How to Play Imperial Agents in Warhammer 40,000 11th Edition

The Imperial Agents army rule is called Assigned Agents. That is first-party twice over: every datasheet in the pack prints FACTION: Assigned Agents in its abilities box, and the pack's Rules Updates section cites "see Assigned Agents, page 75" by name.

It has two branches, and which one applies depends on a decision you make before the rule ever comes up.

Branch one: your Army Faction IS Agents of the Imperium. Then, in the Select Detachment Rules step, you select one of the available Detachments from this book as normal. That is it. No special budget, no exception, no restriction. You are playing an ordinary 40,000 army that happens to be made of Inquisitors, assassins, Arbites and voidfarers.

That sentence is why five Imperial Agents detachments are priced in the Munitorum Field Manual. A faction whose detachments nobody could use would not be priced. This is the half of the rule that the previously published version of this page effectively denied, by warning readers that a pure list was a niche build. That is an opinion presented as a rule, and it is dropped.

Branch two: your Army Faction is NOT Agents of the Imperium, but every model in your army has the IMPERIUM keyword. Then you can include AGENTS OF THE IMPERIUM units in your army even though they do not have the Faction keyword you selected. The maximum depends on battle size, and it is three separate buckets rather than one number:

You can also include Agents of the Imperium Dedicated Transport units as normal, but each must start the battle with one or more units embarked or it cannot be deployed and counts as destroyed during the first battle round.

Two first-party exemptions from that cap, both rewritten by the pack this version, and both worth knowing if you play any other Imperium army:

• Inquisitorial Agents. If your Army Faction is not Agents of the Imperium, then for each INQUISITOR unit you include, you can include one INQUISITORIAL AGENTS unit that does not count towards your RETINUE allowance.
• Voidsmen-at-Arms. The same clause, for each VOIDFARERS CHARACTER unit you include.

So an Inquisitor you bring into a Space Marine army effectively brings a retinue with them for free, cap-wise.

Sourcing, stated plainly. The rule's name is first-party. The existence of the second branch is first-party, from those two Rules Updates entries. The battle-size table is mirror-sourced, because the pack does not reprint the codex rule in full. Confirm the numbers in the Warhammer 40,000 app before a tournament.

One thing we are not telling you, because no document we read says it: that Agents units allied into another army bring their detachment rules with them. Branch two is about units, not detachments.

In 11th edition you spend a Detachment Points (DP) budget rather than picking one detachment. The budget scales with game size: roughly 2 DP at 1,000 points (Incursion) and 3 DP at 2,000 points (Strike Force). We do not quote a figure for Onslaught because no first-party document we read states one.

The Imperial Agents spread is the flattest in the game:

• 2 DP: Imperialis Fleet, Ordo Hereticus Purgation Force, Ordo Malleus Daemon Hunters, Ordo Xenos Alien Hunters.
• 1 DP: Veiled Blade Elimination Force.
• 3 DP: none.

That produces a constraint no other faction has. Two 2 DP detachments cost 4 DP, which exceeds a Strike Force budget. So the only two-detachment Imperial Agents army is Veiled Blade Elimination Force plus exactly one of the four, and there are exactly four such armies. Veiled Blade is in every single one of them.

At Incursion, with roughly 2 DP, there is no two-detachment Imperial Agents army at all. You take one 2 DP detachment, or Veiled Blade with a point unspent.

And there are no Unique Tags. Not one, in either official document or in the mirror. The pack contains no UNIQUE banner anywhere. If you have learned the tag rules from another faction and are looking for the catch, there is no catch to find. The catch is the price list.

No Imperial Agents Detachment Point cost is contested. All five values are agreed by the Munitorum Field Manual v1.3 and the mirror's own detachment selector, with no change markers.

The one the pack prints in full:

• [Veiled Blade Elimination Force](/40k/armies/imperial-agents/detachments/veiled-blade-elimination-force) (1 DP, DISRUPTION). The Officio Assassinorum detachment. A second use of each assassin's signature ability, six stratagems with a temple-specific upgrade on every one, and a points question two official documents cannot agree on.

The two the pack amends by name in Rules Updates:

• [Ordo Xenos, Alien Hunters](/40k/armies/imperial-agents/detachments/ordo-xenos-alien-hunters) (2 DP, PURGE THE FOE). Three Deathwatch Mission Tactics, each usable only once per battle.
• [Ordo Malleus, Daemon Hunters](/40k/armies/imperial-agents/detachments/ordo-malleus-daemon-hunters) (2 DP, PRIORITY ASSETS). Unconditional Hit roll re-rolls on your Inquisition models, doubled against Daemons.

