Grey Knights

This article or section is about something oldschool - and awesome. Make sure your rose-tinted glasses are on nice and tight, and prepare for a lovely walk down nostalgia lane.

Grey Knights
Battle Cry	"We Are the Hammer!"
Number	666
Founding	Second Founding (sort of)
Successors of	None
Successor Chapters	Exorcists (not official)
Chapter Master	Kaldor Draigo
Primarch	The Emperor (its unconfirmed whether it is true however)
Homeworld	Titan
Strength	~5000 Marines
Specialty	Killing Daemons, being better than you
Allegiance	Imperium
Colours	Unpainted (hence, "grey")

The only thing they don't get is life insurance

The Grey Knights are a bunch of fucking badass SPESS MEHREENS that also, like their brethren, do it for the EMPRAH. The Grey Knights are the legendary 666th Spess Mahreen chapter made by the Emprah (despite the fact that there were only 20 Space Marine Legions before their creation).

Overview

They're all (POSSIBLY. POOOOSSSSSIBLY. Not confirmed.) made with the Gene-seed of the Emperor himself, making them sort of like mini-primarchs (that sound you hear right now is me crying). This, of course, brings up the question of why the Emperor didn't do this in the first place, but... then Games Workshop wouldn't have a story, would they? The Grey Knights work under the Ordo Malleus and specialize in killing anything daemonic, so they're typically called in to deal with giant greater daemons of death or Chaos Primarchs themselves, and boy can they ruin any daemon's day.

People outside the Ordo Malleus and high-lords of Terra do not know much about the Grey Knights, as a containment measure to protect any of the Grey Knights' secret equipment and rituals from chaos forces, ensuring they'll always have the upper hand in a fight. Because their base of operations and anything that happens within their Chapter are never discussed outside the Ordo or by the High-lords though as the First war of Armageddon, Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, and Dawn of War: Soulstorm show, they'll work with other Chapters if the Ordo Malleus or one of their higher-ups decides that their presence is needed or if their presence is requested by the overall commander of Space Marine operations.

They don't necessarily have to fight Daemons and will readily deal with more mundane things like witches, mutants, and heretics; these would normally be left to the Ordo Hereticus and their chamber militant the Sisters of Battle as well as their inquisitorial stormtroopers. Grey Knights also occasionally fight Xenos which would normally be left to the Ordo Xenos and their chamber militant the Deathwatch which is composed of the hardest non-grey knight space marines around as well as the usual inquisitorial stormtroopers. Again, this is rare as the Grey Knights and their Ordo Malleus Inquisitorial Stormtrooper allies will typically feel that this is a waste of their talent.

All of this changed when Xeno Warp entities like the Avatars of Khaela Mensha Khaine and Enslavers appear or when said heretics, mutants, and witches bring out Daemons or some combination of the above; this tends to end up causing two or if they're really unlucky, all three branches of the inquisition to descend down upon the poor sap. Fighting Inquisitorial Stormtroopers from all three branches, the Sisters of Battle, the Deathwatch, and the Grey Knights all at once is a challenge that most sapient entities would much rather slowly gnaw all of their legs off than face.

"The Daemonic leads to two crimes; You turn away from the path of righteousness. And, you abandon the Emperor as the object of your devotion. For the first, death is merely a just retribution. The second is a heresy so terrible that no punishment can be sufficient. Yet the search for an appropriate penalty continues, and it shall be found." ~~ Codex: Daemonhunters 3rd Ed

Grey Knights are also the most elite of the Space Marines and are trained in the most ball-crushingly hard process that even veteran space marines consider "hard". Unlike other marine chapters however, they're all Psykers and only induct Psykers as recruits from the inquisitorial "Black Ships", which collect Psykers throughout the Imperium for training. They're also the most pure of the Space Marine chapters, every last one of them thinks that Chaos is fucktarded and not a single Knight has ever succumbed to Chaotic influences. Their name is supposed to reflect their purity, though we'll ignore that grey isn't a color that people think of when it comes to purity and that their armour is "silver," WH40K has lots of things that make lots less sense than that. Even a basic Grey Knight is capable of one shotting a lesser daemon with his force halberd in fluff terms, and a typical nameless Greater Daemon or Daemon prince can be sent shrieking back into the warp with one swing from a Grey Knight Grand Master. But for really big Daemonic threats like the Daemon Primarch Angron and An'ggrath, lots of Grey Knights will be needed to bring down the gribbly warp monster. Unless you are Kaldor Draigo, who is actually Sly Marbo in terminator armour. Seriously, he carves names into Daemon Primarch's hearts, beats Bloodthirsters barehanded and makes swords out of them. In other words, he's an even bigger and more annoying Mary Sue than Calgar; God...Motherfucking...Dammit...Ward. He's Sly Fucking Marbo. Sly FUCKING Marbo doesn't need to beat a demon into his own personel weapon (though he could if he wanted) because Hes not a pussy that NEEDS ONE.

TRUTH

They are given the absolute best equipment the Imperium can give, their basic troopers are nearly as well armed as most chapter's terminators, coming with a stormbolter and a force weapon vs a termie's storm bolter and power weapon and they have access to the monstrously powerful Psycannon. However, they always prefer fighting at close combat where they can use their force weapons.

The wrath of Ward

Table-top wise, Grey Knights are the optimum MOST OP commando army; you're normally outnumbered but you are capable of tearing shit up if you lead your troops correctly can read, or actually, maybe not even.... In an average 1,000 point match, you'll have 20 models and a land raider. But it's okay, because they kick ass. Plus all of their models subscribe to the Rule of Cool, they're more awesomesauce than regular marines and all their basic weapons are fuckawesome and their units all look really damned cool. Them's fighting words.

GO GO GREY KNIGHT RANGERS...wait someone forgot to form the head...

Though they are individually more powerful than the Deathwatch of the Ordo Xenos and are both more individually powerful and experienced than the Sisters of Battle of the Ordo Hereticus, they lack the experience and versatility of the Deathwatch who probably also outnumber them somewhat, and are vastly outnumbered by the Sisters of Battle, which keeps a balance of power between the three orders of the inquisition.

Quotes from Brother-Captain Stern

They also make fanatical faith in the God-Emprah cool:

"We are warriors of the Grey Knights, armored in Faith, shielded by Devotion, and armed with Purity of Purpose. But greater even than these, we carry the light of the divine Emperor of Man into the dark places to purge the daemonic wherever it may be found."

+++++++

"There is nothing in the arcane and blasphemous arsenal of the forces of Chaos that can compare to faith. With the power of faith, our weapons become shining instruments of deliverance that can cleave the mightiest daemon in twain. With the power of faith, our minds appear as slivers of pure agony to the daemon, driving into the wretched forms of those who would dare stand before us. With the power of faith, our words become commands that cause the daemon to cower and cringe in terror. I could meet my enemies unarmed without a shred of fear in my chest, for I know that the Emperor watches over me and guides my hand. So let them come. We shall show them what the power of faith can do."

