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I hear a lot good things about the new Codex, and a ton of excellent ideas. However, one thing I think has been missed are the deeper options given by Veterans. We've heard plenty about the three special weapon choices; however, what we've heard very little about is some of the special character options, and the impact they can play.

The one option that strikes me as having a significant impact, particularly out of portion to its cost, at least in theory, is a Veteran squad with Gunnery Sergeant Harker.

Harker brings infiltrate, stealth, and move through cover to a Vet squad - Add this with the Forward Sentries option for Veterans, and you suddenly have a 10 man squad with a 2+ cover save (+1 from stealth, +1 from camo-cloaks) in what is ordinarily a 4+ cover piece of area terrain that can infiltrate on the board, and through Harker, gets a HB that can move and fire. Add in potential other weapons options for a Veteran squad, and you suddenly have an extremely effective unit for hindering the enemy, or absorbing his attentions and firepower for what, theoretically, would be out of proportion of their points cost. This is not to say a Vet squad with Harker is the end-all-be-all of options; merely that, in the plethora of options the new Guard seems ready to bring, Harker and a Vet squad seems to be overlooked when, perhaps, they could provide an interesting and potentially extremely effective option for the IG.

In that same vein, I'm struggling to come up with an effective plan of action for the use of Sergeant Bastonne. Probably his most important addition is the "Its Up To Us, Lads" rule. However, this seems fairly overpriced (5 points more than Harker to get Bastonne), particularly when Bastonne effectively detracts from a Vet squad's potential firepower, though increasing their close combat abilities (Wielding a hot-shot laspistol and a power weapon). I'm struggling to come up with a use for Bastonne that would justify his points cost, particularly in the face of just how markedly more effective that Harker can make a squad.

Other options that are overlooked, yet potentially very effective:

Commissar Yarrick: He now gets up on a 3+, is invulnerable to instant death, and forces your opponent to re-roll wounds against him. He gives the unit he's with fearlessness, and everything in 12 inches Stubborn. Admittedly, he does suffer from some faults. His power klaw is still only strength 6, and he doesn't give the same benefits as a CCS does, in terms of affective reserves, etc. However, he does seem to be, potentially, an extremely effective option, and bloody hard to kill on top of it.

"Iron Hand" Straken: Creed provides huge amounts of orders, but I find the potential for Straken to give Guard viable counter-charge interesting. He gives everyone 12 inches around him Counter-attack and Furious charge, gives his own CCS fearless, in addition to having the equivalent of a chainfist (Str 6 +d6 penetration) with none of the initiative penalties. While still striking at a low initiative (I3), he does get a 3+ armor save, and the Senior Officer standard 5+ invuln. He seems to provide some effective options and abilities, though I've heard little discussion on him.

Conversely, Mogul Kamir seems to be a double-edged sword. For 40 points, he seems to be a steal for adding greater punch of a RR squad; however, he has, I think, a subpar statline and a rather crappy equipment set (+D3 attacks on a charge does not make up for having no sort of power weapon beyond the hunting lance, as far as I am concerned). Effectively, his usefulness runs out the instant after you charge, as he'll be moderately devastating on the charge (Potential 6 Str 5, initiative 5 power weapon attacks from him alone), once the charge is broken he becomes three overpriced rough riders. His biggest drawback is the Rage rule he suffers from. With Rage, using him as a counter-charge unit in reserve becomes effectively impossible, reducing, I believe, a significant element of any utility he might have provided.

Nork Deddog. Amusing. Interesting. Wildly overpriced. At 110 points, I just can't see Nork Deddog being any choice beyond an amusement.

Storm Troopers: Their price increase makes them somewhat less viable; however, I believe with the new stat-line for the hot-shot lasguns, they've become an effective shock unit (Who'd have guessed?) against troops on objectives, particularly MEQ. Add in the flexibility of their Special Operations rule and they become an interesting, and I believe, competitive choice. Used in Valkyries, they could be very effective in kicking the enemy off an objective, so your own troops can swoop in and take it.

