We're Next Lads! (10th Preview Tomorrow)

[librisrouge]

So, we finally get our update preview tomorrow (5/31) and I am hyped. While I know that hope is the first step on the road to disappointment, I can't help it. His Imperial Inquisition is my favorite faction and I hope we get decent rules. To that end, what are y'all expecting or hoping for?

 

Expecting:

• Basic rules for fielding agents in other armies
• A lack of overall faction rules (they'll be baked into the datasheet) or a minor one (perhaps even the ally rules)
• Some use of the new models
• Weapon preview will include the Exitus rifle
• Stratagem preview will be an assassin swapping pre-mission strat

Hoping:

• A mixed detachment for fielding numerous agents coming together to fulfill missions
• A way to pull models from other Imperial factions into an Agents detachment (ala the Kill Team rules)
• Confirmation that the new assassins from 30k will get rules for 40k

 

What're all of your thoughts?

[ThePenitentOne]

Very hard to predict. I don't think it's been 100% confirmed that we're getting a dex, though it really looks that way. The question is this: Does Imperial Agent become the faction key word... And if so, what does that do to the <Ordo> Keywords, the Inquisition Faction, the Arbites Faction, the Navis Imperialis Faction etc?

 

In some ways, an Agents Keyword is a good solution- it provides the greatest versatility. But it's hard to bring flavour.

 

If we were getting multiple detachments out of the gate, flavour could come from those, but we're stuck with one until the dex comes. They also won't want to preview anything that spoils a model reveal if we're fortunate enough to get models (beyond the Inquisition Kill Team when it becomes available separately).

 

Very curious for tomorrow.

[Emperor Ming]

Zero expectations

[ThePenitentOne]

Words cannot express my dissapointment.

 

A total lack of dollars spent on 10th will express it instead. 

[librisrouge]

8 minutes ago, ThePenitentOne said:

Words cannot express my dissapointment.

 

A total lack of dollars spent on 10th will express it instead. 

I'm 100% there with you. I wanted some way to field an Agents army and I'm 99% sure that is impossible. They have no detachment. The individual dataslates look solid but there is no way to field more than 4 units.

 

In a lot of ways, it is everything I feared:

• No detachment
• No way to drop an execution force
• They integrate with other factions but no reversal
• No 30k assassins
• Less options (since so many weapons/gear got combined)

*sigh* just *sigh*

[Lord_Ikka]

It's disappointing, but not unexpected. I'll still be able to run my Inquisition stormtrooper list using IG Scions, and will get 2 characters/2 retinue units to give some more flavor. Luckily my Inquisition stuff is not my primary playing army, I've got three others to do that, but it is a long-term hobby project that I love. I'd prefer some sort of small detachment that could be allied to other Imperium, or even a mechanic similar to Brood Brothers from GSC allowing multiple Inquisition/Agent units to be taken into a mainline Imperial list. 

[Remain_Indoors]

Disappointed they still arent supported as a proper army in of themselves, but not surprised. To be honest i half expected to lose most of the datasheets when 10th was announced. I'll still carry on with my Rogue Traders and Arbites, its always been about the models and background rather than rules for me.

[librisrouge]

GW posted this in the most recent article on the datasheet cards that will be available...

 

I get it GW, why don't you just stab me next time!?!

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

Not really sure what GW's beef with Inquisition is. Back in late 3rd they were giving full support and gave them Daemon Hunters and Witch Hunters codexes. I always assumed that it was because of poor sales, but then Ashes of Faith sold out in seconds and it seems =][= stuff generally does well from an outsider's perspective (unless they're just doing small runs).

 

That said, I don't know that =][= was ever meant to be fully stand-alone insofar as their troops were only ever Storm Troopers (available via IG/Militarum Tempestus), Grey Knights, Sisters of Battle, or Deathwatch. All of which can still be done. Harkening back to 3rd edition, pure =][= were always just HQ and Elite choices. So from a certain perspective =][= isn't exactly being abused or mistreated. Maybe they just don't fit clearly into whatever they're doing with 10th (which I don't know I'm just staying in my own 3rd edition world which to me was the golden age of =][=).

[librisrouge]

I agree with you but I've always wished that Agents would have enough subgroups put together to create a codex that essentially allies with itself. Look at the old Agents codex that had things like a Valkryie and Tech Priest into it. It was legal for all of a month or two near the end of...7th edition? I think?

 

I love that idea. All of the small groups of 40k put into one book, given rules to ally with full armies in other books (the current Agents rules), but allowed to form an army themselves by working together. Take an inquisitor, have him call upon an assassin, some operatives, and a couple squads of stormtroopers that are his personal army (more or less). He also brings along his good friend, an Adeptus Ministorum missionary with some penitent engines and arco flagellants (who can normally only Agents into Sisters of Battle armies). Rounding out the force is a squad of breaches escorting a rogue trader that gave everybody a ride in exchange for the inquisition looking the other way the next time they trade with xenos. BAM! an army by table top standards and fluffy as heck.

