Maxurugi wrote:
Actually, the Valkyrie was not only nerfed twice, but thrice. It can no longer

-keep units from shooting the next turn by charging them
-block paths for non-flyers
-bring infantry units into close range on turn one, i.e. for hot-shot lasguns, meltas, grenades or a higher chance of successfully charging

This is so sad. I've always taken at least one, and they alway had their use, but now all they do is their own shooting, which is poor. It's really hard for me to justify taking one now, which kinda ruins my mechanized force style-wise.



edit: ninja'd

Well renegade ogryn Darts dead, beyond Slaanesh.

 Maxurugi wrote:
Actually, the Valkyrie was not only nerfed twice, but thrice. It can no longer

-keep units from shooting the next turn by charging them
-block paths for non-flyers
-bring infantry units into close range on turn one, i.e. for hot-shot lasguns, meltas, grenades or a higher chance of successfully charging

This is so sad. I've always taken at least one, and they alway had their use, but now all they do is their own shooting, which is poor. It's really hard for me to justify taking one now, which kinda ruins my mechanized force style-wise.



edit: ninja'd

Can’t Valks still go into hover mode and engage in melee? They lose the fly and the minimum move, so they don’t follow aircraft rules then, do they?

 Apple Peel wrote:

 Maxurugi wrote:
Actually, the Valkyrie was not only nerfed twice, but thrice. It can no longer

-keep units from shooting the next turn by charging them
-block paths for non-flyers
-bring infantry units into close range on turn one, i.e. for hot-shot lasguns, meltas, grenades or a higher chance of successfully charging

This is so sad. I've always taken at least one, and they alway had their use, but now all they do is their own shooting, which is poor. It's really hard for me to justify taking one now, which kinda ruins my mechanized force style-wise.



edit: ninja'd

Can’t Valks still go into hover mode and engage in melee? They lose the fly and the minimum move, so they don’t follow aircraft rules then, do they?

Correct. As pointed out below hovering doesn't remove the AIRCRAFT keyword. I like how GW were totally insisting everything would be bespoke in 8th and then instantly went back to botching universal special rules/keywords. By rights they should have at least errata'd the AIRCRAFT keyword onto the datasheets and have a rule in the rulebook anchored to that ala FLY.

I don't think going into hover mode removes the aircraft keyword.

 Maxurugi wrote:
I don't think going into hover mode removes the aircraft keyword.

Agreed.

"If a unit can Fly and it has a minimum Move
characteristic (or if it has a damage table on
its datasheet that includes any minimum Move
characteristics), that unit gains the Aircraft keyword."

Since Valks have a damage table with a Min Move 20-60" range it does have the AIRCRAFT keyword.

 Dynas wrote:

 Maxurugi wrote:
I don't think going into hover mode removes the aircraft keyword.

Agreed.

"If a unit can Fly and it has a minimum Move
characteristic (or if it has a damage table on
its datasheet that includes any minimum Move
characteristics), that unit gains the Aircraft keyword."

Since Valks have a damage table with a Min Move 20-60" range it does have the AIRCRAFT keyword.

But Valks still get to engage in melee per hover mode, right?

Flyers will still block movement well enough though.

If the flyer is 1” away from the unit, the unit needs (just talking 1 model here, never mind the other 4-9 spread out behind it) a 6.6” move to be able to clear the flyers base legally. (1” to get into “base to base”, 3.6” to get across the base, 1” to get the front of the base 1” away from the flyer and another 1” to get the back of the 25mm base 1” away from the flyer).

Units spread out in anything, but a line, will practically never be able to move “under” a flyer. And that’s before you consider the flyer will now just park 2” away from the unit instead of 1”. The only thing this really helps now is Knights and Vehicles.

 Apple Peel wrote:

But Valks still get to engage in melee per hover mode, right?

Of course, but it's not like they're gonna achieve something, with their three attacks hitting on a 6 and no ap.

 Maxurugi wrote:

 Apple Peel wrote:

But Valks still get to engage in melee per hover mode, right?

Of course, but it's not like they're gonna achieve something, with their three attacks hitting on a 6 and no ap.

Still make tanks have to fall back out.

Kdash wrote:
Flyers will still block movement well enough though.

If the flyer is 1” away from the unit, the unit needs (just talking 1 model here, never mind the other 4-9 spread out behind it) a 6.6” move to be able to clear the flyers base legally. (1” to get into “base to base”, 3.6” to get across the base, 1” to get the front of the base 1” away from the flyer and another 1” to get the back of the 25mm base 1” away from the flyer).

Units spread out in anything, but a line, will practically never be able to move “under” a flyer. And that’s before you consider the flyer will now just park 2” away from the unit instead of 1”. The only thing this really helps now is Knights and Vehicles.

Yeah in practice that isn't as big effect as might be thought. Knights are big benefitters(surprise surprise...). Orks same as always be blocked.

 Apple Peel wrote:

Still make tanks have to fall back out.

No, tanks charged by a valkyrie literally do "not have to fall back in order to move". If they do so, they aren't within 1" of enemy models anymore and since they didn't fall back, there's nothing preventing them from shooting.

 Maxurugi wrote:
Actually, the Valkyrie was not only nerfed twice, but thrice. It can no longer

-keep units from shooting the next turn by charging them
-block paths for non-flyers
-bring infantry units into close range on turn one, i.e. for hot-shot lasguns, meltas, grenades or a higher chance of successfully charging

This is so sad. I've always taken at least one, and they alway had their use, but now all they do is their own shooting, which is poor. It's really hard for me to justify taking one now, which kinda ruins my mechanized force style-wise.



edit: ninja'd

To be fair, points one and two make absolutely no sense from a logic standpoint, so having them changed was a good thing. A plane shouldn't be blocking a charge from infantry on the ground and something like a valkyrie really shouldn't be assaulting ground targets. It sucks from a tactical viewpoint but this is usually the kind of weird, wonky game rule that people are happy to see addressed. They were good changes, even if it screwed us in the process. I just bought 2k of aircraft for guard, trust me I feel your pain there. They really shouldn't even be blocking models from moving where their base is, but I understand why that needs to be there from a game standpoint.

As for point 3, I do agree there. It really sucks when so many of the weapons that want to use valks desperately need to be within 9-6" of their target. I was looking forward to demo SWS teams airdropped in but that's not gonna work near as well now. And that's completely ignoring the middle finger stormtroopers got.

Also I'm not sure how many players here would've done something like this, but there was a 4th "Nerf" if you will in how wobbly model syndrome was addressed. Aka if the base cannot physically fit there that's not an excuse to say "wobbly model" and put it there anyways. So for example, if your valks base couldn't fit on top of a bastion, it can't actually be placed up there, regardless of the fact that it's flying and wouldn't be phased at all. That one bugs me way more but ultimately probably helps guard, since most people I saw do stuff like this were Tau or eldar with all the skimmers and flying suits they have. Really this just emphasize how airplanes should've only ever been an "off table" thing you called in using observers or something. They just have a really hard time fitting onto the typical 40k table.

What are people doing to handle daemon hordes and specifically plague bearers.

I was tempted to take 3 mortar teams and 2 wyverns to thin them out but not sure if the -1 and -2 takes its toll.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Maxurugi wrote:

 Apple Peel wrote:

Still make tanks have to fall back out.

No, tanks charged by a valkyrie literally do "not have to fall back in order to move". If they do so, they aren't within 1" of enemy models anymore and since they didn't fall back, there's nothing preventing them from shooting.

Can you clarify? If the Valkyrie in hover mode charged a tank and was within 1", why would the tank not need to fall back in its next turn unless it wanted to remain in close combat?

 Smirrors wrote:
What are people doing to handle daemon hordes and specifically plague bearers.

I was tempted to take 3 mortar teams and 2 wyverns to thin them out but not sure if the -1 and -2 takes its toll.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Maxurugi wrote:

 Apple Peel wrote:

Still make tanks have to fall back out.

No, tanks charged by a valkyrie literally do "not have to fall back in order to move". If they do so, they aren't within 1" of enemy models anymore and since they didn't fall back, there's nothing preventing them from shooting.

Can you clarify? If the Valkyrie in hover mode charged a tank and was within 1", why would the tank not need to fall back in its next turn unless it wanted to remain in close combat?

Either I misread th first time, or GW didn’t put the vehicles with the hover jet rule still count as aircraft clarification in the big FAQ, but the explanation document instead. I think they fixed it.

What are people doing to handle daemon hordes and specifically plague bearers.

I was tempted to take 3 mortar teams and 2 wyverns to thin them out but not sure if the -1 and -2 takes its toll.

-1 to hit is a huge deal, and -2 to hit is worse (they can get this on one unit per turn with a spell). Cadians help mitigate this with overlapping fields of fire, plus relic of lost cadia. A cadian mortar firebase with 'overlapping fields' and using the relic of lost cadia will put down a few for sure.

Probably worth having a punisher tank commander or a vulture gunship in the list just to pop the 'vengeance for cadia' strat on every turn. If you don't have one those, try and get a 20-man consolidated infantry squad in FRFSRF range and use VFC on them instead. A VFC vulture kills around 14 plaguebearers per turn at -1 to hit, the punisher tank commander is similar. The combined squad with FRFSRF manages about 11.

A catachan infantry blob with straken and a priest can also dish out the pain. If they charge you to stop a 10-man infantry squad firing, you can use 'fix bayonets' to attack them in your next movement phase, with potentially up to 32 attacks for a single infantry squad . If the stars align you could use 'consolidate squads' to make that 10 man squad they tri-pointed and make it into 20-man. Then with straken, a priest and 'fix bayonets' the unit will dish out a theoretical 128 S4 attacks from fighting in both the shooting and fight phase. That should kill a few.

How would people run a single baneblade chassis these days? Might be a bit more viable since the castellan caught some nerfs.

I figure two astropaths for barrier and nightshroud are no brainers.

Regiment tactics: vostroyan might be nice for the strat and range, catachan for multi shot guns with harker giving RR1s, cadian for the strat and RR1s, tallarn for outflank.

Other support: maybe tech priest to repair wounds, maybe Trojan for RR hits. Salamander sounds like a waste of points...

Which chassis? I'm liking the baneblade, shadowsword, and stormlord

Sponsors: No idea! Are they a waste of points or good value or just an average investment

Anyone have any tricks, favorite ways to run them or good experiences?

 DoomMouse wrote:
How would people run a single baneblade chassis these days? Might be a bit more viable since the castellan caught some nerfs.

I figure two astropaths for barrier and nightshroud are no brainers.

Regiment tactics: vostroyan might be nice for the strat and range, catachan for multi shot guns with harker giving RR1s, cadian for the strat and RR1s, tallarn for outflank.

Other support: maybe tech priest to repair wounds, maybe Trojan for RR hits. Salamander sounds like a waste of points...

Which chassis? I'm liking the baneblade, shadowsword, and stormlord

Sponsors: No idea! Are they a waste of points or good value or just an average investment

Anyone have any tricks, favorite ways to run them or good experiences?

I have always loved my stormlord, two psykers are a must. In my opinion vostroyan is best, as it allows you to take it in a superheavy auxiliary detachment, and the strat is ace. Make sure to charge with a baneblade chassis often, as it is nice in melee

Do you peeps think the Salamander Command Vehicle and Trojan Support Vehicle are worth it? 1+ to hit and Re-roll 1s respectively to a single vehicle are somewhat good but about 100Pts for each is a fair bit to ask.

Though it can be used to stack with the Tempustus trait. Especially if you put it on a super heavy or baslisk of a custom regiment to proc extra shots on a 5+

I think Trojan has its use only with things like Punisher, Stormlord or Macharius Vulcan or a Catachan vehicle in general. Otherwise, it's too expensive for what it does.

cody.d. wrote:

Though it can be used to stack with the Tempustus trait. Especially if you put it on a super heavy or baslisk of a custom regiment to proc extra shots on a 5+

Just to clarify, are you saying that super heavies/ basilisks can get the militarum tempestus: storm trooper doctrine for exploding shots? If so, that wouldn't work out for either unit.

ghenghis_Ken wrote:

cody.d. wrote:

Though it can be used to stack with the Tempustus trait. Especially if you put it on a super heavy or baslisk of a custom regiment to proc extra shots on a 5+

Just to clarify, are you saying that super heavies/ basilisks can get the militarum tempestus: storm trooper doctrine for exploding shots? If so, that wouldn't work out for either unit.

They can’t get the MT keyword, but people give their custom regiments the Stormtroopers doctrine. Don’t know if it’s officially allowed, though.

 Apple Peel wrote:
Don’t know if it’s officially allowed, though.

Why wouldn't it be allowed? The rules are perfectly clear, you can give the "storm troopers" doctrine to a custom regiment but will not have the MT keyword/relics/stratagems (and in fact any MT units in your detachment will lose their doctrine!). And it's not like you're really breaking the game by doing it, mathematically the ability is almost identical (same average, different distribution of outcomes) to the Cadian doctrine in effect and half range vs. not moving are fairly comparable requirements. The only time you're really gaining anything is if you're using +1 to hit modifiers to get more 6+ results, but even then it's questionable if you're really getting more than you could do with a different combination of buffs and doctrine.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

cody.d. wrote:
Do you peeps think the Salamander Command Vehicle and Trojan Support Vehicle are worth it? 1+ to hit and Re-roll 1s respectively to a single vehicle are somewhat good but about 100Pts for each is a fair bit to ask.

Though it can be used to stack with the Tempustus trait. Especially if you put it on a super heavy or baslisk of a custom regiment to proc extra shots on a 5+

They're only good if you're buffing a LoW. The cost of the buff is just too expensive to justify on anything else and you're better off taking a second copy of the unit instead of trying to buff it. You only see a benefit if you put 500+ points worth of firepower into a single unit to receive the buff, in which case it becomes a pretty good trade. You add 50% more firepower for 20% more points, which is somewhat better than the "fair" price for that increase.

How does it give you +50% firepower? Thought it was just +1 to hit. Does it let you reroll ones too?

 DoomMouse wrote:
How does it give you +50% firepower? Thought it was just +1 to hit. Does it let you reroll ones too?

I was referring to the Trojan. The Salamander is giving you 33% more firepower, making it a lot more questionable.

ay yo people, a question on Bullgryns.

grenadier gauntlets and slab shields or battle mauls and suppression shields?

please reply, im converting up some ogres and i want to know how to equip them best.

 STG wrote:
ay yo people, a question on Bullgryns.

grenadier gauntlets and slab shields or battle mauls and suppression shields?

please reply, im converting up some ogres and i want to know how to equip them best.

I would give them all mauls and then mix around the shields. This will give you a good melee unit that can handle both high and low AP attacks.

 Apple Peel wrote:

ghenghis_Ken wrote:

cody.d. wrote:

Though it can be used to stack with the Tempustus trait. Especially if you put it on a super heavy or baslisk of a custom regiment to proc extra shots on a 5+

Just to clarify, are you saying that super heavies/ basilisks can get the militarum tempestus: storm trooper doctrine for exploding shots? If so, that wouldn't work out for either unit.

They can’t get the MT keyword, but people give their custom regiments the Stormtroopers doctrine. Don’t know if it’s officially allowed, though.

Agreed. And its a pretty clear reading of the rules that allows you to do that, so it seems as official as any custom chapter or craftworld.

If your chosen regiment does not have
an associated Regimental Doctrine, you
may pick the doctrine that you feel best
represents your army. For example, as your
army of Ventrillian Nobles does not have
an associated Regimental Doctrine, you
can decide that the Vostroyan Heirloom
Weapons doctrine best suits these wealthy and
well-equipped fighters.

The Militarum Tempestus: Storm Troopers doctrine is listed on the following page between Tallarn and Mordian. So my custom regiment, "Nova Roma," can therefore choose it if I feel it "best represents my army." But they're still Regiment <Nova Roma> and not <Militarum Tempestus>

Page 132 says you do not benefit from the storm troopers doctrine unless every unit from the detatchment is from the military tempestus.

Page 3 of the vigilus defiant designers commentary says that a military tempestus detachment is one with the storm troopers doctrine, ie all from the military tempestus.

It doesn't make much lore sense as scions actually operate tauroxes but crewing basilisks and baneblades seems like quite the stretch. And basilisk generally aren't advancing and "storming" much either

ghenghis_Ken wrote:
Page 132 says you do not benefit from the storm troopers doctrine unless every unit from the detatchment is from the military tempestus.

Page 3 of the vigilus defiant designers commentary says that a military tempestus detachment is one with the storm troopers doctrine, ie all from the military tempestus.

It doesn't make much lore sense as scions actually operate tauroxes but crewing basilisks and baneblades seems like quite the stretch. And basilisk generally aren't advancing and "storming" much either

Am I right that this doesn't apply to Auxilia units? I can throw Bullgryns in with a Tempestus Battalion without disrupting Stormtroopers?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 STG wrote:
ay yo people, a question on Bullgryns.

grenadier gauntlets and slab shields or battle mauls and suppression shields?

please reply, im converting up some ogres and i want to know how to equip them best.

Mauls for sure.. maybe all slab shields if you think you can get them across the board, otherwise a mix. 2 to 1 slab shield to brute shield seems workable.

ghenghis_Ken wrote:
Page 132 says you do not benefit from the storm troopers doctrine unless every unit from the detatchment is from the military tempestus.

