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I've always loved Grey Knights and since World Eaters don't have their own army I'm wondering if maybe I should return to 40k with some knights instead.

How are they compared to how they used to be? How are they compared to the other armies currently? Any/all info would be wonderful. I can't even take a glance at the codex at my gamestore because of the d*** plastic wrap!

Not sure if I should suck it up and buy it, or just continue praising Khorne.

Sorry man, they are quite literally the worst army in 8th edition, worse than Knights, worse than Index Sisters, worse than Index Harlequins. I'll leave it to others more knowledgeable than me to explain exactly why (afaik they are overpriced and underpowered, with gimped smite for no real reason and suffer even more from the "elite troops" problems that 8th has).

The only armies they are better than are the ones that literally are not complete armies, i.e. Sisters of Silence, Inquisition and Assassins.

You'd be better off even with Custodes, and even then they are barely better than Grey Knights in the grand scheme of things (but by comparison are significantly better).

Grey Knights are still the best looking army, as well as one of the least expensive to collect. That said, they do suffer a lack of efficient units which tends to lead to very few different army builds. They also have issues with CP generation.

SJ

Most of the GK units cost too many points, they're not particularly tough, and they have poor stratagems, poor warlord traits, poor relics, and a mediocre army special rules. They also lack anti-vehicle shooting for the most part. They have a bad Smite and got hit hard by the Smite beta rule. Oh, and fairly minor, but one of the more played factions (Chaos Daemons) have a ridiculous stratagem that just destroys GK.

You can still play GK if you like them, but if Chaos and Eldar armies are a 9 out of 10, GK are a 4 at best.

Remember, this is Dakka, the opinions expressed may sometimes be extreme.

I've played against GK regularly in 8th edition and had the impression they are good but for a few mechanics. Specifically, units are very expensive, Stratagems are not as useful as they could be, and there's a lack of long range firepower.

Which lead me to start a GK army, complete with a WIP blog. Currently challenging myself to build it up to a high standard.

Grey Knights have changed significantly since previous editions. The standout units these days are Grandmaster Nemesis Dreadknights, Strike Squads, and Drago. You can build a pretty tough army by adding on Razorbacks and Storm Ravens around these units.

A lot of people are down on Terminators / Paladins because of their cost and the presence of weapons that do multiple wounds. Paladins have 3 wounds, but they cost a ton, Terminators are expensive, but they die easily to Plasma. You're never going to have large squads of either due to the cost, which means they don't see a lot of time on the battlefield.

A lot of people are also down on Purifiers. I'm really not sure why, they just get dished on.

In terms of HQs, the only one I really see big problems with is Castellan Crowe. He's just not worth the points.

That said, a 5 man strike squad gets 20 Storm Bolter shots at 12 inches and 15 attacks in close combat with dual Falchions. Stick a few of them in assault cannon Razorbacks and see what happens. GMNDKs are pretty tough, I've seen a lot of lists that take 4. Bring a Storm Raven as a fire magnet and wreck your opponents in close combat.

EDIT: forgot to mention, a popular option is a detachment from another Codex. 450 points nets you a lot of Imperial Guard to screen your more elite units.

Grey knights got hit hard with nerfed smite being capped at 1 mortal and psychic focus limiting what they can cast. On top of that their favourite way to play is deep strike in shoot and charge.
Under matched play rules they really struggle because of the above and also that half the number of units have to start on the table. In narrative they do alright.

I love strike squads and Grand master dreadknights but both have the issue of packing anti infantry weapons and both really wanna deepstrike and charge.

Too many times I found myself against a half decent player that screened well meaning that your strike sqauds are firing loads of shots off and clearing screens amazingly well but then having nothing to charge. So I ended up using storm bolters at over rapid fire range just to get the strike squads safely into combat where they don't get shot to shreds the turn after they come in.

Grey knights could do with the following to be good,
- Slight price reduction across the board particularly palladins
- Proper smite on HQ's
- Immunity to psychic focus

This is just my opinion, but they're not bad bad. It's just that they're so much worse at the things they do when compared to other codices.

Want a shooty army? IG, Eldar, Dark Eldar etc.
Want a melee army? Nids, Harlies, nu-Dark Eldar etc.
Want psychic shenanigans? Eldar, Tyranids, Daemons, etc etc.

Grey Knights aren't as good at any of these things, but are paying a premium for being able to do them all in some form.

And then there's the beta rules changes...

 techsoldaten wrote:
Remember, this is Dakka, the opinions expressed may sometimes be extreme.

