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.

People hate Matt Ward for what he did. I agree. But we shouldn't try to alienate old fans by "correcting" his mistakes either. Ward made the Grey Knights his special snowflakes. We should move on with it instead of grounding this faction.

The Grey Knights are nothing special anymore. All of what originally made them cool like 100% psykers, the Dreadknights, Jakiro, no falling to Chaos, and secret origin don't matter anymore. They are a bunch of generic Space Marines doing a bunch of generic things. Blah blah blah. The fact they constantly ally with other Imperial forces including the questionable Space Wolves and the secretive Dark Angels rather than be the mysterious faction that favors the quick-in-and-out-leaving-no-witness approach is evident that they are being streamlined into just another Imperial faction.

The release of the Primaris Marines and the even more OP Adeptus Custodes have also contributed to the decline of the Grey Knight's power gap.

The need to sell more marines means cannibalising design space from everyone.. including other marines.

However I think GK are the least boring of all the space marines personally..

bibotot wrote:
People hate Matt Ward for what he did. I agree. But we shouldn't try to alienate old fans by "correcting" his mistakes either. Ward made the Grey Knights his special snowflakes. We should move on with it instead of grounding this faction.

The Grey Knights are nothing special anymore. All of what originally made them cool like 100% psykers, the Dreadknights, Jakiro, no falling to Chaos, and secret origin don't matter anymore. They are a bunch of generic Space Marines doing a bunch of generic things. Blah blah blah. The fact they constantly ally with other Imperial forces including the questionable Space Wolves and the secretive Dark Angels rather than be the mysterious faction that favors the quick-in-and-out-leaving-no-witness approach is evident that they are being streamlined into just another Imperial faction.

The release of the Primaris Marines and the even more OP Adeptus Custodes have also contributed to the decline of the Grey Knight's power gap.

wtf are you talking about, all the old fluff is still there.

I have no context for any of this.

I would argue the fact that they're one of the few marine factions that HAVEN'T received the Primaris treatment (yet) makes them stand out more at the moment. Barring the Wardian fluff, I don't see how anything has really changed. Their whole schtick was being all psykers and daemon hunter specialists. That hasn't changed. If anything, they should be more relevant now that the Great Rift has made things more daemon/chaos heavy.

Matt Ward broke Grey Knights by making several changes: a) "all units are literally psykers now!" + "all Nemesis weapons are literally force weapons!", which have made them impossible to price fairly for four editions, b) dumping the Veteran statline from standard GK in order to chop them up into six "different" units with almost identical equipment and roles, which has turned the internal balance of the Codex into poo (every edition one of the six units is slightly more cost-effective and needs to be spammed), and c) cutting just the melee units out of a well-rounded Codex and attempting to stretch them into a whole army, which has made them horribly inflexible and one-dimensional.

There's a long list of changes you could make to fix GK, but they'd require doing a deliberate and careful rethink of what "being a psyker" means rather people who don't remember GK/Tzeentch exist writing core psyker rules that break badly when applied to all-psyker armies. You'd probably also need to bring back Inquisitorial Stormtroopers, which GW doesn't seem interested in doing.

I have a 2500 point GK army that still does pretty decent especially after the PA book and the buffs they actually got but I’m really waiting for the new codex to come out I think they will get a big boost in the next book in order to bring them up to par with their non shiny (mostly) cousins. Also I’ve read a lot of the lore and books and it’s still there just GW has trained there attention on something else I think the GK will get love eventually it just comes in waves.

Well, I've put GK on hold since the new ed. came out. I'd like to see the new codex first.
Necrons are the flavor of the month - at least for me, since I dislike the power of SM.

I've got a GK army I just finished building and painting, primarily composed of 3E metal terminators. That's always been the archetypal Grey Knight army to me.

With regards to more recent Marine bloat, this is an issue with the game in general, GK's aren't the only faction facing this problem, marine statlines, wargear, unit variety, and subfaction options really crowd a whole lot of factions.

Had to check the date of OP just to make sure this isn't Necromancy

Seriously though, 3rd edition had the best lore/feeling of the army, 5th had the best rules. Everything afterwards felt lacklustre (=unfun) to me.

