Darklink brings us a Grey Knights Review: GKs have been my main, and just shy of exclusive, army for many moons, so I’ll go over everything in it. I’m not exactly pleased, but at least I know how Tyranid players feel. If GW wanted to teach me a lesson in empathy…
As always, check out the Tactics Corner for more reviews.
Warlord Traits:
They’re mediocre to bad.
1. Daemonslayer gives you Hatred: Daemons, and lets you cast Banishment (and only Banishment, no other powers) on a 2+. Draigo has this by default.
2. Hammer of Righteousness: Warlord and Unit gain Hammer of Wrath. Kinda cool, but GKs wreck face in assault normally in the cases where they actually want to be in assault, so it really doesn’t matter much.
3. Unyeilding Anvil: Warlord and friendly units in 12” gain Stubborn. Who cares, they’re all ATSKNF anyways.
4. First to the Fray: Actually kinda cool. Warlord and unit reroll scatter and deepstrike T1. Neat, but you only rarely get it and the rest suck.
5. Perfect Timing: Warlord and unit get Counter Attack. Kinda cool, Not terrible, at least. But trust me, having Counter Attack constantly available via The Grand Strategy in the 5th ed codex, and it really isn’t anything special for GKs. Your Warlord is usually part of a unit that everyone runs away from in terror already, unless you take one of the non-combat HQs that you want to keep out of assault, Counter Attack or no.
6. Lore Master: You generate one more power from Santic Daemonology than normal. This denies you Psychic Focus, so unless you planned on rolling all on Santic anyways, not a very good deal, and since you already have most of the Santic powers scattered through your army already, WTF would you want to roll on Santic with your one shot at Divination or Telepathy? Sounds good, really isn’t.
Special rules:
Nothing new here.
Armory:
Basically everything is either nerfed or more expensive. Swords lose the Invulnerable save bonus, Halberds are still decent but with +1 Str instead of +2I, but they now cost everyone points to upgrade which means they’ll rarely be worth taking. Staves are only good for getting Adamantium Will in a unit, otherwise they’re terrible. Since offensive psychic powers are pretty crappy against GKs already, probably not worth the points most of the time either. And Hammers are still great, same as before, but now everyone costs 10pts to upgrade to them, which is a huge hit to Terminators and Paladins (at least Terminators are cheaper, but getting the hammers you need into the units will erase most of that point discount, so meh).
Psybolt Ammo is gone. Which makes basically every single shooty GK unit overpriced storm bolters.
Psycannons are Salvo, so they’re utterly worthless on power armor guys now. Still good on Terminators, and the Heavy Psycannon is awesome with the option for Heavy 6 shots in addition to the Heavy 1 Large Blast, but between the loss of Psybolt Ammo and crappy Salvo Psycannons, power armor GKs are pretty crappy now.
Psilencers gained Force, but before anyone gets too excited remember that they’re still Str 4 with no AP, which means they won’t actually be putting any wounds on Riptides or Wraithknights, rendering Force utterly pointless. Still terrible.
Incinerators now have Soul Blaze, and they’re still a better Heavy Flamer, so that’s cool, but GKs are already good at killing stuff up close. They’re cheaper for most units now, too, so you might see some, say, Interceptors with them, but otherwise there’s nothing much to look at here. Terminators and Paladins will still take Psycannons, and power armor GKs will still mostly sit on the shelves.
Psyk-out Grenades can now be thrown as a small blast at Str 2, and cause a Perils if they hit, which is pretty sweet.
Brotherhood Banner: Still +1A, now reroll failed morale in 12”. Except I think only Paladins can take it now.
Relics:
Nothing gamechanging here. The armor one gets you FNP and IWND, which is pretty cool, but you can’t get it on Draigo so meh.
Now for the units:
Lords of War:
DRAAIIIIIIGGGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!: Supreme Grand Master Lord Kalgor Draigo, Knight of Titan, is still a boss. Cheaper, now has AP2, makes Paladins Objective Secured. He lost the ability to generate powers (no more Precog for him), but has Gate of Infinity which is kinda cool (and if you’ve read Pandorax, this makes sense that he has it). He’s only Str/T 4 now, but Eternal Warrior and the Titansword(+3 Str Ap2) means that isn’t a big deal. He’s now Str 7 and has Hammerhand. The real problem is that he’s a Lord of War. I want to punch whoever was stupid enough to think up this idea. In order to take Draigo, you now have to pay for an HQ and Troops. Draigo’s main thing was taking Paladins, and Draigo and friends are already prohibitively expensive, which means that you basically can’t take them outside of like, Apocalypse. The circumstances in which you will be able to run Draigo are much more limited. BTW, everyone lost The Grand Strategy, which singlehandedly could account for the points decrease for Draigo on its own it was that awesome of a rule. So Draigo went from someone who was a great force multiplier for your army, to someone who is just really good at punching other people in the face. Not exactly a win, but I’ll take a Str 9 AP2 Draigo anyways.
But seriously, characters as Lords of War is just stupid. The lack of FOC swaps is just stupid. No one like Unbound, GW, quite trying to push the poorly conceived mess of FOC shenanigans on us. The only good thing to come of it was army-specific FOCs, which is admittedly pretty cool, but not at the cost of being trapped into taking crappy troops choices to meet minimum requirements and then losing to Objective Secured Wave Serpents or whatever.
HQ
Crowe/Brotherhood Champions:
BCs are 150pts now, gained a second wound, but lost a ton of stuff and weren’t exactly good to being with. Crowe is kinda good in that he gained IC (finally), but he got more expensive and is still only two wounds. BCs are worthless, Crowe’s a little better than he was but not great. Still gets Cleansing Flame, though, which is awesome.
Librarians:
These guys got a massive points drop. 110 base, 25 for ML3. Can’t get a 2++ in assault now, but this is a solid HQ choice. Cheap warp charges, and access to Divination and Telepathy. Probably going to be everyone’s default HQ now.
Techmarines: Way, too expensive for a single wound model. They were only good for grenade caddies in the previous codex, and with no more 2++ warding staves, rad, or psykotroke grenades, they lost their only raison d’etre.
Brother Captain Stern: Still overpriced, with worthless special abilities. But, hey, he got lightly cheaper. Yay?
Elite:
Troops:
Terminators: Significantly cheaper. Now, the nerfs to NFWs negate a lot of that, but they’re still cheaper Terminators, and they don’t care about Salvo on Psycannons. Are they good? Well, how many people run cheap CSM Terminators, or SW Wolf Guard in Terminator armor? Yeah… so not bad, but getting a much, much, much needed point decrease doesn’t make them amazing, just better. You can get better results from these guys, but they’re not quite going to carry the codex for us.
Strike Squads: More expensive, and with the loss of Psybolt ammo and the Psycannon nerf there’s little reason to run these poor guys. They’re just overpriced Marines now. They were pretty solid, and now they’re worse in every meaningful way.
FA:
Storm Raven: Lost Psybolt Ammo. Lost Mindstrike Missiles, but at least it gets the Str 8 missiles instead, so meh. Pretty good, but significantly less so lacking Psybolt Ammo and considering that GKs are very, very point starved so it can be hard to fit something that won’t be on the table fighting for a few turns into a list.
