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Uhm I guess I've been paying too much attention to the GK codex then... Still, it seems a counterintuitive way of doing things but, ok...

Back on topic...

Imho the general short range of GK weapons seem to favour builds like the DS + shunt one, or heavily mechanized lists to get close and personal as fast as possible. LasPlas razorbacks sound good but given the generally high cost of units and the need for getting *there* reliably I'd say that rhinos are the best best, perhaps with little to no upgrades.

Perhaps a LR redeemer with purifiers as a spearhead, with rhinos and mechs to offer a minimum of redundancy of targets could be a good idea... Servo skulls for precise deep striking of critical units (like a SR or a DK) are, imho, a must if you can't bring a teleport homer fast to the enemy lines.

Can't really make a list atm, but something along those lines sounds good.

Servo skulls are super annoying

Yeah, i'd say it actually adheres to the current way they note rules. Special wargear/rules bestowing the USR's or special abilities. Instead of putting them in the actual entry.

If you take a gatling psilencer it is fairly decent anti horde?

Against high model count, low armour armies (I'm thinking footslogging IG or footslogging Orks), the psilencer will shine, as it's basically getting more bolters on the ground.

Sorry but no.
They are crap, pure and simple crap.

Psilencer vs psycannon:

Model moves:
Psycannon can shoot, psilencer can not.

Model stays stationary (psilencer is hard to use since you need to be stationary with the puny 24´range):
Psycannon hits 2.65 times.
Psilencer hits 4 times.

Wounds caused on:
T3:
Psilencer - 2.65 (with the most common saves of 4+ to 5+ to 6+ this wound advantage evaporates to the AP4 rending psycannon)
Psycannon - 2.22

T4:
Psilencer - 2
Psycannon - 2.22

T5:
Psilencer - 1.32
Psycannon - 2.22

T6:
Psilencer - 0.64
Psycannon - 1.75


So far the psilencer has a slight wound advantage vs T3 enemies BUT here comes the real kicker.
Most of T3 models come with a 4+, 5+ or 6+ saves lowering the psilencers kill output far below the psilencer that cuts through all 4, 5, 6 armour saves with its AP 4 and even 2+ and 3+ saves with rending.


Conclusion.
Psilencer:
You need to stand still in order to cause less kills on pretty much ANY enemy model out there be it T3, T3, T4, T5 and T6 since what little wound advantage it does on hordes armour saves take it away and turn the favor into the psycannon...that doesnt need to stand still to shoot AND can kill vehicles.

So my dear Ward, what have you been smoking to figure out GKs need such a worthless pile of dung taking up valuable sprue space such as the psilencer?

1 -Ghost Knights lost Stealth, 5 can only be taken, increased in points, can only take halberd, hammers, falchions, or a banner.
2 -Coteaz now specifically states he makes henchmen into troops.
3 -Coteaz lost his aura of faith and mind blades...gain a bolt pistol and dark excommunication.
4 -Karamovoz's save is now given by the throne instead of artificer armor.
5 -Inquisitors can no longer take artificer armor but can take power armor.
6 -Units can only take one Warding Stave.
7 -Banisher went up in points?
8 -Only 3 Warriors in a squad can "special weapons"
9 -Strike Squads can still deepstrike though they can no longer take teleport packs.
10 -Fast Attack Teleport PAGKs are Interceptor Squads.
11 -Dreadknight lost one strength and toughness, holocaust...gained dark excommunication
12 -Psybolt ammo is now way cheaper on any LR.

1 Over nerfed from a fun and useful HQ/option to pure horse manure, thanks Ward. I guess all small bits that could actually be effective and used just had to be nerfed to oblivion.

2 Nice.

3 To bad, mind blades on him were pretty cool.

4 Lol So if a vindicare shoots of his Inv save how will the guy be modeled then, do you need to replace him with an on-foot inquisitor

5 Meh.

6 Wow, the overpriced crap option that was the one thing that could save paladins and terminators from all SS/TH squads out there is just nerfed into oblivion, why am I surprised.

7 Un-needed since the GKs already massacre deamons simply by looking at them but in a pure =I= army I understand it.

8 Fair and nice.

9 So troop Strike squads can enter the table via deepstrike but may only walk normally afterwards? If true a good and deserving boost to these guys.

