5th Ed Grey Knights Tactical Conjecture

[Shyft]

Due to the recent upswing of rumors and leaks regarding the new Daemonhunters/Grey Knights codex, I have been gripped by the overwhelming desire to discuss the tactical choices that may become availible to them.

However, I'm all too aware that this post is probably 'off topic' for the forum, and will understand completely if a mod decides to move/delete it at their discretion.

With that out of the way, time for conjecture!

The Stormraven Gunship.

Assuming this unit makes it into the Codex, and it maintains most of the special rules and options allowed by the Blood Angels codex, I am wondering just how much this will change Grey Knight playstyle

Offhand, it means i have a reason to take a Fast Attack choice. Granted, with the 3rd edition codex, my personal choices were basically limited to "All GK troops + HQ squad of terminators and 3 LRs" and no much else.

So, having a Fast Skimmer, with Transport and Assault Ramp, as well as myriad guns of impressive/useful sorts, offers all kinds of interesting possibilities! Rapid, highly manuverable anti-Tank? Admittedly I would assume the Stormraven would be a high priority target. And sadly, aside from say, moving 12" and then popping a tank with the multimelta, i am unsure of how long-term they could be. iirc, the Blood Angels version had PotMS as well.

Again, apologies if this post should be put elsewhere, otherwise, I look forward to Discussion

[Force21]

My question is can the Blood Angel Stormraven carry Terminators?

I am guessing no....& if so then they can only carry a small squad.


so that would make possibly 2 different list that will be used.

#1 Stormravens everywhere with quite a few(for GK at least) Power Armor Knights zooming around with lots of shots, a good charge but lack of staying power with no Invulnerable saves...

or #2 Terminator spam in Landraiders...low model count but insane in hand to hand, Heros, just more punch...


I think Stormravens gunships are just the way they should be used as gunships there for fire support & if a flank needs reinforcements just drop them off & continue shooting away....not just zoom them up dump the Knights & hope they don't get shot down. there not DE Raiders.

thats my two cents.

[DarkLink]

Yes, the storm raven can carry terminators.

Unfortunately, we don't know enough about the codex to really have too much conjecture. There's a number of things that can have a huge effect on how the GKs will play.

For example, there are rumors of the ability to deepstrike, and that units will be able to use Gate of Infinity, with some restrictions. If this is true, then it very well could become standard practice to drop down on a flank, hammer half the opponent's army, then use GoI to jump around the board before the opponent can react effectively.

We also don't know what will happen with the Shrouding. If we retain it, and particularly if it is buffed to be equal to nightfight, then it will be vital to master maneuvering to take full advantage of that. With a buffed nightfight, then games vs Gks will be like Aliens versus Marines. If the Marines can ever get a good shot at the Alien, they can kill it fairly easily. But the Alien is too sneaky to get caught in the open so easily, so a good player could pick apart the opponent's army while taking advantage of the Shrouding for protection.


Either way, I think that the Grey Knights will be the masters of the Death Star unit. A force of GKs will be able to achieve absolute local fire superiority, and the enemy will have to be able to maneuver to bring their full firepower to bear in order to be able to counter the Death Star.

[Shyft]

Yeah, I'm fully aware that this is 4-5 months out, and everything is subject to change.

I'm not sure if i'd like Terminators in a Stormraven. But then again I prefer to run 8-man terminator squads out of 3e Grey Knights. 5 Termies just feels... Underwhelming. More over I'd use a Stormraven as mobile gunplatform/tankhunter. Regretably it would fall into the same trap as the Dreadnought; your only source of anti-tank and then it dies on turn 2, GG.

as far as Deep Striking goes, i imagine they wouldn't remove one of THE defining elements of the original codex; of all GK units short of Dread and the LR to deep strike. Hopefully though they'll do something about the 'PAGK becomes FAGK', because in context of 5th edition, that rule RUINED my ability to do interesting things.

Combat Tactics for PAGK squads is also going to be hilarious, assuming it makes it in.

And the Shrouding, yes, I look forward to a superior or at least not horrible version of this rule. It has saved a unit one out of every 4 rolls or so previously. Hopefuly a 1/2 spread or even 1/3rd would be in the cards.

[DarkLink]

Your opponent must not like to get close to you. Shrouding only ever saves my stuff when the opponent has the bad luck to roll triple 1s or something. I just like to annoy my opponent to make them roll it:rolleyes:.


If psycannons get the rumored rending profile, then they'll likely become standard issue. That way every squad will have a fairly good chance of killing a vehicle at range (~44% chance to pen AV 13, and 29% chance to pen AV 14). Combine that with a few dedicated anti-tank units, and GKs might not have such a problem with vehicles anymore, despite the possibility of losing strength 6 CC attacks.

