Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I played five games with GK using the new codex and adhered to only taking units from the codex. I thought I'd share what I learned over those five games against different lists and trying new stuff myself. FWIW, I played against DA, Eldar (x2), SM and CSM.

1. Grey Knights dominate the psychic phase like no other army in 40k
Yes, this a case where your mileage may vary, but I ran double CAD in all five games. The core of the army was 20 purifiers in combat squads and two ML3 librarians at 1,750 and 2,000 pts. I routinely had over 20 dice before the roll and could cast and deny at will. I denied three attempts to cast Invisibility by two different armies, purely by virtue of weight of dice. Yes, 6's aren't perfect but throwing 15+ dice to deny paired with re-rolling 1s made it semi-reliable.

2. Unsurprisingly, purifiers are the star of the book
They're so ridiculously good it's silly. I can never advocate or justify taking strike squads over them given the paltry point difference. Having multiple squads spread across the board really stunts your opponent's ability to move around the board. Not by impeding them, but through the impending threat of getting hit with cleansing flame. It's a huge deterrent and forcing mass saves will whittle a squad down quickly, regardless of their save.

3. 2+ armor is a problem
The lack of low AP weaponry is huge. Terminators and centurions will be a huge problem for GK outside of the assault phase and hammers. Forcing saves is unreliable for good armor and it's here where things break down. Rather than trying to take lascannons on land raiders and dreads to kill them my recommendation is ignore them all together. Focus on the softer targets and wheel back around at the end of the game. It's not worth sinking too many points into the few low AP options in the book, they just don't earn their points back.

4. Forget the warding staff on libbies
Note that the rule on giving AW applies to the SQUAD, not just the person wielding it. Stick one on a termie or paladin and give that libby a hammer. It's a cheap way to get a good WS a hammer and if you've gotten off sanctuary or invis you'll win a challenge.

5. The detachment rules are stellar
On paper arriving on a 3+ via DS is good, in practice it's great. It really allows you to clog the backfield and get early pressure. I found that using one DS unit as a sacrifical lamb was extremely effective. Let a small unit of paladins soak up the fire so you can put yourself in position for turn two assaults. You're really playing an assault army now, not a mid-range shooting one as they were with psybolt. Embrace that and play into its strength.

6. Anything but ML3 librarians are lackluster for an HQ choice.
Crowe can situationally give you something, but he's way too expensive. GM's are meh compared to a libby with a hammer and the relics play into a librarian's role on the tabletop. I could easily see running three or four in a double cad.

7. Draigo is everything you want him to be
Before playing I thought he'd be something to take in 2k games only, but in practice it's hard to ignore him. Low points games wont favor him, but if you're running librarians you've saving enough points to justify him. Guaranteeing gate gives you one hell of a deathstar unit. I ran him, a ML3 librarian and 5 paladins. Yes it's expensive, but the unit earned its points back in all 5 games. Invis and sanctuary with Draigo in front tanking shots makes the unit damn-near unkillable, in CC he killed everything that challenged him. He ate the Avatar of Khaine, Karandras, Iron Hands company master and a demon prince. He's a monster.

8. Dreads are dead
You probably knew this before reading, but they're just not good. Not for the points of a dreadknight. Psyfleman were a staple of the old dex, but they're gone now. Not effective, never earned points back in any game.

9. Justicars are a hidden gem
Throwing melta bombs on a few of them gives you surprisingly effective AA if you can get off a turn two charge, while locator beacons allow for some nice shenanigans with gate. Draigo's deathstar will go right where you want them, and more importantly allow you to position them properly.

Anyone else have any thoughts after playing? Personally, they still need allies to be really great but they have a place.

Great read! I would say this should shut up all the doom and gloomers, but considering their tenacity.

Still sucks to see GKSS are dead, but then it makes me so glad I sold off all 60 of mine a year ago.

Played 3 games against GKs this weekend (as Space Marines). You're right about Cleansing Flame being very dangerous - it's rough getting hit bit it multiple times per turn.

Draigo's access to Gate of Infinity by default is super obnoxious to play against - he can basically teleport at will to wherever on the board he's needed the most (at the cost of losing a turn where he can't assault, but that's not a big downside if he would otherwise be standing around awkwardly). Also, with AP2 on Titansword now, he can effectively engage everything.

