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My grey knight lists seem to always run into a few fundamental problems. Against other 2+ armies we're not good and that hoards overpower us. Our units are all expensive as hell for what we get. Only Librarians, dread knights, storm ravens and kaldor draigo are close to reasonably priced. Everything else is too expensive to be good, and i feels like the rest of the army is a crutch built around these core guys. Because of this, I also find myself unable to secure objectives due to how my lists tend to devolve into death stars and a few other units that I'm trying to make pay their points back, and thus I've little board presence,and I'm also finding that our CC isn't great, our shooting is abysmal, and our mind bullets usually end up supporting a death star and little else.

Am I missing something? Are grey knights just crippled against any army that's better than guard? Should I try using the knights as a support force? I'm just uncertain if they're close enough to good to justify running them when they constantly seem to fall short. It really does feel like codex Draigo and baby carrier.

Grey Knights, like Imperial Knights and other small forces probably should not be their own army. GK should be supplemental to another force.

I am not saying they are costed correctly to do this or that their personal codex says this is the case. I am saying GK have too little troop diversity to be their own army. All the problems you are listing is why you bring another army with them.

 Lance845 wrote:
Grey Knights, like Imperial Knights and other small forces probably should not be their own army. GK should be supplemental to another force.

I am not saying they are costed correctly to do this or that their personal codex says this is the case. I am saying GK have too little troop diversity to be their own army. All the problems you are listing is why you bring another army with them.

The problem is that when the most basic unit costs base 100+ points for 5 guys in power armor with storm bolters, you're army is too expensive to run as an allied force 90% of the time. The things you'd want (Libbies, Draigo, and dread knights) all are hidden behind a tax that make them undesirable.

 Jaxler wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Grey Knights, like Imperial Knights and other small forces probably should not be their own army. GK should be supplemental to another force.

I am not saying they are costed correctly to do this or that their personal codex says this is the case. I am saying GK have too little troop diversity to be their own army. All the problems you are listing is why you bring another army with them.

The problem is that when the most basic unit costs base 100+ points for 5 guys in power armor with storm bolters, you're army is too expensive to run as an allied force 90% of the time. The things you'd want (Libbies, Draigo, and dread knights) all are hidden behind a tax that make them undesirable.

a unit of GKTs is a tax?

Seems like the OP's issue is one of playstyle rather than the units in the codex. Old time GK players are use to kiting opponents, using LoS blocking terrain, shooting to weaken opponents before charging, and relying heavily on our powers as force multipliers. GK do not play like other Marines. Winning has more to do with you being a better player and making less mistakes than it does with having the better army.

For example, I run a PML3 Librarian Warlord with Libre rolling on Sanctic to net 5-6 of the GK specific powers such as Gate, Vortex, Cleansing Flames, and Sanctuary, then attach him to a squad of GKT. The GKT are ablative wounds for the Librarian. In addition, I run Draigo. If the Librarian rolls Gate, he and Draigo are in two different GKT squads, but if the Librarian does not roll Gate, then he and Draigo are in the same squad. Their job is to Gate wherever they are needed, adding mobility to the army. The other GKT squad will start in reserve and DS onto an Objective in the back field, or behind my opponent's lines to act as disruptors and bullies. The rest of my army are NDKs and Interceptors, to bounce around crushing soft targets first and dealing with hard targets last. In higher point games I will squeeze in a Knight Errant to act as a Super-NDK. Either way, I play aggressively, move constantly, hug terrain as needed, kite as needed, and always think about how I can lead my opponent into bad decisions.

So, effectively its me against my opponent in a mental boxing match, not my army versus my opponent's army. Hope that helps!

SJ

 Jaxler wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Grey Knights, like Imperial Knights and other small forces probably should not be their own army. GK should be supplemental to another force.

I am not saying they are costed correctly to do this or that their personal codex says this is the case. I am saying GK have too little troop diversity to be their own army. All the problems you are listing is why you bring another army with them.

The problem is that when the most basic unit costs base 100+ points for 5 guys in power armor with storm bolters, you're army is too expensive to run as an allied force 90% of the time. The things you'd want (Libbies, Draigo, and dread knights) all are hidden behind a tax that make them undesirable.

