Grey Knights - Not The Best Starter Army

[Joasht]

I was reminded to watch the Beasts of War videos also by this thread, and starting from the very beginning, I realized that they are touting Grey Knights as the "best starter army" out there.

 

Now, don't get me wrong. I love the BoW guys as their videos are informative and entertaining, but I don't always agree with what they are saying and this is one of those times where I think I should just chip in, perhaps, to stop newbies from swarming this forum thinking this is an "easy mode I win" army because they are not. It is also to the benefit of the newbies to know this, so they don't go blow thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours only to realize that the GK's aren't their cup of tea.

 

Yes, I do agree that if you look at it from the perspective of "less models to buy" and "easy to paint" then sure, they aren't too bad, but from a playing perspective its a very different thing.

 

Why do I say they aren't the best starters?

1) They Really Aren't A "Close Combat Army"

For reasons I cannot understand, they have been touted as a specialist close combat army that would murder anything they lay their fingers on, and the trick is only to get them into close combat. And, apparently, they cannot play the shooting game.

 

Seriously? Jeez. Your basic Grey Knights fight a little better than your average Space Marine by sheer virtue of their Force Weapons, which may or may not activate, with the potential of Hammerhand, which may or may not activate (I'll talk more about psychic powers in a while). You *pay* for those weapons, and while they seem cheap for what they do, you are forced to take them and because everyone has them, you do not have "ablative wound" Grey Knights. When they die prior to striking in close combat, you lose most of those points for nothing, because a Force Weapon isn't doing anything if it isn't hitting you.

 

Your "Elite" choices, the Purifiers, Paladins and Terminators, have only two attacks each when not charging. Not even three, just two. Yes, Purifiers have Cleansing Flame, which works once in a while and may kill something, but it is not substitute for one extra attack. So what you end up with is what I call a low "attack saturation" - basically, model-for-model, point-for-point, you don't have very many melee attacks. They also die like Space Marines (I'll talk a little more about that later) and there are a number of good assault units out there that would kill you. Sure you may kill quite a number of them as well, but remember that your Elite choices are generally very expensive.

 

The most close-combat-orientated unit in the book IMO are the Death Cult Assassins, which I have mentioned several times on the forums. These Genestealler-wannabe's are the real deal - high WS, good S, and a ton of power weapon attacks for less points than your cheapest Grey Knight. Problem? They aren't exceptionally fast, and they are really squishy. Slow squishy close combat units were not designed for new players.

 

Assuming you are actually playing a "Grey Knight" army (i.e. not a Henchmen spam), the Grey Knights were, are, and probably always will be a mid-field army. Most of their firepower is at that 24" band, and few are higher or lower than that. You basically play them like a pseudo-shooty army, assaulting or shooting/falling back as the situation requires. If you just rush them up and try to shove them down the throat of the enemy thinking they are invincible in close combat, there is a chance that against certain armies/players you will likely fail.

 

2) They Lack Movement Options

Before some people go all "But you have Deep Strike, transports, Storm Ravens and shunt teleportation!", hear me out. You pay points for those Force Weapons everyone *has* to take, and if they aren't delivered into close combat (e.g. you die before getting there) then it would all have gone to waste. In addition, the great number of TDA units and characters means that you are forced to take either a Land Raider or Storm Raven (very expensive), risk Deep Striking (Mystics/Teleport Homers are rarely found and Servo Skulls only reduce the danger, although admittedly by a decent amount), or just slowly footslog. Also, unlike other Space Marine armies, you lack things like cheaper Jump Packs, bikes/cavalry (lol Space Wolves), Land Speeders and Drop Pods.

 

If you play a Rhino, then all armies are just as fast as that, so you aren't any faster. And your Terminators aren't going anywhere.

If you play a Razorback, you would use them for a single turn of movement before you disembark to shoot. And your Terminators aren't going anywhere.

If you play a Land Raider/Storm Raven you run the risk of shrinking your already-very-small army even further.

If you play Teleporter units (Interceptors/Dreadknight) then you pay a lot for them, further worsening your "attack saturation". Now, I love Interceptors because I can see a powerful application for them, but you have to keep in mind an Interceptor is no better at fighting than a GKSS, which is a full six points less per model, and I already do not rate the GKSS's very highly for combat capability.

If you Deep Strike, it is a risk unless you somehow work Teleport Homers and Mystics into your list. Servo Skulls are great, but aren't an absolute safety net. And even with all that, they may fail to show up when you need them, or arrive too early.

If you footslog....well it could work I guess, but it is very slow, which is in itself a big problem.

