Grey Knights: Advice Wanted!

[Jokubas]

I'll try not to bore with too many details, but here goes...

Daemonhunters was my first army, and I got them when they were new. I never had the chance to play too often, however, and I haven't kept up much with the game.

The updated Grey Knights seem like an awesome thing to come back to, but I'm torn between a lot of things. There's a lot I could say, but I'll try to sum up what matters. I don't know the game too well, and I don't want to put a lot of money into an army that turns out to be completely useless, so I need some preemptive advice. However, I care more about my army looking nice and having a good story than winning, so power isn't everything.

So far, the definite most haves to me are Paladins and Purifiers. I always love things named Paladins, don't ask, and it's even what got me to get Daemonhunters in the first place (long story). Purifiers because I really like the idea of them.

Now, I'd love to take Draigo and Crowe to make them troops, since I'm not interested in vanilla power or even terminator armored troops as much anymore. However, I've heard a lot of strong arguments against Crowe, especially in smaller point armies, which is what I'd prefer to focus on.

Not to mention, that would fill up my HQ choices, and I'd like room to experiment. I have a backstory developed for an Inquisitor with a daemonhammer and I'd love to flesh out his retinue, but I've heard bad things about that setup too. As much as I care about the flavor of my army, I still want it to have a chance in battle.

For Purifiers, I wanted to equip them with Incinerators to really play up the fire theme, and maybe give the rest falchions to just give some variety and crazy extra attacks to the army, but I hear the halberds are really good on them. Does my idea seem viable at all?

I used to really like Dreadnoughts, and even have the Forge World one sitting around with a melee weapon and a lascannon (the only pieces I have for it, so those are set in), but the Dreadknights are tearing me away. I don't particularly care for the default look, but I've already seen some relatively simple conversions that make it pretty cool to me. Not to mention I've always wanted the Grey Knights to have something comparable to a Monstrous Creature to go up against them with. Visually, however, it just seems weird to me to have both in one army.

I don't particularly care for vehicles, which is unfortunate due to how useful they apparently are. I just think their boxy aesthetic is boring and completely at odds with the rest of the Grey Knights, and I am not skilled enough to convert them to something more fitting of my image.

I just felt overwhelmed after I looked through the Codex, saw all this neat variety that wasn't there before, only to hear that most of it is either overcosted or not worth it in small armies. I'm looking at probably somewhere around 1500 points, and I've had a hard time fitting anything good into that.

I like Psilencers and Gatling Psilencers visually, but Psycannons usually seem a better choice from what I've been reading. I'd love to try out a Purgation Squad, but don't know what weaknesses it might have to shore up. I wanted jump/teleport troops before, so I'd be willing to experiment with the Interceptors, but I just don't know what to do with them, especially in relation to everything else.

Lastly, Dawn of War 2 really made me like Techmarines. I'd love to convert a real Grey Knighty one, but can't think of a way it'd really make sense in this army.

For the record, I currently have 5 Terminators and 20 PAGKs from the old models, so they're all halberded up and stuff. For cost and converting reasons, I probably won't want my Paladin squad to have more than 5 men right now, but I'd love to get a new box for them. I really want to try out new things like banners which I've never had before.

I don't know if my point has been vague, so I'll just say that I'd like some advice and opinions about the various options I mentioned or any other thoughts anyone has about the new Grey Knights.

[jmach]

Purifiers are one of the best options in the book, and halberds are the way to go on them as far as weapons go, however falchions might be good as well to an extent of a couple having them but last I heard and someone more up to date on the debate on falchions is that they either grant just the +1 attack or +2 attacks (1 from 2 cc weapons, and 1 from their ability), if it's the +2 then I wouldn't see any reason not to throw in a couple pairs in a full 10 man squad.

Paladins are also good too, new players just picking up grey knights because they're the new hot thing might look at them as extremely expensive for what they are, but when you rationalize what we used to spend on a 5 man squad in the old codex, it's really not bad at all.

Yes, Crowe is an absolute pile of a character. He is not an independent character so he slogs out there by himself. However, he does make purifiers troops which if you want to take an entire purifier army with some support like dreadnaughts or dreadknights with them that 150 points is somewhat worth it to make it happen.

