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 Smotejob wrote:
I just can't figure out a good gk v gk fight story :p

Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows, only that it flows.

 Smotejob wrote:
Bottom line ... It's kinda of fluffy, but, it makes grey knights super weak against demons. Nothing like that demon Prince or unit of 30 plague bearers coming back at full health.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Skaorn wrote:

craggy wrote:
Why would GK fight xenos? "reports from a planetary governor indicating big, lumbering green guys, oh, and there's a plague on the planet!" must be Nurgle... Or Orks and the governor has man-flu.

Why would Deathwatch fight demons? "help, some aliens we've never seen before attacked us! They're beautiful and lithe, and move so quick!"

Yeah, but these chapters only get pulled in when an Inquisitor investigates threats and decides everything is screwed. An Inquisitor who calls in GK saying an Ork Waaagh is a daemon invasion is going to have bad things happen to them for tying up the premier anti-Daemon force in the Imperium when IG and regular SM will do the trick. Chances are a large mobilization of DW would be questioned unless the Orks showed some unusual level of threat or had a notable Ork hero backing them. Inquisitors are supposed to investigate and solve problems on their own with their authority to mobilize Imperial forces in the areas they're in.

If the death watch are fighting demons then they were likely responding to a xenos threat and stumbled upon demons.

Grey Knights will respond to recover demon artifacts, warp occurrences/anomalies... And these things may either attract xenos or be in xenos controlled areas.

You can make a story for fighting xenos... And I mperium. I just can't figure out a good gk v gk fight story :p

If you want tragic: Comm distortion leads to the two groups mistaking each other's identity ("Those are Thousand Sons/Alpha Legion posing as GK's! They're not responding to any communications!").

If you want more traditional: GK-A: "This artifact must be returned to Titan". GK-B: "No, it must be destroyed". GK-A: "I can't let you do that". GK-B: "I'll tell the Grandmasters you died bravely fighting Daemonic Forces".

or simply "it's a exercise, today the honorable strike force from the 5th bortherhood will test their mettle against one from the 8th brotherhood"

wargames have existed as long as standing armies have, I can't imagine Grey Knights wouldn't occasionally do so as well

 Smotejob wrote:
I just can't figure out a good gk v gk fight story :p

"Blood for the emperor!" (snorts more sororitas blood) "Skulls for the golden throne!"

 Peregrine wrote:
You almost have to give them anti-GK rules because if you don't you have a situation where either the game is an auto-loss if you have to face a GK army or GK are so crippled against any army they don't get their bonuses against that they have little hope of winning. Or both, if you're bad at making rules. You can't have one-sided "hate this faction" rules, it's just not good design in a game where you can pick any faction and play against any other faction.

So, why does Yarrik give free rerolls vs orks to an allready superior force?

 Galas wrote:
Remove all buffs vs demons, make them the elite psychic space marine chapter, and balance them agaisnt everyone.
Let the anti-demon stuff be their fluff.

This is absolutely the right thing to do. They should be the Thousand Sons of space marines.

craggy wrote:
Why would GK fight xenos? "reports from a planetary governor indicating big, lumbering green guys, oh, and there's a plague on the planet!" must be Nurgle... Or Orks and the governor has man-flu.

Why would Deathwatch fight demons? "help, some aliens we've never seen before attacked us! They're beautiful and lithe, and move so quick!"

It makes a bit more sense for Deathwatch. They're stationed all over the galaxy, and if there's a vital world nearby that's about to get overrun and the DW are the only ones nearby they're not going to say "lol don't care call us when there's orks k thx bye".

Also Daemon or no anyone saying the Xeno is "beautiful" is due for a blamming.

I'm talking about fluff, not whatever excuse you use to justify fighting an army that GK and DW don't normally fight. If you want an excuse then here: the other army is really Daemons/Xenos using magic/technology to appear as even GK or DW. In fluff, actual match ups where the main enemy of these chapters aren't present in a big way would be exceedingly rare. Again, the reason is that they are called in by Inquisitors, who should be able to deal with most problems of their order with the vast mundane resources they can call upon. They get GK when they have reasonable evidence that someone like Ahriman is about or Daemons are appearing without cultists summoning them. If you want a good analogy to how these chapters are used in fluff, I suggest watching the scene from the Boondocks' Saints were the mob boss goes looking to hire The Duke. They get called in when things are going to hell.

