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Yeah, denying the bulk of the efficiency to big guns is an effective way to play 8th. It doesn't cost CPs and and can't be countered, plus it also (probably) maximizes the value of your unit buffs. Some lists will struggle to get AT on the board, but there are creative ways to fix that, and the built-in value you get from nerfing every Lascannon and melta weapon you face leaves you with a significant efficiency buffer.
He knows that I know and you know that he actually doesn't know the rules at all.
So the standard is more efficient than the punisher? Or the Venator?
GK do a decent job at shooting weak infantry with storm bolters at least in my experience playing my buddies orks. He also doesn't spam a million boyz.
The standard is probably the best for the fact it can also hit flyers without pentalty. Even though the Venator has PoMS.
Proposed changes for the March FAQ. Well, this bodes ill for the full Psyker chapter of the Imperium. Perhaps we should request GW not tighten the screws all the way to the floor?
Vortenger wrote: Proposed changes for the March FAQ. Well, this bodes ill for the full Psyker chapter of the Imperium. Perhaps we should request GW not tighten the screws all the way to the floor?
I sent an email suggesting some changes. Specifically an additional special rule for the aegis and reflecting Grey Knights psychic mastery. I don't know if it will fly though.
RobHampster wrote: I sent an email suggesting some changes. Specifically an additional special rule for the aegis and reflecting Grey Knights psychic mastery. I don't know if it will fly though.
Post what you sent, so we can better anticipate their response... if any.
SJ
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world.”
- Ephesians 6:12
I'm a Grey Knights player with a pure Grey Knights list. You have priced Grey Knights units based partly on their psychic abilities. The proposed FAQ changes are likely to make these abilities considerably less valuable and versatile especially when I take more than 6 Grey Knights units (which already struggle against other pure codex armies).
I think there are likely to be two ways to adjust for the proposed changes for Grey Knights: points reductions or Grey Knights special psychic rules.
It doesn't really make any sense that an army of master psykers has weaker smite than everyone else though I understand the need to limit Grey Knights capacity for smite spam especially in Imperial soup like armies.
The Aegis could be used to create a more fluffy balanced special rule. Put normal smite in the list of psychic powers for Grey Knights (and take away naff smite). Allow Grey Knights detachments to cast individual powers multiple times in any psychic phase by pooling their psychic powers using the Aegis and reflecting their psychic mastery. However, any multicasting should reduce aegis charge thereby reducing cast rolls by 1, 2 or 3 (I haven't done any maths so I don't know what would be balanced but this could change based on numbers of Aegis units maybe). It is also difficult to believe Grey Knights would be victims of perils. A 'The Aegis' special rule could protect from perils but terminate the psychic phase as all the Knights concentrate on fighting the warp peril through the aegis.
I am a long time warhammer 40,000 player (since 3rd edition) and I can say that 8th edition is by far my favorite one so far! The changes have made the game so much more fun and easy to play. And has fixed a lot of problems from other editions.
But, unfortunately in this new edition my most beloved army, grey knights, are very far behind in the rules. They are considered by everyone to be dead last in codex ability. And the transition from index to codex gave us very little. While other armies got a great overhaul. The other armies, such as Nurgle and Astra militarum, have both good and “fluffy” rules. All the armies so far have had great rules that really go with the back story of the army. Except unfortunately grey knights. Which is a huge disappointment to me. I absolutely love grey knights. With the announcement of this new edition I spent a ton of time painting and customizing my army. Only to be let down on the table top when I’m constantly losing. Even index armies with much less rules seem to be much better than the grey knights.
That all being said, I’m not here just to complain and expect something to happen. I have been reading and talking with fellow grey knight players ,who agree we need a chance, on all sorts of online forums. Seeing what they would change to bring us on par with other armies.
So, I realize we can only ask for so much. A codex re write is to much. But some simple point and rule changes that I have tested and talked about would make us not only able to put up a fight and be a middle rank army (instead of dead last) but also would be much much more fun to play.
Rule changes:
So to start I’ll start with special rules for the grey knights. Most are fine, however with the other armies coming out it is very apparent our rules actually limit us a great deal. And the few things we are supposed to be good at we are out classed by other armies.
Rights of banishment.
So this rule seems like it was put in place with the fear that we would be casting smite so much that it would be over powered. However, I have played against a few players. And if they bring two or three Psykers they can put smite my entire grey knight force, getting D3 wounds most of the time and the occasional D6. A usual grey knight force can cast about 5-6 smites a turn, and that means we haven’t cast any other powers. And that means we have done 5-6 mortal wounds. Another army with two or three psychers can match us, and if they get a 10+ on the cast. Out smite us very easily. Making us as a psycher heavy army actually very week. There is the other part of the rule that we do a straight 3 mortal wounds against demons. While that is close to the lore of grey knights. It really comes into play very very rarely. Of both my local gaming stores and of the 20 people I there are that play. There are two people that occasionally play chaos. So that rule is almost never used.
