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Back in 5th edition, rough riders weren't all that good. Their special character's rules didn't work with them at all and their lances were kinda wonky.
In 6th edition though they've gotten a bunch of buffs and the Mogul actually seems kinda decent. Their weapons aren't a set strength so furious charge works with them, rage doesn't have any drawbacks now, and cavalry have a slew of bonus abilities.

What are peoples' experiences using them in 6th? What would be some good ways to run them? What would be good targets, and bad targets to throw them at? What if any would be some decent combination allies to use with them?

Personally I want to try a full 10-man squad with Mr. Mogul and two meltaguns, and then two separate 5-man squads with melta/meltabombs or flamers. Horde of cavalry with maybe an allied Space Marine captain on a bike, not sure. Seems like initiative 5 cavalry with str6 power swords and a bucket of attacks could be pretty effective against most targets, with anti-tank to crack open transports first.

*Addendum* Yes I know Vendettas are in the same FOC slot, yes Vendettas are amazing, but they don't fit my army theme and cost more than a baby. Strike them from the records as far as comparisons go please!

Still not viable. Their problem has never been how much they kill, it's how durable they are. And they're still expensive T3/no-save infantry that get massacred by bolters. Even if you refuse to play with good fast attack units you're still better off leaving the slots empty.

(And Vendettas fit every army's theme.)

And, aside from the forge world versions they look horrible. I plan to rip of an idea of using dark elf cold ones with Catachan riders in the future, but they won't leave the shelf unless something changes in the next codex!

in my old guard army i used 30 rough riders regularily. 330 points for them so wasnt too expensive. To make sure they did well i put one unit of horses in front of the other 20, usually about 18 made it into combat and sometimes they would hurt nothing sometimes they would devistate entire units. I found they where very effecient vehicle hunters too. Never used their special character though.

It entirely depends on the map and the dice with these guys but you need more than 1 squad or its a waste of time as people seem to love blowing them to peices. They work better in bigger games too i found.

Put them all on one flank and the enemy usually decides not to risk getting close so whole flanks will sometimes stay still shooting the rough riders which have been game winners. Just gotta practice and find their use depending on who you play.

Beware i have had 3 nurgle marines beat down a whole squad, i have also lost many models from overwatch fire too so dont expect wonders but sometimes they do provide you with great miracles.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This was well into 6th edition too.

Mogul got a buff, but rough riders got ultra-nerfed.

Start with the fact that 6th ed hates assault units, and add to it all the problems power blobs have. And 6th ed completely doomed rough riders. To add insult to injury, their hunting lances got downgraded to the MUCH worse power lance, and they suffered worse than anything in the codex from the removal of being able to charge out of reserves.

Not that they were that good in the first place, of course.

If all you wanted to do was to have a unit that could show up with a pair of meltaguns and some surprise Ap3, then just take stormtroopers. They're better in pretty much every way, and don't need to get into assault to use their Ap3 as well.

 Ailaros wrote:
To add insult to injury, their hunting lances got downgraded to the MUCH worse power lance

Once again you have no idea what you're talking about. They still have hunting lances, just with AP 3 (like most 6th edition power weapons). Power lances are entirely different.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
To add insult to injury, their hunting lances got downgraded to the MUCH worse power lance

Once again you have no idea what you're talking about. They still have hunting lances, just with AP 3 (like most 6th edition power weapons). Power lances are entirely different.

You are a real jerk a lot of the time you know that?

There is nicer way to tell people things.

For example: "Actually hunting lances remain largely the same as they did in 5th edition, power lances are an eldar weapon used by shining spears. The Hunting lance is now AP3."

I had written a reply to your first version which was:
"Once again you have no idea what you're talking about. Their lances are exactly the same as they were in 5th, the only change is that the stats are defined slightly differently so that the furious charge bonus can apply to them instead of having a useless character like in 5th."

Clearly showing you where also wrong initially...

Try be nicer dude as its hard to find a thread (very very hard) where your comments are actually nice. thats just my opinion though.

 Swastakowey wrote:
You are a real jerk a lot of the time you know that?

