Editing Lost and the Damned (section)

==Fan Service or Lack Thereof==
Being one of the most popular ideas out there for IG conversions, many players have obviously taken to creating their own versions of the LatD codex. Unfortunately, none are really available, widespread or Gods forbid, current so we're presently stuck with this mediocre [[Warhammer Legends]] list. Clearly, fielding an army of renegade humans, mutants and whatever else is appealing to a surprising number of players and there have been recurring hopes of a true-to-form codex release. After all, there are [[Adeptus Arbites|entire]] [[Witchhunters|armies,]] [[Sisters of Battle|some with full-blown codexes,]] geared specifically to fighting renegades, heretics, mutants, the lost and the damned or whatever you wanna call this army. Games Workshop stoked these hopes through Blackstone Fortress' inclusion of traitor guard, beastmen, quasi-Dark Mechanicus types and Chaos Space Marines. Unfortunately, an actual release isn't known to be in the works for the Lost and the Damned or the Renegades and Heretics or whatever you want to call them. We could hope for an Astra Militarum supplement though some would prefer a codex; however, every loyal Astartes Chapter that deviates from the codex has received or will receive a codex supplement.

Regardless, there's a few things we fans of the Lost and the Damned would like to see in release:
*'''Diverse and Usable HQ:''' taking a look at the last three editions of the army, HQ selection hasn't been stellar. By far, the most useful is the Renegade Commander but that one's been hollowed out over successive releases. 7th edition had an interesting take, allowing for players to build a customized commander with a covenant that granted special rules and buffs to the army; naturally, this approach seems to have fallen out of favour with Games Workshop's design team in favour of crowding a list with a variety of HQ choices and, frankly, that sounds pretty cool too. Just shift Rogue Pysker covens to Elites like their loyalist counterparts and you have plenty of room for mutant commanders, hardened renegades, super psykers, heretic preachers or what have you! Along with that...
*'''Competitive Flavour:''' the army list has lost '''a lot''' of its uniqueness over the editions. Not only does the army lack unique stratagems, which are required now for competitive play, their psykers lack unique powers, our leaders have no warlord traits aside from their auras, we have no access to a specialized armoury or relics and they don't have what makes their loyalist counterpart so potent either: Orders.
**There is an opportunity here to really flex the creative muscles the design team to showcase a more radical Renegade force, one that shows off its history of patronage and allegiance from a host of current and former allies. For instance, being able to have a flexible army-wide master Keyword (Imperium, Chaos, Xenos, unaligned, etc.); from there, wargear options borrowed from codexes other than Imperial Guard would add a lot of flavour.
*'''Revised Unique Units:''' in addition to providing the army with a well-deserved injection of flavour unique units can be the difference between a boilerplate echo army or an interesting alternative. Presently, the army has access to marginally better Cultists than what other CSM armies get and a wide variety of mutants and renegades, which is what you would expect. A lot of these options are effectively toned-down and altered versions of what loyalist Guard get so there's room for improvement.
**One unit a lot of fans wouldn't mind seeing returning are [[beastmen]] distinct from generic mutants. They have been reintroduced steadily back into 40K with the [[Thousand Sons]] as well as non-Tzeentchian variants in Blackstone Fortress and a Necromunda mercenary. We could see a variety of beastman variants, like troops, elite variants, minotaurs, etc. - there's a lot of leeway here for creativity.