Grey Knights

So they have been around for long enough for people to get some experience playing them, I can't say I have seen much mention of anything so I was wondering what others thoughts/feelings/experiences were bringing up.

On paper they look like they are made to utterly PWN DE , a large amount of multi shot st7+, their assault troops are not only better but go at least at the same time if not before (they render Incubi) largely useless.

they have acees to all sorts of mobility options meaning that even our mobility advantage takes a hit.

I have won the majority of my games vs GK so far but they have been against opponents who did not really know what they were doing with their army and who were running lists that were no where near what could be considered abusive, and some of them felt really tough despite this.

psycannon purifyer + psyflmen spam is about the last army I would choose to go up against with my DE atm (I imagine Wrdcrons will raise the bar yet again)

(G)Lances + GK ignnoring stunned/shaken = ouch

I could go on, but currently I feel GK are possibly the worst match up for DE at present , thats possibly only because I have learnt to cope with IG mech spam.....

I still hold up IG as our worst matchup - because if they go first, barring bad dice or an awesome table setup, I'm pretty much going to lose. And that's pretty sad when I consider that I am probably a better than average DE player to have that sort of extreme cut off.

Grey Knights I have thus far found to be slightly tougher Nilla Marines. I actually still find both Blood Angels and Space Wolves (filthy, filthy, Space Wolves) to be a larger threat to my raids. I think the GK dex could build a 'Eat yo' face!' anti-DE list, but the big win is that list is not so good vs. other armies.

Now, I think the important distinction here is to understand that DE beat GK by outshooting them.
Therefore I suspect most of the players who start wailing too loudly about GK are actually suffering from a rock/scissors issue of bringing their assault DE list up vs. the Knights, and that's playing to the Knight's strengths.

Once again, Kabal shootiness reigns supreme

I haven't played GK with the Dark Eldar yet but have played them with other lists. I think in a list written to be nasty against us it would get messy, dual TL Autocannon Dreads, Purifiers, Fortitude etc.

An all comers list in a tournament environment might not be so bad, but still a tough match up.

Dreadknight isn't much of an issue thanks to poison thankfully.

I'm not sure if the Purifier special rule (Cleansing Flame?) counts as a CC attack or not, and if Wyches would therefore get 4++ against it (I can't recall, I have the codex at home, will check later).

Paladins and Terminators should go down to Wyches (eventually) and they're never going to have massive numbers which is a bonus. I would've thought Monoscythes would take down any PAGKs in the open.

Potential for the Disintegrator Ravager/Razorwing to put in an appearance? I've never used this combo before though.

I've played against 4 GK lists and not had any problems against them.

I tabled all of them except one, and that was because he reserved all of his forces.

My love of night sheilds has only been improved against GK because it severely reduces the mid range shooting ability more or less leaving me free to move about and deal with the dreadknights or riflemen dreads at my leisure.

Assaulting them I think is a bad idea, or at least you need to be fairly selective against them in what you assault.

Once the GK are stuck on foot, they are fairly simple to pick apart with mid & Long range shooting.

GAR wrote:

Assaulting them I think is a bad idea, or at least you need to be fairly selective against them in what you assault.

Once the GK are stuck on foot, they are fairly simple to pick apart with mid & Long range shooting.

As noted - this is the true center of the issue.

Im have a feeling the four lists you played VS were of a similar Ilk to my own experiences.

You assume that everyone wants to run a spammy non-cc, 'shooty' DE list, I have a mix of elements in my current list as I get bored very quickly with just spamming the same or similar units over and over.

Dreadknights are a complete non-issue so I'm not sure why they are getting mentioned really, any GK player with two brain cells to rub together is going to spam un stunnable psyflemen to the max... they are that broken.

DE have no answer to multiple Psyflemen its a joke how quickly grey knights can shred your vehicles, the range issue is a bit of a fallacy as well as with a rhino psycannons have an effective range of nearly 39" it worse with termies as they can always fire at full effect.

I don't understand how you can ignore a psyfleman or six and pick them off 'at leisure' 4 TL str 8 shots with 48" range pretty much = 1 dead DE vehicle every single turn, regardless of cover and nighfields are a worthless bauble VS 48 range guns. Editsorry, effectively 54" range actually, they can also just walk in from reserves and destroy you before you can ever shoot , Gk have bent reserves manipulation remember ....
I guarantee if you had to play a gk list spamming psycannons and psyflemen your army would be shot to bits in very few turns if they just come straight at you , you really only have one turn in which to run, then you are just getting torn apart.

Given that the purifiers power thing counts toward combat res, I think it's a bit of a stretch for them to deny the wyches dodge ?

