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 jifel wrote:
Yeah Guard are absolutely drowning with options. But, because of the Catachan doctrine, I think Plasma Cannon sponsons are better on their tanks, (especially with Harker) as well as all HF tanks, Manticores, Manticore Batteries, Earthshakers, and more. Harker+Catachan is strictly better than Cadian + tank order for me. But, the Cadian Relic/Stratagem does make that much trickier...

The Doctrine allows you to re-roll the number of shots for blast weapons.

If I have an Executioner with Plasma cannons. Do I get to re-roll the 1D6 (Each time the main gun fires, assuming it moves under 1/2 speed) and each of the D3 shots from the plasma cannons?

Because if so, oh yeah!

Razerous wrote:
Do I get to re-roll the 1D6 (Each time the main gun fires, assuming it moves under 1/2 speed) and each of the D3 shots from the plasma cannons?

Yes.

Yeah I reroll 1 per weapon. That's why the fireball punisher is so mean.

 Colonel Cross wrote:
For real, decisions decisions. I need to play a lot of games just to test out different doctrines to see what are most fun.

Same. I'm really liking the variety of options in them.

Out of interest, has anyone had any luck getting into melee with S4+ Catachan infanty?

I seriously tried a melee force. Granted it was against death guard. I still won, but only because our tanks are beasts now. Even fighting against T3 poxwalkers my Catachans barely did anything.

S4 is a nice bonus, it can help put wounds on some vehicles (5's instead of 6's) but even if you lean into it with Straken and Priests etc you're still not going to hit hard enough, and with enough attacks to get close to anything like Berzerkers or Stealers.

Plasma cannon sponsons are nice but LRBTs are still pretty flimsy and they cost a lot. I'd go for more tanks before any sponsons.

I agree. The double firing battle Cannon is actually worthwhile now. No reason to spend points on expensive plasma sponsons. More tanks! More tanks! I do like Lascannon on my tank commanders though. Then attack with my regular Russes. Which would you rather allow to live? A Catachan fireball punisher advancing on you or a tank Commander sitting back in the corner with a hull Lascannon? Exactly. Tough call. PS - track guards are worth it on the fireball Russ. So worth it!

With Catachan rerolls it feels like every tank is firing 10 Battle Cannon shots.

I just realized how good tallaran tanks would be deep striking in. All with flamers.

Orders: Move 6inches before of after shooting. Move up. 3 Heavy flamers. Then fire. (I use demolisher cannons).

Man I love guard. Still not sold on tallaran or vahallan for the shadowsword. Deep strike and turn 1 protection. OR the thing never degrading....

 rhinoceraids wrote:
I just realized how good tallaran tanks would be deep striking in. All with flamers.

Orders: Move 6inches before of after shooting. Move up. 3 Heavy flamers. Then fire. (I use demolisher cannons).

Man I love guard. Still not sold on tallaran or vahallan for the shadowsword. Deep strike and turn 1 protection. OR the thing never degrading....

I can see 2 fireball demolishers and a las/melta working well. Use the +1 order stratagem to order both forward to flame, then you still get bs3+ meltas from the commander.

I'm curious as to how many characters you guys include in your armies?

I ask because many of my lists tend to include quite a few, almost by default, and I'm wondering if I'm making them too top-heavy.

I'm particularly interested in how you measure out stuff like Company Commanders and Commissars (assuming you use them at all). Do you like to have enough orders to cover every squad, or do you rely on just ordering a couple of key squads each turn whilst the others fend for themselves?

Also, what about other support characters like Primaris Psykers, Astropaths and Tech-Priests. Do you use them at all? If so, how many do you think is enough?

Low end is probably 4-5 characters. I think I've had about 10 at one point though one you count priests and the like.

I normally keep all or most of my units covered with orders. The last one I came up with that I haven't run yet has 8 / 12 covered. That's low for me, but I was going to let some of those infantry squads be sacrificial.

I am planning on fielding 10 characters in a 1500pt game.

Granted that includes 3 assassins and 3 very cheap astropaths.

So with Catachans I started trying out the banner in a vet squad with a Lascannon.

Catachans get +1 Leadership with an officer within 6" and then another one for the banner. I haven't needed commissars since. Basically, if you take any more casualties then a Commissar isn't going to matter much then anyway. As long as my special weapon and heavy weapon stay put I'm happy.

 More Dakka wrote:
S4 is a nice bonus, it can help put wounds on some vehicles (5's instead of 6's) but even if you lean into it with Straken and Priests etc you're still not going to hit hard enough, and with enough attacks to get close to anything like Berzerkers or Stealers.

