Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Grey Knights(7E)

This is the latest Edition's tactics. 6th Edition Tactics are here. AWWWW MAN! Here's the 7th Edition Grey Knights Codex!

Why Play Grey Knights

Because PALADINS IN SPEEEEEEEHSS !!

The Grey Knights are definitely a cool army to play with. They still suffer from 3 years of awful(ly deserved) Mary-Sue status thanks to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, but the new Codex is helping a bit in their recovery. Also special thanks to novels made by some awesome dudes.

If you like the idea of playing a Warp-hunt dedicated army of Space Marines using holy magic and trying their best to overcome desperate fights against the powerful forces of Chaos, if you like to play commando-style with very few but tough as nails and polyvalent models, if you like doing it for the Emprah, if you like the challenge of scratching your head hard to find a way to outmaneuver your opponent before he fucks you up with long range firepower and high-AP weapons (precisely both the main weaknesses AND main lacks of this army) to better feel the well-deserved satisfaction of raping him in close-range/close-combat, if you're willing to help an old school army clean itself from your Spiritual Liege's corruption and look cool again, then put your Aegis helmet on, stick a handful of purity seals on your sexy butt cheeks huge steel balls, and make the Dark Gods themselves wish to repent.

In other words:

Pros:

• Excellent close-range shooting
• Great close combat power
• Lovely infantry models with lots of customization options
• Most of this army has the option to Deep-strike to get up the field
• Low model count for easy movement and easy understanding
• Chaos, Psykers and Daemons are your bottom bitches ( ESPECIALLY Daemons). We are the Hammer !
• Possibly one of the only guaranteed armies that can take Terminators as troops (Logan's already lost his Wolf Guard Troops, it'll only be time until it happens to Belial and Azrael too)
• Very few useless units
• Force absolutely everywhere.
• Every single one of your Squads are at least Mastery Level 1 (thanks to Brotherhood of Psykers), meaning you will come to rival the likes of Eldar in the new Psychic Phase.
  • Less risks when using the new Sanctic Powers, which are pretty much the same powers you've already been using.
  • Sanctic Powers are by the way very versatile : teleports, offensive and defensive buffs and debuffs, focused harm or AOE fuck-up...and of course throwing in the lot a pinch of anti-Daemon bonuses.
  • Since you have Combat Squads, you can maximize your Warp Charges by splitting them up into smaller forces all with WC1. It adds up, but it'll cost survivability.

Cons

• Low model count means that you're much easier to table than other armies
• High strength AP3/2 weapons are abundant in this edition, 5++ ain't going to save you.
• Few AP2+ close combat weapons.
• Poor long range shooting options - extremely bad at trying to bust high armor at long range.
• Getting into combat is a bigger problem now than ever
• Every single one of your Squads are at least Mastery Level 1 (thanks to Brotherhood of Psykers), meaning your army is vulnerable to Anti-Psyker abilities (Culexus Assassins for example), and are exceptionally vulnerable to Perils on a bad day.
• Nothing new of note was really added - things got changed, you have a Formation and a Unique Detachment now, but considering everything that was cut, you're still going to be scrambling for - say - good, point efficient AA in your own book.
• Many Terminators means Slow army. No chasing after fleeing enemies.
• Anti-Daemons abilities are very situational, except if you're playing against a VERY nice and fair-play This Guy who accepts to face you with a Daemon army.

As far as Apocalypse goes, you're pretty much boned there unless you take bunches of daemonhammers with hammerhand, fucking up your Initiative. As for fliers, your only chance is to throw up as many high rate of fire weapons into the air as possible and hope something hits. You also have Razorbacks for lascannons which are your best bet for long range shooting. And don't forget the special Apoc formation of Purifiers and Crowe, which can be absolutely fantastic.

Despite the Grey Knights being out as the new Codex, their changes aren't many, but they are significant:

• Inquisition is finally removed. Inquisitors, their Henchmen, and their vehicles have their own codex while the Assassins will be getting a new Dataslate, which will explain all their updates and allows their universal use by the entire Imperium.
• Psybolts are removed, as are Rad Grenades and Psykotroke Grenades. Of course, this swings between both kinds of devastating depending on who plays them and who doesn't. However, the new Relics of Titans are sweet toys.
• Some more point cuts, especially for the Dreadknight. It's not as generous as what the Space Wolves got though.
• Draigo becoming a Lord of War.
• Only Dreadnoughts have the Psychic Pilot USR now. Gone are the days of Mind Bullet Stormravens.
• Changes of statlines, rules, powers that also change the way some units should now be played.

Nemesis Strike Force FOC

The unique FOC the Grey Knights have requires only an HQ and troops choice (which is just as well, these guys are the priciest), but they gain an extra Elite slot at the cost of 2 Troop Slots, an HS Slot and a FA slot. The only benefits available are the mandatory Codex Trait reroll, the ability to make things deep-strike on the first turn on a 3+, with the added bonus of running and shooting in any order and the fact that you save points from a Troops slot to invest somewhere else. It's...honestly not that good compared to stuff like the Wolves Unleashed. The ability to Deep Srike a payload of Draigo+Terminators (Paladins are still too expensive and you have to have a troop choice regardless) for a turn two Assault right where you want them then run them to cover is cool. Use this as an excuse to bring an extra ML3 Librarian (to unlock LoW), Draigo, and a squad of GKT, maybe a Dreadknight or whatever else floats your boat. Then rock a regular Combined arms detachment with a libby and massed troops for Objective secure scoring. Still Battleforged.

• The pros: Another author's view is that the Nemesis Strike Force is very powerful. You know how Drop Pods are really good? Yeah, this is good for much the same reason. It allows you to put Psycannons into side and rear armours early, and it lets you get into the close range you need to be in to win with GK (especially against longer-ranged armies such as Eldar, Tau and Guard). Throwing a whole bunch of Terminators that are very cheap (GK Terminators are pretty much the only appropriately-costed Terminator, alongside perhaps Chaos Terminators and Hammernators) and have strong special weapons/combat power, a couple of Dreadknights, and then whatever you wanted to bring in Elites/Fast Attack (likely Paladins and Interceptors if anything, respectively, although Stormravens aren't a bad choice for Fast Attack since hey, you need to kill Flyers somehow) into someone's face early on is a very strong alpha strike (although it really needs an Inquisitor with 3 Servo-Skulls managing a Comms Relay to work to maximum efficacy). You lose Objective Secured, and the GK warlord table isn't as strong as Command or probably Strategic, but GK are too fragile (through low model count for the points - obviously they're pretty tough individually), and probably not quite mobile enough, to really make use of Objective Secured.

• The cons: You have little control over which units will arrive (unless you buy an ADL for your non-existent gunline), no extra protection from mishaps (unless you get servoskulls), interceptor blasts still hurt you (you run in the shooting phase, interceptors shoot at the end of your movement). Some stormbolters and the occasional psycannon are not exactly fearsome firepower, compared to the scary stuff that can come out of drop pods, a Farsight bomb and Eldar with allied DE WWP. You end up exposing your few infantry units to the high volume of fire/good AP that other armies that are actually good at shooting can field.

The Army of Titan

Special Rules to remember

• Brotherhood of Psykers: Now a USR, Brotherhood of Psykers basically just means that the entire squad counts as a single model when manifesting psychic powers, and you use the Sergeant's Ld for the test(or any model). Squads also get +1 to their Deny the witch rolls, due to the fact that squads count as being mastery level 1.

