Space Hulk Grey Knights vs. Khorne Rules Pack

SPACE HULK : BLOOD IN THE STARS RULES PACK By Adam White http://spacehulkmissions.blogspot.com

Greetings to all and sundry! The following rules pack is intended to be used alongside the upcoming Blood in the Stars campaign and for all of the upcoming quick missions that involve using Khornate daemons. Iʼve had a blast writing and playtesting these rules, and the months it has taken to make them both balanced and usable have been more a pleasure than a chore. I hope you enjoy using them as much as Iʼve enjoyed writing them. It should be noted that the rules for using Grey Knights and Daemons increase the complexity of the game somewhat, but only in an enjoyable way. I have made it my mission to make the small rules changes as painless and identifiable with the current rules as possible. No sweeping changes exist herein. Everything is an addition to the existing system as opposed to a rules nerf. Right, all the promises out of the way, letʼs get while the getting is good. Adam White

USING GREY KNIGHTS Grey Knights kick ass. It is a fact of life. Where normal Terminators are the elite arm of the Space Marines, carrying all the best equipment, Grey Knight Terminators are the elite arm of a more ass kicking variety of Space Marine, who have even better equipment than your normal garden variety Ultramarine/Blood Angel/Sparrow Hawk Legion, all of which is geared towards the awesome role of blowing Daemons up. How does this impact your average game of Space Hulk? Quite a lot. Your typical Grey Knight Terminator Squad, with all the lovely upgrades that follow, breezes through the 12 missions in the normal Space Hulk 3rd Edition Mission Book (I know, Iʼve done it during Playtesting.) At first, I tried weakening them down. That sucked. It was uncharacterful and boring. Then I decided to give them something more threatening than a pansy Hulk full of Genestealers and suddenly Grey Knights were awesome. Anyway here are the (at first) frankly shocking rules for using Grey Knights. Donʼt worry, when you see what youʼre going up against, all that surprise will turn around and youʼll be back to feeling even more hard done by as you did when you first played Space Hulk as the Blood Angels. GREY KNIGHTS STANDARD RULES Combat Experts: All Grey Knights use 2 dice in combat as standard. Justicar: Like a normal squad sergeant, a Justicar allows you to reroll the CP dice every turn and has a +1 close combat bonus. He is also a talented Psyker (although not the equal of a Librarian.) As such, he can use the squad's psi-point pool to use the following psychic powers in the same way as a librarian does (i.e. only one psychic power per Grey Knight turn, use of a psychic power does not cost any action points and the powers may be used at any point during the Grey Knight turn.) Warp Time Prescience Psychic Storm Warp Time: This psychic power may only be used by a Grey Knights Justicar. Place the Warp Time Counter on a target board section within 12 squares. Warp Time affects all the models within the target board section and remains in play for the rest of the turn. The points cost for any action on the board section is doubled, including when models are moving onto or off of the affected board section. Grey Knight models affected by Warp Time cannot go into overwatch, their reactions are just not fast enough. This power costs the Grey Knight Justicar 3 Psi Points from the squadʼs Psi Point pool.

