December Detachment Review: Questor Forgepact

Today we have two new detachments. For everybody’s favorite stat-check armies, Imperial and Chaos Knights.

If you’re looking for the Chaos Knights click here.

The Questor Forgepact is for the Imperial Knights and its, well…

Fluffy?

The detachment rule is Cogbound Alliance and it gives Imperial Knights the following ability:

Sacristan Pledge: One Kight model regains a single lost wound in your command phase. D3 if they’re within 3″ of a friendly Tech-Priest model.

Meanwhile, Adeptus Mechanics units gain:

Divine Inspiration: Each time a model in this (Admech) unit makes a ranged attack, re-roll 1’s to hit. If they’re within 6″ of an Imperial Knight, re-roll wound rolls of 1 as well.

You’re also allowed to include Tech-Priests and Skitarii in your army. Up to 500 points in strike force games.

To say the least, this all really, really sucks. Having a single squad of rangers is cool for sticky objectives, but is that worth trading off the 6+ Feel No Pain? Not even close. This is depressing, and I’m a Knight hater.

Enhancements

The enhancements are amazing. Amazing in the same way you come home to your kid having set your house on fire and now you’re homeless.

Omnissian Champion is 30 points and gives an Imperial Knight +4 wounds. This is, ok. I guess. You can take one more melta shot, maybe. B

Knight of the Opus Machina is 20 points and lets Imperial Knights re-roll a hit roll of 1. If it’s within 6″ of an Admech unit. I guess this is a thing. It’s like, one of your only ways to get re-rolls outside of your army rule. B+

Magos Questoris is 35 points. Which is insane. It lets you make a Tech-Priest within 3″ of a Knight become a Lone Operative. In your command phase, you can heal a Knight within 3″ 2 wounds. Bruh. F-

Vocifer Magnificat is a 15 point Aura and it: get ready for this…worsens leadership of units within 6″ by 1. While an Admech unit is within 6″, the Admech unit gains 1 leadership. Who wrote this? F-

This is so sad.

Stratagems

This section introduces a lot of new forms of pain. Gain a pain token.

Omnissiahs Grace gives you a 5+ Feel No Pain against mortal wounds on either and Admech or Imperial Knight unit. This is good. Doombolts hurt, can confirm. Strong A.

Vengence of the Machine Cult is probably one of the worst stratagems I’ve ever seen. For 1 whole command point, when an Imperial Knight is destroyed. Your Admech units get Lethal Hits against whatever killed the Knight. Reminder you can only bring Skitarii and Tech-Priests. This is so bad. F-

Bonded Imperative is 1 CP you can give your bondsman ability to an AdMech unit. I’ll be real, I don’t know what the Bondsman abilities are. But do you think Skitarii vanguard would benefit from them in a meaningful way? Not likely. D-

Machine Focus lets an Imperial Knight ignore modifiers to their weapon and ballistic skill and for hit and wound rolls. Very good, your elite knights will thank you when -1 to wound isn’t effecting them. A-

Aggression Begets Aggression lets you give an Imperial Knight unit OR An Imperial Knight Character and an Admech unit within 6″ the Assault ability. This is pretty based actually. I could see this being useful on those auto-cannon jerks. Why is Anti-Fly 2+ a thing. B+

Thronegheist Fury besides having the coolest name of any stratagem lets you overwatch with a Titanic Knight, but you only get to pick one ranged weapon to shoot. This seems, good. Might be the solution they’re testing for the future to see if Titanic overwatching can come back. B+, probably? Its one weapon. Canis go brr?

Lists

This week we got 3Up mega fan Dave Cruickshank to submit a list and his thoughts. He got pretty detailed so get ready for a long read.

Dave “I wrote a whole review” Cruickshank’s List and Thoughts

CHARACTERS

Knight Castellan (540 points)
Enhancement: Omnissian Champion
• 1x Plasma decimator
2x Shieldbreaker missile launcher
1x Titanic feet
2x Twin meltagun
1x Twin siegebreaker cannon
1x Volcano lance

BATTLELINE

Armiger Helverin (140 points)
• 2x Armiger autocannon
1x Armoured feet
1x Questoris heavy stubber

Armiger Warglaive (150 points)
• 1x Meltagun
1x Reaper chain-cleaver
1x Thermal spear

ALLIES

Tech-Priest Dominus (105 points)

