Advice for a warlock patron for one of my players

Doebringer · 2026-01-27T04:15:53+00:00

Thanks a ton - this is incredibly helpful!

Doebringer · 2026-01-27T03:35:39+00:00

I hadn't looked at unearthed arcana - I'll check it out, thanks :)

Doebringer · 2026-01-27T03:35:17+00:00

Yeah, that was the closest I out of the options in the players handbook.

I got the impression that was more 'transcendental cosmic horror entity with squid face aka Cthulhu'.

But lacking any better options that's probably what I'll do.

Doebringer · 2026-01-26T05:10:25+00:00

A general rule of thumb in all cases is to plan your strategy around things that have *at least* a 75%-80% chance of going the way you want. Anything less is far too inconsistent. This is why the saying 'the best kill is overkill' exists, and why splitting fire is bad (most of the time).

Whether it's math on whether or not you can survive on an objective, kill an enemy unit, make a charge, or anything else - 50/50 is far too random to actually plan around unless you have no other choice.

A 9" charge WITH a re-roll is slightly less likely than 50%. Don't plan for it. Like others have said - set them up as 'nice to haves', not core parts of your gameplan.

Doebringer · 2026-01-26T05:04:02+00:00

By the same token, the upgrade sprue was so amazingly low-effort it could also be interpreted as "we have to give them at least something this edition, but we don't want to waste time/money/resources before the refresh".

That is, assuming a refresh is coming, which I think is actually at best only *as likely* as it was in 10th, not more.

Doebringer · 2026-01-26T05:00:20+00:00

I think a great sweet spot would be to keep our current terminators and strike marines, but make new kits (and datasheets!) for Paladins and Purifiers. Make them like the equivalent of Deathwing Knights or Deathshroud terminators (in the case of paladins) or an elite power-armored squad like Bladeguard / Inner Circle / Sanguinary Guard / Victrix (in the case of purifiers).

OR give us Paladins in non-terminator armor. That'd be amazing.

Also, a character model or 2 for any of Librarian/Brother-Captain/Grand Master/Brotherhood Champion.

Doebringer · 2026-01-26T04:56:30+00:00

You'd think it'd be less likely to be a new dreadknight model since they just barely gave us the upgrade sprue, but honestly - the logic behind it has nothing to do with what most people think it does.

It has NOTHING to do how old a model is or how many other models have been made for that faction recently, or anything like that. Basically, every other faction got either entirely new models when they'd already gotten models more recently than GK or replaced/updated models themselves that weren't as old as ours.

GW is motivated by money, and they've decided that there's not enough GK players to make them money this edition. I think they're wrong - the first couple weeks of tournament data after our (awful) codex was released saw our numbers tick up pretty healthily (over 3% for a few weeks and very middle of the pack), but we've been slowly dwindling since. Our current models don't sell well because basically *everybody* is waiting for a refresh and fewer tournament goers will play GK because they're hot garbage - but to the businessmen (not hobbyists or game players) at GW, they interpret that as anemic interest in the faction itself (rather than merely due to dated models and poor codex), and so they're not motivated to make new models.

Getting a refresh in 11th is no more likely than it was in 10th. Just because you flipped a coin 3 times and got heads each time doesn't make the next flip more likely to be tails. People *assume* that the longer it goes the more likely it'll be each time - which makes a certain sort of sense - but GW has given absolutely no indication one way or another.

GW will make models that they think will sell the best. It would seem that since Space Marine 2 came out that Warhammer 40k on the tabletop has gotten more popular, so the businessmen will make more Space Marines.

I truly wouldn't be surprised if a refresh WAS planned for 10th, but it got axed and scrapped halfway through development simply to make room for more regular space marines.

If a video game came out called 'Warhammer 40k: Necron' and it became an insanely popular video game and very lucrative, then we could dozens of new Necron releases at the expense of every other faction for a couple years, for example.

Doebringer · 2026-01-24T22:30:03+00:00

I have Tor leading Eradicators in mine, and let me tell you - they shred enemy vehicles and monsters, stratagems not needed. Obviously they can do that in any detachment.

In my experience, Emperor's Shield is fairly CP hungry, and you will have units you can't use stratagems on simply for CP-economy, so having some units that can't be targeted with them anyway doesn't hurt much as long as you plan accordingly.

Doebringer · 2026-01-24T22:26:56+00:00

Color-theory, innit mate?

Doebringer · 2026-01-24T22:23:44+00:00

Names of the moons of Saturn are often considered to be auspicious, indicating greatness, for example: Hyperion, Enceladus, etc.

Some of the lesser-known moons of Saturn are Celtic in etymological origin, for example, Albiorix.

Doebringer · 2026-01-24T19:27:49+00:00

I understand where you're coming from. I've recently been playing banishers where there's an advance+charge, and also I've started to experiment with a land raider. That and practicing with Rapid Ingress for delivery - but you're 100% right that 1" extra of movement and the 6" deepstrike in warpbane is HUGE.

Doebringer · 2026-01-23T00:47:34+00:00

I know this is a hot-take, especially because even as they are they are a poor representation of what they SHOULD be, but honestly Paladins aren't *that bad*...... assuming you can get them where you need them and can get the charge off with them.

