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Well, I wanted to get rid of the "nagging" meesage that I hadn't posted in a week (ha ha), so I came up with a question. I thins falls under the Army List Topic...?

My friend was browsing my codex an rattled off how one could field a lot of Penal units and Ratlings. Has anyone ever done this in a 2k list? I'd be curious to see it, and hear how it played?[youtube][/youtube]


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(My bad, I fat figured the youtube button)

Yeah you can do that, if you want to get tabled everygame, I might be over exaggerating but this is the internet so calm down. Now I do think that penal legions are aweful, why not take BLOOOOOB squads or mech guad, much better

Tharbickmonoploid wrote: Has anyone ever done this in a 2k list?

No, because it's a terrible idea.

Filling your Troops slots with penal legionnaires means you're not doing that much damage and, with only 60 squishy guardsmen, you're not even bringing very much durability. You get the worst of infantry platoons and veterans without the benefits of either. Meanwhile, sniper rifles have a very narrow range of targets that they can engage particularly effectively.

The end results is spending hundreds of points to do very little damage, all while forfeiting elites slots that would be better used for other things and taking an army that is so weak in the troops section that you'll have a difficult time accomplishing things that you need troops for.

As a fluff-only army or modeling opportunity, perhaps, but it would be extremely challenging to make a list based on such a concept be anything close to competitive.

Thematically the army would be very cool. Competitively it would fall down hard. As has already been noted, you'd be spending a lot of points for practically no damage output and absolutely no survivability.

L. Wrex

well 30 ratlings and 60 penals are 780p. So we have a whole lot of points to spend on stuff doing any damage at all.

Take 2 CCS (2x4 Melta or 4 Melta + 4 Plasma), 3 Dettas and some shooty HS-tanks (2 Hydras, 2 Manticores?) and you will have your story.

If you want some more efficiency you could stay with only 10 ratlings and 3 penal legions.
The remaining points should be spent in meltavets and stormtroopers (in order to support the penal legions).
This list will be low to normal competitive level if you play disciplined.

That's exactly how it was presented to me Naz, only 780 points. It made me curious to what you would put with it, 1220 points... I understand that it's more towards the fluff side, that's why I was curious what everryone else thought. If I battle test a list I'll let everyone know how it went.

I was thinking of the 780 base, 3 Vendettas or Valkyries for transport. And a Lord Commisar ro escort. Artillery would probably be the next best addition...???

Dude, if you have the models, I would totally proxy it and give it a go! I've been wanting to try a penal legion army for some time, just for the hell of it. The infiltrate on all those guys is sure nice. I think six criminals, 3 ratlings, and a bunch of hellhounds and battle tanks could be a pretty fun army to play with and against.

Or how about Ogryn? 2 six man squads, one 5 man squad to ride along with the Commisar lord, chimera for all. That leaves enough points for 3+ Heavy Support tanks, and maybe some sentinels.

OR

Just to be completely silly, I may try something like this someday:

Commissar Lord - Power Fist
3 x 5 Ogryn - Chimeras
6 x Penal Legion
2 x 10 Rough Riders
1 x 5 Rough Riders
3 x Basilisks
= 2000 points.



Or with the Ratlings you do indeed have plenty of points - enough for 3 hellhound variants, 4 artillery tanks, and one souped up battle tank. Reserve the criminals to keep them out of harms way, then outflank half the squads to go for back objectives, and bring the other half on your own board edge to go for yours. Seems like it would be FUN to play, even if you don't BEAT FACE. (Which I know is all you care about, right - CRUSHING newbs with your cheesy lists. )

Take it easy, and let us know if you try it!

So obviously this is going to be a sub-optimal list, so it's time to just have fun.

30 Ratlings, 60 Penal Legion.

We obviously want a Lord Commissar, and we want him called "Warden". The Ratlings are the tower guard. You fluff could always take place inside a prison.

You could go with lots of Rough Riders, to chase down the escapees, or you could go with Hellhounds to represent water canons. . . that don't have water in them anymore. Come to think of it, scout sentinels would work, as well. They can represent guards, who have armored suits to protect themselves from the prisoners.

You could justify just about any heavy selection, but I'd go with either LR Demolishers or Medussae. The list at this point has practically zero anti-tank. Str 10 can help with that.

ElCheezus wrote:You could justify just about any heavy selection, but I'd go with either LR Demolishers or Medussae. The list at this point has practically zero anti-tank. Str 10 can help with that.

I'll bite. How about a deathstrike?

"Well, you see, some times the prisoners get rowdy..."

If things get bad, Nuke 'em From Orbit. ITS THE ONLY WAY TO BE SURE

I'm diggin' on the "Warden" for sure. And I think the Hellhounds are a must, chem cannons might be justified, death by "lethal injection"!

That's Banewolves, and yeah...if you're going to run this it's going to be all about fun, so bring some of the more....interesting things the Guard codex has in it. Deathstrikes...maybe even Ogryns (worker ogryns who got a bit too rowdy/Ogryns being processed for an upgrade to Bone'eads).

The painting itsel fshould be quite interesting. Just don't give them orange jumpsuits...please. I've seen a LOT of that.

I played a game, (granted it was only 1k points,) that had many penal legions and ratlings vs. tau. I got good rolls on my special rules for the penal legions and stuff, so it actually went okay. I managed to rend the hell out of a unit of suits with the penal legionnaires.

They're fun, but not much else.

My current guard are the classic cadian, painted w/ a WWII scheme. Agreed the orange jumpsuits are overdone. I was thinking I could try and slip a "Dirty Dozen" theme in it somehow..? Keep an eye out on the thread, i'll try and get a list wrapped by the weekend.

My one PLS is orange. They're the old Steel Legion models, though, so they're orange trench coats. Original, not really. Fun and eye-catching, yes. Best part is that the overseer is in my army's regular color scheme, because he's not a criminal. At the very least if I have to proxy them for something, it's obvious that they're different. /shrug