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RxGhost wrote:He is right about the Veterens though, they look like a steal at 70pts but I've found the functional cost to be between 155~230.

Unmounted (or un-infiltrated) and without special weapon focus they don't warrant purchase over a regular infantry squad or the penile legion.

this made me chuckle, so thats what their extra close combat weapon is!

Good for a counts as slaaneshi cultist army...

Can't believe I went there...

Fearspect wrote:I have no clue why you are quoting tanks like I am talking about something ridiculous or focusing on 1500 points as a limit. Yes, at less points you would have less in your army, and the problems I addressed above would be even more glaringly obvious.

Because this is what im basing my army list around, a 1500pt limit. This is also why I mentioned 7 tanks, not 3, not 15.

You stated merely 6-7. How many tanks, at a rough guess, would you field in a 1500pt guard mech vet army?

"Tanks" is a jovial referance to earlier where I mentioned chimera as transports not tanks, go read the entire post before saying anything rash.

Chimera are light tanks, they are decently armored on front, can put out a respectable amount of fire on themselves. And with infantry inside, they can unleash hell. Though they do need to be taken in groups to combat their weak side armor.

Razerous wrote:

Fearspect wrote:I have no clue why you are quoting tanks like I am talking about something ridiculous or focusing on 1500 points as a limit. Yes, at less points you would have less in your army, and the problems I addressed above would be even more glaringly obvious.

Because this is what im basing my army list around, a 1500pt limit. This is also why I mentioned 7 tanks, not 3, not 15.

You stated merely 6-7. How many tanks, at a rough guess, would you field in a 1500pt guard mech vet army?

"Tanks" is a jovial referance to earlier where I mentioned chimera as transports not tanks, go read the entire post before saying anything rash.

But Chimera's have a armor value so need to be treated as tanks as they direct fire from other tanks. That's the concept of mech, too many targets overwhelm the ability of your opponent's AT to take them all out.

As a comparison, in my 1,000 point Mech Dark Angels army I have about 7 tanks. If you want to do mech, probably 9-10 tanks is closer to what you'll end up with at 1,500.

I will field 8-9 vehicles at 1500 pts, with a foot component as a firebase..

Razerous wrote:

Fearspect wrote:I have no clue why you are quoting tanks like I am talking about something ridiculous or focusing on 1500 points as a limit. Yes, at less points you would have less in your army, and the problems I addressed above would be even more glaringly obvious.

Because this is what im basing my army list around, a 1500pt limit. This is also why I mentioned 7 tanks, not 3, not 15.

You stated merely 6-7. How many tanks, at a rough guess, would you field in a 1500pt guard mech vet army?

"Tanks" is a jovial referance to earlier where I mentioned chimera as transports not tanks, go read the entire post before saying anything rash.

Okay, so let's go with 7 for your list (seems like it falls in the 6-7 range...) You have seven total useful weapons in your entire army now. Every tank you lose, your effectiveness goes down 1/7th. Meanwhile, you could have your vets or platoons in useful transports also having a significant (read: any) impact on the game, while still having powerful tanks to blast things.

You could also run the Guard with the powerful tanks, but with loaded out troops on foot, contributing to the damage on the table. The point that I am trying to make is that seven weapons at 1500 points is really not enough. It looks fine on paper I suppose, but they other army gets to shoot back at you, unfortunately :(

I made reference in my post to every concept discussed prior to it in this thread, and I certainly am not going to speak rashly! Just trying to help someone play better. Don't worry, I don't take offense to your ravings too much, in general they just make me giggle.

Just to point out, I am also including a CCS with a MOO (not so much because its the best choice.. I just love the idea of widly inaccurate unlimited range str9 ap3 pie for 80pts) aswell as two penals and a triple melta, autocannon vet squad led by harker.. whom will probably infiltrate his men into cover on the field.

Three tanks are individual leman russes. Two devil dogs are in a squadren and two valkyries are seperate. Just to give you the groupings.

I think im just eating a lot of flame for my like of penal legions. .

No, penal legions are great, they just are not the infantry core, which your army is light one.

Objectives and troops are the name of the game in 5th

Agreed. Against a horde ork you really will have to play smart, since your vehicles will be eaten alive in assault, and if your penal legion outflanks you will not have screens to blunt the enemy offensive, especially if the fight is in the middle of the board.

In this case it may be better to deploy the penal guys instead of outflanking, and hope you thin the enemy so that the penal legion can hold their own during crunch time.

Anyone ever watch the movie the dirty dozen. They were dropped in and killed every German officer in sight before dying. This is what the penal legionaries do, and they do it well. They must however work in conjunction with the rest of the army. They are not a random support unit, they are not the army core. They are there as a thorn in the side/surgical strike unit to come in and smash up something important and then go from warm bodies to cold bodies. Speaking of warm bodies and point cost razerous if you want a good unit for low point cost, look at conscripts. I know you need to purchase the basic platoon for that, but forget that, it can be used and doesn't significantly detract from your tank horde. for the same 80 points you just got more bodies. Remember that as guardsmen they have no close combat ability that will turn the tide of battle, they will still die, they just might inflict a wound. But you have tanks to inflict that wound, so why not cram in more warm bodies to tar pit for longer so your tank can get a good shot. Yes they don't have stubborn, yes they don't have a grab bag of rolled for goodies, but all you have to do is throw in a lord commisar and bang you just got the best tar pit in the world for the same price (- the lord commisar).

