Grey Knights have some love…and not so much love. Take a look at these top five benefits and downsides to Grey Knights in 8th Edition.
Sorry for the long break! Discordian here with my love and hate relationship with Grey Knights in 8th edition thus far!
Here is the Love:
1. Mind Powers
I really appreciate that the psychic chapter got +1 to casting and deny for their detachment rules.
The re-introduction of the older psychic powers was great too. I used Astral Aim and Gate on my GK Landraider in almost every game. No one expects to be shot through walls by las-cannons and having to deal with a teleporting Landraider for line breaker
2. Flyers
Towards the end of the 7th I was running a raptor wing formation (2 storm talons and 1 land speeder) with my GKs to give me some desperately needed anti-tank. So I was super happy to find out that they’re now GK storm talons. Not to big of deal really but it’s nice to have as a option.
Never really wanted Stormhawks, but they sneaked in there as well.
3. Relics
Last edition GK relics were kind of bad. Everyone took the Book and that was about it, because everything else was too expensive or not really that good.
Hilariously the book isn’t good anymore and the rest of the relics got pretty interesting, and without having absurd point costs it’s far easier to take them.
4. Characters
I think they did a pretty good job in character changes. Captains having a legitimate purpose in life and the banners/apothecaries aren’t tied to expensive units.
It was nice way to add support interesting support units that gave you list options without having to fish into other imperial armies to fill army gaps.
5. Storm Bolters!
Rapid Fire 2. Talk about a simple change that did wonders for GK. It isn’t the psybolts of 5th edition (there’s a strat for that), but it helped add some horde management for a elite army that really struggle with it.
Okay Now for the Hate!
1. The Elephant in the Room
Grandmaster. Dreadknights.
I get it, GW wanted to add a big toy to the HQ section and they didn’t have the time to make a new kit. But they just ended up showcasing how terrible they changed normal Dreadknights.
7th did make DKs to cheap for what they were, but they over-nerfed DKs in the index release. Points went up, they got slower, suffered heavy weapon penalty, and can no longer shunt. And nothing in the codex fixed that.
Instead of doing anything to pull back those changes and give two usable unit options, the end result is that everyone’s dreadknights just got a promotion and Gk have a net zero unit increase in this regards.
2. Warlord Trait (and I mean singular) Table
I’ve never been a fan of assaulting from reserves, it creates a boring aspect of the game where you’re encouraged to just not play on the table. And people not doing that just need to castle behind meat shields. It’s just an escalation of boring, not some genius strategy system.
GKs are thematically a deep strike army, fine. But now because of all the changes to the game GKs only practical army build is just deepstrike in and assault things. And because of that “first to the fray” is the only warlord trait you will see.
Just to add salt to my personal wounds, it’s named after a rule a character had that GW decided didn’t need to exist.
3. Points Increase?
Instead of any points decreases to help make some units actually playable GKs only got price increases. There has always been a debate on whether it’s better to field terminators or paladin, but what didn’t need to happen was to make terminators more expensive.
Gk did get Stormtalons and Stormhawks, they are just to expensive to justify fielding.
It’s almost spiteful, especially after seeing all the points decreases Eldar got on its elite units.
4. Dreadnoughts
It’s kind of annoying that dreadnoughts are phasing out dual auto-cannons. I custom built the two that I have and the Mortis isn’t a option by Gks.
And I really hate the notion “Just use the Index”. That really shouldn’t be the answer to a rules system that promised to end the bloat.
Also still annoyed Gks still don’t have Librarian dreads.
5. Not-Strike Power Armored Gks
You have to work really hard to find a reason to play those units. They just really don’t have a lot going on for them.
Purifiers just became strikes that smite and Purgators suffer from the Gks heavy weapons being really bad. You could argue Interceptors allow you to get around to objectives. But since they effectively follow the same rules as deepstrike, why don’t you just deepstrike cheaper versions of them that have all the same weapons and are obsec….
What changes would you like to see the Knights of Titan get to make it back to the tabletops once again?
About the Author: Gothmog
