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Someone at my hobby club is starting out with grey knights, and I'm probably one of the more experienced players there. He's asking for advice with playing grey knights (I only play orks).

I've fought grey knights enough to know a thing or two about fighting them, but I wanted to fact check some of my tactical suggestions:

From an ork perspective, grey knights tend to be an extremely aggressive army. Lots of shunting and deep striking turn 1, weathering a turn of shooting, and assaults turn 2 with very elite troops.

And that's my general recommendation to him. He has ~8 terminators, 5 paladins, draigo, crowe, 3x dreadknights, ~10 strike squad marines, purgation squad with psycannons, dreadnought, storm raven, maybe a couple other things.

The first thing I recommend is the nemesis strike force that lets you DS starting turn 1, as that fits the whole 'aggressive alpha strike' ethos of GK. That does limit you to 2x dreadknights, and no purgation squad - he likes the purgation squad.

That'll (hopefully) get him deep striking terminators, strike squad, and shunting dreadknights. The question is: Do you bring draigo and paladins in the storm raven - granting them an assault vehicle, but making their first possible assault on turn 3, or do you DS them and try for turn 2 assault? Or do you start them on the board and just gate of infinity to where you want to be?

If GK tend to be a teleport-then-assault army, what do you do when fighting an assault heavy army (such as orks, or SW, KDK, etc?). Because teleporting into the maw of an army built for assault, even with GK, sounds like a bad plan.

Any rate. My general advice for him is for maybe some more terminator squads, max dreadknights (with flamer/psycannon), librarian, use the nemesis strike force, give your termis as many psycannons as you can, give about 1 in 4 a thunder hammer, and be agressive. I think purifiers in a rhino are decent, as are interceptors, I don't think crowe is very good, and I've never seen GK players use strike or purgation squads. I assume there's a reason for that.

The most competitive GK lists have only 3 types of units, maybe 4:

Librarian
Terminators
Dreadknight x2

Take 2 NSFs to get 4 DKs, fill in the rest with Libbies and Termies.

Draigo only works if he has a purpose and a good unit to join, like a big unit to Termies, but often he prefers allies.
And there is only 1 kind of Power Armoured GK in the codex: Interceptors. Try to pretend that the other 3 PAGKs don't exist, because competitively, they don't.
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Now that that is out of the way, the models he has are fine to play and are not bad outside of tournies. GK's are not really a CC army as the really need a few turns of shooting to chip away ast some threat before getting stuck in. They are good at CC, but should focus on counter-assault tactics first. DKs are the only unit you really want in CC asap, so I never deep strike mine, I always deploy them.

Well that's not true. Purifiers are the bee's knees.

Are paladins not good enough buddies for draigo? I know they're not grav centurions, but still, they're pretty mean if you can get them into CC.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Well that's not true. Purifiers are the bee's knees.

....on paper. And they are not too shabby in casual games. But in ever competitive sense, they are a points sink. They are an infantry unit dedicated to CC, with no decent delivery system. 4 out of 5 games they will not make it to combat, but that 1 out of 5 games, man they wreck stuff.
I'm not sure what your local meta is, but in mine, Purifiers are only taken because they're cool on paper, not because they're good in practice.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
Are paladins not good enough buddies for draigo? I know they're not grav centurions, but still, they're pretty mean if you can get them into CC.

Meh, they're a good unit for him, but equal points worth of Terminator do about the same, are more bodies (less vulnerable to Str8+) AND count as you minimum troop.
The only 3 things that make Paladins stand apart form Termies is: A) you can take untis of only 3, B) you get 2 Psycannons per 5 and C) FNP. A & B don't really mesh with having a Beatstick like Draigo with them. C is awesome, but again, the amount of extra wounds you get from using Termies evens this out
If you really want a GK unit for Draigo to tag along with, use Purifiers. They seem to fill in each other's gaps in tactical efficiency quite well.

So in short: Don't bring Draigo or Purifiers in a competitive game, UNLESS you bring Draigo & Purifiers as a single unit.
And you should have at least 1 Librarian per detachment before adding any other characters

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I find Draigo, a Libby, some GKT, some Interceptors, and a couple of DKs to be very competitive, especially in Maelstom.

