Re hot on the heels grey knights

So I've had some time to look over the new codex.... Um Disappointing...
In my opinion this whole thing was rushed. Even the cover art looks kinda cheap and rushed.
First yes the termies are 33 a piece. And they should be 33 pts. Cause they are the weakest termies in the game. Other then a hammer there own weaponss ( cc, and heavy) have a hard time killing any other termy in the game. Or any other 2 up armour on the table

Psy Cannons are Salvo 2-4, so other then a termy or a dreadknight, they are pointless

Nemesis swords no longer grant a 1+ invulnerable in close combat. That was basically the only thing that helped keep termies alive in cc. Nemesis Halberds are now just 1+ str. So yah when a daemon prince charges any squad of grey knights it will kill them before you getta strike back. And the dreaded great sword is now the just double str. only re roll to wound cause of daemonbane. But only against daemons

Psy -Bolt... sigh is.... gone

Pychis pilots.... gone

Purifiers have gone up from 24 to 25pts. Thats cause there cc attacks cause soul baze... yah ooooooo

In the Army section there are a lot of nice big pictures to make up for the lack of content. No new units, vehicles or walkers.... All Hq that didn't have model are out. Sigh bye Mordrack.

The Positives....
Librarians are cheaper. But so are every other psycher in the game
Termies and dreadknight are cheaper. Cause they have been nerfed

Honestly in my opinion I look at my Grey Knights and ask why would field them against Daemons or anything else for that matter. Then I look at my Blood Ravines, Then I look back at my GreyKnight. Now I wish I had spent all that time and effort on the Blood Ravines. Regular marines are just more diverse, more options and freedom to bring real guns to the table. And they have a awesome codex. not cheap cover art (page 5 should have been the cover).

Honestly cant see to many Grey Knight armies popping up any time soon. Hope I'm wrong. Maybe you guys can mention something I'm missing so I can get inspired to start painting more gks again.. Please give me hope... please

If psycannons are still str 7 rending.. i still think they'll still be useful. No assaulting after shooting them, i can live with it. 

I like the Dreadknight changes.. i have one but have only used him once. I was very reliant on psybolts, psycannons, and inquisitors in the last edition.. strike squads, termies, dreads.. so Im actually kind of intrigued to shake things up a bit. No more relying on casting prescience for str 5 storm bolters anymore. I think might swap out a few psylencers which truthfully.. can cause a bit of a scare. 

I think with some strong psychic powers, new options, it'll be neat to try. I have to figure out what to do with 5 ghost terminators ive never used before.. woo hoo. 

Against daemons though.. i think GK will still give em a beatdown with all the bonuses. 

Im more optimistic about the new GK book then i was about the Chaos book when it came out. I might feel different after a few games thihgh.

Don't nobody tell Ian about Mordrak being taken out, he's got a swath of ghost termies and a converted mordrak, wont be happy...

I made a Modrak and the 5 ghost termies just for Beau's tournie in the winter.. but never gor a chance to field him..   

I guess i can use them as justvregular tournies.. pretend they are ghost termies?

since draigo is getting kicked out into his own supplement like thraka was, i would wager mordrak is gonna be in it with draigo since hes a terminator wearing grey knight as well.

???
That makes no sense Mike. By that logic Stern, Thrawn and every other GK termie should be in there.

I just know that when I took the new codex out for a spin this morning to kick the tires, I got spanked. I had somewhat expected the reduction in effectiveness on the Storm Bolters, but what really hurt is the absence of Init 6 from halberds. I thought that GKs were supposed to be a melee army, but one attack each at the same init as most other squads, bleh. Only having three swords swinging back after an Init 5 character went to town on my squad, wasn't terribly effective. The whole run+shoot after deep strike is kinda nice, but it doesn't really hold a candle to Deathwing's twin-link on deep strike with real guns.

At least this will give me motivation to finish painting my Grey Knights, as fully painted armies sell better than partial ones.

Roland wrote:???
That makes no sense Mike. By that logic Stern, Thrawn and every other GK termie should be in there.

no, it does; if they make a supplement for one of the terminator guys, and he's missing from the book now because of it, and another of the terminator dudes are also missing....he's probably being put in the same supplement, dontcha think?  and since they usually whip a new formation or two together for the supplements, my guess is he'll pop up in there with a new ghost terminator formation.  why? cause people that liked mordrak are now also gonna buy the supplement and give more money!

