40k Lore The Grey Knights! Astartes Psykers And Chamber Militant Of The Inqusition Ordo Malleus

go greetings and sanitations friends and welcome back to more warhammer 40k lore where today we will be talking about the gray knights created from the god emperor's own gene seed they are the first the last and the finest line of defense against the worst that chaos can offer when not even an entire chapter of space marines is enough grey knights get the job done when the demon primark angron invaded the world of armageddon at the head of an army of demonic monsters and a personal bodyguard of twelve demons it was 100 grey knight terminators alongside the space wolves that slew the demon primark and sent his soul screaming right back into the warp this is but one of their many tremendous achievements so today we are going to have a deeper look at the grain knights their history their organizations their weaponry and of course some of their greatest successes if you end up liking the video then please do consider leaving a like and a comment down in the comment section below for the greater glory of the algorithmic gods deities with even more power than the chaos ones without further ado then let us as always begin at the very beginning the grey knight as an organization started out as a similar yet different group of individuals gathered by malcador the sigilite in the early days of the horus heresy this group was known as the knight's errant and the first nine founding members of the grey knights would be taken from amongst their ranks but initially the knight errants showed absolutely no sign of the organization they would eventually become the knight's errants were a measure of immediate expediency a stop gap measure and a little bit of an experiment as well malkador the civilized was not lacking any grand ideas after all his favored brain child the adeptus administratum is of course in the modern day imperium the only thing that keeps the imperium an imperium rather than a scattered semi-aligned group of independent planets or small federations another idea that had been bouncing about in that brilliant mind of his was the inquisition or what would eventually become the inquisition anyways even if the emperor had fulfilled his idealized plans for the galaxy there would always be a need for someone to continuously enforce the imperial truth as the crusade had demonstrated that it was not at all easy to impose a unified narrative on the entirety of the galaxy they would always be little spots of resistance here and there little groups of naysayers near-dew whales or rebellious inquisitive individuals who would delve far too deeply into secrets that were best left in the dark but due to pressing circumstance his plans were brought up rather rapidly and the knight's errants became his agent a proto version of the inquisition though focused primarily on military action due to well you know the whole horus heresy thing again pressing circumstance and so the knight's errants would venture forth from terror on missions deemed of vital importance to the imperium by marcador the centralite not just the war effort either necessarily mind you though they were certainly heavily involved in that as well another of their key objectives at this early stage was the recruitment of further agents as well though the recruitment process didn't necessarily have to be a very careful and slow one since absolutely no one knew who they could actually truly trust during those tumultuous times but we're not going to get too deeply into the night's edens here that might be a subject for another video again suffice to say the night's errands prove themselves more than worthy adepts and they were recalled to terror by malcador shortly before the siege of the imperial palace and the full-scale invasion of the solar system by horus's titras hordes eight of the night errants would be selected to become the founding members of the grey knights we know the names of some of them though much is still shrouded in mystery though two of them are worthy of special mention the first of course being gavil loken he was intended to be the very first supreme grand master of the grey knights an incredible honor but one that he refused he felt that his place was on the front line fighting against the sons of horus and against the traitor warmaster himself instead the mantle of supreme grand master of the grey knights would be given to the second individual worthy of mention revuel avida a sergeant of the fourth fellowship of the thousand sons legion an unlikely candidate to be the first grand master of the emperor's most loyal sons but at the same time there could be none more qualified to lead a chapter of psyches into battle and not just because revuel arvida himself was a talented member of the corvilia the cult within the thousand suns specialize in precognitive abilities but because of what revol avaria had become now upon accepting their place within the gray knights of the founding members all of the individuals surrendered their original names and were given new ones like satre or koios gavia loken was intended to bear the name creos and the revol arvada became ianas or janus as he was later referred to though for him it was not simply a name change oh no he was a lot more than that as the astartes known as revoir arveda was bonded with a fragment of magnus caught in the imperial palace near the gateway that the emperor had been experimenting on the gateway that magnus in his hubris had broken through in his attempt to communicate with the emperor on terror to tell him of horus's betrayal this was um a failed experiment in reality malcador the sigilite had originally intended to bind the fragment of magnus within revolt and allow it to possess him becoming essentially a lesser version of the full primark magnus the red the situate's plan was to then bind this copy this doppelganger to the gateway and therefore free the emperor to continue to lead the imperium but the experiment of course failed and it looked for a time like both revolution and the fragment might both be destroyed in the attempt malcolm wanted to kill avidia once it became clear that the power