Frequently Asked Questions

We want a system that is easy to learn, easy to teach, and consistent enough that you can step away and come back years later to find that very little — if anything — has changed.

Towards the end of 8th edition Warhammer 40,000 there was serious stratagem bloat. That carried over into 9th edition in a different format. 10th promised to simplify things, but what we got instead was Detachment bloat — which multiplies the permutations of every army.

Considering the number of factions in the game, players are effectively expected to be aware of well over a hundred variations of opponents. Renegade Brigade gives everyone the same three stratagems, and armies have minimal variations — things like Dynasties, Kulturs, and Hive Fleets that are core to the identity of those factions, not bolted-on complexity.

No. It simply caters to a different type of player. The official game has shifted heavily towards tournament play. Narrative and casual play are still supported, but they don't shape the rules or the datasheets the way competitive play does.

Tournament players are highly skilled — they stay on top of every Dataslate change, follow the meta closely, and put in real work. We are simply shining a different spotlight: a different way to enjoy the hobby, with a consistent context that doesn't require constant upkeep.

Games Workshop has never forbidden anyone from playing older editions, and this is essentially 8th edition Warhammer 40,000 at the index level — just as it was in June 2017.

The difference is that we now have a shiny new app to help you build armies, and we are adding datasheets for models and armies that didn't exist in 2017. Want to play with Captain Titus and his retinue? We have a datasheet. The Twin Lance for T'au? It's there. The new Maelstrom armies? Of course. Leagues of Votann? Yes. And we will keep adding new units as they are released.

As long as you can use your models to represent something from 8th edition, it is completely fine. There are edge cases — the old Chaos Robot models from Space Crusade, for instance — that will need a conversation between players. But that's always been true.

More importantly, we think it is a shame when lovingly painted models get sent to Legends or quietly dropped from the game. Here, you can buy what you want, paint it, invest hours into it — and you will be able to use it. Forever.

There have been three notorious hard resets in the way Warhammer 40,000's rules worked. The first was the transition from Rogue Trader into 2nd Edition. Then 2nd into 3rd. Then 7th into 8th.

Rogue Trader relied on a "Dungeon Master" figure to keep the game balanced. 2nd Edition had massive power imbalances that made competitive play a lottery. 3rd Edition promised faster, cleaner rules but was hardly balanced at release, and suffered from very patchy faction support — Necrons and T'au were released towards the end and felt underwhelming. 4th and 5th saw some of the worst codex creep the game has ever seen, with certain factions enduring multiple editions without an update while others got two codexes in the same cycle. 7th Edition became the most widely disliked release so far, with certain factions dominating so completely that players began dropping out of the hobby altogether.

So 8th is not perfect — there is plenty of room for improvement. But we believe it was the cleanest, most balanced reset the game has seen, and one that still feels familiar to players from virtually every era of the hobby. We are not here to fix it. We are simply adding to it.

We strictly use the values found in the 8th edition Indexes for any unit that existed at that time. Weapon loadout variations that came with newer models — such as the Necron Warrior with Gauss Reaper — are added as New entries and are subject to revision.

We have no interest in releasing a dataslate every few weeks. We will listen to community feedback and issue points revisions every six months. Once a unit has gone through three revisions without controversy, it becomes canon and will not be adjusted further.

No. Renegade Brigade allows one detachment per army, period. This is not a rules change — it is a list-building constraint, and a deliberate one.

Souping — combining the strongest units from multiple factions into a single list — was one of the defining problems of late 8th edition. It produced armies that bore no resemblance to any coherent force and made the game feel arbitrary. A Space Marine ally contingent bolted onto a Tau gunline alongside an Astra Militarum artillery battery is not an army. It is a spreadsheet optimisation exercise.

One detachment means your army has an identity. You are playing Dark Angels, or Tyranids, or Death Guard. The flavour, the weaknesses, and the strengths all belong to that faction. We think this makes for more interesting and more honest games.

There is the Warhammer 40,000 — Renegade Brigade Discord server, where you can find games, discuss lists, and contribute feedback on points and datasheets. We also play other games — all are welcome.