I've played against GK regularly in 8th edition and had the impression they are good but for a few mechanics. Specifically, units are very expensive, Stratagems are not as useful as they could be, and there's a lack of long range firepower.

Lol. "They are good except for these that are the ones that make it sub-standard".

You just listed the problems GK have that turn it into mediocre army...

just accept that they are not for matched play and should never have been there own codex anyway (like Deathwatch) and play them in narrative games, have fun with your game and leave matched play faaaaar behind until GW fixes the book.

 techsoldaten wrote:

That said, a 5 man strike squad gets 20 Storm Bolter shots at 12 inches and 15 attacks in close combat with dual Falchions. Stick a few of them in assault cannon Razorbacks and see what happens. GMNDKs are pretty tough, I've seen a lot of lists that take 4. Bring a Storm Raven as a fire magnet and wreck your opponents in close combat.

5-man strike squad only gets 11 attacks in close combat (4x2 + 1x3)

Thanks everyone!

I got impatient last night and hopped on the GW site to check out their models. That's when I realized that the entire army consisted of 2 models... the power armored ones and the terminators (plus generic vehicles). I lost interest real quick!

I'm definitely not a good enough player to enjoy a sub-par army, but I'm a fanatical enough Khorne enthusiast that I can have a smile on my face while watching my Berserkers being shot to pieces because I know He cares not from whence the blood flows. I'll just stick with them. I've already got the models and I've already performed pretty well with them in the 2 games I've played.

Thanks to everyone for their input and elaborations!

Special shoutout to techsoldaten for showing me that there is an army blog here! The Wicked Legion will return to feed the chaos; control and rule disorder.

I have some GKs sitting in my closet that I want to give a whirl, but I completely expect that they will be accompanied either by Guard or Scions (counts as Inquisitorial) just to shore up the GKs weaknesses.

I would consider myself a die hard Mono player. I play a pure GK army and have a fun time playing and a very hard time winning. I'm giving serious thought to an Ad Mech detachment or 2 just to get some anti-vehicle weapons and some cheap bodies.

Grey Knights in a nutshell:

1. The worst psychic discipline in the game. Astral Aim is decent, the rest are "meh" or "downright awful." Any Grey Knights player would happily trade their entire discipline for Warptime & Null Zone.

2. Bad stratagems. Psybolt / Psychic ammunition are decent but they cost 2cp. The rest are utterly forgettable. Rolling 3 dice to cast a power or deny would be nice except the cost is prohibitive on the deny one. Even if they had good stratagems, they don't generate CP to use them.

3. Terrible HQs. Draigo is really tough and hits hard, and offers rerolls, but that's about it. Voldus is essentially a Grand Master with a fancy Hammer. The missed opportunities here are legendary. These guys help you reroll dice. That's it. 0 Flavor.

4. Bad Smite. 1 mortal wound regardless and it becomes more difficult to cast. People will tell you that you shouldn't be casting smite with Grey Knights. It's really true almost all the time, unless you're facing daemons. But...

5. Daemons have a "feth grey knights" stratagem. They can pay a pittance (for them) and return a unit slain by Grey Knights back to the table, at no cost to reinforcements. This right here invalidated GK as a splash in if you're facing daemons. You are FAR better with Imperial Guard and Relic of Lost Cadia (which isn't one use only) to counter Daemons. It's utterly absurd that the worst thing to kill daemons with is Grey Knights. But it's true.

6. Overall bad ranged weapons. Their heavy weapons are pretty poor. Psilencers and Psycannons are pathetic against armor. Storm bolters aren't enough to clear chaff because of how expensive the average model is.

You can keep going. It's a long list. tapping out

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
I would consider myself a die hard Mono player. I play a pure GK army and have a fun time playing and a very hard time winning. I'm giving serious thought to an Ad Mech detachment or 2 just to get some anti-vehicle weapons and some cheap bodies.

Supplementing weak army with another weak army? You enjoy challenges

I'm a mono GK player that by definition makes me a masochist.
Besides, how much fun can you have if you're not smashing your head against a wall?

As a bonus: "No one expects the Ad Mech Inquisition!!"

If you're going to play GK you may as well be monofaction. Adding GK to a soup army immediately makes you less competitive, so just embrace the suck and run full on GK.

Everybody crapped all over Grey Knights back in 5th edition too, but it didn't stop from people from making it work. Stick to efficient units - Strike Squads, AC Razorbacks, etc rather than shiny toys.

Bad, so bad it's not even funny

 John Prins wrote:
Everybody crapped all over Grey Knights back in 5th edition too, but it didn't stop from people from making it work. Stick to efficient units - Strike Squads, AC Razorbacks, etc rather than shiny toys.

