Index

~ Trench Pilgrims Holy Scriptures ~

Version 1.0

This document is a guide focusing on exploring the various units, equipment and subfactions that are available to the Trench Pilgrims, as well as how to use them effectively on the battlefield.

This document was written using the 1.6.3 Playtest Rules + 1.6.4 changelog, as of June 2025.

Index:

1.  Background Lore

2.  Faction Overview
        3.  Unit Roster

3.1 ELITE units.

3.2 Regular units.

3.3 Mercenaries

3.4 Glory Items

4.  Equipment List

5.  Battlefield Tactics

6.  Variants

7.  Patrons

Background Lore

1. Background Lore

Trench Pilgrims are often portrayed as a motley collection of barely equipped and poorly trained peasants held together by faith and duct tape and thrown haphazardly at the enemy. While this is true, it is also important to recognize that there is far more to the pilgrims than this side.

As a Pilgrim warband, you have secured the blessing of the Church, granting you access to more equipment and personnel than the average peasant militia, even if the equipment is second-hand or obsolete. This does not mean the Pilgrims lack firepower however. While their ranged capabilities are limited, they are not to be dismissed. Faith is a driving force of the Pilgrims, zeal and miracles supplementing where equipment is lacking, making them a force to be reckoned with in melee. After all, only a true fanatic hits the enemy with an anti-tank charge on a stick.

The irregular nature of the Pilgrims also allows surprising access to things that fall off the back of trucks. Be it a used Machine Gun, an aging Anchorite Shrine, or even a tiny droplet of meta christ blood. While the supply lines of Pilgrims are hardly as dependable as New Antiochs, these “blessings” nonetheless make their impact felt on the battlefield.

Faction Overview

2. Faction Overview

Strengths

• High durability. From elite to chaff, Trench Pilgrims boasts the best durability in the game.

• Three TOUGH models (if we count  Memento Mori from the Prophet as TOUGH+) and ample access to good armour and healing form the Elite backbone.
• Nuns are capable of turning Blood markers into Blessings
• Even the basic chaff can be resurrected as durable penitents.

• Powerful melee.

• Anti-Tank hammers are among the most powerful melee weapons in the game, and Pilgrims get 3 of them, more than the normal number in other factions (Heretics only get 2 Sacrifical Knives, Court only gets 1 Malebranche Sword).
• Beyond that, you also have Misericordias to finish off Downed models (either ones that your AT hammers failed to kill, or TOUGH models that had their TOUGH stripped away)
• Even the basic infantry gets the flail/scourge, which offers a bonus to hit at a bargain bin price.
• The Anchorite Shrine rounds out the Pilgrim’s melee dominance with the devastating wheel.

• OK mid range shooting. For what is ultimately a melee centric faction, Pilgrims has surprisingly solid mid range shooting capable of contesting with some other factions.

• Punt guns are a cheap and very efficient weapon, hitting reasonably hard and accurately for a low price of 20 ducats. They can even be used as an opportunistic blast weapon if the enemy bunches up.
• Pilgrims have access to the Sub Machine Gun, Machine Gun and Sniper Rifles as glory purchases later in the campaign. Each of these have their own niche use in Pilgrims. While nothing amazing, it helps shore up the Pilgrim mid range gameplay.

Weaknesses

• No INFILTRATORs. This may not seem like a major weakness at first, but the lack of infiltrators is sorely felt when facing enemies with either devastating long range capabilities, or a good amount of their own INFILTRATORs.

• INFILTRATORs provide early board control, allowing their faction to secure advantageous positions.
• This allows enemies to restrict the ability of Pilgrims to push up the board and into melee effectively, and translate into a mid game advantage.
• INFILTRATORs are also often difficult to dislodge when played well, since they will pick good hiding spots that require you to overextend to engage effectively, which in turn allows the enemy to punish your overextended models.

• Weak long range. Once we are looking past 18”, the threat of Trench Pilgrims drops dramatically.

• This is long range for the Machine Gun, which means we are shooting at best at +0, often worse due to cover.
• Sniper Rifles are still able to exert pressure in this range, but they aren’t able to carry the faction by themselves.
• Comparatively, long range factions retain high lethality in this range bracket, capable of one shotting most non-TOUGH units if given the chance.

• Surprisingly expensive! Pilgrim models tend to be surprisingly costly, even if they are highly effective. From the elites down to the chaff, they tend to end up costing above the norm.

• Your elites are decently pricy baseline. While not as ridiculously costly as Court, the Prophet and Communicant are still among the priciest of their class. Add on top of that the cost of equipment, including the hefty 35 ducat price tag of the Anti-Tank hammer, and the numbers start to add up
• Your chaff aren’t spared this either. While you can run “cheap” loadouts, you will find that you are still paying for your model’s (admittedly powerful) abilities. Nuns are 55 ducats base, which is significantly more than the shocktrooper or the legionaire, since you have to pay for their +1 Dash, superior speed and blood marker conversion.
• This means that some other factions can have a numbers advantage on you, which you do need to watch out for.

• Poor to mediocre activation counts. It can be easy for Pilgrims to get out activated simply due to pilgrim models being expensive and fewer in number.

• Having less models than the enemy means that the enemy can get several consecutive activations at the end of a round, allowing them to act without allowing you to respond.
• The best way for Pilgrims to pad activations is with Prisoners. However, these models are not very combat effective, and carefully allocating your combat activations throughout the turn is critical.

Unit Roster

3. Unit Roster

Apart from the basic chaff, most Pilgrim models come with a surprising number of bells and whistles, which all naturally add to their price tag. As such, it is important to leverage these Pilgrim-unique advantages, lest you end up simply building a more expensive version of another warband.

