# HELP!!!! How to defeat Grey Knights with Space Wolves?



## geneticdeviant (Sep 17, 2009)

Hey guys, literally just had my butt handed to me by Grey Knights. Initiative 6, psybolts and all power weapons hurts like mad.

So as a Space Wolves player what should I be taking in my army to counter them? What tactics should I be looking to employ?

Your help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.


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## Hammer49 (Feb 12, 2011)

You may want to mention what sort of list you came up against, as they can be quite different. This should help focus the advice given rather than being very general.


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## DestroyerHive (Dec 22, 2009)

If he took a lot of Terminators... Plasma cannon Long Fangs :laugh:. Eat 15 plasma cannons!!!! Then he'll just take 60 multi-meltas for 600 points though...


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## geneticdeviant (Sep 17, 2009)

ok well mordrak and ghost nights, jump pack dudes (not sure what they called), three autocannon dreads, two razorbacks with storm bolters . lots of midrange shooting all with psybolts. and some terminators . a lot was hittng me an initiative 6.


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## abitterbuffalo (May 7, 2009)

DestroyerHive said:


> If he took a lot of Terminators... Plasma cannon Long Fangs :laugh:. Eat 15 plasma cannons!!!! Then he'll just take 60 multi-meltas for 600 points though...


I'm assuming you're talking about Servitors with MM for 10pts a pop? Yeah, no one would ever consider taking that many in one force. With only being able to take two Inquisitors (one of which has to be Coteaz, which is still up for debate on whether or not you can take more than six Hench squads), 18 of the other Servitor groups would suffer mind-lock half of the time, rendering them utterly useless.

The best thing Wolves can use against GK is range. Longfangs with three Missile Launchers and two Lascannons can make quick work of both PAGK and TDGK. The Elite Wolves (can't think of what they're called) with TDA and Cyclone Missile Launcher give you even more of a range advantage. Just watch out for Outflanking and Deepstriking. With the number of shots GKs put out every turn, they'll make quick work of any small unit (such as Longfangs).


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## Doelago (Nov 29, 2009)

Fuwken Land Riders. The Grey Knights dont have all that much that can instantly take one out. At least not a "pure" GK army.


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

You really need to shut down the Psyflemen Dreads, they're probably the thing screwing you. If he's hitting at I6, there will be a lot of Halberds in the force, I'm gathering. I'd load up on the Thunder Hammers and Power Fists, because if you can't top his initiative (The lofty heights of I7, unseen by us power-armoured, non-psychic mortals) you have to make the remaining attacks you have hurt, and hurt a lot. I'm not an expert on SW but use the Wolf Standard and Mark of the Wulfen, I've heard them raved about.

Midnight


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## Dawnstar (Jan 21, 2010)

Long Fangs are the answer here, I think

A squad with 2x Lascannons and 3x Plasma Cannons (or 3x Las and 2x Plasma Cannon) should do the trick. Some Las goodness to take care of those pesky Dreadnoughts and vehicles and Plasma for anything on foot.

As for anything else, I'm not really sure... Jaws of the World Wolf would be another good thing to have as well though


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## Sephyr (Jan 18, 2010)

Long Fangs: plasma cannon if he is going heavy on termies, ML is he's got walking/jumping power armor troops.

Also, slap storm shields and thunder hammers on your CC units. Then it doesn't mind what I his halbers are striking at.


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Long Fangs with missile launchers are an excellent all-around unit and can find a home in basically any Space Wolf list, so if you don't have at least one unit of those in your army already, get some. Autocannon Dreadnoughts, Razorbacks with las/plas and other anti-tank units can all be extremely useful as well. Generally your aim is to silence the Dreadnoughts early on, crack open any transports and deal with the Terminators from a distance (plasma weaponry is good for this). The more units you have in transports the better off you'll be and since you've now been on the receiving end of Grey Knight anti-infantry shooting you'll know what I mean.

Don't rely too heavily on your own psykers as Grey Knights have the Aegis to make it more difficult to successfully cast your powers as well as wargear that either gives the Knights (and their allies) great benefits against or debuff psykers (Psyk-Out grenades are a major culprit here). Jaws, Living Lightning and so on can still be effective against Grey Knights, but you'll just generally have a more difficult time getting your powers to go off successfully.

If you have units of Thunderwolf Cavalry, be extremely careful about engaging the Knights in melee without a Rune Priest nearby to cancel out the Knights' attempts to activate their force weapons. As for dealing with I6, all you can really do is shoot them up first to reduce the number of attacks you need to weather before you can make your own.

Hope this helps.