Organization

Since they exist outside the normal structure of the Adeptus Astartes, the Grey Knights have an organization similar yet distinctly different from Codex Chapters. They are as follows:

• Supreme Grand Master: The Chapter Master of the Grey Knights, elected by the eight Grand Masters unanimously. Kaldor Draigo serves as the current Supreme Grand Master, despite being lost in the warp. This rank seemed to created by Ward in the 5th edition codex just so he could create his own self insert fan-fiction, since it wasn't in the fluff prior to it. In fact it runs contradictory to it since in previously-written canon, the Grand Masters commanded the Grey Knights in conjunction, which was due to the fact that the Grey Knights had higher numbers but were also spread much further out than any other normal chapter would be. Centralizing everything to one individual, thereby directing a multi-faceted force into a single facet of combat, against a wildly multi-faceted foe, and also over-riding the opinions of eight exceedingly experienced individuals by the opinion of one... because, hey, why should we all work as equals when we can have a tyrant telling us what to do instead, right? That's actually in the Codex, by the way; the Supreme Grand Master has the power to over-ride any decision the Grand Masters might make.

• Grand Master: The leader of a Grey Knights Brotherhood, this Grey Knight has seen centuries if not millennia of combat. There are only eight in total, in remembrance of the eight Space Marines Malcador the Sigillite recruited for the task. This is also a bizarre alteration of prior canon, wherein the Grand Masters all had nebulous command according to the situation rather than a rigid, forced doctrine of rules and regulations and divisions and micromanagement like they do now- hey wait a second this is just like that codex thing that Ward keeps harping about...OH SUNUVABITCH, WARD, THE FUCKING GREY KNIGHTS DIDN'T EVEN KNOW ABOUT THE FUCKING CODEX WHEN THEY WERE CREATED, YOU TWINK!

• Brother-Captain: A captain of a Grey Knights Terminator Squad. Similar to the old Legion Astartes rank where Captains could also be squad commanders, except for the fact that they are always referred to as Brother-Captain. Grey Knight Brother-Captains can command larger groups the way a captain in a typical Codex Chapter would (this happened at the First Battle of Armageddon, for example), but the Knights only assemble in such numbers in response to the direst of threats, so most of the time they're left to run just a squad, albeit an elite one.

• Brotherhood Champion: Similar to a Company Champion, the Brotherhood Champion has renounced all forms of combat save for the sword. Given that all Grey Knights are psykers wielding Nemesis-force weapons, this means that a Brotherhood Champion will be charging a daemon with a flaming sword, evening the odds a little. Admittedly one of the cooler (in fluff) units, though on tabletop they're little more than one-trick ponies.

• Justicar: Similar in function to a Sergeant, a Justicar leads squads in battle, answering immediately to a Brother-Captain. The major difference between a Sergeant and a Justicar is that a Justicar may wear personal heraldry.

• Purifier: Purifiers are battle-brothers who are especially pure of spirit, possessing high psychic ability that can allow them to wreath themselves in holy flame that will burn anything Chaos tainted while leaving the Purifier untouched. So basically yo dawg we heard you like warriors of purity so we put extra purity in your extra purity so you can be extra pure while you're extra pure!

• Paladin: Paladins are a special group like the Purifiers, but whereas the Purifiers focus on spiritual purity, the Paladins are much more martial, serving as bodyguards to the Grand Masters. Membership is acquired when an Aspirant completes eight separate quests establishing his character and nobility.

Suddenly Fail

Nothing can describe the pure amount of Rape he is gonna go through once the Grey Knight start unleashing several barrels of THE EMPREH'S FURREH

This article or section involves Matthew Ward, Spiritual Liege, who is universally-reviled on /tg/. Because this article or section covers Ward's copious amounts of derp and rage, fans of the 40K series are advised that if they proceed onward, they will see fluff and crunch violation of a level rarely seen.

When the Grey Knights Codex update was announced, there was considerable discussion amongst /tg/; finally, an army that needed it was going to get an update. Anticipation turned to balls-out horror, however, when it was discovered that Matthew "Spiritual Liege" Ward was going to do the codex. Matt was notorious for fucking up the fluff of the Blood Angels (turning them into necrophiliacs) and Space Smurfs (turning them into SECOND TO TEH EMPRAH marines, simultaneously infuriating those who actually liked the Ultramarines fluff in which they took their lumps but fought on (I.E. the Manly route) and those who already disliked Ultramarines. Virtually all the fluff in the 5th Edition Space Marine codex was for the Ultramarines, with especially strong emphasis placed on shafting any army who told Rawbutt Girlyman to go fuck himself, such as the Raven Guard and Black Templars).

Considering that Matt had placed so much ascended fanboy wankery on the Ultramarines, many, especially on /tg/, were wondering how, exactly, he was intending to handle the fluff of the Grey Knights, who were trained to be the best of the best. The face-palm-worthy answer came in the form of leaked information regarding the Codex:

He would handle it exactly like the giant faggot that he is.

Gray Knights now roam around carving their names in the daemon hearts of daemon primarchs - you know, the ones that single-handedly destroyed empires and have ascended to daemonhood. That any man would be capable of this, given that the Warp is the very essence of the Daemonic and ergo their numbers are limitless and their powers inviolate and also is a realm that is in itself anathema to the laws of physical existence hence why the fucking ships have to use Geller Fields so they don't un-exist by entering the Warp, and the 10+ years of canon regarding just that was completely disregarded - because Matt Ward said so. So they have one guy (who is such a bit of lunacy that 1d4chan has given him his own article) running around the warp, killing Slaanesh's chosen handmaidens, burning down the gardens of Nurgle, and though it wasn't expressly stated in his fluff article, heavily implies figuring out Tzeentch's Infinite Labyrinth. True to all Matt Ward fluff, how Draigo managed to escape going insane from warp exposure, become Slaanesh's buttsex-slave after setting eyes on She who thirsts, being popped like a Zit by Khorne, not catching space daemon AIDS from being in the plaguefather and Mortarion's presence (let alone carving anything on his heart), or simply being drowned in bodies that make his armor/invulnerable saves irrelevant (the usual way to deal with Grey Knights on the tabletop) is never explained. This is Ward we're talking about, and he shows as much grace as black Irish lepers when handling fluff. Who knows, maybe Ward decided this guy is the Grey Knight's Primarch. At least that might make some sense...a primarch version of a living saint... mmmmm, why didn't Emps do that to begin with!?

