Well, I had asked the same Question back in forth edition here, but now they have a new codex and the game has changed.

I've had the chance to flip through the new codex and found a lot of changes. The nemesis dread knights, terminator troop choices, teleporters, new assassin rule/stats and jokaero weaponsmiths concern me the most, pretty much in that order.

I was just wondering if we could get some input from someone who has faced them and/or has come up with some solid tactics of how to deal with and/or what to expect from this new and improved foe.

Edit: wow purgation squads can shoot anywhere within range with out line of sight

I quit, wanna buy some tau $0.10 each

Yeah I'm pretty much stuck on how to deal with grey knights with a normal Tau list. Psybolt ammunition puts their shooting on par with hours, as far as strength is concerned. The dreadknight is basically a super gundam version of a crisis suit, and despite the T6, it's still going to wreck whatever it goes after thanks to its monstrous creature stat letting it fire both ranged weapons. Shunting and shooting in the same turn can completely screw the usefulness of our screens up thanks to sheer volume of fire, and of course, it only needs to hit once to potentially pop our vehicles.

Against a terminator based army, quantity of fire will be a good friend, but theres just not much that it will do for you if your friend can stubbornly not roll those critical ones. Adding the apothecary will give the terminators FNP making them ridiculously durable. The most straight forward solution is to spam plasma and ap1, and pray that you can protect your suits from the worst of the damage.

Unfortunately as I'm currently stuck in the middle east I haven't had the chance to see the new Grey Knights codex. It does none the less seem to me that to counter dread knight spam we need only rail gun spam.

Yes. Do you accept paypal?

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The consensus from YTTH and 3++ is that C:GK is a primarily shooty dex at up to 24"
They do not consider a "proper" mêlée army.
Note that this is the trend, and there are always exceptions to this:
• Psyflemen Dreads. You know those Dreads that are already a pain in the Greater Good's side? Yeah, now they are s8, not just s7. So they accurately insta-kill Suits, instead of just wounding them. D'oh!
Luckily, Railguns have always been the rock to any Dread's scissors [AV10 being a bunny for the Railgun]

• Also, even Tactical squads bully us in combat. So even if GK are barely better in combat, they are much better than us


They all have force weapons. Whilst our guys are probably dead anyway, being able to insta-kill Suits is still mean.

Now for the good news:
No 3++ saves. Plasma - still mauling MEq Their invulnerable saves are no better than cover, which is nice. Although, if you wanna be half-empty, means they can march straight at you and not worry about slinking from here to there. D'oh!

They are more expensive than Marines and so, even though the same points of them hits harder than Marines, they die more quickly, per point, than the Marines.

I feel we, being overpriced, have always had a hard time trying to chew through the bad guys coming straight for us. Now, there is less to kill, and it is just as easy as any other MEq.

If they are building an all-comers list, the GK player will be adding i6 halberds and i4 s8 hammers into his list, which cost more points, to mash Marines with. Well guess what? That means nothing against Tau. Dead to an i4 sword is the same as dead to an i6 halberd.

They are generally short ranged. This means we can thin them out with Railguns and Missile pods.

Some bad news:
They have a cheap upgrade that allows stun+shaken to be ignored on vehicles....
I don't know all the details.

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So the usual Kroot and Piranha combo will still provide time for the Broadies and Suits to cull them.
Cram an' Jam, baby, cram an' jam.

Lets not talk about the Plasma Syphon thing they can get if we're within 12" ... there goes our BS, down to 1.

A few things:




You don't think the Grey Knights could be considered a melee army? Really? What about almost every model having the equivalent of a power weapon? What about the Space Marine statline? What about the "screw the order of operations" strength boosting powers and the option to give any number of special melee weapons to even Basic Troop units?

I'll grant they've got a devastating close-in shooting game, but they're certainly a melee force to be reckoned with!



Ehm... Never heard of that terms before. I've heard "Rifleman Dread", but I assume you're speaking of Dual Autoguns with Psybolt ammo? Yeah, those are nasty. Our XV8s do still get our armor saves against those shots, but instant death really hurts. They'd also tear through Tyranid Warriors like they were gaunts...

Also, only the Dread's back armor is 10. 12 isn't that much tougher a nut to crack, but I can pretty much guarantee that when only a 1 will fail, I'll roll unnatural amounts of 'em. You'd be amazed how often Ravagers/Rhinos/Razorbacks get glanced by the allmight Railgun...



Only one universal 3++ save amongst the Grey Knights that I know of - Drago. Other than that, yeah, plasma/melta are good things to bring, melta especially against the Paladins.

There are several 3++ saves in the Inquisitorial Henchmen selections, though, including Crusaders (also armed with a power sword) and Warriors (though it's stupid-expensive to do).



They're like Vanguard Vets or Stormguard in a way... a lot more deadliness packed in the same package, but expensive enough that even long range Dakka like Pulse Rifles contributes significantly.



True, an all-comers list will probably trick out at least a few weapons for MEQ and TEQ killin'. One of the few strengths of Tau against Grey Knights, in my mind, is that I'll rarely last more than a single combat round against any dedicated assault unit, leaving the assaulting unit without its protective cocoon of "I'm in assault, can't shoot your allies, nah nah nah nahhhhhhH!"

Also, the hammers are not at the model's initiative - they function as Thunderhammers with the Nemesis quality, which like Powerfists strike at Init 1.



It is a psychic power many (but not all) vehicles can take during the Movement phase, I believe. With their nominal ld of 10, they won't fail often... though they can be disrupted by anti-psyker material, something the Tau unfortunately lack.



