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This is my wysiwig army and how I use it. It's a result of me buying the old battleforce (back in 4th ed.), and recently the new one, as the core of my force. That got me much of the infantry and heavy weapons, as well as the LRBT and the Sentinel. The basilisk was a gift, the LRD was a trade, and the chimeras and hellhound I thought would be useful. In other words, it's units I could afford and thought were cool more than what dakka says is the best to use. That's why I put it in tactics, because while I can usually proxy most guard builds, sometimes I want to play wysiywg, and this uses almost all of my models. I'm always tweaking and experimenting, so please make suggestions, but I won't be rewriting it or changing it drastically. I've got a spare infantry and heavy weapons, but no other vehicles atm. If you think it sucks so hard you're rofling all over the place, tell me how you'd rip it to pieces, and with what army you'd do it with.

Heavy Infantry Company


Command - 325

Company Command (Creed, Regimental Standard, Medic, Missile Launcher);

Lord Commissar (Boltgun)
- Chimera (Multilaser, Hull Heavy Bolter)


First Platoon - 505

1st Platoon Command (3x Flamer, Heavy Flamer)
- Chimera (Multilaser, Hull Heavy Flamer, Dozer Blade, Extra Armour)

1st Platoon Infantry (Heavy Bolter, Grenade Launcher)
2nd Platoon Infantry (Heavy Bolter, Grenade Launcher)
3rd Platoon Infantry (Heavy Bolter, Grenade Launcher)

1st Heavy Weapons (3x Missile Launcher)
2nd Heavy Weapons (3x Autocannon)


Second Platoon - 440

2nd Platoon Command (4x Grenade Launchers)

4th Platoon Infantry (Mortar, Grenade Launcher)
5th Platoon Infantry (Mortar, Grenade Launcher)
6th Platoon Infantry (Mortar, Grenade Launcher)

3rd Heavy Weapons (3x Lascannons)
4th Heavy Weapons (3x Lascannons)


Fast Attack - 195

Armoured Sentinel (Plasma Cannon)
Devil Dog (Hull Heavy Bolter)


Heavy Support - 535

Basilisk
Leman Russ Battle Tank (Hull Lascannon)
Leman Russ Demolisher (Hull Lascannon, Plasma Cannon Sponsons, Dozer Blade, Extra Armour)


2000 Points


Tactics

At deployment, I'm looking for a spot in my deployment zone that offers both cover and field of fire to Creed and the lascannons (though sometimes the autocannons will be most important). I can't ask for too much, but it's not usually bare or with no fire lanes at all. Often I'll be claiming an objective with this package. Any HWS that can't be within 6" of the lord commie (who usually stays with the CCS), I try to keep within 12" for the standard, though I'll take a good firing position, esp. within 24" of creed. Giving the HWS cover, often area terrain, and giving them rerolled morale checks at ld10 makes them quite durable, especially given the option to go to ground. That they receive their orders on ld10 as well is a real nice bonus that increases their reliability. I call it my Heavy Weapons Command Tripod: CCS/Regimental Standard/Lord Commissar. It keeps the HWS's in line and at maximum efficiency. I know you're all like 'medic in a 4 model squad, but with the lord commissar, that's a 5 model, 10 wound unit with 2 refractor fields. Fairly durable, and to kill it you're wasting firepower that could be used to kill what's actually killing your: the rest of my army. What I'm trying to do with this 'command post' is cripple some portion of the enemy's motor pool at range. When you add shots from the armoured elements, I'm getting alot of crossfire (making it hard to hide or face front), and that much torrent of fire can overwhelm cover saves. For transports, I just have to slow them up for the turn.

