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So, I was just going through some thoughts for a future guard list, and stumbled on this idea. Ladies and gents, I give you lascannon spam!!!

CCS, PW, lascannon

PCS, lascannon
PIS, PW, meltagun, lascannon, commissar with PW
PIS, PW, meltagun, lascannon
PIS, PW, meltagun, lascannon, commissar with PW
PIS, PW, meltagun, lascannon
HWS 3x lascannons
HWS 3x lascannons

PCS, lascannon
PIS, PW, meltagun, lascannon, commissar with PW
PIS, PW, meltagun, lascannon
PIS, PW, meltagun, lascannon, commissar with PW
PIS, PW, meltagun, lascannon
HWS 3x lascannons
HWS 3x lascannons

for 1500 points

1850 adds...

HWS 3x lascannons
HWS 3x lascannons
HWS 3x lascannons

and a master of ordnance to the CCS.

Now, in case you missed it, that's 32 lascannons in the 1850 point list. Sure, basically all of them are getting cover saves, but still, assuming half hit and half are stopped by cover, that's still 8 lascannons per turn going through to the wounding or rolling to penetrate every turn, and that's assuming no passed FoMT orders, and that ALL of the lascannons dish out cover saves. Realistically, we're looking at 10 infantry models dead per turn, which practically makes this an anti-horde setup (plus, there are FRF lasguns and power blobs waiting), and this would tear through terminator and any vehicle list like kleenex in a snot party. Heck, it would even handle MC spam pretty well.

The only real problem I'm seeing so far is that I'd have to friggin buy all the lascannons, but as I'm going to need to get more anyways for a more conservative form of this list, I'm thinking of just going all-out.

Crazy, or crazy good?

I'm sorry, but you won't tear through hordes. At that sort of points a horde army would be putting down 100 plus troops. 10 per tern is not going to scratch them.

Change a few of them for heavy bolters or some form of anti-horde, and that's somewhat viable. Electro's right, though. Horde armies will chew you up and spit you out. Also, you have to realise that as soon as you get into close combat you're no longer getting the lascannons from those squads. That being said, any mech armies that you go up against will wet themselves.

You won't be able to fire 8 of those lascannons most of the time but if you're willing for your blobs to remain stationary throughout then I would say it's worth spending 15 points giving company commander and the blobs voxes to make sure they're twin-linked.
A while ago I experimented with taking a stupid amount of lascannons in HWTs, I think I had about 25 lascannons at one point. Was pretty much what you'd expect, they died quickly and vaporised light armour, but I seriously struggled against enemy infantry.
One thing I will say is don't rely on lascannons to penetrate AV14, as any guard player will tell you.
I usually have a great deal of respect for what you say on these boards but claiming that lascannons are anti-horde is...out of the box, shall we say.

Joey wrote:I usually have a great deal of respect for what you say on these boards but claiming that lascannons are anti-horde is...out of the box, shall we say.

Exactly my feelings too on both accounts.

Surely autocannon or even missile launcher spam would be better anti-horde? And much cheaper?

What I don't get are the meltaguns. Your army is static so you can fire all your lascannons, and with so many I can't see many (if any) vehicles getting to your lines. Where you have a potential problem is infantry hordes (green tide being the most obvious but there are others) so why don't you go for flamers instead?

That way as soon as they get close you can move up and get a lot of auto hits to reduce their numbers, hopefully enabling you to get through the CC quicker and get back to shooting. Plus the points you save could get you a MOO at 1500 for more shooting and maybe a fleet officer to mess with any enemy reserve shenanigans at 1850.

Good luck with it anyway if you try and build it

The flamers are actually a great idea. That could really work.

So, everybody here is missing something. While there are 32 lascannons, there are also 48 lasguns, and 72 bayonets in power blobs with 12 power weapons.

The lascannons killing 10 infantry models a turn is just the prelude for firing off 120 lasgun shots at 12", and then grinding whatever is left to a pulp in close combat. I've yet to lose a power blob to a horde unit, and I can't imagine I would after the gauntlet they'd have to run.

This list totally has enough anti-horde.

As for the melta, yeah, the idea is that in most cases the ultra blobs would be spending turn 1 and perhaps 2 (depending) shooting lascannons, and then spend the rest of the game as regular power blobs. Yeah, it's basically 160 points for a set of weapons that's only going to shoot once or twice, but it seems to me that 8 lascannon hits are rather likely to make those points back on the first couple of turns.

As much as I admire your playing style, I have to say this does not seem to be a good list. You count with massive lascannon fire, but HWTs are not going to last long. Single S6 wound which goes through cover can route the whole HWTsquad (about 42% to fail the morale). 1500 points is quite a big number and you are going to stand against a force that could possibly deal with all of yours HWTs in the first two rounds of shooting in many games. Not to mention that your 12 LCs in 4 teams are not likely to cause any havoc. Probably 6 hits, 3 going through cover, not all of them pens, few of them shaken or stunned....not much given the fact your LCs are not going to shoot many times.