SJ

I definitely think a librarian is a good call for GKs. Does crowe bring much of anything to an army?

Also, galef recommended whittling down the enemy a bit and counter-charging. So, do you suggest using the dreadknights as bait and charging into assault to support them?

Also, what makes interceptors good? Just a bunch of fast storm bolters?

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
Also, galef recommended whittling down the enemy a bit and counter-charging. So, do you suggest using the dreadknights as bait and charging into assault to support them?

Also, what makes interceptors good? Just a bunch of fast storm bolters?

I didn't mean not to be aggressive, but if a DK is just for CC, than why does everyone put expensive guns on it? You basically want to always be in a position where you "can" assault, but far enough away that you can try to get more turns of shooting with those expensive guns.

Incinerators make Interceptors good. 30" shunt move Flamers

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
I find Draigo, a Libby, some GKT, some Interceptors, and a couple of DKs to be very competitive, especially in Maelstom.

SJ

I agree with this.

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Sorry Galef, but Purifiers aren't a melee unit. They're a unit for spamming that Nova Power and camping with Psycannons whilst Terminators make their way to wherever. No wonder they haven't done well!

For the record I live in a hardcore area, and you should know that as this point based off the advice I give.

Purifiers are very much a CC unit, at least compared to the other PAGK. They are fearless and have 2atx.
But I see your point about that not being why you bring them, and I agree. I would add that my earlier point was that they are a unit that needs to get close, so my reasons for not taking them stand.
Unless you put Draigo with them.

Using Purifiers aren't going to make your list suck, and if you get them to work they are quite gratifying. I just think a new player should be aware that they are a more difficult unit to use.

The best advice I can offer to anyone starting grey knights at the moment is to treat a grey knights army like you used to have to treat an eldar army in 4th and 5th edition. Each part of the army has a task that it is very good at, but very limited to. The grey knights are a scalpel compared to many other armies who are hammers, anvils, glass cannons, or whatever. The two most important things to consider with a grey knights army are having proper target priority and controlling LOS blocking terrain. Grey knights are pretty efficient in close combat and will probably do best in that phase, but they lack the cheap bodies, heavy armor or unit resiliency to just charge across the table and get themselves stuck in, you have to convince your opponent to come across the board to come and get you. Then you neutralize each unit completely before moving on to the next.

As the advice above, the best units for grey knights are few but potent

lvl3 librarian - This guy is great, he has synergy with just about everything else in the list, and at lvl3 he is more reliable in getting the powers you need from game to game

terminators as troops- these guys are okay, but when comparing them to our other troop choice, there is really no choice. they have good attacks, good armor and good weapons. They even get grenades so they are not totally useless and vulnerable to moving through terrain in the grav-centric meta that we are in at the moment. The only thing these guys are lacking are an affordable option for ap2. hammers are great but add up fast.

Dredknights - best unit hands down. these guys are our swiss army unit. They do everything. the problem with them is that they are our only unit that does everything and everyone else knows it. these will always be you opponents #1 priority so be careful what you point these guys at.

Interceptors - really good and would be an auto take if not for two reasons. #1 they are too expensive #2 they are not dredknights

Purifiers - These guys are situational but can be an amazing situation. as with all grey knights you can tune every unit to be great at one particular role. most look at purifiers and try make them anti hoard, which they are good but expensive at. I like to take 5 purifiers with 2 psylincers put them into a rhino and use them to scare off FMC's or throw a whole bunch of fire support dice at any units that need to get whittled down 12 s4 ID shots can be a lot of diddly.

stormravens - grey knights get these as fast attack, meaning you can get these with dredknights. they are as good as your meta allows flyers to be. I don't personally like them , but they are still a strong option.

brother captains - expensive but good. I personally like one of these as my hq over the libby. ML2 for the grand master is still pretty good and being able to bring another psycannon is to me more reliable than rolling a good psychic power.

Draigo - you know him, you love him, or you hate him, but he acts like a tiny landraider and is the only thing that might draw more fire than your dredknights.

Everything else in the codex is either too expensive, terrible or both.

