# Psybolt ammunition worth it?



## V ANoMaLy V (Jun 21, 2011)

Hey guys i dont really know the proper place to post this as it didnt fall under army list or anything else, that I could think of however, I just have a simple question.

Is a unit of 8 greyknights(SS) with psybolt ammunition and 2 psychcannons worth taking over a unit of them (without psybolt ammunition) inside a rhino?

Alright, Thanks


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## Sephyr (Jan 18, 2010)

In almost all situations, psybolt ammo is a great choice. 

Remember that your guys can walk -and- fire 2 shots at S5 from 24" away, meaning an effective range of 30 inches. S5 bolter can actually threaten DE vehicles and even transports with AV 10 in the rear, which is a lot of them. It's wounding Eldar, Tau and IG on a 2+. 

It's also a bonus that will stay with the unit for as long as it's alive, unlike a rhino which will get blown open in the first two turns of almost every game.


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## Fallen (Oct 7, 2008)

its great - like the DE "usual bullshit" on their vehicles (night shield & flicker field) its great to have on GK stuff.

i usually see it on rifle-dreads and psycannon squads.


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Depending on the platform, psybolt ammo is borderline OP for its points cost.

In a Strike Squad, I think that unless the unit is of maximum size psybolt ammo isn't worth the points as it costs the same regardless of the number of models in the unit. 8 Grey Knights with storm bolters and two with psycannons are a great unit and psybolts makes their shooting even more effective.


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

I would say it's almost always good if you're taking big squads, In a full sized strike squad it's only 2pts a model and that gives you 16 S5 Shots and 4 S7 shots as you advance, it means you can threaten Light Armour with your basic guns if you need to. 

I would say it's probably worth at most 3pts a model as a rule of thumb in units, and it is always good on vehicles (except the Storm Raven if you have Hurricane Bolters)


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## OddJob (Nov 1, 2007)

I'm a particular fan of psyblots on a large interceptor squad as they can manouver for easy side/rear armour shots. Other than that, fully agree with KD and Aramoro.


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

Whats not to love about walking heavy bolter with 1 less shot, and 24 inch range. Hell I honestly think it is op on assault cannons, and autocannons, do to the fact that this inexpensive upgrade drastically increases their effectiveness *Str8 auto cannons GW? Really? What do you now live off the tears of ork, and nid players or something?)


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## Ravner298 (Jun 3, 2011)

> is borderline OP for its points cost.


That sums up the codex in general.

I can't think of a situation where you couldn't justify paying the low points cost for drastically increasing said weapons effectiveness.


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## Creon (Mar 5, 2009)

I don't use it for marine squads or terminators, just don't find a STR:5 bolter helping me a lot in games I play. And PsyCannons aren't affected, so that isn't upgraded. On weapons platforms? Yes, please, DN and Razorbacks are very helped by that cheap upgrade. Foot squads? It's rather expensive.


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

LukeValantine said:


> Whats not to love about walking heavy bolter with 1 less shot, and 24 inch range. Hell I honestly think it is op on assault cannons, and autocannons, do to the fact that this inexpensive upgrade drastically increases their effectiveness *Str8 auto cannons GW? Really? What do you now live off the tears of ork, and nid players or something?)


It's very easy to say 'OMG S8 Auto how broken'. But you need to look at the codex as a whole. A Psybolt Ammo dread compares pretty well to say Long Fangs. The cost is not a million miles apart, Dread is Twinlinked, Long Fangs can split fire etc etc.


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## Sephyr (Jan 18, 2010)

Aramoro said:


> It's very easy to say 'OMG S8 Auto how broken'. But you need to look at the codex as a whole. A Psybolt Ammo dread compares pretty well to say Long Fangs. The cost is not a million miles apart, Dread is Twinlinked, Long Fangs can split fire etc etc.


That's a good point, but there are a few other issues:
-Dread is almost immune to shaken and stun;
-Dread has a vehicle statline making him immune to most small arms that would give Long Fangs casualties. 
-Dread can fire on the move, unlike LFs
-You can make the Dread venerable, with better BS and amazing resilience, for a cost very close to that of a 5 LF unit with MLs.

In comparison, the Fangs:
-Have some extra ablative wounds
-Can split fire

So, even compared to a very powerful unit (I mean, just look at the poor ultramarine Devs and chaos havocs!), the GK rifle dread comes out on top in a majority of ways.


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

A venerable dread costs a lot more at 195 points, compared to 140 for 5 Long Fangs + Squad Leader and the Regular Dread at 135pts. I don't know what you mean by close but 55pts is not close for me. 

The Long Fangs have 1 more shot, they can fire Frag Missiles and don't die to a single Melta Shot. if you want a direct comparison Long Fangs can kill 2 Dreads a turn, the Rifleman cannot kill all the Long Fangs in a turn. I think it's impossible to say which one is better as they all have different pluses and minuses, I would call this relatively balanced.


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## Creon (Mar 5, 2009)

Lets consider something else. Psyfleman against Marines: Not AP:3. Saves are going to happen, you might kill 1 to 2 in a round. Four Lascannon return shots, shall we say. 3 hits, 1 pen, 1 glance, shaken and damaged. Sounds like an even trade. As to Shaken and stunned being less horrific to a DN. Sure, without a hood around, or other psynulling, you're right.


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Creon said:


> Lets consider something else. Psyfleman against Marines: Not AP:3. Saves are going to happen, you might kill 1 to 2 in a round. Four Lascannon return shots, shall we say. 3 hits, 1 pen, 1 glance, shaken and damaged. Sounds like an even trade. As to Shaken and stunned being less horrific to a DN. Sure, without a hood around, or other psynulling, you're right.


Right, but few people are going to be firing autocannons at Marines in the first place. Those Dreadnoughts are there to tear up vehicles and monstrous creatures, it's a waste of firepower for the Dread to shoot at Marines.