The platoon infantry are deployed as 6x 10 man squads. The mortar squads are used to bubblewrap the rear and sides of any vehicles that aren't already covered by the HWS, terrain, or the board edge. The HB squads are also bubblewrap, but more toward the front, in sort of a 'speed bump' role at times. The regulars also cover the HWS from assault. I know many of you were shocked to see no commissars in the platoons, I've been experimenting without them lately. Instead, I rely on my squads to die or run away, so that I can focus-fire on the enemy unit next turn. My ace up my sleeve is Creed's For the Honour of Cadia!, with which I can order squads to charge the enemy with fearless. That's my tarpit; if it looks like whatever I'm charging will do more than 10 wounds to my squishies, there's always another squad that can join in. They need to survive the initial combat; they won't break with fearless. Then they break on the enemy's turn, leaving their unit standing in front of my army. I've armed my infantry with grenade launchers, heavy bolters and mortars. Those two heavies complement the squads lasguns, and so do frag grenades. The heavy bolter/krak grenade combo gives me another (weak) layer of fire against light armour, while the mortar is useful due to it's range and not requiring LoS. I can blob if I wanted too (though I haven't lately), and would keep it near the Lord Commie if I did. The extra armour and dozer blade on 1PCS's chimera are expensive, but sometimes come in handy for delivering the burny dance on target. Or getting to an objective. The GL PCS often hops in the Lord Commie's boat, and drives around shelling out 7 S6 shots on power-armoured stragglers from the pie.

The two Fast Attack are basically my anti-teq platforms. I know Dakka dislikes sents, and especially plasma sents, but I wanted some plasma in my army. So far I have never regretted bringing it. Usually the tanks and chimeras draw most of my opponents' early anti-tank efforts, leaving the sent to take potshots from cover all game. If it is the biggest threat to them, it's range, mobility and size help make it hard to target while still getting shots. I only recently switched the devil dog from the hellhound, just to give me a second cup of teq tea. It has done well, and it's easy to use given its fast. I often hold it in reserve, so that I don't have to choose between racing up into the middle for an early shot, or waiting to be targeted before a good target presents itself. It can come on later and use it's speed to get to a good position, and it's also a good candidate to outflank with creed. Lately I've been thinking I should try hard to spot instances where using creed to do a regular scout move with it would be best.

The Heavy Support are my pie. The LRBT and Bassy work in concert; sometimes the russ is deployed to give the bassy LoS blockage, sometimes I'll deploy one in each corner to cover each other and more of the board. The LRD is a big fat point sink, virtually an 1/8 of my army in one unit. It's the elephant in the room. The short range of it's cannon and the extreme threat it is to everything on the board means that it is the unit I have to work hardest to use. I find holding it in reserve to be a good move, either to outflank with Creed's Tactical Genius or just come on my board edge later on, when the enemy has committed to the attack. That way it's more assured of at least round of fire. Firing both the Demolisher and Plasma Cannons on the move is pretty satisfying.

Sometimes I combine the chims with the tanks to make an armoured assault. Sometimes I march my infantry right up the board, with the officers issuing RRR! (I'm not worried about HB's or mortars missing a turn of fire). Often I deploy as a classic gunline, although always I have to be aware that movement will usually be necessary to win. Although deepstriking armies pose a serious threat, with 100 men and 7 vehicles, i control where they can and cannot drop in my deployment zone at least. Outflankers are neutralized by gapping up a board edge (or two!). Multicharges are my biggest weakness, because although to me MSU = everything is expendable, the point of it is having too many units for the enemy to kill efficiently, while having the firepower to kill their units efficiently. When I allow one enemy unit to kill more than one of my units in a turn, I'm defeating myself. Careful, careful!

Thanks for looking, especially if you read all that!

I'm thinking camo cloaks might help creed's squad out more than a medic. T3 FNP is easy to negate with high str, and the squad seems unlikely to take small arms fire at the back of an army. It seems a lot more likely a FNP squad with creed will eat autocannon/assault cannon rounds than bolter fire.

I would replace the Heavy Bolters with Autocannons. With the pie plates and mortars, you have anti-infantry covered. The Auto will help you with transports.

I agree camo cloaks would be better than the medic and would drop the lascannons on the Russes to give the devil dog a multimelta.

Has the Lord Commissar ever executed Creed? Fluffwise, that would be so wrong...

Before dispensing any advice, I'd like to know what opponents you usually face.

