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 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Fold them into the Inquisition like they used to be, therefore making GK and Inquisition stronger.

Much like how the MIlitarum Tempestus used to be their own codex but got folded into Codex: Astra Militarum.

Stormtroopers were part of the IG. Then when the started making every 3 units their own faction [The fact that there was an AdMech army and a Skitarii army speaks volumes], they decided to make an extra MT codex. They they hopefully realized that that's stupid, because there were rules for them in the IG codex too, and put them back in the IG codex.

following similar logic:

GKs were part of the Daemonhunters. Then, when they started making every 3 units their own faction [The fact that there was an AdMech army and a Skitarii army speaks volumes], they decided to make an extra GK codex. They [sic] they hopefully realized that's stupid (not yet), because there were good enough rules for them in the Daemonhunters codex, and (they should) put them back in the Daemonhunters codex.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Fold them into the Inquisition like they used to be, therefore making GK and Inquisition stronger.

Much like how the MIlitarum Tempestus used to be their own codex but got folded into Codex: Astra Militarum.

Stormtroopers were part of the IG. Then when the started making every 3 units their own faction [The fact that there was an AdMech army and a Skitarii army speaks volumes], they decided to make an extra MT codex. They they hopefully realized that that's stupid, because there were rules for them in the IG codex too, and put them back in the IG codex.

following similar logic:

GKs were part of the Daemonhunters. Then, when they started making every 3 units their own faction [The fact that there was an AdMech army and a Skitarii army speaks volumes], they decided to make an extra GK codex. They [sic] they hopefully realized that's stupid (not yet), because there were good enough rules for them in the Daemonhunters codex, and (they should) put them back in the Daemonhunters codex.

I wasn't rejecting the proposition, just the idea that MT are or should have been their own army.

I like the idea of going back to Daemonhunters and Witch Hunters [and Xenohunters], as I've already expressed.

a codex of inquisitorial troopers and NDKs wouldn't feel very GK. Plus GK have more then 3 unit options, they may not be good options, but they do exist.

Karol wrote:
a codex of inquisitorial troopers and NDKs wouldn't feel very GK. Plus GK have more then 3 unit options, they may not be good options, but they do exist.

Inquisitors don't, and were before part of the Grey Knights and the Sisters of Battle, when we were the Daemonhunters and Witch Hunters [and there were no Deathwatch].

While I don't think they'd make GK good, since stormtroopers don't add a whole lot new to GK IMO, it would be a nice touch, that doesn't meaningfully add power. That measure would be more about getting rid of codecies for 3 units by consolidating them into their parent factions.


Addressing the actual general weakness of their other units is what's necessary. Otherwise, it's like bringing 1001 points of GK and 999 points of Guard and saying GK are fine.

 Quickjager wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
Currently they can be quite good in a couple of ways.
1. Strikers are good all-rounders with meh durability but nice damage if you factor in both shooting and mellee.
2. They have good hq options.Voldus, champion, Crowe and gm in a dreadknight are all really good.

You got to use this to be competitive.

WHAT IS THIS CRAP?



You have no fething idea what Grey Knights are. I'm sigging this when I get home.

Show us on the doll where Crowe touched you Mr Angry

GK special weapons need fixing. Lowering their points 20% and making them all assault weapons would go a long way to making them viable.

Karol wrote:
a codex of inquisitorial troopers and NDKs wouldn't feel very GK. Plus GK have more then 3 unit options, they may not be good options, but they do exist.

Just because Codex: Space Marines has primaris marines doesn’t mean you have to include them in your army. In the old Daemonhunters book (and 5th ed GK codex) you could do pure GK, pure Inquisition, or a mix of both.

In order for GK to be good, first Marines have to be fixed. This goes for the basic marine statline and all of their vehicles. Before this happens, GK can't be fixed.

I think the easiest way to do this is have everything in the codex ignore the first point of AP that hurts their armor, and be able to fall back from combat and still shoot at -1. Then their vehicles should ignore the -1 to hit for heavy weapons, and their infantry all gain +1 attack. Bolters and chainswords should also go to AP1. Rhinos need fire points back, and there should be a strat to disembark and shoot after a rhino moves. That seems like a good start.

