Are Grey Knights Cheezy?

[Gunslinger87]

I think the problems people are having facing GK and the infamous Draigo-Wing is they basically have such amount of quality, game chaging wargear/enhancements for dirt cheap and people can't use a traditional balanced list to take on some GK armies (depending on which Codex you use).

 

I've faced GK competetively once and won, but have no illusions I can bea a Draigo-wing without extremely good luck (or a retarded opponent) in my balanced lists. Sure I can tailor my balanced list more for GK but then that will skew things for me.

 

However, I believe this is all just short term set backs and DOESN'T BOTHER ME. Reason for this my friends is I have been optimistic about GW recently and I feel GW have balance Grey Knights in the long term planning rather than immediately. The balanced, not sure what you are going to face approach has forced SW players to change from a Missile Launcher spam with Thunderwolf support in fear of DW turning up. Those IG armies with all their Veterans and cheap fast transports are at serious risk of Psycannon and Pysfleman Dread destruction.

 

And so on. What is balancing GK? Well when the IG players realise their Veteran and Vendetta spam is a death trap they will go back to taking more traditional choices, so we wil see more heavy weapon squads and Leman Russ tanks with Draigo and his mate's number. This will help the rest of us of course, as the GK player will adjust his list in a way to beat the new IG lists and thus give the rest of us a break.

 

Plus the next Necron Codex will turn up and make half of these GK net lists obsolete.

 

That's my hope of course, but I'm sure we will see it in the next couple months, certainly by the new year.

 

You make a fantastic argument, hats off. Hopefully, such balance will actually prevent people from fielding these spams. Either they will do as you say... or they will just risk it. i.e. GK may be anti IG vendettat spam killer, the IG player would probably just hope he doesnt face Gk than completely revamp his army.

 

But a great point nonetheless.

[Captain Idaho]

Cheers. I could be wrong, but I think that is how GW works when they look to balance the game.

 

There are certainly people who take the gamble and I saw it in action at a recent tournament (ran by greatcrusade08 and including people from this very thread infact).

 

1 guy, a good player, devised a fiendish SW list that had more firepower than I've had hot dinners. It swept the board clear, including my own. In its last game the list came up against Draigo-wing from our very own nurglez and was wiped clean. Sure his opponent was good, but he literally couldn't defeat their armour therefore was beaten convincingly.

 

On table 2 was sgt campbell against another Draigo-wing. This game certainly showed what happens when someone's list has the weapons to beat them. 2 Vindicators and furious charge Assault Terminators assaulting from a Landraider are a potent combination, since people will protect those Psycannons first in wound allocation, thus the Halberds in the unit are reduced. Added to this they can only shoot 1 unit at a time and even the Shrouding didn't save the Paladins or Draigo. Just a 1 wound Librarian left on one side and most of a Black Templar list on the other.

 

So basically, people can play the paper-rock-scissors game if they want, but they run the risk of losing out and relying on luck of the draw. More and more competetive players use lists which aren't as absolute and specialised but are easier to beat with balanced/older Codex books, because the aim isn't to win 4 games out of 5 but win them all.

[number6]

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

Just what the world needs. A soapbox from which I can expound at length, knowing that I am technically correct, which is the best kind of correct! (A cookie for anyone who knows where that comes from....)

[NuclearMessiah]

@number 6, thats a Futurama quote

 

And since I am loath to post a reply with nothing realvent to the OP here we go. I have to agree with Capt Idaho here and say that the cheese argument mostly derives from the new shiny codex syndrome and thet fact the GK codex has thrown a monkey wrench into the otherwise cookie cutter power list. I am not always a fan of cheese, but hey at least this way I get several flavors of cheese now and just wait for the Necron, Tau, and Chaos Legions books, they will bring the cheesiness up to like a nacho founatin with six kinds of cheese on it ;)

[Brother Ambroz]

More and more competetive players use lists which aren't as absolute and specialised but are easier to beat with balanced/older Codex books, because the aim isn't to win 4 games out of 5 but win them all.

 

 

Capt Idaho your arguements are very solid, easy to read and very true. This statement is the only thing I have a problem with. As Brother Nihm was saying earlier, the codex books with only 1-2 viable tournament lists cannot take the deathstar wings like Draigo. Chaos-Nids which are both older, although not very balanced. It's nothing against the old vet DH players like I and others stated earlier, it's mostly the brand new codex and all the bandwagoneers that make me decline GK games.

