Are Grey Knights Cheezy?

[breng77]

I think a more accurate paraphrase of Greatcrusades statement (and I could be wrong) is that in casual games, for many people the tought is.

 

1.) I don't want to spam/cheese out my list.

2.) I only want to play games in which I have a good chance of competing.

 

I don't think that there are many of us that really look to play games where we pack up our models, take them to the store, unpack them, spend time seting up a table, deploy our miniatures...then pick them all back up and put them away without doing anything.

 

Now this is more a reflection on hard core tourney style builds vs. casual builds, more than it is GKs vs. non-GKs.

 

That said I think part of the problem with GKs is that they deny much of what some opposing armies can do.

 

Say I play blood angels DOA, I pay a bunch of points for Feel No pain and Furious charge, then I run into halberds and lose much of the benefit of both.

 

Say I play orks and run into purifiers and get wiped out before I get to swing.

 

Say I run Plague marines, and run into a squad with Rad Grenades, and hammer hand, now I am getting wounded on 3s with no Feel no pain and no armor save.

 

Or my uber unit runs into a squad with Psykotroke grenades, a 2 is rolled, and I pick up my models after they get killed before I can swing.

 

It is not so much that his is totally overpowered, but in casual games things like this can be frustrating, as can Draigo Deathstars if people shoot their whole army into the unit and no models die. Most people don't like those kinds of casual games. Which I think causes people to think all GK armies must be like that and due to this they don't want to play against them.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

@ gc08

 

You are entitled to your opinions like everyone else but don't get your knickers all knotted if not everyone agrees with what you have to say. These kind of threads rarely if ever serve any useful purpose.

 

G

[Gornall]

One person refusing one game isnt a problem... It becomes a problem when that snowballs into a full blown boycot.

[greatcrusade08]

@ gc08

 

You are entitled to your opinions like everyone else but don't get your knickers all knotted if not everyone agrees with what you have to say. These kind of threads rarely if ever serve any useful purpose.

 

G

 

just to everyone knows.... i hate hypocrisy

my problem wasnt that you didnt agree with my opinion, its that you paraphrased it to make me sound like a sore loser, bad gamer and WAAC player.. instead of just disgareeing with me you launched a slanderous underhanded attack on me becuase my opinon didnt match yours..

 

so sir ive three words..

Pot

Kettle

Black

 

good day to you

[breng77]

If everyone is boycotting you may have a few issues.

 

1.) Your expectations from the game are vastly different from your playgroup. (i.e. you want tourney practice, they want narative or somethign along those lines.) In this case you may want to look for new people to play, or start bringing non-optimzed GK lists

 

2.) You don't make the games you win fun for your opponent. Not to say that you gloat, or rub in your dominance (this could be the case but honestly I have no idea), but getting tabled is really not all that much fun. In my last tourney game I was drubbing a Chaos SM player with my GK list, there was no chance that I would lose the game after about turn 1 or 2. So I played up other aspects of the game that would be more interesting for him(His one oblit dueling with one of my dreads, just shooting back and forth even though it was not the best plan for my dread, my opponent ended up killing the dread which was fun for him.) Gave him some small victories and epic battles. I ran my paladins and grandmaster into a squad of Bezerkers with Abbadon. My paladins killed all the bezerkers before they got to swing, but abbadon killed my GM (who I purposely put into base contact for an epic HQ on HQ showdown), then proceeded to kill the 5 other paladins in my squad after they only managed 2 wounds against him. Now this fight had no purpose and in a close game I would never have charged that unit (or at least I would have not put my GM on Abbadon). But it was something fun for my opponent, and gave him a moral victory.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

If players are boycotting you it prolly has more to do with other issues than just your army as an issue.

 

G

[Gornall]

If everyone is boycotting you may have a few issues.

