Will Grey Knights Change the game as we know it?

[AngelsofDeath]

There has been lots of talk and posts about the rules and such since the release of the Grey Knights codex. But there has not been much if any on how this codex and the way it operates will affect 40K and Assault overall as we know it. How are people going to deal with Int 6 (Halberds), Str 5 (Hammer Hand), a whole lot of psych tests, and all the other goodness that has been discussed?

As you might be led to believe, I am a Blood Angels player. I enjoy using Jump Pack Squads, Honor Guard, Sanguinary Guard, a mix of dreads, Death Company at times, and some vehicles. I have a pretty big army and like to change it up to have fun playing my army and to keep it from getting stale. What I feel now has changed is that Assault as we know it for certain armies like Space marines ( any flavor) and Dark Eldar is over. Not that the Grey Knights cant be beat in assault, but why bother when you can kill them at long range.

I see more and more marine armies becoming rolling armor lists, lots of guns, and more guns. I see IG lists doing very well against a GK army for the shear amount of firepower they can bring. Eldar are very flexable and the lists can be made to bring alot of peww peww lazer to bear on any enemy. Codexs like Orks and Nids will just have to overwhelm the GKs with shear numbers. This is all IMO. :)

What do you see as a new list or set up for your army? Should I just roll out the Razorback spam and Preds and put away the Jump Pack marines? Is it time for Blood Angels players to actually field "Tactical Troops"?

[MaltonNecromancer]

Wait, there's not a one-size fits all strategy that will always win you the game? You're best off tweaking your list to suit your opponent? Huh. Who knew?

:)

Joking aside, I've always thought the reliance on any one aspect of the game over another to be foolishness. Yes, your army might be better at assault or shooting, but most of the 5th ed codicies are pretty much good at both. Yes, IG are shooty, and BA are assaulty... but you can easily build lists that go in the opposite direction.

The internet meta portrays assault as the be-all and end-all.

It's not.

This is Not A Bad Thing.

[Bean]

Honestly, going to "tactical" type unit isn't really the right call, I think--Grey Knights are not really an assault-oriented army. Rather, they're a highly tactical army which does the tactical thing better than Space Marines. They're better in combat than Space Marines and they're better at shooting than Space Marines. Their support units are just as good if not better, both in terms of packing on close combat ability and in terms of packing on support shots.

All you've got, really, is numbers: four points a guy is a bargain, really, for force weapons, storm bolters, and hammerhand (compared to regular Tactical Marines) but that four points does mean that you're going to end up with somewhat more Tactical Marines than they've got Grey Knights.

If you stick with Assault Marines, you won't really have more stuff than they do, but you will have maneuverability on them. It'll be all about concentration of force, which will be difficult if your opponent is smart and just refrains from splitting up. I'm sure it won't be impossible, and, as a Blood Angel's player, you'll want to start by weening yourself off those priests and going for librarians instead--FNP is worthless against Force Weapons, and Psychic Hoods are gold against armies with piles of Ld:9 Hammerhands.

At this point, really, psychic powers are important enough to enough lists that you should probably be playing at least one librarian in that army, anyway.

[fuzzbuket]

no

[Cyberscape7]

I've heard a few people now saying that if the nids want to be able to beat the GK they need MASSIVE numbers. Correct me if I'm wrong but, won't shadow of the warp kind of murder grey knights?

[Xas]

I'd not start worrying for some stuff one army COULD have.

halberds are very expensive on the only unit that even borderlines the word "cheap" in the grey knights dex and so if you see them the unit will be extremely expensive.

and s5... whats so fancy about it? there are assoult elements in power armor out there that get ws5 AND furious charge (so they hit marines on 3s and wound them on 3s).


the game is still about assoulting the shooty stuff and shooting the assoulty stuff better than your oponent.

one-dimensional close combat armies will suffer to the grey knights not because they are so super powerfull but because they are an effective assoult (as in close range shooting and finish off in close combat) army like the tyranids (but even though nids are better at it the grey knights simply do not have some glaring weaknesses the nids sadly have).


if all the GKs will force people to build balanced lists because a well deisgned GK list can shoot any pure melee list to shreds while at same time chopping pure shooting lists into small bits (but actually marines have been able to do that. ppl ahve just been to stupid to realize and grey knights now got a bit more expensive but their ways are easier to spot for the broad masses).

[DarkLink]

Well, considering the str 5, I6 power weapons with 2 A base are either 26 or 40pts each, and all have very good shooting on top of that...

