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When I'm thinking of an Imperial Guard list, I'm generally thinking of cheap, powerful units. With the exception of Marbo, their special characters seem to go against this philosophy, and I'm not entirely sure if their additional cost is worth the force multiplication or power that they bring. Anyone care to enlighten me on the subject?

I kind of like Creed for his enhanced Command Radius.
FTHoC is kinda cool with the new fearless rules.

yea though I feel ya.

I never got the chance to use him but the Jessie the Body Ventura character (Gunner Sgt something or another) seemed a great force multiplier.

He would make a squad of vets infiltrating and add a heavy bolter to the squad. So you could have vets with 2 HB and 3 plasma guns blazing away from an infiltrated position. Add stealth and they have 3+ cover saves.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I never got the chance to use him but the Jessie the Body Ventura character (Gunner Sgt something or another) seemed a great force multiplier.

He would make a squad of vets infiltrating and add a heavy bolter to the squad. So you could have vets with 2 HB and 3 plasma guns blazing away from an infiltrated position. Add stealth and they have 3+ cover saves.

In 6th I think Harker is alot better than he was, that's for sure.
I wasn't thinking of Sgt upgrades Kyoto, good call.

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:
I kind of like Creed for his enhanced Command Radius.
FTHoC is kinda cool with the new fearless rules.

yea though I feel ya.

Creed for command radius and outflanking a squad of demolishers. Thats about it.

Very soon multiple trolls will jump in to this thread to tell you Marbo sucks. Don't believe them. Marbo is the shizz.

Most of the others have their uses, but are not super points efficient. If that isn't critical to you..

Harker, as mentioned, gives you outflank and a second (or 3rd) heavy bolter to fire out of a Chimera. He is pretty cheap, and in certain builds can do good things.

Al'Raheem can make an entire platoon outflank. An Entire Platoon. Think about that for a minute.

Chenkov makes conscripts into an endless meat shield, tar pit, or objective blob.

Creed, as mentioned, does several good things. He is kind of expensive.

Straken can actually fight in CC. Rather well. He is usually an unexpected complication for your foe. Again, kinda pricy.

Yarrick is awesome, but way too expensive. Too bad. I use him in Apoc games to good effect and great fun.

Kell is a good match for Creed, and fluffy as hell.

Nork is terrible, even for half the ridiculous number of points. Did Cruddace not know the majority toughness rule?

I don't ever run Rough Riders so I don't know anything about Mogul. I know I have never seen him.

Bastonne doesn't seem to do much. I do know people who play him, but for fluff reasons.

Pask makes a couple of LR tanks better. He makes a Punisher just evil, an Exterminator better, and a Vanquisher almost usable. Too many points though for something that suddenly has a big target painted on it.

Hope this helps. And remember, no matter what anyone says, Marbo is awesome.

In higher point games I like to use creed and kell because he really buffs my gunline with 4 orders and larger radius.

Also in higher point games I will try pask in a vanquisher to have nice anti tank fire power.

Marbo is marbo and if you got the points to spare he should be taken.

Al rahem is nice for outflanking a nice kitted platoon. I see a lot of people use him with a platoon where all the infantry squads have melta guns mounted in chimeras.

Straken seems pretty iffy to me as ive never used him but I think he would probably only be good if you used blobs and had is CCS kitted for assault.

If you really have a use for conscripts then chenkov could be nice but Im not a fan. SITNW conscripts might be nice for holding home objectives.

Sergeant baston is a no go. I have never seen a list with him in it nor could i see any reason to take him.

Harker is good for getting a vet squad in some nice cover to start shooting at your opponent.

Sadly Yarrick is garbage. Thought he would be good but once I realized there was no invulnerable save I now know he is garbage.

Marbo is the most commonly used because he's the only IG character you can just throw into any random list and expect success. No matter what you're playing Marbo will give you cheap and efficient killing, and since he operates completely apart from any other units you don't have to worry about bringing the right squad for him to lead or providing support units. He's effectively just an off-table artillery strike that does exactly the same things no matter what the rest of your list consists of, and he's cheap enough that adding him has minimal impact on the rest of your unit options.

