Adeptus Ridiculous - THE GREY KNIGHTS: ORIGINS | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousThe Grey Knights are a secret and mysterious 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 were created by the Emperor with the aid of Malcador the Sigillite at the time of the Horus Heresy to serve as Humanity's greatest weapon against the threat posed by the existence of Chaos.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 enforced by mind-wipes and even assassination of Imperial citizens if necessary.Support the show

with D.K. Diamante's. His name is Bricky and, oh my God, Warhammer 40K lore. But before we get into that, if you enjoyed today's episode, heading over to the Patreon, patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridiculous, where you can get access to the $15 tier gets you access to all the posters you can shake a stick at, even the new Sister of Rath one. So if you enjoy today's episode, patreon.com slash adeptus ridiculous. Bricky, take it away. Real quick, I do want to shout out a quick, quick thing of merch. We got a Forge King shirt, and for the first time ever, tank top, finally available for the summer. The new Forge King merch is out. It's like, in my opinion, the best looking design we've ever done. I'm so happy with how it's come out. It is available now. It's amazing in shirts, tanks,

more importantly, many of you have asked for the I'm a tank, I'm a tank, I'm a tank, I'm a tank on a tank top. And that is now finally an option you may have. You may now get, it's not in green, because we don't have any green tank tops. But if you want the I'm a tank design on a tank top in black, it is available. Check it out description.

Bada Bing, Bada boom. Also read Storm of Iron. Mad Lad. Also read Storm of Iron, you bitch. Oh, yeah. to get on that. I need to get, you need to get on

some bitches. Wow. Clap with me, D.K. Really, really, well done. That was some top tier. Woo, boy, I have been sufficiently burned.

Meta this, meta that. Have you ever met a woman? No. I knew it. Is it what happens? In real life anyway. You took the V-Tuber pill and this is what has turned,

you've turned into. Oh, yep, yep, yep, I sure have. So, Brick, what are we? Oh, hello, yes. Oh, I was just going to ask what the name of your, your, uh, persona is with the one eye. He's not a fursona at all. All right. He's just, he's a club.

Keep telling yourself that. His name happens to be pie, P-A-I-X. Before shy posts, um, the image of Adam Sandler saying today, Jr., uh, let's go ahead and get, get rolling with it. So, oh, crap, oh shit, I didn't have a quote prepared. Oh, no, I don't get to make myself look like a fool. I have a quote. Darn, damn it!

Damn you, Ricky! It's the Ravenguard! No, it's not. Oh, damn. Oh, nice, I ruled one out. Let's go. I have assembled you here for one reason. Each legionary in this hall is of greater purpose than you can know.

Each of you are bound by fate to become titans in the crucible of the most brutal war the galaxy has ever known you were tempered. But the duty lies ahead, but the duty which lies ahead is of such scope it dwarfs that conflict. When we leave this place, it will be to undertake the last orders I shall ever give you. Quote by Malkador the Sigelite Hmm So I heard Titans And it sounds like this little group is going into a big A big hoopla

But other than that I didn't pick up on too many context clues So I am gonna go This is either some big war a Titan episode or some faction that I am

completely unfamiliar with that's like a splinter cell spec ops death watch thing okay you're not bad in the last one I'm going to read another one

that's a lot easier to understand why should I fear the demon he has no power over me brother captain castavar doc

oh this shy He gets lots of chances because I'm trying to help. The last one is better for the founding, but let's be real. It didn't give a whole lot of context. Why would he fear the demon, DK? Why would he fear the demon?

Why would he, because he's human. I don't know. It sounds like inquisitor shit now. Just tell me what it is because I don't know. God damn it. You were so close. You got specops. You got inquisitor.

It's the Grey Knights. Oh. Be more. excited. Well, no, it's just once you said it, it was like, yeah, I, yeah, gray nights wouldn't really, yeah, and it's like, oh, no, I could have, maybe. Why did I think we already did an episode on Grey Nights as soon as you said it, though? Haven't we talked about them quite a bit? We've mentioned them in passing quite often, but we also mentioned them a bit in the Inquisitor Inquisition episode. Shai, it says you're a moron, but Shai thinks everyone's a moron. Yeah, I was

gonna say, like, I've known Shive for like over a decade, and that, that has never changed. Her thinking I'm a moron. It's constant. Like the North Star. I am, uh, I am, like, the first major quote for the Grey Knights is, we are the Warriors of the Grey Knights. And I'm like, well, that's not gonna work. Why didn't you use that quote, Bricky? I could have gotten that one. That one, I would have nailed. Are you kidding? I don't, I, you know what? No, you probably would have thought it was Eldar. I was like, this is probably a sussy quote about Eldar pretending to be Grey Knights. But it's the Tao. Mm, blue.