 Galef wrote:
Purifiers are very much a CC unit, at least compared to the other PAGK. They are fearless and have 2atx.
But I see your point about that not being why you bring them, and I agree. I would add that my earlier point was that they are a unit that needs to get close, so my reasons for not taking them stand.
Unless you put Draigo with them.

Using Purifiers aren't going to make your list suck, and if you get them to work they are quite gratifying. I just think a new player should be aware that they are a more difficult unit to use.

They're the ultimate counter-assault unit when you think about it.

Purifiers certainly aren't an assault unit, they're far too slow.
GoI, and Rhinos/Razorbacks help with getting them up the table, but doesn't help with getting them into CC.
Land Raiders are too expensive to use as an assault transport, whilst Stormravens are also expensive and unreliable.

I think the past year or so has been harsh on GK, it's quite hard to see beyond spamming NDKs now for any vaguely competitive games.

GK are far from competitive. The only noteworthy units are the librarian and the DK which against any Grav cannon spamming army will die in a blink. They are really expensive, luck mobility and seriously luck the bodies against lists like decurion or lion's blade.
GK's where once competitive but now they really aren't. If you intend to participate in any tournaments then don't start collecting them. Otherwise they are fine for a casual game.

GK are all about mobility, with easy access to Deep Strike, Jump, Shunt, and Gate. If you are finding your GK to lack mobility, you are playing them wrong.

SJ

Seriously. The reason people think GK are Ork-tier is that they're still thinking of GK as a terminator-and-land-raider army. Maybe they are in the fluff, but there's no reason to play them like that because Terminators are an overpriced joke unit nowadays. I honestly think you're better off taking one bare-bones strike squad (maybe give them an incinerator) to pay your troop tax and provide a meatshield for your librarian. Everything else needs jump and a shunt move. Deep striking is iffy for GK just like any army without pods, since each unit has a 1 in 3 chance of missing a turn even with NSF. One unit missing a turn is gonna hurt in an army that only has 5-10 units.

One advantage that makes GK a bit better than they seem on paper: unless your opponent is playing daemons or tailoring hard against GK, you get a psychic phase and your opponent doesn't. Any points they spend on psykers are effectively wasted. A conclave might get some powers off if they stick to buffs and don't target you with anything, but you still have a ton of dice to deny them.

Just remember the old adage.

"Shoot the choppy and chop the shooty."

It is what Grey Knights literally live and die by as an army of slightly above average generalists. As they are only slightly above average but cost much more than normal you also have to focus your forces in destroying an opponent's units one-by-one. You will lose if you get in a fight of attrition, you will lose if you spread your men out too much.

As for units

HQ: Libby
Troop: Terminators
Dreadknight Support: Dreadknight

Interceptors are almost 150 points for a single S6 AP4 Flamer; even with the shunt ability they cost far too much with how easily they die. Ignore them unless you have terrain heavy tables with a large amount of LoS blockers.

Also, your psychic phase will suck.

Yes I said the Grey Knight psychic phase sucks, why you ask? Well the recent FAQ makes casting powers equivalent to the mastery level AND a IC's mastery level combined with a squad only retains the highest mastery level. Which means you will only be casting 3 spells at most still for a squad. So you know that objective to cast 5+ psychic powers in one turn? You aren't getting it now unless you spammed Purifiers (in which case you have bigger issues). Also the psychic powers you need to afraid of aren't psychic attacks, but buffs that will make a Grav squad or Deathstar unkillable for your men, you don't get an Aegis or mastery level bonus to deny those; Yea it sucks that the GK Psychic phase is a joke, unless you ally in a Conclave but you aren't playing GK at that point. Don't rely on this phase to win you the game, UNLESS you rolled Invisibility on your two Libbies. GL then having enough warp charges to manifest every turn.

Speaking of how psychic phase sucks... GK squads now suck entirely in melee without a reliable wounding on 2+ and ignoring FNP, Only have Dreadknights or Draigo in melee.

So yea the codex is in a bad position. We lost a large amount of synergy when Psycannons became salvo for no reason, all our special characters became worse (except Draigo), no psybolts, no +2 I halberds for melee, swords just became worse for no reason, and our only stormshield is lost in the warp periodically because we don't get SS in our care packages for some reason.

