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It’s a bit late for the first view on the Grey Knights codex, so let’s cover the most interesting parts and think about how to play them. Playtests show that this faction is really powerful and there are more of them on the tables.

The first question which came to my mind was how were they going to represent the whole army of psykers in the 8th edition, where everyone has Smite and can show the enemy under the mortal wounds. This problem is solved in quite an elegant way – the Smite is weakened for all the Grey Knights. However, you can’t say that it makes it useless -all infantry units can cast spells, and the army is capable of mass-deep striking, so you can easily focus and destroy the selected enemy unit with your Smites. But other spells are too useful to ignore, so you’ll have a tough choice of what to cast.

Almost all of them are fun. Especially, the ability to shoot through the walls, lost after the 5th edition codex. Considering stratagems, which can boost strength and AP of any weapon, you can easily focus required units not only with magic, but with shooting. Your favorite Gate of Infinity is here too. And there’s a stratagem, letting you deep strike any infantry or dreadnaught(!) unit. So, you have a dreadnaught, which appears just behind enemy lines, casts 5++ or +1 to wound on himself, shoot, then charge, and hit twice, thanks to another stratagem. This is the dreadnaught you are looking for!

The magic is one of the best for this moment and works great, combined with the stratagems. There’s a feeling that it was done thoughtfully, and it’s great. It must be that way in the army, where everyone is a psyker. Don’t forget about the bonus to casting and denying spells. Bonuses against daemons also greatly represent the spirit of Grey Knights. However, it might be imbalanced a bit. Considering that daemons in the 8th edition don’t feel really well, Grey Knights have a real chance to wipe-out many their rosters by just 2nd or 3rd turn. Let’s hope that daemons will get some instruments to resist it soon.

There are more units. Now you have all space marines’ planes, Chaplains in TDA, and marvelous Grandmaster in Dreadknight. These machines were one of the most effective units before, and they are still a must-have choice. Now they can even enter the game via deep strike, which also contributes to the first-turn-charge army concept. Also, apothecaries are now separate characters, so you can heal any unit you need, not only the paladins.

As for the special weapons, incinerators are expectedly weakened, as all the other flamers. Psy-cannon now is a kind of autocannon, but weaker, so it’s not very interesting, but still useful. But psilencer has now gained D3 damage, so, it might be dangerous for anything. Especially with the stratagem, which boosts it. Moreover, it costs just 4 points. You can also keep your stormbolters, since in this edition they’ve doubled their shots and can deal some real damage. And one of the most pleasant things – halberds, swords and falchions now equally cost nothing and each one can be useful – so, finally, you have a real choice. There’s a tradition for this army lack of heavy weapons, but 8th edition mechanics give you a chance to destroy a vehicle with anything. Also, almost every squad can get a hammer and strike tanks in close combat.


How to play this? Read in our blog: https://warzone40k.com/grey-knigths-codex-review

Really powerful? NOVA will provide a good test but the faction seems to be fairly underwhelming for top competitive play. That kind of undercut the writer's credibility from the start.

We'll see if NOVA makes me eat my words though.

Couldn't disagree more with most of your post, so I guess I'll review your review.

 Teena Hancock wrote:
It’s a bit late for the first view on the Grey Knights codex, so let’s cover the most interesting parts and think about how to play them. Playtests show that this faction is really powerful and there are more of them on the tables.

Playtests... Against whom? With whom? What lists were you using? Because everything I've encountered shows them as marginally-above-average at best (that's being generous), and mostly only because they're one of the few factions with a codex and that'll drop off once everyone else has a book.

The first question which came to my mind was how were they going to represent the whole army of psykers in the 8th edition, where everyone has Smite and can show the enemy under the mortal wounds. This problem is solved in quite an elegant way – the Smite is weakened for all the Grey Knights. However, you can’t say that it makes it useless -all infantry units can cast spells, and the army is capable of mass-deep striking, so you can easily focus and destroy the selected enemy unit with your Smites. But other spells are too useful to ignore, so you’ll have a tough choice of what to cast.

