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Tell me if you think the following would be even remotely competitive:

Gladius Strike Force Battle Company:

Pedro Kantor
Captain with boltpistol and power fist
Chaplain

2 - 5 man devastator squads. Each has 3 missile launchers with flakk and 1 lascannon
6 - 5 man tactical squads. 4 have missile launchers; 2 have plasma cannons
2 assault squads on foot. Each has a meltabomb sarge and 2 flamers

1st company task force: 4 - 5 man sternguard veteran squads

Free rhinos, 2 of which have dozer blades.

The plasma cannons are for long range AP 2. The sternguard veterans get objective secured because of pedro.

Basically, everyone but the assault squads and the sternguard stay back and provide cover fire. Sternguard hop in free rhinos and secure objectives.

Captain + assault squad and chaplain + assault squad in rhinos play "keep away from the gunline."

Pedro hangs out with a sternguard veteran squad.

What do you think? Is this a viable list idea?

What are the Sternguard carrying? Drop pods might get them where you need them faster.

I think it's lacking a bit of dedicated anti-tank; the lascannons and missile launchers will work well against most vehicles, but heavy tanks like Leman Russes or Land Raiders might be a bit of a problem. Also target priority; the Flakk Missiles are nice, but if your opponent brings both flyers and tanks you'll have to decide who to shoot, and that might costs games if not made carefully.

iowaforever wrote:
What are the Sternguard carrying?

Nothing. That's an extra 5, 10 or more ppm that I'm not really sure where I'd even cut from.

Drop pods might get them where you need them faster.

I'd have to pay for them. The rhinos are free because of the battle company. Basically, the rhinos would be dedicated for the tac squads, etc., but the sternguard hop in.

I think it's lacking a bit of dedicated anti-tank; the lascannons and missile launchers will work well against most vehicles, but heavy tanks like Leman Russes or Land Raiders might be a bit of a problem.

That is potentially a problem. What is your recommendation for more anti-tank?

Also target priority; the Flakk Missiles are nice, but if your opponent brings both flyers and tanks you'll have to decide who to shoot, and that might costs games if not made carefully.

I figure that 3 flakks and a lascannon, if nothing else, should be enough to force a jink, eh?

Traditio wrote:
That is potentially a problem. What is your recommendation for more anti-tank?

Melta is always nice; for my own Crimson Fist lists I was recommended Melta Bikers or a pair of land speeders (or a suicide Dreadnought in a drop pod, which could work with the Battle Company's dreadnought slots). Chainfists (from Terminators or Ironclad Dreads) would also work, though with the way you've distributed points it might be hard to fit something in without dropping a Sternguard Squad.

iowaforever wrote:

Traditio wrote:
That is potentially a problem. What is your recommendation for more anti-tank?

Melta is always nice; for my own Crimson Fist lists I was recommended Melta Bikers or a pair of land speeders (or a suicide Dreadnought in a drop pod, which could work with the Battle Company's dreadnought slots). Chainfists (from Terminators or Ironclad Dreads) would also work, though with the way you've distributed points it might be hard to fit something in without dropping a Sternguard Squad.

Yeah. That's basically the problem. The only really viable thing would be a dreadnought in place of a sternguard squad, and then I'd have 10 points left over.

It definitely does deserve consideration, though.

Anyways, the list as presented in the OP: even remotely competitive?

Anyways, the list as presented in the OP: even remotely competitive?

I might not be the best person to judge, but I would say the list can do some damage; mobile Sternguard with Objective Secured can lock down a decent amount of territory, and with their specialty ammo can handle a wide variety of targets, and you've got a good gunline to keep them supported.

