The Grey Knights had an interesting Crusade framework in their ninth edition Codex, featuring a rule set based around creating a daemonic nemesis for one of your characters and potentially squaring off against said nemesis when the time was right and if your opponent had the right model for it. Although flavorful and cool, these rules could be a bit annoying as they required your opponent to want to modify their army and change up their game plan for the game. Cool if your opponent is game, less so if they aren’t, and worse if it doesn’t even make sense, i.e. having a daemonic nemesis infiltrating their Necron or Tyranid army.

These rules have been replaced wholesale in the tenth edition book, focusing now on a new set of rules with more focus on tracking visions and longer-term quests. But are they worth your time? In this article we’ll look at the new rules, how they work, and what we liked and didn’t like about them.

We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of this book for review purposes.

Visions from the Augurium

As your force of Grey Knights fights its battles, the Prognosticars aboard their Battle Barge cast their minds out into the Warp, searching for signs of Daemonic incursion into realspace and fighting psychic battles against the malign forces of Chaos to protect all of humanity from their corrupting influence. And though the fell powers of the Dark Gods are engaged in what they call the “Great Game,” the heroic psyker-sages of the Knights of Titan will lead you through an even greater one on your path to preventing a Chaos Incursion:

Tic-tac-toe.

I’m kidding. Not as much as you might think, though: The “Augurium Vision Tracker” that you’ll use to track your force’s progress in staving off a potential Daemonic invasion is a 3×3 grid, and after every game you play, the forces of Chaos (in this case represented by a d33 roll) will randomly select one of the 9 spaces in the grid to change to “Malefic.” If three spaces in the same row, column, or diagonal all turn Malefic, you’ll be tasked with putting down a Chaos Incursion.

When an incursion happens, you’ll total up the number of spaces on your tracker that are in the Malefic State, then add d3 to that number to figure out your Banishment Total. You’ll then be tasked with using the Agendas, Requisitions, and other rules in this section of the book to earn that many Banishment point over your next few games. Once you succeed, you’ve ended the Incursion and pick up some Purgation points you can cash in to earn Gifts of the Prescient, the Crusade-specific wargear for Grey Knights.

To rack up those Purgation points, you’ll need to do what you can to stem the tide of Chaos before the Incursion starts. When the board is still being set and an Incursion hasn’t occurred yet, some of the Agendas will allow you to convert a space on your tracker that’s in the Malefic state to the Sanctic state. You can only convert one space per game regardless of how many you attempted, and each Agenda only works on 3 of the 9 spaces on the board. Each space that’s in the Sanctic state gives you a Purgation point after you complete the Incursion, and if you manage to fill a row or column with them, you’ll pick up a bonus point.

The end result of this system is a neat little minigame that actually feeds back into your games more than you might expect. Whether you’re still playing the “tic-tac-toe” game or facing off a Chaos Incursion, the status of your Augurium Tracker will directly influence which agendas you’ll want to take in each game if you want to try and earn a particular Gift. It’s a neat way to encourage you to attempt each of the different agendas on offer, rather than just identifying the easiest one and picking it every game.

The downside is that it’s not the fastest set of Crusade rules if you’re hoping to pick up a cool upgrade. The cheapest Gift of the Prescient is 1 Purgation point, but that still requires a minimum of four games to cash in with perfect rolls: 3 to set up the Chaos Incursion, then another 1 to banish it. Given the investment, you probably won’t be able to get the most potent rewards unless you’re playing a longer campaign. That’s not to say it won’t be fun if you’ve got the time to make it sing, but if you’re running a weekender event with a Grey Knights player, consider ways to toss them a Purgation point or two if they manage to both trigger and stave off an Incursion so they have a few options.

Gifts of the Prescient

Once you’ve gotten your Purgation points, it’s time to go shopping. There are thirteen Gifts of the Prescient on offer, and several of them are solid options. Each one of them can be taken by one of your Character models just like any Battle Honour, but there’s a limit on how many Gifts a given Character can have. Battle-ready and Blooded characters can only have one, while Battle-hardened and Heroic characters can take two. If someone manages to make it to Legendary status, they can carry three of them into battle.

There are a ton of options here, so we’ll just hit some of the highlights. The cheapest option at one Purgation point, the Augury of Aggression, requires a Blooded model, and allows their unit to Fire Overwatch or Heroically Intervene for 0CP once a turn. A useful trick, and things only get better from here. 

