Why no Shields?

[thade]

It does make sense; their strongest saves are in CC...where Daemons want to get to. Better to have superior fire power to hit them on their way in then have ranged defenses that won't often come up against Daemons.

 

It also makes sense because we want GK to be solid...not broken. <3

[Oiad]

The reason most Grey Knights don't use stormshields is due to the Tech Priests of Mars deeming the stormbolter be mounted on the left wrist. Ergo if they held a stormshield, they would have no weapon with which to shoot the daemon that had a 2++ versus their Nemesis Force Weapon. Therefore they deemed it better to maintain a ranged weapon presence on the battlefield instead.

 

The concept of swapping the stormbolter to the dominant hand would involve altering the blessed schematics of the Tactical Dreadnought Armor, which is unthinkable. That and it would be a little more weight awkward. Draigo is obviously just a freak of nature, but we're used to that ;)

 

Honestly... I suspect it's mostly a balance issue. Our terminators are more of a cross between standard Astartes brand and Assault Astartes brand, and perform all around well. Stormshields is more of a pure assault role, and our Codex by design doesn't have pure anything roles, that's part of it's strength.

Bingo. That's the only real reason. I'm doubtful that the fluff is the reason behind their exclusion but opponents would cry if all GKs could all take NFW+SB+SS. The lack of of this option is also meant to highlight the duality of the Grey Knight's ability to be both better in assault and shooting than the average marine at all times. Take away their bolters and you have another assault specialist SM army. GW don't look like they want that as they have two SM chapters with codices that focus on assault already.

 

Draigo being the exception is indeed a freak of nature too. The fact that he carries a Stormshield appears uncomfortably inconsistent when lined up against the rules of the codex. As such, his rules feel like they've been quickly cobbled together to make him seem great. Mind you, many of the GK characters in this book seem sketchy in both concept and rules.

[breng77]

Draigo being the exception is indeed a freak of nature too. The fact that he carries a Stormshield appears uncomfortably inconsistent when lined up against the rules of the codex. As such, his rules feel like they've been quickly cobbled together to make him seem great. Mind you, many of the GK characters in this book seem sketchy in both concept and rules.

 

I agree with this, I am not really a fan of most of the SCs, though Draigo is one of the best.

 

Draigo = Decent, but terribly expensive for what he does, paladins as troops are over rated IMO, as they are so expensive you rarely take a lot of them.

 

Crowe = if he did not make purifiers troops you would never see him he is terrible (I played against him and my GKGM took him to school)

 

Mordrak= Not bad, ghost knights are pretty decent (though I wish you could get ranged weapons for them), first turn DS is good.

 

BC stern= bad, would never run him nor have I seen him run.

 

Cotaez= Best SC, he is cheap for what he gets, you get seize the initiative stuff from him, and get henchmen as troops

 

Valeria (Sp?)= bad

 

Throne dude(blanking on his name) = pretty bad, being able to shoot your own guys in CC is fun and all, but not worth his points.

[nurglez]

Draigo and paladins are awesome. Played 20 games with them and won 16 heh. They are all ready pretty powerful with wound allocation shenanigans, 2 wounds and high ws, not to mention 4 psycannon's in a 10 man squad. If these guys could get shields my friends would start crying...

[breng77]

The problem with them is the price, 4 psycannons is great but if you keep them in one squad that is one target dead, but against MSU there are still a lot of targets out there.

[nurglez]

Well I haven't played proper decent tourny lists or the like, but I do like my small elite armies and paladin's fit the bill, and others seem to be having good experiences with them too.

 

back on topic, If you could get a squad of paladins equipped like draigo, it would be sick, just sick. All singing all dancing, awesomesauce and broken to hell :D

[Oiad]

Indeed, as an expensive elite choice it would have been great if Paladins came with an option/ability that increased their defence ever so slightly. Instead they get stuck with the mehtastic Holocaust power. :P

[nurglez]

But they don't need the defence, not really. Thanks to cover, 4+ save, with shrouding, 3+ cover save, go to ground if desperate for a 2+ cover save, few template weapons that have low ap, and with draigo tagging along a large paladin squad, the first instant death or low ap shot can go on him, and my 10 man paladin squad has only 2 models that are armed exactly the same way, all for 15 points more then 10 pallies with 4 psycannons.

