Vraksian Renegades Army List - 1750 points

Hello you filthy heretics.

I've been struggling with a lack of motivation recently, and so I haven't gotten half as much done as I would have liked.

Inspiration struck when I sat down to watch Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse flick "Planet Terror". Having already seen Tarrantino's companion film and actually quite enjoying it, I wanted more but still wasn't sure what to expect besides chicks with M16s for legs.

Wow.

Seriously, if you're a devotee of the Plaguefather and you can spare a couple of hours, you need to watch this film!  Just, please don't watch it while you're eating dinner...

So, newly inspired, I have been poring over the weighty tome that is Imperial Armour: Vraks, and have arrived at a final draft for my army's composition.

Of course, the rate at which GW is churning out rulesets these days, my list will probably be horribly outdated by the time I actually finish this project, but I'm not overly fussed about playing with them all that much.  Still, on the off-chance that I do find myself in a position to send my frothing lunatics 'over the top', It'd be nice to do so without having to proxy or blatantly mislead my opponent.

Since I'm not allowed to post specific points costs for every unit and upgrade (a fact I neglected on my first post, so I'll have to delete my previous list!), I'll stick to the basics for now.  Any details you're unsure on, or you think I may be incorrect about, please feel free to let me know.

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'The Purge' Battle-forged Detachment (Primary)

HQ

Renegade Command Squad

5 Renegades 

Renegade Arch-Demagogue 

*Arch-Heretic Revolutionary

*Chaos Covenant of Nurgle 

*Command Net Vox 

*Banner of Hate 

*Refractor Field 

*Plasma Gun

Elites

Renegade Ogryn Brutes 
3 Ogryn Brutes 

*Dedicated to Nurgle

Renegade Chaos Spawn
3 Chaos Spawn

Troops

Renegade Infantry Platoon 

Command Squad

10 Renegades

*Renegade Demagogue

*Chaos Covenant of Nurgle

*Command Net Vox

*Chaos Sigil

*Fanatics

Infantry Squad

20 Renegades

*4 Chemical Flamers

*Fanatics

*Champion

*Chaos Covenant of Nurgle

Infantry Squad

20 Renegades

*4 Chemical Flamers

*Fanatics

*Champion

*Chaos Covenant of Nurgle

Heavy Support

Renegade Leman Russ

Renegade Field Artillery Battery

Heavy Quad Launcher

*2 Additional Crew

Renegade Field Artillery Battery
Heavy Quad Launcher
*2 Additional Crew

Lord of War

Renegade Malcador Defender

*Lascannon Sponsons

*Militia Training

'Combined Arms' Battle-forged Detachment (Secondary)

HQ

Rogue Psyker Coven 

2 Renegade Psykers 

Fast Attack 

Renegade Hellhound Squadron 

Renegade Bane Wolf 

*Camo Netting 

*Dozer Blade

Troops

Renegade Mutants 

20 Mutants

*Champion

*Melta Bombs

*Chaos Covenant of Nurgle

Renegade Mutants 

20 Mutants

*Champion

*Melta Bombs

*Chaos Covenant of Nurgle

Heavy Support

Renegade Support Squad

*3 Autocannons

Total = 1,749 points

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A couple of things to bear in mind.  

Yep, no Astartes.  

I've since stumbled on this FAQ from Forgeworld which clarifies a few points for us renegades. Of particular interest to me was the ruling that Chaos Space Marines and Renegades of Vraks cannot be mixed into the same detachment. It's one or the other.  Well, I have considerably more renegades models than CSM, so that was a no-brainer.  The only way I'm going to squeeze in the post-human element is as an allied detachment, and naturally, the same applies to daemons.

No daemons.  

It struck me recently that perhaps the main reason these elements don't combine too well is because of the scales involved.  Almost everything in 40K is designed around the basic space marine, which is scaled to a 'heroic' 28mm. Everything, that is, except your basic guardsman.  Soldiers of the Astra Militarum typically stand only three or four millimetres shy of a space marine's full height.  The same can be said of daemonic troop units like Plaguebearers and Bloodletters.  

Some talented individuals have gone out of their way to address this issue by 'true-scaling' their marines with longer legs and broader torsos, substituting regular parts for terminator parts etc.  I did attempt something similar for my plague marine with mixed results.  Unfortunately, there's no reliable way to re-work their torsos without making a total hash of it.  What's more, I was still using the old CSM legs, which are generally more decorated and don't take well to reconstructive surgery.  

