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Hello all.

First post so be kind please.

I am running a Guard Army (2000 points) and I dearly wish to include Al'Rahem for some outflanking fun, I plan to put a couple of squads in Chimeras with a flamer/demo sws in close support to intercept attackers. Because this is a costly build what are my options for the rest of my force, realistically will it be gun line or can the remainder force still advance? Normally without Al'Rahem I run two IF Platoons, one to hold the home objective and the other to advance with the armour (LR etc) to take the middle ground. If I take out a platoon to outflank, I then can't cover and advance with just one platoon, I will not haven sufficient numbers.

So what can I do what would you do?

Thanks

Take creed and harker, so you can have some outflanking armor for your outflanking platoon+vets.

do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it


jokes asides, the rest of your force will probably be a gunline, waiting for the other platoon to show up. I think some armor and arty will be musts in that gunline too. I'm not a guard player though, but I do love the idea of creed+Al'Rahem

It can be pretty funny to outflank an entire platoon.. Don't forget that your regular infantry guys can take Chimeras, so you can load them all up and have 6 outflanking chimeras busting through the enemy back lines!

You probably want an Officer of the WhateverLetsYouRerollOutflankAnd+1ToReserves if you're planning on putting that many eggs in the basket...

if you do rahem:

1. give his squad and his platoon squads in chimeras
2. take officer of the fleet, and an astropath
3. enjoy the look on your opponent's face.

Welcome to Dakka! As to your question. Yes Al'Rahem can be great fun and make your opponent fear the idea of an entire platoon coming on from one of the board edges thus forcing them to rethink their setup and overall strategy.

Make the platoon as large as you possibly can. I have had a proxy Al once and ran a 50 man blob, 3 HWS and 20 conscripts from the outflank and had a nice pincer effect from the armor and footsloggers. Ah, the look on my opponents face was totally worth it when 70+ models show up on his flank was totally worth the obscene amount of painting required. Good times, good times.

-cgmckenzie

Al'Rahem + Astropath is a great force multiplier for a 30 man power blob hedged with meltaguns. You can bring those meltaguns into range a lot faster than walking accross the board. And at his cost, he's very reasonable in 1500pts or less. Do it!

To play both sides, Al'Rahem is good but not great.

What does he do... well first there is outflank. Very nice, but it comes with a drawback, in that he MUST outflank.

Second, he comes with some nice orders, mainly Bring it down, and he of course can have 4 meltaguns in his squad.

Third, and this is kind of a surprise at times. His power weapon is instant death dealing. So if you chuck him into certian units, like Mephiston, there is a chance that mephistons 5 attacks will not get to Al'Raheem, and then you get a string of good numbers and roll a 6 to wound. A 1/6 chance seems crappy, but really its the best thing the IG have in CC versus stuff like that.

Now for the bad. He is very expensive, and many games you dont want him to be outflanking. In addition, Al'Rahem is not unique in his ability to outflank. Everyone runs vendettas in competetive play, and they can outflank meltavets. So, Al'Raheem is not the only way to deliver outflanking melta in bulk with a good chance to hit.

Next is the outflanking blob idea. In many a game it is a good idea, however like before its not only something he does. For about the same points you can take Creed, who gives you the ability to scout one unit, whose orders go 24 inches out, and whose special order for furious charge is far better than Al's fleet+shoot order for blobs.

Creed's scout is so much better than Al's must outflank rule its not funny... I mean, you can simply start your 50 man squad on the board for example and take a free 6 inch move before the game starts if you get first turn.

For me, Al'Raheem is not worth it. The points spent on him are sometimes wasted when you dont want him outflanking and instead want all your firepower on the board at the start, PLUS both Creed and Vendettas allow for optional outflanking of units, creed costing about the same as al'raheem, and vendettas already being included in most lists.

