Here is the start of my rather in depth IG review. I've covered the HQ choices so far, and some stuff about the background and art and whatnot. More to follow.

An in depth Review of Codex: Imperial Guard

Codex reviews have become a sort of new phenomenon, with a good review often propelling discussion for weeks, such as HBMC’s delightful Chaos Codex review, or form the initial frame of discussion for a codex’s tactical options, like the Ork Codex review whose author I have forgotten. In that grand tradition, and fully aware that HBMC will be gracing us with a review of the IG book himself, I endeavor to share some thoughts and analysis on this latest incarnation of the guard. The focus of this review is more from a player’s perspective, glossing over the background and art and focusing on the army selection. With a healthy discussion already brewing about the most tactically powerful options in the book, I’m going to try to discuss more “mid level” tactics, and hopefully entertain and enlighten.

Artwork and Introduction

While I promise not to dwell on this, tradition demands at least token attention be paid to these elements of the IG book. The cover is busy, to be sure, but I think it does a better job of showing that the IG relies on masses of soldiers, tanks, and support than previous covers did. I do wonder what the officer in the red lined cape is standing on, however. It’s either nothing at all or the tracks of a Chimera, neither of which seem like a wise place to lead soldiers from. The cynical part of me notices the grey clad, masked rebel dead in the lower right hand corner and notices that those would be more interesting than more Cadian plastics… but it passes.

Credit is prominently given to Robin Cruddace on the first page, which is a new development. I can only ponder why this change has occurred, but I assume it’s simply cheaper than paying the development staff more. The inner cover shows a small Cadian force, and I’m reminded of how boring the Studio Cadians really are, and how silly the new IG Hunter Killer missiles look, particularly when mounted on the side of a Chimera. The Table of Contents is fine, but notably relabeled the old color hobby section “Soldiers of the Imperial Guard,” which is very vague. The introduction is as much filler as always, at least I assume it is because I didn’t really actually read it. The first of many recycled art pieces adorns this page: a black and white version of the beautiful two page piece of Creed and Kell leading the 8th from the old codex. I have no problem with recycled art or fluff, as I think the good stuff should stay in circulation. Five years ago I would have added that the fluff can always be expanded and refreshed in White Dwarf, but now I almost wonder if they shouldn’t put the old, venerable fluff in White Dwarf to cater to the magazines target market and make the codices the home for interesting new stuff.

Fluff and Background

Moving on, the next section describes the history and organization of the Imperial Guard. After reading every one of these sections, I have to admit that they have finally figured out how to make the IG seem real, part of the 40k universe, and interesting all at the same time. The regimental system, which seems clunky, is now expanded in rationale. Not only are regiments formed from a single planet, they are also typically formed of only one type of company: infantry, artillery, armored, etc. This is both to allow planets to specialize and to prevent regimental mutinies from have adequate support. It makes an odd sort of sense, while still dovetailing neatly with the established regiments. Cadians, Catachans, etc. are allowed combined arms formations not only because they are veterans, but because they are notoriously loyal. Thus, while a regiment from PigsKnuckle IV has to rely on seconded armored support, the Cadians can be trusted to operate in more self contained units. It’s a neat bit of fluff, and also partially explains why Cadians and Catachans are the best soldiers in the Galaxy but are still indistinguishable from other regiments. This segment closes with a page on Lord Solar Macharius, which does a fine job of retelling his story for one more time.

The next segment, “Famous Regiments of the Imperial Guard” distills many of the old familiar bits of background for easy consumption. In the grand tradition of Catachan fluff, they include the bit “every animal is a carnivore, and every plant is poisonous,” which leads me to ask why a planet with not herbivores would have any poisonous plants at all? It is also made clear that Catachans, despite not being able to produce tanks, do have tank crews, thus making it clear that even Jungle Fighters like a good tank. The rest of the regimental fluff, while brief, does a good job outlining them, with the notable lack of mention of my beloved Praetorians or the RT era Necromundan Spiders. Given GW’s nostalgia kick of late, I was surprised not to find an reference to the latter. As for the Praetorians, while I’d heard rumors that GW are faintly embarrassed that people like them, no company that produces Space Hobbit Snipers or Orc Cheerleaders can really claim any source of shame.

Next up are four pages of “Notable Battles of the Imperial Guard.” While most of the stuff reads like bad Silmarillion fan-fic (Lord Awesome lead 23 Billion warriors to destroy General Stinky, and all but four died, and the planet was destroyed), there are some good bits. Notable is the description of an artillery bombardment on a rebel hive that lasted for 10 years: two years after all life signs ended and five after its unconditional surrender. Kept to a dull background level, it’s useful to remind the reader that the 40k universe is fundamentally insane. Too much and it becomes hard to read, but I like the little bits in the corners of the fluff like that.

Forces of the Imperium, Wargear, and Army list.

While there is no really good way to separate fluff, rules, wargear rules, army rules, special rules, and point costs between the various codex sections, it makes any sort of tactical review nearly impossible. For the purposes of this review, I shall instead review based on FOC slot, referring to all three sections as is required. I’m not going to tee off on the layout, as far wittier members of the board will fill that gap, but rest assured that while it makes reading the book for pleasure much nicer, it makes game play a hassle.

It is interesting to note that the IG really doesn’t have any army wide special rules. Yes, their heavy weapon teams are super special for no real reason, and the orders system is new, but units like a special weapon team have literally no rules beyond their stats and their weapons. I think it makes a certain amount of sense, as IG are basic troops that shouldn’t need special rules to mark them out, but part of me also thinks that the days when GW can really claim that the IG based, all 3’s stat-line are the basis for the gaming system are long past.

Stealing the idea of ranking the units from that Ork review, I’m going to score each unit, and many major upgrades, as either Casual, semi-competitive, competitive, or highly competitive. The rankings are a bit squishy, but essentially conform to the highest level of list that would feature the unit or upgrade could still succeed at. Thus, if a unit is ranked as highly competitive, it means it could be a key component of a highly competitive list, excelling at GTs and Hard boys type environments. A semi-competitive unit is one that will seldom be seen in successful lists in environments beyond small local tournament. To provide a rough calibration, here are few examples from other codices:
Highly Competitive: Sternguard, Ork Boys, Blood Crushers, Plague Marines
Competitive: Fiends of Slaanesh, Tactical squads, Killa kans, Chaos terminators
Semi-Competitive: Trukk boys, Thunderfire Cannon, Defiler, Seekers of Slaanesh
Casual: Flash Gitz, Venerable Dreadnought, Chaos Furies, Spawn

In the tactical review, there are few aphorisms that I’ve coined over the years that I’m injecting. I’ll explain them here so you’ll know what I’m talking about.

The Half Priced Rule

When discussing whether an upgrade (be it a special rule, a weapon, or even a character upgrade) is overpriced, I like to apply the half priced rule. If the upgrade were half the current price, would it be an absolute no-brainer? If not, the upgrade is probably over-costed. This doesn’t mean that the upgrade is twice the optimum cost; it simply means that it’s pretty clearly above what the fair market value of the upgrade is. The classic example of this was in the 4th edition Space Marine codex, when it cost 20pts to upgrade from an assault cannon to a twin linked lascannon, despite the Assault cannon being superior against nearly every target and only being really limited by range. If the lascannon had only been 10pts more, it would have been a tough call between the lascannon and the assault cannon. Thus, at 20pts, it was pretty clearly over-costed. The counter example is something like lascannon sponsons on the new SM Predator. 65 pts might be too high, but 35pts would make the upgrade a no-brainer.

The 20% off Rule

A variant on the above rule, this one is meant for basic units, not upgrades. Essentially, if a unit could take a 20% price cut, and still not be a top tier unit, it’s clearly over-costed. The classic example here is probably Chaos Possessed. At 20% off, they’d be 21pts per unit, and still not clearly a top tier unit, especially when compared to Berserkers. This rule is more often than not also linked to BINAT.


The GW Rule of Threes

In any given list of options, very rarely will more than three be truly useful. Keep in mind that the focus is very narrow; restricted to a single slate of options for one single unit. If the same five upgrades appear in multiple different entries, different ones might be useful in different entries, of course. There are counter examples, of course, and sometimes people swear by 4th place options, but in general most people stick to the top three options. The classic example here would be Eldar Guardian heavy weapon options in 3rd edition, when there were five options but you hardly saw anything but Bright Lance or Starcannon. More recently, Devestators have five weapon options, but are seldom fielded with Multi-meltas or Lascannons. Even in tactical squads seeing heavy bolters or Plasma Cannons is rare.

Pro-Am Special

This is term used to describe any unit or upgrade that’s very good in a casual play environment, but generally avoided in very high level play. Not to be confused with a Timmy style unit (giant impressive units that eat up way too many points), it usually has a strong psychological effect on midlevel players, and tends to do better against midlevel build. A great current example are probably Thousand Sons: not a bad unit, but they’re far better in a low terrain, mostly MEQ environment.

Headquarters

Company Command Squad
The very first entry is the Company Command Squad, hereafter the CCS. First, I want to applaud GW for finally making clear names for HQ and Platoon level command squads. Secondly, the BS jump for a CCS was something I never even considered, yet makes eminent sense from the current GW idea that command squads are just veterans. It makes sense from every level, as why would the best troops not be with the commanding officer, or at least be available to the commanding officer? T

In one of the least lamented losses of options in GW history, the old three tiered system of Commanders has disappeared, replaced by a single “Company Commander”, who has a built in refractor field. I like the idea of simply bundling wargear like that in with a character, as nobody would ever pay any price for a refractor field in anything but the fluffiest lists, especially now that the Commander is not an IC. It does allow a CCS to allocate a power weapon wound to him, and hope to shrug it off instead of simply losing a model. The big loss to the Commander is the Leadership rule, which used to hold the IG together, especially when combined with Iron Discipline. While not utterly absent from the list, as the Commissar Lord has something similar, the role of the Commander is no longer to sit put with a standard and leadership and prevent troops from breaking. With the new orders system, coupled with exciting new options for the squad itself, the CCS is now a more integrated part of the armies function. The Commander is a bit more of a fighter than before, as he’s no longer an IC and can take a 15pt fist or a 10pt plasma pistol. Both are fun options, but it is a shame they bumped power weapons up to 10pts while dropping fists down. Anything that can take the fist will, for five points more. Its sloppy rules, and I guess I don’t see why power weapons couldn’t have simply been made 7pts (which is about what they’re worth) and been done with it. The final nail in the power weapons coffin for Commanders is his new Initiative of 3, meaning he’s swinging last against nearly everything anyway, making the fist the clear choice for a combat oriented officer.

Orders have been discussed at length, but there are a few key points to remember. The CCS gets two orders a turn at 12” range, and can give any of the six orders. While the squads most likely to benefit from orders, like heavy weapon squads and Special Weapon squads are only LD7 and pass only about 55% of the time, the twin linked order is very strong, and the cover save order can be a huge factor. Get back in the fight is either very good or nearly broken, depending on what the final phrase “may shoot and assault as normal” means. Does that mean as normal of a unit that regrouped, or as normal of a unit that was never falling back or shooting. If it is the latter, being able to have a heavy weapon team go to ground, then still shoot in the next shooting phase can be fun.

Aside from Orders, the CCS has a plethora of weapon and wargear options. They can finally take Carapace or Camo Cloaks as an upgrade, and one model may take a voxcaster which raises the YMDC question of “does a CCS with a vox get to re-roll a failed order?” It’ll probably not matter, as the only order a CCS is likely to give itself would be Bring it down, and a fourth melta gun is better than the vox. The medic, like the new apothecary, simply gives FNP to the unit, which is a fine upgrade I feel, but a classic Half-Price Rule example at 30pts and giving up a special weapon slot. The CCS can take a heavy flamer, which I guess is nice but at 20pts when compared to 5pt flamers, it seems like a real afterthought. The squad can take a heavy weapon or a full load of specials, including the newly promoted sniper rifle, and the new 5pt Krak grenade option might actually be taken in a game.

The other big change to the CCS is the ability to take advisors. The Bodyguards are the odd men out, as you can take up to two, and they simply transfer wounds allocated to the CC (up to two per turn) unto them instead. At fifteen points they’re a good upgrade for a combat oriented CCS, and more wounds on a valuable squad are always nice. Like many things, cost can add up quickly, so I’d imagine these will be used in a limited fashion outside of Apocalypse, but having options that excel in multiple gaming variants is in no way a bad thing. In another entry for YMDC, the look out sir rule states that “up to two wounds allocated to the CC are instead resolved against the Bodyguard(s).” Does that mean if the CC takes two wounds, each bodyguard takes one wound, one takes two, each takes two? If there is only one, and the CC takes two wounds, does one still take both? I’m guessing the answer is that the collective pool of bodyguards can absorb up to two wounds per turn, and they are allocated amongst any bodyguards as normal, i.e. on a piece if there is two, and both on one if not. It does limit the need to take more than one, though. If

The Master of Ordnance is a very interesting upgrade. Like all of the non-bodyguard advisors, he’s 30pts, but adds a potentially powerful weapon to the IG arsenal. If he doesn’t move, he can drop a an Earthshaker round anywhere on the table, except that it always scatters 2d6” on a hit, or 3d6” on a miss. The pessimist in me realizes that this is so wildly inaccurate as to actually make it useless against all but massive hordes or a parking lot of vehicles, and has almost no chance to really hurt the threats to the IG. Then a part of me remembers: it is a 30pt upgrade! This little guy seems to belong in any stay at home CCS, perhaps one anchoring a gunline, and should be avoided in any front line Squad. Running only 30pts makes this guy a prime candidate for becoming a Pro-am Special. One note is that he’s a great way to get indirect fire in an all infantry gunline, which is a fun build to run from time to time.

The Fleet officer and Astropath enable the IG player to manipulate the reserves battle. The astropath is obviously only good in IG armies with reserves, but in those, he’s worth every penny, IMO. The +1 to reserves is nice, but the re-roll to outflanking is money in the bank. With the best units in the codex (valk/vendetta) having scout, anything that makes outflanking better is useful. The rules specifically apply if the Astropath is alive, not on the table, so even if he’s in reserve, he’s helping you out. The Fleet Officer is less generally useful, if you’re opponent doesn’t have reserves he’s wasted space. I think that the Fleet Officer’s use will be highly environmental, based solely on local metagames. Combine armies with no reserves with those armies that don’t mind delayed reserves, and he becomes a very shaky upgrade.

If the basic Company Commander is too boring for you, consider upgrading him to the Lord Castellan himself, Creed. Creed is a man’s man, and commander’s commander. At 90pts, he nearly triples the base cost of a CCS, but brings a lot to the table. He may utilize four orders a turn, has a 24” order radius, and gets a bonus order. In addition, one unit in the army may scout. So, is he worth it? The answer, as always, is maybe. The four orders can be very clutch, combined with the larger range. In addition, his special rule makes a unit fearless and furious charging for a turn. Make a squad fearless, have it charge an enemy unit, tie it up, and then have it break and run in the opponents turn to shoot it up again. If successful, that combo alone can save a gunline from a massive combi-charge. Going another way, a large combined platoon with power weapons and attached commissars with power weapons becomes very good when furious and fearless.

In addition, one 24” radius circle is better, in terms of area, than two 12” radius circles. What’s unspoken there is that in the builds that will include Creed (gunlines), most of the guns are in the DZ anyway, making the two much closer in practice.

That brings up Creeds fatal flaw, which is that he alone costs more than second CCS with standard and three grenade launchers, which can spit out the same number of orders and shoot reasonably well, as well as help hold the leadership together. If you add Kell, his value goes up, but so does the total cost of the CCS in question. In general, I think there are better places for the IG player to spend the points in all but the largest games.

Speaking of the big guy, Kell adds the rule that most people expected with the orders system, namely the ability to test for them on the officer’s, not the squad’s, leadership. He also gets the bodyguard special rule, and includes the standard, making him really only a 70pt upgrade. In a large enough game, Creed and Kell allow up to four anti-tank squads to be twin linked against vehicles or monstrous creatures, which is pretty good until you realize that they do so for the cost of two more anti-tank squads. Doing the math, twin-linking four squads adds three hits per turn, which is exactly what two more anti-tank squads would add. In the end, with the IG in no way lacking ways to spend points effectively, spending 225pts simply to make other squad better seems unproductive.

If hand to hand hotness is your preferred brand of Company Commander, the legendary Iron Hand Straken is back; saved from the minor league that was the Catachan Codex. Straken does everything a normal Commander does, but adds two key things: vastly improved combat performance from his CCS, and Furious Charge and Counterattack for everybody in 12”. Now, nothing is going to turn basic IG squads into Hand to hand powerhouses, but those rules work on Grey Knights, Sisters of Battle, or in apocalypse, any friendly unit. The combos that can be created are endless, and furious charge really, really helps S3 models with power weapons. The old man himself makes his squad fearless, and is WS5, S6, I3 with a power weapon and four attacks. Toss in a plasma pistol, a 3+/5++ and an extra d6 Armor Pen against vehicles, and he’s the easy choice for a close combat oriented CCS. He’s clearly expensive at 95pts, but if you view him as a countercharge unit that also makes the rest of the army a little bet punchier, or you build your list to really take advantage of his bubble of rage, he’s a very solid little guy.

Finally, because every giant entry needs a truly awful option, Nork Dedogg makes a long awaited return to the ranks of the IG. Nork brings next to nothing to the table, adding three wounds with FnP to a squad, but lacks a power weapon, an invulnerable save, or any way to actually protect his charge. A true half priced rule special, Nork would be tough call at 50pts. At 110pts, he’s more expensive than any of the officers he’d protect, and is truly one of the worst options in the book. It’s a shame, because Nork has some of the best background in the game, and is really one of the few heartwarming aspects of 40k, as he ends up retiring back in his Ogryn village. In the game though, he’s terrible.

In general, I think there will be two main builds of CCS: the mechanized or air mobile variant with four meltas, maybe an astropath, built to blow stuff up and support equally mounted vets; and the gunline anchor with standard, astropath and/or MoO, possibly creed/kell, and a chimera to increase order range. Both are pretty fun and useful units, and help to hold together two very different kinds of armies. Even viewed as a cheaper, non-scoring alternative to veteran squads, the CCS will be a big part of many, if not most IG armies. Add in the ability to take two, and they’re very punchy units for not a lot of points.

CCS: Highly Competitive
Bodyguards: semi Competitive
Master of Ordnance: Competitive
Astropath: Highly Competitive
Fleet Officer: Semi-Completive
Creed: semi-Completive
Kell: semi-Competitive
Straken: Competitive
Nork: Casual

Lord Commissar
As the diligent reader may have noticed, in the list of regimental advisors the old favorites, the Commissar, priest, and sanctioned psyker were all missing. All are still in the list, just no longer available to the CCS as upgrades. Rather, they are all independent characters (although low level commissars can be added to platoons), able to roam at will, but also costing a key HQ slot. Were before IG rarely, if ever, used their second HQ slot, the ability of a CCS to act like a turbocharged Veterans squad makes the HQ slots have a bit of a premium. That all said, the various IC’s all add something new to the list, or in the case of the Lord Commissar, something old, just shifted to a new model.

