Detachment Focus: Grizzled Company

In our Detachment Focus series we take a deep dive into individual detachments, examine their rules, what makes them tick, and how to play them. In this article we’re looking at the Grizzled Company Detachment for the Astra Militarum.

The Astra Militarum have had a spotty history with Detachments. You could argue that, outside of a brief runaway period when Bridgehead Strike was busted, the faction’s detachments peaked in the Index with the original Combined Arms Detachment. The current version is still good, and we occasionally see some success from the likes of Hammer of the Emperor and Recon Patrol, but for a book with so many datasheets it feels like the designers left a lot on the bone with regard to this army. Enter the Grizzled Company Detachment, which feels a bit like a Mordian-themed detachment and focuses on giving extra orders with your officers and a little love for abhuman units.

We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of these rules for Review purposes.

Detachment Overview

This Detachment combines very solid passive abilities – a very easy to get re-roll 1s to hit with conditional re-roll 1s to wound – with the ability to issue an additional Order per officer. In addition to letting you issue extra orders it also has two Enhancements which give you access to new orders – Target Weak Spot and Move to the Shadows, each of which have some interesting uses you can take advantage of with the right units.

In addition to the orders theme, there’s also an Abhuman theme to the detachment as well – the Stratagems on offer here aren’t limited to REGIMENT units, allowing you to use them on Ogryn, and there’s an Enhancement here – Abhuman Detail – which lets you attach a Commissar to a unit of Ogryn and lets him issue orders to Ogryn units. 

The Video Version

If you’d rather watch us talk about this detachment than read about it, or you want some supplemental material to listen to while painting, check out our video version of this review here:

Detachment Rule: Ruthless Discipline

Add 1 to the number of Orders each ASTRA MILITARUM OFFICER model from your army can issue, as stated on their datasheet.

While an ASTRA MILITARUM unit from your army is affected by an Order, each time a model in that unit makes an attack, re-roll a Hit roll of 1. If the target of that attack is within range of an objective marker, re-roll a Wound roll of 1 as well.

Guard have never really had trouble getting all the orders they want on units, which makes the extra order more of a nice to have outside of a few notable exceptions – specifically, units which can receive multiple orders, such as Kasrkin or Creed’s attached unit. This also means that your re-roll 1s to hit is more or less a passive buff for most of the army, always on except for when a unit is battle-shocked. That re-roll 1s to wound is more conditional, but it’s a relatively easy condition to work with, as enemy units typically want to be standing on objectives in order to win the game. It gives you a little bit more of an edge in games where you go second, however. 

Orders are one of the game’s more powerful rules and being able to issue so many orders both gives you redundancy and incentivizes taking units which can benefit from taking multiple orders. Specifically, Ursula Creed’s attached unit, Kasrkin, and Militarum Tempestus Command Squads with a Command Rod all stand to gain quite a bit from this and the additional orders you can issue via Enhancements. That said, issuing three orders with Tank Commanders is also pretty sweet, and lets you get a lot more mileage out of a smaller number of Tank Commanders if you want to run heavy on vehicles with this Detachment.

Because you need your army to be under orders all the time, Commissars have a little more juice here, and that’s increased with the Abhuman Detail Enhancement.

Enhancements

These are four very good Enhancements, to the point that we could see builds taking all of them, though Laud Hailer likely ends up being the odd one out since you can make up for the shorter order distance with more Officers or taking a Master-Vox.

• Abhuman Detail (20 pts): COMMISSAR only, add the Ogryn keyword to the list of units that the bearer can issue Orders to. Also, that Commissar can now lead Bullgryn and Ogryn units. Commissars can only issue the Duty and Honour! and Fix Bayonets! Orders, but wouldn’t you know it, those are the ones you primarily want for the unit to begin with (though Take Cover! would have been nice here). Taking Bullgryn melee from hitting on 3s to hitting on 2s and re-rolling 1s upgrades them from “tarpit” to “surprisingly nasty melee threat” pretty quickly and this feels like a must-take for the army.
• Aquilan Eye (20 pts): Officer only, when issuing orders, the officer can choose to issue Target Weak Spot instead. When an ordered unit makes a ranged attack at a unit within 12”, improve the AP of that attack by 1. We’ll look at this in more detail in the “Playing This Detachment” section but the general thing to know is that this is marginally better than Take Aim! For most units, since improving AP by 1 usually has a bigger impact than improving BS from 4+ to 3+ once you factor in the unit will be re-rolling 1s to hit. This is particularly good when you can throw it on a unit with multiple flamers, like Kasrkin or Krieg Heavy Weapons teams and will be better on some tanks, particularly Hellhounds.
• Spec Ops Veteran (15 pts): Infantry Officer only, when issuing orders, the officer can choose to issue Move to the Shadows. Units affected by this order gain the [STEALTH] ability. Another new order, this one again works really well if you can double up to make an infantry target a pain to remove at range. Take Cover and Stealth, giving +1 save, -1 to hit and potentially cover? What if we threw in the Additional Armour Stratagem to reduce incoming AP by 1? Does that do anything for you? Why yes, my Kasrkin are -1 to hit and you need AP-3 to get them on a 4+ save. Have fun.
• Laud Hailer (10 pts): Officer only, officer can order out to 12” instead. This is potentially useful on a Castellan leading a unit without an attached Command squad to let him stretch his three orders a little further, but generally you’ll have a Master-vox to get you 24” anyway. Technically tank officers can take this too if you want to spend 10 pts for nothing as they already reach 12” for their orders (don’t do this).

