New SM codex and its repercussions

[Prot]

I still don't see the Strike Force Ultra as anything fantastic and I think considering the age of the formations/detachments we are comparing here, the GK one will kick this one square in the groin when it is updated.

 

I still dislike the size of the mandatory portions of the formation. If I want to add a libby the only way to do that is the Librarium Conclave. If I want to add a Chaplain... it's gotta be the goofball with the entire squad and mandatory Razorback. I just find that sort of stuff is too cumbersome for me.

 

That's why I like Necron's Mephrit, or the NSF. It's wide open with light restrictions. You sprinkle and update on top of that and it'll be making Ultra players cry.

 

I play Ultra, and I will use this formation as I test everything I can get my hands on.... the Formation looks right up my alley, especially if (I think it can) include the big man on campus (Calgar). I've had that windbag in a box for a year because of his rules, but he's better now... but lost auto pass/fail leadership.

 

Anyway, speaking of the C:SM update I still think the real beef is in the Gravistators. It does look like they get a 'decent' price on the Grav cannon/Amp and re-rolls. 

 

Tigurius is always in my lists, and it looks like that won't change, but if you look at a lot of the other characters I think there is a sense of rushing this out to me. Very little changed.

 

I'd rather have the GK one come out a little later and see some big character overhauls to some of our boat anchor HQ's.

 

I think the C:SM is a great move. I don't see it as OP, or too weak...  but only time will tell. I think it bodes well for us though.

[Everon]

Op? Not at all. Versus us isn't even a challenge. Only op towards us. But not a game breaker. I love the new formations. Just yeah. I hate having to bring allies but looks like its Allie or bust till 7th ed v2 or 8th ed.

[Zhukov]

 

In what way?

 

The *only* way it's healthy for GK is because we can ally in the new SM hotness.

 

But that's a property of the Imperial super friends.  Nothing to do with GK, and nothing any pure GK player either has access too, or should be happy about.

Thank you for asking. I believe it is healthy for the game in general. Xenos became way too dominant since Necrons and Eldar got even better, with Tau joining them shortly. Space Marines being the core faction of this game, it is very important that they are really strong. Their previous (well, current still I guess) codex is okay, it has some decent builds, but they were hardly winning anything and were far from having a dominant position. Yet people still played them a lot because it was the best any Imperial faction had to offer.

 

Can I turn this into a postitive thing for Grey Knights as well? Sure I can, although I'd like to call it realism instead of being positive: Marines getting stronger and coming with multiple new competitive builds will have an impact on the overall meta. It might push back or out completely certain builds Grey Knights trouble with. In that indirect way it might make us more competitive instead of less. If you think that an army gets less competitive just because of the possibility of a new Grav build emerging, then you are being too shortsighted and you have a gloomish view on the whole matter. It is really hard to predict what will happen now. We could end up with having 1 terrible matchup for example, while being able to compete against all the other builds: That could very well mean we are competitive, because you don't always meet that 1 exact build in a tournament. When you can win tournaments, you have a competitive army.

 

But all this even looks at the whole matter assuming 2 things: 1. That the current situation for Grey Knights is better than what might happen now and 2. That one expects Grey Knights to be competitive in the first place.

 

1. The current situation isn't that good, we already aren't competive with pure Grey Knights, so we don't have much to lose.

2. I say it again and I will always keep hammering this point: You are not a competitive 40k player in the first place if you set limits to the army you field, in this case insisting on using Grey Knights. What you are is a Grey Knights player who would like to compete and is dependant on the game its balance to make that happen. In the first case you take control, in the second place you are at risk of ending up being a victim.

 

In the end the other point still stands as well: No point in being negative.

 

 

If you seriously think GW will FAQ in all the new goodness to the older codexes, I'm sure you will be sadly disappointed.

No I don't think that, you're not holding a patent on realism ;)

 

Edit:  For too long, for many years, I suffered with the Daemonhunters codex.  No, you didn't dominate with it.  You didn't win the majority of your matches playing the DH army, no matter how much you took the waterwarrior to heart.

 

They were long, depressing years.  And *nothing* I want to head back to.

