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There are many instances of units within 40k who have fluff indicating that they are mercenaries, wanderers, or smaller military units that do not fit within the traditional larger-silo factions. I think there is design space to include these units in Battleforged matched play without creating a balance issue by limiting their number and removing them from the Command Point generation system.

The primary faction of your army's chosen warlord would determine their Mercenary Rating number. You may include a number of these units within your army outside of the normal Detachment structure without your army ceasing to be Battleforged. These units gain no detachment benefits, nor do they benefit from any applicable <faction> abilities. Their inclusion alone does not enable stratagems from their respective codeces to be used (e.g., including a unit of Kabalite Warrior mercenaries with the <Kabal of the Black Heart> keyword in an army with no other Drukhari units would not allow you to use the Agents of Vect stratagem)

Factions with the IMPERIUM keyword gain access to the Imperial Agents list.

-Inquisitors (including named inquisitors)
-Acolytes
-Jokaero
-Daemonhosts
-Arco-flagellants
-Death Cult Assassins
-Crusaders
-Ministorum Priests
-Penitent Engines
-Sisters Repentia
-Sisters of Silence
-Servitors
-Astra Militarum Veteran Squads (Imperial Mercenaries)
-Legion of the Damned space marines
-Rogue Trader models and Elucidian Starstriders units
-Blackstone Fortress Explorers
-For each ORDO HERETICUS inquisitor included, 1 squad of Battle Sisters
-For each ORDO XENOS inquisitor included, 1 unit of Deathwatch Veterans or Deathwatch Intercessors
-For each ORDO MALLEUS inquisitor included, 1 squad of Grey Knight Terminators

Factions with the CHAOS keyword gain access to the Familiars and Minions list.

-Chaos Furies
-Chaos Spawn
-Chaos Cultists
-Servants of the Abyss units
-If the warlord has the TZEENTCH keyword, any unit with the TZAANGOR keyword
-if the warlord has the NURGLE keyword, Poxwalkers and Nurglings
-If the warlord has the KHORNE keyword, Flesh Hounds
-If the warlord has the SLAANESH keyword, Fiends
-Forgeworld Renegades and Heretics units

Factions with neither the CHAOS nor the IMPERIUM keyword gain access to the Mercenaries and Scum list.

-Court of the Archon units
-Drukhari Incubi
-Drukhari Scourges
-Drukhari Kabalite Warriors
-Drukhari Wyches
-Aeldari Rangers
-Illic Nightspear
-Harlequin Troupes
-Harlequin Shadowseers
-Imperial Mercenaries/Gue'vesa (Astra Militarum Veterans)
-KROOT keyword units
-Flash Gitz
-Gretchins
-Grot Tanks
-Grot Mega-Tanks
-Genestealer Cult Neophytes
-Genestealer Cult Atalan Jackals
-Genestealer Cult Goliath vehicles


Mercenary Ratings:

Tyranids: 0 (Besides the more delusional Genestealer Cults, who incorporate themselves wholly in the tyranids' ranks, Tyranids do not hire mercenaries)

Necrons: 2, may not include units with the AELDARI keyword
Adeptus Astartes: 2
Adeptus Custodes: 2
Imperial Knights: 2

These haughty factions would most likely never stoop to the hiring of mercenaries for coin, but may possibly allow a small number of specialists to accompany them on an important mission or bring a small number of brainwashed minions.

Craftworlds: 3
Sisters of Battle: 3
Astra Militarum: 3
Chaos Daemons: 3
Genestealer Cults: 3
Orks: 3
Chaos Space Marines: 3

These factions either generally attract a small number of miscellaneous hangers-on or are not averse to bringing small bands of mercenaries along in desperate circumstances.

Drukhari: 5
Harlequins: 5
Tau Empire: 5
Inquisition: Unlimited

These factions either favor a collective approach to warfare, or very often hire mercenaries.

Csm /orkz 3?
Wut?!?

Not Online!!! wrote:
Csm /orkz 3?
Wut?!?

