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I should probably wait for the new Imperial Agents to come out and see what GW does. But screw that! Here's some ideas for making Henchmen better.

Henchmen Changes



Inquisitor Changes



And just for fun...

AbHuman Special Henchmen


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Not quite as many changes as I thought there'd be, but eh. Thoughts?

There are some neat ideas here! I feel, however, that you may have left yourself open to some problems.

Acolytes: Will be sprinkled into imperial lists whenever possible for an insanely cheap squad-wide bonus to BS. I'd be fine with their new rule if they were only able to grant the bonus to other henchmen (or even to only a single henchman so you can help the jokaero or plasma guy aim), but I feel this would dramatically alter list building in all imperial lists . I would probably never run my sisters, marines, or skitarii without an allied inquisitorial detachment to make them BS 5.

Crusader: So you sprinkle a couple of these guys into a conscript blob, and now you have 4+ (or 3+) invuls on insanely cheap models. I know it's only in btb, but you'll tank blasts well enough to not mind clustering up around the crusaders. And then you have someone cast sanctuary for a 2+ invul on 3 point models. Even within a henchmen squad, I see this being abused to put cheap acolytes up front and then make them relatively durable meat shields for the other models in the unit. In assaults, I see this rule leading to feel-bad discussions about where exactly those crusaders have to pile in because their final pile in location will drmatically alter the durability of their squad mates.

Daemonhost: I'm fine with this one, but I'm not entirely sure I understand the fluff you're going for. Is it a poltergeist tornado type of thing?

Death Cult Assassins: Like the crusaders, I see disputes arising about precisely where the assassins are required to pile in.

Mystics: Are mystics still a thing? I thought they got removed. I'm assuming they're pretty cheap. If that's the cast, a single mystic and a psyker in the same squad means that your unit (like a conscript blob) suddenly denies on a 4+. 3+ If the inquisitor is around. This can be pretty frustrating to your buddy who likes to run the occassional psyker rather than a GK or Tzeentch army. I'd be more okay with this combo in a henchman squad as the inquisition seems like they could reasonably scrape together some decent psychic defenses given the nature of their work.

Wyldhunt wrote:
There are some neat ideas here! I feel, however, that you may have left yourself open to some problems.

Acolytes: Will be sprinkled into imperial lists whenever possible for an insanely cheap squad-wide bonus to BS. I'd be fine with their new rule if they were only able to grant the bonus to other henchmen (or even to only a single henchman so you can help the jokaero or plasma guy aim), but I feel this would dramatically alter list building in all imperial lists . I would probably never run my sisters, marines, or skitarii without an allied inquisitorial detachment to make them BS 5.

Crusader: So you sprinkle a couple of these guys into a conscript blob, and now you have 4+ (or 3+) invuls on insanely cheap models. I know it's only in btb, but you'll tank blasts well enough to not mind clustering up around the crusaders. And then you have someone cast sanctuary for a 2+ invul on 3 point models. Even within a henchmen squad, I see this being abused to put cheap acolytes up front and then make them relatively durable meat shields for the other models in the unit. In assaults, I see this rule leading to feel-bad discussions about where exactly those crusaders have to pile in because their final pile in location will drmatically alter the durability of their squad mates.

Daemonhost: I'm fine with this one, but I'm not entirely sure I understand the fluff you're going for. Is it a poltergeist tornado type of thing?

Death Cult Assassins: Like the crusaders, I see disputes arising about precisely where the assassins are required to pile in.

Mystics: Are mystics still a thing? I thought they got removed. I'm assuming they're pretty cheap. If that's the cast, a single mystic and a psyker in the same squad means that your unit (like a conscript blob) suddenly denies on a 4+. 3+ If the inquisitor is around. This can be pretty frustrating to your buddy who likes to run the occassional psyker rather than a GK or Tzeentch army. I'd be more okay with this combo in a henchman squad as the inquisition seems like they could reasonably scrape together some decent psychic defenses given the nature of their work.

I'll get rid of the "Squad-wide" bonus on Acolytes. So you can buff an entire SM squad... If you have one Acolyte per Marine.

For Crusaders, perhaps a different rule that allows them to Look Out Sir! for any model, not just characters, and let them auto-pass that roll if there's an Inquisitor in the squad?

I wasn't sure what exactly to give Daemonhosts, but this seemed appropriate. I imagine it can vary from the earth cracking and splitting, to unnatural winds, to an aura of malaise and despair. Fluff it how you like!

Is there any issue with DCA rule, though?

Mystics are still a thing. Two melta gun base cost. And You get a 6+ normally, 5+ with the Mystic, 4+ with a Psyker, 3+ with an Inquisitor... (2+ if you also manage a higher level Psyker.) Hrm. Yeah, I'll have to think of something new for them.

