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 Sim-Life wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
So 16 Strike Squads would cost you roughly 1700 points.

Comparatively, 16 Primaris Psykers would cost you 640, and they know real smite.

That's a false equivalence and you know it.

One hell of a false equivalence.

16 SQUADS of Grey Knights compared to 16 T3 5+ save single models that take mortal wounds every time they perils within range of a Commissar.

I'm pretty sure the fact that you're getting 80 T4, 3+ save, Storm Bolter and Force Weapon wielding marines is the reason you're a bit more expensive than those 16 T3, 5+ save laspistol wielding psykers. Whether or not your smite is weaker is pretty much a moot point. You could slaughter those 16 psykers with bolter fire alone.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Yea, said primaris psykers die to a stiff breeze, and can't do much other than smite.

The 16 strike squads bring forth 80 sets of stormbolters and force weapons, while wearing actual armor.

SLIGHT difference in value.


If all GK had is psyker power, giving them real smite might be proper, but its far from it.
They have decent shooting, decent durablity and very good melee abilities.
Not even counting the super hard counter they present to deamons.

They don't need actual armor because of the price point to spam them.

ITT: People comparing a well balanced codex against the most broken and op things in the game right now and saying their dex is weak.

GK players, say it with me now: "psilencers are 4 points". The army is fine. 24 psilencer shots on a purgation squad is 113 points.

The fact that we pay 21 points for a model with a gk statline is insane. 10 strikes with their strategem fires 40 heavy bolter shots then charges having 21 d3 damage weapons for slightly more than 200 points.

They aren't and shouldn't be the instant win button many are apparently saying they should be in this thread. Read codex and try to think outside the box before you complain.

Nobody is asking for an instant win button. They're comparing them against the strongest things in the game because some people actually do play this competitively. Some of those people are Grey Knight players too.

We can't really though. Not at the top league. The really competitive stuff curb stomp mono-GK. Having real smite, at least on characters, would help with that. A lot if everyone had it

If you are comparing things to the strongest things in the game rather then actually asking for balance.. You are pretty much asking for an I-Win button.

Says the people comparing Grey Knights to Primaris Psykers.

Because a squad of power armoured bods with storm bolters and amazing statlines are the equivalent of a T3 mightaswellnothavearmour save bod, right?

Audustum wrote:
We can't really though. Not at the top league. The really competitive stuff curb stomp mono-GK.

This is basically it right here. The needle may shift because we have new powers and stratagems before other people do, but that is only temporary.

GK can be balanced without an improved smite. But a buff would have to happen somewhere to improve Grey Knights. We cannot hold a candle to the more powerful factions, and are below the middle of the pack. In major tournaments, pretty much everyone is doing better than Grey Knights. Including Orks.

Audustum wrote:
Nobody is asking for an instant win button. They're comparing them against the strongest things in the game because some people actually do play this competitively. Some of those people are Grey Knight players too.

We can't really though. Not at the top league. The really competitive stuff curb stomp mono-GK. Having real smite, at least on characters, would help with that. A lot if everyone had it

The answer isn't to buff grey knights which are in a perfectly fine spot as they are now. The answer is to nerf the worst offenders such as brims and conscripts. I play competitively and I play GK too. 670 odd points gets you 124 psilencer shots. Are you telling me that isn't competitive? 7 grandmaster dreadknights is also hard for many armies to deal with. Smite needs to be nerfed on it's own. The answer isn't to give everyone D3 damage smite, it's to bring everyone else's smite down to 1 mw and on a 10+ d3 damage.

I'm sorry, but if you're having trouble doing well with GK you're either taking the wrong units, getting outplayed, or you're playing against guard artillery with 100+ conscripts, but what army doesn't have trouble with that?

Arachnofiend wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
150 conscripts getting to fire twice with no counter play or restriction - Yet I can't cast hammer hand twice with the same army for +1 to wound for a single squad. Which do you think does more damage?

Also consider: An entire army of Supreme Command Detachments with Daemon Princes casting warptime on themselves.

Psychic Focus exists for a reason.

Maybe spells that let you move twice are a problem then.

Tanniith wrote:

Audustum wrote:
Nobody is asking for an instant win button. They're comparing them against the strongest things in the game because some people actually do play this competitively. Some of those people are Grey Knight players too.

