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Hey all,

What with the recent Grey Knights hype, I decided to run some mathammer against the dreadknight. I came up with the following results:

An Imperial Guard Veteran Squad with three plasmaguns and a plasma pistol with "Bring it Down!" does 1.5 unsaved wounds to the dreadknight. When not twin-linked, they put down 1.167 unsaved wounds, assuming no ones are rolled.

With Meltaguns and BiD, the squad does .889 unsaved wounds. Without BiD, the squad does .667 unsaved wounds.

These numbers are disheartening, as it takes 3-4 units of specweps (with average rolling) to kill a single dreadknight. From a tactical perspective, it seems like the dreadknight's main purpose is to tank damage off its T7 and 4++ and make sure that the (relatively) fragile Grey Knights dont take shots. The units shooting at it are easily 3 times its points cost, making it a great distraction. What are your thoughts?

(Cover was not factored in because: a) the dreadknight is twice the size of a daemon prince, making it difficult to get cover, and b) It has a 4++ making cover irrelevant)

Can anyone confirm DK's stats? Early rumors had them at S/T7 with 2+/4++, but now early confirmations are claiming S/T6 with 2+/5++?

The former is a monster damage sponge, the latter is still a problem but not nearly so much.

your doing it wrong


the Dreadknights can't be treated like other MCs because of it's high T and Invuln.

it will laugh off Melta and Plasma weapons.


use long ranged anti-tank.

Lascannons in the stupid numbers guard can get will do some damage.

it only has 4 wounds so it won't last long against lascannons.

@ sourclams:
If it is indeed now T6 with a 5++ then it is easier to handle.

@ Grey Templar:
I play Guard, and don't have a single Lascannon in my army. I wanted to see what it would take relative to the means I have to kill the dreadknight. I could use lascannons, but again, they aren't part of my list. It does beg the question though, what can other armies do against this thing?

Gus_Papas wrote:I play Guard, and don't have a single Lascannon in my army. ... what can other armies do against this thing?

What, what, what!?!

The GW site says it has the same armor as a terminator, so I assume that means 2/5+. TH/SS termies will eat up quickly. Most things with force weapons stand a pretty good chance at it. 2+ makes it tough but you could also try and combat res it to death (but there won’t be a lot of squashy units around to pound on in a GK army). Blood crushers would much one. There are lots of things out there. T6 isn’t that great, and there are lots of things that will force it onto its poor invulnerable.

Gus_Papas wrote:@ sourclams:
If it is indeed now T6 with a 5++ then it is easier to handle.

@ Grey Templar:
I play Guard, and don't have a single Lascannon in my army. I wanted to see what it would take relative to the means I have to kill the dreadknight. I could use lascannons, but again, they aren't part of my list. It does beg the question though, what can other armies do against this thing?

Other armies have plenty of tools, ranging from assaults, power weapons, and long range anti-tank.

If you're a Guard player without a single lascannon in your army, you're already running an extremely gimped list - your inability to deal with Dreadknights pales in comparison to your inability to deal with....well, a lot of other lists too. =p

Tau are fine. Plasma, Fusion, Broadsides. ect.

my BA would fire all bloodstrike missles to alpha them.

What sort of I and LD does it have?

Nids can have all sorts of tools for it at that point. GEnestealers, Zoanthropes.

Also depending on I across the board for this army is what is going to shape my Daemon lists. If the majoriety is 5 or less then I think a Slaneesh heavy daemon list will do pretty well.

Acardia wrote:
Also depending on I across the board for this army is what is going to shape my Daemon lists. If the majoriety is 5 or less then I think a Slaneesh heavy daemon list will do pretty well.

Slaanesh has reach which do well against the anti deepstrike psychic powers. But against MEQ khorne kills A LOT more for the points. I personally am going to wait until I can read the actual book and see what people in my area (there’s only like two GK players anyway) actually take before I adjust anything.

ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:

Acardia wrote:
Also depending on I across the board for this army is what is going to shape my Daemon lists. If the majoriety is 5 or less then I think a Slaneesh heavy daemon list will do pretty well.

Slaanesh has reach which do well against the anti deepstrike psychic powers. But against MEQ khorne kills A LOT more for the points. I personally am going to wait until I can read the actual book and see what people in my area (there’s only like two GK players anyway) actually take before I adjust anything.

