Warhammer 40K Tabletop XIV: "Pray for 6's!"

[Cheesegear]

I'm looking for advice on what I should do if I want to have any luck with that general theme, what I should buy, what wargear I should pick, how I should play in general, ways to cut down on the monetary costs of buying more stuff, and so on.

Winterwind did one a while back.

Then I did another, more in-depth one (but don't let that fool you, Winterwind's is right on the money), and Special Characters. Spoiler alert; Zahndrekh is awesome, Trazyn, not so much.

Converting Warriors to Immortals is hard. But, if you're going to have a lot of Warriors (and 50 is a lot), you're not going to need many Immortals. What you need in a Warrior army is Lords with Resurrection Orbs. Crypteks, not so much - but they're good too.

[CN the Logos]

Winterwind did one a while back.

Then I did another, more in-depth one (but don't let that fool you, Winterwind's is right on the money), and Special Characters. Spoiler alert; Zahndrekh is awesome, Trazyn, not so much.

Converting Warriors to Immortals is hard. But, if you're going to have a lot of Warriors (and 50 is a lot), you're not going to need many Immortals. What you need in a Warrior army is Lords with Resurrection Orbs. Crypteks, not so much - but they're good too.

Thanks for the links. I'm still thinking about what I want to do re: anti-vehicle capabilities. Upgrade to/buy Heavy Destroyers? Grab a C'tan shard (I've got models from other games I could proxy/convert for friendly play, I'm not a big tourney player anyway)? Take something else from the Heavy Support section (the Death Scythe looks cool: the Monolith is classic but the consensus here seems to be that it's not worth it )? Run my Scarabs as is?

Also, still on the fence about my HQ choice. I've got a Lord (not sure if he's got a ressurection orb but that shouldn't be difficult to add if not). I like the look of the Overlord and the Destroyer Lord though, and the Overlord looks like it adds more options for me to expand. Maybe start off using my Lord and just buy another HQ for when I expand my force? Thanks again for the advice.

[evisiron]

I'd be very interested in knowing what your list was

Sure. I'm in a little bit of a hurry, so this is from memory for now:

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Ghazghkull!

Big Mek
-Kustom Force Field

18 Boys
-Nob
--Boss pole
--Power Klaw

18 Boys
-Nob
--Boss pole
--Power Klaw

18 Boys
-Nob
--Boss pole
--Power Klaw

Battle Wagon
-Deffrolla
-Red Paint job
-2x Big Shoota
-Armour plates

Battle Wagon
-Deffrolla
-Red Paint job
-2x Big Shoota
-Armour plates

Battle Wagon
-Deffrolla
-Red Paint job
-2x Big Shoota
-Armour plates

4 Meganobs
-2x Kombi scorcha
-Kombi rokkit
Dedicated Trukk
-Ram

10 Grots
-Herder

3 Warbuggies
-twin linked rokkits

9 Kommandos
-2x Burnas
-Snikrot

Deffkopta
-Buzzsaw
-Twin linked rokkits

It sort of evolved from a mixed list to a Speed Freak list (Snikrot counts, as not matter how fast the Ork army is, Snikrot was there first ). The tournament I was playing in had sets of Primary and Secondary objectives (each normal missions played simultaneously, one for full points, the other for half) so speed was crucial!

[Provengreil]

Thanks for the links. I'm still thinking about what I want to do re: anti-vehicle capabilities. Upgrade to/buy Heavy Destroyers? Grab a C'tan shard (I've got models from other games I could proxy/convert for friendly play, I'm not a big tourney player anyway). Take something else from the Heavy Support section (the Death Scythe looks cool: the Monolith is classic but the consensus here seems to be that it's not worth it )? Run my Scarabs as is?

Also, still on the fence about my HQ choice. I've got a Lord (not sure if he's got a ressurection orb but that shouldn't be difficult to add if not). I like the look of the Overlord and the Destroyer Lord though, and the Overlord looks like it adds more options for me to expand. Maybe start off using my Lord and just buy another HQ for when I expand my force? Thanks again for the advice.

well, overlords give access to the royal court. the varied wargears and abilities found in here are just a bit too valuable to pass up, So I'd recommend getting yourself an overlord, or using you lord as one for now, and finding ways to make the court models. harbingers are the real deal here, even the worst gives you some potentially needed relocation ability.

[Cheesegear]

Thanks for the links. I'm still thinking about what I want to do re: anti-vehicle capabilities.

For starters, there aren't many players that are going to care about the model on whether you use an Overlord or Lord model to represent whatever you want it to be. Lords work as Overlords, regardless of what it says on the tin. If someone disagrees, they're probably not worth playing against.

