Am i the only one?

GKs are SMs.

- Chapter 666
- Same implant as SM
- referred to as SMs/ Astartes
- Essentially the same armour/wargear/vehicles, etc...
- etc.........

GKs are different from other SMs in the same way that other Chapters are different from one another.....Space wolves, Blood Angels, Ultramarines..... Can all claim that they are the best and are set apart from their peers. And they are ALL right!

This is not necessarily a bad thing is it?
I always look at all of the SM chapters as representing a part of the Emperor himself:
- SW are his wrath
- Ultramarines are his strategic brilliance
etc, etc, etc..........

So why isn't it plausible that GKs are representative of his psychic Daemon ass kicking side, and are part of the unified group called Space Marines. None of the chapters could protect the universe alone, but together with each of their specialties and uniquenesses combined, Mankind will prevail!

Enough with the pissing contests already

I have to agree with you Brother Constantine. I think the people who want the GK's to be "not space marines" are the people who don't like the regular space marines. Sure, GK's are an elite SM chapter, but they are still a SM chapter.

I personally think SM's are cool, and I think a lot of the people (not necessarily anyone on this forum, just in general) who don't like SM's don't like them because most people do like them. This is something often encountered in society, so nobody is to blame. Often if something becomes much more popular and given extra attention to when there is seemingly no good reason for it, a group of people will rise against it (it happens in pop culture ALL the time). I mean, I have seen people literally get made fun of for playing Ultramarines. This isn't justified at all. Sure it's not original, but it's a game; people can do what they want, and you don't have to be original.

I must agree with the anti-SM group to a degree though: There's no reason for SM's to get so much more attention than any of the Xenos except that the SM's make GW more money. Of course, if they bothered to make the rest of the Xenos out of raw awesome-sauce just like SM's, then I think things would be a little different.

That's just the way I see it, of course.

I recently read an interesting paragraph in the Grey Knights novel on page 177.
The Paragraph begins with "She asks us only to fight.........", and ends with "I think Ligeia understands that" (Counter, B. pg. 177-178, 2004)

This section of the novel is a conversation between Justicars Genhain and Alaric. I believe that Brother Genhain brings up some pertinent points in regards to the above discussion.

Give it a read and let me know what you think.

For a modern day view on how to classify the Grey Knights think of it like this:


Imperial Guard is akin to regular army

Space Marines are akin to Marine Core or Royal Marines

Grey Knights are akin to SAS, Delta Force, SEAls...

Rather,
IG = inbred malitia (look at the ogrins?wtf)
SM = military infantry with bullet proof vests (like universal soldiers)
GK = specialized commandos ( A mixture of the Pope, chuck norris and arnold swarzeneggar in an ironman suite).

I am very sure that both corennus and GMKDynamis is wrong.

IG Conscript = No description needed.
IG = Standard army. With bulletptoof vests.
IG veterans = Royal guards for governors and the like.
IG Kasrkin/stormtroopers = Navy seals, SAS, Delta force, Spetznaz.
Space marines = Angels, the ultimate warriors of the emperors might, only decending when the times are the most dire.
Grey knights = A secret order of inner circle angels, that kicks serious ass.

Anyone that counts the marines as normal troops need to get their bearings straight.
It's a simple matter of numbers and tactics.

Let's attack a planet with an entire chapter. 1000 dudes.
Vs the planet, let's take a small 40k planet, earth today equivalent. Is it 7 billion now?
With very lots of troops..... and nukes. (40k has them as well, just pointing out.)

The chapter cannot be used a a normal army, and hence, why the IG is the normal army.

I honestly think that the 1000 man count of a chapter is far too small. Despite that space marines are portrayed as uber men. I cannot see how sending a company (100 SM) to a planet can have any impact on the course of the war. I know that the fluff states that a marine is as powerful as 10 or so men, but there are xenos and daemons that far exceed that strength.

If the size of a chapter were increased to 10 000 that would make sense. Particularly for GKs, who have a massive attrition rate and are required to police an entire galaxy (TRILLIONS of planets) for daemonic incursions, but as it is for GKs and SM 1000 men is woefully inadequate.

