In the team tournaments you will also see Crons come into the light with so many game affecting powers like with the ctans, or night fight with the storm lord. Combo Those with de and sw you have a force. Hiding twc in night fight with acture sense long fangs or the terrain hindering protecting IG, or de hiding in night fight.. I see more cron combos then gk combos.

Draigo wrote:In the team tournaments you will also see Crons come into the light with so many game affecting powers like with the ctans, or night fight with the storm lord. Combo Those with de and sw you have a force. Hiding twc in night fight with acture sense long fangs or the terrain hindering protecting IG, or de hiding in night fight.. I see more cron combos then gk combos.

Hmmm.. The Adepticon TT rules tend to frown upon mixing armies across different races. It is perfectly legal, but I don't think anyone has ever won doing that, except the first year. There are to many "fluff" points lost in that setup. Besides the power of Draigo + Coteaz having both their force org altering rules applied to all 4 players, two of which can still take librarians, is awe inspiring. Paladins and psy-back henchmen (or deathcult assassins) everywhere and they are both scoring units to boot. The TT missions are all about the scoring units.

Redbeard wrote:There's your proof for why you should balance units across codexes. Because if you don't, and you achieve internal balance, then the entire weaker codex, by simple logic, is weaker than the entire stronger one. And there's no way that leads to a balanced game.

Wouldn't that require simultaneous releases for all the Codexes with all the new points calculations at once?

How would you sell products effectively if each army was recieving a Codex at the same time?

I'm not arguing against you, however, with the current gap between releases it seems that balancing Codexes across the board seems an logistical nightmare.

Even if you managed to balance out all the Codexes with spaced out release dates, there's still the problem with the core game rules/mechanics getting updated in between, which can 'unbalance' certain armies before their next release.

While I agree with your assessment of external balance, it seems far reaching and lofty.

@Darthdiggler: I'll give you that this year will really show us how the codex progresses, but I wouldn't say Team Tournament is a good metric. The game isn't really balanced for team play like that.

gendoikari87 wrote:.
I already did, look back by about a page, and for the second point see above.

Found it about 5 pages back. Getting some massively weird numbers from this, and missing some key features (e.g. there's no accounting for ATSKNF that I can find, hammerhand, force weapon over power weapon, etc). When I put in a basic SB/PF terminator, I get a cost of 49.65pts, and a cost of 63.43pts for a TH/SS termi not accounting for Thunderhammer effect.

For a basic GK, yes, your calculator gives ~21.54pts for their value. However, again, no accounting for stuff like hammerhand. If you calculate them at S5 (basically any time they'll be engaging anything not multi-wound in CC), they're suddenly worth nearly 29pts.

It apparently also calculates S as being *way* more important than Attacks, almost twice as important, which is rather odd given that 2 S4 attacks against T4 will result in higher average casualties than 1 S6 attack. Apparently being S6 base makes for a *huge* boost in cost, but noting S6 on a charge in the special rules section changes almost nothing in comparison.

I'm also not sure how on earth a Power Weapon is such a cheap upgrade, as apparently there's little in the way done to cost for that.

Looking through the excel file I have no idea on what basis you are designing many of these equations (especially as several reference empty cells and/or have to be actively modified to take items listed in their column into account, particularly the Special Rules entry apparently)

Speaking of designing in a vacuum, it appears this thing is entirely designed around comparison to a basic space marine without ATSKNF or any other of their special rules, and little else.

And yeah, we've still got that point about long range AT in troops hanging there...for which I see no ability to cost for in this excel calculator.

It apparently also calculates S as being *way* more important than Attacks

Because it is, At least until they change vehicles getting hit in the rear. The calculator does also take into account what a unit can do in CC against a tanks. And that's 5 points right there for str 5, and I also made it based on an average av of 10. if you change that to 11, you find after hammerhand the cost of each goes to a WHOPPING OMG 23...

However, again, no accounting for stuff like hammerhand. If you calculate them at S5 (basically any time they'll be engaging anything not multi-wound in CC), they're suddenly worth nearly 29pts.

it also doesn't activate all the time and can blow the head off your justicar.

And yeah, we've still got that point about long range AT in troops hanging there...for which I see no ability to cost for in this excel calculator.

Seeing as that is done codex to codex, you can't do that with just this, you have to actually use your own judgement and actually think.

Apparently being S6 base makes for a *huge* boost in cost, but noting S6 on a charge in the special rules section changes almost nothing in comparison.

No it does nothing, that's a vestigial organ from an earlier incarnation it needs to be deleted.

Speaking of designing in a vacuum, it appears this thing is entirely designed around comparison to a basic space marine without ATSKNF or any other of their special rules, and little else.

ATSKNF has little if any measurable effect. Get over it.





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actually changing the av of the test vehicle solves the terminator problems as well.

Here it is fixed, TH/SS is still 57 but I'd accept that as a fair price for them.

Now, if you really want broken you've skipped over a unit, SB acolytes. Those mothers are undercosted. Just don't give them any armor.




No where's your model saying they're so broken?

gendoikari87 wrote:
Because it is, At least until they change vehicles getting hit in the rear. The calculator does also take into account what a unit can do in CC against a tanks.

And how exactly is that being accounted/costed for?

And that's 5 points right there for str 5, and I also made it based on an average av of 10. if you change that to 11, you find after hammerhand the cost of each goes to a WHOPPING OMG 23...

At which point we have a unit that's undercosted by 3ppm, over a 2000pt army, that's rather noticeable.

Additionally, I'm still wondering how it's calculated that power weapons are only worth ~2ppm. That's a rather...interesting value for them. And that's the big crux of the matter here. 2ppm for power weapons is, to anyone, a wee bit silly. Meanwhile, in your cost calculator, getting extra S4 Ap5 shots between 12-24" is a significantly larger cost factor than ignoring armor saves and the ability to inflict Instant Death in close combat.

Using your newest calculator for a basic Space Marine with just a bolter, I get a cost of 13.5pts without accounting for any special rules. Giving him a Storm Bolter over a normal bolter makes him 19.4pts (a ~6pt increase by itself ) while giving him a powerweapon is only 2pts, and to match the Storm Bolter I'm having to not only give him a power weapon but also increase Attacks from 1 to 2. Giving him a pistol somehow by itself also is a 2pt upgrade, but there's nowhere to gauge BP+CCW. Something is off.

Stormbolters are not worth anything near that, and power weapons are worth a hell of a lot more.

What's even odder is that marking a unit as "Monstrous Creature" is apparently worth less than an assault bolter.

it also doesn't activate all the time and can blow the head off your justicar.

It activates the overwhelmingly vast majority of the time (5/6 times with Ld9) and you've got a 1/18 chance to kill the Justicar, relatively low.

Seeing as that is done codex to codex, you can't do that with just this, you have to actually use your own judgement and actually think.

So apparently the huge thing that justified them being undercosted (despite it applying just as much if not moreso to the majority of other armies in the game) we get to what I stated earlier: It's largely irrelevant because it's not the role of those units.

ATSKNF has little if any measurable effect. Get over it.

Really? It's so worthless that the defining Space Marine special rule isn't worth taking into any cost cosnsiderations at all?

There seems to be a rather noticeable calculation involving comparative fleeing rates, which ATSKNF very much factors into. If you aren't making *any* cost considerations for an ability that ignore several game mechanics (sweeping advance, below 50% regrouping, movement penalties on regroup...), then this tool is failing to properly accomplish it's goal. It's very much worth taking into account, especially given that the unit this tool is entirely dedicated to comparing against has a special rule that can trigger ATSKNF every time they have to take a morale test.

gendoikari87 wrote:Here it is fixed, TH/SS is still 57 but I'd accept that as a fair price for them.

Not sure how I feel about that one. On the one hand I feel they are currently drastically undercosted an in general having entire units with flat 3++sv's on top of 2++sv's is rather poor game design, but at the same time 57pts feels weird. For now, I'll leave it aside.

Now, if you really want broken you've skipped over a unit, SB acolytes. Those mothers are undercosted. Just don't give them any armor.

Stormbolter acolytes? 7pts for a 2 shot BS3 s4 gun on a T3 5+sv model? With bolters according to your calculation they should be 6pts, its difficult to see how additional BS3 S4 shots at 12-24" is worth increasing their price by 4ppm when there's otherwise no difference in unit survivability, weapon S/AP, or statline changes. Hard to see that being undercosted, especially next to something like an Ork Shoota boy who is 6pts, granted slightly shorter range and lower BS, but higher T, 2 attacks, furious charge, mob rule, WS4, and apparently comes out to about 10pts in your calculator, at which point you'd expect them to be the most ridiculously broken thing in the game being nearly half the cost they should be.

Also, I'll note that using your calculator, they're undercosted by about 3ppm, the same difference you make to be trivial earlier.

Methinks there's something off with your calculations here. Using a basic profile of WS4 BS3 S3 T3 I2 A1 Ld10 Sv6 with a 2 shot assault S4 18" gun (not corresponding to any particular actual unit) I drop BS to 2 and to make up the points drop I have to increase A from 1 to 2, T from 3 to 4, Init from 2 to 4, and Rng from 18 to 24" to make up for that. Methinks there's some weird valuations here, especially as the only thing that seems to be taken into account here in balance considerations is the basic MEQ statline. WS and Init in particular seems to essentially simply be a trinary stat (<4,=4,>4) with no other costing considerations, likewise frag grenade availability seems to only make any difference in calculation if Init >=4. I can make a WS10 I10 unit and it's cost is no different than if it were WS5 I5.

What's *really* funny is Dreadknight costing, which comes out to be 24-40pts undercosted base using this tool, and damn near 90pts undercosted with dual gatling psilencers (apparently it should be ~288pts according to this tool)

weapon AP also apparently a nebulous factor at best.





TL;DR costing is wayyyy off, BS and Assault weaponry drastically over-valued, power-weapons and CC stats under valued, no account for special rules, too many stats accounted for only in "less than, equal to, greater than" in comparison to "4" only.

I agree with Vaktathi.

That calculator is not "proof", nor can its findings be presented as FACTs.

As the point-values assigned to various rules and wargear is a matter of opinion, so are the findings......just opinions.

If one was to agree with the philosophy of Gendo, then one could say that it is an informed opinion, but still just an opinion.

Why the hell is this thread still going on?? I've been watching it from a far and the fact this was even taken off another topic and made it's own thread is daft, it should have ended when it was off topic in the last thread like the OP stated.

The fact is, it's a great codex, one of the better ones but not overpowered.

The End. It's a mini adventure.




Full stop.

gendoikari87 wrote:
ATSKNF has little if any measurable effect. Get over it.

Ok. Now, tell that to any CSM, SoB or Necron player.

The ability of a similar unit to automatically regroup when falling back - thus NOT being wiped out by a Sweeping Advance (only taking some additional wounds, which, on a 3+ save unit is a lot less deadly than being completely gone) has a hell of a effect.

Now combine this with Combat Tactics.

You have the ability to withdraw, automatically regroup and assault again next turn....

With TH/SS Terminators, Assault Squads, kitted up command squads....this has a hell of an effect.


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Redbeard wrote:

Leenus wrote:I began to type a bunch of examples, but if you truly believe that army wide interactions don't matter, I think we're done debating.

No please, share your examples. I do think that army-interactions matter. I simply believe that the cost for the interactions needs to be paid in the least restrictive place.

Redbeard, Leenus.

Gentlemen.

I want you to explain to me... The Pyrovore.

Please explain my 60 point Heavy Flamer that tries so hard to compete with Zoanthropes, Tyrant Guard, Ymgarls and even Lictors.

I'd be interested to see what you guys make of this.

But that aside....

Army-interactions do matter as Redbeard has already explained - how Unit X affects Unit Y really does need to be taken into account when designing a codex...

Which unfortunately, with a design theory that rivals a crack-addicted squirrel on a pogo stick, it doesn't for pretty much everything from SW onwards.

DarkStarSabre wrote:
Redbeard, Leenus.

Gentlemen.

I want you to explain to me... The Pyrovore.

Please explain my 60 point Heavy Flamer that tries so hard to compete with Zoanthropes, Tyrant Guard, Ymgarls and even Lictors.

I'd be interested to see what you guys make of this.

What is there to explain. It's simply yet another example of GW's amateur rules design team and complete lack of testing. In the world of throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks, the pyrovore didn't stick, and as a result, all the effort spent in designing, and sculpting the model has been wasted, as no one is buying them.

gendoikari87 wrote:Here it is fixed, TH/SS is still 57 but I'd accept that as a fair price for them.

Now, if you really want broken you've skipped over a unit, SB acolytes. Those mothers are undercosted. Just don't give them any armor.

No where's your model saying they're so broken?

I want to really give you kudos for working on something like this. I really like how you build a point base upon the ability for the model to kill and survive.

The value you give to special rules or gear can be subjective, which is the only challenge I see. For example, a power sword in the hands of a guardsman is not nearly as effective as in the hands of a BA sergeant. Having a STR 5 charge is significantly more effective than a STR 3 PW. Similarly, PG are more effective on high armor models. A guardsman dies 2/3 of the time during a get-hot, where a MEQ dies 1/3 of the time.
Maybe you can determine the value of benifits such as a power weapon based upon the base cost. IE, a PW upgrade costs for for a BA than a guard.

ATSKNF has a huge effect, and should be priced accordingly. The ability to rally between half strength, and to auto-rally after falling back is huge. This is one of the strongest aspects of MEQ over GEQ armies.

I also notice there are some special items that are not defined. What is the value of being on a bike, for example? Witchblades are another example.

Here are some of the spreadsheet values. Honestly, considering how easy fire dragons die, I think their a bit overpriced. I'm surprised that your spreadsheet prices the other aspect warriors well under the value. I find it very hard to believe that the assault value on the guardian shuriken cat makes them worth nearly as much as an avenger. The difference between a guardian and avenger is significant. As mentioned before, if special rules such as 'assault' are based upon the models CC ability, then it would make for a more clear value. After all, who cares if a guardian has an assault weapon. Hes not going to assault you.
Dire Avenger : 11.5 pts
Fire Dragon : 38.7 pts
Banshees : 8.04 pts
Warlocks : 23 pts
Guardian : 10.44 pts
Scorpions : 10.5 pts

So there are a few minor quirks when trying to use a formula to define the value of a model -- which come from the cost of special rules. Overall, though, I give it enormous kudos.

Steelmage99 wrote:I agree with Vaktathi.

That calculator is not "proof", nor can its findings be presented as FACTs.

As the point-values assigned to various rules and wargear is a matter of opinion, so are the findings......just opinions.

If one was to agree with the philosophy of Gendo, then one could say that it is an informed opinion, but still just an opinion.

It's not opinion, it's math. Designed specifically to balance armies point for point. if you knew anything about math you'd know that.

As mentioned before, if special rules such as 'assault' are based upon the models CC ability, then it would make for a more clear value.

it is, the assault rule adds damage potential to the CC section. The only ones that are straight up a solid point value are invuln saves, and the grenades.

What is the value of being on a bike, for example?

I knew I forgot something. I think I also forgot gets hot, i'll have to go check.


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I want you to explain to me... The Pyrovore.

Crack, that is the only explaination.

gendoikari87 wrote:

It's not opinion, it's math. Designed specifically to balance armies point for point. if you knew anything about math you'd know that.

And yet somehow apparently the only balance mechanic that matters is direct comparison to a basic profile of WS4 BS4 S4 T4 I4 W1 A1 Sv3+, and has very odd costing components, where powerweapons/monstrous creature upgrades, T/A/I/Init combined increases, etc are apaprently worth less than making a bolter Assault 2 from Rapid fire

gendoikari87 wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:I agree with Vaktathi.

That calculator is not "proof", nor can its findings be presented as FACTs.

As the point-values assigned to various rules and wargear is a matter of opinion, so are the findings......just opinions.

If one was to agree with the philosophy of Gendo, then one could say that it is an informed opinion, but still just an opinion.

It's not opinion, it's math. Designed specifically to balance armies point for point. if you knew anything about math you'd know that.

Any song with an young female singer is worth 10pts. Any song with a male singer is worth 5pts.

Therefore, Rebecca Black's "Friday" is better than Nirvana's "Smells like Teen Spirit."

It's not an opinion. It's math!

Provable math starts from axioms, not from "I've looked at it really hard and decided that frag grenades are worth x points."

Yeah, you cannot do raw mathematical calculations, because things have different impact based on the role they serve.

Wyches get nightfighting. That's swell. It's a close-combat unit that have 12" pistols. If they're not within 6" of you, they're not going to shoot, they're going to fleet. Long Fangs get nightfighting. They're a sit back&shoot unit with a ton of ranged fire. They get a big benefit from being able to re-roll their spotting range. Same ability, different units getting it.

Feel No Pain is worth less on a model with a 2+ save than a model with a 6+ save. FNP changes the odds of losing a model from 1/6 to 1/12 on a 2+ model, a boost of 1/12. On a model with a 6+ save, it increases their odds of losing a model from 5/6 to roughly 2/5, a boost of roughly 2/5, more than twice the advantage, from the same ability.

Assault grenades mean very little on models that are not expected to launch assaults.

Leenus wrote:@ Polonius

A few things. First, sure, "baseless" is a bit over the top. I know you understand my point though, so let's not derail based on that word. Someone posting in this thread and saying "I beat my friend who plays GK" or "I never beat my friend who plays GK" doesn't really help determine if GK are overpowered.

Well, the word showed a contempt that was out of line, so it needed some correction.

Tournaments are an excellent *indicator* if a book is overpowered. It gives us the best look at GK played in a competitive setting against other competitive lists where people, on average, play to win. It's not perfect. There will be outliers. That's why it's necessary to use a lot of tournaments. But I think showing that GK win an abnormal amount of tournaments (in battle points) is a far, far, far, far, far more persuasive than any personal anecdote or unit by unit analysis. Do you really believe otherwise? Are you telling me that if GK won every tournament, you would say "they're not overpowered" ?????? I 100% doubt it.

I think everybody agrees with you. I think everybody also pretty much knows that the data isn't available.

You seem overly hugn up on what you consider to be the best possible evidence that you overly devalue all other evidence.

Now, a lot of this comes down to your definition of overpowered. To me, overpowered means that an army is miles stronger than the competition (e.g. 7th daemons at release). The game will never be truly balanced. GK might be slightly stronger than the competition, but certainly not over the top. I believe that if they were really over the top, the results would start to reflect in tournaments as it did with 7th daemons.

This is where you start to make sense. You want evidence that GKs are winning most of the tournaments because you consider that the definition of overpowered.

Most people, I think, would go with a broader definition, if only because tournament play isn't the only way people enjoy 40k.

I agree with the broader point that tournament results show that GK, while gravely upsetting to the meta-game, are not stricly dominating top play. OTOH, I also agree with the argument that an army that can shut down other armies (as warp quake and cleansing flame both come close to) is poorly designed and, at least in those narrow paramaters, overpowered.

i have two things to say

first off this is impressive. the amount of time you people put into this. and there are a lot of valid points. but as stated earlier it will not matter what any of us say unless some one has a magic line to GW and has complete control over it. it is they way it is

second.... you should all take a step back and look at what you are doing. you are argueing about the rules for dolls. you play with dolls. i play with dolls. we all play with dolls.

have fun arguing about dolls

I devalue specific evidence which is comparing individual GK units versus individual units from other codexes as a way to prove that GK are overpowered.

I've said in previous posts why I believe it is flawed to look at individual units across codexes. Non-tournament evidence that I would look to as relatively helpful evidence would be looking at entire lists versus other entire lists. If you look through this thread, there is very little, if any, of such analysis.

As an example, you look at warp quake in isolation and show me it is poorly designed / overpowered. However, when you look at the lists that spam warp quake at levels that make it broken you realize that the list is pretty crappy against the non daemon / deepstrike armies (majority of the tournament field). So, overall, it's not actual an issue in practice (cost outweighs benefit, unless an abnormally large percentage of people play daemons / deepstrike which we know is simply not the case). The power is certainly not well designed. The power is certainly overpowered comparing a warp quake unit versus daemons. The power is NOT overpowered, when you consider the costs of spaming warp quake in a tournament setting.

Nothing is broken outside of a tournament setting where people play for fun. It's up to you to take what you believe is "fun" and make the game mold to your own subjective view of the game. If you play for fun and feel that warp quake is broken and ruins the fun, why take it? Because you lack the self-control to moderate yourself?

marmaduke wrote:i have two things to say

first off this is impressive. the amount of time you people put into this. and there are a lot of valid points. but as stated earlier it will not matter what any of us say unless some one has a magic line to GW and has complete control over it. it is they way it is

second.... you should all take a step back and look at what you are doing. you are argueing about the rules for dolls. you play with dolls. i play with dolls. we all play with dolls.

have fun arguing about dolls

Nuh uh, they're not dolls bra, they're ACTION FIGURES[/sarcasm] In all seriousness this is the most valid point of the whole thread.

gendoikari87 wrote:

marmaduke wrote:[snip]
have fun arguing about dolls

Nuh uh, they're not dolls bra, they're ACTION FIGURES[/sarcasm] In all seriousness this is the most valid point of the whole thread.

Agreed, we should all pity the fools who happen to be passionate about their hobby. Being involved in a hobby is the lamest thing of all. We should all point and laugh.[/counter sarcasm ]

Calm Clarification: I just believe that if it is totally acceptable for a 40 yo. male to scream and shout about a guy who kicked a ball into some other guy's net that the same principle should be used here.
It's not about the dolls specifically. It's about expression (insert some other smart word) and the topic is just to let the conversation going. There is no harm in heated discussion if there are no personal attacks involved (or overuse of sarcasm; which is NOT indication of somebody's superior intelligence - the stupidest lie spreading like fire throughout the internet). Too emotional is bad but this is the interents. Everything seems hyper-exaggerated here.
Just tell me, what hobby is serious enough for arguing?

Leenus wrote:I devalue specific evidence which is comparing individual GK units versus individual units from other codexes as a way to prove that GK are overpowered.

I've said in previous posts why I believe it is flawed to look at individual units across codexes. Non-tournament evidence that I would look to as relatively helpful evidence would be looking at entire lists versus other entire lists. If you look through this thread, there is very little, if any, of such analysis.

As an example, you look at warp quake in isolation and show me it is poorly designed / overpowered. However, when you look at the lists that spam warp quake at levels that make it broken you realize that the list is pretty crappy against the non daemon / deepstrike armies (majority of the tournament field). So, overall, it's not actual an issue in practice (cost outweighs benefit, unless an abnormally large percentage of people play daemons / deepstrike which we know is simply not the case). The power is certainly not well designed. The power is certainly overpowered comparing a warp quake unit versus daemons. The power is NOT overpowered, when you consider the costs of spaming warp quake in a tournament setting.

Nothing is broken outside of a tournament setting where people play for fun. It's up to you to take what you believe is "fun" and make the game mold to your own subjective view of the game. If you play for fun and feel that warp quake is broken and ruins the fun, why take it? Because you lack the self-control to moderate yourself?

