Check out the new Designer Diary for Dark Heresy.

Spring 2011 will see the book "Daemon Hunter" release.

Here's the teaser of it.

"The threat of daemonic forces is ever present in the
Imperium of Mankind. The Ordo Malleus protects
humanity from the ruinous powers with vigilance,
practicality, and forbidden knowledge.

Daemon Hunter provides material for those
who wish to fight the enemy beyond, from the
most untested Banisher to the supreme opponents
of the warp... the Grey Knights."

Cheers!

Alexis

*smiles*

Well spotted !!

Thank you

DW

Though given it'll be in a Dark Heresy book, I'm doubting you'll find rules for PC Grey Knights, but it should be a half-decent source for those wanting to make house rules for such things.

The information presented will assist and will be of use I am certain.

Though to what degree we have yet to see.

Alexis

*smiles*

House rules for a Grey Knight: Make a Tactical marine. Add Librarian characteristics and skills. Add a 40% shield to any psychic power used against them (the same shields as in Ascension, but since it's the armor, it doesn't stops working. Essentially, any psy used against them has a 40% chance of not working).

The storm bolters mounted in the forearms can be made using existing rules. The armor should be a little better than the Mar7 Aquila of the demo adventure of Deathwatch (maybe 9-10 AP in the whole body), and the psy-weapons are just energy weapons which add the Psy rating of the wielder the same way the psy-cannon does.

Done ^^.

Argus Van Het said:

I don't think that your shield idea is not the way to go at all. Hexagramatic wards from Inquisitor's Handbook are much better. I don't think it's a good idea to start adding in extra stuff from one specialization to another, either. What's wrong with just taking a Librarian? They will be just as deadly. The armour should not be any better than the MkVII automatically. They should go from power armour to artificer or terminator just like everybody else. It's the hexagramatic wards that make their armour special. You just need to figure out a good requisition cost in comparison to the rest of the rules once you get them. The Nemesis Force Weapon can just be a great weapon force-weapon, and in conjunction with the forearm mounting there are no problems. All these things should have an appropriate requisition cost and shouldn't just be given. That way you have a character who functions mechanically as a Grey Knight (psy powers permitting), but is still balanced enough to fit in the balance of Deathwatch.

Actually I hope that the GK are just mentioned as NPC.

In my opinion they would deserve an own RPG, just like Deathwatch. Investigating in Hive Cities or even being part of a bigger conflict on a world ruled by Chaos. That would be awesome. A whole Squad of Grey knights would be better than having perhaps one in a group of Acolytes ( and it would be more fitting, fluffwise ).

MILLANDSON said:

I don't see how they could stop it by that point. You might need to have Deathwatch for PC SM rules, but then the NPC special rules from the Malleus and the gear from the Malleus and other DH books you'll have everything you need.

Simple answer guys and gals - Deathwatch = Ordos Xenos, Greyknights = Ordos Malleus, Adeptus Sororitas = Ordos Hereticus. Deathwatch are purely sent out to deal with Xenos related threats, and whilst they may fight any threat to the imperium that stands in their way, they would not be sent out specifically if foreknowledge was had of the threat being daemonic. That would be the domain of the Grey Knights.

Xenos and Malleus operate in different manners against vastly different foes, so i don't expect to see anything in the book other than a small acknowledgement of the existence of the Greyknights.

I am suprised however that FFG are releasing a Greyknight sourcebook as a supplement for DH and not making it it's own system, but then i guess they don't want to spread the options too thin or we'll end up with systems with no capacity for later supplemental releases.

Ultimately, just be content in the knowledge that we are getting a Space Marine RPG finally, and that we have been promised a later source book for chapter creation and extra gear, careers etc.

H.B.M.C. said:

Because it's a Dark Heresy book, which means, other than as NPCs, I very much doubt there would be full rules for playing as a Grey Knight. Now, if it were a Deathwatch supplement I'd agree that there might be rules for them, but unless that book is going to restate all the base rules for Space Marines from Deathwatch in it (and why would it? It's a Dark Heresy book), it won't contain PC rules.

I still don't see why not, and I would see it as a terribly wasted opportunity.

Besides, your comparison between GK's and the Deathwatch is a little flawed because Deathwatch and Grey Knights are completely different beasts and giving a GK career (singular) would not require the same level breadth or depth as the Deathwatch careers (plural). Remember, Deathwatch has 8 different Careers and 6 different Chapters. Grey Knights have 1 Career (Grey Knight) and 1 Chapter (Grey Knights). It's hardly going to be a lot of repetition other than the basics.

In my mind it's no different to the addition of the Sister of Battle career in the Inquisitor's Handbook. It's a single career that allows you to play as Grey Knight, and makes perfect sense to have a GK seconded to an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor's personal retinue. It would be an excellent addition to Ascension play and certainly more appropriate in a Dark Heresy context (where all the Ordos are involved) than in a Deathwatch context (where it's so heavily slanted towards the Ordo Xenos).

BYE

H.B.M.C. said:

Well no, because the grey knights do have different careers. They still have ranks and so you have marines, veterans, terminators, apothecaries, commanders etc. Stating that GK would only have 1 career whilst Deathwatch have 6 is quite flawed.

