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I genuinely dislike the Dreadknight, and here's why.

I can bear the appearance of yet another big Marine plastic kit whilst a THIRD of all Tyranid units still need conversion work or scratch building to use.

I can tolerate a Marine faction having a battlemech-looking thing.

I can put up with an army that already has a human-pilot-in-a-walking-machine-that-hits-people-very-hard (Dreadnaught) having another walking-machine-with-human-pilot-waving-around-a-big-stick, whose rules make its weapons immune to being shot off and its mechanisms vulnerable to being poisoned just because GW want everyone to have an MC.

I can even live with a traditionally secretive and obscure faction suddenly employing a highly visible Metal Gear that's to my knowledge never even remotely been hinted at in the fluff before.

What's getting my goat is the fact that, for me, it throws one of the defining aspects of the Grey Knights completely out the window.

I've always had the vision of a GK hero facing up to a Greater Daemon many time his size, duelling it in the middle of a circle of Nemesis halberds, holding back his opponent's blows and powers by sheer force of indomitable will as he exorcises it into oblivion, destroying its physical form and banishing it to the warp by virtue of absolute faith.

Now, I just see the GK as bullying the weaker Daemons into a fine pulp with a hail of firepower, and dealing with the greatest incarnations of the Chaos Gods' will by having a pack of gigantic silver puppets swagger up to them, look down at them, stamp on their head for a bit and then mutter 'filthy thing' whilst wiping their soles on a curb, idly pulling the head off a Daemon Prince who tried to slow them down.

The whole 'pure-hearted warrior punching above his weight' image just seems to be lost when they've got the biggest mech outside of the Titan Legions on hand to play my-thingy-is-bigger-than-your-thingy as a get-out-of-jail-free card...

They should have made the Dreadknight into a form of Dreadnought. At least there's a good reason why the guy's so damn huge. However I love the model (minus the baby-holder part).

I do agree with some parts, I always thought of the grey knights as a powerful small elite force. But the new fluff seems to set them as just another SM army with different methods. I do like the dreadknight model, I think people will warm up to it like the storm raven once people can get there hands on it.

At least the Stormraven's little hump booboo is fixable with some clever cutting, nothing that requires advanced conversion skills. The GK Dreadknight, though, seems like it would take alot of work to remove the babystrap, or at least make it look less goofy.

I've always had the vision of a GK hero facing up to a Greater Daemon many time his size, duelling it in the middle of a circle of Nemesis halberds, holding back his opponent's blows and powers by sheer force of indomitable will as he exorcises it into oblivion, destroying its physical form and banishing it to the warp by virtue of absolute faith.

If only I had seen that when choosing a 40K army I might have gone with GK's.
But a shiny new toy like the DK ...
nah!

The seductive power of the plastic just wouldn't cut the mustard, which is kind of ironic.
Ever the Romantic.

lindsay40k wrote:
I've always had the vision of a GK hero facing up to a Greater Daemon many time his size, duelling it in the middle of a circle of Nemesis halberds, holding back his opponent's blows and powers by sheer force of indomitable will as he exorcises it into oblivion, destroying its physical form and banishing it to the warp by virtue of absolute faith.

Now, I just see the GK as bullying the weaker Daemons into a fine pulp with a hail of firepower, and dealing with the greatest incarnations of the Chaos Gods' will by having a pack of gigantic silver puppets swagger up to them, look down at them, stamp on their head for a bit and then mutter 'filthy thing' whilst wiping their soles on a curb, idly pulling the head off a Daemon Prince who tried to slow them down.

The whole 'pure-hearted warrior punching above his weight' image just seems to be lost when they've got the biggest mech outside of the Titan Legions on hand to play my-thingy-is-bigger-than-your-thingy as a get-out-of-jail-free card...

See, this is the kind of image I get in my head when I think of Grey Knights too.

That's why, as far as I'm concerned, the Dreadknight does not exist. Neither does any of the fluff in the upcoming codex.

I think a better option for the Dreadknight would be a Terminator GK mounted on a Dragon-type creature. Makes less sense, but would certainly reinforce the "Knight in shining armour" image I have of them.

Seeing an Inquisitor in a large battlesuit wouldn't bother me as much.

(so long as it wasn't as horrendously ugly as the Dreadknight)

Fafnir wrote:

lindsay40k wrote:
I've always had the vision of a GK hero facing up to a Greater Daemon many time his size, duelling it in the middle of a circle of Nemesis halberds, holding back his opponent's blows and powers by sheer force of indomitable will as he exorcises it into oblivion, destroying its physical form and banishing it to the warp by virtue of absolute faith.

Now, I just see the GK as bullying the weaker Daemons into a fine pulp with a hail of firepower, and dealing with the greatest incarnations of the Chaos Gods' will by having a pack of gigantic silver puppets swagger up to them, look down at them, stamp on their head for a bit and then mutter 'filthy thing' whilst wiping their soles on a curb, idly pulling the head off a Daemon Prince who tried to slow them down.