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## fynn (Sep 19, 2008)

Creon said:


> I don't use it for marine squads or terminators, just don't find a STR:5 bolter helping me a lot in games I play. And *PsyCannons aren't affected,* so that isn't upgraded. On weapons platforms? Yes, please, DN and Razorbacks are very helped by that cheap upgrade. Foot squads? It's rather expensive.


umm psycannons are affercted by psybolt ammo, the only ones that are not affected are heavy psycannons carried by dreadknights


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

Katie Drake said:


> Right, but few people are going to be firing autocannons at Marines in the first place. Those Dreadnoughts are there to tear up vehicles and monstrous creatures, it's a waste of firepower for the Dread to shoot at Marines.


Indeed and in that respect I see Dreads and Long Fangs comparable in that respect. Dreads seem much more survivable but with the meching of the game the amount of Anti-armour people have is high, which skews things. I don't see Psybolt Ammo Dreads as broken at all, they're powerful but inline with the other 5th Ed Codexs.




fynn said:


> umm psycannons are affercted by psybolt ammo, the only ones that are not affected are heavy psycannons carried by dreadknights


Psybolt ammo only effects Bolt Pistol, Boltgun, Storm Bolter, Heavy Bolter, Hurricane Bolter, Autocannon or Assault Cannons. The list is right there in the rules. Psycannons already have Psybolt Ammo, being as they are basicaly Assault Cannons with Psybolts.


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

Thought I would trow a little math into the mix to show how Dreadnoughts are compare to long fangs (long fangs with 5 missle lauchers have only one free wound before they have to take of a heavy weapon and that wound is the squad leader so they are no where near as resilient against fire as a dreadnought, but points cost differentials helps to balance this factor...kinda). Note it is also kind of stupid to compare one of the most broken SM long range units to show how balanced the dreadnought is, a more fair comparison would be comparing them to UM devastators, or long range support in the BA, CSM (was written for 5th) codex to get a balanced opinion on the matter..

Dreadnought with psy-autocannons VS rhino 
Glancing Hits:	0.556 Penetration Hits:	1.778
Long fangs VS rhino. 
Penetration Hits:	1.667, Penetration Hits:	1.667

Note how they are dead equal almost vs av 11, but keep in mind the dreadnought will disregard .66% of all glances, and .33% of all pens, while any enemy only has to force on average 6-9 wounds with full armor on a long fang unit to almost half their damage out put (about average rolling when fired at by 10 simple bolters or 4 HB's). Still the Long fangs are better at hunting MC's, and GeK then Dreadnought.

However as stated this is a very slanted number as you are comparing arguably the two best anti-light vhicle units to ever exist in a marines codex. With one being fairly invincible on good rolls, and the other being retardedly cheap for its effectiveness with the cost of 25pts a pop to get massed missile launchers.

Another fact that supporters of GK tend to leave out is the fact that psycannons are the stop gap to fill in for the short commings of the auto-cannon dread, and can be taken in incredible numbers. In that they can be heavy 4 rending auto-cannons (retarded right?) with the only down side being their vidicators equivalent range.

I honestly believe there is a lot of potential for just plain broken combo's in the GK codex, but thankfully 90% of grey knight players are attracted on mass to terminators, and the like, and it will be a while till the true abuse of this new codex comes to a head......DA venom spam anyone?


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## experiment 626 (Apr 26, 2007)

LukeValantine said:


> Another fact that supporters of GK tend to leave out is the fact that psycannons are the stop gap to fill in for the short commings of the auto-cannon dread, and can be taken in incredible numbers. In that they can be heavy 4 rending auto-cannons (retarded right?) with the only down side being their vidicators equivalent range.


I find that alot of GK players & supporters tend leave out a great deal when trying to say that the codex is "well balanced"

Rending mover-and-fire autocannons, 'free' anti-daemon bonus', rediculously awsome grenades (rads & psychos), most broken psychic power in the game, cheap & insanely effective upgrades, no real 'bad' choices...
GK's got it all really, their slight lack of numbers and only minimally shorter shooting range being their checks. (and not that huge a check either when you consider they can always move-and-fire with their 2 most common weapons!)



LukeValantine said:


> I honestly believe there is a lot of potential for just plain broken combo's in the GK codex, but thankfully 90% of grey knight players are attracted on mass to terminators, and the like, and it will be a while till the true abuse of this new codex comes to a head......DA venom spam anyone?


No kidding! Daemons are already pretty fucked - espeically if the knight player takes & uses even a fraction of their daemon spanking abilities...

But then, they've also got;
- Rainman dreads; Asscan + TL auto + psy bolts = angry! Yes it loses 2 shots at long range, but it's far, far more effective because the knights are not a stationary army by any means, (no are most other forces), and it deals with the Av13/14 problem much better than the riflemen dreads. (go even more S7 rending!)
It's also better suited to supporting against MEQ's due to the asscan's rending potenial.

- Psycannon spam. Crow + Purifyers are just plain mean to everyone... Crows not the suckpot alot of knight players make him out to be either. He's an HQ slot yes, but he gives the knights their arguably 'best' overall Troops choice, and he's a brilliant assassin who can also lock-up nasty models...
A 10-man Purifyer squad w/4x psycannons + psybolts is only 300pts. The weapon upgrades aren't that important and the squad will mulch MEQ's & hordes alike quite efficiently...

- Interceptor spam. A great way of dealing with parking lot IG and other armies who fire lots of stationary templates... Turn 1, shunt to 1" in front of your target! Sure, use those templates, and run a solid risk of blowing yourself up too!
The 'Ceptors will die, but the point is, they take the hits for the rest of army and keep the pressure off the main Troops units and/or objectives.