of magnus the red could not be contained even within the body of a superhuman thousand sons legionary but the khan stopped him choosing instead to try and free revolt who had been serving alongside the white scars now and had become a very valued member of that legion and he did this by smashing apart all of the machinery yes this is how you turn off a sensitive highly volatile machine by smashing the control panels i i don't understand why the people at chernobyl didn't think of this solution but luckily book logic dictate that by destroying all of this it did not cause a cataclysmic release of psychic energies instead it calmly and safely powered down whatever nonsense was going on and so emerged ianas or at least so the thing named itself as it was no longer revuel avilia and it was also certainly not magnus the red but rather an amalgamation of the two and that's just a slight side track here i gotta say the whole fragments of magnus thing is one of the better ideas gw has had in the last decade or so because it does make a great deal of sense for why magnus can be both a traitor primark waging his war against the imperium and being a complete [ __ ] out there whilst also being the same primonk in the horrors heresy the guy that wanted to surrender to the space wolves because he realized what he had done was wrong because he realized that he had been used abused and tricked by the chaos gods and it also opens up a whole host of very interesting possibilities including a potential redemption and normally you should be very careful and hesitant to begin any kind of redemption arc because it is a massively overused trope particularly by a certain sexual harassment company over in california that also ripped off some games workshop entities where nobody's ever truly evil just misunderstood certain characters like angron abaddon can never be redeemed should never be diseased but if you set up the redemption arc from the very get-go like they kinda did with magnus and they did do with fulgrim until they retconned that whole goddamn painting thing calm down arch in those cases they can actually be pretty damn interesting character arcs whether or not games workshop is competent enough to write one of those doubts anywho the eighth were then taken to see the emperor personally who approved of malcador's selection and gave them what would by later generations be referred to as the emperor's gift he had crafted for the grey knights their very own gene seed which rumor has it come at least in part from the emperor himself and many speculate that this is the reason why the grey knights have proven so absolutely resistant to the powers of chaos to the point of practical immunity with some of the grey knights including a certain draco character having been able to remain within the warp itself for extended periods of time without becoming corrupted but of course gene seed alone will not an army make nor will eight space marines no matter how psychically gifted they were they were gonna need a hell of a lot more than that and so after their audience with the emperor malcador transported the grey knights to titan saturn's moon where he had created a fully functional refurbished and staffed fortress monastery along with a vast stockpile of gene seed and 100 000 recruits each and every single one of which was a latent psyche of only the finest stock this too incidentally is an indication that the grain knights or at the very least something akin to them had been on malcador's mind for a very long time because finding a hundred thousand latent psyches which might also be compatible with astati's gene seed and of the right age group that is no small task but there was a further complication as well and that complications name of course was horus lupical and his invading traitorous hordes even now making their way towards the solar system malcador had already built the facility in the absolute most stringent secrecy imaginable and he had hidden it from observation with advanced near-magical technologies but against the war master something extra was necessary the entirety of titan was shifted sideways out of reality and into the warp whilst protected by near unimaginably powerful geller fields this would hide the entire planet not just from direct scrutiny but from literal reality for a set period of years this way no matter what happened on terror the grey knights could not and would not be discovered by anyone the secret of their existence was passed on to only a tiny handful of individuals four human lords which would become the foundations of the inquisition and the grey knights would in turn become their chamber militants the plan worked the horus heresy was ended on terror although it also saw the god emperor permanently entombed on the golden throne some years later during the second founding titan re-emerged and the inquisitors immediately set out to have a meeting with yanus together they discussed many things about the current state of the imperium its futures the inquisition and the grey knights role within that future and how they may aid one another and eventually worked out the terms for their first agreement part of this was that the grey knights would remain a hyper-secretive organization they were entered into the official annals of the imperium as the 666th chapter of the adeptus astartes and considering nowhere near that number of successor chapters were created in the second founding i gotta say stealth level novice but again details and beyond this official listing which was swiftly buried and forgotten about the only ones who knew of the existence of the grey knights would be the high lords of the inquisition who would rely upon the grey knights to do the things that not even the adapters astartes could be trusted to do but by and large the grey knights are left to their own devices allowed to pursue their own agendas and to find their own objectives throughout the galaxy they are as unwavering servants of the imperium as any inquisitor and are more than trusted to do what is necessary without the constant involvement of high lords of the inquisition although this hands-off approach almost met with a bit of disaster