Argent Assault: The 11th-Edition Grey Knights Paladin Detachment

One sentence, and it is narrower than it first reads.

When a friendly PALADIN SQUAD unit is selected to fight, if the Strength of those attacks is lower than the Toughness of the target, those attacks have +1 to wound rolls.

Read the condition precisely, because it defines the entire detachment:

• It is a punch-up rule and only a punch-up rule. Against a target of equal or lower Toughness it does nothing at all. There is no partial benefit and no fallback clause.
• It names PALADIN SQUAD, not Terminators generally. A Brotherhood Terminator Squad standing beside them gains nothing.
• It triggers on being selected to fight, so it is a melee rule. It never touches shooting.

What it fixes is a real and long-standing structural problem. A Nemesis force weapon swinging into a high-Toughness target wounds on 5s, which turns a genuinely frightening attack profile into a disappointing one. Moving that to 4s is close to a fifty per cent increase in wounds against exactly the targets the faction is themed around: Knights, Greater Daemons, monsters and heavy vehicles.

So the honest way to evaluate this detachment is as a metagame bet. If your local scene is full of big tough centrepieces, this is one of the best Detachment Points in the game. If it is full of light infantry, you have spent a point on a rule that will not fire.

Three, all 1CP, which is the standard shape for a 1 DP Grey Knights detachment. One is defensive, one is an assassination tool and one is a punishment.

• Truesilver Aegis (any phase). When a friendly PALADIN SQUAD unit suffers a mortal wound, that unit has Feel No Pain 4+ against mortal wounds. Note the trigger is the mortal wound itself rather than a phase, so it is available at any point in the game. This matters because Paladins are not usually removed by ordinary shooting: two wounds behind a 2+ save and a 4+ invulnerable is a hard target. They are removed by mortal wounds that ignore all of that. Hold the point for the psychic attack or the exploding vehicle.
• A Threat Ended (Fight). When a friendly PALADIN SQUAD unit is selected to fight, that unit's melee attacks have [PRECISION]. Precision lets you allocate attacks to an attached Character, which turns a squad that kills a bodyguard unit into one that kills the thing leading it. Combined with the detachment rule this is the real package: +1 to wound against a tougher target, then aim the wounds at the character. It is the stratagem that most often decides a game, and it is the reason to charge a led unit rather than around it.
• Aura of Vengeance (Fight, when targeted). When an enemy unit targets a friendly PALADIN SQUAD unit, that enemy unit's melee attacks have [HAZARDOUS]. This is a punishment rather than a defence: it does not reduce the damage coming at you, it taxes the unit dealing it. Hazardous scales with the number of attacks, so it is at its best against a horde swinging fifty times and close to worthless against one elite model swinging six.

The sequencing habit: charge the led unit, spend A Threat Ended, and keep a point back for Truesilver Aegis in the phase your opponent answers with mortal wounds.

Two, and the restriction on both is the most commonly miscategorised thing in this detachment.

• Psychic Celerity (15 pts). TERMINATOR model only. This unit has +1 to charge rolls. Cheap, unglamorous, and the one that most often earns its points, because the entire detachment does nothing until the Paladins are in combat. A failed charge with a Paladin squad is a wasted turn for a quarter of your army, and one pip on the roll is a meaningful reduction in how often that happens.
• Vigilance of Titan (20 pts). TERMINATOR model only. At the start of your Shooting phase, you can select one visible enemy unit within 12 inches of this unit; that enemy unit has +6 inches detection range. This is a detection effect aimed outward: it makes that enemy easier for your whole army to see and target, rather than stripping an ability from it. The more expensive and more situational of the two, because it needs you to already be within 12 inches of something worth revealing, which for a melee detachment usually means the turn before you charge it.

The correction. Our own earlier page told readers to put these "on the character leading your Paladins, typically a Grand Master or Brotherhood Champion". The restriction is the TERMINATOR keyword, not the role. A Grand Master in Nemesis Dreadknight is a Vehicle and cannot take either. A Brotherhood Champion is not a Terminator and cannot take either. What you need is a Terminator character, which in practice means a Grand Master, a Brother-Captain or Grand Master Voldus.

