Renegade Marauder Squad
Renegade Marauders are troops of the Lost and the Damned. Consisting of Pirates, mercenaries, and other raiders abound in sectors that have fallen to Chaos and rejected the Imperial Cult, many renegade leaders are willing to pay exorbitant fees to coerce these masterless rogues into their forces. They are considered as the 'elites' of the renegades and are much more skilled in combat than your average Cultist.
As such, they are offered 'better' equipment than your typical bed-wetting traitor, and are rich enough to wear a mixture of Flak or/and Carapace Armour, whilst carrying around Meltaguns, Sniper Rifles, Plasma Guns, Plasma Pistols, Power Fists or a Power Sword.
Tl;dr, the ultra heretical version of a Stormtrooper.
Tabletop[edit | edit source]
7ed:
The base points of a Marauder Squad is relatively decent, considering they have WS4 I4 A2 for base stats, and the leader comes with a second wound, but to add more models to the squad, you’re paying 10 points per model, and if you want to add up to 2 Brutes (stats of an Ork Nob with +1W and Rending), you’re talking a whopping 30 points per model. As they’re “In it For the Money” the unit is unable to regroup for any reason after failing a morale test, which means once they fail a LD8 test, they’re effectively gone from the game. The upside is that they get one of 3 special traits for free, either Stalkers (outflank, stealth, move through cover), Murder Cultists (furious charge and crusader), or Hereteks (4+ armour save and krak grenades).
The only way you could make this unit work is by keeping them cheap, taking 2 meltaguns and having them outflank in a Chimera or Arvus.
8ed update:
These guys are how Chaos get Sniper weapons in play to stop Commissars from babysitting Conscript blobs. If the Loyalists and Aeldari in your metagame aren't bringing Scouts or Rangers, you might just need to put some scopes on some Cultist's Autoguns and get your hands dirty.
So, 34pts gets you five guys with two Sniper Rifles that hit on 3+, who'll generally be harder to shoot out of cover than Chaos Space Marines due to enemies being at -1 to hit - and usually require your opponent to wipe them out to neutralise their threat. Sadly, their points-to-power conversion is extremely inefficient, probably on account of being costed up on the assumption they've got a powerfist, plasma pistol, and two meltaguns. Which, to be fair, may well be a handy loadout for a dedicated Renegades & Heretics list. Their "In it for the money" rule was made even worse, effectively reducing their Ld tests to 1D6 but if you roll a 1, the unit is removed from play.
9ed:
Okay, that's better. Now Marauders have ALL the special traits at once, updated for 9th edition. Yeah that's right, they get bonus attacks in combat, a 4+ armour save and krak grenades and +2 to their cover saves. Oh, and they get access to the chaos covenant granting them +1 S in combat - and they don't have "in it for the money" anymore! Oh and those brutes? Now they're only 14 pts. and 1PL each for a max of 2 and have 3 attacks/wounds with S5 AP-1 close combat weapons.
They still have access to sniper rifles, which you can take, but they're also now a much more viable close assault unit. They're now more aggressive Guard Veterans, and that's kinda awesome.