Reserve army

So, i'm at the point with my Interceptor/Draigowing army that I can go one of two ways. Either another Dreadknight or another Stormraven/Dreadnought combo and downgrade Draigo and Palladins to Grand Master and Terminators to keep it at 2000pts. I was hoping you could give me your suggestions

I'm trying to run an elite deepstrike/personal teleporter army as opposed to a razorspam/gunline and will start most games with no models on the table

Option One:

Draigo
2 x 5 Palladins
Dreadnought
Stormraven
10 Interceptors
2 x PT Dreadknights

Or:

Grand Master
Librarian
2 x Dreadnoughts
2 x 5 Terminators
2 x Stormravens
10 Interceptors
PT Dreadknight

I guess it comes down to what do you think is better Palladins/Terminators and Dreadknight/Stormraven

I would also be interested to know what you think the best weapon loadouts are for Stormraven/Dreadnought combo

Thanks in advance

I lean towards the GM/Libby list. Although, I would invest in rad and psychostroke for the GM if you have the points to really boost that GKT unit he's with.

Since you expect your SR's to charge in, I would say TWLAC and TWLMM. For the dreads, since they will be getting rides from the SR's, assault cannon, NDF w/ SB or heavy flamer (either one works), and psybolts.

Thanks Rivan, thats pretty much the loadout I had in mind allowing the SR to open transports and the Terminators + Dreads to psycannon the occupants.

Im just wondering if im fighting the codex a little with this list - would you say Blood Angels do Stormravens better than Grey Knights? I would prefer bloodstrikes to mindstrikes though a non scattering bail out for Terminators beats the d6 scatter from descent of angels.

We are a deepstriking army and the Ravens do allow us to reserve roll 3 units with one dice which stops us coming in half cocked I suppose.

If anyone has had some success with a triple SR list I would be interested to know.

The SR is a great gunship for BA. Which is why it's rarely used as a transport. If BA have to move things across the battlefield it'll always be a small squad. Loading the SR with 2 units is often bad for business, since it already is a major threat to the opponent.

For GK, the SR is more of a transport than a Gunship. Its firepower is much lower than that of the BA one. Although it adds the much needed melta fire we so loack.

I'd say two are just about right. However I wouldn't encourage loading it to full capacity either. SR is a nice vehicle, but falls to every anti tank weapon out there. Most often than not, your opponent will focus fire on one that is carrying loads of troops.

I've played the SR with MM and Plasma Cannon and been very happy with it. As for the dread, I reckon the basic Dread MM+NDF is just about right, since they're charging.

If you take the typhoon missile launcher you can move 6" and throw out 6 frag missiles (4 being mindstrikes) and a twin linked lascannon shot. Limited use against marines, but very useful against hordes when we have few other blast weapons, and it can be delivered from 48" away.

The other thing is the mindstrike missiles are fairly accurate for taking out psykers. As far as I'm aware you just need to hit them for psi-shock to work, it doesn't matter if the actual wounds are allocated to other models. Considering psychic hoods and their ilk shut down the powers Grey Knights rely on, being able to snipe them out of units is damn useful.
On the other hand I might be reading the rule wrong. But wounds are rolled for before a player decides who makes armour saves, right?

I'd go with the second list. Remember your servoskulls- having 6 will give you at least one safe landing zone and keep the infiltrators away.

With this list I dont even need a safe landing zone, I can enter from my own edge with the SR being the slowest thing in my army only moving 24"!

Good point. 'Kick the tyres and light the fires...'

Forget the mindstrike missiles. where the GK stormraven excels is it can't be stunned or shaken (unless you have really bad dice rolls), and can deliver a very hard hitting force straight into enemy objectives while providing a lot of firepower.

Thing is with vehicles you should never take just one of them as they're the biggest target on the battlefield. Try to take 2 minimum.

Your second list is much better than first

One question though. I HATE being severely outnumbered by enemy armies. There is nothing worse than having only a handful on units facing an entire hoarde's worth of shooting and assaults.

So what is your strategy considering you only have 27 models?

brother corennus, there is a edit button for such activities

i think 27 models aint that bad.. paladin lists also have few units on the field and are still competive

27 is alright with that kind of manouverability. You can probably operate like a heavily armoured Eldar army: hit a weak point and manouver away from the return fire. Control LoS and make sure they can't bring their entire army to bear on you in one go. Use your Space Hulk tactics.