If I play daemons, it's not my self control I'm worried about. And warp quake isn't an optional power for one HQ choice... it's built into a troops choice. When random daemon player A shows up to play a pick game or low level tournamen t game, and player B has warpquake... that turns a game that should be balanced and fair into a ridiculous uphill slog. You don't need to spam the unit to make games excruciatingly difficult for (non-optimized) daemons. It's hard to really point to another example of a troop unit from one army nerfing another army.

I also reject the idea that you can't look at units in isolation. First off, it's a true vacuum: you're looking at a unit compared to the rest of the units in the game. I'm just not sure how the rest of the GK book somehow makes psychic vehicles at a 5pt upcharge balanced. That could be true if the rest of the army were overcosted, but that's not really the case.

In some codices this is true. Look at Nids. They have some stuff that's undercosted, but relies on overcosted stuff to really be good. Vulkan is hideously undercosted, but that makes up for having to buy two overcosted tactical squads. Other times, stuff that's undercosted is just undercosted.

ATSKNF has little if any measurable effect. Get over it.

Yeah, us Xenos players would love to have a prolonged debate about that one....

Also, the math lies plenty because that spreadsheet is based on numerous dubious assumtions of value (as has been extensively pointed out) that all seem to revolve around a marine centric viewpoint.

There is only one math here that does not lie. Wins and losses. GKs are winning, but not as much as IG, SW, or even DE, at the tournament level. Given the large influx of new GK players, their relative win rate per player is probably comparable to BAs. You can spend hours arguing the minute nuances of Strike Squad point values and how they rook Daemons (ignoring that the better GK builds don't even use many Strikes, if any), but the hard truth is that they are probably the overall least successful codex in their first year of release in the new edition, aside from Nids. Seriously, go back and look at what Orks, SW, IG, DE, and even BA racked up in generalship and overall trophies.

No one cares if they are broken in casual play because.... its casual and your friends should stop being tools.

Okay then, lets see yours and how close it gets to 5th editon units?

gendoikari87 wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:I agree with Vaktathi.

That calculator is not "proof", nor can its findings be presented as FACTs.

As the point-values assigned to various rules and wargear is a matter of opinion, so are the findings......just opinions.

If one was to agree with the philosophy of Gendo, then one could say that it is an informed opinion, but still just an opinion.

It's not opinion, it's math. Designed specifically to balance armies point for point. if you knew anything about math you'd know that.

Are you serious?

Phazael wrote:No one cares if they are broken in casual play because.... its casual and your friends should stop being tools.

This is one of the more worrying opinions I see here. It's been implied throughout the thread, and articulated here.

Balance is more important to casual players. Tournament players know how to beat other elite armies, and build armies that can do so. Casual players find themselves either losing constantly, and being in the humiliating position of making their opponent play at less than full strength.

Having an army become a great tournament army is actually good for tournaments. Having an army crush face at pick up play or club play is bad, because it discourages more players.

It's hard to really point to another example of a troop unit from one army nerfing another army.

Strakenblob vs Nids and just about any assault army
Ravenwing Hamminators vs lots of armies
Nob Bikers vs Tau and Vanilla SM
Grey Hunters vs the entire known universe

Honestly, I don't know about other GK players, but I never even include Strikes (much less the FA ones) unless I am trying to make my army _weaker_ for casual play. Its just pure irony that it happens to bone Daemons harder. Its kind of sad, but the baseline mechanics of Daemons are so off the grid anyhow that its really not worth honing in on. Really, all they would have to do to fix the issue is say "Daemons deploy normally when facing grey knights" to represent daemon world invasions and the problem would be solved.

Fortitude they dropped the ball on. It should have been non-psychic and worked exactly like living metal. The issue it has now is, its priced under the assumption that the enemy always has some form of psychic defense, for which that cost is fair. But not all armies do, either by choice or lack of an option. So either its completely broken (vs Guard, Orks, Tau, ect), on target (vs anyone with a hood, esp SW), or a big game of pray you don't make things worse (eldar).

Steelmage99 wrote:

gendoikari87 wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:I agree with Vaktathi.

That calculator is not "proof", nor can its findings be presented as FACTs.

As the point-values assigned to various rules and wargear is a matter of opinion, so are the findings......just opinions.

If one was to agree with the philosophy of Gendo, then one could say that it is an informed opinion, but still just an opinion.

It's not opinion, it's math. Designed specifically to balance armies point for point. if you knew anything about math you'd know that.

Are you serious?

yes, and whether you like it or not it's the truth. It's not perfect, no, but it's close. and infinitely more so than whining saying "OMG THE BROKEN" with nothing but opinion to back that statement up.

You want to refute me, use your own math. Come up with something to prove me wrong other than simply whining. Or can you not do math?

Polonius wrote:

Phazael wrote:No one cares if they are broken in casual play because.... its casual and your friends should stop being tools.

This is one of the more worrying opinions I see here. It's been implied throughout the thread, and articulated here.

Balance is more important to casual players. Tournament players know how to beat other elite armies, and build armies that can do so. Casual players find themselves either losing constantly, and being in the humiliating position of making their opponent play at less than full strength.

Having an army become a great tournament army is actually good for tournaments. Having an army crush face at pick up play or club play is bad, because it discourages more players.

And if your friends who you play casual with keep bringing the beatface army.... how are they not being tools? Letting casual games dictate gamebalance is like a barrito before sex; a recipe for total disaster. Casual players often can (and should) disregard rules and limitations on a whim in favor of doing something fun with their friends, so its impossible to even begin to balance around that. Tournament play, where all the gloves are off and everyone is playing by the rules closely, is the best place to adjust things and the only chance to see people apply theoryhammer in a controlled environment.

gendoikari87 wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:

gendoikari87 wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:I agree with Vaktathi.

That calculator is not "proof", nor can its findings be presented as FACTs.

As the point-values assigned to various rules and wargear is a matter of opinion, so are the findings......just opinions.

If one was to agree with the philosophy of Gendo, then one could say that it is an informed opinion, but still just an opinion.

It's not opinion, it's math. Designed specifically to balance armies point for point. if you knew anything about math you'd know that.

Are you serious?

yes, and whether you like it or not it's the truth. It's not perfect, no, but it's close. and infinitely more so than whining saying "OMG THE BROKEN" with nothing but opinion to back that statement up.

You want to refute me, use your own math. Come up with something to prove me wrong other than simply whining. Or can you not do math?

I am sure I have misunderstood something here, so I am trying to get some clarification.

Have you or have you not assigned a point value to various rules such as Feel No Pain, ATSKNF, being a Monstrous Creature and Fleet?



As an aside, look back through the thread.....I have not been whining at all. In fact I haven't even posted in this thread before I started questioning the spreadsheet.
...

Phazael wrote:

It's hard to really point to another example of a troop unit from one army nerfing another army.

Strakenblob vs Nids and just about any assault army
Ravenwing Hamminators vs lots of armies
Nob Bikers vs Tau and Vanilla SM
Grey Hunters vs the entire known universe

Well, technically strakenblob requires the addition of a special character HQ choice.
Grey Hunters and Deathwing are very good for their points, but don't prevent the enemy from deploying, or otherwise preventing any possible damage
Nob Bikers vs. Tau I'll give you. Hammernators eat nobs of any flavor though..

Honestly, I don't know about other GK players, but I never even include Strikes (much less the FA ones) unless I am trying to make my army _weaker_ for casual play. Its just pure irony that it happens to bone Daemons harder. Its kind of sad, but the baseline mechanics of Daemons are so off the grid anyhow that its really not worth honing in on. Really, all they would have to do to fix the issue is say "Daemons deploy normally when facing grey knights" to represent daemon world invasions and the problem would be solved.

I agree with this. OTOH, a skilled daemon player shouldn't lose to a mediocre GK player that happened to include a strike squad. That doesn't seem quite fair. I think that in practice it's not a big deal, but it's a really crappy situation.

Fortitude they dropped the ball on. It should have been non-psychic and worked exactly like living metal. The issue it has now is, its priced under the assumption that the enemy always has some form of psychic defense, for which that cost is fair. But not all armies do, either by choice or lack of an option. So either its completely broken (vs Guard, Orks, Tau, ect), on target (vs anyone with a hood, esp SW), or a big game of pray you don't make things worse (eldar).

That's a good assessment. I'd argue that it's a good buy even against most psychic defense (especially on ranged vehicles that can avoid modern hoods), but your point is well taken.


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Phazael wrote:And if your friends who you play casual with keep bringing the beatface army.... how are they not being tools? Letting casual games dictate gamebalance is like a barrito before sex; a recipe for total disaster. Casual players often can (and should) disregard rules and limitations on a whim in favor of doing something fun with their friends, so its impossible to even begin to balance around that. Tournament play, where all the gloves are off and everyone is playing by the rules closely, is the best place to adjust things and the only chance to see people apply theoryhammer in a controlled environment.

While I agree... you're basically saying that instead of GW not releaseing poorly though out rules that bone some armies, gamers should show insight, social grace, and consideration.

The other problem is that against most armies, strike squads are a fluffy, friendly choice. But not against daemons...

Have you or have you not assigned a point value to various rules such as Feel No Pain, ATSKNF, being a Monstrous Creature and Fleet?

FNP is a modifier to survivability so it gets calculated in with everything, it's not a solid point cost
ATSKNF not yet, but it is a work in progress, but again LD had little effect on costs, a point or two at most until you get to something like ogryns
Monstrous creature- yes, it's worked out like melta and FNP calculated in the damage (might have to check, it was the last thing added in, you might have to add power weapon for it)
Fleet affects the "turns till CC" which affects how many average turns of close combat you can potentially have so fleet on a bad CC unit won't do much, but put it on a great unit and suddenly its much more costly

As an aside, look back through the thread.....I have not been whining at all. In fact I haven't even posted in this thread before I started questioning the spreadsheet.

not really talking about you in particular, but the others who are randomly saying GK are undercosted. When if you actually evaluate them and take everything into account they aren't that undercosted by a whole lot.

gendoikari87 wrote:

Have you or have you not assigned a point value to various rules such as Feel No Pain, ATSKNF, being a Monstrous Creature and Fleet?

FNP is a modifier to survivability so it gets calculated in with everything, it's not a solid point cost
ATSKNF not yet, but it is a work in progress, but again LD had little effect on costs, a point or two at most until you get to something like ogryns
Monstrous creature- yes, it's worked out like melta and FNP calculated in the damage (might have to check, it was the last thing added in, you might have to add power weapon for it)
Fleet affects the "turns till CC" which affects how many average turns of close combat you can potentially have so fleet on a bad CC unit won't do much, but put it on a great unit and suddenly its much more costly

So am I to understand that as a "yes"? You have assigned point values to various rules?

ATSKNF isn't a leadership bump though... it's an insurance policy against sweeping advance, and also allows for more frequent regrouping. To hand wave away the value of it is worrying.

They do affect cost, yes. But not the same for every unit.


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Polonius wrote:ATSKNF isn't a leadership bump though... it's an insurance policy against sweeping advance, and also allows for more frequent regrouping. To hand wave away the value of it is worrying.

when the chance of failure is 16% or the effect afterward (remember it only comes into effect after you are below 50%, meaning your going to have maybe 3 marines) it's really not. Again, lets see you do better.


The bottom line is when you say anything is over/undercosted, you need to back up your statement with something more than opinions. Because if it were up to me, guardsmen would be 3 points. I think that's a fair cost.

gendoikari87 wrote:They do affect cost, yes. But not the same for every unit.

I certainly acknowledge that you have adjusted the value for various factors. I think this is a very important issue and I respect you for having taken into consideration that the value of a given rule sometimes depends of the unit to which the rule is assigned.

I am more concerned with how you have come to the values in the first place.
I am sure you have chosen values that you feel correctly represents the weight of the rules in question.
I am also equally sure that you have realized that not everybody agrees with the some of the values, such as the value of ATSKNF.

So the value chosen by you is an expression of your opinion. There is no source of information about how GW assigns point values for various rules. In fact, it has been stated by GW that they do not follow a rigid value-structure, but run more along the lines of "what feels right".

That is why I stated that the otherwise excellent and adjusted spreadsheet was an expression of your opinion, and couldn't be presented as Facts or The Truth.
The calculations themselves are completely correct, I am sure. But the values are (pardon me for being overly blunt) made up by you.

Steelmage99 wrote:
The calculations themselves are completely correct, I am sure. But the values are (pardon me for being overly blunt) made up by you.

Aye, this is the crux of the issue, I'm sure the math itself may say one thing. The values plugged into the equations however to represent various special rules however are likely subjective and thus the resultant output of the equations is a reflection of subjective valuation, not necessarily a true reflection of a units actual worth. The oddly low values for armor save ignoring abilities, the huge cost increase allocated to Assault weaponry, the fact that WS and Init 5 through 10 are all costed identically, etc all stand as fairly solid examples of this.

it's not an expression of opinion it's a cost reclamation V space marines, the arguably standard unit in the game.

The reason it's not an "Opinion" is that it's designed so that in a stand up fight each unit is capable of destroying an equal amount of points of the other. This is so you don't have situations where one unit can make up twice it's points on average, essentially meaning you've added that many extra points to your army than the other player. so, not it's not opinion, it's math, based on relative effectiveness.


So to say it is subjective, is factually incorrect.

gendoikari87 wrote:it's not an expression of opinion it's a cost reclamation V space marines, the arguably standard unit in the game.

That may be, but if you aren't taking into account that Init10 is worth more than Init 5, it's not displaying accurate points costs either.

The reason it's not an "Opinion" is that it's designed so that in a stand up fight each unit is capable of destroying an equal amount of points of the other.

ATSKNF removes and avenue for which an opponent do destroy a Space Marine unit, without accounting for this (and in combat, that 1/6 chance to fail becomes rapidly larger with even small negatives) you aren't accurately modeling their value.

This is so you don't have situations where one unit can make up twice it's points on average, essentially meaning you've added that many extra points to your army than the other player. so, not it's not opinion, it's math, based on relative effectiveness.

And a huge subjective costing for abilities, again, such as powerweapons relative to assault 2 bolters over basic rapid fire bolters. There's no reason why the assault 2 over rapid fire should be worth noticeably more than powerweapons.

So to say it is subjective, is factually incorrect.

No, because there are factors in there which you have chosen to factor in a certain way, or not at all. That, in and of itself, is, by definition, subjective.

gendoikari87 wrote:it's not an expression of opinion it's a cost reclamation V space marines, the arguably standard unit in the game.

Can you please elaborate on how that process worked?

Can you please elaborate on how that process worked?

Sure, I can try to give a condense version. There are Four core principals. The first two are Shooting survival, and Shooting damage. Shooting survival is actually how many models die to a marine fire or rather A marines fire. Shooting damage is just the opposite, how many marines do you kill with shooting. Then you have close combat which does take into account who hits first. That's why the equation for that particular Section is several lines long, it's absurdly complicated, and I had to go back and basically write it twice to avoid a loop.

From there have seven sections for calculation. Shooting survival ratio (ratio with the standard score for a marine), Shooting damage ratio, CC Survival, CC damage, Point reclamation (will elaborate in a minute), and vehicle damage potential.

Point reclamation is taken using six turns (this is maximum potential so it does not take into account survivability) and in itself is two parts, the first assuming the unit does nothing but try to shoot, and the other CC. Range affects how many turns you get to shoot. for simplicity sake it was assumed range 24" gets 6 turns and the rest depends on how fast the unit moves so for a jump infantry with 18" range they also get a full 6 turns. The same is done with CC. These are averaged together and all points are then averaged and the point reclamation from vehicle destruction is added to the final overall point value. Internal codex balance has to be done after this, so you can say the calculator is a starting point, which is what it is intended to be.

But that's the condensed version. You can look at it yourself and see how it works. It is by no means perfect, but it's fairly good and gets fairly close to 5th edition costs. *coughitalsogivesevidenceforcodexcreepcough*

That may be, but if you aren't taking into account that Init10 is worth more than Init 5, it's not displaying accurate points costs either.

Like I said it's not perfect, but for most units it's good enough.

And a huge subjective costing for abilities, again, such as powerweapons relative to assault 2 bolters over basic rapid fire bolters. There's no reason why the assault 2 over rapid fire should be worth noticeably more than powerweapons.

That's your opinion, math says otherwise.

gendoikari87 wrote:

There's no reason why the assault 2 over rapid fire should be worth noticeably more than powerweapons.

That's your opinion, math says otherwise.

Really?

Ok. Both have to roll to hit. Both have to roll to wound. Invulnerable saves apply to both.

COVER saves apply to ranged attacks. Ranged attacks have an AP value which means armour saves may still apply where no armour save ever applies to a power weapon. FNP can apply to some ranged attacks but never to a power weapon.

In addition BS remains a constant value where WS can fluctuate for the purposes of rolling ToHit (3+, 4+, 5+ depending on values).

If anything that points to the Power Weapon being worth significantly more as there's 2 more variables in favour of the target's survival than against a power weapon.

@ Polonius

You have to understand that 1 point does not equal 1 point. 1 point of melee specialist is worth more than 1 point of shooty specialist if the unit makes it into melee. If the melee unit can maximize melee time it will be worth more than the shooty unit. That's what people too often ignore or don't understand. You can take that a step further and say 1 point of GK fortituded vehicle does not equal 1 point of SM vehicle, because of how they are used in context of the army.

I guess you "can" compare unit to unit. My point has always been it gets you nowhere meaningful. So what GK Strike squads are better than tac marines? That doesn't help us determine if GK are overpowered. What if XYZ SM unit is also overpowered? Then the two armies might be balanced. Well, extrapolate that a bunch of steps out and you're now comparing army to army, which is what I said in the first place.

Simply put... If you want to effectively convince people that GK are an overpowered book, show that the GK ARMY is overpowered relative to other ARMIES.

On one hand I'd say the only problem with crying OP as though it's an intentional and predictably evil act by GW is that the GW games developers are only human. Trying to balance around 11-12 armies is akin to balancing spinning plates. But jumping immediately back to the first hand, someone should have looked at Warp Quake (other that the writer, writers in any field rarely recognise a mistake they've made) and thought 'won't this unfairly screws with Daemon players? Maybe we should reduce the range or just remove it in favour of some augmentative power like X amount of re-rolls with a successful physic test'.

DarkStarSabre wrote:

gendoikari87 wrote:

There's no reason why the assault 2 over rapid fire should be worth noticeably more than powerweapons.

That's your opinion, math says otherwise.

Really?

Ok. Both have to roll to hit. Both have to roll to wound. Invulnerable saves apply to both.

COVER saves apply to ranged attacks. Ranged attacks have an AP value which means armour saves may still apply where no armour save ever applies to a power weapon. FNP can apply to some ranged attacks but never to a power weapon.

In addition BS remains a constant value where WS can fluctuate for the purposes of rolling ToHit (3+, 4+, 5+ depending on values).

If anything that points to the Power Weapon being worth significantly more as there's 2 more variables in favour of the target's survival than against a power weapon.

If everything was a terminator you would be correct, however there are guardsmen, and orks. against orks power weapons are obviously useless, ore near useless.

What you have forgotten is that with an assault 2 weapon, you have effectively added 2 attacks to your model, at initiative 11. This is accounted for in the codex.

gendoikari87 wrote:
Point reclamation is taken using six turns (this is maximum potential so it does not take into account survivability) and in itself is two parts, the first assuming the unit does nothing but try to shoot, and the other CC. Range affects how many turns you get to shoot. for simplicity sake it was assumed range 24" gets 6 turns and the rest depends on how fast the unit moves so for a jump infantry with 18" range they also get a full 6 turns. The same is done with CC. These are averaged together and all points are then averaged and the point reclamation from vehicle destruction is added to the final overall point value.

Pretty much all of these are subjectively determined. Any time you use the word "assumed", that, by definition, is a subjective entity. Additionally, how exactly is CC reclamation against vehicles determined...?

That's your opinion, math says otherwise.

I think that opinion would be shared by the overwhelmingly vast majority of gamers and is reflected in GW's own costing where Power Weapons are generally not 2pt upgrades but rather usually double-digit upgrades, whereas, in the few situations where it's possible, upgrades to Storm Bolters over normal Bolters are rather cheap, usually 2-3pts more over bolters and in most cases even then still typically not considered worth taking.

Are you honestly going to claim with a straight face that a WS4 BS4 S4 T4 W1 I4 A1 Ld8 3+sv unit sporting an S4 24" range gun and frag/krak grenades should really go from 13.45pts per your calculations to 19.41pts by changing from Rapid Fire to Assault 2.

For basically the same cost using your model, ~6pts using the profile above, going from an S4 24" Rapid Fire weapon to an S4 24" Assault 2 weapon is worth just as much as gaining +1A and a Powerweapon.


Methinks I'm not the only one who's going to find that equivalency laughable, and fewer still who would say that's totally worth it.

As much as you don't want to hear it, will deny it, and will argue about it, there's something in your equations where it's overvaluing Assault shooting weapons.

Answer me this, in what situation would *you* pay 6ppm for Storm Bolters over basic Bolters on a 13.5pt model with the above profile? How often would you take powerweapons and an extra attack on an entire squad for 6ppm on the same unit? If you could only take one of those options, which one would you take? What would most people see as the optimal upgrade?

Gendoikari... I like the effort, but your calculator is flawed.

Example: frag grenades are costed the same on every guy. Shouldn't the cost change depending on if the guy has a power weapon ? or if he is base initiative 2? or base initiative 10? Or on a guy with a heavy weapon who will likely never see combat?

I only looked at the calculator fast, so if you actually addressed those points, then please let me know, but it looked like frag grenades were a hard code.

So what do people get for "winning" this thread? It doesn't seem to be doing any good or be convincing anyone of anything.

Draigo wrote:So what do people get for "winning" this thread? It doesn't seem to be doing any good or be convincing anyone of anything.

For an internet discussion board, there seems to be a lot of complaints about people having discussions...

Leenus wrote:Gendoikari... I like the effort, but your calculator is flawed.

Example: frag grenades are costed the same on every guy. Shouldn't the cost change depending on if the guy has a power weapon ? or if he is base initiative 2? or base initiative 10? Or on a guy with a heavy weapon who will likely never see combat?

I only looked at the calculator fast, so if you actually addressed those points, then please let me know, but it looked like frag grenades were a hard code.

frag grenades were changed to do that, or something like it, but it was one of the last things I did. I'll have to check it to make sure it's the correct version.


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Nope still in it's early 1 point IF your Initiative is higher than or equal to marines. Damn it. I don't feel like navagating the CC damage/survival equation again, after I got it right.

gendoikari87 wrote:If everything was a terminator you would be correct, however there are guardsmen, and orks. against orks power weapons are obviously useless, ore near useless.

Except you don't use a guardsmen or an ork as your measuring stick, you use a Space Marine.

People aren't necessarily objecting to your equations, they are objecting to your arbitrary cost assessments.

