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Tomb King wrote:

Surtur wrote:We had one. It's called Codex Space Marines.

He said competitive... last I checked codex marines is definately not in the top 5 nor is it showing up in the top 5 of any tournaments that I have seen lately.

Might want to look up Ben Mohlie some time. Though he's having fun playing around with Necrons lately.

Vanilla SM are still quite solid and able to compete with anything.

Here is an example of a list I threw together in 10 minutes with just cheese in mind. This is an example of how crazy GK can get. Granted though, DE Venom/Blaster Spam will give this a headache, but then again what army wouldn't have a headache from Venom/Blaster Spam?


The idea is for Coteaz and Xenos Inquisitor to ride in LR with one henchmen squad while the other 3 ride with techmarines in Storm Ravens. I made the Xenos Inquisitor a psycher with Psychic Communion incase you wanted to reserve the Ravens, you could always give him hammer hand. I think this list would rape 80% of any of the tournament builds you put in fron of it. The biggest issues would obviously be with Alpha Strike IG shooting and DE venom/Blaster spam, but if you are better then the guy across the table you should do fine.


2000 Pts - Grey Knights Roster

Total Roster Cost: 2000


HQ: Inquisitor Coteaz (1#, 100 pts)
1 Inquisitor Coteaz,

HQ: Ordo Xenos Inquisitor (1#, 85 pts)
1 Ordo Xenos Inquisitor, = (Psychotroke Grenades + Rad Grenades + Upgrade to Psyker)

3 X Elite: Techmarine (1#, 115 pts)
1 Techmarine, (Psychotroke Grenades + Rad Grenades)

4 X Troops: Inquisitorial Henchmen Warband (10#, 150 pts)
1 Inquisitorial Henchmen Warband,
1 Crusader,
1 Crusader,
1 Crusader,
1 Death Cult Assassin,
1 Death Cult Assassin,
1 Death Cult Assassin,
1 Death Cult Assassin,
1 Death Cult Assassin,
1 Death Cult Assassin,
1 Death Cult Assassin,

3 X Fast Attack: Stormraven Gunship (1#, 205 pts)
1 Stormraven Gunship,

Heavy Support: Land Raider Redeemer (1#, 255 pts)
1 Land Raider Redeemer, (Multi-melta)



Validation Report:
c-1. File Version: 1.34 For Bug Reports/www.ab40k.org; b-1. Roster Options: Special Characters; a-1. Scenario: Normal Mission
Roster satisfies all enforced validation rules

Composition Report:
HQ: 2 (1 - 2)
Elite: 3 (0 - 3)
Troops: 4 (2 - 6)
Fast: 3 (0 - 3)
Heavy: 1 (0 - 3)

Created with Army Builder® - Try it for free at http://www.wolflair.com

The default AB print out format is REALLY not easy on the eyes.

Try posting your army list in a condensed, standard manner. You might get more responses.

ph34r wrote:The default AB print out format is REALLY not easy on the eyes.

Try posting your army list in a condensed, standard manner. You might get more responses.

Your right, but TBH I am not looking for feedback. I would probably never play this list as it is just so cheesy.

I condensed it for you

How does that list destroy vehicles, stonychavez? It seems like it would have a hard time against 3x Vendetta, let alone an entire army.

Fearspect wrote:How does that list destroy vehicles, stonychavez? It seems like it would have a hard time against 3x Vendetta, let alone an entire army.

Well, it can go to 24" and PoTMS TL-MM's... ?


I really wasn't trying to build a list for myself, if I wanted to make it more difficult I would drop a techmarine, henchmen squad, 2 stormravens and add a LR and some other tweaking to add other stuff like psyfle dreads or something, I suppose I can mess with it a bit. I'll post something else shortly.

So, you are contending that with four total Multi-Meltas as all of your anti-mech, you can take down 80% of tournament builds out there?

Fearspect wrote:So, you are contending that with four total Multi-Meltas as all of your anti-mech, you can take down 80% of tournament builds out there?

You are definately right, there is alot of mech and it would be a problem.

Hmmm 3x Psy Ass 3x MM I guess, or Even Psyricane bolter in the rear.

But yes I agree if it fails, and the ravens are gone, its over

Here is a revised list to deal with mech a little better I suppose?


