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How do these three orginisations relate to each other?

I know Deathwatch is anti-xeno, Grey Knights is anyi-psyker, and Sisters is anti-heresy. So all three fall under the Inquisition? And the Inquisition falls under the Minstorium, right?

phydaux wrote:
How do these three orginisations relate to each other?

I know Deathwatch is anti-xeno, Grey Knights is anyi-psyker, and Sisters is anti-heresy. So all three fall under the Inquisition? And the Inquisition falls under the Minstorium, right?

Each are the militant arm of the three major ordos. The Sisters are technically the Militant arm of the Ecclesiarchy but might as well be the lapdogs of the Ordo Hereticus.

The Inquisition is not part of the Ministorum. The Inquisition is a separate organisation and answers only to the Emperor (so to no one, in reality.)

Grey Knights are a chamber militant of Ordo Malleus (the daemon hunter Inquisitors), Death Watch is a chamber militant of Ordo Xenos, and the Sisters of Battle are a chamber militant of... Adeptus Ministorum! That's right, the Sisters are not part of the Inquisition. They just often closely work together with Ordo Herereticus due their shared interest of burning heretics to a crisp.

 Crimson wrote:
The Inquisition is not part of the Ministorum. The Inquisition is a separate organisation and answers only to the Emperor (so to no one, in reality.)

Grey Knights are a chamber militant of Ordo Malleus (the daemon hunter Inquisitors), Death Watch is a chamber militant of Ordo Xenos, and the Sisters of Battle are a chamber militant of... Adeptus Ministorum! That's right, the Sisters are not part of the Inquisition. They just often closely work together with Ordo Herereticus due their shared interest of burning heretics to a crisp.

In the 3rd eddition codex witch hunter, the SoB, in addition to being the standind army of the Ecclesiarchy, became the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Hereticus a thousand years after their institution was established in Imperial Law during an event called the convocation of Nephilim. They have a twin role. I don't know if this has been changed though. So, yes, Sisters of Battle are both member of the Ecclesiarchy and of the Inquisition (in addition to being its own semi-independant adeptus). In that they are a bit like the Deathwatch which is both a part of the Adeptus Astartes and the chamber militant of the Inquisition.

I think new GK fluff is also saying they are not directly subordinate to the Ordo Malleus and have the right to refuse, they just almost never do.

Yeah, in newer fluff all three of them aren't directly part of the Inquisition, more like the closest allies. If you ask me that's pretty dumb and in 7th. ed it made me think GW might squat the Inquisition as they cut all connections of them to other imperial factions.

Why is it so dumb? Apart from the Deathwatch there's no reason for them to need the Inquisition. Sisters have the whole damn Church behind them and Grey Knights are perfectly capable of doing their job solo.

I think Inquisition should be squatted as a ingame faction. It makes so little sense for them to be there.

Grey Knights are really to deal with Daemons not Psykers although there is crossover

Deathwatch deal with Xenos

Sisters are there to protect the Church but also to police it as well as burn Heretics, Xenos, and Daemons - they tend to be resistant to the latter more than most due to their Faith.

An Inquisitor will use whatever he or she thinks is best for the job, can get hold of and deploy in the right place - other considerations may also come into play like will their usage (and perhaps loss) cause more issues for the Imperium, status within the Inquisition and with the other Imperial power blocs.

Each major Ordo has a Chamber militant that they tend to use but its not exclusive in either direction - just that they have strong links and end to have similar attitudes, experiences etc

In the old fluff, just knowing the GKs existed was grounds for mind wipe or execution. Even other Space Marines would be mind wiped if GKs had to get involved.

They're less of a secret now, but even the Chancellor of the High Lords of Terra wasn't supposed to know they existed.

So to answer the question, DW and SoB as a general rule don't know the GKs exist. DW are space marines on loan to the Inquisition while SoB are Minstorum troops. They don't have much, if any, reason to ever work together as they're pretty specialized.

pm713 wrote:
Why is it so dumb? Apart from the Deathwatch there's no reason for them to need the Inquisition. Sisters have the whole damn Church behind them and Grey Knights are perfectly capable of doing their job solo.

I think Inquisition should be squatted as a ingame faction. It makes so little sense for them to be there.

Or you go back to the old days where you had an inquisition codex with their chamber militant: codex Daemonhunters and codex witch hunters (alien hunters was an often hoped for addition). Since I’m all about fewer books now though, I’d support codex: Inquisition, with grey knights, sisters, and Deathwatch included. You’d have to have all units in a detachment have the same Ordo (Malleus, Hereticus, Xenos) and the chamber militants would have those same keywords.

Skhmt wrote:
In the old fluff, just knowing the GKs existed was grounds for mind wipe or execution. Even other Space Marines would be mind wiped if GKs had to get involved.