Nobody will argue that X+Y=Z is "math" (except for some pedantic people). But when you say that x = 3 and y =2 and therefore z = 5, you are assigning arbitrary values to x and y. That is where most of the people arguing against your calculator are coming from.

I appreciate the effort you've gone through, but without a consensus on your input into the equations, the results are effectively meaningless. Arbitrary in, arbitrary out, if you will.

That said, I have yet to play against GK, so I'll have to reserve judgement on their power level.

Garbage in garbage out!!!

People aren't necessarily objecting to your equations, they are objecting to your arbitrary cost assessments.

what arbitrary cost assesments? Storm shields or the grenades, cause those are the only two that are arbitrary, based off costs in the books.

Draigo wrote:So what do people get for "winning" this thread? It doesn't seem to be doing any good or be convincing anyone of anything.

5 rupies!

gendoikari87 wrote:ext Post:[/size]

Polonius wrote:ATSKNF isn't a leadership bump though... it's an insurance policy against sweeping advance, and also allows for more frequent regrouping. To hand wave away the value of it is worrying.

when the chance of failure is 16% or the effect afterward (remember it only comes into effect after you are below 50%, meaning your going to have maybe 3 marines) it's really not. Again, lets see you do better.

This is not a counter-argument. If people think a movie is bad, the director doesn't get to say, "Yeah, well, let's see you make one!"

The bottom line is when you say anything is over/undercosted, you need to back up your statement with something more than opinions. Because if it were up to me, guardsmen would be 3 points. I think that's a fair cost.

Why do we need to back up our statement with more than opinions? How would we even do that? Saying "blank" is better than "other blank" is inherintely subjective. You can provide examples of why they are better, but at the end of the day, there is no objective answer.

Except GK's, they are objectively broken.

Does anyone have the overall Ardboyz stats for non-placing entries?

I'm interested to see if the distribution of armies in the placings matches the distribution of armies overall.

While GK's have pretty much boned 2 armies (Daemons & Tyranids), I daresay the book is still far from the titanic disaster that 7th ed Daemons were?!! I mean, most competitive armies are now figuring out how to bring to the GK's and they do have their few 'bad match-ups'.

7th ed Fantasy Daemons on the other hand were... 'Game ending', to say the least...

gendoikari87 wrote:

Polonius wrote:ATSKNF isn't a leadership bump though... it's an insurance policy against sweeping advance, and also allows for more frequent regrouping. To hand wave away the value of it is worrying.

when the chance of failure is 16% or the effect afterward (remember it only comes into effect after you are below 50%, meaning your going to have maybe 3 marines) it's really not. Again, lets see you do better.

I don't need to do better. All I need to do is point out that you are making assumptions and deciding what is, and isn't, worth considering.

Which makes your model (which is what your system is, not "math") just like any other model: one that, while not strictly an opinion, also isn't exactly a statement of absolute truth.

Your model is similar in many ways to elaborate painting rubrics. They confer a false set of objectivity to a process that's simply more art than science.

The bottom line is when you say anything is over/undercosted, you need to back up your statement with something more than opinions. Because if it were up to me, guardsmen would be 3 points. I think that's a fair cost.

I think you might not completely understand that meaning of the word opinion. Opinion doesn't mean "things I make up." Likewise, just because you have numbers doesn't make your statements facts.

Nearly all human statements are statements describing the reality that we experience, tainted by our own biases and filters, such that we feel that they are objective truths but rarely are.

Anyways, you don't need to analyze every point cost in every codex, and develop a model to make a reasonable argument about what is and isn't overcosted. For example, the black templar rhino is 50pts, while the vanilla rhino is 35pts. Does anybody really think that the Black Templar book is constructed in such a way that 50pt rhinos are balanced? Or is that simply the result of changing design philosophy?

Now, looking at the vanilla rhino vs. the grey knight rhino, we see that the Grey Knights pay 5pts more, but get the fortitude special rule, which is 1/3 the cost of extra armor and 45-92% as effective in allowing movement, while also allowing the tank to fire. I think a compelling argument can be made that GK transports are undercosted.




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Experiment 626 wrote:While GK's have pretty much boned 2 armies (Daemons & Tyranids), I daresay the book is still far from the titanic disaster that 7th ed Daemons were?!! I mean, most competitive armies are now figuring out how to bring to the GK's and they do have their few 'bad match-ups'.

7th ed Fantasy Daemons on the other hand were... 'Game ending', to say the least...

I agree with this. I actually don't think GK are overpowered in that sense. They wreck two borderline competitive armies (daemons and nids) while hanging with the other top notch lists.

I will say that the book has top notch solutions to nearly every top list, which other armies don't have. Part of that is being newer, but the layers of synergy coupled with a handful of dirt cheap units really makes the list respond well to nearly any threat. Purifiers are a great example. They pay 150pts for five bodies with two pyscannons, two halberds, a hammer, cleansing flamer, and fearless. Aside from death star units, they are pretty durable (especially in a rhino) while spitting out a lot of damage against nearly any target in shooting. A grandmaster can make them scoring without using Crowe, or they can be given counterattack or outflank. Psyfleman dreads do the heavy lifting against dreadnoughts. So, you have the core of a list that's realy good against both Mech and Hordes...

Methinks I found the assault weapon issue. It's somehow being overfactored in the Dead Marines CC equation, with it toggled to 1 instead of 0, it triples the number of marines counted as being killed in CC, blowing the points cost all out of proportion in a phase the weapon does not inflict casualties in.

Additionally, you've got a humongous function (=(2^C44)*E17*E24*(1/3)*(G2-G2*((E18*E22*E26))*(1/E2)*(1/2^C35)*E28)+(1-C56)*C41*L2+(1-C56)*C43*E25*E23/3+E17*5/6*C54*(2^C56*(1-1*((1/2^C35)*(1/E2)*(((E18*E22*E26))*(1-E17*E24*((2^C44)/3)*G2*E27)+(4/6)*E21*E26))*E28))+E25*5/6*C56+2.5*C56/3)) that I can't help think is grossly overthought and prone to easy errors.

Particularly with the Power Weapon conditional.

(2^C44)*E17*E24*(1/3): PW conditional*Chance to hit*chance to wound*chance to fail save

the (2^C44) in this case doesn't really make a whole lot of sense

For a basic marine statline, If we input 0, obviously the unit has no PW and it doesn't have any effect and we get 0.0833 average wounds inflicting (which is also easily accomplished simply by (0.5x0.5x(1/3)). If we input 1, we get 2*0.5*0.5*1/3. This result gives us 0.166. If we input 2 we get 0.33

However, if a PW were present, the equation really should just be 0.5 (chance to hit) x 0.5 (chance to wound) and no armor saves are possible ergo we go straight to equation resolution which then =0.25 average wounds inflicted, not a possible output to get without using a non-integer value in the PW special rules cell.

Then, we have some oddball issue in there where we get an additional "+(1-C56)*C41*L2". C56 is Servo Harness, C41 is Assault Weapon, L2 is the average dead marines from shooting. So essentially we're adding into this function a huge bit about the presence of a servo harness and for some reason including a multiplier based on the presence of an assault weapon multiplied by average casualties inflicted in a different phase.

So we have a systemic overvaluing of the assault weapon quality, and a drastic undervaluing of the presence of a Powerweapon.


Furthermore, when it comes to shooting, the arbitrary value of 1.5 shots for Rapid Fire weapons is a very subjective value, based on a simple average shot output over it's entire range spectrum but not taking count of the fact that most of the time such weapons are firing is at optimal (2 shot) range as opposed to 1 shot range.

There is some potentially cool stuff in here, but many of these equations are in fact not taking correct account of their variables.

I am enjoying the discussion in this thread and the arguments going back and forth. I do not see to many personal attacks worth mentioning and the discussion is continuing in good faith.

Kudos to the participants and know that at least one person finds this very interesting.

I'm curious when they wrote the codex if they were just comparing them to the new codexes while trying to maintain the flavor of the old book. I mean the old gk werent slouches in cc either but add some stuff like psyfleman, storm raven, etc to them and you see a dramatic in the armies ability. Im curious about how the gk are too powerful crowd would balance the book without making them so over costed that they would still fit the fluff but still fit into a completely mech 5th edition. GK arent a mech army(or at least werent fluff wise).

This thread is hilarious.

I've only lost to GK once since the book came out, and that was at the BAO against an excellent player.

I do enjoy the tears and hate though. It's just another reason why my next child, boy or girl, will be named Matt Ward.

gendoikari87 wrote:If everything was a terminator you would be correct, however there are guardsmen, and orks. against orks power weapons are obviously useless, ore near useless.

What you have forgotten is that with an assault 2 weapon, you have effectively added 2 attacks to your model, at initiative 11. This is accounted for in the codex.

Ah, yes, of course. Because you don't get Mega-Armour, 'Eavy Armour, Carapace armour or the fluky ability to roll a 6 and save your hide regardless.

You're now comparing shooting attacks to melee attacks. I think it's already been explained further on....melee is greater than shooting, simply because one provides immunity to the other where the other doesn't.

In addition there are more chances to survive a shooting attack than a power weapon. What's more you're a bit flawed in your thinking there.

Power weapons aren't really useless against IG or Orks. They're not as effective but they still kill things without allowing them an armour save.

What was near useless against IG and Orks was a Heavy Close Combat weapon - which negated saves to a 4+ at best - something that didn't matter against armies where 4+ tended to be the best anyhow.

gendoikari87 wrote:

People aren't necessarily objecting to your equations, they are objecting to your arbitrary cost assessments.

what arbitrary cost assesments? Storm shields or the grenades, cause those are the only two that are arbitrary, based off costs in the books.

Furious charge? Fleet of foot? Were those costs not arbitrary?

Again, many people think your onto a good idea here and it just needs a little tweaking.
Don't mistake critiques or suggestions for attacks, as getting defensive will not help any productive discussions,

Leenus wrote:Garbage in garbage out!!!

For those people who are just poo'ing all over your base idea without critiques or suggestions -- Its hard to build and add. Its easy to tear down. Which makes for a better community? Sure gendoikari8 is a bit defensive, but that's no reason to be rude. Especially from someone who represents an entire country at the ETC.

You're now comparing shooting attacks to melee attacks. I think it's already been explained further on....melee is greater than shooting, simply because one provides immunity to the other where the other doesn't.

any you also get less turns of CC, which means less chance to do something, and you have to get theret o do something in the first place. So being good at CC is cheaper than being equally as good at shooting. Now if you have an assault 2 weapon you're good at both, or at least better at both.

Furious charge? Fleet of foot? Were those costs not arbitrary?

Furious charge is done by hand, by averaging the stats with and with out the bonuses.

Fleet as I have explained before add a distance modifier to the turns you can be in meele, what ever changes that makes to the profile are it's "cost"

So no, they aren't arbitrary, they aren't even direct costs, they are simply factors you put into the data that then computes the whole cost.

Again, many people think your onto a good idea here and it just needs a little tweaking.
Don't mistake critiques or suggestions for attacks, as getting defensive will not help any productive discussions,

I understand that but people are calling things arbitrary which are simply factors that go into determining combat effectiveness which afterward gets translated into cost. These factors are things i was able to model in the sheet just like rolling to hit and rolling to wound. So I fail to see how that is arbitrary.

gendoikari87 wrote: Now if you have an assault 2 weapon you're good at both, or at least better at both.

Incorrect, having an Assault class weapon has no bearing on a units CC capability other than the ability to initiate an assault after shooting.

An assault classed weapon has no bearing on the outcome of a close combat.


Likewise, it doesn't necessarily make a unit better at shooting, it depends on what their alternatives are. Guardians would actually be improved by gaining access to a 24" Rapid Fire weapon over the 12" Assault 2 weapon for instance given that they aren't ever really going to be assaulting anything and it'd give them more firepower at longer ranges while not changing their short range firepower one bit.

ncorrect, having an Assault class weapon has no bearing on a units CC capability other than the ability to initiate an assault after shooting.

An assault classed weapon has no bearing on the outcome of a close combat.

..... no bearing on assault huh? So can all my models have 2 extra attacks at initiative 11 on the charge as long as they don't count to combat resolution? I'm fairly sure you'd change your mind after having to deal with that.

Likewise, it doesn't necessarily make a unit better at shooting, it depends on what their alternatives are. Guardians would actually be improved by gaining access to a 24" Rapid Fire weapon over the 12" Assault 2 weapon for instance given that they aren't ever really going to be assaulting anything and it'd give them more firepower at longer ranges while not changing their short range firepower one bit.

Only because the range is 12", if they were Range 18 however, the assault weapon is much better.

gendoikari87 wrote:
..... no bearing on assault huh? So can all my models have 2 extra attacks at initiative 11 on the charge as long as they don't count to combat resolution? I'm fairly sure you'd change your mind after having to deal with that.

Here is your big mistake, you are looking at the shooting attacks as though they counted as part of the CC round. They don't. You're double-taxing those inflicted casualties as effectively counting twice.

Sure, the shooting may shift the odds more in the favor of the assaulting unit, but without counting towards combat resolution you cannot count them as being worth as much as the casualties actually inflicted during the combat even if you did count them as being in the assault phase and not the shooting phase (and in this case, you're counting them as occurring in *both* which simply isn't reflective of the true situation at all).

Only because the range is 12", if they were Range 18 however, the assault weapon is much better.

Potentially yes (given the relatively static nature of the Guardian unit the range tradeoff with the 24" RF gun is debateable) however the fact that the equation still drastically overvalues the assault weapon in this case shows it needs tweaking.

Just about everybody considers guardians to be drastically overpriced as is. Your calculator puts them at ~2.5pts higher than the price at which people already don't like taking them, whereas with a 24" RF weapon they suddenly go down to being 1.5pts cheaper than they are now with what is a more effective weapon.

Yay! I'm unbanned! Why is this thread still here? Oh god, what is all this?

..... no bearing on assault huh? So can all my models have 2 extra attacks at initiative 11 on the charge as long as they don't count to combat resolution? I'm fairly sure you'd change your mind after having to deal with that

Yeah! And my dev squad gets an extra round of close combat during my shooting phase where it throws out its strength 9 power weapon attacks at 48 inches! It does this three turns before you get to strike back!

You do realize that by the virtue of the shooting and assault phases being different things that assault weapons actually do have no bearing in the assault phase, correct? That they're a non entity except insofar as they set up the board for favorable assaults. Something heavy or rapid fire weapons can do as well considering that your calculations should not logically assume unit trajectories in a vacume. No. You don't. In actual practice you can safely assume that half of all assault weapons used in games on a platform that didn't pop out of an assault vehicle won't be fired at all due to the threat of casualties being removed from models in assault range (thus preventing the assault) or due to the use of fleet. Following this thread without being able to reply has been ironic torture.

Only because the range is 12", if they were Range 18 however, the assault weapon is much better.

That is correct. But they aren't range 18.

So no, they aren't arbitrary, they aren't even direct costs, they are simply factors you put into the data that then computes the whole cost.

you don't know what the word arbitrary means

ar·bi·trar·y   [ahr-bi-trer-ee] Show IPA adjective, noun, plural -trar·ies.
adjective
1.
subject to individual will or judgment without restriction; contingent solely upon one's discretion: an arbitrary decision.
2.
decided by a judge or arbiter rather than by a law or statute.

VaktathSure wrote:, the shooting may shift the odds more in the favor of the assaulting unit, but without counting towards combat resolution you cannot count them as being worth as much as the casualties actually inflicted during the combat even if you did count them as being in the assault phase and not the shooting phase (and in this case, you're counting them as occurring in *both* which simply isn't reflective of the true situation at all). .

Furthermore, most of the time you don't want to shoot on the way to assault.

A smart player will pluck off the models closest to your unit. Its very easy to deny the charge to someone by pulling off all the models that were within 6" of the shooting unit. This happens all the time in competitive play.
A clever C:SM player will use combat tactics to fall back, rally, then shoot the piss out of the assault unit. I do this with my C:SM bike army all the time to great effect.

Your probably already going to be assaulting with a CC hammer unit that is going to win, so the shooting on the way in does not do much good. Lets face it, not many people assault with eldar guardians after shooting.
That deathwing squad with 5 TH/SS will wipe out the 10 man TAQ squad weather or not they fired the cyclone ML into it first. The termies would feel really stupid if they could not assault b/c of the cyclone's shooting.

The bottom line, shooting before assault is something you don't want to do 75% of the time. As such, assault weapons don't bring that much to the CC party.

What assault weapons do is allow you to move and fire at full strength. That's why storm bolters are better than normal bolters, and why people take shootas. The ability to move to maximize your shots is invalueable.

Here is your big mistake, you are looking at the shooting attacks as though they counted as part of the CC round. They don't. You're double-taxing those inflicted casualties as effectively counting twice.

you are correct but they both get to be done. Period. end of story. Assault adds damage to the CC phase because you GET to shoot into it. otherwise you loose those attacks. Vice versa it could also be looked at as adding damage to the shooting phase, in the end it doesn't matter but both forms of damage are applied where normally only one would. That's HUGE.

you don't know what the word arbitrary means

no you don't understand what I'm saying. nothing in those is subjective, contrary to what you want to believe they are factors that go into calculating who does what. which then gets compared to a baseline, there is nothing about that, that is arbitrary.

The only arbitrary costs that are NOT factors in determining combat effectiveness are the shields and krak grenades.

P.S. Saying something is arbitrary does not make it so. I could call the speed of light arbitrary but that doesn't make it so.

gendoikari87 wrote:
you are correct but they both get to be done. Period. end of story. Assault adds damage to the CC phase because you GET to shoot into it. otherwise you loose those attacks. Vice versa it could also be looked at as adding damage to the shooting phase, in the end it doesn't matter but both forms of damage are applied where normally only one would. That's HUGE.

Right, I'm not debating that Assault weapons have additional value, but you're grossly overvaluing that. You're counting those shooting casualties as having happened twice, which just isn't true. The way the Assault weapon value is factored in also makes very little sense as I explained on the last page.

I'll ask again, putting aside all the calculations, would you pay 21pts for a basic Space Marine with a Storm Bolter over a 15pt Space Marine with a basic Bolter? Would you pay 21pts for a basic Space Marine with 2A base and a Powerweapon? Between the two, which would you take more often?

no you don't understand what I'm saying. nothing in those is subjective, contrary to what you want to believe they are factors that go into calculating who does what. which then gets compared to a baseline, there is nothing about that, that is arbitrary.

Please read that definition again. Keep reading it until you understand what it means. You are placing arbitrary point cost values on things. They are arbitrary because you are not basing them in any previous writ or established code and you are not vetting them through peer review or repetitious objective analysis. You are using subjective evaluations in your calculations which make the final results arbitrary. That's just what this gak means. It doesn't invalidate your efforts, but your treatment of these results as a science is foolish because virtually nothing in your efforts is sourced from quantitative analysis and indeed couldn't be.

The only arbitrary costs that are NOT factors in determining combat effectiveness are the shields and krak grenades.

Why are these ones arbitrary when nothing is arbitrary?

P.S. Saying something is arbitrary does not make it so. I could call the speed of light arbitrary but that doesn't make it so.

Correct. What it would do is further demonstrate that you seem to fundamentally misunderstand the definitions for both arbitrary and subjective.

expalin to me how Rolling to hit/wound/ and armor saves is arbitrary because that's how everything else is worked out. please explain that.

gendoikari87 wrote:expalin to me how Rolling to hit/wound/ and armor saves is arbitrary because that's how everything else is worked out. please explain that.

No. Because that part is a statistical analysis of results. While this is actually a bad argument and you're arguing results from what would logically be a biased sample with few constraints and several billion possible permutations, that's fairly irrelevant since it's not what anyone has been saying. What is arbitrary is the point costing you are assigning and then lensing through that analysis. The costing is what is subjective and arbitrary (well, that and most of the rest of it, but this is the one thats most important).

which people have been saying for four pages

Much as I like you Shuma with your jovial aggression and comically venomous retorts, I cant agree with you on this topic.

I've only read the first page like, If you have further elucidated on your opinion, then ... actually feth it, I cant be bothered reading it all. Im not interested enough if were not talking politics and Religion.

Yeah, but most codex can have ultra powered cheese lists that are ridiculous, but I think if you make a normal "fun" fluffy GK list, they will just be good, as all new dexs are, but at 1000pts I'm generally happier playing GK than endless SW fething Longfang spam.

15 ML shooting at 9 different targets at 1000pts gives me the rage.

mattyrm wrote: Much as I like you Shuma with your jovial aggression and comically venomous retorts, I cant agree with you on this topic.

I've only read the first page like, If you have further elucidated on your opinion, then ... actually feth it, I cant be bothered reading it all. Im not interested enough if were not talking politics and Religion.

Yeah, but most codex can have ultra powered cheese lists that are ridiculous, but I think if you make a normal "fun" fluffy GK list, they will just be good, as all new dexs are, but at 1000pts I'm generally happier playing GK than endless SW fething Longfang spam.

15 ML shooting at 9 different targets at 1000pts gives me the rage.

I got banned at like page 3 due to something I said in OT, so this isn't my thread. Never really was. It's gone to terrible places, you might like it!

Oh right, If its turned into a total bag of bastards then its got my full attention.

Definetley followed by BA

Draigo wrote:I'm curious when they wrote the codex if they were just comparing them to the new codexes while trying to maintain the flavor of the old book. I mean the old gk werent slouches in cc either but add some stuff like psyfleman, storm raven, etc to them and you see a dramatic in the armies ability. Im curious about how the gk are too powerful crowd would balance the book without making them so over costed that they would still fit the fluff but still fit into a completely mech 5th edition. GK arent a mech army(or at least werent fluff wise).

I think the costs are about right where they should be honestly. The storm bolter does to GEQ's what the force toys do to MEQ's/MC's, while the psyk-out grenades are situational to say the least and GK's aren't fearless thank god!
Hammerhand is annoying at times, but there's far worse that needs dealing with.

Things I'd change;
- Remove Psychotroke grenades completely. They're so beyond broken it isn't even funny. All they do is leave a bad taste in an opponent's mouth as with a single roll, a GK squad can pretty much auto-win any assault thanks to these. (and you can include a hienous amount through techmarines!)
At the very least, a new table needs to be put in place. The current one is awful!

- Rad Grenades don't affect the 'Instant Death!' threshold. This would go a long way to making all those T4 multi-wound units viable against the typical S6 builds you see a number of GK assault units pulling through the addition of a single IC.

- Psybolt costs scale according to what vehicle it's on. The cost is fine for somehting like a razorback, or a crusader as it loses the 'defensive weapon' attribute of it's hurrican bolters for example. But psyflemen dreads are again too good for their cost. I don't think most GK players would object if they had to pay 15-20pts additional tax simply because 4x BS4/twin-linked S8 shots really is that good!
I'd also make them a pts/model based cost for squads so that they become viable for smaller squads instead of a 'only worthwhile if you're 10-man' type of upgrade.