Anyway, the Grey Knights, I think this is technically the only codex we haven't done yet, with the exception of the various Space Marine legions like Death Watch and Thousand Suns. I think this is technically the only like playable faction we have not done yet. And I'm actually a little shocked It took us this long to do it But that's probably my fault Because I'm stupid I mean, I don't think it's a

You're a stupid thing I think it's a look at how many topics We have to cover And it just kind of Kept getting pushed down Also, we talked about their termies Didn't we? I remember really, really liking

the Grey Knight Termes Yes, I mean this is The Granite Terminaires were really cool These are Space Marines again Back when I first started playing in 7th edition this was my first army. I still have some of the models

and oh my God, did I not thin those paints? It was thick. Oh man, thick like oatmeal, huh? Oh, yeah, it was rough. But this was my first ever army

because at the time of playing and yeah, those models actually are still current today. There's a couple new ones, but yeah, they're like 10 year old models. They could use with a few refreshes, but I'd say most of them still look pretty good.

but it can use a few refreshes. You can vaguely remember someone saying that, like, well, after we had started the podcast, it was relatively recent, that the Grey Knights used to be, like, super ultra-metta, and you shouldn't just go after the Grey Knights because they're kind of boring to paint, and Meta-chasing is stupid,

because in a few years, they're going to, you know, not be the meta. So it's weird to me that they haven't gotten, like, updates or new minis, or, like, something more recently than, 10 year old models. Eldar currently the best faction in 10th edition by a wide margin. Like if there's an S tier, they're like an endemigod tier and their models still suck.

I guess that's true. I mean, and I guess G.W wouldn't be like, oh yeah, here's the meta thing. Let's make minis for that. They've probably already got their little schedule going regardless. I mean, shy, I don't know if you have a picture of the newly made Terminators that came in the Leviathan box. But yeah, those are the old gray night terminars. And they don't look like terrible, particularly the sergeant looks pretty good. Their problem is they're kind of, they have the old model syndrome of being kind of skinny in the various like appendages.

Their arms and legs look kind of thin. I got to be honest. I kind of love those. I kind of love the sort of medieval night helmet thing they got going on. So I don't mind it at all. I think those look great. So the helmets and all of like the. books and sigils are really dope.

But if you notice them compared to the new terminars there, they look a little like thin, a little lanky, a little spindly. Yeah, yeah. Compared to like thick boys. Yeah. But anyway, that being aside, so the, the great nights, today, we're going to do two episodes of the gray nights. Today is the founding, and it's like not a got, it doesn't have got a lot.

I originally assumed that there would be a ton more lore about this than I thought, but it's mainly just lore about a few of the people that do found it. So it's actually not going to be too crazy today. The next episode we'll talk about all their crazy characters. We'll talk about Caldor Drago. Or the base choice, Castell and Crow, the baller guy with the sword that talks to him. That seems to be pretty common in Warhammer 40K, though. Oh, hey, the sword is possessed by a demon and it's talking to me and making me crazy.

that seems like a fairly routine event in 40K. You know, in Curia, yeah, but yeah, it's a loyalist that use it. The point is that no one is strong. Okay, we'll talk about next episode. Yeah, next episode, yeah, yeah, yeah. This starts way back with a certain gentleman known as Nathaniel Garrow. Nathaniel Garrow is a, is a gigad, gigadad. Garrow is one of those kinds of characters

that I think Luton has a huge hard on for And I don't necessarily blame him But Garrow is instrumental to many things heresy He was an old deathguard Who abandoned Mortarian and Typhus When they went crazy and went nergly Well, I guess more so when they just turned traitor in general Not before the Nurgle problem

Yeah. He had the major book known as the Flight of the Eisenstein, which is apparently one of the better Horace heresy books. And it's him escaping, typhus and the terminus est, getting away. And then you may remember him meeting Dorn and Dorn being like, what you say? Oh, that's where I remember him from. He's the one that tried to like warn Dorn about stuff coming.