Umm difference is in 5th gk had competive build and good one at that

 Marmatag wrote:
Grey Knights in a nutshell:

1. The worst psychic discipline in the game. Astral Aim is decent, the rest are "meh" or "downright awful." Any Grey Knights player would happily trade their entire discipline for Warptime & Null Zone.

2. Bad stratagems. Psybolt / Psychic ammunition are decent but they cost 2cp. The rest are utterly forgettable. Rolling 3 dice to cast a power or deny would be nice except the cost is prohibitive on the deny one. Even if they had good stratagems, they don't generate CP to use them.

3. Terrible HQs. Draigo is really tough and hits hard, and offers rerolls, but that's about it. Voldus is essentially a Grand Master with a fancy Hammer. The missed opportunities here are legendary. These guys help you reroll dice. That's it. 0 Flavor.

4. Bad Smite. 1 mortal wound regardless and it becomes more difficult to cast. People will tell you that you shouldn't be casting smite with Grey Knights. It's really true almost all the time, unless you're facing daemons. But...

5. Daemons have a "feth grey knights" stratagem. They can pay a pittance (for them) and return a unit slain by Grey Knights back to the table, at no cost to reinforcements. This right here invalidated GK as a splash in if you're facing daemons. You are FAR better with Imperial Guard and Relic of Lost Cadia (which isn't one use only) to counter Daemons. It's utterly absurd that the worst thing to kill daemons with is Grey Knights. But it's true.

6. Overall bad ranged weapons. Their heavy weapons are pretty poor. Psilencers and Psycannons are pathetic against armor. Storm bolters aren't enough to clear chaff because of how expensive the average model is.

You can keep going. It's a long list. tapping out

Their good units like razorbacks and storm ravens were nerfed or made so they were balenced around Bobby G, who they don’t have.

Their 2+ armor save is worthless.

You pay out the nose for psykers deep strike and 5 up invulnerable saves when your units can’t use all of those. 50% needs to be on the board, can only cast spells once, and a 2 up armor save is almost always a 5+ save vs anti armor, so a 5++ is worthless.

They are an assault army who sucks in CC. 21 point assault troops with 1 attack? Please...

No stratagem points because your too expensive

Your army is probably the squishiest and most expensive in the game. You’ll get blown off the board by a stiff breeze.

For the price of 7 power armored guys I could have 10 scions with plasma that can actually do something when they hit the board.

All the HQs pay for close combat they can’t use because they’re reroll generators.

They can’t take storm shields or plasma.

They have Grandmaster Knights, Strike Squads, Interceptors, and that's it. Paladins are pretty mediocre overall and the rest of the codex is downright awful.

 Jaxler wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Grey Knights in a nutshell:

1. The worst psychic discipline in the game. Astral Aim is decent, the rest are "meh" or "downright awful." Any Grey Knights player would happily trade their entire discipline for Warptime & Null Zone.

2. Bad stratagems. Psybolt / Psychic ammunition are decent but they cost 2cp. The rest are utterly forgettable. Rolling 3 dice to cast a power or deny would be nice except the cost is prohibitive on the deny one. Even if they had good stratagems, they don't generate CP to use them.

3. Terrible HQs. Draigo is really tough and hits hard, and offers rerolls, but that's about it. Voldus is essentially a Grand Master with a fancy Hammer. The missed opportunities here are legendary. These guys help you reroll dice. That's it. 0 Flavor.

4. Bad Smite. 1 mortal wound regardless and it becomes more difficult to cast. People will tell you that you shouldn't be casting smite with Grey Knights. It's really true almost all the time, unless you're facing daemons. But...

5. Daemons have a "feth grey knights" stratagem. They can pay a pittance (for them) and return a unit slain by Grey Knights back to the table, at no cost to reinforcements. This right here invalidated GK as a splash in if you're facing daemons. You are FAR better with Imperial Guard and Relic of Lost Cadia (which isn't one use only) to counter Daemons. It's utterly absurd that the worst thing to kill daemons with is Grey Knights. But it's true.

6. Overall bad ranged weapons. Their heavy weapons are pretty poor. Psilencers and Psycannons are pathetic against armor. Storm bolters aren't enough to clear chaff because of how expensive the average model is.

You can keep going. It's a long list. tapping out

Their good units like razorbacks and storm ravens were nerfed or made so they were balenced around Bobby G, who they don’t have.

Their 2+ armor save is worthless.

You pay out the nose for psykers deep strike and 5 up invulnerable saves when your units can’t use all of those. 50% needs to be on the board, can only cast spells once, and a 2 up armor save is almost always a 5+ save vs anti armor, so a 5++ is worthless.