 

1.) Your expectations from the game are vastly different from your playgroup. (i.e. you want tourney practice, they want narative or somethign along those lines.) In this case you may want to look for new people to play, or start bringing non-optimzed GK lists

 

2.) You don't make the games you win fun for your opponent. Not to say that you gloat, or rub in your dominance (this could be the case but honestly I have no idea), but getting tabled is really not all that much fun. In my last tourney game I was drubbing a Chaos SM player with my GK list, there was no chance that I would lose the game after about turn 1 or 2. So I played up other aspects of the game that would be more interesting for him(His one oblit dueling with one of my dreads, just shooting back and forth even though it was not the best plan for my dread, my opponent ended up killing the dread which was fun for him.) Gave him some small victories and epic battles. I ran my paladins and grandmaster into a squad of Bezerkers with Abbadon. My paladins killed all the bezerkers before they got to swing, but abbadon killed my GM (who I purposely put into base contact for an epic HQ on HQ showdown), then proceeded to kill the 5 other paladins in my squad after they only managed 2 wounds against him. Now this fight had no purpose and in a close game I would never have charged that unit (or at least I would have not put my GM on Abbadon). But it was something fun for my opponent, and gave him a moral victory.

 

I was speaking more from a hypothetical. This weekend was my first experience using GKs in tourney setting and before the tournament, the amount of ire thrown towards the GK codex was more than any I have seen... Counting Dual Lash, Nob Bikers, Leafblower, and Razorspam (SW and BA). I am just saying I am noticing a very distinct bad vibe about the codex....

 

Edit: Just before everyone starts to think I am a smelly/cheating/unlovable person who people avoid... That is not the case! I am saying I got a completely different reaction from people when I pull ed out my GKs than what I get when use my Marines (which are about twice as mean as my GK). Same person... Same playstyle... Different army = different result.

[Narse]

Hey,has any of you gone in to play people refuse to play you.Or say your army cheezy?

 

Grey Knights are cheezy.

 

Now, what someone else thinks is cheezy may differ greatly from what you think is cheezy...

 

To me this is the cheesiest army.... and it greatly differs from what most grey knights players think.

1850 points

60 Strike Grey Knights

3 Rifleman Dreads

2 Xenos Inquisitors with Psystroke Grenades

 

I think its cheezy for the following reasons:

1) Fluff wise 65 grey knights wouldn't show up a skirmish battle

2) 3 Rifleman Dreads at 1850 points is clearly pushing an exploitable unit

3) Xenos Inquisitors are clearly a means to an end in getting Pystroke Grenades into the list cheaply

4) Obviously this person believes strike squads are efficient/abusive, whether you agree or not taking 6 full squads of them is clearly trying to exploit an edge.

[thade]

Cheese is in the eye of the beholder. Cohesive forces that give most players trouble become popular; whether the community considers a force cheesy or not seems to be some function of the following:

• I routinely lose to players fielding that army/list.
  
• Others also routinely lose to players fielding that army/list.
  
• Every unit/element in the army/list shares remarkable synergy with each other unit in the army/list.
  
• The list in question is an all-comers list that I cannot take with any all-comers list I can come up with. Any list I can come up with to deal with it is not an all-comers list.
  

There are other attributes, sure, but these are the least subjective ones I could think of (note that they are all a bit subjective). The only one that is really valid is the first one: i.e. if you (like me) always lose to the IG Leaf Blower (or variants thereof) you might be especially put off from engaging players with such lists.

 

Really it's kind of like that annoying level in your favorite video game which becomes make-or-break time. You die and you die and you die and at times have to restart and replay the entire game. It's not uncommon for experiences like this to frustrate you and generate a vast amount of cursing. When you run up against this, do you scrap the game? Or do you endure and keep trying? You might learn a new trick or two about the level or even the game in general that will up your game and your chances of succeeding. You will definitely not learn anything new and not up your game if you stop playing the level altogether.

 

It's those levels that are the hardest that end up making you feel like a bad ass when you complete them; even more bad ass when you can later breeze through them in a way that would draw a crowd in an arcade. It might take a different set-up, deployment strategy, target priority, or what-have-you, but it's worth the struggle in the end.

 

I can't prove (one way or the other) that the GK dex (or any dex, for that matter) is in all ways superior to another codex. The sheer number of variables make this impossible. Any statement, one way or the other, is purely a gut-based hypothesis. You cannot know if it's better or worse, for sure. Draigo Wing is a very young list and it did quite well in recent tournaments as it was new and people really didn't know how to handle it. Equipped to deal with mech doesn't mean you can weather that storm of 2w terminators with that plug-and-play application.

