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Renegades were an exceptionally versatile and strong army last edition with a wide selection of choice. The customisation options seem to have disappeared to a very large extent. Now I know this is the case for many armies but that was their shtick and they are also a FW baby so probably won't be getting an update any time soon, unlike most other factions.

Let's look at some of the major issues:

Inability to upgrade to BS4+
This is absolutely huge since we pay the same amount as Guard for the weapons yet they are 50% more effective than Renegades when shooting. What do Renegades have to make up for this? HWSs are 1pt cheaper... that's it. HWSs are now utter garbage.

Militia squads
The lack of ability to upgrade BS/WS to 4+ is huge for these guys. They are the same points cost as a guardsmen yet have worse BS, WS and save and can't take orders. What do they get in return? The ability to have units of 20 and 1 special per 5 rather than 10, which means to get these 'advantages' you have to pay for even more models/weapons that are overpriced in comparison. They also get Covenants to make up for orders - can anyone say with a straight face that these are anywhere close to being as good as orders?
Now I'm not saying that Renegade should have orders, that's not their thing, but I'm comparing what you get for the same points in a similar army. Give Renegades WS and BS 4+ and they would be acceptable despite still being objectively inferior to guardsmen (due to save, leadership and orders).
Yes Cultists have that, but their options are 1 in 10 has a choice of 1 of 2 weapons (and they cost a point more despite the lack of the save, leadership and orders). The whole point of Renegades is the customisation.

Mutants
How... HOW are these 4pts each? In an edition where so many infantry got a price decrease these went up by 33%! And got so much worse as they can't use anyone else's leadership aside from the Command Vox Net.

Renegade Commander and Enforcer
The Commander is needed for the Covenants and needs to be your warlord. Both of these models are T3 4W 5+ models... and ARE NOT counted as characters. Let that just sink in a minute. Insanity. Both are now absolutely useless.

Psychic Powers
Warpflux is another version of Smite that is harder to cast. Creeping terror will on average kill 2 more opponents models if they failed their leadership, whereas smite will kill 2 more of the opponents models and than also add 2 more to the leadership roll because of that, so this is again inferior to smite and still costs more to cast. Unnatural Vigour is excellent... But costs 10 to cast and can only effects renegade units - so there isnt really a unit that this will turn into an absolute killer outside of Orgryns and maybe Spawn. Now, the Rogue Psyker Coven can roll 3d6, which will cause D3 moral wounds (regularly 2D3 due to perils)... Not bad on a 15 wound unit right? Well it is when you consider this unit is 100pts, all of its powers are 6" or 12" they are not characters and have to rely on T3 5++ whilst being in traditional rapid fire range. Vigour is also not easy enough to cast to be anywhere close to reliable.

Disciple squad
Same cost as IG vets (again - don't want to be IG just using it for the comparison), but can't take 3 specials or a heavy flamer which is what makes vets attractive for Guard players. I mean come on - militia get 2 per 10 and these are supposed to be the elite!

Whats got better?
-Impressed with the Marauder squads. 44pts for a 5 man squad with 2 plasma guns, Bs 3+, and the Stalker or Heretek Specialism looks good.
-Ogryns of all forms look playable now, especially with that power drill. Prime targets for things like Lascannons though.
-The Malefic Lord looks a cheap way to be casting Smite and is fotunately a character.

Personally I'm just going to break down my Renegade force (already have) and put my Guard into a separate AM army with the Earthshakers and maybe Rapiers (damn how fragile are those now, not sure whether to put these with my new AM force, my BA or my CSM) and put my Spawn, Giant Spawn and mass of cultists that I was using to represent mutants back in with my CSM force.

Bye bye Renegades, it was fun whilst it lasted.

By the sounds of it they got toned down, in line with the other top teir armies. Renegades were actually the 2nd most competitive army in 7th, just not many people played them. All the top armies got brought down a couple of pegs in 8th, and the bottom came roaring back up the field.

Aye I agree, they were one of the strongest armies out there. They needed to be toned down in comparison to others. But instead they have been made terrible. All the troops choices are awful and as/more expensive than other forces equivalents for a much worse version.
The faction is as acurate as orks, is as good as guard in melee (without 'fearless' conscript blobs) but with ws5+, has trash psychic powers, lacks any cheap form of mobility outside of Spawn, has buffing characters that can be targeted since they don't have the character key word and has to pay extra to have any form of reliable leadership (not complaining about the last part, that's part and parcel of Renegades but there were advantages given in place of this before). There is literally no phase of the game in which they have a strength.

IMHO FW should give these special armies another go and give them the "codex treatment"

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/07/15/new-and-updated-forge-world-faqs-july16gw-homepage-post-2/

Their FAQ gives the character keyword to the ones they forgot to give it too, as well as updates on vehicles taken
and ive been wondering about adding Renegades when BS skill is so slow, but with how allies work now, the fact i can have lots of imperial guard and then add extra Chaos, means their needs to be some difference between them
been debating whether to get the book, as i have two leman russ's and old Lost & Dammed

Ah thanks for that. Makes a bit of difference. Nowhere near enough though unfortunately :-(

yeah i dont think it would be great as a full army right now, but to supplement a chaos force, with access to cheap small snipers and plasma sqauds and some tanks and mortars may be good from what ive been reading here

im not sure on the keywords enough if things from this book can be buffed by units in the CSM codex?

Can renegades summon daemons? If so, that is likely the reason for the cost increases. An army that is largely gunline with the ability to summon daemons (because they aren't moving so no downside) can be pretty nasty to face.

Yeah the summon demons part could blow the doors wide open for Renegades and Heretics. I mean, you can throw so many cheap bodies on the table. Have a back line of 6 earthshakers and 100+ cultists/mutants to protects. Then a forward moving force to summon/spam in demons. You can do all this for under 1000 points and have 1000 points reserved for demon summoning.

Still seems like a one trick pony since if you attempted to play pure R&H you are playing a horrible version of guard rule wise.

ForgeWorld forgot that people need decent to slightly above average rules in order to spend money on pennies worth of resin as opposed to a car.

Forge World rushed the Index, plain and simple. The list was probably (re)written by an intern on his lunch break. It's not surprising considering they're not a Space Marine army.