I also posted this on DH forums, but as new codex has both Grey Knights and all three major Ordos it belongs here, too.

Okay, I happen to have access to large parts of the GWs Grey Knight codex which will be released in April. Now having read through it there are few interesting lore implications, some of which match FFGs stuff, some of which dont:

Temple Assassins

Did you really, really think the Grey Knights are the most powerfull beings Imperium has? Think again. The Temple Assassins are it. Really. The new statline puts the Temple Assassins well above any Space Marine ever existed. Hell, they can kinck Grey Knight Grand Master into curb and not get tired. And no, we are not talking about "minor scaling" things, we are talking about WS/BS8 against WS/BS 6 and I7 against I5 when the other statline is same. and this doesn't even take into account what Assassin special rules and wargear does...

Now for fluff perspective this puts TAs where they should be. You need to kill someone? Anyone? Even Horus? Yes, these are the guys who actually have a working chance of success. For the Marine fanboys, well, it just means your favorites are no longer the "Biggest, Baddest Boys Around"...

Oh, the book does include Death Cult assassins. They are just normal human with power weapons, a dodge save and little better WS and S. Comparing to TAs they are just babies with plastic forks.

Daemontech

Yes. Radical Inquisitors use Daemonweapons... But so do the less radical Grey Knights. As they are (seemingly) completely immune to chaos and corruption they can do so with very little risk. Inquisitors have the choice of fielding daemonhosts in their retinue. Pretty much in line with FFG fluff for Inquisitors part, might offend some old-school GK fans.

Xenotech

Now its official. Imperium uses Xenotech in HUGE amounts. And when I say huge, I mean it. The wargear section for both Inquisitors and Grey Knights is literally filled with stuff thats taken from Xenos and not all of it come from Jokaero. Rad grenades, Pyschotropes, Null Rods, graviton guns, digital weapons, xenopoisons... you name it, they USE it. And no, its not "implicated to be xenotech". Many of these items are directly told to be xenotech. Inquisitors can also field Jokaero techs in their retinue to pimp their weapons.

I think this is completely in line with FFG and earlier GW fluff, but once again might offend marine fanboys.

Needlers

This is interesting. GK codex has needler pistols available for Inquisitors, but these things are far from FFGs baby-toy needlers... And this isn't just a "minor scaling issue" again. Its a whole different beast. Needlepistols kill stuff. Seriously kill stuff. They fire hypertoxic monofilaments and are capable of piercing a Terminator armor and wounding even the biggest and toughest creatures (poisoned 2+, for those who know what it means in TT).

Bolters

Nothing new here. Boltguns and Stormbolters for Marines and humans are still same in statline and described to be same beasts. Normal humans still carry both boltguns and stormbolters without power armor to assist in wielding the weapojns. However, there is very little information outside a single sentence ("signature weapon of Astartes, also used by Inquisitor henchmen") so the FFGs version of Astartes using real boltguns and norrmal humans using baby-guns is still plausible. Hiowever, what IS new is one more new bolt type. Grey Knights have anti-psychic bolts which do nasty things to daemons and such. Supposedly these can not be used from normal boltgun.

Assassins have had the best stat line since (at least) 2nd Edition. WS 8 and BS 8 are nothing new.

Why are you so determined that this will upset 'spacemarine fanboys'? It sounds like you're just trying to wave a red rag at a bull.

The changes that you mention are far more 'offensive' to those into 40k canon than spacemarine fans, given how much clashes with established 'facts', such as rad grenades not being xenos, et al.

Truth be told, the rules of a (poor) skirmish wargame predominantly aimed at a young audience aren't really going to break the hearts of many people who are into 40k as an RPG setting, or the fiction.

And just because something is on an army list, it does not mean it is used in 'huge numbers'. It means that SOME Inquisitors use a lot of it. Of course, few players are likely to hamstring themselves by 'roleplaying' a conservative non-radical Inquisitor who would rather die than use the tools of the enemy, but the truth is that many/most Inquisitors are of that leaning. The list merely provides options, rather than dictating the way things are done... unless of course there is a minimum number of xenos articles and demonhosts that an army must take? After all: Some lists include stats for Chapter Masters do they not? By your logic that indicates that the Chapter Master is in practically every battle that elements of his Chapter participate in.

Polaria said:

This sounds good to me. I've always seen assassins as being at the very top tier of 40k badassery.

Polaria said:

This is a surprise to me, and it seems slightly at odds with earlier established background. The Grey Knights used to refuse to operate with Inquisitors who used Daemonhosts, and indeed purged the Relictors for doing exactly the same thing as they now do: using daemon weapons!

Polaria said:

I don't mind this at all. The Inquisition have always been slightly hypocritical over the use of xenotech. Plus Imperial agents have been using it for years. Look at the C'Tan phase sword, Jokaero digital weapons etc etc. The Jokaero seem a poor fit for Ordo Malleus henchmen, though.