during the war of the great long yawn or the war of the beasts there's some people who haven't read those abominations call it during which curiel cinderman the last living inquisitor some 1500 years old at that point which is the second most impressive thing about him the most impressive being that he had somehow become a psycho in the interim almost died without passing on the knowledge and the clearance credentials to get to titan but luckily with his literal last breath he was able to impart the knowledge of the grey knights and how to get to titan and how to get through the security grid without being turned into space dust to a fellow inquisitor and that not happened well the inquisition may very well have lost all contact with the great knights instead the inquisitor a lady by the name of vietnam managed to get the titan and inform the grey knights that they should stay out of the war against the repeating plot point and she also informed them that the inquisition would be splitting into the ordo zenos and the ordo hereticus where the grey knights would remain the chamber militant of the ordo hereticus whilst the ordozinos would adopt the death watch as their ordo militant incidentally this was during the actions of best boy and absolute chad superstar draken vankerage master of assassins and beheader of all of the high lords who had been left in charge back on terror but during the closing year of the war of turgid syrup he due to pressing plot reasons namely to prevent everyone who was reading the god awful books from committing seppuku by snooze button went insane and had to get the imperial fist to come back to terror and execute him for his sins of being the only interesting character in a book series that can best be described as an act of war against the readership anyways i tangent aside that finishes up most of the history of the great night so let us move on to some organization shall we good old-fashioned logistics that's what you come to my channel for after all the nitty gritty details after emerging back from the warp after the horus heresy the grey knights had reduced 100 000 recruits to about a thousand odd battle brothers a hefty rate of attrition though there might still have been further recruits still in training granted though being a part of the second founding technically at least the grey knights did not submit to the teachings of the codex astartes though they do tend to hang out around about a thousand battle brothers give or take a couple hundred or so but instead of being divided into the usual companies they are instead divided into eight brotherhoods which are of course the brotherhoods of the eight original masters of the grey knights each of which is tasked with a different aspect of the grey knight's operation for example the first brotherhood is the steward of the armory as the name implies he's the guy in charge of organizing the tech marines and making sure that all of the grain ice vehicles are fully functional or getting repaired whatever required the second brotherhood is responsible for the grey knights warships the third for the libraries the fourth for taking organs and determining where their intervention is required the fifth are the garrison forces the protectors of the sanctum the sixth are the high senators the people taking care of the fortress itself and its day-to-day runnings the seventh are the representative to the inquisition the official diplomats to the rest of the imperium and the eighth is the master of recruits who takes care of all of the chapters recruiting needs and the continuous replacements of fallen battle brothers additionally each and every one of these brotherhoods are also fully equipped with warriors as well able to both be deployed as full brotherhoods or even as individual independent squads if necessary after all even with a little bit above the usual number of space marines a thousand two hundred odd battle brothers are gonna have a hard time covering an entire galaxy a lot of tough calls have to be taken as to where the grey knights are going to commit their extremely limited resources these decisions are made by the chapter council which is made up of the eight leaders of each of the brotherhoods and the ninth who does not have a brotherhood of his own but instead holds the position intended for garfield loken that of supreme grand master of the grey knights in these conclaves each and every one of the grand masters have an equal vote though in cases of an impasse it is the supreme grand master who is the ultimate decider he does not hold a direct role within the grey knights like the other grand masters instead he is considered the premier battlefield commander and will usually at any given time take charge of the most pressing combat assignment it is very rare however for all of the grand masters to be gathered on titan at any one time so in reality the chapter council is more often made up of a handful of the grand masters with some decisions also undoubtedly being made by astrotelepathic communication as well in reality of course a conclave of the chapter council is only actually required during particularly pressing times normally each grand master is responsible to send out his brothers to whatever he believes they can do the most good and as mentioned just a little while ago these deployments can be as small as a single squad of battle brothers these squads are organized much like the other astartes chapters with one squad made up of ten grey knights along with of course the de facto sergeant that is given the title of justica and given the job of focusing the psychic potential of all the other brothers in the squad this role is usually given to the most potent and disciplined of the psyches in that group of battle brothers the squad can also along the usual astati's lives be divided into two squads of five the so-called combat squad and whilst even space marines would flinch at sending ten brothers to a war zone remember each and every one of these guys is the equivalent of a fully trained astati's librarian so ten grey knights is probably the equivalent of an entire company of space marines additionally squads or larger