No it doesn't. It says that MT units do not gain a doctrine unless the entire detachment is MT, it says nothing about non-MT benefiting from the "storm troopers" doctrine. If you create a custom regiment using the "storm troopers" doctrine you are not MT and nothing in that section applies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ghenghis_Ken wrote:
It doesn't make much lore sense as scions actually operate tauroxes but crewing basilisks and baneblades seems like quite the stretch.

It makes perfect sense because they aren't Militarius™ Trademarkus™ $cions™ crewing those units. It's soldiers from a standard regiment whose tactics are best represented by adding additional to-hit rolls on 6s at half range. That's why they don't have the Militarius™ Trademarkus™ stratagems or relics or special order or keyword.

 DoomMouse wrote:

What are people doing to handle daemon hordes and specifically plague bearers.

I was tempted to take 3 mortar teams and 2 wyverns to thin them out but not sure if the -1 and -2 takes its toll.

A catachan infantry blob with straken and a priest can also dish out the pain. If they charge you to stop a 10-man infantry squad firing, you can use 'fix bayonets' to attack them in your next movement phase, with potentially up to 32 attacks for a single infantry squad . If the stars align you could use 'consolidate squads' to make that 10 man squad they tri-pointed and make it into 20-man. Then with straken, a priest and 'fix bayonets' the unit will dish out a theoretical 128 S4 attacks from fighting in both the shooting and fight phase. That should kill a few.

At 32 attacks per squad the answer is to bait them into a doomed screen and counter charge with multiple squads.

I'm thinking of breaking mono guard out to include skitari vanguards. 2 cheap tech priests to repair tanks and 3 vanguards squads. The -1 toughness in CC would drop plague bearers and orks down to t3.

That's actually a really good thought - a few units of -1 to hit vanguard would be likely ignored in favour of killing the guardsmen. That'd be hilarious when catachans just rip apart intercessors and orks like they're eldar

Think I'd struggle to justify them taking up a whole detachment slot though, generally find I need 3 battalions to fit in all the infantry I want haha

 MacPhail wrote:

ghenghis_Ken wrote:
Am I right that this doesn't apply to Auxilia units? I can throw Bullgryns in with a Tempestus Battalion without disrupting Stormtroopers?

The detachment with the bullgryns would not have the storm troopers doctrine as bullgryns do not have the military tempestus keyword. This is only an issue with the MT regiment.

 Resin Glazed Guardsman wrote:
If you want to stick with Valhallans take advantage of their resilient vehicles from the regiment trait. You can also give one of your commissars the relic pistol that turns them into a pre-FAQ commissar, you only execute one guardsman for morale.

I love me a baneblade, and a Valhallan baneblade is a tough nut to crack.

You can't give it to a Commissar. You have to give it to a VALHALLAN model, so you can give it to a Company Commander or Platoon Commander.

First, taking ONLY 3 Infantry Squads is very limiting. If you can get at least 6 of them, do it, so you don't rely on Tempestus so much to fill the Brigade detachment. Since you are playing a Valhalla, I would consider conscript squad or two and a company commander with the relic behind them. They are hard to remove if taken in larger numbers and expandable too.

Guard is strong and the main advantage is the ability to spam tons of cheap, moderately good units.

So, Valhallan infantry brigade as a core. You can fill everything with infantry, except fast attack, where we don't have many options, sadly. I'd take the Devil Dog(?) (Melta Hellhound), as Hellhound (with track guards) does not benefit from the regimental doctrine very much.

As a support, I'd take Catachan Artillery, Valhallan Baneblade* or a Tank Platoon of whatever regiment suits you better.

* or Vostroyan for the sweet +1 BS (would be better with Shadowsword or Bane Lord) or Catachan for the magic effect of making things disappear in larger quantities. Take supreme command detachment, fill it with commissars or psykers and you can take whatever regiment you want.

 Ravajaxe wrote:
Hello fellow Guard commanders.

I need your help to define in which direction I could evolve my Imperial Guard into.
In more than ten years of playing, I have only accumulated barely 1700 points of painted, pure Astra Militarum force.
Plus a few boxes of figurines to build, a few unpainted, and too many stalled projects... just enough to cross the 2000 points threshold.
Now I have decided to speed up the process.

Until now, I almost exclusively played 1000 points battles, due to time constraints.
But I would like to expand my W40k horizon and go beyond this barrier.

First of my problems is my very low win rate.
The second problem is I have no particular coherency, nor theme in my army.
So I would like to pick a theme (or two) and be able to say : my guard is a xxxx regiment (with yyyy support).
Currently I feel having a hodgepodge of an army, little of everything, and that dispersion shows on the tabletop results.

I field old-school Valhallan infantry, plus Kasrkin Militarum Tempestus.
Globally everything below the size of a tank is metal (and I want it to remain that way).
As of now, the limit was only tree squads of line infantry, some heavy weapons teams, plus 2 Militarum Tempestus full sized squads.
A fourth squad of Valhallans is painted, a fifth is on the schedule, plus a third squad of Militarum Tempestus.
But that will be it for my beloved metal little dudes. I will soon run out of miniatures, they have become difficult to find and too expensive.
I am sourcing alternative sergeants / some special weapons with metal miniatures from a small producer from the UK, but that is about it.
And I do not want to mix plastic / resin conversions, so I am now looking at vehicles to expand the army further.

So which vehicles to would be the best to complement this small force ?

If you need a more complete list of what I have currently, I can post that.

If you're sticking with Valhallans, you need to abuse your ability to stick around and Outlast the opponent. I'd heavily recommend you get up to at least 60 infantry, I understand it being difficult but trust me you'll want them. Various tips are as followed.

1.The relic pistol isnt necessary most of the time for infantry squads I'm learning. It's mostly for conscripts. Most of the time if I'm losing the squad to morale it's a final survivor who would've been shot anyways.

2.if you're going armored, which it sounds like you are, a tech priest is a good investment. Most guard regiments don't get much because their tanks degrade so fast, but with Valhallans most tanks can be brought up to full BS even with a bad roll on your enginseer.

3. Hellhounds are great for you and you don't even need track guards with how long it takes to degrade. Not only do they hit well and are fast, they won't degrade to like 2 wounds.

4. Make the kasrkin their own detachment. More cp, additional buffs, it's a win win.

5. From there build toward a core of Russe's, Hellhounds, and some artillery like basilisks. Your infantry will be key for screening and if you can't get anymore you may have to go with some sentinels and using your Hellhounds to push back deepstrike.

First, thanks for the replies. Any help is appreciated.

I'm not limited to the valhallan doctrine, sometimes I explore the advantages offered by other doctrines.
But for figurines, yeah sure.

I do not like the conscript squad, it would eat all my regular valhallan infantrymen.
They don't fight well, rely on a nerfed commissar or a relic to hold their morale.
Snipers are not rare...

The reason I am currently limited to three infantry squads is from 5th-6th editions, when power blob was a force to consider. Three squads was the sweet spot, especially for 1000 points battles.
Plus, currently many tournaments in France impose very stringent restrictions on army composition (except the "no limit" ones), even on troops, so 3 equipped squads is all I needed until now.
But I stop bothering you with this. I acknowledge the need for more squads.

So...
Did I said equipped squads ?
Well, I like having some upgrades in my line squads. The barebones squad @ 40 points feels very bland to me.
Fortunately I have a nice selections of valhallan heavy / special weapons.
1) Do you equip your line squads ?

On a tactical point of view, my observation is that the Leman Russ (and Tank commanders) can prove nice, but they are pricey.
However, they need : to be exposed, to move on position and repeated sacrificial protection.
Not something I can reasonably afford with 4-5 squads of guardsmen.

I feel that hidden indirect fire artillery is less prone to these problems.
Moreover, the ITC / ETC ruling about floor level of ruins counting as LOS blocking has spread fast here.
So indirect fire is a nice to have.
I have a Manticore, which I find to be in a better shape in 8th than during the last two editions.
2) What about taking more Manticores ?
3) Should I favor other artillery ?

I understand the remark of Hellhounds being good, but if I can mimic their firepower with Chimeras, could it be viable ?
To explain what I'm thinking about : in order to earn Maelstrom points, conquer objectives for the end game, Chimeras transporting squads can prove useful, aren't they ?
So now, I'm thinking about fielding some of them, equipped with dual heavy flamers. This negates any minus to hit modifiers, provide solid counter-charge fire.
Both chimera chassis and heavy flamers got significant point reductions.

4) How much Chimeras ?
Only for some special weapons squads ?
What about a fully mechanised guard ?

Well you need something to take hits, you can't just hide all game with artillery. If you're not running infantry then it's gonna be apcs, Hellhounds, or Russe's. Sentinels could work for screening too if you're deadset on no more infantry. You're going to need to invest in some. Yes they can't ignore LoS and need to be exposed, but if you take nothing but artillery and a few chimeras you're gonna get demolished by all but the weakest lists. If you're talking pure competitive then tank commanders make good fire support, they may not ignore line of sight but do far more damage when they fire.

Chimeras can somewhat mimic the firepower of a hellhound, but they still aren't in the same ballpark. Hellhounds has more range, better strength, and explodes more often. Chimeras just end up being a little cheaper and can carry troops. That said taking chimeras and Hellhounds together could work as a wall of T7 vehicles that autohit.

Trust me, at 2k running 90 infantry can feel low and I run around 10 tanks on Valhallans doctrine as well. Running like 40 you're gonna need all the help you can get.

Mechanized Guard is bad, for the following reasons.

1) Chimeras are too expensive. Instead of spending 80-100 points on a vehicle, you can instead just take 2 extra squads of Guardsmen. I'd rather have 20 Guardsmen over 1 Chimera any day.

2) Chimeras are slow. Your basic Guardsmen, with an Officer there to yell at him, can move 14-24" per turn. Chimeras move at most 12".

3) Chimeras remove the main function of infantry. The main purpose of your infantry is to prevent your tanks from being assaulted. If they're sitting in a vehicle, they're not blocking anyone from assaulting anything

4) They don't have any firepower for their points cost. They're packing a multi laser and a heavy bolter... that's extremely underwhelming. A pair of plasma cannon or autocannon armored sentinels offer more firepower for similar costs. Because of reasons 2 and 3, I don't think their transport capacity is of much use, so if their transport isn't good, and their firepower isn't good, why buy them?

5) If you REALLY need to transport a valuable unit... buy a Valkyrie. It's not THAT much more expensive, but it does the transport job a hundred times better, and it's more survivable to boot with it's -1 to hit. Transporting high value troops like plasma veterans, scions, or bullgryns can be a viable strat, but Chimeras don't let you disembark after moving... so you can't just move them forward and pop troops out to assault or shoot. Valkyries can do this.. they're just better.

For Valkyrie, I'd consider the Tempestus Drop Force formation from Vigilus.

1) Do you equip your line squads ?

I play Vostroya, so I give them Plasma Guns, since they benefit from the +6" the most. And are kind of meta since 8th dropped. And I play mostly against Marines anyway. No heavy weapons, though.
For Valhalla, you can take whatever suits you the most, you are not limited or benefited here in any way. Although, the basic grenade launcher would serve you well, if you want to stay cheap.

2) What about taking more Manticores ?
3) Should I favor other artillery ?

The obvious drawback of the Manticore is only 4 missiles. If it fires all of its missiles, it won and you can use it in any way necessary. You won't miss it now.
I used to use it as a distraction carnifex to draw fire, while the rest of my army advanced.
I think taking one or two is fine as it hit hard, but note it can have from 2 to 12 shots and you still hit on 4+, so reliability is a big question mark here.
Basilisk doesn't hit that hard but is more reliable. I'd take 1 Manticore and 2 Basilisks with Catachan doctrine and if you wanted more, take more Basilisks, as they are more point-efficient. Also, consider taking the Master of Ordnance if you go artillery-heavy.

After last FAQ You cannot move after grav-chuting grom valkyrie anymore :(

Gnollu wrote:
After last FAQ You cannot move after grav-chuting grom valkyrie anymore :(

That make the Taurox Primes more valuable for carrying melta and hot-shot lasguns.

 Apple Peel wrote:
That make the Taurox Primes more valuable for carrying melta and hot-shot lasguns.

Err, how? It's a unit with less threat range and weaker defense, why would you want to use them?

 Peregrine wrote:

 Apple Peel wrote:
That make the Taurox Primes more valuable for carrying melta and hot-shot lasguns.

Err, how? It's a unit with less threat range and weaker defense, why would you want to use them?

In this case, I speak of their transport capabilities. You will have to dodge and weave to different cover spots while making your way up the board (one of the original strategies suggested in their White Dearf premier, all that time ago). Do this for a few turns. Hopefully (I am talking about a pure Scions list), you will have thinned out or destroyed the enemy’s screen by now. Your reservist plasma droppers are head-hunting, and you need something to take our exposed tanks, so you have your Primes drive up with melta squads.

 Apple Peel wrote:
In this case, I speak of their transport capabilities. You will have to dodge and weave to different cover spots while making your way up the board (one of the original strategies suggested in their White Dearf premier, all that time ago). Do this for a few turns. Hopefully (I am talking about a pure Scions list), you will have thinned out or destroyed the enemy’s screen by now. Your reservist plasma droppers are head-hunting, and you need something to take our exposed tanks, so you have your Primes drive up with melta squads.

But why would you do this with a bad unit instead of a Valkyrie? The Valkyrie is better at getting its cargo to a target, period. It's faster, it can deploy units after moving, and it has better durability. And why would you want to wait until late in the game to deploy your anti-tank units? If you don't have them at their target by turn 2 it's too late and you've probably lost the game. As far as I can see the only benefit to the Taurox, aside from being so ugly that your opponent might forfeit the game to avoid having to look at it, is that it fits the fluff for your special snowflake $cions™.

And I'm really not understanding how you deploy melta effectively from a conventional transport. You can't disembark after moving, so your target knows exactly where you have to disembark from and is unlikely to end their turn within your ~12" threat range.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Apple Peel wrote:
In this case, I speak of their transport capabilities. You will have to dodge and weave to different cover spots while making your way up the board (one of the original strategies suggested in their White Dearf premier, all that time ago). Do this for a few turns. Hopefully (I am talking about a pure Scions list), you will have thinned out or destroyed the enemy’s screen by now. Your reservist plasma droppers are head-hunting, and you need something to take our exposed tanks, so you have your Primes drive up with melta squads.

But why would you do this with a bad unit instead of a Valkyrie? The Valkyrie is better at getting its cargo to a target, period. It's faster, it can deploy units after moving, and it has better durability. And why would you want to wait until late in the game to deploy your anti-tank units? If you don't have them at their target by turn 2 it's too late and you've probably lost the game. As far as I can see the only benefit to the Taurox, aside from being so ugly that your opponent might forfeit the game to avoid having to look at it, is that it fits the fluff for your special snowflake $cions™.

And I'm really not understanding how you deploy melta effectively from a conventional transport. You can't disembark after moving, so your target knows exactly where you have to disembark from and is unlikely to end their turn within your ~12" threat range.

This is to work around how we can’t move after disembarking from Valkyries.
By this time in game, one should have already delivered his or her Plasma teams with the Valks on turn one. The Taurox Prime is also cheaper in each sense of the word. Valks are targets for their hyper-valuable payload.

Assume my three plasma command squads and their Valk survived the alpha strike. They have to get in the Valk next turn and get to position to Drop next turn, while the Primes are driving forward. Depending on what’s left of enemy armor, I could expect the Valk to die and strand my plasma teams. But, since the enemy is cripple from the alpha strike, the Primes have rushed up to the armor (maybe charging in to hold off fire for the turn. Worst comes to worst, Prime are destroyed, but that will leave the meltas in doctrine and megamelta range.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The major anti-tank attack has already happened. This is cleanup of heavy targets, just like deepstriking plasma teams will clean up heavy infantry and light vehicles.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Worst case scenario, my command squads and or Valks are down, but I still have the APCs going up. (Actual worst case scenario is I get tabled in enemy turn one, but I’m not being silly here.

edited by ingtaer - please stick to rule 1.

 Apple Peel wrote:
This is to work around how we can’t move after disembarking from Valkyries

How does replacing the Valkyrie with a slower transport help with this problem? Instead of being able to disembark but not move any farther after the Valkyrie moves you can't disembark at all after the Taurox moves. You've "fixed" the problem with a strictly worse alternative.

As for the rest, you're making a lot of assumptions here. Assuming that your glass cannons will survive a suicide drop, assuming that your opponent shoots the target you want them to shoot, etc. And none of those assumptions seem to say anything to answer the question of why you think it's a good idea to have your melta units arriving later than they'd arrive with a Valkyrie to transport them, and with a much higher chance of being destroyed before they can shoot.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Apple Peel wrote:
This is to work around how we can’t move after disembarking from Valkyries

How does replacing the Valkyrie with a slower transport help with this problem? Instead of being able to disembark but not move any farther after the Valkyrie moves you can't disembark at all after the Taurox moves. You've "fixed" the problem with a strictly worse alternative.