 

Instead, GW just insists that *hur dur* inquisition can't field an army *hur dur* because they don't have enough men. Despite that being the case for so many other factions who get armies despite that. Harlequins are the best example but even marine chapters mostly operate at squad levels, with company deployments being less common. Deathwatch deploy as kill teams well more often than they do as an army. Custodes are bodyguards more than combat soldiers.

[Harrowmaster]

It is disappointing, particularly with all the new agents types we're getting, it should be easier than ever to run an army of them.

 

Something like third edition would be great, I want to run my inquisitor, their band of weirdos, some stormtroopers, and then the Grey Knights/Deatwatch/Sisters of Battle. I can't do that properly in the current edition, because of how warbands are (and allies are weird iirc). 10th doesn;'t look all that promising either.  

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

@librisrouge Agree that Deathwatch and Custodes (especially Custodes) shouldn't be armies anymore than =][=.

 

Could you not do the army you described in 10th using Militarum Tempestus as the main formation/army/whatever and then ally-in the inquisition stuff, the operatives, and the priest w/ penitent engine?

 

BTW what you described is pretty much exactly what I am building/running for my 3rd ed. campaign with my sons. A Lord Inquisitor with his personal army of storm troopers (4 squads total with a Valkyrie and some Taurox Primes 3rd editionified with the vehicle design rules of that edition). The Inquisitor's old friend from the Adeptus Ministorum who brought a mob of Redemptionists, some arcoflagellants and a couple penitent engines to the party. Sprinkle in a killteam of Deathwatch when needed, a couple regular Inquisitors and their retinues who are subservient to the Lord Inquisitor (one Ordo Hereticus, the other Ordo Xenos) and that's my army.

 

I'm only missing the Rogue Trader and breachers from what you described. Great idea! I won't steal it though because the last thing I need is more grey plastic in my pile of shame plus also my Lord Inquisitor is (fluff-wise) powerful enough that he has his own ships. Eh ... maybe some =][= themed breachers would be cool and figure out some house rules for them.

Edited June 7, 2023 by Nicodemus Doloroso

[Emperor Ming]

4 hours ago, librisrouge said:

GW posted this in the most recent article on the datasheet cards that will be available...

 

I get it GW, why don't you just stab me next time!?!

Yeah I saw that

 

Official inq hate

 

Just remember guys, you get naff all

[ThePenitentOne]

In the "Beginning to building the Inquisition" thread, I talked about designing a 9th ed dex for Agents. It's pretty easy to do because it's basically just pulling together existing rules and tweaking them to work better together, adding a handful of HQ choices and adding vehicles.

 

Thing is, that's 9th, and the appeal of anything I might write is going to be limited, so I'm thinking of building some 10th ed detachments for Agents.

 

For the Inquisition, the detachment would be: Chamber Militant of the <Ordo>, meaning that Inquisition actually get 3 detachments to choose from.

Quarry would be the Inquisition army rule. The detachment rule would be that the <Ordo> detachment can be added to a detachment of its Chamber Militant. <Ordo> models retain the abilities of Chamber Militant of the <Ordo> detachment, while models from the Chamber would retain the abilities of their own detachment. While each of the combined detachments must contain at least one character, only one detachment may contain an Epic Hero, and the army may have only one Warlord. Each detachment may contain any number of units and any number of points, but the combined point total can not exceed the size of the game.

 

Essentially, all this does is allow you to take ANY number of Agents units in a Chamber Militant army instead of the arbitrary limit in the Attached Agents Rule. It also ensures those <Ordo> units have six strats and four enhancements they can use. These will be imported from some of the 8th/9th books, and I might have to make some up.

 

In terms of which IA units appear in each <Ordo> list, I'm of two minds- part of me wants to set flavour based restrictions (ie. Arbites best suit Hereticus, while Breachers are better suited to Xenos and GK; Scions go with anyone)... But then another part of me wants to be wide open, because it's silly restrictions that make this necessary in the first place.

 

An Inquisitor Lord upgrade for generic inquisitors needs to be added, and then the rule needs to be changed so that only one Inquisitor Lord and on Inquisitor can be included to represent a Master/ Apprentice team. With new rules, character upgrades may be a thing of the past, in which case I'd need to make data cards for the unit(s).

 

That's all I've got in me for now, but there's a lot more here. Only so much can be done until we see what's coming with dexes, untill we have all of the existing IA datacards at our disposal.

 

 

[Brother Captain Vakarian]

I’ll be watching this eagerly. 

[Harrowmaster]

19 hours ago, ThePenitentOne said:

In the "Beginning to building the Inquisition" thread, I talked about designing a 9th ed dex for Agents. It's pretty easy to do because it's basically just pulling together existing rules and tweaking them to work better together, adding a handful of HQ choices and adding vehicles.

 

Thing is, that's 9th, and the appeal of anything I might write is going to be limited, so I'm thinking of building some 10th ed detachments for Agents.

 

For the Inquisition, the detachment would be: Chamber Militant of the <Ordo>, meaning that Inquisition actually get 3 detachments to choose from.