- Coteaz + Henchman. We haven't even started to see the begining of this yet, because everyone is still messing around with all the possible combos...
But, as one of my mates has found out, it is soooooooo worth putting just 1 Banisher into every squad as it pretty much means 100% victory vs daemons and it nerfs Fatecrusher/Fatefiend hardcore!

- Draigowing. There's a few lists starting to crop up that are very, very successful 'all comers' forces... I think this list will take more skill to get the most out of it, but Paladins while costly, are simply so much better than normal termies because of the way you can screw around with wound allocation.

- Turn 1 Quake-Shunting. Insta win vs daemons...
Not really advisable for all-comers, but with 2 squads who come with this ungodly broken bullshit power, it's not that hard to work a decent version of it into an all-comers list for tournies. (especially if you know the local meta favours alot of deep striking & drop pods!)



I honestly think Grey Knights are going to become the 7th ed Daemons of 40k... They're just too good overall for what they cost, they've made an codex unplayable for the most part and they do have answers in their book for everything!

So way to fuck it up again Ward!!!:angry: You were supposed to nerf Fantasy daemons - not completely kill 40k daemons!:headbutt:


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

experiment 626 said:


> _Stuff_


Learn to play?

I hear this all the time, oh yeah Grey Knight players are just messing around, that why they're not winning. But my mate yeah he's got a total power build, he's got it worked out totally not like all these other loser GK players. Or maybe you just suck and can't work out how to beat his janky build. 1 Banisher in every Squad to beat daemons you say? If you need banishers to beat daemons you are doing it wrong, you seem to have no concept of what an all comers list should contain.


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

GKs are powerful, and clearly in the top tier of lists. People will come up with tactics to use against them though. as it happens, bloodcrushers go straight through them just as easily as they go through everything else, and MCs hurt a lot too, so it isn't an auto-win against daemons. 

On topic again, psybolt ammo is great. I'd go as far as to say that it's the _whole point_ in taking Gk infantry. These guys tear apart any kid of enemy infantry, and vehicles with less that armour 12. It's not an upgrade, it's the reason they are in your army in the first place.


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

Aramoro said:


> Learn to play?
> 
> I hear this all the time, oh yeah Grey Knight players are just messing around, that why they're not winning. But my mate yeah he's got a total power build, he's got it worked out totally not like all these other loser GK players. Or maybe you just suck and can't work out how to beat his janky build. 1 Banisher in every Squad to beat daemons you say? If you need banishers to beat daemons you are doing it wrong, you seem to have no concept of what an all comers list should contain.


They aren't winning all the time because the codex has been so heavily redesigned that no one has any experience playing a army like them. They definitely don't play like last edition GK's, and I would chance to say no other army so far has ever played like them before. So the fact they aren't sweeping every game across the boards can be chalked up to inexperience more then anything else. Also the codex as a whole is one giant mess of rock paper scissors units.

I mean GK's are a army that will rape some forces without much effort, but will suffer against others. For instance a real gun line will hurt them more then any other SM force (Unless they went heavy interceptor) because although GK are probably the most powerful 24" army to have ever existed they have no solid counter to a proper gun line and have virtually no counter at all versus a mobile gun line (DE).

Yet they will destroy orks, nid (most builds), and CD without any effort. The deciding factor against ork, and nids especially is the fact that GK shooting will kill 40% of all your force before it gets there (On below average rolls) and force weapons in almost every squad invalidate all nid MC, and will demolish nob units (The ork bread and butter unit).

I find that GK's are in the same boat as elves in fantasy in that they break the game, in that they have become the one most poisonous thing to the hobby...a entire army of rock paper scissors. (Logic: like GK HE invalidate some armies do to everything striking first, this was a unbalancing patch job done to keep them relative in the new edition that ended up allowing them to ignore certain armies strongest units and tactics. For instance bretonians need to strike first from the charge as their knights are expensive as hell and have few attacks, so losing 2-3 will end the units chances of winning entirely. The blanket rule also killed the usefulness of all light fast cave as the HE will kill these units when they get charged with out allowing them to inflict any damage, this patch job also did virtually nothing to help HE against armies like WoC warrior spam, and bricks of skaven, swarm empire which were far more of a concern then the units that they became invincible to.). 

Is playing GK's easy..NO. Is the army a retarded abomination that is so entrenched in a kind of rock paper scissors mentality that it should have never been made...maybe.


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## 123birds (May 17, 2009)

the long fangs have a dual role though. They can handle horde and mech. What does an auto cannon do against a horde or a lot of infantry.... I'm going to fire 4 shots at you yaaa..... meanwhle long fangs are like infantry? blast....templates?


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## coke123 (Sep 4, 2010)

^^It's not difficult to set up your infantry so that the LFs can only get a couple of hits with Frag missiles. Also, more often than not, infantry will be getting armour saves against frag missiles...so yeah, neither are really anti-horde options. Not to say that LFs or psyflemen are bad choices, they're both horrendously good, it's just that LFs don't quite have as much duality as everyone gives them credit for.

Not to mention that with Stormbolters+Psycannons+Incinerators, GK aren't exactly lacking for anti-infantry fire, so they don't really need the 'duality' of missile launchers anyway.


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## experiment 626 (Apr 26, 2007)

...Not to mention that LF's have no ablative wounds in their squads, and the first kill is (likely) the sergeant which then removes the danger of the squad spilting it's firepower to different targets.
And if the SW player is hiding a nasty CML wolf guard in the unit, then make your first shot count by using ap2 or better and force a cover save... Even if the wolf guard has a storm shield, a 3+ save is more likely to fail than a 2+ save, or else the SW player will relegate the wound onto another model.