With the release of the new Space Marine kits this month, true-scale conversions may be that bit easier. I have serious misgivings about the wisdom of pushing a new marine codex out the door within a year of the previous edition, and expecting people to fork out a further £35 for it, but that's a post for another time.  

So with supporting elements from different factions off the cards, I re-approached my list with a mind to really emphasize the stuff that drives a 'Purge' detachment, namely, templates and pie plates. Unfortunately, the only serious contender for 'pie-plate delivery system' was the impressive Earthshaker artillery carriages from forgeworld.  

First, take a good look at the price-tag.

Now triple it.

Would you pay that for something that has no right being on the front-lines in the first place and then still only uses up about 170 points?!  And that's before adding a suitable compliment of crew to man the guns!  Unless you're staging an 'ambush' scenario, in which your heavy artillery are caught by surprise and unable to redeploy in time, there's really no reason these units should be making a regular appearance on the board. And yet, they're one of the few weapons in our arsenal that make use of both the 'barrage' and 'blast' rules, and therefore qualify for 'Salt the Earth'. 

What annoys me about this is the obviousness with which they've tailored the 'Purge' detachment to promote these big gun platforms.  In the previous edition of Siege of Vraks, there was at least an option to call in an off-table artillery barrage, which not only makes more sense from a 'realism' point of view, but also means the money you would have spent buying those models can be spent elsewhere instead.  As much I love these models, and I'm sure they look spectacular in the right circumstances (dioramas or a table spanning at least 15 feet), I just can't justify going full Forgeworld.

You never go full Forgeworld.  

If that means my army ends up being less competitive or just plain weak, well I don't give a mon-keigh's.

This got me thinking about points values and how it relates to actual monetary value, and I began to wonder: how much money can I save by cramming as many points as I can into as few units as possible?  Naturally, I took a closer look at the Lords of War slot.  

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the best value unit I could buy is the Renegade Baneblade.  Not only does it confer fearless to everything within 12", but thanks to third party retailers, it's also significantly cheaper than the competition for this slot, most of which is in the Forgeworld catalogue.  It's certainly tempting, but the star of the show is supposed to be the Purge detachment's access to chemical agents, not super-tanks.  The Macharius is smaller, but still big enough to detract from the overall theme. The Maclador is only slightly larger than a Leman Russ (one of which I already own) and its chassis adheres to a similar aesthetic, so it seems to fit quite snugly, without drawing attention away from the real focus of the army.  Not to mention it's just a beast of a tank.  I mean just look at it!

Hench.  

It's as if the locals took their hyper-industrial, mining tractor-thingy and crammed as many guns into it as possible.

Now, you're probably wondering why I bothered splitting up my force into two detachments, if they're both of the same faction.  After all, it looks like I'm trying to exploit the command benefits rather than just doing away with them altogether, but actually, it's not nearly as exploitative as it could be.  Certainly, I could choose to abuse the detachment system, but really I've only done it to unlock the Bane Wolf.  

Not only does this give me a little bit of MEQ killing power, but I can't fathom taking to the field with an array of chemical weapons and not bringing one of these along for the ride.  That strikes me a grave injustice.  I'm a little disappointed that the Purge list doesn't include an upgrade for the standard Hell Hound, which can project its lethal payload over much greater distances, but hopefully it won't be a total waste of points.

Also, can someone please explain to me why Hell Hounds aren't more prone to exploding when they lose their last hull point?  After all, it's a big, pressurized container filled with nasty chemicals slapped on a truck.  Go ahead, shoot it!  Shoot it with your pew-pew laser and see what happens!

Oh.

One advantage of using the list in this way is that my twin mobs of mutants become objective-friendly. But I don't plan to do much of that.  If anything, they're more of a living screen for my chem-troopers.  Ablative flesh.

The army doesn't have much in the way of anti-armour, and that doesn't bother me too much.  The purpose of this army is to spread the toxic love as liberally as possible; all other concerns are secondary!

Well, that concludes today's update.

On the painting front, I have attempted a couple of models using the polyurethane primer and a new set of Vallejo paints, but I was less than happy with the results.  I'll go into that in greater detail in a future post, but suffice to say, back to painting school for this heretic.

Next time: a short story.

Stay tuned.