Grail Knights

[VonCarsteinwanabe]

My brother shreds me with grail knights and I've only been able to hit them once, when I did he used his wizard to revive the one I Killed. He has a unit of Grail knights 3X5, they charge my core units and eat through entire units of 25 skeletons or 15 dire wolves without slowing down. It seems like there is nothing I can do to hit them with any real damage. My necromancers and vampires are all ready dead and my army is crumbling so I have no real hope left for this battle but I'd like to be able to avoid this in the future. (as I type this I realize it may be in the wrong forum but I'll leave it here and it'll get moved if they deem it incorrect. I apologize in advance as I am new here)

 

[Seneschal]

15 of them? That's a huge point sink. Scream at them with two Terrogheists and watch what happens.
25 skeletons won't hold up anything. Try 50 of them with three casters using IoN to pin them in place until you can get the T-Bats around to blow them off the table.
If you run Legion, a casket could also help.

 

[najo]

Cast raise dead and run wolves up to redirect them all game. Run around and kill everything else. Then throw a curse of years on that unit for kicks. See what he thinks about putting all his eggs in one basket then.

Side note: Learn what redirecting is and break those wolves up into 5 dog units.

 

[Asmodeus]

He has a unit of Grail knights 3X5, they charge my core units and eat through entire units of 25 skeletons or 15 dire wolves without slowing down. It seems like there is nothing I can do to hit them with any real damage.

BK bus+VL...do the same TBats duo, Morghasts, Death magic, debuffs, redirection....

 

[Macarian]

It's been said above mostly but there are three basic ways:

1) Redirecting
Take a unit 5 Dire Wolves, move them to 1 inch distance from the front of the Grail Knights at such an angle that when the Grail Knights "close the door" they are pointing to the empty field behind the Dire Wolves. The Grail Knights will now have to attack the worthless Dire Wolves or spend their turn reforming.

One important thing to note here, redirecting requires you plan a bit ahead, the next unit of Dire Wolves needs to be in place to take over the redirecting duty after the first unit dies. For a unit like the one you're describing I would assign 4 or 5 units of Dire Wolves to take turns redirecting it the enitre game.

2) Tarpitting
Take a big (50+) unit of either Zombies or Skeletons (Zombies are better because they replenish easier) and park them in front of the Grail Knights. Make sure there are no Characters in this unit as they will die, place the necromancers in a second unit behind the tarpit. The Grail Knights will kill 20 Zombies and crumble will kill another 20, leaving 10 Zombies. In your turn use Invocation of Nehek several times to bring the unit back up to 50+ and laugh maniacally.

3) Fight fire with fire
Take a Black Knight bus with one or two blender Vampire Lords, use buffs and/or debuffs, take a Terrorgheist or two along and smash into the Grail Knights. Not the safest option but certainly spectacular!

What option you use depends on your list and personal preference. I personally would always redirect the Grail Knights for the entire game and kill the rest of his list around him as nothing in my list can kill that unit, which is why I run 10 units of 5 Dire Wolves in my 2500 points list.

EDIT: ALSO, WELCOME TO OUR FORUMS!

 

[Adam_Barrow]

I second Tbats or a Casket. The Bret player around here stopped taking Grails after all those tasty points kept disintegrating.

 

[Alabaster427]

If you get it, Wind of Death can also be devastating because you only have to hit one model to affect the whole unit and it ignores their precious saves. It will wound them on 5-6 (I think) but it would also really make him think about dispelling it during his turn.

 

[Demian]

Saddly, Grail Knights are T3... and basic Wind of Death will eat the whole unit in a single cast, there is no point using the boosted version of it.
EDIT: hmmm they shouldn't be T3... maybe they are T4, but still a single unboosted cast will kill a bunch of them..

Lore of the Vampires is the strongest we have to deal with Bretonnia, between Curse of Years and Wind of Death and Invocation of Nehek, we have a very powerful lore.

What we all agree upon here in this forum is that Vampire Counts (or Undead Legions) is an army that you can't play like all other armies. We sacrifice cheap units to maneouver better on the battlefield and win by "losing" expendable stuff. Wiping the table with a single unit is not our deal (although if you play right, it can happen!).

Master the movement phase with VC and you'll see the opportunities yourself, and plan and play accordingly!

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

Saddly, Grail Knights are T3... and basic Wind of Death will eat the whole unit in a single cast, there is no point using the boosted version of it.
EDIT: hmmm they shouldn't be T3... maybe they are T4, but still a single unboosted cast will kill a bunch of them..