The thing that makes GKs different is that it isn't just 1-2 assault units per army that have enough power weapons to threaten you. It's every single unit in their army. And every single one of those units is also capable of outshooting most other armies equivalent assault units.

There's a reason GKs play very differently from other armies, other Marines included. Instead of having an assault unit, a shooty unit and a mobile unit, GKs have all of that shoved into each and every unit. Of course it costs a lot, which means that you need to take advantage of the ability to move, shoot and assault with every unit in your army in order to make up for that cost.

[Xeroen]

I run an all Jump Pack Blood Angels list and as I went through the Grey Knights codex found myself asking how I was supposed to deal with them at 1500 points with my current list. Short answer is that I can't. The 1500 point GK list I plan on building should mince through my Blood Angels fairly effortlessly, provided I'm in the dice gods' good-books, but ultimately, yes, Grey Knights can trump Blood Angels in an assault - assault centric Blood Angels suffer massively without their 3+ armour save and FNP. I think we BA DoA players are more concerned about Grey Knights due to what kind of and how we play our army than other players simply because they can deny us the advantages we're used to.

My solution is to take out a 235 point assault squad and add in two Baal Predators with assault cannons. Xas has called it pretty accurately, the game is still about assaulting the shooty stuff and shooting the assaulty stuff. Until now, my list has relied on overwhelming assaults, which wont work as well against Grey Knights, forcing me to adjust my list, adding previously lacking ranged ability, and improving its ability to take on all comers. Will it work? Dunno, not found out yet. ;)

[blackarmchair]

C:GK is a decent codex. It's good at what it's built to do and it has no great way of filling in the holes that it has.

The book, as a whole, actually doesn't assault that well. Standard GK have only a single attack and while people like to talk about hammerhand and force weapons they forget that everyone is bringing some kind of psychic defense these days. I run Njal in most games, he's hilariously good against GK.

GK have highly efficient shooting and solid counter-assault potential, they don't out-shoot IG (and some shooty BA mech-builds) and they certainly don't out assault most armies. Hordes will take their lunch money (purifiers aside) and Space Wolves/Blood Angels are FAR better in close-combat.

GK shoot Str6-7 in large numbers very efficiently. Everything else in the book is there either for fluff or to provide a mechanism to defend those shooting elements.

[Nungunz]

C:GK is a decent codex. It's good at what it's built to do and it has no great way of filling in the holes that it has.

The book, as a whole, actually doesn't assault that well. Standard GK have only a single attack and while people like to talk about hammerhand and force weapons they forget that everyone is bringing some kind of psychic defense these days. I run Njal in most games, he's hilariously good against GK.

GK have highly efficient shooting and solid counter-assault potential, they don't out-shoot IG (and some shooty BA mech-builds) and they certainly don't out assault most armies. Hordes will take their lunch money (purifiers aside) and Space Wolves/Blood Angels are FAR better in close-combat.

This, this right here. GK aren't actually 'ZOMG ROFLSTOMP' good at CC. Those units that are good at CC pay a hell of a lot of points to do it (purifiers, Dreadknights, etc) or are fairly easy to kill (henchmen warbands) or kinda just suck (Paladins) IMO.


GK shoot Str6-7 in large numbers very efficiently. Everything else in the book is there either for fluff or to provide a mechanism to defend those shooting elements.

This is what I fear the most. GK can put out a ton of high S firepower at the 24" range and psylemen dreads are scary as heck.

[gcsmith]

Problem with the statment of pyschic defense, wat about armies like Tau who have none, or BT who lose their only defense to actually do combat...

[thecactusman17]

I think that right now, there is realistically only one army that has to be utterly terrified of GK (Orks, in case you were wondering). Besides that one army, every other army has options to counter them. The GK's primary close combat ability is NOT the S5 power or purifiers, it's really just the fact that every last one has a power weapon base attack. This is going to make grappling with them in CC pretty ugly, but after the power weapon base attack the codex is actually just a decent mid-range shooting list with lots of S6-7 and some fancy, fairly effective tricks during deployment.

I think that minus a few of the characters (especially GKGMs) GKs are not too powerful on the whole, given the expensive, fragile nature of their army. Seriously, T4 3+ is NOT that hard to get through in small numbers, and even at 2500+ points there just aren't enough models on the board to immunize against dice bucketing (unlike, say , Guard) by a comparable army. Under the right circumstances, I would happily suggest that even Tau and Necrons could both cause a whole lot of trouble against a Grey Knights codex if in the hands of a good player.

