Tomb King wrote:

You should quit it with the attack here on him and just continue the debate side.

Im not going after anyone here. I am however, going after the nerd raging and QQ about grey knights, and dont have an issue arguing points made about that.

Janthkin wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:Nids have a Trygon Prime that can deep strike (usually don't), Shrikes that can deep strike (usually not taken), flyrant that can deep strike (usually a bad idea) or could outflank a unit of Warriors or a Tervigon if you take a Tyrant with Hive Commander.

You could also pod in some zoans.

I wouldnt call that "most" really.

And all it takes is one Strike squad back there with Warp Quake to make it a REALLY bad idea.

I was helping to run the Gladiator this weekend. One tyranid player brought a Hierophant. It died in game 2...because Psychotrope grenades made it kill itself. *sigh*

So a 15pt piece of wargear killed a 1000pt biotitan? Yeah GK aren't broken.

@Eidolon

I wasn't raging at all, just stating some facts and opinions. You are free to think what you want, though. I don't care either way.

If anyone is getting defensive though, it would seem that you are. Maybe I am perceiving that incorrectly, but you certainly seem to be taking the more aggressive stance.

Just playing 40K is fun typically, but often against Grey Knights it isn't because some of what they do changes the game so much, and not for the better.

But whatever, it sounds like you disagree with me, so I will let it drop. I don't have a dog in this fight anyway, and will continue to enjoy kicking the crap out of Grey Knights whenever I get the opportunity to do so =)

Tomb King's Demolisher will continue to smash Paladins into dust, too!


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@Darth Diggler

hahaha, right? I am sure the Bio-Titan player was just having a great time during that game! hahaha

Dont batman nades have to reroll results of 6 against units of 1?

DarthDiggler wrote:

Janthkin wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:Nids have a Trygon Prime that can deep strike (usually don't), Shrikes that can deep strike (usually not taken), flyrant that can deep strike (usually a bad idea) or could outflank a unit of Warriors or a Tervigon if you take a Tyrant with Hive Commander.

You could also pod in some zoans.

I wouldnt call that "most" really.

And all it takes is one Strike squad back there with Warp Quake to make it a REALLY bad idea.

I was helping to run the Gladiator this weekend. One tyranid player brought a Hierophant. It died in game 2...because Psychotrope grenades made it kill itself. *sigh*

So a 15pt piece of wargear killed a 1000pt biotitan? Yeah GK aren't broken.

Where were you last weekend?

Eidolon wrote:

Tomb King wrote:

You should quit it with the attack here on him and just continue the debate side.

Im not going after anyone here. I am however, going after the nerd raging and QQ about grey knights, and dont have an issue arguing points made about that.

So in other words, I have no real right to at least be p ed-off that a GK army auto-wipes me by winning the first turn and then passing a few psychic tests?! Does my opponent smiling and saying 'good game' make-up for the fact I didn't get to put a single fething model on the table?!

There's a real reason us Daemon players are still butt-hurt every time we see GK's. Games vs them are not fun in the least, and yes, if we can pull out a win, it's cause for massive celebration because we've beaten the greatest of odds.

I think thats more of a sporting issue than anything else. I would never cast warp quake against demons or ba jumpers, that power is fething stupid against those armies.

Again though, im not trying to say that gk dont have some really slowed things they can do, just, why care?

Eidolon wrote:I think thats more of a sporting issue than anything else. I would never cast warp quake against demons or ba jumpers, that power is fething stupid against those armies.

Again though, im not trying to say that gk dont have some really slowed things they can do, just, why care?

Dude, that was the worst argument ever. Hahahaha

Blackmoor wrote:

DarthDiggler wrote:

Janthkin wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:Nids have a Trygon Prime that can deep strike (usually don't), Shrikes that can deep strike (usually not taken), flyrant that can deep strike (usually a bad idea) or could outflank a unit of Warriors or a Tervigon if you take a Tyrant with Hive Commander.

You could also pod in some zoans.

I wouldnt call that "most" really.

And all it takes is one Strike squad back there with Warp Quake to make it a REALLY bad idea.

I was helping to run the Gladiator this weekend. One tyranid player brought a Hierophant. It died in game 2...because Psychotrope grenades made it kill itself. *sigh*

So a 15pt piece of wargear killed a 1000pt biotitan? Yeah GK aren't broken.

Where were you last weekend?

I coach high school baseball and we always have weekend games in the Spring. A few years back I took the weekend off and played one last time at Adepticon, but my replacement got the game times screwed up and my team didn't show up for their own home game. I still hear about that one to this day so I'm afraid to try and take the weekend off again.

LValx wrote:

-666- wrote:Long Fangs have their advantages over psyflemen. The psyflemen are better but not by much. Fortitude, twin linked and move+shoot give the dread a slight edge. With two attacks apiece and counter charge Long Fangs are better at repelling an enemy charge.

They have more offensive capability in CC. The dread has more protection, many troops in the game cannot kill a dread. Ever. I'll take the tarpit over a few flimsy attacks. Having used both support options quite frequently I can say with confidence that I find the dread superior. I will agree that for certain things fangs are superior. The ability to not be one-shotted is great. However, they do have leadership (which is always devastating when they fail). The split-fire ability really isn't nearly as useful as people make it out to be. The pack leader always bites the dust first. And against most covered vehicles you'll need 4-5 missile shots to get any results.

Most units that cannot kill a dread in melee cannot kill a pack of Long Fangs either. Seriously who would charge dark eldar Warriors into either?

Eidolon wrote:Its this nerd rage from people who spend hundreds of dollars to go play 40k in some other part of the country, and then come back and complain cause they lost to what they feel is a broken army. This attitude is what keeps people away from gaming. You have the time and money to go play with plastic toys for a weekend in some far away city, what are you complaining about?

I can play this game too! Look, I'm complaining because you're complaining about the people complaining. Now you can complain about me complaining about you complaining about the people complaining. Fun!

Honestly, if you don't have anything to add to the conversation other than, "People should stop whining" why bother posting? Especially when you have a GK avatar.

Personally I could live with GKs if they didn't have Warp Quake and weren't all outfitted with Force Weapons. I find both of those kind of silly.

I believe the three most common GK builds utilize paladins, purifiers, or henchmen, none of which have warp quake.

Everyone is, of course, entitled to complain about GKs as they see fit. It's when they take cheap shots at GK players that compels me to post.

Reecius wrote:
Tomb King's Demolisher will continue to smash Paladins into dust, too!

That is literally why I take the dam thing. Lost to draigo wing once. Never again!

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@Darth Diggler

hahaha, right? I am sure the Bio-Titan player was just having a great time during that game! hahaha

the army (GK) requires little skill to play well.

Claptrap. I find Dark Eldar way, way easier to play with than GK paladins. With GK I have to think well ahead and plan most phases quite carefully -- where exactly to move, whether or not to shoot with the paladins, which psychic powers to cast (which covers two phases and in both player turns), whether or not to multi-assault and in 2/3 games time having to consider the nearness to objectives.

With DE all I really have to think about is my move ment phase and (to a much lesser extent than with GK) target priority. In turn 4 I have to begin to think about objective claiming. It's a damn sight simpler with MSU fast skimmers.

Blood and Slaughter wrote:

the army (GK) requires little skill to play well.

Claptrap. I find Dark Eldar way, way easier to play with than GK paladins. With GK I have to think well ahead and plan most phases quite carefully -- where exactly to move, whether or not to shoot with the paladins, which psychic powers to cast (which covers two phases and in both player turns), whether or not to multi-assault and in 2/3 games time having to consider the nearness to objectives.

With DE all I really have to think about is my move ment phase and (to a much lesser extent than with GK) target priority. In turn 4 I have to begin to think about objective claiming. It's a damn sight simpler with MSU fast skimmers.

'

Interesting observation. Dark Eldar is considered one of the harder armies to get down. They have more of a learning curve then other armies.


Also is it easier to use an army with 3 or 4 working parts or one with 20+ working parts. Your brain has to work less to use that draigowing. Its science really and I believe someone did an article on it a while back to explain why we are so drained after tournaments.

Reecius wrote:I haven't read this entire thread, and won't, but I will toss in my two cents.

Grey Knights are a crutch army, IMO. They require little skill to be good with.

They also make the game less fun, and that is a cardinal sin of game design.

Reece I agree 100%

Honestly I came into the game after a long ansence as GK came out. I picked up a Stormraven-paladin list on a friend's recommendation (17 models) because it was relatively cheap and easy to transport. This was when everyone was saying how paladins would be crap because of too few models on the table.

I played with them for about a year, then got a second hand DE army with which I've played about 20 games. The only thing I found hard was remembering to roll for combat drugs (which I still forget) and the movement phase is - to be fair - sometimes quite tricky as one doesn't want to block one's own line of sight. In other respects they're just a hell of a lot easier than the paladins. The only army that I've really struggled against (and interestingly neither player has been especially good) is Necrons who I am yet to beat. I have eight regular opponents who are very solid players, about five more who are decent and I've had a fair few games with my GK against relatively poor opponents, which has boosted their win total a fair bit, you could probably knock 20 wins off to allow for that. In fairness my DE have only played Purifiers, not other GK builds (of whom only the Coteaz build do I really fear).

My experience is that playing paladins is way more draining than playing DE. I've not really felty mentally tired after any DE game, whereas I've been fairly whacked after a good number of games with my GK.

People who dont play GK, "they are overpowered".

People who play GK "Mad and defending themselves because they thought they were winning on skill, but are now realizing they win because of the codex"

Also is it easier to use an army with 3 or 4 working parts or one with 20+ working parts. Your brain has to work less to use that draigowing. Its science really and I believe someone did an article on it a while back to explain why we are so drained after tournaments.

I don't buy that. In my experience, I have to more carefully consider every move I make with my Draigowing than when playing orks or necrons where I have many more units. Every move counts when you only have three units, and if one mistake is made, it can cost you the game.

Smitty0305 wrote:People who dont play GK, "they are overpowered".

People who play GK "Mad and defending themselves because they thought they were winning on skill, but are now realizing they win because of the codex"

Although I think GK are overpowered I cannont 100% agree with you on this statement. They still take skill to win with otherwise they would be an auto win upon completion of deployment. They might take less to do well with them but those elite players can take them all the way. Would those 8 that played in the finals at adepticon made it with other codex's... I would say perhaps at least 4 of them likely could of made it with a different codex but that is just an opinion and cant be tested unless all 8 run a different dex next year.

[quote[]People who play GK "Mad and defending themselves because they thought they were winning on skill, but are now realizing they win because of the codex

DarthDiggler wrote:

Janthkin wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:Nids have a Trygon Prime that can deep strike (usually don't), Shrikes that can deep strike (usually not taken), flyrant that can deep strike (usually a bad idea) or could outflank a unit of Warriors or a Tervigon if you take a Tyrant with Hive Commander.

You could also pod in some zoans.

I wouldnt call that "most" really.

And all it takes is one Strike squad back there with Warp Quake to make it a REALLY bad idea.

I was helping to run the Gladiator this weekend. One tyranid player brought a Hierophant. It died in game 2...because Psychotrope grenades made it kill itself. *sigh*

So a 15pt piece of wargear killed a 1000pt biotitan? Yeah GK aren't broken.

Umm... That GK player cheated and the Nid player should be familiar with the rules or asked to see the rules when a 15 pt piece of wargear was going to kill his awesome creature. Against units composed of a single model psykotroke results of a 6 must be re-rolled. Someone didn't bother reading the GK codex entry all the way to the end.

So no, that has no bearing on how OP they are because it was a stupid oversight by both players.

Tomb King wrote:

Blood and Slaughter wrote:

the army (GK) requires little skill to play well.

Claptrap. I find Dark Eldar way, way easier to play with than GK paladins. With GK I have to think well ahead and plan most phases quite carefully -- where exactly to move, whether or not to shoot with the paladins, which psychic powers to cast (which covers two phases and in both player turns), whether or not to multi-assault and in 2/3 games time having to consider the nearness to objectives.

With DE all I really have to think about is my move ment phase and (to a much lesser extent than with GK) target priority. In turn 4 I have to begin to think about objective claiming. It's a damn sight simpler with MSU fast skimmers.

'

Interesting observation. Dark Eldar is considered one of the harder armies to get down. They have more of a learning curve then other armies.


Also is it easier to use an army with 3 or 4 working parts or one with 20+ working parts. Your brain has to work less to use that draigowing. Its science really and I believe someone did an article on it a while back to explain why we are so drained after tournaments.

I agree that it's an interesting observation. It's also incredibly misleading, because he's comparing Draigowing, a single list that's been noted to be harder to use than other GK lists, to the whole DE codex.

Here's the awesome thing about the GK codex though:

I just wrote up a list including all of our characters from our Dark Heresy Ascension campaign, and it comes out to 750 points.

Our group:
2x Magos, Vindicare Assassin, Desperado (who is fond of hallucination grenades and actually uses a Scythian Venom Talon), and of course an Inquisitor. Magi have varying size Servitor (3 and 4) retinues.

Our 40k army:
2x Techmarines, Vindicare Assassin, Ordo Xenos Inquisitor with grenades and Scythian Venom Talon, and Inquisitor Coteaz. Troops are 3x Servitors, one Plasma Cannon and 4x Servitors, 2x Plasma Cannon.

Comes out to 715 points

I'm sorry, but playing a pure paladin Drego army dose not mean GK are difficult to play. It is more difficult than most GK lists, and playing less than pure Drego wing changes things completly, balanceing out the lack of models on the table etc.

Drego wing is, from my expirince, much the same level as most forces to play. I.E less powerfull than most GK forces. It leave glareing holes to exploit in terms of numbers, but take out a few paladins and replace them with strike squads and you have something that plugs that gap.

You can't say they are not overpowerd because some builds people use are harder to play. I could take a force full of Grots and looted waggons. It would be very difficult to play, but dose not meen that the Ork codex is bad, just that i have not built a well balanced force from what I have.

Also, a bad play with a good dex will always be bad. A good player with a bad dex will be able to do something. The player dose not change how good the codex is.

Blood and Slaughter wrote:[quote[]People who play GK "Mad and defending themselves because they thought they were winning on skill, but are now realizing they win because of the codex

More claptrap. I do just as well with DE as with GK and find it a hell of a lot less work mentally with DE.

Blood and slaughter am i noticing that you play GK stormraven paladins with 55 wins 9 draws and 9 losses which is like you only losing 1 in every 7 games where as 1/5 loss to
win ratio seems more average. but its interesting that everyone who posts their win losses seems to win most of the time. so where are all the losers? maybe those self reported win loss ratio´s arent as trust worthy as we think hmm?

in the end statistics show that 1 in roughly 3 people think GK are the most OP army in the last decade. statistics dont lie. 23 percent of people think they are over powered 23 percent think they´re just a good 5th ed book. 3 percent think they´re just average. 3 percent think they´re not over powered ( no, just no) 11 percent think that this thread should die. and 7 percent like tomb kings. so essentially :

53 percent of people think they´re OP
23 percent of people think they´re above average good
3 percent think they´re average
3 percent think they´re not OP (my my we have a very vocal minority in dakk dakka.)
11 percent hate this thread and want to strangle it to death
7 percent are

any way my self, i think that they are OP. the only army i find that can reliably kill them is crons.when half the guys you shoot to bits fprget that they´re dead and shoot large smoking holes into the place where your head used to be and then do the some in your assult phase or DS in ( if you can) and blow up your dread with its own psycannon and then finish it off with s5 power weapons they cease to be over powered.

In conclusion, maybe this is just going to be that the norm for the codex of the 6th generation is going to be this level of power and the GK are made for 6th. So while GK are over powered atm they may not be in the future. For example other armies may be getting points per unit drops (1 point per grot, wait, thats all ready practically true) and more psyker protection. I belive that with the advent of the chaos legions codex the grey nights aren´t going to be the only high power psyker heavy army. Or if traitor guard are included not the most shooty.

I agree that GKs are unfun, rather than unbeatable.

They have too many qualities (equipment, psychic powers, etc.) that basically cancel out other armies' strengths. That's poor game design, as Reecius points out. It's never fun to play against an opponent who, simply by virtue of the selections he has made before play, basically switches off most of the strengths of your own army, particularly when you know that the same would apply pretty much whatever army you chose.

GKs also have some lists that are ridiculously dull to play against. Any codex that allows an army that works best when it hides in cover for most of the game, just ignoring most of what you can shoot at it, then wanders out to contest on Turn 5, is dull, dull, dull.

LValx wrote:If you advance the dreads behind your vehicle formation they will always have 4+ and they can see over rhinos/razors. .

I don't belive you can pull this off legally, as you have to trail LOS along the barrel, and the barrels of the Psydread has to point up towards the sky to avoid shooting through the Rhino. There was a multi-page thread about this not long ago.

DIDM wrote:So isn't there bound to be a strongest army no matter what? And doesn't it make sense that the army that is actually supposed to be the strongest actually is the strongest?

Yup, that pretty much summons up what Matt Ward said about his infamous Daemons of Chaos that wrecked Fantasy 7th ed, when he was called out on it by a fan on a games convention - Matt said "but they are supposed to be the strongest". Ward design in a nutshell. I wouldn't mind if he did the next Tyranid codex, to hell with the fluff.

N.I.B. wrote:
Yup, that pretty much summons up what Matt Ward said about his infamous Daemons of Chaos that wrecked Fantasy 7th ed, when he was called out on it by a fan on a games convention - Matt said "but they are supposed to be the strongest". Ward design in a nutshell. I wouldn't mind if he did the next Tyranid codex, to hell with the fluff.

He wrote the deamons fantasy book too?

Nemesor wrote:

Blood and Slaughter wrote:[quote[]People who play GK "Mad and defending themselves because they thought they were winning on skill, but are now realizing they win because of the codex

More claptrap. I do just as well with DE as with GK and find it a hell of a lot less work mentally with DE.

Blood and slaughter am i noticing that you play GK stormraven paladins with 55 wins 9 draws and 9 losses which is like you only losing 1 in every 7 games where as 1/5 loss to
win ratio seems more average. but its interesting that everyone who posts their win losses seems to win most of the time. so where are all the losers? maybe those self reported win loss ratio´s arent as trust worthy as we think hmm?

in the end statistics show that 1 in roughly 3 people think GK are the most OP army in the last decade. statistics dont lie. 23 percent of people think they are over powered 23 percent think they´re just a good 5th ed book. 3 percent think they´re just average. 3 percent think they´re not over powered ( no, just no) 11 percent think that this thread should die. and 7 percent like tomb kings. so essentially :

53 percent of people think they´re OP
23 percent of people think they´re above average good
3 percent think they´re average
3 percent think they´re not OP (my my we have a very vocal minority in dakk dakka.)
11 percent hate this thread and want to strangle it to death
7 percent are

any way my self, i think that they are OP. the only army i find that can reliably kill them is crons.when half the guys you shoot to bits fprget that they´re dead and shoot large smoking holes into the place where your head used to be and then do the some in your assult phase or DS in ( if you can) and blow up your dread with its own psycannon and then finish it off with s5 power weapons they cease to be over powered.

In conclusion, maybe this is just going to be that the norm for the codex of the 6th generation is going to be this level of power and the GK are made for 6th. So while GK are over powered atm they may not be in the future. For example other armies may be getting points per unit drops (1 point per grot, wait, thats all ready practically true) and more psyker protection. I belive that with the advent of the chaos legions codex the grey nights aren´t going to be the only high power psyker heavy army. Or if traitor guard are included not the most shooty.

Actually, I'm the guy who loses to everyone who posts their win loss ratios. I'm just so damned ashamed of mine, i don't post it.

Ummm... 4th edition Nids would be my vote, but that's maybe over decade ago I guess?

Honestly, I find it ridiculous that anyone who complains about GKs to be painted as bad, whiny, hater, etc. and just ignore any points made. That said, anecdotal evidence is rather rampant on both sides. Better debates come from evidence, math and comparisons.

Smitty0305 wrote:People who dont play GK, "they are overpowered".

People who play GK "Mad and defending themselves because they thought they were winning on skill, but are now realizing they win because of the codex"

You keep trumpeting that like it means something. I've personally beaten GK with Nids, by substantial amounts even. Army composition isn't some magic win-all because you figured out you can min-max the most crazy powers into one list. I mean, yeah, sure, that helps, but if you keep hemorrhaging bad decisions, your army alone won't do you a lot of good.

My team played And They Shall Know Fear game one. Those guys brought crazy cheesy lists, played the special character synergy game, (and put their dreads on bases conspicuously just high enough to see over the tops of their razorbacks) but we got outplayed, pure and simple. They weren't just playing GK, they were playing GK and they were good.

Instead of sitting around sobbing all over your keyboard about how hard the game is, stop victimizing yourselves and figure out how to beat them.

And yes, I play GK. Feel free to discredit me at that point, but I also played DH. I also own and play a massive amount of IG, SM, and Nids. I've also played more than my fare share of games as Eldar. I've seen both sides of the fence for most armies.


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Surtur wrote:Honestly, I find it ridiculous that anyone who complains about GKs to be painted as bad, whiny, hater, etc. and just ignore any points made. That said, anecdotal evidence is rather rampant on both sides. Better debates come from evidence, math and comparisons.

What evidence would you have people provide? As far as math and comparisons, those only get you so far. It took at least 2 pages before we could finally talk people out of comparing Tac Marines vs Strikes in a vacuum.

Illumini wrote:
He wrote the deamons fantasy book too?

