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Looking to start a new force of Grey Knights for 1000 point games. Thoughts on this list?

The thought is that I really like the 2-wound Paladin squads, and maybe want to expand them in larger games with Draigo.. so I really want to try and use them here. I imagine the librarian goes there, and everything GK deepstrikes via the Nemesis Strike Force's rules... also, the servo skulls should help with that, along with possibly Scrier's Gaze if I can roll it for later turns with the acolyte squads. The Inquisitor is there for the skulls and an extra 3 warp charges/chances for something on the psykers.. plus it's sort of a cool little retinue IMO that I wanna build. What weapons do people take on the terminators? Seems like psycannons and halberds are the best... thoughts?


Nemesis Strike Force

Librarian - level 2, storm bolter, hammer, domina liber daemonica
Paladins (5) - apothecary, psycannon x2, halberds x4, hammer x1
Terminators (5) - psycannon x1, hammer x1, halberds x4
Dreadknight - great sword, heavy incinerator



Inquisitorial Detachment

Ordo Malleus Inquisitor - servo skulls x3, hellrifle

Inquisitorial Henchmen Warband - acolyte w/bolter x4, psyker
Inquisitorial Henchmen Warband - acolyte w/bolter x4, psyker
Inquisitorial Henchmen Warband - acolyte w/bolter x4, psyker


I do play against a lot of Daemons so any tips and tactics on orders of powers, etc. would be appreciated. I really think that hammerhand, force and sanctuary are all great and I hope that I will have a lot of dice so can compete in the psychic phase.

I know Grey Knights "aren't that good" right now, but I'm really trying to make a list that works at this point level, since I'll be playing casually and building them anyway ha!

Thanks in advance!

I've also been doing a lot of theory crafting with Grey Knights at smaller point levels.

I hate to list tailor, but will you be facing lots of multi-wound units with no Eternal Warrior? If so, Psilencers and Gatling Psilencers would be actually really useful.

The biggest challenge I have with Grey Knights is you have a lot of warp dice, but they don't really have a mind blowingly strong psyker or psyker formation to take advantage of that.

Additionally, the mobility is rough. You will be able to deep strike, but with a small model count you could rapidly find yourself in trouble with a single failed reserve roll.

I can't really offer advice from experience. But i can tell you, looking at your list, it seems like you would struggle from mobility. I'm trying to work a land raider crusader/redeemer into my list. I know that goes against conventional wisdom. But, foot slogging, or waiting on deep strikes, and can be especially painful.

Yeah, thanks for the reply. I feel like mobility is just something that's gonna be hard in this type of list. My opponents play a LOT of Daemons, so there are actually lots of dogs, and other mult-wound monsters... the force in cc was supposed to (theoretically) hand them, and the psycannons give me some anti-tank for the few marine rhinos i'll face...

Thanks for the thoughts!

I would rather have an NDK or two instead of Paladins even though I know you say you want to them, I impulsively wanted to play them initially but its just too many eggs in one basket esp at only 1000 points.

You could also run some squads of purifiers with immolators and put them in rhinos, split them and you get to double the warp charges and then you have 4 squads that can cleansing flame, if any of them end up with Gate of Infinity you can do some crazy things.

Thanks for the reply. When it comes to the NDK, what sort of load-out is best? The ability to deep strike via the Nemesis Strike Force and then throw out a torrent AP4 flamer seems really nice... although it's a MC so it can shoot two guns... I've debated also giving it the psycannon, although the points quickly get really high...

Thoughts on that?

Also, the hammer seems good because it will make him strength 10, but the sword is mastercrafted so that sort of makes me want that... thoughts on the melee armament as well?

As for the purifiers, I play other power-armoured lists (Red Hunters and Deathwatch) so I'd like to avoid any 3+ dudes in this army, just for modeling and to mix it up... I don't use terminators outside of this and felt it woudl be really neat to just use all terminators here.

Finally, does anyone have any other insight into how to split up the psychic powers? Force, being pretty much a must-have and sanctuary to make things more survivable doesn't leave room to also cast hammerhand (which also sounds great)... maybe I should get the librarian up to level 3 and/or add another to spread out the casting? Thoughts? Seems like it's hard because you can get a lot of warp dice, but only cast 1 or 2 powers per squad... any tactical advice on this would be greatly appreciated!

For me, my GK list is a small Nemesis Force + Librarius in Ultramarines.

The general wisdom is to take overpowered psychic powers, and to some degree that's true, but there are some really nice powers out there that add a ton of utility that people don't talk (complain) about.

Geokinesis - Everything but spell 2 and the primaris power are useful. The ability to restore D3 wounds is very nice when you've got 2 wound terminators.
Technomancy - It's nice to have some anti-vehicle and you certainly don't have to take it if your opponent has none, but this also has some really nice mobility powers if you land them. Also there is a buff that gives your unit +1toughness. This makes your elite units a lot harder to swarm down, and will protect them from instant death at STR9.
Fulmination - The primaris power, and blessings 5&6 are solid here.

I mean you know the rest of the options. You could easily make a FNP invisible save rerolling deathstar by adding some librarians but you'll still have mobility problems.

