The Renegade Effect
Warhammer: The Old World launched with seven Legacy factions — older armies carried forward from previous editions with minimal updates. While playable, many of their rules were incomplete or uncompetitive compared to the fully supported core factions.
Enter the Renegade army lists: community-authored rule patches published through Square Based, led by Val Heffelfinger with input from the competitive community. These aren't homebrew wishlists — they're focused fixes for the most broken elements of each Legacy faction. With Renegades v2.0 on the horizon, there's never been more debate about whether community rulesets belong in competitive play.
So what happens when Legacy factions aren't viable at competitive events? Do those players just not attend, or switch to something else? If so, are we losing players — or just factions?
And it's hard not to wonder whether fewer people playing a faction competitively means fewer people playing it casually too.
“When renegade rules are available, more people bring Legacy factions to tournaments — meaning community rulesets are actively growing the competitive player base.”
Important context
As far as we understand, Val has stated that Renegades v1.0 was not a balance pass. It was a patch — fixing things that were totally broken in the Legacy army lists. No grand rebalancing goal. What you're about to see is the effect of minimal intervention.
We used 13 months of global tournament data to test this. Let's see what the numbers say.
The Landscape
Renegade v1.0 launched in March 2025. Within months, adoption grew rapidly — by late 2025, renegade-accepting events regularly outnumbered official-only ones. Today, roughly 40% of all tracked events allow renegade army lists.
Legacy factions make up 7 of 17 factions (41%) — yet at official-only events they account for just 19.2% of players. Less than half the representation you'd expect if factions were played equally.
A Global Phenomenon
This isn't one region driving the numbers. Every single region with enough data shows higher Legacy player share at renegade-accepting events.
First Look — All Legacy Factions
Zooming into Grand Tournaments (5+ rounds), let's compare faction diversity and player share. The initial data is... interesting, but not as dramatic as we might expect.
Initial Reading
Faction diversity is nearly identical: ~3.1 vs ~3.2 distinct Legacy factions per GT. Player share differs by +3.4pp (23.4% vs 20.0%) — smaller than the +7.6pp gap across all events. That makes sense: GTs are more competitive, so players gravitate toward stronger lists. Legacy factions — even with renegade rules — lack the subfaction variety, expanded magic items, and updated options that core factions enjoy. But is there more to this story?
The Vampire Counts Problem
Vampire Counts make up 35.7% of all Legacy GT players — 237 out of 548 at official events. They appear at 71.3% of official GTs, nearly double any other Legacy faction. With a 48.3% win rate, they're already competitive without any community help.
The Realisation
Vampire Counts aren't really a “Legacy” faction in any meaningful competitive sense. They're a core faction wearing a Legacy label. They're popular, competitive, and don't need community rules to thrive. So what happens when we strip them out?
The Real Renegade Effect
Treating Vampire Counts as the core faction they effectively are, the picture shifts dramatically.
The Twist
Without VC inflating the numbers, the renegade effect doubles. The player share gap widens from +3.4pp to +6.0pp. A diversity gap emerges. For the six non-VC Legacy factions, renegade rules clearly correlate with significantly higher tournament representation.
Faction by Faction
Not all Legacy factions benefit equally. The factions that need help the most, benefit the most.
| Faction | Official % | Renegade % | +/- pp | Rel. Change | Win% Off | Win% Ren |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skaven | 30.6% | 55% | +24.4pp | +80% | 27.9% | 39.5% |
| Ogre Kingdoms | 37% | 48.8% | +11.8pp | +32% | 43.6% | 44.5% |
| Lizardmen | 28.7% | 40% | +11.3pp | +39% | 31.1% | 39.9% |
| Chaos Dwarfs | 40.7% | 45% | +4.3pp | +11% | 36.5% | 48.1% |
| Dark Elves | 38% | 35% | -3.0pp | -8% | 35.6% | 34.8% |
| Daemons of Chaos | 39.8% | 35% | -4.8pp | -12% | 40.4% | 39% |
| Vampire Counts | 71.3% | 65% | -6.3pp | -9% | 48.3% | 49.2% |
The Droppers: Dark Elves & Daemons of Chaos
Both show a slight dip in presence at renegade events. Neither are infantry or horde armies, so the v1.5 errata that boosted Skaven and Lizardmen didn't help them. Dark Elves share the broader “elf problem” — competing for attention with High Elves and Wood Elves who have fuller, more modern army lists. Daemons face a similar squeeze. The renegade rules may not have addressed their core issues yet.
The VC Drop
Vampire Counts actually see lower presence at renegade events (71.3% → 65.0%). This likely reflects community comp doing its job — restrictions like removing their Battle Standard Bearer and other targeted nerfs. VC were already strong enough to attract comp attention, and that's exactly what happened.
