Hi, i was wondering effective are grey knights when fighting xenos or heretics ? I m speaking in terms of Background ofcourse

Devastating...
I doubt much can withstand them especially since few forces really know about them. Fortunately for them the GK try to keep to Daemons.

Extremely proficient. Considering they have to face literally the most terrifying and powerful force just now in the galaxy, a few orks or Tyranids aren't exactly that dangerous to them. Obviously the Codex makes them look like they have a good track record against these other forces. They very rarely go out of their way to fight anything else but Daemons, and they have a 100% track record against them.

iproxtaco wrote:Extremely proficient. Considering they have to face literally the most terrifying and powerful force just now in the galaxy, a few orks or Tyranids aren't exactly that dangerous to them. Obviously the Codex makes them look like they have a good track record against these other forces. They very rarely go out of their way to fight anything else but Daemons, and they have a 100% track record against them.

Not a 100% track record...
They have lost battles just not many...

No, they haven't. A Grey Knight win is achieved when they stop the Daemonic incursion. They can all die, so long as that is achieved, and so far, they have always won.

iproxtaco wrote:No, they haven't. A Grey Knight win is achieved when they stop the Daemonic incursion. They can all die, so long as that is achieved, and so far, they have always won.

So you know every single battle they have every faced?
Even the ones that haven't been written about?
Or does it say in the new GK book that they have won every battle ever?

Chaos codex. Night Lords invade and slaughter an entire planet of Inquisitor trainees, turning the bones of the fallen into giant daemon summoning icons, then vanished leaving a planet of daemons to kill the incoming Imperial forces. GK FAIL.

Grey Knights clearly didn't fail, as they weren't involved in the event AT ALL. To lose, you have to fight first, or decide not to fight. Do you know of any battles where they have lost? Yeah, thought so.

You still haven't answered my question.

purplefood wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:No, they haven't. A Grey Knight win is achieved when they stop the Daemonic incursion. They can all die, so long as that is achieved, and so far, they have always won.

So you know every single battle they have every faced?
Even the ones that haven't been written about?
Or does it say in the new GK book that they have won every battle ever?

Well with this you will also have to tell us a battle that they lost?

taylor048 wrote:

purplefood wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:No, they haven't. A Grey Knight win is achieved when they stop the Daemonic incursion. They can all die, so long as that is achieved, and so far, they have always won.

So you know every single battle they have every faced?
Even the ones that haven't been written about?
Or does it say in the new GK book that they have won every battle ever?

Well with this you will also have to tell us a battle that they lost?

I'm not the one claiming they have a 100% track record.
They have won a lot but they must have lost some battles.
No force exists for 10,000 years without losing some even if they aren't written about in the fluff.
Let me go find an example...
The Battle of Sarthus Majoris.
As seen in the Gk novel: Hammer of Daemons.
This is the verbatim decription from Lexicanum (NOTE:I have read the book so don't try and say that is isn't accurate) i will spoiler it for those that wish to read the book and haven't done so yet.

I would assume they would not do as well. Because(due to my understanding) one of the main weapons against demons is there psychic mumbo jumbo. If they were so good against other races, I would be pretty sure that the tyranid invasion wouldn't be as "OMG we are getting eaten". Single combat im sure they can pwn anyone, but against army like the nids or necrons they would be pretty hard pressed to win

purplefood wrote:
I'm not the one claiming they have a 100% track record.
They have won a lot but they must have lost some battles.
No force exists for 10,000 years without losing some even if they aren't written about in the fluff.
Let me go find an example...
The Battle of Sarthus Majoris.
As seen in the Gk novel: Hammer of Daemons.
This is the verbatim decription from Lexicanum (NOTE:I have read the book so don't try and say that is isn't accurate) i will spoiler it for those that wish to read the book and haven't done so yet.

Spoiler:

Alaric and his squad are on the planet Sarthus Majoris attempting to stop a daemonic army from taking over the planet. During the fighting, Alaric and the Grey Knights abandon their post to challenge the Chaos Champion leading the force. Alaric is defeated and captured along with Brother Haulvarn

Ironsight wrote:

purplefood wrote:
I'm not the one claiming they have a 100% track record.
They have won a lot but they must have lost some battles.
No force exists for 10,000 years without losing some even if they aren't written about in the fluff.
Let me go find an example...
The Battle of Sarthus Majoris.
As seen in the Gk novel: Hammer of Daemons.
This is the verbatim decription from Lexicanum (NOTE:I have read the book so don't try and say that is isn't accurate) i will spoiler it for those that wish to read the book and haven't done so yet.

Spoiler:

Alaric and his squad are on the planet Sarthus Majoris attempting to stop a daemonic army from taking over the planet. During the fighting, Alaric and the Grey Knights abandon their post to challenge the Chaos Champion leading the force. Alaric is defeated and captured along with Brother Haulvarn

Spoiler:

Yeah, but over the course of the book, Alaric kills that Chaos Champion, starts a civil war on the planet he was taken to and sends a powerful Tzeentchian daemon back to its maker. Grey Knights win!

Also at the start of the trilogy they lose most of the chapter oh khorion ix i beleive. There was no survivors even their supreme grand master died. They killed the daemon tho lol.

taylor048 wrote:Also at the start of the trilogy they lose most of the chapter oh khorion ix i beleive. There was no survivors even their supreme grand master died. They killed the daemon tho lol.

Mandulis was never described as "Supreme" Grand Master, as that title didn't exist pre-Ward. He was a "generic" Grand Master. And 300 dead Knights, while pretty severe, isn't even half the Chapter's strength. Besides, as you pointed out, Ghargatuloth was banished. Thus, the Grey Knights won that one too.

