LunarSol wrote:
I'm very much of the belief that GKs don't have enough kit variety to be anything other than a support army. They're, what... 3? unique SKUs outside of special characters?

 Quickjager wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I'm very much of the belief that GKs don't have enough kit variety to be anything other than a support army. They're, what... 3? unique SKUs outside of special characters?

That's nice dear.

 LunarSol wrote:
To me, that's the sign of an army that isn't fleshed out well enough to stand on its own and probably needs to be part of a more varied package.

Karol wrote:
I played a few more games this week, and with each game I want to play less and less. I feel like I blew my summer money on a PC that was burned out.

Is there a way to salvage the GK models at least? Can I play them as Custodes or something else. No idea what Draigo or the dreadknight would suppose to be. He is too small to be a knight and too big to be a dreadnought.

Don't grey knights have a ton of models? both metal and plastic terminators models, and strikes. Plastic interceptors, all the tanks, dreadnoughts, they can take the stormraven and the land raider etc.
more units then what deathwatch has.

Karol wrote:
I played a few more games this week, and with each game I want to play less and less. I feel like I blew my summer money on a PC that was burned out.

Is there a way to salvage the GK models at least? Can I play them as Custodes or something else. No idea what Draigo or the dreadknight would suppose to be. He is too small to be a knight and too big to be a dreadnought.

Don't grey knights have a ton of models? both metal and plastic terminators models, and strikes. Plastic interceptors, all the tanks, dreadnoughts, they can take the stormraven and the land raider etc.
more units then what deathwatch has.

Loafing wrote:

I mean GW did include two price tags for Grey Knight special weapons (Power Armour and Terminator)

The only difference is Terminators keep their Nemesis weapons and the pricetag is unaffected by the Attack characteristic (otherwise Strikes, Terminators, and Paladins would have different pricetags for the Daemonhammer)

So it's safe to assume Nemesis Force Weapons cost 6 pts.
(All Terminator SWs cost 6 pts more)

This would make Strike Knight's model cost the same as a Tactical Marine (which is fitting as they have the exact same profile)

[Personally I find it annoying when GW bakes base gear's price into a model's base cost, just make all wargear have a price, easier to balance in the long term, imo]

A.T. wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
To me, that's the sign of an army that isn't fleshed out well enough to stand on its own and probably needs to be part of a more varied package.

They'd make an interesting triumvirate with the custodes and sisters of silence, especially if they went back towards their old shadowy psykerness.

 greyknight12 wrote:

A.T. wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
To me, that's the sign of an army that isn't fleshed out well enough to stand on its own and probably needs to be part of a more varied package.

They'd make an interesting triumvirate with the custodes and sisters of silence, especially if they went back towards their old shadowy psykerness.

I've said it before, but no GK player would complain if we went back to being Codex: Daemonhunters. And even after they renamed the codex in 5th, up until the final 7th edition codex we still had inquisition and assassins in our codex and they formed a decent chunk of a lot of players' armies.

A.T. wrote:
That is another direction to take them, though in terms of consolidating minor factions GK/Talons and WitchHunters seem to mix better - the inquisition were the outsider/radical part of the Grey Knight army as opposed to the more integral role they had in WH.
Rolled back into the GK book there would be the risk of the inquisition becoming cheap bubblewrap and plasma caddies which waters down the ultra-elite theme somewhat.

A.T. wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:

A.T. wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
To me, that's the sign of an army that isn't fleshed out well enough to stand on its own and probably needs to be part of a more varied package.

They'd make an interesting triumvirate with the custodes and sisters of silence, especially if they went back towards their old shadowy psykerness.

I've said it before, but no GK player would complain if we went back to being Codex: Daemonhunters. And even after they renamed the codex in 5th, up until the final 7th edition codex we still had inquisition and assassins in our codex and they formed a decent chunk of a lot of players' armies.