2000 Pts - Grey Knights Roster

Total Roster Cost: 2000

HQ: Inquisitor Coteaz (1#, 100 pts)
1 Inquisitor Coteaz, 100 pts

HQ: Librarian (1#, 220 pts)
1 Librarian, 220 pts = ( + Might of Titan + Quicksilver + Sanctuary + The Shrouding + Upgrade to Mastery Level 3)

2 X Elite: Techmarine (1#, 115 pts)
1 Techmarine, 115 pts = (+ Psychotroke Grenades + Rad Grenades)


3 X Troops: Inquisitorial Henchmen Warband (9#, 135 pts)
1 Inquisitorial Henchmen Warband,
1 Crusader
1 Crusader,
1 Crusader,
1 Death Cult Assassin,
1 Death Cult Assassin,
1 Death Cult Assassin,
1 Death Cult Assassin,
1 Death Cult Assassin,
1 Death Cult Assassin,


Fast Attack: Stormraven Gunship (1#, 205 pts)
1 Stormraven Gunship, 205 pts

Heavy Support: Land Raider Redeemer (1#, 255 pts)
1 Land Raider Redeemer, = ( Multi-melta)

Heavy Support: Land Raider Redeemer (1#, 255 pts)
1 Land Raider Redeemer, = ( Multi-melta )

Heavy Support: Dreadnought (1#, 135 pts)
1 Dreadnought, 135 pts = ( + Psybolt Ammunition + Twin-Linked Autocannon + Twin-Linked Autocannon)

Elite: Venerable Dreadnought (1#, 195 pts)
1 Venerable Dreadnought, 195 pts = ( + Psybolt Ammunition + Twin-Linked Autocannon + Twin-Linked Autocannon )

Validation Report:
c-1. File Version: 1.34 For Bug Reports/www.ab40k.org; b-1. Roster Options: Special Characters; a-1. Scenario: Normal Mission
Roster satisfies all enforced validation rules

Composition Report:
HQ: 2 (1 - 2)
Elite: 3 (0 - 3)
Troops: 3 (2 - 6)
Fast: 1 (0 - 3)
Heavy: 3 (0 - 3)

Created with Army Builder® - Try it for free at http://www.wolflair.com


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here is an even tougher list I believe:


2000 Pts - Grey Knights Roster

Total Roster Cost: 2000

HQ: Inquisitor Coteaz (1#, 100 pts)

HQ: Ordo Xenos Inquisitor (1#, 95 pts)
Psychotroke Grenades + Rad Grenades + Ulumeathi Plasma Syphon + Upgrade to Psyker

2 X Elite: Techmarine (1#, 120 pts)
Blind Grenades + Psychotroke Grenades + Rad Grenades


Troops: Grey Knight Strike Squad (10#, 220 pts)
1 Justicar,
7 Grey Knight,
2 Grey Knight, + Psycannon

3 X Troops: Inquisitorial Henchmen Warband (9#, 135 pts)
3 Crusader,
6 Death Cult Assassin,

Fast Attack: Stormraven Gunship (1#, 205 pts)

Fast Attack: Stormraven Gunship (1#, 205 pts)

Heavy Support: Land Raider Redeemer (1#, 260 pts)
Multi-melta + Psybolt Ammunition

Heavy Support: Dreadnought (1#, 135 pts)
Psybolt Ammunition + Twin-Linked Autocannon + Twin-Linked Autocannon

Heavy Support: Dreadnought (1#, 135 pts)
Psybolt Ammunition + Twin-Linked Autocannon + Twin-Linked Autocannon

Mannahnin wrote:

Tomb King wrote:

Surtur wrote:We had one. It's called Codex Space Marines.

He said competitive... last I checked codex marines is definately not in the top 5 nor is it showing up in the top 5 of any tournaments that I have seen lately.

Might want to look up Ben Mohlie some time. Though he's having fun playing around with Necrons lately.

Vanilla SM are still quite solid and able to compete with anything.

That's only one guy. You need far more sample than that. That's like saying old Crons were good because Dash of Pepper was winning with them

TK said the codex was not showing in the top 5 of any tournaments. You just need one example to disprove an "any", and Ben was doing it in pretty much every event he entered. Boston Brawl last year and WargamesCon the year before for two examples. Dameon Green also won The Colonial last year with vanilla. The poster may have hedged his bets with "that I have seen lately", but that just points out that he hasn't been paying particularly close attention to the US GT scene.

