Grey Knights VS Adeptis Custodes

there has long been a debate on who is the better Warrior the Grey knights or Custodes and again i whould like to bring it up

Custodes:
The similarities in form between the Adeptus Astartes and the Adeptus Custodes indicate the two groups may be related, although it is unknown whether the members of the Adeptus Custodes undergo the rigorous genetic change in the same way as the members of the Adeptus Astartes.Several fragmentary Imperial records indicate that creation of a Custodian is a long and arduous process, utterly different from the creation process for a standard Astartes and much costlier, thus their relatively smaller numbers in the galaxy compared to the Space Marines. The Custodes have the final word on security in the Imperial Palace, and even the High Lords of Terra are subservient to them within its walls.
The Custodes are warriors unmatched in the galaxy, genetically-engineered by the Emperor himself. The Emperor engineered few of these warriors once the swifter method for creating superhuman warriors using Space Marine gene-seed became more viable.

The martial capabilities of the Adeptus Custodes remain largely unknown at the present time. What is known is that they possess skill beyond even a "normal" member of the Adeptus Astartes. It has been said that the Adeptus Custodes are to a Space Marine what a Space Marine is to a member of the Imperial Guard. Custodes are unique as they have neither a known Primarch nor do they use gene-seed to produce their genetic modifications. They stand a full head taller than a Space Marine and it is said that they were almost the same size as a Primarch. In fact it was said that Constantine Valdor, Captain-General of the Legio Custodes and Chief Custodian to the Emperor during the Horus Hersey, was the same size as the Traitor Primarch Alpharius of the Alpha Legion. i have also heard there are 300 Custodians and that each are trained primarily to fight by themself not togeather.


Grey Knights
The Grey Knights are a secret, mysterious Loyalist Chapter of Space Marines specifically tasked with combating the dangerous daemonic entities of the Warp and all those who wield the corrupt power of the Chaos Gods. They have the honour of being implanted with gene-seed engineered directly from the genome of the Emperor Himself. The Grey Knights act as the military arm or Chamber Militant of the Ordo Malleus, the Daemonhunters who form the oldest branch of the virtually omnipotent Inquisition. The Grey Knights' fortress-monastery is based on Titan, the largest of the moons of the gas giant Saturn in the Sol System, that is kept as a private preserve of the Inquisition. The existence of the Chapter is virtually unknown outside of the Inquisition and the highest echelons of the Imperial Adepta, and is a well-guarded secret. Unlike other Astartes, every Grey Knight is a potent psyker. Yet, in the 10,000 standard years of Imperial history, no Grey Knight has ever been corrupted by the Ruinous Powers of Chaos. Grey knights are more skilled then other Space marines due to there higher skills and wargear in addition to that every grey knight is a Psyker they have the best weapons in humanity and training long since forgotten Grey knights are trained to fight togeather against more powefull forces(E.g Blood thirstier) and when Outnumbered. it is also believed Grey knights are the True emperors Children...


My opinion:
due to the fact Grey knights fight together in perfect sync against there enermys gives Grey knights huge advantages against Custodes also Grey knights are psykers, Liberians can simply open the warp to destroy custodes.

this powerlevel talking really bugs the hell out of me. no wonder i quit my GK since the birth of warp norris and the most incorruptible of the incorruptible of the incorruptible.

HA!.

Grey knights would win since they work together? Silly.

According to new fluff grey knights nowdays mistrust each others and summon deamons (well one) and wield deamon blades.

The old proverb stands.
A custode is to a space marine what a space marine is to an imperial guard.

A grey knight being better than a generic space marine gives them elite status. So they are like kasrkin. They are good. But space marines bitch-slap kasrkin.
But kasrkin would bitch-slap generic imperial guard, since they are superior, much like grey knights to normal marines.


Custodes are the personal guards of the emperor since they are the best. If they weren't the best they wouldn't be the personal guards of the emperor.

This topic is rather silly actually.

Oh, btw, did you know that the most incorruptible of the incorruptible of the incorruptible is incorruptible? I never knew They weren't really clear on that one.

