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So, I'm reading the latest WD on the train to work this morning, and looking at the Grey Knights' Battle Missions in there.

What struck me was how in 2 of the missions, they had somehow created descriptions of how the GK would eradicate loyalist forces to eliminate the chance of re-infection by daemons.

Then I remembered the furore caused by the Matt Ward 'Sister Slaughter' fluff in the new codex, so I thought:

'Are WD simply pandering to the new codex's fluff, as it would automatically be accepted as canon by GW, or are they over-compensating while trying to justify the rather controversial MattWardian fluff by simply coming up with more and more plausible situations where GKs would attack Imperials?'

So, Dakka, your thoughts?

Personally I assumed it was simply a method to create battle missions that involve more than simply combating Daemons?

I haven't even seen the cover, but I assume it is some sort of method in order to draw the Imperial Guard into the fray and also create and strengthen the opinion that grey marines happen to be much better than the others.

The eradication of loyalists to prevent re-contamination is OLD fluff, and illustrates their mission, and the lengths to which they will go to complete it.

It's not a new WD idea, at all.

See, here's the thing. Back in the day, 40K was fairly dark. Particularly where Chaos was concerned, those running the Imperium were ruthless about keeping everything neat and tidy. 2nd Edition-era fluff mentioned Marines being routinely mind-wiped and entire Guard regiments being exterminated after coming in contact with Chaotic forces or influences.


The much-derided Matt Ward piece, where the Grey Knights sacrifice a mob of Battle Sisters in order to anoint themselves with the blood of the pure as a defence against possession is so very 40K it's not funny.

Personally, I think people have just got too used to the much more watered down and decidedly less grimdark fluff of 3rd and 4th edition, and have forgotten (or just weren't around to experience) what it was that made the background of this game so compelling in the first place.

The old Daemonhunters book had entire pages dedicated to giving suggestions for scenarios in which the DH would have to fight each of all the various factions.

ph34r wrote:The old Daemonhunters book had entire pages dedicated to giving suggestions for scenarios in which the DH would have to fight each of all the various factions.

I remember something along the lines that the commander of a regiment was suspected of being posessed so the whole regiment was to be eradicated, and something like the regiment knew too much and because of that was to be destroyed.

insaniak wrote:
The much-derided Matt Ward piece, where the Grey Knights sacrifice a mob of Battle Sisters in order to anoint themselves with the blood of the pure as a defence against possession is so very 40K it's not funny.

That's completely not the point. The gripe is, to sum it up, the fact that Grey Knights where pictured as *literally* impossible to corrupt, possess, daemonically influence in any way. Killing Sisters because they (the sisters) risked corruption? Go for it (although normally you kill the loyalist forces AFTER you defeated the daemonic invasion, not BEFORE).

Pictured as *literally* impossible to corrupt and stating they are *almost impossible to corrupt* are different. No Grey Knight has ever fallen, that doesn't mean they never will or that they can't. I guess the point is that Matt Ward introduced this idea of sacrificing SoB and using their pure blood to protect against the Daemonic is such a blasé manner that it has been taken badly by the majority of the community. The idea that Grey Knights and the Imperium in general sacrifice thousands or more at even the slightest hint of the Daemonic is not new. As far as this image of 40k is concerned, a few Sisters of Battle being killed is fine by me, but I can see why people are frustrated.

iproxtaco wrote:Pictured as *literally* impossible to corrupt and stating they are *almost impossible to corrupt* are different. No Grey Knight has ever fallen, that doesn't mean they never will or that they can't.

I disagree, from what I remember of the old fluff and from what I could gather, they were materially impossibly to corrupt. Their sole presence was enough to make lesser daemons quiver and go back to the warp, and their souls are anathema to all that is chaos. They could not get corrupted because most daemons couldn't even look at them and their presence made their hold on the material plane waver. They could get killed of course, and major daemons could face them and even win, but corruption was out of the question.

If it states in the original Fluff that they absolutely cannot be corrupted then this is a retcon. Current fluff is what we should use IMO, so Grey Knights may need other forms of protection against particularly powerful Daemonic forces, like the Bloodtide.

insaniak wrote:See, here's the thing. Back in the day, 40K was fairly dark. Particularly where Chaos was concerned, those running the Imperium were ruthless about keeping everything neat and tidy. 2nd Edition-era fluff mentioned Marines being routinely mind-wiped and entire Guard regiments being exterminated after coming in contact with Chaotic forces or influences.

Personally, I think people have just got too used to the much more watered down and decidedly less grimdark fluff of 3rd and 4th edition, and have forgotten (or just weren't around to experience) what it was that made the background of this game so compelling in the first place.

