[Slind]

Hi!

I'm new tio this part for the Tauonline forum, but have been active on a number of other DH forums for years, so lets kick of the party with a small strategical/tactical guide.

As we all know DH is not the easiest army in the game to play (by far). The fluff and models are beyond cool, so many new players are attracted to this army – that is until they find out just how hard it is to win any games with DH.
I’ve been playing DH for three years now, for all those rookie DH-players out there, here is how you can configure your army AND play it, so it is competitive.

DH strategy
To make a successful DH army you need focus on three things:

• Army core
• Army core support.
• HQ

If your points go anywhere else you are vesting points you cannot afford. I’ll go through these 3 groups one by one below.
Secondly you need to realize, that while the Inquisitor/Assassin thing can be very funny it is not strong enough to make out your army core. If you want to use them as fluff, be my guest, but it will not work as a competitive army core. So put away those awesome Inquisitor-models and deadly assassins and take a look at those armoured psychos hidden away underneath – The Grey Knights

Army Core
This is the most important part of your army – get this wrong, and everything else is unimportant.

Grey Knights come in two formats: Clad in power-armour (PGK) or terminator-armour (TGK). The first year I played DH the TGK was my unit of choice: Better armour save, inv. Save, one additional attack and a power-weapon for a measly 21 points extra – what is not to like? Nevertheless I kept loosing a vast majority of my games.
A bit of contemplating let to the following analysis: When the TGK could get into melee they where the brightest star on the sky. However, more often than not they got slaughtered by AT before they got that far, simply because they are such a huge fire-magnet, and then it was just 300 points down the drain.
One of the major disadvantages of DH is the high model-cost, as a consequence you will not be able to field that many models and every killed model hurts like h…. Furthermore if your model-count is low your enemy can afford to use AT-weaponry on your infantry – needless to say, that is a bad scenario, terminator-armour or not.

This analysis made me switch to the PGK, and I have never looked back. Today I only field TGK in really big games 1500+ points. So, the PGK should always make out the core of your army, and you should devote your time to learn to use this unit optimally. With the coming of 5th ed. PGK are even more attractive since they count as a troop choice.

Secondly I always – no matter game size - backup my PGKs with the humble Inquisitorial Storm Trooper. Before you start laughing, consider what this overlooked unit brings to the field. Good shooting skill, mobile LOS, mobile objective-capture, heavy AT and cheap models. I love my PGK, but cannot tell you how often the IST has won the day for me. I is a GREAT unit if used correct, and I simply hate it, when I se them reduced to simple meat shields.

Lets take a closer look on these two troop choices that will constitute our Army Core

Power Armour Grey Knight

At first glance it is the Space Marine we all know, but with a series of small tweaks that makes them far more useful. Compared to normal marines they are just a little bit better at everything (except dying, which they do equally well ?). They have a better firearm, better cc-weapon, and better weapon skill. Don’t get the idea that they are invincible - they are not! Orks will pummel them to death in cc, IG will shoot them to hell in a second.
Instead look at them as a Jack of all trades. They are above average in most categories, but not specialist in anything. The trick is to identify in what area you are superior to your opponent and capitalize on that. If you are unsure on what area you are superior, that is where the Shrouding comes in, buying you a couple of rounds to figure out where your enemies’ weak spot is.
I.e. If he is a cc specialist chances are that I can outshoot him. If he is a gun-wielding maniac, I’ll close in for cc. If he is an all-rounder I’ll do this evaluation squad by squad – utilizing range and shrouding to assess a squads potential before I decide how to take it down. You will find out, that there are very few units in the game that a squad of PGK can’t take down.

So now that we can all agree that PGK rule all, and should be voted for president ? Lets take a look at how to configure them.

