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I finally got into 40k tabletop once I got the capital to support it, I have been a fan of fluff for quite sometime, books are just cheaper. Anyway, I chose my army based on this and since I like the Inquisition, I chose grey knights and when I started buying units, I thought I was making sound choices that satisfied my fluff urges but also kept a sound strategy. Well, I recently got my face stomped and I am currently in the middle of reformat to make my list more competitive but still be fun and not a boring spam list. It does feel like I have spread myself too thin. Here is my current army set up:

HQ:
Lord Kaldor Draigo
Inquisitor Coteaz

Troops:
5 Terminators 1 hammer 4 halberds 1 psycannon
5 Terminators 1 hammer 4 halberds 1 psycannon
5 GK Strike Squad 1 hammer 3 halberds 1 psycannon

Elites:
5 Purifiers 1 hammer 3 halberds 1 psycannon
1 Venerable Dreadnought

Heavy Support:
5 Purgation 1 hammer 4 psycannons
1 Dreadknight

Fast Attack:
5 Interceptor 1 hammer 3 halberds 1 psycannon
1 Stormraven

That is roughly my list and I have been playing around with what I give some of the units based on the amount of points we are playing and then I also don't include all of them in a battle. Kind of pick and choose based on who I am going up against but I have been researching quite a bit online to see where I have been going wrong and I was thinking of reformatting the army to become a bit more competitive but it is more casual. I won't ever be going to big tournaments, just little local ones at neighboring shops in my area but I still want any army that can still go toe to toe with some of these 6th edition armies that have been coming out and this list certainly isn't cutting. I have invested a good amount of money into these existing models but luckily they haven't gotten past the priming stage at this point so I can easily convert some of these units into others. I have noticed that favoring of purifiers lately but my one concern is what does one do about troop choices in that instance so I was thinking of keeping with Kaldor and taking two 5 man squads of paladins to fullfill that need, and then possibly either 2 five man squads of purifiers with 2 razorbacks or a 10 man purifier squad with a rhino. Basically converting that current list to look more like this in the 1500pts-2000pts range:

HQ:
Lord Kaldor Draigo
Inquisitor Coteaz

Troops:
5 Paladins 1 hammer 4 halberds 1 psycannon (possibly 2 psycannons depending on points)
5 Paladins 1 hammer 4 halberds 1 psycannon (possibly 2 psycannons)

Elites:
5 Purifiers 1 hammer 2 halberds 2 psycannons with Razorback (TL Lascannon if points allow)
5 Purifiers 1 hammer 2 halberds 2 psycannons with Razorback (TL Lacannon if points allow)
or
10 Purifiers 2 hammers 4 halberds 4 psycannons with Rhino

1 Dreadnought/Venerable 2 TL Autocannons with psybolt

1 Dreadknight

1 Stormraven multi-melta TL Lascannon

One of the biggest problems I noticed with the previous list is that I had a lot of trouble once vehicles came into the fight, particularly those that are Land Raiders and have armor 14 and I have been looking for ways of dealing with something like that. The one thing I realize about this though is that it is extremely limited on actual troop numbers while my opponents always seem to have tons of troops and vehicles but I am always trying to make everything fit into the point limit. I have really realized that grey knights are expensive in both monetary and in actual points. Any help to steer me in the right direction would be awesome. Like I said, it is really casual competitive and I am not looking to get too serious but I would like to win some of these local tournaments from time to time.

Ok, you look like you have a good base to start with. Here are some suggestions, bear in mind they are just that:

Firstly, competitive armies rely on focus. They do one thing very well, and are synergized around some loose theme. For example, shooting the enemy as you advance or getting in their face with assault, or sitting behind a gunline and mopping up once the enemy is dead. You need to figure out what your army is going to do in very general terms, then build your list around that.

