Strange design choices (a rant)

[Kaede45]

I’m not entirely certain as to what I could call this thread other than a rant of sorts, but maybe some of you can figure out what my mind is trying to say so here goes…

 

After trying to figure out what faction I wanted to play, I settled on GK because I like the idea of demon hunters. However, there are a few things that bother me about the models & I guess I wanted to see how others felt about this.

First off, I’m disappointed that they have so few models in their category, featuring only 2 main squads (not counting their variants), but also that they don’t seem to have access to most generic Space Marine units save for dreadnaughts & vehicles. It’s also annoying that they don’t have unique models for their librarians & chaplains. Even their apothecaries aren’t treated as characters like in every other Space Marine army.

Second, while I like the wrist mounted Storm Bolters & have no issues with them being on their left wrists, I find it odd that both Kaldor Draigo & Garran Crowe have their Storm Bolters mounted on their right wrists instead. It makes sense for Draigo, as he carries a shield, but not for Crowe & I guess I find it odd that there is no option to switch wrists on any other models.

Third, I like that Draigo has a shield, which I feel really invokes the idea of him being a knight, but it vexes me that no other models have the option of using shields! I feel that it would be awesome if at least Terminators had the option of swapping their Storm Bolters for shields or if other models could have the Storm Bolters on their right wrists & shields in the left hands (like Draigo). It seems like a missed opportunity in my honest opinion & I wish GW would consider this idea.

Lastly is more of a question, but what do y’all think are the chances that GK will get Primaris marines? I’m not exactly demanding the GW makes Primaris GK, since I do like how customizable firstborns are, but I feel like they may have put themselves in a bad position as all loyalist marines they are making now are Primaris, but the GK are so secretive that it might not make sense lore-wise for them to get Primaris marines. Granted, they may make their presence known to Guilliman who could then pass on that knowledge to Cawl so he could make Primaris GK, but still I’m not sure if that would make much sense. I don’t know, I’m still quite new to the setting, but maybe y’all can give me insight as to what the rest of you guys may think.

 

Anyways, thanks for coming to my TED talk & as always, God Bless!

[W.A.Rorie]

Welcome to the Hallowed Halls of Titan, @Kaede45.

 

1 hour ago, Kaede45 said:

I’m not entirely certain as to what I could call this thread other than a rant of sorts, but maybe some of you can figure out what my mind is trying to say so here goes…

 

After trying to figure out what faction I wanted to play, I settled on GK because I like the idea of demon hunters. However, there are a few things that bother me about the models & I guess I wanted to see how others felt about this.

 

First off, I’m disappointed that they have so few models in their category, featuring only 2 main squads (not counting their variants), but also that they don’t seem to have access to most generic Space Marine units save for dreadnaughts & vehicles. It’s also annoying that they don’t have unique models for their librarians & chaplains. Even their apothecaries aren’t treated as characters like in every other Space Marine army.

 

Second, while I like the wrist mounted Storm Bolters & have no issues with them being on their left wrists, I find it odd that both Kaldor Draigo & Garran Crowe have their Storm Bolters mounted on their right wrists instead. It makes sense for Draigo, as he carries a shield, but not for Crowe & I guess I find it odd that there is no option to switch wrists on any other models.

 

Third, I like that Draigo has a shield, which I feel really invokes the idea of him being a knight, but it vexes me that no other models have the option of using shields! I feel that it would be awesome if at least Terminators had the option of swapping their Storm Bolters for shields or if other models could have the Storm Bolters on their right wrists & shields in the left hands (like Draigo). It seems like a missed opportunity in my honest opinion & I wish GW would consider this idea.

Lastly is more of a question, but what do y’all think are the chances that GK will get Primaris marines? I’m not exactly demanding the GW makes Primaris GK, since I do like how customizable firstborns are, but I feel like they may have put themselves in a bad position as all loyalist marines they are making now are Primaris, but the GK are so secretive that it might not make sense lore-wise for them to get Primaris marines. Granted, they may make their presence known to Guilliman who could then pass on that knowledge to Cawl so he could make Primaris GK, but still I’m not sure if that would make much sense. I don’t know, I’m still quite new to the setting, but maybe y’all can give me insight as to what the rest of you guys may think.

 

Anyways, thanks for coming to my TED talk & as always, God Bless!

 

So im gonna answer your questions like so:

 

1-It has been a long issue with the lack of models for Grey Knights as far back as I can remember. Apothecaries and Ancients were characters until the recent index. Which is super annoying because Apothecaries can not go into Paladin squads when the could only be taken in Paladin squads a few editions ago.  An upgrade sprue would have been nice for Space Marine vehicles.  

 

2-I think it has to do with art work.

 

3- That is how paladins should be equipped, Shields, Right hand bolters and nemesis weapons

 

4- Rumor is 11th ed is the range refresh for Grey Knights. Which would mean enlarged Terminators. 

