Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: Here’s Why Grey Knights Are Rising Fast
Grey Knights are surging right now in 40K 10th Edition. Here’s what you need to know in case you see the silver monsters show up at your local events.
Goatboy here again with some more chatter on the current 40K meta. The game really is starting to feel pretty good lately, with a ton of armies winning and only a few hurting in the grand scheme of things. It’s starting to feel like the days when something piloted by a good general has a shot at winning.
It is interesting to see the Grey Knights coming back strong right now as we all know their army detachment – Teleport Strike Force is very good. Heck we see other very similar versions of it show up with other armies, such as Necrons and Chaos Daemons. The ability to move all over the table is a very powerful ability and the Grey Knights have it on lock down and are right up there with one of the best armies in the game (HyperCrypt Necrons).
What Changed For Grey Knights?
This leads you to think – well, players are just catching up to Grey Knights being good. That is somewhat true, but really, the other shift in their army from the Dataslate is probably the bigger reason. Grey Knights can play the mission game with movement tricks, but what they couldn’t play well was the ability to cause damage. That was probably the biggest issue previously, as they jumped around but got bullied off of things because they couldn’t just remove a unit that was there.
It really was an issue with an army. It was envisioned as an elite killing force – but they really couldn’t kill that much bar charging into combat and hoping for an alright counter punch pack into them. You can only dance so much in a game when a more resilient opponent keeps having models to push you farther and farther back.
Enter the Now Awesome Dreadknight
Thankfully for the Grey Knights a nice shift in Dreadknight points and a weapon upgrade for them really put them back into the top running. It is crazy to see how a simple extra pip of AP mixed with ignore covering can really shake an army up. The updated Heavy Psycannon and cheaper platform cost for the Dreadknight shell means you can easily force a large amount of “quality” shots into a unit and push them to their worst save.
The weapon profile for the Heavy Psycannon is a 24”, 6 shot, Strength 10, AP -2, and flat 3 Damage gun that ignores cover! DAMN. This really gives you an AP -3 gun if you think about it and how the events really push a lot of terrain on the table. This pushes Marines to have a 5+ or all heavy armor to their invulnerable save. It also has a flat 3 Damage, which is an excellent damage option to throw into Adeptus Custodes, Eightbound, and all other terminator-like bodies.
In fact, the ability to ignore cover is just better for any type of gun hitting AP -2 and this one also has a Strength of 10 ,which means it wounds a ton of “infantry” bodies on a 2+ a lot of the time. You throw that onto a very powerful “Dreadnought”-like body that is a Dreadknight, and you see how this little baby carrier of doom can shift the power of an army.
Will The Grey Knights Stay on Top?
Competitive 40K is all about selecting things that are cheap enough and effective enough as many times as you can. Even if the Dreadknight were just a shooting platform, it would be pretty good. But you also mix in some abilities to “move/advance/shoot/charge” for the regular ones which makes it a pretty scary little damage dealer. They could shift up, throw a bunch of wounds into a back target, and then charge in – tank shocking their way to freedom and devastation.
Really it makes me think a better rework of these teleport powers should be looked at by GW. The majority of the issues aren’t the infantry that is dancing around. It is the lack of Keyword control that seems to be a major factor in amplifying this. I would expect to see this curtailed at some point. Especially if Necrons get a rework soon!
Or they just pump up all the point costs for these little monsters and leave the game living on powerful infantry and other Battleline choices. It is interesting to see Grey Knights go from being a skill-based “tie” army for Team-Events to all of a sudden a tabletop bully. This isn’t the old days of 5th edition Grey Knights and their unshakeable tanks. Instead, current day Grey Knights rely on savvy play, constant shifting of the battlefield, and applied murderous pressure that is key to a “good” army that is hard to solve.
For the Emperor!
