Limits are Good -

I recently came to the conclusion that a big part of my problem with the Grey Knights may be that I have too many. My options have always been open and flexible, with many different possible combinations of Grey Knights units available.

I believe that this has led to me searching for a perfect combination of units, rather than focusing on the mastery of what units I have at my disposal. A list doesn't work out for me, so I change it immediately, trying to fill in weak spots. This unerringly leads to old weak spots being strengthened and new ones opening up as points are shifted to other parts of the army.

Having reached this points, I resolved to reduce my army's size by three units: a squad of 10 Grey Knights in power armour, 5 Grey Knights Terminators, and a Land Raider.

The Knights and Termies have already found a new home in the army of my esteemed regular opponent over at the Ulthwe Eldar blog. The Land Raider is currently on ebay awaiting a bidder.

As I move ahead with the Grey Knights, I hope that this newly reduced total force will make me look at what I have available to me and to maximize and master the use of what I have rather than trying to get what I think I need out of entirely new lists each game.

The Emperor Protects,

D.G.

Grey Knights Forum Page -

A new wesbite has recently come to my attention, and I wanted to put it up on here so anyone that frequents my blog can check it out.

Grey Knights Forums

So far it has about 100 registered users, but it seems to be growing and could be a good place for our small community to band together and get some alone time away from the rest of the community. I haven't done a full review of all the features of the site, but it is well organized. And the moderators seem to be on top of things.

Well, that's all for today. The Sisters list has already changed a little after getting some feedback on the Bolter & Chainsword (see previous blog post for link).

The Emperor Protects,

D.G.

The Order of the Holy Bolter -

Now for a topic that has been brewing for some time: Sisters of Battle.



I have always liked this army, but for one reason or another have never done it.

The basic idea is death by Bolter, and I think this list bears that out on the reading. Though it would be a pain to buy, as the GW Online Store retails the list at just over $600, I believe that it would be fun, and I am hoping to start collecting it a unit at a time.

I posted this list over on the Bolter & Chainsword, here. So follow the discussion or partake if you like.

The Emperor Protects,

D.G.

The Order of the Holy Bolter

- HQ -

Canoness
- Blessed Weapon
- Inferno Pistol
- Book of St. Lucius
- Rosarius

- Elites -

Celestian Squad (9 + VSS)
- Storm Bolter
- Heavy Bolter
- Imagifer
- VSS
-- Bolter, Power Weapon

- Troops -

Battle Sisters Squad (14 + VSS)
- 2x Storm Bolter
- Imagifer-
VSS
-- Bolter, Power Weapon

Battle Sisters Squad (14 + VSS)
- 2x Storm Bolter
- Imagifer
- VSS
-- Bolter, Power Weapon

Battle Sisters Squad (14 + VSS)
- 2x Storm Bolter
- Imagifer
- VSS
-- Bolter, Power Weapon

Battle Sisters Squad (14 + VSS)
- 2x Storm Bolter
- Imagifer
- VSS
-- Bolter, Power Weapon

- Fast Attack -

Seraphim Squad (9 + VSS)
- 2x Twin-Inferno Pistols
- Meltabombs
- VSS
-- Eviscerator, Bolt Pistol, Book of St. Lucius

- Heavy Support -

Retributor Squad (9 + VSS)
- 4x Heavy Bolter
- Imagifer
- VSS
-- Bolter, Power Weapon

Exorcist
- Extra Armour

Exorcist
- Extra Armour

Total: 2,000 Points

In the Aftermath -

So, the results of the Battle for Stones River can be found here.

I'm towards the bottom somewhere, and Chris and I think that my painting certainly merited more than a 12 (especially considering the score is Eldar received for painting), but I'm not going to sweat that part of it at all. I had fun and it was a great experience. If you go to a tournament just to win glory all that's going to happen is a bunch of people are going to get mad and feelings will be irreparably damaged. I left my feedback, and that's that. Jason and Grant did a great job with the event, and I am very happy to have been a part of that.

But now, concerning my further service to the Inquisiton.

I tried a 2 Land Raider set up for BfSR, and I liked it well enough, but I ended up a little light on bodies. My second unit of Terminators also ate up points, so I've reviewed my list, looked at what's worked for me in the past, and taken what I've learned recently to construct a new army list that should compensate for some of the problems that I have experienced of late.

