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I'm new to grey knights And I want to build a decent all comers army. What units should I grab and what units should I avoid at all costs?

Do you want to do henchmen or not? If yes, definitely avoid a Warrior Acolyte with two shields.

What style of great knights do you want to play?

 Desubot wrote:
What style of great knights do you want to play?

I heard they do best when they are shooty. Kite and avoid until I have to engage in CC.

Everyone knows the Great Knights are the Black Templars

But with Grey Knights.....whatever you get, put some psycannons on them. You can use the interceptors to teleport around the field and blast what you want.

Sounds like you want are some purifiers with fun time psycannons

also can add rifleman dreads with double auto psybolt guns

Super Newb wrote:Do you want to do henchmen or not? If yes, definitely avoid a Warrior Acolyte with two shields.

Acolytes with two shields? I don't understand what you mean by those. Do you mean crusaders, because having a 3++ save in a unit is pretty useful.

Icculus wrote:Everyone knows the Great Knights are the Black Templars

But with Grey Knights.....whatever you get, put some psycannons on them. You can use the interceptors to teleport around the field and blast what you want.

Interceptors can be useful, either with incinerators or psycannons to pop rear armour, will work good synergy with teleporting dreadknights and mordrak/ghost knights.

What do you mean about gk being templars?

Desubot wrote:Sounds like you want are some purifiers with fun time psycannons

Ignore this. SInce the start of 6th, purifier spam lists got nerfed bad anyway with transport rules and vehicle rules. Then when things like the helldrake have been introduced to the game, along with new tau/eldar, there is so much Ap3 ignores cover around. Purifiers are just glorified marines that will die very quickly in todays game meta. Do not take purifiers.

I would get a couple of dreadknights, with incinerator and teleporter, having 2/3 is pretty much mandatory in any gk list imo For troops you can either go strikes, henchman, or I guess paladins if you want to go the draigo route but thats up to you. As above, put psycannons on anything that can take one, they are our best weapon.

If you are going for your "Standard" GK list here is what i would recommend

TROOPS

1) Strike Squads
10 dudes, 2 psycannons, psybolt ammo
Maybe add a halberd on the Sarge for INT 6 in challenges to hit first
Maybe add a hammer in the unit to hide it from challenges and to add a bit more damage.

Strike squads are very good. They are great in the shooting phase with S5 and S7. You want a 10 man unit for durability. In general these guys are the core for most GK list.

2) Terminators
5 dudes with 1 psycannon
OR
10 dudes with 2 psycannons and psybolt ammo

When it comes to nemesis weapons, you have a lot of options. Halberds are good against massed attackers as you hit first. Swords protect you from AP2 in close combat. Hammers add a lot of damage, with less risk due to your 2+ save, you should live to swing back. The stave in an interesting, if risky option. Can tie up something huge with the 2++, but you only have 1 wound.
You can go for a mix, or load up on what you think is the best weapon for you local metagame.

[Never take Falcions. Expensive, less damage than hammers, less defense than halberds or swords]
[never put psybolt on a 5 man unit, same cost, less effect. Just not worth it]

Terminators are in general a bit worse than strike squads. Strike squads have more bodies and more shots and more attacks. The 2+ save is sometimes very good, but not always. They are good against AP3 shooting like Helldrakes.



HQs

Here there are a lot of options, but really only a few of them are good.

1) Inquisitors
Psyker upgrade and divination is a must, very powerful.
Can go for Terminator Armor and a Psycannon for shooting power
Can go for Rad grenades for more combat power
Can go for Coteaz for more utility, [he is very good even if you are not taking henchmen]


Divination is very strong. GK can make great use of the re-roll to hit in the shooting and the assault phase, as they have power in both of those phases. A 10 mna strike squad with a Divination inquisitor is a huge powerhouse unit with shooting and assaulting. It can be very hard to deal with.

due to how powerful and how cheap inquisitors are, they are really the best choice for a "standard" gk build. The other HQ's are good, but only if you are building your army to abuse their specialties.



2) Grand Master
Mostly bland, maybe some Rad and Blind Grenades, the incinerator is cheap as well.

Only take this guy if you are going to abuse grand strategy. If you want to take less strike squads and terminators, but still want a lot of scoring units, this guy in the one to go with.