As far as anti-tank goes, in a Warrior-spam army, every unit you have should be able to Glance a tank. It means your less vulnerable to shooty-tanks, but Rhino Rush armies and vehicles that want to move forwards are definitely going to give you trouble unless you destroy them with a proper weapon.

Use Overlord, get Tachyon Arrows. Get an Eternity Cryptek.
=> Get a Destruction Cryptek or two.

Triarch Stalkers. There's a couple of conversions out there on the 'net. Basically, from the couple I've searched for just for the purposes of this post, you can make them out of a Ghost Ark.

C'Tan. Transdimensional Thunderbolt. You only get one though. So you need to invest in Triarchs either way.

As far as Troops go, if you've got 50 Warriors, you probably want to spread them out into lots of smaller squads. 6x8, or 5x9 will work. 4x12 is a little big.

Squad 1; Overlord w/ Tachyon Arrow and Res Orb, Eternity Cryptek
Squad 2; Destruction Cryptek
Squad 3; Destruction Cryptek

Then start adding more Lords with Res Orbs and Gauntlets of Flame or Warscythes for your backline. On Lords I'd probably got with a Gauntlet of Flame. The one Lord/Cryptek per squad is kind of a hindrance. But if you're not using Ghost Arks, you want as many squads on the board that you can field, meaning more slots for Court-members.

If you don't have a Destroyer Lord, you should probably get some Heavy/ Destroyers. If you do have a DL, Wraiths or Scarabs. Wraiths are better, but Scarabs are cheaper/easier to get.

The Internet (I hate that guy) likes Annhilation Barges. I hate them. They're cheap because they're bad. They're not good because they're cheap. Doomsday Arks are nice, and so are Tomb Spyders. It looks like you've got an all-Infantry list so I'm going to recommend Tomb Spyders in the Heavy slot.
Doom Scythes are very good (broken or not), they just get shot to pieces like, immediately. So they can be tricky to use, especially if you don't have other vehicles for LoS blocking or to be fire magnets.

[Provengreil]

...
Then start adding more Lords with Res Orbs and Gauntlets of Flame or Warscythes for your backline. On Lords I'd probably got with a Gauntlet of Flame. The one Lord/Cryptek per squad is kind of a hindrance. But if you're not using Ghost Arks, you want as many squads on the board that you can field, meaning more slots for Court-members.
...

The Internet (I hate that guy) likes Annhilation Barges. I hate them. They're cheap because they're bad. They're not good because they're cheap. Doomsday Arks are nice, and so are Tomb Spyders. It looks like you've got an all-Infantry list so I'm going to recommend Tomb Spyders in the Heavy slot.
Doom Scythes are very good (broken or not), they just get shot to pieces like, immediately. So they can be tricky to use, especially if you don't have other vehicles for LoS blocking or to be fire magnets.

Reading the entry for the royal court, I think you can get around the one court member/squad by having 2 courts, and giving the squad one from each. it's a bit loopholey, and it'll probably get faq'd out, but you can argue that the phrase "one member of the royal court" means "one member of THIS royal court."

As for doomsday arks, you can get a shot off with deep striking. what happens next is far too game dependent to guess, but it may well survive the ensuing counterattacks if it's late to the party and a lot of the things that can kill it reliably are too far away/already dead.

[The_Final_Stand]

1. Doomsday Arks can't deep strike, only come on from reserve like everything else.
2. Because coming on from reserve involves moving, it only fires a Str 7 AP 4 small blast at 24".
3. Even if it could deep strike, it would count as having moved at cruising speed, meaning it couldn't shoot at all, since it isn't Fast.

You may be thinking of Doom Scythes, who can deep strike, and can also shoot having done so, which are precisely what Cheesegear recommended.

[lord_khaine]

If you don't have a Destroyer Lord, you should probably get some Heavy/ Destroyers. If you do have a DL, Wraiths or Scarabs. Wraiths are better, but Scarabs are cheaper/easier to get.

Regarding Wraiths, then as adviced i tried building my own out of Sepulchre stalkers, and it turned out it really is easy to make something that looks decent with only a small saw and a bit of green stuff.

And better yet, you also get lots of spare bits for converting Cryptecs and overlords out of triac preatorian ( im starting to figure out why the internet is calling the other stuff failcast... )

You may be thinking of Doom Scythes, who can deep strike, and can also shoot having done so, which are precisely what Cheesegear recommended.

And if you got Zandreck in your army, then you have the chance to drop down and shoot stuff in the rear armor with a S10 AP1 tankhunting weapon, life hardly gets better

[CN the Logos]

For starters, there aren't many players that are going to care about the model on whether you use an Overlord or Lord model to represent whatever you want it to be. Lords work as Overlords, regardless of what it says on the tin. If someone disagrees, they're probably not worth playing against.