- Swap the cost of the Falchions & Halberds. Sorry, but even the MoS is only +1I. Halberds are grossly effective and are too easy a counter to units that rely on their high initiative to be effective. Plus, I think falchions are over costed for what's only +1A in a game where assaults are decided more by higher initiative.
Either that or drop the cost of falchion to equal the cost of halberds, AND reduce halberds to just +1I. (I5 is still damn good, but at least those I6 glass cannon units like incubi or genestealers become relevent again!)

- Fortitude becomes an upgrade that costs at least the same as extra armour! (more likely I'd cost it along the line of Daemonic Possession).
Again, lots of opponents cry because GK's get the game's best MSU mech for seemingly 'free' when you compare how much better Fortitude is to other similar upgrades. Plus, you have armies like Orks, Tau, Chaos Marines, Daemons and such who have no actual way to counter psychic abilities!

- Clensing Flame only affects models in base-to-base with the Purifyers. GK's already have solid anti-horde ability with their plentiful shooting. Flame is just unfair to armies like orks & 'nids who get utterly raped by just 6 models.

- Warp Quake only a 6" range. (My Daemons have had enough of d-bag GK players auto-winning by quaking the entire board thank-you very much!)

- Dark Excomunication does not remove a Daemon Prince's mark of chaos!!!

- Hammerhand's +1S bonus is applied after other modifyers like double strength of Daemonahmmers - not before! (again, this just smacks of GK's having to be 'the best' for no real reason - everyone else follows the rules, why should GK's get what's essentially a 'free' perk?!)



Things like the wound allocation shinanigans (abuses?!) of Paldains for example are rumored to be addressed come 6th ed, so fine, I can live with draigowing having it's year or so of domination if it's going to be brought into line come July. (just as mech is rumored to be getting a slight nerfing soas to make foot slogger viable again).

But I think there are a number of OTT design issues that didn't need to be so outragous and could do with only minor ajustments to make the Grey Knights far less obnoxious to most opponents. It's not like alot of the above 'ruins' them or makes them crap, but it would be nice to see for example 30 orks not explode anymore to just 5 models!

While the excel sheet is an interesting exercise by itself and can be used as a tool to BROADLY gauge certain stuff it's inherently flawed for two reasons

1) In any model you will input certain assumptions. The calculations following from those assumptions can't be disputed but they're only so good as the assumptions themselves. Since there is no objective measure of determining the input (you can't test a model in a lab and "measure" it's points cost) any conclusion drawn from such a model will be inherently subjective.

2) No unit functions in a vacuum, therefore any mathematical model that does not factor in the entire context of the game (and such a thing is too complicated to make) is unreliable. GW themselves realized this about ten years ago. They used to work with a similar system (WHFB 5th ed. rulebook had charts for this for designing you own characters, +1S was worth x, +1I was worth y) etc... and it simply doesn't work because it doesn't account for context. They now use a more holistic approach where units are costed relative to the value of certain things within the context of that particular army list

But by all means, continue

The best example has to be a KFF Big Mek. It's a two wound character with nob stats and has pretty crappy hitting power/durability.

Ain't nobody gonna argue he's undercosted!

Monster Rain wrote:This thread is hilarious.

I've only lost to GK once since the book came out, and that was at the BAO against an excellent player.

I do enjoy the tears and hate though. It's just another reason why my next child, boy or girl, will be named Matt Ward.

Thank you sir, hope to see you there this year.

Brother Dimetrius wrote: They now use a more holistic approach where units are costed relative to the value of certain things within the context of that particular army list

Still doesn't explain the Pyrovore.

I wasn't implying they were necessarily good at it

Dok wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:This thread is hilarious.

I've only lost to GK once since the book came out, and that was at the BAO against an excellent player.

I do enjoy the tears and hate though. It's just another reason why my next child, boy or girl, will be named Matt Ward.

Thank you sir, hope to see you there this year.

Credit where credit is due.

I am planning on showing up again, it was a great time. Reecius and the boys put together a nice event. This time I'll probably be playing my new and improved Necrons!

Methinks I found the assault weapon issue. It's somehow being overfactored in the Dead Marines CC equation, with it toggled to 1 instead of 0, it triples the number of marines counted as being killed in CC, blowing the points cost all out of proportion in a phase the weapon does not inflict casualties in.

huh? um... that should be the power weapon one I'll have to go check the fucntion. The assault weapon button adds the Shooting damage to the CC.

gendoikari87 wrote:

Methinks I found the assault weapon issue. It's somehow being overfactored in the Dead Marines CC equation, with it toggled to 1 instead of 0, it triples the number of marines counted as being killed in CC, blowing the points cost all out of proportion in a phase the weapon does not inflict casualties in.

huh? um... that should be the power weapon one I'll have to go check the fucntion. The assault weapon button adds the Shooting damage to the CC.

Yup, we've got two issues there, the PW and Assault weapon values are swapped, and you're counting the kills from the Shooting phase *twice*. If you're going to factor them into CC, you can't also consider them shooting kills.

You can't kill the same models twice.

If they're killed in the shooting phase they not only don't count towards combat resolution (meaning they can't be counted as being worth as much as those killed in the actual CC phase, which reminds me, you may want to check to make sure they *aren't* counting towards resolution) but also run the risk of killing too many guys and being unable to assault and so won't always fire if they aren't very sure they can make it. Additionally, given that the Assault weapons usually have a range of 18-24", it doesn't always mean they'll be in assault range when firing.

Grey Knights aren't overpowered. They're an army with a fabulously low model count, and there are plenty of armies out there that punish them for it.

If they want to fire beyond 24", they have Psyflmen Dreads and nothing else. I promise that for every game they go firing every turn and fortituding any stunned or shakens away there's a game where they fail a cover save turn 1 and explode before firing a shot.

Tau laugh heartily at them, because CC prowess on GK level is entirely wasted upon them, as units far less capable are also capable of cleaning their clocks. Railguns + cover save stripping Markerlights obliterate Psyflmen and transports, and Tau sweat AP 2 weaponry and torrential Str 5 shooting.

Eldar have a piece of wargear that makes one of the biggest strengths of the GK army, it's psychic powers, extremely risky to use, and it blankets the table with no range limit. Holo-fields and Re-rollable cover saves ensure that transports can stand up to Psyflmen fire, and with such mobility allow the Eldar to pick their fights. Also, the army sports both Banshees and Harlequins, units that, especially with psychic power support, are capable taking on most GK units short of Pallie deathstars in CC.

Imperial Guard are much the same as Tau, in that GK CC prowess is largely irrelevant, and they have the firepower to obliterate multiple GK units in a single shooting phase if they are left exposed. They don't have snazzy markerlights, but generally IG have a greater amount of weapons to save against, which should make up the difference.

Other Marines are who GKs are awesome against, and even then it's not by default. All of the current marine books have the ability to fight GKs on even ground. Pack as much Las, Plasma, and Melta into a Marine list as you can (it's a much higher number than you'd think), and see who wins the shoot out.

Panzerboy26 wrote:Grey Knights aren't overpowered. They're an army with a fabulously low model count

Unless they forget they have access to Henchmen units.

If they want to fire beyond 24", they have Psyflmen Dreads and nothing else.

Razorbacks, Land Raiders, Stormravens, Jokaero, Chimeras, Vindicare's, conversion beamers, etc. There is in fact units that have greater than a 24" range in the book besides *just* Psyrifle dreads.

I promise that for every game they go firing every turn and fortituding any stunned or shakens away there's a game where they fail a cover save turn 1 and explode before firing a shot.

How is that different from any other army?

I disagree with that, the most overpowered book GW has released in the past Decade is Fantasy Daemons of Chaos 7th Edition book.

I'd say that the Grey Knights is the 40k equivalent of the Fantasy Demons.

That demons codex all but destroyed Fantasy's presence at my local club for a very long period of time, right up until 8th in fact. - Noone would touch the game with a barge pole, preferring instead WAB or even WOTR for a while.

And since GK has come out, 40k has been massively struggling as well... There's even questions posted up on the club forums about 'what can we use our 40k models for, that isn't 40k.'

Conversely, the question for fantasy right now is. "What models can I use for my games of Fantasy that arn't GW."

- Fortunately, the answer to that is easy... MANTIC!

Vaktathi wrote: Unless they forget they have access to Henchmen units.

Which require them to dilute their combat prowess, as well as take characters to unlock them for either Troops or Elites. You can bulk the numbers of the army out with these units, sure, but the list of gripes about Grey Knights generally don't apply to to them, i.e. most assault units are perfectly capable of curb-stomping henchmen units.

Vaktathi wrote: Razorbacks, Land Raiders, Stormravens, Jokaero, Chimeras, Vindicare's, conversion beamers, etc. There is in fact units that have greater than a 24" range in the book besides *just* Psyrifle dreads.

Godhammer pattern Land Raiders are the only model that has the ability to fire beyond 24", and I can't honestly say that I've ever seen an army list sporting one, much less people griping about it being in the list.

Stormravens are, from what I have seen, used as assault transports, being within 24" of the enemy from pretty much the first chance they get to move if they have anything to say about it. 200+ pts for one TL Lascannon to hang back with armor 12 isn't something I'd be concerned about in the long range firepower department.

Jokaero, as stated above, fall under henchmen, and for every unit of them you take your list becomes less and less able to not sweat assault units.

Razorbacks are hardly new, and they're not exactly cheap if you put lascannons on them. The psybolt Hvy. Bolter version is the only one that can actually be counted as reasonably cheap for what you get, and I still don't see what's so great about it. 3 Str 6 shots doesn't strike me as anything to get excited about unless you're fighting against DE.

Chimeras? I'd think it'd be more the things inside of them that are scary. Unless you're playing against DE, as a Guard player I can attest that generally a Chimera isn't all that threatening shooting wise unless taken in large numbers, things that I don't see in GK lists.

I'll bow out to the Vindicare, decent point, he's pretty good with all of his special shots no longer being one per game, specially the new and improved Turbo Penetrator. However, you'll at least never see more than one of them.

Vaktathi wrote: How is that different from any other army?

It's not. That's my point. They're vehicles, and like every other army with vehicles, the same remedies, counters, and weaknesses apply, making them not overpowered or broken.

The biggest issue with grey knights isnt that they are vastly over powered. Not saying they arent! It is that they can hard counter a majority of the armies out there more then any other codex. Adding onto to that most things that other codexs can do well, the grey knights can do just as well and in most cases better. Its hard to take an allcomers list that can fight every army as well as grey knights. I came pretty close to a build that could at the ard boyz finals but ran into Draigowing in a dawn of war annihilation mission. Needless to say he got 4 to 5 kill points and won the game lol. Perhaps the reason grey knights don't consistently take first is because they still have to roll well get doable missions against opponents (example: playing against nids on capture and hold compared to table quarters vs Tau). Once you reach a certain level between gamers it comes down to dice and matchups. If you make 80% of your flak armor saves with your guardsman your gonna go far. If you fail 60% of your marine saves go ahead and pack your stuff up because your going home early.

My issue isn't with grey knights being too good. Its that sometimes they can autowin against certain armies. Pending your dice pulling off a statistical miracle. Same reason DE wipe the floor with Nids. IG wipe the floor with DE. Grey Knights wipe the floor with everyone but SW and IG. Sure you can still win with those match-ups but statistically it aint gonna happen given the same skill level per side and a competitive build.

A lot of people seem to think that Fortitude is underpriced and compare it to Extra Armor. This strikes me as very silly, since they have the relationship the wrong way around. Fortitude isn't underpriced; Extra Armor is overpriced. If Extra Armor went back down to 5 points (as it should), we wouldn't see these complaints. Does anyone complain that Blood Angel Devastators are underpriced because they cost less than Space Marine Devastators? No, because-- as Long Fangs have demonstrated-- normal Marine Devastator heavy weapons are overpriced, and the BA Devs have been adjusted to cost the correct amount. The same goes for Fortitude and Extra Armor.

Panzerboy26 wrote:
Which require them to dilute their combat prowess, as well as take characters to unlock them for either Troops or Elites. You can bulk the numbers of the army out with these units, sure, but the list of gripes about Grey Knights generally don't apply to to them, i.e. most assault units are perfectly capable of curb-stomping henchmen units.

Taking a just 2 or 3 henchmen units with a transport costs only a few hundred points and hugely bulks out numbers and firepower, especially melta/long range firepower. You have far more than enough points left over for the assault units.

Godhammer pattern Land Raiders are the only model that has the ability to fire beyond 24" and I can't honestly say that I've ever seen an army list sporting one, much less people griping about it being in the list.

I'm not making a judgement call on Land Raiders, however it is a unit with three twin linked weapons available to the army with greater than 24" range.

Stormravens are, from what I have seen, used as assault transports, being within 24" of the enemy from pretty much the first chance they get to move if they have anything to say about it. 200+ pts for one TL Lascannon to hang back with armor 12 isn't something I'd be concerned about in the long range firepower department.

It's not something you sit back and have shoot from the back of the board, but it is a mobile gun platform with PotMS that can fire at a long range target if it needs to. It's another avenue that gives them >24" firepower on a fairly popular platform.

Jokaero, as stated above, fall under henchmen, and for every unit of them you take your list becomes less and less able to not sweat assault units.

And again, they're so cheap that you're really not.

Razorbacks are hardly new

Didn't say they were

and they're not exactly cheap if you put lascannons on them.

Cheap enough that they're the MSU spam transport of choice that's much maligned in GK, SW, and BA armies, and can't be shut down as a firing platform really without tearing off the gun or killing it. Also, it helps that you can take them as basically 92pt armored scoring units with a henchmen squad.

The psybolt Hvy. Bolter version is the only one that can actually be counted as reasonably cheap for what you get

This just isn't true. If you check out many of the GK army list threads and see what's popular at tournaments, you will see a great number of TLLC/LCTLPG/Psybolt Assault Cannon Razorbacks

Chimeras? I'd think it'd be more the things inside of them that are scary.

with two 36" range heavy weapons, they can put out enough firepower to make themselves useful.

Unless you're playing against DE, as a Guard player I can attest that generally a Chimera isn't all that threatening shooting wise unless taken in large numbers, things that I don't see in GK lists.

It's not difficult to bring 3 or 4 on top of the scary assault units, walkers, and whatnot for even cheaper than the IG can take them.

I'll bow out to the Vindicare, decent point, he's pretty good with all of his special shots no longer being one per game, specially the new and improved Turbo Penetrator. However, you'll at least never see more than one of them.

True.

It's not. That's my point. They're vehicles, and like every other army with vehicles, the same remedies, counters, and weaknesses apply, making them not overpowered or broken.

The fact that 5pts buys them immunity to 66% of glanced and 33% of penetrating hit results 92% of the time is a wee bit silly.

Fetterkey wrote:Fortitude isn't underpriced; Extra Armor is overpriced.

Extra Armor is overpriced yes. Fortitude however is underpriced, by no small amount. EA simply downgrades a Stunned result to shaken, it still means a vehicle cannot shoot. Fortitude flat out removes the result. If other armies had access to Fortitude for 5pts, 10pts, 15pts or even 20pts, you'd see it on a humongous number of units.

Chaos Space Marines have it but downgrade to BS3 and it costs 20pts.

I tied a coteaz henchman army. They are much stronger in assault than you'd believe with death cult sins being only 15 PTs per model now with furious charge and initiative 6

Fetterkey wrote:A lot of people seem to think that Fortitude is underpriced and compare it to Extra Armor. This strikes me as very silly, since they have the relationship the wrong way around. Fortitude isn't underpriced; Extra Armor is overpriced. If Extra Armor went back down to 5 points (as it should), we wouldn't see these complaints. Does anyone complain that Blood Angel Devastators are underpriced because they cost less than Space Marine Devastators? No, because-- as Long Fangs have demonstrated-- normal Marine Devastator heavy weapons are overpriced, and the BA Devs have been adjusted to cost the correct amount. The same goes for Fortitude and Extra Armor.

Your point about the devastators is interesting, in that you can tell when they get the price right by how many of a unit people tend to take. I very very rarely see space marine devastators (150 for 4 rockets), occasionally see blood angel devastators (130 for 4 rockets), and see long fangs spammed everywhere (115 for 4 rockets).

If something is spammed, that's a good indication that it is underpriced. Razorbacks in general, Long Fangs, Purifiers and Henchmen, Venoms for DE. All good examples. If something is taken in moderation, that's a good indication that it's reasonably priced. Space Wolf scouts, Space Marine Landspeeders, and Blood Angel Devastators all fit here. If something is only taken because it's required (as troops) or never taken, that's a good indication that it's overpriced. Like Mandrakes, or Skyclaw packs.

Extra Armour is probably priced appropriately. I see people take it, sometimes. I rarely see it spammed.

And Death Cultists have no frag grenades so unless assaulting out of an expensive landraider, it's rather unlikely they'll manage to avoid being I1.

Mainly it seems to me that people grumble about two things. GK having changed the 'metagame' by making some previously favoured lists an unattractive match up against some GK builds, coupled with of course the perceived 'overpowered' nature of the codex. These latter gripes, in my opinion, don't take into account the fact that it is impossible to field an efficient GK force that actually utilises all the advantages folk are moaning about. In general I find it is players of 'top tier' codices who moan loudest because their lists are often the most undermined by various GK builds.

It's also quite important to realise that the GK codex can make quite a few decent builds, including but not restricted to:

Coteaz/henchmen/mech MSU (with or without dreadnought support)
Crowe/purifier/mech msu/dreadnought support
Draigo/foot paladins
Draigo/stormraven paladins
Teleport lists (Strikes supporting Interceptors and Dreadknights)

and so on.

All these lists have different pros and cons and play very differently. This wide variety of possible builds may contribute to the erroneous notion that GK are overpowered.

Vaktathi wrote:The fact that 5pts buys them immunity to 66% of glanced and 33% of penetrating hit results 92% of the time is a wee bit silly.

Fetterkey wrote:Fortitude isn't underpriced; Extra Armor is overpriced.

Extra Armor is overpriced yes. Fortitude however is underpriced, by no small amount. EA simply downgrades a Stunned result to shaken, it still means a vehicle cannot shoot. Fortitude flat out removes the result. If other armies had access to Fortitude for 5pts, 10pts, 15pts or even 20pts, you'd see it on a humongous number of units.

Fortitude doesn't work all the time. It fails 1/9 of the time (double ones is essentially failure since it removes the existing result but inflicts another that could be worse), and is vulnerable to psychic defenses, which reduce its success rate to less than 50-50. Extra Armor, on the other hand, works completely reliably. If Extra Armor cost 5 points-- as it did in earlier editions-- it would be completely balanced with Fortitude, with Fortitude being a riskier option but allowing shooting (and thus being better for shooty transports) and Extra Armor being completely reliable but not allowing shooting (and thus being better for Rhinos and the like).

Redbeard wrote:Your point about the devastators is interesting, in that you can tell when they get the price right by how many of a unit people tend to take. I very very rarely see space marine devastators (150 for 4 rockets), occasionally see blood angel devastators (130 for 4 rockets), and see long fangs spammed everywhere (115 for 4 rockets).

The funny part about this is that Blood Angel Devastators are better than Long Fangs, but they haven't made as much of a splash as Long Fangs have-- probably thanks to very strong competition from Fast vehicles in the BA Heavy Support slot.

Fetterkey wrote:
The funny part about this is that Blood Angel Devastators are better than Long Fangs,

Care to back this up with some reasoning? I disagree. Nothing Blood Angel devastators have helps them in their primary role to the extent that long fangs being able to split fire helps them.

Consider the matchup against dark eldar. 3 units of long fangs, for a total of less than 400 points, can suppress six skimmers. Three units of blood angel devastators can only deal with three, and cost more to do so.

Artemo wrote:And Death Cultists have no frag grenades so unless assaulting out of an expensive landraider, it's rather unlikely they'll manage to avoid being I1.

Mainly it seems to me that people grumble about two things. GK having changed the 'metagame' by making some previously favoured lists an unattractive match up against some GK builds, coupled with of course the perceived 'overpowered' nature of the codex. These latter gripes, in my opinion, don't take into account the fact that it is impossible to field an efficient GK force that actually utilises all the advantages folk are moaning about. In general I find it is players of 'top tier' codices who moan loudest because their lists are often the most undermined by various GK builds.

It's also quite important to realise that the GK codex can make quite a few decent builds, including but not restricted to:

Coteaz/henchmen/mech MSU (with or without dreadnought support)
Crowe/purifier/mech msu/dreadnought support
Draigo/foot paladins
Draigo/stormraven paladins
Teleport lists (Strikes supporting Interceptors and Dreadknights)

and so on.

All these lists have different pros and cons and play very differently. This wide variety of possible builds may contribute to the erroneous notion that GK are overpowered.

Please explain to the Daemon players (such as myself) how GK's are balanced?!? You know, when you show up to your average game night and the quake-shunt lists come to play. God forbid 'prefered enemy' turns out in 6th as it's rumored...



As for Fortitude, it is OTT & game-breaking because;
a) It is better than extra armour for only a third of the cost. (if you fail more than 2 or 3 unmodified Ld10 tests at most over the corse of the game, that's bad dice talking there!)

b) Only a select few armies can actually counter it!
Orks, Chaos Marines, Daemons, Black Templars and Tau have no actual way of stopping it. So yes, against us it's completely broken!
Dark Eldar & Necrons have very limited ways to try and stop it, so it can be very obnoxious against them because it requires specific units/upgrades to be bought to have any chance at countering it.
GK's, Loyalist marines, Tyranids & IG have decent access to anti-psychic abilities, so against them it'll seem perhaps just a wee bit under costed, but fair enough.
Eldar will laugh!

But for roughly half the armies in the game, Fortitude is silly good and for cheaper than what any other similar ability is currently costed.
So sure, against say Space Wolves and their rune priests fortitude may turn out lackluster, but against those orks who already struggle to bring down vehicles, you get to laugh in their face as you easily ignore 2/3rd's of those glancing hits and a 1/3rd of the pens.

Fetterkey wrote:The funny part about this is that Blood Angel Devastators are better than Long Fangs, but they haven't made as much of a splash as Long Fangs have-- probably thanks to very strong competition from Fast vehicles in the BA Heavy Support slot.

Little off-topic, but in what way are they better? Price per missile launcher is better for long fangs (32.5 for 4 missile in BA, with a signum serg, 28 for 5 missile fangs + serg, or 28.75 for 4 missile fangs + serg), fangs can split fire and have the fringe bonuses of counter-attack and night-vision. Other then being able to take ablative wounds and maybe FnP in the BA devs, they are in every way inferior.

Things like giving great abilities to already great units, effectively forcing everyone to take those units and annoying everyone else is what makes the codex seem OP - like giving Cleansing Flame to Purifiers or making psybolts only cost 5 pts for Dreadnoughts.

I don't think it's the abilities or costs themselves that gives the impression of the codex being overpowered - it's more that all the best stuff is crammed into the best units for very little points that means most people will only ever see the same very powerful, relatively cheap units across the board from them.

