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htj wrote: For me, a squad of Sternguard is far too expensive to throw into the enemy lines unsupported, just to knock out a single tank.

Your right, with a few caveats.

* A sternguard squad combat squadding from a drop pod can kill 2 vehicles, not just 1.

* If your trading the sternguard to just kill a 35 point rhino, its likely to not be a good tradeoff. If your trading to kill a LR or stormchiken loaded up with a death star, then its a excellent trade -- even if the vehicle is worth less points it removes the ability to deliver the deathstar.

* Your assuming that the enemy will kill the sternguard in 1 turn of shooting/assault. Not all armies have the ability to guarantee this. For example if draigo and his paladin posse' are far from this psydreads, you can drop and kill the psydreads and be safe from the draigowing (well, 1 squad may get shot to bits, but your other will be safe)

Now, this tactic increases exponentially if you add support units to increase pressure. This is why I reccomend 2 such suicide squads and a squad of fleeting TH/SS terminators. This significantly increases the pressure you can put on the enemy. Do they shoot up your sternguard, which just destroyed 4 vehicles, or do they focus on the terminator line that will roll into them on turn 2?

This army is not without its hard counters. For example, a mech'dar reserving army will just fly overhead and laugh. This army has a number of excellent match ups, however. Imagine a triple land raider build that meets this army.
I would go so far as to say in the final days of 5th edition, this build is the best that C:SM has to offer.

I would go so far as to say in the final days of 5th edition, this build is the best that C:SM has to offer.

Well, this is an interesting statement. So 2 full Sternguard squads with combi-meltas in Pods and fleeting Assault Termies. This army has some kind of synergy. But is can eventually struggle vs. an army staying in reserve.

labmouse42 wrote:* A sternguard squad combat squadding from a drop pod can kill 2 vehicles, not just 1.

Granted. Fair point.

* If your trading the sternguard to just kill a 35 point rhino, its likely to not be a good tradeoff. If your trading to kill a LR or stormchiken loaded up with a death star, then its a excellent trade -- even if the vehicle is worth less points it removes the ability to deliver the deathstar.

When compared to other options that can achieve the same without having to soak up huge amounts of close range firepower, or assault, I'm not convinced that this is necessary your best bet. I agree it can work well, but I think there are better ways to achieve the same results. YMMV on that, of course.

* Your assuming that the enemy will kill the sternguard in 1 turn of shooting/assault. Not all armies have the ability to guarantee this. For example if draigo and his paladin posse' are far from this psydreads, you can drop and kill the psydreads and be safe from the draigowing (well, 1 squad may get shot to bits, but your other will be safe)

Now, this tactic increases exponentially if you add support units to increase pressure. This is why I reccomend 2 such suicide squads and a squad of fleeting TH/SS terminators. This significantly increases the pressure you can put on the enemy. Do they shoot up your sternguard, which just destroyed 4 vehicles, or do they focus on the terminator line that will roll into them on turn 2?

I would anticipate a unit landing as the only viable target for assaults and close range firepower to come under a huge amount of fire, yes. The odds of them surviving that much incoming damage and remaining capable of producing non-trivial firepower afterwards are low, and not something I'd gamble on. Focussed fire with short range attack will knock of the Sternguard, leaving the long-ranged stuff capable of firing on the Termies. Failing that, the opponent could happily fall back, preventing the Termies a turn two charge, and then fill 'em full of lead on the following turn.

This army is not without its hard counters. For example, a mech'dar reserving army will just fly overhead and laugh. This army has a number of excellent match ups, however. Imagine a triple land raider build that meets this army.
I would go so far as to say in the final days of 5th edition, this build is the best that C:SM has to offer.

This is the thing, for me. The situation works well against certain armies, maybe armies that are a mainstay of the meta one plays in, but I'm of the opinion that an army built towards countering the majority at the expense being weak against the minority is inferior to one which can hold it's own against all armies. A dream, perhaps, but a good one.

wuestenfux wrote:

I would go so far as to say in the final days of 5th edition, this build is the best that C:SM has to offer.

