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Thinking about 9th and possibilities, my mind started wandering to mercenary detachments, where you could pay the CP and pick up a band of mercs to stick on to your army. Possible? Maybe, maybe not, we'll have to see when the rules get here, BUT, if some kind of "Stick on some rent-a-soldiers" popped up, what all would we have to pick from?

My lore's a tad rusty, especially where the new stuff is involved, but off the top of my head you have:

Renegade Marines, who rent themselves out to the seedier Rogue Traders and the like.

Blood Axe Orks, who famously rent themselves out to the Imperium to fight whatever, including other Orks, and who use lots of Imperial gear.

Freeboter Orks, who are just plain ol' pirates.

Kroot Mercenaries, on loan from the Tau.

"Imperial Guard", who are used to reflect any number of forces... Traitor Guard, Sisters of Battle auxillaries, Ultramarine auxillaries, Imperial Knight footsloggers, and so on.

I don't *think* any Eldar are in the role, and obviously there aren't Tyrannid or Necron rent-a-forces, but who else am I missing?

Feel free to drop some data down below. I *know* I'm missing a few but I don't know which ones!

You also have "not in the least bit imperial forces honest" fighting alongside Blood Axes

Corsairs/DE are totally available for hire. They might have an ulterior objective and go haring off on their own secret operation they don't tell you about, but there are definitely Eldar mercenaries.

Also Blackshields/renegade Marines who have seceded from the Imperium but haven't gone full spikey.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Corsairs/DE are totally available for hire. They might have an ulterior objective and go haring off on their own secret operation they don't tell you about, but there are definitely Eldar mercenaries.

Also Blackshields/renegade Marines who have seceded from the Imperium but haven't gone full spikey.

Yes! Ashen Claws please.

There are several mentioned in the background, such as Tarellians, who won't work for the Imperium. At all, due to them slaughtering them wholesale in the Great Crusade. There's a number client races for Tau who have "exclusive" contracts with Tau, Within the Tau themselves there are the Farsight Enclaves, who (in the 3rd ed Tau codex) been sighted working with Orks, human pirates, the aforementioned Tarellians and even CSM.

If the Mos Eisley cantina were anywhere in 40K, it would be in Commorragh.

The Drukhari already have mercs in their codex, and I don't think they are particularly fussy about who they 'assist'.

If any Mon-keigh wanted help with their Golden Toilet, I'm sure an arrangement could be reached.

Almost all kinds of orks have been hired/bribed/tricked to fight alongside the inquisition, guard, necrons, eldar and chaos marines.
Many space marine chapters would rather perish than side with orks, but a few have been also been allies of convenience with them as well.
All other imperial factions are extremely unlikely to hire them as mercenaries, because frankly it backfires more often than not - orks do get stronger from fighting. And some actually take "suffer not the xenos" quite seriously.

Tau shoot orks on sight (for a good reason), daemons are too afraid of Gork and Mork to actively meddle with them (according to the orks).

Would make sense to have them. AoS allows the hiring of Mercenaries. Then again, it would allow people to circumvent the whole sharing a keyword thing

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
Would make sense to have them. AoS allows the hiring of Mercenaries. Then again, it would allow people to circumvent the whole sharing a keyword thing

Yeah, but that was kind of the point.

In THEORY, and again we done't know for certain so work with me here, in THEORY, 9the ed will give you X number of Command POints for a game's point value … for our purposes, let's say you get 1 CP per 100 points of the game, thus, 10 at 1000 points or 20 at 2000. Each Detatchment will have a cost with it … so, a Patrol might be 1 CP, a Battallion cost 3, and a Spearhead cost 5, to pull numbers totally out of my tush.

If, and that's a big if, IF, there was a mercenary detachment, it'd probably have a cost a bit higher than an in-line detatchment (IE, buying some "traitor guard" for your Chaos force would cost more (1 pt? 2?) than just buying another Chaos detachment, but it would give you more options. Mercs would have a blanket "Don't count as (keyword) but don't disrupt yoru army either" boilerplate, so unlike stitching, say, a Genestealer detachment to your Ultramarines, you could have a mercenary detatchment, like Imperial Guard, who wouldn't benefit from your special rules but also wouldn't disrupt them, but that edge came with the higher point cost.

Again, in THEORY.

Thinking about that made me wonder what force options would be out there. I'd missed the Dark Eldar, for instance … figured they'd be an option but I wasn't sure.

If you could come up with six or so, they'd line up with normal Codex shenanigans and have some legs.

Freeblade knights could also function as mercenaries but might be a bit more selective about who they fight for.

As an aside, Kroot mercenaries are not anything to do with the Tau. They're specifically in violation of the treaty between the two races - which is why when they had rules, Tau were one of the factions which they COULDN'T be taken with.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
As an aside, Kroot mercenaries are not anything to do with the Tau. They're specifically in violation of the treaty between the two races - which is why when they had rules, Tau were one of the factions which they COULDN'T be taken with.

I noted that in my post ITT. They are one of the client races the Tau have an "exclusive" contract with, obviously there are Kroot that think the word exclusive is open for interpretation.