The whole 'pure-hearted warrior punching above his weight' image just seems to be lost when they've got the biggest mech outside of the Titan Legions on hand to play my-thingy-is-bigger-than-your-thingy as a get-out-of-jail-free card...

See, this is the kind of image I get in my head when I think of Grey Knights too.

That's why, as far as I'm concerned, the Dreadknight does not exist. Neither does any of the fluff in the upcoming codex.

I agree with the both of you, it makes me sad to see what GW has done to my first army. Granted I moved onto Vanilla Marines after a while cause using the Daemon Hunters was a little difficult, but still they were my first and arguably one of my favorites. I often say it was the Space Wolves and their viking like appearance that got me into the game, but it wasn't them I bought, nor they I currently mourn in a nerdy fashion. No, it was the secretive Knights in Shinning armor who only answered to the Ordo Malleus and the Emperor who I bought and had my first victories with.

Matt Ward has damaged two armies for me, the Space Marines, and the Daemon Hunters. I feel my fall to Chaos and subsequent love of the Renegade Night Lords Legion justified.

Also an Inquisitor in a super suit would make me think of Obidiah Stane's Iron Monger Suit in the first Iron Man film. Something larger than a Terminator and about as powerful as a Dreadnaught.

The problem about the Dreadknight is that the fluff behind it says "When there's a greater daemon, this is used!", when before justicars could stare down bloodthirsters and charge right at them, the ensuing clash being so epic that it didn't matter who won.

Gavo wrote:The problem about the Dreadknight is that the fluff behind it says "When there's a greater daemon, this is used!", when before justicars could stare down bloodthirsters and charge right at them, the ensuing clash being so epic that it didn't matter who won.

And that's what made the GKs so awesome in the first place. Ward needs to learn that sometimes, less is more.

Exactly. I love that picture in the old GK codex that had a single GK leaping with a Halberd at a swarm of daemons....

I'm going to make a GK army, for fun, but still a good army. Not super-competitive, I've got my IG for that. I'm assuming GKT Armies aren't going to work out, are they? They would be so bad.

lindsay40k wrote:What's getting my goat is the fact that, for me, it throws one of the defining aspects of the Grey Knights completely out the window.

I've always had the vision of a GK hero facing up to a Greater Daemon many time his size, duelling it in the middle of a circle of Nemesis halberds, holding back his opponent's blows and powers by sheer force of indomitable will as he exorcises it into oblivion, destroying its physical form and banishing it to the warp by virtue of absolute faith.

Agreed, 100%.

Gavo wrote:Exactly. I love that picture in the old GK codex that had a single GK leaping with a Halberd at a swarm of daemons....

I'm going to make a GK army, for fun, but still a good army. Not super-competitive, I've got my IG for that. I'm assuming GKT Armies aren't going to work out, are they? They would be so bad.

Yeah, it's a shame that PAGK look like they'll be the stars of the new codex (mainly because purifiers tread in that "almost too good") territory, but I plan on using almost entirely Terminators and Inquisitional units (mostly terminators and assassins), with some interceptors for support for the Terminators. I really don't like PAGK at all.

I would use the Interceptors and PAGK, though they'd all need the damned magazines replaced with ammo belts. But yeah I agree with the Terminator and Interceptor sentiment.

Nah, I'll be using the old models for my interceptors.

That sounds very wise. I wonder if I can get my old models back from a friend, if he still has them.

I'd wanna convert the Teleporter Packs to look like the ones from DoW and DoW2 however.

Fafnir wrote:Nah, I'll be using the old models for my interceptors.

With just a backpack swap or what?

ph34r wrote:

Fafnir wrote:Nah, I'll be using the old models for my interceptors.

With just a backpack swap or what?

Not quite sure yet. Might just convert a backpack that doesn't look quite as ugly as the horrendus interceptor packs in the new kits. Maybe something like the teleporters from DoWII. My PAGK (and quite a few of my old Terminators) will need repainting anyway, so I'll figure it out when I get around to it.

You realize that the teleporter backpacks look like the DoWII backpacks, right?

When you see them in the flesh you will like them more.

GKs fluff has been brutalized into silver BA.

No longer are they secret, unknown heroes who die alone in a horde of daemons. They are badass daemon pwners and theres 1000 of them. They trade with aliens for god sake! They are meant to be monks, not bloody super heroes!

I mean cmon, their used to be 3000 who worked well enough alone (in groups of 5 - 30 usually). Now they send Battle Companies in massive wars! I am frustrated with the fluff, some of the models, and a lot of the rules (look at crowe and the lack of IC on both him and mordrak!)

The storm bolter clips are horrible, the teleporters are kinda alright, the DK coulda been better but I still like it, the heavy psycannon is HORRIBLE stats wise, its just no good

Even if they have that little bit on the backside, I don't like the antennae. Besides, I won't buy a box of PAGK that look like crap just for their jump packs. And they don't look like they'd be worth bitz ordering either.

(Rant-asaurus Rex over)

Oh, I agree completely. I don't plan on even reading the fluff in the codex.

Fafnir wrote:Even if they have that little bit on the backside, I don't like the antennae. Besides, I won't buy a box of PAGK that look like crap just for their jump packs. And they don't look like they'd be worth bitz ordering either.