And that one is definitely the "most overpowered book GW has put out in a decade" no contest.

Eidolon wrote:
However, what really bothers me is how much people care to whine about these things. When I was younger, and gaming was basically all I did hobby wise, I used to wonder why less people were involved. Now that I am older, and 40k has become something I play maybe 2 games of a month, I dont. I have moved out into the world, my social network has gone from only gamers to gamers being a very small minority, and looking back its things like that thread that make me realize how dysfunctional the community really is. And I dont wonder why more people arent involved anymore, because its full of people who dont have anything better to do than sit around and complain about how army x beats army y.

Welcome to the internets, where the men are men, the women are men, and the children are FBI agents

Complaining about how people don't have anything better to do than complaining seems no better.

You have the time in your life to go out and spend hours and hours playing with plastic toy soldiers. Why not just enjoy that? Remember when ig and the 'leafblower' were the big thing, and everyone threw a gak fit about how imba ig were? I remember this forum blowing up about how so many people brought them to adepticon, and how darkwynn quit playing that build because people spread their butthurt to him about it. Now though, nobody cares about ig, and its gk that are broken. Give it another year, and we will have some other army that will be bitched about endlessly. Why? Its just the cycle, I enjoy it, new armies provide new challenges and require different tactics to beat. So the game is an ever changing problem, and not a simple equation.

Notice that, aside from one 'Ard Boyz where a guy who happened to write a lot on BoLS admittedly got perfect deployment and 1st turn, they didn't dominate events the way SW and GK's have, nor have they generally comprised the same % of attendees generally that those two armies have since their 5E releases.

Its this nerd rage from people who spend hundreds of dollars to go play 40k in some other part of the country, and then come back and complain cause they lost to what they feel is a broken army. This attitude is what keeps people away from gaming. You have the time and money to go play with plastic toys for a weekend in some far away city, what are you complaining about?

the fact that the game is unbalanced enough to make such an event unfun? Also, keep in mind such gamers are the tiniest minority of the 40k community, most people never get beyond a small gaming group of friends.

You'll note that i have a better record (albeit from fewer matches but actually against generally stronger opponents) with Dark Eldar than with Grey Knights. People do whine a bit about my GK being broken in some aspects sometimes, but I notice there's also some whining about flickerfields creeping in now I'm playing DE.

Dark Eldar are quite easy to play because their units are specialised to one role and there are only a few types of units in the list.

A typical venom spam list will field perhaps a Haemonculus HQ, Venoms, Warriors, Trueborn, Ravagers, maybe Beasts (my army isn't typical venom spam, it has wyches, raiders and Vect but no beasts). That's 6 different units and basically two different ranged weapon types (poisoned 4+ and S8 AP2). There's not really anything to have to remember to use other than weapons, troop units are plentiful and strategic decision making straightforward with a healthy margin for error built in thanks to 12" + fire or 24" flat out vehicle movement,

My Draigo list has Draigo, Librarian, 2 x 5 paladins, 2 stormravens, 2 dreadnoughts and either a Vindicare or 5 interceptors. That's 6 - just as many - different sorts of units -- and in fact more diverse in nature too -- but with psycannon, multi-melta, plasma cannon and psybolt-autocannon AT rather than just universal S8 AP2. So who shoots what and in what order needs more thought. Further the troops are also the main assault arm of the army and their triple-role of scorers, shooters and assaulters means deciding where they are placed how and when they fire and assault all needs much more thought. Couple that with the necessity of keeping to cover against most armies, the need to prioritise psychic powers round to round, etc etc and it's just tougher to play than Dark Eldar.

This is a completely different thing to its resiliancy -- it's certainly an army where everything is either hard or very hard to destroy, unlike the DE where everything is easy or quite easy to destroy.

Now I'd rather not use anecdotal evidence myself, but in this case if GK really are broken then I shouldn't be winning nearly as many games with my Dark Eldar as I do with my GK. In fact my record is better, Ihave been playing the army less often and my opponents have been of higher quality (as I said, you could easily discount 20 or so of my GK wins as being against poorer opponents). I was mainly replying to Smitty in this case who made a claim that my own experience would seem to disprove, ie that GK players win because of codex rather than ability.

And as an aside, I put my win-loss totals up partly just to keep track, but mainly to irritate the folk I know who play me and visit Dakka.

Vaktathi wrote:

Its this nerd rage from people who spend hundreds of dollars to go play 40k in some other part of the country, and then come back and complain cause they lost to what they feel is a broken army. This attitude is what keeps people away from gaming. You have the time and money to go play with plastic toys for a weekend in some far away city, what are you complaining about?

the fact that the game is unbalanced enough to make such an event unfun? Also, keep in mind such gamers are the tiniest minority of the 40k community, most people never get beyond a small gaming group of friends.

I lost every time to Grey Knights at Adepticon, and I still had fun, though I suppose I did see at least a team there who looked quite bummed out when they saw their second match up for the day had GK in it.

Next year, I'm torn between taking an older army, and cheesing it out to the max so I can contribute some variety, or just saying feth it and taking the new hotness anyway. We were actually kicking around the idea of Eldar, even if they don't get an update in the meantime.


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Blood and Slaughter wrote:
Now I'd rather not use anecdotal evidence myself, but in this case if GK really are broken then I shouldn't be winning nearly as many games with my Dark Eldar as I do with my GK. In fact my record is better, Ihave been playing the army less often and my opponents have been of higher quality (as I said, you could easily discount 20 or so of my GK wins as being against poorer opponents). I was mainly replying to Smitty in this case who made a claim that my own experience would seem to disprove, ie that GK players win because of codex rather than ability.

Hey, we have an Ork player that I lost to with Purifier spam. When you're a good player and you have decent rolling, opponent's army doesn't matter much.

Smitty0305 wrote:People who dont play GK, "they are overpowered".

People who play GK "Mad and defending themselves because they thought they were winning on skill, but are now realizing they win because of the codex"

Yeah, no.

I own sisters, orks, IG and space wolves. I have won all but one games against GK that I have played with Sisters, Orks and SW and do not think they are overpowered. Good try but saying something over and over doesn't necessarily make it true.

Nemesor wrote:
7 percent are

lol, thats not the army book... pretre put me down as an option because I was the one who made him include one...

Tomb King wrote:

Nemesor wrote:
7 percent are

lol, thats not the army book... pretre put me down as an option because I was the one who made him include one...

Worth every vote!

daedalus wrote:

My team played And They Shall Know Fear game one. Those guys brought crazy cheesy lists, played the special character synergy game, (and put their dreads on bases conspicuously just high enough to see over the tops of their razorbacks) but we got outplayed, pure and simple. They weren't just playing GK, they were playing GK and they were good.

I'm pretty sure I know the dreads you're talking about.... and the bases are taller... yes... but they don't really get a coversave because of that... and if you look at the forgeworld model arms for ACs... they are just as high. So yes it was conspicuously high... but i think thats more of a disadvantage than an advantage.... IN FACT.... we compared the models at the conflict GT this year and when you put the regular dread on the tallest part of the regular base it is exactly the same height as the Forge world arms...

BUT more to your point. These guys ARE good and play extremely well... Andrew/Nick I know personally and I play Nick all the time

Hoo boy. This should get interesting.

frgsinwntr wrote:
I'm pretty sure I know the dreads you're talking about.... and the bases are taller... yes... but they don't really get a coversave because of that... and if you look at the forgeworld model arms for ACs... they are just as high. So yes it was conspicuously high... but i think thats more of a disadvantage than an advantage.... IN FACT.... we compared the models at the conflict GT this year and when you put the regular dread on the tallest part of the regular base it is exactly the same height as the Forge world arms...

BUT more to your point. These guys ARE good and play extremely well... Andrew/Nick I know personally and I play Nick all the time

Hey, I'm not sour. They seemed like good people. My point was supposed to be that we got outplayed because of the players, not the boltgun metal.

daedalus wrote:

frgsinwntr wrote:
I'm pretty sure I know the dreads you're talking about.... and the bases are taller... yes... but they don't really get a coversave because of that... and if you look at the forgeworld model arms for ACs... they are just as high. So yes it was conspicuously high... but i think thats more of a disadvantage than an advantage.... IN FACT.... we compared the models at the conflict GT this year and when you put the regular dread on the tallest part of the regular base it is exactly the same height as the Forge world arms...

BUT more to your point. These guys ARE good and play extremely well... Andrew/Nick I know personally and I play Nick all the time

Hey, I'm not sour. They seemed like good people. My point was supposed to be that we got outplayed because of the players, not the boltgun metal.

Lol i'm not raging... don't put any emotion to my post above... i really have none : ) I'm just a bit gruff on the internets

I'm just adding some facts :p

daedalus wrote:Hey, I'm not sour. They seemed like good people. My point was supposed to be that we got outplayed because of the players, not the boltgun metal.

+1000! I think Reecius definitely proved that it is about the player and not the army.

pretre wrote:

daedalus wrote:Hey, I'm not sour. They seemed like good people. My point was supposed to be that we got outplayed because of the players, not the boltgun metal.

+1000! I think Reecius definitely proved that it is about the player and not the army.

The player does make the difference... agreed. But how can we objectively tell if an army is OP or not?

Clearly the same player must play 100 games. 50 with GKs and 50 with another army considered balanced... Each game must be vs the same player with the same army...

then we need to record the results and compare the results of each game....

Any volunteers to play 100 games this weekend?

Not it!

I've played Will's Templars with my GK about 12 times and gone something like 6 wins, 2 draws, 4 losses. Against his Templars with my Dark Eldar I have 3 wins and 1 draw. Not really enough games for any sensible conclusion to be drawn but it's a start...

To be fair he's faced Coteaz- 6 Razorback- 6 Dreadnought spam (not mine) twice with his list and been obliterated both times so it's quite possible that his list has a specific problem with a specific GK build

frgsinwntr wrote:

pretre wrote:

daedalus wrote:Hey, I'm not sour. They seemed like good people. My point was supposed to be that we got outplayed because of the players, not the boltgun metal.

+1000! I think Reecius definitely proved that it is about the player and not the army.

The player does make the difference... agreed. But how can we objectively tell if an army is OP or not?

Clearly the same player must play 100 games. 50 with GKs and 50 with another army considered balanced... Each game must be vs the same player with the same army...

then we need to record the results and compare the results of each game....

Any volunteers to play 100 games this weekend?

Don't forget you then need to run 100 more games with a rubbish player using the GK's vs a good player with one of those balanced codicies as well!

That's why Daemons of Chaos were so outright broken, because the list did play itself and even morons could curbstomp much better players who used a non-daemon/dark elf/skaven army. There's nothing you could do in 7th ed's rules when you faced a 18+ power dice flickering fire barrage, backed up by 2x6 flamers + dark insanity bloodthirster besides lose with grace.

Yes GK's have unbalanced the meta more than any other book in 5th edition, but they're not quite to the levels of pure @$$hatery that 7th edition Daemons were!

daedalus wrote:My team played And They Shall Know Fear game one. Those guys brought crazy cheesy lists, played the special character synergy game, (and put their dreads on bases conspicuously just high enough to see over the tops of their razorbacks)

Interesting. I assume you wouldn't put a Dread behind a Rhino unless you wished to claim cover saves. Were they high enough to have the rifles pointing straight on the targets and still be over the Rhinos/Razors? Pics?

I'm trying to remember if they were claiming a cover save on those. I think they were, to be honest, though it was against my dread, which was also up on a hill partially covered, so there was quite a bit of LoS weirdness going on. I was also insanely tired at the time, which didn't help the gaming much.

I don't have a picture during the game, unfortunately, but here's one of their army on its display base.



Again, I don't want to start a pissing match or try to drag anyone's name through the mud. It's was a great game.

Aren't they all on Dakka? Should be able to just ask them.

Lets look at the 2010 results....

http://whiskey40k.blogspot.ca/2010/08/final-results-all-players-warhammer-40k.html

Wow Space wolfs won huge! Wolfs came in second this year and won in 2011 as well.....

Must mean that wolfs were the worst army in the last 10 years...

Does anyone remember 3th edition Iron warriors? I do...

Iron warriors, nidzilla, and mechdar have been forgotten because the community has the collective memory of a goldfish.

Its also nice to go after the flavor of the month army, because it makes your wins epic and your losses trivial. So if you build gk up to be some kind of win button that only a really talented player can routinely beat, then who cares when you lose, its gk. If you win though, its awesome, because you beat the most powerful army ever.

Far as dreads on extra tall scenic bases, thats..questionable at best. Especially when none of the other models are on extra tall bases.

daedalus wrote:

Instead of sitting around sobbing all over your keyboard about how hard the game is, stop victimizing yourselves and figure out how to beat them.

This. I think squads of death cults/crusaders with a lolnade inquisitor are a stupid strong unit for the points. Probably the single best combat unit in the game. So uh, rather than throw a fit about it, call it boring, and try to berate people for running it, I play against it as often as I can. In another year, its going to be a different army the internet sheds tears of hate for, and then youll have the 'us vs them'. Where we try and sort out who is guilty of the sin of running the flavor of the month army, and who isnt. Should we forgive those who played the army before it was powerful? What about how many GTs have been won by it. Ive seen this cycle go around since the dawn of time.

I havent tried to claim grey knights werent really, really, strong. I have been trying to make the point of 'why care'? Because at the end of the day you have the time and money to play warhammer, which is better than most humans have ever had it.

Eidolon wrote:

Its also nice to go after the flavor of the month army

uh ummm that would be flavor of the year now I suppose.

@Daedelus

If you were on the Grey Knight team in game one then you were playing Spag and I. We only shot over the vehicles at your dread during the game because it was on a hill. We did take cover on it the two times you shot at it but that was because of terrain, where you were shooting from, and the vehicles combined. It wasn't just the vehicles that gave cover.

The other dread was just sitting around shooting the entire game in front of all the vehicles

It was a hell of a game either way and a great way to start the day. Didn't know that was you buddy. Face to a name and all

Yeah, I'm gonna have to jump in and say that I am not a fan of those Dread Bases. Where is 'And They Shall Know Fear'?

Someone light the Hulk signal.

Edit: Wow, Ninja'd by the man himself.

Congrats, btw Hulk! Any word on the bases?

frgsinwntr pretty much covered it. Andrew specially cast the gun arms as well as the bases. Note how low on the body the guns actually are. They sit below the head on the dreadnought. The weapons are on the same spot as a standard dread, on the provided bases high points, with forgeworld guns.

We only shot over the rhinos in our games when the unit was higher than table level (i.e. on a hill, was a vendetta, etc.) over the course of the tournament. If anything the damn bases hurt since I couldn't be armor saves while standing on hill like everyone else

Hulksmash wrote:@Daedelus

If you were on the Grey Knight team in game one then you were playing Spag and I. We only shot over the vehicles at your dread during the game because it was on a hill. We did take cover on it the two times you shot at it but that was because of terrain, where you were shooting from, and the vehicles combined. It wasn't just the vehicles that gave cover.

The other dread was just sitting around shooting the entire game in front of all the vehicles

It was a hell of a game either way and a great way to start the day. Didn't know that was you buddy. Face to a name and all

Yup, that was my dread up on the hill. I figured the cover was because of terrain, but looking back on it, I couldn't quite remember. A little too fried from lack of sleep and all.

Great to meet you too. Wish I would have realized it was you at the time.

Eidolon wrote:Iron warriors, nidzilla, and mechdar have been forgotten because the community has the collective memory of a goldfish.

Its also nice to go after the flavor of the month army, because it makes your wins epic and your losses trivial. So if you build gk up to be some kind of win button that only a really talented player can routinely beat, then who cares when you lose, its gk. If you win though, its awesome, because you beat the most powerful army ever.

I'm pretty confident fifth edition GKs could take third edition chaos.

pretre wrote:Yeah, I'm gonna have to jump in and say that I am not a fan of those Dread Bases. Where is 'And They Shall Know Fear'?

Someone light the Hulk signal.

Edit: Wow, Ninja'd by the man himself.

Congrats, btw Hulk! Any word on the bases?

To put this to bed, I modeled those dreads. They are only, I repeat only, a disadvantage, and I modelled them accordingly, ON PURPOSE.

I know you aren't trying to create any drama or anything, but these things spin out of control usually, so I'll explain it. I modelled those dreads for the coolness factor, I was tired of losing points on basing to not going complex enough, so I did those, when I did them I knew this would be an issue (but never how much of one) so I measured very carefully and made sure I gained no net height on the barrels.

The dreads are taller, the barrels of the gun are within 1/16th of an inch (thats what I'd call my measuring error) to a basic gw dread, with FW arms, mounted on the high points of the standard gw scenic base. I've had this come up now (much to my dismay) at every GT I've been to, with some players flat out calling me a cheater before the game even started, even though I've never shot over my own rhinos (which is hilarious, since you can, it's perfectly legal with the gw model + FW arms). My last round opponent laughed at me when we talked about it, as he shot over his rhinos at me all game, and I refused to, but thats a tangent.

RAMBLING!

So, how are they not taller with such a high looking base?!

-The base is only ~1/4 to 1/6th of an inch, if that, taller then the GW dread base high points
-I scratch built the shoulders out of plasticard, when doing so I bulked up the top, and lowered where I mounted them, so the top of the shoulder appears to be at the same height as the gw, but in reality it's mounted lower, this is how I give back the height the base grants.

How is it a disadvantage as I first mentioned?

You get cover saves for 50% obscurement, the base doesnt count towards this, so since the model is actually taller, it's very rare I can obscure the legs to get a cover save, yet the barrels are at the same height.

To sum it all up, no, they're the correct height, and if people really wanted to, I could break one of them off and put it on a gw base with a photo, but I'd rather not (due to you know, breaking my models). I'll never again try to model something cool like this, as it's just created endless headaches for me at GT's. Which is sad, because it was a lot of fun sculpting that base. C'est la vie.

Target wrote:

pretre wrote:Yeah, I'm gonna have to jump in and say that I am not a fan of those Dread Bases. Where is 'And They Shall Know Fear'?

Someone light the Hulk signal.

Edit: Wow, Ninja'd by the man himself.

Congrats, btw Hulk! Any word on the bases?

To put this to bed, I modeled those dreads. They are only, I repeat only, a disadvantage, and I modelled them accordingly, ON PURPOSE.

I know you aren't trying to create any drama or anything, but these things spin out of control usually, so I'll explain it. I modelled those dreads for the coolness factor, I was tired of losing points on basing to not going complex enough, so I did those, when I did them I knew this would be an issue (but never how much of one) so I measured very carefully and made sure I gained no net height on the barrels.

The dreads are taller, the barrels of the gun are within 1/16th of an inch (thats what I'd call my measuring error) to a basic gw dread, with FW arms, mounted on the high points of the standard gw scenic base. I've had this come up now (much to my dismay) at every GT I've been to, with some players flat out calling me a cheater before the game even started, even though I've never shot over my own rhinos (which is hilarious, since you can, it's perfectly legal with the gw model + FW arms). My last round opponent laughed at me when we talked about it, as he shot over his rhinos at me all game, and I refused to, but thats a tangent.

RAMBLING!

So, how are they not taller with such a high looking base?!

-The base is only ~1/4 to 1/6th of an inch, if that, taller then the GW dread base high points
-I scratch built the shoulders out of plasticard, when doing so I bulked up the top, and lowered where I mounted them, so the top of the shoulder appears to be at the same height as the gw, but in reality it's mounted lower, this is how I give back the height the base grants.

How is it a disadvantage as I first mentioned?

You get cover saves for 50% obscurement, the base doesnt count towards this, so since the model is actually taller, it's very rare I can obscure the legs to get a cover save, yet the barrels are at the same height.

To sum it all up, no, they're the correct height, and if people really wanted to, I could break one of them off and put it on a gw base with a photo, but I'd rather not (due to you know, breaking my models). I'll never again try to model something cool like this, as it's just created endless headaches for me at GT's. Which is sad, because it was a lot of fun sculpting that base. C'est la vie.

Besides you playing GK you dont seem like the cheating type to me. I wouldnt really fuss over it myself. If you can justify it your fine.

You have the time in your life to go out and spend hours and hours playing with plastic toy soldiers. Why not just enjoy that? Remember when ig and the 'leafblower' were the big thing, and everyone threw a gak fit about how imba ig were? I remember this forum blowing up about how so many people brought them to adepticon, and how darkwynn quit playing that build because people spread their butthurt to him about it. Now though, nobody cares about ig, and its gk that are broken. Give it another year, and we will have some other army that will be bitched about endlessly. Why? Its just the cycle, I enjoy it, new armies provide new challenges and require different tactics to beat. So the game is an ever changing problem, and not a simple equation.

Notice that, aside from one 'Ard Boyz where a guy who happened to write a lot on BoLS admittedly got perfect deployment and 1st turn, they didn't dominate events the way SW and GK's have, nor have they generally comprised the same % of attendees generally that those two armies have since their 5E releases.

I would have to disagree since I am that person. I won events back to back for almost two years with that list even Adepticon. The IG list is still strong that bieng said Grey knights have tipped the balance and they have plenty of problems.

Grey knights make average or poor players good and good players great.

Tomb King wrote:

Target wrote:

pretre wrote:Yeah, I'm gonna have to jump in and say that I am not a fan of those Dread Bases. Where is 'And They Shall Know Fear'?

Someone light the Hulk signal.

Edit: Wow, Ninja'd by the man himself.

Congrats, btw Hulk! Any word on the bases?

