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So we're a couple weeks passed the release date, and it seems the Grey Knight Codex bemoaning is slowing down. As a long time GK player, I can say I was slightly disappointed as well, but at the end of the day it is rather nice seeing GK armies with lots of silver clad superhumans again versus Cotaez, Chimeras, 3 Psyfleman, and space monkeys.

I realize that there hasn't been a positive thing said on the internet about any "new" codex since the internet's inception, but how is everyone "really" doing on the tabletop? I have come to grips with the fact that we aren't going to dominate a 17 Wave Serpent Eldar army, but I'm OK with that. I also understand that it won't be hitting any top tourney tables without significant ally influence, but it certainly isn't the trainwreck that is Chaos Cultists (oops I meant Chaos Space Marines).

What do you think?

Competitively: Great Ally!

From the 5th-6th Ed Bandwagoners: Lost way too much and became boring!

From Pure GK Players: This is what we've been waiting for!

From Everyone: Why is the Psycannon Salvo?



Pure GK is a solid middle-of-the-roader finally with success being measured once more by intelligence...but offset by the greatness of Dreadknights.

One of my peeps at my flgs plays GK pretty exclusively so he's a very competent GK player. Last night he ran a dual Nemesis Strike Force against my Necrons+Orks. The psychic phase was brutal - by the end of the game he had up to three vortex of dooms that just seemed to be following me around the board. Psychic shriek + terror really put the hurt on the ork meganobz. I made two big tactical mistakes, blew an assault roll I had no business failing and he made a ton of saves on a 5 man strike squad versus 3 rounds of tesla destructors. He also only periled once and saved the wound with a FNP roll :( No not so sure how future games will go as I know what I'll be dealing with better next time.

Having a bunch of paladins with guaranteed GOI can be brutal. It's a pretty rock solid unit that's tough to crack. The next time we play though I'm going to shell out the points for a culexus assasin then we'll see how the psychic phase goes

I have to admit I was a 5th edition bandwagoneer. Got sucked in by the coolness of the dreadknight and terminator models. And I have to admit having lost the inquisitors I find GK a lot less interesting.

I got owned by shooty dark eldar last night :(

Like properly picked apart - we discussed what I could've done to have at least made it a closer game, but most solutions revolved around allying inquisition back in or allying with space marines. This makes me think - if you need to ally to make a codex work, why not just swap to that other codex wholesale?

Dreadknights are SO good that it's hard not to write a list based around taking maximum numbers of them.

It feels like a mono-build army that has hard counters and can just hold it's own IF you are very good at the game.

Personally, I've considered moving to a different army, but I honestly think that just shifting to the flavour of the month will be a slippery slope.

I'm gonna stick with GK for now and hope it makes me a better analyst and tactician to squeeze every last drop of effectiveness out of what has become a lacklustre codex.

 pocketcanoe wrote:
I'm gonna stick with GK for now and hope it makes me a better analyst and tactician to squeeze every last drop of effectiveness out of what has become a lacklustre codex.

That's what happened to me back when Codex : Daemonhunters was more like "40K HARD MODE".

GKs were my first army and I got my face stomped for about 6 months straight...never won a game.

Got really good at making every single one of my precious 25 pt models count.

Keep at it man. Grey Knights will make you a better player.

I think a good ''ally'' for GKs is to take the 2 storm talon/1 stormraven vanilla marine formation. That can cover a lot of weaknesses for not too many points.

Psychic spam is definitely the way to go. Grandmasters aren't bad either as you only give up one power to be much better in combat and take a bs5 psycannon.

The whining was overblown, they're still solid

I have found that the deep strike turn 1 into the backfield with the NSF has been able to throw some armies off balance. Especially gun line heavy armies or ones that are centered on a surge forward in the early game (speed cult, certain Eldar builds, ground crons, Tau). It allows you to split their armies focus between a star in their back field they cant ignore and other units capping objectives. The army forces you to be very strategic and play intelligently. With the absence of inquisition fillers and psybolt ammo, the army you field has to make the expensive models you have count. I think the codex has gotten back Knights are supposed to be in the fluff. Elite commando types that are used to diffuse a bad situation with superior armor and weapons (compared to the rest of the Imperium). I would have been fine if the codex had gone the other way but I think the only way keeping it all together would work would be to go back to either a witch hunter/ daemon hunter/ xeno hunter set or do an full blown inquisition codex with inquisition, grey knights, sororitas, and death watch all in the same book

Lord Cornilius wrote:
So we're a couple weeks passed the release date, and it seems the Grey Knight Codex bemoaning is slowing down. As a long time GK player, I can say I was slightly disappointed as well, but at the end of the day it is rather nice seeing GK armies with lots of silver clad superhumans again versus Cotaez, Chimeras, 3 Psyfleman, and space monkeys.

