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With the new codex, conscripts are a very cheap unit, and on the surface, not very good. With a ld 5, they will break and run if you sneeze at them. With a lousy WS and BS, they also won't be able to dish out much in the way of effective firepower for their cost. Orders are not as useful for them, because again, with a ld of 5, they won't pass many checks.

even in an assault, 100 BS 2 Str 3 attacks will do some damage, but maybe not enough to justify 200 points. Something like 14 orks or 5-6 marines on an assault, then by round 2 the conscripts are probably going to lose the assault and run.

Now add a priest to the mix. With re-rolling misses, you are now causing 21 ork or 8 Marine casualties.

Now add Lord Castellan Creed and Color Sergeant Kell, and conscripts become a little more scary in an assault.
With "For the honor of Cadia" and "Listen up Maggots" The unit now has a ld of 10 for receiving orders, and in an assault will have fearless and furious charge. So now you have 100 WS 2 attacks (rerolling misses), Str 4 at initiative 4. You will likely wipe out any unit you charge.

So I was thinking, have the conscripts charge, they will likely wipe out any unit they come in contact with. Have a 20-50 man infantry squad following behind them. If the conscripts are hit by a counter charge, they will likely break and run. No biggie. Creed (with Kell) will be able to regroup them, while the 20 man squad furious charges this round. Next round Order the conscripts to charge again.

The guard can now have a very effective human wave assault force, throw in a couple of artillery or tanks to knock out anything the enemy has that drops pie plates, and I think this tactic could work.


Any thoughts or critiques?

Conscripts are a poorly executed unit in the new dex (imo).

Only a single point less than a normal guardsmen, but you loose 1 WS BS, -3 leadership and can not take HW/SW :(

Yes, with some (expensive) upgrading, you can make them workable.

A priest, commissar lord, Creed&Kell, IronHand, Yarkick, ect. Yes it is possible to make them function (to a degree), but considering you can purchase a normal 50 man unit of infantry, give them a commissar, and give them weapons for similar points. The normal platoon will be able to do *much* better in shooting and just as well in assault. I think the sacrifice in function is not worth the minimal (if any) savings in points.

In fact, the only real use I see for conscripts is when combined with Chenkov, and that is only in APOC.


Perhaps certain savvy players will devise a tactic that takes advantage of conscripts, but until such feats are demonstrated, I will regard conscripts as one of the worst units in our codex.

There are uses for conscripts if you are willing to take a full unit and add the character(s) needed to make them fearless. The furious charge upgrade is pretty sick. They basically become a huge moving brick that can't be ignored towards the latter stages of a game and it is going to require some focused fire or assaults to remove them from the table. They would be epic if they could take shotguns. It's certainly not a unit for everyone BUT they can be effective for a list tailored to use them properly.

G

It's actually cheaper using normal guardsmen than conscripts. You wont be forced to buy Kell, and can get a commisar with a vox in the unit to give them Ld9 reroll for orders.

Green Blow Fly wrote:There are uses for conscripts if you are willing to take a full unit and add the character(s) needed to make them fearless. The furious charge upgrade is pretty sick. They basically become a huge moving brick that can't be ignored towards the latter stages of a game and it is going to require some focused fire or assaults to remove them from the table. They would be epic if they could take shotguns. It's certainly not a unit for everyone BUT they can be effective for a list tailored to use them properly.

G

It seems like anything you can do with Conscripts you can do with regular guardsmen for only a slight points increase. Instead of 50 Conscripts, why not 50 Guardsmen blobbed together? You now hit WS5 on 4+, you are more effective shooting, you can reasonably receive orders for even more effective shooting, you get 5 Sergeants thrown in the mix for 2 extra attacks each (one basic, one from pistol/ccw), you get frag grenades (Conscripts might get this, I can't remember, but it matters with Furious Charge). You also have the option to field them in different combinations of squads, not just as 50 guys. I see 50 points as a very reasonable price to pay for all of these bonuses.

I think conscripts are actually under estimate a little bit. It's true standard guard can do the same thing for marginally cheaper but chenkov is a really bigger point modifier.

Also there is not temptation to take heavy weapons in a conscript squad. There whole purpose is to be a meat shield.

If you go tank heavy you are going a physical wall to keep enemies from assaulting your tanks.

50 wounds for 200 points is no joke. They don't have to do anything but stay alive. I suggest staying away from units that make them fearless. Stubborn is good enough. Fearless just makes them take more wounds because they will mostly likely not be winning combats.

Consider Sisters of battle to help this units stay put with stubborn LD 10. Plus the book of st lucius has a 6" radius so they can cover multiple squads...

It 5th ed, troops units don;t need to kill anything to be useful. Also remember that a single unit can hold multiple objectives and this squad has an enormous foot print.

And we're only talking one squad. I think conscript hordes are a very scary option... Especially en mass.

Good luck dealing with 300 guardsman. An all infantry army can quickly get there.

Pete

Pinning :"P

blasts will all land on the 300 guardsman.
( fighting in the shade wont help either )

Go ahead and try... They are leadership 10 and likely going to ground while sitting on a objective. Or they are tying up units and grinding out hth combats which makes them un targettable.

300 wounds of anything that won't run away in an objective mission is a problem for any army...

Biophysic wrote:
It seems like anything you can do with Conscripts you can do with regular guardsmen for only a slight points increase. Instead of 50 Conscripts, why not 50 Guardsmen blobbed together? You now hit WS5 on 4+, you are more effective shooting, you can reasonably receive orders for even more effective shooting, you get 5 Sergeants thrown in the mix for 2 extra attacks each (one basic, one from pistol/ccw), you get frag grenades (Conscripts might get this, I can't remember, but it matters with Furious Charge). You also have the option to field them in different combinations of squads, not just as 50 guys. I see 50 points as a very reasonable price to pay for all of these bonuses.

This is 100% spot-on. For 50 more points a blob-platoon of infantry put out an extra 10 attacks at a higher weapon skill, gets frag grenades, and can take "hidden" Commissars. They have access to a wide range of useful wargear, and can put out some real shooting. (Especially with FRF!SRF!)

I suspect that "Squad blobbing" as a solution to the KP problem was a relatively late addition to the IG Codex, and it's impact on Conscripts was not fully appreciated. (Alternate theory: GW just doesn't care.)

For me what really tears it in favor of regular infantry vs. Conscripts is the ability of Sergeants and Commissars to take power weapons. Throw a few power weapons into the mix, and your giant glommed infantry squad will crush way more than equivalent points of MEQs.

(Let me think about that a second -- 50 infantry, Commissar, 5 PW = 335 pts. So roughly 20 marines. Yeah, I'd bet on the Guard squad in melee any day of the week...)

But the real use of Conscripts is to take them with 'Send in the next wave' and run them to enemy. And get them fearless or whatever boost you need. Place your objective near your table edge. And on last turn (if not already killed) kill them and run them to your own objective. I would play like that for fun, if I would play IG.
In a tournament or KP matches, they wouldnät be so good. But in fun games....

I agree with the "Send in the next wave" idea. It is really the only reason to take Conscripts. Without it the Conscripts just don't have much of a reason. But with it they become a useful unit to throw out in front and take a charge, or charge themselves, maybe kill a few things, but then leave the enemy out in the open, when you "kill" the Conscripts. Without help, their Ld is not very good. I see them as a tarpit/end of the game deployment zone objective holder (once the second or possibly third wave) has come back on.

As for my self, i play "Traitor" Guard so my Conscripts are mutants that are herded into battle.