I still got my fully painted army, but I'm going to sell it soon.

a_typical_hero wrote:
Had to check the date of OP just to make sure this isn't Necromancy

Seriously though, 3rd edition had the best lore/feeling of the army, 5th had the best rules. Everything afterwards felt lacklustre (=unfun) to me.

I still got my fully painted army, but I'm going to sell it soon.

That is debatable--> just like E.g. 3.5 chaos dex, etc.

I would give them the a similar treatment to Zoanthropes for their psychic ability.

Brotherhood of Titan: All units with this ability gain the psyker keyword and gain increased power the more models are in the unit. If you have 1-3 models remaining you cast power normally. If you have 4-7 models in the unit you cast at +1. If you have 8-10 models in the unit you cast at +2 and do not suffer perils of the warp on a double 6. Units that cast the smite psychic power always succeed on a 5, however they can never do more than 2 mortal wounds per cast.



Then i'd give them their own psychic tree that has stronger buff's if they exceed a 10 when they cast.

I always loved the look of the aegis terminator plate.

GKs really have not been themselves since the 3rd ed codex where they were designed specifically to counter the thematic rules in the 3.5 chaos codex(the best ever made for chaos).

In that edition they worked better as an allied force than a full stand alone army. we still use them that way with that codex in 5th edition. it is quite fun when you make raging khorne berzerkers smell your finger (sacred incense).



But yeah primaris........

Personally I converted 10 of the original metal terminators to represent Paladins, that way there is a physical difference between them and the troops terminators.

Still much better then what they were through out most of 8th.

It is kind of a strange to see all the gear and all the units that are gone from the codex, even if I don't really know how they would suppose to work sometimes.

A -1T grenade seems nice against vehicles and the servo skulls are like GK nurglings only cheaper, but weaker.

But who knows what GW is planning for GK in 9th. For all we know we may either never get an updated codex or get one in a year or so, assuming no other global pandemic or war in 2021. And after the first 2-3 books for 9th, GW is probably going to change their design philosophy again.

The inquisition is getting a codex right after this first batch. What will be in there?

GK should be.
Sisters should be.
Imperial agents / inquisitorial forces...

Might be the coolest codex ever released!

GKs are the only space marines I feel are acceptable as they operate how regular spaces should i.e rarely and fast Surgical strikes with only a few marines unless gak is REALLY dire.

The way GW writes fluff these days it feels like theres thousands of space marines just loitering about waiting for a fight to break out so they can go save the day.

Karol wrote:
Still much better then what they were through out most of 8th.

It is kind of a strange to see all the gear and all the units that are gone from the codex, even if I don't really know how they would suppose to work sometimes.

A -1T grenade seems nice against vehicles and the servo skulls are like GK nurglings only cheaper, but weaker.

But who knows what GW is planning for GK in 9th. For all we know we may either never get an updated codex or get one in a year or so, assuming no other global pandemic or war in 2021. And after the first 2-3 books for 9th, GW is probably going to change their design philosophy again.

What do you mean? There is nothing in the future that could go HORRIFICALLY WRONG <Removed> Nope.....Nothing will stop GW posting a new GK book.

Karol wrote:
Still much better then what they were through out most of 8th.

It is kind of a strange to see all the gear and all the units that are gone from the codex, even if I don't really know how they would suppose to work sometimes.

A -1T grenade seems nice against vehicles and the servo skulls are like GK nurglings only cheaper, but weaker.

But who knows what GW is planning for GK in 9th. For all we know we may either never get an updated codex or get one in a year or so, assuming no other global pandemic or war in 2021. And after the first 2-3 books for 9th, GW is probably going to change their design philosophy again.

1. Most of the codexes have already been written
2. Grey Knight primaris on the way....

 Xenomancers wrote:
The inquisition is getting a codex right after this first batch.

What's the source on this, Xeno?

@Umbros - As far as I recall, last time anyone had the chance to ask the question, the answer on GK Primaris was still a hard "no".

Mat Ward Grey Knights were tame child-play compared to the stuff today.

Both his fluff and his rules wouldn't even be a blip on the Internet compared to things like the second 8th Ed. Marines Codex and all that.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

Karol wrote:
Still much better then what they were through out most of 8th.

It is kind of a strange to see all the gear and all the units that are gone from the codex, even if I don't really know how they would suppose to work sometimes.

