With the new edition of Warhammer 40000 coming later this month, I decided to take a look at the current state of each of my armies at the end of 8th edition and what I’m looking forward to for them in 9th edition.
In addition to my full armies, I have a bunch of miscellaneous models for Warhammer 40000. None of these factions have enough models painted to field as a full army, but I can mix them in with other factions when playing a game.
Gellerpox Infected
The Gellerpox Infected from the Kill Team: Rogue Trader box make up a Patrol detachment that can be fielded alongside my Death Guard army. While having a second detachment means there will be a command point cost, Vulgrar Thrice-Cursed’s warlord trait gives the army 3 extra command points to use. Those extra command points are limited to being used for Gellerpox Infected stratagems, but they do help to soften the cost of including a second detachment.
The Gellerpox Infected bring a mix of powerful melee units and relatively weak small units that can be used as distractions or board control. Vulgrar and the Hullbreakers are all hard-hitting and relatively tough, but they’re slower and so might struggle to reach close combat before being gunned down. The rest of the units suffer from a low model count meaning that they only have 3-4 wounds per unit. Vox-Shamblers have frag grenades, but really want to get into melee so that they can try to reflect mortal wounds back onto the unit fighting them. Glitchlings are a good option for holding a backfield objective thanks to both their small size and subtracting 1 from hit rolls to shoot them. The Eyestinger Swarms and Cursemites offer fast-moving units to go engage enemies in close combat, but their small unit size means they’re unlikely to survive long enough to actually lock up an enemy unit in combat. Sludge-Grubs are pretty similar to the Vox-Shamblers in that they have a ranged attack option, but they really want to get into melee for the chance to do mortal wounds to the opponent.
Elucidian Starstriders
The Elucidian Starstriders were the other half of the Kill Team: Rogue Trader box. Like the Gellerpox Infected, they suffer a bit from the new detachment rules, but if Elucia is the warlord then she also grants 3 extra command points to use.
In battle, the Starstriders work best if they operate together. Elucia lets other models nearby re-roll 1s to hit, Larsen van der Grauss gives them all a 5+ invulnerable save, Sanistasia Minst can bring back destroyed models. They also have a stratagem that lets them all enter the battle mid-game using a teleportarium which can help to make sure they are the best place to have an impact on the game. The Voidsmen are similar to a small unit of Astra Militarum Veterans with their rotor cannon and artificer shotgun offering some heavier firepower.
Deathwatch
I bought this Deathwatch Kill Team to use in Kill Team. I really like how the faction works in Kill Team with each veteran able to take a wide variety of wargear to fill different roles. While I don’t think I’ll ever expand the force to a full army, there’s a good chance that I end up with enough for Combat Patrol since I’m interested in picking up another Kill Team to add more wargear options and an HQ of some sort to use in Kill Team: Commanders. Based on 8th edition power levels, that should get the army to about 25 power which is about right for Combat Patrol.
Imperial Agents
I have two inquisitors, Eisenhorn and Greyfax, and two assassins, a Vindicare and a Culexus, that can join any of my Imperium armies. For Eisenhorn, I also have a daemonhost model to use for his ability that can create one during a battle. Their current rules make it easy to have either an assassin or an inquisitor join an army since they don’t really interfere with army building. In addition to these painted models, I recently picked up Kyria Draxus so she’ll be a third inquisitor option once I paint the model.
Scott's Game Room 