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So I've been reading a few reviews about the vraks renegades and the purge in particular are jaw droppingly good.

They are different from normal renegades in quite a few ways. So the disadvantages are:
-No covenants of Tzeentch or Slannesh on any unit. So no fleet or bs2 snapfire.
-Sigils are no longer auto pass but instead grant stubborn and one reroll a turn.
That's it as far as I am aware.

The advantages:
-Spawn can apparently be taken as elites with no requirement of covenants or demagouge types. This is huge.
-The purge detachment allows 6 elites but no FA. The compulsory slots are 1HQ and 2 elites (think spawn).
-Plague zombies no longer have a 0-1 restriction.
-Flamers and frag missiles have shred.
-Barrage templates create dangerous terrain for a turn where they land.
-Ordnance Tyrant allows you to take earthshaker/medusa batteries, bombards, basilisks, and others as elites as well as HS. It also allows you to take quad cannons and heavy mortars as non compulsory troops. He also allows all barrage units within 12" to be able to hit friendly units.

So if you take 2 purge detachments you can have upto 12! Spawn units (According to what I have read).

Take the following list for example:

Purge detachment 1
Ordnance Tyrant (in plasma obliterator)
4 disciples

6 units of 3 spawn

3 laser destroyers
Militia training

3 laser destroyers
Militia training

2 Earthshakers

Plasma Obliterator

Purge detachment 2
Arch demagogue
4 disciples with missile launcher and flamer

6 units of 3 spawn

5 units of 10 renengades with 2 flamers in each

2 earthshakers

2 earthshakers

2 earthshakers

Promethian relay pipes

1850pts

That gives 36 spawn, 11 torrent shred flamers, 8 st9 ap3 large blasts (which create dangerous terrain), 1 st7 ap2 7" blast and 6 bs3 tl st9 ap1 ordnance shots, most of which is behind (combustable) 4+ cover. That's insane!

Now I fully expect what I've read to be inaccurate, as I cannot imagine there being a precedent to take 36 spawn for 660pts. Have the reviews got it wrong? Are you able or unable to take spawn as elites with vraks? If so... dear god.

There are so many possibilities with this, it's crazy.

where do you see that the purge detachment can take spawn as elites?

Most of your facts are correct (though your list is illegal as you have to take infantry platoons of at least 3 infantry squads per troop slot, thus a minimum of 6 infantry squads). I agree that spawn units are good and the purge detachment is awesome but there are some things you should consider. These are a lot of the stuff that I have come to realize after playing this type of army a bit.

First let me say loosing access to blight drones, Tz snap firing lascannons, sentinel swarms, and auto pass Ld check sigils is harsh. Not that it cannot be worthwhile but it is much more debatable than your post makes it seem. Sigils alone is very nearly trading near army wide fearless for Ld 6/7.

Keep in mind none of your units has ObjSec, while the Tz+mutant overlord Renegades and Heretics are ObjSec, which is what makes them amazing rather than just good. This is important because mass spawn lists are not a super killy list. They are fast, durable, and MSU. It can also become an issue moving the units around a board and you will find that 36 40mm bases + artillery + 50+ 25mm bases takes up a huge amount of board space.

You are taking about 2 of the same detachment. The IA13 list becomes just as amazing when given unlimited detachments as it can get a bunch of ObjSec units and match this for artillery, plus gets some decent AA options.

I would look out for the fact your list above has 2 major exploitable weaknesses which will cost you games.
1) absolutely no AA. In fact the only weapon of yours that can snap fire and is above S3 is a single missile launcher.
2) very bad morale problems. Your real work horses are your artillery. Without anything to keep them on the board you will find your force winding down surprisingly quick. This is especially true as first turn your army will be pack in your deployment zone like sardines in a can. Imagine going up against an imperial knight. It will actually average a fleed earthshaker unit a turn and a dead spawn unit...ouch.

You should seriously consider putting your demagogue into an artillery unit behind an ADL rather than the plasma oblit. The demagogue are independent characters.

