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Everybody says that GK are a long range army. But what about the Termies, I'm not sure whether to stay back and shoot with them or go up and assualt.

Here is the profile for anybody who doesn't know:

ws5, bs4, s4, t4, w1, i4, a2, ld10, sv2+,5+*

fearless
storm bolter and Nemesis force weapon (adds +2 strength so s6 in cc)
one can have incinerator (s5, ap4 no invulnerable save or cover save, template, assualt)+15pts
or Psycannon (s6, ap4 no invulnerable save, heavy 3 (range 36"), assualt 3 (range 18")+25pts

So are they cc or far range.

Discuss please.

I think the reason that GKs tend to be a long range army is that they want to hang back a few turns to soften up the enemy before they advance. Every PAGK lost is a 25 point investment. That means they aren't going too have the model count some armies can bring.

Terminators are pretty decent when they bring it in close but things like plasma rifles and cannons can really do a number on them if they aren't out of a transport and into combat the same turn. Also power weapons (and fists) are very deadly to both flavors of GK.

I think the best way to think of a GK in terms of survivability is that its a more expensive SM. They have some good punch in close, excellent armor but are generally only i4 and can't match many assault units in number of attacks thrown.

Also the shrouding is sort of nifty.

Cheers
~Volkan

Also Necron Lords w/ warsythes are a peeing nuisance in cc. No save at all.

It used to be pretty common for guard players to use a small unit or two, 3-4 models each, of GK termies with 2 psycannons as a long-range fire support and countercharge unit. They hang back at the 31-36" range band as much as possible, staying in range and maxing the shrouding, then charge them in against anything that assaults your lines.

But armies are much more mobile now than they were then and guard have enough goodies, and I'm not sure that this application would be useful in a pure GK force.

Also the termies can deepstrike, so that somewhat offsets part of the mobility problems that a GK army has.

all GK units are usable as both a ranged and a CC unit. it all depends on your strategy, what you're playing against, and what kind of game it is. GKTs are good ambush units; bring them over to a infantry unit that's going to be causing you lots of problems and KILL THEM. but be careful not to lose them.... lol.

May I just point out (because a lot of people get this wrong), PAGK can have 2 special weapons, GK Terminators can only have ONE!!! But the Brother Captain/Grand Master can have one, however they are not a part of this thread.

AND the units in terminator armor can move and shoot with them. it balances out, in a way. But then again, the smurf termies can take up to 2 heavy weapons (for a 10 man squad)... wtf?

With PAGK or GK terminators you definatly want to take advantage of the shrouding. Keep your distance and shoot as much as you can. Only assault late game when you need to move an enemy off of an objective.

Psycannons and GK Flamers can be taken as wargear for the Squad leaders.

Bringing Termies to two and PAGK to 3 per squad. Costs 5 points extra, but is really useful.

Allows a PAGK Squad from heavy support to have 5 Psycannons......

Kind of. While an elite Brother Captain can upgrade to the heavy weapon for 2 heavies per squad of GKT (BC + 2-9 GKT, or GK Hero + 3-9 GKT), a Justicar (PAGK sergeant) cannot exchange his weapons. That means that a PAGK squad that is a troop or fast choice can only have 2 heavy weapons, while a heavy choice PAGK squad can have up to 4. Also, PAGK troop/fast squads have a size limit of 5 (Justicar + 4-9 knights), which works out 200ps for 5 Knights with 2 psycannons, or 254pts for 4 GKT with 2 psycannons. For 345pts, you can have 3 psycannons in a 5 knight squad of GKT (Hero + elite squad of 4).

Playing GK is playing a metagame all on its own, where you blance out your numbers to achieve the best effect you can with a limited number of models. Which means that the last thing you want to do is lose expensive models to close combat where their range abilities are useless and their low numbers + fearless works against them.

SJ

Fearless does not work against you in CC. Losing a couple of models to No Retreat is still far better than getting wiped out by a sweeping advance, or getting chased off the table.

They're both, is the simple answer. The S6 I4 power weapons will beat the heads off most anything in CC, however tooling them up with Psycannons and allowing them to roam the backfield is also effective thanks to The Shrouding and The Aegis (free Psychic Hood for the squad is win, especially for a footslogging unit).

