About two years ago, I came back to the Warhammer hobby after about seven years away. I started off with a concept Kill Team based on the old lore for Grand Master Voldrak, and it quickly expanded into a full Grey Knight army in short order. Now when I came back to war gaming, I didn’t base my choice of army on what was popular or even what was powerful. I simple picked an army I loved when I last played the hobby and went on from there.
Once I had a decent force, I started playing some games and quickly came to realise that the Grey Knights I loved when I was younger had lost a lot of their glory in my absents. They had gone from a relative ok in 5th edition, to a top tier force in 6th and 7th edition, back down to a pour performing army in 8th edition. Now as I stated above, I didn’t choose Grey Knights because I wanted a powerful force. But I was still keen on trying to do well with them, and so I did my best to make them as competitive as possible. I looked up different builds, and even tried running imperial soup lists with Imperial Knights.
Despite my best efforts however, my Ghosts of Mortain didn’t perform as well as I would have liked. Unless I was battling against my mortal foe of warp spawns, I was hard pressed to do well and would often end up on the losing side. Still, I was having fun playing with them at my local store and as long as that was still the case, I would be happy to play them. Then Phychic Awakening: Ritual of the Damned came out, and everything changed.
What a Difference a Book Makes
The Phychic Awakening series has done a good job balancing the many different faction of Warhammer 40,000, but if there has been one army that has benefitted more than any other it would be the Grey Knights. With the addition of some great stratagems and their own version of doctrines in the form of tides, Grey Knights went from the joke of the meta to top tier in a very shot amount of time.
As a result, my Ghosts have gone through some changes in the last couple of months as I have adapted them to their new rules. I’ve added some new united and expanded my collection (which you might have noticed if you ready our monthly painting challenge articles) and have had a few games with the new rules. Overall, I have had quite a bit of success with them, racking up some impressive victories all the way up to the lockdown.
While some have been enjoying playing with the now infamous double paladin bomb list, I have decided to go with something a little bit different. Instead, I decided to run a single paladin squad, and in place of the second a trio of venerable dreadnoughts. The reason this is quite simple.
While a squad of paladins are more than capable of taking down a heavily armoured threats like Knights and Leman Russ’s, multiple vehicle lists (especially those with flyers) can become a real issue to face off against. A tactical player can easily control where your deep strike if they have enough units or can move vulnerable targets out of the threat range of your paladins. This is especially true with flyers, which can be all but untouchable to ground based armies like Grey Knights.
That where a trio of lascannon wielding venerable dreadnoughts come in. Easily able to bring down an armoured foe thanks to the Bring down the Beast stratagem, and able to hunt down hidden threats thanks to Astra Aim, these ancient warriors are a great addition to the list. Additionally, they are great at picking off key threats to our paladins like a Leman Russ Executioner, before they have a chance to dent our bomb.
With all that been said, here is my current build I was using before the lockdown.
Battalion Detachment
HQ
Brother-Captain: Storm Bolter, Warp Shaping
. Nemesis Force Sword: Nemesis Force Sword
Grand Master Voldus: Edict Imperator, Empyrean Domination, Warp Shaping
Troops
Strike Squad: Astral Aim
. Grey Knight (Daemon Hammer): Nemesis Daemon Hammer, Storm Bolter
. 3x Grey Knight (Sword): 3x Nemesis Force Sword, 3x Storm Bolter
. Grey Knight Justicar: Storm bolter
. . Nemesis Force Sword: Nemesis Force Sword
Strike Squad: Astral Aim
. Grey Knight (Daemon Hammer): Nemesis Daemon Hammer, Storm Bolter
. 3x Grey Knight (Falchions): 6x Nemesis Falchion, 3x Storm Bolter
. Grey Knight Justicar: Storm bolter
. . Nemesis Falchion: 2x Nemesis Falchion
Strike Squad: Astral Aim
. Grey Knight (Daemon Hammer): Nemesis Daemon Hammer, Storm Bolter
. 3x Grey Knight (Halberd): 3x Nemesis Force Halberd, 3x Storm Bolter
. Grey Knight Justicar: Storm bolter
. . Nemesis Force Halberd: Nemesis Force Halberd
Strike Squad: Astral Aim
. Grey Knight (Daemon Hammer): Nemesis Daemon Hammer, Storm Bolter
. 3x Grey Knight (Sword): 3x Nemesis Force Sword, 3x Storm Bolter
. Grey Knight Justicar: Storm bolter
. . Nemesis Force Sword: Nemesis Force Sword
Vanguard Detachment
HQ
Chaplain: 2. Words of Power, 4: First to the Fray, 6. Invocation of Focus, Ethereal Manipulation, Storm bolter, Warlord
Elites
Apothecary: Sanctuary
. Nemesis Daemon Hammer: Nemesis Daemon Hammer
Paladin Ancient: Vortex of Doom
. Storm Bolter and Falchion: Nemesis Falchion, Storm Bolter
Paladin Squad: Hammerhand
. 2x Paladin (Daemon Hammer): 2x Nemesis Daemon Hammer, 2x Storm Bolter
. 4x Paladin (Falchions): 8x Nemesis Falchion, 4x Storm Bolter
. 3x Paladin (Halberd): 3x Nemesis Force Halberd, 3x Storm Bolter
. Paragon: Storm Bolter
. . Nemesis Force Halberd: Nemesis Force Halberd
Vanguard Detachment
HQ
Grand Master: Gate of Infinity, Storm Bolter
. Nemesis Force Halberd: Nemesis Force Halberd
Elites
Venerable Dreadnought: Astral Aim, Twin lascannon
. Dreadnought combat weapon w/Storm Bolter: Storm bolter
Venerable Dreadnought: Astral Aim, Twin lascannon
. Dreadnought combat weapon w/Storm Bolter: Storm bolter
Venerable Dreadnought: Astral Aim, Twin lascannon
. Dreadnought combat weapon w/Storm Bolter: Storm bolter
Total: 1,998pts
So, that is where I am up to with my Ghost of Mortain. And to be honest, I don’t think ill be adding anything new to the army any time soon. I’m really happy with the way this force turned out and while I will continue to play with them, I think I’m ready to move on to a new project. As some of you will know, I recently started building up my own Chaos army (which may or may not have corrupted my one noble Knight Lance), and I’m already considering a new xenos faction for a new force. Still, my Ghost of Mortain have been a blast to build and paint and have given me no end of joy over the last couple of years and will continue to do so in the years to come.
And that will about do it for today. I’ll be back next week with Aprils painting log, so if you don’t want to miss out on that or any of the other great content we do please like and subscribe to keep up to date with all we do here at Master of Magics.
If you want to share your latest army projects, you can show me what you have been working on over on via twitter @MTGTengu or contact me in the comments below. If you have enjoyed todays article, you want to support the site directly, you can join our Patreon for as little as a $1 a month. Until next time though remember, “We are the hammer.”