It's not a tough choice, and the solution isn't elegant. The way that Smite is weakened makes it underwhelming against most armies, but brokenly overpowered if you're lucky enough to get matched up against Daemon players. Unless you're playing Daemons, casting smite will almost always be a waste of time.

Almost all of them are fun. Especially, the ability to shoot through the walls, lost after the 5th edition codex. Considering stratagems, which can boost strength and AP of any weapon, you can easily focus required units not only with magic, but with shooting. Your favorite Gate of Infinity is here too. And there’s a stratagem, letting you deep strike any infantry or dreadnaught(!) unit. So, you have a dreadnaught, which appears just behind enemy lines, casts 5++ or +1 to wound on himself, shoot, then charge, and hit twice, thanks to another stratagem. This is the dreadnaught you are looking for!

This is actually the biggest failing of the codex. In order to get satisfying output and durability from your units, you need to cast their unique Psychic Powers and spend Command Points, but Grey Knights are far too expensive to take large detachments unless the point value is massive, and you can only cast each unique psychic power once, so either you're playing a large game and you have the Command Points you need but not the powers, or you're playing a small game and you have plenty of Power access but no Command Points.

The magic is one of the best for this moment and works great, combined with the stratagems. There’s a feeling that it was done thoughtfully, and it’s great. It must be that way in the army, where everyone is a psyker. Don’t forget about the bonus to casting and denying spells. Bonuses against daemons also greatly represent the spirit of Grey Knights. However, it might be imbalanced a bit. Considering that daemons in the 8th edition don’t feel really well, Grey Knights have a real chance to wipe-out many their rosters by just 2nd or 3rd turn. Let’s hope that daemons will get some instruments to resist it soon.

It's only one of the best if you ignore the amazing powers that Chaos has access to and consider that most armies only have half the powers that they are going to once all the codices are out. (Heck, one of their best powers - Gate of Infinity - Is also available to Orks.)

There are more units. Now you have all space marines’ planes, Chaplains in TDA, and marvelous Grandmaster in Dreadknight. These machines were one of the most effective units before, and they are still a must-have choice. Now they can even enter the game via deep strike, which also contributes to the first-turn-charge army concept. Also, apothecaries are now separate characters, so you can heal any unit you need, not only the paladins.

Nothing to disagree with here, though it's mostly because you're mainly just listing off new things that exist.

As for the special weapons, incinerators are expectedly weakened, as all the other flamers. Psy-cannon now is a kind of autocannon, but weaker, so it’s not very interesting, but still useful. But psilencer has now gained D3 damage, so, it might be dangerous for anything. Especially with the stratagem, which boosts it. Moreover, it costs just 4 points. You can also keep your stormbolters, since in this edition they’ve doubled their shots and can deal some real damage. And one of the most pleasant things – halberds, swords and falchions now equally cost nothing and each one can be useful – so, finally, you have a real choice. There’s a tradition for this army lack of heavy weapons, but 8th edition mechanics give you a chance to destroy a vehicle with anything. Also, almost every squad can get a hammer and strike tanks in close combat.

Do you really 'Have a real choice' with halberds, swords, and falchions? They aren't equally useful. In fact, Falchions are vastly better in almost every circumstance because of the huge increase in volume of attacks (The only time you'll actually get better damage with a Halberd is on Paladins against T5 models, and the only time you'll want a sword is literally never. Cast Hammerhand, and Falchions are better on every unit against every enemy type.)

I think you are devaluing the ability for every unit to do a mortal wound outside of shooting and charging. Not every psychic power is a damaging power or a unit boost in damage. Some will have Gate or whatever it is to shoot through walls and ignore cover. Those situations make it much better to Smite in many scenarios. You can also only use each power other than Smite once a turn in matched play.

Grey Knights are a nice force now. They probably aren't going to win ITC but they are a solid army. I don't get the hate.

Honestly,

The Grey Knights codex is pretty hack to me.

