Thursday, August 11, 2011

Grey Knight heavy review, Dread Knight

How do you fight a big gribbly demon when you are a suped-up but still tiny human? Simple, throw on an tricked out exo-suit to help you beat face!
  

"If at first you odn't succeed, get a bigger hammer." Alan Lewis
The Dread Knight is this amalgam of man and machine. It is basically a bigger tougher Grey Knight Terminator. These are the super elite Grey Knights who like to fight big'o demons face-to-face, and with their stats and abilities they look to be quite good at it.
The Dread Knight has a WS 5, BS 4, strength and toughness 6, wounds and initiative 4, 3 attacks, leadership 10 and a 2+/5++ save. They have the Grey Knight standard flair, abilities and the additional power, Dark Excommunication (nullifies demon upgrades and such if psy test passes). The come armed with two nemesis doom fists and Dread Knight armor. This guy is a Monstrous Creature and follow all their rules. These guys run CXXX (in Roman numeral) points.



Nemsis Doom Fists- these are just close combat weapons that follow the Nemesis weapon rules. With these this guys is rockin' 4 attacks and 5 on the charge. A pretty fair bit of S6 power weapon damage there.

Dread Knight Armor- is a fancy name for Terminator armor. It confers a 2+/5++ save. It also allows for deep striking no matter the mission rules.

The Dread Knight can buy a few more weapons to increase his killing power: Heavy Incinerator, Gatling Psilencer, Heavy Psycannon, Nemesis Great Sword and Nemesis Demonhammer. He can also take one piece of wargear, a personal teleporter.

Heavy Incinerator- is a bit better than the "light" version. This has the same strength and AP, but it can fire farther. The narrow end of the flamer template is placed anywhere within 12" of the model, instead of the normal placement at the model's base. It is basically just an Imperial Guard Inferno cannon.

Gatling Psilencer- is the most similar it's "light" version. It has the same range, strenght and AP. The only difference is it is 12 shots instead of 6.\

Heavy Psycannon- has the same shenanigans as the regular Psycannon. The big difference is that the heavy version is a large template and not heavy 4 assault 2.

"I've got this! " Barry Burton Resident Evil


Nemesis Greatsword- has the regular rules and it also allows for a re-roll on missed to hit rolls.

The Nemesis Demonhammer we all know about already. The personal teleporter is identical to the pieces worn by Interceptor Squads. Yeah with this the Dread Knight can fly! Well turn into jump infantry, but close enough to flying. It also allows that crazy once per game warp shunt move as well.

This was a panic inducing unit pre-codex release. There were so many people afraid of it before it hit the tables. There were other camps that thought this guy was going to break the game (you know who you are). Was all their fear justified? Well it is only justified if people still fear Demon Princes, Wraith Lords and those bugs that poop out little bugs. This is a big monster yes, but does that make him so scary? No more than any other big creature in the game.

To be perfectly honest, I dislike the background of this unit. The Grey Knights are crazy demon fighters, do they really need their own Demon Prince to help? A handful of men fighting giant beasts is so much cooler than a giant beast verses a giant beast (Godzilla movies aside). I get why they made thisunit, I just find it silly. I do however love the model. I don't think I would ever use a Dread Knight, but he could make a great Demon Prince or Defiler conversion for my mechanical Chaos army.




2 comments:

  1. You forgot to mention that if you replace a doomfist with a greatsword for 25 pts, it re-rolls to hit, to wound, and armor penetration, and the doomfist still doubles it's strength. And being a MC, it rolls 2d6 for armor penetration, and ignores armor against infantry. So against a land raider, it needs 5's to pen on 2d6. which it re-rolls. Against infantry, everything dies. 3 to hit, 2's to wound, re-roll both. No armor. Probably going to instant death you, if you have multiple wounds. All 3 of your attacks killed someone. Against tougher enemies, like wraithlords, you can activate the force sword and instant death that mess! And you get the 4 invulnerable from the force weapon, so you aren't helpless without your 2 armor.
    If you build this guy cheap, (I will always give him a greatsword) he's TERRIFYING in CC, but it will take him forever to destroy swarms. 3 attacks, rememeber? If you are willing to put some more points on him, he's terrifying at range too, and it gives him anti-horde abilities! Give him a heavy psycannon and a heavy incinerator. He can fire both because he's a MC. Watch him kill your guardsmen commandos or whatever they're called on twos with the large blast and template(which can be placed 12" away from the barrel), then charge into close combat to kill yarrick, who had the nerve to survive. This guy is terrifying. He's cheap. You are dead.

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  2. I didn't put all of that in there since most of it is common knowledge.

    Everyone should know the benefits of monstrous creatures, powerfists and the like.

    I'm glad to see you are a big fan of this guy. It is just sad that he gets passed on for multiple autocannon and psybolt Dreads.

    Glad to hear that he works well for you!

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