Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I find mines usually dead or at least being targeted fairly early most games... sometimes it's tough keeping him in good cover or out of LoS and still have LoS to targets you want to use orders against

So what do my fellow guardsmen do to combat this?

Stick him in a chimera, or stick him in cover.

Giving your opponent something scarier to shoot at doesn't hurt either.

I don't. My CCS gets 4x melta/plasma and a Chimera/Vendetta and finds something to kill. Orders are pretty much useless since the units I want to give them to are usually spread out too much and/or too cheap to make spending 100+ points on a 50% firepower boost worth it.

Like Ailaros said, there's only so much you can do. Either you bunker them down in a transport or, if you really want to invest in their safety, either purchase the Aegis Defence Line for some instant cover saves (with an additional 2+ for going to ground meaning you get a 2+ cover save against most conventional weaponry) or if you face a lot of things like Heldrakes in your meta, you could try and put them in an Imperial Bastion. The only problem with this is that I believe you would have to on the roof to give your orders, meaning you would still be vulnerable to shooting attacks. Other than that there isn't much I believe you can do to reliably protect them.

Use the Chimera's command vehicle rule.
It's there to answer just this question.
Keep it behind the line of other tanks, and zoom forward when a safe target present itself.

I am actually considering dumping my CCS for a second Lord Commisar. I then stick the Commisars in with and Artillary units (either Sabres or Gun Carriages.). They gain T7 & the can LoS on a 2+ instead of a 4+.

Back on topic though. Camo netting behind an agies. Stick the more expandable up front to take wounds first. I've also stopped putting Heavy Weapons in the squad to have it count as more models so more guys need to die before I need to pass a moral check. Also get a regimental standard to re-roll moral test. Nothing sucks more then losing your warlord because he ran off the board.

Have the officer, a flag, three lasgun vets, and two bodyguards.

Sit in a chimera. In cover.

Watch your enemy waste a lot of firepower winkling that unit out to kill it instead of shooting your scoring firepower, for example. Or your melta/plasmavet chimeras heading for their important stuff. Or your flyer...

You get the idea.

I guess I go about it by having more valuable targets all over the field. With the amount of high Strength blasts I field, they really can't afford to shoot at that little 5-man squad.

If they're wasting shots shooting at my CCS, then they aren't eliminating the units that will do the most significant damage.

How are you guys dealing with Tau cover denying marker lights?

And tau missiles that do not require line of sight?

Camo cloaks, a lascannon, and optional master of ordinance. Plop them in some ruins, and plink away.

Nobody_Holme wrote:Watch your enemy waste a lot of firepower winkling that unit out to kill it instead of shooting your scoring firepower, for example.

But why would anybody do this? If I had the choice between shooting at an in-cover non-scoring unit with few guns that was bottled up in its own deployment zone or... anything else, I'd choose the else.

TheLionOfTheForest wrote:How are you guys dealing with Tau cover denying marker lights?

And tau missiles that do not require line of sight?

You don't.

Of course, if you're running a CCS on foot, that means you're probably running a foot list. If you're running a foot guard list against tau, likely you have bigger problems than just keeping your CCS alive.

Cover e.g. ADL.
bubble wrap him with a basic platoon, your are likely to have one anyway. Use him to order them around.

Take a big unit. E.g. Conscripts, Tanks etc.
Like Ailaros said, what is he gonna shoot at? the 5 man squad behind a potential 2+ cover or the big mob of out of cover conscripts.

I stick him in a Vendetta, basic squad (maybe a medic if I know they have anti-flyer shizzle) and just use the Vendetta to snipe tanks and enemy fliers, it's just a good way of denying your enemy that vital Slay The Warlord VP ;3

Honestly, I usually don't care too much, the CCS is useful but at the same time expendable. If I sorta care I'll usually just try to hide the unit behind terrain or advance an expendable infantry squad to make a more tempting target, but ultimately it's a 5man guard squad, and there's only so much you can do and only so much you can expect from it.

If your really want a survivable CCS howeer, Straken is not a bad investment. Not an amazing one, but not an awful one.

more juicy targets; I use HWSs, so they are always within 12 inches of my commander (for orders) so they get some intrest, more than just a commander.

I got LRBTs close-by they get the heavy flak thrown their way.

Marbo. Nobody likes Marbo, but everyone likes to shoot at him to take'em down fast.

