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I'm currently building an Elysian drop troop army and it so I've been looking at ways to get demolition charges onto the field in lieu of an ambundance of heavy weapons. The codex doesn't really leave much scope for demo charges; restricting them to veteran squads and special weapon squads (and guardsman Marbo), and while the drop troop army list in Imperial Armour 8 makes them more readily available they are in all instances prohibitively expensive. Do you feel they are overpriced or is there some application I've not considered that qualifies their cost?

A largeblast, S8 AP2 is overpriced?

No. Really, it isnt. Hurts vehicles, heavy troops, the lot. And given Veterans also get meltabombs in the price makes it cheap in my book!

They are S8 Large Blast.

That's why they are expensive!

... So your complaining about a large blast with str8 AP2, that is also assault? It cost that much because its stupidly powerful. Throw a unit with 3 in your skimer drop them out and remove an enemy unit.

Not really a YMDC issue so...

...Shazam!

Sure, sure, S8 AP2 large blast, but that's not looking at the whole picture though is it. They're also one-shot weapons with a 6" range.

Their usefulness as AT weapons is dubious when you consider a meltagun is half the price, has twice the range, the same strength, unlimited uses, AP 1 and, obviously, the 'melta' special rule. What's more, if you're within 6" of a vehicle you've got a decent chance against it by throwing in an assault, even with only frag grenades. So I honestly don't think their usefulness in this role is really worth a mention.

Heavy troops however may be another matter. Do you really find them worthwhile against Space Marines and the like? Wouldn't a plasma gun be more effective; being able to reach out to 24" and rapid fire? What tactics can you use with demolition charges that could not be better fulfilled by cheaper alternatives? Tri, I quite like your application but I feel 195 points to potentially inflict severe casualties on a single unit is too much and can be accomplished by more economical or efficient means; like a Demolisher or even a Basilisk if AP3 is enough for the job.


EDIT - Thanks, Alpharius.

No, they're not over priced.

Compare a 3x demo SWS in a chimera (that they're borrowing from someone else) to a regular russ.

The russ has the potential to shoot more than three times a game (but remember, all you need to do is shake it...) and gives you range and better resistance to long-range guns.

The demo team can shoot all three shots in a single round, and is scoring.

In fact, I think I would almost always rather have the demo team in this case, given that they cost the same.

Demo packs are great. Most people probably think they wont do much but even if they do attack them it would get attention away from other things probably more important like melta vets or artillery. Once they reach their range, bombs away!

Plus Marbo has so much fun with it! Always fun to attempt instant killing a marine captain

Ailaros wrote:Compare a 3x demo SWS in a chimera (that they're borrowing from someone else) to a regular russ.

The russ has the potential to shoot more than three times a game (but remember, all you need to do is shake it...) and gives you range and better resistance to long-range guns.

The demo team can shoot all three shots in a single round, and is scoring.

When you put it like that it does sound more appealing - The unit could potentially snatch last minute objectives (assuming they don't destroy themselves). I'm not blown away by their use as an offensive unit though; it's a bit of a one-trick pony and the liklihood they'll actually reach their target to deliver those demo charges is far less assured than battlecannon shells slung over the field from your deployment zone.

It seems to me mounted demolition teams are too inflexible to justify their cost beside units like the aforementioned Leman Russ - Once a Russ has done enough damage to an enemy unit to send them running from the field, or otherwise render it combat ineffective, it's free to spend the remaining turns firing on other targets. One shot in the first turn could potentially be enough to achieve that.

So far I've not heard anything to make me fall in love but I think you've demonstrated why they can't really be made cheap.

kenshin620 wrote:Plus Marbo has so much fun with it! Always fun to attempt instant killing a marine captain

Hey, you! Catch!


My only complaint about them is that they're an option for an infantry platoon, but they're not viable in a foot list. I haven't had my SWSs unduly picked on over the time I've played with them, but I've also never fielded them with demo charges before. Also, if an SWS is that close, so is a power blob. The idea of killing my power blob out of charge range, or worse, hitting the blob itself doesnt' seem like a good idea to me.

