Fixing Grey Knights and Sisters of Battle

Zealadin wrote:These are more suggestions of what should be done WHEN GWS do fix GK, I don't think anyone wants a half hearted measure which will just leave us being ignored for even longer.

agreed , GW's position is to entrepret the codex as is for bouth good and bad of it.

we still have plenty of exploitable cheez to play with.

Drop-podding onto a daemon world? No, it should always be deep-strike for grey knights. We still are the BA's who take down the big daemons, and a daemon's not going to just let us walk up to his front lawn, I'd imagine.

Otherwise we'd just be flashy marines...

*EDIT*- Alright just for fun, I decided to throw out some ideas, just general sketches some of my own some tweaking what I have heard:

Psycannon- 18” str6 ap 4 ignores inv saves Assault 3, 36” str 8 ap 3 ignores inv saves Heavy 1
Heavy Psycannon- 42” str 9 ap 2 ignores inv saves Heavy 1/blast
Dual Warhammers- thunder hammer +1 attack
Justicar upgrade psycannon bolts, has NFW sword so +1 attack.
GK’s can teleport for free, or take Heavy rhino/razorback, take 0-1 Psycannon, 0-1 Incinerator, 0-1 replace NFW w/ lone TH
Half of GK infantry units (not neophytes) can teleport simultaneously
GK veterans can customize with dual warhammers, more special weapons and heavy weapons, more attacks, NFW’s are power weapons.
JP GK's have not NFW halberds, but NFW swords. +1 attack. 2 can take incinerator pistol. 1 can take dual warhammers. Justicar can take psycannon bolts and/or melta-bomb.
GKD/VD only one that can take heavy psycannon
Razorback can take TL-incinerator or TL-Psycannon
GKLRR has tl psycannons and 2 Incinerator cannons
GK Predator has either Incinerator cannon turret or Heavy psycannon turret. Can have Incinerator sponsoons or Psycannon sponsoons.
More psychic powers.
Termies can LR transport

Termi command squad
GKGM
GKBC

0-1 GK Dread/Ven Dread
GKTermies
GK Veterans (Daemonbane)

GK’s
GK Neopytes (in PA)- Aegis armour but ws4, bs 3, no NFW only CCW, can set up teleportation homers to allow assault, scout, infiltrate, storm bolters but can take 0-1 psycannon or incinerator

GKw/JP
GKLance Bikers

GK Purgation squad
GK Predator
GK LR
GK LRC
GK LRR

I think GK Dreads are the most unfluffy entries in the current codex.

My thoughts: If dreads are rare B/C GK's just want to be laid to rest in Titan, then they must have been B@d @$$ GK's with skills and abilities that surpased their fellow knights in order for them to be put into a dreadnought chasis. There are a couple of ways that the fluff could be reflected better.

1. Make a special character in the form of a Dread
2. Allow one to be taken as an HQ choice
3. To reflect the GK's superior abilities, give it some form of the shrouding
4. to help balance things out, put an 0-1 or 0-2 restriction on them

Coyote wrote:I think GK Dreads are the most unfluffy entries in the current codex.

My thoughts: If dreads are rare B/C GK's just want to be laid to rest in Titan, then they must have been B@d @$$ GK's with skills and abilities that surpased their fellow knights in order for them to be put into a dreadnought chasis. There are a couple of ways that the fluff could be reflected better.

1. Make a special character in the form of a Dread
2. Allow one to be taken as an HQ choice
3. To reflect the GK's superior abilities, give it some form of the shrouding
4. to help balance things out, put an 0-1 or 0-2 restriction on them

I agree 100%
The SW have special rules for their "venerable Dreads" with similar rules as above.
GK Dreads definatly need to be set apart from other Dreads and their own forces. I think the special character option would be the best. That way the increadible commitment that the hero in the Dread has made to his Chapter by not being burried on Titan would be recognized.
I believe this recognition could be in the form of Special Character Abilities such as:
*Shrouding(as mentioned before)
*Increased skill in certain areas- WS,BS, etc...
*Count as a Company banner
*Cause fear
*Can deploy after all others
*Counts as a teleport homer
*Can have a Retinue (Terminators, Techmarine,etc...)
*etc, etc.......

The Gk dread seems like a good idea, but we should be able to have venerable dreads instead of normal dread (ie, all of them is venerable) and have better rules, high WS and BS and be awesome.

And have a special character/HQ dread that is really really hard.

Perhaps having an invurnerable save or something.

Imagine, a venerable grey knight dreadnought with icon of the just that can use psychic powers and have sick BS (5 or 6) plus have like 5 attacks.