Let's not forget this is Ailaros, who has called all Tau players sociopath TFGs for using JSJ tactics because it isn't "fun" for him. You lose a lot of credibility when you constantly rant about how anyone who doesn't play the game exactly the way you want them to is playing on "easy mode" and is generally a WAAC who ruins the game for everyone.

I had written a reply to your first version which was:

A reply which was up for a few seconds before I realized the AP 3 needed clarification. But Ailaros was talking about them becoming power lances (IOW, losing the +2 STR and +2 bonus), not the general power weapon nerf, so I was talking about those two attributes remaining the same.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
To add insult to injury, their hunting lances got downgraded to the MUCH worse power lance

Once again you have no idea what you're talking about. They still have hunting lances, just with AP 3 (like most 6th edition power weapons). Power lances are entirely different.

Ya do tend to jump right to the "You're an idiot" stage, at least let a couple comments go back and forth haha. I think you and Ailaros should really go out to a bar sometime and settle all your differences since most IG threads turn into you guys debating (Emoticons to denote sarcasm and an attempted joke)

ON TOPIC:

But yeah, RR still aren't good. I mean, if they can hit something it'll probably hurt but it's a pretty big if. Only a few real good reasons to run them now:

1) It fit's your army fluff/you want to make an Attilian army
2) You couldn't care less about winning, ya just want to see people on horses in da future
3) You enjoy the pain of losing a lot because you included such a bad unit in a competitive setting

EDIT: Ugh, too late, too tired to proofread

Doesnt matter what some one else has said, being rude to a rude person solves nothing (i am not calling Ailaros rude as i have not seen evidence of it yet) as it just goes in circles.

Just something i have noticed is a trend with you dude, it really bugs me how you type to people in such a rude fashion, especially if they dont know too much about 40k.

I will say no more on the topic however...

Ailaros and Peregrine, despite their frothing blood feud, have briefly joined forces to crush my dreams of running a bunch of rough riders. It was gonna be so great too, renegade guard with chaos marauder rough riders and a big fat nurgly Mogul Kamir with his ULTRASCYTHE. But yeah, in retrospect, with the din of DakkaDakka drowning out the fluff factor, they do seem like kind of a bad choice. Sweet models don't look quite as good when they're sitting in the dead pile on turn 1.

All those conversion ideas.... lost in time, like tears in rain. Time... to buy a vendetta.

Death Korps riders are much, much, much, much better, but still bad.

Rough riders can be used. There are examples up above. I tend to use a small squad with a couple of meltas supporting my mechanised Veteran squads. You can hide them in behind chimeras and Russes relatively easily and if you drop in enough targets toward your enemy they might not have the capacity to target them as well.

As with all things in this hobby, if you want to make some nice models then go for it. Once you start using them in games you'll find some niche where you can use them to good effect.

 Badablack wrote:
Ailaros and Peregrine, despite their frothing blood feud, have briefly joined forces to crush my dreams of running a bunch of rough riders. It was gonna be so great too, renegade guard with chaos marauder rough riders and a big fat nurgly Mogul Kamir with his ULTRASCYTHE. But yeah, in retrospect, with the din of DakkaDakka drowning out the fluff factor, they do seem like kind of a bad choice. Sweet models don't look quite as good when they're sitting in the dead pile on turn 1.

All those conversion ideas.... lost in time, like tears in rain. Time... to buy a vendetta.

Nah dont worry about those two particurlay unsaviory kind of gamers, I say go ahead and make that army. It would be damneable awesome to see, and no. Its never time to buy a Vendeta, I have played guard for a long time and have to this day never used a single flyer.

 Trondheim wrote:
Its never time to buy a Vendeta, I have played guard for a long time and have to this day never used a single flyer.

You're really missing out. Vendettas aren't just a good way to win games, they're one of the most fun units in the codex.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Flinty wrote:
You can hide them in behind chimeras and Russes relatively easily and if you drop in enough targets toward your enemy they might not have the capacity to target them as well.

Hiding rough riders is hard because the models are taller than IG tanks unless you're using shorter proxy models (and then that's MFA). So you're just getting a 5+ cover save, which isn't going to make much of a difference.