We can't really though. Not at the top league. The really competitive stuff curb stomp mono-GK. Having real smite, at least on characters, would help with that. A lot if everyone had it

The answer isn't to buff grey knights which are in a perfectly fine spot as they are now. The answer is to nerf the worst offenders such as brims and conscripts. I play competitively and I play GK too. 670 odd points gets you 124 psilencer shots. Are you telling me that isn't competitive? 7 grandmaster dreadknights is also hard for many armies to deal with. Smite needs to be nerfed on it's own. The answer isn't to give everyone D3 damage smite, it's to bring everyone else's smite down to 1 mw and on a 10+ d3 damage.

I'm sorry, but if you're having trouble doing well with GK you're either taking the wrong units, getting outplayed, or you're playing against guard artillery with 100+ conscripts, but what army doesn't have trouble with that?

124 Psilencer Shots at 24", with no AP, at S4. Hitting on 3s, that's 82.67 hits. Wounding on 4s, probably, is 41.33 wounds. With a 3+ save is 13.78 wounds, which does explode into d3 damage apiece.

Congrats! Your shooting killed about three minimum Tactical Squads! You killed (let's average points costs to 18 PPM, counting for special weapons) 250 points, about. Do that two more times to make your points back.

And those Gradnamster Dreadknights are going to be focus fired down FAST. They aren't that scary, or survivable.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Says the people comparing Grey Knights to Primaris Psykers.

Because a squad of power armoured bods with storm bolters and amazing statlines are the equivalent of a T3 mightaswellnothavearmour save bod, right?

They're not directly comparable. The argument being made here is that, if the intent of baby-smite was to keep an army from spamming piles of full strength smite, then primaris psykers should have had some type of babysmite as well, as doing it with them is cheap and effective.

Also, lets not pretend 10+ primaris psykers would not be tedious to get rid of. You can only ever shoot the first one, so if you wanted to get rid of them, you'd have to dedicate decent amounts of firepower to them from each of your squads.

Tanniith wrote:

Audustum wrote:
Nobody is asking for an instant win button. They're comparing them against the strongest things in the game because some people actually do play this competitively. Some of those people are Grey Knight players too.

We can't really though. Not at the top league. The really competitive stuff curb stomp mono-GK. Having real smite, at least on characters, would help with that. A lot if everyone had it

The answer isn't to buff grey knights which are in a perfectly fine spot as they are now. The answer is to nerf the worst offenders such as brims and conscripts. I play competitively and I play GK too. 670 odd points gets you 124 psilencer shots. Are you telling me that isn't competitive?

Yes, I'll tell you that. A ton of Purgation squad Psilencers is not competitive. They are a situational unit which is generally worth including as a single squad. Moreso now with psychic ammunition, but that costs 2 CP and can only affect 1 squad.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 daedalus wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
Says the people comparing Grey Knights to Primaris Psykers.

Because a squad of power armoured bods with storm bolters and amazing statlines are the equivalent of a T3 mightaswellnothavearmour save bod, right?

They're not directly comparable. The argument being made here is that, if the intent of baby-smite was to keep an army from spamming piles of full strength smite, then primaris psykers should have had some type of babysmite as well, as doing it with them is cheap and effective.

Also, lets not pretend 10+ primaris psykers would not be tedious to get rid of. You can only ever shoot the first one, so if you wanted to get rid of them, you'd have to dedicate decent amounts of firepower to them from each of your squads.

Exactly.

And smite spam IS effective with Primaris Psykers. it's worth pointing out too, that with a small points investment, you can do this AND have room for all that nasty artillery. So when stuff does get too close to your lines, boom, smite city.

Tanniith wrote:

Audustum wrote:
Nobody is asking for an instant win button. They're comparing them against the strongest things in the game because some people actually do play this competitively. Some of those people are Grey Knight players too.

We can't really though. Not at the top league. The really competitive stuff curb stomp mono-GK. Having real smite, at least on characters, would help with that. A lot if everyone had it

The answer isn't to buff grey knights which are in a perfectly fine spot as they are now. The answer is to nerf the worst offenders such as brims and conscripts.