That is another direction to take them, though in terms of consolidating minor factions GK/Talons and WitchHunters seem to mix better - the inquisition were the outsider/radical part of the Grey Knight army as opposed to the more integral role they had in WH.
Rolled back into the GK book there would be the risk of the inquisition becoming cheap bubblewrap and plasma caddies which waters down the ultra-elite theme somewhat.

kombatwombat wrote:
It kind of reinforces the point about GK’s problems being based in their being Marines though. A basic Power-Armoured GK relative to a Tactical Marine has the following changes:

- loses Chapter Tactics (so -1 to Hit outside 12”, ignores cover or a 6+++ or something)

- gains the ability to Deny the Witch with +1 - great for an elite army afraid of Smites
- gains a Stormbolter for 2pts - generally considered a solid weapon, particularly in numbers
- gains a Force Axe worth 8-9pts for only 6pts - a pretty good deal
- gains essentially a 2+ to deal a Mortal Wound per turn, with a ~3% chance at Perils

Sure, there’s other considerations like synergies with auras and Strragems but looking at just raw profiles that looks like a pretty good tradeoff IMO. And yet, even without considering synergies and Stratagems and the like, PA GK are still terrible. It says a lot about the basic Marine profile that you can give it all those changes and it still sucks.

jcd386 wrote:
One of the reasons the 5th book was so good is that you could grab a couple Chimeras full of cheap storm bolters acolyes in an otherwise expensive codex, making GK really the first marine army with both marine and guardsmen profiles working together. I for one have always thought that was pretty cool.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:

Just to nitpick

They do not lose their Chapter Tactic- The GK tactic is gain +1 to psychic tests
A Force Axe only cost 10 pts per CA Force weapons in general cost 8-10 pts per CA
It takes a 4+ to cast smite for 1 MW and then it can't cast anything else

 Marmatag wrote:
In honesty, people would equip them with free chainswords if they had the option

33pt terminators

Karol wrote:
Why did GW take away all those options? Did they ever explain it?

jcd386 wrote:

Karol wrote:
Why did GW take away all those options? Did they ever explain it?

Mostly marines just didn't get anything except primaris and chapter tactics from the new edition, and lost a lot (deepstriking landspeeders, grav being good, rhinos being useful, marines being durable). It really seems like GW did as little as possible to marines during the conversion process, probably because they were the first codexes (they came out with like 5 or so marine books in a row?). Now that they are actually figuring out how the edition works, and being more creative with the Xenos books they had so much more time to write, as well as making core changes in the FAQs (good ones, i think) to balance the overall game, marines and GK by extension are suffering from the way their army design was focused much more on toning down the insanity of 7th than it was properly integrating them into 8th.

All that said I am sure it was hard to foresee this so i can't exactly be angry at them as long as they follow their plan with CA and the FAQs in the next year or so to fix these armies. I really think 40k is in the best place it's ever been overall, especially with the attitude that GW has seemed to have lately. I just wish i wasn't spending much of this edition with my collection being mostly mediocre (it's probably karma from playing SW in 5th, though, so who can say lol).

If i were you i would focus on the craft side of the hobby and learn what you can from your games (I promise the ONLY reason you are losing is not because you play GK).

 Marmatag wrote:
In reality you wouldn't pay for force weapons on 1 attack models.

The fact that the cost is baked into the GK is actually hurting them.

In honesty, people would equip them with free chainswords if they had the option, and thus lowering their cost from 21 (with storm bolter) down to like 15.

So touting the force weapon as a plus is really not fair.

Now, if PAGK had a base of 2 attacks you *might* have the argument that it's worth it

GK struggle to get into melee and when they get there, they don't have the attack volume to do any meaningful damage.

