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I'm not sure if its simply because they seem far to strong or a general dislike in our play group, until very recently, my playing career of warhammer almost consisted of no grey knights. needless to say I and my friends loved this until one of our less strategic friends started fielding some. Now I try to refrain from using the terms "OP" or "Broken" but man oh man are they ever dirty.

-cheap and very strong henchmen
-cheap and extremely strong cartwheeling ninjas wearing spandex that grants invuls
- very strong anti psykers
- divination table rolls
- terminators, terminators, terminators.

The big problem I think is those assassins. you can take a 150 point ninja that is a solid answer to any other unit in the game at much higher point costs. got a landraider? I have a strength 40 to pen. have a monsterous creature? I jump in and do d3 str 4 ap 2 attacks and cause instant death. Got blob squads? I melt brains. did I mention weapon and ballistic skill 8???

explain why I shouldn't just forfeit the game the second I have to run against three of these guys. or meltas out the butt or a stupid shoot everything arriving from deepstrike... how could it even be fun to play woth them with such a relentlessly strong ability to win games by sitting in a deployment zone will watching your ninja deathstar units run train on everything.

Gk are beatable. You're not the first person to have troubles with them. Calm down, it will all be okay.

Or just don't play them in the first place, whatevs. You're not forced to play games with people.

Its not that they are unbeatable, its that they are seemingly stronger than the majority of other codexes for what seems like a ridiculously undercosted point value. its not hard for them to be the rock to most people scissors. I'm just frustrated by how many hard counters they have... its time GW elects matt ward to write all the codexes or none at all. every army listing he writes shoots to the top of the competitive bracket and thats just not right.

Grey Knights are strong but not as much as they were in 5th.

What army do you play, cause guard, dark eldar, blood angels, wolves are a pretty good match up to gk. If you play tau or daemons then I can understand a bit more.

Assassins are still only T4 two wound models, they go down to lots of fire like anything else out there

And the Callidus's C'tan Phase sword is just AP3. It causes ID, but considering its useless against 2+ armor I'd say its a fair trade.

You would probably have had a conniption last codex. It ignored ALL saves. Thats right, you couldn't take saves of any kind against it.

 Beelzaboss wrote:
Its not that they are unbeatable, its that they are seemingly stronger than the majority of other codexes for what seems like a ridiculously undercosted point value. its not hard for them to be the rock to most people scissors. I'm just frustrated by how many hard counters they have... its time GW elects matt ward to write all the codexes or none at all. every army listing he writes shoots to the top of the competitive bracket and thats just not right.

a) Look at it this way, at least you're not a poor Daemon player like me! 10 guys can feth-over my entire army and my only defense is "don't go second."

b) GK's are to 40k what Daemons of Chaos are to Fantasy.
They're like playing the game on 'easy mode' when you spam their better units - Purifyers or Henchmen.


Now, I'm no fan of "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named", but not all of his books are top tier... Codex Space Marines is strong, but even when it first came out and Vulkan lists were all the rage, they still didn't roflstomp the compeitition.
Meanwhile, BA's are simply a 'Codex Marines + 1'. Sure they're strong, but IG, SW's & DE are right up there with them and GK's love MEQ's who rush onto their pointy death sticks! But overall, if you can beat basic Space Marines, then BA's are simply a slightly faster FnP min/max spamy version of them. They only become 'uber when you spam the silly stuff.

But I agree that "You-Know-Who" shouldn't be allowed to touch individual armies. Just leave him to work on the main rules sets for all three games because he is really good at that! War of the Ring for example is easily GW's best rules system. It's just that the army lists, and in particular Epic Heroes are stupidly OP and you can do moronically broken goofiness with them.

Experiment 626 wrote:

b) GK's are to 40k what Daemons of Chaos are to Fantasy.

Don't even go there. They are nothing like what Daemons were to Fantesy. In fantesy Daemons were autowin against every army.

In 40k GKs are just a strong army that, if the list is specifically tailored a certain way, will result in an lopsided game against one army(that already was on the pisspoor end of the competitive spectrum)


A strike squad DS denial list is only good against Daemons and Drop Pod lists. It sucks against everything else.

But grey knights got so nerfed by 6th!

There are some dirty thing in the codex, sure. But I don't think I've ever heard anyone complain about the Assassins before.

 Kaldor wrote:
There are some dirty thing in the codex, sure. But I don't think I've ever heard anyone complain about the Assassins before.

Except for the fact that players endlessly bemoaned the Vindicare being able to explode Land Raiders with his sniper rifle special snowflake bullets!
Or that every non-GK Imperial player cried about no longer being able to field their Assassins...