The Lord Commissar seems to have two roles: as a sort of low rent combat charcter, and as Morale booster to an IG fire base. In the second role, he arguably does pretty well. Lords have the Aura of Discipline rule, which is essentially the old Leadership rule only with a 12” range. As Lords are LD 10, that makes them pretty good at preventing LD7 heavy weapon squads from running away. The lord also makes any squad he joins Stubborn. I’m very leery about the abundance of Stubborn in the IG list now, as Stubborn really doesn’t help the IG that much. There are no real negative modifiers in shooting anymore, with 5th edition rules and no more Fear of Darkness, so Stubborn only is useful in combat, where half the time you want your guardsmen to run anyway. Sure, it’s nice to charge into the enemy, and hold for a turn to deny him a monster charge, but it takes a deft touch. Rather than a universal positive, it’s at best a 75% positive.

As a close combat guy, have you ever feared an Eldar autarch on foot? No, right? Now, imagine the Autarch cost the same, had a 5+/5++ instead of a 3+/4++, was only WS5, couldn’t take a melta gun, couldn’t get a bonus attack, was only I3, and to make up for all of that could take a powerfist. That unit would be pretty hilarious. That, alas, is what the Lord is like in combat. While not terrible, he’s just not really good, and as an IC he’ll get picked out. Oh, and he can buy Carapace armor for 10pts, or half of what an entire CCS costs! I know you can’t compare models across codices, but GW has never even come close to figuring out S3 T3 Independent characters, and they haven’t started now.

In the end, the Lord will be a big feature in Apocolypse games, keeping heavy weapon squads in line. In anything else, he’s simply too costly in both points and lost HQ slots to feature in anything but fun lists.

Lord Commissar: Casual

Commissar Yarrick
My goal with this review is not to critique the codex, but sometime it’s really hard to, when there are just baffling aspects to the writing. Yarrick’s Bale Eye, one of the coolest pieces of wargear in the game, has a new rule that gives Yarrick a hot-shot laspistol, as well as giving him an extra attack. The rules then go on to state that it’s already included in the profile, which sure enough, lists Attacks: 3, meaning that Yarrick absent his bale eye has fewer attacks than a normal Commissar Lord. Noticing stuff like this is what kept me out of the really good schools.

Yarrick is 185pts, or 80pts more than a similarly equipped Commissar Lord (only with a plasma pistol instead of a hotshot laspistol). For those 80pts, you get the force field, which forces the enemy to re-roll any wounds laid on Yarrick, T4, Eternal Warrior, the ability get back up from death with one wound on a 3+, litanies of hate and fearless for himself and any unit he joins, and a 12” stubborn bubble. That’s a lot of rules for only 80pts, but considering the basic Lord Commissar is a pretty bad unit, it’s probably better to analyze Yarrick on his own merits.

In terms of combat, Yarrick simply isn’t that durable. Without an invulnerable save, it still only takes 12 S4 power weapon hits to drop him, which many armies can bring. In addition, his 4+ armor save means that non-power wounds still wound half the time. With only three powerfist attacks a turn, he’s not going to do enough damage to really balance out his vulnerability, and while boosting a friendly combat unit is useful, Priests do it for far cheaper. The only real use for Yarrick, as far as I can tell, would be in leading a squad of Ogryn. That’s an expensive squad, but fearless, furious, and can re-roll hits on the charge.

Yarrick: Casual

Primaris Psyker
In 40k, there are two kinds of good units: those that do something really well for a reasonable price, and those that do something reasonable for a really good price. Elite armies live and die with the former, but IG players love the latter. The Primaris Psyker doesn’t do much, but he does it for cheap at 70pts. A LD9 Psyker, he’ll only really get to use his powers if there is no psychic defense, and at S3 his force weapon is mostly for show, but on the off chance he can pop off Lightning Arc he’s throwing 2d6 S6 shots at BS4, at 24” range that counts as an Assault weapon. The secondary power, Nightshroud, forces any unit that shoots at the Psyker or his unit to pass a Leadership check. Anybody that lived through 4th edition remembers how little protection that was, and thus will probably be rarely used expect when the Lightning Arc is out of range. Toss in a random refractor field for a 5++ save and you have a very nice little unit. While probably not good enough to really challenge the CCS for a slot, the Psyker could be a contender in a list that includes any of the furious charge granting characters. As fluff goes, having one and a few Psychic Battle Squads would make for fun theme.

Primaris Psyker: Competitive

Ministorum Priest
Few things are as comforting as knowing that GW is essentially incapable of fixing bad units. For every inspired re-write, we have to endure a dozen false starts and dead ends. In the old codex, few units were as maligned as priests: expensive, fragile, and adding very little to a squad they were attached to, they simply did nothing and cost too much. In the new codex, they cost more, do less, and are more fragile. To be fair, they are now independent characters that can be attached to any unit, but that simply means with their new one wound profile they will be smeared pretty easily. Oh, and in case you think attaching them to ogryn for re-rolls would be cool, it’s not allowed.

On the positive side, they have a built in rosarius, they don’t take an HQ slot, and they can take an eviscerator for only 15pts. Because we all know that chainfists on T3 W1 Independent characters are great ideas.

The best use I can see for these guys is to add to a bloated CCS that is also a counter charge unit, maybe with Straken for extra punch. The re-rolls are nice, but at the cost of a nearly guaranteed KP and no combat punch absent the eviscerator, I think this unit is far too risky and costly for what it offers.

Priest: Casual

Techpriest Enginseer
Another universally loathed unit in the old codex, the new Techpriest is very, very different. Instead of being a 2 for 1 elites choice, they’re now a 2 for 1 HQ choice that doesn’t use an HQ slot. Oh, and they now fix a weapon destroyed or immobilized result on a 5+, not a 6+, and do so in the shooting phase, not at the beginning of movement. Seriously, that’s all they changed.

The servitors are a little different, in that technical and combat servitors are combined into one basic servitor type that have a single power fist attack and add +1 to the repair roll. Up to two can have heavy bolters, multi-meltas, or plasma cannons. Now, servitors are 15pts, and the heavy bolter upgrade is 20pts, and servitors are BS3, and don’t have relentless. That means you can pay 35pts for a T3 4+ save model with a heavy bolter. Good times. The Plasma cannon or Multi-melta upgrade is 30pts, making a Techpriest with two plasma cannon servitors only 125pts less than two scout sentinels with plasma cannons. Guess which one I’ll be taking.

The best use for this guy would appear to be to actually fix vehicles, as a techpriest with four servitors can follow a tank squadron, and fix a weapon destroyed every time. The problem is that this costs 105pts, and another tank starts at 150pts. Of course, in Apocalypse, he can hang out near a Baneblade, which makes him much better.

Techpriest: Casual

Tomorrow, I'll be covering Elites and hopefully troops. Feel free to comment, ignore, what have you.

I think classifying poor units as suitable for "Casual" gaming is far too kind. They're best described as "Crap". There is no kind of game where Nork, Yarrick, Tech-priests or Lord Commissars will ever be useful. Even in the most friendly of matchups, they're still actively contributing towards your opponent's victory by not being good enough.

Agamemnon2 wrote:I think classifying poor units as suitable for "Casual" gaming is far too kind. They're best described as "Crap".

Well, I'm not really trying to tell people how good the unit is, merely what it's ceiling is. You can put Nork in a casual play list and still win more than you lose, because it's casual play, and you can spot most opponents 110pts and still win.

I think Nork is really the only useless unit I've gotten to so far. Most other things have uses, even if only in apocalypse, that give them enough juice to justify taking.

I'd also argue, and this is a cop out to be sure, that having a massive point sink can be fun for teaching games. If you set up a 1000pt game with a new player, and you drop Yarrik and Nork in your list, you can play hard and still have a huge handicap.

Anyway, if people want a fifth category for "garbage", I can add it. I just think that it's pretty clear from the write ups what casual units are still decent in very narrow windows(Lord Commissar, Priests) and which are trash. But, people want it, it's not a problem.

So, I can't sleep, so I wrote up the elites section.

Ogryn Squad
In most codices, Elites are where the good stuff lives, the top shelf stuff that excels at it’s role and can go toe to toe with the best units in the enemy army. In the IG list, Elites are where the support units live, the ones that are ok at stuff, but are often priced as well as the Elites of other armies. Nothing exemplifies that more than Ogryn.

Now, Ogryn are not bad. They were bad in the old book, but at T5 and W3, coupled with stubborn, Ogryn can now finally take a charge like they were always supposed to, as long as it’s not by a dreadnought, that is. The ripper gun is now S5 and Assault 3, making it a pretty deadly shooting attack. Ogryns also now all have three attacks, furious charge, and no longer fear getting into a chimera. So what’s not to love?

40 freaking points a model.

I’m stunned, simply stunned at that pricetag. I was guessing back up to 30pts, maybe 35pts, but at 40pts GW is telling us that Ogryns are as good as Assault Terminators, which they simply are not.

Aside from sticker shock, Ogryn seem to finally be decent as assault units. There is a litmus test for assault squads, which is that no unit can really be a dedicated hand to hand unit unless it can reliably take on a tactical squad (at the same price range) and win reliabely. Assuming a tactical squad with fist, melta, and Multi-melta, the squad is 210 pts, or exactly the same as five ogryn with a bone ‘ead. Assuming the Ogryn get the charge, they’ll get 15 shots, for 7.5 hits, 5 wounds, and a 1.666 dead marines just from shooting, a promising start. Assuming one full casuality, the 8 basic marines will swing next, thanks to a totally arbitrary Initiative drop to I2. 8 attacks leads to 4 hits, 4/3 wound and 8/9 unsaved, for one total wound. The ogryn then get 21 attacks for 10.5 hits, 8.75 wounds, or nearly three dead marines. The sarge will do about one wound, meaning the Ogryn win by one. Now, that’s pretty good, but considering that’s a dedicated assault unit under optimal circumstances attacking a non-Hand to hand unit, I’m very underwhelmed. In the second round, the 6 remaining marines keep fighting, with five swinging at I4, for 2.5 hits, 5/6 wound, and 10/18 unsaved. The Ogryn, assuming four remain, will swing back with 13 swings, 6.5 wounds, and kill two more marines. The sarge will do 5/6 of a wound again, meaning the Ogryn will keep winning.

Running the same basic test against an Ork Boys mob of 27 boys (to get the points even), the Ogryn will shoot and kill 5 Orks out of cover, and just over 3 with a KFF. Assuming no cover, that brings the boys down to 22. The ogryn charge and have Initiative, doing the same 8.75 wounds, for just over 7 dead boys. The remaining 14 boys swing back, with 42 swings, 21 hits, 3.5 saves, 7/3 failed saves, or just over two wounds. The Nob will swing last, with 3 swings, 1.5 hit, and enough wounds to pull a full ogryn. The Ogryn win, 7 to 3, and kill 4 boys with no retreat. In the second round, the four remaining Ogryn swing 13 times, hit 6.5, wound 13/3 and kill 3.5 boys. The 7 basic boys remaining take 21 swings, hit 10.5 times, wound 1.75 times, and lay just over one wound on the Ogryn. The Nob than throws another wound on them, and the Ogryn win again, 3 to 2, causing the last 8 boys to take a leadership test.

Against even non-dedicated assault troops that are MEQs, the lack of power weapons really limits the usefulness of Ogryn. While they can handle the tactical squad, they would also struggle against marines with BP/CCW, or really any unit that gets the drop on them. They did do good job of really slowing down an Ork horde, but 200pts would buy a lot of flamers if the IG player is worried about Orks.

As a beefy unit that can take some punishment, Ogryn will have a place in the IG players tool kit, but as they stand they are simply too expensive and too reliant on non-powered attacks to be a truly viable assault unit.

Ogryn: Semi-competitive (Possibly competitive?)


Edit: for correct math against Boys, thanks to Kid Happy for pointing that out.

Ratling Squad
There was a rather nice thread here on Dakka that discussed the delightful space hobbit snipers that are Ratlings. The consensus there, which I agree with, is that Ratlings do nothing that other units can’t do, but do what they do well and for a decent price. 10pt BS4 sniper rifles that come with infiltrate and stealth simply are good at being snipers. Now, snipers aren’t very good unless you face a lot of high T monsters, but if you do, Rats are cheaper than anti-tank squads and will in general do as many wounds. Combining rats with Psyker Battle Squads can make pinning good, and if you’re going to take a commissar lord ratlings are a prime candidate to take advantage of LD 10.

If taken, they’re there to throw some wounds on big critters, take potshots at basic infantry, try to pin low LD stuff, and hopefully draw fire away from the bigger guns in the list. All in all, Ratlings do exactly what they say on the tin: decent snipers at an honest price.

Ratlings: Competitive

Psyker Battle Squad
The first really new unit in the codex, the Psyker Battle Squad is a meta game changing event. Its primary ability, Weaken Resolve, can lower the leadership of any unit within 36” and LOS by the number of psykers, to a minimum of 2. Combine with any shooting to cause fall backs, or pinning to pin the squad, and a Warmachine worthy combination is formed. The PBS also has a large blast shooting attack with 36” range, APd6 and the same strength as members of the squad. The squad can take a chimera, and shoot its large blast out of it (it’s an assault weapon), and all psykers can use their powers from inside transports now, making Weaken Resolve from inside a Chimera the new power unit in 40k. This unit also is only 110pts, with a 55pts chimera added if desired.

Like the Primaris, this squad is only LD9 and is thus pretty vulnerable to most anti-psyker defenses, and number of fearless units makes weaken resolve pretty useless against Chaos, Nids, Ork Horde, and anything mechanized. Still, for a shockingly low price and with no real competition for the elites slot, a PBS with Chimera is basically the must have unit from the new codex.

Psyker Battle Squad: Highly Competitive


Storm Trooper Squad
Has GW always spelled Storm Trooper as two words? I actually checked, and they have in every IG codex since 2nd edition, in the 3rd ed BBB, and in codex witchhunters. I never noticed that, so I’m not sure what is more worrying: that I noticed it now, or that I never did before. It does annoy me that GW can remember a wacky editorial quick like that, and not remember that Storm Troopers have sucked for 10 years, and they probably shouldn’t make them worse.

No matter how you spin the new 16pt, AP3 spitting storm troopers, they’re pretty bad. Storms always had three missions: deep striking with meltas (where they were outclassed by vets), forming a plasma fire base (where they were ok), and as a sort of mechanize linebacker squad, leading charges or countering the enemy as needed (a role they were simply far too fragile and costly for, but it was fun to use them that way). In the new codex they have exactly two uses: shooting at 3+ armor in the open (a role that they are designed for and are still mediocre at), or as deep striking melta gunners. As deep strikers, they’re actually quite good, getting a re-roll to the scatter, allowing for very aggressive placement near enemy land raiders. Absent any other deepstrikers that aren’t falling out of a valkyrie, this build is really the only choice IG commanders have to get deep striking melta guns. At 100pts the squad is about the same price as many of its targets, and the biggest threat to the IG are landraiders which can be at the IG lines before I can even roll for reserves half the time.

In short, between Marbo and the plethora of quality indirect fire choices available to the IG, even deep striking Storms simply don’t bring much to the table. The other builds fall apart really quickly, all invariably wilting in comparison to veterans, which are far cheaper, even with carapace, can take an extra special weapon, and are troops. In any head to head, decent troops will win out over decent non-troops, and storm troopers aren’t even close to decent.

To be fair, the new Storm Trooper Datasheet makes them decent, but really only if you already have 30 storm troopers. Two shots, with a run move between them, along with Vital objective make for a nice purchase, particularly in games where non-troops score.

Storm Troopers: Casual

Guardsman Marbo

I love a good Pro-Am special, and Marbo might be the Pro-Am-iest of the entire codex. A poor mans callidus assassin for half the cost and with no need to be an inquisitor, Marbo is only 20 pts more than a six man heavy weapon squad with demo charge in the old codex, and this time doesn’t scatter when he arrives. He can show up, anywhere on the table, drop a demo charge, and if he lives until his next turn, shoot and charge a light unit and do some serious damage, with five attacks at WS5 always wounding on a 2+.

He’s a pro am unit because he really doesn’t help much against top tier armies (blood crushers are too big to really get caught under a demo charge, assault terminators have a 3++, and nob bikes have a 4+ cover save and big bases), and most top armies can either ignore him, or deal with him easily.

Still, expect a lot of IG armies to run him, as he brings an element of surprise to a list that is often very stodgy, and if used properly against the right enemy, he can really do some serious damage.

Guardsman Marbo: Competitive

Polonius wrote:I endeavor to share some thoughts and analysis on this latest incarnation of the guard.

The cynical part of me notices the grey clad, masked rebel dead in the lower right hand corner and notices that those would be more interesting than more Cadian plastics…

Credit is prominently given to Robin Cruddace on the first page, which is a new development. I can only ponder why this change has occurred, but I assume it’s simply cheaper than paying the development staff more.

Not only are regiments formed from a single planet, they are also typically formed of only one type of company: infantry, artillery, armored, etc. ... It’s a neat bit of fluff, and also partially explains why Cadians and Catachans are the best soldiers in the Galaxy but are still indistinguishable from other regiments.

notable lack of mention of my beloved Praetorians or the RT era Necromundan Spiders.


Company Command Squad
command squads are just veterans.

TL;DR.

Seriously, that is one heck of a long review, and it covers less than 1/3 of the book. I think I'm just going to do summary thoughts and leave it at that.

I would *love* GW to do Traitor Guard / LatD as a proper Codex, even with generic Daemons, it would be awesome.

The cynic in me thinks Robin get's solo prime credit because nobody else on the Dev team wanted to be associated with this thing.

The regimental Fluff is interesting, and a decent retconn patch. Tho, I'd rather GW spent more time on making Platoons more variable versus overloading Veterans again.

So all of the other modeled Guard have a text blurb? Good.

FWIW, I suggested CCS to be Veterans.

Anyhow, good stuff - keep going!

JohnHwangDD wrote:
TL;DR.

Seriously, that is one heck of a long review, and it covers less than 1/3 of the book. I think I'm just going to do summary thoughts and leave it at that.

I, like my namesake, do not know the meaning of the word Brevity.

FWIW, I suggested CCS to be Veterans.

and I"m almost positive I suggested the blob platoon rule. Eerie.

Edit: I actually found it. It was off the cuff, but it's basically the rule that was adopted:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/215251.page#340120

Anyhow, good stuff - keep going!

Thanks, I did something similar back in the day on 40k Online, and a lot of people liked it there. Too many tactica articles 5 years ago were just lists of all the units, and I'm glad we've moved past that, but those were very useful as well. Hopefully we can really get some ideas brewing about the new IG list.

The final nail in the power weapons coffin for Commanders is his new Initiative of 4, meaning he’s swinging last against nearly everything anyway, making the fist the clear choice for a combat oriented officer.

Minor typo nitpick: the commander has Initiative 3.

Solid review,cant wait to get my hands on the new codex.

A-P wrote:

The final nail in the power weapons coffin for Commanders is his new Initiative of 4, meaning he’s swinging last against nearly everything anyway, making the fist the clear choice for a combat oriented officer.

Minor typo nitpick: the commander has Initiative 3.

That's not a nit pick, that's catching a silly error. I'll fix it pronto.

The first really new unit in the codex, the Psyker Battle Squad is a meta game changing event. Its primary ability, Weaken Resolve, can lower the leadership of any unit within 36” and LOS by the number of psykers, to a minimum of 2. Combine with any shooting to cause fall backs, or pinning to pin the squad, and a Warmachine worthy combination is formed.

Fot a really worthy combination, toss in some rough riders or an outflanking squad. Since a unit that is assaulted needs to regroup or is destroyed, and that weaken resolve works till the end of the turn, charging broken squads is very powerful. Of course, rough riders compete with a lot of other options in the fast attack department, but I feel I'll be squeezing in at least a single unit just for this possibility. First one to pull this off with Nob bikers needs to take a pic of the orc player's face and post it!

