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So, I was combing over my codex again and I noticed something. For the price of Straken, you can take Kell and a power fist upgrade for the senior officer.

At first, the two look really similar. Straken gets fearless, but kell gets more attacks and the +1 resolution and reroll of the standard (and the line between a CCS taking enough casualties to run away and enough to just get wiped is pretty thin). Straken gets a 3+, but Kell brings more wounds. Straken gets 4 at-initiative power fist attacks, but Kell & Co, get 5 power fist attacks with the option of converting 2 of them to power weapon for +1 more. Given that Furious Charge isn't doing a lot to the CCS, as there aren't many goobers in the squad and Straken already wounds practically everything on 2's, they look like they're actually about the same in close combat, just comparing the CCSs.

I guess then it's a matter of the buffs. Straken gives everyone nearby countercharge, which I've scarcely ever found useful - really it's a 12" Furious Charge bubble. FC, when it works, is pretty neat, but it has the problem of firstly being very situational (you have to get the charge in with a non-fast unit), and secondly, it only lasts one turn. FC is practically necessary for small elite units that lack staying power (like khorne berzerkers, say), but for a 30-man power blob?

Of course, if we're looking at Kell, he's only useful to said power blobs in one circumstance - when you've chosen to break a commissar and the squad survives its sweeping advance. In that case, Kell makes sure that the former blob passes a get back in the fight order, but how often is this really going to happen? Obviously the primary purpose of Kell is to make up for the fact that HWSs can't take voxes. The jump in order reception for HWSs justifies the cost compared to taking another HWS, and HWSs obviously also greatly benefit from having a standard nearby. Is this really the only use for Kell, though? On the one hand, this special character allows the CCS to double down on its primary function as a support unit, but is that really worth it?

I suppose the problem I had with Straken the handful of times I was using him came from the fact that, running around like a mini-CC-deathstar, he quickly outstripped his orders bubble with big chunks of my army. In short, Straken was a good CC unit, but he was a terrible officer, something which Kell fixes while also bringing CC power of his own.

So, other than wondering if taking Kell by himself is all that worthwhile in the first place, I'm also wondering if Kell is a reasonable (or even superior) substitute for Straken as far as bringing close combat punch, while also being a good support unit.

Some very interesting points made. You should play test the idea and post your results

Peace Out!
Jonny!

I honestly never looked at Kell. I always asumed he was something you only take with Creed. I will have to take a look at Kell myself and see, especially since I use Straken with power blobs a lot.

Why not both? Talk about a deathstar...

I like straken more, because in addition to s6 attacks, he has 2d6 armor pen right? (or am I misremembering)

Also, Straken + bodyguard means you can allocate a few wounds away for free. You can really save your Kell if you take a hit.

I never liked Straken that much. Sure he's a pretty good killing machine in the right circumstances, however, he's stuck in that little HQ Company Command Squad; which kind of bends over in a subtle breeze out in the open. Eventually those Barrage weapons are going to find their mark...Then again my foot-blobs only tote Missile Launchers, so my views are kind of stilted.

I like Kell for exactly what you stated. He's a support-heavy officer, which people with alot of crewed Heavy Weapons would gladly take over Straken. In my opinion the Guard need as much support with the foot-sloggers as they can get, and Kell certainly fills that niche if I ever wanted a Special Character (or choose between him or Straken).

Stick an Eviserator Priest in with Straken and you're looking at more CC damage. Straken's 4 WS 5 I4 S7 attacks will give 3.5 hits, 3 dead marines. Plus the priest's attacks, 3 attacks, 2.25 hit, 1.75 dead. The rest of the CCS gets 8 attacks, 6 hit, 2 wound, 0.6 dead. Round it up for 5.35 dead MEQ, most of which at I4. Not too shabby, all things considered. Reduce it to about 3 dead vs termies, 1.8 vs SS/TH termies.

Yeah, I don't know if I'd do straken and kell or straken and a priest, though. The potential damage output isn't too shabby, but now we're talking about a squad that costs at least 230 points on what still amounts to little more than 6 T3 models.

