Grey Knights: one psy power and guns review

The Grey Knights have a lot of weapons, gear and powers at their disposal. I thought I’d hit the four that are available to all the squads: Hammerhand, Incinerators, Psilencers, and Psycannons.

Hammerhand is a psychic ability that all the Grey Knight units (excluding driving vehicles) have. It is an assault phase power. After assault moves have been made, but before rolls to hit, you can make a psychic test. If the test passes, then all members of this squad benefit from +1 strength. This lasts until the end of that assault phase. It also can be cast in either assault phase. It is also applied before any other modifiers to strength, like Demonhammers.

So you can get a grey Knight with Psy Mastery of 2 and throw out Hammerhand during your assault phase and then again in the opponents assault phase. It also adds the +1 strength and then any other modifiers…so Demonhammers + Hammerhand = S10. So Hammerhand + Furious Charge = S6 on the charge? I know there is not much of that in this codex; but if there is a random weird game rule, Inquisitor unit that has it, or you are playing some weird team tourney thing, it would be a great power to use. I think it will be the default psy use in Grey Knight squads. The activation of force weapons being a far second to having +1 strength power weapon wielding Marines.

Now, let us look at the guns these guys can upgrade with.......

Incinerators are heavily modified heavy flamers. It fires a hotter burning promethium. It is a template weapon with S6 and AP4. Now I’m becoming a fan of flamer template weapons, and this can be quite useful against most forces. Sure it is only AP4, but wounding most armies on 2+ with no hit roll is quite awesome. However, the range and fact you usually only get a flamer shot or two per game makes them a limited or situational use weapon for most players. There is something about a S6 flamer though……

Psilencers are the newest Grey Knight weapon. It has no trigger and is fired using the mind of the Grey Knight. The projectiles fired by this gun function to destabilize the the warp material from which demons are made. The technology used is unknown to the Imperium and it is thought to be of Xeno origin. It is a 24” S4 AP- Heavy 6 weapon. It also will wound demons on a 4+, unless a lower roll is needed. The only problem is the fact it is a heavy weapon. It is the ranged anti-horde gun. Wounding on 4+ (or 3+ if toughness 3) and forcing saves vs. demons (which are ick 5++) orks, guard or gribblies is useful. However the static nature of the weapon is the downfall. If there was a alternate rate of fire or re-roll option, then these might be more prevalent in the army. Especially, when we compare them to the all star Grey Knight ranged weapon, the Psycannon.

This will probably be the most commonly used ranged upgrade weapon in Grey Knight forces. The Psycannon is Dark Age of Technology secret. Supposedly they were more common before the 41^st millennium, but their STC or blueprint was nabbed by the grey knights or something. It fires ammo that has a psychic charge.  It is a 24” S7 AP 4 Assault2/ Heavy 4, rending weapon. Now this gun can has some versatility. Since you can move and fire it can still threaten armor within 30” and it will also wound most opponents on a 2+. The ability to stand and fire four shots is just as great.

The rending is a nice, but please don’t think you are always going to rip open big armor with this gun. Light armor (Rhinos as the gold standard here) will take some punishment from this gun. If you hit, then ½ the time you’ll at least be rolling on the damage chart.  Rending does, at times, make this gun better. As two or four shots into a unit usually wounds with ease, and a 6 on that wound roll makes for a nice AP2 hit.

I don’t put faith in rending, but I love the Assault 2/Heavy 4 option. I have witnessed a stationary Purgation squad with four of these bad boys rip through/suppress some Rhinos, shred Plague Marines, and rip apart a Demon prince. A single psycannon is annoying, en masse is just grossly awesome. It will hard to justify using another upgrade weapon besides this one.

The other psy powers and upgrades for squads will be covered as they come. These three guns (well only really one gun ) and psy power will be the most widely used. That is why I focused on them as they are readily available to all the Grey Knights in the codex.