What's the beef with Grey Knights?

[SilentTempest]

So, before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, yes, I've looked for similar posts, and no, I haven't found any that really answer the question I want to ask. If I've missed them, please feel free to point me at them (a link would be much appreciated).

I'm looking for an army to do, mostly as a painting project, but I like to be able to play with anything I buy. I play in a very small group, so don't want to field things that are going to spoil the fun for my group.

I've had a long hiatus, and am just getting back into things. I understand from what I've read that Grey Knights are generally considered very strong. What I'm trying to understand is what makes them this way. Is everything undercosted? Or is it just a few units that are crazy good, that get fielded by everyone, and skew people's viewpoint (and thus, if I limited the number I took, they GK army I fielded would be a bit more in line with the power of your average army out there).

To summarise my question, WHY are Grey Knights viewed as an extremely powerful army?

Once again, I'm sure this has come up, but I can't find an answer to this specific questions, so apologies if I'm digging up old topics.

[Kevlar]

Take any special rule from any other army and grey knights have it. And its cheaper. And better. They break many core rules like stacking the same psychic power or scoring vehicles. Army wide force weapons and storm bolter troops cheaper and better than anyone else. 4d6 rending snipers. Monkeys with lascannons and multimeltas on their fingers, cheaper than what tac marines pay for just adding a lascannon on to a devastator. Oh and a host of overpowered special characters that almost all provide some army wide rule.

[Mr Zoat]

Several basic units are a bit too cheap for what they do. The obvious offenders are Strike Squads (stormbolters and S5 improved Force Weapons), Death Cult Assassins (3 attacks with power weapons and a silly statline for 15 points) and Purifiers (like Strike Squads only with better gear, A2 and a broken psychic power). I don't know how anyone thought that Halberds giving +2I was sensible. Their tanks generally ignore stunned and shaken.

In summary, you know how Space Wolves and Blood Angels get called "Marines, but better"? That.

Edit: Just seen post above. Jokaero have a useless special ability and cost 35 points for a bad Imperial Guard heavy weapon team. They are one of the few things that are a bit underpowered.

[sycopat]

Is everything undercosted? Or is it just a few units that are crazy good, that get fielded by everyone, and skew people's viewpoint

IMO, a little from column A, a lot from column B. The undercosting means that in places where people don't field optimized lists, the grey knights are powerful and hard to beat. And the variety of Spammy power list builds they have makes them very powerful in more competitive settings too.

[Clarkson]

to get the gist of the hatred of gk's some people have... for 100pts you can field 5 marines, in armour that gives -1LD for psychic attacks against them, have 2 spychic, one that makes them +1str in cc, before stuff like hammers double your strength, the other that causes all teleport homers or deep strikes within 12" of them to cease to work.. so they scatter fully... and any thing that ends its DS within 12" suffers a mishap. and to cap it off? they are armed with 5 Force weapons for free. and for 50pts more they can have 5 hammers that is str10 after hammerhand, still a force weapon. or halberds that make them +2I permanently .

and that is considered one of the weaker PA squads.

forgot to mention they have 5 stormbolters.

for 100pts you get what other armies need 2-300pts at least to replicate... and as i said.. they are one of the worse options

[wyvirn]

The are more Tyranid Hunters than Daemon Hunters. If Tyranids were on life support, they're competitively dead now. I don't think there was a single Nid player at Adepticon.

[meltedwing]

Take any special rule from any other army and grey knights have it. And its cheaper. And better.

Incorrect. One significant thing missing from the GK codex (and I'm sure it's missing on purpose) is the ability to buy storm shields on actual GK (some inquisition still get them).

You can't take any transports as dedicated for terminators.

You can't take drop pods.

You can't take missiles, lascannons or meltas on heavy support infantry

You can't split fire from heavy support infantry

You can't take lightning claws.

You can't take sniper squads.

You can't take landspeeders or bike squads.

You don't get Predators, Vindicators, Whirlwinds or Thunderfire Cannons.

So, as you can see it's not a simple case of "Take any special rule from any other army and grey knights have it. And its cheaper. And better."

I'm not saying they aren't powerful and cool, but there are a ton of things you don't get as GK. In general I have observed them to be fairly well balanced with other tier 1 armies, but sometimes they get monkey stomped by Eldar and Tau.

[minionboy]

So, as you can see it's not a simple case of "Take any special rule from any other army and grey knights have it. And its cheaper. And better."

I didn't see you list a single special rule... They also don't get Carnifexes or Monoliths.

[Gig]

I didn't see you list a single special rule... They also don't get Carnifexes or Monoliths.

Well you could argue that a Dreadknight with Daemon Hammer is a cheaper Carnifex that just happens to be superior in every single way.

[jonadaya]

They also don't get Carnifexes or Monoliths.

seeing as both of those are quite bad now, why should they?

[Gaargod]

I always say there 2 elements to making a unit 'broken'. One is it being undercosted, the other is it being overpowered - yes, they are different.

