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There is no question that they are in the top three armies of the game and I would not take anyone who said otherwise seriously. But, really, they did not rack up the dominating string of generalship wins that the SW or even IG did in their first year of play.

The worst thing about them is that they kind of break the metagame for the sub par armies in various ways, mostly due to the Vindicare assasin and Cleansing Flame. Put them head to head against a competitive SW list spamming Grey Hunters and Long Wangs, and well those psyflemen die pretty damn fast. They are not exactly lighting it up against Guard, either. Honestly, delete cleansing flame and the Vindi Assasin, make henchmen units minimum 5 man, then price up the psy ammo upgrade and crusaders. Tada balanced book. Of course, SW and IG would still be OPed in various ways.

What I do find amusing is that the most vocal bitching I hear about GKs when I play them comes from bandwagoning Space Wolf Counts As players, who do not like altering their army to account for what GKs bring to the table. I went through this in Fantasy, with people who thought they were geniouses because they could ram six Brett Busses down people's throats and win every game suddenly getting beat because the metagame changed. Aside from losing, people hate adapting their armies more than anything.

Frothmog wrote:I think the biggest factor to the Grey Knights success is the ability to have seriously broken troops and STR 8 TL Auto cannon Dreads.

Paladins and Terminators are nice but not really under priced power houses like the dreads and purifiers. Taking them costs a ton of points so it kind of balances out.

Purifiers on the other hand are 120 points for 5 guys in power armor with force weapons, stormbolters, 2 base attacks, their two psychic powers, fearless and whatever other abilities that help them against daemons and psychics.

Yes... They're still a 3+ save. Die just like any other marines.

To get them you only need what? A 150 point HQ choice?

Who is really underwhelming and hard to use in comparison with their other choices. He's almost guaranteed to give up a kill point.

I am not sure how everyone else reads the purifying flame ability but I have seen people playing it as if two squads assault one other unit then they both get their flame attacks and do 20 hits to 10 guys... Perhaps that is not how it should be played but even without it they are totally broken.

To add on to that 120 points the upgrades are as cheap as 2 points per halberd and 5 points for a Hammer!? 10 points for up to 4 heavy weapons in a 10 man squad? So their troops are basically heavy-elites. And all 6 slots of troops can be that? At least in orks its only one squad of Nobs per warboss...

Your interpretation of the power is not quite the same as mine. I think you'd have to fully resolve one of the powers before you could cast the other. I really don't feel like hammers are that amazing. Seriously. GK are still very much so a shooty army. They just don't have the numbers to hold up in melee, especially when they go last. I think the Storm Shield part of the TH/SS combo is really the big deal, which is something they can't get for any point value. Also, note that you're comparing a late 4th edition codex to a late 5th edition codex.

Compare the cost to any other troops choice in any other codex. For the same point cost of a unit of Purifiers can you see the other codex's being near as broken?

Well, there's IG Vets with plasma in a chimera. That's pretty comparable, and could shoot the purifiers to pieces. Deathwing Termies are really strong right now. They're a bit more expensive than 5 Purifiers, but I bet they could probably handle 10 of them, including cyclone missile launcher shots.

Space marine Troops - 90 points, 5 guys in power armor, 4 have only 1 base attack, and all with only a boltgun and bolt pistol, 1 guy can be upgraded... to what.. at 120 points a 5 man space marine squad has one guy with a power weapon and plasma pistol? Or fist and ... 5 extra points? Oh yea.. that is fair...

I do not think you understand opportunity cost. Also, explain to me then how fair it is that fire dragons are only 10 points, while an evenly equipped IG vet would be 20? My belief has always been that if all the armies had the same capabilities for the same costs, it would be a boring game indeed.

Ork troops - Base cost 10 boyz 60 points, Nob with Klaw, Big Shoota, and Bosspole = 45, so at 105 we have 15 points left. Woo hoo 2 more boyz and 3 extra points!

Or you could have 6 base nobz...Dying to the force weapons...

Oh and yea.. the dreadnought is the same as the space marine except for a couple points more and then with a 5 point upgrade has incredibly better weapons.

GK Dreadnoughts are comparable to longfangs. I'd go into the reasons why, but if I type them out too much more, my posts might be construed as spam because of how repetitive I sound. Search for the last one of these threads from about two weeks ago if you wish to be enlightened, rather than just angry.