Polaria said:

This seems odd. Needle pistols have always been portrayed as highly effective against unarmoured flesh, ineffective against armour. This has always worked in the past...why change it?

Polaria said:

This is fine for me. The TT is too blunt a tool to differentiate in great detail about the different sized bolters used by the Astartes and those used by other Imperial agents. There's no practical difference in the TT statline...that's because the differences are too subtle at TT level, which is concerned with large battles invilving dozens of opponents. It would slow the game down unecessarily to cover minor scaling in power issues. Whereas a more nuanced system like FFG's can cover the differences fully.

Siranui said:

Have to correct my mistake right away. It wasn't Rad grenades, it was Empyrean brain mines.

The problem is that according to my experience the "fanboys" tend to classify as "established facts" only things that happen to suit their personal view of how the 40K world is. Don't get me wrong. I've been a 40K player ever since RT and I have a Space Marine army, so I'm a fan. I'm just not dismissing the fluff outside Black Library...

Siranui said:

...like this.

Siranui said:

Ah, I must have explained it a bit poorly. Let me rephrase: The xeno-tech is not something only Inquisitors can take. It is almost impossible (might be actually impossible, I haven't tested it out that way) to build a non-xenotech list with the new codex because several of the Grey Knight basic units have one or more pieces of xeno-tech in their basic wargear.

Lightbringer said:

I agree with this fully. For a long time it was part of the established background that Temple Assassins are the top dogs when personal-badassery is concerned. This seems to just reinforce it.

Lightbringer said:

This is pretty much the biggest and stranges fluff-change I found. It seem in new GK Codex the knights come out a bit... how would I say it? Arrogant. Filled with hubris of their own (supposed) incorruptibility.

Lightbringer said:

The Inquisiton aspect is no surprise, really. The fact that many Grey Knight basic units come with xeno-tech as part of personal wargear might be. I think this is fully in line of how FFGs Deathwatch offers Kill Teams with several pieces of wargear that are xeno origin.

Lightbringer said:

This I do not know. However, in new 'dex Needler is pretty much the best possible pistol imaginable, wounds everything on 2+ has AP1 (!).

Lightbringer said:

Yup. I mostly included the bolter part because it always rises up in discussions and before this 'dex the other sources (Witch hunters and Daemonhunters Codex) were old as bible.

Maybe it's a new 'type' of needler, rather than the old one with ridiculous stats.

I think I'll halt my interpretation of the GKs prior to the release of this Codex, if demons are now in their employ. It seems remarkably lame. The old 'but we must use X and harness it in order to fight X' trope is dull and over-used.

Siranui said:

It doesn't work like that and the daemons are not really the main issue. Inquisitors have daemonblades and daemonhosts, but this should not surprise anyone after all the FFG and Black Library material saying the same thing. Of Grey Knights Castellan Crowe has daemonblade and the logic is that he has been given it because the daemonblades cannot be destroyed and unless one of the Grey Knights wields it, the daemon in the blade would reach out and find a new wielder for the weapon. So for the Knights its not fight-fire-with-fire thing at all.

Fighting daemons with xenotech however... Well, I checked it, you can make a non-xenotech Grey Knights, but that would be against the new fluff. Codex quite clearly says that such xeno-tech items like Empyream Brain mines, Psilencers and Nemesis dreadknight armor are not novelty items, but something that Grey Knights field as standard operating procedure (and proudly stick out a big finger to AdMech doing it). Although not completey unexpected it was something they never spelled out this clearly.

I used to feel rather dirty for really liking the 'fanboy-good' GK Chapter, even when they didn't have all this kit.

Now I feel like I should shower in a sand-blaster and beg forgiveness.

Okay, more fluff news... or, perhaps, I should call these fluff rumours. I must say that i only have the wargear and unit description pages at hand so I cannot double-check what others have read (or claim to have read) in the codex when it was on display in GW shops. However, following little bits sound a bit...worrisome:

"During the last days of the Horus Heresy Malcador the Sigilite took eight Space Marines to Titan to form the Grey Knights chapter. He hid the whole planet in the Warp for several months using Macro-Gellar Fields and 'sorcerous incantations' (I kid you not). After the Heresy ended Titan reappeared, having spent years, as far as the occupants were concerned, in the Warp. What went in as eight Space Marines and several hundred Grey Knight aspirants came out a full-fledged Chapter."

"Bloodtide rises, a daemonic ocean of gore that washes over all and turns them into berzerkers eager only for blood that can effect even the Grey Knights. Thankfully, a small contingent of Sisters of Battle trapped on the world remained pure, which the Grey Knights then kill, collecting and mixing their uncorrupted blood with sacred urgents, applying it to armour and weapons, rendering them immune to the Bloodtides effects..."

