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What do you guys think of the vet upgrades for 6th ed?

Carapace has been surprisingly useful as the amount of AP 5 ignores cover out there seems to have grown.

The camo cloak and defensive grenades makes vets super resistant to firepower unless the rounds ignore armor...

Lastly demo... Just always a good call, if you can survive long enough to assault a land raider or toss the demo pack.

Or naked for saving 30pts.

What do you guys like? What's worth the 30 point upgrade and how often do you find yourself wishing you took or didn't take an upgrade?
Thoughts?

 Castitas wrote:
What do you guys think of the vet upgrades for 6th ed?

Carapace has been surprisingly useful as the amount of AP 5 ignores cover out there seems to have grown.

The camo cloak and defensive grenades makes vets super resistant to firepower unless the rounds ignore armor...

Lastly demo... Just always a good call, if you can survive long enough to assault a land raider or toss the demo pack.

Or naked for saving 30pts.

What do you guys like? What's worth the 30 point upgrade and how often do you find yourself wishing you took or didn't take an upgrade?
Thoughts?

Generally speaking,the golden rule for IG is more men/weapons are better than upgrades.So,its better to spend those 30 points,who can be 60,90,etc if you have multiple vet squads,to other things like more guardsmen or weapons or tanks than on doctrines.Another thing to keep in mind is that usually your vets will be inside a chimera,so Grenadiers and Forward Sentries wont be of any use there,and should the transport explodes,well then,in most cases you are already facing a dead squad.Unless you are planning on deploying them on foot behind an ADL or cover,or going for a fluffy army where those upgrades give necessary flavor (FS for say Tanith or Grenadiers for some elite Guard regiment),they just dont seem worth it imo,as you are still beefing up squads of ridiculously fragile men that will die on pretty much everything thrown at them in shooting or melee.

Demolitions on the other hand,are a more interesting choice;in fact i am planning to use them on my multiple vet squads against a friend of mine who is playing a drop pod heavy SW army alongside their plasma guns.I dont know how effective it will be,as their toss range is stupidly low,but since my opponent will be coming on my face with his pods,it might well work.Another way Demo could work would be on vet squad with Flamers/Meltas on a vendetta dropping late on an objective to clear it out,but tbh that can be done cheaper and with almost the same efficiency by a SWS squad with 2 flamers and a demo charge.

TL;DR In most cases its not worth it to spend all those points in doctrines when our army troops,weapons and vehicles are cheap and numerous to boot.Hope this helps!

This is a topic that I've been very curious about myself, especially when trying to decide what to do with a small amount of remaining points in a list.

Is it best to use vets with special weapons & a doctrine?
Just with special weapons?
Just with a doctrine?

I've been pondering a few ideas:
* Only plasma or melta for use in a chimera.
* Grenadiers, no special weapons, to serve as protection for an independent character.
* Forward Sentries with sniper rifles.

Generally though, I end up using no doctrines at all and just use special weapons. Most doctrines are defensive (with the exception of demolitions), and only have value when combined with special weapons to give offence. However, taking both doctrine and special weapons makes the squad too expensive for my flavour of army.

I generally default to Grenadiers, as the 4+ doubles your survivability against most types of small arms. The points spent in special weapons are useless if you can't protect them. I've also considered using Camo Cloaks with an ADL, for a constant 3+ cover, but on the whole I'd prefer carapace.

 Paradigm wrote:
I generally default to Grenadiers, as the 4+ doubles your survivability against most types of small arms.

Only if you don't have a cover save or transport to protect the unit. If you do the upgrade is a marginal improvement in durability for a unit that is still pretty easy to kill.

Demolitions is a great doctrine if you have the points for it in your list and you are sure they can get close to the enemy.
A guardsman dropping a pie plate on some terminators is just brilliant.
Overall my advice when it comes to IG is that avoid any kind of upgrade on everything, excluding special and heavy weapons, unless you have spare points in your list or a general tactic behind it.
All squads should always be maxed out with special weapons, flamers/GL's on BS3 models (melta in blobs), and melta/plasma on BS4 models and nothing else except the occational heavy weapon in a regular infantry squad.

