Do Grey Knights Deserve the Hate?

[DrBored]

A lot of Grey Knights players, at my FLGS and in other places, have been getting a lot of heat lately.

More heat than Space Wolves got when Razorspam hit the tables. Maybe a little more heat than when IG brought Leafblower.

In my opinion, yes, they do deserve the hate. When a GK player brings a competitive list (or really, any list in my opinion) it saps the fun out of the game. They have so many defenses against all types of firepower, and then have such a powerful fist behind that that it's very difficult to actually enjoy a game. It becomes frustrating just to focus fire on a single squad just to wipe it out, and forget about destroying a squad of Paladins completely.

But let's extend the discussion here. Why do you not like Grey Knights?

Why do you *like* Grey Knights, if you play them? What is the motivation for you? Is it just because they're an easy point-and-click army or do you like the idea of crushing the will of your opponent even in casual games, or do you just like to have an easy time painting models with a drybrush and chainmail? (Of course, I'm not saying all Grey Knight players are like this, but from polling my FLGS, these are the reasons I've gotten for liking Grey Knights).

I for one don't like them because of how not fun they are to play against. I even traded armies with a friend just to show him how not fun they are! His GK Paladins versus my then-Venom Spam DE. When the games were done, he promptly turned around and sold his GK army and started to invest in Necron (I'm not entirely sure if that was because they were the army of the month, or because he was actually a mature individual).

Let's see how much rage GK has actually generated over the past year.

[KrewL RaiN]

I put the hate to how the heck does GW playtest so bad. 40K slogan should be changed to "in the 41 millennium there is only Grey Knights" because all the power gamers have a massive boner for them, and its all your seeing at huge events.

I have a friend who got into GK because he likes the models and had no idea they would be the kings of cheese. He got them right at their 5thed release. He's been playing his vanilla marines again.

Then another friend has been playing them before their 5th ed codex. He still plays them but doesn't place well at events. He doesn't play the dumb spam lists you usually see and I give him awesome points for playing them how he wants to play them, even if its a bit odd.

And yet another totally dropped them because of what they became. He said they are not fun anymore.

For people who play GK because they like them for what they are fluff wise are probaly getting hosed with the same hate too, even if they aren't doing the dumb spam GK lists you see at big events.

I dislike playing against them for obvious reasons. You can guess what army I play *points to my avatar* I also play Daemons.

Been loosing faith in GW's ability to ballance their game... I am more into the hobby then anything, but I still get rather sour about the state of the game.

[Ghoulio]

Pretty much what KrewL RaiN said. I look through the GW book and I cant understand how that got through playtesting (I do the same for Nids for different reasons). For me and the armies I play (Nids and to a much lesser extent Dark Eldar) playing against Grey Knights, regardless of list, can be negative fun. Even friends "fun" lists that are the models he wants to play isn't really any fun to play against. My big hope is that 6th ed comes along with a real FAQ/Errata and does some tweaking to the current army books to balance things out. Not holding my breath.

[Chaoschrist]

The reason I have GK is because I got into the hobby after a 3+ year hiatus and starting GK was a good way to get a starting army done for cheap. So yes, that includes, that I run Draigo and paladins.

But, I should add, back when I played 40k years ago, I always wanted to do GK because I like the models. But the models were way more expensive and the codex was a bit meh I thought.

The fact that they represent a OP list (according to some people) isn't of that much concern to me because I don't game that much and the times I do, is, for now at least, just with a close friend of mine. And chances are, that if he was into the hobby as long as me, he'd get into GK as well instead of marines that came with the starterbox (since he just started 40k)

With the low model count I'd probably get a hard time with horde armies, so I feel that's the risk I take. Yes obviously 2 wounds and 2+ saves will help a lot but with only 23 models in a 2000 point list I'm easlily outnumbered by small arms fire and lots of it. Also, because I don't play that much, I'm probably not that skilled of a player to win straight forward with no effort.

Down the line I will add more/other models to my GK army to mix up lists. Adding models to your collection to mix it up motivates me more if I already have a list ready to go, instead of just adding random models/squads all the time, just to figure out "oh, I don't even have enough models to fill out an FOC".