Plasma cannon sponsons are nice but LRBTs are still pretty flimsy and they cost a lot. I'd go for more tanks before any sponsons.

Use regular infantry squads in the double bubble instead of conscripts. Every Sargeant will turn into a roided out beast with 4A s8 ap-2 D3 damage if you buy them a 10 point power fist. 6 squads at 300 points will pump out 24 of those power fist attacks plus 162 regular s4 attacks.


https://youtu.be/qaU5YMC907A

Doctoralex wrote:
So, what do you people think of Tauroxes?

They dropped by 15 points, making them one of the cheapest transports in the game at 70 points while still rocking two Autocannons.

I think with the Tallarn doctrine, they can work quite nicely.

Only downside is that they don't come with Smoke Launchers (transports tend to advance and make us of them) and can't be upgraded with any of the new vehicle upgrades.

I really like mine. It's actually garnered a fair bit of hatred at the store, as it seems to be really lucky for some reason. The "party bus" as it's known tends to make at least 1 big play a game. I'm heavily considering getting one or two more. It doesn't hurt I really like autocannons even if they're a bit expensive, that consistent 2 damage per hit adds up. Add in the fact that they're stupid fast and theyre my melta delivery system of choice (aside from valks of course)

I'm toying with an idea for a list mainly focusing around a full squad of melee bullgryns. Taking the catachan regiment and giving a priest the heiloom dagger that allows him and the bullgryn to outflank in from reserves, or for a more costly approach stick them in a stormlord and rush up the board.

9 S8 bullgryns should be able to tackle T8 vehicles and just be a murderhouse on whatever they charge.

Do they cap out at 9 or is it possible to take 10? The only issue with having them outflank is I can't reliably run an astropath or other support characters along with them. I really want to start using my bullgryn more and the dagger allows me to not rely on bringing a baneblade as much.

Bullgryn aren't going to get +1S for being in a Catachan detachment.

And the dagger only works on <regiment> units.

vipoid wrote:I'm curious as to how many characters you guys include in your armies?

I ask because many of my lists tend to include quite a few, almost by default, and I'm wondering if I'm making them too top-heavy.

I'm particularly interested in how you measure out stuff like Company Commanders and Commissars (assuming you use them at all). Do you like to have enough orders to cover every squad, or do you rely on just ordering a couple of key squads each turn whilst the others fend for themselves?

Also, what about other support characters like Primaris Psykers, Astropaths and Tech-Priests. Do you use them at all? If so, how many do you think is enough?

I run infantry guard a lot and bare minimum I have 6 at 1000pts/ 50pl, usually it's two company commanders and a commissar per "batallion" which in my case is what a platoon used to be. That being said, I'm about to start including priests and primaris pyskers as well. They're incredibly cheap for the utility they give to an infantry army and it feels like a no brainer to include them. If I do that, the amount of characters I have goes up to 9 minimum, and I often throw in a couple of extra commissars for redundancy and counterattacking because I own like 15 of them. Goal is to pick up some Tech priests as well as I'm slowly picking up more russes. Even just a single tech priests with a few russes in the back field can be handy, especially if you have Valhallan tanks.

Our characters are just all so good I have a hard time justifying not bringing them. Plus it's really cool to see these small "command squads" form as usually your commissar, commander, priests, and pyskers will fight near one another and form small units. They're surprisingly handy to repulse assaults as well, a lot of the players in my area have learned to respect these roving groups of characters packing powerfists and weapons. They're not dropping something like an Imperial knight but if they get the charge on things like Beserkers, Genestealers, or Harlequins they can put out enough hits to actually do a fair bit of damage in a pinch, especially if you have an infantry squad or two move in to help them.

Colonel Cross wrote:So with Catachans I started trying out the banner in a vet squad with a Lascannon.

Catachans get +1 Leadership with an officer within 6" and then another one for the banner. I haven't needed commissars since. Basically, if you take any more casualties then a Commissar isn't going to matter much then anyway. As long as my special weapon and heavy weapon stay put I'm happy.

I've been noticing this too. Between your officers and standards there's not much point to bringing commissars with Catachans unless you're running conscripts for whatever reason. LD 9 on guardsmen pretty much guarantees morale losses are rare.

schadenfreude wrote:

 More Dakka wrote:
S4 is a nice bonus, it can help put wounds on some vehicles (5's instead of 6's) but even if you lean into it with Straken and Priests etc you're still not going to hit hard enough, and with enough attacks to get close to anything like Berzerkers or Stealers.