Draigo is good but expensive, and if you build the paladin army you're looking at 2 squads of terminators with draigo thrown in there for around 1000-1300 points depending on how many you get per squad and what you give them for upgrades.

I'm not one to give advice on the inquisitorial retinue squads as I only played grey knights out of the daemonhunters codex and only took an inquisitor to allow me to take an assassin and to soak wounds.

One thing you will have to learn to work with is that grey knights are now more than they were a mid-range army, since psycannons are 24 inches instead of the old assault 18 heavy 36 variety, and you'll need to have something that can provide some sort of long range support or work out getting them to your opponents lines quickly via the deepstrikes, vehicles, personal teleporters, or librarian powers. Look at the autocannon dreadnaughts with psybolt ammo, and the vindicare assassin for the longer range support, both are amazing and your opponent has to deal with them.

Also psycannon is the way to go, psilencer is a complete waste in my eyes, but the gatling psilencer on the dreadknight might be decent for the horde armies and for demons since it's 12 shots to pair up with whatever other gun you might give him.

Grand Master is a solid choice for HQ with his grenade selections and special rules he can hand out so try out using him on occasion even though draigo can hand out rules as well.

This info is from my opinions and based off of the 16 games I've played with the new codex so far, so other people might have more insight than I will on your questions and they will definitely be able to help you with your inquisitor and retinue questions.

[Mr.Pickelz]

if you want a techmarine in there, pop him next to a couple of Psyfile Dreads. That is a dreadnought that has 2 twin-linked autocannons and psybolt ammo. give him some servitors and rad grenades and your set.

The biggest problem with elites slot in new codex is the cost of everything. Because stuff costs so much(for the awesomeness) you won't really fill up your elites slots. unless that is your goal. Another way to run purifiers, that is with out crowe is take;
1-2 GrandMasters for your hq's(i'd always take a libby/GM but that's my opinon)
3 Purifiersquads (in your elites)
2 GKSS(troops) loaded out with psycannons.
Then a dreadnought or two loaded out as explained above and you've pretty much got a solid list. tweak it as you like.

[DarkLink]

Coteaz is an Inquisitor with a Daemonhammer. Just sayin'.

Both Crowe and Driago can give you a decent small army by spamming purifiers or paladins respectively. You probably won't get first at 'ard boyz, but you're probably not worried about that anyways. Crowe himself may suck, but you can make the army work pretty well.


As for the 'not worth it in small armies', that's all the bandwagon people talking, who don't know what they're talking about. We Gk players are taking more models than we've ever been able to before. I used to never use more than 10 Terminators and 20Gks, and then only in 2000+pt games. Now I've tried lists with twice as many models in smaller point games.

Yeah, GKs are expensive. Yeah, you can't afford 4 HQs and still take 50 dudes in razorbacks. That's not how GKs play. Gks are not Space Wolves, so don't play them like they were.

[Jokubas]

I did realize that some of those people were on a bandwagon when I started hearing the complete opposite elsewhere, but without it being easy for me to see how things work out myself right now, I wanted to get a larger variety of opinions.

I'll keep a lot of this in mind as it's really helped. I'm still torn on a few things, but I guess those are personal opinions I'll have to work out. :P

Assuming I start with decked out Paladins and Incinerator-equipped, fire-themed Purifiers, what do I need to shore up? Anti-tank?

[NidzillaFTW]

I've played a few games with the Draigo + Paladins combo. If you are going to keep the squad small (Say Draigo + 5 Paladins) i'd recommend foregoing the Banner and apothecary and getting them some kind of delivery device (Land Raider or Stormraven). I've tried to march such a squad across the board before and they just get torn up by Plasma or melta fire. You'll want to get them into close combat as quickly as possible and both the land raider and stormraven effectively allow you to assault a unit that is 18" away. In addition, both vehicles can provide some long distance anti-tank capabilities that the GK's sorely lack.

if you want to keep your army infantry based, then I'd recommend taking at least 7 paladins + Draigo in the same unit and giving them the banner and an apothecary.

I never give my Paladins "shooty" upgrades, as I intend for them to spend the majority of their time in close combat. Leave the shooting to your Psycannon upgaded strike squads or Purgation squads.