• Psychic Pilot: This universal special rule lets the vehicle use psychic powers as if it was a Mastery Level 1, Ld 10 psyker. Oh, and if it gets Perils of the Warp? Yeah, it rolls on the Perils of the Warp chart. The results in the Perils table are a bit of a mixed bag, but most of the results won't be catastrophic for them. Unfortunately, the only Psy-pilots now are Dreadnoughts - bummer.

• Combat Squads: Just like Ultramarines, Grey Knights like to split up into two five-man combat squads. Note that, thanks to Brotherhood of Psykers, splitting into combat squads will double the number of mindbullets you can put out each turn.

• Preferred Enemy (Daemons): Makes sense that these guys have a rule meant for fucking over Daemons. They get to re-roll 1's to-hit and to-wound. This'll transfer even if they get attached to an allied commander.

• Aegis: The armour worn by Grey Knights has arcane seals and holy random stuff, meaning they don't give a damn about psychic powers. Whenever an enemy psychic power is activated, a Grey Knight player may re-roll 1's when rolling to Deny the Witch. Not a huge bonus, but do you expect daemon hunters to go on a chaos safari without some protection against the Warp?

• Purity of Spirit: This allows your Grey Knights to use Sanctic powers without suffering Perils on any double, instead just double 6's like any other power.

Psychic Powers

As Grey Knights are daemon kicking psykers, everyone knows the Banishment power. Grand Masters, Brother-Captains, and Librarians generate their powers from Daemonology (Sanctic), Divination, Pyromancy, Telekinesis, and Telepathy disciplines. Dreadnoughts, Sternn, and the Dreadknights get Sanctuary, everyone else has Hammerhand, and the Purifiers (and Crowe) keep their Cleansing Flame.

• NOTE: Due to their special affinity, Grey Knights will only roll perils when rolling double 6's when using Sanctic powers unlike everyone else, who rolls perils on any set of doubles. While this may be useful for your army, keep this in consideration when playing with an allied Inquisitor's warband or a fellow Imperial force, lest their perils spell your doom.
• Also note - The sweeping changes to the way that psychic tests are taken means that your Grey Knights are now less likely to successfully cast powers unless they start drawing Warp Charges from other units in the army, where before they only needed to rely upon their own source of warp charges. Realistically this is not a problem since nearly every one of your units can provide warp charges, but now means that most of your units will not be able to cast powers all the time, especially if they get denied. This especially becomes problematic if you want to maximize your use of Daemonbane.

Banishment - Warp Charge 1. Spam this as often as you can if you want to kill daemons quickly, but you need to do it as much as possible, since it only targets a single unit.

Gate of Infinity - Warp Charge 1. With this, you can deep strike anywhere again. Useful for either getting into combat faster, getting out of a tight situation, or fucking with your opponent.

Hammerhand - Warp Charge 1. Do you remember back in the days the only good thing about Nemesis Force Weapons was their +2 Str? Well Games Workshop decided to be awesome and bring that back as a power that everyone of the Grey Knights can use.

Sanctuary - Warp Charge 1. Adds +1 to your invulnerable save. Works very well stacked with allied hamminators! 2++ for all!

Purge Soul - Warp Charge 1. This power is a bit iffy, the enemy model will lose an unsavable wound if it fails to surpass your roll +Ld, at 24". This actually might be useful, since focused witchfires are slightly more reliable now. Use it to snipe special weapons from enemy squads.

Cleansing Flame - Warp Charge 2. The Purifiers' signature power. Is now a Nova Witchfire power with a 9" range and a shedload of dakka, be aware that this power specifically states that it can be used within close combat and into close combat as well as out of combat!

Vortex of Doom - Warp Charge 3. Got a small, but HUGE buff from 6th edition by becoming strength D. Consider this to be a librarian's Kamehameha, or the Psychic Blast for all y'all 2nd Edition vets. Be be warned... If you fail to cast it successfully, you insta suffer perils!

Wargear

Melee

Nearly all Grey Knight units have Nemesis Force Weapons. They are considered Force Weapons, that gives the model/unit the Force psychic power that the unit can cast (and be denied) in the psychic phase. This means you'll typically rip through any monsters and multi-wound infantry unfortunate, or stupid enough, to get caught with you in melee.

All Grey Knight units, except for certain independent characters, have Hammerhand, which gives the unit +2 strength until the next psychic phase.

Grey Knights don't have access to most of the standard wargear of other marine armies. Their upgrades for their infantry are mostly limited to their exclusive wargear. These are their close combat weapons, all of which have Daemonbane, which allows a re-roll on failed pens and to-wounds against units with the Daemon USR if you activated Force on the last Psychic Phase.

• Nemesis Force Sword: Standard weapon for the codex. A lot weaker than before with the loss to Invuln, but it's still decent offensively. It helps you keep Strike Squad price down as Halberds got nerfed super hard, they're not the same must haves they used to be.
  • Nemesis Longsword: The Dreadknight-size version of this weapon, it's like a Powerfist, but with Master-Crafted instead of Unwieldy and has force.

• Nemesis Daemon Hammer: Standard thunder hammer plus Daemonbane and Force. It's cheap to add to a squad and is practically a must have against 2+ armored foes or vehicles, since it's the only AP2 S6+ options of Grey Knights. Rush these at that Big, Scary 6-7 wound MC. Remember, the Daemon hammer now has the Force special rule, meaning Mephiston's 2+ save and T/W 6 ain't shit.

• Nemesis Force Halberd: S+1 AP3 weapon with two-handed. Purifiers have these flying out of their asses, and anyone else can too, because these babies come at 2 points a pop. Mix this with the Hammerhead power and you get S 7 attacks. Fuck you Greater Daemons! Still not the auto-includes they once were.

• Nemesis Force Falchions: Gives an extra attack, because of double Specialist weapons, but no better than basic Nemesis Force Sword. Not worth the buy unless you're really using him as a beatstick. If you want a particularly nasty assault unit, give these to Purifiers or Interceptors. They can get REALLY nasty with the extra attacks.

• Nemesis Force Warding Stave: Only 5 points and it gives the wielder a Force Staff with +2 strength and Adamantium Will, like the Rune Priest's Rune Stave. Not bad for a front line Strike Squad, a 50% (Brotherhood of Psykers and Adamantium Will means we Deny on 4+) chance to Deny the Witch against stuff like Psychic Shriek can go along way to giving your Strikes some more survivability. Plus you also have Daemonbane, so extra daemon-killy.

Ranged

Almost all Grey Knights start with storm bolters. They can be replaced with the following:

• Psilencer: A gatling gun that fires off six shots a turn at strength 4 at AP-, so daemons with armor will shake it off and even Orks get saves against it... at least, until you learn that you can use Force on this. If you're fighting a lot of multi-wound thickies, you are spamming Psilencers; their precious plot armour can only protect them for so long.
  • Gatling Psilencer: The heavy version on the Dreadknight pumping out 12 S4 shots with Force - goddamn!

• Incinerator: A S6 AP4 flamer. Has Soulblaze! A good choice, but generally the psycannon is a better pick, especially now that this has Soulblaze. It's hilariously destructive against Blobguard, Blobtau, Blobgreen and Blobnids. Fire it and watch instant death melt those hundreds of units away. (instant death on one wound models? Clearly they are a must take.) I've seen just a few incinerators table hormagaunt spam lists with ease. Shares the same strong points (albeit stronger by a point or two) as all flamer weapons, great for overwatch and for clearing occupied buildings. Shish Kebab time.
  • Heavy Incinerator: Same as in the old codex, only it's now a Heavy 1 Torrent flamer. It already did this before, it just wasn't called torrent then. Enjoy tabling whole blobs.

