Getting Grey Knight Terminators to work (and not die before they do anything)

[Dave Mcturk]

a little "off topic" and bound to upset the 'you cant do that crew' - but we've house-ruled ALL figures wearing terminator style armour [except those with two or more wounds {characters/oblitz etc} or those made up to T5 or higher {nurgles etc} to having TWO wounds against 'SHOOTING ATTACKS'. It may sound a little complicated but it seems to work.

We were finding all terminators were suffering from the massive amounts of st6 + and ap2 / ap1 weaponry now available in new codexes [ie newdar / tau / newde] also there are more and cheaper [pts] artillery units than can get lucky against terminator blobs.

Like almost all other units the 6th ed changes to cover saves also effects terminator types so the 'extra' resistance makes terminator armour more resilient to firepower; as it maybe should be !

we also considered giving a 4+ iv save v shooting instead - but this seemed to still result in 'terminator evaporation' in certain circumstances.

perhaps people could give it a whirl in 'non-tournament' games and see what they think?

[Defenestratus]

Getting back to my original post - I'm not interested in Pallies at this point. They're simply too expensive once you throw in the librarian to field as an allied detachment. It seems to me that getting sanctuary is key on these guys thus perhaps upgrading the Libby to ML3 and giving him the Domina Liber Daemonica to get that 5th power for the Libby - which almost guarantees he'll pick up sanctuary. Then the guys in grey will at least be able to take a couple plasma shots to the face and not fall over like whiney babies.

Finishing up my other squad for the strike force in a small interceptor squad. This could end up being the hammer when people decide that the terminators are a juicier target.

[DarkLink]

If you're looking for cheap allies, then yeah. Librarian, 5 GKT, and then cherrypick a few units from the GK codex depending on what your main army is. Competitively, if you really want to go to the top tables, about the only way to actually run GKs is with NSF, Libarian, 5 GKT, Draigo, Centurions and a bunch of Space Marines as allies. But if you're not concerned with being absolute top tier, then Sanctic Daemonology Librarian can do fun things, GKT fill your troops, Dreadknights are fun.

Interceptors are kinda pricey for what they do, especially when Dreadknights do the same thing but better. If you're one of the SM armies that can take Drop Pods, I would use PAGK as Purifiers, and pod them in for Cleansing Flame.

Ironically, I'm probably the one you are referring to on BnC, since I post regularly there on the their GK forum.

Thought your name sounded familiar, but I think the guy I'm thinking of is Reclusiarc Darius or something.

As to Draigo, every advantage he gives Paladins, he also gives any other unit he is attached to, including GKTs. Not a good argument to say attaching a 200+ point model makes a 300+ point unit better than a 300+ point other unit without said 200+ point model.

It's not about just what Draigo brings to the unit. One of the main benefits of Paladins is that they're freakin' impossible to kill. The exception to this is Str 8+ AP2. On their own, you're right, not really worth it because their main benefit goes out the window. Adding Draigo to the unit, however, means every single one of their weaknesses other than being expensive basically disappears. Since Paladins are more points efficient than Terminators in almost every meaningful way (more wounds per point, more psycannons per point, and while you're not strictly getting more attacks per point, nothing beats Draigo and Paladins in combat), yes, you can in fact say that a particular 300pt unit is better with Draigo than a different 300pt unit. Draigo synergizes much more with Paladins than with GKT.

As to TDA in general, I'm not worried about massed small arms fire, because either I'm playing smart enough to limit exposure, or I'm not. I find AP2 Last Blasts more annoying, with by chance splats Pallies just like GKT. Except GKT can combat squad and survive more massed fire and pie-plates than the same points in Paladins. Just say'n. Also, for the same points you spend on 10 Pallies to get 4 Psycannons, you could have allied in a Centstar, or taken 3 units of Troop GKT.

If you're not worried about small arms fire, you aren't playing against the same sort of armies I do. I switched over to Paladins specifically because a lot of the lists I face are super-nasty and anything less durable gets shot off the table. Even in the previous codex, power armor guys only worked if you spammed the crap out of them. Tons of PAGK with basically nothing but psycannons in Rhinos with psybolt ammo and rush them. Now that psycannons are salvo and psybolt is gone, even that isn't worth it. Purifiers are still good, but they don't have a good in-codex delivery system so I doubt many people use them.

And I do in fact run 10 man units sometimes. Against certain armies, you can combat squad and run a unit off without Draigo without too much worry. The only real weakness of 10 Paladins is multiple objective missions. Otherwise, you actually don't get much more killy than that. Even if it was just victory points rather than killpoints, a unit of 10 Paladins with Draigo will run around the board murderizing everything in its path.

I also can't tell you how many times I've had a Tau player shrug off my Paladins expecting to be able to hit them with Str 8 Ap 2 from Riptides, only for me to spread out, they only get 2 hits a blast max, and their 3 Riptides do like one wound to Draigo. Then the Paladins shoot back and drop a Riptide with rending psycannons. Granted, that was when you could give them Scout and get up in their face that much more quickly, but the point is that if you play smart, you won't lose Paladins to Str 8 Ap 2 the way you might initially think. And Paladins will survive a salvo from a few units of Broadsides fairly unscathed. Terminators will not.



