Spearhead-at-Arms: The 11th-Edition Imperial Knights Three-Armiger Detachment

Mirror-sourced. Each time a model from your army uses its Bondsman ability, if no other model from your army has used that Bondsman ability that turn, you can select up to three friendly ARMIGER models instead of one, within 12 inches of that model, or within 15 inches while your army is Honoured. You still cannot select a model already affected by a Bondsman ability. Until the start of your next Command phase, those models are affected by that Bondsman ability.

The detachment also carries a KEYWORDS clause: ARMIGER models from your army gain the BATTLELINE keyword.

Two structural notes.

The 15 inch clause hooks into the army rule. Honoured is the state your army enters when its Code Chivalric Oath is fulfilled, so this detachment gets better after you have done your mission job. That is an unusual place to find a reward, and it means the Oath you pick at the start of the game is partly a range decision.

The Battleline grant is an army construction effect, not a combat one. It changes what your army is allowed to look like rather than what it does in a phase, which is worth separating out when you compare this detachment against Throne-bonded Outriders on raw power.

Spearhead-at-Arms (2 DP) plus Throne-bonded Outriders (1 DP) is exactly 3 Detachment Points and is illegal.

The chain is short and both links are official. Throne-bonded Outriders' own printed rule in the pack says it carries the ARMIGERS tag and cannot be taken with another ARMIGERS detachment. The Munitorum Field Manual version 1.3 lists this detachment with UNIQUE: ARMIGERS. Take both and you have broken a rule printed by Games Workshop.

The one piece of contrary evidence, stated rather than buried: the community mirror's version of this detachment prints no tag sentence in its rules text. That mirror is one version behind the Munitorum Field Manual for this faction, so it is a lagging document rather than a second opinion, and the official one wins. We are telling you it exists because you may find it and wonder.

Why this matters more than most tag notes. The pair costs exactly a Strike Force budget and it is the obvious army for anyone whose collection is mostly Armigers: one detachment makes them Battleline and reaches three at once, the other gives them [IGNORES COVER]. Confirm in the Warhammer 40,000 app before you build it, and expect the answer to be no.

What is legal. Pairing this detachment with anything carrying no tag. Plus [Dominus Foebreakers](/40k/armies/imperial-knights/detachments/dominus-foebreakers) (1 DP, total 3) is the clean one: a Battleline core of Armigers plus the two heaviest guns in the faction, which is precisely what Armigers cannot be.

Mentor's Pride (20 points). IMPERIAL KNIGHTS model only. While two or more ARMIGER models are under the effects of the bearer's Bondsman ability, each time each of those Armigers attacks, you can re-roll a Hit roll of 1. Mirror-sourced text, and the enhancement that most obviously pays for the detachment rule's three-Armiger clause: it does nothing until the rule has fired on at least two models.

The other three come from the official Munitorum Field Manual v1.3 with their point costs only, reprinted as a planning aid and dataslate-volatile:

• Martial Tuition, 15 points.
• Fables of Nightmare, 10 points.
• Tales of Heroism, 10 points.

Four enhancements at 55 points total is the cheapest four-enhancement list among the Imperial Knights 2 Detachment Point detachments.

The mirror lists six stratagems under this detachment, a mix of Battle Tactic, Strategic Ploy and Epic Deed.

We are not reproducing their text. The pack does not print this detachment at all, so there is no first-party version to check the mirror against, and the mirror lags this faction on both stamps. Read the six cards in the Warhammer 40,000 app.