A Review of Codex: Imperial Agents

One of our focus group gets to work

The new Imperial Agents Codex came out at the weekend, and as a massive nerd when it comes to obscure little detachments and the weird corners of the Imperium, I was super excited. I've inhaled the entire thing through my eyes, so will now regurgitate some excellent and useful facts and opinions for my dedicated readers.

TLDR Version

This book is quite good and has plenty of cool stuff in it. Narrative gamers will have plenty of awesome ideas to plunder. More competitive gamers will find several old favourites thoroughly nerfed, and only a few 'good' options amid some really weird stuff. Some of the rules stuff is a bit unclear and needs a little clarification.

Cult Mechanicus

Broadly, this gives the Astra Militarum Tech Priest the Cult Mechanicus faction, a few more equipment options, and lets them have "Canticles of the Omnissiah" rule from the Cult Mechanicus Codex.

It doesn't help with Guard formations that have to include a Tech Priest, which is where most of them are likely to turn up in an army, but if you are not putting them in a Astra Militarum formation, use this to buy them, as you get some nice free rules.

Law of Unintended Forge World
Trojan Support Vehicles are a Dedicated Transport for Tech Priest Enginseers. If they are allowed for Cult Mechanicus Enginseers, that adds an extra unit with Canticles for cheap.

Aeronautica Imperialis

I want to like this so much, but it's really not very good at all.

So, you get a Fast Attack slot with an optional HQ, with the Aeronautica Imperialis faction. The only options available are Valkyries and an Officer of the Fleet as an Independent Character. The latter is amazing, the former is rubbish.

The problem is Death from the Skies. That supplement has a detachment for Valkyries that grants them Objective Secured in hover mode, which is spectacularly better than getting to reroll some reserve roles. Getting to hide away your Officer of the Fleet as an Independent Character rather than part of a Command Squad is great - but not at the cost of your flight wings losing Objective Secured.

Law of Unintended Forge World
This will be where this detachment could shine. If Forge World put out a PDF listing any number of it's fighters or bombers as Fast Attack options for the Aeronautica Imperialis faction, then they gain nothing from the Death from the Skies detachment and something nice from the Imperial Agents detachment, and you can take your improved Officer of the Fleet.

Adeptus Astra Telepathica

This is where good stuff happens. Primaris Psyker is more or less the same. The Astropath from the Astra Militarum Codex gets a nice tasty upgrade, getting an option of a second psychic level, and becoming an Independent Character. As cherry on the cake, the HQ option then gets bonuses if near a unit of Wyrdvane Psykers.
From a competitive standpoint, this leaves you with an excellent source of Telepathy Psykers for cheap. From a narrative gamer stand point, I really want more Astropath figures...

Adepta Sororitas

Most of the most recent Sisters of Battle Codex, with tweaks. Mostly, it has an impact on how Inquisitorial Warbands work later. The Ministorum Delegation is a fun little unit that lets you have a Priest, with a pick of optional miscreants to accompany them.
Arco-Flagellants, Crusaders and Death Cult Assassins are all now Adepta Sororitas units with tiny minimum unit sizes (the size, incidentally, of a blister from GW). You can then package them up with a Priest or Uriah Jacobus to form an Ecclesiarchy Battle Conclave, like the old unit.

Special Mention goes to the Mace of Valaan, which gains Fleshbane and Armourbane when wielded near a model with the Daemon special rule. Over in Inquisition-land, a Daemonhost can be put in a unit with a Priest, who can take said Mace... Do not take this combination when playing with people you want to stay friends with.

Deathwatch

Simple squad of Deathwatch, included as relevant for future options. Mini Kill Team detachment for the casual buyer who doesn't have the Deathwatch Codex - which has much better synergies. This stripped back approach may be worthwhile for people wanting a small Deathwatch investment though...

Grey Knights

See Deathwatch. Just a little bigger - you get a Troops or Fast Attack unit as Compulsory with an Optional Heavy Support. The key thing here is that you're not restricted to the units included in the book. They just have to have the Grey Knight faction. So, you can still have Purgation Squads, Stormravens and so on if you want (although I've not looked at which ones get good synergies with the detachment itself).

Legion of the Damned

Those whacky invulnerable saving, deep striking, cover ignoring ghostly Space Marines are back again. They don't have the Relics from the LotD book, but do get a command ability in their detachment to choose to automatically pass or fail reserve rolls. I'm not sure if that was there before or not.

They remain the Legion of the Damned. They're pretty good. They do a job. I kind of want some.

Officio Assassinorum

See Deathwatch, except it's basically every rule from the Assassins Codex. Including the formation.

The Inquisition

... what a show!

So, this is where it all gets a bit weird. There's quite a big overhaul, and this removes almost all the broken "competitive" combos people were using the Inquisition for before. Servo Skulls are gone, warbands are no longer a Codex entry, and you can get Acolytes, Jokaero and Daemonhosts.

You now get a Detachment with one Inquisitor and 3 Elites choices, and a Formation called an Inquisitorial Henchmen Warband.
And this is where it gets really weird.

