What do Imperial agents need to become a better army?

[Ulfast]

So, Imperial agents has soon been out for over a year and we have in all this time been struggling. We are dead last in tournament (even if one really good player actually won an event earlier this year, congratulation!), very few people play or collect this army and so far very little support from GW (we got a grotmas detachment but most people agree it´s one of the worse). so lot of gloom here.

 

But instead of giving up, can we as a community help GW to make this a proper army that both old and new players want to play and collect? Because we can all agree that some of our units and models are pretty cool! But what do we need? Lets start:

 

1. Lets go over the diffrent detachment. Some of them need an upgrade as they lack (specially our "Deathwatch detachment").

 

2. We need a better army rule. I like the rule of switching assassins and I hope we keep that one. But we do need something more, like orbital bombardment (first round, every enemy unit take a 1d3 mortal wounds on a 5+) or something. To only switch assassins is just to weak for an actually armyrule.

 

3. Anti-tank. We need some kind of anti-tank. The best would of course be a unique anti-tank just for us and a new model. But if that is at the moment to far off, please then give us some Leman Russes, Excorsistes or Castigators. Easy fix that need very little from GW.

 

4. Looking out for some units changes. Like right now, most people use Subductors, but what about exaction squads and vigilant squads? They could get a boost and be more intersting to chose then only subductors. 

 

5. More support on the warhammer community site. If GW would show our army more often, more people would be more intersted in geting this army. I know some of there heavy metal team could do wonderful painting with our army and models. 

 

6. A actually promise from GW that in next edition, this will be a supported army that will not go away. I know some people that don´t want to start this army as they think it will disappear in next edition. Please tell us it will not happend and more people would invest in this army. 

 

What do you other guys/girls think about this and do you have any more suggestions and ideas?

  

[Lord_Ikka]

One of the main problems for me is that unless you are running DW or GK units, your basic squads are only slightly better than an average IG squad. BS 4, WS 4, Sv 4+, with your main ranged weapon either being 18" (Vigilant/Exaction squads) or 12" (Subductors/Breachers) shotguns, and you have little AP to help push through damage unless you spend a CP for a strat. So most mortal units have basically just shorter-ranged bolters, with 2 special weapons. Without something similar to IG orders boosting them, Vigilators/Exactors/Breachers/Voidsmen just can't put out enough damage to reliably take down something like an Intercessor squad that costs similar points. The lack of anti-tank just compounds the Agents' lack of firepower.

[Ulfast]

You are right. Our basic troops could use some extra love. Specially, like -1AP or something. That would be nice. 

[W.A.Rorie]

They need Scions as a troop choice. Drop the deep strike and orders from them and give them a different ability (what I have no clue) 

 

land raiders, outside of Astartes, Inquisition are the only ones with land raiders

 

releasing the rules for the 2 other inquisitors would be nice 

 

Diversity in the ordos for the inquisitors 

 

 

[Arikel]

If we are shooting for the stars than ifany army was going to break the mold of current 40k, inquistion should be the place for it. There should be lots of options for your hq’s and retinue squads to play. Experimental equipment and more heavy weapons servitors for ant tank.
 

Inquisition battleline should be elite, apart from sisters and space marines, their battleline should be veteran troopers like karskin and scion equivalents, with options for anti-tank available to the squads.

 

Add a few tech magos characters, land raiders as mentioned above wouldn’t hurt either.

 

Just a few things like that. 
 

Personal opinion: I think agents should be viable stand alone in small games, but I prefer the idea of them as allies for larger battles (greater than 1k points) They are essentially the acronym agenies (CIA, KGB etc) for the empire, and while trained for combat do not form huge armies by themselves, they act as small groups that requisition local or special forces as needed to deal with emerging threats. I do think they should be fully supported with rules to be able to do so, but they should be elite characters and squads that don’t make up the bulk of your army, but ally in to larger forces instead.

 

 

[Darwhine]

Hello,

I think that what the Imperial Agents are currently lacking the most is long-range anti-tank.

This can be compensated for by the recent drop in points of the Imperial Knights, but I find it a shame that the only laser cannon available in the codex is that of the Corvus Blackstar. The Corvus could be a solution if it were not so expensive.

 

The army does have some strengths, however, and its main asset for me remains its swarm and regeneration capacity.

Even if the units are weak, many of them have mediks that make them superior to the GIs.

The Exaction Squad seems quite weak, but they recover D3 models in our command phase for only 85 points for 11, in SAV at 4+ (3+ in cover).

This makes them a good screen and covers the backline just as well.

