Goatboy: Revenge of the Grey!
Goatboy here again – talking about the new kid on the block – Grey Knights. So before I begin let me just say this – there will be no Grey Goats. None. Nothing. Nada. I like the way the Grey Knights look and would have had an army if I had still stuck with the game before my first marriage withdrawal. So with that out of the way – lets talk – Coffee Talk!
First of all from all the rumors, pictures, and what not we all know the army will be small. There seems to be some ways to increase the size in using Henchmen and certain HQ choices, but for the most part this is a small army. From all the “playtests” we kept hearing about this small army was able to still hang with the big boys’ torrent of attention and still win some games. What this means is that it is easy to get this army up and running as your second army. Mix this with a fairly “easy” paint job and you got what most likely will be a good seller. Any army that lets you get somewhat competitive for under 400 bucks retail is pretty neat. Plus, not everyone is a machine with painting minis, so smaller sizes just means you can spend more time per squad and get a nice looking force on the table top.
I also hear that the majority of the book will be plastic. This is great because you know you will have tons of extra cool bits and pieces with every boxed set they come out with. The only fear I have is that will not see a 10 man boxed option and instead just see $25-$35 dollar 5 man squads. I just hope they give you all the options and at least let you have an option that doesn’t have to be a sergeant. I just hope the DreadKnight looks better then the blurry picture we got. I was hoping for a cool squatty dreadnought thing but I guess the Grey Knights are full of future (or past if you think about it) tech and have learned to be a bit more graceful. I am sure they just found a bunch of dirty anime and decided to create super cool Robots of doom.
Rules wise we got some interesting things going on. Lots of psychic powers all over, but only one hood to be seen. This is interesting as I feel the small army will have issues with Lash as anything that messes up their crazy movement abilities is bad news. The ability for vehicles to ignore shaken or stunned results is awesome. The 2++ save is rather annoying, personally, and I find it to be weak rules writing because it is just a really annoying unit. Yes, it could cost like 900 points for the whole thing but it will be a pain in the ass to remove. Look out JaWs, you are going to be needed at ton. Same with other – no armor save just a test powers. Hrm – the Dark Eldar flyers are looking pretty interesting. We are also seeing the change in the amount of powers that can be thrown out in a turn. I have a feeling that more anti-psychic abilities will be seen a lot too. Librarian dreadnoughts become a lot more viable when you need hoods across the tabletop.
Right now I personally feel a Grey Knights centered force will be good. I like the rumors for the DreadKnight as I have always loved Dreadnought like MC’s. I just like big robots punching stuff and this one seems to be the biggest donkey puncher of them all. At least he isn’t Toughness 8… or so I hope. I think a hood will be needed, so look for a Librarian followed by whatever else you feel like. You could go into the henchmen build with a SC but I just don’t feel they are right there. There are some crazy things you can do, but once that squad does its business it just becomes a one pump chump and dies to easy to bring retaliation. Bolters will do a number on all the options. The lack of Fast Attack options is kind of annoying, as the thought of cool Land Speeders with crazy weapons would be a neat thing to have. I like the assassins, too. I feel they will keep some things fair especially with the amount of magical shields floating around.
All in all I think this book is going to play missions very well and will reward those players that think beyond tabling an opponent. As more and more tournaments are creating missions that reward smart play versus boring play we will probably see this army reaching the top tables or the next day with an undefeated record. Again this book looks to reward seasoned players and gives the vets another neat option to add to their toolbelt of destruction.
So do you think we are looking at a general utility army like the Marines that is easy to pick up, or is this more of an expert’s army like the Dark Eldar?
