Warhammer 40K: 9th’s New Armies of Renown – Do They Matter?
Adam here to talk about those new Detachments from The Book of rust and see if any have what it takes to upend the game.
The new Charadon campaign book is out and with it some new rules. This week we have a new set of rules for matched play. Games Workshop has decided to bring back formations, in a way, with their Armies of Renown. For those not familiar, these are armies that follow a specific way to build an army and are given their own bonuses for the army. It is usually very restrictive in what units you can take and is similar to what Tier lists in Warmachine, if you are familiar.
This is the first instance of building an army this way for 9th Edition and I know people are having flashbacks to the seventh edition formations, but I’m not sure if it is the same. If you build one of these Armies of Renown they gain that army’s keyword, relics, warlords traits, and stratagems. That being said, let’s look at a few of the Armies of Renown and see how they may function in the current edition of the game.
Mechanicus Defence Cohort
This Adeptus Mechanicus army must all be from the same <forgeworld> and also have no Skitarii units. The Kataphron units, servitors and Kastellans get the Extremis Sentinal Protocals. These protocols allow the units to reduce incoming damage by one, to a minimum of one. The units can hold steady or set to defend, even if not in the appropriate terrain, from what I can see. They even get to overwatch and hit on fives or adds one to their hit roll in melee.
These seem really useful, especially the ability to hit with a 5+ on overwatch. Reducing damage will also help your unit survive better. The warlord trait is okay and the relic is fine but not blowing my mind. The stratagems seem fine, not underwhelming but not overpowering. In terms of affecting the game, I’m not sure if it is worth taking, unless you like these particular units. With people playing in tournaments again hopefully, people will play this so we can see how it works in the wild.
Freeblade Lance
If you like knights then this Army of Renown is for you. It’s all Freeblade knights. You also can’t take the same burdens and qualities for each knight. With this list you get a Legendary Knight. You get a better leadership but more importantly, you get 2 qualities to one burden. To me, this doesn’t seem very good. Better leadership for one model is fine but in this edition not really that big of a deal. The extra quality is also just okay. I can’t see it being really helpful.
The warlord trait can be good if you build towards a certain house and I don’t really see a reason to take the relic reaper chainsword. The stratagems are somewhat useful with maybe the one giving an extra relic the most useful. I can’t really see myself taking this army. I think that just playing a regular house is better than playing a list that is all Freeblades. Now if your army fluff is one where it is made up of all Freeblades, then you may as well play this army list and get some benefit for your army as it is still better than nothing.
“I got a new army and your codex still sucks!”
Terminus Est Assault Force
Well, I guess Death Guard didn’t get enough rules so here are some more. This Army of Renown is basically an all infantry army as no vehicles are allowed. That means no Plagueburst Crawlers. If you include Typhus then he has to be your warlord and Mortarion is not allowed whether you have Typhus in your army or not. This army actually gets a lot more than many of the other ones, They get multiple relics, their own psychic discipline, Fester, and a better strategic reserve rule, at a higher cost though. Speaking of strategic reserve, this version allows the unit to come in anywhere on the board, not just off the edges. This is pretty good considering the army can now essentially deep strike. The cost may be a bit much so if you put too many units in strategic reserve you will have very few command points to play with.
The ability to replenish poxwalkers and being able to shoot into combat seem to be the better stratagems and ones that will probably be in use constantly. The Fester discipline is good in that some spells can impede movement and also reduce the effectiveness of weapons. Combine that with some of the relics and this Army of Renown is actually pretty good. I can see this army doing well in a tournament, even winning an RTT or placing high in a GT. I may have to build this army and give it a whirl.
~That’s all for this week. I hope you enjoyed the article. Let me know what you think, and what army of renown list you like, in the comments section below.
