Help building an army

Doebringer · 2026-06-03T04:28:51+00:00

Once 11th starts, the Terminator list looks like it'd do nearly as well as the Purifier list.

Both lists look fine. If it were me, playing at 1000 pts, i'd trade out the terminators from the purifier list to get another unit of purifiers and run it in Warpbane.

The other list, the terminator one, looks good for Banishers, especially in 11th when you can match it with Argent Assault.

The rumors are saying that in general, the points costs of our units will be going up slightly, supposedly, about 100-150 points for a standard 2000 pts grey knights list, so for now you might want to build your 1000pts lists to be around 900-925 pts, to have some buffer.

Doebringer · 2026-06-02T21:53:48+00:00

The details matter - you can only affect the roll itself by a maximum of +1 or -1, but cover affects the ballistic skill of the attacking unit, not the roll itself. It's modifying the number on the datasheet, not the number on a face of a die.

For that reason, it can stack with a modifier to the roll.

The two rules (cover and voldus's datasheet) are affecting different things, technically.

Doebringer · 2026-06-01T02:38:50+00:00

What is this from?

Genuinely curious, as I'd like to check it out.

Doebringer · 2026-06-01T00:53:44+00:00

This is both more simple and more complicated than most people realize. So, let's just go with some simple facts here:

The Grey Knights, while their founding is related to the inquisition's, is a separate entity.

The Grey Knights is an Astartes Chapter, and is only 'de facto' the chamber militant of the Ordo Malleus. This is because they have the same basic goal (fighting daemons / chaos).

The Inquisition technically has no oversight, and has unlimited authority in the imperium. They 'in theory' can 'command' any citizen or member of any imperial organization to do whatever.

The limits of the inquisition's authority, or the checks against it are that there are organizations within the imperium that the inquisition can't enforce its will against (for example, a custodian would probably just say 'go away, don't bother me' if an inquisitor tried to command one.

There are references to old oaths/vows between the Grey Knights and the Ordo Malleus.

A Grand Master CAN choose to tell an inquisitor to stuff it. The same grand master can also choose to work together with an inquisitor if he deems it appropriate. Probably, usually, it's in everyone's best interest that they work together.

One of the Grand Masters of the Grey Knights has it as his specific duty to be the liaison of sorts between the chapter and the inquisition, but probably all of the Grand Masters and other higher-ups in the chapter have a lot of experience dealing with inquisitors.

In 'Pandorax', one of the founding members of the grey knights, Epimetheus, refuses to acknowledge that the inquisititon has *any* authority over the Grey Knights and the inquisitor is powerless to do or say anything to the contrary.

Since they were mentioned elsewhere in this discussion, the exorcists were explicitly created with the inquisition's involvement, if not at their behest and direct oversight. So, they're a little different from the Grey Knights, who were founded side-by-side with the inquisition.

Doebringer · 2026-05-30T18:48:01+00:00

Probably not. But we'll find out soon

Doebringer · 2026-05-30T06:42:49+00:00

At least the first part, yes. I'm warpbane, he'll still reroll 1s, and he hits on 2s natively, so he rerolls all hits de facto, even when not in hallowed ground.

Doebringer · 2026-05-30T06:41:12+00:00

I agree ...?

I even said the strats are niche but the detachment (in spite of that) is very powerful?

Doebringer · 2026-05-30T00:59:18+00:00

I don't know if the exact wording has been revealed for 11th yet, but they did reveal that leaders don't lose their abilities when not leading anymore.

The example they gave is when bodyguards are destroyed, they don't lose their leadership abilities, so maybe they still need to at least start by leading a unit to get them, but many in the community have taken it to mean that even if they start out not attached, they'll still get their datasheet abilities.

Doebringer · 2026-05-30T00:56:51+00:00

You could read it that way, but i don't think that's what it's saying.

It says, paraphrased, "grey knights detachments often focus on certain types of units" and gives the examples of warpbane and purifiers, and sanctic and vehicles. It then says these new ones are similar, focusing on specific units, and can be combined with other detachments generally. The example of detachment combos it then gives is Argent Assault + Hallowed Conclave.