He is very strong with Interceptors and Dread Knights with Teleporters due to their high mobility. You can force the battle to take place away from some objectives and then use the 30" move on your scoring unit to steal the game on the last few turns.

He can also be okay if you want to take a single unit of Purifiers or Paladins.


============

The best thing about the GK book is that almost everything in it is reasonable. There are very few bad units, and even the units that are bad are not useless, just not as good as other options. Here are the main things to avoid.


Brother captains are never good. Simply upgrade to a Grand Master and abuse Grand strategy instead

Brotherhood Champion. Re-roll to hit in assault when you charge is way worse than re-roll to hit with shooting and assault all the time from an inquisitor, similar prices and the inquisitor has 3 wounds to his 1

Karamozov. Fun, but does not fit into a GK army well and has no psy powers.

Valeria. Fun but expensive and no psypowers.

Venerable dreads were great in 5th edition. The 6th edition rules made them much less durable. Take the cheaper Normal dreads instead.

Any assassin except for the Vindicare. Close combat unit that have trouble getting to combat, die to overwatch, don't deal enough damage, and are too expensive and specialized

Purgation squads with psycannons are too expensive and you want extra bodies to die to protect your psycannons. Take strike squads with psycannons. Purgation squads too hold incinerators well, fun with a 5 man unit with 4 incinerators dropping out of a raven or rhino to burn out a unit.



THE ONE BIGGEST THING TO REMEMBER:

GK have more upgrades on their units than anyone else. It is very easy to fall into the trap of taking more upgrades instead of more bodies. Most of the time, you will simply want more GK bodies instead of giving the whole unit Falcions.

I'd just like to contest the idea that Terminators are part of a standard GK list; they never have been and still aren't as far as competitive lists are concerned, paying double what a strike costs just for an attack and armour upgrade essentially. They don't bring anything unique to the table unlike Paladins, so you aren't likely to see many regular Termies around.

Unless you deep strike with those skulls!

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
I'd just like to contest the idea that Terminators are part of a standard GK list; they never have been and still aren't as far as competitive lists are concerned, paying double what a strike costs just for an attack and armour upgrade essentially. They don't bring anything unique to the table unlike Paladins, so you aren't likely to see many regular Termies around.

I would agree with you, mostly. Overall, as I said, terminators are worse. They have less damage for their points, and about equal durability for their points.


However, GK terminators are one of the better units that GK have against the Helldrake. It is a bit odd to say terminators are good because of one unit existing, but it is one of the most powerful flyers in the game at the moment, and it is a staple in most Chaos Space Marine lists.

Strike squads simply do not have a good way to deal with hell drakes. You can put a character with a 2+ save in the unit to try and tank the AP3 hits, but the helldrake has the movement and fire arc to get around that most of the time.


GK terminators did get a bit better in 6th edition (2+ saves were basically buffed in combat a bit), and I think that they are worth considering, especially depending on the metagame of your local area.

I like to run a 10 man squad of termies with thawn in my recent games, having a scoring terminator that can never die is pretty valuable for me in objective games.

BEST HQ choice is Coteaz; even if you don't get henchmen you'll be hard pressed to justify not taking him. He's cheap and comes with about 50 different bags of tricks.

From there add 30 strikes, get them some mobility, add in henchmen to fill holes/add numbers, then round out the army to taste.

agree with Coteaz and also 3 DKs.
My current list is
Coteaz (100)
3 DKs with Hvy Incinerator + Teleport (705)
2 Interceptors - one with 2 incinerators the other with 2 psycannons and psybolt. Both with MC halbard (620)
46 acolytes split 12/12/12/10. The first lot with storm bolters the rest with bolters. (254)
Vindicare (145)
Techmarine(90)
ADL + Icarus (85)
Rounds out at 1999. Lots of mobility. Divination. Lacks anti-flyer but local meta doesn't have a lot so not overly bothered. Lots of incinerators vital for taking out the local tau

 tuiman wrote:

Super Newb wrote:Do you want to do henchmen or not? If yes, definitely avoid a Warrior Acolyte with two shields.

Acolytes with two shields? I don't understand what you mean by those. Do you mean crusaders, because having a 3++ save in a unit is pretty useful.

I was making a joke. 'Warrior Acolytes' are very customizable, they have tons of upgrade options in the codex. Most make them too expensive. If you look in the codex you can see that if you want to you could have an acolyte with two shields and no guns. Which of course is a terrible idea.