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Specifically for the Shadow Strike Kill Team formation, I'm wondering how I should set up my vanguard vets. With this formation, they can charge on the same turn they arrive from deep strike, so I'm wondering (in this context) if going purely melee-focused would be best for these squads, with a couple of storm shields for taking hits. I haven't really done much with space marines, so I'm not sure how this unit even plays, but I'm going to start up a Raven Guard army and I'm taking my time, thinking about how I want to set it up.

So for this formation, is pure cc worthwhile? Should I throw a couple grav-pistols or other pistols in? Anyone use this formation able to give me some feedback on it? Thanks!!

In general, grav/plas pistols are comically overpriced, and should be avoided. The only shooting vanguard vets should be doing is a smattering of bolt pistols.

With the charge from deep strike, the need for SSs is lessened, but can still be nice.

I’d probably stick mostly to a mix of power swords and axes. A hidden powerfist can also be useful, as can a melta bomb.

You will be able to pick your targets to a certain degree, but unless your enemy has no idea what they're doing or that you can charge out of DS turn 1, then they're only going to present you with the opportunity to destroy stuff they don't care about or force you to charge stuff that can hurt back.

Bulk SS are nice against certain armies (like GK or KDK where virtually everything has a powersword or better) or useful to survive interceptor (IA riptides & PDC Stormsurges) however a smattering of SS is almost always useful as you can assign wounds to any model in base contact, so assign AP4 or worse to regular guys and put AP3 or better on the stormshield dudes. I don't tink I'd ever leave home without at least 2 SS per 5 guys.

Unless you regularly face MC's all the time, then pistols are a waste. If on the other hand you never fight anything but Wraithknights/Dreadknights/Tyranid MC's/Deamon Princes/Talos etc then a grav pistol or 2 wouldn't be a bad investment to ensure that your axes/fists/hammers/melta bomb get to strike at the same time.

At least 1 fist/hammer on someone who's not the sarge is recommended so he can't be challenged out and killed before he strikes. Conversely, a stormshield on the sarge isn't a bad idea since he's likely to challenge/get challenged and not dying is more important that an extra attack.

Now that power weapons are 5 ppm, you don't need to be quite so picky about what you take and on whom, but I'd suggest that the SS guys would be the last ones to get power weapons. In larger units, you probably don't want everyone with a power weapon, simply because you want to be locked in combat in their turn 9 times out of 10 so you can't be shot and an excess of power weapons will just mean that it's more likely that you'll evaporate whatever you charge in a single round and then get shot and die.

As to which weapon, again, depends on what you fight. If it's nothing but GEQ or scout equivalents, then power mauls for the win and they can pull double duty against tanks and even walkers on the odd occassion.

I'm not a huge fan of swords when lightning claws are available for the same price against 3+ when you have 2 attacks base since you're better off against T5 or better with shred rather than an extra attack and if you're fighting guardsmen a) why aren't you using power mauls and b) it doesn't really matter since you're fighting guardsmen in CC and your biggest problem is going to be not killing them all in your assault phase so you get shot to bits in their turn anyway. Unless it's a conscript blob with priest, in which case that's what TFC's are for, pick better targets.

Your choice of axe/fist/hammer for 2+ armour or vehicles, up to you to decide on quality or quantity, but remember that you can have 3 axes or 1 fist for the same points, though at least 1 fist is recommended. If you're going to fight 2+ armour however, you're probably in for a bad time because they generally tend to pack ap3 or better CC weapons themselves, so that makes shields pretty much mandatory, meaning you're not getting the extra attack for the axe and now you have no reason not to pick a fist and each dude with a SS/fist is now 47 ppm.

They can do without shooting. Thathe is what Sternguard are for. In my case, I do three vets with Storm Shields (all with Power Fists) and two with twin Lightning Claws. I have never fielded this squad, I just wanted to build it.

Awesome, thanks guys! My meta seems to be pretty varied, and I'm still learning what's in it, but so far I haven't dealt with a lot of ap3 or better stuff very often, so I was thinking of starting with (for the first min-size squads) 3x ss/power axe, 2x double lightning claw (one of these being the sergeant), and throwing melta bombs on [someone]. Now I might trade a ss for a second axe on one model, and give another model a fist instead of an axe. So it would be 1 ss/axe, 1 ss/fist, 1 double axe, and 2 double claws. I feel like it's kinda all over the place though, my brain doesn't like such varied loadouts in one squad. At the same time, I feel like I would feel okay charging this unit into almost anything.

I find 10 X Storm Shield to be super useful.

Looks OK, but never go double axe. Unless you are doing it purely for the looks. If you go sword/axe, you can choose which one to swing with, and still get the bonus attack.

You probably want to pair specialist weapons with the shields.

I might run something like:

LC/SS x2 (one is the sarge)
BP/axe x2
BP/fist

If I wanted to sink more points into it, the axe guys could swap their pistols for swords/mauls, and/or add melta bombs, and the fist guy could grab a claw or shield. But that would be my low-cost starter recommendation.

I've been running 7 vets with 3 power swords. I find that's plenty for hunting down scat bike squads, warp spiders and just being a bully unit in general. Vanguard just can't do enough damage to make them serviceable against hard targets in melee.

Interesting. I really don't like power swords.

Martel732 wrote:
Interesting. I really don't like power swords.

