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Considering they got 49th with the Index and not the Codex, I see your point as completely moot for now.

Of course it's a valid statement that they won't win tournaments. This game hasn't been, isn't, and never will be completely balanced. There always have and always will be armies that are at the bottom, top, and middle. I feel GK are currently solidly in the middle in terms of power. You won't win tournaments with an army in the middle of the power tier. It won't happen. And you can't expect all armies to be valid top contenders. Otherwise you will complain about that until the day you die. In terms of raw balance, 8th edition is one of the most balanced. All armies are currently the most balanced I've seen between each other in years.

I'm honestly curious, if 8th psychic was bad, and so was 7th, what was good? because psychic in 6th and I think 5th, were even worse than 8th, it was a simple leadership test. Even more boring, in my opinion.

I actually liked 7th ed psychic phase - it let you manipulate the odds in your favor, but the more likely you made it to cast a spell, the more likely it was to perils. It's biggest failing was that it did not scale well - large psychic armies became a mess to use, and more than a little unfair in regards to deny the witch.

But like you said, the new psychic phase is a tad dull.

IMO,

A modified version of 8th edition Fantasy would be the best (now before everyone loses their minds, let me explain).

8th edition 40K psychic phase is basically a direct port over from AoS and really just comes down to a unit having an unreliable ability that either goes off that turn or doesn't. There's not much else to it. I honestly don't see the point in even having a psychic phase if these spells are just that direct. Why is it even 2 dice to cast? Why not just roll a die and on a 4+ your spell goes off. There's almost no difference. At least though, this psychic phase isn't maddening in the amount of time waisted, it does however completely lack any kind of critical decision making beyond "who do I target with this spell?".

7th edition 40K was a pseudo 6/7th edition fantasy port. The more psykers you brought, the more dice you have. The big difference being that you have warp charges instead of casting values. My biggest gripe with this rules set is that it was very all or nothing. An army that could bring lots of psykers like Grey Knights would just reign dominion over the enemy who had to rely on 6's to dispel of all things. This creates a huge disparity between armies, especially in a game like 40K where a good half of the armies out there don't have access to any psykers, or psychic defence.

Which brings me to my suggestion. 8th edition Fantasy was the best version of any magic/psychic phase GW has ever come up with. That doesn't mean it wasn't flawed, which is why it needs to be modified.

Basically, at the start of the psychic phase the player who's turn it is rolls 2d6. Thats the number of casting dice they receive, and the opponent gets the larger of the two as their dispel dice. You can roll as many casting dice to cast a spell as you want, up to 6 dice maximum per spell. The same is true to dispel. The spells all have a casting value they need to equal or beat to successfully cast the spell. A lower level spell would require a 6+ for example, where a very powerful spell would need an 18 or 20+. You roll the dice to cast, and add your psyker level. So if you were a level 2 psyker casting a spell that needed an 8+ to be successful, you could roll 3 dice, add them together, and then add your psyker level. The opponent could do the same to try to stop your spell by equalling or beating your score. Additionally, you could always dispel, even if you didn't have a psyker. Any rolls of double 6's caused the spell to go off irresistibly , but you also need to roll on perils of the warp, so there was also danger in rolling more dice.

The advantages to this system would be:
1) Not boring as feth
2) Ability to manage your dice that allowed you to get off key spells, or stop key spells at pivotal points in the game, rather than relying completely on blind luck.
3) Hard caps on number of casting dice, and number of dice you are allowed to cast with reduces heavy disparities between psyker heavy armies, and non psyker armies
4) Ability to dispel and protect your army somewhat, even without a psyker
5) More interactive between players, and encourages tactical decision making

The problems 8th edition Fantasy had were that it didn't scale at all with the size of the game, the "Big" spells were too powerful, and magic resistance didn't work well.

By reducing the power level of "Big" spells to a manageable level, and allowing the number of casting/dispel dice to scale properly with the size of the game, I think this system would be a benefit to 40K.

Honestly I think there's just a few issues on what I would've done different.
1. Make Psycannons AP-2
2. Cut Terminators by 2 points, not increase them
3. Give Purgators something to make them different like Devastators to their equivalents

Just a few things. Overall I think it's pretty good in terms of internal/external balance with the other two Codices that are near it, to the point I'm cautiously optimistic for the next codex releases. Still odd internal balance issues here and there (Tactical Marines and Reivers, Chaos Marines and Mutilators, Grey Knight Terminators and Purgators), but it's definitely less so than previous editions.

when you say odd itnernal balance with tac squads vs reivers, what do you mean?