A -1T grenade seems nice against vehicles and the servo skulls are like GK nurglings only cheaper, but weaker.

But who knows what GW is planning for GK in 9th. For all we know we may either never get an updated codex or get one in a year or so, assuming no other global pandemic or war in 2021. And after the first 2-3 books for 9th, GW is probably going to change their design philosophy again.

What do you mean? There is nothing in the future that could go HORRIFICALLY WRONG <Removed> Nope.....Nothing will stop GW posting a new GK book.

Ok, lay off the crazy sauce there chief. Ain't the place for your insane rantings

 Grimskul wrote:
I would argue the fact that they're one of the few marine factions that HAVEN'T received the Primaris treatment (yet) makes them stand out more at the moment.

That was the selling point for me in 5th edition.
Their visual design has allways been different from firstborne marines. I hate, and still do today the visual look of the normal SM terminator, but GK termies, cant get enugh of them, or the regular troopers.
But i do not agree on the stormbolter design on the plastic marines, so im going full oop metalminis on thouse where i can.

Style over effectivness!
(and should they get primaris, my force will be made into full display only, or classic WH, i will never ever add any form of primaris)

Not Online!!! wrote:

a_typical_hero wrote:
Had to check the date of OP just to make sure this isn't Necromancy

Seriously though, 3rd edition had the best lore/feeling of the army, 5th had the best rules. Everything afterwards felt lacklustre (=unfun) to me.

I still got my fully painted army, but I'm going to sell it soon.

That is debatable--> just like E.g. 3.5 chaos dex, etc.

Chaos 3.5 codex was the best codex ever.

 wuestenfux wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

a_typical_hero wrote:
Had to check the date of OP just to make sure this isn't Necromancy

Seriously though, 3rd edition had the best lore/feeling of the army, 5th had the best rules. Everything afterwards felt lacklustre (=unfun) to me.

I still got my fully painted army, but I'm going to sell it soon.

That is debatable--> just like E.g. 3.5 chaos dex, etc.

Chaos 3.5 codex was the best codex ever.

HAHAHA, no. and also yes.

See it allowed Chaos marines to be well Chaos marines in all their individualistic customizable nature, but just as much as it was customizable it was abusive...
the book would've needed a propper recalibration allbeit the conceptual work is a goldstandard of what CSM should be.
then came 4th and i don't need to bring that disaster up....

This customizability was also what drew me later to R&H compared to CSM, which felt like barebones marines with spikes for the most part added to some genuinely slowed mechanics like lash..
even the csm dex now is meh at best out of a conceptual viewpoint...

 wuestenfux wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

a_typical_hero wrote:
Had to check the date of OP just to make sure this isn't Necromancy

Seriously though, 3rd edition had the best lore/feeling of the army, 5th had the best rules. Everything afterwards felt lacklustre (=unfun) to me.

I still got my fully painted army, but I'm going to sell it soon.

That is debatable--> just like E.g. 3.5 chaos dex, etc.

Chaos 3.5 codex was the best codex ever.

Personally preferred deamonhunter/which hunter of the same ed. It was the only army that could soup at the time and allowed your opponent to summon deamons or make their heroes possessed/have demonic weapons. We had great fun with those rules. I’d agree though that chaos 3.5 was amazing.

On topic I don’t see why GK is any boring. I think they have a really cool shtick going on. IMO it’s only a matter of time before we get fallen primaris. I’ve always found GK to be an awesome concept and their core concept certainly hasn’t changed.

Yeah deamons and witch hunters were such master pieces. And now we have people asking why end how GK would fight orks or DE...
Good old times !

Not Online!!! wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

a_typical_hero wrote:
Had to check the date of OP just to make sure this isn't Necromancy

Seriously though, 3rd edition had the best lore/feeling of the army, 5th had the best rules. Everything afterwards felt lacklustre (=unfun) to me.

I still got my fully painted army, but I'm going to sell it soon.

That is debatable--> just like E.g. 3.5 chaos dex, etc.

Chaos 3.5 codex was the best codex ever.

HAHAHA, no. and also yes.

