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HEADQUARTERS
Calgar, armor of Antilochus
Honour Guard squad, champ + 7 honour guards with chapter banner in pod

TROOPS
Tacticals x10, combi-melta, MG, MM, rhino
Tacticals x10, combi-plasm, PG, PC, rhino
Tacticals x10, combi-flamer, flamer, HB, rhino

FAST ATTACK
Stormtalon, TML

ELITES
Sternguards x7, LC and combi-melta srgt, combi-plasma, rhino

HEAVY SUPPPORT
Devastators x10, 2x LCs, 2x MLs with flank
TFC

FORTIFICATIONS
ADL, quad gun

Comes up to 1999pts. Basic line of thought: combat-squad the tacticals, leave the PC on a home objective, the rest will push forward with the sternguards. The HGs with Calgar will drop close to the enemy but in range of friendly weapons for covering fire; even if they get charged they're pumping out 33 attacks stock (not counting Calgar's). A lot of the success will depend on timely usage of the doctrines. I imagine that an all-pod list would probably be a bit stronger but I just don't have the pods available.

What do you guys think?

Well I think there's a problem with no really good armoured support unit

U need to put Calgar and honour guard in a land raider, if they come down in a drop pod they ll just get shot an outmanoeuvred, it would be different if they shot but they dont

Having Calgar being the only one podding seems like you're asking to be squished to anything in their deployment.

I'd either put them in a tank with the rest, or put the whole army in pods to make your opponent chose his targets.

I understand that a Land Raider would be more beneficial to the Honour Guard squad, but I can't fit it in point-wise.

The reason for the lack of armor is to make the most out of the doctrines (which benefit infantry, not vehicles).

I think with careful deployment and initial movement you can get a solid round (even 2) of TL shooting out of the tacticals and the Honour Guard will add their boltguns too.

Calgar's boost to Ld tests are invaluable to shooty tacticals (essentially giving them the old combat-tactics). He also gets a good shot at "picking" his Commander Trait. Firestorm would be nice for more TL shooting, but furious charge wouldn't be bad either. The TDA will allow him to drop the OB upon arrival if needed or even on the move at a later point.

I originally had the Honour Guard replaced by a Terminator squad with HF to home in on Calgar's beacon and barbeque something but I think the Honour Guard will pack more punch in CC while keeping some firepower.

Drop the 7 sternguard and some of the extra guys in the dev squad and fit that land raider in. It will put a bigger threat on the table the sterguard in a rhino.

Faced a Chaos Daemon list with: Fateweaver, 2 decked out Tzeench DPs, 2x 7 Beasts of Nurggle, 2 squads of Plague bearers and one of Horrors.

Played Big Guns Never Tire. My buddy conceded at the end of turn 5.

I'll start by saying that he made a couple of critical mistakes that sealed the game for me: he threw Fateweaver unsupported at a cluster of 4x 5 Tacticals in rhinos, which after he popped the vehicles proceeded to bolter him to death. The 2nd mistake he did was to throw in a DP into assault with my Honour Guards who were already tied with Beasts, I put 5 unsaved wounds on the beasts while conceding only 1 to the challenge with the DP, Daemonic Instability did its job and polished off both the Beasts and DP!

Highlights:

1) the Devastator doctrine is awesome! Being able to use it twice thanks to Calgar: pure sweetness. Of note: Devastators get relentless AND reroll snapshots.

2) Calgar's army-wide buffs are great, not once did I have to worry about infantry running away and you can save pts by not upgrading sergeants. You also have the option of breaking away if needed.

3) the Honour Guard squad did well, by the end of the game I had 2 of them left and Calgar with 1 wound. They hacked through both squads of Beasts and a DP, so definitely made their points back.

 Rupertrampton wrote:
U need to put Calgar and honour guard in a land raider, if they come down in a drop pod they ll just get shot an outmanoeuvred, it would be different if they shot but they dont

They have boltguns....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I suggest breaking down the 2 devs into 2 squads with 4 lascannons and 4 MLs or HBs. possibly drop the LC and 1-2 sternguards. they are going to die, make them cheap but efficient.

There's only one squad of devs, I combat-squad them to split the lascannons and Flakks. They did really well.
The sterns didn't get to use their combis but their Hellfire rounds were more useful against this enemy anyway.

This actually seems to be a common baseline build for Calgarsmurfs, albeit with some more funky options instead of MOAR tactical marines.
The honour guard are a good touch, with 2+ armour all round and Calgar tanking the big stuff, they present an real actual conundrum to most players when they arrive. They take the place of an armoured support vehicle quite nicely.

It also keeps in the spirit of spamming more foot troops who can all take advantage of the doctrines, and whilst a land raider is usually a go-to just for its inherent implacability, it just doesn't seem worth it to me in this type of list.

boltguns aren't much for a 500 point unit..

But they CAN shoot haha

Bodies, bodies, bodies. That's what makes Calgar very good.
What Calgar does is gives you 'God of War'. This is a combination of 'chapter tactics' from the old codex combined with the ability to auto-pass any tests. That is complete money, as it lets you really exploit having lots of bodies on the table.

Calgar is your beat stick to stick near the center of your army to scream 'Get off my Lawn!" to anything that gets close. Throw him at wraiths, ICs, MCs, etc.. Hes your ticket to getting things knocked out of your way. You don't need an honor guard or anything fancy. Just sticking him in 10 marines will do the trick.

So what does it look like?
This is what I would bring with Calgar

HQ
Calgar
Tigurius

Troops
10 Tactical Squad w/MG + LC
10 Tactical Squad w/MG + LC
10 Tactical Squad w/MG + LC
10 Tactical Squad w/MG + LC
10 Tactical Squad w/MG + LC
10 Tactical Squad w/MG + LC

Heavy Support
10 Devastators w/2 ML + 2 LC
10 Devastators w/4 ML
10 Devastators w/4 ML

Areas to grow
This is a good base. It gives you a lot bodies to spam the table with (92 MEQ bodies is no joke to dislodge) To make matters worse, its 18 different squads, 12 of which are scoring. That means there can be a lot of overkill wasted when your opponent is shooting at them.

It also gives you a lot of firepower. 8 LCs and 10 MLs can do a number of enemy targets, and they are hard to dislodge. Unlike long fangs your devs have 3 bolters for every heavy weapon. Burn your tactical doctrine on the first round of the game. If your facing lots of flyers, burn your dev doctrine. Use Calgars power to burn the most practical one next.

Divination has some great things for tiggy. Prescience, Misfortune, and Ignore cover come to mind.

Final Thoughts
This army has some bad match ups -- like calvary based daemons. However, you have a lot more good match ups than bad match ups.

I think that is a strong army that will take many people off guard. The way you play it is not to rush into someones face but just sit on the objectives and plink away at the enemy. Sure, a wave serpent spam player will kill 10-12 models on turn one, but you should be able to take down a wave serpent or two per turn, until hes not killing more than a few per turn.

The best thing -- the army is cheap to buy. Marines are very affordable.