Here might be a good place to point out the Daemonhunter Detachment from Codex: Imperial Agents. Consists of either a Troop or Fast Attack and an optional Heavy Support. No HQ, not even optional, but if you want to spam NDKs this is the cheapest way to do it. Just add one Interceptor, Terminator, and/or Strike Squad per Dreadknight. I know this doesn't solve all of your problems as stated in the OP, but some of those you can't get around. By fluff, rules, and straight up game balance you are going to be severely outnumbered. No matter how good your armour or weapons are, one wound per model puts you at a disadvantage out of the gates. Disappointing, I know.
But the bright side is that I believe our Troops Terminator squads can go one-on-one against almost every other codex's Elites choices (especially in the combat phase), even when they cost more than ours. The problem is actually getting them to engage in that isolated matchup, and that's why I feel GK are great allies to Guard or Inquisitorial henchmen spam to keep the weight of fire off the 1W 2+/5++ guys, which will kill us every time.

GK are bad enough in the current game I set out to rewrite the Codex; you've gotten a pretty good picture of why written down.

Under this Codex taking Crowe/Purifiers or a Librarian and a few Terminators to unlock Dreadknights and keeping Inquisition-book content around to handle hard targets is about all you can do with them in even a semi-competitive setting.

Grey Knights suffer because of the current metagame, and because of the way Psychic Powers work in 7th edition.

The Metagame makes it so that 2+5++ just isn't as sturdy as it used to be, thanks to the proliferation of cheap Plasma and Grav. So, Terminator Armor is weak.
Unfortunately, Terminator Statlines are weak, too. The damage output on a Storm Bolter could only be described as 'Meh', and S4 AP3 in Close Combat isn't impressive in the slightest.

Now, this used to not be so bad. 6th edition psychic rules had it so that every unit could reliably buff up their strength before getting into Close Combat. S4 AP3 is meh, but S6? Now we're talking. Unfortunately, though, Grey Knights have no source of psychic batteries, so getting more than 1-2 powers off per turn is pretty challenging.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Seems like the OP's issue is one of playstyle rather than the units in the codex. Old time GK players are use to kiting opponents, using LoS blocking terrain, shooting to weaken opponents before charging, and relying heavily on our powers as force multipliers. GK do not play like other Marines. Winning has more to do with you being a better player and making less mistakes than it does with having the better army.

For example, I run a PML3 Librarian Warlord with Libre rolling on Sanctic to net 5-6 of the GK specific powers such as Gate, Vortex, Cleansing Flames, and Sanctuary, then attach him to a squad of GKT. The GKT are ablative wounds for the Librarian. In addition, I run Draigo. If the Librarian rolls Gate, he and Draigo are in two different GKT squads, but if the Librarian does not roll Gate, then he and Draigo are in the same squad. Their job is to Gate wherever they are needed, adding mobility to the army. The other GKT squad will start in reserve and DS onto an Objective in the back field, or behind my opponent's lines to act as disruptors and bullies. The rest of my army are NDKs and Interceptors, to bounce around crushing soft targets first and dealing with hard targets last. In higher point games I will squeeze in a Knight Errant to act as a Super-NDK. Either way, I play aggressively, move constantly, hug terrain as needed, kite as needed, and always think about how I can lead my opponent into bad decisions.

So, effectively its me against my opponent in a mental boxing match, not my army versus my opponent's army. Hope that helps!

SJ

Gate sucks. When you deep strike close to your opponent and can't charge, you're basically sitting there asking "heeeeeey, wanna blow me off the table?" that on top of the fact that with deep strike you tend to mishap about 1/4th the time. You can relibably only get off about 4-5 powers a turn at 2000 points. Each unit is expensive. GKT terminators being ablative wounds are too expensive and the like. You can't DS onto held objectives. Interceptors are strictly worse dreadknights. Hugging terrain is a crutch that fails to really help against many of the hyper mobile or drop pods lists that people run these days.

Essentially, unless you're playing against guard/orks/nids, you're not going to be able to do much, and against those lists good luck trying to cut through all those bodies.

Waaaghpower wrote:
Grey Knights suffer because of the current metagame, and because of the way Psychic Powers work in 7th edition.

The Metagame makes it so that 2+5++ just isn't as sturdy as it used to be, thanks to the proliferation of cheap Plasma and Grav. So, Terminator Armor is weak.
Unfortunately, Terminator Statlines are weak, too. The damage output on a Storm Bolter could only be described as 'Meh', and S4 AP3 in Close Combat isn't impressive in the slightest.