• Psycannon: The good ol' signature ranged weapon of Grey Knights, a strength 7 AP 4 rifle with Salvo 2/4 with the Rending USR, which is a pretty painful nerf, as now everything non-Terminator that moves with a Psycannon uses it as a glorified pistol that prevents them from charging. It is by far the most used of the ranged weapons, for being both cheesy and awesome - it fires silver-tipped bolts covered with anti-daemonic symbols and impregnated with massive amounts of psychic energy, making it able to tear holes in tanks.
  • Heavy Psycannon: Made for the Dreadknight, this weapon is essentially the Psycannon knocked up a bit. Still S7 AP4, still Rending, but now it has 2 modes: A Heavy 1 Large Blast, and a Salvo 3/6 mode.

• Psyk-Out Grenades: A returning tool, these can force enemy psykers that charge to lose their bonus attack. But if you want them out of the way sooner, you can throw them, giving them a profile similar to the Haywire Grenade, except with a Blast template that will force perils on a random psyker in the template that gets hit.

Relics of Titan

• The Fury of Deimos: A Storm Bolter with 36", Assault 3, Master-Crafted and Precision Shot. It's at least pretty cheap and the statline's better than that of a basic Storm Bolter.

• Domina Liber Daemonica: With the Grimoire of True Names no longer in their possession, the GK have the next-best thing: A book that grants the user another Sanctic Power to roll for. Like the Warlord Trait, use it if you're already using Sanctic, otherwise, it's kinda iffy. At least this one has the bonus of giving Grey Knights within 6" the ability to re-roll 1's when casting Sanctic powers.

• Bone Shard of Solor: Bearer gains a 3++ invulnerable save if he is within 12" of a model with Daemon USR. This invulnerable save becomes a 2++ if a model with Daemon of Khorne is within 12". In addition to all that, the bearer also gains Hatred (Khorne). Were this for Nurgle or Slaanesh, this would be a lot more used, but as it is it's a real neat (and cheap too!) trinket to grab on a sweeper HQ. Combine with Sanctuary and watch those Daemons cry at your 2+/2++ character. Do note that this activates on "friendly" models (allies of convenience and worse are treated as enemy models that can't be targetted) so an extra heresy army of Demons allied with Grey knights would make this a fair bit more reliable. Forge that narrative.

• Cuirass of Sacrifice: Terminator armour with IWND, and FnP (5+). Since this replaces the bearer's Terminator armour, it can't be taken on the Champion or the Techmarine, since they only use Artificer armour. Well, at least your Grand Master can still use it as a Beatstick.

• Nemesis Banner: Grey Knights within 12" gain Fearless while the bearer's unit gets +1A. All units with Daemon USR treat all terrain within 12" of the model with the banner as dangerous terrain. If you don't want to take Sanctuary because you're stocking on other disciplines, here's your ticket.

• Soul Glaive: A Two-Handed weapon with S+1 AP3, Daemonbane, and Force. It also has a bonus ability to re-roll failed channeling rolls for activating this weapon, as well as re-rolls to-hit/to-wound/to-pen against EVERYTHING. Sweet fucking Christmas, this is nice.

Warlord Traits

Pretty similar to some of the old Grand Strategies, but beat with the GW nerfstick because they seriously needed to be!

1. Daemon-slayer - Warlord has Hatred (Chaos Daemons). When the warlord casts Banishment, he can succeed channeling on a 2+ for the warp charge rolls instead of 4+. This is best used on an HQ that can survive challenging Characters in a Daemon Army. Otherwise, you'll be mobbed to death. Draigo begins with this.
2. Hammer of Righteousness - Warlord and his unit gain Hammer of Wrath. Crowe begins with this.
3. Unyielding Anvil - Warlord and all Grey Knights within 12" gain Stubborn. It's helpful at least. Stern begins with this.
4. First to the Fray - If you place the Warlord and his unit in deepstrike reserve, he'll arrive on turn 1 and can re-roll the scatter die. Not a bad idea overall; essentially makes up for the loss of Mordrak, but without the Ghost Knight requirement.
5. Perfect Timing - Warlord and his unit gain Counter-Attack.
6. Lore Master - Warlord may roll one additional psychic power from Sanctic when generating psychic powers. If you're already running it for the Psychic focus, you might as well roll with it. Otherwise...well, you at least have Banishment on you now.

Fighter Aces

In Skies of Death, you now have a bonus rule allowing you to pay 35 points for one of 3 special traits for any Flyer or FMC (FGC is still debatable). Consider only one if you must, as these aren't going to be affordable. especially in this army.

1. third Eye - +1 BS. Pretty nice grab.
2. Mental Challenge - +1 to cover to a max of 3+. Considering that the only flyer you have is the Storm Raven, you're probably not gonna go anywhere with this.
3. Psychic Pilot - And for 35 Points, you can make your Storm Raven use Sanctic. Not much on mind bullets though.

Unit Analysis

HQ

• Grey Knight Brother-Captain - Pretty much replacing the Grand Master as the most Customizable unit ever, regular Space Marines have better options compared to us now. The BC can become a Grand Master for 35 points, giving him ML2 and +1A. Other than that, he'll play the same as before, to the detriment of the Grand Master even though he he became a bit cheaper.
  • Grey Knight Grand Master - Although he costs a more than a regular marine commander with similar stats. Note no orbital bombardment, or even the option to take it. As stated, he becomes a ML2 psyker, comes with terminator armor (which you sadly can't remove if you don't want it), and can equip any of the Grey Knights' heavy weapons. He can also take all the stuff available for Grey Knights, including a bonus MC weapon, a Teleport Homer and Digiweapons.
    • Brave new claim The Grandmaster is not an auto-include anymore. You pretty much have to take the Curiass of Sacrifice to ensure survivability. No EW means he'll get doubled out by powerfists, assuming he doesn't get mowed down by plasma. Even yet, that still costs a whopping 200 points and he is nowhere near as good as he was in last edition. My loadout had MC Nemesis Force Sword, Digital Weapons, and Rad Grenades. Wounding on 2s against MEQs with Hammerhand (in the early days of 7th), and all these cost 200 points. Granted now, no ML2, but retinue for force+Hammerhand on himself, reliable. The ML2 makes the new GM Godhammer schizo. Instead take Draigo and a Libby as HQ to unlock him, put in a land Raider with Falchion termies, win.

• Brotherhood Champion - The only Grey Knight HQ choice to not wear Terminator armor, though he does still have have artificer armor (so he can fit in Rhinos and Razorbacks). He's been recast as the auto-challenge HQ with a weaksauce rule that gives him ONE extra attack against ONE model if he goes down in combat. The Brotherhood Champion, unlike the other Grey Knight HQs, can't replace his wargear at all, which sucks but he comes with anything he will ever need. He's also unusual in that he doesn't attack normally and he has to pick one of two stances in the assault phase, but only if he is in a challenge.
  • Sword Strike gives the Champion Smash. Useful for targets with a 2+ save or with high toughness.
  • Blade Shield make him reroll any saving throw he's called upon to make. With a 2+ and a 4++, that's not bad at all. Go with this if your AP3 is good enough, or if your opponent lacks AP2.