10 Cool.

11 Wow, a weak ass common Cc monstrous creature that will instant die to DE lance spam and poison weapons or any decent SM AT shooty unit. Any other configurations are worthless due to the crappy shooty options that cost far to much to be worth taking.

12 Overpriced. As I wrote else where:
As for the psybolt ammo its overrated and overpriced (as almost all things in this codex).
The normal PAGK squad will see 8 stormbolter knights and 2 psycannon knights, so you spend 20p on getting 8 knights a S5 stormbolter.

The eight S4 strombolters will cause 5.25 wounds on SM.
The same eight S5 stormbolters will cause 6.9 wounds on SM.

You just spent 20 points to kill 8.7 points of extra SM and this is only going downhill since as your GK squad takes casulties less and less of the S5 stormbolters will be able to contribute to earning back those 20 points they cost.
Plus far from every turn will be a shooting one, your stormboters will need to be in range and have viable targets.

So other then the odd chance of getting S5 rear shots at vehicles why would you ever want to waste 20p to give 8 PAGKs or 4 TGK S5 stormbolters?
Even with the odd chance the psyammo will make the psilencer S5 there is no wy inhell anyone will ever take that piece of crap weapon (psilencer).

I havn't even looked at the GK codex yet...but so far it all looks pretty awesome to me. I find it funny how as soon as a new codex comes out, all the nay-sayers pop out of the wood work to rant and rave about how unbalanced, OP, or just state how a force plain sucks for the following 100 reasons, then dissapear until the next codex update.

Instead of thinking it funny why dont you point out exactly what is so overpowered?

Even if they dont compete very well...who cares. I mean really, Ill go down in a blaze of glory with the knowledge that my 30 models gave 100 models a run for their money. Hopefully anyway

Lots of people do care about having a 50-50 chance of winning actually. That´s what makes a game exciting.

Whre GKs lack melta guns...they have 10point S10 hammers...givn hammerhand.

That´s the problem. On one hand you are given infantry that has no chance in hell surviving heavy shooting and on the other hand you force them to chase tanks on foot.
I could understand the logics if they were given stormshield options or that ward save was a shooty one but no, your 5++ terminators need to wade through plasma and tank pies to bang a hammer on something that can easily outrun them.

The only problem I see is mass vehicles...we don't have enough units to kill that many units in the amount of turns necessary

The only thing that can mend that is to DS your army on one flank and thus deny the enemy LOS for all his guns BUT this means only 1-2 builds will ever be close to effective in tournament play thus Ward created one weak and boring codex.

No way a 4-5 rhino rush will ever work in a competitive setting. The so called space marines on skateboards tactics was killed ages ago by Andy so why reinvent it now with even fewer rhinos and the same game mechanics that make it impossible in the first place.

That poor guy just can't catch a break. He's villified for making things powerful and for making things less powerful.

Poor Matt Ward.

Well I agree but why not just take some test games and see what happens with the GKs when they meet the more popular armies out there like mech IG lines, Vulkan hammer builds, space wolf shooty insanity, SW and eldar cheap-O psychic power lockdowns and out of 24´range dark eldar lance spam.
GKs arent balanced towards none of those builds as far as I can see and adding a few easy fixes to mend that wouldnt be what I call difficult for a dedicated dev team.

Perhaps a LR redeemer with purifiers as a spearhead, with rhinos and mechs to offer a minimum of redundancy of targets could be a good idea... Servo skulls for precise deep striking of critical units (like a SR or a DK) are, imho, a must if you can't bring a teleport homer fast to the enemy lines.

A pair of summoned landraiders in the midst of the enemy with shrouding cast on them for a 3+ save might be viable but then again with the cost of every GK unit it might not.

Psybolt imho shines on vehicles... It's only 5 points on them. Rifleman dread + psybolt = 4 str 8 twin linked shots per round. Not bad I'd say...

Psyflame is cool as well, but costs more on the vehicles that pack serious flamers like the LR redeemer... Still, 15 points to bump the two flamestorms to str 7 may be worth it.

That it may.
Vehicles at lest, it seems, are given some pretty fun options.

I dont believe in an infantry GK army due to the over the top weaknesses but maybe a mech GK army could be effective.

Pyriel- wrote:...

Wow. The internet is serious business. Wall of text for the win?

