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With Codex: Inquisition on the way, I've decided to add some more inquisitorial presence to my GK list (that will in time become it's own army). So that means I need henchmen. My question is, what builds are good (assuming everything is the same as in C:GK)?

I've already got a DCA/Crusaer squad or two, depending on how I split the models.

I'm not looking for the standard 'plasma in Chimera' idea, as I already have an IG army should I want that. I'm looking for fun, preferably unusual, builds for squads that people have had success with. The crazier the better. On a similar note, if anyone has any good inquisitor builds then I'd like to hear those as well, please.

Thanks.

Hmm I seem to remember 6 I think it was psykers in an inquisitorial chimera had the opportunity for hilarity launching pieplates from the firepoint. DCA/Crusaders+ techpriest can be good too (mostly for techy grenades).You could probably do servitors+jokero as a "mini loyalist oblit squad". Not saying they're amazingly useful builds mind.

I like the idea of Jokearo and servitors, they'd need to be babysat by an Inquisitor to avoid mind-lock, but could put out some nice firepower. What about adding some Crusaders for a bit more defence?

Psyker squads is certainly a cool option, and would be a great conversion opportunity (which is really what this project is about)

 Paradigm wrote:
I like the idea of Jokearo and servitors, they'd need to be babysat by an Inquisitor to avoid mind-lock, but could put out some nice firepower. What about adding some Crusaders for a bit more defence?

Psyker squads is certainly a cool option, and would be a great conversion opportunity (which is really what this project is about)

Doubt you'd NEED crusaders given proper cover camping for the jokero, but an inquisitor can take a conversion beamer if i recall right? Or was that just the techies? Though one with a hex rifle would give you a good conversion opportunity too, and fit in with the rather odd loyalist psuedo artillery blob

If it's a conversion project my votes on the psyker battle barge, I remember seeing one someone had done with a flatbed chimera with like a choir platform for the psykers.

Hmm. Flatbed Chimera... Choir platform... sold. I think is is certainly going to happen at some point, thanks for the idea.

A Techie with Beamer would be cool, I'm not sure if an inquisitor can take one (lent my codex to a friend). If so, great. If not, Hex rifle would be fine.

Remember to name it "the beat box"

If i remember correctly, Ordo Xenos get the beamer as their bigger shooty toy, Malleus get the hellrifle (not hex, oops) as theirs. My own is burried somewhere >.> Bonus to the malleus being making him a lvl1 psyker, if i recall under 6ed it'll give him a free shooty divination power for cheap.

3 Servitors w/ Plasma Cannons and 3 Henchmen with Plasma guns and some Crusaders for defense is a hell of a firebase.

2 monkeys and 10 bolter guys makes a very good henchmen squad if they are troops. especially if you get a whole lot of 6 of them, then deploy them according to what squad got what buffs.

Saw a list on here once that wAs for 2k and hAd coteaz and like 50 jackaroo weapon smiths. Every other choice was them, sounds hilarious but no clue who has anywhere near that many models

BoomWolf wrote:2 monkeys and 10 bolter guys makes a very good henchmen squad if they are troops. especially if you get a whole lot of 6 of them, then deploy them according to what squad got what buffs.

I like the idea of that, nice and shooty while still fairly cheap. I'd probably go carapace on the bolter dudes.

Exalbaru wrote:Saw a list on here once that wAs for 2k and hAd coteaz and like 50 jackaroo weapon smiths. Every other choice was them, sounds hilarious but no clue who has anywhere near that many models

Planet of the Apes?

But seriously, regardless of them being T3 with a 5+ save, 50 LC shots from the start if you get turn one would be hilarious!

My first two suggestions are kind of plasma in chimera-related:

While IG can get vets with plasma guns, henchmen can be built to be pretty awesome "stormtroopers".

167 points buys you 9 dudes in carapace with 6 hellguns and 3 plasmaguns, plus the heavy flamer/lascannon of a jokaero. All the buffs are pretty awesome, whether it is the increased range, rending weapons, +1 save for power armor, or invulnerable save. You could be cheap and just give them stormbolters or boltguns.

Alternatively, I'm sure at least the Xeno inquisitor will have all sorts of crazy ranged options, so a few servitors with plasma cannons, and a few jokaero can make for a fun unit. Also in a chimera, of course.

Then there is the deathcult assassin/crusader mix. This works extra well when paired with Hammerhands and GK's special grenades.

The usual DCA/Crusader Squad + a Techpriest with grenades, and then add the mini obliterator squad (3Plaservitors, 2 Jokaero + Akolyths for filler).