Well, this is an interesting statement. So 2 full Sternguard squads with combi-meltas in Pods and fleeting Assault Termies. This army has some kind of synergy. But is can eventually struggle vs. an army staying in reserve.

Depending on the army, yes. As I mentioned, a Mech'dar army flies just overhead and laughs. A deep striking paladin squad would also be immune to this. This is why some armies are a good matchup to this shrike list.

However, if someone deployes in reserve, and you can bring 21 marines and 11 terminators to the board edge by turn 2, its very feasible you can block them from entering the board alltogether and generate an instant win.

I built this on army builder a few minutes ago. This is a 1750 Shrike list
Shrike
Librarian in terminator armor w/Null Zone + Might of Ancients
10 TH/SS terminators
10 Sternguard Vets w/8 combi-meltas + 2 MG + drop pod
10 Sternguard Vets w/8 combi-meltas + 2 MG + drop pod
5 Scouts w/combi-Melta + melta bombs
LSS w/heavy flamer
10 Tac Marines w/MG + ML in drop pod

You reserve your scouts and tacs so they can wait to come in to claim objectives. (or you can suicide your LSS to MB enemy units if you go first)

Best sternguard I've seen, and subsequently worst for me, is aggressive sternguard in a drop pod suicide dropping on the biggest baddest thing in the map.
Doesn't work against high volume armies as well but vs low-model count armies, its so good. It can easily take out mini-deathstar/centerpiece units like demon prince, ctan, greater demon, dreadknight, land raider, leman russ squad, ect.

One thing to consider is do you put lysander with them. Rerolling to-hit with them (along with an EW S10 thunderhammer for countercharge) makes them ludicrously powerful at the cost of a deathstar.

htj wrote:I would anticipate a unit landing as the only viable target for assaults and close range firepower to come under a huge amount of fire, yes. The odds of them surviving that much incoming damage and remaining capable of producing non-trivial firepower afterwards are low, and not something I'd gamble on. Focussed fire with short range attack will knock of the Sternguard, leaving the long-ranged stuff capable of firing on the Termies. Failing that, the opponent could happily fall back, preventing the Termies a turn two charge, and then fill 'em full of lead on the following turn.

* You are forgetting that the terminators have fleet and can inflitrate. They start 18" away, and on turn one they will move up between 7"-12". On turn two, they have an assault range between 13"-18" -- just backing up out of range on a 4*6 board is harder than it sounds.

* Secondly, I think you are over-estimating how much firepower that a 1750 army can deliver in 1 turn of shooting. Remember also that said list is going to be down 4 vehicles. Killing 20 MEQ in cover is extremely difficult from shooting, especially as they are 4 squads. Cover is easy to get from the drop pods.

I grant that some armies can do this easily, such as ork shootas, but MSU army builds which are popular in the tourney scene would have a harder time.

htj wrote:This is the thing, for me. The situation works well against certain armies, maybe armies that are a mainstay of the meta one plays in, but I'm of the opinion that an army built towards countering the majority at the expense being weak against the minority is inferior to one which can hold it's own against all armies. A dream, perhaps, but a good one.

Its very hard to build an army list thats good against all armies. Almost every army has a hard counter. This is even morso, as the C:SM codex is really showing its age. Your pretty much limited to draigowing.
To clarify, I'm not saying that the Shrike list I proposed is the best army in the game. Its the best army you can build out of an aged mid/bottom-teir codex.

I kinda assumed that the fleeting Terminators thing was a mistake, and you meant run. Didn't realise at the time that you were thinking Shrike. That is more of a threat, indeed!

Now certainly you're going to do a lot of damage to small armies, although primarily shooting armies. Even a small elite CC army would probably ruin those 20 Sternguard's days pretty sharpish.

