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This is a wysywig army using almost all of my models, so I'm not looking for list rewrites. I'm looking for help pointing out strenths/weaknessess, providing tactics to use it/beat it, lists you think would tear it up, etc. Also, recommendations for expansion.



Command 172 pts

Company Command Squad (Boltgun, Regimental Standard, Medic, Mortar)

Lord Commissar (Boltgun)

First Platoon 550 pts

1st Platoon Command Squad (Meltabombs, 4x Flamer)
- Chimera (Hull Heavy Flamer)

1st Infantry Squad (Commissar, Heavy Bolter, Grenade Launcher)
2nd Infantry Squad (Heavy Bolter, Grenade Launcher)
3rd Infantry Squad (Heavy Bolter, Grenade Launcher)

1st Heavy Weapons Squad (Lascannons)
2nd Heavy Weapons Squad (Lascannons)

Second Platoon 527 pts

2nd Platoon Command Squad (Boltgun, 4x Grenade Launcher)
-Chimera, (Hull Heavy Bolter)

4th Infantry Squad (Commissar, Heavy Bolter, Grenade Launcher)
5th Infantry Squad (Heavy Bolter, Grenade Launcher)
6th Infantry Squad (Heavy Bolter, Grenade Launcher)

3rd Heavy Weapons Squad (Missile Launchers)
4th Heavy Weapons Squad (Autocannons)
5th Heavy Weapons Squad (Mortars)

Support Elements 716 pts

Armoured Sentinel (Plasma Cannon, Searchlight)
Devil Dog (Hull Multimelta)
Basilisk (Hull Heavy Flamer)
Leman Russ Battle Tank (Lascannon)
Leman Russ Demolisher (Lascannon, Plasma Cannons)

2000pts

Edits: Removed vehicle upgrades to add Commissar to 2nd Platoon, changed Hellhound to Devil Dog.

My Command Triad of CCS/Lord Commissar/Regimental Standard keeps the HWS's in line and firing effectively with ld10 (rerollable)morale/pinning/orders. The most important HWS's for the battle (usually the lascannons) and the CCS get priority for placement in my deployment zone, with an ideal spot offering cover and good firing lanes. The vehicles are place for maximum carnage, sometimes I hold some in reserve. The infantry are bubblewrap with a focus on anti-light infantry. I usually only blob in KP missions, depending on tactical situation. With 60 regulars to throw down I control enemy deepstriking in my deployment zone. The two chimeras are flexible, I don't have to keep them with the PIS's (althought they work good in them), sometimes I throw a HWS in 2PCS's chim, sometimes I put a PIS in 1PCS's chim. If I have to march on objectives I'm not worried about a few HB's not firing. I have plenty of firepower on the vehicles to really hammer on troops holding objectives. The vehicles can also contest, and/or shield my squishies as they advance. It's a gunline, but not necessarily static.


I'm tempted to drop the commissar and just work with the 6 basic squads, but it is useful to have a 20 man blob out there. I'm also tempted to make it a proper power blob. I have some fat in vehicle upgrades, and the LRD is a bit of a pointsink, but powerful. The commie+upgrades could get me another unit, but the only other full units I could field are a missile launcher squad and a mortar or autocannon squad. Not that I want a mech list, but I'd really like another chimera, for the Lord Commissar/CCS - that is my next acquisition, and I am determined to buy or scratchbuild one in the near future. After that I plan to add a proper power blob so that I'm fielding 3 platoons over 2000pts, and probably some vets.

Thanks for all your help Dakka, past and future. This is the force I've been battling with, in various configurations at various point levels, for the last few months. I'm happy with it's 5th edition performance, and I know it's not 'optimal' or 'competitive' (according to recieved Dakka wisdom, that is) but I'm getting better at using it, and putting it on the shelf for something else is not an option at this point.

So it's not too bad. The only glaring problem is a lack of a commissar in your second platoon. Paint a regular officer black if you must, but you've got to do something to make it so that they won't be running off the table the moment your enemy gets close.

As for the list in general, it lacks serious mobility, which will cause it to suffer in most games. You will find yourself having serious problems against high-mobility armies like drop-pod marines (who will instantly kill your vehicles and then grind your infantry to goop).

Tx for the help, ros. My thoughts for 2nd platoon was to pretty much always use them as 3x 10 man squads. They are bubblewrap proper, they're 'sposed to break if charged. I do have bits to make another commie. If i rip the smoke, dozers and HS off the vehics, I can field him. I do like how it gives my the option for two stubborn blobs if I want, and still have 2 bubblewrap squads. Lots of options. Done.