Undercosted is when something is just too cheap for what it provides. E.g. Strike squads. Compare to the basic vanilla marine - for 4pts they upgrade bolter to storm bolter, upgrade close combat weapon to power (force) weapon, get 2 excellent psychic powers and the Aegis. If you compare them to the much superior Grey Hunters, they're still a great deal for 5pts more. However, with the possible exception of the very silly Warp-quake power, they're not inherently overpowered, just underpriced.

Overpowered is something like psychotroke or rad grenades. They're just silly debuffs, which should not exist.


Example: death cult assassins - Ws5 I6 S4 A3 power weapons means they chop stuff very well. But to be fair, T3 5++ isn't amazing protection on the return (it's not bad, but it's hardly superb). The problem is that they only cost 15pts.
Decent comparisons are slightly hard to find, but Bloodletters aren't a million miles away. Bloodletters go down to A2 I4, but get T4 and furious charge. Fearless and the stupid daemonic assault rules make it difficult even then but... Point aside, bloodletters are 16pts. This would probably be fine (or a slight raise for DCA), except for the fact they can take transports. Transports, more importantly, with the assault vehicle rule. This makes them a lot more difficult to deal with.
They are then made much worse by being in Henchman squads. Where you can take a crusader with his damn storm shield for 15pts. And he's still got reasonable stats and a power weapon! Mixed squads of these bad boys are then, especially in assault vehicles, very very difficult to deal with.

Purifiers are just stupid. Start with the underpriced strike squad member. Then trade his Warp-quake for Cleansing Flame, which is a foul thing, and give him +1A (and +1LD, but not very important as Justicars are all Ld9). Oh, and his weaponry options all get a lot cheaper/more access. Admittedly, he becomes an elite choice not a troops, but you can actually make them troops if it comes to that. They're straight up underpriced, and cleansing flame makes them overpowered.


Lots of the army is like that. You will struggle to find a unit which isn't one, or both, of the two to some degree. When you start including buffs, it becomes almost impossible.

[WildWeasel]

And then there's the psyflemen, which are proof positive that points costing in 40K is completely arbitrary and random.

Upgrade 2 S4 24" range shots to S5: 5 points.

Upgrade 4 twin-linked S7 48" range shots to S8 (oh and it takes two Weapon Destroyed results to fully eliminate them): 5 points.

[Dreadlordpaul]

I always say there 2 elements to making a unit 'broken'. One is it being undercosted, the other is it being overpowered - yes, they are different.

Undercosted is when something is just too cheap for what it provides. E.g. Strike squads. Compare to the basic vanilla marine - for 4pts they upgrade bolter to storm bolter, upgrade close combat weapon to power (force) weapon, get 2 excellent psychic powers and the Aegis. If you compare them to the much superior Grey Hunters, they're still a great deal for 5pts more. However, with the possible exception of the very silly Warp-quake power, they're not inherently overpowered, just underpriced.

Overpowered is something like psychotroke or rad grenades. They're just silly debuffs, which should not exist.


Example: death cult assassins - Ws5 I6 S4 A3 power weapons means they chop stuff very well. But to be fair, T3 5++ isn't amazing protection on the return (it's not bad, but it's hardly superb). The problem is that they only cost 15pts.
Decent comparisons are slightly hard to find, but Bloodletters aren't a million miles away. Bloodletters go down to A2 I4, but get T4 and furious charge. Fearless and the stupid daemonic assault rules make it difficult even then but... Point aside, bloodletters are 16pts. This would probably be fine (or a slight raise for DCA), except for the fact they can take transports. Transports, more importantly, with the assault vehicle rule. This makes them a lot more difficult to deal with.
They are then made much worse by being in Henchman squads. Where you can take a crusader with his damn storm shield for 15pts. And he's still got reasonable stats and a power weapon! Mixed squads of these bad boys are then, especially in assault vehicles, very very difficult to deal with.

Purifiers are just stupid. Start with the underpriced strike squad member. Then trade his Warp-quake for Cleansing Flame, which is a foul thing, and give him +1A (and +1LD, but not very important as Justicars are all Ld9). Oh, and his weaponry options all get a lot cheaper/more access. Admittedly, he becomes an elite choice not a troops, but you can actually make them troops if it comes to that. They're straight up underpriced, and cleansing flame makes them overpowered.


Lots of the army is like that. You will struggle to find a unit which isn't one, or both, of the two to some degree. When you start including buffs, it becomes almost impossible.

Yet you forget how small a pure grey knight army is and when they are out numbered by even a mech marine army you know somethings wrong

[Bunnahabhain]

Let us take the example of the Vindicare assassin. They're supposed to be the best sniper out. They are defined ( mainly) by two things:

The ability to pick any model they can see as a target, even if they're in combat, can't usually be picked out, etc, etc.

Their special ammo.

Now, if we look at the next best shooting special characters in the game- i.e Telion, Maugan Ra, they don't get anything half as good as this ability or ammo. The living incarnation of death from afar, with thousands of years of experience....doesn't have the skills of this guy.