What I and many other players have agreed is this for a rule change: our librarians should be able to cast the full regular smite. As it stands we don’t have a full smite at all and that would make taking librarians in our armies useful.
Also, grandmasters and captains should get the D3 wounds. But not get the bonus for casting on a 10+. Giving them a bit more of a useful smite.
But other than them. All other squads and units would cast the lower one wound smite.
Purifying flame:
Not a major change here, just needs a small increase in range to 6 inches. The 3 inch range is really hard to use and with the other changes to purifies would make them more viable.
Psychic lotus:
So our captains get this. And it really isn’t anything useful, we are a close range army and so we are trying to get close anyway. Plus since it targets the closest enemy so the extra range usually just gets wasted. What we really need, that our army lacks and that other armies have is a re roll of ones to wound. Space marines for example, have lieutenants. Giving captains that rule makes our small elite army that much more useable as an elite army, and makes the captain useful.
Another rule change that is a rather big one, but would drastically help our limited army is one that once again, most armies have some access to and we don’t. The -1 to hit while being shot at. Now, it would be an added rule and would work as such:
The shrouding:
When GREY KNIGHT INFANTRY are targeted in the shooting phase by an enemy model beyond 18 inches subtract 1 from the roll to hit.
This whole being in line with the lore, would also help our infantry. One of the problems we have is we are coated and treated like we are a very tough army. But one round of shooting can cripples us and wipe out whole squads very easily. The range means it isn’t as good as other armies. But it means that long range armies would have a little more trouble simply shooting us off the table. Plus, it would Allow us to “foot slog” instead of doing the one real tactic we have that is to teleport everything in and hope to get turn one charges. I have play tested it a bit and it seems to work just fine. Without being to strong.
Psychic powers:
So the major problem is the rule of one. We get very few powers. And some of those powers are situational. Plus, the larger the game gets, the worse we get because so many units are left with nothing to cast. Other armies such as Eldar have so many powers that they don’t really have to worry about it. However we depend on them so much and have so few it really hurts us in any competitive games. Now what I have tested, that has been both balanced and fun, is the ability to cast each power three times.
It is just enough to give us a lot more utility, but also few enough that I have to really think and plan for who gets what power. Instead of the current way the rules are. That one grandmaster dreadknight gets sanctuary, and everyone else casts smite.
Purge soul:
Probably no changes needed. It isn’t great, but it can target and kind of “snipe” enemy characters. So it is probably fine.
Gate of Infinity:
Fine just the way it is. Casting three times also allows us to move not only a squad. But the supporting character with it. A large problem we have right now is we teleport a squad or unit. And the character that was moving with them gets left in the open.
Sanctuary:
Great power that really helps us from getting shot off the table. Casting it three times would help so much with our terminator models
Vortex of doom: so this power is ok, how ever the wording need to be cleared up. The problem is it says model and not unit. With model it is just a worse smite. That very rarely gets a few mortal wounds. But with the wording of unit it makes it the deadly thing we need it to be.
Stratagems:
So a lot of a stratagems are super useful to us. And really helps with all the problems we have like weak short range shooting. The major problem is how expensive in command points they are. And how strapped for command points we are. With a normal force we only can get about 5 points maybe 6 if we try. And with how expensive our stratagems are we can barely use them.
The simple and proposed change is that honor the chapter, psybolt ammunition, psychic onslaught, and heed the prognosticators, all be reduced by 1 cp.
the two shooting ones which really are the most useful are too expensive to use regularly. Bringing them down in cost let’s us use them more often. Which really addresses the problem of our generally weak shooting.
Relics:
They are ok, mostly weak and just sort of fun to take rather than really useful. But not so bad as to cripple us.
Warlord traits:
Most are ok, but not very useful. First to the fray stands so far and above the others that it is a really simple choice. So here is the supposed change. We once again unlike other armies have no way to get cp back. That in conjunction with our very low cp means we are always strapped for command points. So all we want is a relic or warlord trait for a 5+ to get command points back. Other armies that have no trouble getting 10+ cp have a way to get them back. And even in some cases steal them from the enemy. Our high cost to stratagems, low cp count, and no ability to get them back means we are at a pretty severe disadvantage. So either one of the excising traits get changed, or simply add another. That way once again it’s more of a choice instead of just take “first to the fray” and be done.