Blob squads cost 1 point more for better stats, can be stubborn with hidden commissar for 35 points and don't need a 70 point basecost IC that takes up a valuable HQ slot. Plus they can take heavy and special weapons, giving them firesupport (ACs) at cheap cost, so even if your tanks are secure they can do stuff. IG is overwhelming firepower, it doesn't matter ho you overwhelm them, you just have to,

And yes Penals are the perfect distraction/thorn unit.

But I find them better as a rogue force, they help out and kill important stuff, but you don't count them and plan the main strategy with your force that is on the board, so when the penal (or Marbo) comes, you just got an ace in the hole, as compared to waiting for something that may come too late to be useful.

Razerous wrote:Just to point out, I am also including a CCS with a MOO (not so much because its the best choice.. I just love the idea of widly inaccurate unlimited range str9 ap3 pie for 80pts) aswell as two penals and a triple melta, autocannon vet squad led by harker.. whom will probably infiltrate his men into cover on the field.

Three tanks are individual leman russes. Two devil dogs are in a squadren and two valkyries are seperate. Just to give you the groupings.

I think im just eating a lot of flame for my like of penal legions. .

Disagreeing with you != Flaming you.

Having a plan is much more useful. Wiping out say the HQ is where they are useful. Instead of letting them off the leash to die having been a nuisance, let them kill something that benefits the entire army.

Second you can have the original platoon that you bought do he whole fire support thing. You don't have to clump your support and attack and antitank into one unit. Let the conscripts take the bullets while the real guardsmen support your units. The point is not about the ability to inflict damage, its about how much damage can they take. You can have more conscripts than guardsmen, and both die equally fast. I do wish that they could take a commissar, I put the lord commissar in there to keep the conscripts from s@%#ing their pants and running off. I have to double heck if there is a better IC to babysit them.

Even if you strip them bare, basic guardsmen only cost 1 point more for better WS/BS and Ld. And they can separate/blob when needed.

When my Penals arrive out of reserves, they do have a mission, but until they arrive, I forget about them and plan accordingly.

Delete this i'm stupid.

Razerous, the problem here is that you are taking this too personally. We are not saying you are a stupid or bad player for suggesting this idea, we are just saying we don't think it will work like you want it to. Most of us (I can only speak for myself with assurance) are not outright disagreeing with you, but are merely stating what we see as errors or hiccups in the intended strategy you envisioned for Penal troops. I think liking penal troops is fine, but I am just trying to help by pointing out that taking the minimum FOC of them is not a super-competitive strategy. Yes, it gets you more toys. As a tread-lover myself, I think that is awesome too. But as a game player, I think you would have to max them out (6 squads) in order to get the effect you want with them. If I sounded like I was flaming then I apologize, I was just trying to help.

For the record, I think it could work.

Two penal legion as the only troops on the field?

I would not say it couldn't work, but I am a bit sceptical.

Agreed, outflanking the penal legionnaires protects them from a few rounds of fire, but I see quite some disadvantages there.

The basic point for me is their vulnerability. 10x T3 5+ can be killed in one round of concentrated shooting, especially with templates. Thinking of griffon-style mortar bombardment or, even worse, whirlwind incendiary missiles right now.

1. What if the enemy outflanks big parts of his army, too? Then your basic plan of shooting the crap out of his force before your troop choices arrive suffers quite a lot and, furthermore, enemy troops will probably spawn not far away from your earlier outflanked penal legionnaires.

2. What if the enemy fields above mentioned support weapons and you are not able to destroy them, because of BLOS or something else? I just want to compare it with an infantry squad in a chimera. Costs 25 points more, but is invulnerable to direct template death, because their vehicle has to be hit first. Defensively played, using cover and smoke launchers, I'd prefer a chimera over outflanking.

3. This is more about choosing just 2 troop choices. Bad table layout can make it hard for footsloggers to get into position in the given time. Bad rolls for reinforcements could get your penal legionnaires into play in 4th or 5th round; if the end of the game might be that near, they would probably have to sprint on the double to get onto maybe enemy-controlled objectives in time. That leaves not much room and time for hugging cover and taking out threats before advancing. This, in result, increases their vulnerability. If the objectives are near the edges, this is not that much of a problem, but still.

Again, it might work and I wish you luck trying it, but I, personally, would rather work with some trusty veterans in chimeras.

Three to four penal legion as the only troops.

You guys are over-fixating on the outflanking. Most of the time there's no need to outflank. Only outflank if there's some compelling reason to do so, otherwise just set up in cover by local objectives or, when there's no indirect fire from the enemy, use tank hulls as cover. Use scouting to shift around if you need to if you set up first.

