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I'm a little curious what people think of these - I'm considering taking a 40-man units in my next list revision, and think they get a bad rap. So, here's my purely theoretical defense of them:

For 50 points, you get 10 Guardsmen - or, really, 9 Guardsmen and some overhead with the sergeant and his laspistol.
Or, you could get 12.5 Conscripts.

At 24" range, the Guardsmen will get 4.5 lasgun hits.
Conscripts will get 4.17 hits.

That's a fairly neglible difference - for the cost, Guardsmen are about 8% better at shooting. That means for every 25 models Conscripts kill, Guardsmen will have killed 27.

Conscripts, however, have lower leadership. How much this matters I'm not certain - a lot of infantry players take Commissars anyway (I don't, but that's for another topic), and taking a Lord Commissar instead for this one squad will cost 35 points more as well as help nearby squads. Exactly how much of a disadvantage the need to take such a measure is, I am uncertain.

Despite being 8% worse at shooting because of their BS, Conscipts have 25% more wounds. Plus, for the purposes of fighting enemies of WS4-6, WS2 is just as good as WS3 - as a proponent of Straken, this very much appeals to me.

Other disadvantages of conscripts include their difficulty in taking orders (unless, again, you pay to fix the Leadership issue), lack of weapon options (though if you choose to use them aggressively the lack of heavy weapons doesn't matter), and lack of power weapons (if you swing that way).

So, Dakkaites, what do you think? Is it worth 160 points to put 40 bodies on the field? 200 for 50 (okay, this one is probably pushing it)?

What about the 125 points to give them Send in the Next Wave? Remember - Chenkov isn't a bad buy anyway because he gives stubborn to all units within 12", so that comes as a sort of bonus if you don't take him for that already.

Give your own arguments about conscripts, and stories on whether they've worked for you.

Well, I can show you this Batrep I did with Conscripts in it. You do really have to pay to fix their Ld though. I'd also not take them in mobs larger than 30, and I really wouldn't take Send in the Next Wave. They take so long to be churned through that they'll just respawn on your table edge at around turn 4. (No, that isn't important. If you've bought a Platoon the 125 point are better spent on Heavy Weapons teams to camp the objective.) Mobs of 30 run in to huge issues with moving around terrain and getting all of their swings and shots in. My current Guard list runs the Conscripts at 30 with a Lord Commissar. One of the best uses I've found for them is to use them as mobile cover. You can run them out in the open in a line, then order them with Incoming!. Everyone behind them has a 4+ save, and they have a 4+ save.

I frequently play nob bikers and I have been itching to take two groups with send in the next wave, and make sure they are within range of the commissar and my command squads so that they get Stubborn leadership 10 with a re-roll. Then I will feed the two squads into him, trying to deploy my whole army within 12 inches of the board edge so that I can bring the next wave on and into assault in the same turn

APOC only, they are just too much of a liability in normal games.

I agree. I'm a strictly Cities of Death player, and conscripts are a waste! Take it from a fellow senior officer to another... you want something good to hold up the weak flank of your army? Field Gunnery Sgt. Harker, with a squad of Catachan devils (which only costs 55 pts, gives the whole squad camo cloaks, and he carries an assault heavy bolter!) the squad can carry 3 special weapons! Flamers? kiss the cover goodbye! Plasma Rifles? kiss your terminator armour goodbye! Meltas? kiss your tanks goodbye! Grenade launchers? kiss your infantry goodbye.... do you get my point? Hope I helped!


FOR THE EMPEROR!!!!

BoxANT wrote:APOC only, they are just too much of a liability in normal games.

Elaborate on your point.

I've been tempted to test out the conscripts eventually. Of course my nefarious plan was to have them form a meat shield around the precious artillery assets.

DarkHound wrote:

BoxANT wrote:APOC only, they are just too much of a liability in normal games.

Elaborate on your point.

A conscript vs a guardsman. A guardsmen gets a better BS, better leadership, better weapon options, transport options, frags, and a Sgt, for only 1 pt per model.

Conscripts force you to play them as only a meat shield. Their BS is horrible and they have no weapon options. In addition, you also have to do something about their horrible leadership. Usually this is an expensive fix (ie Commie Lord).
Yes, with Chenkov you can move your conscripts up as a screen, eat a charge, remove your conscripts, and then blow up your enemy in your shooting phase, and then bring them in from reserve. However, the point cost for this is painfully high (and honestly, too situational, you'd be better served by a well rounded infantry squad that can actually shoot stuff before dying).

I would take 40 guardsmen in a blob squad over 50 conscripts any day of the week.

Conscripts are probably the worst unit in the codex (at least Ogryns and Stormies can be useful in certain situations). You simply loose too much battlefield effectiveness for such a minor point savings.

Perhaps if they could purchase a commissar, or had a special rule that allowed them to rally when broken.

Yup. They pretty much suck. At least in the last Codex you could Flamer them up and burn stuff before they died horribly.
The ability to blob Inf squads has really negated the need or use for conscripts.

They suck, a standard infantry platoon can perform the same role as Conscripts did in the previous codex, but are more flexible with their weapon options.

Its not about hitting with a fraction of an amount more lasguns, its about hitting with 3-30 Wound Autocannons or 16 hidden power weapon attacks on the charge (Commisar included) or sitting on an objective and go to ground, get back in the fight, fire autocannons - repeat.

What is the minimum sized conscript squad you can have?

Cause if it's something like twenty, I would use them as a screen for artillery, or deploy them with a squadron of tanks to prevernt meltas from getting too close.

Would this work?

WS2 is only as good as WS 3 against WS 3-4. Against WS5+ you need 5s.

Space_Potato wrote:What is the minimum sized conscript squad you can have?

Cause if it's something like twenty, I would use them as a screen for artillery, or deploy them with a squadron of tanks to prevernt meltas from getting too close.

Would this work?

It could of course, but one round of shooting will most likely have them running off.