formations may also be joined by a part of the brotherhood's upper command echelon such as for example the brother captain he's the guy in actual direct tactical command of the brotherhood and directly under the grand master the brotherhood also have a champion and an ancient in addition to of course the grand master himself as you can probably imagine as well these kind of ultra small scale deployments require a tremendous degree of flexibility from each and every single squad within each and every single brotherhood this need for tactical flexibility is met by ensuring that every grey knight brother is trained in every role he might be called upon to carry out this is one of the reasons why the grey knights have a centralized armory under the first brotherhood where all of the land raiders the rhinos and the other vehicles are stored and then requisitioned by the other brotherhoods as needed on their deployment their other equipment are also parceled out as needed every grey knight can serve as a member of the terminator squads the interceptors the purgation squads the strike squads or as a crew member of one of their armored vehicles there is however one exception to this flexibility alongside the eight brotherhoods are two other orders shall we say miniature organizations within the grey knights which are highly specialized and do not take part in the usual organization of the chapter and the flexibility of it these are the purifiers and the paladins we shall dive into the specifics about them here because i suspect this video is going to be long enough already but i'm sure we'll get back to them at some point suffice to say for right now the purifiers as the name suggests carry around enormous flame throwers and are selected from amongst the most fanatical members of the grey knights let that sink in there for a moment the most fanatical members of the incorruptibly pure grey knights yes indeed and the grey knights paladins are selected from those with the greatest level of martial prowess in the entire chapter to even be considered to join their ranks you need to complete eight ridiculous next to impossible quests each one worse than the other and only after having done all of them will the brother be elevated to the rank of paladin and become one of the chapters venerated champions but with all this talk about flexibility weaponry squads and flamethrowers i think it's time we have a look at the grey knight armory because there are some very interesting deviations in there from standard astati's equipment like for example that the basic range weapon for each and every grey knight is a storm bolter normally the ridiculous bone-breaking kick of a storm bolter would leave it the sole purview of terminator squads as only their heavy armor contains the dampeners necessary to control the weapon on full auto and yet it is the standard weaponry for the grey knights in part this is due to their superior training and the fact that to them terminators is their baseline infantry which is certainly saying something but even more so it also has to do with the superior quality of their armor at first glance the power armor worn by the grey knights may appear to be similar to that used by the other astartes chapters but in reality it is far more finely wrought and fitted to each and every individual grey knight the protection it offers would be the equal of artificer armor in any other chapter reserved only for the highest ranking officers and champions furthermore the grey knight's aegis armor also comes with the wrist mounted storm bolter and a complex series of psychic defenses woven into the plating itself beyond the simple quality and the expertise of its manufacture this is what makes eg's armor so very very special and the secret to the manufacturing and integration of this defensive network is known only to a tiny handful of master craftsmen even within the grey knights it is a series awards of rooms of insignias and prayers that feed upon the psychic energy of the grey knight wearing the armor to power itself up and create a near complete shield of protection against all psychic attacks and effects directed towards the wearer this not only allows the gray knights to wade through seas of immaterial fire without so much as scorching the paintwork on their battle plates but it also helps to confound the senses of the demons the monsters of the warp do not perceive the material world like you and i do instead they see hear and smell through their own immaterial senses which in turn do their best to create a similacrum of our way of viewing the world a demon can see hear and smell but in a very different way than we do and with the grey knights covered in warding runes their sensors simply slide off them even when face to face with a grey knife the demon is likely to see nothing more than a blurred shape a golden outline and whilst demons are often able to sense the presence of mortals from extreme distances the grey knights are also completely hidden from the demon's view which is another reason why the grey knights are so effective one of the demons greatest strengths is that ability to perceive reality in this completely different way including the ability to tug on the strands of fate and orchestrate events decades centuries and even millennials ahead of time in the case of some of siege more ambitious servants but the grey knights are as ghosts in this web and even the most well-laid plans of the most devious lord of change cannot perceive the grey knight's actions and of course there's uh also the function of the armor as well armor as mentioned the aegis armor would be at least on the same level of efficiency as space marine artificer armor and most mundane weapons would simply ricochet harmlessly of its perfectly crafted and thickly plated angles the suit also grants superior maneuverability and agility compared to regular power armor and this even extends to terminator plate as well as the terminators deployed by the grey knights are capable of far more delicate maneuvers than their lumbering brethrens in other chapters but of course a shield is only as good as the sword it protects and the grey knights have a wide