Every time a new Codex or preview arrives...

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Apparently it was enough to deter some. I didn't read through all of the Forge World changes, but apparently they all went massively up in price (especially Flyers for some arcane reason). 

[Riddlesworth]

 

There's a reason you're seeing supreme command detachments of 3xGMNDK + imperials

 

 

It's why they're banned in most local tournaments where I am. Supreme Command is the worst kind of cheese. I've never seen anyone use that detachment except to bring broken stupidity into their list. Flyer Wing is probably going to be unbanned now that GW kneecapped them as scoring. 

Smite spam has stopped being as popular).

 

 

It sucks. But I have to say, I'm doing it, having fought the good fight with pure grey knights and lost. I like the primaris models, but outside of old marines, lack a bit of a hammer/push unit. GMNDK and paladins do that.

 

Screw Bobby G though

[Gentlemanloser]

Yeah all the FW super heavies got a massive price hike.

 

It was GW blatantly saying "Not for matched play, use in Open or our new APOC only!!!"

[Reclusiarch Darius]

I've also heard they want to push FW as the '30k only' side of the model range. The idea being that in order to play 8th Edition, you should only be using stuff you can buy in their store. 

[Gentlemanloser]

Well GW can push that, when they start to make Mortis Dreads again. ;)

[4ndroid]

I just Tabled 1500pts of Blood Angels with their new Codex and some sneaky stratagems in turn 4 ! 

 

vanguard list

GMDK sword, psilencer, psycannon

Lord Draigo warlord

Strikes w/Hammers

Strikes w/Falchions

Apothecary

Intercesors w/Falchions

Doomglaive Dread PsiCannon + SwordBolter

Venerable Dread Lascannon + ClawBolter

Razorback Lascannon 

 

Bloodangels

Librarian warlord

Chaplin

Captain character name ? 

Sanguinary Squad 

DeathGuard Jumppacks chainswords

Primaris w/ Plasma

Primaris w/ Bolt Rifles

2x Scouts with Boltguns

Predator w 4 heavy bolters 

dreadnought with some nasty nasty claws

 

I got turn one with fewer units and higher roll

it started off as a close match, I put a lucky 6 wounds on his predator with my Venerable Dread

and hid my razorback in the far corner carrying the hammers

took some wounds off his dreadnought with the razorback lascannon

teleported intercessors across his left flank into a building

they failed a charge, and got shot to pieces by his primaris squad on his first turn

he used a jump pack / deep strike stratagem to drop his 10 death guard 

onto my left flank next to my venerable dread and lord draigo

they failed their charge so I dropped my GMDK right in front of them and ripped them in half

my doomglaive dread warped in behind his predator and after shooting and charging finished it off

my lascannon Razorback took out his dreadnought 

his Sanguinary guards and Librarian deep struck on my right flank attacking my poorly positioned apothecary and nearby razorback

his scouts took out a chunk of my Falchion Strikes

then his Sanguinary guards failed to charge my Apothecary,

his Librarian succeeded and smashed him after taking a few wounds himself

the remaining 5 death guard and chaplain charged the GMDK, bad idea! took out 3 more in overwatch, the rest in CC 

My Hammer Strikes disembarked from the Razorback and crushed his warlord Librarian 

Doomglaive Dread took out a Scout squad after a nice Smite roll and psicannon shooting 

GMDK infinity warped behind his Primaris squads and shot them to pieces surviving down to 4 wounds himself

game over! 

 

Note Turn three I rolled 4 successful smites in a row using the Beta rules!

 

not bad at all! 

[Bartali]

You guys know Jeske has had early access to some/all of the 8th edition codexes?

 

So presumably he has some connection somewhere. No idea what or who though.

 

And you really don't have to play with GK to know and understand the issues with them. You don't even have to have played against them either.

 

Edit. It also seems that the CA were not based in any player feedback at all.

 

But all based on tournament results and rules.

 

Presumably vetted by the same 15 playtesters that playtested 8th originally.

 

The only thing we do know that will be coming in the next balance pass is a nerf. To Smite.

 

I never thought I'd say this, but I do worry GW have given too much importance to the tournament side of things.