I love spawn units. Let us be realistic though and look at a spawn unit in context. Spawn units have just enough damage ability to remove stragglers. Their best use is a very mobile, fearless, high T, wound pools. In the IA13 list this is awesome as they can hide and jump objectives, they don't need to kill anything. This also becomes awesome in the purge where you can use them to tie up enemy units and then hammer those bunched up units with thudd guns and earthshakers. However once you get to the sort of numbers of spawn you are talking about there are so many units in play most melees will be multi charges and several spawn units in a combat, you have an excellent chance of killing more pts in spawn than the opponent in these circumstances.

BTW Did you notice spawn units and earthshaker heavy artillery carriages are the same price.

To solve the obsec and ld problems I do love the idea of mixing in a daemnonkin CAD , cultists and heralds , throwing out fearless and getting you blood points with artillery, so you can summon in more stuff.

Ansacs - thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed response.
Some fantastic points you've made. I already sometimes have an issue with board space with 12 spawn (admittedly 4 are on the older, much larger spawn bases). I do however find spawn absolutely excellent for their points against most targets. Lots of st5 against most rear armour is great, whilst against most infantry they almost always make double to triple their points back. But 36 would indeed be too much of a good thing. 18/24 could easily achieve the same results.
I usually put my demagouges in artillery batteries or inside a bunker with 6 auto/lascannon teams. I agree - conpletely the best way to run them.
I was unaware that purge could only take 3 infantry units in a platoon. In IA:13 you can have 5 in one platoon and I thought since troops are not compulsory for purge that a single platoon of 5 would be ok.
Sigils are indeed the most broken thing on IA:13. Although losing psudo fearless on 40-100pt units wouldn't be that worrying to me at first glance compared to the advantages.
The best way I've found to deal with flyers aside from AA bunkers or other flyers in any of my armies is to just ignore them and try and take the fight to the stuff on the ground. So lack of AA doesn't worry me. The ML was in there because I had 15pts spare and thought 'why not?'.
I tend to use 2 IA:13 cads atm and they do indeed perform well, but don't you think that maybe a purge and a primary IA:13 would do better? Then 4 spawn units would have OS, and cov of tzeentch units could be in the primary. Still leaves 6 HS and 4 FA and won't have the advantages ordnance tyrant brings but would unlock more spawn units and the flamers on the purge lot would still get shred. Or the other way around? No OS spawn then but lots of artillery.
I don't own blight drones or sentinals so apart from on paper I don't know how effective they are so wouldn't personally miss them.
I've found mutants and spawn to be good IK blockers whilst the artillery take HPs off turn by turn, so would run the same tactic with the purge. Personally I love rapiers and 6 with MT take 2 or 3 HPs off an IK a turn at least. Never faced multiple knights though - only singles in my circle.

It was just a sample list to show a gist of what's possible - imagine allying 6 spawn and 3 earthshaker batteries into a CSM list with sicarans, hades rapiers, juggerlord and abby/kharn in a dreadclaw :-D!

What do you think of the Never Ending Host? Respawns with outflank on a 2+? Absolutle gravy to my ears (and I'm a yorkshire man - I love gravy!) Now 4 troops, 2 of which have to be infantry platoons is a steep requirement (6 infantry squads and 2 mutant rabble at least), but that is what the whole formation is about. Makes me see gold! Just need to think of a way to combine NEH primary with purge + 6 spawn units and 3 artillery batteries that can shoot own troops + extra artillery battery from the NEH HS... or a baneblade! Literally almost never ending with that 2+ respawn!

I like the idea Captyn_Bob of those aquired bloodpoints from targetting your own allies. Smart move!

The42up - I've just been looking at reviews on IA:Vraks. I don't actually own it. I do own IA:13 though so am aware of the vast majority of what it is talking about.

You can't take spawn in the vraks lists because they are unlocked in the same way IA13 gets them which is by taking Covenant of Tze or Mutant Overlord which Vraks can't take either of.

Correct as written, but obviously wrong and FW have said via email that it was a mistake, and they should be available as Elites.

So now we await an FAQ.... and wait... and wait..

