I was lined up to fight Space Wolves last Monday with my test list. And I lost. I'll get the bitter part out of the way: If the game had ended on turn 5, I would have won. Also if I'd remembered to go to ground, it would have been a draw; But hey ho that's the way the cookie crumbles!
The Space Wolves player I was up against was Paul [Who coincidently co-runs Facebook's largest Space Wolves page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Space-Wolves/120208048022208 - Ed] who is a most excellent tactician. Because of this he realised he did NOT want to go into assault with me, and instead of taking his usual Thunder Wolf Cavalry, took 2 units of long fangs with 5 missile launchers and a Wolf Guard with a cyclone missile launcher. That's 7 missile attacks a turn he can split fire with, and he had 2 squads of them!
Hardly surprising then that my men's transports barely got out of my table quarter. By turn 4 I realised that there was no way I'd be my men over to his objective in time. The weight of fire was too great on my relatively few units for them to get anywhere. This brought me to a point; Despite having 2 large units of Longfangs this was not a gunline army, and if this army had enough firepower to stop my advance, I was in trouble.
Grey Knights are an elite elite army. They have specialised troops and few of them. In order to be effective they HAVE to get their men where they need to be, while losing as few troops as possible.
I know this may sound obvious, but other armies, even other marine armies, have "expendable" bubble-wrap units and lots of redundancy. So they aren't as concerned about losing men. Grey Knights need to arrive without losing men, and they have one main way of doing this: Scout shunts.
For those of you unaware, GK Power armoured "Interceptors" and Dreadknights have access to personal teleporters. Not for all intents and purposes this turns them into jump infantry, with one important difference. Once a game they can make a 30" 'shunt' move across the board, but cannot assault once they get there. So, if you take a Grand Master, you can use the Grand Strategy ability to give D3 units the Scout special rule. Hand this onto your interceptors and Dreadknights and use the shunt move in your scout move. Then in your first turn you can move another 12" and assault 6" So as long as you deploy within 48" of an enemy (not hard) you'll be getting a first turn charge!
Consider as well, that you dole out your Grand Strategy rules BEFORE deployment. Combat Squading on the other hand is done during deployment. Meaning your 1 scouting squad becomes two. So it's possible (yet expensive) to have 6 units assaulting the enemy in your first turn. Which is pretty brutal. Personally I'd mix up the Dreadknights and Interceptors and pick my most suited targets.
Dreadknights and Interceptors are expensive, so how to afford them? Coteaz. Yeah I know, I'm on an originality bender here. Coteaz gives many things to this list. Firstly is cheap scoring boxes, 3 Warriors in Razorbacks with Psybolt ammo comes in at 62 points. Take 6. His spy network ability also allows you to re roll your seize dice (giving you a 1/3 chance to seize!) and can force your opponent to re-roll as well. What this means is that an army which REALLY wants the first turn is alot more likely to actually get the first turn, which rules. Coteaz gives us yet more (for 100 points!) but I'll cover that below.
Don't I still need a Grand Master to give units scout as well as Coteaz? I'm afraid so. In order to keep with the theme I'd personally like to go with Mordrak, thanks to his first turn scatterless Deep Strike ability he's prime choice to get up there in the mix with his first turn chargers. This does leave him close and unable to assault. Well hopefully any unit wanting to shoot/charge him will be locked in combat already by your charging units. But we can't leave it to hope! What we do is give Mordrak one or two Ghost Knights. Ghost Knights have stealth, and thanks to their non-scattering DS you can get them into cover easily (or run them there, as they don't have any decent guns anyway). Thanks to the recent FAQ, a single model with Stealth in a unit confers that ability to every model in the unit. Giving Mordrak Ghost Knights also turns him into a unit which can be joined by Independent Characters. You guessed it, Coteaz shows up again! Few people remember that Coteaz also has the Sanctuary power, which turns terrain for any enemy unit wishing to assault any of your units within 12" into difficult and dangerous terrain.
Hold on a minute, our HQ unit there has Stealth AND Sanctuary. Yup, we just removed the main reason for wanting a Librarian in your army, and that's pretty awesome. 2 HQ units which do the job of 3, now I don't feel bad for spending 340+ points on them.
So, Mordrak, Coteaz, Ghost Knight(s), Henchmen, Interceptors and Dreadknights. Well I don't expect to get much change out of that, but if I do, I'm going to want something to crack open transports first turn so that those chargers have something squishy to hit. For that I want Psyflemen dreadnoughts, no better (ex-)man for the job!
Oh, and if I can fit her in, a Callidus assassin, because if I'm going to get all up in someone's face first turn, I want to shiv them in the back in the second turn to finish them off. Not forgetting of course that Mordrak gets the Psychic Communion power, which will get Callidus on in turn 2 on a 3+.
So, Here's my first crack at the list:
1750 Sucker Punch List
HQ
Mordrak 200
2 Ghost Knights 80
Coteaz 100
EliteCallidus 145
Troops7 Acolytes w/ 1meltagun, Razorback, psybolt 88
6 Acolytes w/ 1meltagun, Razorback, psybolt 84
6 Acolytes w/ 1meltagun, Razorback, psybolt 84
6 Acolytes w/ 1meltagun, Razorback, psybolt 84
Fast Attack
10 Interceptors, MC Ham, Ham 285
5 Interceptors, MC Ham 145
Heavy SupportDreadknight w/ Teleporter, Incinerator 235
Psyfleman Dread 135
Psyfleman Dread 135
OPTION: You may choose to drop the 5 man Interceptor squad as 2 thirds of the time they won't be scouting (the Dreadknight and the 10 man squad obviously taking preference from the D3 Grand Strategy). Instead pick up a 5 man purifier Squad with MC Hammer and a Psycannon. The purifiers would also get a dedicated Razorback and the 7 man warrior squad would lost theirs. The warriors then would hide on a home objective going to ground.
Thoughts and comment are most welcome.
With that kind of list, I'm not surprised you got hammered.
ReplyDeleteSorry to be cruel, but you've got waaay too many points tied up in characters.
Plus you've got so many Razorbacks with strength 6 guns, you're hardly going to kill a similarly mechanised army.
Mordrak with only 2 ghost knights??
The only tasty part of your list is the Heavy Support section. Did you give your riflemen psy bolts?
PS: Paul is a good tactician because he reads: http://space-wolves-grey.blogspot.com/
Not sure you actually read the post, that's not even close to the list I took against Paul, but my musings from afterwards. Also it was a close game, not a "hammering" :-/
ReplyDeleteRazorbacks are not designed to hurt other tanks. They are cheap scoring boxes.
Although I admit this list has issues with heavy armour.
I am aware of the HQ point sink, but as I point out in the post they give me alot.
However if you think you can improve on the list. Please do.
you cant make a shunt move with the scout move, scout says the unit may make a normal move before the first turn and the 30'' shunt move is not a normal move but a special once per game move
ReplyDeleteThat is a very good point, and something which I imagine will crop up in the FAQ.
ReplyDeleteMany people seem to taking it as they can shunt-scout, but the wording is usefully vague on the point (usual GW!)
"This is done exactly as in their movement phase" - I think this is the bit which'll cast doubt. as in their movement phase they can choose to shunt, so if it's done exactly as in their movement phase, they'll be able to shunt.
ReplyDeleteBut again as you say, it might not be considered a "normal move". Definitely a FAQ call that one!