Plasma cannon sponsons are nice but LRBTs are still pretty flimsy and they cost a lot. I'd go for more tanks before any sponsons.

Use regular infantry squads in the double bubble instead of conscripts. Every Sargeant will turn into a roided out beast with 4A s8 ap-2 D3 damage if you buy them a 10 point power fist. 6 squads at 300 points will pump out 24 of those power fist attacks plus 162 regular s4 attacks.


https://youtu.be/qaU5YMC907A

Infantry squads can't bring powerfists, that would be vets. Granted that's only 10 points more for the squad, and you get +1 Bs, so its not the end of the world, but I'd prefer to use regular infantry squads for that as well. That said, running a bunch of Catachan vet squads with powerfists and weapons like flamers and meltas with Straken and Priest support would be a really fun list. I feel like it'd work best for outflanking or ambushing (something you can't really do sadly) but if you brought enough of them I don't see why it would be impossible. My primary trick has been Catachan Company Commanders with power fists. Nobody expects the damage they can do, especially if they get the charge off. Everything else I really just see as a bonus and not something to build a list around, but fists on the commanders has so far been mandatory in my experience. For such a paltry amount of points it can really bail you out of a bad situation.

 jifel wrote:
And the dagger only works on <regiment> units.

Not unless there's been an errata. You only have to take a <regiment> unit if the character himself has a <regiment> tag. Either send a Commissar, a Priest, or a Bullgryn Bodyguard with the dagger and he can bring Bullgryns.

 argonak wrote:

 jifel wrote:
And the dagger only works on <regiment> units.

Not unless there's been an errata. You only have to take a <regiment> unit if the character himself has a <regiment> tag. Either send a Commissar, a Priest, or a Bullgryn Bodyguard with the dagger and he can bring Bullgryns.

Ah just reread that, you are correct... Hm very interesting. That's actually a good way to use Bulgryn.

 jifel wrote:

 argonak wrote:

 jifel wrote:
And the dagger only works on <regiment> units.

Not unless there's been an errata. You only have to take a <regiment> unit if the character himself has a <regiment> tag. Either send a Commissar, a Priest, or a Bullgryn Bodyguard with the dagger and he can bring Bullgryns.

Ah just reread that, you are correct... Hm very interesting. That's actually a good way to use Bulgryn.

Yep. I think it'll work really well for Crusaders too, as they'll be getting their acts of faith movement afterwards so have surprising mobility.

Ahh damn, just saw that auxilla don't benefit from doctrines. Damn.

Well, at least we can outflank with them now.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

I run infantry guard a lot and bare minimum I have 6 at 1000pts/ 50pl, usually it's two company commanders and a commissar per "batallion" which in my case is what a platoon used to be.

Out of interest, what else do you include in your 'platoons'?

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
That being said, I'm about to start including priests and primaris pyskers as well. They're incredibly cheap for the utility they give to an infantry army and it feels like a no brainer to include them. If I do that, the amount of characters I have goes up to 9 minimum, and I often throw in a couple of extra commissars for redundancy and counterattacking because I own like 15 of them. Goal is to pick up some Tech priests as well as I'm slowly picking up more russes. Even just a single tech priests with a few russes in the back field can be handy, especially if you have Valhallan tanks.

Well, this makes me feel a lot better about the number of characters I use - especially in my own infantry army.

The one thing I'm curious about is the priests - even for a relatively low cost, are they really that useful?

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

Our characters are just all so good I have a hard time justifying not bringing them. Plus it's really cool to see these small "command squads" form as usually your commissar, commander, priests, and pyskers will fight near one another and form small units. They're surprisingly handy to repulse assaults as well, a lot of the players in my area have learned to respect these roving groups of characters packing powerfists and weapons. They're not dropping something like an Imperial knight but if they get the charge on things like Beserkers, Genestealers, or Harlequins they can put out enough hits to actually do a fair bit of damage in a pinch, especially if you have an infantry squad or two move in to help them.

That's true, though I'm often wary of sending my commanders into battle unless their platoon has been all but wiped out.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

I've been noticing this too. Between your officers and standards there's not much point to bringing commissars with Catachans unless you're running conscripts for whatever reason. LD 9 on guardsmen pretty much guarantees morale losses are rare.

Might be for the best. Don't Catachan Commissars have an unusually high accident rate?