As for anti-infantry firepower you can not count with 48 lasguns firing about 120 shots at 12". You have 4x20 unit. There is no chance all of them will be in range. Not even half (full two blobs) will probably (on many occasions) be in range because of the spacing you have to keep between the guys to avoid blast carnage. And hordes will eat you. (1500 points - Not a problem to field 150+ orcs...)

What am I trying to say is that (in my opinion) you do not have enough firepower for 1500 points game. It is not your fault, its just that the regular guardsmen do not have good firepower. I strongly suggest to support them with something.


Even though I do not think this is a strong army, I really wish you all the luck with this list (because, hell I like the looks of that army in my head ). It would be nice if you try it in a few games and write a series of battlereports (you can write quite good reps ). I would really love to see (read) that army in action!

I agree that anti-horde is not the issue in general, although Green Tide style lists might be, since 20 Shoota Boyz on the charge (which is likely due to Waaugh) will kill about 18 Guardsmen, not counting any shooting. So, 120 points of Orks can roughly grind down a 40 man blob.

I disagree, though, that any vehicle based list will get destroyed. As you point out, you can expect about 8 Lascannon shots to make it through cover. Against AV13, that's only 2.66 pens and 1.33 glances a turn. My 1850 list has 8 AV13 vehicles in it. 6 of them are Fast, and each of them throws out 4 shots that can ID a HWS. The other two are Blender Dreads. You could shoot at my 4 Razorbacks instead, but that pretty much guarantees the Furiosos reach your lines.

I'd give you the benefit of the doubt against me, because you are a far more experienced player and I believe you'd outplay me. However, in more competent hands, I wouldn't like your chances. Obviously, anything that spams Land Raiders could be a problem too, although the typical cargo would not enjoy charging a Powerblob.

In a tournament, though, I like this. It seems like it would handle SW and GK really well, and have decent chances against Venomspam DE.

Ailaros i feel as though the HWS will be shot off the board way too soon.

I think the way you have played blob guard previously has taught us what is more effective in these kinds of lists.

I feel that instead of using the HWS you should use the points for some LRBT's. As can be seen in your well documented exploites, they will put out less fire power but they can sustain their damage output for longer.

For example, You are very close in the 1500 point list to having 6 exterminators (or vanilla LRBTs). Perhaps instead you could reduce the numbers of the tanks and add some lascannons to their hulls. say 4 LRBTs and 4 h.ull lascannons... food for thought maybe

I wonder, if Ailaros is such a respected and knowledgeable IG player... Is he just trolling?

I would LOVE to play against any IG player with that many HWTs.

With my IG, 2xautocannons blobs, LRBTs and Vendettas would quickly eliminate almost one unit a piece per shooting phase. So, those 32 lascannons get drastically reduced to just the 8 lascannons in the blobs. The only issue my IG would have with this list is figuring out what to do with my meltaguns..

With my Nids, outflanking genestealers would tie up most of the HWTs, unless they were bubble wrapped by the lascannon blobs. At which point, the genestealers would mulch the 20 man strong units in two rounds of CC, then take some lascannon fire to the face and lose a couple before charging the HWTs. Hell, I could probably win with just those and give his list a 500pt handicap..

My Vanilla Marines, may have some trouble with the list, but that all depends on how my Sternguard perform when they land. Not having anything to combi-melta, I would probably put the shots into the HWTs. Then, they would most likely get mulched in the next shooting phase. With nothing but infantry though, I could splatter all those guard with frag missiles from my Devastators and hope my Tactical Squads stay in one piece large enough to get in close to use their flamers and combi-flamers before being annihilated. But then again, compared to most of the newer codices, Space Marines are kinda lagging..

At least for the 1850 list add some chimeras and put your HWTs in there. There, they will be at least somewhat protected from Strength 6+ shooting and from CC.

It's kind of funny. I think that this list would do quite well, at least with the opponents I face. That said, I wouldn't expect this to fare very well in a super competitive standpoint, but a lot of armies are like that. If I could suggest any changes it would be to remove the lascannons from the PCS (even though it goes against the whole lascannon spam idea) and re-equip them with 4 flamers each. At least that way you have cheap units that do wonders to discourage enemy assaults against some of the HWS

orkboy232 wrote: If I could suggest any changes it would be to remove the lascannons from the PCS (even though it goes against the whole lascannon spam idea) and re-equip them with 4 flamers each. At least that way you have cheap units that do wonders to discourage enemy assaults against some of the HWS

I agree. Not only would the flamers help out against hoard units but it also means that your command squads can hide and give orders until they have a higher priority job. In my experience the best way to neuter blob guard is to cut its head off ASAP.

Run your HWS as LC x 2 + ML, that way you can wound alocate and costs an even 100pts.