I really think once the GK players work themselves out we are in for a hard time

Sorrowshard wrote:

You assume that everyone wants to run a spammy non-cc, 'shooty' DE list, I have a mix of elements in my current list as I get bored very quickly with just spamming the same or similar units over and over.
[snip]
DE have no answer to multiple Psyflemen its a joke how quickly grey knights can shred your vehicles, the range issue is a bit of a fallacy as well as with a rhino psycannons have an effective range of nearly 39" it worse with termies as they can always fire at full effect.

DE do have an answer to this - it's called spammy shooty lists. If the GK players are going to run optimal tourney spam lists then you should compare them to optimal DE tourney spam lists - otherwise the comparison is unfair and will of course favor the list you're not hamstringing.

I run assault in my tourney lists, because it's important to - but I never run more than two squads worth, because otherwise I'm giving away too much shooting firepower - and spammy DE shooting firepower is second to only a very select few lists.

Sorrowshard wrote:

Dreadknights are a complete non-issue so I'm not sure why they are getting mentioned really, any GK player with two brain cells to rub together is going to spam un stunnable psyflemen to the max...

Definitely agree with this.

Sorrowshard wrote:

I don't understand how you can ignore a psyfleman or six and pick them off 'at leisure' 4 TL str 8 shots with 48" range pretty much = 1 dead DE vehicle every single turn, regardless of cover and nighfields are a worthless bauble VS 48 range guns.

It's because you shoot them apart with your spammed dark matter weapons. How do you think DE handle Space Wolves, Eldar, Blood Angels, or IG? All of those armies have equal or greater shooting threat power to the GK and it's not like they've redefined us into useless. The GK require a slightly different strategy due to their Fortitude gak - but Fortitude alone doesn't make them invincible gawds of DE slaying either.

My DE have a lot of shooting, but even if it didn't Riflemen dreads can be overcome in CC with wyches and haywire grenades.

You can rush up and assault them. True, you need a 6 to hit them, but the dreads are only str5 so you get all the benefits of dodge and FNP.

If you can occupy 3 of those 6 dreads, that leaves 3 for the rest of your army to shoot at, which makes it manageable between choices like trueborn, scourges, raiders and ravegers. Add in warriors with blaster as well if you like. The only problem with this is you will have pay attention to positioning so you can get the benefit of using nightshields against short and mid range shooting.

You are correct in your statement that nightshields don't do anything about the longer range weapons, but that is the point. When you take away the ability of a bolter or storm bolter to even shoot you, they you opponent has to chose where his long range shooting will go. It will immediately put him on the defensive.

I'm not saying you are going to have an easy time of it, but I have been able to over come 3 psyriflemen dreads without too much hassle. Maybe my opponents were bad players. I didn't bother getting caught up in the purifiers or paladins. I got rid of the dreads and razorback first, then infantry was a non-issue.

I'm not sure what exactly a mix of elements means. DE list are wide and varied. Many lists are similar, but based on HQ choices and how you want to use your units, the playstyle is quite different.

I run a succubus and 2 haemis in my list. I have a unit of wyches and a unit of bloodbrides. The main function of those 2 units is to take out armor, not engage infantry. A riflemen dread makes a nice juicy target. No Dread CC weapons and str 5. perfect. I need a 6 to hit, but one hit with a haywire grenade and if it is stunned or immoblized, the attacks in the next phase or initiative are at weapon skill. Over time, the dreads go down with out too much trouble. Either way, the dreads aren't shooting, which allows my shooting to dominate or to get other close combat units up into combat.


Honestly I have had more trouble with BA mech span than I have ever had with Wolves or GKs, but that maybe a function of local meta.

heh, I was just posting the same thing GAR. Wyches with haywires. Also shardnets don't have a strength limit, so throw those on any dread and limit their attacks.

Very important though, you only hit on 6s if the dread is not immoblized or stunned. If you manage to immobilize or stun a dread, you hit on normal WS. I notice people get sloppy with dreads, and will skimp on extra armor because they only move 6".

I think the nemesis weapons and the billion customized variants are too much, +2I ,2+ invulns. I just hope it's not the book that makes the design philosophy swing way back to the streamlined bare bones books like the old Chaos book did. But it does have that feeling to it.

J Mc wrote:

I'm not sure if the Purifier special rule (Cleansing Flame?) counts as a CC attack or not, and if Wyches would therefore get 4++ against it (I can't recall, I have the codex at home, will check later).

