Tactica: How to play vs GK pt 1 "A tale of two hoods,"

All over the internet, and very often the topic of our Wed night gaming sessions is talk about how tough the current GK codex is.  I have covered before how some people are just outright refusing to play against them and some are going as far as denouncing tournaments just because GK are fairly common right now in the tourney scene.  Well, I wanted to write this article as a GK player and tell you how to play against Grey Knights.




There is one sad truth that we must cover before going into details.  You will notice that the title of this article is not "how to beat GK,"  Beating another army comes down to tactics and luck.  As such I cannot talk about how to beat an army because luck always comes in.  All we can do is talk about how to best help your self.

- A tale of two hoods

   To hope to be successful against any GK build you have to give yourself the best chance you have of shutting down his psychic powers.  If you are a Space Wolves player this Means Njal and Wolf tooth talismans.  If you are space marines it means at least one libby.  Eldar must take runes or Eldrad. etc.

Ok, so now you have your psychic hood with a free librarian.  Now what do you do with him?  Im going to use an example of two games I played where my opponent had anti psyker stuff.

***Warning, this next part is obvious but is often forgotten***

Hood 1:
The Player deployed his Rune Priest in a Rhino on the far left flank like so (X is his priest, Y are his squads Z is his land raider with Logan and friends)

His deployment:
X    yyy   yyyZyy

  y              yyyyZ
My deployment:

Obviously he deployed first, the mission was standard deployment.  I used what is called a denied flank deployment.  I did this because it would keep me far away from his hood for quite a long time.  On the first turn I immobilized the rhino that the Rune priest was in and then I left it alone for the rest of the game.  his hood never came into effect and my Paladins (Z) in a Land raider smashed his entire force because he couldn't do anything to stop Initiative 10 S6 power weapons.  The game was a landslide for GK.

Hood 2:
The same player, in another game deployed in the following manner (Spearhead).  Z is his ThunderCav Y is his Grey Hunters and X is his Rune Priest in a rhino.  On my side Z is my Landraider and Paladins, Y are my Dreads and Strike squads.

ZZZ yyy Xy

                     ZZyyy yy

He deployed first in this game too.  Though notice that his Rune Priest is in the middle of the table.  In this game I had to pretty much stay where I was to not get hooded to death.  Not only that but the Chances of our two death stars meeting somewhere that I wasn't going to get hooded is really low.  Had he placed his Thundercav where the Priest was then there would be a decent chance that I could have pulled the out of hood range.

In this game we ended up drawing Primary, drawing secondary and drawing tertiary; I won on less than 100 VP.  This was a win/loss mission and I must say it was one of the best games I have had in a LONG time.  It was bloody and well played.  Though his Staff failed to shut down some of the more "clutch," powers it did hood a lot of other ones, which made me play differently.  I had one razorback stunned in the center for the whole game that couldn't get fortitude off at all!  It also forced me to cast more powers than necessary to "buff," my guys.  In the end having to cast a lot of powers made my Librarian blow his own head up!

Do we see the difference a hood can make?  Yes, he still lost  but in a tournament (esp battle points)  He went from a massacre-tabling to a minor loss.  That can be the difference of making it to the top tables.  And really that is what this tactica is all about.  GK may always be your bane and you may never beat them, but any points you can squeak out area always great.


In the next few tacticas I'll go over some of the finer points on playing against this top tier army.  Next time: Sacrificing is fun!


Duke