Phazael wrote:There is no question that they are in the top three armies of the game and I would not take anyone who said otherwise seriously. But, really, they did not rack up the dominating string of generalship wins that the SW or even IG did in their first year of play.

Agreed.

Long Wangs,

Not sure if intentional, but still hilarious.

Phazael wrote:The worst thing about them is that they kind of break the metagame for the sub par armies in various ways

I think you just hit the nail on the head right here. People are angry that the game changed with the introduction of a new army. Shooty Orks are now the way to go to avoid Purifier spam, Nids need to go to horde tactics rather than MC spam, Blood Angels actually need to consider for a moment before assaulting.

This is a 'good thing.'

The only thing I really dislike about GK is the fortitude on Dreads. The TL STR 8, I can deal with, but the Fortitude is just too much.


And Daedalus, Dark Eldar Massed Poison killed TMC, before GK could beat the Dead horse with Force weaponry. That being said, I still love my Trygons.

GK aren't OP. Neither are SW or IG. However, the factor that SW and GK have in common that gets them misidentified as OP so often is that both are comparatively easy to use thanks to their extreme flexibility. Compare these armies to an army like Eldar that relies on the interplay of specialist units in order to win and the difference becomes readily apparent. GK take this to the next level with the Fortitude ability allowing the army to recover easily from what could otherwise be very harsh shooting phases, making it harder for GK to be caught out by mistakes in the same way that other armies can.

To use an example from my own experience, I once played a tournament game against a mechanized Blood Angels player who fielded many Razorbacks. At one point, he had his Razorbacks squeezing through terrain in a column formation, and I concentrated my fire on the front Razorback, stunning it and forcing the other vehicles to use lengthy paths and move through difficult terrain to circumvent the block. In doing so, his forces were not only delayed in reaching me but the terrain immobilized other Razorbacks, hurting the army further. GK are much less vulnerable to this sort of tactic, which means they have less to lose from sloppy or imprecise movement.

Overall, I think Codex: GK is in line with the rest of the 5e Codices-- they're all at about the same level in the hands of a good player.

What you should be looking at are ratios. The ratio of number of people using that army in a particular tournament to the number appearing in say the top ten of that tournament.

That will demonstrate the armies hitting above their weight. At the moment i'm looking favourably on SW tbh.

Hulk just wrote a nice article about Codex Creep on his blog which is pretty applicable, especially considering Frothmog's post earlier.

http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2011/12/codex-creep-myth-and-legend-2-unit.html

Jesus Christo that was fast Petre I just posted that like 10 minutes ago even if I have been working on it since this morning.

Hulksmash wrote:Jesus Christo that was fast Petre I just posted that like 10 minutes ago even if I have been working on it since this morning.

Google Reader and tabbed browsing is your friend. Little (1) pops up and I go find out what all my stalkees are saying today.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I noticed that Shuma de-friended me. :(

Sasori wrote:The only thing I really dislike about GK is the fortitude on Dreads. The TL STR 8, I can deal with, but the Fortitude is just too much.


And Daedalus, Dark Eldar Massed Poison killed TMC, before GK could beat the Dead horse with Force weaponry. That being said, I still love my Trygons.

Cruddace broke the Nidzilla list with his ludicrously overpriced Harpies, Canifexes, and Hive Tyrants. The whole Tervigon Poop Factory craze was just a minor death spasm before DE came along and beat them with a shovel.

mortetvie wrote:I kind of feel miffed in that you are knocking the skill it takes to play Eldar and Dark Eldar vs GK...

Sorry, don't be miffed. Eldar != Dark Eldar. Getting something out of Eldar's overspecialized units is hard, and needs a plan, playing a field of Venoms that fire 12 - 24 poison shots a piece is easy.

mortetvie wrote:I mean are you really trying to say the Eldar armies are on par with GK as far as cost effectiveness and "op-ness" and skill required to play?

No, I think Eldar (just Eldar, not Dark Eldar) are completely out dated, underpowered and have to be fine tuned to be good at all. Strangely though, runes of Warding are great vs GKs.
Dark Eldar, however, completely different.

mortetvie wrote:I've played against GK (and have not lost with my Eldar mind you) and AS GK (I have a thousand sons army counts as GK atm). GK are like easy mode compared to any Eldar equivalent.

