Have you ever had someone refuse to play you?

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Excellente. Let us know how you get on. Batrep maybe?

[Kevin48220]

Being new to 40K, I haven't had a chance to play against the GK yet. But, I've played games against orks, tau, blood angels, and chaos. Each of them had some strong points and I had my hands full with them---maybe due to inexperience, but also because each of them has real strengths. I'm saying that to make the point that every army is going to be great against some, and not against others.

 

I don't have a problem if the GK are tough. I think it's just part of the narrative flow of the game that some armies are tough, and obviously challenging, while others can sneak up on you because they are perceived as less powerful. A codex will be released that will take over as top dog--maybe the Dark Angels, if they're next, or Tau, or Tyranids. But it's inevitable that someone else will ascend, it's just the ebb and flow of relative power levels in the game. I see the same thing in Magic, where certain decks or colors come and go as top-tier choices based on how the metagame develops with each new set.

 

Bottom line for me: you should play your GK and tell everyone else to suck it. I think that degree of experience, list choices, and how those lists interact with each other is more crucial to winning or losing than just putting the books side by side. If I were in your group, I'd be looking at my dex to see what I can put out that would kick you in the pants. That is, I'd try to have fun playing instead of complaining about your rulebook.

[spafe]

I must admit, not knowing the gk dex well, I played a mate who was using them. They blew me out of the water 3 games in a row. I was feeling pretty disheartened by that point and thought they were bloody over powered (those nades, and that flame power of all enemy models in combat get torched!!!). But after a while I came to recognise what units could do what, and that they were beatable. Now only thing that worries me is when he jumps mulitple termie harness things into my lines. He's since switched back to his wolves though, with sometimes gk allies, so thats a new challenge. I can very much understand how people dont like them, esp with weaker dexs, I had advantage of using guard half the time and old/new chaos with ally old deamons (no white dwarf so we both agreed I can jsut use dex as no way to get new rules).

 

What point limits do people find stuff works at? we play at 2000 minimum, up to usual of 2400 so chaos gets very good then, as does guard. wolves are very good then too, but dunno how well gk scale up?

[facmanpob]

Being new to 40K, I haven't had a chance to play against the GK yet. But, I've played games against orks, tau, blood angels, and chaos. Each of them had some strong points and I had my hands full with them---maybe due to inexperience, but also because each of them has real strengths.

This! ;)

 

First time I played against Deathwing, I got tabled. First time I played against Orks, I lost heavily and almost got tabled. Did I rage quit? Of course not. Because in losing heavily, I immediately had a desire to understand why it had happened. So I discussed the games with my opponents and analysed my mistakes (be they list design, deployment or tactical), and consequently got better at playing. The next time I played against DW and Orks I did a hell of a lot better. I think that in order to improve at something, you have to be prepared to lose and learn from it!

 

Unfortunately, some people are not prepared to do that!

[thade]

I must admit, not knowing the gk dex well, I played a mate who was using them. They blew me out of the water 3 games in a row.

Not to pick on you directly, spafe, but you do bring up a interesting point I'd like to drill into. The codex beat you? Or your opponent beat you?

 

Personally I'm always a bit put off when another player goes on about how "broken" my codex is, because that necessarily (if unconsciously) precludes the possibility that skill was a factor. When you are outnumbered 3-to-1 by some space marine variant (which is not uncommon when playing as GK), getting a grenade that reduces a target's toughness may at be an extremely valuable deterrent or even a life saver. Frankly, every army gets some scary sounding stuff when you compare one single model or upgrade to another single model or upgrade; but, really, how many times can you ignore the phrase "vacuum analysis" until you see the real issue at hand there?

 

Beyond all of that, it's probably better to assign credit for a victory to the player over their chosen army in all cases, at least socially. :D Ask your opponents about the choices they made, not only in army composition, but in maneuvers or target prioritization: see your army and your play-style through someone else's eyes. I do this with many games (not just 40k) and I find that it helps me to improve as a player in all cases. Musing on how their codex/weapon choice/haircut is vastly superior to mine has never helped me become better at playing the game; not ever.

