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I know this is terribly one sided to the purgation squad with all Psycannons, but just roll with it for a second.

The astral aim, while a pretty neat ability doesn't exactly make them a viable heavy support slot choice. In an attempt to make them more useful I say we propose a variety of psychic abilites that allow them to be a completely viable pick.

I think they should have a psychic ability that allows them to be relentless. Note that this will not increase their range, but allow for a significantly more lethal stream of firepower. No point increase either.

What do you guys think? Any other good ideas?

I think this would be GREAT, this would be exactly what they needed, it would make them much more viable, and then maybe he can compete with Dreadknights and Dreadnoughts.

Not a bad idea. At all. As magnus said, it would definatly give them more viability.

Although a combo of astral aim and 4 FREE incinerators is hard to beat against entrenched guard or Tau gunlines. At AP 4 necrons get melted and cityfighting goes their way too.

Call me when they can fire missiles or lascannons.

Or anything with at least 36" range.

Until then, Heavy Slot is for Dreadnoughts, Dread Knights and Land Raiders only in my army.

So one who wants a lot of rhinoes, or PA units or Razorback Psybolter Spam might take them.

I would love to DS them behind a wall where I had a libby with the homer, chilling after draigo gave him scout, then lay out 8 str 7 rending shots plus stormbolters? XD yes plox!!

best part is almost zero retaliation if you play it right or if you really wanted to make a mess of things give them all incinerators and then DS them next to the libby and hit a squad of something with 4 str 6 flamers

Perhaps then, another ability which increases the range of any weapon fired by the squad by 12". It pretty much turns incinerators into the Heavy Incinerators used by the Dreadknights. Heck maybe we can even have both seeing as they can only use one psychic ability a turn anyway.

Did the post explaining the mystery reason of why Purgation Squads need an upgrade get deleted?

As if not needing to see the target wasn't good enough.

It's like saying let's give strike squads free halberds so that more people would use them instead of purifiers or paladins.

IMO, if you want to boost purgation squads, you need to up their costs as well. A free ride just makes them too good and unbalanced.

A power that extends their range slightly could work considering that's a weak area for GKs. But jy2 is right - you're either increasing the costs or you'd have to take away something to give them something.

Agreed, so lets just say we give them both the relentless psychic ability, and the increase in range psychich abilities. About how much should their points increase? I'm feeling a base of 25 points per model, which is a 5pt increase. so 125 for just the base purgation squad.

Instead of pure relentless, I'd say slow & purposeful, still gives you relentless, but makes it so you don't just get a free 6" range increase.

Task of Purgation: Each Purgation Squad sets out on the battlefield with a specific task. They each have their own method of using the heavy weapons granted to them. To represent this, at the beginning of the game, they may choose one of the following Psychic powers:

Astral Aim: See Codex Grey Knight

Ethereal Guidance: Increase the units BS to 5

Unrelenting Wave: The unit gains relentless

Augmented Extention: All weapons in the unit gain 6 inches in a addition to the normal range(Follow the typical rules for ranged flame templates, detailed in the Heavy Incinerator entry in Codex Grey Knights)

Increase the cost of each model by 3-5 points base.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(Note that each turn the Purgation Squad must pass a psychic test to use these powers, cast at the beginning of the movement phase.)

Augmented Extension and Unrelenting Wave have essentially the same result

Hmmm, yes true..

Greyish wrote:A power that extends their range slightly could work considering that's a weak area for GKs. But jy2 is right - you're either increasing the costs or you'd have to take away something to give them something.

There's a good reason that the Grey Knights' "weakness" is that they are a short/mid-range army: they're very good at almost every aspect.

They can out-fight many dedicated CC units in CC, and out-shoot many-an-army once they're within 24". Negating this by giving Purgation Squads essentally 36" Psycannons would warrant quite a hefty price hike, somewhere in the region of 5-7 points per model.

Iranna.

A Purgation squad currently pays 20 points per psycannon so a 5 man squad with 4 psycannons would be 180 points.

I think that the already crazy cost of the psycannons in purgation squads and the fact that you still have to risk perils more than covers the advantage of a pyschic test giving them relentless. Might make psilencers a viable option, too.