The Vindicare assassin is awesome for anti-tank (S3+4d6+rending)

[DarkLink]

The only time you should ever not take psycannons is if you're sticking them in a transport to assault, just as a general rule.

Grey Knights can deal with infantry very well, either with storm bolters (and psycannons) or in close combat. Grey Knights, however, are not very good at getting those infantry out of their razorback spam. The more psycannons, the better, though designing your list around psycannon spam won't necessarily work. I would just lay out the squads I want to take, then once I've done that buy as many psycannons as I have available slots for.


It's important to understand that Grey Knights are not a pure assault army. We don't have the numbers to make that work. Every model has to be able to constantly contribute something, and that includes being able to pop tanks. We don't have our anti-tank or anti-infantry or close combat ability vested in one unit, we have it distributed across the whole army. The trick as a GK player is effectively bringing that distributed power to bear at a concentrated point to overwhelm the enemy.

[Jokubas]

What kind of Nemesis Force weapons are good to put on Paladins? I assume it depends somewhat on what I do elsewhere, but do they need the Initiative, for instance?

[Xas]

the big issue with GK is what also is their greatest strenght: Synergy!

Therefore it is in reallity harder to explain their playstyle than to learn it yourself.

Halberds are really good until you decide to get a Librarian with Quickening.
Hammers are awesome vs tanks as long as you dont have Might of Titan.

Falchions cather for a GKs biggest melee weakness (low attack value) but also cost much.
Swords are cheap or provide a slight boost in survivability.


So for a general gist I'd say that a Grandmaster works well with elite squads that can get a full halberd layout + 1-2 hammers for free/cheap and a librarian works well with a mostly troop force as he can quickly "make up his points" by removing the need for halberds/hammers (that are expensive on them). As the GM can make his 1-3 elite squads scoring he will have as much scoring power (even if not bodies) as the Librarian army but be less effective (i6 vs i10 with halbers vs quickening. a few s10 attacks vs a buckedload of s6 +2d6 vs tanks, no 3+ cover save). In return the librarian can be hindered by psychic defense, has less wargear options and is weaker in combat. a propper equipped GM can split up from his squad and engage a MSU style squad all on his own, where a librarian cannot dare to do so. Mostly because of low wound count and low number of attacks (a GM can savely assume to kill 5 marines within exactly 2 rounds of close combat where a librarian will most likely take 3 and therefore get shot up before he can move again) as well as bad invul (with sword you have 3++ on gm and 4++ on lib which does make a big diffference!).

[isotope99]

What kind of Nemesis Force weapons are good to put on Paladins? I assume it depends somewhat on what I do elsewhere, but do they need the Initiative, for instance?

You'll want to mix them to get wound allocation. I'd always favour halberds though and at least one hammer for anti-tank/walker duty.

[DarkLink]

On Terminators/Purifiers, take halberds in general. You do not want to have to rely on psychic powers too much, because they can fail you or get shut down.

On GKSS/Interceptors, don't bother with more than a Hammer. Take one Hammer for every 10 power armor guys, and every 5 terminators.


If Falchions are +1A, don't bother, they're too expensive. If they're +2A, then consider them as an alternative to Halberds. They're also the only upgrade other than a Hammer that you might take on GKSS, but only if they're +2A.

Staves should be rare. Don't bother taking them in every squad, only in ones that you expect to get assaulted a lot.

[iamnothere]

I'm starting to look beyond just 1 hammer on the justicar and taking 2 on normal guys. This way you don't lose a MChammer to perils and you get 4A on the charge (between them). For only 5 pts more.

Looking further down the line I also give the Justicar a MCHalberd to take out ICs with.

Not used it yet but I see this squad being quite usefull:

Justicar MCHalberd
2 Hammers
2 Psycannons
5 Swords
Psybolts.

I either run them big or combat squad for a firebase and an assault unit / MC hunter.

[DarkLink]

That's not a bad idea, though I'd be careful about the "it's only 5 pts more". Those 5pts here and there can add up quickly sometimes.

[iamnothere]

Agreed but when you're only running 2 strike and an interceptor squad it really is barely 15 points for the options. I'm going to run this setup on a single squad first to see how it works out.