ELITE Units

3.1 ELITE Units

Trench Pilgrims are melee-focused, but if you are looking for shooters, they are here.

War Prophet +2 🎯 +2⚔️

Role: Their +2/+2 makes them uniquely versatile among the Pilgrims. They do not have TOUGH , but the superior Memento Mori, which lets them ignore an Out-of-action roll entirely. The durable, tanky faction has a suitably durable leader.

Core builds:

A1: Std. Armour, Shield, Auto-Pistol, Incendiary Ammo, Polearm, Capirote, Medi-Kit
B1: Upgrade Std. Armour to Reinforced, add Martyrdom Pills
X2: Same as A and B, but swap Shield & Polearm for an AT Hammer

🗒️ While a mandatory pick, the War Prophet is one of best leaders, even compared to similarly priced contemporaries. Equipping them well feeds into the strategic goal of “One Decisive Turn” that helps Pilgrims seal the match.

Optional: SMG (especially vs. FIRE immune warbands), Gasmask

Special: Laying on Hands and Loudspeakers.

🗒️ Being able to heal multiple blood markers makes Laying on Hands extremely worthwhile. With Pilgrims being generally more durable, this healing can effectively undermine gradual marker buildup and delay chances of killing a big model, which ultimately leads to Pilgrims having more time to prepare their own win condition of W+M1, i.e. walking over everything all at once.

🗒️ Loudspeakers is a 3” baby Dash for the Prophet and all allies in range that doesn’t count as a move or a charge, while being both. This can be used to safely negotiate a better position on the battlefield, get into a melee normally out of reach, or use an ASSAULT weapon with all attacks, and then still be considered as having charged the target.

Castigator +1 🎯 +1⚔️
Role: This is the only unit in the Trench Pilgrim Warband that has a positive ranged characteristic and access to STRONG. This makes them the dedicated heavy weapons carrier, and they are quite good at it. And they can also remove the Down status.

Core builds:

X: All builds use Zealot Strength, Iron Capirote, and Medi-Kit.

A: Armour (optional), Punt Gun
B: Reinforced Armour, MG

C: Reinforced Armour, Shield, AT Hammer, Incendiary Grenade/Molotov/Warcross (any)

🗒️ Each of these is progressively more expensive, but at 50 ducats base, the Castigator is one of the cheapest ELITE units to build with. Pilgrims do not want to trade, so beefing them up to ensure outlasting the opponent is the way to go.

Optional: Gasmask, Martyrdom Pills

Special: Enforced Orthodoxy and Whip of God.

🗒️ Getting downed units back on their feet with a single RISKY action, at +1 DICE, ensures that the Pilgrims will not be slowed down, or finished off easily.

🗒️ The Whip sees less play, outside of niche application such as putting harmless BLOOD markers on a Nun, when unarmed, during the first round.

Communicant -3 🎯 +2⚔️
Role: Despite the cost, this is the core unit of most Pilgrim warbands. They serve as an anchor and protector for the entire warband. With ELITE, TOUGH and STRONG, they truly grabbed the kitchen sink of keywords, and then layer powerful abilities on top.

There Is Only One Build:

A: Reinforced Armour, Shield, AT-Hammer, Martyrdom Pills, Medi-Kit

🗒️ This is the engine in front of the party train. You may want to go light on your War Prophet, you may want to squeeze some ducats out of your Castigator, but this unit is not the one to skimp on. Load them up, and let them loose.

Optional: Iron Capirote, Gasmask,

Special: Miracle of Regeneration and Bodyguard.

🗒️ They’re not only encased in heavy armour, TOUGH, and bring a Medi-Kit, they also just heal passively. They just won’t quit, and that makes them terrifying.

🗒️ Bodyguard is what makes the Communicant so impactful. With themselves being layered in defensive & healing abilities, they can withstand a lot of attention. Bodyguard ensures that this attention is not optional. When a Communicant is nearby, your opponents will have to treat all friendly targets as if having this unit’s defenses instead. Have them escort enough models to instill fear, but don’t run your entire warband next to them - BLAST weapons exist.

Regular Units

3.2 Regular Units

Stigmatic Nuns +1 🎯 +1⚔️

Role: Stigmatic Nuns are a fast and agile unit with limited access to ranged weapons. They also have an ability that lets them convert blood markers into blessings, making them gain strength from injuries if the enemy does not focus them down. This makes them good chaff clearing units, or as another blood marker applier.

Core builds:

A: Flail, Club/Misericordia, Warcross, Iron Capirote, Armour (optional)
B: Flail/Misericordia, Warcross, Iron Capirote, Trench Shield, Standard Armour
C: Automatic Pistol, Musical Instrument, Flail (optional), Armour (optional), Iron Capirote (optional)

🗒️ The first two builds focus on the nun’s melee capabilities, with the choice of a less durable but more deadly and cheaper loadout, and one that loads up on armour. The Misericordia is taken if the nun is meant to be used in a finisher role against enemy TOUGH  models, while the cheaper melee is more suited for chaff. The Automatic Pistol nun serves a different purpose entirely as another ranged blood marker applier to set up your heavy melee hitters, while also doubling as a musician.

Optional: Gas Mask, Medikit, Mountaineering Kit

Special: Blessed Stigmata and Agile.

🗒️ Blessed Stigmata allows you to turn one Blood Marker into a Blessing Marker at the start of her activation. This makes the nun quite durable against incidental fire, and allows her to dominate 1v1 melees against other cheap chaff. With Pilgrims being a generally durable faction, it forces your opponents to have to choose which model of yours they want to focus down.