• Librarian - Oh, how we love this guy. A psychic specialist, wears Terminator armor and has a psychic hood. Starts at ML2, can upgrade to ML3, and can roll powers on the Daemonology (Sanctic), Divination, Pyromancy, Telekinesis and Telepathy tables. An auto-include choice in a Grey Knights army since he has the broadest access to powers from amongst your psychic brethren. Also useful as a focal point for all those Warp Charges that your army will generate that they might not necessarily always find immediate uses for. He also has a pretty broad choice of weapons, as he can take almost any melee weapon for free (except for the Daemonhammer, and even that's at half-price) and can opt for either a Storm Bolter or a Combi-weapon.
  • EDIT: Give this guy all Sanctic powers, give him the Domina, and hope to the Emprah you roll a 6 on warlord traits. That's all but 1 sanctic power on one guy at an amazing price. Stick him in termies or pallies and get him up the field. I've yet to have this challenged and killed efficiently by anything short of the anti-psyker assassin.

• Techmarine - Now these guys are pretty much the same as the one in Codex Techmarines, but with psychic powers and ML1. They now come as a bonus choice for every HQ selection you take. The hard part is finding a purpose for your Techmarine in a GK army. On the bright side they can still get conversion beamers, so you still have that as a long range fire support option.

Special Characters

• Brother-Captain Arvann Stern - A solid close-combat character, pretty much a standard Brother-Captain with a force sword, with two gimmicks. His first gimmick is the Strands of Fate ability, in which he can reroll a single to-hit, to-wound, or saving throw per turn; however, for every such roll you take, your opponent also gets to make the same kind of roll. Don't go abusing it or a canny opponent will use it to screw you over. He now has a special version of Banishment that allows him to reduce the Invulns of ALL Daemons within 12" of him. Give him some room to fire it and they will fall.

• Castellan Crowe - Your average Brotherhood Champion with a better statline, some extra toys (like Cleansing Flame) and +17% points. Sacrifices Nemesis Force Weapon for a generic Close Combat Weapon. He has IC now, but the cost means that he no longer triggers anything in enemies. He's still pretty beastly, especially with Hammerhand, to make that not hurt in most cases. He uses both champion stances at the same time, so he gets Smash in addition to re-rollable 2+/4++ saves while in challenges. Remember that with Smash you can choose to attack only once at double strength, which is instant death vs most opponents that aren't Monstrous Creatures. Also remember that Smash gives you AP2 regardless of which attack mode you choose, overriding the Sword's natural AP nil, so keep him in a challenge if you want to see results. He is pretty good vs generic enemy characters, but does worst against things that could take him out in one shot, since even with a re-rollable 4++ will eventually fail him. He probably works best in a unit of GKT with a couple of hammers on a Stormraven.

Elites

• Purifier Squad - A steamroller against tarpits, now with a small price raise and ML2. These are super-PAGKs with Fearless and the Cleansing Flame psychic power from the main rule book, which is a 9" nova power that causes 2D6 S5 AP4 cover ignoring hits. These guys can probably benefit the most from a Razorback. Rhino. Ten man squad Combat squadded. Drive towards 'Nid, Guard, Boyz horde. Unleash a potential 24 S5 AP4 hits. Then snap fire your 2 psycannons for the lulz. Their CC attacks inflict Soulblaze. Also note that, since the psychic phase is between movement and shooting, you can move, Cleansing Flame, then run out of LOS/into cover. This is probably the best elite choice (and possibly infantry unit in general), the others being too expensive and a dreadnought. Their shooting is decent, Cleansing Flame messes hordes up and also autohits FMC (S5, no Jink), give one of them a Daemonhammer and they can reliably ID MCs or hurt AV14, while still being able to trash most things in assault. It's very much worth noting that they lose Deep Strike - Strikes and Interceptors have native Deep Strike, and can therefore use the Nemesis Strike Force (and really, why would you not?). This is quite a major strike against Purifiers (and later, Purgators) unless you're trapped in 5th and are bringing a mechanised list. This can be mitigated by Space Wolf allies bringing Fast Attack Drop Pod, but that locks you into bringing some Space Wolves which you may or may not want.
  • Alternate Take: With the new Gate of Infinity power, for some of your warpcharges you can easily deepstrike these guys. Take the gate right in front of the enemy horde, you're gonna need a cup to hold all the tears that horde opponent's gonna cry!

• Dreadnought - A Dreadnought, same as the others, including a 25-pt upgrade to Venerable. A unit of questionable merit when you could be taking purifiers instead, however it is one of few sources of long range firepower and one of even fewer sources of plasma. It suffers from the general walker fragility problem of falling easily to high rate of fire strength 6/7/8 weapons. If you're bringing one (or more) as long range fire support then parking them in cover helps to mitigate this, and having a psychic pilot with access to Sanctuary can get you a backup 6++ if your opponent can ignore cover. The venerable upgrade isn't really worth it; it might save your bacon against a single lascannon or melta hit, but you're probably going to just be stripped of hull points. The increased BS is nice, but many of the shooting options are already twin-linked, so it's value is a bit more dependent on your weapon choice. The increased WS is similarly nice if your goal is close combat, but requires surviving long enough to get there. Making it in to close combat is more likely if you have him ferried in on a Stormraven, but this also means that you're losing a couple rounds of shooting. For the gutting we took in the last codex update, I'm actually surprised we weren't gifted with a more melee focused dreadnought option, or a libby dread, but I guess that would be stepping on the Blood Angels toes a bit too much.
  • Dreadnoughts may have an application against Culexus assassins, by tying them up in CC. The assault effect of psyk-out grenades does not allow them to be used against vehicles in CC, so he can't perils the dreadnought to death nor can he harm it with his weapons. Fearless means he can't invoke the "our weapons are useless" rule. If a dreadnought assaults a Culexus, it will one-shot him at best or tie him up for the rest of the game at worst. Maybe go with MM for extra AT, so the dreadnought will still be useful, in case there is no Culexus.

• Paladin Squad - Super-Terminators, Paladins get +1 WS, +1 Wound, and can take an Apothecary (Feel No Pain) for 20 Points. These guys will run over an enemy who lacks low AP weapons. Extremely powerful, but extremely expensive. Steer clear of anything that inflicts Instant Death: A single Demolisher Cannon shot can ruin this expensive squad's day in a heartbeat. Nevertheless, Paladins will get the job done. Another way to use them is to stick a couple of them with an apothecary to an Independent Character's ass and use them as "Look out, Sir !" meatshields.

Troops

• Grey Knight Strike Squad - Your basic Power-Armored Grey Knights, with a bit of a price bump. While they're not as durable as GK Terminators (who also share the Troops slot) and have 1 Attack instead of 2, they're cheaper, you can fit these guys in a Rhino, which gives them some much-needed mobility, and they can Sweeping Advance, which Terminators cannot do; they can also teleport deepstrike like Terminators, an oft-forgotten ability they possess. Keep in mind that taking a special weapon like a Psycannon or an Incinerator will cost you a Force Weapon attack or two, so think wisely; when in doubt, take an incinerator for wall of death and to chase camping faggots out of cover. Use these guys against hordes and other lighter units while your Termies handle the big guys and lend support where necessary. Don't give these guys psycannons unless you plan on having them simply park somewhere and provide fire support. If you want them to be mobile at all, psilencers are actually a pretty solid choice, as they can still be snapfired at full range on the move, provide a huge volume of fire increase, and can provide some double duty for taking on MCs or other multi-wound baddies thanks to having the force USR. A 10man strike squad with 2 psilencers in a rhino is a fairly decent mobile harassment squad, as it can move at cruising speed to maintain maximum range but still snapfire an impressive 14/16 (12 from psilencers + 2 from the rhino's storm bolter + possible 2 more if you purchased a second SB for the rhino) shots.

