Recon Element: The 11th-Edition Guard Stealth Detachment

Read the sourcing on this one carefully, because it is the only place in the faction where the official document and the mirror describe different effects.

The current rule. Faction Pack v1.2's Rules Updates section rewrites Masters of Camouflage by name, and the current wording is:

> Friendly ASTRA MILITARUM units (excluding TITANIC units) have Stealth.

That is army-wide Stealth on everything except your super-heavies. In practice it is a -1 to hit against your entire army from ranged attacks made from more than 12 inches away, which is one of the broadest defensive effects available to any Guard detachment.

The previous rule, which community mirrors still present as live:

> ASTRA MILITARUM WALKER and REGIMENT units from your army have the Benefit of Cover. While such a unit has the Benefit of Cover for any other reason, improve the Save characteristic of that unit by 1 (to a maximum of 3+).

The two are not close, and the difference is directional rather than a matter of degree:

• The old rule was narrow but stronger on the units it touched: Walkers and Regiment infantry got cover plus a Save upgrade.
• The new rule is weaker per unit but covers the entire army, including your tanks, which the old one did not touch at all.

So a list built for the old rule is infantry and Sentinels; a list built for the new one can be anything, and your Leman Russ squadrons benefit for the first time. We follow the pack.

The rule also states that this detachment has the RECON tag and cannot be taken with another RECON detachment.

This is the one contested number in the Astra Militarum, and it is worth understanding because it changes what you can build.

The Munitorum Field Manual lists Recon Element at 2 DP. It prints a decrease marker beside that value and renders the whole entry in its changed-entry style, so the document is telling you directly that this number went down in the current revision.

Wahapedia still lists it at 3 DP, and records the older Faction Pack version 1.1 rather than the 1.2 we downloaded.

We state 2 DP, and the reasoning matters. This is not two tier-1 documents contradicting each other, which is the case where we assert nothing and describe the conflict instead. The Munitorum Field Manual is the official first-party source for Detachment Points; the community mirror is simply a revision behind and has not picked up the decrease.

The direction of this lag is the opposite of the usual one, and it matters more than most:

• At the mirror's 3 DP, this detachment fills a Strike Force budget on its own and takes no partner at all.
• At the official 2 DP, it takes any 1 DP partner except the one the RECON tag blocks.

So a reader working from the mirror will wrongly believe Recon Element is a solo detachment, and will never discover that the one pairing it now appears to allow, Designation Force, is blocked by a Unique Tag anyway. Both halves of that are worth knowing before you build.

Confirm the current cost in the Warhammer 40,000 app before an event.

Six, all 1CP, and three of them were amended or rewritten by the pack.

• Crack Shots (your Shooting). Target one PLATOON unit that has not shot; until the end of the phase its ranged weapons have [PRECISION]. Precision lets you allocate to characters in an attached unit, so this is the detachment's sniper button and the reason a plain infantry squad can threaten an enemy Officer.
• Draw Them Out (your opponent's Movement). Just after an enemy unit ends a Normal, Advance or Fall Back move, target one PLATOON unit within 8 inches of that enemy unit that is not within Engagement Range; your unit makes a Normal move of up to 6 inches. Faction Pack v1.2 amends the Target section by name, and 8 inches is the current distance.
• Scramble Field (start of your opponent's Reinforcements step). Target one ASTRA MILITARUM INFANTRY unit; until the end of the phase, enemy units set up as Reinforcements cannot be set up within 12 inches of your unit. A 12 inch deep-strike denial bubble is large, and one cheap squad placed correctly can shut down an entire flank's worth of arrivals.
• Courageous Diversion (start of your opponent's Shooting). Target one ASTRA MILITARUM INFANTRY or MOUNTED unit; until the end of the phase it has Feel No Pain 6+, and each time an enemy model makes an attack, if your unit is the closest eligible target, subtract 1 from the Hit roll. Stacked on the detachment rule's Stealth that is a second -1 to hit, which against most shooting is the difference between a screen dying and holding.
• Tanglefoot Grenades (start of your opponent's Charge). Target one ASTRA MILITARUM GRENADES unit; select one visible enemy unit within 12 inches, and when that enemy unit declares a charge it has -1 to charge rolls. Faction Pack v1.2 rewrites this stratagem's Effect section by name; the wording given here is the current one.
• Scouting Outriders (end of your opponent's turn). Target one ASTRA MILITARUM MOUNTED or WALKER unit wholly within 10 inches of a battlefield edge and not within Engagement Range; remove it from the battlefield and place it into Strategic Reserves. A recycling tool: a Sentinel that has done its work leaves and comes back somewhere more useful.

The habit to build: Courageous Diversion on top of army-wide Stealth is the detachment's real defensive ceiling, so hold a point for it every opponent's turn.

Four, and the spread of costs is unusually wide: two at 5 points and two at 20 or more.

