Balancing Grey Knights

[DarkLink]

So, I love the new GK codex. But there are two (rules) concerns that I have. First off, just like every codex, there are a fair number of units that either suck, or just don't work well with the rest of the army. Brotherhood Champions, half of the henchmen (the other half are pretty awesome), Brother Captains, etc, basically suck. Secondly, there are some broken things (psykotroke grenades and psyrifle dreads).

I always take psyrifle dreads, and I regularly take someone with grenades. Whatever unit I attach the character to grenades with wins combat, period. I have never lost combat when I had grenades involved. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've never even lost the whole unit in combat when grenades were involved, even over the course of the game and multiple assaults. Taking grenades with Paladins or Terminators means I rarely lose a model or even a wound to anything but shooting.


So, what simple changes could be made to balance the GK codex. Now, I feel that 70% of the codex is great. About 25% sucks. The rest is broken.


What sucks:
Brotherhood Champions:
He's a one wound model that sucks in combat. His little warrior stance rules are pretty much worthless. And his saving grace, his chaplain reroll on the charge? Not particularly useful to Grey Knights, especially when you could take a Techmarine or Xenos Inquisitor with grenades for a similar price.

Fix: Give the Champion a second wound, and access to a Teleport pack. And grenades (which will be discussed later). An HQ that could fly around with an Interceptor squad would be pretty awesome. In fact, I say that taking a Champion with a teleport pack should make Interceptors troops, like a Captain on a bike.


Brother Captain:
For 25pts more, you get a Grand Master. Half the reason for taking an HQ other than Coteaz or a Librarian is for the Grand Strategy. So why would you ever take a Brother Captain?

Fix: Dunno. Give him something to make him worth taking over a GM.


Dreadknights:
Frankly, they kinda suck. They're either slow, or extremely expensive. And they lack good guns. First off, make the teleport upgrade significantly cheaper. Secondly, make the guns better. In particular, the Heavy Psycannon is horrible (obviously the psilencer is as well). The Heavy Psycannon should be, say, Heavy 4 Str 8, Rending.

To balance it out, though, make the teleporter prevent Dreadknights from carrying most of their guns. No shunting into a rear arc then opening a vehicle with a Heavy Psycannon. If you want the teleporter, you're going to need to be decked out for CC. That way, you have to pick and choose between shooting and close combat, but both are good options for their own separate reasons.


Psilencers:
Really, what was Ward thinking. Why would anyone ever, ever, ever, ever, ever take this. Like Gks need a heavy weapon. Make this an assault weapon, and give it some sort of rule that GKs lack access to otherwise. GKs already have potent anti-horde in Incinerators and Psycannons, and anti-tank in psycannons, so make psilencers anti-Marine. Give it a high AP, and you can even keep the Str 4, and it would be worth considering. It would probably need AP2 to be really worth it, since GKs have the weight of fire to kill most 3+ armor stuff. Terminators, though, are a headache outside of CC.



What's broken:
Psyrifle Dreads: Fortitude, str 8 and they're only 135pts each. What breaks them is the cost of Fortitude and Psybolt ammo.

Fix:
Fortitude: Worth more than 5pts, at least on anything with real guns. 40pt Rhinos, fine. But 5pts on a psyrifle dread? No. Triple it on Dreadnoughts. Or even quadruple it. Land Raiders and Storm Ravens are already overpriced, as are Razorbacks in an army with troops this expensive, and Rhinos don't benefit much from it, but Dreads are made awesome by it. Maybe make it 10pts on Razorbacks, though.

Psybolt ammo: This is nonsensically priced on vehicles. It's 5pts on Dreads, and it makes them amazing. But it's 20pts on Land Raiders, which either hardly benefit from it or are almost nerfed by it (since it makes Hurricane Bolters primary weapons). It should be 20pts on Dreads, 10pts on Land Raiders and Storm Ravens and 5pts on everything else.

That would take psyrifle Dreads up to 165-170pts each, roughly. Much, much more fairly priced.


Grenades:
Rad grenades are ok, with the exception of the Instant Death threshold thing. Drop that.

