Which is, in your opinion, the worst army in 8th edition among the codex army?

Grey Knights. They're the only codex army that isn't viable to some degree.

Just looking at the tead for the matter of sheer curiosity.

Opens results. 100% grey knights

Chokes on laughing and has to be rescued by french SAMU-ambulance.

Mono, or in any form?

Also, should change the title to 'worst codex'. Worst Army seems to be Corsairs.

I think GK win worst codex.

Now I'm sad about my Corsairs again. They did not deserve such a fate.

Depends on what you mean by worst. If you mean by army strength and viability, it's certainly Grey Knights. They don't work very effectively as a stand alone army, and feels like the codex was really just an oversight.

If however you mean worst army excluding relative strength, then I would say Custodes. On the tabletop, the presence of Custodes models has a serious clash in theme for me when lined up with other models (I have a similar issue with Harlequins).

I gave a hearty "oof" when I saw the result

Other than armies that literally can't work like Inquisition, Sisters of Silence or Corsairs, it's objectively Grey Knights.

Grey Knights really got the short end of the stick this edition, they have all of the standard problems all marines are having this edition, plus unique GK problems on top of that, namely that they don't really have chaff units and almost everything they have with the possible exception of the Dreadknight is overpriced.

I really feel bad for GK players, and suggest they focus on painting/modeling until 9th rolls around.

Bharring wrote:
Mono, or in any form?

Also, should change the title to 'worst codex'. Worst Army seems to be Corsairs.

I think GK win worst codex.

An army has to be an army to be a "worst army". As of the latest FAQ the few remaining Corsair unit entries are illegal in Matched Play.

As well say the "worst army" is Squats or Arbites, or anything else that doesn't have any rules.

*sits and waits patiently for the 99% grey knights results, 1% Xenomancers voting for Space Marines*

Jokes aside, it is pretty clear that first and foremost, the early codexes need a second pass as (rumor has it) they were prewritten and not enough testing was available to truly determine what needed heavy changes.

One just has to look at the level of changes from Admech index to codex vs, for example, Drukhari index to codex to see they're night and day when it comes to both depth and breadth.

Space Marines, Admech, GK, Chaos Marines - all need a pretty serious rebalancing. not just in terms of point costs, but also stratagems, army traits, and unit rules. GK and SM most of all, but even the good stuff out of the admech and csm codex has an absolute puddle's depth compared to the healthy balance of stuff we see people taking from Drukhari, Tyranids and Tau.

Past that, a couple of the recent codexes need some love, namely Thousand Sons, Dark Angels, Death Guard, Daemons of not Nurgle, Necrons and CWE. These are kind of the "brittle meta" codexes where there are a few CLEAR AND OBVIOUS winners, and a whole mess of units that are just totally unviable. Call it Flyrant Syndrome Codexes if you want. Nearly all these codexes would be good with a handful of redesigns on just a couple problematic units, and points adjustment on other stuff, ideally while you're at toning down the major offenders (say, if you're going to go in and nerf Destroyers or Reapers/Spears, go in and buff a few of the lesser used units to compensate and make it seem like GWs not just whacking on your only good options.)

There are a few armies missing from the poll aren't there? I might be missign them, but Orks and GSC seem like better contenders for worse than any flavour of Eldar or most of the flavours of space marine. Except Grey Knights.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
Grey Knights. They're the only codex army that isn't viable to some degree.

Right, even the lower tier codex still have something that other armies want to ally in from time to time.

The poll addresses codex armies. AFAIK Orks and GSC don't have a codex yet.

the_scotsman wrote:
*sits and waits patiently for the 99% grey knights results, 1% Xenomancers voting for Space Marines*

Jokes aside, it is pretty clear that first and foremost, the early codexes need a second pass as (rumor has it) they were prewritten and not enough testing was available to truly determine what needed heavy changes.

One just has to look at the level of changes from Admech index to codex vs, for example, Drukhari index to codex to see they're night and day when it comes to both depth and breadth.

Space Marines, Admech, GK, Chaos Marines - all need a pretty serious rebalancing. not just in terms of point costs, but also stratagems, army traits, and unit rules. GK and SM most of all, but even the good stuff out of the admech and csm codex has an absolute puddle's depth compared to the healthy balance of stuff we see people taking from Drukhari, Tyranids and Tau.

Past that, a couple of the recent codexes need some love, namely Thousand Sons, Dark Angels, Death Guard, Daemons of not Nurgle, Necrons and CWE. These are kind of the "brittle meta" codexes where there are a few CLEAR AND OBVIOUS winners, and a whole mess of units that are just totally unviable. Call it Flyrant Syndrome Codexes if you want. Nearly all these codexes would be good with a handful of redesigns on just a couple problematic units, and points adjustment on other stuff, ideally while you're at toning down the major offenders (say, if you're going to go in and nerf Destroyers or Reapers/Spears, go in and buff a few of the lesser used units to compensate and make it seem like GWs not just whacking on your only good options.)

I play both armies - both suck. Pre beta deepstrike nerf GK were actually a better army than space marines though.

Which ever one I'm playing at the moment.

Thousand sons, because at least grey knights feature in thier own codex.

 Formosa wrote:
Thousand sons, because at least grey knights feature in thier own codex.

Eh, post-faq the best stuff in the Thousand Sons codex is the HQ's which is appropriate. I'm not confident the foot tzaangors are viable at all anymore, are you really going to use a 72 point rhino to transport 70 points worth of birdmen?

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Thousand sons, because at least grey knights feature in thier own codex.

Eh, post-faq the best stuff in the Thousand Sons codex is the HQ's which is appropriate. I'm not confident the foot tzaangors are viable at all anymore, are you really going to use a 72 point rhino to transport 70 points worth of birdmen?

One squad of 30 is a fine auxiliary. Which is...exactly what theyre supposed to be.

The only complaints I have with codex tsons is that rubrics, exalts and scarabs are boring as all hell, and aggressively mediocre.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Thousand sons, because at least grey knights feature in thier own codex.

Eh, post-faq the best stuff in the Thousand Sons codex is the HQ's which is appropriate. I'm not confident the foot tzaangors are viable at all anymore, are you really going to use a 72 point rhino to transport 70 points worth of birdmen?

I’m talking about grey knights however bad have a fleshed out codex and even got a new unit to convert from the baby carrier, thousand sons got nothing, no new units to convert and overshadowed by bird men, I consider that book the biggest failure of 8th both in terms of rules, implementation and wasted opertunity.

 Formosa wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Thousand sons, because at least grey knights feature in thier own codex.

Eh, post-faq the best stuff in the Thousand Sons codex is the HQ's which is appropriate. I'm not confident the foot tzaangors are viable at all anymore, are you really going to use a 72 point rhino to transport 70 points worth of birdmen?

I’m talking about grey knights however bad have a fleshed out codex and even got a new unit to convert from the baby carrier, thousand sons got nothing, no new units to convert and overshadowed by bird men, I consider that book the biggest failure of 8th both in terms of rules, implementation and wasted opertunity.

Are you guys complaining about no new stuff when you literally got overhauled into a new faction with new units and new interesting options so recently?

Meanwhile my Codex is literally unplayable, with terminators that went up in price when the book cane around.

Grey Knights are literally the worst.

Your codex is *figuratively* unplayable.

I don't know of any armies that currently have models that are *literally* unplayable. Certainly none with Codexes.

I voted Space Marines, if only because of the huge amounts of ninnies it ended up spawning throughout 40k's history.

Bharring wrote:
Your codex is *figuratively* unplayable.

I don't know of any armies that currently have models that are *literally* unplayable. Certainly none with Codexes.

If we define "playable" as "has a non-zero chance of winning a game of equal points level", then yes, Grey Knights are Literally Unplayable.

GK have nothing good enough to consider allying them in over other imperial options, no effective builds on their own, and their “gimmicks” of everything being psykers and everything wearing terminator armor work directly against each other in 8e’s system along with keeping them from being costed in an effective way. Every other codex has something going for it that gives them an edge over GK. The way units are costed means that GK power level is below the game’s average power level, much less the optimal units that see play in tournaments.

 Jaxler wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Thousand sons, because at least grey knights feature in thier own codex.

Eh, post-faq the best stuff in the Thousand Sons codex is the HQ's which is appropriate. I'm not confident the foot tzaangors are viable at all anymore, are you really going to use a 72 point rhino to transport 70 points worth of birdmen?

I’m talking about grey knights however bad have a fleshed out codex and even got a new unit to convert from the baby carrier, thousand sons got nothing, no new units to convert and overshadowed by bird men, I consider that book the biggest failure of 8th both in terms of rules, implementation and wasted opertunity.

Are you guys complaining about no new stuff when you literally got overhauled into a new faction with new units and new interesting options so recently?

Meanwhile my Codex is literally unplayable, with terminators that went up in price when the book cane around.

Grey Knights are literally the worst.

Yes your codex has worse units and balance, but at least its your codex, I am complaining about the fact that we got sidelined in our own codex, it would be like "codex grey knights" having sister in it and they got all the love.

I didn't vote because I haven't played against much besides DE, CWE and tons of other chaos. But in my experience, the all knight Eldar army seemed pretty weak. Even my subpar WE list was able to beat it.

w1zard wrote:
Grey Knights really got the short end of the stick this edition, they have all of the standard problems all marines are having this edition, plus unique GK problems on top of that, namely that they don't really have chaff units and almost everything they have with the possible exception of the Dreadknight is overpriced.

I really feel bad for GK players, and suggest they focus on painting/modeling until 9th rolls around.

sadly I'm not sure this'll improve next edition. The issues with the 8th codex are simply "more of the same" from their 7th edition issues

Not listed: Renegades & Heretics

 Wolf_in_Human_Shape wrote:
Not listed: Renegades & Heretics

I think it's only for codex armies, not index.

I would say Corsairs, my favorite army literally is no army no :( They got squat when GW said no squating, boo!

But being Codex? GK's

Well, that would make sense given the list. Didn't catch that.

Grey Knights. Not only because of power but also sheer redundancy. Their niche, as well as Marines niche to a degree (as the elite fighters of the imperium), seems to have been taken over by Custodes.
I don't know if GW knows where to go with GK.

 Mayk0l wrote:
Grey Knights. Not only because of power but also sheer redundancy. Their niche, as well as Marines niche to a degree (as the elite fighters of the imperium), seems to have been taken over by Custodes.
I don't know if GW knows where to go with GK.

They need their own type of powers that are not limited 1 per caster/unit, but the powers need to be very simple and small like "this unit gets +1S", "this unit can re-roll charges", "This unit gain +1 melee attacks," "This unit gains +1BS" having a list of powers like that, something like the PFP chart from DE, but you pick the power for each unit for each turn, this way you can modify your unit when you need to with minor buffs, it gives them a completely different feel from SM and DW now too.

All armies which started with just one unit:

- Harlequins
- Deathwatch
- Grey Knights

Burn their codices and rejoice. No more codex bloat.

So SM in second place but no votes for BA?

Why are SM so bad and what makes BA so great?

Grey knights of course. But IMHO they shouldn't be an independent faction with their own codex, just part of a larger faction. Just like SoB, harlequins, gen cult, deathwatch, etc...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 deathwinguk wrote:
So SM in second place but no votes for BA?

Why are SM so bad and what makes BA so great?

Only the fact that SM players are really a lot and a significant part of them looks towards competitive gaming. SM are not that bad but far from the top tiers.

BA are more unusal and tipycally players collect them mostly for the hobby part.

Honestly, I never played GK and still haven't. Were they ever good or is it just 8th edition where they're terrible?

Orks must be so good they didn't make the poll!

 deathwinguk wrote:
Why are SM so bad and what makes BA so great?

Captain Smash and deepstrike units/stratagems with superior close combat.

 lolman1c wrote:
Honestly, I never played GK and still haven't. Were they ever good or is it just 8th edition where they're terrible?

3e (daemonhunters) were extremely restricted. You could just about run them as an army but they aged badly.
5e GK were entirely different and absurdly powerful. They have dropped away with each edition since.

Oh man all the armies I play have the highest percentages

I voted GK because they are really in a bad place when one of the lead testers admits that they need allies to function as an army.

I'm confused by anyone voting DA/BA over SM as the strats/tactics of those chapters pretty much makes them marines +1.

Tau don't seem like they are in that bad of a place but I rarely see them in my meta and don't play them personally so I'm judging based off what I see in their codex but fire warriors, drones, a couple stealth suits, 3x commanders, one of the big suits and that flame thrower bastard seems pretty potent to me.

AM feels incomplete but I'm not sure how bad they are. That being said I'm pretty sure they belong in the conversation for worst.

We're just getting the leaks on harlies so I think we are jumping the gun a bit on them.