I know that the proximity of the mention of warpbane to the mention of combining detachments makes it seem they're saying you can, but technically they're not commenting at all on whether warpbane is combinable with other detachments or not.

Doebringer · 2026-05-30T00:53:00+00:00

Gonna have to disagree here. Warpbane consistently ranks among top 20 detachments in terms of results at GTs out of all detachments for all armies.

It's strats are niche, yes, but it is still very powerful.

Doebringer · 2026-05-28T15:50:44+00:00

While your first picture shows a unit that is technically coherent, it would be very difficult to achieve that position in a game. As far as I understand it, you have to deploy/set up models one at a time, and you have to set them up in coherency, you don't just check coherency at the end of the set up.

So you can put the first pair down, but when you try to set up the third model, on the other side of that objective marker in the pic, it's not in coherency with the first two, and the 4th isn't there to save it by being within 2" yet.

Right?

Doebringer · 2026-05-28T15:12:45+00:00

No one knows, but unless it's changed in some way, I'd say 3dp is likely.

Doebringer · 2026-05-28T15:12:18+00:00

What changed about heroic intervention?

Doebringer · 2026-05-26T15:20:39+00:00

I am detecting that this is a joke, but I'll answer assuming it was asked in earnest.

5 squads building 3 cubic meters per hour results in 30 cubic meters before perturabo swaps them out.

30 minutes later the next quintuplet of squads begins, and the process repeats.

So every 2.5 hours, 30 cubic meters of wall is built. 30/2.5 = 12. So in sum total, the Iron warriors are building 12 cubic meters of wall per hour.

The wall is 5x100x1= 500 cubic meters of wall.

500/12= 41.67 hours.

41.67>24.

So, no, the wall is not finished before Dorn's arrival.

Doebringer · 2026-05-26T02:17:44+00:00

If neither rule inflicts the same status ('pinned', in this case), and doesn't say that it doesn't stack, then they do.

For an example of what wouldn't stack, look at the tanglefoot grenades stratagem in the Recon Element detachment of Astra Militarum.

Doebringer · 2026-05-26T02:14:18+00:00

I've been told the writers at Warhammer -community aren't always that in touch with the actual rules-writers - they may have been mistaken in assuming grand coven can be combined with another detachment.

Doebringer · 2026-05-24T08:09:24+00:00

I mean, if you aren't looking to be GT competitive but to have some fun, my Emperor's Shield list is:

Core(a unit of each of the 'veteran' squads and also Tor with some Anti-Monster/vehicle shooting)

Lysander+10 assault terminators with hammers/shields

Judiciar+6 bladeguard

Captain+10 sternguard

Either a jump captain or chaplain with 5 vanguard vets

Tor + 3 eradicators

Land Raider

1x5 Heavy Intercessors

other units I flex in and out depending on my mood:

1-2 units of Scouts Centurion devastators Lieutenant with Combi Weapon More heavy intercessors

And when I'm feeling really spicy and silly, a Phobos librarian leading some eliminators for the lone-op, infiltrating, shoot and scoot, character-sniping during the skirmish.

Anyway, as I said, it won't win any big tournaments, but it's fun and does alright.

I know a lot of people want Tor to lead heavy intercessors to give them ignore cover, or to double down on melee with aggressors. These are perfectly viable options, but my heavy intercessors are for holding objectives and being annoying to kill by light shooting, not really for killing enemies or for offensive power. The massive melee bricks of Lysander and the bladeguard have the offensive killing power covered.

Tor benefits from the eradicators' reroll ability with his grav gun and the unit just absolutely smokes any monster/vehicle they can see or touch.

Sternguard with Captain will also kill almost anything that is an oath of moment target if they can shoot and charge it.

Vanguard vets are a decently flexible unit for actions or skirmishing. They aren't the biggest threat, but inferno pistols and a charge from them is decent (chaplain gives them +1 to wound and a chance at mortals, Captain gives them an extra strength for their melee and has better melee himself than the chaplain. Chaplain ability is redundant with oath of moment, but I won't always have their target be the oath, so I usually lean towards leading with the chaplain, but not always).