Pask is the other generalist character, if you're taking non-blast Leman Russes he adds a cost-effective amount of firepower. And, like Marbo, he works independently of everything else in your list. You do need to buy an appropriate tank, but if one is already in your list then Pask just adds 30% or more firepower to it and doesn't ask for anything but his 50 points. And, needless to say, Leman Russes are popular with most IG players.

The other characters are narrow in their roles. You can think of situations in which their particular (and often unique) abilities can be useful, but you need to build your list to take advantage of them. For example, you can't just throw Chenkov into a random list and expect anything but a waste of points, you have to commit to playing a foot list with lots of conscripts and build your strategy around making good use of endless conscript waves. And even if you're willing to build a list/unit around a character you need to ask yourself whether you're getting enough benefit compared to equal points in conventional units.


In short: Marbo is an auto-include, Pask is appealing whenever you have the right Leman Russ in your list, and the other characters are useless unless you can very confidently say why you need to bring them and how they're going to accomplish your goals.

Marbo is so remarkably "meh" now that Aegishammer is the name of the game.

Just about any interceptor weapon will wreck him.

Harker, Chenkov, and Al'Rahem are the only competitive choices.

Chenkov is probably the best force multiplier. You can do an awful lot with the rest of your list once you are liberated from needing to hold backfield objectives. Plus, he also passes out stubborn.

Following that is probably Yarrick, as he passes out a lot of buffs to people nearby. I agree that he's really expensive, though.

After that, it's going to be creed and kell for their buffs. Neither are all that great, though.

Outside of the force multiplier thing, there are ones that are beatsticks in their own right. Pask can actually be pretty good for this, as in certain tanks he can really crank up the killing power of a russ. Yarrick, as mentioned, is pretty badass, but I'm not a big fan of the others.

Straken is expensive, and, though he can buff, his buffs aren't good in this edition, and I've found his beatstickery kind of lacking (assuming he even makes it into combat). Meanwhile, Kamir, and Nork are just garbage, and I don't like Marbo either. Too easy to counter, and he's really just a one-shot large blast. The hunter-killer missile of the special character world.

Then you have the force alterers. Al'rahem allows you to do a LOT of outflanking, and he's the best of them, but he does have this nasty tendency to split your force up. If your opponents react to him properly, it's actually just going to create as many problems for you as it solves. Harker is also decent for a few things (most notably allowing vets a 2+ cover save in ruins without going to ground), but there's just not enough THERE there to really make him worth it outside of small games. Bastonne is just strange. I can scarcely think of when I'd want to spend that many points on what will invariably be a single chance at bring it down.

 TheCaptain wrote:
Marbo is so remarkably "meh" now that Aegishammer is the name of the game.

Just about any interceptor weapon will wreck him.

I disagree, for three reasons:

1) He's a single infantry model, so the easiest possible thing to hide out of LOS of a single fixed quad gun. Things probably get worse if your opponents all play IG with Sabre gun spam, but in general it's a bad idea to assume that the interceptor guns will always get him.

2) You're probably bringing in other reserves. Do you really want to shoot Marbo, who almost always has a 4+ cover save (and quite possibly a 3+) with your quad gun, or do you want to shoot at the incoming Vendetta squadron? And even if you do shoot at Marbo you're still paying 65 points to ensure that your aircraft arrive safely and get the first shot (a deal I've been happy to take).

3) He's still cheap. Even if you're going to occasionally lose him to interceptor guns it's still a cheap investment to make with a high potential return.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ailaros wrote:
I don't like Marbo either. Too easy to counter, and he's really just a one-shot large blast. The hunter-killer missile of the special character world.

That's the problem with thinking that characters have to be true heroes instead of just one-shot weapons. If you remember how cheap he is and treat him as just a point-efficient one-shot weapon you have appropriate standards and will be happy with what he does. You only end up disappointed if you assume that he's supposed to be an awesome character and listen to the fluff and/or stories of how Marbo got lucky and killed a whole army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ailaros wrote:
Kamir

I disagree with this. Rough riders in general are garbage, but if you're taking rough riders at all the character upgrade is mandatory. The change to Rage in 6th makes it a massive bonus, more than a 50% increase in killing power on the one turn the unit does anything. That takes them from "hurt a MEQ squad" to "wipe anything without a 2+ save off the table". That's WAY more of an improvement than the increase in point cost for the unit.