Edit: Made changes. Acolytes are now a one-to-one deal; Crusaders get Look Out Sir! 4+ for nobodies, 3+ for characters, 2+ for ICs, and finally autopass and can LOS! challenges if there's an Inquisitor in the squad; Mystics give a +1 to Invuln saves against psychic powers (which is pretty potent combined with a Crusader-that'll hit Tzeentch Daemons hard, but that's about it for people who primarily rely on mind bullets) and Ad Will if there's an Inquisitor.

Edit II: Added some changes to Inquisitors themselves, as well as two new Inquisitors! I think I might've made Dorgle too cheap, though-thoughts?

Henchmen: I like the changes. I'd play against it.

The problem with the death cult assassin is that exact placement of models in melee tends to get a bit messy. I could see disputes breaking about whether the assassin has to try to pile in around the crusaders in front by going left or right or whether they can just stop sort of in the middle where they just so happen to be giving out more bonus attacks, etc. Consider making it a simpler squad-wide thing? +1 WS to a squad containing 1 or more death cult assassins, +1 Attack to the attacks characteristic of any inquisitor in the squad (representing spending time training/sparring with the assassin). Something like that, maybe?

Inquisitors:
Lots of cool stuff here. Does the price of your artificer armor overshadow terminator armor (which has the drawback of preventing the unit from sweeping and eats up a slot in a transport)?

The back grounds sound like a lot of fun, but I worry about the abusability of the Smuggler's Past. It makes the inquisitor a pretty cheap source of hit & run for a number of death stars and blobs (including the conscript blob mentioned earlier). I'm also not sure that a background in smuggling necessarily warrants the hit & run rule. Harlequins have it, but banshees don't. White scars have it, but they're power-armored superhumans, and they're usually assumed to be on bikes. Consider limiting or revising this one somehow? Maybe let him confer infiltrate instead? Somewhat less easy to abuse/less powerful, and I'd argue it reflects a history of sneaking past authorities better than running away quickly.

Abhumans:
These amuse me, but I'm not sure they'd be likely to become inquisitors. And not just because of their abhuman natures. Inquisitors are meant to... er... inquire. They're known for being clever and capable of sniffing out enemy plots and looking to the future. These guys seem like they'd fill more of an assassin type role. Like, they'd make more sense as options in the IG book or as special character henchmen than as inquisitors.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Henchmen: I like the changes. I'd play against it.

The problem with the death cult assassin is that exact placement of models in melee tends to get a bit messy. I could see disputes breaking about whether the assassin has to try to pile in around the crusaders in front by going left or right or whether they can just stop sort of in the middle where they just so happen to be giving out more bonus attacks, etc. Consider making it a simpler squad-wide thing? +1 WS to a squad containing 1 or more death cult assassins, +1 Attack to the attacks characteristic of any inquisitor in the squad (representing spending time training/sparring with the assassin). Something like that, maybe?

Inquisitors:
Lots of cool stuff here. Does the price of your artificer armor overshadow terminator armor (which has the drawback of preventing the unit from sweeping and eats up a slot in a transport)?

The back grounds sound like a lot of fun, but I worry about the abusability of the Smuggler's Past. It makes the inquisitor a pretty cheap source of hit & run for a number of death stars and blobs (including the conscript blob mentioned earlier). I'm also not sure that a background in smuggling necessarily warrants the hit & run rule. Harlequins have it, but banshees don't. White scars have it, but they're power-armored superhumans, and they're usually assumed to be on bikes. Consider limiting or revising this one somehow? Maybe let him confer infiltrate instead? Somewhat less easy to abuse/less powerful, and I'd argue it reflects a history of sneaking past authorities better than running away quickly.

Abhumans:
These amuse me, but I'm not sure they'd be likely to become inquisitors. And not just because of their abhuman natures. Inquisitors are meant to... er... inquire. They're known for being clever and capable of sniffing out enemy plots and looking to the future. These guys seem like they'd fill more of an assassin type role. Like, they'd make more sense as options in the IG book or as special character henchmen than as inquisitors.

Changed Smuggler's Past to Infiltrate. Should it also come with a price drop, since I feel 30 Points is a bit much for I5 and Infiltrate?

Artificer Armour also does not confer Relentless or an invuln (though you can nab a better invuln on the cheap with a Power Field). That being said, I'd rather see Terminator Armour get cheaper than make my Aritificer Armour pricier. Say, 25 points for the Terminator Armour?

