Fires of Purgation: The 11th-Edition Grey Knights Purgation Squad Detachment

One sentence, and it is the most commonly misdescribed rule in the faction.

When you select a unit to be pinned by a friendly PURGATION SQUAD unit's Righteous Persecution ability, that enemy unit makes a battle-shock roll, with -1 to that battle-shock roll.

Read what that does and does not contain:

• It adds no attacks, no Strength, no Armour Penetration and no mortal wounds. There is no damage in this rule anywhere.
• It hangs off the Purgation Squad's own Righteous Persecution datasheet ability, so the detachment does not work without that ability being used.
• The -1 is the detachment's contribution. The battle-shock attempt itself follows from the pinning.

Our own earlier page said this rule "turns their volley of special weapons into a more punishing and destabilising threat" and described it as raw damage plus pressure. Half of that was right and the important half was wrong.

So what is a forced battle-shock roll at -1 actually worth? It depends entirely on what battle-shock costs your opponent. A battle-shocked unit has an Objective Control characteristic of 0, cannot use stratagems, and has to take tests to do ordinary things. Against a horde sitting on an objective, that is a genuine way to take a primary score without killing anybody, which is exactly what a thirty-model army needs. Against a single monster that was never going to hold an objective anyway, it is close to nothing.

And then the second step: the detachment's own Spiritsear stratagem deals D3+1 mortal wounds to a battle-shocked enemy unit hit by your Purgation Squad's attacks. The rule creates battle-shocked units; the stratagem cashes them in. That is where the damage is.

Three, all 1CP. One protects the squad, one is the damage the rule does not provide, and one is the second half of the engine.

• Soul-Locked (your Movement). When a friendly PURGATION SQUAD unit is selected to make a fall-back move, that move does not prevent your unit from being eligible to shoot. The most important stratagem in the detachment, and it is defensive. A Purgation Squad's entire value is its guns, and being charged normally silences them for a turn. This turns a unit that was locked down into one that walks away and keeps firing. In a faction with almost no shooting, protecting the one gun platform is worth more than adding damage to it.
• Focused Immolation (your Shooting). When a friendly PURGATION SQUAD unit is selected to shoot, select one enemy unit; your unit's ranged attacks against that unit have [DEVASTATING WOUNDS] and [SUSTAINED HITS 1]. This is the damage stratagem, and it is a lot of it for one command point. Devastating Wounds turns critical wounds into mortal wounds that bypass saves and invulnerable saves entirely, which is how a small number of shots kills something expensive. Spend it on a real target, not into a screen.
• Spiritsear (your Shooting). When a friendly PURGATION SQUAD unit has shot, select one battle-shocked enemy unit hit by those attacks; that unit suffers D3+1 mortal wounds. Note both conditions: battle-shocked at the time you use it, and hit by the attacks that just happened. The sequencing is pin and battle-shock first, shoot second, then spend.

The turn this detachment wants: pin a target with Righteous Persecution so Searing Soulflame forces the battle-shock roll at -1, shoot it with Focused Immolation live, then finish with Spiritsear.

Two, and both are Upgrades on the PURGATION SQUAD unit itself, not character relics. Neither needs a Character to carry it.

• Precognicient Volleys (Upgrade) (10 pts). PURGATION SQUAD unit only. This unit's snap shooting attacks hit on unmodified hit rolls of 5+. Snap shooting normally hits only on 6s, so this is a substantial improvement to every reactive shot the squad takes, most obviously Fire Overwatch. Cheap, and it rewards a defensive gunline posture rather than an aggressive one.
• Boons of Deimos (Upgrade) (20 pts). PURGATION SQUAD unit only. This unit's ranged attacks have +2 Strength. Two points of Strength is a full wound-roll bracket against most targets, and on a squad built around multiple special weapons it applies to all of them at once. At twice the price, it is the one to take when the squad is your primary damage rather than a supporting gun.