Saying the GK win if the daemon is banished regarless of loses makes no sense. There gets a point where loosing that number of GK isn't worth saving the planet. GK aren't guardsman, they are expensive and time consuming to train.

There are many battles where the GK loses were worse than the daemon loses. Since daemons aren't ever destroyed just sent back to the warp it could easily be argued that the best GK ever get is a draw.

The Grey Knights sole objective is to stop Daemonic incursions, no matter the cost. So far, there isn't a single case where the Grey Knights have failed in this task, even if it's doing an Exterminatus on the planet and killing the whole population. Therefore, they have a 100% track record against Daemons.

Sarthus Majoris.
Daemons won.
Therefore they do not have a 100% track record.

In the latest white dwarf there were battle missions for them. And there it is made cleare that they can fight Xenos, but only if they are corrupted by chaos or make chaos much stronger and more of that things. They can also fight imperial forces, if those Imperium soldiers are corrupted by chaos or have a chaos-virus in them, and they have to die to protect manhy more lives.

What happened after Alaric was captured isn't described though, the Inquisition could have come down and commenced Exterminatus, or more Grey Knights could have arrived and destroyed the Daemons. It isn't clear.

iproxtaco wrote:Grey Knights clearly didn't fail, as they weren't involved in the event AT ALL. To lose, you have to fight first, or decide not to fight. Do you know of any battles where they have lost? Yeah, thought so.

Usually, there's a dramatic pause before you say 'yeah, thought so'. Otherwise you look like an idiot when the person tells you that the Grey Knights were involved and slaughtered at the start of the invasion.

Except that was a completely different example in which the Grey Knights weren't actually involved in. No idiots here.

iproxtaco wrote:What happened after Alaric was captured isn't described though, the Inquisition could have come down and commenced Exterminatus, or more Grey Knights could have arrived and destroyed the Daemons. It isn't clear.

The daemons captured the planet.
The GK lost the battle.
They lost.
What happened afterwards is a seperate battle.

No it isn't. If the Grey Knights were beaten by the Daemons in that case, which I don't debate, other Grey Knights or other Imperial Forces will have arrived, and ultimately the planet would have been taken back or gone through Exterminatus, in which case the Daemons would have been stopped, so the Grey Knights would have won in the end.

iproxtaco wrote:No it isn't. If the Grey Knights were beaten by the Daemons in that case, which I don't debate, other Grey Knights or other Imperial Forces will have arrived, and ultimately the planet would have been taken back or gone through Exterminatus, in which case the Daemons would have been stopped, so the Grey Knights would have won in the end.

The "lost a battle but won the war therefore they win" argument is pathetic. They were beaten, that's the end of it. It doesn't matter what happened after the fight, the fact is that they lost at one point. It's like saying that the Romans lost a fight, but managed to kill the opposition later on and therefore won the fight they lost.

If you lose a fight, you lose a fight.

iproxtaco wrote:No it isn't. If the Grey Knights were beaten by the Daemons in that case, which I don't debate, other Grey Knights or other Imperial Forces will have arrived, and ultimately the planet would have been taken back or gone through Exterminatus, in which case the Daemons would have been stopped, so the Grey Knights would have won in the end.

This is ridiculous logic...

Not really no, it's a fairly good argument. The may have been beaten by the Daemons then, but their objective is to stop the incursions of Daemons. They have never failed in that task, in the end, the have always won the engagements they've been involved in, or the final result is inconclusive, as it is with Alaric.

iproxtaco wrote:Not really no, it's a fairly good argument. The may have been beaten by the Daemons then, but their objective is to stop the incursions of Daemons. They have never failed in that task, in the end, the have always won the engagements they've been involved in, or the final result is inconclusive, as it is with Alaric.

'In the end' is not good enough. 'In the end' the Allies won WW2, but we lost many fights throughout; by your logic, those fights would count as victories, which is absurd.

They failed to stop the Daemons taking the planet.
Daemons score 1 point.
They come back and try again (Key word here is again)
GK score 1 point.
Just because they won the second and completly seperate battle does not make the first battle go away.
They both have a win and a loss.
They may have won in the end but their battle record is still 1 win 1 loss.

iproxtaco wrote:Grey Knights clearly didn't fail, as they weren't involved in the event AT ALL. To lose, you have to fight first, or decide not to fight. Do you know of any battles where they have lost? Yeah, thought so.

You can still achieve an objective but get your ass handed to you. There are rarely cut-and-dried victories and losses, so if you consider 99% losses but killing a single Daemon a victory then congratulations...

Using an exterminatus on a planet isn't winning, it's reducing loses. There have been many occasion when the GK haven't been able to stop a daemonic incursion, destroying the planet isn't winning. The objective isn't the to stop the daemons it's to save the planet, blowing it up from orbit isn't winning.

Achieving objectives is only half the battle, the other half is killing the enemy and not dying yourself. Preventing an incursion isn't soo good if you lose 900 GK doing it.