And Dorn was like, bitch, bam! and like slapped him into like a wall or something. He was basically like, I'm going to kill you for talking down on the emperor's favorite son. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it all worked out at the end. After all this and after warning dorm, he was then, along with many of the other members of the Eisenstein,

his name of the ship, the Eisenstein. I always used to call it Einstein and that was not what it was. They were part of this little group called the agencia. It's hard. Primus. It's fine. They were him and a few other people, some people named Kourers, and particularly a sister of silence known as Amandera, Kendel, were approached by Malkador, needing to form an organization which would, quote, utilize men and women of inquisitive nature, hunters who might seek the witch, the traitor, the mutant, and the Zenos. Now, Garrow was at the time kind of like a prisoner.

I think he spent some time like a garden, like this nice little indoor bio garden on the moon because they were kind of keeping him back a bit just to be like, all right, he warned us about Horace, but mm, not like him. Little saucy. But what this original goal was was put into place by the emperor near the tail end of the heresy. where he was basically going to create this special group of individuals to protect the Imperium when he was no longer able to do so. Remember at the end of Master Mankind when one of the custodians, like, what do we do now, Sire? And he's like, I don't know. Yep.

I think that's the last words of the book, actually. Yeah, I think that might be the emperor just being like, mm-hmm. which is, you know, shocking. Yeah, because it's the emperor. He's like the all-knowing great emperor of mankind. And for him to not know is like, oh, boy, we're in trouble. I do love how he's when he spoke to Ra, he smiled. And Ra was like, this was the most horrifying thing I have ever seen in my entire life.

Most big he's smiling. At this point, I believe the emperor kind of maybe either peer or, into his little foresight or kind of assumed that he would not be around post heresy. And so he was putting in contingencies for this whole thing to happen. Right. Now, we talked a good amount about Malkador before, but Malkador is like extraordinarily sussie. He's the, he's like the sussiest of all. Well, but he's, you know, he might be a little sussie.

but he's still like undoubtedly loyal, right? Malkador was like who's the name of the like the leader of the secret police in Nazi Germany? Oh, I do not remember. Oh, Himmler.

Of course it was. History, not our strong suits. Nope. Nope. History, not our strongest suits. Nope, nope, no. Okay, so Himmler. But God damn, we're funny.

Well, that's that's debatable. Well, um, again, what are we good for? Uh, consistent content. Uh,

speaking of old school, uh, anyway, uh, Himmler. So, Malkador was like, he kind of felt like him or sometimes.

He, he was really secretive and he was the right hand man of the emperor. And for the most part, he just looked like, like an old man, but he was arguably the most powerful psycher just right under the emperor of all time. Oh, yeah, yeah.

But he was still like this frail old man looking guy. And so he himself was probably, like probably did some really, you know, we talked to the lion. And the lion was like the quiet, like a hardcore, I'm going to exterminate you person. The person you,

call on to do the really dirty work. Yeah. I feel like that's, Maccador to like another, an nth degree. Wasn't it? I forget, you've mentioned this book so many times

or someone was like trying to like snipe the emperor to prove that like he could get through the defenses and Malcolm could immediately stopped it and looked right at him through the scope or something. Yeah, that was the Alfarious book. Alfarious was trying to stint the emperor. And as they were walking off the lander,

Malcador just like snapped his face and stared directly into his eyes on the top. Right. And then scary, dude. And then right after that, Constantine Valder nearly killed him. During this time, Malcador was tasked with finding people of incredible power, men and women of incredible stalwart presence, strength and purity above all else. And Nathaniel Gero was attacked. with going out and seeking these individuals,

kind of as like repetins for his traitor legion, kind of not, like, it gave him something to do after being kind of arrested, you know? Yeah. And so Gero went out to go check, or to recruit a ton of various Astardis from all kinds of chapters. Loyalist, heretical, didn't matter.

Strength of will and absolute loyalty. All right. So he went to find a couple people. Tylos Rubio was a Ultramarines librarian. Boo. Who due to the council of Nicaa was not allowed to use any of his psychic powers. But he eventually had to use one in desperation to save him and his comrades. And they ostracized him for it.

Of course he did. Grabbed him. He grabbed a bunch of other various ones. Most don't have their name, their real name there. there was one from Severin, the wolf from the Luna Wolves. There was another one that Malcador had named Reveldarvita from the Thousand Sons. There was Vardis Isan of the Blood Angels. And then there were four others that from the Dark Angels, Spacewolves, Ravenguard, and Unknown.