Well this is interesting. I have a friend who plays elysians pretty much exclusively and he has a demo kit in practically every squad he takes and deep strikes with. Lets just say my space wolves haven't won a game.
Given the fact you can take so many and deep strike them all it is quite worth the points.
Given dice rolling this army can decimate elite based lists and throw in a couple of vendettas with three twin linked lascannons and your gold against, say bw orks.
Overall I think they are at the point cost they deserve to be. Our group of friends in general ,however, believe that so many demo kits is cheesy and the tau player especially can think of no situation were the elysians didn't have the upper hand.
It's a little different for regular guard but hey forge world has some interesting takes on alternate army's.

Lethargic Ulfur wrote:Well this is interesting. I have a friend who plays elysians pretty much exclusively and he has a demo kit in practically every squad he takes and deep strikes with. Lets just say my space wolves haven't won a game.
Given the fact you can take so many and deep strike them all it is quite worth the points.
Given dice rolling this army can decimate elite based lists and throw in a couple of vendettas with three twin linked lascannons and your gold against, say bw orks.
Overall I think they are at the point cost they deserve to be. Our group of friends in general ,however, believe that so many demo kits is cheesy and the tau player especially can think of no situation were the elysians didn't have the upper hand.
It's a little different for regular guard but hey forge world has some interesting takes on alternate army's.

Huh. And there was me thinking Elysians would make for a weak list. Despite being an expensive list and an expensive upgrade I guess deep strike and demo charges work disproportionately well in combination.

I'm pretty sure that's the case. Take a few and you'll probably be disappointed more often than not. This boils down to redundancy I suppose. Take several units of the same thing for the same job and they'll get it done for sure. I just can't count the times my rhino has been shot up or the elysian squad deep strikes perfect and the demo kit takes out more than half a squad of grey hunters. Very interesting unit and still trying to figure how to effectively fight against it without going to ground in cover lol.

Demolition vets get a demo charge+ Melta bombs dirt cheap.

30 points for a demo charge and 10 melta bombs is dirt cheap. Seeing as how a melta bomb in the hands of a guardsman is every bit as likely to hit as one in the hands of a space marine, and marine armies have to pay 5 points per bomb the package deal is priced very low.

schadenfreude wrote:Demolition vets get a demo charge+ Melta bombs dirt cheap.

30 points for a demo charge and 10 melta bombs is dirt cheap. Seeing as how a melta bomb in the hands of a guardsman is every bit as likely to hit as one in the hands of a space marine, and marine armies have to pay 5 points per bomb the package deal is priced very low.

Absolutely. Everything about Veteran squads is superb. They'd make infantry platoons redundant if heavy/special weapon squads could be taken as a different unit choice.

Tom Norman wrote:

schadenfreude wrote:Demolition vets get a demo charge+ Melta bombs dirt cheap.

30 points for a demo charge and 10 melta bombs is dirt cheap. Seeing as how a melta bomb in the hands of a guardsman is every bit as likely to hit as one in the hands of a space marine, and marine armies have to pay 5 points per bomb the package deal is priced very low.

Absolutely. Everything about Veteran squads is superb. They'd make infantry platoons redundant if heavy/special weapon squads could be taken as a different unit choice.

Regular infantry are there for very cheap mass flashlights, or holding objectives. Vets tend to die because they have cool toys, and their cool toys gets them into the thick of the action against an enemy that sees a trio of BS4 melta guns as a threat. 50 point squads on the other hand get onto an objective and go to ground, possibly for a 2+ cover if they have the dig in orders. Being "stuck" buying 2 regular infantry squads isn't a bad deal in an objective based game, and in a KP game they are just 1 more KP as a combined squad in an already bloated KP army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Vets are probably the single best overall unit in the IG codex, but due to the aggressive nature of melta vet tactics they can't be counted on to survive to be an objective taker.

Tom Norman wrote:

schadenfreude wrote:Demolition vets get a demo charge+ Melta bombs dirt cheap.

30 points for a demo charge and 10 melta bombs is dirt cheap. Seeing as how a melta bomb in the hands of a guardsman is every bit as likely to hit as one in the hands of a space marine, and marine armies have to pay 5 points per bomb the package deal is priced very low.

Absolutely. Everything about Veteran squads is superb. They'd make infantry platoons redundant if heavy/special weapon squads could be taken as a different unit choice.

ehh? why do you want ether of those? specials squads good for demo charges and flamers, Heavy weapons squads aren't really all that good for anything. Vets on the other hand are BS4 and can also take 3 special weapons. The infantry squad has one thing going for it and that is Killing 20-50 people is damn difficult; at only 100-250pts +35pts for the com. and you have a unit that won't move and is unlikely to be pinned or fall back.