_______________________________

Returning to my early days of playing Grey Knights, the list again contains a small amount (40 points) of specifically anti-Chaos wargear and upgrades in the form of a Grimoire of True Names, Sacred Incense, and 2 Blessed upgrades. I did this because it returns flare to the army, if only for me. These guys fight Chaos, so that's what they're gonna be geared to do. I don't usually select any psychic powers, however, as they are generally useless against most opponents, and when I do fight Chaos other abilities, such as the Nemesis Force Weapon, are generally a much better use of the Psychic test.

Next, I paired down the Terminators to a single unit of 5, led by Grandmaster Emrys. I liked the performance from Brother-Captain Stern in the tournament, but I believe he would have survived more often if he had a third wound and better shooting gear in his unit.

Moving on the Troops, I selected to add Psycannons into the units in order to provide for static firepower and go back to relying on the Shrouding to protect me more often that I have been. I have not been taking advantage of the Shrouding when I should be, so these units will try to keep me doing that, as their usefulness is in the big guns.

Fast Attack I maxed out, selecting a unit of Incinerator toting Knights and 2 units of regular Knights. I won't always teleport all of these squads, but the Fast Attack slots allow me to place the bulk of my power armoured units on the field after the enemy has most of his army on the field, hopefully.

Heavy Support is probably the most changed. I removed both Land Raiders and put in 3 Grey Knights Dreadnoughts. Though not as resilient as the Land Raiders, I believe that they fit the feel of this list better than the tanks would have. Two are armed with Twin-Lascannons and Missile Launchers (they have the two Blessed upgrades) and one is standard with Assault Cannon, Storm Bolter, and Dreadnought Close-Combat Weapon. Land Raiders tend to play too aggresively for my taste, it seems. There is a fellow GK player who loves Land Raiders, and he has a very successful forum following at The Bolter and Chainsword, found here.

The list is below, for those of you interested in the details of it, but that's about it. My plan to be a little less aggressive than the Land Raiders seemed to demand (mostly because of how many shots they took) and be more reactionary and opportunistic. I will post future details, of course, about how this list begins performing. I believe that I will stick with this list for at least a dozen games to get familiar with all the ins and outs of it before I determine if changes need to be made.

The Emperor Protects,

D.G

The Grey Knights of Grandmaster Emrys
Points: 1999 out of 2000

-HQ-

Grandmaster Emrys
-Master-Crafted Nemesis Force Weapon
-Psycannon
-Grimoire of True Names
-Sacred Incense
-Psychic Hood
-Icon of the Just
-4 Grey Knights Terminators
--Psycannon

-Troops-

Squad Auran
-Justicar Auran
-5 Grey Knights
--2x Psycannon

Squad Gormann
-Justicar Gormann
-5 Grey Knights
--2x Psycannon

-Fast Attack-

Squad Detlin
-Justicar Detlin
-7 Grey Knights

Squad Sirim
-Justicar Sirim
-6 Grey Knights
--Incinerator

Squad Bressal
-Justicar Bressal
-7 Grey Knights

-Heavy Support-

Brother-Dreadnought Trian
-Assault Cannon
-DCC/Storm Bolter
-Extra Armour

Brother-Dreadnought Domnall
-Twin-linked Lascannon
-Missile Launcher
-Blessed
-Extra Armour

Brother-Dreadnought Brisind
-Twin-linked Lascannon
-Missile Launcher
-Blessed
-Extra Armour

On Terrain -

With the tournament over and my war wounds on the mend, I thought this is a good opportunity to chat a bit about terrain and its overall affect on a game of Warhammer 40k.

The official tournament results have not yet been posted. When they are, I will link to them and discuss the tournament itself, but let it be known for now that I went 1-3 in the four rounds. My only win was of course, against Chaos. For the Emperor!

Ahem, back to terrain. Let me explain the terrain at the tournament first, as it is what primarily gave rise to this discussion. The tables were all set up with a river running through the middle, length-wise, which was "Stones River." It was judged that the river gave a 5+ cover save to any unit inside it, but could be seen through for shooting just like any other river. The rest of the boards were given four (perhaps a few had a very small fifth piece) terrain pieces of about 10-12 inches in length (buildings, rocks, trees). Most of these pieces were in deployment zones, leaving the battlefield largely open between the two deployment zones.

