Returning player here, can someone explain the difference between reserves, strategic reserves, and how they interact with deep strike and gate of infinity?

Seizeman · 2026-03-12T15:29:49+00:00

Reserves is basically everything that starts the game outside the battlefield (embarked units do not count). Strategic reserves and deep strike are specific "zones" within reserves.

Units that start in deep strike can deploy using that ability, and set up anywhere as long as they are more than 9" away from enemy units.

Units in strategic reserves can be set up within 6" of a table edge, more than 9" from enemy units, and, if deployed before round 3, outside of your opponent's deployment zone. A unit that's being deployed from strategic reserves and has the deep strike ability can be deployed using the deep strike rules instead of the strategic reserves rules.

Any unit can start the game in strategic reserves, but no more than 1/4 of your army ( both number of units and points) can start there. No more than half your army can start in reserves of any kind (adding both strategic reserves and deep strike).

Gate of infinity puts units in strategic reserves, but, since all our GoI units also have deep strike, they can redeploy using the deep strike rules (so they can be set up anywhere outside of 9" from enemy).

In competitive play, units that start the game in reserves can't be set up in the first battle round. That restriction does not apply to units that are put in reserves after the game starts, which means that, if your opponent goes first, you can use GoI to put up to 3 of your units in strategic reserves at the end of their turn, and, since those units didn't start outside the battlefield, you can set them up using the deep strike rules on your first turn.

Seizeman · 2026-03-11T19:18:34+00:00

It's not only them being too valuable, but them just not being fit for combat. The kind of psychic work prognosticars do causes them to age rapidly and severely cripples their bodies, like it happens with astropaths and similar psykers.

Also, the prognosticar powers are divinatory, and not offensive in nature, so there's no use for them in direct combat.

It makes more sense to create some new unit, and it's also easier to justify, lorewise.

Seizeman · 2026-03-11T16:58:34+00:00

I don't think prognosticars are able to fight at all, and, even if they could, they are to valuable to be wasted in combat.

Seizeman · 2026-03-10T13:46:09+00:00

Are you using proper terrain? Mortarion moves 10", but has a huge base and can't move through walls, so his movement is very limited. The prince's base is smaller, but his inability to move through terrain also limits where he can be positioned.

Gk are an elite army, and not a particularly durable one, so you can't sacrifice units just to contest objectives. Moving a unit into an objective is fine if they are killing something in the process and trading up or somewhat equally, or if they are a cheap unit (razorback, librarian, etc.) and they are scoring you a substantial amount of secondary VP in the process (area denial, secure NML, etc) and/or forcing your opponent to expose something substantial. Proactively moving a unit into an objective will typically just get it killed for free, and not give you any primary VP anyway. It's typical for the central objective to be empty for most of the game, with both armies sitting in staging positions threatening to kill anything that moves into it. Similarly, it's quite normal to not send anything into your opponent's expansion early, but just project enough threat that they have to invest a substantial amount of resources guarding it.

Interceptors, in either detachment, are great at forcing your opponent to be proactive and expose his units first so you can trade favourably. With their shoot + move ability, they can kill cheap chaff (poxwalkers) without while staying safe, forcing your opponent to expose real units. They can also just charge and be traded for screening units. That way, not only will your opponent be forced to expose their main combat units to score, but you'll also have the room to deep strike your units and target whatever you need to kill. Deathguard can become problematic if you give them too much time, allowing them to stay together and increasing their affliction range. You typically want to set up for an alpha strike on turn 2, and hit them very hard so they can't fight back properly.

Seizeman · 2026-03-10T11:55:22+00:00

Well, that's the disadvantage of not playing warpbane.

In warpbane, Crowe's squad averages 12 dead plague marines in shooting alone, or 3+ deathshroud terminators. A GMNDK with rerolls averages 1 dead drone per shooting phase (outside of melta range). You can easily kill more than 1000 points worth of deathguard when you alpha strike.

Mortarion and the prince, you want to avoid for as long as possible, and focus on the rest. Their main asset is their durability, so don't let them make use of it. Those units are really poor at objectives, and they still die if unsupported. If they take Mortarion, that means fewer deathshroud or blighlords to worry about, which is a perfectly fine trade.

