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Well some things in the GK codex are, at first glance at least, an outright improvement on other codices or an upgrade so cheap as to be almost mandatory. Examples:

Terminator armour with frag and krak for free
Fortitude on vehicles for 5pts (in fairness the standard cost for a psychic power, but it's a good one)
S7 assault cannon and S8 TL autocannon for 5 pts per weapon.
Warp Rift (just as broken as JotWW)
Sanctuary (probably the most 'broken' psychic power - 12" umbrella makes it hugely useful).
Force Weapons as standard on all troops and the upgraded ones very cheap or free for the better units.
3 excellent and cheap for the price special characters (Coteaz, Crowe, Draigo) and the best generic Librarian in the game (granted other codices have very good special characters but the GK ones synergise very, very well with their 'specific' troops).

Mind you, I think you could go through most of the other 5th ed. codices and make a list of similar advantages. And to be honest results against decent lists played by decent players really don't seem to bear out GK being overpowered to any significant degree. I think they're hard for an opponent to get to grips with because of all the various combinations and because a lot of the standard dogma falls apart when facing various GK builds.

Grey Knights aren't over-powered, they're over-stupid.

Top 6 codexs? thats it? really? So lets see what their codex is stronger than.
Blood angels? Yes, they beat them in melee and can out shoot the shooty BA list. GK win
Chaos Daemons? I dont even have to ask, Gk win
CSM? one of the roughest books, Gk Win
Dark Eldar? Hmm, maybe, but usually no psychic defense, and absurd amount of psybolt ammo on dreads and psybacks means dark eldar get tabled. Gk is a stronger book
Eldar? Not a better codex, but can beat Gk because of runes, otherwise the codex is worse. Gk is a stronger book but Eldar is strong.
IG? Now this is one of the two armies I would say is on par, Ig are a very strong army and can give Gk a run for their money. Even books I would say.
Necron? ..goes without saying..Gk stronger
Orks? Gk win, sheer number of shots, purifiers, mass power weapons. orks get wrecked Gk win
SoB? umm..I wont get into their stuff since its so new
Vanilla marines? Gk are better versions of vanilla marines..Gk wins..
SW? I would say the SW codex is on par just like the Ig codex, or even stronger. Both are very very powerful. Even books again.
Tau? Old book that fails against most TAC tournament lists. Gk is stronger
Tyranids? MCs without eternal warrior, much weaker codex.

So Sw and IG, only 2 books that realistically are as strong at Gk. So where are you getting barely top 6 from?

Well, my point, though apparently lost, was that if two seasoned players of about equal levels of skill who don't go easy on each other play, Grey Knights do not necessarily auto-win, which seems to be what all the sheep are bleating over right now. And we've both been to a couple Adepticons, multitudes of local tournaments, and 'Ard Boyz up to regionals, so we've been around the block a time or two. Hardly 'casual' gamers.

As far as Ard Boyz goes, there's two things that need to be taken into account here. First off, not everyone has dealt with GK. That's a huge disadvantage. I get steamrolled usually the first time I play an army. I don't know it, don't know what it will do, and, for that matter, if the other guy is even playing it right. And the 30 seconds you might get to glance at the other guy's codex is not long enough. So they're an unknown.

The other thing you need to consider is that every old DH players is now a GK player. To paraphrase a quote I recall seeing on someone's sig: "An average DH player is now a good GK player." The same tactics work, but they actually have decent tools to do what they need to.

Sure, there is no such thing as an auto win. Well, I guess certain GK builds versus Daemons is an auto win, but besides that not really. Still, I do think they have the ability to deal with anything out there and I think that they have things that not everything can deal with. As for the sample size, I would say that the data is sufficient to make some judgements on them.

There has been codex creep, from 4th edition to 5th, sure, but the 5ed edition codexes are still incredibly balanced with one another, and I've seen no reason to believe that GK ARE better beyond the fast that they won games. I mean, DA won significantly more games than GK did even. Why are we not accusing them of being overpowered?

Look, I'm not saying that GK are underpowered. I'm making the case that 5th edition is actually fairly balanced within itself and most armies within that edition can compete with each other. If you look at the win percentages of the "empirical" data we have, the top 7 armies are all within 10% of each other, and GK are within 3% of 5 other armies.

I'll give you that they're within the top 6 codexes, sure. Anything more than that is either Chicken Little talk or reflecting a poor understanding of statistics.

Codex creep has existed and probably always will. However, this is one that didn't seem to pass the sniff test. Make fortitude LD8 and I'll consider all the other stuff "creep". Combine the nastiness of everything else they get with the nonsense essentially ignoring 66% of glances and 33% of pens and you have a cheesy list. Especially when the vehicles are upping their strength for next to no points. For the record, there is a HUGE difference between st 5 and 6 for things like Razorbacks and st 7 and st 8 for Dreds.