Fair point. I'm not a big tourney person anyway, so my only real concern is that my opponents be able to tell what I have, in the interests of fairness. But I suppose giving a regular Lord a nice hat if I need to won't be too much trouble.

Triarch Stalkers. There's a couple of conversions out there on the 'net. Basically, from the couple I've searched for just for the purposes of this post, you can make them out of a Ghost Ark.

Does anyone have any idea about how big these are supposed to be? Because between the heat ray and the spidery legs I was struck by the idea of maybe using a War of the Worlds Martian tripod (several companies make them) as a proxy, but I need to know what scale to be looking at. A 28mm scale tripod would be too large, but there are some in a 15mm scale I thought might work.

If that idea doesn't work out, I may just wait a little while to see if the official model comes out. All my past attempts at conversions ended poorly. Thus my shelving Orks in favor of an army consisting mostly of identical art deco robot mummies.

C'Tan. Transdimensional Thunderbolt. You only get one though. So you need to invest in Triarchs either way.

I've got one model already that would be perfect for a C'tan, and another I was planning to get for Malifaux that could double as a C'tan, so this is good to know.

As far as Troops go, if you've got 50 Warriors, you probably want to spread them out into lots of smaller squads. 6x8, or 5x9 will work. 4x12 is a little big.

Squad 1; Overlord w/ Tachyon Arrow and Res Orb, Eternity Cryptek
Squad 2; Destruction Cryptek
Squad 3; Destruction Cryptek

Then start adding more Lords with Res Orbs and Gauntlets of Flame or Warscythes for your backline. On Lords I'd probably got with a Gauntlet of Flame. The one Lord/Cryptek per squad is kind of a hindrance. But if you're not using Ghost Arks, you want as many squads on the board that you can field, meaning more slots for Court-members.

Sixty-four Warriors, techically, but apparently only fifty are assembled. Don't know what I'm going to do with the other fourteen; the Wraith conversion I saw involving plastic tubing and copper wire didn't look horribly difficult; I'm just loathe to screw around and mess up the figures with an army that's supposed to be sleek and uniform in design. Maybe I'll just make them all into Warriors and swamp the field in robot zombies

If you don't have a Destroyer Lord, you should probably get some Heavy/ Destroyers. If you do have a DL, Wraiths or Scarabs. Wraiths are better, but Scarabs are cheaper/easier to get.

Convenience may win the day here; Scarabs were included. We'll see how they do, though.

I've got regular Destroyers already. Destroyers are awesome looking though, I wouldn't mind getting the Heavies if they'll be worth it.

Reading the entry for the royal court, I think you can get around the one court member/squad by having 2 courts, and giving the squad one from each. it's a bit loopholey, and it'll probably get faq'd out, but you can argue that the phrase "one member of the royal court" means "one member of THIS royal court."

As hillarious and tactically-sound as building a unit in my army to take advantage of a slightly abusive and likely to be erattaed loophole sounds, I think I'll pass. And if someone I was considering playing was making that argument, I'd pick my stuff up and go play another game (probably Malifaux, assuming I can avoid Dreamer cheese). Not because two Court members in a squad is horribly broken (it may or may not be, I don't know yet), but because I now know that my would-be-opponent is the sort of rules lawyer who is prone to arguments of that nature, and I'm just not interested.

Regarding Wraiths, then as adviced i tried building my own out of Sepulchre stalkers, and it turned out it really is easy to make something that looks decent with only a small saw and a bit of green stuff.

And better yet, you also get lots of spare bits for converting Cryptecs and overlords out of triac preatorian ( im starting to figure out why the internet is calling the other stuff failcast... )

Yeah, I've looked at the Overlord models in my FLGS and I think all of them had a warped staff. And I'm not sure if the model even comes with the wargear I want, given that people seem to be saying to ditch the staff for the gauntlet. This is, of course, not even starting on the Cryptek Harbingers (who doesn't like lasers and blinding the entire enemy army?) Anyone got any good suggestions for conversions? Ideally cheap and in as few boxes as possible, but I want to qualify for "what you see is what you get" too.

[Hootman]

The only bad thing for me with having Christmas Eve be on a Saturday...is when you also have a tournament going on and no one shows up. Again. I better get a prize for perfect attendance, if nothing else. I don't mind this time, though.

Speaking of which, to those who celebrate it, Merry Christmas from Boston! And to anyone who cares, Happy Awakening! Apparently December 24, 2011 is the day that magic returned to the world according to Shadowrun, making this sort of historic, I guess? I can't wait to wake up in the morning, turn on the news, and be getting the weather report from a troll. That would be pretty excellent.