They are an assault army who sucks in CC. 21 point assault troops with 1 attack? Please...

No stratagem points because your too expensive

Your army is probably the squishiest and most expensive in the game. You’ll get blown off the board by a stiff breeze.

For the price of 7 power armored guys I could have 10 scions with plasma that can actually do something when they hit the board.

All the HQs pay for close combat they can’t use because they’re reroll generators.

They can’t take storm shields or plasma.

Purge souls sucks, hammer hand is unreliable at getting on the unit that makes the charge. Vortex of doom is trash.

I have this feeling that, given time and access to any GK model and as many of them as wanted, someone out there could figure out how to make GK truly viable in a competitive environment.

It's just that there are so many armies that take so much less work, thought, and effort to play that the top tier competitive 40K players haven't taken the time to try their best to make GK work.

SG

I'm not a high level player by any means but I have been playing with GK a lot. I can tell you that they really don't present any/many tactical questions and don't have much in the way of answers either.

Versus hordes I have storm bolters which will give me 4 shots each if I'm under 12" away. But, I only have 5 guys in a squad so 20 shots max. It doesn't play well into a tyranid or pox walker swarm.

Oh did I mention that my biggest non-vehicle,non-character melee weapon is S5 AP -2 d3? And that the optimal hth weapon is S4 AP2 d3 and gives 1 extra attack. Neither of these leads to really good results against the melee monsters out there.

Versus vehicles and high T targets the best hand carried weapon I have looks like this Rng 24" Hvy4 S7 AP-1 d1 so if I move with it I have to take a -1H.

Except for Dread Knights and special characters there is nothing that I get that other Imperial forces don't have access to and, they have either cheaper or outright better options.

I'm not whining I'm just stating facts.

 ServiceGames wrote:
I have this feeling that, given time and access to any GK model and as many of them as wanted, someone out there could figure out how to make GK truly viable in a competitive environment.

It's just that there are so many armies that take so much less work, thought, and effort to play that the top tier competitive 40K players haven't taken the time to try their best to make GK work.

SG

Except when you can math out that most units in the book are 1:1 better than others, leaving you with exactly 5 units that aren’t normal space marine ones.

Strike squads. Paladins. Draigo. Grand master Dreadknights. Purgation squads.

I can promise you people have tried to make these work, but sadly they are simply not good. Other codices are mathematically superior, and we lack enough interesting sinergies to really find any ones that make it so just comparing us to better imperial alternatives isn’t a worthwhile endeavor.

Scions and blood angels do the grey knight and anti demon thing better.

tneva82 wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
Everybody crapped all over Grey Knights back in 5th edition too, but it didn't stop from people from making it work. Stick to efficient units - Strike Squads, AC Razorbacks, etc rather than shiny toys.

Umm difference is in 5th gk had competive build and good one at that

In 5th, GW basically said in Codex Daemonhunters that a pure GK army was a challenging force to play. A friend of mine made it work, but it was basically 'spam bog standard Grey Knights and GK Dreadnoughts'. It's not much different in 8th, though now you have access to a few good vehicles and HQ choices. It can work, but it will be a challenge.

 Herodius wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

That said, a 5 man strike squad gets 20 Storm Bolter shots at 12 inches and 15 attacks in close combat with dual Falchions. Stick a few of them in assault cannon Razorbacks and see what happens. GMNDKs are pretty tough, I've seen a lot of lists that take 4. Bring a Storm Raven as a fire magnet and wreck your opponents in close combat.

5-man strike squad only gets 11 attacks in close combat (4x2 + 1x3)

You're right. My mistake.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
Remember, this is Dakka, the opinions expressed may sometimes be extreme.

I've played against GK regularly in 8th edition and had the impression they are good but for a few mechanics. Specifically, units are very expensive, Stratagems are not as useful as they could be, and there's a lack of long range firepower.

Lol. "They are good except for these that are the ones that make it sub-standard".

You just listed the problems GK have that turn it into mediocre army...

I was unaware a standard exists, but okay.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 John Prins wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
Everybody crapped all over Grey Knights back in 5th edition too, but it didn't stop from people from making it work. Stick to efficient units - Strike Squads, AC Razorbacks, etc rather than shiny toys.

Umm difference is in 5th gk had competive build and good one at that

In 5th, GW basically said in Codex Daemonhunters that a pure GK army was a challenging force to play. A friend of mine made it work, but it was basically 'spam bog standard Grey Knights and GK Dreadnoughts'. It's not much different in 8th, though now you have access to a few good vehicles and HQ choices. It can work, but it will be a challenge.