I can see it for CSM actually. However for Orks it's a difficult sell outside maybe Freebootas

Not a terrible concept, but it seems a little unwieldy for the end result given that multiple detachments and the allies system already exist. Surely there's a simpler way to let people splash in units sharing their broadest keyword (imperium/chaos/xenos). Could we get similar results by just slapping the Mercs(X) keyword onto certain units? For instance, Mercs(Xenos), Mercs(Imperium), and Mercs(Chaos). And then make the Mercs keyword basically a USR like Fly with the following rules:

"Units with the Mercs(x) keyword may be taken in detachments that only contain units with the (x) keyword. Mercs do not cause detachments they are in to lose other detachment benefits (such as chapter tactics or faction-specific stratagems), nor do they unlock stratagems of their own. For instance, including dark eldar units in an ork detachment would not grant access to drukhari stratagems. Merc units occupy detachment slots but do not count towards the minimum number of units required by a detachment they're in. "

Gets rid of the need for a Merc Rating and the need to remember a bunch of special exceptions. So if you want to include Tzangor in a Tzeentch Daemons detachment, just give Tzangors Mercs(Tzeentch).

Now that said, I do still see some issues with this system. Expanding the number of datasheets available to soup into a given list is going to have an impact. Being able to include wyches in a tau list, for instance, means that tau suddenly have access to an actual melee unit. Melee stops being a set in stone weakness for tau.

On the other hand, the list you've got there seems weirdly limited, as does the limited faction locking you have going on. I can think of at least a couple Black Library stories in which xenos mercenaries team up with chaos and plenty in which xenos team up with imperials. And then there's oddities like ork mercs being able to include grots and flashgitz (makes sense) but not standard shoota boyz or mekz or truks. The list is pretty light on transports in general despite many of the units on your list being more or less dependent on them (especially without access to their own strats).

Basically, I worry that you're simultaneously creating balance concerns by being so permissive with these rules and simultaneously not being permissive enough to fit the fluff.

If the goal is to just allow some of the battle brothers rules to be ignored for the sake of a narrative, then you can probably get better results through a gentlemen's agreement and discussion with your opponent. If your goal is to provide matched play options, your list seems likely to have some serious winners and losers. Flash Gitz might offer some decent dakka to a list that's light on shooting, for instance, but I don't see incubi sans transports showing up in a lot of lists.

I like it. I'd like for Necrons to have the same Astra Militarum ally option that GSC have with no Regiment bonus etc. etc. but that's not really mercenaries, so for what the intention of this is I like it.

I don't know if Renegades and Heretics might be a problem in the future considering that they aren't losing out on Detachment benefits like most other choices do. Given that it's a house rule it's not something GW would take into consideration when "balancing" those units.

I don't know why you'd have Grey Knight Terminators but not Strike Squads. I also don't think it's very fluffy for Grey Knights to deploy in such limited fashion, their job is to deal with large daemonic threats, if the threat is small enough that a unit of Terminators is enough to deal with it, is the cleanup duty that you have to do afterwards even worthwhile? I know that was the rules in the past and DoW SM had access to small groups of GK, but that's my opinion that isn't very well informed.

 vict0988 wrote:
I also don't think it's very fluffy for Grey Knights to deploy in such limited fashion, their job is to deal with large daemonic threats, if the threat is small enough that a unit of Terminators is enough to deal with it, is the cleanup duty that you have to do afterwards even worthwhile? I know that was the rules in the past and DoW SM had access to small groups of GK, but that's my opinion that isn't very well informed.

I'd agree with you, but I feel like I've read a lot of stories in which a single GK squad gets deployed to deal with something. I vaguely recall them being used as greater daemon assassins in a couple of stories. They are supposed to be significantly more powerful in their field of expertise than standard marines and extremely few in number, so having some of their "companies" (or however they're organized) basically broken up and scattered to deal with the thousand and one daemon problems the imperium has to deal with at any given moment kind of makes sense. Sort of.

I imagine a lot of those 5 man squads basically end up limping back to base and letting the rest of the GK know that a problem escalated somewhere and now calls for a larger response.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Csm /orkz 3?
Wut?!?

I can see it for CSM actually. However for Orks it's a difficult sell outside maybe Freebootas

Blood axes would disagree.
But yeah on average probably less