Now about those deepstrikers. I don't seem to have a problem with melta appearing and instantly killing my vehicles. I don't have a problem using the edges, terrain, and bubblewrap to keep deepstrikers 12", let alone 6" from whatever vehics I choose. They have to drop to the outside of my initial deployment - there's not much room inside my lines. How many multimeltas will be dropping on me? Vehicles that don't fit in bubblewrap can stay in reserve, but usually lots fit. As for grinding my infantry to goop, that's one reason i like to have 10 man squads. They run, leaving the enemy sitting right in front of alot of firepower. High-priced enemy, usually. Not to say it's not a huge threat, I'm just saying how I deal with it, and I don't think its an insta-win for the enemy.

You are right though, in general the list lacks serious mobility. It is not mechanized. Only 2 transports, and 5 of my scoring units don't really want to move. But I do have 4-8 other scoring units that I don't mind moving, and with RRR can basically keep up to the vehicles. All the vehicles can move and fire, and so can also help by contesting or shielding an advance while putting devastating fire on scoring enemy troops. You can't score if you're all dead!

yeah, but it's not serious mobility. If your opponent is concerned about you reaching an objective, there's not all that much they need to do to stop you. I mean, if you do a really good job castling against opponents who can't figure out how to 5th ed castle break, then you're reasonably assured a draw in most capture and control games, but you're going to have a real hard time with seize ground.

And for KP missions, having lots of little squads is a millstone around this list. You're either looking at lots of easy KP or KP that can be swept off the board. Adding in that commissar will help, but I really don't see this list working as smoothly and like clockwork as I see that you do.

I would add a power weapon onto the commissar, just my .02 cents.

Ros, I agree that I don't have serious mobility. Sometimes I just don't agree with your choice of words - as in the enemy having 'not all that much to do to stop' me from getting to an objective. Well they do have to bring weapons to bear, at least! You are right though, when the enemy puts an objective in the opposite corner it looks fairly hopeless for capturing it, and multiple objectives is also hard as my units do better close together and supporting each other. Kill the enemy Troops - they can't score if they're dead!

I also hold no illusions about the list working like clockwork - I've played a dozen battles with lists very similar (same model pool), and clockwork is not how I'd put it. The biggest thing is the pie - if it hits for the fist two turns, I'm looking fairly good. If it scatters way off, I'm looking fairly bad. Either way, most battles I'm taking off casualties double-fisted at some point, and lots of battles, win or lose, come down to very few models left on either side. Very bloody, especially when I play my Ork buddy with 100 models himself! One thing you should know about how I see this list is that every unit is expendable.

The KP issue is a problem. Like you say, the extra commissar will help so that I'll have 2x 30 man stubborn blobs, and I generally keep the HWS's near the Lord Commissar/Regimental Standard for rerolling morale on ld10. GBitF can also help to keep squads on the board. I feel like the enemy will have to completely destroy my units to get the KP's from them. I have to keep the infantry in cover where possible and with ld buffs where possible. Also, killing all the enemy on the board fixes the situation. Just joking. Kinda. Not really - it's hard to hide from my vehicles, if they want to play catch-me.

Can you explain castling a little more for me, and ways people break it? Probably belongs in Tactics, but use my list for examples...

@eyebone: Thanks for the suggestion. I actually have been using the commissar with a power weapon, as I use the old cadian commander (the little hitler guy with PW) for my commissar. However I'm finding one power weapon doesn't really do much, and I think to make a difference a blob should have 3+ PW's. If I was going to do that, I'd make a proper Ailaros Power Blob, with no heavy weapons, 3-4 PW's, meltabombs, probably a priest. It is an option, and a tempting one, but I'm not sure it really fits with the rest of the list. I feel like if you're making power blobs, you sort of have to build your list around them. Maybe I'm wrong.

Keep it coming, Guardsmen!

One thing I noticed is that you are taking HWS. One avenue of expansion I would explore is taking more regular squads and breaking out those HWs into those squads. That way you have some ablative wounds to avoid having Instant Death from St. 6 weapons knocking out your HWs.