[Captain Idaho]

Oh for sure, the Chaos Space Marine Codex is probably the worst Codex I have seen, which includes the 3rd edition one (at least that one was just like all the rest of the 3rd edition Codex books) whilst the Tyranid Codex is a difficult beast to grapple with.

 

I was speaking in general terms and certainly not referring to those, or other old Codex books. 5th edition Codex books are generally pretty even, though Space Marines and Tyranids are definitely the least forgiving.

 

Anyway, with each new Codex released for 5th edition we should see a return to more balanced lists, since a truly competetive player will build a list that can win against everything and given all the "extreme" specialised lists out there which create a paper-rock-scissors situation, more balanced lists (i.e. A bit of everything or lists where any other list CAN beat it and it comes down to the player instead of the list) should become more prominent.

 

So goes the theory of course. Mistakes happen and can be slow to be fixed, after all we STILL have the same sucky Chaos Marine Codex!

[Brother Ambroz]

Aye I'll be playing my Dark Eldar for the most part until CSM get a new codex. I agree wholeheartedly though, once Necrons come out and as other up-to-date codex books are released I think you'll find more players will move onto them and not refer to GK as the bandwagon army. Might not be for awhile though. I will however play a GK player with my DE :whoops:

[Gentlemanloser]

But, GK are the anti DE...

 

It's not quite the auto loss that playing Chaos Daemons is, but it's a close second.

[Brother Ambroz]

I've beaten them before using DE. I've got my methods :D

[Seahawk]

I thought GK were the anti-Tyranids and DE, and marginally crappy vs daemons.

[breng77]

I love how people are saying Daemons are an auto loss to GKs. From what I have seen this is often far from the case. While it is true you can make a GK army that will Auto-win against Daemons (spam warp quake, go first cover the board). Most all comers/tourney GK armies are not really all that auto-win. Daemons ignore the fact that you have power weapons, Khorne Daemons can get a 2++ save against you in close combat (which is re-rollable with fateweaver). I'm not saying that it is an easy fight for Daemons but far from an auto loss. The same is true for some DE builds. Skimmer spam suffers against GKs because all of their shooting can kill DE vehicles, but some other lists can do pretty well.

 

Alot of this hate for GKs I think comes from people that don't know how to play against them, or don't change their armies at all to deal with GKs. It is not as if the changes that help against GKs cripple your army against any other army (most armies I see are marines, so things that hurt GKs will also hurt marines.)

[Brother Ambroz]

That's true breng daemons can beat GKs but only if the list is basically tailored for it. DE is a bit different in my opinion. The thing is GK are beatable, that's definitely true, it's just most armies (besides the other newer ones) will have to tailor their lists specifically for it. When you're in a tournament you can't really do that....

[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.

 

Vanilla Hammer Terminators lose to a counter charge from two Strike Squads, or a single Purifier Squad. You realise all you have to do is more or less cause them to fail 5 3++ saves? In other words they have the same odds of failing a save as a normal Marine has at failing their armor save. It's not hard.

 

Isn't it good, when Strike Squads charge you? Yes, your Terminators are probably dead. But two Strike Squads would loose a round of shooting which would have caused more damage. Furthermore a full equiped Strike Squad is around 230 Points, two of them makes 460 points while the Terminators are 200 points flat. If you charge Paladins with them, you're likely to kill less models, but kill more points and tie up a part of the Grey Knights army. The Terminators don't need to survive. They can't score anyway. You're right when you say you'll need to support the unit which get's attacked by the Terminators, but maybe the Terminators got support too. He's got enough free points to do that, because his army is cheaper.

 

Yes, but you cant possibly compare a 200 point squad of 5 elites with 460 points of 10 troops. Thats like saying 10000 points of gaunts are obviously worse than 250 points of Land Raider since they cant hurt it at all.

 

Try doing the same with 10 sm troops vs 10 gk troops or 5 sm elites vs 5 gk elites.

