I know not necessarily Ordo Xenos/Deathwatch territory, but it isn't really impossible. So how could one write up Chapter Rules for them? They're pretty much if not all psykers and carry force weapons...

Any advice?

Most basic one: wait for the DH supplement which will most probably feature them.

Temporary solution: If you need a quick and dirty Grey Knight, use a Librarian as a base. Mix with Black Templars abilities and talents which go more or less along the same lines.

Nemisis weapons as chapter trappings?

One thing to remember is that Grey Knights aren't quite like other Marines - they don't have Tactical or Assault Marines, they don't have Librarians (they're all Psychic to some degree, so they don't need specialised Librarians), and they're all equipped differently from a normal Marine.

So, an assortment of musings on the matter of Grey Knights...

In equipment terms, swap out the Mark VII Power Armour for Aegis-pattern Power Armour (same rules, but added psychic and daemonic protection, as per the Hexagrammic Wards in The Inquisitor's Handbook and the Pentagrammic Wards in Disciples of the Dark Gods; if you don't own any Dark Heresy books, the psychic resistance and immunity to Warp Weapons from the Armour of the Relentless Crusader in the Deathwatch rulebook is essentially the same as the rules for Hexagrammic Wards) with a forearm mounted Titan-pattern Stormbolter (as normal Astartes Stormbolter,but Reload 3Full (it's a small backpack mounted ammo hopper, not a drum or box magazine) and only 30 rounds in the clip, details courtesy of the Imperial Armour books) and a Nemesis Force Weapon (2d10+2 R, Pen 2, Unbalanced, normal benefits of a Force Weapon, plus Pentagrammic Wards).

The basic Grey Knight isn't a particularly powerful psyker, so they should only be Psy Rating 1, really - it's not until they reach the rank of Brother-Captain that they start wielding noteworthy battlefield powers of their own or acting as a focus for their squad's power) - but that's still not a bad addition to what might as well be a Jump Pack-less Assault Marine with psychic powers and powerful standard issue gear (make the three cheap advances WS, S and WP, though). Still, even with Psy Rating 1 and average starting characteristics, that's still 2d10+13 R, Pen 3 with their force weapons.

I'd be inclined to give them +5 in WS and WP as their starting traits, and as already noted, the Black Templar solo mode ability is quite fitting for them. Additionally, whatever advance scheme is used for them, Hunter of Daemons is essential.

I suggest the Grey Knights all start with a comparable custom talent to Deathwatch Training, say Grey Knight Training for want of a more original name. Without copying and paraphrasing the text on p115, basically make it apply to Grey Knights only and have all their Righteous Fury checks against creatures with the Daemonic trait automatically confirm.

I remember a fan write-up for Grey Knights that had an excellent take on how they respond to Fear checks and mental attacks from Daemons. While Grey Knights cannot be corrupted, they can be temporarily staggered. The corruption and insanity mechanic becomes very interesting when it comes to GKs. Can they simply purge themselves of IP and CP through prayer and cleansing rituals, can they ignore them entirely or do they all die before it becomes an issue? My personal take is the first option but YMMV.

Thanks guys, that was exceptionally good advice. So to list so far:

• +5 WS, +5 WP
• Psy Rating 1 (any starting power suggestions?)
• Righteous Zeal Solo Mode Ability (Black Templars)
• Deathwatch Training (all DW member go through it) AND Grey Knights Training (as DW Training but for Daemons)
• Hatred (Daemons), Hunter of Daemons Trait in advances
• Aegis Armor (Pentagramic and Hexagramic wards), Nemesis Force weapon (Sword or Halberd)
• Wrist Mounted Storm Bolter (w/30 rond back pack ammo hopper, reload 3 Full)

Specialties:

Obviously, no Devastator Marines and Techmarines, but what about apothecaries? Librarians could probably represent stronger psykers seconded to the Deathwatch. Assault Marines and Tactical Marines are rational enough.

Potential Issues:

The Grey Knights seem to be more powerful than the other Chapters, so other than a lack of weapon and specialty choices what are the primary disadvantages?

Generally, any mission they are involved with should be far more difficult than normal (if using a canned mission, I would x2 the horde magnitudes of everything).