Back in 4th ed, I found that you have to set your sights at a certain level where you get as much punch as you can before the fragility of the squad starts to become too much of a liability. The same seems more or less true of 5th as in 4th, trying to make a deathstar out of guardsmen is likely to just end up in points wasted to a single solid battlecannon or heavy flamer hit.

Plus, with -1 W in this codex, you have to actually be careful with priests. It's one thing to hide one at the back of a blob, but in a small squad they more or less HAVE to fight, which isn't always ideal.

As such, I could see either kell or straken (or to a lesser extent a priest) as a way to be surprisingly punchy against mid-range targets, but spending all that much more points on them just sounds like...

very true, IMO if your gunna use priests, put them in your blobs. as for the whole straken vs Kell thing, Kell realy isnt supposed to be that much of a close combat monster, a bit, but straken is suposed to be basicaly the Terminator but meaner, 1 vs 1 straken wins hands down in cc.

In the suport roll Kell is good for gunlines as orders can be taken at Ld9, straken is great for an army of powerblobs as FC makes a big difference on the charge:

say 30 man power blob with comisar on charge vs MEQ; 3 sargents with 3A each, comisar with 4A, everyone else gets 2 each;

power weapons: 13A, 4+ to hit, 5+ to wound= 13x.5x.33=2.167 dead

normal attacks: 54A, 4+ to hit, 5+ to wound, 3+ save= 54x.5x.33x.33=3 dead

thus kills ~5 marines, not counting that the marines will strike first

With FC

power weapons: 13A, 4+ to hit, 4+ to wound= 13x.5x.5=3.25 dead

normal attacks: 54A, 4+ to hit, 4+ to wound, 3+ save= 54x.5x.5x.33=4.45 dead

thus kills 8 marines, striking at the same time, thus, if you take into account any casualties from shooting that the marines suffer, you can wipe out a squad of MEQ's in a turn or even make them fall back an have a decent chance of masacring them.

counter attack, while not as spectacular as FC is usefull to mitigate any mistakes, say if your blob gets charged, it still gets its extra attacks back.

now, Kell is great when combined with Creed, since units can benefit from all orders (including creeds awesome FC and fearless one) at 24" and take the tests at Ld10. very points heavy, but you can hide them in a chimera, in a building, or in a Leviathan (if you play apocalypse). honestly the only deathstar Id ever use.

The sgts get 4 attacks on the charge as well. 2 base, +1 2 ccw, and +1 charge.

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:The sgts get 4 attacks on the charge as well. 2 base, +1 2 ccw, and +1 charge.

There are sargents in a CCS?

Joey wrote:

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:The sgts get 4 attacks on the charge as well. 2 base, +1 2 ccw, and +1 charge.

There are sargents in a CCS?

No actually, that's what's wrong here. The other members of the CCS are veterans; however, you can have them trade in their lasguns for pistols to get 2 ccw's but no their base attack is 1.

metalgear1313 wrote:

Joey wrote:

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:The sgts get 4 attacks on the charge as well. 2 base, +1 2 ccw, and +1 charge.

There are sargents in a CCS?

No actually, that's what's wrong here. The other members of the CCS are veterans; however, you can have them trade in their lasguns for pistols to get 2 ccw's but no their base attack is 1.

So that means you could get all of the veterans up to 3 attacks on the charge if you wanted to correct?

So you could have three laspistol/ccw vets, Kell, and a commander, and that would get you a surprising amount of attacks, especially on the charge. I'm terrible at mathhmammer though so I'm not going to try and butcher the math behind it. It wouldn't be a game breaker, but it would help give you a little more chance to kill something, as well as a few laspistol shots before the charge that might get lucky...

You said it in your OP, Straken is better at CC while Kell is better as a support unit.

Straken wins hands down in CC but Kell makes up for it by making sure your HWS's pass their leadership tests for their orders.

The question you then need to ask yourself is, is it worth all the points for a Straken CCS compared to a Kell one? My gut tells me no, but that's more due to my play style.

Ignatius wrote:You said it in your OP, Straken is better at CC while Kell is better as a support unit.

