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First off, hi folks! Been stalking around for a while, and thought maybe you guys could offer me some advice on a unit I'm thinking of. Also, apologies if this post is considered 'overly' long; I'll mark where the profile starts clearly so if anyone wants they can skip strait to that.

BASIC IDEA: Every race that I can think of bar Tyranids (not 100% on Eldar / DE) have some kind of 'heavy' walker; eg, a walker with two heavy weapons. The sentinel is a good vehicle, lovely fluff, but in my opinion, it's missing the biggest factor that walkers have in their favour - moving while laying down the fire power of an entire unit. My idea with the Dread Hound (DH) is to try and cover this gap, without disrupting balance.

A bit more in depth, the DH wasn't something I was trying to design. Honestly I've been thinking of designing a Knight Titan; or maybe even building a Warhound itself if I felt confident (READ: stupid; my scratch skills are NOT at that level >.> ); reading through some other conversions (over here if anyone's interested), I just happened to notice that, if it was turned on it's back and enlarged just a slight bit, the sentinel cockpit could easily look like a Warhound head miniaturised. Thus, after a couple of loose sketches, I had a model based on the sentinel that had a 'hound feel to it and began to get this ridiculous notion of making rules for it to actually be played! It's worth noting that I don't play that many games; I'm more of a modeller (couldn't even tell you if there's a club near me) so my 'rules' are heavily referenced from the IG and SM 'dexs, as well as reference taken from the Apoc' 'hound itself! Yes, I know this is generally frowned upon, and I've tried to take the fact that the 'dexs are NOT the same into account (and truly, the only stat I even referred to the 'hound was the number of attacks); but I really don't have much more to go on; hence, HERE! One last thing I tried to do was fill the (in my opinion) appalling lack of a decent all round elites choice. Once again, I can only judge by stat lines, but honestly? I don't think I've read anything that disagree's with me; Elites choices for IG are rare, and usually limited in scope to boot.

Any way, Stat profile starts now!
"Dread Hound"
Points: 75
Elite

......................[ Armour ]
WS....BS....S....F....S....R....I....A
.2.......2....6...12...11..10...3....1

Composition:
Vehicle 'pack' (squadron) of 1 - 3 Dread Hounds

Unit Type:
Walker (Vehicle)

Wargear:
2 * Multilaser

Special Rules:
Move Through Coverᶦ
Veteran Pilotᶦᶦ
Agileᶦᶦᶦ

Options:
● Any Dread Hound may replace either/both of it's multi-lasers with any combination of the following:
- Autocannon or Heavy flamer ................... +5pts per wpn
- Missile launcher ..................................... +10pts per wpn
- Dreadnought close combat weapon ......... +15pts per wpn
- Lascannon ........................................... +15pts per wpn
- Plasma cannon ...................................... +20pts per wpn

● Any model may take any of the following:
- Searchlight ........................................... +1pt per model
- Hunter-killer missile ................................ +5pts per model

●The entire pack may take any of the following:
- Smoke launchers ................................. +5pts per model
- Camo-netting ...................................... +20pts per model

ᶦ Originally designed for operation on the forest world Seirtha, the Dread Hound is designed to handle most difficult terrain with ease.
ᶦᶦ Dread Hounds are immensely valuable, both in materials and strategically. Because of this, only the most hardened veterans are ever even considered to pilot one. As such, when each Dread Hound comes onto the board, declare it as either a close combat, or a ranged specialist. That model will, for the rest of the game, have a +2 modifier to either it's WS or BS (for combat and ranged specialists respectively).
ᶦᶦᶦ Dread Hounds are often on the move, as such were designed to be surprisingly agile. Any Dread Hound may assault regardless of whether they chose to run in the shooting phase (as per the Fleet special rule).


More mindless (okay, not so much, but that's all the profile) chatter here.

My biggest concerns are points cost and my veteran pilot SR. I deliberately tried to keep it under 100 points, the main focus for this walker being cheaper than the dread (only thing even close for me to compare to; would LOVE killer kan stats to compare to!) was the stats; I could simply have gone with 3 3, but I feel that's a bit of a cop-out for guard to be quite honest. Look up the guard list, 3 3 for Sgts, infantry, penal legionaries, special weapon teams, heavy weapon teams; and it's even the base for elites, just with a +1 mod on either ws or bs! I mean, I get it, guard are about as good at shooting as your average person; but the special weapons? The heavy weapons? Would you give such 'specialised' weapons to just anyone? Even the veterans, season soldiers, only get +1 to bs; nice, but just a little bit of a let down. I wanted a unit that couldn't compete with a Marine dread all round, but could be specialised; and more than that, I wanted something that made people go 'wow! That's piloted by someone who knows his way around a battlefield!' I honestly want to make it better; I mean, on one hand, these are RARE vehicles, no rookie is gunna get his hands on it. On the other hand, Marines are 'unbeatable'; they're friggin' super soldiers! I honestly wish there was more leeway, more individuality in 40k; alas, we are confined by both dice and by by GW, but I do think that my rule allows a little bit 'extra', while still reminding people that even if they can match them in some regards; guardsmen are not Marines (okay, one of my regiment is, and there's a close link between my regiment and the Space Wolves; but that's all just fluff).

