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 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
There's dozens of books where Inquisitors lead armies ranging from a few hundred to a many thousands.

They have a unique role different from IG officers squinting at maps or SM commanders waving oversized swords and screaming.

And they're fun!

I think the whole idea of how Inquisitors start as Puritans who would never touch Chaos and end up as Radicals with their own pet demons and howling rune swords is actually brilliant and would love to see a way to simulate it on the table.

Cant argue with that and it is a fun bit of fluff which could represent different leading styles in the rules and potentially different models.

GW seems to want to expand the imperium range so can see it happening.

I wouldn't mind a combined inquisition and rogue trader book, (call it imperial agents?), as the possible retinues for both seem really similar.
This would allow different henchmen and access to Navy breaches etc. all in one book.
Add in the assassin's and so on, too.

Personally my issue with the Inquisition style armies is that they were born of a time when GW was happily souping armies together with alliances everywhere.

The problem there is that the Imperial faction has an insane number of choices across multiple complete armies. As soon as you start to allow that to ally together the potential min-maxing becomes insane to try and balance into the game (unless you go for every army having the exact same unit types and stats and just different purely visually).



I feel like the best way to represent the Inquisition is either to have them as a unit option within an existing Imperial army. This ties them down to one or two forces, but means that the Inquisitor's stats are part of the army stats in general.

They can still take allies in that force, but they are limited by the same restrictions as currently are present. Basically you're not making an Inquisition army, just an Inquisitor character within an army.



The other option is to lean into them heavily and make an entire dedicated Inquisitional army from the ground up. Unique models that represent their unique slant on things. This might mean that they have Imperial Guard of a certain elite kind. It might mean they do some unit sharing with other forces, but have different stats - again representing that the Inquisition is often going to favour the most highly or uniquely skilled.


Giving them their own armed force means that it can be a balanced force that doesn't lean into Min-Maxing and alos means that they actually bring something new and unique to them to the table. They aren't just a mish-mash of favoured Imperial models and a mockery of balance (accepting that GW's balance is always a bit of a fragile thing in general)

 Overread wrote:
Personally my issue with the Inquisition style armies is that they were born of a time when GW was happily souping armies together with alliances everywhere.

The problem there is that the Imperial faction has an insane number of choices across multiple complete armies. As soon as you start to allow that to ally together the potential min-maxing becomes insane to try and balance into the game (unless you go for every army having the exact same unit types and stats and just different purely visually).



I feel like the best way to represent the Inquisition is either to have them as a unit option within an existing Imperial army. This ties them down to one or two forces, but means that the Inquisitor's stats are part of the army stats in general.

They can still take allies in that force, but they are limited by the same restrictions as currently are present. Basically you're not making an Inquisition army, just an Inquisitor character within an army.



The other option is to lean into them heavily and make an entire dedicated Inquisitional army from the ground up. Unique models that represent their unique slant on things. This might mean that they have Imperial Guard of a certain elite kind. It might mean they do some unit sharing with other forces, but have different stats - again representing that the Inquisition is often going to favour the most highly or uniquely skilled.


Giving them their own armed force means that it can be a balanced force that doesn't lean into Min-Maxing and alos means that they actually bring something new and unique to them to the table. They aren't just a mish-mash of favoured Imperial models and a mockery of balance (accepting that GW's balance is always a bit of a fragile thing in general)

If we go the latter route you mentioned, i could almost see them being kind of like GSC, a handful of core units (Stormtroopers, Inducted Guard squads+Chamber militant squads?) and then a roster of characters to support them, either with buffs (Savants, Techpriests, Sage, Jokero), or by being beatsticks (Daemonhost, Crusaders, Death Cult Assassins).

Breton wrote:


The Chambers Militant already have their own Dex - and I've already pointed out they or the AM Codex should be where much of the Inquisitor led army should come from.

I'd have no objection to putting Inquistions and their freak patrols back in the GK/DW/SoB books.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


I'd have no objection to putting Inquistions and their freak patrols back in the GK/DW/SoB books.

I don't have MUCH of one. I like the idea of an Inquisition/Imerial Agents/Pick Your Name as the handbook for Imperial Soup. This is how you run multiple SM Chapters together as a Crusader Force with, or without an Inquisitor. This is how you run Inquisitors in charge of SM, or in charge of AM.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Breton wrote:


The Chambers Militant already have their own Dex - and I've already pointed out they or the AM Codex should be where much of the Inquisitor led army should come from.