Lore of the Vampires is the strongest we have to deal with Bretonnia, between Curse of Years and Wind of Death and Invocation of Nehek, we have a very powerful lore.

What we all agree upon here in this forum is that Vampire Counts (or Undead Legions) is an army that you can't play like all other armies. We sacrifice cheap units to maneouver better on the battlefield and win by "losing" expendable stuff. Wiping the table with a single unit is not our deal (although if you play right, it can happen!).

Master the movement phase with VC and you'll see the opportunities yourself, and plan and play accordingly!

Nope. S4 T3 with only a 2+ save. They're like Blood Knights...but worse, and only slightly cheaper.

Wind of Death eats them for lunch. As does Curse of Years, a vampire lord (so long as he's not on his own...since every one is a champion), terrorgheists, caskets, and pretty much else you can throw at them. And while yes, they are scary on the charge, lance formation is only on the FIRST turn, after which they're just the standard 2 ranks of S4 attacks.

 

[Demian]

Wait, what?

Lance formation is only during the charge....?

I may need to have a little talk with my Bret player... haha anyways, it didn't do much good to him, but that I didn't know!

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

Wait, what?

Lance formation is only during the charge....?

I may need to have a little talk with my Bret player... haha anyways, it didn't do much good to him, but that I didn't know!

Yup. The Bret book is full of all sorts of little quirks. Their BSBs can't take mundane shields, for instance, and their enchanted shield costs 10 points instead of 5. If they decline a challenge or flee they lose the blessing.

Brets when at least one of two conditions are true: either the Bret player knows the army inside and out, or the opponent has no experience against it. Its nowhere near as scary once you learn its tricks.

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

Brets excel*

 

[VonCarsteinwanabe]

That is a very accurate statement. Its a slaughter house when both of those conditions are met. The lance formation being only on the charge didn't really matter to me, on the charge he would kill half of the unit and then the other half would die to crumble. I don't know if its true or not but someone at the store told me that the newer books are watering down the armies and making them weaker, especially VC. If this is true then I'm at a huge disadvantage. He's using the Bret book from like 1982, if the grail knights toughness is actually only 4 like was said earlier then I think they are watering down armies.

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

That is a very accurate statement. Its a slaughter house when both of those conditions are met. The lance formation being only on the charge didn't really matter to me, on the charge he would kill half of the unit and then the other half would die to crumble. I don't know if its true or not but someone at the store told me that the newer books are watering down the armies and making them weaker, especially VC. If this is true then I'm at a huge disadvantage. He's using the Bret book from like 1982, if the grail knights toughness is actually only 4 like was said earlier then I think they are watering down armies.

I wouldn't say that's true. Brets are fairly overcosted across the board, and most of the options in their book just plain don't work.

The only reason that Brets still work as well as they do is lance formation, M8, and HKB.

Lance gives them a smaller frontage and greater SCR than their low model count would otherwise prevent. Combined with 2+ saves and the blessing this makes their lances surprisingly durable, and strong against anything with no SCR of its own.

M8 makes them a highly mobile cav army, which are dominant in 8th. They don't have all the tools that other 8th armies have, and the power curve has certainly risen almost across the board since 6th edition in terms of power-per-point. However they're still very strong considering how old their book is.

And finally HKB. The Virtue of Heroism lord is ludicrously effective for his points cost. He's the answer to so many problems that Brets don't otherwise have a solution to, on account of the aforementioned lack of competitive options in their ancient book. Steam tanks? HKB lord. Nurgle prince? HKB lord. K'daii destroyer? HKB lord.



...as I've said though, understand these strengths and the army's inherent weaknesses and they're a strong list but nowhere near as strong as HE/DE/WoC lists are. Brets have little in the way of chaff or counter-chaff. They're only truly effective if they catch you with a charge. And if you can survive that charge it's only the characters who are particularly troublesome.


VC are actually a really good matchup against them. So long as they don't blow clean through a unit on the charge you can usually grind them out once their lance bonus and formation go away. We've got lots of chaff to stop them up. And blender lords slaughter knights like nobody's business. Trouble is that VC is a very finicky army, especially for new players.

