Editing Warhammer 40,000/8th Edition Tactics/Grey Knights (section)

==Tactics==

Alright lets be real. Playing Grey Knights is Warhammer 40k: Hard Mode. The only time numbers will be on your side is if you're facing knights or Custodes. Your selection of relics is possibly the worst in the whole game right now. You only get a strong game against Daemons (Well, not so much anymore now that they got their codex. That "Resurrect a Demon unit killed by a GK unit for no reinforcement points" stratagem is going to hurt, REAL BAD.) However given the GK capacity for an Alpha Strike adding a Callidus will help hugely because it might at least discourage your opponent from using it at the start and if you take out the bigger units first they can't then bring them back later. Just a thought). And the changes to AP mean a 3+ is only good against the worst of small arms. 
You will never fill a brigade. <b>EVER.</b> In normal games(well, that not true, you can take bare bone strike squads, purgators and inceptors and still have a little wiggle room for your elites. And with smite spam getting a buff, it's all in all not a bad idea) you will probably stick with a vanguard detachment ...so kiss any stratagems that cost more than 1CP good-bye except for times when it will turn a game around.

Not anymore. With Chapter Approved 2019 and Ritual of the Damned GK army became competitive. First, units cost have been significantly reduced. Secondly, new rules, strategems, powers and litanies offer us both tactical flexibility and increased pure power.

Relax now thy purest of brothers, taking two battalions in a battle forged army will yield 13 command points. That's less than others but enough for multiple rounds of Psybolt Ammo and some pocket teleportarium squads along with your usually rerolls. Take 6 strike squads each with falchions and a psilencer for 90 points apiece, then 2 DK grandmasters will teleporters, sword and heavy incinerator along with Drago and Voldus. That's 1271 points, and leaves you plenty of room for venerable dreads with lascannons, maybe some purifiers and a LR crusader, paladins/ apothecary, or more strikes/intercepters.

Grey Knights are an elite melee army in an edition that still tends to favor shooting and hordes. Use your Paladins and purifiers with ancients/apothecaries. Give purifiers razorbacks. let strike squads and LR crusaders clear the hordes. Dreadknights and GM Dreadknights pack quite the punch. Venerable and regular dreads can comfortably handle your long range anti armor duties. Use all of your psychic powers every turn for maximum advantage in all situations (astral aim, gate of infinity, sanctuary) and unleash your offensive powers in conjunction with timely attacks (vortex of doom, purge soul, hammerhand). Often times, its best to hang back and wait... clear out the hordes and supporting characters, then swoop in and slay your opponent while they lay lame and crippled. 

You will quickly find that your units are not bad, oh no, quite the opposite. The issue is that your army requires a well formulated plan, and can not afford even the slightest failure in offensive output, much like the Deathwatch. In 40k where the dice gods rule all (and the crushing weight of superiority through overwhelming numbers), well formulated plans can quickly fall apart. Fuck you Tzeentch. 

===Listbuilding===
Some of your units have a huge problem: They are potentially powerful, but only with the help of certain psychic powers and/or stratagems, but Because of the Rule of One and this army's general lack of CP, these units, though strong, can't effectively be fielded in large numbers (no more than 2). Examples include Dreadnoughts and Purgation squads, which desperately need either Gate of Infinity, Astral Aim, or Psybolts to get anything done. Taking IG as an ally is a very efficient way to make good use of extra command points.

Unless you're using GK as an ally to another force, these are your most efficient units; spam them to kingdom come.
:*Grand Master Nemesis Dreadknight
:*Razorbacks and/or strike squads 
:*Draigo
:*Voldus
:*Apothecary
:*Interceptors
:*Paladins
:*Purgation Squad (in pure GK)

If you're insistent on running pure GK (and with the new Masters of the Warp rules you should be), you can fit about 2 battalions of Strike Squads, and 1-2 vanguard/supreme commands of supporting units like Dreadknights, Paladins, etc. 

