GrinNfool

Hmm, I can't post from the perspective of a DG player, but I have 2 friends that are, and one of them for a little while was feeling like you. So I can share a little about what changed with him, and hope that helps. For a while he too was mulling about that was lost not happy about what was changed etc, but eventually he stopped looking back at what once was, and focused on what he had, and finding fun things he could do with that. Things that even if not optimal were fun for him to do, there are some pretty fun things you can do that weren't possible in the past, and he went for those. He also had another army that plays very different from DG, and he played that for a bit while he was... for lack of a better word, sulking, about the things DG lost. I think playing a more horde based army made him appreciate a lot of the things DG did have, and could do as well. But overall that was his answer, focus on the positives that you can do, no sense worrying about what you can't do anymore. Generic advice I know, but thats just how he handled it. From my perspective, taking a break or focusing on the lore can help get me back into the game if I start to feel a little disconnected sometimes.

For wounding on a hit transhuman doesn't matter you just wound, makes no difference because you never roll. This means they go straight to the save, think of it like auto hit... you wouldn't question if you need to roll a dice to see if any of your flamer shots would have missed. Auto wound is just go straight to the save. If you are worried about conflicting rules then... I believe this would be covered under chapter approved 2021 "Attacker's Priority" bottom middle of page 88. "When resolving attacks you'll occasionally find that two rules cannot both apply - for example, when an attacking model with an ability that enables it to always score a hit on a 2+ targets a model that has an ability that states it can only be hit on a 6+. When this happens, the attacking model's rule takes precedence." Bullet point "If an attacking model and target unit have conflicting rules the attacking model's rules take precedence." Pretty cut and dry there if rules conflict the attacking model's rule overwrites. So if you say have a rule that says you always wound on a hit roll of 2 and your opponent had some rule that says can't be wounded... you would still wound them on the basis of attackers priority alone.

3 points cheaper + 1a and built in deepstrike, and you think they wouldn't get any play? They would see play doing that if for no other reason as being a cheap way to achieve octarius, engage, or just as cheaper bodies to show up on objectives as needed. To each their own but that seems a bit dismissive. At the end of the day it doesn't really matter, what anyone says here, GW isn't listening to anyone on here, and they might not even see reivers as an actual issue.

Honestly I am not sure you need to do anything crazy like new rules or abilities to add, I think they would be serviceable, if you did two things. 1) Make the Grapnel/grav chute free and just let players choose which 1 to bring 2) Let them use knife + carbine, instead of having to choose between being a worse assault intercessors or a worse intercessor, let them be right in the middle, 2 shots and not a chainsword, they would be designed to handle low armor threats and hordes which their psycological warfare stuff they have is pushing them towards anyways. Leaving them at 18ppm and just giving them one of the deepstriking options at the players discretion on top of having a carbine + knife loadout would make them useable, maybe not good, but at least they would see the table. If nothing else as "cheap" bodies with a jack of all trades role. If you wanted to take them from at least seeing the table sometimes to actually being good, you could just give the knife and ap and the carbine being exploding 6s to hit or 3 shot, though thats trampling on the assault bolter a bit.

The way vigil works is very vague... RAW its selected on a per unit basis, but the selection used can't be repeated by any squad, as they are two seperate bullet points. The wording says nothing about applying a tactic to the whole army... each unit is granted the ability to "at the start of the battle round you can choose a different chapter or successor tactic at the start of each battle round, THIS UNIT uses that has that tactic til the beginning of the next battle round." with the 2nd bullet point stating no choice can be repeated during the game. RAI... you could assume its supposed to apply to the army, or you could assume its supposed to be essentially free uses of brotherhood for the benefit. I will say though if it is for the entire army the ability is... a lot less good unless you design the army completely combat or something. Will be curious how the FAQ handles the actual intent.

Sweet best of luck to you, and could see -1 damage being annoying to deal with as you don't have a plethora of high multi damage weapons.