Shot out to the trolls voting Guard, CWE, DE and Nids...

 warhead01 wrote:
Orks must be so good they didn't make the poll!

The poll is about armies with a codex. Orks still have the index.

 Wolf_in_Human_Shape wrote:
Not listed: Renegades & Heretics

I feel your pain - they got butchered post Malefic Lord FAQ.

As others have mentioned though it is codex only.

GW really need to take rules writing off FW in totality because FW can't find their own ass with their hands tied behind their back.

Orks are so bad you forgot to include them in the list.

orkybenji wrote:
Orks are so bad you forgot to include them in the list.

Orks are so bad because they don't have a codex. They aren't on the list because the thread is only about codex armies. Also even without a codex they are still better than grey knights.

orkybenji wrote:
Orks are so bad you forgot to include them in the list.

Not a codex army.

Grey Knights really got the short end of the stick, multiple times. It's a low unit count army, without a lot of variety in unit types. It's basically MEQs, terminators, a monster, and a few vehicles. No chaff, no bikes or light vehicles or artillery.

It has bad internally balance, despite having so few options. Four melee choices, with two almost always inferior to the another one at the same price point. Only three total special/heavy options, all short range, with the two heavies pillow fisted. They have very little defensive tech, but are an elite army.

Also, their two main themes are psychic powers and deep strike, both of which were cut back by FAQs.

 Polonius wrote:

Also, their two main themes are psychic powers and deep strike, both of which were cut back by FAQs.

FYI - they have an exception for GoI and they are excluded from the smite nerf.

Hmm I don't see Tau as being that bad. But maybe is has to do with me playing space Marines against them haha

Seems to be pretty much in agreement except for the few cases of Tau. What's wrong with them?

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:
Seems to be pretty much in agreement except for the few cases of Tau. What's wrong with them?

As a T'au player, they don't seem bad at all unless you only have battlesuits. The main problem with them is how bland they have become compared to 7th with all the various tricks to make up for them only being able to move and shoot. Now it's just gunline with some deepstriking commanders sprinkled in.

Genestealer cult should be number one but is not on the list of choices.

 Generalstoner wrote:
Genestealer cult should be number one but is not on the list of choices.

Not a codex army.

...I don't think I have ever seen this forum agree so strongly on something.

 Quickjager wrote:
...I don't think I have ever seen this forum agree so strongly on something.

I dunno, dislike for Space Wolves seems to get pretty strong agreement.
But an army who runs on two specific abilities in deepstrike and armywide use of one psychic buff and one psychic attack sees both of said abilities get nerfed into the ground is pretty unfortunate.

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:
Seems to be pretty much in agreement except for the few cases of Tau. What's wrong with them?

The Tau codex has to be my least favourite codex for the armies I play, I think the internal balance is pretty poor with several units and a lot of options being non-viable. I'm also not a fan of the way marker lights and seeker missile were implemented. But whilst I find the codex pretty uninspiring from a design and internal balance perspective all it means is that you just avoid some of the sub-optimal choices when choosing your list, it doesn't make the codex as a whole uncompetitive and certainly not a candidate for "worst army in the game".

Just having had a look through the Death Watch codex you can shut down a few of their special shennanigans by just not bringing a xenos army - given the prevelance of Imperial Soup that could be quite often.

Certainly not the worst though. Average at best.

It seems the militant chambers of the Inquisition have been found wanting so far.

I voted necrons. Haven't played against grey knights this edition. This poll tells me why.

I'm doing ok with gk in small games. Anything below 1500 and they're fine. There are some lists they can do nothing against though. Like leman russ gunlines.
As for the weakest codex, well i'm torn between tsons and custodes. But don't get me wrong, both are playable - just not for cutthroat games.

Non-horde orks are abysmal. But they have no codex yet, so we'll see how it ends up.

 Quickjager wrote:
...I don't think I have ever seen this forum agree so strongly on something.

They just don't want to be brow beat by GK players on how wrong they are.

My vote was Thousand Sons which is what I play. I have never played with/against GK in 8th, but based on watching battle reports and having a fundamental understanding of how 8th works I get why they are considered the worst. I personally think they are tied for the worst codex. The main reason why is both rely on the psychic phase as their primary "thing". Neither army can use the "smite spam" tactic that prompted the rule change for all other armies due to cost of the psychics and the fact that GK does not have a real smite in the army. The psychic phase is very random (I had 9 casts on turn 4 of my last game, got three snake eyes perils and failed all but two other casts, but it was ok because on turn one every power worked so sea-saw in action). Also not being able to even attempt to cast the same spell more than once hurts both GK and TS, even more so for GK who only have 6 powers. And both armies are very over-costed.

Specifically for GK (without allies) what I gather from battle reports and knowing the game is that they have no screening units which is basically a must in 8th. Also they rely on 1 and 2 wound elite model units, which in 8th is the worst stat line since GW hasn't figured out that 3+ save/2+ save is not as good as before, and 2 wounds is like 100 times less effective then previous editions. Personally GK needs a "cultist" type unit, call them imperial militia or henchman or something. If GW can justify Primaris in the fluff, they can justify this. Also, allow them to get smite d3 on an 11+ and their characters have real smite. Finally give them SM psychic powers as well as their own and I think you would see this army much improved (it still won't be top tier because elite armies are not as good in 8th).

As for TS, who I love and will continue to play, they suck because their codex is the definition of rushed. We have 3 elite battle role units, one is a character, one is over priced terminators, and the other is the not great hellbrute. We have two fast battle field role, one of which is freaking spawn, and the other is a 2W model with 5++ as its only save (these guys melt under any shooting attack). TS has very little in the way of anti-tank, with only predators, LC dreads, and defiler really filling that role, and if you are going to take a bunch of these you might as well play CSM and get a more useful Legion tactic, Havocs, Oblits, etc. I am posting a whole thing about TS in proposed rules so I am not going to do it here.

I don't think any Codex army is as week as these two, and as long as the psychic phase is sub par, these will always be mid-tier armies. Mid-tier would be fine with me for my TS by the way.

 minisnatcher wrote:
I voted necrons. Haven't played against grey knights this edition. This poll tells me why.

As a Necrons player, I reaaally have to question the six people who voted for my army... We're almost certainly not the best army in the game, but at worst we're upper-mid tier. It's hard to truly suck when you have units as effective as Immortals, Destroyers, and Doomsday Arks available.

What about deathwatch?

What about them? They're on the list but I don't think that people can make an informed decision about them considering they're only a couple of weeks old.

I voted Grey Knights...but the caveat is that they should be awfully weak as an army (hell, shouldn't be one anyway). So my "meh" level is pretty stout on that one.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Mayk0l wrote:
Grey Knights. Not only because of power but also sheer redundancy. Their niche, as well as Marines niche to a degree (as the elite fighters of the imperium), seems to have been taken over by Custodes.
I don't know if GW knows where to go with GK.

They need their own type of powers that are not limited 1 per caster/unit, but the powers need to be very simple and small like "this unit gets +1S", "this unit can re-roll charges", "This unit gain +1 melee attacks," "This unit gains +1BS" having a list of powers like that, something like the PFP chart from DE, but you pick the power for each unit for each turn, this way you can modify your unit when you need to with minor buffs, it gives them a completely different feel from SM and DW now too.

What's wrong with Smite Spam?

If you mean GK smite spam then you're looking at a very poor spamming. Normally GK smites only do 1 point of damage regardless of the success roll. They have no access to a normal smite. 3 Normal smites average 6 points it would take 6 units of GK to match that and if you roll above a 9 then your average damage is 7.5 points (equal to 8 GK units not to mention that the same target has to be the closest unit to all 8 GKs). There are many armies that can put the smite smack down on an opponent better than GK.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
If you mean GK smite spam then you're looking at a very poor spamming. Normally GK smites only do 1 point of damage regardless of the success roll. They have no access to a normal smite. 3 Normal smites average 6 points it would take 6 units of GK to match that and if you roll above a 9 then your average damage is 7.5 points (equal to 8 GK units not to mention that the same target has to be the closest unit to all 8 GKs). There are many armies that can put the smite smack down on an opponent better than GK.

Grey knights should have either had powers that felt powerful enough that 1 cast was justified or 2 lists of powers.

Hell I'd even take HQs having no limit on how many times they can cast the same power

The real problem with GKs is model count. I can usually squeeze 60 infantry in a 1500 point SM army. With GKs, even with one model in Terminator armor, the best I can do is 35 models in 1500 points. That's just too small for a T4 W1 SV3+ army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Even my all-Primaris army can manage 57 infantry models in 1500 points.

 xeen wrote:
As for TS, who I love and will continue to play, they suck because their codex is the definition of rushed. We have 3 elite battle role units, one is a character, one is over priced terminators, and the other is the not great hellbrute. We have two fast battle field role, one of which is freaking spawn, and the other is a 2W model with 5++ as its only save (these guys melt under any shooting attack). TS has very little in the way of anti-tank, with only predators, LC dreads, and defiler really filling that role, and if you are going to take a bunch of these you might as well play CSM and get a more useful Legion tactic, Havocs, Oblits, etc. I am posting a whole thing about TS in proposed rules so I am not going to do it here.

I don't think any Codex army is as week as these two, and as long as the psychic phase is sub par, these will always be mid-tier armies. Mid-tier would be fine with me for my TS by the way.

Grey Knights are so much worse off than Thousand Sons it's not even funny. Thousand Sons, at worst, can get carried by the best Daemon Princes in the game (and Daemon Princes in general are very good) and Ahriman. Thousand Sons also have tools that Grey Knights don't have, whether in the psychic phase - 18 powers versus 6 - or in general - chaff like Cultists and Tzaangors. Thousand Sons also have far superior stratagems and potential for crazy combos as a result of that. While both codices are generally going to be relegated to tertiary detachments in top tier lists to add varying levels of support, functionally the Thousand Sons codex is far stronger on its own than the Grey Knight codex, as the poll reflects. Not to mention that, bar the Tzaangor bomb, Thousand Sons generally got a lot of help from the Big FAQ whereas Grey Knights got screwed over hard by it. The main problem with Thousand Sons is that, other than their HQs, they don't do anything particularly better than any other Legion.

From my experience, Grey Knights are the worst hands down, no other codex even comes close. Given the prevalence of allies propping up weaker codices, I find the best way to measure how bad a codex is to work out how well it can stand on its own without allied support. Grey Knights have no chaff, are a psychic army with access to one mediocre discipline and a mostly weakened Smite (except against Daemons) and might be the most inefficient army in the game in terms of durability. Even just comparing them to Thousand Sons, Rubric Marines are so much harder to kill for their points against almost any weapon type in comparison to power-armoured Grey Knights, and they arguably shoot better if you factor in psychic powers and stratagems. Superior combat prowess (and mind you, even in this area Grey Knights are still inefficient!) only matters if you can reliably make it into combat, which most of the codex simply can't. Their anti-tank firepower is almost non-existent or on woefully inefficient platforms, whereas even Thousand Sons at minimum can rely on improved Smites, Predators, Forgefiends, Defilers and the many Forge World units they have access to; Prescience, Veterans of the Long War and the +1 to-wound Tzeentch Daemon psychic power (which Thousand Sons get) can give you some ridiculously efficient firepower. To add to that, if you didn't already know, Grey Knights don't get 90% of the Forge World units that other Marines can get, meaning they can't even rely on power-house units like Leviathans to shore up their weaknesses. Basically, to reliably deal with tanks they have to get into combat and, even then, most of their melee attacks need 5s or 6s to wound your average vehicle; who cares about D3 Damage if you can't wound what you're attacking? And yes, that also applies to Psilencers, as much as someone on this board tried (and failed) to make an argument in their favour not too long ago. Grey Knights not only come up lacking in every area that counts, if you factor in Forge World they also have by far the least amount of unit diversity of any Space Marine faction with a codex. Even if we look at a codex providing good support or hard hitters for other, stronger codices, Grey Knights were effortlessly supplanted by Blood Angels and Custodes.

Gk have a couple viable builds. My favorite one is a deepstriking landraider full of strikers and characters. It's expensive but it demolishes infantry like there's no tomorrow. And characters wreck vehicles. The only problem are lazcannon gunlines that can pre-alphastrike the landraider before it gets teleported, so a large los blocking piece of terrain is a must.

Until every army has a codex, this poll is biased towards armies that do not have onem

 Dr. Mills wrote:
Until every army has a codex, this poll is biased towards armies that do not have onem

The poll only lists armies with a codex...

Which is why the title should be changed. Title says worst army, subject says worst codex. Two extremely different things.

If you want to argue worst army, I dare you to find one worse than Corsairs, though.

Caederes wrote:
Thousand Sons, at worst, can get carried by the best Daemon Princes in the game (and Daemon Princes in general are very good) and Ahriman.

