Warhammer 40,000/10th Edition Tactics/Grey Knights
This is the current 10th Edition's Grey Knights tactics. 9th Edition Tactics are here.
Why Play Grey Knights
Pros
- Apparently, regular infantry is clad in Artificer Armour (2+ save) now, which coupled with a net nerf of AP makes your dudes quite a bit tougher.
Cons
- As a psyker-heavy army, you've suffered quite a lot from the power culling and rules consolidation.
- A weird side-effect of this is that all your Force Weapons are [Psychic]. Should the opponent have any FNP against Psychic attacks (Sisters of Silence (3+), a Primaris Psyker (4+), or even your own fucking Librarian (4+)), then RAW, your melee output is going to greatly diminish as a Guardsman deflects your S6 D2 Force Hammer.
- Your anti-vehicle and anti-air troubles are brought into even brighter lights with the limited ally rules. If you want to keep to a single detachment, you need to buy a knight without question.
Faction Rules
- Teleport Assault: At the end of the enemy's turn, you can throw a number of your units (1 for combat patrols, 2/3/4 for regular games) back into your reserves. In your next Reinforcements step, these guys can re-deploy anywhere more than 9" away from the enemy.
- Unfortunately, all of your transports lack this rule.
Detachments
Teleport Strike Force
Special Rules
- Teleport Shunt: Any Grey Knights with the Deep Strike rule don't need to roll to advance, instead counting as if they rolled a 6 and acting as if they have Fly.
- Unfortunately, you don't have any Assault weapons in your army outside of non-character Nemesis Dreadknights and you lack the ability to charge after advancing, so this ability is of limited utility, to put it generously.
Stratagems
- Haloed in Soulfire (2 CP): Any Psyker unit that arrives via Deep Strike or Teleport Assault can't be targeted by anyone beyond 12". Gives a decent buffer for your units before they reach within smacking range.
Enhancements
- Domina Liber Daemonica: Bearer's melee weapons get +1 to wound as well as +1 to damage against enemy Daemon units.
- First to the Fray: Unit with Deep Strike only. The bearer's unit will never count against your cap of Strategic Reserves. This unit can always be set up during your first three turns regardless of any circumstances.
- Inescapable Wrath: Bearer's unit gains +1 to charge rolls.
- Sigil of Exigence: Once during the enemy shooting phase where the bearer's unit is about to be shot, that unit can immediately redeploy anywhere on the board. The enemy is then forced to shoot someone else.
Wargear
Highlighting changes from 9th to 10th editions in parenthesis. Blue means improvement and Orange means degradation. Remember a +AP is a degradation.
Note: The removal of the Psychic Phase has been awkward for the Grey Knights, especially with the addition of the [Psychic] tag. Units that previously had a MW Shrug against Psychic Spells now have a FNP against all [Psychic] attacks, which is all your non-storm bolter weapons.
Factions/Units to watch out for include
- Black Templars: Can take a vow to receive a 4++ invuln and Anti-Psyker 4+
- Sisters of Silence: have a 3+++ against psychic weapons.
- Librarians: Can provide a 4+++ against psychic weapons to their unit.
- Primaris Psykers: Provide a 4+++ against psychic weapons.
- Thousand Sons: Psychic Dominion stratagem gives a 4+++ against psychic weapons and makes your psychic weapons [Hazardous].
Melee Weapons
- Nemesis Force Weapon: Psychic S6 AP-2 D2.
Ranged Weapons
- Storm Bolter: [Rapid Fire 2] 24" A2 BS3+ S4 AP-0 D1.
- Incinerator: 12" Ad6 BS(Torrent) S6 AP-1(Ignores Cover) D1.
- Heavy Incinerator: 18" A2d6 BS(Torrent) S6 AP-1(Ignores Cover) D1. This weapon outperforms the Gatling Psilencer against Sv3+ or better.
- Psilencer: [Psychic] 24" A6 BS3+(Sustained Hits 1) S5 (+1) AP0 (-1) D1.
