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You're missing that FOMT can be used on the sabres. Rolling a 5+ two times in a row is a little harder.

DKoK lascannons with the combined squads can get pretty ridiculous. Especially with an allied libby.

I usually think that 2 in a squad is a nice unit size. Most things will take more than a single lascannon shot to take it down and you don't feel like you wasted orders on a single model squad.

Passed Ld tests are pretty much a given if you take a CCS banner and commissar. You are looking at less than 1% chance of running due to Ld.

Sure, lascannons are expensive. But you have to keep in mind that on a Sabre, they're twin-linked. You're getting 50% more than you're paying for on a BS3 platform like a HWT.

So if a HWT costs 35 points in a HWS, and the Sabre costs 50, you're paying 43% more to get 50% more firepower. And skyfire/interceptor. If any unit in the Imperial Guard deserves the expensive firepower upgrade, it's the Sabre.

(Of course, this neglects all the other advantages Sabres have over HWS. But I don't need to bring those up when I can make my point on firepower alone.)

Yeah, they're vendettas, but they can also except fomt, start on the table, have interceptor, and are scoring units.

 Ailaros wrote:
Yeah, they're vendettas, but they can also except fomt, start on the table, have interceptor, and are scoring units.

And they also can't move, get hit normally by ranged weapons, die horribly in assault...

They can move to reposition with scouts, have the durability of a monstrous creature against ranged weapons, while being able to actually take cover saves from an aegis, and, along with the rest of your gunline will blast anything off the board before it has any chance of making it into assault.

And they can accept fomt, start on the table, have interceptor, and score.

Corollax wrote:
Sure, lascannons are expensive. But you have to keep in mind that on a Sabre, they're twin-linked. You're getting 50% more than you're paying for on a BS3 platform like a HWT.

So if a HWT costs 35 points in a HWS, and the Sabre costs 50, you're paying 43% more to get 50% more firepower. And skyfire/interceptor. If any unit in the Imperial Guard deserves the expensive firepower upgrade, it's the Sabre.

(Of course, this neglects all the other advantages Sabres have over HWS. But I don't need to bring those up when I can make my point on firepower alone.)

This is actually a disingenious representation of the increased fire power as they have a 25% increase in to hit which does not equal a 50% increase in damage output(due to the max still being 1 hit)


They are good but they are eclipsed completely by vendettas which do everything that the guard army lacks. The sabre is everything that the guard army already does well, sit and fire. So what it brings to the table is just not that spectacular compared to the vendetta. Compared to HWS it is completely superior but HWS are not even run anymore as they are a joke. HWT still have a place as you need to take a platoon to field sabres and this means you will have two PIS which need some heavy weapons. Now however you can however afford to arm them with something other than AT weapons because you have some of that taken care of. Sabre platforms with lascannons will do nothing against hordes. So for 104 pts you are getting an immobile twin linked lascannon vs for 85 pts a mobile lascannon/plasma gun+7 lasguns. Now factor in that the sabres above have 6 wounds till they are dead and die like a 4 guardsmen in CC. Couple this with suddently you have to take at least 25 t3 guardsmen in a list that has 2 T7 sabres so you can no longer overwhelm your opponents anti infantry/AT as effectively. This leads to a mixed "mech"/infantry type list which tends to have its own inherent problems. The sabre is phenomenally better than HWS though taking anything is better than HWS but this isn't the sabre being cheesy op this is HWS being terrible. The sabre in a vacuum is underpriced, the sabre in a list is price perhaps ~5 points to low depending on the upgrade. (BTW with the searchlight it is like 10 points to high)

Make sure you play on a properly terrained board though. All direct fire guard gunlines will seem undercosted on a sparsely terrained board. This is further exaggerated for immobile units due to immbobility locking you into place. I always wonder at ADL gunline lists doing so well and then I see the boards being played on in most of the battle reports and go OH... no wonder. Put some 5-10' tall buildings in the middle of a board and watch the gunline get 0-1 turns of firing at full effect. The last time I bothered to field a direct fire gunline my brother rolled 3 on all the terrain squares in the middle 6 buildings blocking LoS

Have to agree with Ailaros here. SDP are simply broken. One of the best troop units in the game, if not the best.

When you figure in points cost, durability, and firepower they are the best.

Being able to take something like 6 batteries per infantry platoon is absolutely broken. I might see a possibility of 0-1 or 0-2 per platoon but in their current numbers they overshadow nearly everything in the codex.