Clauss wrote:Top 6 codexs? thats it? really? So lets see what their codex is stronger than.
Blood angels? Yes, they beat them in melee and can out shoot the shooty BA list. GK win
Chaos Daemons? I dont even have to ask, Gk win
CSM? one of the roughest books, Gk Win
Dark Eldar? Hmm, maybe, but usually no psychic defense, and absurd amount of psybolt ammo on dreads and psybacks means dark eldar get tabled. Gk is a stronger book
Eldar? Not a better codex, but can beat Gk because of runes, otherwise the codex is worse. Gk is a stronger book but Eldar is strong.
IG? Now this is one of the two armies I would say is on par, Ig are a very strong army and can give Gk a run for their money. Even books I would say.
Necron? ..goes without saying..Gk stronger
Orks? Gk win, sheer number of shots, purifiers, mass power weapons. orks get wrecked Gk win
SoB? umm..I wont get into their stuff since its so new
Vanilla marines? Gk are better versions of vanilla marines..Gk wins..
SW? I would say the SW codex is on par just like the Ig codex, or even stronger. Both are very very powerful. Even books again.
Tau? Old book that fails against most TAC tournament lists. Gk is stronger
Tyranids? MCs without eternal warrior, much weaker codex.

So Sw and IG, only 2 books that realistically are as strong at Gk. So where are you getting barely top 6 from?

Ok, I get where you're coming from, and I definately agree that GK are in the top 3 codexes at the minute, but slightly off topic, how are Eldar a strong Codex? There's only really one widely accepted way to go for an Eldar player to make a competitive list and that's Mechdar, and even then there are many other competitive lists from wide varieties of codicies that can beat them. Plus it's a 5 year old Codex so it's getting on a bit, although it has aged better than some of the others, namely Tau.

Also, you're assuming all Ork lists are Green Tide. Mass Power Weapons and Large Numbers of shots are really going to be useful against Kan Wall / Battlewagon Spam aren't they. I don't care about your Deff Rolla! Because I have a Power Weapon! Oh, wait......

GK have a ton of stuff that makes me want to hurt mat ward. And yes, I do think they're overpowered, but they are brought down somewhat by the low model count. They are somewhat overpowered but not insanely overpowered like guard.

Rampage wrote:

Clauss wrote:Top 6 codexs? thats it? really? So lets see what their codex is stronger than.
Blood angels? Yes, they beat them in melee and can out shoot the shooty BA list. GK win
Chaos Daemons? I dont even have to ask, Gk win
CSM? one of the roughest books, Gk Win
Dark Eldar? Hmm, maybe, but usually no psychic defense, and absurd amount of psybolt ammo on dreads and psybacks means dark eldar get tabled. Gk is a stronger book
Eldar? Not a better codex, but can beat Gk because of runes, otherwise the codex is worse. Gk is a stronger book but Eldar is strong.
IG? Now this is one of the two armies I would say is on par, Ig are a very strong army and can give Gk a run for their money. Even books I would say.
Necron? ..goes without saying..Gk stronger
Orks? Gk win, sheer number of shots, purifiers, mass power weapons. orks get wrecked Gk win
SoB? umm..I wont get into their stuff since its so new
Vanilla marines? Gk are better versions of vanilla marines..Gk wins..
SW? I would say the SW codex is on par just like the Ig codex, or even stronger. Both are very very powerful. Even books again.
Tau? Old book that fails against most TAC tournament lists. Gk is stronger
Tyranids? MCs without eternal warrior, much weaker codex.

So Sw and IG, only 2 books that realistically are as strong at Gk. So where are you getting barely top 6 from?

Ok, I get where you're coming from, and I definately agree that GK are in the top 3 codexes at the minute, but slightly off topic, how are Eldar a strong Codex? There's only really one widely accepted way to go for an Eldar player to make a competitive list and that's Mechdar, and even then there are many other competitive lists from wide varieties of codicies that can beat them. Plus it's a 5 year old Codex so it's getting on a bit, although it has aged better than some of the others, namely Tau.

Also, you're assuming all Ork lists are Green Tide. Mass Power Weapons and Large Numbers of shots are really going to be useful against Kan Wall / Battlewagon Spam aren't they. I don't care about your Deff Rolla! Because I have a Power Weapon! Oh, wait......

agreed, many a GK have fallen to my deff rollas.

also my war buggies are quickly becoming my fav anti MEQ ... 3 groups of 3 rokkit buggies ... 9 twin linked rokkits per turn for 315 points. comined with deffrollas and volume of fire from lootas GK's really aren't THAT scary as long as you use proper target priority .. also if you run a burna wagon you can beat the purifiers at thier own game

I've been away from the game for two years and have just jumped back onto the forums a week or so ago. You can imagine my surprise to have to be reading through a thread about whether or not gk are overpowered when when I left the game last they were anything but. Now the pretty models have some competitive rules...