[Aethernitas]

Having played the old Daemonhunter dex I can understand how it feels to loose the majority of games - even those where you played nearly flawless. For me back then that was one of the reasons I started my Nids army to experience winning a game once in a while. It's not like I couldn't handle loosing but in the long run it's just no fun not beeing rewarded for qualities you bring as a player like knowing your opponents dex or applying creative strategies and tactics instead of just your dex beeing "op". Back then I played quite an optimized version of a Daemonhunter army tough it didn't do much for me in terms of winning. I guess GL knows what I'm talking about ;)

 

When I picked up the new Grey Knight dex in 5th I found that now I could playing fluffy while still maintaining more competitiveness in comparison to my old Daemonhunter lists. Suddenly there was a change in attitude other players approached me while playing me. They weren't all cheery and relaxed anymore. There actually were quite a few tense moments when they suddenly had to aknowledge that I had them in a tough spot and there was no more auto-winning against those cute lil Daemonhunter lists. Fortunately most of my opponents can take a beating from my GKs and besides some beeing a lil grumpy immediately afterwards they always recover fast and swear vengeance :D

[Gentlemanloser]

I guess GL knows what I'm talking about

 

Got the T-shirt! :D

 

And it wasn't me turning around and beating my mates once with my new shiney 'dex. We used to play regularily. A couple of games, a couple of times a week (interspersed with some old school pnp rpg).

 

And I beat them. Again, and agian and again. And again. ;) (Yes, it felt *very* good, after my years of playing DH) As they got used to facing the dex (I'll drop my WWP here. Coteaz does WHAT!!!!!????!?!?!!), as I reigned in my lists. The Vindicare was prooving to be too effective, so a shelved mine. Paladin blobs were causing all sorts of problems, so I limited myself to 5 (just cannot bring myself to replace 5 Pallies with 10 GKT...). Etc.

 

I don't claim to be a paragon of 40k playing, but I'm no slouch. And nor are my mates. Tactics and Generalmanship (is that even a word? lol) aside (and obviosuly discounting the Dice God), as we're all quite evenly matched with each other, the deciding factor is your army.

 

It's such a massive impact upon the game, it just cannot be discounted.

 

And while the spread of good/bad units within other armies is quite wide (and it's totally possible to focus majoritively on the 'bad' units when making lists), the GK 'dex is just so overall, good, it's difficult to design an army that uses 'weak' options.

 

Do I go for TLAC Dreads? Or H Incinerator PT NDKs?

Do I go for Strikes, or Purifiers?

Do I swamp the board with SB Warriors, or ultra choppy DCA?

 

Just about everything we have is 'good'. And it really matters little if it's just seemingly randomly thrown together.

 

Compared to most of the other dexes, that is.

[Circus Nurgling]

I guess GL knows what I'm talking about

 

Got the T-shirt! ;)

 

And it wasn't me turning around and beating my mates once with my new shiney 'dex. We used to play regularily. A couple of games, a couple of times a week (interspersed with some old school pnp rpg).

 

And I beat them. Again, and agian and again. And again. ;) (Yes, it felt *very* good, after my years of playing DH) As they got used to facing the dex (I'll drop my WWP here. Coteaz does WHAT!!!!!????!?!?!!), as I reigned in my lists. The Vindicare was prooving to be too effective, so a shelved mine. Paladin blobs were causing all sorts of problems, so I limited myself to 5 (just cannot bring myself to replace 5 Pallies with 10 GKT...). Etc.

 

I don't claim to be a paragon of 40k playing, but I'm no slouch. And nor are my mates. Tactics and Generalmanship (is that even a word? lol) aside (and obviosuly discounting the Dice God), as we're all quite evenly matched with each other, the deciding factor is your army.

 

It's such a massive impact upon the game, it just cannot be discounted.

