http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/14.page JForum - http://www.jforum.net
So I've chosen Grey Knights as my next 40K army, but before buying anything I just wanted to get some advice on building a competitive list at about 2000 points.
I've been looking at a bunch of threads but can't really decide on what models I might need. I know I'll probably be getting some of the regular grey Knight models,
some dread knights, and maybe a stormraven, but I just wanted to get an idea of how many. As for HQ's I'd like to use either the Grand-master or Draigo as I'm
really liking the actual models for them. Any comments are appreciated, and thanks in advance. ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/584517/6627411.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/584517/6627411.page GMT 1. Draigowing. You need terminator models (15ish), draigo, coteaz, and henchmen; supported by either dreadknights, stormravens, or dreadnoughts according to taste.
2. Razor-spam: Lots of strike squads in razorbacks (20-50 strike squad dudes, 4+ rhino/razor)
3. Henchmen Spam: Also in razorbacks/rhinos, this list takes Coteaz and a bunch of henchmen of all types, supported by stormravens or dreadknights, and sometimes interceptors.
4. Ghostwing/Shunt list: Mordrak, librarian, termies for ghost knights, some interceptors, terminators or strike squads, and dreadknights.

The general rule of taking ravens, dreadknights, and dreadnoughts is to take at least 2 of a kind if you take any (possible exception is stormraven).]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/584517/6629560.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/584517/6629560.page GMT 2. Wrong vehicle/squad combo
3. This is a good basis/reinforcement to a list.
4. Can't talk to this as much.

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I'm also on a budget for all things 40K (models, paint, etc). So I fully understand the concept of making the dollars go as far as possible. A good place to start is an online store, since most offer 20% off with free shipping at a certain dollar level. Personally I use their prices as a guideline for when I look to get things off of ebay. With some patience I've been able to get NIB/NOS models at 30% off of GW prices or more!.

The best thing you can do to make sure that your money goes as far as possible is to establish a FOC/list first. Then buy the models you need for the army that you want to field. If you buy models first, then make a list, then you'll end up with something that either you don't need in the list, or makes your list less competitive.

Hope this helps!

Can't find the original post for this, but here's the quote:
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Good morning/evening everyone.

Just to start with I slight disclaimer, not everyone will agree with this post and I mean no offense to anyone, these are merely my personal findings after many years of playing grey knights.

To answer your question, Yes, Grey Knights can be very competitive in 6th ed. However they are not highly competitive if you choose to make armies the way you always have. I'll explain. Take this with a grain of salt however I will try to justify dribble as I go.

First up, I've played exclusively Grey Knight and Blood Angels since the beginning of fifth ed, I have played at the ATC (Australiasian Team Championship) and am on the Team for the Australian ETC (European Team Championship) this year and was asked to be on it last year. In my 16 ATC matches I have only lost two and won 13 of my games so in short. I realize this is all here say however it's the best I can do to give some credibility to my gaming experiences. There are some fundamentals of grey knights that you will have to accept if you want to make them competitive, I have never taken what most consider a generic list and this is especially true for GKs. This is for two reasons.

1. While GK models are good and generally reasonably costed, the individual model is still expensive. This does not mean over priced however. This equates to you generally having less models on the board the 90% of your opponents. While henchmen can circumvent this somewhat this will lead to a style of play marines may not be used to. You are not going to win a straight fight against top tier armies such as Tau and Eldar. If you choose to write an army list that plays the standard way most armies do, you are setting yourself up for defeat, you will simply be out gunned.

2. Most top tier armies have a play style, they do something different in the game that other armies do not. Tau are an exception to this as they will physically just shoot you off the table using marker light support. However, most top tier armies, such as screamer star, seer council on bikes white scars grav/bike spam with rune priest support have their own edges which automatically forces the game to be played in a semi non conventicle way. 2+ re-rollable saves, mass scout etc. If you want to make top tables, you have to be able to beat these armies as well as straight fight armies such as wave serpent spam. To do this you need flexibility and tricks to get around these units. Which brings me to a major focus of my lists. Tricks, grey knight have excellent utility units, and using tricks doesnt mean surprising an opponent with a rule or ability they haven't seen, it's about using a combination of units to their fullest ability ie more than just wounds and guns.

So once you have rid yourself of the notion that you will deploy an army and proceed to shoot the enemy and replaced that with creating an army that is highly flexible and counter other armies strengths you arrive at a better destination. That in mind there are a few rules of thumb I use when making a Gk army.
1. Coteaz is your best friend, it may seem obvious however he is more utility than you will find in any character and employ you to create a competitive GK army that wouldn't be better with his addition.
2. This is an ongoing argument however except the fact that mathematically in MOST circumstances Strikes are better than Terminators. The edition of grav weapons, council armies, screamer star and tau only further this. I'm not getting into an arguement over it (i know about helldrakes), if you disagree so be it I except we are different here but this is my rant not yours.

So with those rules laid down I'll give some examples of great unit combos I have found success with and units that help face some of these top tier armies.