Stratagems

There’s a lot of power in these six stratagems, and they’re all priced to move at 1 CP. 

• Snap to it (1 CP): Used at the start of any phase, one Officer can issue one order as if it were the Command Phase. This generally replaces your existing Order. There are two ways to use this. The first is as an out-of-phase order – you needed to move closer to a unit that was out of range in your Command phase, now it’s the Shooting phase and you can issue an order. The second is as a defensive or reactive tool. Get charged? Switch to Fix Bayonets! Getting shot at? Take Cover! The ability to switch orders on the fly is pretty great for preserving your movement or damage output while not sacrificing defense. How does this work on units which can take two orders? We’re honestly not sure – the rules don’t cover it. You can argue it only replaces the officer order on Kasrkin, but on Creed’s unit or Tempestus Command Squads? We have no idea.
• No Retreat (1 CP): Used in your Command phase on one Astra Militarum Unit affected by the Duty and Honor Order within range of an objective marker you control. That marker stays under your control until your opponent controls it at the start or end of a phase. Being able to sticky objectives is also good, and this lets you run a little more elite with your guard army. This also combines well with the Snap To It Stratagem – you can order yourself with Duty and Honour, sticky the objective, then switch to something else.
• Veteran Sharpshooters (1 CP): In your Shooting phase, one Astra Militarum unit gets the [IGNORES COVER] for their ranged attacks that phase. This is good, clean fun, with no restrictions to line of sight or preceding unit activations. Just makes your guns more killy. Tanks love this one, and it lets you pick targets other than the one tagged by your Hellhound for maximum value.
• Purging Fire (1 CP): In your Shooting phase, one Astra Militarum unit within range of an Objective Marker and affected by an Order gains [LETHAL HITS] for their ranged weapons. If leaving the warm comfort of lethals in Combined Arms was worrying you, fear not!  Simply combine re-rolls with lethal hits to keep your objectives safe. Note that any time you use this, you’ll also be re-rolling 1s to wound from the faction ability.
• Mordian Minute (1 CP): Used in your Shooting phase on an Astra Militarum INFANTRY unit in your army under the effects of the First Rank, Fire! Second Rank, Fire! Order. Until the end of the phase improve the Strength of that unit’s attacks by 1. This is very strong into T4 and T6-T7 targets when you’re shooting high volumes of lasgun fire and can also get you some real extra mileage out of things like overcharged plasma guns and Hot-shot volley guns. 
• Additional Armor (1 CP): This is Armour of Contempt, but it only works for ranged attacks in your opponent’s Shooting phase. That’s still very good, and this combines well with cover and Take Cover! To make a unit that’s very hard to dislodge. Add in the Move to the Shadows order for additional havoc. Useful on Bullgryn for keeping them on their 3+ save, and it might be worth it if you want to try and run Slabshields instead of Brute Shields. 

Playing This Detachment

There are two key things going on here: The first is that you get more value out of your officers – you can order more units with fewer officers in the army – and the second is that you get more out of units which can take multiple orders. Kasrkin are already one of the book’s best units, and this just makes them even better. Creed becomes a near must-take here, as her unit can take two orders and she can issue a whopping four in this Detachment, and Tank Commanders being able to issue three orders ensures you won’t have to make any tough decisions about who gets the good Ballistic Skill each round. 

In the chart below we’ve done the math on the comparative value of orders with regard to ten lasguns shooting at a space marine target. The combo of First Rank, Fire! Second Rank, Fire! And Target Weak Spot gets you the best results, though it’s worth noting that the improvement is marginal, and based on the fact that you’re getting re-rolls of 1 to hit already, so the increase in AP makes a bigger difference than the gain you get from going from BS 4+ to 3+. It’ll be even more pronounced on Kasrkin and Scions, who already hit on 3+. 