Use the Techpriest to bolster defences for the Obliterator Squad, stick Coteaz with them too for twinlinking and his pseudo-Interceptor.


Other than that: 8Psykers + 3 Crusaders in Chimera for a pseudo vindicator which isn't able to shoot half the time.

And of course, Chimeras full of Crusaders and Karasmazov in the backfield (put him onto a fortification for LoS).


Maybe try out taking a few priests for their eviscaratos, since DCA maybe will be FAQed in the near future (if their SoB counterparts are anything to go by).

 Omegus wrote:
My first two suggestions are kind of plasma in chimera-related:

While IG can get vets with plasma guns, henchmen can be built to be pretty awesome "stormtroopers".

167 points buys you 9 dudes in carapace with 6 hellguns and 3 plasmaguns, plus the heavy flamer/lascannon of a jokaero. All the buffs are pretty awesome, whether it is the increased range, rending weapons, +1 save for power armor, or invulnerable save. You could be cheap and just give them stormbolters or boltguns.

That's a pretty neat idea. I'm still holding out hope for Inquisitorial Stormtroopers in Codex:I, but if they don't show up this this is a pretty good alternative. Thanks.

Hi , I play henchmen without power armour. My other army is a Draigo build.

Inquisitors are fantasticly good value for their presience rerolls as is, of course, Coteaz.

DCAs and Crusaders are hard to make effective unless they're in an assault vehicle. As a counter-assault unit in backfield they are ok if you position the crusaders well (to take incoming fire). A single Crusader added to a henchmen squad generally avoids a Ld test for a turn which can make all the difference. A single DCA added to a henchmen squad significantly increases that unit's versatility on the ever-changing battlefield, but some purists sneer at mixing up the roles.

The codex's secret is 3 lots of 6 psykers in a rhino (better than chimera as only 1 fire point needed and can avoid stuns etc and is cheaper). S8 AP1 Large Blasts negate multiwound T4s and termi armour and are rather good against vehicles. 3 units ensure a high success rate (~75%), which is a single large blast going off on target. Add in a naked acolyte to each psyker squad to avoid losing the unit, and a kp, to perils. Trust me, just try them out.

3 plasma cannon servitors and a jokaero or two with Coteaz in an ADL or chimera is good.

I'm also very much enjoying 12 henchmen with storm bolters (or 11 and a crusader up front) with a prescience inquisitor. Get 2 squads and walk them! Rerolling 48 BS3 bolter hits out to 30" threat range has brought down riptides etc - strength through forcing lots of dice rolls! And of course they're so cheap there will be scarier units on the board to fire at.

A bog standard unit is 3 naked acolytes in a razorback with psyammo.

I'd go on but I'm needed elsewhere in the house :S

Sethorly wrote:
Hi , I play henchmen without power armour. My other army is a Draigo build.

Inquisitors are fantasticly good value for their presience rerolls as is, of course, Coteaz.

DCAs and Crusaders are hard to make effective unless they're in an assault vehicle. As a counter-assault unit in backfield they are ok if you position the crusaders well (to take incoming fire). A single Crusader added to a henchmen squad generally avoids a Ld test for a turn which can make all the difference. A single DCA added to a henchmen squad significantly increases that unit's versatility on the ever-changing battlefield, but some purists sneer at mixing up the roles.

The codex's secret is 3 lots of 6 psykers in a rhino (better than chimera as only 1 fire point needed and can avoid stuns etc and is cheaper). S8 AP1 Large Blasts negate multiwound T4s and termi armour and are rather good against vehicles. 3 units ensure a high success rate (~75%), which is a single large blast going off on target. Add in a naked acolyte to each psyker squad to avoid losing the unit, and a kp, to perils. Trust me, just try them out.

3 plasma cannon servitors and a jokaero or two with Coteaz in an ADL or chimera is good.

I'm also very much enjoying 12 henchmen with storm bolters (or 11 and a crusader up front) with a prescience inquisitor. Get 2 squads and walk them! Rerolling 48 BS3 bolter hits out to 30" threat range has brought down riptides etc - strength through forcing lots of dice rolls! And of course they're so cheap there will be scarier units on the board to fire at.

A bog standard unit is 3 naked acolytes in a razorback with psyammo.

I'd go on but I'm needed elsewhere in the house :S

You would need two inquisitors to give them all re-rolls, no?

How does a Crusader keep you from breaking?

The psykers are fun, although I'd be tempted to bring IG allies for that.

