GKSS vs Purifiers

[IraSummers]

From the general look of it, GKSS look more like tooled up Tac marines to me. They look slightly geared more toward shooting then assault, though with all Force Weapons, they can still lay some hurt on the assault. Purifiers have an amazing ability for clearing hordes or even just in CC to begin with, coupled with an extra attack, the seem more like an assault force but are a bit more expensive then GKSS (especially after you have tooled both up a bit). I am having a hard time figuring out which one to really start building my new force around (I have been playing Knights for some time now, and like the Halibard look...so of my 3000k force I have 3 PA swords...) and how these units really work best. I have only got one game under by belt with the new codex and tried out using a purifier force (with the terrible character :lol: ) and DESTROYED a marine player. I used 2 10 man squads with 4 Halibrids, 2 DH, and 2 Duel Swords (testing out all the new weapons too) and feel that was way more then was needed for the assault phase.

 

How are GKSS faring in assault? I am struggling with mainly in the transition as I used to play my knights mostly like the water warrior Assaulting the shooties and shooting the assulties, but tended to lean toward assault for the most part (hence why I tried Purifiers first).

 

BTW, I LOVE the new Phycannon, but a little disapointed in the Incenerator, which 2 of my 3 PA squads used to use.

 

Any advice or assistance in new direction would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[The Rose Princes]

here's the crazy part. if you want strike squads and purgatory squads, just take more purifiers. for +20 points you get strike squads that are fearless with one more attack. if you're gonna take 10 of them, you have a purgatory squad with half price psycannons and free upgrades to psilencers or incinerators who are fearless with one more attack for 40 points more than 10 of the exact same armed purgatory squad; you'll probably make up the difference in upgrade costs.

 

purifiers get cheaper upgrades to other nemesis weapons than the strike squad too.

 

only benefit that a GKSS gets is access to warp quake.

only benefit that a purgatory squad gets is Astral Aim and teleport homer.

 

screwy, ain't it?

[Adir]

They play two very different roles in your list. GKSS are an amazing mid range shooting squad. Give a ten man squad psybolts and two psycannons then walk them into range (or rhino mount but drop the psybolts - don't need extra S bolters when you are only shooting psycannons from the hatch).

 

Purifiers with halberds are one of the best assault units in the game - these guys will mince any equally pointed infantry in the game. Add two thunder hammers and 2 psycannons and they can pretty much take on anything. I am not sold on the Crowe tax to make these guys scoring. I would take a Grandmaster for the g/strat and give your rhino mount Purifiers Scout.

[Aidoneus]

here's the crazy part. if you want strike squads and purgatory squads, just take more purifiers. for +20 points you get strike squads that are fearless with one more attack...

 

purifiers get cheaper upgrades to other nemesis weapons than the strike squad too.

 

I am not sold on the Crowe tax to make these guys scoring.

These are the two directions I'm being pulled in. On the one hand, The Rose Princess is basically right in that Purifiers are better at basically everything for more-or-less the same cost, once upgrades are factored in. But on the other hand, you need to take a terrible 150pt pit of suck to make them Troops.

 

Now, you could always take a GM instead and use Grand Strategy to make them Scoring. However, in such an elite force, you run into the problem of only being able to take so many units. If Purifiers are merely Scoring, and not actually Troops, you still have to dish out 500+ points on two Troops units. If you happen to want 2 squads of GKTs, this works out well enough, but if not then you're wasting points on sub-par Strike Squads.

 

In other words, although the Purifiers themselves are far more bang for your buck, there's no good way to make them the bulk of your army, because either way you have to sink points on something else. Having not playtested Crowe yet myself, I can't say for sure which option is better, but I have a feeling it's still probably a good idea to stick with the GM and find a way to make GKTs and the Strike Squad useful too.

[HERO]

Unless you're using GKSS for FOC slots or point restrictions, Purifiers are always better.

 

However, because I need to fill my FOC slots and need the points on Paladins, I almost never take the Purifiers. Sad, but true.

 

It's completely personal preference after the 2x GKSS squads.

[Sienna]

I personally Much prefer Purfiers to GKSS. The Crowe Tax is acceptable above 1500pts IMO.

 

I have added a purifier/raszor list in the lists section I would love to get feedback on it.

[Gentlemanloser]

While I'm not a fan of Fearless, Purifiers are better than Strike Squads in nearly every way. The exceptions are;

 

1) If you want Warp Quake to mess up DSing opponents.