 

Assault termies vs halberds? tactical squads vs any GK squads? Sure there are options that can deal with it somehow (plasma cannons etc.) but thats not to say that a complete idiot who fields 10 random picks out of Codex: SM will easily beat a complete idiot who fields 10 out of GK. The fact that there are certain ways of outplaying Gk in no way negates the fact that they are overpowered. You shouldnt need to play at your top game and have a bit of luck to beat someone who just picks up a codex and makes a list he finds on the internet, and possibly not even succeed.

 

yeah sure, but GK troops are way more elite than normal troops (maybe except for space wolves).

[breng77]

I disagree that the Daemon list needs to be tailored to beat GKs. Most Daemon armies I see run Fateweaver + Blood Crushers + Monsterous creatures. TO give something like a Bloodthirster Blessing of the Blood god is so cheap with the number of GK armies I see around it makes it a pretty easy pick-up.

[Brother Ambroz]

Except for all the relatively high strength shooting they can do, ruin a GD's day. Most people would probably shoot GDs right away anyway.

[Gentlemanloser]

Don't forget Psyk-out 'nades, PE Daemon (which is there to counter Power Weapons not being all that great versus Daemons) and Daemonbane.

 

Strikes in Rhinos/Razors (Warp Quake and protection form DSing Flamers), Coteaz and NDKs ruin the Daemons day.

[BrotherWasted]

Dark Excommunication, too...

 

Your monstrous creatures don't mean scrap to my S10 thunderhammers with Daemonbane.

[Crynn]

I feel that a lot of people suffer from codex hate when something first comes out and don't really give themselves time to learn to play against their opponents. Grey Knight have a similar 'problem' to casual gaming as SW. Most of their units are good, not over powered good, so if you just make an army out of what you like there is a good chance that it will still perform well on the table top, SW have a similar element to their dex. In no way are GK's over powered though it just means it is easier to make a good casual army with less thought. In the competitive scene a GK army is no better than any other top tier force like wolves or guard.

 

I haven't had to change my BA army one bit to play aginst GK's because my well balanced army has many ways to kill vehicles str 8+ which also kill pallies and all GK vehicles, I run psychic defence as standard, I have a good combat unit that will smash anything without halberds and units that are faster or too tough for halberds to kill. I have some good long range fire power and am yet to struggle against the GKs.

 

As for all this draigowing hate, I think people are looking at it in the worng light. There are many comments here saying that balanced casual armies just can't deal with draigowing lists which is fine, however it is no different with these lists not being able to deal with 0 comp spammed wolves with long fangs and cav, or a BA razor spam list and even 0 comp guard lists, all these lists will murder an average casual list. Put draigowing in the same category, I personally don't think it is actually as powerful as an all rounder list as some of these but if you look at it Vs most competitive builds, the other competitive lists have plenty of the right tools to deal with them. The point is Draigowing may just be a hard list like so many other lists around, doesn't make GKs broken like it doesn't make BAs broken.

 

With regards to deamons I agree with with Breng, deamons can actually do quite well against GKs it isn't a bad matchup at all. There is only one thing that ruins this, GK's can build lists that will auto win against a deamon list if they choose however these are not all rounder lists and tend to handicap themselves verses other allrounder lists.

 

Regards,

Crynn

[Gornall]

/agree with Crynn 110%.

[Gentlemanloser]

Again, I don't see how any list with Strikes, Interceptors, Coteaz (and even NDKs) isn't an 'all rounder' list. You can't build a GK list more balanced than these! <_<

 

These core staples of GK armies utterly (combined with the basic stuff the army gets, Psyk-outs, P.E., Daemonbane) ruin a Daemon army's day.

 

Sure, the specialised GK lists (well Dragowing mainly, but Draigowing without NDKs...) might have a harder time. But even a Crowe based (or other MSU) Psycannon spam list will eat Daemons alive. Oh, you've deep stuck half your army? Blam Blam they're all dead.

 

No other army has the sheer shooting power we can bring to bear at 24". And Daemons either DS outside that range, and aren't really threatening at all, or they DS within it, we walk back and open fire with just about everything we have.

 

We out shoot the Daemon army as standard. And we have been given the tools necessary to out CC them as well (I6 on top of everything else). While Daemons can trick themselves out with BotBG for a little more survivability, it does nothing to help them versus our shooting.

 

The Daemon army just has nothing that can compare to what we can now bring to the table.