[gcsmith]

I have a massive problem with the brother captains. :P They are just insane for 100 points taking anyone with them, such silliness.

[isotope99]

I have a massive problem with the brother captains. :P They are just insane for 100 points taking anyone with them, such silliness.

I don't think we'll see too many as the HQ is v crowded but obvious solution is to assign all attacks to their unit and try to break them rather than kill them.

[DarkLink]

You mean Brotherhood Champions, right? The ones with only one wound and not very many attacks? And the ones that have to pass a psychic test and actually hit with an attack in order to take someone with them (that's a 40%+ chance of failure), and even then they have to actually be in base contact with your scary dude to kill him?

Yeah, not broken.

[gcsmith]

Its still scary to tau who will be in combat, and have 0 pyscic defense.

[DarkLink]

Yeah, because Tau can stand up to other Grey Knight units really well.

[w7west]

I doubt they will change the game as we know it and here is why:

In general most armies are equipped to take out at least one power armored squad simply through one long range (36+) shooting phase.

Regardless of how many bells and whistles they may have, gk are power armor and die as easily as the rest.

They would need a significant way to get around this since each lost squad hurts GK more than any other army.

[blackjack]

The only change to the way armies play is increased emphasis on psi defence. Hoods Shut down ld9 psi very easly.

The only army screwed by GK is Daemons not Orcs.

[DarkLink]

No, orks are pretty screwed. 'nidz are, too, though to a lesser extent. Daemons still have some units even GKs will have trouble dealing with, and now everyone will take Blessing of the Blood God on every Khorne Daemon they can.


And psychic defense is far less important against Gks than you might think, aside from GK Librarians of course. GW did a great job of giving everyone cool and useful psychic powers, but not making the army rely on them.

[AngelsofDeath]

Alot of great points made for sure. I have been running mainly a DoA army and was concerned that I would not do well in assault against the GKs. I usually go ball to the wall, get my units into HtH as fast as possible and let my opponent pick up the bodies. With GKs its not that easy, the force weapons and I6 from the halbards chewed me up. I changed my tactics and added a bit more shooty and did fine on the next game.

I will say that I pulled out my plain old Space Marine army with lots of shooty and ruined the GKs. Food for thought.....

[fuzzbuket]

GK dont have S6 anymore
GK dont have cheap stomies/ flamers/incinetaros anymore
GK dont have cheap terminator inquisitors anymore

the force swords/ staves arnt too useful anymore :(

in CC gk are not that good!

p.s. anyone else notice having regular GK carry swords is COMPLETLEY usless! :(

[Kamsm8]

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait...

Since when has a squad full of power weapons ever been considered totally useless? Especially when they can be at S5?

[fuzzbuket]

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait...

Since when has a squad full of power weapons ever been considered totally useless? Especially when they can be at S5?

but for 5pts you can have +2I 0r for +10 pts you can ahave +1A

the force swords ability only works on termies in CC :(

[DarkLink]

the force swords ability only works on termies in CC :(

????

Have you actually read the codex? Every. Single. Grey. Knight. Has. A. Force. Weapon.

Every unit can inflict instant death with all its nemesis weapons. Every unit also has hammerhand, so you can be str 5. And considering that GKs are cheaper and have a wide range of buffs, Gks are now better in cc against everything but orks and gaunts, and thanks to the increased number of storm bolters orks and gaunts are less of a problem than before.

[Col_Festus]

I think Grey Knights will change the way people play a bit simply because they play differently themselves. This is one of the first armies that has buffs that affect large parts of their list via pyskic powers. Bar none I have a feeling Grey Knights will probably be the most tactically flexible army out there. They have to be or else their small numbers mean nothing. Have a way for the units to switch roles on the fly is what will make them good, and fun to play... IMO. When they need to they can stand still a blast things with pyscannons and str 5 storm bolters, or if they need to assaut the can hammer hand and charge in. Units like the librarian will be key in augmenting the current strengths of the units. I have a feeling you will also see lots of Vindicare assassins, not necessarily for their tank busting ability (which is great) but for sniping out pesky characters that have pyskic hoods, runes of warding, or what have you ;)

[Xas]

p.s. anyone else notice having regular GK carry swords is COMPLETLEY usless! :(

I noticed the total difference: equipping them with anything BUT swords (melee weapons that is, shooty ones are still good upgrades) is totally useless.


the swords may have no special ability (other than ignoring armor and ruining multi-wond guys) but its cheap.


on termies however I'll allways pick I6, 5++ over I4 and 4++(melee)/5++(ranged).

only models I relly like plain swords on for their abilities are the guys that come with an iron halo (grandmaster, brother captain and chaplain-y guy)... who needs an ugly stormshield when you get a 3++ simply for BEEING AWESOME! ? :D

[plawolf]

????

