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First things first: This proposal is for friendly games ONLY, it's not an attempt at making the Grey Knights more powerful, broken, cheesy, competitive and whatnot!

So, back in 3rd edition I really liked the Grey Knights for the real "elite" feel you got from them. WS 5, S 6, 2 attacks, stormbolter, you name it!

Now, with the new codex, they have become just "another" Marine Chapter. In the commentaries given by the designers they clearly explained it was their intent from the start and they achieved it.

But...
I don't want to play Grey Knights because they're just marines (agreed, they're a bit more than that, but still) but because they're amongst the top of the Imperial Food Chain!

And as such I feel it's now time to apply this important principle of table-top games which make them so much superior to video games:
"If you don't like a rule, change it!"

So, what changed between the two editions:

Nemesis Force Weapons: S6 and power weapon --> more variety (that's nice)
Psychic powers: a few for the HQs and most were very situational --> psychic powers for everyone! (makes much more sense)
stats: WS5, fearless --> basic marine profile (AHAH!!! we have our culprit!!!!)

All this to come to this proposal: boost all of the Grey Knights WS by 1 point to restore their elite status!

But the points? And here's where I need your help:
Strike Squads and Interceptor Squads: I would say between +3 and +5 pts?
Purifiers and Terminators (and techmarines but not so important): about +5 and +10 pts?

What say you? Good or Bad idea?

I'd say the new codex actually allows you to play an 'old-fashioned elite' list by simply choposing paladins. Admittedly you have then to take draigo, but it'd be simpler to house rule paladins as troops with any GM, BC or Librarian HQ than to adjust the points of everything else (which even with WS5 rather lack that elite feel to me).

If you don't want all-terminator armour GKs for any reason, then maybe allow the paladins to downgrade to PA?

Power armored Paladins could be a good idea but you would lose the variety in the army the new codex brought.

Anyway, how would you adjust the points? Around 30 ~ 35 pts?

Of course, if we really wanted precision, weapon point costs would have to be adjusted too but it wouldn't change much.

All in all, this idea is quite interesting, you could make a new unit out of it.

Wait... Your idea for making the Grey Knights more elite is to simply increase their WS by one?!

Just Dave wrote:Wait... Your idea for making the Grey Knights more elite is to simply increase their WS by one?!

Well he kinda broke it down.

All GK force weapons are force weapons now with options for more attacks/strength/initiative (falchions/hammers/halberds respectively) = better than old codex (not all were power weapons, not all were ID, etc), more elite than SM.
All GK have at least one psychic power, if not multiple, and BoP rules = better than old codex, more elite than SM.
However, most GK have exactly the same statline as a standard SM, which doesn't really reflect their nigh-legendary status. GK to SM is supposed to be somewhat comparable as SM to Guardsman (or maybe Kasrkin).

Long story short, I agree. They aren't physically superior, but they supposed to be more skilled. +1 WS and BS across the board would reflect this. I'd say +5 pts a model for Strike/Intercept, +10 for Term/Purifier/Pally.

DoW

Just Dave wrote:Wait... Your idea for making the Grey Knights more elite is to simply increase their WS by one?!

Well, my intention was mainly to take the best part of the old codex and new codex. Thus give them back some of their old profile.

@DogOfWar - Thanks for the support!
The increase in BS doesn't seem necessary to me since they never were supposed to be excellent marksman.
BUt yeah, since I perfer to be overcosted than undercosted, I think I'll stick with the +5 and +10 pts increase.

Thanks for the input guys!

Oh yeah, I recognise his intentions behind this, but upping the WS by 1 is a very minor change that will only slightly affect their hitting power. I wouldn't object to such a change as I believe it should've been there in the first place, but nonetheless I don't think WS5 would make a significant change, whereas BS5 is a bit too much and unnecessary.

As you said, WS5 wouldn't be a significant change, that's the point.

I don't want to modify the codex too much because as a result you would have to go through the whole codex to change all the points values to adapt if not have to start a whole Clone War to restore the balance of the force.

This way, the change would only concern 5 units (I forgot to mention dreadnoughts in the list).

All in all, it's just to give them a slightly better profile than generic marines.

Next part: giving them all fearless!