40k Flesh Tearers v Grey Knights - 8th edition comment on the Grey Knight Codex

 The last time my Flesh Tearers played against Steve's Grey Knights was well back in 7th Edition and I got well and truly tabled in about 4 turns! I was determined to get my revenge as Steve wanted to try out his brand new Grey Knight Codex for the first time.

I am not going to talk about the game so much but just about our first impressions of the codex, how the army plays and what we think of the balance of power of the new codexes - is there any "codex creep" like back in 5th and 6th edition?

Firstly a quick overview of our game:

We rolled for Secure and Control - 2 objectives - and the front line assault deployment with me going first after deployment.

Our objectives were placed opposite each other in the far corners of the board as you would expect. My tactics were to rely on my mobility to lure Steve out and pick the Grey Knights apart, staying out of range of the 24" reach of their guns for as long as possible before launching a mass assault to win first blood and then retreat.

Luckily Steve deployed everything in his corner and with no mobility I was thinking that this would be an easy win to grab first blood and then jump into his deployment zone for line breaker during the game and just hold onto my own objective...

Deployment

With my tactics in mind I let my jump pack troops come in early and surrounded Steve to give him problems with target saturation and to hem him into the corner of the board. Then if he moved anything out I would have the mobility to jump on it in isolation and remove it from the board. I also moved into the centre to tempt his Knight out while my shooty dreadnought at the bottom kept knocking down the wounds with its twin lascannon and missile launcher.

Hemming Steve in

Unfortunately my plan came massively unstuck as one of Steve's Psychic powers was gate of infinity!!! This allowed him to deep strike a unit anywhere on the board 9" or more away from my units. I didn't know he had this ability so as his knight suddenly moved to my bottom left corner and made the charge into my poor tactical squad wiping them out I was in big trouble!!! Now he could freely get my objective and linebreaker (I had got first blood by this point).

Gate of Infinity - GAH!!!

I had to refocus and pull back so I left the terminators in midfield to stall any advance and used everything else to wipe out the knight. The next turn I then had Steve's paladins doing exactly the same - Arggh! and he had deepstruck another unit of terminators and some sort of power weapon wielding squad into the mix. I chose to ignore the terminators and smash the power weapon squad with my death company. Then it all came down to a very tense 7th turn as I was rapidly running out of units and Steve's forces were slowly advancing across the board.
At the start of the 7th turn I had first blood and linebreaker and I couldn't get hold of Steve's objective. Steve had linebreaker and both objectives with his Paladins holding mine. I had to get the paladins off of my objective and stay alive to win...

Steve closing the net

For my turn 7 my death company just stayed alive for linebreaker so it was up to my death company chaplain, Mephiston and the shooty dreadnought to remove the Paladins....and they did!! in complete style! Victory was surely mine? But wait, Steve's turn ended the game and the dreaded Gate of Infinity reared its ugly head yet again as a troop squad of some sort materialised 9" away from Mephiston who was stood on my objective. Could they make the 9" charge and then stay alive in the ensuing combat?? Steve rolled the dice for the charge....a 5....and a 1!!! FAIL!! But wait, Steve has a command point left!! A re-roll and.....a 4!!!! NOOOOO! In they go. Now come on Mephiston do your stuff. Unfortunately he couldn't manage to wipe them all out only killing 3 and leaving enough to survive to claim the objective and victory for the Grey Knights.

What a great and very tense game. I really don't mind losing in a game like that - even if Steve finally ended the Flesh Tearers 6 game winning streak.

The Grey Knights  Codex

Obviously this is not a review of the codex but just a couple of comments on playing the units Steve used in the game and how the Grey Knights feel as an army. Here are my key points:

- I felt like the army was themed really well. It felt like I was playing against a true Grey Knight army. A librarian as a warlord, every unit counts as a psyker and the strategems and psychic powers all felt appropriate for a Grey Knight army. This is important for me as I love playing against themed forces, it really feels like a story rather than a game when this happens and is a more enjoyable experience for me. For instance my Flesh Tearers army is not a power build or optimised in any way. I particularly put it together as it is because it is how I feel a Flesh Tearers force would be - fast, close combat, deadly at short range and backed up by a Chaplain and a close combat character - I just love Mephiston's story so I use him instead of Gabriel Seth.

- The Grey Knights are absolutely deadly at mid range!! Wow, my army needs to get close to do any damage but I couldn't against these guys. The army has very little long range as most weapons are 24" range but as soon as this 24" range is reached the sheer amount of firepower is devastating! Again this is a really positive point for me as it changes the tactics you need to use which makes them feel very different than any other space marine army. Also I like that Games Workshop have kept this consistent with previous editions.

- The new codex's have a multitude of psychic powers and strategems to use to add to the very few in the rule book. This is great news as there will always be a strategem or psychic power that is useful at any one time and gives a great flavour to the army. As you know gate of infinity really caught me out but is fantastic as the army is slow and such a psychic power gives the Grey Knights options on the battlefield. Also worth commenting here is that the Grey Knights could have been ridiculously overpowered as every unit can cast a psychic power. This scared me initially as I was thinking that each unit would just cast smite and wipe me out in very short order. However the developers have obviously considered this and the Grey Knights only have access to a less powerful version of smite which balances out quite nicely indeed.
I think that one of the reasons that Steve just pipped me in this battle is because of the access to more and varied strategems and psychic powers as the Grey Knights have a codex and the Blood Angels don't yet so this just makes me more excited about new codex's coming out.

- Paladins and an apothecary are pretty awesome!
Each paladin is tough and has 3 wounds so I managed to kill 1 every now and again thinking i'll slowly get rid of them. Each turn the apothecary manages to return a dead Paladin back to life with 1 wound - Gah!!! In the end I just had to ignore them as I just couldn't get rid of them but what agreat combination.

- Steve also had a unit that with a psychic power could shoot at units out of line of sight - Wow what a great firebase. These guys managed to wipe out a couple of my units whilst hiding on his objective so I couldn't get near them. Great tactic!

Overall I like the new codex's as they seem to really represent the playstyle and history of their armies. I thought that the Grey Knights were very well balanced and not overpowered at all but had well thought out strengths and weaknesses. This does seem to be the same with all of the new codex's coming out which is fantastic for the game.

Please let me know what you think of any new codex's and especially the Grey Knights. I really want to play against them again to get my revenge and also play against the well themed army that they represent.

See you soon
James



fourdadsoftheapocalypse.blogspot.co.uk – A blog about Warhammer 40k and the Horus Heresy by four Dads