FW is not there yet people. I think once this years round of tourneys are over people will see just how broken they are.

One added benefit is they are a hard counter to Heldrake spam but create a problem in and of themselves.

Well, Sabre's haven't been an issue, or dominant, in any of the tournaments they've been in yet. But if CronAir and Hell Turkeys and Vendettas are running all over the top tables of Adepticon, I imagine people will wish FW had been allowed there.

 ansacs wrote:
This is actually a disingenious representation of the increased fire power as they have a 25% increase in to hit which does not equal a 50% increase in damage output(due to the max still being 1 hit)

Twin-linked BS3 has a 50% higher hit rate than BS3. Not 25%. I meant what I said.

And maximum damage output doesn't necessarily correlate to higher average performance. Five Lootas CAN score thirty S7 AP4 hits. But on average, a CSM Havoc squad with ACs will get 60% more shots on target.

 Ailaros wrote:
They can move to reposition with scouts, have the durability of a monstrous creature against ranged weapons, while being able to actually take cover saves from an aegis, and, along with the rest of your gunline will blast anything off the board before it has any chance of making it into assault.

And they can accept fomt, start on the table, have interceptor, and score.

I would love to have your opponents that play assault-focused lists with no way of getting into assault besides "move forward 6" every turn".

Also, Vendettas are transports. Don't forget about that huge advantage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Glocknall wrote:
Being able to take something like 6 batteries per infantry platoon is absolutely broken.

Not really. First of all it's only five per platoon (they replace HWS), and then you have to look at the total point cost. Filling out a full platoon worth of Sabre guns is 750 points. Add in the mandatory other units and that doesn't really leave much room for things other than Sabre guns. That might be an effective list in some situations, but it's a one-dimensional list that is very vulnerable to anything that can take advantage of its weaknesses.

I might see a possibility of 0-1 or 0-2 per platoon but in their current numbers they overshadow nearly everything in the codex.

Except that's what people are already going to take. You don't spam nothing but Sabre guns, you take 1-2 squads of them.

FW is not there yet people. I think once this years round of tourneys are over people will see just how broken they are.

Sorry, but tournament results so far disagree with you. Even when Sabre guns are legal they don't dominate tournaments.

Corollax wrote:

 ansacs wrote:
This is actually a disingenious representation of the increased fire power as they have a 25% increase in to hit which does not equal a 50% increase in damage output(due to the max still being 1 hit)

Twin-linked BS3 has a 50% higher hit rate than BS3. Not 25%. I meant what I said.

And maximum damage output doesn't necessarily correlate to higher average performance. Five Lootas CAN score thirty S7 AP4 hits. But on average, a CSM Havoc squad with ACs will get 60% more shots on target.

Again this is a 25% overall increase in to hit and the maximum damage potential is just as improtant as average damage. I will gladly charge a lascannon versus 10 lasguns even through the average damage is much greater for the lascannon due to the fact I will still get my way even with luck slapping me. Would you rather have 4 twin linked lascannons or 6 lascannons? The average is the same the maximums are totally different.

 ansacs wrote:
Again this is a 25% overall increase in to hit and the maximum damage potential is just as improtant as average damage.

No, it's a 50% chance. 50% chance with a re-roll = 75% chance, which is a 50% improvement. You can't just say 75% - 50% = 25%, percentages don't work like that.

Indeed -- the appropriate operation is DIVISION. (0.75/0.5 = 1.5.) On average, 50% more shots on target.

And in the absence of other variables, I'll take the 4 BS3 twin-linked lascannons over 6 vanilla BS3 lascannons any day. Outlandish results might win games, but consistency wins tournaments.

Yes they do there is absolute and relative improvement and you are talking relative while I am saying absolute.

Then you don't understand what the word "percent" means. (Hint: It's referring to a ratio -- a comparison of two relative values.)

The only time the quantity "0.25" comes into any relevance is as the marginal increase in average hits a single twin-linked BS3 single-shot weapon over its singly-linked BS3 counterpart. But that is most certainly not a percent. It has an associated unit, and the unit is hits. You don't drop the unit measure in subtraction, and so a unitless measure (such as percent) is not appropriate.

You should read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensional_analysis

 ansacs wrote:
Yes they do there is absolute and relative improvement and you are talking relative while I am saying absolute.

Except your "absolute improvement" is a meaningless concept. Let's look at it your way, and add 25% to each of two units:

Unit A has a 1% chance to hit, add 25% and now it has a 26% chance to hit.