I see where you are coming from, but I bet you a moosehead vs a Hein ekin with ice Mordak ain't there:)

it is a bit thin; but im giving the little GK players a strand of hope.

I'm the positive one.... I remember the days of the 3.5 dex and having to hand your opponent a Greater Daemon.

Only failure I really see is Stern should be a total badass.
They COULD have simply given everything Psy bolts and pay flame by default. Oh well.

WALL OF TEXT!!

I've sat down and given the book a good read and played with some lists. I was able to take a 1750 list from before and it is now 100 points cheaper, with very minor tweaks to account for some items no longer existing. So now I am qualified to talk about the new book. Disclaimer: I'm not going to talk about whether or not this book will win me games, rather how the book FEELS to me as a longtime gamer who is very familiar with the hobby.

I'm not sure what the big hangup on psybolts for squads is. I never bothered taking them on my squads, and literally every other marine army gets by just fine with S4 bolters. My Deathwing certainly don't whine that their stormbolters are too weak. I took psybolts on my vehicles, but only to turn assault cannons to psycannons for flavor. I only have 2 serious beefs with this book. GK dreadnoughts are kinda lame now. Is being Mastery 1 with 2 fairly meh powers really worth 25-30 points? a stock dread in other lists is like 100 or so depending on the book. No doomfist? And why no dreadnought psycannon? Spacewolves and Bloodangels get their propitiatory weapons for dreads (helfrost and fragstorm cannons) so why not a dread psycannon? Pity. I've been looking at the dreads in the SW dex and I'm super jelly of how varied and cool they can be. Next issue is with halberds. There was a distinct difference between a sword and halberd before, especially for terminators. Now, a halberd is almost a no-brainer upgrade.

HOWEVER, and this is where things get technical and I raise my brows. Why +1 str? It doesn't make sense. It's not as useful as you think it might be. Here's why:

In 40k, the vast majority of units are T3 or T4. When your GK get in an assault, what are you gonna want to do? Have hammerhand active for +2 St, of course. Sword guys will be St 6 and Halberds will be St7. But only in a very few cases will that boosted St actually be useful. Either if your hammerhand failed to go off, or it was a REALLY tough target. But even if it was a big tough multiwound enemy, you activated your force weapons like a smart GK player. You only need to nick that big monsterous thing with a sword to outright kill it. So where am I going with this rambling mess? The TLDR version is that the +2 init was way more useful from a gaming standpoint as well as making the player CHOOSE between that or the boost to his inv save. Also it made more sense from a fluff perspective. You can krump the baddie faster if your blade is on a long stick.

The longer version here is that it is a case of poor game design. Much like some of the tyranid-reserve-deepstriking-tunneling issues that just don't work in the way they interact with each other and the core rules. You look at it and go "hmm that doesn't make sense for the game" This one little example gives me the impression the Grey Knight book (The baddest of the ultimate badasses of the Imperium, btw) was basically churned out to meet some kind of quota. Not much fanfare or prelaunch hype, unlike say the Ork codex. (good or bad we're not here to discuss that , it was an exciting book launch) I look at the new books and they now all say "designed by the GW studio" or something like that. Basically, a committee. I believe the books are much more flavorful when one author is able to sit down and make his vision happen. Best example of this is the Dark Eldar book. Still totally solid and full of juicy 40k flavor. Phil Kelly's baby. And say what you will about the Ward dexes, good or bad the guy had a vision and stuck to it. Some (not all) of the new codexes just feel soulless. The GK book being the worst offender in this way.

Oh well, I'm still going to play with these guys, suck it up and keep gaming. I still love the grimdark and have no intentions of giving up on my game.

This wall of text has been brought to you by me, sitting in the office at the theatre, waiting for the movies to end.

Very thorough.

I would mention the Vortimer pattern vehicles (razorback and redeemer) and the venerable butt kicker dread which comes with Psycannon, nemisis force weapon (must have got it from a BA Furioso Libby) and an incinerator (heavy).

None of those are psyflemen but those were broke, agreed?

I loved the flexibility of Halberd vs. Sword vs. Hammer. 

Its my strong belief they janked dreads and boosted knights just to generate some sales. Every army had 1 or 2 dreads.. not alot fielded a knight, so an slot swap to sell some kits.

You'll also never see a techmarine again. I used to take one from time to time for grenades and a boost for some deathcults.. but hes got nothing now to justify his.points unless youve a couple landraiders and wanna have fun.. ?

I hated psychotrokes.. but the rads were decent but dont mind being gone. 