Then GK should have a theme, namely lots of psychic powers and better weapon options.

Much like 5th edition, each GK unit should have their own unique power, as well as smite and hammerhand, with no limits to the number of times they can use these powers across the army. Their libs should have their own separate 6 spell chart, not the normal SM one.

They should also have ammo options they can pay for to give them +1 S.

I think it would also be cool if some of their weapons ignored invul saves. There isn't really an army that can do much of that, and it would also be flavorful against daemons.

 greyknight12 wrote:

Karol wrote:
a codex of inquisitorial troopers and NDKs wouldn't feel very GK. Plus GK have more then 3 unit options, they may not be good options, but they do exist.

Just because Codex: Space Marines has primaris marines doesn’t mean you have to include them in your army. In the old Daemonhunters book (and 5th ed GK codex) you could do pure GK, pure Inquisition, or a mix of both.

But it does use scouts a lot. If most of the GK codex is bad, then adding cheap units to it would just end up with people taking max of the cheap stufff, and only that one ok unit. Not saying it would work super great, considering the rule of 3, but I could imagine GK turning in to some sort of 3NDKs+2inquisitor+ ton of fodder list. That later on adds stuff like custodes jetbikers and BA cpts. Plus plasma would be much better as a weapon then a psi lancer or a psy cannon.

ValentineGames wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
Currently they can be quite good in a couple of ways.
1. Strikers are good all-rounders with meh durability but nice damage if you factor in both shooting and mellee.
2. They have good hq options.Voldus, champion, Crowe and gm in a dreadknight are all really good.

You got to use this to be competitive.

WHAT IS THIS CRAP?



You have no fething idea what Grey Knights are. I'm sigging this when I get home.

Show us on the doll where Crowe touched you Mr Angry

Now i can't see Crowe as anything other than molester in large square-ish glasses and an awkward mustache rolling out of a stormraven and slowly fixating his sight on you. He's about to perform this sweet sweet d6 smite and than use his black blade to finish the deed.

First off I think all Astartes bolters should have -1 as a universal rule (bigger caliber than regular human bolters etc).

Second terminator armour should have some sort of rule to reflect its origin as an ultra tough utility suit and reduce all damage suffered by 1 to a minimum of 1.

For GK points drops don't work as they are meant to be a small elite army. That is always hard to balance as the more glass hammer you get the more binary your results are.

So rather than add more stuff to make them hit harder, faster, furhter, longer, etc I think they just need to get tougher.

To that end I would say their psychic powers combined with their unique armour gives them either an invulnerable save or some sort of feel no pain rule. I dislike re-rolls for speed so would go with an invulnerable save, say 5+ for power armour and 4+ for terminators?

The_Real_Chris wrote:
First off I think all Astartes bolters should have -1 as a universal rule (bigger caliber than regular human bolters etc).

Do Necron Warriors, Rubric Marines, or any of the other units that are essentially designed to have a better bolter get compensation for this?

 Arachnofiend wrote:

The_Real_Chris wrote:
First off I think all Astartes bolters should have -1 as a universal rule (bigger caliber than regular human bolters etc).

Do Necron Warriors, Rubric Marines, or any of the other units that are essentially designed to have a better bolter get compensation for this?

Rubrics, Chaos marines, GK, all of them should get it (probably worded as an additional -1 to cover astartes bolters that already have -1). I don't think Necrons are Astartes however...

The_Real_Chris wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

The_Real_Chris wrote:
First off I think all Astartes bolters should have -1 as a universal rule (bigger caliber than regular human bolters etc).

Do Necron Warriors, Rubric Marines, or any of the other units that are essentially designed to have a better bolter get compensation for this?

Rubrics, Chaos marines, GK, all of them should get it (probably worded as an additional -1 to cover astartes bolters that already have -1). I don't think Necrons are Astartes however...

But Necron Warriors have, essentially, AP-1 Bolters. If you make Marine Bolters AP-1, then Warriors have a worse save and less options for not much of a discount.