The only problem is that, while they're generally more effective in either role than non-Assault Terminators, they're also vastly more expensive; 300pts is what you pay for a squad of 4, a Brother-Captain, and 2 Psycannons. 230pts gets you the same number of Termies with a Cyclone Launcher.

I always see GK hold back for the simple reason that you have to roll to see them, and when they get close then you move up and charge, but if you can sit at range and shoot them without taking heavy fire in return, why wouldn't you.

doubled wrote:I always see GK hold back for the simple reason that you have to roll to see them, and when they get close then you move up and charge, but if you can sit at range and shoot them without taking heavy fire in return, why wouldn't you.

Because you have to pay so many points per model that attempting to stay back and kill your enemy at range severely reduces the killing power of your units: you may not be able to kill enough stuff to win using this tactic.

I like GKTs with holocaust and then an IC that can holocaust too. It makes for scary-fun-death-time.

I use my PAGK and my GK Terminators in a big assault using IST rhinos and GK land rider, and after that, keep firing the nearly units who can easily kill my GK in CC. And this tactic usually works fine, cause in the first rounds, enemy can't firing me if they are in a combat, and after kill many units i'm free to shoot the rest of the enemy army. Sometimes i use the terminator squads in DS while the justicars have teleport hommer, and it works too.
I think the most important here is find the balance between assault and firing, to don't kill the enemy too fast.

GK Termies are for assault unless your playing a very large point game and have points to spare.

They are the best of both worlds if you must compare them to SM termies,

-LC termies strike at intiative, reroll wound, but are Str 4 and have no ranged attacks for inbetween assaults

-TH/SS termies strike at intiative 1, but are Str 8 and again have no ranged attacks for inbetween assaults

-GK termies strike at intiative, are WS 5, and are Str 6 and still bring storm bolters or Incinerators(heavy flamer that ignores inv. saves too)

yes you can bring them to shoot, but their bonuses to shooting over PAGK are limited to better armor and fireing Psycannons at max range while moving(remember a PAGK can still fire it and move but its range goes down to 18 instead of 36). Those two bonuses arent worth almost twice the cost of a PAGK for shooting.

i usually bring one of them armed with a TH for armor as the 2 bonus str lets you have a chance against 13-14 armor, and if you bring them as a retinue the BC or GM can take hammerhead instead and provide the same thing.

my hope is in the new dex the knights get more defensive measures to help keep our expensive termies alive without being forced into storm shields....or at least maybe let us have FNW and SS!

edit: change hit to wound on LC, coffee hasnt kicked in yet

Zmanzeta wrote:I use my PAGK and my GK Terminators in a big assault using IST rhinos and GK land rider...

Do you mean to put PAGK inside IST rhinos? I thought the BRB FAQ denied that. I don't remember the exact phrase, but it does say that if the codex specify dedicated trasnport, then it can only transport the models who bought it.

EDIT: Spelling

Did someone mention something about a new codex for GK? Is it coming within the next decade? haha.

Along with being the coolest looking unit in the game, GK termies are a beast in all aspects. You can hang back with dual psycannons and punish ork hordes, or you can load them up in a LR and drive em straight into wraithlords and whatnot. I usually end up having them footslog it up to some good cover while firing their psycannons at max range. I usually keep them in a squad of 6 or 7. Despite how it looks, sometimes it is a really bad idea to be over aggresive with GKs. Charging them in too fast, especially against hordes, can lead to them dying quickly, leaving a 400 pt hole in your heart.

I hang back and shoot as long as possible, using the shrouding to my advantage. There is usually only 1 round, maybe 2 of CC before the game is over. And if youve rolled well enough, and used dreads to take out any heavy fire support the enemy has, you should demolish them in close combat.

Cover is your friend, let him come to you, protect yourself against starcannons and the like, and then let him have some initiative str 6 power weapons cause he has no other choice that late in the game.

And as I've said before, it doesn't matter becuase they'll look damn good no matter what they do!

I regularly play against a pure GK player with my Doublewing, and it's shown me a key problems with GKTs; between Deathwing Assault and vehicle mobility, it's very easy for me to get into a distance that makes the Shrouding meaningless on turn 1. I've never won without pouring more than the GKT unit is worth, points-wise into combat with them (be it ranged or CC), but the fact remains that I can afford to. I don't have the most mobile build, so I can only imagine the problem becomes twice as bad against lots of other competitive armies.

