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So, they're not bad, but they fill kind of a strange role.

They can't take special weapons, and all 3 of their special rules basically let them pretend that they're an infantry squad of twice their size:

- 10 guys firing twice with lasguns and then charging in with 2 attacks on the charge is roughly equal to 20 guys shooting lasguns

- fleet and furious charge make them do roughly twice as much damage as 20 regular dudes when they're charging around, and furious charge literally gives them twice the attacks of a unit their size when they're charged.

- rending, well, once you do the math also makes it look like you're doing up to twice as much damage.

So really, you have to start by thinking of them as 2 regular infantry squads of damage (without special weapons), with half the durability for 80% the cost. This is kind of strange as real infantry platoons come with special weapons and power swords, so it's kind of hard to compare.

Meanwhile, of course, they get stubborn for free, and they can outflank, which makes them hugely worth the points (getting regular infantry squads to do this costs a lot more), but, once again, you're just basically going around with lasguns on a low number of T3 models.

As such, it's kind of hard to find a place for them, which is why you don't necessarily see them a lot. I mean, I guess I could see them as supplimenting an al'rahem outflank (they are a really cheap way to bulk out an outflanking force)

The real problem is that they're like scout sentinels - they're cool because they're REALLY cheap, and can outflank, but they do so little damage, and are so fragile, that it really makes you wonder why you'd bother to take them at all.

I guess, like scout sentinels, I'd really probably only take them if I really couldn't figure out what better to do with the points, and I already had a lot of stuff outflanking, or was having other problems with mobility in my army.

It's really too bad you can't give them ANY upgrades. I mean, if you could give the custodian a power fist or meltabombs, or even 1 special weapon, it might otherwise be worth it.

Otherwise, this stubborn group of psychopaths show up magically out of nowhere, and your opponent shrugs their shoulders and says "so?"

A-P wrote:The Legionnaires are a reasonable cheap expendable* infantry unit

expendable to what end?

I'm all for sacrificial units, but the only time suicide is worth it is when it does something to help you win the game. Having a unit show up, sacrifice themselves, and not actually have disrupted the enemy very much isn't worth it. What does throwing 10 T3 5+ dudes at someone achieve?

Yeah, they're cheap, but I'm having a hard time seeing how they're worth even their low cost.

willydstyle wrote:your penal legionnaires get to scout first

Okay, sure. For 240 points I could recreate the hilarious "krootfiltration".

Not all that useful otherwise.