Guys do you think adding a GK primarch would help them be more valid. Some mix between magnus and gulliman, could fix a lot of things. They could even give him some model specific gear or spells.
A re-roll psyker with two twin linked hvy psycannons and a thunder hamemr, that can gate and/or shunt would be nice, if GW price him like Guilliman.

I don't think adding more powerful models to make up for the current ones is a good way to go...

The GMDK was an added extra-powerful model, and it was an overall bad idea because it does everything so well, you are penalized for not taking as many as you can. That’s bad game design.

No, GK simply need unique units that do unique things that are valuable enough you have a hard choice between which units you want to take. Strike are good right now because they are the cheapest option despite being too expensive for what they do. GKT are garbage because they are vastly more expensive than than what they can do. Purifiers are so handicapped by negative rules on their own datasheet, there is no reason to foot the bill for there again overly expensive models. The list goes on.

But what if Purifiers and GKT were so good, you have to make a real choice on how many of each to take? What if NDKs were worth taking at all? What if?

That’s the problem.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
The GMDK was an added extra-powerful model, and it was an overall bad idea because it does everything so well, you are penalized for not taking as many as you can. That’s bad game design.

No, GK simply need unique units that do unique things that are valuable enough you have a hard choice between which units you want to take. Strike are good right now because they are the cheapest option despite being too expensive for what they do. GKT are garbage because they are vastly more expensive than than what they can do. Purifiers are so handicapped by negative rules on their own datasheet, there is no reason to foot the bill for there again overly expensive models. The list goes on.

But what if Purifiers and GKT were so good, you have to make a real choice on how many of each to take? What if NDKs were worth taking at all? What if?

That’s the problem.

SJ

Yeah I agree, it needs to be meaningful choices and honestly the GK are a great codex for GW to review and make sure that everything is a meaningful choice because 1) they need it and 2) the small amount of units in the book makes it a much less daunting task to re balance compared to a lot of larger codices

But if just one unit is super good, then you don't have to buy more stuff ever. saves money for now and future.

Karol wrote:
But if just one unit is super good, then you don't have to buy more stuff ever. saves money for now and future.

Correct, which is why that’s also bad game design. If only one option is good, then GW loses money on kits they can’t sell.

Look at the good armies, all of them have multiple good options that require multiple purchases. Most of the 8e codexes are intended to encourage us to buy new units ... except for the GK codex, which added nothing new, added no new kits, and nerfed the index entries. As a GK player, I haven’t purchased anything new for my army in 9 years except for codexes, because nothing new has come out. That’s bad product management. At least SM got a bunch of new kits, while Eldar got a bunch of great rules.

SJ

I don't believe in adding random special rules to Space Marines to "make them good again". I think a cost reduction is what's needed.

Anyway....

A Grey Knight Strike Marine currently costs 21 points. A Guardsman is 4 points, a Veteran is 6, a Sister is 9, a Marine is 13.
How much more than the Marine should the Strike be? Currently it's 8. It should probably be 2 for the Storm Bolter, 1 for the Force Weapon, 1 for Deep Strike, and 1 for Smite w/ Rites of Banishment. Each guy only gets 1 attack with the force weapon, and it's competing with the Storm Bolter.
How much more than the Sisters should the Marine be? Currently it's 4, probably 1 for the strength, 3 for the toughness. I say it should be 3 points; 1 for the strength, 2 for the toughness. The toughness is significant, as a player of both armies, but the strength is at best situational.
How much more than the Veteran should the Sister be? Currently, it's 1 for the boltgun, 2 for the Sv. I think the armor is overpriced, since armor, of the three defenses [T, Sv, and W] is cheapest of the 3 to neutralize. I'd say 2 points.
How much more than the Guardsman should the Veteran be? Currently, it's 2 for +1BS and +1 LD. The LD should be worth fairly negligible points, and 2 points is too much for +1BS, considering that the cost of the weapons is already adjusted for it.
So, assuming the Guardsman is fair, that means that a Vet should be 5, a Sister should be 7, a Marine should be 10, and a Strike should be 15. Guardsmen probably need a 1 point increase, for the +1BS over Conscripts, so we'll bump all those up by one.

