Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Do some math comparing an Armiger to a GMDK, for both damage output and survivability. The the Armiger provides anti-armour, while the GMDK is anti-horde shooting and anti-armour CC.

I think the GMDK will outclass the Armiger in survivability, but I'm not sure on a value-per-point level which is better for damage.

I think that they function very differently. The GMDK has a better invulnerable save 4 (or even3) vs 5 so it should survive longer. But the armiger has speed and an assault weapon that is pretty nasty compared to any of the DK's weapons. The armiger also has a better chance of making it into melee due to its speed. I'm planning on having 1 of each in my list. The GMDK for mass killing and the armiger for going after vehicles (and maybe big characters).

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
Do some math comparing an Armiger to a GMDK, for both damage output and survivability. The the Armiger provides anti-armour, while the GMDK is anti-horde shooting and anti-armour CC.

I think the GMDK will outclass the Armiger in survivability, but I'm not sure on a value-per-point level which is better for damage.

I'll do the math and post it later.

That t7 3+ 5++ on the armigers isn't going to go far, it doesn't have enough wounds to tank a lot of fire power. The grandmaster in a dreadknight imo will go farther with that 2+ 3++ . He has more swings and a better all around unit. Granted, an armigers can boost to a 4++ with strategm.

Further, the grey Knight has psychic powers and can be targeted by other grey knights. He can teleport out of tarpits, improve to a 3++, hammer hand as needed. Makes him a bit more versatile.

Can the armigers walk out of combat like their big brother? I didn't see super heavy on their rules. That would also reduce them to hitting on 4+ when they move... And they should be moving. Also, no stomp? Rough. Guardsmen can tie this guy up.

The Grand Master has more attacks, hitting 97% vs 66% in close combat. With the sword he has 1d6 damage (avg 3.5) vs a flat 3. GM has str 9 with a sword, vs str 12.. which matters only against t5 t6 and t9, but hammer hand from a nearby friend can negate that if it bothers you, and make him better against t7 and t8.


The armigers thermal spear will on avg get 2 shots, hitting once. A Grand Master with psilencers and psycsnnon can keep up with that against armor, and be versatile against horde.

I honestly think the GM is better in almost every way. Armigers have some blaring issues. But they do make up for it in speed... That said the GM can teleport strike to avoid the first turn without buffs and get into combat half the time.

Look armigers suck. The best way to explain why is like this.

For literally half the cost of a errant you...

-Lose T8 to T7 so autocannons actually wreck you.
-Lose Superheavy Walker(So you cannot walk out of combat and lose -1 BS on the Heavy Stubber and probably forthcoming carapace weapons when moving)
-Lose Titanic Feet
-Lose guaranteed 6 damage on melee for 3 damage
-Lose 6 inches on the Thermal gun
-Lose the Thermal Cannon special rule that actually scales with number of models in a unit making it have potentially have D6 shots.
-Lose 1 LD (honestly don't care)
-Lose 2 strength (Which... maaaaybe might matter against future spells)

-Gain 2 inches of movement
-Gain assault on your Thermal gun rather than heavy
-Gain the ability to take these in vehicle squads in the superheavy slot

Misc.

-Your explosion is a set range of 6 inches rather than 2D6 inches and does D3 mortal rather than D6 mortal wounds
-Degrade in 6 wounds rather than 12 and from that moment on you are only 1 inch faster than an Imperial Knight in the remaining profiles

I honestly would never recommend an armiger to anyone when they could take an Imperial Knight which itself is overcosted but might actually be able to kill more than a 10 man squad of... anything in shooting or melee over 5 turns. If armigers actually get buffed like they should in their codex, they at LEAST need the Superheavy Walker rule so they can walk over infantry bubble wraps and melee the vehicles if the opponent makes that mistake of forgetting that rule.

Anyone has tried Sisters of Battle as allies? What your impression?

I just acquired a Sister lot really cheap (wasn't planning to get them but it was a price I couldn't refuse) and after checking their rules I have been thinking of fielding a outrider detachment as allies with Celestine as HQ and 3x Dominions on immolators.

