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 Paradigm wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Again, I'll ask what do you intend to go after with these guys?

Pretty much anything short of a MC or Deathstar. I'm pretty sure they can reliably handle most infantry in the game, and no, I'm not talking about screamerstars/jetstars. Fire Warriors, Guardsmen, marines, Necrons. There's a huge array of viable targets.

Uh, who *can't* beat these guys in Close Combat? They're all easy as heck to kill.

 Verstaka wrote:
Wow, just got out of my class to find a lot more responses than I expected an very mixed opinions. I'm a bit hesitant to grab the Honor Guard since the Champion has that requirement to make challenges, I m not really familiar with the pros and cons aside from a cool narrative.

But if it looks like the general consensus is, if they are available, the Honor Guard destroy a lot in the Assault phase. So how many would you guys recommend be put in a squad? The 10 man unit seems just as pricey and perhaps a bit of overkill. And if a Master is unavailable am I just out of luck for having access to a good assault unit or is there hope? I know assault is out of style right now but I always like to have at least one unit that can mix it up in hand to hand, plus some of the 7th edition rumors are making it sound as though overwatch is getting nerfed hard.

Overwatch isn't gonna get nerfed. It was the best thing they did in 6th ed and it isn't all that great anyway. I like throwing 5 assault termies in a Redeemer cause the redeemer can do some serious damage. Sure, it has to get close but when it does str6 ap3 ignores cover is the bee's knees. Vanguard just aren't that great pointwise. Proxy them in a few battles to see for yourself, but I think they are over-priced.

 Paradigm wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Again, I'll ask what do you intend to go after with these guys?

Pretty much anything short of a MC or Deathstar. I'm pretty sure they can reliably handle most infantry in the game, and no, I'm not talking about screamerstars/jetstars. Fire Warriors, Guardsmen, marines, Necrons. There's a huge array of viable targets.

Against how many of these targets do you think you need honor guard? Fire warriors, guardsment, necrons, and other marines can get beat up by cheaper models.

Waaaghpower wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Again, I'll ask what do you intend to go after with these guys?

Pretty much anything short of a MC or Deathstar. I'm pretty sure they can reliably handle most infantry in the game, and no, I'm not talking about screamerstars/jetstars. Fire Warriors, Guardsmen, marines, Necrons. There's a huge array of viable targets.

Uh, who *can't* beat these guys in Close Combat? They're all easy as heck to kill.

Yes, a lot of stuff can kill them, but few can kill them as fast as Honour Guard. AM can handle weak units, or reduced squads, but Honour Guard can go up against almost anything and either win (non-dedicated CC units) or give as good as they get (dedicated CC units). Anything other than a Monstrous Creature or a superpowered Deathstar is fair game.

But MCs and deathstars are all I care about really in CC. What other kinds of units are there that need to get hit by something like honor guard? Basically, I'm saying they are in no-mans land here. They aren't good enough against the units that really matter, and they are unnecessary against shooty troops. And they die just the same to most anti-meq weapons because AP 2 is much more common than AP 3 for some reason.

 Davespil wrote:

 Verstaka wrote:
Wow, just got out of my class to find a lot more responses than I expected an very mixed opinions. I'm a bit hesitant to grab the Honor Guard since the Champion has that requirement to make challenges, I m not really familiar with the pros and cons aside from a cool narrative.

But if it looks like the general consensus is, if they are available, the Honor Guard destroy a lot in the Assault phase. So how many would you guys recommend be put in a squad? The 10 man unit seems just as pricey and perhaps a bit of overkill. And if a Master is unavailable am I just out of luck for having access to a good assault unit or is there hope? I know assault is out of style right now but I always like to have at least one unit that can mix it up in hand to hand, plus some of the 7th edition rumors are making it sound as though overwatch is getting nerfed hard.

