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With the new grey knight codex out and in hand, I am now finding myself debating the merits of the close combat weapons. . .

Pair of Falchions for the +1 Attack
Or for half the cost giving the squad all halberds for +1S

Would like to hear what the other grey knight players are thinking about running on their models... halberds or falchions?
This will be for my interceptor squad and/or termies(don't want them to get too expensive). They will be 10 men, 1 hammer, 2 incinerators and 7 halberds or Falchions.


OK GO.

My brief number crunches showed Falchions to be the superior choice on T4 and below targets when not charging. Needless to say, the larger the volume of attacks out of the unit the better halberds become.

Thinking falchions for interceptors
Halberds for termies

My vote is for Falchions. S7 (with Hammerhand) on the Halberds seems less beneficial than an extra attack at S6. I'm personally planning to run only a mixture of swords, hammers, and falchions on my termies and pallies going forward.

Falchions are clearly the superior choice. +1 attack at S6 or S7? No brainer.
If you're strapped for pts, leave a couple in the squad with swords. You gain very little with the +1S. Also gives you an easy choice where to allocate first casualties.

Ironic isn't it? Last codex halberds were the icing on the cake, and falcons were crumbs.. And now its reversed.

I modeled all my Purifiers with Falchions last edition because it looked badass now it actually is!

I tend to mix mine a little.

The problem with falchions is that you can't rely on getting Hammerhand every time you want it. Especially if I have several other psychic powers I need to cast that turn, as well (there is almost always something of higher priority). I prefer the halberds on terminators as it means I can save those warp charges for something else.

Sure, with Hammerhand active, the falchions will be superior in most cases I can think of.

IMO this is not a clear cut question that can be answered out of context to the list and meta.

Halberds are great as the +1 Str opens up new targets that you can take on. The difference between S6 and S7 is meaningless when comparing damage to a T4 target but is infinitely better against a AV13 walker who you can magically hurt now. It is also 10 pts cheaper per 5 models which is the price of a hammer. Halberds make the GK units more flexible and effective against more targets (such as all vehicles). For example the S5 is better against AV10 rear armour and AV11 rear armour is invincible against S4 so a halberd termi unit that charges a waveserpent has a very good chance to glance it to death whereas a falchion unit will on average fail without hammerhand. Another example is a pask punisher unit which the halberd unit can still deal some decent damage while the falchion unit needs hammerhand or has to rely on krak grenades.

Falchions are great as on every toughness up to 5 (or 7 with hammerhand) where they do better damage. They tend to have the highest damage output between the two options when things go your way (ie you get into combats you want and/or you get hammerhand off). They are truly fantastic if you can always get hammerhand off consistently. Psychic powers are however not assured in this edition so they are a much bigger gamble and you can end up in combats you cannot hurt the enemy. There is also the overkill problem to consider. Often you want to kill yourself out of a combat on you opponent's assault phase and you want to stay in melee your own. A falchion termi unit without hammerhand averages 5 dead SM on the charge whereas the same with halberds is 3.75 SM on the charge. This means the falchion unit on average will kill themselves out of combat and get shot in the face against most MSU SM armies whereas halberds would keep you in combat safe from shooting ~40% of the time (assuming the SM player doesn't have fearless/stubborn in which case you are happy).

I personally don't think GK can afford to specialize their units to just one target type as they just don't have enough units. That is why I usually take a mixture of weapons (magnets!) based on my meta and list needs.

 ansacs wrote:
IMO this is not a clear cut question that can be answered out of context to the list and meta.

Halberds are great as the +1 Str opens up new targets that you can take on. The difference between S6 and S7 is meaningless when comparing damage to a T4 target but is infinitely better against a AV13 walker who you can magically hurt now. It is also 10 pts cheaper per 5 models which is the price of a hammer. Halberds make the GK units more flexible and effective against more targets (such as all vehicles). For example the S5 is better against AV10 rear armour and AV11 rear armour is invincible against S4 so a halberd termi unit that charges a waveserpent has a very good chance to glance it to death whereas a falchion unit will on average fail without hammerhand. Another example is a pask punisher unit which the halberd unit can still deal some decent damage while the falchion unit needs hammerhand or has to rely on krak grenades.

Falchions are great as on every toughness up to 5 (or 7 with hammerhand) where they do better damage. They tend to have the highest damage output between the two options when things go your way (ie you get into combats you want and/or you get hammerhand off). They are truly fantastic if you can always get hammerhand off consistently. Psychic powers are however not assured in this edition so they are a much bigger gamble and you can end up in combats you cannot hurt the enemy. There is also the overkill problem to consider. Often you want to kill yourself out of a combat on you opponent's assault phase and you want to stay in melee your own. A falchion termi unit without hammerhand averages 5 dead SM on the charge whereas the same with halberds is 3.75 SM on the charge. This means the falchion unit on average will kill themselves out of combat and get shot in the face against most MSU SM armies whereas halberds would keep you in combat safe from shooting ~40% of the time (assuming the SM player doesn't have fearless/stubborn in which case you are happy).

I personally don't think GK can afford to specialize their units to just one target type as they just don't have enough units. That is why I usually take a mixture of weapons (magnets!) based on my meta and list needs.

Well put, +1!