Any Ascended character is a (comparatively) senior member of the Inquisition. They have served as Throne Agents, which in of itself confers considerable authority, and have received training and authority beyond that. They are exactly the kind of guys who would deal with a Grey Knight. The Inquisition doesn't sweat that one of their senior agents comes from the gutter before he served in the Inquisition. If there's a daemonic incursion and he's one of the best men on point he will be and if that means working with a Grey Knight why would they have a problem? The Inquisition has agents from all kinds of backgrounds. The relevant part is if he can do the job and as an Ascended character the answers tend to be "yes".

Now here's this crucial line of yours:

I just don't think that one should strictly follow the fluff at the expense of what might be fun

Now there's nothing wrong with the statement or the sentiment behind it, but it is naive for you to expect FFG to do that. Every book they write goes through GW readers to make sure it is consistent and true to the background material and their liscense obligates them to do so. They aren't ever going to produce material on Grey Knights light because of it. There's nothing wrong in you wanting it, but you or another fan who feels the same way is going to have to do the work.

That's not entirely true - we (sadly) do have instances where RPG stuff conflicts with Codex canon... and we have several other cases of "lite" careers in the books already (a number that I feel will increase with the release with the upcoming IG and Arbites supplements). Also, it is probably hard to grasp exactly what this kind of superhuman superiority has to mean in terms of game mechanics - just look at the Dark Heresy core rulebook's examples about how the different degrees of characteristics are supposed to relate to various examples in the 40k world, or the various official interpretations of how Astartes gear should be statted. The only rule is that a Marine should be stronger and tougher than the ordinary human standard. How much? Author's choice - as can be seen in numerous novels which all went through the same editing process as the RPG books.

But as my feelings on this actually mirror yours (as previously stated), I think that you still have a point. In a way, you both do. Perhaps there is a way to make it work without becoming too awkward, such as the aforementioned Marine Scout. If offered with a warning about his advantages and limitations, such a character might be playable okay'ish in a group of Acolytes that starts out with some better gear than their usual crap. A Scout with carapace will "only" be as tough as an Acolyte with power armour - especially if you fix Unnatural Toughness to become a normal bonus (+20?) instead of a flat multiplier. Give him a Scout's shotgun and he won't be a monster in combat, as he cannot deploy his full potential whilst still feeling true to the fluff. Or give him a Scout's bolter and just use DH Marine stats instead of DW overkill. Or come up with some sniper rifle stats that fit to DH, turning the Scout into an assassin-surrogate with less skills but who is harder to kill. It's a balance on its own.

A remaining issue would be his psychic powers, but I am unsure how well developed they may be in the Scout stage. This is something another player would have to answer - though I'm sure there could be limitations placed on this as well, at least something that doesn't make him outpace a "fulltime" psyker career. Perhaps something that works on the basis of Fate Points, similar to faith talents.

Just a few thoughts on the subject, of course. I do not honestly expect nor personally wish for the book to include stuff like this - but maybe you can build a few houserules out of it for your own campaign(s), Kael.

All in all, I think what makes it so hard or even impossible to have fully-fledged Marines work next to non-ascended Acolytes (in fact, it doesn't even truly work with ascended ones here ...) is that DH was designed to have its characters start out as nobodies. This is different from the "Inquisitor" game that was designed to have Marine characters work in a group with the likes of Inquisitors, Guardsmen, Enforcers and Clerics from the beginning, and naturally makes it more difficult to have one type of character fit into a "power level" where he was not intended to go. There are some players who have suggested that FFG's new supplements turn away from this, but I think that this will rather result in an odd mix between the two and cannot be fully addressed without a redesigned 2nd edition (which may come some day, but surely is still years away).

Cynical Cat said:

According to Ascension they are not senior members of the Inquisition. Most of them are not even members of the Inquistion but still serving under an Inquisitor as part of his retunie. They are more experinced than Acolytes to be sure and thus have more power and responblity but thats a far cry from being considered a senior member of the orgnaization. Even people who take the Inquisitor path are considered newly minted Inquisitors. And you have to take the Inquisitor path to be considerd a formal member of the Inquisiton.

Also while they may not mind allowing their Throne Agents to work with a Grey Knight to put down an uppity daemon in the terms of it being an rpg and an adventuring party I do not find it likely that all of said Grey Knights activties will be dealing with daemon's. I would imagine that as a PC (unless the campaign is spefically just about hunting down Chaos things) the Grey Knight PC will be taken out of his normal elements and asked to deal with things on a daily basis that most Grey Knights would never deal with. Thats just how being apart of an adventuring party. Fluff wise we've already moved away from standard use of Grey Knights.