Overwatch isn't gonna get nerfed. It was the best thing they did in 6th ed and it isn't all that great anyway. I like throwing 5 assault termies in a Redeemer cause the redeemer can do some serious damage. Sure, it has to get close but when it does str6 ap3 ignores cover is the bee's knees. Vanguard just aren't that great pointwise. Proxy them in a few battles to see for yourself, but I think they are over-priced.

Overwatch is terrible. It's a free buff to shooty armies with absolutely no downside. It makes risky assaults nigh-worthless, and when combined with random assault distance and taking casualties from the front, is *way* too powerful given the fact that you lose literally nothing.

Martel732 wrote:
Again, I'll ask what do you intend to go after with these guys?

Well if I was using vanilla assault marines I'd be using it to harass any smaller scoring units the enemy has and assault them if it looks like it could swing in my favor (FW, Dire Avengers, etc.)

Vanguard Vets would be a bit of a death star but more focused on counter assaulting. With how I would kit them out I have faith that they could take out a MC without too many casualties (Then again I haven't read up on how MCs got updated so idk how dangerous smash is)

Honor Guard would be used as a spearhead. The abundance of Power Weapons and Artificer armor means that anything short of Powerfists (or equivalent) shouldn't be too dangerous and be taken out with ease.

 Verstaka wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Again, I'll ask what do you intend to go after with these guys?

Well if I was using vanilla assault marines I'd be using it to harass any smaller scoring units the enemy has and assault them if it looks like it could swing in my favor (FW, Dire Avengers, etc.)

Vanguard Vets would be a bit of a death star but more focused on counter assaulting. With how I would kit them out I have faith that they could take out a MC without too many casualties (Then again I haven't read up on how MCs got updated so idk how dangerous smash is)

Honor Guard would be used as a spearhead. The abundance of Power Weapons and Artificer armor means that anything short of Powerfists (or equivalent) shouldn't be too dangerous and be taken out with ease.

If you spearhead them, they'll die to plasma or plasma equivalent firepower. One ion acclerator = they all die. If you put them in a LR, they'll never recover their points. The real failing is that marines don't have enough dakka to clear out enough AP 2 to make it so these guys live.

Well if I see that the enemy has a lot of Plasma fire then I wouldn't be throwing them headlong across the board. That when you play smart, use your other units to take out models that pose a threat to them. You don't HAVE to play a unit in just one way.

 Verstaka wrote:
Well if I see that the enemy has a lot of Plasma fire then I wouldn't be throwing them headlong across the board. That when you play smart, use your other units to take out models that pose a threat to them. You don't HAVE to play a unit in just one way.

True, but now your grim CC unit is cowering not doing anything. It's very hard to play "smart" with a list that constantly taking more fire that it's sending out. Time is on your opponent's side. And marine's inability to trim down enemy firepower capability is one of their biggest problems.

I'm dubious of any HTH marines because the solution is always "shoot them more" and that's what most of the good lists do. Except those with MCs or deathstars, the viable HTH options.

Martel732 wrote:

 Verstaka wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Again, I'll ask what do you intend to go after with these guys?

Well if I was using vanilla assault marines I'd be using it to harass any smaller scoring units the enemy has and assault them if it looks like it could swing in my favor (FW, Dire Avengers, etc.)

Vanguard Vets would be a bit of a death star but more focused on counter assaulting. With how I would kit them out I have faith that they could take out a MC without too many casualties (Then again I haven't read up on how MCs got updated so idk how dangerous smash is)

Honor Guard would be used as a spearhead. The abundance of Power Weapons and Artificer armor means that anything short of Powerfists (or equivalent) shouldn't be too dangerous and be taken out with ease.

If you spearhead them, they'll die to plasma or plasma equivalent firepower. One ion acclerator = they all die. If you put them in a LR, they'll never recover their points. The real failing is that marines don't have enough dakka to clear out enough AP 2 to make it so these guys live.

There are other armies than Tau in this game, you know.

If you compare anything short of a Wave Serpent to a Riptide, of course it falls flat.