4 attacks each on the charge and enough AP to slice through the armor of any support unit. If I wasn't tight on points, I'd consider going to paired lightning claws. But right now I through 12 AP3 attacks, 16 AP- attacks and some HoW hits for a pretty cheap cost of 169 points.

I very much prefer AP 2 attacks.

The other power weapons outshine swords for everything but one job: Killing MEQ. They are a very niche weapon. MEQ, however, is a pretty big group of things so specilizing in killing them is not a bad thing.

But if you want to kill 2+ stuff, you want an axe. The extra S also is nice, but striking last is not.
Killing high T, or things with invulns, mauls are going to be better. They also ID T3 multiwound things, not that there are a lot of those you need to worry about.
Spear kinda suck. With H&R, they might be OK-ish, but I’d not recommend taking them.

But what 2+ targets do you want to actually engage with your vets? Terminators and mega nobs just outhit and outlast you, usually for the same cost or cheaper. Iron Priests also eat through them quickly. The chance to explode a vehicle is nice, but not generally used.

Vets aren't tough enough with T4 and a 3+/3++ to stand up to the dedicated melee units. They are fast enough to catch warp spiders and jet bikes though and the AP3 helps clean them out nicely. It also helps against the hordes of battle company.

PanzerLeader wrote:
But what 2+ targets do you want to actually engage with your vets? Terminators and mega nobs just outhit and outlast you, usually for the same cost or cheaper. Iron Priests also eat through them quickly. The chance to explode a vehicle is nice, but not generally used.

Vets aren't tough enough with T4 and a 3+/3++ to stand up to the dedicated melee units. They are fast enough to catch warp spiders and jet bikes though and the AP3 helps clean them out nicely. It also helps against the hordes of battle company.

Sometimes they are not the tool we want, but the one we have. Toss a few axes in. You should still blender anything <MEQ, but actually have a shot at taking down tougher things.

YMMV. But I’ve been enjoying a few axes here and there.>

I find that being able to assault 2+ units with no fear of being tarpitted to be quite nice. TH/SS terminators are to be avoided, of course but those guys you shoot.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

PanzerLeader wrote:
But what 2+ targets do you want to actually engage with your vets? Terminators and mega nobs just outhit and outlast you, usually for the same cost or cheaper. Iron Priests also eat through them quickly. The chance to explode a vehicle is nice, but not generally used.

Vets aren't tough enough with T4 and a 3+/3++ to stand up to the dedicated melee units. They are fast enough to catch warp spiders and jet bikes though and the AP3 helps clean them out nicely. It also helps against the hordes of battle company.

I've beaten mega nobz with my vets because they have no invuln save.

I've had a fair bit of success with my Vanguard, which are just armed with Power Swords, while the Sergeant has Lightning Claws. I increase their survivability and punch by pairing them up with five Scouts in a Land Speeder Storm. The Storm attempts to blind the enemy, then the Scouts charge first to soak Overwatch or Counter-Attack hits or whatever, then the Vanguard go in to do the damage. The squad is only five-man, but they've beaten Ravenwing Bikers, Tyranid Warriors, Ork Nobz and even a big blob of Chaos Marines!

Admittedly on that last one they had help from a Dreadnought.

The way I run my 10man vet squad in the 1st turn assault formation is

5xTH SS (3 PF 2TH would be more efficient but meh, TH look cooler.)
4x Double LC
1x Sarge with LC SS

Sarge has SS to stall out a challenge and LC over Axe because neither gets the additional attack but the LC might get lucky at initiative. Pretty much always like LC over Sword as shred is generally better than 1+ attack against stuff the squad should be charging.

Thanks for all the info guys, I really appreciate it. One thing that really pushed me off space marines when I started was seeing all these squads with different loadouts on each model and I didn't know how I'd keep track of that in my head. Now that I have some experience playing and am looking at them again, it's nice to be able to lean on people who have been using these units

Probably gonna be picking up a couple boxes soon.

As a side note, does anyone know if the sanguinary guard jump packs fit on normal marines like usual or would I have to adjust them somewhat? I'm kinda feeling the desire to use those instead of regular jump packs (and I'm using the BA Chaplain with jump pack as my chaplain), plus I'm looking at doing Raven Guard in 30k as well, and the cheaper the better (for trying it out), I'm thinking Sang Guard packs with double LC vets might work as a Dark Fury Assault Squad.

Sanguinary guard wings fit just fine on marine bodies. Basically all the marine line bits are interchangeable and you can make some pretty cool kitbashes.

Honestly, it's not that hard to file the blood angel iconography of the sanguinary guard bodies if you wanted to go that route. I'd use regular marine shoulder pads and weapons in that event though - just so they don't look too blood angelish.

My shadowstrike team of vets is:
x1 Naked - Just there to eat overwatch.
x3 LC/LC
x1 PA/Bolt Pistol
Add Melta Bombs as points allow. It's honestly pricier than I had planned on, but I started assembling my kit and just couldn't help myself.

I personally wouldn't go crazy with storm shields. The whole point of assaulting from deep strike is that they don't get to shoot at you, and you get to pick your target carefully. i also think power fists are overkill. These guys are here to shred infantry, and you can give them melta bombs in case you really need to go after the IK.

I field it like this. It's boss mode.

Jetpacks
4x Power Fist / Lightning claw
3x SS Power Axe
3x SS power Maul

Take scout bikes with teleport homer and take LSS for your kill team scouts. There will be no where to hide from the first turn assault. Try to cast invis on them and they can eat 2-3 squads per turn.