Not content to rape canon with just one codex entry, he then made it so that Daemonhosts could be taken by a Grey Knights army. For the uninitiated, this was, again, another slap in the face of 10+ years of canon, since in literally every fucking work put out by Games Workshop, has had them view Daemonhosts as the darkest form of Heresy and dealing with those that harbor them the same way they deal with anything daemonic. Not content to leave well enough alone, they can now work with radical Inquisitors, who, again, now harbor the daemonic in the form of Daemonblades.

Remember the good ol' days?

Then he gave most of the Sisters of Battle special characters to the Grey Knights, such as Lord Krazypantsoff, since - y'know, that army hadn't been brutalized enough for Matt's taste. Which is why he then included the Bloodtide. A Basilicae of the Sisters accidentally release a Bloodthirster of Khorne. Some of the sisters turned bad, some stayed pure, most ended up deprived of blood and skulls. (Part of this is based off a book/movie. Google Bloodtide.) The Grey Knights pop in, see that some of the sisters are pure, and decide to murder them all and paint their armor and swords in their blood in order to better fight the demons. Apparently being turned into fancy armor coating is the new way to treat unpopular elements of the game, rather than tyranids. (This is largely considered to be the most abhorrent fluff-rape ever, at least to most players), but we all know the only reason why they killed all the Bolter Bitches was because, no matter how awesome their armour is, no matter how great they are at fighting Chaos or no matter how Mary Sue they are, they will NEVER be good enough to become Ultramarines.

He then proceeded to give the Grey Knights an absolutely-ridiculous-looking (and widely mocked by /tg/) walker called a Dreadknight that counts as a monstrous creature, can do a huge personal teleport to get where it needs to be, and which basically is a Grey Knight Terminator hooked into a bigger armor suit - yes, it's every bit as insane and retarded (and broken) as it sounds. As one clever Ultramarines player, fed up with Matt Ward's shit, put it:

"Yo dawg, we heard you like powered armor so we put powered armor in your powered armor so you can go to war while you go to war" [1]

Quite. (Note that Ultramarines now have their own version of the Dreadknight which is even derpier)

Inexplicably, despite the fact that you could snipe the Grey Knight out of the Dreadknight, since apparently armoring the head is for losers, the rules don't display this. Exactly why Ward thinks that bullets are somehow less damaging against the Knight's head when it's put in a suit of armor that mostly covers its body and limbs is a mystery. (Although the codex does say something about there being an invisible shield of ridiculous strength protecting the pilot, without any regard to what kind of implications Super-Strength Force Fields have, simply because Matt Ward wanted to make the DreadKnight look like the Power Loader from Aliens) What he really got from it was a baby carrier attached to a chicken that got beaten by an ugly stick.

Throw in a ton of extra cheese, a commander that out-Creed's Creed (it can Scout more units than Creed can with Tactical Genius) by a sizable margin, throw in a ton of retarded violations of fluff like the aforementioned, and several other bits of flaming stupid (such as the oversight which allows players to take entire armies of Jokaero, which, depending on who you are, could be a bad thing or a funny thing), and you have the new Grey Knights Codex in a nutshell.

The God-Emperor of Mankind wept tears of sorrow at the ruination of his favored sons. And at the same time, tears of rage at the homosexual Ultrasmurf fanboy whom he wishes no less than his eternal torture at the hands of the Inquisition.

Seriously, if any of you had watched the Ultramarines:The Movie, losing an entire squad, a Brother-Captain, an Apothecary, AND a Chaplain to 1 (ONE/UNO/Barely Worth Inquisitorial Notice) lowly daemon... would be an incomprehensible facepalm to the Grey Knights.

Ward turned the Grey Knights, really mysterious and bad-ass demon hunters, and just made it clear throughout the codex that their one feature is that they are "better" than everyone else. Just like he always does. No, seriously, that is ALL HE DOES. He just stamps "better" over whatever faction tickles his elitism fetishes just right, no explanation whatsoever. This editor has only ONE published book to his name and even he can pretty much come to the mind-numbingly safe conclusion that Matt Ward is to Warhammer 40,000 what Stephanie Meyer is to vampires and werewolves; devoid of context, devoid of feel, devoid of emotion, devoid of inspiration... devoid. Just. Plain. Devoid.

Pretty much the only redeeming quality of the book is that it allows the use of viable Inquisitorial-henchmen-only armies. With liberal use of the aforementioned space monkeys, it is now possible to make a fairly fluffy and effective counts-as Mechanicus force. Or at the very least, field your Dark Heresy group on the tabletop.

Of course, in the interim, we still have Khornate Knights to facepalm over.

/tg/'s General Reaction

Bud Light Presents: Real Men of Genius

>Real Men of Genius!

Today we salute you, Mr. Grey Knights Codex Thread Spammer.

>Mr. Grey Knights Codex Thread Spammer!

Most trolls feign stupidity just long enough to piss somebody off. You have the tenacity to act like an idiot for weeks at a time.

>Why's it look like a baby?

Three times an hour, twelve hours a day, you create a thread asking the questions that were answered fifteen minutes after the Codex was leaked.

>I heard they can take daemonhosts!

Mod warning sticky? Those are for pussies.

>And WHYYY aren't there any girl Knights?!

You've spent hours and days devoting yourself to ensure that people will never stop talking about a Codex you have no intention of ever even playing.

>LOL Jokaero!

So crack open an ice-cold Bud Light, oh corpulent codex complainer, because without you we'd never forget that Kaldor Draigo is kinda like Samurai Jack.

>Mr. Grey Knights Codex Thread Spammer!

The Grey Knight's Super Secret Box

Deep within the core of Saturn's moon, Titan, which has been hidden in the Warp during the Horus Heresy, in the heart of the Grey Knights fortress lies a super secret box containing something so super secret that only Supreme Grand Master Kaldor Draigo knows what is inside and nobody else. It is unknown what lies within the box, but it is believed that if it is opened that untold horrors would spill into the material world. But anything could be inside the box, even a piece of string, a secret compartment within the actual secret box that holds one of the deepest and darkest secret of the Imperium that's triggered by pulling said piece of string, or another box that contains another secret box.

Of course, we'll never know since the box will only be opened when "All is lost", ie: the 43rd millennium, when Tyranids finally eat Ultima Segmentum, the Eye of Terror eats Cadia, Creed works for Tzeentch, Abaddon finally does something competent and gets his arms back, Yarrick kills Ghazghkull, Macha gets laid, Indrick Boreale is resurrected to speak normally, and the Primarchs come back just in time for a threesome with 'Nids and Chaos to see who gets the Astronomican.

