As more rumours leak out and with a playtest version of the codex floating around the internet, it's starting to look like that might not be the case. Read on for more, but the picture to the right is a pretty big hint!
As usual, at this stage all based on (strong) rumours.
The trusty Vindicare assassin. He's going to be one popular cookie! His time honoured roll will still be there, picking out hidden power fists or klaws (an ability which will be insanely useful against horde orks!). Something which many an opponent will not initially consider though, is that he is your most reliable way to kill Land Raiders.
The Vindicare is BS8, which means that he's hitting on 2s, and if you manage to roll a one, he'll still hit on a 4+. Also he has the "Turbo-Penetrator" round. This bad boy gives the Vindicare 4D6 penetration. So we have a natural sniper strength of 3 + 4d6 for penetration, oh and it's rending. What this means is that the average penetration roll will be 17 (ignoring rending) but the real roll can be anywhere between 7 and 39. This mean he'll be penetrating almost all the time. When it comes to the damage roll... that rifle is AP1 baby!
For a unit that costs around 145 points, being highly likely to kill or immobilise a 250 point tank in the first turn is a tasty thought! Then considering he has a 3+ coversave, 4++ inv save and a 6+ FNP roll and 2 wounds, he's not going anywhere without some serious allocation of firepower.
Over to other units. Well I'll mention Stormravens, they're are definitely a good choice for tank-hunting, and one of your only units that can take lascannons and multimeltas. I won't go into they're abilities here, as I covered them pretty well in my last post.
Another useful unit is dreadnoughts. Riflemen dreads are one of my favourite units in my Vanilla Space Marine army. Fantastic transport-poppers and suppressors. Well now thanks to the Grey Knight's vehicles all being psykers and having the Fortitude power which allows them to ignore stunned and shaken, GK dreads are all the more reliable, and only 5 points more! It's probably a good idea to mention venerable dreads here as well, with a combination of re-rolling the damage chart and ignoring stunned/shaken, the venerable dread is going to be one tough nut to crack! The last word in reliable heavy support.
Having mentioned Riflemen dreads it's probably a good time to mention the humble psycannon. All rumours at this point saying its going to be 24" Str7 AP4 Assault 2 Rending AND 36" Str7 AP4 Heavy 4 Rending. This gives it the same strength as an autocannon, which we know is a good anti-transport and suppressing gun. Almost every unit in the codex has access to these. What with terminators being relentless, 2 psycannons in a squad of 5 means they can pump out 8 Str7 shots while still moving, and doesn't replace their force weapons. squad of 5 terminators coming in at 250points with 2 psycannons, not bad!
Sticking with the psycannon theme, Purgation squads should not be overlooked. For a mere 180 points you can pick up a 5 man squad featuring 4 psycannons. What's more, Purgations squads come with a power which allows them to shoot without the need of unimportant things like line of sight (while giving the enemy a coversave). So, 180 points for 16 shots standing (8 when moving, autocannons can't boast that!). Math-Hammer tells us this results in 2.8 glancing/penetrating hits on a Land Raider, half that if firing without LOS.
Carrying on the Str 7 theme. Inquisitors can take henchmen squads which can be made up of 12 men with plasma guns or melta guns for 168 points, and give them a chimera for 55 points. The squad can have a jokaero weaponsmith as well, which can fire its digiweapons as a multi-melta or a lascannon as well as other options. the jokaero can also confer a random bonus to the rest of the squad, one of which is increasing the max range of their guns by 12". Anyone fancy 24" melta guns? or 36" plasma guns?
Well that's definately alot of shooting that can threaten vehicles. What about CC? Well this is where the librarian comes in. One of his powers allows him to cast "Might of Titan" on one friendly unit within 6" (including himself and his unit). This gives the target unit +1 str and allows them to roll 2D6 for armour penetration. This also stacks with Hammerhand, which the target unit can cast on itself. So a standard GK squad can charge a vehicle with S6 + 2D6 attacks. A 5 man GK standard squad assaulting a stationary Land Raider would achieve 5 glancing/penetrating hits on the charge on average.
Also there is the Dreadknight. Rumours at the moment are saying that a Doomfist grants a str10 in close combat. Meaning the DK rolls 10 + 2D6 armour penetration... which is insane.
So, maybe GKs won't be so bad against vehicles after all? Yes there are less high strength weapons than in other codices, but they are by no means lacking.
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