There are a lot of problems here with this army. Some of it stems from the fact that assault marines are flat bad. Would assault marines see play if they had a base 3 attacks? I mean honestly, would they? Maybe. Only maybe.

jcd386 wrote:
I don't remember the ammo on the storm bolters. If you could take it is wasn't really worth it in the pagks. But S6 heavy bolters on razorbacks and S8 autocannon dreads were good, and the psycannon was one of the better troop weapons in the game at that time so the strikes were pretty useful and purifiers were downright scary.

 greyknight12 wrote:

jcd386 wrote:
I don't remember the ammo on the storm bolters. If you could take it is wasn't really worth it in the pagks. But S6 heavy bolters on razorbacks and S8 autocannon dreads were good, and the psycannon was one of the better troop weapons in the game at that time so the strikes were pretty useful and purifiers were downright scary.

You did take the ammo if you had the points, especially on our terminators...it was 20 pts for the squad, so you'd give it to a squad of 10 and combat squad. And yeah the psyrifle dread was solid. I'm also annoyed that the psycannon didn't follow the autocannon or assault cannon's new profiles, cause it used to be better than both those guns (minus the shorter range vs the autocannon).

kombatwombat wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
In reality you wouldn't pay for force weapons on 1 attack models.

The fact that the cost is baked into the GK is actually hurting them.

In honesty, people would equip them with free chainswords if they had the option, and thus lowering their cost from 21 (with storm bolter) down to like 15.

So touting the force weapon as a plus is really not fair.

Now, if PAGK had a base of 2 attacks you *might* have the argument that it's worth it

GK struggle to get into melee and when they get there, they don't have the attack volume to do any meaningful damage.

There are a lot of problems here with this army. Some of it stems from the fact that assault marines are flat bad. Would assault marines see play if they had a base 3 attacks? I mean honestly, would they? Maybe. Only maybe.

That’s exactly my point though! You can give GK a 10pt weapon for 6pts and it’s still not good. The whole point is that none of these are GK-specific problems, they’re problems with the basic Marine profile which they share. Lack of durability, lack of mobility and low attack volume are all core Marine problems. Fix those, and suddenly a Force Axe on a PA GK doesn’t sound like such a bad idea, particularly when paired with a Stormbolter and Deny/psychic abilities.

I’ll say it again, the best solution in my view is to just make all Marines have the +1 Wound/Attack that Primaris have, and remove the Primaris keyword altogether so everybody can hop in any transport. 23pts for a 2-Wound 3+ model with 2 attacks with a Force Weapon, a Stormbolter, the ability to Deny with +1 and the equivalent of a 2+ to do a Mortal Wound per unit each turn sounds alright. Address their mobility - say by reducing the cost of Transports or something - and you’re well on your way to making GK strong even before you get to addressing their Psychic problems.

With or without that change, I’m also onboard for the idea of going back to the 4th Ed version of Nemesis weapon where basic guys get just a Strength bonus, Justicars/Terminators get the AP as well, and Characters(/Paladins?) get the full blown Force Weapon. It’d let you drop the price of most models in the army dramatically, which is something they sorely need. You’d also have almost-useable Terminators - say 35 points for a Storm Bolter and Power Weapon Terminator and a Psychic Power sounds solid on paper at least.

jcd386 wrote:

kombatwombat wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
In reality you wouldn't pay for force weapons on 1 attack models.

The fact that the cost is baked into the GK is actually hurting them.

In honesty, people would equip them with free chainswords if they had the option, and thus lowering their cost from 21 (with storm bolter) down to like 15.

So touting the force weapon as a plus is really not fair.

Now, if PAGK had a base of 2 attacks you *might* have the argument that it's worth it

GK struggle to get into melee and when they get there, they don't have the attack volume to do any meaningful damage.

There are a lot of problems here with this army. Some of it stems from the fact that assault marines are flat bad. Would assault marines see play if they had a base 3 attacks? I mean honestly, would they? Maybe. Only maybe.

That’s exactly my point though! You can give GK a 10pt weapon for 6pts and it’s still not good. The whole point is that none of these are GK-specific problems, they’re problems with the basic Marine profile which they share. Lack of durability, lack of mobility and low attack volume are all core Marine problems. Fix those, and suddenly a Force Axe on a PA GK doesn’t sound like such a bad idea, particularly when paired with a Stormbolter and Deny/psychic abilities.

