Is there any way one can render using command line with Apprentice?
Generation of ifd files is not possible, are there some workarounds?

maybe it's answer of your question !

write hbatch path and write Hip file address and in the next line type render command

NOTE: Mantra1 is mantra node in the Output network

example :

“C:\Program Files\Side Effects Software\Houdini 12.0.632\bin\hbatch” D:\Projects\test.hip

render -V -I -C -f 1 200 Mantra1

Thanks a lot! This works fine.