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What he said.

Ailaros wrote:oh, also, consider that a 6 ft wide table is 72" wide, and if you bring 50, you can almost cover the total width of the table in close order drill. If you put out a huge screen, everything in your army gets a 4+ cover save. 200 points may be a lot, but if it halves the rest of your casualties if you don't get first turn, it's not too bad. As well, it's going to be easy to keep them within range of a regimental standard, so you might be able to milk 2 turns of 4+ cover for most of your army.

Sure, it all collapses after the first assault, but still, if you don't expect more than a few turns of human shield and you are willing to put out some points, it's not that bad of a tactic.

You know how you make that REALLY killer? Have a Lord Commissar in your army and order the blob with 'Incoming!' They go to ground out of cover for a 6+ save, then it gets +2 bringing it to 4+. You are literally making your own cover, and they will absorb charges across your entire army.

wow, yeah, I would have never thought to use conscripts as an area denial weapon before. That's almost tempting enough to include some.

IG: Who needs woods or Walls... We have Conscripts...

DarkHound wrote:

Ailaros wrote:oh, also, consider that a 6 ft wide table is 72" wide, and if you bring 50, you can almost cover the total width of the table in close order drill. If you put out a huge screen, everything in your army gets a 4+ cover save. 200 points may be a lot, but if it halves the rest of your casualties if you don't get first turn, it's not too bad. As well, it's going to be easy to keep them within range of a regimental standard, so you might be able to milk 2 turns of 4+ cover for most of your army.

Sure, it all collapses after the first assault, but still, if you don't expect more than a few turns of human shield and you are willing to put out some points, it's not that bad of a tactic.

You know how you make that REALLY killer? Have a Lord Commissar in your army and order the blob with 'Incoming!' They go to ground out of cover for a 6+ save, then it gets +2 bringing it to 4+. You are literally making your own cover, and they will absorb charges across your entire army.

Yea, so that is not how that works. First off, you get +2 when using Incoming, instead of the normal bonus (which is +1). So standing out the in open and taking an Incoming! order will give you 5+ cover saves. Since this is the same as your armor anyway, it is sorta silly to do... unless the enemy is shooting AP5, in which case... you just get to keep your armor save, basically. Second, because there is no cover... you just get the saves... enemies assaulting you don't take any penalties for assaulting you through cover, and even if you did... since you went to ground... you wouldn't get those bonuses anyway. So no, you don't get crazy cover saves across your whole army... and the conscripts still fold as soon as someone assaults them. Also since you have them so far spread out, the enemy who assaults the squad will probably only have to face them about 10 at a time... greatly increasing the damage they are able to do, without taking any major hits from you. Not to mention you wouldn't be able to get any of your own tanks forward, because your own squad is in the way... and you just gave the entire enemy army 4+ cover because you have to shoot through your own men. Oh! I forgot... you just spent about 500pts on all that junk you needed to put that useless squad out in the first place. (CCS, LC, PCS, 2x Infantry, 50-man Conscripts, Chenkov) And they are still completely useless for anything else, besides dying... and I don't think fighting at a 500pt handicap is the best tactic.

Lt Lathrop wrote:Yea, so that is not how that works. First off, you get +2 when using Incoming, instead of the normal bonus (which is +1). So standing out the in open and taking an Incoming! order will give you 5+ cover saves.

"Units that are not currently in a position that would give them a cover save can still go to ground by diving to the floor (or some other evasion technique) and receive a 6+ cover save." Pg. 24 of the BRB

"If the order is successfully issued, the ordered unit immediately goes to ground. The ordered unit receives +2 to its cover save, rather than the normal bonus." Pg. 36 of the Imperial Guard codex

You go to ground and receive a 6+, and because you were ordered with Incoming! you get +2 to it. If the order had said 'instead of' instead of 'rather', then Incoming wouldn't work if they were out of cover (they'd still go to ground, but gain no benefit save the 6+), or if Going to Ground had talked about the 6+ save being the result of the +1 to your cover save you'd be right.

Lt Lathrop wrote:enemies assaulting you don't take any penalties for assaulting you through cover, and even if you did... since you went to ground... you wouldn't get those bonuses anyway. So no, you don't get crazy cover saves across your whole army... and the conscripts still fold as soon as someone assaults them.

This is a good thing. It takes them longer to reach the initial assault, so they are still spread out to absorb more charges. Then they'll break, and guess what? The entire enemy army is looking right down the wrong end of 200 lasguns.

Lt Lathrop wrote:Also since you have them so far spread out, the enemy who assaults the squad will probably only have to face them about 10 at a time... greatly increasing the damage they are able to do, without taking any major hits from you.

(Reducing the risk of you winning the combat, or doing enough damage to pass your test. Its a good thing; you want them to die.)

Lt Lathrop wrote:Not to mention you wouldn't be able to get any of your own tanks forward, because your own squad is in the way... and you just gave the entire enemy army 4+ cover because you have to shoot through your own men.

Uhh, who cares? Lasguns are AP- and Autocannons are AP4. Whoopty do. If you had a substantial tank force, they're either going to sit behind the wall of flesh and shoot over them (skipping the save thanks to TLOS), or you deploy them outside the wall of flesh.

EDIT: Even if you play it with a 5+ cover save, thats still a 50 man wall with a 5+ cover save and shots not aren't going into things that shoot back. Its 160-200 points of win.