[Shyft]

Oh, as far as Shrouding goes, they mostly helped my Terminators weather fire from a Vendetta gunship armed with lascannons, in recent memory. They also helped deal with the IG missle platform.

Once I however Did get a Triple 1 result on shrouding. Suffice to say my terminators went into CC and cleaned house that day.

and yeah, Str 7 Rending is nothing to laugh at. Assuming Heavy 4 like some rumors i've seen, that'd be a fair threat. Speaking of Rending, if the Vindicare gets the rumored upgrades, hooo boy. 4d6 on top of normal sniper-rifle rending?

[plawolf]

Well if the rumors about all GK vehicles getting psy powers to boost one facing of armor by 2 is true, then I see the storm raven (SR) replacing the LR as the must have heavy support choice.

With that power boost, you are looking at AV14 up front. That makes the SR just as tough as the LR even if you don't go flat out to get the cover save.

If the GK SR is the same as the BA SK in all other aspects, you are looking at one hell of an alpha strike platform, that can pump out up to 4 hell strikes as we as a twin-linked lascannon shot on the turn it comes in. With AV14 up front, it will probably still be alive next turn to boost up and dump your CC specialists in the hole you just blasted in the enemy's lines.

It will be interesting to see what GK dreds options look like to see if it is worthwhile transporting them using the SR. Maybe the dreadknight MC could be carried in the dred carrier instead? That would be interesting.

If Psycannons are S7 with rending, then thats like an autocannon on steroids as it is superior in every way except for the range. With TL psycannon razorbacks, SR, and the new Vindicare, the GK army's Achilles Heel of poor AV may now be a thing of the past even if they cannot get many meltas.

I feel that the new GKs will be highly reliant on their psy powers, so anti-anti psyker will be a key issue, as a farseer or Hooded Librarian could cause a lot of disruption or even damage by neutralizing the GK psy powers.

I have a feeling that if GKs become as powerful as rumored, the meta game might shift slightly to make counter psyker to become an even more important element of army builds then now.

That might in turn mean the Cullexus would become a must take model to give you a good chance to take out your opponent's psyker defenses so your GKs can using all their tricks and toys to win.

Just based on what has been leaked so far, I see psycannons, SR and assassins would become the most important and useful units any competitive GK list would need to include.

[Shyft]

Yeah, Psychic Powers are 2nd to Mech as far as metagame dominance, i'm going to lament the loss of my infinite-range psychic hood.

I personally prefer Land Raiders over the Storm Raven's anemic troop carrying capacity, though the Assault Ramp is incredibly tempting. I personally also enjoy the idea of putting hurricane bolters on the SR's sponsons. Dunno about the hellstrike missles though.

In theory, if you could find the FoC for it, a squad of PAGK with Incinerators in a SR would be choice. Regretably, Terminators seem to straddle the line between best as footsloggers leveraging their psycannon range (as of 3-4th ed). If psycannons remain 36" max range... Dunno.

I'm curious as all get out about the hypothetical 'Dreadknight'. Feels like a sort of Wraithlord-alike.

and yeah, AV options seem to be swelling up. Razorbacks too are no slouches in terms of asasult transport capability. iirc they don't have the Assault Ramp rule, but otherwise, they'd be choice in getting men and guns into range across no-man's land without dying horribly. Hell, if the Razorbacks have the option of lascannons, that's yet more anti-armor to take.

and the Assassins are going to be huge wildcards. My love for the vindicare is like a truck, and the rumored buffs make it an almost must-have in my lists. the Culexus is also going to be incredibly handy, though i also love the Callidus.

[DarkLink]

The rumored assault cannon stats would be far better than any lascannon. Heck, assault cannons are better anti-tank than lascannon, with the sole exception of range.



Currently, there's a big problem with putting psycannons on GKTs. You end up with 70-80 point models that give you a handful of str 6 shots, then get stuck in combat. You can make it work, but it's very inefficient in an army that is very overpriced in the first place.

However, with the new stats then it might be prudent to take psycannons anyways. With low model count armies, you'll need to have every single squad capable of handling a wide variety of circumstances.

[Shyft]

indeed.

Query: What do you mean 'Assault Cannon' stats? A hypothetical Assault Psycannon?

[plawolf]

I have always played GKs like a shooting army. All too often people loose because they get hung up on the S6 CC attacks and think GKs are the last word in CC because of it. They are not, and CC is probably the most dangerous place for your GKTs since there are far more CC weapons that ignore their 2+ armor than shooty weapons, and CC weapons also have more attacks as well as two assault rounds per turn instead of one shooting one.