I'm thinking about my army, and here's a rough draft of a competitive Catachan Brigade. It's based on maximizing blasts and the harker re-rolls, while also brining some of the IG's greatest hits, like plasma scions and smite spam. I included the ratlings to deal with support characters like ancients.

Catachan Brigade:
Primaris
Primaris
Primaris
Company Commander, Plasma Pistol, Power Sword
Company Commander, Plasma Pistol, Power Sword

Ratlings x5
Harker
Astropath
Astropath

Infantry Squad, Plasma Gun, Plasma Pistol
Infantry Squad, Plasma Gun, Plasma Pistol
Infantry Squad, Plasma Gun, Plasma Pistol
Infantry Squad, Plasma Gun, Plasma Pistol
Infantry Squad, Plasma Gun, Lascannon
Infantry Squad, Plasma Gun, Lascannon
10x Scions, Plasma x4
10x Scions, Plasma x4

Scout Sentinel, Heavy Flamer
Scout Sentinel, Heavy Flamer
Hellhound, heavy flamer
Hellhound, heavy flamer

Leman Russ, Battle Cannon, heavy bolter
Leman Russ, Battle Cannon, heavy bolter
Leman Russ, Battle Cannon, heavy bolter
Manticore, heavy bolter
Manticore, heavy bolter

I'm a little worried that there isn't a lot of fast movement, although everything but the manticores and the las/plas squads can move without a big loss in efficacy. I'm not sure I have enough hard hitting anti-armor, but that's oddly a weakness for the IG.

It's not a very fun list to face, but I think it'll play reasonably quickly (no conscripts), and has some staying power.

One thing I think is pretty overlooked are the Plasma Special Weapon Squads.

45 Bolt Pistols (Tallarn Doctrine) gets you 19” average movement with orders, increasing threat range from 43” single shot, to 31” rapid fire.
If I start them at 12” from an edge, I can single tap just about anything on the field and double tap immediate threats.

Cadian Doctrine for defensive gunline (based on meta) if you go against aggressive enemies.

330 Bolt Pistols (2 CC and 6 SWS) gets you 18 plasma guns

Throw in a Girlyman or Yarrick for rerolls.

I’m currently running 8 of them with Harker in my Catachan list, 24 plasma shots plus my Stormtrooper plasma/melta…

Polonius,

I think if you drop 1 of your sentinels you can probably move your Scions into their own battalion with a tempestor and a Primaris Psyker. Probably shuffle your squads a bit to squeeze in 3 squads and +3 CPs ... I'd say it would be worthwhile to consider. Those extra shots on 6s plus a tempestors orders and extra CPs are probably worth it.

And I have found the sweet spot, at least in my local meta to be about 60 guardsmen and no less than 3 Lascannon in my lists. I've also moved to Basilisks with Catachans since that -3ap is what I'm looking for. Personal preference really. With Catachan doctrine the Manticore probably does very well with a free reroll per.

Oh, random question - what powers do you guys take with your Astropaths and Primaris Psykers?

 Polonius wrote:
I'm thinking about my army, and here's a rough draft of a competitive Catachan Brigade. It's based on maximizing blasts and the harker re-rolls, while also brining some of the IG's greatest hits, like plasma scions and smite spam. I included the ratlings to deal with support characters like ancients.

Spoiler:

Catachan Brigade:
Primaris
Primaris
Primaris
Company Commander, Plasma Pistol, Power Sword
Company Commander, Plasma Pistol, Power Sword

Ratlings x5
Harker
Astropath
Astropath

Infantry Squad, Plasma Gun, Plasma Pistol
Infantry Squad, Plasma Gun, Plasma Pistol
Infantry Squad, Plasma Gun, Plasma Pistol
Infantry Squad, Plasma Gun, Plasma Pistol
Infantry Squad, Plasma Gun, Lascannon
Infantry Squad, Plasma Gun, Lascannon
10x Scions, Plasma x4
10x Scions, Plasma x4

Scout Sentinel, Heavy Flamer
Scout Sentinel, Heavy Flamer
Hellhound, heavy flamer
Hellhound, heavy flamer

Leman Russ, Battle Cannon, heavy bolter
Leman Russ, Battle Cannon, heavy bolter
Leman Russ, Battle Cannon, heavy bolter
Manticore, heavy bolter
Manticore, heavy bolter

I'm a little worried that there isn't a lot of fast movement, although everything but the manticores and the las/plas squads can move without a big loss in efficacy. I'm not sure I have enough hard hitting anti-armor, but that's oddly a weakness for the IG.