I always found the SM chapter stuff kinda silly, when you read the Heresy stuff they must have had tens if not hundreds of thousands of marines.

GMKDynamis wrote:Rather,
GK = specialized commandos ( A mixture of the Pope, chuck norris and arnold swarzeneggar in an ironman suite).

I agree with Klomster.

I also believe that 1,000 marines in "normal" Chapters is possible for the following reasons:
There about 1,000 Chapters, totaling over 1 million Marines, most likely more than in the Great Crusade.
A company is enough to change the result of most battles, and for the massive war zones, like Cadia, there are whole chapters.
They are able to fight multiple battles in quick succession and over great distances (plant wide) due to their endurance and mobility.
In large and drawn-out campaigns, they are supported by legions of Imperial Guard.

One battle can change a war, there are plenty in history. Off the top of my head, the Battle of Britain, Stalingrad and Waterloo.

I do however agree that 1,000 marines for the Grey Knights is too few for the whole galaxy.
There should be about as many as the Black Templars, may be a few more.

Yeah, GK should have more numbers. Since they are a "secret" chapter, perhaps even their numbers are only a matter of speculation.

The reason i don't like the gk going from 3000 to 1000 strong.

Like your idea Brother DonFer,

Hey may be each of the Brotherhoods number 1,000,
or is that overkill?

That would be more logical numbers.

But no, Matt ward said they are 1000.

You heard me. MATT WARD.
(Not at all trying to blame anyone.... nope.... not at all.)

Theres barely half the amount of space marines now then during the Heresy. 20 legions X 100,000 marines. now its about 1000 chapters X 1000 space marines. Whats worse is that the Imperium is super unstable and there arent as good Imperial guard stuff as there was during the Heresy. he only good thing is it says that there a lot of heroes popping up in these bad times.
I would consider this game and fluff to be the most controvercial and crazy story ever if i didnt consider the fluff to be so epic. I kinda see why chaos is so appealing.
Wait I mean oh chaos *cough* terrible terrible chaos *cough*...

I stand corrected, regarding the number of SM during the Great Crusade. Thank you Brother Joshua.

As for Chaos being appealing and seemingly impossible to win against (for the mortal minded), that is why there is the Holy Ordo Hereticus.

I do agree that they have not been doing that great of a job at keeping the codicies in line with the fluff/canon. I'm pretty sure I remember somewhere that the Knights strength is around the 3000 mark. You would think they could make an exception in the 1000 battle brother thing, since the Knights have more specialized duties, more independent organization/taskings and you can only make them so fast. What happens in the case of the first war for Armageddon when an entire brotherhood is lost, then there are only 900 left and it would take how many centuries to get it going again?

If the marines are an average strength of 1000, and the fluff/codicies keep talking about them being severely understrength from war/etc. how does it average out? Some chapters would have to be larger to account for, say, the Crimson Fists.

1000 marines is plenty to take a planet by striking at the head, as well as shock and awe. To actually subjugate an entire planet would be the job of a legion or marines backed up by hordes of guardsmen as stated above.

The one really silly thing about the number of marines is that if you read any of the novels, even marines die like flies and often only a special character or a few make it through battle. Now since these battles are normally a single occurrence across a huge universe then you would be seeing hundreds if not thousands of marines dying each week in battle. There is no way a single marine would be left alive at this rate.

Its the same issue I have reading the eldar books, many of the eldar units have a 3+ or 4+ save and yet the minute someone with a weapon looks at them they die. Yet space marines in power armour (similar to what scorpions and dark reapers wear) are able to shrug off pretty much anything.

In the fluff, marines do have better armour than the aspects.

I think much of the save in the game comes from eldar agility, giving foes a hard time to get a proper aim.
If they are hit.... bloood.

Marines are more tough than in the game.

I think a 1-10 scale for toughness and a 1-6 scale for saves is limiting for how awesome you think something from the fluff works out on the table.