As far as specifics, the first thing I would do is drop draigo. He costs as much as 7 terminators, or 14 strikes. On his own, he's not that great due to his lack of AP2.
Dreadnoughts do ok as anti-light vehicle, but if your enemy has any S7-8 weapons they make great targets due to their AV12. I would drop the dreadnought if you're only taking one, because you have better options...
...like a vindicare assassin. You want anti-AV14? He is the ultimate glass cannon, with the most powerful anti-tank weapon outside of apocalypse. He's also cheaper than your venerable dread. It can be tough to keep him alive, but I'm going generalist I always try to take him.
I would put more hammers on the terminators, it gives you anti-vehicle/monstrous creature capabilities and if you have the points give each squad a warding stave. If it saves one termie it makes its points back...twice.
Don't put halberds on the interceptors, unless you have something really specific in mind for them. Halberds on anything other that purifiers and (oddly enough) purgation squads really are too expensive.
With Coteaz, you have the option of very cheap scoring units (henchmen), it's up to you but if you have the points to spare you can throw a couple squads in and keep them in reserve to grab some objectives later in the game.
Finally, if you skip out on fancy stuff you can take more troops than you think. For instance, you can fit 40 termies in a 2k list with plenty to spare. Hammers and deepstrike give you more options than you think. It's sort of spam, but maybe as an exercise think of an ideal number of troops, and use that as your base. You'll be surprised at how many bodies you can actually bring. You're still going to be outnumbered, but not as badly.

I would definitely say that my focus would shooting the enemy until I can assault is the strategy I would like to stick to. The thing I admire most about GK is their dual-ability to still be firing their storm bolters as they as they advance on the enemy so they can get to what they are awesome at, killing things with Nemesis force weapons.

The reason I with Draigo is that he was a gift and my friend who got me into it was saying that basically Draigo was the reason that GK was good so I really didn't question it. I have been highly thinking about getting a Librarian for a while. I have seen how devastating a Librarian can be on the battlefield. The only thing is that I have become dependent on Draigo's ability to enact the Grand Strategy. Being able to re-roll wounds on Terminators and Paladins is awesome. Unyielding Anvil has also come in handy when having to capture objectives with being able to have Elites being able to capture objectives like Purifiers. The other two are nice but I don't feel like my play style would be hindered that much by it. I mean I could get a regular Grand Master with a hammer for cheaper.

I guess one of the things that I thought the Paladins would bring is toughness with bringing 2 wounds to the table along with regular terminator perks. I have had my terminators brought down pretty quickly but at the same time I only have 2 five man squads of them. I have been reading online that a lot of people have been leaving the "OP" army of Draigo with Paladins in favor of more Terminators and Purifiers instead once 6th edition took away wound allocation and taking one of the big advantages of Paladins away.

The next two units I was going to buy was actually a vindicare assassin and a Librarian so I definitely think that will be happening now.

The only thing I have always been afraid of with hammers is getting run over by vehicles so I have always gave them a wide berth with any troops but now I think I have too cautious and I should rush them and hammer them to death.

A reservation I have about taking henchman is how useful they actually would be in a game, if they would just be a waste of points where I could of allocated that somewhere else, upgraded some units or something like that. Coteaz is surprisingly useful by himself but I have been playing with the idea of getting him henchman but at the same time, I place him with a squad of terminators and he does really well so I don't really know.

Basically what I am mostly getting is to focus more on Terminators and Purifiers which are good units but are cost effective and Draigo might have been dragging down my point cost. What I like with the Purifiers is that it is like getting better SS combined with a Purgation squad, taking care of two needs at once and saving a lot of point cost. I will miss Astral Aim (it is one thing that annoyed my opponents a lot, not being able to avoid psycannon fire) but I would rather do it in the name of efficiency. If I am taking Purifiers, is it better to take a Rhino or a Razorback? The temptation of the Razorback is that the heavy weapon add on is nice, even though it does double the cost of the unit basically but this temptation was mostly because of getting schooled by AV14 vehicles. Getting the Vindicare would take care of this problem so I definitely could save on points by just taking a Rhino that I can also have the Purifiers with psycannons sit outside of and take potshots at things.

My main goal here is that since my models are still unpainted, to able to "salvage" and not end up wasting money having to virtually buy a whole new army. I can have a lot of Grey Knight models that can still go either way since Purifiers have a specific paint scheme. The only ones I can't convert are the Interceptors but I was thinking of keeping a 10 man squad around for the possible Fast Attack game that might come up. I have been wanting to add in in more vehicle support, so I have been thinking of adding either another dreadnought, dreadknight or stormraven but don't know quite which way to go on that.

Draigo can be a reason a GK list is powerfull, that is true but only if the list is based on it, meaning a 10 man paladin squad with apothecary and so on. Then he can tank some wounds that would be dangerous to the squad and LOS the others.

So either take one big squad of palladins and a couple of solodins with maybe some more dreads or dreadknights or dont take Draigo ^^

Grand Strategy is great but not worth Draigo's cost if he has no place on the list. You could take a GM to keep it or just use those points to get more models and better equipments.

