List Building 101 Part 1; Mobility

Hiya Guys,


After been stuck at home with the flu (and as proof its not 'man flu' theres 2 boxes of Grey Knight Terminators in front of me, and I've been unable to build them up (cue sad violin music)) I've had a really good read of the codex, and have come up with 5! list building articles for the Grey Knights:


In each of my lists, I try to include 4 elements, to hopefully make it competitive. In this series of articles, I plan to explain each one in detail, and then list units which can help you achieve that category, and in the final article, I will bring it all together, and give you a host of different army lists!


Mobility


This is all about the armies ability to move, relocate etc. With Grey Knights being an elite army (generally low model counts), it is important that you are able to get your forces to points on the battlefield when you need them there. Its also about the ability to re-locate around the field.


This is an important feature for a Grey Knights army because as I've already said, the low model count can make Grey Knights hard to play; you are essentially playing a surgical strike army. You need to be able to get in, do what you came to do, then get out (and take objectives (as you will need to in 2/3 games)). Its also about using your ability to deny your opponent his objectives; be it zooming in at the last minute to contest one of his objectives, or running away to avoid conceding a kill point.


With this in mind, lets look at some of the units/methods which will help us achieve this criteria for our list!


Grand Master

• Grand strategy lets you make D3 units scout; this'll let you quickly deploy to where you need to get to. However, it only lets the unit scout, not much else.
• Psychic Communion (which you can also use if you have an Inquisitor, however, I'm trying to stick to pure Grey Knights as far as possible, but I do plan to include an Inquisitor in my list!) will let you play the reserves game; having the ability to +/- 2 from reserves might not seem like it can help mobility if you are deepstriking your army. For example, you can essentially bring all of your Terminators in on Turn 2, yet leave your objective grabbing units (a strike squad for example) in reserve till turn 5 to grab your objective (this is also where scout comes in (bringing them in through the back) and the ability to make units troops i.e. interceptors (covered in the 'Staying Power' article))

Transports

• Any variety of the Grey Knights transports will be able to add mobility to your list. Rhinos and Razorbacks will be able to ferry your troops back and forth, will giving then a degree of protection. However, lightly armored transports (AV10/11) will go down easily and so need to be taken on mass; this is ok in normal smurf lists, but with the Grey Knights its not so easy to take mass transport options, which leads to out next point:
• Landraiders or Stormravens can also be used, especially the latter, for a fast way of getting in and out, while also able to deepstrike to make a timely arrival! But... once again, they suffer from the same problems which the Rhinos suffer from, in the state of the current meta, and the fact that you cannot take enough of them with viable cargo due to costs, I find that they can be ineffective for giving you full mobility.

Personal Teleporters

• The use of Personal Teleporters can be very good in giving your Grey Knights addition mobility; both Dreadknights and Interceptors can take them, however, for the purpose of this article, we'll focus on the interceptors.
• They can move as jump infantry so can fly around 12" as well as using a 30" move once per game. This unit is easily my favorite for purposes of movement, as it can come in 'late' (mention in the bit about psychic communion) fly around for a turn or two, staying out of enemy charge range, then use its 30" shunt move to claim/contest an objective!

So, in conclusion, what have we have established to help us choose units for mobility:

• Grand Masters/Inquisitors are good for allowing you control of reserves, helping to bring your forces in as one, but leave unwanted elements out till later to grab objectives. You can also make units scout with a GM, but that has limited use.
• Generally, transports can be useful for giving you mobility, but don't expect then to survive for long.
• Interceptors are excellent for giving you mobility, and ideally, you should have a unit of 10, make them scoring, combat squad them, then you have 2, fast, scoring units, capable of moving 30" to claim an objective.

There you have it! I've gone over most of the key points for Mobility, and will revisit them and giving you some unit breakdowns when I do the final article. Feel free to leave comments if you think I've left anything out!

Stay tuned for the next part of the series, shooting!

Until then...