[Tome]

Anyone got any good suggestions for conversions? Ideally cheap and in as few boxes as possible, but I want to qualify for "what you see is what you get" too.

Buy a box of Preatorians, then get some Deathmark heads. You can either get the heads from any Immortal boxes you buy, or see if another Necron player has some spare (they probably do).

Stick the Deathmark heads on the Praetorian bodies, tweak the staffs and add additional bitz to flavour. Maybe GS on some cloaks or something. Done.

[Provengreil]

1. Doomsday Arks can't deep strike, only come on from reserve like everything else.
2. Because coming on from reserve involves moving, it only fires a Str 7 AP 4 small blast at 24".
3. Even if it could deep strike, it would count as having moved at cruising speed, meaning it couldn't shoot at all, since it isn't Fast.

You may be thinking of Doom Scythes, who can deep strike, and can also shoot having done so, which are precisely what Cheesegear recommended.

*Checks codex
*Slaps forehead

oops. I got the two mixed, my bad.

[Squark]

Convenience may win the day here; Scarabs were included. We'll see how they do, though.

Word of advice on those Scarabs; If they're unassembled as of yet, cut off that little rod that perches them above their base; You'll never stop glueing them back onto it, so you might as well just forgo it.

As far as Overlords go, you can list me as one Person who's gotten an unwarped Staff.

EDIT: As far as Heavy Destroyers go, Cheesegear is of the opinion they're good, and I tend to trust his judgement. Bear in mind, though, that the heavy guass cannon arm is a pain in the butt to work with; You're going to need to pin it in place to get it to stick, so bear that in mind.

[Nameless Ghost]

The Annihilation/Command Barge kit comes with a plastic Overlord. Even if you're not interested in that kit, odds are that there'll be somebody at a FLGS who was and has the parts spare from buying multiples.

[Borgh]

As far as Overlords go, you can list me as one Person who's gotten an unwarped Staff.

I got one!

then it broke when I breathed at it.

[lord_khaine]

As hillarious and tactically-sound as building a unit in my army to take advantage of a slightly abusive and likely to be erattaed loophole sounds, I think I'll pass. And if someone I was considering playing was making that argument, I'd pick my stuff up and go play another game (probably Malifaux, assuming I can avoid Dreamer cheese). Not because two Court members in a squad is horribly broken (it may or may not be, I don't know yet), but because I now know that my would-be-opponent is the sort of rules lawyer who is prone to arguments of that nature, and I'm just not interested.

And i find it quite abusive and offensive that you place yourself as the supreme judge of what is a loophole, and what is a part of the codex...

As far as Overlords go, you can list me as one Person who's gotten an unwarped Staff.

And i got a pretty warped on my stormlord, but oh well, i were going to convert him anyway, since i wantet to use him as Zandreck instead.

[CN the Logos]

Thank you all for your help, I got some cash and a couple of gift cards for Christmas, so I'm going to buy the codex and some other essentials tomorrow. Just a couple more things and then I'll leave you alone:

Buy a box of Preatorians, then get some Deathmark heads. You can either get the heads from any Immortal boxes you buy, or see if another Necron player has some spare (they probably do).

Stick the Deathmark heads on the Praetorian bodies, tweak the staffs and add additional bitz to flavour. Maybe GS on some cloaks or something. Done.

Thanks for the tip. I was thinking about some Immortals or the like just to compliment my three full squads of warriors. How are they with tesla guns (given that all my warriors have the standard gauss weaponry, I thought the tesla might give me some variety)? If they aren't worth it, I might just hold off on them until after my vacation, see if the one Necron player at my local store would be willing to give/sell me some of his spares.

Word of advice on those Scarabs; If they're unassembled as of yet, cut off that little rod that perches them above their base; You'll never stop glueing them back onto it, so you might as well just forgo it.

As far as Overlords go, you can list me as one Person who's gotten an unwarped Staff.

Duly noted.

EDIT: As far as Heavy Destroyers go, Cheesegear is of the opinion they're good, and I tend to trust his judgement. Bear in mind, though, that the heavy guass cannon arm is a pain in the butt to work with; You're going to need to pin it in place to get it to stick, so bear that in mind.

Thanks for the warning. I need to grab some pinning stuff for my Malifaux minis, so this moves that purchase up a bit priority wise.

And i find it quite abusive and offensive that you place yourself as the supreme judge of what is a loophole, and what is a part of the codex...

The remark wasn't directed at you, and as far as forum comments indicating disagreement go, I thought it was rather mild. However, to clarify, I don't consider myself a supreme judge of anything. It just smecks of the same unfun time-wasting lawyer-esque loophole abuse I've encountered in certain other games. If you try that with me, you are welcome to be offended all you like, but it won't get me to play the game with you.