I don't see what would be wrong with material that has a lighter version of the Grey Knights. I don't see GW carring all that much that an RPG is making a Grey Knight playable. And with the amount of conflicting fluff out there I don't think GW's canon editor is as strict on matters as say the ones working for Lucas.

They are going to have to provided some rules for non Ascended Grey Knights since in theory the Grey Knight speficic stuff are Ascended level classes. This means that in order to use them you have to build up into them. You just don't start an Ascended game and go "bam! you're a Grey Knight". You're going to have to sit down and consider what the character was before you got to the Ascended part and figure out what his base levels were. Unless of course I misread Ascension. I did only skim through the book and decided to do a more throughal reading when not consumed with classes.

With that in mind, they almost have to provide some means of working out what a pre Ascended Grey Knight looks like. Is he a Guardsmen? Is he a Pysker? What type of skills do they focus on before getting to all their Ascended goodness? All of this provides one with the means to play a Grey Knight before he's Ascended.

double post

Actually, you can indeed play Ascension games without ever having played the characters on ranks 1-8 before.

The "Bridging the Imperium" developer diary already mentioned that the GK careers in the book are designed to work with Ascended DH characters, so that one seems settled. It also mentions that there will be two different mechanics for GKs (DH and DW), so the concept of a "GK lite" (compared to DW) is there as well. I'm just curious as to how much lighter they will be.

Lynata said:

Well as I said I did only skim the Ascension rules. But being as how Grey Knights are being designed with DH in mind I would imagine that they would be light all things considered.

Like I said, my position isn't that there needs to be a base class labeled Grey Knights that starts at career level 1. I'd be happy with notes on what kind of character builds up into being a Grey Knight. Is he a Guardsmen? Is he a Psyker? I would expect the book to answer those questions and give GM's tips and resources for building any kind of Grey Knight.

After all this is a DH game. Building them like the standard canon GK's from the fluff doesn't seem like it would work out so well. After all their business is with Chaos. And then normally on the business end of it. Since most DH games are a mixture of combat and investigation and horror I would like to think the GK's are built and promoted in such a way that they aren't completely useless when not killing things from the Warp.

So far FFG has shown themselves to being good at making the fluff and the games mechanics and set up find a happy middle ground.

Kael said:

Do you mean a rough comparison regarding the playstyle? Or an actual career background? In case of the former, you could probably describe a Grey Knight as a mix of the two - similar to how a Sister of Battle works like a mix between Guardsman and Cleric.

In case of the latter, though (and I'm just adding this because I am not entirely sure about your knowledge regarding the setting, so don't take this wrong), it should be noted that Grey Knights cannot have a background like that. All Marines get recruited straight from childhood/youth*. At best, a Marine may have been, for example, a young tribal warrior before he was tested, though I don't think this can be represented by anything save for possibly a background package. Given the tremendous stress and brainwashing that Astartes recruits go through they'd probably forget much of their past, anyways, or it would be suppressed by hypno-indoctrination and their lifestyle of switching back and forth between brutal war and quiet monastic life. In case of the Grey Knights, the recruitment and creation/indoctrination process might even be more traumatizing than normal, simply because of the high expectations that the Chapter and the Ordo Malleus have of them.

Generally, I am also sceptical when it comes to bending the fluff to make something work. It's certainly possible to balance playability with "loopholes" (such as the Scout idea), but stay away from outright contradictions. This is merely a personal preference, of course - YMMV.

(*: I think the current maximum age is 14 or so? "Back then" you also had Marines recruited out of hive gangs, but I think that part got retconned between some edition and the other ...)

Lynata said:

Still do. Kayvaan Shrike of the Raven Guard was a young Hive Ganger before being transformed into one of the Astartes. There's no lower age limit on underhive violence, and adolescents are as frequently part of hive gangs as anyone older, as ably demonstrated by every Juve in every conventional Necromunda gang ever (that is, all those who aren't drawn from the Outlanders supplement)..

As a matter of fact, due to the typical life expectancy of a ganger, you'll find a good part of most usual gangs being younger than 20 years old.

Grey knights don't have a background at all, even so far as other space marines do. They are mind-cleansed, and have every trace of individual belief or past experience scoured from their minds and replaced with devotion to the Emperor. That's why they're incorruptable, where every person has that tiny little crack of doubt, that sliver of despair, the Grey Knights only have iron-clad faith. Most of their battle-training is done via hypno-indoctrination, if I recall correctly, and Grey Knights are unique in the chapters in that they do not have a Scout rank. They are recruited, spend an indeterminate number of years being augmented and having their entire self consigned to oblivion before before being forged from nothing but a body into a tool of the Emperor's will.