Storm raven, hurricane bolters, psybolt, multimelta. Inside 5-6 deathcults, 1 banisher and as many acolytes as you can while leaving room for an inquisitor.. This unit is fantastic. It clocks in at around 320 point, has a 10 man scoring unit that doubles as a great assault unit, gives you one of the best flyers in the game allows you much maneuverability and single handedly makes dealing with screamer council quite simple. If you are not taking a banisher in your GK army your army is simply not ready for top tables. Demons struggle to kill Storm raves as their high strength shooting is very lacking. They can vector strike it however that is very inefficient and often leaves their flying MCs in very vulnerable positions. When this unit comes on from the bored, simply by placing the raven within 6" of a screamer council means their invuln is not re-rollable and thus you you will do 6 times more wounds to the unit, in other words you are now simply killing terminators which with the extreme anti infantry power that gks put out to mention the raven itself you can easily take on the council. The raven is also excellent against a jetseer council as psy strike missiles will outright kill any warlock they hit with no save. Try to aim for the warlocks with enhance removing the unit's 2+ save and dropping it to a 3+ though much of the time it will have a 2+ cover save. This unit is highly flexible and allows you to capitalize on enemy mistakes. It can get to almost anywhere on the board and has a lot of shooting fire power and assault ability, It can be used to punish an enemy who has moved a unit out of position and generally must be killed in a single turn or the assault that follows with deathcults, generally prescienced by a cheap inquis who can have grenades will wipe almost anything it touches. The unit shouldn't struggle to much with overwatch either with plenty of acolytes do absorb punishment. This is an excellent unit and can be added more than once to any gk army. I highly recomend using a coms relay or psychic communion to increase the chances of getting this unit on the table. Ravens also excel at killing psyker HQs. Many of the powerful HQs in the game are psykers inclusion most units that hold the grimoire. the ability to be able to snipe these units can allow you to take out key parts of the opponents force. Don't forget that you can snipe with a raven using its it's own lack of line of sight, it can only aim down 22.5 degrees with most weapons which means you can generally make the first model visible to each gun your choice allowing you to snipe special weapons and characters.

Strikes. one of the most versatile troops in the game. they are masters of nothing but can do most things. They provide deep strike defense agains pod armies and with coteaz will have first turn almost 2/3 times allowing you to put up warp quake. they can deep strike and thus allow for alpha striking or reaching objectives, they have decent shooting and decent CC. play to your enemies weakness. If you are fighting nids, shoot and back up, Tau drop with them kill off a linchpin unit and be putting pressure on for assault. This unit is highly undervalued and allows you to change your play style based on what army you face.

Servo Skulls, you need 3. Grav bike armies, scouting hounds, all these armies are now neutered against you for a measly 9 points. if you don't have these again your GK army is lacking. This generally means with the addition of Coteaz, you will need to take an inquisitor, grenades can be a good option as well but more importantly psychic mastery and power armour. This allows you to get those strikes/ravens on the board and keep fragile troops off. When you don't need this power, you have an extra div role, excellent.

Forification. You will need one to protect your henchmen and other units and will generally want a comms relay. there are many units that ignore cover and for that reason i generally go with a bastion, its ability to block LOS can be game changing.

You don't have points to waste on units with niche roles ie interceptors ect, henchmen are cheap enough that they can do this however paying for a psyfullmen dread because it gives you some high str shots isn't going to cut it. 4 str 8 shots is next to useless against wave serpent spam who will easily destroy it as will Tau and both armies are relatively unfazed by it's fire power. You will need to take units that fulfill multiple roles if they are not troops. So stay away from units such as interceptors and librarians.

I do recommend using allies if you are open to that as GKs provide great counter options but a less effective standing force so if you still want to line up and shoot the opponent use the greyknight units to fix the holes in your army such as DS defense, weakness to scremaerstars or scouting armies. ironically many of the small weaknesses Tau have are fixes by small detachment of grey knights.

I hope that was somewhat helpful, if you want more information or want to shoot me some ideas or thoughts feel free to respond or message me. I hope someone gets something from this post. GL everyone.

Regards,
Crynn.

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Another place to look may be here. I haven't read them recently, so I can't speak to how accurate they are as the memory cells aren't fresh, but they should be a good start.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Category:Grey_Knights_Tactica

I would have sworn that I had a link to a good review of all the units that was posted here on Dakka, but I can't find it at the moment.
]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/584517/6630379.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/584517/6630379.page GMT GK player. I like your Raven w/ henchmen. I have also used a Raven w/ 5 GK Purg squad members. That is 100 points for 4 flamers that shoot thru walls and don't need LoS. Has worked well. You can also put a Dread w/ MM and HV flamer w psyflame if you want extra flame and vehicle popping power. That means a Dread, a Raven, and 4 Inc in their faces.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/584517/6631731.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/584517/6631731.page GMT
You need more than 10 models in a 2000 point game hehe]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/584517/6631741.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/584517/6631741.page GMT GK
Coteaz
Inquisitor (pick one) w/ power armor and divination

Troops:
10 Strikesquad w/psybolt and 2 psycannons
10 Strikesquad w/psybolt and 2 psycannons
10 Strikesquad w/psybolt and 2 psycannons
10 Strikesquad w/psybolt and 2 psycannons
10 Strikesquad w/psybolt and 2 psycannons
10 Strikesquad w/psybolt and 2 psycannons

Heavy:
Psyfilemen
Psyfilemen

Inquisitor Detachment:
Inquisitor (pick one) w/ power armor and divination
Inquisitor (pick one) w/ power armor and divination (could have the book)

4 sources of presence.
]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/584517/6633294.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/584517/6633294.page GMT