I think we can settle on 5 for Guardsmen, 6 for Vets, 8 for Sisters, 11 for Tacticals, and 16 for Strikes, if no other rules change.

We'll keep 16 points in our minds while we think about army-wide changes, because psychics can drastically change the unit's abilities.

Now, it's apparent that something needs to be done about the psychics. These units need to be able to actually cast powers, weather though the additional of 2 more power tables, or exemption from Psychic Discipline. Psychic Discipline is a bad rule anyway; a patch for powers being not internally balanced, and it scales very poorly, but apart from that. Adding more power tables just results in 6 different powers that all do the same thing. So, how many powers should the GK be able to cast per turn?
At 2000 points, you have about 10-12 units, with about 12-15 power casts. We need at least 2 swings at each power to even have most units using their psychic abilities, 3 tries at least to allow them to use them to not-useless effect.
At 1000 points, you have about 6-8 units, with about 8 power casts. 1 go at each power doesn't really satisfy our demand, so we probably need 2 swings at each power.
This looks familiar, right? I think that the number of psychic power casts per turn should probably be linked to the Rule of 3. Obviously, instead of having rules of 1 and rules of 3, things should just be balanced in the first place, but that's much harder to ask.

Okay, now that the Strike Squad can expect to use a power, sometimes, how much should we charge them for it? Maybe 2 points per model, assuming they're getting Hammerhand or Astral Aim, 1 point if they get something different.

We're up to 17-18 PPM now, but we're actually casting something now, so that's a major improvement. Compared to a tactical squad we have twice the firepower, deep strike, ignores cover/LOS or +1 to Wound, and good AP and fair damage in melee, but no added resilience. 18 ppm seems high, but fairish.



Just the points reduction and psy power changes makes a difference, but probably not enough. There's one problem outstanding: How do the GK fight vehicles?

They cant stand around taking Basilisk fire like the Tyranids can while hacking their way through Guardsmen; and they don't have Lascannons or Missile Launchers, except on Dreadnoughts and Razorbacks and Land Raiders. They need a way to hit tanks, or at least threaten them, at short but not melee range.

So we need to look at their special weapons, the Psilencer, Psycannon, and Incinerator.
The Incinerator is a heavy flamer, and like all other flamers it's not worth remotely near it's cost. We'll come back to that.
The Psilencer and Psycannon are both confused. The Psycannon has the strength to harass light vehicles, but can only really expect to do 1 wound a turn at best because of poor AP and damage. The Psilencer has the damage, but none of the Strength or AP.

I propose the following changes:
Psilencer: +2 points [20 for the whole guy]. Range 24", Heavy 6, S4, AP-, D1. As the Storm Bolter is for the Space Marine, this would give to added anti-light infantry punch.
Incinerator: +7 points [25 for the whole guy]. Range 12", Assault 1d6, S6, AP1, D2. Anything you really want the S6 against, you'd also probably want another point of damage, and this would specialize it into fighting heavy infantry and cavalry. Range improvement to mesh with GK Deepstrike.
Psycannon:+12 points [30 for the whole guy]. Range 24", Heavy 4, S7, AP2, D3. Upped damage and AP would at least make it moderately threatening to light vehicles and monsters. This still isn't awesome, but it'll work-ish.



There's one more change I might propose right now, that's more neat than entirely well reasoned, since it just crossed my mind: make all the wrist-mounted Storm Bolters count as pistols if the enemy is within 1". That's why they're on their wrists, after all.

As another thought, I think Predators would be a nice addition to their codex [and to the Deathwatch one]. Why don't the GK and Deathwatch get tanks?

Frankly I think removing templates from the game was a mistake. At least give flamers back their template. They've become a weird weapon that is somehow best suited to taking out flying units while being kinda trash vs swarms.

Starting with the premise that Sisters and Guardsmen are appropriately costed is folly. They are both under costed.

And T3 matters far less than you'd think when you've got a 3+ save and BS3+. Not to mention your handy-dandy open topped vehicles.

Grey Knights need massive love. I find it absolutely stunning that you proposed a nerf to the psilencer. That is actually really funny.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Frankly I think removing templates from the game was a mistake. At least give flamers back their template. They've become a weird weapon that is somehow best suited to taking out flying units while being kinda trash vs swarms.