Now, this used to not be so bad. 6th edition psychic rules had it so that every unit could reliably buff up their strength before getting into Close Combat. S4 AP3 is meh, but S6? Now we're talking. Unfortunately, though, Grey Knights have no source of psychic batteries, so getting more than 1-2 powers off per turn is pretty challenging.

I'm confused. How do the Grey Knights lack for Warp Charge? And with the current FAQ's ruling that the 6e Inquisition book is still legal I call your attention to the Inquisitorial detachment that gives you three Warp Charge for 67pts (Inquisitor (naked), 3x Henchmen Warband (1 psyker, 2 Acolytes, no equipment)), which gives the GK access to the most cost-effective psychic battery in the game.

As a secondary point, though, 95% of the time the Grey Knights' psychic powers are useless; you could let everyone have Hammerhand in play all the time and you'd still suffer from everyone in the book paying too many points for effects they can't use (Force Weapons on one-Attack models that have to pay 4pts/model for extra close combat weapons, for instance). The move from powers you might actually want to use to Hammerhand and Banishment on everyone is the real issue with the psykers, to my mind.

GK are slow once they use up their shunts/deep strike. (Except the cheesy ass baby carrier) This kind of spells doom in many cases. They even can struggle vs some BA and DE lists, which is pretty embarrassing I must admit. The baby carrier, while super duper awesome, can't quite carry the list. GK would completely decimate me in CC, so I just make sure that never happens. Because speed.

Martel732 wrote:
GK are slow once they use up their shunts/deep strike. (Except the cheesy ass baby carrier) This kind of spells doom in many cases. They even can struggle vs some BA and DE lists, which is pretty embarrassing I must admit. The baby carrier, while super duper awesome, can't quite carry the list. GK would completely decimate me in CC, so I just make sure that never happens. Because speed.

Yeah. Again, that's the big problem with grey knights. Sure you can deep strike, but when your shooting is beyond mediocre to the point where orks are better at it, all deep striking does is tend to get you within rapid fire range to be decimated. If I didn't fish for invisibility in grey knight lists I'd be tabled almost instantly against most gun lines. When you're army can't shoot and is built around deep strike, and deep strike is bad (you can't even no scatter 90% of the time) your army is going to just get decimated when it lands.

BA aren't a gun line, and really DE aren't either. But they are both squirrely in the movement phase. MM attack bikes, grav bikers, fast preds, and all the DE fast shooting platforms are likely maddening. Even BA tacs rolling around in Rhinos shooting heavy flamers can whittle down 3+ armor GK. We might have to surrender objectives early, but I can whittle down and then send in brute squad. Jancoran has posted some nightmare DE CC units, too. Against GK, I'm full on coward Angels.

Martel732 wrote:
BA aren't a gun line, and really DE aren't either. But they are both squirrely in the movement phase. MM attack bikes, grav bikers, fast preds, and all the DE fast shooting platforms are likely maddening. Even BA tacs rolling around in Rhinos shooting heavy flamers can whittle down 3+ armor GK. We might have to surrender objectives early, but I can whittle down and then send in brute squad. Jancoran has posted some nightmare DE CC units, too. Against GK, I'm full on coward Angels.

I'm not referring to DE or BA in particular, just as a rule of thumb with grey knights. You're just going to eat bullets and die before you can charge because you're a space marine army with almost 0 shooting weapons that are worth while. Also blood angel terminators will out do grey knight ones due to actually having ap 2

I was just pointing them out as weak lists that have a pretty good niche vs GKs in general. Gunlines are typically slow and static, and so if you can survive the first turn, you can get off a lot of assaults. DE and BA won't even let you do that frequently.

Incinerators are great vs 4+ and worse, but suffer if your opponent is meched up. Stormbolters are crap and I know psycannons are salvo for some reason.

Fortunately, for you, BA terminators are too expensive to be considered a viable choice by most BA players.

Martel732 wrote:
I was just pointing them out as weak lists that have a pretty good niche vs GKs in general. Gunlines are typically slow and static, and so if you can survive the first turn, you can get off a lot of assaults. DE and BA won't even let you do that frequently.

Incinerators are great vs 4+ and worse, but suffer if your opponent is meched up. Stormbolters are crap and I know psycannons are salvo for some reason.

Fortunately, for you, BA terminators are too expensive to be considered a viable choice by most BA players.

