Knights Of Spite: A Grey Knights Tournament Report, By a Daemons Player

People always ask me, “Mike, why don’t you run Grey Knights more often if you’re so good with them?”

I always tell them the exact same thing.

How dare you speak to me, you corpse worshipping scum?

In all seriousness, while I’ll write this article basically “in character” as a Chaos fan, I really do like Grey Knights and want to help Grey Knights players. While all the trash talk about Grey Knights and the superiority of Daemons is real, I promise that all the advice and tactics I give about Grey Knights are also real. This article will be something that both Grey Knights and Chaos players can enjoy.

Grey Knights are a really cool army on the tabletop. They’re the only Imperium army I find interesting, combining elite statlines with all of the shenanigans that I’ve come to love as a Daemons player. If I hadn’t gotten into 40K with Chaos, there is another timeline where I end up maining Grey Knights. Fortunately, I saw the light of the Dark Gods first, and Grey Knights ended up as an army I remember I own about once a year and get a random urge to play. That random urge to play Grey Knights hit me last weekend.

But, like every follower of Tzeentch… I may have had some nefarious reasons and tricky plans behind bringing Grey Knights. You’ll see what I mean soon.

My Results

I always like to spoil the results at the start of the writeup so fans know what to expect. I ended up 4-1 (WWWLW), beating Chaos Knights, Thousand Sons, Ynnari, and Votann, and losing to Ultramarines.

Most importantly, I had 5 great and easygoing games. The event was also really cool. It was the largest event in Montana history, coming in at 72 players! The free drinks all weekend kept the good vibes up. I have to give TO James Walsh a ton of credit for making the event happen and keeping it growing. I don’t want anyone assuming this was an “easy” event because they haven’t heard of many events in Montana. Plenty of both veteran competitors and up-and-comers attended. This event had 5 players who are top 250 in ELO and plenty of other players I think are really talented and underrated. We came to both play at a high level and have a great time. That’s what tournament 40K is all about!

I also want to give congrats to John Holbook on winning the event. We played at last year’s event, and know he is a really strong player and a great guy. Its a well-deserved event win by him!

Did the Plan Work?

Let’s get back to the Daemon perspective for a second.

Never doubt my dedication to the Dark Gods. We ended up in the funniest possible timeline. Let me explain.

I got some grief from people in the Warphammer discord (https://discord.gg/x69Fc9eQ) for running Grey Knights. Those people are small-minded mortals. Their minds are incapable of seeing just how beautiful the plans of our Dark Gods are.

Grey Knights had a 46% winrate this weekend. That’s in the “goldilocks zone”, according to GW.

I had 4 wins and 1 loss with Grey Knights this week. If you remove my 4 wins and 5 games from the Grey Knights statistics, what happens? Grey Knights would otherwise have had a 44% winrate without me.

Do you guys understand how funny this is? If the Grey Knights winrate was much higher or lower this week my results wouldn’t have mattered, but we ended up in the exact timeline where my specific result was what kept Grey Knights out of buff range! This doesn’t actually matter because GW doesn’t design their dataslates around the results of a single week, but still! A Daemons player was responsible for keeping Grey Knights in the goldilocks zone and out of the buff zone this week.

Other Daemon players play Daemons well, which raises their winrate and gets them nerfed. I play Grey Knights well, which raises their winrate and prevents them getting buffed. Both are equal acts of service to the Dark Gods, and in particular Tzeentch.

Just.

As.

Planned.

My Grey Knights List

• Warpbane Task Force
  • Grandmaster in Nemesis Dreadknight
  • Grandmaster in Nemesis Dreadknight
  • Strike Squad
  • Strike Squad
  • Strike Squad
  • Purifier Squad (2x Incinerators)
  • Rhino
  • Nemesis Dreadknight
  • Nemesis Dreadknight
  • Nemesis Dreadknight
  • Armiger Helverin (Stubber)
  • Armiger Helverin (Stubber)
  • Armiger Helverin (Stubber)

I came into this event with only a single Grey Knight rep in the last year, but I knew this list would do well from my experience with very similar mechanics in Daemons.

Seriously, let’s look at the similarities:

• Uppy Downy every turn
• Chaining 6″ Infantry Deepstrikes from Purifiers like Daemons chain 6″ Deepstrikes from Be’lakor
• War Dog/Armiger allies fulfill very similar roles

I mainly added the Helverins because, ironically, I was concerned about Daemons. They’re one of the strongest and most popular armies in the game, and both the high volume of 3 damage and the conditional Anti-Fly 2+ help deal with problem units like Bloodthirsters that can otherwise destroy Grey Knights.

The Helverins ended up being abysmal from a damage perspective. I didn’t run into anyone that had the Fly keyword in meaningful ways to help the Helverins punch up. I faced Magnus which seems good on paper. In practice, Magnus still has a 2+ Save in cover versus Helverin shooting. You’re still not going to get any meaningful damage through to Magnus with Helverins.

But while damage can be inconsistent, you know what is not inconsistent? OC8 that moves fast and takes real commitment to kill off a point. The trick to Helverins is don’t view them as additional Dreadknights. View them as additional Strike Squads.