I definitely see what you are saying, after the first post I have been playing around with numbers from my army and I just really hadn't realized how many points Draigo really takes up. I mean, he costs more than my stormraven which means for a different HQ or even just taking Coteaz by himself, opens up a lot more room to include some Henchman (I have seen the wisdom in taking some space monkeys and acolytes with a crusader or two shielding the group). After really putting some pen to paper, I have seen that my point allocation in a word, sucks and that dropping Draigo as well will help to clean up the list a bit. My biggest decision is probably deciding if I want a GK GM or if I want to get a Librarian. For now, I might play test with my Draigo model to proxy as a GM to see what I want to go with.

I'd rate the BEST HQ as Coteaz. You've got him already, so I'd recommend making use of him. I also rate the GM as the second best pick, and you're already trying that out, so I'd say that you're on the right track. If you take the librarian, then you'll have to rearrange the rest of your army more in order to pick up more troops. The GM will let you still make 2 units (on average) scoring. So that's a plus. If you don't do this to get more scoring units then you'd be desperately short on troops.

===

Since you have a Storm Raven in your list, I'd also recommend adding some DCAs and Crusaders to it. The SR being an Assault Vehicle opens up some unexpected henchmen fun.

6 DCA and 2 Crusaders clock in at 135 points. This little 8 man unit on the charge out of the Storm Raven can be rather scary!

(for simplicity sake, no cover, special characters giving extra abilities, etc on either side)

Let's say that there's a group of 10 MEQ on an objective in the open (because you wisely put it there). I'll use Grey Hunters since SW is the Codex that I have on me at the moment, that and they have counterattack, so adds some danger in assaulting them. The GH have 2 plasma guns, a mark of the wulfen, and a power fist. All for 200 points.

The 2 Crusaders are there to eat overwatch with their 3++. In this example, you're probably loosing just 1 Crusader to overwatch (.63 on average). Put axes on the Crusaders since they're likely going last anyways with I3, and pick up some AP2 in case they're still around.

The DCA go at I6 and will kill 8 MEQ/Grey Hunters on average.

Let's say that the Grey Hunter with the mark of the wulfen is still around and rolled a 4. This gives him 5 attacks while his buddy has 2. The Hunter with the wulfen may have just enough to take down the second crusader. Then, the power fist Hunter will take out 1 DCA.

(if the Hunter with the MoW rolled a 3 or less, then the crusader probably lives and kills the MoW model only to be taken out by the power fist).

Either way, you win combat. On average, the results from this scenario will be 2 dead Crusaders and 1 DCA sliced in half compared to 8 dead Grey Hunters. Granted, they're in a bit of trouble if they get shot at, so this is definitely an end-game maneuver. Still, not too shabby for a small group of henchmen! (and one that cost you 67.5% of the cost for the Grey Hunters). Find another 15 points for 1 more DCA and the SW probably don't even get to roll 1 dice in CC.

Do all of this on turn five on an objective in your opponents backfield and not only do you potentially swap control of an objective, but you pick up linebreaker as well =-)

---edit---

On the other hand, leaving 2 GH behind keeps you locked in combat on his turn (assuming that he has one). To carry out this example, and if no other units come into the fray, the 5 remaining DCA wipe out the last two GH after causing 5 unsaved wounds. With this in mind, the smaller unit of 6 DCA and 2 Crusaders may be just the right balance. You just have to time their attack based on going 1st or second.

I think that for GK, given the point cost of models, you have to make sure that each unit/character you take will have a role.
This means especially that if you take 2 HQ, they have to be necessary for your strategy.
This can be the case for instance with a Draigo + Coteaz PaladinStar or with Mordrak + Librarian.
Otherwise i often prefer taking more units then a 2nd HQ to be honest.

So if you want to take paladins, go ahead and keep Draigo and Coteaz and make a Draigowing (it can still work really well), this means taking out the purifiers at least for a couple of solo paladins (for troops) and making a big tough unit as a deathstar with Coteaz and Draigo with it. This is not a very easy list to play but can be really efficient.

Otherwise dont take paladins and Draigo, and choose a direction :
- purifier spam (not the best anymore but can still hurt) with Crowe to make them scoring, take 30 purifiers, maybe 6 squads of 5 with razorbacks, that will HURT.
- acolyte spam : take acolytes in razorbacks/chimera with some plasma/melta and some servitors and DCA/Crusaders in Stormraven.
- classic GKSS list with 2-3 units of 10 GKSS + some support (DK, Storm, Dreads)

sleekid wrote:

- classic GKSS list with 2-3 units of 10 GKSS + some support (DK, Storm, Dreads)

This is where I start any competitive list. Almost always with Coteaz at the helm, and a couple henchmen units to fill in any holes that the support (DK, Storm, Dreads) didn't fill.