Wargear:
Most of our gear is just fine the way it is. However our special weapons simply put is a joke. They are over coated and weaker than their fellow space marine options. I didn’t realize how much till a fellow grey knight player made the comparison between the plasma gun and the psycannon:
The psycannon is 24inch range strength 7, ap-1, heavy 4. Damage 1. While a plasma gun is the same range and strength, but -3 and doesn’t get the -1 to hit. And it’s cheaper! Why in the world does the grey knights use such a weak weapon? Why don’t we just use plasma?
So, the change would be this, just make it D2. That, with the addition of cheaper psychic onslaught makes it a much more viable option. Giving it the utility of a weapon used against bigger armored targets. It also needs a point reduction. Which I’ll talk about later. Maybe give it a mortal wound on a roll of a 6? Not sure about that, but would also make it much more useful.
Units:
I’m just going to go over the units that need rule changes. And will give point changes to them later.
Brother captain:
Like I talked about earlier the current rule of psychic lotus needs to be changed to re roll wounds of 1. We have no way to get it. And this would give players a reason to take a captain over the much better grandmaster.
Librarian:
Same as said earlier in my email. Needs full smite. There is no reason at all to take on right now.
Lord Kaldor Draigo:
So another way to get cp would be to give him a special rule that if you include him in your army you get an additional 2 cp. most other large super high cost space marine characters have a similar rule. And once again helps us with one of our biggest problems of cp
Grand master Voldus:
Give him full smite as well. As he is a librarian as well as a grandmaster.
Castellan Crowe:
Honestly pretty bad. He doesn’t have the same stances as brother champions. And has a terrible sword. I think with just the addition of the stances like the other champions he would become viable.
Paladin squad:
The problem with paladins are that they are trying to be a very very tough elite squad. But aren’t tough enough to stay in the open for even one turn. Just a few shots from a damage three weapon and poof they are gone. Which is such a disappointment from a squad that is supposed to be the very best we have. So the change is this, give them all iron halos. What that would mean is they get a 4+ invulnerable save. And with sanctuary would be a 3+. Now believe me I know when I first tried that I felt there was no way it would work. It would be to powerful and feel cheap. But, without it they have been shot to pieces every game I played. Even the other players I have had games with were disappointed. They die so fast and are so expensive that I lost very quickly. Now what is also very silly, is that Adeptus Custodes get better weapon skill, better strength and toughness, they have a 3+ inv save, all while costing LESS then a squad of paladins! after quite a few games using them with iron halos. And casting sanctuary on them they have fit right into the roll they have needed to. That of a tough expensive squad that can take a huge beating. The players I have played against who were still able to kill of paladins with my proposed rules, firmly agree with the changes. Without it they are so easy to kill, most other players found it very silly they didn’t have it to begin with.
Purifiers:
Need a point decrease and just one extra base attack. Right now there is so reason to take them over the cheaper strike squad.
But with a slightly longer range purifying flame, and one extra attack they would be a viable option.
Point costs:
So this is another thing that needs to be looked at. Some of our units are so over coated for what they deliver that they never make it to the table top. These point costs will be in line with my proposed changes. I’ll only go over the units that need a change. If I don’t mention them they are fine for what they cost.
(Before wargear)
Grand master: 140
Brother captain: 130
Paladin ancient: 120
Such a useful unit but way over costed.
Librarians: 137
In line with space marine librarians who have full smite and cost 40 points cheaper
Terminator squad: 38 ppm
Inceptor squad:20 ppm
Purgator squad: 17 ppm
Psycannon: 5 for power armor 10 for terminator
Psilencer: 5 for power armor 10 for terminator
Incinerator: 2 for power armor 5 for terminator
Heavy psycannon: 20
Gatling Psilencer:20
Heavy incinerator: 20
Also make it 2d6 hits.
That should be everything. And like I said I have play tested these changes a few times and they work really well. Plus without them we are at such a disadvantage that not only are we not fun to play. But we are not fun to play against. A friend of mine who plays Orks
Wasn’t having any fun shooting me off the table in two turns. He could also out-smite me. I would barely make a dent is his army.
With these proposed changes the games I have played I have had a much more solid chance of winning. And both me and my opponent have had much more fun.
If you have any questions or would like to talk to me feel free to ask. I would so dearly love my favorite army to play better and closer to the story of grey knights.
Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios
I would recommend against posting exact rules suggestions in your emails to GW. Largely because they will not use them for fear of getting sued for "stealing someone's idea without crediting them".
Not that that is likely, its just a possibility so they will want to avoid that to avoid legal trouble.
Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines
Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.
They previously have been doing similar things with Age of Sigmar and have happily used rules suggested by players. There are no legal repercussions because they have specifically asked for feedback to use in developing the game. It is part of the understanding when you bother to email them that they can use it without anything but an anonymous credit to 'player suggestions'.
Hi. I see a lott of doon and gloonnon these pages.
Could an army of stormbolters with other weapons work? I was designing a cool SW wolf guards unit when I thought it was just a worse GK model. Heck, you come with your own delivery system.
Strikes and interseptors seem good. Could purefiers or purgatora have a place in such a list? You can fitt 2 squads in a rhino, no? That's 3 deployments in one. A rhino is not exspensive, even if it eats every lascannon. (The landraider seems like a point sink.)
What do you think, could it work? Would it be boring? Is the psycannon worth it as only heavy weapon in the list, hitting on 4+?
Purgation squads with psilencers definitely can do damage. Massed stormbolter fire really isn't even bad especially against guard and orks. Unless your playing against massed infantry.
That being said there are some things that could really hurt GK of implemented and some simple ways to fix it that have been mentioned here already. I love my knights and I'll fight through whatever nonsense I have to deal with.
Massed stormbolter is great; so are dirt cheap psilencers. The problem is that we have no cheap units, and not enough high-yield firepower. S4 is fine, but without a high strength/low AP weapon there’s not a way to get to enemy heavy armor outside of CC. And since our basic unit costs 105 pts minimum (though actually it’s our HQs that make filling out battalions hard) we don’t really have the points to play around with land raiders of our own. The reason why smite nerfs are a big deal is that outside of CC it’s the only reliable way for us to put wounds on knights and their ilk outside of CC
Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.
greyknight12 wrote: Massed stormbolter is great; so are dirt cheap psilencers. The problem is that we have no cheap units, and not enough high-yield firepower. S4 is fine, but without a high strength/low AP weapon there’s not a way to get to enemy heavy armor outside of CC. And since our basic unit costs 105 pts minimum (though actually it’s our HQs that make filling out battalions hard) we don’t really have the points to play around with land raiders of our own. The reason why smite nerfs are a big deal is that outside of CC it’s the only reliable way for us to put wounds on knights and their ilk outside of CC
I think GKs are challenging for a couple of reasons. In the old first turn system, you could pretty much guarantee an alpha strike with GK. Under these circumstances, you could drop in half your units and transport/shunt/GOI the rest up the field. Keep them inside Auras and using FTTF reliably charge. The glass cannon nature of strike squads and dreadnoughts didn't matter so much as you could reliably do damage first. GK with this tactic are incredibly powerful.
However, the changes to first turn mechanics hit elite armies really hard. The only durable units we have (land raiders, NDKs, Storm ravens, Paladins) are really vulnerable on the first turn and are really expensive if they can be reduced to lower effectiveness levels or destroyed.
Our limited threat range is also challenging. New strategies and special units can screw up our reliable first turn damage. Really cheap units like scout sentinels, ratlings, etc. can prevent a decent alpha strike by area denial and board coverage leaving any deepstriking units really exposed while trying to open up gaps in board coverage. Also some other armies just spread out across the board using their own strategies which we cannot deny (no board coverage with the low model count). Because our really damaging fire is really range limited, after the alpha strike, it is really difficult to remain a united fighting force while trying to inflict damage (which many of our elite units must do to earn their Points). These two things make it really hard to fight ranged armies like guard and tau without our elite units being snuffed by simple rate of fire.
Against true close combat armies like orcs and Tyranids, it is also difficult because our really damaging shooting range is just inside 12" (which is easily within charge range). If you hang back and avoid cc, storm bolters struggle to deal with the numbers, if you go on the offensive, you are generally exposed to some serious counter charging due to our low model count. We simply cannot take out enough models using rapid fire plus psychic plus charging.
Finally, against high toughness opponents, we don't have reliable guns that do damage. We have to rely on psychic powers (which often hit the bubble wrap due to targeting rules) or close combat (where again bubble wrap is a problem).
Ironically, none of these are actually a problem in reality. It is to do with how units are costed. If you play power levels, GKs are much more competitive. This simply demonstrates that GKs are overcosted. For example, I have a 30pl list of GKs for mini games. In points, it would cost very nearly 600pts. My 500pt list of Astra Militarum only totals 30pls. This is carried through when we compare custodes and Paladins, or any of our units vs. vanilla marine equivalents. They are generally better value for the points. The psychic and first turn mechanic changes will only exacerbate this problem which is why is is an issue for us.