 

Yet our 7th edition dex is *vastly* similar to it.  limited choices.  and potency that is being stripped away with every new release.

I played Daemonhunters as well. No this codex isn't vastly similar to it lol.

[Gentlemanloser]

 

 

Thank you for asking. I believe it is healthy for the game in general. Xenos became way too dominant since Necrons and Eldar got even better, with Tau joining them shortly. Space Marines being the core faction of this game, it is very important that they are really strong. Their previous (well, current still I guess) codex is okay, it has some decent builds, but they were hardly winning anything and were far from having a dominant position. Yet people still played them a lot because it was the best any Imperial faction had to offer.

 

Don't disagree.  It's a great release for the Imperium as a whole.

 

 

 

Can I turn this into a postitive thing for Grey Knights as well? Sure I can, although I'd like to call it realism instead of being positive: Marines getting stronger and coming with multiple new competitive builds will have an impact on the overall meta. It might push back or out completely certain builds Grey Knights trouble with. In that indirect way it might make us more competitive instead of less.

 

Totally diasgaree.  At the best, you swap a bad matchup, for a different bad matchup, just facing a different army.

 

 

 

That one expects Grey Knights to be competitive in the first place.

 

HAHA.  Touche. ;)

 

 

 

In the end the other point still stands as well: No point in being negative.

 

Imperium aside, there's *nothing* here to be positive about for the GK.

 

 

 

I played Daemonhunters as well. No this codex isn't vastly similar to it lol.

 

Yeah I'm sorry.  It has two Fast Attack choices instead of only one...

 

:P

[Zhukov]

Imperium aside, there's *nothing* here to be positive about for the GK.

Aye, nothing concrete in any case yet, no. What did you expect then? Or what did you hope? Remember: Hope is the first step on the road to dissapointment ;)

Yeah I'm sorry. It has two Fast Attack choices instead of only one...

Exactly! And we have a decent HQ choice, Troop choice and Heavy Support choice ;) While as Daemonhunters we had... Amphibious Chimeras costing an arm and a leg? lol

[Gentlemanloser]

Aye, nothing concrete in any case yet, no. What did you expect then? Or what did you hope? Remember: Hope is the first step on the road to dissapointment

Hope? I'm supposed to be the grumpy pessimist in this thread! I've got no hope. ;)

Exactly! And we have a decent HQ choice, Troop choice and Heavy Support choice While as Daemonhunters we had... Amphibious Chimeras costing an arm and a leg? lol

Be fair, we had Inquisitorial Stormtroopers. ;)

[Zhukov]

Studied the whole codex for a bit now, it is way stronger than initially thought by some people I believe. I am fairly certain they murder the current Eldar builds without breaking a sweat. Grav Cents with re-rolls to hit now from the Devastator doctrine, put them in FA Droppods and there is very little Eldar can do to prevent 275 point units from murdering Wraithknights in pretty much 1 go rofl. Jetbikes get equally deleted. They can try to reserve things, but anything they field will still get murdered in that case. While Wave Serpents were good at staying alive, Jetbikes aren't, which is a huge weakness which will get exploited fully now with this codex.

 

I absolutely love it.

[Reclusiarch Darius]

I wouldn't be making comparisons between our 3rd edition incarnation and our 7th edition incarnation. They're galaxies apart in terms of design and effectiveness. 

 

I think it's a bit presumptuous to expect GW to come back to us so soon. We're 100% 7th edition, and have been for a year. We're not a flagship product, like Marines, or Knight-Titans etc. We're an Ally faction. I think like Skitarii, or Scions etc, we're not going to be looked at until well into 8th, if even then. 

 

As I said, so long as we take Allies, I think we'll be okay. Not great, not a tournament staple by any means, but okay. Going pure is just suicide nowadays. We are hampered by fundemental flaws that cannot be negated by being a better general. I'm not saying we should have all those flaws removed, but GW should at least give us viable choices in every army slot. There is a reason our lists all look so similar. We have few options to begin with, and out of those only a handful are actually good. 

 

I'm actually in agreement with the idea that this Marine update is good for the meta-game. It is. It means Imperial armies now had a solid core to work around, and it'll hopefully upset the xenos dominance. But this thread is about it's implications for GK specifically. The implications are 'you can't beat em, so join em'. 