The ultimate point of this post, and hopefully the thread itself, is to provoke thought and debate on the utility of the options provided in the Codex that haven't won instantaneous highlight and acclaim, and see what more can be leveraged to provide a wider scope of effective options.

I must wonder if Stormtroopers would not be better off placed with an officer unit of some type. "Fire on my Target" seems like the best way to make use of Stormtroopers, however I just cant justify spending the points for them.

just want to bust your bubble here. Cammo cloaks give the unit stealth... Harken + cammo would be redundant.

hmmm, I like your strategy for Harker. I might have him in my list for an upcoming tourny. what specials would you recommend using? I'm assuming meltas... and 2+ cover save can be a double-edged sword as well. it can be considered a waste of points if you're playing in a prairie-like map(no cover) UNLESS they're jungle fighters, which I don't think is possible any longer. but infiltrate still helps regardless

overall, some good summarizations of most special characters.

No more jungle fighters, alas. My airborne, jungle fighters are a thing of the past. But I can still take heavy flamers, and I have some sweet new rides to carry the boys around.

I have found the best set up for vets is 3 plasma and a las cannon. They take advantage of the BS4 and can score now, which is awesome, plus they are actually cheaper than they were least ed in that configuration.

Take 6 of those and you have a pretty tough gunline....and then you remember this is 5th ed and non mech armies have a rough go of it. I dont know if the camo cloaks are worth it, honestly. I would rather have more squads than a better save on fewer squads.

The other load out I think will be good is 2 flamer and a heavy flamer. That will roast light infantry and put a lot of wounds on MEQs to force saves on the valuable squad members.

I think stormies have a bad rap, to be honest. A full squad with 2 plasma runs 195 points and can deepstrike. That is a pretty nasty little squad.

They average 6 dead MEQ's if they are in the open, that ain't bad. Its about what you would get from a poding marine squad that costs more.

I am going to give them a try.

Harker does seem like a decent buy. Basically you get cloaks and a heavy bolter + infiltrate for 55 points. That makes the squad pricey, but it could be pretty decent. If you take another heavy bolter and three plasma you have a pretty shooty, relatively resilient scoring unit.

Liquidwulfe wrote:I must wonder if Stormtroopers would not be better off placed with an officer unit of some type. "Fire on my Target" seems like the best way to make use of Stormtroopers, however I just cant justify spending the points for them.

Creed in a chimera. 24" Orders range combined with 12" movement of a cruising speed chimera. 36" should sort you out pretty well for most uses.

Orders & infantry on foot are going to be utilized in the new 5ed guard. Good players & lists will use it well. Where-ever its with thier own company command squads, infantry squads, heavy weapon squads, orgyns, storm troopers etc is a case of judgement & choice.

Plasma guns with +1 to the penetration roll (Bring it down) actually become 24" range krak-missiles when pointed at tanks. Likewise lascannons become effectively str 10. (Im trying to remember, its +1 to penetration roll & not the damage table, right?). On the same level hot-shot lasguns with 'Bring it down' can actually do some damage to elite TMC.

I may be wrong but I was pretty sure that the stealth USR & the camo cloaks dont stack.. for various reasons I couldnt say because (im tierd and) my BGB is not with me. Otherwise if im wrong, Im gonna take Harker & his vet out of thier Chimera & save some points! Although 55-75pts for AV12/10/10 (with camo netting??) and 2xh.bolters may still be worth while.

Banewolf str1 main weapon can be used as a defensive weapon, along with one heavy flamer as one offensive weapon @ str 5 while traveling at the cruising speed of 12". Thats good templatey death @ speed.. Better armored too.

I am 95% sure that Bring it down is just Twinlinked,not +1 Pen.

