Anyone have a chance to test those out now that Daemon Hunter is out? Grey Knights versus regular lesser daemons or heralds, or a greater Daemon? DreadKnight vs Greater Daemon? Haven't had a chance tofield test them yet.

Well, I had a chance to run a very simple battle between a Rank 8 Grey Knight (he wasn't fully fleshed out since the Dreadknight replaces a lot of his stuff anyway) and a Bloodthirster from Deathwatch's Mark of the Xenos.

I definitely avoided complicated strategies and creative (maybe even effective) use of their repsective Talents and Traits, so this fight is probably more basic than it might have turned out considering the options both had.

The Grey Knight was in Dread Knight Armour with 2 of the power fists that it standardly has. I didn't use any of the missile weapon properties it had.

The Bloodthirster was alone with no entourage of Bloodletters, and the starting distance was melee range for both.

The results? Very one sided in favor of the Grey Knight. The main (really only) Talents I used were Step Aside and Wall of Steel along with Two Weapon Wielder (Melee) and Lightning Attack. WIth the Power fists he was hitting for 2d20 +5+28 (SB x4 with the power fists), Pen 6. The Bloodthirster was hitting for 2d10+21 pen 10 (20 if he got 2+degrees of success) for the axe and 1d10 + 21 for the whip.

The Bloodthirster was just not able to hit the Grey Knight who had 2 parries and 2 dodges plus a power field. The Bloodthirster (unless I'm reading it wrong) has 3 attacks, 2 with the axe and 1 with the whip, so even if it hit with all, the Grey Knight has a decent chance of avoiding all of them, and even using its special undodgeable attack, the Field could still fend it off. The Grey Knight had 4 attacks and the Bloodthirster has only a dodge and a parry, and his dodge chance is nothing special. The Bloodthirster hit for damage just 3 times, and 2 of them were with the undodgeable attack (he used it all 4 times but the field worked well). The Grey Knight hit on average 1-2 times each round, in fact there was only one round that he didn't hit at all. Plus the fact that he automatically confirms Righteous Fury against it was a big help (he got it like 3 times, but no secondary 10s rolled). They both had Fate Points, but I didn't have them use them, which could have been a game changer, but I figured they'd more or less just cancel each other out.

There was probably a few things I did wrong, like whether or not Warp Weapon applied to the axe and whip of the Bloodthirster, as well as the Felling properties he had. But even if I did those wrong, it would have only added a few to a decent amount of more wounds but the Grey Knight would have still been in the fight regardless.

No doubt tactics and creative use of Talents and powers would make a difference, but to be honest, The Grey Knight actually outclasses the Bloodthirster in that department, so I think the advantage would still go to the Grey Knight.

Please conduct your own mock battle before tearing apart my results and pointing out how poorly I ran it. The best results would have probably been gained by having two players that were very familiar with all of the capabilities and duking it out with everything they had. However, from this basic scrap, it seemed that the Grey Knight Dreadknight was more than a match.

Some edits:

The power fists did 2d10, not 2d20 and the axe of Khorne does 3d10. I did those correctly in the fight though.

But what if you equip grey night with bolt pistol and power or chain sword? Power fists are pretty good.

Actually I found a major flaw in the batle I ran. A Dreadknight is basically a robotic frame that goes around Terminator armour, and in Terminator armour you can't dodge, so presumably a Dreadknight can't dodge either. That's a game changer for this fight, losing the reactions makes a big difference, because the Bloodthirster isn't going to miss any of his attacks and now he just has 2 parries and the field to defend against. It's possible he could parry 2 attacks and resolve the 3rd with the field, but odds are the BT is going to get a few more hits, and in the end that's all it needs. At that point it's not as much to its advantage to only swing once a round and have it be unblockable/undodgeable.