And as he went out to grab these various people, he formed a group of 12. individuals. There were four regular humans and eight Astardis. Now, the regular humans were

Amandaa Kendall, the sister of silence. She was technically the first ever human to order exterminatus. Oh, well, good for her for exterminating a planet. Well done. We love to see it. Love to see it. You had Lemuel

Yao Man, also known as Promeus. He was a remembrancer. There was someone named Cinderman, who was an iterator. But the eight individual Astardis had their names changed and their identities made a secret. We only know of a few of them, based on I mentioned earlier, like Tylos Rubio, the Ultramarame, Janis, or Reviel Arvita, the Thousand Suns. and they all had their names changed to Janus, Caius, like Ayapto, satir, epithem, epithias, Yotin, Ogan, Chiron, and Scrias, or Cyrus.

Okay. Sound kind of, kind of sort of biblical medieval-ish names. Very cryptic as well. But one of the more interesting people that was grabbed was a gentleman known as Garville Loken. You don't know who Garville Loken is. However, it's probably a crime that I have not taught you who Garvia Loken is. Yeah, Chad, get him.

Get him. Get him. Yeah. Yeah. That's, yeah. Garvio Loken is a huge figure in the heresy. He was part of the Luna Wolves, eventually the sons of Horace. He was inducted into the Mornival, the secret council, advisory council of Horace, including

Abadon and many others. And he was sent down to Isvon 3 and virus bombed. Oh, okay. But he was actually, he survived the virus bombing. And many months later, Garrow came to rescue him. As the Staris do, they're just like virus bombing. No, I'm good. Well, well, no, the rest all died.

He found a way to escape. So the emperor met all of these individuals for the most part. I know Garville Loken refused. He saw the emperor and was like, my life does not lie with this wacky stuff you want me to do. I'm out of here. I'm going to go fight against the traitors on the siege of Terra.

And actually, we don't really know what's up with Garveyo Loken. We don't know his fate. I'm assuming that we might find out what happens in the siege of Tara books currently going on because he fights in the siege of terror. but that's, you know, about it. So at current, we have no idea if he lived or died through the siege of Terra. At current, his ultimate fate is unknown.

Oh, okay. Nathaniel Garrow, however, did go to fight later in the siege of Terra, and he eventually was 1v-1 Mortarian. Ooh. Mortarian was a... full Primark mode, though, full demon everything. Big boy. Scyth gas mask, the whole nine? The whole nine. And, uh, oh, he, he died.

Oh, okay, I was gonna say, are you telling me he successfully one V one Mortarian? I was like, bruh. He, uh, he, he, he, he, he did have a great, a great moment where he got impaled by the Scyth that Mortarian had any, and he shoved himself further up the stifes. the site so we could stab Mortarian in the neck. Just to... That's a badass moment to be fair. You know, yeah, inflict like a cool little final act of desperation. But Garrow does die.

Yeah. A rest in peace. Yeah, I mean, I was going to say, as cool as Garrow sounds, there's no way he's surviving a duel with Mortarian, right? There's no chance. Juiced up chaos primark Mortarian. Yeah, I don't think so. God damn it.

God damn it, shy. Is that Mortarian in the fair? family guy pose. Yes it is. Yes it is. God damn it. Wow. But anywho, those

regular individuals, the Remembrance, the iterator, the Sister of Silence, they all went to go start forming the way early aspects of the Imperial Inquisition. If you... Oh, that's how the Inquisition

started? Yep. If you might don't notice, Malcador's special sigil. Yeah, Malcador's sigil is basically the Imperial Inquisition symbol. Oh, I don't think I even knew that Malcador had

his own special symbol. But yeah, that is basically the seal of the Inquisition. Yeah, absolutely. It's cool. It's the symbol of the regent of Terra, which is his official title. But, yeah, so

for most of them, they had the brand basically put on their body of the imperial inquisition or the symbol of the region of Tara to say that they speak with his authority. Hence the KGB and the references. Yeah, the secret police deal. Gotcha. Yeah. The other eight space marines were judged by the emperor and seem fitting to work

onto the secret project. And then during the last moments of the Horace heresy, the Malcador whisked them away. to Titan the moon of Saturn via the webway doing fancy webway stuff because it can't really leave from regular Terra because

I don't know. There's like a slight problem with that. I don't know what could have happened. I don't know. No idea. But he sent them to the secret base that was being instructed on Titan.

him. And before the end of the Horus heresy, Titan was taken and was yeaded right into the warp. Oh, great. Oh, this is intentional. Oh, I would think getting your planet flung into the warp would be a bad thing. Because it's the war. I would normally agree.