 

And while the spread of good/bad units within other armies is quite wide (and it's totally possible to focus majoritively on the 'bad' units when making lists), the GK 'dex is just so overall, good, it's difficult to design an army that uses 'weak' options.

 

Do I go for TLAC Dreads? Or H Incinerator PT NDKs?

Do I go for Strikes, or Purifiers?

Do I swamp the board with SB Warriors, or ultra choppy DCA?

 

Just about everything we have is 'good'. And it really matters little if it's just seemingly randomly thrown together.

 

Compared to most of the other dexes, that is.

 

Honestly I would prefer that all codexes would use this concept as a template. I don't like that most codexes can squeeze out 1, maybe 2 winning lists. I'd like to look at the units, say 'oh that sounds cool, I could build a theme around this...' and not get utterly crushed by your average all-comer list of any said opponent.

[Aethernitas]

Honestly I would prefer that all codexes would use this concept as a template. I don't like that most codexes can squeeze out 1, maybe 2 winning lists. I'd like to look at the units, say 'oh that sounds cool, I could build a theme around this...' and not get utterly crushed by your average all-comer list of any said opponent.

 

I honestly think that since (and including) the Dark Eldar Codex all except the Sisters dex (which is just a WD dex) did quite a good job in that they give you A LOT of awesome options of units to build your list on. Thing is they still should reflect the fluff in some way or the other so DE for example are overall very squishy but very fast. In case of Grey Knights they seem especially strong (when defining "strong" as good game-inpact per point) cuz they already generalists and pretty strong in every aspect (MEQ profile, strong CC, strong shooting, strong psychic presence) and that lets them excel in a lot of situations where other units would be hard-countered by aspects of the OPFORs.

 

So when looking at the CSM, Necrons, DE and GK Dexes the only really bad unit choices in cost to game-inpact terms imo would be Mandrakes and probably Mutilators, Venerable Dreads, C'tan and maybe Warp Talons. Those are only a few Units and no more than one or two per dex. Every other unit in there can be used in different versatile ways to contribute to a win in recognizable fashion.

[Gentlemanloser]

Honestly I would prefer that all codexes would use this concept as a template. I don't like that most codexes can squeeze out 1, maybe 2 winning lists. I'd like to look at the units, say 'oh that sounds cool, I could build a theme around this...' and not get utterly crushed by your average all-comer list of any said opponent.

 

That's what our group is waiting (praying?) for. :)

 

I'm sure I'd still be having close battles with our Deldar player still (as long as I didn't use Coteaz...) if 6th hadn't utterly removed the non paper plane build from them.

 

I've got two WWP! But I can no longer assault the turn I charge out of them. So I my fragile Deldar get shot to bits. Then beaten in Assault by I6 Marines!

 

(And I still lol at Halberds. I5 would have been cool. Our version of old FC. Hammerhand + Halberd. But I6. Lol. We attack as fast as the D/Eldar and with the loss of +1I to FC there's only a handful of units in the entire game that get to attack before we do)

 

(and including) the Dark Eldar Codex

 

I'd disagree with Deldar. They've basically been reduced to Raider/Darklight spam. And crons are Warriors in Nightscythes with Cryptecs and CCBs.

 

The new Chaos Dex however, seems to be very promising, and on par with the GK for builds. ^_^

[ValourousHeart]

DEldar have a lot of options that are really good... It is more that the tournament player base can't come up with anything more original than a DEldar version of Razorspam.

 

Necrons are the same way with lots of really good options, but again it is the tournament players that spam flyers.

[Aethernitas]

DEldar have a lot of options that are really good... It is more that the tournament player base can't come up with anything more original than a DEldar version of Razorspam.

 

Necrons are the same way with lots of really good options, but again it is the tournament players that spam flyers.