The psychic phase is abysmal. This is one of the biggest failings of the 8th edition rules set. It's so bad it's unreal. There's absolutely no thought to it whats so ever. You just roll some dice and it either goes off or it doesn't. There's no dice management system, no ability to adjust the odds of casting or dispelling in your favour. It's just pure random luck in the worst way possible. And their solution to nerf Smite was completely inelegant, but that just proves again that GW doesn't know how to write rules properly. My solution would be to make an actually good psychic phase rules set.

Psycannons aren't nearly as powerful as they should be.

And to reiterate what Waaaghpower said. There's absolutely no reason to take any other weapon other than falchions when given the choice between them, swords and halberds.

Lets also talk about how purifiers don't have 2 attacks. Honestly whats the point? A slightly better Smite?

Chaplains have no access to any cool wargear, Crowe is completely pointless too.

The psychic phase has nothing to do with Grey Knights and everything to do with how 8th edition was rolled out as a whole. I know most people enjoy the new version due to how much more simplified it was and no longer waiting an hour for someone to get through one psychic phase with a psyker heavy army.

The nerf to Smite is needed since doing d3 or possibly d6 Smites from every unit would be completely overpowered and broken. Could they have done it a different way? Yeah, but this is much more balanced. Even doing 1 mortal wound every psychic phase adds up over the course of a game. That's one free hit, wound, and failed save in addition to your regular shooting and charging.

Psycannons not being powerful enough is simply a subjective view of it. You're talking about essentially a lower ranged autocannon being held by a single infantry model as being "not powerful enough". I think that's plenty powerful. Grey Knights are not a long ranged shooty army.

Falchions being better than other melee weapons is simply the mathhammer of it all. The other options aren't as good and I feel for balance sake that falchions should cost even just 1 pt extra. Power axes cost more than power swords and mauls for the reason they are at that sweet S5 making them mathematically better most of the time. I don't see why this wouldn't apply to falchions.

Purifiers are there for the added Smite damage. Being able to always throw out d6 Smites is phenomenal. If you aren't running a list specifically for Smites, then don't use them. Same with Crowe. He is basically a Purifier special character. Mix in the Brother's aura for increased Smite range and it makes it more manageable. Hop a Purifier squad and Crowe out of a Rhino or Land Raider out on a special character, tank, or overall big baddie and their 2d6 mortal wounds outside of shooting and charging will wreck face. Again, if you aren't building a list specifically to Smite hard then don't use them. They are simply an option. It's not going to win every game but it's a fun option to have for players.

They also have the GM Dreadknights who are possibly one of the more cost-efficient units out there. Pretty much to the point he's an auto-include which may be bad in the long run in terms of diversity.

The psychic phase has nothing to do with Grey Knights and everything to do with how 8th edition was rolled out as a whole. I know most people enjoy the new version due to how much more simplified it was and no longer waiting an hour for someone to get through one psychic phase with a psyker heavy army.

Right, 8th edition psychic phase is horrible. 7th was even worse. No one says you have to make something either insanely convoluted as to be a frustrating task or so overly simplistic that it borderlines on thoughtlessness. I fully understand why they did what they did to nerf Grey Knight smite spam. What I'm saying is the game and the codex should have been written better.

Psycannons need a rend function like Shuriken Cannons have, and like they used to have in the game.

Again, not really seeing a point to either Purifiers or Crowe. Thats a whole lotta points I could easily spend elsewhere for something far more effective. If I have to have 3 or 4 things to work in my favour in order to achieve something like a 6" smite, I'll pass.

Hoodwink wrote:

The nerf to Smite is needed since doing d3 or possibly d6 Smites from every unit would be completely overpowered and broken. Could they have done it a different way? Yeah, but this is much more balanced. Even doing 1 mortal wound every psychic phase adds up over the course of a game. That's one free hit, wound, and failed save in addition to your regular shooting and charging.