Thanks for the review, Polonius!

Greets
Schepp himself

Good stuff so far and I eagerly await the rest of this. You should turn this into an article when you’re done.

George Spiggott wrote:Good stuff so far and I eagerly await the rest of this. You should turn this into an article when you’re done.

Agreed. I've been waiting for a detailed tactical review by people who are more current on the rules than I, and this is excellent. Thank you.

Attempting to steal thunder are we Polonius. This will not be forgotten. *shakes fist*

H.B.M.C. wrote:Attempting to steal thunder are we Polonius. This will not be forgotten. *shakes fist*

Hehe, not really. I've tried to stay clear of critique, really, and focus more on application of the units in a from a tactical perspective. I think there's enough IG love to go around to a couple of threads.

Anyway, the real reason behind it is I finished my last ever finals on wednesday night, so now I've got some time on my hands between now and commencement on the 17th.

I would hope an IG list would shoot Ork Boyz and SM tactical squads rather than have Ogryn charge them. I would hope the Ogryn would stop/slow down the real threat to IG lines in assault. Daemon Princes, Greater Daemons, Characters on foot/bike that normally rampage through IG armies. It can be rather easy to screen some of those fast moving threats until they jump a unit, get tied up in thier assault phase and win in the opponents assault phase thereby jumping from unit to unit almost unscathed.

Await your musings on Penal Legionaires with interest. 80 pts for a throw away unit, that "might" get some "ok" close combat skills?

Polonius wrote:I've tried to stay clear of critique, really, and focus more on application of the units in a from a tactical perspective.

Well I'll be staying clear or critique as well, and heading more towards trivial nitpicking.

Really enjoying it, keep at it.

DarthDiggler wrote:I would hope an IG list would shoot Ork Boyz and SM tactical squads rather than have Ogryn charge them. I would hope the Ogryn would stop/slow down the real threat to IG lines in assault. Daemon Princes, Greater Daemons, Characters on foot/bike that normally rampage through IG armies. It can be rather easy to screen some of those fast moving threats until they jump a unit, get tied up in thier assault phase and win in the opponents assault phase thereby jumping from unit to unit almost unscathed.

Hmm, that's a really good point. The problem with Ogryn is that even with Stubborn they're only LD7, meaning they hold roughly half the time. Sure, you can charge say a Chaos lord with blood feeder with four Ogryn (equal points), the Lord will get, on average, 11 attacks, with 22/3 hitting, 22/9 wounding for 2.5 total wounds. The four ogryn have 17 attacks on the charge, hit 8.5 times, wound 17/3 of the time, and cause 17/9 unsaved wound. The Ogryn take a test on LD 7, break 42% of the time, but do lay some hurt on the guy. Against an Ork warboss it's even bloodier, causing only 4.25 saves but actually causing 2 unsaved wounds again. the problem is that the warboss has five attacks, for 10/3 hits, 50/18 wounds, and at S10 that wipes out two full Ogryn. They still test on a Seven, and still did two wounds, but they're pretty beat up after that.

Adding in the ripper gun shooting, and they kill both on the charge, on average.


Against anything T4 in Terminator armor, four ogryn on the charge are only doing about one wound.

Against Greater daeomons, particularly, the Bloodthirster, you throw six ogryn against it. Now, odds are the Thirster will get the charge, but assuming an Ogryn charge, the Thirster swings first and five times, hitting 10/3, wounding 50/18, for 2.5 total wounds. The six ogryn have 25 attacks, 25/3 hit due to the WS10, 25/6 wound, and 25/9 are unsaved, for 2.77 wounds. With the instrument, the thirster gets the win, but gets pretty beat up in the process.

I don't deny that the Ogryn are a pretty decent close combat unit, I just think that they units they excel at are a pretty narrow front, and dropping 15-240pts on a unit that excels in optimum situations against a few unit types is a pretty heavy luxury.

Flashman wrote:Await your musings on Penal Legionaires with interest. 80 pts for a throw away unit, that "might" get some "ok" close combat skills?

I won't be getting to troops until later tonight, but with Penal Legions you get what you pay for. I've got more thoughts, but I feel comfortable saying that a squad of 10 in 1850 is at least a competitive choice.

I thought Ogryns were more of a tarpitting unit against pretty much anything without S10. They have a load of T5 wounds, if there was just a way to give them a better leadership...

Greets
Schepp himself

Will you write it up?

Polonius wrote:Psyker Battle Squad
This unit also is only 110pts, with a 55pts chimera added if desired.

Still, for a shockingly low price and with no real competition for the elites slot, a PBS with Chimera is basically the must have unit from the new codex.

I want to talk about this unit specifically.

I'm not convinced it's a must-have.

Schepp himself wrote:I thought Ogryns were more of a tarpitting unit against pretty much anything without S10. They have a load of T5 wounds, if there was just a way to give them a better leadership...

Well, there are, but all of them rely on independent characters (Commissar Lord, Primaris Psyker, SoB Canoness), so are an automatic liability.

Excellent review so far, I am really enjoying it.
It occured to me reading that Straken + Eversor would be a good time...

Good review started!

On the Psychic battle squad (I left my codex at home) Does the leadership drop with weaken resolve last through the entire turn (both players) or only the IG players turn? Or only the IG player's shooting phase?

asugradinwa wrote:Good review started!

On the Psychic battle squad (I left my codex at home) Does the leadership drop with weaken resolve last through the entire turn (both players) or only the IG players turn? Or only the IG player's shooting phase?

It says until end of the turn, which I'd assume means until the end of the IG players turn.

Damn... I was hoping it could reduce eldrad or a lash prince's leadership to 2 so he couldn't use his powers.

Polonius wrote:
Artwork and Introduction

The cover is busy, to be sure, but I think it does a better job of showing that the IG relies on masses of soldiers, tanks, and support than previous covers did. I do wonder what the officer in the red lined cape is standing on, however. It’s either nothing at all or the tracks of a Chimera, neither of which seem like a wise place to lead soldiers from. The cynical part of me notices the grey clad, masked rebel dead in the lower right hand corner and notices that those would be more interesting than more Cadian plastics… but it passes.

Funny how codex covers always show the army in question kicking another army's butt. This may be the first time a codex cover's army is kicking the butt of another army from the same codex.

BTW it appears to me the caped officer is standing on the Chimera's track guard, the front of which can be seen just to the right.

asugradinwa wrote:Damn... I was hoping it could reduce eldrad or a lash prince's leadership to 2 so he couldn't use his powers.

If the PBS could do that, then even I'd be singing their praises!

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Polonius wrote:I've tried to stay clear of critique, really, and focus more on application of the units in a from a tactical perspective.

Well I'll be staying clear or critique as well, and heading more towards trivial nitpicking.

And honestly, let's stick with what we know.

Love the review, cant wait for more.

I agree with just about everything, but even if I though you were on crack, I like the way you are writting it.

Well done, you.

Keepin it coming man! Great job so far.

Only thing I'd add is about creed. He's pricy but I think the ability for him to give any unit the ability to outflank is potentially a big deal.

Troops

Infantry Platoon
In the recent White Dwarf, Robin stated that the Infantry Platoon is probably the most complicated unit entry in all of 40k. After reading the codex, I have to agree, but really only with the definition of complicated to mean “lots of moving parts.” For anybody with sound intelligence, the Infantry Platoon makes a lot of sense. As the beginning makes clear, a Platoon consists of a Platoon Command squad, 2-5 Infantry Squads, 0-5 Heavy weapon squads, 0-3 Special Weapon Squads, and 0-1 Conscript Platoon. Each unit acts independently but the entire platoon is one choice for deployment and reserves.

The head of the Platoon is the Platoon Command Squad, or PCS, led by the rather drably named “Platoon Commander,” or PC. I suspect many old IG player will continue to call the Platoon Commander a JO, or even a Lieutenant for quite a while. The PCS has many of the options a CCS does, losing the ability to take Camo or Carapce, or a Regimental Standard, or any of the Regimental Advistors, but gaining the ability to add a commissar. In addition, the PCS can only issue a single order at 6”, from the basic list of FRF!SRF!, Move, Move, Move, and Incoming. In terms of sheer abilities, the CCS is far better at only 20pts more, gaining if nothing else two more wounds from the Company Commander, BS4, and the far sexier orders. Of course, the PCS is part of a troops choice and can be taken in frighteningly large numbers, and the reduced cost and abilities don’t matter if you’re using the PCS properly.

Much like the CCS, which could either support a gunline or operate on its own as a deadly short range unit, the PCS can either support a small fire base or operate on it’s own, or really perform a mixture of both. The orders available to it make the PCS fare more of an “add-on” than a real performance booster to infantry squads:

First Rank Fire! Second Rank Fire! Adds a shot unto the lasguns in a unit, which heavy weapon teams lose their lasgun and sergeants not longer have the option means that if you use this order squads will once again have almost as many lasgun shots as before. Extra lasgun shots are easy to ignore, but if instead of this order every PCS could shoot 6 S3 shots at either 12” assault or 24” heavy… well, we’d be interested in that, right? Even if only available 55% of the time, 6 more shots is 6 more shots. Never rely on this power, but never forget that it’s available.

Move! Move! Move! A squad that runs gets to roll 3d6 and pick the highest. Huh. Even less obviously useful than FRF!SRF!, this order actually adds a almost two inches to the average run move, from 3.5 to around 5”. This means that a squad moving to claim an objective or set up a better firing lane, or just moving on in Dawn of War, can scoot a little farther. IMO this is the first power to check for good uses of, as the game is won by claiming objectives.

Incoming! GW must have a surplus of exclamation points. A bigger, better Go to Ground, it forces a squad to give up all movement and shooting in the next turn, and since orders are given at the beginning of the shooting phase, they lose the current turns shooting as well. If you have squad camped on an objective that can be shot at, and a 3+ save isn’t good enough, Incoming turns it into a 2+ save. This could be handy, but who tries to clear IG from objectives through shooting? This order is sort of like road flares: you’ll probably never need it, but you’ll feel really cool the one time you do.


So, with PCS not being that good at leading troops, and no longer providing a leadership bubble, what do they do, I hear my readers ask. The answer, surprising, is fight pretty well. The basic PCS is only 30pts, or cheaper than a Special weapon squad, and can take up to four specials. With the BS 3 of the PCS, and BS4 readily available on Vets and CCS, flamers become noticeably better, as do grenade launchers due to their affordability. Snipers aren’t bad if you really hate ratlings, but at 50pts for 4 snipers you are turning down 5 ratlings that are BS4 and have stealth. Meltas are still not a bad call, as a 70pt double melta squad will still hit twice, and given a chimera they can project the firepower surprisingly well. Plasmas are both expensive and available in too many other places to be more than fun option for the PCS. None of the heavy weapons really add much, as single BS3 Heavy weapons are basically the raison d’etre of infantry squads. Load up on specials where you can and where they are cheap. In addition, any special heavy PCS used to be a liability when units could consolidate into new units. Now, as long as you avoid a multi-charge an enemy squad can hit an infantry squad, wipe it out, and then have to twist while the four flamers behind them do their worst.

In a fun twist, the PCS is actually also not a terrible countercharge unit. While probably not usable as such in competitive play, the availability of 15pt power fists and Commissars, also with 15pt hidden fists, turns the PCS into a punchy little unit in combat. The x factor is the commissar, which at 35 pts is not cheap for a one wound character. Stubborn, while often poor in many squads, is very hand in small, easily dispatched squads. The scenario goes something like this: a full PCS with four flamers, commissar, and two fists get out of their chimera and move towards a tactical squad. They hose it down with promethium, killing 3-4. The survivors are charged, and the small handful of marines can’t do enough wounds to actually kill either fist, which then proceed to knock 2 more down. They get easily dispatched in the next turn, but they prevent the tactical squad from charging another unit, or worse, popping a tank. That whole squad runs 115pts and while it is a bit of luxury, it’s genuinely deadly with LD9 and stubborn, as well as two S6 powerfists. The platoon standard is a possibility, but at 15pts is not worth giving up a special weapon slot unless combined with every possible HtH upgrade.

When equipping the PCS, the list of options seems to settle into five big questions:
Which special to add four of?
Do I add a commissar?
Do I add powerfists?
Do I mount the squad in a chimera?
Do I buy plasma pistols for the PC and/or Commissar?

Believe it or not, both the commissar and the Platoon commander are BS4, and can snag 10pt plasma pistols, adding surprisingly decent option to the PCS.

At this point, I basically see the following builds of PCS dominating the early builds:

Four flamers, chimera (possibly commissar/fist combo)
Four Grenade Launchers on foot (cheap and fun)(can add toys if desired)
Four meltas, Chimera (possible PP)

It seems like the role of the PCS is limited to short range fire after a squad is wiped out, or possible as a cut rate melta platform, but any army that is taking infantry platoons needs mobile special weapons available, not more heavy weapons.

To add variety, you can replace the standard Platoon Commander with Commander Chenkov for 50pts. Chenchov gains a point of LD, a wound, bolt pistol, Power weapon, and Carapace armor, along with a few special rules. Forward you dogs makes every unit within 12” Stubborn. As discussed above, I’m less bullish about casually stubborn units than many people, and I’m often worried that he’s going to prevent a key break rather than keep a key unit in position. I might be stressing needlessly, but IG, more than really any other army, don’t want to pass every leadership test. He is, however, able to use two orders a turn at 12” range, but is limited to Move! Move! Move! and Get Back in the Fight! I’m not sure how often squads are breaking with his stubborn bubble, but I suppose it is a nice ability. Finally, in an army with Chenkov, Conscript Platoons can buy the ability Send In the Next Wave, which allows the unit to be removed from the table as casualties at the beginning of any turn. In addition, any squad with this rule that is removed from play returns at the beginning of the controlling players next turn. This is really nice ability, it’s just a shame that it costs 75pts per squad to apply.

An army with Chenkov is going to be built around having a rock hard backbone that isn’t going to simply melt away in close combat. Now, that may or may not always be a good thing, but Chenkov coupled with a CCS with Standard will enable the IG to tarpit pretty effectively. Add in the neat ability of a conscript platoon to charge in, test on their own LD (which still isn’t very good), and then disappear in the next IG turn to allow for shooting, and Chenkov has some interesting merits, but requires a substantial amount of work to build an army around.

If you prefer your platoon based special characters to be both more stylish and more dynamic, then Captain Al’Rahem can add that touch of the exotic to even the most humdrum IG gunline for 70pts. Like Chenkov, he’s an upgrade to a basic PCS and comes with +1 W, +1 Ld, a plasma pistol, and the Claw of the Desert Tigers; a power weapon that inflicts instant death. Al’Rhahem also has two orders at 12”, and is able to use FRF!SRF! and Bring It Down, along with a unique order, that allows a unit to shoot and then run in the same shooting phase. In addition, his entire platoon must outflank.

With the Claw and the PP worth about 20pts of the upgrade on their own, and the bonus orders (particularly since Bring it Down is arguably the best order) solidly worth another 15 (based on the 20pt difference between the PCS and the CCS), the real question is if having an entire platoon outflank is worth 35pts. With an Astropath to guide him, Al’Rahem can bring troops into the flank of the enemy reliably. The squads may mount up in Chimeras, dramatically extending the threat radius. Outflanking does prevent those early game parking lots that can dramatically cut into the IG’s effectiveness, allowing a platoon to come out, hopefully (with a 59% chance), on turn 2 where needed.

Some fun Al’Rahem tricks to consider:

Al’Rahem, his PCS, four flamers, a commissar with fist and a chimera runs 225pts, and can really mess up light units that tend to hang back and shoot. With a free smoke launcher, successful turn three burninations on rangers, scouts, Devestators, lootas, etc. are all far easier. For spice, drop the flamers for meltas, and with Bring it Down add some anti-vehicle spice. Droppping the Commissar saves 50pts, making the all flamer version a much leaner 175pts.

A basic squad with flamer in a chimera is 110pts, and with Al’Rahem can outflank to control/contest objectives (even the IG’s own) or harass light troops. For more fun, give the Chimeras a heavy flamer in the hull.

Two of the above, plus the stripped down melta squad runs 415pts, for a decent threat to enemy armor and lighter infantry.

Alas, any squat on foot will probably be easily dealt with, as it’s just not hard for your opponent to deploy his forces so they can’t get flamed from the flanks, and Special Weapon Squads can’t take chimeras. Heavy weapon squads don’t belong in reserves if it can be helped, and conscripts are kind of lousy.

All in all, I think Al’Rahem is fun, but costs too much in terms of points and turns of firing to be truly top grade.


The backbone of the list, or at least the backbone of previous IG lists, is the humble Infantry Squad. 10 Guardsmen, a Sergeant, a special weapon, a Heavy Weapon, and maybe a commissar or Chimera make up the least assuming squad in 40k. The Sergeant is now a mandatory veteran, and the squad now has frag grenades, but the squad is essentially unchanged from previous incarnations. The world, however, has moved around it, changing its role pretty dramatically from the centerpiece of the list to almost a supporting role for more dynamic elements. While all infantry builds are still possible, they give up what are clearly the best three things in the codex: vets in valks, vendettas, and heavy support

The critical change in terms of Fifth edition for infantry squads is the ability to combine up into large, “blob squads.” This is crucial ability to avoid getting hosed in KP missions, but aside from those, two smaller squads are almost superior. The other key time to consider blobbing up is in Dawn of war missions, where each side may only deploy two units. There isn’t too much to discuss here, as the tactics will be felt out, and nothing needs to be bought. Larger squads do become slightly more viable in HtH, and can still churn out some decent shooting.

The basic squad runs 50pts, and can take any of the five specials for the basic price. In nice revisit to the GW rule of threes, really only three of the options are viable. Snipers are too unreliable and wonky to fit well into line squads, and the melta gun really needs both numbers and movement to work as an option, and there are far better places to load up on melta guns. That leaves the flamer, the grenade launcher, and the plasma gun to compete for slots. Before analyzing what specials to take, let’s figure out what heavies to take. In the heavy weapons, the mortar is the cheapest and the likely choice for bare bones squads. The heavy bolter is as good as always, but at the same cost as the autocannon simply cannot compete, as the autocannon is good against light and medium infantry, decent against meqs, and good against light and medium vehicles, as well as high T creatures. The Missile Launcher is now pricier than the Autocannon despite being barely able to compete at the same cost, and is only five points cheaper than the lascannon. While Lascannons aren’t knocking out Land raiders anymore, they are still among the best weapons for Armor as low as AV12, Monstrous creatures, and anything with a 2+ save. In other words, just because it’s not good at its job doesn’t mean it’s not the best at its job. This leaves three main choices: mortar, Autocannon, Lascannon. Luckily, the three pair up neatly with the three special choices, forming mortar/flamer, AC/GL, and Las/plas squads quite neatly. Mortar Flamer is a dedicated anti-infantry squad that emphasis affordability. The Autocannon/Grenade Launcher combo is best for dealing with enemy vehicles and does decent double duty at anti-infnatry. The las/plas combo is best at dealing with 2+ saves and armored vehicles.