I try not to argue much anymore (and I think I finally lost the capacity to give a damn about internet arguments circa my participation in the general World of Darkness thread); I just go do something else. Malifaux maybe, or there's always Magic: the Gathering, although I don't play formats that aren't Commander nowadays.

Merry Christmas to all, and so on, so forth.

[Cheesegear]

Does anyone have any idea about how big [Triarch Stalkers] are supposed to be?

About the size of a Dreadnought. Or, since you're Necrons, roughly the size of a Catacomb Command Barge.

I've got regular Destroyers already. Destroyers are awesome looking though, I wouldn't mind getting the Heavies if they'll be worth it.

Sort of. It basically comes back to Triarch Stalkers again. Heavy Destroyers and Stalkers generally fill the same role, just in different slots. Generally, nothing can compete with Stalkers in it's slot (one C'Tan, two, maybe), which can take that role. Wheras Heavy Destroyers are competing with Wraiths and Scarabs, which people can take because they've got Stalkers.

As far as Heavy Destroyers go, Cheesegear is of the opinion they're good, and I tend to trust his judgement.

*Marks Squark down in the Pretty Cool Guy column.*

[lord_khaine]

The remark wasn't directed at you, and as far as forum comments indicating disagreement go, I thought it was rather mild. However, to clarify, I don't consider myself a supreme judge of anything. It just smecks of the same unfun time-wasting lawyer-esque loophole abuse I've encountered in certain other games. If you try that with me, you are welcome to be offended all you like, but it won't get me to play the game with you.

Yeah, well you are setting yourself up to judge what is a loophole, and what is a rule, so its good that you wouldnt play a game with me, for i would certainly not bother playing one with you anyway.

[Borgh]

with judging wherether something is a loophole or not I tend to go with a third party, be that the store owner, a random onlooker I trust or that Internet guy. Even dice rolls are better then trusting your opponent. Nothing against you personally but I wouldn't trust myself if I was playing a solo game so I have a hard time trusing others, especially after that time when I had to play a dude who wouldn't a accept a negative FAQ rating "because he didn't like it".

(by the way, finished the game, lost, never played him again)

[Provengreil]

Yeah, well you are setting yourself up to judge what is a loophole, and what is a rule, so its good that you wouldnt play a game with me, for i would certainly not bother playing one with you anyway.

oh, make no mistake, that little interpretation is incredibly suspect and loopholey and abusive, right up there with considering the ability to deepstrike(as per the harbinger of despair) as "redeployment"(the main rulebook's set of rules for deep striking uses the word "deploy), thus allowing you to drop extra deathmark tokens by warping deathmarks around. it's just that it's the only way to get even more use out of royal courts without just buying a bunch of 5-man warrior units.

It may be arrogant to set oneself up as a judge, but lets face it: some judgements are easy.

[Cheesegear]

Well, in case you've been living under a rock for the past six months, or maybe your meta-game hasn't really got into them for some reason, or maybe you're just starting or thinking of starting Grey Knights and you prefer to listen to me for some reason over other places on the 'net. I was too late for Christmas, but, hopefully you can spend some of your brand new Christmas loot on well...

Grey Knights

Special Rules:

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Brotherhood of Psykers: It's fine. However, against Eldar and the few Tyranid players about, it's a quick way to get your Sergeants killed.

Preferred Enemy (Daemons): With the exception of Obliterators and occasionally the Avatar, this rule barely sees any play. Grey Knights have it, but it wont come up very often.

Aegis: Resistance to targeted powers. Unfortunately, with the exception of Doom, and Lash, I can't really think of any good Psychic Powers that specifically target units. Not even Blood Lance is a targeted Power.

ATSKNF: Same with every other non-Codex Marine Codex, without Combat Tactics, this rule loses a lot of it's lustre. Since half the time that you'll need to take Morale checks will be from Shooting, and if you're losing Assault, it's preferable to run away. Especially with Grey Knights. But, if you lost Assault with Grey Knights, it will usually be because you're opponent has a higher Initiative than you and you'll be Fearless instead, which is bad.

HQ (not special characters)
There's just so many, and so many choices, I think the HQ will get a post all to themselves.

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Grand Master: One thing that seems great about this guy's statline is his BS6. Unfortunately, he wont be using it much. He walks around with Psyk-Out Grenades which is awesome since it'll drop Mephiston in a hurry. But, notice that as good as a GM is in Assault, he can't Sweeping Advance because he's in Terminator Armour, which is incredibly annoying. But his real bonus over a Brother-Captain is Grand Strategy. Incredibly broken or totally crap, depending on your army build.