2) You want to squeeze out the maximum number of GK bodies you can field.

 

But consider the use of a Strike Squad in a Rhino. You give them two Psycannons so you get the maximum shooting from the unit. That requires 10 GKSS, and comes to 260 points.

 

Purifers can fulfil this role with only 5 of them, costing 180 points. More effecient, if all you want is a unit sitting in a Rhino spamming Psycannon shots. The Purifiers are also better if charged (or charging), having twice the attacks of thier Strike brethren, and Cleansing Flame.

 

Personally, I feel that the option to take Personal Teleporters was one of the strongest points to the Strike Squad (Deep Strike is ok, but to be honest the Grey Knights aren't really set up to be a DSing army), and they really deserve something in return for that being lost.

 

Otherwise Purifiers will win out in just about every field.

 

(As above, I'm thinking of using some Paladin, taking them instead of any Termies I might have used, in which case the Strike Squad are there to squeeze out a few more bodies. But in general, take a Purifier Squad over a Strike Squad. There's no reason not to...)

[IraSummers]

Thank you all for replying. Please keep this going, maybe we can even turn this into a bit of a tactica comparing/contrasting the two. Please include how you arm your squads.

[HERO]

Thank you all for replying. Please keep this going, maybe we can even turn this into a bit of a tactica comparing/contrasting the two. Please include how you arm your squads.

 

Grey Knight Strike Squad

 

These guys are your standard bread and butter marines. They form the backbone of most PGK lists and the fact that they can take Rhinos now adds to their worth. Even though they only have 1 attack, each GKSS comes with a Force Weapon and Storm Bolter. The ideal way to use these guys is to ship them up mid-board and bunker down to provide fire support for the rest of your army. In terms of application, these guys are NOT your go-getters. They are support units that count as scoring and thus they should be used exactly as that.

 

Recommended configuration:

10x GKSS (Rhino, MC DH, 2x Psycannons) = 275

 

The Justicar can MC his Daemonhammer and you should have one for every 10 GKSS. In terms of functionality the DH functions exactly the same reason why you would have a Fist in a Tactical squad. It produces guaranteed wounds when you would otherwise fail and that's exactly what you need sometimes. A good example is rolling poorly to wound on a Trygon with everything until the hammer hits. Not only do you wound on a 2+ but one psychic test and you blow it up. Winning.

 

Purifier Squad

 

Purifiers are basically GKSS on crack. They do everything they can do but better because they have 2A, cheaper Halberds, Cleansing Flame and cheaper everything else. Not only that, but you can take 2 special weapons for every 5, making a full squad of them as deadly as Purgation squads. The only thing that sucks about them is that they're Elite, which can be overcome by Grand Strategy or by taking Crowe. In short, they have no real weakness except for the amount of points you pay for them.

 

Recommended configurations:

10x Purifiers (Rhino, MC DH, Halberds, 4x Psycannons) = 340

10x Purifiers (Rhino, MC DH, Halberds, 4x Incinerators) = 300

 

The awesome thing with combat squads is that you can opt to take a Razorback and have 5 Purifiers fill the role of Purgation squads. Not only are they cheaper but they have Cleansing Flame and 2 attacks each. Fearless also guarantees they won't run. The two builds above provides a support unit and vicious go-getter unit that capitalizes on Incinerators. Personally, I prefer all the Psycannons I can afford.

 

Taken from a tactica I wrote a few days ago.

[Aidoneus]

Not a bad summary of the units. I will say that if you're leaving a Strike Squad at mid-range to lend fire support, Psybolts are an absolute must-have. Bumping 16 Storm Bolter shots up from S4 to S5 adds a huge amount of offensive power, for (relatively) little expense.

 

There are also a couple more decent Purifier builds you can go for.

 

10 Purifiers: 8 Halberds, 1 MC Thunder Hammer, 1 Warding Stave, Rhino = (331)

Fairly expensive build, but this will shred anything in assault. Honestly, if you need to save points, you could probably do without the stave, as Cleansing Flame and Initiative 6 Halberds should mean you're not taking too many hits on your squad.

 

5 Purifiers: 2 Psycannons, 1 MC Thunder Hammer, Rhino = (190)

Nice and cheap (for GKs, that is) anti-tank squad.

[HERO]

Psybolts are great, I agree, but I find myself adding those after adding more mans.

[Dilgar]

8 GKSS with psybolts footslogging is still a viable option. Costs 180 points, not bad for having 16A S5 stormbolters shots :D .