Hazard30 wrote:I would assume they would not do as well. Because(due to my understanding) one of the main weapons against demons is there psychic mumbo jumbo. If they were so good against other races, I would be pretty sure that the tyranid invasion wouldn't be as "OMG we are getting eaten". Single combat im sure they can pwn anyone, but against army like the nids or necrons they would be pretty hard pressed to win

That psykic stuff is duo to them having the emperors heritage imprinted in their geneseed, which is unique to the gk. yes, all you fluff nuts are going to go into nerdrage mode over that but its true. read the codex.
As for them beating back a tyranid invasion: hardly. their a small elite force. they cant be everywhere at once, and unless they have the godlike ability to clone themselves instantly and scamper off their going to have trouble against endless hordes of opponents. as for them going onto a hive ship and carving out the brain i could see that happen, but not easily.

and as usual im about to throw up when i hear the : their oh-so-perfect and have never ever ever lost a battle... come on.

tarnish wrote:

Hazard30 wrote:I would assume they would not do as well. Because(due to my understanding) one of the main weapons against demons is there psychic mumbo jumbo. If they were so good against other races, I would be pretty sure that the tyranid invasion wouldn't be as "OMG we are getting eaten". Single combat im sure they can pwn anyone, but against army like the nids or necrons they would be pretty hard pressed to win

That psykic stuff is duo to them having the emperors heritage imprinted in their geneseed, which is unique to the gk. yes, all you fluff nuts are going to go into nerdrage mode over that but its true. read the codex.
As for them beating back a tyranid invasion: hardly. their a small elite force. they cant be everywhere at once, and unless they have the godlike ability to clone themselves instantly and scamper off their going to have trouble against endless hordes of opponents. as for them going onto a hive ship and carving out the brain i could see that happen, but not easily.

and as usual im about to throw up when i hear the : their oh-so-perfect and have never ever ever lost a battle... come on.

There is already a guy doing that...

Grey Knights try to stop Daemons, no matter the cost, no matter the methods. If in the end, 500 Grey Knights die but the Daemons are stopped, victory. If the entire system has to be destroyed, billions dead, but the Daemons are stopped, victory. So yeah, if they win in the end, it's still a win. It doesn't negate the losses the Grey Knights may face, or the battles lost, you people think it doesn't and I agree. But the Grey Knights DO look at the overall conflict. They have so far, not failed to ultimately stop a Daemonic incursion, or the result is inconclusive, as is the case with Alaric. They do not give up just because they lose their initial forces. After Alaric is gone, they WILL send more forces. If they are beaten back, then they WILL Exterminatus the planet, thus victory is assured.

iproxtaco wrote:Grey Knights try to stop Daemons, no matter the cost, no matter the methods. If in the end, 500 Grey Knights die and the Daemons are stopped, victory. If the entire system has to be destroyed, billions dead, and the Daemons are stopped, victory. So yeah, if the win in the end, it's still a win. It doesn't negate the losses the Grey Knights may face, or the battles lost, you people think it doesn't and I agree. But the Grey Knights DO look at the overall conflict. They have so far, not failed to ultimately stop a Daemonic incursion, or the result in inconclusive, as is the case with Alaric. They do not give up just because they lose their initial forces.

They still lose battles.
They can look at what happens ultimately for as long as they want but the fact remains, they do lose battles.
They might win or at least keep the balance over all but they still lose sometimes.

If in the end, 500 Grey Knights die and the Daemons are stopped, victory

To lose half of the Grey Knights against a single daemonic incursion would be a catastrophic failure, no matter the outcome. You seem to forget that Daemon numbers are, for all intents and purposes, infinite; were a larger incurison to occur directly afterwards, the Grey Knights would be overwhelmed.

F**k me it's impossible to argue with some people. Grey Knights don't look at individual battles, they look at the War as a whole, so maybe they do lose some individual battles, they don't care. They care about the bigger picture, and so far, they have not lost a 'war'.

No, it is impossible to argue with someone who cannot see reason (i.e. You). Resorting to cussing because an argument isn't going your way is the sign of someone losing ground.

Still a victory. The Grey Knights are perfectly willing to die if that means they achieve victory, which they so afar always have. It's an unrealistic example. It's unlikely that they would allow losses to get as high as 500, exterminatus would be carried out before that. I beleive that 200 hundred was the largest number they've lost in a single incursion, but it depends on the size. In that case it was against Angron. They won by the way.

Just had a thought would the eye of terror it self count as a loss. It's filled with daemons and they are out side of the warp.

You are also not seeing reason, as reasoning is subjective.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
But it's not an incursion is it? The Eye is a Warp/Material overlap, they are not running around killing in the material realm. Essentially, the Eye of Terror IS the Warp, you go in it, you are in the Warp.

No battle is whatever the costs, to say it is is crazy. Consequences do matter. Usually daemons are a big enough threat that usualy they don't get to that point.

Fighting Daemons on 1 planet is not worth sacrificng the whole chapter. If they lost all the GK to save one planet would it be a loss- Yes obviously, the GK are worth more than the planet.

By your logic throwing the GK into the eye of terror would be a good idea as they could kill lots of daemons. But shockingly they don't do it. The imperium only wants to fight when the outcome will be beneficial. Attacking daemons when there is no benefit is a useless waste of soldiers. There will get a point when winning the battle isn't worth the resouces to fight, this is when they leave or exterminatus. Resources aren't free, they can't be thrown into every battle.

iproxtaco wrote:You are also not seeing reason, as reasoning is subjective.

There is no reason to see, you are simply ignoring the base fact that they lost a fight. If you lose a fight, that fight is lost, the war might not be, but the fight is, hence you have lost. A football team loses a game but wins the league overall, they still lost that game. That is what you are either failing to see or blatantly ignoring.

Actually, they never declare a result until they've won. The Grey Knights may be dead, but they still declare the battle as on-going. They battle only ends when the Grey Knights know that they've beaten back the Daemons.

So what you are saying, is that they flip a coin until they get the result they want and then say they've won? "I want heads." "Okay, Best of 3" "Look, 2 tails, I win." "No, best of 5... best of 7... best of 9... look, 5 Heads, I win, kthxbi."

Actually yes.