 

The Imperial Agent infantry has strong rules, but it doesn't bring much to the squad itself because their datasheet is weak (breachers who reroll wounds on Strength 4 weapons without AP is not great);

on the other hand, it highlights the characters who can join them (an inquisitor with psychic shick wave who rerolls wounds multiplies by 2 his chances of causing devastating wounds... it's much more interesting).

 

Similarly, the ability of the rogue trader entourage to be able to infiltrate while being in a breacher squad gives us the possibility of infiltrating a unit of 14 figurines in one pose;

it's extremely strong: it prevents the deployment of enemy infiltrators in no man's land on most maps and it also prevents the movements of enemy scouts.

In addition to that, you can tank the rogue trader bodyguards or breach them as you choose when you take damage, which makes the squad extremely resistant (every imperial agent player should have at least one in their list).

This squad combined with infantry with medik serves as the basis for a swarm strategy of the table whatever the detachment. Do not underestimate these squads, I myself have had more success with these cheap infantry than with deathwatch lists.

 

The deathwatch is only interesting for its hammers and the only reliable way to bring them into close combat is to put a watch master on them.

This makes them expensive (minimum 205 points) for marine bodies who rarely survive their charge turn (with or without shields);

worse, the hammers hitting at 4+ it sometimes happens that on a stroke of bad luck or an unseen save in front, they bounce completely.

 

I think a lot of Imperial Agent players are wrong to focus on the Deathwatch and Terminators.

The army as it currently stands does relatively little damage, the Deathwatch and Terminators alone cannot compensate for that.

They must be counter units to go after the biggest threats, but I remain convinced that the body of the army must be composed of cheap units to go mark the primaries and deny those of the enemy.

 

Besides the long-range anti-tank fire (which is really penalizing), what I would like for the army is precisely more variety to get away from this swarm gameplay which seems to be the only one that is effective.

[Indy Techwisp]

Touching specifically on Ordo Xenos here, there's 2 paths to this:

"Put Deathwatch back in Marines and add non-marine Ordo Xenos stuff instead." and "Import the entire Deathwatch index into IA and let Ordo Xenos soup 50% from Astartes."

 

For the former, this would require GW to actually invent some basic units for Ordo Xenos that aren't just... Deathwatch. I feel this isn't likely, since Deathwatch and Ordo Xenos have been practically one and the same lorewise for a while now.

 

For the latter, this adds more native variety to Ordo Xenos in the form of the Killteams and also utilises the Ally system that GSC used and Grotmas capitalised on as an option to allow the use of core LSM units to round out the detachment (which, yes, is just leaning on LSM to fix another faction's issue but it's LSM. They do this to all the other Divergent Marines, why not DW as well?).

[Ulfast]

Intersting idea. I think as you, Indy Techwisp, that GW can actually do so much with this faction. They have no limits as so little exits. I would guess that someone at GW would love to flesh out and create many new units given a chance. 

[librisrouge]

I would make a few changes to the Codex to make Agents a stand-alone army.

• Add the three assassins that have models but no rules. Use them to fill in some of the gaps in the army (infocite = anti-tank and poisoner = anti-monster)
• Remove dataslates that are explicitly in other codices (except the rhino)
• Create an army rule that allows Agents armies to take limited selections from other armies (with adjustments to their rules to fit, such as the changes to sisters)
• Add inquisition of other transport models (land raider, valkyrie, etc.)
• Adjust a unit or two to be more elite units representing groups of mini-characters (the agents unit is perfect for this)
• Adjust the detachments rules to focus on rules that buff their appropriate units (to allow thematic armies but that don't penalize you for not facing the appropriate foe)

[ThePenitentOne]

I'd like to see a Naval Officer HQ and an Arbites Judge model so that these subfactions can have their own HQ rather than requiring an Inquisitor a Rogue Trader. The Navy also requires Valkyries as a transport option.

 

I'd like to see Arbites Bikes and an Arbites/ Sisters dual-build Repressor.

 

A plastic Karamazov, Eisenhorn, Jokaero, Daemonhost. 

 

Continue to use Kill Team as a vehicle to drive the introduction of additional units- so far almost every IA infantry unit was introduced as a kill team. Bringing back a new 40k Warhammer Quest game is another way to add character models to the faction. The way I think of it is this: the Inquisition Kill Team was generic- it contained all the Ordo Agnostic hench that would be appropriate in any Ordo. But then the Santifiers come out, and they're another great retinue, but they feel like Hereticus specialists. So maybe the Ordo Xenos and Ordo Malleus should get a Hench-based Kill Team. The Jokaero and Daemonhost models above could be incorporated into these teams along with Crusaders and the more classic Death Cult models (I'm happy to have the new and very different Death-Cult model that came with the Sanctifiers, and I'm happy there's a Death Cult Assassin model that hangs out with Rogue Traders... But I miss my classic Death Cult Sevora/ Severina- based DCA's.