Now, anyone with at least a little experience in 40k will see here the problem. Shooty armies had a wonderful go at this style of board, for they could see the enemy coming and prioritize targets, shooting up what they wanted at their leisure. That's all fine if there are two shooting armies on the table across from one another, but what if one of the armies was an army that likes to get close, assault even?

Mine is one such army. Now I know that many other experienced Grey Knights players will tell me that I shouldn't have tried to get into assault with the enemy, control fire lanes, deny victory points. But that was exactly the problem! There were no "fire lanes" or VP denial opportunities (unless I parked my army at the back of my deployment zone, didn't move turn after turn, and was content to let my opponent get mad at me and give me a low sportsmanship score!). The tables at this tournament were built to favor the extremely shooty armies at the event. As a result, assault-themed armies did not perform well at all, and my own army (a hybrid that favors the above mentioned tactics) found itself more in the boat of the assault armies than of the shooty armies.

I think that this tournament needs to be used as an example that "killing field" tables should not be the norm at tournments, as it is my fear that they are.

More on the tournament itself as the results are posted on the official website.


For the Emperor,

D.G.

A Final BFSR List -

This is, I believe, my final list for the Battle for Stones River tournament on Feb. 23rd. My esteemed Eldar opponent and I have played a handful of games at the 1863 points level, and I am confident that this list will perform at least enough for me to not lose every game. Anyway, I know that there are some GK players who read this, so please comment on the list. It has so far seen good performance against the Eldar, but I know that larger horde armies might be a bit more of a problem.


BFSR Stern List - 1860 Points (out of 1863 possible)

Brother-Captain Stern
-4 Grey Knights Terminators

Brother-Captain Caspian
-Psycannon
-4 Grey Knights Terminators
--Psycannon

Squad Detlin
-Justicar Detlin
--Teleport Homer
-7 Grey Knights

Squad Gormann
-Justicar Gormann
--Teleport Homer
-7 Grey Knights

Squad Auran (Fast Attack)
-Justicar Auran
--Auspex
-7 Grey Knights
--2 Psycannons

Grey Knights Land Raider Valiant
-Smoke
-Extra Armour

Grey Knights Land Raider Paladin
-Smoke
-Extra Armour


Got them all silver so far, thanks to my spray painting experiment, so the next week will be all painful detail work. I can feel my hands hurting now...


The Emperor Protects,

D.G.

A New Way to Be Painted -

I'm always on the lookout for ways to make the hobby easier and more fun, so I decided to try to spray paint my Grey Knights to see if I could save a little time on painting (pictured below).

The first thing to remember when doing this is to also put the layer of black or white primer on the models first, or the spray paint may blotch, flake off, or otherwise be rough or clumpy. The first five Knights of my experiment turned out really well, I think. All that is left is gold highlights, a little black into joints and on weapons, and some purity seals. Much faster than having to paint silver on all of them by hand.

Take notice of how smooth the paint went on and how it preserved the detail perfectly.

The Emperor Protects,

D.G.

Dark Heresy Character Background - Ragaa Kenter

As stated in my previous post, I recently acqiured the new 40k roleplaying game, Dark Heresy. My buddy over at the Ulthwe Eldar: The Only Way blog also picked up a copy, and we were excited to get characters rolled up and maybe get in a practice run to get used to the rules a bit. I have had some limited experience with the Warhammer Fantasy system and many years of roleplaying besides (MERP, WEG Star Wars, and most recently Savage Worlds), and my Eldar friend is also a seasoned roleplayer.


Intentions, however, do not make a gaming night.

We got caught up, though not bogged down, in an elaborate and rich character creation process. Dark Heresy may be the most enjoyable character creation process I have ever seen in a game. A limited amount of out-of-order page flips kept things linear and nicely organized. Chris made a Tech Priest and I decided to try out making a psyker.


We decided to give ourselves a couple of paydays (based on the going rates for our professions) to get some gear worthy of Acolytes in the employ of the Inquisition. Nothing too fancy or over the top, but I think we made our characters worth it. Ragaa was a random name from the tables (yeah, we rolled them on the random tables for a bunch of stuff... really funny, actually), and I chose the last name.


Ragaa Kenter, Sanctioned Psyker


Early in his life, Ragaa was robbed of his sight and most of his other senses by a psychic accident on a Black Ship. He does not remember much of life before that, only that he is comfortable in crowds and knows how to get things done on hive worlds that most people don't. His sight and other senses were restored to him shortly after, and the rest of his life was decided from that point onward. His head, now mostly covered in standard sensory implants, hid most of his facial features forever, and Ragaa spent the rest of his sanctioning tenure in complete silence, hating the way this his voice now sounded to his new augmetic ears.