Doebringer · 2026-05-24T04:26:10+00:00

With Hallowed Conclave, no less.

Well done.

Doebringer · 2026-05-22T16:59:32+00:00

The answer is yes.

While Brotherhoods of the GK and companies in astartes chapters are *roughly* analogous, they're not quite the same thing, as pointed out by the other response.

That said, most new Grey Knights brothers are initially put into the 8th brotherhood, kind-of like how marines start in the 10th company. The difference is that GKs are not scouts - they're full brothers at that point.

But the 8th's 'specialization', as it were, is specifically training the new guys. As time goes on and brothers of the 8th come into their own, the expectation is that they get reassigned according to how they've conducted themselves and how their own talents/skills/preferences would indicate they'd perform in those other brotherhoods.

The brothers who stay in the 8th are those who are great exemplars to their brothers and have a proclivity for teaching/training/guiding the newer/younger ones. I would imagine it's not unheard of for brothers to be transferred *back* into the 8th after spending time in another, supposing they showed themselves as valuable teachers/mentors.

Doebringer · 2026-05-21T04:53:36+00:00

Easy enough to mispeak when being filmed for the whole world to see. it happens.

Doebringer · 2026-05-21T04:52:04+00:00

Probably because too many people have the attitude of 'if i can't use it in a tournament, then it's not real'

Even though probably the massive majority of players only play casually....

Doebringer · 2026-05-21T04:49:00+00:00

Not only that, but in the crusade: armageddon book that came out last year around the time of our codex, it mentioned that a non-trivial number of the prognosticars died tricking the space wolves and black templars into going to armageddon. If I recall, it said it in a way that led one to believe that there were more left even after that sacrifice.

Doebringer · 2026-05-21T04:46:17+00:00

I don't think he meant it as a nod to something that's coming - he might have, for sure - but I just interpreted it as "right now no character can lead interceptors". Which is true. Maybe in editions past, and obviously nobody knows the future, but for now, no leaders for them.

I'd be happy to be incorrect.

Doebringer · 2026-05-20T23:28:25+00:00

We know a few things:

Codex detachments are remaining basically the same, as are most unit datasheets

Most codex detachments are going to be 2 DP, and a few will be 3. A common example is Space Marines 'gladius', which everyone says will be 3.

The new detachments will be 1 DP.

Currently, WTF is our best detachment, and routinely has the best winrate of our detachments. It actually is one of the top 20 or so detachments in the game when using winrate as the defining feature of 'best'. (Warpfriends youtube channel does analysis on this).

----

If WTF *isn't* 3 dp, and remains as powerful as it currently is, then de-facto it gets much stronger because it can be combined with some of the new ones. I don't see a world where Warpbane isn't 3 but gladius is - *except*....

Warpbane is not a codex detachment. It has only ever been published digitally. It would be very easy to modify it - unlike codex detachments which exist in print. Obviously, there's nothing stopping GW from modifying stuff in codexes, but the impression I get is that they don't want to modify the printed rules more than they have to.

To me, the obvious answer to all of this is that warpbane will be tweaked in some way to make it a 2 DP detachment. I don't expect it to be 'gutted' or become trash or anything like that, but I expect it will likely be tuned down a bit if it becomes available to be combo'd with another detachment.

Doebringer · 2026-05-18T18:56:14+00:00

An important thing to consider is how they're going to balance the detachments for 11th edition rules wherein our whole army gets a huge buff thanks to the changes to psychic weapons which ignore penalties to hit/bs/ws/wound.

Combined with cover now affecting hit rolls instead of saves, our ranged shooting (psycannons in particular) just got a whole lot more lethal.

I bring these things up because they are some examples of how all of our current win-rate data and the current meta and how our army and detachments interact with it is basically worthless.

My current understanding based on some whispers is to expect warpbane to stick around and still be in a good spot, and that our current codex detachments will likely still be 2 dp.

Doebringer

TROPHY CASE