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## TimberWolfA (Jan 12, 2010)

I would like to agree completely with Katie. I would also like to emphasize the value of having a Rune Priest in your army (since they are awesome), but against GK they have an unusual value. The Runic Weapon special rule allows you to cancel 50% of successfully rolled psychic powers within 24" of the Rune Priest. Remember that you roll after they have made their test and succeeded and that you can use the ability as many times every turn as your opponent succeeds on Psy tests inside those 24". Keep your Rune Priest in a Rhino and have a good game.


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

It's advice I give out against most dedicated CC armies. If a unit gets caught in Close Combat just leave it to die, don't try to get in and support it. It's something I see people doing time and time again. Abandon units to their fate unless in the odd circumstance you're guaranteed to win and the consolidate would be beneficial.


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## karlhunt (Mar 24, 2009)

I play GK and have to say, as scary as they are SW can take them easy. Stop worrying about the CC aspect and take as many grey hunter squads as you can. Drop them in Rhinos and keep them close together. Add a Rune priest with your cover save power and a psychic hood (or SW equivilent) and you're in business. Also, if he deep strikes a lot the power of Plasma cannons can not be over stated! 

Big weaknesses of Grey Knights (pure) are that they have a crazy hard time killing vehicles. if you keep your troops holed up in transports and, this is going to sound crazy, divide your fire! you can whittle them down fairly well. He's paying 40% more per model than you are (those halberds are expencive and if he's not using them he cheated you) which means you outnumber him by quite a bit. 

Targets of opportunity are a big deal. Got a strike squad that scatterd out away from his friends? Form a rhino wall between the forces, disembark and chew it up. Your rhinos should block los for this to work best. Same works for terminators. 

Most important thing about killing GK is to not let him psych you out. As scary as he looks with his big bad, everyone has force weapons, list. He's paying out the nose for an army with very little tactical flexibility. hit him whith what he can't fight, Vehicles.

Side note: Vindicare assassins are a problem. Kill them first!


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## Diatribe1974 (Jul 15, 2010)

Overcome them with superior firepower.

If that doesn't work, punch him in the face IRL, then when he's on the floor, wracked with pain from your vicious (and well timed) punch, take 1/3 of his miniatures from the play field. When he gets up and asks WTF that was about, whistle innocently and shrug, then telling him it's his turn. When he asks where his dudes are, tell him you don't know what he's talking about and force his move or have him forfeit the match.

Duh.

Winning!


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## Grinnsira (Jan 5, 2010)

Diatribe1974 said:


> Overcome them with superior firepower.
> 
> If that doesn't work, punch him in the face IRL, then when he's on the floor, wracked with pain from your vicious (and well timed) punch, take 1/3 of his miniatures from the play field. When he gets up and asks WTF that was about, whistle innocently and shrug, then telling him it's his turn. When he asks where his dudes are, tell him you don't know what he's talking about and force his move or have him forfeit the match.
> 
> ...


Thats what I'm talking about


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## Diatribe1974 (Jul 15, 2010)

Grinnsira said:


> Thats what I'm talking about


And this is how you win matches. IRL and in game.


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## Crimzzen (Jul 9, 2008)

The GK shouldn't give us wolfies too much troubles, we out-range and outnumber them. Generally, every model they lose is going to hurt, and hurt bad... As well, getting the charge on them really cuts down on damage received as they are only 1-2 attacks, needing 4/4s (assuming your RP shut down hammerhands, you did bring one right?).

Typically, use your heavy weapons to bring down their Dreadnoughts ASAP, after that they need to rely on rending you, and if you have cover it becomes difficult for them to knock you out of your transports. Once the Knights are on foot, you can unload your transports and follow up with the 2 meltaguns/pistols to the face to clear out a few and run in screaming. I would still pop my standard if there are a decent amount left even though we are not rolling armour saves.

You should be winning combats against them, even with all their force weapons (due to minimal return attacks) and your wolf standard/power fist/wulfen. Remember that guys packing psycannons no longer have force weapons further cutting down on the amount of return power weapon attacks.

Spells like Murderous Hurricane and living lightning are great on your RP (LL helping early game to demech) and MH forcing lots of wounds on units in addition to the excellent debuff. Its worth risking even with the Aegis around until your RP has 1 wound left. Then shield him for his 4+ cancelling effect.

I've found its generally a battle of attrition, something the GKs don't do as well as SWs. Knock out their range support, demech them, and grind them down.


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## Malferion (Mar 9, 2011)

lots of long fangs with ap2 or> weapons. razorbacks should be effective. I don't know about space wolves, but TH/SS termies go to town on GK for me most of the time.


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Malferion said:


> lots of long fangs with ap2 or> weapons. razorbacks should be effective. I don't know about space wolves, but TH/SS termies go to town on GK for me most of the time.