The new GK codex just got a whole lot worse...
At least other factions can accept they have lost. They might swear vengence and go to extreeme lengths to kill a particular enemy but they don't try and deny the truth.

Considering the nature of daemons then all battles against them would be victories. They are bound to fade with time, nomatter how massive the warp rift might be. So really that kind of reasoning would make the grey knights entirely redundant.... a lame poodle would achieve the same results in the end.

What? That makes nearly no sense.

Allow me to paraphrase:

Since warp rifts are temporary, as is daemon presence in the material world, a victory could be achieved by anything that managed to evade destruction before the rift closed and the daemons faded back to the warp.

At least I think that's what he meant.

On the other hand you could say that any battle in which Daemons have inflicted even 1 casualty has been a loss for GK since Daemons are essentially immortal and simply reform in the Warp.

So, let the Daemons come through and cause massive destruction across multiple planets? Warp rifts do not have a definite time in which they will close. What if it lasts for years? The Imperium can't afford that. The Grey Knights are essentially a form of damage control, like pimped out secret space-firemen.

So essentially the GK cannot win. All they do is limit the casualties...
I'm not saying they aren't really good but everyone loses once in a while.

Especially against daemons which are immortal. Thats the point of chaos, It will come it will cause a lot of damage but in the end it will be beaten back as once it loses moment it fades. However these battles don't cost chaos anything. Other forces are unable to attack chaos once it has retreated and any daemons killed will just return to the warp.

Chaos can't occupy your planets or steal resources but you can't wipe it out either.

The GK are just a shield. They might hold back the daemons but they do it suffering large casulties while chaos remains as strong as it always has been.

Sorry for the terrible language, i get carried away sometimes.... but yes, anything that can hold the demons attention untill they fade back into the warp would suffice. as in a lame poodle on a jetbike perhaps. or something less silly but just as harmless.

As for the daemons running rampage across entire sectors.... wouldent the imperial guard do just as well as the space marines that couldnt afford paint for their armor?

Daemons aren't animals, they're sapient. You can't just draw their attention away if all they want to do is kill, that would take a target that can survive and possibly beat them, hence the Grey Knights, who also push them back into the Warp, a task they have not failed in so far.

Do you know why the Grey Knights exist? To be an effective force against Daemons so that the threat Chaos poses to humanity can be kept secret. Why would you fight them with thousands of ineffective humans who are susceptible to corruption and are prone to blabbing about their experiences to the general populace?

Except most of the time they do send IG. There just aren't enough GK. 1000 soldiers across the entire galaxy isn't going to work.

GK go in when you don't just want to kill the daemons, but need to achieve some objective on that planet. If they just want to protect the planet they use the IG. There are too few GK to hold even one planet alone. The GK would be sent to key locations.

You can distract daemons, give them something that they want to kill but have no chance of catching or harming.

Eh? Imperial Guard ARE NOT sent against Daemons in place of the Grey Knights. They are sent to planets where they are needed, Grey Knights are sent to every Daemonic incursion, every single one, and they have no alternative motives other than to stop Daemons. The Guard don't know what they are fighting before they get there.

You can't just distract Daemons like a dog, there's no way you can effectively draw them away because they aren't your average military force. Plus, what do you use when the Grey Knights are more effective, thorough, faster and more available and their literally nothing on the planet that can coordinate such a feat?

If the Imperium had to they would send Guardsmen in ahead of GK.
The Imperium buys time through blood. Whether this is time to save a world or time to turn a weapon on the enemy it is all the same.

Yeah, they send the Guard to every planet in distress, unless there are other objectives on it. The Grey Knights go to every single one, they're usually faster due to better ships and because they have fore-warning of most of them. The Imperial Guard are not sent in place of the Grey Knights, the Knights have no ulterior motives, and they go to every single one.

How are 1000 marines going to respond to every daemonic attack in the galaxy?

This is 40k, even the imperiums fastest transports take months to move across the galaxy.

The IoM doesn't care if some small irrelevant planet far from anything else gets hit by daemons. It's not worth losing GK for.

Well they do, incursions aren't that common, and it's usually just a force of a few squads to each.

Grey Knights have modified ships, designed to be the fastest the Imperium can create, so take weeks at most, and they have fore-warning.

Yeah, it is worth it. Daemons can spread, the hole in the fabric of reality can widen unless it's closed, which is what the Grey Knights do.

The emperor is the only thing the IoM has that can shut warp storms. The GKs just kill what comes out.

How do the GK get pre warning? When warp storms occur they just happen. The best the imperium has a psykers trying to feel what is going to happen in the future usually they know something bad is going to happen but never where.

By 2 weeks most standard planets would be gone. Daemons can ignore most of the IoM defenses as they just appear next to you.

Daemonic Incursions don't always happen through warp storms.
The Prognoticars can see parts of the future.
Often they don't arrive to save the planet, the daemons are held up during the slaughter and GK can sweep in at some point and kill them.

Yeah but my point is that 1000 Gk would never get to every incursion in time. Many would have happened and gone by the time they get there.

It's all in the codex.

Through their psychic powers, they can close portals into the Warp, but it takes time and concentration, but stops any more Daemons coming through and destroys any Daemons already on the material side.

They have a special force of psykers on Titan called the Prognosticors, who are able to predict when and where the Daemons will be enter from the Warp. They have a large amount of fore-warning because of this. Coupled with their highly improved and augmented ships that are much faster than standard IN ones, so The Grey Knights are able to arrive before or only just after the incursion commences.
So, yes they are able to cover the entire Imperium.

iproxtaco wrote:It's all in the codex.

Through their psychic powers, they can close portals into the Warp, but it takes time and concentration, but stops any more Daemons coming through and destroys any Daemons already on the material side.

