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So I've been using Pedro as my HQ in my Crimson Fists army to good effect and was wondering what people thought about the optimum number and load out for sternguard.

I've been running them 10 man, fully combii-wep, in a drop pod, and combat squading them on landing.

The squads are a bit expensive, and I tend to drop at least 2 of them, but decimate anything near the landing zone.

One trick I've tried recently was dropping a 5xcombi-melta / 5x combi-plas with a librarian carrying null zone vs any player I know brings a deathstar in a transport It also works vs regular units as well.

Anyone have any other tricks you've pulled with sternguard or good tactics for their use?

While not specific to Kantor lists, I use a librarian to port my sternguard around

10 man squad, one c-melta, power fist on the sarge. Bare-bones librarian with GoI and Null zone attached. No transport, just the Lib. Only the one combi for emergency use (and WYSWYG, I only have one) If I had a second c-melta I'd use it, but stop there. The job of this squad is to port around shooting monsters/infantry, not tanks. This has worked very well for me.

Another good use I've seen is 2xLC or PC in a 5 man squad. In a Kantor list you have a nice faux-dev squad that counts as a scoring unit. The downside is they take an elite slot, which is always in short supply.

I dislike using sternguard as suicide drop units. But I have to admit, they do put out one heck of an alpha strike. I don't really enjoy playing a drop pod army. I have two pods, but use them to support the rest of my army, not as a focus of my lists.

I usually only play Pedro/Sternguard lists for fun, so they way I play isn't super competitive.

Basically for a 1500pt build I run 2 groups of 10 Sternguard all with Combi-Meltas and a sergeant with a PF in a Drop Pod. It is a standard suicide squad. They drop down, split them into combat teams and melta whatever you feel is the biggest threat. You split them into combat squads because it lets you shoot at two targets per group or if one group fails to kill the first target, you still have the option of shooting it with the second group.
I then throw a group of Tactical Marines in a third drop pod so both Sternguard pods drop on turn 1 and the third tac marine pod drops later for objectives.

A librarian is always a nice addition since GOI will really help post-drop movement. For the second power I usually use The Avenger for some extra MEQ killing power and anti-horde.

Do you want fluffy, compettetive or both? i prefer both myself, so i often take one tactical squad, one squad of scouts, 2 ten man sternguards with various combi load outs, and a power fist just for fun. I take a tech marine for my second hq so i can take dreads as heavy, give everything Drop pods and if you have extra points take either another stern guard squad or a squad of termies can be shooty or assaulty depending on preference and if you put a teleport homer on a pod or two then they can come in reliably.

Im a big fan of this list as it is the most flexible in terms of deployment options. You can have a gun line and use the drop pods to block off parts of the field to make chokes (pods can be deployed empty). You can deploy half your army on the table and keep their empty pods in reserve, having the other half your army deep strike in turn one and take out those critical devices (artillery and such between the sterns and dreads). Lastly you can take the whole army and deep strike everything as everything has a pod, infiltrate or deep strike.

As for mobility some good pre planning and objective securing are all you should need. the idea being in a single turn you can cripple the enemy army and should leave you in a strong postion defensively, offensively and scoring wise. (first blood, linebreaker, and proabably an objective or two).

My main army is Eldar so im sure it has affected the way i play my marines (kinda like super eldar lol).

But yeah Crimson fists have always been one of my favorite chapters, the list is alot of fun and besides who wouldnt want their army lead by Pedro Kantor? Vote for Pedro!

I too am working out ways to use Sternguard in a Crimson Fist army. I'm still building the army, so I was using them in a 5 man squad (the box set), but I've come into a few extra AoBR marines that will fill out the rest of the squad. I have already put the combi plasma that was included with the combi melta on one of the basic marines and added some veteran flair (and filed down the tactical symbol), and added a scope to the basic bolter with the strap, just to make them fit in a little better. I have a single combi armed SG coming in with both weapons, so I'll clue the extra on another of the AoBR marines.

That will put the squad at 10 veterans with 2 combi plasmas and 2 combi meltas for emergency situations. I will probably just put them in a rhino and ride them around, pop out, hose a squad, jump back in and take off the next turn. To provide some backup, I will run a second rhino with a full tactical squad or a land speeder with them. Not sure how well this will work out though.

Great ideas guys

I like to run mt sterny squad with 8 vets, 2 plasma rifles and 3 combi-plasmas in a rhino with Sicarius riding along. To date they wiped out 2 ten man terminator squads (one assault and one tactical) and many other things. probably not the best way to play them but it is pretty fun!


....Pew Pew Pew!!

I've somehow become fixated on trying to make a reasonable C:SM list lately, and most of my attention keeps falling onto sternguard and pedro. I guess I just want some reasonable hefty scoring units that don't just feel like awkward expensive versions of other codex's troops.

Been really hard to find the points though. I'm really jazzed about big scoring units these days. Not entirely sure how to outfit the sternguard properly.

My concept for the list was to field 2/3 storm talons as mobile shooting and a nice silver bullet to air aggression. at least one rifleman dread, two flexible plasma tacticals and a aegis line and then two hefty sternguard drop pods to be my presence in the middle of things. It just doesn't come together on paper or on the table as far as I've proxied it. Too expensive. I like pedro, I like sternguard, but I don't like how expensive it all is and how weak your midfield shooting ends up being to aggression.

Lucre, Try dropping down to one tactical and take a scout squad or two for the backfield. Since you already have the ADL, try sticking Telion on it. This will give the scout squad 2++ coversave, and Telion 4 TL S7 shots at BS6. This is major anti-air, and becuse his shots are precision he can be used to snipe Sgts or ICs from 36" away. Throw in the possible pinning shots and or a ML / HB in the squad and you'll have some decent midfield shooting. I also love to throw in a TFC, but thats just me


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Nevelon, I'm gonna try out you're 5 man Sternguard sudo-dev squad idea and see how it plays out. May put them behind the ADL with Telion to dominate the midfield

 Instinctual wrote:
So I've been using Pedro as my HQ in my Crimson Fists army to good effect and was wondering what people thought about the optimum number and load out for sternguard.

I've been running them 10 man, fully combii-wep, in a drop pod, and combat squading them on landing.

The squads are a bit expensive, and I tend to drop at least 2 of them, but decimate anything near the landing zone.

One trick I've tried recently was dropping a 5xcombi-melta / 5x combi-plas with a librarian carrying null zone vs any player I know brings a deathstar in a transport It also works vs regular units as well.

Anyone have any other tricks you've pulled with sternguard or good tactics for their use?

This is brutal. It takes a mature player to keep their cool after this gets inflicted on them.

Yeah, a few players have lost their cool at this but most of them laugh and we have fun. I've even on a few occasions had my ass handed to me by players that were expecting it One of the toughest armies to beat this way is a Bubble Wrap Guard army with a corner deployment, just no where to drop the pods so I can vape the tanks