If you want to change that then their fluff needs to be rewritten so that they are two just the two SM chapters of the Inquisition. On paper they specialize against their respective enemies but really get used whenever the Inquisition wants to deal with things in house. One is veterans taken from SM chapters that get cooler toys thanks to the Inquisition and the other being elite psyker marines. You need to capture some relic in a SM fortress monastery, you send in DW. You need a powerful Farseer dealt with, you send the GK. Expand their armies so they are more diverse, like a proper SM chapter, rather than keep them as specialist that should only be fighting a few armies.

 koooaei wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
You almost have to give them anti-GK rules because if you don't you have a situation where either the game is an auto-loss if you have to face a GK army or GK are so crippled against any army they don't get their bonuses against that they have little hope of winning. Or both, if you're bad at making rules. You can't have one-sided "hate this faction" rules, it's just not good design in a game where you can pick any faction and play against any other faction.

So, why does Yarrik give free rerolls vs orks to an allready superior force?

Bad design.

Except even without this stratagem Chaos has a very strong upper hand against Grey Knights. Pure daemons might have a bit more of a challenge but let's be real, with Magnus and Morty they're still winning the mortal wound game.

 Peregrine wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
You almost have to give them anti-GK rules because if you don't you have a situation where either the game is an auto-loss if you have to face a GK army or GK are so crippled against any army they don't get their bonuses against that they have little hope of winning. Or both, if you're bad at making rules. You can't have one-sided "hate this faction" rules, it's just not good design in a game where you can pick any faction and play against any other faction.

So, why does Yarrik give free rerolls vs orks to an allready superior force?

Bad design.

And he pays for that too, which then becomes way too swingy. It isn't like it is worth the 40+ points he pays for it too so...

I'm lollin' over here at the idea of Khorne backing an army of psykers. Just what?

 raverrn wrote:
I'm lollin' over here at the idea of Khorne backing an army of psykers. Just what?

I think it's the Occam's Razor result of trying to explain why Grey Knights do blood rituals and kill loyal Imperial citizenry and warriors.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 raverrn wrote:
I'm lollin' over here at the idea of Khorne backing an army of psykers. Just what?

I think it's the Occam's Razor result of trying to explain why Grey Knights do blood rituals and kill loyal Imperial citizenry and warriors.

The killing of loyal citizens is pretty easy to explain because it is just taking preemptive measures against increased possible risk of causing a demonic infestation. Whats the death of a few million to save a few billion.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 raverrn wrote:
I'm lollin' over here at the idea of Khorne backing an army of psykers. Just what?

I think it's the Occam's Razor result of trying to explain why Grey Knights do blood rituals and kill loyal Imperial citizenry and warriors.

In the 40k universe killing the innocent is assumption, not an exception.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 raverrn wrote:
I'm lollin' over here at the idea of Khorne backing an army of psykers. Just what?

I think it's the Occam's Razor result of trying to explain why Grey Knights do blood rituals and kill loyal Imperial citizenry and warriors.

Exactly. Remember: as horrid as that Apocalypse formation was with crunch, it had a grade of A++++ when it came to putting fluff on the table.

The problem is not that this stratagem exists, it's that GW handeled GK so incompetently.

If GK were designed to actually be "typical vs everyone else, stronger against Daemons", good game design would require daemons to also gain a boost against GK to not be overwhelmed. Unfortunately GW dropped the ball and made GK just bad in general, with slight buffs that only barely bring their power level up to average against daemons.

It's also nice that the stratagem is a callback to previous editions where such a mechanic existed by default. From a narrative sense it's also brilliant, as a proper GK strike force (rather than just a squad or two) would usually only be called in against larger incursions.



Of course, the other way to go about designing GK is to give them 0 buffs against demons and remove the stratgem, but then you lose all the flavour. Let's not forget that flavour is really the only reason most people are even interested in 40k.

I've always considered Grey Knights to be more on the anti Psyker and Warp front than only anti daemon. In many ways, one in the same, but Grey Knights investigating the effects of Shadow in the Warp or an Ork Wyrdboy or a cabal of Tzeentch warlocks wouldn't be uncommon.