But it really does depend on the mission, opposing army and terrain. Against heavy infantry armies or on an open battlefield you will be better off steaming straight into the enemy like an ork on speed.

I intend to attack one flank with everything I have all at once (if the reserve rolls let me) and keep the knife moving through the butter. With such a low model count I prefer the contolled unpredictability of reserving as opposed to hoping my opponent doesnt destroy one of my Ravens in T1 - at least this way I will always get to fire from all 3 units at optimum range before they take a shot

To this end I would prefer Palladins as they stick around longer than Terminators so have also considered dropping the Dreadknight completely

Draigo
Librarian
2 x 5 Palladins
2 Stormravens
2 Dreadnoughts
10 Interceptors

Is Holocaust, 10 more wounds in Terminator armour and 2 extra psycannons worth more to me than a Dreadknight?

Well, dropping the dreadknight means your opponent will take you slightly more seriously rather than looking at your exo-exo-armour and pointing out for the 43rd time that it looks like a baby carrier.

Im a 30 year old man playing with toy soldiers - im suprised anyone takes me seriously at all

Does anyone else find this a guilty pleasure?

Over here..

Maybe it's just me, and I must admit I was a Space Marine way before I was a Grey Knight, but 27 models against armies that could feature 60/70 or even 100 models is just not enough in my opnion.

For example I took a similar list against daemons a few weeks ago, thinking "Hooray! I get preferred enemy, and daemonbane!" and so on. When faced with 2 soul grinders, fateweaver and flamers of tzeentch using Breath of Chaos you soon realise just how fragile GK, even Paladins, can be.

I tend to agree to an extent. The problem is your putting alot of points into storm ravens straight out of your body count.
Too much bling in the list and not enough good ole solid value.

A GM AND a Lib? Thats a huge investment at any point level besides Apoc.
Probably worthwhile with Mordrak and a Lib, but only because of the synergy he adds at getting a guaranteed alpha strike.

Points well made on the model count, at sub 30 models it can be fragile. That said the guy who won Nova did it with exactly 30, but a 10 man Palladin squad with Draigo and a Lib are almost impossible to kill - that unit must have won him the games by soaking up so much attention.

Im very interested to hear suggestions to increase the numbers, though the ethos of the army is everything reserved from the start and no dedicated transports.

In my 1500:

GM
10 Terminators
10 Strike Squad
5 Interceptors
Stormraven
Dreadnought

I got stuck with some bad options with the strike squad because I'm using old models. The only real difference is that I've got the strike squad instead of a librarian and a dreadnought instead of exoexoarmour. I'd do the same as you and take another raven to bring it up to 1750ish.

I don't tend to play everything in reserve but if I clamp the dreadnought onto the raven everything deepstrikes. I tend to play a fair number of scenario/cityfight/planetstrike games so it comes in useful and plays to the idea in my head of how the chapter should operate.

So far they've not let me down particularly, although spreading over objectives can mean an uphill battle when 50 orks are camping on one of them.

++++
I'm heading toward 30 too, but there are plenty of pleasures that should make me feel more guilty. I don't think that toy soldiers even rank in the top 5...

Enough said Sai - I dont want to know what your into!

Oh but there's a tiny dark part of your soul that longs to know more. It would be the simplest thing to let it go free and pull you into places thus far unimaginable. Even now, you can feel it: tugging, yearning, pushing toward the light. To deny this would be to deny your very humanity. Embrace the darkness, see the light.

Alas, some will attempt to constrain you, keep you from finding your true voice. But I ask you, who are they to speak if their words are ill-formed? Who will you listen to? I? Or one who, rather than talking of 'humanity's' freedom, speaks of the freedom of the academic discipline 'humanities.'

Thier idea of purity is a fallacy. To be pure is to embrace your own being in its entirety and bring it forth into the world for all to see, loathe and adore.

Sai wrote:Alas, some will attempt to constrain you, keep you from finding your true voice. But I ask you, who are they to speak if their words are ill-formed? Who will you listen to? I? Or one who, rather than talking of 'humanity's' freedom, speaks of the freedom of the academic discipline 'humanities.'

Thier idea of purity is a fallacy. To be pure is to embrace your own being in its entirety and bring it forth into the world for all to see, loathe and adore.