It would be the special HQ dread and would be 0-1 and would require you to have an gk hero to take one.

And cost at least 200+pts.

I really like that as an option, but I'd also like to see a normal dread as an HQ choice because it would be a great inbetweener based on the other two current GK HQ choices

Yea with the current HQ choices, being able to take a normal dread (possibly with slightly upgraded rules) as a HQ would be good, as it would help fill the void between BC and GM

I don't beleive that any other 'special' dreads should have requirements such as a GM in the army, because we already have a very expensive army, and adding further hobbles for people trying to make more creative lists is just annoying and ... well bad

Any changes should concentrate on expanding the choices for a GK army list (especially for purists imo)

I always thought this Alaric-type option would be great for lower point games. He probably should only have three attacks though.

http://www.patrolclash.org.uk/codex4.htm

IMO 4 attacks with the option to upgrade to artificer armour, that way your basically gaining your true grit attack without the true grit rule.

I actually think the idea of having the PAGK retinue is pretty awesome, but if this was implemented would be nice if you could chose to upgrade the squad to be slightly more CC or slightly more shooty, ie reduced cost for upgrading models to carry PsyC's with more models able to carry them, or some kind of movement bonus received from the HQ, or a better shrouding just for this squad, and possibly nearby squads?

That way the 95 points is more worth it as opposed to going down to 75,

i am usualy very critical about mucking around with the codex but this is a step in the right derection.

what about GK deamonslayers armd with guardiand spers , an excuse to use thoes old OLD modles.

I made some rules ideas for grey knight Frater astrotechnicus.
And my old nemesis force weapon table, just so you know how good the Ohmnissian Nemesis force weapons are.



Grey knight frater astrotechnicus (Techmarines, masters of the forge)


Knight of the forge. 120 Pts
WS Bs S T W I A Ld Sv
5 5 4 4 2 4 2 10 2+/5+

Special rules: Fearless, Grey knight,Independent character, True grit.

Blessing of the ohmnissah, Bolster defences.
"See codex space marines"

Wargear: Servo arm, Servo harness, Tactical dreadnought suit.
"See codex space marines"

Inverse-tachyon phase modulated polarized anti-neutrino beam projector (Conversion beamer)
"See codex space marines"
60 Pts

Weapons: Storm bolter, Ohmnissian Nemesis force weapon.

Ohmnissian Nemesis force weapons are only given to the frater astrotechnicus of the grey knights once they
have proven themselves worthy in battle to the machine-gods followers.
This weapon counts as a normal nemesis force weapon wielded by a brother captain of the grey knights.



Tech-knight 55 Pts
WS Bs S T W I A Ld Sv
5 4 4 4 1 4 2 9 2+

Special rules: Fearless, Grey knight,Independent character, True grit.

Blessing of the ohmnissah, Bolster defences.
"See codex space marines"

Wargear: Servo arm
"See codex space marines"

May buy servo harness for 25 Pts

Weapons: Storm bolter, Ohmnissian Nemesis force weapon (Same as above except it counts as beeing wielded
by a justicar)



Table.
Grey knight: +2 S Pw: No
Justicar: +2 S Pw: Yes
Terminator: +2 S Pw: Yes
Brother captain:+2 S Pw: Yes Force weapon(normal)
Grand master: +3 S Pw: Yes Force weapon(Special)

Grey knight nemesis force weapons are potent weapons made by the most skilled artificers in the imperium and only given too the ranks
in the grey knight order.
The weapon can vary in shape from a sword, axe even to a hammer.
The most common is the sword and halberd.

A grey knight nemesis force weapon is used like the table above instead of the normal force weapon rules (except brother captain)

The nemesis force weapons are tuned too the psychic signal of the wearer and gets more powerful as the wielder gets more powerful.
Therefore a brother captains nemesis force weapon counts as a force weapon with +2 S and power weapon.
The psychic might of the grand master is so great that his blade can cut greater deamons in half and slice tanks in pieces as easily
as one might cut grox butter, the grand master gets +3 S and his nemesis force weapon has theese special rules.

The grand masters nemesis weapon is so potent that if an enemy is wounded by it (after saves) it suffers an instant death.
If the model beeing hit is immune to instant death it instead suffers a nemesis strike.
The model immidiately suffer all his remaining wounds, and is removed immidiately as a casualty.
(Effectively, the nemesis strike removes the bonus of beeing immune too instant death)

Just remember true grit is power armour only, doesn't apply to models in Tac Dred armour.

