The New Grey Knights vs Tyranids 2K - The Debut of the Dreadknight and Interceptors

[joecon]

Another great battle report.
Thanks for the work in producing them.
Looks like the Tyranids are suffering against a lot of armies now.

[Polaria]

Another great battle report.
Thanks for the work in producing them.
Looks like the Tyranids are suffering against a lot of armies now.

Well, this was hardly a proof of Tyranid viability. More like the last nail in the coffin of Tyranid MC armies. What would be interesting is seeing how a termagaunt dakkahorde would do here?

[Karrain]

Well, this was hardly a proof of Tyranid viability. More like the last nail in the coffin of Tyranid MC armies. What would be interesting is seeing how a termagaunt dakkahorde would do here?

Having actually played against the new grey knights I'll be the first to say that 1: Unless you're on top of your game (or your opponent is just bad) they surprise you...in a bad way. 2: Swarm armies will suffer against purgation (?) squads once they've set up and begin to rain psycannon shots down on you and their flamers are just mean. 3: They don't like maneouverable armies. I played them with my Thousand Sons and lost by turn 2 after failing about 9 armour saves for one squad (yes armour, not invulnerable). He then played against Dark Eldar and watched as units began to dissapear mysteriously at an alarming rate whilst all the Knights could do was turn around to try to respond to threat after threat even as they were hammered into submission.

Still, as a Nid player myself a Dakkahorde might work...especially when you begin to consider the average Knight unit sizes...it's a pity their weapons nullify FNP, but we're Tyranids, we adapt around that. Also, as the game against DE proved, Grey Knights have to target priorotise very carefully, especially against us Nids and less so against smaller elite builds. Against me his tactic was: Shoot at Ahriman. Then again, I use a themed list rather than an actual competetive one for my Chaos...

[jy2]

Post-game Anaylsis:
Actually, I wasn't really surprised by the result. Without shooting from the tyranid army, he really didn't have much to put the pressure on me. I could've easily won by just backing up and shooting, especially my interceptors, though I probably wouldn't have tabled my opponent that way. After taking out his biovores, I was free to do whatever I want without the fear of pie plates and getting pinned.

The next thing I knew I had to do was to take out his tervigons. Though they aren't really scary in assault, they just make the tyranid army so much tougher to kill, providing FNP, poisoned termagant screens, synapse and Shadows. But when his tervie started casting FNP on itself, I knew it was just too tough to kill so I concentrated on easier kill points. It turned out that killing 1 tervigon on turn 1 was probably enough to cripple his army.

The thing that went in my favor was my assault. I was red-hot in assault against his carnifexes, killing all of them via force weapons. Of course, this was without the protection of Shadows, but then again, my plan was to break up his army. A united tyranid army is a fearsome enemy indeed, as they buff each other up. Once separated, however, they are much easier to take down. So I used my interceptors on the flanks to try to lure his carnifexes away from the main army. Split up (without tervigons) and I can take his carnifexes in assault with master-crafted Nemesis force daemonhammers and no Shadows. And if he doesn't go after my interceptors, then my interceptors will be free to molest the rest of his army all game. That truly was a dilemma for him.

The thing that didn't go my way were my psychic powers getting shut down by Shadows in the Warp. I was failing them left and right, passing only once all game (and at the expense of losing my sergeant!) whenever I was in range of SitW. Imagine if I made even an average amount of psychic tests in the face of Shadows....this battle might have even been a shut-out.

In terms of my mistakes tactics-wise, the main one I made was to get into range of his tervigon-termagant-spawned threat range with my dreadknight. Although they provided me with 3 kill points, they also prevented my dreadknight from doing too much. Also, the first time his 14 gants multi-charged my dreadknight and Grandmaster unit, I forgot about my blind and rad grenades. That might have saved me from losing 2 knights or taking a wound on my dreadknight. More importantly, I might have caused enough wounds on his gants so that No Retreat would've killed the rest and freed me to do other things on my turn.

My opponent made several mistakes tactically. Considering this is his first time playing tyranids, I can't really fault him too much. He did great for someone whose only experience with nids was to play against them.

1) He was too cautious with the Swarmlord. He was too concerned about my rending psycannons. On turn 1, he just moved him slightly and did not run him. Every turn, he should have moved him flat-out.

2) He split off his right carnifexes to go after my assault marines. Honestly, I can't really blame him as they were in his charge range, but without the protection of Shadows from a trailing tervigon, he had to hope I get real unlucky and either not wound him or fail my psychic test. I did neither.

3) He made a big mistake in shooting at my HQ unit when his Swarmlord was barely in range to assault them. I just removed the models closest to his Swarmlord and then he couldn't charge.