For Dorgle and Snik-Snak, maybe have them as special Henchmen? I still think they should take an HQ slot, though I'd adjust their wargear a little bit to represent that they're not Inquisitors.

Edit: DCAs changed to +1 WS for the squad. An Inquisitor in the squad bumps that up to +2, or +1 WS and +1 Attack.

Edit II: Changed Dorgle and Snik-Snak a little. Also reduced the cost on Terminator Armour.

I really like some of these ideas! Inquisition has always struggled to balance flexibility with a reasonable number of options (or at least a logical way to organize them) and I think they definitely could benefit from your tweaks. Here's what I would do to potentially streamline things:

Acolytes (with changes)


Henchmen (with changes)

Note: I think making all henchmen ICs is probably not the best choice. I think it opens up too many possibilities for complication (or abuse) and kills the idea of the Inquisition retinue or warband, which is one of the reasons they're unique. Space Marines barely listen to Inquistiors, let alone Interrogators, so an attached acolyte just seems unfluffy to me.

Inquisitors (with changes)


Inquisitorial Background Traits (with changes)


Some very interesting changes and overall I really like you ideas. I wonder how Imperial Agents will switch things up?

DoW

One thing you seem to be confused about-Henchmen are NOT ICs. They act like them during deployment (can be attached to any squad) but once the game begins, they are no longer able to detach or attach to other squads.

I like your thoughts on subdividing Acolytes further.

For the rest... I'm not sure.

Edit: Made some Acolyte changes, and Crusader changes.

Edit II: Made some changes to Terminator Armour pricing.

 JNAProductions wrote:
One thing you seem to be confused about-Henchmen are NOT ICs. They act like them during deployment (can be attached to any squad) but once the game begins, they are no longer able to detach or attach to other squads.

Very well, I will edit my comment.

DogofWar wrote:Note: I think making all henchmen attachable to other units during deployment is probably not the best choice. I think it opens up too many possibilities for complication (or abuse) and kills the idea of the Inquisition retinue or warband, which is one of the reasons they're unique. Space Marines barely listen to Inquistiors, let alone Interrogators, so an attached acolyte just seems unfluffy to me

DoW

It makes sense to me. The Inquisitor sends his retinue out to where they can do the most good, rather than keeping them close. And they're not necessarily taking orders from them-they're using them as another tactical tool (acolytes), being inspired by fervent hymns of battle (priests), getting equipment upgrades (Jokaero), or various other things.

Edit: Mechanically, does it cause issues? I'm not OVERLY concerned about the fluff being perhaps not perfect if the mechanics are sound.

I suppose we'll have to disagree on the canon/lore/fluff aspect. Most of the Inquisition novels and codices I've read focus on the 'warband' or retinue that an Inquisitor or Interrogator takes with them wherever they go. Sometimes you'll have Inquisitor Lords (like Coteaz or Karamazov), who have huge retinues of thousands, which I imagine would be farmed out as tacticians, but I doubt they would be integrated effectively into another army, especially not one as functionally independent as Adeptus Astartes.

What they have done, however, is have completely independent units (like Death Cult Assassins), but nowadays they would be picked off very easily and give an opponent a kill point bonanza!

As far as rules are concerned, the only time I've seen models be attached at deployment and unable to separate is with things like Commissars, but they're only within the same Army list. It would be a completely new rule you'd be creating for them to 'act' like ICs for the purpose of deployment into Battle Brother units, but being unable to separate afterwards. I don't think it's totally unreasonable from a mechanics perspective.

This being said, it would open up the door for a LOT of combinations that may end up being overly powerful. A Crusader in a GK squad could fairly easily be given a 2++ save (possibly a re-rollable) that could be used for anyone in the unit on a 4+ (and any IC on a 2+). A medic in a Blood Angels list could give a squad a 3+ or 2+ FnP. One Death Cult gives a blob of Conscripts WS3.

Not necessarily game-breaking, but when you start letting single models with unit-wide buffs attach to completely different faction units, you get some really nasty combinations. Maybe it's the Inquisition purist in me, but people use Inquisitors as grenade jockeys and divination batteries enough already. Being able to add a +1FnP for 12 points to any unit in the Imperium or +1WS for 15 points would be essentially auto-take.

Food for thought though. This is all just for fun anyway.

DoW

Yeah, I was thinking about the Medic. An iron Hands Command Squad gets a 2+ FNP from him and an IC with their MFD. I think I'll limit the MediPack to a 4+ FNP maximum.

And WS3 Conscripts really aren't that scary. Now, 2 Attack WS 3 Conscripts is scary, but can be gotten rid of by sniping out the DCA (with no Look Out Sir! unless you have a Crusader in the squad, since DCAs are not characters) or the Inquisitor.