As for the rest, you're making a lot of assumptions here. Assuming that your glass cannons will survive a suicide drop, assuming that your opponent shoots the target you want them to shoot, etc. And none of those assumptions seem to say anything to answer the question of why you think it's a good idea to have your melta units arriving later than they'd arrive with a Valkyrie to transport them, and with a much higher chance of being destroyed before they can shoot.

If they destroy the both Primes before they get there, they probably don’t have the firepower to take out the reinforcing Valkyries coming out.
Besides, i also said they were cheaper. In addition, they have better ballistic skill than the supersonic Valks, so I can still be shooting the enemy on my way in more effectively.
I will assume a lot. You make a “perfect” plan/guide to use, then you change accordingly in an actual match. Assuming everything fails every time just means losing the game, and that’s counterintuitive to the desired end result, so one makes a plan to try and follow through with.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I’ve already explained why the meltas get there later, as well. You must be blinded by your Militarum Tempestus hate again to read. They are the armor cleanup crew.

 Apple Peel wrote:
If they destroy the both Primes before they get there, they probably don’t have the firepower to take out the reinforcing Valkyries coming out.

I think you severely underestimate how much anti-tank firepower is in 8th edition and how little durability the Taurox has.

Besides, i also said they were cheaper.

Only because they're much worse at doing their job. They're slower, they can't deploy units at all after moving, and they're much easier to kill. Deploying by deep strike is even cheaper than a Taurox and about as effective.

In addition, they have better ballistic skill than the supersonic Valks, so I can still be shooting the enemy on my way in more effectively.

Unless the Valkyries go into hover mode, trading the -1 to hit for the same BS 3+ as your Taurox. Not that this really matters, as the goal of a transport is to deliver its cargo to a target. Getting better guns in exchange for being a much worse transport is not a good trade. If it's guns you want take a proper tank instead. Or, if you stubbornly refuse to play anything but Militarius™ Trademarkus™ then you could always take a Vulture gunship or three.

I will assume a lot. You make a “perfect” plan/guide to use, then you change accordingly in an actual match. Assuming everything fails every time just means losing the game, and that’s counterintuitive to the desired end result, so one makes a plan to try and follow through with.

Alternatively you make a plan that assumes you'll get average dice and your opponent will make all of the right decisions. You plan to beat them even when they do everything right, you don't assume they'll pick the targets you need them to attack.

I’ve already explained why the meltas get there later, as well.

And none of your explanation had anything resembling a compelling reason why you'd want them there later instead of immediately in a game that heavily rewards alpha strikes.

They are the armor cleanup crew.

Which is a poor role when you could instead use them as part of your alpha strike and leave no armor intact to clean up on later turns. Or you could just understand the math better, give them plasma instead of melta, and have a more effective anti-armor unit that is also more effective against everything else.

I think you severely underestimate how much anti-tank firepower is in 8th edition and how little durability the Taurox has.

Metas changed a bit since the Castellan took a hit.

Only because they're much worse at doing their job. They're slower, they can't deploy units at all after moving, and they're much easier to kill. Deploying by deep strike is even cheaper than a Taurox and about as effective.

Yeah, I’m gonna deepstrike melta and not get my doctrine’s nor the meltas’ half range benefit. Sweet spot for Valks is moving less than twenty inches so the cargo doesn’t die (lest you are willing to spend a CP, which with a Militarum Tempestus list is a bit more valuable). The Valks can’t emabrk and disembark units in the same turn, so that’s a turn cooldown for my plasma team effectiveness. If I need to hoof it, I could advance the Primes. 1/3 chance to do equal speed or better, 2/3 to do worse, but I’m also paying for less.

Unless the Valkyries go into hover mode, trading the -1 to hit for the same BS 3+ as your Taurox. Not that this really matters, as the goal of a transport is to deliver its cargo to a target. Getting better guns in exchange for being a much worse transport is not a good trade. If it's guns you want take a proper tank instead. Or, if you stubbornly refuse to play anything but Militarius™ Trademarkus™ then you could always take a Vulture gunship or three.

I don’t do forge world. Getting out of supersonic makes it less durable, and a juicer target. Taurox Primes don’t have to deal with the Aircraft rule, either. I’d rather send a Taurox Prime in, (maybe use Crush Them, maybe not) tie up the enemy and force a fall back, get the Prime shot to the warp, causing it to explode (or it doesn’t, even better) and having the melta Scions in range.

And none of your explanation had anything resembling a compelling reason why you'd want them there later instead of immediately in a game that heavily rewards alpha strikes.

See, you put everything into your alpha strike. You cripple the enemy well, but he still cuts down your T3 Sv4 models like butter. You have to hope to outlast the enemy till the end. When you separate your strike into two parts, alpha and beta, you alpha the enemy, the enemy responds, you beta the enemy afterwards. That beta strike, the deepstriking plasma teams, the deepstriking hot-shot squads for reinforcing areas or taking objectives, the main part of your leadership tucked away, and your auxiliary attack vehicles have to hold out the rest of the game.

Colonel Flashman wrote:
Hey folks,
I have two questions with regards to the two boxes of bullgryn that I just got.
1) I am planning on making at least one bone 'ead and three bullgryn. The question is what to do with the last two models.
a) I could make two more bullgryn, and buff them with one of my priests. I would then use them as a counter charge unit in my back field, or else slog them up the board.
b) I could make one more bullgryn and one more bone 'ead for two smaller squads with much the same role.
c) I could make Nork and a body guard. In this case, I could push the first four out of my valkyrie.
d) I could go half way betweenb (a) and (c) and build one more bullbryn and either Nork of a body guard.

For context, I play pretty much exclusively with a friend of mine, and we are starkly non-competitive. I generally play catachan with 3 Leman Russ, about 70 infantry, and lots of characters.

2) My friend plays dark angels. Would option (a) give me a unit that could make a good fight of it if they got the charge in against his death wing knights?
thanks

Building for Nork and a bodyguard seems like a lot of bodyguarding, especially as stock Bullgryns love numbers. For what it's worth, I found the kit to be very magnet-friendly; I built mine to take either shield. I'd have to check my Codex, but except for a few items of wargear, a Bullgryn's a Bullgryn, so maybe leave them mostly neutral. I used all three masks on one group and use the goggles to mark the Bone'ead.

I've got a long-running thought to by a $25 box of Nobz and see if I can use leftover Bullgryn bits to build some Ogryns on the cheap.

Edit: Oh, and that sounds like a fun matchup; Bullgryns at their best can hit like Termies.

 Apple Peel wrote:

I think you severely underestimate how much anti-tank firepower is in 8th edition and how little durability the Taurox has.

Metas changed a bit since the Castellan took a hit.

Not in regards to anti-tank.

Knights are still extremely popular. Triple Knight lists with either 1 or 2 battalions of support is very common. Castellans are still quite common. Literally any army worth it's salt will be able to easily take down 2-3 (or more) tauroxes turn 1. The taurox is only T6... S6/7 weapons are quite common, the T7 nature of a Valkyrie, along with the natural -1 to hit and more wounds, makes it about twice as durable as a taurox. That's not an exaggeration, an Avenger Gattling cannon can be expected to do 2x the damage to a Taurox than a Valkyrie, not even counting the extra wounds it gets.

Generally you start with the infantry in the Valk anyway, so it's not like you have to get in, then get out, like you also stated. There's no 1 turn cooldown.

Tauroxes are actually not a bad choice for fire support... 70 points for 4 BS3 autocannon shots on a T6/3+ platform isn't a terrible deal. They're just not good transports. If you want to take them, fine, but use them for fire support and don't actually put guys in them.

 Apple Peel wrote:
Yeah, I’m gonna deepstrike melta and not get my doctrine’s nor the meltas’ half range benefit.

Why not? Two squads deep striking, firing long-range shots, and then moving into position for close-range shots on the following turn will do more than a single squad in a Taurox.

Sweet spot for Valks is moving less than twenty inches so the cargo doesn’t die (lest you are willing to spend a CP, which with a Militarum Tempestus list is a bit more valuable). The Valks can’t emabrk and disembark units in the same turn, so that’s a turn cooldown for my plasma team effectiveness. If I need to hoof it, I could advance the Primes. 1/3 chance to do equal speed or better, 2/3 to do worse, but I’m also paying for less.

I have no idea what your point here is. The Valkyrie can't embark and disembark a unit in the same turn but the Taurox can't either. How exactly is that a win for the Taurox? And how exactly is the Taurox getting the same speed as a Valkyrie? The only reason to move 20" is to disembark troops, but if you're advancing the Taurox you're moving the cargo forward without disembarking. And you can't compare a Valkyrie moving slow to disembark its troops to a Taurox moving as fast as possible without disembarking or shooting. A Valkyrie that doesn't need to disembark its troops risk-free can move up to 45" and still shoot, considerably faster than the move + advance of a Taurox, and can move up to 65" if you advance.

I don’t do forge world.

Then why are you here? This is the thread for IG tactics in normal games, not the best tactics within your weird self-imposed rules about which units you're willing to use.

Getting out of supersonic makes it less durable, and a juicer target.

Even without the -1 to hit the Valkryie is still T7 W14 compared to the Taurox's T6 W10. In no way is the Valkyrie an easier target.

Taurox Primes don’t have to deal with the Aircraft rule, either. I’d rather send a Taurox Prime in, (maybe use Crush Them, maybe not) tie up the enemy and force a fall back, get the Prime shot to the warp, causing it to explode (or it doesn’t, even better) and having the melta Scions in range.

I will grant this, depending on how you interpret the rule*. You finally found a thing the Taurox does better. However, being able to lock units in combat is a pretty weak consolation prize for being so much worse at the primary job of a transport.

*Getting the AIRCRAFT keyword requires having a minimum move value, and going into hover mode replaces the Valkyrie's minimum move value with a normal 20" move value. So is it the case that the AIRCRAFT keyword is permanently applied when a datasheet is written and the conditions in the FAQ just tell you which datasheets to errata, or is the AIRCRAFT keyword a thing that is continuously updated during the game and potentially gained or lost if a unit gains or loses the FLY keyword or a minimum movement value? If it's the second case then a Valkyrie could force a unit to fall back by going into hover mode and removing the AIRCRAFT keyword.

When you separate your strike into two parts, alpha and beta, you alpha the enemy, the enemy responds, you beta the enemy afterwards.

Bolded the key point. If you deliver a better alpha strike the enemy has less to respond with and you take fewer casualties. There's a reason why everyone dropped their deep striking units on turn 1 until GW nerfed it.

Why not? Two squads deep striking, firing long-range shots, and then moving into position for close-range shots on the following turn will do more than a single squad in a Taurox.

Don’t forget the Taurox Primes’ armaments. Kill a screen with Gatling and hot-shot volley, or one could do battle cannon (or missile launcher, still a bit expensive, though) and autocannons to put dents in some amor. Once your squad is out, you have the squad and the Taurox guns.

Sweet spot for Valks is moving less than twenty inches so the cargo doesn’t die (lest you are willing to spend a CP, which with a Militarum Tempestus list is a bit more valuable). The Valks can’t emabrk and disembark units in the same turn, so that’s a turn cooldown for my plasma team effectiveness. If I need to hoof it, I could advance the Primes. 1/3 chance to do equal speed or better, 2/3 to do worse, but I’m also paying for less.

Then why are you here? This is the thread for IG tactics in normal games, not the best tactics within your weird self-imposed rules about which units you're willing to use.

It’s not a requirement to use forge world, and I’d like to consult and learn about different tactics concerning non-forge world units. Forge work is still a pretty big crap fest all the way around, so I don’t want to support it with money.

Getting out of supersonic makes it less durable, and a juicer target.

I will grant this, depending on how you interpret the rule*. You finally found a thing the Taurox does better. However, being able to lock units in combat is a pretty weak consolation prize for being so much worse at the primary job of a transport.

*Getting the AIRCRAFT keyword requires having a minimum move value, and going into hover mode replaces the Valkyrie's minimum move value with a normal 20" move value. So is it the case that the AIRCRAFT keyword is permanently applied when a datasheet is written and the conditions in the FAQ just tell you which datasheets to errata, or is the AIRCRAFT keyword a thing that is continuously updated during the game and potentially gained or lost if a unit gains or loses the FLY keyword or a minimum movement value? If it's the second case then a Valkyrie could force a unit to fall back by going into hover mode and removing the AIRCRAFT keyword.

Page three of the April update. Even when using the hover jet ability, flying vehicles still are counted as air craft.

Bolded the key point. If you deliver a better alpha strike the enemy has less to respond with and you take fewer casualties. There's a reason why everyone dropped their deep striking units on turn 1 until GW nerfed it.

Once the opponent is able (let’s say I got first action here) the enemy decides to drop his vanguard vets on what ever is left of my alpha strike forces/other table forces. The beta strike next turn is a counterplay against this and other units on the board.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Horst wrote:

 Apple Peel wrote:

I think you severely underestimate how much anti-tank firepower is in 8th edition and how little durability the Taurox has.

Metas changed a bit since the Castellan took a hit.

Not in regards to anti-tank.

Knights are still extremely popular. Triple Knight lists with either 1 or 2 battalions of support is very common. Castellans are still quite common. Literally any army worth it's salt will be able to easily take down 2-3 (or more) tauroxes turn 1. The taurox is only T6... S6/7 weapons are quite common, the T7 nature of a Valkyrie, along with the natural -1 to hit and more wounds, makes it about twice as durable as a taurox. That's not an exaggeration, an Avenger Gattling cannon can be expected to do 2x the damage to a Taurox than a Valkyrie, not even counting the extra wounds it gets.

Generally you start with the infantry in the Valk anyway, so it's not like you have to get in, then get out, like you also stated. There's no 1 turn cooldown.

Tauroxes are actually not a bad choice for fire support... 70 points for 4 BS3 autocannon shots on a T6/3+ platform isn't a terrible deal. They're just not good transports. If you want to take them, fine, but use them for fire support and don't actually put guys in them.

The BS3 really makes up for it. Most of the weapons are heavy, so one could still be firing and hitting on fours while moving up with troops. I’d say it’s not that bad. Plus, once the troops are out, Taurox Primes do pretty much become gun platforms.

I will agree with Peregrine here. The Valkyrie got worse but is still a far super transport if you need one.

Valkyrie allows turn 1 hit, Deepstrike is a turn 2 hit, normal transports are likely a turn 3 hit unless enemy comes towards you.

First off if you want plasma and even melta, just use scions to deliver it. If you want something dead you will want it dead on turn 1 or 2. Melta reroll is cool and all but if its only activating on turn 3 or 4 its too late.

If you want to use transports, a Valkyrie with T7 14 wounds and -1 to hit is going to be the most durable platform.

The arguments for transports is that they can be hidden in cover and scoot between terrain. In a 6 turn game that is not going to be efficient. You will want your transports charging at full speed into the heart of the enemy and likely all transport options will be in range of enemy fire power.

I can get no Forgeworld, that makes sense. With how much the models cost these days and the crapshoot in casting quality I don't blame someone for not wanting to use those models. If I hadn't been handed 10 planes for $250 I wouldn't have ever run a Vulture myself. I cant imagine dropping like a $100 just for one.

On the whole Valkyrie/taurox/deepstrike debate I still the Valkyrie is the best option for anything that needs to drop turn 1 and deepstriking for anything after. The tauroxes are great don't get me wrong, but they're not a good transport. Anything they can do a valkyrie is far superior to aside from shooting, and really that's not a transport's job anyways. If you're running Stormtroopers though, they don't hurt and you may get some utility out of the transport ability simply as the game goes on and Valkyries start getting destroyed. But even there, if you need to get a guy to an objective officers with move move move is still going to be the fastest option. The tauroxes max move and shoot speed is a minimum move move move, it's just that good of an order. Basically just treat the tauroxes as light tanks and let the Valkyries focus on transport.

Actually using a combo of the 3 would work pretty well I'd imagine, essentially the tauroxes can serve as transports for the guys dropping in turn 2 or 3 if they need to redeploy. Just don't use them as transports turn 1 when you have Valkyries who do the job better. Essentially start with tauroxes empty, move up shooting, and if you find you need to move guys who don't have a ride it can do so in a pinch.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I can get no Forgeworld, that makes sense. With how much the models cost these days and the crapshoot in casting quality I don't blame someone for not wanting to use those models. If I hadn't been handed 10 planes for $250 I wouldn't have ever run a Vulture myself. I cant imagine dropping like a $100 just for one.

On the whole Valkyrie/taurox/deepstrike debate I still the Valkyrie is the best option for anything that needs to drop turn 1 and deepstriking for anything after. The tauroxes are great don't get me wrong, but they're not a good transport. Anything they can do a valkyrie is far superior to aside from shooting, and really that's not a transport's job anyways. If you're running Stormtroopers though, they don't hurt and you may get some utility out of the transport ability simply as the game goes on and Valkyries start getting destroyed. But even there, if you need to get a guy to an objective officers with move move move is still going to be the fastest option. The tauroxes max move and shoot speed is a minimum move move move, it's just that good of an order. Basically just treat the tauroxes as light tanks and let the Valkyries focus on transport.

Actually using a combo of the 3 would work pretty well I'd imagine, essentially the tauroxes can serve as transports for the guys dropping in turn 2 or 3 if they need to redeploy. Just don't use them as transports turn 1 when you have Valkyries who do the job better. Essentially start with tauroxes empty, move up shooting, and if you find you need to move guys who don't have a ride it can do so in a pinch.

