Khornate Knights

This article is about something that is considered by the overpowering majority of /tg/ to be fail. Expect huge amounts of derp and rage, punctuated by /tg/ extracting humor from it.

This article or section involves Matthew Ward, Spiritual Liege, who is universally-reviled on /tg/. Because this article or section covers Ward's copious amounts of derp and rage, fans of the 40K series are advised that if they proceed onward, they will see fluff and crunch violation of a level rarely seen.

I make no claims to be a fan of the Bolter Bitches, but this is one of the most grievous offenses Matt Ward has transcribed to paper.

Not to be confused with Khornate Knights or Skullcrushers

SoBs make shmancy hats as well. Grey Knights have apparently taken a page from Necron Flayers.

But that this were real.

Really though, the Grey Knights and Sistas are total bros. Disregard Ward. As usual.

Rage

Basically one story in the new Grey Knight Codex, Bloodtide, lists the Grey Knights as coming across a planet wherein a powerful daemonblade resided - one so powerful that it was corrupting the planet around the artifact. There was a convent of Sisters near the site whose faith was keeping them pure and untouched by the taint, and instead of asking for the Sisters' assistance the Grey Knights proceeded to slaughter them all, desecrate the bodies, and then smear the blood of the Sisters all over their armor to protect them from the corruption, then go about systematically destroying everything on the planet and taking the daemon sword for themselves. All after the codex stating literally that their faith is strong enough to protect them from any kind of daemonic corruption.

Think about this, for just a minute. The Sisters' faith protected them from being corrupted. Yet, as has been shown before, there have been a few Sisters of Battle that have fallen to Chaos. In come the Grey Knights, whose faith is so powerful it is quite literally their strongest weapon and their most potent protection. These Grey Knights' faith is not strong enough to withstand the temptations of Chaos, while the Sisters' is? Does that make ANY sense at all?

This is a classic case of extra heresy; canon to this point had implicitly detailed 3 things:

• That the Grey Knights greatly loathe the daemonic, to the point where the Black Templars' and Angry Marines' hatred for it would look like that of a guardsman in comparison.

• That no Grey Knight in the history of the chapter has ever fallen to the temptations of Chaos due to the massive amounts of spiritual and physical indoctrination and training they go through that would make the Space Marines' training and creation regiment look like your morning workout.

• That but a single Sister of Battle has fallen to Chaos.

And yet we have this - evidence of the darkest kind of heresy, if not outright Khorne worship, and it's canon.

Fucking Matt Ward. Next thing you know, Kharn will be working for the Tau or something. Yeah about that....funny thing happened guys...*nervous laugh* ' *BLAM* HERESY!!!!!

And the Sisters of Battle get mutilated a lot whenever Ward comes near them. We're starting to get the feeling that he's into sexist snuff flicks.

Counterpoint

You know, anyone with a basic working knowledge of the setting could understand why this works the way it does. Faith is powerful because of the FAITH, not because of what they have faith in, per se. The powers of the Sisters of Battle are as much like the Orkish Waaaaagh, IE: Miracles happen because they expect miracles. The Sisters, SOME OF THEM, had faith strong enough to resist the physical corruption of the blade. The Grey Knights, not seeing the Emperor as a God or HAVING that sort of faith, were not. Even if they weren't corrupted in body into evil Chaos Grey Knights, they could easily have triggered the Grey Knights protections and just killed them in the process.

Far be it from simply falling on the sisters and slaughtering them for the heck of it or 'desecrating' their bodies. It says they did slay them, yes, but then used their blood in rites that made sacred amulets, IE: something very IoMish given how fucking half their technology is based around taking human parts and integrating them into things. They didn't just bathe in the blood like freaks. They also took the daemon weapon because it was too strong to be destroyed, so they had to take it to prevent it from being used.

Really, while maybe not the best fluff, it's hardly the super extra heresy people make it out to be, and they just have twisted it so they can continue their Wardhate. Not saying he's supergreat, but christ, he's better than some. He may make some mistakes, but he also makes codices that are honestly fun to play.' *BLAM* EXTRA HERESY!!!!! AND PROBABLY ONE OF MATT'S SOCKPUPPETS.

On Misogyny

Now for the tricky part; misogyny is subjective, with most people defining it as an irrational or pathological dislike of women.

There is in that definition alone three points for us to try to puzzle this one out:

• For the fa/tg/uys to whom Bloodtide is misogyny it is fairly obvious (given that there was no reason for the Sisters of Battle to die in universe) that their deaths were the direct result of an irrational act of contempt for women or misogyny by Matt "bane of /tg/'s existence" Ward.

• To the second group of fa/tg/uys, 40K is a violent setting in which people get killed horribly all the time, and the Sisters of Battle are no exception to this (see for example the Second Battle of Sanctuary 101 in the novel Hammer and Anvil); to this group the Sister's deaths are a result of the general misanthropy of the setting, which delights in the brutal slaughter of humans (and xenos) regardless of gender.

• There is however a third interpretation of the events of Bloodtide, but it is of some sophistication, ergo not a product of Matt "Ima troll u" Ward. Were he so capable he could have used Bloodtide to demonstrate that the Imperium is sexist, the Grey Knights flawed, and that the needless deaths therein would have been seen as unimportant because the victims were women, in short using sexism irrrrrrrronically. To this smar/tg/uy, it is infinitely more likely that Matt "I failed Women's Studies 101" Ward failed to understand the very problematic nature of the Women in Refrigerators trope, which led to him creating a story in which the Grey Knights act as misogynistic wankers. That said there's no reason to believe that 38,000 years of human history has led to any sort of decline in sexism.

Which of these you believe is most plausible probably depends on how deep seated your hatred of Ward is, whether you are the type of person to give others the benefit of the doubt or to immediately assume the worst, and how you feel about violence towards women. However, the Grey Knights are humans. Stalwart protectors of mankind. Holy Warriors of the Emperor bla bla bla. I'm pretty sure that killing humans of any sort - most especially the holy Daughters of the Emperor - is heresy when done for absolutely no reason. Also, note the utter lack of "And the Grey Knights killed all the Imperial Guardsmen for lulz" in the codex, or any of Matt Ward's writings.

As it stands, we'll be keeping an eye on him. Y'know, because we've nothing better to do. And because the last group of Sister Militants we assigned to this thankless task tried to kill him.