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kombatwombat wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
In reality you wouldn't pay for force weapons on 1 attack models.

The fact that the cost is baked into the GK is actually hurting them.

In honesty, people would equip them with free chainswords if they had the option, and thus lowering their cost from 21 (with storm bolter) down to like 15.

So touting the force weapon as a plus is really not fair.

Now, if PAGK had a base of 2 attacks you *might* have the argument that it's worth it

GK struggle to get into melee and when they get there, they don't have the attack volume to do any meaningful damage.

There are a lot of problems here with this army. Some of it stems from the fact that assault marines are flat bad. Would assault marines see play if they had a base 3 attacks? I mean honestly, would they? Maybe. Only maybe.

That’s exactly my point though! You can give GK a 10pt weapon for 6pts and it’s still not good. The whole point is that none of these are GK-specific problems, they’re problems with the basic Marine profile which they share. Lack of durability, lack of mobility and low attack volume are all core Marine problems. Fix those, and suddenly a Force Axe on a PA GK doesn’t sound like such a bad idea, particularly when paired with a Stormbolter and Deny/psychic abilities.

I’ll say it again, the best solution in my view is to just make all Marines have the +1 Wound/Attack that Primaris have, and remove the Primaris keyword altogether so everybody can hop in any transport. 23pts for a 2-Wound 3+ model with 2 attacks with a Force Weapon, a Stormbolter, the ability to Deny with +1 and the equivalent of a 2+ to do a Mortal Wound per unit each turn sounds alright. Address their mobility - say by reducing the cost of Transports or something - and you’re well on your way to making GK strong even before you get to addressing their Psychic problems.

With or without that change, I’m also onboard for the idea of going back to the 4th Ed version of Nemesis weapon where basic guys get just a Strength bonus, Justicars/Terminators get the AP as well, and Characters(/Paladins?) get the full blown Force Weapon. It’d let you drop the price of most models in the army dramatically, which is something they sorely need. You’d also have almost-useable Terminators - say 35 points for a Storm Bolter and Power Weapon Terminator and a Psychic Power sounds solid on paper at least.

I think giving all marines the primaris treatment could work, though im not sure i'd be too happy about it. I still think i'd prefer them get some kind of armor save buff (ignore 1 point of AP is my favorite so far) and stay at 1 wound, but gain 1 attack base, or 1 attack on the charge (army / all marine codexes wide), and drop to about 12 points. I'd also give all terminators and paladins WS/BS2+.

Either way, my vision for the nemesis force weapons would be would be something like:

Nemesis Force Sword: S: User AP-3 D: 1 - 4 points
Nemesis Force Halberd: S: +1 AP-2 D: 1 - 5 points
Nemesis Falcions: S: User AP-1 D:1 - 2 attacks if you have two of them - 3/7points
Nemesis Deamon Hammer: S: x2 AP-3 D:3 - subtract 1 to hit - 16 points

Basically Nerf them down to what normal SM have. Then, all GK units have a power:

Activate force weapons: Self cast only, Nemesis Force Swords, Falcions, and Halberds are now 1d3 damage, Daemon Hammers are 3+1d3 damage - successful invul saves against these weapons must be re-rolled.

Ideally i would also want them to lose smite and normal powers but have them gain a few other self cast only powers so they would have a lot of options but have to choose what they wanted to be good at each turn, like:

Hammerhand: +1 to wound in the fight phase for 1 turn
Astral Aim: Ignore cover, LoS, and ignore all to hit modifiers (except for moving) during the next turn's shooting phase
Strikes only: No unit can deepstrike within 12" of this unit
Purifiers only: Cast range of 6" roll 1d6 for every model in the target unit, 1 mortal wound for each 6 rolled.
Purgations only: Can move and shoot with no penalty
Paladins only: increase invul save that turn by 1
All vehicles only (the only power they know): Act as though they are one tier higher on the damage charts

Then change the current powers libs and characters can get:

1. Purge soul - 1d3 mortal wounds+the difference in Ld
2. Gate - have it move both the casting character and the target unit (so you can move the charge re-roll HQ + a big unit together)
3. The shrouding: units within 6 add one to their armor saves
4. Sanctuary: the unit also ignores mortal wounds on a 5+
5. Vortex: change it to 6" from the target unit
6. Some fancy name: target enemy has -1 to invul saves taken that turn.

While im at it:

Psycannon - choose between heavy 4 and rapid fire 2 - if the target has an invul save, change to 2 damage
Incinerator: Change to D2 - reroll invul saves against this weapon
Psilencer: - reroll invul saves against this weapon

NDK teleporter gives shunt
Change Shunt to a one time 30" move
Count NDKs and Grand Masters in NDKs as the same for the purposes of the rule of 3 (i'd do this for all similar units in most codexes tbh).
Drop the cost of the rhino by about 30 points.

