Grey Knights: A Look From Mr. Black
Hello dear readers, Mr. Black here (if you hadn’t already guessed that), and am I the only one who looks at the Grey Knights release and goes “meh”?
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Knights myself, to the point I made a custom plastic army of them some years back (and will be littering this article with pictures of them as a result!) and have nothing but love for the visuals of the force. My primary concern, however, is that, in the end, the visuals of the force will really be all that makes them distinct.
Now, of course I cannot make such a claim without backing it up, so let’s delve into some things:
I’ve seen the Dreadknight, read all the talk about how awesome he is… For me I just see Ellen Ripely from Aliens (in fact, I’d love to see a Exoskeleton-style paint job done there) crossed with It’s a Monstrous Creature instead of a Dreadnought!-style mechanics. I see Drago and all his “I can’t move with all this BLING!“, the new Terminators and PAGKs themselves… Don’t get me wrong, the new models are all fantastic, but again, I’m worried that, in the end, that’s really what’s carrying the army, the essence of what they are and how they look vs. anything really new-and-exciting. They’re a “great release” because they’re Grey Knights, not for anything new they bring to the table.
On one hand, they are bringing some unique rules and items I’m sure, same as any other codex releases, and yes, the idea of a small elite army is one I’d like to see… Until I remember we still have Deathwing, and some variants of Blood Angels… And the Thunderwolf Rush Army… That’s the issue I keep seeing. The Knight’s are building on this whole idea of the best of the best of the best, but will it translate to the tabletop as something new, or just another variant of the above mentioned?
When you get right down to it it’s hard to escape the fact they’re another Marine Book: it’s something we’ve all seen before, and no matter how much they change the little things: a special rule here, a unique piece of wargear there, it the end they’re still going to be Marines. Why does that bother me so much? It’s not like I’m a marine hater or anything, or believe there are too many Chapters or whatnot… I think, in the end, it’s just that I want Grey Knights to be more than that, more than just another 3+ save… Yet in the end I don’t know how you’d really escape that without either A. Making them too powerful for standard play, or B. warping them so much they stop being recognizable as Imperial. Tough issue, but maybe I’m overreacting?
I don’t know, dear readers, I just can’t get excited about this release, and that bugs me, given how much I love the models, but I just sit and think to myself “They’re an elite tough-as-nails army, how do I kill it?” and time and time again the answer comes down to the tried-and-true torrent-of-fire method. You can have all the 2++ saves in the world you want, but as we all know, you shoot something enough times and it will die. If that is my main concern, then how do you really fix it? Well, given the game mechanics, we just return back to the issues I listed before, with making them too powerful.
So I’m going to open this up for discussion with you all. Does anyone else have this looming issue like I do? Am I just overreacting or just not “feeling them”? I have no doubts this release will be a popular one, and will probably rise to the top of the charts for some time, but will it offer anything new? Or are we looking at a slightly re-vamped Codex: Space Marines with a shiny new coat of paint?
So let me hear your thoughts on this matter. Are you excited about the release? Are the new rules and strategies fresh, imaginative, and just downright cool to you, or have you played this game before?
~Topic is up for discussion! Let’s hear it, the good and the bad! -Mr. Black
