Back from the Dead

Alright, time to get going again.

Every year I play my last tournament in November and start up again in February.

So on the agenda for me this spring I have:

Slaughter in Space GT 2000 points and 6 rounds

Los Angeles Ca Feb. 16-17

 http://www.slaughterinspace.com/

Bay Area Open 1750 points 7 rounds

Antioch Ca. March 2^nd and 3^rd

http://www.frontlinegaming.org/community/bay-area-open/warhammer-40000-championships-rules-scenarios-and-prizes/

 

Adepticon 1850 Points 4-8 rounds

Chicago IL. April 18^th – 21^st

 ^{http://www.adepticon.org/}

 

Those are the big events and I should play in some RTTs in between.

Dakka Dakka Battle Report

I played against Jim who is JY2 on Dakka Dakka. He is a prolific batrep writer (I remember when I use to do that!) and you can read about our game here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/505250.page

Batrep thoughts:

This was my first game after my annual winter break from the game. I was a little rusty and I need to re-read the missions. I could have passed off the relic, and I did not know that heavy support choices gave 1 VP in big guns never tire.

I also am very lackadaisical about the victory points. I need to have a fast moving unit or two in my list for line-breaker (I think I will convert a strike squad to interceptors), and I ignored first blood. I could have killed his tervagon that only had 3 wounds left on turn #2, but I ignored it because it was out of gants. I also need to be more protective of my Warlord and it should have been Coteaz since he is more likely to be in the rear with the gear.

In this game you will notice that I took a Grey Knight Grandmaster instead of Draigo. I have a lot of people ask why I did that so this is the answer:

Draigo vs. Grandmaster

With Draigo he makes the Paladins scoring so he can use grand strategy for something else. He can also buy solodins if that is what you want for some cheap troops. He is still a beast in assault, and is very durable. His downsides though are points, lack of AP2 weaponry. He also tends to make you want to keep your paladins together instead of combat-squading to tank wounds (I prefer to combat squad, but sometimes due to mission, and opponent it makes more sense to keep them together).

You have to take a Grandmaster if you do not take Draigo because you have to use Grand Strategy to make them troops. The Grandmaster is a lot more customizable than Draigo is because you can give him grenades, servo skulls and you get to choose his weapons like a psycannon or even a warding staff.

There is a third option of course and that is to not take any type of grandmaster at all and save 250-275 points. That is a lot of points that you can spend on 10 Purifiers/some strikes/a storm raven/a dreadknight/ or a couple of dreadnaughts. The downside is that you will not be able to make your paladins scoring which means that your opponent is more likely to ignore them, and there have been many games where I have been left with only my paladins, and if they were not scoring I could not hold any objectives. 

Question in!

Would you drop dreadnoughts for Dreadknight+Draigo? Because I saw you mention intending to shift to Dreadknights. I am a new player, been playing quite a bit but oddly there's v little decent GK player in my country. So would appreciate your insight if you have a moment.

I currently run a striker spam list with 50 strikers, 2 Dreadknights, Coteaz and a cheap prescience inquisitor.

The Grey Knight build you are running is good one. Massed strikes with Coteaz and some Dreadknights for mobility and durability are quite formidable.Hulksmash runs a list like that and does well with it.

Adding Draigo and Dreadknights

Draigo is good, but he is not 275 points worth of good unless you are running paladins, and then he brings a lot to the table (making them troops and taking wounds).

Dreadnaughts on the other hand would add something to your army. They add anti-aircraft fire (twin-linked strength 8 shots), and with the amount of psychic powers that you see in 6^th edition their aegis is a great defense (anything targeting a unit within 12” makes a leadership check at -4). I did not realize until this game that they still have a role in my army with the amount of maledictions being thrown around these days. 

Dreadknights are good, durable, and they can be made fast for a ton of points. They are good in your strike list for counter assault (since strikes suck against a good assault unit). They also add some durability with their 2+ saves and toughness 6 that the strike squads don’t have. So I would keep them in your list if I was you.

 I am thinking about a GK build that has everything with a 2+ save in it and in that case I was thinking about dreadknights, but I am on the fence with them overall with paladins since they are rather redundant. In all honesty, I have never used them and I need to experiment with them a bit to get a better understanding of them.

I hope that helped.