They have a special force of psykers on Titan called the Prognosticors, who are able to predict when and where the Daemons will be enter from the Warp. They have a large amount of fore-warning because of this. Coupled with their highly improved and augmented ships that are much faster than standard IN ones, so The Grey Knights are able to arrive before or only just after the incursion commences.
So, yes they are able to cover the entire Imperium.

Well no they aren't...
Someone gave an example of a daemonic incursion that had no GK intervention earlier in the thread.

So they missed one, they obviously can't cover every single planet, but out of over 1,000,000 planets, one is not bad for only 1000 guys.

There are undoubtedly more.
GK cannot cover all of the Imperium no matter how fast they go.
They can protect the important bits but they can't defend everything.

There is more than 1 planet they failed to get to, we just have 1 example.

GK are used when the IoM really cares. Most of the time they just flood the area with IG so the daemons can't get anywhere then wait for them to fade.

NO, the Grey Knights are sent to every single incursion they get knowledge of. The Imperial Guard are not used as a substitute.

iproxtaco wrote:NO, the Grey Knights are sent to every single incursion they get knowledge of. The Imperial Guard are not used as a substitute.

Sarthus Majoris.
IG were deployed to fight the daemonic incursion.

Daemonbane War-
Spacewolves fight daemonic incursion alone. Only later when they hear news of a radical inquisitor do the ordo malleus turn up.

Wait what? Grey Knights were there. That's where Alaric was captured.

iproxtaco wrote:Wait what? Grey Knights were there. That's where Alaric was captured.

Yeah, but IG were also sent.

That's Space Wolves, not Imperial Guard, and I actually said they are SENT TO, which according to you, they were., so not proof that IG are a substitute for Grey Knights, or that the Grey Knights aren't sent to every Daemonic incursion. If it has already been dealt with, then obviously they wont go.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What's your point? I know that IG are sent, 4M2A suggested that IG are used as a substitute for the Grey Knights and that Grey Knights don't respond to every Daemonic incursion, which they do.

Thats a illogical argument- if they aren't needed they won't go.

GK go to every incursion that is important enough for them to be justified. Same reason spacemarines don't got to every war. Forces are used when required.

iproxtaco wrote:So, let the Daemons come through and cause massive destruction across multiple planets? Warp rifts do not have a definite time in which they will close. What if it lasts for years? The Imperium can't afford that. The Grey Knights are essentially a form of damage control, like pimped out secret space-firemen.

The Imperium can't afford to lose billions of people in an exterminatus action because the GK failed to halt a demonic incursion on a planet either.

That's not my argument though, Imperial Guard are not used in place of the Grey Knights. They are sent to where they are needed, regardless of the foe, except they don't know what they're going to be fighting. The Grey Knights are sent AS WELL.
If the incursion has already been cleaned up when the Grey Knights receive word, then they won't go, because there are no Daemons to clean up any more.

Every Daemonic incursion warrants the attention of the Grey Knights.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

cadbren wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:So, let the Daemons come through and cause massive destruction across multiple planets? Warp rifts do not have a definite time in which they will close. What if it lasts for years? The Imperium can't afford that. The Grey Knights are essentially a form of damage control, like pimped out secret space-firemen.

The Imperium can't afford to lose billions of people in an exterminatus action because the GK failed to halt a demonic incursion on a planet either.

Yes they can.

iproxtaco wrote:Eh? Imperial Guard ARE NOT sent against Daemons in place of the Grey Knights. They are sent to planets where they are needed, Grey Knights are sent to every Daemonic incursion, every single one, and they have no alternative motives other than to stop Daemons. The Guard don't know what they are fighting before they get there.

So what your saying is that gk, a force of a mere 1000 marines have protected the entire galaxy from daemons for 10,000 years and never once been defeated or even late?

Ill order the salt and you can pay for the truck needed to deliver it.

And if they actually do manage to do this, then arent daemons really a minor threat considering the resources needed to keep them occupied?

Not defeated no, they have stopped every Daemonic incursion before or the result is inconclusive so far (Sarthus Majoris). Define what you mean by late.

That's the wrong place to use the salt metaphor.

Hah, no they are not a minor threat.

iproxtaco wrote:

cadbren wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:So, let the Daemons come through and cause massive destruction across multiple planets? Warp rifts do not have a definite time in which they will close. What if it lasts for years? The Imperium can't afford that. The Grey Knights are essentially a form of damage control, like pimped out secret space-firemen.

The Imperium can't afford to lose billions of people in an exterminatus action because the GK failed to halt a demonic incursion on a planet either.

Yes they can.

No they can't, otherwise they wouldn't send GK in at all, they'd just exterminatus everything each and every time and save the GK for fighting the black crusades or similar.

They can afford to exterminatus a planet because the Grey Knights fail. It's used as a last resort because they want to keep the planet, but the Imperium certainly can afford to kill billions and make a world uninhabitable for a few hundred years to stop a Daemonic incursion, which could cause more damage. They would rather not, but they can afford it.

Now, to a Grey Knight, allowing a daemonic summoning to take place and the creation of a daemon world would be a loss no? Because theirs is a secret fight against all of the 666, and especially the 101, now I may be mistaken here, but they are not always successful in banishment, which is why they think of it as a fight which cannot be won, but must be fought anyway, there are daemons which not even the Dreadknight (LOL MY FACE OFF) can stand against, like the ghargatuloth, and the daemon from the ravenor trilogy, which in turn transform something into a daemon world.

No it wouldn't. They can predict them, but they can't stop them from happening.
Have any examples of Daemons the Grey Knights have failed to banish? Ghargatuloth has been banished twice by them.

iproxtaco wrote:...Grey Knights are sent to every Daemonic incursion, every single one...

