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Recently I have started an I.G. army and for my army I was planning on taking 2 or 3 squads of them. Do you have any experience with them?

Thank you in advance!

Nay. You're spending 80 points for 10 guardsmen. 10 guardsmen that can get closer to double-tapping bolters and CCs that they're going to lose.

Of course, if you want them for fluff reasons, knock yourself out, but competitively, they're one of the worst units in the game (one of, spawn are still the worst).

You hear alot of people not like them. Reasons for not liking them:

1. More points than a basic infantry squad
2. Can't outfit like veteran squads
3. No upgrades at all
4. Random chance on what abilities you get

What is good about them:

1. 80 points, cheap. When was the last time you have not seen a vet squad at 100 or more points.
2. Stubborn, with no upgrade. That is important
3. Good chance of getting a good ability. The assault lasguns suck.

I like them, usually run one squad at 1500 points. Two at 2000 points. Why? Those back field objectives. They will not survive the open field, but, can survive and remain undetected for most of the game on that back field objective.

80 points isn't terribly cheap. An infantry squad with a meltagun costs only 60. And is more likely to be useful.

Stubborn only matters in close combat. Penal legionnaires beat precious little in close combat. Especially if they've had anything shot at them before, which is now required, given that they can't assault out of outflanking. Furthermore, their leadership is still crummy, even when unmodified.

There is a chance they will get a less bad ability. All of the abilities that they can get are worse than if they had the ability to take weapons upgrades, which they can't. Which makes them an 80 point guard squad that only does whatever damage lasguns are capable of.

If you want to get your opponent's stuff into the backfield, there are ways to spend more points to actually do it right, like al'rahem or harker or sentinels or stormtroopers. The few points you save with penal legionnaires are actually obscuring what is, in fact, a much worse value.

i don't run them because i have no use for them ...maybe in a huge apoc game but that would be for S & G

Thanks for your input, would an infantry platoon be better overall?

 psychadelicmime wrote:
Thanks for your input, would an infantry platoon be better overall?

Were you looking to do a mostly infantry list? Or at least a hybrid with some infantry support? If so, then yes, they're much better, if only because they're so flexible. An infantry platoon is literally a list inside your list. You can take tons of cheap barebones infantry, a ton of infantry squads in chimeras, 2 infantry squads and a ton of heavy weapons, a large mob of guardsmen with power weapons, etc. The sky is pretty much the limit.

For now, try running a small one in low points games. They can take a bit of getting used to, as they are one of the most complex units in the game. The big thing is to remember your orders, and remember "combined squads". Basically, in deployment, your ten man infantry squads can be combined however you wish. A platoon with 4 infantry squads can deploy as 4 seperate squads, two 10 man squads and a 20, a 30 and a 10, or even as a massive 40 man blob. You must decide at deployment though, there is no "ok, turn 5 I'll combine them". Also, you cannot combine anything but the infantry squads. There is no combining your PCS with a HWS for example. Reasons you need to know about combined squads is killpoints. MSU guard leaks killpoints like crazy, but "blobbing up" helps cut these down drastically. They're also how power blobs work, but I'm still on the fence of whether they're worth it this edition. Sometimes they're amazing, and other times they're nothing but a point sink.

Also, remember everything in a platoon scores. Your PCS, your HWS's, your SWS, your conscripts, all of it. You can literally have 20 to 30 scoring units in a medium to large game.

I must remind everyone that compared to other factions, 80pts is pretty cheap for 10 blokes with a couple of special rules!

 guyperson5 wrote:
I must remind everyone that compared to other factions, 80pts is pretty cheap for 10 blokes with a couple of special rules!

Yeah, but for IG, 80pts is a huge deal. That's halfway to a battle tank. That's 8 autocannons, or 4 lascannons. That's marbo and a regimental standard. That can be so many things. And since our other, much better choices, aren't much more, it makes it very hard to argue that penal legion are "cheap"

No kidding. 80 points is basically the cost of a min-sized stormie squad, or a hydra, or a psyker, or marbo, or a lord commissar, or a pair of multilaser sentinels, or nearly TWO flamer/grenade launcher/sniper PCSs, or a maniac with a 10-foot-long-chainsaw-sword that cuts land raiders in half, with change left over.

There's a lot you can do with that few points in a guard army. Blowing it on expensive troops that don't do nothing isn't as easy to justify.

Plus, I'd also note that for those points you could take al'rahem, or harker, or creed, all of which let infantry outflank, if scoring outflankers is what you're going for, except they do it with better infantry.

when i read the rules for them a little bit ago, just looking at their leadership value told me they would probably run for the hills the moment a stiff breeze hit em.

that alone would make me pretty wary about spending points on them unless you honestly just get a giddy feeling when you see cannon fodder blow up. i know i do

The rules and points cost might not be that great in favour of Penal Legions but fluff wise it would be pretty cool...so mind vs heart I suppose

in that case for me heart would win cause I love fluff...saying that if you really wanted to run penal legion...I believe it's Pig Iron productions?...I'm pretty sure that's the name ..has head sprue's with gas masks..easy conversion to make them Savlar Chem Dogs

In 5th edition I used Penal legion regularly. Relatively cheap, scoring, flanker with close combat abilities. Good
for harassing enemy backfield.

Come 6th edition? No longer. Several of the nerfs to assault have made them truly the "dead and the damned".
The biggest problem being the inability to assault from reserve. Walking into the enemy backfield, shooting some flashlights and then
standing still waiting to be shot? Well, they are supposed to die for the Emperor but it would the nice if they actually managed to hurt the enemy before dying...