Nobody expects balanced units to be able to fight broken units on an equal field.

But assume for a moment that the enemy is CSM?

Or maybe SoB?

SoB and CSM can both bring enough AP2 to wipe them out, but the honor guard are much better against those lists. Although those lists are already much easier to beat, so I still don't see why you'd bring honor guard from a utility standpoint. I still think the LR-borne honor guard still fail against CSM and SoB. The LR is too overcosted and doesn't do enough damage in its own right.

Martel732 wrote:
SoB and CSM can both bring enough AP2 to wipe them out, but the honor guard are much better against those lists. Although those lists are already much easier to beat, so I still don't see why you'd bring honor guard from a utility standpoint. I still think the LR-borne honor guard still fail against CSM and SoB. The LR is too overcosted and doesn't do enough damage in its own right.

Of course AP2 kills them. If something that is their hard counter doesn't kill them, they'd not be very balanced.

It's kinda like how an army of pretty much only Hormagaunts would not do well against massed Burnaboyz.

Things that lack a true hard counter (O'vesastars) outside of Escalation are not really good to compare to, since of course a unit that broken will wipe the floor with anything not equally broken.

'What's not broken isn't viable' is not really a good stance. It may win you tournaments for sure but tournament players are in a firm minority, and believe it or not, tactics are relevant outside of Brokehammer.

If anything, tactics become less relevant once you have a one-trick-pony I.W.I.N. button.

I had stopped talking about Brokehammer.

Now I'm taking about delivery systems and the fact that AP2 is still super-common in non-tournament lists. And the fact that with so many shooty units being in vogue, you don't need the CC power of honor guard. You just need to get into CC.

Honor guard, while superior to VV, are still very much victims of CC being very hard to pull off.

I will also admit that models at their price point with a 2+ save SHOULD be VERY good. It's a testament to how much AP 2 is found in even casual lists that I find this unit not worth taking. Why pay extra to have your marines die at the same rate?

I got to ask martel. Why even bother coming into marine threads anymore? You say the same things everytime and its all bad. Your like the biggest debbie downer when it comes to marines. Ease up guy.

I've found that whenever I've assaulted someone with the vanguard vets or the honor guard, I wipe them out in one turn and then get wiped out on the opponents shooting phase

 mrbossman wrote:
I've found that whenever I've assaulted someone with the vanguard vets or the honor guard, I wipe them out in one turn and then get wiped out on the opponents shooting phase

This is the problem that makes all the effort of pulling of CC totally not worth it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 wowsmash wrote:
I got to ask martel. Why even bother coming into marine threads anymore? You say the same things everytime and its all bad. Your like the biggest debbie downer when it comes to marines. Ease up guy.

I'll ease up when I'm not being tabled for benchmarking purposes. I HAVE commented on which marine units I find most efficacious, but we can't fill our lists with them, and they come up short against other lists' heavy hitters. What should I be saying?

I'm not saying your wrong. I'm just saying you seem extra negative on marines lately bro. We realize that VV's aren't great when you stack them up against the top units but their still cool models. They deserve to be fielded sometimes. It doesn't always have to be wether they make their points back.

Vanguard Veterans don't even stack up well against things in their OWN book, let alone those in stronger books. No unit 'deserves' to be fielded just for existing and looking cool.

The Space Marine book is solidly middle tier. It has strong options in it, but Vanguard Veterans are far from being one of them. The price point for them to become effective, the nature of their vulnerabilities, the state of the meta, and the structure of 6th edition rules as a whole are all strikes against their efficiency.

Negativity doesn't invalidate a statement if the statement is accurate.

Sternguard are quite good. This is also a true statement and not negative. But that doesn't help VV at all. I can't help it if the marines have so many bad choices in the codex.

I think the simplest way to state it is that dedicated combat units in 6th edition have to either be really good (daemons) or cheap (daemons) or both (daemons).