🗒️ Agile is a massive mobility boost, especially when combined with the Nun’s innate 8” move. This makes her very reliable at dashing then charging outside of the aura of your musician, and also allows her to make cheeky diving charges to increase her lethality against enemy models.

Trench Pilgrims +0 🎯 +0⚔️

Role: Pilgrims are the unlimited chaff model of the faction, but they nonetheless still receive the Trench Pilgrim treatment of bells and whistles. As they can be resurrected upon death with all gear, Pilgrims are sometimes given better equipment than their compatriots in other factions

Core builds:

A: Zealot Strength, Puntgun, Polearm (optional)
B:  Shotgun, Bayonet, Trench Shield

C:  Flamethrower, Polearm (optional)

D:  Molotov, Musical Instrument, Flail (optional)

E:  Sniper Rifle 

🗒️ A wide variety of builds for a wide variety of options.  Zealot Strength turns one Pilgrim into a powerful Puntgunner. Shotgun+Armour offers a durable blood marker plinker that can also bully other chaff. Flamethrowers provide additional anti-armour capabilities on a cheap body. Pilgrims also make good musicians with the cheap cost. Later on in the campaign, one or two Sniper Rifle pilgrims offer long range coverage to harass enemy artillery.

Optional: Std. Armour, Iron Capirote, Gas Mask

Special: Resurrection

🗒️ Resurrection is a major game changer in campaign. Not only does it allow you to bring your dead Pilgrim back as a stronger, more durable version, but it also allows you to keep his equipment too. This allows you to make riskier plays and put more expensive weapons on pilgrims without fear of severe losses, provided you have the ducats to resurrect them in the bank!

Martyr Penitents +0 🎯 +1⚔️

Role: The upgraded, resurrected version of the Pilgrim. Not only does the penitent hit harder in melee, but he is more durable as well!

Core builds:

A: Zealot Strength, Puntgun, Std. Armour, Polearm (optional), Iron Capirote (optional)
B:  Flail, Club/Misericordia, Warcross, Iron Capirote, Std. Armour (optional)

C:  Flail/Misericordia, Trench Shield, Warcross, Std. Armour, Iron Capirote

D:  Molotov, Musical Instrument, Flail, Std. Armour, Iron Capirote (optional)

Optional: Gas Mask

🗒️ The more melee centric and durable Martyr Penitent prefers a slightly different set of loadouts than the Pilgrim. While they still serve as a decent punt gunner or musician, their improved melee stat and durability makes them a good budget melee bruiser, which can be surprisingly hard to put down when combined with armour.

Ecclesiastic Prisoners  N/A🎯 -1⚔️

Role: An unarmed, unarmoured model designed purely for objective play or martyrdom, the prisoner nonetheless serves its role in the Pilgrim lineup as an objective player and adding activation count to your list.

Core builds:

A: Nothing

B: Martyrdom Device

🗒️ There are only two options for the Prisoner, with a Martyrdom Device, and without. Without the device, they serve the role of a warm body. A very cheap way of holding an objective while your other models focus on the game, or a way to absorb an enemy charge or delay an enemy melee blender. With the device their role changes to that of an unarmoured chaff hunter. Specifically look for unarmoured chaff carrying expensive weapons like flamethrowers, or clumped up groups of infiltrators hiding behind a single piece of terrain.

Optional: -

Special: Mad Dash

🗒️ Not even the lowly prisoner is spared the bells and whistles of the Pilgrims, as they get a handy bonus to Dashes. This improves their ability to get to objectives early, and also to get to enemy unarmoured models quickly.

Anchorite Shrine  N/A🎯 +2⚔️

Role: The star of the show that you all have been waiting for, the Anchorite Shrine is the superheavy melee blender of the Pilgrims, and it lives up to its hype. Carrying a powerful Catherine Wheel supplemented by a Bonebreaker Mace, the Shrine hits like a truck. Its durability is also very good, with the ability to put an ablative model on the wheel to take hits for it.

Core builds:

A: Ecclesiastic Prisoner/Trench Pilgrim

🗒️ The only “equipment” you can put on the Anchorite Shrine is an ablative meatshield, and you have the choice of either a Prisoner or a Pilgrim.

Optional: -

Special: Broken on the Wheel

🗒️ Broken on the Wheel allows you to slap an ablative meatshield to your wheel to absorb hits for the shrine. All of the equipment, weapons and armour are stripped off the poor sap before he is slapped on, so don’t think of trying to put Martyrdom Pills on him. His abilities are also suppressed, so Wrath of God does not prevent the Shrine from taking Blood Markers. Otherwise this is a considerable durability boost to an already durable model, acting as a third “life”, during which the Shrine is immune to Down.

Mercenaries

3.3 Mercenaries

Mercenaries are powerful tools that provide unique benefits and tools that allow you to deviate from the traditional Trench Pilgrim playstyles. Below is the list of mercenaries in the recommended order of acquisition. Note: The actual benefit of each mercenary will vary depending on your warband and playstyle, so do take into account your own needs when selecting mercenaries

I. Communicant Anti-Tank Hunter +1🎯 +1⚔️

Role: Mid-Long range anti-armour ranged fire.

Why: Pilgrims notably lack any real ranged threat against armoured enemies past short range, and enemies can abuse this to get better sight lines for their artillery models. The Communicant Anti-Tank Hunter keeps them honest by zoning out their long range models. Even if the enemy hides their models effectively, he is preventing them from setting up in dominating overwatch positions for the entire game.

