Editing Warhammer 40,000/8th Edition Tactics/Renegades And Heretics (section)

===Elites===
Elites are the hammer of R&H armies, with all of the elite choices quite killy. They will be making your plays while your troops soak up the hits. Taking a Renegade army of nothing but Vanguard detachments and Transports is a perfectly reasonable strategy.

* '''Renegade Command Squad:''' A squad for boosting the morale of nearby units, or reducing enemy morale. Their Banners provide bonuses to melee or reduce enemy morale, and the Command Vox-Caster allows all units with a vox-caster within 10 feet to use the command squad's leadership, if it's higher. Command squads are good for armies that contain lots of infantry hordes, or Disciple-heavy armies that don't want to take enforcers. Keeping them near the front lines is advisable, so that they can use their banners to full effect. Take a special and heavy weapon and keep them in a 4 man squad if you don't have a banner, so that you can put them away from danger and still keep using their good BS. Otherwise, give them a melta/flamer and get into close quarters, so that you can give the banner benefits to nearby hordes/enemy squads. Banner of the Apostate stacks well with Creeping Terror for 2-4 leadership reduction, making an enemy squad quite likely to fail morale, even on a bad Creeping Terror roll.
* '''Renegade Disciple Squad:''' 5-15 Veteran equivalents, with 3+ to shoot and hit in melee, and only a point per dude more expensive than cultists. Good for when you need accurate shooters and the best squads for taking Heavy weapons. Can be equipped with a single flamer for an assault team (no option to take shotguns) which combos well with covenant of Khorne or Tzeentch. Cultists can do the same job, but these guys do it slightly better; however, they are best reserved for good shooting squads. Can only take 1 special weapon, and 1 heavy weapon, so they lack the firepower of guard veterans, or the dakka of the militia, but can field up to 15 bodies to compensate, and have the option to be taken in 5-man squads instead of 10. They have Fanatic ''and'' a Vox-caster, meaning you roll 3 dice and choose the highest before adding 3, giving you solidly average leadership of 7.96, unlike the 7.47 of only having Fanatic.
* '''Renegade Enforcer:''' Stops your rabble from running away by beating 1-3 guys to death. They are pretty much Chaos Commissars before Commissars were nerfed. Keep in mind these are more grimdark than regular Commissars, they will kill 1d3 of your guys instead of even taking the morale check, so if you've got a morale check that you could actually pass, these guys are a hindrance rather than an asset, but with how bad your morale is that's a rare occurrence. They combo best with over-sized units, since taking 1-3 losses on 5 10-man squads is worse than 1-3 on 1 50-man squad. If you run hordes, you need a couple of these. They can also take a pistol or melee weapon. The pistol is the better choice, since if you take a melee weapon and charge into melee, the opponent gets to target the enforcer.
**Enforcers are one of the only three characters in your army, and unless you give a Malefic Lord Unnatural Vigor and your warlord Inspiring Leader, Enforcers are the only ones doing jack shit for buffing. Guard them as such.
**For five extra points and being moved from the HQ to Elites slot, you get a Renegade Commander that can't unlock Convents but has the morale aid. If you want a fighter character, get a Commander. Unlike a Commissar for the loyalists, this guy is not your cheap duelist.
* '''Renegade Marauder Squad:''' Squad of 5-10 marauders with 0-2 brutes; these can and probably will be the stars of your army. They are a good unit for precision strikes or long range attrition warfare. Small sniper teams or large assault teams are your best options. Marauders have a good stat line, with 3+ BS and WS, T3 S3, A2, and Ld7; their Chieftain has 2 wounds, Ld8, and can take a bolter or one item from the ranged weapon list and a melee weapon. To be clear, you get a rifle of some description (shotgun included) ''or'' you get a pistol and a melee weapon. Brutes get 3 wounds and Strength 4, as well as an extra attack, but are badly overcosted at 30 points per model, compared to 6 point marauders, and with the latest FAQ clarifying they only have stock CCWs, instead of the rest of the squad's guns and grenades, they aren't worth the space on the board they take up, let alone the point/PL cost. 2 models in the squad can take special weapons regardless of size, and the unit comes with 2 special rules: "Specialist" and "In it for the Money". The latter means that instead of rolling morale you roll a d6, on a 2+ the unit if fine. on a 1 the entire unit flees off the table; use a command re-roll if you fail this, because there isn't much else you would use re-rolls for unless you plan on using heroic morale. Makes the unit quite resilient to grievous casualties, but also makes them vulnerable to losing a few models since the roll is all or nothing - the number of models you expect lose to Morale is always 1/6 of the number you have alive, provided you took at least one casualty, no matter how many casualties you've taken beyond the first. Specialist gives them one of 3 Doctrines:
** ''Stalker:'' -1 to enemy shooting at the unit, and +1 to cover bonuses. Combos well with long ranged weapons like Plasma, Grenade Launcher and Sniper Rifles, and makes you the envy of Raven Guard, Alpha Legion, and Alaitoc, who only get this at 12" or more out.
***This is generally going to be your best choice, hands down - take a bolter, two shotguns, two plasma guns (though this is a lot less tempting since CA almost doubled their cost), and this specialty, and go out there and start winning firefights.