Two Purgation points will get you the Hour of Need, which lets you skip the roll-off for Attacker or Defender and just choose which side of the table you’d like to be on. This would already be an interesting effect in a matched play game, but it’s even better in Crusade, where missions and terrain are much more likely to be asymmetric, making the option to deploy as the Defender and choose your table edge that much stronger. Alternatively, you can give a character the Fate-Woven Knot for the same cost, which gives them a 3+ invulnerable save once a game for a phase.

At three Purgation points, Portents of Doom gives the bearer a 9” aura that increases the costs of enemy stratagems by 1CP. As a kicker, if a unit has the CHAOS keyword, it affects them within 12”. Alternatively, the Gem of Inoktu lets you choose an enemy unit within 12” of the bearer in every shooting phase and roll a d6. If you score a 4+ (or a 3+ if the target has the CHAOS keyword), it’ll take 3 mortal wounds. Or there’s the Sigil Abnegatos, which lets one of your characters prevent enemies from setting up from reserves within 12”.

Finally, there’s the most expensive options at four Purgation points each. The Prism of Potential lets you choose another Grey Knights Agenda for your game, both increasing your roster’s XP gain and potentially speeding you along toward your next Gift. Or you can take Scrolls of Prophecy, which lets you choose an additional Crusade Blessing if you’re the underdog in the match.

This isn’t an exhaustive list of the Gifts on offer, and several of them are pretty cool rewards if you can manage to stave off a Chaos Incursion. We’re also happy that there’s a nice spread of options that seem worth taking, rather than having all the cool stuff at the top end of the table, potentially out of reach without a little luck on the Augurium Tracker. That said, these aren’t quite as easily-obtained as some other faction-specific Crusade bonuses, which is a bit of a drag, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility that a dedicated player could pick up a 1- or 2-point selection in time to close out a weekend.

Agendas

There are five agendas here, and they’re all written to work with the Augurium Tracker. The first three, Purge Corruption, Empyric Intervention, and Unmake Omens, each reward you regardless of whether there’s an Incursion going on: if there isn’t, you’ll swap a space on your tracker in a given category from Malefic to Sanctic; if there is, you’ll gain a single Banishment point. Purge has you sending units into the various table quarters to perform Actions. Each successful action nets 1XP for the unit that performed it, to a max of 3XP for a single unit. Omens wants you to be standing on objectives at the end of the game, and lets you pick a single unit on each objective you control to gain 2XP. Interdiction is the most straightforward for the Knights of Titan: your units gain 1XP each time they destroy an enemy unit after setting up from Deep Strike, to a max of 3XP per unit.

Regardless of which one you picked, you’ll roll a d6 at the end of the game, then add the total number of “successes” you had (completed actions for Purge, controlled objectives for Omens, or XP gained for Intervention). On a 7+, you’ll get the campaign reward.

The remaining two agendas don’t offer any campaign rewards unless you’re fighting a Chaos Incursion, but the rewards are greater if you are. Destroy the Infernal awards 1XP for each CHAOS unit destroyed, with an additional 1XP if the unit was a MONSTER or VEHICLE. Each unit is capped at 4XP per battle, and if 3 or more units score any XP from it, you’ll gain D3 Banishment points. No Witnesses is exactly what you likely think: if you table your opponent, every surviving unit from your army gains 2XP. The campaign reward here is automatic if you’re fighting a Chaos Incursion: gain 1 Banishment point and 1RP in the bargain.

None of these Agendas are going to be particularly hard for you to score, though there is some uncertainty when it comes to picking up the campaign bonuses on the first three Agendas. You can probably expect to have about a 50/50 or 2/3 chance of flipping one of the spaces on the Tracker, which means you’re likely fighting a losing battle against the forces of Chaos. Not that you weren’t expecting that, but it does mean that if you’re aiming for a Gift of the Prescient, you’ll frequently want to attempt more than one of these Agendas to hedge against a bad d6 roll at the end of the game.