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

• [Paladin Squad](/40k/boxes/warhammer-grey-knights-paladin-squad-new) is the only unit the detachment rule names and the only reason to spend the point. Our catalog entry is named Grey Knights Paladin / Terminator Squad, so it is the exact match for this datasheet.
• [Brotherhood Terminator Squad](/40k/boxes/warhammer-grey-knights-paladin-squad-new) builds from the same catalog entry, and it is worth being clear that it gains nothing from Dauntless Champions. Bring it for board presence and to carry an enhancement, not expecting the wound bonus.
• Grand Master is the natural Terminator character to hold Psychic Celerity. No box is linked, because our catalog has no exact entry for the generic Grand Master.
• Brotherhood Champion can lead the squad but cannot carry either enhancement, for the keyword reason above. No box is linked, because the catalog has no exact entry.
• [Strike Squad](/40k/boxes/warhammer-grey-knights-strike-squad-new) are the objective holders a Paladin list still needs. One or two Paladin bricks cannot cover a board, and nothing in this detachment helps you score.

One buying note. Kaldor Draigo and Brother-Captain Stern both attach to Paladin Squads in their Leader entries, which makes them look like the obvious characters for this detachment. Both are Warhammer Legends in Faction Pack v1.1 and are not legal for matched play. This is the single most expensive trap in the faction for a new Grey Knights buyer.

This detachment has no Unique Tag, so the only constraint is the budget. Every 2 DP detachment is a legal partner for exactly 3 DP.

• [Hallowed Conclave](/40k/armies/grey-knights/detachments/hallowed-conclave) (2 DP) is the strongest pairing in the faction and gets its own page. Paladin Squads carry the TERMINATOR keyword, so Duty Before All lets the exact squad this detachment buffs fall back and still shoot and charge. Tarpitting your Paladins stops working entirely.
• [Banishers](/40k/armies/grey-knights/detachments/banishers) (2 DP) attacks the same problem from the other side. Channelled Force grants [LETHAL HITS] to psychic melee weapons on a passed Leadership test, and Lethal Hits converts critical hits into wounds regardless of Toughness, which is precisely the problem Dauntless Champions exists to solve.
• [Brotherhood Strike](/40k/armies/grey-knights/detachments/brotherhood-strike) (2 DP) stacks cleanly. Fury of Titan re-rolls Hit rolls of 1 and Wound rolls of 1 for a unit set up by Deep Strike, for the whole turn, and Paladins arrive that way. Both bonuses land in the same fight with no conditions to track.
• [Sanctic Spearhead](/40k/armies/grey-knights/detachments/sanctic-spearhead) (2 DP) gives the list a melee threat that does not depend on a vehicle surviving to deliver it, which a pure armour list badly wants.
• [Augurium Task Force](/40k/armies/grey-knights/detachments/augurium-task-force) (2 DP) brings Grimoire of Conjunctions, which adds 4 to the Strength of one character's melee weapons for a phase. That is a second, larger answer to the same Toughness problem.

It also pairs legally with both other 1 DP detachments, and all three 1 DP detachments together make the faction's only legal three-detachment army.

The one it cannot take is Warpbane Task Force, at 3 DP. That is arithmetic, not a tag, and it is covered on the budget trap page.

Take it when you own Paladins and expect to fight big things.

Be clear-eyed about the limits. The rule covers one datasheet, it does nothing against equal or lower Toughness, it adds no defence and no mobility, and with three stratagems it will not absorb command points. It is a splash, not an army, and it is a splash whose value swings hard on your local metagame.

Sample gameplan: pair it with [Hallowed Conclave](/40k/armies/grey-knights/detachments/hallowed-conclave) (2 DP) for exactly 3 DP. Put Psychic Celerity on a Grand Master leading the Paladins so the charge is reliable, run a second Brotherhood Terminator Squad as the anvil, and screen with Strike Squads. When your opponent tarpits the Paladins with a cheap unit, fall back under Duty Before All and charge the real target instead, then spend A Threat Ended to aim your wounds at the character leading it.

For the fundamentals underneath all of it, read the Grey Knights army guide.