Thanks for the recommendation, Ruckdog. I've decided to try my regular squads with just HB's as their exclusive HW for now. That way they are dedicated to an anti-inf role, and the lasguns aren't wasted when firing at vehicles. I also like concentrating the firepower of the other heavy weapons - it's 105 pts for a lascannon HWS where to get 3 lascannons in regular squads would be twice as much, not to mention taking up alot of space on the board. That's not to say that hiding HW's in 10 man squads isn't a good tactic, it definitely makes them harder to kill. Filling out each of my two platoons with 2x lascannon squads is tempting, so that I'd have 2 HB blobs and 2 LC blobs if desired. That's how Kommissar Kel runs his platoons, and he's happy with that setup. I should try them out, because it's definitely a good option for expansion.

So it looks like the inquisitor lord's job is to Ld10 all those heavy weapon squads for the purposes of orders. Is that working? I find it a tempting possibility, but I feel like it's probably too expensive for what you get, considering that HWSs with the basic Ld7 seem to do pretty well in my experience so far.

Definitely make those platoons real power blobs with power weapons on each sergeant and commissar, and maybe a couple of meltabombs for walkers. I'd even give it priority over the heavy bolters in infantry squads.

The combination of 2 power blobs with this many light armor busting weapons to stop transports far away should be very strong. You use the long range weapons to take out your opponent's mobility, then anything that gets through gets munched by the blobs. All those GLs must stop a lot of rhinos at 30". Then the majority of your ranged infantry-killing & objective clearing is done by the basilisk and russ with the demolisher in close support. Should work fine.

Deepstriking opponents shouldn't be an issue with that much bubble wrap. You have enough deployment and mobility options to control where a deepstriking opponent goes.

I'm not sure "mobility" is the thing this army lacks. It lacks *transport vehicles,* which isn't necessarily a problem and not the same thing as mobility. There's a huge number of move&shoot weapons on the infantry, and they can use GGG orders (at Ld9) to get where they're going.

Only one chimera? It must get killed a lot. I run 3-4 with even smaller armies, and they get killed a lot.

Also it looks like the big weakness of this army is that it doesn't have the ability to stop a land raider. It would also struggle against other turn-2 assaulting deathstars like nob bikers, bike councils and shrike-infiltrating assault terminators. Lascannons are not an adequate countermeasure against AR14--you really need to work in some melta.

Since it looks like you probably don't want to go with melta vets, maybe this is one of the few armies that might actually make sense to take a couple of little units of 5 stormtroopers with dual melta to deepstrike or infiltrate across the land raider's approach path. They're overpriced, but they fill a hole in this list for less than the cost of vets+transport. And hopefully the hellhound has a hull melta?

Those are just my random thoughts off the top of my head.

Not sure what the Sentinal gives you (other than a single Meq kiling Plasma shot...but at AV10 it aint gonna be around long). You have plenty of template action for hordes (Demolisher, Russ, Bassie) so you may consider changing the HellHound into the Devil Dog config.
This gives you a Fast Melta capability that you can reach out and touch those nasty AV13+ vehicles and a Terminator killing template also.

@dkellyj: tx for the post. You may be right about the Devil Dog; Flavius' comments advise melta as well. The hellhound does suffer vs. power armour, but it has to range to get shots at the best troops at least. At 2000pts the 4 templates doesn't really feel like 'plenty' most rounds

The sent is actually AV12, and it's a single tec shot. It and the LRD are all my ap2, so as you say another termie template would be good. What's the point difference for Hellhound/Devil Dog. At work don't have codex...


@ Flavius Infernius: Tx for the post. I've got 2 chims. The Lord Commissar is there to support the HWS's, but the ld10 orders are just a bonus to me. (Although they do make orders obviously very reliable). The main thing I want is ld10 for morale and pinning. The main criticism of HWS's, and rightly so, is that they are extremely fragile, being 3x T3 W2 models. Anything can kill them, S6 insta-kill, one model lost forces a morale test and they're ld7! Brutal. They're fairly expensive, so you don't want them running away when the enemy farts in they're general direction. Rerolling morale really helps, and under 1500 points I've left the LCommie at home and relied on the Regimental Standard, but I've only got 1-2 HWS at those points. That does fairly well. But with this many I want them more solid, especially the lascannons, and when you're rerolling on ld10, the battery virtually always has to be completely destroyed to silence. They ain't goin nowhere, and in cover, they can soak up quite a bit of enemy firepower. I generally protect them from assault with bubblewrap.

I may just have to try the 2x power blobs. It could be done by dropping the HB's, the bolters, the CCS mortar, the meltabombs and.... a GL somewhere maybe? I could also drop the ML squad, or maybe rip the plasma off the LRD, but I can't seem to bring myself to that.