Yes, like easy mode compared to Eldar.

Hulksmash wrote:Jesus Christo that was fast Petre I just posted that like 10 minutes ago even if I have been working on it since this morning.

pretre wrote:Hulk just wrote a nice article about Codex Creep on his blog which is pretty applicable, especially considering Frothmog's post earlier.

http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2011/12/codex-creep-myth-and-legend-2-unit.html

It's very well stated, Hulk.

I've noticed a long running issue with the way people look at supposedly "OP" units is the same way they assume GW does playtesting: A vacuum.

Fetterkey wrote:Overall, I think Codex: GK is in line with the rest of the 5e Codices--...

I completely disagree, Grey Knights have no disadvantages, thats why it's a bad codex and OP. It's an army that reads and plays as if it was designed by juveniles with a "let's make everything awesome" mentality. Great in Melee, great at shooting, all power weapons, all move and fire, 24 inch plus ranges, great psychic offense great psychic defense, most resilient vehicles in the game, mobility and heavy armor, dreadnoughts, monstrous creatures, mega characters, specialist units, 'build your own' army changing characters, scoring unit army manipulation.

It's one thing to have an army with cool new powers, and another to make an army that just does everything, and well. It's creatively, thematically, and practically simple minded: just make it all do everything!


Furthermore it is filled with as much or more game breaking precedent than anything ever published:

Mindstrike missiles break the targeting rules
Scoring vehicles
Vehicles with psychic powers
Units with collective psychic powers
Egregious cover manipulation
Changing the stat lines of other models
Immunity to deep strike
Teleporting for movement
...

Playing vs Grey Knights is like playing a different game.

Also:

pretre wrote:

Long Wangs,

Not sure if intentional, but still hilarious.

as an Eldarplayer I have this to say:

so what, GK happened:



.

Just because GK happens the world didn't end. In most tournaments BA will be just as succesfull as they were before, and even though I play with a fething handicap (Eldar!), I have no problems in staying on the toptables and/or keeping up with the best players around.

Just fething deal with it and suck it up.

.

Srsly, 40k needs something like Warmachines page5

Augustus wrote:Furthermore it is filled with as much or more game breaking precedent than anything ever published:

You are so far off that it is hilarious. All but one were in other codexes.

Mindstrike missiles break the targeting rules

C:SW, Jaws

Scoring vehicles

C: DA, Ravenwing

Vehicles with psychic powers

C: BA, Librarian Dread

Units with collective psychic powers

C: IG, PBS

Egregious cover manipulation

Not sure what you're getting at... Stealth? Try every codex.

Changing the stat lines of other models

C: Tyranids (Lash Whips).

Immunity to deep strike

I'll give you this one.

Teleporting for movement

C: SM, Gate. Heck, 3rd Edition Necrons, Veil.

Sorry, I just can't let this one go by.

Augustus wrote:
Mindstrike missiles break the targeting rules

JoTWW, Blood Lance. JoTWW got faqed, but I am still not sure how Blood Lance works. This is not the place to have that conversation.

Scoring vehicles

I thought there was one other, but I agree, scoring Dreads is stupid.

Vehicles with psychic powers

Librarian Dreadnoughts?

Units with collective psychic powers

Sanctioned Psykers?

Egregious cover manipulation

Not sure what you mean here... we'll go with Tyrant Guard/Hive Tyrant as a counter though. Depending on what you meant, there might have been others.

Changing the stat lines of other models

Weaken Resolve, Lash Whip, Commander Dante, hell, depending on how loosely you define 'changing stat lines', we could include thunder hammers.

Immunity to deep strike

I assume you mean Warp Quake? Yes, it is definitely a stupid power. No arguments here.

Teleporting for movement
...

Okay... did you complain when bikes could first turboboost, or when fast skimmers became able to move flat out?

Playing vs Grey Knights is like playing a different game.

It's like playing a 5th edition game, apparently.

/highfive daedalus

Indeed. Skillful ninja job there sir.

daedalus wrote:
GK Dreadnoughts are comparable to longfangs. I'd go into the reasons why, but if I type them out too much more, my posts might be construed as spam because of how repetitive I sound. Search for the last one of these threads from about two weeks ago if you wish to be enlightened, rather than just angry.