Being able to look at GK this way is important. You know you are going to have some challenges, and games won't end favorably as often as they do for other armies.

But it's not like you will never win a game or be constantly frustrated. Unlike people playing netlists, you have some creative freedom as a GK player. And it's not like the meta never shifts....

What creative freedom?

And the meta never shifts? They're not even effective vs Daemons!

 techsoldaten wrote:
Remember, this is Dakka, the opinions expressed may sometimes be extreme.

I've played against GK regularly in 8th edition and had the impression they are good but for a few mechanics. Specifically, units are very expensive, Stratagems are not as useful as they could be, and there's a lack of long range firepower.

Which lead me to start a GK army, complete with a WIP blog. Currently challenging myself to build it up to a high standard.

Grey Knights have changed significantly since previous editions. The standout units these days are Grandmaster Nemesis Dreadknights, Strike Squads, and Drago. You can build a pretty tough army by adding on Razorbacks and Storm Ravens around these units.

A lot of people are down on Terminators / Paladins because of their cost and the presence of weapons that do multiple wounds. Paladins have 3 wounds, but they cost a ton, Terminators are expensive, but they die easily to Plasma. You're never going to have large squads of either due to the cost, which means they don't see a lot of time on the battlefield.

A lot of people are also down on Purifiers. I'm really not sure why, they just get dished on.

In terms of HQs, the only one I really see big problems with is Castellan Crowe. He's just not worth the points.

That said, a 5 man strike squad gets 20 Storm Bolter shots at 12 inches and 15 attacks in close combat with dual Falchions. Stick a few of them in assault cannon Razorbacks and see what happens. GMNDKs are pretty tough, I've seen a lot of lists that take 4. Bring a Storm Raven as a fire magnet and wreck your opponents in close combat.

EDIT: forgot to mention, a popular option is a detachment from another Codex. 450 points nets you a lot of Imperial Guard to screen your more elite units.

Assault cannon razorbacks don't make as much sense for GK, because they don't have the same efficient access to rerolls as the rest of marines. Rerolling 1s to hit costs GK over 150 points minimum, and there is no access to rerolling wounds. Then there is the added problem that outside of the GMNDK none of your HQs are mobile enough to keep pace with Razorbacks should you want rerolls. A better solution for GK is to ally in Scout Bikes to clear chaff and deep strike after that job is done. You simply will not scale enough with razorbacks and strike squads to clear chaff effectively - the cost is very high. 220 points for a strike squad + a razorback is a hefty pricetag. The conventional wisdom that assault cannon razorbacks have value comes from (a) a pre-nerf evaluation of these vehicles and (b) the ability to reroll hits and wounds with relative ease. GK don't give you either of these, and if you play GK as purely a shooting platform, prepare to be disappointed.

Storm Ravens make sense for GK, because they allow you to move up field and get a reliable beta strike after you have the alpha of storm ravens. Additionally you can deep-strike rerolls between them in the form of Draigo to get full rerolls to hits, or a GMNDK for rerolling 1s. The problem here is that at MINIMUM this is going to cost you about 1,000 points, for 3 models. Nothing about a storm raven is durable. Again, this is pilfering things that work in other lists and attempting to make sense of them with GK. Ravens work for Ultramarines because they get an additional -1 from Tigurius in the opponent's shooting phase should you go second, making them a -2. GK storm ravens don't have this baked in alpha-prevention, and coupled with a hard time getting screens in the first place short of souping the usual things, your ravens will probably be targetable turn 1 by the units that want to do it. At the end of the day every Storm Raven you add is a colossal impact to your model count, and getting rerolls and screens for them is already very difficult.

Purifiers are generally considered garbage because they are very low mobility, and their smite is a 3" range, meaning it takes some serious maneuvering to actually get any use out of it. A purifier squad with 2 flamers will run you about 140 points. That's 5 power armored dudes that need a transport in some capacity to have a reliable turn 2 smite. And, you need to make sure you're not hitting chaff. Ultimately these can pop off and deal decent damage if you get it going, but again, you're in desperate "save points" mode with GK, so they generally get cut because of their ridiculous cost and the fact that like all PAGK they have only 1 attack base. You could ally in a Manticore and drop it behind some ruins and get far more mileage than this squad.

And that's the final problem. Once you start mathing it out and actually looking at what it takes to make things happen, you realize there are fundamentally better options in your allies codexes, and the logical train of thought will lead you down the road of completely replacing the Grey Knights and bringing other more cost effective factions with better stratagems.