However I'm not sure I want all my infantry in 2 big squads all the time - you have to understand the tactical value I find in those 65pt 10 man squads. Is a blob really bubblewrap? As soon as it's engaged, suddenly no one can fire through there, and as a tarpit it'll probably be there for awhile. And with piling in, the unit will get pulled from places I want bubblewrap. With 10 man squads, I've got way more control as to how my army gets eaten, and as they usually break when they get charged, no LoS issues for the rest of my guns. I hear what you're saying though, and the tactics you present seem sound. Let me think about it.

You're right about the Land Raider. I just pound on it with the LC's and the pie. Sometimes, no problem, first barrage it's down. Sometimes, in my face. Just as an aside, extra armour on the land raider is worth it, imo. In any case, I'm actually not that scared of it. It's a big powerful unit with a big price tag. Haven't faced more than one at once yet though. I think I'll take some advice and change the hellhound to a devil dog, at least try it out as a proxy. I'll check my codex in a bit, tell me if there's a point dif, I can't recall.

I plan on adding ST's for lists over 2000pts. I've got some pretty good conversions from regulars going on, but I'm slow at modelling and the first 5 man squad won't be ready for at least a month. If I dropped the ML squad and some upgrades, I could try them out with some proxies. What would you drop for the second squad? Do you think one unit, plus the devil dog change, would give me a credible melta capabilbity? Let me think about it a bit. I play against tyranids and orks regularly, and therefore the S8 ML's are nice to have.

Thanks for reading, everyone. Very helpful comments, keep 'em coming!

Just a thought but if you drop the medic(no plasma, so i would), you could have 2 CCS with the exact
same options for the same price as the LC and 1 CCS.

murdog wrote:I also hold no illusions about the list working like clockwork

Right, so, as said before, your list is not a terrible way to use the models that you have. I've seen much worse lists with serious mistakes in them. The problem is that your list isn't bad, it's just blah. By this, I mean it lacks a spark of killer instinct to it. If you're going to hone things to a razor point, it's going to require more models. Until such a time as they can be purchased and assembled, what you've got going on now is a reasonable, if somewhat lukewarm list going on.

murdog wrote:Either way, most battles I'm taking off casualties double-fisted at some point, and lots of battles, win or lose, come down to very few models left on either side. Very bloody, especially when I play my Ork buddy with 100 models himself! One thing you should know about how I see this list is that every unit is expendable.

That just means you're doing it right

BLOOD CONQUERS ALL!

murdog wrote:Can you explain castling a little more for me, and ways people break it? Probably belongs in Tactics, but use my list for examples...

Right, so back in the day, the whole point was efficiency with victory points. This meant that you wanted to minimize the amount of points spent on low-firepower stuff, and you wanted to maximize the number of points you spent on high damage, high durability units. As well, you wanted to build your army in such a way where you could play your army as safely as possible on the field, while doing the most unsafe stuff to your opponents as possible.

This created guard castling. As few points were spent on infantry as possible, and as many points were spent on HS and FA slots as could be afforded. Furthermore, it was common to place infantry in front of tanks so that the cheap, low-VP stuff would act as bubble wrap for the expensive, high-VP stuff. Units stayed in cover, and shot with long range guns (that could kill stuff without getting out of cover yourself).

The thing is, though, this way of thinking is now obsolete. Not everybody has realised this yet.

The first thing to note is that in 2/3ds of the game, it doesn't matter how many units you lose or how much damage you inflict - it only matters where surviving units are in the end of the game. As such, for most missions, killing your opponent's stuff is no longer the ends, it is simply the means. This means that you don't need to hide in cover anymore, and there's little special value to having long range firepower (especially because other things made the weapons much less useful). KP can sort of be thought of as VP, but, as mentioned, the rest of the rules have swung far away from long range firepower towards short range power.

This is because castles can be "broken" now. You, yourself, mentioned that if you can get some good hits off turns 1 and 2, you're fine, but if you can't, you're less fine. What happens when your opponent decides to put 100% of their stuff in drop pods? This basically guarantees that you won't be putting down very much damage right away before they get into your stuff. Likewise, things can outflank now, which allows them to suddenly show up in your backfield, and you weren't able to fire a shot at them before they came in blazing. Even if they don't use newer mobility methods, transports have been taking a big reduction in points and infantry can now move up to twice as fast by sprinting.