Peregrine wrote:If you remember how cheap he is and treat him as just a point-efficient one-shot weapon

But your opponents start displacing and taking cover saves and meching up, and he's not even that efficient.

65 points may possibly be only a single paladin, but against most infantry, Marbo's likely going to struggle to kill his points worth of stuff, which is bad if all you're doing is taking him to kill stuff. I'd rather buy pask or 3 lascannons or 6 meltaguns somewhere.

 Ailaros wrote:

Peregrine wrote:If you remember how cheap he is and treat him as just a point-efficient one-shot weapon

But your opponents start displacing and taking cover saves and meching up, and he's not even that efficient.

65 points may possibly be only a single paladin, but against most infantry, Marbo's likely going to struggle to kill his points worth of stuff, which is bad if all you're doing is taking him to kill stuff. I'd rather buy pask or 3 lascannons or 6 meltaguns somewhere.

This is silly, I recently watched marbo demo the rear of a battle wagon and make an ork player choose to either dedicate his recently disembarked flashgits or a 30 man mob to kill marbo or let him survive in his back field to later contest an objective or achieve linebreaker. You have to know how to use marbo if you want him to earn, but when he does he earns big. The game prior the same player used the same tactic against BA and nuked a full assault squad from cover while threatening his back fields again.

It's not a matter of can they kill him, it's what do they have to allocate to him. I have seen stupid amounts of fire thrown at him out of vindictive spite. He is 65pts of pinpoint st 8 ap2 death. He is an auto include in each of my lists.

If you're just treating Marbo as a pieplate wherever you want it he will be seen as lacking. What I usually do is figure out a way for making him have a lasting impact on the game.

For example, Marbo is the easiest linebreaker point ever. You can place him literally wherever you want. Properly placed, your enemy will never get to him, and you get a victory point for a paltry 65 points. Inside a buiding, hidden between two wrecks, up on top of a building in the corner, wherever.

The other way he usually gets me an easy point is slay the warlord. Anything with no eternal warrior and T5+ is going to get instagibbed by him, and since all you need to do is place Marbo as close to the warlord model as possible, the demo charge can scatter wherever, and so long as it does wounds, it'll start wounding that character first. I've sniped several characters this way easily.

Then add on that he can do things like gut a unit hiding behind a tough guy (paladins with whatever the one dude is with the invuln save and 4 wounds for example, or a grey hunter mob with a guy in terminator armor up front) You really have to take his ability to come in EXACTLY where he is needed into account. And that's not adding to the fact that your opponent HAS to kill him, or he'll go on a rampage. For 65pts, he's a steal.

As for the other characters, Al'Rahem and Chenkov would be the two I would tie for second most useful, as both have very good uses if you are willing to build a list around them. Harker is a close 3rd, I've just had a hard time getting him to work for me, which sucks because I think the potential really is there for him to be awesome. Kell also looks promising, with or without Creed, but I'll have to try him and see. He gets a lot of nifty stuff for the price, as well as a standard that I would buy anyways and makes a pretty beefy bodyguard, as well as buffing units with higher LD orders. The rest are either too expensive, too situational, or both for me to give them any really serious look.

 Ailaros wrote:
But your opponents start displacing and taking cover saves and meching up, and he's not even that efficient.

Haven't we been over this enough times? Displacing to maximum coherency reduces the impact of the demo charge (though you still hit several models), but in a world of model-by-model cover saves and focus fire it also means that you open yourself up to a lot more damage from any non-blast weapons that can ignore your armor saves. And since you don't know what unit Marbo is going to kill when he arrives you have to expose several units to extra plasma/melta/etc shooting in exchange for protecting one against Marbo.

I like using Harker with 3 plasma guns in my IG army. The Harker squad always gets camo cloaks and is always deployed in some sort of terrain. He is difficult to remove and puts pressure on your opponent right away.

I also use Pask and Marbo, but those two have been covered to death.

there is only one use . http://m.youtube.com/?reload=7&rdm=mfca6b1mx#/watch?v=2Z4m4lnjxkY

 Peregrine wrote:

I disagree, for three reasons:

1) He's a single infantry model, so the easiest possible thing to hide out of LOS of a single fixed quad gun. Things probably get worse if your opponents all play IG with Sabre gun spam, but in general it's a bad idea to assume that the interceptor guns will always get him.