Requisitions

There are six Requisitions to choose from. Unseal the Scrolls lets you pick a Vision instead of randomly determining one. This is great for removing some variance but it costs 2RP. Rites of Banishment helps you get more Banishment Points on a 4+ and if the Incursion ends as a result of this, you can flip a Vision from Malefic to Sanctic. This costing 2RP and being reliant on a 4+ to get the full value out of it isn’t amazing but it can be handy. Deeds of Legend lets you select a second unit to be Marked for Greatness, costing 2RP if you’re combating an Incursion or 3RP if you aren’t. Simply never use this is you aren’t combating an Incursion. Master Among Masters is your standard “get an extra Battle Trait if you get 71XP” requisition. This is nice to have as an option. Armoured Raiment is… interesting. You can take a Brother Captain at Heroic Rank and move it to a Grand Master or Grand Master in Nemesis Dreadknight, which is neat. That said you can also take an Infantry Character or Grand Master in Nemesis Dreadknight and turn it into a Venerable Dreadnought. I guess if you want to make a unit significantly worse this is a cool option. Lastly there’s Psycho-Reconditioning which lets you trade a Battle Trait that unit has for another Grey Knight Battle Trait. Considering there are some really good and really bad options for traits below, this is a fantastic Requisition to have in your back pocket.

Battle Traits

There are three tables here: All Grey Knights Units, Character Units, and Psychic Fortitudes for psykers only.

Grey Knights Units

Sigils of Swiftness: Reroll Advance and Charge rolls for the unit. Kind of boring but solid for attempting charges out of Deep Strike.

Strike Specialists: Gives the unit’s ranged weapons Assault. This one’s not terribly useful outside of giving it to a unit of Purifiers or a Grand Master in Nemesis Dreadknight considering the normal Dreadknight already can advance and shoot and the rest of your shooting isn’t anything to write home about.

Force Acuity: Improves the AP of the unit’s melee weapons by 1. This is the good stuff. Most of the time that is, hopefully you don’t roll this for your Land Raider. Unfortunately this does not stack with the Terminator buff.

No Matter the Odds: Gives the unit Fall Back and Charge as well as adding 1 to Desperate Escape tests if you’re a Walker unit. This is nifty and helpful especially on Paladins who will want to charge just to renew their buff.

Unyielding Wards: Once per Battle Round you can change the damage characteristic of an attack allocated to a unit to 0. This is amazing on anything really but really shines on your vehicles.

Indefatigable Will: Gives the unit +1 to hit if it’s below starting strength and +1 to wound if it’s below half. This is mostly a nice to have rule but can absolutely shine on heavy hitters like Dreadknights.

Grey Knights Characters

Mighty Destiny: You gain an additional 2XP if you mark this unit for greatness. Given your limited slots for Battle Traits, this isn’t an amazing one to have taking up a spot.

Shield of Humanity: +2 wounds and you heal a wound at the start of your command phase. This generally will put your characters at some obnoxious breakpoints, meaning you’ll have them survive on just a couple wounds that much more often.

Heroism in Extremis: Once per battle you can add D3 attacks to this unit’s melee weapons. This is mostly just fine outside getting more hammer swings on a Grand Master in Nemesis Dreadknight.

Psychic Fortitudes

These are a bit of an odd duck. For one, they can only go on Psykers–though this is admittedly less of an issue here than usual. They also can’t stack with attached characters. If you have two fortitudes in a squad, you have to select one to be active in the Declare Formations step. On top of that, these are worth two Crusade points instead of one. Oh, also for some reason the Venerable Dreadnought only gets a roll of a D3 on the table, with no restrictions for your other walkers. While these are solid, none of these are that much more powerful than Battle Traits you’d see elsewhere, so it’s a bit unclear why they were so cautious here.

Fortress of Minds: Models in this unit have  5+ Feel No Pain to Psychic attacks and Mortal Wounds. See, this is just fine if not bad considering it’s worth two Crusade Points. I suppose they can’t all be winners.

Tide of Shadows: Gives the unit Stealth. This one’s very solid but also nothing extraordinary. 

Astral Aim: Gives ranged weapons in the unit [IGNORES COVER] and Psychic weapons get +6” of range. This is amazing and worth the 2 Crusade Points, but only on Purifiers and Dreadknights. On everyone else this is merely pretty good.

Focused Might: Full rerolls to hit for Psychic Attacks. This is just universally really good and probably the best thing in the table.

Channelled Fury: Psychic weapons have [Sustained Hits 1]. Also really good, but this sort of thing can be found on other tables as a standard Battle Trait.

