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Well tson's can likely survive it. They look to be on pretty good place in 9th regardless of it and were one of the big winners in point changes. Plus unless they change rules same character can multi spam smite. Good for them to get super smite with high bonuses to cast when multiple smites don't affect score needed to get super smite.

I expected the +1 to smite restriction to be removed in the FAQ, which it wasn’t. So yeah...
That said, I’ve played against people this edition who didn’t know about the rule, and given GK’s small meta presence up until a global pandemic stopped tournaments, it’s very possible the content creators aren’t all the familiar with the army, some of the Tabletop Titans suggested lists are actually fairly stupid. So it wouldn’t be surprising that the need/desire for such a rule might be completely missed.

If we don't an exemption, GW is pretty much saying that if GK are in any tide except escalation, we get 1 MW smites at increasing warp charge costs. That's in the red.

 _SeeD_ wrote:
If we don't an exemption, GW is pretty much saying that if GK are in any tide except escalation, we get 1 MW smites at increasing warp charge costs. That's in the red.

I mean it's pretty guaranteed now, with all the 9Ed info we have.

Another thing, the 9Ed SM Codex will drop this year, consolidating all the First Founding SM Chapters AND Deathwatch. GK will be the only SM Chapter to keep their own Codex. Obviously one main reason is we wont have access to ANY Primaris units and we don't have the standard Doctrines either.

Brotherhood of Psykers and Masters of the Warp are solid GK army rules, but without the Psychic Focus FAQ I feel we lost the second-part of our equivalent SM "Chapter Tactic". Every SM Chapter has had 2-parts, with Iron Hands having 3 buffs (who knows with their 9Ed Codex though), do you think GW has plans of giving us some additional buff in 9Ed to compensate for our base 12", 1 MW increasing cast cost Smite? Sure,GK Smite spam was effective in late 8Ed, but I'm also open-minded to having a unique distinction of our heavy-psyker GK army beyond the Smite-spam reputation...

Well, it appears that GW is pushing Primaris with new toys further and further, while other factions are starving.
This is the wrong direction. Who wants to play in a tourney against 2x IH and 2x RG?

 Waking Dreamer wrote:

Another thing, the 9Ed SM Codex will drop this year, consolidating all the First Founding SM Chapters AND Deathwatch. GK will be the only SM Chapter to keep their own Codex. Obviously one main reason is we wont have access to ANY Primaris units and we don't have the standard Doctrines either.

Not entirely accurate. They are maintaining supplements for various chapters in addition to the main codex going forward. DA,SW,BA, and DW will still all get supplements in addition to the existing chapters to help them remain unique.

We are entirely unique, which is pretty accurate from the outset.

Vortenger wrote:

 Waking Dreamer wrote:

Another thing, the 9Ed SM Codex will drop this year, consolidating all the First Founding SM Chapters AND Deathwatch. GK will be the only SM Chapter to keep their own Codex. Obviously one main reason is we wont have access to ANY Primaris units and we don't have the standard Doctrines either.

Not entirely accurate. They are maintaining supplements for various chapters in addition to the main codex going forward. DA,SW,BA, and DW will still all get supplements in addition to the existing chapters to help them remain unique.

We are entirely unique, which is pretty accurate from the outset.

This could mean that BA (and others) get access to Centurions and TFCs.

One question. How do you think that secondaries will affect grey knight lists in 9th edition?

https://nightsatthegametable.com/how-to-score-secondaries-in-9th-edition/

I was looking at them and if I were to play against a GK army I probably would love to have Abhor The Witch for obvious reasons and Assassinate because we love and we need to bring as many characters as possible.

Against a GK is almost granted the possibility to max out these 2 secondaries. For Assassinate in a battalion we are giving easily 3 characters in the HQ plus 1-2 in the elite slot so is 12-15 VP of units that our opponent would have been trying to kill anyway besides the secondary. For Abhor The Witch we are easily granting 5 VP in a battalion as our battlelines are all psykers.

Just this is giving almost an easily 30VP. And this is without even begin to consider secondaries where an elite army is weak like Battlefield Supremacy.

Abhor the witch is pretty much a free 15 CP for the opponent, but only works for a few armies, since they can't have psykers themselves.

Assassinate is not particularly good against us. We play 4-5 characters, but they are very durable, so it's rare that we lose more than 1 or 2.

In my limited experience, appart from "abhor the witch", our opponents have a hard time picking secondaries against us. "Linebreaker" is difficult for everyone because of the new table size, "domination" is super hard and "engage on all fronts" is relatively easy to score, but forces the opponent to put their units into vulnerable positions. "Grind them down" and "thin their ranks" are impossible to score against us, and very few armies can make "while we stand" work. All of the "purge the enemy" and "warpcraft "section are pretty much useless for your opponent,. "Shadow operations" are very list dependant and generally hard to max. If the opponent doesn't have access to "abhor the witch", he is pretty much forced to take a "shadow operations" one and a "supremacy" one, which are both mediocre, and then either pick the mission specific secondary or one of the bad ones.

