GK simply cannot fall to chaos, they are so thoroughly trained, equipped, prepared and contempuous of chaos that it'd require direct intervetion of a chaos god themselves to have almost any effect on one, and that singular GK has his whole battle force backing him up.
Renegeade Ordo Malleus would make a much better plot device.

Its less accurate to say Grey Knights can't fall to Chaos and more accurate to say they haven't fallen to Chaos and that it is unlikely for them to do so, because you simply don't know. At least one has come very, very, VERY close to falling to Khorne (we can call him Sindri Jr.) upon having a Collar of Khorne placed on him. Remember, even the Emperor himself is inevitably losing the battle against Chaos -- the only question is whether his spirit will break first, OR HIS BODY!

"Even the Golden Throne cannot keep the cells of the Emperor's dead body alive forever. Over the millenia the link between his soul and body has become increasingly tenuous. Worse of all, the Powers of Chaos have begun to infiltrate his mind, sowing seeds of doubt, dissolution and fear. It is impossible to say for how long the Emperor can survive in this condition. It is unlikely that even he really knows how much time is left to him before the tenuous hold upon his physical body is broken by weakness or finally rent apart by insanity." Lost and Damned, p185.

I don't think its a storyline I'd ever run (I'm not sure Grey Knights as PCs even makes sense -- and I'm a person who thinks Chaos Spawn would make great PCs), but Black Crusade does give a nod of approval to the concept with the line of a fallen Grey Knight becoming the Chosen One of Chaos, and I doubt that Grey Knights are truly each on par with the Emperor himself (who is, himself, not immune to Chaos), but who knows. Then again, if they really do take a million psyker casualties each to create, then yeah, they had better be on the level of the Emperor.

To be honest, I'd argue that a resistance to the influence of Chaos is less a matter of raw strength of will and more a matter of psychology. Willpower helps keep Chaos at bay in the face of temptation.

Consider - Orks cannot typically be influenced by Chaos, not because they're innately strong-willed (indeed, Orks have extremely poor impulse control), but because the Chaos Gods have very little that can tempt an Ork. Being creatures of few desires, all of them easily-fulfilled in the short term, there is little that Chaos can offer that Orks can see a need for, under most circumstances.

I see Grey Knights in a similar light - avenues of corruptions have been specifically engineered out of individuals who are already strong-willed and psychologically resilient. Mind-scrubbing and reprogramming, intense hypno-indoctrination, application of wards through internal scrimshaw, scarification and tattooing. The means by which Chaos can gain entry are deliberately and forcibly closed. Physical warding to limit dangerous exposure, and psychological resculpting and personality atrophy to limit the freedom of choice necessary to embrace Chaos makes a Grey Knight exceptionally resistant to Chaos, though artificially so. By comparison, the Primarchs (a central example of powerful beings subverted by Chaos) were of exceptional, superhuman willpower… but Chaos entered them through their psychology, taking advantage of personality flaws, desires and fears.

Chaos does not batter against a target's defences, but tricks them into opening the door. A Grey Knight's psychological doors have been locked and barred by someone else, and the key has been thrown away.

That's a pretty apt way of describing it. They lack the usual personality traits that permit them to be corrupted.

Still, there's probably some scenario in which it'd be possible for a Grey Knight to regrow such personality traits. Probably never fully, but complete stasis between the extremes of Nurgle and Tzeentch, for instance, is probably a fragile thing for a sentient being. They are kept within, afaik, a constant psychic gestalt of their comrades and in an extremely controlled environment at all times. This implies that they are in such a controlled environment for a reason.

Going along with this theory, the one time a Grey Knight came close to falling, he had his access to psychic powers cut off by a collar of Khorne and was forced to fight gladiator games. It didn't go all the way, but who knows what would have happened if he wasn't rescued. A similar situation over months? Years? Decades? Centuries? It may very well do him in.

Orks, notably, have the same exact corruption immunity GKs have, but they've still managed to be driven to chaos before.

Again, I'm not suggesting I'd do it or that it'd be a terribly good storyline, but at the very least, its possible for Grey Knights to be literally driven insane by Chaos (which is not remotely easy. The question then becomes, what would a completely insane Grey Knight be like? Would a completely insane Grey Knight still be able to keep up his mental protection?