One of the most interesting debates has to be the very role of infantry squads themselves. If an army is only taking a few, I would recommend focusing on the most efficient variant: Autocannon & Grenade Launcher. This adds great punch against light vehicles while adding lasguns and bodies to the list. Anti-tank weapons aren’t hard to come by in the list, but 65pts AC/GL squads are a dirt cheap way to get some durable mid strength shots. If you are taking a few more squads, than the lascannon is the best way to go. Able to deal with any threat, a squad of 10 guardsmen in cover will enable a lascannon to fire for quite some time. Only in the largest infantry armies is there any reason to take Mortars in infantry squads (and I’ll argue later that Penal Legionaires perform the light screening and flanking duties of the Mortar/flamer quite well). If points are available, upgunning the GLs to Plasma Guns adds more punch, both against vehicles and against armored infantry. While the IG’s need of squad based AP2 depends on what other units are in the list, even at 15pts a plasma gun is simply good at what it does. At all costs, avoid not including a heavy or special in a squad. Even bizarre combinations like Lascannon/flamer are better than simply taking the lascannon alone.

This seems as good a time as any to discuss voxes, which now allow a squad to re-roll the leadership test for an order if both the officer and the squad have a vox. Given the relatively limited applications for orders on infantry squads, it seems unlikely that a 5pt upgrade (plus five points on the command squad) is worth it to gain a better chance at an Order. With 65pts AC/GL squads and 85pt las/plas squads, a 10pt bump (for the two voxes) is an 11-15% increase in cost, solely to gain a 27% increased chance to get off an order, none of which are critical to the function of line squads. In short, I do not recommend voxes.

Basic Infantry squads can take commissars, in the same way as a PCS, however the commissar may not take a powerfist, although squad sergeants can now take power weapons (albeit at 10pts a piece). One interesting idea floating around is to take a single commissar with PW, and several squads blobbed up, all with power weapons and flamers. With, say, three such squads you get 30 men, 12 S3 Power weapon attacks, 3 Flamers, and LD9 and Stubborn for 220pts. This unit, it should be painfully obvious, is vastly inferior to Ork boys in nearly every way, and while it could surprise the unaware (particularly if combined with Creed or Straken’s ability to confer Furious Charge) the goal of IG counter charge is to protect the infantry squads, not be infantry squads. In case anybody is wondering what the purpose of infantry squads is, it’s to protect the tanks from HtH assault. So, let the infantry squad get charged instead of the tank, and then send in a PCS to deal with the enemy unit. Let the infantry squads do the shooting and the dying, not the assaulting. The ability to take Krak grenades is finally properly priced at about 10pts, but the 5pt melta bomb for the sergeant simply seems like the better option.

The final ability of the infantry squad is the ability to take a Chimera. While nearly mandatory for the CCS and Psyker Battle Squad, and highly recommend for a PCS, the Chimera is pretty mediocre for the infantry squad. It is often worth buying, however, to give the ride to a Special Weapon Squad or even Heavy weapon squad. The reason they’re not that essential to Infantry squads is because the squads aren’t really good at shooting on the move, and have the bodies to survive all but dedicated anti-infantry shooting.

Joining the Infantry Squads in Infantry Platoons for the first time since 2nd edition, Heavy Weapon Squads are now troops. All heavy weapons teams are now two wound large bases, meaning they can be instant killed by S6 and above weapons, and also lose the bonus lasguns. In addition, wound allocation means that every two wounds will kill a heavy weapon team, instead of the old “kill three loaders before I lose a lascannon” tricks. This downgrade outweighs the shift to troops and the price break across the board on heavy weapons. Three lascannons run 105pts, 3 autocannons 75pts, and three mortars are only 60pts, making these squads cheap ways to get lots of weapons, but their fragility, coupled with their low LD making orders more difficult (guess what unit can’t take a vox, or a chimera?). With heavy weapons in general simply not being as good, it’s hard to see heavy weapon teams thriving in anything but specializing builds, featuring a dozen plus such squads with devastating alpha strike firepower. Even the price of krak grenades is screwed up, with the upgrade costing 5pts despite there only being three models in a squad.

Speaking of Krak Grenades, Special Weapon Squads can’t take those at all. Or voxes. Or Chimeras. Because those upgrades would actually be useful to a special weapon squad. Amazingly, Special Weapon Squads also lose the frag grenades all other guardsmen have.

Anyways, if you really like special weapons, and have run out of veteran squads, CCS and PCSs, then consider buying special weapon squads. They cost more than a PCS for less value, but they can take a demo charge for the new improved price of 20pts. SWS troopers must take three special weapons, so the cheapest possible SWS is the same cost of Guardsman Marbo, and get a less accurate demo charge, no way to get into position, and two more flamers for their effort. This squad reeks of afterthought. Anyway, all smarminess aside, taking one with two flamers and a demo charge isn’t terrible option, but as stated above, veterans and the PCS really are superior in nearly every way.

If you’ve thought my opinion of the options declines as this epic unit entry carries on, rest assured it’s reaching its nadir with Conscripts. Conscripts lose close order drill, the ability to take flamers, and every other Guardsman in the game dropped in price… so conscripts stayed the exact same price. Seriously, I’m supposed to buy 20 dudes with lasguns and LD5 (and no really good way to boost it) instead of 10 stubborn, LD 8 Penal legionnaires? Oh, I can spend 75 pts to get more of the useless things in case they die. At that point, 20 recycling guardsmen cost as much as 10 veterans with meltaguns in a chimera. I don’t understand GW sometimes. This unit is garbage and shouldn’t be taken.

Infantry Platoon: Competitive
PCS: Very Competitive
Chenkov: Semi-Competitive
Al’Rahem: Semi-Competitive
Infantry Squads: Very competitive (the AC/GL variant, the rest are Competitive)
Heavy Weapon Squads: Competitive (if done right… more is more with these guys)
Special Weapon Squads: Semi-Competitive
Conscripts: Casual



Veteran Squad
After the odyssey that was the Infantry squad, the next unit in the codex is an old favorite, the Veteran Squad. Veterans are basic guardsmen with BS4, and some very interesting weapons options available to them. On quirk shared by the Storm Trooper and the Veteran is that unlike previous versions, the basic trooper is still LD7, with the Sergeant being LD8. I suppose it makes losing the Sarge more poignant, but I liked the old all 8 leadership stat. In a more serious lose, Veterans can no longer infiltrate, and like the rest of the list have lost the ability Deep Strike. Curiously, they squad also lost the ability to have lp/ccw.

The star of the show for Veterans is the ability to take three special weapons, making them the anti-tank squad of choice along with the CCS, all mounted in either Chimeras or Valkyries. The sniper rifle is a complete waste on the veterans, and flamers and Grenade Launchers can be gotten for cheaper elsewhere (a PCS or SWS, perhaps), leaving the Plasma gun as the other top notch option for the Vets. The downside to the Plasma gun is their ready availability in platoons, Leman Russ Exterminators, and even sentinels (well, the last two are plasma cannons, but they share a common target pool). One veteran can take a Heavy Flamer instead of another special, but like in command squads, the cost in both points and opportunity is too great for anything other than a fun choice. Veterans can take a heavy weapon, and the decision of whether or not to take advantage of that will no doubt be the source of much future debate. My current rule of thumb is: never for Airmobile squads, always for foot squads, and sometimes for mechanized squads. If you’re packing melta guns in a chimera, you might expect to move full speed, but you also might stay put to shoot with the chimera. In those times, packing an autocannon for 10pts is simply a good buy. Further, vets with three plasmas and a lascannon run only 135pts, and can tuck into cover or a Chimera to provide great cover fire.

The squad as a whole can take shotguns instead of lasguns, and again, if air mobile take shotguns, but other wise take lasguns. Vets will be charging rarely enough to make a difference, but if you can model them, the melta squads will eventually benefit from being assault 2 instead of rapid fire.

Veterans are also the one time I’d really recommend a vox, as a CCS can use Bring it down or Fire on My Target very well with Veterans. 10pts is still ten points, but it’s not a bad buy for these guys.

The Veteran Sargent has a nice array of weapon options, the same as Company Commander, including a 15pt fist or a 10pt plasma pistol. While you really don’t want these guys in combat, it’s feasible that the 15pt fist could save the squad. I’d probably stick with the plasma pistol if anything.

Veterans can take one of three doctrines: Carapace armor, camo cloaks and defensive grenades, or melta bombs and a demo charge, all for 30pts. Carapace armor is overpriced as always, but provides a good way to use Kasrkin models without having to swallow the awful Storm Trooper rules. The camo cloaks are also quite pricy, and defensive grenades are nice but not enough to save veterans from anything but the weakest charging unit. Demolitions add a nice mix to the squad, and while 30pts is a lot of points for a demo charge in an airmobile squad that charge can often reap huge benefits. Melta bombs are also generally good. All in all, Demolitions is the best of the three, but all are at least 10pts over priced for what they do.

The good old Ox model makes a comeback in the form of Gunnery Sergeant Harker, a 55pt upgrade for a Veteran Sergeant that comes with a relenetless heavy bolter and feels no pain. Harker also grants the squad stealth, move through cover, and infiltrate. Interestingly, this can still be combined with any doctrine except carapace armor, which means a single Veterans squad could have three melta guns, a demo charge, a lascannon, and a heavy bolter. Of course, that squad would cost 205pts, but that’s a lotta dakka. In a more serious vein, Harker combined with three flamers is probably the best way to go, running at 140pts and able to outflank or otherwise sneak about. While not really top notch, it’s a fun option that allows what al’Rahem does not: a good outflanking unit.

Answering the demand nobody expressed, the final option for Veterans is a Kasrkin Special Character, Sergeant Bastonne. Bastonne is equipped exactly like a Kasrkin sgt: carapace armor, hot-shot laspistol, and power sword. In addition, he has Leadership 10, and the ability for his squad to always regroup, regardless of restrictions. What makes him interesting is the ability to issue his own squad a single order, picking from any of the CCS orders except “Get Back in the Fight.” With LD 10, he’s essentially a 60pt upgrade that either twin links his squad’s weapons, or forces all cover saves to be re-rolled. It’s hard to really dislike this guy, even if he makes a 100pt triple melta squad 160pts with only a 33% increase in fire power if twinlinked. He does make a squad pretty reliable, although at pretty high cost.

Veteran Squads: Very Competitive
Gunnery Sergeant Harker: Competitive
Sergeant Bastonne: Competitive

Penal Legion Squad
The final troops choice is the Penal legion. After being presented as a unique veteran squad, a full army, and a highly customizable force, Shafer’s Last Chancers finally settle as an abstracted out generic troops choice. At their Core, Penal Legionnaires are basic Guardsmen with Lasguns, LD8, Stubborn, Scouts, and a roll on an upgrade table. The three options are either making lasguns 24” Assault 2, gaining furious charge; Fleet; amd Counter Charge, or adding a laspistol & CCW that rend in close combat. At first glance, these guys look like the possessed of the IG book, but there are two key differences: one is that you roll for their rule before deployment, and the second is that all three options lead to a productive use for the legionaires.

The first roll, that of assault 2 lasguns, is most boring but in many ways the punchiest. 18 24” range shots per turn, even at BS3 and S3 will lay three wounds on T4 a turn, which is the same as a heavy bolter heavy weapon squad, and can move while doing so. In this role, the legionaires are best used as a simple screen, scouting forward to begin shooting right away, and falling back to avoid getting charged. As stubborn troops, they will be expected to charge the enemy, and hold with the last few members of the squad to prevent the enemy from getting the charge on my valuable squads.

The second roll is that of knife fighters makes the squad slightly faster and slightly better in combat. This unit should either be outflanked to deal with enemy light fire support, or kept on a flank or as a mobile reserve to tie up the enemy when they’re breakthrough is approaching. Again, unless the unit charged can kill 10 guardsmen, they’re testing to hold on LD8, which passes 73% of the time. The fleet rule is the big winner here, as it stretches the charge range nicely.

The final roll make the unit psychopaths, gaining a second attack and rending, turning mild mannered guardsmen into extremely low rent genestealers. With the ability to actually do a few wounds on the charge, as well as retaining the ability to be stubborn, psychopaths are the clear winners. They can countercharge, they can outflank, they can hold up the enemy, they can screen your better troops, all for a mere 80pts a squad.

Simply because the best builds of IG are going to be mostly mechanized, the top notch usefulness of the Penal Legion will suffer, although it will be a strong unit in many lists.

Penal Legion: Competitive

Chimera
The only dedicated transport available to the IG is the Chimera. While essentially the same old tank, it got a 30pt price break, and the top hatch now allows five models inside to fire. Add in a special rule that allows an officer inside to use orders measuring from the Chimera’s hull, and the new rules make the once over-costed and under armored Chimera fun again.

First, nobody is going to confuse the chimera with a Wave Serpent, a devilfish, or even a Razorback. Only AV12 up front and AV10 along the long, long side flanks make Chimeras less durable than I’d like, and their sole back hatch and restrictive weapons make the Chimera a weird combination of not very good transport and not horribly good light tank. It is cheap, readily available, and if surrounded by enough friendly armor, annoyingly durable.

The Chimera now simply comes standard with Multi-laser and Hull Heavy bolter, both can be switched for a Heavy Flamer and the Multi-laser can be switched for a heavy bolter. The auto cannon turret is suspiciously absent, most likely because even 65pt chimers with auto cannons would dominate the mechanize battlefields of 5th edition. Anyway, I’d never recommend taking out the multi-laser, but subbing the heavy flamer in the hull is a good choice for a chimera that is mostly going to be moving anyway.

Chimeras serve three major purposes in the IG list: pillboxes for shooting squads, slingshots for melta or flamer heavy squads, and taxis for objective grabbers. The last two will often be combined, of course, but while the Chimera isn’t really built for either role, it’s cheap enough to fake it. As an added bonus, the Chimera gets smoke launchers for free.

Chimera: Highly Competitive

Edit: Nevermind

A minor thing my opponent on Thursday used to my demise was that the extra D6" of movement given by Al'Rahem's special order do not count as running, so there's nothing stopping the affected squad from assaulting, if they don't fire lasguns or heavies.

Just noticed that if you use the DH codex you can get the Inquisitorial Stormtroopers for 10pts each, and you could use the new Hellgun rules with them, giving you the AP3 for relatively cheap, and it could be a good way to give backup to all the veteran squads that are being fielded.

just an observation

by the way, I like the in depth analyzing of the codex! Really makes me think about my tactics and how I organize my army.

damn that is one detailed review, not 100 percent with you on some of the ratings, but I have to aplaud the effort, and think it will be of great use to many guard newbs

you did make a good point in favor of the penal legion, I keep wanting to dismiss them as useless due to the randomness factor, but in an infantry army I can see them having a legitimate role.

ShadowRocket wrote:Just noticed that if you use the DH codex you can get the Inquisitorial Stormtroopers for 10pts each, and you could use the new Hellgun rules with them, giving you the AP3 for relatively cheap, and it could be a good way to give backup to all the veteran squads that are being fielded.

just an observation

by the way, I like the in depth analyzing of the codex! Really makes me think about my tactics and how I organize my army.

No you can't. Hellguns and Hot-shot lasguns are completely different. DH Stormies use the hellgun profile from their codex.

Polonius wrote:

Running the same basic test against an Ork Boys mob of 27 boys (to get the points even), the Ogryn will shoot and kill 5 Orks out of cover, and just over 3 with a KFF. Assuming no cover, that brings the boys down to 22. The ogryn charge and have Initiative, doing the same 8.75 wounds, for just over 7 dead boys. The remaining 14 boys swing back, with 42 swings, 21 hits, 7 wounds, 14/3 failed saves, or nearly 5 wounds. The Nob will swing last, with 2 swings, 1.5 hit, and enough to pull a second full ogryn. The Ogryn win, 7 to 6, and kill boy with no retreat. In the second round, the three remaining Ogryn swing 10 times, hit 5, wound 10/3 and kill 2.5 boys. The 12 boys remaining take 36 swings, hit 18 times, wound 6, and lay 4 wounds on the Ogryn. The Nob than throws another wound on them, and the last two Ogryn are now testing an LD8.

If the Ogryns get the charge (or even if they don't looking at the second round of combat) shouldn't the Orks need 6's to wound? str 3 v toughness 5? Ogryns would take 3 wounds on average from the boys. Next round would see 4 ogryns on 10 boyz (two more lost to fearlessness). Second round should see the Ogryns take the orks down to 6 boyz that should get one more wound and then the nobz 1.5. I could be missing something, it's late here and I need to go to bed.

Fantastic job, Polonius. I always enjoy reading your posts.

kh

Just a little nit-pic about the Commisar Lord. I think you are under stateing the usefulness of his leadership bubble.Tucked safely behind lines he can improve leadership to rattlings and Ogryn. turning Rattlings from cowards to a head ache and making sure your counter-charging Ogryn never break. His main bonus is getting Leadership up for Orders tests, that makes vox-casters un-needed up grades.

Special Weapons can take multiple Demo Charges, up to 3, having lost the 0-1 restriction.

And they're still Troops. Crappy Troops, but Troops nonetheless.

Plus, they're part of a basic Platoon, so Al-Rahem can Outflank them.

I don't know about your opponents, but where I play, a couple SWS popping up in the backfield and tossing a half-dozen Demo Charges is definitely going to get somebody's attention!

bigtmac68 wrote:damn that is one detailed review, not 100 percent with you on some of the ratings, but I have to aplaud the effort, and think it will be of great use to many guard newbs

you did make a good point in favor of the penal legion, I keep wanting to dismiss them as useless due to the randomness factor, but in an infantry army I can see them having a legitimate role.

Well, the end ratings are more to spur discussion than anything, but if there's something you disagree with, let me know. I could have missed a way to use a unit that would be good to include.

As for Penal Legion, they've got some juice. Nothing really great, but what do you want for 80pts?

kid_happy wrote:

Polonius wrote:

Running the same basic test against an Ork Boys mob of 27 boys (to get the points even), the Ogryn will shoot and kill 5 Orks out of cover, and just over 3 with a KFF. Assuming no cover, that brings the boys down to 22. The ogryn charge and have Initiative, doing the same 8.75 wounds, for just over 7 dead boys. The remaining 14 boys swing back, with 42 swings, 21 hits, 7 wounds, 14/3 failed saves, or nearly 5 wounds. The Nob will swing last, with 2 swings, 1.5 hit, and enough to pull a second full ogryn. The Ogryn win, 7 to 6, and kill boy with no retreat. In the second round, the three remaining Ogryn swing 10 times, hit 5, wound 10/3 and kill 2.5 boys. The 12 boys remaining take 36 swings, hit 18 times, wound 6, and lay 4 wounds on the Ogryn. The Nob than throws another wound on them, and the last two Ogryn are now testing an LD8.

If the Ogryns get the charge (or even if they don't looking at the second round of combat) shouldn't the Orks need 6's to wound? str 3 v toughness 5? Ogryns would take 3 wounds on average from the boys. Next round would see 4 ogryns on 10 boyz (two more lost to fearlessness). Second round should see the Ogryns take the orks down to 6 boyz that should get one more wound and then the nobz 1.5. I could be missing something, it's late here and I need to go to bed.

Fantastic job, Polonius. I always enjoy reading your posts.

kh

You are correct sir. I'll go back and re-write that section, which may end up changing my tune on Ogryn a little bit.

sexiest_hero wrote:Just a little nit-pic about the Commisar Lord. I think you are under stateing the usefulness of his leadership bubble.Tucked safely behind lines he can improve leadership to rattlings and Ogryn. turning Rattlings from cowards to a head ache and making sure your counter-charging Ogryn never break. His main bonus is getting Leadership up for Orders tests, that makes vox-casters un-needed up grades.