 

The playtester TOs are used to armies that would never be seen on the average table top, in 7th the armies that I played and faced where so different to tournament armies it might have been another game.

It appears that is continuing in 8th, giving priority to rules issues that occur in tournament situations - flyer scoring spam, and conga characters, something I would never see on my tabletop.

 

I hope GW remembers that the majority don't play in tournaments and fix the balance issues at the base level rather than just sorting stuff that happens in tournaments.

[Capt. Mytre]

 

You guys know Jeske has had early access to some/all of the 8th edition codexes?

 

So presumably he has some connection somewhere. No idea what or who though.

 

And you really don't have to play with GK to know and understand the issues with them. You don't even have to have played against them either.

 

Edit. It also seems that the CA were not based in any player feedback at all.

 

But all based on tournament results and rules.

 

Presumably vetted by the same 15 playtesters that playtested 8th originally.

 

The only thing we do know that will be coming in the next balance pass is a nerf. To Smite.

 

I never thought I'd say this, but I do worry GW have given too much importance to the tournament side of things.

 

The playtester TOs are used to armies that would never be seen on the average table top, in 7th the armies that I played and faced where so different to tournament armies it might have been another game.

It appears that is continuing in 8th, giving priority to rules issues that occur in tournament situations - flyer scoring spam, and conga characters, something I would never see on my tabletop.

 

I hope GW remembers that the majority don't play in tournaments and fix the balance issues at the base level rather than just sorting stuff that happens in tournaments.

 

 

It's the other way round. They didn't listen to them enough. Do you honestly think that the tournament players were like "The GK index terminators are OP, nerf them some more" or "GK twin linked plasma cannons are way OP, double their points!". No, either they didn't listen or weren't tested properly (third option is that the play testers are incompetent, which could also be the case). It's best to balance a game by the top tier of play, check out games like Dota 2 or various other properly written miniature game rule sets.

 

The rules are written poorly and are not properly tested, that much is clear. We wouldn't have issues like character blocking etc if they were written correctly in the first place. It shouldn't take the tournament scene to fix blatant core rules issues.

 

GW should have released the rules for free online, only going to print when they have ironed out almost all of the issues. It's kind of embarrassing how many fixes/FAQs they need to put out for something that should be designed to not require any of those. It astounds me that they basically had forever to release 8th, and still couldn't get the base rules right.

[Gentlemanloser]

I think those to didn't give any gk feedback.

 

Becuase who posts gk to tournaments?

 

The razor/raven nerf we had to syffer was purely based on sm tournament use.

 

Same as ynarri nerf.

[Capt. Mytre]

I think those to didn't give any gk feedback.

 

Becuase who posts gk to tournaments?

 

The razor/raven nerf we had to syffer was purely based on sm tournament use.

 

Same as ynarri nerf.

 

I'm not talking about current tournaments, I'm talking about during the rules development. Unless GW is actually brain dead, they would have had people playing GK in a tournament setting. You don't leave it up to them to see what they play, because then you don't get feedback on everything, nor is the players view balanced against other armies.

 

Anyway, we know that they don't balance on tournaments, they balance on public feedback. At least that's what I've seen thrown around.

[Gentlemanloser]

We are talking about tournaments...

 

The recent CS nerfs are based on nothing but Tournament performance.  That much is obvious from the units that got price increase or for whom base rules changed.

 

Marines did too well with Bobby G Razorback gunlines.  All Raven flyer wings performed too well.

 

And we were hit with the same nerfs, as GW want all the imperial points to be the same, regardless of use.

[Capt. Mytre]

We are talking about tournaments...

 

The recent CS nerfs are based on nothing but Tournament performance.  That much is obvious from the units that got price increase or for whom base rules changed.

 

Marines did too well with Bobby G Razorback gunlines.  All Raven flyer wings performed too well.

 

And we were hit with the same nerfs, as GW want all the imperial points to be the same, regardless of use.

 

I'm confused as to who your original comment was made to since you don't quote anyone. My previous post discussed that these issues happened because they didn't listen to the tournament scene during the development period, where blatant issues that are finally being fixed now should have been fixed. Character blocking and smite spam etc should never have made release, they were clear issues from the outset.

