Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Rement Squads are they worth it and what should you take with them?
(In a DS Army) or any Army? thanks

They generally aren't worth it, because IG squads are just a Heavy Weapon delivery system, which Remnant squads can't be.

They might be worth it, I suppose, if you wanted a mobile screening unit. Maybe.

Really Short answer: Not really

Short answer: generally speaking, the points savings from a full squad with heavy, or command/vet squad with multiple specials isn't great enough to make up for the loss of fire power, and thus remnants aren't generally worth while.

Long answer:

Like many units in 40k, Remnants have strengths and weaknesses. Their big weakness is no heavy weapon and only one special. Their strength is very low points cost, no need to use a doctrine or FOC slot, and ability to deep strike.

If you have used all three veteran squads (which most competitive IG lists do these days), then remnants aren't an awful choice. I like to take a squad or two, minimum sized with a flamer. That's 30 pts for a deep striking flamer that's a scoring unit. Are there better units for the job with better return on investment? Of course. Are there many units out there cheaper, in absoulte terms? Not really.

5th will see a renaissance for remnants. The ability to screen for a 4+ cover save will make them valuable, or at least a target. Additionally, small speed bump units will be able to slow down the enemy in HtH. Finally, the new "no consolidate into fresh units" rule means that shrt ranged fire power units will generally get better.

All told, it's a cheap way to get a flamer and some bodies into a list without giving up anything but a few points. As others will point out, there are some better alternatives, but there are limited and remnants can make a pretty decent substitute.

I like using Remnants as cheap disposable units. One of my main opponents is a Space Wolf player, so using them to protect my Russes from an unexpected Scout attack has proven to be useful, while they've even been used to surge forwards and take otherwise uncontested objectives, even though I know they die as soon as the enemy even looks at them. Normally, I only take them if I have a few points spare and nothing else to spend them on.

5th ed will really make them quite useful as cheap screening units and to throw them in front of an enemy assault unit to give you an extra turn of shooting at them.

Should be interesting to see how else they're used with 5th ed.