 

in combat they are weaker, but only slightly and vs squads that ignore their save, and then they have the lovely wound allocation shenanigans to fall back on.

[BrotherWasted]

Seriously now, people. Would you REALLY want to be facing a LRR that just spewed out 5 two-wound WS5 Terminators with 3++ and Strength 10 Force Weapons?

 

I didn't think so.

[Ragnar_Blackmane]

I believe it has something to do with the NF-staff being in the codex.

My bet is it's either

1. Ward included both staffs and shields first and later thought that no one would play the new cool item he just placed into his codex (just like the Ultrasmurf Tyra-Hunters collided with Sternguard) if the SS was present (3++ all time and 5-15 pts > 2++ in CC only for a horrendous amount of points). And BTW he wanted to make Draigo more unique.

2.Ward planned to replace shields with staffs since the beginning (and BTW he wanted to make Draigo more unique).

[Oiad]

Seriously now, people. Would you REALLY want to be facing a LRR that just spewed out 5 two-wound WS5 Terminators with 3++ and Strength 10 Force Weapons?

 

I didn't think so.

Meh, it's hard to be serious about some harmless wish-listing. Besides they still share the same high-strength weaknesses and the additional costs would make them even easier to bog-down. :D

[Gentlemanloser]

Seriously now, people. Would you REALLY want to be facing a LRR that just spewed out 5 two-wound WS5 Terminators with 3++ and Strength 10 Force Weapons?

 

I didn't think so.

 

That cost 80+ points each and could be IDed by S8+ weapons?

 

Sure! :rolleyes:

 

That's upwards of 650 for 5 minis and a vehicle. Melta the LR, out maneuver the walking Termies, while IDing them.

 

Not scary in the slightest. <_<

[Elric the Silvercoat]

Ok well we almost all see it as if Grey Knights can have Storm Shields they would be broke and to fix if they did have Storm Shields would be to greatly limit it and it wouldn't be fluffy and wouldn't compare with other Space Marine Codexes. I think we have it then.

[BrotherWasted]

Seriously now, people. Would you REALLY want to be facing a LRR that just spewed out 5 two-wound WS5 Terminators with 3++ and Strength 10 Force Weapons?

 

I didn't think so.

 

That cost 80+ points each and could be IDed by S8+ weapons?

 

Sure! :D

 

That's upwards of 650 for 5 minis and a vehicle. Melta the LR, out maneuver the walking Termies, while IDing them.

 

Not scary in the slightest. ;)

 

IDing me with what? I have Storm Shields and most armies can't muster enough ID shots in a turn to actually wipe me out, taking into account terrain, cover and range.

 

Cool vacuum, bro.

[Gentlemanloser]

6 Dreads with 2 Twin Linked Psybolt Autocannons. :D

 

Ignores your SS, no FnP form the overpriced Apothecary and for every 1 you roll to save you lose a full pally.

 

If that's not good enough then any amount of S8+ NFW in CC (Less if Rad Grenades are in play), Doomfists, Warp Rift, Vortex of Doom, Zone of Banishment. And I'm sure there's much more.

 

I really am not worried about being able to ID stuff. Especially super expensive 2W Termies.

[BrotherWasted]

I love how you quote a Grey Knights Codex to beat a Grey Knights deathstar.

 

I can build a list to take down that kind of list, just as you can tailor a list to beat 5 super pallies in a raider.

 

S8 Autocannons don't ignore Storm Shields...that's the whole point of having an Invunlerable save.

[Inquisitor Fox]

I think he means that I can shoot an autocannon at a termie with and without a stormshield, and the stormshield makes no difference. It's essentially heavy weapon spam, or the bucket-o-dice approach. It "nullifies" your stormshield by making it do nothing. As opposed to plasma or melta where your stormshield has a point.

[BrotherWasted]

Yeah, I realised the folly of my statement not soon after.