With what you own it seems pretty good to me. My one big piece of advice would be to move the mortars to a hvy wpn sqd and put in lascannons or autocannons in the platoon instead. I would 2nd or 3rd the advice on the camo cloaks instead of a medic. Other than that it looks good as a gunline kind of force. How do you take mulitiple backfield objectives?

zark

First off, I am not sure how the CCS joining the Lord in his chimera during deployment works because this was an issue at the flgs before and we came to the conclusion that you had to buy it for the squad then attach the IC.... dunno, gonna ask the other forums but anyways...

I think your biggest problem will be AV12, especially Eldar, seconded by Guard. IG comes second on your most hated list because of the prevalence of side 10 on their AV12.

Your list looks pretty solid until I hit the Fast Attack slot... It would just be nice to see some kind of redundancy in these last two slots like the rest of your list. It really does not matter what you put in them, just do the same thing, especially in the Fast Attack. Heavy has to change it up but it looks like an old 3/4th ed Heavy Support make me a little disappointed when the rest of your list (save the FA) look pretty solid Cadian goodness.

Like I was sayin in the other thread, I wonder what putting Kell in the CCS would do for you. How often do your heavy weapon teams really take enough damage that they are only losing a single model to cause a morale test? I ask just for losing one model because if you lose 2, the HWS loses effectiveness and if you lose 3, well... yeah. Just curious.

It seems like using Kell just would be more fluffy for ya, and let you spread out your HWS quite a bit more.

Why not combine the infantry squads and add the Lord commissar to one platoon and add another commissar to the other platoon. This way they're wont be retreating much than they were as separate squads and they can be better at bubble wrapping.

Replace those heavy bolters and the mortars with autocannons if you can. But then again I guess your stuck with it.

Though an ouflanking Demolisher is scary, IMHO I suggest not reserving your Demolisher as it would be more of waste of points sitting in reserves not shooting for 2-3 turns and not fully utilizing the points for plasma sponsons and the lascannon. Besides its a tough tank (dont put it near the melta stuff though) and more threats is better.

Building a list around what models you have is always a challenge, especially when the models you have aren't built around a list you designed.

I've got to start with two questions, though. Firstly, how on earth do you win KP games? No stubborn means you're just going to be swept away, and the speedbump philosophy only hurts you. Secondly, how do you win seize ground missions? There doesn't seem to be any kind of hard thrusting power to this list, as far as getting onto objectives and staying on them are concerned. Basically, this looks like a 4th ed list that you're forced to try to make work in 5th ed. I'm kind of surprised it works at all. I'd like to see some battle reports so that I could actually tell what was going on.

As far as the list is concerned, I'd say you'd probably get the most mileage out of buying just a pair of power weapon commissars. The commissars will do a lot, and will only require the addition of 2 new models.

Other than that, it's a matter of buying a bunch of better guns.

schadenfreude wrote:I'm thinking camo cloaks might help creed's squad out more than a medic. T3 FNP is easy to negate with high str, and the squad seems unlikely to take small arms fire at the back of an army. It seems a lot more likely a FNP squad with creed will eat autocannon/assault cannon rounds than bolter fire.

The thing is, if you're using autocannon/assault cannon rounds against creed, you're not shooting at stuff that's killing you. In any case, you may be right and I should proxy it to try.

AdeptSister wrote:I would replace the Heavy Bolters with Autocannons. With the pie plates and mortars, you have anti-infantry covered. The Auto will help you with transports.

I agree camo cloaks would be better than the medic and would drop the lascannons on the Russes to give the devil dog a multimelta.

It may be a good idea to go with AC's, but I find that 3 guns over 6 turns gives me up to 18 extra shots, and the regulars are often called upon to eliminate straggling power armour or shoot at light infantry. I'll try the camo cloaks, and I've proxied the multimelta on the devil dog. Definitely worth it, but as its glued on it doesn't make wysiwig 'till I show it some tough love with a hammer. I'd probably find the points elsewhere than the LC's on the tanks, I like them there.

JB wrote:Has the Lord Commissar ever executed Creed? Fluffwise, that would be so wrong...

