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The million worlds of the Imperium include every possible inhabitable climate and quite a few that should be uninhabitable. But if human history proves anything it is that with the proper motivation (psychological or chemical) people can adjust to anything.



Those hardy souls who dwell in the harshest environments, whether Death Worlds like Catachan, the poisoned underhives of Necromunda or the deep deserts of Tallarn can make for the toughest most effective soldiers.

If you can keep them under control.

Their uniforms are unkempt and they carry all manner of unauthorized equipment from frenzon injectors to knives carved from the claws of local predators. Their armor is hapazard, with heavy armored plates removed from flak vests to lighten them, then local cloaks, leather, trophies and primitive armor added. The officers are just as bad as the men, often they can only be distinguished by their additional scars and tattoos.

But no one can deny they are effective.



While Codex: Rambo was not really GW's finest hour, there is nothing wrong with the concept of tough-as-nails soldiers fighting off technologically superior foes with nothing but grit and their wits. As long as, y'know, they're not all dressed like Rambo. I mean really, did anyone at GW bother to see how people fighting in a jungle really dress? Anyway... I digress.

And one thing I miss from the current IG codex is there are almost no units that can infiltrate. Both Storm Troops and Vets used to have that option and now only the dang Space Hobbits do. Space Hobbits? How are Space Hobbits still in this game if Space Dwarfs are too silly? Anyway... I digress.

So here is my proposed take on the idea.

Despite the name they can hail from any Imperial World, they would just represent the toughest of the tough, Glacier Guard from Valhalla, Underhive Extermination teams from Mordia, Tallarn Fremen, Tannith's elite scouts, Cadia's 'Tunnel Rat' sapper teams etc...




Changes:
6+ save to make them 'light infantry'
Flexible squad sizes
Infiltrate, move through cover, scout, stealth - basically the whole commando package.
Optional officer, but no other characters
Everyone gets a pistol and CC weapon (so 3 WS4 attacks on the charge, plus a pistol shot), options for rending, furious charge, poison

Questions:
10 points for a WS4, infiltrating guardsman. Too expensive? 8 points?
Stubborn Deathworld Officer for 50 points, too good? Too expensive?
3 special weapons+ a heavy in an infiltrating squad. Too good?
No other orders or characters, does that weaken them too much?

DEATHWORLD VETERANS
50 points for a sergeant and 4 Deathworld Vets
Up to 5 more vets for 10 points each
Add a Deathworld Veteran Officer for 50 points

Elite Choice

Death World Veteran
WS4 BS3 S3 T3 W1 I3 A1 Ld7 Sv6+

Special Rules: Infiltrate, Stealth, Move Through Cover, Scout, Unruly

Unruly - Deathworld vets may not receive orders from any officer except a Deathworld Veteran Officer, they may not be joined by characters or Commissars (alternately if they are joined by an outsider roll a d6, on a 5+ the character meets an unfortunate accident before the battle and is removed)

Wargear: Lasgun, CC weapon, Las Pistol, Frag Grenades
Options
Any model may replace his lasgun with a shotgun
Up to 3 may take a Special Weapon from the list
1 may take a heavy stubber (5 points), heavy bolter (15 points), heavy flamer (15 points), missile launcher (15 points) or demo charge (20 points)
(Note: they do not need to form a heavy weapons team)
1 may take a vox caster (15 points)
The whole squad may take krak grenades (1 point per model)
The whole squad may take melta bombs (5 points per model)



Death World Veteran Sergeant
WS4 BS3 S3 T3 W1 I3 A2 Ld8 Sv6+

Special Rules: Infiltrate, Stealth, Move Through Cover, Scout
Wargear: CC weapon, Las Pistol, Frag Grenades
Options: Ranged Weapons List, power weapon (15 points)



Death World Veteran Officer
WS4 BS4 S3 T3 W3 I3 A3 Ld9 Sv6+

Wargear - CC weapon, Las Pistol, Frag Grenades
Options: Melee Weapons List, Wargear List
Special Rules: Infiltrate, Stealth, Move Through Cover, Scout, Stubborn, Voice of Command

Doctrines (you may choose one)
Poisoned CC weapons 4+ (1 point per model)
Rending CC weapons (2 points per model)
Furious Charge (1 point per model)

Let me preface this by saying that I'm not an IG player, and I face them only rarely, so take what I say with several grains of salt. That said:

* Overall, cool! I can dig some sneaky jungle fighter types.
* The doctrines seem like they might benefit from a little diversity. The poisoned weapon one makes sense to me. It's fluffy and makes the squad half-decent against things like MCs. It doesn't help against toughness 3 enemies, but it's nice against toughness 2 and toughness 4 or higher. Rending is a neat option mechanically, but what is it representing? Just, really sharp knives or something? Unless these are meant to be super special knives made of super duper rare space metal that even marines don't get access to, I'm not really sure what's up here. Is it just them fighting dirty, aiming for weak points, etc? Furious charge is fine, but it also feels kind of samey next to two other melee-centric options that are generally more useful. Poisoned and rending both let you deal with high-toughness targets. Poisoned lets you consistantly wound high toughness things better and reroll wounds against the occasional low toughness model. Rending makes you weirdly scary against things like terminators. Furious charge is just as good as poison against marines, but only on the charge, and only for the first round of combat. It's only real advantage is against toughness 3 stuff, which seems too situational (despite touhness 3 not being all that rare) to ever take over the other two options.