I agree, however I've been using Skarbrand and Slaneesh combo to good effect lately. DE being being my hardest pairing by far. I'm not adjusting yet either but I may want to try out DP VS SG spam in my list.

Don't forget that this thing is twice the size of a daemon prince. Its just a plain ol' MC with no special movement abilities or transport options. It has to walk (without fleet) across the board, while literally every long range gun in your army could shoot at it. Its far too big to hide behind terrain and it will only be useful right up in the enemies face. Short of a city fight in massive ruins, you will be able to see this thing with any unit in your army, at any range.

Is it tough to kill? Yes because its entire value to GK seems to be as a giant bullet magnet. And you know exactly what the GK player will be doing with it: plodding towards your lines 6-12" a turn, so it can get in close, which is the only place it can do anything useful.

Bruteboss wrote:Don't forget that this thing is twice the size of a daemon prince. Its just a plain ol' MC with no special movement abilities or transport options. It has to walk (without fleet) across the board, while literally every long range gun in your army could shoot at it.

Keep in mind that it can very probably do the 1/game 'shunt' to fling itself 30".

Also keep in mind that it can assuredly be given the Scouts USR by Grand Masters, allowing for it to start 18" away from your army.

It's about as hard to kill as a Nurgle Daemon Prince to AP2, or 2 Nurgle DPs to AP3+, so there's no reason to scream the sky is falling.

But 3 MCs in your deployment at the end of T1 has huge disruption potential, and shouldn't be poo-pooed, either.

I've heard rumours you can get it with a jumppack or with a teleporter (so a 30" shunt once a game)

I doubt it can assault following a 30" teleport.

If it is indeed now T6 with a 5++ then it is easier to handle.

I think it was confirmed at T6 2+ 4++, which makes it 16% more vulnerable to plasma guns and meltaguns and lances and pretty much nothing else. It's appropriate.

The problems for the DK that I see are the following:

i) Heavy Psycannon is S7 AP4 large blast. What is this gun supposed to be? It's not a whole lot better than a regular psycannon against units considering its accuracy, and it's actually inferior against vehicles. Gatling Psilencer on the other hand is just a heavy 12 S4 weapon. Considering the weapon options aren't cheap the only one that makes sense is the heavy incinerator. I like that weapon though.
ii) It has 3 or 4 attacks in close combat and no extra rules like Furioso Dreadnoughts Blood Talons etc. The special close combat weapons are bad. That isn't a whole lot.
iii) For the time being it looks like Holocaust was gutted when it was made a psychic shooting attack with 12" range. If it can't be used in close combat the DK is extremely vulnerable to being tarpitted and killed by Gaunts, Stealers, Orks, etc. If Holocaust is being shot like a weapon that also adds to the problem regarding other ranged weapons.

Assuming the previous to be true, what is the DK's supposed role? I know you guys are counting how many mechanised plasma gunners you need to kill it in one phase, but let's face it, what is a DK near your Chimera wall going to do? Charge one and try to hit it? It doesn't do fire support particularly well because the guns are bad especially in an anti AV11/12 role and it isn't very good in an aggressive assault role either because of the lack of attacks and vulnerability to small enemies. It isn't cheap for the disruption role since it'll go for 240-260 points each with the teleporter and a heavy incinerator or two. It's a Trygon but with severely weakened combat stats, better armour and a real invulnerable save, and the teleport ability could represent a tunneling ability that actually is useful.

I'm actually suprised no-ones brought this up:

Ghazzy gets off a Waaagh!, goes, and punches the Dreadknight.

With 7 attacks at S10, it's going to kill it really fast, within 1-2 turns. And Ghazghull gets a 2++ during the initial assault, so you have a near invulnerable tank punching this so hard and fast it will go down.

Therion wrote:Assuming the previous to be true, what is the DK's supposed role?

Taken bog standard, or with minor upgrades to keep overall cost low, it's a bully unit. It can tarpit enemy MEQ stuff, buying GK players time while their comparatively small army deals with other units, and its simple presence keeps vehicles moving around which helps for what looks to be a largely footslogging list with adequate, but not exceptional, LR AT fire from a relatively low number of fire bases.

Taken with a GM for scout, it's a T2 blitzer with decent force projection, and it can catch a lot of bullets, providing some target saturation for GKTerms and Paladins that are otherwise lascannon bait.