I am opining that C:SM is good overall from my personal experience playing with and against it, including when piloted by good generals like Ben, Eric Hoerger, Dameon Green, or lesser-known but still very good players like Jamie Hatcher or Tom McLaughlin. Your mileage may vary, but I'm not speaking from ignorance here.

Love how the other topics complaining about OP got closed but this junk is pushing 27 pages. Guess a mod got tabled by Daigo too many times

Love how the other topics complaining about OP got closed but this junk is pushing 27 pages. Guess a mod got tabled by Daigo too many times

Qft.
Although as the junk thread keeps on slogging we might just as well join the bandwagon while it lasts.


Interesting list above (with all those DCA) but what I find the most fun is that although it comes from the codex GK I see close to zero actual GKs in it.
Also, relying on one trick pony lists is not as good as one might think, having a few ultra fragile assault squads that rely on very expensive transports in order to win is not that effective as it might seem.

Theduke07 wrote:Love how the other topics complaining about OP got closed but this junk is pushing 27 pages. Guess a mod got tabled by Daigo too many times

Are you seriously trying to troll the moderators right now?

A) The other threads were clearly just offshoots of this one.
B) We have all kinds of threads go long. This isn't all that special.
C) Amidst (admittedly) some whining, there's been plenty of decent and reasonable discussion in this thread. There's certainly a general sentiment that GK are a bit over the top, but it's been repeatedly pointed out that other books/lists in the last ten years have been even worse, and there's been useful discussion about ways to beat GK and ways to contrast them with other armies which some folks may not have considered before.
D) I do find it amusing how when you lose a point of discussion you duck that point and instead complain that the thread isn't locked. Way to take the high road.

Mannahnin wrote:

Theduke07 wrote:Love how the other topics complaining about OP got closed but this junk is pushing 27 pages. Guess a mod got tabled by Daigo too many times

Are you seriously trying to troll the moderators right now?

A) The other threads were clearly just offshoots of this one.
B) We have all kinds of threads go long. This isn't all that special.
C) Amidst (admittedly) some whining, there's been plenty of decent and reasonable discussion in this thread. There's certainly a general sentiment that GK are a bit over the top, but it's been repeatedly pointed out that other books/lists in the last ten years have been even worse, and there's been useful discussion about ways to beat GK and ways to contrast them with other armies which some folks may not have considered before.
D) I do find it amusing how when you lose a point of discussion you duck that point and instead complain that the thread isn't locked. Way to take the high road.

QFT The Mods Strike Back in a galaxy far far away. Que star wars theme song!

I think the assassin spam with 4 crusaders is a little scarier then 3 as all you have to do is put mass wounds on them and you can get to the assassins easier. First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire! I dont fear the above build as much as I do draigo and that dreaded DoW + Annihilation match-up

Quite the contrary. And what 'point of discussion' did I lose? The entire topic is pretty much going in circles and nothing said hasn't been covered before. I enjoy pointless complaining about codex power levels. 40k isn't some RTS where you can complain for a patch. GK are here to stay OP or not.

Theduke07 wrote:That's only one guy. You need far more sample than that.

Pretty sure he was talking about this...

Theduke07 wrote: The entire topic is pretty much going in circles and nothing said hasn't been covered before.

Welcome to the internet! Pretty much nothing that will be said hasn't been said before, but we're still going to talk about it.

@ stoneychavez: Those builds might be scary to someone who has never played against DCA before. But if that's all you have coming at me, then I'm just going to hide in terrain until I shoot the Stormravens down or you try and assault me. The grenades make it a little worse, but with only three troops, you're going to be taking significant casualties every combat. The reliance on the grenades and the lack of anything over str 5 in the units without the librarian would be a definite drawback as well against walkers or units with a high toughness and a decent save. T. wolf cav for example.
At the same time, the guy that has won the last two tourneys at my flgs has played a similar list. I don't know what he played against, but it will tear through people who don't play against it correctly.

Worst part about this is people aren't even playing against some of the crazier GK lists possible. <snip>

<snip>

Grey Knights are a strong book and they have a lot of builds. They are have their issues with having enough units around the table and once you clean out one or two squads it goes down hill for the really fast. What grey knights do is make even okay players good because of the resiliency within the list and design.

If they start to bring other books and incorporate those design ideas it should make for a better game.

