Disciples vs Marauders

[Kinstryfe]

How do you all differentiate them? I can't find any particular guidelines. They both just seem to be guys with guns on small bases. Is there protocol for the models? Right now I'm planning on just using my normal converted guard for both. Is that ok, or should I get moving on converting those 4 AoS starter sets into marauders? Is it ok to use similar models if I can make it obvious which is which?

[Akrim]

There is no official models, and their stats are similar. As long as the weapons are what theyre supposed to be and you know whos who, fill your boots.

[Karinon]

I'm giving my marauders scion helmets and my disciples chaos warrior helmets with the horns removed.

 

So what are people giving their Marauders and Disciples then?

 

I'm building a bunch of 5 man Marauder squads with 2x Sniper rifles, five squads is only 160pts for 10x sniper shots a turn. Not sure if building a couple of squads with Plasma and sticking them in a Valkyrie is a good idea or not.

 

With Disciples having BS 3+ I'm giving them all Lascannons because even our vehicles are only BS 4+ so it's wasting the good BS not to give them a heavy weapon. The obvious special is Plasma as Grenades are poor and a flamer is wasting the BS again.

Edited July 14, 2017 by Karinon

[Blackheart1223]

My army is composed primarily from Skaven models so my marauders are just humans.

[Kinstryfe]

I have a far too large guard infantry army, so right now they're mostly Cadians with the pig iron productions gasmask heads of most types. Nobody, purposely, has an exposed face. So I could field a ton of whatever as them. I am working on converting the Blood... Whatevertheyare the human barbarians from the AoS starter set into Marauders with either pistols and ccw, or shotguns (a horrid conversion but there you go). So far I have 2 6-man teams of shotguns with 2 meltas, and a 10 man squad with two flamers and laspistols. I have 80 (flgs had the starter for $35 last black Friday so I bought 4...) so they can probably fill out all my Marauders needs while my guardsmen act as disciples. That way if I ever actually play a game, there will be no question to my opponent.

Additionally, I plan on using at least two units of 20 poxwalkers for meat shields, and they are a split of poxwalkers and cultist models from Dark Vengeance. Painted in identical ways, they mix up pretty ok looking with cultists as less mutated but still sickly looking, and let's me only have a few duped models per squad, and use models of literally not assembled before.

 

Edit: to cover some of the rest, I have about a half dozen priest models converted or painted as khorne priests to use as malefic lords (were priests if using imperial rules). I for some reason have 4 ork trucks all converted up and crazy looking I think I'm going to use as chimeras for the Marauders, while disciples would get regular chimeras. Mutants are mostly old gw "mutant kit" mutants, many with added ghoul heads (giant body tiny head looks good to me on mutants). I also have 4 old "big mutant" conversions to use as either spawn or ogryns if I decide to ever field them.

I also decided to see if I had any daemons lying around to add. Khorne, I scrounged up almost 60 bloodletters, 10 chaos hounds I'm painting as flesh hounds, 10 old whfb 5th era flesh hounds, an unassembled daemon Prince kit, a metal bloodthirser, and 4 old converted metal bloodcrushers and several more chariots and juggernauts. So I basically found an army in my bitz box, but I can't stand painting most of the metal models, so the plastics are getting painted now for a good extra thousand points or so. I may have a slight plastic addiction...

Edited July 16, 2017 by Kinstryfe

[GreaterChickenofTzeentch]

One of my Renegade armies represents House Malinax Men at Arms, so my Heretek Marauders are a combo of Skitarii Vanguard/Rangers, Wargames Factory Shock Troop, and Cadian bits.

 

The Mutants from that army are a combination of Servitor bits (including Kataphrons), Catachans, and some of the unarmored gunners/loaders from certain old Guard vehicle kits, plus Anvil Industry Regiments bionic arms and legs.

 

My Stalker Marauders and my Disciples work for my Fallen. They are a combo of Cadian, Catachan, and Wargames Factory Shock Troop bits.

 

For Psyker Covens, I'll use spare Kairic Adepts from Silver Tower. Malefic Lords will be Cadian Officers with some occulty bits glued on and Puppetswar flaming skull heads.

[totgeboren]

As I understood it, Marauders are supposed to represent elite mercenaries or different kinds, units not really fully part of the main army. Note that they do not have the Uncertain Worth rule, and as such are not really cultists. 

Disciples are instead the most elite cultist veterans.

 

So I would model mine with that in mind, not having the Marauders in the exact same style/colors as the main army (mine are in a sort of mutant-mad-max style, with the main army being more in the style of the GW cultists).

[Karinon]

Disciple lascannon squads, keep them cheap at 5 or pad wounds with 10/15?

 

Worth giving them a plasma as well at 5 strong or just bigger squads?

