How does my army deal with flyers?

So Ryanjj405 below asked as question that I thought I would answer in a new post:

I have tried a similar list but I cannot handle full on Necron air or Triple Hell Drakes, how do you plan on dealing with those?

 

I do believe that everyone does need to have an anti-flyer strategy so here is mine.

You will note that I do not have an aegis defense line or bastion or anything else with sky fire. If you think a quad gun will shoot anything down that has a 12 AV (unless you have fire dragons) is going to be in for a big disappointment. I felt that I could spend the points better elsewhere.

Here is my anti-flyer strategy

1. The Emperor protects! I have over 1000 points in 2+ armor saves so right there half of my army is going to be very hard to hurt by fliers (besides vendettas)
2. Draigo being Draigo. Draigo has a 2+ save and so what I could do it put him in the front of my strike squad and make him take all of the saves if some heldrakes try to BBQ them.  
3. Sing with the psychic choir. Coteaz, can also be out in front but if he fails a 2+ save then he will be insta-gibbed. The only way that he can be out front is if I roll a 5 on the divination table and it lets him re-roll failed saves. Also if I roll a 2 I get a 4+ inv save and that will help slow down the heldrakes a little bit.
4. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. If I go first the interceptor squad is so fast I can just move forward and try to get into assault with something. This will let me be safe from any shooting while being locked in combat.
5. See, but don’t be seen. If I go second I can try to deepstrke behind the fliers after they come on. With their 18” move and 12” range they have to move away, and I can try to land in their blind spot. The next turn they can choose to hover but then they will get shot down.
6. Use my enemy’s strength against them. Interceptors are so fast that I can often take over my opponent’s quad guns and try to shoot down their own flyers with them. There is nothing better than doing this.   
7. A nexus for the rest of us. The interesting thing about the random objective Skyfire Nexus is that you have to be able to scoring to use them. Here is the problem with most scoring units…they do not have the tools to shoot down flyers. That is not the problem with my army because if I find one, my army can shred fliers.
8. And if all else fails, plan B. I will either just ignore them, or shoot them down. Yes, you need “6”s to hit, but I pump out a lot of strength 7 shooting and with prescience I am going to get some good hits. The other thing that I have going for me is the dreadnaughts. 4 twin linked shots at strength 8 might get their attention. If they have too much I have to count on my durability to weather their fire.  

Road to Adepticon- 39 Days and counting

As most people know I played at the Bay Area Open last weekend and I did well early on, but on day #2 I stumbled a bit.

Here was my list:

Coteaz
Draigo

10x Paladins - 4x Psycannons, Brotherhood Banner, Warding Stave, mix of weapons
1x Paladin - Hammer
3x Henchmen - 1x Banisher, 2x Warrior Acolytes

10x Interceptors - 2x Psycannons, Psybolt Ammo
10x Interceptors - 2x Psycannons, Psybolt Ammo

I took this list because it was so fast. I keep saying that mobility is very important in 6^th edition and this list let me put my money where my mouth is.

It performed very well and I managed to climb my way up to table #4 on day #2 where I lost to the eventual winner. Even the games that I lost were very close and I had a chance to win each of them. That is the sign that you are close to having a good list when you are not getting blown out, and the games that you lose are close.

Adepticon

So it is time to get ready for Adepticon and I have 39 days to do it.

Here is the list I am thinking about right now

1850 Points of Grey Knights:

Coteaz
Draigo

10x Paladins - 4x Psycannons, Brotherhood Banner
10x Strike Squad - 2x Psycannons, Psybolt Ammo
10x Interceptor Squad - 2x Psycannons, Psybolt Ammo

Dreadnaught 2x Autocannons, Psybolt Ammo

Dreadnaught 2x Autocannons, Psybolt Ammo


 

There you have it. It reminds me a lot of my Nova Open 2011 list.

 

Here is a list of items that I want, but I am not getting because I do not have the points:

Warding Staff:  I really like the 2++ save in assault. This is very good for tanking nasty creatures and thunderhammers.

Psybolt Ammo on the Paladins: Even though it is only 6 models, and less cost efficient than the power armored grey knights, it still comes in handy.

Cheap scoring units: I like the ability to keep scoring units in reserve and then walk on the board to an objective that you have placed behind a piece of LOS blocking terrain. Most of the time when you have combat troops you are wandering around killing and you are often out of position for objective holding, or they can be shot at or engaged and killed.