Psykotroke grenades are flat out overpowered, and the single result that does nothing hardly compensates, nor does the faint chance of a result not being useful (orks don't care about being I1). I would drop the result that does nothing, but replace the individual results with the following: 1-2: Reroll attacks against opponent, 3-4: Opponent is at -1A, 5-6: Opponent strikes at I1. No more making 30 orks beat each other up while you laugh, nor autohitting and reducing opponents to 1 attack on top of that.

Edit: Oh, and grenades shouldn't work when you're locked in combat and get charged.



So, anyone have anything else to add to the list?

[Necron_Lord]

Regarding psyfleman dreads, extra armor for normal dreads is +15 pts, and I think fortitude is even better. I might say that because both my 40K armies don't have real anti-psych, so that psychic test for fortitude is almost automatic. However, GKs ARE Space Marines, so you'll get some great (some would say ridiculous) buys in your codex.

Compare that with Eldar (and especially Necrons) where everything is overpriced. I know it is only a rumor (and hopefully a false one), but Necrons are supposed to get a new transport at triple the cost of a Rhino, with some armor value buff which disappears after the first glancing/penetrating hit it suffers. ALL new Space Marines have some broken and/or steeply discounted units. That is a perk for playing the most popular army in the game. GW has to do something to keep the kids hooked on power armor so GW can continue to get some of the disposable income of said minor SM players' parents.

Are you just posting this thread to get ideas for better house rules?

[celestialatc]

I totally agree with you on the Brotherhood Champion! I was hoping with the new book Grey Knights would have access to something like a chaplain, which is basicly what he is....but atleast a Chaplain has 2 wounds! The Brotherhood Champion should have been an Elite Choice for what he does IMO.

And the Champion's extra gear is so sad. Digital Weapons? Really Ward? THEIR BLADE ALREADY LETS YOU REROLL FAILED WOUNDS!!! That said I like the idea that you could make him an Interceptor HQ and make Interceptor's Troops, that would be in interesting Army.


Also, would you do anything about Crowe, our two wound Brotherhood Champion....If only he was an Independent Character.....I wish I could see a reason not to make him an Independent Character....

[MaltonNecromancer]

Hmmmm. I don't get why any of the things you've claimed are "true". Especially when you say things like:


To balance it out, though, make the teleporter prevent Dreadknights from carrying most of their guns. No shunting into a rear arc then opening a vehicle with a Heavy Psycannon. If you want the teleporter, you're going to need to be decked out for CC. That way, you have to pick and choose between shooting and close combat, but both are good options for their own separate reasons.

I think you've just pointed out why the Dreadknight doesn't actually need rebalancing. It's not the bluntclub you want it to be - it's more surgical than that, and requires finesse! Which is, I think, the point here: the things you're complaining about require a little effort to deliver their poiints, rather than just trouncing everything they come across through sheer God Mode Sue powarz.

And the psyrifle dread is cheap because:

a.) It's the GK's primary source of ranged anti-tank - they don't really have anything else.
b.) You can only take three. Yes, this is "enough", but if an opponent hasn't thought of a strategy to delete them (Dark Lance spam, Lascannon battery, Zoanthropic rush, etc...), really, they deserve to eat those Autocannon shots.
c.) The models are expensive (unless you proxy, or hammer together something from the Aegis defence line gun... which, lte's be honest, often looks like cack.)

I don't think the GK codex is broken - it plays like a totally unique army rather than being just an MEQ (which is kind of the point!) and with the exception of the Psilencer (which is obviously designed to be "fluffy" rather than game-winning), there's not a whole lot in that army that's bad. Even the henchmen are pretty good (assuming you apply them to the tactical areas they're meant to go in - Banishers against Daemons, etc...)

And every army has "poor" choices. Why take a Brother-Captain? Maybe because I like the model? Maybe because he's a little harder-hitting than Coteaz and I don't want Henchmen or have the points for a Librarian or Grand Master? Why take a Champion? Same reasons - yeah, they're not unbeatable, but they're okay - put them in combat against something like a Guard squad and they'll do very well.

This whole list of yours comes across like you'd have preferred them to just be marines but with force weapons. I for one am glad they are very different to that.