Interceptors: The unit is slightly cheaper, down to 24 from 26 points per model, but you now have to pay the stupid sergeant tax, so it’s not a big decrease. Lacking psybolt ammo, and with crappy psycannons, the only thing these guys are good for is dropping Incinerators on people for lols, but Dreadknights do it just as well and aren’t overpriced Marines, so there’s not much going for Interceptors.
Heavy:
Dreadknights: Terribl… oh, wait, these guys are actually pretty sweet. They got massively cheaper, and the Heavy Psycannon now can get Heavy 6 shots. They lose the cool reroll-everything from the Sword (which is now, like, Master Crafted or something stupid), but these guys are pretty boss. Now, they’re still as expensive as a Riptide but only have 4 wounds and need to be close to fight, so they’re not actually anything crazy OP, but they’re actually good now.
Dreadnoughts: They got more expensive, and lost psybolt ammo, and don’t have Drop Pods. Why does GW hate Dreadnoughts so?
Purgation squads: They lost Astral Aim, and gained… Night Vision. And psycannons on PAGK are terrible thanks to Salvo. And even if you did want to spam Incinerators or something, at least take Purifiers instead. No one will ever take these.
Land Raiders and variants: They’re Land Raiders. They lost psybolt ammo, but Land Raiders are still pretty awesome right now. What more do you want from me?
Even in the old book didn’t you have take a troops choice to take Draigo? =p
The point was if you want to take a paladin list, you now need additional units to count as troops
Paldins were your troops. Maybe coteaz with some cheap Acolytes, or a few cheap support units. But some tournaments don’t allow Lords of War, either.
This reads like a ton of whining/knee jerk reaction. :/
For the warlord traits, you need to think beyond just pure GK…like most armies. Some of those mixed with allies would be amazing. Hammer of wrath for a blob of guardsmen? Amazing. Stubborn? Sounds good to me for IG or perhaps some other faction. Alone with GK sure maybe not awesome but certainly a good area for buffs for other armies.
The psilencer is awesome. If it were stronger than str 4 ap – it would be completely broken…lets be serious, you wanted Str 6 ap 2, force?. You can still go after T7 and less and there are plenty of multiwound creatures hanging around in there…
I’m not a GK player so I can’t speak to everything, but those are my two thoughts reading what you have here.
Best of luck GK players!
I’m honestly not interesting in playing a unit or two of GKs as good allies to another army. I’m a Grey Knight player. I want to be able to run Grey Knights.
There are a few builds that are pretty solid. Draigo as a LOW is annoying since a lot of tournaments disallow Lords of War, but my only real complaint is that the codex has practically been narrowed down to Librarians, Terminators, Land Raiders, and Dreadknights. Compare to the last codex, where you could run almost any unit and it was a decent choice.
ew, banning lords of war, hopefully not for long, yikes. a fun combo however is misfortune and a psilencer for rending funzies
‘Compare to the last codex, where you could run almost any unit and it was a decent choice’
Well there is the problem. GK where to damn easy to abuse and GW sold enough of them because of that.
I’m willing to bet my house that DE are next and they will be amazing. Why? Because GW didn’t sell enough of them.
Fluff wise its always been stupid that GK where a stand alone army fighting non phykers like DE, Necrons, Tau ect.
“Decent choice” is not the same thing as “broken.”
And DE sold quite well back during their release, they just aged incredibly poorly because the codex wasn’t very well-written.
Somehow I doubt the words, “we’ve sold enough of (insert product here), let’s nerf them to slow down sales,” have never been uttered at GW.
Also I love how everyone compares a GKT to chaos and wolves and say meh, but don’t take into account that they come with grenades, psy powers and force weapons, and S7 with halberds is awesome, a lot more then people seem to think
Trust me, I know how useful grenades and hammerhand are. But chaos and SW also get combi weapons to balance it out. The ability to melta or plasma things is more valuable than buffing a unit that already beats face in combat. Just as importantly, if you buy hammers and halberds on your GKT, you’re no longer 33ppm. Even with just a couple hammers, your prices creep back up to where GKT were last editon, erasing any benefit you get from the reduced base price. So, sure, Terminators got better, but they were overpriced to begin with and so really now they’re just about balanced as opposed to being amazing. Which is a good thing, it’s just not an “OMG GKT ARE THE BESTEST EVAR”.
you dont need hammers, just take 2 point halberds
So toe-to-toe with CSM and SW Termie, and the suggestion is to bring AP3 halberds? Wouldn’t do anything. We had enough trouble dealing with AP2, now we don’t even get the initiative bonus. Higher strength was never an issue because we had Hammerhand. So yes we do need hammers because we would have already lost precious models to Combi shots, and halberds don’t do anything.
You don’t send terminators to fight terminators,and if we lost models to combi bolter shots (ap5) then surly some have died to storm bolter shots
CSMs had walking, godhammer landraider, or deep strike for deployment.
You pay extra for combi-weapons, and the combi-bolter is inferior to the stormbolter these days. The combi-weapons would be awesome, if you had a reasonable chance of deep striking in a useful position, or could fire out of a landraider.
CSM termies are fantastic if they can deploy within 12″ on deep strike reliably… Better to have grenades, some more useful melee weapon options, the option for a better than 5++, and obsec TBH. On top of that CSM termies are scared, they can get run down if they lose a round of combat, and one of them always has to accept or make challenges.
And that’s not to say you don’t have a reason to gripe.
You are in roughly the same vicinity as C:SM – codex one trick pony.
But hey, we got draigo and abaddon, right? So we are all good!
As someone who’s entire GK army was inquisition or PAGK, this release really hurts. My strikes, purgation squads, and dreadknights are toast. Only my dreadknights are worthwhile, but I don’t have an HQ or troops to run with them. Given how underwhelming the army the army is as a whole, it doesn’t seem worthwhile to buy any other units. I’ll hold out hope that my Blood Angels don’t get the same treatment (I fear for my fast engines and melta assault marines).
I wrote up a personal review and included pictures of my now, mostly, worthless army
http://houseoftherisingwaaagh.blogspot.com/2014/08/grey-knight-codex-arrives-clogs-toilet.html
Er, my dreadnoughts are toast. The Dreadknights are the only thing I have left that is worth a damn.
I see a lot of whining around this new codex, but I don’t see any real justification. The comparison to the Nids is undeserving, really. There are far worse books out there. DKs getting a drop in points is incredible. How much is it for a DK with a teleporter, heavy incinerator, and a heavy psycannon? They are jump MCs with T5, W4? I just played against two of these things, and the list could have easily accommodated three. They are nasty, very nasty. Also, the points drops for terminators is incredible. The use of terminators in conjunction with the DKs makes people waste their AP 2 (if they have any) on one target and then the other 4-5 get in. What is there to complain about that. Also, the nerf to the stormravens was overdue. Playing against someone with 2 of those things was no joke. It’s only slightly easier to deal with now. Basically, the storm ravens are comparable to the other books.
GK players are just going to have to learn to play in a different way, however slight. Saturate the board with bunch of terminator armor, on everything (DKs, terminators, paladins), and armor on the rest, stormravens, Dreadnoughts, and landraiders.