Now I can certainly see the merits. It's a specialised army that would prove very nasty against the popular MSU style lists. However, do I think it's the best option? No. I guess if I had to put my finger on what turns me off it the most, it's the fact that you've spent nearly 700pts on two squads that are very reliant on alpha-striking the enemy. For me, that's just too much, when you could have spent the points elsewhere and potentially achieved the same results.

At the very beginning of 5th ed, another drop podded Sternguard army with two Librarians casting gate of infinity was floating around. This would allow Sternguard units to be gated and placed accurately with locator beacons at the Pods.

htj wrote:Now certainly you're going to do a lot of damage to small armies, although primarily shooting armies. Even a small elite CC army would probably ruin those 20 Sternguard's days pretty sharpish.

Excally. Since most of the armies in today's tourneys are shooting armies that's why I would take this Shrike build. If you draw a horde ork player, you should accept that your out of the running, have a beer and have fun.

htj wrote:it's the fact that you've spent nearly 700pts on two squads that are very reliant on alpha-striking the enemy. For me, that's just too much, when you could have spent the points elsewhere and potentially achieved the same results.

And thats a valid point. Spending 670 points on two suicide squads is a tough pill to swallow.

I've been playing a bike army for years, and have spent a lot of time reviewing the C:SM codex for better builds. At this time, the Shrike army is the best I've been able to get from the codex. I've seen it in action, and its pretty good today.
If you know of better builds, I'm all ears.

I'd be more concerned about a Daemons player with that build. Which is kind of a strange thing to say!

labmouse42 wrote:If you know of better builds, I'm all ears.

Why, Razorspam of course!

Seriously, though, were I going tournament I would lean heavily on ML spam, with some LC. Quite possibly utilising locator beacon drop-pod Dreads and, now that I've had a think about it, the above mentioned Sternguard Librarian squad. I don't have my codex with me at the moment, so I can't math it out, but hopefully that gives you an idea of what I'm going for.

For razorback spam and ML spam I find that the BA and SW codex' do it so much better that its hard to jusify the C:SM codex. Case in point, BA get razorbacks for 35 points cheaper, and SW get long fangs.

C:SM has a few advantages over those codex', and are what I would think would be leveraged.
* Combat Tactics / Outflanking / Fleet / TL MG-HF
* LSS - allowing scouts to outflank in at 24" to claim objectives
* Null Zone (On par with Fortune for the best combat multiplier in the game)
* Cheap TH/SS termies
* Dread spam with MotF
* Bikes as troops

PS : Excellent discussion, even if a little off topic.

combi-weapons are the way to go. Usually, if I don't know I'm going to be facing a hoard or mech army that would require flamers or meltas, I kit them with plasmas, as I find those to be the most versatile choice. Good against MEQ, with a small template to deal with bunched infantry if they have to, and enough punch to tackle transports and light armor in a pinch. And the fact that they're combi-weapons also helps, because you can dump an entire salvo of them at the same time.

Heavy/special weapons aren't worth it, since the biggest strength of Sternguard, alongside their veteran statline, is the special ammo. It really makes them dynamite,

Damn shame the Storm Bolters don't get the Special Ammo rule. My fingers are crossed for the next codex; I'd gladly have Storm Bolters cost more for Sternguards if I can give them Specialty Ammo.

labmouse42 wrote:For razorback spam and ML spam I find that the BA and SW codex' do it so much better that its hard to jusify the C:SM codex. Case in point, BA get razorbacks for 35 points cheaper, and SW get long fangs.

C:SM has a few advantages over those codex', and are what I would think would be leveraged.
* Combat Tactics / Outflanking / Fleet / TL MG-HF
* LSS - allowing scouts to outflank in at 24" to claim objectives
* Null Zone (On par with Fortune for the best combat multiplier in the game)
* Cheap TH/SS termies
* Dread spam with MotF
* Bikes as troops

PS : Excellent discussion, even if a little off topic.