The one the pack names only in its single FAQ:

• [Imperialis Fleet](/40k/armies/imperial-agents/detachments/imperialis-fleet) (2 DP, RECONNAISSANCE). Nominate an enemy unit to kill or an objective to hold, every Command phase. The only army-wide invulnerable save in the faction.

The one the pack does not cover at all:

• [Ordo Hereticus, Purgation Force](/40k/armies/imperial-agents/detachments/ordo-hereticus-purgation-force) (2 DP, TAKE AND HOLD). Arbites and Inquisition with [IGNORES COVER] as standard. Its rules text is mirror-sourced and the page says so.

This is the one place in the faction where we tell you we do not know the answer, and it matters more than a usual points quibble.

The Veiled Blade Elimination Force detachment has four entries attached to it: Decoy Targets, Esoteric Explosives, Intraneural Biotech and Micromelta Rounds. All three of our sources agree on what each one does, word for word. They do not agree on what they are or what they cost.

What the Faction Pack version 1.1 prints, on pages 2 and 3, under a heading reading EXTREMIS ABILITIES: per-unit surcharges of +40, +40, +35 and +45 points. And the detachment rule makes them mandatory: when mustering your army, each Officio Assassinorum unit has the relevant Extremis ability shown and you must increase that unit's points cost by the amount shown, and if that pushes you over the points limit for the battle, you cannot include that unit.

What the Munitorum Field Manual version 1.3 prints: the same four names under a heading reading ENHANCEMENTS, at 15, 10, 15 and 20 points.

Those are not the same rule. Under the pack's reading the cost is compulsory and scales with how many assassins you field, so a four-assassin list is paying well over a hundred points it did not choose to spend. Under the Munitorum Field Manual's reading you pick a couple and pay enhancement points from the ordinary allowance, exactly like any other faction. Those produce completely different armies at the same points total.

The community mirror splits the difference in an unhelpful way: it uses the pack's heading and the Munitorum Field Manual's numbers.

So we print no figure. Every other enhancement on this site carries its points cost; the four on the Veiled Blade page do not, and the page says why. Settle it in the Warhammer 40,000 app before you write a list, because this is the kind of thing that gets caught at a table.

One observation, offered as an observation. Every other 1 Detachment Point detachment in this series lists exactly two enhancements and three stratagems. Veiled Blade is 1 DP and lists four entries and six stratagems, which is the 2 and 3 DP pattern. That is consistent with those four not being ordinary enhancements. It is a pattern, not a rule, and we are not using it to settle anything.

A smaller variance, recorded not reconciled. The Munitorum Field Manual spells the third one Introneural Biotech, while the pack and the mirror both read Intraneural. We use the two-to-one spelling.

The Imperial Agents Faction Pack has a Legends Datasheets section, listed in its contents at page 12, and it prints eighteen entries. The community mirror independently flags the same eighteen. Two agreeing sources on an eighteen-item list is why this section is stated plainly rather than hedged.

The full list: Daemonhost, Damned Legionnaires, Deathwatch Armoury, Deathwatch Terminator Squad, Fortis Kill Team, Indomitor Kill Team, Inquisitor Eisenhorn, Inquisitor in Terminator Armour, Inquisitor Karamazov, Inquisitor Ostromandeus, Janus Draik, Jokaero Weaponsmith, Kill Team Cassius, Neyam Shai Murad, Proteus Kill Team, Spectrus Kill Team, UR-025, Veteran Bike Squad.

Why this is the most useful thing on this page. Several of those are units a new collector would reasonably assume are current: the Deathwatch Terminator Squad, the Veteran Bike Squad, Kill Team Cassius, and four of the five named kill teams. If you have been buying toward a Deathwatch force on the strength of what is on a shelf, check each datasheet before the next purchase.

Six named Inquisitors are Legends. Eisenhorn, Karamazov, Ostromandeus, the generic Inquisitor in Terminator Armour, Janus Draik and Neyam Shai Murad. The named Inquisitors that are not Legends are Coteaz, Draxus, Greyfax and the pack's new Inquisitor Kroyle.

No Legends unit is named as a key unit anywhere in this set. We track Inquisitor Eisenhorn in our catalog, and he appears nowhere on a detachment page for exactly this reason.

This is the sharpest contrast in the current wave. Our Leagues of Votann guide, published in the same pass, has no Legends section in its pack at all. Do not assume one faction's situation from another's.

The previously published version of this page called the pack minimal with no new detachments. It prints one detachment in full and three new datasheets.

