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To circle back to Strike Squads for just a moment, I agree that Interceptors are superior. However, you have to take into account that Strike Squads fill our Troops choice. I think Strike Squads are some very killy Troops, and are just so much improved from 7th edition. Not saying to spam them, just that they don't suck anymore!

Requizen wrote:
Is everyone playing Grey Knights standalone or are people "allying in" things? I'm wary of the idea of playing super-elite armies given how many multi-damage weapons and MWs are available to some armies.

Still curious. I wouldn't mind making some Guard to go with them (Ordo Malleus Auxilliaries?), but it might be interesting to see a pure GK list if people think it's effective enough.

I'm playing mono-GK and I've just been reading Crowe's rules. He's an absolute beast... 5 attacks reroll hits and wounds. Every successful wound roll (pre-saving throw!) generates another attack (once). So thats a good chance of 10 attacks (additional attacks get rerolls too).

Plus he can cast smite for D6 mortal wounds. The guy can do 16 wounds a turn. The only downside is those first 10 are AP0 but... can't have everything.

The brotherhood champion looks great too. Blade stance + hammerhead is a +2 on wound rolls. With a -3 AP and D3 damage he could really plow through vehicles and multi-wound things.

Just need a decent delivery system for them...

What do you guys think?

I just can't get behind Crowe, he offers no force multiplication compared to every other HQ choice. Voldus feels like he would be a more solid pick everytime, except when fighting hordes and you don't kill hordes in melee as GK.

 Quickjager wrote:
I just can't get behind Crowe, he offers no force multiplication compared to every other HQ choice. Voldus feels like he would be a more solid pick everytime, except when fighting hordes and you don't kill hordes in melee as GK.

Voldus is actually one I'm struggling with. He offers rerolls to 1's but Draigo overs rerolls regardless and is, I think, better. Plus the big draw of Voldus is that he can cast 3 powers a turn (I haven't seen many other characters capable of this. Are there any? Ahriman? Magnus?) but I struggle to see circumstances when you would be able to cast all 3. Maybe smite and purge to do a bunch of damage after gate (though he would be gating himself, on his own which is silly). Not sure if I'm making much sense...

I guess I see Draigo/Brother-Captain/Brotherhood Ancient as the combo-wombo. Rerolls, double smite range, +1 LD and +1 Attack. Add some paladins and that is scary (though expensive).

You can always just cast an extra smite if need be.

Voldus is 30 pts more than a std. Grandmaster for a much better hammer and an extra smite. Worth it? Who knows...

But Draigo is a champ that's for sure!

Spartacus wrote:
You can always just cast an extra smite if need be.

Voldus is 30 pts more than a std. Grandmaster for a much better hammer and an extra smite. Worth it? Who knows...

But Draigo is a champ that's for sure!

Agreed if you can get Voldus into CC then he'll do better but if that's what you're going for then Crowe/Champion would be better no? and for less points.

Where is the extra smite coming from? I thought a standard GM can cast 2 powers? (I don't have the index to hand at work) so a standard GM could cast smite and purge (as can Draigo I think).

 Quickjager wrote:
I just can't get behind Crowe, he offers no force multiplication compared to every other HQ choice. Voldus feels like he would be a more solid pick everytime, except when fighting hordes and you don't kill hordes in melee as GK.

Agreed that Crowe isn't a force multiplier. He's a killer on his own for sure. Grand Masters and Draigo are your beat sticks that also buff your army, but they all cost a lot more. I think for pure points efficiency, Draigo is kind of the top dog. He allows you to re-roll everything (not just 1's), and he himself is a killer. Voldus I think comes in second place, due to being less survivable and buffing slightly less. Against Demons, his 3 Smites will be brutal. I know I plan on picking up Voldus' model and giving him a try, if nothing else but for fun.

So am I right in assuming that all the Special Weapons are a bit rubbish? Can't teleport into Incinerator range, other two are Heavy. Unless you're bringing Draigo for the rerolls, seems a bit meh.

Homeskillet wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:
I just can't get behind Crowe, he offers no force multiplication compared to every other HQ choice. Voldus feels like he would be a more solid pick everytime, except when fighting hordes and you don't kill hordes in melee as GK.

Agreed that Crowe isn't a force multiplier. He's a killer on his own for sure. Grand Masters and Draigo are your beat sticks that also buff your army, but they all cost a lot more. I think for pure points efficiency, Draigo is kind of the top dog. He allows you to re-roll everything (not just 1's), and he himself is a killer. Voldus I think comes in second place, due to being less survivable and buffing slightly less. Against Demons, his 3 Smites will be brutal. I know I plan on picking up Voldus' model and giving him a try, if nothing else but for fun.