And target saturation doesn't work very well because the weapons that kill tanks aren't the same weapons that kill rough riders. So your opponent shoots the tanks with their anti-tank units, and shoots the rough riders with random bolter squads.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Trondheim wrote:
Its never time to buy a Vendeta, I have played guard for a long time and have to this day never used a single flyer.

You're really missing out. Vendettas aren't just a good way to win games, they're one of the most fun units in the codex.

Well if your meaning of fun is to just pull of a win I pray I never have to meet you, let alone play against you. And no, noting fun about a flying coffin

Im in the same boat. I never used the guard flyers either. Don't feel like im missing out. Rough riders, like any other unit, have a use. I highly recommend you give them a shot.

 Trondheim wrote:
Well if your meaning of fun is to just pull of a win I pray I never have to meet you, let alone play against you. And no, noting fun about a flying coffin

I don't mean fun as in "winning is fun", I mean fun to play with. Fast gunships that drop plasma vets on stuff are just a lot of fun, as are the pure shooting flyers (especially the punisher cannon Vulture).

 Swastakowey wrote:
Rough riders, like any other unit, have a use.

This is not true. Some units are just terrible and have no purpose beyond "making your list weaker so you don't crush the newbie who is still trying to learn the game". If you insist on seeing the bright side of every unit, no matter how bad, and putting them into your list you're not going to be winning very many games.

They're not good, but on the other hand, the base squad is quite cheap, so if you like them conceptually, you probably don't gimp yourself too badly by including one squad.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Rough riders, like any other unit, have a use.

This is not true. Some units are just terrible and have no purpose beyond "making your list weaker so you don't crush the newbie who is still trying to learn the game". If you insist on seeing the bright side of every unit, no matter how bad, and putting them into your list you're not going to be winning very many games.

Then so be it.

I mean, not everyone has fun winning every game. I mean, I've run lists that I knew were pretty terri-bad but not only did the guy I play have fun, I had fun. All because I knew my list was bad, so I just kinda threw the game to the wind and did some IG like things ala suicide rushes and stupid maneuvers just because I couldn't care less.

Not everyone is in this to win every game, and those are the people that are so much more fun to play against in my opinion and those are the people that run rough riders hahaha

Rough Riders can look quite cool because you can use various alternative models ranging from Napoleonic cavalry to SF monowheels.

 Badablack wrote:
Ailaros and Peregrine, despite their frothing blood feud, have briefly joined forces to crush my dreams of running a bunch of rough riders. It was gonna be so great too, renegade guard with chaos marauder rough riders and a big fat nurgly Mogul Kamir with his ULTRASCYTHE. But yeah, in retrospect, with the din of DakkaDakka drowning out the fluff factor, they do seem like kind of a bad choice. Sweet models don't look quite as good when they're sitting in the dead pile on turn 1.

All those conversion ideas.... lost in time, like tears in rain. Time... to buy a vendetta.

IMO rough riders can be made to work well they just need to be used under certain conditions.
1. Don't expect them to take down a whole unit of X. Especially if that unit is undamaged. I think too many people think that their hunting lances make rough riders meant to be one use glass cannons. You can use them that way for sure but its not a good use of the points.

2. Use them to kite slower units, if you can mount Captain al'rahem in a chimera to keep him close enough, his like the wind order is great for cavalry.

3. Don't be afraid to actually use the ranged weapons of your rough riders. Meltas are probably the best choice. (flamers would be good too but taking a hell hound would be a much better use of the points). Grenade launchers are surprisingly good for rough riders as they give you a 24" range to attack from with 2 blast templates or 2 krak nades .

4. This kind of goes back to the first point but don't charge a full strength unit, especially if that that unit is melee based. Its also best not to charge a unit that has a lot of melee attacks even if they aren't melee oriented. So no charging your rough rider squad into a platoon of 50 guards men.

5. Most importantly take mogul Kamir. Furious charge + fearless + rage for the whole unit is crazy


If you do all that your rough rider squad will be 145-170 points of pure awesome. That's the same point cost as base a leman with a couple of add ons.