Before dispensing any advice, I'd like to know what opponents you usually face.

Creed has not been executed yet.

I seem to face Blood Angels alot, followed by Orks, (they are my two most regular opponents, plus lots of other players have them), regular marines (third most regular opponent, plus lots out there), dark eldar and tyranids (the new codex's are popular). There are other guard armies, but I've only fought them in team apoc games so far. Basically, when I go to my FLGS, I have to be ready to fight any army, as I live in a city of a million so there's lots of armies around.

zark wrote:With what you own it seems pretty good to me. My one big piece of advice would be to move the mortars to a hvy wpn sqd and put in lascannons or autocannons in the platoon instead. I would 2nd or 3rd the advice on the camo cloaks instead of a medic. Other than that it looks good as a gunline kind of force. How do you take mulitiple backfield objectives?

The mortars and heavy bolters are in the platoon squads because they complement the lasguns best. Having the LC's and AC's in HWS's makes it easier to bolster their fire with BiD and FomT without needing to blob. Ok ok I'll try camo cloaks. With 94 scoring squishies in 8-12 units, taking multiple backfield objectives is not a problem.

Nenya97 wrote:First off, I am not sure how the CCS joining the Lord in his chimera during deployment works because this was an issue at the flgs before and we came to the conclusion that you had to buy it for the squad then attach the IC.... dunno, gonna ask the other forums but anyways...

I think your biggest problem will be AV12, especially Eldar, seconded by Guard. IG comes second on your most hated list because of the prevalence of side 10 on their AV12.

Your list looks pretty solid until I hit the Fast Attack slot... It would just be nice to see some kind of redundancy in these last two slots like the rest of your list. It really does not matter what you put in them, just do the same thing, especially in the Fast Attack. Heavy has to change it up but it looks like an old 3/4th ed Heavy Support make me a little disappointed when the rest of your list (save the FA) look pretty solid Cadian goodness.

Like I was sayin in the other thread, I wonder what putting Kell in the CCS would do for you. How often do your heavy weapon teams really take enough damage that they are only losing a single model to cause a morale test? I ask just for losing one model because if you lose 2, the HWS loses effectiveness and if you lose 3, well... yeah. Just curious.

It seems like using Kell just would be more fluffy for ya, and let you spread out your HWS quite a bit more.

I'm not sure about the CCS joining the LC and deploying in his chimera. The brb p.48 says 'an independent character may begin the game already with a unit, by being deployed in coherency with them. It's a little vague, but now that I think about it it probably means only the LC can start in the chim. Oh well, I've only started that way once, usually creed is deployed in cover and the LC is either with him or alone in his chimera. The main reason I gave the LC the chim is so that in dawn of war he's not hoofing it up the board on foot.

An AV12 spam list would be a challenge, but with 9 LC's, 4 ML's, 3 AC's, 3xPC's, Melta Cannon, Battle, Earthshaker, and Demolisher Cannons, plus 10 GL's, I'm going to do some damage to AV12.

I thought my fast attack did have redundancy - they are both anti-teq small blasts on mobile AV12 platforms.

I'm not sure what you mean about the heavy support. 3 pie plates disappoints you?

I may try Kell in the future, but I'm not sure I'd like rolling morale on 7. Having one HW stick around is better than none stick around, if only to force the enemy to use another unit if they want to eliminate the squad. I'm not to worried about the fluff - I've actually shaved off all the imperial insignia, and use Creed as a counts-as for my renegade Captain. I would lose the incentive to keep the HWS's within 6" of the LC, though.

h0r0 wrote:Why not combine the infantry squads and add the Lord commissar to one platoon and add another commissar to the other platoon. This way they're wont be retreating much than they were as separate squads and they can be better at bubble wrapping.

Replace those heavy bolters and the mortars with autocannons if you can. But then again I guess your stuck with it.

Though an ouflanking Demolisher is scary, IMHO I suggest not reserving your Demolisher as it would be more of waste of points sitting in reserves not shooting for 2-3 turns and not fully utilizing the points for plasma sponsons and the lascannon. Besides its a tough tank (dont put it near the melta stuff though) and more threats is better.