On my Harker Vet Squad I always take Demolitions.

On my Valk/Vendetta riding "ST in training" triple Plasma squad, i always take Grenadiers.

The 60 Points I would save does not buy me anything other than a Mortar Squad; and I find those 2 units very worthwhile.

That said I am also willing to drop out Both Vet Squads altogether for another whole Platoon, but then I play Gunline(have since 4th, refused to change in 5th).

Grenadiers: Only really helps against AP 4 weapons, and then only increases survivability of armor saves by 50%, to me, definitely not worth it.

Forward Sentries: Only increases survivability by 1/6 for cover rolls, not worth it to me.

Demolitions: Democharge itself to me is worth it, an assault pie plate (you can move and still sue it) that kills everything dead is amazing. Not only that but your whole squad gets melta, something I would always take.

Nothing: Good if you are short on points and don't want demolitions (for some reason

So, when you think about it, I think a pie plates of DOOOOM that you can move and use (assault) is worth 30 points, if I could just buy a ton of those I would. EDIT: (Hell, I think they are worth 65 points, thats why I take Marbo!)

edited misrepresented information about the demo charge

How exactly is the Demolition Charge not subject to normal scatter rules? Veterans reduce the scatter by 4 with their BS4, and Marbo gets 5 points of scatter reduction...

...but that's not nothing. Perhaps you are thinking of Marbo's deep striking rules?

Corollax wrote:
How exactly is the Demolition Charge not subject to normal scatter rules? Veterans reduce the scatter by 4 with their BS4, and Marbo gets 5 points of scatter reduction...

...but that's not nothing. Perhaps you are thinking of Marbo's deep striking rules?

*derp* ya, I confused them. What I MEANT to say is "Large Blast, Assault weapon? yes please!" I love that you can move and still use it.

Ahh, alright then. Sorry if I came across as overly critical. Thanks for the clarification.

Corollax wrote:
Ahh, alright then. Sorry if I came across as overly critical. Thanks for the clarification.

Not at all, thank you for bringing it up actually!

 Ryan_A wrote:

So, when you think about it, I think a pie plates of DOOOOM that you can move and use (assault) is worth 30 points, if I could just buy a ton of those I would. EDIT: (Hell, I think they are worth 65 points, thats why I take Marbo!)

That's when you take max special weapons squads with 3 demo packs each, stuff them into vendettas, and put 'ride of the valkyries' on the speakers as suicidal guardsmen rain from the skies and kill your enemies (and themselves).

In cc Demo vets can destroy mc and walkers that have a low # of attacks. It shouldn't be plan A, but if a riptide, dreadnought, or tervigon gets cocky...

 Badablack wrote:

 Ryan_A wrote:

So, when you think about it, I think a pie plates of DOOOOM that you can move and use (assault) is worth 30 points, if I could just buy a ton of those I would. EDIT: (Hell, I think they are worth 65 points, thats why I take Marbo!)

That's when you take max special weapons squads with 3 demo packs each, stuff them into vendettas, and put 'ride of the valkyries' on the speakers as suicidal guardsmen rain from the skies and kill your enemies (and themselves).

DUUU DA DA DUUUUUU DA, DUUU DA DA DUUUUU DA, DU DUUUUU DA DUUUUUUUU!

So what would they look like? Special Weapon squads with demo charges and 3 meltaguns, 3 plasmaguns, or 3 flamers or what? Or would it just be better to spend the least amount on them to get as many of em as possible?

Special weapons squads are part of regular platoons so you get 2 per troop choice. And they can take 3 demo charges.

That's 12 possible squads chucking str 8 ap2 blasts all over the place. That's 36 str8 ap2 blasts flung at terminators and lychguard and crisis suits. Flung from Valkyries, flung from chimeras. Demo charges flung from ruins and hurled from the tops of bastions.