The problem is, where am I going to get the points to pay for them?

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.

A few random thoughts on Thousand Sons

I am a Thousand Sons player and I look at everything from that perspective and I am not seeing too much in the new codex that is speaking to me. It is still early on and we have not seen everything that they codex has to offer but the dribbles that we have seen does not look promising.

Right now it seems like the codex is filled with demonic engines which might make the Iron Warriors happy, but not the Thousand Sons players.

Thousand Sons

The cost for them is 150 points for 5 Thousand Sons Marines including the Aspiring Sorcerer and then they are going to be 23 points each with stays the same. The only difference is that they pay 35 points instead of the 70 points for the aspiring sorcerer that made them so expensive in the 4^th edition codex.

If you have the Mark of Tzeentch you have to take at least one roll on the Tzeentch power table. I thought one of the things that made the TS aspiring sorcerer not very viable was that they could only take one power. If they could have taken warptime for assault and a shooting power to add to the squad they would have been much better. If they still get only one roll (and it has to be on Tzeentch) then they are not going to be that great. I hope that they are at least mastery level 2.

Chaos Psychic Powers

Let’s break down the Tzeentch powers.

Primaris Power: Tzeentch’s Firestorm

First off, I always hate blasts. They are so inaccurate and if your opponent spaces out you will get about 2 models if you hit at best, but you have a 66% chance to miss. 

Then let’s take a look at the sequence you have to go through to kill a model.

1. You have to make your psychic check.
2. You have to hit.
3. Your opponent has to fail their Deny the Witch.
4.  You then have to roll a decent strength.
5.  Then you have to roll to wound
6. And then they have to fail their save.    

After all of that it seems like you have better chance to kill yourself from Perils of the Warp than kill your opponent.

1-2 Boon of Mutation

A friendly character takes a strength 4 hit for a roll on the Chaos Boon table. Well, a regular SM character will die on a 16%. That is not so great since you are paying a lot of points for them, and they are generally critical. Even with ICs who are more able to take a S4 shot the Boon table is not that great.  Then who knows what you will get and most of them are not even worth it.

3-4 Doombolt

An 18” Bolt of Change is still 6” less than the old one, and 6” less than what your TS Marines can shoot. The fact that you will want to use this for anti-tank shooting that range is very bad.  The fact that is a Beam attack is nice, but that range is still going to hold this power back.

5-6 Breath of Chaos

The new Winds of Chaos.

So overall they are just ok powers, maybe a bit below average. The other powers that they can take are Biomancy, Pyromancy, and Telepathy.

Pyromancy might be the weakest discipline. Biomancy is good if you are an assault character but Thousand Sons armies are not assault based. Telepathy is ok.  

Other Tzeentch Wargear

Icon of Flames: Mark of Tzeentch Only: Boltguns, Heavy Boltguns and Bolt Pistols have the Soul Blaze

Really…soul blaze?

Special Rules 

Mark of Tzeentch: Invulnerable Saves improved by 1 It was only good last edition because you get to cast and extra psychic power. +1 Inv save sucks.  

Demon of Tzeentch: Hatred (Demons of Nurgle), May Reroll all saves of 1. This one is a little bit better.

Psyker: May chose psychic powers from pyromancy, biomancy or telepathy. Tzeentch he must chose at least 1 psycic power from the appendant discipline. See above. Not that good.

Ahriman

For 230 points let’s take a look at his rules.

Power Armor, Bolt Pistol, Frag and Krak Grenades. Ok, standard Marine equipment.

Inferno Bolts (AP 3 bolter rounds) standard for him, but I have never seen Ahriman shoot his bolt pistol.

Aura of Dark Glory: 5+ Inv save (meh)

Warlord trait:

Master of Deception: (1d3 units can infiltrate). At first I thought this trait was bad, but since TS Marines have such a short range that this might be useful. It might also be good if you have cultists.

Special Rules

Champion of Chaos: Has to give and receive challenges. Isn’t Arhiman a bit old for that foolishness?

Independent Character  

Mark of Tzeentch: +1 Inv save for a total of 4+ Inv. Standard for ICs.

Psycher Level 4:  The best in the game so far and able to cast 3 witchfire powers. The problems are that he is unlikely to get 3 witchfire powers, and his powers are not that great (see above)

Veteran of the Long War: Hatred Space Marines (but not Space Wolves?)