No, templates needed to die. I am so happy they're gone.

GK, in theory, is an army designed to battle a singular, elite foe - daemonic leaders. Unfortunately, even those armies got buffs that make GK unsuited to fight them on the battlefield.

For one thing, I feel they need some anti-horde options - both in psychic powers not meant to deal the more expensive and frankly small number of mortal wounds but instead mass generic wounds (something around D6 or 2D6 shots, S4 AP -1). Same goes for the Storm Bolters, they need a stratagem akin to guard’s FRFSRF for horde control.

Likewise, they could benefit from a cheaper mobility alternatives to the costly inbuilt deep strike that’s now been nerfed for them (seriously, why don’t they have a strike squad option on bikes or some sort of speeder?)

And of course, with the increase of 40K’s deadliness, they need a durability improvement. More wounds would be an obvious route (and perhaps some form of Primaris GK), but perhaps also stratagems and/or psychic powers that allow them to tweak their army’s durability (have to be careful about potential uses on allies, though).

TDA should have its save increased to 1+ at the very least. If you're gonna have modifiers like old WHF, then you should have saves like WHF.

Maybe even allowing for both armor and Invuln saves to be taken in succession as well.

I still like the idea of making them the "mortal wounds" army. Give them a rule like:

Nemesis Force Weapons: Any time a model rolls a 6 to it in the fight phase with a Nemesis weapon it does 1 mortal wound in addition to the normal damage.

Then also mortal wounds on 6's to hit when using the psybolt strategems... which would also help with the anti Armour side as well.

As long as daemons have the stratagem that allows them to FULLY REVIVE *any* unit without paying reinforcements for 2CP when slain by Grey Knights, this army will continue to be the biggest joke in 40K.

Suggesting that GK somehow counter Daemons went out the window when that codex was released.

Marmatag wrote:Starting with the premise that Sisters and Guardsmen are appropriately costed is folly. They are both under costed.

And T3 matters far less than you'd think when you've got a 3+ save and BS3+. Not to mention your handy-dandy open topped vehicles.

Grey Knights need massive love. I find it absolutely stunning that you proposed a nerf to the psilencer. That is actually really funny.

What does the tank's relevance have on the infantry? That cost should be absorbed by the vehicle.

I think the T is very important, but the S isn't. There's a lot of low strength, high volume firepower directed at infantry, and strength generally costs quite a bit. The difference between T3 and T4 is probably the greatest value toughness increase, because of the fact that the majority of infantry weapons are S3 and S4. Tau, and Punisher Cannons, are the notable exception, at S5. The strength, however, can be mitigated by avoiding combat. So, I think Tacticals should be about 3 points more than Sisters: 1 for the strength, 2 for the toughness. Do you agree?

Then, there's the question of how much more than IG Veterans should Sisters be? Well, we know that it costs 1 point for a bolt gun, so the armor is then worth 2 points. Okay, fine, we can keep that. The armor is mathematically more effective than the toughness increase, but it's also easier to negate, since there's lots of AP floating around. We've got 6 point vets, 9 point sisters, and 12 point marines now.

I don't think that the +1BS is worth 2 points, so that means everyone goes down one point based on Guardsmen, or Guardsmen go up one point, since Conscripts are 4, which makes more sense. So we have 4 point conscripts, 5 points guardsmen, 6 point veterans, 9 point sisters, and 12 point marines. I still think that marines are overpriced at 12, and I don't think the 3+ is that awesome.

Another relevant consideration: a Space Marine scout has a 1/2*1/2=1/4 [or 1/3*1/2=1/6] chance of dying to a bolter [lasgun], a Sister has a 2/3*1/3=2/9 or [1/2*1/3=1/6] chance of dying to a bolter [lasgun]. Nearly identical defense, but scouts have a really awesome deployment mechanism. I think scouts' deployment mechanism alone is easily worth the 10 points for the squad, since it take priority over all other alternate deployments and deactivates them. The downside is that it's not reactive.

