rolling to hit, pen, cover and damage, you can still be looking at a ~20% chance of immobilizing or killing it on any given shot.

And the only time I've ever seen a vindicare, it died first turn before it ever got to shoot. Had the player had first turn, I suspect that the vindicare would have gotten exactly one shot before dying. A trio of psyrifle dreads, however, usually lives through the game in my experience.



So, sure, the vindicare is a very useful tool in some situations. But it is a less reliable one than a Dreadnought. Your choice on how much you want to gamble.

And you do realize of course that a Vindicare is not a dreadnought right? Half the 'reasons' you lists are only reasons if you have absolutely no idea how to use the vindicare. He is not supposed to be tying bloodcrushers up in combat, and if he is than you are clearly using him wrong.

Listing that as a drawback is like complaining that a razorback is not as shooty or durable as a predator.

As for small arms, well firstly he shouldn't be in range of much small arms fire to start with as there are precious few anti-infantry weapons that can outrange his sniper rifle. Secondly, aren't you the arch-prophet of relying on the rest of your army to screen or draw fire from or suppress the enemy to protect your backfield shooters? Are the rest of your army on holiday in this case?

Sure the vindicare can get insta-gibbed by a lascannon to the face. But then so could a dreadnought.

Only the vindicare can get cover far more easily because of his small size, has a special rule to boost what cover he gets, has an inv save on top, and has two wounds. Might not matter if he gets hit by S8+ guns, but that might be something to consider next time one of your dreads dies to an S7 shot.

If the psyrifle dread is so hands down more survivable than a vindicare, why do you feel so strongly about have three of them? Could it possibly be to provide redundancy in case one of them does go 'boom' from a lucky shot?

Would you be some worried about the vindicare's supposed fragility if you could have taken 3 of them?

It is hardly fair to compare the survivability of a single vindicare to three psyrifle dreads now is it?

And btw, expecting him to one-shot land raiders is the kind of long odds shots I was talking about before.

Psyrifle dreads are amazing, but the Vindicare is a scalpel compared to the hammer of the psyrifle. They both have their uses.

No matter how well you roll, a psyrifle dread cannot kill off even a 5 men combat squad in one round. They might break and run off, but if they hold, you can bet your left nut that the one guy left standing is the one guy you wanted dead the most, and is the one guy who will do you the most damage out of the entire squad. Hell, in many cases, he is probably the only guy who would have been able to do any damage to you at all, and so having killed off the other 4 ablative wounds does nothing to diminish the damage output of that enemy unit.

With a vindicare, the one guy you do remove is the one guy who makes that enemy squad dangerous and a targeting priority to start with. Once you have de-clawed that squad, it suddenly falls way down the priority list and the remaining 9 guys become easy meat for one of your other squads whereas before they might have presented a challenge or even threat.

When you have the vindicare on the field, he opens up all sorts of new options for you. So instead of having all three of your dreads all shoot that one squad to make sure the icon barer is dead, you can have the vindicare one-shot him, while your dreads go blow up some rhinos instead. Or have the vindicare take out that lone lascannon in that combat squad so your dreads can move to get a better angle on a target without worrying about exposing their side/rear armor. The possibilities are endless.

There is this very shallow and short sighted fixation about 'making its points back' in a lot of gaming circles. But sometimes you need to focus on the big picture. Even if the Vindicare doesn't make his points back directly from the points he killed, he could have still played a pivotal role in helping you win the game. And if he did that, then he has more than earned his place in your list.

The guys setting up the goal/touch down is as important, if not more so than the guy that converts it.

[DarkLink]

I will say this, though, it's great to theory stuff out, but nothing beats playing and seeing what works. If you're on the fence, try both lists out (and make sure you play them against a variety of opponents so you see both the good and the bad).

[sgw0040]

One thing to remember or think about when testing the vindicare is use him in unconventional ways.

Lately i was running him in my ard boyz tester lists and out flanking him as someone said previously. One game used him to tie up a long fang squad for 4 rounds in combat.

Every game I have won he has played a pivitol role, however it depends on the list you have. I run three stormravens with termies/paladins. when an average opponent has to choose which to shoots at the paladins in the ravens command more attention than a small sniper back behind my lines.

With the list you have, i would defiantly recommend the dreads, for the sheer fact your army isnt super fast, and your opponent has a turn to notice the sniper and dedicate the fire power to kill it. Also the dreads can move and shoot further when the need calls for it. Also you have more shoots. You could bring down squad sizes, lose draigo buy a normal chapter master and do both, three dreads and a sniper.

[Bard of Twilight]

I'ld consider taking a Librarian with Quicksilver,Warp Quake, Might of titan,Lvl 3. In a unit with Paladins or Terminators with Swords, he can make magic:there is nothing to laugh at a unit with 4++ save,I10 and Str6 Power Weapons with rerolls...
Even thought your list already has a expensive Character, I think he is worth taking him.Furthermore, I think Draigo is not really worth paying 275pts in your list, since you don't really need the paladins to be troops, but that's sth you should see for yourself, depending on the way you play...

[Neelam]

The vindicare is surprisingly resilient . I've had him shrug off 3 rounds of shooting from a leman russ and leman russ demolisher, pistol whip a group of genestealers to death and tie up a trygon in combat for 3 rounds.

Admittedly it's down to luck though.

Ive found it effective to have him just out of your deployment zone somewhere on a path that a librarian + squad will walk past , I've played him in some 1k points games and having the librarian near by giving him 2++ really helped.

Also have you considered mordrak ? Surprisingly effective with 4 ghost knights (3 halberds 1 banner), he's got 6 attacls on the charge and you'll have 12 I6 attacks on the charge as well . Coupled with 2 hammerhands it's a nice little unit for just shy of 400 points.