Anywhoo, I know this is a tactics thread, but I can't put out ideas if I am unclear on the rules in the codex. I may be a giant slow, but for squads of 5 who can take two special weapons (purifiers, paladins) does it have to be the same special weapon? It appears to be written that way. Could I take 1 of each, or even just 1 instead of two?

Also, is there any clarity yet on Grand Strategy allowing teleporting scout moves?

You can take whatever special weapons you want, so long as you don't exceed the limit allowed in the unit. So an incinerator and a psycannon in one unit is allowed. Not efficient, but allowed.

And yes, Grand Strategy allows you to warp shunt. A warp shunt is a move action made in the movement phase. The only difference is that you may only use it once per game. There's no other limitation on it until GW explicitely notes in an errata that this is not the case (which is unlikely).

Really, you think it is unlikely? Dreadknights assaulting on turn 1 because they scouted 30? I figured that would be the first thing FAQed


Automatically Appended Next Post:

GeckoOBac wrote:Perhaps a LR redeemer with purifiers as a spearhead

Why not a Stormraven? It's faster and gets a cover save. If another stuff is going on (teleporting Dreadknight, Mordrak dropping in with Ghost Terminators, Vindicare Assassin threatening their expensive tanks) the Storm raven won't be the focus of all the fire...

All I know is that purifiers are awesome in CC, so 10 of them coming out of an assault vehicle will destroy just about anything.

See, I'm sketchy about the shunting scout thing.The scout moves isn't explicitly a movement phase, but it is units moving. I can't really decide one way or the other. I'd be inclined to err on the side of caution and say it can't be done, but hopefully the inevitable FAQ will clear it up.

And Stavkat, that is my reasoning behind using a Stormraven in my list. It carries the Termis and the Brother-Captain in, while something else (Probably razorbacks) dances in the background singing "look at me, I'm more important, don't focus on the stormraven". Once it drops the termis and the BroCap, it's free just to scoot around bothering tanks until it inevitably pops.

This isn't very competitive, made it quickly just to see if the points work, but I kinda like the idea of large purifier squads running out and chopping everything down:

Grand Master (Halbred) - 180
Vindicare Assassin - 145
10 Purifiers (6 Halbreds, 1 Hammer, 1 Incinerator, 2 Psycannons) - 277
10 Purifiers (6 Halbreds, 1 Hammer, 1 Incinerator, 2 Psycannons) - 277
5 Strike Squad (1 Psycannon) - 110
5 Strike Squad (1 Psycannon) - 110
Stormraven – 205
Stormraven – 205

Total 1499

Although now that I think of it, a Librarian with that Stealth power would be a good idea in a rush list, wouldn't it?

The reason for the LR Redeemer is using two str 7 ap 3 templates...
It's not that the stormraven is bad... It's just that I can't really find a way to use it reliably... But that's just me I guess.

[Edit: tbh the crappy missiles the gk version gets are also a reason I'd avoid taking it]

Stavkat wrote:
Although now that I think of it, a Librarian with that Stealth power would be a good idea in a rush list, wouldn't it?

Grand Masters are awesome, but only when they're supporting their entire army (Grand Strategy, Rad Grenades, Psychostroke Grenades, etc.). If you can't justify that, then you should probably go with the Librarian. Grand Masters are crazy good beatsticks in their own right, but there are better beatsticks out there. You wouldn't need to make such a choice if they came cheap, but they don't, so you really should make sure that whatever you choose, it helps with your army considerably.

GeckoOBac wrote:The reason for the LR Redeemer is using two str 7 ap 3 templates...
It's not that the stormraven is bad... It's just that I can't really find a way to use it reliably... But that's just me I guess.

[Edit: tbh the crappy missiles the gk version gets are also a reason I'd avoid taking it]

I don't know man, it's job is to go flat out and get in the enemies face as fast as possible (and maybe your multi-melta pops a vehicle on the way). Once it drops off the troops it's done most of it's job methinks. With the cover save (and possibly stealth) it is pretty durable, although to be fair I haven't used one in a game yet.

So this is probably me being clueless, but not sure why the missiles were such a huge deal.

Stavkat wrote:

GeckoOBac wrote:The reason for the LR Redeemer is using two str 7 ap 3 templates...
It's not that the stormraven is bad... It's just that I can't really find a way to use it reliably... But that's just me I guess.