This thing is cheap. It shouldn't have the sort of impact a Swarmlord does in CC or a Tfex does at range. Its niche is as a cheap jack-of-no-trades with acceptable (for 150ish pts) anti infantry shooting and anti vehicle CC.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Chowderhead wrote:I'm actually suprised no-ones brought this up:

Ghazzy gets off a Waaagh!, goes, and punches the Dreadknight.

With 7 attacks at S10, it's going to kill it really fast, within 1-2 turns. And Ghazghull gets a 2++ during the initial assault, so you have a near invulnerable tank punching this so hard and fast it will go down.

And Ghazzy successfully blows his 1/game ability to go kill a thing worth 60% of his points?

Similarly, what happens if a Vindicare shoots Ghaz with a shield breaker T1? On Ghaz' turn he has literally no save. Vindicare shoots him T2 with the Turbo Penetrator for 2 wounds, DK lands 2 punches on him with Hammerhand up, and he dies.

This thing is cheap. It shouldn't have the sort of impact a Swarmlord does in CC or a Tfex does at range. Its niche is as a cheap jack-of-no-trades with acceptable (for 150ish pts) anti infantry shooting and anti vehicle CC.

I was intending to run a list with Coteaz, 6 units of henchmen in Chimeras if they have fortitude or Lasbacks otherwise, and three Dreadknights. Any points leftover go into Purifiers with as many psycannons as I can cram in. I wanted the Dreadknights in the exact role you proposed except I hoped that its guns would atleast equal that of a normal psycannon. Imagine if it could just buy two regular psycannons... Now I think I'll just buy the heavy psycannon and walk around with them, offering a modicum of ranged help to the wall of shooty vehicles while counter assaulting enemy stuff that made it through.

Yeah I was really hoping for a H psycannon to be a S8 psycannon that could be taken twice. Point costs being the great equalizer, I'm probably going to run an incinerator and just try to run them upfield to force enemy shooting to divert from my GKs.

I think the cookie cutter Coteaz list will be exactly what you describe, +/- Vindicare.

For DE, I'm thinking dark lance spam. Whether that's min-maxed units in raiders, or voidavens with necrotoxin missiles.

OH WAIT. Everything in my army is poisoned on a 4+.

Never mind, trueborn with Cannons in Venoms should be plenty good (if they don't get shot down by psycannons, of course), as would scourges, or a lot of other things.

Its only 2+ 5++, basically terminator armour, which also allows it to deepstrike. Thats what I think will actually be the better choice, if you have more than 1: deepstrike it on your opponents face and try to distract from your more fragile stuff. That, or use its resilience to capture an objective with a grandmaster...

at T7 4++ they would be an absolute no brainer, but with their downgraded stats they're not the must take they seemed initially.

it is T6 with a 4++

they struck a compromise.




personally, i wouldn't ever take one as i need my HS slots for Dreadnoughts to ride in my Stormravens(and my Elites are full of Palidins)

I just plan on charging it with a Warscyth wielding Lord with Rez Orb, Destroyer Body, and Phase Shifter.

If you're playing IG, field a Plasma Command Squad (4x PG, 1x PP), roll up to it if it teleports to your lines, command "Bring it Down!" and watch it melt. Assuming it's T6. At T7, you might run into some problems.

What can the Orks do against it? just curious to see some options here

Personally, I'll be using my LR Excutioners as IG to make them die. Given its size, you'd need some terrible rolling to miss with blast weapons...

Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:What can the Orks do against it? just curious to see some options here

PK Nobz, of course, but if a Vindicare is in the backfield sniping them with Hellfire Turbo Penetrator rounds the Boy mobz have some serious, serious problems.

Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:What can the Orks do against it? just curious to see some options here

hidden PKs in Boy mobs will kill it quickly.

provided a Vindicare isn't killing them all.

Yeah, if the final version is T6, then you take them down like you take down demon princes. If the final version is T7, then you take them down like you take down wraithlord.

Neither demon princes nor wraithlord are invincible, thus neither is the dread knight.

Really, this unit isn't bringing anything new to the game, it's just bringing something new to the codex.

the Wraithlord is T8, higher then the Dreadknight.


anything that will get rid of a wraithlord will get rid of a Dreadknight.


just think that the Dreadknights sacrificed Toughness for an invuln save(he can even get hurt by Bolters)

I think the main thing that will really make or break it will be its T if its T7 its gunna be really tough T6 well not so much..It will still be good with that 2+,4++ but it will be on the same general lvl of all other MCs.