Baby carriers might not be hideable, but there's a reason they're in almost every list multiple times.

Thousand Sons also have tools that Grey Knights don't have, whether in the psychic phase - 18 powers versus 6

Yep, it sucks to have less spells. But it's also pretty solid to have +1 to cast AND deny and to cast with any unit bar flyers and vehicles.

18 spells is a super misleading number. Almost no one is using 5/6 of the daemon spells - 4/6 for specialized builds.
None of the standard units have access to anything outside the TS discipline.
So they have an extra discipline with good spells - from a different army's list.

You couldn't use Terrifying Visions with Purge Soul?
Or Might of Heroes on a DK?
(through allies of course)

- or in general - chaff like Cultists and Tzaangors.

Infantry Squads. Oh those aren't GK? According to Dakka Tzaangors and Cultists aren't Thousand Sons.

Thousand Sons also have far superior stratagems and potential for crazy combos as a result of that.

GK have fight twice, deepstrike for infantry AND dreadnoughts, fight twice for dead character, and two strats that rubrics WISH they had.

While both codices are generally going to be relegated to tertiary detachments in top tier lists to add varying levels of support, functionally the Thousand Sons codex is far stronger on its own than the Grey Knight codex

Sure, when GK don't use allies.

Even just comparing them to Thousand Sons, Rubric Marines are so much harder to kill for their points against almost any weapon type in comparison to power-armoured Grey Knights, and they arguably shoot better if you factor in psychic powers and stratagems.

S5 AP1 stormbolters vs S4 AP2 bolters with +1 to wound
Strike Squads can deepstrike without CP
GK units don't obliterate themselves on peril
And even if it's only 1 mortal wound they still get it off more easily than Rubrics
+1 to deny unlike Rubrics
Rubrics only have access to one set of spells like GK units

Superior combat prowess (and mind you, even in this area Grey Knights are still inefficient!) only matters if you can reliably make it into combat, which most of the codex simply can't.

Super easy access to reroll charges and deepstrike everywhere.

Their anti-tank firepower is almost non-existent or on woefully inefficient platforms

IG has way more efficient anti-tank available.

who cares about D3 Damage if you can't wound what you're attacking? And yes, that also applies to Psilencers, as much as someone on this board tried (and failed) to make an argument in their favour not too long ago.

24 * .666 * .333 * .5 * 2 = 5.3 // 113 points for a unit of Purgators and 2 CP (4 on the move)
It's 107 for 5 Rubrics what do you think they score?
9 * .833 * .5 * .666 = 2.5 //with VotLW AND prescience

Here are purgators without CP spend
24 * .666 * .333 * .333 * 2 = 3.5 //2.7 on the move

Purgators on the move are better than Rubrics with VotLW AND prescience for 6 extra points (against tanks).
At 24" Purgators on the move are twice as good at taking out 1 wound MEQ than Rubrics and equal when Rubrics are in RF.

You can't discount cultists and tzaangors then throw IG into the GK list

phillv85 wrote:
You can't discount cultists and tzaangors then throw IG into the GK list

This forum does. Every damn day.

I get my "whole army" in one book. Cultists and Tzaangors are "not" Thousand Sons. They're a conscripted element.
IG is a conscripted element. You just have to reach into a second book for it.

Why does one line differ from the other beyond the simple physical location of the rules?

Because IG are an independent force. You can't soup one side then say my side is crap because I don't think these guys in my codex should be here. That's some serious goalpost movement.

phillv85 wrote:
Because IG are an independent force. You can't soup one side then say my side is crap because I don't think these guys in my codex should be here. That's some serious goalpost movement.

That's a fair distinction, but not a useful one.

I sympathize with GK players that don't want to ally to make their army work, but the reality of it is that MOST of the top armies ally.

And that doesn't mean I think GK should get no buffs.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
S5 AP1 stormbolters vs S4 AP2 bolters with +1 to wound

You forgot to mention that the S5 AP1 bolters cost 2 CP for the unit, since it's a strategy it can only be used once per phase and that GK have no CP recursion methods so bolters can only have that statline 7 times at most.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
S5 AP1 stormbolters vs S4 AP2 bolters with +1 to wound

You forgot to mention that the S5 AP1 bolters cost 2 CP for the unit, since it's a strategy it can only be used once per phase and that GK have no CP recursion methods so bolters can only have that statline 7 times at most.

I've acknowledge the CP cost here and in previous threads. GK will still double the shot output of Rubrics, which makes 2 CP slightly more sensible.

I don't quite understand the last part of your sentence though.

 Daedalus81 wrote:


Baby carriers might not be hideable, but there's a reason they're in almost every list multiple times.

Yep, it sucks to have less spells. But it's also pretty solid to have +1 to cast AND deny and to cast with any unit bar flyers and vehicles.

18 spells is a super misleading number. Almost no one is using 5/6 of the daemon spells - 4/6 for specialized builds.
None of the standard units have access to anything outside the TS discipline.
So they have an extra discipline with good spells - from a different army's list.

You couldn't use Terrifying Visions with Purge Soul?
Or Might of Heroes on a DK?
(through allies of course)

Infantry Squads. Oh those aren't GK? According to Dakka Tzaangors and Cultists aren't Thousand Sons.

GK have fight twice, deepstrike for infantry AND dreadnoughts, fight twice for dead character, and two strats that rubrics WISH they had.

Sure, when GK don't use allies.

S5 AP1 stormbolters vs S4 AP2 bolters with +1 to wound
Strike Squads can deepstrike without CP
GK units don't obliterate themselves on peril
And even if it's only 1 mortal wound they still get it off more easily than Rubrics
+1 to deny unlike Rubrics
Rubrics only have access to one set of spells like GK units

Super easy access to reroll charges and deepstrike everywhere.

IG has way more efficient anti-tank available.

24 * .666 * .333 * .5 * 2 = 5.3 // 113 points for a unit of Purgators and 2 CP
It's 107 for 5 Rubrics what do you think they score?
9 * .833 * .5 * .666 = 2.5 //with VotLW AND prescience

Here are purgators without CP spend
24 * .666 * .333 * .333 * 2 = 3.5

Way to not actually read my post buddy.

Did you not see the disclaimer "I find the best way to measure how bad a codex is to work out how well it can stand on its own without allied support"? It invalidates most of what you try to point out as mistakes on my part, because my points were made with no allies in mind. One might say that's not "realistic" but it's incredibly indicative of how bad Grey Knights are as a self-sufficient codex when they are completely reliant on other codices to bring tools they don't possess.

Of course, like Thousand Sons it too is carried by HQs. I rate Thousand Sons Daemon Princes higher though but realistically I concede that.

In-codex, Grey Knights have zero chaff. Refer to my second sentence. Thousand Sons have two varieties of in-codex chaff.

Doesn't change the fact that Thousand Sons have versatility that Grey Knights don't in terms of psychic powers. Thousand Sons can easily spit out absurd amounts of mortal wounds by comparison to Grey Knights in the psychic phase (the exception being against Daemons, but even then that is only at close range), and have far more utility powers.

Complaining that the standard units get one discipline that has at minimum two auto-take powers (Weaver and Glamour), one generally good power (Temporal), one decent power (Firestorm at WC7 is decent, was horrible at WC9) and one situation-dependent swingy power (Doombolt, amazing in some match-ups on a flying model, worthless in others) while the HQs get free access to the other two disciplines, one of which is one of the best disciplines in the game, and the other which has one auto-take power (Gaze) and two situation-dependent swingy powers (Flickering and Infernal). When your HQs are as good as Ahriman and Thousand Sons Daemon Princes, taking them to get those powers isn't a tax. Thousand Sons don't have to look at other codices to get the psychic combos you mention. Ergo, back to my original point that as a self-sufficient codex, Grey Knights are worse off than Thousand Sons in the psychic phase. I will note I'm probably being a bit unfair to their discipline as it's definitely better than mediocre. Also of note, those standard psykers can get other powers thanks to Chaos Familiar.

Why are you comparing Grey Knights in combat to Rubric Marines when my post wasn't making that comparison? I was pointing out that even if you try to rate Grey Knights as an army based on their combat stats, they still often fall short on a unit-to-unit basis. Saying they do combat better than Thousand Sons is like pointing out water is wet. It's a moot point that has nothing to do with my post. Also, re-rolling 9" charges, while nice, isn't quite reliable enough to shore up how incredibly difficult it is for Grey Knights to reach combat without getting demolished from afar. Custodes do it so much better it isn't even funny. As anyone who has played Grey Knights will tell you, one of their biggest problems is paying for melee stats that aren't that great (with a few exceptions) and that they will rarely get to put to good use.

Besides, more to the point, the Grey Knight fight twice stratagem is for infantry only. It's already been established that getting Grey Knight infantry into combat is very difficult against any type of decent opposition, because they are horrendous in the raw points to durability ratio. Dreadknights - the powerhouses - can't use this. Meanwhile, those cheap chaff Tzaangors that are more efficient in melee than a good chunk of the Grey Knight codex and get access to way more potential buffs to further super-charge their combat abilities, can be spammed unlike Grey Knights (you get 30 Tzaangors for the cost of 10 Strikes without upgrades) get that same fight twice stratagem but for 2CP instead of 3CP, and they are a lot more durable per point (the only time this isn't true - without including durability buffs like Sanctuary, Weaver, Glamour, etc - is when the PAGK are in cover and being hit by weapons with no AP). Really, just how good is Deep Striking Dreadnoughts if you can't Deep Strike the great Dreadnoughts like Leviathans and Contemptors? The "fight if you die" stratagem is great, obviously, but also reliant on getting into combat. Meanwhile, Thousand Sons can combo +2 to-wound and re-roll all failed hit and wounds rolls on Daemon Engines for 2CP and a low cost psychic power for devastating ranged efficiency, can combo +1 to-hit and +1 or +2 to-wound on almost any unit which applies for both shooting AND combat, can have absurdly huge bonuses to cast (+4) that Grey Knights can't match, get simple but nice ones like Killshot, get fight twice on units that are both more likely to actually get use out of it AND are more efficient damage dealers (while Hammerhand cancels out VotLW here, Tzaangors can also get +1 to-hit, +1 Strength and +1AP), etc.

I can see where you were going with Psybolt + Storm Bolters VS VotLW + Inferno Bolters, but did you not account for the +1 to-hit the latter can get from Prescience that the former cannot get in-codex? Psybolt costs 2CP to VotLW's 1CP as well. Also, when you chuck buffs like that on a unit, generally the bigger the unit, the better. Grey Knights have max unit sizes of 10, Rubric Marines have max unit sizes of 20. Not that I recommend doing it, but some swear by alpha striking 20-dustbin Rubric squads. The better comparison is the straight RF1 S4 AP2 vs RF2 S4 AP- from equivalent ten-man units; Grey Knights pull ahead against 4+/5+/6+/-, are equal against 3+, and worse against 2+ - not counting invulnerable saves. As I noted in my post, Rubrics only pull ahead of Strikes if you factor in support, which is important to note because Thousand Sons get more support abilities to choose from.

Yeah, in-built Deep Strike is very nice and never a downside.
If you're not saving a CP and Gaze of Fate for Perils on Rubric squads, you're not playing Thousand Sons correctly.
Rubrics can choose from 18 powers actually, it just costs 1CP. Depends on whether you need it though.
Rubrics can cast from 24" away, Grey Knight Smite is 12". Of course, you want to Deep Strike within 12" usually...which is what the Big FAQ doesn't help.
Rubrics are also far more durable per point and, as they don't pay for melee weapons they likely won't get to use, using them to camp objectives in cover isn't a comparatively terrible idea because of how absurdly difficult they are to shift by comparison to PAGK.
Mind you, that all assumes you're actually using Rubrics. Thousand Sons get Tzaangors and Cultists - two great units - as alternate Troops choices. Grey Knights only get Strike Squads and Terminator Squads as Troops choices, and as anyone will tell you, PAGK are horrendous in 8th Edition and Terminators don't fare much better. For getting as much CP as possible, Thousand Sons have a massive edge over Grey Knights thanks to having cheap, efficient Troops.

The same is true for Thousand Sons, but more specific. A Mutalith can easily give re-roll charges to any Tzeentch unit, or you can use Gaze of Fate plus a CP, and Tzaangors can cheaply give themselves +1 to their charge rolls. Besides, did you not see the Big FAQ? As I noted prior, re-rolling a 9" charge on 2D6 isn't as reliable as Grey Knights really need it to be.