Basically, Matt Ward read The Sphere and thought he was being clever by putting a Pandora's Box reference in the codex, that or Ward just happened to watch the Super Secret Box episode of Spongebob Squarepants while doing the GK Codex and thought: "why the fuck not?", and threw it in for content's sake. It is also possible that the box contains the remains of Matt Ward himself, and at the moment these remains are released this horrid creature will resurrect, raping the last remaining bits of sanity and awesome left in an orgy of destruction not even all of Chaos itself can comprehend.

Tl;dr: I saw you with the box, what was in the booox? OH, WHAT'S IN THE BOOOOOX? WHAT'S IN THE FUCKING BOX?! And something tells us we're not going to like what's in the box, either (it's a plot device by Matt Ward, after all; your wife's head in the box would probably be better than whatever he has in mind. And given his sick twisted snuff fetish constantly displayed with the poor Sisters, it might just be that).

The Vets' Lament

Trolling Chaos players has never been easier

Actually, Veteran daemonhunter players are the most vocal detractors of the new codex, being well-read on the old fluff themselves. It's because the Eldritch abomination ultimately made them hate their own armies, where once the Knights and their fluff were a source of great pride and manliness. Not to mention having to endure the nearly-constant whining of other 40k players and idiocy of the new Knight players who just jumped on the bandwagon because they thought the Knights looked like 'awesome paladins in space!' with their 'awesome new stats!' and their 'awesome new fluff!' and their 'awesome imba gear!' and their awesome awesome douchey shit reasons. While the players who already liked the knights way before they were considered kool, get fucking alienated.

It is now, however, to the daemonhunter veterans that the dedicated Grey Knight players take their pride from. Most vets don't give a puritan rat's ass at the copious bitch-whining and numb-dickery abound (besides, you think the Blood Angels and Space Wolves give a flying fuck what other people say?), the vets just shrug and play like they always do, while silently reminding themselves of the 25-points-per-Grey-Knight days when even just 1 win out of 7 defeats against 4th and the new 5th edTards, was already considered a great time. And, counting themselves lucky that they got an update at all unlike those poor Deathwatch bastards ... (even though every grudging victory now leaves them feeling a little emptier inside).

The new direction now for the experienced Malleus players is creating Grey Knight lists that give their opponents the advantage, and religiously denying some of the more effective weapons (2 psycannons in the entire list, max) and units (never picking heavy support even against imba Guard Tank SQUADRONS). And putting special inhibitions in their style of play (win the game using just one psychic power once the whole battle). It's not something we like doing (though most of us will tell you "We enjoy the challenge" or some bullshit), but it was done out of necessity, since...well, full grown men will revert to 5-year-olds when you force insta-kill their Hive Tyrant using a fast-attack Knight, the noisy-whiny result wasn't pretty...or conducive to friendly play. So, yea (we're not letting you win, we're just pulling our punches a bit making it easier for us to lose, and probably never fight at full strength ever again).

...Thank you for nothing, Matt Ward.

Rest assured though, these sad veterans of the long war are not alone; there are many Ultramarines fans who are likewise displaced by Ward's nonsense. The only solace we can take from this is that the displaced are far from alone and most assuredly not simply a minority. And, in all likelihood will be joined shortly by the distraught on-the-verge-of-suicide players of the Necrons. You have our sympathies, guys.

You guys have to realize that every time we read a "OH GOD MARY SUES" joke or a "LOL DREADKNIGHT IN YOUR DREADKNIGHT" joke...we die a little inside. Yeah sure it's hilarious, but you have to realize we didn't ask for this. We can't help but stay faithful to our army because we've spent so much time cultivating it since the noble Daemonhunter days. So always remember; don't hate the Knights. Hate the Wards."

Good fluff and what not

NO WARD! YOU WONT TURN MY WHOLE CHAPTER INTO MARY SUES!

As you may know after so much time here at 1d4chan, Games Workshop has declared that while everything published by them or Black Library is canon, not everything is true. Now, Black Library has published some good books about this chapter (Grey Knights, Dark Adeptus, Hammer of Daemons and The Emperor's Gift), the first three were made by Ben Counter while the later was written by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. This means you can always ignore Ward's writings as crazy inquisitorial propaganda and give more account value to the Black Library books, which bring well developed characters like Alaric and Hyperion, who are not Mary Sues while still being incorruptible and doing awesome stuff like defeating daemon titans and daemon primarchs and destroying an entire daemonworld single-handedly. Let that sink in for a second and then ponder the key words here; they still aren't Mary Sues. These books actually show how desperate the fight against the daemonic can be in the 41st millennium even for Grey Knights (with the opening scene in the first Grey Knight book Counter did featuring 300 Grey Knights being destroyed to a man, though achieving victory, complete with scenes of Grey Knights having their arms torn off before being flung into a ravening host of daemons), and how even they are sometimes subjected to mistakes and failures. Overall these are good reads, and may remove some of the bad taste left by the current GK codex (We still need an official mini for Alaric, though).

Anyway, there you get some fine stuff like these:

Short version

I am the hammer, I am the mail about His fist.

I am the Spear in His hand.

Though we are lost, I am the shield on His arm.

I am the flight of His arrows. I am the hammer.

I am the sword. I am the shield.

I am a soldier at the battle at the end of time.

Full version

I am the Hammer,

I am the edge of His Sword,

I am the tip of His Spear,

I am the mail about His Fist,

I am the flight of His Arrows,

I am the right hand of my Emperor,

I am the instrument of His Will,

I am His sword as He is my Armor,

I am his Wrath and He is my Zeal,

I am the Bane of His Foes and the Woes of the Treacherous,

Let us be His Shield,

Let us speak His Word as He fuels the Fire of Devotion,

Let us fight His Battles, as He fights the Battle at the end of time,

And let us join Him there, for Duty ends not in Death,

In Vengeance be true, In Valor be Strong,

I am the Hammer,

I am the Sword,

I am the Spear,

I am the Shield,

I am the soldier at the End of Time.

~~ Justicar Alaric, Grey Knights

One unbreakable shield against the coming darkness,

One final blade, forged in defiance of fate.

Let them be my legacy to the galaxy I conquered,

And my final gift to the species I failed.

~~ Inscription upon the Arcus Daemonica, attributed to the Emperor of Mankind.

Canticle of Absolution

Praise the Emperor for his sacrifice,

as He endures so shall we.

We who are Hunters of Daemons,

shall strive in his name eternally.

We the Order of the Hammer,

shall delve into the Dark Shadows.

We shall seek out the Tainted,

we shall pursue the Vilest Evil.

It is we who stand guard,

our Eternal Watch shall not fail.

For we are the Ordo Malleus!

We Grey Knights are the Hammers,

we slay the Darkness without fear.

Founded in great mystery we were,

Chapter six hundred and sixty six.