I just want to throw this thought out there: The fact that we are Fearless doesn't give us the option to "voluntarily" fall back if we need to for tactical or strategic purposes. If I'm not mistaken the SM's have that ability now, right?

Doesn't it make sense for GK's to have something like Iron Will instead where they can choose to pass or fail? I mean, they are not subject to "sweeping advance" so intentionally falling back can come in handy to get closer to an objective or maybe to avoid being charged by another unit. I think it is still true to our fluff that no force in the universe can instill fear in a GK. Just my two cents...

I think the grey knights should have this rule.

"Without fear"
As fearless except if fearless would ever give an disadvantage too the grey knights they don't get this disadvantage and succedes with their leadership/morale test.

They also cannot be pinned.

Well, the "immune to pinning" is a separate rule and should still apply.

"Without fear" as you describe it might be construed as "unfair" since it is basically "Fearless" except we won't be subject to wounds when we lose in cc.

"Iron Will" would still be more appropriate since there is already an established description for it IMHO.

""
"Without fear" as you describe it might be construed as "unfair" since it is basically "Fearless" except we won't be subject to wounds when we lose in cc""

That's exactly the point!

It's just that grey knights have so cool fluff and artwork and then some idiot give them even more penalties by giving fearless a suicidal rule.

I mentioned this before once for the same reason.
Alot of horde armies have fearless, or even alot of cheaper assault units, and obviously they could be rather dangerous so something needed to be done to kind of balance them out with the new rules and the focus on CC.

GK however ARE one of the most elite armies in the universe, and certainly can't afford to be losing models to such a badly designed rule (obviously no thought was taken for GK's) some people could argue you should just make sure you don't lose combat, but realistically at our points cost we shouldn't have to worry about it at all.

Exactly why I'm saying Iron Will is more applicable. It gives us the tactical flexibility to fall back whenever we want to. As far as I know, in essence, it works just like Fearless, except we will never be subject to wounds due to losing in cc. Are there any powers/psychic abilities/special rules that make Iron will inferior to Fearless?

Yea that would definately be a more ideal ability for GK's.

I've always thought that a new psychic list would make us a little more competitive and I've come up with a few (thanks mainly to a binge on Pepsi and Dawn of War) that might be good examples.

Psychic Inquisition: (20 pts) The Grey Knight Hero channels his psychic might into a powerful lightning storm, striking lightning bolts at his enemies all around him. Psychic Inquisition is a psychic power that may be performed in the player's shooting phase in the place of his usual ranged weapon, if successful than the Hero may not assault that turn. all enemy characters and squads within 12" of the Hero are hit d6 times at strength 4, armour saves are taken as normal.

Righteous Fury: (15 pts) The Grey Knight Hero focuses his hatred and the hatred of his squad mates, granting them the power to perform greater acts of heroism against the corrupt and daemonic. Righteous Fury is a psychic power that may be performed during either player's assault phase, when successful it confers the the Hero and his squad the Furious Charge and Counter-Attack special rules until the end of that turn.

Sanctify: (25 pts) The Grey Knight Hero chants litanies of purity and faith coupled with his own psychic might to strengthen the fabric of reality around him, making the possibility of warp incursion nigh impossible to occur. Sanctify is a psychic power that may be performed at the start of the player turn, if successful the Hero may not move or shoot for that turn. Roll 3d6 to measure an area around the Hero, the enemy player cannot deep-strike or summon within that area however physical means of deep-striking may still occur ie. Jet Packs, Drop Pods, Skimmers etc.

I think these could make for pretty good replacements for banishment and scourging what do you guys think?

I particularly like Righteous Fury and Sanctify! Good suggestions Andarius.

Thanks, if there was going to be something that would make us mean but fair it would be those.

Reasonable replacements, but that being said the actual use is limiting, and I don't think anyone wants to see nice new psychic abilities which exagerate the cost of our units often without the benefit being seen all the time, if at all (without a hefty investment, both in points and playstyle).

The powers cost too much.

Simple as that. Becouse they are not that good.

And about iron will, but there might be a rule that says (i'm not completely sure, i got this argument against mee in a discussion) as long as you have a rule that makes you automatically succeed with a morale test in combat after loosing you suffer extra casualties.

This includes, fearless, mob rule (which gives you fearless) and iron will (either you automatically make it, or automatically fail)

Therefore there is no point in getting iron will. I will doublecheck this though (or you could do it yourself)

Sanctify might be too expensive but Righteous Fury definitely isn't. I5, S7 power weapon attacks for my GKT's? Yes, thank you! It should state 'at the beginning' of either assault phase to avoid confusion.