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What is dakka's opinion on the best way to build an army around al'raheim? I'd like to have 4 or 5 chimeras come in with Al to go with a 30 man blob + 20 man blob. if a special weapons squad from his platoon deploys inside a valk/vend does it come in with the rest of the platoon or do you roll seperately because they've got their own transport? I'm also wondering what the best support units for this maneuver would be, as far as building a firebase in my home deployment or just going for as much reserved, outflanking units as possible?

Al-Rahem is best used when you can use the majority of your firebase to force your enemy over to one side of the board.
So basically you need to have a large enough point limit in the first place to make having ~300-400 points of outflankers viable.

This is for a 2000 point list, I have over 6k points of guard so I can field a wide variety of forces. Open to any suggestions.

I think only dedicated transports and not vendettas outflank with Al'raheim. I would take an astropath in my CCS for the ability to reroll outflank.

Heavy weapons are out on the platoon as they will be moving on and so can't shoot the turn they arrive - mass melta seems to be good, but power blobs with commissars that can get into CC are also worthwhile.

My bro uses Al'rahem in most games. HIs command squad, and three infantry squads also in Chimera. He also uses an Astropath to help ensure that they get in early, and where you want them. He occasionally takes a Special Weapon Team or two. He makes the infanty squads go on foot, and places the special weapons teams in two Chimera. The Foot Sloggers move toward objectives, while the Chimera Squads move to soften the objectives up.

ruminator wrote:I think only dedicated transports and not vendettas outflank with Al'raheim. I would take an astropath in my CCS for the ability to reroll outflank.

Heavy weapons are out on the platoon as they will be moving on and so can't shoot the turn they arrive - mass melta seems to be good, but power blobs with commissars that can get into CC are also worthwhile.

I've seen Al'Raheim used to set up a secondary fire base. In conjunction with an Astrophath. You spend the turn setting up/ deploying into cover. The blobs still retain they're tar-pit quality while the Heavy Weapons are placed in decent firing lanes. A small platoon can harry players who stick their units in the middle of the table that wait for the outflankers to arrive.

Al'Raheim is also a cheap way to get Armored Fist Squads up the board as well. They're not as effective as Vets, but they're cheaper and can crew a GL/Autocannon for objective camping. Start with a small platoon first; maybe a blob and a couple Armored Fist Squads and test the waters a bit.

Outflanking Melta Blobs just doesn't appeal to me, unless there's aggressive blobs already on the table.

Al'Rahem is an infantry platoon that outflanks. Other than the outflanking, you use them in the exact same way that you use your other infantry platoons - except they outflank.

The only serious difference is that al'rahem brings BiD and CC straight to your enemy, rather than having to walk it across the board first. Otherwise, apart form this and that they outflank, they're just a regular infantry platoon, and should be used as such.

If you blobbed the squads, wouldn't you lose the Chimera?

alarmingrick wrote:If you blobbed the squads, wouldn't you lose the Chimera?

You don't have to blob every squad...

alarmingrick wrote:If you blobbed the squads, wouldn't you lose the Chimera?

Why do you think that you would?

well it's that they can't ride in it.

As mentioned, there's nothing that requires you to take blobs. As well, there's nothing that says that if you take a chimera, anything ever needs to ride in it. It just says the platoon outflanks, which would include its dedicated transports.

I mean, you could always take al'rahem's PCS, a 30-man power blob and 4 dual HF chimeras with heavy stubbers and have a flame/ramming fest come in off the board.

As well, there's nothing that says that if you take a chimera, anything ever needs to ride in it. It just says the platoon outflanks, which would include its dedicated transports.

There is a passus in the rules for outflanking that says: "Note that such units are picked from their army list together with a dedicated transport, they may outflank with their transport, but if they do so they must move onto the table embarked in it."

But apart from outflanking, you are right. Being embarked in a transport is not mandatory at the start of the game.

I think this is a specific > general situation. Al'Rahem says that any unit in his platoon must outflank. If you don't put guys in the chimera, the chimera, being part of his platoon, still must outflank. Meanwhile, the rulebook says that if a unit has a dedicated transport, they may outflank, if they're in the transport.

A question for the YMDC forum for sure, but I'd say they can be empty, given the strength of must over may, and the strength of the codex special rule over the general.


Also, it's the same reason you can outflank a priest with al'rahem's platoon. Priests don't have the ability to outflank at all, but they simply must if they're part of the platoon.

Thanks for the feedback, I'd like to think a chimera can just roll with the platoon and not need the squad who bought it to be with it. My main issue,though, lies with how much of my 2000 point budget to put into this platoon. Ideally, I'd like to envision a "stonewall jackson" type outflanking maneuver which would bring some serious firepower to pretty much either side with the help of an astropath. 6 chimeras, 5 squads, 2 special weapon squads, and maybe a few autocannon heavy weapon squads. The other issue rests with what units could withstand at least a turn by itself to enemy fire, possibly 2-3 turns. I'd love to have some manticores parked behind some cover with a platoon bubble-wrapping it, but is that going to still be alive by turns 3-4?

If you want to go all-out, you can do that as well. Bring a good al'rahem squad. Bring creed and have him outflank some russes or a squad of hellhounds. Bring a few scout sentinels to beef up long range shooting. Heck, you could even bring some penal legionnaires if you couldn't get enough bodies otherwise.

Basically, you make half your army what starts out on the field, and the other half of your army the same thing, except it outflanks. At this points, level, it can be done. With a few valkyries, you could even do an entirely-outflanking guard army.

You could also bring harker to outflank a vet squad + chimera.

You know what has me a bit curious; if you could use Al'Rahem to issue Like the Wind on a heavy weapons squad that has moved, can they fire and move, considering the rule for the order is that the ordered squad makes a shooting attack?

KplKeegan wrote:You know what has me a bit curious; if you could use Al'Rahem to issue Like the Wind on a heavy weapons squad that has moved, can they fire and move, considering the rule for the order is that the ordered squad makes a shooting attack?

....

I highly doubt it, but if it did indeed let us do this, I would be abusing the out of that every game. The problem is, once a heavy weapon team moves, they cannot fire their heavy weapon. Walking onto the board counts as movement, so they would be unable to use it. They also have a lasgun in their wargear (just one) So what would most likely happen, is you'd issue the order, get to fire 3 lasguns, and then do your extra move.

they make a shooting attack as per the rile for shooting attacks, al'rahem may have a rule that conflicts with outflanking (may), but like the wind has nothing that could be seen as over-ruling any specific part of the rulebook that has to do with shooting.

It says that they make a shooting attack, but it doesn't say that it ignores the regular restrictions for shooting. In this case, it's used on a heavy weapon squad, which may now make a shooting attack as normal, during which the squad shoots 0 of its weapons, and then the squad gets a free move after.