<back on topic, folks, and refrain from discussing people who aren't allowed to post on Dakka>

Mannahnin wrote:TK said the codex was not showing in the top 5 of any tournaments. You just need one example to disprove an "any", and Ben was doing it in pretty much every event he entered. Boston Brawl last year and WargamesCon the year before for two examples. Dameon Green also won The Colonial last year with vanilla. The poster may have hedged his bets with "that I have seen lately", but that just points out that he hasn't been paying particularly close attention to the US GT scene.

I am opining that C:SM is good overall from my personal experience playing with and against it, including when piloted by good generals like Ben, Eric Hoerger, Dameon Green, or lesser-known but still very good players like Jamie Hatcher or Tom McLaughlin. Your mileage may vary, but I'm not speaking from ignorance here.

How many of those armies are using Vulkan? What were their lists? I've looked at the lists in the article concerning the last years tournament successes and two of the three SM contenders were using Vulkan lists while the third was using a weird variant mechspam list that looked like it could be better built in blood angels. If there's some sort of secret Karate in the C:SM codex that I don't understand I'd love to know it.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:TK said the codex was not showing in the top 5 of any tournaments. You just need one example to disprove an "any", and Ben was doing it in pretty much every event he entered. Boston Brawl last year and WargamesCon the year before for two examples. Dameon Green also won The Colonial last year with vanilla. The poster may have hedged his bets with "that I have seen lately", but that just points out that he hasn't been paying particularly close attention to the US GT scene.

I am opining that C:SM is good overall from my personal experience playing with and against it, including when piloted by good generals like Ben, Eric Hoerger, Dameon Green, or lesser-known but still very good players like Jamie Hatcher or Tom McLaughlin. Your mileage may vary, but I'm not speaking from ignorance here.

How many of those armies are using Vulkan? What were their lists? I've looked at the lists in the article concerning the last years tournament successes and two of the three SM contenders were using Vulkan lists while the third was using a weird variant mechspam list that looked like it could be better built in blood angels. If there's some sort of secret Karate in the C:SM codex that I don't understand I'd love to know it.

The big SM players I know of:

Dameon Green, Khan biker build (won the last colonial gt)
Eric Hoerger, Pedro hybrid biker build (2nd or 3rd at BFS this past october)
Tim Hudak, Vulkan dual raider (2nd at last SVDM)

I'm not familiar with what type of builds the other folks mannahin listed play, but, in general, there's some variety

targetawg wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:TK said the codex was not showing in the top 5 of any tournaments. You just need one example to disprove an "any", and Ben was doing it in pretty much every event he entered. Boston Brawl last year and WargamesCon the year before for two examples. Dameon Green also won The Colonial last year with vanilla. The poster may have hedged his bets with "that I have seen lately", but that just points out that he hasn't been paying particularly close attention to the US GT scene.

I am opining that C:SM is good overall from my personal experience playing with and against it, including when piloted by good generals like Ben, Eric Hoerger, Dameon Green, or lesser-known but still very good players like Jamie Hatcher or Tom McLaughlin. Your mileage may vary, but I'm not speaking from ignorance here.

How many of those armies are using Vulkan? What were their lists? I've looked at the lists in the article concerning the last years tournament successes and two of the three SM contenders were using Vulkan lists while the third was using a weird variant mechspam list that looked like it could be better built in blood angels. If there's some sort of secret Karate in the C:SM codex that I don't understand I'd love to know it.

The big SM players I know of:

Dameon Green, Khan biker build (won the last colonial gt)
Eric Hoerger, Pedro hybrid biker build (2nd or 3rd at BFS this past october)
Tim Hudak, Vulkan dual raider (2nd at last SVDM)

I'm not familiar with what type of builds the other folks mannahin listed play, but, in general, there's some variety

Maybe the meta in my area is just unusually harsh to C:SM. In most tourneys I have to beat a guard heavy armor mechspam, draigowing, and tyranid or ork swarm in succession to place well in tourneys. I float around second or third with some regularity, but that's usually more due to tournament formatting than me contending well with those armies .I can usually beat one at the expense of the other two in most lists, but swiss pairings with KPs breaking ties creates a situation wherein the second place usually gets knocked into fourth or worse which pulls me up when I beat fifth or third.

