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So I'm building an guard army mainly focused on vehicles, artillery but I am taking a few guard squads/vets but Ive not built a guard army before and the amount of weapon choices and equipment choices is quite frankly startling and I'm a little confused as such as to what to build exactly. I'm sitting here looking through the codex with a command squad and I need advice. What should I give this CS exactly? I face mainly Space marines or hordes like nids. I could also use advice on the do's and don't of a guard army.

I tend to give my CCS a Regimental Standard. And that's it. Some argue that it's a waste of the BS4 on the veterans to not give them guns, I don't have to expose the squad to return fire to make optimal use of it so it can hide and issue orders.

However, for a Mechanized Infantry list, the CCS is of limited use since units in transports can't receive orders. Instead, if you're planning on meching up all your Troops, go with something like a Lord Commissar with a pair of plasma pistols. Then you can attach him to a Vet squad to keep him somewhat safe.

When it comes to arming Veterans, there are two major schools of though. One school is things like sniper rifles and grenade launchers. This school eats a bag of dicks, because the other school is so much more awesome and useful.

The 2nd school is to get every Veteran squad either 3 plasmaguns or 3 meltaguns. Don't both with Doctrines, or upgrades for the sergeants, or upgrades for their Chimeras.

For Infantry platoons, if you're planning on putting them all in Chimeras, I'm a fan of the plasmagun and lascannnon.

CCS can compliment your melta/plasma vets quite well with either 4x plasma, 4x melta, or (to reduce the incentive for some armies to shoot them, and control hordes) 4x flamers.

Except that with a CCS, you're paying for the ability to grant orders. When your track gets blown up, your Warlord spills out on the board with 1 to 4 ablative wounds before he surrenders the point. Taking a LordComm instead means your Warlord is buried in a much larger squad.

DaddyWarcrimes wrote:
Except that with a CCS, you're paying for the ability to grant orders. When your track gets blown up, your Warlord spills out on the board with 1 to 4 ablative wounds before he surrenders the point. Taking a LordComm instead means your Warlord is buried in a much larger squad.

Most mech players treat their CCS's as special weapon squads that don't score and come with a couple of bonuses. Orders are a bonus, even for foot armies, not something you build your army around.

Think of it as a special weapon squad that can occasionally tell survivors of a wrecked vehicle to stop panicking and you'll be much happier with them. They're also slightly cheaper than a maxed plasma vet squad when they have 4 plasmas.

The only problem is that your warlord, the company commander, will make that squad an even bigger fire magnet than it already was.

Might not be a bad idea to get a platoon to sit on a point and bubble wrap your support tanks/artillery. Then you can stick a Commissar Lord in the blob, and use the CCS to give the blob orders. The lord will be a much more survivable warlord and the CCS can still give orders and remain expendable.