Speaking of Dreadknights, they’re just unreal in Warpbane. I would start every list with 3-4 and then add extra elements to taste. The Hammer and Psycannon are mandatory, and then the choice between the Incinerator and Psilencer is very close. I went with Incinerators, but you can’t go too wrong either way.

Strike Squads are an absolutely amazing Battleline unit. They easily win fights with trash due to their good volume in shooting and melee and 2+ Save. They also Scout and Sticky, and both of those abilities are pure gold. I really, really liked starting 1 Strike squad in a Rhino because that lets the Rhino Scout 6″ too. A Rhino that Scouts 6″ is an amazing missile to go tag things and moveblock turn 1 because it is moving a minimum of 18″. Just make sure to disembark the Strikes inside before you send the Rhino on a turn 1 highway to hell, because you don’t want to give away the Strikes for free too.

I’m going to be honest: While driving back from this GT, I was discussing possible future GK lists with a friend. He was looking over the Purifier datasheet. At that point, he reminded me that they have their additional Purifying Flame shooting attack and the rule for +1 to Hit/Wound as they take damage. I totally forgot either of those things existed, and just used my unit to hand out Hallowed Ground. I already liked my Purifiers with the ability to take 2 Incinerators, and now they’re even better in my mind!

Other units I love in Warpbane are Interceptors, Stern, Brotherhood Champions, and a Draigo + 5 Terminators bomb.

Round 1: Eden’s Chaos Knights (W, 93-53)

It broke my heart to start off the event facing a really cool Chaos list! Eden brought the heat, featuring a Tyrant with Panopoly (permanent Armour Of Contempt), a Despoiler, Karnivores, Huntsmen, and some Daemons to round out the list for scoring and screening.

I think the big issue this game was that Eden a bit too aggressive with the units he shouldn’t have been (Desecrator and Karnivores), and not aggressive enough with the unit he should have (the Tyrant with -1AP). The Tyrant is functionally immune to my damage. I just ran the numbers and all 5 Dreadknights together shooting the Tyrant does a total of 9 damage. If you add a Grandmaster’s melee into the mix, it goes up to a total of 19 damage, but that part is very avoidable with screening. The Tyrant should have just deployed on the line and ran into the midfield. 2 Karnivores went onto the midfield objectives turn 1 which lead to them getting shot off the board, because Dreadknight shooting is extremely good into things like War Dogs.

There were some very funny interactions between my shooting and Flesh Hounds and their 3+++ Feel-No-Pain versus Psychic Attacks. They were practically invincible to my Dreadknights, and I ended up having to use Strike Squad bolters to finish them off after a unit teleported into my backfield.

Eden was a very chill opponent who had an admirable ability to laugh off some awful dice rolls, so I have to give him credit for that. On to the next round!

Highlight: Helverin re-rolling a failed invuln into a success to completely bounce the Tyrant’s Harpoon

Lowlight: A Dreadknight in Hallowed Ground shooting a unit of Flesh Hounds and killing only one model

Round 2: Riley’s Thousand Sons (W, 82-61)

Riley was an awesome opponent. He has my respect for coming to battle with Thousand Sons, which are probably the toughest army in the game to play at a high level for multiple rounds. As a Chaos player, I’ll freely admit that I stopped playing Thousand Sons a few months ago and won’t touch them until the codex. Every other Chaos army is really fun and strong, and most importantly, can be played without getting a major headache.

The story of this game was the fragility of Thousand Sons. In this matchup (and most matchups), the name of the game for Thousand Sons is resource conservation. You need to play very cagily because if anything gets exposed, it dies. At the very least, if you have to expose something, at least only make it one unit so you can use the Feel No Pain strat against them. Riley played a smart game overall but got a little bit too aggressive, and the counterpunch by the Grey Knights was really brutal.

Riley also was a bit unlucky in that I play Thousand Sons myself, and it’s an army that is way easier to play against if you have experience with it yourself. I could see the plays available to them and all of the tradeoffs they would have to make to accomplish them. My gameplan was to kill everything besides Magnus and just let Magnus do whatever he is going to do. To his credit, Riley turned my gameplan into points for him, taking a Secret Mission and scoring 20 points on the bottom of turn 5 by moving Magnus onto my home objective.

The Grey Knights were ultimately the winners of this psychic battle.

Highlight: My Rhino Tank Shocking a Mutalith Vortex Beast to death

Lowlight: 5 Strikes failing to kill an Exalted Sorcerer in melee

Round 3: Troy’s Ynnari (W, 80-78)

Troy and I had a really fun time, and this was the best game of the tournament.

I like listening to 40K Fireside. Vik Vijay had recently done an episode where he had said that as a Ynnari player, Grey Knights were a free win for Ynnari. I wish I hadn’t heard him say that, because I definitely came into the game a bit nervous! This was especially because I know Troy is one of the strongest players in the area and was going to play a tough game (while being super chill off the table). Fortunately, I was able to use this knowledge to help me focus. There was a point where we got to about 30 minutes left and we both knew it was going to be an extremely close game. I straight up told Troy hey, I’m loving the good vibes, but I’m going to come across as serious for the next 30 minutes. It’s nothing to do with you, I just need to constantly be thinking about the game.