The new HQ librarians are very good - Terminator armor and level 3 mastery at 135 points! A good build for him seems to be to take the Primaris Power from Divination, then take 3 powers from Sanctic using the Domina Liber Daemonica (you can get Gate of Infinity half the time this way).

Strike Squads seem okay to me. They have fairly good firepower out to 24", and are quite strong in close combat.

The huge point hike to Dreadnoughts is bizarre, I can't imagine what the justification is for that. They cost 30 points more than the Space Wolf Dreadnoughts, and the only extra thing they get is the ability to cast one very mediocre power.

The Stormraven is now has Stormstrike Missiles, which is a major buff (the old missiles were terrible).

The Nemesis Strike Force can be sort of hard to play against. My opponent put his entire army into deep strike, and got lucky with the reserve and deep strike scatter rolls - all but a single unit of his army landed in my deployment zone on turn 1. I got one turn of shooting, and then spent the rest of the game getting killed in close combat. Not super psyched about that.

The whole codex seems very "Vanilla Knights". All the vehicles and most of the equipment got standardized to Regular Space Marine Stats. A lot of the weird equipment is gone.

One last thing: the lack of AP2 weapons was a severe problem for them last edition, and it remains a severe problem. The first game we played, I brought 15 terminators, Honor Guard, and Beatstick HQ's with artificer armor - I was able to nearly table him with minimal losses. There's just not a lot Grey Knights can do against 2+ armor (aside from Daemonhammers, but they're not very cost effective)

How do you feel using them as allied detachments?

I wish Ghazzy was at least close to the awesomeness named Draigo rulewise. I guess the more mary-sueish your fluff is - the stronger you are on tabletop

 Auswin wrote:
9. Justicars are a hidden gem
Throwing melta bombs on a few of them gives you surprisingly effective AA if you can get off a turn two charge, while locator beacons allow for some nice shenanigans with gate. Draigo's deathstar will go right where you want them, and more importantly allow you to position them properly.

I hope you didn't do that?
Because Justicars don't have a Locator Beacon, they have a Teleport Homer.

Teleport Homers only work when you come from Reserves.

did you tried dreadknights in your list?

thinking about 3(or 2 in special detachment) dreadknights pop onto enemy's face on turn1, if they survived its good, if not, rest of your army do


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kangodo wrote:

 Auswin wrote:
9. Justicars are a hidden gem
Throwing melta bombs on a few of them gives you surprisingly effective AA if you can get off a turn two charge, while locator beacons allow for some nice shenanigans with gate. Draigo's deathstar will go right where you want them, and more importantly allow you to position them properly.

I hope you didn't do that?
Because Justicars don't have a Locator Beacon, they have a Teleport Homer.

Teleport Homers only work when you come from Reserves.

I'd say take one inquisitor as ally, his grenade will further buff draigostar, and with 3 servo skulls you have more choices of teleporting all around

2. Unsurprisingly, purifiers are the star of the book
They're so ridiculously good it's silly. I can never advocate or justify taking strike squads over them given the paltry point difference. Having multiple squads spread across the board really stunts your opponent's ability to move around the board. Not by impeding them, but through the impending threat of getting hit with cleansing flame. It's a huge deterrent and forcing mass saves will whittle a squad down quickly, regardless of their save.

How do you use them?
''Spread across the board'' would mean on foot.
With psycannons?

I'm not 100% sure your assessment that all HQs except for libbies are good.

Stern getting sanctuary as a base spell can be pretty huge for any imperials who wish to ally him in for TH/SS termies. Thank god GKs can't take bikes, because I fear what sanctuary might do for thunderwolf cav as well...

Come to think of it, SW/GK combo's can be pretty sick with droppod purifiers coupled with 2++ terminator through Stern

 wuestenfux wrote:

2. Unsurprisingly, purifiers are the star of the book
They're so ridiculously good it's silly. I can never advocate or justify taking strike squads over them given the paltry point difference. Having multiple squads spread across the board really stunts your opponent's ability to move around the board. Not by impeding them, but through the impending threat of getting hit with cleansing flame. It's a huge deterrent and forcing mass saves will whittle a squad down quickly, regardless of their save.

How do you use them?
''Spread across the board'' would mean on foot.
With psycannons?