variety of weaponry both to deal with more conventional enemies you'd be surprised how many times filthy dirty xenos get in the way of the smiting of demons not to mention of course the warp fiends habit of hiding behind human cultists another heretical rabble they can draw upon the full extent of the regular space marine armory bolt weapons assault cannons last cannons missile launchers etc in addition to their own far more heavily specialized weaponry some of which is simple variant or already existing space marine weaponry like for example the psi cannon it is in essence a heavy bolter but just like the grey knights aegis armor it is a more advanced version of the weapon used by the regular space marine chapters and what makes it truly unique is its ammunition each and every single one of the high explosive bolts are carefully and meticulously manufactured by hand one by one this exacting standard of manufacturing is made absolutely necessary by the lethal payload contained within each bolt round not just the high explosive but a negative psychic charge which must be bound within the round by tightly scrolled ritualistic prayers and scripture carved directly into the metal of the bolt which is finally then tipped with pure silver this obviously makes for a nasty anti-demon weapon and it also comes with one added bonus as well the psychic charge worked into the rounds is also able to defeat most known shield technology since stuff like a void shield for example works by shifting parts of a projectile's energy into the warp essentially it enacts a psychic effect upon the incoming weaponry if the weapon itself is shielded by negative psychic energy however there's nothing the void shield can do and so it is no more protection than a soap bubble against psi cannon rounds and of course the idea of making psychically active weaponry is a running theme throughout the gray nights including also their close quarter combat weaponry so-called nemesis force weapons now force weapons are something that already exists in some quantity throughout the imperium usually used by astartes psykers librarians these are similar to those weapons in that they are made specifically to focus the psychic energy of the wielder though the nemesis force weapons of the grey knights are even more finely wrought than those used by the librarians of other chapters nevertheless the basic idea remains the same and the potency of each individual weapon is dependent upon the psychic might of the wielder and seeing as each and every grey knight has the psychic power equal to that of the highest members of other chapters libraries it's quite the thing to behold this specialization has also led to a wide variety of nemesis force weapons initially the basic grey knight brother will be given a nemesis force halberd back in the day these were quite clearly styled on the weapons used by the custodies they even incorporated a bolter just like the custody's guardian spears do this has since been replaced in favor of the wrist mounted storm bolter however to return to the idea of variety though there are hammers fists fashions swords greatswords staves you name it since the potency of such a forced weapon is dependent upon the wielder's psychic might and his psychic power in turn is determined by his strength of mind it makes a great deal of sense to grant a warrior the weapon that he is most comfortable with wielding and of course like all other grey knight weaponry each and every force weapon is custom made for the brother wielding it nuts guns swords halberds this is all very well and good but sometimes you need something with a bit more radius yes in those cases of course they have access to the usual grenades frag and crack but they also have access to an extremely rare and hyper-specialized grenade the psych-out grenade this weapon is manufactured from the golden dust that falls off the god emperor's throne that should give you some idea as to how rare and unfathomably precious these things are pretty much the only forces in the galaxy capable of using them on a semi-reliable basis are the grey knights and the highest levels of the inquisition but their effect is worth it the detonation of a psych-out grenade will spread the dust in a large area and it in turn will create a similar effect to that of an extremely powerful psychic blank in the case of a demon it will simply just shunt the bastard right out of reality no questions asked even greater demons might be banished by a single one of these weapons as for other non-demonic psyches it will leave them blinded stunned and unable to even use a tiny fraction of their psychic powers for an extended period and that's the best case scenario presuming they aren't either instantaneously driven mad or knocked unconscious or straight up killed by the effect but of course there is yet another weapon and shield that the grey knights possess that far outweigh the value the use and the potency of every other arm or armor in their arsenal even their psychic powers and that is of course knowledge the god emperor in his prime thought to banish the chaos goes entirely from the galaxy he sought complete victory and the absolute defeat of a vile arch enemy the only way to achieve this was to create a godless galaxy one in which religion and superstition did not exist or where it did it was as a joke something to be laughed at and ridiculed because the gods can draw power from almost anything so long as there is the idea of attributing any action to a supernatural entity no matter how vague or non-specific it may be it can and will feed the chaos gods even more so when it comes to ritual or religion this is the reason why the gods call themselves the gods why their demons refer to themselves as demons why they can be summoned by elaborate rituals while they encourage worship and cults it is because this is the thing that grants them the most power unfortunately for the emperor he was far too kind and doting a father and wanted to spare his sons from the horrors of the secrets that he had to carry he thought they would be strong enough to resist temptation but as is so often the case the primarks in their ignorance thought they