[Gentlemanloser]

There weren't any tornaments using 8th when it was being developed.

 

The rumor is they used some tournament tos to playtest 8th.

 

But that would have been private games between the rumoured 15 to playtesters.

 

What we can show, objectively, is that the changes after 8th was released, have between based on tournament performance.

[Bartali]

There weren't any tornaments using 8th when it was being developed.

 

The rumor is they used some tournament tos to playtest 8th.

 

But that would have been private games between the rumoured 15 to playtesters.

 

What we can show, objectively, is that the changes after 8th was released, have between based on tournament performance.

 

Absolutely. We know for certain that TOs where used to play test 8th ed, Reecius from Frontline Gaming/Las Vegas Open in particular was very vocal about it.

[Holier Than Thou]

 

There weren't any tornaments using 8th when it was being developed.

 

The rumor is they used some tournament tos to playtest 8th.

 

But that would have been private games between the rumoured 15 to playtesters.

 

What we can show, objectively, is that the changes after 8th was released, have between based on tournament performance.

 

Absolutely. We know for certain that TOs where used to play test 8th ed, Reecius from Frontline Gaming/Las Vegas Open in particular was very vocal about it.

 

And yet we still have a Codex that is abjectly worse than all others.

[Commissar K.]

 

I really hope GW takes a baseball bat to soup armies (of all kinds) in the next Chapter Approved. Even compared to the dumb 'Taudar' lists of 7th, I'd prefer that over 'so I just cherrypicked the best stuff from 5 armies and threw it together, also I parked Guilleman in the middle so they re-roll everything'. Same for Chaos soup, Brimstones were a mistake (apparently the FW Lords are now too expensive so at least the Smite spam has stopped being as popular).

Let me first say and state that I do not play Grey Knights but am extremely suprised by the notion of 'I hope GW takes a baseball bat to soup armies' especially because I so very clearly recall this specific Codex, the first for Grey Knights and very much being a soup, a Daemonhunter soup:

 

It's actually this soup that made me so interested in Daemonhunters and thus also Grey Knights. 

 

While I understand that some prefer the use of mono-Codex armies, the reality of it all is that the most competitive armies are actually for the most part (90%) soups. Even comming from the initial design concept of what Grey Knights are and how they "should" operate I think the term 'Imperial soup' would be extremely fitting. So aside from some not liking it I really would like to know where this resentment comes from. I expected it in say Blood Angels or Space Wolves who have had several seperate Codex for years but really didn't expect it here. But perhaps you want to return to an edition of Matt Ward designed Grey Knight levels of play? Again, with all respect I'd love to know more about that.

 

Having said that I do somewhat agree that Grey Knights ideally would have some additional rules here and there to preserve them but at the same time with the Deamonic Primarchs and Daemon Princes played in Chaos I think Grey Knights should fully embrace the soup principle (again) to become functional Daemonhunters AND be capable to deal with other forces also. 

 

If players want to be amongst the competitive top that's fine but understand it's all soup is kind of an important thing to realise. 

 

Cheers and best of holidays guys!

[Gerhard]

Truth be told... I do think we shouldn't forget that for your average meta (the local GW, your friends, your play-group) the things discussed here are still relevant, but not as dire as this thread is making it out to be. Sure you'll notice it if it gets changed, such as the new beta rule for smite, but I am sure there will be plenty of games won by Grey Knight players. Not every opponent is a tournament player and Grey Knights might not do well in the current top-tier tournament Meta, but they are definitely not bad either.

 

Most lists, as the previous poster above me has stated, that has won a tournament has been a soup-list consisting of cherry picking the best units of several chapters and armies. If you don't go about doing that yourself, and go with a mono-chapter list, you'll have much less of a chance of winning  against such a min-maxed list to begin with. 

 

Don't get me wrong though... I am not saying that because of that we should simply ignore what is happening right now. We shouldn't, and we should definitely provide the feedback to GW, and keep harassing them to reconsider their silly changes. But we're only talking about Grey Knights in tournament context. Locally is a different ballgame.  

 

If anything, I find that GW is focussing too much on the Tournaments.... where Tournament players are what.... 5% of the actual player base?

[Commissar K.]

