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Shock value title aside, is anyone else worried about the effectiveness of the GK codex in tournament play? I've been working through different ideas of lists and I'm finding myself marveling at just how small the armies are even when skimping on upgrades. I'm not saying that individual models aren't worth their points in the killing department, but I'm having doubts about tirhe survivability. I'm afraid that the small army sizes means you can only afford a very limited number of 1s and 2s before everything goes to heck. An enemy alphastrike or a couple of bad early rolls seems like it could sink the army very easily, making it somewhat unreliable in a tournament setting. Further, short of spamming Inquisition units, there really aren't options for cheap units like there are in other army books, so you are stuck with fairly pricey units as the only options. Do other people see this as a problem or am I worrying for nothing?

TLDR: Will the small, elite GK army be able to do well in a tournament setting? How do people plan to compensate for the small GK army size and mitigate the effect that bad dice might have in a tournament?

To be honest yes i think they will.
And GK players will be at the mercy of their dice ....just like....everyone else..

It is an army that will lose if the player rolls poorly for armor saves.

thats basically it. Decent rolling means you are as good as anyone else, but any small elite army is more vulnerable to bad dice rolling than a numerous one.

Rather than stating it as 'rolling badly' or 'rolling well' I would state it more as 'Grey Knights are a risky army'

Think of it as a wager on the roll of the dice. A GK player is wagering 20 points per armor save (and will save 2/3 of them but it is not unreasonable to fail 4 of 6). An Ork player (for example) is only gambling away 5 points an armor save (admittedly the odds are worse) but the Ork player can better tolerate a large number of individual losses before capitulating.

Armies with many bodies are Robust in that they generally behave within a smaller region of overall deviation (from the perspective of points losses).

An elite army like GK are not as robust, because you are wagering a larger sum on each dice roll. This is compounded by the fact that failed wagers have a tendency to cascade into subsequent turns as a greater potion of firepower is turned on an increasingly dwindling number of units.

Black Fiend wrote:It is an army that will lose if the player rolls poorly for armor saves.

QFT. For example, making less than 50% of your 3+ saves, when you've taken 25+ wounds spread over 2 units of GKs is kinda a game breaker. (This happened to me).

Xca|iber wrote:

Black Fiend wrote:It is an army that will lose if the player rolls poorly for armor saves.

QFT. For example, making less than 50% of your 3+ saves, when you've taken 25+ wounds spread over 2 units of GKs is kinda a game breaker. (This happened to me).

I think taking 25+ saves is the game breaker...

1) Small elite armies require a master 40k tactician to play effectively. Every unit is valuable and every loss will cut into the army's effectiveness noticeably. If you know you will occasionally make mistakes in movement or other game decisions, don't play elite GK because you will lose far more often that not. That is the reality. Come about 2-3 weeks from now there will be a flood of "GK is weak!?!?!?" and "help me win with GK" posts on dakka. Its because bad/average players will be trying for elite GK when they really shouldn't be.

2)Learn to love Coteaz henchmen spam. It isn't cheese, its equaling the playing field for a vastly outnumbered army. GK badly need spare bodies and decent anti-tank, and henchmen are hands down the best source of both (not counting psydakka dreds). Nevermind the endless squad thing that will get FAQ'd, 4-6 squads of melta warriors and crusaders/assassins in chimeras will be the backbone of many winning armies. Look carefully at the henchmen section of the GK codex and you will see unit combinations that can out fight or out shoot the rest of the army. They can run mech vet spam far cheaper than IG is capable of, or big units of PW toting, invulnerable saving cc monsters. The options are there, and in my opinion, will be used by more and more winning players as the months advance.

3) Units will be most effective when they focus on specific tasks and buy the few essential upgrades to excel at that job. IE: don't buy army-wide halberd upgrades if most of your units never get to cc, or if you often face armies with I3 or 6+. Just because they will be more powerful on paper, doesn't equate to the same thing on the tabletop.
Having said that: psycannons rule and you should never leave home without them.

4) The following units are what make GK awesome: Purifiers, vindicare assassins, psydakka dreds and henchmen. The real key will be making smart decisions with your HQ choices on how best to unlock and boost the power of these units.

Another reason that Henchmen are an excellent buy for the grey knights is the Chimera.

What makes it very good is that you can take your terminator armored HQ's and get them in a transport without paying 200+ pts for either a Storm Raven or a Land Raider.

This makes it viable to actually have one of the great Grey Knight HQ's, and not a cheap Inquisitor, in lower point games.

The only problem i have with GK are the cheapness of the powered armour squads for the wargear they have.

I think it works out that for a marine squad to get the same it was 125% more expensive, without the extra abilities.

I play BA DoA and if it wasn't for FNP I don't the army would viable as top tier. This is something GK don't have but maybe they can still do very well anyways. It is still much too early to say.

Afrikan Blonde wrote:I play BA DoA and if it wasn't for FNP I don't the army would viable as top tier. This is something GK don't have but maybe they can still do very well anyways. It is still much too early to say.