A couple of the local guys I know have been running Sergeant Bastonne with a grenadier squad with 3 plas/las cannon and rideing in a Valerye/vendetta. The main usefulness is he has the fire on my target and bring it down with LD 10. combine him and a vet squad with Harker and you can hold out on an objective against any form elite troops for a wile with the two squads. Also if you were to drop behind/to the side of a tank having twin linked guns would help take it down.

Camo Cloaks give the stealth USR, and so does Harker, but you can't stack the two cover save bonuses.

Nork Deddog. Amusing. Interesting. Wildly overpriced. At 110 points, I just can't see Nork Deddog being any choice beyond an amusement.

Yes, because 5 str 6 I4 attacks on the charge with another d6 str 6 hits if he gets taken down is sooooo terrible for 110 points. Especially when it's on a model with feel no pain, three wounds, and toughness five. The bodyguard ability is nice too.

Yeah I pay that much for a space marine captain without equipment. Nearly twice that for one with some gear. He's hardly overpriced, he's just sitting about where he should. He's a brick and a half and can put down quite a bit of pain against most assault troops. Mathhammered out it would take 30 orcs boyz (90 attacks) to bring him down with roughly a one in one chance. Thats pretty damn hardy.

Gunny Harker is great. I disagree that stealth stacks with camo-cloaks, but what he does is allow the squad to take another doctrine - most notably, the demo-charge and meltabombs. Or simply save 30 points on the unit, making him an absolute steal at his points.

I'm going to give Iron Hand a try...I think it will work well the way I'm planning to configure my force.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Nork Deddog. Amusing. Interesting. Wildly overpriced. At 110 points, I just can't see Nork Deddog being any choice beyond an amusement.

Yes, because 5 str 6 I4 attacks on the charge with another d6 str 6 hits if he gets taken down is sooooo terrible for 110 points. Especially when it's on a model with feel no pain, three wounds, and toughness five. The bodyguard ability is nice too.

Yeah I pay that much for a space marine captain without equipment. Nearly twice that for one with some gear. He's hardly overpriced, he's just sitting about where he should. He's a brick and a half and can put down quite a bit of pain against most assault troops. Mathhammered out it would take 30 orcs boyz (90 attacks) to bring him down with roughly a one in one chance. Thats pretty damn hardy.

Considering that for 110 points you can get two squads of rough riders with 40 str 5 init 5 power weapon attacks on the charge... yes 5 str 6 I4 attacks on the charge is pretty damned horrible for 110 points. I love the idea of Nork... but he's pretty f'ing pathetic for the amount of points you have to pay for him.

I love the idea of Bastonne, but unfortunately, he is overpriced :(

Hakar on the other hand is priced rather well for what he brings to the unit. Infiltrate them on an objective, add an Autocannon and 3 GL and you have a unit that can dish out a good amount of firepower and that doesn't cost too much In addition they have stealth I can see Hakar becoming a very popular choice! Perhaps not top tier material, but still very competitive.


Iron Hand is also a very fun option. He can actually take out a Dread on the charge! Five S7+2d6 attacks can mess up just about any vehicle in the game! In addition, he also makes your entire firebase much more effective in CC. Throw Chenkov in a PCS and you can have your entire firebase be Furious Charge, Counter Attack, Stubborn, and a reroll morale (standard), that's very impressive imo. Perhaps not optimal for tournies, but a very viable build for casual games!

Straken is a beast. If you combine your 2 platoons into two 50-man blobs, 100 guardsmen can get furious charge and counter attack with frag grenades for assaulting into cover. Not amazing, but well worth a 75-point upgrade (less than 1 point / model) is you use it right.

Not only that, but as far as we can interpret now, the furious charge and counter attack applies to all freindly models, not just guardsmen. Friendly models like, say, Grey Knight terminators, GKs, seraphim, whatever.

