Grey Knights Project Log

Battle Plan:
Build 30 PAGK
Build 10 Paladins
Build 2 GK Heroes (GM and Libby)
Paint said models
Maybe base said models.. if I don't feel like killing myself at that point

Projected timeline - 1 week assembly time, 2 weeks painting time

4-5-11
Still got those Terminators lying around.  Played some Warmachine today and I'm making a BR for them right now.

4-2-11
Cleaned up all the Terminator parts and they're ready for assembly tomorrow.  Taking it pretty slow with these guys because I want them perfect.

4-1-11
It's friday night!  I glued 7 Terminator legs to their bases and put together some torsos.  I also filed down some Halberds and got some stuff ready to go to make my standard 7x Paladin squad.

3-31-11
Not doing a damn thing tonight, I'm tired.

Sisters of Battle incoming?

BoK put out a nice little picture for their members today..

Would match up with that Dark Eldar video interview with Phil Kelly and Jes Goodwin.  I predict Phil will be writing the book and Jes will be doing the models.  This would also match up with the rumored 6th Ed. starter box containing Sisters vs. Chaos Space Marines.

Oh boy.. get excited.

Some things I don't like

I know I've been going on about all the good things about the Grey Knight codex lately and that's perfectly fine.  However, I must confess that I don't like the book as much as I want.  In this post, you'll find out why.

• The essence of what makes Grey Knights special is gone:  WS5, S6, Storm Bolters giving +1 attack, the panoply of special rules, and different degrees of psychic power displayed through the weapons they wield.  I loved the idea of Grand Masters being so psychically powerful their Nemesis Force Weapons were Force Weapons (incredibly rare back in the day).  Now, my Grey Knights feel like Grey Marines.  And no, the Force Weapons and Storm Bolters for 20 points do not do it justice.
• I don't want to be just another Marine Chapter.  Sorry Mat Ward, but I do not like the idea of being grey-colored Marines with 1000 Battle Brothers and a slightly irregular Chapter organization.
• Space Marine super heroes?  Seriously, what's with the fluff on Draigo?  Maybe Michael Bay and 5-year old kids love the whole unstoppable, utterly badass, unslayable superman, but I prefer someone a little more realistic.
• What happened to the puritan-lore that is what Grey Knights is supposed to be?  What's with this random Daemon sword in the hands of a Purifier's Champion?
• Why in the world is the entire codex filled with sorcery and psychic abilities?  Sure, Grey Knights are supposed to be psykers, but this is way overboard man.  It feels like a Thousand Sons Codex more so than what Grey Knights is supposed to be.
• Why are all three Inquisition elements in the book?  This is a Grey Knight book.  Grey Knights are the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Malleus.  Why the hell is Herecitus and Xenos bullshit doing in my book?  Not just that, how come there's barely anything about the Inquisition in the fluff but they're represented in the rules?  This just looks like a last minute higher-up insertion.
• Can someone please tell me why the most elite of the Space Marine Chapters (and this is Ward's own words) incapable of taking Land Raiders as dedicated transports?  Why are there no Librarian Dreadnoughts when our entire Chapter is composed of Psykers?  Why is there like 30 grenade options and not things like Grimoire of True Names or Sacred Incense?  You could of easily named Rad Grenades Grimoire of True Names and Blind Grenades Sacred Incense.  And Jokero monkeys man... seriously?
• Lastly, can someone tell me what I'm going to do with my Inquisitorial Stormtroopers and Grey Knight Terminators w/ Storm Shields?  Thanks.

Sorry guys, but I'm a little old school.  Some of you newer bloods won't agree with me and that's OK.  This is just a Longbeard's grumble.

PGK List Building 101

Now that I have a good amount of games under my belt as PGK, I think I'll touch upon the foundations of what makes a good list.  This will be different from the tactica because I won't discuss the application of said unit.  Instead, I'll talk about what units I've found most useful and which ones I include first when designing an army.

What HQ should I take?