- Gatling Psilencer: [Psychic] 24" A12 BS3+(Sustained Hits 1) S6 (+1) AP0 (-1) D1. Outperforms the Heavy Incinerator against Sv4+ or worse, or against invulns.
- Psycannon: [Psychic] 24" A3 BS3+ S8 (+1) AP-1 D2.
- Heavy Psycannon: [Psychic] 24" A6 BS3+ S10 (+2) AP-1 (-1) D3 (+1). This weapon outperforms the other Dreadknight weapons against most targets. Against W2 it will be 8 A*BS*D and hence outperform the Incinerator against everything while outperforming the Psilencer against Sv4+ or better, while against W1 you need some specific Toughnesses for it to be your best gun.
Unit Analysis
Characters
By led unit:
- Brotherhood Terminator Squad/Paladin Squad: Brother-Captain, Brotherhood Chaplain, Brotherhood Librarian, Grand Master, Kaldor Draigo, Arvann Stern, Aldrik Voldus
- Purgation Squad: Brotherhood Champion
- Purifier Squad: Castellan Crowe
- Servitors: Brotherhood Techmarine
- Strike Squad: Brotherhood Champion, Brotherhood Techmarine
- Brother-Captain: His led unit gains Sustained Hits 1 on their Psychic Weapons.
- Brotherhood Champion: Led unit gains Fights First.
- Brotherhood Chaplain: Led unit gains +1 to melee wound rolls.
- Brotherhood Librarian: Led unit gains a 4+++ against Psychic attacks.
- Brotherhood Techmarine:
- Grand Master: Led unit can ignore modifiers to characteristics, tests, and rolls, except for saving throws, and 1/battle they can be targeted by any strat for 0 CP even if the strat has already been used this turn.
- Grand Master in Nemesis Dreadknight: While a bit buffed at M8" T8 Sv2+/4++ W13 Ld6+ OC4, still not amazing defensively. Fortunately, the fact that any stratagem used on him will only cost 1 CP regardless of cost means that many defensive tricks will remain affordable.
- His offensive power has Surge of Wrath to give one GMND each turn the ability to re-roll all hits, wounds, and damage rolls against Vehicles and Monsters in melee. This does quite a bit, as both the Nemesis Daemon Greathammer and Nemesis Greatsword have d6s in their damage stats, which can get frustrating since these weapons are made for killing just those sorts of enemies.
- Gun breakdown (now BS 3+, you want the Heavy Incinerator and Heavy Psycannon to go hunting for harder targets):
- Gatling Psilencer: 10 total A*BS*D resolving at 24" S6 AP 0 D1.
- Heavy Incinerator: 7 total A*BS*D resolving at 18" S6 AP-1 D1 with ignores cover makes this weapon outperform the Psilencer against Sv3+ or better.
- Heavy Psycannon: 12 total A*BS*D resolving at 24" S10 AP-1 D3 makes this weapon outperform both of the others against most targets. Against W2 it will be 8 A*BS*D and hence outperform the Incinerator against everything while outperforming the Psilencer against Sv4+ or better, while against W1 you need some specific Toughnesses for it to be your best gun.
Epic Heroes
- Aldrik Voldus: Led unit has -1 to be hit.
- Castellan Crowe: Led unit's Purifying Flames get +1A.
- Kaldor Draigo: Led unit has a 4+++ against mortal wounds and 1/battle when charging out of Deep Strike, +3 to the charge roll (meaning you need a 6 to succeed, base odds 72.22%).
- Arvann Stern: His led unit's critical melee wounds deal +1MW.
Battleline
A note on leaders: most of your HQs are in Terminator armor, and so can only be attached to Terminator/Paladin squads.
- Strike Squad: Now rocking Artificer-tier armor, being 2+ Power Armor marines that can keep objectives secured even after fucking off it.
- The only leaders you can attach to these guys are the Techmarine and the Champion. The Champion gives them Fight First, but the Techmarine does nothing for them.