I don't deny that he's useful, I just think that taking a 70pt unit simply so that other lousy units can become somewhat better (heavy weapon squads most notably) is pretty mediocre idea. Think of it this way: If a Lord Commissar is babysitting a ratling squad and four heavy weapon squads, than each of those squads essentially went up 14pts in the process. As for Ogryn, with only a 6" bubble, it's going to take some finagling to get reliable countercharge while staying in range. At roughly the same price as a triple autocannon HWS, a penal legion, or a Griffon Mortar, I can reliably think of better uses for the points. There are also better uses of the HQ slot, as the CCS is just a really, really good unit. It was one reason I wasn't going to rate the units, as I think people can regularly point out ways the units could be better rated. I do stand by my judgment that you'll probably seldom see Commissar lords in successful lists outside of casual play, unless I've completely missed something.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Special Weapons can take multiple Demo Charges, up to 3, having lost the 0-1 restriction.

And they're still Troops. Crappy Troops, but Troops nonetheless.

Plus, they're part of a basic Platoon, so Al-Rahem can Outflank them.

I don't know about your opponents, but where I play, a couple SWS popping up in the backfield and tossing a half-dozen Demo Charges is definitely going to get somebody's attention!

It's going to get their attention, but if they're reasonably experienced players they'll simply deploy with ~12" gutters on their DZ to avoid getting Demo'd. If the SWS could take a dedicated chimera, it would be a competitive unit, as would Al'Rahem. As it stands now they have a high damage potential that's often too easy to counter.

The though of taking a SWS with three Demo Charges in a Valk is somewhat interesting, but at 95pts that's not a cheap unit. Thow in even a Chimera (which they can't start the game in) and at 150pts you're basically back to the classic debate: why not take a damn Leman Russ? Adding a Valk runs 195pts, which is a demolisher with heavy bolters. A really fun build, and it can really do well in some environments, but it's just too fragile and easily countered for my liking.

Wow this review is just great chears man very helpful indeed !

THanks for the review Polonius. Your thoughts have given me more to think about and I most likely will finish my Cadians with a combined Catachan detachment. When will you be posting the remainder of your review?

I imagine I'll have the Fast Attack Section up at some point today, and Heavy Support either late tonight or tomorrow, with some closing thoughts to follow. I just took the sentinel entries out back and roughed them up a bit, so I'm making progress!

Im in yo threadz, campin yoz reeplies

Polonius wrote:I imagine I'll have the Fast Attack Section up at some point today, and Heavy Support either late tonight or tomorrow, with some closing thoughts to follow. I just took the sentinel entries out back and roughed them up a bit, so I'm making progress!

Good to hear, and btw nice review and thanks for taking the time to make it.

Can't wait to read the rest dude, keep it comin. I really like the your designations from highly-competative to casual, I feel it's a really great way to go about it and it doesn't come off as overly negative or childish.

I can understand your position on the commisar lord. I would like to add that in some builds, 30 rattlings, mass heavy weapons or Troop blob, the LD 10 goes a really really long way. In a chimera or a Valk, if the ability is from the hull like psy powers it's range can be Vastly Increased. In a chimera charge army, he can make sure troops in destroyed transports don't get pinned or run.

Polonius wrote:Well, the end ratings are more to spur discussion than anything,

Actually, your ratiings and tests should probably be reformulated as an article. They're very good.

Polonius wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:I don't know about your opponents, but where I play, a couple SWS popping up in the backfield and tossing a half-dozen Demo Charges is definitely going to get somebody's attention!

It's going to get their attention, but if they're reasonably experienced players they'll simply deploy with ~12" gutters on their DZ to avoid getting Demo'd.

A really fun build, and it can really do well in some environments, but it's just too fragile and easily countered for my liking.

And here, we're seeing the difference between Apoc and tournament play. Al Rahem & SWS & Demo Charges are solid in target-rich Apoc, not so much in sparser RTT play.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Polonius wrote:Well, the end ratings are more to spur discussion than anything,

Actually, your ratiings and tests should probably be reformulated as an article. They're very good.

Well, the whole review is going into an article, but I could also do an article simply on how to rate and test units and a codex as a whole. It could be very meta.

sexiest_hero wrote:I can understand your position on the commisar lord. I would like to add that in some builds, 30 rattlings, mass heavy weapons or Troop blob, the LD 10 goes a really really long way. In a chimera or a Valk, if the ability is from the hull like psy powers it's range can be Vastly Increased. In a chimera charge army, he can make sure troops in destroyed transports don't get pinned or run.

Hey, I agree that he does what he says, and can be used cleverly and well. I stand by two key assertions: that the builds in which he is critical have a tactical ceiling that isn't very high, and that taking a slot away from a second CCS with Standard eliminates a lot of his stated goal: helping with orders and morale.

ShadowRocket wrote:Just noticed that if you use the DH codex you can get the Inquisitorial Stormtroopers for 10pts each, and you could use the new Hellgun rules with them, giving you the AP3 for relatively cheap, and it could be a good way to give backup to all the veteran squads that are being fielded.

army.

I dont believe you can do that... As they are two separate armies. Would be nice though if you could.

sexiest_hero wrote:I can understand your position on the commisar lord. I would like to add that in some builds, 30 rattlings, mass heavy weapons or Troop blob, the LD 10 goes a really really long way. In a chimera or a Valk, if the ability is from the hull like psy powers it's range can be Vastly Increased. In a chimera charge army, he can make sure troops in destroyed transports don't get pinned or run.

I am thinking the best way to play guard is go horde and field a lot of cheap units to take advantage of orders. Too bad there is not an order to bump BS3 +1.

This is an excellent review by the way... a very objective point of view.

G

I Agree that it's a great review. I'm hoping you give and objective review on valks and Vens, I don't feel they will live up to the hype, like Ork stormboys when they first came out

sexiest_hero wrote:I Agree that it's a great review. I'm hoping you give and objective review on valks and Vens, I don't feel they will live up to the hype, like Ork stormboys when they first came out

Well, it's hard to be too objective, as they're simply amazingly cool. Plus, no matter how you crunch the numbers they're better than any other IG fast attack choice, Faster than a Devilfish, Cheaper and punchier than a Waveserpent, and can carry squads that can really do damaged with 3 or 4 special weapons per squad. The vendetta has more firepower than Landraider for half the cost, and the Valk is a stone cold steal at a base 100pts.

That's the key thing to remember about the Valks and vedettas: they're simply very cheap units by any objective measure.

Fast Attack

Scout Sentinel Squadron
Sentinels have been a pretty aggressively mediocre choice for the IG for about a decade, and the newly bifurcated Scout Sentinel Squadron looks to carry that tradition into the future. Scout Sentinels, as differentiated from the ARmoured Sentinels that get front AV 12, extra armor, and the option from a plasma cannon, are simply the old sentinels with a few tweaks, notably the addition of Move Through Cover and the option to take a Missile Launcher.

The fundamental problem with Sentinels has always been that they don’t really take advantage of the benefits of a Walker platform, which is to mount up to two heavies, or a heavy and a DCCW, on a relatively light platform. Killa Kans, Warwalkers, even penitent engines somehow figure out how to mount lots of kit on a light walker, but sentinels are always stuck with one heavy weapon and no combat option. The argument has always been that that Sentinels are fast attack, and thus are light scout vehicles and won’t be heavily armed, but in my opinion, watered down heavy support is still bad heavy support, and doesn’t become good fast attack. Faced with the options of making sentinels cheaper, making them faster, or making them punchier, GW went with a gutless compromise of all three, leaving the Sentinel one of the lease exciting entries in the list.

The basic walker at 35pts with a Multilaser is a pretty decent buy, in all fairness, as it can outflank, it has a decent gun, and three of them run only 105pts. Of course, in terms of sheer firepower, three sentinels pale next to chimeras at 110pts, making the sentinel a relatively inefficient vector for the multi-laser. Oddly, the Heavy flamer and Autocannon are both 5pt upgrades, which is odd as I’d consider a heavy flamer almost always a downgrade from a multi-laser. This codex seems to value heavy flamers very highly, however, and thus all the old Catachan sentinels are nicely overcosted. The Missile Launcher is only 10pts more than a multilaser, but with the 15pt lascannon option, it’s pretty redundant. 50pts for a move and shoot lascannon looks good until compared with the Vendetta which is literally on the facing page!

The one really neat use I can think of for sentinels is to take autocannons and Hunterkiller missiles for a 50pt alpha strike, either starting on the board or outflanking. Two S7 and a S8 shot at side or rear armor can be pretty potent, and the unit is cheap enough to be a throw away unit. The downside to hunter killer missiles is mitigated by the fact that sentinels rarely, if ever, survive more than a turn or two. I can’t think of any time the heavy flamer will come in handy, now that it’s pricier and can’t deep strike, alas. Lascannon sentinels with hunter-killers might not be an awful unit, but I’d recommend keeping them cheap with multi-lasers and autocannons if you really feel the need to take them.

The squadron can take smoke launchers at 5pts per model, if you feel like overpaying for a 4+ cover save once per game at the expense of shooting.

Scout Sentinel Squadron: Semi-Competitive

Armoured Sentinel Squadron
The other half of the old sentinel entry, the Armoured Sentinel Squadron trades some mobility for far greater durability in a fire fight. For 55pts, or 20pts more than a Scout Sentinel, the Armoured Sentinel has AV12, is closed topped, losses Scout and Move through cover, has extra armor as standard, and can take a Plasma cannon for 20pts. All other options remain the same between the two.

This raises two major issues, namely if 20pts for a major armor boost is worth paying for, and if so, does that make them worth actually taking. The answer to the first is not really, the second is a pretty emphatic no. The 20pts is over half the cost of the multilaser, and a full half of the autocannon Scout Sentinel, for some pretty decent increase durability at the front, but no boost on the sides. Again, the multi-laser Armoured Sentinel simply is inferior to the Chimera when they’re the same cost, the 70pt lascannon sentinel is outclassed by the Vendetta, and the 75pt plasma cannon Sentinel is made redundant by the Executioner.

Low cost single heavy weapon vehicles work great in other armies because they are on fast vehicle chassis, and aren’t limited to moving 6” a turn. Until GW adds a second weapon (I’ve long advocated pintle heavy stubber, grenade launcher, flamer, and power weapon options), the sentinel will simply languish as a poor choice.

Armoured Sentinels: Casual

Rough Rider Squadron
Another unit that got better but less useful, Rough Riders were the best counterchargers available to the IG in 4th edition. With 5th edition’s elimination of screening, and the reduced need for counter charge units do to the lack of consolidation into fresh squads, rough riders became both more fragile and less essential.

In the new codex, Rough Riders now must all take hunting lances and a 5pt sergeant, but drop a point in cost. Riders may now take up to two special weapons instead of a hunting lance, and finally have frag and krak grenades standard. The sarge can take a plasma pistol or a power weapon, but not both, and does not get a bonus weapon with the PW.

As units go, this one has a pretty simple premise: wait until the enemy gets near, and charge! At S5, I5 powered weapons, the hunting lance will cut through the enemy pretty well, and frag grenades finally allow them to charge into cover. The down side is that they’re still a dedicated assault squad that can’t contribute shooting, and they give up a KP pretty easily. I think that in many environments, they’ll retain their old usefulness, but in general at the higher levels rough riders are a luxury unit that eats up points and slots better spent on other choices. The main thing keeping them competitive is their usefulness against vehicles and their low cost.

The Mogul Kamir is an option, bumping a standard sergeant up to WS4, W2, and A3, and fearless (for him and his squad). He also gets +d3 attacks on the charge instead of +1, and subjects the entire squad to Rage. For 40pts, those aren’t bad abilities, but rage forces them to always move towards the closest enemy, and if they run, to run towards the closest enemy. Even in combat, they must consolidate closer to the enemy. Setting up a good Rough Rider charge is all about timing and placement, and a rule that monkeys with that is simply too great a price.

Rough Riders: Competitive
Mogul Kamir: Casual

Hellhound Squadron
I have to make a disclaimer about hellhounds: I simply don’t like them. When most IG players really dug the 4th edition Hellhound, I found it to be a very underwhelming medium tank that was both under gunned and surprisingly fragile. I’ll try to be as objective as possible, but I felt that I should mention that up front when discussing the new Hellhound Squadron.

In this new squadron, you can take up to three hellhound variants in a single unit with three different turret variants available. The Hull weapon is a basic heavy bolter, with the option to take a free heavy flamer or a 15pt Multimelta. The squad as a whole can buy nicely overpriced dozer blades (at 10pts they’ve doubled in price while halving in effectiveness), smoke launchers (5pts a hound), or extra armor (the new imperial standard 15pt).

The big new difference is that hellhounds are finally fast vehicles, while retaining their AV12 on the front and side. This has two big effects: once again Hellhounds can move 6” and shoot all their weapons, or they can scoot the full twelve and shoot shorter ranged weapons.

The elephant in the room for all fast attack choices is the fact that they all compete with the Valkyrie and the Vendetta, in both points and slots. As discussed below, the new skimmers are very efficient, making much of the rest of the Fast Attack choices redundant.

The second effect is most useful with the inferno cannon on the new Hellhound, which is now a 12” range weapon (with only the narrow end of the template needing to be within 12”) instead of a 24” range weapon (where the entire template needed to be in range). While the overall range hasn’t gone down very much, the key to remember is that the Hellhound will often end up in charge range (or melta gun range) of whatever it shot at. In addition, at AP4, while the hellhound shreds Orks, it simply doesn’t put enough wounds on anything 3+ or better to be anything more than harassment. One way to view the basic Hellhound is that it’s a 130 fast vehicle that can contest objectives, shrug off all light and most medium firepower, and can lay some serious wounds on light infantry when given the chance. The other way to view it is a 130pt tank that is short ranged and can’t reliably hurt MEQs.

The first of the new variants is the Devil Dog, which swaps the inferno cannon for the new Melta Cannon. I had hoped the melta cannon would be a longer ranged or twin linked multi-melta, but instead it’s simply a blast multimelta. The new blast rules mean that the Melta Cannon is more likely to hit small squads, but is actually less likely to hit anything smaller than a landraider than the Multi-melta. The Devil Dog is pretty cheap at 120pts, and the effective range of ~24” is about as good for long range anti-tank as the IG can hope for. The downside is that for 125pts you can take a PCS with four melta guns in a Chimera, for better, if shorter, anti-tank, along with good anti-infantry and decent anti-AV10 work. Applying the mighty 20% rule, if Devil Dogs were 95pts, would they be the hottest thing in the codex? Answer: they’re still not as good as troops with meltas or the Vendetta. It is a fun build, but just not good enough.

The final variant is the Bane Wolf, which reminds IG veterans of the old 3rd edition Hellhound. The Chem Cannon has no range, but wounds on a 2+ with AP3. The hidden strength of the Chem Cannon is that at Strength 1, it counts as a defensive weapon, meaning you always get to fire the hull weapon as well as the turret. While this has the same fragility problems due to the short range as the rest of the Hellhound types, the Bane Wolf murders anything that it touches (except terminators). Toss in the effects of a hull heavy flamer which goes off at the same time, and the one shot a game that the Bane Wolf gets can actually really matter. I think if you’re going to take a short ranged tank, you should take the tank that can actually accomplish something.

Hellhound: Semi-Competitive
Devil Dog: Semi-Competitive
Banewolf: Competitive

Valkyrie Assault Carrier Squadron
Winning the award for formal unit name that will be least used by players is easily the most anticipated unit in years: the Valkyrie. The basic elements of the squadron are simple: 1-3 fast skimmers with 12 model transport capacity, AV12/12/10, built in extra armor, scout and deep strike capability, and a free searchlight. In addition, embarked units can disembark even if the Valk moves flat out, landing anywhere in the Valk’s movement path via deepstrike rules. This is risky, as the unit takes a dangerous terrain test, and if unable to deploy a model, the entire unit is destroyed. While pretty clearly a desperation tactic, it’s a neat option for late game objective grabs. Keep in mind that the IG gets all of this for only 100pts.

The basic weapon options for the Valkyrie start with a chin multilaser and two hellstrike missiles on the wings. Each hell strike missile is a one shot, long range missile that counts as ordnance, but isn’t blast. As low cost anti-tank weapons go, the Hellstrike isn’t bad, but certainly isn’t good. It still needs to roll to hit, and while it will reliably pen AV12 (with two dice pick the highest), and is of course free, but a roughly one quarter chance to actually hurt AV12 isn’t exactly the marks of a good anti-tank unit. Of course, that’s not why anybody buys the basic valk. The chin multi-laser is a very fine choice, adding a small amount of punch to a chassis that’s basically just a pure transport, and it meshes well with Rocket Pods. The multi-laser can be upgraded to a lascannon for 15pts, continuing the almost ludicrous over costing of lascannons in the codex. The fact that a vendetta is only 15pts more than a valk with lascannon makes it a bit of a silly upgrade, but it’s there if you like magnets and have 15pts one game.

The real offensive fun is the Rocket pods, which are a 30pt upgrade but each provide a Bolter strength large blast. While unimpressive on their own, two of those, plus a multi-laser, provide some pretty decent anti-infantry firepower that can fire after moving 12” a turn. I may be overstating the usefulness of move and shoot firepower, but given the competition the Vendetta provides for anti-tank, the Valk needs to emphasis its strengths, which are either reduced cost or enhance mobility while shooting.

In terms of usefulness, the Valk and Vendetta both lay on a spectrum between almost pure gunship, hybrid shooting transport, and nearly pure transport. The Vendetta fills the role of gunship as well as a hybrid (much like a basic landraider), leaving the Valkyrie to be either the pure transport or the anti-horde hybrid. I think that the prevalence of light infantry will determine if Rocket Pods are worthwhile, because those things just eat up Ork and Nid hordes.

Valks can take heavy bolter sponsons for +10pts, which seems cheap, but again, it’s really hard to justify 10pts for heavy bolters that cant’ shoot on the move when the lascannons for only 20pts more.

Another question for the YMDC is if a scouting Valk that moves 24” as its scout move counts as obscured. The skimmers moving fast rule only applies if it moved flat out in it’s last movement phase, implying that it does not. This isn’t a huge deal, but gaining a pregame scout move with the obscured rule makes it very potent.

Valks are also one of the few units where scout will be used, not just to outflank, but also to gain a pre-game move. Assuming the Valks surive the first turn shooting, the Valkyrie can genuinely set up first turn land raider kills if its carrying melta-gun vets or a CCS.

At its core, the Valkyrie radically redefines how the IG play, giving eldar-like mobility to the IG at a price way below fair market.

Valkyrie: Highly Competitive.

Vendetta Gunship Squadron
Nearly everything about Valkyries is also true about the Vendetta, except instead of serving as cheaper transport or anti-infantry gunship, the Vendetta is a pure anti-tank gunship. With three twin linked lascannons for only 130pts, the Vendetta is the most cost efficient way to buy lascannons in the entire game, and as a fast vehicle it can move 6” and still shot everything.

As an Eldar player, I’m keenly aware that relying on the shooting from AV12 platforms is a ticket to disappointment. If you drop 3 Vendettas and support them with some Russes, there is too much armor for any army to deal with effectively, but there are some armies that can reliably keep AV12 shaken. That doesn’t mean they’re not worth taking, it’s just that Vendettas are better when an army is built around them, rather than simply throwing one into an army. The second downside is that in 5th edition, even three twinned lascannons cant’ really slow down a landraider.

As long as you have realistic expectations and support it properly, the Vendetta will do what it’s best at: sniping at mid range armor or monstrous creatures while carrying melta veterans to deal with anything heavier.

