Renegades HQ Breakdown

Hi all,

While I'm busy waiting for paint to dry I thought I'd do a quick analysis of the Forgeworld Renegades and Heretics update which can be downloaded for free here. This time I'll be starting with the HQ options and progressing onwards through the other choices at a later date.



Special Rules
Firstly we'll start with the armywide rules, rules to a specific unit will be dealt with later in the article...

Renegades
This is one that will cause a few people headaches, almost every infantry unit in your force is going to have a random leadership value, and you won't know what that is until after you have been forced to take a leadership test. You're 30 man infantry platoon that you need to hold your objective could end up having the same morale as a squad of grots without the presence of a Runtherd, equally it could end up being leadership 10, although with an average of 7.5 its likely to be somewhat similiar to normal Imperial Guard units. Adding in this element of uncertainty, while very fluffy, will mean that you can never really rely on your men to do as you want without the investment of extra points in either voxes or enforcers (very fluffy for a renegade list).

Advisors
Similiar to the rule from the previous Imperial Guard codex, I skimmed though it and almost decided it was worthless, until that is, I noticed a slight difference. Nowhere does it say that the first advisor of any type must be placed with the company command squad. You can take two enforcers and attach them to two infantry squad to prop up the random leadership effects of the Renegades special rule without having to attach one tp the CCS or PCS first. In effect you can attach any of the advisors to any of the squads listed, ie take one priest and attach it to a 30 strong mob with power weapons to use as an assault unit and have an enforcer in another mob squad to provide fire-support.

Company Command Squad
The first of the units that I'll be reviewing is the Company Command Squad of the Company Command Platoon (bit of a mouthful I know).

What you get is a cheap unit that can be equipped to provide some ranged firepower and fill a HQ slot without costing too much or you can go all out and make a close combat unit choc full of hidden powerfist attacks (12 on the charge) with some meat shields to take the hits first. I prefer to keep the unit cheap and spend my points elsewhere.

The downsides of the CCS quickly become apparent, unlike the CCS from the Imperial Guard codex you cannot stick 4 special weapons into the squad mount in a chimera and call it done, you also lose out on the advisors and the option to take a medic and you lose the ability to use orders. The main downside, however, is the random leadership (although this can be offset with the use of a vox). Like the previous IG codex your officers have the ability to allow other units to use their leadership if in range, this means that you really want the CCS to have a high leadership so as to anchor the rest of your force, the problem is that as there is no way to predict the morale of your officers you can end up in a serious bind with just one or two bad rolls and no way to recover.

Heavy Weapon Squads
As in the previous IG codex the heavy weapon squads are purchased from the HQ section (with 0-6 per CCS and options for more from the heavy support section), but are costed as per the current heavy weapon squads. Whilst the CCS is worse than the codex equivalent the HWS are better due to the combined squad rule which allows you to 'blob-up' your HWS's into a single unit which greatly increases their survivability. They will however still be a priority target and are not all that survivable, just moreso that the C:IG HWS

Enforcers
Ah, we come to my favourite option, a true devotee of chaos who enforces the rules with a bolt pistol to the head (well as long as you pay for the bolt pistol, otherwise you'll need to make do with the standard laspistol) much like an Imperial Guard Commissar. Upside of the Enforcer is the extra wound and point of leadership over the C:IG version, the ability to take a powerfist and most importantly - the ability to take a demo-charge.

The downsides are that the enforcer does cost an extra 5 points over the C:IG version and does not confer stubborn on the unit its joined to. The summary execution rules are again the same as in the old codex, that once you fail a test the champion is executed and the test is passed, this will result in 'no retreat' wounds in CC so be careful! Also note that the rules state the champion leading the squad is killed so if you roll low on your leadership and also have a priest or other advisor attached (and are using his leadership as its higher) it's still the champion who is executed.

Rogue Psykers
The rogue psyker is the cheapest advisor going and in my opinion isn't great, for 15 points you get a Ld8 psyker with a possible 5 powers, none of which are all that great, the fact that the powers are random and you have a 1 in 6 possibility of getting no power and never have a force weapon means that this is one unit that won't see much action.

Apostate Preachers
Finally we have the Apostate Preacher, at +1 wound, initiative and Leadership its 5 points cheaper that the ministorum priest from the IG codex and is not an independent character and so cannot be picked out in close combat. The downsides though are that while 5 points cheaper, you don't get an srmour save and have to pay 25 points to take a rosarius which both come standard with the ministorum priest and that you must charge if able and always count as moving.

The downsides are not that huge a problem, you'd probably be using the Preacher in a combined squad, so the lack of armour save and rosarius won't matter much as you have meatshields. As no doubt you've equipped the 'assault' squad with laspistols and CCWs and the odd special weapon, the 'having to charge' and 'always count as moving' rules won't give you much trouble either.