I'm not combining the infantry squads because I've found a blob to be an inferior bubblewrap to MSU's. The blob is pulled away by assault (leaving me without bubblewrap where I want it), and once in assault blocks LoS. I'd much rather lose 10 men and have the enemy sitting in front of my army than survive to lose the assault in my next turn, leaving his unit free to hit me in his next turn. If I need to tarpit for a turn, I use For the Glory of Cadia to give a squad or two fearless as they charge. Then they return to normal and die or run on his turn, leaving their unit(s) in front of my army.

I do have enough spare AC's to throw about 6 more out there, I'm not to big on AC's in general. I feel the one squad I have gives me an extra layer against light vehicles, and with all the other anti-vehicle firepower I have I feel fairly comfortable in that department. One of the biggest problems I have is straggler power armour, as I don't have any plasma guns. I just feel like more shots will lead to more wounds which will lead to more failed saves, thus the HB's/Morts in my platoon squads for anti-infantry work.

Ya, having anything in reserves can be a big drawback for me, and having it firing from the start is ideal. I still think that it and the devil dog are the best candidates for scout, and like I said above, keeping it in reserve helps it to get at least one round of fire in. Usually I only hold stuff in reserve if I'm going second.

Ailaros wrote:Building a list around what models you have is always a challenge, especially when the models you have aren't built around a list you designed.

I've got to start with two questions, though. Firstly, how on earth do you win KP games? No stubborn means you're just going to be swept away, and the speedbump philosophy only hurts you. Secondly, how do you win seize ground missions? There doesn't seem to be any kind of hard thrusting power to this list, as far as getting onto objectives and staying on them are concerned. Basically, this looks like a 4th ed list that you're forced to try to make work in 5th ed. I'm kind of surprised it works at all. I'd like to see some battle reports so that I could actually tell what was going on.

As far as the list is concerned, I'd say you'd probably get the most mileage out of buying just a pair of power weapon commissars. The commissars will do a lot, and will only require the addition of 2 new models.

Other than that, it's a matter of buying a bunch of better guns.

It has been a challenge, what with a new codex, new ruleset, and new codex's for my opponents. I'm starting to get the hang of it, and I'm making less mistakes every game.

KP games are a challenge. I can blob if I wanted to, and in that case I'd likely keep the LC near any blobs so that they don't go running away too quickly. But even then I still have minimum 17 KP's, maximum 21. I'm not sure how the speedbump philosophy hurts me - they eat one unit, I shoot one unit. Their unit will inevitably be worth more than 65 pts. The thing is, to win, their units have to kill more than one unit each, and the only way to kill more than one unit in a turn with a single unit is with multicharges or blasts. Cover and spacing can help with both. As long as we're trading unit for unit, each turn the advantage will slip to me because my dwindling army's firepower and multiple units have the potential to kill more targets each turn than his dwindling army. If the guy gets in turn 2 with multicharges, than, ya, KP games are tough. If not, I can win them. I just lost a KP game to BA's today, but it could have went either way. I made some mistakes in targeting priority, and his deployments and maneuvers were excellent. I hate fighting FNP power armour! The game ended on turn 5, 8KP to 4KP, but it was closer than that score says, and a couple more turns may have seen a win for me.

Seize ground games are a challenge as well. One thing that helps me against an army like, say, Blood Angels, is that their troops are fairly expensive and so they often only have 2-3 squads of scoring models. Then they are faced with the dilemma of committing them to the assault on my position, or keeping them back to score. If they keep them back to score, that's alot of points that aren't helping kill my army. A couple of turns of shooting from the bassy and LRBT have the potential to clear an objective of troops, and the other vehicles can have the mobility and range to get powerful weapons on target as well. You can't score if you're dead. I also have movement options: I have two chims to score with, 5 other vehicles to contest with, and 70 regulars to RunRunRun with. I can blob them to soak up casualties on the advance, and bolster their morale with creed and the LC. If i get to place the first objective, and there's an odd number of them, it's conceivable that I'll be in a winning position from the beginning. You're right though, seize ground is tough. The objectives games I've lost were because I didn't start moving early enough, or my squishies just didn't make it.