Lists built around orders probably wont want to take Straken, prefering more twin-linked shots for their heavy weapon squads or blob platoons, but Straken almost like a substitute rough rider or hellhound counter-attack unit. Your opponent charges into your platoon and bogs them into combat, so you send your other platoon into combat with 100 S4 I4 attacks.

I'm planning on taking him if nothing else just for the fun of doing something besides gunline-shooting with my infantry. It's not too often that I get to bayonet-charge someone with a good chance of winning.

I see Straken as going great with a pair of 30-40 man blob platoons plus Commissar. Giving every sergeant and Commissar power weapons and the squads no heavy weapons. They can move forward to claim objectives, softening up the enemy with FRFSRF! shots. Depending on the enemy and terrain, they either Assault and make use of Furious Charge or Rapid Fire and make use of Counter Attack.

Another use I see for Straken is with vets (this is probably more fun that all that good).

10 vets, 3 Plasma Guns, Powerfist, Forward Sentries (160points).

You move this squad forward, into some important position and just rain plasma fire on enemy squads. Odds are that the enemy won't be able to outshoot them with the 3+ save with equivalent points. When the enemy finally charges, you deny their Assault bonus attacks and get your own Assault bonus attacks (including that Powerfist). There's plenty of cover denying things out there that can beat it, but I think it's got some potential with Straken.

Biophysic wrote:When the enemy finally charges, you deny their Assault bonus attacks and get your own Assault bonus attacks (including that Powerfist).

Thats just...nasty...

While the idea of infiltrating mr.Harker & some vet guard with some cool heavy weaponary onto/near an objective sounds cool I personally prefer the idea of them all loading into a chimera & outflanking with the help of an astropath.

The turn they come on they have 3 meltas @ 12 (or plasmas but I wanted them to multi-roll into tanks & general infantry rather than infantry & heavy infantry) 1 bs3 h.bolter (or scatter laser..not sure if I prefer ap4 over str 6 yet) and 1bs4 h.bolter (Harker is relentless). The turn after, if it stays put it has 2 bs3 h.bolters & 2bs4 h.bolters plus 3 bs4 12" meltas & 2 bs4 lasguns.. Thats some serious firepower for 235pts. Camo netting may be worthwhile if you can drive on in from the egde, into terrain.

Biophysic wrote:I see Straken as going great with a pair of 30-40 man blob platoons plus Commissar. Giving every sergeant and Commissar power weapons and the squads no heavy weapons. They can move forward to claim objectives, softening up the enemy with FRFSRF! shots. Depending on the enemy and terrain, they either Assault and make use of Furious Charge or Rapid Fire and make use of Counter Attack.

Another use I see for Straken is with vets (this is probably more fun that all that good).

10 vets, 3 Plasma Guns, Powerfist, Forward Sentries (160points).

You move this squad forward, into some important position and just rain plasma fire on enemy squads. Odds are that the enemy won't be able to outshoot them with the 3+ save with equivalent points. When the enemy finally charges, you deny their Assault bonus attacks and get your own Assault bonus attacks (including that Powerfist). There's plenty of cover denying things out there that can beat it, but I think it's got some potential with Straken.

What's going to hurt is Staken and his command squad are going to be out front to give either of these squads his bonus. This will leave the command squad in a rather dangerous position, especially once your opponent realizes what you are doing.

Not too dangerous. Pop Straken and pals in a chimera, and just roll them forward until the turn you need them to assault. Your opponant will need to dedicate some heavy weapons to popping a chimera then killing the contents, pulling lots of heat away from your hell hounds, LRs or artillery. That's not a bad deal at all.

Wehrkind wrote:Not too dangerous. Pop Straken and pals in a chimera, and just roll them forward until the turn you need them to assault. Your opponant will need to dedicate some heavy weapons to popping a chimera then killing the contents, pulling lots of heat away from your hell hounds, LRs or artillery. That's not a bad deal at all.