• Grey Knight Terminator Squad - Terminators as Troops, a Marine fanboy's dream come true! Oh, wait, you could do that with Dark Angels the whole time. And have them in the Elites as well. Anyway. Dead 'ard, killy, and with Objective Secured in a normal CA FOC, these guys are great for wrenching objectives from your opponent's grip. However, they will get expensive very quickly, especially if you take too many of them, even with the price cut they got. Unlike PAGKs, Terminators don't lose their force weapons if you give them special weapons, like psycannons or incinerators, and Termies are Relentless, so they can be kitted out for shooting without losing any assault power. They even have grenades. Just about the only thing these guys don't have are Storm Shields.

One more thing to note about these most basic TAGKs is that they are a motherfucking bargain! Think about it - 33 pts/model gets you a psyker wearing terminator armour that can, at will, buff his strength. They also get access to better special and close combat weapons than your standard terminators lacking only chainfists and storm shields. Not having the latter is a bummer but since they can get hammerhand and Daemonhammers, chainfists aren't much of a loss; if you're desperate for close-combat armourbane, you can always load up your Justicar with melta bombs.

Dedicated transports

Note - As seems to be the deal in 7th edition, Transports have all been moved in to one of the other standard force org positions, and thus can be taken even if you don't have a unit to put inside them. If you take one as a dedicated transport it takes on the force org classification of whatever unit it is dedicated to. The actual force org category is noted on each entry below.

Second Note - Our transports took a big hit now that they don't generate Warp Charges. With the cost reduction of Terminators, I anticipate we will be seeing fewer and fewer rhinos. And Razorbacks are too expensive priced differently now.

• Rhino - Fast Attack - Look, Rhinos! RHIIIINOS! Our Grey Knights are hiding in MEHTAL BAWKSES, the cowards! THE FEWLS! Pretty much a must for PAGKs, they give Strike Squads, Purifiers, and Purgation Squads some much needed mobility, and are dirt cheap now. A rhino with an extra storm bolter (2 total) costs the same as 2 standard PAGKs (who bring 2 Storm Bolters) but have 3 "wounds" and are harder to crack. They are pretty much always a good buy. Great for moving PAGKs with psycannons midfield on turn 1 (12" move and pop smoke), and then acting as heavy weapon bunkers for the rest of the game. Your psycannons will have full range on T2 and protection against small arms fire, and if your opponent wrecks it on their turn your psycannons STILL have full range once it hits your turn again. Cannot carry Terminators.

• Razorback - Fast Attack - A Rhino with a big gun on the back. Good for providing fire support for PAGKs of all kinds. The base cost went up, but all the weapon option costs went down. If you were taking razorbacks in the last codex purely for heavy bolters, then yes, they are more expensive now. But if you were taking razorbacks for anything else (TL Lascannons come to mind) they are actually cheaper now than they were in the last codex. You're better off taking more PAGKs and equipping more special weapons; if you need them to be somewhere fast, they can always deepstrike. Also cannot carry Terminators

• Land Raider/Crusader/Redeemer - Heavy Support - The choice of Space Marines everywhere for Terminator transport, and thank the Emperor we can finally take them as dedicated transports, freeing up those valuable heavy slots for more NDKs. Grey Knights Land Raiders are pretty much exactly the same as the Land Raiders used by standard space marines. The standard "Godhammer" pattern is schizo but is one of your only decent ranged anti-vehicle units, the Crusader has the best transport capacity and lots of dakka, and the Redeemer is excellent for melting MEQs (and ignoring cover).

Fast Attack

• Grey Knight Interceptor Squad - Your only other Fast Attack choice, these are just PAGKs with teleporter packs that make them look like something from a cheesy '50s sci-fi movie - ask the enemy to take them to their leader. Seriously though, these are effectively your Assault Marines, but they have a nifty trick up their backpacks: they can make a 30" move once per game (but cannot assault). They got better due to Incinerators no longer being stupidly over-costed for them. And we all know how good flamer weapons are on jump infantry!

• Stormraven Gunship - Flying Toaster Land Raider, covered in guns, good for transport and blowing stuff up. POTMS allows it to fire one weapon at full BS after jinking. Use them to drop Terminators, Interceptors and Dreadnoughts into your opponent's midst. Also, it can take a teleport homer, which allows you to zip around and safely deploy reserves in addition to its transport capabilities. Now comes with the generally more useful Stormstrike missiles. Sponsons are advised against, as you are probably more likely to regret not having a psycannon on your GKTs or some Daemonhammers on your squads, than 12 TL bolter shots. Finally, this is your only method of getting effective anti-armor into your list due you not getting the regular heavy weapons for your squads and you don't get to field predators. Seriously consider taking as many of these as you can afford to. Your only tank-killing goodness comes from Multi-Meltas and Typhoon Missile Launchers. Remember, this one's a flyer - your opponent needs 6s to hit it (if your opponent hasn't taken any Skyfire, the damn thing is nearly invincible). It's also very good in a dogfight, as POTMS can potentially force 2 flyers to jink and allow it to fire its 360 turret weapon after jinking itself, while Hover allows it to evade any flyer that doesn't have Hover (or at least Vector Dancer) itself.

• Rhino - See the Dedicated Transport section. Can be taken individually as an FA choice, but there isn't a whole lot of reason for it. Maybe if you're running purgators and want to combat squad 2 psycannons in to each 5 man squad and need a second metal box to ferry them around.

• Razorback - See the Dedicated Transport section. Can be taken individually as an FA choice, and might be worth it in small point games if you're running terminator troops but still want some lascannons on the board.

Heavy Support

• Purgation Squad: These are the Grey Knights' equivalent to regular Space Marine Devastators - sort of. In reality, they're really just a Strike Squad that can take four heavy weapons without restriction. Note that you must park them in cover or they will die. However, due to the fact that Grey Knights heavy weapons are all short- to mid-range, you'll have to put them at risk to get any use out of them. This is especially true if they're assaulted, as heavy weapons mean no force weapons. Make sure these guys have a transport handy to get them out of dodge when your opponent decides to pay attention to them. They can (and probably should) take a teleport homer, allowing you to conveniently Deep Strike a unit of Paladins to screen the Purgation Squad.

• Nemesis Dreadknight - Xzibit's take on Power Armor, this unit alone is probably responsible for at least 30% of the rage directed against the Grey Knights your spiritual liege. An ugly mechanical Monstrous Creature with a 2+ armor save and a 5+ invulnerable save, this thing is designed to take on Greater Daemons, Tyranid bio-monsters, and the like. However, keep in mind: 130 points seems cheap at first, but that means it will have no upgrades or ranged weapons at all - ranged weapons (which you can take two of, as long as they aren't two copies of the same weapon) cost 20-35 points apiece and the Teleporter costs 30 points. Close combat upgrades are the cheapest, will help your big guy in melee since you start off with only two powerfists. The teleporter does not make them lose Monstrous Creature status either and allows them to shunt in from ongoing reserves, instead of deep striking, for no scatter. Watch out for Necrons and Gargoyles, they will ruin your day. He is one of the 2 non-fearless MC in 40k, the other being the Riptide, so beware the Wyrdvanes in a Chimera or even paired with Hellhound, because it could tank shock this guy and chase him in 6". Be afraid of Dark Eldar players, their Venoms, Warriors, Hellions and Scourges can drop a surprising amount of poisoned shots on your Dreadknights in one turn, Blasterborn squads will eat a Dreadknight unless you use Sanctuary. Even still just don't take it against Dark Eldar armies PERIOD. Actually, this may no longer be true, as teleporters became much more affordable and templates hit units inside Open Topped transports. Still, these guys are professional skullfuckers, and their ridiculously silly look will make your opponent cry tears of blood to have its tanks and precious snowflake characters being torn to shreds by such an ugly baby-carrying chicken.