All that means you loose models far easier and quicker in CC than shooting.

I will run GKTs with max psycannons possible, and will prob even attach a second BC with psycannon both to boost the shooting potential as well as act as a speed bump when you really cannot avoid CC any longer. The squad retreat 6" while shooting and the lone BC stands his ground. If I have the points, I also tend to give him word of the Emperor (hope this doesn't go). That normally gives me an extra turn of shooting as well as the option to charge instead of receiving a charge.

I think death cult assassins will be what you put in SRs to start with. They are killy enough to pack a punch, but should be cheaper than GKTs so you would be more afford to use them as a suicide hammer squad. An =I= with storm shield and PW/TH warriors and other buffing hangers on might also make a surprisingly effective CC unit. They may not be all that killy (or thy might! Too early to tell), but if they have 10pt SS than they should make a damn effective tarpit unit to tie up the enemy's deathstar for much of the game.

GKTs are best footslogging to maximize their relentless psycannons as well as take advantage of shrouding and cover whenever possible.

As for the new assault cannon stats, I too am interested to learn more as this is the first I have heard of it. Or was this referring to the rumored gatling psycannon?

[DarkLink]

I used to play GKTs with psycannons until it started losing games (BTW, it's losing, not loosing). Grey Knights will end up in close combat, and it usually needs to be your terminators to handle that. I would end up with my normal GKs in combat where they would inevitably get ground down, while my GKTs were stuck in the back field taking peashots with strength 6.

Wasn't long until I realized that I would do much better using my actual assault units as assault units. Counter assault with GKTs out of Land Raiders, while using the Land Raiders to pop tanks and normal GKs to shoot. Much cheaper, and much more efficient.



Query: What do you mean 'Assault Cannon' stats? A hypothetical Assault Psycannon?

No, an actual Assault Cannon.

[Xas]

tbh I think even the current DH codex with the simple addition of the stormraven and updates on modern wargear (stormshields) would be amazing.

all a good player suffers from with GKs is big tanks and those are easily dealth with by a 24" moving, PotMS twinlinked multimelter flyer (assuming they fix the wording this time so it isnt a coinflip if PotMS has any use on stormravens ;) ).


What I dont like is the rumor that all GKs will now carry actual force weapons. not only will this be useless against 50% of the armies (against marines ignoring armor is nice even if you lose +2S but against guard, orks, eldar and nids it is crap. wounding MCs on 4+ with a 3+ save is far more funny than wounding on 6s and ignoring armor and then trying a psycheck with LDS~8 on 3d6) but also remove much of their anti-tank (s6 into rear is AM A ZING!).


Judging from the BA book and dreads I can easily see a good tactic beeing a HQ+elite and 1 troops in two stormravens and 2 psyker dreads (assuming elite as well) as a spearhead with the rest used for some "tactical" squads (~8gk with psycannons as much as you can fit) for the midfield and 1-2 heavy support units/tanks to open up rhinos&chimaeras.

[DarkLink]

Stormravens and updated wargear would be a step forward, but GKs would still have some big problems. 25 points is about 4-5 too many under the current rules, and ISTs aren't that great either. GKTs are great, but can't handle everything. Unit costs and special rules would have to be adjusted to balance the codex, and they would still have issues with anti-tank and deathstar units. Though 3+ stormshields would go a long ways to helping with the deathstars.


GK leadership is likely going up. Someone mentioned that they would have a statline similar to a SM sergeant, and implied that he meant everyone was Ld 10 and had 2 attacks. And if GKs are actually cheaper now than they were, then having str 4 power weapons that can insta-kill stuff will actually be a really good trade-off for str 6 weapons.

And against Orks or Guard, str 4 power weapons with an extra attack on the charge are actually just as good, or even better than, str 6. Even a 6+ armor save can make a difference statistically, and the extra attack makes it better than str 6. They'll also be better at killing Carnifexes and the like, as before even with str 6 you still had to get past the armor and cause 4 wounds. Now you just need a single wound for the leadership test.


Just for fun, comparing one current GK and one rumored new GK. I'll assume WS 5, 2A and str 4 power weapon for the new GKs.

On the charge against Orks:
Old: 2 attacks, 1.33 hits, 1.111 wounds, .926 orks die.
New: 3 attacks, 2 hits, 1 wound, 1 ork dies.

Next turn:
Old: 2 attacks, 1.33 hits, 1.111 wounds, .926 orks die.
New: 2 attacks, 1.33 hits, .667 wounds, .667 orks die.

So even against orks with only a 6+ save, you're slightly better on the charge and not too much worse on the next turn. And remember that orks are very vulnerable to storm bolters and incinerators, so hordes aren't too much of a problem in the first place.