I will admit that despite buying the 2nd edition starter box, my true interest in 40K didn't begin until late 4th edition (when I went to University, and for the first time since I bought my first models found others that actually played the game within a mile or so of my house), so I am largely ignorant of the pre-4th fluff, especially for non-ork forces.

My main hypothesis was that the people of WD cannot be oblivious to the nerdrage about the Matt Ward GK fluff, and thought perhaps this was a reaction to try and get people on side.

GeckoOBac wrote:The gripe is, to sum it up, the fact that Grey Knights where pictured as *literally* impossible to corrupt, possess, daemonically influence in any way..

And in this particular case, the way that they made themselves impossible to corrupt was through anointing themselves with the blood of the pure.

I don't recall the fluff ever stating that they were impossible to corrupt solely due to their manly machismo and dashing good looks. They're conditioned to withstand the evil nasty wibbliness of the Warp, yes... but that doesn't mean that they don't require some sort of aid to that conditioning when they come across something particularly nasty.

I suspect that the larger problem is that people allowed themselves to believe that Grey Knights were supposed to be bright, shining paragons of virtue. But there are no 'good guys' in 40K. The forces of the Imperium will use whatever means are necessary to achieve their aims.

chromedog wrote:The eradication of loyalists to prevent re-contamination is OLD fluff, and illustrates their mission, and the lengths to which they will go to complete it.

It's not a new WD idea, at all.

Yep, was it after the First War of Armaggedon, where after all the loyal PDF troops and hive gangs who helped defeat the chaos attack were rounded up in pens by the inquisition and it was only the space wolves protested against the order.

The IoM destroys entire populations to protect systems, it isn't anything new or un-40k. Although i do find most of the new GK fluff on the awful to god-awful end of the scale.

Oh yay, this thread again!

I am pretty interested in the new battle missions though. Might have to pick that issue up.

pretre wrote:Oh yay, this thread again!

I didn't really intend to start a 'Matt Ward broke the grey knights with the sister-slaugher stuff' thread, it's just things seem to go that way whenever they are mentioned

My intention was more to speculate (being largely ignorant of the old GK canon) on why suddenly the GK are featured wailing on imperial forces more than on actual daemons, and whether this was a reaction by WD to try and get people to come to terms with the new codex.

As for the missions, they are pretty cool, one is called 'daemonvessel' and is loosely based on preventing the daemonic possession of a commander-type dude. I won't divulge any details here, just in case the Intellectual-Property-Quisition are listening, but part of the mission involves the non-GK player picking a HQ character (IC, not a unit) and due to the daemon inside it gaining more and more power, you +1 all his stats every turn until he is killed.

There is also a sort of 'breakout' mission indicating the last remaining scraps of the 'quarantined' forces making a last final fight against the GKs, the non-GK player wins simply by having something left on the table at the end of the game, and the non-GK deployment zone is a circle in the dead centre of the table, while the GKs deploy anywhere 12" away from enemy units. I'm considering re-tooling this mission for orks, as it fits the fluff of my warboss's history perfectly.

Leigen_Zero wrote:
There is also a sort of 'breakout' mission indicating the last remaining scraps of the 'quarantined' forces making a last final fight against the GKs, the non-GK player wins simply by having something left on the table at the end of the game, and the non-GK deployment zone is a circle in the dead centre of the table, while the GKs deploy anywhere 12" away from enemy units. I'm considering re-tooling this mission for orks, as it fits the fluff of my warboss's history perfectly.

This sounds like a carnage... Holocaust, incinerators, psycannons...

The question is, if the grey knights had to team up with necrons to fight nids would they use a large magnet to wipe the necrons memory?

Ignore above post please. Obvious Troll, is obvious.

insaniak wrote:See, here's the thing. Back in the day, 40K was fairly dark. Particularly where Chaos was concerned, those running the Imperium were ruthless about keeping everything neat and tidy. 2nd Edition-era fluff mentioned Marines being routinely mind-wiped and entire Guard regiments being exterminated after coming in contact with Chaotic forces or influences.


The much-derided Matt Ward piece, where the Grey Knights sacrifice a mob of Battle Sisters in order to anoint themselves with the blood of the pure as a defence against possession is so very 40K it's not funny.

Personally, I think people have just got too used to the much more watered down and decidedly less grimdark fluff of 3rd and 4th edition, and have forgotten (or just weren't around to experience) what it was that made the background of this game so compelling in the first place.

+1 to this. When I started playing, waaaay back towards the end of RT and the start of 2nd Ed, the fluff and the stories were so much darker than now.
I personally liked the story in the GK codex, it harks back to the 'gory' days of 2nd Ed......