Probably far from perfect, and points might have to move around, but I feel like this would make GK be in a much better place, and be a lot more more fun to play. I also don't feel like these changes are that major from a confusion perspective.

The way i see it, GK would be good at fighting things with invul saves (which are sooooo good right now it's kind of silly) and they would be able to get in your face quickly with shunts and gate (8 units max on turn one with 1 HQ and another unit from gate, 3 interceptor units, and 3 NDKs. 30" lets you move somewhat freely, but seems better than the previous deepstrike madness, but definitely feels like GK to me.

Okay tear me apart lol.

I’m generally happy with most of that, but it seems to me that you’re satisfying a bit of a personal vendetta against Invulnerable Saves rather than drawing inspiration from the lore or necessary gameplay mechanics.

Remember that, outside of Daemons, most things with an Invulnerable Save pay through the nose for the privilege of having one, and even then it’s most commonly a 6++ or 5++, occasionally a 4++ and on a handful of units a 3++. I don’t think Nemesis Weapons need the reroll Invul Saves mechanic. It doesn’t make sense from a lore point of view - why is a Nemesis Weapon good at cutting through a Storm Shield or hitting a dodging Harlequin? Same goes for the shooting weapons - why does a Psycannon shell hurt a dodging DEldar Raider more than a Land Speeder, or a Knight Armiger more than a Dreadnought? I also don’t think it’s a necessary game mechanic that you’d suspend belief/lore for - Invulnerable Saves are a natural soft-counter to a low-attack-count elite army, which is a good thing balance-wise.

Now if you’re specifically talking Daemon Invul Saves then I’m more on the page with you. If you make those rules only apply to models with the Daemon keyword, then that’s just about all you’d need in terms of Daemon-specific rules outside of maybe a Stratagem or two.

Aside from that the rest seeks ok to me.

I don't agree with most of following proposals:

jcd386 wrote:

kombatwombat wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
In reality you wouldn't pay for force weapons on 1 attack models.

The fact that the cost is baked into the GK is actually hurting them.

In honesty, people would equip them with free chainswords if they had the option, and thus lowering their cost from 21 (with storm bolter) down to like 15.

So touting the force weapon as a plus is really not fair.

Now, if PAGK had a base of 2 attacks you *might* have the argument that it's worth it

GK struggle to get into melee and when they get there, they don't have the attack volume to do any meaningful damage.

There are a lot of problems here with this army. Some of it stems from the fact that assault marines are flat bad. Would assault marines see play if they had a base 3 attacks? I mean honestly, would they? Maybe. Only maybe.

That’s exactly my point though! You can give GK a 10pt weapon for 6pts and it’s still not good. The whole point is that none of these are GK-specific problems, they’re problems with the basic Marine profile which they share. Lack of durability, lack of mobility and low attack volume are all core Marine problems. Fix those, and suddenly a Force Axe on a PA GK doesn’t sound like such a bad idea, particularly when paired with a Stormbolter and Deny/psychic abilities.

I’ll say it again, the best solution in my view is to just make all Marines have the +1 Wound/Attack that Primaris have, and remove the Primaris keyword altogether so everybody can hop in any transport. 23pts for a 2-Wound 3+ model with 2 attacks with a Force Weapon, a Stormbolter, the ability to Deny with +1 and the equivalent of a 2+ to do a Mortal Wound per unit each turn sounds alright. Address their mobility - say by reducing the cost of Transports or something - and you’re well on your way to making GK strong even before you get to addressing their Psychic problems.

With or without that change, I’m also onboard for the idea of going back to the 4th Ed version of Nemesis weapon where basic guys get just a Strength bonus, Justicars/Terminators get the AP as well, and Characters(/Paladins?) get the full blown Force Weapon. It’d let you drop the price of most models in the army dramatically, which is something they sorely need. You’d also have almost-useable Terminators - say 35 points for a Storm Bolter and Power Weapon Terminator and a Psychic Power sounds solid on paper at least.

I think giving all marines the primaris treatment could work, though im not sure i'd be too happy about it. I still think i'd prefer them get some kind of armor save buff (ignore 1 point of AP is my favorite so far) and stay at 1 wound, but gain 1 attack base, or 1 attack on the charge (army / all marine codexes wide), and drop to about 12 points. I'd also give all terminators and paladins WS/BS2+.