II. Observer +1🎯 +2⚔️

Role: Activation Control

Why: Pilgrims rely on a single powerful push to cave in the enemy defensive formations. The activation control ability of the observer lets you force an important lynchpin unit of the enemy defense to activate early, thus negating their impact on the game during your explosive turn.

III. Ammo Monk N/A🎯 N/A⚔️

Role: Ranged buff model

Why: Cheap model that can buff any ranged model in your warband, Mercenary or not. This offers versatility, making your Communicant Anti-Tank Hunter more accurate, or letting your Machine Guns be effective out to long range. Alternatively, it can increase the lethality of the weapon, making Machine Guns and Punt Guns more effective against -1 and -2 armour.

IV. Combat Medic +0🎯 +0⚔️

Role: Healing, Melee finisher

Why: A cheap and reliable healer that complements well with Trench Pilgrim’s durability focus. She also can finish off Downed enemies in melee, although her poor accuracy is a cause for concern.

V. Scripture Guardian +1🎯 +1⚔️

Role: Anti-Armour midrange brawler

Why: A passably durable model, the Scripture guardian cannot be one shot, but is vulnerable to blood markers as it cannot be healed or bodyguarded. Its extremely expensive but a 9” effective (18” has long range penalties as normal…) armour ignore finisher is nice.

VI. Witchburner +0🎯 +1⚔️

Role: Long range blood marker applier.

Why: The Witchburner is the only source of non-Line of Sight Blood Markers in the game, and this lets him disrupt the plans of long range models like Artillery Witches without needing to expose himself. However, his slow speed due to his inability to DASH means he will get left behind the rest of your warband, so you will rarely get to use his melee abilities.

Glory Items

3.4 Glory Items

Holy Grenade

• Role: Anti-Black Grail and Demonic Grenades
• Potential Users: War Prophet, Martyr Penitents
• Rating: 2/5 - 2 Glory is a pricy ask for a weapon that is a glorified grenade against 4/6 factions. It also still takes penalties from Undead Fortitude as it isn’t FIRE, making it equal to incendiary grenades against Black Grail! However it can be handy if you have a lot of Court players in your campaign.

Rocket Propelled Grenade

• Role: Long Range Anti-Armour
• Potential Users: War Prophet
• Rating: 2/5 - A consumable for 2 Glory is always a hard sell. But a 36” ranged weapon with ignore armour and +1 DICE to injury is handy, and can provide deterrence against enemy artillery pieces.

Donkey’s Jawbone

• Role: Versatile melee option
• Potential Users: War Prophet, Communicant, Castigator, Elite Nun/Martyr Penitent
• Rating: 3/5 - 5 Glory is expensive, but the Jawbone being 1-handed allows it to be used as an off-hand weapon to supplement an AT hammer, or to give another ELITE model a powerful melee weapon. The Jawbone does suffer against -3 Armour however, and does need a bloodbath to be effective.

Horn of Joshua

• Role: Terrain Manipulation
• Potential Users: Any. Ideally a TOUGH/ELITE model to avoid losing it easily.
• Rating: 4/5 - Being able to remove terrain extremely powerful, especially for a melee focused army. This allows you to set up your pieces behind a piece of blocking terrain, then knock it down during your blitz turn to rush into your enemy. You will find that the potential for you to destroy terrain will force the enemy to play more defensively and carefully, making it easier to move up the board.

Equipment List

4. Equipment List

Compared to other factions, Pilgrims have a limited but still well rounded armory, which allows options when it comes to equipping your models.

What do ratings mean?

5/5 - This item is a powerhouse staple, and sees use in nearly all lists. The warband is often built around these items.

4/5 - This item is a solid and versatile choice, and is a strong addition to most warbands.

3/5 - This item is situational, and is strong on certain models or in certain warband lists. Consider if it is suitable for your warband.

2/5 - This item has some niche uses, but is not a good contender for most warbands. Carefully consider if it serves a good purpose in your warband.

1/5 - This item is a poor choice for Trench Pilgrims in general. Avoid.

Ranged Weapons

Bolt Action Rifle

• Role: Cheap mid range blood marker applier
• Potential Users: War Prophet (ultra-budget), Promoted Pilgrim/Martyr Penitent w/ Ranged Skills
• Rating: 2/5 - Apart from being a cheap budget option, you usually wanna upgrade swiftly to something better.

Shotgun

• Role: Budget blood marker applier for models with poor Ranged characteristics
• Potential Users: Trench Pilgrim
• Rating: 4/5 - One of the best weapons to slap on a basic Pilgrim if you just want reliable blood markers.

Semi Automatic Rifle

• Role: Cheap ASSAULT weapon with long range capabilities
• Potential Users: Promoted Martyr Penitent w/ Ranged Skills
• Rating: 2/5 - Similar issue to Bolt Action Rifle, there’s just so much better competition you usually want to upgrade ASAP

Pistol

• Role: Melee weapon for models with better Ranged characteristic
• Potential Users: None.
• Rating: 1/5 - Lacks a use case in Pilgrims, avoid.

Automatic Pistol

• Role: Good blood marker applier, combine with incendiary ammo for devastating effects.
• Potential Users: War Prophet, Stigmatic Nun
• Rating: 4/5 - Very good blood marker applier on the right models, a strong staple on the War Prophet, and a decent ranged option for a Musician Nun.

Submachine Gun

• Role: Good blood marker applier and unarmoured model killer.
• Potential Users: War Prophet, Promoted Pilgrim/Martyr Penitent with Ranged skills
• Rating: 4/5 - Basically an Automatic Pistol sidegrade, this saves some ducat threshold at the cost of Glory for the War Prophet, and lets you bring some serious short-mid range shooting threat in the mid game if you want to focus on ranged Penitents!