3 smites? I don't have the book to hand at work. He can cast smite and purge soul. The other powers would be gate and hammerhead. What have I missed?

Requizen wrote:So am I right in assuming that all the Special Weapons are a bit rubbish? Can't teleport into Incinerator range, other two are Heavy. Unless you're bringing Draigo for the rerolls, seems a bit meh.

I believe incinerator has a 12" range so you can deep strike into range (9" away). I've seen some math elsewhere that basically says the psilencer is a bit better in most/all scenarios. Personally I don't think I'll be running them in any squads. Dreadknights will have them (-1 penalty ) and *if* I field a purge squad then they'll have them too.

 Homeskillet wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:
I just can't get behind Crowe, he offers no force multiplication compared to every other HQ choice. Voldus feels like he would be a more solid pick everytime, except when fighting hordes and you don't kill hordes in melee as GK.

Agreed that Crowe isn't a force multiplier. He's a killer on his own for sure. Grand Masters and Draigo are your beat sticks that also buff your army, but they all cost a lot more. I think for pure points efficiency, Draigo is kind of the top dog. He allows you to re-roll everything (not just 1's), and he himself is a killer. Voldus I think comes in second place, due to being less survivable and buffing slightly less. Against Demons, his 3 Smites will be brutal. I know I plan on picking up Voldus' model and giving him a try, if nothing else but for fun.

I'M. Pretty sure Smite's rule just let's each Psyker cast Smite not allow each Psyker to cast Smite multiple times.

I know there's love for stormravens as transports for knights but has any used razorbacks (thinking assault cannon) to transport some squads up the board?

Kahor wrote:
You think Purifiers are too expensive? :( I thought they looked really good as a turn 2 stormraven drop perhaps?

Also, with the 5 man strike squads, are you assuming that with 10 squads you're only getting 5 in deep strike first turn? (unless I've missed something... I'm at work and can't double check the rules)

I can't get past them costing an extra 7 points a piece more just for the psychic business. That's a minimum 35 points per squad for the smite improvement. It's not awful, but that seems like a lot when you still need to roll to get it off. I'm not bullish on the Stormraven. Lots of dakka, sure, but in an elite list that struggles for model count already I'm not sure it has the survivability I want out of a model that expensive. That said, getting a Dreadnought stuck in is always good. IDK, further reducing the Grey Knight model count isn't really my taste in list building I guess.


And yeah, I think we're all talking matched play, hence half units need to start on the board, or rather only half can deploy into reserve. My thought, generally, was to use some mix of Interceptors, Termies and Paladins, with enough transports and Gate of Infinity to shake things up in the movement phase. Even avoiding things like Stormravens I'm still not getting over 50 on the model count mind you, but that's the army in 8th.

Kahor wrote:

I believe incinerator has a 12" range so you can deep strike into range (9" away). I've seen some math elsewhere that basically says the psilencer is a bit better in most/all scenarios. Personally I don't think I'll be running them in any squads. Dreadknights will have them (-1 penalty ) and *if* I field a purge squad then they'll have them too.

Heavy Incinerator is 12", regular is 8", so you can drop in a Dreadknight with it but not foot dudes.

Yeah and the other two aren't... terrible since they get lots of shots and you can put rerolls with them. The guns aren't too terribly expensive but losing the melee weapon on Strikes or Interceptors feels a bit less worthwhile.

Kahor wrote:
I believe incinerator has a 12" range so you can deep strike into range (9" away). I've seen some math elsewhere that basically says the psilencer is a bit better in most/all scenarios. Personally I don't think I'll be running them in any squads. Dreadknights will have them (-1 penalty ) and *if* I field a purge squad then they'll have them too.

Fun trick, it doesn't appear that Gate causes the unit to get the -1 to shooting Heavy weapons. If you don't mind it being your 1 Gate, you can Gate a Purgation squad somewhere T1 and pretend they Deep Strike.

Audustum wrote:

Kahor wrote:
I believe incinerator has a 12" range so you can deep strike into range (9" away). I've seen some math elsewhere that basically says the psilencer is a bit better in most/all scenarios. Personally I don't think I'll be running them in any squads. Dreadknights will have them (-1 penalty ) and *if* I field a purge squad then they'll have them too.

Fun trick, it doesn't appear that Gate causes the unit to get the -1 to shooting Heavy weapons. If you don't mind it being your 1 Gate, you can Gate a Purgation squad somewhere T1 and pretend they Deep Strike.