Man that is a great deal of negatives.

So why should anyone still play and love them?

Because you're a fething paladin in space who smites daemons while looking good. This army will live and die by how well you grasp what the opponents army can do, I'd just tell your friend to learn the other codices honestly.

 Quickjager wrote:
Just remember the old adage.

Interceptors are almost 150 points for a single S6 AP4 Flamer; even with the shunt ability they cost far too much with how easily they die. Ignore them unless you have terrain heavy tables with a large amount of LoS blockers.

They're a close combat unit. The trick is to use their mobility and not let the enemy shoot at them. If you don't have terrain-heavy tables with a sufficiently large amount of LoS blockers, you are playing the game wrong. More terrain = a better game.

Well the recent FAQ makes casting powers equivalent to the mastery level AND a IC's mastery level combined with a squad only retains the highest mastery level. Which means you will only be casting 3 spells at most still for a squad. So you know that objective to cast 5+ psychic powers in one turn? You aren't getting it now unless you spammed Purifiers (in which case you have bigger issues). Also the psychic powers you need to afraid of aren't psychic attacks, but buffs that will make a Grav squad or Deathstar unkillable for your men, you don't get an Aegis or mastery level bonus to deny those; Yea it sucks that the GK Psychic phase is a joke, unless you ally in a Conclave but you aren't playing GK at that point. Don't rely on this phase to win you the game, UNLESS you rolled Invisibility on your two Libbies. GL then having enough warp charges to manifest every turn.

1. You're going to have somewhere between 15-25 dice for deny the witch. The opponent in most non-tailored games will have 3. You don't need aegis to deny their blessings.
2. You can never rely on the psychic phase to win you a game. Drawing and casting powers is a very random process.
3. The conclave isn't much of an improvement. You'll have 3 librarians who can only cast 3 powers a turn between them (2 if you don't bring Tigurius,) unless you don't nominate a caster which would defeat the purpose of using the conclave (unless you're just using it to ignore the FOC and spam psykers.) The new powers are nice but telepathy and sanctic are still more useful. And a conclave still gets perils on any roll of doubles when using sanctic, even with Tigurius (doubles doesn't count as psychic test failure, so no rerolls unless you fail.)

Speaking of how psychic phase sucks... GK squads now suck entirely in melee without a reliable wounding on 2+ and ignoring FNP

Because you can't activate force and hammerhand on the same squad in the same turn? It's surprising how rarely you need to do that.

I would suggest sending your feedback about the proposed new FAQ rules to GW, and not using the draft FAQ until it becomes official. On the other hand the draft FAQ eliminates borrowed drop pods which makes NSF potentially useful again.

Intercepters are finishers, not starters. Best use is to manuever them to finish off a weak enemy rather than engage a full strength enemy. This isn't a new stratey, as it has been the PAGK strat since 3rd edition.

Personally, I love using Intercepters. They act like mini-DKs in my lists, as their lower profile lets them gain cover. I use mine to finish models, burn passengers in open topped transports, and grab objectives while my DKs do the heavy lifting. My Intercepters always have max Incinerators and 1 hammer per 5 models (never on the Justicar, he gets a melta-bomb).

SJ

Anyone have a competitive NSF list suggestions? Contemplating starting a GK army, just looking to see how many termies I might need and if any other units would be of use.

PML3 Librarian w/ Liber Darmonica and Wardinf Staff

10-20 GKT w/ max Psycannons, 2 Hammers per 5 models, and mixed melee weapons to taste

5-10 Interceptors w/ max Incinerators, 1 Hammer per 5 models

Max NDKs

Draigo


SJ

What kind of powers do you think a liby should try to get? electrodisplacement, veil of time....full santic?

 bloodoffi wrote:
What kind of powers do you think a liby should try to get? electrodisplacement, veil of time....full santic?

Full Sanctic. You can garantee 5 out of 7 powers, 6 out of 7 if your Libby is the warlord and has the right trait. Gate, Vortex, Cleansing Flame, and Sanctuary are game changers and worth fishing for.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
GK are all about mobility, with easy access to Deep Strike, Jump, Shunt, and Gate. If you are finding your GK to lack mobility, you are playing them wrong.