Vendetta: Highly Competitive

As always, nice work.

Polonius wrote:The fundamental problem with Sentinels has always been that they don’t really take advantage of the benefits of a Walker platform, which is to mount up to two heavies,

watered down heavy support is still bad heavy support, and doesn’t become good fast attack

This codex seems to value heavy flamers very highly,

50pts for a move and shoot lascannon looks good until compared with the Vendetta which is literally on the facing page!

Scout Sentinels are cheap, and as basic as they come, which is their lot in 40k. War Walkers are the twin-Heavy specialists, while Killa Kans are the light CC variant, and Penitent Engines fill the pure CC role. All well-differentiated. Besides, as you note, that 2nd Heavy generally ought to be a HK missile.

"Light" Heavy is what IG generally use their Fast for, except when you look at the Scout Sentinel. The Scout Sentinel is the only "pure" Fast option here, by dint of its low cost and focus on sneaking. Even with Squadrons, IG Heavy slots are contested in a way that Fast are not.

5E in general overvalues Negates Cover quite a bit. Look at the HellHammer compared to the Baneblade - it extends to Apoc Superheavies, too.

For 150 pts, I get 3 Lascannon shots per turn, rather than 1 per turn, or 3 on a single, final turn. That's really not so terrible, especially with Scout.

Polonius wrote:For 55pts, or 20pts more than a Scout Sentinel, the Armoured Sentinel has AV12, is closed topped, losses Scout and Move through cover, has extra armor as standard, and can take a Plasma cannon for 20pts.

the 75pt plasma cannon Sentinel is made redundant by the Executioner.

AV12 is worth 10 pts over AV10, and Extra Armor and closed-top are each worth 5 pts, so yeah, it's probably worth 20 pts for the stats. Losing the mobility rules is bad, so the Armored Sentinel is relatively overpriced. It should be 45 pts base, not 55.

The Plasma Cannon is a cool option that will look great on my shelf, so don't knock it!

The Executioner is a major points and slot investment that competes with the best of what IG have - Heavy pie-throwers. The Sentinels don't have that same problem.

Polonius wrote:Hellhound Squadron
The elephant in the room for all fast attack choices is the fact that they all compete with the Valkyrie and the Vendetta, in both points and slots.

One way to view the basic Hellhound is that it’s a 130 fast vehicle that can contest objectives, shrug off all light and most medium firepower, and can lay some serious wounds on light infantry when given the chance. The other way to view it is a 130pt tank that is short ranged and can’t reliably hurt MEQs.

With Squadrons, they don't have to compete as strongly as if they were still singles:
- 1-3 Sentinels
- 1-3 Hellhounds
- 1-3 Valkyries / Vendettas

I look at all of the Hellhounds as "Cruiser Tanks", complementary medium-weight support to the true Heavies.

Polonius wrote:Valkyrie Assault Carrier Squadron
the IG gets all of this for only 100pts.

At its core, the Valkyrie radically redefines how the IG play, giving eldar-like mobility to the IG at a price way below fair market.

First off, the Valkyrie is almost identical to a Wave Serpent in broad function, and fairly-costed. The Wave Serpent, like all other pre-5E Transports is grossly overpriced by roughly 50%. Being high-function (and high-cost) Transports, the Wave Serpent and Tau Devilfish are now the most grossly-overpriced vehicles in 40k. They are as punitively-priced as the Chimera used to be, so any fair pricing comparison naturally looks like a virtual bargain.

Polonius wrote:Vendetta Gunship Squadron
As long as you have realistic expectations and support it properly, the Vendetta will do what it’s best at: sniping at mid range armor or monstrous creatures while carrying melta veterans to deal with anything heavier.

This isn't a bad gunship, but it is limited by the Defensive Weapon rule, so you can trade a good round of shooting for a near-certain shoot-down the next turn. Otherwise, you're paying 130 pts for a Fast twin Lascannon.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Scout Sentinels are cheap, and as basic as they come, which is their lot in 40k. War Walkers are the twin-Heavy specialists, while Killa Kans are the light CC variant, and Penitent Engines fill the pure CC role. All well-differentiated. Besides, as you note, that 2nd Heavy generally ought to be a HK missile.

"Light" Heavy is what IG generally use their Fast for, except when you look at the Scout Sentinel. The Scout Sentinel is the only "pure" Fast option here, by dint of its low cost and focus on sneaking. Even with Squadrons, IG Heavy slots are contested in a way that Fast are not.

5E in general overvalues Negates Cover quite a bit. Look at the HellHammer compared to the Baneblade - it extends to Apoc Superheavies, too.

For 150 pts, I get 3 Lascannon shots per turn, rather than 1 per turn, or 3 on a single, final turn. That's really not so terrible, especially with Scout.

I get why sentinels are the way they are, and I think I portrayed them fairly and objectively, but it's very hard to support a unit that is clearly inferior to another in the same codex. I think you're undervaluing Valkyries in a way that makes you over value the sentinels, and they are a unit that benefits the most from not being squadded up due to their transport capacity. Three single Valks enables three veteran squads to claim three objectives, destroy three enemy tanks, and deploy in three different ways.

I agree that 5th edition highly values Negating cover, but it's simply asinine to price a heavy flamer on a slow vehicle higher than a multilaser.

As for comparing the shots for sentinels to the Vendetta, AV12 is a ton harder to shake than AV10, and with open topped plus the squadron rules, they are fragile as anything. And no, it's not terrible, but you're leaving out the fact that the vendetta is 20pts cheaper, has twin linked weapons, and that lascannons really aren't super great to begin with.

AV12 is worth 10 pts over AV10, and Extra Armor and closed-top are each worth 5 pts, so yeah, it's probably worth 20 pts for the stats. Losing the mobility rules is bad, so the Armored Sentinel is relatively overpriced. It should be 45 pts base, not 55.

The Plasma Cannon is a cool option that will look great on my shelf, so don't knock it!

The Executioner is a major points and slot investment that competes with the best of what IG have - Heavy pie-throwers. The Sentinels don't have that same problem.

Well the armor upgrade and everything is really only worth anything if what it's protecting is worth something, which I argue is the sticking point.

And plasma cannon Armoured Sentinels are a major points and slot investment that compete with Fast Skimmer transports.

With Squadrons, they don't have to compete as strongly as if they were still singles:
- 1-3 Sentinels
- 1-3 Hellhounds
- 1-3 Valkyries / Vendettas

I look at all of the Hellhounds as "Cruiser Tanks", complementary medium-weight support to the true Heavies.

that's fine, but Valks and vendies are still much, much better as singles, and you can call Hellhounds whatever you want, but they suck for their points. I have no problem having low expectations of a unit, but I have a problem with paying 130pts and having low expectations. That's two AC/GL squads, or almost a Leman Russ or two Hydras or Griffons.

First off, the Valkyrie is almost identical to a Wave Serpent in broad function, and fairly-costed. The Wave Serpent, like all other pre-5E Transports is grossly overpriced by roughly 50%. Being high-function (and high-cost) Transports, the Wave Serpent and Tau Devilfish are now the most grossly-overpriced vehicles in 40k. They are as punitively-priced as the Chimera used to be, so any fair pricing comparison naturally looks like a virtual bargain.

The Waveserpent was one of the few transports to see regular play in 4th edition, and while it's overcosted, it's still a workhorse that competes at a high level. The Valkyrie is arguably superior, losing the energy shield but getting the free spirit stone, as well as Scout. Even compared to the poor chimera, the valk holds it's own. Higher side armor eliminates the biggest weakness of the Chimera, it has the same main gun, is faster, can scout and outflank, and in general transport quite better.

This isn't a bad gunship, but it is limited by the Defensive Weapon rule, so you can trade a good round of shooting for a near-certain shoot-down the next turn. Otherwise, you're paying 130 pts for a Fast twin Lascannon.

Well, I know you seem to have a grudge against the new Fliers, but I mentioned the firing roles and the fragility in my analysis, and I think that the Vendetta stacks up really well with the Eldar Fire Prism which is often used to backstop top notch Eldar armies. I pay 145 for twin bright lances on my waveserpents, and I think that's a fine unit, so the vendetta really is a good deal.

Look, the Valk and the Vendetta aren't going to set the world on fire, and they're not going to turn the IG into the monsters of 40k, but they are very, very good units that simply do not cost a lot of points. When Space Marine Players take three Predators at 85pts each, they know what they're getting, and it's worth the points spent. I feel the same way here. 600pts buys me 30 vets, 9 meltas, and three Valks. They are scoring units that can blow up tanks, snipe and side armor, outflank, deep strike, and in general cause havoc. With no serious competition for those three Fast Attack slots, and plenty of troops choices available, I think that that a single veteran air cav platoon will merge nicely with a bunch of tanks, a few tanks and some infantry, a mechanize force, or really any other guard army.

Good FA review. I still feel that building a list around av 12 is a little shaky. Lootas, twin dev or bard strangler/VC Fexs, and IG flak tanks will rip them asunder.add in the fact that they can't really hide in cover and can be taken down by a lucky plasma gun shot. I'd put them in the competitive slot at best. Simply because unless you max out on both you und up with wasted units when faced with a troop horde or tank army. I prefer LRBT that are sturdier, can be in cover, and can handle troops and tanks.

That said I think you did a good job, just the score is a little high, IMHO. Keep up the good work.

Nice review! I look forward to seeing the Heavy support section since I think this is the most controversial with the new template rules.

I have to say though I think for 45pts, the priest is a better counter charge unit (when added to another power fist(s) ) than the rough riders. Rough riders really only kill 3 marines out of 10 attacks.

Also I believe ogryns are on par with terminators. In the head to head match it is a close fight, but my main point for them is this: IG have enough shooting to deal with single high armoured threats such as terminators or monsterous creatures, but ogryns bring the pain to any infantry squad, and even can stand up to gene stealers. Ogryns should be looked as more of the inverse to terminators, meant to be a sure thing against infantry in these new days of unpredictable template weapons.

Also Commissar Yarrick makes ogryns re-roll to hit which makes this an interesting apocalypse unit

Also I would have to say that special weapon squads are awful since they do what PCS or PCS can do, but not as good and at a higher price and at a high price arguing the extra members and balistic skill than that of a vet squad.

@Polonius: I don't have a grudge against the Valk or Vendetta. I think they're fairly-priced, but not really uber awesome.

The main difference in our POVs is that you're mostly happy with the book, and I'm mostly disappointed.

Tao wrote:Also I believe ogryns are on par with terminators. In the head to head match it is a close fight, but my main point for them is this: IG have enough shooting to deal with single high armoured threats such as terminators or monsterous creatures, but ogryns bring the pain to any infantry squad, and even can stand up to gene stealers. Ogryns should be looked as more of the inverse to terminators, meant to be a sure thing against infantry in these new days of unpredictable template weapons.

Also Commissar Yarrick makes ogryns re-roll to hit which makes this an interesting apocalypse unit

Given Yarrick's price, I'd rather take more Ogryns into the squad, or buy those Ogryns an Arvus Lighter (I wish there was a fast transport that can carry more than 6 models). Adding an IC to an Ogryn squad isn't that much of a liability, since inside a squad of T5 W3 guys is about the safest place an IC can be in an IG army.

sexiest_hero wrote:Good FA review. I still feel that building a list around av 12 is a little shaky. Lootas, twin dev or bard strangler/VC Fexs, and IG flak tanks will rip them asunder.add in the fact that they can't really hide in cover and can be taken down by a lucky plasma gun shot. I'd put them in the competitive slot at best. Simply because unless you max out on both you und up with wasted units when faced with a troop horde or tank army. I prefer LRBT that are sturdier, can be in cover, and can handle troops and tanks.

That said I think you did a good job, just the score is a little high, IMHO. Keep up the good work.

Well, it's very possible that I'm overvaluing the Valkyrie, but I would point out that if you're facing an army with tons of S7 shooting, simply outflank with the damn thing! It's a non-dedicated transport, so if you're facing horde orks, leave the veterans behind and take a four flamer PCS to deal with the lootas. There aren't very many armies that can reliably deal with AV12, and since you should always take more armor if you take any, shooting at your valks isn't shooting against your chimeras or Russes.

One of the reasons the unit is highly competitive is because in a well built list, run by a good player, the Valkyrie has the flexibilty and the capability of really excelling, and like I've said a few times, it's very, very cheap.

JohnHwangDD wrote:@Polonius: I don't have a grudge against the Valk or Vendetta. I think they're fairly-priced, but not really uber awesome.

The main difference in our POVs is that you're mostly happy with the book, and I'm mostly disappointed.

Well, if you think the Vendetta is fairly priced, than I'd like to see what you consider an undercosted unit. I know you play mostly Apocolypse, and I've tried to cover that, but in an 1850 tournament setting the vendetta is a sexy buy.

Large parts of the book make me mad, but why wouldn't I be happy? It's a marked improvement, the IG are competitive in tournaments and gained all kinds of fun new toys for casual play, the Valkyrie model is awesome and in plastic, and while all infantry gunline isn't optimal, it's still a viable option. Could the codex have been dramatically better with very little change? Of course. Ogyrn could drop to 35pts (and/or gain rending), Storms are worth 12pts at most, the Lord commissar should have been 50pts and not take an HQ slot, IG plasma guns are not worth 15pts in the hands of BS3 models, Nearly every special character could use a 25% price cut, and Nork Dedogg is almost insulting. But that's not the point of this review, which is to analyze what's there, not to wish for what isn't.

Tao wrote:Nice review! I look forward to seeing the Heavy support section since I think this is the most controversial with the new template rules.

I have to say though I think for 45pts, the priest is a better counter charge unit (when added to another power fist(s) ) than the rough riders. Rough riders really only kill 3 marines out of 10 attacks.

I'm not sure why you put an "only in there". Killing 3 marines with a 55 unit in Close combat is really, really good. Rough Riders can also pick their fights to an extent that nothing else in the IG book can do to their cavalry movement. The priest needs a squad to roll with, as at T3, W1 and a 4++ he's going to die if he charges nearly anything solo. When added to, say, a PCS with fist he becomes better, but Is it worth 45pts to reroll 3 or even 6 powerfist attacks? Maybe, maybe not, but the only units stuff like Rough Riders and Fisty PCS should be charging are under strength anyway. Anything bigger, send in a sacrificial squad.

Also I believe ogryns are on par with terminators. In the head to head match it is a close fight, but my main point for them is this: IG have enough shooting to deal with single high armoured threats such as terminators or monsterous creatures, but ogryns bring the pain to any infantry squad, and even can stand up to gene stealers. Ogryns should be looked as more of the inverse to terminators, meant to be a sure thing against infantry in these new days of unpredictable template weapons.

Ogryn do reasoanbly well against non-terminator, non-dedicated assault squads, if they get the charge. I have no problem with that statement, I just think that a 200pt unit shouldn't have so many reservations about what it's good against. Ogryn bog down against nearly anything actually good (assault terminators, berzerkers, plague marines, death company, nobs or any variety) and will often lose the charge against bikes, Jump infantry, and anything in a landraider or battlewagon. Ogryn weren't really bad in the old book, they simply only excelled in a very narrow set of circumstances. That set has widened, but not enough for the unit to really qualify as a top notch counter assault unit.

Green Blow Fly wrote:

ShadowRocket wrote:Just noticed that if you use the DH codex you can get the Inquisitorial Stormtroopers for 10pts each, and you could use the new Hellgun rules with them, giving you the AP3 for relatively cheap, and it could be a good way to give backup to all the veteran squads that are being fielded.

army.

I dont believe you can do that... As they are two separate armies. Would be nice though if you could.

According to the DH Codex you can induct Entries from the codex into an IG, SM, or SoB army. Given the Troop limit is 0-2 (I believe) so at best you get 2 Imperial Stormtrooper squads with the old hellguns (and if you want rhinos).
All things considered, if you have the spare spots, you can do it and not feel terrible, but I'd rather go with an IG veteran squad. Overall cheaper to have a vet squad +3 meltaguns and Chimera in comparison to stormtrooper sqd +3 meltaguns /Rhino/Chimera.

Just thought it interesting was all.

Back on Topic:
Lookin forward to more! I agree on the sentinel review for the most part. I can see me using the Scout sentinels for a quick Outflank of anti-armor goodness, but I doubt I'll use the Plasma Cannon variation of the AV12 Sentinels.
And I test ran a heavy weapon squad, those new rules absolutely wreck them. Not worth taking IMO

I think armored sentinels could have a place in the Guard army as a tarpit unit much like Dreadnoughts are used for other armies: they don't have as much firepower/point as other units, but AV12 is something that some units simply can't deal with in CC.

willydstyle wrote:I think armored sentinels could have a place in the Guard army as a tarpit unit much like Dreadnoughts are used for other armies: they don't have as much firepower/point as other units, but AV12 is something that some units simply can't deal with in CC.

This is true, but they lack the power weapon and number of attacks to really do as much damage/tarpitting as a dreadnought can. My main point being, yes they can tarpit, but if they cant cause the unit they tie up with to lose a few models and force a leadership test to get them to run, you're paying a lot of points for firepower, and not getting it.

But for every unit you can tie up otherwise, your army has one less target to focus on.

I'm not saying that they're super, and you're probably correct in your assumption that the valks and vendettas are more points-efficient, and a better use of a FA slot, but I see the armored sentinels as something that could be of great use to a less-mobile Guard army.

great review looking forward to heavy suport.

Add in a special rule that allows an officer inside to use orders measuring from the Chimera’s hull, and the new rules make the once over-costed and under armored Chimera fun again.

Great review, P, and I'm still reading through it so apologies if this has already been mentioned, but unless I'm missing something, "an officer may attempt to issue orders provided he is not...embarked on a transport vehicle" (p. 29). If I'm reading this right, then the officer must be disembarked in order to issue orders.

If it's an error, it's not only the chimera section, but also the CCS and Creed sections.

As far as I can tell, the commissar lord's bubble extends from a chimera when he's embarked.

willydstyle wrote:But for every unit you can tie up otherwise, your army has one less target to focus on.

I'm not saying that they're super, and you're probably correct in your assumption that the valks and vendettas are more points-efficient, and a better use of a FA slot, but I see the armored sentinels as something that could be of great use to a less-mobile Guard army.

This is a great example of a use for a sub-optimal unit, and is really why I started this whole project anyway. yes, I think it's worthwhile to point out that a squadron of Armored Sentinels can tie up enemy units for a quite a while. I don't think this lifts the unit as a whole out casual play, for four reasons:
1) Top players will remember that they're AV12 and will avoid them
2) The nastiest assault squads can deal with dreadnoughts, if not easily, after a few rounds on average
3) The canny openent doesn't mind having his units locked in combat, as it portects them from shooting
4) A combat like that can really block LOS.

This ability makes them a better unit, no doubt, but they're still expensive and toothless.

Flavius Infernus wrote:

Add in a special rule that allows an officer inside to use orders measuring from the Chimera’s hull, and the new rules make the once over-costed and under armored Chimera fun again.

Great review, P, and I'm still reading through it so apologies if this has already been mentioned, but unless I'm missing something, "an officer may attempt to issue orders provided he is not...embarked on a transport vehicle" (p. 29). If I'm reading this right, then the officer must be disembarked in order to issue orders.

If it's an error, it's not only the chimera section, but also the CCS and Creed sections.

As far as I can tell, the commissar lord's bubble extends from a chimera when he's embarked.

