Building an Ordo Xenos Crusade

[ThePenitentOne]

I finally picked up Kyria Draxus, and I'm looking to build a Crusade for her. With the current state of the Inquisition, this is a bit of a challenging proposition, so this thread is going to begin with some discussion of options before I charage headlong into a list.

 

What I know for sure is that the Crusade will start at 25 PL; I will use my starting requisition points to augment my units, rather than buying additional models. It is important to me to start small so that it feels like the Crusade grows from humble beginnings. This is actually the approach I take with all my Crusades. At this size, I can only include a single detachment.

 

The biggest choice is whether to field an Inquisition detachment, or attach the Inquisitor to another Imperial detachment. Now I know FOR SURE that the Deathwatch are joining this Crusade as it grows. But I think the Inquisitor needs to show up to investigate, and that she'll only call the Deathwatch once she confirms that there is a Genestealer Cult hiding in the shadows of Orison's Wake (the Agri-world where the campaign takes place). When Kyria shows up, she will have her retinue with her- experts that she has trained and worked with for decades.

 

Before we get into her retinue, let's talk a bit about Kyria herself. As a named character, she is frozen in time- she gains no experience or battlescars, but she does get to start with her WL Trait for free, and it is always active, even when she's not the Warlord. Now I want Kyria to be a bad@ss, so I'm going to burn an RP to give her Alpha Level Psyker; this lets her know an extra power and gives her an extra deny. Her powers will be the Xeno specific Psychic Veil- this is a good choice because it only affects Ordo Xenos units; it would be useless on an Inquisitor who was attached to an Imperial detachment, but it's perfect here. The second power is Psychic Pursuit, which would allow an Acolyte unit to target a character if it is a Xeno with less than 10 wounds. That's all the customization I can get out of a named character, and that's 5 PL gone.

 

Next: Kyria is a radical- that's her WL trait, plus she uses Alien tech. As a radical, she's going to have a pair of Jokaero. One of this Jokaero is older and wiser- battle hardened, while the other is his protege.To represent this on the battlefield, I'm burning another RP to give the senior Jokaero the Puritan WL trait to take his invul to 4+. The other is just a basic Jokaero. That's 2 more PL.

 

Then we need a majordomo, a brother in arms. This is the most controversial pick in the list- It's a lone Acolyte, so it counts as a character, but the problem is that Acolytes only have one wound, which means any investment I make on the character is only effective until a single shot from a lasgun takes him off the board. Still though, I feel like he's necessary for story purposes. I'll burn my 3rd RP to hit him up with the Ordo Xenos specific WL Trait, Esoteric Lore, which gives me ANOTHER way to make up lost command points. (I wish Kyria could take this trait- I like it better than her bespoke option; rerolls are great and all, but they aren't very flavourful). Going to further load him up with a meltagun and a needle pistol. I have a spare classic Xyclos Needler in the bits box. The schtik is that he uses it to knock people out so he can interogate them later. That's one more PL, taking me to 8.

 

Next up are the Acolyte squads; two squads of 6. One squad will have 3 storm bolters and 3 meltaguns, the other 3 storm bolters and 3 plasma guns. Technically, I could super cheese and go 6 Plasma and 6 melta, but I'm not that much of a jerk. Plus the storm bolters give me extra versatility. That takes me to 20 PL  and fills all my mandatory Vanguard slots.

 

Because it's an Inquisition detachment, Kyria is present as the HQ, NOT an Imperial Agent. So for my last 5 pl, I want an Assassin, and I'm feeling the Vindicare temple. RAW, I believe I can only attach an Agent to a Core detachment, so this won't be strictly legal. I'm instituting a special rule: if an army list does not allow you to field a core detachment, any detachment that the army can field is considered core for the purpose of attaching an Imperial Agent. If GW wants to give the Inquisition a troops choice, I'd be happy to include it. (Note: this rule will also allow Greyfax to hook up with a null maiden vanguard... but that's another story). GW should not make army lists without troop options if they want to restrict agents to core detachments.

 

That leaves me with two RP in the bank.