Though on Titan we be hidden,

yet our eyes encompass the Galaxy.

No Devil shall elude our gaze,

no Daemon shall elude its Fate.

We shall be the Keepers Immortal,

all Secrets shall be our Knowledge.

We are the Guardians of Mankind!

Caution and secrecy are our code,

watchfulness and patience are our way.

Hidden from the Eyes of Chaos,

we strike without warning or dread.

Though we find ourselves in Shadows,

no Blackness will enter our Hearts.

No treachery will touch our souls,

no pride will sully our thoughts.

We shall be Pure amongst Impurity,

we shall be Innocence amongst Guilt.

We are the Imperium’s Hidden Saviours!

We are spread across the Heavens,

our watch is untiring and ceaseless.

The Emperor shall guard our Souls,

as we Guard those of others.

Our will shall be our weapons,

our faith shall be our armour.

Our minds will be secure fortresses,

no Temptation will weaken our resolve.

Though unnumbered lurking perils await us,

our blades will ever be ready.

For we are the Emperor’s Vengeance!

Masters of all weapons are we,

no defence exists against our wrath.

With the Nemesis shall we fight,

with an Aegis to shield us.

In bloodshed shall we save Mankind,

Death shall be our Everlasting Creed.

War Unending shall be our Fate,

in battle shall we be steeped.

We shall be unstinting in Hatred,

we shall hunger for Holy War.

For we are Swords of Justice!

When all flee in hideous disarray,

strong and sound shall we stand.

Cowardice is wholly unknown to us,

our courage comes from the Emperor.

Unbowed and unshaken against all foes,

we shall claim victory with blood.

Steady and surely we hunt them,

those who dare oppose our wrath.

Death stalks us in many forms,

the grotesque and the utterly inhuman.

We are the Bringers of Hope!

Bloody battles unending constantly await us,

redemption the reward for our vigilance.

When Possession rears its unspeakable head,

ours is the blade that descends.

When Empyrean Horrors invade our realm,

our Exorcisms shall hurl them back.

There is no Chaos spawned horror,

which can resist our indomitable anger.

With undaunted courage we shall prevail,

no arcane magicks shall overcome us.

We are the Bearers of Victory!

No corruption shall blemish our Galaxy,

no Immaterial Fiend shall be spared.

No Malevolent Spirit will oppose us,

no Creation of Sin shall survive.

No Unholy Deed shall go Unpunished,

all Blasphemous Acts shall be Atoned.

No Spawn of Misrule shall avoid us,

all are banished to the Void.

Nothing shall evade our Cleansing Fire,

not Daemon or Spawn or Renegade.

For we are Mankind’s Divine Blade!

Heavenly Blessings are laid upon us,

the Warp is ours to Tame.

Though Sorceries shall be against us,

no Witchcraft will bring our Doom.

Though Spell or Incantation blocks us,

the Emperor shall see us Victorious.

No Hex can overcome our determination,

our resolve is strong as steel.

Sigils and wards shall watch over us,

prayers shall serve as our Guide.

For we are the Emperor’s Chosen!

There is much darkness awaiting us,

yet the Emperor lights our path.

Falsehood surrounds us at every turn,

yet no Traitor shall confound us.

No despicable trickery will thwart us,

no Damnation shall bring us low.

There is no peace for us,

for an eternity we will strive.

Though mere mortals in His service,

everlasting shall be our True Duty.

Seriously though, Matt Ward can go fuck himself.

~~ Codex: Daemonhunters 3rd Edition (i.e. when the world was right side up)

The final battle of the First war of Armageddon by Graham McNeil

The horizon burned the colour of blood, as though the sky itself was on fire. The jungles of Armageddon were ablaze, turning the darkness of the night into hateful, orange-lit day. Logan Grimnar, Chapter Master of the Space Wolves breathed deeply, tasting the toxins in the air with every breath and running a dirt and blood encrusted hand through his mane of unkempt blonde hair. He stared at the crater-marked hell that stretched out from the edge of the front line. The stench of rotting corpses mingled with the reek of burning fuel and his eyes stung from the noxious black smoke coiling lazily upwards from burning vehicles the enemy had lost in the fighting.

“Too few,” he whispered. “Too few.”

His practiced eye surveyed the barren expanse of the Ash Wastes on the far bank of the River Chaeron, easily picking out the hated icons of the Blood God swaying in the cold northern wind amidst the enemy camp. Bodies floated in the river, so many a man might cross without wetting his feet, their eyeless skulls turned up to face the fire-lit sky.

He marched along the length of the defensive wall, his dented and scored Terminator armour groaning as the damaged fibre-bundle muscles in the left thigh fought to match his pace. A careless parry had allowed a daemon’s axe to bite a hand’s breadth into his armour. It was only one of a dozen wounds he had suffered in this campaign thus far, but the armour had suffered greatly and, though the artificers had done their best, there was not the time for the repairs it deserved. He only hoped the armour’s battle spirit would understand and not fail him at a crucial moment. Grimnar stopped at an embrasure in the parapet and gripped the edges of the wall. The parapet was nearly twenty metres high and sturdily constructed by the men and women of the Departmento Munitorum Engineer Corp. Not nearly as strong or as high as he would have liked, but he knew they were lucky to have it at all. The Daemon Primarch’s inexplicable delay in crossing the equatorial jungles had given them the time they so desperately needed to regroup and reorganise the demoralised Imperial forces.

In the distance, nearly a hundred kilometres to the east, Grimnar could make out the smoke-wreathed spire of Hive Infernus, the teeming, stinking, manmade mountain called home by over twelve million people. People he was sworn to defend, but didn’t know that he would be able to. He shrugged off such defeatist thoughts and turned as he heard a calm voice behind him say, “Lord Grimnar.”

“Brother Captain Aurellian,” nodded Grimnar to the new arrival. Like him, Aurellian was clad in Terminator armour, its blue-steel surfaces polished and gleaming. The Grey Knight carried a long, wide-bladed pole arm, its edge silver and filled with intricate scriptwork, too small even for the enhanced eyesight of a Space Marine to read. Engraved purity seals and devotional litanies fluttered from the shaft and every surface of his pristine armour was decorated with heraldic iconography and carved idioms.

Grimnar felt a stab of anger towards the Grey Knight. His weapon was unblooded and though he and his warriors had arrived the night before last, they had immersed themselves in prayer instead of joining the desperate fighting on the walls.

“When the Adepts of the Cult Mechanicus have completed their preparations, we shall take the fight to the Fallen One,” said Aurellian.

“And how long will that be?” snapped Grimnar, “our people are dying here, Brother Aurellian. We do not have time to indulge every whim of your pet Techpriests.”

“I do not know,” shrugged Aurellian, ignoring Grimnar’s aggressive tone. “It will be for them to say when they are ready.”