Wakshaani wrote:
Thinking about 9th and possibilities, my mind started wandering to mercenary detachments, where you could pay the CP and pick up a band of mercs to stick on to your army. Possible? Maybe, maybe not, we'll have to see when the rules get here, BUT, if some kind of "Stick on some rent-a-soldiers" popped up, what all would we have to pick from?

My lore's a tad rusty, especially where the new stuff is involved, but off the top of my head you have:

Renegade Marines, who rent themselves out to the seedier Rogue Traders and the like.

Blood Axe Orks, who famously rent themselves out to the Imperium to fight whatever, including other Orks, and who use lots of Imperial gear.

Freeboter Orks, who are just plain ol' pirates.

Kroot Mercenaries, on loan from the Tau.

"Imperial Guard", who are used to reflect any number of forces... Traitor Guard, Sisters of Battle auxillaries, Ultramarine auxillaries, Imperial Knight footsloggers, and so on.

I don't *think* any Eldar are in the role, and obviously there aren't Tyrannid or Necron rent-a-forces, but who else am I missing?

Feel free to drop some data down below. I *know* I'm missing a few but I don't know which ones!

From the eldar side of things:

Dark Eldar of all factions frequently work as mercenaries

Corsairs definitely do

within the DE book there's Sslyth, Lhameans and Incubi who all explicitly work as mercenaries

Human mercs and the occaisonal specific alien.

loxoatl come to mind.

Marauders, (R&H) are basically scrupleless sellswords for the highest bider including chaos .

I reckon that genestealer cults could probably be hired as mercs too- it would just be a spectacularly bad idea to willingly invite a GSC into, well, anything

Abnett's books had some cool ones like the lizardy Iloxl (spelling?) and human Jannissaries who were worth a good ransom if you captured them.

I'd love to see a Predator/A-Team/Expendibles style force of humans (with maybe a xeno or two for spice) with lots of mad skillz and unauthorized bionics and weapons.

Necromunda gangs might also be a good source, if Necro stats=40k stats they are among the greatest warriors in the 40 universe and their funky weapons would spice things up nicely.

Well we did previously had the Agents of the Imperium, Warhammer Fantasy also had Dogs of War.

It could also be a good way to add a few new factions in as soft launches. Maybe 1 HQ, a Troop and one other unit.

It could also be a good way to get some of the more unusual models from things like Blackstone or Necromunda (as mentioned above).

Thinking about 9th and possibilities, my mind started wandering to mercenary detachments, where you could pay the CP and pick up a band of mercs to stick on to your army. Possible? Maybe, maybe not, we'll have to see when the rules get here,

It's not a bad idea! They actually had a "Mercenaries" style book during one of the WFB editions. It was pretty popular IIRC.

Kroot have been known to accept "non-Tau" contracts, so that could be an option. They like to hide this from the Tau, but it does happen.

If the Mos Eisley cantina were anywhere in 40K, it would be in Commorragh.

If the next Drukhari codex doesn't start with that as the opening line, I will be VERY disappointed!

Dogs of War was a great book, though it only really covered Tilea and didn't really delve into the general non Regiments of Renown until 6th ed (and even then they never got an army book, only a WD list). Best bit, just for fuelling the imagination was the namedropped ones in each new army book like the Giant Pygmies of Lemuria from the Ogre Kingdoms book.

IF GW are going with an app, like they said they were then integrating them should be fairly easy as there is no need for an army book with a standard expected structure etc. (then again, codex Assassins was a thing in 2nd and 3rd ed....).

AoS actually has this right now. It is not used very often but it is a fun way to get more models on the table that you like and they "can" be used for competition, but the are just weak enough that the over player won't want to. They act more like 7th formations (just no where near that power level), you can only have 1, they take up CP, and they take up all your allocated Ally points.

Porting something like that to 40k wouldn't be a bad idea. But you need to make sure its not to strong and turn out like 7th formations.

I've been personally getting some Skeletons and FeC ready for my BoC for fun. Just waiting for the next GH to make sure nothing changes.

It'd be a fantastic way for GW to get some new models in, in small doses. An HQ here, an Elite there, a handful of troops … just put them under either "Rogue Traders" for a catch-all or something similar.

I think it's a book that could go places.

It'd be a fantastic way for GW to get some new models in, in small doses. An HQ here, an Elite there, a handful of troops … just put them under either "Rogue Traders" for a catch-all or something similar.

I think it's a book that could go places

Agreed! It could even have rules for using some of those units in Kill Team and Necromunda to add additional value.

While I really like the idea of a mercenaries book, I feel that the primary purpose should be to provide allies for factions have a dearth of them, rather than adding yet more to IMPERIUM.

At this point, I'd very much prefer the return of the ally matrix, with increased cost for allies of convenience or desperate allies.

Wakshaani wrote:
It'd be a fantastic way for GW to get some new models in, in small doses. An HQ here, an Elite there, a handful of troops … just put them under either "Rogue Traders" for a catch-all or something similar.

I think it's a book that could go places.

It could also be a good way for GW to provide an opportunity for kit bashing to experienced players. A book full of units without much that they won’t make models for to give you the opportunity to make your own merchant units with your own story