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Hi guys

With the release of the new Guard Codex I've been bitten by the bug big time!

Due to work going supercritical all the time, I'm left with little chance to try out army lists and options and hence I was wondering if you good people could be persuaded to part with some hard-won personal experience.

My core army is listed below and comes to 1740 points of armoured recon (lots of vehicles and carapace armour). The force has a lot of anti-horde weaponry and can deal with light-medium armour quite well. Heavy armour is more of a problem and I rely on my sentinels and Vendetta coming in from the flanks to assist, hence the Astropath.

Now as I normally play 2k battles I was wondering what people recommended to use as flank defence for all my shiny vehicles? Previously I have fielded a Stormtrooper squad in the listed Vendetta to fill the point gap up to 2k, but I find that everyone these days is capable of dropping power fists/klaws/etc in from the flank and eating me alive.

So what do people recommend to use as flank defence? The two obvious choices to me are Penal Legion guys or Conscripts. I would prefer Penal legion as it will require fewer models to implement. Or am I barking up the wrong tree entirely and should stick with the stormies in the Vendetta? I was also contemplating putting KC Pask in the second Russ to make better use of the hull LC.

Anyway, does anyone have any advice or opinions for me?

List below, totals 1740 points:
CCS with Medic, Vox, ML team, Carapace armour, Astropath and MOO (180)
CCS Chimera with EA and Heavy Stubber (80)

Platoon CCS with Medic, Vox and 2x GL (75)
PCS Chimera with EA and HS (80)
Squad 1 with Vox, HB and Sniper (70)
Squad 2 as above (70)
HW squad with 3x mortars (60)

Veteran Squad 1 with Vox, 2x Melta, Grenadiers and Chimera as above (205)

Veteran Squad 2 as above but 2x flamer (195)

3x Scout Sentinels with 2x AC and 1x ML, all with Smoke (140)

Vendetta (130)

Vanilla Russ 1 with hull HB, HB sponsons, EA and HS (195)
Vanilla Russ 2 with hull LC, EA and HS (190)

2x Hydras with Storm bolters (170)

I like Hellhound Variants for protecting flanks. They're fast and hard hitting, which makes them versitile and able to reposition quickly. With smoke launchers they are a bit more resilient as well. Personally I think the Devildog with a hull HF and smoke is great on the flank because it can kill anything that gets put over there, and is useful elsewhere on the battlefield if need be. A Banewolf or two out there is also a very strong choice as it literally eats MEQ statlines alive.

Hmm.. I hadn't thought about using vehicles. Are you thinking about defending my attacking flanks? I think I have enough vehicle support to do that already. I am more concerned about the flanks on my side of the table.

I am specifically thinking of putting in a bit of an infantry speedbump between my vehicles and enemy infantry units that come in from the flank. With the V5 close assault rules against vehicles I tend to lose a lot of vehicles in CC.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Thinking more about it and fiddling the list to remove the EA from chimeras gives me the following options:

Option 1 - Pask in Russ 2, 5 man storm trooper squad with 2x meltas, 2x squads of penal legion to sit on the flanks and soak up incoming enemy CC troops

Option 2 - Pask, 10 man storm trooper squad with 2x meltas, 1 squad of penal troopers to sit on the most threatened flank

Option 3 - Pask, 1 man Storm Troopers with meltas, another unit in the infantry platoon (either SWS with meltas or HWS with lascannon) to bolster the baseline.

In my view Option 1 gives me limited additional strike power, but a more robust gunline as infatry assaults will not be able to fall on my tanks at will.

Options 2 makes my strike power more reliable, but increases the risk to my tanks as I can only cover 1 flank at a time (remember I want to stick the penal troopers along the outer flank of my tanks to prevent infantry assault).

Option 3 ignores the flank issue entirely in favour of beefing up the garrison Infantry platoon with short or long ranged firepower.

A good flank-protection unit is a Chimera with 10 Veterans incl. 2 meltas or 2 flamers.
Keep the unit inside the Chimera. When enemy outflanks, he has to go against the Chimera possibly destroying it. But then he cannot deal with the passengers that should now be able to after his outflankers.

wuestenfux wrote:A good flank-protection unit is a Chimera with 10 Veterans incl. 2 meltas or 2 flamers.
Keep the unit inside the Chimera. When enemy outflanks, he has to go against the Chimera possibly destroying it. But then he cannot deal with the passengers that should now be able to after his outflankers.

My mechanized veterans are my main strike force and are supposed to be going for objectives, rather than hanging about the flanks. Also I think that strategy is risky considering the liklihood of the squad being damaged and then pinned if the Chimera gets toasted.

Flinty wrote:

Option 1 - Pask in Russ 2, 5 man storm trooper squad with 2x meltas, 2x squads of penal legion to sit on the flanks and soak up incoming enemy CC troops

Option 2 - Pask, 10 man storm trooper squad with 2x meltas, 1 squad of penal troopers to sit on the most threatened flank

Option 3 - Pask, 1 man Storm Troopers with meltas, another unit in the infantry platoon (either SWS with meltas or HWS with lascannon) to bolster the baseline.

There seems to be a recurring trend of Pask =). In Op 2/3 what's he going in?

colonel584 wrote:

Flinty wrote:

Option 1 - Pask in Russ 2, 5 man storm trooper squad with 2x meltas, 2x squads of penal legion to sit on the flanks and soak up incoming enemy CC troops

Option 2 - Pask, 10 man storm trooper squad with 2x meltas, 1 squad of penal troopers to sit on the most threatened flank

Option 3 - Pask, 1 man Storm Troopers with meltas, another unit in the infantry platoon (either SWS with meltas or HWS with lascannon) to bolster the baseline.

There seems to be a recurring trend of Pask =). In Op 2/3 what's he going in?

I was being too summarizey then I guess

In Options 2 and 3 Pask goes in the second russ as in Option 1. Not necessarily for the AT bonus but rather to make it much more likely for the damn LC to hit in the first place

Lol i know that well....