I haven't tried yet (missing the immolators ) but in theory they should complement GK nice, Dominions in immolators get a free move+d6 before the game starts, since the immolator flamer has assault they complement the initial GK deepstrike hit by being able to alpha strike without having a deepstrike rule.Celestine can act of faith herself to get an extra movement phase which will allow her to quickly reach the opponents field (Plus in theory she can give an act of faith to an immolator for extra shooting or movement)

In my case a GMDK, Draigo, 4xStrike squads + Celestine and 3x immolators+full of Dominions on your field in the first turn seems like a scary prospect.

The only problem I see with this list is the lack of ranged anti-armor in it, I will only have the GMDK and Dominions with meltas to crack it. What you think?

I think you mean immolators. Emulators simulate something. Immolators set something on fire.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
I think you mean immolators. Emulators simulate something. Immolators set something on fire.

Ups, fixed it

Index Sisters are probably the best index Army in the game, as they truly can wreck face by basically being cheaper Marines. They have always synergized well with GK. Unfortunately, just like GK, Sisters are probably better off without non-Sister units. But, if you do go Sisters, then you can go all Deep Strike GK which is pretty nice.

SJ

Nairul wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:
I made a list trying to leverage the Chaplain. It is just too hard with the limit of half our army not being able to deepstrike. His best feature is complete rerolls in melee, so if you spam PAGK with falchions it is nice.

Do you want just melee rerolls? The GMDK gives rerolls on 1 for everything has a bigger base so the aura is bigger, is much more durable and deadly, but it is twice as expensive. Or you know, just take Draigo who can hide.

Chaplain is purely a budget option I feel. I mean we ARE scrapping points, but its a points question of whether we want to field one more unit, if we don't scrap for that extra squad, we get 110 points to mess with all of a sudden. Which is pretty much the difference between Draigo and a Chaplain. Or we can go even more budget and take Voldus who is pretty cheap.

It is really hard to justify just melee rerolls with how we do so much work with stormbolters.

Actually I would argue the Chaplain has synergy more with a Paladin-heavy list than with a PAGK list.
PAGK-spam lists derive their damage efficiency much more heavily from storm bolter fire, so you'll want them to have Draigo or GM auras.

Paladin damage efficiency is weighted more heavily toward the Fight phase. Here the Chaplain is suited best as cheap force multiplier.
Really, though, the best force multiplier for Paladin-heavy armies is an Ancient. Too bad he's not an HQ.

I run Paladin heavy lists only and I was just contemplating this very thing. While I find they do damage with storm bolters they tend to do much more damage in combat and the idea of a chaplain for as cheap as they are is intriguing.

I have an ancient sitting waiting to be painted but still haven't put him on the table. Do you think giving him fury of deimos is worth it since he will likely take my apothecary spot? Or is the banner the best option for him?

Did the maths. Armiger is really just worse than the GMDK in every way. I even did it in a way that would slightly favor the Armiger in survivability it still lost by a lot to the GMDK and it really wasn't better than the GMDK offensively either. It damaged good armor saves better when shooting, but for the most part the GMDK pulled ahead in every other way at every wound bracket. Of course the GMDK (kitted how I kit mine) is 50 points more but still... And I never added in the psychic support the GMDK can provide.

Thanks for the effort. Would you mind sharing your data?

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Thanks for the effort. Would you mind sharing your data?

It'll be several hours. I'm at work now but when I get home I will. The survivability section will take some translating again as my page is a mess. Expect a full mathhammer post in 8-10 hours.

Looking forward to it. It's always nice to see the numbers so that I can make an educated decision.

Not sure if anyone else runs their’s this way, but my GMDKs are almost always S12 anyway cause I give them hammers. 3s re-rolling 1s is still solid and 5 points is worth the guaranteed min 3 dmg and extra AP. So yeah, armigers do nothing for us.

 greyknight12 wrote:
Not sure if anyone else runs their’s this way, but my GMDKs are almost always S12 anyway cause I give them hammers. 3s re-rolling 1s is still solid and 5 points is worth the guaranteed min 3 dmg and extra AP. So yeah, armigers do nothing for us.

I'm always terrified about imposing a -1 to hit onto myself voluntarily. All of a sudden a Magnus/Mortarion comes along and you're needing 4's to hit him... *pukes*

Agreed though, Armigers don't fill enough of a niche with regards to supporting a GK army. They also aren't points efficient enough to warrant taking in spite of this.