I would normally agree. And this is, I think, where they break a few established rules in the 40K universe that I think is a bit of a problem. But after flip, so one, it said that Malkador threw, or not through, held the fortress of Titan and was sent into the warp. Now, how the hell Malkador sent the entire planet into the warp? I don't really know. I'm assuming maybe the planet had a bunch of jump drives on it or some kind of shenanigans

there. I don't think Malkador just was like, homina, homina, humana, humana, heat. yeat. You mean he didn't just go like and into the into the warp with you entire planet and it happened?

Really? Three pointer. Woo! Kobe! He Kobe an entire planet into the warp. Right into the war. And then he went back

right to the golden throne and died. Oh yeah. What a way to go out, right? What cheese. Absolute gigachad. So, so the,

so Titan. is in the warp now. Titan is in the warp and it stays in the warp all the way until after the Horace heresy is over and the second founding begins. Do you remember young Buck

what the second founding is? Nope. Can't say I do. God damn it. It's the part where Gelleman is like, hmm, these space marine legions are too powerful. We need to break them down into various smaller chapters.

Okay, so that no space marine chapter can be like too strong. So you can only have X amount of Astardis so that no one is ever capable of doing what Horace did. Also, by the way, Lion, take this ultra boof.

Yeah, yeah. So I knew about that event. I guess I just didn't realize it was called the second founding. But I know what event you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here, Shai says, apparently they use some bullshit STD. They used some guy, the age the clap, some bullshit STC grade tech called warp nexus, warp time and was protected by macro Geller Fields.

Okay, that, all right, sure. Thank you. All right, all right. But it stays in the warp all the way until after the heresy and the Star of Second founding, which it pops right back out. And in the warp, like decades had passed instead of like a couple of years instead. So when a couple of regular years in real space, decades had passed in the warp. And as they popped out, they were a fully fledged chapter of space Marines.

They are the 666th chapter. in the founding. In a matter of a decade for them, Decades. In a matter of a couple decades for them, they turned into a fully fledged chapter? Mm-hmm. The warp is fickle.

Well, I suppose that's true. Yeah, okay. I was going to say, is that even enough time to like, because, like, where are they getting their resources from? Because they're confined to this one planet that's surrounded by macro-Gellar fields, right? So it's not like... Well, it's a gigantic...

It's like an enormous fortress monastery on it. Yeah. But how did you become a big... Okay, whatever. It's 40K. Sure. All right, they come out. They're a big chapter now.

Hooray! We don't need to worry about logistics. It's 40K. It's 40K. It's 40K. Logistics don't matter. They pop back out, and they are a fully fledged chapter

of the Grey Knights. Those eight members prior were the eight major gray knight founders because the gray knights do not have a prime arc. What they have instead are eight extremely powerful individuals, the ones I mentioned. But every single gray knight,

every serving gray knight in the chapter is an accomplished an extremely powerful cycle because it is assumed that the gray knight's gene seed is lightly taken from Big E himself. Oh, okay.

So that's some quality gene seed. And it makes sense whether or all like big psychers. One might say that gene seed is the cream. The cream. Yeah, right? Yeah.

Ooh, yeah. One unbreakable shield against the coming darkness. One last 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. The emperor when founding the Grey Knights.

Boy, that is quite the way to describe the Grey Knights as the final gift to the species I failed. Wow. Grey Knights have some big shoes to fill. They do. So for the longest time, back when I played 7th edition, you could play Space Marines, but if you wanted to play the spaceer Marines,

the spaciest space marines, it was the Grey Knights. Now, if you want to play the spaciest space, space Marines, you play the custodians. Sure. But if you want the in-between between the Space Marines, the Space Sur Marines, and the Spacist Marines, you play the Grey Knights for the Space Surve Marines.

Boy, that's some spacey math right there. It certainly is. Oh, boy. But the Grey Knights are now, not a major adeptus Astardis branch, but in fact the hand of the Ordo Malius, the demon hunters of the Inquisition, you'll notice on their armor they very often have the symbol of the regent of Terra, aka the Inquisitorial seal. And every single gray knight is a powerful, powerful accomplished cyker. and their entire goal is to root out heresy, particularly demon infestations wherever they are.

