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I was originally going to talk about Starcannons but it is more like Conceal. I have three (platforms), I can buy another box just for kicks. This is what I was thinking.

1x 14x Guardians (includes Warlock)
Starcannon, Conceal

2x 10x Guardians
Starcannon

Dire Avengers

Or I could do this. Maybe a squad of ... 17? Or heck the full 20+1.

Farseer or Eldrad

1x 21x Guardians (includes Warlock)
Starcannon, Conceal

3x 10x Guardians
Starcannon

Dire Avengers

Basically one big squad gives cover to everything else and gets Fortune cast on it.

The 10 man Starcannon squad is 105 points. Compare to a small squad of Pathfinders for 120 points.

This is keeping in mind something like say ... in the 14 man squad the gun crew can be picked out via wound allocation now. So can the Warlock for that matter, at 40 points.

Basically you are looking at either taking Conceal or taking multiple squads with more Starcannons.

So if you take 4 Starcannons and they shoot twice, or maybe two squads shoot 4 times you are looking at ... 4x2 + 2x2 = 12 shots. 6 hit, 5 dead marineZ. Or whatever.

They are still Storm Bolter/ Bolter bait of course. Go-go Guardians.

I like the big squad because you can Guide the Shuricats. Always fun. But I hate moving the things around the table-top.

Theres a whole big toss-up between starcannons and scatter lasers.. People generally like the scatter lasers now (as cover gets thrown around like cake and those marines will probably somhow get a 4+ cover save so they loose only a bit from their 3+ armor save. Where-as 4 shots per gun, with no save allows them thier 3+ yet thats double the shots. Plus its cheap. Plus its versitile (vs more numerous ork boyz, for example)

As for guardains and conceal, yes, thats a cool plan. Dont rely on 5+, even if its re-rollable as Ive had underwhelming results from a fortuned harlequin squad. 4+ re-rollable (from normal cover would be more fun). Getting that large concealed squad to screen the rest - its a good plan But whirlwinds are you bane.

There is probably somthing better to conceal.. a dire avengersquad with a simmershield. Fortune them and doom a unit that they can bladestorm. An exarch with defend, (and that power sword) plus a farseer and you have a half-decent CC squad. Or add in asurmen and go crazy.

Again.. Str (anything) ap5 ignores cover will be your bane. kill them, kill them quick.

Have some mathhammer to brighten your day.

4+ cover = 50% chance to save wounds
5+ cover with reroll (fortune)= 55% chance to save wounds

So if you have your huge squad out in the open with conceal and fortune, its mathematically the same as having them in 4+ cover (actually a little better). Then if they give the units behind them a 4+ cover save, it's just as good as buying them a warlock with conceal and having a farseer there to fortune them.

Scatter laser shooting at MEQ's in or out of cover kills .55 on average.
Star cannons kill .83 out of cover and .41 in cover.
Further math shows that the star cannon equals the scatter laser in over all kills if it can shoot at MEQ's out of cover 33% of the time and exceeds it if it can find targets out of cover more often. So it's up to you to decide if you can or not.

Starcannons it is. The only question is to take Conceal or not. I think 10 man squad without and larger squads with are both viable. Especially if you put it on one or two squads out front.

Here is a formation.

Farseer
Runes of Warding, Runes of Witnessing, Spirit Stones, Guide, Doom
1x 10x Dire Avengers
Power Weapon/ Shimmershield, Bladestorm, Defend

2x 15x Guardians (includes Warlock)
Conceal, Starcannon

2x 10x Guardians
Starcannon

// 886 points

2 10 man squads with Starcannon are the same price as 3 Vypers with Starcannon.

If you're putting the large squad in front to provide the rear squads cover...then anything the rear squads shoot at is almost certainly going to have cover in return. That, in turn, makes those rear starcannons worse than scatterlasers.

dern you are right. Best to stick with Warlocks and an Avatar then. "oh well".

XD

Avatar/ Farseer (~ 155 points)

2x 15x Guardians (includes Warlock)
Conceal, Starcannon

1x 10x Dire Avengers (counter-charge)
Power Weapon, Shimmershield, Bladestorm, Defend

1x 11x Guardians (includes Warlock)
Embolden, Starcannon

// 806

Three Starcannons is probably just enough to actually do something. The third one is a reserve/ flanking unit. You could of course skip the Embolden for another gun someplace.

As stated above scatter lasers are much better on guardians.

You might also want to try this out, I find its a much better tactic along the same lines.

Use a squad of harlies with a shadow seer to give everyone behind them +4 cover saves, and if they are dumb enough to move within 14" of the harlies to shoot at them they are in range for an assault (if you roll a 2+ on your run roll)

If you have an avatar around, embolden is kind of pointless. If you are running a farseer, then the embolden can take the place of runes of witnessing...at least if you keep the farseer in that squad.