If it's good enough to get play tested (and I think I would about collapse under my ego if it was <.< ) I would love to hear the results. Any of you maths lovers opinions would be greatly appreciated as well (being too lazy to draw up 'stat' maths, and knowing that it has little impact without game knowledge I didn't bother to do it myself). There's a fair chance that I've missed something important, or overpowered / underpowered it in many ways; but that's why we're here, right? End goal is (hopefully) to have a cool looking unit, that can add a bit specific support (or even versatility; dual multi-las shooting walker holding a narrow pass behind the firing line comes to mind; but I'm a fluff lover ^.^) to any Guard army or game! I know Apoc lets you design your own rules, but I'm trying to design something that if I walked into my FLGS (not that I know where that would be >.> ) they would be happy to play against it in a 1000ish point army.

From the designer's view, there must be a reason why they gave IG Sentinels 1 weapon compared to Eldar's 2.

Why is it like that i dont know , but i respect that they must have valid reasons.

The biggest reason I could think of is the fact that sentinels are scout vehicles; they're not really meant to hold a line or to dish out death on a battle field. I may be way off but that's the only real reason I could think of.

Thanks for the input though!

I looks pretty good, the DCCW's are cheaper than I would normally expect, but it ends up worse than both vanilla dreads and Deff Dreads from the ork book in straight stats but makes up for it with fleet.

The shooting options are a little worse though however compared to most options in the guard codex. That said I'd lower the base cost by 20 points and up the DCCW cost up to 15 points each. If you did that I would say you nailed it first try.

You can field three scout walkers for the same price as one of my normal dreads and as far as weapon counts go, 3=3, except for the armor values and the BS skill you get the same number of weapons on a dread as you do from a squad of 3 scout walkers, if we count the dreads storm bolter.

Not to be to critical or anything, but it bothers me that a "veteran" imperial guardsman could have the same WS or BS as a several thousand year old space marine who has been permanantly inturned inside his war engine.

Thanks I'll admit that I strait copied the Sentinels options and added the DCCW; I was a little worried that it would be under priced. I'm also a little hesitant to lower the passive cost (assuming that's what pas is? Sorry if that's a stupid question >.> ) simply because I'm a little worried they may become overpowered; especially as there's really nothing else in the elite option that could compare (imo). Maybe if I raised the DCCW by 5pts, then lowered the Las, plasma and missile launcher 5pts each? I think it's especially dangerous as they can be fielded in packs of three for a single choice, where (to my knowledge) neither dreads nor deff dreads (not kans? Are they less than a dread?) can be fielded in this manner.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Thanks for the post Cat. First off, yea I know scouts can be fielded; honestly I don't think this model is 'needed', it was just a cool design that I wanted rules for and thought I saw a (very, very small) niche. I'll also go a little further and clarify that I based these off the Armoured Sentinel; not the scout version (which I personally don't like; I don't see why adding a little extra armour allows me to wield a bigger gun, but by god if I see a downside!), thus the DH will always be out-gunned by scouts. Also I'll be honest and say I'd count the storm bolter as a half a weapon; with only 24" it's half most heavies, and I was considering throwing one under the 'chin' but decided against it as 'too many guns' (an Ork dies every time you say that, did you know? )

And I fully agree, NO veteran should be able to match a regular marine, let alone a thousand year old one! But the IG codex states "Veteran: 3 4 ", my 'veteran pilot' is actually worse in that regard. If you're refering to my wanting to make it better, aye, that's the very reason I didn't. E: Also, no worries about being critical, that's why I posted here! If I can't beat an argument then it clearly has more reason than my logic

It's late here that was meant to be base cost, pas was a total typo. As for points, if you take my idea then you pay 105 points for two lascannons, a regular SM dreadnought gets these same guns for more than your cost, but they get better close combat, at least the same attacks, and a higher initiative for the few cases that matters. They can also take meltas and drop pods. So a shooty Dread Hound isn't overly powerful and a squad of three could be pretty tough, but not any better or worse than most guard options.

As for kans and deff dreads I can't give you their stats. But I kan say a deff dread has 2 DCCW's for 90 points base and can take flamers at 5 points each and extra DCCW's at 15 each for a total of 4 DCCW's. It has the same front armor. They are one per purchase.

Kans go in squads of three and are very inexpensive at 35 points base for a single DCCW, they have some very decent shooting options as well. However they have 11 armor and that makes them easier to damage.

In light of that I think with the base 20 point drop and they end up just right. Getting 2 BS 4 multilasers for 75 points is good, but Chimeras get one and either a Heavy Flamer or Heavy Bolter for less and they can hold troops so I think your points would be spot on.

Fair points; updated the total cost and increased the DCCWs thanks for the info and the feedback

In line with other guard vehicles, might I suggest you be able to add Camo Netting at +20 points per model?

Makes sense, they are designed for use on a forest world after all. Thanks