I have such a hard time finding the cost effective parts of the C:SM book that can't be mirror made in one of the other marine books for cheaper/more effectively.

targetawg wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:TK said the codex was not showing in the top 5 of any tournaments. You just need one example to disprove an "any", and Ben was doing it in pretty much every event he entered. Boston Brawl last year and WargamesCon the year before for two examples. Dameon Green also won The Colonial last year with vanilla. The poster may have hedged his bets with "that I have seen lately", but that just points out that he hasn't been paying particularly close attention to the US GT scene.

I am opining that C:SM is good overall from my personal experience playing with and against it, including when piloted by good generals like Ben, Eric Hoerger, Dameon Green, or lesser-known but still very good players like Jamie Hatcher or Tom McLaughlin. Your mileage may vary, but I'm not speaking from ignorance here.

How many of those armies are using Vulkan? What were their lists? I've looked at the lists in the article concerning the last years tournament successes and two of the three SM contenders were using Vulkan lists while the third was using a weird variant mechspam list that looked like it could be better built in blood angels. If there's some sort of secret Karate in the C:SM codex that I don't understand I'd love to know it.

The big SM players I know of:

Dameon Green, Khan biker build (won the last colonial gt)
Eric Hoerger, Pedro hybrid biker build (2nd or 3rd at BFS this past october)
Tim Hudak, Vulkan dual raider (2nd at last SVDM)

I'm not familiar with what type of builds the other folks mannahin listed play, but, in general, there's some variety

it's funny because according to some people, it's codex Ultramarines...

But back to the topic. For those proclaiming the balance of Grey Knights look no further than a direct comparison between them and Codex Space Marines. Basic power armor grey knights vs tac marines. 4 points more for considerably better shooting and CC, cheap thunder hammer, ability to take options at 5 man, ability to double up on the special weapons, all weapons are assault and transports that don't need extra armor for a few points more.

For one less point than a tac marine you can get a death cult assassin. One is an "well rounded" (highly debatable) and the other is an atrocious min maxed model. One has an ok ranged weapon and will get 1 attack base and what is considered good stats. The other has an invuln save as good as a terminator's, 3 attacks base, ignore armor, same strength, higher initiative higher WS can be combined with ridiculously stupid grenades that will gimp the assaulted squad's ability to retaliate in addition to psychic powers to enhance their strength. Not to mention a player can prevent exposing their techmarine and librarian by abusing the assault rules so that neither sees combat but lends their support. Mean while genestealers are 1 point less, 1 attack less, no invul, no synergy on this level, rend instead of ignore armor, no transport.

Meanwhile their terminators get better cheaper assault cannons, potential for multi-wound, apothecary, banner for +1 attack, a 2++, +2 initiative or 4++, ect.

Let's not forget that all of their weapons become +1 S better for about 5-10 points or 20 if it's a squad. This means my base squad without special weapons can glance a rhino on the front or pen a chimera on the side or glance a predator on the side or a vindicator or pen venoms/raiders or wound tyranid MCs on 5s or pen ork trucks or DO I REALLY HAVE TO GO ON?

Then we have their transports. 5 points more for psychic power to ignore stunned or shaken. Also the 50 point razorback with the psyammo that can act as a cheap assault cannon in a pinch.

Oh but they have a weakness of psychic hoods and shadow in the warp and seer stones BUT OH WAIT LITERALLY EVERYTHING IN THIS ARMY IS DESIGNED TO DESTROY PSYCHERS AND THEY HAVE A HOOD TOO. Trying to deepstrike? Too bad, warp quake servoskull enjoy the mishap.

This is the problem. They have ridiculous options that they never pay full amount for, they cover their own weakness exceptionally well, their abilities get way out of control into limiting how an opponent can play, and their units and options are severely underpriced. I cannot see how you think this is fair and balanced. If you look away from the super competitive for a moment and compare to lower tier codexes or more casual play it's completely overpowering. Even in top tiers, why is a terminator list doing so well? Deathwing has always been considered a fun solid list, but it's not super competitive. Why is it that suddenly Draigowing is a serious threat to top tier armies?

ShumaGorath wrote:

targetawg wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:TK said the codex was not showing in the top 5 of any tournaments. You just need one example to disprove an "any", and Ben was doing it in pretty much every event he entered. Boston Brawl last year and WargamesCon the year before for two examples. Dameon Green also won The Colonial last year with vanilla. The poster may have hedged his bets with "that I have seen lately", but that just points out that he hasn't been paying particularly close attention to the US GT scene.

