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 i have been planning a Iron Hands Army with Master of the Forge and Sterngaurd Veterans Spam.

The plan is to have 3 squads of 10 with 8 carrying combi plasma guns and 2 with heavy weapons. problem is the Sterngaurd Box is 50$ and doesn't even have all the bits if i bought 2 for one squad. the other option is to buy a normal troops box and buy combi weapons off of forge world or somewhere. and i would need to do the same for the heavy bits, since neither box has the guns i need.

Any advice?

Ebay. So much ebay, when you cant get the parts.

But, before that, which heavy weapons do you want on the Sternguard? There are a number of options, and your choices might influence the optimum pathway to buying the marines for this.

Another alternative is making your own combi-plas guns from a bolter and a plas, which will cut out a few of the combi-plas you need to buy, but ultimately there's going to need to be some clever purchasing here.

I Figured i would need to do this sort of thing, for heavy guns i was thinking 2 lascannons or heavy flamers. depending if i want to get close or keep at range, maybe even do a squad with 8 Combi Meltas and 2 multi-melta for tank busting.

Bitz sellers are of course option #1 but you hit the nail on the head with Forge World. They won't be modern Mars Pattern, but they're available. A little pricey but you can sell the unwanted bits on eBay when you're done and should be able to make atleast a bit of money back.

Well, the devestator kit will give you five bodies and some lascannons and a multimelta, although I find the lascannon choice odd in a squad kitted with plasma.

You'll get two combi-plas and two combi-melta for every box of sternguard (ie per 5 marines). I would probably buy three sternguard sets, a tac squad and a devestator squad. This nets you three HF, two lascannons (I think....), a multi-melta, six combi-plas, six combi-melta (plus an extra combi from the tac squad), and thirty bodies to make the squads up, plus enough bling to make your tacticals and devs look like sternguard by diluting the three sets you buy. After that, buy bitz from ebay or from FW to make up the difference; I can't see a more efficient route than this combo.

If it were me putting together sternguard spam, I'd probably cut back on the combi-weapons a bit-the points add up, and marines die. If you keep it to 5 per squad, then you can save 150 pts and sink those into transports for your sternies (which they'll need), or set up a second detachment containing more sternguard. If that much plas/melta is a must-have, then ditch one of the heavy weapons and take a special instead, particularly on the combi-melta squad-the multi-melta is a heavy weapon (rather than assault, like the HF), which is restrictive because you can't move and shoot, but you need to be moving close in order to use all of the other meltas.

I have gotten the Suggestion on another forum to roll only heavy flamers for the heavy slots since they are assault 1, and to run 2 Combi-Meltas in the Combi-Plasma Squads for more anti tank