The Storm Bolter is simply one of the most amazing weapons in the game! My Grey Knghts never leave home without it. When that is said, under 5th ed I’ve tried to give a single knight an incinerator, but I’m not convinced if that is a good trade – one thing I am sure of, is that I never, never, never ever replaces my Storm Bolter with a PsyCannon – My knights needs to stay mobile. If I want PsyCannons I leave it to the professionals (Purgation Squads or Terminators).
When it comes to squad-size, I experimented a lot undet 4th ed. And found that 8+ squads is a sound size. It is not terrible important under 5th ed to have an even number of knights, since troops are now scoring down to the last man (go Fearless), but still, the unit somehow reaches an optimal size at 8-10 knights. The unit is very durable and very lethal. So I typically field 1 Justicar and 7 PGK knights in a squad, and NO fancy-pansy war gear.

Inquisitorial Storm Trooper

Unless you are playing the cheesy LR-saturation tactics (se below), this unit is indispensable. Many people use them as meat shield for the more expensive GK’s. While it is a viable strategy it does not take advantage of this units massive potential. There are four aspects of this cheap unit, that makes them small gems.
BS. They are able to use a firearm just as well as Space Marines, and even though they only use flash-lights, they can still provide a deadly gun line against hordes – I’ve even grinded down full SM-squads with these guys. While the SM-squad eventually won the shootout due to at better weapon and armour, they were still so decimated that they where practically out of the game. Furthermore their flashlight works wonderfully in conjunction with both the Stormbolter and the Plasmagun
AT: They can carry heavy firearms, a real lack in DH-armies. Both the plasma (my favourite) and the melta is brilliant additions to this unit. Combined with their excellent BS they are a real threat to both tanks and infantry alike.
Transport: Being able to take a transport is just golden! It opens up for so many tactical applications. You can provide mobile LOS for your PGK. Race down the flank in order to melta-blast the rear armour. Capture objectives. Give your footslogging PGKs a ride. Block a narrow pass etc.
Invisibility: While not invisible, most people leave them in peace. Compared to those Stormbolter wielding maniacs in power armour, they do not look that dangerous. This tactical blunder is all you need to manoeuvre them into position for maximum utilization.

As a final note, only take a sergant if you expect them to come under heavy fire, otherwise he is not worth it. Apart from that, the squad size is pretty much a matter of taste. I use anywhere from 5 to 10 men depending on the mission and whether they are protected by a Rhino., but again, I normally go for 8 men, since it you need to drop 3 men before forcing a moral-chack.

Army Core Support
While our troop choices are pretty darn tough, they have a severe lacking in AT (as any DH army). Your support-troops should first and foremost try to cover this weakness! The TLLC Dreadnought is a good choice in small point games. In larger games the Godhammer pattern Land Raider is another good option.
At this point I like to mention the TGK. They are a formidable force, but do not take them unless you have a clear cut mission for them. I never use them unless the game is 1500+. Otherwise they are simply too expensive. However if you take them as a support unit, consider the following:

• Bring a Hammer or two. Unlike PGK, TGK can handle heavy armour reliably with the addition of a hammer – in this way they bring much needed AT to the battlefield. Furthermore since we use the DH-Codex wording of the Thunderhammer (sometimes GW do not realise the impact of their rulings), it is also a brilliant way of keeping a multi-wound foe stunned for the entire cc-combat. Its cheesy but nevertheless legal.
• Bring a PsyCannon: While the PsyCannon suck on PGK, it is beyond cool on the stable Terminator-platform. Remember that the Brother Captain can obtain a PsyCannon from the wargear section. Apart from threatening anything within 36’’, it is also brilliant at ripping holes in armour.

HQ

In 4th ed. I always took the Brother Captain with a PsyCannon, at played “the invisible man” trick. The Grand Master, Inquisitor, Inquisitor Lord, Corteaz or Stern, was not even an option. But with the invisibility trick gone, it open up for the Grand Master and Stern again. Though I will no longer disregard the utilization of the latter two in large games, I am still convinced that the simple Brother Captain with PsyCannon is the best value-for-money in the HQ department… Just remember to attach him to at unit or retinue

Tactical Application
The last three years playing DH, I’ve noticed two viable tactics that can be used LR-saturation and Bring-em-on!