Traditio wrote:
Tell me if you think the following would be even remotely competitive:

Gladius Strike Force Battle Company:

Pedro Kantor
Captain with boltpistol and power fist
Chaplain

2 - 5 man devastator squads. Each has 3 missile launchers with flakk and 1 lascannon
6 - 5 man tactical squads. 4 have missile launchers; 2 have plasma cannons
2 assault squads on foot. Each has a meltabomb sarge and 2 flamers

1st company task force: 4 - 5 man sternguard veteran squads

Free rhinos, 2 of which have dozer blades.

The plasma cannons are for long range AP 2. The sternguard veterans get objective secured because of pedro.

Basically, everyone but the assault squads and the sternguard stay back and provide cover fire. Sternguard hop in free rhinos and secure objectives.

Captain + assault squad and chaplain + assault squad in rhinos play "keep away from the gunline."

Pedro hangs out with a sternguard veteran squad.

What do you think? Is this a viable list idea?

So in a competitive game missle launchers SUCK, they are TERRIBLE, and flakk is WORSE, almost no one brings fliers and even less people are going to after death from the skies. Second, if you're gonna run standard battle company you are pretty much limited to white scars or ultramarines depending on rhinos vs. pods. The more grav cannons you shoot on turn 1 the better off you are. Grav makes all other forms of space marine shooting basically worthless, outside of podding sternguard and podding melta. Sternguard go in pods, if you don't drop them you'll be just paying for the exercise it gives your arm to pull them off the table. If you try to hop them into rhinos, they'll be worthless until turn 3 where they will finally only be in rapid fire range of a unit their special ammunition doesn't help with anyway. Also keep in mind that dedicated transports count for the leadership minus bubble as additional units.

If you wanna max out sternguard, the best way is through the new angels of death formation, you can cut an entire battle company and still get INSANE bonuses to sternguard (Twin-linked for basically the whole game) based armies, you can bring the pin kings version of skyhammer and still have it be worthwhile, you don't have to bring terrible assault marines, you can add extra grav cannon dev squads with no taxes and put them with a cataphractii guy and have 20 reroll 1s reroll wounds grav shots.The free transports sound good but at the end of the day, if you don't build to maximize the efficiency of what is IN the transports, the free points still won't help you.

TL: DR do imp fist BC not gladius and plasma and missles are balls out terrible

Drop pods might get them where you need them faster.

I'd have to pay for them.

No, they're free in a Battle Company.

FortheEmperor! wrote:

Drop pods might get them where you need them faster.

I'd have to pay for them.

No, they're free in a Battle Company.

He's talking about the sternguard, for which they are not free BUT, without them sternguard are worthless. Footslogging them is suicide and hopping them into an allied rhino means that A) some other unit becomes useless and B) they won't be able to get good shooting in until turn 3 if they get there at all.

Running a battle company like this in a competitive environment won't work. You have no answer for Wraithknights(even sternguard are only wounding on 6s and can't use their ap3 ammo because it can't hurt them), anything you have footslogging (that isn't fully blobbed/deathstarred up) you don't even need to deploy for how fast they'll die and how little they'll do, cover nukes most of your shooting, invis will wreck you, even with doctrines and bolter drill, you can't kill stormsurges or riptides, it'll take 2 rounds of shooting to take down a single flying hive tyrant with the missle launchers, you have no way of dealing with knights and admech shooting will demolish you, other marines will kill 5 guys for every 1 you do with their grav cannons/melta drops, Chaos can just ignore you the whole game if they want, Dark Angels will run circles around you AND outshoot you. your absolute best matchup will be KDK and they'll just nom the footslogging units and assault hop your shooting phases.

The Gladius strike force is a fairly refined list, and is a good one to just netlist if you want something very competitive. Here is Frankie from frontine gaming's adepticon 4th place Battle Company list http://bloodofkittens.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Frankie-Giampapa-4th-Overall-Adepticon-2016.pdf, if you're looking to run a competitive gladius strike force, start here.

If you're looking to run a competitive Imperial Fist/ Crimson fist list, I sugget either skyhammer + pedro cad in pods+ moar pods, or the stuff from the angels of death supplement.