[AoC]

Great example of subpar internal balance in the codex.

 

I would take psybolts on purifiers if i plan to use more than 7 (in case of 10 man squad it's must have imo).

 

You don't need that much purifiers.

 

About troops, take sc to make henchman scoring, and fill those slots witrh them. It's way cheaper and more efficient than taking terminators. I would personally never take SS, not worth it.

[hmk17]

Each squad has its place.

 

Purgation are great if you need the free templates or Gatling guns against hordes. Mostly though you will be wanting to take rifleman dreads or dreadknights in those HS slots.

[Sienna]

Well I can't seem to get a comment on my list in the list section. here is how I am running my Purifiers. With the crowe tax.

 

6 Purifiers, 2 Psy Cannons, 3 Halberds, 1 Daemon Hammer = 175

1 Razorback, Psy Bolt Ammo. = 50

 

for the most part the purifiers walk behind the razor for cover.

 

This combo has great anti horde, anti light armor and anti MC capabliities, it even has some semi decent anti av14 in the 2 psy cannons.

[Ozybonza]

People seem to forget that GKSS can deep strike, purifiers can't.

 

I know the in thing is to put every squad in a transport, but I played a game the other day with a 10 man GKSS squad deep striking (with servo-skull assistance) and they were great.

 

I ran:

1 x GM

1 x 10 man GKSS in Rhino

1 x 10 man GKSS deep striking

 

2 x 5 man purifiers with halberds and 1 x incinerator in Psycannon Razorbacks (although looking back, a single 10 man in Rhino with 4 x Psycannons may have been better).

 

I ran a bunch of other stuff too but it's irrelevant to this discussion.

 

Another thing is Grand Masters are pretty awesome all round units. Psychic communion, force weapon, 3++ in CC... all are great. I think in regards to this discussion we probably shouldn't count Grand Strategy as an advantage when comparing to crowe as we are assuming we will make the purifiers scoring with this ability.

 

Essentially, if you are planning on tooling up your squads to the max, purifiers are definitely a better option, but 10 x Purifiers in Rhino w/ 4 x Psycannons, Psybolts and 6 x Halberds costs 352 pts whereas 10 x GKSS w/ 2x Psycannons and Psybolts, deep striking, cost only 240. If using them in a mid field/shooty/objective grabbing role, GKSS are more points efficient. The purifiers are far more versitile, but if you end up staying 18 - 24 inches away for their shootiness, you have essentially paid 50% more points for almost nothing, not to mention swapping out the awesome GM for a super lame Crowe.

[mlund]

When it comes to Purifiers I think they have to either be at least Scoring Units or have an Assault Vehicle to hang with the basic Strike Squads in most cases. The core benefits from paying +4 points for Purifiers all revolve around being in Assault: +1 Attack, cheaper Nemesis Weapon upgrades, and the psychic power. Outside of that you have Fearless and the ability to purchase an extra heavy weapon for each 5 knights you own. You give up Warp Quake and the ability to Deep Strike. If you want to bring their Close Combat prowess into service reliably then you have to either make the enemy come to you (scoring objectives) or be able to effectively bring the fight to him (assault vehicles).

 

If you are looking at which squad to shove in a Land Raider or a Storm Raven the Purifiers are always a good decision. If you are looking at which squad to spam mid-range shots with and either put in a Rhino or drop directly onto objectives from Reserves then the Strike Squads are your best bet unless you are paying the Crowe Tax.

 

- Marty Lund

[Joasht]

The main problem with deep striking 10 guys is, well, deep striking 10 guys. Its very risky, all the more if its a mirror match which will happen and they use Warp Quake against you, as there will be many bandwagoners (I've had GK's since 3rd ed, don't look at me :D).

 

And I'm probably going to get a lot of flak for this, but seriously, Crowe isn't that bad. I'm not by any means saying he's GOOD, but he's not as epic terribad as I think many people think. A lot of people get discouraged by the whole "he's not an IC, his weapon isn't a force weapon, it doesn't ignore armor saves, the Grandmaster is 100x better and people charging him gain furious charge" issue, but if you think about it:

1) He's not very expensive. And if you look at him, he basically, sort of, has 1 less wound than a Grandmaster at 25 points less, but with the same armor save and a 4+ invul instead of a 3+ in melee if your GM kept the sword. Makes him softer if you don't use the defensive stance, but Crowe is cheaper after all. I'd say his number of attacks usually is sort-of on-par with the GM; against masses you have Cleansing Flame and his AoE attack, which could get you 2-3 attacks at least if placed well so he gets more attacks than the GM then, and if he gets stuck in combat with a single model, despite his (possibly) lower attack count, he can one-shot the target if Crowe dies even if its an Eternal Warrior, against whom Force Weapons don't help insta-gib.

