Lost and the Damned

This article or section is about something oldschool - and awesome. Make sure your rose-tinted glasses are on nice and tight, and prepare for a lovely walk down nostalgia lane.

FOR CHAOS!!

A General term for the various cultists, pirates, mutants and so forth that are not space marines and fight for chaos. Well known for fantacism, narm, disposibility (c'mon, they're evil Guardsmen), and alternating between complete brilliance and brain-shattering idiocy depending on the individual force group; some, such as the Blood Pact, Children of Nemeroth, and Brethren of Fire, are well-trained and organized, led by actual Chaos Champions, whereas others are traditional Chaos-worshipping pants-on-head retards. Most Lost and the Damned force groups are considered at least 50% as ballsy as their Imperial counterparts, which is fairly ballsy by the standards of the 41st Millenium.

In general, Lost and the Damned forces played somewhat similar to the Imperial Guard, but with a number of unique differences. Most notable is that they got different heavy and special weapons, a few different vehicles (including the option of Rhino Transports OR Chimera Personnel Carriers for transports, Defilers AND Leman Russ Battle Tanks for fire support, and so on), and that they replace the usual suite of abhuman and specialist units the Guard have - Ratlings, Ogryns, and Veteran Squads and Storm Troopers - with versatile units like Mutants, Big Mutants, summoned Daemons, and Chaos Space Marine squads. The result was a tactically-flexible army, but one that traded the raw firepower of the Imperial Guard Codex of the day for flexibility and genuinely fun-to-use options. They also had a few options that were mod-fodder, such as the Stalk Tank.

As of today, the Lost and the Damned are both hopelessly outdated and no longer supported by Games Workshop, functionally making them our generation's Squats. Despite popular demand, there's no indication that the army will ever be re-released, even though Forge World still carries models for it. Sadly due to the lack of the proper codex, as of thus far, you can only use them if you count them as a Guard Army, which may or may not be even possible depending on what your force group originally consisted of. If it had a lot of Daemons, Zombies, or Mutants congrats: You're fucked.

And you thought the Guard was rough

So, you have managed to defect from the Imperium and joined the ranks of the Lost and the Damned. You had been drafted and taken from your dreary but comparatively peaceful home that you shall never see again, taken across the galaxy to a place you have never heard of to die in a war you have never heard of in the name of the Emperor. You have lived off shit rations, been bullied and bossed around and threatened by men in nice hats and then those voices in the back of your head came offering an escape for all that. And you have managed to somehow switch sides and join up with the local chaos force, everything is going to get better right?

Think again.

First of all, while you have switched heaps, you are still at the bottom. And while your old bosses might have been puritanical callous slave drivers, at least they were sane. Sided with Slaanesh, well prepare your anus. Sided with Khorne, hope to hell that you don't get set with a delay or have to go on a long march or get pinned down among your fellow Psycopaths, because he only cares that it flows. Tzeench? Well, expect to be expended in someone's schemes. Nurgle? Hope you like becoming a walking pile of sores, blisters and pustules with random bits falling off while smelling of a mixture of slaughterhouse runoff, old gym socks and vomit (alright, to be fair you won't care about that being Nurglite and all).

On top of that, your leaders are completely fucking nuts and you are their punching bag. Alright, some are better than others (though the same goes for the guard that your heretical ass left) but the bottom bar for chaos leaders is going to be lower. Chaos is more, well, chaotic. Seeing someone shot because the boss had one of his little moments is not going to be uncommon. Now if you are a scheming bastard, a good demagogue, an exceptional fighter or simply lucky/favoured by the gods you might be able to go up in rank. That said, this is quite a cut-throat business.

Then their is support. If nothing else the Imperium has the edge in on you Industry and general manpower. Much of your gear is likely going to be looted from people who don't want you looting their stuff. Now Daemons and the blessings of the Chaos goods might be help, but that brings up the risk of getting into Chaos Spa-urh, going-even-lower-down-the-command-chain-than-you-already-were-while-losing-your-brain-in-the-process-territory. Finally, have enough of this? Well to bad there is no going back.

Fucking Games Workshop

The Lost and the Damned army list was a hell of a lot of fun, and was designed for those who had scored Codex: Eye of Terror for campaigns. The idea was simple: an army full of non-Marines dedicated to Chaos - pirates and raiders and cultists and mortal warriors devoted to Chaos, all under one banner, albeit with Chaos Marines allowable as Elites (and you could even get a cheaper, if weaker, Chaos Lord/Sorcerer as an HQ).

YOU ERASED MY HIGH SCORES ON TETRIS?!.

The combination of lots of modding possibility, a potentially characterful army, and some interesting ideas to differentiate it from the Imperial Guard went a long way towards endearing it to players, since the idea of cultist units had been toyed with before in the previous Chaos Codex (with the Alpha Legion. This was taking it to its logical conclusion, and suffice to say, some people thought this was pretty cool. Forge World saw potential here as well, and to promote the new army list, put out some bad-ass new resin-casted models. Several people started to get into the new army, and there was a lot of Derp and win as players used this to put out some truly entertaining army lists, from Zombie Apocalypse setups backed with heavy armor, to squads of Traitors backed by Mutants and APCs.

True to form, however, the second that the official tournaments of the season ended, Games Workshop abruptly stopped supporting the army entirely, refused to allow Lost and the Damned armies into future tournaments, pretending the previously-supported army didn't exist, and left players with naught but the Counts As rule to keep them company - and then there was RAGE. A few fortunate souls - the ones focusing on infantry and not-Chaos armor - could get away with using their killy and flash models as a viable Imperial Guard army, but these players were a distinct minority, since a lot of players had used the rules to field more versatile, interesting, or outlandish lists, especially given how expensive the models from Forge World are.

Fuck you, GW.

But all is not lost, for the Forge World Siege of Vraks sourcebooks each contain a varaint Lost and the Damned list at the end. Part one has rules for a vanilla chaos undivided force, Part two has rules for a Khornate force (with Berzerkers as an elite option), and Part three has rules for a Nurgle force (with Plague Marines as elites)

• Rumor Control: rumor has it that the new Chaos Legions codex-also rumored to be out sometime in Q3 of this year-will include Renegade Guardsmen as choices (most likely troops choices.) This would make sense since the book is a return to form and will feature the original Traitor Legions instead of cults. However this is all rumor based and might not happen. Still, it is worth pointing out. Here's to hoping it happens.

Promotions

A Lost and the Damned Traitor Command Squad.

A few fa/tg/uys who infiltrated GW managed to put out new Lost and the Damned rules for the Tempus Fugitive events, using the newer Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Daemons codexes. Sadly, due to GW not giving two shits, it's unlikely that it'll ever be made legal outside of these events, but anyone who wants to take a look can find revised rules below:

Lost and the Damned - Tempus Fugitive Edition

Fandex alternatives

Being one of the most popular ideas out there for IG conversions, many players have obviously taken to creating their own versions of the LatD codex. Here is a list of the people who have come up with their own fandexes (will be updated as more are found):

-Chaos Gerbil's fandex (is currently asking for more playtesters, but codex is pretty solid) [1]