Three things
1.Grey Knights summinging daemons?
2. Only one grey knight uses a daemon blade and he refuses its power (the sword gives enermys special rules)
3. Why do grey knights have the terminus decree and grey knights distrust each other is totaly wrong. Grey knights respect and will die for there brothers e.g supreme grand mastet drago or grand master mordraks knights

This topic brings up people's hate for Matt Ward.

Anyways, GK are have a cool fluff and are one of the best armies in 40k, so that's enough for me.

1) A warp deity summoned under special circumstances?

That's a deamon.

A specific grey knight is a warp deity summoned under special circumstances, making him a deamon.
A deamon of the emperor or something like that, but he is a deamon.
No you can't reason with me.

2) Sure, the story about that specific fellow is rather intricate. And i could be fine with it.
But then the game does this one unforgiveable thing. He's playable.

Yes please, let's have this VERY IMPORTANT KICKASS DEAMON WEAPON, put it on a dude who suicidically runs to enemies. Which per definition is chaos worshippers or deamons since that's what grey knights fight. The very things we want to keep this thing away from and let they guy spaz out in front of them with the sword only attached by something similar to the strap on a wii-mote.

It's a deamon blade, it will want to escape. Becoming slippery shouldn't be a novel concept for it and it will give everyone else around it tips on how to bring this guy down.

So you are basically giving the great enemy the sword WHICH THEY SPECIFICALLY CANNOT HAVE. Otherwise we're doomed. For realz.

3) Well, it's only the most ludicrous and hated purifiers who mistrust the others. Sure, they are powerful but when they all suffer from pride. What does that make them? More probable for taint.

Sure it aint gonna happen since gw is busy making them ultra silver armoured ultramarines with super powers but i stand for my words.


I'm having massive issues with all of GW's new fluff. The main reason i haven't been around these boards as much as in the past in fact.

And why does the grey knights have the terminus decree????

YEAH? Why do they have it? Shouldn't the custodes have that one? Or someone else?
Who knows, gw smokes a bit too much nowdays to make sense.

Yes i'm childish and irritated. I'm seeing a cool setting i grew up with wither and die in front of my eyes. Becoming nothing more than power armoured mucus.


The discussion is about custodes. I shouldn't go off topic.

The custodes have better equipment, better training, and guard the imperial palace. AND DOESN'T LEAVE. The imperial palace is the most impenetrable fortress in the imperium.

Since the most important individual in the universe lives there. The emperor.

Anyone trying to siege the imperial palace would fail horribly. As horus did. And he had a few hundred thousand space marines plus a few titan legions.

Grey knights (having lost 2'000 men according to new fluff) are only 1'000 strong. And only slightly more powerful.... ok, alot more powerful than normal astartes.

But they can't compete with titans. And if horus can't do it with titans. Grey knights cannot do without.

And if you say:
-"But the grey knights will just demand a few, and bash the gates down."

Then you are HORRIBLY WRONG.

There is no reason the mechanicus would lend them any titans.

1) They are some unknown force of random astartes. ? Who are they? They don't know.

2) -"We are gonna kill the emperor!" Says Mordrak.
-"So you are going to kill Ohmnissiah???" Answers the magos. The magos then proceeds to use his MIU (or similar) to send a binary message to his entire supply of preatorian combat servitors to destroy this obvious traitor.
Many a magos being very combat oriented, he could perhaps even go toe to toe with mordrak on his own.

And if Mordrak manages to take him down he's not going to take down and entire forge worlds skitarii core, and their fleet in orbit.

3) They went for -"We want titans." Says Mordrak.
-"For what?" Asks the magos.
-"We just want some." Mordrak.
-"You have to give us something to work with here...." Magos.
-"STC!!! You like that stuff.... righ?" Mordrak.
-"Sure, we do. So where do you want the titans?" Magos.
-"On terra!" Mordrak.
-"I'm pretty sure we got terra covered. Since they are by treaty obliged to give us all STC they find." Magos
-".......................... um, we're space marines?" Mordrak.
-"I do not have time for petty imbeciles like you." Magos.

