Trench Crusade Warband Focus: Heretic Naval Raiders

Emerging from the bloody, oil-slicked depths in the dead of night, the Heretic Naval Raiders represent the scalpel of the Heretic Legion forces - fast, aggressive, and striking where the faithful are least prepared. Armed to the teeth and trained to handle short, quick assaults, the Naval Raiders are the last thing you want to see when going for a little beach trip. Cunning, brutal, and frighteningly efficient, they operate separately from the rest of the heretic forces and execute tasks behind enemy lines to disrupt enemy battle plans and topple logistics operations. With Carcass Front on the horizon, now is a perfect time to heed the call of the dark waters below.

If you haven't checked it out, here's a link to the review for the base Heretic Legion roster, I'll be referencing that a lot throughout this review as the Naval Raiders are a warband that changes significantly less from the core roster than other variant warbands.

Overview

On the tabletop, the HNR represents an interesting twist on typical Heretic Legion rosters. Being the warband with the fewest changes and no unique battlekit, a lot of what makes the Raiders stand out is their unique tools and playstyle that differs quite a bit to what core Heretic Legion is trying to pull off. Trading the heavier assault units for increased mobility and positioning as well as more access to close-mid range firepower, their playstyle leans towards a skirmishing ranged game plan. Using infiltrators to initiate a favorable board position and dash-bonuses, they can reliably move-shoot-move and chip away at enemies, stacking blood markers while keeping a favorable position. They also can be quite flexible, having the option to be more or less aggressive depending on the matchup due to having so many positioning tools. 

With the potential updates on the way (at the time of writing - March 2026) reducing the potency of grenades as well as increasing the power of INFILTRATOR in scenarios where it’s currently not usable, I expect to see an increase on the stocks of playing HNR, as the reduced amount of easy to access reliable close-ranged firepower for other rosters will let them get even more domination in their preferred range bracket.

Here are the changes you can expect when creating a Naval Raiders roster compared to a standard Heretic Legion warband:

• Gain the ability to purchase Submachine Guns at 25 ducats a pop. This is great - allowing you to start your roster with these and save glory for better things will be a fantastic way to bolster that CQB playstyle.
• Add +1 DICE to risky success rolls for models taking a dash action. The bread and butter ability for Naval Raiders, giving them a huge increase to reliable mobility without needing to “castle” up around a musician. The ability to be both fast and widespread is a luxury the majority of the game won’t have access to, so using that to your advantage is paramount.
• Up to three non-ELITE models can gain INFILTRATOR for 10 ducats each. Also very useful, we’ll cover this more when we talk about individual units, but this means you can realistically have up to 4 things start on the mid-board including a Death Commando. Starting the battle in a more advantageous position is never a bad thing, and if used correctly can absolutely crush an opponent’s ability to move freely on the board.
• HNR Rosters can never have more than 2 Anointed or a single Artillery Witch. Truthfully, neither of these are super drastic outside of long campaign environments. The Anointed is the more impactful of the two, as this limits your access to units that can reliably carry heavier firepower, so you’ll have to choose wisely what you want to bring to bear.
• HNR Rosters can never take a War Wolf. Ouch. This is tougher to deal with, as the raw power and durability of the WW is something that a mobile, aggressive roster would love to have. Losing this means we lose one of our key melee threats, so we’ll have to play more carefully - between this and anointed, we (usually) will only have a few models that can handle themselves in melee.

A lot of the trick of HNR is going to be keeping your enemies in the ideal range bracket. By losing access to key melee pieces but gaining better close-range shooting and mobility, that 8-18” range will be a beautifully brutal dance with your opponent. Due to these things combined, your best friends will become the flamethrower/heavy flamethrower, as these will be essential to cracking armored units.

Unit Tactics

I’ll cover the units and how to use them here, although I’ll mostly be pointing out differences in the specific context of HNR. For more generic usage and battlekit suggestions, check out the full Heretic Legion article, as I’ll mostly only be mentioning notable deviations from that due to the fact that this warband doesn’t have as many different gear options from base Heretics.