Sniper Rifle

• Role: Long range blood marker applier
• Potential Users: Trench Pilgrim/Martyr Penitent
• Rating: 3/5 - Long range shooting is nearly non-existent in Trench Pilgrims, with Sniper Rifle being the main exception. It's not very lethal, but it does a good job of harassing artillery and keeping them honest, while also setting up melee models.

Molotov Cocktail

• Role: Budget Assault Weapon
• Potential Users: Melee Castigator, Martyr Penitents
• Rating: 4/5 - This is a staple for your melee models looking for an assault weapon.

War Cross

• Role: Budget Assault Weapon
• Potential Users: Stigmatic Nun, Martyr Penitents
• Rating: 4/5 - This is a staple for your melee models looking for an assault weapon with a bit more than 6” range, and nuns, who cannot use molotovs.

Incendiary Grenades

• Role: Luxury Assault Weapon with a bit more range and lethality
• Potential Users: Melee Castigator, Martyr Penitents
• Rating: 3/5 - Bit of a luxury item, the upgrade over molotovs improves the lethality and range for a pretty hefty 10 ducats.

Flamethrower

• Role: Powerful anti armour tool that autohits
• Potential Users: Trench Pilgrim/Martyr Penitent
• Rating: 5/5 - A staple of all armies that can get their hands on it, the flamer offers budget anti armour at a decent price in an auto hitting package. I would not leave home without one!

Punt Gun

• Role: Efficient and powerful unarmoured model killer, knocks down armoured models decently well.
• Potential Users: Zealot Strength Castigator, Zealot Strength Pilgrim/Martyr Penitent
• Rating: 4/5 - Very good firepower for its cost, it gives Pilgrims some early campaign deadly mid-range shooting that needs to be respected. Sometimes you will use these all the way to the end of the campaign!

Machine Gun

• Role: Midrange (18”) mass blood marker applier and chaff killer
• Potential Users: Zealot Strength Castigator, Promoted Zealot Strength Pilgrim/Martyr Penitent with Ranged skills
• Rating: 3.5/5 - A solid option for applying lots of blood markers at mid range, the MG carrier does want communicant protection, which kinda reduces overall warband flexibility, but it can be worth the effort.

Melee Weapons

Trench Knife

• Role: Ultra Budget offhand melee
• Potential Users: Someone who has a free hand in melee and you have 1 ducat left.
• Rating: 2/5 - You only buy this if you have a spare ducat.

Bayonet

• Role: Budget melee for ranged focused models with SMG/Rifle
• Potential Users: Pilgrim/Martyr Penitent w/ SMG/Rifle
• Rating: 3/5 - Decent option for spending extra ducats to give your shooters some melee.

Trench Club

• Role: Bread and butter off hand melee weapon
• Potential Users: Martyr Penitents, Stigmatic Nuns
• Rating: 4/5 - Bread and butter staple.

Sword/Axe

• Role: Luxury off hand melee weapon
• Potential Users: Martyr Penitents, Stigmatic Nuns
• Rating: 3/5 - Solid, but a luxury upgrade over the Club. Usually you skip this and go straight to the Flail.

Flail/Scourge

• Role: Bread and butter main hand melee weapon
• Potential Users: Pilgrims, Martyr Penitents, Stigmatic Nuns
• Rating: 5/5 - Best budget melee in the game, turns mooks into decent brawlers against other mooks.

Polearm

• Role: Defensive melee weapon for ranged focused models
• Potential Users: Punt Gun/MG Castigator, Punt Gun Pilgrim/Martyr Penitent, Flamethrower Pilgrim/Martyr Penitent
• Rating: 3/5 - A defensive melee isn’t what most models in Pilgrims are looking for, but a handful of dedicated shooting models might want a polearm for protection.

Great Hammer/Maul

• Role: General heavy melee weapon for armoured enemies
• Potential Users: Zealot Strength Martyr Penitent
• Rating: 2/5 - Outclassed by the AT hammer, it doesn't really offer enough over a Flail/Club combo either.

Great Sword/Axe

• Role: General heavy melee weapon for unarmoured enemies
• Potential Users: Zealot Strength Martyr Penitent
• Rating: 2/5 - Outclassed by the AT hammer, it doesn't really offer enough over a Flail/Club combo either.

Anti-Tank Hammer

• Role: Powerful anti-everything melee weapon. Jewel of the armory.
• Potential Users: War Prophet, Communicant, Castigator, promoted Stigmatic Nuns, promoted Martyr Penitents.
• Rating: 5/5 - One of the best melee weapons in the game at a bargain bin price, and a high limit to boot!

Misericordia

• Role: Support melee weapon for cleaning up victims of AT hammers and Punt Guns
• Potential Users: Stigmatic Nuns, Martyr Penitents.
• Rating: 3/5 - Situational tool that can cause tremendous damage at the right time. Just need to set it up first.

Armour

Standard Armour

• Role: Slight durability improvement
• Potential Users: War Prophet (budget), Castigator (budget), Stigmatic Nuns, Martyr Penitents.
• Rating: 3/5 - Decent option for budget protection on your ELITEs or beefing up your basic chaff. Try not to go overboard with this, not everyone needs armour!

Reinforced Armour

• Role: Substantial durability improvement, especially for TOUGH models
• Potential Users: Any ELITE
• Rating: 5/5 - Armoured ELITEs are a staple for Pilgrims, and reinforced armour is as good as it gets.

Trench Shield

• Role: Stacking durability improvement that works best with models with high armour
• Potential Users: Any melee focused models
• Rating: 4/5 - This is a strong option, but it is important to weigh the benefits of a shield vs the ability to have two free hands varies between models.