• Guerrilla Honours (25 pts). INFANTRY OFFICER model only. After both players have deployed, if the bearer is on the battlefield, select up to three other ASTRA MILITARUM INFANTRY units and redeploy them, and you can set those units up in Strategic Reserves regardless of how many units are already there. Three units redeployed after seeing the whole enemy deployment is the strongest single effect in the detachment, and the most expensive.
• Tripwires (20 pts). ASTRA MILITARUM INFANTRY model only. Each time an enemy INFANTRY or MOUNTED unit ends a Normal, Advance, Charge or Fall Back move within 8 inches of the bearer's unit, roll one D6: on a 4+, until the start of your next turn that enemy unit is stunned, and while stunned each attack made by a model in that unit subtracts 1 from the Hit roll. Faction Pack v1.2 amends this enhancement by name, changing 9 inches to 8.
• Survival Gear (5 pts). ASTRA MILITARUM INFANTRY model only. The bearer has the Scouts 6 inches ability. Five points for a pre-game move on the unit the bearer leads, which is the cheapest way to push a screening squad up the board.
• Scare Gas Grenades (5 pts). ASTRA MILITARUM INFANTRY model only. Once per battle, at the start of any phase, select one enemy unit within 8 inches of the bearer's unit (excluding MONSTER and VEHICLE units); that unit must take a Battle-shock test. Cheap and situational: the value is in the timing rather than the effect, because a Battle-shocked unit cannot receive Orders, cannot use most stratagems, and has reduced Objective Control.

(Points come from the Munitorum Field Manual and move with updates; confirm in the app.)

• [Cadian Shock Troops](/40k/boxes/astra-militarum-cadian-shock-troops) are the PLATOON infantry that both Crack Shots and Draw Them Out name, and the cheapest carrier for Survival Gear or Tripwires. Under the current army-wide Stealth rule they are meaningfully harder to shoot off an objective.
• Scout Sentinels are the WALKER that Scouting Outriders recycles. The Sentinel kit builds both variants. Note that under the pack's rewritten rule they get Stealth like everything else, rather than the Benefit of Cover the older mirror wording gave WALKER units specifically.
• [Death Korps of Krieg](/40k/boxes/astra-militarum-death-korps-of-krieg) are thematic trench infantry and a durable PLATOON unit to carry Tripwires forward. The pack adds a boltgun profile to the datasheet.
• [Death Riders](/40k/boxes/astra-militarum-death-riders) are the MOUNTED option for Scouting Outriders and Courageous Diversion. The pack rewrites their Screening Line ability to trigger at 8 inches.
• [Attilan Rough Riders](/40k/boxes/astra-militarum-attilan-rough-riders) are the other MOUNTED unit, cheaper and faster, and natural users of the recycling stratagem because they want to arrive from an unexpected edge.
• [Cadian Command Squad](/40k/boxes/warhammer-imperial-guard-cadian-command-squad-new) is the Infantry Officer unit that carries Guerrilla Honours, the detachment's best enhancement.
• [Leman Russ Battle Tank](/40k/boxes/astra-militarum-leman-russ-battle-tank) is here specifically because of the rule change. Under the pack's current wording every non-Titanic Astra Militarum unit has Stealth, so your tanks benefit; under the older mirror wording they did not. It is the clearest case where the version you are reading changes the list you build.

Recon Element (2 DP) + [Designation Force](/40k/armies/astra-militarum/detachments/designation-force) (1 DP) costs exactly 3 DP, a full Strike Force budget.

It is illegal. Both carry the RECON tag, and no two detachments in your army may share a Unique Tag. Faction Pack v1.2 states the tag inside the Designation Force rule text, and the Munitorum Field Manual and Wahapedia both record UNIQUE: RECON on both detachments. No source disagrees.

What makes this the faction's best trap is that the two detachments look genuinely complementary rather than redundant, which is unusual for a blocked pairing. Most are two versions of the same idea. These are opposites:

• This detachment is about not being seen: army-wide Stealth.
• Designation Force is about being able to see: marking enemy units so they are easier for your army to target.

They also share the Reconnaissance Force Disposition, which reinforces the impression that they were designed together.

And the timing makes it worse. Because the Munitorum Field Manual just decreased this detachment from 3 DP to 2 DP, the sum 1 + 2 = 3 fits a Strike Force budget for the first time, exactly at the moment the tag makes it illegal. A player who checks the current official numbers finds the arithmetic works and builds the list. A player working from the mirror's stale 3 DP never tries it and never learns why it is blocked.

We never suggest the pairing anywhere on this site, in either direction. Read the full breakdown.

What is legal: this detachment pairs with [Bridgehead Strike](/40k/armies/astra-militarum/detachments/bridgehead-strike) (1 DP), where army-wide Stealth covers the turns before your Scions land, and with [Abhuman Auxiliaries](/40k/armies/astra-militarum/detachments/abhuman-auxiliaries) (1 DP), where Stealth on a slow, expensive Ogryn brick walking up open ground is worth more than on almost anything else in the army.

Take it when you want your whole army to be harder to shoot and you are happy for that to be your detachment's entire contribution, or when you are facing shooting-heavy opponents where a blanket -1 to hit is worth more than any damage buff.

Be clear-eyed about two things. The detachment adds no damage at all: every rule, stratagem and enhancement here is defensive, repositioning or disruption. And it is a weaker evidence tier than the pack-printed detachments; the pack amends four elements by name but does not reprint the detachment, so the rest of this page rests on mirrors.

Sample gameplan: pair with Bridgehead Strike (2 DP + 1 DP). Run a mixed infantry and tank core that all benefits from Stealth, put Guerrilla Honours on a Cadian Command Squad so you can redeploy three units after seeing your opponent's army, and hold Scions in Reserves. Use Scramble Field to deny the space your opponent wants to arrive in, spend Courageous Diversion for a second -1 to hit on whichever screen is being focused, and drop the Scions once the enemy has committed.

For the fundamentals underneath all of it, read the Astra Militarum army guide.