Codex Imperial Agents Points Update: The Goonhammer Hot Take

Games Workshop dropped the stealthiest points update ever, quietly uploading the new points for the upcoming Codex: Imperial Agents to Warhammer-Community last night. If you missed them, you can find the new points here. These points complete the puzzle on our Codex review, filling in the missing gaps and answering the questions “Just how bad are Assassins going to be?” And “Will Grey Knights replace Ogryns in every Astra Militarum list?” If you’re unsure about the answers yourself, read on – we’ve got some thoughts.

If you missed our review of the book, you can find it here.

As promised, there are two sets of points in this update: One for armies where your army faction is Imperial Agents – i.e. where you’re using the Detachments from the book – and one where every model in your army has the IMPERIUM keyword, and you’re taking Agents as allies using their army rule. As you might expect, many of the points values in this second list are higher, though not all of them.

Wings: Shameful disrespect from Games Workshop for the sacred tradition of Hot Take Thursday. What kind of time is the middle of the night on a Tuesday for a rules release? Honestly.

Inquisitors

All three named Inquisitors stay unchanged from their book price in pure Agents armies, which equates to a 10pts cut compared to the current MFM for Draxus, in line with her getting slightly less powerful without Indirect. Realistically, this ensures that Draxus is still a lock in any sort of pure Agents army because of the powerful objective play her Psychic Veil provides. The other two are fine, but not as mandatory, and the regular Inquisitor stays as a cheap way of carrying an Enhancement if you really need it.

In allied armies the two you actually want to take (Coteaz and Draxus) take a hit, going up to 95pts apiece. This seems excessive – these feel like the thing you want to see being allied, and they already mostly only saw play in Custodes because of how scary their Battleline units can be. Would not shock us to see this change back in a future update. Greyfax and the regular Inquisitor are cheap, but there’s really not much use case for them, especially now Greyfax doesn’t bring No Escape to the table.

Inquisitorial Agents also get way cheaper, dropping 20pts to 50pts per 5 from the book price in an Agents army, and 60pts as allies. In both cases, the sheer cheapness is a virtue, as they’re now the least expensive multi-model ally unit, and a very inexpensive way to load up a Grenade/Tome Skull throwaway unit in an Agents list – 2×5 in a Chimera is a lot of harassment for only 170pts.

Assassins

All four Assassins clock in around 100-110 points for Imperial Agents (with the Eversor and Vindicare being pricier). Where they differ is when being used as allies in Imperial armies.

• The Callidus Assassin stayed at 100 points. That’s bonkers for a unit which arguably got even harder to kill, and while her ability to make Stratagems cost more is still locked to a 12” aura, her real value is that she can go up and down every turn and complete actions, plugging holes in any Imperial Army which wants an extra cheap way to score VP.
  Wings: Look, last time around you could argue that maybe changing the CP debuff effect made her worse and she didn’t need a point hike. That proved untrue, and she’s still in a huge proportion of Imperium lists, and this time she got better. Please just put her to like 115pts.
• The Eversor Assassin went up substantially, clocking in at 120 points. That’s a bit more reasonable for a unit which can trivially move 25” in a turn before declaring its charge move, acting as one of the game’s most efficient and reliable trading pieces. Even at 120, he’s likely going to see play. He’s not the action machine he was in Leviathan, but he’s got plenty of value.
• The Culexus Assassin went up to 100 points, and that one honestly seems a bit much for a unit I don’t see many people taking. Still, his improved ability to deep strike only 3” away combined with Lone Operative and Rapid Ingress lets him pull off some nasty tricks, so it’s not entirely unwarranted.
  Wings: I actually think the Culexus got sufficiently more interesting that you’d see them used at this price…were it not for the fact that you can just buy a Callidus for the same cost.
• The Vindicare Assassin clocks in at a more eye-watering 150 points, ensuring he’ll be a tough decision to include in many armies. That’s a big cost for a unit who could destabilize the game if he were much cheaper, and it will be interesting to see how often he makes it to the table – the new version of his Shieldbreaker shot does give him more utility against stuff like Knights than he used to have, but probably not enough for this price.

Deathwatch

The Deathwatch Kill Teams clock in at the same price as veterans currently – 100 points for 5 models, 200 for 10. That’s not ideal, considering they lost some versatility and output with regard to weapon options, but it’s not the end of the world, either. 100 points for a cheap battleline unit which can be given powerful weaponry, and they’re the same price as allies. A Deathwatch unit decked out with Thunder Hammers at 200 points in a Rhino with a Watch Master will cost you 380 points, and that’s not a terrible deal for a cruise missile with that kind of hitting power.

Wings: As I mentioned in our review, I think the real money might be 2×5 with Artemis and a Watch Master in a Rhino, most likely as an add-on in Astra Militarum. The double melee Rhino party bus is a well-proven 10th Edition staple, and at this price it’s definitely something people are going to at least experiment with.

Otherwise, what else is there to say? The Blackstar is still too expensive at 180 points, and the Detachment for the Deatwatch is just pitifully bad. These guys desperately needed to retain the Oaths of Moment army rule, and they didn’t get it.