Spartacus wrote:
I'm always terrified about imposing a -1 to hit onto myself voluntarily. All of a sudden a Magnus/Mortarion comes along and you're needing 4's to hit him... *pukes*

That’s why I ake more than one, and split the load out swords/hammers. You get the potential of a re-roll on all your hit attempts, and against daemons on all your wound rolls but only the command roll to save you for bad damage. Plus it’s pretty rare to encounter a -1 to hit in CC. Point being though that we can already get the higher strength/dmg weapon the armiger has.

It is quite amusing though as a GK player to look at a unit and say “this is worse than something in my codex” (granted it is our best unit).

Just tried out a list. I liked it. I like to bring in some not-so-used units from time to time in my lists. in this case purgation squads and a champion. I was playing against a guard list with a bunch of russes bubble wrapped by bodies with a vulture with punishers flying around. Nearly had him tabled by turn 4 so we called it (he had 1 damaged russ and a company commander on the field)

Here is what I had - more testing needs to be done, but i felt like i had our weaknesses shored up.

Battalion
dreadknight GM (warlord first to fray) - sword, psilencer psycannon teleporter
Brotherhood champion

Strike squad - falcions
Strike Squad - Falcions
Strike Squad - Falcions

StormRaven - Lascannons, multimelta, hurricane bolters

Purgation squad - 4x psilencers
Purgation Squad - 4x incinerators (they did okay)

Outrider detachment
Dreadknight GM (see above)

Interceptor - Flacions
Interceptor - Falcions
Interceptor - Falcions

I wanted a list where i knew 75% was tried and tested models, but I wanted to try out purgations squads and a champion. These 3 units arrived via storm raven.

The champion did okay. With his stances, he is flexible in combat and 1/2 the price of draigo. With hammerhand + his offensive stance, he wounds on 4+ against russes. not shabby. he put 6 wounds on one russ and ended a company commander (who didn't have anyone left to command). WIth the wounds to the russ and deleting a commander he ALMOST made up his points, but what he really did was tie up the plasma russ in combat for a turn.

The 24 psilencers shots from a purgation squad with +1str-1ap next to a dreadknight put some decent hurt onto some leman russes (now wounding on 5, 4+saves). On avg, they were pulling about 7 wounds off a russ a turn. Or would delete a guard unit pretty easy. I think I will keep this unit for more testing.

The incinerators got a couple rounds of flames off, but likely only made up 1/2 their points. against a less static army, they would be useless. Not sure if I want to bring them again.

The true hero of the day was my stormraven. It deleted a plasma tank commander first turn and deleted a guardsmen unit+heavily damaging a russ a turn for the rest of the game. A storm raven in that configuration shores up a lot of our weakness, but at the same time is a huge point sink and is a massive target. But it also ferried my purgation squads into a favorable position.

You rolled well above average into that Russ. 4 Psilencers will usually only do about 2 points per round to it.

Assuming you moved 24 shots hit on 4+ wound on 5+ saved 4+ = 1.92 wounds. With the reroll you gain .32 wounds

No movement 24 shots hit on a 3+ wound 5+ save 4+ = 2.28 wounds. With reroll you gain .44 wounds.

You also had to spend 2 CP to do this. IMHO it isn't worth the cost. In addition Purgation squads are just too squishy for their points.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
You rolled well above average into that Russ. 4 Psilencers will usually only do about 2 points per round to it.

Assuming you moved 24 shots hit on 4+ wound on 5+ saved 4+ = 1.92 wounds. With the reroll you gain .32 wounds

No movement 24 shots hit on a 3+ wound 5+ save 4+ = 2.28 wounds. With reroll you gain .44 wounds.

You also had to spend 2 CP to do this. IMHO it isn't worth the cost. In addition Purgation squads are just too squishy for their points.

I don’t think you added in D3 damage for the psilencers.

You know what? All this time I've been using them as Damage1 weapons. Jeez, I need to read more carefully!

New math moving with rerolls = 4.48 wounds
not moving = 6.09 wounds

Yeah, they are decent vs armor. When comboed with other weapons we have they aren't bad

I just used a GMDK for the first time last night against guard. Man that thing is deadly.

With the stratagem and some really good rolling with rerolls from Draigo it managed to one round a Leman Russ with shooting then charge and blow up a hellhound with his hammer. This was after draigo and 6 paladins erased a guard squad bubble wrapping the tanks.