See it allowed Chaos marines to be well Chaos marines in all their individualistic customizable nature, but just as much as it was customizable it was abusive...
the book would've needed a propper recalibration allbeit the conceptual work is a goldstandard of what CSM should be.
then came 4th and i don't need to bring that disaster up....

This customizability was also what drew me later to R&H compared to CSM, which felt like barebones marines with spikes for the most part added to some genuinely slowed mechanics like lash..
even the csm dex now is meh at best out of a conceptual viewpoint...

from what I ehar CSMs 3.5 was a lot like Marines 8.5 + supplements. it was a fantastic book in that each subfaction felt like a fleshed out subfaction with a solid version of it's own identity, but this meant it had some power issues. that about right?

BrianDavion wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

a_typical_hero wrote:
Had to check the date of OP just to make sure this isn't Necromancy

Seriously though, 3rd edition had the best lore/feeling of the army, 5th had the best rules. Everything afterwards felt lacklustre (=unfun) to me.

I still got my fully painted army, but I'm going to sell it soon.

That is debatable--> just like E.g. 3.5 chaos dex, etc.

Chaos 3.5 codex was the best codex ever.

HAHAHA, no. and also yes.

See it allowed Chaos marines to be well Chaos marines in all their individualistic customizable nature, but just as much as it was customizable it was abusive...
the book would've needed a propper recalibration allbeit the conceptual work is a goldstandard of what CSM should be.
then came 4th and i don't need to bring that disaster up....

This customizability was also what drew me later to R&H compared to CSM, which felt like barebones marines with spikes for the most part added to some genuinely slowed mechanics like lash..
even the csm dex now is meh at best out of a conceptual viewpoint...

from what I ehar CSMs 3.5 was a lot like Marines 8.5 + supplements. it was a fantastic book in that each subfaction felt like a fleshed out subfaction with a solid version of it's own identity, but this meant it had some power issues. that about right?

Ehhh, that is pretty close, except it actually was even more customizable then the supplements, and had however a rather large power spread for the subfactions within it unlike the supplements which in general were with the 2.0 dex ludicrous. then again it had some stuff in there that would even today use most SM 2.0 armies even ih prenerf as sleighs comparatively.

The issue was mostly based upon prices and rules interactions so IT could've been fixed.

The sad part is what happened afterwards was even worse in a lot of ways, (lashprinces... Oblitspam and suicide termites...), ruleswise (in regards to beeing broken) but the rest of the army was so utterly gak and uncustomizable that it even held the named issues back..

That wasn't changed later on so when R&H came out well, yeah unsurprisingly alot jumped ship, myself included. That one was better balanced internally but 6th and 7th were... well. Let's just say i'd prefer index era 8th over that.

BrianDavion wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

a_typical_hero wrote:
Had to check the date of OP just to make sure this isn't Necromancy

Seriously though, 3rd edition had the best lore/feeling of the army, 5th had the best rules. Everything afterwards felt lacklustre (=unfun) to me.

I still got my fully painted army, but I'm going to sell it soon.

That is debatable--> just like E.g. 3.5 chaos dex, etc.

Chaos 3.5 codex was the best codex ever.

HAHAHA, no. and also yes.

See it allowed Chaos marines to be well Chaos marines in all their individualistic customizable nature, but just as much as it was customizable it was abusive...
the book would've needed a propper recalibration allbeit the conceptual work is a goldstandard of what CSM should be.
then came 4th and i don't need to bring that disaster up....

This customizability was also what drew me later to R&H compared to CSM, which felt like barebones marines with spikes for the most part added to some genuinely slowed mechanics like lash..
even the csm dex now is meh at best out of a conceptual viewpoint...

from what I ehar CSMs 3.5 was a lot like Marines 8.5 + supplements. it was a fantastic book in that each subfaction felt like a fleshed out subfaction with a solid version of it's own identity, but this meant it had some power issues. that about right?

Broadly yes, but not in exactly the same way. It probably nailed the flavor even better without getting to the fanfic-level awful writing of the more recent books, but the balance was *real* wonky, with some stuff being insanely powerful while a lot of stuff was genuine competitive garbage, far moreso than just about any book we see today, some units and subfactions were the very worst of the meta of that era (e.g. Thousand Sons) while others were stupendously capable, and the stuff that could be done with characters was intense.