Guardsmen throwing enormous explosions in every direction, marching in lockstep formation while tossing armor piercing handheld artillery into crowds of cheering orks and hissing tyranids.
Normal men and women carrying sophisticated, highly explosive devices with the power of a bunker-bustiing bomb. Carrying them around until an enemy is spotted, and then picking up and throwing that city-leveling bomb point blank in the direction of those enemy faces.
Watching in front row seats as these bombs go off in eye searing radioactive clouds of volatile gasses. Six inch range? Guardsmen can spit that far, yet they're chucking battle cannon rounds at their own feet and praising the emperor as they kill swathes of aliens and cultists and everything in between. Demo charges don't care which chaos god you worship, they'll send bits of you in every direction regardless. All hail the demolition charge!




But anyway as far as vets are concerned I like taking sgt harker and giving everyone camo cloaks.

Since I run a CCS and Lord Commissar as my HQ choices, every 30pts I spend on a Vet Doctrine is a Advisor I could take to delay their reserves or give me a pie plate at range or a +1 on my reserve rolls. We are IG, we never have points to waste.

I am also a foot slogger. I never had the urge to spend $300 on Chimeras and I can spend that money on better things. I have debated on a Vet foot list and how viable it would be (it is also a desperate attempt to find a use for Bastonne) and you can really go nuts spending points on guys. Take Harker... he always seemed super simple... He has Stealth so Forward Sentries is a waste and he can't take Grenadiers, so Demolitions it is! But Paradigm pointed out to me they changed/FAQed Camo cloaks to just give a +1 to cover saves, so they would actually stack with Harker's Stealth to give you +2 to your cover save. Now Demolitions isn't the only option and not even the best option.

So it really comes down to what type of list you want to play and how well you want to deck out your vets. The good thing is that none of the choices outright suck, they all have their uses. The bad thing is they are /expensive/. I mean, I think all of us look at that 30pts a pop go 'That is an Advisor' or 'That is over half the cost of a Chimera'. We look at these Doctrines the same way we look at the medic in our CCS and Heavy Flamers on troops. Yeah it is neat, but those points are points I could be spending to upgrade special weapons to melta guns, or upgrade those melta guns to plasma guns. I honestly think people would rather spend 10pts to put a AC HWT in a Vet squad mounted in a Chimera and snap shoot it every turn than spend 30pts on a 4+ save that might not even help you at all. Yeah, you look at the Vet out on foot behind a ADL with Grenadiers and Forward Sentries and think that guy is going to be a beast to take out... then you get to the heavy section of your own Codex and see a Colossus at Str 6, AP 3 pie plate that ignores cover... then you look again at the 60pts your spending on your Vets... then you see a Chimera for 55pts. Makes ya sad, don't it...

what I have done in the past:

Carapace armor: given to plasma vets. The 4+ save when I roll the get hot 1s. Has saved alot of vets.

Demolitions: sometimes use. Give it to a squad with melta guns and shot guns. Usually in a valk/vendetta.

Forward sentries: never used.

The only time that I use Forward Sentries is with Harker, camp him in cover with a lascannon/autocannon and 3 plasma, for a native 2+ cover save.

What are you thoughts on a CCS with 4x plasma. I havent had luck with it as it seems like i always kill half my squad with gets hot when i get into double tap range. Is this bad luck or the usual.

CCS with plasma x4. This is worth the 20 point upgrade for carapace. It is just normal for me to roll 1s alot. You will. In double tap range, that is 8 shots, odds are you will get one or two 1s.

If you use "Bring it Down", you can twin-link your plasma shots. This reduces your chance of "Gets Hot" by 67%.

8*(1/3)*(1/6)*(2/3) = 0.3 unsaved wounds within double-tap range. Perfectly acceptable.

Personally i enjoy the Grenadiers on Plasma squads, so they can hunt MEQ and actually live to tell the tale (4+ and bolters are AP 5 from memory)

Demolitions i use on drop troops with meltas, always work for me <3

And forward sentries please me thoroughly for sniping, but i don't use them that often In short, all variants are good, but sometimes barebones with upgraded guns are often brilliant

While I'm sure it's not quite in the scope of OP's original post, but I'd consider the chimera to be the best non-weapon upgrade that Vets can take. 55pts increases their survivability far more than 30pts for a 4+ (and really if you increase survivability of gak by 50%, you still have gak). Not to mention the manoeuvrability you gain from the chimera which you do not get from grenadiers.

