“Warhammer: The Old World” – Renegade Crowns’ Hireling Outriders May Be the Game’s Best Cavalry

Take a look at a real sleeper hit of a Warhammer: The Old World unit for Renegade Crowns, Hireling Outriders.

With the release of War of Settra’s Fury, GW managed to sneak a brand new army into the game. The Renegade Crowns are a cool and unique list from the Border Princes. They represent exiles, outcasts, outlaws, and mercenaries fighting in the region. It’s a super cool idea and one that grabbed me right off the bat. I’ve taken a look at the army and what it does here. I also showed off a few list building ideas. Since I wrote about lists I’ve been able to play around with the army a lot more and have come to feel like Hireling Outriders are secretly one of the best, and most powerful, cavalry units in the game. Lets take a look at why.

Hireling Outrider Basics

Hireling Outriders start as very very basic fast/light cavalry. They’ve got a very basic human stat line (3s in most places, LD7 and move 8). One important note about them, that’ve messed up (sorry to anyone I’ve played), is that their champion does not get an extra attack, but rather extra BS. They also come base at 11 pts with a hand weapon and… that’s it. Well and a bunch of rules: Fast Cavalry, Fire and Flee, Swiftstride, Open Order and Skirmishers.  This positions them as a very light unit that is pretty mobile and is core.

Luckily they have access to a LOT of upgrade options. For weapons they can take Cavalry Spears, Short Bows, A Pistol or a Brace of Pistols, but only one of those choices. They have access to heavy and light armor, shields and can buy Feigned Flight, Reserve Move and Vanguard. They can also take up to a 50 pt. magic banner. With the right characters in your list you can also buy them Ambush. All of this makes them a super flexible unit you can build however you want (also means their cost per model can range between 11 and 26). But how should you build them.

Ranged Options

At first glance Outriders seem like a pretty classic ranged skirmishing unit and you can certainly run them like that. Simply throwing short bows on them gives them a bit of harassment power and keeps them cheap at 12 pts. As they are core they can also score objectives and be annoying. You can also chose to run them as basically Empire pistoleers. One of the things that makes Outriders very good is that you can very easily stick some strong characters in with them to support them as well. So you might chose to run them like so:

Characters -205 pts

Outcast Wizard -205 pts
– Hand weapon
– Wizard -Level 3 Wizard
– The Noble Outlaw “Hold the Line!” + Repeater pistol
– Warhorse
– Twin-Tailed Wand
– Wizard’s Staff
– Daemonology

10 Hireling Outriders -238 pts
– Brace of pistols
– Heavy armour
– Shields
– Reserve Move
– Captain
– Standard bearer
– Musician

This build gives you a unit that can run in and put out 23 pistol shots and a pair of magic missiles for some pretty decent ranged output. It’s a relatively cheap combo (you can also save points if you want to drop the wizard down to lvl 1 or drop the twin-tailed wand. The unit has a 4+ save vs shooting and can fight in combat in a pinch, especially if the wizard rolls Demonic Vessels. It’s also immune to panic, so as long as you stay out of combo, which should be pretty easy, its a hard unit to completely kill.

Combat Options

Now there are lots of good shooting builds you can experiment with for Hireling Outriders, but for me they’ve found as place as one of the most interesting and possibly best combat cav units around. The key here is really in their flexibility. Skirmish gives them an option to be very very mobile. Combined with Reserve Move then can also move and then change into Open Order if that will be better for them. They can combo with characters into a very deadly build. While they lack Countercharge, I’ve actually found Feigned Flight to be a very interesting option. Counter Charge lets you make the best of getting charged, but still can’t get you out of a bad situation. Feigned Flight gives you a much better chance to just avoid any fights you don’t want. So one of the builds I’ve been using is something like this:

Outcast Wizard -205 pts
– Wizard [Level 3 Wizard]
– The Noble Outlaw [“Hold the Line!” + Repeater pistol]
– Warhorse
– Twin-Tailed Wand
– Wizard’s Staff
– Daemonology