I am opining that C:SM is good overall from my personal experience playing with and against it, including when piloted by good generals like Ben, Eric Hoerger, Dameon Green, or lesser-known but still very good players like Jamie Hatcher or Tom McLaughlin. Your mileage may vary, but I'm not speaking from ignorance here.

How many of those armies are using Vulkan? What were their lists? I've looked at the lists in the article concerning the last years tournament successes and two of the three SM contenders were using Vulkan lists while the third was using a weird variant mechspam list that looked like it could be better built in blood angels. If there's some sort of secret Karate in the C:SM codex that I don't understand I'd love to know it.

The big SM players I know of:

Dameon Green, Khan biker build (won the last colonial gt)
Eric Hoerger, Pedro hybrid biker build (2nd or 3rd at BFS this past october)
Tim Hudak, Vulkan dual raider (2nd at last SVDM)

I'm not familiar with what type of builds the other folks mannahin listed play, but, in general, there's some variety

Maybe the meta in my area is just unusually harsh to C:SM. In most tourneys I have to beat a guard heavy armor mechspam, draigowing, and tyranid or ork swarm in succession to place well in tourneys. I float around second or third with some regularity, but that's usually more due to tournament formatting than me contending well with those armies (I can usually beat one at the expense of the other two in most lists, but swiss pairings with KPs breaking ties creates a situation wherein the second place usually gets knocked into fourth or worse).

Sounds fairly normal to me, if a bit soft. If by guard heavy armor mechspam you mean lots of russes, and draigowing and tyranid/ork swarm aren't the toughest lists out there. One thing I know a lot of the SM players favor now a days is the forgotten thunderfire cannon, which if you haven't looked into it, you should. Against draigowing it puts wounds on, stays at range, and with the difficult terrain ammo slows them down even more. Against hordes like tyranid/ork swarm, it shoots 4 str 5 ignoring cover templates. The things are grossly underrated.

And no offense intended but: it might be the player skill. Having played with/against the three I mentioned, and played on the GT scene a while myself, most players are focused on turning every game into some sort of old school meat-grinder mission "Whats the mission? Objectives? Okay, PROCEED TO ENGAGE AND TRY TO KILL OPPONENTS ARMY". In many situations, you have to focus on playing to the mission, rather than straight up "killing" the other player. I know Dameon and Eric play cagier bike builds focused on banging the opponent up a bit, and only engaging in big costly scrums if absolutely necessary.

Also, regularly finishing 2nd or 3rd isn't bad, I wouldn't get down on your 'dex when your placing regularly in the top spots

targetawg wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

targetawg wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:TK said the codex was not showing in the top 5 of any tournaments. You just need one example to disprove an "any", and Ben was doing it in pretty much every event he entered. Boston Brawl last year and WargamesCon the year before for two examples. Dameon Green also won The Colonial last year with vanilla. The poster may have hedged his bets with "that I have seen lately", but that just points out that he hasn't been paying particularly close attention to the US GT scene.

I am opining that C:SM is good overall from my personal experience playing with and against it, including when piloted by good generals like Ben, Eric Hoerger, Dameon Green, or lesser-known but still very good players like Jamie Hatcher or Tom McLaughlin. Your mileage may vary, but I'm not speaking from ignorance here.

How many of those armies are using Vulkan? What were their lists? I've looked at the lists in the article concerning the last years tournament successes and two of the three SM contenders were using Vulkan lists while the third was using a weird variant mechspam list that looked like it could be better built in blood angels. If there's some sort of secret Karate in the C:SM codex that I don't understand I'd love to know it.

The big SM players I know of:

Dameon Green, Khan biker build (won the last colonial gt)
Eric Hoerger, Pedro hybrid biker build (2nd or 3rd at BFS this past october)
Tim Hudak, Vulkan dual raider (2nd at last SVDM)

I'm not familiar with what type of builds the other folks mannahin listed play, but, in general, there's some variety

Maybe the meta in my area is just unusually harsh to C:SM. In most tourneys I have to beat a guard heavy armor mechspam, draigowing, and tyranid or ork swarm in succession to place well in tourneys. I float around second or third with some regularity, but that's usually more due to tournament formatting than me contending well with those armies (I can usually beat one at the expense of the other two in most lists, but swiss pairings with KPs breaking ties creates a situation wherein the second place usually gets knocked into fourth or worse).