Right. Infantry platoons are there to act like troops choices. Veterans exist to act like elites choices that score. They have very different roles - the existence of one does not somehow make the other redundant.

We're going off topic here but I like the way this discussion is shaping up so I'll join you.

Tri wrote:

Tom Norman wrote:Everything about Veteran squads is superb. They'd make infantry platoons redundant if heavy/special weapon squads could be taken as a different unit choice.

ehh? why do you want ether of those? specials squads good for demo charges and flamers, Heavy weapons squads aren't really all that good for anything. Vets on the other hand are BS4 and can also take 3 special weapons. The infantry squad has one thing going for it and that is Killing 20-50 people is damn difficult; at only 100-250pts +35pts for the com. and you have a unit that won't move and is unlikely to be pinned or fall back.

Because if you took veteran squads in place of infantry squads you might be hard pressed to use them in an ad-hoc offensive capacity seeing as they'd be your only scoring units. You could use vehicles but that would make your handful of scoring units the only infantry models on the table; thus subjecting them to the full measure of your opponent's anti-personnel fire.

schadenfreude wrote:Regular infantry are there for very cheap mass flashlights, or holding objectives. Vets tend to die because they have cool toys, and their cool toys gets them into the thick of the action against an enemy that sees a trio of BS4 melta guns as a threat. 50 point squads on the other hand get onto an objective and go to ground, possibly for a 2+ cover if they have the dig in orders. Being "stuck" buying 2 regular infantry squads isn't a bad deal in an objective based game, and in a KP game they are just 1 more KP as a combined squad in an already bloated KP army.

Vets are probably the single best overall unit in the IG codex, but due to the aggressive nature of melta vet tactics they can't be counted on to survive to be an objective taker.

Just because a veteran squad has more options it doens't mean you have to use them. You can spend an impressive 295 points on a single veteran squad if you really want to but when you put those ten men next to a bog-standard 50 point infantry squad it'd be clear you got a little over-excited. They don't have to be the fire magnets you think they do. Why can't they fulfil the same role as infantry squads? If six scoring units is insufficient then fair enough but otherwise you're just paying an extra 20 points for an infantry squad with improved ballistic skill. If that unit is going to be sitting on an objective shooting all game then that's points well spent in my opinion.

I think every one would agree that vets shouldn't be taking any where near 200pts ... 100-155pts max ... I would also say that simply because you can have 3 BS4 meltas they're worth taking 2-3 squads.

If they get to the end of the game, bonus; if not then no biggy. Thing is it would be stupid to only have them as simply taking a platoon gets you 25 more guard for only 130pts; thanks to that extra platoon you have more then enough scoring units.

Now since you've got a platoon, you might as well get 1-2 special weapons teams with demo charges; 95pts in a valk means you can ether drop them off early (Turn one alpha strike) or keep them back till later in the game to help move a stubborn unit that’s sitting on an objective (thus also getting a scoring unit to it).

I'm not saying melta vets have to suicide, I'm saying they are damn good at dangerous tasks. Anytime guardsmen get into melta range things get dangerous for the guardsmen. Melta vets, especially those in Vendettas are built to be the vanguard of an IG army. 100 point squads of guardsmen (130 with demolitions) with weapons meant to be used at a range under 6". Melta vets are many things, survivable is not one of them.

If an IG player is playing with 6 squads of vets chances are 4 of them will be sent on dangerous melta missions. That leaves the IG player with 2 remaining troops, and if the battle starts to go bad for the IG the remaining melta vets might need to be thrown at the enemy. A single infantry platoon can free up melta vets of their responsibly of holding objectives as 2 infantry squads, a PCS with 4 flamers, and 2 autocannon heavy weapon teams=5 more scoring units.

IG scoring units are fragile, even more so when they get into melta range or start chucking demolition charges.

schadenfreude wrote:If an IG player is playing with 6 squads of vets chances are 4 of them will be sent on dangerous melta missions. That leaves the IG player with 2 remaining troops, and if the battle starts to go bad for the IG the remaining melta vets might need to be thrown at the enemy. A single infantry platoon can free up melta vets of their responsibly of holding objectives as 2 infantry squads, a PCS with 4 flamers, and 2 autocannon heavy weapon teams=5 more scoring units.