It's not a very fun list to face, but I think it'll play reasonably quickly (no conscripts), and has some staying power.

I want to have a go at Catachans soon. I can't copy this entirely (mostly because I lack some of the vehicles), but I might well use this as a guide to get me started. I hope you don't mind.

 RegulusBlack wrote:
One thing I think is pretty overlooked are the Plasma Special Weapon Squads.

45 Bolt Pistols (Tallarn Doctrine) gets you 19” average movement with orders, increasing threat range from 43” single shot, to 31” rapid fire.
If I start them at 12” from an edge, I can single tap just about anything on the field and double tap immediate threats.

Cadian Doctrine for defensive gunline (based on meta) if you go against aggressive enemies.

330 Bolt Pistols (2 CC and 6 SWS) gets you 18 plasma guns

Throw in a Girlyman or Yarrick for rerolls.

I’m currently running 8 of them with Harker in my Catachan list, 24 plasma shots plus my Stormtrooper plasma/melta…

I actually used some SWSs in an Armageddon list I made recently:



The only reason I'm not using more SWSs is because I want to fit some commanders in the transports as well (hence 2 of them having Veteran squads instead).

The final Veteran squad will outflank along with the dagger-commander.

I'm definitely going to try a heavy Bullgryn list. 20+ Bulls, a Primaris with the dagger to ambush a big unit, and a Bodyguard with the Deathmask to tarpit. All vehicles and scions with them.

It's nasty, but since it's Guard that's redundant.

Keep in mind for my advice I do not play in a very competitive meta, so I actually tone down my lists. I don't take intentionally bad ones, but I do try to tone down things like plasma spam. For example, I no longer run conscripts. Not because they're bad or anything, but because they make the game far too easy and no one at my store has the tools to fight them. So you'll see me talk about things like having to counter charge because I don't have a cheap conscript screen to eat the charge in the first place.

#1

Typical "platoon" looks like this

X4 infantry squads. Usually a 50/50 autocannon/lascannon and plasma, bolter. If I have models voxes as well
X2 company commanders, loadout varies depending on doctrine. Cadians tend to have things like bolters and plasma pistols, Catachans will have Powerfists, etc.( I use 2 right now because I have a mixed regiment and need 2 HQ's per batallion. Once I get more stuff painted this will probably be dropped to 1)
X1 command squad with a standard. Loadout varies, but I traditionally give them short ranged weapons like meltas or flamers and use them to counterattack. Heavy weapons and plasma make them too much of a target.
X1 commissar with at least a power weapon, sometimes a fist depending on my mood.
X1 vet squad with a ride and close quarters weapons like shotguns and meltas with a heavy flamer. Tauroxes are good assault vehicles while Chimera s work better for counterattack.

Sometimes I run heavy weapon squads against newer players and remove my heavy weapons from the infantry squads so new players can learn target priority. Other than as mortar/heavy bolter platforms I really don't care for them, way too fragile. I've also considered special weapon squads but normally find myself just taking vets instead.

#2 additional attack per astra militarum model. He doubles your CQC effectiveness of your base infantry for barely the cost of a squad, but the main reason you bring him is to buff characters. Having him roam around with a bunch of commissars and officers and he makes them way more scary on the charge. Not only that, he's thematic and it just looks cool to see them running around. This leads into number 3

#3 Guard characters are way nastier than their cost would suggest in close combat. I've seen even 2 or 3 face down an enemy squad for a turn and hold a flank to win a game, and they can often kill their cost in enemy models in my experience. Usually this is a desperation tactic but it is a handy trick to have especially for the objective card missions. Some require killing things in CQC and since I don't own Ogryn or Crusaders theyre my next best option. They're no khorne beserkers or anything, but usually what happens is say something like genestealers charge in and crush the first line. You pull back survivors, fire into the genestealers point blank, and then realize there's still a few standing. You can't allow these units to survive because they'll wreck another unit or tie up tanks, so your only option at that point is a counter charge. Nobody really expects IG to take the fight to them so usually they're in easy charge distance for you too. Even if you don't kill the target, you've stolen his initiative, meaning that he's tied up going into his turn and he doesn't get to charge you. This doesn't work against superheavies or jump units obviously but against things like genestealers and Beserkers it can mean the difference between a turn 3 win or a turn 4 loss. Keep In mind I usually end up in this situation because I don't run conscripts.

#4 Accidents? Catachans can't help it if Commissars don't need their advice Although I have one commissar I run with mine, he's earned the right to fight with them after all of the dumb things he's taken on in assault and won