Buffing and nerfing are two ways of doing the same thing. You want to move GK relative to others so you can nerf them or buff GK.

I play competitively and I play GK too. 670 odd points gets you 124 psilencer shots. Are you telling me that isn't competitive? 7 grandmaster dreadknights is also hard for many armies to deal with. Smite needs to be nerfed on it's own. The answer isn't to give everyone D3 damage smite, it's to bring everyone else's smite down to 1 mw and on a 10+ d3 damage.

I'm sorry, but if you're having trouble doing well with GK you're either taking the wrong units, getting outplayed, or you're playing against guard artillery with 100+ conscripts, but what army doesn't have trouble with that?

i'll say it: none of that is competitive. All of that will get easily wiped out by artillery, Guilliman parking lot, heavy fliers, Falchion-class super-heavies, Daemons or plasma spam.

Audustum wrote:

I play competitively and I play GK too. 670 odd points gets you 124 psilencer shots. Are you telling me that isn't competitive? 7 grandmaster dreadknights is also hard for many armies to deal with. Smite needs to be nerfed on it's own. The answer isn't to give everyone D3 damage smite, it's to bring everyone else's smite down to 1 mw and on a 10+ d3 damage.

I'm sorry, but if you're having trouble doing well with GK you're either taking the wrong units, getting outplayed, or you're playing against guard artillery with 100+ conscripts, but what army doesn't have trouble with that?

i'll say it: none of that is competitive. All of that will get easily wiped out by artillery, Guilliman parking lot, heavy fliers, Falchion-class super-heavies, Daemons or plasma spam.

Are Demons that overpowered now? I thought most of their "unlimited respawns" shenanigans had been stopped

On the primaris psykers note:

You can't bring more than 15 to a competitive match because of the detachment limits (3, suggested) in Matched Play - and those 15 would be all 3 Supreme Command detachments.

So yes, there is a limit to how many smites you can do; it just comes in the form of FOC detachment limits rather than points.

Niiru wrote:

Audustum wrote:

I play competitively and I play GK too. 670 odd points gets you 124 psilencer shots. Are you telling me that isn't competitive? 7 grandmaster dreadknights is also hard for many armies to deal with. Smite needs to be nerfed on it's own. The answer isn't to give everyone D3 damage smite, it's to bring everyone else's smite down to 1 mw and on a 10+ d3 damage.

I'm sorry, but if you're having trouble doing well with GK you're either taking the wrong units, getting outplayed, or you're playing against guard artillery with 100+ conscripts, but what army doesn't have trouble with that?

i'll say it: none of that is competitive. All of that will get easily wiped out by artillery, Guilliman parking lot, heavy fliers, Falchion-class super-heavies, Daemons or plasma spam.

Are Demons that overpowered now? I thought most of their "unlimited respawns" shenanigans had been stopped

It was mostly from Horrors. We'll have to see if it stays though since I think they got a points bump.

Audustum wrote:

Niiru wrote:

Audustum wrote:

I play competitively and I play GK too. 670 odd points gets you 124 psilencer shots. Are you telling me that isn't competitive? 7 grandmaster dreadknights is also hard for many armies to deal with. Smite needs to be nerfed on it's own. The answer isn't to give everyone D3 damage smite, it's to bring everyone else's smite down to 1 mw and on a 10+ d3 damage.

I'm sorry, but if you're having trouble doing well with GK you're either taking the wrong units, getting outplayed, or you're playing against guard artillery with 100+ conscripts, but what army doesn't have trouble with that?

i'll say it: none of that is competitive. All of that will get easily wiped out by artillery, Guilliman parking lot, heavy fliers, Falchion-class super-heavies, Daemons or plasma spam.

Are Demons that overpowered now? I thought most of their "unlimited respawns" shenanigans had been stopped

It was mostly from Horrors. We'll have to see if it stays though since I think they got a points bump.

Brimstones got a point bump and a smite nerf.

Breng77 wrote:

Audustum wrote:

Niiru wrote:

Audustum wrote:

I play competitively and I play GK too. 670 odd points gets you 124 psilencer shots. Are you telling me that isn't competitive? 7 grandmaster dreadknights is also hard for many armies to deal with. Smite needs to be nerfed on it's own. The answer isn't to give everyone D3 damage smite, it's to bring everyone else's smite down to 1 mw and on a 10+ d3 damage.