Hm, interesting. The rules for Reinforcements say that setting up counts as having moved, but is that only in the context of Reinforcements? Since you remove the unit and then set it back up, is it the same or different?

I wouldn't count on it sticking around but it's a neat trick until an FAQ comes out.

Requizen wrote:

Kahor wrote:

I believe incinerator has a 12" range so you can deep strike into range (9" away). I've seen some math elsewhere that basically says the psilencer is a bit better in most/all scenarios. Personally I don't think I'll be running them in any squads. Dreadknights will have them (-1 penalty ) and *if* I field a purge squad then they'll have them too.

Heavy Incinerator is 12", regular is 8", so you can drop in a Dreadknight with it but not foot dudes.

Yeah and the other two aren't... terrible since they get lots of shots and you can put rerolls with them. The guns aren't too terribly expensive but losing the melee weapon on Strikes or Interceptors feels a bit less worthwhile.

Ah my mistake I was running from memory. Suppose you could always drop a couple of Dreadknights with Heavy Incinerators and Psilencers turn 1 and see what you can do. They'll take a lot of fire for the rest of your army.

Audustum wrote:

Kahor wrote:
I believe incinerator has a 12" range so you can deep strike into range (9" away). I've seen some math elsewhere that basically says the psilencer is a bit better in most/all scenarios. Personally I don't think I'll be running them in any squads. Dreadknights will have them (-1 penalty ) and *if* I field a purge squad then they'll have them too.

Fun trick, it doesn't appear that Gate causes the unit to get the -1 to shooting Heavy weapons. If you don't mind it being your 1 Gate, you can Gate a Purgation squad somewhere T1 and pretend they Deep Strike.

nice! I imagine that'll get changed or FAQ'd but that's pretty good. That'll work on a Dreadknight as well I guess? (because for some reason they get that -1 penalty?!)

Fenris-77 wrote:

Kahor wrote:
You think Purifiers are too expensive? :( I thought they looked really good as a turn 2 stormraven drop perhaps?

Also, with the 5 man strike squads, are you assuming that with 10 squads you're only getting 5 in deep strike first turn? (unless I've missed something... I'm at work and can't double check the rules)

I can't get past them costing an extra 7 points a piece more just for the psychic business. That's a minimum 35 points per squad for the smite improvement. It's not awful, but that seems like a lot when you still need to roll to get it off. I'm not bullish on the Stormraven. Lots of dakka, sure, but in an elite list that struggles for model count already I'm not sure it has the survivability I want out of a model that expensive. That said, getting a Dreadnought stuck in is always good. IDK, further reducing the Grey Knight model count isn't really my taste in list building I guess.


And yeah, I think we're all talking matched play, hence half units need to start on the board, or rather only half can deploy into reserve. My thought, generally, was to use some mix of Interceptors, Termies and Paladins, with enough transports and Gate of Infinity to shake things up in the movement phase. Even avoiding things like Stormravens I'm still not getting over 50 on the model count mind you, but that's the army in 8th.

I can understand the hesitation of the costs, espechially given that they lost the extra attack as well. I suppose I figure if I'm going to be playing an elite army why would I spam "normal" dudes? I'm not talking massively competitive here because I don't go to tournaments (would like to win of course!). Like if I can get a squad of purifiers with Crowe into combat... I see just everything dying horribly.

I suppose if I wanted to take >50 models I would be playing Guard/Ork/Nids rather than GK. I like the lower models counts personally and just looking for ways to make them work better in 8th where it seems more dice = better, and more dice usually comes from more models rather than more dice per model.

Oh I agree, you don't choose an elite army like GK because you want to flood the board with dudes. That said, the really elite builds can be more like 20-odd models for GK and it's in lists like that where I think the Storm Raven will get pasted a lot - there's just not enough other distractions on the board.

As for the "normal troops" thing, I think that GK "normal troops" are pretty darn elite by the standards of most other armies. If I want to pay more per guy I'll be starting with Interceptors and/or Paldins who have help buff the lists mobility issues.

I think overall we can all agree that Incinerators are just overall trash now, whereas they used to great last edition they just don't do it here.

Pros
Auto D6 Str 6 Assault hits for shooting and overwatch.

Cons
8 inch range so no flame deepstrikes
D6 so you can't expect anything wild
The new AP system shafted flamers in that they don't ignore cover anymore and our flamer which used to have an amazingly superior AP4 is now only -1. Expect to have flamers hits ignored very often by a little guardsmen in cover.
Also they cost a fuckton compared to a psilencer.