I'm wondering this myself. Personally I'd put them all in Rhinos for the same effect but with more mobility and resilience.

 wuestenfux wrote:

2. Unsurprisingly, purifiers are the star of the book
They're so ridiculously good it's silly. I can never advocate or justify taking strike squads over them given the paltry point difference. Having multiple squads spread across the board really stunts your opponent's ability to move around the board. Not by impeding them, but through the impending threat of getting hit with cleansing flame. It's a huge deterrent and forcing mass saves will whittle a squad down quickly, regardless of their save.

How do you use them?
''Spread across the board'' would mean on foot.
With psycannons?

In one game (vs. Eldar) I had three 10 man purifier squads combat squadded in rhinos with 5 walking behind it and using it as mobile cover. The teminator drop in his back lines had to be addressed so he couldn't be concerned with the purififers who quickly advanced, jumped out and covered a big section of the board in possible novas. Imagine how the Olympic rings work, that's what I did.

A NDK and DS termies were huge target priorities that allowed them to get into position. By the time he took out the NDK it was turn three and two squads were hit with cleansing flame three times for a total of 28 and 25 hits respectively.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kangodo wrote:

 Auswin wrote:
9. Justicars are a hidden gem
Throwing melta bombs on a few of them gives you surprisingly effective AA if you can get off a turn two charge, while locator beacons allow for some nice shenanigans with gate. Draigo's deathstar will go right where you want them, and more importantly allow you to position them properly.

I hope you didn't do that?
Because Justicars don't have a Locator Beacon, they have a Teleport Homer.

Teleport Homers only work when you come from Reserves.

Yes, I did. My I meant teleport homers. However, is there a reason it wouldn't work? I mean, the rules for gate say you remove them from the table and immediately place them "as if arriving from deep strike reserve"


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vash108 wrote:
How do you feel using them as allied detachments?

Hoo boy. So many crazy options. Right now the wildest I can think of is a 5 man purgation squad with incinerators coming down in a SW drop pod.

Thanks for sharing your experience; lots of useful points.

I've played one game of new GK vs Ultramarines, and I got pasted by THSS termies. I rolled terribly and my opponent simply would not fail any of his saves, despite my attempts to wear them down with weight of fire, but he still won fair and square. So your point about AP2 is very relevant to me!


Couple of notes:

 Auswin wrote:

1. Grey Knights dominate the psychic phase like no other army in 40k
Yes, this a case where your mileage may vary, but I ran double CAD in all five games. The core of the army was 20 purifiers in combat squads and two ML3 librarians at 1,750 and 2,000 pts. I routinely had over 20 dice before the roll and could cast and deny at will. I denied three attempts to cast Invisibility by two different armies, purely by virtue of weight of dice. Yes, 6's aren't perfect but throwing 15+ dice to deny paired with re-rolling 1s made it semi-reliable.

The aegis only let's you re-roll 1s to DtW if the unit with that special rule is the target - you don't get that bonus against invisibility.

9. Justicars are a hidden gem
Throwing melta bombs on a few of them gives you surprisingly effective AA if you can get off a turn two charge, while locator beacons allow for some nice shenanigans with gate. Draigo's deathstar will go right where you want them, and more importantly allow you to position them properly.

As some one already said; the teleport homer is the special issue war gear option, and it only works for units arriving from DS reserve. Gate of infinity says the unit "immediately arrives anywhere on the board using the rules for deepstrike", nothing about counting as having arrived from DS reserve.

Keep playing and sharing!

Re-read the Aegis rule again, it just says "deny the witch tests", doesn't say they have to be against the unit.

I don't think the Libby is a mando take, if you try to run a draigo star Stern's guaranteed Sanctuary is a must-have in my opinion. Otherwise I generally agree.

AP2 is a severe issue for GKs. Sure, we can throw more hammers onto our Terminators, but we don't get the nice 3++ that other termies get along with it. The game I played yesterday, I ended up losing 25 Terminators to Lysander and a squad of 8 hammernators (it was 10, but I killed two with my overwatch, and only killed two more after that in the two turns of assaults). I tend to go with 1 hammer for every 5 GK termies, and halberds for the rest, so I may want to consider adding in some more hammers now.

I still like halberds, and I think they're a good insurance policy, as you're never guaranteed to successfully cast Hammerhand.

