'Fixing' Penal Legion

[Atrotos]

Do you, as I do, own a bunch of awesome Last Chancers models you wish you could still use? Ever think to yourself 'Man the IG dex is great but I sure wish there were more than 2 Troop choices?'

Me too. That's why I'm fixing it.


Penal Legion

Points: 50

Penal Legionnaire

WS: 3 BS: 3 S: 3 T:3 W:1 I:3 A: 2 Ld: 7 Sv: 5+

Unit: 5 Penal Legionnaires

Unit Type: Infantry

Wargear:

- Penal Uniform with Flak Padding
- Lasgun

Special Rules:

Emperor's Pardon: Troopers in the process of being rehabilitated crave above all else the Emperor's Pardon and the Freedom it signifies. They are Fearless in their desperation.

Behind Enemy Lines: The pseudo-suicidal nature of the Penal Legion's mission has brought them closer to the enemy lines than they ever would have liked they have the 'Scouts' USR.

Wetwork: A Penal Legion Unit may be split up into a maximum of four kill teams. Each kill team can have a few as one member and each is deployed and acts separately.

More Where That Came From: For each Kill Team lost during a Killpoints game roll a D6. On a 4+ they do not concede a killpoint. On a 6 they grant a killpoint to the owning player.

Options:

---Up to 15 more Penal Legionnaires may be taken at +10 points per model.

--- Any Legionnaire may be upgraded to a Repeat Offender for +2 pts a model. A Repeat Offender has a Ballistic Skill of 4. A Repeat Offender's nefarious skills gives them access to the following:

>Flamer...................+10 points each
>Meltagun................+15 points each
>Plasmagun..............+15 points each
>Carapace Armor.......+ 1 point per model
>Power Weapon........+ 10 points each
>Power Fist..............+ 15 points each
>Plasma Pistol...........+ 10 points each

---One Repeat Offender may take a Demolition Charge for + 15 points

---One Penal Legionnaire in each unit may be upgraded to a Quiet Type for + 25 points. Quiet Types have WS 4 and replace their Attacks characteristic with 2D6.

---One Penal Legionnaire in each unit may be upgraded to a Loner for + 40 points. Loners must always be deployed in Kill Teams of 1. They are armed with a Sniper Rifle, have BS 4 and ignore all targeting restrictions when targeting models with the Independent Character special rule.

---One Penal Legionaire in each unit may be upgraded to a Musclehead for+ 25 points. Muscleheads have Strength 4 and the Relentless Special Rule. They may be armed with the following:

>Heavy Stubber.............free
>Heavy Bolter..............+ 5 points
>Autocannon...............+ 15 points

---One Penal Legionaire in each unit may be upgraded to a Hero for + 50 points. Heroes are equipped with a Demolition Charge but may not use it in the shooting phase. Instead, in the assault phase, the owning player may choose to detonate the Hero's Demolition Charge placing the large blast with its center over the Hero's model. All models under the blast including the Hero take a Str. 8 AP 2 at initiative 6.

---One Penal Legionaire in each unit may be upgraded to a Doc for + 50 points. All models in the unit have the Feel No Pain special rule while the Doc is alive.

[Lord Azaghul]

Do you, as I do, own a bunch of awesome Last Chancers models you wish you could still use? Ever think to yourself 'Man the IG dex is great but I sure wish there were more than 2 Troop choices?'

.

Um we do have 3 choices. Platoon, vet, penal legion.

I apperiacte your creativity, but penal legion aren't broken and don't need fixing. 80pts for a ten man squad, with scout and NO bad random ability...they are fantastic.