• Land Raider/Crusader/Redeemer - See the Dedicated Transport section. Now that you can take these as dedicated transports for your termies, you will probably never actually take one as a Heavy choice ever again. Except maybe for purifiers.

Lord Of War

• Lord Kaldor Draigo - HE MAKES IT HAPPEN Not anymore, because it already happens with or without him as of 7th ed rules, also Grand Strategy is gone too. The obligatory "super special character who costs more than a Land Raider and thus becomes Lord of War" of this Codex. Creed has donned his robe and wizard hat Terminator armor and gotten hold of some of the shiniest toys mankind has to offer, making him an outrageously powerful fighter, nearly impossible to kill (2+, 3++, Eternal Warrior) and a nightmare against any dedicated Daemon player (or anyone else), because of his S+3 AP2 Nemesis Force Sword with Master-Crafted. He lost any bonus anti-psyker rules and his Paladin Troops, and it's likely that he'll maybe regain them in a supplement.
  • His Psychic Powers are pre-selected from Sanctic: Banishment, Gate of Infinity, Hammerhand & Purge Soul. meaning no Invisibility or Divination spam. However, Gate of Infinity allows you to teleport him close to the ennemy, compensating for his weak storm bolter that makes him useless in the shooting phase and allowing you to bring the titansword-fuckfest right to your opponent's ass. All the while playing fluffy and imagining the dude randomly popping in and out of the Warp to stupidly smash whatever poor bastard happens to be in range. Cookie to the one who does this after painting him with warp dust down his nose.[1]

Fortifications

Fortifications in general aren't particularly useful to the Grey Knights.

• Aegis Defence Lines: Meh Meh. Might be okay if you have a basic squad of PAGKs to hole-up and grab a Quad-gun, but you should be taking toasters Stormravens for air stuff. Alternatively, not a bad idea to camp a Grand Master with a Orbital strike relay maybe in a land raider behind too?) although that's a lot of points just being stationaryNope, Orbital strikes are gone in the new Codex.

• • Note - An ADL can equip a comms relay. This sets you back 70 points, but it gives you the ability to reroll reserve rolls which improves the chances of deep striking on turn one.
  • Note - You can take the comms relay also on an Imperial Bunker, which comes for 55 pts. plus the relay. This pill box is a closed building and can deny a part of the battlefield pretty nicely if some PAGKs are in it. Place your objectives accordingly. Bunkers can also take that additional exit which allows you to put the PAGK another 18"(?) into the opponent's direction which helps to bring them close enough to compensate for their range. It might also be wise to put purgations in here, what with 4 fire points. Nothing makes people wanna not touch that objective quite like an AV14 box with 16 rending autocannon shots being dumped out of it.

• Skyshield Landing Pad: On the upside, it'll prevent your Knights from scattering and provides a sweet invulnerable save. The down-side(s)? It's parked at your end of the board and you need to be at your opponents' end. You are better served with other stuff.

• Imperial Bastion: As per the ADL, but comes with more Dakka. These are the sorts of things in which you put a Brother Captain and some PAGKs as a backfield objective.

• Fortress of Redemption: As per ADL and Imperial Bastion, but now you're starting to get ridiculous - it's 220 pts. base. Take only if you're desperate for extreme long-range support.

Apocalypse Units

• Grey Knights Thunderhawk Gunship (Forge World): Like regular Thunderhawk, BUT EVEN BETTER. It can replace ALL of its four twin-linked heavy bolters for twin-linked Psycannons for 20 pts only. Trololo. Just remember, that with 7th ed there's gonna be A LOT more skyfire weapons all around.

Formations

• Grey Knight Brotherhood (Codex) - A clusterfuck of a formation with a BC, Champion, Libby, 3 squads of PAGK and Termies, 2 Interceptor and Purgation Squads, a Dreadnought and a Dreadknight.
  • It's a very pricy force, but getting it allows for a re-roll on Codex Traits, the ability to cast on a 3+ for ALL powers, and the ability to Deep Strike on the first turn on a 3+ and Run and Shoot.

• Brotherhood of the Flame (Apocalypse) - Crowe leads 5 10-man Purifier squads, all on foot.
  • Making use of the Psyflamers, they get to use one new shot per turn, an Assault 1 S2 AP6 shot that gets +1S -1 AP per unit that joins in the shot, making a potentially brutal hit on MEQ and TEQ if you focus on them. Humorous note: Per the fluff in the new codex, the order of purifiers only contains Crowe + 48 brothers. Who are the extra 2 guys filling out the 5 10-man squads?

• Dreadknight Brethren (Apocalypse) - 3-5 Dreadknights put in a formation meant for Those Guys.
  • The only bonus this formation even gets is the ability to give any knights within 12" of the lead Dreadknight Shred. Seriously, this won't make them any better.

• Extermination Force (Apocalypse) - 1 Dreadknight with a Heavy Psycannon and 3-5 Stormravens. Dreadknight can fire tracker round which means all Stormraven shots at marked target hit instantly and models with Daemon rule half either toughness or armour save.
  • Designed to assist with Daemon Lords, maxed out this is capable of (clue's in the name!) exterminating just about any monstrous creature or vehicle.

Warzone Pandorax

• Assassinorum Murder Pack (Apocalypse) - All the Assassins slapped together. Yes, we know Assassins have been shifted to their own dataslate, but it's still listed as a Grey Knights formation.
  • Aside from the new 3 Wounds and 5+ FNP each, the Assassins all get another bonus.
    • Eversor gets 2d6 bonus attacks on the charge for more rape.
    • The Vindicare's Exitus guns all get Soulblaze.
    • The Callidus gets a S9 Neural Shredder
    • The Culexus gets a S6 Animus Speculum.

Allies

Battle Brothers

Now with 7th edition, a new allies matrix have been made. So now grey knights is part of the Armies of the Imperium. What this means is that they are now Battle Brothers with all other Armies of the Imperium. This includes:

• Adepta Sororitas: You don't really need their (honestly mediocre) short-ranged fire-fighting because whatever they can do, you can do better. However, there is one thing that the Sisters can bring you that you don't have: tank-busting. The Adepta Sororitas are positively drowning in high strength, low AP guns from their abundance of melta weapons to the much-feared Exorcist. They need lots of close support which you can offer them in spades; just don't turn them into armour paint, FFS!

• Astra Militarum: These guys are the exact opposite of you: Lots of cheap disposable units and a large selection of long-range weapons, but piss-poor power. Let their troops take the points, you're gonna be taking the fights and protect your squishy humans. If the Guard takes artillery, you'll have something to protect them between Sanctuary and your own armor.
  • Militarum Tempestus: They bring more specialized troops than the Imperial Guard, and they can take two unique formations to complement the Nemesis Strike Force. They cannot bring the big guns though.

