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Catachans.

Straken
Company Commandah with powerfist
6 x 10 regular gaurd with a powersword and meltagun each
command squad with 4 laspistols and 4 chainswords
ministerium priest
1 veterans squad with 2 grenade launcher, flamer, powersword, and plasma pistol
Sarge Harkness
1 special weapons squad with 2 flamer, sniper rifle
1 spcial weapons squad with 3 flamer
Two full payload manticores
Dakkabird Valkyrie (multilaser, 2mrp, 2hb) (Every catachan group needs artillery support and a little air mobile).


Valhallans. (-3cp)
Company commander
company commander
ministerium priest
5 crusaders
5 crusaders
5 crusaders
gottfried de montbardt
1 command squads with 4 grenade launcher
1 command squad with 4 grenade launcher
1 veterans squads with 3 plasma and 1 heavy bolter each
1 veterans squads with 3 plasma and 1 heavy bolter each
1 heavy weapons squad with 3 heavy bolter teams

If my maths are right, its 2000 points of footslogging joy. Could it work?

I like the combo, lots of bodies and I can already feel the reaction I'd have to those catachans coming over to play. Looks like use catachans to push in, consolidate and hold with crusaders and Valhallans?

I was really reflecting that if you have both crusaders and some 5 point infantry tied up in melee, you can pick what units accidentally suffer which rolls of 1 from the valhallan shooting, while your own army (with a couple waves of catachans joining in) is pretty hard to melee down. Ninth edition took away "pick which guy gets shot next" but in this odd scenario, you can sort of do so to minimize your own goal damage while you rip into the enemy's melee frontline. I don't know if its enough. Maybe meltas would work best, and flamers, but it seems like its a start.

Your worst opponent would have to be someone who can deep strike a few high dmg output squads on your backline.

Blood Ravens, GKs, Scions etc..

Absolutely true! Not sure how to fix that, though. Gaurd is just plain fragile sometimes.

Maybe switch out the Crusaders for stock Ogryns and use them as a line guard, or use the crusaders for that job.
The problem being is that the crusaders are still just humans with power swords, so you'll be hard pressed to actually deal out wounds with them.

If that doesn't work for you, you could bring blobs of conscripts for that same purpose. They'll at least tar pit something long enough for you to take care of other targets. Drop Gottfried and thrown in another priest to up their chances.

Aren't ogryn even more fragile though? No shields, lousy armor?

They are almost the same given the exchange of wounds and model counts, but their toughness and other use of stratagems usually outweighs something like the crusaders acts of faith. They can also put a decent amount of wounds out on MEQ units, despite the trade-off of power weapons.

Though it will be slightly more expensive to run a full squad of Ogryns, so if you take this route. Run 5 and that's including their Bone'ead.
On a charge that's 4 attacks a piece, plus the 5 dolled out by their Bone'ead as per their Avalanche of Muscle rule.

Crusaders are T3 & 1W, while Ogryns are T5 & 3W as well as packing S5 over the crusader's S3. I honestly like the Ogryn's chances in melee better and it means that they can't easily be popped by a lucky roll of small arms fire, because of the extra toughness.

The Crusaders are going to need more Buff support to be just as effective as the other choice.

Yeah, I guess you are right, although I believe crusaders = powersword = +1S so 4S not 3.
Still, only 3 attacks per.

Fill the whole unit out and you'll have a wall that can pretty much soak up two rounds of wounds. While negating some of the heavier firepower that squads can put out, besides plasman/melta.

Still, the best I can do is make a suggestion. I've only got a few units for my Guard, and that's because they reinforce my GKs.

Math-wise. I would always go for the Ogryns.
More wounds, more toughness and more strength and their damage output on their weapons is going to be the same as the crusader's power swords. The Ogryns also have the added benefit of being assault 3 with their Ripper shotguns.

The only other reason I don't really gravitate towards the crusaders is because of their acts of faith, because unlike SOB. Crusaders lack the ability to pad out their dice for those kinds of rolls, so they can be somewhat unreliable on that front. Now if their power swords actually did more damage, say D2, or even 1D3. That would be a much better bargain and would allow them to punch much higher than their points cost would indicate.

I'm also not too familiar with what acts of faith you were intending to use.

*Edit - I pulled up a PDF.
Hand of the Emperor, The Passion and Spirit of the Martyr are your only viable choices for the group.

Which means you'll be spamming "HOE" to get them into fights, or "SOM" to shore up losses. Which means it's still going to be a 1W model per turn.
Do you have an option to shore up their morale test?