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I am soon going to get some Vanguard Vets, and I want to know how you like to equip them.

Personally, all Power Weapons so I can eventually get the Sanguine Wing that makes them free. Until then, they're not as good of a choice as Death Company or Sanguinary Guard but kitting them out in the same way as Death Company, a Power Fist and one or two Power Weapons, is a good move. Sanguinary Priest of course. But Vanguard Vets are a stepping stone to 400 free points of weapons.

as stated in the above comment, they are not worth taking over Death company unless you're interested in trying out the formation from Shield of Baal exterminatus, where you have to take 20 of them in 2 units of 10.

I actually am going to be using this formation in the near future, just in the middle of assembly. I've kitted them out in units of 6 power swords and 4 power axes. Then combat squading them into 2 units of 3 swords and 2 axes.

The formation point has been made.
It is now clear that the Death Company are the superior choice, am I correct?

Now, assuming you have understood this and you still wish to get the answer (fluffy reasons or whatever).

For a unit of five I would have:
Jump Pack (obviously. The only reason not to is having a character that can't take one)
All bolt pistols
Two Power Weapons. Either Swords or Axes.
Maybe Relic blade on the sergeant.

For ten guys:
Still Jump Packs and bolt pistols.
2x PW's, Power Fist, Relic blade.

I go 7-8 vanguard, all with melta bombs.

There's a combo with the archangels formation where you could run 10 units of them, they all scatter a d6 less, they all reroll to come in, AND they attempt to jump in on turn 1.

Then take some standard detachment with Dante (and other stuff) and name him warlord for DoA. Now all 10 vv squads have turn 1 noscatter deep strike.

With that in mind, you'll probably want a couple infernus pistols per squad.

Also it's rough to do this combo outside apocalypse point levels.

DoA only works for models in the same detachment, unfortunately. However, you can still role on that table to hope to get it, and you can also take an inquisitor with servo skulls to have no deep strike scatter.

PanzerLeader wrote:
I go 7-8 vanguard, all with melta bombs.

Without Power Weapons/Power Fists they are just overpriced Assault Marines.

Granted, they work well against vehicles but when those aren't around you really need some way to kill infantry.

I still recommend having two Power Weapons and a Power Fist with a squad of that size.

greytalon666 wrote:
DoA only works for models in the same detachment, unfortunately. However, you can still role on that table to hope to get it, and you can also take an inquisitor with servo skulls to have no deep strike scatter.

Wow, after checking that, you're right. That's super-lame. I guess you could try for it with a reroll on one of the hq's in the formation. It doesn't bug me so much that you can't do that awesome combo as much as that you can't get DOA army-wide in really big games. You'd need to make sure all your jumpers and flyers that are coming in are in Dante's detachment.

I went balls out with my vangaurd vets in vanilla marines army with
4 plasma pistol/ power fist
4 thunderhammer/ stormshield
2 power sword/ plasma pistol

Thinking of changing the powerfists to lightning claw / powerfists for the specialist weapon combo thing but haven't decided mostly because I have the older metal ones and already spent half my life modeling them to their current load out
In fluffy / casual games their awesome to play... I can only imagine how much fun using a sang priest for fnp... Run the stormshields upfront to soak damage and then charge away bro!

 soomemafia wrote:

PanzerLeader wrote:
I go 7-8 vanguard, all with melta bombs.

Without Power Weapons/Power Fists they are just overpriced Assault Marines.

Granted, they work well against vehicles but when those aren't around you really need some way to kill infantry.

I still recommend having two Power Weapons and a Power Fist with a squad of that size.

All melta bombs makes them decent against MCs as well as vehicles and their base weapons are enough to overpower non-assault specialists. I'll put a priest with the VV and run them alongside 2x8 DC with hidden fists.

That's not too bad but it's still fifth of your points when playing a game of 2000 points. It's even worse with lower points.

They cost astonishing 60 points per model like that... Ugh.

If you drop the equipment from the four guys with PP/PF it wouldn't be that crazy expensive and every 3+ armor that you fail won't hurt like hell.

Four Vets with Bolt pistol/Chainsword
Two Vets with Plasma Pistol/Chainsword
Two Vets with Plasma Pistol/Power Sword/Melta bombs
Two Vets with Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield.

This would be 400 points. It's still a lot of points but it can reliably deal with most problems you'll ever face.
And it has four guys that you can lose without crying a river. There will always be losses to shooting and at least Overwatch, so be prepared for them.