 

 

3) They Are (very expensive) Space Marines

Everyone who has ever played 40k either owns, or has played a billion times against, a Space Marine army. Every army will inevitably take enough guns and/or melee specialists to make sure Space Marines die. Now, this is a universal problem for all Space Marines, but for the GKs even more so because your cheapest GK costs 25% more than a regular Space Marine, and it just goes up from there.

 

Small elite armies are *not easy* to play. There is little margin for error because every loss *will* hurt you, and even your cheapest sacrificial unit is a noticeable percentage of your army list.

 

4) Grey Knights Are Not (necessarily) Overpowered

While I am certain many are trying to "break" the codex (and may succeed eventually), there is no clear-cut "I win" button. Nothing is really "exceptionally cheap" as even the GKSS, despite only paying a small sum over a normal Marine for all that kit, can only effectively apply that kit in certain ways. Some, including myself, have mentioned that the biggest possible cheese to come out of the codex may actually come from the non-Grey Knight side of the codex, which means two things:

 

a) The main attractive part of the Grey Knights, aka the Grey Knights themselves, would probably have a significantly smaller role to play in these lists.

:) Henchmen models are either expensive old metal models, or would require extensive modelling, neither of which are easy for a person who is new to gaming. Not to mention you can't just spray them silver and call it a day.

 

This also means that one of the stronger "plus points" for the GK's being a good beginner army (cheap to collect, easy to paint) would be nullified if the player decides to go down the Inquisition route.

 

5) Bling

Grey Knights have a lot of "bling" - toys that may or may not work, either because they are situational or very costly. It is difficult for even some experienced players to tell apart the "toys" and the "actual good stuff", let alone leaving newer players to make that decision. Sure, they could just follow wholesale what is preached on the internet, but then they don't really learn anything. Many good gamers actually go against the grain (so to speak), having their own unique playstyles, lists and preferences that go against the common consensus - things you cannot develop from just following what others say as gospel truth.

 

One more thing I'd like to mention about "bling" are the Psychic Powers. They sound great and they are great when they work, but they don't actually always work. Often I've seen people take into consideration Hammerhand into their reasoning why GKs are so far superior, how Force Weapons seem to always be "on" (without the Banner), how GK vehicles are "immune to shaken and stunned since they can easily remove it". Fact is:

a) Psychic Tests can fail, especially if your Justicar dies and you are stuck at Ld 8.

:P Perils of the Warp have a 1/18 chance of happening.

c) Most people play psychic defenses. I never play a Space Marine army in 5th without a Librarian of sorts, and you have to realize that things like Psychic Hoods, Shadow in the Warp etc make your Psychic tests very prone to failure.

 

6) Complex Army Construction

All the factors mentioned above make building a good GK army fairly difficult, and often times, means you will have to give up certain things to be effective.

 

Now, I am not saying that GKs are a bad starter army - they are decent and certainly a lot better than say, Dark Eldar. But IMHO, they may actually be one of the harder Space Marine armies to play because of these numerous factors.

 

Thoughts? Thanks!

[HERO]

Definitely not the best intro MEQ.

[DarKHaZZ13]

I ahve to agree with you mate.

GK's in this version suyffer the same ways they always have;

They are expensive, They don't specialise at anything, They are mid range/counter attack at best, They are few in number and so on.

Granted this dex is far more flexible, and has better options - but you'll get thrashed by an army that specialises in something;

 

A good CC army with lots of attacks will wear them down

A good SHooty army with lots of shots will wear them down.

Anything With a decent number of high toughness models will soak up most of the things thrown at them

Anything with a good few tnaks/vehicles will soak up most things thrown at them

 

Needless to say, this dex is far better, and the GK list, even a pure list, is a lot mor eplayable

But it is never going to be an 'easy win'

[ChaosPhoenix]

Yeah. I agree with you. Thats why I started my thread http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...howtopic=226745 . While I really like BoW, the Grey Knight week gives a really wrong impression of the army. I still think, we need to play them water-style (haha some of you might remember), adapting, flexible. This is nothing too simple.

[HERO]

Yeah. I agree with you. Thats why I started my thread http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...howtopic=226745 . While I really like BoW, the Grey Knight week gives a really wrong impression of the army. I still think, we need to play them water-style (haha some of you might remember), adapting, flexible. This is nothing too simple.

 

BoW is inconsistent at times. Some times they get their rules wrong, get overly excited about nothing and encourage the wrong things.

 

Overall, they're a bunch of happy chaps that post videoes and get really excited. It's good for the most part because it promotes the army, but don't take what they say seriously.

