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Hello my dear friends,

I have been playing GK for a fair while now, and I'm looking at starting a new army which is only for fun and casual play, and is mainly a chance to have a bit of fun with modelling. At the same time, I want to have fun and there's nothing fun about getting tabled and being completely uncompetitive. Anyway, any feedback on this 1500 point list would be much appreciated, and if anyone can speak to how effective they think it would be that would be much appreciated!

H.Q.
Captain Tycho (in DP w. sternguard) 175

Elites
5 Sternguard w. combi-plas
+ Corbulo
+ Drop Pod + locator beacon 300

Blood Priest w. jump pack (to roll with the ASM) 75

Troops

5 sniper scouts, missile launcher 100

5 sniper scouts missile launcher 100

10 assault marines w. jetpacks
- sergeant gunslinging plasma pistols 220

Fast Attack

5 Vanguard Vets w. double claw sergeant,
- 2 x power lance,
- 1 x power axe,
- 1 x power fist, 220

2 attack bikes w. multi-meltas 100

Heavy Support

5 Devastators w. 4 lascannons + serg 190

As I said, it's mainly a modelling project but I would like them to see battle and be respectable. The sternguard, vanguard and scouts are pretty much the only units that I really want to have in, though I could just as easily play the vanguard vets as sanguinary guard or honour guard if that would somehow be more effective and I'm totally negotiable on the weapons. I would love to include the sanguinor, and maybe even the stormraven, if there was some way to do it effectively. I don't really like the devastators but thought they might fill a hole.

Thanks again!

The ASM need special weapons.

Plasma, imo, is the worst weapon for sternguard. Use combi-melta or combi-flamer.

Lascannon devs are pricey ,but can be worth it.

I would've went with a cooler army. If it's just for eye candy purposes.

 Falyed Immortal wrote:
I would've went with a cooler army. If it's just for eye candy purposes.

Useful.



Overall it won't be a bad start, it depends on your local meta, and how competitive you want to be with the army? Any more info you could give us on these two points, and we will be able to help you further.

In general, the Vanguard are horridly overcosted. I'd proxy them as something else. Even Sanguinary Guard are a better value, imo.

Martel732 wrote:
In general, the Vanguard are horridly overcosted. I'd proxy them as something else. Even Sanguinary Guard are a better value, imo.

Yeah the only real good way of running Vanguards is if you run them with Knight Captain Elam Coubray, that way they'll be scoring. But that's running them in the Vanilla codex.

I'm not an expert modeller by any stretch, but I enjoy having a fiddle. I'll just show you what I have in mind model wise:

Inspiration for sternguard:


That is only a rough picture of what I'm aiming for with the sternguard - mainly I'm going to use the cloaks and shoulder shields. But for arm weapons I'm going to have two wrist mounted weapons, taken from the Sanguinary Guard, to act as combi-weapons. Might sound corny, but the idea of sternguard walking around with a gun strapped to each wrist (Iron-Man-esque) sounds awesome to me. Whether I can pull it off is another story.

Inspiration for vanguard/sanguine/honour guard:



So far, I have completed converting (but not finished painting):




I understand that these models won't be to everyone's taste, but it's my sort of style I should say that it's not strictly a BA army, it's a successor chapter that I think would be best running off BA rules based on the units, playstyle and visual style I'm going for.

My local meta isn't tournament competitive, but the guys are smart enough and have large enough collections that they can bring challenging armies. There's actually a pretty good mix, MEQ would be the majority, but the occasional Nid, Eldar, Necron, IG or Tau player will pop up. No-one really seems to be that big on flyers, it's only the Necron and SM players who rarely bring one.

I would like to be as competitive as possible whilst including the sternguard vets, vanguard vets (or honour guard / sanguinary guard / death company) and at least 5 scouts. After that, the units I would love to incorporate are drop pod/s, assault marines, razorbacks and a gunslinging plasma pistol warrior. Below that in preference I would be keen for the Sanguinor, Blood Priests, a Stormraven, a Furioso or a Librarian. Finally, I'd rather avoid predators, land raiders, devastators, terminators, vindicators and land speeders.