Imagine if Strike Squads were the ones who could use Cleansing Flame and it cost 10 points to give it to the squad? You may see them used a lot more often, maybe even with falchions to boost their CC prowess but then you'd be looking at a marine that costs 21-31 points. It would be powerful but costly and therefore, fairly costed. It's when you see a 26 point Purifier with I6, 2 attacks base AND Cleansing Flame that you start to think the codex is OP.

I play GK and if I'm honest, I can't argue that it's not at least a very powerful codex. On the other hand, it's not an auto win army either as there are stark weaknesses to it - a general lack of range and low AP firepower across all the GK units. A general lack of good invulnerable saves across the GK units is another weakness. As is T4 and no Fearless on the Paladins as one or two well placed blasts can wipe an entire squad or at least force them to crap their iron undies and leg it off the board.

Fetterkey wrote:
Fortitude doesn't work all the time. It fails 1/9 of the time (double ones is essentially failure since it removes the existing result but inflicts another that could be worse), and is vulnerable to psychic defenses, which reduce its success rate to less than 50-50. Extra Armor, on the other hand, works completely reliably.

The failure rate is still very low, and is useful on all vehicles, whereas extra armor is often pointless on gun tanks. Also keep in mind, as has been earlier pointed out, psychic defenses are only available in a minority of the armies in the game and generally have a limited range aside from Eldar and Dark Angels (2 of the 4 oldest books also)

If Extra Armor cost 5 points-- as it did in earlier editions-- it would be completely balanced with Fortitude, with Fortitude being a riskier option but allowing shooting (and thus being better for shooty transports) and Extra Armor being completely reliable but not allowing shooting (and thus being better for Rhinos and the like).

If Extra Armor were 5pts we'd see it on every transport in every game all the time. If fortitude were available to everyone for 5pts, we'd see it on every vehicle all the time.

The funny part about this is that Blood Angel Devastators are better than Long Fangs, but they haven't made as much of a splash as Long Fangs have-- probably thanks to very strong competition from Fast vehicles in the BA Heavy Support slot.

BA devastators are 10pts cheaper but have fewer dudes and heavy weapons and can't split fire. For 130pts they get 5 dudes with 4 heavy weapons, Long Fangs for 140pts get 6 dudes with 5 heavy weapons. The Devastator squad is basically paying ~33pts per heavy weapon while the LF's are paying 28pts per heavy weapon. If BA dev's were better than long fangs, they'd be taken even with the other HS options, but they're not.

Redbeard wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:
The funny part about this is that Blood Angel Devastators are better than Long Fangs,

Care to back this up with some reasoning? I disagree. Nothing Blood Angel devastators have helps them in their primary role to the extent that long fangs being able to split fire helps them.

Consider the matchup against dark eldar. 3 units of long fangs, for a total of less than 400 points, can suppress six skimmers. Three units of blood angel devastators can only deal with three, and cost more to do so.

BA Devastators can take ablative wounds, can use Combat Squads to effectively split their fire if doing so, and can easily get FNP, making them far more resilient than Long Fangs. While Long Fangs can indeed target more units, you can't target any units if the enemy Venoms have flown in from outside your range and taken you out with Splinter Cannons. Overall, the radically increased resilience of Blood Angel Devastators with appropriate support elements makes them a stronger unit than Long Fangs, especially in the Dark Eldar matchup. However, they are still worse than Fast Predators, so they don't hit the tables that often.

Fetterkey wrote:

BA Devastators can take ablative wounds, can use Combat Squads to effectively split their fire if doing so

And in total cost significantly more for no appreciable gain in firepower. For the cost of two full sized Devastator units with 8 ML's, you can get three long fang squads able to engage half again as many targets with twice as many heavy weapons. One will notice that the "best" units in the MEQ metagame have been for many years MSU type units, not large squads with ablative wounds. Especially for a first turn alpha strike (where such heavy weapons units are at their peak in terms of performance), the Long Fangs have it by far.

and can easily get FNP, making them far more resilient than Long Fangs.

Which is another 50pt investment that's not going forward with the assault troops.

And if we're bringing in other units like sang priests, lets talk about Rune Priests with their ability to make every skimmer transport risk immobilization and who also can sport a multi-shot S7 weapon with unlimited range to further support the long fangs.

While Long Fangs can indeed target more units, you can't target any units if the enemy Venoms have flown in from outside your range and taken you out with Splinter Cannons.

Which usually isn't an issue given 48" range guns on most tables unless the DE are hiding in reserve. Splinter Cannons have a 36" range, they'll basically have to weather a turn of fire to get in there given that they can only move 12" and fire, so if the LF's were out of 48", the Venoms aren't going to be able to make 36" in one turn and still be able to shoot.

Overall, the radically increased resilience of Blood Angel Devastators with appropriate support elements makes them a stronger unit than Long Fangs

And yet, they are almost never fielded, whereas the Long Fangs are spammed something unmerciful

You don't see BA Devastators (except in neo-DoA lists) because Fast Predators, especially auto-las predators, are way way better. Auto-las predators are already on par with Long Fangs as a unit, albeit more vulnerable to outflankers, and letting them move and fire everything is crazy. Devastators just can't compete with that level of firepower, especially since the Predators adds to target saturation in a mechanized list. On the other hand, non-mechanized lists can use Devastators to great effect...

Fetterkey wrote:You don't see BA Devastators (except in neo-DoA lists) because Fast Predators, especially auto-las predators, are way way better. Auto-las predators are already on par with Long Fangs as a unit, albeit more vulnerable to outflankers, and letting them move and fire everything is crazy. Devastators just can't compete with that level of firepower, especially since the Predators adds to target saturation in a mechanized list. On the other hand, non-mechanized lists can use Devastators to great effect...

And often do, it's one of the key elements of the BA-Jump list, 15 devs + a sang priest to give them all FNP creates a tough backfield unit that puts out supporting fire/cracks open tanks. They're really quite good in actuality..

Yeah, that's the neo-DOA army I'm talking about. Even without ablative bodies, FNP can make Devastators extremely resilient to units that are normally their bane (Night Shield Venoms, various artillery, etc.)

Fetterkey wrote:You don't see BA Devastators (except in neo-DoA lists) because Fast Predators, especially auto-las predators, are way way better. Auto-las predators are already on par with Long Fangs as a unit, albeit more vulnerable to outflankers, and letting them move and fire everything is crazy. Devastators just can't compete with that level of firepower

Dev's actually put out increased AT firepower in terms of anti-medium/light tank capability than a Auto-Las predator does and are cheaper to boot, and especially compared with the tri-las. The issue isn't that the predator is so devastating, it's that it is mobile adds more armor to the list. That said, the BA devastators still aren't better than Long Fangs, they can't min/max as effectively, they lack the alpha strike capability, and cannot engage as many targets and pay more points per heavy weapon.

especially since the Predators adds to target saturation in a mechanized list.

Which is the other big thing.

On the other hand, non-mechanized lists can use Devastators to great effect...

And you still almost never see them.

Vaktathi wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:You don't see BA Devastators (except in neo-DoA lists) because Fast Predators, especially auto-las predators, are way way better. Auto-las predators are already on par with Long Fangs as a unit, albeit more vulnerable to outflankers, and letting them move and fire everything is crazy. Devastators just can't compete with that level of firepower

Dev's actually put out increased AT firepower in terms of anti-medium/light tank capability than a Auto-Las predator does and are cheaper to boot, and especially compared with the tri-las. The issue isn't that the predator is so devastating, it's that it is mobile adds more armor to the list. That said, the BA devastators still aren't better than Long Fangs, they can't min/max as effectively, they lack the alpha strike capability, and cannot engage as many targets and pay more points per heavy weapon.

especially since the Predators adds to target saturation in a mechanized list.

Which is the other big thing.

On the other hand, non-mechanized lists can use Devastators to great effect...

And you still almost never see them.

Please take this as a question, and not an attack, as that's the way it's intended: but how many GT's would you say you attend annually? Not an RTT or other event, but a GT.

This isn't to say the only thing that matters is a GT, but for the current discussion of "are GK's breaking the competitive scene omgzorz" we're talking about whether they're actually dominating the GT scene. They arent.

To bring this back to BA, I play at 4-5 GT's per year, and the majority of BA armies I see are (with very rough percentages of how I've observed them):
-DOA with Dev's on foot (50%)
-Foot spam with dev's/etc on foot and sang priests. It's actually a really obnoxious list due to the amount of 3+/FNP bodies and heavy weapons it fields. (5-10%)
-Razor/Pred spam msu BA (common at first, I havent seen it for the last couple GT's) (5-10%)
-Mephiston/Raider heavy builds that are low kp/rock style armies (not quite common, but (~30-40%)

Don't underestimate the importance of giving Dev's FNP in how you compare them versus long fangs. A couple ablative bodies and 1 sang priest means those 3 dev units are nigh-impossible to kill without actually engaging them in combat. Engaging them in combat is no easy feat since they're far away, and you're generally being rushed by a ton of jumper marines, so you have to deal with them first.

Against long fangs, I typically just torrent them with Psybacks/Psyfle Dreads/Storm bolters that have moved up. I won't kill them all, but I'll cause morale checks (painful when deployed near the edge) or kill off enough missiles/etc. to blunt their effectiveness. Against BA devs, this won't cut it.

Experiment 626 wrote:Please explain to the Daemon players (such as myself) how GK's are balanced?!? You know, when you show up to your average game night and the quake-shunt lists come to play. God forbid 'prefered enemy' turns out in 6th as it's rumored...

If guys are pulling out a quake-shunt list on you at game night just because you play daemons, then you probably play with a bag of dicks. List tailoring is a dick move normally, but in casual 'game night' games? Pure dickery.

Don't underestimate the importance of giving Dev's FNP in how you compare them versus long fangs. A couple ablative bodies and 1 sang priest means those 3 dev units are nigh-impossible to kill without actually engaging them in combat. Engaging them in combat is no easy feat since they're far away, and you're generally being rushed by a ton of jumper marines, so you have to deal with them first.

Against long fangs, I typically just torrent them with Psybacks/Psyfle Dreads/Storm bolters that have moved up. I won't kill them all, but I'll cause morale checks (painful when deployed near the edge) or kill off enough missiles/etc. to blunt their effectiveness. Against BA devs, this won't cut it.

As awful as comparative theoryhammer discussions are, I feel that I have to interject something. You are comparing the combined cost effectiveness of a full dev army backbone with FNP support to three min maxed long fang squads. There is a difference of several hundred points between these two formations in isolation. One is nearly twice the cost of the other. This negates such a comparison entirely since it is discounting any possible supporting/non elements within the space wolf army that would utilize those points.

You may now return to bickering.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

pretre wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:Please explain to the Daemon players (such as myself) how GK's are balanced?!? You know, when you show up to your average game night and the quake-shunt lists come to play. God forbid 'prefered enemy' turns out in 6th as it's rumored...

If guys are pulling out a quake-shunt list on you at game night just because you play daemons, then you probably play with a bag of dicks. List tailoring is a dick move normally, but in casual 'game night' games? Pure dickery.

It effects space marine drop pod and BA DOA forces as well doesn't it? It's not really just a monobuild against demons. It's got good use against Dark Angels and a couple popular tyranid builds as well. Besides, the point was primarily that a power that cheaply negates the capacity of an army to function at a basic level is inherently unbalanced and stupid.

Augustus wrote:

mortetvie wrote: more complex armies like Dark Eldar/Eldar and so on.

Dark Eldar? Complex? That's laughable, take 6-9 venoms and 3 Ravagers and just start rolling to hit, that army plays itself. The only complex thing about playing Eldar is deciding what is the least of the terrible units to pair with Eldraad...

mortetvie wrote:Basically, it is easier to win with GK than other armies I think.

Yes, which is a pretty loose definition that essentially means OP.

GK and DE are both pretty similar armies bone headedly easy to play, set up, move up (maybe not even move up), and roll your buckets of egregious dice, the GK for psybolt amo and the DE for poison.

Between GK and DE 40k 5th isn't very diverse anymore, at least the space wolves had a variety of nasty builds. 2 armies that do it all, shoot a ton, have great vehicles, have great antitank, and have great melee as well. Why play anything else?

Um...DE balance otu by being a glass cannon, so you still have to position and play smart or anythign that survives the alpha-strike will SHRED your army. GKs, on the other hand, are nigh-invincible uber-marines whom are marines whom are better than the marines whom are better than those other marines". Though, in all fairness, I have yetto play them, so I'm holding my true judgement of them until I get that opportunity. I still think Space Wolves are the most broken (Loganwing w/ Ragnar attached, 3+ to hit ANYTHING in combat via wolfdick necklaces, VERY cheap Longdwarves, Eternal Warrior spam, and Thunderwolves whom are somehow Toughness 5 multi-wound models while bikers andTyphus are 4(5) and Nurgle Lords on bikes are 4(6)?)

Kepora wrote:
Um...

When addressing an audience, it is generally considered poor form to stammer or use filler words, such as "um" or "like", or any other words of the sort. The fact that this pervades into your writing, where temporal flow is not something measurable by your audience, is not encouraging.

DE balance otu by being a glass cannon, so you still have to position and play smart or anythign that survives the alpha-strike will SHRED your army. GKs, on the other hand, are nigh-invincible uber-marines

Dark lances insta-kill Paladins. Everything else dies like all other marines, except without storm shields. Where's the nigh-invincible uber-marines?

whom are marines whom are better than the marines whom are better than those other marines".

http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/whoVwhom.asp

Though, in all fairness, I have yetto play them, so I'm holding my true judgement of them until I get that opportunity.

Really? Cause, like, it sounds like you have yielded judgement unto those whom you've not yet played. (Irony, or is it?)

I still think Space Wolves are the most broken (Loganwing w/ Ragnar attached, 3+ to hit ANYTHING in combat via wolfdick necklaces, VERY cheap Longdwarves, Eternal Warrior spam, and Thunderwolves whom are somehow Toughness 5 multi-wound models while bikers andTyphus are 4(5) and Nurgle Lords on bikes are 4(6)?)

I had to read this a couple times, mostly to try to figure out what "Longdwarves" was a reference to. I guess cause they're beardy? Outside of the Eternal Warrior spam (what does that?), I think I agree with you. SW are nasty. ALL of the 5th edition 'dexes are nasty. Hell, you can even make outright vicious 'Nid builds, if you don't mind spamming a lot, and I don't mean Tervigons.

Kepora wrote:GKs, on the other hand, are nigh-invincible uber-marines whom are marines whom are better than the marines whom are better than those other marines". Though, in all fairness, I have yetto play them, so I'm holding my true judgement of them until I get that opportunity.

Somehow I have a feeling that a lot of the opposition to and Internet drama about GKs comes from people like this.

daedalus wrote:. ALL of the 5th edition 'dexes are nasty. Hell, you can even make outright vicious 'Nid builds, if you don't mind spamming a lot, and I don't mean Tervigons.

And you lost me... Here! Nids are fun but with GK, SW, IG, and of course Dark Eldar. They just have no say in a competitive environment. How many top 5 places with Nids have you seen since grey knights hit, or lets even back it up further, since their FAQ hit. Find a different angle for your feverish argument against the masses.

Fetterkey wrote:

Kepora wrote:GKs, on the other hand, are nigh-invincible uber-marines whom are marines whom are better than the marines whom are better than those other marines". Though, in all fairness, I have yetto play them, so I'm holding my true judgement of them until I get that opportunity.

Somehow I have a feeling that a lot of the opposition to and Internet drama about GKs comes from people like this.

+1

GKs are on the same level as SWs... Solid, tough, nasty, but completely beatable by other 5th Edition books. Yes... Older armies have a tougher time but that is just how GW seems to do things :/

So 14 pages and it all boils down to this vvv ? Really, I demand satisfaction when I read a 14 page hate thread!

Tomb King wrote:

daedalus wrote:. ALL of the 5th edition 'dexes are nasty. Hell, you can even make outright vicious 'Nid builds, if you don't mind spamming a lot, and I don't mean Tervigons.

And you lost me... Here! Nids are fun but with GK, SW, IG, and of course Dark Eldar. They just have no say in a competitive environment. How many top 5 places with Nids have you seen since grey knights hit, or lets even back it up further, since their FAQ hit. Find a different angle for your feverish argument against the masses.

But now we're arguing the same thing as the GK argument, just on the opposite end of the spectrum. How many Nid players show up to tournaments? Now consider how many SW/GK/BA players show up for a tournament? In most of them that I've played in, I don't even encounter a non-SM variant, except maybe Orks.

The Nid list I run is pretty nasty when I do play it. It usually centers around genestealer spam with a small handful of big creatures thrown in. It has done well enough playing against other people to have me convinced that they're also not as bad as the internet groupthink would lead you to believe.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Don't underestimate the importance of giving Dev's FNP in how you compare them versus long fangs. A couple ablative bodies and 1 sang priest means those 3 dev units are nigh-impossible to kill without actually engaging them in combat. Engaging them in combat is no easy feat since they're far away, and you're generally being rushed by a ton of jumper marines, so you have to deal with them first.

Against long fangs, I typically just torrent them with Psybacks/Psyfle Dreads/Storm bolters that have moved up. I won't kill them all, but I'll cause morale checks (painful when deployed near the edge) or kill off enough missiles/etc. to blunt their effectiveness. Against BA devs, this won't cut it.

As awful as comparative theoryhammer discussions are, I feel that I have to interject something. You are comparing the combined cost effectiveness of a full dev army backbone with FNP support to three min maxed long fang squads. There is a difference of several hundred points between these two formations in isolation. One is nearly twice the cost of the other. This negates such a comparison entirely since it is discounting any possible supporting/non elements within the space wolf army that would utilize those points.

You may now return to bickering.


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pretre wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:Please explain to the Daemon players (such as myself) how GK's are balanced?!? You know, when you show up to your average game night and the quake-shunt lists come to play. God forbid 'prefered enemy' turns out in 6th as it's rumored...

If guys are pulling out a quake-shunt list on you at game night just because you play daemons, then you probably play with a bag of dicks. List tailoring is a dick move normally, but in casual 'game night' games? Pure dickery.

It effects space marine drop pod and BA DOA forces as well doesn't it? It's not really just a monobuild against demons. It's got good use against Dark Angels and a couple popular tyranid builds as well. Besides, the point was primarily that a power that cheaply negates the capacity of an army to function at a basic level is inherently unbalanced and stupid.

The difference is 50 points, the cost of the sang priest. The ablative bodies are worth taking, but in the comparison the point still stands that 15 marines with missiles + fnp, versus 15 without fnp, are very different beasts.

The points aren't that dissimilar until you start taking ablative wounds, which isn't really the point of the comparison, just mentioned as something that most people would in fact do.

daedalus wrote:The Nid list I run is pretty nasty when I do play it. It usually centers around genestealer spam with a small handful of big creatures thrown in. It has done well enough playing against other people to have me convinced that they're also not as bad as the internet groupthink would lead you to believe.

Especially since, as has already been established, some of the most vocal and bitter haters actually haven't even played the armies in question.

DarthDiggler wrote:The GK codex came out this Spring. Before many serious tournament players had a chance to make the army for the 2011 tournament season. To use tourney results from this past year to "prove" anything is insincere at the least.

I know a lot of top players nationwide and almost none of them used GK this past season. In fact there is only one.

Why are so few top players using GK? Some players just finished a new army and want to play that. Others feel that playing the GK will dimish their wins in the eyes of their peers. There are a host of reasons not to play them last season.

Right after a codex comes out the majority of people using that codex are not top tourney players but people who want to gain an edge as fast as possible. I can go to a 24 person tourney where there will be 8 GK players, but maybe 1 of those players has won an overall before. That's what you see at tourneys right now.

Starting with Adepticon, I predict you will see the full force of the GK codex. It is to tempting to abuse the Adepticon TT HQ rules with GK's. I suspect there will be mostly two types of team lists. Grek Knights and those designed to beat Grey Knights (if there is such a thing).

From the 1000 point Adepticon Team Tournament armies the 1850-2000pt tournament armies for 2012 will grow out of those and next year will showcase Grek Knights.

That's my prediction.

This is a good post. At the tournaments I have attended this year, I have mostly not seen top players fielding GK. It's mostly been semi-skilled guys who jumped on the bandwagon and have speedpainted a quickie army, but don't have the real gaming chops to dominate with it. That being said, even top players I know, when matched up against those GKs, have to work for their wins. The genuinely high-quality players I've seen fielding GKs have been stomping people. Look at Nick Nanavati's results with his early in the year before he switched out of using the GKs due to finding them kind of an easy button. Or Neil Gilstrap at Battle for Salvation.

I think there are still some top players who are likely to keep turning up their nose at GKs this year, but more who will build them now, both because they've had a season of using their last army, and because the Adepticon TT gives them a good reason to build 1k worth, and they might as well complete it from there. This year's results should give us a clearer picture of how strong GKs are in big events.

daedalus wrote:

Kepora wrote:
Um...

When addressing an audience, it is generally considered poor form to stammer or use filler words, such as "um" or "like", or any other words of the sort. The fact that this pervades into your writing, where temporal flow is not something measurable by your audience, is not encouraging.

DE balance otu by being a glass cannon, so you still have to position and play smart or anythign that survives the alpha-strike will SHRED your army. GKs, on the other hand, are nigh-invincible uber-marines

Dark lances insta-kill Paladins. Everything else dies like all other marines, except without storm shields. Where's the nigh-invincible uber-marines?

whom are marines whom are better than the marines whom are better than those other marines".

http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/whoVwhom.asp

Though, in all fairness, I have yetto play them, so I'm holding my true judgement of them until I get that opportunity.

Really? Cause, like, it sounds like you have yielded judgement unto those whom you've not yet played. (Irony, or is it?)

I still think Space Wolves are the most broken (Loganwing w/ Ragnar attached, 3+ to hit ANYTHING in combat via wolfdick necklaces, VERY cheap Longdwarves, Eternal Warrior spam, and Thunderwolves whom are somehow Toughness 5 multi-wound models while bikers andTyphus are 4(5) and Nurgle Lords on bikes are 4(6)?)

I had to read this a couple times, mostly to try to figure out what "Longdwarves" was a reference to. I guess cause they're beardy? Outside of the Eternal Warrior spam (what does that?), I think I agree with you. SW are nasty. ALL of the 5th edition 'dexes are nasty. Hell, you can even make outright vicious 'Nid builds, if you don't mind spamming a lot, and I don't mean Tervigons.

Alright, wasn't the most well thought-out post I've ever made. I'll concede that.