LR-saturation
Persoanlly I hate this tactic. It’s stupid, lame, simple, primitive, cheesy (add more premature name-calling here). However I must acknowledge that it works, and it is probably the strongest setup DH can bring to the field.
The army composition is simple:

• 1 cheap HQ (Brother Captain or even an Inquisitor),
• 1 Godhammer LR and 1 PGK per 500 point

The idea is to use the massively armoured LRs to freighter the PGKs around in safety. The LRs cruise around using their LasCannons to snipe anything that pose a remote threat to the PGKS inside. When all immediate threats are neutralized the PGKs are deployed to clean up the remains. Few armies (if anyone) can handle 3 LRs at extreme range. They are tough as nails and deploying three at the same time saturates the enemies AT resources to the point of inefficiency. In addition when moving at combat speed, the enemy at the same time must cope with 6 Twin Linked LasCannon shots at BS 4 per round (1 shot plu 1 from the Machine Spirit), and if you deploy your PGKs the are an additional 16 bolter shot to handle. It’s cruel, simple, cheesy and horribly efficient.
I will not devote any more time on this tactic, since it is sufficiently covered elsewhere on this forum, and a 3 year old child with a blindfold can make it work.

So lets move on…

Bring-em-on!
Now this is how a real man should fight! While it is much harder to master than LR-saturation, and granted not as efficient, it is still competitive AND will require you, to use all your skills as army commander to win. I’ve been playing this strategy exclusively for the last year or so against a lot of different enemies and currently it has been 70% victories, 23% draws and 7% loss.

The army composition is in general

Troop Choice: 1 PGK per 500 points, 1 IST w/plasma per 750 points
Support: TLLC Dread per 1000 points, Godhammer LR per 1500 points, Termiantor per 2000 points
HQ: What you can afford, but generally the Brother Captain with PsyCannon work wonders, but if you deploy terminators the Grand Master or Stern might be better.

Use the guidelines from above for both the PGKs and ISTs. I.e. GKs in squads of 8+ totally vanilla and ISTs with a transport and plasma.
Footslog you GKs! Yes, footslog them, do not Deep Strike them! Use shrouding and terrain to get LOS or failing that cover. At the same time, use your Rhinos for mobile LOS if terrain is sparse. The reason is simple: PGKs are so expensive, that you will want the most out of them. If they arrive in round 3 you only have 2-3 rounds to earn their points back AND they do not count as troop choice. Furthermore, the storm bolter is sooo great that few infantry units can compete with it. Remember you threaten a 24’’ radius circle around your squad – that is a lot of battleground. The trick is to figure out squad by squad how your PGK can most efficiently take down an enemy squad before committing to combat.
This is where shrouding is golden. In general you can ignore long range artillery. And at 31,5’’ there is 50-50 than the enemy is unable to spot you – remember that he looses his shooting if he cannot spot you. Even at 24’’ the max range of the Storm Bolter there is almost 20% chance that he is unable to return fire.
If you end up concluding that you cannot take down the enemy squad for some reason, do one of two: Either ignore the squad and move on, or if that is not an option, use the Storm Bolter to slowly grind the unit until it is manageable. Another problem can be highly mobile forces (e.g. Eldars). Most times the brilliant bolter-trap tactic will put him on his heels.
Why does this work tactic work? Honestly, I do not know, but it does! However I THINK the reason why this is so efficient, is that unlike most DH-armies you are deploying a lot of models (40-50 at 1500 points), all of whom are excellent protected (power armour or Rhino), you need to totally annihilate them to make them non-scoring, and most of them are Fearless… In addition most of the scoring units cannot be targeted by artillery.

A comment about the rest of the DH-codex options. They are funny and interesting, but they simply cannot compete with the rest of the W40k armies. Sure you can make an assassin-list that will perform great against specific lists, but they suffer from the same flaw, that they fail miserably against any army-list that falls outside its narrow field of expertise.

