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Do you or do you not think the Arbitrators are under appreciated? Fluff-wise, they're supposed to be the law enforcers of the Imperium, the ones who maintain order and and Imperial rule over Human worlds...and yet, we never hear about them. Whenever heretics/mutants/insurgents and so on rear their ugly heads, it's always the Inquisition this, Inquisition that. Where are the Arbitrators?

Yeah. They are. There is way too much Inquisition. There supposed to be rare. I suppose any significant insurgency may be beyond the capability of the arbites to deal with alone and require reinforcements.

Wow. Is this the first time we've agreed on something?

Maybe, I'll have to check.

Arbites kinda suffer from the same problems the PDF do in fluff, they are used to show how bad a situation has become, kinda like the redshirts in star trek, so they have to call in the next level of response to deal with the threat.

I have always had a soft spot for the Adeptus Arbites, even made conversions for a Arbites army for a buddy, would be nice to see more on them, maybe if they ever do a necromunda reboot.

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
Arbites kinda suffer from the same problems the PDF do in fluff, they are used to show how bad a situation has become, kinda like the redshirts in star trek, so they have to call in the next level of response to deal with the threat.

Now that's just sad.

I have always had a soft spot for the Adeptus Arbites, even made conversions for a Arbites army for a buddy, would be nice to see more on them, maybe if they ever do a necromunda reboot.

There are rules for an Arbites army?

I remember some here and there, power mauls and suppresion sheilds, in the Inquisitor game they had a arbites character with a cyber mastiff.

heres a pic of the Inqusitor model, not a very good pic though.

Reminds me of Judge Dredd...that makes sense.

That's what Arbites are, basically. Judge Dredd. Their Enforcer Carapace and mirror-shielded helmets, stun batons and Executioner shotguns are all meant to invoke the image of Judge Dredd.

Not really sure that they could be well-represented on the tabletop as a stand-alone army, though you could probably use the IG Codex to stand in for them as allies to a Witch-hunter army to some extent. They largely lack the heavy armor and sheer numbers of the IG though, on even the most populous Hive Worlds. Though... a few Rhinos, maybe a lone Immolator variant or Leman Russ Punisher, supported by blobs of shield-and-pistol bearing troops might work well.

 Psienesis wrote:

Not really sure that they could be well-represented on the tabletop as a stand-alone army, though you could probably use the IG Codex to stand in for them as allies to a Witch-hunter army to some extent. They largely lack the heavy armor and sheer numbers of the IG though, on even the most populous Hive Worlds. Though... a few Rhinos, maybe a lone Immolator variant or Leman Russ Punisher, supported by blobs of shield-and-pistol bearing troops might work well.

Well, they're not really soldiers, more like Imperial equivalents to 'feds' as opposed to local law enforcers.

if you look back at GW history the old citidel line of minitures included judge dred and even stormbringer and dr.who minis, you could even link the Judge Dred universe to pre-imperium terra, way , way back

I guess GW liked the dred look so much they kept it around.

The Arbites are probably one of my favourite parts of the Imperium. Those guys are hard as nails.

Yeah my buddy ran a Arbites army based off of IG codex, vets with shotguns and gernade launchers, Valks and riot sentinals, a few crowd control chimeras, not a WAAC army by any stretch, but a joy to look at and fun to play agasint with a equally fluffy army.

Many times in fluff the Arbites are the last holdouts when a planet rebels or gets overan by chaos/xenos whatever.

Just like the guard, normal guys doing extrodinary things.

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:

Just like the guard, normal guys doing extrodinary things.

Which makes it so irritating that they seem to keep getting forgotten or something along those lines..

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/505364.page

This guy has a few batreps involving an adeptus arbites army based off SOB rules (and they look AWESOME)

You all seem to appreciate the arbites, so you'll probably like his army.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
Reminds me of Judge Dredd...that makes sense.

IIRC, some guys who work for GW worked on Judge Dredd and they are inspired by Dredd which is why I love them and wish there were more stories around them. Hopefully Black Library will tell a story of Arbites trying to bring justice to some heretic scum.

I don't think a Arbites force would be to hard to reproduce with the IG codex. If you just take Vets with carapace armour and shotguns then give the sergeants power mauls. There's no real way to give them suppression shields but if you take a CCS with carapace armour you could model the body guard advisors as cyber mastiffs.

 unmercifulconker wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
Reminds me of Judge Dredd...that makes sense.

IIRC, some guys who work for GW worked on Judge Dredd and they are inspired by Dredd which is why I love them and wish there were more stories around them. Hopefully Black Library will tell a story of Arbites trying to bring justice to some heretic scum.

