Review: The Truth Behind Codex Imperial Agents
Come see the truth behind what is and isn’t in the new book in our first look review of the new supplement.
At first glance the book itself seems to be a “poor mans” Imperial faction answer to the Chaos Traitor Legions book, as both are the same number of pages, and feature rules for nine different variants on the same main faction as well.
One however is hardcover, one is softcover (Traitor Legions), perhaps indicating which Games Workshop expected to sell more of. Remember per how GW operates, this release was in motion long before the boisterous “Dust Bins” video that auspiciously drew everyones attention to the real possibility of plastic Sisters of Battle in the near future.
If you read the header to the rules section it seems to to indicate this codex is just a big compilation of the digital rules with additional formation detachments to allow you to play them easier with your existing Armies of the Imperium.
These detachments also, in most cases, confer a new Command Benefit for said faction as well.
So for instance if you just wanted to still take an Inquisitor using the new Inquisitorial Representative Detachment (to get servo skulls for instance) you would have go to the Codex Inquisition for said HQ choice as he is indeed Inquisitional Faction and complies with the single restriction to this Detachment!
This seems to reiterate our analysts of the Codex based on the header pages above as well. You can take units that have the same faction as the detachments presented in the front of each unit section in Imperial Agents and as long as you meet the compulsory slots, and restrictions (bracketed in red above arrow) you can plug ANY applicable units into these formation detachments. Again in most cases, gaining the new Command Benefit listed.
Some things to keep in mind about this new book however is that just like the Iron Priests in Curse of the Wulfen book, there are now several duplicate datasheets for the Armies of the Imperium. Does that mean one datasheet supersedes the other? Good question!
So in the long run, this codex may just be a good thing for the hobby as it allows you new exciting ways to slot in small groups of miniatures from your collection into existing armies, and get a sweet command benefit to boot!
How do you feel about this book, now?
~Editor’s Note: We see the sticky issue described above with trying to cherry pick from the older digital versions of these forces to get wargear Codex Imperial Agents specifically left out, is spelled out in the datasheets header image above. In particular: “Collecting together these resources” appears to state that this codex is presenting the collated and updated versions of the digital factions they describe in the preceding sentence. It will be up to you and tournament organizers to make the call on whether mix and matching from both Codex Imperial Agents and the older digital codexes of the included factions to produce min-maxed lists is valid.