Everything is hugely more mobile now, all while enjoying 4+ cover much more readily, or just showing up out of nowhere and killing stuff. As such, it is still possible to keep units away from your high-firepower units, but it's now much, much harder to castle up, and it's much, much easier to defeat the gunline. It would be a bad enough strategy for this reason alone, but the fact that it was specially designed for one purpose (efficiency of killing stuff), and that purpose is a tertiary concern (rather than the only thing you needed to build a list around), it really doesn't make it worth running this kind of a list with this kind of strategy anymore.

Now, you're stuck with a 4th ed list. This means that to be really good in 5th ed, you're going to need to change around your list. There are some things that can be added that go a long way for those on a budget (like al'rahem and commissars, for example), and I'd suggest adding such things in. The more you can migrate away from the gunline with what you have, and with as few other additions as possible, the better off you'll be.

Tx for the response, ros.

I hear what you're saying about the long-range firepower getting nerfed with cover, but I'd dispute the label 'little value'. Tell that to opponents who lose stuff on the other side of the board, or who even eat heavy weapon fire at closer ranges.

You make good suggestions to get the most out of my models, and I appreciate that. I also think you overestimate deepstriking and outflanking a bit, or at least underestimate my ability to control those strategies with the amount space my cheap stuff takes up. Drop pods are more reliable, but require more space to land. I do think it's a major threat though, for as you say they come in blazing without taking approach fire. They can't assault though, right? And they have to bunch up when they get out, using transport disembark rules, right? Unless they run? How would you deploy this list against a drop-pod army? Anyways, valuable discussion, thanks for the elaboration.

murdog wrote:

However I'm not sure I want all my infantry in 2 big squads all the time - you have to understand the tactical value I find in those 65pt 10 man squads. Is a blob really bubblewrap? As soon as it's engaged, suddenly no one can fire through there, and as a tarpit it'll probably be there for awhile. And with piling in, the unit will get pulled from places I want bubblewrap. With 10 man squads, I've got way more control as to how my army gets eaten, and as they usually break when they get charged, no LoS issues for the rest of my guns. I hear what you're saying though, and the tactics you present seem sound. Let me think about it.

You can always still use them as smaller squads in non-KP games. The power weapon goes mostly unused in that case, but it's still feasible.

The thing with frangible squads, though, is a very 4th edition way to play guard (and 3rd too). It can still work, lord knows Tau still have to do it with kroot. But blobs are so insanely tough that many targets are actually easier to destroy with a blob than with shooting. Five terminators can eat 3 or 4 little squads before you manage to finish them off with shooting, but they're not going to eat 30-40 guys in a blob. They're going to die, and while they're being held there your guns are free to shoot at other stuff.

What I see most often is that if my opponent is really going to rush toward me, I can use my long-range shooting to break up his assault, and it's only remnants getting through to be eaten by the blob piecemeal.

In a game where the opponent is coming toward you, the blob serves different purposes in different phases of the game: in deployment and the first few turns, it's bubble-wrap. In the midgame, it's maneuvering to protect tanks/HWSs from the things that got through, and eating units. In the endgame, it's moving to secure objectives.

(Actually, though, what usually happens to me in objective games is that my HWSs wind up claiming the objectives in/near my deployment zone, the PCS in chimera and/or a unit of vets in chimera wind up claiming objectives further out, and the blob is tarpitting something that would otherwise be able to clear/contest my home objectives. In capture & control, the HWSs hold the home objective, the blob keeps it clear, and everything else rushes the opponent's objective.)

In a game where the opponent is not coming toward you--that's why I put autocannons in my blob. So they can shoot at the skimmers/razorbacks that you typically see in armies that don't come toward you. This is why I disagree with Ailaros about long-range weapons (or rather, I think he's assuming every army will want to close range with you). If you've got nothing that shoots further than 36"+, a real mech Eldar or razor spam army will eat your lunch.

A guard castle is still very strong and hard to crack. All those threats that Ailaros mentions--drop pods, outflankers--all come in mostly turn 1, and more than 80% of the time by turn 3 at the latest. So you don't need bubblewrap after turn 2/3. So, as I mentioned above, you castle for the first several turns, then when those reserves have arrived, you don't need your wrap anymore. So they can move to swarm whatever didn't get killed with shooting, or run for the objectives.

I personally use 2 devil dogs with hull flamers right now. What I'd really like is 2 hellhounds with hull multimeltas, but the devil dog w/ flamer is like the discount version of the same thing--the MM hits just about as often as a BS3 hull gun would, the flamer is lower str and shorter range, but the tank is 25 points cheaper.