I would allow devastators (purgation squads). Use the psycannon in the other supplements, possibly adding an extra d10 to match astartes level bolter damage.

Also, I think the earlier intention was to the deathwatch training. In fact, probably best to do away with the deathwatch advance scheme, and replace it with a grey knights advance scheme (also dropping the idea of chapter advances), switch it over to anti-daemon and forbidden lores in that scheme of things, alot of purity related talents, but allow them to spend starting xp on it.

Have the GK advance scheme include improvements to PR maybe once every rank (possibly do it as PR +1, not PR 1/2/3, meaning that a GK librarian type is exceedingly powerful), I would also probably include unnat willpower near the higher ranks, and possibly one power at rank 4, and one more at rank 8 (no clue what the powers should be, holocaust/hammerhand/word of the emperor or whatever its called?)

I can see them having tech marines, they have their own armoury to manage, so there have to be some form of cult mechanicus.

I would imagine they have apothecaries, primarily concerned with monitoring corruption (of course, they are incorruptable, but I imagine they are in some measure not arrogant enough to make that assumption without checking. Trust but verify).

The general advance scheme should probably be modified to allow for TWW/swift/lightning attack for all marines.

Now, how should the TT version of true grit (storm bolters give extra attack in CC) be handled? I doubt they should be allowed to fire them in the RPG in melee. Although allowing a single shot might not be too terrible.

Of course, all of this is stupid unbalanced. A party should probably be all GK, and as mentioned earlier, they should be sent in against scary, scary stuff. Personally, I think its entirely reasonable to come up with a good way to do this, just needs some refinement.

KommissarK said:

As adversaries I suggest to draw on the old realm of chaos books and translate them into 40K Roleplay.

Alex

Awesome. I'm pretty new to 40k RPGs, and never really had time to play the TT but was always interested, so could I get a little help with the tables and such?

I would shorten the range of the Storm Bolter by atleast 30% since its wrist mounted

Santiago said:

No books at hand, but doesn't the forearm mount have a range reduction as part of it?

Another option would be to use the rules for the Psycanon bolts from IH in the Strom Bolter.

Looks good so far.

I would adjust the ammo capacity of the forearm mounted stormbolters, 30 in a backpack hopper does not seem like enough, could probably fit all those rounds in the feed tube; a .75 caliber round x30 only takes up 22.5 inches in length, not accounting for the very tiny addition of the casings - ignoring them all together if you follow the caseless bolt round theory. There is an automatic range reduction in the RAW book for wrist mounted weaponry, can't remember about using them in CC but I would allow it. Not hard to fathom a strong punch to the sternum of something followed by a quick burst of SB to back it up.

For psy stuff, something that might allow the squad to all join together to do some nastiness to daemons, I remember old versions of the TT GK's having that ability; the more there are the stronger they become.

I personally would not allow separate GK, librarians since I see them all following that path eventually anyways. While they are younger members of the GK's I see them doing tacticassault and heavy time, perhaps moving freely amongst the two as they progress. For rp purposes the tech and apoth careers also. In the end, I see most GK's as starting out as a standard cross between tac (or heavy or both) and lib and ending up super powerful individuals.

E

I was going to use some Grey Knights as a one shot sort of prelude to the larger mission at hand for my Killteam. Give them a little taste of what endgame and the elite levels look like.

With that in mind was going to go a little over the top with them. Give them all stats starting 2d10+40. Give them all Relic Blades instead of having them mess around with Force Weapon rules. Wrist mounted storm bolters that count as bolt pistols in close combat. Give each of them a psy rating of 2 and a list of powers for whoever they elect leader. Maybe even terminator or Artificer armor.

Then I'm going to a house on them. Daemons, Daemons everywhere. Guardsmen dying all around them and wave upon wave of unholy filth pouring out at them.

How about a single GK accompanying the Kill-Team, ala' military liaison or such? Modern armies all have liaisons running around with different organizations, what with all the diverse nastiness going on in the Reach, could almost make sense/be argued that the GK's would have warriors around just in case something daemonic popped up. Maybe. YMMV. Sold to me well, I'd buy it as a GM.