Warp Time will not affect the Grey Knight Justicar if he targets the board section he is on or chooses to enter the board section while it has a Warp Time counter on it, but it will always affect other Grey Knights. If an unaffected model enters combat with a model affected by warp time, the affected model will use 1 less combat dice against the unaffected model down to a minimum of 1 combat dice. Psi-Point Pool: Each squad of Grey Knights has a pool of psychic points which they can access to boost their close combat scores via their force weapons or, in the case of the sergeant, his psychic powers. The Grey Knight squad begins the game with 5 psi points. The amount of stored psi-points can never exceed 15. Use the librarian psi-point tracker to keep track of your current psi points. Psi-Point Breeding: During the game, the Grey Knight squad can fill the psi-point pool by gathering their collective psychic ability. Every turn, after the Genestealer player has made all of his actions, you may add 1 psi point to the pool for every 2 Grey Knights remaining in the squad. In this way, a full 5 man squad will breed 2 psi point a turn, 4 men will breed 2, 3 will breed 1, 2 will breed 1 and 1 will breed 0.  GREY KNIGHTS WARGEAR Nemesis Force Weapons: There are many kinds of Nemesis Force Weapons. All of them share a common rule. The Grey Knight player may use as many of the squads shared Psi-Points to boost the score of a combat roll. Each psi-point used boosts the score by +1. The points are spent after the dice are rolled and any re-rolls have been made. The following weapons fall into the category of Nemesis Force Weapon; Nemesis Force Sword, Nemesis Force Falchions, Nemesis Force Stave, Nemesis Force Halberd, Nemesis Daemon Hammer. Nemesis Force Sword: This weapon is a Nemesis Force Weapon. It also grants the user the “Parry” ability, as if it were a Power Sword. Nemesis Force Falchions: This weapon is a Nemesis Force Weapon. A pair of these weapons allows the user to roll an extra dice in close combat (i.e. 3 dice instead of 2.) Nemesis Force Stave: This weapon is a Nemesis Force Weapon. It reduces the number of dice an enemy may use against you by 1. Nemesis Force Halberd: This weapon is a Nemesis Force Weapon. It may be used in two ways. Firstly it allows the wielder to engage in close combat with an enemy from one square away, through an intervening square. The combatants roll their dice as usual. If the Grey Knight wins the combat, the enemy is killed. If the enemy wins the combat, there is no effect. The Grey Knight does not die. The second way in which the weapon my be used is to allow a Grey Knight to attack any enemy who passes within two squares of him in his forward facing arch during the enemy turn. This attack may only be made against an individual model once during a

turn, but may be used against as many enemies as approach within the range every turn. The combatants roll their normal number of combat dice. If the Grey Knight wins, the enemy is killed. If the enemy wins, there is no effect. The Grey Knight does not die. Nemesis Daemon Hammer: This weapon is a Nemesis Force Weapon. The normal rules for the Thunder Hammer also apply. Incinerator: This is, to all intents and purposes, a heavy flamer. Psycannon: For 1AP, roll two dice. The weapon kills on a 4+. Has 10 ammo and one reload. May move and fire as a combined action and may be fired on overwatch Psilencer: Has a 30 ammo capacity with no reload. Roll up to 5 dice all at once for 2AP. Kills on a 5+. Each die rolled depletes ammo by 1. The number of dice rolled must be decided before the AP cost is paid and cannot be changed once the dice are rolled. This action cannot be combined with any other. The Psilencer may be fired on overwatch.

DAEMONS OF KHORNE A very worthy enemy. Through my playtesting of these gribbly baddies, I developed a system that adds a large degree of urgency to the game, ensuring that every passing turn brings some new danger. Playing against them has been described to me a few times as like starring in your own horror film. Read on to find out why. Bloodletters: Bloodletters are the standard daemon you will be using. I recommend having at least 20-30, because in the games, you will get to use them. They are placed just like Genestealers, entering at normal entry points and following normal blip placement. All Bloodletters have Parry and roll three dice to attack. They have 6AP per turn. In the instance of a Bloodletter engaging in combat with a model who also has the Parry ability, the model with the lower roll must opt whether to parry first and both players always roll their parry re-rolls at the same time (ie, no waiting to see if you roll badly before you force the opponent to re-roll.) In the event of a drawn combat, the daemon player always opt whether he will parry first. In the instance of a Bloodletter engaging in combat with a model on Guard, the daemon player must opt whether to force the model to re-roll one of his dice before the player re-rolls one of his dice as per the guard ability. Please keep in mind that all re-rolls are made before Grey Knights or Librarians opt whether to use psi-points to boost their score. Herald of Khorne: The Herald of Khorne has the Hard To Kill ability as described on page 23 of the Space Hulk 3rd Edition Rulebook. He also has Parry (as described in the Bloodletter entry and the Space Hulk Rulebook) and adds +2 to all of his combat rolls. Flesh Hound: Flesh Hounds have 8AP per turn once they are revealed. Before they are revealed, the move with 6AP just like any other blip. They have the Resilient skill, meaning they ignore the first wounding hit made against them in a game. They also have the Collar of Khorne skill which means the Grey Knight player may not use psi-points to boost their combat rolls when in combat with a Flesh Hound attacks against them. Collar of Khorne also makes Flesh Hounds immune to the effects of aggressive psychic powers such as Psychic Storm and their movements and actions are unaffected by Warp Time. Juggernaught with Bloodletter Rider: Juggernaughts have 6AP per turn.