Yeah, those'd probably be my picks too. Null Zone in particular is brilliant, and really shines against certain armies. A friend of mine has used it to horrible effect against my DE Wyches on more than one occasion! A well done Dread spam list could be truly vicious too. Hmm... there might be some possibilities in a Dread/Bike combination list. I'm going to have to toy with that one, see what I can come up with.

And yes, great discussion! I've even come away with some new thoughts on the subject. On the Internet! Who would have thought?

I wrote a guide on bike armies, as I have played them for years and wanted a central place to answer questions.
http://the11thcompany.freeforums.org/tac-squads-alternatives-bike-armies-t3582.html
This is from the guide.

1850 Dread List
The goal of this list is to utilize dreadnoughts as fire support. Dreads have a number of significant advantages over predators that can be exploited. In this army, the first bike squad takes advantage of combat squads. The MotF joins the squad with the HB, and uses them to absorb shots as he sits back at max range and uses his conversion beamer. The PF and 2 MGs in the other combat squad are there for tank hunting. Another option is to bring in a cheap scout squad for the MotF to join.

Instead of a 5th dread, I take advantage of the 2 slots to bring two predators to the board. Its slightly cheaper than a single dual AC dread. While I lose the TL of the guns, I gain the abilty to saturate the board with more armor, and the ability to target different units.

You could also take all the dreads with dual ACs. I wrote this one up with LC/ML dreads as those were the models I have.

HQ
Captain w/bike, artificer armor, storm shield
MotF w/conversion beamer, bike

Troops
Bike squad, 9 bikes, 2 MG, HB attack bike, PF
Bike squad, 7 bikes, 2 PG, MM attack bike, PF
Bike squad, 7 bikes, 2 PG, MM attack bike, PF

Elite
Dread with dual TL/AC
Dread with dual TL/AC
Dread with TL LC and ML

Heavy
Dread with TL LC and ML
Predator
Predator

Well, that was an interesting read. You certainly know your stuff when it comes to bikes! I might have to give that a go some day.

That's a nice looking list for it, too. Tell me, what do you think about replacing the Preds with more Dreads in drop pods? Popping a couple of walkers into your enemy's lines turn one can really disrupt their battle plan, but do you think it would synergise well with that kind of list?

htj wrote:Well, that was an interesting read. You certainly know your stuff when it comes to bikes! I might have to give that a go some day.

That's a nice looking list for it, too. Tell me, what do you think about replacing the Preds with more Dreads in drop pods? Popping a couple of walkers into your enemy's lines turn one can really disrupt their battle plan, but do you think it would synergise well with that kind of list?

The concept certainly seems daunting to my eyes. A few Ironclads dropping behind you, with oodles of bikes rushing in from the front? That's a ferociously hard anvil and a frighteningly quick hammer.

TermiesInARaider wrote:

htj wrote:Well, that was an interesting read. You certainly know your stuff when it comes to bikes! I might have to give that a go some day.

That's a nice looking list for it, too. Tell me, what do you think about replacing the Preds with more Dreads in drop pods? Popping a couple of walkers into your enemy's lines turn one can really disrupt their battle plan, but do you think it would synergise well with that kind of list?

The concept certainly seems daunting to my eyes. A few Ironclads dropping behind you, with oodles of bikes rushing in from the front? That's a ferociously hard anvil and a frighteningly quick hammer.

That's what I'm thinking. Ironclads would really shine in this role, I reckon.

htj wrote:

TermiesInARaider wrote:

htj wrote:Well, that was an interesting read. You certainly know your stuff when it comes to bikes! I might have to give that a go some day.

That's a nice looking list for it, too. Tell me, what do you think about replacing the Preds with more Dreads in drop pods? Popping a couple of walkers into your enemy's lines turn one can really disrupt their battle plan, but do you think it would synergise well with that kind of list?

The concept certainly seems daunting to my eyes. A few Ironclads dropping behind you, with oodles of bikes rushing in from the front? That's a ferociously hard anvil and a frighteningly quick hammer.