The problem is that only 1 wound (with only a 12" range) is so comparatively weak to the other available powers that it may as well not exist about 95% of the time. And because of this, taking more than four or five units is hugely punished - You get a handful of 'good' powers (some of which are already quite situational) and then the rest of your army is stuck flinging a pretty crappy power that isn't nothing, but also isn't good.

Psycannons not being powerful enough is simply a subjective view of it. You're talking about essentially a lower ranged autocannon being held by a single infantry model as being "not powerful enough". I think that's plenty powerful. Grey Knights are not a long ranged shooty army.

Noooo it isn't. Autocannons are 2 Damage. Psycannons are 1 damage. Grey Knights only have 2 Damage weapons on the Dreadknight, everyone else gets 1 damage - Except on the Psilencer, of course, but that's got Boltgun stats otherwise, making the bonus damage a little redundant.
The problem, also, is that while we're 'Not a long ranged shooty army', we suck at everything else too.

Um.... doesn't an autocannon only have 2 shots, and the psycannn 4? Against vehicles they'd hit about the same. Against one-wound infantry the psycannon is twice as good (not counting range).

Also, don't Falchions require power armor units to give up their storm bolter? Quite frankly that's not too appealing to me.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Um.... doesn't an autocannon only have 2 shots, and the psycannn 4? Against vehicles they'd hit about the same. Against one-wound infantry the psycannon is twice as good (not counting range).

Also, don't Falchions require power armor units to give up their storm bolter? Quite frankly that's not too appealing to me.

I don't believe an auto cannon is 20 points either. Also an auto cannon has better range for the dmg out put on a heavy weapon. Range oc heavy weapons kinda matters. Falchions do not remove storm bolters.

Also I love how grey knight librarians are useless, voldus just steals powers from units he's supposed to support, Crowe and purifiers suck, and incinerators are overpriced garbage.

Our army is only good if you take 1-4 units tops. Because of how bad the army is solo, I'm forced to run cheap scions to fill my detachments. As of current the best way I've found to play them is as support for a guard army (mono guard is better btw) and use the command points to charge up a grand master with 2+ invuln.

Beyond this and psilencer/halchion power armored bros, we suck.

Also lost in this is that librarians now have rites of banishment, when they didn't before. In other words, our librarians have a 1 wound smite. Librarians.

My GK librarian has been doing alrite for me. He dominates the psychic phases.

 Mrs. Esterhouse wrote:
My GK librarian has been doing alrite for me. He dominates the psychic phases.

His smite only does 1 wound, not d3. If you're bringing a librarian i have to wonder why you're not bringing one of the many other HQs that provide real buffs to the army.

I'm aware his smite only does 1 mw. I don't use him to buff my army. I use him to cause mortal wounds with vortex of doom and purge soul.

Grey Knights are running on the same long list of issues that have been plaguing them ever since the 5e Codex. They've still got six units that are slight variations on one, they've still got a narrow and unimpressive arsenal of ranged weapons that can't deal with many targets, they're still paying way too many points for T4/3+ bodies, they're still paying for psychic powers they can't really make use of, and they're still paying for expensive high-quality melee weapons on one-Attack models. They're a gimmick, not an army; they don't really work.

The changes to storm bolters and Deep Strike helped some, but until the Grey Knights get more melee attacks, more/different upgrade guns, access to storm shields, and 'psychic' effects that aren't literally the psyker rules they're going to remain bland, one-dimensional, and uninteresting. Mine have been mothballed since they don't work well at all as an army and their role as a supplemental random melee unit has been rendered pointless by the Custodian Guard, and they're likely to remain that way until I get fed up enough with GW's attempts to write them that I go off and write my own rules for them for the third edition in a row.

 Mrs. Esterhouse wrote:
I'm aware his smite only does 1 mw. I don't use him to buff my army. I use him to cause mortal wounds with vortex of doom and purge soul.

I think the point hes trying to make is that - all the GK hq's (other than libbys) do something useful outside of casting 2 powers and have better combat stats to boot.