Grey Knights

A Grey Knights Terminator Squad will set you back 190 points in an Imperial Agents army and 210 in any other Imperium army, same as they do in Grey Knights. That means they’re only 30 points more than a unit of 6 Bullgryn, for a unit with more durability, speed, shooting, and melee output, oh and by the way did we mention they’re OC 3 and they bring back dead models? A unit of five GK terminators may not have much play in other armies but we’ll see them tested in Astra Militarum at least, especially at that price.

Sisters of Battle

Both the Sisters themselves and the Immolator drop to 100pts in pure Imperial Agents, and that’s actually big money. One of the things the army struggles with on its own is anti-tank, and 300pts for two twin multi-meltas and a squad toting some more melta shots is definitely something you’re in the market for. Dropping that package by 40pts is arguably one of the biggest pickups you get compared to book prices for pure Agents.

When taken as allies, these jump to 115pts each, and at that price you probably don’t bother – in theory a unit and an Immolator to split them is an OK package, but in practice once you’re spending 230pts you either want something with more synergy with the rest of your list or you want to go the whole hog and build a Deathwatch party bus. Maybe Knights want it?

The Ministorum Priest also drops very slightly to 40pts for both use cases. That does leave them as the cheapest possible ally by some margin, so if you have 40pts spare for an idiot to walk onto the table to do an Action, go wild.

Arbites

All three Arbites squads drop a lot compared to book prices (and the previous MFM), now coming in at 85pts for Subductors and Vigilants, and 90pts for an Exaction squad. These prices are the same whether you’re taking them in an Agents list and as allies, and this is definitely great for the former, and has real potential in the latter, particularly as the floor on cheap allied Infantry prices is now higher. Subductors are extremely durable for their price tag, and I can definitely see a world where they’re now the tag-in Infantry of choice. The Exaction squad certainly isn’t bad either, and both coming with a fairly potent once-per-game trick via the Nuncia-aquila is quite appealing. Vigilants are still hot garbage and there’s no reason to ever take them above the other choices – even if you want to make sure you’ve got a Battleline unit in a pure Agents army, you just take Breachers at the same price.

Imperial Fleet

The Rogue Trader Entourage and Navy Breachers lead the charge here, getting fairly huge drops in pure Agents to 75pts and 90pts respectively. That’s really good, as the Imperialis Fleet is the only detachment that has promise, and it almost certainly wants at least one Trader/Breacher squad, so this is 40pts of free real estate. The Rogue Trader goes up to 105pts in allied builds, meaning you’ll never take them, but Breachers stay 90pts, so they’re in contention with some of the Arbites stuff as a higher quality ally. I suspect Subductors or Exaction squads get the nod most of the time, but in Pariah the fact that these have the Battleline keyword is a genuine consideration, so there’s at least some choice here.

Elsewhere for the navy, there seems to be some real caution about their ally potential – the days of ultra-cheap Voidsmen are over, with them jumping to 70pts as allies (while staying 50pts in Agents builds). That likely leaves them on the shelf for this purpose – if you want cheap, Inquisitorial Agents are cheaper, and the jump of only 15pts to the vastly better Subductor squad feels like points you can find. You also just legitimately take Watch Captain Artemis solo over these, because he’s tougher against any sort of small arms, far deadlier, and his Unstoppable Champion ability removes the main drawback of a single Character over multi-model chaff (dying to a single big shot). Navigators, finally, run you 60pts in Agents and 75pts in allies, so you probably take one in Imperialis Fleet, but leave them on the bench as allies unless the metagame gets real weird.

Enhancements

There are various minor changes from the book here, with a few offensive upgrades getting cheaper in Daemon Hunters and Purgation Force, and increases in the cost of No Escape and the Beacon Angelis, which sort of make sense in a vacuum, but there is really no need to be nerfing anything in these detachments, c’mon.

Final Thoughts

Wings: I think the points changes for pure Agents are pretty well put together here, and there’s a genuine chance this gets an Imperialis Fleet build to the point where it’s actually competitive. I plugged the new prices into the list I built for our review and it drops a massive 185pts from this, and cutting the Vindicare on top of that plus a bit of tinkering squeezes the double Immolator/Sisters package in. The revised list is below:

Army List - Click to Expand

That feels like an actual army, and I’ll be interested if anything similar breaks through.

As allies, I’m less sold on the pricing here – I do think the move to raise the floor on ally prices was sensible, but some of the choices around Assassins and Inquisitors are odd, and I think Deathwatch costing the same as allies might prove to be a mistake. The Callidus Assassin staying 100pts is very silly, and freezes out the other choices, and at the other end the Vindicare feels like a pre-emptive admission of defeat; if you have to price him like that, he probably just shouldn’t exist as an allied option. Meanwhile the named Inquisitors really didn’t need to go up, and I feel like they should be being encouraged as allies.

On a more positive note, I do like the triumvirate of Exaction Squads, Subductors and Navy Breachers at their new prices, they feel like they’re pretty spot on, and there’s actual interesting dynamics in picking between the three.

All-in-all, this does net out to a good update, particularly pushing pure Agents hard, but I think the allies are still going to need a second pass in both directions. B- overall.

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