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See title. Follow-up question! Is there any place I can find the old resources for them, so I may convert to 9th?

8th edition rules can be found in Imperial Armour Index - Forces of the Astra Militarum

Imperial Armour 13 had the 6th edition rules but they were also in IA 5, 6, 7, and a pdf update for 5th.

Awesome depending on what you wanted. They had a lot of character and a lot of options, but they were also oddly costed and easily abused.

And the current (legends) rules:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/ROlabv2jfo8uNWLJ.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi7gPPu8u3wAhVmAmMBHfEfDLEQFjAAegQIBRAC&usg=AOvVaw11tWAOhFlZ_9t9VSZoNm-k

Renegades and Heretics had a few iterations, but arguably hit its Zenith in the final Siege of Vraks book.

What made them so awesome, in that book especially, is that they could basically be whatever you wanted them to be.

Most units in the army came with BS & WS of 2 (so hitting on 5+), no armor save, and randomized moral which (IIRC) would average out to 5 per unit. So the dudes were pretty bad. But they also cost like... 2-3 PPM. And you could buy them stuff. So you could buy a 6+ armor save for the entire unit for a grand total of 5 points. You could upgrade their BS & WS to 3 for 10 points for an entire unit. You could give them a banner which would let them reroll their moral value. You could give them a vox which let them use the general's moral within 120 inches. They could be kitted out with special & heavy weapons (no more frequently than the Guard, at 1 per squad, but they could also be in big blobs of 20 / 30 dudes). They could have evil commissars who would kill multiple models to allow for failed moral rerolls (back then regular commissars were one dead model and pass).

This made the core of the army extemely flexible. Your squads were absolute garbage at the onset, but they were cheap garbage. And you could kick in more points to make them ALMOST as good as standard guard options. While you lacked orders to supplement those squads, this was still a good trade because your bubble-wrap squads could be cheap as chips, and you could do all sorts of fun shenanigens which the Guard couldn't do (massive units of out-flanking BS 2 sentinels... Which don't care about their low ballistic skill because they're crazy cheap and armed with heavy flamers). You also had options that the guard didn't. Chaos Spawn and Rabbles (generally with an Enforcer) didn't give top-tier melee potential, but they did pack a good punch on a PPM basis, and were cheap enough (as well as tough enough through sheer weight of bodies) to be effective tarpits.

Lastly, while you lacked orders, your Warlord could basically give your army a unique sort of regiment bonus. This could be more benign stuff like an army wide 6++ to more flexible options like snap-shots hitting on 5+ (which was hilarious, because it meant you could just run all your heavy weapons teams all the time, because they would naturally hit on 5+ anyway). Also standard options like being able to give your storm-trooper equivalents hot-shot las and your standard troops carapace armor, making them grenadiers.

Then there were the really unique ones. The one where you could fire artillery (earthshakers + medusa) into friendly combats was hilarious, and perfectly fitting. The Purge was crazy fun and crazy weird, making all of your template weapons remain on the field as dangerous terrain for the next turn. Meaning you could carpet-bomb your enemy and then pick more of them off the next turn as they advanced through the dangerous ground.

Renegades and Heretics was basically the most customizable force 40k has ever seen, and what's happened to it is a fething travesty.

I loved the lore and story of Siege of Vraks!

Honestly, what was so great about it was the models.

As with anything Chaos, you had a lot of options for how to paint them. But the models themselves were just detailed and full of character.

When you considered the Imperial alternatives at the time - no comparison. Maybe except for DKoK.

 morganfreeman wrote:
Your squads were absolute garbage at the onset, but they were cheap garbage / one where you could fire artillery (earthshakers + medusa) into friendly combats was hilarious / template weapons remain on the field as dangerous terrain for the next turn.

And they could all be run in combination - a valid troops choice for R&H was 144pts for 28 wounds, toughness 7, firing 16 barrages per turn(into combat if they wanted) at S4 with pinning tests at -1 and creating dangerous terrain. Screened by 3 point rabble and squadrons of 20pt heavy flamer sentinels.
Could also get a renegade-enhanced khorne knight with 4++ in all directions and in close combat, along with five strength D+1 attacks... which cost an arm and a leg but was a hell of a thing.

Even more expensive than krieg to collect though.

TBF morganfreeman has brought it on the point.
That said , i don't think that vraks was the highpoint, atleast not vraks 7th edition. But then again 7th edition formations should've not been applicable for R&H especially since they were intended for chaos marines.....


However, just to facilitate his point, the R&H Troop department had 3 options, yet it allowed you to represent Death brigades form the bloodpact to Mutant rebellions and everything inbetween. That alone got done via the Archdemagogue. The baseline adaptability of units not even included but for simplicities sake this is just what your Leader Unlocks / could unlock in a handy Table.



Say you wanted Inbred Hilbilly Mutants of tzeentch? Good, Archdemagogue Devotion is of course the mutant overlord. Covenant is tzeentch. Atleast 2 Squads of mutants, fine then you can add in all the little spawn gribblies you want. Maybee some big lads. Never has there been more chaos spawn on the field, and unlike CSM spawn, R&H spawn is good.

Maybee that's not your style, maybee you prefer a regiment of turncoats? Good: Bloody-handed reaver it is, Not even a Covenant required. Upgrade renegade infantry with Flakk armour and Militia training and you have a less disciplined than guard but more than normal rabble List, with access to some really mean inner circle elites, time to become the very best and meanest mercenary company with questionable moral code that there is in 40k.

Not your thing? Want to represent the endless hordes off a Nurgle Hive rebblion? Master of the horde some plague zombies, 0 upgrades beyond the covenant on the Militia and a happy go lucky attitude. There you go.

What, you like Machines more? Heretek Magus, gain access to decimators and Defieler, "improve" your infantry... Wait techno zombies too hordy? Not to worry full plate death servitors are easily modifyable out of Veterans and Disciples..

Professional Revolutionary: Go ahead, Arch-revolutionary and a whole slew of "volunteers" with enforcer oversight will make your mainline basically never run.

And that are just the things you can facilitate with the warlord choice. Basically all options within the book are adaptable to your liking already.
Heck you can in essence even skip the more overtly chaotic stuff and have a rogue IG regiment or PDF.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

A.T. wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:
Your squads were absolute garbage at the onset, but they were cheap garbage / one where you could fire artillery (earthshakers + medusa) into friendly combats was hilarious / template weapons remain on the field as dangerous terrain for the next turn.

And they could all be run in combination - a valid troops choice for R&H was 144pts for 28 wounds, toughness 7, firing 16 barrages per turn(into combat if they wanted) at S4 with pinning tests at -1 and creating dangerous terrain. Screened by 3 point rabble and squadrons of 20pt heavy flamer sentinels.
Could also get a renegade-enhanced khorne knight with 4++ in all directions and in close combat, along with five strength D+1 attacks... which cost an arm and a leg but was a hell of a thing.

Even more expensive than krieg to collect though.

Vraks was nonsense though in that regard. They should've not allowed for purge formation to be usefull for R&H