I'm PROBABLY going to say, yeah, totally. But again, what the hell would a completely insane Grey Knight be like?

[troll mode] Maybe he would think bathing in the blood of Sisters of Battle will protect him from evil nanobots, and that killing 1 billion Imperial Guard because one of them may have told people he saw a daemon is a good idea…[/troll mode]

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the collar actually kill psykers if placed around their neck? How would he have survived to actually be corrupted?

It will really bother me if the answer is "Because he is a Grey Knight". Id call some bullsh!t on that xD

Still that actually sounds pretty epic, strap a collar to a GK then use him for ur oown pleasure, very Slaaneshi, I'd personally even use it as a lore to trap a company of GK's on a planet then attack.

Back on track though, I like the idea of them being able to be corrupted, but at the same time I dont. I'm a firm believer of the 1 and a million chances, and I like to play those roles. A friend told me of a short story where a Grey warrior, (hinting at the Grey Knight grandmaster in the lower vortex) was in one of Slaanesh's circles of debauchery and actually got insta killed by Slaanesh him/herself who took on the Visage of a young boy having the Grey Knight question his perseverance for but a moment and the god ate his soul. Not sure if that warrants corruption or not but if he can doubt surely he can be brought low enough to be corrupted.

Has anyone purchased Incorruptible? the main hook of the audiobook is about a grey knight possibly being corrupted. Interested to know if this happens or not.

Grey Knights burn

if they fall.They all have purity seals implanted in their bodies.Used to be thousands of tiny seal, I think they are saying one per purity test taken. currently.

I've read their last codex. One of their officers wields a daemon weapon, and everyone is ok with it. It is mentioned that they use xenotech. Basically, they are no longer pure because they do not allow themselves to act irresponsively. Now, they act irresponsively BECAUSE they are "pure", and murdering sororitas fits right in this dumb concept.

As for me, I find it more interesting to consider their purity as the way they have chosen, not some kind of ability which allows them to act retarded an get away with it. I simply ignore the recent fluff.

It does help to differentiate them from the Sisters-style purity, though, helping to make both factions feel more unique. I admit that it took me a while to get used to it, but now I can see how it makes more sense (to me) and makes certain details feel more consistent.

Purity can have different meanings - it can be spiritual or physical. Physically pure beings doing immoral things, or spiritually pure beings having a corrupted body may add depth to the setting, depending on whether you prefer shades of grey, or a more black vs white approach.

For better or worse, however, 40k as a franchise does not propagate a single interpretation of its setting as any more true than another, so people are still free to prefer or ignore what they wish. For example, FFG seems to have entirely omitted this new "daemonic" spin of the GKs in their DH Daemon Hunter book.

Grey Knights are supposed to be as pure as you get. Members of the Brotherhood of Purifiers are supposed to be even more unassailable and noble. So, who do you put in charge of those guys?

That's right, a guy believing that noone needs Nemesis force weapons when you can have a daemonsword. And noone seems to have any objections, even though entire chapters were excommunicated, planets destroyed, and wars fought because of far less sinister deeds.

Call it shades of grey if you will. I call it idiocy.

Oh, and if it's more "radical" approach to the daemonic threat you are looking for, as opposed to more "puritan" approach represented by pre-Ward Grey Knights - we have Exorcists, who fit right in, make way more sense and have both merits and flaws which actually makes them multi-dimensional in a way "we-are-pure-no-matter-what" Grey Knights are not.

Oh, and if it's more "radical" approach to the daemonic threat you are looking for, as opposed to more "puritan" approach represented by pre-Ward Grey Knights - we have Exorcists, who fit right in, make way more sense and have both merits and flaws which actually makes them multi-dimensional in a way "we-are-pure-no-matter-what" Grey Knights are not.

That's a bit like asking why we have the Crimson Fists when there's already the Ultramarines, or any other of the minor armies that share a lot of traits with a major one. The Exorcists are quite simply not known enough - unlike the GKs, they are not an army in their own right, but merely a footnote with a single article in the Index Astartes, and as such they won't be on most writers minds when they think about new stories or an expansion of the background. I even doubt Matt Ward was actually aware of the Exorcists, given how this is background from before he joined the studio.

This being said, perhaps more likely is the possibility that the studio considered the GKs as they were too bland, as up until now they had only merits and no flaws, so maybe they decided to Grimdark them a little by giving them this twist about the use of forbidden knowledge.