[Edit: tbh the crappy missiles the gk version gets are also a reason I'd avoid taking it]

I don't know man, it's job is to go flat out and get in the enemies face as fast as possible (and maybe your multi-melta pops a vehicle on the way). Once it drops off the troops it's done most of it's job methinks. With the cover save (and possibly stealth) it is pretty durable, although to be fair I haven't used one in a game yet.

So this is probably me being clueless, but not sure why the missiles were such a huge deal.

well IIRC the BA missiles are str 8 and so they would help with the lack of long range AT power of the GK.

The problem with the storm raven is that it's costly and has only av 12. That could STILL be ignored if not for the fact that it uses the flying base so it's almost impossible to hide it behind terrain... You'd have to keep moving flat out but this means that either the loaded troops have teleporters (and so you can only bring 6), or they scatter as if deepstriking using shadow skies. Also, you can't assault if you disembark this way so it kinda loses it's main advantage...

The only thing that seems quite safe to do, imho, is load it with a squad with a lot of firepower, like 4 psycannons or 4 incinerators. Perhaps a dread as well, I'd say lascannon + missiles for kraking hard targets or the rifleman + psybolts. Or even just an assault cannon + psybolts though I'd go for the rifleman.
And then, someway, either using models with a teleport homer or servo skulls, DS the SR very close to the enemy lines, disembark everything (DS count as moving but not flat out, you can disembark without deepstriking though you can't assault that turn) and fire everything you've got (so perhaps some eight str 7 rending shots + 4 twin linked str 8 shots + lascannon and eithe multimelta or missiles (I'd take the latter since at least you can go anti infantry if you need it).

Then it all depends on what the enemy decides to fire at... Something will probably pop. Depending on the kind of army, possibly everything. I can't really say if a tactic like this could bring enough hurt to the enemy to explain the cost of the stormraven...

I don't understand the obsession with Rad and Psychostroke nades. Surely they do not justify taking a basic Grandmaster just to get access to them? With a GK unit you should be winning every combat anyway, no need to downgrade your HQ to get fancy grenades to win the combat even harder.

ph34r wrote:I don't understand the obsession with Rad and Psychostroke nades. Surely they do not justify taking a basic Grandmaster just to get access to them? With a GK unit you should be winning every combat anyway, no need to downgrade your HQ to get fancy grenades to win the combat even harder.

Well considering many people seem to prefer the gkgm to most of the special characters it makes sense... Also with that you can instakill even T6 monstrosities... hammerhand + daemonhammer + rad grenades... Too bad they removed mind blades... Would have been fun T7 thing suddendly dropped to T5 and instakilled with S10 thunderhammer

Yeah? You can instakill everything in the game with every unit in your army. Guess what: Every Single GK Has A Force Weapon.

ph34r wrote:Yeah? You can instakill everything in the game with every unit in your army. Guess what: Every Single GK Has A Force Weapon.

Problem: for the force weapon to work you have to WOUND in the first place. Lowering the toughness of the target helps with that. Sure, str 10 hammers can reliably wound even high T, but is there really something like "too much dakka"?

Storm raven is a good way of delivering purifiers and potentially removing a very bothersome enemy tank from the table. But its very risky and expensive. I would trust av13, but 12 doesn't really cut what GK need.

On a different note: Ordo Xenos Inquisitors are 25 pts. Rad and Psychotroke grenades are 15 points each. So for 55 points, you can put one of these baddies in a squad for a massive force multiplier. Reducing enemy toughness by 1 every time you enter an assault as well as the added random benefits of PT grenades is an insanely good buy for 55 pts.

Happy pwnage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ph34r wrote:Yeah? You can instakill everything in the game with every unit in your army. Guess what: Every Single GK Has A Force Weapon.

Ohh everything in the game? with every unit in my army? Oh and all GK have force weapons? I guess that PAGK with incinerator has a nemesis force index finger, what about crowe?

Ok Ill go instakill Marneus Calgar with an Inquisitorial Servitor.

Or maybe I could TRY to instakill a trygon with my Grand Master, then realize I am wounding on 6's unless I have a DH (the trygon will have killed me by now if so) and cant get a wound in.

You speak as if reducing the toughness of an enemy unit for 15 points is a bad thing.