Either way, my vision for the nemesis force weapons would be would be something like:

Nemesis Force Sword: S: User AP-3 D: 1 - 4 points
Nemesis Force Halberd: S: +1 AP-2 D: 1 - 5 points
Nemesis Falcions: S: User AP-1 D:1 - 2 attacks if you have two of them - 3/7points
Nemesis Deamon Hammer: S: x2 AP-3 D:3 - subtract 1 to hit - 16 points

Basically Nerf them down to what normal SM have. Then, all GK units have a power:

Activate force weapons: Self cast only, Nemesis Force Swords, Falcions, and Halberds are now 1d3 damage, Daemon Hammers are 3+1d3 damage - successful invul saves against these weapons must be re-rolled.
I strongly disagree. Even if you drop the points of all GK models by 6 points before apply these changes, you are only complicating the game. Moreover you apply a rule to Nemesis force weapons and a different rule to others force weapons, anche this is crazy. No activation is one of the few things that are ok with our army. And we still have problems with low number of attack and how to get in cc. Even with these changes a chainsword would be a better choice.

Ideally i would also want them to lose smite and normal powers but have them gain a few other self cast only powers so they would have a lot of options but have to choose what they wanted to be good at each turn, like:

Hammerhand: +1 to wound in the fight phase for 1 turn
Astral Aim: Ignore cover, LoS, and ignore all to hit modifiers (except for moving) during the next turn's shooting phase
Strikes only: No unit can deepstrike within 12" of this unit
Purifiers only: Cast range of 6" roll 1d6 for every model in the target unit, 1 mortal wound for each 6 rolled.
Purgations only: Can move and shoot with no penalty
Paladins only: increase invul save that turn by 1
All vehicles only (the only power they know): Act as though they are one tier higher on the damage charts

Then change the current powers libs and characters can get:

1. Purge soul - 1d3 mortal wounds+the difference in Ld
2. Gate - have it move both the casting character and the target unit (so you can move the charge re-roll HQ + a big unit together)
3. The shrouding: units within 6 add one to their armor saves
4. Sanctuary: the unit also ignores mortal wounds on a 5+
5. Vortex: change it to 6" from the target unit
6. Some fancy name: target enemy has -1 to invul saves taken that turn.
I prefer keeping current power AND add others 6 (santa II) AND Librarius.

While im at it:

Psycannon - choose between heavy 4 and rapid fire 2 - if the target has an invul save, change to 2 damage Can't understand the reason
Incinerator: Change to D2 - reroll invul saves against this weapon
Psilencer: - reroll invul saves against this weapon
Can't understand why they should force reroll

NDK teleporter gives shunt
Change Shunt to a one time 30" move
Count NDKs and Grand Masters in NDKs as the same for the purposes of the rule of 3 (i'd do this for all similar units in most codexes tbh). This will make NO ONE play DK, like now. DK needs and deserve to be different from GMDK or no one will use them
Drop the cost of the rhino by about 30 points. Agree. And this must work for all marines

Probably far from perfect, and points might have to move around, but I feel like this would make GK be in a much better place, and be a lot more more fun to play. I also don't feel like these changes are that major from a confusion perspective.

The way i see it, GK would be good at fighting things with invul saves (which are sooooo good right now it's kind of silly) and they would be able to get in your face quickly with shunts and gate (8 units max on turn one with 1 HQ and another unit from gate, 3 interceptor units, and 3 NDKs. 30" lets you move somewhat freely, but seems better than the previous deepstrike madness, but definitely feels like GK to me.

Okay tear me apart lol.

Yeah all good points. Some of it is definitely thought out more or less than others. Mostly just seeing what sticks.

i do think I prefer the way old force weapons worked. I'd probably nerf everyone else's too. The truth of it is that having 1d3 damage is wasted a lot of the time, so I'd rather not pay for it, and only activate it when I face scary stuff.

I think I did add about 6 powers. I don't think they need the lib powers too.

The anti invul stuff is mostly a stab at daemons without making it only good vs daemons, but there may be better way to do that. With the way I have it now it's only the units with 4++ or 3++ that would frequently be effected since GK guns are fairly low AP.

I want NDKs to have shunt back, but don't want the game to turn into 6 of them shunting into your face every game ala pre nerf NIds. Plus I think the army should have enough good units that you don't need 6 NDK. Any thoughts on how else to do that?

I think having them do d3 wounds is not a good rule. Vs 1w stuff it does nothing, but costs points. Vs 2 wound stuff it has a 1/3 chance to not kill the target, and with so few attacks on GK this really is a problem. I would rather see GK force weapons be flat d2, or make it like mr Marmatag says, change the grunt weapons in to free ccws, they don't even have to get the +1A chainsword rule, just make GK cheaper.

Also am not sure if this isn't off topic, but in my quest to find a could stand in for my GK I have been reading a lot of codex pdfs. And I think there is something wrong with they way they cost stuff. The same weapon on a fast moving platform and on something slow costs the same points, worse the same weapons on units with fewer A and lower stats cost the same points, if they have the same name. There is no way a Thunder hammer on a jump pack cpt should cost the same as a GK hammer and a powerfist on a IG dude with 3strenght.

It's worth noting that the Thunder Hammer costs more on characters due to their extra attacks. That said, trying to perfect cost everything individually never works out. It's just too many moving parts that you end up tinkering with endlessly and never getting quite right.