Hammer of Righteousness: This is kind of good, since it applies to Shooting attacks as well. And Grey Knights love extra shooting.
Shield of Blades: If it's good enough for Space Wolves, it's good enough for Grey Knights. Works best on units with Halberds.
Spear of Light: Not that good. Since Scouts specifies a 'Normal' move and the FAQ says that it doesn't work with Dreadknights' Personal Teleporter, and Grand Strategies (any of them) can't be given to vehicles which means Stormravens don't get it, etc. Seems good, but isn't.
Unyielding Anvil: Potentially the best use of Grand Strategy. Since it takes away the need for taking lots of Troops and focusing on killy-things in Elites and Heavy Support. However, by needing to take this you've already shown that you haven't built a 'proper' list to begin with.

I found that Hammer of Righteousness was the best use of Grand Strategy. If only because I didn't generally take a lot of Paladins or non-Troops because Strike Squads are fine. If you want more Paladins or Purifiers, there's always Draigo and Crowe respectively, and those guys aren't random. If anything was made to be Scoring, it was usually Purgation Squads.

Anyway, we're done with that. Grand Master Wargear;
Incinerator; Always upgrade to this. It's only 5 points. And cover-busting is always a problem for shooty armies.
Psilencer; Junk.
Psycannon; I know, I know. The GM has BS6. But why bother paying 45 points for something you're already going to have on pretty much every other unit you own.

Sword; Gives you a 3+ Invulnerable in Assault. Pretty lackluster considering the other choices. If you need to save points, on the other hand, dropping whatever you've got and going back to the regular sword isn't the worst move you could make.
Halberd; Who needs Invulnerables when everything is already dead? Initiative 7 is amazing. Don't let anyone ever say anything different.
Hammer; You're I5 normally. Don't let it go to waste. Use the squad you're with to use Hammers instead.
Falchions; Meh. Not bad. More attacks with Force Weapons isn't bad. But you don't have the I7 of a Halberd to kill things first and you can't Hammerhand into a Force Weapon (unless you pay for it!). But should still have the same price tag as the Halberd. Not really worth it. Better than a Hammer though.
Stave; Sometimes worth it. Sometimes not. Like I said with the Halberd; You don't need to take saves when nothing can hit you because they're dead.

Servo Skulls; Infiltration denial is nice. Scout denial is even better (Baal Preds). Deep Strike accuracy is helpful, but not important because Knights don't really have a lot of 'good' Deep Strikers. Same with Blast accuracy.

Blind Grenades, Meltabombs, Digital Weapons; Sometimes useful, sometimes not. The 'most useful' are Blind Grenades.
Psybolt Ammunition; I don't like paying 50 points for a Psycannon I've already got elsewhere for about half the cost (which means two Psycannons, if you're counting).
Empyrean Brain Maines; One third the cost of a Warding Stave. Works about a third of the time too. A Warding Stave still isn't worth it.
Psychotroke Grenades; Incredibly useful. But in a Grey Knights' army points are at a premium and you don't want to waste points where you don't have to.
Rad Grenades; Takes the pressure off of Hammerhand and the risk of rolling Perils. Also helps you smush things, unlike Psychotrokes which just stop things from smushing you. You should be I7, they should be T3/2, you've got this in the bag.
Orbital Strike Relay; Hnnng. No. It ignores your BS6. Only for 2500+ games or bigger where points shaving isn't a concern.
Master-Crafting; Only Master-Craft the cheap stuff. Swords, Halberds and Incinerators.

Brother-Captain: Everything that applies to the Grand Master applies here. On a Grand Master you pay 25 points for Grand Strategy. If you don't need Grand Strategy (hint; you don't), there is nothing a Grand Master can do that a Bro-Captain couldn't. BS6=>5 is irrelevant since you're using Incinerators - hopefully. Besides, the Brother-Captain is your Bro. The Grand Master is not.

Brotherhood Champion: Largely nowhere near as good as a Brother-Captain. He's cheap, sure. But he's also weirdly bad. I just got confused when I read the entry. He has one Wound and less attacks. Just...Bad.

Librarian: Knocks every other Marine Librarian out of the park. Begins as an Epistolary and Terminator Armour, and gets to keep his Frag and Krak Grenades. As well as all the Grey Knight gubbins to boot. By rights he should be at least 175 points. But he's not. Thanks Ward.

Sword; Yeah. Sure. But wouldn't you just rather dig it in to those other Marine players a little bit more...
Halberd; I6 Force Weapons are not bad. Anybody who thinks otherwise probably shouldn't be playing the game.
Falchions; A Librarian doesn't have many attacks as WS5 isn't quite as good as the GM/BC's. But WS5 is still good. Extra attacks on somebody who needs them isn't a terrible investment.