I can't recall the title, but I remember seeing an Arbites novel once. As I recall, the cover had a blonde and female Arbitrator firing a gun at something.

Those were good novels. There are 3 of them AFAIK.

 purplefood wrote:
Those were good novels. There are 3 of them AFAIK.

Do you have a name?

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 purplefood wrote:
Those were good novels. There are 3 of them AFAIK.

Do you have a name?

Yeah it's Purplefood.

 purplefood wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 purplefood wrote:
Those were good novels. There are 3 of them AFAIK.

Do you have a name?

Yeah it's Purplefood.

I meant the novels. Trolls...

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 purplefood wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 purplefood wrote:
Those were good novels. There are 3 of them AFAIK.

Do you have a name?

Yeah it's Purplefood.

I meant the novels. Trolls...

Oh right...
That makes more sense...
They were the Shira Calpurnia novels by Matthew Farrer.
BL released an omnibus so you can pick them all up at once.

Oh wow thank you, words well received brother!

edit: Found it, Enforcer is the Omnibus

They sure are. :(

Is that arbites novel any good?

The Arbites are to the Inquisition what the Imperial Guard are to the Space Marines, or the Frateris Militia to the Sisters of Battle.

That being said, at least they have a couple minis, and the 3E Witch Hunters Codex allowed you to field them as an inducted force. If I remember correctly they used modified IST rules, swapping hellguns for shotguns etc.
There was some fluff about the Arbites often working in conjunction with the Battle Sisters for purity control missions by cordoning off entire hab blocks or forcing citizens into queues and stuff like that.

Oh, and the Necromunda Enforcers are modeled closely after them. In fact, I think those were the models you were supposed to use for fielding Arbites as WH troops?

Shlazaor wrote:Is that arbites novel any good?

That depends how much of a stickler for fluff consistency you are.

On a purely writing-based level, I have to say it was so-so. I really liked the detailed descriptions, as well as the protagonist's background and personality, but parts of the book were not very engaging. There were times I found it hard to continue. In fact, I still haven't finished the omnibus today - I kinda got sidelined by the arrival of a bunch of Battletech novels...
In short, the author does well at conveying the general tone of 40k as a setting, and has a good feel for the investigative and oppressing character of the Arbites. At the same time, the writing was a bit dry in some places (there were lots of scenes were it was better - the book kind of has "ups and downs" like that) and I wasn't too happy with certain inconsistencies. However, I think very few people will actually notice the latter due to not having read GW's stuff on the subject, so that doesn't have to be a downer for anyone else.

 Eetion wrote:
Yeah. They are. There is way too much Inquisition. There supposed to be rare. I suppose any significant insurgency may be beyond the capability of the arbites to deal with alone and require reinforcements.

Wow. Is this the first time we've agreed on something?

Pretty much this.

The Arbites are supposed to be a bunch of mini-Judge Dredds. They're a badass concept that is barely touched upon in fluff in favor of Inquisitors and Space Marines handling every insurgency in the Imperium.

In-universe, no. In the fandom and in the minds of the less competent writers, yes. A lot of things that people would say "NOBODY EXPECTS THE IMPERIAL INQUISITION!" about are handled more appropriately by the Arbitrators.

I think the arbitrators are under-appreciated by the writers and by the fans, personally.

That being said, I've always been curious as to how well the Shira Calpurnia novels sold...

The arbites rules for Necromunda work out to be pretty broken, in my experience. I've seen a few models in Inquisitorial Retinues modeled to be arbites. Speaking of, if you've just got an absolute insatiable thirst for law and order, then you could scope out the Eisenhorn trilogy for some scraps, since he's been known to roll around with an Arbite by the name of Godwyn Fishig.

That's about all I've got for that, really. Oh, in the short story compilation Let the Galaxy Burn, edited by Christian Dunn and Marc Gascoigne, there is a short story about an Arbite hunting down a hive gang. That's all the arbite related business I could think of.

Hopefully, that's some kind of help. Good luck, and enjoy!

There's also FFG's Book of Judgment which should feature a lot on the Arbites. I'm not sure how well it actually ties in with GW's own material, but I recall hearing that the author of the Shira Calpurnia novels helped out with the book, so there should be some crossover between those two products.

One thing that they seem to point out fairly often is that most of the time, any 'arbites' in stories not actually about them aren't actually 'Adeptus Arbites' - they are just instead more elite planetary policemen.

Actual Adeptus Arbites only tend to be found on the slightly more important imperial worlds. - Trade route centres, capital worlds, that sort of thing.