Lord Magnus wrote:Task of Purgation: Each Purgation Squad sets out on the battlefield with a specific task. They each have their own method of using the heavy weapons granted to them. To represent this, at the beginning of the game, they may choose one of the following Psychic powers:

Astral Aim: See Codex Grey Knight

Ethereal Guidance: Increase the units BS to 5

Unrelenting Wave: The unit gains relentless

Augmented Extention: All weapons in the unit gain 6 inches in a addition to the normal range(Follow the typical rules for ranged flame templates, detailed in the Heavy Incinerator entry in Codex Grey Knights)

Increase the cost of each model by 3-5 points base.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(Note that each turn the Purgation Squad must pass a psychic test to use these powers, cast at the beginning of the movement phase.)

I really like this idea, I feel that the base cost of the Purgation Squad models after this upgrade should be 26 points per model. If this was ever actually put into the codex I feel it would make the Purgation Squad completely viable.

And! If anybody ever tries out this ruleset PM me and let me know how it plays out.

ColdSadHungry wrote:A Purgation squad currently pays 20 points per psycannon so a 5 man squad with 4 psycannons would be 180 points.

I think that the already crazy cost of the psycannons in purgation squads and the fact that you still have to risk perils more than covers the advantage of a pyschic test giving them relentless. Might make psilencers a viable option, too.

Uh. . . crazy? 180 points for what's basically 8 autocannons with shorter range? I recommend taking a look at, say, the vanilla Marines codex. There are a lot of armies that would gladly pay an arm and a leg for a Purgation Squad!

Purgation squads don't need a buff. They're a good, solid unit; they just aren't as stupid as a lot of the other stuff in the GK codex, so they seem underpowered by comparison. If you want to make the balance of the Grey Knights better, don't improve Purgation squads, make their competitors WORSE.

BeRzErKeR wrote:

ColdSadHungry wrote:A Purgation squad currently pays 20 points per psycannon so a 5 man squad with 4 psycannons would be 180 points.

I think that the already crazy cost of the psycannons in purgation squads and the fact that you still have to risk perils more than covers the advantage of a pyschic test giving them relentless. Might make psilencers a viable option, too.

Uh. . . crazy? 180 points for what's basically 8 autocannons with shorter range? I recommend taking a look at, say, the vanilla Marines codex. There are a lot of armies that would gladly pay an arm and a leg for a Purgation Squad!

Purgation squads don't need a buff. They're a good, solid unit; they just aren't as stupid as a lot of the other stuff in the GK codex, so they seem underpowered by comparison. If you want to make the balance of the Grey Knights better, don't improve Purgation squads, make their competitors WORSE.

Yes, and those short range autocannons currently compete with double, twin linked, full range, plus 1 strength auto cannons on AV12 chassis that have fortitude, which practically have to be taken to help mitigate the GK overall lack of ranged firepower. Purgation squads with the ability to make themselves relentless would still have to compete with psyrifle dreads. And don't worry about comparing them to other codices - one day, the other codices will get their updates and then they'll be the OP flavour of the day and us poor GK players will be complaining that we're not competitive enough. For now though, purgation squads just don't compete well in the HS slot so a change would be welcome, but it's not gonna happen anyway.

ColdSadHungry wrote:

Yes, and those short range autocannons currently compete with double, twin linked, full range, plus 1 strength auto cannons on AV12 chassis that have fortitude, which practically have to be taken to help mitigate the GK overall lack of ranged firepower. Purgation squads with the ability to make themselves relentless would still have to compete with psyrifle dreads. And don't worry about comparing them to other codices - one day, the other codices will get their updates and then they'll be the OP flavour of the day and us poor GK players will be complaining that we're not competitive enough. For now though, purgation squads just don't compete well in the HS slot so a change would be welcome, but it's not gonna happen anyway.

Yes, I know all that. Which was why I said;

BeRzErKeR wrote:Purgation squads don't need a buff. They're a good, solid unit; they just aren't as stupid as a lot of the other stuff in the GK codex, so they seem underpowered by comparison. If you want to make the balance of the Grey Knights better, don't improve Purgation squads, make their competitors WORSE.