The result of this conversation is either repeat process of alternative two or Mordrak sadly walks home.

Even if they manage to get some titans to follow them around the titan pilots are loyal (with that i mean nearly as fanatical as grey knights) to the imperium and/or the mechanicus.

So they are not going to fire on the imperial palace. That's ludicrous.

All in all the terminus decree in the hands of the grey knights is silly.
Better the custodes have it. Being the will of the emperor they might listen to it. And they can still guard his corpse.
Sure it's not going to happen. But the grey knights can't really do anything with the decree.

Oooh, the custodes are only 300. (I'm feeling it should be more, but ok.) 300 in a frikkin impenetrable fortress with RIDICULOUS defense systems among other things just happen to be including 2 emperor titans.

No, grey knights are not better than custodes.

Not in a fight, not 1 on 1, not at all.

Nope. I don't see grey knights better than custodes.
And i haven't even mentioned that they are on the same team.

Edit: A friend pointed these things out.

1) Space marines are not allowed on terra. NEVER! The only exception is the few space wolfs who are allowed to guard navigators. On the island they live on. AND NO WHERE ELSE!!!
The very sight of astartes trying to get on terra can only mean two things.

Space marines are revolting, against a decree signed by all important ruling elite possible. Only the emperor has not signed it but he didn't really have a say since he was kinda out of it.

Or it's chaos space marines invading. The end result is the same.

The fleet of segmentum solar (only the most powerful fleet in the imperium) will splatter the astartes ships.


But let's say the grey knights uses their magical space powers and let their deamon god Draigo open a portal for them.

(Now ignoring the fact that the imperial palace being a seal designed to seal an open warp rift, and thus containing the most amount of anti deamon and warp stuff you can think off.)

The magical space templars have now entered the imperial palace. I guess the necron came and gave them the psychic resonanses of their C'Tan to get entrance.
(Any fan of old fluff will now how much i butchered it in that sentence.)

The grey knights are in the palace. Congrats. Say hello to automated defense systems everywhere and the custodes themselves.

What is a custodes.

He is a monster nearly primarch bodyguard who will fight to the death for the emperor.
Armed with glaives who have bolters on them.
This being the weapons of the custodes. Probably makes them kinda good right?

I'd say they are archeotech weapons probably. Failing that they are in the very least the best weapons the imperium can muster. THE BEST! Only the primarchs and the emperor himself has a go at having better.
Same thing for their armour, probably archeotech but failing that again, see previous statement.

So master crafted, master crafted...... plus. And on top of that special rules, and power weapons.

I'd guess the rules for them is something similar to.
"Lol, saves? Don't make me laugh."

And being psykers, the grey knights that is. doesn't give them much.
Since the imperial palace is basically a frikkin psychic seal designed to block that stuff. Only the emperor is badass enough to be psychic in there. And you might know that the emperor is kinda badass.


Yes. I'm voting for the custodes here. Is it noticeable?

Also.... yay mechanicus

you bring up many good points that have changed my view a bit but i was not talking bout siegeing the palace more just whos better combat ect

For more info on the Custodes read "The First Heretic". The observations of Argel Tal are key to understanding their fighting style.

The Grey knights are as others have said all drawn together into units, and that is their strength. always looking out for each other and drawing on their collective psychic might to defeat foes. That isn't to say they aren't each an accomplished CC master in their own right.

The Custodians are instead each an army of one. Their whole fighting style is aimed so that they can take out multiple opponents with no backup, as befits a bodyguard who may find himself defending alone against a hoarde of enemies.

What makes the difference between a Custodes and a Grey Knight ultimately is that Grey Knights are Astartes. Created using the Astartes process, while Custodes are much more unique and trained for a single purpose.

i will get that book and you have a very good point except that Grey knights are not created using full Astartes process...
thank you for the book i have been wanting something to read
cheers

ummm yes they are. the selection and training may be different but the implants they receive are identical to normal astartes.