To put this to bed, I modeled those dreads. They are only, I repeat only, a disadvantage, and I modelled them accordingly, ON PURPOSE.

I know you aren't trying to create any drama or anything, but these things spin out of control usually, so I'll explain it. I modelled those dreads for the coolness factor, I was tired of losing points on basing to not going complex enough, so I did those, when I did them I knew this would be an issue (but never how much of one) so I measured very carefully and made sure I gained no net height on the barrels.

The dreads are taller, the barrels of the gun are within 1/16th of an inch (thats what I'd call my measuring error) to a basic gw dread, with FW arms, mounted on the high points of the standard gw scenic base. I've had this come up now (much to my dismay) at every GT I've been to, with some players flat out calling me a cheater before the game even started, even though I've never shot over my own rhinos (which is hilarious, since you can, it's perfectly legal with the gw model + FW arms). My last round opponent laughed at me when we talked about it, as he shot over his rhinos at me all game, and I refused to, but thats a tangent.

RAMBLING!

So, how are they not taller with such a high looking base?!

-The base is only ~1/4 to 1/6th of an inch, if that, taller then the GW dread base high points
-I scratch built the shoulders out of plasticard, when doing so I bulked up the top, and lowered where I mounted them, so the top of the shoulder appears to be at the same height as the gw, but in reality it's mounted lower, this is how I give back the height the base grants.

How is it a disadvantage as I first mentioned?

You get cover saves for 50% obscurement, the base doesnt count towards this, so since the model is actually taller, it's very rare I can obscure the legs to get a cover save, yet the barrels are at the same height.

To sum it all up, no, they're the correct height, and if people really wanted to, I could break one of them off and put it on a gw base with a photo, but I'd rather not (due to you know, breaking my models). I'll never again try to model something cool like this, as it's just created endless headaches for me at GT's. Which is sad, because it was a lot of fun sculpting that base. C'est la vie.

Besides you playing GK you dont seem like the cheating type to me. I wouldnt really fuss over it myself. If you can justify it your fine.

Hahahhaa, I maintain I'm no more cheaty than anyone playing SW/GK/IG. Hell, I won way more and more decisively with my IG last year than I do with my GK this year. I just got bored with people complaining when I set down my IG (which wasn't a stationary shooting version either), so I decided to redo my daemonhunters (what a misstaaakeee).

I actually decided after posting that to just give up and take a scale shot for these, due to how much it's come up, to reference people to from now on. Models are the same throughout the photos, the last one shows what I was talking about with not getting cover saves, the purple guy gets a cover save for 50% obscurement with the leathermen (pseudo terrain) in front of him, mine does not (since base doesnt count towards % obscured). Barrels are at the same height as shown in the earlier photo (the perspective is weird in the final cover save one, I was holding the camera). Yay.






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Darkwynn wrote:

You have the time in your life to go out and spend hours and hours playing with plastic toy soldiers. Why not just enjoy that? Remember when ig and the 'leafblower' were the big thing, and everyone threw a gak fit about how imba ig were? I remember this forum blowing up about how so many people brought them to adepticon, and how darkwynn quit playing that build because people spread their butthurt to him about it. Now though, nobody cares about ig, and its gk that are broken. Give it another year, and we will have some other army that will be bitched about endlessly. Why? Its just the cycle, I enjoy it, new armies provide new challenges and require different tactics to beat. So the game is an ever changing problem, and not a simple equation.

Notice that, aside from one 'Ard Boyz where a guy who happened to write a lot on BoLS admittedly got perfect deployment and 1st turn, they didn't dominate events the way SW and GK's have, nor have they generally comprised the same % of attendees generally that those two armies have since their 5E releases.

I would have to disagree since I am that person. I won events back to back for almost two years with that list even Adepticon. The IG list is still strong that bieng said Grey knights have tipped the balance and they have plenty of problems.

Grey knights make average or poor players good and good players great.

IG had an enormous showing as far as % of players goes, at least in the east coast GT's, and was just as winning (I think more so actually..). I won both SVDM and Conflict GT last year with IG, and there were other IG in the top rungs of those events as well.

Mike B. took BFS with IG that year as well.

I can't speak for the whole country, but IG were very dominant outside of your Ard Boyz showing as well.

Target wrote:
IG were very dominant outside of your Ard Boyz showing as well.

uh ummm.... key word that was were... I have taken them to the indy and adepticon and manage to make the second day in both events and the final table in one event thank you. They can still be dominant but it takes a wee bit more to make it happen especially with the amount of KP missions out there.

Tomb King wrote:

Target wrote:
IG were very dominant outside of your Ard Boyz showing as well.

uh ummm.... key word that was were... I have taken them to the indy and adepticon and manage to make the second day in both events and the final table in one event thank you. They can still be dominant but it takes a wee bit more to make it happen especially with the amount of KP missions out there.

Eh, I've played them, though not in GT's, and found them just as good this year (my opponents are almost exclusively GT winners, just because it's the guys I know around here, so it's not seal clubbing).

Thing is, most of the GK lists that come to tournaments and do well are just as KP heavy as guard. Draigowing has yet to win a major event, so we're talking your typical psyfle/psyback spam list with a unit of purifiers. At 2k that list is usually something like this, rough made, it would need tweaking to be a "real" list:

6x psyback + occupants (12 kp) (372)
2 hqs (2 kp) (~155, coteaz + nade inquisitor))
5 dreads (all psyfle) (5 kp) (795)
10 purifiers + transport (2kp) (325)
10 purifiers + transport (2kp) (325)

Total points: 1972 (I forgot how big this list could get...

Clocking in at 23 kp

My 2k guard list was 24 kp

Man, sorry that got to that point. I _REALLY_ didn't want this turning into the latest internet drama. Thanks for showing the pictures though. You guys did an amazing job on those.

daedalus wrote:Man, sorry that got to that point. I _REALLY_ didn't want this turning into the latest internet drama. Thanks for showing the pictures though. You guys did an amazing job on those.

No problem! I just wanted to nip it in the bud as usually these things spiral quickly on the net, but now people know, shooting over rhinos is legal, if a bit lame, mind you, they still couldn't target things shorter than the rhino unless the dread is higher than the rhino ( since the shot would draw Los through the hull).

But, I'll say it's good to put a screen name to a face, your guys team was a blast to play, and def not an easy match, that caestus was nasty! I'd gladly share a fun game with any of you at an event in the future, or if you came to the east coast!

GK are Nob Bikers all over again. I'm not saying GK aren't the best or 2nd best book, they are one of those. So were Orks at the time. While you can always beat Orks because of what they are you have to beat GK by looking to the mission and outmaneuvering them.

I think people think GK are so crazy because their is nearly an infinite number of excellent lists you can make considering all the options for Power Armor and Henchman units supporting by as few as 1 to as many as 6 psydreads which cover their key weakness. If they hadn't included the AC option on the dread they would probably would be in the same boat as DE and BA instead of having made them redundant.

Target wrote:

What is the base of the Dread to the left? Is that an official base? Obviously it can be abused to claim cover saves behind Rhinos in many situations, even if GW's intent may be to just provide a cool looking scenic base. Personally I've never seen a Dread on a heightened base, but as long as your Dread rifles are same height as the official ones I would be ok with it.

The problem with those bases IMO is that they look so incredibly modelled for advantage. It seems to be an optical illusion as even though you have shown evidence that the AC's are the same height as the "official" model, they still look like they gain a huge advantage when looked at separatedly.

I will be honest and say that those bases are likely to have made me sour before a game. Of course it would help a lot when you don't shoot over your rhinos, but I don't know that you are a perfectly nice person before we play, and as said before, without the photographic evidence, the optical illusion is that those dreads gain a large advantage from the base. The last part is that they IMO just don't make the "rule of cool". You have a team with 8-9 of those? All in the same pose on the same base. The dreads are not interacting with the scenic base at all, nothing is really happening with the base, there are no differences between any of them and the most obvious aspect of the base is that is it tall. The bases actually reinforce the spam aspect.

The above combines into a very negative perception before the game, which you have to fight against with your play, which possibly made you play the dreads even more to your opponent's advantage than you would have. I think you were right in stating that you should not have made those bases.

N.I.B. wrote:

Target wrote:

What is the base of the Dread to the left? Is that an official base? Obviously it can be abused to claim cover saves behind Rhinos in many situations, even if GW's intent may be to just provide a cool looking scenic base. Personally I've never seen a Dread on a heightened base, but as long as your Dread rifles are same height as the official ones I would be ok with it.

That is the base that comes with a dreadnought when you buy a kit. So yes, it is an official base.

Illumini wrote:The problem with those bases IMO is that they look so incredibly modelled for advantage. It seems to be an optical illusion as even though you have shown evidence that the AC's are the same height as the "official" model, they still look like they gain a huge advantage when looked at separatedly.

I will be honest and say that those bases are likely to have made me sour before a game. Of course it would help a lot when you don't shoot over your rhinos, but I don't know that you are a perfectly nice person before we play, and as said before, without the photographic evidence, the optical illusion is that those dreads gain a large advantage from the base. The last part is that they IMO just don't make the "rule of cool". You have a team with 8-9 of those? All in the same pose on the same base. The dreads are not interacting with the scenic base at all, nothing is really happening with the base, there are no differences between any of them and the most obvious aspect of the base is that is it tall. The bases actually reinforce the spam aspect.

The above combines into a very negative perception before the game, which you have to fight against with your play, which possibly made you play the dreads even more to your opponent's advantage than you would have. I think you were right in stating that you should not have made those bases.

Here's the issue: you don't have 99% of the facts right in your above post

1) I have chat this with my opponent before we start the game where I inform him the guns don't gain height, the judges have checked, and that I won't be shooting over my rhino's regardless.

2) Our team of 4 people has 5 total dreads, 2 in one 2000 point army, 3 in the other. Not that the number we have should matter, but it's not "8 to 9"

3) "The last part is that they IMO just don't make the "rule of cool". You have a team with 8-9 of those? All in the same pose on the same base. The dreads are not interacting with the scenic base at all, nothing is really happening with the base, there are no differences between any of them and the most obvious aspect of the base is that is it tall. The bases actually reinforce the spam aspect. "

So because you feel there are too many in the army list (which you have incorrect, as you think there are double the actual number), and you personally don't like the base, you feel they don't follow the "rule of cool". The rule of cool is for conversion legality, it's "if it looks cool, it's generally acceptable". You can base your model on anything you want, it isn't a conversion. What I'm getting from your above sentence is that you have something personal against psyfle dreads, you've insulted the number and called it "spam aspect". This has nothing to do with the models. And before you insult the lack of different poses and other conversions, I'd like to see a few photos of your models, and we can see who passes the rule of cool. In tournaments and games I get about 10 compliments on the bases for every 1 "isnt that thing too tall?" comment I receive. In each army you'd play, you'd face 2 or 3 of those, not 8-9, 2 models in the same pose is too many?

4) " I think you were right in stating that you should not have made those bases. " "I will be honest and say that those bases are likely to have made me sour before a game."

So, you think that because people can perceive something negatively, I shouldn't have had fun with the hobby as I enjoy it (sculpting and modelling) because other people can't be expected to be responsible, respectful adults? If you get sour before a game, without waiting to speak to your opponent about something you're not sure about before passing judgement, well...

This hobby makes me quite sad some times.

Illumini wrote:
I will be honest and say that those bases are likely to have made me sour before a game. Of course it would help a lot when you don't shoot over your rhinos, but I don't know that you are a perfectly nice person before we play, and as said before, without the photographic evidence, the optical illusion is that those dreads gain a large advantage from the base. The last part is that they IMO just don't make the "rule of cool". You have a team with 8-9 of those? All in the same pose on the same base. The dreads are not interacting with the scenic base at all, nothing is really happening with the base, there are no differences between any of them and the most obvious aspect of the base is that is it tall. The bases actually reinforce the spam aspect.

The above combines into a very negative perception before the game, which you have to fight against with your play, which possibly made you play the dreads even more to your opponent's advantage than you would have. I think you were right in stating that you should not have made those bases.

I'm wondering if the pics don't do them justice. They were quite impressively well done in person. I'm sorry to hear that they don't do it for you. The water effects they got on the bases were amazing!

I think the biggest, most obvious red flag with the codex should have been the presence of power weapons on almost all the basic infantry units in the game. Ignoring armour is *such* a big deal in every other codex, and so costly, that giving that power out to basic infantry at negligible cost, causes massive balance problems. Again it's about negating the power of other forces, notably any heavily armoured CC armies that don't come with invulnerable saves as standard, particularly if their initiative is typically less than 6 (hello, Blood Angels).

Add in the fact that they're not just power weapons but force weapons, and you negate the power of most nidzilla/chaoszilla lists too, as well as multi-wound deathstars.

Add in storm bolters everywhere and you start to outshoot most units too, particularly at that crucial 12" to 24" midrange.

I don't mind GKs being good all-rounders -- I'm just really not convinced they should be that way by negating the powers of so many other armies. The "no effect" card is always unfun.

As for codex creep -- compare Purifiers (125 pts for 5 with force weapons, extremely useful psy powers, and storm bolters) to Dark Angels Veterans (125 pts for 5 with storm bolters and... bolt pistols... or 175 pts for 5 with power swords and bolt pistols).

Strikes are really terrible in melee. Seriously. They balance their lackluster melee prowess by giving them buckets of AP4/5 shots and removing infantry access to plasma/metla.

Strikes hit, I6:
Strikes in melee get 11 attacks. 5.5 hit. 2.75 wound. Even on I6 (which you'll never see 10 strikes with halberds) that only kills 2-3 Blood Angels.

Return attack:
Assault Squad gets 12 attacks from regulars, 4 attacks from meltaguns, and then 4 attacks from the power weapon. 6 regular attacks hit and 3 wound. 1 meltagun wounds, and then 1 of the power weapon attacks wounds. GK end up losing 2, 1, and 1, on average, totaling 4 dead.

BA unit cost: 225
GK unit cost: 250

Of course, this ignores shooting, other units, and external modifiers, such as taking unit combinations no one would ever take, so like all mathhammer it's pretty much a waste of time and just intellectual masturbation.


Does anyone still play Nidzilla? I thought that was a 4th edition thing. Even then, I'd think SitW would make force weapons usually fail. At any rate, I've not found a GK problem that genestealers couldn't fix, but one think I keep learning is that my local meta does not always match the rest of the world.


I do completely agree with your codex creep comment though. Look at 4th/5th edition marine armies compared with 3rd edition DH. It happens.

Ian Sturrock wrote:I think the biggest, most obvious red flag with the codex should have been the presence of power weapons on almost all the basic infantry units in the game. Ignoring armour is *such* a big deal in every other codex, and so costly, that giving that power out to basic infantry at negligible cost, causes massive balance problems. Again it's about negating the power of other forces, notably any heavily armoured CC armies that don't come with invulnerable saves as standard, particularly if their initiative is typically less than 6 (hello, Blood Angels).

Add in the fact that they're not just power weapons but force weapons, and you negate the power of most nidzilla/chaoszilla lists too, as well as multi-wound deathstars.

Add in storm bolters everywhere and you start to outshoot most units too, particularly at that crucial 12" to 24" midrange.

I don't mind GKs being good all-rounders -- I'm just really not convinced they should be that way by negating the powers of so many other armies. The "no effect" card is always unfun.

As for codex creep -- compare Purifiers (125 pts for 5 with force weapons, extremely useful psy powers, and storm bolters) to Dark Angels Veterans (125 pts for 5 with storm bolters and... bolt pistols... or 175 pts for 5 with power swords and bolt pistols).

Mind you, I'm still firmly in the "GK are most definitely not overpowered" camp, and I believe SW's are still marginally better, GK being second, and IG/DE/BA in the third slot.

But, I'll agree with a lot of what you wrote, part of what I see the problem of GK's being is the hard counters. No army should have things that just hard counter others without being able to play around, the prime example being warp quake. Cleansing flame is similar, however it can be played around (at least they get to deploy/try to focus it down). It's part of the reason I don't play with purifiers typically, and never with warp quake.

Fortitude and psybolts should have also been optional, pricier upgrades (fortitude at ~15 points, psybolts at 15-20). This way you'd see people pay for it on dreads, raiders, ravens, but never on psybacks, and all would be right with the world. I don't think it breaks the book having it as is, but it definitely up's the ante a bit.

Mind you, I'm still firmly in the "GK are most definitely not overpowered" camp, and I believe SW's are still marginally better, GK being second, and IG/DE/BA in the third slot.

Doesn't that directly imply that they, along with the space wolves, are overpowered? When they sit at a tier above all other alternative "good" codexes I would think that the defining characteristic of that feature would be that they are overly powerful within the constraints of the modern game.

As an anecdote, I've always had a much harder time with GKs than I have with SWs, but I play space sharks via forge world + marine codex or blood sharks via blood angels. Both books have a hard time with GKs. The ability to counter the GK codex is very matchup dependent, I have an intensely difficult time with my assault themed forces and I don't have the push to take objectives from them with mixed arms or gunlines. These are not issues I've had with wolves whome I can overwhelm in melee or jam at objectives.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Mind you, I'm still firmly in the "GK are most definitely not overpowered" camp, and I believe SW's are still marginally better, GK being second, and IG/DE/BA in the third slot.

Doesn't that directly imply that they, along with the space wolves, are overpowered? When they sit at a tier above all other alternative "good" codexes I would think that the defining characteristic of that feature would be that they are overly powerful within the constraints of the modern game.

The colloquial meaning of "overpowered" or "broken" is that the book is far and away better than all others, and you, if you want to be competitive, are silly not to play it. For instance, people don't complain about SW's being broken or OP. It's one thing to be the best, or one of the best, it's another to be broken/overpowered.

However, whenever you have a set of books, some will always be better than others, in this case those 5 books are better than the others, and SW/GK are top dog. But it isn't old fantasy daemon or Nidzilla levels of brokenness that the game previously experienced.

The colloquial meaning of "overpowered" or "broken" is that the book is far and away better than all others, and you, if you want to be competitive, are silly not to play it. For instance, people don't complain about SW's being broken or OP. It's one thing to be the best, or one of the best, it's another to be broken/overpowered.

They did until grey knights came along. If you take the top tier (GK, SW, IG) then there is a strong argument for a level of broken and overpowered capability among the three. Those book comprised over half of adepticon for a reason, and it's not for the interesting fluff. Taken as a whole this games top tier is overpowered. The armies that couldn't beat leafblower before (most of them) certainly can't now. The only real check on those three books most broken capabilities are those three books. That's not a healthy meta. It's getting better as ward writes more books (Necrons now counter mech IG which is nice, but a bit late) but the state of the game is as top heavy as it has been in years.

I don't put DE or BA in a tier near IG/SW/GK. Tournament results don't bear that out. They're new, but they don't have a nich and they're countered too hard by the big three. Necrons slide in ok but are far too matchup dependant to really compete either.

Necrons have been doing very well overall considering their newness. It's too early to rank them but I would definitely say they have knocked IG from the top tier (easily).

Shuma's reply above sums up my feeling on the issue almost perfectly. The top tier is almost internally balanced among itself, and that balance happens at the expense of the rest of the armies. This happens by having poorly conceived powers that require no actual decision to be used and negate enemy abilities (Warp Quake, Rune Priests, Psychostroke grenades, etc), and/or cheaply spamming metagame-gifted things (meltavets, power/force weapon spams, Long Fang spam, again Rune Priests).

DE does have that spammable quality (as Venomspam bears out), but it's too fragile for a game that will be decided ny KPs or holding objectives when faces to the steamrollers above. As for BA, I can't quite put my finger on why they don't get the same results, I admit.

Sephyr wrote:Shuma's reply above sums up my feeling on the issue almost perfectly. The top tier is almost internally balanced among itself, and that balance happens at the expense of the rest of the armies. This happens by having poorly conceived powers that require no actual decision to be used and negate enemy abilities (Warp Quake, Rune Priests, Psychostroke grenades, etc), and/or cheaply spamming metagame-gifted things (meltavets, power/force weapon spams, Long Fang spam, again Rune Priests).

DE does have that spammable quality (as Venomspam bears out), but it's too fragile for a game that will be decided ny KPs or holding objectives when faces to the steamrollers above. As for BA, I can't quite put my finger on why they don't get the same results, I admit.

Nemesis force halberds.

Target wrote:
3) "The last part is that they IMO just don't make the "rule of cool". You have a team with 8-9 of those? All in the same pose on the same base. The dreads are not interacting with the scenic base at all, nothing is really happening with the base, there are no differences between any of them and the most obvious aspect of the base is that is it tall. The bases actually reinforce the spam aspect. "

So because you feel there are too many in the army list (which you have incorrect, as you think there are double the actual number), and you personally don't like the base, you feel they don't follow the "rule of cool". The rule of cool is for conversion legality, it's "if it looks cool, it's generally acceptable". You can base your model on anything you want, it isn't a conversion. What I'm getting from your above sentence is that you have something personal against psyfle dreads, you've insulted the number and called it "spam aspect". This has nothing to do with the models. And before you insult the lack of different poses and other conversions, I'd like to see a few photos of your models, and we can see who passes the rule of cool. In tournaments and games I get about 10 compliments on the bases for every 1 "isnt that thing too tall?" comment I receive. In each army you'd play, you'd face 2 or 3 of those, not 8-9, 2 models in the same pose is too many?

Saying that rule of cool does not apply to basing miss my point, I'm not talking about any official rule of cool (didn't know it existed), my use of the expression was more aimed at the fact that you will probably get "away" with more deviance from the norm/official the cooler your model looks.

