This post is going to be slightly out order. I had planned on posting about the new inquisitor model and then the Space Marine detachments, as I thought we were getting the Orks and Space Marine ones only, but they have dropped the Guard here as well. I assume them that we will get a similar set for all the armies over the next couple of weeks.
There are a few things to say about these detachments but there is something I just got about all the detachments, that they are not detachment restricted. By this I mean, that if you choose the first detachment here, Absolutist Principles, it doesn't just effect the Commissars in that detachment but all the Commissars in the whole army. This makes me think more about the old way of army building from 8th and custom regimental doctrines. This does come with a minor concern, that there are going to be more powerful combinations than others and everyone will just default to the same detachment rules. The one benefit to this system over doctrines I guess, is the ability to increase the cost of the detachments if one proves more powerful than the others.
The first detachment here is, Abhumam Auxiliaries, affects a humans and commissars, but it's the commissars that really matters. Giving commissars the Take Aim! order is huge and makes them actually worth while taking, in my view anyway. Being able to order Abhumans is useful but not as useful as take Aim!
The enhancement is pretty good, but only really against precision shooting really. Most of the time you'll be in a squad and so able to hide, so if your commissars getting shot, then it's because it's a precision shot or your bodyguard squad is dead.
The stratagem Low Profile, is actually quite good, as it sorts one of the biggest issues with Ratlings, the fact that they just get shot off the board, due to T2. Being able to shoot and not get shot will help them immensely. I think this will be best used, dropping them somewhere in you deployment or to the board edges, hugging some high ground and sniping characters and such.
All in all, I think this detachment will be quite useful and will probably get some use. The next detachment, Designation Force, seems less useful to me. The main aim of the detachment revolves around extending the detection range of units, which while it sounds good, adding only 3 inches to the detection range doesn't sound very useful. Moving the range from 15 to 18 inches isn't that much, if it pushed it to 24 inches, that would be very useful. I understand them at they are trying to keep this from being to powerful but it still requires you to get close and if your 18 inches away, you might just as well be 15 inches away.
The stratagem could also be useful but it strikes me as putting the sentinel outside of it's useful role. Of your infiltration up the table, your going to be to far forward to use Designated Targets as you'll be to far forward and probably out of line of sight from the units that will take advantage of the increased detection range.
I like the stratagem they show as well, it gives the whole combined arms feel to an army and rewards screening your vehicles, far more that just avoiding combat.
Overall, I think this is the weakest of the three detachments here, it's good but I just don't think the benefits are good enough, although true judgement will have to wait until we have all the rules.
The last detachment I want to mention is the Bridgehead Strike detachment aimed at Scions. Sounds familiar? Yep it's the same one we got in Grotmas a few years ago, but with a few tweaks it seems. Firstly the detachment rule has changed slightly. We retain the battle line and +1OC for a Scion warlord as was but the rest has changed. The other two rules have been smushed in to a single rule with the +1 to hit now only affects Scion units. Scions have lost the re-rolls for arriving\disembarking and the rest of the AM units have lost access to the +1 to hit.
The enhancement shown has had its wording changed and simplified but is basically unchanged from the current one and is still a must take for a Scion squad in my mind, possibly even more so now you can just take a small force of Scions in a larger army. Dropping 15 Scions turn 1 (command squad plus a full 10 man unit) armed with plasma and volley guns, will be enough to ruin pretty much everyone's day.
Especially if you throw this on them too! This again is a carry over from the current detachment and has always been useful.
This last detachment gives us quite a few clues about how things are going to change for 11th I think. I haven't had a good look at the Marine, Orks, Tyranids or what every other army focus articles are out by the time this is published (probably a lot of them) but I haven't seen any existing detachments apart from this one, possibly as this was one of the Grotmas detachments and so is not pay walled by GW. Anyway, it shows that existing detachment are getting redone and not just moved over as is. It also shows that they will be restricting down the detachments, really focusing on singular elements, such as the Scions, removing any base AM units from the rules in this case. Lastly, I assume this means that lots of the stratagems and enhancements will be changing for the current detachments. For example in this detachment, one of the four enhancements and five of the six stratagems are not Scion specific, although a couple of the stratagems focus on deep strike which is basically only Scion units anyway.
I also realise that a post that came out last week is now wrong. I had a look at the various current detachments and gave my thoughts on what the points cost per detachment was going to be and I think they will be mostly wrong! I had thought this detachment was going to be a two point detachment and if it had stayed the same it probably would have but with the changes it's dropped to a one point detachment.
It will be interesting to see what the full changes to all the detachments and their stratagems and enhancements, but so far I'm looking forward to 11th, far more than I was for 10th.