[ChaosPhoenix]

BoW is inconsistent at times. Some times they get their rules wrong, get overly excited about nothing and encourage the wrong things.

 

Overall, they're a bunch of happy chaps that post videoes and get really excited. It's good for the most part because it promotes the army, but don't take what they say seriously.

 

Yeah but this time they've got a lot wrong. Scouting doesn't give a flank move, warding staves stop the modell from attacking, psilencers wound everything on 4+, grey knights can't do ranged combat, grey knights can only survive in assault, they forget the sword gives +1 invul, they don't know about psiammo, psiflame ammo and fortitude on vehicles, hammerhand + hammer = Str 9.

 

I could do this all day. Sorry, if I'm ranting. I really like BoW ussually, but this is real bad. I mean, we get the videos for free, which is great, but the videos are more misinformation than anything. There are people who trust them and make their buying decisions at least partly based on those videos. I'll calm down now B), I sound like a disappointed fanboy.

[501st]

I Agree, im a veteran player of 15 years under the eagle. my knights are hard to use, i've played 3 games with them so far and quite fittingly for an army based on faith you got to have faith in the dice gods cos if they turn on you for even a single turn you've lost half your army simply cos you've got hardly any men to loose

[iamnothere]

Agree whole heartedly.

 

GKs have never been a point and click army - for that go Wolves. GK have always needed finesse to play well and I'm glad for it. It's why I and many others play them.

 

A starter army? No

A good way to start fun 40k? Yes

[number6]

By and large, Joasht, I agree with your analysis. (Very well-written, I hasten to add. :P )

 

But I also want to add: we've only had the codex for less than a week. It's going to take some time -- and experience -- to get the most out of it.

 

The army is exactly what it says on the tin: an elite army. In capable hands, that elite status will result in surprising tabletop power. But in inexperienced hands, it will be swept quickly and easily.

 

This is not new to the army. :) The old DH was like that ever since its inception.

 

So don't worry too much about what anybody says about how easy it is or how AWESOME the army is in assault. We are the B&C, and we know better. :) We'll spread the word and quality advice pleasantly and patiently. It's why we're the best place for this. :D Let's keep it that way.

[KnowThyEnemy]

a) Psychic Tests can fail, especially if your Justicar dies and you are stuck at Ld 8.

Perils of the Warp have a 1/6 chance of happening. Your men dying from their own powers is a very real thing.

 

disagree. perils is on snake eyes or box cars isn't it? thats hardly 1 out of 6. its more accurately 9.5% (or 2/21 if you like fractions). everything besides that is a valid point. def not a newbie army (at least not in the competative sense)

[Olgerth Istaarn]

Not to mention the prohibitive starting costs.

 

I would NOT start a GK army without having at least a couple lists built. Daunting if one has never played before, or has limited exposure to 40K.

 

Nothing feels worse than dumping a bunch of scratch on the unit that becomes a shelf-warmer after the first fight.

[RedemptionNL]

a) Psychic Tests can fail, especially if your Justicar dies and you are stuck at Ld 8.

Perils of the Warp have a 1/6 chance of happening. Your men dying from their own powers is a very real thing.

 

disagree. perils is on snake eyes or box cars isn't it? thats hardly 1 out of 6. its more accurately 9.5% (or 2/21 if you like fractions). everything besides that is a valid point. def not a newbie army (at least not in the competative sense)

 

Actually, two dice are 6 times 6 = 36 different possibilities. Out of those 36, only 2 give Perils of the Warp (double 1 or double 6), so 2/36 or 1/18 or ~5.56%.

[Ashe Darke]

One more thing I'd like to mention about "bling" are the Psychic Powers. They sound great and they are great when they work, but they don't actually always work. Often I've seen people take into consideration Hammerhand into their reasoning why GKs are so far superior, how Force Weapons seem to always be "on" (without the Banner), how GK vehicles are "immune to shaken and stunned since they can easily remove it". Fact is:

a] Psychic Tests can fail, especially if your Justicar dies and you are stuck at Ld 8.

b] Perils of the Warp have a 1/6 chance of happening. Your men dying from their own powers is a very real thing.

c] Most people play psychic defenses. I never play a Space Marine army in 5th without a Librarian of sorts, and you have to realize that things like Psychic Hoods, Shadow in the Warp etc make your Psychic tests very prone to failure.

Don't you mean 1/18 for perils? Double 1, double 6 out of 36 possible results.

 

But yeah you're right, it's by no means a guarantee. I perils'd 5 times in a game on Saturday, two out of three Justicars on turn 1!