knew better and at this point the cat is well and truly out of the bag there is no final victory to be won against the gods at the very least not in any foreseeable timeline and so the best that humanity can do is fight against the forces of chaos by utilizing their rules against them this is one of the traps that many a radical inquisitor falls for utilizing chaos against chaos is absolutely an effective and worthwhile weapon because the demons are bound by iron-clad rules imposed upon them by us but chaos also inevitably corrupts and only the most strong-willed the most engineered for the tasks and those constantly trained in the rigors of maintaining their purity can have any hope of wielding the weapons of chaos against chaos for any extent of time but of course grey knights are just one such force and so their primary weapon their best weapon is not a bolter it is not a special bolt round and it is not a sword it is the lieber diamonicum this is no ordinary book either this is in essence a chaos artifact but devoted to another chaos god entirely one who's been sitting down for a few thousand years at this point it is prop full of ritualistic significance of prayers of inscriptions of wards and of runes each and every single spine of each and every single book has a carved fire bone of an imperial saint worked into it it is steeped in religious significance and each and every copy carried into battle by the gray knights in a ceramic armored cage on their breastplate contains precisely 666 words never any less never any more this alone makes it an incredibly potent weapon that can banish demons practically by itself its mere presence and the words read out aloud by the grey knights from its pages there are also some more voluminous versions that contains all of the grey knight's knowledge including lengthy lists of every single known demon's true name their identifications how to find them how to defeat them the specific rituals meant to banish them it also contains treaties on morals and philosophy when an exterminator's mission is necessary when allies should be executed for the greater good when chaos should be pursued when there are better targets etc etc etc everything a grey knight ever needs to know there is an even more powerful version as well referred to as the domina libre diamonica this contains not just players and scriptures but rather 666 words of banishment each and every one incredibly powerful in their own rights but together they might even be able to kill a chaos god no one has tried that yet but might be a worthwhile experiment if only somebody could fedex it to that uh draco guy that'd be interesting but now that we've talked about their history bit about their organization and wargame it's time to talk about the grey knights in actual combat and considering i did a whole video on the war for armageddon that is the only real option now isn't it now part of me would like to suggest that you go watch the war for armageddon series yet another part of me remembers what an absolute rank [ __ ] amateur i was back then as well oh well the inquisition will tell you that there have only ever been two invasions of the industrial world of armageddon both of which were perpetrated by the greenskin warlord gazgul maguruk fracker and on both occasions the loyal servants of the imperium and the armageddon steel legion along with adapters astati's reinforcements drove the vile green-skinned monsters off the holy soil of armageddon reclaiming it in the name of the god emperor but there was a first war for armageddon one that did not involve even a single orc and one that whilst it technically ended in an imperial victory saw the complete removal of the entirety of armageddon's population to be replaced by colonists drawn from across the imperium it was these colonists that defeated glasgow urak thraka the first war for armageddon was also within a whisker of turning the space walls chapter into renegade space marines at least in the eyes of the powers that be but it all began deep within the warm when a massive space hulk named the devourer of stars appeared in high orbit above a demon world which just happened to be the new home world of angron the demon primark the red angel or as i like to call him daddy e's greatest disappointment had been trying to reforge the shattered remnants of his world eaters legion for the last ten thousand years but unfortunately for angron he was possessed of all the unbridled charisma of a dead codfish after having been run over by a 16-wheeler truck thrice and so had by and large failed miserably in the effort the appearance of the devourer of stars however finally gave him an opportunity to gather up at least some elements of his fractured legion since this was a ticket out of the warp and into real space where the corner berserkers could run properly wild butchering the weak faithful of the corpse emperor and as if guided by destiny and the hands of the gods themselves once the devourer was full of chaos faithful heretics cultists and a significant number of world eaters berserkers as well it popped out of existence in the warp and tore its way into reality in the armageddon system where the groundwork had already been laid long long ago for someone who didn't want to be a slave he sure is quite the puppet isn't he anywho enough [ __ ] on anger on at least for the immediate time being armageddon had already been infested by large-scale chaos cults hidden away in the massive hive cities dotting the planet armageddon was a major center for industry and it had a large pdf presence along with stationed imperial guard regiments and orbital defenses but they were all intent on defeating an internal revolt or discouraging pirates or small-scale external threats they were not in any way prepared with a huge warp storm breaking across the system and isolating it from the rest of the imperium followed up by the invasion of a space hulk staffed full of chaos space marines the orbital defenses those few that remained in the hands of the planetary defense force and stationed imperial guard regiments were helpless to prevent the devourer of stars gaining stable orbit above armageddon and