[Kinstryfe]

I'm building all of mine as 10 strong with a heavy and special weapon, but I think it depends on what you have in mind for the unit. Line holding units, I imagine bigger is better. If you're using it to snipe with the lascannon, just 5 models may be ok. So far I've built two squads of las/plas since mine will be lineholders (if they ever see a table). Hopefully someone who gets in more game time will have some more practiced advice :)

[Karinon]

Yeah, I'm building them 10 strong to give me the option to run them small or large.

[Syrakul]

Im building my Disciples as IG with converted autoguns and scion helmets, planning on two squads of 15 with plasma/autocannon, along with a Commander with Tzeentch Covenant, comes to around 250... Toss some Sigils in so along with their Fanatics rule they will be hard to shift (High LD, easier morale checks)

 

And running 2 squads of 5 Stalker Marauders with 2 snipers rifles, and 2 squads of 5 Hereteks with PP, 2 Plasmaguns in a chimera. With a malefic lord it can come in under 550 points in one vanguard detachment.

[Trystram]

While I'm pretty disappointed at the current state of R&H I do have a huge renegades army so I decided to start putting together a list with what seems to be the most viable units which I can make use of.

 

Here's 1500 points pure R&H list based around Marauders:

 

Outrider Detachment

 

HQ Renegade Commander - Covenant of Tzeentch + Bolt Pistol + Power Axe

3X1 Unit of Chaos Spawn

1X3 Earthskaker Batteries

 

Vanguard Detachment Alpha

HQ Malefic Lord

6X Marauder Squads - Chief + Boltgun + 2 Plasma Guns + 2 Lasguns + Stalkers

 

Vanguard Detachment Beta

HQ Malefic Lord

6X Marauder Squads - Chief + Boltgun + 2 Sniper Rifles + 2 Lasguns + Stalkers

 

Vanguard Detachment Beta

HQ Malefic Lord

6X Marauder Squads - Chief + Bolt Pistol + 2 Flamers+ 7 Shotguns + Hereteks

 

Fortifications

Aegis Defence Line

 

 

I know its spammy but it is a lot of soldiers on the ground and seems pretty fluffy for a bootslogging/low mech elite traitor guard army. The other issue is that I will only have 4 CP :(

 

I will be relying on the earthshakers and plasma to deal with vehicles/heavies/mc which could be a problem. But everyone has krak grenades also so that might help a bit.

 

Artillery and snipers will stay behind the aegis. Plasma marauders will head for objectives and try to hold mid-table and deal with heavies. I kept these guys with stalkers as I figured they'd be static units in cover mostly. I have the shotgun/flamer marauders extra men and hereteks for the +4 save as they will be pushing forward into the enemies face. I toyed with the idea of giving them melee weapons but I figured with S3 it will be tough to wound so more hits doesn't help that much. The chaos spawn are distractions charging up the middle to try and draw fire away from the squishy humies.

 

Thoughts?

[Akrim]

Its not bad but it might be wise to get a more mobile element in. A Valkyrie (if you have) is a decent option as you could get those flamer Marauders on board, drop them in close.

[Trystram]

Yes, mobility is a problem. With the previous lists I just went with a static artillery gunline, troops for bubble wrap and loads of Chaos spawn. But that's not really possible now :( 

[Akrim]

Yes, mobility is a problem. With the previous lists I just went with a static artillery gunline, troops for bubble wrap and loads of Chaos spawn. But that's not really possible now :(

 

? How come

[Trystram]

Well in the old lists Chaos Spawn were 55 points for a unit of 3! Now they are 33 points for 1 :(

[Nurgleprobe]

My army is composed primarily from Skaven models so my marauders are just humans.

Oh god, I love that idea! *taking notes* any hints on how to do it? Pictures?  

This just got me super excited about starting my heretics haha.

 

 

Also, for anyone: Why are the Heretics so much worse in this edition? Not really sure what they changed with em, and I'm mostly in for the ride becuase of flavor. 

Edited August 11, 2017 by Nurgleprobe

[Akrim]

I dont think theyre bad, theyve just changed.

 

In the previous edition we had recycling units (the Unending Host detachment), cheaper artillery and spawn as mentioned. We lost Demagogue (warlord) devotions. Our Militia became BS5.

 

But that said we also made good gains, previously poor units became good like Ogryn, Psyker Covens, Marauders.

 

We will get a new book at some point, hopefully all issues corrected.

[Trystram]

The loss of Demagogue devotions is a huge hit to flavour for me. And it also annoys me that we were hit with uncertain worth with no real compensation balance wise. And no equivalent to orders for AM. So basically in may ways R&H are inferior to guard, with no points balance to compensate. In previous lists we got cheaper units and the way barrage/blast weapon worked in 7th meant that we could mitigate the reduced BS.