GK's on the other hand have devastating support in their squads, with more easily spamable psycannons (@ S7 & rending) on top of S5 storm bolters.
Since almost all knight squads are taken as 10 men, those psybolts are disgustingly good at only 2pts per... It would have been better to make them an individual upgrade on a per model basis.
a) so that they're equally viable in smaller games and/or a decent option for more expensive yet smaller squads.
b) they wouldn't be such an easy 'no-brainer' in every single list because they're too cheap on 10 man squads.
They probably also shouldn't have been handed out like candy to every single GK unit either... I mean, it's not like S4 stormbolters are terrible vs hordes to begin with!

And the psyriflemen dread only suffers vs Av13/14, which is either where psycannons take over, or else the Rainman dread cleans up.

The point is, Psybolts have effectively ended up dealing with what should have been a weakness of the GK's - lack of easy access to lots of anti-tank...


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

The power on ward dexes has been slowly creeping up codex to codex (remember back when each codex had a actually crippling disadvantage or at least a noticeable one to counter balance all their weaknesses?). I shudder to think what the next necron or csm codex will look like...


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

The amount of wrong in this thread is making my head hurt. Codex creep? Really? People _still_ believe in this?



LukeValantine said:


> They aren't winning all the time because the codex has been so heavily redesigned that no one has any experience playing a army like them. They definitely don't play like last edition GK's, and I would chance to say no other army so far has ever played like them before. So the fact they aren't sweeping every game across the boards can be chalked up to inexperience more then anything else. Also the codex as a whole is one giant mess of rock paper scissors units.


Uh no, they're not winning all the time _because they're balanced_. Seriously, if the best players in the world are using the army and not winning time and again with it, it's pretty indicative of the Codex being fine. If people are having a hard time against it it says more about them than the Codex itself. It's fine though, it's very typical of people today to blame something, anything other than themselves for problems.



> I mean GK's are a army that will rape some forces without much effort, but will suffer against others. For instance a real gun line will hurt them more then any other SM force (Unless they went heavy interceptor) because although GK are probably the most powerful 24" army to have ever existed they have no solid counter to a proper gun line and have virtually no counter at all versus a mobile gun line (DE).


Grey Knights easily beat some forces because those forces are bad. It's just that simple and is true of any 5th edition Codex (bar Tyranids). Good armies trump bad armies, it's just how it works.

Also, good Knight lists can deal with DE just fine.



> Yet they will destroy orks, nid (most builds), and CD without any effort. The deciding factor against ork, and nids especially is the fact that GK shooting will kill 40% of all your force before it gets there (On below average rolls) and force weapons in almost every squad invalidate all nid MC, and will demolish nob units (The ork bread and butter unit).


-_- I am so frustrated right now.

The deciding factor is that the three armies you just mentioned *are bad in 5th edition*. Armies that have to foot slog and punch things to death die in droves to armies that have access to a wealth of anti-infantry firepower and transports for mobility. Again, this is true of all 5th edition armies, not just Grey Knights. Imperial Guard and Blood Angels both blow the living crap out of Ork, Tyranid and Daemon armies too, this is not a GK-specific issue. All 5E armies can destroy Tyranid MCs because they're about 20-40 points overpriced and suffer under 3+ armor saves without Invuls or Eternal Warrior and demolish Nobs because Nobs are a shitty gimmick unit that only works against inexperienced players.



> I find that GK's are in the same boat as elves in fantasy in that they break the game, in that they have become the one most poisonous thing to the hobby...a entire army of rock paper scissors. (Logic: like GK HE invalidate some armies do to everything striking first, this was a unbalancing patch job done to keep them relative in the new edition that ended up allowing them to ignore certain armies strongest units and tactics. For instance bretonians need to strike first from the charge as their knights are expensive as hell and have few attacks, so losing 2-3 will end the units chances of winning entirely. The blanket rule also killed the usefulness of all light fast cave as the HE will kill these units when they get charged with out allowing them to inflict any damage, this patch job also did virtually nothing to help HE against armies like WoC warrior spam, and bricks of skaven, swarm empire which were far more of a concern then the units that they became invincible to.).


I don't play Fantasy so I'm not going to comment on your comparison, but the Grey Knights are not toxic to the game, they're toxic to bad players who have no grasp of 5th edition fundamentals, just like every other good army.



experiment 626 said:


> GK's on the other hand have devastating support in their squads, with more easily spamable psycannons (@ S7 & rending) on top of S5 storm bolters.
> Since almost all knight squads are taken as 10 men, those psybolts are disgustingly good at only 2pts per... It would have been better to make them an individual upgrade on a per model basis.
> 
> a) so that they're equally viable in smaller games and/or a decent option for more expensive yet smaller squads.
> ...


The entire point of psybolts having a flat rate is to make it more viable on larger units, meaning that there's an actual point to having big squads instead of just taking multiple 5 man units and loading up on special weapons and transports.



> And the psyriflemen dread only suffers vs Av13/14, which is either where psycannons take over, or else the Rainman dread cleans up.
> 
> The point is, Psybolts have effectively ended up dealing with what should have been a weakness of the GK's - lack of easy access to lots of anti-tank...


Psycannons aren't something a good player should rely on against AV13+ in most lists (Draigowing is different of course). Also, the "Rainman" Dread is sort of crap, the entire point of Dreadnoughts is for them to be long-ranged fire support. Rifleman Dreads with psybolts are one of the most economic choices in the Codex and should be taken in basically every list. Wasting Heavy Support slots on yet another psycannon when they can be taken in abundance elsewhere is inefficient.

Also, how are you coming to the conclusion that the Grey Knights were supposed to struggle with vehicles? I feel like you think that because the Daemon Hunter Codex sucked at anti-tank. Thing is though, this is 5th edition - as dumb as Codex writers can seem sometimes, they _do_ understand that armies need reliable anti-tank options in this edition. Cruddance managed to fuck up with the Tyranids, but that's really beside the point. Weak anti-tank capabilities for the Grey Knights is a dated concept.