Absolutely, I just think it's very important to realize that a lot of GW's designs for 8th seem purposefully designed with narrative first in mind. To GW Grey Knights are Daemonhunters thoroughbred so I would actually not be extremely suprised if they didn't work all too well against armies that do not contain Daemons, even including Chaos Space Marine forces that did have a bunch of cheap Malefic Lords and the like. 

All I can say of this edition so far is that soups are so potetent because they open the paths to the strongest Stratagems and the more is blended into one army the more tactical variance one can present. 

Looking at competitive data we see that Grey Knights did have 4 top 3 showings at GT/ITC in total. This in itself isn't that bad of a score unless you believe Grey Knights are as popular as AM, SM or CSM (which I don't think they are, but they sure used to with M. Ward's Codex). Out of those 4 we have acces to two lists:
http://bloodofkittens.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/David-Ozawa-2nd-Overall-DakkaKon-2017.pdf
http://bloodofkittens.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Michael-Lee-1st-Overall-Come-the-Apocalypse-GT-2017.pdf

As can be seen, both of these lists are actually soups and quite frankly I feel again that the narrative aspect Grey Knights have actually fits these types of lists really well. Again that's just my opinion and as someone who hasn't played in 6th or 7th edition it might just be really a matter of new/old perspective. Again the way I see it is that Grey Knights (especially Grey Knights) fit the soup in such a way that they are either always part of it or will lead another force to battle. 

I think it's important to realize that currently this applies to the top 3 "strongest" factions also. While they are noted as AM, SM and CSM understand that most of these lists do not exclusively use their Codex for the most competitive army showings. All that Frontline Gaming and Blood of Kittens do is note this faction as being the largest part of points within their list. There are many AM lists who blend in SM and assassins, many SM lists who blend in AM, assassins and acolyte's and even more CSM who are a mix of Codex CSM, Index Daemons, Codex Deathguard and Imperial Armour supplements.

Objectively speaking I think any army can compete, it's just a competitive handicap to try and use one Codex to win an event. The fast mayority of top 3 placements as a result do not limit themselves to such ideas and quite frankly if the intend is to make a competitive blend I also do not think one Codex with tons of ally options should have the Artefacts and Stratagems to own the game by using that one particular book. 

[Bartali]

 

 

I really hope GW takes a baseball bat to soup armies (of all kinds) in the next Chapter Approved. Even compared to the dumb 'Taudar' lists of 7th, I'd prefer that over 'so I just cherrypicked the best stuff from 5 armies and threw it together, also I parked Guilleman in the middle so they re-roll everything'. Same for Chaos soup, Brimstones were a mistake (apparently the FW Lords are now too expensive so at least the Smite spam has stopped being as popular).

Let me first say and state that I do not play Grey Knights but am extremely suprised by the notion of 'I hope GW takes a baseball bat to soup armies' especially because I so very clearly recall this specific Codex, the first for Grey Knights and very much being a soup, a Daemonhunter soup:

 

It's actually this soup that made me so interested in Daemonhunters and thus also Grey Knights. 

 

While I understand that some prefer the use of mono-Codex armies, the reality of it all is that the most competitive armies are actually for the most part (90%) soups. Even comming from the initial design concept of what Grey Knights are and how they "should" operate I think the term 'Imperial soup' would be extremely fitting. So aside from some not liking it I really would like to know where this resentment comes from. I expected it in say Blood Angels or Space Wolves who have had several seperate Codex for years but really didn't expect it here. But perhaps you want to return to an edition of Matt Ward designed Grey Knight levels of play? Again, with all respect I'd love to know more about that.

 

Having said that I do somewhat agree that Grey Knights ideally would have some additional rules here and there to preserve them but at the same time with the Deamonic Primarchs and Daemon Princes played in Chaos I think Grey Knights should fully embrace the soup principle (again) to become functional Daemonhunters AND be capable to deal with other forces also. 

 

If players want to be amongst the competitive top that's fine but understand it's all soup is kind of an important thing to realise. 

 

Cheers and best of holidays guys!

 

 

The majority of players don't play soup, and don't play in tournaments. My worry is that GW is balancing the game for this small subset of players by listening to a group of TOs.