From all the fluff sources I've read (not a great deal of specific materiel, but much that contains information on the Knights, and I did enjoy Grey Knights by Ben Counter) the Knights are perpetually in three states of being:

1) Praying, cleansing their souls and ensuring they are in perfect form, spiritually, mentally, and physically, to fight the greatest servants of Chaos and win.

2) Travelling to the forefront of the battle, usually into an area so intensely corrupted by the greater daemon in question that lesser beings (IG, ship-crews besides those mind-cleansed and indoctrinated crews of the Malleus cruisers, even many Inquisitors) would be driven insane merely by the lacking of the mental fortitude required to not be destroyed, and during this travel they'll be performing intense cleansing rituals to scours their souls of any aberration or burrs, leaving only the shimmering shield of faith.

3) Dropping into fields of trees that weep blood, grass that claws at your feet, giant, mutated animals that spit flames and shout obscene lies drawn from the warp itself, and daemonic monsters aching for their destruction, and fighting their way to the lord of these lesser monsters and smiting it in the name of their god-Emperor of man.

Any other activities they take are purely for the sake of enabling them to combat the daemon.

It's obviously apparent they by-pass the fluff already, and I don't see it as too bad a thing, and I welcome rules for using SM's in DH (I'll be wanting one to serve my Primaris as a bodyguard in an up and coming game featuring several Inquisitors all pursuing their own goals separate and possibly opposing each other via PbP) but I do hope the go easy on the nerfing.

Thanks for the corrections, all! Both about the gangers as well as GKs getting mindcleansed. Of the latter I was not even aware until now - I confess I have never read one of their codices so my knowledge there is obviously limited!

BangBangTequila said:

Or at least used to be...

Lynata said:

Well I know how their training works but being a Guardsmen doesn't have to represent just being a normal guardsmen. It could also be used to represent their inital GK training. As for bending fluff, after about 8 pages in this thread alone not to mention numerous other threads I'm convinced that GW bends the fluff at any point that they think it will net them more sales. So allowing them to be playable at non Ascended is likely to be the least offensive thing they could do with GK's.

It begs the question that if you are slaugtering your allies and bathing in the blood of innocents is not being corrupted what would they do if they were corrupted?

Does that make them uncorruptable or indestinguishable from the corrupted?

Face Eater said:

They don't though. The Knights fight daemons, they don't fight rebellion. Even most other Space Marines only ever get the following glimpse of them:

1) Big, bad daemons on the battlefield, not a couple little plague-bearers, but the guys that make your ears bleed by speaking and bend reality around them in ways that would make even a Psyker collapse, vomiting and bleeding from the eyes.

2) Anywhere up to a company (though most GKs are in the Eye of Terror) of Knights teleporting onto the battlefield, reciting the Liber Daemonicum as they plunge into the enemy ranks and eradicate the Chaos infestation with Sanctified/Psycannon bolts and blessed promethium and Nemesis Force Weapons (the most common shape being the Halberd).

3) The Knights teleporting away with nothing in the way of an explanation,

At least that was the way it used to be. Ben Counter's book changed it considerably (understandably since a book where the only dialogue is "I am His hammer...") and factored in the political manoeuvring and having to deal with PDF/Arbites/Imperial Guard forces and making sure that that which must be burned is burned.

Anyways, this is why they cannot be corrupted. They want nothing besides to destroy the Daemon. They live for no reason beyond defending the Emperor's domain and his loyal followers from the Daemon. They live in spartan conditions, and have few if any personal belongings beyond their wargear. They are to other Space Marines what the Adeptus Sororitas are to the Imperial Guard.

The "teleporting away with no explanation" remains in effect until GW says otherwise - a novel or RPG author's personal interpretation of studio material remains just that, though of course individual players are free to adopt such notions for themselves. What has changed is that Grey Knights apparently CAN be corrupted.

Though one could probably argue that this was always true and that the "uncorruptable" part of their older fluff simply included the necessity of measures such as those mentioned in their new Codex. Meaning, they can not be corrupted IF [...] (it's obviously a retcon, but this way one could probably "explain it away" as an addition)

This is similar to the Sisters Militant who live, fight and die by much the same conditions as BangBangTequila just listed, and yet at least one of their number fell to Chaos - and became a Champion of Slaanesh, no less, complete with her own fleet of warships and a Terminator bodyguard.

As someone over in the DW forums commented with regards to this aspect of the new GK Codex: "apparently there are no absolutes in 40k".