Poly Ranger wrote:Ansacs - thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed response.
Some fantastic points you've made. I already sometimes have an issue with board space with 12 spawn (admittedly 4 are on the older, much larger spawn bases). I do however find spawn absolutely excellent for their points against most targets. Lots of st5 against most rear armour is great, whilst against most infantry they almost always make double to triple their points back. But 36 would indeed be too much of a good thing. 18/24 could easily achieve the same results.

I love spawn units too If you run the maths on spawn vs a variety of targets then you will find there are actually a lot of targets they cannot engage and expect to win. They don't really have to "win" though as long as they are either ObjSec (so get the objective anyways) or you have proper barrage + Ordnance Tyrant support.

Poly Ranger wrote:I usually put my demagouges in artillery batteries or inside a bunker with 6 auto/lascannon teams. I agree - conpletely the best way to run them.

Definitely. We are totally in agreement here. Don't forget the ADL for the artillery BTW so you can GtG for 2+ cover saves.

Poly Ranger wrote:I was unaware that purge could only take 3 infantry units in a platoon. In IA:13 you can have 5 in one platoon and I thought since troops are not compulsory for purge that a single platoon of 5 would be ok.
Sigils are indeed the most broken thing on IA:13. Although losing psudo fearless on 40-100pt units wouldn't be that worrying to me at first glance compared to the advantages.

Sorry I misread your list. You are taking 1 platoon of 5 squads which is fine. The beauty of sigils in the IA13 list is it is pseudo fearless on 10+ units of 10+ wounds. This means you have to get 100+ usw to stop the ObjSec units from scoring and they make excellent bubble wrap as you cannot expect to shoot them until they run and then charge the unit behind them.

Poly Ranger wrote:The best way I've found to deal with flyers aside from AA bunkers or other flyers in any of my armies is to just ignore them and try and take the fight to the stuff on the ground. So lack of AA doesn't worry me. The ML was in there because I had 15pts spare and thought 'why not?'.

There really is only few flyers that actually have to be dealt with; flyrant, vulture, fire raptor, and units of plague drones. Unfortunately most of those units would actually force a morale check a turn on your heavy carriage units (averaging ~3-4 wounds each on artillery and ~7 wounds on spawn). I agree that most flyers can be ignored and with proper board control, morale control, and an ADL your list could probably ignore most of these flyers (and even force some of them not to be able to move, lol).

Poly Ranger wrote:I tend to use 2 IA:13 cads atm and they do indeed perform well, but don't you think that maybe a purge and a primary IA:13 would do better? Then 4 spawn units would have OS, and cov of tzeentch units could be in the primary. Still leaves 6 HS and 4 FA and won't have the advantages ordnance tyrant brings but would unlock more spawn units and the flamers on the purge lot would still get shred. Or the other way around? No OS spawn then but lots of artillery.

It is a really tough call. I would probably keep the Ordnance Tyrant as that is central to using large numbers of elites spawn properly. You could however move your second detachment to a CAD and to make the infantry ObjSec you loose shred flamers but how often do opponent's manage to wade through all the spawn units to get within range of your torrent chem flamers? I imagine they are primarily used on DSers and stuff that manages to kill a way through spawn.

Poly Ranger wrote:I don't own blight drones or sentinals so apart from on paper I don't know how effective they are so wouldn't personally miss them.

The sentinels in Renegade and Heretics and Renegades of Vraks are so pts cheap they are actually really good. Part of what makes them good is the sheer number of lascannon or autocannon shots you get per point but also they are automatically fearless and can be upgraded to AV12 for cheap on a large squad. For example if a certain player charged a bunch of spawn at my gunline I could multicharge the spawn units with my AV12 sentinels and lock up a huge portion of the battlefield.

Blight drones are excellent flyers with shrouded, a battle cannon, template weapon, and reaper autocannon. They provide decent AA, are fast, shrouded + jink gives a 2+ cover save, and they are low enough to the ground they can claim objectives when you hover late game. Very useful.