Quarry would be the Inquisition army rule. The detachment rule would be that the <Ordo> detachment can be added to a detachment of its Chamber Militant. <Ordo> models retain the abilities of Chamber Militant of the <Ordo> detachment, while models from the Chamber would retain the abilities of their own detachment. While each of the combined detachments must contain at least one character, only one detachment may contain an Epic Hero, and the army may have only one Warlord. Each detachment may contain any number of units and any number of points, but the combined point total can not exceed the size of the game.

 

Essentially, all this does is allow you to take ANY number of Agents units in a Chamber Militant army instead of the arbitrary limit in the Attached Agents Rule. It also ensures those <Ordo> units have six strats and four enhancements they can use. These will be imported from some of the 8th/9th books, and I might have to make some up.

 

In terms of which IA units appear in each <Ordo> list, I'm of two minds- part of me wants to set flavour based restrictions (ie. Arbites best suit Hereticus, while Breachers are better suited to Xenos and GK; Scions go with anyone)... But then another part of me wants to be wide open, because it's silly restrictions that make this necessary in the first place.

 

An Inquisitor Lord upgrade for generic inquisitors needs to be added, and then the rule needs to be changed so that only one Inquisitor Lord and on Inquisitor can be included to represent a Master/ Apprentice team. With new rules, character upgrades may be a thing of the past, in which case I'd need to make data cards for the unit(s).

 

That's all I've got in me for now, but there's a lot more here. Only so much can be done until we see what's coming with dexes, untill we have all of the existing IA datacards at our disposal.

 

 

In third edition, Arbites were exclusive to Witchhunters (you took stormtroopers and switched their hellguns for shotguns) so there is a precedent for that kind of thing. I definitely don't see breachers being used all that much by the Malleus but I do personally see the Hereticus. I may be biased though as my own Hereticus Lord Inquisitor will have a private army which includes navy breachers. 

I think something like this is a great idea, it could go a long way to improving things for the Inquisition. 

 

I'm wondering if henchmen could be treated similarly to IG command squads with them being the same unit as the inquisitor and being able to join bodyguards together?

[ThePenitentOne]

My thoughts on the breachers had been that the Chamber armies, GK and DW were more likely to have fleet support than Sisters. The SoB are present it Churches and Convents everywhere- of the three Chambers, they are far and away the most omnipresent.

 

But the issue is that it's the Inquisitor choosing the members of their detachment, not the Chamber HQ. If a particular Inquisitor has an existing relationship with a high ranking Naval Officer, Breachers are coming to the fight regardless of who the Inquisitor's Chamber is. The Chamber HQ would have control over who the members of their own detachment were, but that's about it.

 

And in the end, I think that supports a model that uses as few restrictions as possible, but I'm still waiting for more information before I make any decisions. The full set of Agent cards might make a big difference in my thinking. The weird ship-born rules that made the Navis and Rogue Traders as awkward as they were can't possibly exist in 10th because compulsory troops aren't a thing anymore.

 

Also: Enhancements in 10th cover WL Traits and Relics- since there are four Enhancements per detachment, I'm thinking a 2/2 split. After consulting PA: Pariah, each <Ordo> has a dedicated WL Trait and a Dedicated Relic, as well as a dedicated psychic power, which could be repurposed as a WL Trait:

 

Hereticus:

No Escape (WL Trait)- Heroic Intervention within 6" instead of 3" and prevent fall back on a 4+

Ignis Judicium (Relic)- Inferno pistol that lets you roll 2d6 for damage and pick the highest

Scourging (Psychic)- Subtract 1A from an enemy unit and give them -1 to hit if you beat their leadership on 2d6

 

Xenos:

Esoteric Lore (WL Trait)- When opponent uses a Strat, you gain a CP on a roll of 5+

Universal Anathema (Relic)- Melee attacks always wound on 2+

Psychic Veil- One friendly Ordo Xenos unit can only be attacked if it is the closest unit and only charged from within 6"

 

Malleus:

Psychic Mastery (WL Trait)- knows an extra power and gets an extra deny

Tainted Blade (Relic)- Power sword, but every time it does damage roll a d6: on a 1 it deals a mortal to the user; on any other roll, you get to make another attack

Warding Incantation (Psychic)- Give a friendly infantry or biker unit a 5+ save

 

Some of them need to be reworked, psychic mastery doesn't work at all... But really, that's just one Enhancement left to go for Hereticus and Xenos and two for the Malleus.

 

Also: There are six strats. Convenient, right?

 

But what I'd rather do is come up with 6 that are unique to each Ordo- if I don't, there's no point to giving each Ordo its own detachment. Still, 5/6 can be repurposed, so I only need 13 more. Again, even with this, still no decisions 'til everything is in my hands. Just wanted to show you all what we're working with.

 

One Last Thing:

 

As far as Crusade goes, the GK bespoke content can almost be duplicated for the Malleus- it really suits them, but I want it to feel unique. SO a few rough ideas/ thoughts:

 

- I like the idea of going through phases- so there's an investigation phase, a pursuit phase, and a confrontation phase

- I like the idea of influence/ alliance making

- I want both Puritan and Radical pathways

 

Crusade content will have to wait longer than Detachments though- I'm not touching it (for 10th) until we see the caliber of the bespoke Crusade content we get in the first few dexes.