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Hey all ive been looking over the gate liby thread. And I was wondering. should I have 2 5 man squads of stern gaurds theirfor being able to use 250+ points on other options or is it best to go with 2 10 man squads just because you get more bolters.

um... it depends on the role of the sternguard. Personally I try to stay away from very understrength squads... too squishy imho. Obviously if it works for you, go with it.

Of the two choices, I'd say the 2 10 man squads, but again that is because of my afore mentioned prejudice. It depends what their role is and what you have points for

well what ive spent for them is 4 plasma combis and 4 melta combis. Thinking ill pop the land raider and fry the termy squad inside. Also waffling between adding 2 combi flamers to each squad.

So basically anti tank and tough to kill buggers.

Seperate squads, because like you mentioned they have different roles on the battlefield. It's generally better to seperates roles meaning they can get the task done quicker and efficiently.

Can't they combat squad anyway? Like Drop Pod, Combat squad, nail tank, nail terminators done.
I wouldn't imagine Combi-flamers are good, you'll need a rhino at least.

their in a drop pod so my original plan was to split them on a drop then kill specific targets.

As for the combi flamers I cant see myself enjoying them with h flamers and waste those 2 bolters and thier special ammo.

The thing is I have 2 stern squads. both are 10 man. Im wondering is would they be better in 2 5 man so that I can save points for other things.

How many points do you have available? If you're somewhere between 1000 and 1500 points then it might be something to go with the single 10 man squad and break them up as needed. If you're up to 2000 points, the extra squad might be helpful, particularly if you have Pedro Cantor as your Chapter Master.

1700 points, and yes I do use pedro as my hq. I figured id get more bang for my buck if you know what I mean.

10 men strong, drop-poddable. Make sure you have another pod in case the opponent starts "off the board".

The nature of Sternguard and combat squadding means that you can almost always find two things to shoot to death that are deployed next to each other. Whether it's a vehicle or monstrous creature next to infantry or more of the same, ten Sternguard almost universally serves better than 5.

5 Sternguard solo have a very real problem of shooting half of something to death and then dying to whatever was next to/inside of it.

Yup. Deep Strike, then disembark and Combat Squad into two squads. Hose a transport with the first squad and then shoot the surviving passengers with the second squad.

That was the plan. and as for the might be off the board. with the army ive been tooling around with my plan is to always let my opponent have the first turn.

Been working brilliantly for me. In 1500 pts, I've been wiping tanks first turn, and rest of the army mops up. Definitely go 10 man, drop pod, and combat squad.
Why didn't you just go combi melta? Vastly more useful than plasma or flamers.

i would have one combi flamer in each 10 man squad mainly cause lots of people play orks these days and the rest meltas, but yeah i would have 2 10 man squads.

because im a cheap bastard and I don't want to bother converting 4+ sterns because my conversion skills are less then good.

Just put a flamer/meltagun on the base of the models to denote who is who.

Alternately you can leave the Combi-Meltas at home and take two Melta Guns to go with eight bolters. Just add those little sighting widgets to all the weapons and you're good to go. When breaking into Combat Squads you put the Melta Guns in one squad so you can crack vehicles/bunkers and then the nuts inside with the pure bolter Combat Squad.

It's also cheaper than spamming the Combi-Meltas.

I've said this before, frequently:

If you don't use special ammo, you've just paid 25 points for a 16 point marine.

That's not exactly true. Even without their special ammunition Sternguard aren't Tactical Marines since they have the extra Attack and Leadership. These advantages make them 20pt Marines if their special ammunition is rated at 5pts per Sternguard.

But following that line of thought, using the Melta Guns on a Sternguard's Combi-Melta means you aren't using their special ammunition, so you've paid 30pts for a 21pt Marine, since for the special case of that shooting attack they have the same value as a Tactical Marine with a Melta Gun.

By spending 10 points on two Sternguard instead of 50 points on ten of them, you get more Melta shots over the course of a six turn game, and commensurately more special ammunition shots that would have otherwise been wasted with spurious Melta-shots, let alone all the Melta shots lost because the Sternguard with an unfired shot was killed thanks to the saving throw rules.

By having dedicated Melta Gunners instead of spreading them throughout the squad you're freeing up Sternguard to use their special ammunition more often (if they're broken into Combat Squads), and you get more Melta shots per game. You also don't need to scrape as much to buy up bitz, convert, or otherwise struggle to make Sternguard.

Just out of curiosity, how many games have you played using Sternguard? I've got 7 under my belt.

Only two so far, though I think we'd be stupid to equate quantity of experience with quality of experience. So far I've run mine with two Melta Guns in a Rhino because they're being represented by my Veteran squad (aka: Chosen/Company Veterans/Veteran Assault Squad), and I'm used to using Veterans like that as a mobile reserve.

I'm certainly enjoying the use of Combat Tactics to pull squads out of trouble, as it means a mobile reserve actually works reliably: the squad books it, and the next turn my Sternguard pull up and help the remains of that squad shoot up whoever they were running away from.

So far they haven't taken a charge because they're always behind a squad that will take the charge, thanks to their Ignore-Cover ammunition. Maybe that'll be game 3, but so far this is working for me, just as it worked with Company Veterans (the Chosen usually do something similar to defend themselves using Lesser Daemons, but they aren't a mobile reserve, and the Veteran Assault squad is less a mobile reserve than, well, an Assault Squad).