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Most people I've noticed just go with 3x meltas, stuff the poor guys in a chimera and turn them into a rolling anti-tank bunker. Thats all fine and dandy, but that can't be the only tactic out there. I've seen the same thing done with Valk/Dettas as well. I understand that at 100 points 3 meltas and shotguns makes a nice cheap assaulting unit, so I'm not surprised it's popular, but with almost any suggestion of vets I post, the counter point almost always seems to be melta vets.

I've seen some people use Harker with a heavy flamer and 2x flamers. I personally have a Harker squad with 3 snipers and an autocannon. Highly effective and would suggest most armies have this if you'd like a nice kick in your enemies side armor.

Other rare suggestions I've seen and enjoy are Forward Sentries on plasma vets. This can sit on an objective and be very hard to move.

A personal fav of mine is 3x grenade launchers, missile launcher and carapace armor. 130 points and rather effective against nids, orks and other guard.

One of the more interesting suggestions I've seen is Bastonne, carapace armor, a sniper, a plasma rifle, a heavy flamer and a missile launcher. Expensive, but could move independently, issue it's own orders and have a single special weapons effective against something if not multiple types of targets. Neat idea, though I don't know how effective that one would really be.

What are your suggestions and ideas for vets? Whats worked well for you?

-LoS

TheLordOfSins wrote:Most people I've noticed just go with 3x meltas, stuff the poor guys in a chimera and turn them into a rolling anti-tank bunker. Thats all fine and dandy, but that can't be the only tactic out there. I've seen the same thing done with Valk/Dettas as well. I understand that at 100 points 3 meltas and shotguns makes a nice cheap assaulting unit, so I'm not surprised it's popular, but with almost any suggestion of vets I post, the counter point almost always seems to be melta vets.

I've seen some people use Harker with a heavy flamer and 2x flamers. I personally have a Harker squad with 3 snipers and an autocannon. Highly effective and would suggest most armies have this if you'd like a nice kick in your enemies side armor.

Other rare suggestions I've seen and enjoy are Forward Sentries on plasma vets. This can sit on an objective and be very hard to move.

A personal fav of mine is 3x grenade launchers, missile launcher and carapace armor. 130 points and rather effective against nids, orks and other guard.

One of the more interesting suggestions I've seen is Bastonne, carapace armor, a sniper, a plasma rifle, a heavy flamer and a missile launcher. Expensive, but could move independently, issue it's own orders and have a single special weapons effective against something if not multiple types of targets. Neat idea, though I don't know how effective that one would really be.

What are your suggestions and ideas for vets? Whats worked well for you?

-LoS

I find it better to keep the SW all the same. All Plasma or all Melta. GL, snipers, H flamers and flamers are all a waste, IMHO.

I don't like HW in my Vet squads due to the fact I usually want them moving, not setting.

If you find the same replies over and over, maybe there's a reason. My suggestion is try different things out you've mentioned
and see how you like them. There are others on here that do give their Vets Special characters, and weapon options you mentioned(although never heard of Bastonne, carapace armor, a sniper, a plasma rifle, a heavy flamer and a missile launcher suggested!), but it's not my style. And since you can't "blob" them, keeping them safe in a Chimera seems obvious to me. They're
way to fragile, seeing they're still just IG with better BS!

But, no matter what, have fun. I'm not saying to buy everything to try everything, but proxying can be a great learning tool.

I use 3x plasma or 3x melta. Sometimes I use demolitions, and even more rarely I use carapace.

I basically always give them a chimera. The only time I would not give them a chimera is with harker.

I am with you on the vet squad. The reason I like the Guard and Vanilla Marines are their diversity. I had just posted the exact same vet troop kit out with the SRs and the AC earlier, and with Harker they are incredibly effective at range. Sure they can't stop a tank, but they can pop a transport or two before they can deliver their payload. It is kind of a matter of using the right paper,rock, and scissors combo appropriately.

The reason I think a lot of guys use vet squads the way they do is they're the best shots with the most SW choices. I just think a lot of players sell themselves short on options. I understand the arguement that it is a winning list, but it gets a bit old...

So, the reason you see vets equipped in the way they are and used the way they are is because that's the best way to use them. Most of their upgrades make them less worse at a role that they're still only so-so in, even after throwing all those points at them.

In the end, vet squads are just to fragile to be used as serious offensive units. They're great at cleaning up small or injured squads, or generally doing mop-up as an otherwise defensive army rolls forward at the end of the game, but they just don't have enough staying power to boldly go out and kick ass. I mean, there's a reason why the first thing you do after taking vets is to take a lot of long-rage shooting. Vets have lots of firepower, but they're not breaker squads by themselves.

Many of their upgrades exist to bring vets into a more offensive role, but none of them (except perhaps grenadiers, which is hideously expensive) address the real reason that they're not an offensive unit in the first place. Harker doesn't make vets offensive, because the reason vets weren't offensive to begin with has nothing to do with their lack of Move Through Cover or Relentless.

Without having some reasonable guarantee that they won't be just horribly gunned down once they're dismounted (forcibly or otherwise), like, say, any other 10-man guard squad would, there isn't a reason to move them forward into so much risk.

As such, people give them melta or plasma. It allows them to react defensively towards stuff driving towards them that makes it through a long-range fire gauntlet (which they do rather well), and then still have some killing power to handle whatever rabble is left towards the end of the game, either finishing off units, or reducing their threat level to the point where they can't reliably kill off a 10-man guard squad if given the chance.