 

Either way, those six Rifleman? That's 990pts purely dedicated to Autocannon delivery, since you've bought three Venerables. Spending 990pts (+ the little extra to get that Inquisitor and Henchmen +melta guns) to take down my 650pts or so just doesn't really seem beneficial to you. In a 2000pt list, you've already spent half your army, while I've still got more than two thirds of my points left. You'll have a lot of Autocannons, I will have a much larger number of other shots availalble to me; and probably more Psycannons/Hammers too.

 

I love theoryhammer.

[Gentlemanloser]

Well, exagerated on purpose. I doubt I'll ever use Zone of Banishment! (And why wouldn't I be talking about GKs? I'm sure Deldar could deal with 80 point 2W Termies, but I really don't know their Dex well enough!)

 

Still with 3 Psyflemen Dread, that pump out 12 Shots, they land 10.67 hits. Cause 8.89 wounds and ID 1.48 Pallies per turn (lets call that 1 and a half. B))

 

So all 5 dead in 4 rounds, for equivalent points.

 

Not too scary really. :P

 

Plus we have a wealth of ways of reaching either S8 or S6 (with Rads) in CC to ID pallies in CC.

 

Now, if Pallies could have got SS for only a small point increase, say 5, maybe 10 points. Then they would be a jaw dropping good unit. But having them cost around 80 points a pop would make them quite balanced.

 

The same equivalent cost of 2 TH/SS termies, the same wounds/durability as 2, but half the damage output.

 

Balanced. :D

 

Edit: Those 6 Dread would put out 22.33 hits, 18.6 wounds, and ID 3.01 Pallies a turn. 2 turns and they're dead, and the Dreads are then able to go ravage whatever's left. ;)

[breng77]

Actually Paladins with storm shields would have better durability than TH/SS termies due to Halberds, being able to strike before your opponent to kill them before they hit you.

 

Also those examples of dreads shooting them assume 1.) that they are out of their land raider. 2.) they are not in CC 3.) The dreads are not themselves getting killed. (and really if you are running Paladins aren't they priority #1.

[Gentlemanloser]

The example was them having S10 Force Weapons, which would necessitate NDH over Halbelds. And that only helps in CC, and only helps if you're not facing other GKs with Halberd or other high I foes.

 

On to the rest!

 

1) Of course. If you haven't melta'd the single LR. Then you'll have to wait to shoot them after they've killed the unit they assaulted out of it. Or we move on to number 2.

 

2) If in CC, then GKs have even *more* options to inflict ID nastyness on them. GKs are currently the premier Multi-Wound killing army in CC. It's worse for Pallies in CC then footslogging.

 

3) Well, there's still the rest of both armies...

 

I was just trying to point out that even with SS, if Pallies are at least twice the cost of single wound SS termies, they aren't really that scary. I'd probably want to face them over double the amount of normal SS termies due to having to face half the attacks.

 

Force Weapons! Ho! :P

[Cmdr Shepard]

hence why Draigo does not come with a force sword

But Draigo's sword is indeed a MC Force weapon with daemonbane rule.

 

I believe the absence of storm shields from GK armoury is for "balance reasons" only. It appears very illogical since GK have the best equipment in the Imperium and beyond but it's the price for "gaming balance".

[breng77]

But Draigo's sword is indeed a MC Force weapon with daemonbane rule.

 

yeah but not the +1 to his invul save.

 

2) If in CC, then GKs have even *more* options to inflict ID nastyness on them. GKs are currently the premier Multi-Wound killing army in CC. It's worse for Pallies in CC then footslogging.

 

Yes against other GKs that is true, but it is that way already for Paladins. At the moment the only reason I see running paladins is for the extra Psycannons.

[nurglez]

As far as I'm aware. Draigo's sword doesn't have daemonbane, though I may be mistaken. Pallies are kick ass. Especially a whole force of them. And probably the cheapest army to collect (apart from having to order more psycannon's).

 

I've decided to use my Draigo wing less often vs my friends because its just no challenge to win, and no fun for either of us.

[Gentlemanloser]

Yes against other GKs that is true, but it is that way already for Paladins. At the moment the only reason I see running paladins is for the extra Psycannons.

 

Well with SS they'd get a 3++ save in CC over thier 5++. So it's a lot better for them to be in CC with SS.

 

And you'll not hear me argue agianst taking Pallies over Termies. ;) I think I've been quite vocal aobut that enough recently! ;)