4) Lastly, on turn 5, even though he badly wanted to kill my dreadknight, his Swarmlord should have assaulted my strike squad instead. He would've gotten more kills and had a better chance to break my knights in combat (or force them into more No Retreat saves).


Overall, my opponent suffered from a lack of experience as well as a list mismatch against me. His list wasn't bad. It is a decent all-comer's list. However, my opinion on Tyranid assault lists is that they are not balanced enough to truly take on all comers. My grey knights list was just one of those lists that would give his a lot of problems. Now, if the knights were commandeered by a less experienced general, my opponent would have definitely done better. But against me and my list (and in spite of all my little mistakes), he needed to play an almost flawless game to make it through the battle.



Now the evaluation of the Grey Knight units.....


Grandmaster: B. IMO he is the most flexible and arguably the best HQ in the codex. He is a scary opponent in combat, buffs up the entire army with his Grand Strategy, is quite resilient with just a stock Nemesis force sword (3++ Invuln in assault) and has enough toys to make his unit fearsome in combat. While he didn't kill a whole lot in this game, you can't really expect any HQ without Eternal Warrior to survive against the Swarmlord. However, the buffs that he provide to the army makes him an above-average choice at worst.

Venerable Dreadnought: C+. Without any vehicles to shoot down (or T4 tyranids units to insta-gib), they were mediocre this game. They did, however, help to finish off 1 tervigon and some hive guards.

Strike Squad: A-. Very impressive this game. S5-shooting is solid. They combined to take down a tervigon with shooting (along with the vendreads), put 2W on a brood of carnifexes, kill a tyrant guard and some hive guards. Then in assault, they took out a brood of 2 carnifexes, 2-3 units of termagants, 1 tyrant guard and helped to topple the Swarmlord. Just a solid performance from the main workhorse of a purist army.

Interceptor Squad: A. They were just downright awesome this game. I just love the mobility of a jump infantry unit with S5 stormbolters. Let me tell you, the only way you should play them is as a mobile, shooty unit (unless you're going up against an army who doesn't fear S5 assault weapons). Do so and they are worth their weight in gold. While they did finish off a brood of carnifexes in assault as well as help take down the Swarmlord, their effectiveness as a shooty, harassment unit is second-to-none. Their shooting put wounds on many different units, including taking down the biovores and 1-2 units of termagants. And they're such a fun unit to play with (though I'm sure not very fun to play against). Too bad I didn't get to use their Shunt special ability.

Dreadknight: B. He had a chance to shine this game but blew it due to clever tactics by my opponent. His shooting (only 1 turn's worth) did take down 1 hive guard and he did kill a couple of termagants here and there in assault. And he did kill the tervigon who charged him. However, he showed his major weakness here as well, getting tied up by cheap 50-ish point units and then getting insta-gibbed by the much superior Swarmlord. Too bad you cannot use Shunt to get you out of assault. Oh well....the jury is still out on the dreadknight. I will give him another chance though, when I go up against Daemons.


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MVP's:
Grey Knights:
Grey Knight Interceptor Squad: Just a really fun and annoying unit to play with (annoying for my opponent, that is). Highly recommended for a foot-GK list.


Tyranids:
Swarmlord: He gets it because of all the tyranid units, he was the most effective. He killed my Grandmaster, 1 strike squad and the dreadknight. That's about 700pts worth of Grey Knights killed in only 2 turns! He also made the termagants really dangerous with preferred enemy and shut down almost all of my psychic powers. Just a truly nasty, nasty unit.

[jy2]

I htink the biggest problem he had was the fact that he played a very MC heavy army against an army littered with Force Weapons. I learned the value of Force Weapons against nids the first day they came out at my local GW. They did a thing where nids could field whatever they wanted and it all had Endless swarm and everyone else had 500 points to play with. I took 2 minimum squads of ISTs and filled the rest with a GM/GKTs and my friend did something similar, but had a Chaos Lord on a bike with lash and a force weapon. It was supposed to be a fun thing where the nids rampage over everything, but what it turned out that after 7 turns we called a tie. Why? Me and my friend were wreaking havoc on everything, and I know that my GM personally got 8 MCs, and he got a similar amount (9 I think). Of course there was also a trukk full of lootas that was kinda scary and probably did more than we did. Anyway, my point is, Force Weapons + MCs - EW = Death. I expected nothing less in this report, and had it been more swarmy, I think he would have done much better.

The old GKGM just owned carnifexes....unless you're talking about T7 fexes. Anyways it seemed as if you and your partner rolled exceedingly well that game, just as I rolled exceedingly poor on my psychic tests in the face of Shadows.