Psybolt Ammunition; You're only BS4 with a Storm Bolter. Not worth it.
Digital Weapons; Sometimes useful, sometimes not. It's what Hammerhand is for, generally. Go ahead and pay for it if you don't plan on using Hammerhand much - if at all - since a squad can do it.
Empyrean Brain Mines; Not as good as a Brother-Captain in combat and has less wounds. So are even more important to have on a Librarian.
Teleport Homer; Better in concert with a Brother-Captain with Psychic Communion, otherwise not quite as good. Also costs as much as all three Servo Skulls which is probably a better investment for Infiltration and Scout denial on top.

Dark Excommunication; No.
Might of Titan; You've already got Hammerhand, and hopefully a couple of Hammers in a unit. Good for the Armour Penetration, but you should really have something else that fills that roll.
Quicksilver; Can be useful against some armies. But Halberds are fairly cheap and going first is going first, whether it's I6 or I10. Only take this if your meta-game is lousy with Dark Eldar. Otherwise I6 on Halberds will get you through most problems.
Sanctuary; Can help you shoot a little bit longer. But if anyone's Assaulting, it should be Grey Knights.
Shrouding; ALWAYS TAKE.
Summoning; Useful with a Teleport Homer, but that makes this power cost 20 points instead of the usual 5. Not really worth it.
Vortex of Doom; Good, because you've already got Terminator Armour and Servo Skills don't cost a whole lot of points.
Warp Rift; For 5 points. Seriously. Sometimes I read new Codecies and there are always maybe one or two options where I swear someone was drunk when they wrote it.

Shrouding and Warp Rift and the two best ones. Just in case you didn't pick up on that. If you want to pay through the nose for Mastery Level 3, Might of Titan or Sanctuary are okay Powers.

Master-Crafting; A Librarian has less attacks and not 'amazing' Weapon Skill. For 5 points its always worth considering a MC'd Sword or Halberd, and it's roughly the same effect as Falchions for half the cost. Although you could MC those too...If you didn't like having points to spare for some reason.

Ordo Malleus Inquisitor: Waaay too many options. Most of them bad. So here's what's good. Keep 'em cheap, expect them to die.
Combi-Flamer, Combi-Melta, Daemonblade, two Daemonblades, Servo Skulls (optional), Brain Mines (never optional).
Basically, they're cheap ways to get the 1+ HQ annoyance out of the way without having to spend 150+ points in a small game on one model. In smaller games, Inquisitors are invaluable. In large games they're for min-maxers.
You can always have him in the 'Chuck Norris' pose with a Combi-Flamer in one hand and a Combi-Melta in the other.

Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor: Combi-Flamer, Combi-Melta, Null Rod. Servo Skulls (optional). The only reason you'd take a Hereticus Inquisitor over any of the others is for either the Null Rod (as it's also a Power Weapon when it's not doing anything) or the Psyocculum. Null Rod is fine, Psyocculum on the other hand is not.

Ordo Xenos Inquisitor: Combi-Flamer, Combi-Melta (I sense a theme), Needle Pistol (AP2, what!?). Servo Skulls (optional).
Ulumeathi Plasma Syphon; Plasma is the bane of Marines and Terminators especially. You're Grey Knights which means you probably have a lot of one or the other or both. Also pretty much negates the entire Tau army. Ward hates Tau. Or something.
Rad Grenades; Far, far, far cheaper to get them here than on a Brother-Captain.
Psychotroke Grenades; Always to be considered, but Rad Grenades are better and you can't really afford to get both.

Remember kids, Inquisitors are Independent Characters and are allowed to run around in real Grey Knight units. In fact it's actually worse attaching them to a Warband (which we'll cover later). If you really, really, really need Psychic Communion and can't afford a GM/BC, it can often help that an Inquisitor wont usually be in Terminator Armour for Transport purposes.

Because you're like that and I know you want to know;
Xenos => Malleus => Hereticus.
Why Grey Knights have access to Xenos and Hereticus Inquisitors I don't know, but that's how the game works. And Xenos Inquisitors are awesome so quit complaining.

Whew. That's HQs over. Elites will be an even bigger post so that'll be on it's own too. After Elites the Codex gets a lot easier as the difference between 'bad' and 'good' is a lot more clearly defined.

[Talkkno]

Really good analysis Cheesegear, I really appreciate you taking your time going over stuff like this.

[The Glyphstone]

Sometimes, writers are drunk when they make codices. Other times, writers are named Matt Ward when they make codices. It has roughly the same outcome.