Makes sense. Their armor is gray because it is unpainted. Their identities stricken from however they used to be, replaced with these brother captains and justicars. A lot of their names are like the prognosticars or the sword brethren. bearers and that kind of stuff. Oh, that's, I kind of like the idea that their armor is gray because it's just unpainted saramite because like, you don't get like a special identity.

You're just part of the gray knights. And that's kind of cool. I like that. They are a, oh, go ahead. Even though like their identity was like erased, how's that, how's that one blood angel doing? Because he's, he's, he's still got his like, you know, black rage and stuff, right? Like, is he okay? So we don't know the fate of pretty much any of the founding members of the great knights, except for one.

And his fate, well, as far as I'm aware, his fate is not great. Oh, wait, did they just not pop out of the warp or something? No, they didn't. No, they're there. They're just, all their names were stricken. Their titles removed. They're secret. They're super secret.

Okay. Gotcha. And also, yeah, it's been 10,000 years. God knows where they are. So the gray knights besides the gray armor on them, they are inscribed all the way across their body with tons of runes of warding. These are often known as the Aegis. And the Aegis is basically words of power,

hexagrammatical wards, you know, random purity seals, things that push away demons from their body, their mind. in their armor. You know those giant books you see them that are on their bodies? Yeah, those are basically purity seals to ward off demons and stuff. But also, the books sometimes contain the true names of demons. They're real names. I remember you telling me that because if you speak the demon's name, they just and you kill them.

Yeah, they get really damaged. So it's words of banishment. Okay. He's got a book. They do. You just pull out your book and you start reading and yelling at them. Yeah. Yeah, wasn't one of the books we read?

Weren't there either a bunch of Grey Knights or a bunch of priests that just had, they all had books that had demon names and were just like, well, we're just going to keep reading and eventually we'll get his name, hopefully. Just hold him off for a while while we just read. I actually don't remember which book that was. But there was one where they did something like that, right? It may have been like a story. I don't really remember specifically. I'm sure comments will tell us. Yeah, yeah, probably.

But shy is correct. Normal purity seals are basically metals. We mentioned that before with the Arbides guy who had a purity seal of all the worlds he brought to justice. Gray Knight ones literally are words to banish and hold off demons, wards and stuff. I think that's cool that they could actually use them. Like they could take that scroll on his chest and he just kind of rips it off and he just kind of looks at it and says a name and the demon just that's cool

and you'll notice that for the most part a lot of the weapons the Grey Knights carry are rather similar their standard arsenal is a wrist-mounted storm bolter

and then some kind of major force weapon often a sword a demon hammer and a lot of times a halberd all kinds of things that have real also Grey Knights

have a lot of that old school artwork. The old school, like, fifth edition Games Workshop artwork that people find really, really popular. And I do think it's pretty cool. Yeah, definitely. But Great Knights, from there on out, after the founding of the

chapter, their goal is incredibly simple. They are the hyper secretive, KGB-esque, full-cyker, anti-demon division of the Imperium and of the arm of the Imperial Inquisition. made, I guess if you want to have to give them a primark, you could argue if you need like a,

there is no real primark because their gene cites from the emperor. Yeah, I mean. Like if you want to call their founder, like their leader would have been Malcador. Yeah, definitely. So led by Malcador or for the time being built by Malcador, now out to destroy and find demonic incursions wherever they arrive. So, so business. is a booming for the gray nights. There is plenty of stuff

for them to do. Business is booming hard. The problem is that the gray knights are not known to basically anyone except for the Ordo Malius and a few space wolves

because and the reason for this is because for the most part demonic incursions tend to mess with your head a little Ah, well, yes, that's true. I suppose they would. And if you, let's say, a, D.K., you are an outstanding citizen of the Imperial Guard. I sure am.

You joined up at 14. You got your Lasgun. You're ready to fight the horrors of the warp. For the emperor. For the emperor. You've just finished fighting off a teeming level of pink horrors, the shape-shifting madness of Zinch. And right now, you're basically screaming your eyes, your ears off and crying all day, every day from the horrors you've seen. Okay. Even though you won the battle.

So it's just so, you know. Yeah, perfect. So it's normal. You got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to have a good cry to this episode's over. The reason you won this battle is because this really interesting version of the emperor's angels clad in silver armor and books came in.

and banished all the demons. And then this large warrior walks up to you. And you, like, tears in your eyes, like saying, thank you, thank you for, for saving me from those things. And then he immediately kills you. Oh. Oh, oh, okey-dokey. I'm assuming because he was just like, oh, you're probably warped tainted now. So you know what?

