Grey Knights are next ! - UPDATED 15/8 --- pre-order up on GW website

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**TheKbob**

Running and shooting off a deep strike. All for the low cost of giving up objective secured. Still not worth it.

Folks defending the expensive power armor Grey Knights units.... They are still T4 W1 3+ in an edition of massed shooting that will wound you on 2s. If you're 18+ pts, you're a pretty points sink with a bow on top. Power weapons? Good luck engaging and you still are A1. The power armor Grey knights have always been extremely tepid except for Crowe lists...in 5E. I never saw them run much in comparison to henchman troops plus Grey Knight everything else as that's more effective. By removing that option, you are further gutting the GK.

**ashikenshin**

and I thought it was awesome that you were going to be able to build an actual Grey Knight list with a Grey Knight codex.

It always bummed me out that I would see a list for 1500 GK on a forum and it was an Inquisition list with no GK whatsoever, maybe a Dreadknight.

**Fayric**

This release certainly look strange and rushed.

Reasons to go about releasing a codex but no new models could be:

They plan some big campaign or actual fluff advancement where the GK play an important role. So they had to update the rules even if new models were not done yet.

Or, Matt Ward leaving GW ended up in some legal complications or just anger issues that made GW push a new release of his "master piece".

Or, its a new MO they start using, not that it makes any marketing sense,

**gorgon**

I think it's certainly possible that GK are a market test. With their marketing now focused around weekly releases instead of monthly, it allows them to experiment more, as we saw with Orks and SW.

It seems like a valid marketing question -- exactly how much does a rules update drive the sales of existing kits?

If it flops, I'm sure we won't see it again.

**TheKbob**

Games Workshop does not perform market research.

**WrentheFaceless**

ashikenshin wrote:
and I thought it was awesome that you were going to be able to build an actual Grey Knight list with a Grey Knight codex.

It always bummed me out that I would see a list for 1500 GK on a forum and it was an Inquisition list with no GK whatsoever, maybe a Dreadknight.

Agreed

**wuestenfux**

No new models and some nerfs (e.g., no psy ammuno, no inquistion) will lead to a rather low sales volume.

**WrentheFaceless**

We still dont know the fate of psy ammo.

**TheKbob**

WrentheFaceless wrote:
ashikenshin wrote:
and I thought it was awesome that you were going to be able to build an actual Grey Knight list with a Grey Knight codex.

It always bummed me out that I would see a list for 1500 GK on a forum and it was an Inquisition list with no GK whatsoever, maybe a Dreadknight.

Agreed

Hark, someone isn't "doing it right by my standards!" Quick, they should be punished swiftly!

**Dryaktylus**

TheKbob wrote:
Games Workshop does not perform market research.

They do count money, though (at least Kirby does when swimming in his Money Bin). So if a concept fails, they'll propably try something different (without market research).

**Ferrum_Sanguinis**

Run and shoot after DS? On turn 1? AWESOME!

I've always only ever run pure GK, never like Inquisition mostly because no plastic models (and my failcast Cortez had a warped face and TH).

So glad to see pure GK just got a massive boost.

**Azreal13**

Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
Run and shoot after DS? On turn 1? AWESOME!

I've always only ever run pure GK, never like Inquisition mostly because no plastic models (and my failcast Cortex had a warped face and TH).

So glad to see pure GK just got a massive boost.

You say that, but they'd be much better if you took a bunch of servo skulls from the Inq codex.

**WrentheFaceless**

Azreal13 wrote:
Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
Run and shoot after DS? On turn 1? AWESOME!

I've always only ever run pure GK, never like Inquisition mostly because no plastic models (and my failcast Cortex had a warped face and TH).

So glad to see pure GK just got a massive boost.

You say that, but they'd be much better if you took a bunch of servo skulls from the Inq codex.

Most of the GK Hq's left can take skulls (Captain/GM, and libbys)

**puma713**

gorgon wrote:
I think it's certainly possible that GK are a market test. With their marketing now focused around weekly releases instead of monthly, it allows them to experiment more, as we saw with Orks and SW.

It seems like a valid marketing question -- exactly how much does a rules update drive the sales of existing kits?

If it flops, I'm sure we won't see it again.

Not sure how many of those they can afford to do.

**Elmir**

Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
Run and shoot after DS? On turn 1? AWESOME!

I've always only ever run pure GK, never like Inquisition mostly because no plastic models (and my failcast Cortex had a warped face and TH).

So glad to see pure GK just got a massive boost.

I don't see the massive boost if this comes at the expense of objective secured... sorry... :(

**Paradigm**

Sound interesting, certainly counters the issue of actually getting GK across the board and into the optimum range. Only one mandatory troops is pretty handy too if you're going heavy in Dreadknights, Pallies and Purifiers.

And another thought. Termy GK with Deathwing Allies. Turn 1deep-striking terminators all round!

**Thunderfrog**

Losing the Assassins is pants on head.

