25 December, 2015

Army List Analysis: Grey Knights with Saim-Hann & Harlequin Allies

In my article about Grey Knights 7th edition Maelstrom missions I outlined my plan to bring Eldar (Craftworld and Harlequins) into my army. Essentially what I'm doing here is fielding a hyper focused allied force based around the Grey Knights Tactical Objectives.

Doing this allows me to use as many leftover points as possible to field as many Grey Knight Terminators as I can. It does pain me that Grey Knights are better off hiring allies to do their job in Maelstrom Missions, but I love the fluff and models so much that I want to find a way to max out on Termies.

I'll be honest: it feels kind of weird to run Eldar to make Terminators work.
Let's break down the list and analyse how I plan on making it work so that I can win those mission-critical objectives. I've colour-coded the army into four generalised segments. But before we jump into that, I want to point out two things:

(1) These are generalised segments or roles, meaning that each group performs multiple roles and synergises with the army in more ways than I'll mention in this article, but for now I want to focus on how they help me win points by accomplishing Tactical Objectives. 

(2) These units also help create a balanced army list, but that's also something that I won't be covering in this article. Again I'll be focusing instead on how they help me win games by achieving the goals dictated by the Tactical Objectives datacards.

 

- Blue: Close-combat and psychological warfare
- Red: Objective-grabbers and anti-infantry
- Yellow: Anti-air and anti-AV
- Green: They can do damage and win points, but are mostly there for fun

The Heroe’s Path (325 pts.)
- Deathjester
- Shadowseer
- Solitaire

Craftworld Eldar: Combined Arms Detachment (775 pts.)
- Autarch
- 3x Windriders
- 3x Windriders
- 3x Windriders
- 3x Windriders
- 3x Windriders
- 2x Crimson Hunters

Grey Knights: Nemesis Strike Force (725 pts.)
- Librarian
- 5x Terminators
- 10x Terminators

Total: 1825/1850 points


Close-Combat & Psychological Warfare:

In the first segment (or "Blue Team") we have the Deathjester, Shadowseer, Solitaire and Autarch. In terms of Tactical Objectives, these guys are generally in charge of achieving Tactical Objectives such as issuing challenges, winning challenges, wiping out a unit in the Assault Phase, causing opponents to fail some kind of leadership check, manifesting psychic powers, getting into the opponent's deployment zone and helping to destroy super heavies (and other vehicles) with their Haywire grenades.

Tactical flexibility, ingenuity and imagination are key, so they can do more than what I've just outlined, but again I'm generalising here for the sake of flushing out my ideas and to establish a basic battle-plan. 


Objective-Grabbers & Anti-Infantry:

Next up we have the red team, who are in charge of shredding infantry at a distance (36") and moving in to capture objectives. Unfortunately these guys are on a quasi-suicidal mission, meaning that if I have to choose between grabbing an objective and keeping them alive, they're destined to go in and take that objective.

They're also tasked with destroying units in the shooting phase, killing any independent characters that are out of reach of the Harlequins and Autarch and getting into the opponent's deployment zone for achieve mission-specific objectives. Again there's always more that these guys can do, but at their core they're there for their extreme maneuverability, speed and the quality of their ranged weapons, especially against anything with a toughness value of nine or less.


Anti-Air & Anti-AV:

Next up we've got the two Crimson Hunters. Their role is straight forward: come in, take out any flyers or flying monstrous creatures and if there aren't any, then deal with any other vehicles or even Monstrous Creatures on the ground.

Their other duties include wiping out a unit in the shooting phase or putting the hurt on super heavies and gargantuan creatures. If there's none of that, then they can attack heavy infantry such as Terminators. Not much else to say, except that they synergise well with the Autarch due to the fact that he/she can manipulate reserve rolls, but as I mentioned earlier I'll leave synergy and balanced list-building for another time.


Grey Knight Terminators: 

Given how focused on Tactical Objectives (in addition to being balanced) the rest of the list is, these guys find themselves right at home performing any roles that they're capable of, such as acting as bullet-magnets (I've included a video about that below).


They're also capable of taking out independent characters, issuing and winning challenges, manifesting psychic powers, capturing objectives (objective-secured Terminators!), getting into the opponent's backfield, wiping out units in the assault phase (especially if they're MEQ), helping to destroy units in the shooting phase, attempting to force opposing units to fail some kind of leadership check, killing other psykers, destroying a unit after teleporting onto the battlefield, and finally taking on monstrous creatures (if need be) and even super heavies and gargantuan creatures (with absolutely no guarantee of survival).


That pretty much covers it. There's never any guarantee, especially when it comes to Maelstrom Missions, but the goal here is to maximise my opportunities to score points. Once again you can check out the campaign and storyline for my army list here

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