Unit B has a 50% chance to hit, add 25% and now it has a 75% chance to hit.

Now, obviously unit A got a much bigger improvement (going from near-worthless to almost ork-level) than unit B (going from average to above average), but by your "math" we have to say they both got the same 25% improvement. This is obvious nonsense, the only way to get any meaningful understanding of the situation is to do percentages correctly, in which case you see that unit A got a 2600% improvement compared to a 50% improvement for B.

Glocknall wrote:
Have to agree with Ailaros here. SDP are simply broken. One of the best troop units in the game, if not the best.

When you figure in points cost, durability, and firepower they are the best.

Neglecting that they're Ld7, lose the guns and T7/3+sv's if they fail a single Ld test, and are no different than an HWS in close combat...methinks we exaggerate a bit. They're hard to harm, and good units, but once you do those Ld tests reallllly start to add up, completely unable to maneuver, and are very easily killed in CC. Calling them the best troop in the game is a wee bit silly.

Could they use a points adjustment? Perhaps, on the 2nd crew member certainly, but they're still a very long way off from the Vendetta stage.

Being able to take something like 6 batteries per infantry platoon is absolutely broken. I might see a possibility of 0-1 or 0-2 per platoon but in their current numbers they overshadow nearly everything in the codex.

FW is not there yet people. I think once this years round of tourneys are over people will see just how broken they are.

And yet, in every event that's allowed FW (pretty much every major FW event this year) they haven't appeared in massive numbers or invalidated everything else, I don't even think an army with them has placed top 3 at any US event this year (I could be wrong on that but I don't recall any).


Hrm...

They're leadership 7... which is rerollable with a standard nearby, or rerollable and Ld10 with a standard and a lord commissar nearby or just a lord commissar in the squad. Plus, you've got to wound those guardsmen as if they're T7 with a 3+/4++ save (behind an aegis). That's pretty tricky to put serious casualty on, and if they DO run, they can just be turned right around in the next turn by the officer.

And even in the worst case scenario, sabres aren't THAT expensive. If you were relying on a single lascannon to survive the entire game, then you're not in the right frame of mind to play a guard army.

And really, close combat? Welcome to 6th edition.

 Ailaros wrote:
Plus, you've got to wound those guardsmen as if they're T7 with a 3+/4++ save (behind an aegis).

Not true at all. The guardsmen benefit from the T7 of the guns, but not from their armor save. So you have a 5+/4++ behind the aegis line, or just a plain 5+ if you outflank the aegis line and ignore it.

That's pretty tricky to put serious casualty on, and if they DO run, they can just be turned right around in the next turn by the officer.

No, because you lose the guns if they run. You can regroup them again, but all you get is a bunch of basic guardsmen with lasguns. Seriously, read the rules for the unit before declaring it overpowered.

And really, close combat? Welcome to 6th edition.

You mean welcome to your special version of 6th edition, which seems to be lacking a lot of the things found in GW's version of 6th edition.

Do people really run lord commissars anymore? i thought that died out in competitive environments a long time ago. Including one is generally wasting points since you would have to cluster all your sabres up and give up large portions of the board where objectives could be. 48" sounds like a lot, but i cant count the number of times mine have been out of range.

Also, anyone who is in a competitive setting knows to shoot the CCS till at least the banner is gone. With precision shots, barrage, and directional shots, that really isnt hard.

Sabres are TL. However, BID on HWT makes them TL also. Sabres are testing on ld7 for FOMT. DKOK HWT are testing on LD8 with reroll from a vox. Il take 6 lascannons over 4TL sabres anyday due to the ability to TL them on command and the cheaper cost. (2x95+65=255 vs 300 for sabres)

Finally, shoot the crew off. It has 2 crew each gun mak and the crew are dedicated to each platform seperatly. You do 2 wounds to the 2 crewmen, the platform is dead. With 5+ saves you can take them down with even bolter file. From closer range you can maneuver to take the crew out or via deepstrike/flier deployment, ect. Precision shots, snipers, barrages, all of them can shoot individuals off. There is a reason they arent winning major tourneys, they have a lot of innate weaknesses that those playing against them can exploit. Especially when the person playing them is overconfident.

 zephoid wrote:
Finally, shoot the crew off. It has 2 crew each gun mak and the crew are dedicated to each platform seperatly.

Not true, any crewman can fire any gun. Unless I have missed something of course, although reading the artillery rules on rule book page 46 leads me to believe this. Can you point out where you read this?