[angrom]

Well to me this new codex will have a global repercussions on all other codexes

in the way that we were wondering how to deal with Eldar WK and Tau riptide?

well this question might be from the past as now 80 % of the most played armies have easy options to auto depop

these units in less than a second (eldar and D template mini knights, mechanicum and long range gravitron spamming, space marines and devastator pod grav spamming).

Really soon eldar and Tau will stop playing these units as being too juicy and easy to kill by grav spam.

[Zhukov]

Darius is right, this is about the implication for GK, so I'll add this for that then:

 

They are a fantastic ally, best you can wish for. You could just take Tigurius + 2x 5 Marines in Pods and 2x 3 Dev Cents in Pod and play NSF next to that (Marines constituting less than 50% of your army when playing 1850, so I count that as a GK army lol). That alone makes our army better. Your Dreadknights get deleted by Wraithknights? Delete them with Grav. Your Dreadknights get deleted by Grav? Delete their Grav with your Grav. Your army getting deleted by Riptides? Delete th..... etc etc.

 

Codex Grav Cents, no problem.

 

This codex will shake up the whole meta. GK actually work pretty well with them I think, 2 Dreadknights is absolutely excellent support for Grav Cents, being able to assist them by shunting forward, giving them good CC support and providing additional hard targets. Tigurius will also love the extra dice GK's generate for him.

[Gentlemanloser]

NDK or Grav Bikes to support Podding Grav Devs/Cents (and why Pod Cents, when Grav Devs are cheaper)?

 

So looks like Coteaz will be making a comeback.  For everyone.

 

He was expecting this!

[Zhukov]

 (and why Pod Cents, when Grav Devs are cheaper)?

Only marginally cheaper. Grav Cents have 3 shots more on the drop and have huricane bolters on top of it. The unit is also way harder to kill (except when being fired at with S10/D I guess or possibly grav) while being able to move and fire might they survive till the next turn while Devs are way more static. I take that gladly for 30 points.

 

But if wanted take the Devs instead and make them a full sized unit, I could see that working as well.

[Gentlemanloser]

I love Centurion.

(And for some reason had the Grav Dev being significantly cheaper... Aren't they around 50 per compared to 90 per for Cents? Almost half the cost!)

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Well to me this new codex will have a global repercussions on all other codexes

in the way that we were wondering how to deal with Eldar WK and Tau riptide?

well this question might be from the past as now 80 % of the most played armies have easy options to auto depop

these units in less than a second (eldar and D template mini knights, mechanicum and long range gravitron spamming, space marines and devastator pod grav spamming).

Really soon eldar and Tau will stop playing these units as being too juicy and easy to kill by grav spam.

 

WK are actually fairly resistent to grav, in the same way that they're resistant to most weapons. They're only wounded on a 3+, and they have a 5+ invul and 5+ FNP (assuming sword+shield, which is going to be more popular I think). So statistically, you need ~21 hits. Which is 30 shots to begin with, or ~25 assuming you re-roll with that upgrade the turn you arrive. So, one Grav squad won't cut it, you probably need two to take it out reliably. This is assuming no 'Invisibility', 'Shrouding', 'Forewarning' etc of course. 

 

Riptides are actually fine against grav-spam. Unlike WK, they have a 3+ invul they can turn on at will, and the same FNP. Those same 30 shots only cause 4 wounds after 3+ invul and 5+ FNP from Stims are factored in (on average). So again, you're probably going to have commit at least two squads per Riptide, if not three potentially. And they Intercept, so you're going to have to cower behind the drop pod for a turn anyway, unless you  wanna get melted to slop by S8 AP2 Large Blasts. 

 

Honourable mention to Flyrants and Nurgle Princes. Neither of them give a hoot about your grav, they dodge 5/6th of it unless you're Red Hunters, and both of them operate forever in Swooping mode. Nurgle Prince in particular loves watching most of your shots miss, then roll a 2+ save against the handful that hit (plus in both cases, like with the WK, you only wound on 3's, so less effective wounds on target). 