Finally, do not expect to go out and rule your local club (unless you play the LR-saturation tactic). DH is an old army and almost all other armies has received updates that makes them inherently more powerful than DH. Most victories will be hard fought and you know that you have accomplished something when you win using your DHs.

[GKTerminator]

Hey Slind, Welcome to the forums, and to join your party I would critiqe the following:

Now while this was a great write up, and overall I agree with alot of the topics whole-heartedly, I've played DH since the codex came out and I have to disagree with you in places.

First off I will agree that DH troops are the bomb. I field 3 squads of 8 no matter what. However IST are not. As a scoring unit they are weak, with only 4+ saves and possibly nothing else they tend to be a point sink, especially if you take plasma and kill your own troopers. Now I'm not saying don't use them, but only having 1 squad would not sit well in my book. In 5th ed you can gain quite a bit of cover saves for both your tanks and your troops, but again spending the points on a Rhino full of IST could mean more knights on the board. The second downside is that the Rhino you bought for the Troopers is useless except for the troops themselves, as well as "Most" vehicles, especially if you only have 1 or 2, are the first things shot down in a game. A single Rhino would usually die by turn. Assuming it lives your Knights can't hop into it, So should the troopers die (for whatever reason) Your left with a box, not a horrible thing, but you could have likely used those points for something else. Where I play IST are "easymode" for everyone, With the prevalence of long range high power weapons they make mince meat of nearly anything under AV12.

Invisibility: While not invisible, most people leave them in peace. Compared to those Stormbolter wielding maniacs in power armour, they do not look that dangerous. This tactical blunder is all you need to manoeuvre them into position for maximum utilization.

That statement is not accurate as far as I've seen. When Kill points are on the line shooting apart an AV11 vehicle and the 4+ save guys inside is an easier KP than trying to use range to decimate a PAGK squad. They do not look dangerous, but the do look squishy, and an easy kill for anyone. more and more weapons have ap4 and thusly are suited to destroying them.

Secondly your assesment of the Inquisitor/Assasin. While I would never run a ton of assasins, I have found that a cheap Iq with Mystics and 2 Heavy bolters, and the scourging is nearly cheesier than 3 land raiders. Why? Because he can sit there and direct fire at anything tha deep strikes. Marine players and their Drop pods beware, you'll eat it in the face from a full PGK Squad if you land within a decent dice roll. Furthermore the Vindicare, when placed correctly, is a beast. With a sniper rifle that lets you choose who dies, several uber rounds, and a great BS, he can even out those pesky problem models. Heavy weapons, specials, and sergeants? All fair game. Sure you only get 1 and only gain 6 turns of shooting, but I would never argue against one simply because right before the charge you shoot off his only power weapon? making the unit even less a threat, or take out the 1 or 2 lascannons the guy has, easy. Tau? Shoot out that Spotter for the sniper drones...whole squad dies from 1 shot. All this for less points than the IST squad themselves.

PAGK Squads should take a weapon upgrade, I would argue just 1 per squad. The downside is losing the single Str6 in CC in exchange for a bit more hitting power on the move. Psycannons suffer no major penalty for moving, sure they have shorter range but if your firing at max range on a target losing 2 shots won't hurt you while gaining the ability to close and loose some strong AP shots will net you more benifit, Aside from the Psycannon can kill or cripple most transports, and don't get me started on armies with only an INV save, or high numbers of INV saves. With the amount of cover and the fact that 70% of the time GK's will end up in combat where they usually do well, an Incinerator can be a boon. Just taking a single one in my army has netted me quite a few victories, just clearing objectives or killing massive numbers of models that fit under the template, plus you can't miss with it...just fail to kill and at STR 5...that's not easy. points wise neither upgrade is too over the top for a squad and adds flexibility you don't have. Other than that I agree that NO upgrades should be taken, they cost too much and do nothing 99% of the time.