Liberian Martel wrote:i will get that book and you have a very good point except that Grey knights are not created using full Astartes process...
thank you for the book i have been wanting something to read
cheers

only the selection (they have to be psykers) and the training is different. geneseed implantation and all other augmentations are exactly the same. the only difference is the founder of the geneseed.

Alright.

Let's have a few custodes and a few grey knights suddenly appear on a grassy field.

There is no way to make a fair battle.

1 on 1. Instant custodes win.

Bringing more grey knights than the custodes means that the custodes will go down eventually.

And bringing a bunch of each is just plain improper since the custodes are so much better.


So how on earth discuss this?

Easy, the martial prowess of the custodes is higher. They are warriors and soldiers who fight with or without their likes.

They are the superior option in this discussion and win the main question.

If you ignore the fact the custodes never leave the imperial palace you are removing a key thing in their very existance.
Also the siege of terra by the grey knights is a must if the terminus decree.... decrees that the emperor must die. The only logical way to have a battle between them.

I agree 1 on 1 a custodes would beat even a Grand Master hands down.

It's how the Emperor and 1000 custodes were able to annihilate a HUGE greenskin hoarde that was defeating THREE legions. The Custodes are a cut above the normal astartes, but also limited by their pure devotion to their fighting style.

Astartes are a flexible force. Custodes are inflexible by the nature of their calling.

Corennus wrote:For more info on the Custodes read "The First Heretic". The observations of Argel Tal are key to understanding their fighting style.

I was thinking this also when I read the original post.

Spoiler:

But what is this about 1000 of them and the Emperor v's orks? Hmmm.... Go figure, GK making things contradictory and confusing

It's all about context Brothers! Each warior in question has strengths and weaknesses. Create a scenario in which ones strengths are highlighted over the other such as one on one combat and guess who wins....Custodes ! Focus on a scenario that requires squad cohesion and guess who wins.....GK !

It is the same as comparing SM chapters. there are cc chapters, ranged chapters, all round chapters, etc... it once again comes down to context/scenarios.

Just my two cents!