 

Grav is certainly effective against both WK and Riptides, but it's nowhere near as good as when targeting less broken MC's. 

So looks like Coteaz will be making a comeback.  For everyone.

 

He was expecting this!

 

I'm actually really surprised he's not more popular. His lack of Deepstrike is an issue, but he's otherwise a great utility HQ who can still do work in melee. But yeah, his super-Interceptor is going to be mint for any Imperial force. Imperial Guard in particular will love being able to deny whole landing zones to you. 

[Zhukov]

It is such a shame Darius has me on ignored, he could learn so much by just reading my comments

3 Grav Cents with the Dev doctrine cause a little more than 5 unsaved wounds in 1 volley against Wraithknights asuming the WK has a 5++ (re-roll to hit and to wound does that), that only leaves a single wound normally (although killing him or leaving him with 2 wounds are also realistic scenarios. If you took an Omniscope for them a 2nd squad of Cents will most likely kill the Wraithknight by splitfiring only the Serg at him, while the other 2 members are free to shoot at something else.

Riptides do not have a 3++ all the time, nova reactor has to be rolled for and you cannot have it activated if you go 2nd on the 1st turn. Interceptor does not do much to Cents due to their large bases, you probably lose 1 wound assuming you have a cover save (which is easy to get). You cause almost 6 unsaved wounds assuming a 5+ cover/5+ FnP on riptides. Assuming they have a 3++ it goes down by half but that's assuming a worst case scenario, making it still not bad at all! Stim Injector is also a very expensive upgrade on riptides, so that's cool.

Flyrants get murdered in 1 volley unless they jink. They still lose 2 wounds on average when jinking. That's excellent anti-flyrant in my book.

Nurgle Princes are pretty irrelevant in my opinion, Grav Cents don't need to counter every single unit in the game lol.

Edit: Actually, going for their Decurion and using Grav Devastators might give a stronger army. Free transports and objective secured for everything offsets the slightly stronger Grav Cents you're losing.

Edit 2 and possibly the last thing I'll add on the matter: This army is utterly terrifying. The whole army can pretty much be twin-linked and objective secured with acces to free transports to save you points. At that point I am fine with taking a :cussty Chaplain and Captain lol.

[Gentlemanloser]

I've not got my hands on the new Dex yet (to be honest this is a busy period for me and I was waiting for the weekend to try!), is the cost 50 to 80-90 for Devs to Cents?

 

And do you know if the 'free' razorbacks are just for the base H Bolter version or if it (stupidly...) includes upgrades?

[Zhukov]

I've not got my hands on the new Dex yet (to be honest this is a busy period for me and I was waiting for the weekend to try!), is the cost 50 to 80-90 for Devs to Cents?

 

And do you know if the 'free' razorbacks are just for the base H Bolter version or if it (stupidly...) includes upgrades?

295 for Cents with splitfire in a pod.

 

280 for a 10 man sized Devastator unit in a pod when you take them in their Decurion.

 

Base version of the Razors yes, you have to pay for upgrades.

 

Thing is: you can take 6x5 Tacticals in a Rhino/Droppod, costing you 420 points (I'd normally pay for Rhinos/Pods, so this basicly makes these tacticals cost 7 points each LOL). You take 2x1 Objective Secured Attack Bike for 80 points. Add the Dev units on top of that. Then you only need to pay for a Captain and chappy and take 1 extra formation (Whirlwind + Land Speeder formation, or Stormtalons + Raven). All in all one can construct horrible, horrible armies... This is the first time I'm scared of a particular codex and what it will do to the game, I did not have that with Necrons and Eldar lol. Best part? It's incredibly fluffy lol!

[Bartali]

 

 

2. I say it again and I will always keep hammering this point: You are not a competitive 40k player in the first place if you set limits to the army you field, in this case insisting on using Grey Knights. What you are is a Grey Knights player who would like to compete and is dependant on the game its balance to make that happen. In the first case you take control, in the second place you are at risk of ending up being a victim.

 

 

Very much agree with this.

Imbalance between codexes is worse, and the speed of releases is higher. I'd hate to be a tournament player at the moment - by the time you've got all your hotness assembled and painted, another codex has come out and invalidated them. Tournament play is a test of pocket size and speed of assembly and painting now.