LukeValantine said:


> The power on ward dexes has been slowly creeping up codex to codex (remember back when each codex had a actually crippling disadvantage or at least a noticeable one to counter balance all their weaknesses?). I shudder to think what the next necron or csm codex will look like...


Ugh, no it hasn't. If that was true, the Space Wolves would be noticeably worse than the Blood Angels and Grey Knights and anyone that can play this game will tell you that the Wolves do just fine against both books. Yes, the vanilla Codex is slightly sub-par, but that's because it was the first book written after 5th edition's release - the first book in an edition _always_ ends up seeming off later on because the writers learn how to better write books for the current edition with each successive release. There's no retarded conspiracy to make each Codex in an edition more powerful than the last.


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

I admit I may have gone a bit over board on railing against the codex, but to say that relatively balanced codex's like nids suck and that is why they are so hurt by GK is a over simplification bordering on the insane.

Point is no army that is dependent on MC's, or multi-wounds models will ever be able to stand against GKs, and they are in fact a army that could just possibly kill the use of these kinds of units in tournament all together. The fact remains that the army as a whole is fairly epileptic with almost everyone packing a power weapon, and super bolters, with price tags so high they will often not be enough bodies on the table to push against certain lists, while other will never stand a chance (CC SM armies really have no counter to entire units of I6 force weapons.). In your own words only poor armies are hurt by GK....so in other words its a army that will stuggle to beat the current top dogs, but excels at curve stomping people that aren't the soulless douche bags that run to tournaments with the coockie cutter bull shit that you your self have on more then one occasion rallied against? (FWI some people actually like these units, and most are balanced both in 4 and 5th).

Also even though I respect your opinion on the matter blaming everything on poor generalship is a straw man argument so obvious that you should be smacked for trying to pass it off as a legitimate reasons for why your valid arguments should be listened to!


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

LukeValantine said:


> I admit I may have gone a bit over board on railing against the codex, but to say that relatively balanced codex's like nids suck and that is why they are so hurt by GK is a over simplification bordering on the insane.


It's only simple because I didn't feel like going into why Tyranids were a bad army in this topic because it's really outside the scope of the current discussion. If you really want to understand why, check out this link:

http://kirbysblog-ic.blogspot.com/2011/07/tyranids-closing-thoughts.html

This sums things up well, but if you're looking for more detail check out this:

http://kirbysblog-ic.blogspot.com/2011/07/army-comparison-grey-knights-and.html

There were some other articles talking about Tyranids versus Space Wolves and I think Guard, too.

Between those articles you should get an idea why Tyranids are considered sub-par.



> Point is no army that is dependent on MC's, or multi-wounds models will ever be able to stand against GKs, and they are in fact a army that could just possibly kill the use of these kinds of units in tournament all together.


Well there's only one army that's truly dependent on Monstrous Creatures, which is Tyranids (and Daemons too, but if I have to go into why they shouldn't be in tournaments one more time I'm going to lose it  ). I'm not disagreeing with you that Tyranids get screwed hard by Grey Knights, I'm just saying that it isn't all that important because Tyranids have so many issues that they're not really viable in the first place. I think I said this exact thing in another thread but about Daemons.



> The fact remains that the army as a whole is fairly epileptic with almost everyone packing a power weapon, and super bolters, with price tags so high they will often not be enough bodies on the table to push against certain lists, while other will never stand a chance (CC SM armies really have no counter to entire units of I6 force weapons.).


I'm not sure which lists you're referring to that the Knights would struggle against because of their low model count. Grey Knights excel at fighting foes that outnumber them, they're equipped to do it extremely well what with literally every model packing a storm bolter and most having access to psybolt ammunition. Armies like the 100+ Ork Boy lists should get absolutely hosed by Grey Knights just due to the sheer amount of firepower they can pump out coupled with things like Cleansing Flame from Purifiers and Holocaust from Paladins coupled with standard anti-horde tactics (avoiding close combat, blocking enemy movement with transports, sacrificing individual units to delay the enemy army and so on).

As for combat-oriented Marine armies having no counter to halberd-equipped Purifiers or Terminators, I'd have to agree about 75% on that one. They have essentially no counter to the halberds in close combat, but can deal with those units in other ways, like shooting them down first and then mobbing the remnants of the squad, or attacking a single Grey Knight unit with multiple units of their own. For more on this, see here.



> In your own words only poor armies are hurt by GK....so in other words its a army that will stuggle to beat the current top dogs, but excels at curve stomping people that aren't the soulless douche bags that run to tournaments with the coockie cutter bull shit that you your self have on more then one occasion rallied against? (FWI some people actually like these units, and most are balanced both in 4 and 5th).


No, I'm saying that Grey Knights will destroy poor armies (just like any good 5th edition army would) and has no distinct advantage against other good 5th edition armies. Grey Knights vs. Blood Angels, Guard, Space Wolves and Dark Eldar are all perfectly fair match ups. Blood Angels have a harder time if they're running a more combat-oriented list, but this can be overcome.

As for the rest, I'm a bit confused. Are you under the impression that I think that all netlists are bad? To confirm, I think that a lot of netlists are actually bad armies because they're originally written by people that are mediocre players at best that end up with a following somehow, be it personality or whatever else. From there the people that read these people's stuff will copy these armies and preach them as being the best to others and these sub-par netlists spread from site to site. Obviously this is sort of a simplification but I'm trying hard to stay on topic.

The last sentence utterly confuses me, I'm not sure what you're trying to say, so if you could perhaps rephrase it I can get back to you on that.



> Also even though I respect your opinion on the matter blaming everything on poor generalship is a straw man argument so obvious that you should be smacked for trying to pass it off as a legitimate reasons for why your valid arguments should be listened to!