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 AnomanderRake wrote:
Grey Knights are running on the same long list of issues that have been plaguing them ever since the 5e Codex. They've still got six units that are slight variations on one, they've still got a narrow and unimpressive arsenal of ranged weapons that can't deal with many targets, they're still paying way too many points for T4/3+ bodies, they're still paying for psychic powers they can't really make use of, and they're still paying for expensive high-quality melee weapons on one-Attack models. They're a gimmick, not an army; they don't really work.

The changes to storm bolters and Deep Strike helped some, but until the Grey Knights get more melee attacks, more/different upgrade guns, access to storm shields, and 'psychic' effects that aren't literally the psyker rules they're going to remain bland, one-dimensional, and uninteresting. Mine have been mothballed since they don't work well at all as an army and their role as a supplemental random melee unit has been rendered pointless by the Custodian Guard, and they're likely to remain that way until I get fed up enough with GW's attempts to write them that I go off and write my own rules for them for the third edition in a row.

The thing that really hurts them this edition is the mandatory 50% army starting on the table. If not for that I'd feel pretty confident that I could beat any army with them.

I don't dispute that. Was just offering a different point of view and saying what I use him for.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Mrs. Esterhouse wrote:
I'm aware his smite only does 1 mw. I don't use him to buff my army. I use him to cause mortal wounds with vortex of doom and purge soul.

I think the point hes trying to make is that - all the GK hq's (other than libbys) do something useful outside of casting 2 powers and have better combat stats to boot.


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 AnomanderRake wrote:
Grey Knights are running on the same long list of issues that have been plaguing them ever since the 5e Codex. They've still got six units that are slight variations on one, they've still got a narrow and unimpressive arsenal of ranged weapons that can't deal with many targets, they're still paying way too many points for T4/3+ bodies, they're still paying for psychic powers they can't really make use of, and they're still paying for expensive high-quality melee weapons on one-Attack models. They're a gimmick, not an army; they don't really work.

The changes to storm bolters and Deep Strike helped some, but until the Grey Knights get more melee attacks, more/different upgrade guns, access to storm shields, and 'psychic' effects that aren't literally the psyker rules they're going to remain bland, one-dimensional, and uninteresting. Mine have been mothballed since they don't work well at all as an army and their role as a supplemental random melee unit has been rendered pointless by the Custodian Guard, and they're likely to remain that way until I get fed up enough with GW's attempts to write them that I go off and write my own rules for them for the third edition in a row.

The thing that really hurts them this edition is the mandatory 50% army starting on the table. If not for that I'd feel pretty confident that I could beat any army with them.

Well you could run 50% GK and 50% something like IG. Run a heavy tank backline and DS all your GK in.

 Xenomancers wrote:
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 AnomanderRake wrote:
Grey Knights are running on the same long list of issues that have been plaguing them ever since the 5e Codex. They've still got six units that are slight variations on one, they've still got a narrow and unimpressive arsenal of ranged weapons that can't deal with many targets, they're still paying way too many points for T4/3+ bodies, they're still paying for psychic powers they can't really make use of, and they're still paying for expensive high-quality melee weapons on one-Attack models. They're a gimmick, not an army; they don't really work.

The changes to storm bolters and Deep Strike helped some, but until the Grey Knights get more melee attacks, more/different upgrade guns, access to storm shields, and 'psychic' effects that aren't literally the psyker rules they're going to remain bland, one-dimensional, and uninteresting. Mine have been mothballed since they don't work well at all as an army and their role as a supplemental random melee unit has been rendered pointless by the Custodian Guard, and they're likely to remain that way until I get fed up enough with GW's attempts to write them that I go off and write my own rules for them for the third edition in a row.

The thing that really hurts them this edition is the mandatory 50% army starting on the table. If not for that I'd feel pretty confident that I could beat any army with them.