I was trying to be more sarcastic than angry, it may not have come out well because before I could review my own post someone suggested going to lunch and I just clicked Submit quick to go.

I admit I have not played against Grey Knights much. I played one at the second round of 'Ard Boyz who I think could have had a better list.

He only had two of the auto cannon dreads, 6 full 10 man squads of purifiers with max psycannons, 5 halberds, combat squad-ed with Psybacks, Crowe, and a inquisitor with one of the nasty hit yourself grenades.

But playing him did point out how effective those two units are. I think one of the things to point out is that yes they are still just 3+ save marines, it isn't only about how easy they die but also how good they kill.

I would honestly not play more than 4 full 10 man squads. It would give room for more Dreads which I think would have given him more high str long range fire power.

Before I ever played anyone I was starting to build my own army and I just recently got a few games in with it. I have only played 3 games with them and won each one. First three games with a new army and I beat people who have been playing the armies they had for much longer.

One was close. Dice are always a factor too. I am not even playing the purifier list though. I do have two AC dreads but the rest of the army is Draigo, paladins, terminators and occasionally I drop a Termi squad for a Dread knight.

The way that Grey Knights messes with the force organization chart by putting what are normally heavy-elites in troops and letting you take walkers in heavy and elite is a great to be honest. I wish more codices were that flexible. Which may be where they are headed. Perhaps Orks will eventually let All troops be Nobz with Ghaz

pretre wrote:

Augustus wrote:Furthermore it is filled with as much or more game breaking precedent than anything ever published:

You are so far off that it is hilarious. All but one were in other codexes.

You're so defending the codex (and wrong too) it's hilarious, congrats I dub thee defender of the cheese. Allow me to take your rose colored glasses off with some additional details.

pretre wrote:

Mindstrike missiles break the targeting rules

C:SW, Jaws

NEW: For killing Psykers, it's a completely new problem, it also has absurd range, much worse than jaws, and different. Everyone knows JOTWW is broken, why would continuing THAT trend make a good rule? It doesn't.

pretre wrote:

Scoring vehicles

C: DA, Ravenwing

NEW: Scoring vehicles that you can define on the fly during a setup

pretre wrote:

Vehicles with psychic powers

C: BA, Librarian Dread

NEW ALL Vehicles with psychic powers

pretre wrote:

Units with collective psychic powers

C: IG, PBS

Sorry, right,... how about Whole armies of scoring troop Units with collective psychic powers

pretre wrote:

Egregious cover manipulation

Not sure what you're getting at... Stealth? Try every codex.

NEW: Shroud hides tanks. +1 cover for vehicles

pretre wrote:

Changing the stat lines of other models

C: Tyranids (Lash Whips).

Changing the Toughness stat lines of other models

pretre wrote:

Immunity to deep strike

I'll give you this one.

Yes you will, because even the biggest advocates can't explain that.

pretre wrote:

Teleporting for movement

C: SM, Gate. Heck, 3rd Edition Necrons, Veil.

NEW: Teleporting for movement turbo boosting jump packs and monstrous creatures.

and just for fun

Everything hunter: Tank Hunter but for... EVERYTHING (Psybolt amo)

Mindstrike missiles break the targeting rules

So deploy your IC psyker in such a way that the raven won't get decent los (or stick him in a vehicle).

Scoring vehicles

Actually scoring Dreadnoughts (but saying 'vehicles' makes it sound much worse doesn't it). So that means that maybe those dreadnoughts need taken out in 2/3 of games. but of course they weren't going to be a high priority target for you anyway, were they? And only if you have a GM, which the most popular GK builds don't.

Vehicles with psychic powers

With one psychic power. And admittedly a good one. Bit like having ubiquitous S8 weapons that make all AV13+ into AV12 wouldn't you say? Like Evil Space Fairies have?

Units with collective psychic powers

Yeah, disgusting. Bit like having 'Preferred Enemy - Everyone' (Templars) or near-universal Fleet (Evil Space Fairies) on assault units that also have the potential for stacking FNP and other special rules.

Egregious cover manipulation

If the GK have an expensive psyker, and not so egregious if the enemy have a hood or those silly rune thingies.

