Friday, March 25, 2011

Grey Knight Codex - Heftier review

Alright so, I was finally able to run a 1500 point match utilizing the new GK codex.  In fact, I was able to test pretty much every unit with myself controlling an all Inquisitorial army and my opponent using an almost entirely all Grey Knight force - both with the new codex ruleset.

~ Inquisition-focus List ~
My Inquisitor list (tl;dr version) looked something like...
Inquisitors Karamazov & Coteaz, techmarine, land raider redeemer, and 5 henchmen squads being taken as troops as per Coteaz's special rule.  Of the 5 it included; 1 deathcult assassin squad,  2 plasma cannon/hvy bolter/multimelta servitor squads, and 2 psyker squads.

All I have to say is, the force wrecked massive havoc.  I'll go into the pluses/detractors of this all-inquisitorial list.

What I Liked:

  • - The psyker squads have a ridiculous psychic shooting attack with a 36 inch range, utilizing a large blast template.  The best part is that the Strength of the attack goes up 1 and the AP goes down 1 with teach psyker in the squad.  Drop down 5 or 6 of them and you have a nasty AP1 large blast template launching at a yard.
  • - The servitor squads are cheap.  Plasmacannon servitors (limited to 3 per henchman squad) are only 20 points, with the hvybolter and multimelta ones being 10.  
  • - The techmarine gets to fortify one piece of terrain to get +1 cover save for the duration of the game.  I dumped most of my shooting-heavy force into a ruin that now conferred a 3+ cover save to all of its inhabitants.
  • - The techmarine got to carry both Rad and Psychotroke grenades.  The rad grenade removes a toughness, the psychotroke grenade has ridiculous effects (determined by a d6 roll; all options but a roll of 1 are great).  The best part being that both grenades can be used when assaulting or being assaulted.
  • - Inquisitor karamazov gets to dump an orbital bombardment with perfect accuracy if placed on a friendly model.  Is that friendly squad who's locked in assault about to lose in the ensuing assault phase?  Help end their misery - dump a template on them!  

What I didn't like:

  • This army is great for annihilation or capture and control missions, but slightly less pro at capture points.  The 11 assassins+techmarine in the land raider is a deadly mobile force, though.
  • Both inquisitors must be kept attached to the servitor squads to prevent the mind-lock special rule (50% chance the servitor and its unit will be un-usable for 1 turn if an inquisitor isn't in the squad)
  • If the assassin team is out killing/capturing shit, your shooting forces might be vulnerable to deep strikers/assault vehicles.  While Coteaz will allow a free shot at anyone deep striking within 12'' of him, this isn't helpful if they deepstrike near a squad out of range, away from Coteaz, or if the enemy charges in an assault vehicle which you can't stop.
We played a capture and control mission, which I won handedly.  He played a high-cost/low model Grey Knight list; using the new Paladins (cooler sounding terminators which can include a GK apothecary which gives feel no pain to the squad).  While their new Aegis ability makes it more difficult to cast psychic attacks (-1 ldrship on the psychic test), it is nothing compared to their Aegis from the old codex.  All in all I was at a large advantage with all the plasma and such, fighting grey knights.  But both lists seem viable against other lists / opponents.

That's all for now.  For the Emperor!!

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