Edit: And it's 16 Points for a Medic. That +12 PPM is in ADDITION to their base cost.

I'm completely and totally confused by the Assassin. What about dumping a random murder-psychopath into a squad is going to turn everyone else into better murder-psychopaths along with him/her/it/who knows? Not to mention you've basically given full-DCA squads (a decent unit already) a free upgrade to WS6/A3 that they didn't need at all.

As for the Medic why doesn't he just do the same thing every other Medic in the game does and give 5+ FNP? Why does he need to be additive with existing FNP/other medics?

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I'm completely and totally confused by the Assassin. What about dumping a random murder-psychopath into a squad is going to turn everyone else into better murder-psychopaths along with him/her/it/who knows? Not to mention you've basically given full-DCA squads (a decent unit already) a free upgrade to WS6/A3 that they didn't need at all.

As for the Medic why doesn't he just do the same thing every other Medic in the game does and give 5+ FNP? Why does he need to be additive with existing FNP/other medics?

The idea is that they're trained to work with and enhance others-they're not solo assassins, like the Eversor, they're part of a team. If you have better ideas for them, I'd gladly hear it!

The Medic is because I didn't want to hand out FNP 5+ for 16 points. FNP 6+ feels a lot more reasonable, but I also feel like there should be a point to taking with, say, Iron Hands.

...You thought FNP5 for 16pts was too powerful but handing FNP+1 to anyone in the Imperium for 16pts wasn't?

And what was wrong with having a decent melee model to stick into henchmen warbands in the first place? Why does the Assassin need to suddenly become an incredibly powerful support tool? What about 'death-cult assassin' screams 'buff squad' to you?

I think these are the main issues:

1. Some of your models are too good at too many different things (and aren't costed appropriately).
2. The utility of attaching these acolytes to other army units is massive and has no real downside.
3. There's no incentive to create synergy within the Inquisition list. There's no reason at all to take a Henchman Warband when you can just improve any other squad in the game (so long as they are BB).

Here's ways I would consider trying to fix those problems:

1. Look to other armies for how they cost and restrict powerful abilities. Guard, for example, have access to one med-pack, it's for the command squad, and it costs +30 points. If something has the ability to 'stack' (increasing a FnP save, for example) it has the potential to be VERY powerful, so should be over-costed to compensate.

Stick to the rule of "Offense, Defense, Support" when creating and costing a model. If it's very good at killing (Death Cult) then it should be fragile and not buff the unit. If it's very hard to kill (Crusader) then it needs to be weaker in offense and support. You can have models that are multi-role (SM Captains, Riptides, etc.), as it were, but they need to cost much more. That's especially true if you want to make a 'support' model hard to kill, or good at killing.

2. Other than being infantry (so might restrict the movement of some squads), attaching one of your DCA or Crusaders to a squad is never a bad choice. They are cheap, provide a benefit to the whole squad, and are good at combat (either defensive or offensive) to boot. Every Imperium player would snatch up a handful of them for every squad in their armies.

I would make your 'buffing' models bog-standard guardsman profiles. An autosavant, a combat logician, etc. who can provide that +1BS to a model (or re-roll 1s, or twin-linked, etc.) because now it's a squishy target that isn't doing anything except take up space in a transport or needing to be babysat by staying in the middle of the squad. You could even have them buff the whole squad so long as they themselves bring nothing to the fight (it's a psychological difference, but people are much more willing to accept it for a lower point cost).

3. I really like the "If an Inquisitor is also in the squad, benefit is improved by X" system that you have. That gives an incentive to the player to keep Inquisition stuff together and it makes sense from a "these guys have been fighting together for years, they work well as a team" concept. The ability to have variety in a Warband is one of their greatest strengths, so why not give an incentive to take less variety? Units comprised of only DCA gain Dunestrider (+3" movement/run/charge distance) or +1WS. Units comprised of only Warrior Acolytes gain +1BS or re-roll 1s to hit. Units comprised of only Crusaders increase their 3++ to a 2++ (okay, maybe not that one!). Allow an Inquisitor to be attached still and you've got another aspect of list building that isn't auto-take or auto-shelf.

All just suggestions though. I think you're on the right track for something good!

DoW

To my mind this does nothing at all for the Inquisition and turns the Codex into deathstar support for other factions. The Inquisition should be an army of skilled units with the best tools in the Imperial arsenal designed to operate independently, not a force-multiplier full of support elements that get farmed out into other armies.

An overhaul to the army should probably focus on expanding their tools for a self-sufficient force and adding effects that interact with Reserves, the mission, and deployment/first turn, not on buffing the four-model support detachment through the stratosphere.