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Hey dakka I've been thinking of starting a grey knights army for a while now but I do have one problem with them... They're too good.

You see I primarily play daemons and CSM. I just feel them sharing a caring case might end with the case bursting into flames lol. But in all seriousness I don't really like all the Marry sue rerole against daemons stuff. I like their models but I don't really like their fluff in other words.

I'm ussually pretty knowledgable about fluff but I'm not really aware of any way to play the grey knights codex as anything but crazy fenatics who sometimes appear evil because they're just so good. I'm looking for a way to paint the chaos symbols on some of their models and banners. Is their anyway you guys know to do that without r*ping cannon?

I could always just counts as them but I'm looking for a fluffy way to use them to fight on the bad side... Thanks for the help guys.

Do you care about people's opinion of you?

Most sane players will be happy with counts-as. The actual models, not so much, as it goes against all present canon.

Generally speaking the Grey Knights are about as anti chaos as you can get. I believe their geneseed is taken from those survivors of the Isstvaan 3 incident who proved to be extremely resilient to the corruption of Chaos. So resilient that no GK has ever been swayed by Chaos...

So fluff wise it's never happened... but you could just make them a parody chapter from the other side of the warp. In a way daemons in the form of Grey Knights...

I don't really see GK as too good. Killing innocent people just in case they have chaos taint isn't exactly the actions of a good guy.

Thats kinda what I'm asking. Is there officially a group of bad ass CSM or even a renegade group of the inquisition that kind of wants to use chaos to destroy it.

I'm not really looking to use specifically the grey knights and say they turned evil. I'm looking for a different entity in the universe who I could say are close enough to the grey knights to be using their codex

Are you asking how you go about making the existing Grey Knights chapter appear evil, or are you asking if you can make a custom chapter which includes the same units as the grey knights but evil? The answer to the first is yes, as the entire Imperium is lawful neutral at best, it wouldn't be too hard to portray your Grey Knights as being somewhat radical in their pursuit to stop chaos. Heck, in the fluff it is standard procedure to at least mind wipe any Imperial soldiers who fight alongside the GK, and for anything that isn't at least a space marine in terms of the Imperial hierarchy they usually just kill any loyalists who survived the encounter 'just to make sure'. They also purposefully slaughtered UNCORRUPTED sisters of battle so that they could use their blood as a ward against Khronate daemons. If you really want to play it up just make your Grandmaster, Librarian, or Inquisitor so blindly focused on the destruction of chaos that they would sacrifice the entire Imperium to do so. You couldn't get away with making them chaos using this method, but it could make them evil enough for you.

If you want to go the second approach, it is entirely within reason to have a 'like the Grey Knights' chapter that has fallen to chaos, similar as you can make 'like BA', and 'like SW' homebrew chapters. You just have to be a touch creative with your backstory to explain why they have widespread psychic abilities and force weapons. I can think of two approaches for this. The first could be that your 'Chaos Grey Knights' are an elite cult Tzeentch followers who are equipped with the best weapons and wargear to fight in the name of their god. Your Grandmaster could be the lord of the Cult, the Librarian the most powerful sorcerer, and Inquisitors could be leaders of the non-SM members of the cult. The other option is to make a 'Like Grey Knights' chapter that has fallen. The homebrew GK chapter I created, the Storm Guard, is based around the experiment of a somewhat radical OM inquisitor who felt that the GK were too wind spread to be properly effective, so created a Grey Knight like organization with the survivors of a chapter who's homeworld was destroyed by chaos cultists. The chapter proved successful until the Grand Master and his retinue unwittingly came into contact with a powerful Chaos artifact during a mission to secure vital resources for the Chapter from the Necrons, corrupting them and causing them to become possessed by powerful daemons. Since this incident the surviving members of the chapter have made it their duty to hunt down the traitors. Your chapter could be like the traitors from my chapters backstory, a GK replication experiment created by an Inquisitor which went wrong and resulted in a large number of pseudo Grey Knights falling to chaos.

However, that being said, if you do go with a homebrew chapter, I would advise against messing around with the rules. Saying 'these guys are like GK, but aren't and they worship Chaos', will be ok with most groups. Saying 'these guys are like GK, but aren't and they worship chaos and can take Daemons as allies', probably won't fly. Plus, everything is balanced in a package and for 6th edition, so trying to change things too much could effect the balance of the game.

EDIT: Wow this thread took off while I was typing this. So I guess you want to go with the second approach, so ignore the first paragraph, or don't.

My second question revolves around if the codex gives room to use inquisitors as leaders of the grey knights. this way I could use an extremest inquisitor and build my story around their rise and fall.

protonhunter wrote:
Thats kinda what I'm asking. Is there officially a group of bad ass CSM or even a renegade group of the inquisition that kind of wants to use chaos to destroy it.