 

[Steapa]

My brother shreds me with grail knights and I've only been able to hit them once, when I did he used his wizard to revive the one I Killed. He has a unit of Grail knights 3X5, they charge my core units and eat through entire units of 25 skeletons or 15 dire wolves without slowing down. It seems like there is nothing I can do to hit them with any real damage. My necromancers and vampires are all ready dead and my army is crumbling so I have no real hope left for this battle but I'd like to be able to avoid this in the future. (as I type this I realize it may be in the wrong forum but I'll leave it here and it'll get moved if they deem it incorrect. I apologize in advance as I am new here)

See what happens when 5 Blood Knights rams into the flank after he hits those skeletons....or simply hits them. He's going to need some strong ward save rolls.

 

[hunterwolfe]

Try flanking them with a vargulf, since they have vampiric they dont die to unstable. And since the three wide formation has a large side profile ot should work

 

[LordTobiothan]

Try flanking them with a vargulf, since they have vampiric they dont die to unstable. And since the three wide formation has a large side profile ot should work

Vampiric saves you from crumble when the general dies. Does nothing to save you from being unstable.

 

[hunterwolfe]

aye, dunno how i mixed that one up, but you are correct.

updated, I remember now, they can march out of the ld bubble. Its been a while since i played VC, sorry bout the mistake.​

 

[VonCarsteinwanabe]

See what happens when 5 Blood Knights rams into the flank after he hits those skeletons....or simply hits them. He's going to need some strong ward save rolls.

Was playing the other day, thats exactly what happened, 5 bloodknights on nightmares ate them up pretty quick.

 

[LordTobiothan]

Was playing the other day, thats exactly what happened, 5 bloodknights on nightmares ate them up pretty quick.

Blood knights do that to damn near anything though. Every review of the new wood elf codex has praised the hitting power of a wild rider unit when really they are just blood knights who aren't paying for all that armor and a lance. Or the option of the banner of blood keep, or high strength vs anything that somehow survived the charge.

 

[Steapa]

I was fighting a lizardman player....he had the classic buffed up saurus unit with throne of vines and flesh to stone and all that jazz. Toughness 8 lizards....Vlad and my tomb king were having trouble at str 6 chopping them down....the Bloods hit the flank.....and being str 7 I needed 5's....i just so happened to roll about 8 5's and 6's. Paving the way for a run down t8 saurus horde. Keep in mind I was gritting my teeth all game worried they were going to get blasted....but hey they got the charge on a stegadon wrecked him and then the saurus. Then they hit the temple guard with saurus and made short work of them too. I think they are oft under-appreciated for the amount of threat they produce.

 

[VonCarsteinwanabe]

I was fighting a lizardman player....he had the classic buffed up saurus unit with throne of vines and flesh to stone and all that jazz. Toughness 8 lizards....Vlad and my tomb king were having trouble at str 6 chopping them down....the Bloods hit the flank.....and being str 7 I needed 5's....i just so happened to roll about 8 5's and 6's. Paving the way for a run down t8 saurus horde. Keep in mind I was gritting my teeth all game worried they were going to get blasted....but hey they got the charge on a stegadon wrecked him and then the saurus. Then they hit the temple guard with saurus and made short work of them too. I think they are oft under-appreciated for the amount of threat they produce.

The blood knights are 100 dollars for a box of 5 where I buy my stuff. There is nothing under appreciated about that.

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

Blood knights do that to damn near anything though. Every review of the new wood elf codex has praised the hitting power of a wild rider unit when really they are just blood knights who aren't paying for all that armor and a lance. Or the option of the banner of blood keep, or high strength vs anything that somehow survived the charge.

Wild Riders are:
a) fast cav;
b) movement 9;
c) ASF;
d) vanguard;
e) test for frenzy checks on LD 9; and
f) are part of an army with more than enough shooting to clear out anything that might cause them issues.

And they're cheaper to boot. Not saying blood knights aren't cool, but they're way too expensive (both points and $$s) and inflexible for what they do. Wild Riders can test to not charge on LD9 then run around a chaff unit that's blocking them. Blood knights would have to first test on LD 7 to avoid plowing into them, then further test on LD7 to free reform to move around them. And even then they're moving at less than half the speed.

 

[LordTobiothan]

I find when you are bringing a unit to obliterate whatever they charge into. You aren't too picky about what's trying to taunt them into a charge.

Not to mention all that wild rider extra speed is fairly useless when you have nothing else to have the wild riders provide back up too. Your basically hoping the units been softened enough to die to the charge.

 

[The Sun King]

By the way you're only allowed to bring 12 Grail Knights...