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Hey,Been mulling over an idea for a second army and was wondering if anyone could put forward a counter for the fluff I'll present here. I basically want to start a pure Grey Knight army but do them in Sons of Horus colours. Play them as Grey Knights in 5th Ed but for Apoc use them properly as a Chaos eske type deal.

My fluff is(And ofc if there is a obvious counter let me know please) that basically while Horus fought the Emperor on the Vengeful Spirit one of the Legion was granted a vision of the fight. And that when the Emperor cast Horus down,He wasn't utterly destroyed as the Loyalists would maintain but that he Ascended to something beyond his physical form,the Emperor and/or the Chaos Gods.

And when the Sons of Horus and the forces of chaos pulled back to the eye, as the Sons of Horus wept for their fallen primarch this prophet and his flock could not understand their grief for had Horus not ascended to something far greater then they could ever have imagined? So while the remenants of the legion were in Termoil they left to forge their own path,The Path of Horus.

And that these Knights of Horus Ascendent prayed to Horus for guidence and something answered their prayers.


So basically the amry is no daemons or specifically chaos elements but an amalgem of Grey Knights and pure Chaos Astartes. For 5th just use them as GK and in Apoc go the whole hog. Anyone know of fluff that might state openly that this is bull or would anyone refuse to play against an army of GK not painted in usual silver?

Aren't GK portrayed by GW as anti-demon army? Every single marine a psyker and uncorrupted?

Fluff not supporting your Knights of Horus ascendant:

They are part of the Inquisition.
GK were founded after heresy,their geneseed is not from a Legion.
Maybe a mix of many different parts of some or every Legion.
The luna wolves won't be their "ancestors" in the official fluff.
Horus died for sure.

Maybe the old egypt mythology could help you.
Horus was the son of a god and a godess.His father was killed by a rival and Horus avenged him.

problem: Horus would fight against the murders of his father =>chaos.
The Word Bearers under Lorgar and erebus laid the trap to recrut Horus into their masters ranks.
Horus has attacked his father because the ruinous powers and some "marines" tricked him.

Your knights of horus ascendant would fight against the word bearers and chaos.
the horus of myths was successful
If your horus did the same => chaos is destroyed,word bearers are annihilated,some traitors also exterminated.
Result: primarchs return,Legions gather again,all xenos get kicked out of these Galaxy.
seems unfunny for all without powerarmor. but who cares?

I see a possible "out of GW fluff" way.But no way in GW canon fluff. :S

Modelling aspect:
Pre-heresy termie armor would be nice. A different paint-scheme is good for older termie-armor types. MK ?
The original GK look fine with metal and 13th century-style armor.
Your KoHA may look more like Justaerin then ?

Gaming:
Without GW stuff for backup it could be denied by some players to oppose your army.
GK doesn't have much units,it will be a challenge to fill the FOC.
If you manage to get them in a believable way into a ruleset (DH+marines?)there will be always someone to play.

Also, the Emperor used all of his might to blast Horus into nothingness. Meaning, He used His final reserves of energy to obliterate Horus...mind, body, and soul. It was the only way to ensure that Chaos would not return with such a powerful pawn.

If, as you put forth, Horus was not destroyed, why did it take him 10,000 years to return. What does it say about the Emperor?

I like fluff based armies. I really do. I wish more gamers put as much thought into their armies as you have, rather than just make turny armies. I just don't want you to go through all the work and expense to create an army, only to have some fluff crazed 12 year old shoot down your idea.

You see, the 12 year old would insult you. You would smash them into the earth. You get put in prison for killing a 12 year old. You don't get to play 40K.

I'm really looking out for YOU!!!

Mind and soul were possibly obliterated (although they would likely end up consumed in the Warp) but his body wasn't destroyed. IIRC Abaddon and the Sons of Horus fled back to the EofT with it - it was then stolen and cloned before Abaddon finally destroyed it once and for all.

What would seem more likely about your fluff is that the Knights of Horus Ascendant are being mislead by a daemon or suchlike. It is easily conceiveable that following his defeat at the Emperor's hands some of his legion would have sought to revere him as a god, turning the bitterness of loss into a belief that he was now more powerful. It wouldn't take much for an enterprising warp entity to step into the breach and claim to be the reincarnation or otherwise of Horus. Blinded by grief, the Knights might fall for this, breaking away from Abaddon and the rest of the Legion in order to follow their new god.

In this line, I could see them as being somewhat akin to the Word Bearers, fanatically spreading the creed f Horus - this would frequently bring them into conflict with other CSMs, let alone other forces. But of course, if they have been lied to by a creature of the Warp, then that gives you lots of scope for future development...

Anyways, just a few thoughts, feel free to discard them as the rantings of a insane mind!