• Imperial Knights: Pile on the fuckin' cheese bricks, we're going for broke! Taking a single Imperial Knight to supplement Grey Knights gives you yet another hard point in your army with devastating long- and close-combat support with their D-weapons; taking more than one automatically makes you That guy. Regardless, all Imperial Knights require air support so if you're taking a Knight, you need flyers, fortifications with skyfiring guns or another ally with flyers. The following is a tactical analysis of each Knight:
  • Knight Paladin - The shootiest, with their rapid-fire battle cannon and heavy stubbers. They give you all the long-range support you would ever need and can join in any combat to brutalize whatever you want dead.
  • Knight Errant - This guy will be closest to your knights and provides excellent armour busting with its thermal cannon. It's also the cheapest Knight and arguably the most useful. (That ap 2 melta cannon adds a ton to a GK force)
  • Knight Cerastus Lancer - A close-combat specialist, but you already have a lot of close-combat specialists in your army. The Knight Errant busts armour better, anyway and costs 30 pts. less.
  • Knight Cerastus Castigator - COMING SOON

• Inquisition: Why haven't you taken it yet? Seriously, you get 3 Elites Choices (Read: 3 units of Inquisitorial Henchmen) and each of them can take a transport like a Rhino, or a Chimera or a Land Raider or a Valkyrie. That makes it worth it right up front, but with the right load out, they can fill the desperately needed long-range firepower hole in your army, so this should be your first choice right here, but it is even better not take them as allies. Inquisitors have this trick of being a normal Combined Arms detachment despite being all by themselves (and maybe a few henchmen). Consider a Inquisitor in a Valkyrie, while still having a full Guard artillery battery and doing some screening with large blocks of bolter brothers; or a four lascannon Devastator squad buffed by a psyker Inquisitor while Knights deal with the enemy infantry.

• Space Marines: What's the main thing that Grey Knights lack? Long-range firepower. What do Vanilla Marines have in spades, in the form of Lascannon/Plasma Cannon Devastators, Skyhammer Stormtalons or, if you like seeing your points drop faster than a hooker with a broken hip, Devastator Centurions? Long-range firepower. Your regular GKs can handle the short-range firefight with their Storm Bolters and Psycannons, pop a squad of Devastators in a ruin or fortification, and get a Techmarine to slap on a +1 Cover Save buff. 3+ cover save Lascannons? Fuck your metal boxes. Facing enemy Terminator problems? 4 Plasma Cannons will wreck their day. If you REALLY want to get some tank killing up in this, and don't fear the close range, give them some Multi-Meltas, make Vulkan the HQ and laugh as you turn everything from Land Speeders to Land Raiders into molten slag. Also, Stormtalons escorting Stormravens, that drop Dreadnoughts and Paladins.
  • Blood Angels: Very similar to Grey Knights except a bit more of a balanced quantity/quality trade-off. They can have more dudes (especially assault marines), but do you really need that much more close-range support? There isn't much that they can do that your own guys can do better
  • Dark Angels: A lot like Vanilla Space Marines, except with a higher focus on ranged combat and specialist troops. Ravenwing Black Knights offer you a hard-hitting, fast moving option while Deathwing Knights can make your own Termies and Palatanks jealous. Also, that moving shroud-everything land-speeder is at your disposal - just don't bother with their shitty aircraft!
  • Space Wolves: The opposite extreme of the quantity/quality trade-off compared to Grey Knights - they give you scores of cheap (relatively), copious attacks and wounds to tie-up your opponents while you bring in the Knights to finish them off. Be sure to keep the Wolves lean and mean (ie, cheap and charging). Or you can bring along one of their new flyers for some extra long-range firepower and air support. Drop pod wolves add a ton to a alpha strike teleporting/shunting GK list

Allies of Convenience

• Eldar: A decent complement to your army (especially considering how strong eldar are in general now.) Eldar add a lot of speed and damage to a force. However, considering how elite your force is as a GK player, the main thing you need in your allies is more bodies on the field to really hold those objectives.(So look at one of the imperial allies instead)
  • One interesting unit is the Avatar of Khaine. Grey Knights have little access to melta weaponry. The Avatar can fire twice his melta weapon. But you don't want him because of that. Check his rules...Daemon! Now your HQ has a 3++ save if you pay 10 points, while the Avatar is near. Cast now Sanctuary. Enjoy your 2++ save!Of course you can instead use a Farseer for invoking some Khorne daemons, but if you want to do that, better use Wirdvane psykers.

Desperate Allies

• Tau Empire: Much like the Space Marines, the Tau also offer a LOT of long range firepower, but while the Marines offer long range firepower at moderate rates and strength, the Tau tend to either hit a lot faster or a lot harder. However, a lot of Tau things are meant to roll around a few specific things (Markerlights, railguns) that might be rather costly, and playing Grey Knights you really aren't going to have many points to spare.

• Dark Eldar: Coming soon.

Come the apocalypse

Now you can ally with Come the apocalypse armies! Just can't deploy within 12" of units from the allies detachment. So time to throw in some Daemons with these grey knights!

• Chaos Daemons: (scratches head) Maybe some demons want to mess up the plan of their opposite guard so they time their attack with some grey knights and the knights decided to let the two fight it out while also attacking? Daemons give some really hard hitting, and cheap troops, grey knights can butcher hordes with hails of storm bolter fire, but no one kills terminators like Demonettes (except genestealers). However, all of your powers will also mess up your allies, since the Sanctic Powers are all armed to mess up any daemons.

• Chaos Space Marines (MALAL): Anything they can do, Space Wolves can do better AND are Battle Brothers. Fucking pass!

• Necrons: Can't setup within 12"? No problem! If you're taking Necron allies, you're taking flyers and deepstrikers that can bolster your dakka and glance armour to death. Crons are probably the best of these choices.

• Orks: Setup is gonna be a bitch unless you're deepstriking the entirety of your Grey Knights. Otherwise, you get a big horde of wounds, attacks, dakka and humour.

• Tyranids: Huh, looks like the Anphelion Project paid off. Pretty much whatever applies to Orks applies to taking bugs as allies.

Tactics

Tactical Objectives

11 - Destroy the Daemon

1 VP if you kill one unit with Daemon USR. d3 if you kill 3-5, d3+3 if you kill 6+. If you oll this, you're pretty much gonna get it if you have someone targeted.

12 - Psychic Communion

1 VP if you manifested at least 3 psychic powers successfully. d3 if you cast 6+. If you're up against anything other than Daemons or Eldar, you'll have a good shot. ESPECIALLY if you're up against Tau, Crons, or DEldar.

13 - No Witnesses!

1 VP if you've killed every Independent Character your enemy has. Pretty much useless on Nids without Prime.

14 - Deeds of Legend

1 VP if you killed someone in a challenge. If you killed a MC or IC, you win d3 VP.

15 - Teleport Attack

1 VP if you've killed someone with a unit that either came from Deep Strike, teleported, or was moved using Gate of Infinity. Pretty easy win if you're on the first couple turns, or you could take a teleporting Dreadknight/Interceptor squad and just win it then and there.

16 - Rites of Exorcism

Upon drawing this card, the enemy must roll d6; this result is the Tactical Objective you must take control of. If you take it the same turn you draw it, you win d3 VP, otherwise you just win 1 VP.