Some of those differences are baked into the cost of the model itself. The Jump Pack captain costs a thunder hammer more already for its speed and it costs a lot for its durability and attacks as well. Focusing on just the cost of the weapon misses out on what the final cost of the whole package ends up being. That's not to say every combination is perfect; just that to get every thing exactly right, you'd need to create a unique cost for every combination.

It would benefit the game for GW to remove a ton of options from units that don't suite their role, but players have come to demand this kind of stuff whether its good for them or not.

Karol wrote:
I think having them do d3 wounds is not a good rule. Vs 1w stuff it does nothing, but costs points.

That describes force weapons of past editions.

The difference now is that they just do more damage to multi-wound targets rather than being a binary dead/not dead that led to so many eternal warriors in the closing years of the last ruleset.

 Smotejob wrote:
Even last edition (pre decurion detachments) I was able to be very competitive. I would go to tournaments with my pure gk and be at top tables. I had things I struggled with but could usually have enough points or had done enough damage that I could win.

This edition pure gk I have to really play my A game to win casual games.

What made us unique then?

33pt terminators
The only army that could deep strike turn one.
A plethora of psychic powers to choose from and the psychic dice to throw at those powers
Incinerators were amazing (and a strong counter to an enemy deepstrike)
Terminators could move and fire heavy weapons ezpz
Force outright just killed things
Stormbolter was equally effective at 24" as 12".
Dreadknight shunt
Synergy between units and their guns.
That Nova power.

Pre codex 7.5 grey knights were the last time they were good.

I'm going to add one other thing to this:

1. Expanded psychic powers - Grey Knights were not required to take only sanctic; that said, Gate of Infinity was way better, because...

2. Characters joined units. So when you took Draigo he wasn't an independent unit running around, he joined a unit and blocked for them with a stormshield, and cast powers on himself which benefited the unit.

3. Multiple different units could combine. Draigo + Tigurius + Centurion Devastators with grav. The unit was invisible, with a 4+ feel no pain, and a 3+ invulnerable save, gating around the board and destroying things with pre-nerf grav.

4. Terminators got a 2+ save against all shooting except AP2 and AP1 weapons. So those heavy bolters, assault cannons, any -1 or -2 gun essentially, and they'd be getting a 2+ save.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

kombatwombat wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
In reality you wouldn't pay for force weapons on 1 attack models.

The fact that the cost is baked into the GK is actually hurting them.

In honesty, people would equip them with free chainswords if they had the option, and thus lowering their cost from 21 (with storm bolter) down to like 15.

So touting the force weapon as a plus is really not fair.

Now, if PAGK had a base of 2 attacks you *might* have the argument that it's worth it

GK struggle to get into melee and when they get there, they don't have the attack volume to do any meaningful damage.

There are a lot of problems here with this army. Some of it stems from the fact that assault marines are flat bad. Would assault marines see play if they had a base 3 attacks? I mean honestly, would they? Maybe. Only maybe.

That’s exactly my point though! You can give GK a 10pt weapon for 6pts and it’s still not good. The whole point is that none of these are GK-specific problems, they’re problems with the basic Marine profile which they share. Lack of durability, lack of mobility and low attack volume are all core Marine problems. Fix those, and suddenly a Force Axe on a PA GK doesn’t sound like such a bad idea, particularly when paired with a Stormbolter and Deny/psychic abilities.

I’ll say it again, the best solution in my view is to just make all Marines have the +1 Wound/Attack that Primaris have, and remove the Primaris keyword altogether so everybody can hop in any transport. 23pts for a 2-Wound 3+ model with 2 attacks with a Force Weapon, a Stormbolter, the ability to Deny with +1 and the equivalent of a 2+ to do a Mortal Wound per unit each turn sounds alright. Address their mobility - say by reducing the cost of Transports or something - and you’re well on your way to making GK strong even before you get to addressing their Psychic problems.

With or without that change, I’m also onboard for the idea of going back to the 4th Ed version of Nemesis weapon where basic guys get just a Strength bonus, Justicars/Terminators get the AP as well, and Characters(/Paladins?) get the full blown Force Weapon. It’d let you drop the price of most models in the army dramatically, which is something they sorely need. You’d also have almost-useable Terminators - say 35 points for a Storm Bolter and Power Weapon Terminator and a Psychic Power sounds solid on paper at least.

Okay, you and i are largely on the same page here then in a lot of ways.

I personally would rather GK found their use and utility in the psychic phase, but that's largely a personal thing. I see what makes Grey Knights unique is this aspect... otherwise they're just expensive marines with storm bolters and force weapons.

If i were a rules author, I would start by totally revamping the sanctic discipline. I would also give Grey Knights access to other disciplines as well, and update their stratagems. I would do this in a way where i could leave their points & stats alone.