Hammers on Terminators...NO NO NO! In 5th you hit the back armour as it is, so unless you charged down on a Dreadnought, you shouldn't have any problems. Ironclads perhaps, but with the number of Str6 attacks these guys have, with NO Initiative loss, there's not alot that can stand against them. I see no use for the Str8 unless your afraid of Wraithlords or Ironclads. GKTs should not be used to take down such units. Chop down the elite CC units. Use them right and they are golden, pick your targets and go. Furthermore Take the incinerator for these guys too...as they WILL get close. Furthermore GK's are one of the LAST armies in the game that can utilize the Retinue system to remove the Independant character status for your HQ. So your Brother Cap. Becomes an "upgrade" For the unit and therefore can be brought to bear even swifter. I would NEVER leave home without a 3-4 man retinue with a weapon upgrade.

Persoanlly I hate this tactic. It’s stupid, lame, simple, primitive, cheesy (add more premature name-calling here). However I must acknowledge that it works, and it is probably the strongest setup DH can bring to the field.

Now I understand you call this a personal hatred, but name calling things like this isn't near to the spirit of the game what-so-ever. To field 2 or 3 LR your looking at a HUGE point sink, sure they may not die but even 3 land raiders won't kill their points in a 7 turn game 99% of the time. So while this may be "cheesy" it has it's drawbacks. I personally LIKE this system, taking a Crusader with psycannon bolts is just gravy, and it lets my Knights bring to bear greater firepower faster. As I've found in 5th edition 66% of the missions will be Objective based, even in tournaments, so this leads you to 2 ways to play:

1. Deny
2. Defend

Now when you deny someone your working to kill his troop choices while maintaining your own. Either LR rush him or take a few small teleport squads and drop them behind some terrain really close so they can bring their weapons to bear and then get up into combat. Teleport homers are nice but you need points for those, which don't usually end up leftover in any DH army.

To defend works decently, Shrouding works great at long ranges and will provide your GK's with protection against everything nearly, since you get to place your own Markers, make sure they're far enough away. You're fearless so you're not going to run off it, so even the back corner works. Secondly during this tatic, sit back and shoot with what you have, 36" Psycannons, Twin las on LR and Dreads, and even the Orbital Bombardment is not a bad choice (even if it is super unreliable).

The bolter trap does indeed work good, but any Greater ranged army (tau) or Mobility (Eldar) Will cause severe problems for your list. Even the new marine codex has brought a few new issues to the table (sternguard and Redeemer). Furthermore the new scatter rules means Artillery and such has a higher chance to take you apart, Vindicators are your bane!

My only other comment is when bringing something for new players to an army, don't just come in saying "x, y, and z are useless and crap" instead I would suggest you come to the table with "this is a great unit when used like this because...." And leave it at that. Even the LR Spam list can't own everything, and every player should understand that. I enjoyed your write up and it does lay down a good groundwork, but perhaps cover the units you like more in depth. Perhaps show their weaknesses as well, such as PAGK High point costs, or IST lack of fearlessness and low Armour save.

Great work again.
Knight

[Slind]

Thanks for the kind words, and the critique! I didn’t expect to make a tactica without a bunch of critique. Let me address a couple of you issues:

Regarding ISTs…
I know ISTs are a matter of taste. But there is no doubt in my mind, that they are – by far – worth it. I have found the Rhino very survivable – especially in 5th ed. You are right, that a single Rhino is dead meat, but that is very seldom the case. If my opponent is stupid enough to ignore my Dreads/Raiders/PGKs and use his heavy guns to take out my Rhino, I’d thank him.
You know – no one in their right mind wound fire their LasCannons at the Rhino full of pixies that just moved into cover, when a Godhammer Land Raider and a Dreadnaught is advancing on their position. However you do have a very valid point in the new kill-point scenarios. In those games I tend to play my ISTs very conservatively, and usually they survive – unless I play one of those mobility-freaks (read: Eldar Saim Hann), but that is where the bolter-trap comes in.