Sounds fairly normal to me, if a bit soft. If by guard heavy armor mechspam you mean lots of russes, and draigowing and tyranid/ork swarm aren't the toughest lists out there. One thing I know a lot of the SM players favor now a days is the forgotten thunderfire cannon, which if you haven't looked into it, you should. Against draigowing it puts wounds on, stays at range, and with the difficult terrain ammo slows them down even more. Against hordes like tyranid/ork swarm, it shoots 4 str 5 ignoring cover templates. The things are grossly underrated.

And no offense intended but: it might be the player skill. Having played with/against the three I mentioned, and played on the GT scene a while myself, most players are focused on turning every game into some sort of old school meat-grinder mission "Whats the mission? Objectives? Okay, PROCEED TO ENGAGE AND TRY TO KILL OPPONENTS ARMY". In many situations, you have to focus on playing to the mission, rather than straight up "killing" the other player. I know Dameon and Eric play cagier bike builds focused on banging the opponent up a bit, and only engaging in big costly scrums if absolutely necessary.

Also, regularly finishing 2nd or 3rd isn't bad, I wouldn't get down on your 'dex when your placing regularly in the top spots

But I don't win, and I consistently can't take two out of those three lists. I've never been able to beat the mechspam list that my friend brings. Two demolishers, an executioner, and three hydras at 1500 makes it exceedingly tough to avoid being tabled. It's hard to play to objectives when I have no models. I can't bring sufficient firepower of the right kinds to down the draigowing and still meaningfully threaten the light infantry spam (200+ models) and vice versa. A thunderfire isn't pulling that off by itself. The draigowing I can tech to beat, but in the end it still requires luck. A shrouded and turbo boosted Stormraven full of palladins only gives you one shot to do meaningful damage. After that you're in trouble.

Also, regularly finishing 2nd or 3rd isn't bad, I wouldn't get down on your 'dex when your placing regularly in the top spots

It's hard not to when I outplay and out list-build people and still get overpowered due to costing issues in C:SM. Not outmaneuvered, overpowered. Draigowing walking forward and casting the shrouding isn't much for a maneuver but it works. Stuffing heavy support as much as possible for guard doesn't require much thought but it's damn effective (though he also plays well). It's discouraging.

@Shuma (to avoid long chain reposting)

But calling an entire book OP because you're discouraged/frustrated that you personally can't beat a couple of guys at your shop? I think you need to take a step back and realize that maybe, you aren't thinking of how to outplay them. Rather than saying "I outplay them and out list build them and still lose".

Sounds like excuses to me. The first step to improving is to acknowledge that maybe you aren't outplaying them, and aren't out list building them.

As for that specific draigo-wing scenario.

Don't clump.

Let him smash a 200 point skimmer + 500 point cargo straight into you. Blow up the raven (it's AV12, it ain't hard) and eat the charge from the paladins. They will kill your unit, yes. Now move everything else away and let them waddle around the rest of the game all sadfaced for being slow.

I'd be curious to see what list you're using, though we are venturing slightly off topic I suppose...

But calling an entire book OP because you're discouraged/frustrated that you personally can't beat a couple of guys at your shop? I think you need to take a step back and realize that maybe, you aren't thinking of how to outplay them. Rather than saying "I outplay them and out list build them and still lose".

I didn't start this thread.

Sounds like excuses to me. The first step to improving is to acknowledge that maybe you aren't outplaying them, and aren't out list building them.

Except in many cases I am. I'm pretty good at this game. I can recognize massive errors in the play of my opponents and I can also recognize when they don't matter in the slightest because (as many celebrity bloggers are starting to point out) the actual input from across the table doesn't matter to the gray knight book as much as making a few crucial saves.

As for that specific draigo-wing scenario.

Don't clump.

Let him smash a 200 point skimmer + 500 point cargo straight into you. Blow up the raven (it's AV12, it ain't hard) and eat the charge from the paladins.

With missiles
1 in 2 to destroy on pen.
1 in 3 to pen.
1 in 3 to get past turbo boosted shrouded cover.

With hit rolling it requires about 21 missiles to down it 50% of the time. What about that "ain't hard"?

They will kill your unit, yes. Now move everything else away and let them waddle around the rest of the game all sadfaced for being slow.

And then I lose two of the games three scenarios.

I'd be curious to see what list you're using, though we are venturing slightly off topic I suppose...

Yes.