Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So as we now all know, Honour Guard got a drastic price cut. I'm currently converting a few and I'd ideally like to be able to make use of them in games.

However, while the power weapon and artificer armour as standard at a much lower price are attractive, the base cost of the Chapter Master to unlock them still seems pretty steep. So I'm wondering if anyone else is considering HG and if so what how would you equip them?

And what about the Chapter Master, would you keep him cheap or take advantage of his wargear options? I haven't used a CM before so I'm especially interested to see what kind of upper limit you'd suggest for his point cost, or even if he's too pricy to be worth it to begin with...

I was thinking of putting some together myself.

Champ with a basic sword
One with an axe
One with a relic blade

Not sure if I'll do up a standard. I play Ultramarines, so if I field a CM, it's going to be Calgar.

That should give me a decent mix of S and AP, without getting out of hand on points.

I didn't field them in the old codex, so this is just me theory crafting and putting together minis I think look cool.

It's a hell of a pain that the two options are tied together. With the Chapter Master, you're basically paying extra for Orbital Bombardment, which you can't use on the move. The Honour Guard however are very clearly a close combat unit so really they want to get stuck in. It's a conflict of interest in a unit's role that normally we would steer people away from, but here seems built in.

While the Chapter Master does not of course have to actually run with the Honour Guard, he's still a heck of a beatstick anyway so it seems keeping him back in order to fire the Orbital Bombardment is a hell of a waste. I could see the use in having him as a counter-attacker in a gunline list but a Librarian and/or Master of the Forge would be cheaper.

Honestly, the Orbital Bombardment didn't seem to make much sense in the last Codex and that's continued.

Put the Chapter Master on a bike, go with a bike list, and move up. It might also turn out that the Burning Blade is worth the points so you can pierce those 2+ saves at initiative.

I've never used a Chapter Master, but with W4 and the option of EW, I don't think there's any risk of him getting killed early. Therefore, I would think you could save the Orbital Bombardment until the late game to pound an objective holder or something big that you're close enough to charge anyway. That is, there's no reason to blow the OB early, when you really need to be moving every turn.

Well, CM can take bikes now correct? So he would have relentless and could therefore move and shoot, and so not stand still to fire the OB like Lotus says. But I'm assuming honor guard still can't has bikes, yeah?

Honor guard cant have bikes, but you unlock bike troops taking the chapter master on bike.

A big squad of honor guard and a chapter master at the same time is a little overkill anyway.

Any thoughts on whether they'd be viable in a Drop Pod list?

They would obviously have to shoot on arrival, then - this looks like the risky part - you'd have to rely on the 2+ to keep them alive until the next turn, when they can charge. If I were to do this I was thinking of joining the CM to the squad and giving him the Primarch's Wrath.

I was thinking that they would be fantastic in a second wave drop.

>first pod comes down, shoots, grenades, etc
>other person shoots those marines on their turn
>second pod comes down with honour guard squad
--->Now the opponent has to decide whether to dump all his dakka into the honour guard in hopes of killing it, or else try and prevent the charge thats about to come out of whatever marines/dreads are still alive from the initial drop.

Running them with Calgar I think would be an interesting idea.

With Calgar you can take 30. In 3 pods, thats 1170 pts.

If you deploy properly in cover and spread out on the turn you arrive, even Tau/Eldar have trouble killing killing 30 marines with 2+ saves in cover that will never flee.
If calgar is in term armor he can also obital bombard the turn he arrives. (and if he gets the warlord trait to re-roll hits, he can nominate his own unit and re-roll the scatter)

In a 2k game I could see it working. You would probably have tiggy as well, to unlock a command squad + pod for calgar to ride in, and make the rest of your list tac marines and devs/thunderfire cannons, unlocking as many drop pods as possible. And with tiggy the rest should arrive turn 2.

By no means top tier, would stugle against wave serpents (depending on your heavy support ooptions) but could hold its own and would be awesome fun to play