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So I was looking through this list when I saw the Heretek magos trait for the warlord, and it got me thinking.

Now I love my guard army, but the guard book currently is a little dull and limited option wise. Now my guardsmen are loyalists, but they have very close ties to the mechanicum, and have a lot of units with a mechanicum feel and a techy look. So the idea of having an army filled with bionics lead by a techpriest of sorts intrigues me greatly.

So my question is would any of you fine people find it a problem if I were to field my loyalist guardsmen as renegades and heretics. Now obviously I would avoid all the chaos stuff, and I'd try to keep the list faithful by giving everything militia training and bionics.

So what's the verdict?

It could work. But I would like to see at least some renegadeness in your renegade guards. It doesn't have to be chaos but it has to feel a bit more renegade then pure cadians.
Just using cadians as renegades feels like using Blood angels as Dark angels just to use their special rules.

I don't have cadians, I use the wargames factory greatcoat troopers. My conscripts are also a horrible amalgamation of the chaos marauders, stormvermin and zombies kits with tech stuff added to all of them.

Not a single model in my entire army has an exposed face, they all have a gasmask of some sort.

So their not just standard guardsmen. They don't look chaosy, but they don't look particularly normal either.

sounds perfect to me

Sounds good to me. You still can get some chaos stuff just convert it to be mechanicum themed (like if you took a blood slaughterer you could convert it from a mechanicum model or explain the covenant marks as robotic upgrades)

I would recommend entirely turning your back on the Emporer, many fun units lie within Imperial Armor 13 which are clearly not "supported" by the Imperial Creed: ie blood slaughterers.

Also, giving everything militia training will land you in a similar position to the guard, renegades and passable in part due to the discounted price allowing us to spam basic infantry.

If you run a squad of 10 infantry models with flak armor (Using Bloody Handed Reaves) and militia training it will run you the same points as guard. Here's the thing, they are flat upgrades, so bump that 10 to a 20 and they become cheaper. Now if you're going Magos then you can only buy the 6+ armor save but you can then buy the 6+ FNP upgrade for the unit. It will be 5pts more but still cheaper then guard (anyone know if this is better than a 5+ armor save?)

Conscripts sound like perfect mutant rabble units which are fun if not random.

My R&H army is more based on the Renegade than the heretic. For basic infantry I use a mix of Cadian and Catachen with cultists. Gives it a bit of a ragtag feel. I'd face your army of greycoats no problem, it's sounds Dark Mechanicum enough to me

I prefer the flat 5+ rather than 6+ 6+ FNP so that many more of my troopers survive Eldar Scatbike Spam. Also got to think about close combat, hammer of wrath, vehicle explosions etc

Tear it up dude! IA:13 has a lot of really fun stuff, get your hands on some of that artillery, enjoy cheaper wyverns, and don't forget your chaos sigils at home!

As long as they have no obvious Imperial heraldry you can use any guardsmen as renegades.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
As long as they have no obvious Imperial heraldry you can use any guardsmen as renegades.

As many civil wars and rebellions within the Imperium initially start with unorthodox interpretations of the Imperial Faith, there would (imo) not be any problems with even using Imperial heraldry on renegade armies. Futuristic protestants, if you will. They wouldn't immediately ruin every piece of imperial heraldry, turn to chaos and start dressing in rags and masks. Even though renegade astartes do seem to throw away all their drop pods once they rebel against the Imperium...


OP's idea of a heavily mechanised force could easily be classified as traitors by the Imperium if they committed tech heresy (such as inventing something new).

GrafWattenburg wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
As long as they have no obvious Imperial heraldry you can use any guardsmen as renegades.

As many civil wars and rebellions within the Imperium initially start with unorthodox interpretations of the Imperial Faith, there would (imo) not be any problems with even using Imperial heraldry on renegade armies. Futuristic protestants, if you will. They wouldn't immediately ruin every piece of imperial heraldry, turn to chaos and start dressing in rags and masks. Even though renegade astartes do seem to throw away all their drop pods once they rebel against the Imperium...


OP's idea of a heavily mechanised force could easily be classified as traitors by the Imperium if they committed tech heresy (such as inventing something new).

Hhhmmm, the tech heresy idea sounds interesting, and that would give me an opportunity for cool vehicle conversions.

 oldzoggy wrote:
Just using cadians as renegades feels like using Blood angels as Dark angels just to use their special rules.

As long as the models' guns are WYSIWYG, I don't care if your dark angels are red.

GrafWattenburg wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
As long as they have no obvious Imperial heraldry you can use any guardsmen as renegades.

As many civil wars and rebellions within the Imperium initially start with unorthodox interpretations of the Imperial Faith, there would (imo) not be any problems with even using Imperial heraldry on renegade armies. Futuristic protestants, if you will. They wouldn't immediately ruin every piece of imperial heraldry, turn to chaos and start dressing in rags and masks. Even though renegade astartes do seem to throw away all their drop pods once they rebel against the Imperium...


OP's idea of a heavily mechanised force could easily be classified as traitors by the Imperium if they committed tech heresy (such as inventing something new).

The renegades and heretics list represents Chaos-aligned troops, not rebels who see themselves as being loyal to the Emperor. Those would be better represented by the IG codex. For Chaos-aligned troops it makes no sense to use Imperial symbols, that would be like the Waffen-SS using a hammer and sickle symbol. They don't need to instantly dress in rags and masks, but they would remove the Aquila and other Imperial symbols from their equipment.

However, I think it works well to represent a rebellion. Undertrained humans taking on the guard with their own weapons. In this case they could keep the symbols to run surprise attacks, but even here it makes sense for them to remove the symbols.

Keeping the symbols? I can see it if you used the Bloody Handed Reaver but as Magos I'd say no.

In the end it's your call. Either way I would play you

Take the weapons and armour of the fallen enemy! Rise up!!!

No problems here at all with renegades equipped in imperial iconography... Makes sense to me.

Personally I file/cut it all off though.

would any of you fine people find it a problem if I were to field my loyalist guardsmen as renegades and heretics

I'll be using DKOK as my renegades (yes, heresy, i know) As long as weapons are the same, I wouldn't have a problem.