The young Chapter Master of the Space Wolves bunched his fists and said, “Every second the Adeptus Mechanicus spends chanting doggerel and waving stinking censers over their technological witchery cost lives, don’t you understand that? We need to take the fight to the enemy now!”

“I understand it only too well, Lord Grimnar,” replied Aurellian coolly, “but it will avail us nothing if we attack before we are fully prepared. How many more lives will be lost if we fail because we acted in haste?”

Grimnar felt his anger ebb as the sense of the Grey Knight’s words penetrated the haze of his anger and frustration. Thus far they had been spared the full horror of the Daemon Primarch’s attack, but the defeats his army had suffered on the banks of the Chaeron would surely gain his attention soon. And the Emperor help them all when that happened.

“Do what you must then, but be ready to attack when the beast comes at us.” “You are sure he will attack here?”

Grimnar nodded as he looked along the length of the wall and trench line before it, seeing the bone-weary troopers who manned its firing step and guns. They wore defeat and exhaustion like a shroud. He nodded slowly. “I would.”

Dirt and hard-packed earth rained down from the latest impacts of high explosive shells as Sergeant Kohler pressed his hands against his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. He kept his mouth open to avoid the pressure wave bursting his eardrums as he’d been taught and prayed for this nightmare to end. The ground heaved with shell impacts and the air burned with acrid propellant fumes. He smelt blood and the stench of voided bowels and bladders and gagged, pressing his back against the earth of his squad’s dugout in the trench line. Men ran insane with terror, strobing silhouettes against the bright flare of explosions before being snatched away in storms of fire and steel. Kohler spat dirt and blood.

He reached down and gripped his lasgun tightly, knuckles white. Kohler held the weapon close, clutching it to his muddy flak vest like a protective talisman, and it took him long seconds to realise that the shelling had stopped. As the ringing in his ears faded, screams and desperate cries for medics replaced the shriek of incoming artillery, the sudden absence of thunderous noise as surprising as the fact that he was still alive. The momentary elation at his survival faded as he remembered that the only reason it would stop would be an imminent attack. Sergeant Kohler surged to his feet, shouting, “Everybody up! Get up! Get up! They’re coming again!”

Dazed and terrified soldiers reluctantly rose from their dugouts, their eyes haunted by the carnage and horrors they had seen in this war. Things so terrible that many would never sleep again, even were they to live through this nightmare. Kohler chivvied his squad members onto the trench’s firing step, yelling encouragement at anyone who passed by. Mangled bodies and severed limbs littered the iron duckboards of the trench and foot-deep holes were filled with blood. Kohler slung his lasgun and pressed his face to the trench periscope, extending its vision port over the lip of their defence. Rolling banks of grey-flecked smoke filled the viewer, jerked and snatched by gunfire. He could hear a swelling roar of hatred and a rumbling vibration through the ground. Chunks of earth and dust rattled around him, falling from the lip of the trench as something immense drew closer. Then the smoke parted and Kohler felt his knees sag as he saw Angron’s horde in horrifying clarity.

Blood red daemons, with thick manes of gore-streaked fur, loped alongside men in tattered and bloody uniforms. The soldiers’ bodies were twisted by mutation and crude symbols had been painted over their insignia, but it was clear that they had once been Imperial Guardsmen. Men they would have called brother not so long ago. A gargantuan, clanking machine preceded them, brass and crimson and adorned with skulls. Huge, spiked wheels – each larger than a battle tank – churned the ground and crushed all before it. On its back, a huge, black cauldron belched choking red smoke, the hissing of white hot metal and a huge bow wave of infernal heat preceding the war engine’s advance.

Kohler turned to his soldiers and shouted, “All guns open fire! Fire at will!”

The Imperial line erupted in a storm of lasbolts and heavy weapon blasts, and the front of the Chaos horde was instantly scythed down. Volley after volley hammered the Chaos troops, but Kohler could see that it wouldn’t matter, there were simply too many to kill. The war machine loomed as large as a hive spire, the deafening hissing of the thing it carried on its back overshadowing all but the loudest weapons. Kohler ducked down below the lip of the trench, ejecting a spent power cartridge from his lasgun and fumbling for another. He heard what sounded like a huge, sucking breath followed by a roaring like the howl of some ancient monster. The top of the trench disintegrated, turned molten under the fire of the war engine. Magma-hot daemonic ichor spewed from the hissing cauldron, destroying everything it touched before vaporising into the ether. Scores of bodies fell into the trench, their upper halves burned away and the remains of their uniforms ablaze. Burned human meat and sizzling fat filled Kohler’s nostrils and he dropped to his knees, retching at its foul stench.

As he gagged on the ashen remains of his fellow soldiers, he heard a thunderous detonation as the war engine activated the buried mines placed in their hundreds before the trenches. Secondary explosions within the stricken war machine hurled burning liquid all across the battlefield, splashing down in molten sheets. The earth rocked as it toppled, slamming into the ground with teeth-loosening force. Kohler fell into a pool of steaming blood. Screams and screeches of agony filled the air and Kohler felt hatred like he had never known flood his heart. He rose to his feet and shouldered his lasgun, pumping shot after shot into the reeling Chaos forces. The minefield had halted them in their tracks and the survivors milled in shell-shocked confusion at its edge. Scores fell to the fire of the Imperial Guard and Kohler laughed in hysterical release. They could do it. They could win this battle!

But then the sky darkened and roiling black clouds, shot through with blood red lightning billowed from the Chaos horde and a bellowing roar that froze the marrow in Kohler’s bones echoed across the battlefield. The beat of powerful wings parted the clouds and Kohler had a barely perceived vision of a vast red figure crashing down to earth with an ear-splitting boom. The creature landed heavily, thrusting out its slab-muscled chest and spreading its powerful arms wide as it roared its challenge. It carried a broad-bladed sword of dark iron, unnatural sigils blazing with unholy light. Kohler sobbed as the enormous creature strode into the minefield, joined by a group of hulking monsters from his darkest nightmares. Armoured in brass and covered in filthy, blood-matted fur they carried pulsing, red axes and lashing, barbed whips. Kohler dropped his lasgun and wept in terror, curling into a foetal ball and waiting for death as the monsters approached, the crash of brass-shod hooves sounding like the death of worlds.

Then Kohler screamed as he felt tongues of lightning lash his body, jerking spasmodically as the fire scorched his flesh. He rolled onto his back, feeling his hair burn and tried to make sense of what he saw before him. Flickering arcs of blue energy leapt and danced above the glassy slag of the trench top, making the air taste electric. Then with a crack of displaced air the lightning vanished and in its place stood perhaps a hundred warriors in suits of burnished blue-steel Terminator armour.

