Grey Knight review Anval Thawn

After reviewing the Grey Knight Terminators, I realized I forgot one thing, their special unit upgrade, Justicar Anval Thawn.

He is the combination of Commando, Rocky and almost every other 80’s action hero. He killed a Bloodthirster, survived long odds verses Bloodletters and was the last survivor on a demon world. A survivor that fought on until reinforcements arrived. He also died on the Craftworld Malan’tai. Yup he died, only to rise again before he was interred on Titan. You see this guy cannot die. Even when struck down he resurrects minutes, hours or even days later. Why? Well nobody knows. Ohhh ….so spooky. Supposedly he has a destiny, is immortal or maybe even warp touched? He is pretty much: Rocky, John Mclane, the Highlander, John Matrix and pretty much every other 80’s action movie hero all in the body of a Grey Knight.





"There can be only Thawn!" yeah that is a horrbile pun right there.



Thwan comes with the regular Grey Knight rules, gear and Astartes rules. He does differ from regular Grey Knight Terminators a bit since he has a force halberd standard (not a big thing since they are free to swap), he is WS 5, has a psy mastery level 2 , is Fearless,  and has the I Shall Not Yield (or..”There can be only one!”,“Ain’t got time to bleed!”, “You’re funny Sully. That is why I’ll kill you last.”  or any other  awesome 80’s movie on-liner). He is a Justicar upgrade for the squad and comes in just 5 points shy of two Terminators.

I Shall Not Yield- is what makes this guy special.  When Thwan is removed as a casualty you place a marker with 1” of where he was. Then on the start of your next turn you roll a D6. If you hit a 4+ then Thwan returns to play within 1” of the marker (and 1” away from enemies and such). He can move  and act normally the turn he “resurrects.” Now if Thwan doesn’t return, don’t worry. You roll at the start of all your remaining turns for him, until he is back or the game ends.

Once active/ alive he forms a one man unit and can go around wreaking havoc, grabbing objectives or whatever. He doesn’t rejoin a squad and it looks like nobody can join him. He is still a troop choice so that can be fun for late game objective grabs/ contests.

It is important to note that he has a psy rating of 2. That means he can fire off Hammerhand in both assault phases, or activate his force weapon and also Hammerhand it up. However, while as the squad Justicar, it appears he can only use one power due to the Brotherhood of Psykers rule.

Now Thwan is also Fearless, this is both a simple and complex rule with him. While he is alone, after resurrection, it makes sense he would be fearless. However, while with the squad does he make them fearless? The fearless special rule is lost by Independent Characters joining a non-fearless unit. The rub is, Thwan is an upgrade and not an independent character. So.....is his squad fearless while he is with them? An upgrade does not confer or remove fearless to a unit. Does it? Yes, we all get he is fearless while alone. I'm from the camp the fearless is lost while in the squad as that would make some sense right? Then again is his squad all crazy fearless since this guy is leading them? I know there are other camps that think differently. I think is just poorly written/ proofed (like the Dreadnought close combat weapon description on a Dreadknight  doomfist issue) and it will all be made 100% clear some day....some day.

At the end of the day is Thwan a good purchase? I think no. I would rather have two more Terminators in the squad instead of Thwan and five extra points. I know he has a use as an objective holder, wound allocating silliness, 50% chance of resurrecting one man army. However, his return isn't guaranteed and he could spend the remainder of the game off the table instead of doing stuff. He can provide some silliness with his returning from the dead, and psy mastery 2; but his cost is just too high for my liking. I'll take the extra bodies in the squad over a single dude with a wonky ability.