As far as the naming 'issue' with the various force weapons, it makes sense from a rules perspective. Nemesis Force weapons already have several special rules attached to them, thus it's easier on the player and his opponent (who may not have the codex or be familiar with it) to have all weapons that do the same thing share a similar label. It avoids any confusion on what uses the Grey Knight nemesis rules, and what's just a 'normal' force weapon.

Much like how plasma, shuriken, las, splinter, blaster, and melta weapons tend to share the same labels while having varied sizes but a similar ability,

Aeddon said:

I finally got the full, printed Codex and... Yeah:

"On the morning of the ninth day, Sisters of Battle from the Order of the Ebon Chalice assault the basilica. Some Battle Sisters are corrupted on contact with the Bloodtide. Those who endure fight valiantly, but most are slaughtered by the Bloodletters atop the basilica walls. It is only when the Grey Knights' 4th Brotherhood arrives on Van Horne that the Bloodtide is abated.

Needing a talisman of purity to protect against the Bloodtide's taint, the Grey Knights' first act is to turn their blades upon the surviving Sisters of Battle. The innocent blood thus spilled is then mixed with blessed oils and used to annoint the Grey Knights' armour and weapons. So shielded, the Grey Knights are able to stride through the goreflood without risk of corruption, and they smash their way into the basilica's heart."

(Codex: Grey Knights, p.15)

It does raise a few interesting questions, doesn't it? Like that Sisters of Battle can indeed be corrupted and even Grey Knights need "special talismans" to protect themselves against the risk of corruption... basically saying that even Grey Knights CAN be corrupted.

Plus, of course, the actual nature of those special talismans is pretty **** special...

Polaria said:

Apparently there's no such thing as an absolute in this universe.

Of course, we'll see what the Sisters of Battle Codex says when that is out.

As for 'Nemesis' weapons, the difference being of course that in any other codex they would all be force weapons and the equivalent is power weapons. A frost blade doesn't have difference stats to frost axe.

Ok here's what I don't get: We've got a GK hero that gets sucked into the warp. The raw WARP! And he manages to survive somehow without having his atoms split or fused into an ornament on a spacehulk. How does he breath? How does he EAT? Are there no temperature extremes in a dimension that is by its very nature without laws? If gellar fields protect the structure of a ship just as much as it does the souls of its crew, how can this fellow stand a chance? Now I feel that the Warp has been reduced to a place that, if you're a strong enough warrior, you could take a walk on the hull of the ship beyond the range of the gellar field during a warp jump without an environment suit hacking up daemons for kicks.

Well, Draigo is wearing a suit of Terminator armor with all the GK specific warp shielding, plus the fact that he is an extremely capable Psyker. And an effectively incorrptible individual at that.

And because time doesn't properly exist in the warp the issue of Starvation is a small one. And the warp might actually have air, it has land in some places after all.

It's still a little weird though.

Yeah, I'd say being an exceptionally powerful and skilled psyker goes a long way to help with that whole 'surviving in the warp' thing.

I understood that in warp all things can come true. For example, a whole Chaos God was born from the collective subconscious of Eldar race. Thus a powerfull psyker can (and apparently will) survive in the warp by sheer strenght of his willpower. As long as he belives he can survive, he will. Downside is, of course, that a single second of doubt creeping into his mind would likely rip him to atoms right away.

I don't buy it for second unfortunately. If the warp is easy to surive then surely he could just waltz through a vortex grenades without harm. If he's in warp on some land (which is pressumable a demon world) then he doesn't get to appear on any planet he chooses, he's still not a navigator with warp engines and the resources to keep them going for the weeks of warp travel it takes to get between planets. Evne though time moves strangely in the warp it still moves. And (some one with the codex can answer this) if he's relying on his psychich powers for protection what happens when he suffers a perils of the warp, when in the warp. Is he immune to perils by being nails?

Can we just chalk the whole Grey Knight codex up to Matt Ward's continued insanity and ignore it?