Space Wolves pay a _lot_ more for their Hammernators than other Chapters do, so it's generally a lot less efficient for Wolves to go that route, though that isn't to say it can't work.


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## Malferion (Mar 9, 2011)

kk i don't play wolves, I wasn't sure if they cost the same or not. If they cost too much then they're prolly not the best idea..


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Malferion said:


> kk i don't play wolves, I wasn't sure if they cost the same or not. If they cost too much then they're prolly not the best idea..


Yeah, they're almost 25 points more than the vanilla ones.  Poor Space Wuffs, though they have plenty of other amazingly priced things to compensate.


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## MetalHandkerchief (Aug 3, 2009)

I haven't read the Space Wolves codex in it's entirety, but if you have access to Land Speeders with Multi-Meltas that should be a good route if you're specifically trying to tailor your list to beat GK. With GK's low model count and high toughness, you should be able to run rings around them while turning them to goo. That's my theory anyway. My Piranhas with Fusion Blasters certainly do the trick against them.


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## Bayonet (Aug 13, 2010)

Long Fangs, 2 Lascannons and 3 Plasma Cannons. Put them in a good posistion overlooking a home/middle ground objective but with good a good arc of fire so that the Lascannons can engage targets at range. Your enemy will either then avoid that critial location with his terminators or attempt to destroy that Long Fangs pack as early on in the game as possible - if he does this he's not derp striking ontop of your deathstar/wild card unit or right onto your home objective which is likely to be lightly defended.

In tandem with this long fang pack I also field a standard 5 ML pack deployed seperately which is trashing transports/derp knights/power armoured GKs. With two annoying bases of fire deployed with a fair bit of distance between them, if he wants to engage them he'll have to task atleast 2 seperate units to do so which has already split his tiny force down even further. 

Then you'll be facing even less with your Grey Hunters which should be loaded up with Plas/Melta - don't charge his Grey Knights, shoot them until they inevitably charge you, hopefully you'll have taken some down in the mean time. When they get in CC you may take a couple down before being eaten by the GKs but, this is where you were clever and made sure every Grey Hunter pack had a buddy-pack deployed near enough to shoot the GKs as they emerge victorious from combat - mutual support, ensure every unit is covered by atleast another, never let your squads become seperated because that's when they get picked off, he won't have the model count to do this as effectively as you so use that advantage.

Finally ensure you have some sort of unit capable of taking out a Landraider fairly reliably and as cheaply as possible. For me this is my Wolf Scout pack with a melta gun and melta bombs lead by a Wolf Guard with a combi-melta/power fist. My usual GK opponent has a god-hammer pattern Land Raider, this is practically his only long ranged fire support so it's usually deployed not too far away from a table edge. If the melta doesn't do the trick then the Melta Bombs and Power Fist certainly will. Obviously you don't have to use Wolf Scouts, 2 Land Speeders with a MM each deep striking is just as effective (less overall melta than the wolf scouts pack but more likely to be able to get right next to the Landraider).


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## mcmuffin (Mar 1, 2009)

As stated already, Long Fangs with 2 Lascannons and 3 missiles. You will want some plasma as well, whether in your Grey hunters, some lasplas razors or in a long fang squad. the AP2 murders the uber expensive GK. 1- 2 rune priests, 1 with jaws and Living Lightning, the other with Murderous hurricane and living lightning Then, you need a hard hitting squad for cc. I would recommend a unit of 5 WG terminators. 2 with wolf claws, Arjac and 2 TH SS termies. This costs an absolute shit-load, but not even the might of GK can weather its pain-dishing. So, moral of the story is, take weapons that ignore armour and you are sorted.


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## Crimzzen (Jul 9, 2008)

I would highly advise against taking any sort of expensive deathstar... If you do your putting yourselves into the same situation they are in... It hurts to lose a pricey model. Keep it cheap, flood your enemy in grey hunters and long fangs spiced with special weaponry to taste. The wolves advantage lie in mass bodies capable of both shooting and assault... No need to throw expensive termies into the mix. That doesn't mean the odd solo twc to shore up assaults is a bad idea but you don't want to provide them with any sort of target priority.


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## mcmuffin (Mar 1, 2009)

A deathstar is the perfect distraction though, so as the enemy concentrates on them, your GH can swoop in on objectives. The Bluegrey tide works too though, swamping them with 4-5 units of GH backed by rune priests and long fangs.


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## Malferion (Mar 9, 2011)

Bayonet said:


> . Your enemy will either then avoid that critial location with his terminators or attempt to destroy that Long Fangs pack as early on in the game as possible - if he does this he's not derp striking ontop of your deathstar/wild card unit or right onto your home objective which is likely to be lightly defended.
> 
> ).


Yay derpstriking lol
I just had to say it


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