** ''Murder Cultists:'' Re-roll failed to-hit rolls in the fight phase. Okay, but the unit is Str 3, so it's wounding enemies that poses a problem. You can get re-rolls anyway with unnatural vigor (unreliably, and at the cost of d3 models), and if you really want to get stuck in melee, you should be going for the carapace save.
** ''Hereteks:'' Carapace armor and Krak grenades (so that you can have a second Krak grenade, for the lolz). A balanced choice that is particularly good for Armored fist units, or anyone who wants a reliable save. 
***Benefits your close combat and shooting units equally, but remember that power swords will straight-up deny your save, so watch out for them.
***Standard Marauders can't take Heavy Stubbers or power weapons like they could in last edition, which is sad since it makes the murder cult weak, and makes snipers their only long range option.
***Note that these guys are Chaos' ONLY source of actual sniper models. And with their Stalker rule, they are honestly quite good at it. A trio of 5 Man squads with 2 sniper rifles and a boltgun each is a touch under 200 points. Toss in a Renegade Commander to stay cheap or a Rogue Psyker Coven for some psychic support and you've got yourself an excellent backfield objective holder.
***These guys can make some fairly good Melta vets; give two a Melta, the champ a Chainsword/Brutal Assault Weapon and a Plasma pistol, and give three other guys shotguns. Take two squads like this and shove them in a Valkyrie. Have them Grav-chute next to anything short of a titan and it'll die, and you can drink the bountiful tears of you opponent.
* '''Renegade Ogryn Beast Handlers:''' 3-6 Hounds and an Ogryn Pack Master. The hounds reduce enemy morale by 1 if they deal unsaved wounds, and the Ogryn Pack Master is equipped with a Ripper claw (SUser AP-1 D1d3) and Mauler Goad (Suser AP0 D1, but an unsaved wound grants the Hounds +1 to hit rolls against the same unit for the turn). Can use combat stims to increase the number of attacks of the beastmaster infinitely (if you want to get that cheeky goad wound, or get wounds with the claw), but you risk killing him if you do so (see the Brutes section for more discussion of stims, but this unit can only have one Ogryn in it, so the risk is greater). Good for killing hordes, since they have a lot of attacks and affect morale. The entire unit is infantry, so they benefit from cover.
**Even with Covenant of Slaanesh this squad suffers from footslogging as it's not the quickest getting across the table with a base movement of 6".  That combined with a 5+ save, crap leadership and a max unit size of 7 means it's vulnerable to getting spammed out with dakka, which is a shame as it's quite killy for a sub-100 point choppy unit which really should be able to charge in and tie things up early on.  On the other hand it fits very nicely in a stolen Valkyrie which in addition to allowing you a reliable T1 charge can also drop Malefic Lords along the way via gravchute should you feel like summoning some daemons to back them up.
* '''Renegade Ogryn Brutes:''' 3-12 Ogryns, but without guns. Have Ogryn weapons, which are S+1 AP-1 D2, so with mark of Khorne they can tear T7 vehicles a new one, but their main use should be against characters - they aren't built for monster-hunting. They can take multiple wounds, and they deal multiple wounds with AP, and their reliable WS and number of attacks means they're likely to score several unsaved wounds; 3 wounds is all you need to bring most characters down. With a 3 man unit, you are getting 12 attacks on the charge, potentially at S7, so if you want to remove an SM Captain, or a pesky Primaris squad, this is the unit. Keep in mind this is relying on them hitting first, so don't go charging a howling banshee squad and expect to come out on top (though at proper numbers you should). 
**No longer cost obscene amounts of points this edition for an impressive squad.  Comparable to Chaos Spawn...   OH GOGDAMWWARGHRAGFAGRAHGYUGCGBGH ... anyways, the youknowhats are speedier and potentially more damaging with their mutations and D6 attacks, and Ogryns having more consistent power with their flat 3 attacks (4 on the charge, 5 with a 2+ on the stims roll, potential 7 on a 6) and S6 attacks before covenant bonuses.  Being {{W40Kkeyword|infantry}} is also a boon since they can take transports.  Cram 3 Ogryns and a Boss into a Chimera and you have a solid beatstick that's relatively fast and can scare multi-wound infantry and support characters off of objectives.
**They have the same Combat Stimms rules as the Packmaster above.
* '''Renegade Plague Ogryns:''' As 3-9 Ogryns above, but they only have a Covenant of Nurgle for saves, their weapon is SUser AP-1 D1d3, and they explode on death, dealing a mortal wound to any squad that does not have the {{W40Kkeyword|nurgle}} keyword within 3" on a 4+. They are interesting, and even better for killing characters, but the lack of a save versus anything Str 5 or better, and a bad save against everything else, is worrying. Coupled with their explosive death, they are a serious tactical liability, unless you can keep your minions the fuck away from these things.  On the plus side, they always have the Covenant of Nurgle, so your vanguard detachment can use the HQ slot for something useful rather than the commander tax. This also means that they have a Covenant even when you have a non-R&H Warlord.
**Put four of these guys in a Valkyrie and throw 'em out with Grav-chutes. Congratulations, you now have Ogryns that explode in the enemies ranks on turn one.