Codex Grey Knights

I picked up my copy of Codex Grey Knights from Game Kastle on April 1st. At first glance, there seems to be a lot of new history linking to both the Horus Heresy novels and the artbook. It should be noted that Mat Ward wrote this codex, who seems to be the new owner of all things Space Marine. Mat's previous works includes the 5th edition Codex Space Marines and Codex Blood Angels.


This codex follows the format of the previous 5th edition codices; the history and the founding of the Grey Knights, Chapter 666's organization, a listing of the great battles fought by the Chapter, a description of each of the units available in the army, the wargear section, the 'eavy Metal color pictures, and on page 82 of 96 is where the gaming section begins. This section is broken up in the traditional format of HQ, Elite, Troops, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support. Seven pages of HQ options are available to the army, 4 Grey Knight special characters, 4 generic HQ selections, 3 special character Inquisitors (one for each Ordos), and 3 generic Inquisitors (one for each Ordos). 9 Elite choices include Paladins, Purifiers, Venerable Dreadnoughts, Techmarines, Assassins and Inquisitional warbands. Terminator squads and Power Armored Strike Squads are the only Troops options without the special character special rules. The Stormravens and Interceptor Squads are the Fast Attack options in the army. The Purgation Squads, Dreadnoughts, Dreadknights, and 3 Land Raider variants are all the available Heavy Support selections. I'll detail each section of the codex in later posts. However, I'll give you a general feeling of how this codex matches the other Mat Ward codices and the other 5th edition codices.


Like all the 5th edition codices, this codex seems to retcon previously established fluff history to establish a more cohesive link to both the Horus Heresy work and the publications from Black Library. There's also the license to be original that Mat Ward has decided to use. He has a Grand Master of the Grey Knights lost and wandering all eternity in the Warp. He can only return when there's a large enough rift caused by daemonic intrusion. There's another special HQ choice who wields a Daemon Sword. He has decided that the reason that Titan, the moon of Saturn and the home of the Grey Knights, was to be magically hidden from prying eyes since the Horus Heresy. There are additional plot devices that make the Grey Knight fluff less arcane and pure and more magical and driven. It isn't necessarily bad, but it isn't consistent with the imagery portrayed up to this point. Grey Knights have been popularized with dramatic last stands with Aegis Terminators winning against all odds. Mat Ward's version is more of the "look at this new shiny toy."


The number of options available to a general is staggering. Stormravens, 7 special characters (not including the character upgrade for Terminators), unlimited number of Assassins, and the Nemesis Dreadknight. The thing to note, this army will still get outnumbered. The costs are high, but it does give the Grey Knights an army of Psykers. It's good to remember that the Grey Knights are fairly points limited. A five man, not upgraded Power Armored, squad easily breaks 100pts. Many of the changes have made the Grey Knights playable in a tournament and playable against the various codices. At the same time, the changes have really removed the items that make the Grey Knights the pure anti-chaos force.