Grey Knights Justicar

A Grey Knights Justicar in Aegis Terminator Armour

A Grey Knights Justicar is a rank of a junior leader that is unique to the Grey Knights Space Marine Chapter. The first rank above a Grey Knights Battle-Brother, a Justicar is the equivalent to the rank of a Space Marine Sergeant found in other Chapters. Holding this command is the first step on the path for a Grey Knight to become a Grand Master of the Chapter. Justicars also lead Grey Knight Terminator Squads, although such officers are usually referred to as a "Brother-Captain" rather than Justicar. Unlike the lower ranks in the Grey Knights, a Justicar is permitted to wear his own personal heraldry as a sign of his position as a leader.

Wargear

• Artificer Aegis Power Armour
• Aegis Terminator Armour
• Wrist-mounted Storm Bolter
• Nemesis Force Weapon
• Frag Grenades & Krak Grenades
• Psyk-Out Grenades
• Liber Daemonica - The Liber Daemonica is an enduring symbol of the Grey Knight's devotion to his mission, and contains the cardinal tenets of lore culled from the dark knowledge caged within the Sanctum Sanctorum 's walls. Every Grey Knight carries a copy of the Liber Daemonica in a ceramite case on his breastplate. These gnarled tomes contain the Chapter's rites of battle and detail the traditional duties of every Grey Knights' rank. The books themselves are also potent talismans in their own right, with pages illuminated in silver and bound to a spine carved from the thigh bone of a martyred saint.

Psychic Powers

• Hammerhand - Focusing the raging power of their minds, Grey Knights can augment their already prodigious might. Even unarmed, such a warrior can crush flesh and bone in close combat -- given blade or hammer there is little limit to what they can slay.

Notable Grey Knights Justicars

• Justicar Alaric - Justicar Alaric found himself and the Grey Knights strike force under his command hunting down the Daemon Prince of Tzeentch named Ghargatuloth, the Prince of a Thousand Faces. In the course of this hunt, Alaric discovered a number of hidden Chaos Cults along the Trail of St. Evisser, who were servants of the enemy. When his ally in the hunt, the Inquisitor Ligeia, found her mind being altered by the powers of the daemons, and was subsequently executed at the Inquisitorial prison located on Mimas, another of the moons of Saturn, Alaric was forced to decipher the secrets of the Trail himself. His quest finally lead him to Vulcanis Ultor, the Hive Superior (Hive World) of the Trail. It was on Vulcanis, after a brief battle with the confused Sisters of Battle of the Order of the Bloody Rose, that Alaric made his way into the Fallen Saint's tomb and faced off against it and its unimaginable strength. It is only when his fellow Grey Knight, the Terminator Justicar Tancred, smote the corrupted Saint that Ghargatuloth was able to emerge into realspace. By saying the daemons' true name, Alaric brought the creature into the physical realm, where with the help of all the loyal Imperial forces nearby they banished the Daemon Prince back into the Warp for another one thousand Terran years. Mental qualities normally destroyed by the training of a Grey Knight such as imagination and creativity were still found in Alaric. Combined with the physical and psychic abilities of a Grey Knight, his sharp mind was the decisive factor that later allowed him to survive on the Daemon World of Drakaasi where he was captured and stripped of his armor. These characteristics may be deemed by his peers as an unwanted risk among Grey Knights and may ultimately prevent Alaric from attaining the rank of Captain within the Chapter. However, Inquisitor Nyxos seems to have special plans to better employ Alaric's skills within the Inquisition in the days to come.
• Justicar Tancred - Tancred is revered within the Chapter as the best swordsman Justicar Alaric has ever seen, second only to Brother-Captain Stern himself. Tancred himself could become a captain in his own right, but chose the life of the elite soldier instead. Having never met his match in battle, nor finding an agent of Chaos strong enough to contend with him, Tancred finally met his death following the summoning of the Daemon Prince Ghargatuloth. The Grey Knight strike force sent to stop the rising of the daemon met the Herald of the Prince of a Thousand Faces, who was none other than the daemon-warped corpse of the Fallen Saint Evisser. Standing four times the height of a Grey Knight, the Saint fought the strike force and slaughtered any Astartes who strayed too near. Tancred, wounded and wielding the Sword of Mandulis, rose from the smoke and approached the Fallen Saint, saying a time-honoured Battle Prayer of a Martyred Grey Knight, "I am the Hammer. I am the sword in His hand. I am the Gauntlet about His fist. I am the Bane of His foes and the woes of the treacherous. I am the End." With two of his Battle-Brothers, Justicar Santoro and Justicar Alaric, Tancred beheaded the Saint, and allowed Ghargatuloth to be born into realspace once more, giving Alaric the opportunity he needed to say the daemon's true name. In doing so, Tancred gave his life, but brought about the banishment of the Prince of a Thousand Faces. Neither Tancred's body nor his armour were found in the aftermath of Ghargatuloth's banishment, which has left some to speculate that he may still be alive within the Warp.
• Justicar Anval Thawn - Destined to perform great deeds, Anval Thawn was found by the Great Knights Gatherers aboard one of the many Black Ships that continuously scour the galaxy to bring powerful psykers to Terra. The many notable deeds performed by this valiant Grey Knight earned Thawn the esteemed rank of Justicar, and soon came to rival those of the Chapter's greatest and most honoured heroes. Thawn was eventually slain upon the unholy spear of a foul daemon. When he was to be interred within the holy crypts on the Grey Knights' homeworld of Titan, he was miraculously resurrected from death by unknown means. Since that time, Thawn has died several times, but on each occasion, he somehow returns to life, ready to continue to battle the enemies of Mankind. Some believe he is an agent of destiny, the promised immortal warrior of prophecy who, at the last, will die surrounded by enemies at the foot of the Golden Throne itself. Whether this prophecy will come to pass remains to be seen.

Sources

• Codex: Grey Knights (5th Edition)
• Codex: Daemon Hunters (3rd Edition), p. 7
• The Inquisition: Illustrated Guide, p. 52
• Grey Knights (Novel) by Ben Counter
• The Hammer of Daemons (Novel) by Ben Counter
• The Emperor's Gift (Novel) by Aaron Demski-Bowden
• The Killing Ground (Novel) by Graham McNeill