Although as I'm typing this I'm sure a vendetta surpasses the chimera in all of the points I mentioned.

 Griddlelol wrote:
While I'm sure it's not quite in the scope of OP's original post, but I'd consider the chimera to be the best non-weapon upgrade that Vets can take. 55pts increases their survivability far more than 30pts for a 4+ (and really if you increase survivability of gak by 50%, you still have gak). Not to mention the manoeuvrability you gain from the chimera which you do not get from grenadiers.

Although as I'm typing this I'm sure a vendetta surpasses the chimera in all of the points I mentioned.

Hah, I was thinking "But what aboot Vendettas!" before I even made it to your last line.

I agree with the sentiment regarding Chimeras though; when a Vendetta doesn't fit into a list, and you need your Vets to get to point X fast, a Chimera is the way to go.

 Castitas wrote:
What do you guys think of the vet upgrades for 6th ed?

Carapace has been surprisingly useful as the amount of AP 5 ignores cover out there seems to have grown.

The camo cloak and defensive grenades makes vets super resistant to firepower unless the rounds ignore armor...

Lastly demo... Just always a good call, if you can survive long enough to assault a land raider or toss the demo pack.

Or naked for saving 30pts.

What do you guys like? What's worth the 30 point upgrade and how often do you find yourself wishing you took or didn't take an upgrade?
Thoughts?

Carapace is great. If you are giving your vets melta guns or some other costy upgrade, carapace is a must as it actually keeps them alive long enough to actually use it.

Demo is good, but its very hit or miss.

Camo cloak and defensive grenades are almost useless imo.

One the most underused combinations IMO is veterans with grenade launchers. With their better skills they actually tend to hit what they are aiming at with them making krak more useful and frag more blasty.

The only upgrades worth giving out are a transport and three special weapons. Carapace Armour and Camo Cloaks are a marginal increase to survivability. Your guardsmen should always have cover and a 4+ will only save 16% more guardsmen than a 5+, while increasing the cost per guardsmen by 42%. Mathematically, trying to upgrade is way less efficient than just buying more guardsmen.

Corollax wrote:
If you use "Bring it Down", you can twin-link your plasma shots. This reduces your chance of "Gets Hot" by 67%.

8*(1/3)*(1/6)*(2/3) = 0.3 unsaved wounds within double-tap range. Perfectly acceptable.

"Bring it Down!" Doesn't help you against Deep Striking Terminators though. Drop pod Dreads and MCs that Deep Strike in yes, but everything else? No.

I miss 5th ed allowing you to use a cover save for 'Gets Hot!', because it didn't say armor save, it said just make a save. Everyone had Forward Sentries and Camo Cloaks then!

I really can't wait for a IG Codex... I really hope IG gets the Eldar treatment with their lasguns and hotshot lasguns, in comparison to the Shuriken Catapult upgrade.

You're right, you can't "Bring it Down" when attacking terminators. While unfortunate, you're still only taking 0.89 wounds to 'Gets Hot!' rolls. And since we're talking about a unit within 12" of a squad of now very angry terminators...

...do you really want to spend another 20 points on Carapace Armor to reduce the 0.89 wounds to 0.67? Or would you rather have those points invested in a second squad? It's not a whole unit, by any stretch -- but neither is the 0.22 wounds you saved on the 'Gets Hot!' rolls. =P

Oh I agree... I don't think the Carapace is worth it either. I do Camo Cloaks though and I camp behind a ADL with a Lascannon, Standard, and a plasma gun.

Thus why I was lamenting on the old rules for 'Gets Hot!', the Camo cloak pulled double duty. But for me, the banner is more important that the second plasma gun and I have no desire to put them in a Chimera because I can't give myself a Order in one, even though I can issue Orders from a Chimera... never understood that rule. But hey... I don't understand why you can't have Vet Vehicle Crew as a upgrade either. So no one survives in a vehicle, or if they do, they turn into Pask or never get better.... hummm.