Rule of cool is of course totally subjective, which is why I said IMO. The base is a fine looking base, but they are all identical and the dreads are all placed the same way. Some variation in both the bases and the positioning of the dreads would likely help my impression of them, but I am no all-seeing judge of cool. If you get 10 to 1 in favour of cool, then they obviously they pass the cool-test and either I have a faulty view of cool or they look better in person. Regardless, I do realize it was stupid to pull in rule of cool, it was not the main point I was trying to make, and it is hard not to become defensive when some bloke on the internet criticize your work. The sculpting is top notch on the base, no question about it, so sorry about pulling in coolness.

I don't have a photo of my psyfledreads (I have three), but I use venerable dread body + autocannons from puppetswar. IMO, they look about as cool as an autocannon dread can look (if we discount painting )

Target wrote:
So, you think that because people can perceive something negatively, I shouldn't have had fun with the hobby as I enjoy it (sculpting and modelling) because other people can't be expected to be responsible, respectful adults? If you get sour before a game, without waiting to speak to your opponent about something you're not sure about before passing judgement, well...

Of course it would help a lot if you explain straight away as you pick out the models that the weapons are actually the same height as a normal model. The need to do that does highlight the real essence of my last post though: the dreads appear to be taller, being taller is an advantage = it may appear like you are modelling for advantage. People who do model for advantage are generally not great to play against = your opponent possibly believing you're not going to be fun to play.

People pre-judge other people all the time, even reasonable and respectful adults. If they have played against some asshat that actually modelled for advantage sometime before and your models appear to be modelled for advantage, then it is a natural conclusion to make that you might be an asshat and that the coming game is not going to be awesome. Of course, reasonable, respectful adults will modify this perception when you either:
A: convincingly tell them that you aren't actually gaining an advantage/that you will not use any actual advantage
B: show them that you aren't actually gaining an advantage through your game
C: show that you aren't actually an asshat as you play

However, if having to do this bothers you much, then you should not bring a conversion that appears to be gaining an advantage to a tourney IMO. You seem very aware that the dreads look taller. Claiming that nobody should judge you is like wishing for world peace, nice, but human nature means it's not going to happen. You are even judging me in your own post, adding meaning to mine that I never intended.

@Target: Thanks for coming in and talking about them. You're right, I wasn't trying to stir up crap, but wanted to make sure you got a chance to talk about it before people started the slander train.

I agree there is an optical illusion there, but I'm glad that you guys had good communication throughout the event with opponents. Thanks for the pics!

ShumaGorath wrote:

Sephyr wrote:Shuma's reply above sums up my feeling on the issue almost perfectly. The top tier is almost internally balanced among itself, and that balance happens at the expense of the rest of the armies. This happens by having poorly conceived powers that require no actual decision to be used and negate enemy abilities (Warp Quake, Rune Priests, Psychostroke grenades, etc), and/or cheaply spamming metagame-gifted things (meltavets, power/force weapon spams, Long Fang spam, again Rune Priests).

DE does have that spammable quality (as Venomspam bears out), but it's too fragile for a game that will be decided ny KPs or holding objectives when faces to the steamrollers above. As for BA, I can't quite put my finger on why they don't get the same results, I admit.

Nemesis force halberds.

That, Vindicaire Assasins, and every BA list you saw generally was built around the priests making the army strongly dependant on FNP, which the big three armies largely bypass or ignore in various ways. Add to that the fact that their ranged firepower never matched what a Long Wang spam list could put out and that their elite close combat units are either clunky or overpriced, and they are basically the Dark Angels of this edition. At least Mephiston was great for punking Orks, until GK rolled out. But basically, the BA army was built around a couple of gimmicks that the top tier could largely ignore.

Phazael wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Sephyr wrote:Shuma's reply above sums up my feeling on the issue almost perfectly. The top tier is almost internally balanced among itself, and that balance happens at the expense of the rest of the armies. This happens by having poorly conceived powers that require no actual decision to be used and negate enemy abilities (Warp Quake, Rune Priests, Psychostroke grenades, etc), and/or cheaply spamming metagame-gifted things (meltavets, power/force weapon spams, Long Fang spam, again Rune Priests).

DE does have that spammable quality (as Venomspam bears out), but it's too fragile for a game that will be decided ny KPs or holding objectives when faces to the steamrollers above. As for BA, I can't quite put my finger on why they don't get the same results, I admit.

Nemesis force halberds.

That, Vindicaire Assasins, and every BA list you saw generally was built around the priests making the army strongly dependant on FNP, which the big three armies largely bypass or ignore in various ways. Add to that the fact that their ranged firepower never matched what a Long Wang spam list could put out and that their elite close combat units are either clunky or overpriced, and they are basically the Dark Angels of this edition. At least Mephiston was great for punking Orks, until GK rolled out. But basically, the BA army was built around a couple of gimmicks that the top tier could largely ignore.

Without the sanguinary priest the BA army is really just the marine codex with slightly cheaper costing and faster vehicles. That is to say without the priests it's pretty bad. Anything that makes the priests redundant or useless turns the BAs back into a marine force based around the intensely overcosted unit knows as the "assault marine".

Phazael wrote:never matched what a Long Wang spam list could put out

Ahh, so that's why SW are popular with the ladies.

Target wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Mind you, I'm still firmly in the "GK are most definitely not overpowered" camp, and I believe SW's are still marginally better, GK being second, and IG/DE/BA in the third slot.

Doesn't that directly imply that they, along with the space wolves, are overpowered? When they sit at a tier above all other alternative "good" codexes I would think that the defining characteristic of that feature would be that they are overly powerful within the constraints of the modern game.

The colloquial meaning of "overpowered" or "broken" is that the book is far and away better than all others, and you, if you want to be competitive, are silly not to play it. For instance, people don't complain about SW's being broken or OP. It's one thing to be the best, or one of the best, it's another to be broken/overpowered.

However, whenever you have a set of books, some will always be better than others, in this case those 5 books are better than the others, and SW/GK are top dog. But it isn't old fantasy daemon or Nidzilla levels of brokenness that the game previously experienced.

ShumaGorath wrote:

The colloquial meaning of "overpowered" or "broken" is that the book is far and away better than all others, and you, if you want to be competitive, are silly not to play it. For instance, people don't complain about SW's being broken or OP. It's one thing to be the best, or one of the best, it's another to be broken/overpowered.

Read below comments!

They did until grey knights came along. If you take the top tier (GK, SW, IG) then there is a strong argument for a level of broken and overpowered capability among the three. Those book comprised over half of adepticon for a reason, and it's not for the interesting fluff. Taken as a whole this games top tier is overpowered. The armies that couldn't beat leafblower before (most of them) certainly can't now. The only real check on those three books most broken capabilities are those three books. That's not a healthy meta. It's getting better as ward writes more books (Necrons now counter mech IG which is nice, but a bit late) but the state of the game is as top heavy as it has been in years.

I don't put DE or BA in a tier near IG/SW/GK. Tournament results don't bear that out. They're new, but they don't have a nich and they're countered too hard by the big three. Necrons slide in ok but are far too matchup dependant to really compete either.

Have you seen how well necrons have been doing lately?

-666- wrote:Necrons have been doing very well overall considering their newness. It's too early to rank them but I would definitely say they have knocked IG from the top tier (easily).

QFT! I dont know why people arent ranking necrons in that top tier. MY top 5 is as follows:

GK
SW
Necrons
IG
BA/DE

Necrons can make it night fight for your turn only. They can keep it night fight the whole game with Imohtep and hit with lightning on your side armor of 10 for IG. Necrons have seriously taken IG from the top 3. They can also hang with GK and SW just fine.

Blood Angels is IMO the best internally balanced codex put out by GW in the last decade (or at least of the 5th ed codexes) and it feels well balanced in the "meta" too.

There are some poor choices (generally inherited from codex: Space Marines), but in general, no other codex has such great balance in all their slots. Let's look at the competitive units in the BA heavy slot:
Devastators
Predators
Storm Ravens
Dreadnoughts
Vindicator

Sure, preds and devs are the most common, but the others all work just fine too although possibly in different types of lists. The whirlwind is really the only odd-man out in the BA HS slot.

The FA slot also has good competition between attack bikes, baal preds, land speeders, scout bikers and vanguard.

The weak slot is the troops section, where assault marines blow the others out of the water. GW should realize that tacticals and scouts are overpriced. Even then, assault marines can actually be fielded in different configurations, allowing for quite a bit of variation in this slot too. DC/DC dreads are not totally useless either, but you need to be prepared to argue the rage rule

I don't think the BA codex is null and void because of GK's. Purifiers might knock assault marines silly 1-on-1, but they die like marines to shooting and you can also mob them. Paladins really hate fear of the darkness and fast vehicle tank shocks and henchmen are like a better IG, but with less nasty artillery. Mephiston is probably the BA unit that took the hardest hit from GK's, but he is not all of BA and he is still far from useless even against GK.

Have you seen how well necrons have been doing lately?

Yeah, they had a seventh the showing of GKs in the top 16 at adepticon this year.

Necrons can make it night fight for your turn only. They can keep it night fight the whole game with Imohtep and hit with lightning on your side armor of 10 for IG. Necrons have seriously taken IG from the top 3. They can also hang with GK and SW just fine.

Their capabilities against GKs are overstated. Sure, the GKs can't get good use out of the psyflemen, but they're great at torrenting out wraiths and don't care at all about scarabs with their majority 24" guns. Necrons aren't a mech force so the psyfles are somewhat redundant anyway and don't really mind walking up to get into sight range. Night fights great against SW razorspam though.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Have you seen how well necrons have been doing lately?

Yeah, they had a seventh the showing of GKs in the top 16 at adepticon this year.

They have won two GT's and of the final 16 they made the final 4. Adepticon was kill point heavy. Something that necron's can struggle with especially as a shooty army.

Tomb King wrote:

Target wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Mind you, I'm still firmly in the "GK are most definitely not overpowered" camp, and I believe SW's are still marginally better, GK being second, and IG/DE/BA in the third slot.

Doesn't that directly imply that they, along with the space wolves, are overpowered? When they sit at a tier above all other alternative "good" codexes I would think that the defining characteristic of that feature would be that they are overly powerful within the constraints of the modern game.

The colloquial meaning of "overpowered" or "broken" is that the book is far and away better than all others, and you, if you want to be competitive, are silly not to play it. For instance, people don't complain about SW's being broken or OP. It's one thing to be the best, or one of the best, it's another to be broken/overpowered.

However, whenever you have a set of books, some will always be better than others, in this case those 5 books are better than the others, and SW/GK are top dog. But it isn't old fantasy daemon or Nidzilla levels of brokenness that the game previously experienced.

ShumaGorath wrote:

The colloquial meaning of "overpowered" or "broken" is that the book is far and away better than all others, and you, if you want to be competitive, are silly not to play it. For instance, people don't complain about SW's being broken or OP. It's one thing to be the best, or one of the best, it's another to be broken/overpowered.

Read below comments!

They did until grey knights came along. If you take the top tier (GK, SW, IG) then there is a strong argument for a level of broken and overpowered capability among the three. Those book comprised over half of adepticon for a reason, and it's not for the interesting fluff. Taken as a whole this games top tier is overpowered. The armies that couldn't beat leafblower before (most of them) certainly can't now. The only real check on those three books most broken capabilities are those three books. That's not a healthy meta. It's getting better as ward writes more books (Necrons now counter mech IG which is nice, but a bit late) but the state of the game is as top heavy as it has been in years.

I don't put DE or BA in a tier near IG/SW/GK. Tournament results don't bear that out. They're new, but they don't have a nich and they're countered too hard by the big three. Necrons slide in ok but are far too matchup dependant to really compete either.

Have you seen how well necrons have been doing lately?

-666- wrote:Necrons have been doing very well overall considering their newness. It's too early to rank them but I would definitely say they have knocked IG from the top tier (easily).

QFT! I dont know why people arent ranking necrons in that top tier. MY top 5 is as follows:

GK
SW
Necrons
IG
BA/DE

Necrons can make it night fight for your turn only. They can keep it night fight the whole game with Imohtep and hit with lightning on your side armor of 10 for IG. Necrons have seriously taken IG from the top 3. They can also hang with GK and SW just fine.

Honestly I didn't rank them in my top 5 because I plum forgot!

My revamped top 5, with the memory that yes, necrons do exist, is:

SW/GK/Necron/IG
BA/DE

Tomb King wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Have you seen how well necrons have been doing lately?

Yeah, they had a seventh the showing of GKs in the top 16 at adepticon this year.

They have won two GT's and of the final 16 they made the final 4. Adepticon was kill point heavy. Something that necron's can struggle with especially as a shooty army.

I'll reserve judgement before I'd equate them with the top three, but I will agree that they're a step between top and second tier. They have too many weaknesses in my opinion to be a truly top tier codex, but they slot in against ranged SWs and mech IG well enough to show strongly in highly competitive events where they're likely to see a lot of those.

I just want to understand this;



The dread to the left, is that weapon rack the Forgeworld kit? And are those rifles elevated compared to the rifles included in the Dreadnought kit?

N.I.B. wrote:I just want to understand this;



The dread to the left, is that weapon rack the Forgeworld kit? And are those rifles elevated compared to the rifles included in the Dreadnought kit?

Left dread is one of my venerables I ripped the arms off of and mounted FW arms onto, I had that FW arm laying around after getting it in a trade a while back. I think it's this one:
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Space_Marines/Space-Marine-Dreadnoughts/MK-IV-DREADNOUGHT-AUTOCANNONS-(RIGHT_ARM).html

The dreadnought kit doesn't include any rifles, so there is no gw-kit comparison, as there don't make any autocannon arms (only FW or custom). The dread on the right is my dread I played in the tournament, the dreadnought arm was sculpted/cast by myself (the autocannon barrels however were stolen from IG HW teams).

Target wrote:The dreadnought kit doesn't include any rifles, so there is no gw-kit comparison, as there don't make any autocannon arms (only FW or custom).

Ok, thanks for the clear up.

I have read through most of this thread and i really can't tell if people are whining because they where beaten by a GK player a one point in time of if the codex is really that over powered. I have read through the codex, but i don't see why draggio wing is all that great. Yea having only to paint thirty models seems really fun and great. But that means i only have to remove thirty models from your side of the flied. Maybe i am lost in the confusion. I played eldar when both SW and BA came out and to me they both where overpowered and broken. But it sounds like people who play SW IG BA DE are starting to get their arses whipped and are complaining.

If there is a 100 person tournament and 78 are GK they have a good chance of them taking top spots. When i played in the 'Ard boyz right after BA came out, thats all you saw. And the people running 'Ard boyz knew it was coming. And have we stopped to think of the human factor? Lets say that some one is really good at this game and plays Gk, is it the codex that is broken or is it that people play against a better player and lose? The tournaments them selves could be skewed, Lets say the GK players never meet each other till the last few rounds, Or Gks keep getting put up against out dated codexs and win. That would make it so the top ten would be GK armies.

Maybe because of all the threads saying GK are broken and all the people complaining about them as forced more people to play them for a chance at playing that winning codex. Making more GK players.

I used to run a unit that struck at I10 with all power weapons, 30+ attacks on the charge with counter charge with 5 being str 7 and 3 being str 5 with re-rolling wounds and saves, is that broken? is that more broken than Gks Units? Why are they so broken? Is it just because they take top seats in a tournament? Or is it because of something in the codex?

Those dreads look fine. Anyone who complained after you sat one next to a rhino might really be a whiner.

That said, I did play against one TFG that used old Rhinos only for his GK army. I told him he was modeling for advantage and he feigned hurt/astonishment.

newbis wrote:Those dreads look fine. Anyone who complained after you sat one next to a rhino might really be a whiner.

That said, I did play against one TFG that used old Rhinos only for his GK army. I told him he was modeling for advantage and he feigned hurt/astonishment.

Worse even is when you see people mix styles. I've seen people use new and old styles, and put the crappy units in the new, good units in the old, then move them so the good unit in the old rhino is completely blocked from los by the much larger new rhino.

Thats life, if you have to cheat to win at a tabletop game, you've already done something wrong!

Target wrote:

newbis wrote:Those dreads look fine. Anyone who complained after you sat one next to a rhino might really be a whiner.

That said, I did play against one TFG that used old Rhinos only for his GK army. I told him he was modeling for advantage and he feigned hurt/astonishment.

Worse even is when you see people mix styles. I've seen people use new and old styles, and put the crappy units in the new, good units in the old, then move them so the good unit in the old rhino is completely blocked from los by the much larger new rhino.

Thats life, if you have to cheat to win at a tabletop game, you've already done something wrong!

Modeling for advantage isn't cheating... but it certainly is questionable ethics.... USING someones "modeled to look cool" against them is also questionable ethics...

Meh... personally I still think the only cheaty thing you did Andrew was run G K s

Lets see how GKs do this NOVA however.... now that they've been out for a year i am sure thats enough time to determine if they are OP...

PapaPiggy wrote:I have read through most of this thread and i really can't tell if people are whining because they where beaten by a GK player a one point in time of if the codex is really that over powered. I have read through the codex, but i don't see why draggio wing is all that great. Yea having only to paint thirty models seems really fun and great. But that means i only have to remove thirty models from your side of the flied. Maybe i am lost in the confusion. I played eldar when both SW and BA came out and to me they both where overpowered and broken. But it sounds like people who play SW IG BA DE are starting to get their arses whipped and are complaining.

If there is a 100 person tournament and 78 are GK they have a good chance of them taking top spots. When i played in the 'Ard boyz right after BA came out, thats all you saw. And the people running 'Ard boyz knew it was coming. And have we stopped to think of the human factor? Lets say that some one is really good at this game and plays Gk, is it the codex that is broken or is it that people play against a better player and lose? The tournaments them selves could be skewed, Lets say the GK players never meet each other till the last few rounds, Or Gks keep getting put up against out dated codexs and win. That would make it so the top ten would be GK armies.

Maybe because of all the threads saying GK are broken and all the people complaining about them as forced more people to play them for a chance at playing that winning codex. Making more GK players.

I used to run a unit that struck at I10 with all power weapons, 30+ attacks on the charge with counter charge with 5 being str 7 and 3 being str 5 with re-rolling wounds and saves, is that broken? is that more broken than Gks Units? Why are they so broken? Is it just because they take top seats in a tournament? Or is it because of something in the codex?

Doesnt draigo wing take paladins? so its 60 wounds to kill them all, and with wound Cheat... shenanigans (dont worry i blame the Devs for not picking this up in play testing) it can be hard for certain armies to actually put a simgle unit down

I don't see that there's a huge problem in using old Rhinos / Razorbacks, as long as you're consistent within that army -- all old-style ones.

PapaPiggy wrote:
If there is a 100 person tournament and 78 are GK they have a good chance of them taking top spots.

Not supporting the most overpowered in a decade (I have not played that long) but if you examine a purely random sampling of armies (not totally accurate I know since more 'serious' people gravitate towards the stronger armies), then choosing a sample size of 16 with 44% Gk from a pool with 22% GK and 256 members has a probability below 5% (which is not to say it is impossible of course!).

newbis wrote:Those dreads look fine. Anyone who complained after you sat one next to a rhino might really be a whiner.

That said, I did play against one TFG that used old Rhinos only for his GK army. I told him he was modeling for advantage and he feigned hurt/astonishment.

Depends, was he also using the old, old SMs as the basis for his PAGKs or the old old GK Terminators?

If the whole army had been done in that style then getting the older Rhinos over the newer ones is a logical step.

Target wrote:Worse even is when you see people mix styles. I've seen people use new and old styles, and put the crappy units in the new, good units in the old, then move them so the good unit in the old rhino is completely blocked from los by the much larger new rhino.

Thats life, if you have to cheat to win at a tabletop game, you've already done something wrong!

I mix styles because I have been collecting my SW army for almost 15 years. My Long Fangs didn't have transports until this edition, so they are the larger new Razorback/Rhinos. My GH have had transports since 3rd edition (little rhinos). Standard practice with Razorspam or any transport army is to put the empty ones in front of the full ones to give cover on the first turn.

Am I a cheaty cheaterson because I haven't repainted all of my Rhinos to gain the least advantage?

Edit: Now with pic!

pretre wrote:

Target wrote:Worse even is when you see people mix styles. I've seen people use new and old styles, and put the crappy units in the new, good units in the old, then move them so the good unit in the old rhino is completely blocked from los by the much larger new rhino.

Thats life, if you have to cheat to win at a tabletop game, you've already done something wrong!

I mix styles because I have been collecting my SW army for almost 15 years. My Long Fangs didn't have transports until this edition, so they are the larger new Razorback/Rhinos. My GH have had transports since 3rd edition (little rhinos). Standard practice with Razorspam or any transport army is to put the empty ones in front of the full ones to give cover on the first turn.

Am I a cheaty cheaterson because I haven't repainted all of my Rhinos to gain the least advantage?

Edit: Now with pic!

It's one of those hard to tell scenarios, since you've got so many old models, most people wouldn't bat an eye, as it's obvious you just have an old school army. However, if you play them as the old small size, and you move them behind the bigger rhinos the entire time and deny LOS, that's when it gets a bit iffy.

See, curiously, I have no problem with that sort of play.

To me, it's a good example of a commander (say, Wolf Lord Terrax or whatever) using his army's equipment (say, Rhino Invictus from the 30th Millenium and Rhino Defenestratus from Tuesday) to maximize his advantage in battle.