IIRC, it was FAQed. And not to our advantage. Can't help but think some elevated fanboy is doing the FAQ writing, or at least whoever did it had a serious off-day with that one (There's also a fairly liberal slapping of the "daemon" label to troops that've never had it in the rules).

xzandrate wrote:

heh, I was just posting the same thing GAR. Wyches with haywires. Also shardnets don't have a strength limit, so throw those on any dread and limit their attacks.

I'm not a big fan of wych weapons, but their utility here is undeniable.

Very important though, you only hit on 6s if the dread is not immoblized or stunned. If you manage to immobilize or stun a dread, you hit on normal WS. I notice people get sloppy with dreads, and will skimp on extra armor because they only move 6".

Agreed. Against a rifleman dread, the threat of getting squished outright is greatly reduced, plus a riflemen gets what 2 attacks. I'd tag that all day. A death company dread. No thanks, I'll pass. Thats a good way to get a lot of dead units in CC.

I think the nemesis weapons and the billion customized variants are too much, +2I ,2+ invulns. I just hope it's not the book that makes the design philosophy swing way back to the streamlined bare bones books like the old Chaos book did. But it does have that feeling to it.

Yeah, I see a lot of different varieties of GK with the different HQ builds. I think it is still too early to determine what the optimum GK build is. Plus you have to sort out the fluff build verses the tournament builds. I think by the holidays things will start to gel a little more.
I do believe that a GK build tooled to take out DE are going to get hosed by a lot of other armies.

Nepenthe wrote:

J Mc wrote:

I'm not sure if the Purifier special rule (Cleansing Flame?) counts as a CC attack or not, and if Wyches would therefore get 4++ against it (I can't recall, I have the codex at home, will check later).

IIRC, it was FAQed. And not to our advantage. Can't help but think some elevated fanboy is doing the FAQ writing, or at least whoever did it had a serious off-day with that one (There's also a fairly liberal slapping of the "daemon" label to troops that've never had it in the rules).

I think they left that one unanswered. I could be confusing it with another ruling though.

The Daemon classification was pretty lame. Move to sell more GK models maybe....

Grey Knights FAQ wrote:

Q: Is Cleansing Flame a shooting attack or a close
combat attack? (p31)
A: A close combat attack

It's as easy as it sounds, as wyches have a 4+ invulnerable save against close combat attack.

Tiri Rana wrote:

Grey Knights FAQ wrote:

Q: Is Cleansing Flame a shooting attack or a close
combat attack? (p31)
A: A close combat attack

It's as easy as it sounds, as wyches have a 4+ invulnerable save against close combat attack.

Huh, thanks for clearing that up. I could've sworn I saw somebody claim it was specifically faqed the other way just a few days ago. Shows what you get for trusting second hand sources!

Well I guess thats something, will still get battered by purifyers nonetheless , they are a very high priority on the 'to shoot' list.

Sorrowshard wrote:

Well I guess thats something, will still get battered by purifyers nonetheless , they are a very high priority on the 'to shoot' list.

Yes, they're not nice. I encountered 5 of them before i'd got my mitts on the GK codex. After charging them with 30 Boyz the smile on my face dropped as he revealed that little gem

I'm going to try and get a few games against the GK in the next few weeks so i'll report back. I believe my opponent will be using psyflemen but we'll see.

Sorrowshard wrote:

Well I guess thats something, will still get battered by purifyers nonetheless , they are a very high priority on the 'to shoot' list.

Definitely - they're on my top list for all splinter shooting. Do not want in h2h.

I really don't think GK are a problem for DE and I will tell you why: Target saturation. We simply have more crap on the table. They can't damage focus on our targets because they only have a few units to our many, whereas, their smaller numbers allow us to more easily focus on their army.

Also, it was mention the GK have mobility. Once again their mobility( StormRavens,Shunt moves), comes at a large price, which makes the army even smaller.

Also our fire power is not hindered much by movement. GK have a absolute torrent of fire power, but they have to get out of there transports to really bring it to bear, or slow to 6" in the rhino to use only half the possible psycannons shot.

Also the majority of the army is only 24" range, where as, we are a 36" army. Add NS to this and we nullify most of the armies shooting. Remember, DE really aren't suppose to be able to go " Toe to Toe" with an opponent. They are made to give the player the ability to out manuever your opponent, and Gk are no different.

I see most GK vs. DE games looking like this. Turn 1: PsyRifle Dreads and Ravangers begin shooting at each other. Turn 3: whoever wins shoot out uses remaining firepower to give their team the win. GK are a powerful strong army, but just win this shoot-out and play smart, and you should be fine.