I don't care whether they're good anymore. They're a dull one-dimensional army composed of endless tiny variations on the same unit that's been reduced to a single gimmick ("everyone has Deep Strike and Smite! Woo!") that happens to sum up everything I don't like about 8e in one neat package. And the instant someone at GW notices that the way 8th has written psykers/Smite/mortal wounds and Deep Strike is incredibly irritating a lot of the time and changes it they're going right back to the poo tier because anything that works well in the army is completely dependent on those two badly-written bits of the rules.

Hoodwink wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Mrs. Esterhouse wrote:
I'm aware his smite only does 1 mw. I don't use him to buff my army. I use him to cause mortal wounds with vortex of doom and purge soul.

I think the point hes trying to make is that - all the GK hq's (other than libbys) do something useful outside of casting 2 powers and have better combat stats to boot.


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 AnomanderRake wrote:
Grey Knights are running on the same long list of issues that have been plaguing them ever since the 5e Codex. They've still got six units that are slight variations on one, they've still got a narrow and unimpressive arsenal of ranged weapons that can't deal with many targets, they're still paying way too many points for T4/3+ bodies, they're still paying for psychic powers they can't really make use of, and they're still paying for expensive high-quality melee weapons on one-Attack models. They're a gimmick, not an army; they don't really work.

The changes to storm bolters and Deep Strike helped some, but until the Grey Knights get more melee attacks, more/different upgrade guns, access to storm shields, and 'psychic' effects that aren't literally the psyker rules they're going to remain bland, one-dimensional, and uninteresting. Mine have been mothballed since they don't work well at all as an army and their role as a supplemental random melee unit has been rendered pointless by the Custodian Guard, and they're likely to remain that way until I get fed up enough with GW's attempts to write them that I go off and write my own rules for them for the third edition in a row.

The thing that really hurts them this edition is the mandatory 50% army starting on the table. If not for that I'd feel pretty confident that I could beat any army with them.

Well you could run 50% GK and 50% something like IG. Run a heavy tank backline and DS all your GK in.

Basically it's what you have to do to play "GK" at a top level. Being forced to take allies to be competitive is something that no army in this new edition should be dealing with.

I field a pure GK army and I do a lot better in a team game than when I'm on my own.

Well being "competitive" and being "competitive at the top level" are two very different things. Every army can be competitive if they are built and played well. Competitive at the top level comes to play when skill is so closely related that unit efficiency is the biggest deciding factor. Most players don't fall into the latter.

Casting Vortex of Doom on a librarian is no different than casting it on any other model, the Psychic Hood only works for DTW. If anything, you're better off casting it on a GMNDK or NDK because they've got 12 wounds, rather than 5, so they can eat a perils when you pay a CP to roll 3 dice and get the 2 highest.



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Hoodwink wrote:
Every army can be competitive if they are built and played well.

If you assume everything is built on the same level, and played on roughly the same skill level, GK are measurably worse.

Your glimpse into equal footing in that regard is through tournament play. There is no grand measurement of the casual scene.

I wasn't going to volunteer this information since I can only imagine the handwringing and pantyknotting at the thought of using a GK librarian as a warlord, but I do. I give him loremaster and take purge soul, vortex of doom and gate of infinity. I use my cp for psychic channeling and mental focus mostly. I pop him around the board dropping mortal wounds where I need them. Sure hes lower wounds than others but I have great luck negating wounds with the cuirass of sacrifice.

I can't make a charge roll to save my life though. Even with rerolls.

That's kind of the point. Most people that play are playing casual games. Inevitably, there will be best armies and units that dominate tournament scenes. GK aren't that but they do fine in casual play, regardless of how much doom and gloom people give them. Plenty of people are dominating their casual scene with them. If you want to win big tournaments, you don't use GK. That doesn't mean they don't win games in general. They have tools to win games, but they aren't going to win every game due to their elite style army. It doesn't bode well against armies with tons of firepower or hordes of models. Those are the tournament dominating lists. The game will never be 100% balanced but GK are in a pretty solid spot for what they have. I'd like to see them get a few more models but they are a pretty balanced army. Other armies just happen to be a little too good right now.