Definitely don't go toe to toe with Hammernators. You definitely could have wasted them with shooting at range.

 greyknight12 wrote:
Re-read the Aegis rule again, it just says "deny the witch tests", doesn't say they have to be against the unit.

The Aegis rule is assigned on a per unit basis, and listed under the Special Rules section of each unit's entry. Some units don't have it; Land Raiders for example. The Army Special Rules paragraph in the appendix of the codex also makes this clear shortly before the Aegis special rule is explained. Clearly this is not an army-wide special rule.

Additionally, the BRB rules about DtW make it clear that if one of your units was not the target of the psychic power in question (as is the case with a blessing like Invisibility), "you can still attempt to Deny the Witch. To do so, follow the same process, but apply no modifiers to your dice rolls - you will require rolls of 6 to nullify Warp Charge points".

If the Aegis applied to all your Deny the Witch rolls, regardless of the target of the psychic power, then equally a single unit with the Brotherhood of Psykers in your army could confer their modifier to all your DtW rolls too. Or you could ally in a single GK unit with the Aegis to give your entire non-GK army a nice little bonus.

 pocketcanoe wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:
Re-read the Aegis rule again, it just says "deny the witch tests", doesn't say they have to be against the unit.

The Aegis rule is assigned on a per unit basis, and listed under the Special Rules section of each unit's entry. Some units don't have it; Land Raiders for example. The Army Special Rules paragraph in the appendix of the codex also makes this clear shortly before the Aegis special rule is explained. Clearly this is not an army-wide special rule.

Additionally, the BRB rules about DtW make it clear that if one of your units was not the target of the psychic power in question (as is the case with a blessing like Invisibility), "you can still attempt to Deny the Witch. To do so, follow the same process, but apply no modifiers to your dice rolls - you will require rolls of 6 to nullify Warp Charge points".

If the Aegis applied to all your Deny the Witch rolls, regardless of the target of the psychic power, then equally a single unit with the Brotherhood of Psykers in your army could confer their modifier to all your DtW rolls too. Or you could ally in a single GK unit with the Aegis to give your entire non-GK army a nice little bonus.

A reroll is not a modifier, it doesnt change the number required to succeed.

I am new at this game, and a few nights ago I played against my friend's Tau army using 7e rules for the first time.

Point wise I lost 7-2. He had both points, slay the warlord, and behind lines. But combat wise he very easily could have lost. I failed two separate charges to his commander (double 1's) and my terminators got wrecked, paladins eventually made it. I also got a very very unlucky triple one with my librarian, so he failed his +, ++, and FNP. This all happened in turn two.

By turn 7 I was not only still alive, but my paladins had killed his commander and body guards. All that was left was one drone squad, a largely ineffective broadside, and one firewarrior.

Turn one saw the utter destruction of two FW squads and two PF squads as my terminators and paladins (libby attached) teleported in on turn one, and my interceptor squad shunted in. He thought he was toast after that turn, then my dice betrayed me. Hahaha. But my greatest challenge was getting into charge distance of his commander who had jetpacks.

I say all this because before I was trying to play the mid-range shooting game but the change of the psycannon to salvo forced me to play aggressively and it largely was very effective, barring poor rolls.

What's fun for me is I never used the Psybolt ammo in my force, so i wont miss most of the "nerfs". I didn't use Storm Ravens either. the Dreadnought cost increase may force me not to use THEM anymore (their Reinforced Aegis was very cool before the new FAQ and now I have to re-evaluate with this new book).

My Psyker dice went WAY up without changing ANYTHING in my force. So that was fan-freaking-tastic.

My list was essentially 40 Purifiers, Vindicare Assassin, Rhino, two Lazerbacks, 2 dreads (multimelta and lascannon), Crowe. The end. Easy to transport, easy to remember and very deadly.

Sounds like I'm going to get FORCED to add something in place of one Purifier unit (troops requirement). Since I now have to take some Strike Squads as troops anyways (unless Crowe still makes Purifiers troops, which I doubt), that kinda solves itself. Okay fine.

Looks like Dreads may (or may not) be gone depending on what they can do for me. The two Dreads can maybe be replaced with... Assassin Formation? It's 260 points to play with (previous pricing). Hmm... suggestions? i always found it important with that list to have long range weapons to keep the enemy honest and unable to play keep away. Getting out ranged is a bad idea in 40K against a canny opponent who pays close attention. I also loved having those Doom Fists because nasty things like our own DreadKnights, or even Riptides, need a big teddy bear they can hug. as they were fairly low priority targets for most enemies, I got to use those fists more often than one would think.

