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Hey guys,

So a while back I was scanning over eBay and saw 10 FW Veterans with shotguns... they were going cheap and something in my mind told me to buy them cause they look awesome,

now the question I would like to ask is how best to fit them into an army as they dont seem to have the strongest weapons and I feel they might end up being fluff to my army more than used.

Cheers!

Well they fit in that they can shotgun an enemy and mop up the remnants in assault. While that may not be what you expect them to do, it has several uses. The most random use of it that I've come across is shotgunning a vehicle whose armour has been eaten by Allied scarabs, before charging it with meltabombs. That was hilarious.

More usefully, if you clean an enemy out mostly with your shooting, so as there are only 1 or 2 left, and you are stuck out of cover, you can always assault and rely on weight of attacks, and use the assault move and the consolidate to get into some cover.

Or just use them as sergeants in vet squads. They can take shotguns, right?

Brilliant! that has to be the best vehicle takedown I have heard of in ages

Thanks for the advice, hadn't really considered the assault phase with them, that might just add something new to my tactics.

Just remember, they ARE NOT an assault unit. They can kill 2 or 3 guys if needs must, don't rely on them for too much, especially with overwatch.

Oh yeah totally dude, just nice there is the option for them to, good point about overwatch had actually forgotten that one.

back to the planning!

And they work best with flamers or meltaguns as special weapons, plasmas will stop them charging and mopping up.

They worked alright with Harker in 5th, I used them to come on backfield, 3 meltas, harker, demolitions and shotguns. They'd shoot up a backfield unit, and them multi-charge the unit and a nearby vehicle (my opponents used to often have backfield units and vehicles until I started using Harker a lot), meltabomb the vehicle and hit the remnants of the guys in combat.

Obviously impossible now because of the no-assaulting-from-reserve, but hey, maybe a variation on that will work in 6th?

I have a recon platoon that I have started to build up ( I am a big fan of the Tanith 1st and only) so I use Captain Al'Rahem a lot for that platoon and Harker,

I usually have a lot of plasma in my army, has dealt much pain to the other guys at VoxNet Radio

Shotguns are more like a "for fun" weapon in the unit that they'll seldom get to use, depending on equipment. If they've got plasmas and they're shooting, they might end up shooting some shotguns at heavy infantry or MCs or whatever. If they have meltas, they'll rarely use them since they'll be shooting vehicles ideally. Still, they're cool looking and fun when you can use them.

Tactically, I'll point you here. Modelling-wise, there are several ways to make a shotgun out of a lasgun, but were I to start making shotgun vets, I'd just use bits of brass tubing from the hardware store and a little greenstuff.

Ailaros, sorry mate I wasn't trying to make them, I bought 10 of the forgeworld varient but thanks muchly for the tactics

Just use them for model variety because they look awesome. Say theyre using slugs and use them as lasguns.

With rapidfire now 24" on the move, and wound-wrapping gone, shotguns are pretty... obsolete. Unless you REALLY want to throw those veterans into close combat.

There was a shotgun proposed rule thread a little while ago. I liked the idea that they could fire overwatch at full BS.

I've been using veteran squads equipped with shotguns, 2 meltas, a heavy flamer and demolitions to great effect. They have been doing some hilarious things and saved the day a few times.

If only one could assault after grav chute instertion from vendettas.

Back in 5th, I knew a guy who would drop demo vets with shotguns and meltas out of his vendettas, and they would annihilate anything they came in contact with.

Sadly, you can't do this anymore.

I love me some Vets with Shotguns! I used to run a list with 4 squads of vets with shotguns and a melta...playing against a lysander army and he was being a real pain in the butt....3 squads of vets took care of that problem..him and 5 terminator buddies of his

sure he took alot of shotgun hits to go down...but just the look on my opponents face when I managed to get 3 (almost) full squads into range and gang gun Mr Lysander...it was priceless...it was sweeter still because this was the first time I had tried out Ogryns and he handed me their butts with plasma cannons lol

so in summary...I support vets with shotguns whenever possible...also I found that if you want more shotguns just snip off the end of the lasgun it's a very passable shotgun


Automatically Appended Next Post:
oh and I'm not sure about guard...but I BELIEVE shotguns are now strength 4 for everyone..dont' quote me but I think so...so now you have a short ranger assault bolter...almost

Its str3, space marines are str4

I put shotguns on my Vet Sargent because they can't take lasguns for some bizarre reason and the extra shot was always worth it.

It's a pretty simple question: do you like the shotgun model or the lasgun model? Vets are there to shoot stuff with melta or plasma, everyone who doesn't have a melta or plasma gun is just there as a wound counter for the important models. Sure, sometimes the shotguns will allow you to assault and finish off a unit, or sometimes the lasguns will let you shoot 24" with some token firepower as you move, but overall the difference is so small that it doesn't matter. Take whichever one you think looks cooler, and don't worry about it beyond that.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
If only one could assault after grav chute instertion from vendettas.

Back in 5th, I knew a guy who would drop demo vets with shotguns and meltas out of his vendettas, and they would annihilate anything they came in contact with.

Sadly, you can't do this anymore.

You never could assault after dropping out of a Valkyrie, so nothing changed here.