From Draigo to Dreadknights, to slaughtering sisters, to carving their name into Mortarion's throne-cursed, disease-ridden heart, I have found absolutely nothing of value in this codex that adds even slightly to the 40k universe.

even as a long time Greyknight player (since they first appeared) the codex is out there you cant ignore it , within a few years it will be seen as canon by a new generation of nerds

The new codex fluff totally lacks internal cohesion. GK:s can't be corrupted but must protect themselves from corruption by blood of innocents. No-one knows about Grey Knights because the mind-wipe all marines and kill all normal humans who have ever seen them but marine chapter masters still do deals with them. GK:s will destroy AdMech listening stations so they don't get to know GK:s destroyed an Imperial Troop transporter because aboard the troop transporter was one guy who has seen a live GK in Armageddon... and at the same time GK:s have a whole AdMech Forgeworld orbiting Titan and providing them with equipment.

Yeah, much of that stuff doesn't make any sense at all even when read against the stuff written in the same Codex. O.O

Now, aside from those few things I kinda like the fluff. Grey Knights are no White Knights. They use each and every available mean to fight the Deamons, up to and including using xeno help, actually helping xenos, using sorcery and being right out assholes themselves. What a Hubris. Gotta love it.

What gets me is that Grey Knights now use sorcery and xeno tech. The Xeno tech I could maybe buy but one of the (til now) recurring themes of 40K is the use of sorcery will corrupt eventually no matter how pure the intent or the heart of person. Sorcery is really reaching beyond the scope of what the universe gave you and it always has an effect. No protection is absolutely perfect. Grey Knights are really just hipocrites really IMO. The codex however is well balanced against the greater scope of the game

the greyknights have always been pskyers, fight the enemy with his own weapons its only one interpretation that all psykers eventually fall to the warp

Hardrainfalling said:

Its the difference between psykers and practitioners of sorcery. The former can arguably be employed without risk of corruption. The latter is, in every other source, a guaranteed route to corruption (look to the difference between Psychic Powers and Sorcery in Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader).

Just like wielding the weapons of the enemy... such as, for example, daemon weapons.

Many Inquisitors - men and women of indomitable will, it should be remembered - have fallen to Chaos by attempting to wield the powers and tools of the enemy. Fulgrim, one of the Primarchs, each of whom was a god-like being of immense power, will and intellect, fell to Chaos after wielding a daemon weapon, while Magnus was damned in part because of his dabbling with Sorcery.

"Fighting the enemy with his own weapons" frequently ends in disaster when that enemy is Chaos. One of greatest victories the Ruinous Powers can achieve is to convince the righteous that there is no risk in dabbling with the tools of Chaos.

Having the Grey Knights employ such accursed tools with complete impunity is an insult to years of background that explained how dangerous such things are. Psychic powers and endless vigilance used to be the way they did things, and that seemed more than sufficient.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Yup, I agree.

I was very worried about the Grey Knights codex, given some of the rumours I'd heard about it. On the whole, I don't think it's quite as bad as I'd feared, but I'm not entirely happy with it. The Daemon-Weapon wielding Grey Knight character is arguably (very arguably) not a total break from the "puritan Grey Knight" concept, as he doesn;t actually use its powers, but the sorcery using idea doesn't work for me, nor does the "killing Sororitas for their pure blood" idea. Sorry, but that's just...lame.

As I've just said on another post, it's nice to see a 40k sacred cow shot down in flames (can you shoot a cow down in flames? let's say you can...) when it's done well. Examples include the Inquisition "everything you know is a lie" concept, where the Inquisition was revealed to be a hotbed of internal intrigue...or Dan Abnett's handling of the Alpha Legion.

But turning the Grey Knights into, in effect, the most powerful Radical faction in the Imperium is, as N0_1 says, a complete Retcon. I've nothing against good retconning, but this is, frankly, bad retconning. Worse than bad: pointless. It doesn't add to the setting, or make the Grey Knights any more interesting or appealing. It just makes them a bit of a mess, frankly.

It makes them the most uber thing 'til the next Codex is released.

Which is the point, isn't it?