I'm not really looking to use specifically the grey knights and say they turned evil. I'm looking for a different entity in the universe who I could say are close enough to the grey knights to be using their codex

The GK codex is perfect for representing a Tzeentchian marine army, say for example a cabal of Thousand Sons Sorcerers, or even pre-heresy 1k Sons.

Or you could just create your own psyker-heavy CSM force using the GK rules.
Perhaps you'd like to run a Purifyer army as the forgotten remnents of the Flame Falcons Chapter? (a Radical Inquisitor would be a perfect fit here!)
A mainly Henchman based Radical Inquisitor's army could include some GK's to count as sorcerous allies...
Perhaps you want to do a Loyalist Chapter that was ordered/sent/crusaded into the Eye of Terror and have now, mellenia later returned as something far, far darker and altogether corrupt?!

Just do it, the naysayers can feth off.

It's not like their fluff hasn't been mangled already these days.

GK do not appear as evil because they are "too good". GK are beyond bat-poo insanely fanatic and are pretentious without end...like, slaughtering helpless women and bathing in their blood.

There used to be a 5th canonical chaos god, Malal, who represented chaos' self-destructive nature. Someone on 1d4chan noted that Grey Knights with all their anti-demon bonuses ironically make the perfect stand-in for his cultists. Painting your knights black and white with chaos crosses might be an interesting look for them.

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Malal

There is actually a whole faction of Inquisitors who believe in fighting chaos with chaos; the Xanthites. They use daemon weapons, daemon hosts and other warp tools.

The Relictors were a Space Marine who used chaos against chaos. They collected daemon weapons and chaos artifacts for their senior officers to use. They were declared Traitors however and purged by the Grey Knights, there are likely still some left however.

Neither of those groups went as far as displaying chaos iconography though.

I believe there is also Castellan Crowe who uses a deamon sword...

You could also use the idea that some GK have gone too far and actually become the thing they fight. So utterly insane with zeal that they see the entire imperium as corrupt... and they do say ''sanity is for the weak''...

 Griddlelol wrote:
I don't really see GK as too good. Killing innocent people just in case they have chaos taint isn't exactly the actions of a good guy.

For the Imperium, these guys are saints haha

Your best bet is to make like a parody chapter with Deamon GK's. Like, the Chaos Gods decided to make a group of space marines dedicated to fighting all the good and...stuff....

No Grey Knight has ever fallen to Chaos. Still, there's a first time for everything... One might work, but I wouldn't do an entire army of them.

Grey Knights can't fall to Chaos, but if you really want to use the rules you can do a counts-as army with suitable conversions.

One idea I have would be to write a chapter that is basically chaos, but give all there questionable actions paper thin justifications ending with no grey knight has ever fallen to chaos. Something like "And then chapter master anointed his armor with the sign of chaos as he was strong enough to resist it's influence. For no grey knight has ever fallen to chaos and none shall."

Maybe you could make something like daemon engineered automatons. Forge of Souls.

You could hide them behind Grey Knight armour by saying it was a mocking gesture or a cunning plot, maybe?

 Griddlelol wrote:
I don't really see GK as too good. Killing innocent people just in case they have chaos taint isn't exactly the actions of a good guy.

This.

In the warhammer world there are 4 alignment poles.
- Law
- Chaos
- Good
- Evil

Grey Knights are lawful evil.
So put them in your case, knowing that they are just as bad as the daemons.

Their leader lives in the warp and is summoned to do battle. They bathe in the blood of the innocents, reciting zealous propganda. They use daemonic weapons and powers. They have cultists who are possessed by daemons.

Why on earth would we think they are corrupted and evil? They keep saying oh a grey knight has never fallen to chaos, how would anyone tell the difference?

Go ahead make your evil grey knights, its a fun modelling game.

 rems01 wrote:
There is actually a whole faction of Inquisitors who believe in fighting chaos with chaos; the Xanthites. They use daemon weapons, daemon hosts and other warp tools.

The Relictors were a Space Marine who used chaos against chaos. They collected daemon weapons and chaos artifacts for their senior officers to use. They were declared Traitors however and purged by the Grey Knights, there are likely still some left however.

Neither of those groups went as far as displaying chaos iconography though.

The Relictors have not been delacred 'Excomunicate Traitoris'... at least not yet! They're still a Loyalist chapter with close ties many of the Radical factions of the Inquisition.

The Flame Falcons were however purged by the Grey Knights and driven from their homeworld of Lithe because they all spontaniously burst into flames that didn't seem to harm them but surrounded their bodies in fire!
A pure Purifyer list would actually be a really good way to represent them in the game due to their Clensing Flame power.

