GK 1500 friendly play - need advice

[eleveninches]

HQ:
100: Cortez
82: Inquisitor Malleus (power armour, 3 servo-skulls, psychic mastery level 1, force sword, mind grenades)


ELITES:
330: 5 Paladins (banner, staff, 2 hammers, halberd, 2 incinerators)
325: 5 Paladins (banner, staff, 2 halberds, hammer, incinerator)


TROOPS:
66: 5 Psykers, 4 Warrior Acolytes
66: 5 Psykers, 4 Warrior Acolytes
56: 4 Psykers, 4 Warrior Acolytes
56: 4 Psykers, 4 Warrior Acolytes
56: 4 Psykers, 4 Warrior Acolytes
180: 7 Death Cult Assassins with power swords, 5 Crusaders with power axes


HEAVY SUPPORT:
183: 5 Purgators (4 Psyannons, halberd)


-----
1500
-----

[Seirin]

OKAY! Lets start...

First, psycannons on paladins rather than incinerators. Second, paladins aren't that hot without draigo - drop to 1 unit perhaps and focus on henchmen. As for banners, on smaller units they really aren't worth it. Force weapons aside, with a 5 man unit you gain 2 force weapon attacks overall, only 1 on the charge. As soon as you lose 2 models you'll be losing attacks on the charge.

For the henchmen themselves, they need transports. At the minute they'll all get shot to pieces without exception. If you dropped the paladin unit you'll have gained 290pts, enough to bring all psyker units to 6 psykers (S8/AP1, 'ideal' setup), and just about get 5 rhinos. This leaves you short on the chimera for the DCA and crusaders, but if you lose 3 warrior acolytes from each unit (you only need 1~2 as perils insurance) and 1 crusader (assuming you want an inquisitor with them) you'll get your chimera with extra armour and a few pts spare.

The malleus inquisitor, I'd advise swapping for a xenos inquisitor. Rad/psychotrope grenades, psyker 1 and power armour is 93pts, but assuming you swap out for prescience hes a major buff to your unit.

Personally not a huge fan of 4cannon purge units, would advise swapping cannons to incinerators and getting an assault cannon/psybolt razorback for just about the same points.

Basically.

HQ
Coteaz 100
Xenos Rad/psychotrope/power armour/psyker 93

Elites
5 paladins 2 cannon/staff/2 halberd/hammer 335

Troops
Henchmen: 6 psykers, 1 warrior acolytes, rhino 109
Henchmen: 6 psykers, 1 warrior acolytes, rhino 109
Henchmen: 6 psykers, 1 warrior acolytes, rhino 109
Henchmen: 6 psykers, 1 warrior acolytes, rhino 109
Henchmen: 6 psykers, 1 warrior acolytes, rhino 109
Henchmen: 7 death cult assassins, 4 crusaders, chimera (extra armour, searchlight) 236

Heavy support
5 Purgators, 4 incinerators, hammer, razorback (assault cannons, psybolt, searchlight) 191

1500 pts, lots of high S psychic templates flying around and a solid combat unit with the nasty grenades and probably re-rolls to hit. A nightmare for hordes and anything that isn't TEQ.

[ElectricPaladin]

I don't know much about Grey Knights, but I do know that wound allocation shenanigans no longer work, so make sure you actually like your loadout for those paladins, rather than choosing it to keep the units alive.

[Seirin]

Well for paladins the ideal loadout is similar to terminators - halberds and hammers, maybe a sword or stave - though I'd only advocate staves on paladins to avoid ID shots.

[celestialatc]

Seirin's list looks a lot better but I am wondering if you should cannibalize one of the psyker units and have the other units with 8 psykers. I think this gives you Str 10 blasts instead of Str 8....that's Land Raider killing ability there!

Also DCA are great...but with the AP values what they are now, I also like to add Arco-Flagelent into the squad...and it's given me amazing results! I would say, 4 Cursaders, 3 DCA and 4 Arcos and you have a unit that is dangerous. Arcos do lose their FnP save easily and don't have power weapons but they have more attacks then the DCA and have a higher strength. With a Xenos Inquisitor with Divination powers, that is a dangerous combo!

[Seirin]

8 psykers does indeed give you S10/AP1, but in all honesty, how often do you face land raiders these days? And how often are you unable to simply ignore it, especially in 1500 or lower games?

With 6 psykers you're already S8/AP1, and the extra shot will usually do you more than that extra bit of S. Psycannons are fairly good at killing raiders themselves, and if really pushed a good daemonhammer assault (pallies) makes raiders...crumple.

[celestialatc]

8 psykers does indeed give you S10/AP1, but in all honesty, how often do you face land raiders these days? And how often are you unable to simply ignore it, especially in 1500 or lower games?

With 6 psykers you're already S8/AP1, and the extra shot will usually do you more than that extra bit of S. Psycannons are fairly good at killing raiders themselves, and if really pushed a good daemonhammer assault (pallies) makes raiders...crumple.

But with S10 you feel like a Tau playing on Steroids! But you are right, it is a little over the top...but that's what GK are for!

[Seirin]

Yeh...super steroids. But I'm happy with battle cannon psykers...they still hurt plenty.

Besides... Grey knights are essentially balanced, just expensive.

[eleveninches]

thanks for the advice:

ive had a few games so far with this list and it seems to work pretty well in my local gaming club, having the psyker units sitting at the back hugging cover from ruins etc...

the staff is so cool in combat, stopping instant death and AP2 wounds
the banner gives 4 bonus force weapon attacks (the model it replaces would only have 2 himself without a banner), and the banner is mainly there so that the force weapons activate immediately, letting them do hammerhand with their psychic test.
i prefer to have psycannons on the purgators rather than the paladins, as i tend to run the paladins forward in turn 1, trying to get them into combat as quickly as possible

the psyker squads do a lot of damage and work so well with 3 well-placed servo skulls, and i've yet to play a game in which all of them end up dying, probably because people tend to target the 3 combat units in turns 1-3, leaving them just 2-3 turns to kill all the psyker squads behind cover

played one game against tyranid big monster army (about 5-6 of them) and just force weaponed them straight away, which was fun

the servo skulls are good for stopping enemy infiltrators/scouts and helping the template weapons to not scatter quite so much

the inquisitor is mainly just there for the servo skulls. I could have had a techmarine, but thats more expensive and doesnt have the stubborn rule to give to the death cult assassins unit, and i like giving them re-roll to hit as well

the psycannon unit is mainly there just because i have nothing else that can viably take down flyers, but with giving them re-roll to hit, thats an average 5 hits against flyers at S7 rending

i was tempted to put the 3 combat units in transport vehicles just for the extra 6" move in turn 1, but it costs quite a bit more and chimeras/rhinos arnen't assault vehicles, so i prefer to just run them forward and charge


i just dread playing against eldar anti-psyker armies with their stupid runes

[Seirin]

First things first; no, you can't use force weapons AND hammerhand from the same unit in one turn. The banner means you auto pass the test, but its still your 1 power per turn used.

Banner gains you 4 force wep attacks at a loss of 2~3 (3 on charge), for a net gain of 1~2 at 5-strong. And as above.

I meant, I'm a fan of staff on paladins as fists/S8+ instant death weapons are more dangerous in a way than vs terminators.

Without the transport, the DCA/crusader unit WILL be shot to death. Believe me there its something I've tried. Same thing to the psykers outside of transports.

Fair play to inquisitor and purgators. If u use a psyker inquisitor, swap for prescience...its so much better.