Things are really going to outflank sabre spam and get into close combat with them? Let's ignore proper deployment, or the fact that the sabres have interceptor or the fact that 6th ed royally boned over close combat. Even in the worst case scenario possible to imagine, you lose a single sabre platform.

Woo hoo.

Meanwhile, the sabres don't have a serious problem with leadership, done properly, and have 4++ saves with an aegis, start on the board, can accept fomt, have interceptor, and score.

And they come in your troops slot too, I should note, so you don't have to make FOC sacrifices to take them.

Yeah, you can take a couple of vendettas as transports to get troops on the other side of the board, but if you're taking sabres, there's not really much point in taking anything BUT sabres for your anti-tank.

 Ailaros wrote:
...but if you're taking sabres, there's not really much point in taking anything BUT sabres for your anti-tank.

IDK, I would think that you would still need some meltas, vanquishers or demolishers to deal with AV14. I have always found lascannons to fall short of killing land raiders and the like.

Well, you're going to be taking a few squads of vets in vendettas, so you might as well give them meltaguns. Mass twin-linked lascannons are more than capable of handling everything else, even AV14.

 Ailaros wrote:
Well, you're going to be taking a few squads of vets in vendettas, so you might as well give them meltaguns. Mass twin-linked lascannons are more than capable of handling everything else, even AV14.

I suppose that you are right, that is plenty of anti-tank. I try to avoid vendettas myself, not gunship-y enough for my liking. A single vulture is about all the air power I take, as it looks likke a proper gunship.

 Ailaros wrote:
Things are really going to outflank sabre spam and get into close combat with them? Let's ignore proper deployment, or the fact that the sabres have interceptor or the fact that 6th ed royally boned over close combat.

Oh yes, let's just pretend that assaulting in 6th is impossible.

Even in the worst case scenario possible to imagine, you lose a single sabre platform.

You mean you aren't grouping them into full squads to make best use of orders/leadership bonuses/extra wounds?

but if you're taking sabres, there's not really much point in taking anything BUT sabres for your anti-tank.

So what? Is it really the end of the world if Sabre guns replace some Vendettas? I thought Vendetta spam was horrible and anti-fun.

(Yes, they also replace bad anti-tank units like infantry squad LCs, but who cares about bad units.)

 Ailaros wrote:
They're leadership 7... which is rerollable with a standard nearby, or rerollable and Ld10 with a standard and a lord commissar nearby or just a lord commissar in the squad. Plus, you've got to wound those guardsmen as if they're T7 with a 3+/4++ save (behind an aegis). [That's pretty tricky to put serious casualty on, and if they DO run, they can just be turned right around in the next turn by the officer.

If they run, the guns are *gone*. With regards to standards, Lord Commissars, etc, those are all things that apply to normal guardsmen as well as the Sabres, and require you to have those HQ units babysitting them. As for being T7, if you can hurt a Rhino you can hurt a Sabre. Yeah, they make HWS's look pointless, but to be fair, HWS's are amongst some of the least effective heavy weapons units in the game in terms of damage output and resiliency per point paid.

And even in the worst case scenario, sabres aren't THAT expensive. If you were relying on a single lascannon to survive the entire game, then you're not in the right frame of mind to play a guard army.

Not what anyone was saying, only that they're not the Über troops they're being made out to be.

And really, close combat? Welcome to 6th edition.

Yes, 6th edition. The mechanized MEQ assaults and those relying on an outflank no longer work. Everything else still does, in many ways better. Against an opponent going first, good luck stopping a battlewagon/trukk rush (watching them cross to your deployment zone in a single turn...) or a Necron wraithwing with Scarab support from getting stuck in very nicely on turn two. Assaults are live and very well in 6th edition. Just not the "drive up in a buttoned up tank and unload a bunch of heavily armored marines" or "come in off a board edge and hit the first thing you can reach" type of assaults.

And Sabres can't overwatch

Yes they can overwatch with a pair of flashlights from the crew which is about as scary as their single attack at I3 in cc. So scary that a unit of 6 wraiths and a dlord would never attempt a multi charge against multiple units of sabers clustered around a lord commissar.

I still don't get it. Sabres have the same leadership and close combat abilities as the rest of the army that they're in, so they've got serious problems?

If you can't do any of the very easy things to handle close combat or leadership problems with a guard army, then you're going to lose the game, sabres or no.

If, on the other hand, you assume at least a reasonably competent guard player, then the sabre just plainly beats everything, and should be spammed as hard as possible. Assuming you're taking them at all, of course.