[Gentlemanloser]

That.

 

Edit.

 

Also as they originally were.

 

Was a fullmarine chapter with the option of an inquisitor for HQ.

 

I doubt that counts as soup.

 

Plus i asked in other threads if folk thought single codex armies using a mix of chapter tactics or equivalent for max effectiveness was soup.

 

And the answers i got was yes.

 

So you have a single codex sm army using a mix of chapters still being soup.

[TheCastigator]

 

 

Plus i asked in other threads if folk thought single codex armies using a mix of chapter tactics or equivalent for max effectiveness was soup.

 

And the answers i got was yes. 

 

So you have a single codex sm army using a mix of chapters still being soup.

I think, unfortunately for those players, this edition is intentionally designed that way. Guard, Nids, and Eldar are the perfect example of that. Why wouldn't you take a fire base of Cadians and blend them with the Tallarn outflank ability. Same with taking a fire base of Cronos to cover a behemoth assault force? The books are designed to encourage that. People need to accept that 8th edition is still a soup edition, even within specific books. We should expect nothing different from the books that are still coming, Tau Septs, Ork Clans, Necron Dynasties, will all be in there, and encourage blending.

 

The game is pretty excellent and I have played more in the last six months than in the past 8 years. I think its time for people to get on the train. 

As for Grey Knights, it seems that they were maybe one of the first books that were written or they were designed to be part of a soup list. You can still have an Inquisitor lead an army of GK, I run a list like that myself.

 

FLG has continually said that we don't know the order they were written. GK is the only imperial book without a way to get command points back, is the only book with a warhammer tv advert (as far as I've seen) and is the only space marine book to not facilitate the sale of the new goodies. All obvious observations, but it strikes me that it was wither intentional, or they later said, oh, hey, let's add this stuff to the DA and BA books. No doubt they'll be in the SW codex when it drops.  

Finally, when I first started playing people complained that GW only cared about the "beer & pretzels" crowd, now they are too focused on the tourney scene. While not mutually exclusive, I still find the shift comical. The beta rules, and CA changes, while tourney focused, will also protect the non tourney players from tourney lists that wreck their love of the game. The people who have been face punched by the malefic lord/primaris parker list know how not fun it is. It is up to us to tell GW that GK could be adversely affected by the changes, or in fact, require other tweaks. 

 

The fact that the seem to care as much as they do, is a 1000% improvement from 5-7 edition and part of why I came back to the game. Chapter Approved made the game better, the faqs made the game better, the BETA rules (and note that GW used the term BETA) will make the game better.

 

As long as they stay engaged, so will I.  

[Gentlemanloser]

Wait until you face 30 biovorses...

 

CA made the games worse for Elite armies. Who already struggled against hordes.

 

The FAQs nerfed one of our strats as the beta rules are a massive nerf to us.

 

None of it looks good.

 

And we have to wait months for changes as we've passed our new codex 2 week faq window...

[TheCastigator]

I've been on the receiving end of 9. I am sure the rest are in the mail, -- or will be once they are back in stock. Suboptimal for sure, but given the changes to other mortal wound abuse, I would suspect that we'll see a change there sometime. Despite that I would say that for how hard GW seems to be trying this edition -- and they are doing alright -- it will never be completely balanced. Again, a seemingly obvious observation, but we should stop clamoring for it.

No one is making anyone play against those players. If someone has a terrible list in your gaming group or for a random one-off game -- don't play them. Unless you want to get your teeth kicked in or can make a game of it. 

 

You can always ask what kind of game people are looking for or to see their list or ask what kind of list are they running. Saying, "You know what, not interested," can send a pretty powerful message. Not the funnest, definitely, but I've generally found that the boogie man lists are the exception and not the rule. Like I said above, GW is tweaking the game to protect players from those lists, but you can also protect yourself. Easier said than done, certainly, but always an option. 

 

People also need to be honest with themselves about their lists. I run two DKGM's (competitive!) and two... wait for it ... storm hawks (mediocre! But awesome looking). It's reasonably competitive in my groups, but I know that if I see a hard Bobby G list or chaos soup, I'll probably lose. That said, I have wrecked sisters, Mortarion, Guard, various super heavies, Tau, and gone toe-to-toe with Eldar,  I've won 17 8th ed games, while losing 21.