May I ask why combi-plas is not that useful? I was thinking I would do a mix of plasma and melta, I thought flamer might not work as well because of scatter potential, plus generally if you have a mix of plasma/melta and flamers it seems to me that your guns are designed to shoot at two totally different units. I did feel the ASM need a special weapon, what do you recommend?

THANKS ALL!

Plasma just has the best range of the three and you don't want to "get hot!" your expensive Sternguard. Their special ammo is absolutely amazing.

Yeah, the difficulty with plasma though as far as I've experienced it, is getting within rapid fire range, and the DP sternguard make this possible. Their special ammo is amazing, but plasma is way better and I feel like for 5 points extra I'm maximising the firepower I'll get out of them. It just adds a flexibility to tackle things like termies, high toughness+save units and vehicles which are all potentially the types of units that a squad of DP Sternies ought to try to take out.

The 'gets hot' thing is a downside, but with a 3+ and then 5+ FNP, it's going to be pretty rare that one of them dies. In fact there's a 3% chance of it happening.

I'd love to completely rewrite the list, but I'm a little bit lost I'm afraid.

Here's the summary of preferences:
MUSTS: Combi-weapon unit (sternguard/honour guard), flying assault unit (vanguard vets, honour guard, sanguinary guard), 5-10 sniper scouts.
REALLY WANTS: Drop pod/s, assault marines (preferably with jetpacks), razorbacks.
WANTS: Sanguinor/other flying HQ, blood priests, gunslinging plasma pistol warrior, stormraven, furioso, librarian.
AVOID IF POSSIBLE: Predators, land raiders, devastators, terminators, vindicators, land speeders.

Any advice/feedback appreciated!

The problem is that the plasma loadout really stinks against AV 13 and AV 14. Also, the plasma stinks against horde infantry with 5++ cover.

Also, one of the best things about plasma is that it goes out to 24". You don't necessarily need to be within rapid fire range, because that means you are in within assault range as well.

I find that plasma on tac squads and bikers is better than sternguards. Realize that 8+ flamer templates will also kill a terminator unit, and also infantry blobs. You don't want to drop the Sternguard close to a lot of plasma targets like tervigons, because rapid fire range = assault range.

Basically it sounds like you are building you own version of my hybrid jumper/drop list.

My list has the following features:

1) Sternguard in pod with meltas, libby w/shield of sanguinius, Corbulo

2) Fragnought in pod

3) Tactical with max plasma in pod

4) 2 full ASM jumper squads with librarian w/shield of sanguniius and sanguinary priest

5) 3 X MM attack bikes with biker priest

6) For larger games, I sometimes add locator beacons to the drop pods and beam in terminators w/heavy flamer or bring a Stormraven.

With three pods, I select 2/3 to come in turn 1 as needed. Fragnought + sternguard will do serious damage to a flank. I then proceed to attack that flank. Pretty simple really. We cant' get too fancy as BA.

superwill wrote:
Yeah, the difficulty with plasma though as far as I've experienced it, is getting within rapid fire range, and the DP sternguard make this possible. Their special ammo is amazing, but plasma is way better and I feel like for 5 points extra I'm maximising the firepower I'll get out of them. It just adds a flexibility to tackle things like termies, high toughness+save units and vehicles which are all potentially the types of units that a squad of DP Sternies ought to try to take out.

The 'gets hot' thing is a downside, but with a 3+ and then 5+ FNP, it's going to be pretty rare that one of them dies. In fact there's a 3% chance of it happening.

I'd love to completely rewrite the list, but I'm a little bit lost I'm afraid.

Here's the summary of preferences:
MUSTS: Combi-weapon unit (sternguard/honour guard), flying assault unit (vanguard vets, honour guard, sanguinary guard), 5-10 sniper scouts.
REALLY WANTS: Drop pod/s, assault marines (preferably with jetpacks), razorbacks.
WANTS: Sanguinor/other flying HQ, blood priests, gunslinging plasma pistol warrior, stormraven, furioso, librarian.
AVOID IF POSSIBLE: Predators, land raiders, devastators, terminators, vindicators, land speeders.