Anywho, I need to see this darn book!

 Jancoran wrote:

Looks like Dreads may (or may not) be gone depending on what they can do for me. The two Dreads can maybe be replaced with... Assassin Formation? It's 260 points to play with (previous pricing). Hmm... suggestions? i always found it important with that list to have long range weapons to keep the enemy honest and unable to play keep away. Getting out ranged is a bad idea in 40K against a canny opponent who pays close attention.

I play primarily play DE competitively and the presences of psyrifleman was always what kept me honest from just kiting with venoms and ravagers. Psybacks to a lessor extent. Dropping those 48" low AV murderers would hurt against some armies.

 Exergy wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

Looks like Dreads may (or may not) be gone depending on what they can do for me. The two Dreads can maybe be replaced with... Assassin Formation? It's 260 points to play with (previous pricing). Hmm... suggestions? i always found it important with that list to have long range weapons to keep the enemy honest and unable to play keep away. Getting out ranged is a bad idea in 40K against a canny opponent who pays close attention.

I play primarily play DE competitively and the presences of psyrifleman was always what kept me honest from just kiting with venoms and ravagers. Psybacks to a lessor extent. Dropping those 48" low AV murderers would hurt against some armies.

Well you're tracking with me because I also play Dark Eldar and I love Night Shields. they pretty much invalidate all BUT 48" weaponry. Knowing that, you have to think carefully before you abandon "suboptimal" units that serve this purpose. Vindicare is a multipurpose armor/person killer, the two Razorbacks are accurate and the Lascnnon dread is accurate and with good range, able to take on any target. So it's why theyve been there all along,.

Plus the Strategic Warlord Traits which I always roll on can REALLY help the army bring the pain. So having some units on the board that are tough is good and the box's provide cover for the Dreads. I dunno. the synergy has been really good. On paper it doesnt look sexy but my experience with various armies really makes me leary of giving enemies like ShadowWeavers and the like too long to work unabated on preferential targets.

 Jancoran wrote:
What's fun for me is I never used the Psybolt ammo in my force, so i wont miss most of the "nerfs". I didn't use Storm Ravens either. the Dreadnought cost increase may force me not to use THEM anymore (their Reinforced Aegis was very cool before the new FAQ and now I have to re-evaluate with this new book).

My Psyker dice went WAY up without changing ANYTHING in my force. So that was fan-freaking-tastic.

My list was essentially 40 Purifiers, Vindicare Assassin, Rhino, two Lazerbacks, 2 dreads (multimelta and lascannon), Crowe. The end. Easy to transport, easy to remember and very deadly.

Sounds like I'm going to get FORCED to add something in place of one Purifier unit (troops requirement). Since I now have to take some Strike Squads as troops anyways (unless Crowe still makes Purifiers troops, which I doubt), that kinda solves itself. Okay fine.

Looks like Dreads may (or may not) be gone depending on what they can do for me. The two Dreads can maybe be replaced with... Assassin Formation? It's 260 points to play with (previous pricing). Hmm... suggestions? i always found it important with that list to have long range weapons to keep the enemy honest and unable to play keep away. Getting out ranged is a bad idea in 40K against a canny opponent who pays close attention. I also loved having those Doom Fists because nasty things like our own DreadKnights, or even Riptides, need a big teddy bear they can hug. as they were fairly low priority targets for most enemies, I got to use those fists more often than one would think.

Anywho, I need to see this darn book!

Honestly, I wouldn't even bother with strike squads. For 55 pts more you're looking at a squad of termies. Since the FOC only requires one troop per CAD I'd just take a bare-bones Terminator squad and keep loading up on the Purifiers if you're going to go that route. I just feel they'e much more cost effective. I'm down on Strike Squads in general, but your mileage may vary.

The Dreads are just way too expensive in a slot where Dreadknights reign supreme. They got so much better with the point reduction and sanctuary stock that it's hard to find another unit to recommend in heavy.

 Auswin wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
What's fun for me is I never used the Psybolt ammo in my force, so i wont miss most of the "nerfs". I didn't use Storm Ravens either. the Dreadnought cost increase may force me not to use THEM anymore (their Reinforced Aegis was very cool before the new FAQ and now I have to re-evaluate with this new book).