My quotes at the end were based on the fact that I did not face an admech or druhkari list. And yes they feel smooth and reliable. I didn’t feel the need to have psychic buffs off to compete. Now please don’t take this the wrong way but if you are not familiar with grey knights let me enlighten you. Beginning of 8th they were absolutely trash and unplayable, but I stuck with them because i like the more and the army. Mid to end of 8th they got the PA buff which helped but they were no where near what the other armies were. Beginning of 9th back in the toilet with one of the oldest codex in the game they received some love. I don’t call for nerds of any book I play what I play and adapt to the field of view. If you don’t know anything about them how do you know what they were or currently are. I have played this army since they were made there debut and still have the original daemon hunter codex. Did you take this into account that maybe I really know how to play them because I focus on them. My points were to show that characters are not need to do well, in 8th YOU HAD to have them. Now not so much. Our infantry is good along with certain other units. Now I don’t know what you play but if you have not received a codex yet would you be saying what you have said above? I doubt it. But thanks for the comment. Haha like I said I am not familiar with them enough to have an opinion we have 1 guy in our group who has just started them. As I said your conclusion just made me chuckle a bit was all because it would not have been my conclusion had it been me with one of my codexes getting a performance like that. (main reason I checked the thread because was curious what people were thinking of them). As for my armies needing a nerf, I for my part have Scions, DE, Admech, Deathwatch, and Harlequins.... my DE and admech have been shelved because they are stupid right now, so I do put my money where my mouth is so to speak. As you say you didn't play vs Admech or DE, but I'm not sure they are a good indication of balance right now as they are whackadoodle. I will for now make the assumption that the quality of players and armies you were up against were exaggerated, and be curious to see how the codex does, as it looks like I will be playing against them more often now.

Not a statement on the power of GK codex from me here not familiar enough with it to have an opinion, so don't read into this, I just found your ending conclusion a bit amusing. You near maxed points in every game at an RTT you say was full of good lists and players, and in 2 of the 3 games they weren't even close, and your end write up was, good not OP or broken. This just made me laugh. If that was my results at an RTT that had good lists and players, I think my reaction to my codex would have been, we are REALLY good, maybe need a light nerf but more games are needed to see where we fall exactly. Anyways carry on just found it a funny end write up for how you pumped your opponents up.

Seems cost prohibitive imho especially running 10 as you suggested that 300 points tied up in them, I feel DW can do better with 300 points, than lots of short range s3. Honestly I think the combi-flamer set up thats been mentioned a few times is a better option for this, as you get your SIA shots and its s4, averages slightly better vs meq, a bit worse vs geq but would still likely wipe or massively cripple a squad, and 50 points cheaper, and even then I am not really sold on a 10 man combi squad although I think they are better cost to damage ratio. I could MAYBE see a 5 man squad of either, as thats at least only 150 points for the hand flamers or 125 for the combiflamers, but even then I think i would lean the combis. Being able to get 2 extra SIA shots and s4 @5ppm cheaper makes up for losing half the number of shots on the flamer part. Just don't see you ever getting your points investment back on a 10 man squad of either, the 5 man squad at least I can see them killing enough to possibly get the 125 points for the combi's often enough, the 150.... thats a slightly tougher sell, you need almost optimal targets for it.

I don't think frags are popular now either, honestly they were much better in 8th, losing auto hit and going from 2d6 to 2d3 is a pretty heavy nerf, ya their cost went down but even their slug is worse as it used to be s9 at closer ranges making it a usable AV weapon, as opposed to basically an AC. Even overcosted in 8th I would still run a frag sometimes just because they would do some crazy things for you sometimes. Infernus would be the current hotness if you were wanting a heavy weapon, as heavy bolters are good, and for 5 points more why not get a hvy flamer strapped to it? Infernus used to be kinda bad, so those aren't things people have many of, but then I wouldn't run many either, 2-4 is about the most I would expect any DW army to ever run. I wouldn't touch the frag cannon at the moment, and I have 4 modeled. Currently the best options on old school marines are boltgun/SS Combiflamer/SS an infernus, or boltgun chainsword to keep them cheap and they sort of become better barebones intercessors, assuming you aren't loading the squad for some combat, in which case buying a black shield and/or sgt some combat gear would be good.

Eh while I don't think DW are strong, I also don't think they are weak just by virtue of being marines. I have had pretty positive success with them personally, though admittedly I haven't been playing any high level tournament armies with them. I have beat what I would expect to beat, nids, tau, chaos, but I have also convincingly taken out some armies that aren't considered bad, ravenwing, DA, DG, Salamanders, and demons. I have had success with kill teams, but I build them very much to survive and punch, while being able to take make some ok shooting. They are not an easy army to use, and most people prefer marines that are point click, DW aren't that. If you are going to build DW like normal marine armies to play them then you really are just playing inferior marines, because there is very little deathwatch can do better than another chapter using normal stuff. While killteams might not be amazing, you can at least build to a distinct playstyle, as opposed to just playing worse SM codex. While I agree it would be nice to have SIA more prolific in DW, I also don't want it on everything, I don't want the entire DW gameplan to be SB/SS, like people gravitated towards before. I do agree DW need a super doctrine bonus round, picking your round is nice, so it doesn't need to be massive, but we should probably have some sort of bonus to tactical, like our chosen target battle field roll units get to reroll hits of 1. Some of our secondary choices are ok some are bad, par for the course in codexes, we at least also can choose the normal marine ones too. I think this is all going to be just wishlisting though, I don't see GW really doing anything for us til 10th, or a surprise inclusion in a campaign book. They are so far behind with just codex releases DW won't be addressed, and with our units being in the marine codex, I wouldn't expect anything out of a chapter approved type book either. I'm sure it isn't what you want to hear, but its almost certainly how it is. You can win with DW, I don't have any matchups I look at and say I can't beat that. Now high level competitive could be another story, but most of us don't deal with that on a regular basis. I am pretty sure I could go to a tourney and break even at least though with how they have been feeling in my matches.

