Of course, I could answer with more knights of my own, and maybe I will. But knights like to burn through command points, and a chaos marine battalion will be quite expensive and not that useful against armor. Where can Chaos get anti-tank weapons and cheap command points?
Renegades and Heretics, that's where.
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The Renegades and Heretics army list is in Forge World's Imperial Guard Imperial Armour Index, along with all kinds of Imperial Guard vehicles they can use. I've always loved the idea of traitor Guard, but it's so rare to actually get to field them properly. Renegades and Heretics hit the spot very well: they have cheap infantry and HQs, and access to a plethora of Imperial vehicles from Sentinels to the Baneblade. On the down side, they suffer from atrociously bad leadership and the cheap infantry has terrible stats in general. Sadly, Chapter Approved 2019 dropped Chaos Cultists to 4 points each, making Renegade Militia and Cultists kind of pointless and scuppering my plans for a Renegades and Heretics battalion. Therefore, I think I'm looking at a vanguard or spearhead detachment.
First of all, whatever detachment I make, it needs an HQ. The Renegade Commander is a slightly odd choice: if they're not your Warlord, they provide no buffs or other useful bonuses, while their stats are quite weak on their own. They do, however, have two advantages: they're cheap, and since they're a Chaos character, they can summon daemons! I'm bringing a Renegade Commander with a power maul, which is a ludicrously low 29 points. Some of you may recognize the model.
It's a pretty good model, by the way! I added a Victoria Miniatures shock mace to represent the power maul.
Overall, though, I'm not all that impressed with the Fallout: Wasteland Warfare models; I think most of them don't really look all that interesting. I do kinda want to get some Super Mutants, though, and they're pretty good value compared to, say, GW Ogryns; so maybe we'll see...
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While painting my Renegade Commander, I decided that the color of my Renegades and Heretics would be orange. I miss the old GW days, especially in Epic scale, when they'd have absolutely outrageous color schemes for the Imperial Guard, with the fluff justification that they might be fighting on planets covered in toxic industrial waste or whatever. In memory of this, my Renegades and Heretics are going to be orange and blue. I tried out the color scheme on a Sloppy Jalopy BMP-2, which I could field as a Renegades and Heretics Kirov-pattern Salamander recon tank, but really mostly for the sheer fun of painting a BMP orange. I love how it turned out!
I started doing Daedric lettering for my Renegade Armigers, and I really enjoy it: it's actually surprisingly easy to get into, and I think the end result looks great.
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The best way to fight a tank (or rabbit-piloted AT-ST for that matter), though, is with an anti-tank weapon that's hard for the tank to destroy. One intriguing option in the Renegades and Heretics list is the Renegade Disciples elite choice: basically regular humans with a 3+ BS who cost 6 points apiece and come with a minimum squad size of 5. So that means a minimum-size squad with a lascannon is 50 points. I think I have to try this.
The great thing about Renegades and Heretics is that you can pretty much use any damn models you like. Last year, I published an article on Finnish army anti-tank guns before the Winter War, and built a Warlord Games Bofors 37mm gun to go with it. So I ordered a Finnish rifle squad from Warlord to make a minimum-size squad. Here they are!
For a second Disciples unit, I wanted to build some Chaos Squats. That's right: for those of you who didn't know, the beer-drinking, bike-riding mad mechanics of good old Warhammer 40,000 times also had their Chaos brethren. For models, I used Thundrik's Profiteers from Warhammer Underworlds, equipped with some Tau Fire Warrior rifles and a Victoria Miniatures lascannon. They're wearing Dark Red, and Brass and Copper armor with German Grey accessories and a Black Glaze wash. I'm very pleased with the result.
That's two elite choices; a third, with the Renegade Commander, would make a vanguard detachment. While I could pick a third anti-tank team, I'm actually more interested in trying something else. As a curiosity, Renegades and Heretics offers what I think is the only Chaos sniper unit in the whole game, in the form of Renegade Marauders. They're a fascinating unit anyway, with a special morale rule and your pick out of three buffs. The morale rule is that they don't take normal Morale tests at all, but if they've taken any casualties they roll a d6, and on a 1 the entire unit flees. You takes your chances! Of the three optional special rules, Stalker gives all enemy shooting a hit penalty and increases the Marauders' cover saves. They also have pretty decent base stats, and a minimum five-man squad with two sniper rifles clocks in at 34 points.
The models are built from Victoria Miniatures bits: Ranger torsos, universal bare rifle arms, Arcadian legs and sniper rifles, Anvil Kalashnikovs and Statuesque beret and veteran heads.
So overall, the disciples, marauders and commander make a 164-point vanguard detachment. This is definitely something I'm trying! Bringing the BMP bumps it up to 242 points:
Renegades and Heretics vanguard detachment (1 CP) - 242 points
HQ - Renegade Commander - 25 pts
+ shotgun (0), power maul (4) = 29 points
Elite - Renegade Disciple Squad (5) - 30 pts
+ lascannon (20) = 50 points [79]
Elite - Renegade Disciple Squad (5) - 30 pts
+ lascannon (20) = 50 points [129]
Elite - Renegade Marauder Squad (5) - 30 pts
+ sniper rifle × 2 (4) = 34 points [163]
Fast Attack - Salamander Scout Tank - 55 pts
+ autocannon (10), heavy bolter (8), hunter-killer missile (6) = 79 points [242]
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So I think this is the first painting project I've finished during our coronavirus quarantine! There will be more.
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