SJ

Well only DK and interceptors can reliably move fast around the board. All the others rely on Deep Strike or Gate which is also Deep Strike and Deep Strike always carries a danger of mishap.

Seriously I have tried all the things you have said but I find GK to straggle against all but the weakest lists. They are Ork tier army and they really could use a buff. Last time they were reigning supreme on 5th edition there wheren't Grav and D weaponry through out the other armies.

Now DK and termies die much faster and much easier.

Is there ever a time you wouldn't include hammers in a squad?

zanzibarthefirst wrote:
Is there ever a time you wouldn't include hammers in a squad?

There is never a time that I wouldn't, but I don't use Purifiers or Purgators. If I did use either, Hammers would be pointless on them.

zanzibarthefirst wrote:
Is there ever a time you wouldn't include hammers in a squad?

Not in an "all comers" list.

Now if you know you'll be fighting Dark Eldar, hammer become unneccesary. They have no 2+ armour other than Drazhar and everything else is easy to wound or has low AV. Halberds on everyone would be ideal against DE, but you'd have to know you were facing them. Even if they field their T7 MCs, Halberds + Hammerhand or Force should do the trick.
But really that is the only time I wouldn't put at least 1 hammer per 5 GKs.

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 Capamaru wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
GK are all about mobility, with easy access to Deep Strike, Jump, Shunt, and Gate. If you are finding your GK to lack mobility, you are playing them wrong.

SJ

Well only DK and interceptors can reliably move fast around the board. All the others rely on Deep Strike or Gate which is also Deep Strike and Deep Strike always carries a danger of mishap.

Seriously I have tried all the things you have said but I find GK to straggle against all but the weakest lists. They are Ork tier army and they really could use a buff. Last time they were reigning supreme on 5th edition there wheren't Grav and D weaponry through out the other armies.

Now DK and termies die much faster and much easier.

Sorry to hear that they aren't performing for you. I tend to play on tables with tall line sight blocking terrain, and I tend to favor Maelstrom. With jump/Shunt incinerators and deep striking Psycannons, there is huge mobility that gets the right unit to the right spot. Gate lets you reposition. Sanctic lets you fish for force multipliers like Vortix, Cleansing Flame, and Sanctuary. Everything has a power weapon and can either boost Strength and/or ID. Its like always having the right tool for the job.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

 Capamaru wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
GK are all about mobility, with easy access to Deep Strike, Jump, Shunt, and Gate. If you are finding your GK to lack mobility, you are playing them wrong.

SJ

Well only DK and interceptors can reliably move fast around the board. All the others rely on Deep Strike or Gate which is also Deep Strike and Deep Strike always carries a danger of mishap.

Seriously I have tried all the things you have said but I find GK to straggle against all but the weakest lists. They are Ork tier army and they really could use a buff. Last time they were reigning supreme on 5th edition there wheren't Grav and D weaponry through out the other armies.

Now DK and termies die much faster and much easier.

Sorry to hear that they aren't performing for you. I tend to play on tables with tall line sight blocking terrain, and I tend to favor Maelstrom. With jump/Shunt incinerators and deep striking Psycannons, there is huge mobility that gets the right unit to the right spot. Gate lets you reposition. Sanctic lets you fish for force multipliers like Vortix, Cleansing Flame, and Sanctuary. Everything has a power weapon and can either boost Strength and/or ID. Its like always having the right tool for the job.

SJ

Seriously don't you struggle against horde or top tier armies (like Eldar or Tau)? What do you do against vehicle heavy lists? There isn't enough anti tank in GK codex right now since psybolt dreads are gone.

Even though I agree that GKs are a low tier army by themselves, they really are a great supplement to other armies who can fill in the gaps that GKs lack, allowing the GKs to really shine.

And I don't just mean allying with other Marines. I use my NSF along side and Eldar CAD. The long range and mobility of the Eldar allows the DKs to get in close and take on CC threats. It also creates and nice gap for board control, since most units that need to get close to the Eldar do not wish to get close to the DKs. The Eldar can also take out AP2 threats to the GKs much earlier than mono-GKs, allowing the GKs to do what they do.

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