+1. Completely right on both points.

The army lacks the landspeeder, but a psybolt amunision razor back twin linked S6 shots seem very decent at 50 points.

That Khimeras and dakkadreads and you have an elite transport MSU army.

The army makes heavy use of psychic powers and rules, coupled with MEQ and TEQ bodies with the sprinkling of IG-esque units and Dreads popping in their. The GK advantage will be that their troop slots will effectively be filled by both run of the mill units and top tier elites, making anything on the board both an early threat and a late game threat, especially when considering games with objectives and the ability to skirt half the field in one move to contest an objective.

The main strength of GK is that they are an extreme meta-game monkey wrench.. Their units arent that expensive for what you get and considering some of their abilities have no viable counter for the opponents theyre meant for

DoA BA is easily handled by warp quake.. Okay psychic hood could stop it, but you use it at the START of your movement phase which means the librarian is not on the table yet.. You DS within 12" you basically die or are screwed over. You DS over 12" and thats not the point of the army.. they back up 6" and shoot you which makes you over 18" away

Thunderwolves are nerfed hardcore by ANY Gk CC attack and lack of furious charge means you're gonna get hit.. Talisman can help sure, but Ill take a force weapon over a 5+ save anyday.. You'll fail enough. I imagine Gks can out razorback spam SWs now (what a lame army anyway)

Orks? Cleansing flame and again FWs for nobs/warboss.. Henchmen and psycannons solve the deffrolla spam

nids.. yeah.. FWs again and warp quake stops zoeys + doom most likely.. cleansing flame kills genestealers

The only real danger is.. as *always* imperial guard. But in larger tournaments its all about matchups

Screwing over the metagame for so many armies can have a huge effect on the outcome

WarOne wrote: especially when considering games with objectives and the ability to skirt half the field in one move to contest an objective.

Not only that but a Grand Master can make them late game 30in scoring units. Even better since Grand Strategy is used before forces are deployed you can make 1 unit of 10 GKI into 2 scoring unit, for only 1 of the D3 chooses. If you had the points thats 14 to 18 scoring units, without using the iffy henchmen spam.

grayspark wrote:

Afrikan Blonde wrote:I play BA DoA and if it wasn't for FNP I don't the army would viable as top tier. This is something GK don't have but maybe they can still do very well anyways. It is still much too early to say.

+1. Completely right on both points.

+1 again. However even with it still being early, I think we can still make educated guesses on how suitable the codex will be for tournaments.

They're running on a knife edge. Roll well, they'll steamroll. Roll badly and EVERY mistake could lose you the game.

Kirasu wrote:
The only real danger is.. as *always* imperial guard. But in larger tournaments its all about matchups

I love how people keep saying this.

I've played my Grey Knights against 3 guard parking lots now....and totally crushed them all.

Against certain Grey Knight builds....Guard's only chance is to go first, if not, they're done.

Deadshane1 wrote:

Kirasu wrote:
The only real danger is.. as *always* imperial guard. But in larger tournaments its all about matchups

I love how people keep saying this.

I've played my Grey Knights against 3 guard parking lots now....and totally crushed them all.

Against certain Grey Knight builds....Guard's only chance is to go first, if not, they're done.

TBH, I am one of those who think IG would be a tough matchup for Grey Knights from a pure theoryhammer standpoint. IG has the ability to kill models fast and with GKs starting with so few I thought the IG would reduce the GKs beyond the point of being able to punch back. What have you found to be the major difference between theory and playtesting?

Kirasu wrote:The main strength of GK is that they are an extreme meta-game monkey wrench.. Their units arent that expensive for what you get and considering some of their abilities have no viable counter for the opponents theyre meant for

DoA BA is easily handled by warp quake.. Okay psychic hood could stop it, but you use it at the START of your movement phase which means the librarian is not on the table yet.. You DS within 12" you basically die or are screwed over. You DS over 12" and thats not the point of the army.. they back up 6" and shoot you which makes you over 18" away

Thunderwolves are nerfed hardcore by ANY Gk CC attack and lack of furious charge means you're gonna get hit.. Talisman can help sure, but Ill take a force weapon over a 5+ save anyday.. You'll fail enough. I imagine Gks can out razorback spam SWs now (what a lame army anyway)

Orks? Cleansing flame and again FWs for nobs/warboss.. Henchmen and psycannons solve the deffrolla spam

nids.. yeah.. FWs again and warp quake stops zoeys + doom most likely.. cleansing flame kills genestealers

The only real danger is.. as *always* imperial guard. But in larger tournaments its all about matchups

Screwing over the metagame for so many armies can have a huge effect on the outcome

reall wolves have a strong chance how does thunderwolf get nerfed by a power weapon as half will hit and 1 third wound and 2 thirds are saved?

Deadshane1 wrote:

Kirasu wrote:
The only real danger is.. as *always* imperial guard. But in larger tournaments its all about matchups

I love how people keep saying this.