Everything in your post is legitimately wrong. Anything else you'd like to share?

(Sorry guys, just had to teach ol' ph34r a lesson in flaming)

Yeah, Inquisitors can be Grenade-caddies. Give them both kind of grenades, slap them in a strike squad, go to town.

Why not a Stormraven? It's faster and gets a cover save. If another stuff is going on (teleporting Dreadknight, Mordrak dropping in with Ghost Terminators, Vindicare Assassin threatening their expensive tanks) the Storm raven won't be the focus of all the fire...

The thing with stormraven builds is shrouding and Wards slowed loophole.

Ponder this:
You make a stormraven army based armour say, 2 stormravens. You really need first turn or at least be able to hide them well enough if you dont get first turn since lets be honest, popping an AV12 vehicle with a 4+ cover save at most on first turn shooting isnt exactly difficult for 99% of all armies.

(All this assumed that shrouding actually works on stormravens for starters)

Now imagine how good your army would be if those stormravens died on turn 1, you would effectively have lost the game by turn 1.

So you hope for first turn and cast shrouding flat outing your storm ravens toward the enemy with nice 3++ cover saves. Now you stand a good change of whackign the enemy since its a little harder to down 3++ save stormravens.


...Then you meet that tournament eldar army that has those 15p runes of warding like ALL eldar armies take.
All of a sudden your shrouding libby rolls an average of 10.5 when he wants to cast shrouding so either you up his cost to 230-260-ishp to stand a chance of passing shrouding Ld (and the rest of your already low model count suffers) or you take those nifty anti psy missiles the stormraven has (those are weak frag ones unfortunately) and hope you can score multiple hits and wounds on that eldar psycher and remove the runes.

Thing is he either took 2 of them for a whole mindbogging 30 points or his psycher sits hidden in a holo vehicle and your missiles cant do jack.
you just basically auto lost vs all eldar armies with your stormraven builds.

And people say I´m rude when I say: "Thanks Ward!"

(Sorry guys, just had to teach ol' ph34r a lesson in flaming)

That wont work, hes just too good at flaming, I know all about it since I´m even better at it myself

If you want to shut down a dakka thread bait me and ph3ar into a fight and watch us get vacations

The psky missiles dont need to wound the psyker to cause a Perils, just hit them.

I don't understand the obsession with Rad and Psychostroke nades. Surely they do not justify taking a basic Grandmaster just to get access to them? With a GK unit you should be winning every combat anyway, no need to downgrade your HQ to get fancy grenades to win the combat even harder.

Do Rad grenades on the GM confer the benefit to the whole unit of GK he is with? I didn't think that and IC with grenades just gave their nades to the squad. I was unable to tell from the wording when I looked at the codex though.

Also, where are people getting the st 10 Hammer from? I believe that previous FAQ's have stated that +1 strength bonuses are given after the doubling in strength. I believe they would be st 9 with hammer hand.

Yes they do...it affects the entire enemy unit.

Hammerhand specifically states +1 S before all other modifiers.
->makes up for no melta

Pyriel- wrote:
The thing with stormraven builds is shrouding and Wards slowed loophole.

You really need to let go of this Matt Ward hate. You're going to have aneurysm.

Makes sense for GKs to have better StormRaven tactica...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I am thinking though...technically a StormRaven isn't in cover by moving flat out...it just gets a cover save...I think that is different enough to matter.

Mind you...I hate RAW nastiness...but I think the FAQ will probably go with this logic.

I don't see why the redeemer is being preferred over the crusader. Str 5 bolters, lolwuthvy, and str 7 ACannons seems awesome I'm thinking of a battlewagon wall with crusaders instead and a Libby rather than a BM. Only question would be does psybolts make hurricanes no longer defensive?

The psky missiles dont need to wound the psyker to cause a Perils, just hit them.

All you need to do is put the farseer or psychic hood libby in or behind a cheap transport and you can no longer hit him.

You really need to let go of this Matt Ward hate. You're going to have aneurysm.

You´re probably right.
Though I did defend the guy really intensly in the dreadknight-hate thread from just about the whole board

So did anyone else notice that you can double your psychic powers by splitting into combat squads? Two 5 man purifier combat squads can charge into a horde and put a wound on 75% of them (which counts towards combat resolution, of course) before combat even starts. Poor orks and nids.