Taurox Primes are a good all-rounder, I’d say. Don’t forget, also, that Taurox Primes benefit from the Stormtroopers doctrine as well. Can anyone say exploding sixes on a Gatling Cannon and Hot-Shot Volley Guns?

 Apple Peel wrote:
Don’t forget, also, that Taurox Primes benefit from the Stormtroopers doctrine as well.

Only if they don't move, which kind of hinders their use as transports.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Apple Peel wrote:
Don’t forget, also, that Taurox Primes benefit from the Stormtroopers doctrine as well.

Only if they don't move, which kind of hinders their use as transports.

What? You get into half range and get extra shots on six. That can be made better when you don’t move on a turn and hit on three, but you still get the doctrine.

 Apple Peel wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Apple Peel wrote:
Don’t forget, also, that Taurox Primes benefit from the Stormtroopers doctrine as well.

Only if they don't move, which kind of hinders their use as transports.

What? You get into half range and get extra shots on six. That can be made better when you don’t move on a turn and hit on three, but you still get the doctrine.

You can't roll a 6+ with -1 to hit. Heavy weapons get a -1 to hit when you move.

 Apple Peel wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Apple Peel wrote:
Don’t forget, also, that Taurox Primes benefit from the Stormtroopers doctrine as well.

Only if they don't move, which kind of hinders their use as transports.

What? You get into half range and get extra shots on six. That can be made better when you don’t move on a turn and hit on three, but you still get the doctrine.

6+. You move, you can't roll any 6's since they become 5's.

RogueApiary wrote:

 Apple Peel wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Apple Peel wrote:
Don’t forget, also, that Taurox Primes benefit from the Stormtroopers doctrine as well.

Only if they don't move, which kind of hinders their use as transports.

What? You get into half range and get extra shots on six. That can be made better when you don’t move on a turn and hit on three, but you still get the doctrine.

6+. You move, you can't roll any 6's since they become 5's.

Oh, well yes. I wasn’t thinking about that, but that doesn’t stop the Storm Bolter from firing.

 Apple Peel wrote:
Oh, well yes. I wasn’t thinking about that, but that doesn’t stop the Storm Bolter from firing.

If you're having to resort to talking about how great a storm bolter is then it's a concession that your argument has failed.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Apple Peel wrote:
Oh, well yes. I wasn’t thinking about that, but that doesn’t stop the Storm Bolter from firing.

If you're having to resort to talking about how great a storm bolter is then it's a concession that your argument has failed.

My previous position is that they are a good all-rounder. The 6+ bit slipped my mind for a moment. I’ve been looking too much at Killteam Elites, as they’ve changed it to an unmodified 6. They are gun boats and transports. They can benefit from the Stormtroopers doctrine, which is what I originally said. They are advertised and described as being adept at plugging gaps in the front lines. They get there and the. Are able to open up fire with Stormtroopers. It is still a good boost.

An interesting side bit, have you guys noticed GW’s thing for gunboat transports? First the Taurox/Taurox Prime, then Repulsor with its new variant, and now the Skitarii Transport/tank.

 Apple Peel wrote:
They can benefit from the Stormtroopers doctrine, which is what I originally said.

In the real world they can't. The reason you're paying points for a transport instead of taking a more efficient pure gun platform is so that you can transport something. If you aren't putting a squad in there and moving the transport to deliver it then you're throwing away points on an inefficient tank. And if you are using the Taurox as a transport you won't be able to roll 6s to use the doctrine. It's, at best, an incredibly situational buff that will rarely apply and is not worth considering in evaluating the unit.

(Now, LRBTs/Baneblades/Basilisks/etc can certainly make use of the "storm troopers" doctrine because they either ignore the -1 penalty for moving or have weapons with long enough range that they can park in the back corner and still be within half range. But that's an entirely separate question.)

An interesting side bit, have you guys noticed GW’s thing for gunboat transports? First the Taurox/Taurox Prime, then Repulsor with its new variant, and now the Skitarii Transport/tank.

Yes, GW is making more Razorback equivalents. It's not a new thing.

What is the opinion of the (FW) Destroyer Tank Hunter? I have the model lying around but don't know if it is viable. Does is have Grinding advance or not?

Last weekend I played a tourney with my guard for the first time in a long time. Two units which you don't see all that often performed quite well:

Cyclops Demolition Vehicle: I took two and had quite some fun times with it. In the first game the guard/DE opponent played quite defensively. Trough some luck I destroyed a Venom after one of the cyclops was charged but not destroyed (it can fall back and still explode in the shooting fase). The other one completely wiffed against a Hellhound. The second game they performed better. Hidiing behind cover before taking out an undamaged warglaive and taking 8 wounds of a knight. That opponent had heard of the cyclops but didn't know they were this terrible. The third game was their moment of glory however. A horde of Talos pain engines was racing through the center and there my hidden cyclops went for. Scoring 23 wounds in total on the three units and making sure the 2nd cyclops was hunted down with a vengeance.

Lssons learned: Even though their points have increased from 40 to 60 the cyclops are still worth it. Fielding 1 is probably better then two since your opponent will hunt down the second one with a vengeance after he has seen what it does. It is easy to conceal behind terrain or a Hellhound and putting it in terrain you'll get a 2+ save making it sturdy enough. The blast from this thing can wreck a lot especially in MSU. Then there is a 3+ chance of it exploding when destroyed so it can be used as a suicide vehicle as well. Yes, it will see more table time for sure.

Death Rider Squadron: I also took a min squadron of Death Riders (commander, command squad and 3 x 5 riders, no commisar). They worked unexpectedly well. In all three games the opponent spend some considerable effort to protect the flanks from the outflanking squads. Of course this made it difficult to get at their vulnerable units. But since the squadron is quite cheap it was worth it already to have 1 or 2 squads outflank. Death riders pack quite a punch when charging. Taking out units like a Hellhound and primaris marines with ease. They are strudy as well.

 Singleton Mosby wrote:
What is the opinion of the (FW) Destroyer Tank Hunter? I have the model lying around but don't know if it is viable. Does is have Grinding advance or not?

It doesn't have grinding advance and is therefore trash.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Singleton Mosby wrote:
What is the opinion of the (FW) Destroyer Tank Hunter? I have the model lying around but don't know if it is viable. Does is have Grinding advance or not?

It doesn't have grinding advance and is therefore trash.

That's too bad since it is such a nice model.

Alright, first thing, Taurox primes are actually pretty nice looking, opinion but the right paint job does a wonder to make them look great. The typical online pics don't do them any justice.

Second, they were pretty OP way back in the beginning of the edition, they are a touch too expensive right now but I actually never really looked at them as transports so much as IFVs.

That to mean their firepower is what you take them for over primary choice to get troops around. It's a strange bird to be sure, suffers a bit from the Landraider problem, having enough guns you may want to just shoot them but higher cost and also a transport role to push cross purposes.

Honestly at this point their best use is simply the fact they are good for a pure MT list, still usable just aren't amazing. I think by anyones metric taking guard tanks in their own detachment is a better fire support option but Primes can still put out some workable fire power. Just don't look at them as standard transports. I mean you don't exactly take Razorbacks for marines and worry of their capacity, they are cheap fire support. Which I think primes lack and need some tick backs in cost, or maybe a rule so they can suffer less from moving and shooting to make them an interesting and viable choice.

In not cut throat games I think they are perfectly viable as is, blind hatred over their looks aside.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Adding another bit of side note. I don't like many transports this edition. I dislike the transport tax of it coming into the vehicles cost while transports are kind meh for viability.

IFVs get over costed, and we don't see a lot of bare bones just transports made anymore. It's like GW have a hard core focus towards transport gunships but want to under skill or cost them to be an awful transport and a middle of the road gun platform.

I wish this design choice would change but it seems like with the coming transports it just continues down this road.

Leaving most medium type transports like that to be midfield pillboxes with little transport uses, especially with transports only offloading before movement which sucks.Gives me flashbacks a bit to 4th edition when all you did with rhinos was run up, turn sideways offload troops behind the steel wall then follow up field for a turn or two. Dull.

 Singleton Mosby wrote:
What is the opinion of the (FW) Destroyer Tank Hunter? I have the model lying around but don't know if it is viable. Does is have Grinding advance or not?

Last weekend I played a tourney with my guard for the first time in a long time. Two units which you don't see all that often performed quite well:

Cyclops Demolition Vehicle: I took two and had quite some fun times with it. In the first game the guard/DE opponent played quite defensively. Trough some luck I destroyed a Venom after one of the cyclops was charged but not destroyed (it can fall back and still explode in the shooting fase). The other one completely wiffed against a Hellhound. The second game they performed better. Hidiing behind cover before taking out an undamaged warglaive and taking 8 wounds of a knight. That opponent had heard of the cyclops but didn't know they were this terrible. The third game was their moment of glory however. A horde of Talos pain engines was racing through the center and there my hidden cyclops went for. Scoring 23 wounds in total on the three units and making sure the 2nd cyclops was hunted down with a vengeance.

Lssons learned: Even though their points have increased from 40 to 60 the cyclops are still worth it. Fielding 1 is probably better then two since your opponent will hunt down the second one with a vengeance after he has seen what it does. It is easy to conceal behind terrain or a Hellhound and putting it in terrain you'll get a 2+ save making it sturdy enough. The blast from this thing can wreck a lot especially in MSU. Then there is a 3+ chance of it exploding when destroyed so it can be used as a suicide vehicle as well. Yes, it will see more table time for sure.

Death Rider Squadron: I also took a min squadron of Death Riders (commander, command squad and 3 x 5 riders, no commisar). They worked unexpectedly well. In all three games the opponent spend some considerable effort to protect the flanks from the outflanking squads. Of course this made it difficult to get at their vulnerable units. But since the squadron is quite cheap it was worth it already to have 1 or 2 squads outflank. Death riders pack quite a punch when charging. Taking out units like a Hellhound and primaris marines with ease. They are strudy as well.

Cyclops, well played, are tons of fun (and wounds). I remember I was playing a city fight against DG and several DG units were squeezed into a street after assaulting a unit, and then came my cyclop, doing something like 17 wounds and killing so many guys !
Hiding them with vehicles such as hellhounds must be very effective and a great opportunity to do two explosions haha

One of the coolest uses for the Cyclops I think is friendly firing "trapped" units. Very good players will assault in such a way that only 1-2 Guardsmen die, and they consolidate and "trap" the other Guardsmen in there so that you cannot fall back, so you're stuck in hand to hand and cannot shoot the enemy. So they kill you during your assault phase, then on their turn are free to continue the assault. Not so with the Cyclops! You move it up, blow up your own infantry, then resume firing. Excellent!

I want to try running bullgryns in my list to see how they play. I own 6 of the buggers. Do most people let them walk about or do you put the in a transport? I looked at both the valks and chimeras and they would, at best, let me run 4. I was going to have a astropath and ministorum priest provide some buffs so now I'm down to 3 plus characters in either transport.

And while I'm at it did I hear grav-chute insertion is out? I never really used it since I haven't played guard since early 6th and for the most part valks are junk outside of being a fast transport.

You know I have an armored company, but it's not really suited for 8th, especially since the index is gakky. So I've finally come to the conclusion to buy more infantry and I did this first draft list using Cadia infantry, Tallarn tanks and an assassin.
I'll finally have somehting to screen my tanks !


I could put the heavy weapons into the infantry squad, and give my infantry special weapons too. I thought about flamers for avoid charges, but I would loose some lasguns shots, so what do you think guys ?
Obviously it's not a tournament list, as you can see with commissars and vet in chimeras, but commissars are so cheap anyway and my FW vets wanna see fight ! In addition, a few heavy bolters and melta shots are never bad, and it gives me a bit of mobility, at least.

I've been working on developing meat shield tactics for guard because tanks tend to make up my firebase. I've found two units of conscripts work best - in two waves 4 inches apart. A 10 man infantry squad will just get deleted and then you've got a big hole in your lines and then they assault and take one or two of your other infantry squads as hostages. And you can't spread your infantry squad out more than one base width or someone will move through them on a decent assault and take them hostage. With 25 conscripts you've got a solid 40 inch line of defense to pick off the end from when they die which probably wraps way past where you need them anyway. I also auto include Pask and usually a tank commander with Punisher Gattling Cannons for dealing with unwanted guests who try to chew through the conscripts.

 necron99 wrote:
I've been working on developing meat shield tactics for guard because tanks tend to make up my firebase. I've found two units of conscripts work best - in two waves 4 inches apart. A 10 man infantry squad will just get deleted and then you've got a big hole in your lines and then they assault and take one or two of your other infantry squads as hostages. And you can't spread your infantry squad out more than one base width or someone will move through them on a decent assault and take them hostage. With 25 conscripts you've got a solid 40 inch line of defense to pick off the end from when they die which probably wraps way past where you need them anyway. I also auto include Pask and usually a tank commander with Punisher Gattling Cannons for dealing with unwanted guests who try to chew through the conscripts.

Do you go for a valhallan detachment for your conscripts to make them more durable against morale tests? Or do you just slot it in with your Cadian detachment with Pask?

I leave 'em with the cadians and let the primaris psyker cast psychic barrier on the forward unit to get them to a 4+ save. Most of the time I have plans for the other two detachments which tonight will be BA smash captains and DW storm bolter veterans

Another option is to spend a cp though and merge your infantry squads. That would be really good I think as they auto accept orders and have a far better leadership.

So I was thinking about doing a double screening:

30 guards as the first screen, then 4" away (in order to avoid the 3" consolidation) the second screen of 30 guards and then all the vehicles and characters.

Characters will be in range of both screen for order / LD / etc if they are immediately next to the second screen.

And between the two screens, the two cyclops. This way if my first screen is locked in assault, I can kill the survivors myself by detonating them and avoid getting trap by my own screen: there is no way to hide from my shooting phase.

I'll probably put the veterans in ambush, drop one chimera and add two meltaguns (one is each vet squad). This way they will be able to ambuhs, advance and fire without malus and one shot in average an exocrine, a 12 wounds tank / monster etc...
With the stormtroopers and the assassin, I guess I will have some mobility this way.

Do the double screen seem workable for you ?

That's what I've started doing - especially with the rise of genestealer cults. I don't know if I'd bother with orders for the conscripts though since it only happens on a 4+. Maybe if you want to leave a platoon commander up front with them I guess. Two cyclops is interesting... they're not cheap anymore though. Usually I pick off the dead from an end that will not likely be able to be held hostage. Not that you still can't be locked but that's usually how it happens to me.

How are Leman Russ tanks doing in competitive events these days? I ask because I'm sort of thinking about getting that new Apocalypse bundle that has 3 of them in it (as long as one of them is the Demolisher/Punisher/Executioner version, that is). I'm relatively new to Astra Militarum, mainly adding it to support my Imperial Knights, but I wouldn't mind having enough to run a full AM army.

From the looks ut will be 2 battlecannon/eradicator/ac LR and 1 demolisher/punisher/executioner.

They are doing great, as TCs. For the points, there is no reason not to make them TCs, you get +1 bs and can issue reroll 1s or rerolls number of shots everyturn. Its incredibly strong. They just get targeted fast

Yea, Tank Commanders are pretty popular in competitive play now, many imperial lists have them.

The only variants that see play are the Battle Cannon and the Punisher Cannon though, the others are either just bad or too situational to be useful.

The executioner definitely also sees play. Particularly in cadian/vostroyan detachments where you can get +1 to hit via stratagems. Flat 2 damage is much better than D3, it has better AP and costs less. It's certainly got it's niche!

Unfortunately the Executioner has overheat, so it's suicide to use against Eldar Flyers or Plaguebearers, who have -2 to hit frequently. Taking mortal wounds on a 1 or 2 is brutal.

Well it's worse against them but better against armoured targets and elite infantry. Didn't say it was better than the battle cannon, just usable.

Okay, another question: can a Tank Commander issue an order to himself, or to another Tank Commander? I don't have my codex handy right now, so forgive me if that's a dumb question.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Okay, another question: can a Tank Commander issue an order to himself, or to another Tank Commander? I don't have my codex handy right now, so forgive me if that's a dumb question.

Yes.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Okay, another question: can a Tank Commander issue an order to himself, or to another Tank Commander? I don't have my codex handy right now, so forgive me if that's a dumb question.

Yes, they can do both.

I've run a conqueror in my list and found them to be decent enough. Especially as a wing man to pask who can do 2 orders. I usually run pask with the gatling cannon so his turret is only 24" which is the sweet spot for the conqueror reroll hit ability. I found a 3d printable turret for the conqueror too which is handy.

 UMGuy wrote:
From the looks ut will be 2 battlecannon/eradicator/ac LR and 1 demolisher/punisher/executioner.

They are doing great, as TCs. For the points, there is no reason not to make them TCs, you get +1 bs and can issue reroll 1s or rerolls number of shots everyturn. Its incredibly strong. They just get targeted fast

I think by issue reroll 1's/reroll shots you meant to say issue move shoot move. Tallarn TCs are amazing. Nothing more glorious than sniping out Broadsides who can do literally nothing as you pop in and out of cover with impunity.