Alternatively, you get him a medic and camo cloaks. 3+ cover save and FNP combined with his T4 and 3+ save lets you shrug off a lot of hits. Autocannon, Multilaser, Scatter Laser, etc. wounds do not instakill him, so he'd get a 3+ armor save (or 5++ save) then a 4+ FNP save. If you get a lot S6 hits, you'll have to rely on just the 3+ cover save for regular guys. Anything that's doing multiple wounds, is S6, and ignores cover will put a bunch of wounds in the squad, but I don't think there's that many things in the game that do that kind of damage.

Granted Camo Cloaks and a Medic cost only 5 points less than the Chimera, but the Medic is good to have in close combat, which you expect the squad to see if you're taking Straken.

Biophysic wrote:
You move this squad forward, into some important position and just rain plasma fire on enemy squads. Odds are that the enemy won't be able to outshoot them with the 3+ save with equivalent points. When the enemy finally charges, you deny their Assault bonus attacks and get your own Assault bonus attacks (including that Powerfist).

I like that!

That would be very fun in a Catachan themed army with a lot of jungle terrain.

I like that I can spend 2800 points on a single troop choice. That just makes me all sorts of happy.

BoxANT wrote:

Biophysic wrote:
You move this squad forward, into some important position and just rain plasma fire on enemy squads. Odds are that the enemy won't be able to outshoot them with the 3+ save with equivalent points. When the enemy finally charges, you deny their Assault bonus attacks and get your own Assault bonus attacks (including that Powerfist).

I like that!

That would be very fun in a Catachan themed army with a lot of jungle terrain.

I agree, I'm not sure that it is that competitive with a gunline or mechanized guard army, but it is nice to think that Straken gives some legitimacy to a close-range fire-fight based army. It makes me want to paint up some grim, tough commissars that look like they've been in the regiment for a while, bordering on "going native", along with one or two commissars conventional commissars with nervous looks that are glancing over their shoulders. Commissars are pretty much essential for this sort of army, I think.

willydstyle wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Nork Deddog. Amusing. Interesting. Wildly overpriced. At 110 points, I just can't see Nork Deddog being any choice beyond an amusement.

Yes, because 5 str 6 I4 attacks on the charge with another d6 str 6 hits if he gets taken down is sooooo terrible for 110 points. Especially when it's on a model with feel no pain, three wounds, and toughness five. The bodyguard ability is nice too.

Yeah I pay that much for a space marine captain without equipment. Nearly twice that for one with some gear. He's hardly overpriced, he's just sitting about where he should. He's a brick and a half and can put down quite a bit of pain against most assault troops. Mathhammered out it would take 30 orcs boyz (90 attacks) to bring him down with roughly a one in one chance. Thats pretty damn hardy.

Considering that for 110 points you can get two squads of rough riders with 40 str 5 init 5 power weapon attacks on the charge... yes 5 str 6 I4 attacks on the charge is pretty damned horrible for 110 points. I love the idea of Nork... but he's pretty f'ing pathetic for the amount of points you have to pay for him.

When those two squads die to a few bolters sneezing at them Nork will offer them a tissue. He's a brick with a pretty damn good amount of offense for his cost. Not a glass canon suicide assault squad. He's meant to protect against fast assault units and fast hordes, not punch terminators in the face.

But I think we can all agree the image of Nork punching a terminator in the face is AWESOME.

The problem is, for the price of Nork, you could just buy a second command squad and have 60 points leftover. That way the command squad that dies to whatever Nork might have saved them from can just die, and the second command squad keeps up the fight.

Nork doesn't even do that good a job of protecting the command squad in the first place. Company Command squads aren't stubborn, unless you put another 70+ points into a Commissar Lord, and Nork will not do enough wounds to keep the squad from losing combat. You also don't get to make use of his toughness, because the majority toughness is 3.

The other annoying thing is that he's clearly paying points for FNP, but if you buy Nork, you expect for the squad to be in combat, so you probably want a Medic to get FNP on everyone else anyway.