Anti-Armor Tactics

While anything AV 10-12 will pose about as much challenge to your psycannons as wet cardboard, AV 13-14 can be a problem. You have few good options for tank hunting, and it's important to choose the right one. The first option is MOAR PSYCANNONS. Even AV14 will eventually falter under a hail of S7 rending shots, but this just isn't the most efficient use of them. For high AV targets, there's also the idea for risking the Librarian with a combi-melta or the Techmarine's Conversion Beamer. Don't forget that Stormravens can take fancy bits like a lascannon, plasma cannon, or a multi-melta for free, and remember to use your stormstrike missiles to full effect. Land Raiders, while expensive, can also provide lascannons and multi-meltas for an extra bit of tank 'sploding. However, you really shouldn't be spending your points on these unless you're already planning on using them as transports. Of course, if you really want reliable long-range solutions, the best option you have is to ally with another army with more low-AP firepower than you.

• An Alternate Take: You could always ally with eldar for lots of cool units. For anti-tank there are fire dragons in wave serpents which is THE BEST anti-tank unit in the game. Not the smartest ally choice you have though, but you won't have One Eye Open in effect.

• Let's Be Real Here: We all realize by now that there are hardly any options for effective shooting, especially when faced with AV 13-14. That being said, let's all take a step back and realize that shooting isn't the only way to effectively blow up tanks. What you SHOULD be doing to deal with the likes of things like Leman Russes and opposing Land Raiders is absolutely beating the shit out of them with giant hammers in close combat. Load your troops up into a Land Raider/Stormraven, drive them forward in cozy comfort, and assault out of it thanks to the Assault Vehicle rule that BOTH of these units possess. Yes, it can oftentimes be challenging to safely get into assault distance, and yes, hammers can become expensive at 10 points a pop, but they are capable of boosting your troops to STR 10 when combined with hammerhand, and even a squad full of STR 6 attacks on rear armor is bound to put a dent in something. Remember that Dreadknights with teleporters are absolutely fantastic for smashing vehicles apart and drawing enemy fire. Shunt them forward with a heavy psycannon to tear up a transport and then assault the next turn; assuming you can cast sanctuary, he'll be enjoying a 2+ 4++ save to soak up damage, and should he survive, your opponent's vehicles will fall like dominoes in turn after turn of assaulting. Feel free to bring 2 of them and take Land Raiders as dedicated transports to maximize your heavy support options. By the time they've done their job, your Raiders will roll up to deploy yet more STR 10 in the form of hammerhanded hammer-wielding terminators. Furthermore, Stormravens are fantastic for delivering Purifiers since they lack the ability to deep strike, and they can always Cleansing Flame after disembarking. Draigo can also be a big winner here; with Hammerhand, he becomes STR 9 without losing initiative, and with a 2+ 3++, he can be great when combined with terminators by placing him at the front to soak up plasma. Look out sir! his failed saves if you want(LOS happens as a wound is being allocated, which is before the save is rolled. If Draigo is rolling a save then he is stuck with the wound if it fails) and combine him with a Librarian with Sanctuary for a 2+ 2++! Give Draigo a police hat, cause he's just as capable of writing parking tickets as he is punching faces in.

Glance to the death!

In the new edition, autocannons are even more cheesy than they used to be, because now vehicles have HP, which they lose with EVERY glance. Take your dreads and glance light and medium vehicles to death. Watch your opponents cry. (This option is less appealing with the new codex now that Rifleman Dreadnoughts are loads more expensive, and psybolt ammo is gone so you can't glance AV14)

Vanguard Strike

This is a bit of a returning tactic from third edition. With the army variant allowing you to deep strike on the first turn, you can indeed place your entire army in reserves and deep strike on the first turn (the idea is that the rules doesn't seem to limit how many units you can put in reserves, along with the fact you won't be tabled unless you can't deep strike at least one unit on the table, so it is possible that you can place all of your deep striking units in reserves, and place them where ever you wish on the table). That said, place your units in reserve, begin deep striking as many if not all of your Grey Knights as close to the enemy as possible. Insert your own rape here.

Army variants

MUST BE REDONE IN THE WAKE OF THE NEW CODEX

Here's what I've been thinking, delete if it sucks: Nemesis strikeforce with 2 NDKs with teleporter and psycannon, 2 Stormravens with MM and lascannons, then whatever you like (Librarian and SS for minimum points). Turn 1 turtle or cripple their interceptor AA with shunt, if you think it's a good idea. Turn 2, if at least 1 Stormraven arrives, shunt if you can and focus the biggest threat down. Best case scenario: both Stormravens arrive (4/9 games, without manipulation) and neither NDK shunted in turn 1: you are looking at a 2 TL MM, 2 TL lascannons, 6 (PotM) S8 AP2 missiles (all of them with option to skyfire) and 12 psycannon shots alpha strike out of nowhere. Anything you focus should die, or you can spread the love around. Turn 3 hover Stormravens and unload cargo. 2 TL MM, 2 TL lascannons, 2 (PotM) S8 AP2 missiles, 12 psycannon shots, plus whatever came out of the Stormravens, plus 2 charging NDKs in assault phase. Regular CAD for 3 of each and double down on strikeforce for 4 of each in larger games.

Here's what I've also been thinking, delete if it sucks too:

• Gate of Infinity Trolling: For this, you're gonna need some lucky rolls and a good few warp charge dice (You won't be lacking in that department). First teleport as close to the enemy gunline as possible using the Gate of Infinity power, then put the Cleansing Flame psychic power to make some enemies extra crispy with 2D6 S5 AP4 Soulblaze Cover ignoring cheese, then teleport back out of the enemy's range. Of course, Deepstriking mishaps are a likely possibility and you may end up failing some power activations, getting denied if your opponent is lucky enough or has as much warpcharges to throw around. Not to mention this will eventually cause you to peril. Is it clear if you're allowed to take Inquisition Servo-Skulls to reduce the Gate of Infinity scatter? That could help and make Inquisition a cheap must-take.

What to buy

A good starting choice is, of course, a couple squads of either GKTs or GKSSs, depending on your financial restrictions and what amount of points you're looking to start with. For the recently-inducted, 500-750 pt. games (if you're looking into normal 40K and not Kill-Team) are a good way to get your feet wet, and thus you will probably want to go for a pair of GKSSs and a Librarian [whose psychic attacks are fuck-right devastating]. A good expansion will be with Terminators and another HQ as a beatstick. Invest in at least one Stormraven, a Dreadknight, and either a Rhino or a Land Raider, depending on the balance of power-armor units to terminators, respectively. And of course, be sure to ignore the people rolling their eyes for selecting the Grey Knights; the Grey Knights ARE a pretty fuckawesome army list with a good aesthetic design for the hobbyists and, with practice and patience, can efficiently lay waste to anyone they stand against. If you balk at the Grey Knights fighting something other than daemons, well...if you look hard enough and scream you battle litanies loud enough, ANYTHING you set in front of your Knights on the tabletop will look like a daemon.

The Nemesis Vanguard set is also a pretty solid choice. When compared to buying the units separate you're essentially getting a free Dreadknight. The selection isn't bad either. Dreadknight for the awesome, plenty of PAGKs which can fill anything you need (Purifiers? Interceptors? Purgation? Why not all three?! *much rejoicing*), and 5 termies are a nice add on. And while at first you may diss the Land Raider for not being a special one, this is one of your ONLY 3 OPTIONS for Lascannons. Machine Spirit too, so you can shoot them at different vehicles for a chance of double tank-poppage. I've actually done the points and if you make one of the termies a Librarian or Brother-Cap, and the 4 termies are paladins, you can actually create a legal Nemesis Strike FOC with this list that hits between 1000-1250 points.