- As Teleport Assault has a unit limit, another useful thing is Scout 6", letting Knights that can't be in the teleportarium get a head start in their rhinos.
- Terminator Squad: These guys have received an indirect buff since they are the only unit compatible with most of your Leader, and as a bodyguard retinue, they do very well: Narthecium lets them bring back a body every turn, the Banner gives them OC3, and Hammerhand gives them Lethal Hits in melee on the charge.
- Consider having them led by Draigo, who lets them add +3 to the charge after deepstriking.
Infantry
- Interceptor Squad: M12 with fly and they can move 6" after shooting, but then they can't charge. That would be absolutely incredibly if the unit weren't chock full of storm bolters.
- Special Weapons: 1/5, and you lose your melee weapon when you swap.
- Purifier Squad: Purifiers are the middle-ground between Strike Squads and Purgation Squads, packing quite a bit of Psychic Dakka: Purifying Flame has been relegated to an 18" A1 BS3+ S4(Anti-Infantry 2+) AP-1(Ignores Cover) D1 gun on each model, but if they are being led by Castellan Crowe (the only guy who can lead them), that jumps to A2. Their psychic power grants them +1 to hit when they are below Starting Strength and +1 to wound (which does nothing for their Purifying Flame against what the gun is intended for, of course) when below Half Strength.
- Special Weapons: 2/5, and you lose your melee weapon when you swap.
- Paladin Squad: Very nearly basic Terminators, the differences are detailed below.
- OC -1 (1 base instead of 2, before the banner, 2 instead of 3 after banner).
- Loses Lethal Hits on the charge, but melee attacks are at WS2+, not WS3+.
- -1 to be wounded from attacks whose S exceeds the T of this unit, so S6+. On the other hand, no access to Narthecium.
- 3 special weapons per squad rather than 1+Narthecium. Note that just as on the basic Terminator squad, you keep your melee weapons when you pick up a special weapon. This means a Brother-Captain prefers Psycannon Paladins to Terminators.
- Purgation Squad: The heavy gunners of the knights remain pretty effective at what they do and little else. Had their survivability buffed with an upgrade to 2+. Psycannons give you something to easily knock down MEQs and dent monsters at A3 BS3+ S8 AP-1 D2, Psilencers are for mowing down hordes (A6 BS3+(sustained hits 1) S5 AP0 D1), and Incinerators are heavy flamers with +1S.
- Due to the great culling of psychic powers, Astral Aim was made a bit different. Now it provides all guns Indirect Fire if at least one other GK Psyker unit can draw LoS to the enemy. This, aside from Overwatch, is the only reason to take Incinerators over Psilencers, because 5 average hits at S5 AP0 is better than 3.5 average hits at S6 AP-1 against the hordes you want both guns against, and the Incinerator's TORRENT and IGNORES COVER both don't care about Indirect penalties.
- Can only be led by a Brotherhood Champion, who has no synergy with them as he's very focused on melee.
- Special Weapons: 4/5, and you lose your melee weapon when you swap.
Vehicles
- Land Raider:
- Land Raider Crusader:
- Land Raider Redeemer:
Dedicated Transports
- Razorback:
- Rhino:
Walkers
- Nemesis Dreadknight: Not quite an equivalent to legit monsters, even with a 2+/4++ and 13 wounds - the damage track doesn't help either. However, they've got a hefty buff of being able to shoot and charge after advancing or falling back. This means that these baby carriers will always be fighting with anything you fire. While they're no longer as reliable at fighting monsters and tanks, you'll never spend a turn without doing something to make fighting them easier.
- Venerable Dreadnought: Blood Angles filed a lawsuit on exclusivity on psychic dreadnoughts. You don't even keep or get flying/Deep Strike shenanigans. What you do get is a walker with a re-roll 1s to hit and wound aura, which is rarer in this edition. This is the guy who will be baby-sitting your Strike Squads.
Aircraft
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