After his sanctioning ended, Ragaa was recruited into the service of an Inquisitor in the Ordo Xenos, Maximillian Stone, who was a powerful psyker and a good friend to the erstwhile aloof and secretive Ragaa. Stone was killed in a raid on a Xenos weapons factory in the Hive World of Praag III, and Ragaa, having unfortunately survived the incident, was transfered to the retinue of another Inquisitor. Ragaa has yet to actively investigate for his new boss. In fact, he hasn't met the Inquisitor yet.

Ragaa is characteristically moody and hardly ever speaks in large groups, except to exert some kind of control over those whom he is addressing. His psychic abilities are developing, and he is already displaying aptitude in the areas of Telepathy and mind control. Though rudimentary at best, his powers will continue to grow as he serves the God-Emperor and His Inquisiton.


Well, that's all for now on Ragaa. I don't want to explore everything about him or delve too deep into the character before I've had a chance to play him and know what he's going to do on his own, without me trying to make him play a certain way.

Play 40k, read as much as you can, and always remember that no one expects the Inquisition.

The Emperor Protects,

D.G.

Dark Heresy - Purgated

Today's post was supposed to be about the bright and wonderful future ahead for all of us in the new 40k rpg, Dark Heresy. The book sold out before it was even released, with a 2nd Printing in high demand. It is a beautiful book that I will comment on in a later post.

However, after this announcement from Black Industries, the whole thing went up like a Planet Killer's reactor exploding in BFG.

Apparently Black Industries is closing its doors in September, just 4 books into the Dark Heresy line. The Black Library wants to focus more on its novels and doesn't feel that it is in its best interest to continue with the two rpg lines, WHFRP and Dark Heresy. Several of my frequented online communities are already commented heavily on this issue, and feelings are across the board. One fellow on a forum stated that the whole thing stunk of possible insider trading. While I'm not sure any of us would want that kind of investigation going on, I am confident that none of us can understand why GW would shut down what promised to be such a popular line of rpg materials.

In the months ahead, I will personally be getting at least one copy of the 3 remaining Dark Heresy books and the Game Master Kit to make sure that I have this small and wonderful piece of GW gaming history on my shelf.

Sad days beget sadness,

D.G.

Addendum to Jan. 20 Post -

As my esteemed opponent pointed out, I talked up the Space Wolves blog and then left out the link to it in my links section.

That has been fixed, and I hope everyone will go over and take a look.

1863, The Battle for Stones River

The local store, Grand Adventures, is having a 40k tournament on Feb. 23rd, and I am considering partaking in it. I played my first game in the store today (more on that debacle later), and greatly enjoyed the players, the community, and the atmosphere.

Here is the list that I am considering. The tournament has a 1863 point limit, in recognition of when the real Battle for Stones River was fought.

Stern's Purgators -

Brother-Captain Stern
-6 GKT
--Psycannon

8 PAGK
-Teleport Homer
-Psycannon Bolts

8 PAGK
-Teleport Homer
-Psycannon Bolts

8 PAGK (Fast Attack)
-2x Incineerator

10 PAGK (Purgation Squad)
-4x Psycannon

Dreadnought
-Twin-Lascannon
-Missile Launcher
-EA

Dreadnought
-Twin-Lascannon
-Missile Launcher
-EA

Total: 1862 Points

40k Returns -

Ok, so the holidays and the first part of January pretty much wiped out any blogging.

I've been putting together my Space Wolves army and preparing them for their first fight, which looks to be today against an Ultramarines army of 75+ models. Yeah, scary. This is Chris' first game with the Ultramarines, too, so it should be a nice match-up.

My newest Grey Knights list has Brother-Captain Stern in command, and I am anxious to see what advantages putting him in charge (instead of GM Emrys) will have on the army.

Stern List:

Stern
- 4x GKT

Brother-Captain
- 4x GKT

9 Grey Knights

9 Grey Knights

8 Grey Knights

8 Grey Knights

Land Raider

Dreadnought
-Lascannon/Missile Launcher

So, follow the link to the Space Wolves blog over in my links section to check out the pre and post-battle reports for the Space Wolves.

The Emperor protects,

D.G.