Minor update to this with only a handful of changes: Cheaper Power Weapons; they're not quite as deadly on Strength 3 models after all. Added a new item; Suppressor. Weapon for an Ulumeathi Plasma Syphon in Codex: Inquisition, please? A: All plasma weapons as defined in Warhammer 40,000.

1. Codex Torrent

So Codex: Inquisition is kinda a big deal. Maybe not as much of a game-changer as a couple of the other big drops this past month (.coughcoughEscalationcough.), but still fairly huge for a lot of armies and a lot more likely to actually get used. While none of the units included in it are at all revolutionary- in fact, they are almost all just copy-pastes from the Grey Knights book- it’s their ability to widely access them in addition to whatever ally force you decide to bring along. For most Imperial armies, an Inquisitor is something of a no-brainer inclusion these days, and even for some Xenos armies he will be well worth considering. With a plethora of options you may see many different builds for Inquisitors, but you can be quite assured that you will be seeing them. Overview and Basics Codex: Inquisition is a new game supplement that allows most armies in the game to include an Inquisitorial component as well as allowing a base army of such units.

However, the Inquisitorial forces are organized very differently than most- in fact, they don’t use the same Force Org chart as either a primary or as an “allied” force (we’ll get to the reason for the quotes in a moment.) An Inquisitorial detachment has 1-2 HQ selections, 0-3 Elites selections (i.e. Henchmen bands) and that’s it- no troops, no HS/FA, nothing else. Bizarrely, this is the case for both fielding it as a primary detachment as well as attached to another force- so it is possible to have a fully-legal army that costs 25pts and consists of a single model.

The special note about an Inquisitorial detachment when accompanying another force, however, is that it does not use up your ally slot (and thus effectively allows you to draw on three different codices) and the Inquisitor is allowed to be your Warlord no matter who or what else is in your army. Either or both of these can be important for a list, but the fact that they are a tertiary supplement to every army is the biggest deal of all. Also, unlike Grey Knights- from which most of their units are drawn- the Inquisition is Battle Brothers with all of the factions in the Imperium (including GK, who otherwise have no Bros), Allies of Convenience with the Eldar, and Desperate Allies with Dark Eldar and Tau (!). They will not work with Chaos of any sort, Necrons, Orks, or Tyranids- again, several changes from the status of their parent codex.

(Note that because the Inquisitorial detachment is considered to be an ally, but does not use up your ally slot, it interacts a bit weirdly with taking them in addition to allies, as they may have a different relationship- this may result in them being part of a unit with someone they consider Desperate Allies, although this probably is a bad idea. Also, although the answer is not completely clear, it seems very likely that you cannot include them in an army with anyone they consider Come the Apocalypse, even if the main army is fine with having both factions present individually.) What’s the big deal about all this, you might ask? Well, there’s basically two- first of all, it lets EVERY Imperial faction get access to Divination, and most especially Prescience. Prescience is arguably the best psychic power in the game right now, and being able to bring it in for virtually no investment is absolutely huge. Secondly, it gives everyone access to Servo-Skulls, which can prevent enemy Scouts and Infiltrators for being able to effectively use their abilities. And have both talked about some of this, but it bears re-emphasizing: shutting down enemy deployment tricks is a big deal. Twin-linking anything is a big deal.

The Inquisition adds a lot for a little, and that’s not even getting into some of the new stuff. New Stuff Seems like a good place to start a heading!

Not everything in the book is copy-pasta’d from the old one; there are a number of unique options available as well as some units that have been roped in from other books. So, this seems like as good a time as any to start going over it. The big one is of course the Warlord charts. There are three new tables available for Inquisitors, with each of the three main types (Malleus, Hereticus, Xenos) being able to roll on their own table. Three results on each table are identical; the other three are unique to each type of Inquisitor, though they share some similarities. All of them are strong tables, probably on par with the Tau warlord tables; you might not be able to take full advantage of them, but chances are whatever you roll up won’t be completely useless.