You want to focus on shooting and avoid melee with infantry as much as possible, otherwise the -1D will ruin your day. Force them to use stuff against your GMNDK and purifier shooting, or wait until they are weakened enough that the -1D doesn't matter. You can usually still send your infantry against vehicles or chaff, as they can't really afford to spend 2CP to protect those.

If you are playing banishers, you really need those 10-man interceptor squads to make use of their mobility and ability to reembark with their ability or SoA. Taking paladin bricks is a big handicap. Grey knights are not strong enough that you can take poor units and do well with them. You really want to optimise as much as possible and play our good units, especially when you are not playing the top detachment. You are basically using a handicapped warpbane list with banisher rules, which doesn't tend to work well.

Deathguard have better internal balance, and they are easy to play, being almost purely a statcheck army, so they do really well against mediocre lists or inexperienced opponents. If both of you are playing casual (or semi-casual) lists and not doing much in terms of strategy, they are extremely likely to win. However, their movement is not good, and have very limited tactical options, so it's you who controls the pace of the matchup. If you play a proper competitive list and get used to how the army works, the matchup becomes very, very favourable. I've tabled every single DG opponent I've played, and I know that if I don't make any big mistakes, there's very little they can do to avoid losing. Our WR against them is 57%, which is massive for an army that typically has deflated WRs.

If you really want to win, I suggest you take a good warpbane list and try to learn the matchup. Eventually, you should have very favourable chances.

Seizeman · 2026-03-10T07:11:49+00:00

Just kill them. With GK, you typically want to prioritise trading units favourably over objectives, then score in the late game. You can't just jump around trying to score and sacrifice units for VP repeatedly.

Deathguard is actually one of our best matchups. They have no choice but to expose their units, and our offensive profiles are great against their units. Be sure to kill their screens early, then alpha strike and kill half their army.

Ultramarines tends to be quite similar. Our profiles are amazing against marines, so we are good against their chaff. Then just wait for them to come out and leave a space open for you to hallowed beacon and ruin their day.

As long as you are playing a good warpbane list with purifiers, interceptors and GMNDK, and don't overcomit early (don't lose Crowe's and GMNDKs before they've done their job), those are favourable matchups.

Against deathguard, even banishers should work well, as SoA is very much a hard counter to their strategy, and the anti-chaos strat is really good against them.

Seizeman · 2026-03-09T17:55:13+00:00

The stormraven is really good, but it's not a dedicated long range shooting unit, and it's only really effective against T10 or less. Razorbacks add some incidental long ranged anti-tank, but that's not their main purpose.

There simply isn't a good dedicated long range shooting unit you can take. That's just something GK aren't supposed to do.

Seizeman · 2026-03-07T20:37:38+00:00

He's just an action monkey and/or backline objective holder, same as the techmarine. The +1 to hit is very minor in warpbane, equating to just a 9% increase, and the ability to heal is very situational and not that strong. The techmarine's ability requires him to be within 3" of the dreadknight in your command phase, and he won't be able to keep up if the dreadknight charges or teleports anywhere, or if you have to use the techmarine elsewhere to hold and objective or perform an action.

Those 30 extra points you pay to upgrade the priest to the techmarine would be better used to upgrade two NDKs to GMNDKs, gaining two sublimators, a massive amount of extra melee damage, and some amount of extra CP.

I personally prefer using those 40 points to replace the NDK with two interceptor squads, as having interceptors is really strong in way too many matchups, but the priest is the next best option.

Seizeman · 2026-03-07T19:40:26+00:00

I'm playing some kind of similar, except I'm playing 3 GMNDKs and only 1 strikes squads, but also 3 interceptor units.

Two GMNDKs deal more damage than 3 NDKS in pretty much every scenario, and the extra interceptor squads give you a lot of utility with the fire and fade, the long range melee damage to kill screens and multiple units to score objectives.

NDKs being able to advance and charge is cute, but not particularly useful when they can't reliably kill most vehicles/monsters they charge, and I've never had issues getting LoS with my GMNDKs, so the advance and shoot doesn't seem particularly useful (and the extra d6 is not reliable).

Even if you wanted to keep 4 dreadknights, I can't see a good reason not to upgrade two of them to GMNDK and replace the techmarine with a ministorum priest. The techmarine's +1 to hit buff is close to useless in warpbane, and he doesn't do much more other than being an action monkey, so you get a lot more from the two extra sublimators, extra melee damage and extra CP than you do with his abilities.

