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I'm starting to teach the point I want to add a new army to my collection, and was thinking of making a small Mordian Iron Guard army, around 500-750pts worth, for small games and as an ally for my Space Wolves. I was hoping some of you amazing dakkadakka members would be able to help me craft a list I could use to build this army. I'd like it to be a fluffy army, do it largely being played in casual games, so from a quick look around the Internet I saw they use lascannons grenade launchers as the heavy and special weapons, but can't seem to find much else in terms of how they fight, ie do they favour more of a massed infantry gunline, or do they tend towards using many leman russes, or even chimeras? If anyone is able to help with that side of building this army I would greatly appreciate it. Also any advice on army list choices would be appreciated, as well as any general tactics you think would work

Massed infantry backed by commissars inexorably marching forward heedless of casualties. Think `The Patriot` with lasguns instead of muskets.

Mordians, like most Guard regiments, have companies and regiments dedicated to a variety of styles. There are mechanized companies, armoured companies, artillery batteries, light infantry companies, and line infantry companies, among dozens of other and combined regiments/companies.

They're typically represented by a 'Hold the Line' and 'Never retreat' style of combat, seeing as they're the poster child of the super disciplined style of Guard. Commissars in Mordian regiments aren't there to enforce discipline and bravery, but really there to temper a useless waste of human resources through hopeless last stands and foolhardy charges.

They use a variety of weapons, and don't favour any one type over the over. The Only War core rulebook has rules for them with a preferred weapon type, but its not important in capturing their feel.

As with most of the canon regiments, you can't go wrong in using any style of combat with the Mordians. If anything, I'd be more concerned with coming up with a suitably vibrant colour scheme, seeing as their uniform is the most obvious thing that separates them.

Also, if you haven't done so already, check out Victoria Miniatures for her Tannenburg Fusiliers, which are multipart resin and totally customizable 'not-Mordians'. Costs about the same as you'd pay for GW's metal line, but you get better looking minis in easy to mod resin with more options.

Ah right, thanks guys
I quite like the idea of rows of men, marching forward in line, so I'll probably play them as a massed infantry army then
And them Victoria Minitutes not mordians are amazing

Whatever boats your float. There are few canon Guard regiments that are pigeon-holed into one style of fighting. Mordians are not one of them. I'm a bit of a treadhead at heart, so when I finish putting my army back together it'll likely be as a mechanized company with an armoured detachment.

If you were planning on buying GW Mordians, I'd strongly advise you to either search ebay and the swap shop here for second hand lots, as the prices are excellent if you can find them. My old army was bought collectively for ~50% of retail price.

Or go ahead and buy Vic Minis, which are costly, but multi-part, very crisp and detailed, better ratio'd, versions with most of the special/heavy weapons available, true to the aesthetic. The only special weapon she doesn't sell so far is flamers, but I'm sure that's coming.

So I pulled up their page from the 4th edition codex.

In battle the Iron Gurad present a solid wall of brightly-uniformed, perfectly formed troops to the enemy, cutting them down with precisely timed volleys from behind a hedge of bayonet points. Some enemies of the Emperor have been misled by the Mordians' elaborate and ornate uniforms to believe they were facing amateurs, only to find the bright uniforms contain tough determined soldiers.

Preferred Special Weapon: Grenade Launcher

Preferred Heavy Weapon: Lascannon

Regimental Doctrines:
- Sanctioned Psykers
- Ratling Squads
- Heavy Weapon Platoons
- Sharpshooters
- Close Order Drill
- Die Hards

To run them in a fluffy way, I'd probably run 20-50 man blobs with voxes, heavy weapons squads, and a liberal use of orders. You can use commissars to emulate the die hards (stubborn) and close order drill (+1 ld) doctrines, and use divination psykers and FRF to emulate sharpshooters (re-roll 1s). I'd put heavy weapons teams to anchor firebases and advance with lots of lasguns or hold the fething line.

As mentioned, in the fluff they're gonna have lots of infantry, so the internet is your best friend if you wanna get a good price on them.

Greetings.

Allow me to offer some insight on building a small stand-alone force that will also work quite well as an ally for another Imperial army.

For starters, let's look at your HQ choice.

You'll likely want to run a Company Command Squad, or if you're looking to keep it somewhat cheaper, then I'd recommend looking at a Lord Commissar. Of the two, I'd suggest running a CCS though.

Company Command Squad offers a Company Commander that can issue orders, and has 4 guys that all have BS:4. This is the prime place to put either a heavy weapon, or several special weapons that you want to hit regularly when they can fire.

I'd recommend the following build for your HQ:

Company Commander w/ a Bolter (It's a super cheap upgrade, and worth the points, plus if you go with Victoria Miniatures models to make your CCS, you could easily convert the Company Commander to have a bolter.)

One Veteran w/ a Lasgun and a Voxcaster (Again, cheap upgrade that will help tremendously when you're throwing orders out)

One Veteran w/ Medipack (Somewhat expensive, but gives Feel no Pain for the unit, helpful when you take small arms fire, and also helpful for the 'Gets Hot!" wounds you'll take.)