This is also part of the reason Draigo is so great (He's in my list) is because he already knows Gate, which is one of my favorite powers.

 xTHExCLINCHERx wrote:
Thanks for the reply. When it comes to the NDK, what sort of load-out is best? The ability to deep strike via the Nemesis Strike Force and then throw out a torrent AP4 flamer seems really nice... although it's a MC so it can shoot two guns... I've debated also giving it the psycannon, although the points quickly get really high...

Thoughts on that?

Also, the hammer seems good because it will make him strength 10, but the sword is mastercrafted so that sort of makes me want that... thoughts on the melee armament as well?

With built-in Sanctuary plus high Toughness and wounds the NDK is easily the toughest unit in the codex. Adding another big gun at less than the cost of another Terminator is not much of a risk. I ALWAYS buy the teleporter and have both of mine modeled with the Incinerator; one has a HPsycannon on the other arm and usually keeps the Powerfists. The other often has the Sword upgrade. I didn't glue the hands in place for easy swaps just in case.

Remember with either powerfists, hammer, or sword, it will always be S10. So with the hammer you really only get Force (only matters vs Gargantuan and T6+ multiwound) and concussive. Some players like that vs DPs, knights and other SHWs; and those SRs are a bargain at the points cost. I don't personally face a lot of knights and rarely have problems vs DPs anyway, so the cc question is a little less crucial.

Long story short, I take sword b/c it looks awesome and the mastercrafted is quite helpful for those times you need all your attacks to hit.

 xTHExCLINCHERx wrote:
Thanks for the reply. When it comes to the NDK, what sort of load-out is best? The ability to deep strike via the Nemesis Strike Force and then throw out a torrent AP4 flamer seems really nice... although it's a MC so it can shoot two guns... I've debated also giving it the psycannon, although the points quickly get really high...

Thoughts on that?

Also, the hammer seems good because it will make him strength 10, but the sword is mastercrafted so that sort of makes me want that... thoughts on the melee armament as well?

As for the purifiers, I play other power-armoured lists (Red Hunters and Deathwatch) so I'd like to avoid any 3+ dudes in this army, just for modeling and to mix it up... I don't use terminators outside of this and felt it woudl be really neat to just use all terminators here.

Finally, does anyone have any other insight into how to split up the psychic powers? Force, being pretty much a must-have and sanctuary to make things more survivable doesn't leave room to also cast hammerhand (which also sounds great)... maybe I should get the librarian up to level 3 and/or add another to spread out the casting? Thoughts? Seems like it's hard because you can get a lot of warp dice, but only cast 1 or 2 powers per squad... any tactical advice on this would be greatly appreciated!

Are you trying to only run 2+ saves or what? I take personal teleports on my NDK's. It gives you the option to not DS them and start them on the board, which can get around your opponent having interceptor for example, or if they deploy on a terrain heavy map where having a lot of DS is risky. Additionally you have the ability to shunt in a match to instantly put yourself in a very advantageous position and there are some units the incinerator can just delete.

As for the purifiers, I don't know if you have really looked at cleansing flame, but the effect can be rather devastating. Purifiers are also allowed to have 4x weapons in a 10 man. So you can have 2x5 with 2 incinerators in each and each squad can cleansing flame... 9" Nova so it autohits all units and then does 2d6 to EACH unit which is great because you get to use it before you decide whom to incinerate so while you might be concerned about them dying with a 3+ save, they can more than make up their points in a single turn.

Other than that Telekinesis and Telepathy are good schools Divination can be also. You only really need sanctuary in the cases of the appropriate AP might hit you or other circumstances, you won't always need it. Invisibility and Prescience are good if you can get them.

What about taking a CAD instead of the Nemesis Strike Force? I know it's probably not a wonderful idea to rely on the troops to deep strike, but maybe this would be better?

Librarian - level 2, hammer, domina liber daemonica
Terminators (5) - psycannon x1, halberds x5
Terminators (5) - halberds x5
Dreadknight - great sword, heavy incinerator, teleporter
Dreadknight - great sword, teleporter
Deimos Pattern Vindicator Tank Destroyer

Thoughts on that?

Not familiar with that forgeworld unit. What is its rough equivalent cost in melta bombs?

It's 26 melta bombs. It's sporting a laser destroyer array (think twin-linked ordinance lascannon with better AP, but if it sits still you can get another 1 or 2 shots out of it, at risk of gets hot). Front armor is that of a Predator.

I figure it was a cool unit for long-range anti-tank, while the dreadknights could mess with things, or play defense until my troop units deepstrike in, and hopefully hold an objective or two..

The big problem I'm running into at this level is that I wanna play Grey Knights because I have other power-armor armies, so I wanna play some terminators (since I don't in the other armies)... I know I could probably put power armor in rhinos but I'm looking to try something different.

Thanks in advance for any other thoughts!

Gk have weaknesses that ideally are best suited to using an ally to correct. My preference is skitarii, you won't really have excellent AV or AA using the GK codex only. Best bet would just be a land raider or storm raven if want codex only.