Like Flesh Hounds, Juggernaughts have the Collar of Khorne skill. This means the Grey Knight player may not use psi-points to boost their combat rolls when in combat with a Jeggernaught. Collar of Khorne also makes the Juggernaught immune to the effects of aggressive psychic powers such as Psychic Storm and their movements and actions are unaffected by Warp Time. Juggernaughts also have the Hard To Kill ability, as described on page 23 of the Space Hulk 3rd Edition Rulebook. The Juggernaught has a Bloodletter rider. The only effect of this in game is to grant the Juggernaught an extra attack dice. He rolls 4 attack dice every turn instead of 3. Finally, if the Juggernaught loses his first combat against any particular enemy during the Daemon turn, the combat always counts as a draw. The only exception to this is if the Grey Knight player is armed with a halberd and making his free forward arch attack.

KHORNATE WARP RIFT I borrowed this idea from Arkham Horror to some extent. Khornate Warp Rifts are used in every game that involves Khornate Daemons. Every turn, during the Grey Knight Command Phase, unless the Grey Knight player pays 3 psi-points, a warp rift token must be added to the game and placed by the Grey Knight player. A token must also be placed immediately after any Grey Knight is killed in combat by a Khornate daemon. This token must be placed either on his the highest number not covered by a Warp Rift token on the Grey Knight psi-point tracker, preventing the Grey Knight player from having this many Psi-Points for the rest of the game, or on the Khornate Warp Rift Tracker, which is numbered from 1 to 10. The Khornate Warp Rift Tracker works as follows. Several levels on the tracker are highlighted (2, 4, 6 and 8) When the tracker is filled to these levels, new options become available to the daemon player. Using the following abilities does not reduce the number of tokens on the Khornate Warp Rift Tracker 2 - Once during the game, a blip counter with a 1 indicated upon it may be used to bring a herald on to the board. 4 - For the rest of the game, every blip counter with a 2 indicated upon it may be used to create a single flesh hound for the rest of the game. 6 - For the rest of the game, every blip counter with a 1 indicated upon it may be used to create 2 bloodletters for the rest of the game. 8 - Once during the game, a blip counter with a 3 indicated upon it may be used to create a juggernaught with a bloodletter rider. If the Khornate Warp Rift Tracker is ever filled, then the game ends with a Grey Knight loss, as the boundaries of the real world are overrun, Khorne himself manifests and devours your warrior souls, adding your skulls to the skull throne. Pity.

CLARIFICATIONS A note on base sizes It may occurred to the more canny readers among you that Flesh Hounds and Juggernaughts come on big old bases that are far bigger than your average Space Hulk square. This wasn’t an issue for us here at Space Hulk Missions, because I am obsessive in the extreme, and all of my Khorne Daemons have specially modeled Space Hulk bases (just like my Terminators.) That said, both the Juggernaught and the Flesh Hounds I use stretch out over two squares. In game, we use only the front square that the models occupy for tracking movement and attacking. An enemy model on overwatch, making a shooting attack or attacking in hand to hand combat may attack the rear square of the model it is engaging as if it was the model itself. No other model may enter or pass through either square that a Flesh Hound or Juggernaught occupies.

FINAL WORDS For me, playing Space Hulk with Khornate daemons is even better than playing with Genestealers. As the game wears on, you begin to feel terrified for the lives of your Grey Knights as they face increasingly impossible odds and face a gradual decline of their own psychic capabilities. They become more and more overwhelmed until, inevitably, you are either torn apart or you triumphantly overcome. That’s what Space Hulk is all about. There are a few issues. They are issues I can not help you with. You may not be as big a fan of Space Hulk as the Space Hulk Missions playtesting team and I. You probably don’t want to buy and convert a bunch of daemons for use in Space Hulk, modeling bases and the such. You don’t have to. It just means you have to look past the base size problems you may experience for big ol’ Juggers and Flesh Hounds and get on with it. The same goes for your Terminators. I have 50 Terminators, all built especially for Space Hulk. I love the game. I hate counts as gaming. I’m a super nerd. But believe me when I say that playing Space Hulk is a passion of mine. I get joy from my specially modeled Terminators and their equally special adversaries. Go out, buy a couple of boxes of Bloodletters and some Grey Knight Terminators and give it a go. It is worth the investment.