Wait, what? Your response to my claim that Grey Knights have almost non-existent or universally inefficient anti-tank firepower is that "IG has way more efficient anti-tank available"? Wow. I would have never figured that out. Good job on that scoop! Snarkiness aside, how does that help the Grey Knight faction to stand on its own two feet? Meanwhile, Thousand Sons get; Predators, Defilers and Forgefiends (become super scary with right support combos as mentioned above, not great otherwise though), etc. Better by far. If we include the Forge World units each respective faction can utilize on its own, Grey Knights get; an overpriced (thank Chapter Approved) Razorback that is stuck with a weapon that isn't good against tanks, a Venerable Dreadnought equivalent with a good gun that is decent against tanks, a Land Raider Redeemer which is strictly not a vehicle killer, and the Thunderhawk Gunship which got turbo-nerfed (again, thank Chapter Approved). Meanwhile, Thousand Sons get; Leviathans, Deredeos, Contemptors, (Contemptor) Mortis', Sicarans, Sicaran Venators, Vindicator Laser Destroyers, Fire Raptors (still efficient in terms of raw damage surprisingly enough, just not durability) and Decimators.

Why are you comparing Purgators to Rubric Marines? Did I say Rubric Marines were the Thousand Sons' answer to anti-tank?
How about you make the comparison the Games Workshop rules designers should have made by comparing Purgators to Predators or, heck, Devastators from Loyalist chapters or Havocs from Heretic chapters?
Now, tell me how those 24" ranged Heavy weapons fill the ranged anti-tank role effectively for Grey Knights? We both know the answer, but if you're actually going to try and argue the way you appear to be leaning towards, I want popcorn.

Something I want to expand on here before I finish up this post is CP generation. Both armies get high value out of their stratagems, with Thousand Sons generally having the better and cheaper stratagems; both have "fight twice", the Thousand Sons' one is specific to Tzaangors but 1CP less (which is fine because buffed Tzaangors are better in combat than almost anything Grey Knights have), they have a universal +1 to-wound rolls stratagem for 1CP whereas Grey Knights get a +1 Strength (worse than +1 to-wound in many cases) and +1 AP (good) for 2CP (eh), etc. Grey Knights don't have a good way to generate CP cheaply without looking to allies; the cheapest Grey Knight battalion is 545 points (2xBrotherhood Champions, 3x5 Strike Squads), whereas the cheapest Thousand Sons battalion is 328 points (2xSorcerers, 3x10 Cultists). Grey Knights also have no innate form of recuperating CP, whereas Thousand Sons get a very nice relic for doing just that. With Allies, Guard obviously provide the cheapest Battalion in the game, but who runs Guard to supplement Grey Knights and not the other way around?

Ultimately, as I stated earlier, if you judge a codex on its own merits then Grey Knights are absolutely the worst by far, no matter what some salty Thousand Sons players might believe. If you think about how much an army needs allies, Grey Knights need it much more than anyone else.

Caederes wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:


Baby carriers might not be hideable, but there's a reason they're in almost every list multiple times.

Yep, it sucks to have less spells. But it's also pretty solid to have +1 to cast AND deny and to cast with any unit bar flyers and vehicles.

18 spells is a super misleading number. Almost no one is using 5/6 of the daemon spells - 4/6 for specialized builds.
None of the standard units have access to anything outside the TS discipline.
So they have an extra discipline with good spells - from a different army's list.

You couldn't use Terrifying Visions with Purge Soul?
Or Might of Heroes on a DK?
(through allies of course)

Infantry Squads. Oh those aren't GK? According to Dakka Tzaangors and Cultists aren't Thousand Sons.

GK have fight twice, deepstrike for infantry AND dreadnoughts, fight twice for dead character, and two strats that rubrics WISH they had.

Sure, when GK don't use allies.

S5 AP1 stormbolters vs S4 AP2 bolters with +1 to wound
Strike Squads can deepstrike without CP
GK units don't obliterate themselves on peril
And even if it's only 1 mortal wound they still get it off more easily than Rubrics
+1 to deny unlike Rubrics
Rubrics only have access to one set of spells like GK units

Super easy access to reroll charges and deepstrike everywhere.

IG has way more efficient anti-tank available.

24 * .666 * .333 * .5 * 2 = 5.3 // 113 points for a unit of Purgators and 2 CP
It's 107 for 5 Rubrics what do you think they score?
9 * .833 * .5 * .666 = 2.5 //with VotLW AND prescience

Here are purgators without CP spend
24 * .666 * .333 * .333 * 2 = 3.5

Way to not actually read my post buddy.

Did you not see the disclaimer "I find the best way to measure how bad a codex is to work out how well it can stand on its own without allied support"? It invalidates most of what you try to point out as mistakes on my part, because my points were made with no allies in mind. One might say that's not "realistic" but it's incredibly indicative of how bad Grey Knights are as a self-sufficient codex when they are completely reliant on other codices to bring tools they don't possess.

Of course, like Thousand Sons it too is carried by HQs. I rate Thousand Sons Daemon Princes higher though but realistically I concede that.

In-codex, Grey Knights have zero chaff. Refer to my second sentence. Thousand Sons have two varieties of in-codex chaff.

Doesn't change the fact that Thousand Sons have versatility that Grey Knights don't in terms of psychic powers. Thousand Sons can easily spit out absurd amounts of mortal wounds by comparison to Grey Knights in the psychic phase (the exception being against Daemons, but even then that is only at close range), and have far more utility powers.

Complaining that the standard units get one discipline that has at minimum two auto-take powers (Weaver and Glamour), one generally good power (Temporal), one decent power (Firestorm at WC7 is decent, was horrible at WC9) and one situation-dependent swingy power (Doombolt, amazing in some match-ups on a flying model, worthless in others) while the HQs get free access to the other two disciplines, one of which is one of the best disciplines in the game, and the other which has one auto-take power (Gaze) and two situation-dependent swingy powers (Flickering and Infernal). When your HQs are as good as Ahriman and Thousand Sons Daemon Princes, taking them to get those powers isn't a tax. Thousand Sons don't have to look at other codices to get the psychic combos you mention. Ergo, back to my original point that as a self-sufficient codex, Grey Knights are worse off than Thousand Sons in the psychic phase. I will note I'm probably being a bit unfair to their discipline as it's definitely better than mediocre. Also of note, those standard psykers can get other powers thanks to Chaos Familiar.

Why are you comparing Grey Knights in combat to Rubric Marines when my post wasn't making that comparison? I was pointing out that even if you try to rate Grey Knights as an army based on their combat stats, they still often fall short on a unit-to-unit basis. Saying they do combat better than Thousand Sons is like pointing out water is wet. It's a moot point that has nothing to do with my post. Also, re-rolling 9" charges, while nice, isn't quite reliable enough to shore up how incredibly difficult it is for Grey Knights to reach combat without getting demolished from afar. Custodes do it so much better it isn't even funny. As anyone who has played Grey Knights will tell you, one of their biggest problems is paying for melee stats that aren't that great (with a few exceptions) and that they will rarely get to put to good use.

Besides, more to the point, the Grey Knight fight twice stratagem is for infantry only. It's already been established that getting Grey Knight infantry into combat is very difficult against any type of decent opposition, because they are horrendous in the raw points to durability ratio. Dreadknights - the powerhouses - can't use this. Meanwhile, those cheap chaff Tzaangors that are more efficient in melee than a good chunk of the Grey Knight codex and get access to way more potential buffs to further super-charge their combat abilities, can be spammed unlike Grey Knights (you get 30 Tzaangors for the cost of 10 Strikes without upgrades) get that same fight twice stratagem but for 2CP instead of 3CP, and they are a lot more durable per point (the only time this isn't true - without including durability buffs like Sanctuary, Weaver, Glamour, etc - is when the PAGK are in cover and being hit by weapons with no AP). Really, just how good is Deep Striking Dreadnoughts if you can't Deep Strike the great Dreadnoughts like Leviathans and Contemptors? The "fight if you die" stratagem is great, obviously, but also reliant on getting into combat. Meanwhile, Thousand Sons can combo +2 to-wound and re-roll all failed hit and wounds rolls on Daemon Engines for 2CP and a low cost psychic power for devastating ranged efficiency, can combo +1 to-hit and +1 or +2 to-wound on almost any unit which applies for both shooting AND combat, can have absurdly huge bonuses to cast (+4) that Grey Knights can't match, get simple but nice ones like Killshot, get fight twice on units that are both more likely to actually get use out of it AND are more efficient damage dealers (while Hammerhand cancels out VotLW here, Tzaangors can also get +1 to-hit, +1 Strength and +1AP), etc.

I can see where you were going with Psybolt + Storm Bolters VS VotLW + Inferno Bolters, but did you not account for the +1 to-hit the latter can get from Prescience that the former cannot get in-codex? Psybolt costs 2CP to VotLW's 1CP as well. Also, when you chuck buffs like that on a unit, generally the bigger the unit, the better. Grey Knights have max unit sizes of 10, Rubric Marines have max unit sizes of 20. Not that I recommend doing it, but some swear by alpha striking 20-dustbin Rubric squads. The better comparison is the straight RF1 S4 AP2 vs RF2 S4 AP- from equivalent ten-man units; Grey Knights pull ahead against 4+/5+/6+/-, are equal against 3+, and worse against 2+ - not counting invulnerable saves. As I noted in my post, Rubrics only pull ahead of Strikes if you factor in support, which is important to note because Thousand Sons get more support abilities to choose from.

Yeah, in-built Deep Strike is very nice and never a downside.
If you're not saving a CP and Gaze of Fate for Perils on Rubric squads, you're not playing Thousand Sons correctly.
Rubrics can choose from 18 powers actually, it just costs 1CP. Depends on whether you need it though.
Rubrics can cast from 24" away, Grey Knight Smite is 12". Of course, you want to Deep Strike within 12" usually...which is what the Big FAQ doesn't help.
Rubrics are also far more durable per point and, as they don't pay for melee weapons they likely won't get to use, using them to camp objectives in cover isn't a comparatively terrible idea because of how absurdly difficult they are to shift by comparison to PAGK.
Mind you, that all assumes you're actually using Rubrics. Thousand Sons get Tzaangors and Cultists - two great units - as alternate Troops choices. Grey Knights only get Strike Squads and Terminator Squads as Troops choices, and as anyone will tell you, PAGK are horrendous in 8th Edition and Terminators don't fare much better. For getting as much CP as possible, Thousand Sons have a massive edge over Grey Knights thanks to having cheap, efficient Troops.

The same is true for Thousand Sons, but more specific. A Mutalith can easily give re-roll charges to any Tzeentch unit, or you can use Gaze of Fate plus a CP, and Tzaangors can cheaply give themselves +1 to their charge rolls. Besides, did you not see the Big FAQ? As I noted prior, re-rolling a 9" charge on 2D6 isn't as reliable as Grey Knights really need it to be.

Wait, what? Your response to my claim that Grey Knights have almost non-existent or universally inefficient anti-tank firepower is that "IG has way more efficient anti-tank available"? Wow. I would have never figured that out. Good job on that scoop! Snarkiness aside, how does that help the Grey Knight faction to stand on its own two feet? Meanwhile, Thousand Sons get; Predators, Defilers and Forgefiends (become super scary with right support combos as mentioned above, not great otherwise though), etc. Better by far. If we include the Forge World units each respective faction can utilize on its own, Grey Knights get; an overpriced (thank Chapter Approved) Razorback that is stuck with a weapon that isn't good against tanks, a Venerable Dreadnought equivalent with a good gun that is decent against tanks, a Land Raider Redeemer which is strictly not a vehicle killer, and the Thunderhawk Gunship which got turbo-nerfed (again, thank Chapter Approved). Meanwhile, Thousand Sons get; Leviathans, Deredeos, Contemptors, (Contemptor) Mortis', Sicarans, Sicaran Venators, Vindicator Laser Destroyers, Fire Raptors (still efficient in terms of raw damage surprisingly enough, just not durability) and Decimators.

Why are you comparing Purgators to Rubric Marines? Did I say Rubric Marines were the Thousand Sons' answer to anti-tank?
How about you make the comparison the Games Workshop rules designers should have made by comparing Purgators to Predators or, heck, Devastators from Loyalist chapters or Havocs from Heretic chapters?
Now, tell me how those 24" ranged Heavy weapons fill the ranged anti-tank role effectively for Grey Knights? We both know the answer, but if you're actually going to try and argue the way you appear to be leaning towards, I want popcorn.

Ultimately, as I stated earlier, if you judge a codex on its own merits then Grey Knights are absolutely the worst by far, no matter what some salty Thousand Sons players might believe. If you think about how much an army needs allies, Grey Knights need it much more than anyone else.