[Crynn]

Again, I don't see how any list with Strikes, Interceptors, Coteaz (and even NDKs) isn't an 'all rounder' list. You can't build a GK list more balanced than these! :)

 

These core staples of GK armies utterly (combined with the basic stuff the army gets, Psyk-outs, P.E., Daemonbane) ruin a Daemon army's day.

 

Sure, the specialised GK lists (well Dragowing mainly, but Draigowing without NDKs...) might have a harder time. But even a Crowe based (or other MSU) Psycannon spam list will eat Daemons alive. Oh, you've deep stuck half your army? Blam Blam they're all dead.

 

No other army has the sheer shooting power we can bring to bear at 24". And Daemons either DS outside that range, and aren't really threatening at all, or they DS within it, we walk back and open fire with just about everything we have.

 

We out shoot the Daemon army as standard. And we have been given the tools necessary to out CC them as well (I6 on top of everything else). While Daemons can trick themselves out with BotBG for a little more survivability, it does nothing to help them versus our shooting.

 

The Daemon army just has nothing that can compare to what we can now bring to the table.

 

You just haven't played against a decent demon player. Coteaz also isn't standard in every GK army but yes he is great. My friend players a fate frusher list very well with pervene in abundance and one of his favourite armies to play against is GKs because when they are on foot he can dictate their movement with pervene also purifiers do nothing even at I6 against toughness 5 crushers with re-rollable saves. Interceptors with strikes and a gm is a massive problem though because if they get first turn the gm can scout the interceptors and they can quake 90% of the board but the general GK armies he doesn't have too much of a problem with. I guess it's different depending on what GK meta you play in. I see lots of strikes and libs and a few purifier lists.

 

Regards,

Crynn

[Gentlemanloser]

LoL.

 

That's subjective.

 

Our Daemon player would assure you he's actually very good. And he used to wipe the floor with all of us. There was nothing (I refused to use sanctuary) any of our armies could do, as long as he didn't suffer seriously bad luck in his first turn DSing.

 

There is *nothing*, Fatecrusher included, that worries me any more in the Deamon dex. I used to hate facing it, now I just feel sorry for them. I can smash them, whatever he uses, without even thinking.

 

It's point and click for us now.

 

And that's quite sad.

 

It doesn't help they have nothing to shut down our Powers. I'd love to see someone actually use Stern for once!

 

They are a CC army, that if they even manage to withstand our shooting, are ruined by Psyk-out, Sanctuary, P.E., I6 and Daemonbane if they do manage to get close.

 

Now, things might change slightly in 6th, if you can Assault after DSing. But then that will just bring them closer to Warp Quake and Coteaz. So I'm still not concerned.

[the jeske]

There are many comments here saying that balanced casual armies just can't deal with draigowing lists which is fine, however it is no different with these lists not being able to deal with 0 comp spammed wolves with long fangs and cav, or a BA razor spam list and even 0 comp guard lists, all these lists will murder an average casual list. Put draigowing in the same category, I personally don't think it is actually as powerful as an all rounder list as some of these but if you look at it Vs most competitive builds, the other competitive lists have plenty of the right tools to deal with them. The point is Draigowing may just be a hard list like so many other lists around, doesn't make GKs broken like it doesn't make BAs broken.

I think the problem for new players is the money invested vs how good an army is . You buy draigo 3 boxs of termis and dreads/assasin or NDK and you have a good list for a lot cheaper then a SW player who has to buy 15 RL , 8+ TWC [unless his friends let him use goblin wolfs] or an IG player that has to buy 8+ tank kits . same for DE etc etc. I think that is the real problem . The fact that nids or chaos will be weaker doesnt hurt as much as the fact that your friend gets a better army for 50% the cash.

[NuclearMessiah]

Sorry to divert from the current topic at hand, but I would expect (since Mat Ward is writing it) since the Necrons are noted anti warp that thier codex will be balanced against ours especially as I can bet they will have access to alot of anti psyker gear as well and our whole army is pretty much psykers :P

 

So to sum that up we are really only cheezy until the next flavor of cheese comes out.

[Brother Nihm]

as I can bet they will have access to alot of anti psyker gear as well and our whole army is pretty much psykers

while possible, take a look at the anti-psyker items/abilities they have now. Personally I don't find it very threatening to anyone, in any way.

 

Chances are just as likely that they won't get it. :P