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The GK have THE fewest marines of any chapter because it is so much harder to recruit for, they're the physically weakest, smallest, slowest, and least battle resistant of the chapters. Remember, they don't have any Primaris marines in their chapter. Now most Space Marine chapters are better equipped/supplied than them too. The GK vehicle selection is THE worst of ALL chapters, they have no hover anything, no bikes, no drop pods, no bunkers, no impulsors, no repulsors, no artillery, no tanks, no contemptors, no centurions, no leviathans, and no redemptors. Their aircraft is much worse than the Guard's, who by the way actually have things like tanks or artillery.

SM chapters now have access to the tactical war suit (unless you're the GK), which is only slightly weaker than a dreadknight (still basic concept). I don't know how the Sororitas' "nundums" compete, but I'm betting they're close. To say the GK have the best equipment of the Space Marines is just factually wrong, they almost have the worst. With the exception of their terminator armor supply, they are one of the worst supplied/equipped military units in the galaxy.

Am I a heretic? What do you guys think?

You’re confusing models and the game rules with lore and fluff.

It’s a neglected model line that GW probably don’t know what to do with, or doesn’t match their current market strategy.

But in the fluff they are given access to the very best bespoke, artificer made equipment.

Theres a nice short story called Sacrafice by Ben Counter that goes into detail of just how much goes in to crafting the ammunition they use for example.

To simply say they are elite does them an injustice.

Background/Lore and the game/rules are not really related

the lore is a little bit more stable but rules are made to generally fit into the setting but not representing it but are made to fit model releases

also faction rules are often 1-2 steps behind for the lore, and the "access to secret technology" is only valid for that one release and rendered obsolete by the release of another faction that get new models

For the GK, they should have been what Custodes are now but somehow GW decided to add the AC to the game instead with all new models and vehicles rather than expand the GK side of things

They look much cooler than any Primaris. (Aside from the Dreadknight, that is, which could be straight out of the ugly-primaris-vehicles factory.)

They're psyker marines from the Inquisition, which is quite nice.

Not sure where you get the impression/ numbers from that there's fewer of them than of other chapters because remember, we still have the hilarious number of only 1000 Marines per chapter which a single Ork waaagh could eat for breakfast. IIRC only Space Wolves and Black Templars break that number, though I could be wrong after Indomitus.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Not sure where you get the impression/ numbers from that there's fewer of them than of other chapters because remember, we still have the hilarious number of only 1000 Marines per chapter which a single Ork waaagh could eat for breakfast. IIRC only Space Wolves and Black Templars break that number, though I could be wrong after Indomitus.

I think the older Index Astartes articles said that there were only 500 Grey Knights. But that was also when they looked identical to Deathwatch with a book instead of the "I" on their shoulders. The good ol' days when Grey Knights were a unit of 5 models for like 300 points that were just terminators with force weapons and the "Holocaust" psychic power. I really hope the theories and rumors are true that GK and DW are getting rolled into agents of the Imperium. Custodes and SoS belong there too. They never should have been their own armies.

The lack of drop pods is because the Grey Knights can fully deploy via teleporter instead (a technologically superior approach). The fact this has rarely been well reflected in game mechanics is of no consequence to the lore.

Their mission is rapid insertion strikes against key objectives (like warp rifts or daemon summoning rituals) so heavy equipment is rarely used and low mobility is a drawback.

The lack of anything Primaris is because GW haven't worked out how they will do so/allocated the resources to redoing the range yet.

In addition, there are a number of lore examples of high tech that have no bearing on 40k. For example GK warships are amongst the highest tech in the Imperium, probably only matched by the Custodes and a small number of Mechanicus vessels. They are exceptionally fast, well armed and armoured, and feature advanced warp shielding.

It doesn't help that GW has tended to erode the psychic tech of the GKs over the last few editions. I miss when their Aegis-pattern gear allowed them to focus their psychic power to reduce enemy shooting, making enemies always count as night fighting against them.

GK got expanded out to the bare minimum that could be considered a stand alone force. In doing that, they got given a hodge podge of equipment, and apparently the line hasn't had much attention since.

The original lore had them equipped entirely with terminator armour, teleport capable as the ultimate in decapitation missions. As they were in terminator armour, Land Raiders as battle busses were logical for use where teleporting wasn't viable.

Other forces were used (and then discarded/reeducated/liquidated as necessary) by the Inquisition to set the conditions to bring the ultimate specialists in.

By trying to have them as a stand-alone force, GW added a bunch of stuff in that starts making less and less sense. In my view its the same with Deathwatch.

There was no in-universe reason to make them stand-alone force, and I agree with the point of view that they should have been part of an Imperial Agents style codex or Imperial Allies addendum.

The only point with any sense in the OPs post is that GK don't have Primaris which is weird.

Everything else is either incorrect or a weird comparison that makes no sense.

Most of this disconnect is a result of GK being an outdated model line. Once they are getting their long overdue rework, this will likely be addressed.

 Gert wrote:
The only point with any sense in the OPs post is that GK don't have Primaris which is weird.

Everything else is either incorrect or a weird comparison that makes no sense.

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than open it and remove all doubt. You really think G-man was giving Cawl Big E's genetic code/gene-seed? I think GW has officially said this or it's in a book.