I just looked up the definition of a straw man argument and I'll admit that I have no idea what the hell it's supposed to mean (it's 6:30 in the morning and I'm still awake, I'll give it another go when I'm rested) so I'm just going to set that aside for a bit.

My reasoning for thinking that this entire issue is a generalship one is because I've seen no convincing evidence that leads me to believe that there's a problem with the Grey Knight Codex. Yes, before the Grey Knight Codex Daemons and Tyranids and Orks had slightly better chances at tournaments. Yes, Grey Knights trash these armies something fierce, but I honestly don't know how to make it clearer that the reason is because these armies already sucked in the first place and that the Knights simply make it more obvious because of the way the army functions.

So basically, if someone can convince me that the Knight Codex is in some way imbalanced, I'll be happy to change my position as to why people are having a hard time with it. Until then, I'm not going to back down regardless if people think I should be slapped for thinking it.


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

Strawman in this context is how you are blaming poor generalship for any difficulty playing against GK's then claiming that your point is proven rather then addressing the issues that are actually being argued namely the points coasting on psy-bolt and other advantages the codex has over all other codeies.

Point 1 CC superiority
-In an attempt to lay evidence to my point I will present the following fact. With the majority of the army having access to power weapons (force weapons) sometimes for 20pts each. Many armies even modern ones are at a sever disadvantage in all but the most unbalanced of assault. Example 10 strike marines will net twice as many MeQ kills as a regular CSM squad (For only 5 points more a marine), and will on average kill more enemies at range with base weapons (I use CSM because their two attack dual wield profile became a bench mark for MeQ in many 5 edd Sm codex.). All the while the squad also retains the ability to kill MC's with ease while other codies have to spend 25pts for the ability to threaten a MC.

The fact remains though that these imbalances in cost are mitigated by the current top dog codecies that make up the top of the codex cycle for 5th, but this is little condolence for those who have no ambition of abandoning player 4th, and early 5th codex were such cost to effectiveness trade off are not representative.

point two Psychic vehicles
-For 5pts average the vast majority of GK vehicles have the ability to ignore 66% of the glance table, and 33% of the pen table, similar upgrades in other codecies cost upward of 15 points, hence giving yet another points edge to the codex.

Point three covering all bases.
-Almost every unit in the codex does not require symmetry, in that even basic troops can shoot down vehicles hunt MC's, blast down massed infantry, and even fight off equivalent points worth of MeQ troops with little difficulty. In fact no other codex has the ability to multi task that 60% of grey knights units have.

Closing point: I am not saying the codex is broken or completely over powered, but lets be honest here, any army with 75% of the force running around with power weapons is going to be a min maxers paradise, and plagued by a kind of rock paper scissors mentality. After all their is a reason that 90% of marine units can only take power weapons on elites or squad commanders ect, and that is the fact that 50% of a MeQ troop cost is in its armor. To drop in a army that ignores this for 5-10points a man when other codices have to pay 25-30points to get a PW in a unit is a bit of a slap in the face.

Oddly enough it is the basic stuff that is the most unbalanced feature of the codex, while stuff like psyfile man dreads, and dreadknights are priced appropriately for what they do (some would say they even cost to much relative to the rest of the codex.). 

I hope that this leads factual reason for why the Grey knights codex leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Parting note: I guess I am just getting tired of the whole needing to top every codex with the next nonsensical one. I mean seriously I get a little sick when even the vets in my area drop their core force every 6 months to make a flavor of the month list after having been mesmerized by GW's hanging baloney. As you can tell I have one army, and will only ever have one army in warhammer 40k, and have no interest in the fact that the meta game has shifted so far that no one bats a eye at a entire armies with power weapons, or mobile gun lines that can move on to the table and kill 50% of your tanks reliably in 1 turn. Honestly I am starting to miss the starting days of 5TH, and dread the cold war that awaits us in 6TH were once again any codex 4-5 books back has to be shelfed in tournaments.

And don't tell me its not getting worse either. I remember a friend of mine that fared just fine through the entirety of 4 playing DE, and necrons, but as usual 5th just got more and more till we now once again all what is left of older 4th, and 5th codecies is slue of the best of the best mono builds designed to stay relative.


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## OddJob (Nov 1, 2007)

LukeValantine said:


> blaming everything on poor generalship is a straw man argument so obvious that you should be smacked





LukeValantine said:


> They aren't winning all the time because the codex has been so heavily redesigned that no one has any experience playing a army like them.


Make your mind up.

I have so far found Grey Knights able to compete with guard, space wolves, blood angels and dark eldar, though I do find some builds a real PITA when using my nids (but less so than dark eldar).

I'm still having tough games against the players I used to have tough games against and I'm still dominating those I used to dominate, whether fighting with or against Grey Knights. If you are constantly being touched in a bad place maybe a moment or two of introspection is in order.

I for one am glad to see another top flight competative (and interesting) dex in fifth edition, even if my personal favourite army (nids) was the mistake in the middle.


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

LukeValantine said:


> Strawman in this context is how you are blaming poor generalship for any difficulty playing against GK's then claiming that your point is proven rather then addressing the issues that are actually being argued namely the points coasting on psy-bolt and other advantages the codex has over all other codeies.


Okay, I'll tackle them now.



> Point 1 CC superiority
> -In an attempt to lay evidence to my point I will present the following fact. With the majority of the army having access to power weapons (force weapons) sometimes for 20pts each. Many armies even modern ones are at a sever disadvantage in all but the most unbalanced of assault. Example 10 strike marines will net twice as many MeQ kills as a regular CSM squad (For only 5 points more a marine), and will on average kill more enemies at range with base weapons (I use CSM because their two attack dual wield profile became a bench mark for MeQ in many 5 edd Sm codex.). All the while the squad also retains the ability to kill MC's with ease while other codies have to spend 25pts for the ability to threaten a MC.