Heretic Priest

Funnily enough, the priest fundamentally doesn’t change too much. The main draw here is that more of your units will likely be starting ahead of the priest, so there’s going to be a bit more merit in using Puppet Master to move around your own guys to press the midfield. The key decision will often be loadout, as this is one of the only powerful melee units in the roster, but might often be in the back/middle of your force.

Recommended Battlekit: Pretty much the same as regular Heretic Legion - Reinforced Armor, Combat Helmet, Sacrificial Blade. I’m a little more open to the idea of an Automatic Rifle here, as I think it has the flexibility to allow you to threaten enemies at any range, but any variety of shotgun will do nicely here. Notably you can take the SMG here as well if you so choose, but I prefer to leave those for other units. I also think that they will often take a decent amount of fire since they’ll be pushing up as a melee threat, so a shield isn’t a bad choice.

Chorister

The Chorister fundamentally doesn’t change in role or use case, but it does greatly benefit from the increased movement to be in the right place at the right time. No real notes over the base Heretic roster - it’s a great support piece that works well to provide a lot of close ranged pressure. The more interesting decision is if you want to dedicate one of your flamethrowers to this - I often lean more towards no, since I’d rather leave them for models that can INFILTRATE. The big scary “don’t come fight here” bubble really helps keep melee pressure off you, so as long as you aren’t grasping desperately for more ranged options, the Chorister is often a staple for me.

Recommended Battlekit: No real changes from base Heretics. Melee weapons, shields, and any additional mobility tools like a Mountaineering Kit are welcome additions.

Death Commando

Death Commando - Credit: Ace

DC has an interesting role here, as it’s no longer your only option for forward deployment, but instead now can work incredibly well in tandem with your other infiltrators. You can use this to pin key enemies down while you reposition your close shooting threats, act as a counterpunch for things trying to push your other infiltrators, or even just a well placed missile to play the old reliable “distraction carnifex” role. Interestingly, I do think this means the death commando actually isn’t as necessary on warband creation if you don’t absolutely want it, as the role it plays becomes less immediately useful when the rest of your warband has better board positioning. That being said, I do think the value of having a unit that actually can hit hard in melee that can forward deploy is still super relevant to what you want to be doing as the faction, so this will still be a staple for most rosters.

Recommended Battlekit: Aside from the usual Tartarus Claws, I think there may be some value in Pistols depending on how grenades are changed in the coming updates, but Gas grenades will likely still be a staple here. Be more prepared to give armor to this guy as well, as he definitely will be eating bullets to the chin if he’s doing his job right.

Artillery Witch

Artillery Witch - Credit: Ace

The Witch has similar value to the rest of Heretic Legion - she’s just going to hit things like a bus from as far away as possible. Notably you can Infiltrate her if you choose, however I do think that the only real reason you’re doing this is to start in a slightly more favorable spot rather than a truly forward deployment. How much value that is to you is likely going to heavily depend on how terrain dense your boards are, but I often heavily learn more towards just leaving her as is. You’re not really changing anything here though, just remember you’re only ever keeping one on your roster.

Recommended Battlekit: I really suggest the shield + standard armor here, as you’re likely going to be in much less of a “castle” around her, meaning she’s a lot more vulnerable to teleporting threats and fast skirmishers.

Anointed Heavy Infantry

Knights of Avarice Anointed, Credit - Loxi

While you’re limited to two, the two you take will very often play one of two roles - as an infiltrator or as a bodyguard for an artillery witch. If you run as the latter, you’re going to take a longer ranged weapon and have him make sure your squishy witch doesn’t get popped by fast threats. Most of the time though, you’re probably investing in making this an infiltrating threat. A lot of armies just aren’t ready to deal with a tougher combat unit up in their face that early, let alone one with an actually decent gun. They’re a lot of points once they start to get geared up, so be ready to make sure you aren’t sending them in alone - if you want to run a lone operator, you’re likely going to stick with the Commando.

Recommended Battlekit: For INFILTRATE-focused loadouts, Automatic Shotguns, Heavy Flamers, and Melee weapons to taste. If you have one hanging back and letting flamethrower Legionaries infiltrate, a Grenade Launcher can be a great choice to add a bit of range to your list while you gain glory to grab an Anti-Materiel rifle down the line.