@Pariah

Have you played a GK, or is this just all this theory? If you haven't then I think you should. While you're at it, you should also play against a GK army with 3 Psyflemen hiding in a bolstered defence ruin with paladins and draigo within a stone's throw's reach. In case you haven't, then you should, it is utterly ridiculous.

What are we suppose to do with that? AV12 is the worst armor we shoot lances with, moreso with a nasty 3+ cover save. Assaulting with haywire will need a few rounds of combat because we need to plant the grenedes on a 6, which buys time for the paladins to counter assault.. and that's IF you can get close enough with all the s7 shooting at your transports.

I am with sorrowshard on this one. When the GKs fully figure out their codex, they will be the rock to our scissorhands.

My main problem against GK is that they can build their mobile bunker anywhere on the table.
If they find a spot which gives one rhino cover, the rhino can then give cover to two razors, 4 dreads and a Land Raider with shrouding.
Thats a lot of 3+cover to handle.

And if it's a bolstered ruin that would be 2+ cover instead...

I play Grey Knights quite often and can honestly say I have not lost once (although some have been close) And I can owe it all to the Disintergrator cannon and the good old poisoned attacks. 3 raiders (2 Dark Lances 1 Disintergrator) and a ravager tooled up with disintergrator cannons with nightshields and flickerfields has essentially crippled the grey knights every time. Sit them at 30-36" and his 24" wont even come close, hits on a 3 and wounds on a 3 and 9 shots each with no armour saves will on average finish a unit off whereby lellith Hesperax and a Hekatrix bloodbride squad walks in to chew up the remainders (the shear number of attacks always works in the end and the invulnerable saves removes the Grey knights main advantage even on terminator/palidin squads. Also having a trueborn squad with 2 cannons and shardcarbines with splinter racks makes light work of everything. Also if you ever have to face a dreadknight, as its not a vehicle even splinter pistols from a wych squad will cause at least a wound let alone a whole squad of warriors! As for the cover saves in a bolstered building, as always (running a shooty army) if you hit them with enough shots they will roll some 1s, keep it unfair and attack a squad with everything, don't let them hit back, play on the GK lack of (save for teleporters) manouverability

Yea. I don't know why so many people are posting with struggles. I play in a pretty competitive group with 3/4 bandwagoners. So far I have defeated all of their GK armies (all of which run psydreads). The sheer amount of St 8 shots my army can produce and, more importantly, the number of platforms those shots are on is much greater. Some of the games were close (I've played about 5/6 so far against GK), but others were simply blowouts. I still fear competent IG players or SWs the most.

OK, so there's 3 dreads, that means they have the potential to hit 3 targets. My regular list runs at LEAST 8 vehicles, all of which have dark lances or blasters. I'd say on average GK dreads down (explode/wreck) a vehicle per turn, once you've factored in flicker fields, cover, etc. Most of the time they simply end up removing a weapon, or immobilizing a ravager, or simply stunning a raider/venom. Even with my vehicles down. My fleeting wyches/warriors are still effective by the next turn in most cases

The main advantage of DE is that even if my shooty vehicles are immobilized, or my transports are stunned, they are still going to be in the thick of things next turn, especially if I've sped them into my opponents half of the table. Honestly I count on them getting destroyed, and usually lose very few models to the resulting explosions. Stunning a land-raider/rhino/chimera/razorback/etc. is much more of a hindrance then stun/shake/weapon destroying a raider/venom, and 9/10 most opponents will move on to shoot other targets not realizing that it will be in range to threaten his units the next turn.

I'd say the worst possible scenario is to go second, on a battlefield with no cover and forgetting to take FFs/NSs. I mean you need terrain, NEED IT. If your tables don't have any then your not playing the game right, and of course they are going to win. One of my opponents even stated how ridiculous he thought the survivability of DE raiders/venoms is, and this is with his dreadnoughts forcing me to re-roll every roll on the damage chart. Even if he destroys an entire venom and its crew, that's still only like 1/20th of my army. I agree with what others have posted in that the huge amount of target saturation we can offer severely puts small elite armies on the back foot. At least I have had little trouble picking off real threats early on and still having enough units to clean up afterwards.

Just had a thought, I was speaking to my mate who plays Grey Knights and he was boasting that every unit in the Grey Knight list is considered a psyker... Is it just me or would, say you ran a Haemonculi right into the middle of his army and decided to use the Crucible of Malediction, and got a good role on the 3D6, in theory you could destroy his entire army... any thoughts?

It only affects the justicar/knight of the flame/IC's and if none of those then 1 random model per unit... its not that good...

yeah makes sense, would be a bit cruel- even though it does say "every enemy psyker within 3D6" surprised that didn't make the FAQ's because that could be very OP if people just read it from the Codex