Holy Icon Shield

• Role: Upgraded version of Trench Shield that cannot be ignored.
• Potential Users: Any melee focused ELITEs
• Rating: 4/5 - Any ELITE models with Trench Shields should eventually upgrade to these. The price tag is the main hindrance.

Equipment

Iron Capirote

• Role: Shrapnel protection + FEAR Immunity
• Potential Users: Everyone, especially melee focused models.
• Rating: 5/5 - Shrapnel protection is always welcome, and for just 2 extra ducats you get immunity to FEAR on a melee focused faction? This is amazing.

Gas Mask

• Role: Gas Protection
• Potential Users: Everyone when facing factions that use GAS weapons
• Rating: 4/5 - Gas protection is more niche than shrapnel protection, but slightly more than half the factions in the game have good Gas weapons. If you are expecting Gas, bring masks.

Martyrdom Pills

• Role: Durability Enhancement
• Potential Users: War Prophet, Communicant, Castigator, Promoted Penitent
• Rating: 5/5 - Durability is multiplicative, and Martyrdom Pills take your already durable models and make them into juggernauts for just 20d per game. This is a staple.

Medikit

• Role: Blood Marker Removal.
• Potential Users: Everyone, especially ELITEs
• Rating: 5/5 - Durability is multiplicative, and having a bunch of medikits on the board lets you erase the effects of your opponent’s activations before they can stack up and kill your models for a low price. Another staple.

Incendiary Ammunition

• Role: Blood marker doubler for certain weapons
• Potential Users: War Prophet w/ Automatic Pistol
• Rating: 5/5 - Doubling blood markers is a powerful tool, especially when combined with a multi-shot weapon. Just make sure to take it off before facing FIRE immune factions!

Mountaineering Kit

• Role: Mobility Aid
• Potential Users: War Prophet, Communicant, Stigmatic Nun
• Rating: 3/5 - Niche choice but can help make your nuns even more reliable at getting up into positions to make diving charges, or giving your heavy melee models a bit more mobility.

Blessed Icon

• Role: RISKY action protection
• Potential Users: Castigator
• Rating: 2/5 - Apart from Castigator’s stand up action, there really isn’t a model that would benefit that much from this, since failing a DASH usually messes up your turn anyway.

Holy Relic

• Role: Blessing Marker
• Potential Users: Any ELITE.
• Rating: 2/5 - This is a relatively niche item, only take it if you have a good reason to take it over a SMG.

Troop Flag

• Role: Morale Boost
• Potential Users: Trench Pilgrim.
• Rating: 1/5 - This is a niche item, I would prioritize other Glory expenditures. If you are having Morale issues, consider Field Shrine instead.

Field Shrine

• Role: Morale Boost
• Potential Users: N/A.
• Rating: 2/5 - This is a niche item, I would prioritize other Glory expenditures unless you are running a lot of light models like prisoners and unarmoured Pilgrims.

Musical Instrument

• Role: Dash Boost
• Potential Users: Trench Pilgrim/Martyr Penitent, Stigmatic Nun.
• Rating: 6/5 BRING THIS ITEM, YOU NEED IT.

Battlefield Tactics

5. Battlefield Tactics

The basic Trench Pilgrim game plan can be summarised into three stages, Setup, Blitz, Clean Up.

Setup

The goal of the setup stage is to maneuver your models into position in preparation for the Blitz turn. The setup stage usually lasts for 1-2 rounds, depending on the map and scenario. Positioning will be your main focus in this stage.

Your aim is to put every one of your models in a position where they are able to achieve maximum damage in the Blitz round. You should be aiming to minimize losses in this stage. Killing one of the enemy models is rarely worth it if you lose one of your own, as Pilgrim models trade poorly into their opponents. Make sure not to overextend while jostling for position, the last thing you want is for the enemy to pick off one of your models because they got too far in front of the pack.

While you can use your durability and healing to efficiently trade hits during this phase, this is not your primary objective. Exercise caution when doing so, since each lost model will be a major blow to the next phase. Note that some minor trades might be needed to gain ground on the board against some enemies.

During the setup turn, you generally want to lead with activations of less valuable models (such as your prisoners), which allows you to learn more information about the enemy’s game plan before committing your heavy hitters to a direction.

Blitz

The Blitz round is a single round where your goal is to cause as much damage as possible to cripple the enemy’s ability to fight back. The Blitz round occurs on round 2-3, and should happen no later than 3.

Before activating any models during the Blitz round, group the enemy models in the enemy army into the following classes.

• Tank Hunter Infantry - Lightly armoured and relatively cheap infantry carrying high-lethality weapons like flamethrowers, satchel charges, infested rifles w/ disciple support. These infantry are able to fell even the most durable of models if left unchecked. Pilgrim Example: Flamethrower Pilgrim
• Superheavies - Expensive models with high armour and extra durability tools such as TOUGH and/or - DICE to injury, that also carry heavy hitting weapons. Pilgrim Example: Anchorite Shrine, Anti-Tank Hammer Communicant
• Heavy Infantry - Infantry with high armour and good weapons, but lack extra defensive abilities and are thus often vulnerable to AP weapons. They are generally cheaper than superheavies. Pilgrim example: Anti-Tank Hammer Castigator.
• Setup - Models that are designed to setup heavy hitters either through buffing or applying blood markers. These often use automatic weapons, or have some way of inflicting additional blood markers. Pilgrim Example: Autopistol Stigmatic Nun
• Support - Models with abilities that influence the battlefield in a manner that is not directly a lethality increase. Pilgrim Example: Musician.
• Chaff - Models carrying low lethality weapons that aren’t very threatening (after accounting for any innate abilities), such as Bolt Action Rifles and Shotguns. Pilgrim Example: Shotgun Pilgrim

Your goal in the Blitz turn is to remove as much of the enemy’s firepower as quickly as possible. Thus, you should generally structure your activation sequence as follows.