 

Give it a year and I bet we'll see people learning better to deal with D.W. and sharing their knowledge in places like these. By that time we'll be decrying the new Necron/Chaos/Tau codex as broken, no?

[number6]

+1 to breng for his last post, and in particular:

It is not so much that his is totally overpowered, but in casual games things like this can be frustrating, as can Draigo Deathstars if people shoot their whole army into the unit and no models die. Most people don't like those kinds of casual games. Which I think causes people to think all GK armies must be like that and due to this they don't want to play against them.

 

I understand what gc08 is saying. (I think! ) And I agree, one should not dictate to any other player how to enjoy their hobby time. Do you bring your A-game to the table when teaching someone you'd like to join you in the hobby? No.

 

By the same token, if you're up against a player that either isn't interested or capable of fielding an army to fairly compete against your "competitive" army (perhaps because the player simply hasn't had the time and/or funds to kit it out appropriately), then I think it behooves you to dial things back a notch so the game is more reasonably contested affair.

 

This is just being a gentlemanly sportsman. ;) I would hope this kind of consideration is the norm, not the exception.

 

I think I didn't focus my last post well enough to get my point across properly. What I am unhappy with is the suggestion that people would refuse to play against ANY GK army because of unreasonable bias against it. THIS attitude would bother me extremely because it demonstrates an unwillingness to learn. Look, if you're happy doing what you're doing and have no interest whatsoever in expanding your experiences and learning new things, more power to you. But don't complain that you're not being coddled!

 

The game changes and evolves. Period. And thus it will always be. When you signed up to play 40K, you also signed up for the constant change. If you refuse to play GKs AT ALL, it is NOT because GKs are "overpowered", it is because you refuse to adapt and change with the game. It is incumbent upon YOU to learn new ways to apply your army, to improve your list-building skills, to diversify your tactical approach to the game.

 

As I stated above, I think it is incumbent upon GK players -- ANY players -- to right-size their army list to the opponent at hand so that everyone has a good time. But the other half of the gaming bargain is that we be allowed to play with the toys that GW has provided us. Banishing GK players from the game is wrong on more levels than I can count. The issue is not with the GKs; it is with YOU.

[thade]

Number6, you should guest lecture at large GW events. And they should pay you.

 

Also, someone mentioned asking Matt Ward his thoughts as he's signing autographs. I wonder how happy he'd be to answer a rules question in that venue?

[breng77]

I was speaking more from a hypothetical. This weekend was my first experience using GKs in tourney setting and before the tournament, the amount of ire thrown towards the GK codex was more than any I have seen... Counting Dual Lash, Nob Bikers, Leafblower, and Razorspam (SW and BA). I am just saying I am noticing a very distinct bad vibe about the codex....

 

Edit: Just before everyone starts to think I am a smelly/cheating/unlovable person who people avoid... That is not the case! I am saying I got a completely different reaction from people when I pull ed out my GKs than what I get when use my Marines (which are about twice as mean as my GK). Same person... Same playstyle... Different army = different result.

 

As I said I honestly have no idea, but those are reasons that everyone would refuse to play a person. As for the negative reaction to the dex, I think that it is three fold.

 

1.) It is "flavor of the month" and so people are seeing a lot of it.

 

2.) It is powerful

 

3.) It has a lot of rules that "break" the rules. As I stated before people don't really like it when their stuff does not function as expected. Fortitude is a huge example of this. I shoot your tank, I penetrate, then I roll a 1 or 2 and I cry because that result ammounts to next to nothing unless I am sporting psychic defense.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Making Awesomely Terrific Winning Amazing Rules Daily... Mat Ward.

 

;)

 

G ^_^

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

The best thing to do is play with fellow gamers that enjoy the same aspects of the game as you do. Some people find a hard fought battle the most fun while others might simply want to roll the dice and push their models around. It's all good really. ^_^

 

G ;)

[DIDM]

so you are saying when I get around to playing my first game ever, which will be as GK, I should just answer every question with another question and just keep repeating I'm new here?