-Insta-killing Paladins is true...but that's if someone's fileidng Paladins. And they're out in the open instead of deployed in cover. And not in a Land Raider Crusader or the likes. Marines die, but they're still tough-they ARE mairnes, after all.
-...damn, you got me on the who vs. whom thing. Normally I'm better about that!
-Someone else already made the Long Wangs joke, and there was another phallus joke in the post, so... *shrug* As for Eternal Warrior, my main issue's with the Lone Wolves, the guys whom WANT to die yet are able to take Terminator armor, storm shields, have FNP and EW. Logan having it isn't as bad, but I'm likely missing a few ICs; I'll dig up the .pdf in a bit. I've face a few lists that ran dual Lone Wolves and varying degrees of Loganwing, and I can say that it takes a pretty rediculous amount of attention to get rid of a pair of Termie armor/chainfist/storm shield (and in a couple of cases, a pair of cyberwolves each) Lone Wolves, which can be a problem then they're lurking around an objective, and the fact that they don't give up a Kill Point unless they SURVIVE...

Mannahnin wrote:
This is a good post. At the tournaments I have attended this year, I have mostly not seen top players fielding GK. It's mostly been semi-skilled guys who jumped on the bandwagon and have speedpainted a quickie army, but don't have the real gaming chops to dominate with it. That being said, even top players I know, when matched up against those GKs, have to work for their wins. The genuinely high-quality players I've seen fielding GKs have been stomping people. Look at Nick Nanavati's results with his early in the year before he switched out of using the GKs due to finding them kind of an easy button. Or Neil Gilstrap at Battle for Salvation.

I think there are still some top players who are likely to keep turning up their nose at GKs this year, but more who will build them now, both because they've had a season of using their last army, and because the Adepticon TT gives them a good reason to build 1k worth, and they might as well complete it from there. This year's results should give us a clearer picture of how strong GKs are in big events.

See, I think the real test will be 'How do GK's stack up in 6th ed?'

2012 is still going to be a heavily biased year because we have a new edition dropping and if 8th ed fantasy showed us anything, we can expect;
a) 2-3 armies will get massive (likely unintended) buffs to their overall effectiveness. Look at WoC, DoC & Dwarfs in fantasy as all 3 got significant power boosts with their easy access to great weapon infantry hordes.

b) Most armies will transition 'well enough' in that they'll have a good deal of buffs countered by some of their current power builds taking a hit on the chin. Lizzies for example were annoying as piss with MSU skirmishing skinks poisoning everything to death, but now have had to shift back to ranked saurus and are still a rock solid army!

c) 2-3 armies will got horrifically hosed and be rendered all but unplayable outside of 1-2 specific cookie-cutter builds. *cough*undeadandwoodelves*cough*

Once 2013 hits I think things will start to really show just how powerful/broken GK's really are. Daemons were bemoaned almost universally as broken beyond sin in 7th ed fantasy, for example, and after almost 2 years of 8th ed, we have seen that without doubt Daemons really are the most powerful book because even an edition that was ment to 'reel them in' has done less than expected to curb the army from roflstomping at the tournament level. (instead of horror spam, it's just changed to lore of life heralds + 'letters spam)
IF GK's come 2013 are still a top contending army, then it will likely prove that the book was/is horribly unbalanced because typically the top armies from one edition become the new losers of the new edition. (look at VC's who got shoehorned into requiring 1 cookie-cutter build to even win a game!)

7th ed Fantasy was dominated by Daemons, VC's & Dark Elves. Not tournaments tend to have quite balanced showings overall, with the new 'filth' being Daemons, Chaos Warriors & Skaven.
I think after the initial 6-8 month ajustment period of 6th ed 40k we'll see the likes of SW's, BA's & GK's replaced by other armies with GK's still holding their place right around the top.

Just my 2 cents.

Experiment 626 wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:
This is a good post. At the tournaments I have attended this year, I have mostly not seen top players fielding GK. It's mostly been semi-skilled guys who jumped on the bandwagon and have speedpainted a quickie army, but don't have the real gaming chops to dominate with it. That being said, even top players I know, when matched up against those GKs, have to work for their wins. The genuinely high-quality players I've seen fielding GKs have been stomping people. Look at Nick Nanavati's results with his early in the year before he switched out of using the GKs due to finding them kind of an easy button. Or Neil Gilstrap at Battle for Salvation.

I think there are still some top players who are likely to keep turning up their nose at GKs this year, but more who will build them now, both because they've had a season of using their last army, and because the Adepticon TT gives them a good reason to build 1k worth, and they might as well complete it from there. This year's results should give us a clearer picture of how strong GKs are in big events.

See, I think the real test will be 'How do GK's stack up in 6th ed?'

2012 is still going to be a heavily biased year because we have a new edition dropping and if 8th ed fantasy showed us anything, we can expect;
a) 2-3 armies will get massive (likely unintended) buffs to their overall effectiveness. Look at WoC, DoC & Dwarfs in fantasy as all 3 got significant power boosts with their easy access to great weapon infantry hordes.

b) Most armies will transition 'well enough' in that they'll have a good deal of buffs countered by some of their current power builds taking a hit on the chin. Lizzies for example were annoying as piss with MSU skirmishing skinks poisoning everything to death, but now have had to shift back to ranked saurus and are still a rock solid army!

c) 2-3 armies will got horrifically hosed and be rendered all but unplayable outside of 1-2 specific cookie-cutter builds. *cough*undeadandwoodelves*cough*

Once 2013 hits I think things will start to really show just how powerful/broken GK's really are. Daemons were bemoaned almost universally as broken beyond sin in 7th ed fantasy, for example, and after almost 2 years of 8th ed, we have seen that without doubt Daemons really are the most powerful book because even an edition that was ment to 'reel them in' has done less than expected to curb the army from roflstomping at the tournament level. (instead of horror spam, it's just changed to lore of life heralds + 'letters spam)
IF GK's come 2013 are still a top contending army, then it will likely prove that the book was/is horribly unbalanced because typically the top armies from one edition become the new losers of the new edition. (look at VC's who got shoehorned into requiring 1 cookie-cutter build to even win a game!)

7th ed Fantasy was dominated by Daemons, VC's & Dark Elves. Not tournaments tend to have quite balanced showings overall, with the new 'filth' being Daemons, Chaos Warriors & Skaven.
I think after the initial 6-8 month ajustment period of 6th ed 40k we'll see the likes of SW's, BA's & GK's replaced by other armies with GK's still holding their place right around the top.

Just my 2 cents.

Quoted for truth! I have my fingers crossed about the new vampire release in January. The tomb kings book was disappointing for the most part. Cool new toys and different type of army but not as durable and magic which is the new craze isn't strong enough.

Grey knights are to 40k what daemons are to fantasy. Had a tzeentch player snipe my vampire lord on turn 1 of a tournament out of my unit for the instant win before I moved a model fun game glad I drove 4 hours to play.

Tomb King wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:
This is a good post. At the tournaments I have attended this year, I have mostly not seen top players fielding GK. It's mostly been semi-skilled guys who jumped on the bandwagon and have speedpainted a quickie army, but don't have the real gaming chops to dominate with it. That being said, even top players I know, when matched up against those GKs, have to work for their wins. The genuinely high-quality players I've seen fielding GKs have been stomping people. Look at Nick Nanavati's results with his early in the year before he switched out of using the GKs due to finding them kind of an easy button. Or Neil Gilstrap at Battle for Salvation.

I think there are still some top players who are likely to keep turning up their nose at GKs this year, but more who will build them now, both because they've had a season of using their last army, and because the Adepticon TT gives them a good reason to build 1k worth, and they might as well complete it from there. This year's results should give us a clearer picture of how strong GKs are in big events.

See, I think the real test will be 'How do GK's stack up in 6th ed?'

2012 is still going to be a heavily biased year because we have a new edition dropping and if 8th ed fantasy showed us anything, we can expect;
a) 2-3 armies will get massive (likely unintended) buffs to their overall effectiveness. Look at WoC, DoC & Dwarfs in fantasy as all 3 got significant power boosts with their easy access to great weapon infantry hordes.

b) Most armies will transition 'well enough' in that they'll have a good deal of buffs countered by some of their current power builds taking a hit on the chin. Lizzies for example were annoying as piss with MSU skirmishing skinks poisoning everything to death, but now have had to shift back to ranked saurus and are still a rock solid army!

c) 2-3 armies will got horrifically hosed and be rendered all but unplayable outside of 1-2 specific cookie-cutter builds. *cough*undeadandwoodelves*cough*

Once 2013 hits I think things will start to really show just how powerful/broken GK's really are. Daemons were bemoaned almost universally as broken beyond sin in 7th ed fantasy, for example, and after almost 2 years of 8th ed, we have seen that without doubt Daemons really are the most powerful book because even an edition that was ment to 'reel them in' has done less than expected to curb the army from roflstomping at the tournament level. (instead of horror spam, it's just changed to lore of life heralds + 'letters spam)
IF GK's come 2013 are still a top contending army, then it will likely prove that the book was/is horribly unbalanced because typically the top armies from one edition become the new losers of the new edition. (look at VC's who got shoehorned into requiring 1 cookie-cutter build to even win a game!)

7th ed Fantasy was dominated by Daemons, VC's & Dark Elves. Not tournaments tend to have quite balanced showings overall, with the new 'filth' being Daemons, Chaos Warriors & Skaven.
I think after the initial 6-8 month ajustment period of 6th ed 40k we'll see the likes of SW's, BA's & GK's replaced by other armies with GK's still holding their place right around the top.

Just my 2 cents.

Quoted for truth! I have my fingers crossed about the new vampire release in January. The tomb kings book was disappointing for the most part. Cool new toys and different type of army but not as durable and magic which is the new craze isn't strong enough.

Grey knights are to 40k what daemons are to fantasy. Had a tzeentch player snipe my vampire lord on turn 1 of a tournament out of my unit for the instant win before I moved a model fun game glad I drove 4 hours to play.

Oh my God, I feel sorry for you. But I guess you have seen it coming.

Speaking as someone who was more into WHFB than 40k, prior to 8th, I can't say I think GK are as bad as WHFB Daemons.

Interestingly internet celebrity Goatboy has publicly given up on Grey Knights. After playing them exclusively for the last 6 weeks he has come to the conclusion that they are to easy to win with, his games are not fun and he thinks they are bad for the future of 40K.

Here is his article.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/12/goatboys-40k-im-done-with-grey-knights.html


Mannahnim has mentioned a few other nationwide top level tournament players who have come to similar conclusions since trying out Grey Knigts for possible tourney play. I wonder how many more will follow suit or how many will take them anyway. If GK are the quickest path to tourney success, will that be viewed as a plus or minus to top level players who have already won at the national level.

I, along with a few others, feel it is more of an accomplishment to win with 'lesser' perceived lists. To paraphrase Blackmoor: If you win with Grey Knights it is expected. If you win with Footdar it is legendary

"Internet celebrity"? I guess it's easier to say than "guy on the internet with a modicum of popularity among a small community of tabletop wargamers", but still...

So anyway, I guess if people are actually shelving them because they're "too easy" to win with then that kinda proves everyone screaming about "WAAC" play on the internet wrong, doesn't it? Those people who are constantly accusing competitive players of just wanting "easy wins" with their "point and click" spam armies that "play themselves".

I don't understand how you can use conjecture to assume an army is over/under powered. Especially when you have actual results.

Check out the Nova Open results. Grey Knights are right in line with all the other top armies.

My money would be that this data is consistent with every other major tournament as well.

Timmah wrote:I don't understand how you can use conjecture to assume an army is over/under powered. Especially when you have actual results.

Check out the Nova Open results. Grey Knights are right in line with all the other top armies.

My money would be that this data is consistent with every other major tournament as well.

But why do that when you could just use self-righteous internet hate? I mean, conjecture is a type of evidence, right? Right?

Tomb King wrote:

Grey knights are to 40k what daemons are to fantasy.

Didn't Ward write both? *ducks*

puma713 wrote:

Tomb King wrote:

Grey knights are to 40k what daemons are to fantasy.

Didn't Ward write both? *ducks*

Haha, run man run!

GK overpowered? I don't see that this is really the case. They have nice toys but they pay for it and GK lists are always small and elitisch.
Remember the tri-Falcon Eldar armies back in the 4th ed? They were more powerful than any GK in the 5th ed can be.

There are no op armies theres powerfull armies and competitve armies. Even in my short 40k carrer ive seen people play every army but Sisters and deamons well and thats cause no one plays them. If competitve warhammer is like mtg the metagame changes weekly and lists are good or bad solely based on the metagame. I have a feeling 6th edition will make some powerfull armies good and some of the weaker armies ok. I hope in the new edition there will be some kindda way to deter power listing or a way to make it harder. Just the 2cents of a casual player.

Khardrock11 wrote:There are no op armies theres powerfull armies and competitve armies. Even in my short 40k carrer ive seen people play every army but Sisters and deamons well and thats cause no one plays them. If competitve warhammer is like mtg the metagame changes weekly and lists are good or bad solely based on the metagame. I have a feeling 6th edition will make some powerfull armies good and some of the weaker armies ok. I hope in the new edition there will be some kindda way to deter power listing or a way to make it harder. Just the 2cents of a casual player.

7th ed Daemons in Fantasy was definitely OP, so there can be such a thing as an OP army.

Khardrock11 wrote:There are no op armies theres powerfull armies and competitve armies. Even in my short 40k carrer ive seen people play every army but Sisters and deamons well and thats cause no one plays them. If competitve warhammer is like mtg the metagame changes weekly and lists are good or bad solely based on the metagame. I have a feeling 6th edition will make some powerfull armies good and some of the weaker armies ok. I hope in the new edition there will be some kindda way to deter power listing or a way to make it harder. Just the 2cents of a casual player.

Unfortunately, Warhammer (both Fantasy and 40K) are nothing like MtG. GW has never even hinted that they attempt to make a cohesive, balanced rule set designed for competitive play, while MtG has very tightly written rules and supports competitive play. This lack of tight rules designed for competitive play is what allows for different armies in Warhammer to be unbalanced.

One look at the "rules questions" section of any GW fan site will demonstrate how poorly written GW's rules are. If they cannot even be bothered to write a tight rule set, I doubt that GW will ever produce a truly balanced set of armies. And, yes, I believe the two issues are directly related. What makes armies balanced is the relationship between the rules of the various armies. If GW cannot even write rules for the basic game that are without tremendous ambiguity and grey area, how can we expect them to write rules from army to army that mesh well?

MtG is balanced? News to me. I was under the impression that they purposely make certain cards overpowered to get people to either buy more boosters or buy the card directly for an inflated price.

They make ridiculous combos and such but then limit the heck outta them for tourneys after you have bought and done the spending. lol

Draigo wrote:They make ridiculous combos and such but then limit the heck outta them for tourneys after you have bought and done the spending. lol

Yeah.... no.


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Luke_Prowler wrote:MtG is balanced? News to me. I was under the impression that they purposely make certain cards overpowered to get people to either buy more boosters or buy the card directly for an inflated price.

If you think MtG is less balanced than any of the wargames most often discussed on this forum, I don't know what to tell you

Luke_Prowler wrote:MtG is balanced? News to me. I was under the impression that they purposely make certain cards overpowered to get people to either buy more boosters or buy the card directly for an inflated price.

Draigo wrote:They make ridiculous combos and such but then limit the heck outta them for tourneys after you have bought and done the spending. lol

I guess haters will hate, but MtG has lasted this long primarily because the makers spend a tremendous amount of effort towards both tournament analysis and balance. Their online version even furthers this by them creepily obtaining statistics on what cards the winning decks use and the percentage chance of a deck winning if given cards are included, etc. The game has pretty much zero rules confusion.

Basically, if you're up for playing a balanced game, play MtG or a board game. Warhammer is meant to be for fun and 'competitive play' is a joke for balance reasons alone.

MtG players complaining about balance issues are a vocal minority that are quickly addressed by the makers themselves via bannings/restrictions/etc. Warhammer players complaining about balance issues are a plurality that entirely goes ignored by GW.

Perhaps you can more accurately compare Warhammer to RTS games where stat tweaks could go a long way towards balance and not require the retcon of millions of cards. But then again, that would only occur if GW cared about balance.

You can say what you want but birds of paradise, tolarion academy, moxes, and various other cards through out mtg life have not been balanced in any shape or form. Priestess infinite fire balls, Horseshoe crab infinite psychic gift, infinite slivers, etc do not say balance.

I find it very, very interesting that people often stop playing strong armies, because of the perception of "auto win" yet I rarely see these people as the ones winning GTs with these so called easy win armies. If its so easy, do it. But what these people discover is that they dominate their local circut, they get beat when they play strong GT players. It's less the army and more the player.

The point is... If GK were so strong and so easy win, people would be piloting them to GT top spots (like 7th demons). It leads me to believe they aren't as dominant as people say, unless your assumption is all top players have shunned them, which is probably a bad assumption.

Of course, this is for tournament play only. In casual play it's up to you and your opponent to pick lists to suit the difference in skill level based on the desired level of "fun".


@labmouse

"garbage in garbage out" is a common financial modeling term that basically means your model is only as good as your assumptions. It's not even remotely a personal attack and was referencing the prior post about the strength of assumptions. Let's not be so quick to jump into the middle of a conversation and get defensive as someone else's forum champion if you don fully understand what is being said.

puma713 wrote:

Tomb King wrote:

Grey knights are to 40k what daemons are to fantasy.

Didn't Ward write both? *ducks*

Hey! Think we can get him to right tau next?

ph34r wrote:

Luke_Prowler wrote:MtG is balanced? News to me. I was under the impression that they purposely make certain cards overpowered to get people to either buy more boosters or buy the card directly for an inflated price.

If you think MtG is less balanced than any of the wargames most often discussed on this forum, I don't know what to tell you

Oh, I know that, I'm just saying it's not squeaky clean either.

Compare the GT circuit to a game of poker or texas hold'em. You could start out with the best cards but if things dont go your way then you can still lose. Sure its nice to have those bullets (aka A,A) in the hole (aka your hand). You will win most of those hands but there is still a chance for an upset. The reason grey knights dont win every GT is because just that. There is still a chance for an upset. Inquisitor heavy grey knights could run into dark angels or another low KP army in annihalation. Draigo wing could run into a Horde Nid list on an objective based game and roll gakky.


An army can still be over-powered but this game is still based on dice and if you roll bad you can lose with any army. This effects everyone including 7th daemons for fantasy.

DarthDiggler wrote:Interestingly internet celebrity Goatboy has publicly given up on Grey Knights. After playing them exclusively for the last 6 weeks he has come to the conclusion that they are to easy to win with, his games are not fun and he thinks they are bad for the future of 40K.

Here is his article.
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/12/goatboys-40k-im-done-with-grey-knights.html

Mannahnin has mentioned a few other nationwide top level tournament players who have come to similar conclusions since trying out Grey Knigts for possible tourney play. I wonder how many more will follow suit or how many will take them anyway. If GK are the quickest path to tourney success, will that be viewed as a plus or minus to top level players who have already won at the national level.

I, along with a few others, feel it is more of an accomplishment to win with 'lesser' perceived lists. To paraphrase Blackmoor: If you win with Grey Knights it is expected. If you win with Footdar it is legendary

In fairness, this isn't the first time this has happened, by a long shot. 4th ed Eldar based on Harlequins in Falcons. 3rd-4th ed Craftworld Ulthwe Eldar lists that were just one giant Seer Council with two minimum guardian lists and couldn't lose VP matchups against many opponents. 3rd ed Iron Warriors. 3rd/4th ed CSM with Siren Princes. Many top players turned up their noses at these older Easy Button lists too.

7th ed (and even 8th, to a fair extent) Chaos Daemons in WHFB was even moreso.

I think GK get the rep they do in part because we felt like GW had managed such a great job at balancing 5th ed, with its objective-based & KP missions, eschewing Victory Points, that we were done with those days.

I do believe that GK are alittle op, undercost...yes, but not broken. The last GT that I attended I had to play against 3 GK players out of 6 games, and I only won 2 out 3 games, but I had to work for it. SW was an all drop pod list....ball to the wall. Now I still play my GK , and only have one REAL GK in the whole list, Mordark, plus Coteaz. My other list does have Dragio, even though many players believes that its a point and click army, then you are wrong. I do have think about when do I start to move, do I assult this turning or wait, does my Vindi assissan takes out the armour 14 or do I get rid of SS? I don't believe that GK are an auto win, even in the hands of an experience player.

Draigo wrote:You can say what you want but birds of paradise, tolarion academy, moxes, and various other cards through out mtg life have not been balanced in any shape or form. Priestess infinite fire balls, Horseshoe crab infinite psychic gift, infinite slivers, etc do not say balance.

If you are going to reference broken cards/combos at least reference good relevant ones.

Like Time Vault/Voltaic Key, Stoneforge Mystic/Equipment, Tinker/anything, Past in Flames/Red Rituals.

MtG definitely has cards that are better than others, but the game as a whole is balanced. No one is going to win with 60 islands in MtG, just like no one is going to win with 100 guardians in WH40k.

That doesn't mean the game either game isn't balanced. Both have units/cards that are not worthwhile, but as a whole both are balanced. (provided you exclude a couple of the old 40k armies)

Dude I can name more combos that were broken as hell and sorry you dont find my examples relevant but those were good examples of broken cards. Hard to keep up with every set that comes out. lol

Draigo wrote:You can say what you want but birds of paradise, tolarion academy, moxes, and various other cards through out mtg life have not been balanced in any shape or form. Priestess infinite fire balls, Horseshoe crab infinite psychic gift, infinite slivers, etc do not say balance.

Wizards banned Tolarian Academy and The Moxen. This is them caring about game balance and admitting their mistake. GW would never do such a thing.
Psionic Gift and Horseshoe Crab were never in the same standard format. Your argument here is analogous to someone saying nowadays that Chaos Basilisks are broken or that Eldar Black Guardians are overpowered in today's meta.
Three-card-combos such as "infinite slivers" and "Priestess of Titania" are legitimate tactics and have never unbalanced the game.

You really don't know what you're taking about. As someone that still plays Magic competitively, I assure you that the game had a bumpy start but is now one of the best examples of surprisingly good balance in spite of its variety.

Games Workshop doesn't even make an effort. They did so once in 2003 with the Chapter Approved iterations where they tweaked things around, but since then, they refuse to listen to their fans and critics. The lack of balance isn't really the key issue here. GW's unwillingness to even attempt balance is at fault. To compare, Wizards spends extensive effort to at least strive for balance; they release constant FAQs and updates to their banned/restricted lists multiple times per year even for casual formats. RTS developers such as Blizzard and even the damned EA release occasional patches which tweak costs and stats of their units. GW does none of these things. GW just sells us the equivalent of DLC every few months where you have to spend tons of money in order to be even remotely competitive.

Get over it cry babies. go find a girlfriend or something instead of complaining about the rules of a game.

This is not a useful or appropriate contribution to the thread. -Mannahnin

The Grundel wrote:Get over it cry babies. go find a girlfriend or something instead of complaining about the rules of a game.

This is not a useful or appropriate contribution to the thread. -Mannahnin

Wish I could.. but my fiance would be pissed .

Can we keep it about warhammer, not gonna lie I dont know two gaks about magic haha.