Poly Ranger wrote:I've found mutants and spawn to be good IK blockers whilst the artillery take HPs off turn by turn, so would run the same tactic with the purge. Personally I love rapiers and 6 with MT take 2 or 3 HPs off an IK a turn at least. Never faced multiple knights though - only singles in my circle.

That isn't so much of a problem then. Mutants (and infantry and zombies) are definitely great IK blockers. Spawn are somewhat more expensive for the job and have a (normally) bad tendency to survive the first melee round with knights but are fast enough to catch the knight. I personally like earthshaker heavy artillery carriages for killing knights. They deal a bit better damage despite the significantly smaller number of shots (due to hitting AV12 by default, large blasts being almost impossible to miss a knight's base, and avoiding the shield). This becomes even better when you can use the ordnance tyrant to target the imperial knight while it is still in melee. So even if you get unlucky and your unit doesn't break the knight cannot hide in melee. A trick you can use for this situation is to target the knight so your own models are hit by the barrage, kill your own guys (which leaves the knight outside of melee), and then shoot the rapiers.

Poly Ranger wrote:It was just a sample list to show a gist of what's possible - imagine allying 6 spawn and 3 earthshaker batteries into a CSM list with sicarans, hades rapiers, juggerlord and abby/kharn in a dreadclaw :-D!

Now we are talking. I love allying in a juggerlord, plasma chosen in dreadclaw, and a fire raptor. It covers pretty much every base that needs covering. Alternatively using a Ld10 IC from CSM in a vox net infantry unit of 20 models behind a barricade or on a fortification is a very good way to avoid morale troubles.

Poly Ranger wrote:What do you think of the Never Ending Host? Respawns with outflank on a 2+? Absolutle gravy to my ears (and I'm a yorkshire man - I love gravy!) Now 4 troops, 2 of which have to be infantry platoons is a steep requirement (6 infantry squads and 2 mutant rabble at least), but that is what the whole formation is about. Makes me see gold! Just need to think of a way to combine NEH primary with purge + 6 spawn units and 3 artillery batteries that can shoot own troops + extra artillery battery from the NEH HS... or a baneblade! Literally almost never ending with that 2+ respawn!

I love the unending host. It is perhaps the most competitive infantry horde list in the game right now. You cannot combine it with an ordnance tyrant due to requirements needing 2 different warlord demagogues. However, what works great is combining it with an ADL w/ comms relay and a unit of heavy artillery carriages to both help reserve rolls and bolster your forward momentum. I also add krak grenades, sigil, vow, and a khorne champ w/ melta bombs + power fist to every unit. This way I find that I can overwhelm my opponent with 300+ bodies and they have to kill the units because they are actually dangerous rather than just annoying. The greatest weakness of the unending host BTW is the lack of ObjSec. This makes the infantry units something that can be ignored completely if your opponent is ObjSec and you don't spend pts to make the infantry effective. The buy in for unending host is also somewhat steep with a required warlord and 4 infantry platoons.

Poly Ranger wrote:I like the idea Captyn_Bob of those aquired bloodpoints from targetting your own allies. Smart move!

I actually have a list I was asking opinions about a while back with this as the central stratagem for the list. Ragin Arty. It works really well as khorne hounds are essentially faster slightly more damaging but less durable spawn units.Once you start getting army wind FnP on the khorne units it starts getting nasty. Also fearless artillery has some benefits.

CrownAxe wrote:You can't take spawn in the vraks lists because they are unlocked in the same way IA13 gets them which is by taking Covenant of Tze or Mutant Overlord which Vraks can't take either of.

This is a misprint in the book. If you contact forgeworld they will tell you to take them as elites.

Not to mention that the 4 Heavy Support slots benefit Chaos Space Marines too, seeing that's a crowded slot in the book. Not like you lose anything since Nurgle is the best Mark and you don't even need a MoN Lord to unlock pseudo Plagues as troops. Just my $0.02 though since I know this is about Renegades specifically.

Word of warning. Forgeworld have stated via email that the purge can take renegade units OR chaos marine units but not both, and that they will add this to the FAQ .

Captyn_Bob wrote:
Word of warning. Forgeworld have stated via email that the purge can take renegade units OR chaos marine units but not both, and that they will add this to the FAQ .