Regarding Inquisitors…
You are right. The Scurging/Mystic setup is pure evil, and has ever since the codex came out be deemed cheesy. However if I remember right, the only thing I said was, that Inquisitors/Assassins cannot constitute an viable Army Core. They can provide usefull Army Core Support, but even in that case, you need to know what you are doing (as in the special build you mention), personally I find inquisitors and their application “advanced topics” something that the rookie player should not concern himself too much with until the basics of the codex is second nature.

Regarding Assassins:
I consider these chaps even more advanced topic than the inquisitors. It takes a lot of practice/trial and error to get at feel for how these guys fit in the army. You mention the Vindicare – it is an awesome model, but it is very hard to use correctly. It took me almost 6 month of constant play and countless losses to learn how to use that guy correctly. He is far from beginner-stuff.

Regarding upgrade PGK
As I mention I am currently evaluating if an incinerator-upgade is a good trade, but I’m very sure that the PsyCannon is not for three reasons.
1. It takes away your mobility
2. If it does not take away your mobility, it take away your range
3. It take away your cc-weapon
4. For the price of the PsyCannon upgrade I can buy an additional Knight for my squad.

Regarding Hammers…
YES YES YES! I’d still bring a hammer. Its free and it keeps you opponents armour on its toes. Yes, you hit the rear armour, but that is irrelevant if my name is Monolith or Land Raider. Our heavy-armour AT is very sparse and if it is removed, a heavy tank owns the battlefield. Even if the hammer does not damage the land raider it is kept stunned. As an additional bonus, it is very useful against multi-wound HQ’s, since it can practically keep them stunned for the entire fight. Again I must agree, Terminators primary task should not be anti-tank, but IF you buy them. Let them bring some AT – something that DHs are always short on.

Regarding LR-saturation…
Hmmm I know namecalling is low, but this strategy is just too overrated by newbie player… let me try to explain why I do not like this strategy. When executed by an experienced player, this is a strategy relying on tactical manoeuvring, careful deployment of firepower. I once saw a SM-player executing it, and it was soooo beautiful. If only the Rhino could take heavy gun, he would have been able to do the exact same thing, cause he relied on movement, not on armour. The amount of fire he took was minimal.
However when used by novice players it becomes a sleeping pillow. They learn very little about their army and THINK they are quite good, when in fact they only win because all their tactical blunders are neutralized by the fact that they have 10 pieces of Fearless power-armour sitting behind 1 meter of adamantium. Few armies in their right mind, brings so many heavy guns that they can counter that much armour. When a build is so strong that it consistently can beat tactically superior opponents, it is a problem.

Finally, as you noted, this is set out as a step-bye-step manual. The purpose is to give a new player er solid foundation from which to explore the army, without being beaten to a pulp for the first year or so. But I’ll follow up on your recommendation and do an in dept discussion on PGKs and ISTs. but the you could perhaps do some work on explaining how to use TGKs efficiently, since you seem to enjoy some success with 'em

Kind Regard
Slind

[GKTerminator]

It seems we agree and disagree at the same time on numerous points but as it seems we come from two separate schools of Play for GKs, we may bring to the table differences that can be combined.

I like PAGK Weapon upgrades, you don't as much.
I don't like IST you do.
Thunderhammers....I might be talked into using 1, but only 1.


I think we agree that Inquisitors and Temple Assasins are useable and can add power to an army but only when one learns to use them. As well as still disagreeing that the LR list is OP. Eldar and Tau lists prevail everywhere I play and so the LR lists don't do so well for me, even though it's all I really play now, after using footslogging lists for 3+ years. /shrug

I bet we can make it all better with some work.

[Notanoob]

I have to say, the Vindicare is one of the most useful assasins, with all of his special shots especially. The rest are also useful, but shooty is generaly better than CC (IMO), unless you have some special way to get into combat quick.

[Slind]

Originally Posted by Notanoob

I have to say, the Vindicare is one of the most useful assasins, with all of his special shots especially. The rest are also useful, but shooty is generaly better than CC (IMO), unless you have some special way to get into combat quick.