My Psyker dice went WAY up without changing ANYTHING in my force. So that was fan-freaking-tastic.

My list was essentially 40 Purifiers, Vindicare Assassin, Rhino, two Lazerbacks, 2 dreads (multimelta and lascannon), Crowe. The end. Easy to transport, easy to remember and very deadly.

Sounds like I'm going to get FORCED to add something in place of one Purifier unit (troops requirement). Since I now have to take some Strike Squads as troops anyways (unless Crowe still makes Purifiers troops, which I doubt), that kinda solves itself. Okay fine.

Looks like Dreads may (or may not) be gone depending on what they can do for me. The two Dreads can maybe be replaced with... Assassin Formation? It's 260 points to play with (previous pricing). Hmm... suggestions? i always found it important with that list to have long range weapons to keep the enemy honest and unable to play keep away. Getting out ranged is a bad idea in 40K against a canny opponent who pays close attention. I also loved having those Doom Fists because nasty things like our own DreadKnights, or even Riptides, need a big teddy bear they can hug. as they were fairly low priority targets for most enemies, I got to use those fists more often than one would think.

Anywho, I need to see this darn book!

Honestly, I wouldn't even bother with strike squads. For 55 pts more you're looking at a squad of termies. Since the FOC only requires one troop per CAD I'd just take a bare-bones Terminator squad and keep loading up on the Purifiers if you're going to go that route. I just feel they'e much more cost effective. I'm down on Strike Squads in general, but your mileage may vary.

The Dreads are just way too expensive in a slot where Dreadknights reign supreme. They got so much better with the point reduction and sanctuary stock that it's hard to find another unit to recommend in heavy.

CAD's require two troops. Also: Strike Squads would leave more points to turn Dreadnoughts into Dreadnights, yeah?

I think he means the Nemesis Strike Force, which is a Detachment and not a Combined Arms Detachment

 Auswin wrote:
Yes, I did. My I meant teleport homers. However, is there a reason it wouldn't work? I mean, the rules for gate say you remove them from the table and immediately place them "as if arriving from deep strike reserve"

"It then immediately arrives anywhere on the board using the rules for Deep Strike."
So no, that wouldn't work since they don't come out of the Deep Strike Reserve.

 WrentheFaceless wrote:

A reroll is not a modifier, it doesnt change the number required to succeed.

That doesn't alter the fact that this special rule is unit specific and therfore the unit must be targeted for it to take effect.

 pocketcanoe wrote:

 WrentheFaceless wrote:

A reroll is not a modifier, it doesnt change the number required to succeed.

That doesn't alter the fact that this special rule is unit specific and therfore the unit must be targeted for it to take effect.

The BRB also says that any unit in your army can attempt to deny the witch for blessings. Therefore it is a "by unit" action so I can pick which unit denies. And as said above, a re-roll is not a modifier.

 pocketcanoe wrote:

 WrentheFaceless wrote:

A reroll is not a modifier, it doesnt change the number required to succeed.

That doesn't alter the fact that this special rule is unit specific and therfore the unit must be targeted for it to take effect.

Point out where it says the unit has to be targeted for the reroll to take effect in the BRB or in the GK codex.

 Jancoran wrote:


CAD's require two troops. Also: Strike Squads would leave more points to turn Dreadnoughts into Dreadnights, yeah?

No, not unless you're using the 7th ed rulebook CAD to get obsec, which is wasted in a GK list. They have their own CAD as outlined in the codex. 1 HQ and 1 troop required, with 1 HQ, 4 elite, 2 FA, 2 HS, 1 LOW, 1 fortification optional.

You forego obsec for being allowed to arrive via deep strike starting turn one on a 3+, which is vastly better than getting obsec in an army that doesn't have the option for a cheap troop choice.

Yes taking SS allows for more points in HS, but I think it's wasted. You get those points from running very cheap ML3 librarians, or if you really want to be cheap taking techmarines as HQs.

Auswin, that is not a CAD.
A CAD always has two troops and one HQ as minimum. Always.

I don't know if it is a CAD but it is some special detachment in the GK book. One hq one troop minimum and can take 2 heavies and 4 elites. Good if you want gk as a supplemental force (Lib, 5 GKT and 2 Dreadknights is legal).