Before anything else, I just want to say that comparing anything from an old Codex to the Grey Knight Codex is pointless because the books were written for different games, but I'm going to go with it anyway.

Okay, so Grey Knights are good at beating on elite units in close combat. They can outfight equal points of Chaos Space Marines for the same cost and are better at shooting. They completely fold to large units of cheap infantry though (due to only having one attack each and less models per unit) and it hurts more when they die because the army as a whole is smaller. Grey Knights also get a smaller and in ways inferior selection of special weaponry (psycannons are great, but they aren't meltaguns, multi-meltas or missile launchers). Yes, Knights can threaten Monstrous Creatures with their force weapons, but without Hammerhand they need 6's to wound and still need to pass a psychic test to instant kill the big gribbly (which is difficult at times due to psychic defenses).



> The fact remains though that these imbalances in cost are mitigated by the current top dog codecies that make up the top of the codex cycle for 5th, but this is little condolence for those who have no ambition of abandoning player 4th, and early 5th codex were such cost to effectiveness trade off are not representative.


This sounds like an issue with Games Workshop's means of updating armies for each edition more than it sounds like an issue with the Grey Knight Codex.



> point two Psychic vehicles
> -For 5pts average the vast majority of GK vehicles have the ability to ignore 66% of the glance table, and 33% of the pen table, similar upgrades in other codecies cost upward of 15 points, hence giving yet another points edge to the codex.


Yeah, Fortitude is annoying as hell when you're trying to suppress Grey Knight vehicles, but it can fail and can be stopped by psychic defenses. Against armies that have no psychic hoods it's a thousand times worse, but again this says a lot more about GW's method of updating old armies than it does about the GK book.



> Point three covering all bases.
> -Almost every unit in the codex does not require symmetry, in that even basic troops can shoot down vehicles hunt MC's, blast down massed infantry, and even fight off equivalent points worth of MeQ troops with little difficulty. In fact no other codex has the ability to multi task that 60% of grey knights units have.


Sure, but the tradeoff is having smaller (or less) squads, relying very much on psychic powers to deal with certain targets and each loss hurting considerably more than for almost any other army. Yes, a squad of Grey Knights can hack through MEQs, but then the opponent should look to avoid the kinds of fights that Grey Knights want - one on one confrontations play right into Grey Knight player's hands, anyone facing them is advised to avoid fair fights and gang up on the Knights when possible. Like all games of 40k, making the enemy do the opposite of what they want is the way to win games - if the Knights will beat you in close combat, shoot them. If they can outshoot you but can't win an assault, drown them in bodies.

Grey Knights armies *do* require balance, though. Anyone that tries to spam one unit is going to get absolutely destroyed by certain lists. Just because an individual squad of Knights is able to theoretically fufull a number of battlefield roles doesn't mean that it works out in practice. Without a balanced mix of anti-infantry and anti-tank firepower, Knights will fold just like any other army if not even faster due to low model count.



> Closing point: I am not saying the codex is broken or completely over powered, but lets be honest here, any army with 75% of the force running around with power weapons is going to be a min maxers paradise, and plagued by a kind of rock paper scissors mentality. After all their is a reason that 90% of marine units can only take power weapons on elites or squad commanders ect, and that is the fact that 50% of a MeQ troop cost is in its armor. To drop in a army that ignores this for 5-10points a man when other codices have to pay 25-30points to get a PW in a unit is a bit of a slap in the face.


I don't think that having access to power weapons on every model alone is enough to make a Codex unbalanced. Sure, it makes them good at chopping up heavily armored units in assault, but then it falls to the opponent of the Knights to do everything in his power to avoid close combat.

"20 points for a Marine with a storm bolter and force weapon is too little" is not a convincing argument to me.



> Oddly enough it is the basic stuff that is the most unbalanced feature of the codex, while stuff like psyfile man dreads, and dreadknights are priced appropriately for what they do (some would say they even cost to much relative to the rest of the codex.).
> 
> I hope that this leads factual reason for why the Grey knights codex leaves a bad taste in my mouth.


Well I've looked at your points and I'm sorry to say that I disagree - I don't think that any of the Grey Knight units are imbalanced. Some of them are incredibly economical yes, but in relation to other new armies I don't see it as a problem. It really all comes back to generalship, at least in my eyes.

Honestly, I think the Grey Knight Codex bothers people so much because they refuse to accept that Games Workshop's design cycle screws older armies. Instead of accepting that reality (since we can't change it) and either having multiple armies or playing casually, people displace blame onto the newer books and those that play them.



> Parting note: I guess I am just getting tired of the whole needing to top every codex with the next nonsensical one. I mean seriously I get a little sick when even the vets in my area drop their core force every 6 months to make a flavor of the month list after having been mesmerized by GW's hanging baloney. As you can tell I have one army, and will only ever have one army in warhammer 40k, and have no interest in the fact that the meta game has shifted so far that no one bats a eye at a entire armies with power weapons, or mobile gun lines that can move on to the table and kill 50% of your tanks reliably in 1 turn. Honestly I am starting to miss the starting days of 5TH, and dread the cold war that awaits us in 6TH were once again any codex 4-5 books back has to be shelfed in tournaments.


It sort of sounds like you're dissatisfied with the hobby as a whole.



> And don't tell me its not getting worse either. I remember a friend of mine that fared just fine through the entirety of 4 playing DE, and necrons, but as usual 5th just got more and more till we now once again all what is left of older 4th, and 5th codecies is slue of the best of the best mono builds designed to stay relative.