Yeah, re-roll 1s is nice to have for the times when you don't need to move but JSJ tanks are amazing as long as you have sufficient LOS blocking terrain on the table. It doesn't show up in the dice math, but in a real game I'm taking Tallarn vehicles every time. IMO it's the strongest regimental doctrine, by far, for vehicles other than LoW.

Any advice in fighting DG with GI ? No pox hordes, mainly DP, leviathan dread, plagueburters and marines in rhino !

What game type and what are you bringing?

Screening will be key here. T1 i would puah up with my 1st line of screen. Shoot priority units, depending on the lev dread and what you have, i might just ignore them. They have a tough invul, T8, good amount of wounds. Unless you run pack strong AT with range, focus on everything else and play the mission. After your screen gets charged, have them fall back and shoot whatever charged you. DPs are strong, but are wasted killing guardsmen.

Watch for units with fly and try to get 4" distance between your screens to avoid consolidation shenanigans

Hi all! I follow the post for some time (I'm also a crazy guard)

I would like to take ideas, to make a very competitive list (itc format and forge world) to 2000 points.

I think of two approaches ... one of 3 Low's, 2 Vultures .... or something more typical, with Leman russ commanders, infantry, mortars, Bullgryns ... although the latter I think gives many kill points for this format.

Some ultra competitive ideas?

Could do 4 cadian tank commanders (including pask and relic battle cannon) with 2 wyverns and 2 basis from emperors wrath artillery fronted by 90 conscripts next to the valhallan relic for scoring and screening? Lower kill points with conscripts instead of infantry squads

Leman Russ whit Battle canonsa all? Or 1 (pask) whit punisher?

Basilisk better than manticores ?

Punishers work fine, though I prefer vostroyan for a punisher as often 24 inch range exposes you to reprisals. You need some decent anti infantry and a punisher or two can do that. Against plaguebearers, the vengeance for cadia strat plus vostroyan strat on average kills about 20 models which is something few other units in the game can manage.

My favourite tank commander loadout is battle cannon, plasma sponsons, heavy bolter heavy stubber currently. (With this you need to take 3-4 though or you expose yourself to losing your investment turn 1)

I'd say basilisks are better than manticores. Point for point their firepower is almost exactly the same, but the basis are tougher (more wounds per point) and can gain buffs from the emperors wrath formation from vigilus (the strat to fire twice is particularly useful)

 DoomMouse wrote:
Punishers work fine, though I prefer vostroyan for a punisher as often 24 inch range exposes you to reprisals. You need some decent anti infantry and a punisher or two can do that. Against plaguebearers, the vengeance for cadia strat plus vostroyan strat on average kills about 20 models which is something few other units in the game can manage.

My favourite tank commander loadout is battle cannon, plasma sponsons, heavy bolter heavy stubber currently. (With this you need to take 3-4 though or you expose yourself to losing your investment turn 1)

I'd say basilisks are better than manticores. Point for point their firepower is almost exactly the same, but the basis are tougher (more wounds per point) and can gain buffs from the emperors wrath formation from vigilus (the strat to fire twice is particularly useful)

I feel like if you want to use manticores Catachan is the way to do it. It just sucks they get almost no buffs that the wyverns and basilisks get. The amount of times I've fired a manticore and rolled 3 shots, or bounced off an armor save is too many to count, they just feel very swingy. They want to shoot at T5 stuff like bikes, thundercav, death guard, etc. but that D3 damage comes back to haunt you quite a bit.

On the other hand I've been running a pair of basilisks lately with the vigilus formation and they're great. Not only the fire twice strat, but the suppression volley is potentially game winning at times. I run a brigade+batallion in my current list and part of that is to basically pay 2 CP to have a 3rd basilisk for "free" every turn, makes it easily superior to the manticore at that point. You're almost always putting out at least 4 shots and you can even use aerial spotters to have a double shot basilisk rerolling all misses.

On the tanks I'm still torn, I love Executioners, you just can't go wrong with them, but I appear to have an incredibly lucky one that screws with my judgement since it rolls an insane amount of shots and just melts things. And since I run Valhallans, I really don't care if I take a few wounds so I run mine overcharging almost every shot. Other tanks that deserve credit are Punishers and the default tank, especially a commander with the relic cannon. That one is basically auto include. I'm also considering a standard Demolisher to try with the vigilus tank company. Idea being to use the 10" grinding advance strat and run it up the field with 3 Hellhounds as a tip to the spear. I don't expect it to a ton of damage in and of itself but you can't just leave 3 Hellhounds and a Demolisher alive in your lines, so hopefully it'll take heat off my other tanks.

Again, the vigilus formation is great. The relic cannon is a workhorse, the wlt is useful if played right, and the strats are situational but can be very useful.

Kinda cool there is a datasheet for last chancers in apocolypse. Wonder if it’s a prelude to an official 40k one or new models.

Are Shadowswords or the Quake cannon variants competetive in any way? Their cost is not too bad.

 Singleton Mosby wrote:
Are Shadowswords or the Quake cannon variants competetive in any way? Their cost is not too bad.

Shadowswords used to dominate the meta. Nowadays they're hurt a bit by lack of invuln saves and no way to do reserve shenanigans to prevent them being shot first turn. They're still stupidly powerful with the amount of weapons they get and knights being limited to a 4+ invuln, but they have a bit of a glass jaw. Hardly useless, just keep in mind that high AP weapons will seriously ruin their day

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
...no way to do reserve shenanigans to prevent them being shot first turn.

Did I miss a change that means you can't use Tallarn Ambush on them? I know this delays their use until turn 2, which is a pretty nasty drawback, but it would still keep them safe turn 1.

You can certainly still bring one in turn 2 with Tallarn. Hell, a supreme command of Tallarn Tank Commanders, with a Shadowsword in reserve, could be a pretty sweet army actually.

 Trickstick wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
...no way to do reserve shenanigans to prevent them being shot first turn.

Did I miss a change that means you can't use Tallarn Ambush on them? I know this delays their use until turn 2, which is a pretty nasty drawback, but it would still keep them safe turn 1.

Yeah you still can, I should've clarified there's no way to reserve them and bring them on on your turn 1 if you go second. If that makes any sense. That used to be a good way to run them to make sure they weren't alpha striked off the table, since there's no way to hide the thing.

Aren't the Baneblade tanks wider than 7"?

 Peregrine wrote:
Aren't the Baneblade tanks wider than 7"?

Sort of but not really. Sponson to sponson is just under 7", although the angle that the bolters sit at makes them over 7". However, sponsons are not counted as part of the hull when checking if a model is "wholly within". You can't have any part of the model over the table edge, but you can have parts that don't count as hull over 7" on to the table. Which means that a sponsoned baneblade can ambush.

Since when do sponsons not count? This edition uses every part of a model to determine line of sight. That's kind of a a hard argument to win suggesting it has sponsons that conveniently don't count for deployment but somehow do when firing.

 Red Corsair wrote:
Since when do sponsons not count? This edition uses every part of a model to determine line of sight.

Rule Book FAQ:

Q: When a model does not have a base, as is the case with many vehicles, what exactly is the ‘hull’ of the model?
A: The hull of these models refers to the main body of the model. It does not include things such as turrets, sponsons, aerials, banners, spikes etc. If there is still doubt, we recommend both players agree about what constitutes the hull of such models before the battle begins.

Q: Can you clarify what the difference is between ‘wholly within’ and ‘within’ for rules purposes?
A: If a rule says it affects models that are ‘wholly within’ then it only applies if every part of the model’s base (or hull) is within. If a rule says it affects models that are ‘within’, however, then it applies so long as any part of the model’s base (or hull) is within.

You use the whole model for LoS, but not for measurement. For the 'wholly within" you only count the hull.

 Horst wrote:
You can certainly still bring one in turn 2 with Tallarn. Hell, a supreme command of Tallarn Tank Commanders, with a Shadowsword in reserve, could be a pretty sweet army actually.

FAQ'd YOu can only bring 1 vehicle now.

I meant that you start the Tank Commanders on the board, and bring the vehicle in from outflank. The Tank Commanders can move shoot move, so they should be able to survive turn 1 from behind cover (assuming your board isn't planet bowling ball). I worded that poorly though.

This sounds very interesting chaps. I would run the shadowsword as Catachan for the Reroll on the number of shots. Then sergeant Harker will provide rerolls of 1.

Time to start working on a nice competitive 2k list with a lot of tanks, Hellhounds, a shadowsword and a squadron of death riders.

In my experience its best to either outflank with tallarn or take voystroyan for the BS bonus.

I'm finally taking the plunge and getting into IG with the Apocalypse box, but I've got questions:

1: How awful are Sentinels? I'm assuming very, since they more or less never show up in lists. If you wanted to run them, what would be the least awful way?

2: Where are the rules for the Stormblade these days, and what is it like?

Sentinels are not bad. There are just better choices in the codex. They're frequently taken if you want to do a full Guard Brigade, just take 3 Sentinels with autocannons (or plasma cannons if you're cadian).

Stormblades are pretty bad. The Plasma Blastgun on it is almost as good as Cawl's Wrath on the Castellan, but with BS4 and no invulnerable, it's not really worth 408 points. You're way better off with a pair of Executioners if you want plasma fire support.. they'd cost the same, and put out way more damage.

Sentinels are bad. They're weaker than their points in LRBTs and the -1 to hit when moving is crippling. The best use is cheaply filling fast attack slots to maximize CP. Keep them cheap with multilasers, move them up to screen your more important stuff, and expect them to die without doing much else.

The Stormblade is trash. It is balanced around the index versions of the Baneblade variants, before they all got +D6 shots, and never received a proper update. Proxy it as a Shadowsword if you want to put the model on the table.

Ive started running 2 sentinals, 1 armored and 1 scout. Depending on what im playing, I'll use the scout to move forward and either claim an objective early or be a speed bump.

The armored hangs back, usually its ignored over my other armor, then once ive wiped my opponent's anti armor, it will be a late game objective grabber that's harder to push off than guardsmen.

I really like running the pair, its fluffy, fits my list and play style whether it's IK with AM support or all AM

What do you guys think best for a fast attack choice, two lascannon Sentinels or a Tauros Venator with twin lascannons? I'm running a mech list with lots of Chimeras, 3 russes, and a Basilisk, and my AT kinda sucks. I'm thinking of replacing my Hellhound with one of the above options.

 Peregrine wrote:
Sentinels are bad. They're weaker than their points in LRBTs and the -1 to hit when moving is crippling. The best use is cheaply filling fast attack slots to maximize CP. Keep them cheap with multilasers, move them up to screen your more important stuff, and expect them to die without doing much else.

The Stormblade is trash. It is balanced around the index versions of the Baneblade variants, before they all got +D6 shots, and never received a proper update. Proxy it as a Shadowsword if you want to put the model on the table.

I actually stop moving mine up turn 1 for two reasons:

1 with changes to Deep Strike T1 it doesnt matter about pushing out the DS bubble as much until T2.
2 more importantly and annoyingly, pushing them out gives the enemy an easy unit to charge into and then slingshot into the rest of your army without getting shot. Any CC army or CC units like smash captains, Genestealers, bezerkers, etc...

The stormblade and any other Baneblade variant CAN be good. Best to take Voystroyan for a3+ BS. THen take two cheap astropaths to cast -1 to hit and +1 Armor save on it. Also consider a techpriest to heal wounds.
The other good doctrine I see is Valhallan since it doubles the wounds for damage bracket, so its kind of like shooting at top shelf with a knight.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 necrontyrOG wrote:
What do you guys think best for a fast attack choice, two lascannon Sentinels or a Tauros Venator with twin lascannons? I'm running a mech list with lots of Chimeras, 3 russes, and a Basilisk, and my AT kinda sucks. I'm thinking of replacing my Hellhound with one of the above options.

Just take Cadian Sentinels with plasma, park them in the back and don't move them. Put them near a warlord with old grudges and/or use overlapping fields of fire for extra boons.

 Dynas wrote:
I actually stop moving mine up turn 1 for two reasons:

1 with changes to Deep Strike T1 it doesnt matter about pushing out the DS bubble as much until T2.
2 more importantly and annoyingly, pushing them out gives the enemy an easy unit to charge into and then slingshot into the rest of your army without getting shot. Any CC army or CC units like smash captains, Genestealers, bezerkers, etc...

I should clarify that "moving up" doesn't necessarily mean straight forward and leaving gaps in your army. The scout move + normal move can also move across your deployment zone to thicken a screen if your opponent counters your deployment and looks to be aiming to arrive from a different angle. Or maybe you're "screening" by rushing forward to lock a shooting threat in combat. And obviously sometimes you'll just stay where you are, because you deployed in the right spot. But options are good to have.

The stormblade and any other Baneblade variant CAN be good.

Baneblade variants can be good. Stormblades can not. Compare stat lines:

Baneblade: 3D6 shots at STR 9 AP -3 D3

Stormblade on overload, taking mortal wounds for every 1 rolled: 2D6 shots at STR 9 AP -3 D3

Banesword: 2D6 shots at STR 14 AP -4 D6 with 1s and 2s becoming 3 damage

The Stormblade is the clear loser here because it didn't get the +D6 shots buff that every other Baneblade variant got from index to codex. There's just no situation where you even consider taking one.

Just take Cadian Sentinels with plasma, park them in the back and don't move them. Put them near a warlord with old grudges and/or use overlapping fields of fire for extra boons.

The problem is that now you've paid the cost of a plasma LRBT for a much weaker unit. The Tauros is the much better option because it at least offers mobility to balance out any inefficiency as a pure shooting unit and do something that the LRBT can't do. Sentinels have no place in a gunline element.

Peregrine, I still think Sentinels have a great place in any list, because for 35 points they're a fairly durable unit for the Engineers secondary in ITC. If the objective is behind some LOS blocking terrain, just park the Sentinels on it, and they'll almost certainly survive since they're much harder to damage with most indirect fire weapons than anything else.

If you find yourself with some points left over in an army list after taking what you want, there's really no better way to spend 35 extra points IMO.

Sure, in an ITC list if you're playing by that set of house rules, and even then you're still talking about the cheapest possible option and not upgrading them with bigger guns. Cheap Sentinels are ok for a few things, my objection is to trying to put expensive guns on them and turn a cheap utility unit and FOC slot filler into a bad attempt at being a LRBT.

Horst wrote:Peregrine, I still think Sentinels have a great place in any list, because for 35 points they're a fairly durable unit for the Engineers secondary in ITC. If the objective is behind some LOS blocking terrain, just park the Sentinels on it, and they'll almost certainly survive since they're much harder to damage with most indirect fire weapons than anything else.

If you find yourself with some points left over in an army list after taking what you want, there's really no better way to spend 35 extra points IMO.

I guess that works, but that's the first time I've heard of a sentinel being the optimal choice for a job.

Peregrine wrote:Sure, in an ITC list if you're playing by that set of house rules, and even then you're still talking about the cheapest possible option and not upgrading them with bigger guns. Cheap Sentinels are ok for a few things, my objection is to trying to put expensive guns on them and turn a cheap utility unit and FOC slot filler into a bad attempt at being a LRBT.

To be fair that set of house rules is one of the most established for competitive play. Like it or not, if we're talking tactics, it needs to be considered for many people.

I'd also have to agree with this. The only way I could sentinels working is if you were taking something like 30 alongside a bunch of tauroxes and other T6 units to try and super saturate that bracket, and even there I feel the smarter way would be leman Russ/chimera/Valkyrie spam. Unless you take Tallarn as your regiment, you have an army of Ork walkers whenever you attempt to move, and you really need to be moving if you plan on winning games. Compare it to it's obvious competitors, leman Russe's and Hellhounds variants, and the sentinel really just doesn't have a lot going for it. It's not as tough or powerful on the move as a leman Russ, and it's not as fast and aggressive as a Hellhound. So if it can't do either of those, what niche is it filling besides looking cool?

The only upside I can think of is that they're the cheapest in terms of raw wounds, so if you were in an area with a ton of AP4 or mortal wounds they might have edge. Now if they could still do stuff like outflank that'd be one thing, but when all we have is the paltry scout move it's really not much. They're cool for narrative and fluff games, but I just fail to see any sort of edge they have over our other backbone units like leman Russe's.

I see great potential in Tallarn Sentinels. 50 pts for lascannon platform which is mobile, hardish (you need to dedicate AT to kill it), not degrading and very threatening. If you are aiming for brigade and/or using Tallarn they are very good for their points. Do not forget that Ambush stratagem allows you to outflank with up to 3 sentinels which is nice.

Gnollu wrote:
I see great potential in Tallarn Sentinels. 50 pts for lascannon platform which is mobile, hardish (you need to dedicate AT to kill it), not degrading and very threatening. If you are aiming for brigade and/or using Tallarn they are very good for their points. Do not forget that Ambush stratagem allows you to outflank with up to 3 sentinels which is nice.

I mean if you want a lascannon platform that can shoot and move the leman Russ Annihilator can do that. It'll put out 4 shots on a leman Russ profile while moving and shooting 5" a turn with no penalties, and you'll get other regiments traits on top.