 

Exactly my opinion :lol:

 

Also Raider/darklight spam sound much more restricted than it actually is. Raider and Venoms simply are the codex dedicated transports and DEldar are per definition a extremely mobile force (except for Homunculi lists). To say "the only viable DEldar lists are Raider/Darklight" spams is like to say "the only viable Grey Knight list is psycannon/PAGK spam". While not a totally accurate statement you'll find those things in almost every list of both dexes but there is sooooo much variety to build around that it feels wrong to judge whole sets of lists by two similarities all of them have...

[Gentlemanloser]

Well there's nothing in the Deldar dex, bar darklight spam, that gives my GKs any pause. :)

[spafe]

Not to pick on you directly, spafe, but you do bring up a interesting point I'd like to drill into. The codex beat you? Or your opponent beat you?

 

This is very true, in general. I do understand where you are coming from. In this instance though it was the codex. Seeing as I only really play against this one person (so we both switch dexs up a lot to keep variety) I can safely say that we are of very close skill level. If he can pick up a new dex (to him as well) and table me 3 times without it really even being close, well thats not him using fancy tactics (as he can do that with darkeldar due to lots of practice), but due to his units jsut being that much harder at blunt implimentation.

 

Like I said though, its a matter of learning whats the most scary due to nifty tricks and killing that first, so now its a lot more even (now he knows the dex better, but has a harder time of it due to me knowing it a bit too).

 

On topic of people wanting multiple builds for their dex, If gk can do this, guard can do this, sw can do this, and they are currently top rated dexes, and 3.5 chaos could and were considered powerful dex, wheras other dexes that cant are rated as lower tier dexs, is this more because those top rated ones are powerful enough to take sub-par units and still compete? I dont know, just a thought to provoke discussion. Im not familiar enough with all books to say this is for sure, jsut seems to come across a bit as a conincidence

[Gentlemanloser]

is this more because those top rated ones are powerful enough to take sub-par units and still compete

 

Or they don't have (or don't have as many) sub par units.

[spartan249]

Or the units that are the codex's cream of the crop also happen to be the best/most point efficient in general.

[thade]

Or your opponent's not familiar with the codex and fell for its traps (got caught in melee, under-estimated their range, poor picks for target prioritization)...which, while codex-centric, is not evidence that the codex is broken. I bet if your friend adapts his tactics and keeps on trying, he'll find a way to beat your new book. ;)

[jb7090]

DEldar have a lot of options that are really good... It is more that the tournament player base can't come up with anything more original than a DEldar version of Razorspam.

 

 

Im not going to go off on a tangent here too much, but you're flat our wrong with this. DE have a few good entries in their codex (ravagers, venoms, splintercannons) but there's a reason you dont see anything "more original" at tournaments other than the venomspam lists. They dont work.

 

Some of the older players who have been around and seen the power slide back and forth from army to army get it, they understand what it feels like to have spent several hundred dollars and countless hours painting little plastic men only to have some jerk table you by turn 2 because his codex is the latest and greatest. Make no bones about it, the GK codex is solidly in the top 3. The codex itself is just so good, you can literally throw a mish mash of units together and make it work, it's very newbie friendly, but it will fall apart against seasoned opponents, as the tournament scene shows.

[adamv6]

I found Dark Eldar Reever Jetbikes to be a serious pain in the backside. Bladevans and cluster caltrops are seriously mean.

[Aethernitas]

Im not going to go off on a tangent here too much, but you're flat our wrong with this. DE have a few good entries in their codex (ravagers, venoms, splintercannons) but there's a reason you dont see anything "more original" at tournaments other than the venomspam lists. They dont work.

 

Some of the older players who have been around and seen the power slide back and forth from army to army get it, they understand what it feels like to have spent several hundred dollars and countless hours painting little plastic men only to have some jerk table you by turn 2 because his codex is the latest and greatest. Make no bones about it, the GK codex is solidly in the top 3. The codex itself is just so good, you can literally throw a mish mash of units together and make it work, it's very newbie friendly, but it will fall apart against seasoned opponents, as the tournament scene shows.