Just because they can’t steam roll everyone like they did in the 5th, and somewhat in the 6th, doesn’t mean the book is bad. it just means you’re going to have to be strategic, like everyone else, as opposed to having the best of everything and just obliterating everything. so your book got worse, welcome to the club GKs, we’ve been waiting for you for awhile.
I have to agree with you Cuddles, I happen to like the new codex. I for one happen to think the Grey Knights should have always been all about the Terminators.
Also so Dread Knights are T6 with 4 wounds not T5
Everyone suffers from Anchoring – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring – when a new codex is released.
The main points of contention I see are
1) Loss of options – Inquisition forces, assassins, weapons, etc. Whether it made fluff sense or not, there is a distinct loss of value
2) Limited HQ options – Very few HQ options, less that are any good. It’s pretty much the Librarian. Grand Masters felt overpriced with Grand Strategy but lost their best rule and went up in points. Can’t take Draigo as a mandatory HQ.
3) Common options invalidated – Purifiers, Paladins, and Henchmen cannot be troops anymore. Strikes are worse and went up in price. Once again we lost options leading to a feeling of less value.
4) Loss of uniqueness – With psybolts and psychic pilot unavailable many units are either identical or overpriced versions of basic marine stuff without a comparable buff in damage output or survivability. The codex doesn’t feel as elite as it did.
Terminators were terrible previously and are cheap enough to be viable now, but since they were so bad they were rarely ever run as troops. There may be good builds, but for me, at least, it will require building an entirely new army besides the Dreadknights.
Essentially, this feels like codex Dreadknight. You pretty much need an Astra Militarum or Space Marine CAD then add in a Nemesis Strike Force detachment with 1 Librarian, 1 Terminator squad, and 2 Dreadknights.
Codex Dreadknight is a good way of putting it. As I mentioned, there are a few builds that I’m thinking will work, particularly Terminators and Paladins in Land Raiders. But I like to be able to run more than one or two builds, and half the codex just took a series of nerfs and points hikes. There’s a few things to lo v e about the codex, but we’re stuck taking the bad with the good.
You do not need a CAD. There is no restriction from preventing the Nemesis Strike Force from being your primary detachment.
The only time you’ll want a GK CAD is if you’re bringing OS Landraiders. Otherwise, the tax of having to take another troop isn’t worth getting to take a 3rd Dreadknight.
With the Strike Force you deep strike in turn 1 with Terminators (or I guess strikes with incinerators if you don’t have Terminators, which I don’t) and Dreadknights. It’s hardly a whole army though. You’re much better server by adding in a CAD from AM or SM to get OS so you can actually hold objectives against real armies.
This just further solidifies my belief that GK cannot stand along as a codex anymore.
Oh, absolutely, Dreadknights are sweet, Terminators are good (see my comments above), and Librarians got significantly better. The problems is, so much of the codex has been relegated to collecting dust. I might play Purifiers on occasion, but otherwise the loss of psybolt ammo and the salvo nerf on psycannons means that my 80+ power armor GKs will pretty much sit on the shelf collecting dust.
Also, GKs haven’t been a top tier army since 6th came out. No, warp charge spam did not make GKs particularly good at 7th, because elite armies like GKs suck at 7th ed missions and that more than canceled out any percieved cheesiness.
This kind of what I was talking about. GKs aren’t top tier now, nor should they, or anyone else, be. There are several books that suffering from mono-build syndrome when it comes to playing competitively, and honestly that is the way it should be. it could be much worse, some books aren’t really competitive by themselves, at all. There are a few outliers on the other side, but I would assume the way things are going that may go away. Also, GK can go BB with a lot of other books. That is not an option for most of the other non-imperial books. I understand that some things got worse, but that can be dealt with by modifying how you play. Also, the deep strike formation (which I don’t happen to know the name) worked really well when I played against it yesterday. 10 terminators with a librarian (3 warp charges of telepathy) and two DKs fully loaded straight in the face on turn 1. That is awesome!
>There are several books that suffering from mono-build syndrome when it comes to playing competitively, and honestly that is the way it should be.
No.
Yeah, sort of the opposite of the way it should be.
Ideal would be each book providing multiple competitive builds of different styles.
Yes.
All I hear when people say something equivalent to “all you need to do is take (insert x) as an ally and your codex is awesome” is “all you need to do is waste a couple extra hundred dollars to play a bastardized version of what you wanted when you chose that army.”
I am not interested in allies, I chose the armies I own because I wanted to play those armies. I am certainly not interested in having to spend extra money on an additional army that I am not interested in to make one of my current forces reasonably competitive.
Grey Knights have been my main and practically only army that I’ve played for around 6 years now. I honestly do not mind the new codex too much at all. Yea it sucks to lose some of the Inquisition elements that have been around since the Daemonhunters dex had them as well. But even back then I played only Grey Knights from that book aside from an occasional Vindicare Assassin. I think the GK dex that was out between this book and the Daemonhunters may have made some of the general GK player populous soft, we had flashy toys and powerful units/rules, which generated a lot of hate and made it less fun to play the book from my standpoint. But lets face it a lot of those flashy things became giant crutches.
I have played my first game of 7th ed with this new codex already and though it was vs. Orks and I took a broad range of units and didn’t spam anything and still secured victory pretty handily. I know the Orks book is probably not the most competitive at all but from my impression we’re not handicapped at all. Purifiers were amazing as they always are, paladins still were a force to be reckoned with, my 10 man strike squad still was able to handily dish out punishment without the psybolt ammo and with psycannons being salvo. Librarian, Dreadknight, Grand Master were all solid choices to try out. Troop terminators were just fine as well.
This book is clearly not as good as the last book we had but still vastly more powerful than the Daemonhunters dex. However people are going to have to adapt back to playing the way they did with the old Daemonhunters book more so than their new style, need to be more careful with your units.
Just my personal take on the book so far, I don’t think it’s the end of the world by any means. I’m actually pleased with the new codex, especially since if I really want to play with a Vindicare again I can from the looks of that dataslate.
I’m definitely planning on bringing back Way of the Water Warrior. Perfect timing since Land Raiders are biss now, and you can still take Dreadknights since LRs are dedicated.
One of the worst relases by GW ever. Up there with SOB.
– no new modell or units
– half of models/units taken out of codex
– really bad internal and external balance.
Really a lost opertunity by GW.
And what is all this talk about GK beeing OP ?
GK in 6.ed and beginning of 7.ed have been mid. tier. No major GT has been won by GK. I can’t Even remember anyone in top 5.
GK now should be low tier.
I think there are a few builds I like that can put up a solid fight. I’m definitely going to try out the deepstrike detachment, and there’s always land raider spam.
Am I the only one drooling for Space Marines? Bring in Draigo to be a part of your Centurionstar and now you’ve got a bonafide bada$$ deathstar and guaranteed Gate. The deathstar is dead. Long live the deathstar!
And all you have to do is spend 550pts to do it! Or you could buy a Drop Pod instead and do the same thing.
Kaldor Draigo, hero of the Grey Knights, Bane of Chaos, Defender of the Imperium: now just as useful as a glorified box with retro-rockets. Progess!