BTW, psycannons are assault cannons with +1str not autocannons.

Deadshot wrote:BTW, psycannons are assault cannons with +1str not autocannons.

Which makes them a S7, AP4 weapon, just like autocannons, with twice the shots. . . oh, and rending, too.

What's the problem with drawing a parallel between 4 psycannons and 8 (shorter-ranged) autocannons? Actually, with Rending, the psycannons are even better than that; statistically, they do as much damage as 9 or 10 autocannons.

Because they are more easily compared to Assault Cannons.


The autocannon is nothing like a psycannon. Different type, different number of shots and different range. If given psybolt ammo, which they invariably will, they have different strengths. Psycannons have rending.

If it doesn't move, then a psycannon is an assault cannon with +1 str, or if mounted on a vehicle or TDA.

Iranna wrote:

Greyish wrote:A power that extends their range slightly could work considering that's a weak area for GKs. But jy2 is right - you're either increasing the costs or you'd have to take away something to give them something.

There's a good reason that the Grey Knights' "weakness" is that they are a short/mid-range army: they're very good at almost every aspect.

They can out-fight many dedicated CC units in CC, and out-shoot many-an-army once they're within 24". Negating this by giving Purgation Squads essentally 36" Psycannons would warrant quite a hefty price hike, somewhere in the region of 5-7 points per model.

As I said before cut down on things or price hike and I'm not necessarily saying extend it by as much as 12". Range isn't too much of an issue seeming as most people use this slot to spam long reaching psyflmen, though obviously these guys offer up more saturation.

BeRzErKeR wrote:

ColdSadHungry wrote:

Yes, and those short range autocannons currently compete with double, twin linked, full range, plus 1 strength auto cannons on AV12 chassis that have fortitude, which practically have to be taken to help mitigate the GK overall lack of ranged firepower. Purgation squads with the ability to make themselves relentless would still have to compete with psyrifle dreads. And don't worry about comparing them to other codices - one day, the other codices will get their updates and then they'll be the OP flavour of the day and us poor GK players will be complaining that we're not competitive enough. For now though, purgation squads just don't compete well in the HS slot so a change would be welcome, but it's not gonna happen anyway.

Yes, I know all that. Which was why I said;

BeRzErKeR wrote:Purgation squads don't need a buff. They're a good, solid unit; they just aren't as stupid as a lot of the other stuff in the GK codex, so they seem underpowered by comparison. If you want to make the balance of the Grey Knights better, don't improve Purgation squads, make their competitors WORSE.

Meh, I don't think that's the way forward is it? To nerf other units down to their level? The other main HS slot is the psyrifleman dread which GK really rely on. Whatever, though

ColdSadHungry wrote:

Meh, I don't think that's the way forward is it? To nerf other units down to their level? The other main HS slot is the psyrifleman dread which GK really rely on. Whatever, though

Mmm. . . I'm not sure, honestly.

My opinion, however, is emphatically that the Grey Knights should NOT be good at long-range shooting. They're already capable of dominating close-range shooting and assault with little effort; their weakness in long-range shooting is really the only thing that keeps them from being laughably overpowered, and against some armies even that isn't enough. That being so, if you want to buff Purgation Squads, I don't think extending their range is a good way to do it.

BeRzErKeR wrote:

ColdSadHungry wrote:

Meh, I don't think that's the way forward is it? To nerf other units down to their level? The other main HS slot is the psyrifleman dread which GK really rely on. Whatever, though

Mmm. . . I'm not sure, honestly.

My opinion, however, is emphatically that the Grey Knights should NOT be good at long-range shooting. They're already capable of dominating close-range shooting and assault with little effort; their weakness in long-range shooting is really the only thing that keeps them from being laughably overpowered, and against some armies even that isn't enough. That being so, if you want to buff Purgation Squads, I don't think extending their range is a good way to do it.

It's a fair point. I don't think that GK lists suffer from having Purgation squads that can't really find a place in a (competitive) list anyway. But I do like the idea of being able to make them relentless.