So instead of buying a $1 bit you are going to just proxy? Or what?

lindsay40k wrote:I genuinely dislike the Dreadknight, and here's why.

I can bear the appearance of yet another big Marine plastic kit whilst a THIRD of all Tyranid units still need conversion work or scratch building to use.

I can tolerate a Marine faction having a battlemech-looking thing.

I can put up with an army that already has a human-pilot-in-a-walking-machine-that-hits-people-very-hard (Dreadnaught) having another walking-machine-with-human-pilot-waving-around-a-big-stick, whose rules make its weapons immune to being shot off and its mechanisms vulnerable to being poisoned just because GW want everyone to have an MC.

I can even live with a traditionally secretive and obscure faction suddenly employing a highly visible Metal Gear that's to my knowledge never even remotely been hinted at in the fluff before.

What's getting my goat is the fact that, for me, it throws one of the defining aspects of the Grey Knights completely out the window.

I've always had the vision of a GK hero facing up to a Greater Daemon many time his size, duelling it in the middle of a circle of Nemesis halberds, holding back his opponent's blows and powers by sheer force of indomitable will as he exorcises it into oblivion, destroying its physical form and banishing it to the warp by virtue of absolute faith.

Now, I just see the GK as bullying the weaker Daemons into a fine pulp with a hail of firepower, and dealing with the greatest incarnations of the Chaos Gods' will by having a pack of gigantic silver puppets swagger up to them, look down at them, stamp on their head for a bit and then mutter 'filthy thing' whilst wiping their soles on a curb, idly pulling the head off a Daemon Prince who tried to slow them down.

The whole 'pure-hearted warrior punching above his weight' image just seems to be lost when they've got the biggest mech outside of the Titan Legions on hand to play my-thingy-is-bigger-than-your-thingy as a get-out-of-jail-free card...

I am going to say that I disagree with you completely on the aspect of the model, it is a damn good scult and one will probably end up in my collection as a mega-dread. However I will totally agree with you on the fluff side of things. Heck there was even an ork warboss who went toe-to-toe with 'The Blood Prince' a bloodthirster of khorne (Codex Orks, Tuska the Daemon-Killa) and the idea that grey knights now need a power-loader from the Aliens movies to fight one does completely destroy the image of pure bad-assery that GK are supposed to convey!

Shame that they were mattwardificated!

ph34r wrote:

Fafnir wrote:Even if they have that little bit on the backside, I don't like the antennae. Besides, I won't buy a box of PAGK that look like crap just for their jump packs. And they don't look like they'd be worth bitz ordering either.

So instead of buying a $1 bit you are going to just proxy? Or what?

I ended up accidentally melting off half the packpacks of my PAGK when I was stripping them for repainting a year or two back, so when I strip the other half (or, depending on how I paint my plastic terminators when I get them, all of them), I'll probably just get rid of the backpacks altogether and replace them with some newly converted ones. I have many, many spares after building my truescale marines.

Dammit... just saw some fluff mentioned in the Fluff section of the forums, and I am dissapoint. Ward just shat over some of my favourite fluff in the entire 40k background.

Its not really that bad.

I never did understand how one low-ranked Grey Knight could destroy a Greater Daemon of Khorne (which, y'know, is the best at melee combat).

Now; a Grand Master sure; but a low ranked Grey Knight? no way. Dreadknight, while a little silly; offers a more realistic view.

A lowly Grey Knight who manages to do so is probably Grand Master material to begin with.

Oh wow, I'm so glad to see I'm not alone in thinking 'retconning Exocrines and Malefactors as T-fexes and Tervigons was one thing, but this...!'

Leigen_Zero wrote:

I am going to say that I disagree with you completely on the aspect of the model, it is a damn good scult and one will probably end up in my collection as a mega-dread. However I will totally agree with you on the fluff side of things. Heck there was even an ork warboss who went toe-to-toe with 'The Blood Prince' a bloodthirster of khorne (Codex Orks, Tuska the Daemon-Killa) and the idea that grey knights now need a power-loader from the Aliens movies to fight one does completely destroy the image of pure bad-assery that GK are supposed to convey!

Shame that they were mattwardificated!

Actually, I've said hardly anything about the sculpt itself. I'm actually kinda ambivalent about its aesthetics; I don't think its 'Masamune Shirow mech the size of a three story house' design ethic fits in particularly well with a Marine chapter - even an extraordinary one such as GK - but I can happily agree that it's a very well realised model of what it is, and do like how the Marine's pose faithfully matches that of the exoskeleton.

The 'Aliens power-loader' point does ring very true; there'd have been a much more comfortable place for this sort of thing as part of the Ordo Xenos, as some sort of duelist designed to either slaughter or capture MC's. Especially since that Order's inevitable run-ins with the Tau will have given them a lot of insights into Anime mecha-like tech for the Radicals to adopt and turn against the enemy.

Of course, this does make the dex a near-perfect book for my planned Ordo Xenos/Ad Mech army. But that's by the by...