The Skaven Story
Of all seven Legacy factions, Skaven are the most dramatic beneficiary of community rulesets. Look at the timeline — from around June 2025, when the v1.5 infantry rule changes landed, even official GT presence started to pick up. With renegade events there's a clear lag as players realised Skaven could actually be competitive, building steadily through late 2025 before peaking in early 2026.
Important Caveat
The v1.5 TOW errata/FAQ (Games Workshop's own update) also helped infantry and horde armies. Skaven, being a horde army, likely got a double boost — renegade rules plus errata buffs. Lizardmen (also infantry-heavy) show a similar but smaller pattern, while Daemons and Ogres (more elite/monster-heavy) didn't benefit as much from the errata. We can't fully separate the two effects, but the direction is consistent with the pattern across all Legacy factions. It'll be interesting to see what happens with Renegades v2.0, which aims to add much more of the flavour back to Skaven.
A Note on the Numbers
Let's be upfront about what this data can and can't tell us.
What we can't claim
Correlation, not causation. TOs who allow renegades may already run Legacy-friendly communities. The v1.5 errata confounds horde army results. No formal significance tests were run. We can't tell if renegade events attract new Legacy players or existing players switching armies.
What the data does show
17 out of 17 regions show the same direction. 1,097 events across 13 months. The weakest factions (Skaven, Lizardmen) benefit most — harder to explain by selection bias alone.
How we detect renegades
We classify a tournament as “renegade-accepting” when at least one submitted army list uses a renegade faction. We're not currently trawling player packs to check if renegades were allowed — so events where renegades were permitted but nobody brought one won't show up. This likely understates renegade adoption. Parsing player packs at scale is something OWR is working towards.
Plain English
This isn't peer-reviewed science. We can't prove renegade rules cause more Legacy players. But across a thousand events, seventeen regions, and thirteen months, renegade-accepting tournaments consistently show higher Legacy representation. Whether that's the rules, the communities, or both — the association is real. What it means is up for debate.
Going Pro supports the project and helps us produce more analysis like this — including parsing player packs at scale. You also get deeper faction stats, matchup data, and AI Smart Convert.
What We Found
After 13 months and over a thousand events, here's what the data shows.
More Legacy Players? — The Data Says Yes
Tournaments accepting renegade lists show +7.6pp higher Legacy player share across all formats (26.8% vs 19.2%). Zooming into non-VC Legacy factions at GTs, the gap is +6.0pp (18.2% vs 12.2%). The direction is consistent across every region and time period in our data.
Greater Diversity? — Not quite, but...
The same factions appear regardless of ruleset. But more players are willing to bring them. Community rules don't change which Legacy factions show up — they change how many people play them.
VC Distortion? — Absolutely
Remove Vampire Counts and the effect doubles. VC are functionally core — the other six Legacy factions need community rules far more.
Excluding players from playing by leaving their army faction broken isn't good for anyone.
Our Take
Coming from the team behind Old World Rankings — and as hosts of Old World Fanatics — we're community builders first. We know that can sometimes sit uncomfortably alongside the competitive scene.
But with seven Legacy factions — six of which can't compete on an even footing — it feels like it demands an exception. And honestly? Community rulesets in competitive play aren't new. German comp, WTC — nearly every major competitive scene we've seen runs some form of comp. At the end of the day, that's community rules too.
- Stop playing Legacy and GW has no reason to support them. Keeping them on the table keeps the pressure on Games Workshop to bring them back properly.
- Renegade lists aren't breaking the game. This isn't homebrew Amazonians or a Halfling army — these are core Warhammer Fantasy factions that belong in The Old World.
- “Official” doesn't mean “tested and balanced.” Grand Cathay shows us that. Even with playtesters, the best playtesting comes from thousands of players across thousands of games. OWR has that data, and it shows what's balanced and what isn't.
The data suggests renegade rules are bringing Legacy players to the table. We think that's worth supporting.
Resources & Methodology
Renegades v2.0 Resources
- Square Based — Val's Renegades project home
- Skaven v2.0 Beta — Latest draft rules
- Dark Elves v2.0 Beta — Latest draft rules
Methodology
- Period: March 2025 – March 2026 (April 2026 excluded — incomplete).
- Official-only: every result uses a GW-published faction list. Renegade-accepting: at least one “(Renegades)” list present.
- GT: 5+ rounds. Legacy factions: Chaos Dwarfs, Daemons of Chaos, Dark Elves, Lizardmen, Ogre Kingdoms, Skaven, Vampire Counts.
- Renegade subfactions collapsed to parent for diversity counts. Win rate = avg(wins/rounds) per player.
- Data: Old World Rankings global database — oldworldrankings.com. Explore live faction data on our Faction Stats page.