My two cents about this conversation is that everytime there's a new codex, people complain about it being over powered. I think it comes down to your and your opponents army comps and play style. Your local store has a limited number of armies and playing styles to go up against, and so it may seem that an army is dominating, but in reality, it may just be the variables of your gaming scene lending to that outcome.

Clauss wrote:Top 6 codexs? thats it? really? So lets see what their codex is stronger than.
Blood angels? Yes, they beat them in melee and can out shoot the shooty BA list. GK win
Chaos Daemons? I dont even have to ask, Gk win
CSM? one of the roughest books, Gk Win
Dark Eldar? Hmm, maybe, but usually no psychic defense, and absurd amount of psybolt ammo on dreads and psybacks means dark eldar get tabled. Gk is a stronger book
Eldar? Not a better codex, but can beat Gk because of runes, otherwise the codex is worse. Gk is a stronger book but Eldar is strong.
IG? Now this is one of the two armies I would say is on par, Ig are a very strong army and can give Gk a run for their money. Even books I would say.
Necron? ..goes without saying..Gk stronger
Orks? Gk win, sheer number of shots, purifiers, mass power weapons. orks get wrecked Gk win
SoB? umm..I wont get into their stuff since its so new
Vanilla marines? Gk are better versions of vanilla marines..Gk wins..
SW? I would say the SW codex is on par just like the Ig codex, or even stronger. Both are very very powerful. Even books again.
Tau? Old book that fails against most TAC tournament lists. Gk is stronger
Tyranids? MCs without eternal warrior, much weaker codex.

So Sw and IG, only 2 books that realistically are as strong at Gk. So where are you getting barely top 6 from?

While your analysis is solid, I'm sure, I would rate them amongst BA, IG, Orks, SM, and probably actually Nids, of all the things.

DE have some serious allergies to S4 minimum everywhere.
Blood Angels do fine; Razorspam still works, if nothing else.
Chaos Daemons seem pretty screwed, admittedly.
CSM don't have much, but they can plasma-spam pretty well; GK still die to AP2/3 like everyone else.
Eldar are dated, though a clever build would probably do well.
IG, well, they're fine.
I won't talk about Necrons; they should never count.
Orks; well, not everything is a purifier spam netlist.
I can't comment on SoB, but I think the old codex would have been better than you'd imagine.
Vanilla Marines have their one or two builds that work just as well against GK as BA or any other marine army. Assault Terminator deathstar can outassault most GK.
Won't comment on SW.
Tau is an old book, not 5th edition, I wouldn't expect it to win, though railguns seem like they could crack open a vehicle or two in spite of fortitude.
TMCs actually aren't in nearly as much trouble as you'd think. All you have to do is protect your big guys intelligently with a SitW bubble. Average roll on that is 10.5; enough to make most GK squads fail their psychic test. The more I think about it, the more I REALLY think people underestimate Nids.
Actually, one army you didn't mention: DA. I think that Deathwing would do amazingly well against them.

I might agree that on paper, they seem overpowered, but in real life, against equally skilled opponents, I don't think so. The thing is, once you get over the fear, the GK portion die like any other marines. Sure, you have to KILL the vehicles, rather than settling for a stunned/shaken result, but there's other vehicles that are like that in the game, and if you have any psychic defense? Fortitude isn't a huge deal.

I've been away from the game for two years and have just jumped back onto the forums a week or so ago. You can imagine my surprise to have to be reading through a thread about whether or not gk are overpowered when when I left the game last they were anything but. Now the pretty models have some competitive rules...

My two cents about this conversation is that everytime there's a new codex, people complain about it being over powered. I think it comes down to your and your opponents army comps and play style. Your local store has a limited number of armies and playing styles to go up against, and so it may seem that an army is dominating, but in reality, it may just be the variables of your gaming scene lending to that outcome.

There will always be cries of "the sky is falling" with every new codex. The real difference with GK is that they went a little too over the top. Many people were questioning Dark Eldar's competitive viability months after they came out due to a relatively poor showing at tournies and Adepticon in particular. Meanwhile, not even half a year after GK have come out we find them dominating the tournament scene. And as I've said in my earlier posts, there are a number of things they can do and builds they can produce that take the game to a new level. Fortitude single-handedly changes the way the game is played. Combine that with all the other aspects, incredible characters, and almost unmatched ability to min max and you easily have the new top dex.