They're less of a secret now, but even the Chancellor of the High Lords of Terra wasn't supposed to know they existed.

So to answer the question, DW and SoB as a general rule don't know the GKs exist. DW are space marines on loan to the Inquisition while SoB are Minstorum troops. They don't have much, if any, reason to ever work together as they're pretty specialized.

Nah, old Daemonhunters codex mentions Chapters can have pretty long-standing relations with the GK. Discretion was important, but they weren't particularly bloodthirsty until the 5th edition Warddex hit. Now, if they were to show the slightest hint of corruption, that's an entirely different story. But while the fluff was still actually good, Grey Knights were at least slightly reasonable when it came to their purges.

The Inquisitional forces got passed around a fair bit in the good old days. The ordo distinctions are a bit forced now. Inquisitors will draw from whatever forces are most appropriate and most available for any given task. Knowledge of the Grey Knights wouldn't be freely passed around by Sisters or Deathwatch, but it wouldn't be entirely unknown. And within the Inquisition... well, they're a tool.

 greyknight12 wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Why is it so dumb? Apart from the Deathwatch there's no reason for them to need the Inquisition. Sisters have the whole damn Church behind them and Grey Knights are perfectly capable of doing their job solo.

I think Inquisition should be squatted as a ingame faction. It makes so little sense for them to be there.

Or you go back to the old days where you had an inquisition codex with their chamber militant: codex Daemonhunters and codex witch hunters (alien hunters was an often hoped for addition). Since I’m all about fewer books now though, I’d support codex: Inquisition, with grey knights, sisters, and Deathwatch included. You’d have to have all units in a detachment have the same Ordo (Malleus, Hereticus, Xenos) and the chamber militants would have those same keywords.

I'd live with Deathwatch/Knights/Inquisition but I think Sisters should be separate seeing as they aren't as close with the Inquisition.

pm713 wrote:

I'd live with Deathwatch/Knights/Inquisition but I think Sisters should be separate seeing as they aren't as close with the Inquisition.

If we go by the Witch Hunter Codex, they are just as close as the two others. This has been downgraded a bit in their ebook 6th eddition codex, but there was genuinly less fluff in this codex than in the Witch Hunter one. There could be a codex Chamber Militant containing Deathwatch/Grey Knights and Sisters of Battle in a single tome. It would be a good way to unite some smaller factions.

The Grey Knights, Deathwatch, and Sisters of Battle are all distinct organizations with their own command structures.

The Deathwatch began as a covert-ops initiative that answered directly to the Lord Commander of the Imperium, its purpose was to carry out specific missions as part of the larger war effort against Waaaagh The Beast, with intent to disband it after. One Lord Commander later, the authority over the Deathwatch was transferred to the Inquisition to secure their assistance in that ongoing war but their self-contained command structure was insisted upon.

After that, the Inquisition begins forming the Ordos, where previously they had wasted a lot of energy fighting amongst themselves over exactly which threat to the Imperium was the priority. The head of the Inquisition at that time, at the advice of her predecessor sought out the Grey Knights on Titan and formalized an arrangement where the Ordo Malleus could call upon them in times of need.

In this respect, the Deathwatch and the Grey Knights are counterparts to each other. Space marine chapters that coordinate with the Ordos Xenos and Malleus respectively, but one has a real, if marginal direct link to the Inquisition as a whole, while the other is independent but cooperates with them actively because of their shared mandate.

The Sisters of Battle come along thousands of years later. They're part of the Ecclesiarchy, but with their own command structure and serve as a check and balance to prevent the likes of Gogue Vandire from taking the reins again. (The three orders each in Terra and Ophillia are specifically there to burninate the Ecclesiarchy presence on one planet if they exert too much control on the other!) Odly enough, the Inquisition formed a new Ordo at around the same time to do the exact same thing.

So the Sisters are related to the Ecclesiarchy in much the same way the Deathwatch is related to the Inquisition, but their relationship with the Inquisition is closer to that of the Grey Knights, either brought in because the inquisitor called them directly and gave them a rundown of the situation, or because they did the same with a friendly Ecclesiarchical representative who brought them along to exercise their duty.

 Fafnir wrote:

Skhmt wrote:
In the old fluff, just knowing the GKs existed was grounds for mind wipe or execution. Even other Space Marines would be mind wiped if GKs had to get involved.

They're less of a secret now, but even the Chancellor of the High Lords of Terra wasn't supposed to know they existed.

So to answer the question, DW and SoB as a general rule don't know the GKs exist. DW are space marines on loan to the Inquisition while SoB are Minstorum troops. They don't have much, if any, reason to ever work together as they're pretty specialized.

Nah, old Daemonhunters codex mentions Chapters can have pretty long-standing relations with the GK. Discretion was important, but they weren't particularly bloodthirsty until the 5th edition Warddex hit. Now, if they were to show the slightest hint of corruption, that's an entirely different story. But while the fluff was still actually good, Grey Knights were at least slightly reasonable when it came to their purges.

