Which Warhammer 40,000 armies have a small range? Grey Knights, Imperial Agents and others
Grey Knights (4 listings) and Genestealer Cults (4) have the shortest shelves of the armies in the table below. Imperial Knights (6) and Deathwatch (7) come next. Imperial Agents has no army collection and is mostly single characters. A short shelf is easier to finish, but it leaves you fewer kits to choose from.
The shelf, army by army
The counts are everything we list for the army, so they include codexes and Kill Team boxes as well as kits. Read them as a rough guide. The last column comes from Games Workshop's June 2026 Faction Packs, the downloadable rules for each army. It counts detachments, which are rules options, not models.
| Army | Listings here | Detachments, June 2026 Faction Pack |
|---|---|---|
| Grey Knights | 4 | 9, three of them new |
| Deathwatch | 7 | 1 |
| Imperial Agents | No army collection; see below | 5, none new |
| Genestealer Cults | 4 | 9, three new |
| Adeptus Mechanicus | 9 | 10, three new |
| Imperial Knights | 6 | 8, three new |
| For scale: Astra Militarum | 34 | 11, three new |
| For scale: Orks | 42 | 12, three new |
On Reddit, replies to a question about complete ranges named Grey Knights and Deathwatch among the thin ones and Tyranids as close to complete. That is opinion, so the live counts above are the better guide.
What a small range means when you buy
A short list means a finished army is a realistic goal. The catch is that if a kit you want is gone, there is often no second kit doing the same job.
Games Workshop's plan, stated on 23 July 2026, is that each army with a Combat Patrol will have a single current Combat Patrol set, "the box that you can find in stores". Rules options are a separate matter. Grey Knights have nine detachments to choose between, so a thin shelf does not mean thin rules.
Grey Knights
Combat Patrol: Grey Knights is £86.11 and is sold out at the moment. When Games Workshop announced the box in July 2025 it was led by Castellan Crowe and held five Brotherhood Terminators, a 10-man Strike Squad and a Venerable Dreadnought.
The rest of the shelf is short: Castellan Crowe at £23.31, the Grand Master in Nemesis Dreadknight at £40.29 and the Codex.
Imperial Agents
Our Imperial Agents listings are mostly single characters: Inquisitors and the four Assassins, beside the Combat Patrol and the Codex.
The June 2026 Faction Pack gave Imperial Agents five detachments and none that were new. Every other Imperial army in the same pack got three new ones. Our advice is to buy them for the characters you want to paint, and to start a growing collection with an army that has a larger shelf.
Trying a small army with Kill Team
Kill Team is skirmish combat played with small teams. If you are unsure about a small army, paint one team and play a game before you buy more. These three boxes are the Kill Team options for Adeptus Mechanicus, Imperial Agents and Deathwatch.
Common questions
Does a small range mean Games Workshop is dropping the army?
Not as far as we can tell. The articles we checked on Games Workshop's news site, Warhammer Community, do not say so, and the June 2026 Faction Packs cover every army in Warhammer 40,000, Imperial Agents and Deathwatch included. Buy for the models you like.
Can I build a whole army from a small range?
You can, but with few unit types and some repeats. For Grey Knights the Combat Patrol, Castellan Crowe and the Dreadknight are most of the shelf.
Which small-range armies have a Combat Patrol here?
Four of the small-range armies above have a Combat Patrol listing: Grey Knights, Imperial Agents, Genestealer Cults and Adeptus Mechanicus. The Grey Knights and Imperial Agents cards above show the stock for their boxes. The Imperial Knights route is on our page about the armies that need the fewest models.
Detachment counts: Warhammer Community (Games Workshop's news site) Faction Pack articles, 8 June (Space Marines, Grey Knights, Deathwatch), 9 June (Xenos) and 11 June 2026 (Imperial). Combat Patrol policy: Warhammer Community, 23 July 2026. Grey Knights Combat Patrol: Warhammer Community, 26 July 2025. Player views: Reddit r/Warhammer40k, 2026. Counts, prices and stock: this shop, read live.