E

Nothing about the Space Marines organization says "modern army" to me.

HappyDaze said:

And still there is bound to be cooperation somehow, somewhere. I wonder what the working relationship between the DW and the Grey Knights is. Is there a sense of rivalry? Or just mutual respect? Are the Grey Knights dismissive of the DW?

Alex

Well even ancient armies had advisors sent to see what was happening in areas where they might have some interest in the outcome.

I would imagine the working relationship would be pretty good. Both organizations are highly specialized and privvy to a lot of normally censored information. I believe that this increased awareness of the threats arrayed against humanity allows them to shrug off normal interagency conflicts; they are too well aware of the risks involved with separation instead of unity. I think it would definately be a matter of mutual profession respect for each other; again I bring up the likelihood of working with each other more frequently than has been mentioned.

E

Where is the edit button?

How's this for a start for a Squad Mode Ability? Psykic Harmony: For (unknown cost att) a GK can add +1 for each chapter brother in the squad to his PR for casting or enhancing his psy powers.

Or something like that. Got a lot going on and will be honest that I have not read through everything yet, but I think something like this fits the background that GK's teamed up can do greater feats of psyker stuff than alone. It's why they can defeat greater daemons and DP's and warp entities with such success.

E

ak-73 said:

The Grey Knights are a Chapter unto themselves, though a secret and highly specialized chapter.

Deathwatch is a chapter in name only.

I would imagine a Grey Knight has little concern for the DW, as they probably never contribute to DW due to their special nature. At the same time I believe that Grey Knights would respect the DW due to their flexibility and ability do deal with almost any situation that may arise, even responding to threats the Grey Knights would if the need arises.

ak-73 said:

Do they even know about each other ?

The Deathwatch operates under a lot of secrecy. The Grey Knights operate under even more.

Bilateralrope said:

I've always assumed the secrecy part was for mortal men, not Astartes. All SM does know about DW as well as the GK, it's imperial officers and rank and file that might or might not know about them.

ejacobs said:

In current Grey Knights rules, Terminators can take Holocaust, a power normally only available to characters, because the whole squad working together makes it possible. If does a large blast template centred on the squad leader (or chosen model if he's dead), but on a Perils of the Warp result, they all suffer the hit.

I've read the Grey Knight Omnibus and they use this power, and it talks about how the Terminator Squad begins chanting while still killing things, and the other Grey Knights can feel the power building up in them until a massive wave of energy is released.

Could even have it as a unique Psychic Power / Squad Mode hybrid only used by Grey Knights, where they must be in Squad Mode to use it and all members of the Squad do a Focus Power test to activate it, the more that succeed on the test the more damage / greater range it does (those who fail just don't contribute). Might be deadly, but possibly make the whole squad suffer from any Psychic Phenomena or Perils of the Warp if one does.

i am a long time (since they were first mentioned ) GK fan, bear in mind that a new codex is due early next year with new units such as grey knights with jump packs (assualt marines) and GK do have a version of devastators in the purgation squads new heavy weapons and new rules for psycannons are expected as well as new units at this point you will be able to give GK players more chocie in career paths. They traditionally have less vehicles than other chapters and being based on titan have good access to adept mech support so i think techmarines dont really fit and arent very likely , chaplins are mentioned in the novels , I would agreed that they would have some form of apothecary

The Russian said:

I did a version of the chapter for my brother in law and I shared it in another DW forum here so I won't do that again but basicly I used the Powers from DH Ascension under the Daemonsbane category. I limited him to melee(since I really have not played with them since like 1996 and back then I did not remeber them having any ranged weaponry and figured the psychic powers would compensate. I did make the Nemesis Force Pike a nasty weapon for him though 1d10+7 2x str bonus(3x against daemons) +Pyschic Rating considered powered, and sanctified.I used the librarian specialty only since I really had no other referance but limited him to only 1 of thier listed abilites and added some of the ones from DH including Item recall(Nemesis Force Pike specific).

One disadvantage was I did not let him enter squad mode with the Deathwatch until he spent 500 exp each on Common Lore: Deathwatch and Forbiden Lore Xenos.

Could you post a link to that previous chapter build please?

E