unloading its devastating payload of blood-maddened monsters down onto the surface millions of chaos cultists and hundreds possibly thousands of chaos space marines were all disgorged from the devourer of stars but the greatest impact upon the defenders came in the arrival of angron himself a fully-fledged demon primark with his personal bodyguard of the crew or pretoria twelve of the mightiest demon princes in corn service the impact of such creatures upon the material world cannot be overstated and the previous waves of madness and terror that had swept the planet and caused massive cultist uprisings were now redoubled in effort nearly half of all imperial guard regiments and planetary defense forces on armageddon were immediately driven insane or were given the cue to act on their long-standing allegiances as they turned in unison away from the light of the emperor their betrayed comrades will be set upon from every direction and forced out of the entirety of the continent of armageddon prime the ragged bloodied and beaten defenders were forced to retreat through the near impassable equatorial jungles losing further thousands in the process when the scattered desperate and terrorized survivors finally arrived on the other side they found a massively entrenched defense line waiting for them manned by the remaining pdf and imperial guard regiments on armageddon secundus in a display of incredible bravery and devotion the majority of these survivors hefted their last guns and joined the defenders on the defensive line along the rivers of styx and cairo where they then had to wait for the demons to come storming out of the greenery it was however to be the very foul unholy nature of the opposition that would come to the rescue of the brave defenders of armageddon angron and his demonic hordes were now no longer creatures of the purely material world particularly his bloodthirsters bodyguards they needed armageddon to be turned into a hell world a realm of the warp otherwise they could not continue their own existence already the warp storm that shrouded the system was beginning to weaken and their grip on the reality was fading angron built vast monuments of skulls and flesh and bone and marrow deep within the equatorial jungle where his forces made this reprieve granted the defenders the time they needed to get organized to dig in and thank the god emperor receive reinforcements in the form of the space wolves great company under the command of logan grimner himself their chapter master and so when the monsters finally dead emerge from the equatorial jungle they met an organized gun line of imperial guard planetary defenses and space wolves but even the might of the black earth enrique could not stop anger on but at least so it appeared as angron and his bloodthirster bodyguard smashed through the imperial line it seemed as if the demonic hordes would now begin flooding through and heading straight towards the civilian hive cities nearby but this too had been a plan laid down by logan gremnar who as a chapter master had knowledge of the grey knights as he had seen them fighting before and the usual mind wiping or straight up executions used to keep witnesses quiet had not been applied to the great wolf as angron ever heedless of anything else around him in battle storming forward he became isolated from the majority of the demonic hordes and nearly the entirety of the third grey knights brotherhood under the command of brother captain taramar aurelian teleported down directly on top of the demon primark over a hundred grey knight terminators opened up with every weapon at point-blank range many of the twelve greater demons surrounding angron disappeared in a blizzard of anti-demonic firepower but the demon primark himself would not be put down so easily like a breaking storm he crashed into the grey knights sending terminator armed silver warriors flying through the air bisected an armor rent open like tissue paper nearby the space wolves were witnesses to the titanic conflict as they fought to keep the rest of the demons at bay as they immediately saw the threat to the demon primark the horde served once again but the wolves held firm buying the grey knights more time to battle against the demon leadership it was a grey knight piratekin by the name of hyperion that finally turned the tide standing over a wounded battle brother hyperion focused every ounce of his soul's power fury and fate into an attack that overloaded the corner primarks weapon the black blade a demon entity in its own right which shattered into a million pieces under hyperion's mental assault the enormous strain placed upon him would send him into a coma and leave him combat inoperable for four months a ridiculous amount of time for the rapid healing of an adept as astartes but the disarmed cornered primark was now stunned and vulnerable and finally the brother captain aurelian was able to banish the creature though it cost him his own life to do so with the demon primark slain his body destroyed and his spirit sent screaming back into the walk but it would take decades if not centuries to reform again the demonic horde screamed as one broke fled and was slaughtered by the vengeful space wolves who seized the moment to drive a merciless retort into the heart of the demonic hordes the demons human allies the chaos space marines and cultists would be viciously hunted for miles and miles until being completely annihilated though the imperium was victorious however the stain left upon the world of armageddon was not so easy to destroy as the mortal followers of the gods the equatorial jungle would grow even more hostile thereafter the location of angerons temple would be bombarded from orbit and then left in a quarantined area never to be visited again or at least that was the plan further areas of the planet were also rendered inhospitable by the demonic taint and the corruption fortunately for the planet it was not deemed to have been completely bent broken or corrupted by the forces unleashed upon it it was also simply too vital a resource for the imperium but the population had been exposed the hive cities had been ravaged by cultists blood had flown