[DarkLink]

No house rules, really, I'm just posting this for fun. I just think that in a perfect world, every single unit in every single army would be a viable, competitive choice, and there would be no upgrade or weapon options that were worthless. At the same time, you have to avoid overpowered options, because then the newly 'good' options just become underpowered again. Balanced armies are more fun for everyone. And I just happen to be a GK player, so I'm speculating how this idea would be applied to the GK codex.

Basically, this is about what GW's playtesters should have caught, but didn't.


That said I like the idea that you could make him an Interceptor HQ and make Interceptor's Troops, that would be in interesting Army.

Yeah, I stole that idea from someone, and since I really like Interceptors but can't justify taking them due to their lack of scoring compared to normal Strike Squads, they seem an obvious choice for a theme army.



Also, would you do anything about Crowe, our two wound Brotherhood Champion....If only he was an Independent Character.....I wish I could see a reason not to make him an Independent Character....

Crowe is tricky, because Purifiers are really good. Were he an IC, he would be an auto-include in every army and everyone would use Purifiers. That's not a good thing, obviously, as Purifier spam is already annoyingly common even with a horrible Crowe.

I would probably just nerf Purifiers a little bit to solve the problem, and give Crowe the IC rule. Purifiers could be 25pts each, with 5pt halberds, or something like that. Only slightly more expensive, and they'd still be good, but they wouldn't be such a stupid-obvious choice over GKSS, particularly with the more expensive Halberds.



I think you've just pointed out why the Dreadknight doesn't actually need rebalancing. It's not the bluntclub you want it to be - it's more surgical than that, and requires finesse! Which is, I think, the point here: the things you're complaining about require a little effort to deliver their poiints, rather than just trouncing everything they come across through sheer God Mode Sue powarz.

No, I pretty much explicitly stated that the Dreadknight does need rebalancing. Dreadknights kinda suck. They don't provide anything useful for the army. "They just need a little finesse" is not a codeword for "good unit". Dreadknights can't open vehicle effectively, is fairly fragile for its points if you give it any upgrades and very slow and limited if you don't, lacks the long range firepower that GKs need (they don't need more anti-infantry), and lacks the CC punch that you would get from other GK units.




Dreadknights aren't horrible, but when they are competing for slots with other units that do provide what GKs need they won't get taken in a competitive setting.


As for the no guns and teleporter thing, that's just a random idea that I kinda liked. It lets you keep the cost down on a fast CC Dreadknight, and allow for a cheap shooty Dreadknight, without having some crazy screw your opponent Dreadknight. Y'know, something that requires a little skill to play, rather than just "I shunt into your back arc and blow you up".



And the psyrifle dread is cheap because:

a.) It's the GK's primary source of ranged anti-tank - they don't really have anything else.

Well, aside from all those psycannons... but yes, there is a reason why I always take 3 psyrifle dreads. This does not mean that they are not underpriced. They are absurdly good for what they do. For balanced gameplay, absurdly good is bad. You want just plain old good. Ergo, a bit of a price hike is in order.



b.) You can only take three. Yes, this is "enough", but if an opponent hasn't thought of a strategy to delete them (Dark Lance spam, Lascannon battery, Zoanthropic rush, etc...), really, they deserve to eat those Autocannon shots.

You can take 6.

And Zoanthrope rush? You do know what the Reinforced Aegis is, right? And you do understand that in order for their 18" shots to get within range of my Dreads, they have to walk through the rest of my army?

As for Dark Lance spam, I've curbstomped every single DE player I've faced. It hasn't even been a contest, and I've never lost a single psyrifle dread to them. It's literally like shooting fish in a barrel. One wave moves forward, and I shoot them down. Next wave comes into range, and I kill all of them. Rinse and repeat. Other types of DE lists can probably compete, but Dark Lance spam cannot outshoot a good GK list.

I also don't know of any army that can do lascannon spam well enough to win a gunfight with Grey Knights, with the sole exception of Vendetta spam. And Vendetta are as overpowered as Psyrifle Dreads are, so it balances out.




Psyrifle Dreads are crazy good. There's no strategy to them, really. Just deploy them and mow stuff down. Almost completely one dimensional, but almost impossible to effectively counter.Occasionally move around to get side armor shots. The only skill involved would be using a Dread to tie up a unit that can't hurt it, but that's something any Dread does. That's why they need a bit of a points adjustment.



c.) The models are expensive (unless you proxy, or hammer together something from the Aegis defence line gun... which, lte's be honest, often looks like cack.)