Draigo wrote:You can say what you want but birds of paradise, tolarion academy, moxes

While I enjoyed the game with moxes, you're talking about things that haven't been available for over fifteen years. All gaming companies will have the occasional unforseen interaction slip past the playtesters. At least WotC has a defined process for playtesting that isn't getting a few minis out of the case and seeing what happens.

Mannahnin wrote:
I think GK get the rep they do in part because we felt like GW had managed such a great job at balancing 5th ed, with its objective-based & KP missions, eschewing Victory Points, that we were done with those days.

I never felt that they did a good job with 5th ed. One only needs to look at the disparity among the MEQ lists to see how poorly balanced it is. Among MEQ lists, we have four different pricing models for heavy support troop units, three different pricing models for predators, and a design model that encourages buying as few troops as possible in order to take their underpriced transport. This doesn't even consider the largely unplayed xenos armies. Well, most of them weren't designed for 5th, so we can ignore that they simply don't work, and nids, well, it's okay that they're an exception too.

Seriously, the only balance in 5th is that if you take the most boring power builds from about five codexes, they all play reasonably well against each other. Sucks if you don't want to be forced into a parking lot build or think that some of those xenos models look cool though.

What's more, the delicate balance between MSU and Kill Points has pretty much been undone by more recent tournament design that puts all three mission goals in every game and says you only need to score two of them to win. Sure, the MSU list has to win those other two, but that's not that hard, compared to the design restriction that, I believe, was intended to give near auto-losses to MSU spam armies when Kill Points are the sole consideration for victory.

What's more, the delicate balance between MSU and Kill Points has pretty much been undone by more recent tournament design

Whilst largely disagreeing with your first point, I wholeheartedly agree with this. Tournament organisers often seem to think KP's are 'broken' and so try to 'fix' them wereas they are (I think) intended as a disincentive to MSU spam and they're actually an important part of 5th edition that MSU spammers just don't like much.

Redbeard wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:I think GK get the rep they do in part because we felt like GW had managed such a great job at balancing 5th ed, with its objective-based & KP missions, eschewing Victory Points, that we were done with those days.

I never felt that they did a good job with 5th ed. One only needs to look at the disparity among the MEQ lists to see how poorly balanced it is. Among MEQ lists, we have four different pricing models for heavy support troop units, three different pricing models for predators, and a design model that encourages buying as few troops as possible in order to take their underpriced transport. This doesn't even consider the largely unplayed xenos armies. Well, most of them weren't designed for 5th, so we can ignore that they simply don't work, and nids, well, it's okay that they're an exception too.

Seriously, the only balance in 5th is that if you take the most boring power builds from about five codexes, they all play reasonably well against each other. Sucks if you don't want to be forced into a parking lot build or think that some of those xenos models look cool though.

I disagree. I think most of the older books can still compete, albeit often while being pigeonholed into one or two builds. I agree that GW screwed up on the Tyranids, but mostly in two places. Overloading the Elites with the needed antitank, and boning them repeatedly in their FAQ. There are still a couple of good and competitive builds, but they're not quite as good as they could be, and there should be a more reliable Reserve build, which the FAQ messed up. As long as you have decent terrain on the tables, those stock-standard mech spam armies aren't all that. Obviously there's room for different opinions here. I also agree with some of the previously-expressed thoughts that having different pricing models for the same type of unit in different books can be acceptable within the larger context of the list.

Redbeard wrote:What's more, the delicate balance between MSU and Kill Points has pretty much been undone by more recent tournament design that puts all three mission goals in every game and says you only need to score two of them to win. Sure, the MSU list has to win those other two, but that's not that hard, compared to the design restriction that, I believe, was intended to give near auto-losses to MSU spam armies when Kill Points are the sole consideration for victory.

Largely agree, although I will say that in there are differences here. In the "win more of the three" Adepticon variant I felt like KPs had a substantial impact. I saw a LOT more low-KP armies in play at the Adepticon Champs, and Jay Woodcock's Tyranids beat me to get into the Finals in part because he had the edge in KP. I think some other variations on the missions, like the one where Seize Ground is always 5 objectives, and they're forced to be spread out across the table (rather than being placed close together by an infantry horde), are more stacked to screw low-KP armies and benefit MSU.

I feel the hate flowing through this thread, it gives nerds focus.

But seriously WOW this is still going on for 16 pages?!

Timmah wrote:I don't understand how you can use conjecture to assume an army is over/under powered. Especially when you have actual results.

Check out the Nova Open results. Grey Knights are right in line with all the other top armies.

My money would be that this data is consistent with every other major tournament as well.

GK vs SW it is really 50/50 and comes down to actual skill of players and BA may be disadvantaged vs GK but still can pull something and IG can hold on against GK. Overall I agree with Timmah's assertion that GK are in line with the rest of the top armies. I do not feel GK are broken or op for most of the 5th edition armies but there are some auto-lose options if taken that can put a real hurt on some of the non-5th armies. Mindstrikes spelt the doom of eldar bike councils. Purifiers and NFW make ork hordes or nobs worthless. GK are the bane of deamons. GK do what chaos does, but better. But what really do hurt some HtH armies vs GK is the combo of rad and psycotroke grenades that can single handily turn the assault depending on the result from making an entire ork horde kill themselves to giving bloodcrusher deathstar only 1 attack. And the grenades work if the unit assaults or is assaulted so no real defense except for killing the grenade dispenser guy (good luck with that). Other than that, GK are largely fine.

Redbeard said it best with that 5th edition is balanced with the current 5th edition codexes and most of the 4th edition armies fall behind or struggle.


@Mannahnin very good points you bring up and I love my tyranids just a few minor tweaks and I can compete with other top armies with ease.

thehod wrote: Redbeard said it best with that 5th edition is balanced with the current 5th edition codexes and most of the 4th edition armies fall behind or struggle.


@Mannahnin very good points you bring up and I love my tyranids just a few minor tweaks and I can compete with other top armies with ease.

Tyranids. Nobody loves us. One whole edition of Ninjafexes did this to us guys. This is how they punished us.

With Pyrovores.

(Seriously....why the Pyrovore? I think we can find more explanations for the duck-billed platypus than the Pyrovore!)

thehod wrote:
...Redbeard said it best with that 5th edition is balanced with the current 5th edition codexes and most of the 4th edition armies fall behind or struggle.

Seems that everyone has completely forgotten that Daemons were in fact the first 5th ed codex... So really, you can slap Daemons right alongside Tyranids as the 'faildexes' of 5th ed.

I think GK's could still be right up there with the other highly competitive armies with even a little tonning down of their shinanigans;
- remove psychos
- rads don't effect instant death thresthold
- winning flame only hits models in BtB
- warp quake only 6" range - cannot remove Marks of Chaos or daemonic steeds
- hammerhand bonus applies after other modifiers such as daemonhammers
- psybolts cost +25pts for dreads
- swap the costs of falchions & halberds across all units

Now the army still looks dead hard, but the most obnoxious abuses aren't quite as big of a 'WTF?!' moment for opponents.

Experiment 626 wrote:

thehod wrote:
...Redbeard said it best with that 5th edition is balanced with the current 5th edition codexes and most of the 4th edition armies fall behind or struggle.

Seems that everyone has completely forgotten that Daemons were in fact the first 5th ed codex... So really, you can slap Daemons right alongside Tyranids as the 'faildexes' of 5th ed.

I think GK's could still be right up there with the other highly competitive armies with even a little tonning down of their shinanigans;
- remove psychos
- rads don't effect instant death thresthold
- winning flame only hits models in BtB
- warp quake only 6" range - cannot remove Marks of Chaos or daemonic steeds
- hammerhand bonus applies after other modifiers such as daemonhammers
- psybolts cost +25pts for dreads
- swap the costs of falchions & halberds across all units

Now the army still looks dead hard, but the most obnoxious abuses aren't quite as big of a 'WTF?!' moment for opponents.

Add in a bit about making henchmen squads having a minimum size such that they can't be 67pt scoring Chimeras and you've pretty much solved the issues with the army, though I'd also probably bump cost on Purifiers slightly as even with nerfed cleansing flame at 24pts they're still ridiculously good (really, 24pts they'd still be really good without cleansing flame at all).

Experiment 626 wrote:
I think GK's could still be right up there with the other highly competitive armies with even a little tonning down of their shinanigans;
- remove psychos
- rads don't effect instant death thresthold
- winning flame only hits models in BtB
- warp quake only 6" range - cannot remove Marks of Chaos or daemonic steeds
- hammerhand bonus applies after other modifiers such as daemonhammers
- psybolts cost +25pts for dreads
- swap the costs of falchions & halberds across all units

I feel like I've seen this list elsewhere...

What issue is there with rad grenades affecting the instant death threshold? Mind you, the army can boost their strength with two other psychic powers, and have force weapons. I guess at least they have to deal with psychic defense then, but realistically, they probably already were.

With the changes you recommend to Cleansing Flame, how would you recommend that they deal with Orks/Nid horde lists? I'm kind of surprised you don't have problems with Sanctuary also.

I couldn't disagree with your proposed changes to warp quake. I'd even go so far as to make it have to originate from one particular model in the unit, rather than the unit itself.

Do your hammerhand changes take into account the fact that they're not going to have a meltagun? Shall they hope for that lucky 6 to penetrate a Land Raider in exchange for getting so close?

I'm not entirely sure I can dignify your psybolt ammo comment with a response. Is your problem even WITH psybolt ammo, or is it actually Fortitude you don't like? Do I need to explain the advantages/disadvantages of Psifleman Dreads versus Long Fangs again?

Your final comment about falchions and halberds highlights one interesting point though: Falchions are overpriced.

I see what your problem is with the codex, and I agree that it's an issue: The good stuff is too obviously good stuff. It annoys me too. I wish there was a reason to take falchions or psilencers. Indeed, half the codex is basically unused because the other half is obviously good. However, making good stuff bad is not the secret to balance.

As long as "Jaws of the World Wolf" exists I really don't see why people don't hate on SW at least as much as they do GKs.

I hate nothing in the game more than that stupid power.

I have 15 years wargaming experience, and have played 40K since 3rd edition. I can tell you that the Grey Knights are overpowered. They have access to many game changing special powers and
equipment, and do not pay a premium price for them.

With that being said, are they instant win? No. The last 3 times I have played Grey Knights, I tabled them using my Fatecrusher Daemons. One of the players was a tournament champion using
Draigo Wing. I would also be very confident playing them with my Dual Lash + Obliterators Chaos Space Marine List.

They definitely have an edge, and are not balanced against other codex’s for the amount of points things cost. However, I believe this advantage isn't large enough to make them unbeatable.

I believe a lot of the power curve in the codex is tied directly to Games Workshop wanting increased financial results. I am completely serious on this. I honestly feel that the marketing &
executive teams worked closely with games development, and "instructed" them to make the army dead hard. This "encourages" players to buy the army in order to have an edge in the game.

Personally, I love tabling Grey Knights, especially with my Fatecrusher Daemons. It is very satisfying, and always brings a lot of onlookers at the local shop.

NoArmorSave wrote:I have 15 years wargaming experience, and have played 40K since 3rd edition. I can tell you that the Grey Knights are overpowered. They have access to many game changing special powers and
equipment, and do not pay a premium price for them.

I have 2 years of wargaming experience. I can tell you that they're not, but it's not going to matter, because I don't back my statement up.

Here's something that bothers me. The formula for the classic argument follows as such:

"X is overpowered. Here's the unquantifiable reasons why I make this assertion.

I, of course, never have a problem playing against them and in fact win most games against them, in spite of my previous claim that they're overpowered. What a tactical genius I must be.

Clearly, I am amazing, and GW power creeps to sell models."

I have seen similar arguments made in "X is overpowered" threads since I joined Dakka.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

NoArmorSave wrote:I have 15 years wargaming experience, and have played 40K since 3rd edition. I can tell you that the Grey Knights are overpowered. They have access to many game changing special powers and
equipment, and do not pay a premium price for them.

I have 2 years of wargaming experience. I can tell you that they're not, but it's not going to matter, because I don't back my statement up.

My 2 cents.

Are they the "most overpowered book GW has put out in a decade"? IMO, no. 7th edition Demons, 3.5 Chaos (for the time) and several others across several editions might hold that distinction.

Are they overpowered in a game breaking fashion? Again, IMO no. They are a top end list but not a clear auto win.

Are they overpowered at all? This is subjective and depends where you draw the line for over powered. If you figure there are 14-16 armies in 40k, and anything over the 50% mark in terms of power is "over-powered", then GK being top 3 are clearly over-powered. If you draw the over-powered line above the best that existed pre-GK codex, then they aren't over-powered, as they seem to hang out more or less fine with SW, IG and to a lesser extent DE and BA in the upper tier.

It's all opinion really. If you feel SW and IG were broken, then odds are you feel GK are broken as well. If you thought SW/IG were okay then GK aren't really significantly better, if better at all, then those 2.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

daedalus wrote:Here's something that bothers me. The formula for the classic argument follows as such:

"X is overpowered. Here's the unquantifiable reasons why I make this assertion.

I, of course, never have a problem playing against them and in fact win most games against them, in spite of my previous claim that they're overpowered. What a tactical genius I must be.

Clearly, I am amazing, and GW power creeps to sell models."

I have seen similar arguments made in "X is overpowered" threads since I joined Dakka.

There's the factor of player skill in there as well. I mean, I've beaten GK every game I've played against them with my Tyranids and if I went straight off personal experience I'd say they were the worst army in the game. Having actually read the book and figured out what they are capable if I were playing with them I see that they clearly aren't terrible, just my opponent was awful. A lot of the quoted comments comes from the fear of your opponent actually doing things right and realizing you wouldn't be able to do much to beat him if he did. EG, I don't fear the GK codex, I fear GK in the hands of a good player.

NoArmorSave wrote:I have 15 years wargaming experience, and have played 40K since 3rd edition. I can tell you that the Grey Knights are overpowered. They have access to many game changing special powers and
equipment, and do not pay a premium price for them.

With that being said, are they instant win? No. The last 3 times I have played Grey Knights, I tabled them using my Fatecrusher Daemons. One of the players was a tournament champion using
Draigo Wing. I would also be very confident playing them with my Dual Lash + Obliterators Chaos Space Marine List.

They definitely have an edge, and are not balanced against other codex’s for the amount of points things cost. However, I believe this advantage isn't large enough to make them unbeatable.

I believe a lot of the power curve in the codex is tied directly to Games Workshop wanting increased financial results. I am completely serious on this. I honestly feel that the marketing &
executive teams worked closely with games development, and "instructed" them to make the army dead hard. This "encourages" players to buy the army in order to have an edge in the game.

Personally, I love tabling Grey Knights, especially with my Fatecrusher Daemons. It is very satisfying, and always brings a lot of onlookers at the local shop.

Wait, What. Grey Knights are overpowered, I can beat them with Deamon. The army they have the most buffs vs.

OK, makes sense .

Carnage43 wrote:My 2 cents.

Are they the "most overpowered book GW has put out in a decade"? IMO, no. 7th edition Demons, 3.5 Chaos (for the time) and several others across several editions might hold that distinction.

Are they overpowered in a game breaking fashion? Again, IMO no. They are a top end list but not a clear auto win.

Are they overpowered at all? This is subjective and depends where you draw the line for over powered. If you figure there are 14-16 armies in 40k, and anything over the 50% mark in terms of power is "over-powered", then GK being top 3 are clearly over-powered. If you draw the over-powered line above the best that existed pre-GK codex, then they aren't over-powered, as they seem to hang out more or less fine with SW, IG and to a lesser extent DE and BA in the upper tier.

It's all opinion really. If you feel SW and IG were broken, then odds are you feel GK are broken as well. If you thought SW/IG were okay then GK aren't really significantly better, if better at all, then those 2.

This is a great summation of how I feel as well. Exalted!

Monster Rain wrote:As long as "Jaws of the World Wolf" exists I really don't see why people don't hate on SW at least as much as they do GKs.

They don't? Because I'm pretty sure they do.

In answer to the OP: So what? I agree that GK are overpowered (so are BA, SW and some IG lists), but how does that affect your life? GW isn't going to listen to the forums (we all know this), so just learn to deal with the most common builds.

biccat wrote:GW isn't going to listen to the forums (we all know this), so just learn to deal with the most common builds.

But apparently Warren Buffet will:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/411913.page

Or Congress:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/400688.page

Or the White House press office:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/396088.page

Shockingly, people enjoy discussing things they cannot control.

Carnage43 wrote:

There's the factor of player skill in there as well. I mean, I've beaten GK every game I've played against them with my Tyranids and if I went straight off personal experience I'd say they were the worst army in the game. Having actually read the book and figured out what they are capable if I were playing with them I see that they clearly aren't terrible, just my opponent was awful. A lot of the quoted comments comes from the fear of your opponent actually doing things right and realizing you wouldn't be able to do much to beat him if he did. EG, I don't fear the GK codex, I fear GK in the hands of a good player.

Oh, admittedly so. I've tabled people playing GK with Nids, just as I've been wiped playing GK against other armies when I'm not playing well. It all comes down to skill and mistakes, but by that same logic, you shouldn't fear the army, you should fear the player. I submit that either the game is more balanced than people are willing to admit, or that the game has NEVER been balanced, and complaining about it now as if it's suddenly a surprise is disingenuous at best.

I mean, even in chess, does not the person moving first always have an advantage?

Polonius wrote:
But apparently Warren Buffet will:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/411913.page

Actually, I've long since suspected Frazzled of being Warren Buffet.

Polonius wrote:Shockingly, people enjoy discussing things they cannot control.

I'm not sure what your objection to my post is. The OP (and many, many others) have expressed their opinion as to either the overpowered, competitive, fair, or underpowered (ok, maybe not the last one) nature of Grey Knights.

Do you somehow think that my opinion - that GK are here to stay and won't change - is somehow less valid?

DarkStarSabre wrote:

(Seriously....why the Pyrovore? I think we can find more explanations for the duck-billed platypus than the Pyrovore!)

Don't bring platypi down to that level. At least they're poisonous.

daedalus wrote:

Carnage43 wrote:

There's the factor of player skill in there as well. I mean, I've beaten GK every game I've played against them with my Tyranids and if I went straight off personal experience I'd say they were the worst army in the game. Having actually read the book and figured out what they are capable if I were playing with them I see that they clearly aren't terrible, just my opponent was awful. A lot of the quoted comments comes from the fear of your opponent actually doing things right and realizing you wouldn't be able to do much to beat him if he did. EG, I don't fear the GK codex, I fear GK in the hands of a good player.

Oh, admittedly so. I've tabled people playing GK with Nids, just as I've been wiped playing GK against other armies when I'm not playing well. It all comes down to skill and mistakes, but by that same logic, you shouldn't fear the army, you should fear the player. I submit that either the game is more balanced than people are willing to admit, or that the game has NEVER been balanced, and complaining about it now as if it's suddenly a surprise is disingenuous at best.

I mean, even in chess, does not the person moving first always have an advantage?

It doesn't all come down to mistakes and skill. It comes down to mistakes, skill, dice rolls, and the power of the tools at your disposal. The Grey Knight Codex gives players additional tools and power that other Codex's do not offer.

If a brand new player picks up Grey Knights as a starting army, chances are he will have more success than if he picked up a different army. The reason being are the over the top power(s), abilitie(s), and option(s) that the
codex offers. I will put it a different way; if 2 brand new players both picked up new armies, the new player fielding Grey Knights would likely win more often against the other new player that chose a different army.

Additionally, the Grey Knight Codex is so strong, that it allows new players to compete with veteran players using lower tier codexes. I have witnessed this myself several times.

It is not a balanced codex, and almost every veteran player that I have spoken with agrees.

NoArmorSave wrote:I have 15 years wargaming experience, and have played 40K since 3rd edition. I can tell you that the Grey Knights are overpowered. They have access to many game changing special powers and
equipment, and do not pay a premium price for them.

With that being said, are they instant win? No. The last 3 times I have played Grey Knights, I tabled them using my Fatecrusher Daemons. One of the players was a tournament champion using
Draigo Wing. I would also be very confident playing them with my Dual Lash + Obliterators Chaos Space Marine List.

They definitely have an edge, and are not balanced against other codex’s for the amount of points things cost. However, I believe this advantage isn't large enough to make them unbeatable.

I believe a lot of the power curve in the codex is tied directly to Games Workshop wanting increased financial results. I am completely serious on this. I honestly feel that the marketing &
executive teams worked closely with games development, and "instructed" them to make the army dead hard. This "encourages" players to buy the army in order to have an edge in the game.

Personally, I love tabling Grey Knights, especially with my Fatecrusher Daemons. It is very satisfying, and always brings a lot of onlookers at the local shop.

+1 to this. I have been following 40k since third as well.

This largely sums up my opinions regarding GK. I think one of the main issues with the book is that it has been point costed using a dramatically cheaper point cost model than previous 5E books (most likely to generate more sales). Another issue IMO is that the book appears to be balanced in a vacuum comparison (i.e. when comparing GK against itself or in isolated scenarios). I will agree however that GK are not game breaking broken but it doesn’t mean the book is well balanced (or well written) either.

Personally if the nemesis force weapons (available to rank and file), psychic abilities (such as hammerhand, cleansing flame etc) and special grenades (such as rad and psychotroke) were toned down somewhat (both in power and point cost), I could see the book being more balanced.

Im hoping that there is something in 6th(which seems prety likely soon) will have some knid of changes that balance out grey knights. Maybe something like taking model count into consideration or new rapid fire rules to give other armies a boast. Something more punidhing them perals might balance them out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Has anyone tried to compare the total people playing gk to avg. win percent?

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
I have 2 years of wargaming experience. I can tell you that they're not, but it's not going to matter, because I don't back my statement up.

Then what's your point of posting?

Im hoping that there is something in 6th(which seems prety likely soon) will have some knid of changes that balance out grey knights. Maybe something like taking model count into consideration or new rapid fire rules to give other armies a boast. Something more punidhing them perals might balance them out.

Probably the very opposite.
If rumors are true about less vehicle heavy builds being put forward (hope) then it will benefit the GK.

Same goes for certain special characters nobody used now like Mordrak, completely useless in todays vehicle park meta men might work wonders in an infantry heavy dito.

The rumor of HQs being able to snipe in shooting are also beneficial to GK, finally those super expensive psycannon options for captains and masters will start making sense.

Isseyfaran wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
I have 2 years of wargaming experience. I can tell you that they're not, but it's not going to matter, because I don't back my statement up.

Then what's your point of posting?

Sarcasm, my friend, sarcasm.

So the general consensus is that grey knights are over-powered. Mind you they can still be beat but it usually takes a better player and/or a favorable mission/dice rolling. I just hope they dont try to nix them to much with 6th edition and do what they did to fantasy. R.I.P. both of my undead armies and daemons still found a way to be uber powerful.

Grey knights are powerfull op maybe. They arnt point and click simple they take some knowegle to play. Here comes another mtg refernce control decks are often incredably powerfull but few players are good with control beacuse it takes time to master and is expensive to buy. Grey knights take time to master they unlike control are cheap and thats why there everywhere. I still think that the greyknights is a 6th edition codex and meant to be balanced in the next edition I dont think im right but i hope so.