If he were an independent character you could throw into a unit that you actually wanted in combat, he might be a neat option for a semi-competitive list, but it's a 5-man command squad, for God's sake, why would you pay 110 points that only get used if you effed up in the first place?


@Da Boss: I agree completely

Glad this sparked some good discussion. And apologies on the mix-up with Camo-Cloaks and Stealth; however, as others have pointed out, he does allow the Vets to either chose a new doctrine to benefit from, or save 30 points from having to buy Camo-Cloaks. As for an optimal mix in a Harker Vet squad - I'm not really sure. My current favorite "experiment" list has his squad with two Plasma Guns and the Demolitions doctrine, but the list itself is more of a Outflanking/Airborne list (Heavy in Valks, with my other troop choice being a 5 squad platoon led by Al'rahem to outflank. Essentially every unit in the army either outflanks, or rides in something that can outflank).

I agree with Biophysic and others on Nork, and maintain my earlier theory - At 110 points, you're simply paying too high of a premium on Nork, when at the end of the day he's just a glorified bodyguard for your CCS. Useful and interesting, sure, but ultimately too much of a points sink to be much else.

Storm Troopers remain a strong fixation of mine, and I'm absolutely convinced they're just getting a bum rap... One thing I'm trying to determine is the optimal weapon mix for a maxed squad of Storm Troopers... My current "experimental" list has 1 Meltagun and 1 Flamer, to give them versatility - However, specializing them may give me better mileage. Not sure yet.

Storm Troopers remain a strong fixation of mine, and I'm absolutely convinced they're just getting a bum rap... One thing I'm trying to determine is the optimal weapon mix for a maxed squad of Storm Troopers... My current "experimental" list has 1 Meltagun and 1 Flamer, to give them versatility - However, specializing them may give me better mileage. Not sure yet.

The only way to really get your value out of these guys, is to specialze them. They are really only average at MEQ killing but great at heavy Vehicle Hunting, so use them for what they are best at. A squad of 5 with two meltaguns, and melta bombs for the sgt is 105 points and is a fair value for that role. They may not be as effective as Vets or CCPs with meltas but are less expensive and able to deep strike without need of an expensive Valk.

If you are not running valks/vendis and need some relatively cheap heavy armor hunters, they can be a fair choice for the ponts IMHO.

For MEQ killing I just dont see it though, even fully kitted out with 2 plasma guns, they will kill maybe 5 MEQ a turn, and they will not survive the return fire/charge of the survivors of that target without additional fire support from the rest of the army. They just dont bring enough bang for the buck compared with the many other excellent choices out there. Especially since 10 Veterans with Carapace and 3 Plasmaguns will do just as good a job of MEQ killing(with FOMT), are only 145 pts, and are scoring.

So yeah, there are some things the stormies can do well, and are not totally overpriced for, but in general there is always something else in the list that can do the same thing for less.

So if you want to use your stormtrooper models, just run Grenadier Vets. Cheaper, more specials and they score.

GhostRecon wrote:Harker brings infiltrate, stealth, and move through cover to a Vet squad

If you could buy him for a Platoon, I'd take him.

But for a single Vet squad? Meh.

Biophysic wrote:You also don't get to make use of his toughness, because the majority toughness is 3.

To be fair, though, you can allocate Strength 6-9 wounds on Nork, without it inflicting Instant Death. Often, he'd still get his Feel no Pain, too. Obviously, this is void if the hit is AP 1 or 2. Or a Power Weapon.

Biophysic wrote:If he were an independent character you could throw into a unit that you actually wanted in combat, he might be a neat option for a semi-competitive list, but it's a 5-man command squad, for God's sake, why would you pay 110 points that only get used if you effed up in the first place?

Clearly, you're forgetting Nork's most important rule of all:

HBMC wrote:'Eye-Battlecannons'. Nork may fire D3 Battlecannon shots out of his eyes to justify his 110 point price tag.