I made my autocannons for, like, $3. I just found some thin metal tubing and chopped it up to make gun barrels. A little clever thinking goes a long ways to save money. Plus, buy from your local art store and save a ton of money over the equivalent GW product.

Either way, I'm not sure what this has to do with rebalancing psyrifle dreads.



I don't think the GK codex is broken - it plays like a totally unique army rather than being just an MEQ (which is kind of the point!) and with the exception of the Psilencer (which is obviously designed to be "fluffy" rather than game-winning), there's not a whole lot in that army that's bad. Even the henchmen are pretty good (assuming you apply them to the tactical areas they're meant to go in - Banishers against Daemons, etc...)

Why can't the "fluffy" stuff also be gamewinning? Is it really to much to ask that a "fluffy" unit is also a good unit?



And every army has "poor" choices. Why take a Brother-Captain? Maybe because I like the model? Maybe because he's a little harder-hitting than Coteaz and I don't want Henchmen or have the points for a Librarian or Grand Master? Why take a Champion? Same reasons - yeah, they're not unbeatable, but they're okay - put them in combat against something like a Guard squad and they'll do very well.

Really? Really? You do understand what game balance is, right? Every unit should be a viable choice in a competitive army. Are you really trying to argue that GW should make some units overpowered and some units underpowered, so that every tournament list looks exactly the same and that no one with a "fluffy" list will ever win?





This whole list of yours comes across like you'd have preferred them to just be marines but with force weapons. I for one am glad they are very different to that.

I don't have the slightest clue how you got this out of my post. In fact, I see a few things that I explicitly support that make them different from Marines (I criticize psilencers for being heavy weapons, because any heavy weapon is inherently non-GK). Just to be clear, GKs should not be anything like vanilla Marines. GKSS are borderline, and GKs should have kept Fearless rather than ATSKNF. Because they're frikin Grey Knights, not some cowardly space Marines.

[Denzark]

My usual opponent has had good results out of dreadknights and heavy psilencers (weight of fire).

Affirm on the Captain, Negative on the Dreadkinghts.

[bonedale]

It always pains me to see codex options that will never be taken. Especially when they have cool models.

In the GK book you outlined the wasted units pretty well.

Take interceptors, and purifiers. Both units don't have a SC, or even HQ that is dedicated to hang with them. Even Crowe really has nothing to do with the purifiers. From a "fun" standpoint this sucks. If you want aa interceptor theme army, you have no central character taking your theme to battle. It's like playing BA DC, without the SC chaplain, or HQ. When you theme your army you want that leader in the same role as your theme. Crowes rules could suck, I just wish he could join a tooled out central purifier squad. It's a disconnect as it is now. I would even take a Thawn type interceptor. Just someone who can stand out. Long story short, maybe the BCs could fill these rolls.

Stormtroopers I think would have provided a better base for henchman units. But it is clear GW didn't want people taking the new "GK" book in that direction. So the henchman options are really only characterful units. Not much room for them in a GK army without something. I think the answer here is like the old book. A henchmen squad should boost the Inquisitor himself. Imagine taking a generic Inq HQ, and having him become either a psy, shooting, or CC beast from the people he surrounds himself with.

Psy dreads are just too good to allow the DK to have any value. DKs should be elite slots, or dreads only in elite slots. Either way, they can't take the same FoC. The DK is no powerhouse, but it is fine, just needs to distance itself from the bread and butter option.

That's my thoughts on how to leave "no unit behind" in the GK dex.

[celestialatc]

Psy dreads are just too good to allow the DK to have any value. DKs should be elite slots, or dreads only in elite slots. Either way, they can't take the same FoC. The DK is no powerhouse, but it is fine, just needs to distance itself from the bread and butter option.


One fix could be that if a Dreadknight takes a presonal teleporter then he takes up a Fast Support FoC slot. That way you can have your Psyrifle Dreads and Dreadknights!

[Demonus]

I agree the psy ammo should probably be a few more points than 5 for Dreadnoughts. They are far from unbeatable though. I throw my boys in Land Raiders and laugh as their str 8 guns bounce off, and gun them down with lascannons from said land raider, or from Oblits when I play against them with CSM.