 

I am going to add a few more issues to your Ted Talk-

• 1 enhancement out of 8 from both detachments is partial good against daemons yet Grey Knights are daemonhunters. 
• Nemesis Force Weapons part 1...Halbreds, Swords, falchions, hammer MAKE THEM SEPARATE 
• Nemesis Force Weapon part 2 on Brotherhood Librarian different than every other Infantry models Nemesis Force Weapon. 
• Dreadknight is not strong enough to fight Greater Daemons toe to toe like in the fluff

 

 

 

 

[casb1965]

Where do I start.

I understand where you are coming from but did you read everything you could on GK before choosing them?

GK come in two flavours, power armour or Terminator armour, nothing more, nothing less. Librarians, Chaplains, Apothecaries are no different to any other GK except for the title and are armed and armoured no differently, especially as all GKs are technically Librarians. 

As for Primaris GK, not going to happen, Cawl is oblivious to their existence and even if he did know of them the GK sure as hell won't give him access to their gene seed. It's hard enough to make a GK in the first place without having some outsider mess with your Gene seed to see if they can cross the rubicon. 

 

Rules wise everything mentioned has been and gone and in some cases come back over the many iterations of 40k. And no doubt some will reappear in 11th.

Force weapons were standardised to one stat line so it was easy to remember and also you didn't have to change your model to get different stats, this may change I 11th.

What i would like to see more than anything is being a psyker actually having benefits rather than the drawback of an anti-psyker rule. They rolled the psychic powers in to being a unit buff without giving GK anything psychic to do.

[CastellanDeMolay]

I remember when Grey Knights were one unit. You could buy a squad of metal Terminators, I don't think they were even calling them Paladins at that point. I thought it was a strange idea to try to spin them off into their own army, but GW seemed to be trying to get away from the concept of allies and agents for a whlle. Historically the fluff stated that they would send small contingents to assist other forces against Daemons and Chaos then hit everyone involved with the forgetti-beam to keep it a secret. Their secretive nature and methods are at odds with the concept of having a wide range of models and a large presence on the tabletop; the fantasy of the army doesn't translate well into a product line. 

 

I think the solution to the problem is to make them as elite as possible, without stepping too much on the Custodes' toes. (I find Custodes being their own self-contained army equally baffling) I think (hope) that the whole Primaris thing will just be quietly retconned as Cawl having made a secret army of Astartes and kept them in stasis, and made some new armour for them, once the last of the firstborn kits are done away with, and we can just pretend that whole thing didn't happen and that size thing is just the same scale-creep to which we're used. 

 

That all said, I think there's potential for new GK units, besides upscaled versions of the current kits. The need for secrecy, and perhaps to establish beachheads from which deep-strike attacks could commence would make a Phobos-like version of Aegis armour logical, and I could maybe see Gravis being useful for situations where teleportation is impractical. Ideally GK would be included as the marine half of a starter set as part of the range refresh, so you get two sets of poses for your main battleline units, similar to what DA got in 6/7th, but that potentially limits the appeal of the starter. It would mean a sprue full of push-fit characters wearing the right types of armour, which should address one of the biggest problems identified in the OP. 

 

Presumably GK will get access to things like the newer Grav-tanks; it seems strange to me that the chapter with supposedly the best technology has fallen behind the rest of the Astartes in armoured warfare. 

[Brother Tyler]

The Grey Knights as we now know them are a relic of their 3rd edition reintroduction (albeit with a few additions in the intervening editions of the game) and the fact that they are (now) different from all the other Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes. Limited resources mean that Games Workshop has to prioritize how it modernizes model ranges; and the introduction of the Primaris into the Adeptus Astartes further forced the incorporation of those models into various Chapter lines. We've seen how Games Workshop has gradually given each Chapter proper Primaris models. It was common sense to start with the basic units that apply to everyone, and to then work Chapter by Chapter. Given the Grey Knights' distinctiveness from both a lore aspect as well as in their models, it makes sense that they would be the last Chapter in the prioritization sequence. Whether or not the Grey Knights will get the Primaris treatment is up for debate. Arguments can be made for either alternative. Ultimately, Games Workshop will make that decision regardless of what players think.

 

Point of fact: the Grey Knights are not "all ... librarians." They are all psykers. While all psykers in other Chapters are librarians, very few of the Grey Knights are librarians, despite their psychic potential. The members of a Chapter's Librarius have specific roles, and these aren't roles performed by the non-Librarian Grey Knights. There was a time when very few of the Grey Knights were psykers:

[The Grey Knights] are specially screened to exclude all but the strongest and most resilient psykers, a measure designed to prevent any Daemonic contamination. As a result, very few of the Grey Knights have any psychic power whatsoever.

That's ancient history, however.