On a small sidenote; my grey knights are actually grey, rather than the easy paintjob most people tend to get away with for GK armies. So no it's not for "the ease of painting".

When I decided to get back in the hobby I thought about a few other armies I liked for the sake of gaming as well (besides possible modelling options), but that would include running an Ork biker list... and nob bikers with their wound allocation aren't that different from paladins I guess. I've heard people whine about those as well...

Also; since I have my list done, I picked up painting pretty well again, and I started my 2nd army. Which will probably get somewhat of the same "hate" as the GK list I have around. Terminator only Deathwing... even if it's because of the mass of 2+ save models. So to be honest, I don't really worry too much about how my army is cheese if I play with friends, chances are that all armies I prefer are cheese in their eyes. Heck; I've heard people complain about IG because "it's so much infantry" or "it's too many tanks". People complain about marines because... hey 3+ save is silly. So the complaints go on with people in my area that even play the game.

[DarkLink]

Been loosing faith in GW's ability to ballance their game... I am more into the hobby then anything, but I still get rather sour about the state of the game.

Which is ironic because the game is currently more balanced than it's been in a very long time. Whine about Grey Knights all you want, they're not exactly sweeping the tournament scene's top tiers.

[Wildcard]

I play GK because:

- I had played IG for a long time and i had always fancied to try out marines.

-- BA and Chaos SM were taken, i have no interest in the dark angels, and Black Templars dont have full plastic kits. Also, i dont like the theme of vanilla marines(having multiple different forces (chapters) portrayed in one book with very little true diversity to my taste. (We try to keep one army per player since there are only a few of us in our friend circle who play)

- Wolves were not my cup of tea

- I had space marine model i had crafted unique color scheme to one model i owned that i wanted to create army for:

[URL="http://s719.photobucket.com/albums/ww196/Wildcard84/Grey%20Knights/?action=view&current=KnightoftheFlame.jpg"]http://s719.photobucket.com/albums/ww196/Wildcard84/Grey%20Knights/?action=view&current=KnightoftheFlame.jpg[/URL]

- I truly like the models


Now, to be 'fair and sporty' in our small community, here are few guidelines i am trying to follow

- No rad & psychostroke grenades
- No razorback spam
- No psycannon spam
- No henchman spam
- No psyfleman spam
- No wound allocation shi*

I will however:
- Toggle Force weapons (since i rarely have the opportunity to stack weaponry that would otherwise instagib multiwound enemies)
- Take psybolts for troops if i fear i need to have something to use to pop AV10

Aside from those points, i've tried draigo / paladin combo in only 2 games if i remember right.

Rough example of how my list could look like

HQ:
1-2x Captain to run with the terminators
or
1-2x Brother hood champion

Troops:
2x 5man terminator squads (in bigger games) or 2x 5+man GKSS

Elite
(as a hammer in my force) usually 1x 7-8man purifier unit (with a heavy support landraider, and sometimes with brotherhood champion for the re-roll buffs), knight of the flame with hammer, 1x incinerator, rest geared with halberds or falchions, depending on the expected enemy hammer .

occasional assassin (sniper or polymorphing guy)

Fast:
- 2x Stormraven with either typhoon missiles or multimelta at the front, and something i feel like trying on the turret

Heavy:
1x landraider (one for the purifiers)
2x Dreadknight with sword & teleporter & heavy incinerator or heavy psycannon

After each game i've asked from my oppoenents (Chaos SM, BA, necron, orks, eldar) If they feel that my lists were full of crap. Never have they frowned upon my builds (save for the 2 times against different players that i tried out psychostrokes)

I always try to come up with fluffy and or "believable" reason why such a force would be sent to the encounter. And so far, it hasn't been Greay Knights that have made the games unenjoyable.

[KrewL RaiN]

Which is ironic because the game is currently more balanced than it's been in a very long time. Whine about Grey Knights all you want, they're not exactly sweeping the tournament scene's top tiers.