Now, I'll refrain from commenting untill I can get some more info, but this seems like something TOTALLY new...

Assassins being the best of the best of the best is nothing new, that's true. Though I still think in the end the Adeptus Custodes are probably the most godlike warriors the Imperium has, combining the spiritual perfection of the Grey Knights with the physical and martial perfection of the greatest Temple Assassins.

Direach said:

Adeptus Custodes are similar to Temple Assassins in the sense that they are individual fighters, individually trained and augmented. Each one is a unique creation, unlike "normal" marines which are mass-produced. Artfully and with high tech, but still mass-produced .

Matt Ward wrote the codex, and although I haven't had the chance to read even the BA one, some background descriptions I have read make me go 'wait, what?!' on occasion...

Yeah, Temple Assassins are basically proof that Normal Humans can, with enough tweaking at extraordinary costs, be made compareable to Astartes, and even exceed them in some ways. There's other cases of modded humans in the Horus Heresy books too (A lot of the Primarch's Teacher sorts are uplifted to Astartes Levels, it's never outright said, but it is implied they seem to be as good)

Polaria said:

Polaria said:

Polaria said:

Polaria said:

Well I guess I'll have to wait and read the book. It's not necessarily MY interpretation of the Grey Knights, but there we go...

Polaria said:

WTF!?

Konrad Curze was declared Heretic for less...this is sorcery...THIS IS HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERESYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

NERD RAGE!

Sorry, but for me, codices are no more canon. NO MORE!

[i'm sorry for bad english]

Polaria said:

If they 'fought fire with fire' it might be tired but at least it would be in the same 'arena' so to speak. I simply don't understand why you'd make the Demon Hunting Ordo big huge xenotech users. Either Ward is as insane as many on this forum think, or perhaps they're retconing some old lore in order to allow for them to take the franchise in a new direction post 999 M41. Pure speculation though...

Are you sure you're not putting us on here?

Charmander said:

As much as the xenotech is considered... nope. I'll give a few excerpts:

"Empyrean Brain Mines are based on captured Ghost World technology"

"The technology is surely of alien origin, for it is unlike almost anything else found in the armouries of the Imperium. Yet was the psilencer contructed of technology stolen or technology given freely? Grey Knights remain silent of this matter."

"Is the technology that drives the Nemesis Dreadknight a fragment of mankinds lost knowledge, preserved through the Dark Age of technology and terrible times since? Or do its origins owe more to alien influence? Either way, the Grey Knights hold their peace, determined to never share their secrets."

So only the Nemesis Dreadknights origin is questionable and can be either way. As for Empyrean Brain Mines and Psilencers, both pretty much standard issue stuff and available to wide variety of Grey Knight units, there is no question that they are xenotech. The only issue is who made them (Jokaero didn't) and how did the Grey Knights get them?

it's nothing new that temple assassins (callidus and eversor at any rate) are the Imperium's premier close combat specialists. I don't think they eat marines for breakfast, but it takes several marines to take one down (I think an encounter of this sort actually happens in one of the Space Wolves novels)

Depending on the author (Abnett or Dembski Bowden), Custodes are either

1) slightly larger and stronger than Astartes (in Tales of Heresy, Abnett states outright that it would be foolish to try to predict a contest between the two)

or

2) significantly superior in personal combat, but substantially less effective as a team (the difference between superb warriors and superb soldiers was the analogy)

Little Dave said:

The problem with this line of thought is that it lets any discussion regarding anything Ward wrote about turn into a game of Telephone, where some people make largely inaccurate claims about Ward's writing and not one is willing to call out the misrepresentation. You can see this in the original post, where Polaria claims the new codex depicts the Imperium as using "HUGE amounts" of Xenotech, where he should say the Inquisition and their Agents , which isn't actually much of a change from the status quo. Likewise, he says that it depicts the Grey Knights as using Daemonweapons, when it only says that a single marine carries around a daemonsword that he explicitly does not actually use . Because Crowe is basically Space Frodo.

I'm not saying that Ward is immune to criticism, but I've found that a lot of people get strangely hostile to the idea that they may have misinterpreted his work.

@Mr. Innes

Please read the more specified stuff I wrote later. Huge amounts of xenotech still stands even if you do not take Inquisition into account at all. Empyrean Brain Mines are xenotech. They are not items one single guy uses. They are standard equipment for Grey Knight grand-masters, captains, techmarines and librarians. Psilencers are xenotech. They are not items one single guy uses. They are standard equipment for ALL Grey Knight units. Each and every one. Nemesis Dreadknights are implied to be xenotech. They are not items one single guy uses. They are the main-line heavy support of Grey Knights. Also funny little thing: digital weapons are xenotech... They are in all Space Marine codexes and Imperial Guard codex. Not only in GK one.