We can construct a cost tree: Conscripts<Guardsmen><Veterans><Sisters><Scouts><Tacticals><Strikes. Unless you think it should be Sisters><Tacticals><Scouts or Sisters><Tacticals=Scouts, which is a valid claim. I think it should be Conscripts[4]><Guardsmen[5]><Veterans[6]><Sisters[8]><Scouts[10]><Tacticals[11]><Strikes[16, pre other adjustments]. What do you think, and what's your rationale?



I agree that the GK need fixing, but that won't be accomplished by just flailing around. It means identifying why the army is weak, and addressing the specific problems in a non-disruptive and rational way. I don't think there's a problem with the psilencer. However:
vs vehicles:
the Psilencer averages about a wound onto a vehicle, with room to skew up by variance, though not by a lot. [6*2/3*1/3*1/3*2=8/9]
the Psycannon averages less, despite it's higher strength. [4*2/3*1/2*1/2*1=2/3], with fairly small variance.
vs marines:
Psilencer averages 6*2/3*1/2*1/3=2/3
Psycannon averages 4*2/3*2/3*1/2=8/9

Some other statistics of note: Currently, a Psycannon is an Autocannon that's marginally more effective against light infantry. It costs 33 points for an autocannon pair on a dreadnought. It costs 15 points for a single IG autocannons. It costs 40 points for the Predator Autocannon. It costs 14 for a psycannon. We know the psycannon isn't that great, there's probably an across-the-board problem here.

Personally, I think the the Psilencer as being for anti-infantry work, and the Psycannon as being for anti-heavy infantry and light vehicles. As such D1 for the Psilencer makes no difference, since the intended targets feel it the same way and it's still not a good AT gun, while D2 or D3 for the Psycannon makes, well, small difference, but at least it's a moderate threat to what I see as the intended targets.



As I said, I believe part of the GK's problem is being unable to threaten vehicles. Tyranid melee monsters and blobs can absorb the tank fire while clearing infantry and present a threat saturation that dilutes the incoming fire's effectiveness. Chaos Marines can field Havocs, Obliterators, and gun-tanks of their own to threaten enemy armor. Grey Knights can do neither. If you get hit by a Basilisk, you all die. If you want a Lascannon, you've got your choice of Razorback, Land Raider, Dreadnought, or Stormraven.

In addition, they're supposed to be able to cast psychic powers, but can't. I think is a problem with the core rule of 1 for psychics, not with the GK, though.

Finally, they're overpriced because the further exacerbate the problems that make tacticals overpriced.

Flamephoenix182 wrote:I still like the idea of making them the "mortal wounds" army. Give them a rule like:

Nemesis Force Weapons: Any time a model rolls a 6 to it in the fight phase with a Nemesis weapon it does 1 mortal wound in addition to the normal damage.

Then also mortal wounds on 6's to hit when using the psybolt strategems... which would also help with the anti Armour side as well.

That works. Something nice for nemesis force weapons would be cool. I don't know about extra mortal wounds, but it would kill Daemons too.
>

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
The GMDK was an added extra-powerful model, and it was an overall bad idea because it does everything so well, you are penalized for not taking as many as you can. That’s bad game design.

No, GK simply need unique units that do unique things that are valuable enough you have a hard choice between which units you want to take. Strike are good right now because they are the cheapest option despite being too expensive for what they do. GKT are garbage because they are vastly more expensive than than what they can do. Purifiers are so handicapped by negative rules on their own datasheet, there is no reason to foot the bill for there again overly expensive models. The list goes on.

But what if Purifiers and GKT were so good, you have to make a real choice on how many of each to take? What if NDKs were worth taking at all? What if?

That’s the problem.

SJ

I feel GKs suffer in a lot of areas from their kits being so multibuild. the differance between Purifiers, strike squads and interceptors are too small IMHO. as is the diff between GKTs and GKPs.

some additional wargear and options that pads out the differances and gives them differant roles might be useful.

for example, if Paladins could take storm shields, but could not take falchion and halbreds you'd have a much starker division between GKTs and Paladins.

TH/SS was an option in the Daemonhunters codex. I wouldn't mind that returning myself.