Editing Warhammer 40,000/7th Edition Tactics/Grey Knights (section)

==Allies==

===Battle Brothers===
Now with 7th edition, a new allies matrix has been made. This time around, Grey Knights are part of the <b>Armies of the Imperium</b>. This essentially means they're now Battle Brothers with all other armies that share this faction. This includes the following:

*'''Adepta Sororitas:''' You don't really need their (honestly mediocre) short-ranged fire-fighting; 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 [[Khornate Knights|turn them into armour paint]], FFS!

*'''Astra Militarum:''' These guys are the exact opposite of you: Lots of cheap, disposable units with 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 protecting your squishy humans. If the Guard takes artillery, you'll have something to stand between them and the enemy while tanking whatever is thrown at you.
**'''Militarum Tempestus:''' They bring more specialized troops than the Imperial Guard, and they can take two unique formations to complement the Nemesis Strike Force. No big guns or tanks, but they do have a wealth of special weapons that can help buffer your weaker shooting phase.
*'''Imperial Knights:''' Taking a single Imperial Knight to supplement Grey Knights gives you yet another hard point in your army with both devastating long range 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 that can bring them. Plus, there is just the simple child-like pleasure of telling your opponent, "Hold on, let me take out my '''Knights'''", leave him thinking it's just the Greys, and then [[Not as planned|bust out one of these while you're unloading your third Terminator squad.]] 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 furthermore 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 <s>ap 2</s> , AP 1 melta cannon adds a ton to a GK force)
**'''Knight Gallant''' - Has two Destroyer weapons intended for close combat. This thing can't put out lots of shots (Krak Missiles on the Carapace weapon could be okay, but the Heavy Stubber is forgettable), although it busts armor quite fantastically, and can use its Gauntlet to hurl the scrapped remains of destroyed vehicles at the enemy.
**'''Knight Crusader''' - Provides a lot of close-range Dakka, which you're not exactly lacking for, but it's AP3 with 12 shots in addition to the Rapid Fire Battlecannon or Melta Cannon.
**'''Knight Warden''' - The customizable death machine. Can get a Meltagun instead of a Stubber, which you never can go wrong with.
**'''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 regardless, ''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, Chimera, 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. That said, it's even better to avoid taking them as allies altogether. Inquisitors have this trick of counting as 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; that, or a four Psilencer Purgation squad buffed by a psyker Inquisitor, while Knights deal with the enemy infantry.
Also consider jokearo weaponsmiths, land raider prometheus with pysbolt ammo, and land raider terminus ultras if you wanna be a huge dick
*'''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 while you pop a squad of Devastators in a ruin or fortification, and then 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't 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 even 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 perhaps bring along one of their new flyers for some extra long-range firepower and air support. Drop pod wolves also add a '''ton''' to a alpha strike teleporting/shunting GK list
*'''Adeptus Mechanicus:''' Skitarii or Cult Mechanicus. Either one can be awesome. More on each below.
**'''Skitarii:'''Rangers have a 30" S4 AP4 Precision Shot rifle at base and can take up to 3 60" SX AP3 Armourbane Heavy 1 Snipers with Relentless as commonly as you have Force, and with the benefits of Skitarii Maniple, these guys are your objective holders. Vanguards provide you with a way to get up in the face of your enemy and alpha strike before they have a chance to do anything. The other unit of note is the Onager Dunecrawler, which can take a Weapon that gets bonuses to S the closer the target is and Blast templates further out up to 36" inches, A Skyfire array, A S10 AP1 48" Concussive Blast with a Heavy Stubber tacked on (because why not?), or a 36" Range Twin-linked Heavy 3 S6 AP3 weapon that causes each wound/Penetrating or Glancing Hit to reduce it's cover save by -1 for that phase, '''and''' lets you reroll charge against that target until the end of your turn. Overall, they provide some pretty good options. Taken in a maniple, you need to take two troops at a minimum, which can cost you at the upper most around 410 points. While this means fewer Knights, it may prove worthwhile if you're looking to get some more range.
**'''Cult Mechanicus:''' Taken in an Allied Detachment, this can be amazing. The Tech-priest synergies really well with your squads, as he fires off all his weapons before getting to charge in with his Power Axe. I've had games where this guy has wiped entire squads single-handedly. As for troops, you've got two kinds of Kataphron Servitors to choose from; Breachers(Haywire on everything)or Destroyers. Both have the Heavy Servitors Rule, which means they cannot run, but they can fire Heavy, Rapid Fire, or Salvo weapons as if they didn't move and still charge. Breachers are fairly straight forward; you have a 30" S6 AP5 Heavy 2 with Haywire (They also have a Haywire S6 Melee weapon which you should ignore, as you typically want to avoid melee on these guys) or a 24" S8 AP1 Heavy1 with Gravitic Contortion, which causes vehicles to lose D3 hull points on a penning hit as opposed to 1, though on non-vehicles, it applies D3 wounds instead. Destroyers have either a 24" S7 AP2 Heavy2, Blast, Gets Hot! Plasma Cannon, or a 30" S* AP2 Salvo 2/6, Concussive, Graviton Weapon; as Grav weapons need to roll the enemy's armour save to wound them, this kind of stuff is a good answer to Terminators, given our relative lack of AP2 outside of hammers in melee. Other than that, the only other unit of interest is the Kastelan Robot Maniple, which is a 135pt per model investment for a 36" Ranged Infantry. It's got it's uses, but you're already playing a low model count army, and this just isn't worth the investment. Alternatively, take a full unit of electro priests, corpuscarii or fuglarites. Hell, take a max unit of fuglarites with 1-2 ML3 libbys and roll all of them on sanctic daemonology, and watch the teleporting 2++ s10 units tear apart anything without a 2+ that's not a FNP. This is at incredibly high in points cost though, with 360 points for the electro priests, and 270 points for the libbys, meaning 530 points in total. However, it will generate 60 s10 ap5 attacks on the charge PLUS the libbys stuff.
*'''Death Watch:''' The newest branch of the inquisition, these guys are basically just veterans that have some crazy weapon options. Because you're Grey Knights, you have no use for the close combat aspect of these guys, since you're already a close combat army. What you ''can'' use is some anti-troop goodness in the form of Special Issue Ammunition and fire. More anti-tank is also available, as you have access to lots of meltas dropping in if you are into that (Along with drop pods and a cheaper, rip off stormraven). The infernus heavy bolter is some great anti-troop fire power usually worth taking, while the frag cannon is awesome for a few extra anti tank shots if needs must, along with pretty strong anti-troop as well. Special issue ammunition is great because is makes bolters extremely versatile weapons. Don't bother with giving your veterans close combat weapons, as you already have your own guys for that. Kit out ether a Furor kill team or an Aquila kill team and drop them in. Put a teleport homer on the drop pods so your GK squads can be more accurate on their way in. While you're at it, take a Corvus Black Star; it's a great transport flyer for 180 points (190 if you want to rerole jinks), and it's definitely worth taking if you want more than one kill team dropping in from space.