@Grey Templar: Yes, GK's are 40k's version of Fantasy Daemons.

Sure, they're not quite as bad as that giant cluster , but the point is, a good deal of players had their entire armies, or large chunks of it rendered useless by the the shinanigans in the GK codex!
For example, Warp Quake killed off Daemons, DOA's BA armies & Drop Pods. Purifyer lists pretty much auto-stomped Orks & 'Nids. Funny 'nades + Rads are broken. Hechmen spam is just a plain beatstick to everyone!

Daemons weren't 'unbeatable' even in 7th, as Dark Elves, Lizzies, SAD Skaven & pts-denial VC's could compete. But just like Fantasy Daemons, GK's aren't fun for most opponents unless you're 100% prepared for them.
Against even a semi-competent player, GK's will typically be an uphill battle for non-tailored armies, while a few armies are just left with too few answers to even be worth putting your models on the table.

The easy key to beating GK lies in hitting where they arent. Most GK lists are all rounders or shooting lists. If they do henchmen they are rather susceptible to hth, even deathcult assassins (against termies). If they are spamming higher priced dudes in powerarmor then basic marines (especially the new chaos) can out dakka them pretty easy. Spammed bolter marines are surprisingly effective. Guard gun lines make them cry.

Again as had been pointed out, what army do you play? Every current 40k army (especially even Daemons) has a viable answer for the codex..

I would say Grey Knights are a tough opponent for anyone, but ironically the list you have talked about in the OP isn't that good at all. Perhaps this isn't an issue of what's in the Grey Knights list, but perhaps what isn't in yours?

GKs are not as good in 6th. But they are still very strong. I think assassins are the worst thing you should complain about in the dex. Really... assassins... I'd think dreadknights or mass force weapons would be the butt devestation you would feel.

 lazarian wrote:
The easy key to beating GK lies in hitting where they arent. Most GK lists are all rounders or shooting lists. If they do henchmen they are rather susceptible to hth, even deathcult assassins (against termies). If they are spamming higher priced dudes in powerarmor then basic marines (especially the new chaos) can out dakka them pretty easy. Spammed bolter marines are surprisingly effective. Guard gun lines make them cry.

Again as had been pointed out, what army do you play? Every current 40k army (especially even Daemons) has a viable answer for the codex..

This pretty sums up my opinion of them.

Grey Knights are an elite army that sacrifices numbers for survivability or vice-versa.

They're not particularly potent in 6th, especially with things like Overwatch and Focus Fire could easily ruin their already small numbers.

 Lokas wrote:
But grey knights got so nerfed by 6th!

Use allies to compensate some of the weaknesses. E.g., Necrons provide great ally detachments.

I still don’t know why everyone thinks they got Nerfed. Sure they took a hit vs. TEQs, but they still do horrible thing to MEQs. The only reach change I needed to do was take away the NF-TH and give them NF-Halberds on my Characters, {Poof} I now win most of my Challenges by killing off the other Characters on I6.

As far as the “Great Terminator Threat” I say “Homey Don’t Play That!” I am not going to Assault Terminators with PAGK, I am going to pull out my Terminators or Paladins whom will strike on I6 or I4, at that point every Failed save is one less Power Fist, Power Axes or Thunder Hammer, and those Lighting Claws or “Power Weapon” I will get my 2+ Saves vs.

You want to see them fail, watch them roll a half-dozen 1s on armor saves, by turn three that could be half the models of some armies or watch that PAKG Squad get hit with 12 Rending Wounds from that Genestealer Brood. They crumble vs. anything just like any MEQ List.

As far as the rest of the Codex, I really can’t think of a single unit that is “Worthless”.

Yes it is a very Powerful Codex, but not Over Powered.

Orks.

60 strength 4 shots will take care of most things.

Sure, the GK terminators will make a lot of saves, but there just aren't enough of them to withstand the hail of fire.

You just need an effective amount of anti armor. A few rounds of AP2 kills every round seriously hurts them, and the best thing is that with the recent FAQ they can't shenanigans their wounds across the whole unit. Lets look at how many wounds you need to kill just one paladin in a 10 man squad, in 5th you'd need to score 11 wounds just to kill one guy because everyone would take a single wound while now the closest guy takes all the wounds since paladins are no longer characters in a unit of them so no more Look Out Sir on 4+'s.

That wound shenanigans in 5th and early 6th was what made them really hard to kill, I'm glad they can't do it anymore.