BTW, I never said that Thousand Sons were worse than Grey Knights. The vote only allows one, which I picked TS because I knew GK were going to get a lot of votes. I personally said that I think they are tied for the worst codex. If TS is better than GK, it ain't by much. The best argument you have for GK really is the no flak units without allies (I believe this whole discussion is codex alone). Cheap screens are a must in any even semi-competitive list. So, ok GK are the worst book, but TS is right behind you. I am sure you you played TS a couple of times you would be just as frustrated as you are with your GK.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, who is voting for Imperial Guard? They are tailor made for 8th with cheap troops/filler units (CP spam), high model count (screen/point efficiency), shooting over close combat, including non-LOS shooting, T8 vehicles, and cheap deep-strike plasma. You could increase the cost of every unit is the IG codex by 20% and it still would be at least mid-tier.

I feel like there are two separate issues: 1), "everything sucks" and 2), "theres enough in here to play a competitive army but the way most people want to play the army sucks".

You see a lot of salty Tson, Nids, Tau, and Space Marine players on the forums because those armies are all about the same competitive tier as Blood Angels, Admech, and Necrons but the competitive units available to the army are not the ones people actually want to use.

If you're a blood angels player, and you want to take your army to events, sure, you've got to give up your actual space marine troops and run scouts, and you've got to run some Guard bodies, but at least the Stuff That Does The Work in your mid-tier army is going to be guys smacking things with swords and hammers with jump packs on their backs. So you're going to be less happy than the guy running thousand sons who does just as well but his army has only one single actual space marine in it, and nothing but daemon princes and cultists besides that.

 xeen wrote:


BTW, I never said that Thousand Sons were worse than Grey Knights. The vote only allows one, which I picked TS because I knew GK were going to get a lot of votes. I personally said that I think they are tied for the worst codex. If TS is better than GK, it ain't by much. The best argument you have for GK really is the no flak units without allies (I believe this whole discussion is codex alone). Cheap screens are a must in any even semi-competitive list. So, ok GK are the worst book, but TS is right behind you. I am sure you you played TS a couple of times you would be just as frustrated as you are with your GK.

I've played both. Thousand Sons are so much better off for all the reasons I stated and more. Thousand Sons are becoming more popular post Big FAQ because of what they can offer competitive Chaos armies, recently being part of the list that finished 2nd at Adepticon. Grey Knights, meanwhile, have been pretty much entirely supplanted by Custodes and Blood Angels at the top tables in the role they used to fill, and that FAQ hasn't helped things at all. For those that want to quote life-to-date 8th Edition tournament results at me because I brought up Adepticon, remember that the Thousand Sons codex wasn't around until February, whereas the Grey Knight codex was released all the way back in August. The LVO was the first major tournament Thousand Sons were available for. This comment is of course for those that like raw data. If you just want proper discussion on why Thousand Sons are a much better realized codex than Grey Knights, read my previous post.

As an aside, I didn't so much mean to single you out, but more try to stem the Thousand Sons and Grey Knight comparisons. One has the basic tools it needs to cover all its bases in a competitive game without having to rely on Allies. The other does not.

Also...

the_scotsman wrote:
I feel like there are two separate issues: 1), "everything sucks" and 2), "theres enough in here to play a competitive army but the way most people want to play the army sucks".

You see a lot of salty Tson, Nids, Tau, and Space Marine players on the forums because those armies are all about the same competitive tier as Blood Angels, Admech, and Necrons but the competitive units available to the army are not the ones people actually want to use.

If you're a blood angels player, and you want to take your army to events, sure, you've got to give up your actual space marine troops and run scouts, and you've got to run some Guard bodies, but at least the Stuff That Does The Work in your mid-tier army is going to be guys smacking things with swords and hammers with jump packs on their backs. So you're going to be less happy than the guy running thousand sons who does just as well but his army has only one single actual space marine in it, and nothing but daemon princes and cultists besides that.

This is spot on.

I imagine those who voted Guard did so because they're fed up of them and see them ruining balance as opposed to considering them ineffective as an army. But perhaps not, I've seen some strange things here.

Yeah. I meant to add that (and I think the poll results are obvious evidence in and of themselves) we're in a somewhat unique situation where only one codex army exists in category 1 (everything sucks).

Every other army has at least some part of a competitive build available, such that a player at an even slightly less competitive event or meta can bring something to the table. The problem THEN shifts to "why do some of these armies not play like they should/do in the fluff". Getting every army out of Category 1 is the first priority, which is why they should get every codex out, fix GK, and take a look at the armies holistically.

If you asked me to rank which armies need balance attention in what order, I'd probably rank it.

1. GK

2. DA
3. SM
4. Tsons
5. CSM
6. Daemons

Then admech, nids, Tau etc which have similar 'identity crisis' problems but on a somewhat smaller scale, typically with more like 1-2 really iconic units that are just terrible than a whole bunch with a few powerful but unfluffy builds/units.

Threads like this are made for inviting frustrated players into a pity party.

The truth is 8th edition has done *some* good work avoiding pure balancing. Objective based games (such as Maelstrom) do a lot to make the game into more than just a question of raw killing power per point. For better or for worse, officially sanctioned soup has also blurred the lines between what is good and bad, as most codices have access to allies which can mitigate their weaknesses. This can make it harder to tell which codices are the weakest. The simple fact is that fewer and fewer players play dedicated lists.

pulling the focus away from individual codices does make me sad, as I really enjoy a cohesive list dedicated to a single faction. I feel that it makes a more engaging narrative to say, I'm pitting my Emperor's Children warband against your Catachans. But these days its usually soup v soup which is kind of lame when explaining the armies. Of course casual and competitive are two different beasts!

 xeen wrote:

Also, who is voting for Imperial Guard? They are tailor made for 8th with cheap troops/filler units (CP spam), high model count (screen/point efficiency), shooting over close combat, including non-LOS shooting, T8 vehicles, and cheap deep-strike plasma. You could increase the cost of every unit is the IG codex by 20% and it still would be at least mid-tier.

The OP just ask which was the worst codex, so obviously people who just don't like IG. I'm sure several SM votes were for the studio support they're given or that the majority of the Eldar votes were for being "too good". I've never been particularly taken with the WWI/WWII in space styling myself but I threw in against Daemons because I lost them from my army so GW could directly port in a fantasy army into 40k with no alterations.

I won't engage ob GK debates after this post, because I know where this leads.

Caederes wrote:

Did you not see the disclaimer "I find the best way to measure how bad a codex is to work out how well it can stand on its own without allied support"? It invalidates most of what you try to point out as mistakes on my part, because my points were made with no allies in mind. One might say that's not "realistic" but it's incredibly indicative of how bad Grey Knights are as a self-sufficient codex when they are completely reliant on other codices to bring tools they don't possess.

Sure and it's a fair point, but you don't exactly see any other space marines running mono and doing fantastically, either (aside from the re-emergence of RG and asscans at the GT oddly enough...which makes sense in a way since rule of 3 doesn't govern them, but also made the table safer for them).

In-codex, Grey Knights have zero chaff. Refer to my second sentence. Thousand Sons have two varieties of in-codex chaff.

Yes, I know, but why does the physical location of your chaff change anything? IS are no more out of place with GK than Tzaangors are with TS.

Doesn't change the fact that Thousand Sons have versatility that Grey Knights don't in terms of psychic powers. Thousand Sons can easily spit out absurd amounts of mortal wounds by comparison to Grey Knights in the psychic phase (the exception being against Daemons, but even then that is only at close range), and have far more utility powers.

Very much agree. I absolutely love my psychic army's flexibility.

Complaining that the standard units get one discipline that has at minimum two auto-take powers (Weaver and Glamour), one generally good power (Temporal), one decent power (Firestorm at WC7 is decent, was horrible at WC9) and one situation-dependent swingy power (Doombolt, amazing in some match-ups on a flying model, worthless in others) while the HQs get free access to the other two disciplines, one of which is one of the best disciplines in the game, and the other which has one auto-take power (Gaze) and two situation-dependent swingy powers (Flickering and Infernal). When your HQs are as good as Ahriman and Thousand Sons Daemon Princes, taking them to get those powers isn't a tax. Thousand Sons don't have to look at other codices to get the psychic combos you mention. Ergo, back to my original point that as a self-sufficient codex, Grey Knights are worse off than Thousand Sons in the psychic phase. I will note I'm probably being a bit unfair to their discipline as it's definitely better than mediocre. Also of note, those standard psykers can get other powers thanks to Chaos Familiar.

I'm not complaining about it. I'm making a distinction. TS have "out of codex powers" in codex. GK can grab out of codex powers, too. Would I like to see GK get more disciplines? Yea that'd be pretty useful, I think.

Why are you comparing Grey Knights in combat to Rubric Marines when my post wasn't making that comparison? I was pointing out that even if you try to rate Grey Knights as an army based on their combat stats, they still often fall short on a unit-to-unit basis. Saying they do combat better than Thousand Sons is like pointing out water is wet. It's a moot point that has nothing to do with my post. Also, re-rolling 9" charges, while nice, isn't quite reliable enough to shore up how incredibly difficult it is for Grey Knights to reach combat without getting demolished from afar. Custodes do it so much better it isn't even funny. As anyone who has played Grey Knights will tell you, one of their biggest problems is paying for melee stats that aren't that great (with a few exceptions) and that they will rarely get to put to good use.

It was an illustrative point about D3 damage being useful while also still being as effective as rubrics against MEQ.

Besides, more to the point, the Grey Knight fight twice stratagem is for infantry only. It's already been established that getting Grey Knight infantry into combat is very difficult against any type of decent opposition, because they are horrendous in the raw points to durability ratio. Dreadknights - the powerhouses - can't use this. Meanwhile, those cheap chaff Tzaangors that are more efficient in melee than a good chunk of the Grey Knight codex and get access to way more potential buffs to further super-charge their combat abilities, can be spammed unlike Grey Knights (you get 30 Tzaangors for the cost of 10 Strikes without upgrades) get that same fight twice stratagem but for 2CP instead of 3CP, and they are a lot more durable per point (the only time this isn't true - without including durability buffs like Sanctuary, Weaver, Glamour, etc - is when the PAGK are in cover and being hit by weapons with no AP).

10 Strikes for 30 Tzaangors.
Deepstrike. Smite for 3. SBs for 8.9. Melee for 7. That's 19 dead (133 points). Swinging back they kill 3.7 (77 points). If the Tzaangors got the drop on you - bad news, sure. Which is why IG need to be present. Same rule applies to Rubrics - have something to make sure they hit before they get hit.

Yes Tzaangors can get buffed. But then Strikes with Draigo and Psybolts could kill half that unit with just storm bolters.

Really, just how good is Deep Striking Dreadnoughts if you can't Deep Strike the great Dreadnoughts like Leviathans and Contemptors?

Only as good as you deem it. Deeptriking a dreadnought with a 6+++ that can give itself a 5++ on top of that is not something to be scoffed at.

Meanwhile, Thousand Sons can combo +2 to-wound and re-roll all failed hit and wounds rolls on Daemon Engines for 2CP and a low cost psychic power for devastating ranged efficiency, can combo +1 to-hit and +1 or +2 to-wound on almost any unit which applies for both shooting AND combat, can have absurdly huge bonuses to cast (+4) that Grey Knights can't match, get simple but nice ones like Killshot, get fight twice on units that are both more likely to actually get use out of it AND are more efficient damage dealers (while Hammerhand cancels out VotLW here, Tzaangors can also get +1 to-hit, +1 Strength and +1AP), etc.

That's a ton of CP and support. If I spend 100 to 300 to 450 points on permanently buffing a 150-250 point unit then you can hardly call that unit exceedingly efficient without calculating what went into making it good.

I can see where you were going with Psybolt + Storm Bolters VS VotLW + Inferno Bolters, but did you not account for the +1 to-hit the latter can get from Prescience that the former cannot get in-codex? Psybolt costs 2CP to VotLW's 1CP as well. Also, when you chuck buffs like that on a unit, generally the bigger the unit, the better. Grey Knights have max unit sizes of 10, Rubric Marines have max unit sizes of 20. Not that I recommend doing it, but some swear by alpha striking 20-dustbin Rubric squads. The better comparison is the straight RF1 S4 AP2 vs RF2 S4 AP- from equivalent ten-man units; Grey Knights pull ahead against 4+/5+/6+/-, are equal against 3+, and worse against 2+ - not counting invulnerable saves. As I noted in my post, Rubrics only pull ahead of Strikes if you factor in support, which is important to note because Thousand Sons get more support abilities to choose from.

Yup fair. I can drop a 20 man in someone's face and keep them on the table with CP. Possibly hurt a lot of stuff doing so, but that's a 4 CP (pass morale, deepstrike or DMC, and VotLW), 400+ points, plus points for a caster to get them prescience reliably. And then more to make sure they can have glamour on and have reroll 1s. All to kill about 30 guardsmen.