Which brings me to my suggestion. 8th edition Fantasy was the best version of any magic/psychic phase GW has ever come up with. That doesn't mean it wasn't flawed, which is why it needs to be modified.

Basically, at the start of the psychic phase the player who's turn it is rolls 2d6. Thats the number of casting dice they receive, and the opponent gets the larger of the two as their dispel dice. You can roll as many casting dice to cast a spell as you want, up to 6 dice maximum per spell. The same is true to dispel. The spells all have a casting value they need to equal or beat to successfully cast the spell. A lower level spell would require a 6+ for example, where a very powerful spell would need an 18 or 20+. You roll the dice to cast, and add your psyker level. So if you were a level 2 psyker casting a spell that needed an 8+ to be successful, you could roll 3 dice, add them together, and then add your psyker level. The opponent could do the same to try to stop your spell by equalling or beating your score. Additionally, you could always dispel, even if you didn't have a psyker. Any rolls of double 6's caused the spell to go off irresistibly , but you also need to roll on perils of the warp, so there was also danger in rolling more dice.

So we would go right back to 8th editions "If you don't have a Caster Level 4 caster, give up" alongside the randomness of 2d6 determining whether or not you'll cast at all? No thanks. Not to mention it'd mean a return to massively overpowered spells.

Hoodwink wrote:
Considering they got 49th with the Index and not the Codex, I see your point as completely moot for now.

My point is that they're not dominating the meta. The codex didn't help Grey Knights enough to make up for the difference. And my point remains: Grey Knights should be a viable army on their own and finishing in toward the top as much as any other army.

Hoodwink wrote:
Of course it's a valid statement that they won't win tournaments. This game hasn't been, isn't, and never will be completely balanced. There always have and always will be armies that are at the bottom, top, and middle. I feel GK are currently solidly in the middle in terms of power. You won't win tournaments with an army in the middle of the power tier. It won't happen. And you can't expect all armies to be valid top contenders. Otherwise you will complain about that until the day you die. In terms of raw balance, 8th edition is one of the most balanced. All armies are currently the most balanced I've seen between each other in years.

So your argument is basically this:

Grey Knights shouldn't win tournaments because they're middle tier, and they should be middle tier because the game shouldn't be balanced.

You could apply this argument to any struggling faction. Orks shouldn't win tournaments because they're bottom tier, and they're bottom tier because the game shouldn't be balanced.

And in reality, if you actually check the tournament results, you'd see that Grey Knights are not middle tier, they're closer to bottom tier.

I will never agree with the argument that an army should expect to lose its games.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Honestly I think there's just a few issues on what I would've done different.
1. Make Psycannons AP-2
2. Cut Terminators by 2 points, not increase them
3. Give Purgators something to make them different like Devastators to their equivalents

Just a few things. Overall I think it's pretty good in terms of internal/external balance with the other two Codices that are near it, to the point I'm cautiously optimistic for the next codex releases. Still odd internal balance issues here and there (Tactical Marines and Reivers, Chaos Marines and Mutilators, Grey Knight Terminators and Purgators), but it's definitely less so than previous editions.

I agree costs are off for what we get. All of our special weapons need a buff. 23 points for a psilencer marine is laughable.

Terminators did not deserve a price hike... that is a change i will simply never understand.

So we would go right back to 8th editions "If you don't have a Caster Level 4 caster, give up" alongside the randomness of 2d6 determining whether or not you'll cast at all? No thanks. Not to mention it'd mean a return to massively overpowered spells

Why would you think this?

As far as I know 40K doesn't even have any level 4 type casters beyond special characters. The most you could get back in 7th ed 40k was a level 3 mastery level. Not to mention there is already a huge disparity between armies with psykers and armies with none, much more so than with Fantasy, where the only army that didn't have magic was dwarfs, but they had some of the best magic defence available. The average army psyker is only a level 2. So I'm not sure where you are getting this idea of level 4 caster or give up. Most armies don't even have psykers, should they give up right now because they can't compete with the Grey Knight/Eldar psychic phase?