I realize that there hasn't been a positive thing said on the internet about any "new" codex since the internet's inception, but how is everyone "really" doing on the tabletop? I have come to grips with the fact that we aren't going to dominate a 17 Wave Serpent Eldar army, but I'm OK with that. I also understand that it won't be hitting any top tourney tables without significant ally influence, but it certainly isn't the trainwreck that is Chaos Cultists (oops I meant Chaos Space Marines).

What do you think?

Lolz! I play csm...or should i say struggled.


I tried to find the fabled jokearo in order to find a way to spam them in the new grey knight codex.

Jokes on me!

I did at least get my wish.

I was a little miffed by all the Inquisition crap in the last codex. Only ever took a Vindicare from their section because I love Snipers(and he was awesome)

Got to play around with them, despite not owning the army. 2k of SM and GK (1000 each) vs 2k of Orks and Crons (same, 1000 each). GK player was distracted a lot of the time and told me to take over when he couldn't play (I do a lot of codex reading and have a good chunk of theoretical knowledge of how things should work). List was something along the lines of 5 Paladins with one Apoth and a banner (all swords), 5 termies with a mix of falchions and halberds, brother-captain with a sword, NDK with heavy psycannon and incinerator, and five interceptors. I ran 2x5 tacs with a lascannon, 3 las/missile cents with a libby at ML2 (+ Sentinels of terra libby relic), three dreads with a combination of autocannons, assault cannons, and heavy flamers.

Against armies comprising of many necron warriors, CCB, Anni barge, battlewagons, some bikers, some boyz, and a deffdread - marines largely wiffed, and claim the kills of a battlewagon, 7-10 warriors of 40, and a few bikers. The GK largely butchered the rest of the armies, with all credit going to the Paladins (who killed the other 30 warriors with accompanying lords) and the NDK (who killed the Anni barge, CCB, group of boyz + warboss, and deffdread).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Impressions: Piss poor shooting outside of NDK, no long-range anti-tank. Decent in CC, but low volume of attacks and no re-rolling shenanigans. Excel at even and below init CCs. Will have trouble against higher init enemies.

Well that was hardly a decent list.

He didn't have psycannons on the Terminators/Paladins? Psycannons are amazing on Terminators(unchanged from last book for them)

Gks can get rerolls if one of their psykers puts one power into Divination for the Primaris.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Well that was hardly a decent list.

He didn't have psycannons on the Terminators/Paladins? Psycannons are amazing on Terminators(unchanged from last book for them)

Gks can get rerolls if one of their psykers puts one power into Divination for the Primaris.

The lists faced were hardly decent either. But 2k of subpar orkcrons were taken apart by 2k of subpar GK was none the less impressive. As a Marine player, piloting a GK to murder one half of a battlefield and Paladins to murder the other half was pleasantly empowering. Of course I'd have repurposed the list to include psycannons and token hammers per squad, dropped the BroCap for a librarian, etc. But I haven't had that much fun with my Marines.

Today I bought two NDK. Let the adventure begin.

My last game was against a Necron List. Ended the game with exactly one Purifier on the board. He had a necron Lord alive that had risen twice. We both were making a bee line for an objective in oposite directions. He got to mine, I didn't.

I was able to come back in this game from a faaaaairly demoralizing start because once you get up on the enemy with all that Cleansing flame its on like Donkey Kong and stuff starts to serious die all around you. I made up a LOT of ground VERY quickly. The army is ELITE and though it does not take casualties well, it dishes them out forcefully. So I mean it was a great game, i felt like a hero for thrtee turns straight, just obliterating Necrons and their vehicles non stop everywhere. Came down to who could run the fastest. pretty exciting game.

One thing you better NOT be is morose or a quitter if you are going to play this army. it WILL have to take a spanking in the early going on occasion. The salvo thing is pretty brutal. On the other hand.... I jumped up in Psychic power and made up, I felt, all that firepower just in being able to pull off a SAURON MOVE with even just Crowe on his lonesome!

I enjoyed it.

Edit:

Side note: also forgot that I played a Wave Spam list. Also a loss, but also extremely close and it had more to do with me just muffing a couple of easy charges which allowed the two Wave Serpents to fire one last time and that was the diff in the game. Short of that it would have been a Grey Knight victory, or at least that seemed very likely. I am finding that Flat out moving is better in most cases to firing at Wave Spam and I might just drop my two Razorbacks for Rhinos because i do love the way you can Shenanigan Combat Squads. More experimenting to come. I am at that tipping point in my experimenting where I can feel the victories will be there for me. But the jarring impact of the codex changes have affected things and do require me to seek the cheese. I feel Im close. =)

So far pure GK has worked really well for me. I came to this codex as a 'Nid player and Necron player, and find this dex's level is much closer to the later. Sure, it isn't over-powered, but it is damn solid and feels like in works while doing what it should do fluff-wise.