 

2) He is a level 1 psyker, and not an independent character. This means that:

a) You are probably not going to cast Hammerhand that often as your only psychic power. This in effect kind of means he "always wounds on a 4+, and ignores armor saves", which given that MEQs are all T4 anyway, means that he, kind of, has a power weapon due to his special rending rule. Granted its not always a power weapon against T3 targets, but the trade-off is you get to wound pretty much anything on a 4+.

 

b ) Not being an independent character, he is one extra source of Cleansing Flames since, well, he can't join a squad anyway. If you get him into a combat with a squad of Purifiers, thats two Cleansing Flames before the fight even starts, AND his special attacks. This also kind of mitigates-ish his issue against T3 targets; yes, if he rolls a 3 he doesnt ignore armor saves on those T3 targets, but seriously T3 targets very often they don't have great armor to begin with either, and things like hordes of Tyranids will take decent casualties from even Crowe himself.

 

3) Grand Strategy is utterly awesome, and Crowe doesn't have it. He does, however, make Purifiers Troops. While Grand Strategy is more flexible, it is also not entirely impossible for it to only occur for one squad, whereas taking Purifiers as troops means that your troop slots will be filled with a truly solid, focused unit type. I've never been a fan of jack-of-all-trades units (in this case, the GKSS) because they are simply not killy enough in their desperate attempt to cover all grounds. Its the same reason I'm not a big fan of Tacticals. At 1A each and with a fairly low chance at getting off the charge, the GKSS simply lacks the punch that the Purifiers have. And seriously, super cheap halberds. I6 force weapons are terrifying to face, and whether or not you charge or get charged, with at least 2A base, thats a ton of super-high I attacks coming your way.

Disclaimer: My DIY chapter has always followed the Blood Angels codex, and I do sometimes take Tacticals simply for the heavy weapon. And yes, I'm aware that Assault Squads aren't very killy or assaulty, but they cost marginally less than a GKSS, and are far more mobile. Plus with the SHP and superior mobility, I'm usually looking to pull off FC anyway and they do have FNP against mundane attacks.

 

The main issue with Crowe is delivering him. You could just keep running him every turn and he should make it up there by mid-game, which isn't a bad thing. And if your opponent charges him? Sure, go right ahead. Crowe's "AOE attacks" generally strike first, so that mitigates the +1I the opponent will get, so the only main benefit the opponent will get is that +1S, and the +1A as usual.

 

Just my $0.02

EDIT: formatting issues.

[Ozybonza]

I suppose you could use crowe to tie up a super assaulty unit with his 2++/shield blades thing.

[DevianID]

GKSS are, IMHO the best place to use psybolt stormbolters. You dont really want them too close to most CC units, but their psycannons want to be within 24. As a troop, with a rhino and combat squads you can cover some ground. Also, with the charge and hammerhand, they do perform very well when cost is kept down. You can also deepstrike them if the setup is that bad.

 

Purfiers get more heavy weapons and more CC attacks, with discounted weapons. Fearless and more cc powers too. Thus, only them being elites holds them back. While Crowe fixes this, the Crowe tax negates their cost advantage over regular GK. For 150, you can get coteaz and 4 small cheap troops. Coteaz has good bonuses beyond getting you awesome troops, while Crowe only makes purfiers troops.

 

Like another poster said, if you were going to take termies as troops (still a great option) then you have purifier elites to put points into. With Mordrak + Libby combo mentioned elsewhere, mordrak cant buff his ghosts so might as well make Purifiers scoring if its an objective mission, meaning you can take some cheap SS troops to fill requirements.

[RedemptionNL]

Interceptor Squads are also very good candidates for psybolt stormbolters. They have a 36" threat range, which can be increased to 54" once per game, as you can still fire after shunting. With S5 and their mobility they also make them a threat to rear and side armours of lighter vehicles.

[Gentlemanloser]

I would also agree that Interceptors are the best place for Psybolt Ammo, with Strikes best kept in a Rhino firing 2 Psycannons out of the top hatch.

[DevianID]

I admit I did forget about the shunt to the rear...

 

Still, since you need 10 strikes for a pair of psycannons, I think purifiers in a rhino are the way to go for double psycannon out the top hatch.