My opinion is that whilst the GK codex is not gamebreaking, it does have its fair share of cheese however this is more of a case of Matt Ward being a terrible codex writer rather than codex creep. I swear Matt Ward must get his inspiration for rules design from 80’s action flicks.

First, crons vs gk, i have never lost a fight (as crons) second, orks vs gk, gk gets crushed, not enough ranged attacks and volume of cc attacks rapes us, maines, they are hugely cheaper, most armies can easily beat us with our few number of models. we have less things on the table then the fething necs.

In short GK's are not OP. They have special rules that no one has encountered, plus there is no one single list that anyone can build to defeat every combo their army can run (which pisses off most people). Once people learn the special rules and figure out how to work it we'll be just another codex.

Vindicare-Obsession wrote:First, crons vs gk, i have never lost a fight (as crons) second, orks vs gk, gk gets crushed, not enough ranged attacks and volume of cc attacks rapes us, maines, they are hugely cheaper, most armies can easily beat us with our few number of models. we have less things on the table then the fething necs.

In short GK's are not OP. They have special rules that no one has encountered, plus there is no one single list that anyone can build to defeat every combo their army can run (which pisses off most people). Once people learn the special rules and figure out how to work it we'll be just another codex.

Yes, I feel with the many ways you can build a GK army people just don't have a solid, one army beats all list; which is what many people look for. Now with the many lists that all do very well coming out people are woefully unprepared to deal with the randomness of the army. I like this though, I'm glad that if I ever want to go to a tourney i won't get wiped turn 1 because "My list didn't have the bare essentials the army needs to be competitive."

Although some rules, such as all GK having force weapons makes for one part I feel is OP. There is a few other things that are as well, but currently slip my mind.

GKs are suppused to be humanities last resort against the daemonic incursions. They are already expensive as all get out, a balanced codex is what im sticking by. The fack that GW has stared t produce codecies that you cant just say, "oh ill spam flamers (bugs and orks) or strength 8 weapons (crons) and be guaranteed a win." There is no list that you cna build that will be guaranteed to table a GK list without inside knowledge to the contents of that list and thats what I think makes a balanced army and what really pisses people off about GK's.

Yea, I hate it how grey knights are/ people say they are over powered.
This is because I have been waiting so long for grey knights to be updated
Now I am afraid to start an army of them ' cause I don't want to be called a dick for playing an op army.

...oh god... I hope something like this doesn't happen to Necrons too...

Remulus wrote:Yea, I hate it how grey knights are/ people say they are over powered.
This is because I have been waiting so long for grey knights to be updated
Now I am afraid to start an army of them ' cause I don't want to be called a dick for playing an op army.

...oh god... I hope something like this doesn't happen to Necrons too...

Don't worry man, It will. LoL

Vindicare-Obsession wrote:First, crons vs gk, i have never lost a fight (as crons) second, orks vs gk, gk gets crushed..

Woh, you have never lost a fight playing as necrons? dang, you must be very good. Also, lots of Gk list are purifier based which could give those orks a tough fight.

Remulus wrote:

Vindicare-Obsession wrote:First, crons vs gk, i have never lost a fight (as crons) second, orks vs gk, gk gets crushed..

Woh, you have never lost a fight playing as necrons? dang, you must be very good. Also, lots of Gk list are purifier based which could give those orks a tough fight.

Not really that good. They cant run vehicles for very long b/c of the liths and heavy destroyers and then their low number of models are stuck foot slogging through the volume of fire that I run so they dont have enough models to make it.

Edit: read the post again, I said I've never lost a fight against GK as crons. Please pay attention before you try to discredit me.

Um.. he's not trying to discredit you?

He's being impressed.

Purifiers DO give orks a good fight, though mine have (narrowly) never been beaten by a purifer list.

Necrons are a fairly tough matchup for GK, for reasons you stated, especially if the player knows his army well enough and uses them to full effect.

they are crazy overpowed against tyranids. against another army like ig, blood angels or space wolfs, not so much because all of those army's are also quite powerful. Against tyranids its just not fare, the nid player has to be very good to compete with gray knights because of all the force weapons and just the firepower that gray knights can put out.

Toastedandy wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Toastedandy wrote:I'm not a good enough player to adapt to new situations, thats why I can't beat them. >.>

Fixed. Might sound harsh, but it's true.

wow, didn't see the sarcasm in my post then?

Don't worry, I saw it... in big red letters!

lifeafter wrote:
My two cents about this conversation is that everytime there's a new codex, people complain about it being over powered. I think it comes down to your and your opponents army comps and play style. Your local store has a limited number of armies and playing styles to go up against, and so it may seem that an army is dominating, but in reality, it may just be the variables of your gaming scene lending to that outcome.

What this guy said.