As for our own secondaries, "grind them down" is pretty much 15 free points, and psychic ritual, which I wasn't sure about at first, has proven to be really easy to score, even if it forces you to spend some resources. If the opponent's army allow for one of the obvious "purge the enemy" ones, the choice is easy, otherwise, some of the mission specific ones and "linebreaker" are quite decent.

Linebreaker should be really easy to achieve if you play with Interceptors. the opponment either sheilds his Zone and thus will run the problem of losing board control or tries to move ahead to control the board and then you warp behind him inside some buildings and pick off some units in his development zone

Linebreaker is somewhat difficult because everything is closer, and deployment zones are not as big as they were before. If there's some good LOS blocking terrain were you can safely store your units, it's fine, but otherwise they will die, and you don't have that many to begin with (remember that you need two units to score linebreaker). However, if you don't have access to a better secondary, you can probably score 8 or maybe 12 points, which is decent.

Another one that you can pick instead is deploy scramblers. It's very easy to score, and 10 easy points are better than 12 or 15 very hard to score points.

What are the top three units for Grey Knights 9th edition? Thank you.

BillyN831 wrote:
What are the top three units for Grey Knights 9th edition? Thank you.

I'd vote for Strikes, Paladins and Interceptors in this order.
It's clear that we need some HQ's to do well at the battlefield.
Here Librarian, Voldus, and Chaplain get my vote.
In view of tanks, GM-NDK's got better due to the new shooting rule (move and shoot heavy weapons without penalty).
But I'd stay away from other tanks bar a Dread with lascannon, missile launcher and astral aim.

Paladins and strikes are the core of the army. Interceptors or razorbacks may have a niche..

As for characters, Draigo, librarians and apothecaries are necessary, with Voldus being a possibility. Every other character is just bad.

Everything else in the army looks pretty unusable. The biggest problem the GMNDK had was not being unable to shoot in combat or having a -1 penalty to hit, but being too easy to kill and competing with paladins for pychic buffs and CP, and that remains true.

Unluckily given the current situation everything right now is theory crafting as many we don´t have the option to participate in a real tournament till this global situation is not over.

But in my humble opinion, I see stikes and interceptors less appealing. Especially after the point changes and the rites of banishment nerf. To be fair now I see back again our troops more like a tax and the objective secure way to hold objectives. But even with that, they are not quite as efficient doing so. Compared to other armies objective secure troops now our troops seem more like an expensive glass cannon.

I'm also considering if, after the storm shield and the lookout sir nerf, Draigo is useful anymore. Before he was useful survivability wise because he got the 3++ save so was possible to head prognosticator one unit and sanctuary another one for having 3 dudes with 3++. That's not possible anymore so I wonder if Voldus now is a more obvious choice as at least he brings 3 powers and is cheaper and has the same 4++ than Draigo. How people where using Draigo till now?

Draigo's shield didn't get any nerf, he still has a 3++ save. He's just as good as before. The 3++ and the extra wound makes him more than twice as durable as Voldus, which is enough to justify the 30 extra points, and the improved aura is really good. However, I'm playing both right now, since the Brother-Captain became unusable, and Voldus is an efficient way to get the powers you need (otherwise I'd have to take a librarian+apothecary).

Look out sir! rules are a nerf to every character, but if you play 4-5 chracters it's quite manageable. Our characters have been nerfed a lot less than other armies', because we pay a lot of point for their durability, but that durability didn't matter before, so now they are more efficient, in comparison. Even in 8th edition, it was quite usual to split your characters to act independently on turns 3+, after eliminating some threats, so the difference is not big.

Strikes have become, indeed, less desirable. The smite nerf really hurt them, but they are still decent, and you need something to sit on objectives. There's no good alternative, anyway, so we'll have to deal with it for now.

I see. I thought that because the indomitus guy got a storm shield with a 4++ all the storm shields would be the same.

At least just for one time, regular marines gets something better than the primaries ones.

Take that you Guillaman mary sue

GK army coming 3rd place in the first 9Ed GT.

https://spikeybits.com/2020/08/the-top-3-40k-army-lists-from-the-first-9th-edition-gt.html

List:
Battalion HQ
- GMNDK
- GMNDK
- GMNDK

TROOPS
- Terminator x5
Halberds x4, Warding Stave x1
- Terminator x5
Halberds x4, Warding Stave x1
- Terminator x5
Halberds x4, Warding Stave x1

Patrol HQ
- Draigo
- Voldus

TROOPS
- Terminator x5
Halberds x4, Warding Stave x1

Looks like 9Ed will be the most competitive GK edition supporting the most varied playable army lists!