Alternatively 20 Strikes with one using Psybolts kills the same number of IG - maybe a bit less and has a lot less to worry about in terms of morale and will get much better with support buffs. Sure I could off a predator with those Rubrics, but it's unlikely anyone is going to let me deepstrike in RF range of one.

If you're not saving a CP and Gaze of Fate for Perils on Rubric squads, you're not playing Thousand Sons correctly.

Sure, because unlike GK i'll blow my entire unit to smithereens without it.

Rubrics can cast from 24" away, Grey Knight Smite is 12". Of course, you want to Deep Strike within 12" usually...which is what the Big FAQ doesn't help.

You can double your range, but that's a lot of points for 1 MW. It does suck that all your smites are gak or super short range on purifiers.

Rubrics are also far more durable per point and, as they don't pay for melee weapons they likely won't get to use, using them to camp objectives in cover isn't a comparatively terrible idea because of how absurdly difficult they are to shift by comparison to PAGK.
Mind you, that all assumes you're actually using Rubrics. Thousand Sons get Tzaangors and Cultists - two great units - as alternate Troops choices. Grey Knights only get Strike Squads and Terminator Squads as Troops choices, and as anyone will tell you, PAGK are horrendous in 8th Edition and Terminators don't fare much better. For getting as much CP as possible, Thousand Sons have a massive edge over Grey Knights thanks to having cheap, efficient Troops.

Yup that's fair.

The same is true for Thousand Sons, but more specific. A Mutalith can easily give re-roll charges to any Tzeentch unit, or you can use Gaze of Fate plus a CP, and Tzaangors can cheaply give themselves +1 to their charge rolls. Besides, did you not see the Big FAQ? As I noted prior, re-rolling a 9" charge on 2D6 isn't as reliable as Grey Knights really need it to be.

150 points or a spell plus a CP for a single unit as opposed to a bubble. It forces Tzaangors into 30 model units with no morale. Those units are on table with Tzaangors are in the cloud vulnerable to getting killed reducing the chance of Mutalith making it in range and getting the ability off. Otherwise you better hope no perils pop up the turn the Tzaangors drop.

Grey Knight faction to stand on its own two feet? Meanwhile, Thousand Sons get; Predators, Defilers and Forgefiends (become super scary with right support combos as mentioned above, not great otherwise though), etc. Better by far. If we include the Forge World units each respective faction can utilize on its own, Grey Knights get; an overpriced (thank Chapter Approved) Razorback that is stuck with a weapon that isn't good against tanks, a Venerable Dreadnought equivalent with a good gun that is decent against tanks, a Land Raider Redeemer which is strictly not a vehicle killer, and the Thunderhawk Gunship which got turbo-nerfed (again, thank Chapter Approved). Meanwhile, Thousand Sons get; Leviathans, Deredeos, Contemptors, (Contemptor) Mortis', Sicarans, Sicaran Venators, Vindicator Laser Destroyers, Fire Raptors (still efficient in terms of raw damage surprisingly enough, just not durability) and Decimators.

Yea, it's gakky. I get that. It's not perfect, but at the same time there won't be anything coming to GK that changes that dynamic. They'll get some buffs and maybe draw in a couple new dreadnoughts, but they'll never get chaff or possibly other tanks.

Why are you comparing Purgators to Rubric Marines? Did I say Rubric Marines were the Thousand Sons' answer to anti-tank?
How about you make the comparison the Games Workshop rules designers should have made by comparing Purgators to Predators or, heck, Devastators from Loyalist chapters or Havocs from Heretic chapters?
Now, tell me how those 24" ranged Heavy weapons fill the ranged anti-tank role effectively for Grey Knights? We both know the answer, but if you're actually going to try and argue the way you appear to be leaning towards, I want popcorn.

The D3 wounds thing. It's a pretty stark comparison if you ask me. I don't think they fill the anti-tank role, but it's not bare bones, either. The psycannon should be D2 instead.

Something I want to expand on here before I finish up this post is CP generation. Both armies get high value out of their stratagems, with Thousand Sons generally having the better and cheaper stratagems; both have "fight twice", the Thousand Sons' one is specific to Tzaangors but 1CP less (which is fine because buffed Tzaangors are better in combat than almost anything Grey Knights have), they have a universal +1 to-wound rolls stratagem for 1CP whereas Grey Knights get a +1 Strength (worse than +1 to-wound in many cases) and +1 AP (good) for 2CP (eh), etc. Grey Knights don't have a good way to generate CP cheaply without looking to allies; the cheapest Grey Knight battalion is 545 points (2xBrotherhood Champions, 3x5 Strike Squads), whereas the cheapest Thousand Sons battalion is 328 points (2xSorcerers, 3x10 Cultists). Grey Knights also have no innate form of recuperating CP, whereas Thousand Sons get a very nice relic for doing just that. With Allies, Guard obviously provide the cheapest Battalion in the game, but who runs Guard to supplement Grey Knights and not the other way around?

Yup it sucks, I know. It would be killer if the Prometheus' command relay was -1CP all of the time.

Ultimately, as I stated earlier, if you judge a codex on its own merits then Grey Knights are absolutely the worst by far, no matter what some salty Thousand Sons players might believe. If you think about how much an army needs allies, Grey Knights need it much more than anyone else.

I'm not salty about TS. I very much love my codex. I just never see anyone talk about things GK do well and I think that's bad for the community and bad for the army if you ever want it to see the light of day.

Grey Knights should never have been unmerged from Inquisition. Inquisition elements inside the Grey Knight force is one of the things that made them flexible in 5th edition.

Inquisitors and their Henchmen squads gave Grey Knights some cheaper units, as well as interesting Chaff that they could play with. Inquisition and Assassins should never have been fractured from the Grey Knight book. As a stand alone codex GK would have been much stronger with access to cheap Inquisitors, henchmen squad chaff, and trouble shooting assassins. Splitting it did nothing but make all 3 worse.

Skaorn wrote:


The OP just ask which was the worst codex, so obviously people who just don't like IG. I'm sure several SM votes were for the studio support they're given or that the majority of the Eldar votes were for being "too good".

That's mostly the same reason why GK got so many votes - in my opinion. All people see is how GK is the worst army ever in every single post and that informs their decision. Most GK players are more than happy to ferment this outlook. Any kind of positive discussion of the army is pig piled, brutally - often under the premise that people who don't play the army can't understand it. Yet, very hypocritically, they'll gladly accept negative opinions from people who don't play the army and there is no way that the vast majority of these votes have an intimate understanding of the army.

 akaean wrote:
As a stand alone codex GK would have been much stronger with access to cheap Inquisitors, henchmen squad chaff, and trouble shooting assassins. Splitting it did nothing but make all 3 worse.

To be fair the damage was done to the inquisition when they were crowbarred into the 5e GK codex as 'also rans' . You have to go back to 3e to get the stormtroopers as proper chaff units to the elite GK, before GW reinvented them as regular combat-squadding, rhino-embarking, and they shall know some fear silver marines.
Nobody takes non-named inquisitors in 8th. Nobody takes henchmen except to fill out a detachment for the inquisitor.

I think if GW were going to merge anything in 8th the GK would fit with going back to their shadowy psychic anti-daemon roots a little more as part of a Talons of the Emperor codex. They've been 'marined' out too much to be the elite backup to an inquisitional force anymore.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Most GK players are more than happy to ferment this outlook.

Well there should perhaps be a rule against voting for / talking down your own armies in these kinds of threads...

I almost voted Mechanicus, but they contribute more than GK in a soup format, so i voted GK.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Skaorn wrote:


The OP just ask which was the worst codex, so obviously people who just don't like IG. I'm sure several SM votes were for the studio support they're given or that the majority of the Eldar votes were for being "too good".

That's mostly the same reason why GK got so many votes - in my opinion. All people see is how GK is the worst army ever in every single post and that informs their decision. Most GK players are more than happy to ferment this outlook. Any kind of positive discussion of the army is pig piled, brutally - often under the premise that people who don't play the army can't understand it. Yet, very hypocritically, they'll gladly accept negative opinions from people who don't play the army and there is no way that the vast majority of these votes have an intimate understanding of the army.

This is a giant fallacy.

Just because you say "Grey Knights are good," or "Purifiers are good" doesn't make the discussion "positive." Delusion doesn't make you the champion you think it does. News flash: People who run GK have a more intimate understanding of the army than armchair intellectuals who make statements like 10 purifiers in a rhino is the unbeatable secret GK strategy.

It is *well known* how to run GK in a competitive setting, as a staple on force to Imperium Soup, or leveraging an all-or-nothing alpha strike (although, with the beta changes this is not possible in tournaments anymore). If you dropped "Best in Faction" awards at ITC, Grey Knights would largely dissipate.

 Marmatag wrote:

This is a giant fallacy.

Just because you say "Grey Knights are good," or "Purifiers are good" doesn't make the discussion "positive." Delusion doesn't make you the champion you think it does. News flash: People who run GK have a more intimate understanding of the army than armchair intellectuals who make statements like 10 purifiers in a rhino is the unbeatable secret GK strategy.

It is *well known* how to run GK in a competitive setting, as a staple on force to Imperium Soup, or leveraging an all-or-nothing alpha strike (although, with the beta changes this is not possible in tournaments anymore). If you dropped "Best in Faction" awards at ITC, Grey Knights would largely dissipate.

Case in point. Here comes Marmatag to twist my statements put words in my mouth. You'll gladly scoop up those uninformed negative opinions though. Nom nom nom.

And with that I'm out. Enjoy your pity party where no one disagrees with you.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

This is a giant fallacy.

Just because you say "Grey Knights are good," or "Purifiers are good" doesn't make the discussion "positive." Delusion doesn't make you the champion you think it does. News flash: People who run GK have a more intimate understanding of the army than armchair intellectuals who make statements like 10 purifiers in a rhino is the unbeatable secret GK strategy.

It is *well known* how to run GK in a competitive setting, as a staple on force to Imperium Soup, or leveraging an all-or-nothing alpha strike (although, with the beta changes this is not possible in tournaments anymore). If you dropped "Best in Faction" awards at ITC, Grey Knights would largely dissipate.

Case in point. Here comes Marmatag to twist my statements put words in my mouth. You'll gladly scoop up those uninformed negative opinions though. Nom nom nom.

And with that I'm out. Enjoy your pity party where no one disagrees with you.

It's pretty evident from the poll that the overwhelming majority agree with me.

GK are bad because they are more-marine marines. And then marine schtick fails hard in 8th. Their few extra smites aren't going to save them from contender lists.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

I'm not salty about TS. I very much love my codex. I just never see anyone talk about things GK do well and I think that's bad for the community and bad for the army if you ever want it to see the light of day.

Oh here's the REAL part of the issue, here. It isn't that GK do much well (because anything they're doing you can get elsewhere thanks to Biker Custodes > Grandmaster Dreadknights), but you want to be Positive Pete and ignore the balancing issues here.
Do you wanna tell AdMech they're fine while you're at it, seeing as they could be worse off like GK and therefore they're doing something well? I'd love for you to tell me that right now.

News Flash: if we aren't talking about how garbage some of the armies function, we can't expect New GW to actually fix said issues.

Funny you mention AdMech because a mostly AdMech Imperium list (1300 points of retro scifi) got 10th place at the London GT. It was a Stygies detachment, mostly Fulgurites and Dragoons.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
Funny you mention AdMech because a mostly AdMech Imperium list (1300 points of retro scifi) got 10th place at the London GT. It was a Stygies detachment, mostly Fulgurites and Dragoons.

So it happens out of how many times and that's your defense?

I'm drawing from my own experiences playing against the army as well when I say AdMech isn't that bad. They don't have anything broken to the extent of Custodes bike captains but they have the tools to compete with other armies. It's certainly laughable to compare them to an army as bad as Grey Knights.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
I'm drawing from my own experiences playing against the army as well when I say AdMech isn't that bad. They don't have anything broken to the extent of Custodes bike captains but they have the tools to compete with other armies. It's certainly laughable to compare them to an army as bad as Grey Knights.

Nobody is as bad as Grey Knights, but AdMech is pretty damn near.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

This is a giant fallacy.

Just because you say "Grey Knights are good," or "Purifiers are good" doesn't make the discussion "positive." Delusion doesn't make you the champion you think it does. News flash: People who run GK have a more intimate understanding of the army than armchair intellectuals who make statements like 10 purifiers in a rhino is the unbeatable secret GK strategy.

It is *well known* how to run GK in a competitive setting, as a staple on force to Imperium Soup, or leveraging an all-or-nothing alpha strike (although, with the beta changes this is not possible in tournaments anymore). If you dropped "Best in Faction" awards at ITC, Grey Knights would largely dissipate.

Case in point. Here comes Marmatag to twist my statements put words in my mouth. You'll gladly scoop up those uninformed negative opinions though. Nom nom nom.