Thanks for the replies lads. Basically I want to use the GK models as I like them alot(bar cost ) and though I would use them as a different coloured GK army for normal games for APOC I'd create a few datasheets with specific characteristics.

My idea was though all the fluff says the Emperor gave everything in his last strike to destory Horus utterly, my line of thought was "Well we only have the Emperors word to go on"
What is to say the Emperor defeated was not saved by Horus's ascension. And he was hardly going to say he was beaten

Of course being misled by a Lord of Change is more likely. Still after a friend linked me to a tutorial to convert Terminators into GK termies tis looking more likely

I rather like this idea as I disagree with some of the conclusions that 1hadhq made in his points. This concept is a perfect use of the "counts as" concept. Just because the GK codex is written as an Imperial force, there is no reason why the exact same rules couldn't be used to represent a Chaos force under the "counts as" concept. For years I've seen recommendations to use the SM codex for renegade chapters that haven't gone too far down the path to damnation. This is exactly the same thing. The now unsupported Lost and the Damned codex is for a Chaos force but can equally be used to represent an Imperial force made up of Marines and IG if you limit yourself to the non-Chaos specific choices. That makes it very similar in concept to this idea.

Just because the GK are an Inquisitorial force of unknown lineage, there is absolutely no reason for your boys to be anything similar. A codex is a set of rules that describe how a particular army will be structured and armed. The fluff that accompanies each codex is an addendum for that particular army. Another concept that is to utilize the same set of rules will have a different body of fluff to accompany this same set of rules. I've used the v3 BA codex for years (until the release of the pdf BA codex invalidated it) for my Loyalist Emperors Children because it provided the feel I was looking for to describe my army - a group of marines who are so obsessed with redeeming their soiled honor that they are on the verge of being out of control in their need to get into HTH to kill the Emperor's enemies (the Black Rage rule) accompanied by a small group of marines whose need for redemption has pushed them over the edge into true berserkers (Death Company). As you can see there is obviously nothing in common between the fluff of the Blood Angels and my Loyalist EC but they use the same ruleset.

History is written by the victors and truth frequently has little to do with the spin that is applied to that writing. That's an immutable truth in our world and there's no reason to believe that in a world as paranoid as the Imperium that it would be any different. Of course, in their view of the events surrounding the final battle between Horus and the Emperor, the Emperor's victory would be absolute. But is this truth? There is nothing that precludes the concept that Horus' spirit was so thoroughly dispersed that the Emperor could not recognize that is existed any longer. Particularly given that he was on the verge of death as well, it is very easy to support the idea that he only thought that he had destroyed Horus completely. But what's to say that a spirit of this power (or any spirit for that matter) is not similar to energy. Energy cannot be destroyed. If it was dispersed practically to the point of oblivion, it might take millennia before it coalesced to the point where it had any self awareness and even longer before it had any power to affect the real world (and FAR longer before it had coalesced to the point of reconstituting completely).

I think that the abilities that they develop that would allow them to use the rules of the GK is better explained by their faith in Horus interacting with the Immaterium in some undefined manner rather than Horus actually intervening in some manner. They would have had to come into being soon after Horus' "death" during a period when his dispersal would have been at its maximum and he would have been non-cognizant of their faith. Now, the something that answered their prayers could have been a lesser Chaos god or Greater Daemon but I feel that GW's decsription of the Immaterium as being able to be affected by the minds and emotions of entities in this world and there makes for a more coherent explanation of their new abilities.

The only real issue I have is the loss of the major purpose that the GK codex is designed for and that is battling daemonic forces. I can come up with no justification off the top of my head to provide them with this ability. Horus was not aligned with any one power. If he had been then having powers targetted at daemons could be justified as being directed at daemons of the other powers antagonistic to his aligned power. I'm at a loss over this concept.

I don't see a whole lot to worry about in the issues that 1hadhq brought up under gaming. I've played an unsupported (by GW) concept for over nine years. I've never once been turned down for a game. A well painted army with a unique concept is usually welcomed even if the concept may be outside what your opponent thinks fits in the 40K universe. Playing with non-silver GK is the same thing as playing with green space wolves; the rules are all that matters as long as your opponent knows what codex you're using. The GK codex is a viable codex and very powerful as well. Filling the FOC will not be a challenge. The limited number of choices merely means that you will have less flexibility than some armies. I've played Necrons off and on over the years and they're in a similar boat. The only real hazard is if you become bored fielding similar armies repeatedly. Sufficiently varied opponents usually alleviate this problem for me with my Necrons so you should be Ok as well.

Good luck with this idea. Do you have a color scheme yet? I would suggest basing it off the Sons of Horus scheme but with some gold trim if you haven't gotten that far yet. I look forward to seeing how this proceeds.