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An homage to the flavorful, but overcosted 5th edition penal legion.

15 point doctrine for IG veteran squads:

- the unit gains scout (psychopaths)
- lasguns count as Assault 2 (gunslingers)
- rusty shiv, instead of regular close combat attacks veterans with the penal legion doctrine may make poisoned attacks (5+) in close combat (knife fighters)

I love the fluff and modeling potential for penal legions. I hate to see them disappear from the codex entirely.

Too expensive for a unit which dies just as easily as before. Those 20pts could be better spent on weapon upgrades.

Keep PL the way they were, just reduce them to 30-40pts per squad and allow them to combine units similar to the standard Infanty Platoon.

I reckon maybe a 15 point doctrine, to get the Penal Legion Desperados rule, I mean IMHO I loved the Penal Legion squads. Although:
-Psychotic: The unit gains the FnP special rule maybe?

The rule looks great, but would be too much of an auto take I think for 15pts (for me anyway)

Maybe if they were only allowed to have lasguns, ie. no specials, heavy's or transports.

Edit - do you only get one for 15, or all?

I kinda look at the new doctrines as auto take, unless they're mech vets. I dropped the counter attack and furious charge rules.

With the tactical objectives in 7th I really wish we had an infiltrate or scout option for vets. Right now, ratlings are our only infiltrators and sentinels are our only scouts. I think infiltrating troops might be a little OP, popping onto every objective on turn one, but scout moves is a good balance.

I'm not too worried about penal legionaries having special weapons, their lasgun and close combat bonus would make special weapons less attractive.

Well, its a fair idea, but it still suffers the crippling disadvantage of being a GEQ statline. I wouldn't want the Poisoned (5+), though. Guardsmen are bad enough in CC, wounding Eldar/Dark Eldar/Tau on the same 5+ they wound MEQs is meh.

Even if you gave them all the bits Penal Legionnaires used to have (Scout, Stubborn, Assault 2 Lasguns, Extra CCW, Furious Charge, Rending), they are still 10 poorly armored dudes who swing at Str 3, I 3. Sure, Furious Charge would bump them to Str 4, making it 'slightly' more deadly, but in the end you could pay just a little more and get Rough Riders who would be more effective due to an even higher I, Str, and AP 3.

I agree with Valkyrie that the old Legions suffered from not being able to squad (or at least get a size larger than 10 men), and were not, in any way, correctly priced. The better solution was to bring them down to 60 points, with extra models being an additional 6 PPM. Then, you could buy upgrades, at a PPM rate, that grant the other advantages. That way, you could make them tailored to what you need.

This makes me really wish they'd 'actually' given the Guard platoon wide Doctrines. Penal Legion rules would've fit perfectly into that.

Rather than make it a doctrine for Guardsmen, I would instead have it be an upgrade for Conscripts.

Penal Legionnaire: Any conscript may receive this upgrade for (1)ppm. Models with this upgrade receive +1 attack on their profile, the rending USR on close-combat attacks and the scout USR.

200 points gets you 50 models, which is 100 lasgun shots or 150 WS2 Str 3 rending attacks.

Rending on a 50 model blob may seem insane, but consider that A) the blob will almost certainly no longer be 50 models strong by the time it reaches combat, and B) you will almost never manage to squeeze 50 models into CC with an enemy unit- what's more likely is that you'll get 20-30 of them into combat, and the rest will watch until space is available to pile-in.

Pair up with Straken for maximum lulz.

Why not make them cheaper and be able to taken in units if 10 to 30 or 40 with a 10 point seargant or "warden" for every ten dudes. The warden could have summary execution to represent the explosive collars in the 5th ed dex and no special weapons. And a special rule allowing the prisoners to kill their wardens turn 1 on a 6+ if no commissar of any type is present

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Rather than make it a doctrine for Guardsmen, I would instead have it be an upgrade for Conscripts.

Penal Legionnaire: Any conscript may receive this upgrade for (1)ppm. Models with this upgrade receive +1 attack on their profile, the rending USR on close-combat attacks and the scout USR.

200 points gets you 50 models, which is 100 lasgun shots or 150 WS2 Str 3 rending attacks.

Rending on a 50 model blob may seem insane, but consider that A) the blob will almost certainly no longer be 50 models strong by the time it reaches combat, and B) you will almost never manage to squeeze 50 models into CC with an enemy unit- what's more likely is that you'll get 20-30 of them into combat, and the rest will watch until space is available to pile-in.

Pair up with Straken for maximum lulz.

Well, I think that would be way, waaay too good considering. Rending, Scout, and +1 Attack for 1 point? Broken considering all the things you could easily attach. Want it to hit harder? Priest gives them Reroll to Hit and possibly to Wound. Commissar makes them almost Fearless. Azrael gives them all a 4++, Furious Charge, and actual Fearless.

While I still think GW should've done flavor rules for Platoons, I could definitely get behind Conscripts picking this up. Maybe just an additional Close Combat Weapon and replace Lasguns for Shotguns for 1 point. That way they could be used as shock troops, with no options to throws Power Weapons or Special Weapons and no frag grenades, making them literally expendable Tarpits. The Shotties means they could dump an unholy number of Str 3 shots into a target unit before finally getting stuck in with an obscene number of attacks.