Ive only been playing scince 5th has gw ever put faq out to change the costs of upgades to weaken a book like has been described in this fourm before?

To my knowledge that has never happened.

EDIT.

I am wrong. It did happen to the cost of Storm Shields for Black Templar. This happened simultaneously with them being brought in line with the newer Storm Shield wording.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Isseyfaran wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
I have 2 years of wargaming experience. I can tell you that they're not, but it's not going to matter, because I don't back my statement up.

Then what's your point of posting?

Sarcasm, my friend, sarcasm.

And here I was thinking you were making a point, about being claiming thing with no proof.

Khardrock11 wrote:Grey knights are powerfull op maybe. They arnt point and click simple they take some knowegle to play. Here comes another mtg refernce control decks are often incredably powerfull but few players are good with control beacuse it takes time to master and is expensive to buy. Grey knights take time to master they unlike control are cheap and thats why there everywhere. I still think that the greyknights is a 6th edition codex and meant to be balanced in the next edition I dont think im right but i hope so.


Ive only been playing scince 5th has gw ever put faq out to change the costs of upgades to weaken a book like has been described in this fourm before?

Only in a very few select cases to my knowledge;
- 3rd ed had the Dark Angels & Dark Eldar '2nd printing' books which fiddled with outa-wack pts costs, (because most units were insanely over-costed), while Dark Eldar also recieved their missing vehicle upgrades that were never in the originaly printing!

- 6th ed Fantasy saw a Dark Elf re-giggling which I believe *might* have led also to a second printing of the book?! (or else it stayed as downloadable PDF)
Again, same reason as before since the army book itself sucked so much @$$ the army was laughed off the table without a single dice being rolled! Even with some re-costing that wasbasicaly all lowering pts costs of grossly ineffective units, Dark Elves were still pretty pants in 6th. (then they got stupid-powerfull in 7th and are still a top contender currently!)

- 4th ed Templars & Dark Angels have both recived faq's qhich have altered alot of the equipment rules to bring them into line with the newer marine books. A few pts costs, (mainly storm shields), have also been increased to take into account their new effectiveness.



Still, I highly doubt GW is going to do too much to nerf GK's in the 6th ed since they're an amazing cashcow! What I'd more worried about is the changes that are supposed to balance GK's don't do much overall and instead, one or two other armies get slaped silly with a nerf bat they don't really need... (look at what happened to undead in 8th )

I don't want to rain on anybody's parade here, but I predict that one day this forum will see a thread entitled thus:

"Codex Gretchin is the most overpowered book GW has ever done."

Then again, I remember the snotling gun that people used to shoot at titans

Noir wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Isseyfaran wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
I have 2 years of wargaming experience. I can tell you that they're not, but it's not going to matter, because I don't back my statement up.

Then what's your point of posting?

Sarcasm, my friend, sarcasm.

And here I was thinking you were making a point, about being claiming thing with no proof.

That's because I did; by using sarcasm.

Well, after battling GK a few times, twice in an RTT two days ago, I found that GK are rather scary. I mainly play mech Eldar. Psycannon can ruin my day if they target my Serpents and Dreadknights are not easy to stop with their teleporters and scout move thanks to grand strategy.

It appears that GK is the most powerful MEQ codex that appeared during the last decade. The only MEQ codex on par was the 3.5 ed CSM codex which I found was the best codex so far.

wuestenfux wrote:Well, after battling GK a few times, twice in an RTT two days ago, I found that GK are rather scary. I mainly play mech Eldar. Psycannon can ruin my day if they target my Serpents and Dreadknights are not easy to stop with their teleporters and scout move thanks to grand strategy.

It appears that GK is the most powerful MEQ codex that appeared during the last decade. The only MEQ codex on par was the 3.5 ed CSM codex which I found was the best codex so far.

I'd say that BA's DoA is also quite a handfull for alot of lists simply because those assault squads can all pack cheap meltas + inferno pistols and easily land within range of all your vehicles with very little risk.

Experiment 626 wrote:

wuestenfux wrote:Well, after battling GK a few times, twice in an RTT two days ago, I found that GK are rather scary. I mainly play mech Eldar. Psycannon can ruin my day if they target my Serpents and Dreadknights are not easy to stop with their teleporters and scout move thanks to grand strategy.

It appears that GK is the most powerful MEQ codex that appeared during the last decade. The only MEQ codex on par was the 3.5 ed CSM codex which I found was the best codex so far.

I'd say that BA's DoA is also quite a handfull for alot of lists simply because those assault squads can all pack cheap meltas + inferno pistols and easily land within range of all your vehicles with very little risk.

The difference is cost and the ability to be multi-purpose. DoA might do okay against certain mech builds but it gets destroyed by non mech builds. Nids could eat them for lunch. Never lost to a DoA list to date... actually to think about it I have only lost to one blood angels army and it was against a friend and I was out of the running so it was a really lax game, aka I assaulted him with guard. lol! I have lost to grey knights though.

Experiment 626 wrote:

Khardrock11 wrote:Grey knights are powerfull op maybe. They arnt point and click simple they take some knowegle to play. Here comes another mtg refernce control decks are often incredably powerfull but few players are good with control beacuse it takes time to master and is expensive to buy. Grey knights take time to master they unlike control are cheap and thats why there everywhere. I still think that the greyknights is a 6th edition codex and meant to be balanced in the next edition I dont think im right but i hope so.


Ive only been playing scince 5th has gw ever put faq out to change the costs of upgades to weaken a book like has been described in this fourm before?

Only in a very few select cases to my knowledge;
- 3rd ed had the Dark Angels & Dark Eldar '2nd printing' books which fiddled with outa-wack pts costs, (because most units were insanely over-costed), while Dark Eldar also recieved their missing vehicle upgrades that were never in the originaly printing!

- 6th ed Fantasy saw a Dark Elf re-giggling which I believe *might* have led also to a second printing of the book?! (or else it stayed as downloadable PDF)
Again, same reason as before since the army book itself sucked so much @$$ the army was laughed off the table without a single dice being rolled! Even with some re-costing that wasbasicaly all lowering pts costs of grossly ineffective units, Dark Elves were still pretty pants in 6th. (then they got stupid-powerfull in 7th and are still a top contender currently!)

- 4th ed Templars & Dark Angels have both recived faq's qhich have altered alot of the equipment rules to bring them into line with the newer marine books. A few pts costs, (mainly storm shields), have also been increased to take into account their new effectiveness.



Still, I highly doubt GW is going to do too much to nerf GK's in the 6th ed since they're an amazing cashcow! What I'd more worried about is the changes that are supposed to balance GK's don't do much overall and instead, one or two other armies get slaped silly with a nerf bat they don't really need... (look at what happened to undead in 8th )

i dont think their a cash cow with low model count all you need is 1 finecast and 20 termies not bad

I disagree, only needing 50 or so models makes everyone play them for convenience and power. So yea you might sell less total models to each player but if 80% of people pick them up then it's still incredibly profitable. Plus, rules aside they have some of the best kits to date which means modelers like me will buy the kit just for parts.

Do we really need to keep harping on the GK codex? Isn't every new codex "the most powerful ever"? We will see a list that can beat the Grey Knights, then the next new codex will be the "most overpowered".

experiment 626 Wrote:

Still, I highly doubt GW is going to do too much to nerf GK's in the 6th ed since they're an amazing cashcow! What I'd more worried about is the changes that are supposed to balance GK's don't do much overall and instead, one or two other armies get slaped silly with a nerf bat they don't really need... (look at what happened to undead in 8th )

Cash cow? Depends on did it bring more people to the hobby or not.

Quote from ICv2's article "Games Had Hot Summer" that was posted on their site on 11-1-11

Games Workshop, the leader in the non-collectible miniatures category, had a rough summer, with quality issues on its new Finecast resin line, spotty supply, and shorter solicitation cycles all affecting sales. Meanwhile, Privateer continued steps to shore up its backlist availability, and coupled with GW’s problems, was picking up customers.

GK are not a cash cow. They did not increase the customer base. According to the article they lost customer base (IMHO) by their shoddy practices. If they did get any profit from the release, it came from those people who are already within their shrinking customer base and are willing to buy another army.

You can look at the entire article here.
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/21399.html

As far the "Top 5 Non-Collectible Miniature Lines--Summer 2011" is posted here.
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/21404.html

DoctorZombie wrote:Do we really need to keep harping on the GK codex? Isn't every new codex "the most powerful ever"? .

No. Dark Eldar never received nearly as much criticism for being overpowered. If anything, many players complained about their favorite combos being nurfed.

hemingway wrote:

DoctorZombie wrote:Do we really need to keep harping on the GK codex? Isn't every new codex "the most powerful ever"? .

No. Dark Eldar never received nearly as much criticism for being overpowered. If anything, many players complained about their favorite combos being nurfed.

IMHO Dark Eldar is one of the better balanced codex out right now.

Admittedly, I've not fought against them yet. However, the only time necrons seem to be getting complained about really do seem to be people who can't adapt to a change or two.

Well, that and stuff that'll be fixed in FAQs....

All I can say about GK is that they can do a lot of things really well that make a lot of other players probably really jealous when they compare similar elements of their armies with GK.

As I've posted earlier, being a long time craftworld Eldar player, I have a MUCH easier time winning with GK than I do with Eldar but I still win with Eldar all the time, it just takes more thinking and skill where as with GK I can just move models, point and click, basically.

GK are a VERY solid and strong army and players will have to shift their army builds appropriately to deal with them, I guess. I personally go for an ultra balanced all comers list so I never find myself unable to deal with any army in particular but I think that a lot of other armies tend to overload in one aspect of the game and not do so well against GK armies that counter their weaknesses.

Take Longfang/RB spam GK, they prob won't do too well against Draigo Wing. Hydra/Manticore spam IG prob will do OK until the Vendettas go down and their melta vets get shot out of their Chimeras but even so, they will prob have a problem too so it is just a case of rock paper scissors. Try to have a bit of all 3 in your list and you'll do fine. Too many armies are built with too much rock, paper or scissors IMO.

mortetvie wrote:All I can say about GK is that they can do a lot of things really well that make a lot of other players probably really jealous when they compare similar elements of their armies with GK.

As I've posted earlier, being a long time craftworld Eldar player, I have a MUCH easier time winning with GK than I do with Eldar but I still win with Eldar all the time, it just takes more thinking and skill where as with GK I can just move models, point and click, basically.

GK are a VERY solid and strong army and players will have to shift their army builds appropriately to deal with them, I guess. I personally go for an ultra balanced all comers list so I never find myself unable to deal with any army in particular but I think that a lot of other armies tend to overload in one aspect of the game and not do so well against GK armies that counter their weaknesses.

Take Longfang/RB spam GK, they prob won't do too well against Draigo Wing. Hydra/Manticore spam IG prob will do OK until the Vendettas go down and their melta vets get shot out of their Chimeras but even so, they will prob have a problem too so it is just a case of rock paper scissors. Try to have a bit of all 3 in your list and you'll do fine. Too many armies are built with too much rock, paper or scissors IMO.

Another thing that ruins grey knights is there ability to wipe an opponent off the board with relative ease. Countless players have stopped playing or refuse to play against grey knights. Hell some grey knight players get heckled on sight. As goatboy said in his recent blog. GK = No Fun for at least one of the players!

Tomb King wrote:

Another thing that ruins grey knights is there ability to wipe an opponent off the board with relative ease.

Here we are discussing whether that is really true or not. Some kind of justification or argument would be nice.

Countless players have stopped playing or refuse to play against grey knights.

A meaningless statement that doesn't prove anything.....besides that some people give up waaay to easily

Hell some grey knight players get heckled on sight.

Now that is just childish. Do these hecklers do this to "old school" Grey Knights players as well? And how do they tell the "old school" from the bandwagon-jumpers?

As goatboy said in his recent blog. GK = No Fun for at least one of the players!

Well, I guess it must be true then......or it is simply the opinion of one vocal person on a blog.




I don't disagree with the general sentiment that Grey Knights are rather good. I wouldn't even argue too hard against that they are indeed OP.
But these kinds of unsubstantiated blanket statements doesn't prove anything, nor promote discussion.

Tomb King wrote:
Another thing that ruins grey knights is there ability to wipe an opponent off the board with relative ease. Countless players have stopped playing or refuse to play against grey knights. Hell some grey knight players get heckled on sight. As goatboy said in his recent blog. GK = No Fun for at least one of the players!

Well, my friends and I have had to house rule most of the codex just so my Daemons can stand a fighting chance because I don't really want to use a fateweaver list every single game...

I can't believe this thread is still up.

40k is a slow metagame and takes time to change eventually there will be a list that beats gk.

Wow... this thread is borderlining epic...

Here's my take... (forgive my stream of conscious style).

Who CARES if GK (or any army) is OP or not! (disclaimer: I don't play GK nor any army of the imperium)

The real question should be: How to I design MY ARMY of choice to combat against other popular builds?

I'd be more interested in engaging a veteran GK player and ask what units/strategy/gear are sucessful against GK.

--- And I can't BELIEVE no one mentioned putting a Farseer in an Eldar list. That one guy alone essentially turns GK into an expensive marine list.

I play DE and Orks.... played against numerous flavors of GK builds in tourny and FLGS gamenight.

And I only lost to GK once... I was playing a standard KanWall list with loaded looters. I didn't know about that long ass'ed flamer that DreadKnights can use... needless to say, it was a short game .

Other than that, I'd just treat them like other "specialized" marine lists, like BT and DeathWing DA lists.

So... again, whenever a new codex is released (Hello Necrons!!!) I'd advocate that we all engage those players who used the new codexes and ask what units/strategy/gear are sucessful against the new codex.

Then, adjust your list accordingly... then the next time you play, it's a TAC list that can have "some sort of answer" against other popular builds.

Just my 2-cent....

ps. I like how civil this thread is... Keep it up!

whembly wrote:Wow... this thread is borderlining epic...

Here's my take... (forgive my stream of conscious style).

Who CARES if GK (or any army) is OP or not! (disclaimer: I don't play GK nor any army of the imperium)

The real question should be: How to I design MY ARMY of choice to combat against other popular builds?

I'd be more interested in engaging a veteran GK player and ask what units/strategy/gear are sucessful against GK.

--- And I can't BELIEVE no one mentioned putting a Farseer in an Eldar list. That one guy alone essentially turns GK into an expensive marine list.

I play DE and Orks.... played against numerous flavors of GK builds in tourny and FLGS gamenight.

And I only lost to GK once... I was playing a standard KanWall list with loaded looters. I didn't know about that long ass'ed flamer that DreadKnights can use... needless to say, it was a short game .

Other than that, I'd just treat them like other "specialized" marine lists, like BT and DeathWing DA lists.

So... again, whenever a new codex is released (Hello Necrons!!!) I'd advocate that we all engage those players who used the new codexes and ask what units/strategy/gear are sucessful against the new codex.

Then, adjust your list accordingly... then the next time you play, it's a TAC list that can have "some sort of answer" against other popular builds.

Just my 2-cent....

ps. I like how civil this thread is... Keep it up!

I admire your approach and normally it works. The issue people run into is the amount of competitive builds grey knights can bring. The same build that might topple purifiers might have trouble with draigowing or inquistor razorspam. There is no true all comers list against this army, they have too many successful variables that they could be running. While on the subject, people usually build assault heavy or shooting heavy. When you run up against grey knights it is quite possible regardless of which you chose that they are better at both. I have a friend that plays space wolves and he likes to run a mix of both but grey knights are then better on both front as the grenades and psychic powers to boost it can lead to his little puppies and scouts not even swinging before dying.

The heckling I spoke of above is more or so friendly. Kind of like come on man. We dont shun them but it is like someone showing up with fatecrusher every week. You can beat it but its going to be a boring game and you might have to tailor to that build. You can build a list to beat grey knights but then get stomped by half the other armies out there. That is why they are overpowered. The amount of competitive builds in the GK book is more then any other codex. sigh... why bother this is like trying to convince someone that has an inability to comprehend the big picture. One of the grey knight characters that is playable LIVES IN THE WARP! Oh look, Draigo's on vacation from the warp to curb stomp my not daemon army.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/12/goatboys-40k-im-done-with-grey-knights.html

Tomb King wrote:You can beat it but its going to be a boring game and you might have to tailor to that build. You can build a list to beat grey knights but then get stomped by half the other armies out there. That is why they are overpowered. The amount of competitive builds in the GK book is more then any other codex. sigh... why bother this is like trying to convince someone that has an inability to comprehend the big picture.

I entirely disagree with you. A true take all comers list should for a start be able to deal with:

-DE Venom Spam
-Razor Spam
-DoA
-All Terminator Armies (ala Deathwing)
-AV12/13 spam
-Horde
-T6 Spam

Any list I build that can handle all those styles of list (and I can build one out of every codex outside of Eldar and that's just due to my lack of experience with Eldar) can handle any "competitive" gk build. Don't blame a book for an inability to build a proper take all comers list.

Also the idea that people can't see a larger picture because they don't agree with you is misguided and comes off arrogant. Is it possible that maybe you don't quite understand the balance of the game and that brings you to the conclusion that GK are broken?

I stand by that GK aren't broken. I also don't expect to see them dominating the Tourney scene this year anything like the Orks did in 2008-2009.

Tomb King wrote:

Another thing that ruins grey knights is there ability to wipe an opponent off the board with relative ease. Countless players have stopped playing or refuse to play against grey knights. Hell some grey knight players get heckled on sight. As goatboy said in his recent blog. GK = No Fun for at least one of the players!

I don't know, I don't mind and rather enjoy playing against GK with my Eldar, I think that army has a lot of nice counter options for GK =). In a tournament you can't choose to NOT play an opponent so its best to just man up and be prepared =/.

I recently played in a 2k tournament with my GKs and 2 of my 3 matches were some of the best I've played, one I won and the other I lost. It was only the 3rd match where it felt more like a chore for me to win.

1st match vs Tau - Surprisingly tough opponent and I had to earn the victory
2nd match vs BA - just a mop up, I have grown bored with facing the BA
3rd match vs SW - most difficult and most fun match I've had in a tournament to date, lost but only by a hairs breadth

Only against BA do I find it even remotely point and click to win.

Hulksmash wrote:

Tomb King wrote:You can beat it but its going to be a boring game and you might have to tailor to that build. You can build a list to beat grey knights but then get stomped by half the other armies out there. That is why they are overpowered. The amount of competitive builds in the GK book is more then any other codex. sigh... why bother this is like trying to convince someone that has an inability to comprehend the big picture.

I entirely disagree with you. A true take all comers list should for a start be able to deal with:

-DE Venom Spam
-Razor Spam
-DoA
-All Terminator Armies (ala Deathwing)
-AV12/13 spam
-Horde
-T6 Spam

Any list I build that can handle all those styles of list (and I can build one out of every codex outside of Eldar and that's just due to my lack of experience with Eldar) can handle any "competitive" gk build. Don't blame a book for an inability to build a proper take all comers list.

Also the idea that people can't see a larger picture because they don't agree with you is misguided and comes off arrogant. Is it possible that maybe you don't quite understand the balance of the game and that brings you to the conclusion that GK are broken?

I stand by that GK aren't broken. I also don't expect to see them dominating the Tourney scene this year anything like the Orks did in 2008-2009.

I beat grey knights just fine. Its just the means to do so isnt really too much fun and if I end up facing someone non grey knights and they get curb stomped by the list ment to compete with grey knights then I feel like an ass even further. I have been playing a lot with lower tier armies lately. I find them more fun and an actual challenge to win with rather then the top tier armies that have a paved road.

I entirely disagree with you. A true take all comers list should for a start be able to deal with:

-DE Venom Spam
-Razor Spam
-DoA
-All Terminator Armies (ala Deathwing)
-AV12/13 spam
-Horde
-T6 Spam

Any list I build that can handle all those styles of list (and I can build one out of every codex outside of Eldar and that's just due to my lack of experience with Eldar) can handle any "competitive" gk build. Don't blame a book for an inability to build a proper take all comers list.

I call shenanigans. Weapons that are good versus venom spam are not good versus av13 spam for example. I think you have confused having a tool to deal with something in your army from handling that army.

For example, since you say you can do this with every army, how do your orks deal with venom spam while also dealing with DoA? Dealing with an army means that you should beat them with an opponent of equal skill more than half the time. Hulk methinks you are leveraging your player skill into the equasion, which colors your perception.

Now, there is an army that can deal with any army build and still win over half the time. They are the Grey Knights. They, and they alone, have the tools in a single list to beat any army with more than a 50% win chance provided player skill is the same.

@Devian

I might indeed be leveraging in player skill and that does color perception admittedly. But I see that skill as being attainable by anyone who plays in 40+ tournament games a year

As for my Orks vs. DoA and Venom Spam the tools in my (and by my I mean a base list I stole from MVB and tweaked to my style) work well for both. I'll pm you my list and how I would handle it as I don't want to clutter the thread up with it as it doesn't relate to the topic. But Wagons, Trukks, Buggies, and Kanz feature prominantly

Honestly I've found GK's relatively one dimensional with fewer targets on the field for me worry about.

Hulksmash wrote:

Honestly I've found GK's relatively one dimensional with fewer targets on the field for me worry about.

No wai, they have to be at least 3-D models to be able to stand up by themselves!

In all seriousness, I think many prominent builds by GK (draigowing/purifier spam/Henchmen spam) can be rather short sighted or one dimensional but I think a good balanced/mixed GK army with a bit of everything really has a lot to offer and is really fun to play. Its just that their points costs are so prohibitive hehe. If GK cost as much as SW/IG then we'd have an OP army but because everything is so expensive to begin with, I think they are rather tame, with a few exceptions.

I play primarily henchmen and razorspam, with teleporting Dreadknights as my heavy support, so my perspective comes from that. What I have found is that GK wins the Razorspam battle, but falls short against less trendy tournament builds out there. As such, they are certainly a lot for the favored SW list of our area (longwang razorspam) to take head on, but blobed up guard armies or even infantry heavy MEQs? Not so much. Until basic SM hamminators get a price adjustment they are not even in the running for top three HtH armies out there.

They have a lot of interesting advantages against a couple of specific armies (most notable Orks, Blood Angels, Templars), some interesting weaknesses (many variations of IG, Eldar), and horribly wreck a couple of the weaker books (Nids and Daemons). This is pretty much what the other regular tournament goers I often confer with have been seeing, as well. This puts them in the solid number three spot of codexes and the actual tournament data is reflecting that.

I maintain that people who relentlessly cry OP (and relentlessly refuse to accept that the tangible date shows otherwise) need to update their armies to reflect the newer metagame and get some more playtesting in.

I wonder if the GK anti-daemon rules weren't written with the idea that all 1-wound daemon units would be getting the old sustained assault special rule. Then the rule didn't materialize, but the anti-daemon rules still stuck.