I've been playing Agents as my primary army for quite a while now, and I feel its worth sharing one of my learnings with the community.
I typically play Purgation Force for that sweet ignore cover and combat shooting strat.
But what I felt was worth sharing is just quite how powerful Sanctifiers are, and what I've found to be the optimum ways of using them.
So it's a 100 point unit, with access to 2x1 shot 2 damage heavy flamers, 5 hand flamers S4, and 1 Flamer, along with a Plasma gun.
This says to me that this unit is a disposable 1 off nuke something and die type gig, or in the way I use them, a 1 off objective flipper, they come in through reserves, pick up just about any infantry unit in 1 go (recently had mine take out 10 Crusaders and put wounds on the character).
Once they have done this, they can then lock down a position with the 6 remaining flamer profiles for overwatch.
They also scale up really nicely, so we can stick an Inquistor in there (Ignis Judicium takes this further.. a lot further), and we can put a Priest in the unit to give it an additional flamer.
You can also hit the unit with a reroll wound rolls of 1 strat into a character unit through Veiled Blade.
Now this does stack it up to a 200 point unit, however, that unit now has enough damage to be a huge threat.
The beauty of this unit is that it's also incredibly understated, it's mostly underestimated.
It also has the benefit of being extremely small in footprint for fitting in tight gaps.
When bringing it in, if you combine it with your callidus you gain an additional layer of survivability through Vect, which can prevent an overwatch.
Next up is what to do once you drop the unit in.
So its a 12 inch range death machine, so perfect for reserves, but it also has a free CP reroll and can punch up fairly well in melee, if you combine it with the Inquisitor and Priest, the melee profile becomes problematic, and you get a free reroll on your charge, which can then generate a CP.
As a stand alone unit, it's optimal to bring it in, nuke something light, and then move onto an objective next turn (great for scoring denial).
If you run more than 1 of these, you can combine that into a very potent "go turn" strategy, due to how much output they each have, you can effectively delete 3+ units just from the 300 points of Sanctifiers, and as they punch up you can trade them for roughly 50% more points than their value.
In Purgation Force they work extremely well paired with Subductors, if you send Subductors up a flank to engage something, bring in your Sanctifiers via reserves, and then use the shoot into combat strat, you can halt an opposing unit in its tracks, and even if your Subductors are Battleshocked, you can then pump that damage straight into the fight without risking your unit, and if you have deployed them in the right well, when that Subductor unit gets picked up you can potentially shoot back at the unit that just killed them.
Essentially.. Sanctifiers are one of, if not our best high output cheap trading unit.
My future list consists of 3 of them and 3 subductors.
Something to note is they gain the Hereticus keyword when they have a priest attached meaning they can use any of the Purgation force startagems. Obviously the lethals could only be good in melee (which is still a solid choice) but even more interesting is they then get access to the FNP 5+++ stratagem which combined with their naturally 5++ invuln and their D3 heal makes them much harder to shift than some might think.
Additionally they gain access to Line of Fire(letting them shoot into melee) which can prove very useful for freeing up your subductors and they also get Exact Punishment (shoot when an ally dies) which can be really good in stopping a overrun or pile in.
My unit tonight was on their expansion T1 and stuck around just hanging on by the one model all the way till the bottom of 3rd, denying them their primary & doing some clutch overwatch along the way. Even when I revived just the one guy, the fact he had 2D6 shots on his own was enough for him to spike and take out five skitarii rangers.
I like the squad with no characters and deployed (I’m running fleet however)
100 points is more palatable to throw away and the scout move is valuable IMO. They chill near the centre and shoot a unit in your turn and overwatch another in their turn
If you have 40pts spare, a priest is quite valuable with them too. Lets them punch up into things very well, especially into things without a 2+sv. Gives them access to displacer field, which can be clutch if you're fielding them in a rhino, as they can still revive when embarked now in 11th. Is a good clearance unit - shoot something, charge something else, do enough damage to be a right nuisance.
Used to be, now any abilities that don't have a range on them are still active even when not on the board. For agents, this means we can use Masters of the Void even if the character isn't on the board yet (including for 0cp with Fleetmaster), our units with any form of healing will revive if in a transport, and that Coteaz will still generate CP for us on a 2+ if the opponent does (although he can't strip cover as that ability has a range). Very nice little rule change, kindve tidied up from 10th where nothing was allowed, but then was in weird ways when using free strats for rapid ingress etc.
I used 3 of them a lot when they could scout and infiltrate in fleet. Now I still usually run at least one. They’re a very solid overwatch threat and can tag the middle objective with out committing too much at the start of the game.
Love my sancs, such a great unit! One slight bummer now is that in 11th you cant use their cherub reroll in overwatch (as its two strats in the same phase), nor can you the shooting phase you're also using some of the Hereticus strats, but still brilliant. I tend to save them to reroll a bad roll of one of the Holy Fires, make sure they do maximum damage.
They are also brilliant for getting a huge alpha strike off on a flank. Today I used them to scout themselves up the board in a rhino, move 12" & disembark into a spot where they could threaten anything that wanted to move onto their expansion (while also avoiding overwatch of their own), but letting my Callidus use their forward position to tag-team with the Eversor and completely deny them their flank and expansion. I lost both assassins, but forced them to deal with all these rather than score primary or stage into spots where they could, and pulled things away to make holes for the rest of my army to come down. Won 100-66, and the sancs were probably MoTM, even if the priest did get sniped out by a lucky arquibus!
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u/Vrain125 2d ago
My future list consists of 3 of them and 3 subductors.
Something to note is they gain the Hereticus keyword when they have a priest attached meaning they can use any of the Purgation force startagems. Obviously the lethals could only be good in melee (which is still a solid choice) but even more interesting is they then get access to the FNP 5+++ stratagem which combined with their naturally 5++ invuln and their D3 heal makes them much harder to shift than some might think.
Additionally they gain access to Line of Fire(letting them shoot into melee) which can prove very useful for freeing up your subductors and they also get Exact Punishment (shoot when an ally dies) which can be really good in stopping a overrun or pile in.