Brother Captain Aurellian blinked rapidly, feeling the knot of tension in his gut relax as his body adjusted after the mass teleportation of his Grey Knights. He stood on the lip of a snaking trench, filled with weeping and terrified Guardsmen. Ahead, he could see the smoking remains of a smashed daemon engine and the explosion wreathed battlefield. And striding across the cratered wasteland came Angron, Daemon Primarch of the World Eaters, the Fallen One. A dozen of the Blood God’s most favoured daemons surrounded Angron, and Aurellian gripped his Nemesis weapon tightly, knowing that this battle would decide the fate of the world. With a pulse of thought he ordered his warriors to advance as Angron raised his sword in mock salute.

Aurellian marched forwards, the Grey Knights following in disciplined groups, their Nemesis weapons held before them. Waves of bloodlust broke against them, but their souls were hardened to resist such petty evils and not a man amongst them faltered in his stride. A slavering daemon leapt into the air, its powerful wings carrying it across the battlefield in a heartbeat. It landed before Aurellian, thick ropes of bloody saliva drooling from its jaws. It swung its giant axe in a disembowelling stroke, but he swept up his force halberd, blocking the blow in a halo of bright energy. He spun his weapon and rammed the blade into the daemon’s belly and tore upwards, ripping a screech of pain from its jaws. Black light spilled from the wound as Aurellian pulled his weapon free and beheaded the monster with one psychically charged blow.

The daemon’s substance vanished, dispersed like smoke in the wind and Angron bellowed in amusement, his skin splitting and orange flames blossoming from his veins. The Daemon Primarch’s bestial face rippled in the heat haze, and Aurellian could feel Angron’s hunger to fight them.

“The knights of the corpse god,” rasped the Daemon Primarch in recognition, the voice rumbling like a slow-moving avalanche. “I shall enjoy feeding you your entrails.”

Aurellian did not reply. He had no wish to speak with a daemon; its words were all falsehoods and its very presence hateful to him.

Thousands of throats gave voice to a roar of bloodlust as Angron and his Bloodthirsters stamped forwards, mines detonating harmlessly against their daemonic armour. Through the thunder of explosions, the daemons crashed into the thin Grey Knight line, axes flashing and whips snapping. Aurellian saw half a dozen of his warriors cut down instantly, shorn in two by shrieking daemon weapons. He tore his gaze away from the battle around him as a pair of Bloodthirsters charged him and his squad. He widened his stance and braced his weapon on the ground, shouting, “Grey Knights, hold!” as the first Bloodthirster smashed into them. Its whip lashed out, shearing through a Terminator’s armour and cleaving him from collarbone to pelvis. Aurellian lunged, jabbing his blade at the monster’s head. Its axe smashed aside his blow and a brass hoof thundered into his breastplate, buckling the ceramite and shattering the bone shield of his chest cavity.

Aurellian collapsed to his knees, fighting for breath as another of his brothers fell, ripped apart by Angron, the pieces swallowed whole. Everywhere he looked, his warriors were falling, unable to match the unimaginable ferocity of these avatars of the Blood God. Though they fought bravely, with faith and nobility, it was no match for the primal savagery of their daemonic foes. But it was not a battle without cost for Angron and his daemons. Fully half his retinue were little more than screeching shadows, their physical vessels put asunder by the righteous wrath of the Grey Knights. Aurellian pushed himself to his feet wincing as he felt that one of his lungs was pierced. Angron swung his black sword in wide arcs, killing with every stroke and his glowing musculature rippled with power. Aurellian saw that the Daemons closest to Angron towered above his Terminators, drawing their strength from the well of the Daemon Primarch.

He staggered towards Angron, using his force halberd to steady himself as his breath wheezed in his chest. The Grey Knights closed on their leader, forming an impenetrable shield wall around him as they fought their way towards Angron. The Daemon Primarch saw his foe approach and reared up to his full height, bellowing a furious challenge. Lesser mortals might quail before this monster, but Aurellian and the Grey Knights had been steeled to face the worst horrors of Chaos without flinching. Less than two dozen of them were still alive, but they were almost there. Daemons pressed in all around them, attacking in a frenzy of axe blows and lashing whips. More Grey Knights fell, their blood mingling on the cratered earth as Angron and Aurellian finally came face to face. At some unheard command, the Bloodthirsters pulled back, hissing with barely-restrained battle lust.

Time slowed and the world held its breath as man and monster faced one another. One, a devoted and loyal servant of the divine Emperor of Mankind, the other the basest traitor who had trampled on his oaths of loyalty and embraced ultimate evil.

“You cannot win, Aurellian,” hissed Angron, planting his sword in the ground before him. Aurellian spun his force halberd, assuming a relaxed fighting stance and pointed the blade at the Daemon Primarch’s heart. “You underestimate me, traitor.”

“Perhaps, but I was once one of your Emperor’s chosen and I cannot be defeated. You know this, Aurellian; I can see it plain as day. Why must you fight and die here for a rotted corpse on a planet you have never seen?”

“Because I must,” said Aurellian simply, thrusting his weapon towards Angron.

The Daemon Primarch laughed and batted away the force weapon, scalding steam hissing from his iron skin. His clawed wings pounded the air as he fought, swirling dust and smoke around the combatants. Aurellian blocked a blow meant to remove his head, feeling the jarring impact numb his arm to the elbow, and ducked the reverse stroke. He spun inside Angron’s guard and slashed his blade across his foe’s flank, drawing a bellow of pain and a wash of hot, black blood.

Angron smashed a club-like fist down on Aurellian’s shoulder, driving him to the ground and tearing his helmet from his head. Lights exploded before Aurellian’s eyes, but he saw the blow that would kill him arcing towards his head and threw up his weapon to block it. Angron’s sword sheared through the haft of his force halberd and hacked through his arm in a shower of sparks and blood. The Grey Knight tumbled backwards, blood pouring from his arm, but miraculously still alive.

Aurellian climbed to his feet, his armour torn open in a dozen places, but his stance still defiant. Blood was flooding from his body, too much for even the Larraman cells to halt. He could see his men were fighting bravely, but were falling one by one. Before long they would all be dead. That they may die was unimportant, but they must not fail in their duty.

“Brothers! Defensive circle!” shouted Aurellian, though it sent hot spikes of pain through his chest. The few surviving Grey Knights fought their way towards him, forming a circle about their wounded leader.

Aurellian focussed all his hatred of the Fallen One until it was an incandescent power that burned within him and threatened to consume his flesh unless released. His battle-brothers felt the power building within him and, understanding the finality of such powerful psychic energy, began doing likewise.