I appreciate that they feel ultra elite, with small numbers on the table, but those models being devilishly powerful. When theme and mechanics click, I am happy, and honestly feel like the game-wide nerfs are leaving the game more balanced all the time. Once Cron/Eldar/Tau get new books and have their round of "OH GAWD NERFS!" the game should be fun... but I digress.

In about five games now, my take away has been that the only auto-include is the Dreadknight. It is unfortunate that he really IS that great at that point cost. Expect to see two/three of them for the entire edition.

That said, stuff like the Storm Raven ISN'T over-costed. I know it is popular, but for TAC lists, it fills a hole/need, and helps with their anti-armor. I've made a place for one in my list the last two games and it earned back its points and was nice to have in general.

Purifiers will be more popular than people suspect, as Cleansing Flame legitimately does work, as Soul Blaze can as well.

Interceptors can be very nice. Shunt on that unit is wonderful, and in a group of ten with a couple incinerators you will find they earn back their points early on when units haven't spread out. I love 'em and think their points are just right to justify taking them.

Draigo-star will be spoken of often, but honestly Paladins with a Librarian and Apothocary do just fine on their own. With shuffling of wounds, FNP, and potentially a 4++ if you roll Sanctuary, they will live long enough to cause some problems to the opponent. They have consistantly performed for me as a unit of 5 with 2 Psycannons, one Hammer, and the rest with Halberds and Melta-Bombs.

Only real stinker in the codex... the basic Strike Squad. What a junky, expensive troop choice in a book which only has two options, period (and no tricks for making anything else a troop choice). Luckily Terminators are a good (not great) option.

MOST codices have practically two troop options without shuffle tricks (or some options who are so close they might as well be one unit with options)

Stop dissing the strike squads. they are awesome compared to most MeQ troops (or troopables like cult units). its just that a few choice armies have access to TOO good troops that make the decent ones like strikes look bad.

I would genuinely prefer tactical squads to GKSS. Cheap scoring and melta access would be preferable.

Our local GK player has been having good games with them, winning about as many as is usual. He never really used the Inquisition options, so it hasn't been a very big change.

The internal balance within the codex is better, most of the infantry options are worth taking. All the old options are good - Nemesis Dreadknights and Draigo remain powerhouses. The Stormraven got much better now that it has access to Stormstrike missiles instead of the old crappy ones. Lack of Psibolt ammo has lowered their ranged killyness, but they can field more bodies than they used to. The Nemesis Strike Force seems to be working out very well, as it allows the GK to focus on choices other than troops (as well as the 1st turn deep strike and run+shoot).

From the point of view of an opponent, they remain very easy to hard-counter. They are astonishingly bad against things like SM grav bike spam, and they still have almost no access to ranged AP2 weapons.

Actually, our Stormraven got worse, not better. The loss of Mindstrike missiles hurts more than the loss of Psibolts, as Mindstrikes were definitely the best anti-Psykerstar weapon in the game when 7th hit. Without Mindstrikes, Psibolts, or Psychic Pilot, our SR is just a generic SM SR, and we might as well take the SM SR+ST formation rather than waste a fast slot on ours.

SJ

I disagree. Some str8 shooting is more useful than a situational antipsyker weapon.

In casual play, perhaps. Tournament armies outside of Serpent Spam very often relied on psychic powers to fuel deathstars. Mindstrike missiles were an invaluable asset in eliminating that fuel.

"Casual play" looks an awful lot like competitive play where Im from. Lol. I think that is a distinction that makes no distinction in 90% of the games.

Mind Strike missiles were hard to adjudicate, required an FAQ and they just needed to go. Taking a super expensive storm raven for the chance you might see a significant ENOUGH Psychic target to care is fine I guess, but now that ytou can add a Culexis and he can snag someones rhino (unless im missing something) plus is super hard to hit... I dunno. I think the Storm Raven improved. I still wont take one but Id be a lot closer now than i was then. Hehehehe.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Actually, our Stormraven got worse, not better. The loss of Mindstrike missiles hurts more than the loss of Psibolts, as Mindstrikes were definitely the best anti-Psykerstar weapon in the game when 7th hit. Without Mindstrikes, Psibolts, or Psychic Pilot, our SR is just a generic SM SR, and we might as well take the SM SR+ST formation rather than waste a fast slot on ours.