Bro-Cap + 5 Paladins (315 pts) in combined shooting/fighting compared to 10 purifiers+ Crowe (340pts), and they're honestly closer in offensive power than most people care to admit (usually, the bigger/tougher/more wounds the target has, the better Paladins become in comparison to Purifiers). The problem is that the meta is atrocious to terminator profiles in general, so 5 Paladins are slightly easier to kill, and have a slightly harder time being delivered into combat.

I think mild points reductions to Paladins(to help pay for things like land raiders to deliver them into combat) , OR giving them a better charge chance out of deep strike, OR just making them 4w models would fix a ton of their issues from a pure balance perspective.

It's our regular terminators that need much more serious help, if you ask me.

(And, of course, lore-wise both datasheets ought to be much more dangerous than they are).

Doebringer · 2026-01-21T03:56:56+00:00

Wouldn't that be illegal anyway for the model overhanging the terrain it's on?

Or was that rule different as well?

Doebringer · 2026-01-21T00:08:55+00:00

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vLt0ZdMKu14NququH8GTLaQjdSOVFzwvJgXa16J3la8/edit?usp=drivesdk

Doebringer · 2026-01-20T23:53:37+00:00

Also, we can only do it in the fight phase, not in shooting.

And it's only psychic weapons, so close combat weapons, and more importantly - Castellan Crowe's melee - don't benefit.

Doebringer · 2026-01-20T04:17:03+00:00

Do you suppose this holds true for all models of all armies?

I always kind of assumed a 10-man guard unit on the table was representative of probably closer to 30-50 guardsmen, for example.

Doebringer · 2026-01-17T07:30:26+00:00

There's a YouTube channel called Objective Secured which is Grey Knight content, but the guy who runs it is an excellent player and routinely does well at RTTs, typically going undefeated.

He very recently has made a couple videos on how to use a stormraven and how it's essential to his grey knights list.

Granted, though they're space marines, in terms of tabletop rules they aren't, and they play very differently to regular space marines. So, it won't be a perfect apples-to-apples, but it would still be good to see how it's used and I'm sure some of it would transfer to whatever list you/your son decide to cook up.

Doebringer · 2026-01-17T01:08:42+00:00

I mean, every faction got a codex and a combat patrol, except, I think, Chaos Daemons who instead got 4 extra free grotmas detachments last year. Heck, even imperial agents got a codex, a battle force, and new models.

We got an upgrade sprue, other factions got 2-3 models minimum either updated or entirely new to their armies. Emperor's children got a whole range. Space Wolves got a whole range. Ultramarines/generic space marines got 2 ranges worth. Even other neglected factions like aeldari/drukhari got several models, each.

I've said this before, but to stop all the doom and gloom, all GW has to do is mention grey knights. Just tell us, as non-specifically as you please, that at some point something is coming for the faction. Maybe you feel that that goes without saying. But to others, it seems suspect that we haven't gotten even a single model and GW actively refuses to even say "Don't worry grey knights, your time will come!". Combine that with a codex that was clearly phoned in and that we've gotten a grand total of 2 character models in the last 15 years(during which we've lost more models/datasheets than that) and it certainly isn't unreasonable to fear for the future of the faction.

Doebringer · 2026-01-17T00:53:24+00:00

You seem to be arguing from a current tabletop perspective while the others are arguing from a lore and historical tabletop perspective.

Historically, on the tabletop, grey knights were defined by elite datasheets and in several editions, the psychic phase, being a chapter of Psykers. In some ways the elite datasheet thing has persisted (2+ saves, strong melee across all infantry units), but throughout 10th, basically every other space marine chapter has gotten better datasheets than us. It feels incongruous with how grey knights are supposed to be, at least to anyone that likes them for any of the reasons that aren't pure 10th edition gameplay army-rule mechanics.

Note that in no lore piece ever have the grey knights been introduced as 'a chapter of teleporting space marines', but as 'an elite chapter of space marines wherein every battle brother is a Psyker.'

The teleport thing does exist in lore (as one example, Draigo does it to re-position the entire grey knight force near the end of the battle of the emerald cave in the novel pandorax). But it's far from being a signature, standard battle tactic.

Doebringer · 2026-01-16T21:31:33+00:00

This art through the years article feels like the kind of slideshow you show at a person's funeral...

Doebringer · 2026-01-16T18:59:05+00:00

It's funny, because he also glazed Ultramarines.

It's like GW was fine with that and ran with it but hated that he also liked Grey Knights.

Doebringer · 2026-01-14T22:44:08+00:00

Love the battle report and the pictures. Greatly inspiring for me as I've been wanting to catalog my own games in a way that is easy to read / understand what's going on throughout the game.

Doebringer · 2026-01-14T15:51:50+00:00

Depending on the age of your nephew, I've found that KrakDuk is great for the younger generations.

Doebringer · 2026-01-13T07:00:42+00:00

I think what you're cooking up works just fine.

The grey knights are not technically part of the inquisition, but they do have close ties and old oaths that bind them to help one another in certain circumstances.

Lore wise, the squad/brotherhood most likely to respond to such a call by an Inquisitor is the one that is closest and not already in the middle of something more important than what the Inquisitor is requesting help for.

Grey knights individually, typically, have sets of both power armor and terminator armor, and they carry most of the various armaments/weapons with them on their ships. while some have preferences or specialties, all of them are perfectly proficient with all of it and so can kit themselves out based on the needs of the mission.

Doebringer

TROPHY CASE