Inquisitor Kroyle, pages 4 and 5. A Mounted Character Epic Hero riding a Garralisk, with Lone Operative and Scouts 6 inches, a 4+ invulnerable save, and a Jindarii tox-cycler carrying [ANTI-MONSTER 2+, HEAVY, PRECISION]. His On My Signal, Fire! ability marks an enemy unit he hit so that Agents of the Imperium and Imperium Infantry Battleline models can re-roll Hit rolls against it, and his Tox-cycler ability adds 2 to that weapon's Strength and Damage for the rest of the battle once it scores a hit, up to a maximum Damage of 6.

And here is the trap. Kroyle carries the ORDO XENOS keyword, so the obvious home for him looks like the Ordo Xenos detachment. It is not. Ordo Xenos Alien Hunters' rule is Deathwatch Mission Tactics, which applies to DEATHWATCH units, and Kroyle's keywords are Mounted, Character, Epic Hero, Imperium, Grenades, Ordo Xenos, Inquisitor and Kroyle. The Ordo Xenos detachment rule does not reach him at all.

What does reach him is INQUISITOR, which is named in both the Daemon Hunters rule and the Purgation Force rule. The pack's newest Ordo Xenos character is better served by the two Ordo detachments that are not his.

Aquila Kill Team, pages 6 and 7. A new kill team datasheet, and notable precisely because four of this faction's other kill teams are Legends.

Sanctifiers, pages 8 and 9. A new Ministorum unit.

Datasheet changes worth knowing before you build. The pack's Rules Updates section changed the Corvus Blackstar to Move 14 inches and removed the AIRCRAFT keyword from it, which is a substantial change to how it behaves on the table. It rewrote the Callidus Assassin's Acrobatic Escape and Reign of Confusion abilities, the Culexus Assassin's Etheric Emergence, and the Vindicare Assassin's Dead Shot. It set the Imperial Rhino transport capacity to 12 Agents of the Imperium Infantry models, excluding Terminator and Officio Assassinorum models. It removed DEATHWATCH KILL TEAM from the Leader lists of both the generic Inquisitor and Inquisitor Draxus, and moved the Ministorum Priest from Leader to Support. And it added the FRAME keyword to the Imperial Rhino, Inquisitorial Chimera and Sisters of Battle Immolator.

We track a real Imperial Agents range, including all four Officio Assassinorum temples, so most key units on the detachment pages carry a product link. What follows is what the rules reward.

If you own nothing yet. The Combat Patrol: Imperial Agents is the sealed entry point, and the Imperial Agents Battleforce: Ordo Malleus is the volume option if you already know you want the Daemon Hunters direction.

If you want the cheapest detachment that works. Veiled Blade Elimination Force is 1 Detachment Point and needs assassins. All four are in our catalog: Callidus, Culexus, Eversor and Vindicare. Every stratagem on that card has a temple-specific upgrade, so which assassins you own genuinely changes what the detachment does. Read the Extremis abilities section above before you commit points, because how much they cost is not settled.

If you want an Inquisition core. Inquisitorial Agents is named by keyword in both the Daemon Hunters and Purgation Force detachment rules, so the squad benefits directly in either. Pair with Inquisitor Draxus for Ordo Malleus or Inquisitor Greyfax for Ordo Hereticus. Both are current rather than Legends.

If you want the Arbites. Kill Team: Exaction Squad is where the Exaction Squad models are sold, and Exaction Squad is an ADEPTUS ARBITES unit, which is the first keyword in the Purgation Force detachment rule.

Where our catalog stops, stated rather than papered over. We track no product under this faction for the Watch Master, Voidsmen-at-Arms, Sanctifiers, the Aquila Kill Team, the generic Inquisitor or the Grey Knights Terminator Squad. Those units are named on the relevant detachment pages and render without a link. We do track a Watch Master product, but it is filed under Space Marines, and the nearest Grey Knights product is sold under a combined Paladin and Terminator Squad title that is not an exact match for the datasheet. Pointing you at either would be guessing.

And the Deathwatch upgrade pack in our catalog is an upgrade sprue, not a unit box. It is never linked from a key unit, on this faction or any other.

Boarding Actions. The mirror lists two Imperial Agents Boarding Actions detachments, Voidship's Company and Interdiction Team, under a separate army rule called Imperial Insights. Boarding Actions is a different game mode with its own army rule and its own force construction. Neither is priced in Detachment Points by the Munitorum Field Manual, and neither is legal in the matched play economy these pages describe, so neither gets a page.

Nothing about allied detachments. Branch two of Assigned Agents lets a non-Agents Imperium army include Agents units. Nothing in either official document says it lets that army use an Agents detachment, and we do not assert that it does.

No Onslaught Detachment Point figure. The battle-size table in the army rule names Onslaught, but that is a cap on allied units rather than a Detachment Point budget, and we do not use it as evidence about budgets.

No search-demand claims. Nothing on these pages claims what people search for in this faction, because our search evidence file holds no Imperial Agents rows.