DevianID wrote:
Third, and this is kind of a surprise at times. His power weapon is instant death dealing. So if you chuck him into certian units, like Mephiston, there is a chance that mephistons 5 attacks will not get to Al'Raheem, and then you get a string of good numbers and roll a 6 to wound. A 1/6 chance seems crappy, but really its the best thing the IG have in CC versus stuff like that.

This is pretty much the funniest way to kill heroes without eternal warrior as guard. There are many things you can snipe with Al'Rahem, but you will likely take heavy casualites. i.e. I had one time Al'Rahem kill the Avatar of Khaine after managing to wound him once...

To further talk about the instant death weapon, against poor tyranids models like tervigons, tyrannofexes, and mawlocks that only get a few attacks anyway, they cant deal 5 wounds in 1 go and you hit them on 3's.

Thanks for the feed back everyone.

I have been thinking about taking Creed for outflanking some Demolishers which sounds brutal but they would be very exposed to the responding CC units charging in without any support. In addition, I like heavy armour on the field making opponents chose which LR to take out, having one outflank makes such a choice easier. Some Hellhounds could be good but I don't have the points for them.

I am trying to minimise my use of vendetta/valkyrie, though maybe one would be wise. I don't see the point in outflanking harker in a Chimera because it costs almost the same as a Valkyrie. This leaves Al'Rahem, expensive, yes but the idea sounds good. Making the opponent make poor choices is half the battle; an outflanking platoon will cause anyone to make difficult decisions. Do they commit all their forces to the attack and thus leave the back field exposed or does the threat of outflankers mean that more of their forces will be kept back to defend the back field but in doing so blunt the attack. Also if you line up all of your forces on your table edge (especially with IG) you are going to get in your own way and limit fields of fire.

I am relatively new to gaming though, so alot of my thoughts are theory rather than grounded in extensive experience.

Thanks again.

I have had that problem, not having enough deployment space, with a 1500 footsloggers list. I find it gets a bit easier when you put in some armor and chimeras, but it isn't quite as impressive as 100+ figures staring you down.

-cgmckenzie

That must be rule number one, what ever looks cool is a must.

Yeah, but looking cool isn't that great of a shield against things like earthshaker canons and terminators behind your lines.

-cgmckenzie

That is the good thing with foot guard, there will always be more boots to take their place. Seriously though, I like a bit of variety and of course, tanks are number one cool.

Check out Ailaros's battle reports. The guy does foot guard. A lot. There were a few games he played around with Al'Rahem. Might give you some inspiration.

http://www.ailarian.com/folera/batreps/index.html

I normally run him in my standard list, usually with a 20 man power blob with meltaguns, and then he has a chimera with 3 grenade launcher guys. Swapping those out for more melta guns would probably be a better use of him, but mine works 'good enough' for the amount of points I'm spending.

Also, I played around with the list below at one point. It always worked pretty well for me before I moved on to trying to do assaulty guard.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/302922.page

Thanks for the links mate. I have been thinking about my army list at work for too long now (must do some work), shall I shall I not. Not wanting to copy, but an Al'Rahem platoon outflanking in Chimeras with a Vendetta overhead (one twin liked LC can still pop a transport) can not be missed.

Thanks all.

If you are not running max vendettas, then you have a much better option than Al'Rahem in my opinion... scout sentinels. For 105 you get 9 scouting multilasers, who can charge with s5, and are more or less immune to damage versus a lot of units in assault.

For example, say you charge a long fang squad. He has 6 krak nades, needs a 6 to hit, a 4 to glance/5 to pen. Your 3 sentinals, after shooting 9 s6 shots and swinging 6 s5 attacks into them have a good chance of winning combat. Lootas simply lose, as they can never touch you. Lots of things will just get locked down for a long time.

I run 6 scout sentinels in my 'Halo' themed very comp friendly guard army, and they are constantly the MVP...

I like Sentinels as well; I know they are not seen as the best choice but I like a couple of Sentinels with ML + HK, outflanking with 4 strength 8 shoots is always happy times. However, Al'Rahem would still be my first choice, scoring and more damaging. Al'Rahem with supporting Sentinels = yes.