LOLOLOLOLOL So every daemonic incursion ever? Even those on the Eldar Craftworld of Kher Ys?

Grey Knights aren't always available, and the Imperium HAS lost worlds to daemonic incursions...

There are other forces in the galaxy that also fight daemons.
SoB, various Space Marines, Eldar...

As for Grey Knights against everyone else... zeal + one of the best armor in the galaxy + psychic charged weapons + psychic powers that makes you piss in you pants and zeal that can't be matched.

They would literally stomp everyone else. Luckily for them there are only 1000 Grey Knights in the galaxy ( damn you M.W. ) and they are focusing only on Chaos and their servants.

Grey Knights are sent to possible major incursions. They tend to know when a Daemon of immense power is staging an attack.

They are a really powerful force, but they are only a tool used for anti-daemon invasions. Due to their limited numbers they can't be at every single incursion. Sometimes the Astartes, Sisters, and Guard are sent instead. Which is by no means not a solution. All three factions have more than capable means of defeating Daemons. It is only when a threat of great might comes through the warp that Grey Knights are sent.

But back on topic, Grey Knights seldom fight anything other than Daemons. On occaision another threat on a world they are cleansing might be present, so in that case yes, they would fight something other than a Daemon while they fight the Daemons.

iproxtaco wrote:Every Daemonic incursion warrants the attention of the Grey Knights.

This is a joke right? 1000 warriors cannot, and never will be able to, cover the million worlds of the Imperium. Look at the Deamon Codex for successful incursions.


And what is this about Exterminatus not being a loss? The Imperium values worlds much more than the billions of lives they send to defend them. This is exactly why they'd rather conduct a 50 year campaign, with many millions dead, than kill the planet off. If a GK team needs to resort to an Exterminatus that means they have failed to preserve the planet, meaning they lost.

On Guard fighting Daemons:
Guardsmen get involved in fighting daemons by virtue of there normally being PDF regiments on the planet in question prior to the daemons invading. The Administratum, being only dimly aware of a planetary invasion from an unknown enemy, send some nearby regiments to deal with the problem. Its feasible to assume that a Guard force could overcome a daemonic incursion on their own if they had the numbers, strategy and a fair amount of luck. In such a case though ,the incursion might not have been deemed so great as to become a priority to the Grey Knights to send a portion of their extremely limited resources to fight the daemons off anyways. The Guardsmen involved in the fighting are killed off at any rate, in this case likely by a force of Inquisitorial Storm Troopers.

Emperors Faithful wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:Every Daemonic incursion warrants the attention of the Grey Knights.

This is a joke right? 1000 warriors cannot, and never will be able to, cover the million worlds of the Imperium. Look at the Deamon Codex for successful incursions.


And what is this about Exterminatus not being a loss? The Imperium values worlds much more than the billions of lives they send to defend them. This is exactly why they'd rather conduct a 50 year campaign, with many millions dead, than kill the planet off. If a GK team needs to resort to an Exterminatus that means they have failed to preserve the planet, meaning they lost.

The planet destroyed, half the chapter wiped out, countless guard and other troops dead, but that demon was taught a lesson! Oh yeah, and any imperial survivors of this "victory" are either killed or mind wiped to preserve the secrecy of the GK. If that is the case then the imperium is better off without them.

cadbren wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:Every Daemonic incursion warrants the attention of the Grey Knights.

This is a joke right? 1000 warriors cannot, and never will be able to, cover the million worlds of the Imperium. Look at the Deamon Codex for successful incursions.


And what is this about Exterminatus not being a loss? The Imperium values worlds much more than the billions of lives they send to defend them. This is exactly why they'd rather conduct a 50 year campaign, with many millions dead, than kill the planet off. If a GK team needs to resort to an Exterminatus that means they have failed to preserve the planet, meaning they lost.

The planet destroyed, half the chapter wiped out, countless guard and other troops dead, but that demon was taught a lesson! Oh yeah, and any imperial survivors of this "victory" are either killed or mind wiped to preserve the secrecy of the GK. If that is the case then the imperium is better off without them.

Its more than just teaching the daemon a lesson. Any daemon powerful enough to cause casualties like that would have a huge cooldown time to wait out in the Warp; thousands of years before the opportunity arrives for it to try its hand at invasion again. This is what happened with Angron after the First War for Armageddon.

This is the trade-off between Greater and Lesser Daemons. Individually, Lesser Daemons do not require so much time to re-coalesce in the Warp, even if they can be banished by Guardsman Joe and his flashlight. Against a pychic powerhouse like a Grey Knight however, they can be banished or even destroyed with little effort. Greater Daemons are difficult to overcome in the real world and pretty much impossible to destroy without cheats like the Tesseract Labyrinth or Hyperstone Maze, but rarely get the opportunity to attack realspace, and when they loose they take ages to pull themselves back together.

You guys do know that the thread is about GK vs anything but deamons. And you just spent 3 pages talking about fighting deamons.

GK against a army of any other race but deamons would get squished.

Aside that one instance in their codex with the rewriting history planet, I see no reason for GK to fight Necrons. They have no warp signature to bring daemons forward for crying out loud.

Wow this thread is... interesting.

GK would likely exterminate enemy xenos with similar proficiency to daemons.

Besides, they have to fight xenos corrupted by daemons occasionally as well.

Also, saying the GK can't ever lose seems... a bit silly. I'd say the fight with Gharguloth was a horrific loss with a silver lining, the fact they banished him back to the warp for however many years. They still lost like 300 grey knights in the process, and after reading Sacrifice in Victories of Space Marines, that is an absolutely devastating loss considering how much they put into each and every GK and their weaponry.

