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I think the general consensus on SG is to use them early in the game to hopefully assassinate a powerful enemy unit. The drop pod is your best bet. What if you held them back in a rhino and saved them for the latter part of the game? Assuming you were able to kill a large portion of your opponent's army (say 50% or more) before you brought them into the fray might this not make their presence more powerful plus your opponent would much less of their army at their disposal to eliminate their threat.

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Are they hardy enough (either in a rhino or on foot) to survive holding back till later game? Also.. if you choose not to pick your fight when using combi-melta sterns then a decent tank commander should really avoid &/or destroy the unit. For the points, I think this tactic could be too risky for models that arent all that hardy.

Getting 2x cheap scouts, pedro & equipping sterns akin to tacticals & that could be a different matter, albeit more expensive tacticals.

I play mechanized armies so it's not easy for the opponent to pick out one rhino and destroy/wreck it. I have found that the opposition will invariably focus all of their attention on my units that are up close.

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Depending on what enemy you face, it could be useful to deploy a rhino with sternguard in reserve to keep it out of harms way a few turns. With combi meltas they can probably keep an enemy from having tanks on your half of the table until they are deployed.

I run crimson fists, and my sterngaurd rarely make a showing until turn 3 or four to clean up any lingering exarchs or reaper squads before buggering off onto an objective. It works pretty well.

Well, I'd play Sternguard shooty.
Drop podding with 5 combi-meltas is a suicide mission.
If they land in turn 1, you will inevitably loose them,
since they die like normal Marines.

Sternguard excels at rapid fire range with their special ammunition. That's the best way to play them.

I've tried it GBF, it does indeed work.

The context I tried it in looked very similar to a standard mech CSM army.

3x10 tacs 3x rhinos
1x9 sternguard rhino
1x10 sternguard rhino
pedro
3x whirlwinds

generalship counted, you'd need to be a space marine player to play it right... which you are.

Only played it 3-4 times while screwing around with the marine dex, I think i like it more than podding sterns... but i'm not really a great podder... my sterns died a LOT faster in the pod list than in this one.

the whirlwinds and pedros bombardment encouraged people to close into the wall, the wall protected me from lootas for the most part, whoever peeked around the wall was done-zo...


Most of the counters to your line of thinking are mitigated by experience with rhino walls, good generalship, and tlos...

This use of sterns is a hell of a lot more effective against nob bikers than drop pods, although I couldn't tell you who i'd bet on...

dropping pedro for lysander is something that i didn't do, but is an idea i think would work great. excellent solo counter assault once action is 'behind the wall' and bolter drill on sterns would be scrumptious.

Cool. I just don't think pods are all what used to be cracked up to be. Dreads are cool but there are too many armies that have a plethora of meltas.

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Green Blow Fly wrote:Cool. I just don't think pods are all what used to be cracked up to be. Dreads are cool but there are too many armies that have a plethora of meltas.

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Yeah, I like pods... in the armchair they are fantastic, but I haven't really got them to work against the top tier stuff. I'm not willing to say they aren't top tier yet, but I have been having the hardest time making people afraid of them.

I am going to try a speeder heavy librarian pod force soon, I think it'll be lots of fun, but I'm currently sharing your trepidation on the pod assault army in general. Definitely a tier 2A, but that might be its ceiling.

Pods + AV13 + Extra armor. 'Nuff said. Wait wait.. sternguard. um.. dont not shoot with them!

i like the idea of holding them back, but to do so you would have to make serious changes to most lists.
you would need a solid line with enough power to cause severe damage to anything you face before the guard can get where they need to go.

most things that guard want to kill tend to be a large threat, so leaving them till later on may cause more damage to your own army with this idea.

its not allways an option, if someone knows whats in those transports all it takes is a few nice shots and you have alot of points slogging about on the field and just begging to be killed.

If you take Kantor SG are scoring units as we all know so in my opinion for this type of army it would be better to hold some of them back rather than pod them in willy nilly bolters blazing. I reckon they could be game winners in turns four and five assuming you have whittled down the opponent enough that they do not have the vast majority of their army left to counter them. Drop podding them on turn 1 or gating them around are basically no brainers and a smart opponent can counter this easily. To me the rhino is the perfect mode of transport to position them where they will be most effective. Sure they might be able to destroy an equivalent amount of points early but if you could increase their killinezz they would be even better.

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I use mine naked, with no upgrades. I enjoy their special ammo and keep them centered around the core of my army. My enemy will have other things to worry about than them. All 7 of them took out a Nightbringer with the 2+ to wound ammo, it was refreshing.

Forgot to mention I do not use Special Characters/Pods or LandRaiders. I use my Sterns as a "clean up" unit. They assist the team in finishing off other targets since they can adapt their ammo to whatever target I choose that is not a Vehicle.

I knew this could work!

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