Their ammo is also rather good. Their anti-tank round, for instance, is the best ranged AT thing in the game, outside of Titan class weapons. It's better than the IG medusa, with a huge ordnance weapon, and a specialist Anti-tank upgrade.

Now, that gives you a good flavour of a typical Grey knight unit. Repeat for most of the book.

[Kevlar]

And even with all their great stuff, most people are just going to spam 3 henchmen in a razorback with psybolt ammo because its like 60 points, scoring, fairly survivable, and excellent at punching holes in stuff. It is truly unbelievable the range of cheddar that army has access to.

[Clarkson]

And even with all their great stuff, most people are just going to spam 3 henchmen in a razorback with psybolt ammo because its like 60 points, scoring, fairly survivable, and excellent at punching holes in stuff. It is truly unbelievable the range of cheddar that army has access to.

*72pts for cheapest (with psybolt, 67 w/o)

[millzamus]

The general weakness that i have found grey knights is that they will most of the time be outnumbered by every army out there, Force weapons and storm bolters can only get you so far, as quantity will most likely beat quality. They are still only 3+, so they still die just like normal marines.

[Kevlar]

The general weakness that i have found grey knights is that they will most of the time be outnumbered by every army out there, Force weapons and storm bolters can only get you so far, as quantity will most likely beat quality. They are still only 3+, so they still die just like normal marines.

What other army can field 6 razorbacks full of troops and +1 str guns for 432 points? And then there is the psyrifle dreads. Yeah, they are so overpriced... The three units of purifiers with their 12 psycannons are just the icing on the cake.

[Draconis]

Incorrect. One significant thing missing from the GK codex (and I'm sure it's missing on purpose) is the ability to buy storm shields on actual GK (some inquisition still get them).


You can't take drop pods.

You can't take missiles, lascannons or meltas on heavy support infantry

You can't split fire from heavy support infantry

You can't take lightning claws.

You can't take sniper squads.

You can't take landspeeders or bike squads.

You don't get Whirlwinds or Thunderfire Cannons.

So, as you can see it's not a simple case of "Take any special rule from any other army and grey knights have it. And its cheaper. And better."

I'm not saying they aren't powerful and cool, but there are a ton of things you don't get as GK. In general I have observed them to be fairly well balanced with other tier 1 armies, but sometimes they get monkey stomped by Eldar and Tau.

Sounds like CSM to me.

[Avatar_exADV]

Part of it's just the design philosophy. Marine armies (and, to some extent, everything else) have trade-offs to make. "Oh, I want a fighty unit, so I'll take these guys for fightiness, but they won't be especially shooty." "Oh, I want these shooty guys, just hope I don't get into CC with them." "Oh, I want some generalists who have both, I've got to lay out mega points for them."

GK... just aren't forced to make the same tradeoffs. Force weapons on every Marine model mean that their shooty units are still plenty scary in CC. They get a cheap, stronger power fist wherever they want. They ALWAYS get to shoot before assaulting, even their heavy weapon. Incidentally, that heavy weapon is a move-and-fire RENDING autocannon that, er, shoots double if you happen to stay put.

Sure, you can bling out some GK units and they get expensive quickly. But with a relatively inexpensive HQ, suddenly you have access to cheap troops, who are also customizable to a crazy degree. And have full access to transports. And can take a few heavy weapons per squad (and can take even more if you don't mind bringing the monkey!) For only a few more points than I can bring a unit of -grots-, GK can put a scoring unit in a Chimera. This frees them to spend as many points on bling as they like - or to just bring along a lot of the underpriced SS or purifiers (or the hardly-overpriced termies...)

And there's no problem balancing your scoring with your bling, because there are HQs that bring along the ability to throw special rules on some of your troops. Not enough scoring units for this mission? Here, unshakeable backfield dreadnought, you can be scoring too unlike every other walker in the game! Got enough scoring units? You can hand out scout (or, good gravy, counter-attack). But, you say, that limits their HQ selection? Sure, except that there are no less than TWO special characters that can also hand out the same rules. Oh, and you've also got access to unbelievably cheap HQs which you can then bling precisely to taste, or just keep them inexpensive and stack the unbalanced grenade options on 'em...

They're not unbeatable, 'kay? They don't necessarily break the game. They're not Daemons in Fantasy 7th ed. But they have a lot of advantages and where other people have to make tradeoffs when putting a list together, GK get lots of units that have all the good aspects wrapped up into one.

I do think that if future editions significantly hurt transport survivability, that will have a big impact on how good GK are. The reason that "they die just like Marines" isn't a big disadvantage is that, by and large, they aren't walking; they ride in cheap (and super-resilient) transports just like regular Marines, so you've got to do the usual anti-tank thing before you can start rolling for those 3+ armor saves. In an environment where the Razorback isn't a mobile invulnerable pillbox, their disadvantage (points) would be increased...