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Does anyone run anything other than the Angelus Bolters?

The fact they carry power weapons and are more suited for combat makes it seem like Inferno pistol short range makes it not worth the cost and Plasma might be a little redundant considering their melee load out.

Anyone have success with Infernos or Plasma?

I am also curious as to the Axe vs Sword opinion. I am planning on running my unit of 5 with 1 Axe, 1 PF and 3 Swords.

I'm a big fan of 10 man squads personally, basically how you're planning but doubled, with 6 swords 2 axe, 2 fists and the banner (the extra attack is huge in bigger squads, and if you're attaching BA characters like I do)

I haven't given them any ranged weaponry other than Angelus for a long, long time though. They're pretty pointsy as it is and if they're shooting they can't be multi assaulting. If I was going any I would go plasma though, as you said Infernus needs to be ultra close to really pay off, or at least if you're in melta range you're very likely making it to assault whatever is inside that transport you're shooting. Ultimately I think it's better to get everything else to set/shooting everything up for the angels to mop things up.

I will probably bump them up to a 10 man squad in the future we are only playing 500-750 point games currently so after we make a bigger jump I will likely add 5 more considering I think the models are fantastic.

Then coupled with some DC running around seems like it is a decent combo and creates several threats. Good to see I took the right path!

Also consider a sanguinary priest in the squad, they're incredibly useful.

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:
Also consider a sanguinary priest in the squad, they're incredibly useful.

Yea that is the plan give them the FnP

 TheMostWize wrote:

 #1ShieldBrother3++ wrote:
Also consider a sanguinary priest in the squad, they're incredibly useful.

Yea that is the plan give them the FnP

I think this is the wrong approach. They already have MC weapons, they don't need the WS. The FNP won't save you from grav or plasma.

However, I leave these guys at home every game now. They just don't work well at all.

Why would it not help from grav or plasma? It doesn't insta kill so FNP would he very useful. Also rerollable needing 3's is huge....

 Spacewolverine wrote:
Why would it not help from grav or plasma? It doesn't insta kill so FNP would he very useful. Also rerollable needing 3's is huge....

Same reason you don't want Harlequins to be shot. Your 5+ save is better than nothing but still isn't that good. Especially with the stupidity of grav around.

It's a 33% chance of saving, for the points you already dump into them it is worth while for the low cost of a character. I have fought against a lot of FNP and it has always been a struggle to deal with.

I don't face any grav so that didn't apply to me lol. The topic was mainly about SG kit anyway so yea..

 Spacewolverine wrote:
It's a 33% chance of saving, for the points you already dump into them it is worth while for the low cost of a character. I have fought against a lot of FNP and it has always been a struggle to deal with.

I think it's better to just buy more SG. Or not use SG at all. Jump priests aren't that cheap.

What Martel said. The priest synergi is a trap. It great against plasma, but plasma is not very common.

Vs a drop cents you will loose pretty much everyone regardless. Vs str 8+ shooting it does nothing and in close combat you are either dominating most units or getting dominated by assault units with fists and invuls, fnp does not really change this.
If you want defense go for invis, shrouded, the 4++ power and similar ones (large SG units)
For small units it's better to keep them cheap and accept in some games they will die without accomplishing much.
In regards to pistols, it's best to stay with the stock gun unless you are trying to do something really specific.

If you know you are playing playing against 40 fleshhounds fnp is great, it's just dosnt add any value vs the current meta for SG. For bikes it works because of T5 and for DC it kinda works because of lower cost per model vs str 8 and they dont tank dakka as good.

Seriously, take the priest, give him the blade of valor and a jump pack. If you make 2 saves with sang guard you have nearly earned the points back and still have a decent fighter in CC

 raiden wrote:
Seriously, take the priest, give him the blade of valor and a jump pack. If you make 2 saves with sang guard you have nearly earned the points back and still have a decent fighter in CC

Don't take the priest. It's a waste. S8 doubles your guys out any way, making the priest worthless.

Better yet, just don't use SG.

No one has enough S8 to really make them worthless. Even then, most of that should have something better to aim for than SG. Priests are more for AP2 or mass shots.