That said it’s marginally worse or about the same when you start with AP-1, since going from 3+ saves to 4+ saves is a bigger jump than going from 4+ to 5+. The worse the starting save of the model, the better Take Aim! is, while the better the model’s starting Ballistic Skill, the better Target Weak Spot will be. Note that any time it works, First Rank, Fire! Second Rank, Fire! is better than either.

Of course, the real value of the Target Weak Spot Order is on units who can’t already benefit from one or both of First Rank, Fire! Second Rank, Fire! and Take Aim! The big recipient there? Flamers. The Hellhound is a great target for this Order, as having AP-3 on its Inferno Cannon makes it a real terror, and you’ve got another heavy flamer you can add on top of that. You could also make the case for Scout Sentinels with heavy flamers and Krieg heavy weapons squads, which can be given three 2-damage heavy flamers. You can also give a Chimera a heavy flamer and give your Kasrkin unit two flamers to shoot out of its Firing Deck, making it an infantry-melting machine as well.

Having re-roll 1s to hit on most of, if not all the time, is just very good for an army like Astra Militarum who might otherwise struggle to hit their targets. Getting the ability to re-roll 1s to wound is extra gravy and the fact that both buffs affect your units in melee as well as the shooting phase is music to the ears of your Ogryn, who otherwise suddenly have to deal with orders being shouted at them by a Commissar now. 

Strengths

• Re-rolls! Until now the guard depended on unit buffs like the Scout Sentinel to get any rerolls on their heavy hitters.  Now almost everything in the army can access them trivially.  
• Orders. New Orders and Extra Orders give you a whole different set of buffs to work with that open up new build options and can apply those buffs across a larger amount of your army
• Stratagems. This Detachment has a solid stratagem suite that has pretty light restrictions and can be used by almost any unit in your army effectively.  

Weaknesses

• No tricks. You will play honest warhammer in Grizzled Company, outside of maybe your unit of Gaunt’s Ghosts.
• No Reinforcements. Combined Arms has been the most commonly used Detachment for the Astra Militarum. You can generally make up for the loss of [LETHAL HITS] here with the re-rolls, but losing the ability to recycle a unit is a big downside to taking this Detachment.
• Battle-shock vulnerability. Being battle-shocked is going to tank your army’s capabilities real fast, so watch out for armies like Tyranids and Chaos Knights that can force you to take more tests, and with a negative modifier.

A Sample List

You have some options here for how you want to build, and you can go heavy on vehicles or infantry or run a good mix of both.

The Sample List - click to expand

This list opens up early with the usual array of lots of scouting units to seed the midfield/screen early.  Gaunts Ghost,  uniquely for guard in this Detachment, can infiltrate onto an objective and sticky turn 1 by ordering themselves with Duty and Honor if there’s not a threat of t1 heavy pressure.  The Chimeras with their array of torrent weapons can use the Target Weak Point order to good effect against enemy skirmish units and to be an even more potent overwatch threat with ap -2 heavy flamers (remembering firing deck doesnt work in overwatch!)  The commissar and Bullgryn give you a nasty melee threat/tarpit that can also be used to sticky objectives if needed.  

This list chooses to put Aquilan Eye on the tank commander to buff the chimeras early, but could equally be used on the Cadian Command Squad instead if you’d rather bump the output of the Kasrkin/Creed brick more.  Keep in mind the timing of orders, the Kasrkin will need to be on the field to get the Aquilan Eye order as only the officer with the enhancement can issue it, the Kasrkin can’t give it to themselves.

The Catachans/Engineers can function as screens/oc blocks/early trade pieces or backfill your chimeras once the Kasrkin pop out to blast out piles of mid/low ap torrent shots.  Alternatively, start the catachans inside and prioritize the torrent output over Kasrkin delivery depending on what you feel the matchup needs.

The triple Dorns give you your solid armored core that can be daunting for many armies to remove and provide hefty output into elite units/tanks with the usual array of melta and damage 3 profiles, now with rerolls!

Final Thoughts

The Grizzled Company Detachment offers an interesting new playstyle that experienced players will find rewarding. Orders are a powerful rule, and being able to issue more of them and with new options adds some fun wrinkles to the army, while having buffs here for Ogryns will make everyone happy. We expect this to be a solid Detachment for the army, though not necessarily a game-breaking option.

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