I'd have no objection to putting Inquistions and their freak patrols back in the GK/DW/SoB books.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, this means putting the Arbites, Navy Breachers, Acolytes, and Voidsmen data cards into 3 books instead of one. Ditto with the hench, unless we say Jokaero are only for Xenos and Daemonbound are only for GK.

An agents book honestly is the better solution. It also encourages GW to ad things to the list- like transports, enginseers, battle conclave units (and characters- the DCA Executioner and Crusader Exemplar).

I don't know about the GK/DW books but the SoB book already has a half hearted runt army of Cult Imperialis rolled into their book. It doesn't really need diluting further with Agents of the Imperium (particularly when the datasheets could be useful for other factions).

A Chaos Daemons style 'dex seems the best option giving access to these units. Allow them to be taken by any Imperial army without breaking anything and work in synergies where they work better with their 'correct' feaction (eg Ordo Xenos with DW).

The Content Validity Document has been updated - Imperial Agents are now legal until June.

Cool, but as stated above, I'll continue to use them for as long as their rues continue to be compatible with the edition regardless of whether or not a GW document says they're valid.

 PaddyMick wrote:
The Content Validity Document has been updated - Imperial Agents are now legal until June.

Imperial Agents in War of the Spider isn't Inqusition, it's Assassins. Inquisiton was in Octarius 1, which has been confirmed to be totally invalid.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:
Inquisition never should have been a stand alone faction to begin with.

Why?

johnpjones1775 wrote:
It would be like trying to build a whole faction out of assassins.

Except it's not. Clearly. Demonstrably so.

yes and we can and always have been able to represent inquisitorial forces via marines (particularly DW), guard, and SoB. Scions/stormtroopers have always been a unit that are used by inquisitorial forces.
Aside from inquisitor’s retinue there’s really nothing unique about the inquisitorial forces.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Apple fox wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:
Inquisition never should have been a stand alone faction to begin with.
It would be like trying to build a whole faction out of assassins.

Rogue traders makes more sense as a stand alone faction to me.

Inquisition forces exist in sizes that the table of 40k provides, and people want to be able to play cohesive and usable forces that replicate that.
Often the biggest issue is even attaching them to a force is more difficult and rules intense for what they can provide the game, GW should work out what they want to do with them and work towards making it work.
Even if it’s just a book that gives them a special IG regiment force, that lets them bring in a unit of DW marines, grey knights or sisters easy and without weird or silly hoops that ad little to the game.
That’s really what I think a lot of people would be happy with.
And a special rule that lets them tag along with those forces as well in a natural way.

they don’t need their own codex for any of that. You can bring DW detachment with a guard detachment.

There’s not enough unique stuff to justify a codex.

 Overread wrote:
Personally my issue with the Inquisition style armies is that they were born of a time when GW was happily souping armies together with alliances everywhere.

The problem there is that the Imperial faction has an insane number of choices across multiple complete armies. As soon as you start to allow that to ally together the potential min-maxing becomes insane to try and balance into the game (unless you go for every army having the exact same unit types and stats and just different purely visually).

I believe the old books handled the soup within the dex by limiting the units it can take from other books and had limitations on when you could bring them. For example Daemonhunters could not bring both Space Marines and Grey Knights, and most units were 0-1 allowed. Something similar could easily be done with a new book - say making your Ordo Malleus Inquisitor unlock Grey Knights in your detachment, but you don't get access to the full dex, or its 0-1 of non troop units.

In terms of models, the main thing the faction would need is a generic Inquisitor kit that has multiple builds to it, Inquisitorial Stormtroopers, a customizable "goon" box, and a daemonhost. Outside of that, most of their old toys are now in other books (or would also end up in an Agents book, ie: assassins). Anything else is just extra (though if well thought out and executed, welcome) at that point.

PenitentJake wrote:
Cool, but as stated above, I'll continue to use them for as long as their rues continue to be compatible with the edition regardless of whether or not a GW document says they're valid.

Well you might not be playing in tournaments or random pick up games. Doesn't mean nobody is. So good change.

I think inquisition are one of those factions that gw (rightly or wrongly) considers narrative rather than matched play factions. The likes of corsairs and renegades also go here over history of game. Narrative players should probably be the most annoyed that they keep killing and resuscitating them

Honestly I just think Inquisition is a something that works as a few leader choices or special characters within a regular Imperial army. Make 5 or 6 and put one in each Imperial army and you've got your variety of choice. Pick the core army with an Inquisitor and then just use the normal allies rules to bring in a little of something else.



