Painting: Tau Army Finished! And Some Initial Grey Knights Thoughts

Hey everyone,

So another two part post today. I’m gonna touch on the Grey Knights Codex leak a little, but I’ve finally gotten my Tau nearly finished. I have to rebase and redo the Pathfinders, as well as finish some Drones. But other than that, its about 1800 points of finished Tau, ready for sale! Once again, if anyone’s interested in purchasing them, please drop me an email at SmellsLikeWargaming@hotmail dot com.

Finally, though. What everyone’s been waiting for. I’m not going to link to the codex link, but if you look at the latest Grey Knights rumors on BoLS and scroll down to the comments. A gentleman by the name of “Mike X” has it linked on his blog. No viruses or any malware, thank God. But it’s a very preliminary copy of the codex. There’s writing in the front, almost no artwork or pictures, and the wargear page is missing, but you can get an idea for the new book!

I’ll do my thoughts from a Gaming perspective AND a modeling perspective.

1) Inquisitor Coteaz’s “I’ve Been Expecting You” rule keeps the old Mystics thing going. At the price of a captain with more badass abilities, I’m sure we’ll see him on the board a lot.

2) There are, in fact, THREE different Inquisitors, all costed at the same price as adding a Fist to your Marine Sergeant. Though all are the same statswise, only the Malleus can take Terminator armour. The Hereticus has little new options, compared to the other two, and the Xenos can take some cool archaeotech items.

3) The Henchmen don’t take a slot, and are taken in groups of 3-12 for an Inquisitor. They’re priced really nicely, and get some cool stuff now. The cool new one is the Jokaero Weaponsmith, which modifies the ranged weapons of your Inquisitor and the rest of his retinue. The more Jokaero you take, the higher your roll on the table, so I see at least two in every retinue, even if they’re nearly the price of a Terminator. Mystics also aren’t as powerful as before, though Deepstriking your Grey Knights in isn’t as dangerous with them around.

4) All your Grey Knights are Preferred Enemy (Daemons). Its good to see them keep a little with the fluff that way. I’ve heard a lot of people complain that they’re not total anti-Daemon anymore. While true, now their Psychic Powers mess everyone up equally now!

5) Yes, an entire Paladin Squad can take the Nemesis Warding Stave. However, you replace your Nemesis Force Weapons with it, plus they’re 20 Points a pop. So for a 10 man squad totally armed with NWS is 750 points. Plus you make one a apothecary, making the squad 825 points. Yes you’ll stop a unit dead in its tracks, but is 825 points really worth a brick wall? I like the idea of a 5 man Squad, armed with Warding Staves and an Apothecary.  450 Points, 4 still have their Storm Bolters, and will tie up almost anything. Have fun getting through a 2+/2++/4+!

6) Your Marine Transports are 5 points more expensive, and the Rhino gets some Psychic Powers. You do get some cool upgrades for the Razorback. Inquisitorial Chimeras are also in the book, pretty much the same as the IG book but with some wargear changes.

7) The Nemesis Dreadknight is very similar statswise to the Talos and Chronos from the Dark Eldar book. They’re just cheaper than an Ironclad, and get some badass sounding weapons. I can’t wait to see this model, because it should be just as badass as its rules.

8) Storm Raven appears to be the only Fast Attack choice in the book. Looks just like the Blood Angels version.

9) Terminators are straight TROOPS. No options for Storm Shields, but the Ward Stave is there, as are the Falchions, Daemonhammers, and Halberds.

10) Ghost Knights are your Honor Guard Squad to go with Grand Master Mordrak. Whenever Mordrak takes a wound, a Ghost Knight appears to defend him on a roll greater or equal to his remaining wounds. Technically, you don’t even have to buy the Ghost Knights, they just appear. YES PLEASE!

This book doesn’t have anything that makes them overpowered. There’s a lot of choices to be made, but you can do a lot of cool things with the army. So go, find the rules, and check them out! You won’t be disappointed.

Granesh