I'm sorry, but if you're having trouble doing well with GK you're either taking the wrong units, getting outplayed, or you're playing against guard artillery with 100+ conscripts, but what army doesn't have trouble with that?

i'll say it: none of that is competitive. All of that will get easily wiped out by artillery, Guilliman parking lot, heavy fliers, Falchion-class super-heavies, Daemons or plasma spam.

Are Demons that overpowered now? I thought most of their "unlimited respawns" shenanigans had been stopped

It was mostly from Horrors. We'll have to see if it stays though since I think they got a points bump.

Brimstones got a point bump and a smite nerf.

People didn't take Brimstones for the Smite. They took them as a screen for the Heralds behind them that did Smite.

It's a nerf, but one that arguably shows that GW really doesn't know game design

 MagicJuggler wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

Audustum wrote:

Niiru wrote:

Audustum wrote:

I play competitively and I play GK too. 670 odd points gets you 124 psilencer shots. Are you telling me that isn't competitive? 7 grandmaster dreadknights is also hard for many armies to deal with. Smite needs to be nerfed on it's own. The answer isn't to give everyone D3 damage smite, it's to bring everyone else's smite down to 1 mw and on a 10+ d3 damage.

I'm sorry, but if you're having trouble doing well with GK you're either taking the wrong units, getting outplayed, or you're playing against guard artillery with 100+ conscripts, but what army doesn't have trouble with that?

i'll say it: none of that is competitive. All of that will get easily wiped out by artillery, Guilliman parking lot, heavy fliers, Falchion-class super-heavies, Daemons or plasma spam.

Are Demons that overpowered now? I thought most of their "unlimited respawns" shenanigans had been stopped

It was mostly from Horrors. We'll have to see if it stays though since I think they got a points bump.

Brimstones got a point bump and a smite nerf.

People didn't take Brimstones for the Smite. They took them as a screen for the Heralds behind them that did Smite.

It's a nerf, but one that arguably shows that GW really doesn't know game design

Yeah, the point bump is what I need to see play out much more than the smite nerf.

Here is an idea.

Psychic Focus: Each time a player attempts to manifest the same power after the first they have a cumulative -1 penalty on their attempbto manifest. EXAMPLE: the second time a player attempts to cast The Horror its 2d6 -1. The third time its 2d6-2.

The only exception to this is Smite.

The effects from psychic powers do not stack with themselves.

 daedalus wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
Says the people comparing Grey Knights to Primaris Psykers.

Because a squad of power armoured bods with storm bolters and amazing statlines are the equivalent of a T3 mightaswellnothavearmour save bod, right?

They're not directly comparable. The argument being made here is that, if the intent of baby-smite was to keep an army from spamming piles of full strength smite, then primaris psykers should have had some type of babysmite as well, as doing it with them is cheap and effective.

Also, lets not pretend 10+ primaris psykers would not be tedious to get rid of. You can only ever shoot the first one, so if you wanted to get rid of them, you'd have to dedicate decent amounts of firepower to them from each of your squads.

There is a limit on how many slots you can dedicate to each type though, isnt there? I dont use them, but IIR they are still a HQ slot, meaning they are limited to a maximum of two.

That said, i still do not get this detachment malarky and such.

 DarkStarSabre wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
So 16 Strike Squads would cost you roughly 1700 points.

Comparatively, 16 Primaris Psykers would cost you 640, and they know real smite.

That's a false equivalence and you know it.

One hell of a false equivalence.

16 SQUADS of Grey Knights compared to 16 T3 5+ save single models that take mortal wounds every time they perils within range of a Commissar.

I'm pretty sure the fact that you're getting 80 T4, 3+ save, Storm Bolter and Force Weapon wielding marines is the reason you're a bit more expensive than those 16 T3, 5+ save laspistol wielding psykers. Whether or not your smite is weaker is pretty much a moot point. You could slaughter those 16 psykers with bolter fire alone.