SJ

Situational. Obviously if you're fighting Seer Councils and screamerstars they're great. But most armies don't have psykerstars, and against those the S8 AP2 missiles are better (especially against enemy flyers, which are a lot more common in our local meta).

WIth access to the TL Las and MultiMelta or Typhoon, I would take psyk outs all day.

 DanielBeaver wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Actually, our Stormraven got worse, not better. The loss of Mindstrike missiles hurts more than the loss of Psibolts, as Mindstrikes were definitely the best anti-Psykerstar weapon in the game when 7th hit. Without Mindstrikes, Psibolts, or Psychic Pilot, our SR is just a generic SM SR, and we might as well take the SM SR+ST formation rather than waste a fast slot on ours.

SJ

Situational. Obviously if you're fighting Seer Councils and screamerstars they're great. But most armies don't have psykerstars, and against those the S8 AP2 missiles are better (especially against enemy flyers, which are a lot more common in our local meta).

What part of "Grey Knights are a situational army" and "now the GK Stormraven is just another SM Stormraven" makes lossing a "situational, yet unique to GKs weapon option" a good thing? If any of us wanted to have S8 AP2 missiles, the option to bring one or more in was always present. Now, there is no option to take anti-Psyker missiles. Lossing a unique option does not make a unique unit better, it makes that unit generic. If we wanted to play generic Marines, there's an entire Codex for that which is not Codex Grey Knights.

SJ

So a funny thing happened to me the other day. I showed up for a 1500 point game at my local store with a list including some purifiers in a storm raven, combat squaded interceptors, the obligatory dreadknight, some termies, and an imperial knight - to serve as a bullet magnet and for ranged ap2.

When I got there I was informed that they'd increased the points limit to 1750, and that we were not going to include superheavies. (Trancendent C'tan the week before in a 1500 point list had ruffled some feathers)

So, I had about 600 points to add. I grumbled a bit at having to totally change my list, but was able to proxy in a friend's deathwing and just slotted in three terminator squads to my existing list.

I didn't expect it to do much, but it turns out that 4 squads of termies with interceptors and dreadknight support are pretty hard to remove. Just keep them away from plasma - and they'll rock and roll with pretty much anything that gets thrown at them.

The two games I've played with the list it's been pretty close both times. But the purifiers in the storm raven have managed to come in at the right time and provide the punch that swings the fight back my way. I guess I'm saying that I've been pleasantly surprised by the new codex.

one thing peopel seem to forgets,

regarding psycannons,


why is a gun, thats BETTER then an assault cannon, more spammable then one, available on PAGK's, at the same cost or less,

like that in the first place?

p cannons were honestly a bit too good before, salvo makes them worse, and brings their power level in line with comparable weapons like asssault cannons for the pts ou pay.



as for GK in general,


seriously.... we have some awesome strats...

run 3 libbies and LAUGH as your 135pt d weapons factories rofle stomp stuff.

run 2++ save gatting units and laugh at lots of other stuff.

 easysauce wrote:
why is a gun, thats BETTER then an assault cannon, more spammable then one, available on PAGK's, at the same cost or less,

like that in the first place?

no lascannons/melta guns/ plasma guns/missile launchers/bikes/centurions/thunderfire/etc
The gun was that good because it's a workhorse...it's your anti-everything in a world where you don't have the ability to choose a melta or plasma gun over an assault cannon.

 ductvader wrote:

 easysauce wrote:
why is a gun, thats BETTER then an assault cannon, more spammable then one, available on PAGK's, at the same cost or less,

like that in the first place?

no lascannons/melta guns/ plasma guns/missile launchers/bikes/centurions/thunderfire/etc
The gun was that good because it's a workhorse...it's your anti-everything in a world where you don't have the ability to choose a melta or plasma gun over an assault cannon.

right... that versatility makes it even better, its anti everything, better then melta plas, or las in every way, the power of a heavy weapon, good anti horde, anti armour, and with the mobility of an assault weapon.

hence it got nerfed a bit.


GW has nerfed every single AUTO TAKE powerlevel thing fo rthe most part, it happened with vendettas it makes sense it happened here,

dont have to like it, but the reasoning for it is there.

I could name a billion instances in which a plasma gun, melta gun, lascannon, or missile launcher is better.

Don't get me wrong, I love the psycannon, it suits the Grey Knights.

But just like GKs, it's good at everything, great at nothing.

The Psycannon was at it's best in the Daemonhunter book I think.

Always three shots and 18" range while moving or 36" while sitting.