It'd be like using a bulldozer to hide an MBT IRL.

Target wrote:It's one of those hard to tell scenarios, since you've got so many old models, most people wouldn't bat an eye, as it's obvious you just have an old school army. However, if you play them as the old small size, and you move them behind the bigger rhinos the entire time and deny LOS, that's when it gets a bit iffy.

That's what I'm saying I'm doing.
Recap:
The new rhinos are Long Fang rhinos. The Long fangs don't ride in them since they are too busy shooting.
I place the empty LF rhinos in front of my full GH rhinos.
The full GH rhinos are the old rhinos.

I don't think I've ever had a complaint. If someone did, I'd certainly let them count them either way, but to ascribe cheaty-ness to me because I have a variety of editions of models is pretty lame.

Your army looks awesome and that is all that matter Pretre (love the colored front panels with heraldry).

Also, I so need a Rhino named Defenestratus.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

calypso2ts wrote:Your army looks awesome and that is all that matter Pretre (love the colored front panels with heraldry).

Thanks! That's about the perfect distance to view it, any closer and you notice the flaws. lol

I actually miss that the new rhinos don't have panels like that. I use those little recesses on the front and rear quarter panels, but they aren't the same.

I'm actually working right now to put some more SW Bling (as my wife puts it) onto the LF rhinos since they look so boring.

Anyways... Back to the original topic, I think that you have to be careful ascribing intent to model use when having different size models. I would always allow my opponent to play as if they are the same size if he has any question. Also, there are certainly some REALLY extreme examples in other armies that are truly unfortunate (and I would never play those models as is). I'm looking at you skateboard trukk.

pretre wrote:Also, I so need a Rhino named Defenestratus.

You could even throw it out of a second or third story window before painting it, and say that it is battle damage

To be fair pretre your army has a number of models and a painting style that shows its pedigree and age. Because of that there is no shenanigans. I assume at worst your opponents and you come to an agreement that a Rhino is Rhino sized so no one should be fretting about what is larger or smaller as in theory it shouldn't matter either way!

Unit1126PLL wrote:

pretre wrote:Also, I so need a Rhino named Defenestratus.

You could even throw it out of a second or third story window before painting it, and say that it is battle damage

lol. Wolf Lord Roland Krakenbeard so named the Rhino after an incident during the battle to retake the Hive City of Reallytallbuildings. An overzealous gray hunter accelerated towards a squad of the enemy, causing them to flee and causing the vehicle to fall 5 stories when it crashed through a nearby window.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DarkStarSabre wrote:To be fair pretre your army has a number of models and a painting style that shows its pedigree and age. Because of that there is no shenanigans. I assume at worst your opponents and you come to an agreement that a Rhino is Rhino sized so no one should be fretting about what is larger or smaller as in theory it shouldn't matter either way!

Woohoo, I'm old! I tend to be a lot more laid back at events than I am on the internet.

pretre wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:

pretre wrote:Also, I so need a Rhino named Defenestratus.

You could even throw it out of a second or third story window before painting it, and say that it is battle damage

lol. Wolf Lord Roland Krakenbeard so named the Rhino after an incident during the battle to retake the Hive City of Reallytallbuildings. An overzealous gray hunter accelerated towards a squad of the enemy, causing them to flee and causing the vehicle to fall 5 stories when it crashed through a nearby window.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DarkStarSabre wrote:To be fair pretre your army has a number of models and a painting style that shows its pedigree and age. Because of that there is no shenanigans. I assume at worst your opponents and you come to an agreement that a Rhino is Rhino sized so no one should be fretting about what is larger or smaller as in theory it shouldn't matter either way!

Woohoo, I'm old! I tend to be a lot more laid back at events than I am on the internet.

And the Iron Priests studied the STC fragment long and hard. After four days of research, they came up with the Space Wolves' unique Marine vehicle: the Defenestrator-pattern Rhino!

Defenestratus was the prototype

pretre wrote:

Target wrote:It's one of those hard to tell scenarios, since you've got so many old models, most people wouldn't bat an eye, as it's obvious you just have an old school army. However, if you play them as the old small size, and you move them behind the bigger rhinos the entire time and deny LOS, that's when it gets a bit iffy.

That's what I'm saying I'm doing.
Recap:
The new rhinos are Long Fang rhinos. The Long fangs don't ride in them since they are too busy shooting.
I place the empty LF rhinos in front of my full GH rhinos.
The full GH rhinos are the old rhinos.

I don't think I've ever had a complaint. If someone did, I'd certainly let them count them either way, but to ascribe cheaty-ness to me because I have a variety of editions of models is pretty lame.

True, but I didn't ascribe cheatyness to you, I did to one particular opponent I had, who I knew had specifically sourced old rhinos, which didnt match his army, just to use for his assault units he wanted to hide as they advanced. He even flat out said that was what he was doing to me during the game. I rolled my eyes a bit, but it's legal so I played on. I also clarified that with a good mix of old models (as you have) which clearly shows that you've had the army for a while, it's generally a non-issue, as you can assess "intent" so to speak.

Also, you're willing to play their size either way, which makes all of this a moot point, as you're taking no advantage from it.

ShumaGorath wrote:
Single games can also be very matchup dependent. I wouldn't rush to call his opponent a newbie simply because he has no major tournaments under his belt. 40k isn't a particularly difficult game to play or win, you don't need to be some sort of separate breed to defeat the "best". There's a low skill ceiling, especially with armies like GKs and Space Wolves (SWs being arguably easier to play than the Inquisitorial GKs in that specific matchup).

I disagree that there is a low skill ceiling, as year after year, the same group of people take the top 10% of finishes at these big events. Sure, sometimes there is a new person among that group, but writing off the game as a low skill ceiling is simply ignoring the wealth of evidence that clearly demonstrates that, realistically, only 20% of any given tournament field are actually in any competition to win it. The other 80% make up numbers, but they're like the Cubs - they play the games but it doesn't matter, they'll never win it all.

Grey Knights or not.

Eidolon wrote:
However, what really bothers me is how much people care to whine about these things. When I was younger, and gaming was basically all I did hobby wise, I used to wonder why less people were involved. Now that I am older, and 40k has become something I play maybe 2 games of a month, I dont. I have moved out into the world, my social network has gone from only gamers to gamers being a very small minority, and looking back its things like that thread that make me realize how dysfunctional the community really is. And I dont wonder why more people arent involved anymore, because its full of people who dont have anything better to do than sit around and complain about how army x beats army y.

You have the time in your life to go out and spend hours and hours playing with plastic toy soldiers. Why not just enjoy that? Remember when ig and the 'leafblower' were the big thing, and everyone threw a gak fit about how imba ig were? I remember this forum blowing up about how so many people brought them to adepticon, and how darkwynn quit playing that build because people spread their butthurt to him about it. Now though, nobody cares about ig, and its gk that are broken. Give it another year, and we will have some other army that will be bitched about endlessly. Why? Its just the cycle, I enjoy it, new armies provide new challenges and require different tactics to beat. So the game is an ever changing problem, and not a simple equation.

Its this nerd rage from people who spend hundreds of dollars to go play 40k in some other part of the country, and then come back and complain cause they lost to what they feel is a broken army. This attitude is what keeps people away from gaming. You have the time and money to go play with plastic toys for a weekend in some far away city, what are you complaining about?

Well, I guess you can write off other people's thoughts as whining if that makes you feel better. I don't think that's it though. I think that a lot of people aren't good at expressing their thoughts and feelings, and so what they say is "Grey Knights are OP", when what they mean to say is that 40k, as a whole, isn't as much fun to play as they remember from years ago, and unfortunately, Grey Knights are the most recent example of why, preceded by Space Wolves and Imperial Guard...

My eight team games at Adepticon were against 5 Space Wolves, 2 Grey Knights and 1 mech blood angels. In these games, we had a grand total of two assault phases. (?!) The ruleset has skewed away from heroic models doing heroic things, making last stands against hordes of humanities foes to a game of cheap transports scooting and shooting other cheap transports. Were actual men not required for scoring purposes and in order to take these cheap transports, I have no doubt that many players would just as happily do without them. The Grey Knight henchman archetype is as close as that gets, where 3 normal humans are seen as the key to getting a scoring razorback cheaply.

Grey Knights are seen as overpowered because of the current metagame. Their default weapons are equally as good against transports as against the transported, and their shooty vehicles don't suffer from suppression fire like other shooty vehicles. If transports weren't so undercosted and underbalanced (risk vs reward), Grey Knights would be just fine. They'd be a mid-ranged expensive elite force that would die to shooting as easily as less elite forces. But in the world of transport-hammer, unsuppressable vehicles and the cheapest scoring guys are a potent combo.

But, and this is the more relevant idea, I think that the real issue isn't that Grey Knights are too good - they might be, but they still die - or even that they're too common, but more that the overall diversity of the game is seriously lacking, and entire aspects, such as assault, that people used to enjoy have been replaced by a battle between cheap APCs. You ask, "you get to spend a weekend playing toy soldiers, why are you complaining?" The answer is, unfortunately, that too much of the weekend is spent playing unfulfilling games against too-similar enemies, with a hint of bitter nostalgia for when the games were more fun, when you wouldn't play against the same army over and over, and when it was more than just hoping to get good rolls on the vehicle damage table.

@redbeard: The game will always seem to have been more fun in the past because 1) it was newer and there was still the thrill of discovery and 2) you were younger. Your memories of your previous games are probably enhanced by nestolgia for your youth. It happens with everything we experience.

Also on wheather or not the game has a low skill ceiling, I think 40k is best described as hard to learn easy to master. What I mean is it is hard to learn how to play 40k well. the rules can be awkward, each codex has a lot of options and there are many potential enemies you need to play against to learn how to handle. Of course the internet provides a short cut in learning, and some books are easier than others (GK, SW, IG and to a lesser extent BA), which is why we see so many of those 4 armies. To master the game once you have really learned it, is too be able to take advantge of quirks in the game and have enough expierence to be more adaptable. the reason you see the same top 105 doing well is not that they are so much better than everyone its that only 10% of the field represent players who have massive armies/can change wholesale for the meta and consistantly play big 6 round plus tournaments.

calypso2ts wrote:

PapaPiggy wrote:
If there is a 100 person tournament and 78 are GK they have a good chance of them taking top spots.

Not supporting the most overpowered in a decade (I have not played that long) but if you examine a purely random sampling of armies (not totally accurate I know since more 'serious' people gravitate towards the stronger armies), then choosing a sample size of 16 with 44% Gk from a pool with 22% GK and 256 members has a probability below 5% (which is not to say it is impossible of course!).

Seriously. I wonder how many more posts before someone says that 100% of the armies at Adepticon were GK so it's natural that they won.

Feh, 110% of the armies at Adepticon were GK. Get your facts straight!

By round 4 of the team tournament, my team was happy to see a fully mech-IG army against us, just to break up the waves of GK.

Space Wolves are the most broken and overpowerd book ever produced by GW, there is no debate

Riddick40k wrote:Space Wolves are the most broken and overpowerd book ever produced by GW, there is no debate

Well, there you have it folks.

Glad we could finally settle the issue.

2 thoughts.

1. do you think if 6th edition only had force weapons be power weapons when they are activated, GK would become more "fair" ?

2. were there any good inquisitional based armies that weren't just razorback spam?

Grundz wrote:2 thoughts.

1. do you think if 6th edition only had force weapons be power weapons when they are activated, GK would become more "fair" ?

2. were there any good inquisitional based armies that weren't just razorback spam?

I actually think #1 makes sense for ALL force weapons... thats a pretty cool idea

Pony_law wrote:@redbeard: The game will always seem to have been more fun in the past because 1) it was newer and there was still the thrill of discovery and 2) you were younger. Your memories of your previous games are probably enhanced by nestolgia for your youth. It happens with everything we experience.

I would find your argument easier to accept if :

a) I hadn't gotten into the game well into my 30s. I'm not seeking to recreate my youth.

and

b) It is still a lot of fun when played with artificial restraints on transport-hammer.

I played four highly enjoyable games at Adepticon - in a narrative campaign-in-a-day event. Orks versus Dark Angels with decidedly unbalanced missions, some of which favoured the Dark Angels and some of which favoured the Orks. But they were fun, we had assault phases that weren't swinging at tanks. We had shooting phases that didn't involve vehicle damage tables. The game still has many good mechanics and tends to work, as long as we're not all in metal boxes. But as soon as the optimized transport lists come out, all bets are off, and it really feels more like a slog than a game.

Also on wheather or not the game has a low skill ceiling, I think 40k is best described as hard to learn easy to master.

Also explaining why the same 30 or so players keep winning events in fields of 256. It's not like the other 220 players don't know the rules... I think you've got it backwards. It's easy to learn the game. The nuances of the mechanics are tricky, and keeping up to date with what your opponent's army is capable of is time consuming, though probably not hard. And yet, I don't think these are the real skills needed. I don't know everything about the most recent codexes, but I'm aware enough to ask my opponent what things do, and factor them in.

I think the real skills are having a 'feel' for when you need to move, when you need to switch from kill-what-you-can, to kill-what-you-must mode and the like, I'm not sure it can be taught. Some people have it and some people never will. Some people continually make poor deployment decisions. They make poor target priority decisions. They play low-odds chances on the off-chance that something miraculous will happen, and blame the dice when it doesn't. They end up a turn away from where they need to be because they castled too long, or took a meaningless shooting phase rather than watching the objectives. And they keep doing it.

Look back through the last five or six years of Adepticon results, and not only will you see the same names at the top of the pack, but you'll also see a lot of familiar names in the middle of the pack. They keep entering, and they continue to get pedestrian mid-field results. (P.S. I use adepticon as the example because the past results for several years are all available on their website, and sortable. I'm sure the same results would come from any GT though, with the same names...)

The evidence suggests that the game is more complicated than you claim. Some people get it, some people don't.

Grundz wrote:2 thoughts.

1. do you think if 6th edition only had force weapons be power weapons when they are activated, GK would become more "fair" ?

Not at all - It's not having power weapons that is making Grey Knights unfair. It's having dirt-cheap scoring units available, and vehicles that cannot be suppressed.

2. were there any good inquisitional based armies that weren't just razorback spam?

If you look at the lists on BoK, I think you'll find that few of them were "just" razorback spam. On the other hand, I think all of them used razorbacks to some extent, though some of the lists had as few as two.

If by "good", you mean lists that made it to day two. There were plenty of Grey Knight armies that did not have any razorbacks. These, however, did not make it to day two, so they may not meet your definition of good.

Redbeard wrote:It's not having power weapons that is making Grey Knights unfair.

I think you might find that 'nid players disagree with you. Or Ork players. Or any player that doesn't enjoy seeing an expensive multi-wound model die to a schmo striker with a force weapon.

newbis wrote:

Redbeard wrote:It's not having power weapons that is making Grey Knights unfair.

I think you might find that 'nid players disagree with you. Or Ork players. Or any player that doesn't enjoy seeing an expensive multi-wound model die to a schmo striker with a force weapon.

Don't let them get in combat with your expensive, multi-wound models then. Both armies possess plentiful, cheap bubblewrap that are taken in almost every build of those armies (termagants + spawned termies from tervigons = endless bubblewrap) and ork boyz

In the tyranid example, just bubble wrap and spawn-wrap from the tervigons to replenish the buffers, in the ork example I can only assume you mean Ghazgull, in which case just hold him out of the assault (by stringing him behind so he can't make base) or make his save an invul with his waagh during the main round of combat.

Monster Rain wrote:

Riddick40k wrote:Space Wolves are the most broken and overpowerd book ever produced by GW, there is no debate

Well, there you have it folks.

Glad we could finally settle the issue.

pretre is the most awesomest guy in the history of dakkadakka, there is no debate.


Wow, that tactic works on so many things!

If you look at the lists on BoK, I think you'll find that few of them were "just" razorback spam. On the other hand, I think all of them used razorbacks to some extent, though some of the lists had as few as two.

If by "good", you mean lists that made it to day two. There were plenty of Grey Knight armies that did not have any razorbacks. These, however, did not make it to day two, so they may not meet your definition of good.

I suppose I worded it incorrectly, but I mean using henchmen as the actual main fighting portion of the force, not just death cult in a storm raven or a way to get cheap razorbacks or chimera's My original concept for this army was to go admech, with 3 dreadknights, possibly 3 ven. dreads, and interceptors supporting a strong core of infantry, but at most 6 squads of 12 guardsmen does not a strong infantry core make

newbis wrote:

Redbeard wrote:It's not having power weapons that is making Grey Knights unfair.

I think you might find that 'nid players disagree with you. Or Ork players. Or any player that doesn't enjoy seeing an expensive multi-wound model die to a schmo striker with a force weapon.

Seems like you are missing something. I responded to someone who asked if making the GK take a psychic test before their force weapons counted as power weapons would help. Each of the examples you have provided above would be unaffected by that change. The force weapons would still be force weapons, and the complaints you raise are not about the power weapon aspect, but about the instant-kill ability, which already requires a test to activate.

As someone who primarily plays orks, I can safely say that grey knights having power weapons is about the least thing I am concerned about, and would rather they lost just about anything else first. I mean, oooh, I lose my 6+ save...

Redbeard wrote:
As someone who primarily plays orks, I can safely say that grey knights having power weapons is about the least thing I am concerned about, and would rather they lost just about anything else first. I mean, oooh, I lose my 6+ save...

As a Daemon player, I can safely say that I'd much rather see GK's lose the utter abomination that is Warp Quake before losing their pointy death sticks. I mean, ooooh look, all my saves are invulnerable!

If you wanna know why I hate GK so much just read my latest game in my report of Adepticon. It was depressing!

The biggest thing seems to be the multitude of ways they alter how your units function.

People will complain about the perceived strength of units/vehicles in a new book being overly powerful for their cost.

But nothing is more aggravating than having the very way your units perform being altered and screwed around with.

Eldarain wrote:The biggest thing seems to be the multitude of ways they alter how your units function.

People will complain about the perceived strength of units/vehicles in a new book being overly powerful for their cost.

But nothing is more aggravating than having the very way your units perform being altered and screwed around with.

My biggest issue with them is their ability to ignore 33% of the vehicle damage chart for little to no extra cost.

Tomb King wrote:

Eldarain wrote:The biggest thing seems to be the multitude of ways they alter how your units function.

People will complain about the perceived strength of units/vehicles in a new book being overly powerful for their cost.

But nothing is more aggravating than having the very way your units perform being altered and screwed around with.

My biggest issue with them is their ability to ignore 33% of the vehicle damage chart for little to no extra cost.

I'm not a big fan of the vehicle damage system to begin with. But I definitely agree with you on that being out of place comparatively.

My point about the near-universal power weapons was that, from a pure game design perspective, it's an obvious red flag. There are things that are considerably more unbalanced in the GKs codex (as has been pointed out very well above), most of which should have been spotted at the design stage too, through intuition, but the power weapons issue could have been spotted through logic (no intuition required).

Proper playtesting would, of course, have exposed *all* the balance issues. The universal power weapons one certainly isn't the worst from a balance perspective, but it's easily the worst indication that GW's oversight process regarding game balance is utterly screwed, as is their training of game designers, because it's basically Schoolboy Error #1 from every game design textbook.

The problem with power weapons in the first place is their unbalanced nature. The basics of 40k come from a 3+ roll system. Hit, wound, save (with the occasional FNP). Power weapons take it down to a 2 roll system. Further more, many units invest a fair amount of points in their defense stats like terminators and marines. Guardsmen having a 1/3rd chance to survive a given wound vs marines having 2/3rds chance; a power weapon negates these both to 0 meaning a wound against a guardsmen in 50% more effective while against a marine, it's 200% more effective. A sanguinary guard with it's 2+ suffers a 500% more effective wound from a power weapon. With FNP involved it becomes even worse. Guardsmen with FNP survive 2/3rds of the wounds dealt, marines 5/6ths and sanguinary guard 11/12ths. Power weapons become 200%, 500% and 1100% more effective respectively. The scaling proves that their nature is inherently flawed. This is why usually they aren't rampant in a codex and tends to be a touch pricey. When given on the scale that it is to grey knights, coupled with their low cost relative to their counterparts, it is a problem.

It's not just what it does to the top contenders, IG, SW and Necrons, but what it does to every other codex as well. I don't care how many GKs you claim to stomp with Chaos or Eldar, the numbers don't add up and not everyone is trying to run top tier lists. In friendly games they are distinctly unfriendly.

Surtur wrote:The problem with power weapons in the first place is their unbalanced nature. The basics of 40k come from a 3+ roll system. Hit, wound, save (with the occasional FNP). Power weapons take it down to a 2 roll system. Further more, many units invest a fair amount of points in their defense stats like terminators and marines. Guardsmen having a 1/3rd chance to survive a given wound vs marines having 2/3rds chance; a power weapon negates these both to 0 meaning a wound against a guardsmen in 50% more effective while against a marine, it's 200% more effective. A sanguinary guard with it's 2+ suffers a 500% more effective wound from a power weapon. With FNP involved it becomes even worse. Guardsmen with FNP survive 2/3rds of the wounds dealt, marines 5/6ths and sanguinary guard 11/12ths. Power weapons become 200%, 500% and 1100% more effective respectively. The scaling proves that their nature is inherently flawed. This is why usually they aren't rampant in a codex and tends to be a touch pricey. When given on the scale that it is to grey knights, coupled with their low cost relative to their counterparts, it is a problem.

