This is a great example of what the Scarab Farm is capable of. Even with some errors in the opening moves, and crazy dice, the Scarab Farm holds its own. Purifier Spam is arguably the top dog right now, and Fuegan17 is a top notch player. This is a great showdown and really illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of this list.
Army lists are covered at the beginning of the match.
Pretty cool batrep! Seriously, you guys are doing a fantastic job and I’m lovin the batreps (especially ones with the new ‘Crons)!
I feel ya on being that 1/16th of an inch out to win the game, but I would have liked to see a TAC template from GF9 go down right there to double check. Its advantage is that it can fit in those hard-to-reach places where a tape measure can’t fit (the perfect example of this is what happened in the video, where you were bending the tape to try and see how close you were). But oh well, stuff like that happens from time to time.
I would like to see the army lists in the comments section too, including your opponent’s list (I know you usually do it but I’d be interested to see the Grey Knight list to be able to better understand what was going on).
Otherwise I’m curious about a few things. I apologize ahead of time if it seems like I’m nit-picking or bashing on the GK player. I have no doubt he’s a great player, and I did enjoy watching the game!
First, during turns two and five (I think, I don’t remember) the camera never showed the battlefield. If we’re only able to see Reece’s ugly mug, then it might as well be a podcast and not a youtube video. The point: Please film the table every turn like you do in your other batreps, especially when covering a “competitive” game. We actually want to watch the game, that’s why we’re here!
Second, I know 1750 (and 1850 from your other videos) must be the standard in your region, and Grey Knights don’t do well in lower point games, but why weren’t there grenade-toting Techmarines or HQ’s in the list? Rad and Psychotroke Grenades are what really takes Grey Knights over the top. Purifiers are fantastic, don’t get me wrong, but they will (and do) fall apart against larger combat units. Rad Grenades amplify the effectiveness of Hammerhand and Might of Titan (not to mention the character toting them usually can cast his own Hammerhand power in addition to the squad), and Psychotroke Grenades can turn a balanced combat into a lop-sided one in the GK favor. Sure, it’s even LESS feasible in smaller games, but I really think the list used was not as optimized as it could be. Four Purifier squads with grenade caddies here and there might have overwhelmingly dominated where four Purifier squads and a single Strike Squad obviously didn’t. An Ordo Xenos Inquisitor is 55 points with Psychotroke and Rad Grenades, or you can bump him to 85 points to also make him a Psyker with Hammerhand. Not too shabby.
And lastly, why Venerable Dreadnoughts instead of normal ones? That extra 60 points just gives you one point of BS which with four twin-linked shots doesn’t really matter, and grants you the ability to shake off damage sometimes. Those points (coupled with the points leftover from dropping the strike squad for the grenade caddy as pointed out above) could easily have spread some Rad and Psychotroke Grenade love around and maybe even beefed up the squad sizes for the Purifiers. Yes, I’m aware of the importance of MSU and how target saturation can add quite a lot of defense, but I’m not sold on the “competitiveness” of the Grey Knight list used. Trust me, I’ve been raped by enough of them with the Rad/Psychotroke/Cleansing Flame combos to know how bad it really hurts.
Again, please don’t take my feedback and questions negatively! I’d love to hear your guys’ side of it, and the more I can learn about your game and your decisions, the more that helps us learn how to play with/against this stuff!
Thanks for the videos, and keep ’em coming!
Yeah, I don’t know why Luis focused on my Mug so much! Haha, he may have a crush on me or something?!
But seriously, I agree. We will have more time focused on the games, less on me! I don’t ant to watch me either, to be honest =)
Julian chose the Ven Dreads in Elites as he likes the increased BS, but even more than that, he wants them to be reliable tar pits in case he plays an aggressive assault army.
I agree that he should drop them for regular Psyfilmen and take a few magic grenade tossing Techmarines or such. But, I am glad he didn’t! Haha, that would have been brutal, and may have swung the game in his favor.
We will continue to try new stuff, for sure. We love experimenting and we’ll see how many ways we can test this list.
We’re glad you enjoy the videos! They take a lot of effort, so it is good to hear they are appreciated.
Hi TheDave, one reason for not using the magic techmarines is that they will be useless against an IG army like christians, and the venerable will help ensure my guns hit a helluva lot harder than regular psyflemen and last longer too. If I don’t get as much shooting power as possible, lists like his would run rough-shod over my army, as it tends to do against many other armies. So yes, I could assault better but if its entirely necessary for something to die in combat, mass purifiers could easily do the trick. I will say I made an error in my 2nd turn, I thought the positioning of my rhinos would have prevented an assault from the scarabs, but apparently you can go under the front tracks of it to get into base-to-base.
Have you tried dropping 2 Ven Dreads for 3 regular Psyfilmen? You’d get significantly more firepower.
And I will double check (I was wrong about GK NFW rules, and sorry about that, I didn’t know they had a different rules mechanic than normal FW, but honestly, Cleansing flame was the better bet as it would have only affected your halberds) to see if you in fact can not assault “under” a tank so long as you don’t touch it, but I am 99% certain we played it accurately.
It is a 3 Dimensional game, more so in this edition than ever before, and you can not pass through another unit. Scarabs are so small that I was able to assault “under” the front of the Rhino to make base contact with your Purifiers without actually touching the Rhino, which by RAW is legal. I can see where it could see how it could be read another way, though. The thing is, any taller model would not have been able to do it.
I do agree I would gain probably 2 more total hits per turn, but I would also lose quite a bit of durability if I dont get the first turn. Penetrating hits from non-AP1 weapons have a 1/3 chance of destroying a reg dread, penetrating hits from non-AP1 weapons have a 1/9 chance of destroying a venerable dread. So when an alpha strike shooting army steals the initiative his entire army doesn’t decimate every single dreadnought available. So math-hammering it out with 1 ven dread and 3 reg dreads(your suggestion) it should take 18 penetrating hits to destroy all of them, against 3 venerable it should take 27 penetrating hits to kill them. Against AP1 the advantage drops quite a bit, to 10 pen for 1ven+3reg and to 12 pen for 3ven, but if theyre that close my purifiers can usually decimate that unit. But I might need to try the setup you suggested to see if I like it more, although I would have to find 10 more points elsewhere in the list.
I agree 100% that Ven Dreads are more durable, however, you have to also factor in the increased firepower you gain and survivability in having another target. That means you can shoot more units and your opponent needs more units to shoot what you have on the board. It also gives you an additional tar pit unit to help cover the board.
I am not saying its for sure better by any means, I agree with your logic. I think that it bears trying to see if you like it more. If not, stick with what you have as it is less KPs and what you know how to play.
Why dont you drop a single warrior and put a gloom prism on the 3rd spyder squad? 1 warriors could cancel those devistating powers.
That is a good idea, but so far we have found that having 2 is plenty good for covering the Scarabs.
The only reason I suggest it is because lash, cleansing flame, and such can be so devistating to those scarabs and 1 warrior usaully never makes a difference. It also drops the squad to 21 models instead of 22, so you still break and stay broken at 10 models or less.
That is a very good point and we may just do that. The extra protection can be game winning, while the extra warrior probably won’t!