Outflanking troops to releave the pressure, Sentinels and SM scouts in my case.

The real disadventage of the Commander is that he is a mere, simple S/T 3/3 human, so a plasma wepaon, even a multi-laser can insta kill him .

Inquisitor Jex wrote:

The real disadventage of the Commander is that he is a mere, simple S/T 3/3 human, so a plasma wepaon, even a multi-laser can insta kill him .

Put him with either a squad of Sabre Guns or an Earthshaker/Medusa Carriage and he becomes T7. He's only real threat after that is indirect fire weapons which can LoS any wounds away or Close Combat.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sorry jist re-read your post and thought you wrote commisar. Its early and I'm still waking up lol.

I believe that putting him in a Chimera is the best answer - and it increases his command radius given that the hull of the Chimera is larger than his base.

I bought two Chimeras just for two CCS

 Peregrine wrote:
I don't. My CCS gets 4x melta/plasma and a Chimera/Vendetta and finds something to kill. Orders are pretty much useless since the units I want to give them to are usually spread out too much and/or too cheap to make spending 100+ points on a 50% firepower boost worth it.

This. Don't rely on him for orders, use the squad for other purposes.

Stick them in a chimera. If you're running mech guard he probably won't be issuing orders and therefore won't be targeted.

If you're running foot guard, you've already lost.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:

If your really want a survivable CCS howeer, Straken is not a bad investment. Not an amazing one, but not an awful one.

Wait, what? If you want to make the CCS survivable, you should add a very expensive upgrade to them?

@ailaros - I had never played tau and my first time was last Friday against a solid player at my LFGS. I was totally ignorant and ill-prepared to deal with them. I also didn't want to field a fully competitive list as that player is a guy who will call you out on it. Besides it was a casual game.

Tau have the ability to deliver a 1, 2 punch to infantry guard. They can reliably take your cover save away and then shoot you with enough str 5+, ap5+ shots to really hurt. I started with 101 infantry on the table, by turn 4 I probably had less than 35 guys left.

Other than meching up (yet another expense for this army), I am not sure how I would even go about keeping my guys alive to have any scoring troops on the board.

I only have 2 chimeras to play with. My 4 artillery pieces are built so the actual artillery gun slides out of the chimera hull, so I could have 6 chimeras ( with scratch built parts) but then I would have no artillery to play with. I have 4 leman Russ hulls but I feel meh about fielding them.

Carapace Armor: Protects vs. AP5 Fragmentation
Camo Cloaks: For the Cover Save
Medic: For the Extra 5+ Save
Kell/Nork: Auto Look-Out-Sir and Nork is good at surviving all but S10 Weapons

 TheLionOfTheForest wrote:
@ailaros - I had never played tau and my first time was last Friday against a solid player at my LFGS. I was totally ignorant and ill-prepared to deal with them. I also didn't want to field a fully competitive list as that player is a guy who will call you out on it. Besides it was a casual game.

Tau have the ability to deliver a 1, 2 punch to infantry guard. They can reliably take your cover save away and then shoot you with enough str 5+, ap5+ shots to really hurt. I started with 101 infantry on the table, by turn 4 I probably had less than 35 guys left.

Other than meching up (yet another expense for this army), I am not sure how I would even go about keeping my guys alive to have any scoring troops on the board.

I only have 2 chimeras to play with. My 4 artillery pieces are built so the actual artillery gun slides out of the chimera hull, so I could have 6 chimeras ( with scratch built parts) but then I would have no artillery to play with. I have 4 leman Russ hulls but I feel meh about fielding them.

Foot guard will lose against pretty much anyone, nothing to do with being Tau.

Sabres and Gun Carraiges with attached DA characters giving a 4++ invo behind and Agies line. T7, 3+ save, 4++ cove or 2++ if gone to ground and a 4++ invo for indirect or ignores cover weapons. Foot guard is a beast if played right.

Sinji wrote:
Sabres and Gun Carraiges with attached DA characters giving a 4++ invo behind and Agies line. T7, 3+ save, 4++ cove or 2++ if gone to ground and a 4++ invo for indirect or ignores cover weapons. Foot guard is a beast if played right.

What character grants that ability? Im not familiar with the DA. What eles would you run with the DA if they were an ally? I havent really seen any combination for them with foot guard.

