40K list needs critiqueing

[TheThan]

Ok so I got dragged into a 40K campaign at my LGS. I don’t have a 40K army, so the guy who’s running it is letting me use his Daemon hunters army (Grey Knights to be precise). I’ve played a total of one game with these badass dudes (which I won btw), I like what they seem to offer. I’ve read through the codex and I think I’ve got a pretty good grasp on what they do. I’m not particularly keen on 40k, so I not sure what a good force is, so I was wondering if some people more informed than me can critique these two lists it for me.


Anyway the next game I have to play is a 1800 point scenario against my bro’s brand new ‘nids force (its partially a rematch since I won the first one).



HQ

Grey knights Grand master 145pts
(nemesis weapon, storm bolter)

Elites
Grey knights terminators retinue (10) 460pts
(nemesis weapon, storm bolter)

Inquisitor 35pts
(Combi-weapon Bolter, melta gun )


Troops

Grey knights (10) three units 275pts each

Heavy assault
Grey knight dreadnought 80pts

Grey knights Land raider Crusader 255pt




HQ
Grey knights Grand master 145pts
(nemesis weapon, storm bolter)

Elites
Grey knights terminators retinue (10) 460pts
(Nemesis weapon, storm bolter)

Troops

Grey knights (10) three units 275pts each

Heavy assault

Grey knights Land raider 250

Orbital Strike (barrage bomb) 80pts x2 (yes two orbital strikes)

[Lorn]

It's early morning, so I'm not going to critique much.

However:

-First list, the random Inquisitor. Why? What's the purpose for him? They die fairly easily without a retinue, and the rest of your list seems to be full of GKs.

-Second list, you can only take one orbital strike according to the 'dex.

[Wraith]

I have played a Grey Knight army too - these guys are sickeningly tough, but one wrong move and it's all over regardless.

Were I you, I would use the second list - the Inquisitor is out of place and won't add much that another Terminator wouldn't in his place and the Dreadnought could prove unreliable when you NEED things to perform as expected - except that I would make the following changes:

# Exchange the Land Raider for a Land Raider Crusader. Against Tyranids a couple of shots with Lascannons are not going to make much of a dent, and for some truly good times you can't go far wrong with a Hurricane Bolter and the Psybolt upgrade. The only thing you probably won't be able to hurt with those Bad Boys are Hive tyrants or Carnifex, and that's what the Multimelta/Assault Cannons are for.

# You're only allowed one Orbital Strike, not even one of each, which is a shame. The Fusion Bomb is likely to be a good choice though, as the cheaper version will struggle to hurt the bigger creatures, and the s10 version is just overkill on the normal troops.

# Take the points you saved by only having 1 Orbital Strike and equip your Grey Knight Squads with some Special Weapons - a mix of Incinerators and Psycannons is fine, but you're likely to be better off by taking mostly Psycannons and remain stationary, thinning the enemy out before they get too close.

I would also consider giving your Terminators the Holocaust Psychic Power and your Grand Master the Word of the Emperor Power. The former is very useful against enemies that like close combat, and especially useful if you find yourself mobbed by a big pile of genestealers - those things WILL eat your Terminators if you don't stop them, and the best way to do that is to kill them before they get the chance to attack.

Word of the Emperor has the same effect - it's not particularly reliable but it is very cheap, so if it doesn't work you haven't lost much and if it does then you have gained another turn of shooting and YOU get the charge in the next turn.

This, when facing a Hive Tyrant with a Nemesis Force Weapon, could prove to be very, very amusing. :smallbiggrin:

Good luck, and remember - the Emperor Protects! :smallsmile:

[archmage45]

What Wraith said.

[TheThan]

I’ve been away from my computer for a few days, so I’m just getting to this.

After consulting the guy I’m borrowing the codex from, it seems I made a minor mistake in this army list. I didn’t realize that I needed to equip. For some reason I thought it was like the other vehicles and it came with standardized gear. Apparently I was wrong.

Anyway we decided to drop the inquisitor in favor of gear for the dreadnought. The inquisitor was just there to soak up the spare 35 points anyway, so no big loss there. I think that list is just shy of 1800.

I know my bro will probably bring two Carnifexs and a hive tyrant. He’s planning on mounting wings on his warriors, but I don’t know if they came in yet (yeah, he sprung for the forge world wings), so I don’t know if he will bring them or not. The las cannons on the Land raider may mean certain death to the carnifexs.

I was taking the barrage bombs because they have a large AOE and can be used to wipe out his small nids, while the heavier weapons take out the bigger bugs like the carnifex. Also a lot of the physic powers in the codex only affect daemons. So I sort of ignored them and went with a similar setup to what I had in the first game (which worked well, it took my bro 6 turns to kill that unit of terminators, with an epic duel between his hive tyrant and my grand master).

The way this campaign works is that we gain experience through battles, each time we play we can gain points to spend to upgrade our units. We get to pick from a list and one squad gains a special rule from the list. The last game I played gave me half the points I need to get fleet of foot, which I plan on sticking on the terminators. Which means I can advance, run then assault in one turn. Which is going to be rather dirty.

I’ll look over the book again, and my lists and see if I can what I can do to improve upon it. thanks for the advice.

[Wraith]

So what you now have is something like this?

1xGrey Knight Grand master (No upgrades?)

10x Grey Knights Terminators (No upgrades?)

10x Grey Knights (+Psycannon/Incinerator)
10x Grey Knights (+Psycannon/Incinerator)
10x Grey Knights (+Psycannon/Incinerator)

1x Grey Knight Dreadnought (+Lascannon and CC Weapon?)
1x Grey Knight Land Raider (No upgrades?)

Nothing inherently bad about this list - particularly the big pile of GK Terminators, they will take out anything short of a Land Raider or Monolith, and even then that'd only be one Upgrade away.

Admittedly I can't help but think it looks a bit lean, but then I like to play with lots of different gadgets and abilities so I respect that you have different opinions :smallsmile:
Just be aware that playing a setup similar to your last game may be noticed by your opponent, so while you are trying to find effective ways to combat his all-new flying Warriors he'll know what he did last time and change accordingly, and if he can get a few early casualties then you may find it harder to catch up.

[TheThan]

I’m also working with what I have available to me. I know he has the greyknights, the land raider crusader and the dreadnought. We’re also playing with the scenarios in the book, I’m not quite sure how much the scenarios are going to change the setup.

[TheThan]

ok first of sorry about the (semi) double post.
I finally got around to playing the game I was supposed to play against the ‘nids. (I had a birthday party to go to so it got postponed until today.)

The army list I took was thus:


HQ:
Grey knight grand master 145 points
10 Grey knight terminators (retinue) 460 points

Troops:
Three units Grey knights (10) 275 points each

Heavy support
Grey knights dreadnought with twin linked autocannon 115 points
Grey knights land raider crusader 255 points

Total 1,800


It worked well except that I really, really screwed up the first game, I was really wrong on how the nemesis force weapons worked. But I worked it out, and we played a second game, which was much better, despite loosing. The guy I played against brought FOUR Carfexs, some warriors and a bunch of small dudes. Which is not exactly what I expected him to bring, I was sitting there wishing I had the normal Grey knights land raider and a Las Cannon on the dreadnought. Anyway the highlight of the second game was the Grey knights Justicar taking down three Carnfexs in close combat, the little guy was just unstoppable.

Anyway despite loosing the fight, I really liked the game I played, I took away a lot more knowledge than I had before and I hope to do better next time. Additionally I really enjoyed the faction and am looking forward to perhaps playing more.