BangBangTequila said:

Who's Matt Ward?

you really do not want to know.

but seriously he works for games workshop and is renowned for taking sh@ts on everything that is cool about 40k and has a real fanboy obsession abut the ultramarines.

Grey Knights are inccoruptible. Period.
Until the fluff changes drastically which happens a lot.
But this topic crops up a lot on fora… and I find it… unusual.
Having a GK turn out corrupted would kinda break the point. They are the desitned final bulwark, the paladins in extremis. The best of the best. And the one group that against all odds has a staring contest with Chaos and doesn't blink.
They might loose but they won't 'turn'.
And I like it that way.

Alpha Legion marines were a welcome surprise. The decision to lump them in as unwitting Tzeentchites was….interesting. Also, inferno bolts are insane, as are Rubric Marines by extension. The book allows 1K Son Sorcerers to take them as regular minions; something I would probably change in my game.

On a side note, it will be interesting to see if any of the new powers will appear in the upcoming CSM codex. Daemonhunter indicated that FFG appears to have at least some advance notice of GW products.

Kiton said:

This. ******* this.

I agree with BangBangTequila. I don't much care for their extreme sue-status, but I think allowing a change from their incorruptibility only creates an even more unique snowflake. Bleh.

(And of course, no Grey Knight ever bathed in blood except when their battles got really tedious)

You know what else might be a fun story?

An Inquisitor or Space Marine Chapter finding out about the Grey Knights bathing in blood, and having to deal with it.

Seeten said:

Having to deal with it in this case largely means going on the run in hopes that the Grey Knights have better targets to deal with, because when they don't - you're dead. The Grey Knights are among the most over-the-top elements, and compared to them, just about everyone (including most AA Chapters) are expendable. I don't like the Grey Knights - too absolute and too extreme in the fiction (I'm not talking about being extremists in-universe - that's fine - I'm talking about the way they are presented) for me to enjoy them as a story element - but that's just the way they are in my eyes.

Finding out they are ALL chaos tainted, to the man, might be a fun high level story. Might need to bring in AA chapters, set up an elaborate trap, etc.

Might need to stuff their political connections too. I dunno, it'd be a high level story for sure, and probably has nothing to do with Black Crusade, I am guessing this thread was for a PC claiming he was a former Grey Knight.

I think the idea of a fallen Grey Knight is interesting. Obviously it would be an incredibly exceptional circumstance, given how rigorously screened, indoctrinated, trained, and monitored (by themselves) they are, but if it makes for a good PC (or NPC) in a campaign, why not?

My feeling is that they are demon hunters. That is what they do, hunt demons. This does not mean they are utterly and completely incapable of being corrupted. They are just given the basic tools needed to do their job. An elite team of demon hunters isn't very useful if they're prone to being possessed/mind controlled by the creatures they're hunting on a regular basis. It's really just like being an untouchable. They can't be possessed, but that doesn't mean they can't be tricked/manipulated into betraying their ideals.

There is only one way to be completely, 100% immune to corruption, and that's to be the Emperor of Mankind. Unfortunately for the Grey Knights, that position has already been filled.

HappyDaze said:

I don't know about that. I don't think it's a linear hierarchy in the Imperium with the Grey Knights sitting at the top. They're just highly trained, exceptionally well equipped specialists that have one specific job. It doesn't make them more important to to the survival of the Imperium than other Astartes or even the Imperial Guard or Navy. A lot of good 1,000 Grey Knights will do if there's no Imperial Navy and Guard to stop Abaddon's next crusade coming out of the eye of terror.

The right tool for the right job. Hammer doesn't beat saw, they just do different things.

Capt_Dymock said:

The thing is that there are so few of the Grey Knights that it is hard to parse them down and have some of them in lesser story capacities. Organizations like the Imperial Guard and Navy have hordes of throwaways - in terms of story needs - and authors can even throw away entire Chapters of Astartes (so long as they are not a previously named and established Chapter), but no such room exists with the Grey Knights.

Well regarding the much-maligned new fluff. Over the years, when talking about Grey Knights, it was always made clear and pushed to the fore, that they were incorruptable ultra-purists, and so on. I liked it, you liked it, we all liked it. But over the years, the novels, Inquisitor, and FFG's line have made quite clear that being a big puritan doesn't work all the time. It strips a potential weapon away from the wielder, even as it makes them less susceptable to the lure of Chaos. The Radicals are right and sometimes you need to use Chaos to fight Chaos. To close that warp rift, to fell that daemon, whatever.

So shall the mighty Grey Knights curl up in to a feotal ball and weep like children when they hit one of those situations? Because their mandate is to keep the Warp away at all costs, no sacrifice being too great to stop daemonic incursions, rifts, and overlaps from happening. So they can either make a glorious charge to their demise as a result of their failure… Or they could suck it up, and dirty their hands a little to complete the last handed down to the by the Emperor himself. So don't be surprised when they've got something requires them to sacrifice the still beating heart of a virgin to banish, or some other means that is 'radical', and they go right ahead and do it. It would be counter to the character of Space Marines not to carry on, doing what is required of them to secure victory. (even if it's as dumb as annointing yourself with the blood of some Soriritas)

Well congradulations, you like Matt Ward's Grey Knights more than the original (I know, I know, we're all supposed to hate EVERYTHING that Ward has done, but tell that to the many people who love the new Necrons).