 Omegus wrote:

Sethorly wrote:
Hi , I play henchmen without power armour. My other army is a Draigo build.

Inquisitors are fantasticly good value for their presience rerolls as is, of course, Coteaz.

DCAs and Crusaders are hard to make effective unless they're in an assault vehicle. As a counter-assault unit in backfield they are ok if you position the crusaders well (to take incoming fire). A single Crusader added to a henchmen squad generally avoids a Ld test for a turn which can make all the difference. A single DCA added to a henchmen squad significantly increases that unit's versatility on the ever-changing battlefield, but some purists sneer at mixing up the roles.

The codex's secret is 3 lots of 6 psykers in a rhino (better than chimera as only 1 fire point needed and can avoid stuns etc and is cheaper). S8 AP1 Large Blasts negate multiwound T4s and termi armour and are rather good against vehicles. 3 units ensure a high success rate (~75%), which is a single large blast going off on target. Add in a naked acolyte to each psyker squad to avoid losing the unit, and a kp, to perils. Trust me, just try them out.

3 plasma cannon servitors and a jokaero or two with Coteaz in an ADL or chimera is good.

I'm also very much enjoying 12 henchmen with storm bolters (or 11 and a crusader up front) with a prescience inquisitor. Get 2 squads and walk them! Rerolling 48 BS3 bolter hits out to 30" threat range has brought down riptides etc - strength through forcing lots of dice rolls! And of course they're so cheap there will be scarier units on the board to fire at.

A bog standard unit is 3 naked acolytes in a razorback with psyammo.

I'd go on but I'm needed elsewhere in the house :S

You would need two inquisitors to give them all re-rolls, no?

How does a Crusader keep you from breaking?

The psykers are fun, although I'd be tempted to bring IG allies for that.

Crusaders are something like a 15 points for a body with storm shield and power weapon, keep him in front and your looking at rolling against a 3++ in defense rather than worrying about losing those 12ish point 4-5+ acolyte bodies carrying the real toys.

As for the psykers, 80pts of IG Psyker gets a S6 Large Blast at AP D6, while 80pts of GK Psyker gets a S10 Large Blast at AP1 that can score as troops.

Well, the IG psykers also can reduce leadership and don't die the first time you suffer perils.

 Omegus wrote:
Well, the IG psykers also can reduce leadership and don't die the first time you suffer perils.

It's a personal taste thing, being able to throw around a better template in a dedicated transport and score vs leadership debuffing and no autokilling a measly 80 points of psyker on a perils

Plus if i recall two different troop slots. The IG ones take up a slot and bring something the GK already have, rather than bringing a nice suicide ST unit or something that the GK don't have.

 Omegus wrote:

You would need two inquisitors to give them all re-rolls, no?

How does a Crusader keep you from breaking?

The psykers are fun, although I'd be tempted to bring IG allies for that.

Yep, psyker inquisitors are cheap enough to make this worthwhile, especially as you can buff them in other ways.

Crusader tends to soak up a few hits, thus avoiding casualties, thus avoiding a Ld test.

Remember that fewer than 3 GK psyker units are very unrealiable given the low leadership and scatter (both accounted for in my 75% figure above). I look at the total cost of the 3 psyker units and compare that with a tank that can throw out a similar pie plate with a similar reliability.

I like the psyker squads idea, one or two of those are certainly in.

Also liking the idea of running Crusader kind of like sergeants, as upgrades to squad to help them stick around longer. SB or Bolter squads are also a neat idea (the only think I'm thinking there is bringing DA or SM allies might be simpler)

Regarding re-rolls, I'll likely be taking 2 Inquisitors most of the time anyway, and I'm sure they'd still be pretty good without re-rolls if needed).

 Paradigm wrote:
I like the idea of Jokearo and servitors, they'd need to be babysat by an Inquisitor to avoid mind-lock, but could put out some nice firepower. What about adding some Crusaders for a bit more defence?

Psyker squads is certainly a cool option, and would be a great conversion opportunity (which is really what this project is about)

I am playing 3 Heavy bolters with a single monkey and a handful of warriors with just boltguns for wounds/more shooting.
---I personally put a few crusaders in every henchmen squad for resilience and because i like them.

I also love running "Storm Troopers" Hot Shots with Carapace and a Monkey or two...hot shots are one of the best guns for monkey upgrades to affect.
I like putting these guys in a storm raven and dropping them with the dual heavy flamer monkies on...most anything.