Maybe not exactly comparable, but even there it's a competition, and you can outflank 3 Russe's, a much more efficient use of CP and a much bigger threat

I only recently got started and therefore so far lack experience "in the field" but regarding (Tallarn) Sentinels they also seem the cheapest platform to spam Hunter Killer missiles. I'm undecided if this is efficient at BS 4+ on a Tallarn Sentinel, but it might be worth it in some cases.

Furthermore depending on terrain and positioning of enemy troops their small base size for a vehicle can be advantageous when getting through choke points onto objectives or into range to bind other units in close combat. And in close combat they are rather hardy for their points cost. They might not kill anything, but it takes some time to kill them.

But of corse, both points are not really strong arguments towards points efficiency both rather situational.

It isn't efficient. HK missiles are trash, they're a one-shot weapon that is way too expensive compared to guns that can fire every turn.

Yea... HK missiles are a bit gak. If they were 5 points each though, and you could take 2 per vehicle, they'd be amazing with Cadian, just like how Seeker Missile spam works with Tau. You could use overlapping fields of fire, fire off 20 of the things, and just alpha strike an enemy superheavy off the board.

Of course we know they're not like that and they suck, but maybe in a parallel universe they're useful.

Hk spam is a route you could go. Could actually be really good, but you would have to really dedicate to it. With cadia reroll 1s and overlapping fields of fire you would be rerolling 1s, hitting on 3s.

I think Mordian Glory did a video on it a while back

Sentinels pop up in some really successful IG lists in ITC. Cheap brigade filler plus objective grabber. Since they’re mostly there for the extra CP (and freed up detachment) over two battalions, you don’t need much out of them.

Pyroalchi wrote:
I only recently got started and therefore so far lack experience "in the field" but regarding (Tallarn) Sentinels they also seem the cheapest platform to spam Hunter Killer missiles. I'm undecided if this is efficient at BS 4+ on a Tallarn Sentinel, but it might be worth it in some cases.

Furthermore depending on terrain and positioning of enemy troops their small base size for a vehicle can be advantageous when getting through choke points onto objectives or into range to bind other units in close combat. And in close combat they are rather hardy for their points cost. They might not kill anything, but it takes some time to kill them.

But of corse, both points are not really strong arguments towards points efficiency both rather situational.

Be careful with the "tough in melee" bit. Usually smart opponents use that against you. With guard you either want the unit to die in melee going into your turn so you can shoot, able to fall back, or it's a Baneblade/Catachan/bullgryn and can fight back.

Oftentimes with stuff like sentinels the opponent uses them to protect their assault units in your turn. Then they kill the sentinel in your assault phase and slingshot into your lines on their next turn

Thanks for the tip. As I said I'm new and want to use some sentinels because I like the model. I appreciate the warning that this could be exploited.

Powerlifter Sentinels are kinda fun. They are a FW sentinel varient that essentially has a powerfist. You can scout move them 9". Move and Advance 9+d6". Pop Smoke. Then use the "Crush them" strat to charge after advancing and hit on 2's.

It's like a weird, but cheap as chips version of a Sydonian Dragoon. If they were Fast Attack instead of Heavy Support, I'd take them in most armies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On the Topic of Baneblades. I'm taking a Doomhammer to a tourney tomorrow, and as I was picking my baneblade vairent I realized that they transport "Astra Militarum" instead of (Regiment).

So I'm going to put some hobby effort into a "Bunkerblade"
Stormlord with No Upgrades (keep it cheap)
3 units of Cadian Command Squads with Sniper Rifles
2 units of MT Command Squads with Hot Shot Volley Guns.

It's cheap, and has a kinda silly amount of firepower coming out of it. Alternative approach using Cadian Heavy Weapon Teams.

I'm currently building a Tallarn army and was thinking about the possibility to take a set of 2-3 heavy bolter Tarantula batteries, put them in an ambush and drop them on an objective or somewhere I need anti-infantry firepower. Mostly because I like the idea of hidden batteries fluffwise and it would be possible to get these immobile unit outside of my deployment zone. Has anyone ever tried this? Does it make sense in a competetive way?

A little tale of 3 tourneys if anyone is interested. I've played 3 tourneys in the last 7 days with 3 different lists, I won 2 of the tourneys, and I figured my thoughts might help some players.

Tourney 1:
Wooden Spoon. 14 players. 2/14 players were really competitive, and running competitive lists.


My list:


Game 1:


Game 2:


Game 3:


Final tourney thoughts:

Tourney 2:
4th of July RTT. 10 players. 8/10 players were really competitive, and running competitive lists.

My List:


Game 1:


Game 2:


Game 3


Final tourney thoughts:

Tourney 3:
Neighborhood RTT. 12 players. 3/12 players were really competitive, and running competitive lists. This event was know to be more friendly, so I wanted to mix it up with something off the wall, and bring a baneblade variant.

My List: “Stop! Hammertime!”


Game 1:


Game 2:


Game 3


Final tourney thoughts:

Great write up. Talk to me about how you are using ogryn bodyguards for board control. Is it because they are characters and cant be targeted so they can hang in the back field?

 UMGuy wrote:
Great write up. Talk to me about how you are using ogryn bodyguards for board control. Is it because they are characters and cant be targeted so they can hang in the back field?

Partially. Character comes into it. If I stick an infantry squad and a bullgryn on an objective usually I can count on controlling it, because by the time they clear the infantry squad they don't have enough firepower left to clear the bullgryn. Also, they are just really beefy by themselves. I tend to stick to terrain with them whenever possible, and it dissuades certain charges into my infantry.

For instance, in my game vs Harlies, an Archon charges a unit of guardsmen, but my bullgryn was in range to glorious intervene. It took a few rounds of combat, but eventually my Bullgryn killed the archon, and all of the time they were chewing on each other, my opponent's advance was more or less stopped. It didn't matter that I win that fight, just that I don't die quickly.

Another example is facing the Chaos knights. He parked a armiger right on an objective. Guardsmen could take it with Obsec, but not survive the armiger. So I put the bullgryn into the armiger too, and they were able to take attacks off of the guardsmen.

Vs the Tau, whenever I had a chance to charge fire warriors I tried to lead with the bullgryn, and the bullgryn ended up killing the tau markerlight characters.

The most important thing is that most things that are good at killing infantry are less good at killing bullgryn so having a mix of the 2 really helps to stabilize your board control.

Awesome write up - thanks! Funny I started thinking about bullgryns this weekend but not the bodyguards I have 6 that I built and painted up but never got around to actually playing.

So to that end I was thinking about 6 bullgryns w/mauls and a mix of shields as catachans with a priest and an astropath. I'm guessing that's standard fare. What about adding straken? That's another +1 attacks bringing the bullgryns up to 31 S8 AP-2 attacks plus whatever straken brings to the party ( that's from memory - I'm at work). Looking at his abilities it's obvious he was designed to lead two catachan infantry squads into combat I think. I have 6 squads so what about sending two along with the bullgryns as wingmen? That is a lot of points....dunno...

Bullgryns are Auxilia, not Regiment. Cannot be made Catachan.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Bullgryns are Auxilia, not Regiment. Cannot be made Catachan.

Ah, good catch thanks! So Straken won't help and they don't get the +1 to strength...too bad...I had high hopes...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
what are good tactics for keeping your buffing characters alive with your bullgryns? I can see me rolling them into a unit of X and then the astropath and priest get immediately trashed. Do you keep them surrounded by the bullgryns? If you're confident no one's going to sneak in behind them I guess you're ok with keeping your characters at arms length from the action. Those are the only two tactics I was able to come up with...

I need help building heavy weapons teams.
Currently have 9 mortars, 3 lascannons and 1 autocannon.
I can build 6 more heavy weapons but i dont know what to choose.

If theyre flying solo, mortars. If you're putting them in Infantry Squads, it depends on the rest of your list.

Without bullet catchers, HWTs are easy (and priority) kills.

9 mortars and rest 3 each (for veteran squads)

Does the Vendetta get the same "+1 to hit if it hovers" rule that the Valkyrie gets? I realize that it's probably way too expensive regardless, but I've always had a soft spot for that and the Vulture.

On a similar topic, what are the best anti-armour units in the book (more thinking things like opposing Tank Commanders or things at that level that can be spammed rather than Knight-level anti-tank (A Shadowsword would probably overkill a Leman Russ, no?). There's more anti-infantry than you can shake a stick at, but anti-tank options seem a little flimsy.

The Valkyrie has a +1 to hit ground rule, which negates the -1 it gets from moving. The Vendetta does not have that rule, no, meaning it's pretty useless.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
On a similar topic, what are the best anti-armour units in the book (more thinking things like opposing Tank Commanders or things at that level that can be spammed rather than Knight-level anti-tank (A Shadowsword would probably overkill a Leman Russ, no?). There's more anti-infantry than you can shake a stick at, but anti-tank options seem a little flimsy.

So, anti-tank is in a bit of weird place in 8th edition. Most of the big anti-tank weapons got repped as one shot, d6 damage guns, which is usually worse than multiple shot, d3 damage guns. So lascannons, vindicator cannons, and meltas range from "maybe almost okay" to complete trash. I rely most on tanks and artillery, but scions with plasma are great if you can wait until turn two. Basilisks do great against vehicles without an invulnerable save (run as cadian), Maticores do great against 5++, T8 chassis (run as catachan), while the basic LRBT or tank commander with battle cannon does yeoman's work against T7 or less. Remember that you can stack bonuses, so anything with variable shots should be catachan (except the bassie due to inherent reroll), but catachans have harker for a cheap aura, and also the master of ordnance. toss in a warlord with old grudges, and you can do serious work against hard targets.

This is one reason (among many) that a lot of IG lists run allies, most notably smash captains, shield captains, or knights.

Cadian Tank Commanders can use Pound Them to Dust!, to get more shots with their battle cannons than their Catachan brethren. This can be combined with their inherent reroll 1's trait or the Relic of Lost Cadia as well.

Starting from the Apocalypse box, I'm thinking the following:

Pask in Punisher
Tank Commander Exterminator
Tank Commander standard Russ (for Hammer of Sundrance)
Company Commander
4 scrubs left over to convert fo Officers or advisors
Convert Chimera to Manticore

Does that seem about right for a start?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
(A Shadowsword would probably overkill a Leman Russ, no?).

Not really. Average of 6 shots, 3 hits, 2.5 wounds, 17.5 damage. That's overkill but not by all that much and it's very easy for a bad die roll or two to bring that average down. I'd say it's just about the right damage to let you put the lascannons into a second target while still being pretty confident that you'll kill the primary target.

Just a question,
has anyone of you tried the Carnodon thing?

If yes, is it worth it? Which loadout suits them the best?

tag8833 wrote:

So I'm going to put some hobby effort into a "Bunkerblade"
Stormlord with No Upgrades (keep it cheap)
3 units of Cadian Command Squads with Sniper Rifles
2 units of MT Command Squads with Hot Shot Volley Guns.

If you want to go mental, as a thought experiment I've wondered about how a "Plasmablade" would fare

Stormlord
1 Command squad full Plasma
6x SWS full Plasma
That's 22 gunners so you can cut 2 to optimize or keep them for overheat-casualty redundancy

Make the Stormlord Tallarn to outflank, and the infantry Armageddon for 18" RF or Vostroyan for 30" range and 15" RF (Or Cadian to play it safe)

It's in the 800-900ish depending on upgrades and is surely gimmicky but if you can proxy it for a couple of casual games it could be hilarious

nvm

I don’t think you can put Armageddon models in a Tallarn baneblade.

Nostro wrote:

tag8833 wrote:

So I'm going to put some hobby effort into a "Bunkerblade"
Stormlord with No Upgrades (keep it cheap)
3 units of Cadian Command Squads with Sniper Rifles
2 units of MT Command Squads with Hot Shot Volley Guns.

If you want to go mental, as a thought experiment I've wondered about how a "Plasmablade" would fare

Stormlord
1 Command squad full Plasma
6x SWS full Plasma
That's 22 gunners so you can cut 2 to optimize or keep them for overheat-casualty redundancy

Make the Stormlord Tallarn to outflank, and the infantry Armageddon for 18" RF or Vostroyan for 30" range and 15" RF (Or Cadian to play it safe)

It's in the 800-900ish depending on upgrades and is surely gimmicky but if you can proxy it for a couple of casual games it could be hilarious

Hmmm...
add 2 astropaths nearby for -1 to hit and +1 save.
I would say make the stormlord voystroyan for the +1 to hit stratagem. Infantry Voystroyan also to ensure you get that plasma in range. Put a CC and platoon commander in there as well for orders.
so
Platoon cmd
Comp Cmd
3x 6 man units Veterans all with plasma (only 3 can take it, so 9 plasma, 9 lasguns).
That fills your 20 slots. Issue FRFSRF or Reroll 1's. Can even take Laurels of Command on the CC to stack Take Aim! with it.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I don’t think you can put Armageddon models in a Tallarn baneblade.

I mean, you can't put Tallarn models in one either.

If you meant "Stormlord", you can. Because GW are the masters of consistent writing, while a Novamarine (who are Ultramarine companies 11 though 20 in all but name) is absolutely forbidden by the GLORIOUS CODEX ASTARTES from catching a ride to the EXTRA HONOURABLE LATRINE DUTY in an Ultramarines Rhino, literally any shlub who has a flak jacket and a flashlight from whatever backwater world can ride in a Tallarn holy God-Engine-Telic-Of-The-Emperor. Even OGYRNS!

(All Codex: Astra Copywritum transports can carry ASTRA COPYWRITUM units and are not locked down to <REGIMENT>-equivalent like other armies are.)

Ah, like Dark Eldar.

Okay, didn’t realize. And was AFB, so just went off memory.

Nostro wrote:

tag8833 wrote:

So I'm going to put some hobby effort into a "Bunkerblade"
Stormlord with No Upgrades (keep it cheap)
3 units of Cadian Command Squads with Sniper Rifles
2 units of MT Command Squads with Hot Shot Volley Guns.

If you want to go mental, as a thought experiment I've wondered about how a "Plasmablade" would fare

Stormlord
1 Command squad full Plasma
6x SWS full Plasma
That's 22 gunners so you can cut 2 to optimize or keep them for overheat-casualty redundancy

Make the Stormlord Tallarn to outflank, and the infantry Armageddon for 18" RF or Vostroyan for 30" range and 15" RF (Or Cadian to play it safe)

It's in the 800-900ish depending on upgrades and is surely gimmicky but if you can proxy it for a couple of casual games it could be hilarious

Unfortunately you can't take 6 SWS with plasma because you can't take more than 3 SWS or any other nontroop unit.

 ph34r wrote:
Unfortunately you can't take 6 SWS with plasma because you can't take more than 3 SWS or any other nontroop unit.

And consider my pet peeved.

The "Rule of 3" is only a suggestion for "Organised Play". Normal Matched Play has no such restriction.

Also, you can bypass it by bringing Elysian Special Weapon Squads, as these are not considered by the FAQ to be dodging the rule of 3.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I don’t think you can put Armageddon models in a Tallarn baneblade.

I mean, you can't put Tallarn models in one either.

If you meant "Stormlord", you can. Because GW are the masters of consistent writing, while a Novamarine (who are Ultramarine companies 11 though 20 in all but name) is absolutely forbidden by the GLORIOUS CODEX ASTARTES from catching a ride to the EXTRA HONOURABLE LATRINE DUTY in an Ultramarines Rhino, literally any shlub who has a flak jacket and a flashlight from whatever backwater world can ride in a Tallarn holy God-Engine-Telic-Of-The-Emperor. Even OGYRNS!

(All Codex: Astra Copywritum transports can carry ASTRA COPYWRITUM units and are not locked down to <REGIMENT>-equivalent like other armies are.)

The non-notable exception to this last point is the Taurox Prime. It can only carry Militarum Tempestus and Officious Prefectus models.

Dynas wrote:
Hmmm...
add 2 astropaths nearby for -1 to hit and +1 save.
I would say make the stormlord voystroyan for the +1 to hit stratagem. Infantry Voystroyan also to ensure you get that plasma in range. Put a CC and platoon commander in there as well for orders.
so
Platoon cmd
Comp Cmd
3x 6 man units Veterans all with plasma (only 3 can take it, so 9 plasma, 9 lasguns).
That fills your 20 slots. Issue FRFSRF or Reroll 1's. Can even take Laurels of Command on the CC to stack Take Aim! with it.

Vets come in units of 10 though. But yeah there's definitely some room to toy with the Regiment of the Stormlord, Vostroya for the strat, Valhalla for the fire efficiency, though I like Tallarn for the strat, it can't be killed until you plonk it down a flank and start erasing units. You need a big gap though, hence the gimmicky thing, but in this day and age of armies geared for knight-killing, the survivability of a Blade-chassis is questionable if deployed straight up.

ph34r wrote:Unfortunately you can't take 6 SWS with plasma because you can't take more than 3 SWS or any other nontroop unit.

Dang, of course !
...show's how much actual thought I've put into this. Just a random musing inspired by the Bunkerblade idea earlier.