For your HQ's, include at least 1 Brother-Captain, and at least one HQ that give rerolls. Be sure to make your warlord a non-unique character so you can take First to the Fray as your warlord trait. In addition, don't fall  for the trap of running too many Dreadknights. While it looks tempting, understand that you can only consistently protect 1-2 ,as Heed and Sanctuary can't be used more that once a turn. Consider using Draigo instead of a 2nd or 3rd Dreadknight, he's just as good in CC, and comes stock with 3++.

With the new rule released in ritual of the damned and the point drop from CA there are some slight tweaks to list building to consider. first characters to spam the new list of spells, before you wouldn't have minded having you strike squads to cast gate for you, but now he has a 2 damage smite that he can't use. On top of that with the a new relic that allows reroll to psychic and a +1,  take a librarian and never worry about awkward miscasts again.

Second, spam your strike squads. After their point drop they are now just 5 points over a regular space marine you and you get a storm bolter, a forces weapon, you can deep strike and you get a smite?!?! They have a fuck ton of value, the only issue is they are not very efficient, all that value you get from having force weapons is wasted if the never get into CC. So spam them, but be careful with regular marines you don't lose out on much using scouts to cap an objective, you do the same with GK, you get the same result, for twice the points. At they very least make sure they can get the sweet sweet 2 damage smite off at every opportunity.

Third don't be afraid of putting all your eggs in 1 or 2 baskets,GK just got a lot of tools to protect high value units with armored resilience, the tide of shadows, and various stratagems not to mention you still have sanctuary and all your old strats as well. Things like landraiders and 10 man blobs of terminators are no longer as stupid as the might seem for other factions.

The best thing about grey knights, all your units have a lot or value, so even if you bet it all on a 10 man paladin squad, and they failed, your strike squads can still put in work. Hell, even your apothecary has the stat line a low end smash captain. And if your opponent spends all their time trying to kill your paladins, they probably won't have much left for the rest of your army.

====Inquisitors====
An IMPERIUM force can include a single INQUISITOR in one of their detachments without breaking "pure army" rules, like our [[#Tides|Tides]], and they can also hitch a ride in your vehicles. They have access to a unique [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Imperium(8E)#Telesthesia_Discipline|psyker discipline]], that includes '''Terrify''', which ''turns off overwatch''. They're kinda squishy to be used as a warlord, especially when stuck in with a front-line melee unit, however, they have a nifty 1CP (!) [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Imperium(8E)#Stratagems_3|stratagem]] that allows them to take ''both'' a warlord trait ''and'' (as long as they are not characters) a [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Imperium(8E)#Relics|relic]]. The '''Blackshroud''' might be a good choice, as its -1 to wound makes this character pretty much immune to sniper mortal wounds.

Selecting the [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Imperium(8E)#Special_Rules_4|'''Ordo Hereticus''']] makes the '''No Escape''' [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Imperium(8E)#Warlord_Traits|Warlord Trait]] available, a 6" heroic intervention and ''enemy units can't fall back'' on a 4+. Alternatively, the [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Imperium(8E)#Special_Rules_4|'''Ordo Xenos''']]' [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Imperium(8E)#Warlord_Traits|Warlord Trait]] Esoteric Lore generates a CP on a 5+ whenever your ''opponent'' uses a stratagem.

Best of all, they're super-cheap, starting at a mere 55pts (20% cheaper than a Techmarine). Unfortunately, there are only two deepstrike options: Hector Rex and the expensive [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Imperium(8E)#Special_Rules_4|'''Ordo Malleus''']] terminator.

The top options:

*Basic Inquisitor - CP farming - '''Mental Interrogation''' psychic power, '''Esoteric Lore''' warlord trait and '''Seize For Interrogation''' stratagem; switch the bolt pistol for a '''Boltgun''' and take the '''Blackshroud''' Relic. If you want some support swap '''Mental Interrogation''' for '''Terrify'''. Cheap too: 55 points and 1CP.
*Hector Rex - Deny the witch - '''Psychic Mastery''' warlord trait: knows 3, casts 3 and denies 4 (with +1 within 12"). Powers should be: '''Mental Interrogation''' to generate CP, '''Terrify''' to bypass overwatch, and '''Dominate'''/'''Castigation'''. Tanky (2+/3++), can deep strike, and he is BRUTAL vs daemons. A bargain at 100 points and 1CP, and as cherry on top he is thematically appropriate for Grey Knights.

