An Inquisitor's Thoughts: New Grey Knight Rumors

Hello, everyone. My name is Inquisitor Lord Vogrin, and as you might guess, I play an Inquisition army. I have forces from Grey Knights to Imperial Guard, from Sisters of Battle to Officio Assasssins, from Stormtroopers to Exorcists. I’ve enjoyed playing with a mix of 3 different codexes on the field (and it’s certainly confused one or two of my opponents), but it looks like that may be coming to an end with the rumored release of Codex: Grey Knights early next year.

As you may have seen, a whole batch of Grey Knight rumors just hit the internet, thanks to Tasty Taste at BloodOfKittens.com, and Old School invited me to start my posting here on Dark Future by sharing my thoughts on the possible path our new codex will be taking.

Rumors and my thoughts follow. Note that I have re-organized these somewhat from the order they were originally posted. Warning – this is going to be long...

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Grey Knights Organization:

Grey Knights are “around” Plague Marine Cost

GKT are “around” vanilla marine termy cost.

• Sounds about right at this point, but way too early to make any sort of judgement

GKs do not get Bikes, Jump Packs, or Chaplains

• OK. Interesting to hear about the Chaplains. One set of previous rumors had GK Chaplains that granted their squad the ability to re-roll saves. If Chaplains are out (and their lack makes sense, personally), then that ability is either gone or granted by something else. If it’s completely gone, that’s unfortunate (no pun intended), as I thought that such an ability would really help making a small, elite force survivable enough to be worth their points.

GKs have access to GK Command Squads giving them access to Apothecaries (FNP)

• OK. No strong reaction, but I’ll certainly take FNP.

Dreadnoughts are Heavy Support.

• No surprise here.

The Stormraven is in and along with Penitent Engines are currently the only two Fast Attacks slots in the dex.

• No surprise on the Stormraven. Only 2 Fast choices would be disappointing, though. Most of the new codexs have been much better on making all the slots useful. And Penitent engines showing up at all is a big Huh? To me.

Grey Knights do get a MC a cross between a Talos and Karamazov Elite choice. The plastic kit is done on this one so expect it with GK launch.

• Interesting. Since we have absolutely no information, I’m not really excited about this, but it will be interesting to see. I’ve always liked Karamazov, but his rules just stunk so badly I never even thought about picking him up.

GK and GKT have plastic kits and will be troop choices.

• GK Termies as Troops! Heck, yeah. It’ll overjoy a local GK/DA player I know of as well, even if it disappoints him that he can’t include them in Deathwing armies now.

Brother-Captain Stern has Eternal Warrior and his attacks can remove models from play.

• Thank you! We’ll still have a force weapon that works on Demons!

There are three special character Inquisitors at least one will make Henchman Troop choices.

• If all of them don’t move henchmen to troops, the elites slots are going to be way too crowded (more on this in a later section)

One GKs Special character will make Purgation Squads Troops (yes you heard that right) you can spam psycannons all you want.

• Well, right now the pricing makes Purgation squads suck, even if they were troops, so I actually don’t have that many special weapon GKPA models. But add transports and scoring, and I can see their use.

One GK Special Character can take cheap termies talking Chaos Space Marine Terminator Cheap.

• Daddy likes. Daddy likes A LOT.

GK Special Rules:

All GKs are psyker and their powers act very much in the same way as Psyker Battle Squad.

• By this, I’m assuming that the LOS/range will be measured from any member of the squad, and that the potency might depend on how many guys in the squad. Frankly, I like this mechanic for them.

Holocaust is now 12 inch range large blast

• A large blast with a 12” range, or a 12” blast template? Either way, much more useful than it’s current incarnation.

GKs are Space Marines they do not have Fearless or Stubborn they have Combat Tactics and They Shall Know No Fear

• This surprises me, and frankly disappoints me somewhat. ATSKNF is actually probably just as good as Fearless in CC most of the time, but I expected better from someone with the reputation of the Grey Knights.

All GKs cause Deep Striking units to mishap if placed within 6 inches of any Grey Knight unit.

• I love this rule. I’ve been speculating for some time about getting something to disrupt deep strike, but this both fills me with glee and terrifies the players at our FLGS that heard about it.

Grand Masters give D3 special powers to Grey Knight units. Things like Digital Weapons, Master Crafted weapons, Wolf Standard, but with GK names.

• Interesting. I don’t mind the idea, but I think I’m going to see more details before I decide whether I like this or not.

Any GK unit can once per game gate of infinity with no deviation in the movement face and can shoot, but not assault. This could still be changed to become the new Grey Knight Teleport Attack and moved to Fast Attack slot.

• This would rock. Even if they only put it on the Teleport Attack squad, it would be incredibly powerful. I’ve got a TP attack squad with 2 incinerators that never hits anything due to scatter right now. These rules would make it a terror to my opponents. Although, frankly, if they only allow it on the TP attack squad, I’d prefer to be able to do it more than once per game.

All GK vehicles are immune to Shaken and Stunned (Sacred Hull). Stormraven is not a dedicated Transport. All GK vehicles are psykers with LD 10

• JOY! Can’t tell you how much being immune to Shaken and Stun would rock. Heck, you don’t need me to tell you that, even the newest players can figure it out on their own.