Acolytes get Dedicated Transports from the Sororitas (Rhino), Aeronautica (Valkyrie) and Grey Knights (Land Raider variants). This is fine, despite people's panicking (p120, main rulebook - Dedicated Transports gain the faction of the unit they are picked with).

What is confusing is whether the non faction Dedicated Transports can use the vehicle upgrades from the Inquisition list (psybolt ammunition, etc) - current strict reading is "no", but that may not have been intent.

There's a light upgrade to Inquisitorial Rhinos as they theoretically gain Shield of Faith. I'm also not sure if it's intentional that Ordo Malleus Inquisitors can use Malefic Daemonology as well as Sanctic, as the other Inquisitors can't, and the wording for each is "Inquisitors".

The Henchmen Warband has some changes. You can't go all Death Cult Assassins in a Land Raider - but you can still have quite a lot of Death Cult Assassins in a Land Raider, with a few ablative acolyte wounds, a guy who can repair the Land Raider, and an Astropath to try for Invisibility. This is on top of the light comedy of the Priest with Mace of Valaan and a Daemonhost.

There's also a side option that you can take of a unit of Sisters, Deathwatch or Grey Knights to be a buddy for your Inquisitor. I already have some plans for this from a narrative point of view.

Final Thoughts

I really like this book - the updates clear out some old tired combos and give us new ones from a competitive standpoint. From a narrative stand point, we can achieve more or less the same thing as we could before with Inquisitors. We just have to go about it in slightly different ways.

I've actually found that I was stalling on inspiration for a lot of my Inquisition stuff because there was so much choice. With the formation structure a little more ordered, I'm finding myself thinking up an assortment of ideas I really want to try out. I'm really pleased with this, and am looking forward to using it!

Battle Report: Death from the Skies, Astra Militarum vs Grey Knights, 1750 points

Playing Imperial Guard / Astra Militarum is not necessarily "easy mode". For starters, you end up having to lug cases like this through the London rush hour to get to your games. One of my old regular opponents from when I was playing 40K more regularly laid down a challenge, and who was I to turn away from a challenge?

We decided to go up to 1,750 points to fit in a few more toys, and to make sure we had some flyers. I wanted to try out these new "Death from the Skies" rules, and my opponent was kind enough to agree. The mission ended up being lengthwise deployment, card missions, the one where you don't know what your opponent has.

Two teleporting Dreadknights and a Land Raider full of Purifiers? Lovely. Also, there were some deep striking terminators and two Storm Ravens. Ooh! Both of the Dreadknights could teleport. This wasn't going to go well...

The first new thing Death from the Skies introduces is a new "Dogfight" phase for flyers in reserve. You don't have to use it if you don't want to, and if one person wants to avoid a dogfight, then they can roll to try and get out of it. You both select one of three moves to work out distance, work out facing, and work out who gets to shoot by reading off a little table.

First dogfight, and I got the drop on the Storm Raven, and my Vendetta put a glancing hit onto it. My opponent was certainly looking a little nervous as I opened up with three twin linked lascannons!

Then, in came the Grey Knight Terminators and Librarian, teleporting in under the Skyshield Landing pad I'd deployed by conscripts on.

The Dreadknights did their teleport shunt trick, with one moving to deal with the Praetorians.

The other Dreadknight dropped in at the centre of the line to try and carve it's way through to the Hydra.

The radical Xenos Inquisitor leading the Praetorians, my army Warlord, was charged by the Dreadknight. To give the Praetorians some credit, they and the Inquisitor managed to hold the blasted thing up for ages, dying in droves, bayonetting it for a wound, and generally tying it up for most of the battle.

Dogfight number two. It, erm, didn't go so well. Roundly outmanoeuvred, I ended up with the blasted thing right on my tail and within optimal multi-melta range. Unsurprisingly, the Vendetta did not survive the experience...

The Grey Knight Land Raider tried to fit through a narrow gap between the bunker and the wood. It proceeded to get jammed in among the trees, and unable to move.

Some revenge was had - the Leman Russ Executioner and Demolisher opened fire on the Grey Knights, along with the Heavy Plasma Cannon Sentinels... The Grey Knight Librarian evaporated, along with all but one of the squad, cowering behind a pillar where the last of the crossfire couldn't quite see him.

The Dreadknight jumped across, peppering the side of the Hydra with shots to try and make the sky safe for the Grey Knight flyers.

But it was the Grey Knight Terminator charging in who finished it off.

The Vendetta gone, the Storm Ravens raced onto the field, ramjets screaming.

The Purifiers disembarked from the damaged Land Raider, closing with the nearby Guardsmen and their associated witch.

The powers of their Cleansing Flame obliterated the psyker, and many of his bodyguard.

It was starting to not look good for the Astra Militarum.

The flyers assisted with the mop up operation, wiping out the conscripts.

While the Dreadknight took revenge on the Sentinels.

Finally, to smoking Leman Russes, both barely held together, was all that was left of the proud Astra Militarum...