Enhancement :Magos Questoris
Eradication ray
Macrostubber

Skitarii Rangers ( 85 points)
-1 arc rifle

1 plasma culiver
1 transuranic arquebus
1 Alpha combat weapon
1 omnispex
7 Galvanic rifles

Skitarii Rangers ( 85 points)
-1 arc rifle

1 plasma culiver
1 transuranic arquebus
1 Alpha combat weapon
1 omnispex
7 Galvanic rifles

“On the List: I wanted to try to make most of the new detachment rule and enhancements. The stratagems felt like an after thought so I wasn’t gonna build around them. Sticky Rangers are pretty dope, One stickys the home, and the other hides and waits to shift its OC onto an obective. Tech-Priest Dominus follows the castellan around healing him D3+2 every command phase using his Magos Questoris Enhancement. My choice of castellan came from wanting to use those two enhancements together. Outside of the big guys, armigers feel pretty good with healing a wound every command phase; multiple armigers will make better use of the heal than 1 big guy will.

The detachment rule: Knights Heal 1, D3 if they’re next to a tech priest. This is okay, but objectively worse than a 6+++. When wombo combo’d with the Magos Questoris, Healing D3+2 is pretty neat.

Skitarii reroll hits of 1, sometimes wounds of 1. Snore. Who cares. Skitarii will not put out anywhere as much wounds as Armigers will per point. Having the the OC and infantry to sit on objectives in buildings is great, Rangers give sticky; nice. They aren’t there to kill shit though.

On the Enhancements:

Omnissian Champion, B+. Extra wounds on a big guy, can’t go wrong, but won’t make or break the game.

MAGOS QUESTORIS : Lone op and extra heals when near knights. A. This enhancement really plays into what this detachment already wants you to be doing.

VOCIFER MAGNIFICAT (AURA): Worsen enemy leadership when within 6″, Better Ad mech leader ship by 1 when within 6″. D. There is close to no reason to bring this enhancement over the previous 2 that big knights can have. I don’t care THAT much if my admech battle-shocks.

On the stratagems:

OMNISSIAH’S GRACE: FNP to mortals. B. Useful when useful. Not useful that often. I’m not trading 1CP for a 5+++ when you throw a grenade and do 3 mortals. I would rather have the 6+++ of the Noble lance.

VENGEANCE OF THE MACHINE CULT: Admech get lethal against enemy that killed knight. C. Give 500 points of Admech lethals is OK, however it isn’t usually going to make tremendous difference.

BONDED IMPERATIVE: Bondsman can go on Skitarii. D. None on the bondsman abilities really help Skitarii that much. Crusaders +1 to hit is ok, Paladins Lethals is ok. A lot of Bondsman powers help melee and they really won’t make much use of those. This rule feels like it was written prior to bondsman abilitys being taken away from big knights. Previously the power would affect the armiger and a questoris knight, but if no armiger was within 12″ then you couldn’t use it. Back then this stratagem would let you power up your bondsman using skitarii. As is, this is a stinker.

MACHINE FOCUS: Ignore modifiers to hit and wound. A. This is a simple, legit, 1 CP stratagem for any army.

AGGRESSION BEGETS AGGRESSION: A. Gives assault to a big fella and his little skitarii friends. A tool box full of stratagems like these is a good tool box. We love utility. We love mobility.

THRONEGHEIST FURY: C. Baby overwatch for a big knight. Give us the whole thing GW, towering was the issue, not knights overwatching.

Final thoughts: Pretty bad. The stratagems are pretty bad, I don’t want to buff skitarii rangers, stop trying to make me. Its so much worse than the Noble lance detachment though. No 6+++, no 4++, no fight on death, no squires duty. Melee big knights hate losing those, armiger helverins without squires duty are pretty bad. I wanted soup, but I didn’t want to be told that I could only have 5 datasheets of admech, Let me have something cool.

Thoughts

You’re sacrificing a 6+ Feel No Pain, fight on death, +1 strength and damage for what is essentially, a dog-water narrative detachment.

It’s just bad.

Knights deserve better dare I say.

At least their codex isn’t far off. Emperor be kind, and maybe we’ll be upset about Knights again soon.

Tomorrows Grey Knights, which is exciting. Terminator spam mayhaps? Hell yeah.

Be safe everyone. Drink lots of water.

Call your sister. She misses you.