 

 

^_^

 

 

I should purposely try and lose too, cause if a person wins their first game ever, and is using GK, then for sure the codex should just be burned

[boreas]

Man, I wish I could go back in time about 18 months ago and post this thread.

 

Phil

[brianjc]

Man, I wish I could go back in time about 18 months ago and post this thread.

 

Phil

 

Exactly. Nobody complained when the army sucked big time.

 

In the end people will call it cheesy, unfair, totally broken or whatever other thing they need to justify their lack of skill or competence. That is until the next codex comes out and then they'll complain about that.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Exactly. They are basically cry babies.

 

G

[DIDM]

Man, I wish I could go back in time about 18 months ago and post this thread.

 

Phil

 

Exactly. Nobody complained when the army sucked big time.

 

In the end people will call it cheesy, unfair, totally broken or whatever other thing they need to justify their lack of skill or competence. That is until the next codex comes out and then they'll complain about that.

 

 

I blame Al Gore and this silly internet he created

 

I mean did people complain this much before the internet and we just didn't know, because well, there was no easy way for one person to gain so much info? Or did the dawn of instant access to everything make us complain more? It may be a lot like the chicken and the egg.

[jerry]

Wait for it............................................NECRONS! :P

 

Then you'll hear a lot of little school girls,crying saying its not fair........I'm taking my dolly's and going home! :rolleyes:

[nurglez]

Calling people cry babies is a bit steep BO.

 

Grey knights, especially draigo wing, have certain advantages vs other armies. Is it fair? No, it isn't. Hell its not fair on me, I collected up this army to have fun, and I'm stomping my friends. I have actually cut down on playing a force I love, because its not a challenge to win, and the games aren't fun, and that's the main point. If I'm beating the snot out of my friend's army without trying, I feel guilty.

 

As mentioned above several times. The grey knight codex breaks rules. It breaks them left, right and centre. Remember the up roar when Lash did this? I like a challenge, I don't like a dirty look from my opponent when I put draigo and his friend's down on the table.

 

I love to play 40k, I love small elite forces, and I'm taking draigo and co to throne of skulls in a month (second event), and I hope to play against armies that either wipe me out or make me fight for a victory...

[BA.Rauk]

I'm personally in complete agreement with Breng77. It isn't the list or the army, it's how -you- play the game that will usually influence how much fun your opponent has in the case of a superior list vs a less so. People play me with whatever codex I choose to pull out, and might heckle me a little about my GK in good fun- but then they'll more then gladly jump in against my Purifier list with whatever list they have, why? Because I don't bring my A-game 100% to friendly games. I try to make those epic duels when I can on the tabletop, I make those narrative things that we can talk about and laugh at. So while at the same time, it might just be that you have to let your LGS know that when you aren't at a tourney it's all fun and friendly games. They sure the hell know when it's a Tourney, A-game is here and I'm aiming for the top table at each one.

[ChaosPhoenix]

I'm having the same problem, although everybody here knows, I'm not a Waac player. I think grey knights are a balanced army which can be cheesy, if you spam the right things (like space wolves, blood angels or guard.) which somehow makes them balanced with a least 3 armies.

 

The problem is the people are afraid of power weapons. They are going completely nuts about them. That's a meta game problem I think. Vanilla hammer termies will ruin a grey knights day. Melta marines get shot to pieces by us, but what about plasma guns? The problem is still that no one is used to grey knights and not thinking hard enough.

[thade]

I mean did people complain this much before the internet and we just didn't know, because well, there was no easy way for one person to gain so much info? Or did the dawn of instant access to everything make us complain more? It may be a lot like the chicken and the egg.

(Emphasis mine.)

 

This is such a deep question. One that is very important and impossible to answer accurately; we have no such statistics, no way to measure it; we can only guess with no hope of proof or answer.

 

My guess is no, we did not complain this much before the Internet.

[Gentlemanloser]

People used to buy 'strategy guides' for video games before the internet.

 

Now, I've no idea how they make any money!