 

According to my calculations (which may be wrong, I don't think they are though) it's actually more beneficial to have a Psychic Hood rather than whatever the SWs have. Against LD9 the Hood has a 58.3% chance of stopping them and 72.2% against LD8 which ain't bad.

 

So far I have learned that powers are not to be banked on.

[Sothas]

I have a few points to make here.

 

1. I agree that GK are far better in CC than they are at ranged, however they still have strong firepower.

 

2. Vs horde I think they'll do better than most people think. I crunched the numbers thanks to a wonderful ap on my droid and purifiers with 4 incinerators, 6 falchions, and psibolt ammo, (assuming cleansing flame works) can 1 shot an ork mob if they assault them. This squad can also 1 shot a normal MEQ squad (assuming hammerhand works).

 

3. I play a lot of Eldar and I have frequently not taken runes on my farseer so I can put those pints somewhere else. So I have a TON of experience with powers and I can honestly say they almost always work. I have never failed a test with runes, and only rarely failed without. Yes that's Ld 10, but die chances say you most frequently roll a 7, which will succeed even without a justicar. While the dice gods can hate you for a game, it is safe to assuming your hammerhand will work.

 

4. Scoring paladins with grandmaster and FNP and NF swords, yes please. Try killing this, i dare you. Yeah it's a ton of points, but if you take enough paladins, say 3-4 or so, I would be willing to bet that at least one of them lives til the end of game ensuring at least a contested point. I play with oblits frequently, and under the new dex (which i hate with all my heart and soul), I've only ever lost one. Couple that with FNP and it kinda makes me cry tears of joy inside.

 

5. My deldar playing friend is pissed about halberds. Nuff said.

 

hammerhand + hammer = Str 9.

 

Incorrect. Hammerhand entry reads as follows, "Note that this Strength bonus is applied before any other modifiers, such as for Nemesis Daemon hammers and so forth." This makes the GK Strength 5 before applying hammer bonus = Str 10.

 

My personal plan is to blanket the table with servo skulls, enough that when they are taken out (6-9 depending on army size), I still have enough.

 

In conclusion, starter army? For sure not. Viable vs everything, I'd say so, if done right. I personally think their biggest issue is anti-tank, even with henchmen. IMO this is one of the top MEQ dexes to date.

[ChaosPhoenix]

...

 

hammerhand + hammer = Str 9.

 

Incorrect. Hammerhand entry reads as follows, "Note that this Strength bonus is applied before any other modifiers, such as for Nemesis Daemon hammers and so forth." This makes the GK Strength 5 before applying hammer bonus = Str 10.

 

You are right it's Str 10. However I was listing things BoW said and which were wrong :lol:.

[Ashe Darke]

4. Scoring paladins with grandmaster and FNP and NF swords, yes please. Try killing this, i dare you. Yeah it's a ton of points, but if you take enough paladins, say 3-4 or so, I would be willing to bet that at least one of them lives til the end of game ensuring at least a contested point. I play with oblits frequently, and under the new dex (which i hate with all my heart and soul), I've only ever lost one. Couple that with FNP and it kinda makes me cry tears of joy inside.

I watched a game earlier where Marbo appeared behind a unit of 3 Paladins (one had already died), one of which was an Apoth, a Librarian and Crowe standing behind them. He chucked his demo charge and killed them all. That was about 630pts of the guys list dead in one go. It was hilarious. It's too easy to drop a pie plate on these guys and see most of them die.

 

hammerhand + hammer = Str 9.

 

Incorrect. Hammerhand entry reads as follows, "Note that this Strength bonus is applied before any other modifiers, such as for Nemesis Daemon hammers and so forth." This makes the GK Strength 5 before applying hammer bonus = Str 10.

They were going on about how the guys on the site are sometimes wrong, that was one such example.

[Sothas]

You are right it's Str 10. However I was listing things BoW said and which were wrong :).

 

oh well then... oops :lol:

[Sothas]

I watched a game earlier where Marbo appeared behind a unit of 3 Paladins (one had already died), one of which was an Apoth, a Librarian and Crowe. He chucked his demo charge and killed them all. That was about 630pts of the guys list dead in one go. It was hilarious. It's too easy to drop a pie plate on these guys and see most of them die.

 

HAHA. Gotta love marbo. Demo charge vs termies = win almost every time. I see it frequently. Not saying it can't happen, but in these cases cover = awesome, then run in at the last moment to contest/take the objective (i do this all the time with rangers and guardians) for a win/tie if the objective isn't already in cover. Also with NF swords, which I personally will take on every termie armored dude, that makes this a ton harder. (again, dice gods can still favor your enemy).