I mean it's just the general direction, just rejig around a bit, for example:

3 SWS = 18 men, 9 plasma
2 Command Squads = 8 men, 8 plasma
1 Vet Squad = 10 men, 3 plasma

=> 36 men, 20 plasma. FIll the extra slots to taste

BaconCatBug wrote:If you meant "Stormlord", you can. Because GW are the masters of consistent writing, while a Novamarine (who are Ultramarine companies 11 though 20 in all but name) is absolutely forbidden by the GLORIOUS CODEX ASTARTES from catching a ride to the EXTRA HONOURABLE LATRINE DUTY in an Ultramarines Rhino, literally any shlub who has a flak jacket and a flashlight from whatever backwater world can ride in a Tallarn holy God-Engine-Telic-Of-The-Emperor. Even OGYRNS!

Omigod I've awaken the BCB !

Before the rule of 3 hit I was going to run a stormlord packed full of catachan platoon commanders, company commanders + straken and a priest and possibly yarrick and just rush the thing forward and use crush them on the tank and assault with loads of plasma pistol and power fist wielding commandos. I even got the baneblade kit in the mail, but then the rule of three hit and it's still in the box now

I have no idea how well it would do, but thats a ton of s8 power fist attacks and overcharging plasma all with rerolls from yarrick.

The idea of this slimmy, weathered jungle tank loaded with commandos just really had me excited. I actually hate the rule of three, it tries to fix one hole by making even more holes elsewhere. Completely shafts armies like deathwing.

Not sure if this was discussed before, but is there another viable load-out for the Vulture Gunship other than the twin gattling gun? I have a 1000pt scion drop force with 2 valks but they are all pretty anti-infantry and was wondering if a more anti-tank load-out could work to help out my plasma. I was thinking 6 hunter killer missiles (vulture usually dies after one turn of shooting anyways) with twin autocannon. Any suggestions?

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 ph34r wrote:
Unfortunately you can't take 6 SWS with plasma because you can't take more than 3 SWS or any other nontroop unit.

And consider my pet peeved.

The "Rule of 3" is only a suggestion for "Organised Play". Normal Matched Play has no such restriction.

Also, you can bypass it by bringing Elysian Special Weapon Squads, as these are not considered by the FAQ to be dodging the rule of 3.

Call it a suggestion all you want, that "suggestion" is widely used norm across many playgroups, and pretty much every tournament. You want tactic advice, that's going to be a relevant restriction, just like how your list would interact with ITC. I get being annoyed, I miss being able to runore than 3 Onagers in my admech, but thems the rules and beta rule or not, it IS the norm in most areas.

It's especially bad to say that around a new player who doesn't know much or may be buying and building an army before he even has joined a group yet. You go on here saying "oh yeah run 6 SWS, it'll be great" is gonna really suck when every group in a 50 mile radius uses the rule of 3, because in my experience most do.

It's the same reason I don't recommend gimmicky lists to new players. Build the basics, start simple, focus on meat and potatoes and magnets. It's better to have a slightly less ruthlessly efficient army starting out if it means half of it won't be invalidated in 6 months when chapter approved hits. A new player ain't winning a tournament no matter how perfect his list, he can learn the basics with a simple army and once he comes to grips and has a sizeable collection, then he can field the weird curveball stuff that tends to be truly competitive. Plus we're guard, we're better off than most when it comes to running a bog standard infantry or tank company and for the average newbie, he'll still do just fine against other new players.

Robcio wrote:
Not sure if this was discussed before, but is there another viable load-out for the Vulture Gunship other than the twin gattling gun? I have a 1000pt scion drop force with 2 valks but they are all pretty anti-infantry and was wondering if a more anti-tank load-out could work to help out my plasma. I was thinking 6 hunter killer missiles (vulture usually dies after one turn of shooting anyways) with twin autocannon. Any suggestions?

To add onto my last post, would an avenger strike fighter with 2 lascannond and 2 missile launchers be a good anti tank option, only 30pts more (me and my buddies are semi-conpetative and I really like my air focussed scions list)

Robcio wrote:

Robcio wrote:
Not sure if this was discussed before, but is there another viable load-out for the Vulture Gunship other than the twin gattling gun? I have a 1000pt scion drop force with 2 valks but they are all pretty anti-infantry and was wondering if a more anti-tank load-out could work to help out my plasma. I was thinking 6 hunter killer missiles (vulture usually dies after one turn of shooting anyways) with twin autocannon. Any suggestions?

To add onto my last post, would an avenger strike fighter with 2 lascannond and 2 missile launchers be a good anti tank option, only 30pts more (me and my buddies are semi-conpetative and I really like my air focussed scions list)

The avenger is fun but it doesn't do a whole lot for the points. Mine usually gets focused super fast because it looks cool. The Gatling cannon really needs to be 2 damage or something. It actually feels like a misprint, because it's really underwhelming otherwise.

For casual games it's probably fine, especially if you've got Valkyries with lascannons/hellstrikes or other AT. Just don't expect it to annihilate an enemy armored column or clear the skies of hostiles.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

Robcio wrote:

Robcio wrote:
Not sure if this was discussed before, but is there another viable load-out for the Vulture Gunship other than the twin gattling gun? I have a 1000pt scion drop force with 2 valks but they are all pretty anti-infantry and was wondering if a more anti-tank load-out could work to help out my plasma. I was thinking 6 hunter killer missiles (vulture usually dies after one turn of shooting anyways) with twin autocannon. Any suggestions?

To add onto my last post, would an avenger strike fighter with 2 lascannond and 2 missile launchers be a good anti tank option, only 30pts more (me and my buddies are semi-conpetative and I really like my air focussed scions list)

The avenger is fun but it doesn't do a whole lot for the points. Mine usually gets focused super fast because it looks cool. The Gatling cannon really needs to be 2 damage or something. It actually feels like a misprint, because it's really underwhelming otherwise.

For casual games it's probably fine, especially if you've got Valkyries with lascannons/hellstrikes or other AT. Just don't expect it to annihilate an enemy armored column or clear the skies of hostiles.

My valks don't have lascannons but I have a lot of plasma (of being scions) I just wanted a few gun to add a bit more punch. I'm also trying out the "Officer of the Fleet" cuz it seems really cool and fluffy

As anyone run double brigades competitively successfully? Its what I am working on now. I am just tweaking the list for between 90-120 infantry and not sure what is optimal.

Double brigade is absolutely unnecessary. You will never need that much CP. Might as well just go triple battalion, less fast attack slots to fill and you can have up to 180 infantry.

The dirty truth of the matter is that its an ITC based list and the CP's are being used to fund 2 Smash Caps and Libby Dread. And also a little towards the basilisks/wyverns I plan to take too. And might have to use some to save the infantry from morale.

Since my question went under, I would like to try a second time:
I'm currently building a Tallarn army and was thinking about the possibility to take a set of 2-3 heavy bolter Tarantula batteries, put them in an ambush and drop them on an objective or somewhere I need anti-infantry firepower. Mostly because I like the idea of hidden batteries fluffwise and it would be possible to get these immobile unit outside of my deployment zone. Has anyone ever tried this? Does it make sense in a competetive way?

 Smirrors wrote:
The dirty truth of the matter is that its an ITC based list and the CP's are being used to fund 2 Smash Caps and Libby Dread. And also a little towards the basilisks/wyverns I plan to take too. And might have to use some to save the infantry from morale.

So, I think you gotta think about a different approach. If you already have a brigade and a BA supreme command, you can run a second brigade, you can run a battalion and hope to not run out of CP... or you could up the BA detachment to a battalion.

The bumping the second IG battalion to a Brigade means adding another HQ, three fast attacks, and three elites. (heavies are too good to worry about). The cheapest you can fill three Fast attack and elite slots is 179pts for three sentinels and three astropaths. Tack on 46 pts for a psyker (I'm assuming you've used all three CCs), and you're at 225. Simply upping the supreme command to a battalion, and splash in three scout squads for 165pts, or even add in some missiles or heavy bolters to gain mortal wound strats.

The only way I would feel comfortable going double Brigade is if you were making good use of both brigades, which can be tricky to do at 2k, much less when leaving points for smash captains.

So I've recently got 2 of the AM Spearhead detachment boxes which comes with the Cadian Command Squad sprues. Bearing in mind I've already got 2 company commanders built and painted, what should I do with the rest of these models?

 Smirrors wrote:
As anyone run double brigades competitively successfully? Its what I am working on now. I am just tweaking the list for between 90-120 infantry and not sure what is optimal.

My latest list runs a brigade/batallion and even spamming 4 CP on a double firing aerial observed basilisk the first couple turns it felt like overkill. There's a certain point where you need to ask yourself what's more important, models that provide CP, or models that actually do something.

The former is stuff like guardsmen, basilisks, leman Russe's, the latter is sentinels, which you're probably using to pull off double brigade. I guess I just don't see the point in bringing a list that has 25+ command points but only has 3/4 the firepower and utility of a list that focused on actually good units at the expense of a few CP. With a double Vigilus detachments and a relic, I still start with 17, and that's pretty good all things considered, I'd imagine a smash captain would be dead long before he burned all that.

I mean... if you bring a supreme command of 3 smash captains, and power one up per turn, you could absolutely spend 20 CP in a game on stratagems for them. Still seems excessive.

Looking at Vulture Gunships, twin Punishes looks pretty juicy in combination with the mobility offered. Sure, you don't get quite the raw firepower of a Tank Commander or Pask, but you can threaten to snipe characters like nobody's business and 160 points for 40 S5 shots and a Heavy Bolter isn't prohibitively expensive. Anyone got experience with Vultures?

Pyroalchi wrote:
Since my question went under, I would like to try a second time:
I'm currently building a Tallarn army and was thinking about the possibility to take a set of 2-3 heavy bolter Tarantula batteries, put them in an ambush and drop them on an objective or somewhere I need anti-infantry firepower. Mostly because I like the idea of hidden batteries fluffwise and it would be possible to get these immobile unit outside of my deployment zone. Has anyone ever tried this? Does it make sense in a competetive way?

Unless there's some kind of exception to the normal deepstrike rules for them, I don't think it will work. By turn 2 most objectives are usually claimed or nearly claimed (in my experience), so you won't be able to block off or grab any objectives you don't have already simply due to being 9+ inches away from them and there will still be units on said objectives through turn 3 when you have to bring them in. Their only real use is being able to "reinforce a flank", but with 36" range heavy bolters don't usually need that level of repositioning to add firepower. So, I would compare them against other sources of deepstriking (scions) and conventional (tanks, heavy weapons teams) firepower to see if they make sense.

What are you guys talking about not running out of CP? With my pure guard I run with 20+ CP and usually run out around turn 3.

Let's take my usual a brigade, battalion, and a supreme command detachment (21CP): -2CP for two vigilus detachments, -1 for an extra relic (relic battlecannon), -2 for an assassin, and -2 for cover since you're probably not going first. So out of the 21 you're down 7 to 14, first turn you probably use 1CP to dig-in your bullgryns to keep them alive along with 1 more CP to re-roll a failed save on one, down to 12. Your turn rolls around and you spend 2CP to make an artillery piece fire twice, spend another 2CP for overlapping fields of fire to take down their big unit, spend 1CP to either give an extra order or re-roll one of the number of shots on your artillery piece, down to 9 from 21 after your first turn.

Turn 2 rolls around, lets say you managed to get your bullgryns into cover where they can't be shot at, so no CP spent during your opponents phase. Now on your turn 2 you cast a psychic power on your bullgryns to +1 to your save but fail and need to spend 1CP to re-roll one to pass, you spend 2 for double firing artillery and 2 more for overlapping fields of fire, let's say you roll well and don't have to spend any on re-rolling number of shots, you get into the charge phase and your bullgryns fail the charge so you spend 1CP to re-roll a die to make them succeed. Now you're down to 3CP after your second turn.

Third turn you save that 3CP for double shooting artillery or overlapping fields of fire depending on what's still alive and 1CP for that important re-roll on either a save, psychic power, or charge. Now you've run out of CP.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Looking at Vulture Gunships, twin Punishes looks pretty juicy in combination with the mobility offered. Sure, you don't get quite the raw firepower of a Tank Commander or Pask, but you can threaten to snipe characters like nobody's business and 160 points for 40 S5 shots and a Heavy Bolter isn't prohibitively expensive. Anyone got experience with Vultures?

They're fun, but remember flying targets they'll hit on 5's. Not just planes, but EVERYTHING with fly. Assault marines, land speeders, hell practically the entire Tau and Eldar codexes, you'd be amazed how much has the flu keyword. If it had the roving gunship rule the Valkyrie has absolutely it'd be amazing, but losing the +1 B's against many of the most important targets to hit with mass S5 shots really hurts.

Really fun though, and the mobility is nice. It sucks for my meta but if you see a lot of Ork, nid, rival guard, or chaos cultists I'm sure it would do well.

You can still hover and hit fliers on 4+ if you have to, no?

Hey guys, apologies if this has been discussed before but I’m not trawling back through this many pages looking for it lol.

How do you feel about including an assassin in your Astra Militarum lists for itc? I’m thinking holding 85 points spare for an assassin could be a good thing for guard with the flexibility of being able to choose which one based on your opponent is best suited to your game.

I know the Operative Requisition Sanctioned stratagem now costs 2cp but it’s not like we are short of command points. So the question is is it worth including an assassin in your list for the potential utility they offer?

 CptJericho wrote:
What are you guys talking about not running out of CP? With my pure guard I run with 20+ CP and usually run out around turn 3.

Let's take my usual a brigade, battalion, and a supreme command detachment (21CP): -2CP for two vigilus detachments, -1 for an extra relic (relic battlecannon), -2 for an assassin, and -2 for cover since you're probably not going first. So out of the 21 you're down 7 to 14, first turn you probably use 1CP to dig-in your bullgryns to keep them alive along with 1 more CP to re-roll a failed save on one, down to 12. Your turn rolls around and you spend 2CP to make an artillery piece fire twice, spend another 2CP for overlapping fields of fire to take down their big unit, spend 1CP to either give an extra order or re-roll one of the number of shots on your artillery piece, down to 9 from 21 after your first turn.

Turn 2 rolls around, lets say you managed to get your bullgryns into cover where they can't be shot at, so no CP spent during your opponents phase. Now on your turn 2 you cast a psychic power on your bullgryns to +1 to your save but fail and need to spend 1CP to re-roll one to pass, you spend 2 for double firing artillery and 2 more for overlapping fields of fire, let's say you roll well and don't have to spend any on re-rolling number of shots, you get into the charge phase and your bullgryns fail the charge so you spend 1CP to re-roll a die to make them succeed. Now you're down to 3CP after your second turn.

Third turn you save that 3CP for double shooting artillery or overlapping fields of fire depending on what's still alive and 1CP for that important re-roll on either a save, psychic power, or charge. Now you've run out of CP.

I'm also running 21 CP and run out fast. I only do 1 vigil is detachment and an extra relic when fighting chaos so I start the game between 17 or 18 CP after I lose 1st turn.

-1 to hit is very common. I often use arial spotter to get the first wound in to trigger overlapping fields of fire. Fire twice on the basilisk with spotter and that's 6CP per turn.

Even with tactical restraint I'm switching to CP regeneration warlord trait when I'm not using old grudges.

@ Greyknight: thanks for the answer

An interesting thing I realized (maybe its already something trivial everybody knows, but it was news for me): the tarantula battery seems to lack the vehicle keyword. Therefore while it may not fire at full BS arriving from ambush this should mean that they do not suffer from the "only one vehicle" limitation of the ambush stratagem, right?. So if I want to use the ambush stratagem to drop added firepower on a flank it seems to be possible to drop 2 x 3 Tarantulas instead of 2 units of infantry in addition to the vehicle(s) I ambush?

Am I right in this assumption or have I missed something?

Hey Local Tournament Mini-bat Rep here. Just going to give the basics some of you might know me from the custodes thread but I didn't have my custodes available for this event so here is what I brought

My list

Battalion
Cadian:
2 Company Commander (Warlord w/ Old Grudge + Aquila)
3 Infantry Companies
2 HWT w/ Mortars

Spearhead
Vostroyan
1 Tank Commander (Punisher, Plasma Cannons, HB)
1 Tank Commander (Hammer of Sunderance Relic, PC, HB)
3 Leman Russ Conquerors (CBC, HB)

Super Heavy Aux
Krast
Crusader (First Knight, Mark, RFBC, Icarus)
2 Warglaives

and an Assassin

Round one was vs an Imperium mix. He was fielding 3 Allarus Shield Captains and a Deathwatch Battalion with 3 kitted out vanguard Squads A thunderfire cannon, a Derodero dread and a Leviathan Dread, A primarus Apoc, Watch captain and 1 other character.

I got Initiative. Declared the Leviathan to be the old grudge and my opening volley droped It, the Dero-dero, and 1 of the allurus. His opening turn didn't do really anything. Turn 2 I kill everything else on the board except the Watch master and 1 Allurus. I did make a mistake of not having my Callidus shoot and kill the Watch captain thinking I would kill it in charge. (it had been aspect scan and bombarded by the thunderfire) and it ended up dying to overwatch. He droped in his Veteran teams banged up 2 of my lemans a bit. Rest of the match was me moping up the veteran teams which were a LOT more durable then I was expecting end up tabling him Turn 4.

Match 2 was probably one of the Closet games of 40k I have ever played. Not going to lie it got a bit heated at points but was an amazing game. List my opponent brought was 3 Chaos Knights (1 Double RFBC, 1 Melee, and 1 Double Avenger) a battalion of Chaos Deamon (The plague bearer characters, 2 25 man units of Plague bearers and 1 brimstone horrors) Then an Aux with Ahriman.