Sevrin Loth marines + Draigo + Devastator Centurions = Invisible Deathstar of Doom with Gate. My f*cking goodness!
this man, has the right idea 😉
Oh, what’s that? A culexus? Oh…Okay.
Some People don’t want to Play a Game of stupid deathstars you know.
So let’s see: 175 + 245 + 245 minimum entry, then you have to take a GK CAD in addition, so 110 + 110 + 110.
Well gosh, for a cool thousand points how could you go wrong? It’s not like one Knight Titan could kill the entire unit by- wait, I’m sorry, what’s that? It appears I was incorrect and one Knight actually _will_ wreck the unit. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Yeah it’s a good combo. Problem is LoW must be allowed and 3 detachments. And FW. With 5 cents thats 840 points. Lots of points and with some bad matchup. And you better not meet the anti- psyker assassin.
It’s only 1 attachment (Space Marines) and 1 LoW (Draigo). If you can’t run Sevrin, then go for Tigurius and the Ultramarines. Better yet, run Grey Knights with SM allies and Draigo LoW (assuming that is allowed in your meta).
Since the. Nemesis Strike Force can be your primary detachment, would there by any way to fit in tig with centurions, Draigo, a guard blob and a couple of NDK?
what (lame) events don’t allow forgeworld or LoWs? =P
A lot of local events. Our flgs runs a tournament every month that draws 30+ players regularly, and I can’t run my heavily converted Draigo and accompaying Paladins. No lords of war, no forgeworld, tons of comp, etc. I can play them at the LVO, but I don’t want to have half my overly large GK army just sitting on the shelf for 51 weeks out of the year.
cripes that’s a depressing state of affairs:(
It makes sense not to allow FW, not everyone knows the rules and if a TO isn’t familiar with them, it can get ugly. not my preference, but I think it’s a reasonable position to take.
Not allowing Lords of War is just getting silly now. They are going to be in every Codex soon. Maybe the FW and Escalation options could be removed (a mistake in my mind) or limited (better), but LoW are so core to the game now that TO’s who don’t like them better figure something out.
FW is such a silly thing to disallow anymore with LoW being so common, FW is really not that tough and like anything, you would be required to have rules on hand. GW is playing a game, and they are winning. It is called “Force players to buy expensive models, game be damned.” The sooner players realize this, the sooner they can start winning again.
I think a better solution is to say no Super heavy or Gargantuan MC LoW. This way if someone wants to take a codex LoW they can.
This will be especially good for tournaments where they offer a consolation prize for last place so I can field Ghaz and a bunch of Ork Dreadnoughts.
I have played centurions-star a lot in GTs. To get that star working you must have invis and gate. Invis for protection and gate for speed. Or they get to slow to do the work. Invis is pretty much a given with Tiggy. Problem is getting gate. You’re basing your army around your ml3 (or 2) getting gate. In my last GT i got gate in 2 of 6 games only.
The old codex also had msu warp charge battery with 23 warp charges to back your star. Now people will have a lot less. That will be a problem against armies with lot of warp charges like demons.
As an IG player, I’m looking at the GK codex mainly as addition to the IG – and the synergies are great. You may put Draigo or Captain Stern in a blob of 50 conscripts or guardsmen and they’ll all get S5 thanks to hammerhand. Add a priest and this blob will get really scary. Draigo might even use his Gate of Infinity to teleport that blob (risky, sure, but possible to be done if needed).
Grey Knights now offer the possibility to deep strike their reserves in turn one, that’s great – and really helpful as addition to a rather static army like IG.
The teleporting Dreadknight is nothing less than an awesome addition to IG.
And last but not least they offer a ton of warp charges urgently needed to feed all that Primaris Psykers…
All in all, I’m sold on that codex as addition to IG.
There are some great toys for allies. I would go with a Librarian over Stern, though.
Personally,I love the new book, almost everything got cheaper and are much closer in power level. Sure, you’re not going to play the game exactly like you used to, but it doesn’t make this codex bad. Every codex this year seems to have been toned down with the most obviously broken things being nerfed or removed, if that happened to only one codex that would really suck, but since it’s been happening to all of them it’s been making the game much more balanced. The old power creep is gone and I love it. Also the new psi shock rule makes me super happy for my sisters.
The codex is great. If you run a few very specific units. I have 40+ GKT/Paladins. But I’d also like to be able to use my company of powered armor GKs without hoping not to play Eldar, or Tau, or Space Marines, or Guard, or…
I am really liking the new codex and want to run Draigo.
What a negative article. Put TLDR- Waaaa! at the bottom.
What I see in the dex is the same thing that they’ve been doing for quite a while. They’ve removed broken combos and other things that people were abusing.
They appropriately raised the points on powerful things and rolled back the cost on things that deserved it.
Terminators and dreadknights got a ludicrous discount. Psilencers are now force. Draigo is a beast.
Thanks for another whiney baby sobstory piece.
What was really so overpowered in the GK codex?
Were interceptors, Purgation, and Strike squads really overpowered such that they needed a nerf and price increase?
This isn’t 2011. Who thought 4 TL Str8 shots for 135 pts was overpowered for a 3hp dreadnought in a world with annihilation barges, wave serpents, and wyverns?
Let’s call this release what it is — A rush job by GW who has no idea how to balance a codex. For example, see the recent SW release with Thunderwolves. A no brainer broken unit that everyone saw as a standout.
Broken combos are still there, in fact as several people pointed out above, attaching Draigo to a Centurion Star is sick. Paladins with AS preachers can be brutal as another example.
This is just an illogical collection of updatse with no rhyme or reason beyond pushing certain expensive units (dreadknights & terminators).
At the end of 5th edition, I would more or less agree with you. There are a few points I would contend, mainly that the GKs only real anti-tank, psycannons, becoming salvo was a bad move, but otherwise, sure.
That was two full editions ago, however. That line of thinking simply isn’t connected to reality any more, and hasn’t been for a few years now. In 6th and 7th, the GK codex dropped to mid tier at best. Mid tier isn’t bad, it’s where everyone should be in a perfect world and I’m certainly not asking for GKs to become the new cheese, but getting hit with a huge list of nerfs and point increases on things that haven’t been good in years, or often weren’t good in the first place?
The fact that there are a few solid builds is awesome. I’ve always wanted to play my three dreadknights more. But I expect to have a solid, well balanced codex that let’s me play fun games with all my toys, and “a few good builds” isn’t quite up to that standard. Will I still play GKs? Absolutely. Will I have fun? Absolutely. Am I dissapointed a very large portion of my collection with sit on the shelf collecting dust? Unfortunately, that will probably be the case.
Wait, I’m confused, did you say that broken combos were removed? I swear Draigo w/ Paladins was the most cheesy thing and lasted through every edition since it’s release and it’s still viable and didn’t change much. In fact Draigo got cheaper and so did Dreadknights, the next most cheesy thing that lasted. So GW actually wants to make these more common instead of everything else that no one used or was useless the last few editions. Logic.
>They appropriately raised the points on powerful things and rolled back the cost on things that deserved it.