 

The Grey Knights were first introduced back in the 1st edition of the game, with an army list appearing in Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness. In that 1st edition army list, the Grey Knights were remarkably similar to the other Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes, which can be seen by comparing them with the White Scars army list that was published in Warhammer 40,000 Chapter Approved: Book of the Astronomicon (the White Scars army list was described as being representative of the Space Marine Chapters). The key differences were that the Grey Knights were immune to fear effects; when making fear tests caused by Daemons, Grey Knights received a +1 bonus to their Cool; and the Grey Knights had access to psyk-out grenades and some other unique anti-Daemon weapons. In addition, the Grey Knights didn't have all of the vehicles that White Scars [regular] Space Marines could take. In terms of their profiles and most other rules, however, they were recognizable as and largely interchangeable with other Space Marines.

 

Notably, there weren't any special models for the Grey Knights at that time. It wasn't until Terminators were introduced to the game (via Space Hulk) that we saw special Grey Knights Terminator models, and these were the only models unique to the Grey Knights. For the most part, other Grey Knights models were nothing more than regular Space Marines painted as Grey Knights.

 

When the 2nd edition of the game was introduced, the Grey Knights were effectively reduced to just the Grey Knights Terminator squads (which is the period that @CastellanDeMolay recalls). This lasted through the early 3rd edition, with the Grey Knights introduced into that edition via a Chapter Approved article. It wasn't until Codex: Daemonhunters was published in late 3rd edition that we saw the Grey Knights as we now know them. This was effectively a restoration of them in their 1st edition version, though changed so that all Grey Knights were now psykers. As with their 1st edition version, they lacked access to many of the units that other Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes had, such as Assault Squads, bikes, Land Speeders, etc. Forge World filled in some of the gaps with vehicles, including a beloved (and now lost) Dreadnought. Some units were added in later editions, including the Nemesis Dreadknights, Paladins, and Interceptors. The full army list was also expanded to include Assassins, a range of Inquisitorial henchmen, etc.

 

The Grey Knights have always been more limited than their "regular" Adeptus Astartes counterparts, however, because they have a decided focus on daemons. Personally, I liked the 2nd edition version where the Grey Knights showed up as a squad (led by a Captain) to give other armies of the Imperium a bit of muscle against daemons. I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority, however, and the Grey Knights will be perpetuated as a standalone army (and I'm okay with that). Still, I'd like to see them focused a bit more on the anti-daemon role, not giving them access to the full stable of vehicles and other units that other Chapters enjoy. Many of the current limitations can be attributed to the lack of Primaris Space Marines within the Chapter's ranks. If that changes, we may see an expansion of the vehicles that the Grey Knights can take.

 

While I love the idea of being able to choose the forearm upon which individual Grey Knights mount their storm bolters, it seems unlikely to me because this increases the bits needed on the sprues, which are already pretty crowded given the number of weapons options available to each model. This is largely a matter of real world practicality.

 

I'm neutral on the matter of shields. Shields are definitely evocative of the "knights" portion of the Chapter name, certainly, but I don't think they're absolutely necessary. I could see them as an option for certain characters, and perhaps for a special unit, but I think that most rank-and-file Grey Knights should remain with the current stable of weapons and wargear. Most Grey Knights weapons, after all, are two-handed or dual-wield (and they usually have the forearm-mounted storm bolters, too), so models equipped with [storm] shields would necessarily need smaller, and therefore slightly less potent, weapons as a result of carrying a shield.

 

I definitely agree, however, that the Grey Knights need access to the full range of officers/specialists (e.g., standard bearers/ancients, apothecaries, chaplains, and librarians) models that are properly representative of the Grey Knights (i.e., armoured appropriately). If the Grey Knights get those, I imagine they'll come with a range refresh in which the models are properly embiggened. It would be very easy for Games Workshop to give them the Primaris embiggening without needing to have distinct models since the Grey Knights already have unique armour. It would simply be a matter of putting all Grey Knights models in proper Primaris size and handwaving the introduction of Primaris into the ranks. Or they could put the models in that size without adding the Primaris lore (much the way the regular Terminator models have been embiggened). There would be no need for a firstborn/Primaris distinction or different models.

 

I would love to see a reintroduction of an updated proper Grey Knights Dreadnought, and I would love to see the Nemesis Dreadknight improved to make it more similar to an Imperial Knight and able to go toe-to-toe with a Greater Daemon (maybe not the Daemon Princes, though). I've never hated the "baby carrier" appearance of the Nemesis Dreadknight, but I wouldn't mind an update.

[Indy Techwisp]

Just going to chime in here with a note:
There's not many "Loyalist Marine" factions left that need a proper range update.
Space Wolves just got theirs, Deathwatch are in a weird limbo (are they going to return in full from their new index or get fully integrated into IA), the Codex chapters are heavily rumoured/hinted to be getting dedicated content this edition...

 

If 11th want an updated Marine Faction to sell, that's probably gonna be Grey Knights at this point (unless they fully lean into the lingering Space Marine II hype and focus Deathwatch or randomly promote one of the Codex chapters to Divergent status).

So hopefully Grey Knights won't need to wait long for their much needed range refresh.