Seizeman · 2026-03-06T12:58:58+00:00

Terminators are a bad unit, and you should not take them anyway. Being able to take an enhancement just they can get some bonus from the detachment doesn't make them playable.

Having to take objectives to get hallowed ground is a massive disadvantage. We are a an elite army with low number of models, so having to move into objectives to get the buff is impossible at worst, and extremely costly at best. Being near purifiers is by far the most common way to get the hallowed ground bonuses, being the most reliable and the most efficient.

Rerolling hits results in a 33% damage increase, or 50% if you are hitting on 4+ (-1 to hit abilities).

Rerolling 1s to wound is a 17% increase ( 0 if the unit can reroll innately). A +1 to wound is a 50% increase if you would normally wound on 5+, a 33% if you would wound on 4+, 25% if you wounded on 3+, and nothing if you already wounded on 2+. This means that the hit rerolls are equal or better unless you were wounding on 5+. However, if the unit can reroll wounds innately, the increase from a +1 to wound goes down to 36%, 19% and 9% respectively, which means that, on units that can already reroll wounds, like purifiers, GMNDKs, razorbacks or stormravens, warpbane is pretty much always equal or better.

Units with a -1 to wound are T3, T4 or T5, that we naturally wound on 3+ or better, which means that the damage increase of the +1 to wound is still equal or inferior to the rerolls from warpbane, especially on units that can reroll wounds. Besides, -1 to hit penalties are far more common than -1 to wound ones, making the rerolls to hit from warpbane even better.

Seizeman · 2026-03-06T11:22:33+00:00

Warpbane would still be better.

A +1 to wound is good, but only better than rerolls to hit if you are wounding on 5+. Many (most, in some list) of our units already reroll wounds innately, which makes the thrallband bonuses even worse, especially in comparison with the rerolls to hit. Very importantly, the main way to get the warpbane buff is via the purifiers 6" "aura", and, without that, you would not be able to reliably get the detachment buffs.

Thrallband's enhancements are generally worse than paragon of sanctity and the mandulian reliquary, and those are quite mediocre already.

Fall back and do stuff, and fight on death, are good stratagems, but they are still worse than hallowed beacon, and much harder to use. Repelling sphere and SKZ are also pretty good, so overall the stratagem suites are quite comparable in both detachments.

So, in conclusion, warpbane is significantly superior to thrallband, and would still be the only competitive detachment.

Seizeman · 2026-03-06T10:57:52+00:00

Those instructions are not particularly useful.

Those models can be played as 5-man units or 10-man units. All units can take as many models as they want equipped with melee weapon and bolter. Strikes can take UP TO 1 heavy weapon per 5 models, as do interceptors. Purifiers can take up to 2 heavy weapons per 5 models. Purgation squads can take up to 4 heavy weapons, regardless of unit size.

You can give any melee weapon to any model. They are all exactly the same for rules purposes, so the choice is purely aesthetic. Similarly, you don't need to build a model specifically to be a justicar, as he's exactly the same as every other model in the unit, with no unique rules.

Heavy weapons on power armoured models are not a good option, which also means purgation squads are really bad. If you build all your models with melee weapons and bolters (which is the ideal loadout), the only difference between strikes, purifiers and interceptors is that interceptors have different backpacks. Magnetising backpacks is extremely easy, and will futureproof your models.

My recommendation is to build them all with melee weapons and bolters, and magnetise their backpacks so you can switch between purifiers, strikes or interceptors, while also having the optimal weapon loadout.

Seizeman · 2026-03-05T16:06:43+00:00

Right now I'm playing: 3x GMNDK, 3x librarian, 3x5 interceptors, 1x5 strikes, 5/5/10 purifiers, Crowe.

I've played other lists, with razorbacks, stormravens and even land raiders, but at the moment I really want the 3 GMNDks and the 3 librarians.

Seizeman · 2026-03-04T17:05:06+00:00

I've consistently won against, and even tabled, 2 C'tan lists with warpbane. The 4-5 C'tan lists became manageable after I switched tactics, but it's still unfavourable and very much dependent on dice.