===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! Eldar can no longer use Malefic Daemonology (since, y'know, feeding their souls to Slaanesh on purpose is not a winning survival strategy), so the Avatar is the best way to get an allied Daemon here.

===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:''' Your main weaknesses are a lack of speed, a lack of AP2 weaponry, and a lack of ranged anti-tank weaponry. Dark Eldar have all of this in ''spades''. Being Desperate Allies won't really affect you here unless you're bringing DE assault units (don't do that), since all you really need are a few ball-bustingly fast transports loaded with anti-armor dudes. That, or a few squads of Scourges for any possible situation you could come up against. Not the best allies choice in the book, but you could definitely make it work.

===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. Alternatively, go pure Khorne allies and give your GK character the Bone Shard. AP 1-2 is now meaningless, you're welcome.

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

*'''Khorne Daemonkin:''' Take all the Khorne Daemons and Khorne Chaos Space Marine units and wrap them up here. They are fast with Fleshhounds and Bloodcrushers and Juggerlords, but why take these guys when you can take Space Wolves or Dark Angels Ravenwing and have the benefit of Battle Brothers?

*'''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(at least in come the apocalypse).

*'''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 [http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Anphelion_Project#.U_eKfaNW5KY Anphelion Project] paid off. Pretty much whatever applies to Orks applies to taking bugs as allies.  Everything except that Tyranids are powerful psykers. So are Grey Knights.  So it works out alright.