Warhammer 40K: ‘Imperial Agents’ Points Split Is An Interesting Experiment
The Imperial Agents are getting a new Codex and with it Games Workshop is experimenting with split points for these units in Warhammer 40,000.
Codex: Imperial Agents is on the horizon and it’s bringing a bunch of disparate units together in one book. Thematically it might make sense but functionally it can be a little weird. That’s just one reason Deathwatch fans have been a little irked by the changes. While you can still run a full Deathwatch army with this book you’re going to need to pull from Codex: Space Marines, too. But that’s not the focus here.
Today, we’ve gotten a bit more info on how building your Imperial Agent army will impact your points. And how including some in your other armies could change that number.
“Perhaps you fancy deploying a squad of Imperial Navy Breachers alongside your Astra Militarum regiment – but there are cases where a carefully chosen squad can provide a serious boost. For instance, you can add serious melee strength to an Adeptus Mechanicus army with Grey Knight Terminators, or the Imperial Knights may wish to select some cheap infantry to hold backfield objectives and free up their big guys.
As a result, most Imperial Agents units have two points costs: a lower value for a full army selected from this Codex, and a separate, increased cost to reflect the impact they can have when included to mitigate the shortcomings of another faction. This has several advantages, and it means that points can be independently adjusted based on how effective a unit is in each setting.”
Split Points For Imperial Agents
The Imperial Agents are going to get two sets of points. The first set is used when you’re only using them in a “pure” Imperial Agents army. The second set of points will be used when pulling them into another army as Assigned Agents. These points will basically be independent of each other and can be tweaked by GW as needed. If those cheap Imperial Navy Breachers are too effective in other armies we’ll likely see a points increase when they are used as Assigned Agents.
We’ll have to wait and see if that actually happens but in theory it’s really good. This concept is actually really cool from a game design perspective. Not only does this allow for other armies to dabble with Imperial Agents but it also allows for an easy way to balance those units outside of either army’s main point values. To me, this is a great way to handle allies and I really think GW should expand this concept further. Looking at you Imperial/Chaos Knights.
I also think this could work in reverse in some cases. Perhaps a unit is under performing when used as an Assigned Agents unit. Could GW then lower the cost of the unit to compensate? Going one step further, could GW even make that unit cheaper to take as an Assigned Agent vs in a “pure” Imperial Agent army?
That might be a little too far in the other direction but at least that leaver is there. Why would you want to make the unit cheaper anyway? I think you’d have to have a very good reason! Thankfully, GW also put some safeguards in place so if they DID make a unit cheaper you couldn’t just spam that unit in a different army.
Imperial Agents – The Template for Allies
Between the Assigned Agent limits, the different point profiles, and the varied unit options to choose from, Imperial Agents could end up as a really fun codex. At least in terms of allies. It’s more work for sure as balancing the points outside of the codexes will be very tricky. But I also think it could be worth it. The army is a bit of a hodgepodge of units and this seems like a way to run them in other armies with at least some thought towards balance.
“But what if one unit is over-costed as an allied for one Imperial army but under-costed for a different one?!” …and that’s a question I don’t have an answer to. Good luck to GW’s rules team on that front.
The codex and a whole bunch of other cool stuff is coming to Pre-order this weekend!