Been putting a setup like that in some brainstorm lists I've been working on. I settled on 1 less boltstorm aggressor and added a 2nd inceptor, opting for a little better shooting, felt 12 powerfist attacks were good enough. Lends the squad slightly better to popping into WS CT if wanted too, getting a few more shots while charging something. While I like the powerfists, aggressors being so mediocre pushes me to split ti 2/3 instead of 4/1. Thats just my opinion and on theory crafting at that since haven't been able to test anything obviously. Will see where I settle I suppose, just adding my thoughts on this since I have been adding squads like that to my theory craft lists for a bit. I also like 5int/5 outrider w/o combat squadding, use 1 int as fodder, then take the next hits on 1 outrider until it dies. Means apothecary bringing a unit back is 4 wounds, or taking advantage of healing 3 wounds if they drop it to 1. Squad sits at t5 30 wounds (just like the indom team) and puts out monstrous amounts of shots and combat attacks. Putting out a much greater quantity of attacks so suited for killing troops/horde. Downside is 2 wounds/4 wounds so multiples of 2. However in some ways that makes them a better target for 5+++ since any FNP save is a full model save. IE if you make a 5+++ on 4 damage from 2 plasma shots, you still die. If you make a 5+++ on the 4 wound it needs 3 plasma shots now. Every FNP even on an Int vs 2 damage weapons still bumps it to 2 shots. To put that in perspective if you make 1 FNP on every outrider and no FNPs on int it requires 20 plasma shots to go through to kill this squad off every FNP on an int adds 1. For comparisons sake it takes 20 plasma shots to kill the indom kill team, unless you get luck making 2 FNP on a single model, and that only adds 1 shot each time you pull that off. So FNP on them is quite good, as is the ability just bring a 4 wound model back since survival rate with FNP is pretty similar with bringing an outrider back is a bigger deal. Its a little cheaper too coming in at 325 with no upgrades to the int sgt. Add 10 if you want 4 power fist attacks on first round of combat. I feel throwing 60 t5 wounds on the middle of the table is pretty annoying to try to deal with, never mind the rest of the army being built around them.

Yes self sacrifice is completely broken, and breaks the game in a lot of ways. Examples including but not limited to this, a captain behind LoS blocking terrain, a unit or character behind LoS blocking terrain, a character out front that has a few vehicles a tiny it closer. All of these create a very little cost and very easily a completely invincible fire base. Its extremely broken not merely "hard to engage" lol. Desperately needs adjustment by GW, but we will see.

That's my point though isn't it. Just the fact that a 100 point unit represents that threat alters how your opponent plays and positions. Its like agents of vect, it doesn't matter IF you get it off, the threat that you COULD do it changes what your opponent does. As I said there are numerous good uses for low cp strats elsewhere given sallies fantastic strategems. Basically simpy because you have 3 aggressors in your repulsor your opponent is almost forced to cede the middle of the table (or where ever you want) to you. All that without having to actually spend or do anything is very powerful. Never underestimate being able to force your opponent give up board control. A repulsor in the middle of the table w/ 3 aggressors represents a no go anywhere within 16" of the repulsor, which should equate to a roughly 34"-38" diameter circle in the middle of the table. That quite significant, the mere THREAT of having something like that is enough to give you tons of board control. If you force a knight list into castle you have already won. Its why vect is useful, you don't often see it actually get used, because people will go to any lengths to avoid a MUST USE stratagem situation, instead using smaller effects.

72x.5 = 36 wounds 4+ save (ap -1) = 18 unsaved plus 12 MWs.....1 aggressor double tapping with flamecraft is 24 shots = 12 MWs.... IE on average 3 aggressors with 4-5 cp do 30 wounds to a knight level enemy. Half that w/o the double tap, which would mean either you advanced or dont have the CP, in which case you are better off forgoing the +1 w strat and still getting almost 24 wounds on average. So ya... statistically 1 shots a castellan.... for a heft CP investment granted. Don't think there is much in this game they wouldn't 1 shot. Thats using the +1 super doctrine and +2 cp for flame craft and +1 cp for the MW strat on 1 model 1 cp for the stand still strat and probably +1 VotLW type ability, but its optional honestly because you will likely kill it or cripple it enough for the 13 powerfists to finish it off on a charge.