It's not just what it does to the top contenders, IG, SW and Necrons, but what it does to every other codex as well. I don't care how many GKs you claim to stomp with Chaos or Eldar, the numbers don't add up and not everyone is trying to run top tier lists. In friendly games they are distinctly unfriendly.

I agree

I have actually stopped playing GK with my Ravenwing entirely, its so broken vs ravenwing it not even funny... ok it is funny but you get what i mean.
My stuff is more expensive, less resiliant (6 man bike sqaud) and have the same speed (tank spam), i have chalked up 2 wins vs knights when they came out but now i cant deal with the 6 psybolt dreads (eat my speeders turn 1 usually)
or the las/plas razorspam..

does it annoy me a little... sure... but im patient and my time is coming, when Dark angel codex comes out and is insanely overpowered with 15pts TH/SS termies and free ignore stunned/shaken (were stubborn right?) i will lord it over the grey knight players.... ah bandwagoners.... this sucks im off to play war machine... ah that sucks too... fantasy? well least thats not as... Deamons eh... right then.... play doe!!!

Hammerhand alone ruins bikes. Throw in some S5 stormbolters and your benefits become null.

Ravenwing has been overcosted an uncompetitive for ages. While GK's might make that even worse, it is hard to slide much further down the scale for ravenwing.

Yes, but there are also C:SM bikers and Khan armies which suffer similarly.

Surtur wrote:Yes, but there are also C:SM bikers and Khan armies which suffer similarly.

Meh, space marine bikers have always sucked in close combat. Thundercav, dark eldar beasts and wraits were a bigger hit to bikers than hammerhand. Against purifiers you usually don't have to assault, with thundercav, you don't get to make that decision

There are bigger hits against bikes, sure (Venom Cannons eat them alive, too, like they do anything that's not a tank). But the point is that GKs, yet again, also eat them alive. They don't really have any weaknesses -- any bad matchups. They can *always* play to their strengths, in every game, because they have strengths in every possible part of the game.

It does become a challenge when one army is the best close combat army, best shooting army, best psychic army, and with the aid of one or two characters the best scoring army as well.

Not that they're anywhere near as over the top as the last iteration of WHFB Daemons were in 7th, but they're rough.

I think it says a lot about the Codex's balance (and not in a good way) that this thread has made it to 65 pages and has had lots of input from veteran tournament players whilst doing so.

Just Dave wrote:I think it says a lot about the Codex's balance (and not in a good way) that this thread has made it to 65 pages and has had lots of input from veteran tournament players whilst doing so.

yeah i have been reading it since it started and expected a long whine fest that degenerated into power games calling others noobs and noobs saying that GK are "suxxors" but its really hasnt been like that at all, well done to all dakkarites... we rock

I think that the codex allows you to keep it simple and win which rubs off on people the wrong way. Combine that with how cheap it is to build some of those list they became very popular really fast.

Mannahnin wrote:
Not that they're anywhere near as over the top as the last iteration of WHFB Daemons were in 7th, but they're rough.

I know this is a bit of a derail, but on the topic of weird codices; can anyone explain to me how the 7th Ed Chaos Daemons books broke WHFB? I leafed through it and it seemed astonishing similar to the 40k book in the rules. I know both games are not the same, but it puzzles me a bit that one book can be game-shattering while the other is seen as...barely adequate.

Sephyr wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:
Not that they're anywhere near as over the top as the last iteration of WHFB Daemons were in 7th, but they're rough.

I know this is a bit of a derail, but on the topic of weird codices; can anyone explain to me how the 7th Ed Chaos Daemons books broke WHFB? I leafed through it and it seemed astonishing similar to the 40k book in the rules. I know both games are not the same, but it puzzles me a bit that one book can be game-shattering while the other is seen as...barely adequate.

If you don't know the WHFB rules, then there is no short explanation. Suffice it to say that Daemons had overwhelmingly powerful magic available, at only moderate cost, coupled with some of the nastiest HtH options available en masse in the game. While the stat lines of 40k & WHFB daemons are similar, almost nothing about their game play is.

Sephyr wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:
Not that they're anywhere near as over the top as the last iteration of WHFB Daemons were in 7th, but they're rough.

I know this is a bit of a derail, but on the topic of weird codices; can anyone explain to me how the 7th Ed Chaos Daemons books broke WHFB? I leafed through it and it seemed astonishing similar to the 40k book in the rules. I know both games are not the same, but it puzzles me a bit that one book can be game-shattering while the other is seen as...barely adequate.

Nurgle allowed for a ward save followed by a regen save (5+ then 4+) as well as being t4, meaning they were tough to kill. Khorne has always strikes first and killing blow, allowing them to destroy your front rank before you got to swing which meant you didn't get to attack back. Tzeench allowed for power dice and dispel dice from every block of horrors you brought, allowing you to do as you pleased during your magic phase and deny them their magic phase. To my knowledge Slaanesh was the most balanced of the 4 gods with some decent perks, but nothing game breaking. 8th ed broke all 3 of the super gods powers. Nurgle could only take one type of special save, you always got to attack and the nature of magic changed taking away khorne's brokeness, and power dice are generated differently meaning tzeench was actually kind of at a loss after 8th. Slaanesh stayed about the same since it didn't rely on these tactics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So does anyone care to explain how the Grey Knights jumped from 22% of overall participation to 44% of the top 16 at Adepticon?

Slaanesh in WHFB had leadership bomb. Morale and panic are (or at least were) much more important in WHFB. Slaanesh could take multiple effects to penalize enemy LD, and could force panic tests and/or cast spells which targeted LD.

Overall WH Chaos Daemons were brutal in HtH, brutal in magic, all caused Fear to auto-break enemies once they outnumbered them, and not very expensive for what you got. Oh, and immune to morale and panic. Oh, and Flamers were the best shooting unit in the game, AND tough in HtH.

imho, the reason for the increase in grey knights has a lot to do with the acceptance of social media (i.e., the metagame) by many 40k players as opposed to previous years combined with the affordability of most GK armies. They are an elite army, a very powerful army, and thus are generally cheaper than most other armies. Dollar-for-dollar, they are probably the best. Also, they are to space marines what space marines are to guardsmen, and space marines always sell well. Finally, I'd say (to the chagrin of many) that they are relatively easy to play and win with compared to most armies, and that their built-in training wheels exacerbate big fish, small pond syndrome. Not only that, but the army can encompass several strategies to their greatest diversity, from MSU to elite generalist to deathstar.

To me, it's a culmination of a whole bunch of factors that leads to their prevalence. Honestly, wraithspam and a few other necron lists can largely walk over most grey knight armies, and have fewer bad matchups. But necrons only have one or two things going for them (in terms of popularity), not a laundry list like GK.

Sasa0mg wrote:I would have to say that the evidence is wrong, people are bringing GK because like alot of people here (while they are an easier skill level to use) think that they are drastically broken.

Notice that 7 out of 16 GK players aren't no.1

Just because more people brought them to the event doesn't mean anything if they're not winning. Yes it only increases the chance of having a GK army in the top 5, but if that many GK armies can't take top spot? I don't think it proves anything tbh.

They have to "win" to start with to be able to be ranked on that list we saw.

Sasa0mg wrote:I would have to say that the evidence is wrong, people are bringing GK because like alot of people here (while they are an easier skill level to use) think that they are drastically broken.

Notice that 7 out of 16 GK players aren't no.1

Just because more people brought them to the event doesn't mean anything if they're not winning. Yes it only increases the chance of having a GK army in the top 5, but if that many GK armies can't take top spot? I don't think it proves anything tbh.

Its simple common sense proves it. I know from merely reading the codex that the GK are overpowered. Mass ID to multi-wound models and igrnoring 33% of the vehicle damage chart are two of the stand out bits of ridiculous in an entirely ridiculous codex.

I dont contribute much to the thread because im not that interested enough to argue, I only play with a couple of people, and nobody owns GK.

But a flick through the dex has me at the conclusion that pretty much everything Shuma has said in this thread I agree with.

Kitzz wrote:imho, the reason for the increase in grey knights has a lot to do with the acceptance of social media (i.e., the metagame) by many 40k players as opposed to previous years combined with the affordability of most GK armies. They are an elite army, a very powerful army, and thus are generally cheaper than most other armies. Dollar-for-dollar, they are probably the best. Also, they are to space marines what space marines are to guardsmen, and space marines always sell well. Finally, I'd say (to the chagrin of many) that they are relatively easy to play and win with compared to most armies, and that their built-in training wheels exacerbate big fish, small pond syndrome. Not only that, but the army can encompass several strategies to their greatest diversity, from MSU to elite generalist to deathstar.

To me, it's a culmination of a whole bunch of factors that leads to their prevalence. Honestly, wraithspam and a few other necron lists can largely walk over most grey knight armies, and have fewer bad matchups. But necrons only have one or two things going for them (in terms of popularity), not a laundry list like GK.

(These aren't necessarily directed at you but you've mentioned them and they've been used before and never really addressed)

Being cheap doesn't account for people switching over to it from another army. Having the appeal to pull someone off a more expensive army that they already have to a cheaper one they don't doesn't make a lot of sense. Cost benefit and all that.

Being able to field multiple builds is another straw man that pops up. People have said that not being able to tell what they will field (henchies, purifiers, palies) is a powerful aspect in that you never know what's coming, but it is in fact not. A tournament should be bringing you against several types of lists forcing you to be prepared for anything that comes. Being able to field multiple builds is a sign of a stronger underlying thought process behind an army. An army that can only field one or two builds is inherently flawed in construction and design. In theory all builds from an army should be equal.

The tournament list meta focuses on the fact that there are some extremely powerful units that lead to 1 or 2 lists that are head and shoulders above the rest of the codex they come from and compared to other codeci. The problem is that grey knights are capable of fielding various lists at the top level where things are considered broken. Long fangs, melta vets, grey hunters and their ilk. Adepticon showed several flavors of grey knights, from henchmen, to paladins, to strikesquads, to dreadnaughts in different mixes with different flavors making it to the top 16. While this shows a better internal balance of grey knights, it shows a nastier external balance. It shows it's very hard to not trip over a powerful unit in the grey knight codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mannahnin wrote:Slaanesh in WHFB had leadership bomb. Morale and panic are (or at least were) much more important in WHFB. Slaanesh could take multiple effects to penalize enemy LD, and could force panic tests and/or cast spells which targeted LD.

Overall WH Chaos Daemons were brutal in HtH, brutal in magic, all caused Fear to auto-break enemies once they outnumbered them, and not very expensive for what you got. Oh, and immune to morale and panic. Oh, and Flamers were the best shooting unit in the game, AND tough in HtH.

I had completely forgotten about fear bombs and the like. Partially because I played ogres so I never outnumbered to matter and 8th made leadership a joke.

Mannahnin wrote:It does become a challenge when one army is the best close combat army, best shooting army, best psychic army, and with the aid of one or two characters the best scoring army as well.

Not that they're anywhere near as over the top as the last iteration of WHFB Daemons were in 7th, but they're rough.

Best CC army: GKs
Best shooting army: IG
Best Psychic army: Eldar

i agree Eldar are definitely the best psychic (and counter-psychic) army. i'm not sure that Coteaz-razorback-dreadnought spam isn't better shooting up mechanised armies than Guard are (but Coteaz lists seem worse against infantry and I think infantry lists are probably the answer to Coteaz lists). Orks seem to me to be a pretty decent alternative to Purifiers or Paladins for best assault army just through the insane number of attacks they can generate.

helium42 wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:It does become a challenge when one army is the best close combat army, best shooting army, best psychic army, and with the aid of one or two characters the best scoring army as well.

Not that they're anywhere near as over the top as the last iteration of WHFB Daemons were in 7th, but they're rough.

Best CC army: GKs
Best shooting army: IG
Best Psychic army: Eldar

GKs are better at shooting than the Guard, squad for squad. And they have much better force concentration. OTOH the IG are better at shooting as the points levels go up.

GK are better psykers than eldar, period. GK buffs are better, GK offensive powers are better, GK defenses are better. Also GK vehicles are psychic, which is automatically a leg up on everyone but BA.

Surtur wrote:

(These aren't necessarily directed at you but you've mentioned them and they've been used before and never really addressed)

Being cheap doesn't account for people switching over to it from another army. Having the appeal to pull someone off a more expensive army that they already have to a cheaper one they don't doesn't make a lot of sense. Cost benefit and all that.

Being able to field multiple builds is another straw man that pops up. People have said that not being able to tell what they will field (henchies, purifiers, palies) is a powerful aspect in that you never know what's coming, but it is in fact not. A tournament should be bringing you against several types of lists forcing you to be prepared for anything that comes. Being able to field multiple builds is a sign of a stronger underlying thought process behind an army. An army that can only field one or two builds is inherently flawed in construction and design. In theory all builds from an army should be equal.

The tournament list meta focuses on the fact that there are some extremely powerful units that lead to 1 or 2 lists that are head and shoulders above the rest of the codex they come from and compared to other codeci. The problem is that grey knights are capable of fielding various lists at the top level where things are considered broken. Long fangs, melta vets, grey hunters and their ilk. Adepticon showed several flavors of grey knights, from henchmen, to paladins, to strikesquads, to dreadnaughts in different mixes with different flavors making it to the top 16. While this shows a better internal balance of grey knights, it shows a nastier external balance. It shows it's very hard to not trip over a powerful unit in the grey knight codex.

I wasn't trying to say that each of these reasons is solely responsible, just that as a group I think they lead to what we see.

People switching armies is actually less common than new people starting with GKs as their first army. I know more people who were re-introduced or introduced to the game with GKs than switched to them.

About the "not knowing" thing:
A tournament list should indeed be able to beat all comers. My argument was that GKs have at least three very different tournament builds that appeal to three different player demographics. If you like statistically average distributions because you roll bad, you can do MSU henchmen. If you like huge beatsticks or gimmicks, you can do Draigowing. If you like a mix of both, you can do footstrikes or purifier spam. And each of these is a tournament list.

Maybe it's because I play wraithspam, but I win almost all of my games against GKs. I won't disagree that 40-50% of one codex in a tournament field is an obvious sign of imbalance in the game, but I think that at least 20-30% of that field is perceived imbalance as opposed to actual imbalance.

In adepticon, 7 GK lists made it to the top 16 out of what, 50 some lists? Eldar were more successful, per capita. Should we be talking about them as being the most overpowered codex in a decade? Necrons took something like 6 GTs in a row, more than any other army this year. What about them?

Imho, if GK are the most overpowered codex in a decade, that means that 40k has had a pretty decent last decade.

GK defenses are better

eldar psychic defence is amazingly good. I presume you mean anti-assault/shooting defences (which can't really be sensibly used against Eldar and are hit/miss against any army the brings a hood (unless one brings ravens of course, but how many of the top armies field ravens?)

Unit1126PLL wrote:

helium42 wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:It does become a challenge when one army is the best close combat army, best shooting army, best psychic army, and with the aid of one or two characters the best scoring army as well.

Not that they're anywhere near as over the top as the last iteration of WHFB Daemons were in 7th, but they're rough.

Best CC army: GKs
Best shooting army: IG
Best Psychic army: Eldar

GKs are better at shooting than the Guard, squad for squad. And they have much better force concentration. OTOH the IG are better at shooting as the points levels go up.

GK are better psykers than eldar, period. GK buffs are better, GK offensive powers are better

I think mind war and doom are slightly better offensive powers.

GK defenses are better.

I'd love to be able to fortune my paladins.

Most broken psychic power in the game belongs to the IG: Weaken Resolve.

helium42 wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:It does become a challenge when one army is the best close combat army, best shooting army, best psychic army, and with the aid of one or two characters the best scoring army as well.

Not that they're anywhere near as over the top as the last iteration of WHFB Daemons were in 7th, but they're rough.

Best CC army: GKs
Best shooting army: IG
Best Psychic army: Eldar

Alright now to establish this a little better:

BEST CC army: GK rest of armies.... Eldar and then finally IG and Tau
Best Shooting Army: IG/ GK(more durable and better BS and can make the same builds)
Best Psychic Army: Eldar(for defense and ability to pass)/GK(everyone is a psyker even the vehicles and they are better boost IMO)......lots of armies with no psychic powers or psychic hood. All guard has is a leadership 9 power(which can be smashed with hood)

So even IF GK are not the top in the specified categories they are a close second.

Tomb King wrote:

helium42 wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:It does become a challenge when one army is the best close combat army, best shooting army, best psychic army, and with the aid of one or two characters the best scoring army as well.

Not that they're anywhere near as over the top as the last iteration of WHFB Daemons were in 7th, but they're rough.

Best CC army: GKs
Best shooting army: IG
Best Psychic army: Eldar

Alright now to establish this a little better:

BEST CC army: GK rest of armies.... Eldar and then finally IG and Tau
Best Shooting Army: IG/ GK(more durable and better BS and can make the same builds)
Best Psychic Army: Eldar(for defense and ability to pass)/GK(everyone is a psyker even the vehicles and they are better boost IMO)......lots of armies with no psychic powers or psychic hood. All guard has is a leadership 9 power(which can be smashed with hood)

So even IF GK are not the top in the specified categories they are a close second.

Actually, GK are not the best CC army. Daemons running Fatecrusher are the strongest CC army in the game.
A proper Fatecrusher build will normally destroy Draigo Wing in an assault.

There is nothing in the game that will stand up to a full 3 squads of Bloodcrushers supported by Kairos. If a Bloodthirster
with blessing is involved; forget it.

The GK player would need to be running around 20 Paladins to have a realistic chance against it.

Tomb King wrote:

helium42 wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:It does become a challenge when one army is the best close combat army, best shooting army, best psychic army, and with the aid of one or two characters the best scoring army as well.

Not that they're anywhere near as over the top as the last iteration of WHFB Daemons were in 7th, but they're rough.

Best CC army: GKs
Best shooting army: IG
Best Psychic army: Eldar

Alright now to establish this a little better:

BEST CC army: GK rest of armies.... Eldar and then finally IG and Tau
Best Shooting Army: IG/ GK(more durable and better BS and can make the same builds)
Best Psychic Army: Eldar(for defense and ability to pass)/GK(everyone is a psyker even the vehicles and they are better boost IMO)......lots of armies with no psychic powers or psychic hood. All guard has is a leadership 9 power(which can be smashed with hood)

So even IF GK are not the top in the specified categories they are a close second.

Tomb King, I agree with your assessment, other than blowing off weaken resolve (not every army has psychic defense). My point was that, GKs are not the best at everything, like some in this thread have stated. I really think that they are in line with the last few codexes (BA, Necrons, SW, DE), and share the top three spot with IG and SW in terms of how powerful the codex is. I think that they have maybe the best shooting platform in the game with the psy-rifle dread, but that IG can still put out more raw firepower

@NoArmorSave: How do you run your units of bloodcrushers? I'd like to do some math-hammer on them multi-assaulting and/or being multi-assaulted by a full squad of diverse paladins with a librarian and Draigo attached. Halberds will swing first and with hammerhand and force weapon activation, do some damage. If the paladins get the charge, quicksilver will let everything besides hammers swing before the crushers.

But Gk aren't entirely giving up shooting to do CC. They still carry stormbolters or psycannons (granted that takes one force weapon away). They may not be absolute top dog, but they come damn close and still remain versatile.

Mannahnin wrote:Slaanesh in WHFB had leadership bomb. Morale and panic are (or at least were) much more important in WHFB. Slaanesh could take multiple effects to penalize enemy LD, and could force panic tests and/or cast spells which targeted LD.

Overall WH Chaos Daemons were brutal in HtH, brutal in magic, all caused Fear to auto-break enemies once they outnumbered them, and not very expensive for what you got. Oh, and immune to morale and panic. Oh, and Flamers were the best shooting unit in the game, AND tough in HtH.

I had a local buddy win the ard boyz semis with a list similar to what you are talking about. He has only played fantasy 3 times before hand (the ard boyz initial round).

I still contest that GKs are the best in the game at psychic powers.

Their defenses (Aegis, Reinforced Aegis (especially) and of course psychic hoods) are better than any other Marines.

Their offensive powers are mediocre but not useless.
Their buff powers are stupid good (Might of Titan, Hammerhand, Shrouding, the Quickening, just to name a few).

You may like to fortune your Paladins. But I know many many many people who would like to Might of Titan their Banshees.

Surtur wrote:But Gk aren't entirely giving up shooting to do CC. They still carry stormbolters or psycannons (granted that takes one force weapon away). They may not be absolute top dog, but they come damn close and still remain versatile.

This. Not to mention that their firepower is superior in the 12-24" bubble as they're not rapid fire weapons so can always fire those two shots at full range. Hell, even the local IG powerblob player here knows that.

Essentially I find myself agreeing with the following points from this thread.

-GKs have too many hard counters to too many armies in general.
-Power weapons are abusive. There was an excellent post about how for every other army they are limited and cost points yet GKs spam the buggers like no tomorrow - this is devastating against armies which relied on high armour saves as their form of survival. Tack on top of this the ability to be a force weapon - countering the multiple wound survival (Tyranids and Orks), the other random Nemesis abilities (i.e. +2 initiative from the halberds) which counter things like high initiative survival (Eldar, DE, Tyranids) and their effects on Daemons in general.
-Psychic power to ignore shaken/stunned results is taking the mick. Especially considering a lot of the armies that rely on those results (due to relatively weak anti-armour capabilities i.e. Orks, Tyranids) to delay have no form of proper ranged psychic defense (i.e. psychic hoods).