 Waking Dreamer wrote:
GK army coming 3rd place in the first 9Ed GT.

https://spikeybits.com/2020/08/the-top-3-40k-army-lists-from-the-first-9th-edition-gt.html

List:
Battalion HQ
- GMNDK
- GMNDK
- GMNDK

TROOPS
- Terminator x5
Halberds x4, Warding Stave x1
- Terminator x5
Halberds x4, Warding Stave x1
- Terminator x5
Halberds x4, Warding Stave x1

Patrol HQ
- Draigo
- Voldus

TROOPS
- Terminator x5
Halberds x4, Warding Stave x1

Looks like 9Ed will be the most competitive GK edition supporting the most varied playable army lists!

Interesting! Three GMNDK's.
They were not top priority in 8th ed list building.
Besides the new rule for shooting heavy weapons, what qualifies them to take room in a competitive army?

I tried out a 500pt game (start of a Crusade narrative) with GMDK, 5x Termies, and Apothecary.

I was facing Necrons: 16x Warriors, 3x Skorpek Destroyers (the new melee destroyers), Warden (the new support HQ) and Overlord.

I stayed in Shadows the entire game. He killed two Terminators and I tabled him.
The Apothecary was really good at getting the Agenda, which was "WC: 4. Cast when within 18" of an enemy character.)
It only lost him a single cast per turn, and the range let him stay behind the other two units to keep protection.

I'll also say that, after experimenting between NDK and GMDK, the 50pts is definitely worth it. The NDK got a 9e buff with shooting while engaged and getting to move and shoot without penalty.
But the difference between BS3+ and BS2+ reroll 1s is absurd. The GMDK NEVER misses (with both guns, statistically it's 17.5 hits) compared to the NDK (with only 12 hits).
So Psychic Onslaught is therefore incredibly more CP-efficient on a GMDK.

I still like my flamer/fists NDK coming in from DS. But I will keep the shooting with the GMDK.

 wuestenfux wrote:

Interesting! Three GMNDK's.
They were not top priority in 8th ed list building.
Besides the new rule for shooting heavy weapons, what qualifies them to take room in a competitive army?

They were literally the only good thing GK's had for most of 8th. They just didn't make sense post revamp which was all about troops to farm CP and smite spam.

Well at least this proves on a tournament level GMNDKs and Terminators are playable, hence in basically any game they are still "playable", even if they are not completely, competitively efficient.

I'd say Ven.Dreads are also playable in 9Ed with the right support. I won't be surprised if a savvy GK tourney player realises this, and takes advantage of new terrain rules to rack up victories in 9Ed soon enough as well.

On pure math, Ven Dreads appear pretty good. You won't hear much about them elsewhere because Contemptors are just crazy good.

 LunarSol wrote:
On pure math, Ven Dreads appear pretty good. You won't hear much about them elsewhere because Contemptors are just crazy good.

If some of the predictions of 9Ed shifting to a vehicle-heavy meta comes to fruition, they are actually the GK most efficient ranged anti-armour unit. I'd say 2-3 of them along with Astral Aim, Edict Imperator, and maybe even GoI psychic powers (buffs only a GK army can provide them with) will put in some serious work. A Chaplain (again, only from a GK army) could also make those D6 Damage twin lascannons less swingy (since Brother-Captains could probably be dropped with the reduction of GK smite spam effectiveness).

With the smaller board size, the increase in LOS blocking terrain, 9Ed vehicle shooting buffs, along with their non-degrading stat-line and easier to hide model size they can definitely become a crucial pillar to a playable GK army.

Third place Grey Knights. Awesome keep us updated on tournaments. Thank you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I got three boxes of Brother-Captains and four boxes of Strike Squads. What options should I pick for them? Thank you.

BillyN831 wrote:

I got three boxes of Brother-Captains and four boxes of Strike Squads. What options should I pick for them? Thank you.

For Strike Squads, Halberds are the most efficient melee weapons currently, and all stormbolters are fine though one psilencer per team is good if you plan to use tide of convergence as well.

For terminator armour models, Halberds again with the Justicar having the Daemonhammer if you have the points. One Warding Stave per team is good too, if you plan to get them into combat (as he will be the one taking the hits first with the 4++ in combat).

Thank you.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Well, it appears that GW is pushing Primaris with new toys further and further, while other factions are starving.
This is the wrong direction. Who wants to play in a tourney against 2x IH and 2x RG?

No one is taking either of those right now. IH and RG got hit hard by the edition change now the other 4 CTs are all considered largely superior outside of specific lists.

Would it be optimal to convert Brother-Captains to other units? What options should they take? Thank you.

BillyN831 wrote:
Would it be optimal to convert Brother-Captains to other units? What options should they take? Thank you.

I don't think the smite nerf is as bad as everyone says. Start battle forged that's +1 to cast so a 4+ smite then empyric surge. Second smite goes off on a 4+ third smite goes off on 5+ after that units start getting affected by the ability. But I personally don't always smite unless it's a daemon army I'm fighting. Hammerhand is more viable now as we don't have to worry about overwatch as often. I'd still use brother captains but if you wanted to you could always just run em as grand masters or librarians.