=== Smite Spam FTW! ===

As of CA2019, strike squads are pretty cheap. You can now fit 17 (!) into a triple battalion list, along with a Brother-Captain and Techmarine in each. With the upcoming [[#Tides|Tide of Escalation]], each squad is throwing out 2 mortal wounds for a total of potentially '''46 MW''' per turn! There's also the potential for this list to pump out 360 bolter shots per turn. '''18 CP''' isn't too bad either, providing lots or re-rolls when Perils start to take their toll, or to double the range of the Brother-Captain's bubble. Since you can Teleport Strike 11 of those squads, your opponents will have to be careful to deny their backfield to you, or face 20+ MWs.

=== Or just drown the enemy in big thicc dakka ===

With the help they get from PA and CA2019, their dakka is a force to be rekkon with. Either with 40 S6 AP-1 D2 shot, using Psybolt Ammunition and ToC, to 16 S8 AP-1 2D shot with just ToC on every squad of Paladin with psycannon, to 6 S5 AP0 D3+1D shot with the Psilencers (which is only 1 pts more on a Strike Squad member compare to normal Halberd + Bolter loadout) on ToC, they can provide you with very excellent dakka that can shred almost anything you set your sight on.

But the fun ain't stop here, Bring down the Beast give you reroll wound against a target that is vehicle (Knights, Tanks etc) or Monster (surprisingly include Riptide given their look, Primarch(s), etc) after you shoot at it with one of your unit. Suddenly people get a reminder why ability to reroll all wound rolls is a bad idea.

But those flyers are -3 to hit, how do my BS3+ dude hit them? Well, you slam the Chaplain Intonement on them, which allow them to ignore all BS and hit roll modifier, and show the chump who is his (or her) daddy.

But those arti hidden in ruins? Thank goodness Astral Aim allow you to do the same thing they do. Ignore Line of Sight as well as cover and blast the enemy into smithereen with your buffed up ammunition.

And as if you are not annoying enough, Edict Imperator let you cosplay as those pointy ear with the shoot then move thing. What is harder to kill than 10 buffed up Paladins? 10 buffed up Paladins that is out of line of sight that is.

===As Allies===

Slam-Baby
With CA2019 around the door there might be some fun to have, that is not ridiculously overpriced. 
*1 Ally vanilla Space Marines as a battalion with a librarian, he gets: Veil of Time and Might of Heroes. Both powers target <Adeptus Astartes>; guess what you are?
*2 Take a Nemesis babycarrier, if you want less points, in a patrol detachment with a Strike squat
*3 Use: Veil of Time + Might of Heroes on you Babycarrier, then hammerhand and sanctuary and toss it over the board. Give it the nemesis Lord War Lord trait, since you can re-roll charges now. With a hammer you will always do at least 4 damage per unsaved wound up to 7 - With 6 attacks you can put a dent in something. 

It is still quite expensive, and you want to send a strike squad with falchions behind him for backup (falchions do provide more from +1 to wound I guess). Also maybe take Interceptors, who can deepstrike too. In that case i would still take first to the fray on your Babycarrier, veil of time could still target a unit that is not within 6" of your warlord.

Unfortunately, as of the new Codex, Vanilla buffing powers now specify CHAPTER instead of ADEPTUS ASTARTES, so you can no longer spread buffs across to other Chapters.

HOWEVER, the [[Deathwatch]] still get ADEPTUS ASTARTES powers instead of <CHAPTER> (at least until GW FAQs it), meaning if you bring Deathwatch instead of Vanillamarines, this still works. May not be the cheapest alternative, but this does mean this strat still works.