In short, too many hard counters for too little cost.

helium42 wrote:

Tomb King wrote:

helium42 wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:It does become a challenge when one army is the best close combat army, best shooting army, best psychic army, and with the aid of one or two characters the best scoring army as well.

Not that they're anywhere near as over the top as the last iteration of WHFB Daemons were in 7th, but they're rough.

Best CC army: GKs
Best shooting army: IG
Best Psychic army: Eldar

Alright now to establish this a little better:

BEST CC army: GK rest of armies.... Eldar and then finally IG and Tau
Best Shooting Army: IG/ GK(more durable and better BS and can make the same builds)
Best Psychic Army: Eldar(for defense and ability to pass)/GK(everyone is a psyker even the vehicles and they are better boost IMO)......lots of armies with no psychic powers or psychic hood. All guard has is a leadership 9 power(which can be smashed with hood)

So even IF GK are not the top in the specified categories they are a close second.

Tomb King, I agree with your assessment, other than blowing off weaken resolve (not every army has psychic defense). My point was that, GKs are not the best at everything, like some in this thread have stated. I really think that they are in line with the last few codexes (BA, Necrons, SW, DE), and share the top three spot with IG and SW in terms of how powerful the codex is. I think that they have maybe the best shooting platform in the game with the psy-rifle dread, but that IG can still put out more raw firepower

@NoArmorSave: How do you run your units of bloodcrushers? I'd like to do some math-hammer on them multi-assaulting and/or being multi-assaulted by a full squad of diverse paladins with a librarian and Draigo attached. Halberds will swing first and with hammerhand and force weapon activation, do some damage. If the paladins get the charge, quicksilver will let everything besides hammers swing before the crushers.

Units of 8 with an Icon, Instrument, and Fury. Essentially, they allocate like Paladins do, each unit needs to take 5 unsaved wounds before they remove a single model.
I have played several games against Draigo Wing, and going last doesn't matter. They have a 5+ invuln, which they are able to reroll, which equates to something like a 75% success rate.

The way it usually goes down, are the Paladins swing, when it is all said and done, if they focus everything on 1 Crusher squad, the Crushers will end up taking somewhere between 10-15 invuln saves. This generally
equates to pulling 1-3 crushers from 1 of the squads. Than the Crushers go. Each squad is coming in with 32 ST6 power weapon attacks if they get the charge.

Force Weapons don't matter, because all Daemons have Eternal Warrior. In a prolonged combat against Paladins and Crushers, Daemonbane will usually pull 1 more Crusher\turn.

NoArmorSave wrote:I have played several games against Draigo Wing, and going last doesn't matter. They have a 5+ invuln, which they are able to reroll, which equates to something like a 75% success rate.

5+ with rerolls is closer to 50% than 75%.
Not going to analyze the rest of the math, just pointing that out.

The (apparently) most successful GK build is Coteaz-henchmen-razorback spam. Stereotypically (because lists do vary a bit) at 1750 and above this will have:

3 venerable dreadnoughts, 3 dreadnoughts and 6 razorbacks.

It will fire:

12 x TL S8 AP4 shots from 6 platforms (22.33 hits)
24 x TL S7 AP4 rending shots from 6 platforms (21.33 hits)

and may have some melta and plasma guns on henchmen squads if points allow.

It has one power weapon on the c-in-c. It has no vehicle mounted AP1 or 2 and no templates. It utterly murders light-medium armour but will struggle against heavy armoured vehicles thgat have extra-armour. It's main weakness is probably massed infantryarmies with decent AT shooting and assault, which are seldom fielded nowadays. But it does have very weak troops if you can crack open their razorbacks.

It's strength comes mainly from Fortitude and Venerable re-rolls coupled with the TL S8 fire which is very reliable.

It is utterly different from either sort of Draigo list (foot paladins or 'raven-paladins).

Foot paladins will usually field something like

2 x 10 paladins plus a couple of supporting units.

32 S7 AP4 rending shots from 2-4 platforms (21.33 hits)
maybe 8 TL S8 AP4 shots from 2 platforms (7.11 hits)

There are, however a lot of WS5 power weapons and the list may benefit from a psychic hood and Librarian's Might of Titan, Sanctuary, Shrouding.

Its weakness is a general lack of mobility and, to an extent, limited ablity to engage targets due to range and low number of units fielded. It also utterly lacks AP1 and 2 fire and high S templates.

Its main strength is the great durability of its units -- they're really hard to shift. It will also murder most units if it gets up-close.

The raven build has melta and can have plasma templates. It has fewer troops but the means to deliver them to where they can seriously hurt the enemy. Not as super-durable as the foot list but still hard to kill. Its weakness is really the potential fragility of the ravens -- if they go down first turn on the board then the army is in trouble (though that's not usually easily accomplished even by armies with lots of firepower). if a single raven survives beyond turn 3 then the enemy is usually in a lot of trouble.

The third main build is Purifier spam which has dreadnoughts, razorbacks and power weapons. It lacks the durability of the Draigo lists and doesn't have the firepower of a Coteaz list, but it does have good anti-horde (which the other lists rather lack) via Cleansing Flame. Again though, AP 1 and 2 and templates are noticeably absent.

To me the 'problem' with GK is simply that they have changed the metagame and people are reluctant to change their lists to compensate. Coteaz lists have made spamming light-medium AV unnattractive, Draigo and Crowe lists make marines (who rely on their 3+ armour for a lot of their value) less attractive too. Marine all-comers all-comers lists especially suffer - the vehicles get destroyed by Coteaz sam and then they are short of troops, the troops get murdered by Draigo and Purifer lists).

Unpalatable as it may be, i think probably the solution is to change up one's list to take into account the likelihood of encountering the GK. Of course that's pretty hard to do for some armies but if some players start running foot lists, Coteaz lists will do less well overall and become less attractive in their current form of maximised dreadnoughts and razorbacks. If IG players start taking the currently unfancied Hydras (and I notice that some are already doing so), the Draigo-Raven list is undermined. Eldar can shut down foot paladin psychic powers and Doom and Fortune are bad news for any GK.

But if nobody changes up, if people still continue to believe that light-medium vehicle spam is best, then I think GK, and especially Coteaz, will tend to dominate.

I also think the reason necrons don't seem as powerful as GK is partly due to the huge number of possible builds available in that codex and that people are therefore sluggish to get to grips with what works well. As has been mentioned, there's also the fact that they're not as 'attractive' an army for many 40K players so relative lack of popularity stops good builds from being developed and publicised so rapidly. GK also benefitted from every good unit being available immediately while Necrons are still awaiting some models I believe.

rigeld2 wrote:

NoArmorSave wrote:I have played several games against Draigo Wing, and going last doesn't matter. They have a 5+ invuln, which they are able to reroll, which equates to something like a 75% success rate.

5+ with rerolls is closer to 50% than 75%.
Not going to analyze the rest of the math, just pointing that out.

You are probably correct. Someone told me 75% or 73%, I forget which. It it still amazing how often a 5++ that is re-rolled passes.

In several games, I lost Kairos pretty early on to massed Psycannon's and Psyriflemen Dread fire. I still won.

Well, 66 pages in, I say we give Shuma a hearty back slap.

31% agree with him, and 23% say the GK are overpowered.

Only 3% they are average, and 3% say they are definitely not over powered.

Majority rules chaps.

Seems to me, If you think GK aint broke, you dont want to be honest with yourself because you play the sneaky grey mother fethers.

I don't think "majority rules" really apply to an opinion question...especially not when you look at the results.

31% say they're "the most overpowered book that GW has put out in decades"(something which gets leveled at every book when it comes out).
23% say "No, but they are overpowered."
23% say "No, they are just a good 5th edition book."

Grey Knights is certainly a book with a bit of heft to it, and it certainly can shut down some of the older books with ease. That does not necessarily mean it is overpowered though.

Blood and Slaughter wrote:The (apparently) most successful GK build is Coteaz-henchmen-razorback spam. Stereotypically (because lists do vary a bit) at 1750 and above this will have:

3 venerable dreadnoughts, 3 dreadnoughts and 6 razorbacks.

It will fire:

12 x TL S8 AP4 shots from 6 platforms (22.33 hits)
24 x TL S7 AP4 rending shots from 6 platforms (21.33 hits)

and may have some melta and plasma guns on henchmen squads if points allow.

It has one power weapon on the c-in-c. It has no vehicle mounted AP1 or 2 and no templates. It utterly murders light-medium armour but will struggle against heavy armoured vehicles thgat have extra-armour. It's main weakness is probably massed infantryarmies with decent AT shooting and assault, which are seldom fielded nowadays. But it does have very weak troops if you can crack open their razorbacks.

It's strength comes mainly from Fortitude and Venerable re-rolls coupled with the TL S8 fire which is very reliable.

It is utterly different from either sort of Draigo list (foot paladins or 'raven-paladins).

Foot paladins will usually field something like

2 x 10 paladins plus a couple of supporting units.

32 S7 AP4 rending shots from 2-4 platforms (21.33 hits)
maybe 8 TL S8 AP4 shots from 2 platforms (7.11 hits)

There are, however a lot of WS5 power weapons and the list may benefit from a psychic hood and Librarian's Might of Titan, Sanctuary, Shrouding.

Its weakness is a general lack of mobility and, to an extent, limited ablity to engage targets due to range and low number of units fielded. It also utterly lacks AP1 and 2 fire and high S templates.

Its main strength is the great durability of its units -- they're really hard to shift. It will also murder most units if it gets up-close.

The raven build has melta and can have plasma templates. It has fewer troops but the means to deliver them to where they can seriously hurt the enemy. Not as super-durable as the foot list but still hard to kill. Its weakness is really the potential fragility of the ravens -- if they go down first turn on the board then the army is in trouble (though that's not usually easily accomplished even by armies with lots of firepower). if a single raven survives beyond turn 3 then the enemy is usually in a lot of trouble.

The third main build is Purifier spam which has dreadnoughts, razorbacks and power weapons. It lacks the durability of the Draigo lists and doesn't have the firepower of a Coteaz list, but it does have good anti-horde (which the other lists rather lack) via Cleansing Flame. Again though, AP 1 and 2 and templates are noticeably absent.

To me the 'problem' with GK is simply that they have changed the metagame and people are reluctant to change their lists to compensate. Coteaz lists have made spamming light-medium AV unnattractive, Draigo and Crowe lists make marines (who rely on their 3+ armour for a lot of their value) less attractive too. Marine all-comers all-comers lists especially suffer - the vehicles get destroyed by Coteaz sam and then they are short of troops, the troops get murdered by Draigo and Purifer lists).

Unpalatable as it may be, i think probably the solution is to change up one's list to take into account the likelihood of encountering the GK. Of course that's pretty hard to do for some armies but if some players start running foot lists, Coteaz lists will do less well overall and become less attractive in their current form of maximised dreadnoughts and razorbacks. If IG players start taking the currently unfancied Hydras (and I notice that some are already doing so), the Draigo-Raven list is undermined. Eldar can shut down foot paladin psychic powers and Doom and Fortune are bad news for any GK.

But if nobody changes up, if people still continue to believe that light-medium vehicle spam is best, then I think GK, and especially Coteaz, will tend to dominate.

I also think the reason necrons don't seem as powerful as GK is partly due to the huge number of possible builds available in that codex and that people are therefore sluggish to get to grips with what works well. As has been mentioned, there's also the fact that they're not as 'attractive' an army for many 40K players so relative lack of popularity stops good builds from being developed and publicised so rapidly. GK also benefitted from every good unit being available immediately while Necrons are still awaiting some models I believe.

I really believe that 6th edition (right around the corner) will change all of this. 2 reasons:
1 - Rumors suggest mech spam will be dead because of rules changes to vehicles and vehicle damage.
2 - Wound allocation may be changing (bye bye Draigo Wing, and sadly Fatecrusher). If this is the case, my Daemons will be completely shelved until they get a new book.

With that being said, in the current meta, I am still of the opinion that Purifier Spam > Coteaz Henchmen Spam.

Actually while I take all 6th ed rumours with a hefty pinch of salt because most ofg them seem to be generated by frustrated 4th ed. players, I hope they change wound allocation so every multi-wound model may allocate regardless of similarity of gear. that would make some unfashionable units (eg Tyranid Warriors, Ogryns) well worth consideration.

My own view is that there's no need to change vehicle rules much if you just allow people to create armies (eg Coteaz spam, Necron scarabs) that make such spam unnatractive.

And I agree, Crowe lists are more balanced (in terms of what they can deal with) than Coteaz lists, it's just Coteaz lists wreck what's currently popular much better (and that makes people a bit upset)

NoArmorSave wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

NoArmorSave wrote:I have played several games against Draigo Wing, and going last doesn't matter. They have a 5+ invuln, which they are able to reroll, which equates to something like a 75% success rate.

5+ with rerolls is closer to 50% than 75%.
Not going to analyze the rest of the math, just pointing that out.

You are probably correct. Someone told me 75% or 73%, I forget which. It it still amazing how often a 5++ that is re-rolled passes.

In several games, I lost Kairos pretty early on to massed Psycannon's and Psyriflemen Dread fire. I still won.

the actual Math works out closer to 52%... It also only takes 27 wounds (before saves) to kill fateweaver every time... OR about 12 psycannons shooting... . This isn't counting the usual 3 dreads, and all of the HB razorbacks, or any of the storm bolters which will also cause wounds really quick on the Fateweaver...

This isn't counting the usual 3 dreads, and all of the HB razorbacks, or any of the storm bolters which will also cause wounds really quick on the Fateweaver...

To be fair he was talking about it defeating a Draigo list which will likely have no razorbacks and probably only two dreadnoughts. A Draigo list will have 8 psycannon of course and their stormbolters but it's not necessarily the case that all these will be able to target Fateweaver or that even if they can he will die (though he may well do). Personally I think Khorne demons are a decent match for Draigo builds.

8 psycannon produce 32 shots of which about 22 will hit, which is about 19 wounds before saves. The two dreadnoughts (if featuring, not all competitive foot paladin lists run them) will add 8 more shots of which about 7 will hit and around six more wounds. With additional stormbolters, that should do it. But often the battlefield makes bringing all that to bear on even a single large model harder than it might be.

1


Automatically Appended Next Post:

NoArmorSave wrote:
I really believe that 6th edition (right around the corner) will change all of this. 2 reasons:
1 - Rumors suggest mech spam will be dead because of rules changes to vehicles and vehicle damage.
2 - Wound allocation may be changing (bye bye Draigo Wing, and sadly Fatecrusher). If this is the case, my Daemons will be completely shelved until they get a new book.

With that being said, in the current meta, I am still of the opinion that Purifier Spam > Coteaz Henchmen Spam.

keep in mind, hey aren't mutually exclusive. You can take both characters, fit in 3 squads of purifiers, 3 min/max'd weeny squads, and they can work fairly effectively. You've got the weenies for objective holding and extra tanks, and the purifiers to whack stuff and objective seizing.

mattyrm wrote: Well, 66 pages in, I say we give Shuma a hearty back slap.

31% agree with him, and 23% say the GK are overpowered.

Only 3% they are average, and 3% say they are definitely not over powered.

Majority rules chaps.

Seems to me, If you think GK aint broke, you dont want to be honest with yourself because you play the sneaky grey mother fethers.

Ummm...

51% of people answering the poll answered with a "No" in some way shape or form.

OverwatchCNC wrote:

mattyrm wrote: Well, 66 pages in, I say we give Shuma a hearty back slap.

31% agree with him, and 23% say the GK are overpowered.

Only 3% they are average, and 3% say they are definitely not over powered.

Majority rules chaps.

Seems to me, If you think GK aint broke, you dont want to be honest with yourself because you play the sneaky grey mother fethers.

Ummm...

56% of people answering the poll answered with a "No" in some way shape or form.

To be fair, the poll's responses are basically unusable for anything, well, except determining how awesome TK is, and how many people want this thread to die. Speaking of wanting the thread to die, I wish I could recast my vote. :(

This does not however mean that they are armies that are well balanced or that evenly skilled players with other armies stand a good 50/50 chance of beating them

Very true. But what if the other armies have simply not 'changed up' to factor in the likelihood of meeting new builds (ie not adapted to a changed metagame)? then the picture is cloudier. I don't disagree that three GK lists have changed the metagame. I do doubt they're as 'broken' as some folk claim. they just do well against some very common currently fashionable builds.

Were it the case that all army builds at a certain point value were roughly equal (eg foot Dark Eldar were as good as vehicle-borne Dark Eldar and Ork armies maximising on Fast Attack choices were about as good as those going with massed deffrollas) then there would be more merit to the argument. But whether we like it or not, some lists do much better than others (from within the same codex). So list building becomes something tailored to likely opposition. For a while now that's resulted in mainly light/medium vehicle spam as the most common competitive builds. Two GK lists are effective, one very effective, against such builds. I'm unconvinced that mkes them broken rather than just meta changing. Can one design a competitive list that will take down Coteaz spam and still be competitive against other commonly met builds? I think so (though in fairness probably not from some codices, but that was true before GK,, some codexes just could not cope effectively with certain builds from other codices).

daedalus wrote:

OverwatchCNC wrote:

mattyrm wrote: Well, 66 pages in, I say we give Shuma a hearty back slap.

31% agree with him, and 23% say the GK are overpowered.

Only 3% they are average, and 3% say they are definitely not over powered.

Majority rules chaps.

Seems to me, If you think GK aint broke, you dont want to be honest with yourself because you play the sneaky grey mother fethers.

Ummm...

56% of people answering the poll answered with a "No" in some way shape or form.

To be fair, the poll's responses are basically unusable for anything, well, except determining how awesome TK is, and how many people want this thread to die. Speaking of wanting the thread to die, I wish I could recast my vote. :(

I Agree. On all counts.

OverwatchCNC wrote:

mattyrm wrote: Well, 66 pages in, I say we give Shuma a hearty back slap.

31% agree with him, and 23% say the GK are overpowered.

Only 3% they are average, and 3% say they are definitely not over powered.

Majority rules chaps.

Seems to me, If you think GK aint broke, you dont want to be honest with yourself because you play the sneaky grey mother fethers.

Ummm...

51% of people answering the poll answered with a "No" in some way shape or form.

6% said they are just another 5E book or merely average. 54% said they are either overpowered (one of the "no, not *THE* most broken") or yes, the most broken.

The other options are nonsense options that don't say anything either way.

Seems to me, If you think GK aint broke, you dont want to be honest with yourself because you play the sneaky grey mother fethers.

Seems to me, If you think GK are broken, you dont want to be honest with yourself because you haven't adapted to the sneaky grey mother fethers.

Fixed that for you...

Kanluwen wrote:I don't think "majority rules" really apply to an opinion question...especially not when you look at the results.

31% say they're "the most overpowered book that GW has put out in decades"(something which gets leveled at every book when it comes out).
23% say "No, but they are overpowered."
23% say "No, they are just a good 5th edition book."

Grey Knights is certainly a book with a bit of heft to it, and it certainly can shut down some of the older books with ease. That does not necessarily mean it is overpowered though.

"some of" translating to "Everything except Space Wolves or Imperial Guard with relatively little player skill." So yes, it does mean that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Blood and Slaughter wrote:

Seems to me, If you think GK aint broke, you dont want to be honest with yourself because you play the sneaky grey mother fethers.

Seems to me, If you think GK are broken, you dont want to be honest with yourself because you haven't adapted to the sneaky grey mother fethers.

Fixed that for you...

Quick note here, the method for adapting to grey knights is to play grey knights according to recent tournament results and most forms of bare logic. Well, that or play an IG mech gunline and pray you don't roll up against necrons, DOA, or one of the other lists that hardcounters that but is devoured by GKs.

You might want to put that into a footnote in your post.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:I don't think "majority rules" really apply to an opinion question...especially not when you look at the results.

31% say they're "the most overpowered book that GW has put out in decades"(something which gets leveled at every book when it comes out).
23% say "No, but they are overpowered."
23% say "No, they are just a good 5th edition book."

Grey Knights is certainly a book with a bit of heft to it, and it certainly can shut down some of the older books with ease. That does not necessarily mean it is overpowered though.

"some of" translating to "Everything except Space Wolves or Imperial Guard with relatively little player skill." So yes, it does mean that.

"Shut down" does not equate to "beat". It means the other person has absolutely no chance, whatsoever, no matter how skilled or tailored their list is.

Sidenote:
I think it should be clear that I'm not saying "They're underpowered" or anything of that nature.

I'm saying they're not what people make them out to be. The book is powerful with a lot of options.

Kanluwen wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:I don't think "majority rules" really apply to an opinion question...especially not when you look at the results.

31% say they're "the most overpowered book that GW has put out in decades"(something which gets leveled at every book when it comes out).
23% say "No, but they are overpowered."
23% say "No, they are just a good 5th edition book."

Grey Knights is certainly a book with a bit of heft to it, and it certainly can shut down some of the older books with ease. That does not necessarily mean it is overpowered though.

"some of" translating to "Everything except Space Wolves or Imperial Guard with relatively little player skill." So yes, it does mean that.

"Shut down" does not equate to "beat". It means the other person has absolutely no chance, whatsoever, no matter how skilled or tailored their list is.

I think people in this thread really need to establish what the term "Overpowered" means in their heads. Also, by your definition right there "Shutting down" would be a subset of "beat." Both imply that the book is too powerful.

I think it should be clear that I'm not saying "They're underpowered" or anything of that nature.

I'm saying they're not what people make them out to be. The book is powerful with a lot of options.