And honestly, it was before that GKs were "we-are-pure-no-matter-what". All GW did was add an explanation and potential limitations for this perk. I understand, however, that not all fans will appreciate this explanation, as it obviously changes this army's image, and I am well accustomed to that feeling of disappointment or, dare I say it, betrayal, when one of one's favourite factions is portrayed in a way alien to the interpretation that has formed in their minds.

They were not imaculate before. They had missions resulting in partial success or even failure. They had stupid habit of purging one's own allies for the sake of secrecy. Their founders were recruited from both loyal and traitor legions.

Their recruiting process is woefully wasteful. They dabbed into daemonic lore, otherwise they wouldn't have known names of at lest some daemons.

The only thing they did not, was they were usually fighting smart and responsible. And now they cover themselves in SoB guts, wield xenotech and daemon weapons. It's not some kind of "dark secret", they seem to be even proud of it as well.

Corrupted grey knight poses some interesting problems. It's definitely possible, but you have to get around their self-destruct failsafe. Given those wards are literally all over their body, it's unrealistic to assume you can scrub the thing. However, there is one ward-free place that is essentially all you need:

Their brain.

So, the following method to corrupt a grey knight is probably one that would work:

Remove his brain. Hook it up to a machine for life support. Use hormone cocktails on his now exposed brain to send his line of thinking completely askew and create openings, then have your chaos psyker directly interface with his brain to make him see drugged up "reason" and break his conditioning. Once he's properly chaosified, put him in a lobotomised cyborg body or a dreadnaught (or other "host" of choice) and infect it with the obliterator virus so that it properly fuses with him. Voila. Chaos grey knight.

I guess we may just be drawing our lines differently... Here's how I see it: They only have a success quota of 99.9%? Oh no! Killing allies to preserve a secret? Welcome to the Imperium. Wasteful recruitment process? Well, I suppose that's just, like, every single Space Marine Chapter ever .

The bit about some of the founders being loyalists from a Traitor Legion is more interesting, but then again, they're long dead and do not reflect upon the organisation as it currently stands anyways. Besides, in a way you could say this only speaks for their resilience when they were already tested yet remained pure against all odds, when all their brethren fell.

Here's a direct quote from GW's older design notes in WD #292:

It is a dark secret of the Imperium. The GKs are only proud of it insofar as they know they can handle this stuff.

Or that's what they believe, anyways.

their self-destruct failsafe

Doesn't that depend on the interpretation/book? What's the source of this detail?

The only thing I recall on this topic in general is the Aegis wards, but they were built into the armour, and were a purely defensive measure to better shield the bearer from corrupting energies.

Source is basically this thread. I haven't so much as opened the Grey Knights/Inquisition codex in almost ten years and went with what I found here.

Oh, okay.

If anyone knows what that was referring to in particular, feel free to poke me - I just want to make sure my interpretation of this army is still in line with what it says in GW's books.

I love that this discussion has been going for 3 years

Oh, okay.

If anyone knows what that was referring to in particular, feel free to poke me - I just want to make sure my interpretation of this army is still in line with what it says in GW's books.

Including Ward's "fluff" concerning Draigo? Just qurious.

Including Ward's "fluff" concerning Draigo? Just qurious.

*twitches*

... yes. I don't like it, but I consider it one of the sacrifices I am capable of making.

As ridiculous as it is, I've seen worse codex fluff from the Space Wolves. At least Draigo is only one dude.

I'll freely admit that this is one of the things that made me at least consider dropping this silly principle of mine, though. I've just not reached my breaking point yet .

Ah, so you're fine with wolves' new fluff too?

O-kay, no more questions asked...

New space wolves are harbouring a Khornate daemon engine in their ranks. It's hilarious.

New space wolves are harbouring a Khornate daemon engine in their ranks. It's hilarious.

...

WHAT?!

Ah, so you're fine with wolves' new fluff too?

O-kay, no more questions asked...

That was referring to some 2nd Edition stuff, actually. What did I miss? Is this about that new Murderfang thing I keep seeing hilarious pictures of?

Murderfang's making the rounds it seems. My initial reaction was, I'm told, priceless, and probably looked a lot like javcs's

What the hell kind of nonsense is that? I'm going to assume that it's Ward's fault.