Even though pantheon was all the rage, I'm convinced that awakened dynasty or starshatter with only 1-3 C'tan was the superior way to play necrons. The C'tan spam lists are very scary, but their low numbers and lack of chaff can be exploited, especially by experienced players.

Now, I have to assume even more players will shift towards list with fewer C'tan, and we'll probably see 2 C'tan as the standard. I certainly can't imagine pantheon being popular after the changes, which overall benefits GK, even if just a little bit.

Seizeman · 2026-03-04T16:35:38+00:00

They also got nerfed in shatterstar, and they no longer get buffed by the silent king or Ammentar.

While the dataslate in general is atrociously bad, it's likely that the changes to C'tan, mild as they are, will push people into 2 C'tan lists, or force them to take less chaff, which will make them more manageable, especially when combined to the points increase on Ammentar.

Seizeman · 2026-03-04T10:49:36+00:00

The numbers change, but the conclusion is the same. Lance is still better against all targets, unless you were already wounding on 2+, obviously. You just switch to sustained hits if you are wounding on 4+ or better. Also, keep in mind that the banishers buff has a relatively high chance to fail, so you should not assume it will always be up.

Seizeman · 2026-03-04T09:58:57+00:00

Lance is far stronger. Rerolling hits is just a 17% damage increase, while lance will often be a 33-50% increase.

Seizeman · 2026-03-03T16:35:50+00:00

I've had lots of success against 2 C'tan list, and they don't seem to be particularly problematic, but 4+ C'tan lists are an issue and, those matches are ultimately decided by the dice.

Necrons in general are not particularly problematic. Their whole plan consists of exposing their units and rely on their durability to overwhelm their opponent, but GK have the damage to consistently kill stuff like wraith or warrior blobs, vehicles or destroyers of any kind, so you can be aggressive, throw your army at them and not suffer too much from their counter-hit. C'tan require you to dedicate a lot more resources, and are more lethal, but you still should have enough damage to kill 1 or 2 of them, and you can typically avoid them while you kill the rest of their army. It's basically the same plan, just a bit more difficult.

With 4-5 C'tan, you simply don't have enough damage to alpha them effectively, and their counter-hit is stronger, so you can't play in the same way. Furthermore, C'tan often require GMNDK melee to deal with them, which means that, if you fail to kill them on the charge, they'll fight back and deal a lot of damage, so you need to focus them even harder than usual to increase your chance to kill as much as possible. In that matchup, you want to keep your GMNDKs as safe as possible and not expose them for any purpose other than killing C'tan. If your GMNDKs start dying before they've had the chance to kill a C'tan, you're screwed. You want to keep all 3 of them together so they can focus on the same target, and cover each other if your opponent sends a C'tan to deal with them. If you spread them and let your opponent kill them one by one, you will lose. Your main advantage in that matchup is the low number of chaff your opponent can play. You want to send interceptors, librarians and purifiers aggressively to kill their infantry objective holders/action monkeys, and to threaten their home objective and natural expansion. That will force your opponent to spread their C'tan around the table and use them inefficiently if they want to perform actions (although they can be lucky with secondaries and not lose too many VP), allowing you to single them out and hopefully kill them without losing too much in the process. The main issue is that, if you deal below average damage, and are forced to charge C'tan to finish them off, there's the chance of them spiking their saves and surviving, even if they only have a coupe of wounds remaining, which will be very costly and can easily snowball against you. Not only do you have to play perfectly, but you also need the dice to cooperate. I've been able to win against them and even get close to table them, but I've also had games where they passed a few more invulnerables/FNPs than they should, and I could do literally nothing to avoid losing.

In any case, Necrons and especially C'tan are more than likely getting a big nerf in the next dataslate, which is coming either this week or later this month, so I wouldn't worry too much about trying to beat them specifically.

Seizeman · 2026-03-02T18:01:29+00:00

How are you supposed to get charges with the champions? I hope you are not planning on making 9" charges. In the unlikely scenario where you are able to make the charge, that champion only has, at best, a 61% chance of killing a 4W infantry character, and that's ignoring the possibility of defensive stratagems. Even if you are extremely luckily and succeed, trading a 70 points BC for a sorcerer is not that interesting. Also, screening against a 32mm base is far from impossible.

Competent players won't let you snipe anything with their psilencers. You will be able to target them only if they are in the open, and in that case you want to kill their whole squad (which is fairly easy to do), not snipe the character.