 

While we're at it, de-couple the characters that are in the Rogue Trader retinue so that they can be used by Inquisitors too. Why couldn't an Inquisitor hae a rejuvenant?

 

I also agree with the addition of additional Transports- I've specifically mentioned Valkyries and a Repressor above, but Land Raiders, the Arvus, 

 

Add Ogryns (A box with a Heriticus build, a Xenos build and a Malleus build would hit the sweet spot, while Fleet could use the current box.

 

Add Scions, and maybe release an Inquisition upgrade sprue with them.

 

Add Sisters of Silence, but I'd go the distance here and release an SoS KT that slots into both the IA and the Custodes dexes.

 

Lean more into Ordo Identities and Aesthetics- this was referenced with regard to retinue units above, but it's also true of the Inquisitors themselves. There should be generic Inquisitor Lords and Inquisitors for each ordo in addition to the catalogue of named Inquisitors.

[Indy Techwisp]

Just popping in some non-Deathwatch related ideas:

 

Voidfarers need another unit and Character. They've got the best non-Deathwatch detachment, so lets have some more stuff to lean into that.

 

Arbites character. They have 3? full units, let them get a Police Chief or something.
Also for Arbites, the Repressor. Yeah, it's a SoB Legends Vehicle currently, but that's because of a Campaign book where they stole a bunch from the Arbites, so let them have their Rhino-Shaped Police Van back.

 

Let Ordo Hereticus soup in 50% Sisters of Battle and Ordo Malleus soup in 50% Grey Knights. Yeah, it's the same thing as letting Ordo Xenos soup Adeptus Astartes, but it would help them a lot. (In the same way tho remove the reprinted Immolater, SoB Squad and Grey Knights. I've never seen anyone take them at all, even if they're considering allies).

[ThePenitentOne]

@Indy Techwisp

 

I want void farers to have a Naval officer- someone who IS a Void Farer, but is NOT a Rogue Trader... So yes, I want a fleet character too.

 

But I wanted to point out that if you are okay with Legends, you can still use Janus Draik and Neyam Shai Murad as solo characters. Their dataslate rules are the same, but their gear is different, and they do not come with retinues. Again, they're still RT's and not the Naval Officer I want, but they might give you a way to spice up a Rogue Trader army.

 

As for the Repressor, I agree- we need a new one in plastic, and Arbites need access to it... But rather than "Giving it back to Arbites" as you suggest, the Arbites/ Sisters dual build kit is the better choice. Whichever bits you don't use to bling it up can be used to convert other vehicles. So I could build an Arbites Repressor, and then take the unused sisters bling and put it on an Arvus Lighter or a Valkyrie. No need to take it away from sisters to give Arbites access to it.

 

 

 

These guys are GREAT Naval Officer models... They just need 40k rules. And sure, you can use them as "Count-as" Rogue Traders, but I'd like actual Navy datacard rules... Things that augment flyers to make them suck less. Like for example: "While this model is embarked in an aircraft model, that aircraft may make its pivot at any point during it's movement, rather than being restricted to pivoting before it moves." Or "While this character is embarked in an Aircraft, that aircraft can choose to function in Aircraft mode or Hover mode at the beginning of your movement phase."

Edited July 3 by ThePenitentOne

[W.A.Rorie]

@ThePenitentOne I actually wanted to use them as my "Black Ship Captain" and his retinue. 

 

Arbites are lacking for sure. They need officers and vehicles. Repressors, Rhinos, Chimeras, Arvus, a tank of some sort,  and bikes. 

[ThePenitentOne]

It's really cool that one of the boarding action detachments IS a Black Ship crew. It's heavy on SoS and even a bit of Custodes though- nothing for the actual Naval element.

 

You could Build an SoS army for regular 40k and soup these guys in as "Count as Rogue Trader" models using the attached Agents rule: Boarding Actions don't specifically forbid Attached Agents, but the rule description in the Agents Dex doesn't specifically allow it either: the chart that tells you how many Agent units you can include cuts off at 1K points.

 

But I too have ALWAYS been interested in Black Ships.

[Harrowmaster]

Inquisitorial stormtroopers (Scions and Aquilons) would go a long way in my opinion.