2) You're probably bringing in other reserves. Do you really want to shoot Marbo, who almost always has a 4+ cover save (and quite possibly a 3+) with your quad gun, or do you want to shoot at the incoming Vendetta squadron? And even if you do shoot at Marbo you're still paying 65 points to ensure that your aircraft arrive safely and get the first shot (a deal I've been happy to take).

1) If you hide him out of LOS, he likely won't be putting that demo charge where he wants it. Marbo: neutralized.

2) Yes; a good general will shoot marbo the vast majority of the time with their quad gun, because he is delivering a Medusa shell to their face.

Sadly Yarrick is garbage. Thought he would be good but once I realized there was no invulnerable save I now know he is garbage.

I'll just leave this here and go on my merry way...

Ive seen Marbo turn up beside the 'Artillery Corner' in Big Guns Never Tire and kill them all. I think it was a Manticore and 2 Basilisks.

... and that's even possible... how? I think that's part of the problem, marbo tends to get hyped well beyond his actual capabilities, much less what he's likely to do in any give game.

And yarrick doesn't need an invul save. He gets +1T, forcing his opponents to reroll wounds, eternal warrior, and he GETS BACK UP WHEN HE DIES.

If nothing else, this gives you hilarious abilities with regards to denying slay the warlord.

Here are my thoughts.

Harker. Better in 6th than before. I run him as a good irritant unit. Three snipers, another heavy bolter. Snipers are better than before to. Infiltrate in some ruins.

Yarrick. He is the base of my IG cc unit. Him, five ogryn in a chimera. Keep his chimera around your vets and there chimeras to help them not run after the coffin blows up.

Creed/Kell. Never used them, a lot of point investment.

Nork dog. Fun to use. He is great with Straken

Straken. Foot guard. Best saves in the IG codex. Him, some plasma gunners, amd Nork for a body guard.

Bastonne. Seems like he would be a storm trooper sgt to me. Never use him, noe, seen him used.

The other infantry guys have there uses, but, I don't run infantry platoons.

Marbo, best points around

I think the thing with the majority of Guard special characters is that they only really become useful in larger points games - around the 2500 point up.

To be honest, I think Creed/Kell end up becoming near essential at this point just because when you've got so many men with so many orders that need giving, it just ends up being required. Also, large games tend to result in me bringing out my heavy weapons teams.

Al-rahem is the same sort of thing I think, in normal games, you'd need to build an army around him, whereas in big games, it's a pretty neat twist.

 Compel wrote:

To be honest, I think Creed/Kell end up becoming near essential at this point just because when you've got so many men with so many orders that need giving, it just ends up being required. Also, large games tend to result in me bringing out my heavy weapons teams.

Two CCS' is cheaper than one CCS with Creed and gives you 2ft of 4 orders per turn. Only kell is relevant, and only if you're using HWT's, which you shouldn't, because you should be using sabres.

 Ailaros wrote:
... and that's even possible... how? I think that's part of the problem, marbo tends to get hyped well beyond his actual capabilities, much less what he's likely to do in any give game.

How? Easy, he appears behind them and splashes a pair with St8 AP2 on av10.... open topped.... Next turn he assaults with his melta bombs and nukes the third. Not going to be this sweet every game but not hard to imagine people forget he doesn't need to be placed in terrain ALL THE TIME! He is a major factor, it's too bad if you haven't had success with him but clearly the vast majority of your peers on here have had awesome results with the guy.

Red Corsair wrote:Next turn ...

Marbo? Next turn?

 Ailaros wrote:

Red Corsair wrote:Next turn ...

Marbo? Next turn?

It's rare, but it happens. I've had him survive for 3 turns sometimes, thanks to careful positioning and hiding behind cover.

That or the only units that can see him REALLY need to shoot something else instead

But in this case, it was marbo next to a manticore. Odds of survival from that lone seems pretty low, much less from whatever was guarding all that artillery.

There wasnt anything. it was a blob of Infantry behind an aegis fireing at the advancing wall of AV14 pieplate-spitting Russes. The Melatvets hadnt come on in their Vendettas yet.