Straken wins hands down in CC but Kell makes up for it by making sure your HWS's pass their leadership tests for their orders.

But that's not true. Both Kell and Straken make the command squad equivalent in damage. It's that straken gives nearby squads FC and kell gives nearby squads +Ld on orders.

The whole point is that, given that they're roughly equally choppy, it might come down to nothing more than which style of support you want.

Ailaros wrote:

Ignatius wrote:You said it in your OP, Straken is better at CC while Kell is better as a support unit.

Straken wins hands down in CC but Kell makes up for it by making sure your HWS's pass their leadership tests for their orders.

But that's not true. Both Kell and Straken make the command squad equivalent in damage. It's that straken gives nearby squads FC and kell gives nearby squads +Ld on orders.

The whole point is that, given that they're roughly equally choppy, it might come down to nothing more than which style of support you want.

I'm not sure I follow your logic on the whole equivalency in damage thing. Kell has to have more wounds allocated to him instead of the Company Commander, meaning you will lose that powerfist/weapon faster. Straken strikes at I4 on the charge and has a S6 power weapon (meaning he gets the extra attack for his power weapon and plasma pistol) that rolls 2D6 for armor penetration, which beats Kell's I1 powerfist. He goes before Kell does, which does have some significance. Staken has furious charge as well as Counter attack. Kell has a regimental standard, which seems to be his only actual advantage in CC- which to me at least- doesn't make up for Straken's superior CC weapons, as well as his superior save, and gives FC and Counterattack.

So, what I am saying is, Straken is better because he goes faster than Kell (if he uses his fist, which if he doesn't means he's only striking at S3), and Kell has the Sworn Protector flaw.

Ignatius wrote:

Ailaros wrote:

Ignatius wrote:You said it in your OP, Straken is better at CC while Kell is better as a support unit.

Straken wins hands down in CC but Kell makes up for it by making sure your HWS's pass their leadership tests for their orders.

But that's not true. Both Kell and Straken make the command squad equivalent in damage. It's that straken gives nearby squads FC and kell gives nearby squads +Ld on orders.

The whole point is that, given that they're roughly equally choppy, it might come down to nothing more than which style of support you want.

I'm not sure I follow your logic on the whole equivalency in damage thing. Kell has to have more wounds allocated to him instead of the Company Commander, meaning you will lose that powerfist/weapon faster. Straken strikes at I4 on the charge and has a S6 power weapon (meaning he gets the extra attack for his power weapon and plasma pistol) that rolls 2D6 for armor penetration, which beats Kell's I1 powerfist. He goes before Kell does, which does have some significance. Staken has furious charge as well as Counter attack. Kell has a regimental standard, which seems to be his only actual advantage in CC- which to me at least- doesn't make up for Straken's superior CC weapons, as well as his superior save, and gives FC and Counterattack.

So, what I am saying is, Straken is better because he goes faster than Kell (if he uses his fist, which if he doesn't means he's only striking at S3), and Kell has the Sworn Protector flaw.

On pg 57, it says that kell only has sworn protector if he's in the same squad as Creed. If its a regular commander or straken, he doesn't have that rule. Which means if you paired him up with a normal commander, you could still allocate as normal.

The local Guard player uses Straken pretty effectivly. Early game he issues orders and then he supports the power blobs in combat.

Power Blobs with FC are scary.


Then there is the awsomeness that is Straken falcon punching a monolith.

MrMoustaffa wrote:

Ignatius wrote:

Ailaros wrote:

Ignatius wrote:You said it in your OP, Straken is better at CC while Kell is better as a support unit.

Straken wins hands down in CC but Kell makes up for it by making sure your HWS's pass their leadership tests for their orders.

But that's not true. Both Kell and Straken make the command squad equivalent in damage. It's that straken gives nearby squads FC and kell gives nearby squads +Ld on orders.

The whole point is that, given that they're roughly equally choppy, it might come down to nothing more than which style of support you want.