Now you can't take them as troops, so yeah, GKT. I'm absolutely not saying that GKT don't have their role, I'm just saying that their role is different than Paladins. I've been running the Nemesis Strike Force as a baseline, with 1 cheap Librarian, Draigo, 1 unit of Paladins, 1 unit of GKT, and 2 Dreadknights, then building from there. That core force is about 1300pts, which isn't cheap and it's definitely low model count, but you pack in a lot of psycannons and close combat ability and you're pretty durable. I've been leaning towards maxing out GKT with the rest of the points, though I've also considered running a standard CAD and taking 3 Dreadknights. It's biggest weakness is the lack of skyfire, but Grey Knights are stuck with either mediocre Storm Ravens or allies, so it's not like there's an easy answer, and massed psycannon fire isn't terrible.

But you aren't going to take 10 Pallies, are you? You might take 6, you might even take two units of 3, but you definitely aren't going to take 10. And which unit fills your a Troop slot? 5 Strikes? 5 GKT?

Min Paladin units were stupid even when solodins were a thing. I mean, they were useful insomuch as they got you cheap scoring, but a single Paladin on its own is kinda useless. A unit of 3 isn't much better. 5 models is the minimum, for the dual Psycannons.

I tend to take one unit, since you can only have one Draigo. Since 6-9 doesn't net you any more psycannons, I only take that many if I for some reason can't spend points on anything else. So it's usually 5 with two hammers, two psycannons, and an apothecary.

Strikers are bad now, on a ppm basis when compared to GKT. About the only reason to take Strikers over GKT is because they are cheaper or you're playing a Highlander CAD.

Yup. Strike squads are a complete waste of points.

On your luck with Pally-Stars ... cool? ... neat? ... keep up the good work?

SJ

Dude, I'm trying to be helpful. You say you can't run Paladins? Yes, you can, and I'm trying to highlight cases why they can be good. It's another tool to use. Don't knock it just because it hasn't clicked yet, or doesn't match your playstyle.

[jeffersonian000]

I'm not saying "you can't run Paladins." I am saying "Paladins aren't worth running." Very different points of view. They need to either drop 10 ppm, or gain PML 2 with Sanctuary as a baseline power to be worth takng.

SJ

[Defenestratus]

I'm not saying "you can't run Paladins." I am saying "Paladins aren't worth running." Very different points of view. They need to either drop 10 ppm, or gain PML 2 with Sanctuary as a baseline power to be worth takng.

SJ

I have to respectably disagree. If that were the case then there wouldn't ever be a reason to take normal terminators ever. If the two units had different models then you might have had a point since there's always the "if you like the model for the less expensive unit more than the other" angle, but since the two units share the same slot... you can't make one or the other the clear "winner".

The fact that two seasoned GK players are debating the finer points of each leads me to believe that they're both worthy selections.

[Micawber]

Thought your name sounded familiar, but I think the guy I'm thinking of is Reclusiarc Darius or something.

That guy and his dogmatic and at times borderline opressive presence in the B&C forums was the main reason why I stopped posting there and went back into lurking. Now he was made admin. I'm in dire need of a new forum

Better is relative. On a per model basis, yep. On a per point basis, not even close. You can have almost twice as many GKT as Pallies for the same points, which nets you: same wounds, more range attacks, more CC attacks, the ability to Combat Squad, and Troop slot. GKT lose FnP and Banner, neither of which improve the chance of not getting ID'd by a pie-plate. GKT also have a bigger foot-print (from having more models), gaining them a lower chance if being wiped out. Combat Squads doubles survivability. SJ

I agree that overall GKT are the more versatile unit on a point for point basis but apart from the looming nemesis in form of the ID pie-plate the gaps are not as big as some might think.

When comparing the run-of-the-mill 10 man terminator squad with a 5 man Pala squad with apothecary and banner (which is about the same pointswise) the terminator squad comes out ahead in cc against WS 3 or lower but against MEQ the paladins are only shy one wound - WS of 5 and the banner doing work. When adding the same IC to both squads the paladins come out ahead because of the additional attacks granted by the banner.

In the defensive department we see the same pattern - the narthecium indeed makes the paladins much more resilient against torrents of small caliber weapons ("small" including things like plasma :P ) but their vulnerability to Str 8+ kinda balances that out. Now if you add a IC to the Paladins there is again the additional synergy of the IC profiting passively from joining the paladins instead of a GKT squad.

I guess my point is that besides filling their fluff-role of beeing bodyguards for the GK leaders quite nicely by buffing IC's joining them they are also not that far behind point efficiency wise. Warning: results may vary depending on personal experience and local meta.

[jeffersonian000]

I have to respectably disagree. If that were the case then there wouldn't ever be a reason to take normal terminators ever. If the two units had different models then you might have had a point since there's always the "if you like the model for the less expensive unit more than the other" angle, but since the two units share the same slot... you can't make one or the other the clear "winner".

The fact that two seasoned GK players are debating the finer points of each leads me to believe that they're both worthy selections.

True enough.

SJ