I completely agree with Xenomancers, without the matched play reserve rules we could probably beat any army in the game (or most at least). I played a null-deploying grey knight/space marine list in 7th, and I always said that if I could charge out of deepstrike my army would be top-tier. I was really hoping our codex would overwrite that rule, but alas the best we can do is throw interceptors and stormravens on the table to supplement our alpha-strike assault and deal some T1 damage. Losing shunt on our dreadknights really hurt too; otherwise they would be great units to start on the table for your 50%.

 Mrs. Esterhouse wrote:
I wasn't going to volunteer this information since I can only imagine the handwringing and pantyknotting at the thought of using a GK librarian as a warlord, but I do. I give him loremaster and take purge soul, vortex of doom and gate of infinity. I use my cp for psychic channeling and mental focus mostly. I pop him around the board dropping mortal wounds where I need them. Sure hes lower wounds than others but I have great luck negating wounds with the cuirass of sacrifice.

I can't make a charge roll to save my life though. Even with rerolls.

In this case youd be better with voldus. Marginally more expensive. Has 4 spells per turn. Grants a reroll 1's aura. Plus has a hammer that still hits on 2's. Even this isn't that great for 190 points.but the libby is much worse for his cost. Its sad too - Our librarians used to be the best in the game. I think it would be great if our Libbies could draw from Sanctic AND Librarius - then they would be worth taking.


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 greyknight12 wrote:
I completely agree with Xenomancers, without the matched play reserve rules we could probably beat any army in the game (or most at least). I played a null-deploying grey knight/space marine list in 7th, and I always said that if I could charge out of deepstrike my army would be top-tier. I was really hoping our codex would overwrite that rule, but alas the best we can do is throw interceptors and stormravens on the table to supplement our alpha-strike assault and deal some T1 damage. Losing shunt on our dreadknights really hurt too; otherwise they would be great units to start on the table for your 50%.

Right - greyknights used to be able to deep strike their whole army turn 1. Plus had a sweet warlord trait that let us get a unit in first turn without a roll. Plus Dreadknights could shunt. I don't feel like our Alpha got a lot better while everyone else's alpha went up dramatically. We did get some neat things - like free upgrades on our melle weapons, GMDK, and storm bolter buff. However, phychic focus, loss of many psychic disciplines, and the new edition of smite which we get a baby version of really make we wonder what GW was thinking with this army. Not to say the GK are awful - but as a stand alone army - will never be top tier. Too many internal issues that other armies don't have.

The RPGer in me tries to stay away from already named characters but I could do some neat tricks with Voldus it seems. Might have to pick up his model.

 Brutus_Apex wrote:

Right, 8th edition psychic phase is horrible. 7th was even worse. No one says you have to make something either insanely convoluted as to be a frustrating task or so overly simplistic that it borderlines on thoughtlessness. I fully understand why they did what they did to nerf Grey Knight smite spam. What I'm saying is the game and the codex should have been written better.

I'm honestly curious, if 8th psychic was bad, and so was 7th, what was good? because psychic in 6th and I think 5th, were even worse than 8th, it was a simple leadership test. Even more boring, in my opinion.

I actually liked 7th ed psychic phase - it let you manipulate the odds in your favor, but the more likely you made it to cast a spell, the more likely it was to perils. It's biggest failing was that it did not scale well - large psychic armies became a mess to use, and more than a little unfair in regards to deny the witch.

But like you said, the new psychic phase is a tad dull.

Hoodwink wrote:
If you want to win big tournaments, you don't use GK.

This is a terrible argument. Why shouldn't Grey Knights be able to win big tournaments?

And FYI, it's not about *winning* big tournaments. Top GK player in the BAO finished 49th. There's a whole thread devoted to why Necrons are so bad, and they had a better BAO showing than GK. I would expect to see a Grey Knights player in the top 20. Grey Knights are a whole army with a freaking codex. Why should they be bad? I really loathe hearing that.