Detachment Focus: Sanctic Spearhead

The upcoming Codex: Grey Knights features a number of new detachments for the army, giving players multiple ways to play the secretive chapter in Truesilver armor. In this article we’ll be looking at the Sanctic Spearhead Detachment.

Look, statistically if you’re playing Grey Knights at this point, you own four Dreadknights minimum, and probably at least one Land Raider. Happily, the new Codex provides the perfect detachment for the multi-Dreadknight lifestyle in the Sanctic Spearhead, letting you unleash the full armoured might of Titan.

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

Note: Where this article references points costs, these are provisional costs provided to us by Games Workshop to support our review, and may be subject to change until they are published on Warhammer Community.

Detachment Overview

The new Santic Spearhead Detachment is the answer for Grey Knights fans who love running armoured lists. This Detachment focuses on buffing Vehicles in various ways, primarily focusing on mobility. While Dreadknights gain some benefits here, the coolest part is that other non-Psyker vehicles like Stormravens and Land Raiders have some real support here. This is a legitimately good detachment, albeit held back a bit by the high cost or inefficiency of many Grey Knights datasheets.

Detachment Rule: Mailed Fist

The Mailed Fist rule allows all of your Vehicles to automatically advance 6”, as well as gain the Assault keyword on all of their guns.

Extra mobility is always valuable in 40K. This is a good, albeit a bit uninspiring, detachment ability. The biggest winners of this are Land Raider Redeemers, Stormraven Gunships, and Grandmaster Dreadknights.

Enhancements

The enhancements are solid, with one standout and a few interesting options.

• Driven By Duty: This enhancement only goes on Grandmaster Dreadknights, and allows them to Pile-in and Consolidate 6” instead of 3”. This is always a good ability.
• Quickening Foci: Your Infantry unit can re-roll charges after they get out of a transport. This is a niche upgrade if you have points left over.
• Sigil Of Exigence: One of the best enhancements in the game, this returns unchanged from the previous index detachment. Your unit can teleport anywhere on the board (>9” from opponents) after getting targeted instead of getting shot.
• Spiritus Machina: Your Infantry unit can re-roll wounds in the shooting phase after disembarking from a Transport.

Mike P: Any Detachment that has the Sigil Of Exigence is off to a strong start. Sigil Of Exigence is an auto-include in any Santic Spearhead list. The ability to send in a Grandmaster Dreadknight, blow up your opponent’s toughest unit with shooting and melee, and then be completely immune to being shot back is very powerful. Just make sure to be a good opponent and remind your opponent that you have this before they trigger it, because the Sigil Of Exigence is the worst feeling “gotcha” in the game if your opponent forgets!

Driven By Duty is a cool one to have access to. 6” pile-ins are always useful because if the first unit you charged dies to something like Tank Shock or another unit’s melee, you can often Pile-In to another unit and fight them instead.

Quickening Foci and Spiritus Machina are both a bit niche, but you’ll consider them if running bricks of Infantry in Transports. Spiritus Machina is my preference because Wound re-rolls help the Grey Knight’s high volume of low-strength shooting punch up.

Stratagems

The Santic Spearhead has a great suite of stratagems. My main gripe with the Santic Spearhead is that several of these stratagems are unnecessarily restricted to Psyker Vehicles, meaning they only work on Dreadknights/Dreadnoughts instead of all Vehicles. Thankfully, the best ones have the least restrictions, and you can put together a strong gameplan with these.

• Truesilver Will (1CP): Your Psyker Vehicle gains a 4+++ Feel-No-Pain vs Mortal Wounds. Always great to have access to.
• Abominus Class Targets (1CP): +1 to Wound for any Grey Knight unit versus a Monster/Vehicle in the Fight Phase/your Shooting Phase. This is an amazing and versatile damage buff, and will let your Infantry punch up and your Vehicles hit even harder.
• Armoured Aegis (1CP): Your Psyker Vehicle heals 3 Wounds in the Command Phase. Great to have when you need it.
• Redoubled Assault (1CP): Your Vehicle can Fall Back and still shoot/charge that turn. This is a great stratagem to have access to.
• Force Wave (1CP): Your Vehicle can move through terrain the Movement or Charge Phase. This is great, and will really help you deliver Grandmaster Dreadknight melee or Land Raider Redeemer shooting.
• Argent Wrath (1CP): After your Vehicle completes a charge, all enemy units within 3” have to take a Battleshock test at -1.

This is a great collection of stratagems. An unconditional +1 to Wound on any of your units from Abominus Class Targets versus Monsters/Vehicles is huge. This is amazing value on a Stormraven, which has a massive volume of medium strength firepower. It also combos very well with Paladins, as +1 to wound lets them wound T11 Knights on a 4+ and their +1 Damage on the charge means that each failed save is brutal.

Force Wave, which lets any Vehicle move horizontally through terrain, is amazing. A Land Raider Redeemer moving 18” through terrain and still shoot (and preparing to overwatch another unit next turn) is especially vicious, as is a Stormraven just rocking across the table. Redoubled Assault is another great mobility buff. Being able to Fall Back and still shoot/charge means that your Grandmaster Dreadknights can’t be tied up in melee by chaff, which is their big weakness if you take the Hammer or Mace.

The only slight miss is Argent Wrath. And honestly, it’s a cool tool to have in your back pocket. Having around a 50/50 shot to stop opponents from using stratagems like fight-on-death abilities could prove useful in a key moment.

Playing This Detachment

The main issue with Santic Spearhead is that you don’t really have any damage buffs outside of Abominus Class Targets, and Grey Knights datasheets can be a bit anemic. To make up for that, you’re going to want to bring a bunch of high damage datasheets and let the mobility tricks of this detachment allow you to apply damage consistently.

Strengths

• Mobility, especially in shooting.
• Good support for Dreadknights of both varieties, arguably the strongest Grey Knight datasheet.
• Strong and well-costed stratagems.

Weaknesses

• No access to Advance and Charge limits the impact Santic Spearhead has on Grandmaster Dreadknights.
• Almost no durability buffs.
• No re-rolls or reliability buffs.

A Sample List

We’re going to choose violence, and hope Challenger Cards bail us out. I’m joking, but also serious, I think.

Mike P’s Santic Spearhead - click to expand

Crowe and the Purifiers ride in the Razorback, prepared to deliver a huge hit to a unit on an objective with +1AP, +1 to wound from the stratagem, and full wound rerolls from the upgraded Purifier rule.

The 3 Grandmaster Dreadknights and the two Stormravens use the mobility of the Sanctic Spearhead to get angles early and take chunks out of the opponent’s army, before the right target presents itself and the Grandmaster Dreadknights go into melee to finish off their toughest target.

In an elite army, Strike Squads are always useful for teleporting to score points and cap objectives.

Final Thoughts

The Sanctic Spearhead is definitely a cool Detachment. Could it really, really benefit from another damage buff? Sure, but no Detachment is perfect. It presents a fun way to play Grey Knights and brings a solid power level to the table.

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