I feel like Inquisition as an army is born of GW's marketing in the late Kirby era when they were looking to add armies to 40K with low investment.

Inquisition - a few leaders and soup together the Imperials
Yinnari - a single box of leaders and soup together the Eldar
Marines - soup the new sculpts in with the old (I'm almost 100% convinced Primaris started out life as just the new wave of Marine sculpts)

Of course we also got things like Genestealer Cults breaking out into their own army (though I'd argue that didn't fully happen until their second wave where they dropped most of the need to take a full Imperial Guard army as their core/bulk)

Harlequins also had a fair go at being their own army, but never got a big second wave to really make them stand out and thus they've rolled back into Craftworld.



I feel like GW at that time was looking for ways to add armies rather than update existing ones (eg big Eldar update) and was looking for lore tight ways without repeating the Tau method of adding a force.

It kind of worked but also kind of felt like some were really low investment attempts.


I think GW has shifted angles.

This seems possible, i believe they have slowed down with the new faction releases in AoS too? If any new faction releases in future are to be more fleshed out like our space dwarf friends I'd see that as a positive.

Dai wrote:
This seems possible, i believe they have slowed down with the new faction releases in AoS too? If any new faction releases in future are to be more fleshed out like our space dwarf friends I'd see that as a positive.

AoS was just a sheer mess.
I think right now the only army that's still a mess is Cities of Sigmar where we know GW are updating the human component of them. However they still have most of the Dwarf models; almost the entire Dark Elf army and what's survived from high and wood elves. I still think those parts of Cities are something GW isn't clear on what they are doing with. Heck every Gotrek book they release seems to end with "and then he goes on to work on his plan to reunite the dwarves and all" and it fizzles.

But yeah GW slowed down with Aos, but there there's a LOT of armies that are very small model ranges which need beefing up coupled with a lot of old sculpts. There's only one lore army that's missing and that's the Shadow Aelf army under Malarion who rule most of the Shadow Realm. Indeed it was surprising to me that GW released Ossiarchs from almost nowhere instead of shadow Aelves that they'd been teasing as a concept since the start of AoS.

That's really the last army I expect to see fully new in AoS. After that I feel like AoS just needs to keep its head down on new armies and focus on beefing up and updating things. Get Flesheaters some new sculpts; get Fyreslayers some diversity; get Skaven some updates

 Overread wrote:

Dai wrote:
This seems possible, i believe they have slowed down with the new faction releases in AoS too? If any new faction releases in future are to be more fleshed out like our space dwarf friends I'd see that as a positive.

AoS was just a sheer mess.
I think right now the only army that's still a mess is Cities of Sigmar where we know GW are updating the human component of them. However they still have most of the Dwarf models; almost the entire Dark Elf army and what's survived from high and wood elves. I still think those parts of Cities are something GW isn't clear on what they are doing with. Heck every Gotrek book they release seems to end with "and then he goes on to work on his plan to reunite the dwarves and all" and it fizzles.

But yeah GW slowed down with Aos, but there there's a LOT of armies that are very small model ranges which need beefing up coupled with a lot of old sculpts. There's only one lore army that's missing and that's the Shadow Aelf army under Malarion who rule most of the Shadow Realm. Indeed it was surprising to me that GW released Ossiarchs from almost nowhere instead of shadow Aelves that they'd been teasing as a concept since the start of AoS.

That's really the last army I expect to see fully new in AoS. After that I feel like AoS just needs to keep its head down on new armies and focus on beefing up and updating things. Get Flesheaters some new sculpts; get Fyreslayers some diversity; get Skaven some updates

There's also Chaos Dwarfs, they also got a fair amount of teasing and are a fan favourite, so i guess they'll get at least some love too before the stage of new armies is closed for some time.

Ahh true! Though I really do kind of hope that Chaos Dwarves would come after a big update to the main core dwarf force. OR GW should squat them and stop teasing them and just have Dwarves as Khadoran and Fyreslayer and give Slayers some actual core army updates.

 Overread wrote:
Honestly I just think Inquisition is a something that works as a few leader choices or special characters within a regular Imperial army. Make 5 or 6 and put one in each Imperial army and you've got your variety of choice. Pick the core army with an Inquisitor and then just use the normal allies rules to bring in a little of something else.



