Grey Knights feel weak. Balance is garbage.

[Phoenix]

A full burst from a heavy bolter and a regular cultist (human) is still standing.
Nemsis weapons feel like nerf bats.
Enemies feel like HP sponges.
Range weapon ranges are pathetic. Cultists can attack and pin me wrom well beyond the range of my own weapons.
Power armor offers no armor whatsover? Not even one point???

Pathetic.

[-GK- Librarian Markus Ramikin]

Originally posted by Phoenix:

A full burst from a heavy bolter and a regular cultist (human) is still standing.
Nemsis weapons feel like nerf bats.
Enemies feel like HP sponges.
Range weapon ranges are pathetic. Cultists can attack and pin me wrom well beyond the range of my own weapons.
Power armor offers no armor whatsover? Not even one point???

Pathetic.

What heavy bolter?

Enemies ARE damage sponges. They're empowered by Nurgle, and that's pretty much what his gifts do - make you care a lot less if you just had half your guts and bits of your spine blown out.

The rest is explained by game-rules-Marines vs Movie Marines. If GKs oneshotted everything from outside retaliation range, there'd be no challenge and no fun.

I've played this game for 20+ hours now and I can tell you your guys can feel very powerful indeed, if you pay attention to skills and pick the ones that form useful synergies.

I haven't even started buying any high level gear, but my Interceptor backed by Honor the Chapter, Warp Speed, Quicksilver can carve through entire squads in a single round.

Same with my Purgator, with his Psilencer that ignores half-cover and has a range of 14, if I manage to put him in a good viewing spot; though for the most part I love him for his ability to disable a weapon or ability on a key enemy with Astral Aim.

[Marijn]

I'm not really familiair with the Warhammer lore (40k or otherwise), so I wouldn't know if based on that the Grey Knights are too weak or not. OP might be right on that front, I wouldn't know (and I don't care).

OP however is also stating the balance is garbage. That implies that in his opinion, Grey Knights feel too weak from a gameplay perspective. I've finished a campaign on the standard difficulty, and do not agree with that statement at all. If anything, I think the Grey Knighs are too powerfull, especially late game. But that is probably fixed by playing on a higher difficulty setting.

[TheDevilYouKnow]

I'm forced to agree with the original poster. Perhaps when I understand the systems better it will be slightly better; but, with the basic explanation the game has given me i find these space marines to be about as tough as wet tissue paper.

[Black Hammer]

Honestly, the early game is disproportionately hard, and makes your units feel very underpowered. It probably only takes 4 or 5 fights to get them to the point they feel strong, but before that it's extremely jarring.

A lot of it is the Phoenix Point problem. Systems where you can generate loads of extra actions and have very powerful special abilities tend to be balanced around all that potential. Which can leads to unfun experiences when you can't do that.

In Phoenix Point, an optimally built character could clear entire combat maps in a turn or two. On the other hand, if you didn't have a guy capable of sprinting around the map in a turn executing everything, sirens would wreck you, because the game was built around never using any of the trap options and just leaning into the grossly powerful ones.

CG:D makes much the same mistake. The difference between having one grenade per marine, and one marine with 6 grenades, is massive. Teleport Strike is incredibly strong. And the game's been balanced (and rebalanced) around this; good luck reliably triggering stun without a thunder hammer+hammerhand+stun damage biomancy combo. The stun system in particular feels like the devs trying to pull the rug out from under a game mechanic, given the frequency of either immunity or absurd stun values like 8 in the early game.

Oddly, Gears Tactics is one of the few games that dodged this problem, mostly by having very limited build variety. Hard to be OP or weak when there are so few options on the table.

[Ghost from warp]

Well, weapons are strong enough to deal with single pack in one turn (legendary difficulty), but you need to learn a little. Legendary difficulty supposed to be unfair. If you want easy ride - scale down to ruthless. Low level Enemy's start to die in one hit, just as you want.

[Janthis]

Originally posted by Ghost from warp:

Well, weapons are strong enough to deal with single pack in one turn (legendary difficulty), but you need to learn a little. Legendary difficulty supposed to be unfair. If you want easy ride - scale down to ruthless. Low level Enemy's start to die in one hit, just as you want.

On Normal difficulty, both the storm bolter and melee weapons do something like 4 damage, while cultists have 6 or 7 hp each. If they have a priest with them, he can additionally buff them with 3 armor each. Killing enemies in one hit comes much later, when you've got more skills and upgraded wargear. It's the early game that's usually the problem.

[Fanta]

Early in the campaign it is tough. Soon after the first boss, more research is unlocked, also upgrades and better gear become available. Also, enemy patrols later tend to be of fewer and more resilient units. Early in the game it is tricky because there are larger patrols and the player doesn't have yet much for crowd control.

[Ghost from warp]

Originally posted by Johnny_B_80:

On Normal difficulty, both the storm bolter and melee weapons do something like 4 damage, while cultists have 6 or 7 hp each. If they have a priest with them, he can additionally buff them with 3 armor each. Killing enemies in one hit comes much later, when you've got more skills and upgraded wargear. It's the early game that's usually the problem.

I believe pox walkers will die in one hit.