Have you actually read the codex? Every. Single. Grey. Knight. Has. A. Force. Weapon.

Every unit can inflict instant death with all its nemesis weapons. Every unit also has hammerhand, so you can be str 5. And considering that GKs are cheaper and have a wide range of buffs, Gks are now better in cc against everything but orks and gaunts, and thanks to the increased number of storm bolters orks and gaunts are less of a problem than before.

I think he meant the sword improving inv save is wasted on GKSS since they never had an inv save to buff to start with.

[plawolf]

only models I relly like plain swords on for their abilities are the guys that come with an iron halo (grandmaster, brother captain and chaplain-y guy)... who needs an ugly stormshield when you get a 3++ simply for BEEING AWESOME! ? :D

I was a bit disappointed at the lack of storm shield options (only 1 guy has one, which is silly), although with stormshields and swords, everyone gets 2++ in CC and 3++ against ranged, and I can see how that might not go down too well with non-GK players. :p

[DarkLink]

Grey Knights have always played very differently from pretty much every other army. GKs are good (but not the best) at every phase of the game. Everything can move and shoot (you're not taking psilencers, right?), they can shoot very well (their only flaw being a lack of melta), and every unit is very competent in CC.

Gks are basically the polar opposite of Eldar. Instead of having a unit to blow up tanks (fire dragons), a unit to take objectives (dire avengers/jetbikes), a unit to buff other units (farseer), the Gk ability in each area of the game is distributed across every unit. Every unit can move and fight efficiently. You have no one unit to kill tanks, but you have lots of psycannons scattered across your army.

As a result, the Gk army is very flexible. You don't have to take your assault unit and ram it down your opponent's throat for it to do anything useful. You can hold it back and shoot with it. Your shooty units can move forward and join the assaults if need be.

In short, GKs are everything tactical Marines wished they were.

[AngelsofDeath]

In short, GKs are everything tactical Marines wished they were.

So nicely put DarkLink. Your whole post actually, but didnt want to QUOTE the whole thing.

[Dalleron]

Meh, my SoB army doesn't give a lick about the force weapon parts. S6 power weapons are still gonna be nasty, but hopefully I can kill them before combat is reached.

[DarkLink]

But you do care about the power weapon part, at least a little bit. You don't have an unlimited supply of Faith Points, and you're going to want to use your rending power a lot.

Biggest problem I see for Sisters is that Sisters need to get close to hurt the GKs. Exorcists give you a fighting chance, but if the GK player can shut down the Exorcists then he can just pick off your Rhinos and kite your Sisters with Storm Bolters. Once you're whittled down, the GKs can clean up in CC.

Exorcists will be the Sister's best weapon against GKs, now that GKs don't rely on Land Raiders to function.

[Astral Platypus]

Every game I have played against Grey Knight's with my Space Wolves has been pretty competitive thus far. The fact that I generally have a lot more attacks has balanced out the Grey Knights power weapons. If my opponent has a Paladin Death Star unit I do everything I can to save it for last; this strategy has worked out pretty well for me. The fact that my army almost always includes vindicators means I haven't had to change tactics to address Grey Knights much.

A friend of mine has fought them a couple of times using CSM and the only changes he has made to his army are to include units he probably should have been using anyway (Obliterators in particular). He typically fields three units of two obliterators each to do a lot of his heavy army cracking and just lets his troops be troops, which has worked out for him pretty well.

[DarkLink]

My first couple games were against SWs, and I'd agree they're a pretty good matchup. SWs are one of the top armies in the game, and GKs can go toe to toe with them.

In fact, I would grant Gks a bit of an advantage over SWs with the right types of lists. Psyrifle dreads can wreck half their razorbacks in a turn, long fangs can be storm boltered to death and missile launchers aren't that great against GKs since Gks only really need to get into the midfield. That's one turn of movement and it doesn't matter too much if you blow up their Rhinos. And any shooting at Rhinos is not shooting at psyrifle dreads, and any shooting not at them is not shooting dudes with psycannons.

[Exterminatus]

Nope not gona change the game as we know it... Put a lil fear back into some people when the word Grey Knight is mentiond, u bet :)

"To the righteous we bring hope. To the tainted we bring fire."

- Castellan Garran Crowe