Skaorn wrote:
I'm talking about fluff, not whatever excuse you use to justify fighting an army that GK and DW don't normally fight. If you want an excuse then here: the other army is really Daemons/Xenos using magic/technology to appear as even GK or DW. In fluff, actual match ups where the main enemy of these chapters aren't present in a big way would be exceedingly rare. Again, the reason is that they are called in by Inquisitors, who should be able to deal with most problems of their order with the vast mundane resources they can call upon. They get GK when they have reasonable evidence that someone like Ahriman is about or Daemons are appearing without cultists summoning them. If you want a good analogy to how these chapters are used in fluff, I suggest watching the scene from the Boondocks' Saints were the mob boss goes looking to hire The Duke. They get called in when things are going to hell.

If you want to change that then their fluff needs to be rewritten so that they are two just the two SM chapters of the Inquisition. On paper they specialize against their respective enemies but really get used whenever the Inquisition wants to deal with things in house. One is veterans taken from SM chapters that get cooler toys thanks to the Inquisition and the other being elite psyker marines. You need to capture some relic in a SM fortress monastery, you send in DW. You need a powerful Farseer dealt with, you send the GK. Expand their armies so they are more diverse, like a proper SM chapter, rather than keep them as specialist that should only be fighting a few armies.

they HAVE rewritten the fluff, the GKs and DW cordinate with the inqusition, but they're at least on paper independant, and can and will deploy as they see fit. and the GKs using their special pyskic seerers (prognosticors) will conduct pre-emptive strikes.

Why are GKs fighting Orks? because the Orks are messing about with something that could unleash a deamon.. or maybe one of the Orks has been posessed by a blood thrister.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 raverrn wrote:
I'm lollin' over here at the idea of Khorne backing an army of psykers. Just what?

I think it's the Occam's Razor result of trying to explain why Grey Knights do blood rituals and kill loyal Imperial citizenry and warriors.

Exactly. Remember: as horrid as that Apocalypse formation was with crunch, it had a grade of A++++ when it came to putting fluff on the table.

What formation is this, that everyone keeps referencing?

 TheoreticalFish wrote:
What formation is this, that everyone keeps referencing?

Grey Knights Redeemer force - codex DH era, old apoc.
6+ squads of GKs and an HQ- well over 1000pts. It was, IIRC, the only formation they had.

You could not deploy the formation unless your opponent had a greater daemon, and if all chaos units were removed from the table the GK player had to hand over the entire formation to the chaos player for the rest of the game.

A.T. wrote:

 TheoreticalFish wrote:
What formation is this, that everyone keeps referencing?

Grey Knights Redeemer force - codex DH era, old apoc.
6+ squads of GKs and an HQ- well over 1000pts. It was, IIRC, the only formation they had.

You could not deploy the formation unless your opponent had a greater daemon, and if all chaos units were removed from the table the GK player had to hand over the entire formation to the chaos player for the rest of the game.

They got quite a few items for each of the squads.

All gk players, please submit ideas to the FAQ team. They are poorly designed. Make noise.

40kfaq@gwplc.com

 Smotejob wrote:
All gk players, please submit ideas to the FAQ team. They are poorly designed. Make noise.

40kfaq@gwplc.com

And do remember just yelling your opinion doesn't work. Be coherent please.

BrianDavion wrote:


they HAVE rewritten the fluff, the GKs and DW cordinate with the inqusition, but they're at least on paper independant, and can and will deploy as they see fit. and the GKs using their special pyskic seerers (prognosticors) will conduct pre-emptive strikes.

Why are GKs fighting Orks? because the Orks are messing about with something that could unleash a deamon.. or maybe one of the Orks has been posessed by a blood thrister.

That's odd, I had no idea that the GK were no longer the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Malleus. While I expect the GK to act on their own to the presence of dire chaos threats, they are still about the size of a regular SM chapter, right? Seems like it might be a good reason not to waste such a limited resource on dealing with an Ork Warboss that might possibly be goofing off with a Chaos artifact. If only the GK had a support staff of people who were trained in dealing with Chaos, could investigate suspicious activity, had the personal authority to have their own troops, could take command of any extra forces they need, and deal with such threats so the GK can deal with massive Daemon invasions or sightings of Abaddon. If you don't believe me though, check out the major battle listed here and see how many don't involve at least a direct link to engagements to Chaos forces: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Grey_Knights The most out there one was the GK spat with the SW following the first war of Armageddon, when the SW decided to interfere with the GK's attempts to eliminate those who had been exposed to Chaos (by blowing up their transport ships btw). It also has a little bit about the War of the Beast about one of the last surviving Inquisitors who knew about GK at the time keeping them secret from the Inquisition at large because he was worried that they would have wasted the GK against the Beast rather than keeping them for use against Chaos.