Ill try out my regular list a few times and see how pans out before i switch it up.. but i see myself dropping some SS for a raider. I havent grabbed it yet.. but can termies take a raider for a transport?

Yep. Any of the three, same for paladins.

I noticed No force org swaps period. So purifier spam is gone.

Purifier spam is for babies anyways.    you also DO NOT want several cleansing flames going off in your battle lines. It is way more painful than it looks on paper. Here's some positive thoughts on the book:

I saved about 100 points on a 1750 list bringing it to 1650. If you were a psybolt user, think how many more points you will have to work with now!

My strike squads will be changing up their roles. Instead of deploying in a razorback and lending fire support with psycannons, I'm thinking zooming up in said razorbacks and unleashing incinerator funtimes. I think some people are underestimating the incinerator. Wounds nearly all infantry on 2+ and will ID T3 guys and AP4. Soulblaze is a nice extra touch. I may look at a psycannon purgator squad for fire support. Inquisitors are still an option with the inquisition book, and a few tempestus troopers may find a home.

At first I was kinda "meh" about champions and Crowe, until I doublechecked smash. by having smash, your attacks are AP2. So Crowe could be quite the nasty character killing machine between his abilities and his cleansing flame. (I've done the research, and novas can be triggered in CC if applicable.)

Interceptors are cheaper now. Also looking at them as an incinerator delivery unit.

I really like the idea of incinerators and interceptors. Can they still shunt?

Plopping something  on a strike squad backpack to uograde them would be easy. 

For psybolts.. id usually had three squads.. 2 SS and termies at ten strong.. then combat squad. 

Not sure what ill do yet. Ill have to swap an inqusitor to take a GM or bro-cap.. that'll be an extra  100 points then try to squeeze in a knight and landraider by only dropping a dreadnaught.

I think Purifier spam may well be a way to go still, as they are ML2, causing combat squading to yield 4 warp charge. Load them into rhinos and blaze forward to have every rhino double tap out some novas on your psychic phase. Further more, Purifiers are the only PA GKs that come with squad wide 2A base. It's really easy to over look the fact that because they have Storm Bolters they don't get Bolt Pistols like other marines, so you need to pay extra for a comparable number of attacks, either 25 points a head for Purifiers, an extra 4 points a head for Falchions, or 29 to grab both. AP 3 is great and all, but 1 attack (2 on the charge) at Str 5 (7 with HH) really doesn't pull its weight if it can't go first.

Still find it kind of odd that the Avatar of Khaine is effectively immune to Purifiers in CC.

I think we need to figure out what GKs accel at now. The previous codex had what I considered solid mid-range shooting with an elite approach to CC (low volume of high quality attacks) and access to all manner of strange whats-its (inquisitor tech, warbands, specialty grenades, OSR, et cetera). The mid-range shooting isn't as solid any more with the removal of Psybolt and the changes to the Psycannon; the volume of CC attacks is still low, but the quality has been compromised (as repeatedly discussed, less meaningful choice in melee weapons); and most of the strange whats-its live in a digital-only codex now (yes, you can take it, but what happened to armies being able to stand on their own?).

Perhaps it just needs some more play under the new codex, but I want to figure out what their new niche is outside of "'sup daemons".

Shunt still seems to be a thing.

It is also worth noting that the "Deathwing lite" FOC Grey Knights can take costs them Objective Secured.

At the risk of sounding really dumb...

What do they excel at

Mid range shooting- psycannons are half range for PA squads compared to old. Bolsters are are 4 rather than str 5 if you paid for that. Psyflemen are str 7 rather than 8. That's it. None of which is stupid, most of it is simply fixing broken units/wargear.

The low volume, high quality attacks are still there... They are simply more vulnerable to high init.

Weird do whats: psycho trope grenades were one of those stupid annoying things that piss of your opponent because it like legal cheating (see lash/mindshackle scarab /et al)

Is this a top tier codex:no
Is it balanced relative to other codexes not named tau or eldar?
Yes
I am trying to view it completely new rather than a tweak. It seems like a copy/paste but the changes toNF weapons, FOC changes, etc. Mean it's effectively a brand new codex.

When they finish the 3? codexes left the prime candidates for revision are eldar and tau. And then it's really fixing wave serpents and marker lights.

The new codex style lends itself to easily adding new units, formations and detachment s without having to release a whole new dex. I hope GW takes advantage of this and releases some new units

Also, has anyone noticed that the in-codex formation gives the exact same benefits, word-for-word, as what their FOC gives? Is there a point to this? If it was to get extra HS slots, the formation comes with enough HQs and Troops to simply just take the FOC twice.