You can get two acolytes with stormbolters for the price of one Space Marine.

 Omegus wrote:
You can get two acolytes with stormbolters for the price of one Space Marine.

Yes, but only if you stick with Flak armour. I was thinking SM would add some much-needed durability and get BS4 to boot, as well as meaning I can bring terminators/whirlwinds/relic-loaded captains, as well as being nice and fluffy. I'm fine with T3 Sv5+ models, but only when it's IG and I can bring them by the dozen for a single FOC. I'll certainly be adding SM/IG to this list most of the time, so that's where the cheap or durable scoring bodies will come from. I would rather my Inq elements to focus on the more esoteric and unusual choices, especially as I only have 6 Troops spots and will likely fill them.

So far, I'm looking along the lines of: (no points as the codex is on loan to a friend)

2x DCA/Crusader squad (8:4 ratio)
2x Psyker Squads, probably in Chimeras or Rhinos
jokearo+servitor squad (numbers undecided, probably joined by an Inq with Conversion Beamer or Hellrifle)

Hopefully Inq Stormtroopers as elites.

Leaves me one troops, which will probably be filled with a small squad of Lasgun acolytes that will just GTG on an objective the whole game. If I'm using allies, these will be swapped out for more points in tac squads/IG blobs.

Or just put in a fun unit of just daemonhosts...haha

Space Marines are not durable, especially when you only have a handful of them. It's like having one vehicle on the table, they will draw all the anti-MEQ fire and die as easy as guardsmen.

 Omegus wrote:
Space Marines are not durable, especially when you only have a handful of them. It's like having one vehicle on the table, they will draw all the anti-MEQ fire and die as easy as guardsmen.

Space Marines are relatively durable.

But he's right...anything AP3 or worse is headed for them...hello fire prisms.

SM are plenty durable in my experience. I don't really understand why there is such a strong feeling they are too weak.

I don't play competitively so the likes of multi-riptides and eldar mass-rending never show up, and I've never even seen a Heldrake on the table. Fire prisms kill them, true, but I've only even seen them once or twice, and some DP melta usually takes care of them.

Thinking about small arms such as bolters or gauss flayers, a SB acolyte is going down on a 3 with no save, a SM is going down on a 4 with a 3+ save. I know which I'd pick.

Anyway, I'll avoid getting bogged down in this debate as it's not a direction I want to take this thread in.

I just want to give a big thanks to Paradigm for starting this thread. My first 40k army was GK, and I absolutely did not want to play henchmen at first. Now I'm getting the bug to start a warband, and I think an awesome list will be two squads of DCA/Crusaders in a Land Raider and Stormraven each, a few Psyker squads in Rhinos or Chimeras (only thinking of Chimera due to the extra armor and stock guns), and a Plasma cannon servitor/ Plasma Gun acolyte squad or two in a Chimera as well, backed up by coteaz and another Prescience Inquisitor. Nasty shooting/assault combo in which everything scores, gotta love it. Particularly due to the opportunity for fun conversions, because let's face it...GW henchmen models are EXPENSIVE, and I for one plan on finding alternative models to convert.

It's not that they're weak exactly, it's just AP3 isn't as glorious as it used to be with most armies having a damn good bit of AP2/3 shooting, plus one or two MEQ units among all those flakk bodies is going to draw most of that shooting.

Theres a thought though, like ductvader said, i had forgotten daemonhost's were a thing. Depending on your stance towards the "CC is dead and the sky is falling" gak, they're rather like a CC jokero, but more self dependent. I only ran it once or twice, but a few of those in with a power armoured malleus with daemonblade was fun. Pad the unit with a crusader and DCA or 3 and it makes a slightly pricier but more hilarious take on the usual CC henchmen squad, especially when you pull some of the more interesting powers out with it, like ignoring saves

I'm more than happy to use CC units, the thoughts that CC is dead is another internet phenomenon I have yet to see evidenced.

In the vein, demonhosts are looking pretty cool, even just as a conversion task. The only problem is that I seem to be running out of troop slots. Not got the codex handy and can't remember what they can do, but do the buffs they roll apply to the whole unit? If so, then that could be great, if not, then it's a book-keeping nightmare waiting to happen

As a final note on the SM thing, I'd be taking at least 20-30, which I've found to be plenty for allies, and as I'll be using rhinos and/or pods, I imagine they'll do pretty well. I'm not worried about that side of the army to be honest, as I've played them for years and know the ins and outs of them by now. On the other hand, I've never used Inquisition stuff, so that's a whole new world.