Warhammer 40K Review: ‘Codex Imperial Agents’ – The Good, The Bad, and The Really Ugly
Goatboy here and we finally have a new Codex: Imperial Agents to talk about. Here’s everything you need to know about this oddball codex.
The redacted Codex from the GW product roadmap ended up being the Imperial Agents book which isn’t something I really expected. If there were some “heretical” Inquisitor fun in this book I might be more excited but right now as is – I just see this as a batch of orphan models I got to paint for a client who loves Agents, that are now their own standone army… kind of. Let’s dive into the Codex review so you can read how I feel about this book.
Again I won’t do a deep dive into the book. The gist of the Codex: Imperial Agents review is to break it down in the Good Thoughts of the book, the Bad thoughts of the book, and the things I just find Ugly in the book. Overall I find this codex to be kind of a miss but then this army isn’t something I really want to play with.
Imperial Agents: The Good
First of all it is a good thing this codex puts a ton of units all in one place with some updated rules. There isn’t a whole slew of updates, but enough cool ones.Updates really should have happened for some of these units, but we’ll talk more about it later.
Better Assassins
The one thing I do like about Imperial Agents is that each of the Assassins got some tweaks and updates. Heck, the Imperial Assassins are one of the cooler things in this game and I wish we had more options than the four we got. Can we get some of thoe cool ones from 30K, pretty please? My favorite update is the Eversor, it got a nice glow-up to match its need for wanton death and destruction. This little dude is gonna boogie across the table and punch something. It probably won’t kill it, but if you need a unit to bother the opponent this is a good one to take. The Callidus will also show up a lot as, again having something that can go up and down is a good thing. The Assassins have a rule that lets you swap the assassin out in an Imperial Agents army for another one as long as their points are not more. This could lead to some fun things, but you can’t double up on a choice, which leaves me kind of sad. Still it is cool where you can just dump one for another in an Agents army as needed. COLLECT ALL 4!
Imperial Agents Detachments
The only real good detachment appears to be the Imperialis Fleet option as its rule goes out to all the models in the Agents army which is a cool thing. I like any rule that lets you select something to act on turn by turn and having the ability to get a +1 to hit versus an enemy unit of your choice per turn is powerful. The selecting an objective that empowers you more is also a strong choice. Really, just the option that all units in this army works in this detachment is a powerful thing.
On the other side of Detachments you get the update Ordo Xenos Alien Hunters one aka the Deathwatch option (pour one out for the army), a Ordo Maellus Daemon Hunters one (Grey Knight themed one), and an Ordo Hereticus Purgation Force (Inquisitor/Sororitas focused one). All the others are not super great and probably the Ordo Xenos Alien Hunters being the other one to be used as it houses all the Deathwatch rules. This isn’t really the good side of this book but it does have some things if you want to play the other stuff.
The Imperialis Fleet being the best does have some fun stratagems. You have a lot of defensive style stuff that lets you gain a 4+ inv save to a unit, movement after getting shot, and adding fun things like Sustained/Lance/Ignore cover to your shooting when targeting a unit on an objective. Really most of the good things reside in this Detachment as it lets you do everything with all the options in the book which makes it useful and fun.
The sad thing is the units in the codex mostly stayed the same. It means the options are what you are used to, and if you used them before you could use them now.
Dual Points… Interesting
This leads me into one of the good things let out by GW on how there will be two different points for the army. One will be if you are pure Agents of the Imperium force and the other is the ally option. I think this is interesting as I am sure we’ll see this for Daemons in the future and other armies that can take an ally into their army. I also wonder if it will go in both directions too as an Imperial Knight is cool but is much more powerful in an Imperial Knight detachment instead of just being a single choice.
Imperial Agents: The Bad
I won’t sugarcoat it – this army doesn’t feel fully baked for a single Warhammer 40K faction choice. It feels like it has a bunch of datasheets, a few tweaks, but no real identity beyond just a way to shove all the extra Killteam stuff into a codex. There really is only one true encompassing detachment and then a few other ones shoe-horned into a book. It just doesn’t feel like there is enough there to really hang your Armylist off of and be successful in a competitive game.
I am sure someone will wreck me with it but it just doesn’t feel great. I think a bit more baking in the oven, a few more units (maybe Scions or other AM options), and some updated datasheets would make for a better book but that isn’t what we got. It’s hard for me to get excited about it as there isn’t enough interesting stuff.
The most exciting concept from the codex is the whole idea of giving two different point costs for main book vs ally option in an army. I think that is pretty brilliant and will help balance things for future codexes – especially when you think how allies are most often used to shore up some things you might not get in your own faction codex.
I am also ok with Deathwatch getting reworked and simplified as it was a really weird army with off interactions that didn’t make sense to the rules. Why wouldn’t these bolt weapons work with cool ammunition? I feel for those players with large armies who now have to either just use them as regular Marines or one of the other different colored marines. My condolances on being semi-squatted.
Imperial Agents: The Ugly
How is it that we went from a cool but too-small Coteaz model and now have this kind of weird option one? It feels like a weird throwback design and would have rather seen something akin to Cypher-style armor that is representative of being old, unique, and cool looking. The new mini just feels off to me.
Also why don’t we have a cool custom Inquisitor kit with lots of bits options and the sweet retinue of crazy people int he box? It feels like a big miss to just not have a unit of all the odd stuff in 40K. Let them take all the weird aliens and other parts. Why not have some options for a Retinue based off of the Inquisitor you are playing? How awesome would it have been to really create a unique little unit of weirdos ready to wreck stuff for the Imperium?
For the Emperor!