Yeah, because Strike Squads were just _wrecking_ the game these days. Do you know how tired I get of seeing triple-Purgator squads with Psycannons inside Razorbacks? GOD. SO. ANNOYING. I am glad they nerfed that s*** because it was seriously lame. And don’t even get me started on Grand Masters- it seemed like every single list I faced was a pair of them in the HQ slots backed up by two or more Techmarines. I’m glad I won’t have to see any of them anymore.
With how GK have been dominating all of the big tournaments lately, this is a welcome change. Maybe we’ll finally get to see some of the older books, like Necrons or Eldar, get a chance to shine.
AWESOME!!!…as long as you take nothing but Termis and Dread Knights?
Wow, it’s almost like you didn’t read the codex… I’m pretty thankful you’re not usually a contributor on any blogs or forums that are worth reading. I was really hoping for an objective review instead if a tear filled pity party…
That’s pretty harsh, unnecessary and wrong.
IMO it’s pretty difficult to make a positive spin on this release.
Please enlighten us.
Well to begin with, dreads aren’t heavy, they’re elites, and he didn’t even really talk about the other elites…
The first awesome change to GK is the Nemesis Strike Force, GT are now much more effective at getting up in their opponents face safely, who doesn’t love 33 point terminators with force weapons deep striking on turn 1! Also if you don’t like Strike Squads the NSF only requires 1 troops choice anyhow.
There are good things in the book, people just need to step back and look at it fresh, complaining about losing things doesn’t actually consisute a review of the book, it’s just bitching about a change log…
Really, what was lost in the end were a few goofy options, and in the case of some came at a far to small of a cost (really, psychic tanks). And now that people have to pay the appropriate cost for some options, all is doom and gloom, sorry dreadnoughts, you have to pay 25 points like everyone else to generate warp charges… Never mind the cost of the other rules it gets.
If you played GK to play GK you are in a great spot, if you played GK to play Draigowing, you’re in the same shape that everyone is in when their gimmicky lists gets a new book (or you know, just take an awesome lobby and super cheap terminator squad and move on). Let’s not even talk about the people who played GK for Co-cheese and friends.
What about people who played PAGK. They are considerably worse with nothing in compensation.
Just because something isn’t the most optimal unit, doesn’t mean you can’t play with it. There has always been a huge disconnect between what is best and what may be more fun and interesting to play. If you only play tournament games, then yes, things changed, as they always do.
So what you’re saying is the units that make up about 50% of the codex (i.e. the ones in power armor) took a major hit to effectiveness, weren’t very good before, and you have no defense of them to speak of.
At least we know your position, I guess.
The points hike on dreads and no- psyammo makes them useless.
Strikes are nerfed away.
Terminators point decrease makes them ok, not good. Meta is not kind to termies.
That special detachment is fun and fluffy, but i’m unshure how good . To unreable. You must make the 3+ for each unit, scatter, interceptor, you are a sitting duck for a turn. Another problem is that GK don’t have that much good shooting.
Eh, it makes them on par with other riflemen dreadnoughts, they were far undercost before. The GK Dreadnought is 25 points more, and for that you get a psychic mastery level (usually costs 25 points on it’s own), as well as The Aegis, Preferred Enemy and Purity of Spirit rolled in for free. Granted it doesn’t have the best powers in the world, though it still generates a warp charge just fine like what many psykers end up doing anyhow.
33 point terminators with force weapons and hammerhand, plus can deep strike turn 1, then run and shoot… That’s pretty damn good.
I am pretty sure that detachment is going to be the main way most people play GK, it requires the fewest troops and helps mitigate their biggest weakness. A huge problem with the army is that they have to make it across the board, the whole time being shot at, the formation helps that immensely.
When was the last time you saw a Rifleman Dread in a winning tournament army? Why nerf things that were good two editions ago?
So, a pity party, kind of like when you posted about how that guy you lost to at the BAO wasn’t a cheater?
I appreciate alternative opinions, but instead of saying ‘you’re wrong, and that makes you a whiny, incompetent liar’, I’ll take your opinions a lot more seriously if you keep it respectful, well reasoned disagreement.
BTW, dreadnoughts being elite vs heavy support doesn’t matter. It isn’t a lack of slots that really hurt them, and I do in fact discuss both Purifiers and Paladins, the other elite choices.
Haha wow, so goes back to how you mustn’t have actually even read the article you are trying to use against me… Cute.
I don’t recall calling you a liar, what I said was that you aren’t convincing me that you actually read it.
I’d really like to hear how you call this a review of the book. You might not like the changes but you did actually very little reviewing of the content of the book itself. Instead of writing a review of grey knights you wrote a hugely whiny recap of the changes from the previous book. Can you see the difference? That wound be like writing an article about how bad Return of the Jedi is because you liked The Empire Strikes Back more, and instead of actually saying much about Return of the Jedi you just talk about the strengths of The Empire Strikes Back.
If this was called “why I hate the changes to the GK codex” then it would have been a much more apt title.
Can we not listen to this guy? He talks like he’s 12 but wants to be a man, and dosn’t make sense at all and I feel HE hasn’t read the codex…just another GW fanboy foaming at the mouth awaiting the release of the next bs…pretty sure he’s into CoD too…would fit his childish reasoning and trolling tone.
Idc if I’m not helping…ppl like this upset me and make my head hurt. /end rant
Why you gotta hate in CoD?
Well adam there is not much to review since they took away 1/3 of the codex and added nothing.
I love you like a brother Adam, and im allways the first to defend you, but in this case you are talking out of your arse.
Personally, I think 33 points for a GK terminator is some laughably cheap; the fact people are complaining about it… Yeah I’m sorry you lost your initiative 6, strength 5 (without a character) terminators with grenades, because that wasn’t unbalanced at all. Now, you pay a point for ATSKNF, another point for THREE types of grenades (that no other codex gets with that armor), and you get your psychic shenanigans for free. However with hammer hand being +2 flat now, that means all your termis are at stength 6 minimum, all while being the second cheapest terminators in the game. In my opinion, the book is just flat reasonable now. The lack of options suck, but Grey Knights are hardly a diverse fighting force.
Here’s the thing: at 40ppm, Terminators were significantly overpriced. Same thing with vanilla Terminators. No one ran GKT or Tac Terminators or lightning Claw Terminators outside of purely casual games. The only Terminators that were any good were THSS Terminators and Paladins, and both had their issues. All Terminators should be closer to 30ppm, not just GKs.
Now, it looks at first glance that GKT got massively cheaper. And they did drop 35pts for 5 dudes, not an insignificant drop. Except now you need to buy your Hammers and other cc upgrades (and lost psybolt ammo). So rather than being 35+pts cheaper for a 5 man unit, in practice you’re only maybe 20pts cheaper per 5 guys. Definitely a nice boost, but considering that they were overpriced to begin with it really only brings them to par.
The change was needed. Free hammers on everything with the vehicle damage charts would have been terrible to deal with. Just prior to the release of the GK dex I played against a list with 2 landraiders filled with GKTs with hammers and two DKs. Oh my tears that wrecked my armored back field.
They always had free hammers in the previous codex. It was never OP because the models wielding them were hard to make work. Guys took maybe 2-3 in a 10 man squad. I honestly am saddened that my Strike Squads are fairly invalidated now. Maybe I can rip their backpacks off and add the interceptor ones…
is there anything interesting that can be done with Rhinos and Razorbacks as Fast Attack?