I got the initiative roll off but then he seized I used prepared positions. He ended up only taking out 1 LR:C with his opening volley. I banged up his Double avenger really bad but didn't quite eliminate it put a few wounds on the RFBC. His turn 2. He took out 1 of Armigers and an Infantry Squad LR:C. He had manage to get is PBs up most of the field to and was holding 3 objectives between the 2 units. My turn 2 I took out the Melee knight (Had a bit of an issue where he thought I had already fired a tank once and I was firing it again but I we got it sorted out) and the Double avenger knight though he revived that one with a strat and took the RFBC below half. My Callidus Assassin (WHY OH WHY DIDN'T I take the eversor?!?!) attempted to charge and kill the RFBC but got mulched by overwatch again. 9 6s on the avengers.) I tried to charge 1 of my tanks into a PB to tied them up but failed the charge. His turn 3 He finished the 2 remaining Infantry squads and brought 1 of the remaining LR:Cs to 3 wound remaining. Charged in 1 unit of plague bearers to try and finish off the tank but it was to tough. My turn 3 fell back with 1 tank the wounded one however was mostly wrapped and couldn't fall back. (I thought it could through a gap and We had to have a judge come make a ruling probably the most heated point in the game as one of his PB units had just regenerate another 5 models, It regenerated 11 models this game and I was getting frustrated by them) Turn 3 I finished off the 2 Remaining Knights and threw everything else into the PBs not and managed to get them to 14. However he regenerated another 6. His turn 4 during his Psy phase time was called so we were to play out this final round and that would be it. Points were extremely close. He did 9 damage to my knight to grab some kingslayer points with arhiman and also doom bolted it so It couldn't get over the PBs on my turn with its reduced movement to attempt to take out arhiman for Slay the warlord. Now his PB unit that wasn't tied up on the leman charge and through some really ahem stretch placement was on 3 different objectives. With the unit on the tank on the 4th. So my final round had me fall back everything that was locked in combat with the stretch unit and the fire everything into the unit in the hopes that it would be enough to finish it off and give me some badly needed points. (If he held all 4 objective he would score an additional point for mission plus hold more. I needed to kill the unit for Kill one, Kill more, and Old school while denying him hold more.) I was successful. Ending game point 21-19 my favor. Gahh I hate hate hate Plague bearers. Taking the Callidus was idiotic of me. The LRs had amazing rolls for their shot numbers I was averaging probably between 8-9 shots each with them. Opponent made a few poor choices too not maisming the stretch unit the last round probably the most egregious. Also he wasn't able to really capitalize on his secondaries much. (He took Marked for death, Head hunter, and Kingslayer and only scored 5 points of those.)

Game 3 was vs Tau.

He was fielding 3 Riptides, 2 Hammerheads, 6 Pathfinder teams, 1 unit of 4 Shield drones, 3 Commanders, an Etheral, Darkstrider, and 2 Drone Controllers? Not sure what the last 2 were to be honest.

This game left me a bit befuddled as my opponent chose to have me set up and go first didnt even try to seize initiative. He also didn't use prepared positions. (I think he was exhausted at this point as he said he had had been up play D&D till 3 am last knight and he had driven at least twice as far as me. This round was starting at around 8:30 pm too.) Anyway my opening volley took out 2 Rip-tides the 4 shield drones and damaged the other. Nearly killed a pathfinder team too but they passed morale. His turn he killed a mortal team and an Armiger. Turn 2 saw me drop the eversor behind his etheral and darkstrider. The death of 1 of his commanders the last riptide and 2 Pathfinder teams. The Eversor charaged the Etheral....and manged to flub his wound rolls so bad as to only put 2 damage on it. The Remaing wounded Armiger charged a commander and promptly died to overwatch. However he did exploded and took out 1 of the drone thingies with him and finished off a pathfinder team. His turn 2 his tiredness showed as he completely forgot to drop darkstrider and the etheral out of combat. (I let him do it in the shooting phase anyway) and also didn't take out the units he had in the building 1st floor so they couldn't shoot the eversor after. He also forget to move the etheral and darkstrider more then 3" away from the eversor so I heroiced back into combat. He blew up an LR:C this turn but conceded as I was so far ahead in points and just didn't have enough to deal with 4 LRs and a Knight with only 2 Hammerheads 1 of witch was wounded and 2 commanders 1 of which was wounded.

So all in all 3-0 Showing took first place. Was sad my custodes weren't ready in time but honestly it was probably to my advantage. The Calidus Grav-tanks without old grudges would have had a much harder time with the Chaos knight and I had been running a Gallant instead of the Crusader in that list. The LR also were rolling consistently high on there number of shots all day too.

Wells that's All feel free to ask if you have any questions.

 schadenfreude wrote:

 CptJericho wrote:
What are you guys talking about not running out of CP? With my pure guard I run with 20+ CP and usually run out around turn 3.

Let's take my usual a brigade, battalion, and a supreme command detachment (21CP): -2CP for two vigilus detachments, -1 for an extra relic (relic battlecannon), -2 for an assassin, and -2 for cover since you're probably not going first. So out of the 21 you're down 7 to 14, first turn you probably use 1CP to dig-in your bullgryns to keep them alive along with 1 more CP to re-roll a failed save on one, down to 12. Your turn rolls around and you spend 2CP to make an artillery piece fire twice, spend another 2CP for overlapping fields of fire to take down their big unit, spend 1CP to either give an extra order or re-roll one of the number of shots on your artillery piece, down to 9 from 21 after your first turn.

Turn 2 rolls around, lets say you managed to get your bullgryns into cover where they can't be shot at, so no CP spent during your opponents phase. Now on your turn 2 you cast a psychic power on your bullgryns to +1 to your save but fail and need to spend 1CP to re-roll one to pass, you spend 2 for double firing artillery and 2 more for overlapping fields of fire, let's say you roll well and don't have to spend any on re-rolling number of shots, you get into the charge phase and your bullgryns fail the charge so you spend 1CP to re-roll a die to make them succeed. Now you're down to 3CP after your second turn.

Third turn you save that 3CP for double shooting artillery or overlapping fields of fire depending on what's still alive and 1CP for that important re-roll on either a save, psychic power, or charge. Now you've run out of CP.

I'm also running 21 CP and run out fast. I only do 1 vigil is detachment and an extra relic when fighting chaos so I start the game between 17 or 18 CP after I lose 1st turn.

-1 to hit is very common. I often use arial spotter to get the first wound in to trigger overlapping fields of fire. Fire twice on the basilisk with spotter and that's 6CP per turn.

Even with tactical restraint I'm switching to CP regeneration warlord trait when I'm not using old grudges.

Damn. You are spending a lot of CP that isnt needed.
Bullgryns are survivable enough, put them in cover to save CP there. Or use astropath psychic barrier. Also why are you rerolling every failed armor save/failed charge etc. They can be 1+3++; or better in natural terrain cover. They are plenty surviable. I also find people don't focus them down until later game do to needing to get kills. That should allow them to move and advance T1, then move and charge T2 .
For vigilus if you are using both arty and tank companye thats 2. Then 1 for the tank relic. Then 2 for shoot twice wyvern.
I find assassins aren't impactful enough (looking at the vindicare). BUt if you are taking him, make sure to spend the Cp to regain CP when he kills characters.
What relics are you taking? Are you taking Kurovs Aquila and/or Grand stratagist to CP farm?
You shouldn't have to be spending 2 cp first turn if you deploy right. Generally i find it not worth it.
Take Catachan if you are worried about random dice output on your wyvern instead of Cadia. Now you don't have to burn CP for overlapping fields.

 Dynas wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:

 CptJericho wrote:
What are you guys talking about not running out of CP? With my pure guard I run with 20+ CP and usually run out around turn 3.

Let's take my usual a brigade, battalion, and a supreme command detachment (21CP): -2CP for two vigilus detachments, -1 for an extra relic (relic battlecannon), -2 for an assassin, and -2 for cover since you're probably not going first. So out of the 21 you're down 7 to 14, first turn you probably use 1CP to dig-in your bullgryns to keep them alive along with 1 more CP to re-roll a failed save on one, down to 12. Your turn rolls around and you spend 2CP to make an artillery piece fire twice, spend another 2CP for overlapping fields of fire to take down their big unit, spend 1CP to either give an extra order or re-roll one of the number of shots on your artillery piece, down to 9 from 21 after your first turn.

Turn 2 rolls around, lets say you managed to get your bullgryns into cover where they can't be shot at, so no CP spent during your opponents phase. Now on your turn 2 you cast a psychic power on your bullgryns to +1 to your save but fail and need to spend 1CP to re-roll one to pass, you spend 2 for double firing artillery and 2 more for overlapping fields of fire, let's say you roll well and don't have to spend any on re-rolling number of shots, you get into the charge phase and your bullgryns fail the charge so you spend 1CP to re-roll a die to make them succeed. Now you're down to 3CP after your second turn.

Third turn you save that 3CP for double shooting artillery or overlapping fields of fire depending on what's still alive and 1CP for that important re-roll on either a save, psychic power, or charge. Now you've run out of CP.

I'm also running 21 CP and run out fast. I only do 1 vigil is detachment and an extra relic when fighting chaos so I start the game between 17 or 18 CP after I lose 1st turn.

-1 to hit is very common. I often use arial spotter to get the first wound in to trigger overlapping fields of fire. Fire twice on the basilisk with spotter and that's 6CP per turn.

Even with tactical restraint I'm switching to CP regeneration warlord trait when I'm not using old grudges.

Damn. You are spending a lot of CP that isnt needed.
Bullgryns are survivable enough, put them in cover to save CP there. Or use astropath psychic barrier. Also why are you rerolling every failed armor save/failed charge etc. They can be 1+3++; or better in natural terrain cover. They are plenty surviable. I also find people don't focus them down until later game do to needing to get kills. That should allow them to move and advance T1, then move and charge T2 .
For vigilus if you are using both arty and tank companye thats 2. Then 1 for the tank relic. Then 2 for shoot twice wyvern.
I find assassins aren't impactful enough (looking at the vindicare). BUt if you are taking him, make sure to spend the Cp to regain CP when he kills characters.
What relics are you taking? Are you taking Kurovs Aquila and/or Grand stratagist to CP farm?
You shouldn't have to be spending 2 cp first turn if you deploy right. Generally i find it not worth it.
Take Catachan if you are worried about random dice output on your wyvern instead of Cadia. Now you don't have to burn CP for overlapping fields.

II'mnot worried about opponents that would shoot my Bullgryn on turn 1. If they have good target priority and maneuverability they will go after a Basilisk, HWS, or infantry squad with a lascannon. I have too many infantry units to keep them all in cover so 2CP when going 2nd works well for me.

Usually grand strategist or old grudges. Kurovs or lost relic. Varies from.game to game.

Overlapping fields is huge for Cadia especially to counter -1 to hits. When pounding a knight/FW dreadnought/centurions exc it's going to take a lot of firepower. It also really helps with plasma. Overcharging stays 1/36 safe instead of 7/36 risky when I am unable to reroll 2s.

The 4CP for spotter and shoot twice effectively adds 2 more basilisks to my list. A single basilisk hits as hard as 3 with those CP. Overlapping fields is still more efficient though IMO

I'm looking at running a 5 model unit of bullgryns with mauls, an astropath and a ministorum priest. Any suggestions on the shield load out?

 necron99 wrote:
I'm looking at running a 5 model unit of bullgryns with mauls, an astropath and a ministorum priest. Any suggestions on the shield load out?

After a disastrous tournament with my Guard (2-3... worst tournament I've played to date) where I got massacred in one game by the freaking Tau meleeing my tank commanders with battlesuits, I am thinking the same thing. Bullgryns are an absolute requirement for playing a mostly Guard list.

I don't think I'd run something as small as 5 though. I've heard 7 suggested as a bare minimum, and even then only because it denies the ITC secondary "Gangbusters"... otherwise I'd take a full squad of 9.

I'd run them as 5-6x slab shields, 3-4x brute shields. If you keep them in cover, and buff them with an Astropath, they're at a 0+ save. Meaning against AP3 weapons, they're still getting a 3+ save... which you could buff to a 2+ save by using the Take Cover stratagem at the same time. So the slab shields are awesome at protecting them from shooting. The only reason you'd really want brute shields is for making saves against power fists and thunder hammers and stuff in melee, which is useful, but they gotta make it there first.

Oh yeah, no doubt more would be much much better. My current list doesn't have the points to allow for doubling their size - although that sounds like fun. To that end I'm not sure if I want to hold them back to protect my tanks (3 TCs and 2 bassies) or ram them down the enemies throat as quickly as humanly possible

Bullgryn are not 100% necessary, but the roll of counter assault is absolutely necessary and there is not much besides bullgryn that can do that roll. The only 2 alternatives IMO is large numberof of Catachan infantry and cyclops.

I usually run a Catachan spearhead with a lord commissar and 3-5 cyclops to fill the roll of Bullgryn missing from my list.

Hey everyone. I'm returning to guard after playing in 6th and 7th edition. Forgive my ignorance.

What do people normally run for their fast attack selections in a brigade? I see people talking about having 20+ CP. There must be then a common load out for a brigade. I was thinking lascannon armored sentinels in a Cadian detachment, but seems costly for essentially a heavy weapons team. Flame scout sentinels seems cheap, but basically just useless. Hellhounds seem the best, but very costly.

Any suggestions?

RaptorHunter wrote:
Hey everyone. I'm returning to guard after playing in 6th and 7th edition. Forgive my ignorance.

What do people normally run for their fast attack selections in a brigade? I see people talking about having 20+ CP. There must be then a common load out for a brigade. I was thinking lascannon armored sentinels in a Cadian detachment, but seems costly for essentially a heavy weapons team. Flame scout sentinels seems cheap, but basically just useless. Hellhounds seem the best, but very costly.

Any suggestions?

Armored and scout sentinels are dirt cheap now to fill out a brigade. Hell hounds are good but not dirt cheap filler.

I'm just finishing building my first Astra Militarum list and I was wondering if there were any good resources or tips for playing AM in general? I've read the 1d4chan pages and various blogs but I'm more looking for something like when is the best time to use order X vs order Y for example.

I don't really have specific questions since I haven't played with them yet but I'd like to go into my first game with them (hopefully in the next week or two) as prepared as possible.

I cant think of any, but here are some good starter tips for AM

If you are running pure guard, dont go ham on CP. You wont need them. Bringing the right units is more important. Find a good balance. You could bring 20+ cp, but have no hard hitting units to fully utilize them. For pure guard, i shoot for 12 to 17. When i bring in soup, closer to 10.

Boys before toys. Run units cheap so you have points for more units. I run IS with no upgrades and they work very well.

Orders are all about different. If cadian, the reroll all misses is great. For lasguns, FRFSRF is good if you moved. And move move move for moving. Others are more situational. Just get in the practive of remembering to use them, thats step 1.

Screen. D6 Evolution on YouTube has great videos on screening, highly recommend watching. Guard is all about screening, falling back and letting your shooting kill assaulting enemies.

Play games. Cant understate this. Biggest thing you can do to improve and learn from your mistakes.

RaptorHunter wrote:
Hey everyone. I'm returning to guard after playing in 6th and 7th edition. Forgive my ignorance.

What do people normally run for their fast attack selections in a brigade? I see people talking about having 20+ CP. There must be then a common load out for a brigade. I was thinking lascannon armored sentinels in a Cadian detachment, but seems costly for essentially a heavy weapons team. Flame scout sentinels seems cheap, but basically just useless. Hellhounds seem the best, but very costly.

Any suggestions?

I prefer Hellhounds. Yeah they cost more but they cover a very important niche in the army. Sentinels meanwhile don't do a whole lot. I really dislike tax units without a purpose. If all our fast attack sucked it'd be one thing, but Hellhounds are great so I don't think I'd leave home without them.

 UMGuy wrote:
I cant think of any, but here are some good starter tips for AM

If you are running pure guard, dont go ham on CP. You wont need them. Bringing the right units is more important. Find a good balance. You could bring 20+ cp, but have no hard hitting units to fully utilize them. For pure guard, i shoot for 12 to 17. When i bring in soup, closer to 10.

Boys before toys. Run units cheap so you have points for more units. I run IS with no upgrades and they work very well.

Orders are all about different. If cadian, the reroll all misses is great. For lasguns, FRFSRF is good if you moved. And move move move for moving. Others are more situational. Just get in the practive of remembering to use them, thats step 1.

Screen. D6 Evolution on YouTube has great videos on screening, highly recommend watching. Guard is all about screening, falling back and letting your shooting kill assaulting enemies.

Play games. Cant understate this. Biggest thing you can do to improve and learn from your mistakes.

Thanks! This is very helpful!

Number one big tip I have.... NEVER EVER keep your tanks along a board edge. Sure, you can start them there, but move them up a few inches away from the edge. Otherwise, it's too easy for an opponent to touch a tank, and then you don't have room to fall back. Once you're locked in close combat with a tank, you're never going to fire it again, it's as good as dead.

Has anyone tried the Sabre Defense platforms. Im thinking they are a cheap slot option for some anti flier shenenigans.