Oh yeah I know. I'm just pointing out a decent benefit to using this FOC for the CSM book.

Sucks you can't rez mutant rabble with the horde detachment, and that they got rid of off-table artillery, but otherwise this is a very cool codex, far better than anything I've seen in 7th

Not been on in a couple of days, but have been thinking about the amazing FOC chart that the Purge allows. Mainly been thinking about 2 purge detachments - A Renegade one and a CSM one.
So at 1850pts I've been thinking of how to strike a good balance of advancing troops and fire support. This is what I've come up with so far:

Renegades Primary:
HQ
Demagogue with Ordnance Tyrant (with earth shakers)
4 desciples with granade launcher

Elites
3 spawn

3 spawn

3 spawn

3 spawn

3 spawn

2 earthshakers

Heavy support
2 earthshakers

2 earthshakers

3 rapiers with MT

3 rapiers with MT

CSM:
HQ
Sorcerer (with earthshakers)

Elites
5 chosen with 5 flamers
Rhino

5 chosen with 5 flamers
Rhino

Heavy support:
Fireraptor with reaper autocannons and balefire

Deimos vindicator

Deimos vindicator

5 havocs with 4 plasma and combi-plas
Rhino

1850pts

So that gives 15 spawn and 3 rhino units to advance, with the flamer units having shred. And 3 2 gun batteries of earthshakers which create dangerous terrain, 6 rapiers, and 2 tanks that put out the firepower of a rapier battery at bs4. All topped off with a fire raptor.

I'm also looking at another list with lots of purge chosen and havocs in rhinos supported by a normal renegade list with OS spawn and 9 rapiers. I'll post the finished list shortly.

I like that list a lot. However, how much is the Chosen squad compared to Plague Marines? 2 Flamers with Shred is already plenty good, so it might come out cheaper and/or be fluffy. Just my take on it.

@Poly Ranger
Do you have 6 elite choices in the Renegades detachment? You only get 4 elites slots.

IMO chosen are best in a dreadclaw. It is more expensive but it also is vastly more effective.

If you don't have another plan for your sorcerer you might want to do something similar to what I do and take the detachment from the crimson slaughter supplement and give the sorcerer the Balestar of Mannon relic so the sorcerer can take divination. Also I usually put the sorcerer into an infantry command squad with a vox net so the entire artillery line can benefit from the sorcerer's Ld10 and they become almost impossible to kill with 20 bodies behind an ADL.

PMs may do a better job due to durability. I made the chosen as cheap as possible whilst still taking a full compliment of specials, so PMs may be a touch more expensive...

Yeh so a squad of PMs with 2 flamers are 15pts more expensive. But get +1 T, fnp, fearless, blight granades, plague knife, -1a, -1ld (rarely going to come into play) and -3 flamers. Tough to call.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ansacs wrote:
@Poly Ranger
Do you have 6 elite choices in the Renegades detachment? You only get 4 elites slots.

IMO chosen are best in a dreadclaw. It is more expensive but it also is vastly more effective.

If you don't have another plan for your sorcerer you might want to do something similar to what I do and take the detachment from the crimson slaughter supplement and give the sorcerer the Balestar of Mannon relic so the sorcerer can take divination. Also I usually put the sorcerer into an infantry command squad with a vox net so the entire artillery line can benefit from the sorcerer's Ld10 and they become almost impossible to kill with 20 bodies behind an ADL.

I thought you got 6 elites (2 being compulsory) and 4 hs with purge?

That sounds an epic idea for the sorc, although will involve the purchase of yet another supplement lol.

I love the dreadclaw but have only used it to transport Abby+termis or Kharn+CSMs so far. Will have to give it a go with chosen. (I've been using a normal drop pod as proxy)

Poly Ranger wrote:
PMs may do a better job due to durability. I made the chosen as cheap as possible whilst still taking a full compliment of specials, so PMs may be a touch more expensive...

Yeh so a squad of PMs with 2 flamers are 15pts more expensive. But get +1 T, fnp, fearless, blight granades, plague knife, -1a, -1ld (rarely going to come into play) and -3 flamers. Tough to call.