Is this seriously a comparison being made with something other than sarcastic intent? Beyond the impossibility of fielding more than 15 Primaris Psykers in your usual Matched Play game (3 detachments max, typically, and often no duplicate detachments either)... those 80 Marines also bring with them 160 24" Rapid Firing STR 4 shots. And 80 AP-3 Damage D3 melee hits. And have access to the six Sanctic powers to the Primaris Psyker's three in the Psykana tree.

But yes I guess if you ignore all that then 16 mortal wounds on a 4+ each that ignores the area effect of Perils doesn't sound as impressive as 16 d3 mortal wounds on a 5+ each with a chance to cause d6 mortal wounds on a 10+ w/Perils' area of effect.

In that case Repulsors need a massive buff because the base version only comes with two Storm Bolters and a full squad of ten Grey Knights gets 10 Storm Bolters for way cheaper. Repulsors should cost 21ppm, get Babysmite and access to Sanctic - ignore all the other weapons and stuff it gets until they're on the board, it's not pertinent to this discussion.

The meta is still shaking out, and we're only three Codices into 8th - and who knows how massively things will shift yet again when GW releases their Matched Play ruleset magnum opus in December, let alone other Codices. It's likely if there are big balance changes to some of the current major offenders, or perceived major offenders, in the present-day meta (such as Conscripts+Commissars+Orders) they will be contained in that book... probably until the relevant Codex comes out.

And I don't believe we've had a major tournament occur since the CSM and GK Codex came out to yet see or say how those Codices have affected the meta in any kind of meaningful way.

 master of ordinance wrote:

 daedalus wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
Says the people comparing Grey Knights to Primaris Psykers.

Because a squad of power armoured bods with storm bolters and amazing statlines are the equivalent of a T3 mightaswellnothavearmour save bod, right?

They're not directly comparable. The argument being made here is that, if the intent of baby-smite was to keep an army from spamming piles of full strength smite, then primaris psykers should have had some type of babysmite as well, as doing it with them is cheap and effective.

Also, lets not pretend 10+ primaris psykers would not be tedious to get rid of. You can only ever shoot the first one, so if you wanted to get rid of them, you'd have to dedicate decent amounts of firepower to them from each of your squads.

There is a limit on how many slots you can dedicate to each type though, isnt there? I dont use them, but IIR they are still a HQ slot, meaning they are limited to a maximum of two.

That said, i still do not get this detachment malarky and such.

10 Primaris Psykers is just 2 Supreme Command Detachments.
Though if you are playing in an event that limits the number of detachments, or have a general convention locally that limits you that's a lot of detachments set aside for Primaris Psykers.

 master of ordinance wrote:

There is a limit on how many slots you can dedicate to each type though, isnt there? I dont use them, but IIR they are still a HQ slot, meaning they are limited to a maximum of two.

That said, i still do not get this detachment malarky and such.

It's technically stuck under the rules for organized play, or whatever it's called. They make recommendations for number of detachments allowed at a given point level, but it's not really understatement to call it "recommendations".

So it's technically there and "a good thing" and everyone's been adhering to it so far from what I've seen, but I'm going to call it half a step above a "house rule".

Regardless, GW's current convention is that at 2000 points, you'll be allowed 3 detachments, though I think various tournament scenes have been doing 2. Regardless, two gets you 10 primaris psykers max, and whatever I said earlier for the crazy number of astropaths you can bring. The primaris spam list was seriously something we were considering surprisingly competitive in the AM tactics thread a couple weeks ago.

 Lance845 wrote:
Here is an idea.

Psychic Focus: Each time a player attempts to manifest the same power after the first they have a cumulative -1 penalty on their attempbto manifest. EXAMPLE: the second time a player attempts to cast The Horror its 2d6 -1. The third time its 2d6-2.

The only exception to this is Smite.

The effects from psychic powers do not stack with themselves.

Okay im just going to point out the obvious here. Smite being able to be cast multiple times, just like most spells, is a bad Idea. Worst case Senario I can think of is Magnus dumping out 21 mortal wounds on average with Ahriman and a couple other exalted sorcerers you could easily push that number over 50 and not break 1k points.

He clearly means that the same dude still can't case the same spell multiple times, but that each dude after the first can cast again at increasing difficulty.