• First, you want to activate your fast and budget priced anti-chaff models (e.g. Stigmatic nun with warcross + flail/club) to engage the enemy Tank Hunter Infantry. These infantry cannot be allowed to operate freely, as they will cripple you very quickly due to the firepower they carry. Do not use your expensive models for this role, they will be needed later! If you are out of anti-chaff models but the enemy still has some Tank Hunter Infantry left over, move on to the next step and hope you have done enough to weather the storm. The worst thing you can do in a Blitz turn is to send your Anchorite Shrine after a flamethrower yeoman.
• Then you want to activate your heaviest hitters, such as your anchorite shrine and communicant. They want to target the enemy Heavy Infantry first. Avoid the superheavies for now, the superheavies are durable and will be able to absorb a lot of hits.
• Once the Heavy Infantry have been taken care of, you then want to turn to the Superheavies. Lead with your own Setup models to put blood markers on the superheavies, you can also have Chaff models chip in at this point to add more blood markers as well. You will need them to be able to chew through a superheavy’s defenses. Once they are properly bloodied, follow up with any remaining heavy hitters you have, going in the order of Superheavy -> Heavy Infantry -> Anti-Tank Chaff.
• If you’ve reached this point, then victory is likely. The next priorities will be Support -> Setup -> Chaff in that order.

Your own losses will be quite notable during the Blitz turn, and you may even find yourself trading down in ducats. This is fine and normal, your goal is to remove as many threatening weapons from the enemy side as possible. Chaff, Setup and Support models generally aren’t very threatening to your heavily armoured and durable army by themselves.

Cleanup

After the Blitz round is over, your goal moves to cleaning up the enemy forces. Prioritize any Tank Hunter Infantry, Heavy Infantry or Superheavies the enemy may have remaining. Once all of those have been eliminated, simply prioritize maximizing your kills while also scoring the objective.

Occasionally the result of the Blitz round will be inconclusive, with both sides taking heavy casualties. If so, repeat the Blitz round strategy, except you want to activate your Tank Hunter infantry early as the enemy will try to kill them first.

Variants

6. Variants

Procession of the Sacred Affliction

The most melee focused of the Pilgrim variants, Sacred Affliction takes what Trench Pilgrims are good at (melee damage and durability), and cranks it up a notch. However, this comes at the cost of ranged capabilities and flexibility.

Pros:

• Sacred Affliction gains unignorable armour, which provides superior protection against traditional anti-armour. When combined with - DICE to the injury roll, this greatly enhances their overall durability.
• Sacred Affliction can upgrade their Castigator or a Pilgrim to ignore Blood Markers entirely. This creates a model that is very difficult to kill without weapons with high bonuses to injury rolls. Note that this does not ignore Infection Markers, as such Black Grail can be a nasty counter.
• Sacred Affliction’s Anti-Tank hammers are not ELITE locked. This opens up some loadout flexibility for your ELITEs. In addition, Wrath of God Pilgrim and Stigmatic Nuns are decent carriers of the AT hammer.
• 3 Zealot Strength Pilgrims also improves your chaff melee.

Cons:

• Sacred Affliction loses a Punt Gun and MG access entirely. This means your mid ranged shooting is significantly worse to the point of almost non-existence. Avoiding taking unnecessary damage at this range is even more important.
• Sacred Affliction loses Iron Capirotes, which leaves them vulnerable to SHRAPNEL and FEAR. While you can make 3 models immune to FEAR with Martyrdom Pills, the rest will find themselves having difficulty connecting against such targets. This can be surprisingly problematic vs some armies. The lack of SHRAPNEL resistance will also be problematic vs armies such as Heretic Legion, which can shell you with Artillery Witches from afar.

Tactics:

Sacred Affliction’s setup phase focuses more about mitigating damage than dealing damage, since you lack good mid-long ranged options. Instead, focus on making your Blitz turn as deadly as possible rather than trying to chip off enemy models early. Be careful of enemy lists with FEAR and heavy melee models. Use your FEAR immune models to take care of them (the War Prophet can also work in a pinch since he is decently accurate).

Cavalcade of the Tenth Plague

A variant that trades away Martyr Penitents and some healing in exchange for more ELITE focused core.

Pros:

• Cavalcade gets a free Blessing Marker each round. This is huge, since it means Cavalcade is one of the only Pilgrim warbands that can directly buff their Anchorite Shrine’s durability. It can also be used to allow an isolated model to DASH more reliably, give the Communicant a bit more defenses, make the Castigator’s ability more reliable, improve the hit chance of an Anti-Tank hammer, etc.
• More of a sidegrade than an upgrade, the Communicant costs Glory Points instead of ducats. This means the Communicant does not contribute to your Threshold. As such, Cavalcade can bring 100 ducats more of stuff than other Trench Pilgrim variants. This does slow down your Glory Point spending a bit, but the Communicant is arguably the best 3 Glory you can spend in the game.
• The War Prophet in Cavalcade is far more deadly than his compatriots. With access to an Ignore Armour smite ACTION that can be buffed with your free 1/round BLESSING MARKER, you can set up some crazy solo kill combos such as follows (Shoot twice with Incendiary Autopistol for 4 Blood Markers -> Use Day of His Wrath (spending the Blessing for +1 DICE to the Action) and spend 3 of the blood markers for an ignore armour injury roll at +3 Dice -> Use the loudspeakers ability to get into melee -> Swing your Anti-Tank Hammer and spend the blood markers for another ignore armour injury roll at +3 DICE. This combo kills most enemies in the game, even if they are TOUGH!
• Sacrificial Lambs are a cheap way to get a little bit extra durability in the early game. For armoured models, it effectively negates the first non-AP hit they take.