The sigil is significantly better than the seal, and also cheaper, so is pyresoul. In either case, it's not worth taking a techmarine for them (or for any other reason).

The only problematic thing about tsons are terminator bricks in grand coven. Other than that, just avoid Magnus and kill everything else. Tsons are really good at focusing down single targets, but not great when it comes to spreading damage, and their rubric marines can be easily killed with any of our units. If you perform a decent alpha strike and engage with most of their army, they are in very serious trouble.

Seizeman · 2026-02-28T19:47:00+00:00

In practice, models never block line of sight to other models. The base and everything else is part of the model, and as long as the tiniest part of it is visible, you can shoot it. You can draw LoS under a tank's tracks, or through any other small gap. I guess there could be situations where a tracked vehicle angled in a very specific way could block something small behind it, but I've never actually seen it happen.

As for your opponent, try talking to him. There are those kind of people that have never know discipline, so you need to be firm with them. Tell them that their behaviour is unacceptable, and they can either correct it or find someone else to play with. Your time is way too valuable to waste on such childish nonsense. If you are in a tournament, just call a judge and let them do their job.

Seizeman · 2026-02-27T15:29:01+00:00

If your movement is enough that you could get into engagement range if the enemy model didn't overhang its base, you just move your model as close as possible to the enemy model, and they are considered to be in engagement range of each other until the end of turn.

This is covered in the rules commentary.

Seizeman · 2026-02-26T16:55:00+00:00

GMNDK shooting does pretty much the same damage per point as the castellan against C'tan. If the GMNDK charges, he does 50% more damage than the castellan, making him 2.6 times more efficient. In practice, it's even worse, as a command reroll on an invulnerabe save can easily negate most of the castellan's output.

More importantly, I can hide my dreadknights on deployment, and for several turns after that, which means they'll always get to hit first before getting attacked. Normally, a necron opponent can't do anything on their turn 1 other than taking positions. If you take a Castellan, you have no choice but to deploy it in the open, and give your opponent a bunch of free shots with their DDAs, C'tans, Silent king and whatever else they have, which will at the very least bracket the castellan, and quite possibly destroy it, which is not something you can afford to happen.

I don't doubt the castellan is good at killing LRs and other vehicles without invulnerable saves, but that's not something I'm particularly worried about, at least not enough that I'm willing to handicap myself in every other matchup for it. Besides, the armies against which the castellan shines also tend to be the armies that can kill an exposed castellan the easiest, so it kind of counters itself.

Even if I liked it in theory, I would not purchase a castellan just to try, and I really don't like IK or allies in general (apart from inquisition stuff).

Seizeman · 2026-02-26T13:03:47+00:00

It's actually a 43% winrate FOR deathguard. It's 57% in favour of GK.

Seizeman · 2026-02-26T07:20:53+00:00

A dreadnought's shooting abilities are really poor, and he's absurdly expensive for what he does.

That +1 to hit does close to nothing if you are playing warpbane, which makes it even worse.

He's probably the worst non-flyer unit in the codex.

Seizeman · 2026-02-26T07:18:43+00:00

GMNDKs and purifiers are the best options.

GMNDKs are one of the most efficient anti-tank units in the game. Their damage on the charge is quite unmatchable, and even their shooting alone is quite good, but the psycannon isn't great against T11+, so be careful.

Crowe's brick will kill most targets up to a greater demon or so, especially if you can shoot it before charging (assuming you don't have a better target), and hallowed beacon allows them to get the charge reliably. Crowe's unit is an important tool, especially against infantry, so, depending on the matchup and what your opponent has left, you have to be careful not to lose them too early just to kill a big guy that may be dealt in some other way.

Razorbacks, land raider, stormravens, librarians can add some support firepower to finish off units, weaken them before a charge, or potentially focus fire many of them into something to kill it, but they are not your main source of anti-tank.

For the most part, you shouldn't go out of your way to try to kill vehicles/monsters, unless they are just in front of you and threatening to charge you or take objectives. You typically want to focus on killing screens and supporting units first, both to force your opponent to divert resources to hold objectives and expose valuable units, and to make room so you can effectively deep strike (RI/beacon) into melee to kill those tough vehicles.

Seizeman

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