Warhammer 40K: New Tricks for the Grey Knights
Adam here to let you know what looks extra spicy in the brand new Codex Grey Knights.
There were a large number of grand tournaments this past weekend and thus, we are starting to see Grey Knight armies show up in force on the tabletop. At the tournament I ran, there were around 5 Grey Knight players in a field of 47. They are also doing fairly well, placing in the top portion of the tournaments. As with the Thousand Sons, there are a few tricks and items that seem to be really good and so don’t be surprised to see them. So this week we will take a look at the psychic flip side to the Thousand Sons and look at a few things that have caught my eye just from a glance at the book.
Projection of Purity Psychic Power
In this edition, as well as the previous one, a lot of the deadliness of units comes from the buffs they receive from nearby friendly units. This is especially true of melee-centric units as their characters are usually also nearby to give them an ungodly number of attacks and strength buffs. This power is specific to the Wardmakers Brotherhood so every Grey Knights squad knows the power.
So what this does is, when manifested, you pick an enemy unit with 12″ and they do not benefit from friendly auras. This is similar to the ability that Mortarion has and we all know how annoying and devastating that ability it. If you are in Tide of Escalation then you can cast this power more than once and can affect multiple units. This may seem like a waste using this power more than once but neutering multiple units that are highly dependent on buffs can easily swing the tide of the game.
Sigil of Exigence
Ok, by now you should know that I enjoy toying (trolling) my opponents in whatever way possible, probably to my detriment. I talked to you about the relic that Thousand Sons can use to make their opponents knash their teeth and pull their hair, so I give you one for the Grey Knights. The Sigil of Exigence is the relic. When the character is targeted, by a shooting attack, the character can redeploy anywhere on the battlefield as long as it is more than 9″ from an enemy model. Your opponent is allowed to choose a different target once you are done so your army is not completely safe from that unit’s shooting.
This is basically a free redeployment and opens up a lot of options for that character. First off you can move it someplace to hide from the rest of the opposing army’s shooting, or close to a unit that had already shot and may you plan to move and charge it next turn, or even move it on to an objective that doesn’t have anyone controlling it. The only downside is that you can only use it once per game so you have to be careful about when you decide to use it as it could become a critical moment in that you have to keep that character alive as well as use this relic to get you some late game points to hopefully win the game.
Tide of Convergence & Words of Power
This is one combo that was immediately caught on by the community. So, far there has been no reason for this combo not to work. Tide of Convergence is the tide that adds 6″ range to weapons but that is not important. The second benefit is that the nemesis weapons gain an ability to cause mortal wounds on 6s to wound rolls. This is already pretty good and makes those units that use the weapons even deadlier. The Words of Power Litany is a 6″ aura from the Grey Knight Priest and an unmodified wound roll of 6 wounds the unit another time and, if in Tides of Convergence, causes a Mortal Wound.
So you are getting an additional mortal wound from 2 different sources so the 6 rolled to wound by any unit using a nemesis force weapon causes 2 mortal wounds. This is similar to the old Chain Lord from Chaos Space Marines but could be applied to any number of units that happen to be close to the priest. SO basically you would have the priest in the center surrounded by a bunch of squads and just going like a blender through most units. Unfortunately, this only applies to melee so you still have to get close but careful movement can get you there.
~That’s all for this week. I hope you enjoyed the article. Let me know what you think, and what gems you have found in the codex, in the comments below.