Angron roared, clearly sensing the build-up of their power, but either did not care or, in his arrogance, believed himself too powerful to be harmed by it. He charged towards Aurellian, bellowing in fury. Aurellian felt the power of his fellow warriors pulse through him and released it in a fiery corona of psychic energy. He screamed as the colossal forces wracked his shattered body, feeling the life energies of three of his battle brothers fade as the power consumed them. The Bloodthirsters screeched in rage as the power of the Grey Knights’ faith hit them like a tidal wave, two bursting apart in an explosion of black ichor.

Angron roared in pain and Aurellian watched as the furnace glow of his body diminished. The Daemon Primarch dropped to his knees, thick blood drooling from his slack features. The Grey Knight next to Aurellian fell, his body little more than a shrivelled sack of bones within his armour. As Aurellian watched, Angron’s form grew less solid, less real, as though his hold on the material realm was slipping. Even as he formed the thought, the Daemon Primarch’s flesh began re-knitting as his iron will held his form solid. Aurellian knew he would never get a better chance than this and lurched forward, gripping his force halberd by its splintered haft like a sword. Angron lifted his bestial face in time to see Aurellian lift up his sword and drive it deep within his chest. Fat red sparks flew as the blade plunged into the Daemon Primarch’s body, and his roar of pain split the earth apart all around him. Aurellian drew upon the depths of his courage and unleashed his last reserves of strength and faith through the force weapon in a blazing spear of purity.

He rejoiced as he felt Angron’s substance dissolving and knew that he had defeated the monster. He pushed the blade deeper and grunted in sudden pain as Angron’s sword plunged into his belly and tore upwards, ripping through his heart and lungs. He coughed blood, spattering the daemon’s burning features and feeling his own killing power ravaging him through Angron’s blade. The Daemon Primarch sneered mockingly.

“If we are to die, we will die together, Aurellian. I will be reborn in the Warp, but your spirit-flesh will be devoured by daemons for all eternity, and you will know an immortality of agony…” ‘So be it!’ shouted Aurellian, and fulfilled his duty.

Logan Grimnar watched the ten Grey Knights kneel in prayer around the fallen body of their captain and bowed his head in respect. The battlefield was eerily quiet, the daemons having vanished like morning mist upon the destruction of Angron’s physical form and the traitors, cultists and mutants falling back in disarray. A shaft of golden sunlight broke through the oppressive cloud layer and Grimnar felt a sudden surge of optimism as he watched his Space Wolves mount up in their Rhinos to begin the pursuit and destruction of the enemy. Mud-and-bloodcaked Guardsmen began clambering dazedly from their trenches, their faces lined with exhaustion and fear. A soldier, drenched in blood and black ichor from head to foot, staggered from the trench and dropped, weeping, to his haunches.

“They won,” he sobbed in relief, “I can’t believe they did it…”

Grimnar looked down at the man, seeing his sergeant’s stripes through the blood on his upper arm. The name Kohler was stitched above it.

“Aye,” he said slowly. “They destroyed the Beast. But at what cost?”

The sergeant looked up, uncomprehending as the Chapter Master of the Space Wolves continued.

“A noble warrior of the Emperor fell this day, Sergeant Kohler, and you will never see a greater display of heroism,” said Grimnar. “Remember what you have seen here today.”

“I will,” nodded Kohler, but Logan Grimnar had already turned and marched away.

Don't like the fluff? Here's an idea

Don't accept it.

Seriously, disregard all of it. Give all the silly parts the middle finger. You can still take the new crunch with the old fluff, and if you REALLY need an explanation for some of the new units? Invent your own, or better yet, leave none. The Grey Knights have always been about secrecy; it's in their friggin' motto, for Empra's sake. Mystery always was, and, if you loved that, can be their continued explanation; we just don't know, the records are too tightly sealed.

Dreadknights are the result of a recently found highly-fragmented STC that was recently discovered [they DO have a close link with the coggers, after all], explaining their flawed-looking design. Kaldor Draigo is just a Grand Master who has been at it longer than the others and is tough as nails, or his title just means he's in charge when more than one Brotherhood needs to team up (the codex even says his title is largely honorary); hell, make him a flawed badass, like he lost an entire command of Grey Knights and was beaten around by and barely managed to defeat M'kar. As for his sword... just make it a really customized power weapon that was gifted to him by the Mechanicus.

Castellan Crowe is still a pretty cool guy: we're talking about a Grey Knight wielding an ubercheesy sword of killing death and he's saying FUCK YOU to all that power, using it as a grimdark beatstick buffing his enemies, all for the sake of his duty as a Grey Knight. That's pretty much how MANLY Grey Knights players use them today: willingly nerfing their army in order not to kill the fun. Besides, since the blade corrupts people so hard even ordinary Grey Knights can't handle it, it would make sense that since Grey Knights are pure, Purifiers are SUPER pure, then the leader of the Purifiers would logically be the only one able to wield the blade and tell the daemon inside to fuck off and let them fight.

As for daemonhosts and radical inquisitors...don't field them? Odds are they were added in because of the then upcoming 6th edition allies rule. Better troop choices than them exist anyway, you really don't need to use them, and I imagine not many GK players do anyways. It's just simple shit; ignore the fluff and just go with the old stuff. So fuck you, Ward, it's not 800 Grey Knights, it's 3,500-6,000 (Hell the codex even says the "100 per brotherhood" is only on paper), they don't follow key points of the Codex Astartes even in organization, they're a unique faction with a unique modus operandi, and they don't need your stupid fucking smurfbook to operate effectively; QUITE the opposite.

Gallery

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  That's a space shark you dickwrenches.

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  We do have to grudgingly admit that the new Purgation Squads are pretty kool

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  So, um... WHY IN THE NAME OF BUGGERY WASN'T THIS USED FOR THE DREADKNIGHT MODEL?!?

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  Yes let's all ignore the unique and immensely powerful daemon sword he's holding

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  We must remember, however, that many players have embraced Ward's Grey Knights. And they are, to a man, insufferable.

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  A big glorious spit in Matt Ward's face and his fluff butchering.

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  This Dreadknight, made with a DAKKADAKKA conversion kit, looks as it should have. Field one and watch nude Bolter Bitches jockey to polish your armor.

tl;dr: "Yo dawg! So we heard you like Mary Sues, so we put Mary Sues in your Mary Sues so you can make people RAGE while they RAGE!"

See Also

• The 666 Rituals of Detestation - All Grey Knights initiates must pass these trials before they become a full-fledged battle brother.
• Daemonhunters
• The Tactica

Chaos just can't catch a break these days can it...

• The Ultimate Grey Knight Cheese List The Ultimate (in Cheese!) Grey Knight Army for 6E. Seriously, though...don't play it or your opponent will murder you in real life.

(That and the fact that any decent army will table it turn 1.)