And with that I'm out. Enjoy your pity party where no one disagrees with you.

It's pretty evident from the poll that the overwhelming majority agree with me.

@Marmatag, perhaps you could point to a post from Deadalus81 where he says "Grey Knights are good" or something close to that? Or where anyone has said there is some secret strategy to winning with Grey Knights?

The fact other people recognize the serious faults with the Grey Knights Codex has absolutely nothing to do with your point about "delusional thinking." I'm pretty sure what you perceive as other people's delusions is a problem with reading comprehension on the part of a couple bitter, angry gamers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This poll needs to be changed. Grey Knights are recognized as the worst Codex by most people already. We're not learning anything, and other Codexes have serious faults as well.

My take is that any Codex that can only be used along with allies from another is a problem.

40kfaq@gwplc.com

Please complain to GW about the grey knights terrible codex.

@techsoldaten,
There actually are such posts claiming “secret strategy” and “Grey Knights are fine”...they just come from Reece Robbins.
Like this one: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/60/733325.page

 greyknight12 wrote:
@techsoldaten,
There actually are such posts claiming “secret strategy” and “Grey Knights are fine”...they just come from Reece Robbins.

Yeah. It was a slap in the face to tell GK players they're playing their army wrong and to use allies, and he even said that, if the smite nerf hit them, it didn't matter.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
Funny you mention AdMech because a mostly AdMech Imperium list (1300 points of retro scifi) got 10th place at the London GT. It was a Stygies detachment, mostly Fulgurites and Dragoons.

Ad mech are a lot better than people make them out to be. They have some really silly combos I was looking at. Basically Ravengaurd with units that don't suck. Plus - just making a huge robot squad with wrath of mars is extremely powerful.

I'm fine for positive approaches. I've posted in the other GK thread a mono-GK build that actually works - just not against high-tier meta lists. I've run it successfully.

But don't tell me that something is viable based on your *incorrect* math hammer that you're cooking up on the spot. (Daedalus didn't know statlines for models he was comparing, for instance, assuming Custode Bike Captains had a 5++, not a 3++ - which they almost always have - or a 4++ base, which they should have, also he didn't know that Grey Knights have to pay for their storm bolters, or that PAGK taking psilencers drop their melee weapon, and still go up in price).

In no universe is putting 10 purifiers in a Rhino (minimum what, ~380 points?) a viable thing to do. You're paying almost 400 points for essentially 10 marines that are Danger Island if they get within 3" of something worth smiting. Mathematical inefficiency aside, it's bonkers, considering you won't be in range (9" threat radius from Rhino) until turn 3. Can you afford to set aside 400 points for 3 turns, only to maybe be successful? Or perhaps that rhino will get surrounded and wiped, in which case, you're big time hosed? Yet this secret rhino strategy isn't thrown out as a "consider this," it's thrown out as a "this makes GK solid, you guys aren't trying things" kind of response, from someone who has admittedly *never* played as GK or *against* GK.

It'd be like me jumping in the in the Necrons thread and telling them to spam Warriors. I could cite all of the benefits of reanimating infantry, with -1 ap on their guns, and math hammer out how good they are relative to marines, or guardsmen, etc, and therefore Necrons "aren't as bad as people say." It's an easy statement to make because (a) you're not quantifying how bad the army is, only taking a poorly defined contrarian stance, and (b) it's a suggestion that is laughably bad, and you can cook up a nonsense scenario - mathematically - where it isn't.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
Funny you mention AdMech because a mostly AdMech Imperium list (1300 points of retro scifi) got 10th place at the London GT. It was a Stygies detachment, mostly Fulgurites and Dragoons.

Ad mech are a lot better than people make them out to be. They have some really silly combos I was looking at. Plus - just making a huge robot squad with wrath of mars is extremely powerful.

AdMech are definitely hurting. But they have some combos that can catch people sleeping. That said, I wouldn't put them that much above GK. If the beta deep strike rule sticks around i'd say they're a full notch better than GK since they don't depend on DS & reserves, but that's a different story.

How are they that bad? Spamming dakka bots should do really well no army you are up against. It's just hilarious how much dark eldar they can kill in a turn and they are really hard to kill.

Daedalus didn't know statlines for models he was comparing, for instance

assuming Custode Bike Captains had a 5++, not a 3++ - which they almost always have - or a 4++ base

Yup, mistakes happen, but it was a 5++ on the Vertus not the SCDE.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/756259/9964406.page#9964406

he didn't know that Grey Knights have to pay for their storm bolters

Incorrect.

, or that PAGK taking psilencers drop their melee weapon, and still go up in price).

Incorrect.

Both of these things addressed in my very post in that thread which you clearly failed to read. Sometimes when I'm at work and I post something really quickly I make errors, but sure - try to attack me with that.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/756259.page#9961590

In no universe is putting 10 purifiers in a Rhino (minimum what, ~380 points?) a viable thing to do. You're paying almost 400 points for essentially 10 marines that are Danger Island if they get within 3" of something worth smiting. Mathematical inefficiency aside, it's bonkers, considering you won't be in range (9" threat radius from Rhino) until turn 3. Can you afford to set aside 400 points for 3 turns, only to maybe be successful? Or perhaps that rhino will get surrounded and wiped, in which case, you're big time hosed? Yet this secret rhino strategy isn't thrown out as a "consider this," it's thrown out as a "this makes GK solid, you guys aren't trying things" kind of response, from someone who has admittedly *never* played as GK or *against* GK.

What a bunch of bs you constructed there.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/756259/9964876.page#9964876

AdMech are definitely hurting. But they have some combos that can catch people sleeping. That said, I wouldn't put them that much above GK.

Wait. Do you PLAY Ad Mech? Because if you don't you better back the feth off on analyzing them. Do you realize you basically said the same thing about Ad Mech that I said about GK?

I'm holding my tongue so fething hard right now.

Daed... you're doing it lol. What you keep saying you won't do...

 Quickjager wrote:
Daed... you're doing it lol. What you keep saying you won't do...

Yea, well, I'm beyond the thread itself and dealing with someone attacking me with bs and lies.

Grey Knights need to go back to the old Daemonhunters codex idea, with Inquisition forces as part of the Codex, with Grey Knights being a hard hitting addition to things like storm troopers, servitors, inquisitors, and their retinues.

And let GK Termies have thunder hammers and storm shields, so the 10 of them I modeled back when they could do that are useful again.

 Mattlov wrote:
Grey Knights need to go back to the old Daemonhunters codex idea, with Inquisition forces as part of the Codex, with Grey Knights being a hard hitting addition to things like storm troopers, servitors, inquisitors, and their retinues.

And let GK Termies have thunder hammers and storm shields, so the 10 of them I modeled back when they could do that are useful again.

And then they are a unique codex again, not just silver space marines.

phillv85 wrote:
I imagine those who voted Guard did so because they're fed up of them and see them ruining balance as opposed to considering them ineffective as an army. But perhaps not, I've seen some strange things here.

If there's one thing I've learned since I started discussing 40k on the internets, it's that there are a LOT of bad players online and they come up with some hilariously wacky opinions.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

And with that I'm out.

Not very successfully.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I won't engage ob GK debates after this post, because I know where this leads.

Sure and it's a fair point, but you don't exactly see any other space marines running mono and doing fantastically, either (aside from the re-emergence of RG and asscans at the GT oddly enough...which makes sense in a way since rule of 3 doesn't govern them, but also made the table safer for them).

Yes, I know, but why does the physical location of your chaff change anything? IS are no more out of place with GK than Tzaangors are with TS.

Very much agree. I absolutely love my psychic army's flexibility.

I'm not complaining about it. I'm making a distinction. TS have "out of codex powers" in codex. GK can grab out of codex powers, too. Would I like to see GK get more disciplines? Yea that'd be pretty useful, I think.

It was an illustrative point about D3 damage being useful while also still being as effective as rubrics against MEQ.

10 Strikes for 30 Tzaangors.
Deepstrike. Smite for 3. SBs for 8.9. Melee for 7. That's 19 dead (133 points). Swinging back they kill 3.7 (77 points). If the Tzaangors got the drop on you - bad news, sure. Which is why IG need to be present. Same rule applies to Rubrics - have something to make sure they hit before they get hit.

Yes Tzaangors can get buffed. But then Strikes with Draigo and Psybolts could kill half that unit with just storm bolters.

Only as good as you deem it. Deeptriking a dreadnought with a 6+++ that can give itself a 5++ on top of that is not something to be scoffed at.

That's a ton of CP and support. If I spend 100 to 300 to 450 points on permanently buffing a 150-250 point unit then you can hardly call that unit exceedingly efficient without calculating what went into making it good.

Yup fair. I can drop a 20 man in someone's face and keep them on the table with CP. Possibly hurt a lot of stuff doing so, but that's a 4 CP (pass morale, deepstrike or DMC, and VotLW), 400+ points, plus points for a caster to get them prescience reliably. And then more to make sure they can have glamour on and have reroll 1s. All to kill about 30 guardsmen.

Alternatively 20 Strikes with one using Psybolts kills the same number of IG - maybe a bit less and has a lot less to worry about in terms of morale and will get much better with support buffs. Sure I could off a predator with those Rubrics, but it's unlikely anyone is going to let me deepstrike in RF range of one.

Sure, because unlike GK i'll blow my entire unit to smithereens without it.

You can double your range, but that's a lot of points for 1 MW. It does suck that all your smites are gak or super short range on purifiers.

Yup that's fair.

150 points or a spell plus a CP for a single unit as opposed to a bubble. It forces Tzaangors into 30 model units with no morale. Those units are on table with Tzaangors are in the cloud vulnerable to getting killed reducing the chance of Mutalith making it in range and getting the ability off. Otherwise you better hope no perils pop up the turn the Tzaangors drop.

Yea, it's gakky. I get that. It's not perfect, but at the same time there won't be anything coming to GK that changes that dynamic. They'll get some buffs and maybe draw in a couple new dreadnoughts, but they'll never get chaff or possibly other tanks.

The D3 wounds thing. It's a pretty stark comparison if you ask me. I don't think they fill the anti-tank role, but it's not bare bones, either. The psycannon should be D2 instead.

Yup it sucks, I know. It would be killer if the Prometheus' command relay was -1CP all of the time.

I'm not salty about TS. I very much love my codex. I just never see anyone talk about things GK do well and I think that's bad for the community and bad for the army if you ever want it to see the light of day.

Of course not, mono-Marines tend to have some issues. Pure Chaos Space Marine armies can do alright as well.
However, in a discussion about "worst codex", Grey Knights stand out by virtue of having the least (both numerically and in terms of efficiency) tools to deal with the many situations that can arise in a 40K game.
There's no arguing that Grey Knights are in a tier of their own with regards to competitive gaming. Thousand Sons are nowhere near that tier. Heck, it can be argued that any Codex: Space Marines chapter not named "Ultramarines" or "Raven Guard" is worse off than Thousand Sons.

Umm, yes they are. Infantry Squads are drawn from Codex: Astra Militarum. Tzaangors come from Codex: Thousand Sons. When discussing how strong an individual codex/faction is, the units inside the codex absolutely matter. If Codex: Grey Knights exists solely to supply Grand Master Nemesis Dreadknights and maybe one other character or two to other codices and does nothing else well, it has to be a pretty terrible codex. When glaring holes exist in your roster that you have to rely on Allies to fill, the worth of that actual faction is lessened.
Now, that's not to say that I'm advocating no allies or ignoring that mixing factions together is absolutely the best way to play competitive 8th Edition. It's just one of many ways to discern the relative inefficiency of Grey Knights.

Well, no, Grey Knights have to ally in detachments from other codices to get other disciplines. Thousand Sons get three disciplines without having to utilise any other faction. Seeing as competitive Codex: Space Marine lists don't always bring psykers anyway...

Ok? Again, it's absolutely irrelevant. D3 Damage melee attacks are useful. It's more useful on tough, mobile platforms, of which the Grey Knight codex has exactly one (or two if you want to be technical). It's also more useful on units with good Strength values and a decent number of attacks. For these reasons, Grey Knight infantry are not great melee units. Overall, they're not really that good at all seeing as they won't often make combat, and even if they do, their damage output isn't as scary as what other armies can put out for similar points anyway.