Fires of Purgation: Gives Psychic Melee weapons [LANCE]. This is probably tied with Focused Might for being the most valuable trait here. Considering your army is going to struggle to punch up into tougher stuff, this is a great tool to help get them where they need to be.

Crusade Relics

Surprisingly, only two of the Crusade relics on offer directly reference CHAOS armies – the Soul Glaive and the Domina Liber Daemonica. 

In the Artificer Relic category, you’ve got the Soul Glaive, which gives you +1 Strength and Damage on an Infantry unit’s melee weapons, plus [ANTI-CHAOS 4+]. Your other pick is the Cuirass of Sacrifice which lets you stand back up on a 2+ with 3 wounds remaining at the end of the phase. This should be your first pick for relics, windmill slam it on a Grandmaster in Nemesis Dreadknight ASAP.

For Antiquity relics you get the Domina Liber Daemonica which mostly helps you with your faction mechanic: If the bearer is in your opponent’s deployment zone at the end of the battle, on a 5+, you can either make a Vision Sanctic if you aren’t combating an Incursion or get a Banishment Point if you are. This popping off only in one of every 3 games you get your character to your opponent’s deployment zone makes this a bit too inconsistent to take. The Kantu Vambrace on the other hand is a very straight forward -1 Damage on a unit. Again, put this on the Nemesis Dreadknight guy. Lastly there’s the Gyrotemporal Vault which gives the unit fights first once per battle. This is another really solid relic, I’d be gunning for it on a big melee threat pretty early.

For your Legendary relic you get the Helm of Janus, which lets you pick a Psychic Fortitude from the table to be active every Battle Round. This is a fantastic relic, letting you be pretty flexible between full rerolls to hit or Lance when you need it. It also gives Fortress of Minds a reason to be on the table.

Name Generator

Rob: There is a name generator here. The names are fine. None of them really stuck out to me as particularly bonkers.

Norman: My name is Axatinos Esdrios, a name so boring I have already forgotten it.

Final Thoughts

Condit: I was glad to see this Codex take a completely different tack from the last one’s Crusade rules. While the whole “Nemesis” idea was very cool and flavorful when everything lined up right, it was also one of those things that could very easily just…not? Not only was there the possibility that you would often wind up wanting Daemons to join enemy forces that it just didn’t make sense for them to be in like Necrons or Tyranids, but there was also the fact that they left open the possibility for your force’s Ultimate Nemesis to be “Some Guy With A Fancy Stick” if you picked the Master of Possession.

What they landed on is honestly pretty cool: rather than just looking at the units you’ve got and choosing the agenda that benefits them the most, you’ll instead find yourself reacting to the state of your Augurium Tracker and switching up agendas game-to-game to address the current situation. It’s a nice way to push you into experiencing everything the book has to offer.

Unfortunately, it’s just a touch slow-paced for me, but I don’t think it’s so far out of whack that you couldn’t make it work. If you’re working with fewer than 6 games in an event, you could pretty easily speed up the rate at which the Incursion occurs, then toss your Grey Knights an extra Purgation point or two if they manage to pull it off. Ultimately, it’s workable, though it’ll need a little attention from whoever’s running your Crusade if you’re trying to play a shorter campaign.

Ultimately, the rules on offer here provide a minigame that is engaging enough to be worth keeping track of between games, and the results you’ll get from tracking it will actually impact how you play your games. It may not be the flashiest or fanciest set of rules they’ve got, but it fits so nicely into the process of playing your games that it may wind up being one of the more fun ones.

Norman: This is a pretty neat set of rules. The main mechanic is pretty neat if a bit vanilla but at least it has you interact with your Agendas in an interesting way. Similar to the book itself though, it feels a bit too reserved with its rewards. Getting your points takes quite a bit of doing, and the Battle Traits and relics here don’t really have anything particularly splashy outside some very simple, very solid buffs. This will absolutely fill the void for a Crusade mechanic but this doesn’t feel particularly inspired.

TheChirurgeon: They’re fine but I miss the nemesis mechanics. Showing up to a fight where the Ork warboss is hovering two feet off the battlefield and glowing with an aura of pure malice is just such a cool idea.

That does it for this review, but now’s a good time to remind you that if you’re looking to play Crusade, there’s no better tool for doing so than Administratum, our own Crusade campaign management tool – and you can believe we’ll be putting these rules in there before too long.

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