They can be an exceedingly fast army, though, and one of their HQs can give non-vehicles the Scout special quality, allowing outflanking and potential 1st turn assaults. Things like the Teleport Shunt and the Librarian "Call whatever unit I'd like to DS nearby" power can bypass some of our defenses.

I'm honestly a bit more worried about those who bring an Inquisition army with them, utilizing Coteaz to get henchmen as troop choices. 8 Death Cult Assassins, and 4 Crusaders in a Chimera... ~ 230 points, I think? Y

I don't see this power being used much. Sure it is powerful, but the first model from the unit must be placed within 6" of the librarian and unless they have a way to avoid scatter the unit will then scatter via the normal deep strike rules. If it touches the librarian, he just killed his own unit.

Possibly not. I suppose one could have the Librarian accompany an Inquisitor and his henchmen band, with a mystic thrown in to negate drift... but then, you've used both HQ slots.

Making actual lists for GK, I've found its actually a bit tough to build something that feels like it could survive long enough to unleash the devastation each individual GK is capable of.

I got in a 2k point game versus Grey Knights last week.

We were practicing for the American Team Championship in Chattanooga (http://www.diceheadsiege.com/2673.html). This means we were running a "super" mission with all three standard missions combined. I won the KP and objective mission and drew on the Control. Final score using ATC rules was 25 to 5. The number of objectives really stretched the elite army type to the max. Things might have been different in a normal game.

Things I noted:

-Grey Knights are going to be hard pressed to control objectives. Set objectives on their side of the table. Each objective held by a GK troop is a unit held back with no long range weapon and that won't be thrown in your face. Then pick them apart at range and contest late game.
-Their lack of 3++ means they will hug terrain once on foot. My fireknives essentially herded him into cover.
-Don't have any gaps in your Kroot wall. The first turn 30' shunt + scout can have them repositioning in surprising ways.
-They will tend to have at most two-three units attacking your line. Divide and conquer. They will have a hard time surviving.
-Keep them from multi-charging at all cost. It hurts them more than other armies since they have fewer units.
-They are far more unforgiving for the GK player than normal marines. They will either get it right or lose big.
-Riflemen Dreads He didn't have any. Two wouldn't have been a huge issue. The six that I've seen in some builds means a quick death to core crisis suit units, however, if they have 6 dreads, they will have a lot less of the other nastiness.

Frankly, they aren't that scary apart from the strength 8 dreads.

edit: On a further note, I would have lost the KP mission without the new FAQ changes.

Librarians can buy up to 3 servo skulls, which are placed anywhere in their deployment area and reduce DS and shooter scatter by 1d6 within 12" of them.

Piranhas with FBs seem like a good deterrent to Termie/Paladins. One can disengage their drones without conferring a cover save, and then in the assault phase move them in front of the Piranha.

GK vehicles don't seem much different than normal SM vehicles, and the normal counters of missile pods and railguns should suffice. The Stormraven may be an exception, only because it could easily drop off its cargo before its eliminated, especially if it is conferred the scout rule or simply uses its special ability to allow disembarkation after moving flat out.

I think interceptor squads may pose the biggest problem. They are far more mobile, and can easily get the jump on a unit. Despite "only" being in power armor, they all still have force weapons like any other actual Grey Knight unit.

Hmm... things to think about.

well i have 750pt game lined up for today, just to get my friend reacquainted with the core rules.

In my circle it's only marines and my tau, so for me they don't make all-comer list they make anti-tau list. but atleast i win just about as much as lose.

Anyway, I'll let you know how it goes.

Just remember to put the drones close enough together that the paladins can't actually fit between them or else your drone screen is useless
Still I don't see this being much of a problem for Tau since he can't really use the servo skulls to advance except in DoW deployments. Even then with 1d6 scatter it can be risky due to the larger footprint of the unit being teleported.

True, although for single model units such as assassins, dreadknights and vehicles with the warp stabilization field(all of which can take one very few pts) it's much less of a concern.

I don't have the codex with me, but does it say within 6" or completely within 6". I vaguely remember it being completely within but I'm not sure. That will greatly affect the power when looking at models with really large bases.

So I finished my game and won by fluke.

I brought 3 2 man broadsides, BC ,MP xv8, a CIB ,PR, El' and 2 6 man FW. He went termi troops, a GK squad, inqisitor w/that gun that gets better the further away is (don't really know how it works exactly or what its called) and the assassin with polymorph.

All I can say is I was lucky that he rolled bad when I needed him to and I rolled good when I needed to. The assassin is the worst thing I've seen so far, it can deepstrike within 3" of any unit it chooses and do a bunch of ap2 hits and then lay a template that attacks your leadership with ap1, then assaults with a c'tan phase sword which instakills with no armor saves allowed. I barely escaped it.

The only good thing to do, I could think of, was put objectives on their side and hope they don't come rushing toward you so you can take out their troops with lots of ap1,2 shots.

The only marine weapon I can think of that gets better the further away you are is the Conversion Beamer... and I was pretty sure that was only allowed on Tech Marines.

It just says "anywhere within 6" using the deep strike rules". Granted, if your Librarian is mixed with an attached unit and not on the edge of the footprint, there is still a legitimate concern.

Not in the GK codex, Inquisitors can get them too. Also, GK Tech Marines are independent characters so they can join units now.

Picard, can you please edit your previous post to include the necessary capitalization? It'd be greatly appreciated.

I believe that Inquisitors are also allowed to take the conversion beamer.

If only they were allowed to take a Space Marine bike.... I could FINALLY use the conversion techmarine on a Trike I made over a year ago!!!