I think judging by past precedent you appear unwilling to ever call a spade a spade in relation to GW. This book is plainly overpowered, pure mathematical and cost driven comparisons to every other book in the game bares that out to be true. Tournament results bare that out to be true. That every person defending gray knights only actual defense is "Well you just haven't specced your army to beat them" which directly implies that I have to form an army specifically to beat them and them alone to have a chance bares that out to be true. This thread is ridiculous, the number of backflips and hoop jumps apologists are making is stunning. They'd be gold medalists for sure.

Are they unbeatable? With two similarly skilled players playing standard all comers lists in standard GW missions they are all but unbeatable for a significant number of lists in a significant number of armies. The closest the game has come to that in recent memory is in high armor mech spam from IG and they have more specific weaknesses. Before that it was nob bikers which a significant portion of the field had little to no chance against. These things have come around before, and GKs are it right now.

Quick note here, the method for adapting to grey knights is to play grey knights according to recent tournament results and most forms of bare logic. Well, that or play an IG mech gunline and pray you don't roll up against necrons, DOA, or one of the other lists that hardcounters that but is devoured by GKs.

You might want to put that into a footnote in your post.

Part of what I'm saying is that people may be adapting to the various GK builds by playing GK (I wish people would stop implying that all GK builds are the same, as I've pointed out there's a huge difference between Coteaz and Draigo lists and that neither has the advantages of the other) rather than devising lists from other armies that can cope.

I don't see that Necrons are necessarily 'devoured' by either Coteaz lists or Draigo ones, in fact I think there are some pretty nasty Necron builds for either to face.

What it may be fair to say is that it is hard to build a list that can cope equally well with Draigo lists and Coteaz lists so if you plan for one and meet the other you may be knackered. But then again if I plan for Venom spam and encounter Orks I may be knackered too...

What it may be fair to say is that it is hard to build a list that can cope equally well with Draigo lists and Coteaz lists so if you plan for one and meet the other you may be knackered. But then again if I plan for Venom spam and encounter Orks I may be knackered too...

You may be, but if your'e playing as GKs you won't. That being the problem, their extreme non standard spam and death star builds are still frighteningly capable against almost every other army in the game while almost every other army in the game has to build specifically to fight them. What's worse is that armies specifically built to fight them still aren't a particularly sure thing. This creates a situation wherein they are better than most armies in most situations; which were there an actual definition of overpowered in this discussion that would probably be it.

In major tournaments right now, successful armies fall into two subsets. Armies built to counter grey knights, and grey knights. This most recent adepticon hit post parity with those two stats and the anti GK spam builds couldn't be in enough matches to keep the GKs from winning against everything not built to fight them, which saw them average a 2-1 win ratio and have 200% average representation in the top 16. Leafblower did something similar in it's primetime though it was never as popular an army so it wasn't as strangling a force in the meta.

"leafblower" also was never a well defined list style, with the actual "leafblower" list that won rarely resembling what most would consider such an actual "leafblower". "Leafblower" went from describing a single list, to anything with tanks and templates, to pretty much any IG army that wasn't designed completely around non-mechanized infantry platoons. The "dominance" of the "Leafblower" was always rather ill defined and never as well represented at high end events as SW's or GK's became.

It's also a highly annoying term in addition to being extremely vague.

Blood and Slaughter wrote:
Part of what I'm saying is that people may be adapting to the various GK builds by playing GK (I wish people would stop implying that all GK builds are the same, as I've pointed out there's a huge difference between Coteaz and Draigo lists and that neither has the advantages of the other) rather than devising lists from other armies that can cope.

That's the crux of the issue. GK do indeed have something for everyone. The problem is between the complaining about Draigo making Paladins troops and OX inquisitors being a cheap source of grenades and Coteaz making henchmen troops, and GMs giving you whatever you happen to feel like you want at any given time, people forget that you can't take all of them, and then, even if you could, you couldn't afford all the cool stuff at once.

Look at Brad's list from Adepticon:

Coteaz
GKGM, Rad, Psychostroke

10 purifiers with Rhino
10 purifiers with Rhino

Scoring Chimera
Scoring Chimera
Scoring Chimera
Scoring Razorback, TLHB
Scoring Razorback, TLHB
Razorback, TLHB (Something actually scary in this one, 6 DCA)

3 psyfleman dreads.

Shootingwise, you have:

27 S4 shots
18 S6 shots with 9 of them twin linked
16-24 S7 rending shots at 24" range
12 S8 shots, twin-linked

I can make an IG list that has:

36 shots S6
32 shots S7, 28 of them twin linked
8 shots S8
2 shots S9

Sure, a lot of my list is BS3, not 4, but I have twice as many shots in a lot of places. How, bullet for bullet, is the winning list more "overpowered" than mine? I mean, sure, he's got attacks and power weapons, and psychic abilities, and whatever, but he has to get to me to use them.

It seems like the most "overpowered" parts of GK are simply a natural extension of the mechspam present since IG.

Keep in mind that a lot of that IG shooting can be suppressed without having to be killed, where the GK shooting isn't as easily suppressed.

Additionally, what IG list gives you that sort of output?

daedalus wrote:

Blood and Slaughter wrote:
Part of what I'm saying is that people may be adapting to the various GK builds by playing GK (I wish people would stop implying that all GK builds are the same, as I've pointed out there's a huge difference between Coteaz and Draigo lists and that neither has the advantages of the other) rather than devising lists from other armies that can cope.

That's the crux of the issue. GK do indeed have something for everyone. The problem is between the complaining about Draigo making Paladins troops and OX inquisitors being a cheap source of grenades and Coteaz making henchmen troops, and GMs giving you whatever you happen to feel like you want at any given time, people forget that you can't take all of them, and then, even if you could, you couldn't afford all the cool stuff at once.

Look at Brad's list from Adepticon:

Coteaz
GKGM, Rad, Psychostroke

10 purifiers with Rhino
10 purifiers with Rhino

Scoring Chimera
Scoring Chimera
Scoring Chimera
Scoring Razorback, TLHB
Scoring Razorback, TLHB
Razorback, TLHB (Something actually scary in this one, 6 DCA)

3 psyfleman dreads.

Shootingwise, you have:

27 S4 shots
18 S6 shots with 9 of them twin linked
16-24 S7 rending shots at 24" range
12 S8 shots, twin-linked

I can make an IG list that has:

36 shots S6
32 shots S7, 28 of them twin linked
8 shots S8
2 shots S9

Sure, a lot of my list is BS3, not 4, but I have twice as many shots in a lot of places. How, bullet for bullet, is the winning list more "overpowered" than mine? I mean, sure, he's got attacks and power weapons, and psychic abilities, and whatever, but he has to get to me to use them.

It seems like the most "overpowered" parts of GK are simply a natural extension of the mechspam present since IG.

He's the one beating the ork horde, draigowing, necron and blood angels armies that you're losing to while only doing marginally worse against the the things your army is made to fight.


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Vaktathi wrote:Keep in mind that a lot of that IG shooting can be suppressed without having to be killed, where the GK shooting isn't as easily suppressed.

Additionally, what IG list gives you that sort of output?

A list with 3 hydra batteries and a lot of chimeras.

ShumaGorath wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

Vaktathi wrote:Keep in mind that a lot of that IG shooting can be suppressed without having to be killed, where the GK shooting isn't as easily suppressed.

Additionally, what IG list gives you that sort of output?

A list with 3 hydra batteries and a lot of chimeras.

Right, I play a list with lots of hydras and chimeras, but you'd have very little upgrades in a 2k list with that loadout. You'd be taking infantry platoons in chimeras and no upgrades basically, was trying to get a better handle on exactly what was being fielded as it looked rather odd.

Vaktathi wrote:Keep in mind that a lot of that IG shooting can be suppressed without having to be killed, where the GK shooting isn't as easily suppressed.

Additionally, what IG list gives you that sort of output?

GK Chimeras don't have fortitude, so you could at least suppress those.

The list was basically infantry platoon spam with missile launchers and autocannons in chimeras, and then 7 hydras. Two CCS (in chimeras) have lascannons. there's 7 Infantry squads between three Platoons.

In retrospect, I also considered the chimeras having heavy flamers, not even heavy bolters, so figure in about 36 heavy bolter shots in there too if you want, but I forgot the heavy bolters on Brad's list too, so that bumps up the total a bit.

Frankly, I'd think it would do well enough against Ork Horde. It has more heavy shooting than most other armies have total.

Edit: Link to list. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/75694181/HWSpam.pdf

daedalus wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:Keep in mind that a lot of that IG shooting can be suppressed without having to be killed, where the GK shooting isn't as easily suppressed.

Additionally, what IG list gives you that sort of output?

GK Chimeras don't have fortitude, so you could at least suppress those.

The list was basically infantry platoon spam with missile launchers and autocannons in chimeras, and then 7 hydras. Two CCS (in chimeras) have lascannons. there's 7 Infantry squads between three Platoons.

In retrospect, I also considered the chimeras having heavy flamers, not even heavy bolters, so figure in about 36 heavy bolter shots in there too if you want, but I forgot the heavy bolters on Brad's list too, so that bumps up the total a bit.

Frankly, I'd think it would do well enough against Ork Horde. It has more heavy shooting than most other armies have total.

It'll have issues when ghazgull walks up your back board edge with 20 friends, but most semi mobile gunlines do.

Vaktathi wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

Vaktathi wrote:Keep in mind that a lot of that IG shooting can be suppressed without having to be killed, where the GK shooting isn't as easily suppressed.

Additionally, what IG list gives you that sort of output?

A list with 3 hydra batteries and a lot of chimeras.

Right, I play a list with lots of hydras and chimeras, but you'd have very little upgrades in a 2k list with that loadout. You'd be taking infantry platoons in chimeras and no upgrades basically, was trying to get a better handle on exactly what was being fielded as it looked rather odd.

Then he runs into an actual mech guard list and see's all the S6 count for nothing and one manticore wrecking his day. Sure you could maybe(BS3 shooting that he can ignore shaken and stunned results) beat those GK but you kind of ignored the rest of the meta.

Look. I hate this discussion, but I am of the opinion that GK are breaking the game. Look at the adepticon results. It's sickening.

The arguement of "this discussion happens after every book" stops here. There was zero discussion about Necrons or DE breaking the game.

The dicussion didn't happen because they didn't wear Power Armor. I'd point out that Necrons have won the same if not more GT's this year than GK's and that's with the book still being in the testing phases for most good players. But they are Xenos so we'll never hear their broken. Similar to how Orks continually perform highly but were never broken

Hulksmash wrote:The dicussion didn't happen because they didn't wear Power Armor. I'd point out that Necrons have won the same if not more GT's this year than GK's and that's with the book still being in the testing phases for most good players. But they are Xenos so we'll never hear their broken. Similar to how Orks continually perform highly but were never broken

Large swathes of the community haven't adopted the book with the rest of it gearing specifically to fight it. They've slid well into a GK centric meta, but the question that's important should be "why are the GKs so popular in the first place."

Of course they aren't, everyone on the internets knows that orks suck. They're just as bad as necrons, dark eldar, tyranids, and all of those other armies that have won major events in the last few months.

ShumaGorath wrote:question that's important should be "why are the GKs so popular in the first place."

I assume it's because new players try to figure out what army they want to play and then see threads on popular wargaming websites with 2000+ posts in them talking about how powerful Grey Knights are.

I play them because I played them when they were called Daemonhunters, and I liked them because they were that unique army no one played or saw.

It's a little late now for that, but that's everyone else's problem, not mine.

Blood and Slaughter wrote:

Seems to me, If you think GK aint broke, you dont want to be honest with yourself because you play the sneaky grey mother fethers.

Seems to me, If you think GK are broken, you dont want to be honest with yourself because you haven't adapted to the sneaky grey mother fethers.

Fixed that for you...

So you play Grey Knights then?

I don't care either way, I play maybe 12 games a year with a couple mates, dont enter tourneys, and havent played against GK!

But I have integrity and I can fething read. And Im merely sticking my oar in and opening my mouth because when a man is right, a man is right. Credit where its due and all that. Shuma opened his mouth early on and it appears he was right on the money.

I don't play that often, but I bought and read the codex, and sat and read this thread, and read tourney reviews when Im relaxing, and browse through army lists and so forth, and it is patently obvious to a layman or someone without a dog in said hunt who can be honest about things, and say that at the very very least GK are overpowered. Maybe not the most for a decade, but overpowered.

Take a Nids list against a top tier GK list and its almost impossible to win! Isn't that the very definition of overpowered? Regardless of your tactical decisions you lose anyway?! Insta gibbing your high-value multi wound models?

You just seem to be taking it personally because you think your hot gak because you can win a table top wargame with an overpowered codex, and most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.

Newsflash. Even if you are awesome at 40k (which I doubt, because your record is only good with GK) your not really a hot shot anyway. Your just a bloke who plays 40k. Its hardly up there with winning the 100 meter sprint at the olympics is it?

daedalus wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:question that's important should be "why are the GKs so popular in the first place."

I assume it's because new players try to figure out what army they want to play and then see threads on popular wargaming websites with 2000+ posts in them talking about how powerful Grey Knights are.

I play them because I played them when they were called Daemonhunters, and I liked them because they were that unique army no one played or saw.

It's a little late now for that, but that's everyone else's problem, not mine.

Ahh, and their popularity with "new players" explains their repeated placement above curve in most major tournaments? Ignoring final win results they have almost unversally had positive win ratios. A high level of popularity with "new players" would imply a lower win rate, one below 50%, and yet the effect is the opposite.

Do you really think the newbs coming out of the woodwork is why they show up so much? If you do will you admit that inexperienced players are doing better than they should because the book is overpowered?

Orks are sneaky good, because even when you lose to them you usually get to look over at a large pile of dead models. This is somewhat satisfying, even with a Massacre loss. Ignore the fact each one is 6 points a pop - it looks impressive!

The odds to make a re-rolled 5+ is 1/3 + 2/3*1/3 == 5/9 (a little over 50%)

ShumaGorath wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:I don't think "majority rules" really apply to an opinion question...especially not when you look at the results.

31% say they're "the most overpowered book that GW has put out in decades"(something which gets leveled at every book when it comes out).
23% say "No, but they are overpowered."
23% say "No, they are just a good 5th edition book."

Grey Knights is certainly a book with a bit of heft to it, and it certainly can shut down some of the older books with ease. That does not necessarily mean it is overpowered though.

"some of" translating to "Everything except Space Wolves or Imperial Guard with relatively little player skill." So yes, it does mean that.

Exactly. Out of 77% of people, the worst answer is "No they are just good"

calypso2ts wrote:Orks are sneaky good, because even when you lose to them you usually get to look over at a large pile of dead models. This is somewhat satisfying, even with a Massacre loss. Ignore the fact each one is 6 points a pop - it looks impressive!

The odds to make a re-rolled 5+ is 1/3 + 2/3*1/3 == 5/9 (a little over 50%)

Orks are only good because of red paint syndrome(everything has +1" move) and your opponents ability to make the game only go 2 turns if he moves them all one at a time and thinking about each move.

I have noticed that SW and BA players around me who were previously defending there codex as not being overpowered before GK came out are are all now saying "omg GK so overpowered".

mattyrm wrote:

Blood and Slaughter wrote:

Seems to me, If you think GK aint broke, you dont want to be honest with yourself because you play the sneaky grey mother fethers.

Seems to me, If you think GK are broken, you dont want to be honest with yourself because you haven't adapted to the sneaky grey mother fethers.

Fixed that for you...

So you play Grey Knights then?

I don't care either way, I play maybe 12 games a year with a couple mates, dont enter tourneys, and havent played against GK!

But I have integrity and I can fething read. And Im merely sticking my oar in and opening my mouth because when a man is right, a man is right. Credit where its due and all that. Shuma opened his mouth early on and it appears he was right on the money.

I don't play that often, but I bought and read the codex, and sat and read this thread, and read tourney reviews when Im relaxing, and browse through army lists and so forth, and it is patently obvious to a layman or someone without a dog in said hunt who can be honest about things, and say that at the very very least GK are overpowered. Maybe not the most for a decade, but overpowered.

Take a Nids list against a top tier GK list and its almost impossible to win! Isn't that the very definition of overpowered? Regardless of your tactical decisions you lose anyway?! Insta gibbing your high-value multi wound models?

You just seem to be taking it personally because you think your hot gak because you can win a table top wargame with an overpowered codex, and most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.

Newsflash. Even if you are awesome at 40k (which I doubt, because your record is only good with GK) your not really a hot shot anyway. Your just a bloke who plays 40k. Its hardly up there with winning the 100 meter sprint at the olympics is it?

Classic internet syndrome.

You read things on the internet, have, admittedly, no real world experience with the topic, and yet you're talking down to the guy who plays the game and puts his record up for everyone to see. Classy.

OT Necrons are better than GKs. I have come to this conclusion slowly, since there aren't many Necron players (because they are a xenos faction not because "they aren't zomg OP like GK lulz") in my area. But they pack some serious, serious, competitive elements. I used to think the whole codex was over costed but I am beginning to realize that initial assessment is wrong.

OverwatchCNC wrote:

mattyrm wrote:

Blood and Slaughter wrote:

Seems to me, If you think GK aint broke, you dont want to be honest with yourself because you play the sneaky grey mother fethers.

Seems to me, If you think GK are broken, you dont want to be honest with yourself because you haven't adapted to the sneaky grey mother fethers.

Fixed that for you...

So you play Grey Knights then?

I don't care either way, I play maybe 12 games a year with a couple mates, dont enter tourneys, and havent played against GK!

But I have integrity and I can fething read. And Im merely sticking my oar in and opening my mouth because when a man is right, a man is right. Credit where its due and all that. Shuma opened his mouth early on and it appears he was right on the money.

I don't play that often, but I bought and read the codex, and sat and read this thread, and read tourney reviews when Im relaxing, and browse through army lists and so forth, and it is patently obvious to a layman or someone without a dog in said hunt who can be honest about things, and say that at the very very least GK are overpowered. Maybe not the most for a decade, but overpowered.

Take a Nids list against a top tier GK list and its almost impossible to win! Isn't that the very definition of overpowered? Regardless of your tactical decisions you lose anyway?! Insta gibbing your high-value multi wound models?

You just seem to be taking it personally because you think your hot gak because you can win a table top wargame with an overpowered codex, and most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.

Newsflash. Even if you are awesome at 40k (which I doubt, because your record is only good with GK) your not really a hot shot anyway. Your just a bloke who plays 40k. Its hardly up there with winning the 100 meter sprint at the olympics is it?

Classic internet syndrome.

You read things on the internet, have, admittedly, no real world experience with the topic, and yet you're talking down to the guy who plays the game and puts his record up for everyone to see. Classy.

OT Necrons are better than GKs. I have come to this conclusion slowly, since there aren't many Necron players (because they are a xenos faction not because "they aren't zomg OP like GK lulz") in my area. But they pack some serious, serious, competitive elements. I used to think the whole codex was over costed but I am beginning to realize that initial assessment is wrong.

There are four necron players in my area and I've rolled them up like blankets more than once. Local anecdotal experience should only be one thing that adds to many in defining an opinion on this issue.

ShumaGorath wrote:

OverwatchCNC wrote:

mattyrm wrote:

Blood and Slaughter wrote:

Seems to me, If you think GK aint broke, you dont want to be honest with yourself because you play the sneaky grey mother fethers.

Seems to me, If you think GK are broken, you dont want to be honest with yourself because you haven't adapted to the sneaky grey mother fethers.

Fixed that for you...

So you play Grey Knights then?

I don't care either way, I play maybe 12 games a year with a couple mates, dont enter tourneys, and havent played against GK!

But I have integrity and I can fething read. And Im merely sticking my oar in and opening my mouth because when a man is right, a man is right. Credit where its due and all that. Shuma opened his mouth early on and it appears he was right on the money.

I don't play that often, but I bought and read the codex, and sat and read this thread, and read tourney reviews when Im relaxing, and browse through army lists and so forth, and it is patently obvious to a layman or someone without a dog in said hunt who can be honest about things, and say that at the very very least GK are overpowered. Maybe not the most for a decade, but overpowered.

Take a Nids list against a top tier GK list and its almost impossible to win! Isn't that the very definition of overpowered? Regardless of your tactical decisions you lose anyway?! Insta gibbing your high-value multi wound models?

You just seem to be taking it personally because you think your hot gak because you can win a table top wargame with an overpowered codex, and most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.

Newsflash. Even if you are awesome at 40k (which I doubt, because your record is only good with GK) your not really a hot shot anyway. Your just a bloke who plays 40k. Its hardly up there with winning the 100 meter sprint at the olympics is it?

Classic internet syndrome.

You read things on the internet, have, admittedly, no real world experience with the topic, and yet you're talking down to the guy who plays the game and puts his record up for everyone to see. Classy.

OT Necrons are better than GKs. I have come to this conclusion slowly, since there aren't many Necron players (because they are a xenos faction not because "they aren't zomg OP like GK lulz") in my area. But they pack some serious, serious, competitive elements. I used to think the whole codex was over costed but I am beginning to realize that initial assessment is wrong.

There are four necron players in my area and I've rolled them up like blankets more than once. Local anecdotal experience should only be one thing that adds to many in defining an opinion on this issue.

Ture, But atleast he plays vs. them before he makes up his mind. Unlike so many other on here, take the post he qouted.

I think 68 pages and 1500+ votes is enough of this for now.

Fret not though as with depressing regularity another similar thread will etc etc