Warpbane Task Force Plus a 1 DP Detachment: The Grey Knights List That Does Not Fit

The reason intelligent players build this list is that the rest of the faction teaches them to.

Grey Knights have three 1 DP detachments, which is a lot, and every piece of coverage about them, including our own, correctly describes them as cheap focused packages you bolt onto a bigger list. That description is accurate. Argent Assault, Fires of Purgation and Immaterial Interdiction each cost a single point and each supercharges one previously neglected unit, and they bolt onto five of the six codex detachments perfectly well.

They do not bolt onto the sixth. And the sixth is the one readers most want to play, because Warpbane Task Force is the flagship: the biggest toolkit in the faction at six stratagems and four enhancements, and the one most often described as the faction's best.

So the trap has three legs:

The lesson is true and generalises wrongly. A reader learns "1 DP detachments bolt onto anything" from five correct examples and applies it to the sixth.

There is no tag to catch it. In a faction with Unique Tags, an illegal pairing is usually flagged by a shared tag printed on both entries, which a careful reader will spot. Here the entries look completely compatible. Nothing is printed anywhere that says these two cannot go together.

The failure is invisible until you total it. A 3 and a 1 do not look like a conflict; they look like a small list and a big one. You have to actually add them up against a budget you may not have memorised.

That combination is why we give it a page rather than a footnote, and why no Grey Knights detachment page on this site suggests a pairing with Warpbane Task Force, in either direction.

The instinct behind the list is sound, so it is worth naming what you wanted and finding it elsewhere.

If you wanted Warpbane's army-wide hit re-rolls plus a Paladin buff: the closest legal build is [Hallowed Conclave plus Argent Assault](/40k/armies/grey-knights/detachments/hallowed-conclave-argent-assault) (2 + 1 = 3 DP). You lose Hallowed Ground's zone control, but you gain something Warpbane cannot give you: your Paladins fall back, shoot and charge, and they wound tougher targets on a better roll. On the specific question of making a Paladin squad terrifying, this is the better list.

If you wanted Warpbane's re-rolls plus a shooting element: take [Sanctic Spearhead plus Fires of Purgation](/40k/armies/grey-knights/detachments/sanctic-spearhead) or [Augurium Task Force plus Fires of Purgation](/40k/armies/grey-knights/detachments/augurium-task-force-fires-of-purgation) (2 + 1 = 3 DP). Both give you the ranged anchor Warpbane does not actually provide, since Hallowed Ground is a re-roll rather than a source of guns.

If you wanted Warpbane's toolkit plus mobility: take [Brotherhood Strike plus Immaterial Interdiction](/40k/armies/grey-knights/detachments/brotherhood-strike-immaterial-interdiction) (2 + 1 = 3 DP), which is the faction's arrival combo and answers the mobility question directly.

If you genuinely want Hallowed Ground itself, then take [Warpbane Task Force alone](/40k/armies/grey-knights/detachments/warpbane-task-force) and accept that it is your whole army identity. It is a legitimate choice: six stratagems and four enhancements is more raw content than any 2 plus 1 combination in the faction. What you are giving up is a second identity, not power.

Because this faction has no Unique Tags, its list-building rules reduce to something unusually simple, and worth memorising:

At 2,000 points you have 3 DP. Any combination that totals 3 or less is legal. There are no other restrictions.

That produces exactly 19 legal multi-detachment armies:

• 15 that pair one of the five 2 DP detachments with one of the three 1 DP detachments, for exactly 3 DP.
• 3 that pair two 1 DP detachments, leaving one point unspent.
• 1 three-detachment army: all three 1 DP detachments together, for exactly 3 DP. This is the faction's only legal three-detachment list.

And one detachment that takes no partner at all: Warpbane Task Force.

Two things worth knowing alongside that:

A Force Disposition is not a Unique Tag. Augurium Task Force and Immaterial Interdiction both carry the Reconnaissance disposition, and Warpbane Task Force and Hallowed Conclave both carry Take and Hold. None of that restricts anything. Players arriving from tag-carrying factions routinely assume a shared disposition is a clash. It is not.

No Grey Knights DP cost is contested. The Munitorum Field Manual and Wahapedia agree on all nine values, and the Munitorum Field Manual prints no increase or decrease markers anywhere in this faction's section. So unlike some factions in this programme, there is no cost here that might be one number in an official document and a different number in a mirror. The arithmetic you do is the arithmetic that applies.

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