 BoomWolf wrote:
He clearly means that the same dude still can't case the same spell multiple times, but that each dude after the first can cast again at increasing difficulty.

Your right not sure why my brain went there. But still imagine Purifier Squads all casting thier AOE Smite and Vortex of doom every turn.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
He clearly means that the same dude still can't case the same spell multiple times, but that each dude after the first can cast again at increasing difficulty.

Your right not sure why my brain went there. But still imagine Purifier Squads all casting thier AOE Smite and Vortex of doom every turn.

Lets clear up some other misconceptions here.

I am NOT proposing that you change how many powers a unit can manifest. Simply wether or not the same power can be manifested more than once a turn.

Purfiers know Smite and 1 other power. Purifiers can manifest 1 power in each psychic phase and can deny 1 power.

I am NOT saying that Purifiers should instead be able to manifest 2 powers a turn. I AM saying that if you have 3 units of Purfiers and they all want to manifest Vortex (WC value 8) that the first unit could cast it normally, the second would have a -1 (effectively making it WC 9) and the last would have a -2 (making it WC 10). They would NOT be able to cast both Smite and Vortex each. Simply that by one casting Vortex it would not remove the ability for every other unit in the army from casting it. By the time the 5th unit in the army attempts to cast Vortex they would only succeed on a 12 which would also cause a perils and be incredibly unlikely to go off at all.


People are correct that psychic focus does not scale at all and is bull gak for that reason. It hinders psychic heavy armies. It's nonsense. It's also true that there needs to be practical limitations. A escalation of difficulty and the inability for buffs/debuffs to stack are a practical soft cap that allows psychic armies to scale up with the higher point games without making them disgustingly powerful.

I agree (and I still dislike grey knights on principle after the hugely overpowered MattWard codex from way back...)

Mark.

 Lance845 wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
He clearly means that the same dude still can't case the same spell multiple times, but that each dude after the first can cast again at increasing difficulty.

Your right not sure why my brain went there. But still imagine Purifier Squads all casting thier AOE Smite and Vortex of doom every turn.

Lets clear up some other misconceptions here.

I am NOT proposing that you change how many powers a unit can manifest. Simply wether or not the same power can be manifested more than once a turn.

Purfiers know Smite and 1 other power. Purifiers can manifest 1 power in each psychic phase and can deny 1 power.

I am NOT saying that Purifiers should instead be able to manifest 2 powers a turn. I AM saying that if you have 3 units of Purfiers and they all want to manifest Vortex (WC value 8) that the first unit could cast it normally, the second would have a -1 (effectively making it WC 9) and the last would have a -2 (making it WC 10). They would NOT be able to cast both Smite and Vortex each. Simply that by one casting Vortex it would not remove the ability for every other unit in the army from casting it. By the time the 5th unit in the army attempts to cast Vortex they would only succeed on a 12 which would also cause a perils and be incredibly unlikely to go off at all.


People are correct that psychic focus does not scale at all and is bull gak for that reason. It hinders psychic heavy armies. It's nonsense. It's also true that there needs to be practical limitations. A escalation of difficulty and the inability for buffs/debuffs to stack are a practical soft cap that allows psychic armies to scale up with the higher point games without making them disgustingly powerful.

One small note is that battle-forged GKs get a +1 to Psychic tests and Deny the Witch - the latter being something most people have ignored. On top of every unit being able to manifest Psychic powers they can also Deny the Witch at least once each.

I do like the idea, though. I feel like it'd still require a balance pass over Psychic powers - or maybe have a higher escalation for successful ones vs failures. Like a stacking -2 to manifest if another unit/attempt to manifest it was successful in that turn, and a -1 if another unit/attempt failed to manifest it in that turn.

Otherwise, Vortex doesn't necessarily beat out Purge Souls - which, other than Perils, has no risk for the caster and with most non-character units being LD8 vs a GK strike squad's LD8 lets you cause a max of 6 mortal wounds (and an 'average' of ~3) to a target unit on a 4+ w/2d6. Even with only the -1 that means you could spam Purge Souls at least 3 times before casting it again is as difficult as using Vortex. 3d6 mortal wounds? Hitting WC12 w/only a -1 means you can cause up to 8d6+/-LD difference mortal wounds in a single Psychic phase.