I feel like Inquisition as an army is born of GW's marketing in the late Kirby era when they were looking to add armies to 40K with low investment.

Inquisition - a few leaders and soup together the Imperials
Yinnari - a single box of leaders and soup together the Eldar
Marines - soup the new sculpts in with the old (I'm almost 100% convinced Primaris started out life as just the new wave of Marine sculpts)

Of course we also got things like Genestealer Cults breaking out into their own army (though I'd argue that didn't fully happen until their second wave where they dropped most of the need to take a full Imperial Guard army as their core/bulk)

Harlequins also had a fair go at being their own army, but never got a big second wave to really make them stand out and thus they've rolled back into Craftworld.



I feel like GW at that time was looking for ways to add armies rather than update existing ones (eg big Eldar update) and was looking for lore tight ways without repeating the Tau method of adding a force.

It kind of worked but also kind of felt like some were really low investment attempts.


I think GW has shifted angles.

Inquisition as an army predates that late-7th early-8th era by nearly a decade and a half as part of mid-3rd editon. (Just on the border of 3.5) the isse came that sisters never got updated until 5th, and GK took the forefront of the 4e codex, and 5ths trend of paring things down saw the Inqusition divorced from their chambers militant. Leaving a gaggle of chracters in a pair of 3e dexes until Imperial Agents in 7th. And that was more of a catchall book more than a proper army.

I think Inquisiton could work as an army given the GSC treatment. A few core units, a gaggle of support/beatstick chaeacters, and the ability to take patrols of other factions.

HQ:

All the named
Hereticus Lord
Xenos Lord
Malleus Lord
Malleus Terminator Lord

Elites:
Hereticus Inquisitor
Xenos Inquisitor
Malleus Inquisitor
Assassins

Retinue- 5-10 models chosen from:
Interrogator (All)
Lex Mechanic (All)
Combat Servitor (All)
Ordnance Servitor (All)
Veteran (All)
Bound Psyker (All)
Priest (Hereticus)
Jokaero (Xenos)
Daemonhost (Malleus)
DCA's (All)
Crusaders (All)
Master of the Fleet (All)
Master of Ordnance (All)
Astropath (All)

Troops:
Acolytes
Navy Breachers
Arbites
Scions/ Stormtroopers

Transports:
Land Raider (with some variants)
Rhino
Valkyrie
Immolator (Hereticus only)
Corvus Blackstar (Xenos only)

This would do it. I haven't included any FA or Heavy spots- I figure if they want FA or Heavies, they take an Outrider or Spearhead detachment from there Chamber list. I didn't really want to add Chamber units to the Inquisition list, but I had to throw in DCAs and Crusaders, because there are enough different Death Cults and Crusader Orders that each Ordo should have one dedicated to their specific cause.

When Inq soup with their Chamber, an entire Inquisition detachment should be treated as Agents, rather than just one unit. All Ordos should be able to soup like this with Guard as well.

Keep the rules for adding an Inquisitor Lord as a Single Agent too- maybe allow a retinue to be added as an Agent unit in addition to the Inquisitor (but also maybe not- Chamber being able to soup with an entire Inquisition Detachment might be enough to allow people to include retinues in Chamber dominant armies).

Obviously you also need general and Ordo specific strats, WL traits, relics and Crusade content.

That's more than enough for a dex. I suppose we could add some Chamber FA and Heavy if we had to, but I genuinely think the soup rules are a better way to handle that. I see the Inquisition as having their own HQ, Elites and Troops, but having to recruit Chambers for massed specialists.

What about minor Ordos and Inquisitorial Chimeras in transports?

 Haighus wrote:
What about minor Ordos and Inquisitorial Chimeras in transports?

Under the current regime, minor Ordos is something that would probably be realized as either a stratagem or with something like the Grand Cult rules for TS or the Genestealer subcults, and applied to a generic Inquisitor unit.

Umbros wrote:

Given how popular Inquisition is amongst fans of the background, it is truly baffling that they continue to undersupport it.

but is it? what do they really need, to make an inquisition army? an inquisitor and then whatever imperial army you like. that's the whole reason they don't deserve an entire codex.

and people being fans of something in the background is very different than people wanting to spend money on models for the game.
inquisitors are a great mechanism for story telling, the inquisition is not so much of a great idea for an entire codex.