I think the GK might operate the way you suggest they do in your head canon but how they are normally portrayed is as battling the worst Chaos incursions around. What happens on the table top doesn't matter. If it did then the most dedicated enemy of loyalist SM would be othe loyalist SM. In fluff though, at least as it still seems to be, using GK against anything that isn't Chaos is like using a claw hammer to remove a screw from a board.

Edit: fixed link

Skaorn wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:


they HAVE rewritten the fluff, the GKs and DW cordinate with the inqusition, but they're at least on paper independant, and can and will deploy as they see fit. and the GKs using their special pyskic seerers (prognosticors) will conduct pre-emptive strikes.

Why are GKs fighting Orks? because the Orks are messing about with something that could unleash a deamon.. or maybe one of the Orks has been posessed by a blood thrister.

That's odd, I had no idea that the GK were no longer the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Malleus. While I expect the GK to act on their own to the presence of dire chaos threats, they are still about the size of a regular SM chapter, right? Seems like it might be a good reason not to waste such a limited resource on dealing with an Ork Warboss that might possibly be goofing off with a Chaos artifact. If only the GK had a support staff of people who were trained in dealing with Chaos, could investigate suspicious activity, had the personal authority to have their own troops, could take command of any extra forces they need, and deal with such threats so the GK can deal with massive Daemon invasions or sightings of Abaddon. If you don't believe me though, check out the major battle listed here and see how many don't involve at least a direct link to engagements to Chaos forces: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Grey_Knights. The most out there one was the GK spat with the SW following the first war of Armageddon, when the SW decided to interfere with the GK's attempts to eliminate those who had been exposed to Chaos (by blowing up their transport ships btw). It also has a little bit about the War of the Beast about one of the last surviving Inquisitors who knew about GK at the time keeping them secret from the Inquisition at large because he was worried that they would have wasted the GK against the Beast rather than keeping them for use against Chaos.

I think the GK might operate the way you suggest they do in your head canon but how they are normally portrayed is as battling the worst Chaos incursions around. What happens on the table top doesn't matter. If it did then the most dedicated enemy of loyalist SM would be othe loyalist SM. In fluff though, at least as it still seems to be, using GK against anything that isn't Chaos is like using a claw hammer to remove a screw from a board.

There's no head cannon here, This is facts as described via the Grey Knights Codex, The Grey Knights are an independant chapter. their focus is indeed on deamons though yes, still they'll go where they're needed. yes every major use of them has involved fighting deamons, the Orks bit was simply tossed in as "why it's possiable GKs could theoreticly fight them"

A little while back they started treating all the Ordo Militants as a bit more independent and less directly acting on behalf of the Inquisition. As I read it now, it's more or less the same as people assume, just with a bit of leeway for them to go out fighting without direct orders from an inquisitor.

 raverrn wrote:
I'm lollin' over here at the idea of Khorne backing an army of psykers. Just what?

Khorne raised the Chapter Master/Chief Librarian of the Blood Ravens to princehood, so...

BrianDavion wrote:


There's no head cannon here, This is facts as described via the Grey Knights Codex, The Grey Knights are an independant chapter. their focus is indeed on deamons though yes, still they'll go where they're needed. yes every major use of them has involved fighting deamons, the Orks bit was simply tossed in as "why it's possiable GKs could theoreticly fight them"

I think you're confusing an independent chain of command with being independent from the Inquisition. They need to be able to do their job without being told and they need to be able to tell an egotistical Inquisitor who thinks they know how to do the GK's job to go pound sand and let them do their job. This does not make them independent from the Inquisition or that there aren't people in the Inquisition who can order them around. They just have to be of a high enough rank and smart enough to know the consequences of waiting such a resource. Unless you can produce a recent source that states that the GK are not the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Malleus, then I think you have the wrong idea.

GK are the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Mallus, that’s not in dispute. The GK are also not the OM private army. GK are effectively Inquisitors in their own right, with their Grand Masters equivalent to High Lords. However, the GK treat Inquisitors as partners in their battle versus the Daemonic, but not equal partners. GK handle the warfare, the Inquisition handle the strategy, and the AdMech handle the logistics. That’s per the novel The Emperor’s Gift.

SJ