T3 represents something roughly human, from an average teenager/working person to the toughest guy you know (even Vets/stormtroopers are T3). So T4 represents the armor and general resilience of a Marine. WHen you think of things like tyranid monstrous creatures being T6 (so that marines and bolters can still hurt them) would you say marines should be T5? I think not.

I also think the eldar have some mesh/absorbtion capability in their armor. not that it really helps them, but perhaps about the same as carapace armor that is much easier to land a clean hit on.

If anyone else has ever fielded a battle company, they will probably know it's enough for the task at hand...

T = agility, resistance to damage, etc.

Armour save = how effective your armour is.

Eldar are meant to be far more agile than almost any other race, in which case they should probably be T4 if it includes agility... that being said I don't want to start a stat war argument :p

T4 is because SM have extra organs, although realistically for ingame terms they should probably just all have FNP to be realistic.

I also tend to think the gap between MC's and normal guys isn't big enough. Most MC's should be T8 IMO. T6 for the DK is ok because its got a GKT in the middle you can shoot. Plus T8 with a 3+ is stupid due to missiles these days, I think against MC's most weapons should get a -1 AP modifier except AP 1/2.

Come on guys we all know the Squats are the best of the best of the best.

All kidding aside though, the Grey Knights are ultimately "just another chapter" of space marines. There's more than enough canon evidence to back that up. I will agree that limiting the Grey Knights to a mere 1000 members is pretty insane. Though like several of you I think a single chapter being limited to only 1000 is equally silly. Although to be fair there is plenty of evidence that the chapters themselves aren't really limit to exactly 1000 marines. Command squads, captains, librarians, chaplains, and vehicle pilots all seem to fall somewhere outside the strict 1000 marine organization, and I suspect in reality there are far more than 100 scouts at any given time due to the need to replenish losses on a regular basis.

I think it's far more likely that each brotherhood of Grey Knights operates similar to a crusade of Black Templars although without quite as much autonomy. I say not so much simply because Grey Knights are always going to be replenishing their numbers from Titan and the Supreme Grand Master probably has a better idea where all his assets are at any given time that the Templars chapter master.

This is of course speculation and imposing my own thoughts on how the organization should be as opposed to them being shoe horned into strict adherence to the Codex Astartes.

I like your thinking Brother Drakeharlem,

If any chapter is going to forget about the Codex Astartes, Grey Knights would. They mention deals with Xenos (allied against Chaos), can't think of any others, off the top of my head.

Although 1,000 marines for each chapter isn't that silly.
You just use whole Chapters instead of battle companys.

Sorry drakeharlem, but while the new codex tries to make them 'just another chapter' of space marines, even it fails, and no other canon fluff pushes them in this direction.
GK are about as similar to space marines as marines are to sisters.

as mentioned in the pages 2 and 3 brother zealadin, even older fluff canon made the grey knights a space marine chapter. if you dont believe it, read it up yourself. quotes from codex DH/other older edition codizes, pages etc. are all listed on the quotes

Zealadin wrote:Sorry drakeharlem, but while the new codex tries to make them 'just another chapter' of space marines, even it fails, and no other canon fluff pushes them in this direction.
GK are about as similar to space marines as marines are to sisters.

As others have already pointed out the Grey Knights were designated Chapter 666 long before the latest codex came out. Even before Codex Daemon Hunters dropped in third edition Grey Knights were just a chapter of psyker marines with specialized equipment for dealing with daemons. I haven't had the chance to read the Black Library books, but nothing I've seen about them leads me to believe they contain any revelations that completely invalidate the Grey Knights as a chapter.

At their very core Grey Knights are space marines complete with the same implants. I do not deny that they are something above and beyond the other chapters, you could even go so far as to say they are a more refined perfect form of space marine, but if you strip away all the armor and fancy gear you'll find that biologically a Grey Knight and any other space marine are going to be nearly identical (aside from any chapter specific mutations of course.) Like it or not they have been this way since they were introduced to the game decades ago back in the mists of the Rogue Trader era.