Serge-David wrote:
You just need an effective amount of anti armor. A few rounds of AP2 kills every round seriously hurts them, and the best thing is that with the recent FAQ they can't shenanigans their wounds across the whole unit. Lets look at how many wounds you need to kill just one paladin in a 10 man squad, in 5th you'd need to score 11 wounds just to kill one guy because everyone would take a single wound while now the closest guy takes all the wounds since paladins are no longer characters in a unit of them so no more Look Out Sir on 4+'s.

That wound shenanigans in 5th and early 6th was what made them really hard to kill, I'm glad they can't do it anymore.

Some kind of wound shenanigans remained in the 6th ed. If the Paladins are led by Draigo, he can take the hit or with LoS direct the hit to the nearest Paladin. I played this game with Fuegan, a Fortuneseer, and full unit of Warlocks. It absolutely murdered a BA army.

Bede19025 wrote:
Orks.

60 strength 4 shots will take care of most things.

Sure, the GK terminators will make a lot of saves, but there just aren't enough of them to withstand the hail of fire.

60 shots from Orks kills less than 2 Terminators.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

Bede19025 wrote:
Orks.

60 strength 4 shots will take care of most things.

Sure, the GK terminators will make a lot of saves, but there just aren't enough of them to withstand the hail of fire.

60 shots from Orks kills less than 2 Terminators.

So? How big are those terminator units? Five? That's nearly half in one turn of shooting.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

Bede19025 wrote:
Orks.

60 strength 4 shots will take care of most things.

Sure, the GK terminators will make a lot of saves, but there just aren't enough of them to withstand the hail of fire.

60 shots from Orks kills less than 2 Terminators.

Using Mathhammer yes, but one hadfull of 1s is all it takes, I have seen this happen many times.
The Orks roll 15 wounds and then the Terminator rolls 5 1s, this has hppend to mme more than once.
Then again I have takes my 1.5k Logan wing 13 models and cleared a 100 model Ork army waking only 7 wounds.

Sorry, but ignoring the average doesn't work. They might just as well make all their saves.

Bede19025 wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

Bede19025 wrote:
Orks.

60 strength 4 shots will take care of most things.

Sure, the GK terminators will make a lot of saves, but there just aren't enough of them to withstand the hail of fire.

60 shots from Orks kills less than 2 Terminators.

So? How big are those terminator units? Five? That's nearly half in one turn of shooting.

You are acting likes it's a good thing that 60 shots netted you a single dead model. Well done, after all your other Boy units have shot (assuming you can fit enough boys in double-tap range of 5 models) then you've gotten yourself one 200pts unit. It only took your whole army to do it nearly after all...

 Anpu42 wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

Bede19025 wrote:
Orks.

60 strength 4 shots will take care of most things.

Sure, the GK terminators will make a lot of saves, but there just aren't enough of them to withstand the hail of fire.

60 shots from Orks kills less than 2 Terminators.

Using Mathhammer yes, but one hadfull of 1s is all it takes, I have seen this happen many times.
The Orks roll 15 wounds and then the Terminator rolls 5 1s, this has hppend to mme more than once.
Then again I have takes my 1.5k Logan wing 13 models and cleared a 100 model Ork army waking only 7 wounds.

By that argument I could just as easily say all it takes it a handful with no 1's, and yet even though my outcome is away from the average, it is still much closer than yours. People act like mathhammer is some voodoo science, but in general even though the dice are random, over a certain amount of time it all evens out, short of insnaely good/bad luck that is, and I mean that one guy who rolls nothing but 1's ever bad luck.

What army are you using OP. Because just about any army in the game should have more than enough firepower to kill a 2w T4 character running around if they feel threatened by it.

As for GK in general, I've never had an issue with them. Heck, I've taken down GK termies with REROLLABLE +2 armor saves (thank you GW for mysterious rivers *rolls eyes*) with nothing but lasguns.

It's all about numbers. The more saves you make them roll, the more likely the opponent's dice are to hate him and start rolling 1's

 Beelzaboss wrote:
Its not that they are unbeatable, its that they are seemingly stronger than the majority of other codexes for what seems like a ridiculously undercosted point value. its not hard for them to be the rock to most people scissors. I'm just frustrated by how many hard counters they have... its time GW elects matt ward to write all the codexes or none at all. every army listing he writes shoots to the top of the competitive bracket and thats just not right.

well I am glad to inform you that they were nerfed by a lot in 6th ed.

us the good stuff from your army . flyers , ally , fortifcations etc . If your playing one of the bad/hard to play/old dex , tough luck and dont do it ever again .