On the flip side of things, Draigo and Paladins (5+) make a great force to bring as allies to other armies. No other GK needed when you take a mini to full Draigowing as allies like this. I just bring this up, so that if you expand beyond GK, then you know that you already have a solid rock to add as a center piece to another army and can still make good use of the models that you already own. To see how a list like this can perform, check out this tournament report if you haven't already:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/547392.page

Also, if I didn't say it before, welcome to the Brotherhood!

The reworked list I have been playing with looks like this:
HQ:
Coteaz
Ordo Malleus Inquisitor
- Terminator armor, hammer, psycannon
- Divination

Troops:
10 Terminators 5 hammers 5 halberds 2 psycannons
10 Terminators 5 hammers 5 halberds 2 psycannons
Henchmen:
- 2 Jokero weapon smiths
- 3 Warrior Acolytes with Power Armor and Plasma guns
- 3 Servitors with multi-melta

Elites:
10 Purifiers 6 Halberds 4 psycannons with Rhino
Vindicare Assassin

2 Dreadknights
1 Stormraven

That looks much better.
However i personally prefer GKSS to terminators so would switch yout 2 10men Termi squad for 3 10 men GKSS squads and keep some points left for a Dread or some razorbacks/rhinos.

Unfortunately to get those 30 GKSS I would have to buy them all. The list that I present here is made mainly with what I have already bought. The majority of my current non terminator GK will be converted to make the Purifiers. I could if I wanted just keep it as a GKSS to save on points. The loss of the psycannons would suck but with the henchman taking that over, I don't think I would mind much. I just like having high defenses which is why I line the terminators and why converting them to paladins was so tempting. It seems like my terminators were always last on the field while my regular grey knights were ripped to shreds. Being defensive is just part of my play style but at the same time, I know I have to be more efficient with my point spending.

Another question involving my HQ. In the most current list I have my second HQ as a Inquisitor in terminator armor but I was also thinking of putting in GM which wouldn't change my strategy, Coteaz would just be the one taking divination and I get Grand Strategy but how does taking a Librarian change things?

Depending on your troops choice, you dont really need a 2nd HQ.
If you dont have the GKSS, take terminators indeed, its just that currently they are less interesting (same firepower as a GKSS but twice the price and not even twice the resiliency...)

That is true, even with the second Inquisitor being just 95 points, it is 95 points that could go elsewhere and not really affect the effectiveness of the army as a whole.

What I do like about the terminators is that they are Relentless so that in one turn I can move on a unit shooting them first then assaulting them to mop up. There has been more than a couple of times that this has worked quite well for me. Another thing I like about it is all the free hammers terminators get with hammer hand making them a S10 it makes for some good anti-vehicle.

Sure your terminators are relentless but your weapons are mainly assault weapons so you can move, fire and charge anyway.
The only advantage on relentless will be on the psycanon where you can use the 4 shots instead of 2.

I agree anyway that a termi is better then a GKSS, but not 2 GKSS which is its price :(

I did calculate it out the points and I don't if I did this wrong but the 3 GKSS is around 780 points and the terminators around 930 which is a 150 points difference which could be spent elsewhere. It's not quite enough for an effective Dreadknight, maybe could it be a dreadnought or just a great amount of upgrades for my army so I can see your point but after getting stomped by vehicles, I like amount of hammers the terminators bring and maybe I am being over cautious.

And I forgot about the storm bolters being assault as well as the psycannons having an assault function. I have been playing my terminators wrong because I have never fired them at heavy unless they haven't moved and now I realized I have been playing them wrong which may have helped a great deal, especially with rending. I should have studied the rules ad my army more carefully then just diving into it but experience is the best teacher. I humbly thank you for all the help. I have learned a lot about grey knights and their tactics from this little exchange.

One more question, how do you remember all the rules that come with grey knight units? Have you just memorized or do you keep it on little cue cards that you can quickly review instead of running to the codex every 5 seconds?

Memorize the codex. Always. This saves a lot of time in game and can save you from a lot of moments like the one you just described. Little cheat sheets can help until you get everything down.

This thread makes me want to dust off the Grey Knights and roll some people.

No whining allowed now that 6th is out and vanilla marines have a new book.