For DreadKnights, I think the psilencer does well against blobs of orks, IG, Eldar, etc or any foot slogging unit due to the sheer number of str 4 shots you are putting out. Shame they cant get psybolt ammo for 5pts :)

[DrLove42]

On the topic of countering pysdreads....they are insanely good.

You say use Dark Lances on them? Had a tournement this weekend just gone. Faced two lists, both of which took 3. In both game I must have put over 45 shots into them (hitting on 3's, glancing on 4's). I got 2 shaken results, both of which were promptly ignored.

They need to be more expensive. Significantly more for what they are. Yes they can theoretically be oneshotted which makes them tend their points down. But in reality that many shots, for that cheap, on that durable a platform is wrong

[Demonus]

Thats just bad luck it sounds like. 45 shots and only 2 glances? LOL like I said, I fired 3 lascannons. 2 hit, 1 glanced and the other penned. rolled a 5. dead dreadnought.

dice gods were not with you.

[Nightwolf]

It sounds to me like that was just bad rolls for the most part. Plain psyrifle dreads aren't so scary if a DE player is careful about target priority. Venerable Psyrifle dreads on the other hand...

[relasine]

It's not that Psybolt Ammunition or Autocannons are under-costed, it's the combination is. If people were running Dreadnoughts with Heavy Bolters or Assault Cannons, this wouldn't be an issue. Psybolt Ammunition should be sold with qualifiers. If you have two main weapons that benefit from Psybolt Ammunition, it's 15 points, otherwise it's 5. Dreadnoughts should also get a small base point increase due to Fortitude.

I think Crowe would be fine as an IC if he made Purifiers scoring instead of a Troop choice.

I don't honestly know what to do with Psilencers.

[DrLove42]

Psilencers should break the rules a bit

If they cause wounds, the shock of being killed in silence (the guns name is a play on a silencer lets face it) causes a morale check at -3, giving more likely for a unit to run

Or they are small and compact so they can be fired AFTER running...giving the GK more fire on the move, befitting an elite army

[chicop76]

After reading the Op post I would have to say I agree and disagree on what was said.

Brotherhood Champion: I would say it's borderline broken. It's a cheap hq that have 1 wound on it for a reason. Throw him against a Nightbringer and you have a 66.66% chance of earning your points back. The model is made to take out Abbadon, Fateweaver, etc. Against guard heks useless, but against other armies it's a pain.

Brother-Captain: for 25 pts less I'm lossing Grand Strategy, and -1 bs also the psycannon is 5 pts cheaer on a captain. I would agree on why bother and just spend the 25 pts on the Grand Master.

Mordrack: Broken

Librarian: Broken on many levels. The list goes on and on with teleporting troops to objctives, flame template that pens and forces int test, regular units have 2d6 +1 against armour, etc.

Rad and Psychotroke grenades: Broken

Purifier Squad: I think they're a bit much, but I wouldn't say broken. Although 4 psycannons and cheap upgrades in an all Purifier army is very close to being broken.

Dreadknight: I use one or two and they have done very well. I only spending 160 points with a heavy incinerator and they can do a lot of damage. Going over 160 will start to nullify even taking this model. One example you can use a librian in a transport to get this guy in hell hound range turn 1. Also the model provides cover saves for the army as well. The +5 invulnerable works well for me. Although I roll lots of 5s for some reason. Anyway compared to any other Monsterous Creature it's cheap and much better then the others. The teeporter is very costly, playing Daemons it's like a prince paying for wings so I'll doubt they would drop that and the sword for 25pts I can't really justify.

Dreadnought: The only decent costing long range the army has. It's good, but not broken. Broken would be a Furioso with Venerable, Fortitude, and +2d6 for armour pen.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

I think a solution to much of the Psybolt ammo/Psyflame ammo could be solved by just adding a few new weapon options, considering that a Heavy Flamer with Psyflame is identical to an Incinerator, and an Assault Cannon with Psybolt is identical to a Psycannon

How about this:

---

Psybolt ammo only affects Storm Bolters and Hurricane Bolters.

Psyflame ammo is no longer an option in any unit entry.