That's what I'm thinking. Ironclads would really shine in this role, I reckon.

Mmhm. If there were a way to get some scouts with a marker in there, to make sure the Ironclads arrived on time, that'd be just golden.

People always forget that Lysander and a Sternguard squad is quite sickening. Bolter Drill combined with Hellfire Rounds is just plain wrong...

htj wrote:That's a nice looking list for it, too. Tell me, what do you think about replacing the Preds with more Dreads in drop pods? Popping a couple of walkers into your enemy's lines turn one can really disrupt their battle plan, but do you think it would synergise well with that kind of list?

Its good because it draws attention from your enemy. 3-6 ironclads dropping down in someone's face would be very attention grabbing! So long as the enemy does not have enough melta to take everything down in one turn, its a good idea. (Like IG meltavets)

We should stop hijacking this thread though. If you want, we can start a new threat about viable C:SM builds.

labmouse42 wrote:

htj wrote:That's a nice looking list for it, too. Tell me, what do you think about replacing the Preds with more Dreads in drop pods? Popping a couple of walkers into your enemy's lines turn one can really disrupt their battle plan, but do you think it would synergise well with that kind of list?

Its good because it draws attention from your enemy. 3-6 ironclads dropping down in someone's face would be very attention grabbing! So long as the enemy does not have enough melta to take everything down in one turn, its a good idea. (Like IG meltavets)

We should stop hijacking this thread though. If you want, we can start a new threat about viable C:SM builds.

Agreed.

Back to Sternguards, I sometimes find the combi-plasma to be somewhat redundant, since the Vengeance rounds target the same profile. There is an advantage, however, in the templates, but I only take them if I'm expecting lots of TEQs, or swarms of units that I wanna deliver juicy profile death to, but do NOT want to be within flamer-range of, like Genestealers.

TermiesInARaider wrote:Back to Sternguards, I sometimes find the combi-plasma to be somewhat redundant, since the Vengeance rounds target the same profile. There is an advantage, however, in the templates, but I only take them if I'm expecting lots of TEQs, or swarms of units that I wanna deliver juicy profile death to, but do NOT want to be within flamer-range of, like Genestealers.

I don't understand. How do combi-plas give templates?

labmouse42 wrote:

TermiesInARaider wrote:Back to Sternguards, I sometimes find the combi-plasma to be somewhat redundant, since the Vengeance rounds target the same profile. There is an advantage, however, in the templates, but I only take them if I'm expecting lots of TEQs, or swarms of units that I wanna deliver juicy profile death to, but do NOT want to be within flamer-range of, like Genestealers.

I don't understand. How do combi-plas give templates?

...And here I was thinking they did. There you go, kids. You learn something new every day.

Combi-plasma is great if you face an army with MCs. E.g., a Trygon is a dangerous guy that can be easily killed by double-tapping Sternguard Guard with combi-plasma. I'd take a full squad, all with combi-plasmas, to get job done.

I do find haveing the 2 Plasma Guns to work well for when the Combi-Plasmas have been used up.

wuestenfux wrote:Combi-plasma is great if you face an army with MCs. E.g., a Trygon is a dangerous guy that can be easily killed by double-tapping Sternguard Guard with combi-plasma. I'd take a full squad, all with combi-plasmas, to get job done.

I'm not familiar with the Trygon in particular, so am speaking in general terms here:

It seems that the only time you would need plasma is for when something has a high toughness, a good save, AND you need to do a lot of wounds. You have the hellfire shots for things with just the toughness. If you just need to plant one or two wounds on hard target, melta works just fine, and is better vs. tanks and insta kills multi-wound T4 models. Getting twice the shots from the plasma is nice, but I don't think it adds enough to justify taking over melta.