The Grey Knights have a policy of no witnesses. While the rogue Inquisitor and his pet witch were dead, none would carry word of their activities back to the Imperium.

Warhammer 40,000 Open Day - Exhibition - Armies on Parade Display

More pictures taken while I was at the Warhammer 40,000 Open Day at Warhammer World. This time, the exhibition of Armies of Parade entrants.

First up is an internet famous one! This is an amazing Dark Eldar display piece done by James Taro. I think it's a bit of a shame that there wasn't a national Armies on Parade competition last year or this year, as I think this would have been a serious contender for winning last year.

I like Orks, and I'm very fond of irresponsible giant land ships. This board has both. It doesn't look great from a distance as the multi-coloured metal plates break up the outline a lot, but it's really nice.

Here's an awesome chaos board, with a lot of work gone into customising the board to add the chaos star.

An awesome chaos daemons board, invading an Imperial city. Some of the daemons have had some green stuff work done to change their faces.

This Ork board is apparently inspired by the old Deff Skwadron comic.

Nice little Grey Knight force working alongside some Storm Troopers. Coteaz supervises from the building on the back.

A nice simple Adeptus Mechanicus and Skitarii board - really like the rusted pipes and weathering.

This is a Tomb Kings / Nagash Age of Sigmar board - the idea of the column of skeletons coming out of the Realmgate is a really nice one.

If you look closely, you can also see some spirit hosts just behind the portal, painted in the same colours. I really like that effect.

Bit of a Space Hulk vibe going on here...

An oldie but a goodie - one of the White Dwarf team's Empire board.

Battle Report: Astra Militarum vs. Grey Knights, 1500 pts

Shortly after the release of the new Grey Knight Codex, my regular opponent and part time nemesis ClauseIV1918 and I arranged to get in a 1,500 point game so he could get the hang of the new Codex.

I wasn't running anything hugely unusual in my list, as I try to only change a few small things at a time rather than making huge changes all at once.

The big change was the Colossus Bombard, but it ended up not being a massive deal on the grounds of the Grey Knights mostly rocking Terminator armour, and thus not minding it all that much! Still, I got the "new unit failure" out of the way, so hopefully it will now be awesome from now on!

The two teleporting Dreadknights decided to hang out behind the bastion until they were ready to go. Meanwhile the allied Inquisitor and plasma-cannon wielding Servitors parked up their Chimera.

The obligatory Servo skulls littered the landscape to help the massive pile of reserved Terminators to come in by deep strike.

I rushed forward with the Hellhound - I knew it was probably toast either way, but thought it worth risking to remove as many Servo Skulls as I could. The right flank, realising that everyone was over on the left, started running over to try and be some use in the fight, keeping the command Chimera neatly wrapped up to protect from those pesky Deep Strikers.

Mr Draigo and his buddies then rocked up to blow stuff up.

I think my Astropath had been lucky enough to roll Invisibility, but I forget.

Some Terminators had planned to land here, but the newly lacking servo skull and my opponent proving that his dice are cursed again resulted in them missing by quite a distance.

I was inordinately happy for my Demolisher to see a "target rich environment"...

Not very surprising Surprise Dreadknight No. 1...

And not very surprising Surprise Dreadknight No. 2...

The Hellhound was badly beaten up, but not dead!. The Terminators all elected to run to spread out rather than shoot things themselves and tempt the Demolisher...

The Hellhound didn't last, though - and with it wrecked, the Dreadknight went on to find other victims.

Spread out - but not spread out enough! One of the Terminator squads evaporated as they were caught in a direct hit by the Demolisher.

The survivors were keen to do something about the Command Squad, however.

The conscripts advanced to tie up Draigo and keep him out of my hair...

The obvious place to deep strike resulted in a bit of a mishap... The remainder of the Librarian's squad was brought down by weight of fire.

While Draigo discovered that Conscripts in numbers (especially with Divination and Orders) can be really dangerous. Doubly so if your player has a bad tendency of rolling 1s for armour saves...

The Dreadknight, meanwhile, punched the Colossus to death to make sure it's "first game bad luck" was properly expunged...

All it had managed to do was knock a couple of hull points off a Chimera. Meanwhile, the mishapped squad of Terminators had a long walk ahead of them...

Slowly but surely, one of the Dreadknights was getting its wounds run down...

But the left flank hadn't simply collapsed - it wasn't even there any more!

Kaldor Draigo stared defiantly at the conscripts before being gunned down by massed lasgun fire. If anyone was curious about the historical animosity between the Grey Knights and my Imperial Guard, it's this sort of thing that adds fuel to the fire!

The (air) cavalry arrive.

The Veterans inconveniently fail to kill the Dreadknight...

He seems really keen to avoid getting into close combat with a squad which is all armed with melta bombs...

With the game nearly over, the command squad gun the engines and run off to the enemy deployment zone for Linebreaker, but I've just lost too many units (we'd rolled kill points), and the game goes to the Grey Knights!