I always love how Tau get hate. Man they must win every tournament ever. What's that little johnny? They don't? You mean it generally has to do with the fact that a non imperial faction actually gets interesting game mechanics?   

On topic. My thoughts of the codex. After mulling it over. I will admit that this is mostly about how the changes effect my style of gameplay for GK. I won't say the codex or horrible or terrible, I'm just irked by it and have no interest in continuing my work on them for now.

1. I am still irked that unless we allow character LoW I cannot run my Draigowing army. I'll ignore the fact that they took the opportunity to nerf him a bit and just be pissy about the LoW and no FOC swap for paladins.

2. the changes to Psycannons mean that you have to seriously plan how your units are going to interact with each other and your opponents. While I commend GW for making us choose between guns now couldn't you just have make the other one/two better? If the psylincer wasn't terrible people would take them. But since they just made Psycannons bad on anything that isn't a terminator I don't see much of a point to running them. Especially since Salvo does not allow for an assault after shooting (unless you are relentless). I would have much rather dropped all the GK specific special weapons and have access to melta/plasma/grav. Would be way better IMO.

3. as Planes pointed out the loss of Objective Secured in the GK chart can be very crummy. In the limited amount of games I have gotten in of 7th (I think a grand total of 6?) 1 of them was won by Objective Secured and another one could have been (if either unit had not had it the other would have scored the point). I don't know getting to Deep Strike turn 1 with an extra run move is worth it. Especially since you don't have a way to control the scatter at all (so not at all as good as drop pods).

4. the nerf to dreads is actually a lot more important than people make it out. In an army without any form of long range, high strength shooting I relied on Psydreads to open transports. Due to point two I cannot rely on my special weapons to get to the juicy insides of my opponents meat containers. So now GK have one semi-reliable way to kill vehicles the humble demon hammer. Downside to this is that several good armies will either put enough shooting down turn one to not care, or are mobile enough to stay comfortably away from them. So now against any mech army (that I think we will see much more of again now that the vehicle chart is fairly improved) I basically get to wave my arms and pick dudes up off the table most of the game.

5. The loss of Psychic Pilot, while probably justified hurts the number of warp charges GK can generate. I am not saying that they probably needed to be adjusted. But to just remove it except from dreads seems way to heavy handed to me.

6. Getting stuck with just santic powers radically changes how a large number of the units function. No longer can I look at an opponents drop pod army and laugh maniacally as he has to either stay far away with all his pods or suffer mishaps. In all honesty not really happy with a lot of the default power selections.

7. In the land where the gun is king spending more points for relatively fragile troops is still a bad idea. While there was a small amount of reduction of points for units the upgrades to get them back into fighting shape (with hammers basically) nullifies that. You still end up with very expensive models with only a 3+ armour or a 2+ armour and 5+ invul. Neither of which is very sturdy in the land of plasma/grav.

8. Random changes to melee weapons is random. About the only change I would have made from the previous codex is adjust the points on Falchions. Either to make them a bit cheaper or give the extra attack on top of two weapons. Now it is either run swords or hammers. I don't see the value of halberds at all. Oh and the loss of warding staves is huge for melee paladin/terminator units. The only way to sneak a good invul save into the unit without draigo went poof.


I'm sure eventually people will find lists they like. Right now I don't see one I like. In terms of pure power I'd rate this easily on the lower end of the scale unless you start taking combo units from allies/formation. I cannot think of a 6th/7th codex that doesn't have an edge if you are looking at them one vs one. Ok maybe sisters...   

well. they are still sexy models.

If ya gots any helmets you don't want, i got three more bikes that need knight-type facegaurds.

I got a bunch of spare GK Termie heads.

I'm really getting a vibe from the Grey Knights that they need to be run in concert with allies to get maximum effect.

multiple detachments is the new black.

Aeg: to be fair, tau didn't get all the hate. I mentioned eldar, crons and dearly departed lash princes as well:)

Your take is perfectly valid. We can at least agree psybolts on Riflemen, however useful they were, was completely broken, no?

That how I'm viewing most of this. The codex had stuff that was too good for the points. They moved it back to centre. Did they go to far? I would say no. You might say yes. That said I never played draigowing and my list is still playable with some minor changes. I can certainly understand the frustration (a friend has a noise marine list back when the 4TH ED CSM codex dropped).