On the other hand, against anything with a halfway decent armor save, you're doing significantly better. Plus, your opponent would have to be an idiot to want to get his IC or MC into close combat with a decent sided squad of GKs, because it will be nearly suicidal unless he has plenty of other stuff to overwhelm the GKs anyways. And I can tell you that GKs currently do have a problem with ICs catching GK squads and wiping them out in CC.


Considering how much else will get buffed in the rest of the codex, I wouldn't complain much about replacing str 6 with str 4 force weapons. It's actually not a bad deal most of the time, and a very good one in a lot of circumstances.

[Shyft]

I'm going to miss auto-ganking Gaunts. Hopefully Terminators remain Str 6. Or the upgrade is cheap enough to get +2 str back.

I'm still horribly confused by what you mean by 'assault cannon'. I mean, the old DH asscan is Heavy 3 and lacks rending, the 4e-5e is Heavy 4 rending, so... Yeah, unless i'm missing something, it's not going to be that big of a change.

[DarkLink]

Heavy 4, Rending. The DH one is the only one in the game that isn't like that anymore, and it's certainly the only one that's better at killing a Land Raider than a lascannon.

[Daemonette666]

I they give Psycannons and Incinerators the continued ability to ignore invulnerable saves, then they should keep the AP of the weapons around 4 ot 5, so armies have a chance to save against them, especially if the Psycannon gets rending. Why not back up the storm raven with land speeders for the GK. Opponents would be trying to snipe at them as they speed around shooting your troops in cover or blasting at your tanks rear armour. your Power Armour GKs (PAGK) and Flak Armour GK's (FAGK) - well this is the only thing I could think of for FAGK, would own the enemy. Mind you to cover the cost of all the fluff rules, their cost should be kept expensive. That or modify the shroud rule to allow certain only HQ's and characters to provide a shroud area/ zone, and any unit fully covered by a shroud gets to use the ability. Similar in a way to the Tyranid Synapse creatures 12" disruption range against psykers.

Since Grey Knights are really just the Corpse Emperor's experiment to create an anti-daemon/psyker Space Marine army, that also has a high degree of psychic abilities, then where are their initiates/ scouts? They should allow a scout class for them. It would provide a cheaper options points wise, and the Grey Knights could have some nice scout weapons to boost their weaponry. Still have the incinerators, and psycannon, but allow them to use a sniper rifle with special rules, and cammo cloaks. Your enemy would have to be able to see you, then once they wounded you (T4), you would get a 3+ cover save.

Just some ideas, but as we all know, the codex is written, and we can only wait and see what they have done to make them even better than the previous codex (codex creep or bust).

[DarkLink]

Actually, if you think about it there are very, very few units with 3+ armor and an invulnerable, excluding HQs and characters. A couple monstrous creatures, seer councils on jetbikes, Twolf cavalry and command squads.

Plus, AP3 and no invulnerable saves allows GKs to take down Daemon Princes and Bloodthirsters. Appropriate, no?

Ignoring invulnerable saves isn't as useful as some people would think. Most units with invulnerables are either Terminators, or HQs buried inside unit where they aren't exposed anyways. It's just the occasional special case like Fateweaver or Seer Councils where it's really nice.

[Shyft]

Chaos Daemons, mostly the troops choices iirc, are all invul save types as well.

[Daemonette666]

What if you were to play in a game of Apoc, or had a friendly game, where you bought transport vehicles such as rhinos and landraiders , or maybe something like a plague tower oif nurgle and when the daemons arrived, you mounted them in it.
For a tag team game you could have one player CSM and the other Daemons. The Landraiders would be nasty. Mount Daemonettes in one, and Khorne Breserkers in another (after they arrived on first turn) Attach a Chaos Marine IC with an icon to each of the units, and you race across the table to meet the GK's, along with your other CSM troops mounted in rhinos . The other CSM forces are then able to assist, them or hold objectives while the rest of the Daemons get summoned in later turns. to retake objectives, snatch objectives given up by the GK player and his/her ally reacting to your forces. Sure there would be enemy GK deep striking units, and you would not know what army the ally is taking, but it is a sound nasty tactic.

If they make it so GK troops and ICs ignore both armour saves and invulnerable saves in Close Combat, then they would be too powerful and no-one would win against them in CC except maybe hoards with a high ammount of attacks, and fearless units. The GK would try to mow them down with incinerators before they got too close though.

[DarkLink]

Why would they make GKs completely ignore invulnerable saves in CC? And since they're supposed to have force weapons, ICs and MCs are in trouble against them anyways, invulns or no.