You know, slash and burn. Just slash and burn. Kill it all. Leave nothing to question. Everything on this once demon-infested world must die. Leave no stone unturn type of thing. Is that? Ding, ding, ding. There you go. Okay. Scorched earth. You knew too much, and therefore you must be removed. So quite literally, like, nobody can know about the grey knights because it seems like if they, if they, go to any sort of demon incursion, they're not going to leave a witness. Whether or not they

think you're infected or they think you're a demon or they think you're warpedainted, they leave like nothing behind. No survivors just burn it all to the ground. For the most part, not everyone is so accepting of that. If you are an imperial guardsman, there's a damn good chance you just flat out dim. If you are one of a higher rank or caliber, they might attempt to just mind wipe you. They do this a lot with

like other Astardis. And then... I was going to say, because you can't wipe out another space marine. I mean, I guess you could, but... It's pretty not an acceptable thing. They might just like mind wipe your memory, but they might not like wipe

you out to death. It also depends on how strong the space marine is. The book, one of the first ever 40K books I read was this book called Pandarax. And Pandarax is a gigantic nergill infestation where it's an apocalypse book, led by Abadon, where a bunch of cattachin guardsmen, gray knights and dark angels come together to fight off this, this, you know, big crazy situation. This is a big, nerdgled thing. And at the end of the book, it was Azrael of the Dark Angels and Caldor Drago kind of exchanging curt words.

And despite the Grey Knights being the Grey Knights, Asriel was kind of there with all of his Death Wing Terminators. And Azriel is Azrael. And he's kind of looking at Drago like, try it. Literally, literally try it. Yeah, I guess in that situation, it's like, Like, well, I guess we can let it slide this one time, Asriel of the Dark Angels. It's like you want to talk about who could be the most secret around here. No one beats me.

No one beats the Dark Angels that being secretive. You hear and see this sword of mine? Dragos called the Sword of Secrets. Dragos, oh, I want one. I want a sort of secrets. And he's got the Titan sword. Yep. I mean, also not a bad sword to have. No, very good name for that sword, no doubt.

Hell, yeah. But, yeah, so, but for the most part, if you are someone who has seen the great knights, you're either going to get mind wiped, yeah, men in black style, or you're going to be killed. You're, the knowledge of... Your sword is going to wipe your mind. Oh, yeah, yeah. Psychic mind wipe or maybe a bullet. Yeah, a bolter to the face, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and shy makes a great. point where the existence of demons is not a thing that is known. The Imperium does not know about demons. General Pipus does not know about demons or that gods exist. It's the classic folly of the emperor.

He believed that believing in nothing was the better option than telling people that it's a thing and you should be fearful. Yeah, because then it's like, oh, then they won't pray to the whatever God and they won't strengthen them and they won't be corrupted. Well, it's like, well, I mean, they're still going to.

Now they just don't know that they're doing it. Right. So no chances are taken, especially when you as a lowly 14-year-old can become a conduit for, like, God knows how many horrifying creatures of the warp. Yeah, nightmarous creatures of any sort of warp. Yeah. So regardless with all that, the gray knights as they operate now are a very weird, Force in how like they're a niche in 40k that is not really expressed they are a hyper elite

tanky full psycher hyper mobile army the gray knights teleport like crazy they are they are constantly like bouncing around the place like in large bits of lightning like zap murder, murder, murder, psychic flame and then they disappear. And then zap, murder, murder, murder, psychic flame. And then they move again. Lightning teleports are so cool. In the tabletop, they have this new ability now

where at the end of your opponent's turn, you can pick three units on the field, just remove them and teleport them somewhere else on the battlefield. Damn. So you're constantly like going blip, blip, blip, blip, blip, blip, just bouncing everywhere, causing problems. Are the gray night still pretty uppercule?

echelon in the tabletop or have they kind of L plus ratio plus you fell off the edge? They're fine. We're in the start of 10th edition, so everything is the Wild West. All I know is that Eldar and Knights are way too good.

Right, right. That's right. Tenth edition came out, so everybody's still trying to like get their feelers out for how everything works. Yep. And yes, Shai says they are so pure they can step through the warp to teleport without it damaging their mind. And once one of them teleport to another planet in the system by walking through the warp.