Renegade Prince -199 pts
– Shield
– General
– The Noble Outlaw [“Hold the Line!”]
– Warhorse
– Cackling Blade
– Twice-Blessed Armour

Renegade Captain -149 pts
– Lance
– Full plate armour
– Shield
– Battle Standard Bearer [Errantry Banner]
– Warhorse
– Ruby Ring of Ruin

Outcast Wizard -135 pts
– Hand weapon
– Wizard [Level 3 Wizard]
– On foot
– Lore Familiar
– Dark Magic

12 Hireling Outriders -296 pts
– Cavalry spear
– Heavy armour
– Shields
– Feigned Flight
– Reserve Move
– Captain
– Standard bearer -Totem of Wrath
– Musician

How This Combo Works – Basics

You can see some similarities between this build and the pistol version above. You’ve got a big unit of Outriders that the three mounted characters join. You’ll then have the foot wizard with the rest of your army doing other things. The unit is very manurable and flexible, especially as Reserve Move and Fire and Flee only need the majority of models to have it to work, so as long as the unit is mostly intact it can use these rules with the characters attached.

At range this unit can throw out 3 good Magic Missiles a turn and this alone make it a threat. It’s also a scoring unit, so just that is pretty solid, thought not worth the almost 1000 points all this costs. It’s what the unit can do in combat that helps make it really good. It doesn’t start off all that great, with Cavalry spears only making the units S4 Ap -1 on the charge, with a single attack, and the once basic attack from the mounts.

The Combo Comes Together

However this build is all about combos. Between Totem of Wrath you are looking at another +1S and Ap for the unit (and re-rolling 1s to wound). Then you add in the wizards. The foot wizard is always going to use the familiar to pick Battle Lust. This gives you +1 attack and hatred. Meanwhile we are hoping the mounted wizard can get Demonic Vessel for +1 S, Attack and AP.

If you can get both of these off you are looking at taking the basic troops in the unit up to 3 attacks at S6 AP -3, re-rolling hits and 1s to wound. Even the mounts are 3 attacks S5 and -Ap with the same re-rolls. That’s a ton of damage output, complimented by some extra damage from the characters (who you can build differently as you wish). Even if you don’t get one of the spells off, or not roll it, the models are still putting out 4 attacks between mount and rider at good S and AP. And if you don’t get either spell off… well then you just don’t charge and fire off some magic missiles and hope for better next turn.

Other Options

This is a pretty costly combo to be fair and takes up a lot of your characters. It just represents the extreme ended here. You can drop some of the combo without a ton of effect. For instance the Prince gives you extra oomph and can be build to deal with big enemies, but isn’t strictly needed for the combo. The BSB is nice and gives you combat res and the +1S, but you could drop him and still rock in with 3 S5 AP -3 attacks for the riders, which isn’t bad. Meanwhile the foot wizard can do other things and support other units until you need to make the combo go off. The real take away here is just how flexible the unit is.

While their base states initially appear worse combat units than Freeblade Knights or Veteran Freebaldes, I find their flexibly and movement options outweighs this. They also come out being a little cheaper than Freeblades and a LOT cheaper then Veteran Freeblades, while also being core. The combos let you get plenty of damage output, so the only real thing you are missing out on is armor.

Weaknesses

The one big draw back of the unit is that it’s a bit of a glass cannon. T3 with a 4+ save (and costing it characters the chance to take barding)  isn’t great. It’s not the most expensive unit, but its not cheap. In combat you need to really pick your fights and just run away from others. Know when to shoot and when to fight. Ranged is a bit more of a threat, as even mediocre shooting can hurt the unit. One option is to make the whole unit ambush. Others include taking the -1 to be hit banner, or just using skirmish to stay in cover. It’s a not a fool proof unit and takes some kill to use, but can be turned into one of the best cavalry units around.

Let us know what you think of Hireling Outriders, down in the comments! 

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers Warhammer: The Old World, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe mourned over loss of WFB for its entire hiatus, but has been reborn like a gaming phoenix with Warhammer: The Old World.

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