So our discussion of "who has the better stratagems" especially with regards to Thousand Sons having a cheaper fight twice stratagem on a superior melee unit to anything in the Grey Knight codex that can use said less efficient fight twice stratagem turned into a "which unit wins if it goes first" debate? Huh? Smite for 3? You mean Smite for 1, right? 1 mortal wound unless the target is Daemonic. Tzaangors aren't Daemons. Now we're doing hypothetical units VS units with the odds stacked in the Strikes' favour? Ok?
Let me illustrate a few things for you; Tzaangors are tougher per point than Strikes; Tzaangors hit harder in combat per point than Strikes; Tzaangors are faster than Strikes; Tzaangors have more buff potential than Strikes; Tzaangors offer more board coverage than Strikes.
Actually, here's a better question. Which of those units can be a multi-purpose chaff or inexpensive destroyer-type unit? Oh, and 10 Rubric Marines Deep Striking with Veterans of the Long War and Prescience could kill the entire Strike unit with just Inferno Bolters. See what I did there?

It's still a non-FW/character Dreadnought. It's not offering game-changing firepower, and even with a 6++ and a possible 5++ - which you almost always want on something more valuable - it's still pretty darned easy to deal with. If it fails a charge, it's stuck in hot water and will melt accordingly. It doesn't offer game-changing firepower; a Leviathan this is not. That's not to say you can't get value out of a Deep Striking Dreadnought - I say this as someone that loved doing it - but really, how does it qualify as some amazing stratagem that Grey Knight players should salivate over that is superior to what Thousand Sons can bring to bear with their stratagems?

How is that a tonne of CP? You keep bringing up Psybolt, but that's 2CP for +1 Strength and -1AP to the non-heavy weapons that Grey Knight infantry can use. Meanwhile, Veterans of the Long and Daemonforge are 1CP each for a total of 2CP to give +1 to-wound and re-roll all failed hit and wound rolls with all weapons used by the unit for that phase. Psybolt and super-Psybolt (for the heavy weapons, also 2CP) are the only stratagems you can give Strike squads to boost their ranged damage output; otherwise, it's just Astral Aim (ignores cover and ignores line of sight, but if you're dropping within 12") and re-roll failed hit-rolls from Draigo/re-roll 1s to-hit from a Grand Master. Thousand Sons Daemon Engines can add +1 to-wound from Flickering Flames, +1 to-hit from Prescience and re-roll 1s to-hit from Exalted Sorcerers/Ahriman/Magnus. Thousand Sons get the options to do that if you feel it is necessary. Grey Knights don't get those options.
Also, I like how you don't address the rest of that sentence, seeing as it makes it crystal clear Grey Knights can't pull out the types of combos Thousand Sons - and indeed, pretty much all other Astartes codices - can. No Killshot. No mega buffing melee units. Fewer casting bonuses to get critical powers off, and, as discussed above, nowhere near the potential to mega-buff ranged units. Let's also not forget that the Tzaangor fight twice stratagem is 2CP with Tzaangors being more efficient damage dealers than pretty much all Grey Knight combat units, and the Grey Knight one is 3CP on a wider range of less useful units.

I already said I don't advocate the 20-man Rubric unit. Rubrics are better for camping home objectives, a role they actually do alright in because of how hard to shift they can be in cover...something PAGK don't do well at all. However, why are you acting like it's a guaranteed 4CP? If you use the Dark Matter Crystal, the teleport doesn't cost you a CP. Also, if the unit actually does have Weaver and Glamour on it - especially if you manage to drop it into cover - then I doubt you're going to need the 2CP to auto-pass a Morale test because that unit's either not going anywhere, or your opponent will have the tools to kill them quickly anyway. Depends on the situation, of course. Besides, the Rubrics are much, much harder to kill than the Strikes which is something to consider. That unit also shines the tougher the target is, while the reverse is true for the Strikes. The Rubrics can potentially kill much higher value targets with greater ease than the Strikes in this scenario, so it's a matter of creating the opportunity and taking it. If you're not using the rest of the army to clear out screens for your 400+ point super-buffed unit to destroy something of similar to equal value, you're not using said unit well.

Yes, it's a negative. However, does it make up for the disadvantages PAGK have in comparison to Rubrics, remembering that Rubrics are oft considered the worst of the four cult troop choices? No, it doesn't, and that's pathetic.

It's also a lot of points for 1 Mortal Wound from a Grey Knight unit. What's your point? At least Rubrics don't have to be within 12" to cast their Smite, meaning they are less likely to be in Deny the Witch range, are less likely to be near anti-psyker effects, are less likely to have to worry about being shot/charged in return, etc. Before you say "but Grey Knights want to be in combat" that's only if they charge or get charged by Fire Warrior equivalents, because otherwise they're going to get curb stomped before they attack in most cases seeing they are no tougher than Tactical Marines at nearly double the points cost. Now of course Brother Captains do help this little issue for Grey Knights...but then the Smites from the army (bar Purifiers and associated characters, but even that's 3" or 6"...yay) are all stuck at 1 mortal wound against non-daemonic targets. Thousand Sons, meanwhile, can use their cheaper psychic characters to sling Smites that deal D3/D6 mortal wounds. Not a lot to be positive about.

Said 150 point Mutalith isn't just a supporting unit that solely exists to buff Tzaangors, though. It fills multiple roles for a Thousand Sons army, namely drawing anti-tank fire, being a distraction, having a midfield melee and mortal wound presence, etc. It's a good, possibly even great, unit.
You're acting like putting 30 Tzaangors into reserve somehow disqualifies the Thousand Sons player from running chaff. 10 man Cultist units, anyone? Filling out Battalions for 5CP a pop cheaper than Grey Knights could possibly emulate, anyone? (30 Tzaangors + 2x10 Cultists is STILL less points than 3x5 Strike squads with no upgrades) The Tzaangor charge is also more reliable with said buffs thanks to the +1 from the Instrument.
That's all beside the point though. Grey Knights absolutely rely on re-rolling 9" charges to get into combat to make the most out of the combat abilities they pay through the nose for, and that's not a situation anyone would want to be in with units as woefully easy to kill making up the majority of the codex. Failing a charge with that 215 point Tzaangor unit isn't the end of the world. It's a bit of a different story with what you're likely to be attempting to charge from Deep Strike with Grey Knights.

Grey Knights were more reliant on that tactic to compete than Thousand Sons were on the Tzaangor bomb, and the Big FAQ makes you wait an extra turn to bring your Reserves down where you need them. Grey Knights are utterly dependent on teleporting to make up for how stupidly painless it is to remove entire squads of them at a time, and when you have to wait an extra turn to bring down potentially up to half your army that relies on Deep Striking just to survive...you're in a lot of trouble against any decent opponent, let's leave it at that.

Exactly. They don't have the in-codex tools other factions possess, which is the entire point I've been pushing. As a stand-alone codex, they are the worst. To make matters even more grim, as an Imperium faction, they don't offer enough to help push a mixed army to the top tables reliably, meaning there's little to no reason to ever bring them. Heck, they are geared for taking on Daemons and Chaos Daemons have a stratagem that absolutely takes a giant flaming dump on Grey Knights specifically. No other faction with codex comes even remotely close to being in as bad of a situation as Grey Knights.

Except even with D3 Damage you showed they aren't that much better than Rubrics, when Purgators offer the "heaviest" firepower of all Grey Knight infantry, because Grey Knight "heavy" firepower doesn't exist unless it's on a vehicle that's either over-priced or fragile, and Rubrics don't turn into a real anti-vehicle unit unless you buff them (and you can buff them far more than you can Purgators).

It really is Codex: Dreadknights, the rest of the army may as well not exist competitively. Games Workshop just doesn't seem to know how to get elite Space Marines right short of slapping extra wounds on them, and even Primaris aren't as hot as they could be.

Here's the thing, I play Thousand Sons far more than Grey Knights (there's a reason for that), and I play against both a fairly even amount. That includes both tournament and casual experience. You don't see people on this codex talk about what Grey Knights do well because there's almost nothing they do well, and I don't just mean that in the "because another codex does it better" way, I mean it in the "no, they just suck" way. Sure, I can rattle on about how Custodes and Blood Angels provide much better melee support (as in, better in almost every conceivable metric), people don't need pskyers if they have anti-psychic Culexus Assassins, Primaris are better elite objective holders, Deathwatch provide better ranged support, all other Astartes have way more options to choose from, what non-unique units they have are almost all done better in every other codex, Guard actually gives you chaff, etc. However, I can also point out that, conceptually, the PAGK does not function properly in 8th Edition because he pays through the nose for things he will almost never use, or abilities that just aren't that impressive. Terminators suck in 8th Edition too, meaning literally every infantry unit in the army has significant problems that not even minor points drops can solve. They are hot garbage and in serious need of significant reworks. They are the worst codex army in the game. No one else comes close. Thousand Sons don't come close by virtue of having so many tools Grey Knights don't, and even outperforming Grey Knights in the Psychic phase. Other armies some people have suggested don't come close either.

I'll talk Grey Knight positives when Games Workshop decides that being perpetual wooden spooners isn't their destiny.
The sad reality is that we wouldn't be having this discussion if the Big FAQ Deep Strike change didn't happen. It exacerbated the Grey Knight codex's issues ten-fold.

Played as gk today. Won a game vs death guard. Gk are not top tier but they have a bunch of great tools to use. Strikers are good. Voldus is good. Everything throwing out smites with +1 to cast is handy. Deepstriking landraider is hilarious. Psybolt strategem makes it even more so. Fighting twice is really helpful.
There are a bunch of problems of course. Especially, lack of cp and a way to regenerate them without ig allies. Total number of units is quite small. While being great if used right, strikers are a real squishy glass cannon that needa both shooting and mellee to pay off. Luckilly, having free deep strike and access to charge re-rolls they can mitigate this problem somewhat. Also, deepstriking landraider helps them get where needed.

 koooaei wrote:
Played as gk today. Won a game vs death guard. Gk are not top tier but they have a bunch of great tools to use. Strikers are good. Voldus is good. Everything throwing out smites with +1 to cast is handy. Deepstriking landraider is hilarious. Psybolt strategem makes it even more so. Fighting twice is really helpful.
There are a bunch of problems of course. Especially, lack of cp and a way to regenerate them without ig allies. Total number of units is quite small. While being great if used right, strikers are a real squishy glass cannon that needa both shooting and mellee to pay off. Luckilly, having free deep strike and access to charge re-rolls they can mitigate this problem somewhat. Also, deepstriking landraider helps them get where needed.

Forgive me if I sound doubtful, but what list was your opponent playing roughly ? Death Guard is so resilient I fail to see how they would lose to GK if not for really lucky objectives or such. I play my AdMech army with a pretty good list (in my opinion and with what I own) and it's been ages since I won against DG.

Typhus, tallyman, surgeon, dg lord equivalent, pox walkers, some plague marines in rhinos and an allied detachment with sorc and spawns.
I was running Voldus, champ, 10, 5, 5 strikers, psylancer devs equivalent in a razorback and landraider crusader.
1250 pts per side.
To be honest, i find gk doing better in games around 750-1500 pts where they get to use all their potential.

If it wasn't for codex armies, I would've voted for Corsairs. Poor things might not see a book for a long time.
The second place would be Imperial Knights.

 koooaei wrote:
Typhus, tallyman, surgeon, dg lord equivalent, pox walkers, some plague marines in rhinos and an allied detachment with sorc and spawns.
I was running Voldus, champ, 10, 5, 5 strikers, psylancer devs equivalent in a razorback and landraider crusader.
1250 pts per side.
To be honest, i find gk doing better in games around 750-1500 pts where they get to use all their potential.

GK have potential when your opponent has no answer for a land raider.

 Marmatag wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
Typhus, tallyman, surgeon, dg lord equivalent, pox walkers, some plague marines in rhinos and an allied detachment with sorc and spawns.
I was running Voldus, champ, 10, 5, 5 strikers, psylancer devs equivalent in a razorback and landraider crusader.
1250 pts per side.
To be honest, i find gk doing better in games around 750-1500 pts where they get to use all their potential.

GK have potential when your opponent has no answer for a land raider.

Even more so at 1250pts

Typhus can solo a lr in a couple turns. Luckilly, champ and strikers got to him first.

 koooaei wrote:
Typhus can solo a lr in a couple turns. Luckilly, champ and strikers got to him first.

Right... like he will get there and do enough damage before it matters.

 lolman1c wrote:
Honestly, I never played GK and still haven't. Were they ever good or is it just 8th edition where they're terrible?

When Matt Ward's Grey Knight Codex (in 5e) replaced the Daemonhunters codex, they were absurdly good. Termies were amazing, they were one of two armies with the Stormraven, Draigo made enemies of anyone you played against, AND they had Psyflemen. My 3x Psyflemen were a staple in all my lists--4 shots rerolling hits, Str 8, AP4 means that I'd insta-gib nearly anything, INCLUDING Necron Wraiths (who were the bane of my battlefields back then).

 koooaei wrote:
Typhus can solo a lr in a couple turns. Luckilly, champ and strikers got to him first.

yes, but he moves 4". You have to gate the LR in front of him.