The new Cadian Recon Squad datasheet rules give 40k Astra Militarum players their first 10-model Infiltrators unit, and Grizzled Company just got better.
Astra Militarum has spent most of 10th Edition as the army you play in a tight cluster, with Officers issuing Orders, units sticking close to a Master Vox, and anything that wandered too far from a Cadian Castellan spending the turn outside the buff bubble doing very little.
That’s why the new Cadian Recon Squad is so different: it ignores all of that.
Games Workshop revealed the Recon Squad 40k rules today alongside their Kill Team launch, putting the squad at 80 points with a stealth-and-Orders kit nobody else in the codex has.
So, if you play Imperial Guard, and especially if you’ve been running Grizzled Company, this is the squad that lets your Officers’ Orders make a difference way past turn one.
- 10 models, 80 points: sits between a 10-strong Cadian Shock Troops squad and the elite Kasrkin in cost and ability.
- Infiltrators ability: deploys outside your normal deployment zone, 9″ from enemy units, screening for the rest of the army.
- Independent Operatives: keep the last Order it received across multiple turns even when no Officer is in range.
- Vox-relay Beacon: starts the battle already buffed, and lets a Master Vox in a Command Squad relay Orders out to 24″.
- Plasma or melta, long-las, missile launcher team: real damage tools on a 10-model squad that is supposed to be sneaking.
Cadian Recon Squad Rules Finally Give Guard Their Own Infiltrators
The Recon Squad’s whole job is to show up ahead of the front line, plant a Vox-relay Beacon, and start passing Orders before the rest of your Officers have rolled a die. That’s a big change for an army that normally needs to clump up around a Castellan or a Command Squad to function, and the three core abilities on this datasheet all stack to make solo operation actually work.
- Infiltrators: deploys outside your normal zone, 9″ from any enemy unit. The whole squad starts up the board with cover and screening already in place for the rest of the army.
- Independent Operatives: keep the last Order they received across multiple turns. The Recon Squad can roll out of the buff bubble, lose contact with its Officer, and still spend three or four turns acting like one is standing next to it (if they somehow manage to survive that long).
- Vox-relay Beacon: Officers can issue Orders to the squad at any range while it carries the beacon, and a Master Vox in a Cadian Command Squad can broadcast Orders out to 24″ once it moves up to the beacon’s position.
Stealth and Orders are only good if the squad can actually hurt something when they engage it. So the veteran loadout list is where this datasheet stops being a screen and starts being a problem.
- Plasma gun or meltagun: one trooper picks the heavy single-shot weapon for whatever target the army is missing. Plasma for elite infantry, melta for the vehicle the enemy screen is hiding.
- Long-las for priority pick-offs: another trooper takes the long-las for picking apart characters and squad leaders from outside normal threat range.
- Missile launcher weapons team: two squad members form a heavy weapons team mounting a missile launcher, which gives the Recon Squad real anti-tank capability.
Pull all of that together, along with their 80 points cost, and it sits right between a Cadian Shock Troops squad and a Kasrkin squad. Sure, Shock Troops are still the better straight blob, and Kasrkin still hit harder per model.
But the Recon Squad is something Guard doesn’t really have access to currently: a 10-model vanguard unit that’s its own Order bubble, screens for the rest of the army, and brings real hardware along for the ride.
Why the Cadian Recon Squad Pairs So Well With Grizzled Company
The Recon Element Detachment is their obvious home, because the whole army is stealth-themed, the Recon Squad is already going to be sat behind cover anyway, and stacking -1 to Hit from Stealth on top of a 3+ save in cover gives you a 10-model unit that’s painful to dig out for 80 points.
The more interesting way to play them is with Grizzled Company. That’s where the detachment rule, Ruthless Discipline, pays off, because it gives every Astra Militarum Officer in your army an extra Order to hand out and adds a re-roll on Hit rolls of 1 for any unit affected by an Order.
So a Take Aim Order parked on the Recon Squad gets you a 10-model unit hitting on 3+ and re-rolling 1s, holding that buff across three or four turns thanks to Independent Operatives, while your Officers spend their newly acquired Orders elsewhere.
Gaunt’s Ghosts can also infiltrate alongside the Recon Squad and pass them an Order before slipping away to a different part of the board. We think that’s a cool niche play for any Tanith First-and-Only fan still waiting on a current detachment to use the unit properly.
Final Thoughts on the Cadian Recon Squad Rules
The bigger story for Astra Militarum is that this squad fixes the army’s oldest 10th Edition problem: anything operating outside the Officer bubble doesn’t do much of anything.
So a unit that holds its Order across turns and brings its own Vox-relay too is a huge deal for the faction now. Plus, at 80 points, it’s cheap enough that you can take two of them in any Astra Militarum army now.
Either way, if 11th Edition keeps shaving points in Guard’s favor, Grizzled Company is probably the detachment to keep an eye on (at least for right now).
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