[Atrotos]

While it remains inexplicable to me your response does not come as a complete surprise. There is one player I know that uses Penal Legion in every game he plays. Sadly they've never done anything that would remotely endear them to me. And how could they? What is their role? They have no options so they can't specialize. Scouts and Stubborn are great but you could give a much more worthwhile unit Scout by sticking it in a Valk or having Creed yell at them and anybody is Stubborn with a Commissar. What are they scouting for? Their extra random skills are less than useless. Nobody is quaking in their boots at Assault 2 lasguns. Nobody cares if they get Furious Charge because a) they're far more likely to be charged given that they have no transport and b) they only get a paltry 21 attacks on the charge anyway (assuming every single one of them survived that long with their 5+ save). Oh and Rending? Who are they ever going to actually swing against with their I3 with enough attacks that will allow you roll any number of sixes worth having? I just can't see how you would call this unit "fantastic" when they're seemingly a rules writing failure of Chaos Spawn proportions. 80 points for ten men you say but I can't see how they would ever get even those few points back. A liability in Killpoint missions and so much less survivable than everything else in objective games. Outclassed by regular Platoons in every way.

This is what my Introduction to the essay "How the Current Penal Legion Fail" would look like.

*Sigh* Everybody gets an opinion. If you have a moment please comment on the actual content of the rules. Criticism from someone who doesn't even think the changes are necessary would be doubly welcome.

[Lord Azaghul]

I never expect great things from them. I exect them to show up, draw the oppoenent away form my line and die!

It’s the ‘scout’ without a transport that I really and have found very useful as ‘part of the whole’ or my army – espeically for the price. Where youre vets can’t get without the transport.

Your right they will not win games, they can’t even take granades. But you get to roll for the ability before you decided what to do with them. I almost always outflank, they often show up supported by my sentinals, to either grab a late game objective or to harass my opponents with assult 2 or rending or S4 I4 attacks! I call that useful.

I just don’t think the unit is a fail.

Your rules: nothing against them but that pretty much turn them into expensive vets. I think they would end up being a redudant unit in the army.

[Atrotos]

I suspect your posts have more to do with championing a sub-par codex entry than actual rules critique. You're obviously what I call an "Ant Hill" IG player - the success of the whole will never depend on the action of the individual thus the pressure you place on each unit to perform effectively is marginalized. This style of play is unattractive to me but may work well for you and I wish you well in using it.

Still I take game design seriously and if I could encroach just a little more on your time I would ask you to expand on the final point you made about the "redundancy" of the Penal Legion as I have envisioned them.

[Lord Anubis]

Actually, his critique is dead on, despite your snide rejection of it.

All you've done is create an overpriced, overcomplicated veterans squad. They are redundant because anyone could accomplish the same thing for fewer points by just buying a vet squad and saying "I call these guys the 'Repeat Offenders."

Penal Legion squads are fine (and useful) as they are.

[Atrotos]

@Lord Anubis: I don't think I rejected his criticism at all. I'm pretty sure I invited him to expand on it. Since he seems unable or unwilling let's talk about your critique instead shall we?

"Overpriced, overcomplicated veterans squad"

I can't deny that there is a lot of common ground shared between the rules I've written here and those of the Veterans in the codex. Certainly they could be used to fulfill the same battlefield objectives but I would argue that these rules do, in fact, fill one of the few gaps in the new codex - that of unit personalization.

Saying that there is no significant difference between these rules and those of the veterans is like saying there is no difference between a Tactical squad and a pack of Grey Hunters. Yes their roles overlap (most units in the game have overlapping roles) but the approach is different. Do you believe that if my version of the Penal Legion existed in the codex no one would ever use them because the cheaper veterans are available? Why not go the extra step and say that Veterans are redundant because they are "overpriced, overcomplicated" Platoon squads?

We know that there is a place for both veterans and highly-customizable Penal Legion because both were around in the last codex and both were reasonably popular. The Last Chancer were far more expensive and complicated than the rules I've provided here.

Believe it or not there are IG players that yearn for a breath of creativity in their lists. This "Chimeltavets" phase is a terrible thing and its a product of there being very little in the way of effective customization for core unit choices. Yes Veterans are a great choice but if we want to see new strategies and tactics emerge we have to provide players with different means of achieving them. This is exemplified well in the Fast Attack and Heavy Support parts of the codex where several very effective choices give players many different strategic choices. I believe this gap could have been filled with a page long list of Doctrine choices for veterans but chose instead to create rules for Penal Legionnaires because they had existed in the Last Codex and because the current ones are terrible.