If gk end up fighting something thats "less corrupt" then daemons, then they would probably reason that everything that breathes other then them aids the daemonic terrors and therefore has to die. Ironically, should they gk be totally successful then they would have to kill every psychically active race in the galaxy. then the warp would go quiet over time.

They are undeniably less effective against normal aliens. So many of their weapons focus on daemons that they have little or no effect against other targets.

GK would be ok against races that use psykers as their powers counter them. Against Tau or Nids who don't use any psykers ( as far as I know tyranid psykers work differently) some of their best weapons would have no effect. Their weapons would be just as effective as normal SMs yet there would be a lot less of them.

They would also have less experience than normal marines at fighting non daemonic enemies. Anti daemon tactics aren't going to work against an army that will sit back and shoot you.

4M2A wrote:They are undeniably less effective against normal aliens. So many of their weapons focus on daemons that they have little or no effect against other targets.

GK would be ok against races that use psykers as their powers counter them. Against Tau or Nids who don't use any psykers ( as far as I know tyranid psykers work differently) some of their best weapons would have no effect. Their weapons would be just as effective as normal SMs yet there would be a lot less of them.

They would also have less experience than normal marines at fighting non daemonic enemies. Anti daemon tactics aren't going to work against an army that will sit back and shoot you.

i know its redundant but its quite possible to make a shooty daemon army. 3 soulgrinders are bound to be usefull against these guys.

tarnish wrote:

4M2A wrote:They are undeniably less effective against normal aliens. So many of their weapons focus on daemons that they have little or no effect against other targets.

GK would be ok against races that use psykers as their powers counter them. Against Tau or Nids who don't use any psykers ( as far as I know tyranid psykers work differently) some of their best weapons would have no effect. Their weapons would be just as effective as normal SMs yet there would be a lot less of them.

They would also have less experience than normal marines at fighting non daemonic enemies. Anti daemon tactics aren't going to work against an army that will sit back and shoot you.

i know its redundant but its quite possible to make a shooty daemon army. 3 soulgrinders are bound to be usefull against these guys.

3 Soulgrinders =/= Artillery Regiment.

Really if you think about it they might not be as effective against ork's or Tyranid's......

They would most likely WIN yes, however as far as effeciency goes not so much. If you are taught to fight demons for hundreds of years and have experience ONLY fighting demons, you will be quite naive to the behavior and tactics of a completely different foe.

Don't demon incursions tend to involve idiot humans who've turned to chaos for life's answers? Aren't demonic incursions usually the result of cults who can subvert entire governments to their will?
In order to fight the demons I'm sure the Grey Knights have fought more than their share of battles against cultist armies who are protecting their newly arisen "god".

4M2A wrote:They are undeniably less effective against normal aliens. So many of their weapons focus on daemons that they have little or no effect against other targets.

GK would be ok against races that use psykers as their powers counter them. Against Tau or Nids who don't use any psykers ( as far as I know tyranid psykers work differently) some of their best weapons would have no effect. Their weapons would be just as effective as normal SMs yet there would be a lot less of them.

They would also have less experience than normal marines at fighting non daemonic enemies. Anti daemon tactics aren't going to work against an army that will sit back and shoot you.

A bolter shell is a bolter shell. A power sword is a power sword. Get hit with either and you will most certainly be dead, regardless of which dimension you're from.
The only thing working against the Grey Knights is their limited numbers, which does put them at a disadvantage against horde armies like Orks or Tyranids.

In the new codex, there are instances of the Grey Knights fighting against these two armies. Both are timeline entries, so details are vague, but on Sondhiem V, the Grey Knights get involved in a epic three way battle between the Tyranids and Daemons. In the end, the Grey Knights call down orbital assets and escape with a chaotic artifact. On Beroghast, the details are even more vague, but it seems like the Grey Knights took care of the Orks seemingly without problem.

Ironsight wrote:In the new codex, there are instances of the Grey Knights fighting against these two armies. Both are timeline entries, so details are vague, but on Sondhiem V, the Grey Knights get involved in a epic three way battle between the Tyranids and Daemons. In the end, the Grey Knights call down orbital assets and escape with a chaotic artifact.

Are you sure that was the Grey Knights and not another Space Marine chapter?

Emperors Faithful wrote:

Ironsight wrote:In the new codex, there are instances of the Grey Knights fighting against these two armies. Both are timeline entries, so details are vague, but on Sondhiem V, the Grey Knights get involved in a epic three way battle between the Tyranids and Daemons. In the end, the Grey Knights call down orbital assets and escape with a chaotic artifact.

Are you sure that was the Grey Knights and not another Space Marine chapter?

The Sky Sentinels chapter were in orbit during the battle, and were the ones that enacted exterminatus after the Grey Knights got what they came for.

Yes a bolter shell is still a bolter shell but thats isn't the point I was making.

GK are very small in number but make of for it with better equipment. While they can't commit a large number of marines to a single fight those they do send will be better.

However agianst non daemonic enemies their abilites will be as good as any other SM but they still won't have a lot of marines to use.

Their power comes from having specialised weapons and tactics. Without that they are just another SM chapters- one that is stretch very thin because they have to fight threats all across the galaxy.

4M2A wrote:Yes a bolter shell is still a bolter shell but thats isn't the point I was making.

GK are very small in number but make of for it with better equipment. While they can't commit a large number of marines to a single fight those they do send will be better.

However agianst non daemonic enemies their abilites will be as good as any other SM but they still won't have a lot of marines to use.