Land Raiders and Storm Ravens can upgrade a Twin-Linked Assault Cannon to a Twin-linked Psycannon for +5 points.

Land Raiders and Storm Ravens can upgrade a Twin-Linked Heavy Bolter to a Twin-linked Psycannon for +40 points.

Land Raider Redeemers can replace their Flamestorm Cannons with a pair of Incinerator Infernos +5 points.

Razorbacks may upgrade a Twin-Linked Heavy Bolter to a Twin-Linked Incinerator for +30 points or a Twin-Linked Psycannon for +40 points.

Dreadnoughts and Venerable Dreadnoughts may upgrade a Multimelta to a Twin-Linked Incinerator for +5 points, a Psycannon for +15 points or a Twin-linked Psy-Boltcannon for +20 points.

Dreadnoughts and Venerable Dreadnoughts may upgrade a Doomfist to a Twin-linked Psy-Boltcannon for +20 points

Dreadnoughts and Venerable Dreadnoughts may upgrade one Stormbolter to an Incinerator for +15 points.

---

Psy-Boltcannons are equivalent to an autocannon with Psybolt, Incinerator Infernos are equivalent to Flamestorm cannon with Psyflame.

[DarkLink]

My usual opponent has had good results out of dreadknights and heavy psilencers (weight of fire).

Affirm on the Captain, Negative on the Dreadkinghts.

Y'know, for the same cost he could take a small Strike Squad, get the same number of str4 shots and a psycannon to boot, plus they can score by default.

Anyways, I'm not saying the Dreadknight is totally useless. I'm saying it isn't a very competitive choice. There is little reason to take it over other, better options.


Thats just bad luck it sounds like. 45 shots and only 2 glances? LOL like I said, I fired 3 lascannons. 2 hit, 1 glanced and the other penned. rolled a 5. dead dreadnought.


And that sounds like pretty good luck. So let's do some math. I don't feel like showing my work, though. It takes, on average, 13.5 Dark Lances to kill a Dreadnought with no cover saves (27 with cover, and 40.5 if there's shrouding). It takes 12 Guard Lascannons with no cover, or 9 SM lascannons.

On the other hand, one psyrifle dread will kill one DE Raider per turn on average. When it takes the whole enemy army to kill one GK model, and each GK unit is killing one DE unit in return, it's pretty obvious who's going to win the shootout.



Brotherhood Champion: I would say it's borderline broken. It's a cheap hq that have 1 wound on it for a reason. Throw him against a Nightbringer and you have a 66.66% chance of earning your points back. The model is made to take out Abbadon, Fateweaver, etc. Against guard heks useless, but against other armies it's a pain.

Against a handful of other armies. Nightbringer falls to psyrifle Dreads long before you'll reach combat anyways. Same thing with Fateweaver, especially since you have to fight through the Demon army first to get to him. While useful, and potentially frustrating for the opponent, it is far from broken in the vast majority of cases.

And it's not a 2/3 chance of killing. For one thing, a lot of those nasty units have a WS just as high as the Champion, so it's only a 50% chance of hitting. Plus, you have to pass a psychic test to do it, bringing down the odds. And if they have any psychic defenses, it becomes an even longer shot.

So, in an extremely limited set of circumstances the Champion can be arguably broken, maybe. That does not make him a good unit.




Brother-Captain: for 25 pts less I'm lossing Grand Strategy, and -1 bs also the psycannon is 5 pts cheaer on a captain. I would agree on why bother and just spend the 25 pts on the Grand Master.

The question is, what to give the Brother Captain to make him worth it.





Mordrack: Broken

How so? The only thing that could have arguably made Mordrack broken was the shuntpunt thing, and that's illegal now. And even that was a one trick pony.




Librarian: Broken on many levels. The list goes on and on with teleporting troops to objctives, flame template that pens and forces int test, regular units have 2d6 +1 against armour, etc.

Well, you can't send troops to objective, only call them back to one you already control. But 90% of the reason to take a Librarian is for the Shrouding and the Psychic hood. The other powers tend to be somewhat situational. The Librarian is a very good unit, but not broken.




Dreadnought: The only decent costing long range the army has. It's good, but not broken. Broken would be a Furioso with Venerable, Fortitude, and +2d6 for armour pen.