I know lore doesn't match tabletop, otherwise the Necrons should win almost ever battle. I was just listening to a YouTube GK video a couple days ago while looking for cool GK models to download and the author of the YT video says something about them being the best equipped marine chapter.

 NorthernXY wrote:
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than open it and remove all doubt.

Then why start this thread?

Whilst the GK don't have the biggest and best tanks and heavy weapons available to them - mainly due to their operational style -to say they are badly equipped is just wrong.

The most basic Grey Knight strike marine is armoured in artificier armour giving a 2+ save, can deepstrike natively, has a storm bolter which while nothing special is still a very good basic anti infantry gun and to round it off each one is armed with a really good close combat weapon.

That top of class protection, best deployment method, very good basic gun and great combat weapon - I'd say very well equipped, they are more than a match for most other space marine varieties.

 WisdomLS wrote:
Whilst the GK don't have the biggest and best tanks and heavy weapons available to them - mainly due to their operational style -to say they are badly equipped is just wrong.

The most basic Grey Knight strike marine is armoured in artificier armour giving a 2+ save, can deepstrike natively, has a storm bolter which while nothing special is still a very good basic anti infantry gun and to round it off each one is armed with a really good close combat weapon.

That top of class protection, best deployment method, very good basic gun and great combat weapon - I'd say very well equipped, they are more than a match for most other space marine varieties.

Strike Squads used to have Power Armor only.
I did not notice they got upped to Artificer Armor. Neat.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 WisdomLS wrote:
Whilst the GK don't have the biggest and best tanks and heavy weapons available to them - mainly due to their operational style -to say they are badly equipped is just wrong.

The most basic Grey Knight strike marine is armoured in artificier armour giving a 2+ save, can deepstrike natively, has a storm bolter which while nothing special is still a very good basic anti infantry gun and to round it off each one is armed with a really good close combat weapon.

That top of class protection, best deployment method, very good basic gun and great combat weapon - I'd say very well equipped, they are more than a match for most other space marine varieties.

Strike Squads used to have Power Armor only.
I did not notice they got upped to Artificer Armor. Neat.

In fairness, even when their aegis armour was a 3+, it still incorporated psychic gear like a psychic hood and various blessings and so on that destabilised daemons and enhanced the Grey Knight's ability to channel their own psychic power to do things like The Shrouding. It was never just power armour.

 NorthernXY wrote:
I know lore doesn't match tabletop, otherwise the Necrons should win almost ever battle. I was just listening to a YouTube GK video a couple days ago while looking for cool GK models to download and the author of the YT video says something about them being the best equipped marine chapter.

Ok then let's do a comparison between a regular Astartes and a Grey Knight's standard issue wargear.

Astartes - Power Armour, Boltgun/rifle, Bolt Pistol, Combat Knife, Frag/Krak Grenades

Grey Knight - Warded Artificer Armour, Stormbolter, Force Weapon, is also a Psyker.

 Gert wrote:

 NorthernXY wrote:
I know lore doesn't match tabletop, otherwise the Necrons should win almost ever battle. I was just listening to a YouTube GK video a couple days ago while looking for cool GK models to download and the author of the YT video says something about them being the best equipped marine chapter.

Ok then let's do a comparison between a regular Astartes and a Grey Knight's standard issue wargear.

Astartes - Power Armour, Boltgun/rifle, Bolt Pistol, Combat Knife, Frag/Krak Grenades

Grey Knight - Warded Artificer Armour, Stormbolter, Force Weapon, is also a Psyker.

The Warded Artificer Armour is for specialists. The average Grey Knight has Terminator Armour.

I was more going for the Strike Squad equivalent but that is also a very fair point to make.

I believe that the reason the Grey Knights do not have primarus marines is because they are a fix to a problem the Grey Knights do not have.

All geneseed in the galaxy is flawed, something is missing or imperfect with each chapter's material. Many are missing certain organs or have flawed versions without the constant in-put from the Primarchs. The Primarus marines are an attempt to fix those genetic imperfections with additional organs and fresh ways of creating marines.

However, if the GK lore is to be believed, they alone possess flawless geneseed. It came from an unknown source, possibly the Emperor as the genetic baseline or maybe it was a combination strain of all existing geneseed lineages to make a flawless generic geneseed line. So lorewise the Grey Knights don't need a Primarus patch because its fixing a problem they don't have.

As for why the rules don't make them the best, its because they are neglected by GW and haven't been given proper treatment.

That's not what the Primaris are for.

There's no Primaris Grey Knights because:

A - Guilliman didn't know about the Grey Knights so couldn't order them to be created as Primaris.

B - Cawl could never get his grubby mitts on Grey Knight geneseed for rather obvious reasons and as such no Primaris Grey Knights.

Primaris are a numbers game in a setting where madness and politics prevents the Imperium from just building whole legions of Marines to conquer the Galaxy anew.

So Primaris let them cheat and get more numbers to tackle all the threats they are under. The Grey Knights are even more of a surgical strike tool than regular marines. In theory they don't need "rank and file Primaris" to help them.


Of course with a setting as vast as the Imperium, chances are the GK could do with more numbers.

 Gert wrote:
There's no Primaris Grey Knights because:

A - Guilliman didn't know about the Grey Knights so couldn't order them to be created as Primaris.

B - Cawl could never get his grubby mitts on Grey Knight geneseed for rather obvious reasons and as such no Primaris Grey Knights.

C: That would require revamping the whole line of models.