The Inquisitional forces got passed around a fair bit in the good old days. The ordo distinctions are a bit forced now. Inquisitors will draw from whatever forces are most appropriate and most available for any given task. Knowledge of the Grey Knights wouldn't be freely passed around by Sisters or Deathwatch, but it wouldn't be entirely unknown. And within the Inquisition... well, they're a tool.

The "Watchers of the Throne" book from last year mentions that in earlier years, people were mind wiped for seeing GKs. They were murdered for seeing daemons. The High Lords of Terra weren't even supposed to know the GKs existed, that information was basically only for the Ordo Malleus and highest members of the Inquisition.

That goes along with what I remember from the old fluff, but I can't cite a source because it's probably been a decade since I read that.

Page 21 of the Daemonhunters codex mentions Space Marine Chapters having long-standing relations with the Ordo Malleus, not necessarily the Grey Knights themselves.

Still, in that era of better fluff, the only mention of destroying allied forces comes when it's feared that they may have been "touched by the insidious taint of Chaos." While mass execution and mind wiping are definitely tools regularly utilized in the older fluff, it's not the first thing that they reached for.

It was also back when the Grey Knights used the Emperor's geneseed.

The more extreme response to the Grey Knights is much older than Daemonhunters, which was the first time they'd started to play things down.

Mindwipes, executions and at best a penitent crusade are very old stuff - all dating back to the 1st War of Armageddon before that world was even an Ork thing.

There was never anything saying Grey Knights used the Emperor's geneseed. Rumours at best, which were clearly wrong. Emperor would never have had geneseed as he was born eons ago in ancient Turkey. His actual DNA is pretty meaningless compared to the psychic potential gifted him.

The Inquisition does not technically answer to anybody other than The Emperor himself, with each Inquisitor technically has the same status as a High Lord of Terra. Even Guilliman can't legally tell an Inquisitor what to do. An Inquisitor is essentially an extremely well trained agent that has the jurisdiction to seize or conscript whatever Imperial tech or resources they want for their mission as long as doing so doesn't contradict or undermine the actions or authority of another loyal Inquisitor or Lord of Terra.

The 3 main Ordos are

The Ordo Malleus: Charged with fighting Chaos & Demonic activity wherever it appears in the Galaxy. They also collect relics and weapons tainted by Chaos and lock them away in the hopes they will never be used again.

The Ordo Hereticus: Charged with rooting out traitors of all kinds, not just those related to chaos cults. This Ordo in particular has extremely strong ties to the Ministorum. They also actively enforce the Imperial Cult, viewing any other religious views as traitorous.

The Ordo Xenos: Dedicated to fighting the largest conventional non-human threats. Like WAAAGH Ghazghkull or the Frontlines of a large scale offensive by Necrons or Tyranids. They also collect Xenos weapons and specimens for study.

While each Inquisitor technically has the authority to recruit an entire Marine chapter for his cause upon trying to do so it would not be all that unlikely for that Chapter Master to kill that Inquisitor and say he was a traitor or better yet hide the body and say he never showed up if the mission was not in that Chapter's interests.

However, a solution to this problem is that all of three Ordos have what is known as a "Chamber Militant" which essentially means that each force (while technically independent in operation) is already expecting and willing to fight for that Inquisitor's Ordo.

Chamber Militant for the Ordo Malleus is the Grey Knights which is a special secret standard sized chapter of Marines that are all Psykers, with more advanced wargear, trained and conditioned specifically to battle demons. They take their secrecy and the suppression of knowledge of chaos very seriously and will execute most surviving non-marines after a conflict has ended as just knowing of Chaos makes Demons more powerful.

Chamber Militant for the Ordo Hereticus is the Sisters of Battle which are technically just the armed forces of the Ministorum created out of a legal loophole in a law that stated the Ministorum "Shall not raise nor maintain men at arms". They are essentially Veteran Guardsmen in Servo-assisted power armor and marine class weaponry but are physically just human but this means their Orders are not limited in size like Marines are. It should be noted that their faith in the Imperial Cult is so strong, it can sometimes psychically influence reality on the battlefield.

Chamber Militant for the Ordo Xenos is the Death Watch which is composed of Veterans from almost every chapter of Marines in the Galaxy who are sent there for various reasons (some chapters hold athletic competitions to see who gets to go while some chapter masters essentially use it as an excuse to get rid of marines they don't like). The Deathwatch is unique in that it can maintain up to 1000 of it's own marines known as "Black Shields" in addition to the majority of it's force which is technically composed of marines "on loan" from different chapters and as such they can maintain more than 1000 marines at a time. They are also given newer, more advanced gear that most chapters don't have access to as well situational gear and tactics relative to what they are fighting.