 

For everyone else, pick an army you like the models of. Learn to paint to a high standard and take pride in that. Play with friends where winning doesn't matter.

Otherwise play something else.

[Zhukov]

 

Very much agree with this.

Imbalance between codexes is worse, and the speed of releases is higher. I'd hate to be a tournament player at the moment - by the time you've got all your hotness assembled and painted, another codex has come out and invalidated them. Tournament play is a test of pocket size and speed of assembly and painting now.

Yes, playing this game purely as a competitive game is not the smartest thing to do at the moment, unless you happen to be quite wealthy/rich (in which case you can just buy anything you want and pay somebody else to do the painting for you). I am hesistant to buy a new competitive army for this exact reason, I rather wait and see if they update one of the armies I own at the moment.

[Prot]

I still think Gravistators are much better than Gravcents for reasons beyond the scope of this thread....

 

But, I did not know about 'free' transports? The weird thing is this could be an indicator for Grey Knights. Sometimes it is a very good thing to be last on the list of upgrades. We could benefit from a lot of this.

 

It's the ObSec that Marines get from that formation that is really juicy to me. This is big in any tournament environment and the heavy Maelstrom area I'm in! This to me is WAY bigger than Strike Force Ultra. (I still think you guys are overrating that formation vs. NSF. :) ) Now if Strike Force Ultra ALSO got ObSec, I'd be more peeved with it in comparison to NSF.

 

Overall I see dodging Grav as being tougher because I don't see the bike variant going anywhere... it should be strong and alive since it is altered slightly to allow smaller squads thus enabling greater use of Grav. The speed of bikes gives them an advantage on that 24" range, and combined with now podding in Grav cents or Gravistators will be really hard for an army like ours to avoid.

 

Funny though I think when we collide with them for close combat it's still probably game over. The Grav may get through all our 2+ easily but the force weapons still go through the majority of them like butter.

 

I am still eternally frustrated with the direction of 'terminator armour'  overall in this edition.

 

Character wise they have minor tweaks, with Calgar trying to catch up to Draigo but I'd still take Draigo first. Although it would be cool to see them go toe to toe! lol

[Zhukov]

The Bikes I care less about, simply because they are far easier to kill.

Basicly:

3 Bikes; 2x Grav 93 points.

That is 31 points per T5 3+ save wound.

Compare that to:

5 Marines, Rhino, plasma gun, combiplasma 95 points.

I know what I fear most/what I would take, but I understand if others prefer Bikes. I don't care much for Bikes personally, they lack the ability to take Rhinos

[Aethernitas]

I still don't see the Strike Force Ultra as anything fantastic and I think considering the age of the formations/detachments we are comparing here, the GK one will kick this one square in the groin when it is updated.

I still dislike the size of the mandatory portions of the formation. If I want to add a libby the only way to do that is the Librarium Conclave. If I want to add a Chaplain... it's gotta be the goofball with the entire squad and mandatory Razorback. I just find that sort of stuff is too cumbersome for me.

After having the entire codex spoiled I agree - Strike Force Ultra is nothing to write home about and I would take the NSF over the SFU on any given day.

I really like the formations because it genereally forces you to take some units that ma not be the most competitive but score on the fluff side of things. The chaplain formation strikes me as odd though. Why would they force you to take a Razorback over a Rhino or a LR except if they had a box they wanna sell

I've not got my hands on the new Dex yet (to be honest this is a busy period for me and I was waiting for the weekend to try!), is the cost 50 to 80-90 for Devs to Cents?

And do you know if the 'free' razorbacks are just for the base H Bolter version or if it (stupidly...) includes upgrades?

Without any further upgrades it's indeed 49 points for GravDevs and 80 for GravCents. The folks here always calculate the Devs with 5 ablative wounds which comes close to a GravCent quad of 3.

Very much agree with this.

Imbalance between codexes is worse, and the speed of releases is higher. I'd hate to be a tournament player at the moment - by the time you've got all your hotness assembled and painted, another codex has come out and invalidated them. Tournament play is a test of pocket size and speed of assembly and painting now.