After having sanctuary cast on him he then survived a leman russ demolisher, exectuioner, hellhound, 6 lascannons, 6 Las guns and a plasma gun escaping with only taking a single wound.

Now I know this is exceptionally above average rolling but it was fantastic.

Also played with a stormhawk interceptor and it proceeded to delete a squad of snipers on turn 1 and a lascannon heavy weapon squad turn 2.

It's why I joke that our codex should be renamed 'Codex Dreadknight: Grandmaster Edition'

Lol. Yea. I will never run more than 1 because I'm not into army lists like those but it definitely has a found a relatively permanent spot in my army moving forward.

Yeah, I don't like multiples myself in fluffy games. Doesn't make sense for like 5 grandmaster to take dreadknights and they are the only grey knights to arrive.

I could forge the narrative for that, but who wants to fight 5 gmdk? Maybe khorne...

 TheMostWize wrote:
I just used a GMDK for the first time last night against guard. Man that thing is deadly.

With the stratagem and some really good rolling with rerolls from Draigo it managed to one round a Leman Russ with shooting then charge and blow up a hellhound with his hammer. This was after draigo and 6 paladins erased a guard squad bubble wrapping the tanks.

After having sanctuary cast on him he then survived a leman russ demolisher, exectuioner, hellhound, 6 lascannons, 6 Las guns and a plasma gun escaping with only taking a single wound.

Now I know this is exceptionally above average rolling but it was fantastic.

Also played with a stormhawk interceptor and it proceeded to delete a squad of snipers on turn 1 and a lascannon heavy weapon squad turn 2.

Draigo shouldn't have affected his rerolls BTW, the GMDK gives himself rerolls of one and he hits on 2+.

Note if you take the -1 to hit because of moving on your heavy weapons, you can't reroll the 2's using Draigos aura due to the way the rules work.

I have been sneaking Draigo back into my lists more and more often lately. While he doesn't give the same hitting power as just taking another GMDK, he makes your other shooting so much more potent, especially if you can get him close to your flyers. 2 Stormravens flying around with Draigo gated next to them absolutely wrecks anything.

Spartacus wrote:

 TheMostWize wrote:
I just used a GMDK for the first time last night against guard. Man that thing is deadly.

With the stratagem and some really good rolling with rerolls from Draigo it managed to one round a Leman Russ with shooting then charge and blow up a hellhound with his hammer. This was after draigo and 6 paladins erased a guard squad bubble wrapping the tanks.

After having sanctuary cast on him he then survived a leman russ demolisher, exectuioner, hellhound, 6 lascannons, 6 Las guns and a plasma gun escaping with only taking a single wound.

Now I know this is exceptionally above average rolling but it was fantastic.

Also played with a stormhawk interceptor and it proceeded to delete a squad of snipers on turn 1 and a lascannon heavy weapon squad turn 2.

Draigo shouldn't have affected his rerolls BTW, the GMDK gives himself rerolls of one and he hits on 2+.

Note if you take the -1 to hit because of moving on your heavy weapons, you can't reroll the 2's using Draigos aura due to the way the rules work.

I have been sneaking Draigo back into my lists more and more often lately. While he doesn't give the same hitting power as just taking another GMDK, he makes your other shooting so much more potent, especially if you can get him close to your flyers. 2 Stormravens flying around with Draigo gated next to them absolutely wrecks anything.

How does draigo's rule 'chapter Master' not work? It reads "reroll failed hit rolls for friendly grey Knight units within 6 inches". A Grand Master is a grey Knight, and if it failed to hit within 6 inches, then he rerolls. It's not dependent on a hit modifier.

Please explain.

GMDKs have a BS and WS of 2+, and an aura that enables them to re-roll 1s. Therefore Draigo’s aura is redundant for them, since a GMDK can be the source of his own re-roll.
For modifiers, they are applied AFTER any rerolls. So prior to the -1 for moving with a heavy weapon is applied, a natural “2” is a successful hit, so you can’t re-roll it. After re-rolling the natural misses (just 1s in this case), you would apply the -1 modifier to all dice results (therefore discarding any 1s remaining after the reroll and any 2s). It’s a fairly major change from 7th, and one of the reasons why -1 to hit auras/abilities are an even bigger deal.

Yes you are correct that being said he still would of been affected by Draigos rerolls.

To be honest though I am so used to using Draigo as my reroll buff that I just declared it out of habit.