Wow. He just straight up teleported to another planet. I'm just going to blip through the warp. No big deal. What's with all these teeth? Don't care. Hooray, I'm on another planet. That's one of the reasons why all those wards on their armor is so important.

Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair enough. No, great. They don't do that very often. True. But they can. Except for one son of a bitch.

Mr. Caldor Drago. What an ability to have. Good. What is that picture? As Caldor Drago with the head of a keeper of secrets. Holy. I was like, is that supposed to be a shield? Or did he kill that? He did the killie.

Wow. I guess it is Caldor Drago. He is kind of a badass. He's a lot of things. We'll talk a lot more about, Yeah, he's a, yeah. Oh, so he's a Gary Stu. Pretty hardcore, yeah.

But we'll talk more about him in the next episode when we talk about the characters. Okay. But that is, if anything, there's one thing we should round this out on. It's this. No Grey Knight has ever fallen to the corruptions of chaos, ever. That makes sense.

I am not surprised by that information. That seems on brand. with what they have, like, always been since that founding. So, yeah, that makes sense. But it's a bit surprising because, sure, they got, like, the genes to the emperor and all kind of stuff,

but you would think at least one. Like, half the goddamn primarks went to chaos. True, but weren't they specifically picked out for the Grey Knights because they were, like, the best of the best and seemed to be the most loyal of the most loyal. So it's going to make sense. that they wouldn't like that one of their outstanding traits is like nope we've never turned ever

not even close not even one so that makes sense to me true but it's not a like those absolutes don't happen much like the sisters of battle are i mean it's almost it's almost more impressed that the sisters don't fall because they're just regular women like just regular humans for the most part but they still have a few that fall to chaos a couple here and there yeah great knights is like zero, 10,000 years, not a one. I mean, gray night's impressive. You know? Grands be gray?

What? I don't know. I'm not quite sure what I was going for there. I just, look, let's just, so, yeah, how, that's, that's the episode, huh? Good, good stuff, Bricky. I hate you. I hate you so much. What? I'm just trying to...

I'm just trying to do a little Dean Kamen to, you know, get away from... But the, like, the Grey Knights themselves... Well, Shia says I wanted to say, none of them have ever fallen in the cast, according to them. But no one knows they exist so it's not even like they can brag. It's very true. Or if one did fall and they already took care of it, they're just like, well, we're not going to tell anybody about this. Yeah. Now, the...

Their miniatures aren't particularly lovely, though. They are a little old. That one's rough. That one is... I mean, for the older minis, that's not the worst I've ever seen. Where's Voldis? Where's Grandmaster Voldus? He's okay. He's like the newest mini, I think they've got.

Also, it's crazy to see how far the paint jobs have, like, evolved, too. Because, like, in those old ones, like, the purity seals are just like, oh, yeah, we're just going to put a bunch of lines in. And these days, people are, like, actually writing shit on the purity seals, on their minis. And it's like, oh, my God. Oh, here we go. Here's, here's Valdus. He's the newest mini, I think they have.

He's pretty good. Oh, yeah, that's good. Yeah, I kind of wish he had a helmet. But, you know, he's like a super librarian. So that's like the whole, like the hood. Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah. Damn, that is cool, though.

That's not bad at all. I like that. But, but yeah, that's the overarching, like, founding of the Grey Knights. specifics of the Great Knights, some of their characters, some of their, their units and models, the baby carrier,

especially, and how, and like the other kinds of groups, like the purifiers and the other side bits of the Grey Knights are things we'll be talking about next time around.

Yes, how they are individually recruited is very funny as well. Oh, man, now I'm looking forward to that, well, I always look forward to the next episode, but still, I want to know how they're recruited. Luckily, the Grey Knights founding is not that hard to describe because it's so wrapped in secrecy. And if it's wrapped so hard in secrecy, well, you know, it's like, oh, well. Yeah.

Just kind of chilling. But yeah. Yeah. I think the Grey Knights are cool. I like that. That's a nice little founding. They're very secretive. They're very scorched earth.

Very killed the demons. Yeah, cool. I dig it. They are, dig it. They are, um, one of the, they are a very, they are a very, very good. very hyper-specific kind of group. If you want to run great, if you want to run space marines,

but you really want to run like nothing but old-school wizard space marines, these are the ones. These are the guys. The ultra-cykers. Very fast, very mobile, very tough, all at the same time. That's cool.

Anyway, next episode, we're going to talk about the man who like lives in the warp Wow Bye What What?