I’ll say it again, the best solution in my view is to just make all Marines have the +1 Wound/Attack that Primaris have, and remove the Primaris keyword altogether so everybody can hop in any transport. 23pts for a 2-Wound 3+ model with 2 attacks with a Force Weapon, a Stormbolter, the ability to Deny with +1 and the equivalent of a 2+ to do a Mortal Wound per unit each turn sounds alright. Address their mobility - say by reducing the cost of Transports or something - and you’re well on your way to making GK strong even before you get to addressing their Psychic problems.

With or without that change, I’m also onboard for the idea of going back to the 4th Ed version of Nemesis weapon where basic guys get just a Strength bonus, Justicars/Terminators get the AP as well, and Characters(/Paladins?) get the full blown Force Weapon. It’d let you drop the price of most models in the army dramatically, which is something they sorely need. You’d also have almost-useable Terminators - say 35 points for a Storm Bolter and Power Weapon Terminator and a Psychic Power sounds solid on paper at least.

I think giving all marines the primaris treatment could work, though im not sure i'd be too happy about it. I still think i'd prefer them get some kind of armor save buff (ignore 1 point of AP is my favorite so far) and stay at 1 wound, but gain 1 attack base, or 1 attack on the charge (army / all marine codexes wide), and drop to about 12 points. I'd also give all terminators and paladins WS/BS2+.

Either way, my vision for the nemesis force weapons would be would be something like:

Nemesis Force Sword: S: User AP-3 D: 1 - 4 points
Nemesis Force Halberd: S: +1 AP-2 D: 1 - 5 points
Nemesis Falcions: S: User AP-1 D:1 - 2 attacks if you have two of them - 3/7points
Nemesis Deamon Hammer: S: x2 AP-3 D:3 - subtract 1 to hit - 16 points

Basically Nerf them down to what normal SM have. Then, all GK units have a power:

Activate force weapons: Self cast only, Nemesis Force Swords, Falcions, and Halberds are now 1d3 damage, Daemon Hammers are 3+1d3 damage - successful invul saves against these weapons must be re-rolled.
I strongly disagree. Even if you drop the points of all GK models by 6 points before apply these changes, you are only complicating the game. Moreover you apply a rule to Nemesis force weapons and a different rule to others force weapons, anche this is crazy. No activation is one of the few things that are ok with our army. And we still have problems with low number of attack and how to get in cc. Even with these changes a chainsword would be a better choice.

Ideally i would also want them to lose smite and normal powers but have them gain a few other self cast only powers so they would have a lot of options but have to choose what they wanted to be good at each turn, like:

Hammerhand: +1 to wound in the fight phase for 1 turn
Astral Aim: Ignore cover, LoS, and ignore all to hit modifiers (except for moving) during the next turn's shooting phase
Strikes only: No unit can deepstrike within 12" of this unit
Purifiers only: Cast range of 6" roll 1d6 for every model in the target unit, 1 mortal wound for each 6 rolled.
Purgations only: Can move and shoot with no penalty
Paladins only: increase invul save that turn by 1
All vehicles only (the only power they know): Act as though they are one tier higher on the damage charts

Then change the current powers libs and characters can get:

1. Purge soul - 1d3 mortal wounds+the difference in Ld
2. Gate - have it move both the casting character and the target unit (so you can move the charge re-roll HQ + a big unit together)
3. The shrouding: units within 6 add one to their armor saves
4. Sanctuary: the unit also ignores mortal wounds on a 5+
5. Vortex: change it to 6" from the target unit
6. Some fancy name: target enemy has -1 to invul saves taken that turn.
I prefer keeping current power AND add others 6 (santa II) AND Librarius.