I think you're right about the commissars. I could easily add two, or even just one. It would give me more options, and more flexibility. If I went with just one, I'd probably make his platoon 4 squads and the other 2, so that I could blob 20-40 depending on the situation. Then again, I also thought of adding another platoon commander, to make 3 platoons of 20. I've seen what the power weapons do for your blobs; do you think a single power weapon in a platoon is worth it? You've always got three. The only times I proxied PW's, I was frustrated rolling 5 to hit and 6 to wound on mephiston, or at least I didn't get to use them much on regular power armour, which is where they shine. I just find stuff that wants to assault to be more manueverable than my units, and so it's hard to dictate who they fight. Unless, that is, all that you present to them are a bunch of little squads.

The reason I'm taking a break from platoon commissars is for two reasons: one, the poor bubblewrapping a blob does (see above). Two, I had a commissar shoot a sgt. and then promptly run, leaving a 2 vehicles and 2 squads open to a massive multicharge by Warboss+Nobz, wrecking most of them and sealing a loss for me. Thats when I decided to experiment with MSU's. I feel like if you're gonna play a blob, you gotta make it an Ailaros Power Blob, or a Sit-in-Cover-on-an-Objective Blob - tarpit and bubblewrap blobs aren't worth it to me.

I'm pretty much refusing to buy better guns, but I've got a few lying around and plan to make more. With the next 1000 pts I want to add a true Ailaros Power Blob, and melta and plasma on vets and stormies. I've got 1 plasmagun, 1 plasma pistol and 2 meltaguns right now, do you think it's worth trying to squeeze them in somewhere? I'm just saving them for expansion. I do often proxy plasma in a PCS, and I did play with chimeltavets for awhile, 'till I switched to pure platoons. Neither one was really overwhelming for me, but I probably just didn't have enough to make a difference in one game, and didn't play that many games with them.

Thanks for all the comments guys, it's real helpful.

The problem I assumed with AV12 was the prevalence of S6+ guns on quite literally every vehicle on top of the other nasty guns.

Redundancy is better found in having multiples of the same unit, not just similar ones. It works ten times better because it is the most true redundancy, not just similarity.

3 pie plates is nice, but just one LRBT and an overpriced Demolisher (should not have any upgrades besides hull weapons on russes IMHO). The basilisk is not horrible, especially if that is just what you have on hand.
I would reccomend just taking the sponsons and dozers off, unless they used plastic glue, they come off regularly easy and can be repainted as rusty (personal exp).

That frees up some points for taking a couple vendettas (the best alternative to buying 3x3x Sentinels $$$ wise and game wise). Convert some grenage launchers into meltaguns for your PCS, throw the two PCS into the Vendettas and you now have some meltavet equivalents.

Also, H.Bolters are cool but not real versatile, especially in the hands of guardsmen. A gunline of lasguns does not need more dakka on top of frfsrf. Autocannons are the way to go in blobs from what I have played... am starting to go towards missles over autocannons, though, gotta play test a bit it seems.

Ya, I used to have ML's in the squads, and HB's in HWS's, but I'm currently trying this format. You're probably right about already having enough anti-inf, I should give a more powerful weapon another try.

I know the dozers/upgrades are generally a waste on the tanks, and when I play proxy I usually just have a hull weapon. Today, however, the dozers came into effect for both the chim and the LRD, and the chims' extra armour came into effect, allowing 1PCS to deliver the burny death. I'm not sure what to think of them. They may do nothing, yet they may win me a game. I'm not sure that they would pay for two vends, but I do have enough fat to pay for at least one more unit of some kind.

To get your 'true redundancy', would you say two dogs or two sents?

I'm still not sure what you're meaning about the AV12. Do you mean I have alot of s6 guns, or an AV12 list would?

Thanks for your comments. Why are the ML's starting to make it in your list over the AC's?