 

Against Xenos, the idea is to use Clandestine Operation to zap the plasma team, the master Jokaero and and Draxus into a position to hit the Warlord with ALL the plasma and storm bolter shots using psychic pursuit. If I don't get lucky and win the first turn, I can use Psychic Veil to try and protect the acolytes. The Vindicare will be close enough to provide covering fire from somewhere safe, while the Majordomo deploys with the Melta and the Jokaero protege. He stays safe to act as my CP battery.

 

And there you have it. I only need the house rule until I can afford the allied Deathwatch detachment- once it is in play, the Vindicare can attach to it instead of the Inquisition Vanguard. 

[Etheneus]

I have also a mind of using here in a Xenos crusade but with Tempestus Scions instead of deathwatch.

I don't use a assassins to start but will bring one in after the drop force. I also choose Combiplasma on one squad and combimelta on the other. So similar list even and idea even.

Have you had any chance to play yet? I haven't, friends live in another town and the covid situation stops me from going.

[librisrouge]

It sounds like you have this well in hand, honestly. I'd say that you should stop with inquisition there, though (it saddens me), and focus on adding Deathwatch from here on out.

[ThePenitentOne]

Made some progress- Kyria is assembled, and I bought the Deathwatch supplement, a five man Kill Team and a Corvus Blackstar. Four Deathwatch are assembled to legs and torsos, but I'm painting the sergeant in sub-assemblies so I can get to his cape. I've put a watchmaster on hold to make the detachment legal. It shocked me how many PL I have to pay for the Kill Team and the Blackstar- I won't even be able to use the Blackstar in the first few games.

 

I do have some difficulties with the Ordo Xenos detachment I mentioned above; Jokaero are out of stock right now, I also remembered that I need the Xyclos Needler for a cult leader conversion, so that's out too. The final difficulty is figuring out what to use for my Acolytes- I might follow Ethenius' lead and go with scions. 

 

The watchmaster is part of a planned purchase, designed to earn me my collector coin for December- the purchase also includes the SM dex and an Imagifier (Despite these diversions, the Sisters are still my primary army). That and this month's White Dwarf is all I can afford to spend in December, so it'll be awhile before I can get Scions. The good news is that I have plenty of time to finish assembling my Kill Team and painting all of the models.

[ThePenitentOne]

Okay, so I've got the watchmaster and the Jokaero; I've started painting the watchmaster, but what I'm really proud of is the repositioning of the second Jokaero's arms; I think one of the Marine kits has an extra auspex or something that I can put in his curled right hand- with the repositioning, I rotated it 90 degrees, so if I can find an auspex, he will be able to hold it as if he's reading it.  I will post pics soon- might try to paint them first; one will be the typical orangutan orange, but I'm painting me converted one like the Bumble from the Rudolph puppet Christmas Special'

 

Might paint a Space Wolf to be Yukon Cornelius for a joke.

 

Two boxes of Palatine Enforcers will give me all the Acolytes I need. January purchases could be tricky though- I've got a line on a Blood of the Phoenix box; I need the Hellions, Scourges, Incubi and Drazhar, and I have no Eldar at all, which means even the Falcon and Vyper that everyone complains about would actually be useful for me. If I do it though, that's my budget for January, so Xenos will have to wait. I expect the sisters vs drukhari box will drop in Feb, and there's that budget gone.

 

So Draxus will likely have to roll with her Deathwatch allies until March. On the plus side, that means she'll have a Corvus Blackstar to ride in.

 

Painting is hard. Was nervous about messing up the watchmaster today; really hoping to finish him tomorrow. At least Jokaero will be easy.

[ThePenitentOne]

Just finished my 12 Months of Painting challenge for January, which is the Jokaero known as the Protege:

 

 

I'm not a fantastic painter, but I'm happy I finished something!

[WarriorFish]

Looks plenty good enough to me :tu:

[ThePenitentOne]

Thanks much WarriorFish. Hope to have some pics of the the Journeyman Jokaero up soon.

 

I found a couple marbles to tryy out as defense Orbs, but they were all too big. So Instead, I'll be using a small plastic polyhedron bead. The good news is that the polyhedron shape gives me hard edges to highlight.