This always happens, though, it isn't getting worse. Armies that transitioned from 3rd to 4th often had massive differences in relative power level. Remember the 3rd edition Space Marine Codex in comparison to the 4th edition one? The difference was gigantic. Codex Creep exists only in that books that are written for a new edition inevitably function better than ones that were written for a different game. To use a sort of bad example, that's like being upset that a computer program intended for use with Windows 98 doesn't work very well with Windows 7, when clearly the intent is for people to use the newer version of the program. Due to GW's method of updating armies, certain books get left in the dust for years, no amount of bitterness is going to alter this, so it's best to just accept it and then take appropriate action which differs from person to person.


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

A few people did take GKs to the recent throne of skulls last weekend, and did ok. Two of us got 4 wins and a loss. I'm not sure how people did on average out of the ~10 GK armies present. 

There's no denying that GKs are a powerful list. They might be the most powerful one in fact, though I'm not sure about that. They are placing well in tournaments at the moment but that's normal when a good new book arrives. 

The interesting thing for me is the incredible flexibility of the list. Lots of things seem viable: Dragowing; Cotaez and henchmen; Crowe and purifiers or all GK infantry spam. I took a grand master, 10 termies, 2 strike squads and an interceptor squad - 41 models and 5 kps, and really enjoyed how effective they were. The GM let's you do get up to all kinds of mischief and all the guys are rock solid. Interceptors can easily get behind vehicles or assault them, and stuff standing on the ground is in massive trouble. Force weapons didn't do all that much though really, just accounting for a wolf lord and an Eldrad - though these were both happy events. 

I've played a game against daemons and it wasn't the complete walkover you might expect. We killed similar amounts of stuff in terms of points, but I was way up on kill points. Daemons are actually very good at killing GKs, thanks to lots of stuff that ignores armour. Bloodcrushers and MCs don't fall over dead all that easily and make a mess of GK infantry if they get a charge.

I have some sympathy for people who are scared of GKs. I think the issue may be that they are different and require new tactics to beat, but it may also just be that they are better than other books. If I'm honest, I don't see myself losing too many games in future.


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## Creon (Mar 5, 2009)

My unscientific observation is thus: I win more games on average with GKs than with any of my other armies. I average 50-60 percent wins. I'm at 80% with my GKs. That indicates to me the GKs are a better army, cause they paper over my generalship cracks better.


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

I think the Grey Knights codex is a piece of filth. But not for any balance issue, but the fluff. I've seen so much of this kind of mindset on the Fantasy forums, where people blame others for their own inability to adapt to new tactics. They just wish they could take a powerlist for their army and beat everyone with it no problem. Grow some balls and either adapt or get a new army. Simple as that.


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

Gks have made me rethink my tactics in that no MeQ army short of maybe a CC heavy BA, SW should even entertain the idea of assaulting them. So in other words I shelved my balanced list for another 3 oblitorators, and even found room for a single anti light vehicle hellfire dread. Those moving to more a (boring) semi mobile fire base army.

On the matter of them vs CD it is true they fair much better vs MeQ then daemons unless they actually build to fight daemons, in that a power weapon is a lot more useful against something that doesn't have a 4-5+ inv save. Oddly enough the biggest threat to most of the CD is hammer hand, cleansing flame spam do to having no way to stop psychic abilities with CD (Kinda stupid that CD don't have any, but the CD codex is kinda odd all around so meh)

To Katie.
-Perhaps I am just stuck in the past, and maybe the GK codex is just a continuation on the codex cycle trend. But still feel it necessary to address your argument about them suffering to horde in CC by bringing up the fact that they have a built in anti horde unit in the purifier for the combination of 2A base with power weapons, and purifying flame makes them the armies dedicated swarm fighters a role that they do better then any other MeQ unit when you take into account their built in ranged prowess.

I do see why you would want to defend the codex thought, for even considering possible issues of under costing the codex as a whole has more deversity and effective builds then any other codex that has come before it, and in many ways is a superior codex to SW, and BA for the shear number of effective possible lists is unheard of even in 5th (But that's what happens when you fold two codecies together I suppose).


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

LukeValantine said:


> Gks have made me rethink my tactics in that no MeQ army short of maybe a CC heavy BA, SW should even entertain the idea of assaulting them. So in other words I shelved my balanced list for another 3 oblitorators, and even found room for a single anti light vehicle hellfire dread. Those moving to more a (boring) semi mobile fire base army.


Yeah, in general MEQ armies don't want to assault Grey Knights without a large numerical advantage. As mentioned before, you want to shoot the Grey Knights up to reduce their numbers and then mob the the survivors in close combat to finish them off.



> To Katie.
> -Perhaps I am just stuck in the past, and maybe the GK codex is just a continuation on the codex cycle trend. But still feel it necessary to address your argument about them suffering to horde in CC by bringing up the fact that they have a built in anti horde unit in the purifier for the combination of 2A base with power weapons, and purifying flame makes them the armies dedicated swarm fighters a role that they do better then any other MeQ unit when you take into account their built in ranged prowess.


Purifiers are another story, horde armies really don't want to engage them in close combat, it's practically suicide. Instead, they need to be shot down which can be difficult in the extreme, but as I've said earlier, that has a lot more to do with Orks and Tyranids and Daemons being bad than it does with the Grey Knights.



> I do see why you would want to defend the codex thought, for even considering possible issues of under costing the codex as a whole has more deversity and effective builds then any other codex that has come before it, and in many ways is a superior codex to SW, and BA for the shear number of effective possible lists is unheard of even in 5th (But that's what happens when you fold two codecies together I suppose).


I defend the Codex because I honestly believe that for all their faults, Games Workshop has done a great job balancing most of the books this edition. Tyranids unfortunately got the short straw and vanilla Marines is at a bit of a disadvantage in terms of points costs (because the writers weren't as familiar with the edition as they are now and because they've learned from past mistakes with older books). I'm not the best player in the world and I fully acknowledge this, but at the same time when I see people complaining about gameplay issues with new books I feel compelled to point out that in the vast majority of cases the issue lies with the worker rather than the tool.


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