Two Veterans w/ Plasma guns (Again, pricey, but you want these on the BS:4 models and it's always fun when you can throw the ignores cover order on plasma guns. )

Lastly, buy this unit Krak Grenades (Not for the HQ model, as he has a bolter, but Krak Grenades allows that lone Lasgun Voxcaster model to chuck a krak grenade if they're within 8" of the target instead of firing the Lasgun, one more Higher ST: shot is always groovy in my book)

Total point cost for this squad: 115 points

Next, your troops choices:

First, a veteran squad will fill out troops choice 1 nicely, riding in a chimera.

Veteran Squad, Sergeant with a Bolter, squad wide Krak Grenades, 6 lasguns, 2 Plasma Guns, and one Grenade Launcher (or Flamer, your choice), and one Voxcaster in here with a Chimera Transport will run you 176 points total for the squad and transport tank.

I suggest running a Multilaser in the turret and a heavy flamer in the hull for utility's sake (I get a lot of mileage out of my chimeras which are built with this weapons configuration). The reason I suggest running 2 plasma guns and one grenade launcher/flamer (your choice) in this squad is that only two models can fire out of the back hatch of the tank, but not putting a third special in there seems like a waste. Keeps the squad somewhat fluffy too with the Mordian predilection toward grenade launchers. The other option you can consider for this squad is a pair of meltaguns instead of plasma guns, which will take their cost down to 156 points. Again, use your BS:4 troopers for hard-hitting weapons.

Your second troops choice can be a standard Infantry Platoon, consisting of a Platoon Command Squad, and two to three Infantry Squads.

Platoon Command Squad:
Platoon Commander w/ a bolter and a CCW, 4x Guardsmen, one armed with a Lasgun and a Voxcaster and the other 3 with Grenade Launchers. Keeps the squad nice and cheap (51 points), and the grenade launchers go the same range as both the Jr. Officer's bolter and the Voxcaster's Lasgun. I wouldn't spring for the Krak Grenades on this squad, as they're all only BS:3 here. 51 Points for the PCS.

Lastly, your Infantry Squads. I'd do 'carbon copies' of these squads as follows:

Sergeant, armed with a Bolter once again, backed up by a Grenade Launcher special weapon and a Lascannon Heavy Weapon. These are your line-holder squads. I suggest you typically run them with the combined squad rule in place so you have a mass of 20 to 30 (minimum 20) guys with 2 (or 3) lascannons and grenade launchers. One point I will make, and this is to save points, the first of these squads, purchase with a Voxcaster, and keep that model in the back so you don't lose it early. The rest of the squads you want to run without a voxcaster, to save the points. So long as you're running them with the combined squads rule, you only need one voxcaster to benefit from the re-roll, so buying a voxcaster for each infantry squad is a waste unless you plan on running each infantry squad as it's own entity (not reccomended).

With the voxcaster in the squad, each of these squads runs you 81 points. Without the voxcaster, the squad runs you 76 points.

Running the Platoon Command Squad above, backed up by two infantry squads (One with a voxcaster, and one without a voxcaster, but armed the same otherwise, I.E.: Bolter/CCW sergeant, Grenade Launcher, Lascannon Heavy Weapon Team) along with the Veteran Squad and the Company Command Squad, you're right at 499 points exactly, which is right where you said you wanted the list to be for a stand-alone force. That gives you 40 infantry models and one transport tank at 500 points.

You can add two or three more Platoon Infantry Squads or even Special Weapon/Heavy Weapon squads to the Platoon to get up to 750 points or if you prefer armor, throw a Leman Russ or a couple of Support tanks into the mix (Manticore, or Wyvern would be my suggestion).

That's my suggestion for your list. Check my math and make sure I didn't miss anything on the points values.

It's pretty fluffy, has some decent shooting teeth, and you can issue up to 3 orders per turn. Two from the Company Commander and one from the Jr. Officer in the Platoon Command Squad.

Don't forget also, if you are issuing orders, the orders MUST be the first thing you do in your shooting phase, no matter what, even if the guard are allies to your main detachment. Always start every shooting phase with your orders, to include tank commanders orders as well.

That's all I've got for now. Best of luck and welcome to the guard Glad to see someone else fielding a 'non standard' regiment. I personally field Mechanized Vostroyans, so seeing some Mordians represented on here as well would be awesome.

Hope to see some pictures once you get the models and get them painted.

Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

Just so you know Victoria miniatures makes not-Mordians that look rather nice. They are called Tannenburgs and female versions are due in the next two months.

http://victoriaminiatures.highwire.com/products/tannenburg-fusiliers?pagesize=12

Mad Robot Miniatures makes not-Mordians called Valksburg Grenadiers. Very nice models with many choices. You can build entire custom squads on their site and overall excellent model quality.

http://madrobotminiatures.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=9_19&products_id=155

You can switch up squads of both to give more model variation.