Cons:

• No Martyr Penitents. This is a pretty big drawback since Martyr Penitents are a core model in Trench Pilgrims. As such, your chaff options are greatly restricted, and resurrection to recover gear from dead Pilgrims is no longer viable. Cavalcade thus tends to run less chaff than vanilla, and is more elite focused.
• No early Communicant. Game 1 and 2 can be a bit of a struggle for Cavalcade, since your Communicant only comes in later. Replacing a dead Communicant is also trickier.

Tactics:

Cavalcade opts for a more elite focused list that uses its ELITE centric buffs to make up for its lacking chaff. With the heavy hitting prophet and the ELITE

War Pilgrimage of Saint Methodius

Saint Methodius changes up the playstyle of Trench Pilgrims entirely. Instead of a short range high durability army, Saint Methodius sports plenty of long range heavy artillery, supported by a good amount of mid-long range shooting.

They are significantly weaker durability wise due to the lack of a Communicant and Martyr Penitents, along with the inability of their Shrines to break a prisoner on the wheel.

As such, their playstyle changes heavily to one more akin to Heretic Legion. It is recommended to read the Heretic Legion guide for further details on how to properly pilot a list that has great artillery and decent melee, but has models on the expensive side.

The Autocannon Anchorite Shrine with Sacred Geometry is easily the star of the variant, sporting unrivalled firepower that can kill almost anything it points at, with 3-5 shots of +1 D injury. At 205 ducats with the same downside as the Machine Gun however, it is vulnerable to counter battery, and has no Communicant to protect it. Always be careful not to needlessly expose it when the enemy is capable of engaging it with anti-armour weapons.

A Catherine Wheel Anchorite Shrine with Diesel Engine is the main heavy hitter in melee for this variant, although you can run an Anti-Tank hammer Castigator or War Prophet to supplement their output. Note though that without the Communicant, it is even more crucial to avoid taking unnecessary shots during the approach.

The War Prophet in St Methodius usually exchanges their Autopistol for an Automatic Rifle (keeping the incendiary rounds) to suit the more long ranged playstyle of the variant.

Patrons

7. Patrons

Warrior Saint

Warrior Saint is the more melee focused of the two patrons available to Trench Pilgrims. They focus on increasing the consistency and lethality of melee attacks, while also offering some decent combat buffs for non-melee models. If you want to focus on improving the models that you currently have available, Warrior Saint is the way to go.

1. Blessings of the Warrior Saint: Starting the battle with D3 extra BLESSING MARKERs is no small boon. These blessings allow you to buff nearly every aspect of the model, from improving its mobility by making DASH more reliable, making it more likely to hit difficult shots, or weather heavy hits from the enemy. This is rarely a bad pick. You usually take this for non-melee models as the other options are more melee focused.

2. Endure the Suffering: SCARs generally are debilitating to a model, and you usually are looking to retire a model by the time they get their second SCAR. Unless you got very lucky with your SCARs and Skills for this model, this is a generally poor pick.

3. Dragonslayer: Massive firepower bonus against models that are DOWN. This is extremely useful for 1-2 punch models (such as Cavalcade War Prophet or Anchorite Shrine) or finisher models (such as Misericordia wielders).

4. David and Goliath: This translates to effectively a +1 DICE to injury on models with a decent +Melee score (+2 DICE if the weapon is CRITICAL), and makes hits almost guaranteed even. Nice if you are running a Greatsword or need a little more oomph on your AT hammer, but the other skills in this list are generally better.

5. On your Knees!: Good for keeping a DOWNed model DOWN and stopping them from retreating from melee, which in turn keeps your model safe from enemy shooting. Also helps set up a Misericordia followup. This is a nice support/durability skill, if a bit more situational than the other options on this list.
   
6. Warrior’s Prayer: You have Iron Capirotes, so the FEAR immunity isn't a big deal. The healing is ok, but frankly you can do better with the other options on this list.

Learned Saint

Learned Saint focuses more on out of game improvements such as additional Glory and ducat gain, additional LIMITs on weapons and models and similar. If you find yourself constrained by resources and LIMITs, Learned Saint is the way to go.

1. Walk With God: Being able to pick any skill is a huge advantage, as it avoids randomness. This allows you to build those Champion & Strength of Samson & Surgical Strike melee blenders!

2. Knowledge of Science: This is handy to get another Anti-Tank Hammer in the later campaign where you have more ELITEs (or are Sacred Affliction), or if you want more Martyrdom Pills.

3. Favoured by God: Glory gain is useful if you are planning to bring lots of SMGs or Sniper Rifles, but otherwise isn’t as handy as the other skills for Trench Pilgrims.

4. Pennies from Heaven: Handy for paying the Martyrdom Pill and Penitent tax but this falls off the later in the campaign you get. Usually you want to pick one of the other skills.

5. Organisational Skills: This allows you to grab an additional Anchorite Shrine (or a third in St. Methodius), which can allow for some really silly lists. If Shrine Monster Mash is your goal, this is the skill.
   
6. Healing Arts: If this model would be Out of Action, you should reroll that result. If it is downed, you might want to. If it is just a minor hit, probably not. Having this option helps our ELITE units shake off the punishment thrown their way.