Games Workshop has promised that Warhammer 40k 11th edition will bring narrative back into the heart of the game – and rather than waiting around to see how that goes, we’ve decided to help the studio along by creating fan rules inspired by some of our favorite 40k stories! Today we’ve got a free fan-made 40k detachment inspired by tales like Helsreach and the Siege of Terra, in which a handful of Space Marines must divide up to form a ceramite backbone for a far larger force of baseline humans.
His Angels Among Us is a free, unofficial Astra Militarum detachment. It costs one Detachment Point and its Force Disposition is Take and Hold – though as it’s entirely fanmade and you need your opponent’s permission to use it anyway, feel free to use it in any way you can both agree on.
The detachment rule is simple: your army can contain a unit of Intercessors, Assault Intercessors, or a Tactical Squad from the Space Marines army list. Instead of deploying the unit normally, each model is attached to a different Platoon squad as if it was a character with the Support rule.
To represent the inspiring presence of these avatars of the Emperor’s wrath spurring the Guard on to greater glory, each unit led by a Space Marine can be affected by two Orders at the same time. In addition, you’ll pick one Order and issue it to all of these units during your Command phase as the Marines coordinate their actions via the squad vox.
The stratagem ‘Endurance Beyond Hope’ represents the Marines’ ability to rally broken soldiers and inspire the walking wounded to stay in the fight, bringing destroyed models back into play. ‘Heroic Sacrifice’ allows a Space Marine to protect their charges at the cost of their own life, inflicting mortal wounds on an enemy squad that has just charged into their position and giving the troopers under their command a chance to Fall Back. Should one of the Marines die another way, ‘Wrath of the Meek’ paints a massive target on the enemy unit that did the deed, giving your humble Platoon models a bonus to attack and wound them in reprisal for this insult against the Emperor’s Angels.
Writing this up gave me extra appreciation for the rules team in the Warhammer 40k design studio – clear, concise, and accurate rules text isn’t easy to produce. Come and join us in the Wargamer Discord community to give your feedback on it and your suggestions for future narrative detachments – and I’d love to hear if you play with this at all!
Source: Wargamer