That would irritate me. I'm not entirely opposed to making GK's playable, even in non-Ascended games - It's just good business. The one true constant and greatest claim to fame that the Knights have ever had (which means a hell of a lot, since the Codicium Aeternum is filled with the names of sector-crushing daemons banished by the Knights) is their incorruptability, the fact that no member of their order ever has, or ever will, fall to Chaos. Changing that would be to betray one of the most interesting Chapters they've ever made on a fundamental level.

New ideas and interesting depth added to them: Good. Adding a new playability and access to the Chapter to let more players discover the intriguing nature of the Knights: Good. Breaking the one unique and truly special thing about them in the name of balance: Bad.

The sisters militant are like a candle next to the inferno of a GK's faith, and they aren't hexagrammically warded literally everywhere. Because they still possess their basic human nature, they are fallible, while the Knights don't just have Faith, they are that Faith. Ah well. I think I've reiterated that point enough now, I just truly hope this book doesn't butcher them and establish some real shameful canon for the sake of making a few people slightly happier and a legion of fans disgusted.

BangBangTequila said:

Glory to Lord Ward!

/sarcasm

Indeed. I heard people already fear that it was him who could end up writing their army's next Codex.

Such as the upcoming SoB one.

/shiver

Lynata said:

Lynata said:

To GW Staff member Ward:

*Insert picture of me slapping the back of a man's head* *

To GW Editors:

*Insert picture of me flipping the bird here*

Well, in that case, bugger to them. They ruined the Knights, now they're just Marines with fancy armour and storm bolters. The first book that comes out detailing a traitor Knight is going to drive me away from their products, since money is obviously the only thing they hold sacred the only message I could hope to have heard will be my boycott.

Though with the new stuff on the Knights, I'm sure I won't be alone, and the models that have been widely regarded as ugly little aberrations* are sure to help show GW that ruining a good thing isn't good for business.

*Note this is not intended as a threat in any way, merely a fictitious representation of my displeasure.

**Since some people have trouble differentiating, this is an opinion that has been stated by a number of people, not an incontrovertable fact.

The real irony is that people also criticized the Codex for reading like a fanboy's fantasy and likened Ward to being "GW's Michael Bay". To quote just two of the many reactions you can find when googling for Ward's name:

• "The guy writes books as if he's a child. Tries to cram in every shiny thing he can. These shiny things tend to come in the form of overly powerful characters with ridiculous fluff"
• "It's like he's engaged in a heated cockswinging contest with the last codex he wrote".

In this light it's pretty weird that they canned the incorruptability. Though maybe this was only done for the sake of drama, i.e. giving the GKs a reason to cover themselves in virgin blood because Ward thought this would be cool.

Makes you think about where 40k fluff will be in another 5 years though, doesn't it? Maybe it's really a generation thing, same as with the Dreadknight design - just like I believe that the majority of current Hollywood or even computer game productions are pretty poor in terms of story, favoring action over substance simply because that's what today's customers want. Less thinking, more eyecandy. It's only logical to assume that this would extend into other media as well.

And now I feel like some old person about to yell "get off mah lawn".

BangBangTequila said:

I had a similar reaction when I saw 12/12/10 fast-attack (fast, skimmer, objective-claiming transport) Valkyries with 12 transport capacity, a lascannon, two rocket pods, and two heavy bolters. Eat your heart out, Eldar! The new guard are here! And lets not forget the version with three twin-linked lascannons, two heavy bolters, and full troop transport capability. Land raider Terminus? Eh. Child's play. Just use two Vandettas instead.

And armor 12 sentinels. Sigh.

I do like what they did with the various Russ patterns though.

...

I've just determined that 40k will probably always be something I like, no matter how much anyone at GW tries to ruin it for me.

/rant

Same with the IG codex; gone are the times of regimental doctrines, now it's all about the Heroes of Abbett's novels and stories, less personalization and more conformism of armies. 5 pages of Wargear, and then looking at the army list, you see that 3/4 of that wargear list does not apply to you, as you can't even have ( for exmaple) a platoon commander with a Refractor field or the Honorifica Imperialis. Then on the other end of the spectrum you got a Marysue Army of GK who can beat everything and anyone, even if they use heretical means to do so.

Mjoellnir said:

You know what the really sad part about your post is? That I was actually defending the idea of a pilot in terminator armour. And yes, my opinion on the model is my opinion. O_o What else?