Maybe consider replacing one or more of those options with something like booby traps or some sort of guerilla fighter rule?

* I like unruly. Not only because it makes them the tough-to-work-with types in a mixed army, but also because it makes them feel like lone-wolf units that would rather operate under their own initiative than have a vox crackling giving away their position as some jerk yells orders at them.

* 10 points per body seems a bit much. Infiltrating is nice, but unless you're using it to outflank for a sucker punch, it's mostly only good for first turn objective shenanigans and for making it slightly easier to deliver these guys. They aren't especially slow, but they're slow enough for an opponent to get the charge off on them or to simply fight around and kite them for a couple turns until they're dead. 8 points sounds about right. Probably wouldn't go lower than that as stealth makes them rather survivable for their cost in ruins.

* 50 points for a veteran officer feels like a lot. I could be wrong as I don't know the army well, but 50 points for basically 3 guardsmen worth of wounds and attacks seems like an awful lot. Especially considering that's before you give him a decent set of gear. Giving his unit orders is nice, but that still seems pricey considering the unit as a whole is pretty squishy (even with stealth). What's your gut reaction to 35 points instead? It probably wouldn't be unreasonable to start him out at even less. How does he compare to a naked inquisitor (which costs about half as many points and has independent character)?

* I like the special/heavy weapon ratio. If you're going to bother sneaking some guys up close, it's probably worth it to give them some decent guns. Especially if the reason you're sneaking them up is to have them flamer a bunker or pop a vital target with melta. Bringing special guns to bare seems like the main reason to infiltrate/outflank them, really, which means it's the main reason to give them infiltrate in the first place.

*I feel like the veteran should maybe be an upgrade for a sergeant instead of a separate unit that takes up an elite slot.

Thanks for the kind words!

Wyldhunt wrote:


* The doctrines seem like they might benefit from a little diversity. The poisoned weapon one makes sense to me. It's fluffy and makes the squad half-decent against things like MCs. It doesn't help against toughness 3 enemies, but it's nice against toughness 2 and toughness 4 or higher. Rending is a neat option mechanically, but what is it representing? Just, really sharp knives or something? Unless these are meant to be super special knives made of super duper rare space metal that even marines don't get access to, I'm not really sure what's up here. Is it just them fighting dirty, aiming for weak points, etc? Furious charge is fine, but it also feels kind of samey next to two other melee-centric options that are generally more useful. Poisoned and rending both let you deal with high-toughness targets. Poisoned lets you consistantly wound high toughness things better and reroll wounds against the occasional low toughness model. Rending makes you weirdly scary against things like terminators. Furious charge is just as good as poison against marines, but only on the charge, and only for the first round of combat. It's only real advantage is against toughness 3 stuff, which seems too situational (despite touhness 3 not being all that rare) to ever take over the other two options.

Maybe consider replacing one or more of those options with something like booby traps or some sort of guerilla fighter rule?

Looking at them I see your point, they're all kind of minor melee buffs.

My thought was yeah rending is a combination of really sharp knives ("I carved this blade from the claw of the nortorious ripper-snatcher who lives in the jungle trees and lives off a diet of babies and puppies") and real good reflexes ("on my world I have to kill a 4-ton tyranocroc every morning on my way to the outhouse"). But the three together don't add much.

How does this look?

Doctrines (choose 1)
Knife Fighters - Gain Rending and Poison (2 pts per model)
Tunnel Rats - gain Deep Strike and Hit and Run (1 pt per model)
Big Game Hunters - gain Monster Hunter and Tank Hunter (3 pts per model)
Fearless - gain Fearless (2 pts per model)

* 10 points per body seems a bit much. Infiltrating is nice, but unless you're using it to outflank for a sucker punch, it's mostly only good for first turn objective shenanigans and for making it slightly easier to deliver these guys. They aren't especially slow, but they're slow enough for an opponent to get the charge off on them or to simply fight around and kite them for a couple turns until they're dead. 8 points sounds about right. Probably wouldn't go lower than that as stealth makes them rather survivable for their cost in ruins.

I'd be happy with 8, for T3 6+ save guys.

* 50 points for a veteran officer feels like a lot. I could be wrong as I don't know the army well, but 50 points for basically 3 guardsmen worth of wounds and attacks seems like an awful lot. Especially considering that's before you give him a decent set of gear. Giving his unit orders is nice, but that still seems pricey considering the unit as a whole is pretty squishy (even with stealth). What's your gut reaction to 35 points instead? It probably wouldn't be unreasonable to start him out at even less. How does he compare to a naked inquisitor (which costs about half as many points and has independent character)?

I really played with his cost. Too low and he's a mandatory pick, too high and he's a waste of paper. My thought is the orders are such a force multiplier he can make his points back in a turn with the right order. Use 'bring it down' on a land raider and he just got you 250 points worth of enemy units.

*I feel like the veteran should maybe be an upgrade for a sergeant instead of a separate unit that takes up an elite slot.

The officer is an upgrade to the squad, you just add him in. He's not a separate choice.

Thanks again!

Don't have much to add, except, Krieg's a Deathworld, too

Cool idea, well presented.

Not very helpful on my part, but keep rolling with it! Looks good thus far.

EDIT: Actually, I do have something to contribute, the Doctrine system you have looks excellent. By themselves the first three doctrines seem a little too inexpensive, but considering the price of the unit (without upgrades) it seems to balance itself out.