[Cheesegear]

Sometimes, writers are drunk when they make codices. Other times, writers are named Matt Ward when they make codices. It has roughly the same outcome.

It's most notable when you look at the difference between Warscythes and Voidblades.

Voidblade gives you Rending and Entropic Strike.
For the same points, you can have a +2 Strength, Power Weapon that rolls 2d6 Armour Penetration.

Destroyer Lords even ask you to pay points to take a Voidblade over a Warscythe.

...What is this I don't even.

[Borgh]

Warschythes are two handed weapons and voidblades are one handed so technically he voidblade could be worth points since it frees up the offhand vor other wargear. However, since anything that can take a Voidblade has no use for the offhand that point is very moot.

EDIT: Nevermind, not even that point holds, Power weapons are free for Overlords.

[The_Final_Stand]

And Necrons don't have anything that can go in that off hand if you're paying for a Lord to have a Voidblade.

EDIT: Wait, you already said that. I must be sleepy.

[Wraith]

Aegis: Resistance to targeted powers. Unfortunately, with the exception of Doom, and Lash, I can't really think of any good Psychic Powers that specifically target units. Not even Blood Lance is a targeted Power.

The Codex and FAQ have not illuminated me any further, but one could make a plausible argument that this applies to all Psychic Powers that are Shooting Attacks?

Also, Force Weapons? (And if that is true, it at least continues the trend that makes Grey Knights especially well suited to fighting other Grey Knights )

Servo Skulls; Infiltration denial is nice. Scout denial is even better (Baal Preds). Deep Strike accuracy is helpful, but not important because Knights don't really have a lot of 'good' Deep Strikers. Same with Blast accuracy.

I agree with you, but I would also say "Take as many of them as you can". At a mere 5 points each, these guys are excellent battlefield control, especially if you're using them in concert with a lot of Strike Squads and their Warp Rift power (which we SHOULD be doing, of course).

On a bad day, you've spent 15 points making it a bit harder for your opponent to guess where you might be Deep Striking a squad of Terminators, or even if you'll do it at all, which keeps them on the back foot tactically. On a great day, you could shut down their entire battle plan - which has happened on a least one occasion for me, against a Veteran-heavy IG list, and one only has to imagine what it'd do to something like Daemons, Dark Angels, Chaos Marines, significant portions of the IG and Space Marine Codex...
In a tournament, the odds of facing at least 2 or 3 of these is a certainty.

Shrouding and Warp Rift and the two best ones. Just in case you didn't pick up on that. If you want to pay through the nose for Mastery Level 3, Might of Titan or Sanctuary are okay Powers.

On the contrary, even with an 'Epistolary' Librarian, Grey Knights makes it plausible to take 3 psychic powers from the get-go because this codex specifically points out that psychic-power use is decided by PLAYER turn, not by game turn.

You can use Shrouding and Warp Rift in your opponents' turn, and then take one of the Shooting powers or Hammerhand/Quicksilver and then your Force Weapon in your own turn. It can expensive, but I think also very efficient.

Can't argue with the rest of it, though. Sound advice, as always.

[Provengreil]

It's most notable when you look at the difference between Warscythes and Voidblades.

Voidblade gives you Rending and Entropic Strike.
For the same points, you can have a +2 Strength, Power Weapon that rolls 2d6 Armour Penetration.

Destroyer Lords even ask you to pay points to take a Voidblade over a Warscythe.

...What is this I don't even.

I looked at that one long and hard, trying to bugger out...just WHY. the only possible situation I came up with when the voidblade is preferable is when you're zooming by on a command barge, and manage to rend the armor save off some monstrous creatures, thus allowing you to take em out really easily with a bit of tesla. you can also use it to entropic strike armor to the point where your tesla will work on the tanks, but...well at that point just take a warscythe and rend it open on the spot. so yeah, removing MCs armor saves is when it's good.

Also, on the grey knights, the preferred enemy VS daemons is really useful. think about it: you find a daemon. your power weapons which you've paid extra points for don't matter, because invulnerable saves. if it has multiple wounds, INSTANT DEAoh wait. yeah, daemon. so basically, if the daemons get a newer, better codex at some point and see real play, that prevent them from becoming anti-knights because the knights pay up for capabilities that are worthless vs daemons.

[Tome]

You can use Shrouding and Warp Rift in your opponents' turn, and then take one of the Shooting powers or Hammerhand/Quicksilver and then your Force Weapon in your own turn. It can expensive, but I think also very efficient.

Not Warp Rift, Sanctuary is the other power you can use in your opponent's turn.

There is basically no reason to ever not take Shrouding and Sanctuary.