Yeah

Basically it's about what role you want them to play in your army. Most people want lots of chimeras, troops that can move around and melta. Therefore most people take melta vets.

You can take all of your AT guns in heavy support so that you shouldn't need melta and then give vets plasma. That gets done every now and then, but melta is still probably a better choice for being so handy.

The argument that "it's the best way to take vets" is valid, but boring. That takes the fun out it. I recently read about a guy who now takes platoons but originally took all vets, mixed with russ', valkyries and artillery. He said it was hard using just vets, but this also added a challenging fun factor.

The one thing I've noticed that almost always gets over looked is Forward Sentries. Why? A +3 cover save is pretty hardcore. It makes you immobile space marines. lol Or mobile if you happen to find enough cover.

Carapace armor is another that seems to be heavily disliked, though a +4 armor save seems good against Boltguns and the like. Though I will agree it's expensive, it seems a good mix with plasma rifles as it'll help keep them alive and the rifles are great against SM.

What are good ways to field Bastonne? He seems over priced, but useful.

I like 3 melta/shotgun vets with Demo and a powerfist with Straken. Stick them in a vendetta. If the enemy goes first, well they have to deal with 3 Vendettas real quick, or if the enemy is too shooty you can reserve. If you go first, if the enemy does not reserve then you are assaulting with a whole lot of meltabombs, or if infantry a lot of s4 with s7 powerweapons after that.

DevianID wrote:I like 3 melta/shotgun vets with Demo and a powerfist with Straken. Stick them in a vendetta. If the enemy goes first, well they have to deal with 3 Vendettas real quick, or if the enemy is too shooty you can reserve. If you go first, if the enemy does not reserve then you are assaulting with a whole lot of meltabombs, or if infantry a lot of s4 with s7 powerweapons after that.

That's an illegal build. No wonder it's so nasty.

Straken is for the CCS only. He can be near by though.

Sorry, when I said with straken and 3 vendettas, I ment 2 units of aformentioned vets with straken as the 3rd unit in the middle of them.

DevianID wrote:Sorry, when I said with straken and 3 vendettas, I ment 2 units of aformentioned vets with straken as the 3rd unit in the middle of them.

Very good sir. Straken makes a fairly squishy vet unit into badasses (for a round at least) rather quickly.

Throw in Nork and a preist and your hardcore!

TheLordOfSins wrote:The one thing I've noticed that almost always gets over looked is Forward Sentries. Why? A +3 cover save is pretty hardcore. It makes you immobile space marines.

... until the first flamer comes by or you wind up in close combat. Forward Sentries is a far cry from power armor.

Or until the first thunder fire cannon rips you without your ability to use cover.



My vets are the basic style, I have two squads with three meltas (one with demo doctrine) and one with three plasma guns and a plasma pistol (a lord commissar with plasma pistol roles with them). All three squads in a chimera. I run those three with a penal legion squad in most 2000 point games.

In larger games, I have a squad with Harker, three melta , and demo doctrine. They are fun to infiltrate and find something to take out. If I don't use the melta, then, it is three sniper and another heavy bolter. I like that set up and works fine enough.

If you do run vets, the down side is you don't win by numbers. You have to think about what you will do with them and how to keep them safe but able to do some damage.

Much like the Airborne List that the Vets are often part of, they're a glass hammer. Lots of firepower and very effective, but fragile.

Now as far as using forward sentries and going against flamers or thunder cannons, this is a common threat with guard since they're known for digging in. But that doesn't make forward sentries ineffective. Against standard weapons, thats still a +3 save followed by a +5 save. Thats something.

I just feel that vets could be run in different ways as long as your smart about it. I know they're not termies, I just feel they're more versatile then how people are using them, which is why I made this. People are using them in different ways, it might not be as effective as a Russ/Chimera rush with all melta vets, but it's different.
A nice part of this game is fluff and friendly games, not just competition.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you put Harker and his squad into a Valk/Detta, does it get infiltrate too? Deep Striking counts as a 12 inch move, so you can only fire a single weapon. But not if you infiltrate. Think of a Vendetta dropping in and being able to use all 3 TLLC's and dropping in Harker and something like 3 plasmas or meltas with demolitions. That would hit HARD!

TheLordOfSins wrote:Much like the Airborne List that the Vets are often part of, they're a glass hammer. Lots of firepower and very effective, but fragile.

Now as far as using forward sentries and going against flamers or thunder cannons, this is a common threat with guard since they're known for digging in. But that doesn't make forward sentries ineffective. Against standard weapons, thats still a +3 save followed by a +5 save. Thats something.

I just feel that vets could be run in different ways as long as your smart about it. I know they're not termies, I just feel they're more versatile then how people are using them, which is why I made this. People are using them in different ways, it might not be as effective as a Russ/Chimera rush with all melta vets, but it's different.
A nice part of this game is fluff and friendly games, not just competition.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you put Harker and his squad into a Valk/Detta, does it get infiltrate too? Deep Striking counts as a 12 inch move, so you can only fire a single weapon. But not if you infiltrate. Think of a Vendetta dropping in and being able to use all 3 TLLC's and dropping in Harker and something like 3 plasmas or meltas with demolitions. That would hit HARD!

Vehicles cannot benefit from Infiltrate, but they can Outflank with Infiltrator infantry.