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Lately I've been rolling with SW allies for my gun line guard. Ive come across the fact that it is rather a bit hard to keep my warlord alive. Usually I play against chaos marines or daemons and once my opponent gets close enough to my lines he goes right for my warlord, usually the CCS.

My CCS is kitted out with a lascannon for long range anti tank and a standard for moral buff. Is their any other wargear or other options I should throw on the squad that would rather help them in closer fighting, plasma pistol, sword,ect?

Now another problem Ive run into is flyrants and helldrakes. Flyrants will usually fly up to my line when more tyranids get close and just unload into my CCS, because of the s6 shots my squad is usually dead in 1 go. This is the same when a helldrake comes on. The drake will usually fly on and if my warlord is still good will just flame it down in 1 go. Only real counter I can think of for these 2 threats are putting my CCS in a chimera. Problem with this is that will be my only chimera and my opponents anti tank can focus on it.

My army consists of gunline infantry squads, 2-3 russes, 1-2 vendettas and 2 hunter units in pods and a rune priest to buff blob. Then theres a defense line and quad gun.

Ive tried hiding my CCS behind russes to help hide them but some orders like bring it down and I think fire on my target require line of sight.

Help is much appreciated! Although any suggestions that include FW units wont help me as I am a college student and ordering something from FW is too crazy pricey for me lol, but suggestions are still nice if i try to include them down the road.

There's always the classic 4x melta/plasma in a Vendetta option. That keeps it alive when you need to protect it AND gives you some nice firepower ready to be deployed where you need it. Sure, you lose orders, but you have divination rune priests to replace that.

S6 flame templates guard commanders are toast. all you can really do is space as much as possible, and throw a body guard or two in to pull wounds away from the commander.

If you have buildings/ruins then always do the multilevel trick to prevent large numbers of template hits.

 Peregrine wrote:
There's always the classic 4x melta/plasma in a Vendetta option. That keeps it alive when you need to protect it AND gives you some nice firepower ready to be deployed where you need it. Sure, you lose orders, but you have divination rune priests to replace that.

I think I might go with the vendetta idea as thats not a bad idea to keep them alive.

Any suggestions on a way for boosting the rest of the gunlines moral though? I think I might have to include to CCS's in my list, 1 to keep safe in a vendetta and pop out at a key moment and 1 for moral boost on the ground.

I usually use 7-8 infantry squads so almost 2 full platoons. I dont want to blob all 50men in one squad as that would put a significant point sink in just killing one unit like a rhino or something, unless im wrong.

Also against the hell drake I usually space out as best as I can. As I mentioned I use a lot of infantry squads and the area behind my line fills up rather quickly so sometimes my opponent gets lucky when it comes to getting templates off but I will watch out for that.

Or the chimera to protect them.

They have to crack it open first which gives you an extra turn to goo any threats with las.

The chimera wouldnt be bad because its behind my defence line and a 4+ will keep it alive longer but since its the only av12 aside form the vendettas it will get focused because the russes will be a lot harder to kill and my opponents usually just ignore them unless they can assault the tanks.

Well, the biggest problem here is the CCSs are just, well, fragile. If your opponent is hell-bent on getting slay the warlord, there's not much that you're going to be able to do about it other than stay completely out of LOS with the officer.

Either you have to just accept some casualties, or switch over to a lord commissar or something that can "hide" in a bigger squad.

That or focus harder on claiming the warlord point yourself. If you always kill off your opponent's HQ choice, then the best your opponent can do is tie on this matter.

Yea I would suppose your right. Guards units are basically all expendable and are really easy to kill so I cant take crazy precautions to keep a small squad alive.

The only problem with killing my opponents warlord is that its either Lilith, Blood thirster, or abaddon. Ive also fought against some eldar character that really went crazy but it was my first time against eldar and I coulnt even tell you one thing in his army or what really went down but it was a close battle. But as for the characters listed above, I usually have a lot of trouble killing these guys as they some how get close to my line unharmed using terrain and once they are close enough it doesnt even matter because theyve run through it lol.

I have gone to taking a PP as my warlord and sticking him in a blob for protection. He's an IC so you benefi from 2+ LoS and he's a good deal harder to get to than a CCS.

He has the same leadership as a CC so he can be your warlord while you run a CCS for orders.