While im at it:

Psycannon - choose between heavy 4 and rapid fire 2 - if the target has an invul save, change to 2 damage Can't understand the reason
Incinerator: Change to D2 - reroll invul saves against this weapon
Psilencer: - reroll invul saves against this weapon
Can't understand why they should force reroll

NDK teleporter gives shunt
Change Shunt to a one time 30" move
Count NDKs and Grand Masters in NDKs as the same for the purposes of the rule of 3 (i'd do this for all similar units in most codexes tbh). This will make NO ONE play DK, like now. DK needs and deserve to be different from GMDK or no one will use them
Drop the cost of the rhino by about 30 points. Agree. And this must work for all marines

Probably far from perfect, and points might have to move around, but I feel like this would make GK be in a much better place, and be a lot more more fun to play. I also don't feel like these changes are that major from a confusion perspective.

The way i see it, GK would be good at fighting things with invul saves (which are sooooo good right now it's kind of silly) and they would be able to get in your face quickly with shunts and gate (8 units max on turn one with 1 HQ and another unit from gate, 3 interceptor units, and 3 NDKs. 30" lets you move somewhat freely, but seems better than the previous deepstrike madness, but definitely feels like GK to me.

Okay tear me apart lol.

Karol wrote:
I think having them do d3 wounds is not a good rule. Vs 1w stuff it does nothing, but costs points.

 Smotejob wrote:
Even last edition (pre decurion detachments) I was able to be very competitive. I would go to tournaments with my pure gk and be at top tables. I had things I struggled with but could usually have enough points or had done enough damage that I could win.

This edition pure gk I have to really play my A game to win casual games.

What made us unique then?

33pt terminators
The only army that could deep strike turn one.
A plethora of psychic powers to choose from and the psychic dice to throw at those powers
Incinerators were amazing (and a strong counter to an enemy deepstrike)
Terminators could move and fire heavy weapons ezpz
Force outright just killed things
Stormbolter was equally effective at 24" as 12".
Dreadknight shunt
Synergy between units and their guns.
That Nova power.

Pre codex 7.5 grey knights were the last time they were good.

kombatwombat wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
In reality you wouldn't pay for force weapons on 1 attack models.

The fact that the cost is baked into the GK is actually hurting them.

In honesty, people would equip them with free chainswords if they had the option, and thus lowering their cost from 21 (with storm bolter) down to like 15.

So touting the force weapon as a plus is really not fair.

Now, if PAGK had a base of 2 attacks you *might* have the argument that it's worth it

GK struggle to get into melee and when they get there, they don't have the attack volume to do any meaningful damage.

There are a lot of problems here with this army. Some of it stems from the fact that assault marines are flat bad. Would assault marines see play if they had a base 3 attacks? I mean honestly, would they? Maybe. Only maybe.

That’s exactly my point though! You can give GK a 10pt weapon for 6pts and it’s still not good. The whole point is that none of these are GK-specific problems, they’re problems with the basic Marine profile which they share. Lack of durability, lack of mobility and low attack volume are all core Marine problems. Fix those, and suddenly a Force Axe on a PA GK doesn’t sound like such a bad idea, particularly when paired with a Stormbolter and Deny/psychic abilities.

I’ll say it again, the best solution in my view is to just make all Marines have the +1 Wound/Attack that Primaris have, and remove the Primaris keyword altogether so everybody can hop in any transport. 23pts for a 2-Wound 3+ model with 2 attacks with a Force Weapon, a Stormbolter, the ability to Deny with +1 and the equivalent of a 2+ to do a Mortal Wound per unit each turn sounds alright. Address their mobility - say by reducing the cost of Transports or something - and you’re well on your way to making GK strong even before you get to addressing their Psychic problems.

With or without that change, I’m also onboard for the idea of going back to the 4th Ed version of Nemesis weapon where basic guys get just a Strength bonus, Justicars/Terminators get the AP as well, and Characters(/Paladins?) get the full blown Force Weapon. It’d let you drop the price of most models in the army dramatically, which is something they sorely need. You’d also have almost-useable Terminators - say 35 points for a Storm Bolter and Power Weapon Terminator and a Psychic Power sounds solid on paper at least.