No, it's crazy good. Absurdly good for its points. Broken is just a word that gets tossed around, but you cannot argue that a psyrifle dread should cost what it does, even taking the army's weakness into account.

No unit should be so good that it is an auto-include, and a psyrifle dread is the most obvious unit in the entire book.

[Kawauso]

No, it's crazy good. Absurdly good for its points. Broken is just a word that gets tossed around, but you cannot argue that a psyrifle dread should cost what it does, even taking the army's weakness into account.

No unit should be so good that it is an auto-include, and a psyrifle dread is the most obvious unit in the entire book.

Agreed.
Fortitude is worth a lot more than 5 points on a dedicated gun platform. It's really, really irritating.

And the S8 pushes things over the top. Psybolt ammo isn't so bad on the other options. But 4 TL S8 shots means it chews through any T4 multi-wound unit (nids) with the greatest of ease, or it can handily swat almost any light-medium-armoured vehicle into oblivion each turn.

I don't like complaining about units in new codices, and I certainly don't think the sky is falling, but I think psyfleman dreads are more woefully undercosted than Vendettas, and that says something. At least you can stop a Vendetta from moving or shooting for a turn. And it has less shots. At a lower BS.

Reinforced Aegis isn't that bad. Sure, it's annoying for units like Zoanthropes, but it's a somewhat niche upgrade, so that one I would say is worth about 5 pts. on a dread. Which essentially makes Fortitude free, as things are now, doesn't it? (I don't have the codex with me)

[chicop76]

Agreed.
Fortitude is worth a lot more than 5 points on a dedicated gun platform. It's really, really irritating.

And the S8 pushes things over the top. Psybolt ammo isn't so bad on the other options. But 4 TL S8 shots means it chews through any T4 multi-wound unit (nids) with the greatest of ease, or it can handily swat almost any light-medium-armoured vehicle into oblivion each turn.

I don't like complaining about units in new codices, and I certainly don't think the sky is falling, but I think psyfleman dreads are more woefully undercosted than Vendettas, and that says something. At least you can stop a Vendetta from moving or shooting for a turn. And it has less shots. At a lower BS.

Reinforced Aegis isn't that bad. Sure, it's annoying for units like Zoanthropes, but it's a somewhat niche upgrade, so that one I would say is worth about 5 pts. on a dread. Which essentially makes Fortitude free, as things are now, doesn't it? (I don't have the codex with me)

It's almost an auto win for knights against nids. It's almost like the army is more anti nid then anti daemon. The nid player would have a better chance with the old codex against the knights. Atleast Orcs can put on a good show.

Reinforced Ageis is super good. It makes anything with aegis 12" away -4 on psychic attacks. At best you will need a 6 with psyker battle squads needing to get under a 4. Even with eldar discarding the highest die it's hard to get 6 and under. You will have a better chance getting leadership 9 powers off if you have to roll 3 dice to do so.

Mordrack is broken for these reasons.
1. He can do an accurate 1st turn deepstrike with x number ICS attached. So 6 terms, 1 libby, 3 tech marines can be in your face with heavy shooting and assault next turn with all of them having a +2 save.
2. For 25pts more then a Grandmaster you get
A. +1 wound, and attack
B. Master-crafted weapon
C. Upgrade Character in a retinue
D. Turn 1 accurate deep strike option with no scatter
E. The ability to spawn 40 pt terminators for losing 1 wound. So if you wound him 3 times it's possible to add 120pts more models on the table making Mordrack really worth 80 pts. I would dare say it's not hare to get two extra terms out there so he would really hit around for 120pts, much less then a regular grandmaster and even if you spawn only one that's still 160 pts, so 15 pts cheaper then a grandmaster, and with the ability for the defender to allocate wounds to him. He can't be singled out makes this guy worst then Ajax from the spacewolves, atleast I don't have to worry about newly spawning models to try to kill Ajax