This was one of the most technical and detailed games I have ever played. If I had a nickel for every Ynnari game I won by 2 points that came down to Ynnari secondaries on the bottom of turn 5 that I’ve played in the last 2 tournaments, I would have 2 nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice!

Do you know how Warpbane can reroll any Hit rolls in Hallowed Ground? My gameplan was to roll attacks one at a time and fish for fails if I came close to killing a unit, because I wanted to to weaken units but not kill them with shooting. This game looked nothing like a normal game of 40K. I wish this was on stream so GW could see just how silly games with Ynnari can be. Through the first 3 turns, I killed literally 1 unit. Instead, I just kept contesting objectives with OC and tagging units to tie them up, because if I ever killed a unit then a cascading effect of really bad things would start happening.

On my push turn on turn 4, I decided to unleash the damage floodgates, and… the damage came out as more of a trickle. We couldn’t make any rolls and Troy was blistering hot with his saves. I should have known it was a bad sign when he rolled Tzeentch dice against me! Fortunately, luck swung around, with Troy drawing 3 of the only secondaries that wouldn’t give him enough points to win on the bottom of turn 5.

Ynnari are a huge headache to play against. That doesn’t mean they’re unbeatable, of course. I’ve beaten them both times I’ve played them at GTs, both times with really good pilots. But–and I say this with all respect to Troy as a lovely opponent–I hope GW just breaks some of their mechanics in the next slate because it all adds up to just being too much. I’m not sure exactly what I want the nerf to be, but I just want them to do less of just, all of that. You know what I mean.

Round 4: Colin’s Ultramarines (L, 57-75)

Colin and I drove to the event together. Of course, that means we got paired round 1. The TO was nice enough to swap pairings (evidently there were several groups of players who came together and immediately got paired). The flip side of that was that the 40K gods had shown us we were meant to get paired at this event. If it wasn’t going to happen the first game of day 1, it was meant to happen the first game of day 2.

Ultramarines have my vote for the best army in the entire game. Their CP economy with Guilliman and Calgar and Captains is genuinely absurd. Let me let you in on a secret: Most games, I keep track of both player’s CP closely. Against Ultramarines, I don’t even bother keeping track, and just assume they have CP to do whatever they want. I’ve never once asked an Ultramarines player if they have enough CP to combat interrupt and had them say no, so I don’t even ask anymore. If you’re an Ultramarines player and you play me, you could totally cheat with CP and I wouldn’t even notice. Use that info as you will.

Colin played a smart game. He used Ventris to deepstrike the Calgar + Biologis + 6 Eradicators brick and that unit was an absolute terror which steamrolled through my army. I had a key turn where I needed to do damage to some combination of Guilliman and the Calgar+Biologis+Eradicator brick and we just completely whiffed and couldn’t recover enough momentum. Colin always rolls hot against me, but that’s life in 40K sometimes. I’m sure I’ve done the same to other opponents. Dice games are dice games. He still played a great game, and I’m happy a friend got the win.

Round 5: Mitch’s Votann (W, 86-53)

Mitch’s Votann looked lovely with a nice orange and cream scheme, and this was a very relaxed game to end the tournament with on both sides. Votann’s short range and lack of mobility were a big issue in this game. Mitch made some nice plays pushing back my pressure in the middle turns, but he just wasn’t able to gain enough momentum or push up the board. With both of us rocking 24″ guns on our best shooting, my ability to teleport exactly where I needed or advance and shoot my Dreadknights let me consistently hit him before he hit me.

We also really saw the casino nature of Votann shooting this game. Mitch kept pulling the lever of the Sagitar and Land Fort slot machines and not getting what he needed, including not killing a single unit on turn 3. I don’t understand why this army which is supposed to be extremely technologically advanced dwarves has guns that are as random as Skaven. Wouldn’t it feel better for both players if Sagitars hit on a 3+ base but only had Sustained 1? That profile has the exact same average damage as a 4+ to Hit with Sustained D3, but makes it less likely they either completely whiff or one-shots something they have no business one-shotting.

I don’t remember much more of the details as it was the final game of the event and I was really tired, but thank you Mitch for a good game.

Highlights: My Rhino’s Hunter Killer doing 6 wounds to a Sagitar, the first and only damage it did all weekend!

Lowlights: Losing an 8-wound Dreadknight to a Land Fort’s overwatch.

Final Thoughts

Having spite buffed the Grey Knight’s stats, I’m ready to resume our usual Chaos content here at Warphammer. Want to talk shop with the friendliest and most knowledgeable 40K community out there? Come join the Warphammer discord today! https://discord.gg/x69Fc9eQ

To any Grey Knights players, hope you had fun into our little annual dive into Grey Knights here at Warphammer today. I’ll see you again next year!

To everyone as always, have fun, stay safe, and may the Dark Gods bless your rolls!