Then spend the points you would have spent on chimeras and infantry upgrades on the specialized tanks: hellhound variants for their speed and better-than-chimeras side armor, hydras, vendettas. Especially in games of 1500 points or less, those extra points can represent a significant amount of firepower.

In objective games, win by claiming your home objective(s) and shooting everybody off the others or contesting with fast tanks. You don't need infantry to footslog across the board, or even necessarily to go in the open at any point.

Flavius Infernus wrote:Three to four penal legion as the only troops.

You guys are over-fixating on the outflanking. Most of the time there's no need to outflank. Only outflank if there's some compelling reason to do so, otherwise just set up in cover by local objectives or, when there's no indirect fire from the enemy, use tank hulls as cover. Use scouting to shift around if you need to if you set up first.

Then spend the points you would have spent on chimeras and infantry upgrades on the specialized tanks: hellhound variants for their speed and better-than-chimeras side armor, hydras, vendettas. Especially in games of 1500 points or less, those extra points can represent a significant amount of firepower.

In objective games, win by claiming your home objective(s) and shooting everybody off the others or contesting with fast tanks. You don't need infantry to footslog across the board, or even necessarily to go in the open at any point.

Theoretically, yes..in reality difficult to do, especially as razorous list had 7 expensive vehicles, and few troops....thus he needs to spread out the points more to generate more shooting......

I agree that penal legions should only outflank if necessary, but holding the line with them will be iffy, as they lack stopping power versus a major assault, so their role will be (appropriately) to act as speedbumps and die while hopefully the vehicles shoot at things, but if the enemy reaches them,. there is a good chance they will hold (due to stubborn) and then die in the next turn, leaving the assault unit free in its turn to get in among the armor, and as you know in CC everything is even stevens since most of the IG armor have rear AV10 (except for the demolisher variants), easy meat for power klaws and thunder hammers....

Still, this is all theoryhammer. The proponents of this idea should put the list together, try it out, then tell us what happens....

Devil dogs, valkyries, vendettas and eradicators are not expensive tanks.

So, whats with all the flame?

Im gonna go for two penals and harker-led veterans.

Edit: Also, while rear-armor 10 is a target for massed str4 attacks and PK and thunderhammers.. fast-moving vehicles can wade through alot of those types of attacks and come out the other side unscathed. Do the math.

If you want to hold the line, 30 man plus squads with commissar gives Ld 9 stubborn with re-roll.

For breaking when need be. 10 man squads with special/heavy are cheap and will break at the first turn of combat, letting you open up tank firepower. And till they act as speedbumps, they can give supporting fire. Never Underestimate 3-4+ Autocannons as tank support.

Suddenly those chargers, now have to charge through many squads of infantry, each with weapons that will pepper your assaulters with shots,

Razerous, am not flaming you...in fact go ahead and try the list out...if it works then fantastic that is another build that I can try out....just do NOT understimate the power of massed CC attacks versus your tanks, even if you move fast..it just takes a couple of good hits, and the more dice the enemy rolls the better the odds, mathhammer be damned.....

and I still encourage you to put something in those skimmers....makes them double useful.....in fact you can put your 2 penal legion squads there..at least when they come in they do so as a combined force, with less chance of the units being scattered about....

Razerous wrote:
Using infantry platoons as units to do stuff; never get two unless you want more than 5 infantry sqauds. The Platoon command squad is a waste in terms of killpoints and a possible point sink (a great valkyrie transportee though, with meltas/flamers).

I agree it is a point sink, but I don't think it is a waste. In the anniliation game I played last night against Eldar, I had two platoon command squads running up toward them with 3 flamers and a medi-pack guy. They were able to run run run themselves up through cover getting up to the enemy forces. Granted, between the two of them, they only took out a handful of Striking Scorpions, but they drew fire from everything else, and he had to focus fire quite a bit to get to them. Against a more dedicated enemy, I'd almost say they're as good as Vets for loading up into Chimeras with melta and going tank hunting.

Consider this:
1 Vet squad with 3 melta and no other upgrade - 100 pts
Platoon squad with 4 melta - 70 pts.

Since PCS has BS 3, the odds come out to be about even between the two. If you're taking at least 4 infantry squads, you may as well do it this way, because then you get a 30 point reduction on your meltas. Additionally, if you do have points to burn, you can add Al'rahem for another 70 and let them Bring it Down on the enemy tank, giving them 4 twin-linked shots instead.

I usually buy nothing but a vox for my troop level command squads. I just hide them behind the infantry I bought them with and feed orders to em.

outflanking PL won me a capture and control game. i like them. PL has worked well for me

I buy sniper rifles for my platoon command, so they can stay safely tucked behind the lines and still fire, while feeding orders. It works out ok most of the time, and the upgrades are only 5 points apiece.

The Angry Commissar wrote:outflanking PL won me a capture and control game. i like them. PL has worked well for me

fantastic, but is it safe to assume the PL squad was a support unit, not the core of your troops?