In all the games I've played so far, I'm confident in saying that the Librarian is the best choice in any army lists  For 1500/1750 or even 1850 point players, the Librarian will add more to your army than the Grand Master.  In fact, I would only take the Grand Master in 2K points.  The Librarian adds a huge spell pool to your army in addition to psychic defense.  I think the best thing about the Librarian is that the spells he offers increases provides your army with everything you can ever want.  Might of Titans makes you tear through tanks, Shrouding keeps your dudes alive and Sanctuary prevents you from being assaulted.  Another great thing about the Librarian is that he's a Lv.2 Psyker, so you can cast Hammer Hand from him and stack it with Might.  This frees up your Paladin's abilities to auto-cast/pass Instant Death from the BBanner.  Sanctuary and Shrouding is also cast on your enemies' turn and thus increases the amount of survivability your elite army deserves.  The only thing he can't do is carry Rad or Blind grenades, which is one of the things I advocate when taking the Grand Master.

I see the Librarian as a staple in PGK play for the reasons mentioned above, but the Grand Master is definitely no slouch.  He's a good fighter, superior shooter and can carry grenades that seriously changes the way your enemies interact with his unit.  The best thing about him is Grand Strategy and by taking him alone your opponent's acknowledge the fact that your units can be deadlier in combat, can outflank him or count as scoring when they otherwise couldn't.  This opens up a repertoire of options otherwise unavailable to your army.  Truly, one of the only reasons the GM is not a staple is his lack of a psychic hood.  Psychic defense is so important in the games that I play that not having it is seriously detrimental to my army.  Sometimes you just can't afford having that Paroxysm or Doom casted on your men.

A guide to GK unit upgrades

In this article, I will highlight the importance of certain unit upgrades for Grey Knights.  Keep in mind that I do my guides in a very cost effective manner.  If I don't think the unit upgrade isn't worth it, I won't mention it.  Please, feel free to disagree via questions or comments.

When to Master-Craft?

For 5 points, there's a lot of reasons why you should MC weapons.  You increase accuracy in your shots and you improve the lethality of your attacks in CC.  A GM or Libby with a MC weapon makes him much more dangerous in combat because you're going to be landing more Force Weapon hits.  Once Force Weapons are activated, everything in the game that lives or breathes will fear you without question.  Eternal Warrior is the only thing that can save them at that point.  My rule to Master-crafting is simple and effective:  Always MC your Psycannons if you can, always MC your Daemonhammers and always MC your HQ's weapons if you can fit the points.  Keep in mind that MC is only 5 points and most of the time you can put it on any weapon you wish.  That means when you want something to hit; when you NEED something to hit, 5 points is a very small price to pay.  All squad leaders can MC their weapons, another thing to keep in mind.

More PGK Battle Reports!

Oh man, so many games, so little time to write.  The good thing though is that I have got a ton of good experience in so I'm ready to share my results.  In these reports, you'll see optimized and balanced army lists because that's the way to victory.  I'll keep these BRs in note form because some of the games were ridiculous.

PGK Reflections

So I've been playing quite a few games with Grey Knights and I have some vital battlefield experience to share.  This will be a semi-battle report in addition to a full blown analysis of the units I've played with lately.

I played a game with a all termie list last night and I wasn't too happy with their performance.  Small model count and terminator armies always suffer from bad rolling.  Not saying that my rolling was terribad, but it was mediocre.  Mediocre is not allowed in army with only 27 models.  As most of you know, 40K is a wound saturation game.  You shoot something enough, force enough armor saves and no matter how amazing you are, you will die.  Terminators suffer from this problem.

Last night's game was against CSM and I was playing with 2x 10x units of Terminators and a unit of 7x Paladins.  The task force was led by a Grand Master w/ Psycannon and a Librarian with a bunch of skulls scattered around the battlefield.  At the end of the game, I drew a pretty conclusive analysis of the battle:

PGK Battle Reports

Updated: 12:24am PST, 3-18-11, Game 2 posted!!!

This will be a collection of battle reports of me playing games with Pure Grey Knights.  I will be trying out a lot of different lists over the next couple of weeks to get a better feel of the book.  As always, I'll be pulling PGK lists from my tactica and playtesting my theories so I can turn them into law.  Keep in mind that feedback is very important to me, as well as discussions about tactics and strategy.  In terms of questions, please refer to what game you're talking about.  An example would be:  "In game #1, you did this.." etc.

