As still a fairly new-ish player (or someone who plays often enough like they were new) I have the occasional tendency (especially when I'm fielding new units) to be a tad overzealous with my charges and placement. To put said unit directly into harms way under the misguided assumption that they are "awesome" and are about to "melt face." It's not as if it happens often, but it can be easy to forget that with such a low model count in the Grey Knights army (and with how bad-ass the Grey Knights seem).
Consider this a friendly reminder from the dice gods.
The scenario is to see, basically, how many S4 rapid fire shots (we'll ignore AP as bolters, shootas, etc. don't have enough to penetrate any MEQ or better armor) would it take statistically to take a model or unit down. One wound might not seem like a lot but in a Grey Knights army of 200-225 pt Terminator squads (5 models) and Monstrous Creatures that can be up to 200-250 pts (Dreadknights), it can hurt a lot more than you'd like to think. Let's even throw in Castellan Crowe and a Strike Squad GK.
I'll show the math the first two times, then after that I figure everyone will get the idea.
Grey Knight (MEQ: Toughness 4, 1 Wound, 3+ armor save)
@ BS 4 (66.6% of shots will hit, 50% of hits will wound, 33.3% of wounds will not be saved) = 11.1% of bolter-equivalent shots will kill a GK, meaning, statistically, 4.5 bolter-equivalents at rapid fire will kill a Grey Knight every time, all the time
@ BS 3 (50% hit, 50% wound, 33.3% fail saves) = 8.3% bolter shots kill, 6 S4 rapid fire guns kill an MEQ
@ BS 2 = 9 Bolters
Terminator (T4, 1 W, 2+/5++)
@ BS 4 = 9 Bolters
@ BS 3 = 12 Bolters
@ BS 2 = 18 Bolters
Dreadknight (T6, 4 W, 2+/5++)
@ BS 4 = 108 Bolters (ok, this one's a bit silly)
@ BS 3 = 144 Bolters
@ BS 2 = 216 Bolters
Castellan Crowe (T4, 2 W, 2+/4++)
@ BS 4 = 18 Bolters (to kill)
@ BS 3 = 24 Bolters
@ BS 2 = 36 Bolters
Translate this to S4 close combat hits, where almost everyone is hitting on 4s, and it looks like:
Grey Knight
in CC = 12 attacks to kill an MEQ
Terminator
in CC = 24 attacks
Dreadknight
in CC = 288 attacks
Crowe
in CC (without defensive stance) = 48 attacks
That's a lot of numbers some of which seem pretty high, but when you start to unpack it, you can get out a couple of things. Firstly, it's that this is often the best case scenario. Something hitting you at S3 is rare, so you should be expecting the equivalent of bolter fire plus a few shots of something worse.
Where these numbers hurt the most is in terms of Terminators. When you look at how quickly a 5-man unit can fall to a similarly priced group of Ork Boyz or just straight up bolt pistol fire, Terminators start looking a lot more like specialist units to tie up small, elite groups without power weapons and AP2 guns or hold objectives. Dropping them right into the heat of combat seems like a way to get them very quickly killed and leave you out 200+ points.
You also have to consider when and where you might use a grenade-kitted Techmarine. A 10-man squad with the equivalent of bolt pistols can wipe out 130 odd points in a single turn if your Techmarine's alone. Even a 2++ in CC is capable of being torn through with just 24 attacks.
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