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Hi all I will soon be purchasing a Warhound Titan and I am thinking of what to use as a rear guard. Any thoughts? I was thinking maybe a Platoon or two of Imperial Gaurd.

Why would you want a rear guard? It does nothing to block shooting.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:Why would you want a rear guard? It does nothing to block shooting.

The idae behind getting the rear gaurd is to protect against any unit that out flanks or deep strikes into a postion where they could assualt or attacke within the void shield.

Use a squadron of Russ, I would recommend Punishers with Lascannons, to tackle any hordes such as Orks with Hidden Klaws, or vehicles with the Lascannons.

Deadshot wrote:Use a squadron of Russ, I would recommend Punishers with Lascannons, to tackle any hordes such as Orks with Hidden Klaws, or vehicles with the Lascannons.

Not bad. i hadn't though of using tanks. thanks.

I'd recommend the normal Russes myself, probably going to have more of a chance of wounding the Orks than the Punisher will. But, a force of them would make a nice escort.

In fact, IIRC you can mix Russes in a squadron, so take a Punisher for dedicated Anti-Horde, an Executioner for anti TEQ, and a Normal one for anti MEQ and tanks, as well as little horde.

Punishers are bloody awful for hordes...actually, they're bloody awful for everything. I would use a blob Guard squad as a rearguard: More manuveurable, and can protext better against flank assaults. Also, use the Disruptor Beacon asset, which can screw up enemy Deep Strike tactics.

Valkyrie wrote:Punishers are bloody awful for hordes...actually, they're bloody awful for everything. I would use a blob Guard squad as a rearguard: More manuveurable, and can protext better against flank assaults. Also, use the Disruptor Beacon asset, which can screw up enemy Deep Strike tactics.

Whats this blob gaurd squad and this disruptor beacon sounds very handy.

Correct me if I am wrong.


IG can take an infantry platoon as a single troops choice consisting of 0-1 Command Squads of 5 men and an optional commissar, 0-2 Infanrty squads of 10 men, 0-2 Heavy weapons squads, 0-1 SWS, and 0-1 Conscript squads of 30-50 guys. Taking that is, IIRC, a blob squad, because they all just sit next to each other and stuff.

Valkyrie wrote:Punishers are bloody awful for hordes...actually, they're bloody awful for everything. I would use a blob Guard squad as a rearguard: More manuveurable, and can protext better against flank assaults. Also, use the Disruptor Beacon asset, which can screw up enemy Deep Strike tactics.

Battle/Demolisher cannon against hordes: 4 models under the template, 2+ wound, 4+ cover = 1.66 kills. Executioner gets 3 models under the template, 2+ to wound, 4+ cover = 3.7 kills. Punisher shoots 20, hits 10, wounds 8.3, kills 4.15. Now I'm making assumptions in favor of the other tanks. I'm assuming the hordes are too big to scatter off of (which usually reduces their accuracy by about 50%), and that your opponent was lazy and casually clumped models (which he never has to do). The problem with blast templates is that their damage potential is so small if your opponent isn't an idiot. He never has to place them within 2" of each other, virtually negating small blast templates (1.5" radius), and a Rhino will always give you cover, whether living, wrecked, or exploded.

Deadshot wrote:Correct me if I am wrong.


IG can take an infantry platoon as a single troops choice consisting of 0-1 Command Squads of 5 men and an optional commissar, 0-2 Infanrty squads of 10 men, 0-2 Heavy weapons squads, 0-1 SWS, and 0-1 Conscript squads of 30-50 guys. Taking that is, IIRC, a blob squad, because they all just sit next to each other and stuff.

You're wrong. 0-1 Command squad of 5 men plus optional commisar 2-5 Infantry squads of 10 men, 0-2 Special Weapons Squads, 0-5 heavy weapon squads, and 0-1 conscript squads of 20-50 guys. The only thing that can be blobbed is the 2-5 infantry squads, everything else must be independent.

Anyway, as for rearguards, I wouldn't waste my time. I admire you for giving it that much thought, but given the nature of most apoc games, it won't be useful to you. Whatever your rearguard is will be wiped off the field, or will be entirely ignored.

0-2 Infanrty squads

It should be 2-5 with a mandatory platoon command squad. You can then "blob" the 10-men infantry squads in one or more huge groups of 20, 30, 40 or even 50 guardsmen, counting as a single unit for every purpose. Give them a Commissar each, add power weapons on commissars and sargents and some special weapons (and heavy weapons if you want your titan fixed in position as a backlines base of fire; avoid them if you want to use it as a ram to open up enemy lines, with your infantry following behind) and you get a massive unit, capable of effectively tarpitting every enemy infiltrating or dsing unit. With 40 or 50 men you can block non-deathstar units for almost the whole game, while small (10 or 20) groups without commissars will be swept away in the enemy turn, leaving the aggressors exposed to the wrath of your titan full firepower in your subsequent turn. Spread them out behind your titan to make life difficult for enemy deepstrikers, but you may want to avoid keeping them bunched up, or, if your enemy deepstrikes multiple small units, your blobs could be multiassaulted and locked in combat by some of them, while the others could freely make their move against the Titan.
In addition, you could leave some of your blobs and/or a CCS with camo cloacks using orders on itself to go to ground for maximum cover save to hold the objectives you clear with your titan's march.

Anyway, consider the option of a multi-layered assault (if you run a pure IG apocalypse army), with blobs at the fore and back, covering the advance of (and avoiding charges to) a rumbling wall of steel , in the form of the various LRBT variants, followed by the imposing form of your Titan(s).