After 5th ed, the Vindicare has gained some ground on the Callidus assasin that ruled all in 4th ed.
However it is very very hard to earn your points back with the Vindicare. He is what I would call a booster-unit, since his primary function is to indirectly boost other units. I do not recommend novice players to use him, because he simply begs to be used in the wrong way, as an HQ/IC-killer.
He is however very useful for taking out "potential problems" like annoying special-weapons in regular unit squads. Weapons like:

• Powerfists
• Rocket Launchers
• Chaos symbols

...and then there is the cheesy tactical applications:

• Shooting into melee to remove powerfists
• Shooting own units (Useful to remove that sole surviving tooper that keeps the Harliquins locked in cc so you can't gun them down).

But again, you need to know both your own army, and the opponents army to know what will net you the best return of investment, otherwise its just 100+ points down the drain.

[khanaris]

I guess I wouldn't call those applications cheesy. Given how expensive he is for the 6 shots you get, picking them to have the most effective on the game just seems like good sense. He is hard-pressed to make his points back directly even at the best of times. But pretty much anything, no matter how ruthless, is at home with the background of the Vindicare temple.

+1 to both of you, by the way. Discussing a book this way is extremely useful as a reference, and you both have a very productive attitude about resolving points of contention.

[GKTerminator]

The Vindicare is not inteded to make up his points, I would like for players to take into account ideas like "What is this unit worth" rather than "can this make it's points"

Eg: Vindicare is well over 100 pts, however if you can Neutralize 3 lascannons in 3 turns, of which there was a possiblity that 1 of those would have destroyed your land raider you have then protected and therefore "made" 200+ pts.

I would recommend anyone to go read the "Killhammer" system of target priority (http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/i...howarticle=440) as this give a HUGE tactical advantage over the average tabletop player.

[khanaris]

That was essentially the point I was trying to make...

He is not really for killing things, but for exerting changes in the flow of a battle. So his utility is dependent on the creation or exploitation of opportunities.

Great Advice guys. I've been atempting to play demonhunters (Necs. Being my primary army) for a few years. While I agree that the PGK's are a good troop choice, I must say that their potential as a teleport option as fast attack is scary. If you take some IST's give them a homer and put them in Rhino's, their potential is great. While i can see why You would heisitate in a standard game, let me give you a few examples:

I've played a lot of games against my buddy who uses guard. My main problem has been his armour (or at least it was under 4th edition). under the new rules, only his troops can seize objectives. Now before you go off laughing at the sheer lunacy of ccin guard wo the consolidation bonus of 4th edition, consider this; The DH have the opportunity to take guardsmen as a suplement. Now the average DH player, or even the novice may overlok this, but every game comes down to points. While you will always be out numbered in a match as DH, why not create some lasting power? Use the guard to boost your lines and posssibly seize objectives (for dirt cheap). Use IST for your compulsory, and speed them forward and behind cover in Rhinos. While your opponent is still coming to terms with the fact that you have a substatially sized DH force, you have the chance of brining your GK teleport in next to your IST by the time they are actually out. Then slog the PGK's in on the flank and go to work.

Now I mentioned that I was against an IG player, so I'm no stranger to AT issues. While I agree that the LR spamming is cheesy, but effective, the Inquisition does have another relatively epic tank at its disposal: the IG Leman Russ Battle tank. Not only does it bring some much needed ordanence to bear, but on a short table game (deploying along the long end of atable) It can quickly unseat any troops your opponent has sat on objectives. Not to mention the possibility of putting LASCANNON in guard squads- very much an anti tank weapon. All of this is possible for a mear 45+ points to buy an Inq lord.

Like i said it all comes down to points. For their points, Grey Knights are a good troop, but for their points you easily get out numbered. Instead, increase your troop capacity while keeping the hard punch of the PGK's boosted stats. This idea keeps the tactics easy for a new DH player, while still having the nobility and finess of a well developed plan for a seasoned veteran.

Granted, you could do more, and I have thought of more, but this is the fastest way to explain the strategy. Upon request I will give more details. I love critiques and Kudos, so fire away.