Pure Grey Knights Tactica

Before you read this tactica, you have to understand one key thing:

This a tactica dedicated to playing with half of the Grey Knights army book.  You will not have access to any Inquisitors, Henchmen, Assassins or crazy space monkeys.  If you want to play with those units, please close out of this tactica immediately.

If you're still here, that means you're ready to play a real man's game.  You will play an army that's so elite that no other army can match you in the battlefield when played correctly.  Whether that proves to be correct or not depends entirely on you.  You will be handicapped and you will face bad match-ups time and time again.  To emerge victorious means nothing, for tomorrow you will face another enemy.  To suffer defeat also means nothing, for tomorrow you will walk onto the battlefield and try again.  You have given your life to the Chapter and you know no fear.  Be prepared to be taught the ways of pure Grey Knights.

I have seen it

So I was at my LFGS today and I got a good hard look at the Grey Knight codex.  I studied it, like the Art of War but in a hour's time because there was a hundred people there.  I only focused on what I deemed to be the most important and that was the actual Grey Knight units.  There was a lot of people looking at the book and I didn't care much for the Inquisitors and their items.  Overall, the book is almost exactly like the pdf, all the way down to the costs.  For more wargear info, check my previous posts.

Nemesis Force Weapons
Brotherhood of Psykers for Nemesis Force Weapon states that you take 1 psychic test for all models with a NFW. If you pass, ALL wounds caused by the unit count as Instant Death. Originally it was thought that you only get to blow up 1 guy, but now you can blow up an entire unit of Nob Bikers.

The sky is falling!

As expected, noobs from around the world are crying OP already at the new GK codex.  This happened for every single codex release that I've seen in the last 10 years.  Yes, I know, this thread comes from whineseer, but threads like this has appeared all over the net.  Guess what?  It's not going to stop.

Let me describe what's happening:  Bad players playing other bad players automatically result in a codex being overpowered.  When a veteran player analyzes a codex, several things take place inside his head that's completely alien to lesser players.  For example, I'll analyze myself; not because I think I'm the greatest player to have ever lived, but I have seen the rise and fall of army books since 3rd and have played in thousands of matches both competitively and casually.

Good morning Grey Knights!

I woke up this morning and raced to my computer for one reason and one reason only:  Grey Knights are available for pre-order.  Without further mumbo-jumbo, here they are:

The latest GK rumors

From various sources, taken from the arrival of the GK Black Boxes from around the world:

• Nemesis Force Sword is +1 to inv save if they already have one.
• Nemesis Force Halberd is +2 to initative.
• Nemesis force stave 2+ invun to close combat wounds.
• Brotherhood Banner -25 points. +1 attack to unit, and all models in the unit automatically pass there pyschic test for there force weapon.
• Interesting factoid -Psybolt Ammo gives +1 Strength to Stormbolters,Hurricane bolters,Heavy bolters, Auto Cannons and Assault cannons.
• Warp Stabilization Field allows Librarian to transport vehicle using the Summoning Power. Servo Skulls act like mystics with extra goodies And Brain mines means affected unit cannot act that assault phase
• Psycannon: S7 AP4 Assault 2, Heavy 4, Rending
• Heavy Psycannon: S7 AP4 Large Blast Rending
• Heavy Incinerator operates like the hellhound(+12")
• Doomfist are basically Nemesis Dreadnought CCW(ie S10 powerfists)
• Nemesis Greatsword is S6 but allows rerolls to hit and wound
• DK Daemonhammer is S10 Thunderhammer
• All nemesis weapons have daemonbane which basically ignores eternal warrior for daemons and psykers.
• Psilencer? It's got: Range of 24" Strength 4 AP -Heavy 6 There's also the option for a Gatling Psilencer, which has the same stats excepts it's Heavy 12 A Psilencer always wounds Daemons on a roll of a 4+ unless the score required to wound would normally be less.
• Psyk grenades has random abilities (waiting to hear more) Rad grenades are -1T Blind grenades are defensive