Troopers

Heretic Troopers - Credit: Ace

I’ll break troopers down into three categories - INFILTRATE normal Troops, INFILTRATE Legionaries, and troops you don’t want to infiltrate. If you want to run a normal guy as an infiltrator, Flamethrowers will often be your best bet. They aren’t cheap, but they’re an outstanding unit that can punch up really high above their weight class. If you want to take something else, I often will suggest just going for a Legionary if you have the roster size to do so. Either way, a shotgun will be a good budget option, but a Submachine Gun will be a great punching down option to clear out unarmored enemies and stack up blood markers. If you aren’t going to forward deploy at all, the tried and true rifles or grenades and clubs can be great options for the usual cheap dork.

The role of these models isn’t always to try and kill things - if you do, it’s often lucky kills or volume of fire, you really want to use these to just overwhelm people with blood markers while the rest of your forces actually make their way up the board, or buy enough space for a Witch/Long ranged shot to finish something off.

Recommended Battlekit: See above for details, but a mix of Flamethrowers, Shotguns, Submachine Guns, and Bolt-Action Rifles will make up the best options for your troopers. Armor is a nice bonus, but I often find myself leaving it at home for early campaign lists. Your mobility should be your best defence - in an ideal world, you’ll be tough to shoot anyway.

Wretched

No changes of note here; if you need cheap bodies, they’ll be your guys. Give ‘em a shank and a prayer.

General Strategy

The enhanced dashes are your leg up on most other factions, so using those to the best of your ability is going to decide games for you. There are a few notable ways to take advantage of this, but most importantly is the ability to move-shoot-move reliably. You can sequence this in two different ways:

Dash - Shoot - Move

This is the safest method, as it means if you fail your dash, you won’t be exposed. That being said, if you do fail your dash you basically lose your turn.

Move - Shoot - Dash

This guarantees you’ll get your shot off, but has the risk of leaving you exposed afterward. If you think you’ll kill your target or aren’t worried about the activation order getting you killed when you’re caught out, this is often much more worth it 

As I’ve mentioned above, a lot of the games you’ll play with HNR are tap-dances in the close ranged shooting area. If you’re able to keep your opponent from overwhelming you with charges, you’ll just shred through them with flamethrowers and SMG’s. If they attempt to keep you at range, you can use your mobility on your ELITE units to apply tons of pressure while you outmaneuver them on objectives. It’s important to remember that your only natural long ranged threat at warband creation will be the artillery witch, and down the line/in matched play an anointed with an Anti-Materiel Rifle. You need to be careful of melee focused rosters like Trench Pilgrims as well, because the swarm of melee threats will absolutely crush any of your units that overextend. You often will be on a slightly lower model count, as kitting out your infiltrators with weapons that actually make it worth your while to invest it them means you might not have a ton of chaff to start. Play to your strengths rather than spend too much time covering your weaknesses though - you’re playing one of the fastest armies in the game, so take all of the advantageous fights you can. Remember that you have a lot of great options here to handle armor, so try to use your flamethrowers to handle armored threats and leave things like SMG’s to clean up chaff.

Trench Crusade Wretched. Credit - Loxi

Suggested Starting Warbands

General Use: This is my pick for a more well rounded option, sacrificing any anointed at the start for two durable frontlining elites, an artillery witch for a ranged threat, and enough bodies to cover the board. I gave the Mountaineering Kit to the Witch for better positioning, but feel free to put it where you best see fit.



Commando Pressure: If you want to play more aggressive and lean into the stronger infiltrators, this drops the witch and a few weapon choices for a bunch of gas grenades and a death commando, letting you rely much more on getting up in your enemies business.



Anointed Bullies: This is a beatdown style list, forgoing quantity for a few really obnoxious infiltrating Anointed. Since you aren’t as tightly reliant on the ELITE models to frontline when you have two massive infiltrating bodies, they take more conservative loadouts than in other lists. I run a single Wretched to help with action economy and objective play, but if you would prefer to run a little more elite you could drop him for some better gear on the chorister.



That's a wrap! Keep an eye on this space for any updates that come to the faction with the release of Carcass Front in the coming months. See you in the trenches, dear readers.

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