The three “common” traits are all pretty general-use; Unquestionable Wisdom lets your Inquisitor and his unit pass or fail morale checks as they please, which Space Marine players may recognize as a pretty snazzy little trick. Reader of the Tarot gives you two dice to pick from when rolling reserves, outflanking, and mysterious terrain/objectives- with most armies fielding at least 1-2 flyers or reserve units, this ability should almost always be useful as well, especially in combination with their psychic powers. Lastly, Burner of Worlds gives you an Orbital Bombardment shot exactly like the one a Chapter Master has- S10 AP1 large blast barrage. With Ordnance helping it punch through tank armor and high stats all around, nothing is safe from it unless it scatters, in which case you are likely to hit nothing at all. (Protip: use Prescience.) The three Hereticus traits are easily the weakest of the three, which unfortunately is in keeping with many of the other trends. Preferred Enemy (Psykers) is a pretty nice little bonus, but even now many armies will be running without a psyker and it mimics the effects of the Psyocculum, one of their better pieces of gear.

Adamantium Will is cute, but most of the best powers are buffs and thus don’t allow Deny anyways; moreover, the Malleus version is pretty much just better. Lastly, Master of Interrogation makes it so that no Infiltrators can set up within 24″ of the Inquisitor but given that the radius is already 18″ and you have super-cheap Servo-Skulls, this may as well be blank. Basically, the lesson here is “don’t bother taking an Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor.” Ordo Malleus gets Preferred Enemy (Daemons) for their first trait, which is fairly relevant seeing as how Daemons are doing quite well on the tournament scene these days.

It will be very hit-or-miss based on the opposing army, but it at least has some relevance, even if it’s not ideal. Incorruptible gives all Daemon units within 12″ of the character -1 to their invulnerable saves; this can REALLY mess up a Daemon list if you can keep him alive, and Screamerstar especially will find it painful if you can pull the trick off. But, like Preferred Enemy, most of the time it won’t help you. Forbidden Lore, on the other hand, gives you a free Warp Charge every turn or the Adamantium Will rule if for some reason you’re not a psyker- this one is pretty good, since it lets you pop off the Force Weapon when you need to. All in all, the Malleus traits are a bit specialized, but very good at what they do.

Now, Xenos Inquisitors, they get all the real goodies. Xeno Hunter gives you Preferred Enemy against all non-vehicle aliens; it doesn’t count Chaos or Daemons, but everything else falls under its umbrella. This is extremely strong, since it’s a bonus that should apply well, in more games than not, really. Xenotech Collector is probably the weakest link, giving them a 6 and +1Str/Rending on a single ranged weapon. If it worked on melee weapons it’d be golden, but most Inquisitors are lacking in ranged shooty, so it won’t come up a lot. (Though the Conversion Beamer is a humorous exception.) Purity of Mankind is just straight-up Hatred for them and their whole unit, which is generally going to be pretty strong.

With all three unique traits being at least useable and at best excellent, Xenos seems like the natural faction to default to. Beyond the additions of the warlord table, Inquisitors also have access to a set of relics, much like other factions. Unlike others, none of their relics require giving up other wargear, so you’re free to take any of them you want. The Liber Heresius is probably the best of them; it’s a mere 15pts and lets you make a Leadership test once per turn to gain one full turn of use of a special rule (you have to pick a different rule each time.) Scout (used before the game), Hatred, Split Fire, Counter-Attack, and Fear are all available, but even just getting one of them on a critical turn can really change the tide of things. For the price, you’re unlikely to do better. The Tome of Vethric is similar, but distinct in a number of ways.

Codex Torrent

That feels like it is putting a ton of points off-board; you'd have a really weak starting presence. If you were going second versus an aggressive army you'd be in real trouble, and other shooting armies could potentially clean a lot of your stuff up before the flyers ever got a chance to arrive.

One of my buddies plays an IG army and even with just 2-3 Vendettas with squads inside you can really feel the lack of early-game presence. Again, not dismissing it entirely, but my intuition is that is gonna be a major weakness. I'm American, yes, but of Scottish stock (and fairly recent at that) and tend to speak and write in a manner more common on your side of the pond. So I am well aware that 'faggot,' along with 'cunt,' 'bottom,' and so forth have vastly different meanings here and there. Having said that, when in the midst of an argument someone says 'Stop being a faggot.' I do not see any way in which this could be interpreted as anything /but/ an insult.

