Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

A quick contents of these 9Ed rules:
• Updated Grey Knights Chapter Tactic
• Updated Smite rules
• Updated Masters of the Warp rules
• Realised Brotherhood sub-faction system
• Integrated new Chapter Command upgrades with Brotherhoods/Stratagems
• Additional standardised SM Stratagems along with GK specific Stratagems.

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6


A breakdown of the Brotherhoods with the abstracted rules to encourage the different GK play styles:
• 1st Brotherhood – Techmarines, vehicle transports and flyers.
• 2nd Brotherhood – Grand Masters, Interceptors, battlefield manoeuvrability.
• 3rd Brotherhood – Librarians, Purifiers and psychic mortal wounds output.
• 4th Brotherhood – BroChamps, getting into combat – and then combat!
• 5th Brotherhood – Apothecaries, Dreadnoughts and Dreadknights.
• 6th Brotherhood – Chaplains, Purgation Squads and infantry shooting.
• 7th Brotherhood – Still to be determined. Rules suggestions similar to the other Brotherhoods format welcomed.
• 8th Brotherhood – Still to be determined. Rules suggestions similar to the other Brotherhoods format welcomed.

Chapter Command upgrades are 1CP strats before the battle. They can be used in any Brotherhood detachment, but if it is used in an associated one - they will cost 0CP!

Nice work! It seems like you've resisted the urge to make anything terribly over the top. A few notes from someone whose knowledge of current marine rules is sketchy at best and whose GK knowledge is even worse:

* Am I correct in understanding that these are new "free" rules? I get that the warlord traits and relics use up "slots," but the "Chapter Command" rules are basically just free CP/bonus rules, right? If so, do you see a need to raise the points cost of GK characters a bit to compensate?

* The Tides of the Warp, wasn't this ability formerly only available if your entire army was GK? Am I overlooking (or imagining) that limitation?

* Accession of Malediction; is the "Malediction" keyword a thing again and I've overlooked it? If not, you can probably drop the keyword here as you explicitly list the powers this rule impacts.

* Coordinator and Condemnor of Worlds; You phrase it as "each time" the bombardment strat is used but isn't that strat once per game? I may be mistaken.

* Psychic Enfeeblement; probably fine, but this is going to suck much more for your harlequin/daemon/drukhari opponents than, for instance, guard or marines.

* Prognostic Strike; being able to turn a 9" deepstrike charge into a 7" deepstrike charge for multiple units in an army with ton of deepstrike like GK seems like it may be a smidge abusable. Is there something comparable available to other marines?

* Ieuneum Insis; might be fine, but definitely caught my eye. Am I correct in thinking this basically doubles the melee offense of the character wielding them? Are there other relics that double the offense of marine characters like this? (Specifically on things like captains rather than meh melee combatants like librarians.)

* Piercing Illumination; is that an automatic wound instead of or in addition to the normal wound? I know in some armies this would get wonky if there were weapons that had abilities that triggered on to-wound rolls. Example: sniper rifles can't do mortal wounds in addition to normal wounds on to-wound rolls of 6 if they never roll to-wound. I can't think of any GK weapons with a rule like that though.

Overall, seems pretty reasonable. Well done!

Wyldhunt wrote:
Nice work! It seems like you've resisted the urge to make anything terribly over the top. A few notes from someone whose knowledge of current marine rules is sketchy at best and whose GK knowledge is even worse:

* Am I correct in understanding that these are new "free" rules? I get that the warlord traits and relics use up "slots," but the "Chapter Command" rules are basically just free CP/bonus rules, right? If so, do you see a need to raise the points cost of GK characters a bit to compensate?

Currently, the CP upgrade is the most straight-forward way to implement the Character upgrades for GKs. Points increase is a possibility, but while they are SMs they are not close to as points efficient as Codex SM units. GK characters are pretty much the back-bone of a GK army, but even then, they are currently considered over-costed for what they do. Point changes will definitely require another layer of balancing after the 2021 points update is released.

Wyldhunt wrote:
* The Tides of the Warp, wasn't this ability formerly only available if your entire army was GK? Am I overlooking (or imagining) that limitation?

It is the same system introduced at the end of 8Ed. Some of its wording is out-dated to the new 9Ed rules and is tweaked to erase confusion, while also bolstering some of it's current rules, which were hardly used due to the lackluster performances.

Wyldhunt wrote:
* Accession of Malediction; is the "Malediction" keyword a thing again and I've overlooked it? If not, you can probably drop the keyword here as you explicitly list the powers this rule impacts.

Malediction in 9Ed isn't a keyword per say. It used to be a term GW used in 7Ed for Psychic powers that affected enemy units - opposite to "Blessings" when it was a psychic buff to friendly units. I use it as the title for the Trait, because if you gives you an idea of what the trait is about - before the rules that follow go into the details.

Wyldhunt wrote:
* Coordinator and Condemnor of Worlds; You phrase it as "each time" the bombardment strat is used but isn't that strat once per game? I may be mistaken.

Correct, it is a once per battle strat. In trying to keep with official GW wording, they use the term "each time" for the Chief Apothecary WLT when he uses the Combat Revival at 0 Command Points. For consistency I used the same wording. "Each time" here is still limited to once per battle.

Wyldhunt wrote:
* Psychic Enfeeblement; probably fine, but this is going to suck much more for your harlequin/daemon/drukhari opponents than, for instance, guard or marines.

Yeah, I understand - I've reduced it to just one phase instead eg. effects one shooting/fighting phase only.