I've played my Grey Knights against 3 guard parking lots now....and totally crushed them all.

Against certain Grey Knight builds....Guard's only chance is to go first, if not, they're done.

Why wouldnt people say this? IG is the best codex. If any army would be tougher than the rest it would be them

Deadshane1 wrote:I love how people keep saying this.

I've played my Grey Knights against 3 guard parking lots now....and totally crushed them all.

Against certain Grey Knight builds....Guard's only chance is to go first, if not, they're done.

So you played a whole 3 games against bad/unlucky IG players?

What "certain" GK builds? IG massed shooting alone will take a toll on GKs limited numbers and rip up henchmen GEQs. Add in anything decent (like plasma/melta vets vets, AP3 templates, Flak Cannons to down Dreads/stormravens from range, etc.) and it gets nasty since GKs are very much a midrange/close up force.

As to out RBing Space Wolves- good luck with that. GKs are more expensive and henchmen much more fragile. Neither can do the 75 point 3+ save countercharge flamer squad to get the RB. But they can do 10 man combat squads and have 1 5 man Close unit to ride around and 2 psycannons to hang back. Different style. As to changing the meta, TWC are less common than Missile Spam LFs. Guess which one still rocks against an army of 3+ save 20 pt dudes that have rhinos, RBs, and Chimeras as their primary transport?

GKs are tough, but are unforgiving. The big meta shift they do is make plasma more useful

rovian wrote:

Kirasu wrote:*snip*

reall wolves have a strong chance how does thunderwolf get nerfed by a power weapon as half will hit and 1 third wound and 2 thirds are saved?

Because out of the 3 wounds that your 5 Thunderwolves take, with a successful psychic test, they're all ID.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

jmurph wrote:The big meta shift they do is make plasma more useful

/agree

rovian wrote:
reall wolves have a strong chance how does thunderwolf get nerfed by a power weapon as half will hit and 1 third wound and 2 thirds are saved?

Yeah, instant death dealing I6 Power Weapons totally don't threaten TWs... /sarcasm

I'm perhaps missing the "elite low count" army. A 5 man strike squad with a cannon, and boosted bolter back is 160 pts. This compares fairly well to vanilla marines in a razorback (5 guys with TLplamsa/LC back is 165 for vanilla, slightly less for SW and BA). It doesn't have the ap, or S9, but AP doesn't matter as much with cover these days, and the volume of fire is higher out of this unit than the other marine books (and rending S7 heavy 4 has a better chance against heavy armor than a LC).

GKs can buy a HQ with termie armor, cannon, and a S6 hammer for less than 100 pts, so their HQs don't have to be expensive. Even at low points its possible to get effective HQ choices without breaking the bank.

GKs can field reasonably cheap fire support units to go with the cheap HQs, you don't need henchman as troops lists to get your fire support units, and you don't need to go crazy with space monkeys either.

GKs get BETTER versions of riffleman dreads, for rather cheap. They also have ven dreds that are worth taking (dropping your destroyed results down to shaken and stunned, which can be negated with a LD 10 test) S8 spam for a bargain price + taking even more of them on better platforms than other armies will buy? They can keep firing barring destroyed or all weapons destroyed? You can take these platforms even if you use up slots from elites or heavy, so its not a take this unit, miss out on fire support dreads situation.

They get cheap MCs, which have a save that laughs at ML spam? A MC that is actually good at killing elite infantry (barring TH/SS termies, which are anti MC specialists) and vehicles in CC?

I think that some people are focusing too much on the elite units that DO cost an arm and a leg, and buying an entire army of said units, complete with 2 Full GK commanders... Properly built, a GK army should probably have about the same model count that any other marine army has (and probably even more fire power). If you bring the elite stuff, balance it out with the cheap units (which are still good).

Yea....I only play against bad/unlucky guard players. Way to enforce a point. You've got this game totally figured out eh? No way to surprise YOU.

I think its more likely that poor Grey Knights players arent factoring common competetive guard builds into their battle plan.

Three Psychic Powers are death to Guard. Shrouding, Fortitude, and Might of Titan....and whaddya know...guard cannot hood them anymore.

Then you've got rifleman (Ven?) dreads and loaded transports poping smoke or under cover while Shrouded.

Figure it out.

IG have very little answer to Ven Rifleman Dreads with psybolt ammo and fortitude. It's the closest thing to a 4th edition Holofalcon I've seen and it shoots better.

Deadshane1 wrote:guard cannot hood them anymore.

While I do agree with most of your post, this one I don't agree with, since guard can still take WH inquisitors (which weren't used before because they don't get mystics). If guard will take them remains to be seen though, since they don't do much else.

DarthDiggler wrote:IG have very little answer to Ven Rifleman Dreads with psybolt ammo and fortitude. It's the closest thing to a 4th edition Holofalcon I've seen and it shoots better.

Ding ding ding....put a smoked rhino in front of that dread and shroud them both. What do you have?


....something a guard gunline cannot hurt/shut down but inflicts plenty of pain.