Nothing that couldn’t be done with SW, I imagine.
Don’t worry. GW will release DLC’s, I mean, formations to balance GK’s back up.
I remember posting this somewhere else but I want to do it here too. In the comments it seems that people are worried that complaints come from us losing our cheese or that we’re underpowered. Well that’s just not true. It’s obviously balanced and overpowered when played with cheesy combos. There will be dataslates, formations and all manner of ridiculous stuff to take full advantage of the already silly combos. MY issue with this is that everyone played Draigowing Deathstars in some form or another. Like all Deathstars, Tau/Eldar cheese and crazy 2++ reroll, it doesn’t matter how you play, it doesn’t require strategy, you just hope to God you don’t roll a 1 too many times or you’ll lose. It’s boring. They may have won but I was bored watching it. My most memorable experience playing Grey Knights was when I destroyed a Swarmlord with a 100pt Brotherhood Champion, and later that week I did the same against Abaddon. Why? Because I was smart enough to get the right model through the battlefield to get into battle with the right unit. They never saw it coming. “But no one uses BC!” Because they don’t know how. They also don’t know how to line up a Storm Raven with Mindstrike Missles to Perils a Farseer to death. They don’t know how to fire 2-3 Conversion Beamers a turn along with Astral Aim into a pesky Riptide on the other side of the map who just wanted to hide every turn behind a building. They didn’t know how to use any other assasins either then Vindicare, they didn’t know to throw down a Dreadnought from a Storm Raven to wreck face behind enemy lines, or pick off targets with small groups of deep striking Strike Squads. They didn’t want to take full advantage of the book that’s fine, but I did. I’m not playing for tournaments. If I did, I would be using a carbon copy list people have seen every game. Is that fun for people? It’s too easy and boring isn’t it? Where’s the strategy? I don’t want to be ‘saved’ by a Dataslate giving Draigo and his boys even MORE options, I want the fun of finding something no one knew about and using it to it’s full advantage and making people table flip about something they never even knew about. That’s fun. Whether or not I win I like the idea of some Eldar punk freaking out because his perfect Eldar Jetbikes lost their precious Psyker. So now I sit here, bored. Their powers were dumbed down after 7th, and now everything except for Termies/Paladins/Librarians/Dreadknights have been made too bad for me to do anything fun or interesting with. This is the same reason my Tyranid player left the game. Either than a Dataslate with far too many FMCs for anyone to deal with the Tyranids don’t have anything viable to play with. Is throwing FMCs at your opponent fun when you know almost no one can do anything? I dunno. This isn’t strategy to me, and I don’t see anything different, new or interesting. Grey Knights can do better.
Self professed noob so take my observations with a grain of salt. First, strength 4 weapons wound T6 in a 6+, so Riptides can be wounded by psilencers. Just assuming averages it will admittedly take 36 shots to get the IF through, however it would take psycannons 33 shots to peal off all the wounds of a Riptide. That sounds equal, however, even with the old assault 2/ heavy 4 psycannons you are talking 6 psycannons on PAGK modes taking 3 turns to peal off those wounds if they move or 2 turns if stationary. Six psilencers on PAGK need 1 turn to get the I stand death on a riptide. This makes the psilencers on PAGK undeniable better at kilint Riptides. Additionally, it would seem Psilencers are better against T4 or lower the a psycannons. (Second confession, my “statistical” observations may be 100% wrong).
Second, PAGK players who want to maximize their warp charge dice using only grey knights should take a look at purifiers. They are master level 2 making them the cheapest infantry option for spamming warp charge dice. A five man purifier squad with two psilencers in a rhino runs 185 points. This would seem to be the best option for PAGK using Psilencers since you’ll have the extra warp charge dice to increase your odds of activating force for the Psilencers.
Anyway those are just a couple noob observations.
If you think this codex is good you are either an idiot, or play against idiots.
You think terminators are good? Have you ever played 40K before? I doubt it.
If you think you will ever get into assault with a unit that only moves 6″ a turn I do not know what to tell you. Assault units are all super fast or have some other way to get to the enemy in a hurry (and spending all of your points on land raiders and stormravens are not the way to do it either.).
Do you really think there shooting is any good? There is a reason why no one uses strength 4 shooting to kill anything, Can you name a good shooting army that uses a few strength 4 shooting to kill anything? That is why Dire Avengers never leave their wave serpent. If you take a unit of 10 Terminators with 2 psycannons it will take you 7 turns to kill 360 points (the GK terminators’s cost) in marines.
The codex was not very competitive in 7th edition and cheaper Dreadknights is not the fix to beat Eldar, Tau, IG, Demons, Space Marines, etc. And what do you think you are going to do against Imperial Knights?
This codex makes for a good ally and that is all.
Good thing allies are a big part of 7e, amirite?
I really dislike when the codex as published can’t stand alone (I’m not saying that’s the case with GK- I haven’t studied it throughly…)
The worst example of that was ‘Nids, but honestly speaking if you use the 7th Edition rules for multiple CAD’s, I think they are one of the top armies.
OK, the worst example was actually LoD…
But I don’t think any army should only be competitive as an ally or with allies. Maybe an army is only top tier with an ally (or in a list as an ally… as in Tau), but in and of itself a codex should be able to be competitive.
Hey, found your idiot you where talking about!
This is a codex, not supplement, should be well rounded as a army…bot reliant on crutches of allies…specially fluff wise…elite of the elite needing someone else to fight for em bc they are sitting on their hands and eating dirt. GTFO
“If you think this codex is good you are either an idiot, or play against idiots.”
Your regular opponent on Daemons 40k thinks its a good codex and that Grey Knights are not weaker. So whose the idiot? :p
Ok, my statement might have been a little harsh, but it angered me that everyone was saying how good they are now who are not Grey Knight players. Grey Knights struggled to win games in 7th edition, and this codex made them weaker.
To answer that question I will say that Kevin is a demon player and has a fear of Grey Knights. I played him with Eldar last night for a change and that is an army he should have a fear of.
His brief review of the GK codex he was afraid of all that they gained, and did not focus on all of nuances that changed that made them a weaker army than what I have been playing against him with. The loss of strength 5 storm bolters means that I am killing a lot less, The fact that they do not have a cheap troop choice like last edition (Henchman) or the ability to make the better units (Paladins and Purifiers) troops really hurts. Add to this that their weapons got worse, and they did not see a point reduction or any new units (if fact they lost 2/3 of their codex) means that that the new codex will not bring them out of mid-table obscurity at tournaments.
That being said I can think of a few builds that I will do OK with, but they will never beat the top armies.
Yeah I agree the codex is weaker, no doubt in my mind. It needed more buffs then just a couple units getting cheaper to stand on its own. That said, it and the rest of the former daemonhunter codex go back to being decent allies. Just the way Jervis prefers it I guess.
And exactly the reason why GW is falling off the map. They’ll be bought out very soon (don’t see them lasting over another year) due to killing the hobby/game. There are not enough fanboys to keep it afloat. Reason why Privateer Press is now number 2 with Warmachine/Horde. Idgaf if it makes a good ally list, I like grey knights and want to play em. But yet I fight an uphill battle against someone playing basic SM…even fluff wise this makes 0 sense.