I addressed just some of the issues the current Penal Legion face in one of my above posts. I believe this is what you were referring to when you called me snide but my bitterness was not directed to anyone on the forum but rather to GW's tendency for "afterthought" units whose potential is not realized because of poor rules writing.

[Melissia]

Once again, I also throw my support behind Penal Legion troopers. They are worth every point that you pay for them, and the rules you provide are kinda questionable... and furthermore, some of your options for them are quite damned unfluffy thank you very much. Power weapons, power fists, plasma pistols? Uh, no. No. And no. Even commissars attached to penal legions will not often have those (the assignment is a punishment, after all).

[Atrotos]

Once again, I also throw my support behind Penal Legion troopers. They are worth every point that you pay for them, and the rules you provide are kinda questionable... and furthermore, some of your options for them are quite damned unfluffy thank you very much. Power weapons, power fists, plasma pistols? Uh, no. No. And no. Even commissars attached to penal legions will not often have those (the assignment is a punishment, after all).

They aren't given the equipment they steal it. That's why its their "nefarious skills" that grants them access and why they're 'Repeat Offenders'. Last Codex they had access to the whole armory. In the books the Last Chancers have all this equipment and more. With that in mind, how are these rules unfluffy?

And can someone please explain to me, with a sentence that does not begin with "they will not win games," how the current Penal Legion are everything you yearn for in a Troops choice?

[Melissia]

Seraphim don't win games either. But they are crucial to the strategy of many Sisters armies. The same could be said for a great number of units in 40K. A unit does not have to be tied directly into winning the game to be useful and in some cases vital.

[B_Steele]

This does not happen very often, but I am with Melissia here. The Penal Legion is supposed to be a low-key assistance unit, not the kind of thing that your opponent goes "Holy crap! Penal Legions!".

The reason why the Last Chancers were so cool was because they were SPECIAL. Not all Penal squads should be even remotely as cool as these guys.

[Melissia]

Right... it's like claiming that all Commissars should be like Cain, or all Marines should be like Calgar.

[Atrotos]

Lol, so if I change the name of the rules to 'Last Chancers' then can I get some feedback on the rules themselves? So far I have "overpriced and redundant" with no supporting evidence and Melissia's "they can't be given stuff."

@Melissia: Your comparison with Seraphim is a good one and I think it goes a long way to helping me understand how the unit could be used in a vacuum. However, it just doesn't hold up to comparison with the other Troop choices in the guard dex. Platoons and veterans can be purpose-built and through the use of upgrade characters and transports can easily outperformed the Penal Legion. I just can't justify using them over anything else. Well maybe Storm Troopers : ).

[Chumbalaya]

It's a neat concept, but I feel it's a bit overly complex.

I'd make the Penal Legion an Elites choice, since IG has plenty of those slots open and they don't seem to be the objective holding type. Simply make it a unit of 5-20 with the option for kill teams of 1 for every 5 men. Throw out a few weapons options and keep the squad upgrades, just make them 0-2 per squad or something and don't bother with stat buffs (only they get weapon options). As for USRs, Scouts maybe and give them a Commissar option. Not giving up KPs would be a big help too.

Then, throw in Colonel Schaffer as a CCS upgrade and you can take them as Troops but they give up KPs.

[Atrotos]

I get what you're saying with about the complexity but what I'm afraid of is that if I get rid of all the special rules then the unit will have no character and no real distinction from the other choices in the codex. Is there no way to make the unit function differently from Vets without the level of complexity I've got right now? I honestly felt these rules didn't explore the full potential of the unit (fluff-wise) and was planning to add more characters (including your suggested Commisar and Schaeffer - the Elites to Troops function is a great idea).

Don't the Space Wolves' options prove that a unit can have a lot of options without being overly complex?