An Army for Hire: Meet the Marauders

Listen up, Commander. If you’re sizing up the Marauders, know this first: they are not the dumb brutes they may at first appear to be. They are fast, adaptable, brutally efficient fighters bred and trained in the harshest corners of the galaxy. Underestimate them, and frankly you may as well feed yourself to the Mawbeasts! Their decorated military history is littered with enemies that made that same mistake...

Brutal Soldiers of Fortune

Marauders are mercenary orcs: tough‑skinned, heavily‑muscled combatants who once served the GCPS...or at least they did before the Mandrake Rebellion scattered them across the stars. Now they fight for coin, loot and yes - sometimes often the simple pleasure of smashing their enemies. Their forces mix raw muscle with surprising levels of battlefield craft. They’re experienced troops with instincts sharpened by years of essentially fighting everyone else's battles for them across the Warpath Universe!

A Big Orc-y Swiss Army Knife

And on top of their deeply compelling 'space mercenary' theme, they've got a brilliant Epic Warpath army list to match. Marauders offer speed, durability, and flexible problem‑solving.

They can be described as 'simple to pick up' (the faction of course - we wouldn't recommend it with a full-grown Orc!), but that’s only scratching the surface. Check out the list, and you'll find it filled with useful tools:

• Fast Objective Grabbers: Mawbeasts (speed 8/12) and Skyscrapers (speed 6/15) are unusually fast non-vehicle units that can race across the board early to seize ground or flank positions.
• Reliable Core Troops: Commandos have solid ranged and melee stats, and the Brawler variant includes AP1 on their assault weapons, marking them out as proper close combat line troops.
• Elite Specialists: Ripper Rainmakers deliver all‑purpose ranged devastation (with their HEW Beamers and Rotary Cannons), while the Ripper Mauler variants bring brutal melee for cracking heavy targets. And there's plenty more to explore besides!
• Massive Choice of Vehicles: the Marauders have a whole host of GCPS vehicles from their former life (Hornets, Mules and Wolverines), still well maintained and highly capable of going toe to toe with most enemy armour. On top of this, watch out for their Thumpers, Hammers and incredible Super-Heavies like the Wolfcrawler Mech!

This is a faction that rewards bold commanders who apply pressure and keep it up. You can see this with their Army Special Rule, Deadly Crossfire, which interacts with the Keep Going! tactical order - meaning that any unit activated in this way can get a +1 to hit and damage a target, providing you're targeting the same enemy as your last activated friendly unit did - ouch!

Their Strategic Orders double down on their themes of resilience and battlefield skill, with the ability to Hunker Down (effectively finding cover wherever they may be on the battlefield) and Quick Thinking (allowing you to swap their action token for another of your choice).

In a nutshell, the Marauders hit hard, hit smart, and (if you make good battlefield decisions) can stay standing long after more fragile armies may crumble.