Incinerators suffer because your army deep strikes, flamers and deep striking is too unreliable to be worth it imo. Also against a gun line you'll lose too many people to shut down the gun line in the proceeding turn.

That's very possible. Depends on the gunline, but yes, you're going to lose a lot of games on your opponent's first shooting phase. Tau are super slimy because of interceptor everywhere. BA players who go mass drop pod have a similar problem.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:
Grey Knights suffer because of the current metagame, and because of the way Psychic Powers work in 7th edition.

The Metagame makes it so that 2+5++ just isn't as sturdy as it used to be, thanks to the proliferation of cheap Plasma and Grav. So, Terminator Armor is weak.
Unfortunately, Terminator Statlines are weak, too. The damage output on a Storm Bolter could only be described as 'Meh', and S4 AP3 in Close Combat isn't impressive in the slightest.

Now, this used to not be so bad. 6th edition psychic rules had it so that every unit could reliably buff up their strength before getting into Close Combat. S4 AP3 is meh, but S6? Now we're talking. Unfortunately, though, Grey Knights have no source of psychic batteries, so getting more than 1-2 powers off per turn is pretty challenging.

I'm confused. How do the Grey Knights lack for Warp Charge? And with the current FAQ's ruling that the 6e Inquisition book is still legal I call your attention to the Inquisitorial detachment that gives you three Warp Charge for 67pts (Inquisitor (naked), 3x Henchmen Warband (1 psyker, 2 Acolytes, no equipment)), which gives the GK access to the most cost-effective psychic battery in the game.

As a secondary point, though, 95% of the time the Grey Knights' psychic powers are useless; you could let everyone have Hammerhand in play all the time and you'd still suffer from everyone in the book paying too many points for effects they can't use (Force Weapons on one-Attack models that have to pay 4pts/model for extra close combat weapons, for instance). The move from powers you might actually want to use to Hammerhand and Banishment on everyone is the real issue with the psykers, to my mind.

Did I say that Inquisition lacked for Warp Charges? No. If we open up access to all the other codices, then Grey Knights won't have any reason to struggle, because they can bring in allies to cover every weakness, but then you're not playing Grey Knights anymore.
Grey Knights, however, lack for Warp Charges.

And they DO, because every single unit in the army is a Psyker, but none of them are cheap - If you're running barebones Terminator squads, you're spending 165 points per Warp Charge. The cheapest Warp Charges you can get are on a Librarian, who can get you one Warp Charge per 45 points, but you can't just spam Librarians. The cheapest unit Warp Charge you can get is 110 points for 1. While that's fine if you're taking just a single unit, when every unit in your army is a Psyker, then you're going to be running out of Warp Charges really quickly - You don't really WANT stock Terminator squads, so we're really looking at about 200 points per squad, or something like 10-12 Warp Charges in an 1850 game, assuming you took a Librarian in there. 10-12 Warp Charges (+d6) isn't terrible, but you need 3 to reliably cast a WC1 power, and that's if you don't need to worry about it getting denied. Being able to cast five WC1 powers per turn is terrible when you need to cast a power on every unit you plan on using in order to make them good. (Or two: If you really want a Terminator squad to go kill some multi-wound models, you're going to want a character attached so you can roll on Hammerhand AND Force. That's 6 Warp Charges for one assault unit.)

I think that durability/pt is a much bigger issue for GK than warp charges. Just my 2 cents, though.

Martel732 wrote:
I think that durability/pt is a much bigger issue for GK than warp charges. Just my 2 cents, though.

I mentioned that, too, but nobody disagreed with me there so I didn't have to argue my point. I don't really think 33pts/model is too much for GK Terminators, but they lack other, cheaper options and real ways to increase their durability, which makes it more of an issue than other armies have.
(Though, can I just point out that Space Wolf Terminators also have a power weapon, are also 33pts/model, and DON'T get Warp Charges? That IS a problem!)

Waaaghpower wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I think that durability/pt is a much bigger issue for GK than warp charges. Just my 2 cents, though.

I mentioned that, too, but nobody disagreed with me there so I didn't have to argue my point. I don't really think 33pts/model is too much for GK Terminators, but they lack other, cheaper options and real ways to increase their durability, which makes it more of an issue than other armies have.
(Though, can I just point out that Space Wolf Terminators also have a power weapon, are also 33pts/model, and DON'T get Warp Charges? That IS a problem!)

yes, but it's just them being worse, not grey knight terminators not sucking. Also Space wolves have access to more options for their army to build around the termies, and for the termies.