I'd rather have a random dice generation mechanism than the 7th/ 8th ed. 40K mechanism. Remember the winds of magic and the warp are fickle. Not only is it a good solution, it's also fluffy. This reduces the disparity between armies who have psychic powers and armies that don't.

What logic brought you to the conclusion that this would mean a return of massively overpowered spells? Why would the 40K spells need to change? You know that the spells available in 8th edition Fantasy weren't indicative of a flawed magic system right? You don't need to have both, they are completely separate.

Agree with slayer-fan as well, I have absolutely no idea why they raised the cost or terminators. I also wish that psycannons either stayed in line with assault canons or got an AP boost; another option would have been to go back to the daemonhunters days and make them ignore invul saves.
My one heretical-random request was that we would get centurions so I could use my devs as GK rather than allies; as it is they aren't great now anyway but it would have been nice to have as a firepower booster...you could even strip away the standard options and give them psycannons/psilencers/incinerators as weapons.

I wonder if we complain enough we can get an errata to make our termies cheaper? TDA armies are part of our fluff and it's a shame to not see them on the table. At this point I'm just hoping chapter approved makes an exception for us so we can get that null deployment (or close to it) back.

I don't think psycannons are in a bad spot. They just happen to be GK's highest damage ranged option. Compare it to an autocannon. Psycannons are half the range, 1D compared to 2D, and 4 shots instead of 2. Psycannons cost 5 more points. The overall damage output is identical on average but ends up being better on the psycannons in certain situations (I.e. units that take half damage from attacks or 1 less from attacks). Autocannons are also usually on 2 man squads compared to the single man psycannons.

I think it's more along the lines that people want a higher damage/AP ranged weapon and psycannons are the closest thing.

The real problem with terminators is that a 2+ save isn't really as meaningful as it was in 7th, but you still pay a lot of points for it. That is the major difference between strikes and terminators. Wounds, attacks, etc, all get offset mightily by the cost, as you can have double the strike marines for the number of terminators and save points. The big differentiation is in the save, and invuln save.

Point for point, terminators are worse than strikes in every area except in measuring saves. If our terminators came with a 1+/4++ save, then they'd be worth their points.

I think they should retain 2+ 5++ and 2W but get 5T.

Hoodwink wrote:
I think they should retain 2+ 5++ and 2W but get 5T.

5T would be a helpful change, but probably not enough at this point. They'll still get shredded by a lot of weapons out there.

 Marmatag wrote:
Also lost in this is that librarians now have rites of banishment, when they didn't before. In other words, our librarians have a 1 wound smite. Librarians.

this just illustrates why GW is out of touch with their own game. A librarian in a faction renown for its psychic prowess gets a nerfed version of the same power all other librarians get. It just doesn't make ing sense. The codex was McGuivered together by the current Forest Gump at GW headquarters.

If anything, a GK librarian should have a buffed version of Smite.

 Marmatag wrote:
The real problem with terminators is that a 2+ save isn't really as meaningful as it was in 7th, but you still pay a lot of points for it. That is the major difference between strikes and terminators. Wounds, attacks, etc, all get offset mightily by the cost, as you can have double the strike marines for the number of terminators and save points. The big differentiation is in the save, and invuln save.

Point for point, terminators are worse than strikes in every area except in measuring saves. If our terminators came with a 1+/4++ save, then they'd be worth their points.

LOOOOOOOOL a 2+ did NOT matter in 7th. Here with modifiers the 2+ is more important once you got the 2 wounds you all frickin asked for.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
The real problem with terminators is that a 2+ save isn't really as meaningful as it was in 7th, but you still pay a lot of points for it. That is the major difference between strikes and terminators. Wounds, attacks, etc, all get offset mightily by the cost, as you can have double the strike marines for the number of terminators and save points. The big differentiation is in the save, and invuln save.

Point for point, terminators are worse than strikes in every area except in measuring saves. If our terminators came with a 1+/4++ save, then they'd be worth their points.

LOOOOOOOOL a 2+ did NOT matter in 7th. Here with modifiers the 2+ is more important once you got the 2 wounds you all frickin asked for.

Yeah.. I don't know how anyone can say a 2+ mattered in an era of Grav, rerollable 2++, and other shenanigans.