Yes, playing this game purely as a competitive game is not the smartest thing to do at the moment, unless you happen to be quite wealthy/rich (in which case you can just buy anything you want and pay somebody else to do the painting for you). I am hesistant to buy a new competitive army for this exact reason, I rather wait and see if they update one of the armies I own at the moment.

Playing this game on a tournament level was a bad idea from the moment on when other tabletop wargames popped up which took their competitive side serious and were focussed around tournament style games like WarmaHordes. Warhammer in general was never designed to support that kind of playstyle and it never pretended to be balanced at that level of play. The only way to come close to playing truly competitive in Warhammer 40K with all it's inbalance between armies is actually playing the meta-game but that in turn means that you must be perfectly willing to switch armies depending on what you expect to show up at a certain tournament. If you are not willing to do that (and there is a myriad of good reasons not to) then either stop pretending or switch games.

I'd argue that you can still play competitivly as in playing smart, knowing your rules, predicting your opponent and wanting to win, even without having to attend tournaments (disagreeing with Zhukov here) and without reaching the level of competition that Warmachines provides. Saying otherwise seems to automatically degrade the folks who may not have access to tournaments (talking actual tournaments here, not LGS tournaments), don't want to put up with the whole shebang that comes with it or just have accepted the narrative nature of 40K.

You don't have to take my word for it but if you want a wargame sporting a ruleset centered around competitive play instead of narrative play the try Warmachines/Hordes. It's different but fun and it is actually balanced and playtested towards high levels of competitive play.

[Reclusiarch Darius]

The 40k competitive scene might be in decline, but it still exists, and it probably always will. Even after GW tried to murder it in its sleep, TO's revived it independently and have been doing so for some time. I thoroughly dislike comp and Maelstrom, but I'm at least appreciative it's out of GW's hands. 

 

Sure, we could all ditch this ship and go for another games system. But the thing is, I already do play Warmahordes. When I play 40k, I try to avoid comparisons between the two, mainly because they're quite different in all sorts of ways. BTW, Warmahordes isn't balanced competitively either. It just tends to be less stale and more volatile in meta terms. There are still awful factions and bad armies in that system. It's generally more forgiving though, I would agree. 

 

Grey Knights no longer exist as a stand alone army. We've all been in denial for some time, mainly because we all wanted to keep the 5th edition dream alive. Things have changed though. Not one Grey Knight archetype has made any impact on the competitive scene. At all. Draigo+Centurions still hasn't unseated Tyranid and more generally xenos dominance, and the invention of D-spam by Eldar recently has probably signaled the end of even that combo. Grav-Spam isn't going to be about one expensive Deathstar anymore. You'll see 3-4 units, maybe more, all bringing the pain. 

 

As I said, you can't beat em, so join em. We are extremely lucky to have Marines as Battle Bros, it wasn't so long ago that we were Allies of Convenience. We can share buffs, combo with them if need be, use their transports etc. Take advantage of that. Alone, we're not viable. Together, we cover off Marine melee weaknesses pretty well, and they bring the firepower we lack. 

[Zhukov]

 

I'd argue that you can still play competitivly as in playing smart, knowing your rules, predicting your opponent and wanting to win, even without having to attend tournaments (disagreeing with Zhukov here) and without reaching the level of competition that Warmachines provides. Saying otherwise seems to automatically degrade the folks who may not have access to tournaments (talking actual tournaments here, not LGS tournaments), don't want to put up with the whole shebang that comes with it or just have accepted the narrative nature of 40K.

 

You don't have to take my word for it but if you want a wargame sporting a ruleset centered around competitive play instead of narrative play the try Warmachines/Hordes. It's different but fun and it is actually balanced and playtested towards high levels of competitive play.

 

Why would it degrade those folks? Not being a competitive player isn't an insult lol. It is not like you aren't accomplished in life when you aren't playing 40k competitively.

 

I played Chess many years and have played X-wing as well, along with RTS games and LoL. Balance has often very little to do with how competitive a game is.

[jeffersonian000]

We need our own Centurion, only as a Fast slot Flying MC hunter with a Force Lance, a Heavy Psycannon, and the ability to vector dance. We could go ... full tilt.

 

SJ