What a poor review. Not only did most things get cheaper across the board, but Draigo is now infinitely better with AP2 instead of 3, always S9 instead of just S10 vs. psykers only, 30 points less, and permanent Gates of Infinity.
Falchions still give +1A, but dropped from 25 points to 4. 4!!!
As to Halberds: it didn’t make sense that a heavy, 2-handed weapon granted +2I. Yes, it has reach, but + to Strength made much more sense and it should have always been that way.
Force on Psilencers is better than you think. You shouldn’t have been using those to target Riptides and Wraithknights anyway. That’s what your S9 Draigo, Autocannons, and Meltas are for. This lets you ID Tyranid MC’s when you do hit a 6 – and when you roll that many dice, you will. Tough(ish) units like Thunderwolf Cavalry and Superfriends Bikers will also disappear if they fail any saves. Again, with that many dice, they will.
It’s not a weakness just because it doesn’t hurt a WK. Most people run WK’s around 300 points, so they should be tough to kill. Rare and very role-specific weapons should be used against them.
I agree that the Psilencers and heavy Psilencers is better than the OP thinks.
Wraiths, Riptides, Tyranids MCs as a whole, Nob Bikers, Thunderwolf cavalry,Daemon Princes, Obliterators with MoN, all do not want to go up against that thing… not to mention Chaos Daemons.
Sure, you need to hit and wound, but I think the threat of the weapon will be huge in addition to some nice in game results against some armies.
But yeah, against flyers, bikes, vehicles, etc… MEQ’s… it’s useless.
Wraiths are a niche unit and even they have a 3+ against it. Psilencer on average, assuming you activate Force (which you won’t have the WC to do on everybody and you need to cast other powers) doesn’t even kill one Wraith.
Riptides you will never have enough WC to activate all of the Psilencers you need to kill one. And they won’t be stupid enough to sit inside 24″ for you.
Tyranid MCs fly, no real exceptions at this point.
Nob Bikers aren’t a thing. Haven’t been for almost two editions at this point.
Oblits? Who needs help smashing CSM these days?
Well I didn’t say they were auto include or made Grey Knights OP. Just that they were better than useless.
‘Nids use Tyrannofexes, Tervigons, Mawlocs, Exocrines, Carnifexes, the new Dimas, Malanthropes, Hive Guard, and Tyranid Warriors (as part of many formations)… plus Zoanthropes. So a lot of multi-wound non flying creatures (MC or not)
I have seen a lot of wraith rush lists (2 were in the top 10 at BAO I think.) If you want to think about it this way; by taking off two wounds per hit, it turns that 3++ into a 5++.
And as a player who has a lot of CSM… yeah, nobody needs help smashing us now 😉
I very rarely see any of the Tyranid ground MCs doing well- they’re too slow and too vulnerable, for the most part. (Admittedly, I haven’t fought Nids since the Malanthrope got updated, but…)
There might have been one guy with Wraiths in the top 10 at BAO, but I vaguely feel like there wasn’t. I know there were several players there using Wraith-heavy armies that did at least decently, but I really feel like the CCB and Acanthrites overshadow them pretty heavily these days.
Checked my facts and I overstated a bit. BAO Table 7 had two wraith lists playing each other in the last battle. One of them ended top 10, the other didn’t.
See, this is what I am talking about. Draigo was only good because he made Paladins troops, and and he was very durable. AP 3 or 2, or his strength does not matter. No one charges Draigo, and his movement of 6″ means that he can just be avoided. He was better off with access to Divination, than teleporting strength 4 bolters around.
Falchions dropped from 5 points to 4 points…big deal. Again, how do you assault with a slow army?
Halberds got nerfed and a fluff justification is pointless (I can make the argument that they are polearms and they are longer than most weapons and they they should strike first before a guy with a sword or claws and so should be +2 I).
You think silencers are good? You have to cast force which takes a valuable resource (WC), it needs to then be successfully cast, it can be denied, and then you have to hit and wound. Yes, 2 silencers shooting will kill one thunderwolf that is not that great, and you have to be in a position to shoot it. TMC? They only one that matters are Hive Tyrants and do you know what your odds of killing one that is flying? What happens if you are playing against an army that does not have multiple wound models?
So what “rare and role-specific” weapons do GKs have to deal with Wraithknights?
Wouldn’t a basic hammer be good against a wraithknight? Also Dreadknights?
I’m not saying this book is amazing, but wraithknights don’t seem like a huge problem compared to something like just basic wave serpents.
The problem as I mentioned before is the speed of the GKs. They are a slow army. Their troops are slow and their HQs are slow (and they have no range). They have a couple of fast units (Interceptors and Dreadknights) that I will be building my army around, but they still not that good.
A Wraithknight moves 12″ so using hammers on it are not going to be easy. The Dreadknight is the only option, and they still can be avoided and the Wraithknights can shoot up dreadknights and with a couple of wounds gone ( and as long as the DKs do not have force) up the WKs will win in an assault.
Like I said, I’m not saying the book is OMGawesome, but it certainly has tools for a wraith knight. I struggle to see how it would deal with serpent spam or skyblight or any kind of horde really.
Who is honestly not paying the 5 points for a hammer considering the dramatic drop in points for teleporters?
Things are getting HEATED in here.
Heated?! I think they’re getting fiery. Let’s fight about it!
The whole comments section reads like a Festivus miracle!
Seems to me that 7th ed. alone gave GK a big bonus with the new force rule. Aren’t regular grey knights equipped with ALL force weapons? That’s pretty huge. Every one of your strike squads has a ton of instant death and storm bolters. And the awesome bonus of ATSKNF with marine stats plus adding to your warp charge pool? That sounds pretty sweet to me. It seems like GW is trying to change the way that grey knights are played. Is that so bad? Seems like a majority of grey knight armies(or detachments) I would see didn’t actually include any strike squads as troops. By my reckoning strike squads may be one of the better troop choices out there in 7th.
“By my reckoning strike squads may be one of the better troop choices out there in 7th.”
That says it all right there.
I’m sorry, that says all what?
-What melters?! What the fuck are you talking about?
-Falchions cost was 5 not 25
-Yes we going to fuck you up nicely with our mighty 12 Autocannon shots! (max we can get in the army)
-AGAIN WHAT MELTERS?
-Are you going to tell me next we should use our millions of plasma weapons to fight tough stuff?
Stay at BoLs you dimwit!
For those of you who are saying it is a good codex, can you explain to be how GKs kill vehicles?
Dreadknights, Stormravens, Hammers, Land Raiders, Libby with Vortex power, Melta bombs, hammer hand attacks and grenades will work in a pinch against light armor.
Hey, Riflemen are still in the book too!
I know that’s unpopular to say, but they’re still more effective than the random Psycannon in a Terminator squad against AV 10-13, and cheaper than the Terminator squad to boot! Yeah, it’s pesky that they have to pay for being a Psyker now though.
oh yeah, forgot about them. Also, Warding Staves with hammer hand can glance Land Raiders now. “Yay,” I know, but pairs nicely with a hammer at least.
>Dreadknights
Sure. But that is becoming their answer to everything, because it’s one of the few genuinely-good units in the codex.