Tinfoil Hat: No one was buying the Inquisition codex because the Grey Knight version was so great. So they split them to make us buy dataslates for Inq. AND Assassins.

**WrentheFaceless**

Elmir wrote:
Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
Run and shoot after DS? On turn 1? AWESOME!

I've always only ever run pure GK, never like Inquisition mostly because no plastic models (and my failcast Cortex had a warped face and TH).

So glad to see pure GK just got a massive boost.

I don't see the massive boost if this comes at the expense of objective secured... sorry... :(

If you can deep strike first turn and shoot all of his ob sec stuff to death, why does it matter?

**Ferrum_Sanguinis**

Azreal13 wrote:
Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
Run and shoot after DS? On turn 1? AWESOME!

I've always only ever run pure GK, never like Inquisition mostly because no plastic models (and my failcast Cortex had a warped face and TH).

So glad to see pure GK just got a massive boost.

You say that, but they'd be much better if you took a bunch of servo skulls from the Inq codex.

Grand masters and Brother-Captains can take skulls too.

**Desubot**

Thunderfrog wrote:

Losing the Assassins is pants on head.

Tinfoil Hat: No one was buying the Inquisition codex because the Grey Knight version was so great. So they split them to make us buy dataslates for Inq. AND Assassins.

Little less tinfoil hatty but: Why sell 1 codex when you can sell 3

**Elmir**

WrentheFaceless wrote:

If you can deep strike first turn and shoot all of his ob sec stuff to death, why does it matter?

I'm not sure what type of scrubs you are up against, but there is not "just shoot all his stuff in one turn" options around here... If deepstriking on the first turn was oh so powerfull, the whole tournament scene would be filled with deathwing units, right? Right...

It would be fun to play sure, but I doubt it'll end up high on the competitive scale. I'm going to wait to see what the full codex brings... But right now, I'm not seeing anything exciting that makes up for the disappointment of how limited the options are for this, quite frankly, underdeveloped space marine chapter we are left with.

**WrentheFaceless**

Elmir wrote:
WrentheFaceless wrote:

If you can deep strike first turn and shoot all of his ob sec stuff to death, why does it matter?

I'm not sure what type of scrubs you are up against, but there is not "just shoot all his stuff in one turn" options around here... If deepstriking on the first turn was oh so powerfull, the whole tournament scene would be filled with deathwing units, right? Right...

It would be fun to play sure, but I doubt it'll end up high on the competitive scale. I'm going to wait to see what the full codex brings... But right now, I'm not seeing anything exciting that makes up for the disappointment of how limited the options are for this, quite frankly, underdeveloped space marine chapter we are left with.

But the tournament scene is filled with drop pod armies. Its pretty much that without the pods

**Hulksmash**

If it's every unit it's pretty huge. It could bring back reserve antics and depriving your opponent of a turn and being able to focus your firepower. And with the run move you don't get pasted by templates.

Given an option I'd take that any day over obsec.

**Ferrum_Sanguinis**

Elmir wrote:
WrentheFaceless wrote:

If you can deep strike first turn and shoot all of his ob sec stuff to death, why does it matter?

I'm not sure what type of scrubs you are up against, but there is not "just shoot all his stuff in one turn" options around here... If deepstriking on the first turn was oh so powerfull, the whole tournament scene would be filled with deathwing units, right? Right...

It would be fun to play sure, but I doubt it'll end up high on the competitive scale. I'm going to wait to see what the full codex brings... But right now, I'm not seeing anything exciting that makes up for the disappointment of how limited the options are for this, quite frankly, underdeveloped space marine chapter we are left with.

I'm assuming you've never, ever played against a drop pod army before?

**Paradigm**

Elmir wrote:

It would be fun to play sure, but I doubt it'll end up high on the competitive scale. I'm going to wait to see what the full codex brings... But right now, I'm not seeing anything exciting that makes up for the disappointment of how limited the options are for this, quite frankly, underdeveloped space marine chapter we are left with.

It might not be top level tournament stuff, but it really did with the ideal of the Grey Knights as a fast, elite precision strike force. Being able to play reserves a turn early gets you more turns of doing damage and guarantees you get first pick of where and how the battle takes place.

**Thunderfrog**

Elmir wrote:
Deadshot wrote:

The analogy does not quite work.
Pedro made Sternguard (an elite choice) scoring but they remained in Elites.
Coteaz made Henchman Squads troops and removed the 1 per Inquisitor restriction on them.
However with the advent of C: =I=, I believe they were already troops? So GW decided that because you can field an Inq detachment on its own anyways that rule was unnecessary. So they gave the same ruling for GK. Which meant that GK Inq armies were now gone (as they should be, its Codex Grey Knights).

No... In codex: Inquisition, henchmen warbands are elites. The army has a unique FoC that is 1-2 HQ and 0-3 elites with their DT if wanted. In codex: Inquisition, those DT don't have psychic pilots either.

