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Assuming that you have decided to take a Space Marine Master with Honour Guard, how would you field them to be most useful?
I would think that a unit of 5 Honor Guard with banner + Master with power weapon would be best and that you should invest the additional points into providing them some way to get into close combat.
With the point costs already running high for the unit a Land Raider would be difficult to want to commit to, but it would work. Drop Pods would leave them hanging in the breeze to get shot to hell and/or counter charged and Rhinos/Razorbacks suffer from tin foil armor plating.
If your force already had a large amount of armour, I would assume a Rhino would be a good choice. Go 12" and pop smoke first turn, then do your best to make that one specific Rhino look as low priority as possible through whatever means your play style offers. That will at least get you half way there, you still might end up hanging them out, but at least you can drop them off next to some cover and use the Rhino to block LOS. So, using them this way you're talking about a 400 pt investment that on the charge would have 12 WS 5 power weapon attacks(6 at I5) and 20 WS 4 power weapon attacks. Against any MEQ army this unit would rip and stomp, of course against lesser troops they would still be effective, just not cost effective.
If you have free points to burn, adding a chaplain as a second HQ choice would increase their close combat capabilities to astronomical porportions (additional 6 attacks and whole unit gets re-rolls on the charge) though, and you would probably clear a unit out in close combat then get hung out to dry. Along with the point sink, adding a Land Raider equipped as either a Redeemer or a Crusader would allow a lot of close up fire support to batter other units while the Master+Chaplain+Honor Guard maim another unit, but now we're talking about a 750 unit easy..
I would doubt the effectiveness of Drop Pods in this situation as there would be one turn after their deep strike where they'd be a group of artificer armored bull's eyes. Unless you're taking this into account with your tactics, in which case a unit of 10 Terminators would cost around abouts the same points and would absorb much more firepower due to more wounds and a 5+ invulnerable save. In addition, you wouldn't give your opponent the easy KP that Drop Pods provide. Also, 10 Terminators can produce a great amount of firepower.
Anyone else care to weigh in?

Honestly, I would give them a chapter banner and relic blades and upgrade one to a champion (for the higher WS and free PS). Or just add Pedro to them for the +1 attack and skip the banner, you must have a master anyway.
I believe 5 honour guard and a champion with the above setup will kill on average of 9.9 marines on an assault. Or 6 honour guard and a champ with power swords average 9.4 marines killed on an assault.
Toss in a librarian with Gate and Force Dome for the invuln save and you have a rocking unit.
Though the land raider seems to make the most sense to protect them and allow them to assault.
I really do want to field some honour guard, but termies are just cheaper and more survivable, especially with Storm Shields.

The truly brave (or crazy) could fit a full squad of 10 with a Master and a Librarian in a Crusader or Redeemer. Depending on equipment, this is pushing 1000 points of face-smash, but the potential for assault dominance is huge. Swinging 60+ power weapon attacks is good, being able to sweeping advance is even better.

pavonis wrote: Honestly, I would give them a chapter banner and relic blades and upgrade one to a champion (for the higher WS and free PS). Or just add Pedro to them for the +1 attack and skip the banner, you must have a master anyway.
I believe 5 honour guard and a champion with the above setup will kill on average of 9.9 marines on an assault. Or 6 honour guard and a champ with power swords average 9.4 marines killed on an assault.
Toss in a librarian with Gate and Force Dome for the invuln save and you have a rocking unit.
Though the land raider seems to make the most sense to protect them and allow them to assault.
I really do want to field some honour guard, but termies are just cheaper and more survivable, especially with Storm Shields.

Honor Guard come with the Champion for free actually and all Honor Guard come equipped with power weapons. The Relic Blades are +15 pts a pop so that adds an additional 125 pts when you could just bring 3 additional power weapon toting Honor Guard for 105 pts and gain 15 more attacks on the charge. Sure you lose the strength 6, but in my opinion Relic Blades are overcosted for their functionality. Terminators are actually slightly more expensive at 40 pts per model vs 35, but for 5 pts you gain powerfists and 5+ invulnerables.

Point for point regular PW honour guard are better MEQ and TEQ killers than Relic Blades, but at least taking the Champion with Relic Blade is a must since he's a hidden RB and has more attacks. A 1 to 1 ratio of PW to RBs seems right to me for the anti-T5 and above power balanced with the "hidden" ness of relic blades.

I personally would never field HG if I had an Elite slot available for Termies, but if you can't get Termies or can't get enough, they're almost as good.

I agree that Pedro and a Chappy would be excellent additions to this, if you do that you don't even really need that many of them to do severe damage (but at that point you're already putting all your eggs into one basket so why not make it a beefy squad).

As to what to put them in, I'd try to make it a Land Raider. Yeah it's a huge "hit me" sign, but the Honour Guard squad along with at least one character's already gonna be at least 300 points as it is, and 550 of charging, survivable points is better than 350 points of non chargable, non survivable points.

Make the Box:

Marneus Calgar, Armor of Antilochus
Honor Guard x 4, Champion w/ Digital Lasers & Combat Blade, Relic Blade x 2

480 points

Librarian, Epistolary, Terminator Armor + Storm Shield w/ Force Dome and Might of the Ancients
Land Raider Redeemer, Multi-Melta, Extra Armor

455 points

Grand Total: 935 points

When Charging from the Raider, you'd get
(assuming the Librarian successfully casts MoA and FD for squad defense)

Librarian in Init 5 - (4) WS5 S6 attacks Force Weapon
Champion in Init 4 - (6) WS5 S4 Re-roll 1 Wound Powerweapon
Standard Bearer in 4 - (5) WS4 S4 Powerweapon
Relic Blade HG x 2 in 4 - (8) WS4 S6 Powerweapon (total)
and finally
Marneus Calgar in 1 - (7) WS6 S8 Powerfist Reroll all wounds

These totals are all calculated with the Standard (+1 A) already factored in.