Basically, I think GKs can destroy opponents who make strategic or tactical mistakes or who don't know the army very well. Unfortunately, they just don't cut it against seasoned players. I think I'm going to have to take a guard detachment to really have enough tactical and strategic options to compete.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/01/08 19:54:13
It all comes down to points cost at the end of the day. Theres nothing fundamentally broken with a GK list, just pros and cons as with any other army.
If GK suddenly received a points cut of 15 to 20% across the board, you would suddenly see a lot more of them in competition.
If you want to bring your GK's to win tourneys, Its just gonna be a matter of waiting until all codex's are released, the competitive environment to settle into a well defined 'meta' (hate using that term), and GW reacting with the next Chapter approved book.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/01/08 21:22:39
"Apologies if this isn’t the place for this, but will there be any FAQs in place for Tsons, GK, etc who have a reduced version of smite but still got shafted by the beta rules?"
Reply from Reece himself:
"@GreyKnight
Obviously if I did know of an inbound FAQ I couldn't say anything about it, sorry.
But, it may feel like a nerf but in our experience it isn't, particularly for GK. If you were relying on their baby smite to win games you were probably doing something wrong (not to be rude). We use GK loads here and rarely even cast their smite unless playing Daemons, of course.
And, in reverse, it means you are getting hit with less Smites which for an army like GK is actually a big deal as you are so low model count. It helps you more than hurts you in that scenario."
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/01/09 04:21:24
Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.
I always knew that guy had smoked too much of something when he was younger.
What absolutely flawed logic, and still completely ignorant of the exponential scaling problem of this stupid 'balancing mechanic' (affects larger point value games immensely, and small games barely at all).
Thanks for sharing.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/01/09 04:52:58
I do not understand his reply. We only have six powers in our arsenal and more than six units on the board. Two HQ's usually have five of the powers between them. So, if they play 'loads of GK over there', just what are they casting if not smite?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/01/09 18:25:06
So here is the final nail in the coffin for the GK.
I thought that maybe if deamons were a strong army (and they are going to be - ive seen the codex) that at least GK would be able to hurt them. Turns out that GK are once again just as in 7th INEPT at killing daemons. 2 point stratagem - if a GK unit kills an unnammed daemon unit - in your next movement phase it deep-strikes in at FULL STRENGTH. I'm not even making this up!
If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.
- Fox Mulder
I think what he's trying to say is that "baby smite is a waste of time". I kind of agree with that--It's certainly getting there. His comment about "doing it wrong" suggests that there's a way to do it right though. That's the part I'm interested in.
It's only a waste of time if you have something better to do. if I could cast the other Santic powers are unlimited number of times, yes I agree I would never cast Smite.
If I only had three GK units I probably would never cast smite, either. But if you have a few an entire army of them you quickly reach a point where it's cast smite or do nothing, and even baby smite is clearly superior to nothing at all.
I'm not sure how this could in any way be done better or worse, it just is what it is
I have a strong feeling that “doing it right” involves playing your GK as allies to AM. Otherwise tournament results don’t support there being any good way to play the army.
Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.
Lanlaorn wrote: It's only a waste of time if you have something better to do. if I could cast the other Santic powers are unlimited number of times, yes I agree I would never cast Smite.
If I only had three GK units I probably would never cast smite, either. But if you have a few an entire army of them you quickly reach a point where it's cast smite or do nothing, and even baby smite is clearly superior to nothing at all.
I'm not sure how this could in any way be done better or worse, it just is what it is
It could certainly be done better.
At the moment we pay full price points-wise for each unit to have the capability to cast either smite or a Santic power. With the matched play rules stating that each non-smite power can only be cast once, at least all of our units have baby smite to fall back on.
Now that only 4-5 smites will be usable before it becomes inefficient (and then impossible) to cast, any further units you buy for your army are essentially paying for psychic ability which they cannot use. It was designed to stop armies from spamming normal smite, but when you have no choice but to take psykers in armies like Grey Knights or T Sons, many units in larger armies will simply be overcosted. GK aren't super competitive points wise as it stands, so we can't afford to sink much lower.
The rule itself is not a terrible idea, its just its application to armies like GK which is flawed, as we have no choice but to be punished by it. A simple fix would be to exempt units with the GREY KNIGHTS keyword (plus a similar measure for T Sons).
However I'm of the opinion that GW should just do a better job of balancing their existing rules with appropriate points costs. The only thing broken about a Primaris psyker casting full smite is that it only costs 46 points, so is easily spammable. If GW put a proper points cost on them they would not be spammable - its that simple. I was hoping this would be solved by chapter approved but their good intentions have been spoiled by either inattention or incompetence, so now we get this...
