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I'm a beginner and maybe I missed it somewhere but I don't see a Chapter Tactic for Grey Knights. Should they even have a tactic (assuming they don't have one already) and if so what would you think that it should be?

Having an entire army of smite-spammers is not enough?

In the 8th ed meta? Not at all

Like I said, I'm new. I thought that I can only use smite once a turn. Are you saying I can smite once each with each unit each of my turns?

Yes, you can , screening units don't care about your smites.

The real reason is probably because GW basically phoned in the codex and was more focused on the SM and CSM codexes.

However it is somewhat practical if you use Grey Knights in the way they're intended to be used; as allies in a mixed force. With the exception of ObSec, Knights lacking a trait (and thus all their rules are hardcoded to their units) so they work as things sprinkled in better.

Nothing that's an army in its own right is likely getting faction tactics. Grey Knights and Death Guard, while a "chapter" and a "legion" respectively in the fluff, they are standalone armies in the game, and thus got their own codices but no "tactics" within them as they have no subfactions within them, crunch-wise. I might be mistaken on the Death Guard, as I don't have that codex, but I haven't seen anyone talking about "warband tactics" or anything like that. I assume Thousand Sons, Blood Angels, Space Wolves will be the same.

We do get a chapter tactic.

If you have a detachment that is purely Grey Knights, you get +1 to your cast rolls, and +1 to your deny rolls.

Of course this doesn't matter when your opponent will absorb your psychic offense with a screen, and spam more effective smites, for cheaper, and you won't be able to deny all of them... and each PAGK lost (our best non vehicle unit) is at least 21 points dead.

Sorry that descended quickly. There's a reason Grey Knights are rated as one of the worst factions in ITC rankings. I'm salty.

Jacksmiles wrote:
Nothing that's an army in its own right is likely getting faction tactics. Grey Knights and Death Guard, while a "chapter" and a "legion" respectively in the fluff, they are standalone armies in the game, and thus got their own codices but no "tactics" within them as they have no subfactions within them, crunch-wise. I might be mistaken on the Death Guard, as I don't have that codex, but I haven't seen anyone talking about "warband tactics" or anything like that. I assume Thousand Sons, Blood Angels, Space Wolves will be the same.

DG get Inexorable Advance. You don't get a choice but you get something.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

Jacksmiles wrote:
Nothing that's an army in its own right is likely getting faction tactics. Grey Knights and Death Guard, while a "chapter" and a "legion" respectively in the fluff, they are standalone armies in the game, and thus got their own codices but no "tactics" within them as they have no subfactions within them, crunch-wise. I might be mistaken on the Death Guard, as I don't have that codex, but I haven't seen anyone talking about "warband tactics" or anything like that. I assume Thousand Sons, Blood Angels, Space Wolves will be the same.

DG get Inexorable Advance. You don't get a choice but you get something.

And GK get that slightly better psyker ability - basically for these codices the "tactic" is baked in and so it's not needed to call it out as "<faction> tactics."

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

the way they're intended to be used; as allies in a mixed force.

lol, I got nothing to say really that can't be derisive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Jacksmiles wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

Jacksmiles wrote:
Nothing that's an army in its own right is likely getting faction tactics. Grey Knights and Death Guard, while a "chapter" and a "legion" respectively in the fluff, they are standalone armies in the game, and thus got their own codices but no "tactics" within them as they have no subfactions within them, crunch-wise. I might be mistaken on the Death Guard, as I don't have that codex, but I haven't seen anyone talking about "warband tactics" or anything like that. I assume Thousand Sons, Blood Angels, Space Wolves will be the same.

DG get Inexorable Advance. You don't get a choice but you get something.

And GK get that slightly better psyker ability - basically for these codices the "tactic" is baked in and so it's not needed to call it out as "<faction> tactics."

Also basically what this guy said.

 Quickjager wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

the way they're intended to be used; as allies in a mixed force.

lol, I got nothing to say really that can't be derisive.

Okay i'll go for it.

Tyranids are intended to be the loser, as they're the bad guys. Same with Orks. This is why these factions should be bad. People who play these factions should understand that they are going to be bad armies. Just like Grey Knights. People should understand that this army is bad by design, and must require using better armies paired with a sprinkling of GK. This is the way things should be.

Nevermind that Chaos is doing incredibly well in the meta and you don't see GK's represented in lists, when GK should be a solid counter...

Tyranids are NOT the loser.

Are Blood Angels then :^)

Looking at Baal before G-Man showed up it looks like we're playing in a UM world.

Martel732 wrote:
Tyranids are NOT the loser.

I cannot think of a single situation outside their codex Tyranids win.

These are dangerous levels of salt, even for me.

(and I once ate a big heaping bowl of salt!)

But OP, to tour initial question. The Grey Knights are, after all is said and done, one chapter on its own. Its chapter tactics are baked into its army rules along with everything else that differentiates it from a regular Space marine chapter.

Its entirely possible we won't see subfaction benefits when we drill down to other faction books like the Blood Angels.

Eh BAs and DAs are weird in that they do have successor chapters that differ from their parent chapters. (SW being the only one that don't have successors, at least surviving ones, but I can see them getting Great company rules instead)

DG and GK are the only ones that are really just 1 (sub) faction with a codex. At least for DG, they expanded upon it and wrote about the Vectorums (even if they don't have rules).

So, the gist is that GK shouldn't really be a faction, since they are just a single chapter, and as such shouldn't really be able to stand on their own merits (and units). If I, or anybody, play GK then the GK should be teamed with another "imperium" grouping in order to make them work as a competitive force.
That just seems like bad game design.

P.S. I know that this is off topic but I started the thread so...

To be fair, I'm a DG player and I'm kinda miffed that we're split off from CSM rather than being intergrated.