It's all about numbers. The more saves you make them roll, the more likely the opponent's dice are to hate him and start rolling 1'

with multi wound allocation , 2W and FnP that is like 100+shots .

Multi-wound allocation is dead. 6th edition made it almost impossable.

I figured this would be over after 6th edition dropped. Let's see here...

 Beelzaboss wrote:

-cheap and very strong henchmen

I can't think of any henchmen I'd consider "very strong". Cheap? Absolutely. Which ones are "very strong"?

-cheap and extremely strong cartwheeling ninjas wearing spandex that grants invuls

You mean DCA? Their 5++ is their only save. If that's an issue, you're doing it wrong.

- very strong anti psykers

You mean that they get a 5+ deny the witch rather than a 6+? And the aegis worsens your LD by 1? Yeah, I guess that's true. So they get an extra 16.6% chance to resist your shooting attack, and you have a 8.3% worsened chance of being able to pull off the power. Compared with Eldar (or even Nids!) this is not much of a boost.

- divination table rolls

That sounds like more a problem with divination, not a problem with GK, amirite?

- terminators, terminators, terminators.

Dark Angels do it better in almost every case.

The big problem I think is those assassins. you can take a 150 point ninja that is a solid answer to any other unit in the game at much higher point costs. got a landraider? I have a strength 40 to pen. have a monsterous creature? I jump in and do d3 str 4 ap 2 attacks and cause instant death. Got blob squads? I melt brains. did I mention weapon and ballistic skill 8???

You're doing a thing I see people do often when talking about Grey Knights. They seem to forget that there's a limiting factor of points and force org slots. There is indeed an[i] assassin for any situation, but you're not taking [i]every assassin for every occasion. You're confusing the superset potential with what is actually contained in the list constructed by your opponent for the point values specified.

explain why I shouldn't just forfeit the game the second I have to run against three of these guys. or meltas out the butt or a stupid shoot everything arriving from deepstrike... how could it even be fun to play woth them with such a relentlessly strong ability to win games by sitting in a deployment zone will watching your ninja deathstar units run train on everything.

How about because you don't want to be labeled a quitter? Three of what guys? Assassins? Assassins are unique, unless you're saying one of each assassin. Also, you'll see meltaspam with IG, so you better autoquit every time you play against them too. They're fun to play because they're actually harder to play than they look. Really, I swear. Hell, my record playing against GK with Nids is now 3-0. Not a lot of games, I realize, but I'm winning with Nids, of all things, and two of those games were in 5th edition.

Makumba wrote:

If your playing one of the bad/hard to play/old dex , tough luck and dont do it ever again .

Don't ever play an old dex? So every 3 years I'm supposed to shelf my current army and buy a new one? Yah, sorry but I'm not that much of a WAAC gamer. Just the fact that codices can be considered bad (or highly competitive) speaks volumes about GW's amazing lack of desire to design a balanced game. I understand that aging a codex will typically make it weaker but even then one would think/hope all codices would get updated to the latest BRB edition before the next increment. Nope, doesn't work that way. Instead many are left to age 2-3 major editions before an update while others get multiple updates per edition.

The multiwound shenanigans are pretty much dead, best you can do is stick an IC up front to absorb ID wounds, but once you start LoS! to a scrub, the wounds must CONTINUE to be placed on that guy until he dies or runs out of saves to make. You can stop using LoS! to try to keep the scrub from dying, but now you're needlessly exposing your IC.

Which pretty much makes two wound models just that, two wound models. The "I'll take 10 wounds and not lose any models" is gone. And if 100+ shots sounds like a tall order, it only takes TWO 30 strong shoota boy mobs to kick out over 120 shots in a single turn. IG can crank out almost a hundred lasgun shots with a single 30 man unit with FRFSRF when in rapid fire range. Horde armies are VERY handy at rolling bucketfulls of dice, I should know, I've used that very tactic to take down termies time and again. Nids do the same thing. And while yes, these units don't have the strongest of attacks, we're far less likely to be screwed over by odd dice rolls, unlike a unit that relies on a plasma gun and a few bolters. We'll have a much better chance of rolling "average" and therefore having more reliable numbers to go off of.

Also, if you're finding henchmen spam bad with chimeras where they're just taking the 3 guys with special weapons, you're going to hate the first time you play against an armored IG list. They make henchmen spam look like a joke. If you're talking about assault ones (Like the assassins) the only assault transports they have now are landraiders and a flyer, so unless they have that, they're footslogging, or waiting a turn in a rhino.