<a bunch of other stuff, etc.>

What's even sadder, is that you were doing such a bad job of defending it that I was prompted to attack your defence, mistaking viewing the attempt to defend it as an attack in its own right. Attack defence, attack attack attack, defence. Defence! Though to go back to being serious, I'm honestly not sure that, "this is just the stupid way the Imperium does things" is much of a defence.

And yes, I flipped my **** about the whole "opinion" thing. But ya know what, it's not as if you prefaced the comment on the model "I think that it's as ugly as sin". And I'm sick of seeing people make declarative statements fished straight from their own minds and acting like they're gospel. Especially when it became a real problem in some other threads where I was debating recently.

The one about whether the current publishing strategy that FFG is using being a good example, where a few people 'stormed in' and declared that it was all bulshit and we were being gouged, and that anyone who didn't agree with them was some sort of company shill. There's plenty to go around, around here. Not to mention that I can't bring up anything Games Workshop related over at RPG.net without having five people poke their noses in about how Warhammer and everything GW sucks. The never-ending of negativity is really getting to me.

Lynata said:

No, not at all. What I meant was that the Kill Marine specialty allows the character to buy skills and talents which assist in stealth and social dealings, things that would generally come in to play more often for a single Space Marine, as opposed to one who has his Battle-Brothers to call on for support. And then there is the whole thing about his Squad/Solo mode abilities, though personally I think it would be nice if he were able to extend his Squad abilities to the DH/RT characters he's running around alongside.

Kael said:

But that's like saying we should have a Hive Tyrant, or Daemon Prince, suitable for fighting against characters at a DH level, albeit of a more extreme example. All the same, Grey Knights are no more suitable as Rank 1 400 XP characters, than those big monsters are as challenges for characters of that level.

If you want a Daemon of Nurgle to throw at your players in a non-Ascended game, you don't dumb down a Great Unclean One because they're only Rank 4, but throw some Plaguebearers (or even just Nurglings) at them instead. Space Marines just don't fit in at those levels, it's unfortunate but there it is. While a Space Marine neophyte would be the kind of thing to fit in to a regular DH game, I can't think of any reason why one of them would be seconded to an Inquisitor, except that they're one of the last surviving members of an extinct Chapter. And in that case they have a whole new set of problems to worry about, as there are no Apothecaries around to monitor their development and stablise their system if their implants go haywire.

More later, for now off to work. ( yay! )

Blood Pact said:

Ah, I see now. Makes me curious as to what exactly a Kill Marine gets - one of these days I have to take a look at RoB as well (also contains some interesting vehicles, so that's just another reason).

It makes some more sense this way. My scepticism remains, though, it just moves to another area: I'm not convinced that a Marine character really needed nor should have skills and talents that make him more viable in social dealings. Imho, it doesn't fit from a fluff PoV (unless you're playing a Battle-Brother from the Reasonable Marines), and it doesn't fit role allocation in a P&P. There's no need to give a character even more angles where he can shine if he already utterly dominates the combat sector due to DW-level stats and gear. As I said before, a game does not need to have absolute balance for everyone (in fact that would be lame), but if you have characters who are really strong in one area, they have to suck in another. Else you end up with a bunch of useless hangers-on following a special snowflake Jack-of-all-Trades.

Obviously, all this depends on what exactly a Kill Marine would get (maybe it's not as bad as it sounds?), but I just can't imagine any reason why a Marine would need social skills aside from Command and Intimidate. Stealth is debatable - obviously, a Marine should have learned something during his time as a Scout (and some Chapters may even specialize in this area), but I'd make it depend on the gear loadout and circumstances; power armour does make sounds, and 7 feet high people simply have a harder time hiding from sight.

YMMV, but given the already existing discrepancies and gaps between Ascension and DW, I do not feel such a special career was necessary or the right thing. DW characters in a DH game should have their combat capabilities reduced, not social capabilities strengthened. And it's not like DH characters playing in DW get special variant careers that suddenly allows them to fight better than normal, so the ongoing one-sidedness only adds to my admittedly now biased perception.

Just my opinion.

Blood Pact said:

Mhm. I tend to believe that squad mode abilities are the result of years of experience and training within a specific organization, and as such should only apply to members of said organization. Obviously, this includes the possibility of other squad modes for other non-Marine organizations, which would then only apply to their respective members...
On the other hand, one could argue that at least some of the squad modes are similar enough to retain some sort of compatibility, thus allowing people to benefit from them as long as they have any professional military experience, i.e. possessing the necessary skillset.

That said, given what squad modes can allow characters to do, I find them pretty overpowered. The idea itself is really cool, but the implementation itself just seems a bit over the top. It fits to Deathwatch, but I'm really not sure if I ever want to see something like that in DH...