Making the Inquisition playable in 9th

[Lord_Ikka]

Hello all. I'm starting up an Inquisition stormtrooper-themed army and have been unfortunately stymied by GW's seemingly lack of care when writing the rules for the Inquisition in 8th/9th (I have a perfectly fine list, but it is basically just a Scions list with a couple of attached Inquisitors). The White Dwarf update, while allowing individual Inquisitors to be attached to allied Imperial detachments, killed off the ability to have more than one Inquisitor in a Inquisition detachment- making the Inquisition-only detachments less useful on their own. This combined without having any Troop choice severely hurts the Inquisition as a usable sub-faction, as only Vanguard detachments are readily able to be taken (unless someone magically has three Land Raider Prometheus lying around). I was thinking how to make them usable and useful, and came up with some ideas that I thought might work for house-rules for casual games. Can I get some input on my thoughts?

 

-Changes-

Remove the restriction of one Inquisitor per Inquisition detachment. Replace it with 0-2 Inquisitors and 0-3 Interrogators.
Move Acolytes to Troops choice. Increase their available size to 10. Restrict stormbolter, melta, and plasma weapons to 3 per unit.
 
-New Units-

Interrogator (HQ)
Similar to Inquisitor, lesser W (4) A (3) L (8). 4+ save, optional 5+ invuln for +15 points. 40 points.
Special Rule- Agent in Command: Re-roll Wounds of 1 for friendly <ORDOS> units within 6 inches.

Veteran Acolytes (Elite)
Similar to regular acolytes. Unit size 1-6. Add 1W, 1A, and 4+ save to Acolyte profile. 13 points each. No limit to special weapons from the ranged list. Armed with laspistol and chainsword, can replace the laspistol with Pistol/Ranged weapon and the chainsword with Pistol/Melee weapon.
 
-Add-in Units-
Transports
Add in Chimera, Taurox, Taurox Prime, Rhino, and Land Raider to Transports list.
 
Flyer
Add Valkyrie and Arvus Lighter to Flyers list.

Edited October 26, 2020 by Lord_Ikka

[Brother Tyler]

Personally, I agree with the concept of the single Inquisitor with Acolytes joining some other army as a representation for how Inquisitors normally operate. I agree that the execution left something to be desired, but the problem (as I see it) is more that the Acolytes concept is far too simplistic for the lore. In this, I distinguish between the Inquisitor's personal retinue (acolytes and other servants) and military forces that might be assigned to/commandeered by the Inquisitor (Inquisitorial Storm Troopers, etc.). Acolytes can come from a wide variety of backgrounds, so there would need to be either a very flexible unit entry (perhaps allowing each model to be customized) or a wide variety of acolyte type entries (presumably with the ACOLYTE keyword), or both. In this way, you might see an Inquisitor with a desperado, lexmechanic, and missionary as acolytes in her retinue (while possibly also having non-acolytes such as Jokaero, arco-flagellants, etc.).

I'm a bit biased, but I would prefer something a bit closer to what a group of us created for the Inquisition in Kill Team. We created two versions, one standard and one unchained (the unchained version was created first and draws on a lot of older versions of the game as well as the Inquisitor game and Dark Heresy game, the standard version strips that down to something much closer to what GW is likely to give us). While I'd prefer the variety of the unchained version, I'd be satisfied with [something close to] the regular version. Those are both crafted under the Kill Team construct, though, so they would definitely need some changes.
 
If an Inquisitor and their retinue isn't enough (and practically speaking, that might only be viable in Kill Team or Combat Patrol), I think that allying them with an army from some other faction of the Imperium is the right way to go. I like the old concept of the Chambers Militant, so I would allow a first method in which an Inquisitor can either join their ordo's Chamber Militant army (i.e., Adepta Sororitas for Ordo Hereticus, Grey Knights for Ordo Malleus, and Deathwatch for Ordo Xenos) or join a Militarum Tempestus army. The Inquisitor rules might include a regimental doctrine specific to Inquisitorial Storm Troopers, replacing the choices normally available to them in Codex: Astra Militarum, and this rule would also give those joined units the INQUISITION faction keyword. Alternately, a second method would allow an Inquisitor and their retinue to join any IMPERIUM army. If that army is battle-forged (without the Inquisitor/retinue/UNALIGNED units), it would benefit from its normal rules (while the Inquisitor and their retinue would benefit from their normal rules, regardless).

I could definitely see the Crusade system being used to promote some non-standard Inquisitors and Interrogators in much the same way that we allowed via the Path of the Inquisitor and Ascension rules (we used "Throne Agent" instead of "Interrogator," but it's the same concept).

I think that multiple Inquisitors should be limited to a special detachment/formation (or perhaps cost CPs) or Apocalypse. Similarly, an Interrogator is an Inquisitor's right hand man, so they, too, would be limited to 1 (per Inquisitor).

[Lord_Ikka]

Thanks- I'll look at the KT rules and see if I get some more inspiration. This was a basic idea just to have inquisitors with large or multiple warbands being useful, but I can see the point of not wanting to have a lot of Inquisitors on a battlefield for thematic issues.