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What's the best way to use this? I really like the look of it, and it seems like something I could use pretty often (tyranids and Tau vehicles).

I was thinking about Lascannon HWTs or veterans or something.

HWS's are a bad place to use orders because of their crappy Ld and no access to vox.

Bring it down is very easy to use, use it on available units when a tank or MC wanders into range of your meltaguns/plasmaguns.

I would say that HWSs are a great place to use "bring it down" orders because you get three guns to benefit from the order. Hopefully you have a couple of HWSs that can bear on the target, so probably one will fail and one will pass.

If you have a power blob of 30 or more guys, though, that's an even better place to use BID because their commissar will give them Ld9 and, again, all three weapons benefit.

It's less efficient to use BID on a squad with only a single weapon (or a squad that's only using one weapon). I personally don't find orders so vital that I need to pay for voxes.

Also, if you're giving orders to a unit with BS4 and your target is in cover, you'll get better results from "fire on my target." With a BS3 firing unit or a target not in cover, BID is as good or better.

Use first on: any squad with multiple weapons that work well on the target and that has a vox. (ie blob squads, some command squads)

Use second on: any squad with multiple weapons, but without a vox (HWS, SWS, most veterans)

Use last on: anything with only 1 relevant weapon.

If you have a comissar don't all units within 6" get leadership 10? So you could have an Infantry squad next to your hvy weapons squad with a comissar and then have your command squad give orders to both teams with ld 10- so chances are you get 6 twin linked lascannon shots on tanks :-0


Is this logic correct?

The Ld Aura is from Lord Commissars, but yes otherwise you are correct.

Illumini wrote:HWS's are a bad place to use orders because of their crappy Ld and no access to vox.

This is the great paradox.

HWSs and SWSs are the best place to use BiD, but they're also the least likely place to actually hear and enact them.

Personally, I use BiD on anything and everything because it's a really good order. I've even used them on blob squads to reroll bolt pistol shots on my commissars before (take THAT demon prince).

To me the only other orders that are worth it are ones that can also be issued by junior officers, while Bid (and FoMT) can only be done with the CCS, so you might as well use it as often as possible (unless you really need stuff to be running or hiding).

Okay, thanks! I'm glad I was thinking the right way. I'd never bother with it on some regular Infantry squad (unless that's all I have).

I don't usually take a vox-caster on any units (except possibly commands), but I'll be sure to throw one in there if I know I'll be using orders.

Thanks!

Combining PIS is one of the most effective ways of getting the most out of your orders. Consider one PIS with a lascannon. A CCS orders BiD and that PIS gets to be twin-linked, kind of cool, but nothing to shout about. Now combne three PIS with lascannons and the obligatory Commisar and you get to twin-link three lascannons at Ld9 with a sngle order. This is cool.

It's a massive shame that HWS and SWS can't get Voxs as they'd be the one place they'd be of any major use, but it never hurts to throw BiD on anything you can every turn. Twin-link = more shots hitting = higher probability of damaging a target. Bear in mind that both the unit giving, and the unit recieving the order need to have a Vox to get the benefit. This can become quite expensive unless you do the aforementioned combining and suddenly one Vox can service multiple squads.

L. Wrex

Of Guard and Orders:

Orders and who receives them(and who gives them) are a funny thing. Depending on your overal army set-up the best way to use orders is either
A) by spending points on Vox casters in your Command and Infantry Squads, along with assigning Commissars to any squads that have them available, And finally adding a Lord Commissar to hang back with the units that cannot get Vox casters nor Commissars. This gives you Ld 9 rerollable on any Platoon Infantry Squads and Ld 8 rerollable on veteran Squads. However the Points start to add up quickly.
or
B) by spending Points on Creed and Kell. This gives you an army-wide Ld 10 for Orders, but costs you 175 Points just for the Special Characters.

Planning for orders is also planning for an infantry force. Always remember that while Command sections can issue orders from Chimeras, units cannot receive orders while inside transports. This means that Option A can quickly get pricey, and loses out on the all important second CCS. lets say you go for maximum Bodies and Weapons with Option A; this means that you are likely taking 2-3 Platoons with 2-3 Squads each and 2-4 heavy Weapons teams. That means that you are taking between 5-6 Vox Casters and 2-3 Commissars(assuming you intend to "blob"), Thats 25-30 points in Vox, and 70-95 points in Commissars plus the lord commissar to hang back with your HWS(so 70 more points) or 165-195 points just in making sure your orders get through. Plus you only have 3 Senior Officer Orders to issue and 4-6 Junior officer orders(which can be largely ignored) The Same Armystyle under Option B only costs 175 and adds an additional Senior Officer order slot, and an additional Senior Officer special Order.

When it comes down to selecting which order to issue you need to balance the pros and cons of the orders and your targets. Sometimes Fire on my Target is a better choice than Bring it Down, such as when the target tank/MC has Cover from your weapons(I only use Fire on my Target against Mech Orks with KFFs).

HWS; these are rarely worth taking. They are themselves cost prohibitive(by nature of their survivability), and in order to make them more survivable you need to take several with redundancy(adding even more to their cost-prohibitiveness). Without Creed and Kell they require a Lord Commissar to be near them, which both takes up a valuable HQ slot and ties the Commissar Lord to the Back row.

I use orders on the mechanized parts of my hybrid army by disembarking first.

For example, if there's a big tank headed for my lines and I need it dead, I'll drive the company command or a meltavet squad up to it, get the guys with the meltaguns out, and give them/selves the "bring it down" order. It works especially well when a CCS gives itself the order, since they are base Ld9.

I haven't tried this yet, but I can see "fire on my target" being a really good order to give a plasma squad (SWS, PCS or vets) when shooting through your own guys at approaching marines or monstrous creatures.

Don't worry about the leadership 8 on HWS. Officers get to put out multiple orders, so just do BID on HWS after doing other orders such on blod squads with a vox. Worst case scenario is orders don't go off, it's not the end of the world.

If you want 3 TL lascannons buy a vendetta. It doesn't cost that much more than a lascannon team, and has the added perk that it's a Vendetta that can carry melta vets.

As far as HWS go I'm a big fan of the AC squad. An AC HWS has the same point cost as a hydra, is a bit more fragile, but can easily gain cover saves and counts as a scoring unit. When BID goes off sucessfully the HWS has 50% more firepower than a hydra, when it fails the HWS has the same firepower as a hydra for the same point cost.

Actually in many cases the "fire on my target" order is slightly better than the "bring it down". Because normally vehicles have either smokes on, or are hull down or angled (for 3+ save) placed by a careful player. I am actually happy if I get the order "bring it down" to a better result than "fire on my target". And mostly I use that order on meltaguns, becuase I dont have HWT in my army

But sometimes melta on long range needs the bring it down to bring every possible shot to bear, because otherwise the risk of not penetrating at all is too high.