Leman Russ: "Get You By" Rules

The "Get You By" Rules for Leman Russ were released alongside the pre-orders for the model from Forge World this weekend. In the absence of the full rules (which will be detailed in the forthcoming book: Inferno), these rules are supposed to at least provide a way to field Russ in battles as a Lords of War choice for an appropriate army (Space Wolves, of course). 

But are they any good?

Here is a link to the rules themselves. As can be seen, at 400 points, Leman Russ is actually one of the cheaper Primarchs. Not that there's anything wrong with that -- Primarchs are beasts in the game no matter what -- even Alpharius is amazing against most things in the game (except almost any other primarch! Sure, he's weak, but that's not the point).

The stat line for Russ is comparable to many of the other Primarchs. Stand outs include the WS=9 characteristic.

Alongside this, he has all the regular rules associated with primarchs (It Will Not Die, Eternal Warrior, Fear and all the rest). 

His save is like that of a Cataphractii terminators at 2+/4++ which is rather nice. But the equipment is very much a placeholder. His paired melee weapons are little more than a counts-as power axe and paragon blade, with a comb-bolter at range. The Sire of the Space Wolves is just a legion vexilla. His other special rules amount to little more than an ability to confer the crusader rule and the counter-attack rule. Its all a bit bland to be perfectly honest.

Plus he is bulky. 

That's all folks. Very bland and very "counts as". Speaking of that, I actually kind of liked the use of the very words "counts as" -- its almost as if the game testers are actual gamers at Forge World :) (yeah -- of course they are! Its Forge World! Woo!). 

Right now, even Alpharius would probably beat Russ in a straight fight (Alpharius has the pale spear for one, providing AP1 … and Alpharius doesn't believe in straight forward fights either). Hence I can only assume that the real rules will be much better when released, and I would expect that the points cost for Russ will rise in line with any Inferno update.