Oh, sure, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he didn't /intend/ it as an insult of LGBT people. That doesn't really make it any better, it just means he thinks it is okay to denigrate others by implying they might be LGBT. Just like saying 'you hit like a girl' is sexist, 'nigger rig' is racist, and 'Jew you down (on a price)' is anti-Semetic, calling someone a 'faggot' is homophobic no matter what your intention was. Much better just to call someone an asshole. Its universally offensive but doesn't confuse the issue at hand. I get why people think it's hilarious or cute or whatever to try and take an inquisition detachment in the same army as guard with daemons, but I don't see how it's not clear that that's illegal.

Just because it's called an Inquisitorial detachment doesn't mean that it's not still an allied detachment. In fact, the codex refers to you as 'allying' them in if memory serves (I'm at work so I can't double check, but I'm pretty sure that's what the wording is).

It also states that you keep the same disposition for all army detachments in your force, therefore you can't ally them in to an army with daemons as per the allies rule. Again, I get that people want to snicker and laugh at how GW doesn't know how to write rules, but it's more people trying to work around a rule by semantics. As for ICs joining units, I also don't believe you can do that particular workaround either. When you join an IC to a unit (let's say a Tau IC to a SM unit), that IC becomes part of the unit for all rules purposes. So as far as the allies rules are concerned that unit is now both Tau AND Space Marine. Since it has a Tau element you can no longer join an inquisitor to the unit a la desperate allies. That's my two cents anyways.

Just because it's called an Inquisitorial detachment doesn't mean that it's not still an allied detachment. Hence why I said I don't think it works.

The main sticking point, however, is that the chart refers ONLY to levels of alliance between a primary detachment and its ally (or vice versa)- since it is not possible for you to have two different ally forces, this potential relationship is never actually discussed. It's a reasonable implication to think that they are prohibited from coexisting, but nowhere is this actually spelled out. So as far as the allies rules are concerned that unit is now both Tau AND Space Marine.

Actually this part isn't particularly clear at all. Would you say, for example, that such a unit qualifies to use Markerlight counters? I would think that it does not, but by your statement there you seem to be implying that it could. How, exactly, units with multiple 'types' function in the game has never really been made clear, unfortunately. I noticed you had put that in there, I was commenting more 'at large' then directly at your article (which is a pretty damn good one, btw). I agree on your first point that it's not equivocally stated how a third detachment would interact, but it does state that you are allying it in, and the inquisitor book states that you still reference the ally chart for disposition. Therefore you shouldn't be able to ally Inq.

To Daemons unless it's an apoc game. I'm just more annoyed by people who gleefully pat themselves on the back and call themselves clever because of it. As for the second point, I am a little less sure on that one outside of the allies rules which is why I tried to keep it only in that context.

I'd have to check the markerlight rule to see if it states 'units' or 'models' or uses a term such as 'units from the Tau codex.' Plus there's other rules at play such as whether the markerlights rule can pass to ICs joined to the unit and vice versa. I didn't want to get into all that though, which is why I tried to use the term 'as far as the allies rules are concerned.' Either way, it's all opinion until a FAQ/update.

No, I suppose it's not, but I'm commenting on the internet so I choose not to make that distinction.:p As for markerlights, I don't play Tau normally so I'm not sure how they affect a unit with an IC from an allied contingent, or if this has been settled by a FAQ or another rule elsewhere, but I would assume that since it counts as the same unit and it's still 'a unit chosen from the Tau codex' for rules purposes then an allied IC would get the effect. Unless you count the IC as a unit within a unit, but I never saw Inception so your guess is as good as mine. As I like to tell my gaming group: 'I'm re-rolling this one because I feel like it, so shut up.' This doesn't really seem to be held up by the fiction, though. Heretical or Traitor (as opposed to merely 'radical') inquisitors feature frequently in Black Library novels, and still tend to operate more or less in inquisitorial fashion, with similar equipment, retinues, etc. If a Guard regiment turned traitor they would no longer be 'imperial guard', but the guard book still can ally with chaos to represent traitor guard. It would have been nice if the inquisition book could ally with chaos to similarly represent traitor inquisitors.

Shame they didn't go that way.