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Hi there,

I've been thinking of occasionally using a small Legion of the Damned detachment with my imperial armies as they look cool and thought they might be quite good fun in casual games.

Has anyone got tales of them doing really well and being as good as their rules make them sound? Or are they pretty poor and not worth it? (I would be very surprised if the latter since they do sound very good).

They can be good, but you need a plan for how you're using them.

A lot of people take small squads and give them a meltagun/multimelta/combi-melta and use their accurate deep strike to go tank hunting (ignores cover is very nice here).

Alternatively, you can make a nice objective-taking squad with a heavy bolter, a full-sized unit, and the Animus Malorem. Ignores cover massed small arms works well for crowd control, and the unit isn't half bad in combat, too. You also leverage the armourbane bolt rounds warlord trait the best.

The big weakness of the unit is that they're no tougher than normal marines against normal attacks - a 3++ save still needs you to roll a 3+. In a Legion detachment, the Animus goes a long way to correcting that to allow for one unit to be something other than a suicide squad. Add in the Damned Sergeant's WS5 and he's actually not half bad in a challenge - consider a power axe or power fist since he's only I4 anyway.

The only thing that's a shame is that you can't do a 'pure' legion force - you need someone for them to come in and 'save'. You need to make sure that that unit (a) is going to survive turn 1, and (b) ideally has some way of improving reserve rolls.

Thanks for the tips there. That is very handy. Yes, I was thinking of using them as either hunters or last minute objective grabbers as an addition to my main force. Definitely something for me to think about.

The biggest downside if you buy actual legion of the damned models is they are ludicrously expensive a normal 10 man squad could be around £55 and its all finecast. You could buy 2 sets of tactical marines for as much as they cost and you don't get all of the weapons options with the legion of the damned.

Any Marine model can be painted as a LotD, just as it was back in 2nd before the metal LotD models were first released. Just use plastic Marines, and paint in the bones and flame because F finecast.

SJ

Yeah using a mix of bits and bobs on normal marines to represent mine and some flames. The finecast modals are great, but too expensive for essentially fancy marines., imo.

Only starting to use them, but ignore cover and reliable DS is pretty good. 5 man squad with combi grav/melta, multi-melta & meltagun comes at a reasonable cost.

Hell, if the rest of your Marine army isn't black, just painting them black differentiates them immediately.

Well, my entire army is LotD, because they use to be a full army back in 2nd. All of them are metal. At the moment, if I were add any new models, it be plastic kits, most likely the newer Sternguard or veteran kits for the bitz. : )

SJ

I'm working on a LotD heavy list, using their rules to count as an elite Orison in my Exorcist army. I'm slowly scaling up as I build the models I've horded over the last 15 years.

At least in my meta LotD by having the combination of ignoring cover and having such a decent invulnerable save give them a leg up when everyone so heavily relies on cover saves that exceed their normal saves for survival. Lots of orks, guard, cultists, and tau.

All the points you pay for them over regular marines remove performance inconsistency. You always get that save, you always put them where you need them, you always know what your opponent's saves are gonna be, fearless keeps them around until your opponent throws overwhelming fire their way. They are more consistently a persistent threat over alternatives.

I find they force my opponent to deal with as the immediate threat they are to static gun line infantry and vehicles. This gives the other elements of my army more opportunities to do what they need to do.

I find their downside relative to Sternguard is that Sternguard in drop pods can pose more of a threat to a variety of units and despite their lack of a better save over standard marines circumstantially have a better survivability of sorts... Their drop pod and the squad are two different units and thus require your opponent to split attention against them.

They are good, on par with Sternguard IMO.

Depends if you want multi-purpose with special ammunition or taking out vehicles easily with Ignore Cover Melta.

I like them better than Sternguard, I was just saying that there are situations where Sternguard can be better.

Oh I was addressing the OP

For comparison, a detachment of LOTD with 4 squads of 5 W/Multi Melta, Meltagun & Combi Grav or melta is 620 pts.

A Skyhammer annihilation formation using Ultramarine chapter tactics with two 10 man Dev squads W/4Multi Meltas and Combi Grav or melta in each, their drop pods and two 5 man assault squads works out at 620 pts.

Strictly speaking i'd say the Skyhammer is better, but the LOTD detachment is not without its merits, especially if you have anything that can help with reserve rolls.

Thanks for all the pointers guys, much appreciated