Martel has a good few points, but if you listen to him for too long or too much you'll never use blood angels XD.

That said, I don't use sang guard much anymore either save games against friends of mine.

I only play casual game sat home with buddies. They will definitely be included in the army regardless of their ability to compete.

I think they can certainly be useful. My priest is Magnetized to have a jump pack or not so either way I can always rum him standard or something.

 Drk_Oblitr8r wrote:
No one has enough S8 to really make them worthless. Even then, most of that should have something better to aim for than SG. Priests are more for AP2 or mass shots.

It's ba. We can't put priority targets on the table. Your opponent can shoot what they please.

Go totally minimalist or go big. Either 5 dudes with 3 swords and 2 axes, or 8+ dudes with 2 fists, 2 inferno pistols, a banner, priest, and Dante. But death co are largely the better investment. They dont need a priest, are cheaper and hit almost as hard. If you do play them with a priest though, stick to cover. A 5++/5+++ against grav is survivable enough.

I have 10 Death company as well so ye.

In my experience, they either die to mass grav or str8+ in shooting/close combat. If you feel you are loosing them to dakka priest should be excellent choise. Make a note everytime they get wiped out and if it could of been avoided with fnp.

Martel732 wrote:

 Drk_Oblitr8r wrote:
No one has enough S8 to really make them worthless. Even then, most of that should have something better to aim for than SG. Priests are more for AP2 or mass shots.

It's ba. We can't put priority targets on the table. Your opponent can shoot what they please.

Not with allies. I almost always have a Knight as well, which is a huge distraction for some. I also have Celestine tanking for the squad, and Mephy rolling up Div going for Forwarning. It's pointsy but it does alright if the meta isn't directly countering it.

The things you shoot at a knight don't necessarily have that much overlap with SG. Plasma and grav both stink vs IK.

I find the priests FNP to be useful, but he really shines with the +1 WS buff. This allows your Sang guard to hit on 3's vs most things and most importantly other space marines. I usually go all out and run my squad with priest w/ valours edge, captain w/ art/SS/Pfist, and dante with 10 guard, banner,3 pfist 2 inferno pistols. Im always disappointed in just a 5man squad with a pfist.. I find it best to go hard with these guys and leave the 5man w/ pfist to the DC.

Its super expensive but they just chew through anything and 90% of the time the captain is tanking all wounds, even in CC. I can never reliably cast powers as BA so Ive found the bullet sponge captain to be worth way more than a few powers each turn, he can tank just so much damage, easily survive challenges from even the nastiest CC IC's, and provides dante and his boys free passage up the board.

I always start the SG squad on the board turn 1, this gives my opponent something juicy to shoot at instead of my knight/DC or podded dreads.. something is going to be charging you turn 2 and its gonna hurt (captain is crucial here to tank everything, dont pass wounds to dante!! you need him full wounds to split off turn 4-5 and solo things off objectives)

But you don't WANT to shred a unit in one turn.

Martel732 wrote:
But you don't WANT to shred a unit in one turn.

Well it depends, but sometimes you have moments where you're asking why you HAD to roll better than normal.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
But you don't WANT to shred a unit in one turn.

Well it depends, but sometimes you have moments where you're asking why you HAD to roll better than normal.

SG especially want to be locked in combat on the opponent shooting phase. T4 2+ is very, very fragile in 7th ed.

Another problem I have with SG is that they don't really have an optimal target. At least as far as I can determine. They get a lot of gear for 33 pts, but it just seems to add up to be less than the sum of the parts. I think they should cost 28 ppm to reflect the reality of 7th ed. Maybe even 26 ppm.

True but with the pimped out squad you can multi charge anything and everything in range. This is how I stay in combat or eliminate the need to. Last game I played vs Grey Knights and i was able to use this squad to multicharge 2 termy/lib squads and a knight (I actually split Dante off to charge another termy/lib squad that managed to DS right behind my knight, Dante and the knight tore them apart allowing dante to charge the enemy knight and help finish it off.) Slaughtered all the termies with ap2 and tons of attacks and put a few wounds on the knight, leaving me to kill the knight in his turn and my captain just tanking all the D hits like a boss. + with 10 SG if you fail a few wounds in a row with some unlucky rolls on the captain you can kill off a few swordsmen without losing too much of the groups effectiveness.