Their power comes from having specialised weapons and tactics. Without that they are just another SM chapters- one that is stretch very thin because they have to fight threats all across the galaxy.

That was kind of exactly what he said though. They're very good against Daemons obviously, but it's true that a lot of what makes them unique (Aegis, psychic powered weaponry) won't be as good against an Ork who is made of material flesh and biology. But a sword is still a sword and a storm bolter is still a storm bolter, other than that, you're right in what you say, other than very up-to-date technology, against anything else, they're just like an army of honor guard (in the fluff obviously).

Those silvered GK always win -.- *talks a defeated-by-GK CSM player*

The only thing they can't stop is the CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT TRANSPORT.

<post redacted; avoid rudeness, or avoid posting --Janthkin>

Right, this thread basically died a about four weeks ago, I had no idea some randomer would come along and insult me because I have a different view.
Please read the forum rules before posting anything.

Here's a big hole in you're logic. If everyone can make stuff up about the universe and then portray it as fact, here's mine. The Grey Knights have never lost to Daemons, that's fact apparently.

Talking about the strength of Grey Knights on the table-top is also off-topic.
You spelled pathetic wrong by the way.

While I agree that GK can lose, Iproxtaco's point is valid. Now I havn't read any of these book you've all been talking about, but I can at least say that individual battles, even lost ones, can be the reason for further victory. In a war, the individual loss is not counted towards a win/lose ratio. The US has never lost a war (nam wasn't technically a war, although I count it as a lose obviously). Do you think that they'd be able to say that if they counted individual lossed battles in certain wars?

In this situation of a loss, with GK coming back in and killing everyone, yes it's a lost battle that requires reinforcements, but the GK that all died may have been able to hold back the deamon invation long enough for a larger force to arive and finish it off. This loss may be viewed as a victory for the memorial, and their sacrifice isn't in vain. In the end victory was had.

Yes, "in the end" does matter. The end result being victory is what matters, not a loss of an individual battle on the way there.

did you read the 5ed coxed they can kill everything but Daemons

Elaborate if you please, you must be reading a different Codex than mine.

The fact of the matter is, Grey Knights very rarely engage in a conflict which does not invlolve chaos in some way or another. Their reasources and man-power is spread increadibly thin; only massive daemonic encoursions would unite the chapter.

iproxtaco is correct in that the Grey Knights are forewarned of next to every daemonic event. However, the Grey Knights realistically cannot "win" per say. A win for them is closing the warp portal/banishing the extremely-powerful daemon etc. Many people assume that horrendous casualties are a loss or a phyrric victory however, no sacrifice is too great for the Grey Knights to quash a daemonic encoursion.

Against non-daemonic foes, fluff-wise, the Grey Knights are devestating to say the least. This doesn't mean they can and will smash everything in their path but as they are almost completely unknown to mankind's enemies they find the Grey Knights difficult to defeat. Against psychic races such as Eldar, Grey Knights have a plethora of anti-psyker weponry to counter-act them and against horde armies, it is the case that the purifiers lead the charge.

4M2A wrote:Their power comes from having specialised weapons and tactics.

Partly so. Whilst their weapons are something much of the universe have never seen and they are lead by arguably the best tacticians in the Imperium (GMs) the Grey Knight's real strength comes from their faith. No other force in the Imperium can match their zeal or faith in the Emperor and it is this faith which proves to be a key contributing factor in many of their victories.

MA.

iproxtaco wrote:No, they haven't. A Grey Knight win is achieved when they stop the Daemonic incursion. They can all die, so long as that is achieved, and so far, they have always won.

Hammer of Daemons starts off with a battle GK lose.

King Pariah wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:No, they haven't. A Grey Knight win is achieved when they stop the Daemonic incursion. They can all die, so long as that is achieved, and so far, they have always won.

Hammer of Daemons starts off with a battle GK lose.

Great, go on, jump into the thread, miss that point being discussed, it's alright.

King Pariah wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:No, they haven't. A Grey Knight win is achieved when they stop the Daemonic incursion. They can all die, so long as that is achieved, and so far, they have always won.

Hammer of Daemons starts off with a battle GK lose.

Yeah we have had this argument about GK never losing before...
GK didn't come out on top.

No resolution, those who back the point maintain their view, although many people seemed to miss what they were saying.

Grey Knights is never beaten in battle. If we win, we win. If we lose, we's dead so that don't count. And if we run, we can always come back fer anuver go, see?!

Yeah, applying ork logic to Grey Knights is fail. The GK have gotten their asses kicked a fair number of times.

Also see Phyrric Victory.

I hold the view GK's can only score draws against daemons. I've killed several dozen of your knights with my Daemons and you've caused... Caused mild inconvenience to my army. Well done.


Also I only really see GK's go after xeno psykers, since psykers mean chaos isn't too far away.

Only a handful of beings would be capable of wiping a daemon completely out of existence, for which they can always be replaced as quickly by their respective gods. So the point on actual casualties in that sense is moot to most armies in this game. May as well say daemons always win. The problem with this argument is defining whether we're talking of a physical victory between two armies or a moral victory between two races. The answer will be very different.

As for the topic itself, even as a long-term GK player I have to say [similar to daedalus-templarius] that the idea of Grey Knights being undefeated in a single battle is pretty ludicrous. Nevertheless they have an impeccable success rate, even amongst other chapters. They have also shown great skill at dispatching none daemonic foes having put down various chapters before who have been claimed traitorous. However their reason to get caught upon in these conflicts is because these chapters are in some way at least considered to be linked to daemonic corruption. Because the influence of chaos is far-reaching the GKs will always need to be prepared to take on an assortment of different enemies...