I started playing when 5th ed hit the shelves. I have no exp with the older stuff. Sure they may be getting better, but when 4 or 5 codex's out of how many armies are the only things that can "compete at higher tiers aka tournaments" there is still a huge ballance issue with the game. The should be no such thing as the best codex or things with instant win buttons. Each army should be balanced to an extent were there is no best codex or min/max. People will always fish out stuff like this and it always shows bad ballance and play testing.

I am not a sore loser, I love a challange but not one were I am hitting my head against a brick wall because I can't do anything against something more optimized and better written (I HAVE beaten Gray Knights with my Tyranid's and I AM NOT the greatest general either, but if you take two generals who are evenly skilled, one with Tyranids and one with Gray Knights, the GK will most likely win, with list tailoring out the window here. If Tyranid's can tailor towards the GK fight, then fight might be more even..blarg actualy my head hurts when I think of both armies tailoring to each other haha). I have not codex hoped to a higher tier army (dark eldar has tempted me but then I would be falling for that bait of codex hopping which *sigh*... I dont want to bring up yet another issue that has be disused a lot). So I do take offense being called a whiner because I refuse to play the game at a retarded min/maxed level of parking lots and 3 up saves. As long as there's people who will do anything to win, they will find and exploit flaws in the rules to create those easy win buttons, and GW wont bother to patch their game if they are making money off it.

Then 6th comes and everyone all even again. then the whole codex creep thing will happen again and its all rinse and repeat, unless they will learn from their mistakes...

[DarkLink]

Really, only a few minor tweaks would fix just about everything in the GK codex. Remove psykotroke and rad grenades (they're the only things that're outright broken), appropriately price TL Autocannons and Psybolts on Dreadnughts, as well as Reinforced Aegis and Fortitude, completely rewrite psilencers to be at least mediocre instead of incredibly horrible and make psycannons more expensive than incinerators. Purifiers shouldn't get a discount on Halberds and Hammers, either.

Problem solved. Just tweaking a few upgrade prices and we're good.

[Dyrnwyn]

I hate how they exploded. I played Grey Knights under the Daemonhunters codex - had a pretty big army built up, all metal models, and I liked the fact that I had an elite army that was always outnumbered - they were all good, but not incredibly so. I had a lot of games that I had a ton of guys die, but I just barely won on objective. I had a trio of Dreads that were converted to be Riflemen - they were actually Autocannon/ML Dreads. I had lots of opponents that were surprised to see Grey Knights on the table, and it was neat fielding a niche army that not everyone knew how to deal with.

Then the new codex hit - all of a sudden, there was an explosion of Grey Knight players in my local store. We went from me, to 6+ players. A lot of new players turned up with Grey Knights. I don't like playing with the new codex - it feels like it lost a lot of the niche appeal of the old elite Daemonhunters, in favor of turning the army into overpowered badasses. All of a sudden my Riflemen dreads were really, really good, and also, really really popular. I don't like playing against the new codex - there's too much that borks my Orks, and mirror matches hold no interest for me.

The FLGS recently started a 40k campaign/league that's a territory grab. I was fairly excited as I like this sort of thing, and was considering coming out of my Warhammer hiatus for it. Then I read the starting rules. I chose not to participate, as I didn't have 1000 points of Orks in Troop slots, and I didn't want to play Grey Knights, as I already saw 4 Grey Knight players signed up.

[KrewL RaiN]

Really, only a few minor tweaks would fix just about everything in the GK codex. Remove psykotroke and rad grenades (they're the only things that're outright broken), appropriately price TL Autocannons and Psybolts on Dreadnughts, as well as Reinforced Aegis and Fortitude, completely rewrite psilencers to be at least mediocre instead of incredibly horrible and make psycannons more expensive than incinerators. Purifiers shouldn't get a discount on Halberds and Hammers, either.

Problem solved. Just tweaking a few upgrade prices and we're good.

Yeah your completely right there too, I call those "psycodouche" for a reason haha. 5th could just use some tweaking here and there and all can be good... (man even when I am tipsy I try to be completely neutral in ways xD, argh I should go poof before I get RAWR again xD)