If you plan to keep them in the rhino plague marines would probably be well worth the pts.

Poly Ranger wrote:
I thought you got 6 elites (2 being compulsory) and 4 hs with purge?

Whoops, you are correct. I was thinking of the Deathrider Company

Poly Ranger wrote:
That sounds an epic idea for the sorc, although will involve the purchase of yet another supplement lol.

It works really well. If you don't want to get crimson slaughter then you could expand the mastery levels and try to get shrouded and/or the fearless powers thus giving your artillery shrouded and using fearless to let units that GtG get up and shoot.

Poly Ranger wrote:
I love the dreadclaw but have only used it to transport Abby+termis or Kharn+CSMs so far. Will have to give it a go with chosen. (I've been using a normal drop pod as proxy)

Chosen with their 4 special weapons are well suited to this. They are essentially drop pod SM vets but the pod flies about ferrying units and scoring objectives after the chosen die. (or you can always stay in the pod DS turn then flame and charge next turn)

To run the list i'd have to get 3 more spawn, a fire raptor and 2 deimos vindis. I could always proxy the deimos vindis with normal vindis and the fire raptor with a raven if trying it out. I have more than enough CSMs with more than enough specials to go either chosen or PMs. I'll defo try chosen with a dreadclaw at some point and will see if anyone I know owns CS for a look at it.

Poly Ranger wrote:
PMs may do a better job due to durability. I made the chosen as cheap as possible whilst still taking a full compliment of specials, so PMs may be a touch more expensive...

Yeh so a squad of PMs with 2 flamers are 15pts more expensive. But get +1 T, fnp, fearless, blight granades, plague knife, -1a, -1ld (rarely going to come into play) and -3 flamers. Tough to call.

It definitely is. One thing to note though is that, because your Rhinos are going to die, Plague Marines are more likely to get closer due to durability and therefore more likely to shoot their flamers.

Good point.

Holy boop, nobody mentioned that the ordnance tyrant allows you to shoot into combat!

That is Huge. So many combos...

Combo with a screamerstar? like... awesome.

It looks like he can even do this when sitting happy in a bunker.

Yeah, I messed around with the screamstar + Ord tyrant once. It can definitely work but there are 2 key issues.

1) You run out of points very fast making it hard to put Fateweaver into the list. Without fateweaver the screamerstar tends to fail the girmoire by turn 2-3 and get annihilated. Thus you usually end up with fatey, 5 screamers, 4 heralds on discs + grimoire, and 2 units pink horrors you are not left with a lot to support your ord tyrant and if you have a little bad luck you can find yourself completely outscored on maelstorm and not able to keep up with the opponent's MSU.

2) The grimoire herald is best kept in the sreamerstar. Except you are pounding the units engaged with the screamer star with enough barrage that it actually starts becoming a serious threat to your grimoire herald. I don't have good luck so I actually managed to scatter almost every shot on the herald and kill him.

The other part of this is these tactics are abusive to your fellow player. People already hate screamerstar lists so combining it with more synergies and combos just leaves the other player feeling hopeless against the unit. My biggest problem is I have no one to really test this out against even with my bad luck.

Haha good points there!

What about supporting a mauler rush?

They hate getting bogged down by infantry, and are immune to mortar fire.

Captyn_Bob wrote:
Haha good points there!

What about supporting a mauler rush?

They hate getting bogged down by infantry, and are immune to mortar fire.

Wow, you are essentially retracing my thought processes

IMO it works incredibly well. Take the maulerfiends (or soul grinders work great too) from a Khorne Daemonkin CAD and take 2 heralds and attach them to 2 units of artillery. You can wrack up blood tithe, bail your AV13 walkers out of hordes with thudd gun fire, and the fearless IC can allow artillery units that GtG to shoot by jumping into the GtG unit. It becomes a brutal combo. Some Khorne Hounds work well as mobile scoring as well. Probably the best part though is the blood tithe you can generate will stack up to new units pretty easily against MSU lists, which is when you need more units the most.