Librarian is cheesy for these reasons:
1. In combat it can have a +2 invulnerable save
2. Dark Ex really hurts daemons like negating power weapons, hit and run, rending, etc. Although limited to Daemons it's still very powerful and only a 5pt what if.
3. Might of titan; the +1 strength is not what makes it bad. It's the +d6 is what make it bad. So a dreadknight with a sword against armour can be strength 8+3d6 and re roll armour pens and hits, Heck just a normal str 4 would do strengh 6-17 against amour.
A. If I used might of titan on like say a 10 man warrior squad that cost 40pts and charged them against a landraider, so that's 30 attacks that bumb from strength 3 to strength 4. At strength 4 they can pen armour between 6-16, so realistically a 40 point squad although not very likely can destroy a landraider. A str 3 model really shouldn't be able to take out 14 armour with just a 5 pt upgrade.
4.Quicksilver int 10 frag grenade force weapons, and should I say more.
5. Sanctuary: not too over the top, but again it hurts some armies more then others
6. The shrouding can be very cheezy. Can you say +3 cover saves for everyone in a 6" bubble. Through in a techmarine or 2 then you have +2 cover saves for your units in cover. So thay squad of strike marines on the objective have a +2 cover save. No it's not cheezy. Turn 1 move rhinos up and pop +3 cover save smoke with everything else behind them getting a 3+. I could go on, but I would dare say big block of cheese here.
7. Smite: do you really need it anyway with all the other powers you'll probably be actively using
8. Summoning: this gives you options.
A. If you deep strike mishap and your opponet place you, so guess what you can teleport that unit to be somewhere useful next turn.
B. No scoring units around to take an objective, no problem just teleport them to your libby
C. Need more firing support or a unit is too far back, bam teleport to a useful spot
D. Need like 11" more in turn one with a landraider. Move 12" in your rhino and teleport the land raider 6" away giving the raider almost 24" movement. Just for giggles you can have plasma gunners disembark from another rhino to rapid fire some terminators turn 1.
E. Need some incinerating love, so teleport some incinerators by a target.
The possibilites is just endless and throw in garbage like poping smoke and shrouding providing a 3+ cover save is just crazy. So just think about a landraider that's like 1" from your deployment zone with a 3+ cover save and close combat attacks needing 6s to hi because it deepstriked in.
F. Vortex of Doom: not really bad until someone attach the libby with mordrack and throw the pie plate on a tank, well blast.
G. Warp Rift: destroys initiative 2 and 3 armies and can auto pen

So is the Librarian cheezy, no. Is it cheezy if you use it's powers, yes.

[DarkLink]

Right, the combination of Reinforced Aegis and Fortitude is certainly justification for a bit more expensive Dreads. Combined with more expensive Psybolt ammo, and Psyrifle Dreads would be more appropriately priced. There would be a reason to take other weapon loadouts, or even other units in general.




I can't say that Mordrack is broken, because dropping in your opponent's face turn 1 means you have no support. If your opponent can't kill a squad of Terminators and a handful of characters with their entire army, then they probably don't have a very good list.

Yes, there are a handful of armies that are probably pretty screwed over by Mordrack, but being overpowered in a small number of isolated cases is very different from being overpowered in general.


Librarian is cheesy for these reasons:

I think you're mistaking "cheesy" and "broken" for very good. The Librarian has lots of useful powers. He is a good unit. But he is not broken.

You can say something like Psyrifle Dreads are broken, because they win in a firefight against almost anything else you would reasonably compare them to, are basically auto-include in every single Grey Knight list, and are super cheap on top of it.

The combination of all the grenades are broken, because simply taking them can make it virtually impossible for the Grey Knights to ever lose combat. Your opponent's only hope is that they manage to get enough attacks through to do some damage before you kill their entire unit.


But a Librarian? He's very good, yes. He isn't broken, though. He's not an auto-include. Enemy psychic defenses cut his usefulness down significantly, and most of his powers have drawbacks. Might of Titan and the Quickening do you no good if your opponent assaults you, and since you're stuck in Terminator armor you need a Land Raider or Storm Raven to reasonably guarantee the charge. And since GKs already have high strength and high initiative, those powers are only useful on occasion. And ultimately, the Librarian is still just a 2 wound model. And a very expensive one at that, after you buy powers and especially if you buy a Warding Stave.

Not to say that the Librarian couldn't be toned down a touch, but I frankly don't think he needs it. The Grey Knight codex is based around manipulating the force that you can bring to the fight at any given point, and the Librarian is just another multiplier to allow you to do that.