freely in the streets in the middle of a demonic invasion the entire native populous including the imperial guard soldiers and the pdf troops that had fought so valiantly to defend the world would be captured rounded up placed aboard bulk carriers and sent to work camps across the imperium to live out their days in toil and eventually die those who were thought to be too far gone would simply be executed by the inquisition as they carried out the mass exodus this was seen as a most hideous betrayal by the space balls and for damn good reason he began trying to evacuate the loyal imperial servants which brought them into direct conflict with the inquisition and the grey knights with the two sides engaging each other in open battle across armageddon and in near space as the space wolves tried to avoid the forces of the inquisition and rescue some of the survivors now of course the grey knights know better than anyone the potential cost of leaving those who have been corrupted by chaos alone even the most loyal or well-meaning imperial citizen can be turned into a gateway for chaos infestation an eventual invasion but this or something else entirely the destruction of an entire world's population and open warfare against the space wolves the grey knights would come to refer to this five-month campaign as the months of shame but the inquisition was adamant and its leader in the sector grand master yoros would insist that the campaign continue however as it ground on and on for months and months the effects were limited and the costs and the dangers were rising rapidly the descent was rising as well even fellow inquisitors were beginning to question the grand master's means and his motives the grey knights were on the verge of rebelling so the inquisition did what inquisition does best escalate as grand master joras came up with a plan to invade the fenris system lay siege to fenris herself and directly threaten the space wolves fortress monastery of the fang that almost reaches the level of eldar diplomacy upon reaching fenris the grand master sent down an ultimatum to the space wolves who had only a small garrison force left on the fan a grand master himself of the inquisition would go down to treat with bjorn fellhand the dreadnought that had been around since the time of the horus hadith who had been reawakened specifically for the purpose of treating with the inquisition they had also brought along with them not just the grey knights but also the red hunters space marines a chapter well known for its loyalty to the inquisition and its willingness to do absolutely anything that they required of them the red hunters were also necessary as muscle as the grey knights they had received the orders to join the grand master but they were taking their sweet time in getting there and only small numbers of the gray knights had arrived again he was getting dangerously close to the point where he might be betrayed by the nice themselves the inquisition's demands however did not take into account their weakening position in the slightest as the inquisition demands the space wolves hand over all the remaining people of armageddon that the space wolves all undergo brain wipes that they also go on a penitent crusade as well to prove that they were sorry for their actions inquisitor would not receive his demands as the entirety of the space wolves chapter emerged in system and began their assault upon the inquisitorial armada a fierce space battle erupted as logan grimnar boarded the inquisitor's vessel the inquisitors ships and the red hunters fighting a vicious two-front war against the incoming fleet and the orbital defenses of the fang were engaged in a bloody struggle for simple survival which ended when logan grimnow beheaded the lord inquisitor logan was set to continue the slaughter of the entire inquisitorial task force including the grey knights and the astartes but bjorn felhan teleporting onto the bridge as well made logan see sense and instead a compromise was reached no further actions would be taken against the space wolves the fighting would end immediately and the inquisition would withdraw never again to return to fenris in return the space walls would surrender the last of the survivors of armageddon but they would not submit to brain wipes this was agreed upon by the remaining representatives of the inquisition and ever since the space wolves have not been fans of either the inquisition or the grey knights small surprise not just due to the dishonorable nature of the inquisition's actions but due to the damage inflicted on both sides but perhaps most severely on the space wolves the fang had suffered extensive damage beyond even that inflicted during the 32nd millennium when he was attacked by magnus the red the thought that loyalists inflicted a worse wound on the space wolves than a demon primark or a shard of him at least is um a wonderful example of imperial bureaucracy is it not but there you have it the grey knights their history their organizations their weapons and one of their proudest and also lowest moments because remember the grey knights fight against chaos in all its forms the most glorious of such combat includes the killing of demons of monsters of blatantly evil foes but chaos is pernicious and chaos corrupts and many times the grey knights have to kill things that do not look particularly monstrous at all and yet the sword must still be swung because that is the grey knight's oath and their duty until next time i've been arch thank you all very much for listening and i hope to see you all again soon till then have a good day so you

Channel: Arch

Views: 318,767

Keywords: arch, 40k, lore, warhammer, inqusition, grey knights, index astartes, chaos gate daemonhunters, astarte, daemonhunters, ordo malleus, space wolves, exterminatus, nurgle, xenos, wargaming, grim dark, astartes, space marine, heretic, games workshop, explained, fantasy, story, emperor, chaos, space, gaming, psykers, pskyers, magnus, Ianus, Janus, the god emperor of mankind, imperium of man, titan, malcador the sigillite, armageddon

Id: vvcoMo6v6wo

Length: 70min 22sec (4222 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 19 2021