If the Grey Knight was just wearing power armour and armed with Bolters or Psyguns of some kind that could make a difference as well, no doubt. At that point the GK needs to run and gun as much as possible and use powers more also. Having the personal teleporter would be helpful. But if the BT lands maybe 2 hits at the most very likely the GK is dead.

qcipher said:

Can't parry with a Nemesis Doomfist - it's Unwieldy. You want to parry with a Dreadknight, you need a Nemesis Greatsword, which lowers your damage output.

Strictly speaking, there's nothing that prevents a Dreadnight dodging, but it only has an Agility of 40 (instead of the pilot's Agility), which limits the utility of dodging somewhat.

Finally, Step Aside and Wall of Steel provide a single bonus reaction each, so a character with both has one bonus Dodge-only reaction, one bonus Parry-only reaction, and then his normal reaction which he can use for anything else.

Oh, I thought Unwieldy meant there was a penalty. OK, so he'd change the arming to powerfist and great sword. The loss of a reaction is major, but parrying would be the best using that sword I assume. So 2 parries and a field would likely be the pattern as it would be most advantageous.

The fight is looking more even now if it's a straight up slugfest. The GK would need to use more tactics and such, though probably not psychic powers as the resistance of the BT is considerable. Thanks for the corrections there.

So, how did you handle the Bloodthirster's "Supreme Warrior" ability that lets it hit automatically hit (no dodge or parry allowed) like 4 times per combat. I ask because 3d10+21 damage with penetration of 10 (and ignoring the Grey Knights Unnatural Toughness) is pretty devastating to the lone Grey Knight even with Dreadknight Armor.

He did use it the full 4 times, but only landed it twice, the field blocked it twice. Why would the Unnatural Toughness be avoided? Does it have Felling? Can't recall and don't have the book with me right now. If the axe itself has Felling and I missed that, then the battle is very different.

Yeah, the Bloodthirster's weapon has "Felling 2" and "Razor Sharp" which would increase its penetration to 20 most of the time.

Also, with the Bloodthirster using "All-Out-Attack" most of the time, Im surprised the talents Hammer Blow, Furious Assault and Frenzy didn't alter the outcome in its favor.

Quartermus said:

I did use the Razor sharp, and it applied every time he actually landed a blow. Can he use Swift Attack and All out attack?

Wow, a lot of stuff I missed.

Nah, its either one or the other, but if the Bloodthirster is in "Frenzy" mode (and he should be considering the +3 to his Strength & +2 to Toughness bonus), he might as well use Furious Assault. Barring dodge and parry, he will always hit and get that extra attack, so its just as good as swift attack.

To be honest, odds were always against the Bloodthirster. Your Grey Knight is at the highest level he can be, he is decked out in DreadKnight Armor and has the Nemesis Greatsword to boot. So his hit points are essentially tripled, he can Parry twice per round with an 88% chance of success (assuming max'd out weapon skill and a weapon with the "balanced" trait) as well as negate a 3rd attack via a built-in force field (that will never overload) with a protection rating of 35.

This is terrible for the Bloodthirster who only has "swift attack" or the "Supreme Warrior" which can be negated by way of the force field. If you want to make this a real fight, the Bloodthirster should get "Lightning Attack". Im surprised it didn't.

With the corrections you pointed out though it's a much more even fight now. In the one I ran whole rounds would be wasted by the BT without scoring a single hit, so woops, there was another mistake. I didn't roll for the slight chance of getting Warp Instability for the BT.

If the BT wasn't alone (and the rules say they aren't) that would have easily turned the tide, but then again, the GK would likely have his squad with him also.

Using better tactics by the GK could make a difference too, he just went toe-to-toe. Without the DN armor and wearing say Artificer armor, he would have had to rely on powers and such, but then he would have been able to do 2 parries and a dodge, plus a field, or 2 dodges and a parry, plus the field, either way. Plus he could have pulled out the Psycannon or toher weapons, and maybe the personal teleporter. The BT does his thing well, but he's a berzerker and it shows, against sophisticated tactics he can be beat.