>Stormravens
Do you see a lot of SM players running Stormravens? Why do you think that is the case?
>Hammers
On what units? Weapons by themselves don’t kill things, they need a platform.
>Land raiders
250pts to destroy a Rhino is not a good deal.
>Libby
Sanctic is one of the worst tables you can roll on for GK and Vortex is dangerous to you, unreliable when used, and you can’t reliably get it on the chart.
>Meltabombs
Same problem as a Hammer- who is it that is getting these assaults with Meltabombs? They don’t carry themselves.
I don’t think that vehicles are GK’s main struggle this time around, but your arguments in favor of them don’t do your side any favors. Most of them rely on melee, which against flyers, fast skimmers, etc, are going to be extremely lacking- go ahead and try and catch those Wave Serpents with your Daemonhammers, see how that works out.
I didn’t say they were all great options, but they are options. And as for who will carry the other cc stuff, I think GKs should be looking to deep strike more, so will have at least a better chance to get into combat.
Another obvious non GK player just spouting bs bc he’s happy GK got a bad codex so he can win a few more games, must suck to be that bad you hope for bad dex to cover your lack of skill…bc obviously you can’t read or you’d understand what half the people in here are saying…your argument basically says “I can win with a knife vs a gun, but let me set up all the WHAT IF in my favor first”…idiots. no other word.
Oh, certainly GK is going to be a Deep Strike-army; they really don’t have any other options at this point. Their unique detachment is actually quite good and DSing in turn 1 actually makes up for the lack of ObSec- it’s all that other stuff that is mediocre.
Relying on melee to kill things presumes that you will be in range and succeed charges and that you only need to kill the tank and not the stuff inside and that the enemy doesn’t have countercharge units that will stop you first. Those are all very risky assumptions. Melee is much slower and much less reliable than shooting for dealing with threats.
The guys from “Team Stomping Grounds”, out of Pennsylvania iirc, who are typically waac/deathstar list writers did a much better (and more positive) review of the GK Codex on their youtube channel “SG Tactics”. There’s also a few batreps for new SWs and new GKs; I even spied those sexy F.A.T. Mats too!
The more I look at this codex the more I see it as a perfect example of the direction GW is taking 40k. The units are internally balanced with one or two signature units that get a little bit of a boost and/or discount. Relics add flavor so you build-your-own, and then the Detachment is where the army is supposed to get it’s attack style from. GK’s are looking more like a DS army to me. You put teleport homers on naked interceptors (or maybe with a flamer) and shunt them into the enemy zone you can have your army in their face on turn 2 with multiple turn 3 charges (assuming you place them well enough to avoid getting shot apart).
Or if you want to use the detachment I’m thinking of adding a Xenos inquisitor w/liber heresius with a unit of purifiers to gain scout, then you deep strike termies and dreadknights turn one, with interceptor back ups to shunt and deliver the rest turn two. Maybe take paladins to escort your libby and a few acolyte squads in your inquisitorial detachment with a psyback (hey, remember those?) for some cheapo scorers.
I’m testing out this new play style, only got one game in but it’s been pretty and I managed to pull out a win against a DE/Eldar army that’s been pretty tough on me. It wasn’t a netlist army or anything, though. I really do think people should really take the codex out for a spin or two before passing judgement though.
>The units are internally balanced with one or two signature units that get a little bit of a boost and/or discount.
No they aren’t. Terminators, Paladins, and Dreadknights are _grossly_ better than any other choice available. Strike Squads are outright terrible, as are Razorbacks and Dreadnoughts, and the Librarian is the only HQ choice that anyone has any reason to take at all. That’s the opposite of internal balance.
Sorry, maybe I mean more “standardized, with signature units.” The problem with strike squads and power armor in general is that you’re paying too much for the combat side, which is not what you want without an increase to survivability. Even with deep strike it is not worth it for PAGKs.
But you look at the terminators who are now the signature unit and the deep strike and close combat become more useful, especially when coupled with the new detachment.
Look, I’m not saying that grey knights are now top tier oh my god number one, I just don’t think that they’re the complete train wreck that people are making them out to be.
It’s true they have a couple neat tricks. I’m glad they made Terminators cheaper as well as the DK and Incinerators (although the increased price on Relentless models is baffling.) But doing three things right and seven things wrong does not impress me- it speaks to their “successes” being more a matter of chance than of planning.
The new GK book is essentially a monobuild right out of the gates and for anyone that played GK before, all but two of the units from the codex are essentially garbage now. That is an amazingly bad sign.
At first I thought you had some valid points. Now, after reading your comments you’re just another angry GK player, dreaming about the days of the 5th. LOL. Welcome to the bottom tier, then.
GW is quite terrible at knowing how their own armies should be played. The more they try to push certain armies as close combat specialists, the worse they get. For example see Orks, Tyranids, Blood Angels, Khorne Daemons, CSM, and now Grey Knights.
Think about Tyranids, what are the best units – shooty flyrants, shooty carnifexes living artillery biovores, devgants, and board clogging skyblight gargoyles. Worst units genestealers, warriors, trygons, etc.
For CSM it is the same stories, best units – oblits, (formerly) helldrake, noise marines, and board clogging zombies/cultists. Worst units – hellbrute, mutilators, possessed, warptalons.
They want to push you to use a certain style, but that style can often suck since they dramatically overvalue melee and undervalue shooting.
I think maybe we need to change the way we look at codex releases. Seems to me that the new codices that are released are meant to encourage allying. All imperial armies seem to work best when allied with another imperial army. Perhaps it’s a dick move on the part of GW. What I’m pretty sure will not help the situation is crying bloody murder about it. Neither will comparing every new release to the Eldar codex. I understand the frustration of having a weakish codex- I play CSM mostly- but come on. The comparison to SOB is pretty out of pocket. Like any codex the player is expected to find the combos, not have the book hand them out. Play the hand you’ve been dealt, you may surprise yourself. And if all else fails, ally with imperial knights. At least try and play it out, try and find the combos before discounting the book because your old combos are less viable. Am I way off base here?
Why do people keep saying that Terminators got much cheaper?
They use to get their assault weapons for free, and now you have to pay 40 points if you want 4 demonhammers making them cost about the same as they always have.
But… you don’t have to pay for psybolts anymore! Too soon?
Because they got cheaper. Seriously, they did.
Now you are just being obtuse.
Yes, the stock Terminators did get cheaper, but no one runs them that way, or if they did they would be next to useless.
To properly equip them you need to pay points for their upgrades that they didn’t have to pay for last codex. In the end they end up costing almost as much as they did before.
No one used them last codex because they were bad and shifting points away from the terminators and putting it into the upgrades did not change anything..
Almost as much is still cheaper, no?0
Cheaper yes…much cheaper no.
I agree with you all I know you need to give a codex more time and trial before we judge it. But Come on let’s be fair here. We are lacking some internal and external balance in this codex when compared the last 4. Just compare the point effectiveness of space wolves thunder wolf cavalry to paladins alone and it does not take a blind man to see some thing is wrong here.
Maybe it is just a mess up in the design team or future proofing the codex against future data slate release in the pipeline but the codex does fall a little flat when compared to all the others so far.