And if you're charged from beyond 8" or out of LoS the Incinerators don't get to Overwatch anymore :(

Sounds like incinerators aren't the way to go in general and psilencers are much better.

For clarity I think heavy incinerators are still fine as a Dreadknight can get the hits in on a deepstrike, and can also fire a psilencer. I haven't done the maths but that sounds better to me than a psilencer/psycannon combo.

It also feels like using MSU of inteceptors and strike squads is the way to go. Interesting question that just came to mind. Given the combat squads rule, if you split a 10 man strike squad into two 5 man "units", would you get 2 smites out of that? (I'm assuming to, just thought it was a good way to get an extra smite and deny)

My initial impression is you'd get another Smite and Deny, absolutely.

The limitation of a psychic power once per turn only applies to powers other than smite (from matched play rules).

Pro tip: Crowe can cast 2 powers per turn, so his much vaunted D6 mortal wound smite is actually 2D6 if you want to

Spartacus wrote:
The limitation of a psychic power once per turn only applies to powers other than smite (from matched play rules).

Pro tip: Crowe can cast 2 powers per turn, so his much vaunted D6 mortal wound smite is actually 2D6 if you want to

The Matched Play Limitation is talking about different psykers casting the same spell, not the same psykers casting the same spell. It's saying out of your whole Grey Knight army, only one gets to cast Hammerhand, one gets to cast Gate and one gets to cast Purge per turn. The Smite exception is just saying every unit can cast Smite.

Nothing in the Matched Play section overrides the general rule from the beginning of the book:

A psyker cannot attempt to manifest the same psychic power more than once in a turn

Under "2. Make a Psychic Test".

So, unfortunately, Crowe and all the rest can each only cast Smite once.

Naww...

I'm starting to like these jumbled up rules less and less.

Yeah, it's a lot of Smite and one each of the others. IF you want to boost the psychic phase you need to add different psykers. Normal SM Librarians are probably the best choice because their powers affect friendly Astartes and aren't linked to a more narrow keyword. Veil and Might are nice potential buffs to a GK list.

GK smite spam is limited compared to other versions of the same thing sadly. Not useless mind you, but it's not the same as what the Tzeentch list tosses around. Still, it very possible to get 12-15 Smites happeneing, which isn't awful. If that's the goal I start to come around on paying the Purifier tax for their upmarket D6 version.

Spartacus wrote:
Naww...

I'm starting to like these jumbled up rules less and less.

Yeah, it made me sad too. :(


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Fenris-77 wrote:
Yeah, it's a lot of Smite and one each of the others. IF you want to boost the psychic phase you need to add different psykers. Normal SM Librarians are probably the best choice because their powers affect friendly Astartes and aren't linked to a more narrow keyword. Veil and Might are nice potential buffs to a GK list.

GK smite spam is limited compared to other versions of the same thing sadly. Not useless mind you, but it's not the same as what the Tzeentch list tosses around. Still, it very possible to get 12-15 Smites happeneing, which isn't awful. If that's the goal I start to come around on paying the Purifier tax for their upmarket D6 version.

I was looking at Mephiston from the Blood Angels with this kind of idea in mind. Offensive psychic powers care less about keyword cohesion than defensive ones. He can cast Shield of Sanguinus on himself and then Blood Boil/Smite enemies. Only 145 points for a great statline too.

Primaris Psykers also seem like good ideas (from Astra Telepathica) since they have the only Beam spell left in the game it seems.

I'm running this

two storm ravens with assault cannons, melta, missiles and hurricane bolters each carrying a doomglaive dread with an incinerator and heavy psycannon and a purgation squad with 4 incinerators.

then two dreadknights with sword, heavy incin and heavy psilencer

draigo

17 models but considering the ravens can fly where they want, puke out a flame squad plus the dread for the charge and then shoot the flyer itself I feel pretty confident in going first and doing insane damage.

i think if you're looking at having survivable GK you're doing it wrong. find ways to maximize the first punch and make sure you find ways to throw it. prioritize the targets that are going to give you troubles and take them out before they get a chance to.

...why incinerators, we just had this talk how bad they are. They are an objectively worse Assault Cannon, take the psilencer. Or if you are going to charge with them take Purifiers instead. This way you can have falchions in melee while still spitting out mortal wounds.

I would agree with Quickjager. Replace all the incinerators with psilencers (if you want to go the heavy weapon route). On the Dreadknights I'd replace the psycannon with psilencer as well (I'd keep the heavy incinerator purely because its 12").