The Chimera itself has a special rule that allows orders to be issued from a squad embarked in it, measuring range and LOS from anywhere on the hull. (p. 39). It's a rule that makes both Command squads and chimeras notably better.

The commissar would have his aura boosted by the Chimera too, unless I'm mistaken on rules for passive abilities. My disdain for the C-Lord isn't his abilities, which are fine, it's: 1) his cost, 2) his use of an HQ slot better spent simply on more orders, and 3) the fact that his abilities most help deeply mediocre units like Heavy Weapon squads. I don't doubt that an army built around Creed, a C-Lord, and a ton of heavy weapon squads wouldn't be somewhat successful. That's a lot of fire power that will reliably be twin-linked or go through cover. It's just a very expensive core that doesn't really add much in the way of shooting, and building around Heavy Weapons Squads is simply 4th edition thinking.

I'm not sure if it's what you're trying to say, but close combats block LoS via "true line of sight" in 5th ed: they no longer act as area terrain as in 4th ed.

I also think another plus for the armored sentinels is that they can pretty reliably assault units to either pull them off of objectives, or contest objectives. Valkyries cannot contest as easily because they are not tanks, and so cannot tank shock units off of objectives.

willydstyle wrote:I'm not sure if it's what you're trying to say, but close combats block LoS via "true line of sight" in 5th ed: they no longer act as area terrain as in 4th ed.

I also think another plus for the armored sentinels is that they can pretty reliably assault units to either pull them off of objectives, or contest objectives. Valkyries cannot contest as easily because they are not tanks, and so cannot tank shock units off of objectives.

do you really think you can reliably draw LOS through an Armormed Sentinel fighting 8 Marines? Normally you can move a sentinel to set up a shot, when in combat it's harder. I guess it's not as big a deal as it used to be, but still worth pointing out.

I buy what you're saying, I'm just thinking back to all the units that normally pull objective grabbing duties for my opponents, and they all have one or more of the following: transports to hide in, melta guns, powerfists, or krak grenades on everybody. I can see the situation you describe, where you charge a squad, their counter charge pulls them off the objective, tactical stalemate ensues. The problem is that a savvy oppoenent will simply move the squad back to 2.5" away from the objective diametrically opposite the incoming sentinel, so that they're still on the objective at least to contest. If they have a fist or krak grenades, they hope to pop the walker. If mounted in a rhino, they sentinel can't reach it, and they can shoot the sentinel with their melta gun. If on foot, why not string out to shoot with the melta gun?

All of these scenarios rely on your opponent not being able to handle AV12/10/10 walkers that start at 55pts and only go out. They have no pre-game move, no outflank, and move only 6" a turn. I think that good armies fall into two basic types: those that can handle them easily in close combat, and those that can handle them easily in long range shooting.

I also have to point out having now played a good dozen games against high level tournament lists for testing, that the Valkdetta is really game changing for an IG mech force.

The old IG was very slow and very fragile in terms of objective grabbing. You could hold your own, but grabbing the enemy was tough, and last turn objective grabs almost did not exist.

The new IG with three valkdettas has a flexibility both in speed and deployment options that it has never had before and can be very hard to deal with when combined with a mechanized core.

bigtmac68 wrote:The old IG was very slow and very fragile in terms of objective grabbing. You could hold your own, but grabbing the enemy was tough, and last turn objective grabs almost did not exist.

Huh?

You took Drop Troops to grab stuff, castling Tanks around Grenadiers / ISTs holding the backfield.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

bigtmac68 wrote:The old IG was very slow and very fragile in terms of objective grabbing. You could hold your own, but grabbing the enemy was tough, and last turn objective grabs almost did not exist.

Huh?

You took Drop Troops to grab stuff, castling Tanks around Grenadiers / ISTs holding the backfield.

Ok, so the old IG was either slow or fragile. In casual play the IG did fine, but trust me: at higher levels, the IG really had trouble taking objectives.

Less arguing with the trolls and more Heavy support review please.

Great review so far; very informative.

I tend to agree with you about the armored sentinel. I could see players taking one if they had a free FA slot (somehow) to tangle with bloodcrushers, chaos lords or noise marines, but that would be really situational. I do kind of want to model one with a plasma cannon to look like the giant clanks from Girl Genius though...

The review is still rockin man! Reading good enough to keep me at work till 545!

Moz wrote:Less arguing with the trolls and more Heavy support review please.

Great review so far; very informative.

IMO the discussions about the review are just as important as the review itself. It serves as a stress-test of the authors ideas (off the battle-field at least) and is important because nobody is 100% right 100% of the time.

Wehrkind wrote:I tend to agree with you about the armored sentinel. I could see players taking one if they had a free FA slot (somehow) to tangle with bloodcrushers, chaos lords or noise marines, but that would be really situational. I do kind of want to model one with a plasma cannon to look like the giant clanks from Girl Genius though...

The review is still rockin man! Reading good enough to keep me at work till 545!

Even though I think I'm the main proponent of the armored sentinel, even I don't think that they're good enough to be run en masse. Either a single sentinel or a squadron of two to make the most advantage of smoke launchers, and to make a low-priority unit that can turn into a difficult-to-deal-with high-priority target under the right circumstances. IMO I don't even think their weaponry is too important, because as Polonius points out: there are more points-efficient firing platforms for whichever weapon you decide to bring on them.

Alright, people who like to join in, chant with me:

Hea-vy Support!

Hea-vy Support!

Hea-vy Support!

I'd rather see boobies.

Now I wish there were boobs in the codex. It's photoshop time.

Come on now! let's see the heavies!

I am considering the Armored Sentinel for one major reason. It can tie up a big unit of Blood Crushers for the game. The Blood Crushers will drop close to the IG lines. Two lone AV 12 Sentinels can easily be on the left and right side of your army. Anywhere the Crushers drop, a sentinel can engage it and tie up the unit. It's still not an easy thing to shoot down all those Crushers. It is much easier to let them sit out the game against a 50-70pt unit for the IG.

It's not ideal or foolproof, but I'd consider an Armored Sentinel or two just to protect myself against those Blood Crushers.

I'll be investing in a fair few Scout Sentinels for my Catachans. I'm thinking they'll have Lascannons because I won't have much AT in my list otherwise.

Cheese Elemental wrote:I'd rather see boobies.

Look down.

malfred wrote:

Cheese Elemental wrote:I'd rather see boobies.

Look down.

Great work! Kudos!

Keep it commin dude!

At long last, here is the heavy support section. Some things that were more fun that writing about 40k came up, so I unapologetically chose those instead of finishing this. I plan on writing a bit about some army archtypes and maybe some general tactics, but I wouldn't hold your breath on those. I plan on editing this and then posting the whole tome as an Article as a sort of "welcome to the IG" type guide.


Heavy Support

Leman Russ Squadron
Most of the analysis performed on the units so far has had as an unspoken assumption that the IG player is loading up on Leman Russes in the heavy section, and for good reason. All LR variants are AV14/13/10, with the heavier chassis AV11 in the rear. All of them are buyable, mix and match, at 1-3 per squadron. They all have gained the “lumbering behemoth” rule, which essentially makes the turret a defensive weapon, allowing it to shoot in addition to anything else, even if ordnance. The stated downside is that the tank only moves 6+d6” at cruising speed. The unstated downside is that they created the lumbering behemoth rule because nobody bought Hull Lascannons or to a lesser extent sponsons, but then immediately figured, “hey, we just made hull lascannons better, we better increase their cost”. So the 10pt lascnnon option that nobody took if they could is now 15pts, although admittedly it can fire along with the turret. I wish that was the only time they made something slightly better and immediately jacked the cost up to cancel out the benefit, but that would be lying.

In addition to the hull heavy weapons (which include a heavy flamer if you really want), the various Russes can take sponsons with either heavy bolters/flamers (20pts), Multi-meltas (30pts) or plasma cannons (40 pts). The heavy bolter price I buy. If I can keep my russ stationary and shoot a turret plus three heavy bolters, that’s worth some points. It provides good synergy with anti-infantry turrets, and given the role of the russ, it’ll often be stationary so it can fire. While I plan on running many of my russes naked, it’s a good option to have. I think GW missed an opportunity to actually see players take the heavy flamer option by pricing them at 10pts. Who wouldn’t be tempted to try that out once? As for the multi-meltas, you’re either waiting for something to move within 12” of the tank, or you move up and are paying 30pts for a single BS3 multi-melta. Either way, I’m not horribly impressed, although combining them with the Exterminator for the 6 S7-8 shots at 24” isn’t bad against medium vehicles. Still not a competitive option, I don’t think. Finally, the plasma cannons are very good with the new blast rules, and combined with either the Executioner turret or the old demolisher, that’s a lot of high strength AP2 shooting. A high value upgrade for a high price, the plasma sponsons aren’t a great deal, but are quite good.

The Russ has the usual stable of options, and has a searchlight and smoke launchers built in, which is nice for that turn when the Russ is shaken.

There are a whopping seven different turret variants, but sure enough the GW rule of three eliminates four of them from serious consideration pretty quickly, although one of the also rans (the punisher) is interesting enough to merit at least serious consideration.

The first, and oldest, variant is the old Lady of the Imperial Guard, the basic Leman Russ Battle Tank. The Battle Cannon is unchanged, offering the same long range, S8 AP3 large blast it always offered. At 150pts base it’s a little more expensive than before, but the new Lumbering Behemoth rule and Side AV13 make up for that. If the Leman Russ Variants were women, the LRBT is the wholesome girl next door, the kind you can take home to mother, out with the boys, and she’s never out of place. In many ways, the battle Cannon is similar to the Missile Launcher, offering a flexible combination of anti-tank and anti-infantry firepower. Unlike the Missile launcher, the LRBT is not sold at a premium (it’s actually the cheapest variant) and it actually excels at anything with a 3+ save or worse. While capable of glancing AV14, the Battle Cannon is often wasted on vehicles due to the scatter rules, but with S8 and picking the highest of two dice the Battle cannon is pretty reliable at cracking up to AV12.

The key with all of the LRs is that whatever is picked leaves holes for the rest of the army to fill. In the case of the LRBT the weak points are AV14, terminators, and monstrous creatures; although against assault terminators the advantage of AP2 is reduced to only twice the damage from four times the damage for normal terminators. In a list with plasma guns and melta vets, the LRBT adds a flexible and affordable amount of firepower that simply wrecks MEQs.

Continuing the mildly misogynist trend of comparing tanks to broad archetypes of women, if the LRBT is the wholesome girl next door, the Leman Russ Exterminator is her looser sister that used to be hot but has aged very poorly. Back in the Third Edition book, the LRE was cheaper than the LRBT and could shoot all of it’s weapons if it didn’t move (and then could shoot them all on the move with the Trial Vehicle Rules), making it an appealing for those looking for something a little cheaper, a little flashier, and more effective against Kult of Speed. Now, with the new movement rules again preventing the LRE from moving and firing with everything, and the Lumbering Behemoth rule allowing ordnance to be combined with other firing, the LRE needed to do something amazing to stay competitive. What it got was a doubling of its Autocannon shots from two to four, and a price hike of 25pts.

With all other options identical, the sole question for the gamer is: “When are four twin linked autocannon shots worth the same price as a battle cannon?” The bonus round question, of course, is to remind the gamer that autocannons are broadly and generally available in every single FOC slot, even discounting the LRE. Tossing an LRE into a squadron with Executioners to take hits and for S7 synergy isn’t a terrible call, but the poor exterminator simply costs too much for the kind of shooting that too many other parts of the army can produce.

The Leman Russ Vanquisher is the biggest tease in the codex, offering what every IG player lusts after: reliably long range anti-tank, but rarely, if ever, delivers. The Vanquisher losses the battle cannon completely, in order to gain a single shot at S8, AP2 that always rolls two dice for armor penetration. It looks good at first, but at BS3 and 155pts it simply fails to deliver the goods. It can be combined with the Hull lascannon and Pask to be slightly more reliably, but at 220pts you’re looking at the cost of a Valkyrie and melta CCS or vets, for less effectiveness. Add in its complete lack of a blast option and it’s maddening lack of AP1, and the Vanquisher is a tease, offering plenty but deliverying little.

When you’re tired of the same of type of relationship, everybody leaves their comfort zone, and tries something new. The Leman Russ Eradicator is just that, the type of girl that’s maybe a little freaky, but fun…for a while. Swapping the trusty Battle Cannon for the Eradicator Nova Cannon, the Eradicator drops to S6 AP4 but gains the ability to ignore cover. This is new and sexy, and allows the IG player to rip up lootas, pathfinders, boys under a KFF, etc. Alas, like many a relationship built on novelty, the Eradicator fails to satisfy. At 160pts you pay a premium for this over the basic russ, and with the cheaper Chimera as well as the Valk, there are many more cover save ignoring options available to the IG player. Without AP3, marines aren’t seriously afraid of it, and at S6 it’s really no threat to vehicles. While pretty devastating to it’s key targets, the key targets are simply too narrow in range (see the Ogryn section for another example of this phenomenon) to justify the Eradicator in take on all comers lists. If you fight a lot of foot slogging light infantry, than dropping one or two in your force won’t kill you, but that’s about it.

As a really, really amazing tank with some serious draw backs, the Leman Russ Demolisher fills the role of the hot girl with some baggage. The Demolisher has the rightly feared demolisher cannon (S10 AP2, 24” Range) along with bumped up rear armor 11, at a cost of 165pts. While not cheap, the Demolisher can engage any target at range and deal with it. The biggest draw backs are its relatively short range and the high cost with full AP2 load out, as adding lascannon and plasma cannon sponsons take the tank up to 220pts, which seems far too high for a single IG tank. With the Executioner offering top shelf AP2 death, I plan on running my demolishers with simply a hull heavy bolter. The demolisher is built to crack open terminators and heavy tanks, and while the executioner handles the latter better, the demolisher is a good mixed price tank that can handle more roles. Lacking the range to deal with transports and enemy tanks, the demolisher relies on the rest of the army to provide firepower to deal with those things, as well as anti-horde firepower.

One of the totally new variants, the Leman Russ Punisher is the girl that seems to be fun, and cute, but is just missing some key component that prevents anybody from getting too close. The Punisher Gatling Cannon, with 20 shots at S5 AP- looks like it should be good at thinning hordes along with heavy bolters, but the math just isn’t encouraging. With three heavy bolters, the punisher takes 29 shots, 14.5 hit, and 10 wound T4. In the open that’ll result in almost 9 wounds against ork boys, 3 wounds against marines, and 4.5 wounds against orks in 4+ cover. Now, the Punisher will get to shoot a couple of times, but even assuming it wipes out a full Ork boy mob (which seems optimistic) you’ve spent 200pts to buy a unit that will struggle to wipe out its intended target that only costs 230pts. With almost no punch against vehicles and limited punch against armored models, not to mention a very short 24” range, the Punisher is another narrow focus tank that has its moments, but simply fails to put it all together.

Finally, the belle of the ball, the girl everybody wants to get with, the Leman Russ Executioner brings top shelf killing power to the leman Russ chassis. With three plasma cannon shots from the turret at 190pts, and the option to tack two more on for 40pts more, the Executioner is the best pure Terminator killer in the codex, while retaining at least decent punch against transports. The new blast rules mean that the Plasma Cannons will hit monstrous creatures about half the time, enabling it to do what no other tank in the IG can: lay a bunch of wounds on an MC. While expensive, the executioner is the best source for plasma outside of basic infantry. For the cost of a full loaded Executioner, the IG player can buy two veteran squads with three plasma guns each. Different armies will have different playing styles, but the Executioner is better in armies with more limited infantry, allowing veterans to focus on meltagunning tanks, while the executioners handle infantry and transports if need be.

The final special character of the book is Knight Commander Pask, who is a 50pt upgrade for any Leman Russ tank. He provides that tank with BS4, and any shots against Armor gain +1 to armor pen, and any failed wounds against Monstrous Creatures may be re-rolled. The best uses for Pask are on weapons that shoot using BS, but those are alas two of the weaker variants. It could be fun to mount Pask on an Exterminator with Hull lascannon for 225, and have essentially 4 S8 shots and a S10 shot all at BS4. It’s not necessarily good, but it can do some damage to medium armor. The real trick is to mount Pask up in a Punisher, and turn him against MCs. Even absent AP, and even with only S5, a fully kitted punisher against T6 takes 29shots, with ~20hits, and roughly 10 savable wounds. That’s a torrent of fire that can bring down a lot of MCs. Of course, at 250 he runs more than the MCs he’s shooting at, but in a nidzilla heavy environment it’s not a bad choice.

Leman Russ Battle Tank: Competitive
Leman Russ Exterminators: Semi-Competitive
Leman Russ Vanquisher: Casual
Leman Russ Eradicator: Semi-Competitive
Leman Russ Demolisher: Highly Competitive
Leman Russ Punisher: Semi-Competitive
Leman Russ Executioner: Highly Competitive
Knight Command Pask: Semi-Competitive

Hydra Flak Tank Battery
The Hydra is an interesting new option for the IG: a focused but cheap weapon on a relatively fragile, direct fire platform. Nobody will deny that the Hydra Cannon is a great weapon: 4 shots, twin linked, long range autocannons that ignore skimmers moving fast or turboboosting cover saves. That this weapon is only 75pts is a stone cold steal, but the hydra is a heavy support choice competing with the russes and artillery, and on a chimera, it’s very easy to shake, stun or damage.

After railing about the narrow applications of many of the Leman Russ variants, the hydra, while almost as limited in ideal targets, is far cheaper as well as better suited for its role as a transport slayer. Absent transports, Autocannons do well against MCs, bikes, anything high toughness, and finally basic infantry. The long range means the hydra will seldom lack a target, and at 225 for three, unless you really need the heavy support choices, the Hydra will simply always a competitor. In terms of usage, the Hydra is better in mechanized lists, as infantry heavy guard will have plenty of their own Autocannons in infantry squads, and will instead need the heavier firepower of tanks or artillery. In mechanized lists, however, the Hydra will generally enjoy cover from friendly chimeras, while shooting up opposing transports. In addition, the AV12 of the Hydra creates a monolithic wall of armor from the Chimera to the Valkyrie. No army can stop 6+ AV12 vehicles, and some of them will accomplish their tasks.

Hydra: Highly Competitive

Ordnance Battery
This choice is a set of four different artillery weapons, ranging in strength, AP, amor piercing, and special rules. All are mounted on a Chimera hull with either Hull heavy bolter or Heavy Flamer. In addition, like all non-skimmer IG vehicles, the artillery can take camo-nets. This is an upgrade that gives a +1 to any cover save if the vehicle didn’t move in the previous movement phase. While not addressing what happens on the first turn, this gives a potent ability to vehicles that stay put and will help them survive. On most tanks, it’s a 20pt upgrade and probably not worth giving up the move for, but on Artillery, where it’s most useful, it’s a 30pt upgrade. In general, I don’t think this will see too much use, as really the only good way to give cover to a vehicle is with another vehicle, and a +1 to the save is good, but not great. In addition, much of the threat to indirect fire ordnance is now from deep strikers, outflankers, or fast moving assaulters, not ranged shooting.

In general, I’m not wild about indirect fire ordnance in Fifth Edition, which deflates all of my ratings.

The first and most boring of the artillery options is the Basilisk. Aside from indirect fire now a mandatory upgrade, the Basilisk is essentially unchanged from the old book, even keeping the old price tag of 125pt. Providing high Strength indirect fire at S9, AP3, the basilisk is build for two things: popping monoliths and smiting hidden squads and units. In apocalypse, this is a fantastic unit that always is a star, but in smaller games its huge minimum range and inaccuracy make it punchy but limited. Anything the basilisk can do can be done better and for only a few more points by another option. While a venerable old warhorse, the basilisks days as a top notch choice are alas over.