Hordes is not necessarily an answer. I did not take one of the best units in the GK codex - purifiers - but you sure will see them used in a lot of GK armies. They are just horde killers. With Cleansing Flame, then assault and then combat resolution, they can nearly kill off a horde of 30 gants without FNP.

Well, this was hardly a proof of Tyranid viability. More like the last nail in the coffin of Tyranid MC armies. What would be interesting is seeing how a termagaunt dakkahorde would do here?

Shooting supported by Shadows units is key for a tyranid army against the Grey Knights. They have force weapons for the TMC's and Cleansing Flame for the hordes in assault.

Having actually played against the new grey knights I'll be the first to say that 1: Unless you're on top of your game (or your opponent is just bad) they surprise you...in a bad way. 2: Swarm armies will suffer against purgation (?) squads once they've set up and begin to rain psycannon shots down on you and their flamers are just mean. 3: They don't like maneouverable armies. I played them with my Thousand Sons and lost by turn 2 after failing about 9 armour saves for one squad (yes armour, not invulnerable). He then played against Dark Eldar and watched as units began to dissapear mysteriously at an alarming rate whilst all the Knights could do was turn around to try to respond to threat after threat even as they were hammered into submission.

GK's need psyfleman dreads in order to compete. They're a mid-range army who will have problems against armies with better range. Without the ranged support of their dreads, it will always be an uphill battle against those types of armies (opponents with better range).

Still, as a Nid player myself a Dakkahorde might work...especially when you begin to consider the average Knight unit sizes...it's a pity their weapons nullify FNP, but we're Tyranids, we adapt around that. Also, as the game against DE proved, Grey Knights have to target priorotise very carefully, especially against us Nids and less so against smaller elite builds. Against me his tactic was: Shoot at Ahriman. Then again, I use a themed list rather than an actual competetive one for my Chaos...

Ah, but FNP is still useful for hordes. Why? Because you can still use it against stormbolter-fire and No Retreat saves. Trust me. GK's don't want to assault a horde until they can bring them down to more manageable levels (i.e. 10-15 models) with shooting. And when they assault, they usually won't wipe out a larger horde (12+ models). Instead, they let No Retreat saves wipe out the rest.

[Lynchpin]

The Grey Knights and the Tyranids are evenly matched in most battles, both in fluff and the table top, but for very different reasons.

Firstly, the grey knights have at their disposal possibly THE MOST devestating weapon/tactic against the Hive Mind - the ability to use anti-psyker weapons to destroy the synapse web (as synapse creatures are psykers) this disruption in the synapse web would cause havoc among the broods. However, with their small numbers the GK are outmatched on numbers alone.

The tyranids also can disable the GK most potent weapon (Dreadknight) by simply chewing on the VERY exposed pilot (armour plate anyone) Please tell me they have at least ONE techpriest/techmarine in their chapter who's voiced this problem.

I am called to wonder, if the GK have an abundance of anti-psyker weapons, would their battle-barge be armed with battle barge sized psy-cannons? (now there's a scary yet awesome peice of technology) demon ships and planets beware.

[micah]

bring a deathleaper to nerf the main psykers ld
stack aura of despairs
dont skimp on shadows

gk arent anything special if they cant get any powers off

[jy2]

Deathleper won't work as there are just too many psykers. Every GK unit is a psyker.

Aura of Despair may work, but only if you are spamming genestealer broods.

Shadows is a definite must against the Grey Knights. But even if their powers don't go off, they are still dangerous with S5 shooting and all power weapons.

[micah]

deathleaper always works
just pick the most dangerous psyker

usually an hq or special character, someone with multiple powers who can use multiple a turn.
like a librarian, or the techmarine thats in the henchman unit giving all those DCA/crusaders hammerhand , etc. theres always a good target for it

spamming genestealer broods is exactly what i meant
even if only 1 is in range for it to work, having it stacked with shadows is huge

[jy2]

The Deathleaper is a little too situational to me. I much prefer another force-multiplier unit such as the tervigon or similar unit to provide more Shadows coverage than just the Deathleaper to lower the LD of just 1 unit (even if it is the "most dangerous psyker".) Affecting multiple squads is better than just affecting one IMO. Then again, I've only ever used the Deathleaper once.

Genestealer-spam may work, though they'll going to have a lot of problems against S5 stormbolter-spam without FNP or getting locked up by psyfleman dreads in combat. They'll either do well and possibly table the knights, or suck it up big time and probably get tabled themselves. While that could be pretty fun, I tend to shy away from these builds due to their imbalance.