Well to answer this Question, we have to compare the two Organisations from several different points of  view:
First of all i want to say, that the Questions "who is better" or "who would win" are (though extremly interesting) not very reasonable. I  hope the following Text that will cost me at least 3 hours of mi livetimecan express why. What ever i say comes directly from my very  memory and a personal knowledge won whithin almost a decade of nerdraging wiki-carnage. (so where is my Crux Terminatus?) So PLEASE dont askt for  sources.
-lets begin with the genetic Aspectand and look into the very begining of all superhumans the Emperor ever created. (please excuase potentially lacking english skills)
It all begins with the Metaseed.
It is hard to tell what the metaseed is exactly. But i would call it a collection of genetic informations, made from ribonucleic acid (aka DNA). For the very Foundation of this unimaginably complex DNA-Structure (lets say a living Creature is a Rock, then the Metaseed is a Building), the Emperor used his own genes (thats why all kinds of Supehumas are often called Sons of the Emperor). But it is a surprisingly small part, most likely even the Emperor harly understands his own Physis. For the rest he took several exeptional Humans (probably Mutans) and even  non Humans. The Metaseed dividet itself into 20 different parts, everyone had some features the others had not, but also every part  lacked at least one.
The first Creatures, the Emperor made where the Custodians and The Primarcs. Each Primarc embodied one of the 20 parts of the Metaseed with all their individual percs and weakneses. That made them practicly equal to the Emperror (only in a Physical way the Emperors true Power lies within is Psyonic Skills, his Body was probaly only the way it was, so it could contain such energy)  The Custodians however where made from ALL parts of the metaseed, any of them is unique, and yet they where not as complex as the Primarcs it is incredibly hard make one of them.
When the Primarcs got lost, the Emperor decided to create a new Kind of Superhumans in their Image: the Astartes. To acomplish that, he created Progenoids. These Progenoid-Organs allowed to create  more implants including a copy of itself. These implants slightly resembled the unique parts of the metaseed but where not compareble to his former creations, concerning both quality and complexity >genepool but it allowed him to mass-produce Astartes, where he could only make very few Custodes.  To Compensate the (tremendous) indivual inferiority of the Astartes (compared to custodes/ primarcs) and to make best use of their larger Numbers they were engineered as natural teamplayers, making the group more valuabla than the summ of its individuals. A Legio Astartes is a perfect weapon of massdestruction, but that comes for a price:just as a Custodian can not exist without the Emperor an Astartes can not exist without his squad ( being on his own for toolong a Spacemarine WILL become a Chaos spacemarine in time, yet Greyknights would endure far longer on their own and rahter commit suicide than be corrupted for good), also their loyaltys are conflicted: What is more important Legion/Chapter or Emperor? The Horus Heresy is the best example for that.
The Greyknights are geneticly superior to other spacemarine chapters. It is hinted, that their gene-seed was taken from may different Legions - giving them more percs of the Metaseed than a individual Legion has and avoiding individual weaknesses. Older sources hint, that their geneseed was a direct gift of the emperror. This can mean anything, is no longer to be regarded as canon and wouldnt make them the genetic equals of Custoians (since the Emperror does not seem to me physicly superior to the Primarcs, yet bein made directly in his image would forge an unbreakeble bond to the emperor without a Primarc standing between them and make them far more loyal than other Astartes) but since the making of their superior geneseed is very close to tech heresy, it is probably what they like to believe.  But even the best geneseed can not even touch what the Custodes are. They are literally closer to the Emperor than anything else and some sources hint, that they are almost a Primarcs equal in Combat, standing about 2.3 to 3 meters tall and clad in the best, the Imperioum hs to offer. (or had to offer 10000 ago, not the shit thy call "the Best" in present days, and that is given to the Grey knights -mind the difference!) Their greatest weakness is however their dependence to the emperror. they can not leave his side for to long. it is simply against their Nature. if they could leave his side, do you really think they would linger within the imperial Palace while the Imperium is crubling aroung them? The Phrase : "their Place is at the Emperors side" does not only refer to Tradition or Duty. Both of them could have been Changed by the Emperror during the brief period of thime , he was able to communicate after his Battle against Horus. But  Changing their very nature was not in hin Power. In my opinion the grey Knights are  replacement for them on the Battlefield- with the emperor being unable to leave the golden throne, the Custodes cant help the Imperium of man. Of course the Greyknights have largely differnt tasks than the Custodians- but the Batltefield of the 41st millenium is also largly different from the 31st. The Greyknights are trainded and bred o oppose the imperiums Anathema - the forces of chaos. This is the reason, why they only recuit psykers. While psykers appear to  most voulnerable to the warp, with the right trainig they can be more resistant  to possesion than non psykes. Their Psycic Abilitys are aiming INWARDS being an impenetrable Aegis against deamons, but that means, they cant use them the same way Librarians do- as an Offensive weapon (and many other things). The psyonic abillitys of Grey Knights are very limited, the only exeption are their Librarians,who have to be true nerds to master boths ways. Their actual battletrainig can not compete with the ones of the Custodians, it does not seem to be superior or much harder than the trainig of regular Astartes- only more specialized.
Well i would say within single combat even a paladin wouldnt have good chances bo beat a standart Custodian . As Deamon Hunters the GK are unmatched, yet i am sure you coud make even better deamon hunters out of custodians, with the right trainig and if you only recruit psykers (ore Pariahs)- if they could leave Terra for long enough. The Grey Knights will never machtch Custodians, they are massproduction the are the best of it but even the best masproduced ware can never mach a handworked masterpiece. But again, they have completely different functions and are hard to compare. As you see any try to do so would contain far to many ifs and whens. The GK are better teamworkers, but the custodians are better individuals. In my opinion the Custodians are better suited for such a Battle and could only be overcome by superior Numbers of an extend the GK can not bring on the Battlefield. They are very few themselves, even fewer than the Custodian, i think.

(Dang, i've raged a bunch early on in this thread :/ )

I agree almost fully.

It's only the unknown fact, that it was perhaps not the emperor that created the grey knights. But this is hard to know though.

I like the handcrafted example though.