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The Honour guard have a sweet spot by being a free slot (one per hq), having a wide range of options and a built in priest. I have tried running them as a beat stick, low cost priest bubble/w BC, and most recently as a plasma guard. This last setup seems to be *imo* the best setup for them, they fill a role not readily apparent in the BA codex, a fast moving, cost effective ranged MEQ killer that can be small, survivable and annoying as hell (also only 25 points more then a plasma cannon dev squad + priest at the low end).

Currently considering setting up my lists to run two such squads (would that be the equivalent to crisis suits 0.o?)

But anyways how do you run your Honour Guard, what role do they fit in your lists and what tricks do you like to pull?

Skip honor guard and take MOAR DEATH COMPANY!!! Take the full 30 all with Thunderhammers and Jump Packs and make sure you keep a libby nearby for the 5+ inv. Its completely impratical but It'll be worth the look on your opponents face.

Why only 30? Take astro and field 180!

I did toy with mine ... Dante + 3 melta + flamer + priest. Deadly against tanks thanks to dantes 0 scater. Moreover hit n run speaks for it self as they can run from CC.

That is a interesting setup, I was considering Dante + 4 melta HG for some guaranteed tank popping.

Flamer for a hit and run on some soft cc targets? (i.e no pw?)

The flamer is there just to flame up some units that are way too close, and could Counter charge, but yeah mostlikely it is there just becouse i have one of my HG converted with HF from teminators...together its only 205 and gives you some options...

For PW i use dantes axe, but it might be good to chage flamer for some pw/pf... I think 4 meltas is a overkill, as dante has a IP, makes it 4 shots. 5th is just a lovely template

Oh just to mention , they are gr8 at eliminating MC's and mephiston, meph didnt live trough T2 when they droped , all shot (AP2) , dantes (-1W), and death mask (I1) than they consolidated in cover.

Next step might be, put a Lib with JP and blood lance in there, drop it right into the IG parking lot, just to see the fun, than droping some VV's to be able to clean whats left, while beeing in FC/SoS bubble, but thats just a tought...

Just a point of Order, but Dante can not curse Mephiston. That only works on IC's and Mephiston is not an IC.

much like MCs dantes power goes unused :(

Dante's Power mainly goes unused against Nids, and well ... Mephiston. 90% of armies have at least one IC in it.

The HG of my DoA army has 4 meltas or 2 meltas and 2 flamers.

LOL than i did something illegal...well again...

I've played them with two melta and two plasma, all plasma, with jump packs and in a rhino/razorback. I've found that cost wise it's geenrally better to field another unit of jump infantry. They are much more flexible and more resilient in CC. They only get half the special weapons but you have more bodies.

Keeping to the Blood Angels strengths...the Honor Guard is shooty. Yes its actually the only unit you ever want to be shooty since it can take as many meltas as it wants or flamers. Depending on your meta I'd outfit a squad of Honor Guard with 3 Meltas or 3 Flamers. In most cases its better to take 3 meltas. They can rip apart almost any vehicle. Also having one of them as a Blood Champion can be rather fun in case the Honor Guard gets to charge or gets charged. A FNP Marine with a Power Weapon is scary especially when the priest is not an IC. I would avoid giving them powerfists or any other upgrades and I'd avoid plasmaguns too because they are rapid fire which means they can't assault and shoot in the same turn.

I agree the BA is a strong punchy, but I disagree saying that BA isn't a shooty army.

The reason some people think BA are not shoot is due to the awesomeness as RAS as troops (even though they can take a razorback), lack of super shooty elites (even though we still get sternguard) and that's it. We are still the shootiest tank army of any SM and have the cheapest devastators

Blood Angles can be really shooty. We can take 6 AV13 tanks, all of which are Fast, and back them up with 6 fast Las/Plas Razorbacks.

I think Honor Guard exist to spam special weapons and provide a Chalice bubble. Outfitting them for CC strikes me as a terrible idea, as they don't have an invul save. You can give them Storm Shields, but then it gets expensive very quickly, plus they still only have 3+ armor.

One option nobody's mentioned: You can give each model a Flamer and a Meltagun. They come with a Bolt Pistol and a CC weapon, and the options say you can replace either with a Flamer, Meltagun, or Plasmagun for the listed points cost. It would be a pain to model, but a great way to add flexibility for minimal cost over the standard 4x Meltagun.

U still can fire one weapon at the time, so turn by turn you waste one shot either flamer or melta... correct me if i am worng

Well, the HG should be kept shooty as long as possible.
In this way, it can support units nearby with its free chalice.

BloodTzar wrote:U still can fire one weapon at the time, so turn by turn you waste one shot either flamer or melta... correct me if i am worng

Absolutely true. My point is that it only costs 20 points to give yourself the option of Flamer or Melta. Not a terrible use of points if you have a few to spare.

i am pretty sure i read the main rule book, but dont recall where it states that you can only fire one "type" of weapon per squad. could somewone explain the above posters post?

What he means is that a model can only fire one weapon per turn. If it has more than one, it has to choose which. So my plan to have each guy in the squad take a Flamer and a Meltagun means they can't fire both on the same turn. It's true, I'm just suggesting that having the option to choose which might be worth paying the 20 extra points for the Flamers if you're already taking the Meltaguns.

MrEconomics wrote:What he means is that a model can only fire one weapon per turn. If it has more than one, it has to choose which. So my plan to have each guy in the squad take a Flamer and a Meltagun means they can't fire both on the same turn. It's true, I'm just suggesting that having the option to choose which might be worth paying the 20 extra points for the Flamers if you're already taking the Meltaguns.

You could even pay the points for both and model them as flamer/melta combi-weapons... Hmm, 2nd edition dreadnought multimeltas had a variable focus and could be fired as multi-melta OR heavy flamer so that's not bad from a fluff perspective.

Like the melta/flamer idea, same cost as a plasma squad and very versatile. Pop a tank/terminator one turn next place some pain on a bunch of bugs. Nice!

I use them with a Cap and give all of them [Cap included] Jump Packs and Paired LC. It is real nasty when playing Planet Strike.

If you outfit them like that wouldn't it be worthwhile to run them as veteran vanguard instead for heroic intervention? But the priest is nice 0.o

I have yet to play test the unit, but 4 flamers and a razorback with a heavy flamer could be pretty intense. If you hit 4 terminators with each template, get 10- 12 wounds, you kill about 2 on average, which is pretty good going seeing they aren't designed for that role. The unit will be the end of ork mobs and marine units if you charge after shooting (tank charging and bunching them together could be better than firing the heavy flamer...). I'm thinking the chapter banner would be really useful, seeing as you going for the spam attacks rather than powerful attacks, and seeing that your going to be getting other units close to the unit for the fc/fnp bonus then other units will benefit from it. Putting a HQ with them will just make them a fire magnet and they won't be able to take the hits so well, even with fnp, and you'll just end up with a very expensive mess...

I go all out. Drop them in a pod, 3 lightning claws, 3 storm shields, one meltagun. I usually use the drop pod because I will add in a terminator librarian with a storm shield to the group, and the only cheap way to transport them is a pod. So I pod them in turn 1, make the enemy deal with them, and race to close the distance with the rest of my army. I've rolled well with them, and they are my best painted models, so I absolutely love them this way.