 

"You're flat out wrong"? What a curious thing to say... Last time I checked most DE units wreck their GK equivalents faces in point-for-point efficiency. The reason why you don't see anything "more original" on tournaments is that pretty much all players stick to what the (think to) know works best in a tournament environment. It's quite rare that someone suddenly grows cojones shows up with something "experimental and new" - emperor beware something completely different.

 

I don't argue with the GK codex beeing one of the strongest codizes out there but considering balance through imbalance is standard in most of todays computer-games and is also present in trading card games and of course tabletops I don't see much of a problem for other codizes assuming they are not totally outdated like Black Templars. I admit that GW isn't especially good at this but I feel they are getting better. Thing is that one has to commit much more when playing a tournament tabletop match than a match of say DOTA2 cuz there is the whole hobby-stuff (painting, collecting), the transport and the organisation involved - also matches in a tournament environment are much rarer cuz there is no option for online gaming. Therefore the meta in tabletop games developes and shifts in a much slooower rate. Even now with 6th edition about half a year old I consider the meta to be still in it's infancy.

[AnImA8]

DEldar have a lot of options that are really good... It is more that the tournament player base can't come up with anything more original than a DEldar version of Razorspam.

 

 

Im not going to go off on a tangent here too much, but you're flat our wrong with this. DE have a few good entries in their codex (ravagers, venoms, splintercannons) but there's a reason you dont see anything "more original" at tournaments other than the venomspam lists. They dont work.

 

A friend was told this by some people online--said that units like Reaver Jetbikes just simply weren't good. Has been WRECKING people with reaver jetbikes with caltrops ever since. This was back in 5th. It only got worse in 6th once he realized he could attach a Farseer with fortune to the squad for a re-rollable 3+ cover while messing stuff up (5+ Jink, +1 turboboost, +1 skilled rider.)

 

Just goes to show that once you get creative enough with the unit you can easily prove people of this mentality wrong...

[Reclusiarch Darius]

DE have a good codex, they have a glaring problem which is only exacerbated by 6th edition changes. It's sorta their balance factor (they go fast, hit hard, but are made of glass). However, with the focus shifting from all the non-scoring, glance-to-death paper-mache Venoms, DE are a bit shafted when trying to field an infantry list. The best they can do (without Allies) is bring lots of Wracks and try to wipe out your scoring units early on.

 

The real threat they pose to Knights is simple, they're a scalpel designed to dismantle elite armies. We're even lower on bodycount than a normal Marine list, and we bring less support. That said, they need Incubi or BlasterBorn to deal with our Terminator blob (no point bringing Paladins, too easily lance-sniped), and Purifiers give them issues with dakka output and counter-charge (halberds and 'Cleansing Flame' make Wyches cry). I'd still say its one of our tougher matchups, but if you get DE into a protracted fight, they fold. Most games boil down to surviving with enough stuff to Turn 3, then turning the tables. By that point he's committed almost everything, and you are either reeling or ready to counter-attack.

 

Allies help them somewhat, but Craftworld Eldar aren't any more survivable or especially cheaper anyway, they really just accentuate the existing strengths and weaknesses.

[spartan249]

No, they plug a huge hole DE have, which is psychic defense. Having powers that unpredictable can really complicate matters, as GKs are pretty dependent on powers to provide the force multiplication necessary to win. Further augment this with a scoring unit that you need a specific counter to (that DE further bone easily), and I'd say DE require CW eldar to survive 6th.

[Gentlemanloser]

Pfft.

 

Farseers with the stupidly broken Runes of Warding plug *every* armies psychic defense hole.

 

Nothing else competes with Runes of Warding...

[Reclusiarch Darius]

^ pretty much. And our powers are almost all buffs anyway, so its not like we are killing them using mind-bullets. Also, with the exception of 'Shrouding', none of our powers really increase surviability, they're all about increasing damage output or hitting speed.

 

Runes of FaceMelt will get changed in their codex update anyway, so people might as well enjoy Eldrad while they can.