In the recent update, coteaz doesn't make warbands objective secured either... So that's a huge kick in the competitive bits right there. Well... I do fully get where the frustration comes from for a lot of the Old daemonhunter players though. Let me show you what GW has done with this army over the past 10 years for people who started out with them in their earliest days:

Codex: Daemonhunters

Inquisition:was there, only ordo malleus was an option though (there was nothing for ordo xenos and ordo hereticus was in codex:witchhunters). You could take henchmen back in those days, so no probs there.

Assassins: were in there. All 4 of them in the book, but you needed an inquisitor to "unlock them"

Grey knights: were in there. Psycannons were pure infantry killers (no S7rending wonders we know today). If you did go full GK infantry, you'd have ZERO anti-tank troops in your army. Hell, there was even a paragraph in the book in army selection that discouraged newer players from taking this type of force (saying you'd definatly need the emperors blessing to pull it off).

Inquisitorial stormtroopers: remember those guys? That was for the people who didn't want to run GKs or wanted to play a radical inquisitor playstyle. Half of your wargear was not allowed if you played with GK infantry, it really was a bad case of "take this to unlock this" and "avoid this to allow this".

Inducted troops: To flesh out the codex a bit, daemonhunter players were allowed to use some entries from imperial guard and space marines. Many took this option, it was all in one book (mind you, they did reference to the "parent codex" to select them). It was your only decent source of getting some much needed anti-tank options really...

Codex Grey knights:

Scratch the inducted troops and inquisitorial stormtroopers. This was also in the days that allies was not a thing... Effectively scrapping over half of my models. I still have 20 painted kasrkin troops standing around and around 40 IG veterans with a leman russ that were just plain unusable.

If you say: "well, you could still use them as IG, so no worries". There is a HUGE difference in playing a large, fully painted 2500p army on a regular basis, to then be told that you now own 2 small ones in a pointscale that your regular opponents never play. :(

Luckily, you got acces to ordo Xenos and ordo Hereticus inquisition, along with a decent fleshing out of the grey knight section. Still annoyed that there weren't any bikes added though (how much more "knight" can you get than riding your iron steed). Your assasins are still in.

New Codex Grey knights:

Inquisition: GONE, assassins: GONE. All that remains is GK stuff (and that really isn't a lot, I'll do a quick overview in the end).

In order to potentially play an army that you collected over 10 years ago, players now have to buy:

-Codex: Grey knights
-Codex: inquisition
-Codex: astra militarum/tempestus (depending on what you want).
-Codex: Space marines
-Dataslates: Assassins (lord knows they'll try to sell you all 4)

So... you can understand why a few older players have their jimmies rustled. I don't think there has been any army so far that has had such dramatic changes to what you could and couldn't field in one source as the old codex: Daemonhunters.

Also, if no new stuff is added, this is the amount of choices GK players will have in each slot:

HQ: 7 (down from 14)
Elites: 4 (down from 9)
Troops: 2 (same as before, but without Thawn as an option), lowest option possible?
Fast attack: 2 (same as before), lowest option possible?
Heavy support: 6 (same as before).

Grey knights already felt "spammy" before they cut out all those option. I'm afraid that won't get any better under these conditions. They'll also feel more powerwhore like for being forced to take so many different sources just to play with your old models.

TLDR: It's been a long essay, but in response to the "just be happy you are getting something" attitude, some GK players really do have a more than good reason to be slightly upset at yet another splitting up of their army. Especially if they start forcing limited sources for games/tournaments. In essence, you can see your previous army evaporate in front of your eyes.

Exalted.

GW keep jackin with the army, and the changes are always stifling.

**Kriswall**

I'm loving the idea of the Assassins being split off. Now I can add a Vindicare to my Tau list for fun. Before, if I wanted to do that I would have to take at least an HQ and two Troops. This dataslate hopefully eliminates that tax.

Losing the Inquisition also makes sense with the existence of a Codex: Inquisition. It's Codex: Grey Knights, not Codex: Ordo Malleus or Daemonhunters.

**Elmir**

Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:

I'm assuming you've never, ever played against a drop pod army before?

Actually, part of the hardness of the drop pod army lies in the fact that it's filled with objective secured (which was my first point, if you actually read the previous comment) droppods that your opponent needs to put resources into to eliminate. That is very different to what GKs will be doing. That GK formation will play more like the deathwing than droppod armies.

Now if they were getting droppods, then we'd be talking competitive...

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Elmir wrote:
At least for Sisters of battle, there is some glimmer of hope that things can change in the somewhat near future. For GKs, it'll be this steaming pile of turd for the next 5 years...

Why would there be more hope for Sisters rather than for Grey Knights ?

**Kanluwen**

Azreal13 wrote:
Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
Run and shoot after DS? On turn 1? AWESOME!

I've always only ever run pure GK, never like Inquisition mostly because no plastic models (and my failcast Cortex had a warped face and TH).

So glad to see pure GK just got a massive boost.

You say that, but they'd be much better if you took a bunch of servo skulls from the Inq codex.

It might be that teleport homers are standard or there is a rule relating to teleport that we have not seen yet for the GK.