Kasatka said:

If you can have in inquisitors, assassins, and/or Adepta SOroritas in the Deathwatch game for variety, then there is no reason you couldn't have grey knights in also. Even if they wouldn't be balanced in the rules for some reason, the GM can always alter them to fit in power scale-wise, not everything needs to be exact fits and totally rule lawyered to death.

The purpose is for everyone to have fun.

Suijin said:

Yes, you CAN add all of these things into a game of Deathwatch, but they come from other sourcebooks, and as has been announced in the latest Knowledge is Power lineup, there is going to be a sourcebook covering the Greyknights as part of the Dark Heresy line - whether playable or not we have yet to see.

A standard tactical marine with a wrist mounted storm bolter, a force weapon (sword, halberd, or hammer), and hexagrammatic wards on the marine himself should do just fine. Remember, whie their armor is fantastic, the grey knights psychic wards are actually tattooed on the marine himself (per the Grey Knights triology).

If you want the marine to carry a psycannon or incinerator, give him a heavy bolter of flamer with holy/blessed ammunition.

Giving the GK psychic powers is unnecessary as only the Terminators use them, and it was to be a group action (the squad of terminators cast holocaust). However, the GK's should be at least psychically sensitive.

I think its necessary to the Grey Knights that they have psyker powers, its a defining attribute. You wouldn't force a SoB player to make their character male.

aka_mythos said:

Well, Grey Knights don't have psychic powers the same way that others do. They're psychically sensitive and can use certain powers (like holocaust) in a group, but they don't run around reading minds or using biomancy or anything. Read the Grey Knights triology for some extra info, and it's pretty good, anyway.

And speaking of that triology, I'll add an addendum to my previous post saying that Grey Knights have wards tattooed on them directly, as well as hexagrammic and pentagrammic wards on their armor.

I mean that interpretation is a relatively modern one because the Grey Knights who run around in power armor are not full blown "grey knights". They are new recruits in much the same way scouts are in standard Space Marine Chapters. Admittedly they go through more to become initiated, but a basic Grey Knight is capable of developing psyker powers even if at the time of their initiation those abilities are relatively limited. A basic Deathwatch member is a veteran, all equally veteraned Grey Knights have the capabilities of a Librarian. It used to be that even the most basic Grey Knight was as powerful as a Librarian, that as a group of psykers they amplified their psyker abilites beyond the level of the highest rank of Librarian. A Grey Knight mod for Deathwatch should really all be a game where all the members are varying level of Librarians with a set of skills and talent where the Cohesion points can be used to generate more powerful psyker effects.

If I were to redesign Deathwatch for Grey Knights I would maintain the same careers but where the careers don't matter as much. The weapon options and differences would be relatively minimal since the nature of the weapons Grey Knights use is more restrictive. The special flamer thrower they have at the start is much the same flame thrower they'd have at the end, the growth of the characters would come more from the developement of the players psyker powers. In place of chapters, you'd need to revert to more of the homeworld based background system of Dark Heresy, explaining how the manifestation of psyker powers on their homeworld are interpreted. For example, if the psyker comes from more of a feral world the psyker power are percieved as an extension of shamanism. How that impacts their psyker powers and ability to excorcise daemons become a defining of each character and how they differentiate themselves from each other.

Grey Knights in power armour have been around for a very very long time, just that they only released specialist terminator models for a long time.

The point being, in my eyes, is that a Grey Knights game suffers from the very problem with SM's that Death Watch gets around. That is they are all essentially the same character. Probably more so in the Grey Knights than any other chapter, there's even less troop choices and specialists and the fact that they are Incorruptable means that they are more brainwashed than other SM's. So I doubt FFG are going to go out of their way to support it.

Grey Knights in power armor have been around since 2003. That is not a very very long time. The introduction of Grey Knights was in WD109 in January 1989. In the fluff at that time, that held until the 2003 update all Grey Knights wore Terminator Armor, aegis suits. In 2003 power armored Grey Knights were created as a simple way of filling out the ranks of the Grey Knight when they got their own codex, but even then the Grey Knights in power armor are described as being the most newly initiated to the order, in other words not veterans. Playing a Grey Knight who is on par with a Deathwatch member, in terms of experiance, means playing a terminator clad Grey Knight, playing a Grey Knight in power armor is the same as playing a random space marine who wasn't good enough to be inducted to the Deathwatch.

The big issue with a Grey Knight focused game is the fact they are just a single chapter, so their background has to be defined by their origins, the home world they come from, and as I pointed to having that shape their interpretation of the warp and the psyker powers is the most characterful way of doing that while being grounded in preestablished mechanics. Beyond that possiblity Grey Knight only really have one dimension to their character potential.

The power armoured grey knight TT models have been around since 2003 but the concept of a grey knight in power armour has been around since the hard back chaos add-on for warhammer and 40k called realms of chaos : slaves to darkness can't remember an exact date but my copy is in my loft somewhere as i am loath to throw any of my original stuff out lol.

Page 247 and pages 273-275 is the entry for Grey Knights in the Realms of Chaos: SoD book. No mention of psyker powers, special weapons, or special equipment. They are just a marine chapter like any other except they fight daemons. This published in 1988.

Superceding that was WD109 in 1989. Here GW moved away from the idea of Grey Knights being an army and instead being a power single squad of terminators.

The question should really boil down to in a table top RPG do you want to play as an Elite daemon hunting team that fights giant daemonic incursions or do you want to be a lowly Grey Knight neophyte.