A Grey Knight and an Inquisitor walk into a bar ...

[El_Machinae]

... when they're in the bar, an assassin tosses a "guaranteed to kill (TM)" grenade into the room, and seals the blastdoors to the room.

My question is, who's more important to the Imperium? Who's a bigger investment? Who's more essential in 'the long view'?

Should the Inquisitor jump onto the grenade, to save the Grey Knight? Or should the Grey Knight jump onto the grenade?

Now, this is a hypothetical. Work with me. I'm trying to figure out the relative value of each of these high status Imperial agents.

[Freak Ona Leash]

The Grey Knight is more likely to dive on the grenade, as militaries in general--and the Astartes in particular--place huge emphasis on self-sacrifice to benefit the greater whole: a Grey Knight already sees his life as forfeit to the Emperor, and if he must sacrifice himself so that another high-value Imperial agent may live, especially if that agent is an Inquisitor, then he will do so without hesitation. Now on a more objective basis, there are certainly more Inquisitors in the galaxy than Grey Knights I would think, simply due to the massive reach and sprawling organization of the Inquisition, which might mean Grey Knights are more highly valued simply due to their relative scarcity; however, an individual Inquisitor may exert much more influence than a single Grey Knight, though of course even an individual Grey Knight is an incredible (though highly specialized) military asset. Since an Inquisitor is such a valuable asset in both political and military terms, while Grey Knights tend to have a far more straight-forward military application (albeit a necessary and powerful one), I would see the Inquisitor as more highly valued.

[Monospot]

There are a lot more Inquisitors in the galaxy that Grey Knights.

Sorry Inquisitor, get hopping...

[Zombiecrackers]

The gray knight would do it, Inquisitors generally are more important and high up than one gray knight and their lives are worth more.

[Lupe]

7/10 times, the Grey Knight would sacrifice himself. Their life is duty, their honor is sacrifice. Not to mention that the Grey Knights are somewhat below Inquisitors (even those not of the Ordo Malleus) in the organization chart.

3/10 times we have the following scenarios:
- Unpopular Inquisitor, that the Grey Knight does not actually agree with (squandering the resources of the GKs, causing more trouble than it's worth, etc)
- Specialist or high ranking Grey Knight + novice Inquisitor, where the skills or experience of the former are more beneficial in the long run
- Situations where the survival of the GK might actually make a difference to the immediate mission (i.e banishing the demon that keeps the Warp gate open)

[MarcoSkoll]

I can think of three far better solutions:
1) Throw one of the other patrons onto it.
2) Put the Grey Knight's helmet over the top of the grenade. Buy him a new helmet afterwards.
3) If movie gun fights have taught me anything, it's that hiding behind the bar itself will provide you with complete protection from any form of weaponry.

~~~~~

As for the question as intended, while Inquisitors might be more numerous, they are also higher status and of greater value. The Grey Knight is specialised only for large scale combat. An Inquisitor has the investigative prowess, social subtleties, network, resources, agents, etc, to be able to find and remove the seed of such threats.

Without the Inquisition, the Grey Knights would be presented with more threats than they could possibly handle (and many they couldn't). Without the Grey Knights, the Inquisition would simply find some other poor sods to get slaughtered and just Exterminatus things if they went badly enough (which they often end up doing even with the Grey Knights' help).

[Greyhorn]

Hmm... The Inquisitor psuhes the bartender on to the grenade and both of them saves xP


Since inquisitor goes in robes.. and GK with termi armour.. I pick up the GK, more chances to survive even from a suredeadgrenade xD

[Mikial]

The GK, being the selfless servant of the human race that he is, would jump on the grenade without hesitation.

The Inquisitor, being the self-righteous, egotistical, megalomaniac that most Inquisitors become, would never even consider it.

As to who is more important to the survival of the human race, much as it galls me to admit it, probably the Inquisitor since they have a much longer reach and broader mandate than the GKs do, and would be far more likely to uncover a threat to the Imperium in the first place.

[AlexHolker]

What kind of Grey Knight? A 5th edition Grey Knight, or a proper Grey Knight?

[Hellebore]

Inquisitors would think of themselves as indespensible to the Imperium, so I don't see them ever really jumping onto a grenade. The grey knight would have to pull out some amazing rhetoric in the split second before detonation in order to convince the inquisitor to jump on it.

From an outside perspective looking in, I would say that the inquisitor is more valuable because he can do more. Although there are more inquisitors than grey knights, there are unlimited recruitment pools for both given the sheer population size of the imperium. Thus the size limitation on the grey knights is an institutional one, not an inherent one. So their rareity is like the diamond trade - aritificial.

Hellebore

[Sons of Lorgar]

I would second the oppinion that the Inquisitor would instinctively toss the nearest other patron/waitress or other unimportant servant of the emperor within reach onto the grenade... that is the way of the clouded mind not yet realizing all is chaos!

[LexxBomb]

any self respecting inquisitor would just scoop up the grenade and place it in a stasis box before it explodes... problem solved

[El_Machinae]

It's an interesting dynamic! To me, it seems like the Grey Knight is more expensive to produce and more irreplaceable. But the Inquisitor just does more and so is more useful overall.

[Easy E]

If an Inquisitor falls into such an obvious trap, then he deserves to take the grenade.

[ManOfRust]

Is it a daemon grenade? If not the Grey Knight is fully justified in pushing the Inquisitor onto the explosive as it is outside his highly specialised skill set.

I say the Imperial Assassin is laughing as he is more valuable than either. This very scenario is a case in point.

[El_Machinae]

Yeah, thanks everyone. I was building a list with the theme that the army was seen as an investment, and thus there was a pecking order of valuableness (or disposableness). I could bring more Inquisitors in order to bring more henchmen, but then the Inquisitors would have to be played even more defensively than the Grey Knights.

[Juggernaut101]

What kind of Grey Knight? A 5th edition Grey Knight, or a proper Grey Knight?

Proper GK: swallows granade. For ze emperor...
Ward GK: grabs Inquisitor by the ankle and slaps him on the granade whether he wants to or not (remember what they did to those poor SoB...).
Movie GK: bats the granade out of the room before the blast door can close...epic assassination fail.

Right answer: it depends on the POV.

Juggernaut

[rickie8437]

The Grey Knight and Inquisitor throw drunk patrons onto the grenade and then jump on them to muffle the bang....

[TheDungen]

Depends on the inquisitor, some will do it, but most wont. The gray knight however have gone though years of psychoindoctrination, he'll jump it without a moments doubt, he's a space marine after all. heh i can see a few inquisitors pushing the knight unto the grenade even.

The knight may be a bigger loss for the imperium (propably since the inquisitor is just as likely to get humans killed as saving them), i dont think they realise though. The propagande says that inquisitors are heroes after all (if they're existence is even acknowledged)

[Elric]

It dosen't matter which one is killed first, Logan Grimnar will walk in and give the survivor an axe to the chops.
In all seriousness( as serious as one can be when talking about pretend space knights) the Grey knight would probably take the grenade assuming it's a high enough ranking inquisitor.