Nevelon wrote:I'm not familiar with the Trygon in particular, so am speaking in general terms here:
It seems that the only time you would need plasma is for when something has a high toughness, a good save, AND you need to do a lot of wounds. You have the hellfire shots for things with just the toughness. If you just need to plant one or two wounds on hard target, melta works just fine, and is better vs. tanks and insta kills multi-wound T4 models. Getting twice the shots from the plasma is nice, but I don't think it adds enough to justify taking over melta.

You have never Vaporized a 10 Man Tactical Terminator Squad in One Volley before have you?

Anpu42 wrote:

Nevelon wrote:I'm not familiar with the Trygon in particular, so am speaking in general terms here:
It seems that the only time you would need plasma is for when something has a high toughness, a good save, AND you need to do a lot of wounds. You have the hellfire shots for things with just the toughness. If you just need to plant one or two wounds on hard target, melta works just fine, and is better vs. tanks and insta kills multi-wound T4 models. Getting twice the shots from the plasma is nice, but I don't think it adds enough to justify taking over melta.

You have never Vaporized a 10 Man Tactical Terminator Squad in One Volley before have you?

Nope. Can't say that I have. Of course, You don't see many of them on the table to shoot. Large blocks of 2+ saves with no real invuln save are going to be the best case scenario for massed combi-plasma fire. For the rest of the time, I feel you would be better served with meltas or flamers for your combi weapons. It's not that plasma is bad, just the others are more useful more often (IMHO)

Nevelon wrote:

Anpu42 wrote:

Nevelon wrote:I'm not familiar with the Trygon in particular, so am speaking in general terms here:
It seems that the only time you would need plasma is for when something has a high toughness, a good save, AND you need to do a lot of wounds. You have the hellfire shots for things with just the toughness. If you just need to plant one or two wounds on hard target, melta works just fine, and is better vs. tanks and insta kills multi-wound T4 models. Getting twice the shots from the plasma is nice, but I don't think it adds enough to justify taking over melta.

You have never Vaporized a 10 Man Tactical Terminator Squad in One Volley before have you?

Nope. Can't say that I have. Of course, You don't see many of them on the table to shoot. Large blocks of 2+ saves with no real invuln save are going to be the best case scenario for massed combi-plasma fire. For the rest of the time, I feel you would be better served with meltas or flamers for your combi weapons. It's not that plasma is bad, just the others are more useful more often (IMHO)

By the way THANK YOU!
you are the first person in I dont know how long that said Plasma was not being used becouse of "Gets Hot".

Anpu42 wrote:

Nevelon wrote:

Anpu42 wrote:

Nevelon wrote:I'm not familiar with the Trygon in particular, so am speaking in general terms here:
It seems that the only time you would need plasma is for when something has a high toughness, a good save, AND you need to do a lot of wounds. You have the hellfire shots for things with just the toughness. If you just need to plant one or two wounds on hard target, melta works just fine, and is better vs. tanks and insta kills multi-wound T4 models. Getting twice the shots from the plasma is nice, but I don't think it adds enough to justify taking over melta.

You have never Vaporized a 10 Man Tactical Terminator Squad in One Volley before have you?

Nope. Can't say that I have. Of course, You don't see many of them on the table to shoot. Large blocks of 2+ saves with no real invuln save are going to be the best case scenario for massed combi-plasma fire. For the rest of the time, I feel you would be better served with meltas or flamers for your combi weapons. It's not that plasma is bad, just the others are more useful more often (IMHO)

By the way THANK YOU!
you are the first person in I dont know how long that said Plasma was not being used becouse of "Gets Hot".

If I was worried about "Gets Hot" I wouldn't be shooting vengeance rounds into everything with power armor. Sternguard can kill themselves just fine without paying plasma extra for the privlage. Although if you do pay for the plasma, someone is going to feel the pain.

If I get one shot, and want to make it count, it's going to be melta. When I do field plasma, I do it in tac squads, with both a plasma gun and cannon, sitting on my objectives. Sternguard should be fielded more agressivly, so the point blank nature of melta and flamers fits them better. Just the way I play. Other builds work fine for diferent styles.