Changing the stat lines of other models

Not sure about what you mean by this but both Evil Space Fairies and the Silly Vampire Marines have characters who casn adjust the stat line of their own and/or enemy models.

Immunity to deep strike

Another exaggeration unless you are looking at armies with a lot of strike or interceptor squads (to which most of your other complaints wound not then apply). yes, if you play demons against a strike/interceptor army then you're not going to have a good time and I agree that's a bit poor really.

Teleporting for movement

which adds over well 50% to the basic cost of the unit for dreadknights and 30% for interceptors. That's quite a hefty premium for a one-shot ability that denies assaulting opportunity in the turn its performed.

Augustus wrote:You're so defending the codex (and wrong too) it's hilarious, congrats I dub thee defender of the cheese. Allow me to take your rose colored glasses off with some additional details.

I'm not defending the codex, I'm defending sanity. You're that far off.

NEW: For killing Psykers, it's a completely new problem, it also has absurd range, much worse than jaws, and different. Everyone knows JOTWW is broken, why would continuing THAT trend make a good rule? It doesn't.

Eversor assassins. 3rd edition.

NEW: Scoring vehicles that you can define on the fly during a setup

Moving the goalpost, I see. Okay, so what. Scoring vehicles are something we already had. IG has squad sizes they can define on the fly during setup. That's a pretty big deal for scoring, in fact I would say bigger than scoring vehicles.

NEW ALL Vehicles with psychic powers

Wrong. Not all their vehicles have psychic powers. Chimera. I think you meant 'lots'. So yawn.

Sorry, right,... how about Whole armies of scoring troop Units with collective psychic powers

Yawn, still wrong.

NEW: Shroud hides tanks. +1 cover for vehicles

4+ cover for all vehicles. C: Orks.

Changing the Toughness stat lines of other models

Zogwort. /double Yawn.

NEW: Teleporting for movement turbo boosting jump packs and monstrous creatures.

It's not turbo-boosting. It is a 30 inch move. Geeze. Get your complaints right and stop moving the goal posts. Yawn.

Everything hunter: Tank Hunter but for... EVERYTHING (Psybolt amo)

So weapons with bigger strength? For more points? Oh noes. I'll give you +1 Strength.

So so far, you've got Psybolt and Warp Quake. 2 new mechanics.

Augustus, I see what you wrote, but all I actually get from the message is "I am unhappy that the each codex released has anything in it beyond the same stat lines, weapon profiles, and USRs that the previous one had."

Hommunculi have pain tokens you can distribute during setup, right? It's not scoring, I know, but it's similar.

Inquisitorial Chimera don't have Fortitude.

What does the fact that they're scoring have to do with the fact that they have collective psychic powers? I mean, I can specify complaints, and then continue to narrow the constraints of what I'm complaining about until it becomes valid set of constraints, but then the complaint loses its impact.

Concerning Shrouding, see KFF.

You didn't mention Toughness before hand. Again, does it matter that there's been no precedent for THAT SPECIFIC STATISTIC? Did it make you mad that they created a unit called the "Strike Squad", simply because there was no precedent for a unit with that name existing?

I don't really know what else to say at this point. I mean, if you don't want the game to change, which it really seems like is the underlying problem here, then go play 4th edition. Pretend none of the 5th edition stuff ever came out. You'll probably be happier, and I'm sure there are quite a few people who would be up for that.

OMG Daedalus, Did you hear that Tyranids have a model that make more models???? That has never been done before!!!!

So you're mad because a new codex has stuff that other codexes don't have?

Old Necron Tomb Spiders. :p

Still. I have to partially agree with Augustus. IG are strong. SW are strong. GK are just stupid. Like fanfic, over the top stupid. That's what bothers me (and I'm sure a lot of other people too).

Ozymandias wrote: IG are strong. SW are strong. GK are just stupid.

Results say otherwise.

Specifically they say all 3 are in the same ballpark.

Yeah, I guess they are. Oh well.

pretre wrote:OMG Daedalus, Did you hear that Tyranids have a model that make more models???? That has never been done before!!!!

Egad! You offered me such a start my monocle nearly popped off in utter shock! T'was merely through sheer providence I was able to maintain control upon it.