For troops 2 drop pods with meltas and HS a Dev squad with missiles and drop pod (empty so two with meltas come in turn 1). Characters as Azreal who gives fearless and 4++ invo to any squad hes with. Or a libby (I think the techmarine can also) they can take device that gives all units within 3" a 4++ invo. The libby also has access to divination and hes cheep.

Sinji wrote:
For troops 2 drop pods with meltas and HS a Dev squad with missiles and drop pod (empty so two with meltas come in turn 1). Characters as Azreal who gives fearless and 4++ invo to any squad hes with. Or a libby (I think the techmarine can also) they can take device that gives all units within 3" a 4++ invo. The libby also has access to divination and hes cheep.

Sorry for another question and slightly off topic but how many points would that cost. My space wolves have the same build. Rune priest as hq, two grey hunter units, 1 with melta, one with plasma and both in pods and I have long fangs with missiles in a pod(but the pod comes empty for the same reason) I like the rune priest as he can give divination and also denies enemy psychic powers on a 4+ if they pass their test within 24 inches. There anything else azreal would bring, Im not sure as to how well he is as a character.

Also to stay on topic I had a thread exactly like this that i created about 2 months ago. Basically the outcome was that if you really want to keep them alive put them in a chimera or even a vendetta.

Camo cloaks behind a defense line isnt bad either armed with a standard and a lascannon this allows them to sit back and buff the squads around from running away.

Or you could just try to be careful and have your commander hide around a Leman russ or some other tank and try to poke out so that he sees key targets and most of your opponents units dont see him.

Against enemy flyers, yet again a chimera or vendetta will save them.

Hope this info helps but its basically the same I had in my thread and its basically what everyone else is saying in this thread so Im not gunna beat a dead horse. Any other question, feel free to ask.

The Libby with the 4++ invo thingy is about 100pts but doesn't have as good psy-defence.

The troop guys are 115 pts for 5 guys with pod and melta gun (I think?). I think the sarge can have a combi-melta for 10pts as well

The Dev Squad is cheaper than the SW one but not as good but can take flakk missiles taking them upto around long fang cost.

This is off the top of my head so sorry if I'm off with points.

TheLionOfTheForest wrote:I started with 101 infantry on the table, by turn 4 I probably had less than 35 guys left.

Welcome to 6th ed foot guard. Tau are, as you see, extra good at dismantling it.

rigeld2 wrote:Don't rely on him for orders, use the squad for other purposes.

Then why bother taking a CCS at all. Other than advisers, orders are the only thing that makes a CCS distinct from a veteran squad. Why pay 80 points for 3 BS4 meltaguns when you can spend only 20 points more to double the size of the squad and make them scoring?

In any case, if you want your warlord to be safer, then take a commissar or primaris psyker that can much more easily hide in something else, being independent characters.

 Ailaros wrote:

TheLionOfTheForest wrote:I started with 101 infantry on the table, by turn 4 I probably had less than 35 guys left.

Welcome to 6th ed foot guard. Tau are, as you see, extra good at dismantling it.

rigeld2 wrote:Don't rely on him for orders, use the squad for other purposes.

Then why bother taking a CCS at all. Other than advisers, orders are the only thing that makes a CCS distinct from a veteran squad. Why pay 80 points for 3 BS4 meltaguns when you can spend only 20 points more to double the size of the squad and make them scoring?

In any case, if you want your warlord to be safer, then take a commissar or primaris psyker that can much more easily hide in something else, being independent characters.

See, even Primaris Psykers are a bad idea now because of the new daemons.

I have never had problems with protecting my CCS. Carapace and in a chimera has worked fine for me.

 Ailaros wrote:
Then why bother taking a CCS at all. Other than advisers, orders are the only thing that makes a CCS distinct from a veteran squad. Why pay 80 points for 3 BS4 meltaguns when you can spend only 20 points more to double the size of the squad and make them scoring?

Because:

1) You can take four melta/plasma guns, not three. Between that and BiD/FOMT you have the highest possible concentration of firepower in a single transport, and the most reliable anti-tank.

2) You have to take an HQ of some kind. A melta/plasma CCS is much more effective than a psyker or commissar unless you're playing Sabre + earthshaker spam, and it doesn't make sense to take a less-effective HQ just because there might be a better non-HQ option. You have to compare HQ to HQ, not HQ to troops.