DarkHound wrote:

Lt Lathrop wrote:Yea, so that is not how that works. First off, you get +2 when using Incoming, instead of the normal bonus (which is +1). So standing out the in open and taking an Incoming! order will give you 5+ cover saves.

"Units that are not currently in a position that would give them a cover save can still go to ground by diving to the floor (or some other evasion technique) and receive a 6+ cover save." Pg. 24 of the BRB

"If the order is successfully issued, the ordered unit immediately goes to ground. The ordered unit receives +2 to its cover save, rather than the normal bonus." Pg. 36 of the Imperial Guard codex

You go to ground and receive a 6+, and because you were ordered with Incoming! you get +2 to it. If the order had said 'instead of' instead of 'rather', then Incoming wouldn't work if they were out of cover (they'd still go to ground, but gain no benefit save the 6+), or if Going to Ground had talked about the 6+ save being the result of the +1 to your cover save you'd be right.

So just FYI, you are wrong. "Rather" and "Instead of" mean the same thing, so yea... you are wrong. Just in case you don't believe me here is a link to the dictionary, where they are synonyms: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rather+than Furthermore, if you wanna fight over EXACT RAW, the codex says you get +2 instead of the usual (+1), but the BRB says you get a 6+ cover save if you have no cover... you technically don't get a bonus at all. Thus you can't sub your +2 for the +1. So order or not, going to ground in the open only gives you a 6+ cover save, by the RAW. The rest of what you just said, makes no sense... probably because you have no idea what you are talking about.

DarkHound wrote:

Lt Lathrop wrote:enemies assaulting you don't take any penalties for assaulting you through cover, and even if you did... since you went to ground... you wouldn't get those bonuses anyway. So no, you don't get crazy cover saves across your whole army... and the conscripts still fold as soon as someone assaults them.

This is a good thing. It takes them longer to reach the initial assault, so they are still spread out to absorb more charges. Then they'll break, and guess what? The entire enemy army is looking right down the wrong end of 200 lasguns.

Don't know what you are talking about. The squad died in the first assault from a sweeping advance... or is moving 6" each consolidation phase into a giant blob... or is falling back behind the units you were trying to protect, not covering anything.

DarkHound wrote:

Lt Lathrop wrote:Also since you have them so far spread out, the enemy who assaults the squad will probably only have to face them about 10 at a time... greatly increasing the damage they are able to do, without taking any major hits from you.

(Reducing the risk of you winning the combat, or doing enough damage to pass your test. Its a good thing; you want them to die.)

Lt Lathrop wrote:Not to mention you wouldn't be able to get any of your own tanks forward, because your own squad is in the way... and you just gave the entire enemy army 4+ cover because you have to shoot through your own men.

Uhh, who cares? Lasguns are AP- and Autocannons are AP4. Whoopty do. If you had a substantial tank force, they're either going to sit behind the wall of flesh and shoot over them (skipping the save thanks to TLOS), or you deploy them outside the wall of flesh.

Read the actual cover rules... or go read a post or two over on YMDC, because TLoS doesn't stop you from having to shoot through your own units. Unless EVERY tank you have is directly behind the infantry lines. So explain to me again why giving your enemy cover saves is good? If you are going to say cover is no big deal because our weapons have low AP... then I could say the reverse. Why are you spending 500pts on a squad to give yourself cover... if it doesn't help?

Lt Lathrop wrote: So no, you don't get crazy cover saves across your whole army... and the conscripts still fold as soon as someone assaults them.

everyone BEHIND them gets a 4+ cover save for at least the first turn. Of course assaults stop them from being the uberscreen (they're still a blob screen, though). The whole point is that they give you a turn or two of taking half casualties, which is useful if you want to alpha strike and you don't get turn 1.

Lt Lathrop wrote:Not to mention you wouldn't be able to get any of your own tanks forward, because your own squad is in the way... and you just gave the entire enemy army 4+ cover

If you're not running a pure mech list, then tank movement isn't a problem. Even then, I wouldn't recommend taking conscripts in a pure mech list anyways. And yes, you give your opponent 4+ cover, which is only a problem if you're running a gunline without artillery, and if you're running that kind of a list, you've got more serious problems than your opponent's cover save.

Lt Lathrop wrote:I don't think fighting at a 500pt handicap is the best tactic.

I wouldn't spend 500 points on this either. The job can be done for as few as 120 points. Spending that many points for a sabot for your army (delivers your army safely to its target and is then thrown away), doesn't seem like that bad of a value at higher point games, especially since not only do you give your army a 4+ cover, but you KNOW that board-spanning conscripts squad is going to take a disordinate amount of fire.

I really don't think they would take any fire. Everyone knows the game is melee heavy. I guarantee the conscripts would get stuck in on turn 1... and would most likely get sweeping advanced by the end of it.

However, that being said. I didn't mind smaller squads of conscripts as pure meat shields as much as I did the 50man board wide squad... with all the fixings. Although, at that point... why bother? You can just use regular guard infantry as a meat shield. They are cheap enough, and can actually carry half decent weapons, so they can do some damage while they die.

Point overall is conscripts are never worth the points, and there are better ways to do the same thing... except at like 2000 pt games... where you can afford to drop 200-500pts on a glorified meat shield.