That's 7 Str 8, 12 Str 6, and 11 Str 4 all powerweapon attacks. Nasty. And that's not even counting the Champions special rule to re-roll all hits and wounds against enemy ICs.

Oh, and strangely enough, Marneus (an Iajutsu master apparently) can also use his Powersword to strike in Init 5 at Str 4 with 6 attacks.

This squad is screaming to be in Apoc games.

Relic blades allow you to have something that can hurt toughness 8. i.e. Night Bringer.

Ludovic wrote:Point for point regular PW honour guard are better MEQ and TEQ killers than Relic Blades, but at least taking the Champion with Relic Blade is a must since he's a hidden RB and has more attacks. A 1 to 1 ratio of PW to RBs seems right to me for the anti-T5 and above power balanced with the "hidden" ness of relic blades.

I personally would never field HG if I had an Elite slot available for Termies, but if you can't get Termies or can't get enough, they're almost as good.

I agree that Pedro and a Chappy would be excellent additions to this, if you do that you don't even really need that many of them to do severe damage (but at that point you're already putting all your eggs into one basket so why not make it a beefy squad).

As to what to put them in, I'd try to make it a Land Raider. Yeah it's a huge "hit me" sign, but the Honour Guard squad along with at least one character's already gonna be at least 300 points as it is, and 550 of charging, survivable points is better than 350 points of non chargable, non survivable points.

Unless I'm mistaken, Honor Guard do not occupy a FOC choice, they're taken as a retinue for a Chapter Master. Relic Blades do provide some large gribbly killing power, but I find the point investment and the flexibility it offers would encourage me to use them in tactically invalid situations to justify the additional costs. It would be a terrible mistake to discard one of their advantages (artificer armor) by charging them into a MC for no greater reason than you can wound it on 4+ with relic blades. The unit is already expensive, adding more bells and whistles just makes it more of a point sink. Personally, I'd rather have a unit of Assault Terminators for dealing with T5+ units. And just for clarification, people do realize that the banner's +1 attack and Pedro's +1 attack do not stack, correct?
I don't have my codex with me, but is it possible to combat squad these guys? Not that I see that as a valid tactic, but it could diffuse your opponent's firepower as they wouldn't have one glaring unit asking to take it all in the face.

themandudeperson wrote:Unless I'm mistaken, Honor Guard do not occupy a FOC choice, they're taken as a retinue for a Chapter Master.

Yeah, I was trying to say that the only situation I'd run honour Guard in is if all my Elites were filled and thus I can't take more Terminators, for instance if I were trying to run a Pedro list in 'ardboyz with 2 sternguard and a termie squad.

Relic Blades do provide some large gribbly killing power, but I find the point investment and the flexibility it offers would encourage me to use them in tactically invalid situations to justify the additional costs. It would be a terrible mistake to discard one of their advantages (artificer armor) by charging them into a MC for no greater reason than you can wound it on 4+ with relic blades. The unit is already expensive, adding more bells and whistles just makes it more of a point sink. Personally, I'd rather have a unit of Assault Terminators for dealing with T5+ units. And just for clarification, people do realize that the banner's +1 attack and Pedro's +1 attack do not stack, correct?
I don't have my codex with me, but is it possible to combat squad these guys? Not that I see that as a valid tactic, but it could diffuse your opponent's firepower as they wouldn't have one glaring unit asking to take it all in the face.

This is true about being chomped by many MCs, especially Daemon Princes. But it could take out Fexes and vehicles, and at any rate the RB for the Champ is worth it in the Mathhammer (the extra one attack pushes him over the edge in points cost even versus MEQ.)

I find that using Khan with a large Honour Guard armed primarily with power weapons and a Chapter Banner works well. Khan's Furious Charge ability gives them five Strength 5 power weapon attacks per model, which will hurt whatever it charges a lot. Striking at Initiative 5 means your opponent often won't be able to do anything in the assault but remove models.

Although Honor Guard do not take up an FoC slot, they are NOT a retinue. You're free to run the IC that "unlocks" them on his own, in a different unit entirely, or with the honor guard unit if that is what you choose.

Chimaera2000 wrote:I find that using Khan with a large Honour Guard armed primarily with power weapons and a Chapter Banner works well. Khan's Furious Charge ability gives them five Strength 5 power weapon attacks per model, which will hurt whatever it charges a lot. Striking at Initiative 5 means your opponent often won't be able to do anything in the assault but remove models.

That is a brilliant idea.

add a chaplain (i like cassius), put them im a razorback, 4 honor guard, chapter banner, khan, and cassius, if ive done my math right its 32 attacks on the charge, rerolling hits, all S5 power weapons, all I5 and I6
it should average 17 dead MEQ on the charge

and against weaker opponents you can get into the 20+ kills range--- which sounds nice for 30-strong boys mobs.

i might need to make a list around that


EDIT--- nevermind, need a chapter master to use honor guard, khan is a captain, not a master. will need to swap cassius for something else.

I would put them in a Drop Pod and try not to get shot by plasma. Keep them in reserve and then come out and wreck something.