We complain that GW is serving that 5% of the scene, but then follow that up with "OMG, those lists are everywhere."

 

I also think the demons book will give us the clearest picture of where GK stand. If they are able to hard counter GK and there is no follow on from GW, that could prove problematic, but we'll see. The game is still only 50% -- or thereabouts -- complete. I'll be interested to see the CA in 2018, once most or all of the books are out. That is when we'll see if GW puts their money where their mouth is. 

[Gentlemanloser]

I'm not enamoured with having to wait for a year to see if they manage to get it right.

[Capt. Mytre]

 

 

I really hope GW takes a baseball bat to soup armies (of all kinds) in the next Chapter Approved. Even compared to the dumb 'Taudar' lists of 7th, I'd prefer that over 'so I just cherrypicked the best stuff from 5 armies and threw it together, also I parked Guilleman in the middle so they re-roll everything'. Same for Chaos soup, Brimstones were a mistake (apparently the FW Lords are now too expensive so at least the Smite spam has stopped being as popular).

Let me first say and state that I do not play Grey Knights but am extremely suprised by the notion of 'I hope GW takes a baseball bat to soup armies' especially because I so very clearly recall this specific Codex, the first for Grey Knights and very much being a soup, a Daemonhunter soup:

 

It's actually this soup that made me so interested in Daemonhunters and thus also Grey Knights. 

 

While I understand that some prefer the use of mono-Codex armies, the reality of it all is that the most competitive armies are actually for the most part (90%) soups. Even comming from the initial design concept of what Grey Knights are and how they "should" operate I think the term 'Imperial soup' would be extremely fitting. So aside from some not liking it I really would like to know where this resentment comes from. I expected it in say Blood Angels or Space Wolves who have had several seperate Codex for years but really didn't expect it here. But perhaps you want to return to an edition of Matt Ward designed Grey Knight levels of play? Again, with all respect I'd love to know more about that.

 

Having said that I do somewhat agree that Grey Knights ideally would have some additional rules here and there to preserve them but at the same time with the Deamonic Primarchs and Daemon Princes played in Chaos I think Grey Knights should fully embrace the soup principle (again) to become functional Daemonhunters AND be capable to deal with other forces also. 

 

If players want to be amongst the competitive top that's fine but understand it's all soup is kind of an important thing to realise. 

 

Cheers and best of holidays guys!

 

 

You clearly haven't been reading the issues people have been posting here then. Our issue isn't soup. Our issue is that the codex is blatantly bad compared to others. Our issue is that the internal balance is horrible. The issue is, why pick GK when you can pick other options that won't leave you with a handicap? We have one unit that is worthy of soup, that's a GMNDK - that leaves an entire codex of sub-par trash.

 

Truth be told... I do think we shouldn't forget that for your average meta (the local GW, your friends, your play-group) the things discussed here are still relevant, but not as dire as this thread is making it out to be. Sure you'll notice it if it gets changed, such as the new beta rule for smite, but I am sure there will be plenty of games won by Grey Knight players. Not every opponent is a tournament player and Grey Knights might not do well in the current top-tier tournament Meta, but they are definitely not bad either.

 

Most lists, as the previous poster above me has stated, that has won a tournament has been a soup-list consisting of cherry picking the best units of several chapters and armies. If you don't go about doing that yourself, and go with a mono-chapter list, you'll have much less of a chance of winning  against such a min-maxed list to begin with. 

 

Don't get me wrong though... I am not saying that because of that we should simply ignore what is happening right now. We shouldn't, and we should definitely provide the feedback to GW, and keep harassing them to reconsider their silly changes. But we're only talking about Grey Knights in tournament context. Locally is a different ballgame.  

 

If anything, I find that GW is focussing too much on the Tournaments.... where Tournament players are what.... 5% of the actual player base?

 

GK are that bad - they are monobuild: deepstrike + try and get a charge off. With that in mind, any player with any sense can counter your army just by screening with cheap units. I've never lost to a GK player, and to do so would take effort on my part to actively make bad decisions.