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1 / 4 · Click to enlargeLore & origins
Paladins are the elite champions of the Grey Knights. Bravery and skill are not enough to become one. A candidate must complete eight quests, each harder than the last. He spends a day and a night in the haunted caverns beneath Mount Anarch on Titan, and then confronts the dread tome Abbiallach chained in the Chapter's Sanctum Sanctorum.
The quests then test his strength at arms. He goes unarmoured to Lansel's Tomb on the doomed moon of Tethys, then hunts down a Herald of each of the four Chaos Gods and brings back a horn or tooth as proof. The last and hardest quest is to banish one of the six hundred and sixty-six most powerful daemons ever to manifest, armed only with his Nemesis sword and the daemon's true name from the Iron Grimoire.
A Grey Knight who passes leaves his brotherhood and takes his place in the Hall of Champions in the Citadel of Titan. He is then bound to one of the Chapter's Grand Masters as bodyguard, champion and adviser. Abandoning the quests is almost unheard of.
Paladins are the Grey Knights' elite Terminator champions. Only warriors who complete a series of punishing trials can join the Paladin ranks. They stand with the Grand Masters, and a select few serve as the Brotherhood Champion. They are among the most experienced daemon-killers in the Imperium.
To join the Paladins, a Grey Knight must complete eight quests, each harder than the last, to prove his character and cause. Paladins carry a Liber Daemonica, a book of knowledge taken from the Sanctum Sanctorum, which acts as a psychic talisman. Its pages are illuminated in silver and its spine is carved from a martyred saint's thigh bone. Grey Knight Apothecaries serve in Paladin squads. Without them, the sources say, the Chapter's genetic heritage would be lost and the Chapter would die out within decades.
Appearance & wargear
Paladins wear ornate Terminator armour of silver and gold, covered in sacred texts, purity seals and wards. They carry Nemesis force weapons, storm bolters, psycannons, psilencers and incinerators. Their armour is decorated more richly than ordinary Grey Knights Terminators.
They wear ornate Terminator armour with psychic hoods and nemesis force weapons, storm bolters and psycannons.
Weapons & Vehicles
Psychically attuned silvered blades, halberds and daemon hammers forged exclusively for the Grey Knights of Titan, channelling the wiel…
A twin-barrelled, double-chambered automatic bolter wielded one-handed by Space Marine Terminators, Grey Knights and battle tank pintle…
A volatile liquid-promethium projector that floods bunkers, trenches and xenos swarms in clinging, self-oxidising gouts of cleansing ch…
A heavily armed VTOL assault gunship and flying transport of the Adeptus Astartes and Grey Knights, capable of carrying both a full squ…
Explore all 48 entries in the Weapons & Vehicles armoury.
Battlefield role & tactics
Paladins are elite heavy infantry and bodyguards. They protect Grand Masters, break through to daemonic leaders, and anchor the line against the toughest foes. Their skill with every weapon makes them deadly in any fight.
Paladins are deep-striking elite heavy infantry who fight Greater Daemons, Daemon Princes and Chaos champions. They are tough and very powerful in melee, but expensive and slow.
Paladins are the best Grey Knights in Terminator armour. They are elite melee and psychic shock troops whose combined psychic power can produce the "Holocaust," a ball of white fire. They are expensive and few in number, so they are used against the greatest threats.
Field Modifications, Sub-Faction Doctrines & Operational Idiosyncrasies
Within the strategic threat-indices of the Departmento Munitorum, the Ordo Xenos, and the high command savants of Grey Knights, Grey Knights Paladins are classified as a premier elites asset whose battlefield effectiveness stems from the tight integration of operator conditioning and specialized wargear. Deep within the Chamber of Purity on Saturn's moon of Titan, prognosticars and Techmarines attune each brother's silvered Aegis psychic lattice and Nemesis psi-matrix so the entire squad channels a single gestalt ward against the Immaterium. In active campaign theatres, Paladins wear ornate Terminator armour of silver and gold, covered in sacred texts, purity seals and wards. They carry Nemesis force weapons, storm bolters, psycannons, psilencers and incinerators.
Veteran formations of Grey Knights Paladins develop distinct sub-faction doctrines and field modifications over decades of continuous deployment. The final test involves the Iron Grimoire, which holds the true names of the 666 most powerful daemons. The candidate must banish one of them. Whether fighting in void-ship boarding actions, ash-waste tank duels, or ruined hive-city basilicas, experienced crews and squad leaders strip away parade-ground redundancies to maximize ammunition feed reliability, target-acquisition speed, and close-quarters survivability under extreme suppression.
Field maintenance and biological or machine-spirit recovery logs confirm that sustained combat exacts a heavy toll on both wargear and flesh, yet Grey Knights Paladins maintain operational cohesion long after standard line units would collapse. Following every major engagement, recovery teams prioritize the immediate extraction of their core panoply, veterancy honors, and consecrated components so that the lineage and lethal institutional memory of the formation endure into the next warzone.
Heraldry, Battle-Damage & Community Artistry
Across the Warhammer 40,000 illustration, Golden Demon painting, and display-diorama community, Grey Knights Paladins stand out as one of the most rewarding subjects in the Grey Knights range. Artists and miniature painters focus intently on their signature visual hallmarks: unpainted, mirror-burnished gleaming Titan silver armour washed in cool ethereal blue recesses, gold-inlaid anti-daemonic high gothic scripture carved across every plate, and crackling turquoise psi-blade lightning. Combined with the distinct silhouette described in field sightings—Paladins wear ornate Terminator armour of silver and gold, covered in sacred texts, purity seals and wards—every model and canvas painting offers a rich interplay of texture between rigid armour plates, weathered cloth or chitin, and gleaming weapon assemblies.
When depicting Grey Knights Paladins at the height of battle, community artists and painters push contrast through sponge-chipped battle damage, directional mud and ash pigments across the lower greaves or hull tracks, and vivid Object Source Lighting (OSL) cast by active lenses, energy coils, or muzzle flashes. Sub-faction heraldry, campaign badges, and trophy details allow hobbyists to anchor each miniature or illustration in a specific canonical warzone—celebrating both the grimdark complexity of the Forty-First Millennium and the craftsmanship of the community that brings Grey Knights to life.
Notable battles & users
- Hall of Champions: the Paladins' hall in the Citadel of Titan.
- Grand Masters: each Paladin serves a Grand Master as bodyguard and adviser.
Related
Characters (1)
Kaldor Draigo · Supreme Grand Master of the Grey Knights