OK KEEP IN MIND THIS LIST IS A WORK IN PROGRESS, and still needs a lot of play testing. But the idea is a full turn 2 list. Everyone will outflank with exception to the hydras.

Take 2ed player every game. let your opponent start rolling in reserves faster then you, if they don’t have reserves watch them scramble to set up counters. They have a choice to ether sit in a 3 way AC cross fire, split there force or castle up. Ether way it will be hard on a lot of armies out there.

You are still going to have a hard time with TWC and some ork armies, as it still has a lot of work left to do on it. but I think it’s a good place for some one to start and it might help out you out with a set up for Al'Rahem. any how here it goes:

CCS + melta x 4
90

CCS + melta x 4 + astropath
120

ST + melta x 2
95

ST + melta x 2
95

PCS+Al’Rahem+plasma x 4
Chimera ML/HF
215

IS + Melta + auto cannon
Chimera ML/HF
125

IS + Melta + auto cannon
Chimera ML/HF
125

IS + Melta + auto cannon
Chimera ML/HF
125

IS + Melta + auto cannon
Chimera ML/HF
125

IS + Melta + auto cannon
Chimera ML/HF
125

SWS + melta x 3
65

Vendetta
130

Vendetta
130

Vendetta
130

Hydra x 2
150

Hydra x 2
150

Ok, with an outflank list, we must be aware of certain things. First off, flexibility, you need to design your list that it is not over dependent on any one thing because it may not get there till turn 5 or could end up on the wrong side even with the re-roll. Also we must consider durability, if you get caught, can you take a hit, we guard win by attrition when we go foot heavy. I call it more then you can possibly kill strategy, we come in piecemeal we must be prepared to weather the storm. Just some general thoughts that might help, as for what to take, proxy a few games with friends against a number of diff lists and see what makes you have fun.

Oh I agree 100%, and I don’t feel this list will hold up in tournament play it still needs a lot of work. TBH I don’t like to field any named characters in the IG codex. But I thought It may be fun to build an IG 2ed turn list, and since I put the ground work in to it I thought I may let someone else knock there head on it for a while.

Sorry to open the post again but I had a thought, would outflanking storm troopers be a good alternative to Al'Rahem. I know that hot shot las's are not the best but are alot better than normal las guns, plus the carapace armour will help them live longer. I want them to outflank in chimera not to deep strike simply because I think it look cool.

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

Stormtroopers are not part of the infantry platoon and cannot outflank via STE.

-cgmckenzie

Storm Troopers can outflank, though. Which is why they were brought up as an alternative to Al'Rahem. (P46, IG codex. Special Operations)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, to the question, ST are better for Deep Strike and zap then outflank. Al'Rahem works as an outflanker because he brings an enormous amount of pressure to one board edge with scoring units. ST don't do that.

True but IF platoon can only carry one SW, apart from the PCS the real damage will come from the chimeras (heavy flamer). A few las guns will not dent much. Yes, there will be fewer storm troopers but hot las's are better and they carry two SW with a higher BS. Old question really, quantity over quality.

My bad, I read that as you were taking them with Al.

-cgmckenzie

No worries mate.

last man standing wrote:True but IF platoon can only carry one SW, apart from the PCS the real damage will come from the chimeras (heavy flamer). A few las guns will not dent much. Yes, there will be fewer storm troopers but hot las's are better and they carry two SW with a higher BS. Old question really, quantity over quality.

Umm. Yeah, you're not too familiar with my standard Al' setup.

PCS 3x Melta, Al'Rahem in a Chimera (ML/HF)
IS Sgt with PW/MB, Commissar with PW, Meltagun
IS Sgt with PW/MB, Meltagun
IS Sgt with PW/MB, Meltagun (Optional)
Priest with Eviscerator (Optional)
SWS with 2x Melta and Demo (Optional)