Blessed is now a vehicle psychic power that picks one facing and raises the AV by 2 to a max of 14

• I love it. The power itself is great (huh, looks like my Stormraven is about to be assaulted. Hey, let’s raise the rear armor to 14), and the idea of GK vehicles having psychic powers to enhance themselves. The one worry I’m starting to have is Eldar players with Runes of Warding. Shadow in the Warp would hurt too, but is much more range limited.

Grey Knight Weaponry:

GKs will not have access to most Vanilla Marine Gear especially Heavy Weapons and Special Weapons (No Melta Spamming)

• OK, this was pretty much expected. Hopefully they will have access to something that can reliably crack AV14, or else they’re going to be hurting competitively from day one.

GKs can pay for + str or rending for their storm bolters

• Depending on point cost, this could be awesome or worthless. I’m hopeful, but doubtful.

Psycannon is Str 7 rending ap 4 either can fire 2 shots moving or 4 shots standing still

• I like it. Personally, I think Str 6 rending would have been good enough, but I won’t turn down an upgrade to SUPERAUTOCANNON. I’m assuming it still ignores invul saves. Interesting that this is a complete change from the previous rumors on the psycannon (AP3, or able to fire in large blast mode, or…)

Incinerator Str 5 ap 4 rending

• Adding rending to this, on the other hand, goes beyond my most hopeful dreams. Assuming (hoping) that it would still ignore invul save, this is my new favorite weapon.

All GKs Nemesis Force Weapons are Force Weapons and no longer Str 6.

• This, on the other hand, I think is a big mistake. Str 6 was a MAJOR advantage of the Grey Knights, allowing them to reliably wound even demon princes and plague zombies that would otherwise be tough to inflict wounds on without special weapons (powerfists, etc). This makes them LESS effective against demons (who all have eternal warrior, and many of which can get a 2+ save against Force Weapon wounds). And I can already feel the headache that will emerge from rules questions about a whole squad of Force Weapons (each one can only use one psychic power per turn. If I assault a Nob squad, are we going to have to roll hits, wound, and saves for each model indivually, just so I know who can kill who?). Give us back Str 6, make them power weapons, maybe give ONE guy per squad a force weapon. Please. It’s for the children.
  
  
  EDIT: One poster on Dakka in a completely unrelated thread posted a bit of detail on this. Note that this is even more salt-worthy than the rest, but it fits with the above rumor:
  "NFWs are regular CCWs. if the entire squad passes a Psychic Test at the beginning of CC, then the entire squad's NFWs count as Force Weapons that have been activated. no +2 Str. all GKs with NFWs can upgrade them to Nemesis Halbards, same as above except with +2 Str. "
  
  

Nemesis Force Weapons can be upgrade as well (increase initiative is one option).

• Don’t mind this part though. See my comments about the storm bolters, could be great, could be worthless.

GKT can mix and match Nemesis Force Weapons and TT/SS and get psy weapons as well.

• As expected. By psy-weapons, I’m assuming he’s referring to psycannon/incinerator. This is effectively the same as their current composition, except with good storm shields.

Codex: Grey Knights or Codex: Inquistion?:

GK codex WILL NOT have inducted units. Allies are effectively gone!

• Pretty much universally expected. Codexes that require other codexes to play are a horrible idea and incredibly difficult to balance.

If it has boobies it will not be in the GK codex if has man parts it will be in this dex. Penitent Engines, Argo flagellants, Priests are in.

• This is very surprising, and a bit confusing. From all previous rumors, most of these were going to disappear. Could be good, could be bad.

GW will not take away your toys meaning if you bought 50 Imperial Storm Troopers they will have a place in the GK codex

• We’ll see.

Unlike the Archon’s court from the Dark Eldar Codex Henchman + Witchhunter rejects are Elite slots. These Squads can be mixed and have many options. For instance the Warrior can get Storm Shields and power weapon. Henchman act more like Beast Master Squads than the Archon’s Court.

Henchman include everything Daemonhosts, Death-Cult Assassins, Argo flagellants, Priests, Stormtroopers, Warriors

• So basically, everything that isn’t Grey Knights is going to be a single unit called “Henchmen”? Interesting treatment. We could probably come up with some wacky combos, something like the old Inquisitor retinues, except hopefully better. I have hope, but I’m reserving judgement. And boy, are those elite spots getting crowded.

Mystic is now only a teleport homer

• And many, many people breathe a sigh of relief. Including me, as I won’t be accused of cheese quite as often.

Assassins:

Assassins are in as an Elite slot and any type of GK army can take them.

• By which, I’m assuming they mean the Inquisitor requirement is gone. Good.

Vindicare has unlimited ammo for all special shots.

• About. Freaking. Time.

Callidus Assassin = Long Fangs and Lootas no more. Works like Lictors/Marbo drops a str 4 ap 2 large blast when enters play and can still use the Neural Shredder which is now Str 8 ap 2.

• I like. The only thing I’m going to miss is the AP1 on the Shredder – it was nice when I was tagging vehicles. It appears an open question on whether this will target leadership still, or whether it will simply target toughness like everything else.

The other Assassin are just updated versions of their old selves with the Culexus especially devastating to Psykers.

• So, absolutely no information. Got it.

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So there you are, the lastest scoop from the anonymous sources whom we have no reason to trust, or to not trust. Make what you will of it, but as with any rumor, take with the appropriate amount of salt.