Why not make everyone Grey Knights?

[Devon M]

Grey Knights are the super super elite of the elite. But why doesn't everyone just do what they do? As far as I know, based on fluff, the only thing that makes a difference between the GK and normal SM is that the GK have the special tattoos and the special training, also I think they are all a little psykic if I remember correctly. So why not do this to all SM chapters? If a squad of GK can take on an army, why not have legions upon legions of them?

[Brother-Captain Sicarius]

I think that it would be hard to find thet many psykers would be a first, and with so many of them running around, it would be harder to monitor the inductrination of all the "new" GK chapters, so some might be open to corruption and turn renegade. I think the emperium has enough trouble with the "normal" chaos marines. besides i dont belive the ordo maleus would like giving up their chamber millitants secrets (fluff wise nobody realy knows of the GK's)

[- 7eAL -]

Indeed, attrition rate of psykers in the Imperium is astronomical. A thousand Chapters of a thousand psykers - most Chapters can only recruit enough young men to maintain a stable population. When they are under-strength they tend to become incredibly reserved in order to conserve their existing forces. Amongst these Space Marine recruits who successfully earn their right to wear power armour, very few, probably less than one in every hundred, are psykers.

If we reduce the entire population of Space Marines to include only psykers, then each Chapter would immediately drop from one thousand fighters to something like ten psykers. It would take ten Chapters to make up even one standard Company of these psykers.

 

What then would happen to the rest of the young men who are not psykers, but are excellent fighters anyway? Should they not be given the task of fighting for the Imperium and for the human race? Human lives are a major resource in the Imperium. Many of those lives are never worth anything because they simple live and die without producing any useful work. However, where a single individual can truly excel for a useful purpose it is very difficult to let that wonderful potential go to waste.

[jester_prince]

Adding to the above post... Even fewer of the pykers that are put under trial to be a grey knight survive. So take the 1 in 100 chance of surviving to becomeing a space marine (if its even as low as that, id guess more like 1 in 1000) and mabey 3 or 4 of them out of 1000 will be a a pyker.

 

And then the chances of them surviving the intense training the mind wipe and the tourture, probably 1 in 100 survive that if not less again.

 

There would not be enough grey knights to defend the imperium and it would be overrun before you can say horus heresy.

 

The Marines are already hard enough to train as it is, some chapters take centuries to recover losses others never do, and the loss of a grey knight is devistating and there is no specified number of grey knights at one time, for all we know it could be as low as 100 or as high as 10000, either way they are seriously outnumbered. They also arnt that much tougher, they are good at what they do, which is killing demons and thats all they are trained to do, otherwise I doubt they are any more effective then a similary equiped marine against other foes.

[Justicar Valius]

as above but there are only about 3000 grey knights as a guess. Also there has to be at least 101 because we send 100 terminators into battle at once and 2 come outso i would say 3 is good enough

[Magnus Thane]

Didn't the Grey Knights novels place their numbers at 600? Though I may be mistaken.

[- 7eAL -]

Didn't the Grey Knights novels place their numbers at 600? Though I may be mistaken.

That would mean Mandulis led half that number to purge a single Daemonworld. Nice work - chances are very few came back, so everyone else has to run double-duty for at least a hundred years afterward.

That also means that they must have at least one Grand Master for every 150 men because one operation got three Grand Masters killed all at once. Or maybe they just let their entire leadership die, no big deal.

 

600 doesn't sound right.

[Inquisitor =D=]

My vote is for 3000. Cuase its ten times 300!!! LOL... Sorry my friends always joke about the "Spartan Knights".

 

I think 3000 is about right being that they usually travel in smaller groups centered around their respective Justicar. Usually 10-20 Grey Knights. And you have to remember that the universe is a huge place and there are more than enough Daemons to be killed out there. :lol:

 

=]D[=

[Lungboy]

Didn't the Grey Knights novels place their numbers at 600? Though I may be mistaken.

 

Ignore the novels, Counter pretty much did away with established GK fluff and made it up for dramatic effect.

[Magnus Thane]

Didn't the Grey Knights novels place their numbers at 600? Though I may be mistaken.

That would mean Mandulis led half that number to purge a single Daemonworld. Nice work - chances are very few came back, so everyone else has to run double-duty for at least a hundred years afterward.

That also means that they must have at least one Grand Master for every 150 men because one operation got three Grand Masters killed all at once. Or maybe they just let their entire leadership die, no big deal.

 

600 doesn't sound right.

 

 

Yeah you're right, I probably mixed it up with something else. Probably the 666 thing that lingered in my tired numbed mind.

 

And I actually like Ben Counter's interpretation of the GK's so far. Quite good. BC is always quite good at dealing with the Daemonic in my humble opinion. :D

[Skyhawk]

Because only 1 in 200 fit for astartes training survives the soul-binding.

[Winterlight]

Yeah It says all over the fluff that the survival rate for the processes recruits go through is extremely low. Survival of the fittest. If all SM were so hard on recruits there would be a whole lot less marines.