The correction. Our earlier page described "a character upgrade that boosts the strength or reliability of the squad's fire" and told readers to "attach it to the leader travelling with your main Purgation unit". There is no character involved in either enhancement. Both go on the squad. That changes list-building materially, because you do not need to find and protect a character to unlock them, and you can take both on the same squad for 30 points.

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

• Purgation Squad is the only unit the detachment rule, all three stratagems and both enhancements name. Without one in your list, this detachment does literally nothing. No box is linked, because our catalog has no exact Purgation Squad entry, and pointing you at an approximate kit would be worse than linking nothing.
• [Strike Squad](/40k/boxes/warhammer-grey-knights-strike-squad-new) gives board presence and screening. A static gun platform in a teleporting army needs somebody else to hold the objectives.
• [Brotherhood Terminator Squad](/40k/boxes/warhammer-grey-knights-paladin-squad-new) is the melee answer the detachment does not provide. Nothing here helps you win a fight, so bring something that can.
• Nemesis Dreadknight forces your opponent to look somewhere other than at the Purgation Squad. No box is linked, because the catalog carries no exact entry for the non-character Dreadknight.

One catalog note. This is one of three Grey Knights detachments whose core unit has no exact box in our catalog, alongside Immaterial Interdiction (Interceptor Squad) and Warpbane Task Force (Purifier Squad). We would rather tell you that than send you to a kit that might not build the datasheet.

No Unique Tag, so every 2 DP detachment is legal for exactly 3 DP.

• [Augurium Task Force](/40k/armies/grey-knights/detachments/augurium-task-force) (2 DP) is the pairing we would build first, and it gets its own page. Prescient Redeployment gives your static gun platform an escape hatch: pull the Purgation Squad into Strategic Reserves at the start of your Movement phase and set it up somewhere safer. That is the one thing a gun unit most lacks in an army built to teleport.
• [Sanctic Spearhead](/40k/armies/grey-knights/detachments/sanctic-spearhead) (2 DP) gives the enemy a second thing to answer. Vehicles that Advance a guaranteed 6 inches and still shoot are exactly the distraction that keeps a static squad alive.
• [Banishers](/40k/armies/grey-knights/detachments/banishers) (2 DP) is the matchup pick. Chaos Bane grants [ANTI-CHAOS 4+] to a PSYKER unit's ranged weapons, and a Purgation Squad is a Psyker unit, so against a Chaos army the two detachments compound on the same guns.
• [Hallowed Conclave](/40k/armies/grey-knights/detachments/hallowed-conclave) (2 DP) and [Brotherhood Strike](/40k/armies/grey-knights/detachments/brotherhood-strike) (2 DP) both give you a melee core to pair with the ranged anchor.

It also pairs with [Argent Assault](/40k/armies/grey-knights/detachments/argent-assault) and [Immaterial Interdiction](/40k/armies/grey-knights/detachments/immaterial-interdiction) for 2 DP, and taking all three 1 DP detachments together is the faction's only legal three-detachment army.

The one it cannot take is Warpbane Task Force, at 3 DP, on the budget trap.

Take it if you own Purgation Squads and want a ranged anchor in a faction that otherwise has almost none, and if you are willing to play the battle-shock game rather than expecting a damage buff.

Be clear-eyed about the limits. The rule covers one datasheet and adds no damage. The detachment's value against a single tough model is far lower than against an objective-holding horde. And a Purgation Squad is a static unit in an army whose entire identity is movement, which is a genuine tension you have to solve with a partner detachment rather than with this one.

Sample gameplan: pair it with [Augurium Task Force](/40k/armies/grey-knights/detachments/augurium-task-force) (2 DP) for exactly 3 DP. Take both Upgrades on the Purgation Squad for 30 points, hold it in a firing position with Precognicient Volleys making its Overwatch real, and use Soul-Locked the moment something charges it. Pin the objective-holding unit, take the battle-shock roll at -1, shoot with Focused Immolation, then finish with Spiritsear. When the position finally becomes untenable, use Prescient Redeployment to pull the squad into Reserves and set it up somewhere new.

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