So, based on what you have, I'd start with this...
Company Commander with Plasma Pistol
Lord Commissar with Power Sword and bolt pistol or plasma pistol
2x infantry squads with bolted, plasma gun, lascannon
5-man scions with 2x plasma gun
Leman Russ battle tank with lascannon and 2x heavy bolters
Heavy Weapon Squad with 3x Mortars.
500 points, all the key elements of a Guard Army in miniature.
One Squad sits back with the mortars. A unit to protect your Artillery.
One Squad protects the Russ, can do a slow advance to centre.
Scions drop on a "distant" objective, hopefully uncontested. Hold off a turn or two, so your opponent commits his forces and you can see which objective is "safe" to drop on and provide fire support from... or drop early to assassinate something important. Judgement call.
You used to be able to buy a 5-pack of plasma guns from
GW. I'd do that if you still can. One of the infantry dudes comes with no gun in his hands... use those arms to put the plasma guns into. Trust me.
Also, buy some additional large bases for the
HWS box. You can build mortar teams from dudes that are standing, same deal with Missile Launchers if you're so inclined. Make Lascannon teams with your tripods.
HB's and
AC's aren't that great right now.
Magnatise your Russ! It is super easy and the biggest bang for your modelling buck you can invest in! The sponson / hull weapons don't need to be glued, they can even be push-fit to stay in place. Russ weapons change in value with every meta-shift. For the love of all that is holy do NOT glue the weapons in!
Regarding load outs. I like plasma pistols on characters because they're cheap, easy to hide, and give them a points-efficient damage upgrade. Infantry Squads are good value places to hide your main tank hunters, the Lascannons. Plasma guns are good in a lot of different roles. I like bolters on the Sarges to make them stand out and give them a points efficient range upgrade. Every Marine player has spare bolters, so beg borrow or steal a few.
Plasma on the Scions gives them the option to provide ranged support, or drop in to double-tap in an assassination attempt.
Russ is a flexible loadout. I'm pretty sure you can shoot the weapons a different targets now.
HBs for infantry, a lascannon for something tough and the battle cannon is decent against both.
The Mortar teams are a "cheesy" unit for their cost. Lots of shots, don't need
LOS, can hold an objective, and are dirt cheap. Put an objective behind some
LOS blocking terrain, if you can, and collect tears for future consumption.
Again, you'll just have to trust me on that one.
This is a Batallion detachment, so you'll have 8
cp to start with. It's a powerful base, if I may toot my own horn.
Automatically Appended Next Post: As to what you do with the command box, I like converting my own characters, and there's lots of bits in there to work with.
Keep an eye out for neat looking heads from other kits. For example, there's a peaked cap with rebreather in one of the tank kits. I used that with the Greatcoat legs from the command box to make a custom Commissar. Just paint him black and red, use the bolt pistol arm and add a power sword from the box, or elsewhere.
There's a head with binoculars built onto them, from one of the vehicle spruces. I combined that with a modified vox backpack to make a master of ordnance, using the pointing hand and the arm in a sling.
I can't remember if the Cadian or Catachan box had a guy with a camo cloak, but it's kind of neat.
I made a custom Harker from grenade launcher arms and a cut-down heavy bolter. I also made a Marbo from Catachan command box parts.
Plus there's a plasma gun and meltagun in there, which is nice. You can make a sniper, that can be fun for special weapons squads, or counts-as ratlings.