And re: blood… every chaos god, and a bunch of other things love (and practically requires) blood sacrifice. The stupid thing with the Sisters is no more worshipping Khorne than it is worshipping Malal (in fact.. it'd probably be more the latter than former… oh my, Grey Knights have fallen to corruption by Malal!).

- Brother i think I have a better solution then sacrificing a 100 of them every time

-yes?

- Well you see, women have this cycle every month…

I don't hate everything Matt Ward has ever written be default because he wrote it, I read the new stories and rules, scratch my head going "who the hell…" then find they were Ward's. He has earned my dislike, because he somehow managed to score the role that Gav Thorpe managed to maintain with about as much wisdom as I've ever seen. Gav Thorpe made many changes to the stories over the years, but he did so predominantly* by adding to the history, not doing a 180 and saying "Nuh-uh, wouldn't it be cool if this fan-favourite chapter of incorruptible super-heroes made invulnerable to the lure of chaos by rigorous training and as much ritual and faith as it is possible to have and instead have it be due to a cheap gimmick involving the sacrifice of the only female body of the Imperium to be truly heroic."

They were incorruptible back when they didn't bathe in blood, for you who continue to bring that up. I agree that they are no longer, and as a result will not be purchasing anything Grey Knights related until they bring back the chapter I love.

As an example of Matt ward's stuff that I don't hate, his new Necrons. He hasn't changed the Necrons from what they were, he added new Necrons to enhance the flavour and storyline potential of the race. While it isn't all great, love the initiative and potential opened up by this move. So, amidst the sea of "Goddamnit" I send a floating bottle contain the burnt and torn scrap of parchment bearing the words "Nice one."

HappyDaze said:

Ahh, yeah, I see what you're saying now. It's true from a story-telling point of view that you can kill many thousands of guard and navy, where killing a single Grey Knight should be a pretty big story event. Having Grey Knights involved at all should be a pretty big deal.

However, I don't think that should prevent a PC from playing a fallen Grey Knight in BC. Though it would make sense for that to become a major part of the campaign. I doubt the Grey Knights will let that go. It's more or less a matter of time before they catch up to him.

PnPgamer said:

This is Matt Ward: http://hostthenpost.org/uploads/425fac2f545b65c50dc5527da89bc821.png

is there a word for being a fanboy of something in some universe and thinking that they are the best in said universe, solely based on the fact that he likes them most?

There must be a TVtrope of it somewhere?

PnPgamer said:

Fgdsfg said:

That.

BACK ON THREAD ' he original quote from lost and the damned and slaves to darkness was that not one i has fallen to the lure of chaos and if such was to heppen then they would be granted powers as great as those given to Horus.

so its not happened and the chances of it happening are as much as world peace i.e a million to one (though if you follow the terry prachett theory one in a millions heppen 1 in ten times) but the chance is there of course this is very old fluff and much has changed since i started playing the games

The way I see it the reason for all that effort being put into protecting them from falling to chaos (mindwiping, wards, careful screening etc.) must be that these things are needed to keep them pure.

So if a Grey Knight was being captured alive in a skirmish the Grey Knights lost and if he was being spirited away and maybe kept in a coma while his hexagrammic wards were being removed and systematically being replaced by devotional symbols of chaos, and he was being brought into contact with corrupted substances (and maybe being fed with them and have them inserted into his bloodstream) then I do see a chance for a fallen Grey Knight there.

I've heard it said that Grey Knights are immune to corruption because the hexagrammatic wards in their skin and bones sets them on fire and kills them if they ever get corrupted in the slightest. It's less total impunity and more of a last-ditch failsafe. So a traitor Grey Knight not only doesn't make sense, it's also impossible.

On the other hand, I did have an idea about a Chaos counterpart for the Grey Knights; unlike regular Knights, they'd be psychic children of Chaos Cultists raised from a very young age into Imperium-hating zealots, equipped with Terminator armor and the most powerful, daemon-infested weapons the Dark Mechanicus could provide. In-character, the person who came up with this idea was a Slaanesh worshiper, and basically came up with the "Black Knights" as the ultimate blasphemy; a giant middle-finger to the Grey Knights and everything they stood for.

The "Black Knight" concept sounds cool, and it would be interesting to see how elite you could get.

I formerly thought a Chaos Grey Knight was impossible. For one thing, they can't gain Corruption points. For another, there's the possible self destruct method, though don't tell me it's completely impossible to remove, I don't buy that.

But after noticing the passage in Black Crusade about how a Grey Knight to turn to Chaos would be granted as much favor and power as Horus himself, you friggin can't tell me that the person who wrote it isn't giving a nod of approval to the concept! Unfortunately, I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to run such a concept and not have it be lame…

…Grey Knights barely seem to have any personality that could have a reason to seek after Chaos to begin with, their sole purpose is to destroy Chaos. Like, there's no "oh noes my girlfriend/planet/Emperor is going to be DEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAD, I can only save them by going to KAYOSS!" for them, they don't give a ****, as far as I can tell. There's even a Grey Knight who already "knows" the Imperium is going to fall to Chaos and that will not stop him.

I rather liked Horus's reason (he saw what the Imperium would become). That doesn't work, though, if you already know the Imperium is crappy.