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So, after playing grey knights I'm left looking at them wondering how they could ever work as a solo force. A few glaring problems come to me.

1: No long range shooting or ap 2
You're entire army is lacking long range fire support. Lasgcannons are the best thing you've got, and melta is hard to acquire. You're army needs CC to deal with problems, and by in large you're hitting at init 1 if you got a thunder hammer. Melta is damned near impossible to get.

2: Other armies have high ap shooting and you're squishy.
When I've played my grey knights the problem I've ran into is that for an army that sells on being hard to kill and low model count, it's actually extremely easy to kill them. Power armored grey knights are squishy as could be. It still only takes six wounds to kill a terminator, and a dread knight only takes 10 high AP wounds to put down. In a game where other armies have multiwound models with 3+ saves and higher toughness, why would you take a terminator over a thunderwolf?

3: Mobility...
Grey knights have this horrible problem from what I've seen. You Zoom forward with your deep strikes and shunts, but once you're there, what do you really do? They don't have mobility, they have great deployment, after which they're left there with nothing to do for a turn. They lack the shooting to really tear apart people, and while there mind games can be powerful, they'll often not be able to do enough to make up for their lack of shooting and assaults (on turn 1-2).

4: The points.
You're paying a lot for models that are essentially toughness 4 guys in okay armor with a lot of cool stats. I realize you're spending points on them being psykers, on them having teleporters or CQB weapons AND storm bolters but frankly this is a case of where the models are too kitted out with not enough survivability to make up for it.

5: The mighty dreadnight!
The whole codex basically leaves you asking yourself "I could take some (insert infantry here), or I could take a dreadknight for less points which'll do more and not die as easily... hmmmm". 9/10 times the answer is dreadknight. It's codex dreadknight. Dreadknights aren't evens spooky anymore too.

6: CC is hard...: You're paying a lot for close combat weapons on units that will have a hard time reaching close combat. Unlike other armies which can walk into close combat in two turns, whilst making use of cover, or using vehicles, grey knights usually have to sit out in the open for a turn nice and snuggly close to the enemy in rapid fire range. It's either that or blow waaaaaay too many points on an assault transport. You cannot shoot alone as grey knights, you cannot make it into close combat with ease, and you're mind bullets are good, but they aren't going to make up for the lack in the other two when you by default budget points into them.

My point here is that I feel these problems create an army that's basically incapable of functioning well on it's own, and nearly incapable of making a true all comers list. I feel like they need a buff, so they can at least be an appealing allied force even if they're bad on their own. I don't think all these problems need to be addressed but some kind of buffs are needed because with all of these together you're left with a really troubled army.

(They never should have been a solo force)

. . .

While I agree in principle with each point, I actually do play solo GK competitively. Sure, I play the infamous mono-build made popular over the years because I posted my list on like every forum over the past 4-5 years. Even 7th did nothing to change my list, as it added nothing nor took anything away. The only change I've made recently is that I no longer Gate to Teleport Homers (stupid FAQ).

The key to success with GK is not to play against your opponent's army, but to play against your opponent to win the game. Play the mission, so to speak. Use terrain. Use a lot of tall, line of sight blocking terrain. Pick your targets, and kill the soft stuff fast so you can focus down the hard stuff while kitting and hugging terrain. DreadKnights are great, but they are huge targets so play them aggressively. Interceptors should be played as mini-DreadKnights, best use to finish off units or for grabbing objectives. Grey Knight Terminators are your bread and butter ablative wounds for your Lvl3 Librarian and Draigo. Roll Sanctic, fish for Vortex, Gate, Sanctuary, and Cleansing Flames. Take the Liber Daemonica on the Libby and make him your Warlord. Nemesis Strike Force is fine, but so is a CAD. Don't get wedded to any one strategy other than playing the mission, kill the soft targets fast, and playing the mission.

GK for me are a master class army that requires you as the player to win by making less mistakes than your opponent. Sure, some armies are point and click, but are they fun if there is no challenge? With GK, every match is a challenge, a challenge the better player will win. Playing GK teaches you how to be the better player.

SJ

5: The mighty dreadnight!
The whole codex basically leaves you asking yourself "I could take some (insert infantry here), or I could take a dreadknight for less points which'll do more and not die as easily... hmmmm". 9/10 times the answer is dreadknight. It's codex dreadknight. Dreadknights aren't evens spooky anymore too.

Pretty much. The most competitive pure GK lists will be maxing the amount of NDKs via multiple detachments. Alternatively, lending out Draigo Cabs to Centurions

I still think Dreadknights are good in the right meta though - they still keep GK above BA in the loyalist marine pecking order (even post Angels Blade).

You've played against one gk army, you've played against them all. Not even militarum tempestus are such a monobuild with horrible internal ballance.

Sorry like chaos you were OP in 5th so now must suffer for the next decade.

As an IG player, I can tell you that Grey knights can certainly perform just fine if you're not fighting powerbuilt competitive top tier armies. I've watched Grey knights completely hand my ass to me, and I've also watched them melt away to the mass amounts of plasma I can field so I agree with most other players here. Play to the objectives, don't try to kill the enemy's army unless that is the objective.