I know it doesn't happen like that all the time but generally this squad is going after the most dangerous thing the enemy has, once thats dead theres not too much thats a serious threat to this squad. Once the party is over all the IC's split off and this group can now capture 4 objectives.

Martel732 wrote:
Another problem I have with SG is that they don't really have an optimal target. At least as far as I can determine. They get a lot of gear for 33 pts, but it just seems to add up to be less than the sum of the parts. I think they should cost 28 ppm to reflect the reality of 7th ed. Maybe even 26 ppm.

Considering Triarch Praetorians (the most similar unit I can think of to SG) are 28 ppm but are slightly more survivable, I'd say 26 ppm sounds fair.
Maybe 27 ppm, since SM Honour Guard are 25 ppm.

Similarly Tactical Terminators probably shouldn't cost more than 30 ppm... but that's a discussion for another day.

Sanguinary guard with fnp are calculated at roughly 43,7 points per model. For a 7man unit with a priest with JP it will cost an additional 75 points divided by 7 is a 10,7 fnp tax per model. Obviously it gets more effcient with 10 SG and less with only 5. +1 weapon skill is not added to the value and the priest will probably not be tanking for the unit either.

100 bolter shots bs4
Avg points lost:103 - 3.7 dead - Triarch Praetorions (decurion)
Avg points lost:137 - 4.9 dead - Triarch Praetorions (regular cad)
Avg points lost:181 - 5.5 dead - Sanguinary Guard (33 points per model)
Avg points lost:157 - 3.6 dead - Sanguinary Guard with priest (43,7 points per model)

10 lascannon shots bs4
Avg points lost: 75 - 2.7 dead - Triarch Praetorions (decurion)
Avg points lost:100 - 3.6 dead - Triarch Praetorions (regular cad)
Avg points lost:181 - 5.5 dead - Sanguinary Guard (33 points per model)
Avg points lost:240 - 5.5 dead - Sanguinary Guard with priest (43,7 points per model)

10 missle launcher shots bs4
Avg points lost:103 - 3.7 dead - Triarch Praetorions (decurion)
Avg points lost:137 - 4.9 dead - Triarch Praetorions (regular cad)
Avg points lost: 30 - 0.9 dead - Sanguinary Guard (33 points per model)
Avg points lost: 39 - 0.9 dead - Sanguinary Guard with priest (43,7 points per model)

30 Grav shots bs4
Avg points lost:186 - 6.6 dead - Triarch Praetorions (decurion)
Avg points lost:246 - 4.9 dead - Triarch Praetorions (regular cad)
Avg points lost:550 - 16.6 dead - Sanguinary Guard (33 points per model)
Avg points lost:480 - 11 dead - Sanguinary Guard with priest (43,7 points per model)


If we combine all the shots above to see how many points of models you loose to mixed damage

Shots fired: 100 bolters, 10 lascannon, missles, 30 grav at bs4 no twin linked or grav amp.

Total points lost: 467 - Triarch Praetorions (decurion)
Total points lost: 620 - Triarch Praetorions (regular cad)
Total points lost: 942 - Sanguinary Guard
Total points lost: 916 - Sanguinary Guard with priest

Praetorions are twice as survivable compared to SG. VS ap3 SG are obviously amazing, but it's very probably the ap3 shots will be used at other better targets. The difference between feel no pain or not on SG is marginal considering mixed damage, but it really depends on your meta. A grav heavy list, or any list with a decent amount of str8 shooting/close combat will probably dedicate that to a large SG deathstar making feel no pain even less efficient.

Thats why priests synergize better with assault terminators in terms of surviability, 5 hammernators with a priest puts a hammernator at roughly 57 points per model, but they are only worried about grav and dakka which fnp will greatly help with. Plus they can't sweep and lack master crafted making ws5 also more efficient. Typically lists with str8+ ap2 wont have more than 5-10 shots per round. Shooting that at stormshield termies wont be really efficient even though it ignores fnp. Though both SG and Termies are disgustingly overcosted.