Neither Honour Guard, nor Vanguard Veterans are cheap, and Vanguard get linearly more expensive as you tool them up to make them better at combat. That said Vanguard have mobility if you spend more points to buy them jump packs. Price inclusive power weapons mean that Honour Guard are good at combat but they don't have the mobility to get into combat, and a 2+ save didn't make Terminators playable in 3rd edition (nor did a 5+ invulnerable, but that's something for another time). Since they are fairly good at combat you can guarantee that the only time an enemy will charge them is with a unit that can kill them before they strike or simply shoot them with as much AP2 firepower as they need to remove them as a threat.

Vanguard can have storm shields (for extra points) but then they're expensive single wound 3+ save units. People will just gun them down the same way they would any other marine unit. It's the same reason Legion of the Damned aren't particularly dangerous.

 GreyHamster wrote:
No unit 'deserves' to be fielded just for existing and looking cool.

Errrr, the ONLY units that deserve to be fielded are ones that look cool, man. I don't need to shore up my manhood by winning at plastic toy soldiers when I can show off I'm not a half bad artist, and have really cool mini-statues decorating all the shelves in my room.

 SRSFACE wrote:

 GreyHamster wrote:
No unit 'deserves' to be fielded just for existing and looking cool.

Errrr, the ONLY units that deserve to be fielded are ones that look cool, man. I don't need to shore up my manhood by winning at plastic toy soldiers when I can show off I'm not a half bad artist, and have really cool mini-statues decorating all the shelves in my room.

Have an exalt!

 SRSFACE wrote:

 GreyHamster wrote:
No unit 'deserves' to be fielded just for existing and looking cool.

Errrr, the ONLY units that deserve to be fielded are ones that look cool, man. I don't need to shore up my manhood by winning at plastic toy soldiers when I can show off I'm not a half bad artist, and have really cool mini-statues decorating all the shelves in my room.

We're using different criteria for what deserves to be fielded. We just enjoy different things.

 Paradigm wrote:

 SRSFACE wrote:

 GreyHamster wrote:
No unit 'deserves' to be fielded just for existing and looking cool.

Errrr, the ONLY units that deserve to be fielded are ones that look cool, man. I don't need to shore up my manhood by winning at plastic toy soldiers when I can show off I'm not a half bad artist, and have really cool mini-statues decorating all the shelves in my room.

Have an exalt!

This! Exalted too.

 GreyHamster wrote:
No unit 'deserves' to be fielded just for existing and looking cool.

umm... i do think you may have missed that outside of mega-über-competitive "ineedtotableyoubeforeturnthreeorilosemyselfconfidenceOMG"-gameplay, in the casual games people enjoy, that is actually EXACTLY the reasons for ANY unit being on the board.

 FistusMaximus wrote:

 GreyHamster wrote:
No unit 'deserves' to be fielded just for existing and looking cool.

umm... i do think you may have missed that outside of mega-über-competitive "ineedtotableyoubeforeturnthreeorilosemyselfconfidenceOMG"-gameplay, in the casual games people enjoy, that is actually EXACTLY the reasons for ANY unit being on the board.

Untrue. There's also the reason of "I want to play with this because I feel like it but not because it's cool or just for existing". There's plenty of other reasons to play weak units as well.

How I wish the Sanguinary Guard didn't die miserably as soon as they hit the table. Cool models, but so fragile I don't get to look at them very long.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Untrue. There's also the reason of "I want to play with this because I feel like it but not because it's cool or just for existing". There's plenty of other reasons to play weak units as well.

i know, i was just trying to express that what GreyHamster wrote is not true at all outside of powerplay.

one reason i play weak units sometimes is for example "oh, my enemy plays nids, hasn't played for a while and hasnt much experience, as well as not the best units." that was the point where i came with my guard without all chimeras, no bailisks, and less tanks. plus yarrick added, just because of fluff (i play steel legion).
one of the closest and most fun games of the entire last year.

I don't have to pick and choose weak units, I've got BA; they are all weak. Some are just more weak than others.