[Ashe Darke]

To be honest the list the guy was using was ridiculous, too many spangly things. He was tabled by turn 2 and in our store Storm Ravens just won't work. I played him next and tabled him with my GK army. Definitely not for the inexperienced players, they get distracted by too many shiny things.

[Sothas]

Yeah, in my planned list my strike squads are only carrying one heavy weapon. I managed 47-56 (DK or not) models in a DSing army list of 1850 (commonly played here) and another ~10 in 2k (also common here). I see ~60 (they cried at my 120 CSM list) in most MEQ here so i figured that even without any vehicles, this is still failry decent list. I'm a pretty big fan of more feet, less treds even in my IW army so I'm pretty used to footslogging. I'm pretty excited to test it out this weekend.

 

Too many shinies usually ends with "Oh no my 500 point HQ died in one hit! :("

[number6]

Also with NF swords, which I personally will take on every termie armored dude, that makes this a ton harder. (again, dice gods can still favor your enemy).

That gives you a 4+ invul save, which every Marine player and their mother will tell you is no guarantee of safety in combat against power fists and thunder hammers.

 

And anyway, that's only in close combat. In the open, the sexiest Paladins around still only have a 5+ invul against shooting. Demolisher cannons, demo charges, plasma, meltas, and so and so forth -- you know the high strength/low AP weapons spammed in EVERY army EVER -- are plentiful and would just love to force Paladins to hide in cover while they shoot them up with armour and FNP-denying death.

 

Paladins are crap, sad to say. :(

[Sothas]

That gives you a 4+ invul save, which every Marine player and their mother will tell you is no guarantee of safety in combat against power fists and thunder hammers.

 

As an Eldar player I can say that a 4+ save is made frequently. Also, there is that thing that my gaming group likes to call "The Curse of the Power Armor," Also can be switch to "Termie armor" where D&D players will say "1's happen" This is to say, the better the save, the less likely you are to pass it (especially when Chaos is involved in the game).

 

And anyway, that's only in close combat. In the open, the sexiest Paladins around still only have a 5+ invul against shooting. Demolisher cannons, demo charges, plasma, meltas, and so and so forth -- you know the high strength/low AP weapons spammed in EVERY army EVER -- are plentiful and would just love to force Paladins to hide in cover while they shoot them up with armour and FNP-denying death.

 

Yeah, this is me being dumb and forgetting the in cc only thing.

 

Paladins are crap, sad to say. :(

 

Only because of my experience with oblits do I have to disagree. I'm thinking, however, that Paladins may end up drawing a ton more fire than oblits do, although this can also be used as an advantage. Paladins have more staying power, decent ranged, and more CC death than oblits and all for 20 points cheeper. (one more reason to hate my beloved ruinous power's current dex) And with the way my list is looking, i may split my paladins into two smaller squads instead of 1 not quite as small squad just to split the fire. I'll have to run games with them first to see.

[Joasht]

Thanks for the replies and sorry about the perils miscalculation, side effect of writing this at 3 am in the morning @_@

[KnowThyEnemy]

a) Psychic Tests can fail, especially if your Justicar dies and you are stuck at Ld 8.

Perils of the Warp have a 1/6 chance of happening. Your men dying from their own powers is a very real thing.

 

disagree. perils is on snake eyes or box cars isn't it? thats hardly 1 out of 6. its more accurately 9.5% (or 2/21 if you like fractions). everything besides that is a valid point. def not a newbie army (at least not in the competative sense)

 

Actually, two dice are 6 times 6 = 36 different possibilities. Out of those 36, only 2 give Perils of the Warp (double 1 or double 6), so 2/36 or 1/18 or ~5.56%.

 

actually when throwing 2 dice, there are 21 different combinations that the 2 dice can come up as. the 36 possibilities you mentioned above assumes a uniqueness to each dice, which is not correct. your not worried about the specific number on each dice, your worried about the combination between the two.for example, a 5 on dice 1 and a 6 on dice 2 is the same as a 6 on dice 1 and a 5 on dice 2. of those 21 combinations, 2 are what you are looking for (double 1's and double 6's). i.e. 2/21 or 9.5%. always trust the engineer :o see below:

 

11 12 13 14 15 16

21 22 23 24 25 26

31 32 33 34 35 36

41 42 43 44 45 46

51 52 53 54 55 56

61 62 63 64 65 66

 

now you remove the duplicates and you get:

 

11 12 13 14 15 16

22 23 24 25 26

33 34 35 36

44 45 46

55 56

66

 

id write the equation but i believe this is a better visual

[Ashe Darke]

^ Very interesting.