Next up is the Medusa, which critically is not an indirect fire weapon. Armed with essentially a 36” range demolisher cannon, the Medusa runs a mere 135pts. While the smart player asks why not simply buy a Leman Russ Demolisher for 30more points and gain a ton of protection, the answer lies in the ability to buy bastion-breacher shells for only 5pts. These shells are 48: range, S10 AP1 small blasts that always get a bonus die for Armor Pen. As long as the thing hits, you’re going to do some damage to nearly any vehicle with this weapon. Of course, AV12 direct fire isn’t the most durable platform, but one or two good shots is all a weapon like this really needs. While I think it lags far behind air-cav meltas as an anti-tank option, it belongs on the table.

Unlike the LR Eradicator, the Colossus does not give up it’s AP3 in order to ignore cover saves. At S6, AP3, with a 24” blind spot, the Colossus is the premier option for killing MEQs in cover available to the IG. The price tag reflects this, and while 140pts is fair, it’s not a steal. For maximum protection the Colossus should be out of LOS, but if it does it becomes very inaccurate. The Colossus has a pretty narrow target profile: enemy units in cover, but that’s a broad enough category to justify taking one of them. Consider pairing one with a couple of Griffons for maximum accuracy.

The humble Griffon shows that sometimes the cheapest things are also the best. At a mere 75pts, the griffon retains the S6 AP4 of the Griffon, but also gains a re-roll to the scatter dice. Using a Griffon as a range finder for better ordnance sounds good, but in practice once you’ve hit a unit, it’s rare for a unit to be so big that another template flopped in any random direction will still hit something. Like the Hydra, the Griffon is so cheap as to merit taking any time there is a Heavy Support slot and 75pts available. While not really good at killing much, the Griffon can pound a unit all game, hitting reliably while staying out of LOS. The hidden weakness is the 48” maximum range, which limits it from dominating the game in the corner to corner sense.

Basilisk: Semi-competitive
Medusa: Competitive
Colossus: Competitive
Griffon: Competitive

Manticore Rocket Launcher
The Manticore has always been a neat Forgeworld kit, and as a basilisk with Ap2 in the old rules it was a great choice in big games that rarely lasted longer than four turns. In the current rules, the Imperium has apparently discovered cluster technology, as each rocket shoots d3 S10, AP4 large blasts indirectly with a 24” minimum. This is balanced by a rule that only allows the weapon to shoot four times per game. This is a false limitation, as with a third of games ending on turn five, another third having first turn night fight, and all the ways it’s possible to stop an AV12 weapon from shooting, it’s pretty unlikely that the unit will be shooting more that four times a game most games anyway.

In terms of game use, the manticore has two key targets: light infantry out of cover, and vehicles. Since the Storm Eagle Rockets can be fired over the gun sights, they both ignore minimum range and can be fired on the move, making them a pretty decent tank hunter. If you are only going to buy one piece of artillery, this is probably the one to buy, but without the ability to squadron the Ordnance Batteries are better for overwhelming artillery.

Manticore: Competitive

Deathstrike Missile Launcher
The last unit in the codex is also the goofiest, the Deathstrike Missile Launcher. An apocalypse datasheet that got lost and ended up in the big leagues, the Deathstrike is simply a fun only unit. With a complicated launch procedure on it’s one shot weapon, it’s highly unreliable both in terms of when it will launch and where it will land. Once landed, its S10 AP1 with full strength over the entire template, a d3+3” blast, and no cover saves allowed. While undeniably devastating, the 160pt price tag coupled with the low odds of being able to shoot he missile until turn 3 or 4 makes this unit a major liability in competitive play.

Deathstrike Missile: Casual

The LR variants as types of girls was hilarious. I hope that an aspiring guard player takes it upon themselves to paint the referenced girls on the side of each Russ in homage.

Good read.

I have to disagree with your ranking of the basilisk compared to others. I have found it to be a better option that a Russ. it is cheaper and giving up the 14 AV you get a better shot against vehicles (which I found is huge) and the ability to get hiding units (Very huge). The ability to obliterate tau crisis suits, whirl winds, grav tanks, etc is what the basilisk is all about. Every time I would field a russ I would lament not taking a basilisk because either it couldnt shoot at what I needed it to, str 8 wasnt good enough, or it got shot and shaken, blown up etc, where a basilisk would be out of sight.
To over come the 36" minimum range I would field two; one at each side of my table edge.

Moz wrote:The LR variants as types of girls was hilarious. I hope that an aspiring guard player takes it upon themselves to paint the referenced girls on the side of each Russ in homage.

Good read.

I wasn't sure how those jokes would read. I'll polish them up a bit in the editing process, but I'm glad somebody found them as amusing as I did.

Tao wrote:I have to disagree with your ranking of the basilisk compared to others. I have found it to be a better option that a Russ. it is cheaper and giving up the 14 AV you get a better shot against vehicles (which I found is huge) and the ability to get hiding units (Very huge). The ability to obliterate tau crisis suits, whirl winds, grav tanks, etc is what the basilisk is all about. Every time I would field a russ I would lament not taking a basilisk because either it couldnt shoot at what I needed it to, str 8 wasnt good enough, or it got shot and shaken, blown up etc, where a basilisk would be out of sight.
To over come the 36" minimum range I would field two; one at each side of my table edge.

Well, for starters, are you talking new book or old book, 4th edition or 5th editon? I think if You read what I wrote I gave the bassie props for doing what it does, I merely asserted that there was always a better option available. If you want to knock out MEQs, take the Colussus, if you want to pick on armor, take the Medusa. The inaccuracy of the Basilisk in 5th edition makes me leery about relying on it for anything other than desperation shots against armor (unless you get LOS). It's also a lot harder to genuinely hide a baslisk anymore, much less two. Obviously, if they work for you they work, but I just don't see an army that relies on basilisks doing very well in a highly competitive environment.

GREAT job Polonius!

One thing that you didn't mention about the missile tanks (Manticore and Deathstrike) that is important is that they are not open topped, unlike the other artillery options.

Very nice indeed. Keep up the good work.

Also, the Deathstrike 3"+d3" is the blast radius giving the possibility of a 1' blast diameter at S10 AP1, with no cover saves.

I like this idea as long as you can keep it out of LoS

Great review! will use as reference in the future for sure!

While expensive, the executioner is the best source for plasma outside of basic infantry. For the cost of a full loaded Executioner, the IG player can buy two veteran squads with three plasma guns each.

Was the fact stated that the executioner doesn't have any problems with "gets hot" rules, while the vets have the lovely chance of "retiring" early with plasma backfire ;p

Next up is the Medusa, which critically is not an indirect fire weapon. Armed with essentially a 36” range demolisher cannon, the Medusa runs a mere 135pts. While the smart player asks why not simply buy a Leman Russ Demolisher for 30more points and gain a ton of protection, the answer lies in the ability to buy bastion-breacher shells for only 5pts. These shells are 48: range, S10 AP1 small blasts that always get a bonus die for Armor Pen. As long as the thing hits, you’re going to do some damage to nearly any vehicle with this weapon. Of course, AV12 direct fire isn’t the most durable platform, but one or two good shots is all a weapon like this really needs. While I think it lags far behind air-cav meltas as an anti-tank option, it belongs on the table.

Nice, a new rule that will cause quite a few fights when used against Eldar WS and Necron Monoliths. And how it will interact with the holofields? Because I don´t think GW will be FAQ this any time soon.

M.

Make it an article. I'm going to make some of my list's useing this.

@ Polonius

Great review. I agree with almost everything. I think the thing that upsets me most is that the commisar is no longer an option at all. In the old codex 50 conscripts and an independant commisar made a 250 point 51 man fearless tarpit from hell. Now that same tarpit cost 270 for 2 more wounds and another HQ slot.

Does anyone see anyway that conscripts and Commisars can be used succesfully? I dont and I am gonna hate not being able to use those units any more!

Thanks Polonius, very useful for new guard generals like myself.

Good work. I for the most part agree with your assesments. When you were talking about the exterminator I about lost it.

I think it's a great article, but I'm going to nit-pick something here, as you intend to keep it around for future use (justifiably).

Polonius wrote:I wish that was the only time they made something slightly better and immediately jacked the cost up to cancel out the benefit, but that would be lying.

I think you mean to say that "I wish I could say...", not "I wish". Unless I miss my mark, you do actually wish this was the first time GW screwed this up, and are not, in fact lying.

Just a little thing.

Ooh, correcting Polonius on his grammar. Pick those nits!

Ozymandias wrote:Ooh, correcting Polonius on his grammar. Pick those nits!

This isn't really grammar. The grammar is correct, it just means something different than what (I think) he's trying to say.

Excellent finish sir! I really enjoyed the Leman Russ section; it read like an older car review by PJ O'Rourke. It also reminded me that I wanted to find some old aircraft pin-up art to transfer to the sides of my sentinels and possible valks...

Really well done.

Biophysic wrote:

Ozymandias wrote:Ooh, correcting Polonius on his grammar. Pick those nits!

This isn't really grammar. The grammar is correct, it just means something different than what (I think) he's trying to say.

Lucky for him, most of us understand context.

Ozymandias wrote:

Biophysic wrote:

Ozymandias wrote:Ooh, correcting Polonius on his grammar. Pick those nits!

This isn't really grammar. The grammar is correct, it just means something different than what (I think) he's trying to say.

Lucky for him, most of us understand context.

I'm just impressed anybody actually read the whole thing that closely.

If you plan to put it up as an article, I volunteer to edit it if Biophysic doesn't want the job.

Wow, great stuff really helpful. Thankyou polonius

Ozymandias wrote:

Biophysic wrote:

Ozymandias wrote:Ooh, correcting Polonius on his grammar. Pick those nits!

This isn't really grammar. The grammar is correct, it just means something different than what (I think) he's trying to say.

Lucky for him, most of us understand context.

Most of us also understand the meaning of slightly mistyped words. However, that doesn't mean you want them in a document.


Back to more OT concerns, you might consider including sections on alternate viewpoints, so that people with intelligent disagreements (rational arguments) can offer alternate analysis. This might be more trouble than it's worth.

Ozy, why are you nitpicking someone who was nitpicking? Isn't that my job?

Well, I've got no problem putting the alternative viewpoints in. I offer some conclusions in the piece, but for the most part I try to point out the issues, lay out the facts, and let people decide. If you look around, there is going to be vigorous debate about many aspects of the IG. Once put up in an article, it can be pretty freely edited, so if somebody wants to add, say, a spirited defense regarding the use of stormtroopers, they're allowed.

I don't know what the community wants or needs out of this. I plan on staying involved in edits for the time being, and adding to it as changes need to be made or new angles are discovered. If somebody else wants to do it, I've got no problem.

Anyway, I'll be putting the whole thing up as an article soon. I'm running through editing it once myself, and then posting it, so anybody can edit it (I think that's how it works). If anybody wants the original Word Document to work with, PM me and I can get it to you.

Nurglitch, feel free to offer edits and changes.

I would really like to expand and maintain this so it becomes a sort of primer for both new IG players and people that don't play against IG normally.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Ozy, why are you nitpicking someone who was nitpicking? Isn't that my job?

You always seem to have so much fun so I thought I'd give it a try. Plus you were late.


EDIT: Polonius, it's a wiki article so anyone can edit it with their own viewpoints and experiences. I'd say write up what you like but let people know that they can add their $0.02 by editing it and adding their name.

This is a wonderful piece of work, I will look forward to seing it up as an article and to see what other viewpoints evolve as we grow more familiar with using the codex in practice.

A really useful article, well written and argued. From the viewpoint of a relative newb can I ask for more information regarding what seem to me to be the unwritten "givens" that everyone else here clearly understands but that just went straight over my head?
Just a few quick questions I have bugging me at the moment:
Do I put my heavy weapons in infantry squads, veteran squads or heavy weapon squads?
What does it matter if ratlings are BS4? Don't sniper rifles always hit on 2 and wound on 4?
Why is the Techprisst enginseer not an Indepedent character like a priest?
Where does it say Heavy weapons are now 2 wound large bases, and how does anyone fit them into/onto buildings?
If I am in the wrong place for this kind of general ignorance then can someone please start a new forum for dopey newbs who are strugling to comprehend the raw essentials?
Cheers.
(Keep up the good work btw, I too want pics of 50's style glamour girls on the sides of my armour, painting competition anyone?

General Mayhem wrote:Do I put my heavy weapons in infantry squads, veteran squads or heavy weapon squads?

yes in some Infantry Squads (Those that are gonna hang back and not move from your home objective), Never in Vet Squads and Never in Heavy Weapon Squads (as they are now Overprices and too fragile).

General Mayhem wrote:What does it matter if ratlings are BS4? Don't sniper rifles always hit on 2 and wound on 4?

In 3rd and 4th yeah, but in 5th Sniper weapons use the Shooters BS, Wound on a 4+ and have Rending.

General Mayhem wrote:Why is the Techprisst enginseer not an Indepedent character like a priest?

Because the rules say so, and to stop you hiding him in 50 man Infantry Squads I guess. You can always buy him servitors if you want.

General Mayhem wrote:Where does it say Heavy weapons are now 2 wound large bases, and how does anyone fit them into/onto buildings?

It says it in (shock and Horror) the codex! A Heavy Weapons team is a Single Model with 2 wounds now.

General Mayhem wrote:Where does it say Heavy weapons are now 2 wound large bases, and how does anyone fit them into/onto buildings?

Page 29 IG Codex and GW didn't bother to cover it.

If I am in the wrong place for this kind of general ignorance then can someone please start a new forum for dopey newbs who are strugling to comprehend the raw essentials?
Cheers.

Post this idea in Nuts & Bolts

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/forums/show/55.page

Sniper rifles have used ballistic skill to hit since 5th edition came out.

You forgot to mention that the Eradicator is a heavy 1 large blast, NOT an Ordinance 1. The accuracy and reliability of its 6/4 shot far exceeds the leman russes. You still only need 2+ to wound marines, they will be rolling on a 3+ instead of a potential 4+ cover but on average at the end of the game they've rolled 3x more dice then they would have against a leman russ. I use almost only eradicator's in my list. It is partially because its a themed list but mainly because I find it performs much better then then the russ in MOST situations. I still keep a demolisher for the tough stuff. Try it out if you don't believe me they are quite impressive.

The Grundel wrote:You forgot to mention that the Eradicator is a heavy 1 large blast, NOT an Ordinance 1. The accuracy and reliability of its 6/4 shot far exceeds the leman russes. You still only need 2+ to wound marines, they will be rolling on a 3+ instead of a potential 4+ cover but on average at the end of the game they've rolled 3x more dice then they would have against a leman russ. I use almost only eradicator's in my list. It is partially because its a themed list but mainly because I find it performs much better then then the russ in MOST situations. I still keep a demolisher for the tough stuff. Try it out if you don't believe me they are quite impressive.

Large blasts and ordnance blasts are just as accurate as one another. They both roll 2d6, the scatter dice, and subtract the ballistic skill of the firer.

I enjoyed reading that, Thanks.

My one comment would be to reserve the first few posts next time so it is easier to find each section.

willydstyle wrote:

The Grundel wrote:You forgot to mention that the Eradicator is a heavy 1 large blast, NOT an Ordinance 1. The accuracy and reliability of its 6/4 shot far exceeds the leman russes. You still only need 2+ to wound marines, they will be rolling on a 3+ instead of a potential 4+ cover but on average at the end of the game they've rolled 3x more dice then they would have against a leman russ. I use almost only eradicator's in my list. It is partially because its a themed list but mainly because I find it performs much better then then the russ in MOST situations. I still keep a demolisher for the tough stuff. Try it out if you don't believe me they are quite impressive.

Large blasts and ordnance blasts are just as accurate as one another. They both roll 2d6, the scatter dice, and subtract the ballistic skill of the firer.

Since when?? If so i've been playing the wrong way with my buddy for a WHILE since when did ord subtract the ballistic skill??

Lyracian wrote:I enjoyed reading that, Thanks.

My one comment would be to reserve the first few posts next time so it is easier to find each section.

That won't work now. It would have just appended the original post and he probably would
have hit a character limit at some point.

The Grundel wrote:

willydstyle wrote:

The Grundel wrote:You forgot to mention that the Eradicator is a heavy 1 large blast, NOT an Ordinance 1. The accuracy and reliability of its 6/4 shot far exceeds the leman russes. You still only need 2+ to wound marines, they will be rolling on a 3+ instead of a potential 4+ cover but on average at the end of the game they've rolled 3x more dice then they would have against a leman russ. I use almost only eradicator's in my list. It is partially because its a themed list but mainly because I find it performs much better then then the russ in MOST situations. I still keep a demolisher for the tough stuff. Try it out if you don't believe me they are quite impressive.

Large blasts and ordnance blasts are just as accurate as one another. They both roll 2d6, the scatter dice, and subtract the ballistic skill of the firer.

Since when?? If so i've been playing the wrong way with my buddy for a WHILE since when did ord subtract the ballistic skill??

A lot of people seem to get ordnance and ordnance barrage rules mixed up with each other. When fired with no LoS (indirectly) ordnance barrage weapons do not subtract their ballistic skill. Normal ordnance weapons do, and have been since 5th ed was released.

Great article... I think your analysis is definitely spot on for almost everything. I do think armored sentinels should be semi-competitive, but that's a mere quibble.

One thing I'd also like to add, and I've said this before, is that the color section was dreadful. There are half a dozen pictures of chimeras and leman russes, tanks we've seen for over 10 years. There's one, only one picture of the hottest new model for IG, the Valk. I would have loved to have seen even the kind of image they put in the accompanying White Dwarf. Also, a lot of the images of painted models have appeared in White Dwarf or their website. So we got a bunch of reprinted crap that doesn't really provide much inspiration in how I should paint my army. In the last codex, there were detailed images of marking and different color schemes for Cadians. This one gave you crap. In the past, codexes have also frequently had pics of models that weren't released with the codex. This codex had zero models to tantalize you.

Now compare this color section to the last codex, where you had brilliantly done, Osprey style guard paintings and this codex is just shamed. I would have gladly seen them simply reprint those pages in this new codex, than the crap they put in the color section.

Along with that artistic disappointment, the cover is simply vile. The figures in it are out of proportion, badly posed, and the composition of the whole picture is sad. The lasguns don't even look right. What kind of talentless moron can't even draw a lasgun by looking at a GW mini. Simply terrible art and there's is absolutely no excuse for that in today's day and age of a flood of artistic talent all over the internet.

Aside from those two rants, I really like the codex. I think this is by far the most fun guard list they've ever made.

Can we get this Tactica complied into an Article or another post

QuietOrkmi wrote:Can we get this Tactica complied into an Article or another post

We're holding off until Polonious has time to do it or until he says otherwise.

The review has been put up as an article. Hopefully it's readable and usable, if it's wrong feel free to correct it (or tell me what to correct).

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/IG%20Codex%20Review

never mind the previous request it looks like Polonious is already done with it...

QuietOrkmi wrote:never mind the previous request it looks like Polonious is already done with it...

Actually, I've been screwing around since I finished writing it, meaning to put it up. I actually appreciated the reminder....

A great read really.

The first article I opened after registering on this site, and if the rest proves as in-depth I'll have to report myself for chastisement for not coming here sooner...