Edited August 11, 2017 by Trystram

[Lord Asvaldir]

Yeah completely agree the loss of devotions is the real issue. The old R&H list had wonky pts costs and typos all over the place but at least it was a distinct list from normal guard that was fun to play and unique. Now all we have is super sub par guard units like our standard militia and disciples which are absolutely terrible compared to the guard equivalents, plus the option to take normal AM vehicles. Really not a fun list at all, only use I see for R&H is for cheap psykers/artillery to support a csm force.

[Syrakul]

Well with Cultists in the Chaos Dex going down to 4 points and the way the current R&H errata is still missing syntax errors it I still have hope for version 1.1 to finish some still glaring problems and to finally address some points costs.

Drop cultists to 4 (as per Chaos dex) militia/mutant rabble to 3 (to compensate vs stats and position between cultists/AM conscripts) If possible, disciples down to 5 compared to veterans (6) to compensate for lack of orders/special weapons (and more in line with FW Death Korps at 5)

Marauders should stay at 6 or even bump to 7 for their special rule (but fix the freaking brutes!)

[JackAr34]

I've rarely found any reason to take Disciples over Marauders in my games except in small heavy weapon squads. A Disciple Command Squad with a lascannon is cheaper than a Scout Sentinel with lascannon and has better BS. I can't see a good use for the banners and the Command Vox Nets only really help militia squads, which are our worst unit in so many ways.

 

Comparably, Marauders can bring a 5 man unit with three plasma weapons for a very low cost, have better defenses from their specialist rules, and have a comparable morale mechanic. Just don't use Brutes, bring another minimum squad of Marauders instead for each brute you would want.

[Syrakul]

I've rarely found any reason to take Disciples over Marauders in my games except in small heavy weapon squads. A Disciple Command Squad with a lascannon is cheaper than a Scout Sentinel with lascannon and has better BS. I can't see a good use for the banners and the Command Vox Nets only really help militia squads, which are our worst unit in so many ways.

 

Comparably, Marauders can bring a 5 man unit with three plasma weapons for a very low cost, have better defenses from their specialist rules, and have a comparable morale mechanic. Just don't use Brutes, bring another minimum squad of Marauders instead for each brute you would want.

Ive built up some Disciples because they are sort of a cross of a IG squad and Veterans. they get the BS/WS 3 but have the equipment options of IG... I admit that Marauders with their bonus upgrade, +1 attacks, and unique LD outclass them at the same points, but the BS3+ Heavy weapon and usually great LD are heads above the lousy 4pt militia I used to run.

50 points for a 5 wound lascannon at BS3+? Or take 3 milita lascannons for a 6 wound squad for 69 points that loses effectiveness as soon as it takes fire, then likely flees right after? 5 man Disciples win IMO

[Akrim]

I actually really like 10 Disciples - Lascan/Plas. Plasma is swell but a couple BS3 Lascannons can be key to bringing down tanks and monsters. Nice to bunker them down on objectives in your zone too.

 

Theoretically speaking as I havent run Marauders yet, but they seem like a more aggressive option in contrast - melta or plasma heavy. But they must have a delivery system like a Valk or Chimera. Otherwise they will get shot up quick.

[Perigrin]

Disciples and Marauders are different units that both have a niche in an army, speaking as someone who has both and regularly uses a mixture of both. The Disciples can form a heavy weapon team, which is always very nice, and take one special weapon, and get access to the Chaos Covenant buff from your Renegade commander, but they cannot take Carapace Armour or Camo-Cloaks to boost survivability like the Marauders can. The Marauders, on the other hand, lose the Covenant buff and the ability to form a heavy weapons team, but have access to the specialist rule which, as the Murder Cult is pretty weak at the moment, lets you get either Carapace Armour or Camo Cloaks for the whole unit for free, and you can take an additional special weapon, and you can swap the Autoguns/Lasguns on the rank and file for a Brutal Assault Weapon and Laspistol, which makes these guys not too shabby in CC, as they have a 3+ Weapon Skill and 3 attacks each with BAW, which, even though it is S3 AP 0, is still some serious anti infantry CC murder. All in all, the Disciples are great objective holders and are great platforms for Lascannons, Missile Launchers, and Autocannons with the boosted accuracy over Milita, Heavy Weapon Teams, and Sentinels, but make poor line troops, while the Marauders are great generalists with a decent variety of weapon options and ways to use them, but cannot take heavy weapons. They both have great uses in an army, and do not occupy the same battlefield role while costing the same points in the same slot. With how cheap our HQs are, I usually just take a Vanguard detachment of each, usually 3 disciple squads and 5 marauder squads. Elites really are the strong point of this list. Edited August 20, 2017 by Perigrin