IG scoring units are fragile, even more so when they get into melta range or start chucking demolition charges.

This is precisely the point I was making - If you could take special/heavy weapons squads as a separate unit choice then infantry platoons would become redundant. I never said they were redundant the way things are. Unless you're a bit of a Chenkov I don't think you really need 800 guardsmen to play the army effectively. If you were able to take special weapons squads independently of infantry platoons they would be able to fulfil an expendable close range offensive role, while independent heavy weapons squads could dig in and shoot the whole game. This is essentially the way infantry platoons work.

All I was ever saying is that Veteran squads are superb - They're infantry squads with a wider variety of options; opening up greater flexibility. Even if you don't load them up with doctrines and plasma guns, the option's there to give them a couple extra flamers for clearing entrenched enemy units off of objectives. Or if you assign them to an objective closer to your board edge then you might want to give them a trio of sniper rifles or grenade launchers. The additional cost provides a disproportionate increase in firepower.

veterans do not make infantry platoons redundant. You don't need infantry platoons in order to play guard effectively, but neither do you need veterans to play them effectively either.

While you can do the same amount of damage of vets with PCSs and SWSs, there is no possible way that vets can hold an objective like a 30-dude power blob. The only real advantage of vets is cost (because you don't also need to take PISs), and compactness (the entire troops choice easily fits in a chimera or vendetta).

These are useful differentiations compared to infantry platoons (which is why there are so many viable vet-based lists), but they don't replace platoon's rugged durability by a long shot.

Ailaros wrote:veterans do not make infantry platoons redundant. You don't need infantry platoons in order to play guard effectively, but neither do you need veterans to play them effectively either.

While you can do the same amount of damage of vets with PCSs and SWSs, there is no possible way that vets can hold an objective like a 30-dude power blob. The only real advantage of vets is cost (because you don't also need to take PISs), and compactness (the entire troops choice easily fits in a chimera or vendetta).

These are useful differentiations compared to infantry platoons (which is why there are so many viable vet-based lists), but they don't replace platoon's rugged durability by a long shot.

Slightly off topic, but how many infantry squads can you buy in a single platoon? Is it still up to 5 squads, like the old codex? (apologies if this is obvious, I'm a touch rusty on my guard-fu)

S_P

Space_Potato wrote:

Ailaros wrote:veterans do not make infantry platoons redundant. You don't need infantry platoons in order to play guard effectively, but neither do you need veterans to play them effectively either.

While you can do the same amount of damage of vets with PCSs and SWSs, there is no possible way that vets can hold an objective like a 30-dude power blob. The only real advantage of vets is cost (because you don't also need to take PISs), and compactness (the entire troops choice easily fits in a chimera or vendetta).

These are useful differentiations compared to infantry platoons (which is why there are so many viable vet-based lists), but they don't replace platoon's rugged durability by a long shot.

Slightly off topic, but how many infantry squads can you buy in a single platoon? Is it still up to 5 squads, like the old codex? (apologies if this is obvious, I'm a touch rusty on my guard-fu)

S_P

Yup up to 5 infantry squads.

Ailaros wrote:veterans do not make infantry platoons redundant. You don't need infantry platoons in order to play guard effectively, but neither do you need veterans to play them effectively either.

While you can do the same amount of damage of vets with PCSs and SWSs, there is no possible way that vets can hold an objective like a 30-dude power blob. The only real advantage of vets is cost (because you don't also need to take PISs), and compactness (the entire troops choice easily fits in a chimera or vendetta).

These are useful differentiations compared to infantry platoons (which is why there are so many viable vet-based lists), but they don't replace platoon's rugged durability by a long shot.

Well I guess that's a telling difference of play styles. I would prefer my Elysian army to represent elite, well-equipped light infantry whose loses in the field are both keenly felt and irreplaceable, whereas more conventional guard armies lend themselves rather more to the principle of meatshield spam. I guess because that play style doesn't suit me I'm keen to explore the alternatives.

My best experience is the good ol' 10 khorne beserkers move within 12 of my 6 man guardsmen squad. I move 6 BAM remove 10 khorne beserkers.


Points made back. Kill what is it, ONE? beserker to get 20 points back. I think killing 4 - 5 of them is well worth it.

I wouldn't say that Veterans act like elites. They act like damage dealing units, while Platoons tend to act more like support units. Mech IG works becuase it's made of cheap, dangerous, scoring units.