Just a little addendum to the conversations here.
Who ever said that the Grey Knights were "good'? The Imperium of man, while typically playing the "good guy" role, are not good in the same sense. Grey Knights are just as zealous, angry, and hateful as any Traitor Marine, but they're just on the same side as most humans.

The Inquisition is not Good. The Inquisition is not your friend. The Inquisition does not care about you. However, the Inquisition is neither Evil. The Inquisition simply is.

They're not good, just not chaotic.

 Sigvatr wrote:
GK do not appear as evil because they are "too good". GK are beyond bat-poo insanely fanatic and are pretentious without end...like, slaughtering helpless women and bathing in their blood.

They weren't helpless, they just got sucker punched.

They really are good, just in a broader sense. The killing of Imperial survivors (or sterilization) may seem evil but in their minds it is a necessary evil. If weak minded people are free to spread knowledge of chaos the imperium would become exponentially more engulfed with chaos cults/possessions/incursions. The fact that they don't pause before they make tough choices doesn't make them evil, it makes them realistic for the context in which they exist.

The dime store comic book super goodie shenanigans is for space puppies.

 Goat wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
GK do not appear as evil because they are "too good". GK are beyond bat-poo insanely fanatic and are pretentious without end...like, slaughtering helpless women and bathing in their blood.

They weren't helpless, they just got sucker punched.

And don't think they wouldn't have done it to any other Imperial squad if they needed to to get the job done, they're the Inquisition, they've killed for less necessary reasons.

Its why I've always found the rage against the fluff-bit hilarious, I'm pretty sure the rage stems from the fact its Sisters being killed and not IG, if it had been IG or hell, even other Marines, no one would've batted an eyelash.

Exactly. This disregard for life is found in just about every codex. Hell, even the Tau wipe you out if you won't join their little coalition! It's echoed even more in the IG codex. Manpower is the imperium greatest (and inexhaustible) resource. Given the situation with the sisters, I'd wager they would have agreed to be sacrificed so that the daemon could be defeated.

 korghan wrote:
Exactly. This disregard for life is found in just about every codex. Hell, even the Tau wipe you out if you won't join their little coalition! It's echoed even more in the IG codex. Manpower is the imperium greatest (and inexhaustible) resource. Given the situation with the sisters, I'd wager they would have agreed to be sacrificed so that the daemon could be defeated.

Shhh.. some Tau players still refuse to believe the Tau would *ever* do something that mean and get all upset by even mention of it

I'll take my Space Communism the Joseph Stalin way thank you very much.

 Shadowclaimer wrote:

 Goat wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
GK do not appear as evil because they are "too good". GK are beyond bat-poo insanely fanatic and are pretentious without end...like, slaughtering helpless women and bathing in their blood.

They weren't helpless, they just got sucker punched.

And don't think they wouldn't have done it to any other Imperial squad if they needed to to get the job done, they're the Inquisition, they've killed for less necessary reasons.

Its why I've always found the rage against the fluff-bit hilarious, I'm pretty sure the rage stems from the fact its Sisters being killed and not IG, if it had been IG or hell, even other Marines, no one would've batted an eyelash.

So because they kill indiscriminately for their own belief that they're doing the right thing makes them pragmatic?

No, they're still evil, the marines who rebelled during the horus heresy thought they were doing the right thing too. Just because every other race is as evil doesn't make the grey knights good....in any sense. Which is the point, can you make evil grey knights? Sure, because there is no difference except for who's side they're on.

 lord_bobbington wrote:

 Shadowclaimer wrote:

 Goat wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
GK do not appear as evil because they are "too good". GK are beyond bat-poo insanely fanatic and are pretentious without end...like, slaughtering helpless women and bathing in their blood.

They weren't helpless, they just got sucker punched.

And don't think they wouldn't have done it to any other Imperial squad if they needed to to get the job done, they're the Inquisition, they've killed for less necessary reasons.

Its why I've always found the rage against the fluff-bit hilarious, I'm pretty sure the rage stems from the fact its Sisters being killed and not IG, if it had been IG or hell, even other Marines, no one would've batted an eyelash.

So because they kill indiscriminately for their own belief that they're doing the right thing makes them pragmatic?

No, they're still evil, the marines who rebelled during the horus heresy thought they were doing the right thing too. Just because every other race is as evil doesn't make the grey knights good....in any sense. Which is the point, can you make evil grey knights? Sure, because there is no difference except for who's side they're on.

I never implied they were good, just that people tend to blow that particular event out of proportion even though its just another "day on the job" for Grey Knights.