I think there was a lot of the same problems in 5th edition, though Shrouding helped. In those days, a friend was very successful with GK's by basically taking as many basic GKs and buying as few augmentations as possible. Not sure how that fits the current meta, but when your basic guys are expensive but offer a lot, buying more expensive units probably isn't the answer.

John Prins wrote:
I think there was a lot of the same problems in 5th edition, though Shrouding helped. In those days, a friend was very successful with GK's by basically taking as many basic GKs and buying as few augmentations as possible. Not sure how that fits the current meta, but when your basic guys are expensive but offer a lot, buying more expensive units probably isn't the answer.

A bunch of bunk standard grey knights spamming objectives might work in the proper meta, tho the thing is that double demi company does this better

I have 3 GK players in my group, and only one of them does consistently well with them, I think more because he's the one who's played the army the longest.

As an opponent of GK, my IG army is not scared of them at all. They have trouble damaging my LRBT's and have difficulty removing my blob squads that protects the tanks.

From what I've seen, taking 3x baby carriers and the guys who can jump 30" have done him well. I've seen him table Eldar and come very close to beating a riptide heavy list. Jeffersonian said it best, it's probably more of a play style issue. GK is a difficult army and it requires a lot of skill to pilot effectively.

That being said, I've seen some of the awesome things they can do with all those powers. Hammer hand, sanctuary, and force can really help them deal with a lot of situations.

A Centstar recently placed second in a 40 player tournament here, you could try that out.

The list included the new Celestine, 5 Centurions (Omniscope etc), Librarius Conclave, Tigurius, Draigo. The rest of the points I believe were used for obsec Scouts and Drop Pods. Not sure if the Scouts went into the pods or if they just dropped empty.

The dumb part ofcourse, is that there is very little GK in it. The army struggles in the hyper competitive environment. Triple NDK lists where they start on the table and just shunt into the enemy sometimes do okay.

However, in the end, rare tournament dominating lists these days are monocodex.

John Prins wrote:
I think there was a lot of the same problems in 5th edition, though Shrouding helped. In those days, a friend was very successful with GK's by basically taking as many basic GKs and buying as few augmentations as possible. Not sure how that fits the current meta, but when your basic guys are expensive but offer a lot, buying more expensive units probably isn't the answer.

In 5th, their swords were still useful against 2+ armor, and every unit could cast Hammerhand with about a 92% success rate, and you could still use Force without it counting as your one power. Every unit, then, had a reliable way to deal with about any target, and on the very off chance that you needed to deal with something tougher you could attach an HQ for a second drop of Hammerhand, giving you even higher strength. (It was only +1 back then, but stacked.)

Now, though, if you take bog standard units, then anyone with a 2+ save is just going to laugh off your attacks.

Well, I think a GK army can be viable: Librarian, 5 Termies, 2 Dreadknights.
Add an Imperial Knight and some Cult Mechanicus/Skitarii allies.

Needs MOAR! cleansing flame. A shame (for you) that you can't jam purifiers into pods anymore.

If taking stuff other than libbies, termies and DK's doesn't work out, well, just take 2 instances of the Nemesis Strike Force.

~160 for ML3 libby with [book/armour/stick]
~190 for 5x Termies with an incinerator, 1x Hammer and whatever assortment of pointy sticks you like
~200 for a baby carrier with a gun and teleporter
~200 for a baby carrier with a gun and teleporter

That's ~1500 points. If playing 1850, add another librarian, draigo or some interceptors in some combination up to the points limit. A squad of Purifiers can also be a rude surprise to people if you get gate and don't mind at least a little bit of risk, especially if you're getting close for vortex anyway...

Waaaghpower wrote:

Now, though, if you take bog standard units, then anyone with a 2+ save is just going to laugh off your attacks.

Well, then it seems the Nemesis Daemon Hammer is a must-take upgrade for the squads, then. My point was to not load up on tons of upgrades at the expense of bodies.

I stopped reading at "Gate sucks," wow. Ally in marines. bring Tigurius, Grav-cents /w 3xTWBoltguns, gate all over the map with your invisible, 18 rending twin linked shots and 15 grav dice with rerollable wounds, wrapped in a package of 2+ saves with 2 wounds.