[76561198862351364]

At the start of Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters the Baleful Edict has only just completed a tough campaign that has taken a heavy toll on the ship, it's crew and the resources. The ship itself is in need of repair and many advanced systems are offline from damage and your crew and resources have been severely depleted from the conflict.

This means the Baleful Edict's strike forces are not at their full strength, and taking on the Bloom (Which enhances minions of Nurgle) can be a tough challenge, especially as Inquisitor Vakir and yourself still need to prove to Grandmaster Vardan Kai that there is a threat deserving of more support.

With limited equipment and experience you will need to deploy your Grey Knights carefully at first but as you grow and prove that the Bloom poses a threat your Grey Knights will become much more powerful and able to adapt to tough situations.

[Black Hammer]

Originally posted by Johnny_B_80:

Originally posted by Ghost from warp:

Well, weapons are strong enough to deal with single pack in one turn (legendary difficulty), but you need to learn a little. Legendary difficulty supposed to be unfair. If you want easy ride - scale down to ruthless. Low level Enemy's start to die in one hit, just as you want.

On Normal difficulty, both the storm bolter and melee weapons do something like 4 damage, while cultists have 6 or 7 hp each. If they have a priest with them, he can additionally buff them with 3 armor each. Killing enemies in one hit comes much later, when you've got more skills and upgraded wargear. It's the early game that's usually the problem.

Yep. You can also get warp effects that are brutal early on, like enemies getting +5 armor. For my current team, +5 armor is a problem solved by one boosted AoE krak grenade or a couple of force strikes to ignore all the armor. But with a fresh team, you're looking at enemies being nearly invulnerable, as that 5 armor means more attacks, so either more shots (and more reloading) or more leaving melee brothers exposed.

Same with things like the groan ability; once you have better AoEs, you can sweep all the zombies and not need to care. Or have a terminator justicar pop aegis shield to hit 7+ armor, then just facetank them all. Early on, though, you can't shoot them fast enough.

This is compounded by getting bonus missions like "use only three knights." You really want that requisition early, so you're pushed to take it, but that's a huge loss of action economy when your actions are weakest.

[Vagabundo]

to be fair the end game your grey knights can be insanely OP specially the guy that can jump around

[Jaynoble55]

The problem is bolter porn. Mothers, do not let children get hooked on it. Movie marines, which is what it looks like the OP wants, are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid marty stu's. Yes the GK are elite marines, yes they are psychers. No they are not invincible. Not even close. And while a nurgle cultist and or pox walker taking a full clip from a HB seems pretty lame, there isnt much to be done about it due to the game needing to be challenging. I was going to pass on this imperial fanboy mess until i found out it was actually a challenge.

But I bet GW sold you on the "noble space marine" ♥♥♥♥. The only thing noble about the imperium is probably the Salamanders or maybe the Space Pups. Anyhow, long rant from a 30 year TT gamer. TLDR, ♥♥♥♥ bolter porn. Its banal and boring. I am glad the game doesnt do this. Refreshing.

[-GK- Librarian Markus Ramikin]

Originally posted by Black Hammer:

Yep. You can also get warp effects that are brutal early on, like enemies getting +5 armor.

5 Armor, in the end, is just one basic storm bolter shot extra with Psybolts, or 1.25 of a shot without Psybolts.

Come to think of it, when the warp effect happens, how many enemy troops get that much armor at once? 'cause I've been playing on Standard difficulty myself and, from the start, I never paid attention to warp effects, so I don't actually know.

All I know is that if enemies had extra armor, I just focus-fired them a little harder, and if I knew some would survive, I made sure to plan my troops to stand in an advantageous position at the end, with the Justicar most in front with his Aegis up.

EDIT: I did laugh at myself when I only realized after a bunch of missions that Aegis is free in terms of Willpower, and I can spam it every turn if I want. Game became even easier then.

[g.hodges1]

[spoilers] my style of play that made the early game easy on normal difficulty:
- always activate Aegis Shield on all units before moving any of them. That way you enter combat with 3 AP and Aegis Shield already active. [activating Aegis Shield if already active has no effect]
- use cover, unless all enemies can only melee. Unlike some games, full cover [full shield symbol] gives 100% protection, you can shoot from behind full cover (unless enemy has overwatch covering the open space next to the cover, and annoying enemies that ignore armour, like the thing with the vox stave, must have line of sight to damage you.
- don't overwatch from full cover, because you then pop out from cover and become exposed [unless enemies can only melee]
- use Purgator's cannon or silencer's Astral Aim to disable the big plague zombie's explode ability, vox stave, cannon that shoots plague etc.
-if necessary and while avoiding risk, teleport behind the heavy stubber and melee them to cancel suppression. Shooting does not cancel suppression/overwatch [unless you kill the enemy of course]

[-GK- Librarian Markus Ramikin]

Originally posted by g.hodges1:

- don't overwatch from full cover, because you then pop out from cover and become exposed [unless enemies can only melee]

This took me a few fights to understand.

You can still overwatch and stay in full cover, but not by aiming towards the enemy, only crosswise, where your Knight can aim at without moving. For example, if you're next to a window, you can only overwatch the area on YOUR side of the window, not the enemy side, and if they breach the window and land next to you then your guy will shoot.

When setting up overwatch, you can see a little dot showing where your guy will stand, if you try to force him to overwatch somewhere he currently would have to move to aim at.