Any advice/feedback appreciated!

Iam fairly sure you mean with JUMP PACKS..

it depends on how heavily you want to use decent of angels. Iam not sure if the Sanguinor can join squads. priests and good.. you could take 3 5 man assault squads with a priest and give sargents plasma pistols, maybe deepstrike them or drop pod them.. or put the in razorbacks.. vanguard can be quite nice depending on what your give them...

Thanks a lot for your input guys, given me a few ideas!

How about this for a revised list?

HQ.

XXX Librarian (brings divination to sternguard)

205 Honour Guard x5, Blood Champion, 1 w. twin lightning claws

Elites

185 Sternguard x5, combi-weapon x5, Drop Pod

XXX Corbulo (soaks up fire for sternies)

160 Furioso Dread, frag cannon, Drop Pod

Troops

240 Assault Squad x10, melta x2, plasma pistol x2, Drop Pod (for only five more points I could swap to a tac squad in pod and change the 2 meltas for a plasma?)

215 Assault Squad x10, flamer x2, power sword, jump packs

100 Sniper Scouts x5, camo, missile launcher

Heavy Support

XXX Storm Raven

I could swap the ASM in pod for a tac squad for 5 extra points and change the 2 meltas for a plasma gun, then receiving an extra 8 bolter rounds. Not sure which is better.

The basic plan with this new list would be that the sternguard drop, blow something up (hopefully) and then scream "shoot me!" louder than any other unit. Corbulo's insane tankiness will hopefully mean that a lot of the enemy's shooting is spent here, meaning that there is far less fire directed at the 20 assault marines, Honour Guard, SR and Fragioso.

Lastly, a question. Does a blood chalice affect a whole unit as long as a member of the unit is within 6" of the priest, or does it only affect the particular models who are within 6"? For example, if two members of my jump pack ASM are within 6" of my Honour Guard's Blood Priest, will all the ASM receive the bonus?

Did you pay for the Jump pack upgrade on the Honour Guard? And also my personal preference for running Honour Guard, would be drop the champion and run them all with plasma guns, gives some real scary AP2 threat.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And also, your models a simply beautiful. I am in awe of your Sternguard, do you have any WIP photos of them, or a Blog per chance?

Ah, I did pay for the jump packs, but I was 10 points off. They are actually 215.

Haha, nice of you to say man, but they're not actually my sternguard, I was just saying that they're the inspiration for my own sternguard squad. There's a tiny sentence between the massive pictures so I'm not surprised you didn't notice it. It's just that someone mentioned that sternguard, vanguard and scouts aren't the most visually appealing units, and I thought I'd show roughly what I had in mind.

However, the pics at the end, the scouts and the lightning claw angel are both mine, neither of which are finished of course. I have a couple more WIP shots for you here. They're blue-tacked and very incomplete atm, and I might switch things around, but I'm getting close to assembling both sergeants (although if the flyers are Honour Guard, I'll probably swap the lightning claws to a blood champ) and one little guy. I'm going to aim for more dynamic poses, and my sternguard are going to represent their combi-weapons with two wrist-mounted weapons. I don't claim any expertise so be forgiving!







FYI though, the Sternguard posted further above I believe are from a White Dwarf, and I've not come across a tutorial or WIP blog.

As I mentioned, they are not technically a BA chapter. Without boring you, the fluff is that they are one of the eight unnamed Astartes Praeses chapters. They're colour scheme is pretty much the save as the Blood Ravens, their founding chapter is most likely Raven Guard, and I think their name will be the "Ivory Shields", hence the shield iconography which I will further develop. Not 100% sure about that, but that's where I'm up to at this stage

Where did you get the wings from?

The big wings are from DE scourges - kind of wish I'd gone for more, but it makes the models pretty big for a little marine, and at least it creates a point of difference for the leader.

EDIT: So, I'm an idiot, and ASM can take plasma guns. I misread because it says plasma gun/pistol and somehow my brain failed. Cool!