As for daemontech... Yes, I made a little mistake when I thought daemonweapons in the armory section where available to them all. They are not.

However, now that I've read through the special character fluff, I must warn you: Its very grim, its very dark. Grey Knights don't exactly come accross as the shining-good-paladins-in-white. I'll give few examples:

Grey Knight training: They do not train their recruits like normal marines. There is no scout period. Instead they are pretty much thrown into the deep end of the pool and left to die. Those that don't die get to be Grey Knights. So, in order to produce a single Grey Kniight thousands will die. And it doesn't stop there, in order to reach the status of a Paladin Grey Knight must go and fight daemons imprisoned on Titan and beat them all. Without help. Most who try it, die.

Grey Knight grand masters strategic planning: Some Grey Knight grand masters actually use massed mind-control to lead their forces... including OTHER Grey Knights. Not exactly something you could expect normal space marines to do, but these guys go ahead and do it.

Grey Knight greatest heroes: The book introduces four Grey Knights current greatest heroes. One of them is banished to warp, cursed to wander there for ten thousand years (sometimes he is summoned to realspace for short time to help the other Grey Knights). One of them has a daemonblade and he fights with the daemons in the blade constantly, trying to resist their temptations. One of them has a bunch of his dead squadmates following him around as ghost, apparently he resurrected them with his psychic powers without realizing it. And the last, but not least, of the four is immortal. Yes, he has died dozens of times and just keeps waking up. At first even the other Grey knights thought he was possessed, but now they've gotten used to it...

I must say that personally I rather like it. Too perfect protagonists are never as interesting as cursed and broken ones. I guess whether you like it depends on what you expected. I expected Ward to come out with Grey Knights as Ultramarines-but-better. Instead he brings people who most Ultramarines would be mortally afraid off. I was pleasantly surprised.

I also expected them to explain the Grey Knights super-equipment (well beyond anything even marines get) with old "its like the best-of-the-best-of-the-best imperial tech". Instead they go straight for the "these guys have the balls to use xenotech even normal marines don't touch" approach. Yet again, I was pleasantly surprised.

Polaria said:

I know. I'm including Grey Knights under the "Agents of the Inquisition" umbrella; even if you reject that terminology, I still think referring to the Imperium as a whole as xenotech-reliant based on the armories of the Inquisition and Grey Knights is inaccurate.

As for the digital weapons, they've always been xenotech, even in 1e. It hasn't come up much, since no one used to care about the Jokaero. But the grim days of the techno-orangutan drought are now over!

Polaria said:

Ok, they are more grim, this is good, but now they are HERETICS!

Konrad Curze was right, Imperium is evil...

What I read about the new Grey Knight Codex doesn't offend my inner Marine as much as my inner Eldar fan.

My inner Marine is a bit miffed, because Grey Knights get virtually everything. He doesn't see why Grey Knights need to have a higher WS limit to other Space Marines. However, he is also happy because they are way more stupid than him. The head of the purifier order wields a daemon weapon, but doesn't draw on its powers. Meaning he is wielding a close combat weapon that makes people that attack him so angry that they hit him harder. But because he's sooooo good with a sword he rends with every hit of 4+. Now how good would he be if he would be smart enough two carry that sword around in a sheath and use a proper Nemesis sword? (Seemingly only traitors are that smart, see Cypher) Also he's one of the big bosses of the Grey Knights and only has 2 wounds. Yeah, that sword is in the best hands......

My inner Eldar is outraged. He has millenia to perfect the art of war, and for some magical reason some short-lived monkeys have higher skill values than even a Phoenix Lord. Not only that, his race virtually ruled the Galaxy when the first organisms on Earth crept out of the water, and human technology is better than that of the Eldar. It's ridiculous. There's no reason to play a non-human army at all. In the end they are always weaker and dumber than humans. (And yeah, I'm also miffed about the announcement of Black Crusade. We need a fourth RPG about humans? This time about crazy (well crazier) killers and rapists? If I want to make a chaos cultist I need the Radical's Handbook, if I want a CSM I need the Deathwatch Core Rulebook. They should have made an expansion for Tau or Eldar instead of yet another book about humans.)

Basing roleplaying stats off of a miniature wargame where nearly all of the abilities of every faction are tweaked and modified in the intrest of "balance" is folley. Basing fluff off of arbitrary numbers someone put into the "latest/greatest, band-wagon, buy all these new neat kits" army list is even more so. Of course the assassins are going to have (massively) inflated stats for the tabletop game. No one is going to want to waste a precious "slot" in his/her army for a single model who is no better than their basic troop choice. That is just one example of how table-top and fluff/roleplaying do not (and should never be assumed to) jive. Use your mind, we evolved it for a reason.