I'm not sure I follow your logic on the whole equivalency in damage thing. Kell has to have more wounds allocated to him instead of the Company Commander, meaning you will lose that powerfist/weapon faster. Straken strikes at I4 on the charge and has a S6 power weapon (meaning he gets the extra attack for his power weapon and plasma pistol) that rolls 2D6 for armor penetration, which beats Kell's I1 powerfist. He goes before Kell does, which does have some significance. Staken has furious charge as well as Counter attack. Kell has a regimental standard, which seems to be his only actual advantage in CC- which to me at least- doesn't make up for Straken's superior CC weapons, as well as his superior save, and gives FC and Counterattack.

So, what I am saying is, Straken is better because he goes faster than Kell (if he uses his fist, which if he doesn't means he's only striking at S3), and Kell has the Sworn Protector flaw.

On pg 57, it says that kell only has sworn protector if he's in the same squad as Creed. If its a regular commander or straken, he doesn't have that rule. Which means if you paired him up with a normal commander, you could still allocate as normal.

Interesting. Thanks for clearing that up for me. I still think Straken is better

Ignatius wrote:

Interesting. Thanks for clearing that up for me. I still think Straken is better

Yeah, if I had to choose between the two, I'd probably choose Straken myself. Kell is awesome in his own way, but he's for a completely different style of list than Straken is, which has been mentioned in this thread several times before. With powerblobs, I'd taken straken over kell and a PF commander every time.

What I'm wondering is, would there be a point to use both? Then, you would get Straken's bonus offensive abilities, along with Kell's abilities that boost the leadership of units that are usually lower LD. For example, it'd let you take stuff like SWS's or even conscripts on the attack with your blobs, who could help provide fire support by getting their orders on LD 9. Then you get the fact that Kell and Straken together would seriously mess stuff up in close combat. Throw in maybe a medic and a couple of bodyguards, and you could have for a scary little unit to back up your blobs. Of course, this is a tiny little squad of guardsmen that's going to cost almost 300 points with all those upgrades, so it's probably not even remotely worth it, but it could be interesting in a fun game.

Nah, If I were taking straken, I'd take a lord commissar for leadership instead. Of course, it's sort of moot as straken won't be near units that can make use of a standard for long.

As for equivalency in close combat, I went over that in the OP. Pretty much the only thing that straken brings to just the CCS squad that kell doesn't is the eviscerator, but a S6 power fist is good enough against most vehicles anyways. That and fearless for those few times when there is literally no substitute (like against PBSs, for example).

Was commenting on the guy that said sgts get 3 attacks on the charge. They actually get 4.

I think more important than the possiblilty of putting kell and straken in a unit together is the possiblility of having 2 CCS, with each of them doing their thing, as long as you have both assault/support units to take advantage of each. If you've got some blobs and a firebase of HWS's, and the points are high enough for two characters, straken and kell in their own units could buff an army nicely. Kell and the Lord Commie are the only way to get better ld rolls. They have alot of differences, with one being Kell doesn't take up an HQ slot. If you want orders on better ld and two CCS he is necessary.

Ailaros wrote:For the price of Straken, you can take Kell and a power fist upgrade for the senior officer. So, other than wondering if taking Kell by himself is all that worthwhile in the first place, I'm also wondering if Kell is a reasonable (or even superior) substitute for Straken as far as bringing close combat punch, while also being a good support unit.

He may be as far as the CCS itself is concerned, you can't really substitute for giving a couple powerblobs FC and countercharge.

Ailaros wrote:Yeah, I don't know if I'd do straken and kell or straken and a priest, though. The potential damage output isn't too shabby, but now we're talking about a squad that costs at least 230 points on what still amounts to little more than 6 T3 models.

Ya too much in all but the biggest games I think.

Ailaros wrote:

Although you're right about playing these guys against most enemies, i have found that against GEQ and the like assault command squads are quite effective. I put them in the middle of a powerblob for shielding and when the time comes i charge them out, imo CCS assault squads are effective against other infantry guard players and are able to completely destroy formations of GEQ infantry with their so many attacks. GEQ dont have the toughness to ID enemies and so usually when i play powerblob guard and i am against guard i like to deploy them.

Straken only because I have never used Kell, then again all of my lists have Straken purely for his CC prowess.