Wyldhunt wrote:
* Prognostic Strike; being able to turn a 9" deepstrike charge into a 7" deepstrike charge for multiple units in an army with ton of deepstrike like GK seems like it may be a smidge abusable. Is there something comparable available to other marines?

I've change the WLT to add 1 to Charge rolls instead. I myself have lined up 5-6 GK units in a turn ready for 9" charges - and ended up failing all but 1 charge (which is actually close to statistical), resulting in basically half my army being shot to bits in the following opponent's turn. Hopefully an 8" Charge is a nice balance between doable - but not reliable.

Wyldhunt wrote:
* Ieuneum Insis; might be fine, but definitely caught my eye. Am I correct in thinking this basically doubles the melee offense of the character wielding them? Are there other relics that double the offense of marine characters like this? (Specifically on things like captains rather than meh melee combatants like librarians.)

To my knowledge there isn't any SM weapon relics with such an ability. Compared to other GK melee relics, except for the Daemonhammer - the other modelled weapons come free / 0 points. For falchions, to equip the standard pair is 4 points (which is considered way over-costed for the normal +1A). I did crunch the numbers eg. vs. Primaris Gravis Captain (T5, 3+/4++) and it still does less damage than the other GK Relics:

Relic Falchion - 4.58 damage
Relic Sword - 5 damage
Relic Halberd - 5.19 damage
Relic Daemonhammer - 5.33 damage

So, I feel with any lesser stats and the initial 4pts cost, people won't really take it.

Wyldhunt wrote:
* Piercing Illumination; is that an automatic wound instead of or in addition to the normal wound? I know in some armies this would get wonky if there were weapons that had abilities that triggered on to-wound rolls. Example: sniper rifles can't do mortal wounds in addition to normal wounds on to-wound rolls of 6 if they never roll to-wound. I can't think of any GK weapons with a rule like that though.

It's an auto-wound not an extra wound. It's fine I think, since no GK weapons currently have and abilities that trigger on 6s to wound etc.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Overall, seems pretty reasonable. Well done!

Thanks a lot, I really appreciate it!

Some constructive suggestions:

* The 7th Brotherhood is the one that has a tighter relationship with the Inquisition. Because of that, fluff wise, I would expect something like Ordo Malleus units also has the Grey knight keyword or the possibility to bring a limited amount of guardsman or inquisition related units without breaking the chapter bonus. Something like a stratagem that for 1 CP you can bring an Astra Militarum infantry or troop transport unit, an order malleus unit, or an adeptus assaninorum unit and give them the grey knight keyword if your WL is an Inquisitor and also Ordo malleus then it cost 0 CP. Add a limit of times that this strat can be used depending on the force size. I would also expect that the warlord for this brotherhood to be an inquisitor.

* The 8th Brotherhood is the brotherhood where all the initiated starts. It favors tactical flexibility in all aspects. I guess that as the other characters have already taken I guess that it has to be the brother captain. However, If I remember it well, some of the roles of the brotherhood champion are to train the initiated so somehow he should also play a role in it. Although I understand although why make sense for him to be the WL for the 4th brotherhood as in is the 4th where the best duelist comes from.

* The 4th Brotherhood is also the brotherhood where the prognosticators are. I think that it would be cool to add also some sort of mechanic like destiny dices from AoS Tzeentch of the SoB miracle dices. Perhaps not as powerful as the ones from SoB.

* Finally, please, allow the option to has brother captains and/or brotherhood champions (perhaps another character?) in nemesis dread knights. perhaps make the NDK an equipment option for GK characters.

^ Thanks for the feedback. Right now I'm gathering opinions for possible rules for 7th and 8th Brotherhoods.

For the 7th Brotherhood, from what I've gathered it will most likely be the inclusion of 1 complete Inquisition detachment for 1CP - without breaking Masters of the Warp.

8th Brotherhood is the hardest to make rules for. Sure they are trained to be the most flexible - but how does that translate to rules in the form of WLT, Relic Stratagems...? It's a tricky one.

 Waking Dreamer wrote:
^ Thanks for the feedback. Right now I'm gathering opinions for possible rules for 7th and 8th Brotherhoods.

For the 7th Brotherhood, from what I've gathered it will most likely be the inclusion of 1 complete Inquisition detachment for 1CP - without breaking Masters of the Warp.

8th Brotherhood is the hardest to make rules for. Sure they are trained to be the most flexible - but how does that translate to rules in the form of WLT, Relic Stratagems...? It's a tricky one.

mmm... the 8th is indeed tricky.

According to the GK official codex:

"Lead by the Knight Commander, the warriors of the 8th fight in fluid configuration, changing tactics swiftly during combat and between engagements. Any available weapon is put to use, and no strategy or maneuver is preferred over others."

I won't quote everything as I respect GW work. But references to the 8th seems to indicate that they have greater tactic flexibility and are some sort of jack of all trades, master of none. Perhaps it would be easier if we think in this direction.

I'm thinking of something like not have specific WL and Relics but instead have a stratagem that says something like:



And then we could have



I dunno if this would be broken or if it would be too weak. For internal balance, I thought that to remove 2 bonuses (like WL and a relic) but provide the possibility to have 2 extra specific stratagems would somehow compensate and on top of that to make to pay some CP in order to compensate for the advantage of having better flexibility than the other brotherhoods.

For sure you will have better ideas. Just trying to brainstorm what could be done for the 8th.