Mainly because I gotta buy more than one book now for my chaos collection.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
So, the gist is that GK shouldn't really be a faction, since they are just a single chapter, and as such shouldn't really be able to stand on their own merits (and units). If I, or anybody, play GK then the GK should be teamed with another "imperium" grouping in order to make them work as a competitive force.
That just seems like bad game design.

P.S. I know that this is off topic but I started the thread so...

No. The people saying GK are and an add-on force are salty because GKs aren't the all-destroying force of nature they were in 6th.

People (especially on Dakka) lean towards the negative quite hard. Look at the reaction to the Eldar craftworld traits, AdMech book or indeed the GK book. All are perfectly fine, just not overpowered.

Can GKs be helped by allies? Yes, but so can literally every army. Armies have short-comings, taking allies can cover those short comings. Thata all.

AdMech is different though, people are disappointed with the power level, but mostly because they've been eclipsed on almost every point by a certain codex. It doesn't help that the HQ choices are amazingly lacking and the ability to fluff up a new Forgeworld is a bit lacking. People were looking for QoL and unit fixes and some spice; they didn't really get either.

Everyone here knows grey knight smite is only 1 dmg right? Sure every unit is a Parker, but we’ve fewer units then most armies.

Also surprisingly, grey Knights got more substantial nerfs in their book than guard did.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
So, the gist is that GK shouldn't really be a faction, since they are just a single chapter, and as such shouldn't really be able to stand on their own merits (and units).

I'm not saying that. One chapter can easily stand on its own. That's the entire point of chapter tactics in the mainline space marines codex, to represent that a given particular chapter of space marines excels at certain things. It allows the space marine codex to represent any of the founding chapters described therein or any successor chapter that follows that paradigm of how space marines work.

But the Grey Knights themselves are one chapter only. They get their own codex because between the tactics, doctrines, unique vehicles and weapons they're too different from baseline space marines to be represented by a chapter tactic in the main space marine book, but that doesn't make them big or widespread enough to have a discernable subfaction requiring their own chapter tactic equivalents.

 Sim-Life wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
So, the gist is that GK shouldn't really be a faction, since they are just a single chapter, and as such shouldn't really be able to stand on their own merits (and units). If I, or anybody, play GK then the GK should be teamed with another "imperium" grouping in order to make them work as a competitive force.
That just seems like bad game design.

P.S. I know that this is off topic but I started the thread so...

No. The people saying GK are and an add-on force are salty because GKs aren't the all-destroying force of nature they were in 6th.

People (especially on Dakka) lean towards the negative quite hard. Look at the reaction to the Eldar craftworld traits, AdMech book or indeed the GK book. All are perfectly fine, just not overpowered.

Can GKs be helped by allies? Yes, but so can literally every army. Armies have short-comings, taking allies can cover those short comings. Thata all.

The reason the "allies" argument comes up a lot is because GKs, along with Inquisition, were specifically designed as allies, as at the time Daemons were just an add-on to the CSM force. 5th Edition, to make them viable as an independent army, just dialed everything up to absurd levels to compensate for the fact that they're suppose to be daemon specialists (which is why Daemons got curbstomped at this point, since if they were already "good" against daemons, now they're just juggernauts). When they were toned back in 7th edition, GW forgot that they needed to put in things to actually round out the force, and the same continued into 8th (not surprisingly, both codexes feel like they just phoned it in).

For the record, I also think Daemons splitting off was a bad decision too. They were never designed to function alone either.

If GK were meant as Allies we can use the argument that they should have been included in Codex Space Marines; just as Militarum Tempestus were in IG.

The fact they have a stand alone codex invalidates any argument though.

GK, like BA would work if they could get around screening units. What do GK do against 100 fire warriors in squads of 8 six ranks deep? They die, that's what they do.

I will happily work with anyone who wants to discuss tactics on GK vs. IG; but the thing is GK and other codexes lack any real tools to control the battlefield.

If they made psychic powers (Like I suggested once before) that let you push enemy models or units of out the way it would introduce new tactics and tools. But we don't. I would love for something like.

Beam, pick a point within 12 inches of the manifesting model(s), now pick a second 6 or less inches away of the initial point. any models within 4 inches of that line are pushed away by a surge of psychic power from that line until there are no enemy models within 4 inches of said line. If a model is on top of the line 1 mortal wound is suffered and the manifesting player chooses which way it is pushed.

Right there, SO much utility.

Give BA and GK double attacks vs models that less than 10 ppm. And models less than 10 ppm get -1 to hit BA and GK. Why? Not my job to justify math.

That is an interesting idea actually, to introduce rampage-like effects to the base game. It might work with some number-crunching.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

the way they're intended to be used; as allies in a mixed force.

lol, I got nothing to say really that can't be derisive.

Okay i'll go for it.

Tyranids are intended to be the loser, as they're the bad guys. Same with Orks. This is why these factions should be bad. People who play these factions should understand that they are going to be bad armies. Just like Grey Knights. People should understand that this army is bad by design, and must require using better armies paired with a sprinkling of GK. This is the way things should be.

Nevermind that Chaos is doing incredibly well in the meta and you don't see GK's represented in lists, when GK should be a solid counter...

Thats not the same thing. It's closer to saying "Assassins arn't a full army right? So they should just be allys for the imperium mixing in to give benefits right? Or the inquisition? Not their own force. Just some units you mix in with grey knight and sisters and other imperial forces, right?"

Right. GK are a better fleshed out force than assassins. But having lots of ways to add grey knights into a list doesn't mean they don't do best when they are a supplement to other forces. I am happy to see a full grey knight army on the table btw. But they are overly specialized and that means they have a lot of weaknesses. It's not going to go great for them a lot of the time.