Conversely, the two or three times I've used a 40man allied GKT squad instead of a DW squad, I've hung them back for guarding objectives and general harassment. With equally-hard-to-kill things at closer range, the Shrouding-protected GKTs get ignored and can rain twin Psycannon fire (and even SBs if they're close enough) on infantry.

GKplayer wrote:

Zmanzeta wrote:I use my PAGK and my GK Terminators in a big assault using IST rhinos and GK land rider...

Do you mean to put PAGK inside IST rhinos? I thought the BRB FAQ denied that. I don't remember the exact phrase, but it does say that if the codex specify dedicated trasnport, then it can only transport the models who bought it.

EDIT: Spelling

You missunderstand with the Black Templars who have a special rule about this point. The rest of armies haven't any kind of problem with that. You must put in the deployment the asignated vehicle in the unit, but when game starts, anyone can use this vehicle. Actuall, daemonhunters don't have this kind of problems with it (i have the last FAq i they don't mention anything about this).

Zmanzeta wrote:

GKplayer wrote:

Zmanzeta wrote:I use my PAGK and my GK Terminators in a big assault using IST rhinos and GK land rider...

Do you mean to put PAGK inside IST rhinos? I thought the BRB FAQ denied that. I don't remember the exact phrase, but it does say that if the codex specify dedicated trasnport, then it can only transport the models who bought it.

EDIT: Spelling

You missunderstand with the Black Templars who have a special rule about this point. The rest of armies haven't any kind of problem with that. You must put in the deployment the asignated vehicle in the unit, but when game starts, anyone can use this vehicle. Actuall, daemonhunters don't have this kind of problems with it (i have the last FAq i they don't mention anything about this).

Codex DH, p30, Transports:
"Transports are always taken as an Upgrade for another unit, and may only transport the unit it was bought for. ICs that join a unit with a transport may also be transported in it."

Now i understand why i don't found it in FAQ.
You have the point.
I forgot in my group, cause this codex is really old, we don't follow this limitations cause is the fault of GW to don't update codex to new version or make a good FAQs . But we don't have a BT player. hehehe

You do not want to get into assauly with GK. I believe they are some of the best infantry in the game.

It's not that GK are great at close combat, nor that they are great at range as they do both very well. It's that they cost too much to waste on a specific role, and there are rare occasions when they get to be the best at both.

A GK player needs to focus on defeating the enemy across the table from him by whatever means are available to them. Sound like the same thing for everyone except that some armies can just field so many pieces as to be functionally impossible to defeat in 5 rounds of shooting/fighting. Others can field armies that can steamroll over virtually any unit they encounter in close combat. GK can do neither as they lack numbers due to their high point cost per model.

So, we play a conservative game, shoot the assaulters/assault the shooters, and by whittling down the numbers via firepower until an assault is survivable by our units. We lack good anti-tank units. We have them, we just pay through the nose for them and they take up our heavy slots, or they are egg-shells that need to get too close to be usefull and therefore are easy to pick off at range.

"Hmm, he's got a bunch of Rhinos and no Land Raiders or Dreadnoughts. I'll just shoot all the Rhinos first, that will keep my tanks safe!"

"Hmm, that's a 3-'Raider list. I'll just site here in cover and wait out the clock since he does not have enough to push me off an objective."

"Hmm, 1 LRC and 2 Dreads. Well, I know where his GKT's are. Target priority at it's best!"

Of course, mixed DH lists are both stronger in some ways and weaker in others. Too much IG and it's really a weak IG army with DH allies. Allied Sisters = better IST yet not enough Faith to make them work at their best.

I love playing Grey Knights. It's like playing a metagame all on its own where I try to build a army that is flexible enough to meet most armies yet hard enough to win if played right.

SJ

GKTs are very flexible. They can fill most niche's in a game depending on the situation, but NEVER be reckless, unless recklessness is the only way to victory. Since they aren't a scoring unit, (I) almost always put them into reserves. They're also very high value targets. That's all you need to know.