I've been slowly working on a small inquisition force with a Land Raider Prometheus or 3. It's been a perfect force for small games and dipping my toe into imperial forces.

An Imperial Agents codex with all the Rogue Trader stuff, Arbites, etc would be exactly what I'd want.

 ProfSrlojohn wrote:

 PaddyMick wrote:
The Content Validity Document has been updated - Imperial Agents are now legal until June.

Imperial Agents in War of the Spider isn't Inqusition, it's Assassins. Inquisiton was in Octarius 1, which has been confirmed to be totally invalid.

Which is irrelevant, because you cant play assassins in AoO. You cant include them in an AoO detachment because their agent of the imperium rule only works when they are in a patrol, brigade, or battallion detachment, including them in an AoO detachment would make that detachment an illegal IMPERIUM detachment. You cant use them in an AGENT OF THE IMPERIUM patrol detachment (battle brothers rule), because they dont have the AGENT OF THE IMPERIUM faction keyword. You cant use them in a vanguard detachment (with their execution force rule) because there is no vanguard detachment in AoO.

johnpjones1775 wrote:
but is it? what do they really need, to make an inquisition army? an inquisitor and then whatever imperial army you like. that's the whole reason they don't deserve an entire codex.

We've been over this.

Minimally, for datasheets, there are 5 named Inquisitors and 3 generic; there is a generic Rogue Trader profile, but there are 3 named Rogue Trader possibilities in addition to that. Then there are Voidsmen, Breachers and now Arbites. Jokaero and Crusaders are still on the Inquisition tab for the webstore. Acolytes have a card, but no models. Then there's assassins... Four more data sheets.

That's what we have right now. It's a fair number of dataslates, and they need somewhere to live that ISN'T a book that comes with a seasonal campaign book with a built in expiration date or a White Dwarf with an even shorter availability window.

Clearly, an Imperial Agents book has a role to fill. Especially in THIS edition, while bespoke Crusade content is still the norm; as a guy who plans to keep using Octarius content until there are actual reasons not to (besides GW's decree), I was choked that Rogue Traders got Crusade content and Inquisition didn't.

PenitentJake wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:
but is it? what do they really need, to make an inquisition army? an inquisitor and then whatever imperial army you like. that's the whole reason they don't deserve an entire codex.

We've been over this.

Minimally, for datasheets, there are 5 named Inquisitors and 3 generic; there is a generic Rogue Trader profile, but there are 3 named Rogue Trader possibilities in addition to that. Then there are Voidsmen, Breachers and now Arbites. Jokaero and Crusaders are still on the Inquisition tab for the webstore. Acolytes have a card, but no models. Then there's assassins... Four more data sheets.

That's what we have right now. It's a fair number of dataslates, and they need somewhere to live that ISN'T a book that comes with a seasonal campaign book with a built in expiration date or a White Dwarf with an even shorter availability window.

Clearly, an Imperial Agents book has a role to fill. Especially in THIS edition, while bespoke Crusade content is still the norm; as a guy who plans to keep using Octarius content until there are actual reasons not to (besides GW's decree), I was choked that Rogue Traders got Crusade content and Inquisition didn't.

It's fair to assume they'd get some transports and maybe flyers included, land raider maybe in the heavy slot. An argument can be made for a selection of the house militant units that fit, such as penitent engines and flagellants, maybe a one-size-fits-all deathwatch team, some tempestus as well.

Yeah, asking "what data sheets do inquisition need" after GW stripped out all their Inquisition specific stuff is just mindboggling, haha.

There is enough content in prior Inquisition books to make a codex (I.e. witch hunters minis SoB combined with Daemonhunters without GK). GW just removed/legends most of it.

HQs:
Inquisitor Lord with tons of options
Inquisitor with tons of options
Inquisitorial Henchmen (1 unit per inquisitor, unit size max 6 for regular or 12 for Lord) with extremely different options
Special character inquisitors

Elites:
Non-retinue Henchmen (many of whom would be separate characters in 9th).

Troops:
Inquisitorial Storm Troopers with tons of options

Transports:
Inquisitorial Chimera

Heavy Support:
Inquisitorial Land Raider

Fast Attack (Flyers now):
Inquisitorial Valkyrie


Then, give them access to a restricted list of options from other imperial codexes, which lose their original keywords and gain the Inquisition and Ordo keywords.