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As the question above states, how good is the boxed Cadian defense force, if I am looking to embiggen my current footguard army, and looking to get more men?

Ultra expensive like all things GW.
Decent selection though. I liked mine a lot.

Not much bad about it. It's got some of everything, and is either a great starting point (vets, CCS) or a great way to expand (infantry platoon with heavy weapon teams).

Three questions:

1) Are you planning on playing a Veteran heavy force or are you looking to go Platoon heavy?
2) Do you already have any Chimeras or Leman Russes?
3) Are you asking in terms of savings or amount of models?

 Kanluwen wrote:
Three questions:

1) Are you planning on playing a Veteran heavy force or are you looking to go Platoon heavy?
2) Do you already have any Chimeras or Leman Russes?
3) Are you asking in terms of savings or amount of models?

1) Footguard, Platoons over platoons of regular ol' Joes
2) Neither, but looking to buy some Leman Russes, currently use armored sentinels as moving firing platforms, they work quite well actually.
3) Bit of both really

Also, how do you make veterans with shotguns? Just wondering.

And lastly, how good is the LRBT?

 Dannyrulx wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Three questions:

1) Are you planning on playing a Veteran heavy force or are you looking to go Platoon heavy?
2) Do you already have any Chimeras or Leman Russes?
3) Are you asking in terms of savings or amount of models?

1) Footguard, Platoons over platoons of regular ol' Joes
2) Neither, but looking to buy some Leman Russes, currently use armored sentinels as moving firing platforms, they work quite well actually.
3) Bit of both really

If that's your criteria for all 3, then it works out great for you. A single Leman Russ is a good start as you can add in more Russes later and use the LRBT from the Defense Force as the basis for a Tank Commander or Pask.

Also, how do you make veterans with shotguns? Just wondering.

That varies wildly. Some people use shotguns from the Space Marine Scout kits, some people trim down Lasguns, and others go for the Forge World conversion kits.

I personally would go for the FW kits.

And lastly, how good is the LRBT?

By itself they can be great or poor. It varies quite a bit based upon what you are wanting to use it for.

 Dannyrulx wrote:
[
Also, how do you make veterans with shotguns?

If you want WYSIWYG without a lot of work I would just cut off the thick part of the lasgun barrel (and the bayonette of course).

I want to use the LRBT to just shore up my sides with some explosions.

Every item is useful in it, in order to see if it's worth it or not add up the cost of it's contents. A drawback is that it's a regular LR, not a demolisher, so no plasma, no gatling. But it has nova cannon and exterminator autocannon, not to mention all the sponson options, so still useful.

 Dannyrulx wrote:
I want to use the LRBT to just shore up my sides with some explosions.

Then you'd get some usage out of a single LRBT if you use it as the Vanquisher or standard Battle Cannon variant.

It's important to remember that the LRBT in the box is the standard LRBT set which includes the capability to build the Eradicator(Nova Cannon), the Exterminator(Autocannons), Vanquisher(longer range cannon with no ordnance but does have Armourbane), and the standard LRBT.

IMO it's a pretty good start. You get tewenty gaurdsmen, 3 heavy weapon squads (wich are good for fire support), you're main troop transport the Chmera, a Laman Russ wich is a good strong tank and a command squad. It' s a good start for a Cadian Force.

I have already started a Cadian force...

fourty troopers
HWT
Command squad

Just make sure to magnetise your leman russes. Both main guns and sponsons + gull mounted. Cause later on, you're sure gona switch to something like punisher with pask.

It is a platoon (PCS and 2 infantry) with an HWS, chimera and LRBT.
Add another command squad and a vet squad, you're good to go.

Or, it's a CCS, 2 vet squads, and a HWS you can't use, with tank and transport. If so, get another 2 CCS for the special weapons in the pack, The HWS can go in the squads, and you'll have enough CCS bodies to make a 3rd vets squad.
2-3 more Chimeras or fliers and you run it as a Mech-vet army.

The boxes contents come to £129, but the box itself costs £100.

Here's why I want it:

Troops for the troop god! Las for the las throne!
Chimera; now in mobile command vehicle mode
HWT: because sometimes las is not enough
Leman Russ: Step up from armored sentinel

 dakkajet wrote:
IMO it's a pretty good start. You get tewenty gaurdsmen, 3 heavy weapon squads (wich are good for fire support), you're main troop transport the Chmera, a Laman Russ wich is a good strong tank and a command squad. It' s a good start for a Cadian Force.

It's worth mentioning that the "3 Heavy Weapon Squads" are easily doubled, if not tripled with the weapons in the box.

Get some 60mm round bases, a pair of Shock Troops boxes and you are set to make three Mortar Teams and three Missile Launcher teams.

The problem is that he has weapons, but not tripods for them.

You can get at best on mortar/missile and one other from each box.
Not bad, but not 9 weapon teams.


Anyway, you can also go the other way around, and model the heavy weapons as kneeling vets to mix in the squads if you don't want to have any heavy weapon teams anyway.

It includes a Heavy Weapons Squad, not Team.

With 3 of each(Mortar, Missile, and Tripod mounted Heavy Weapons) that nets you 9 Heavy Weapon Teams or 3 Heavy Weapon Squads.

Only thing you would absolutely need are bases and base models.

You could always model HWT with only 1 guy and get some spare bases to get extra dudes (if that will be enough to make a squad i dont recall)

Cleaver Modeling can net you extra Las/Auto teams.

I quite like to do mini conversions, I have a grenade launcher guy pointing, working on some home-made objective markers (Green Stuff, An old Kroner from a holiday and a hobby knife work wonders) and I'll be starting on a vox-caster planting a las-gun in the ground. But I HATE modelling two-man weapons with one man and that sort of thing. Please don't start on them...

 Dannyrulx wrote:
I quite like to do mini conversions, I have a grenade launcher guy pointing, working on some home-made objective markers (Green Stuff, An old Kroner from a holiday and a hobby knife work wonders) and I'll be starting on a vox-caster planting a las-gun in the ground. But I HATE modelling two-man weapons with one man and that sort of thing. Please don't start on them...

You could always model the second guy to be removable to be used as extra troops/wound marker

 Kanluwen wrote:
It includes a Heavy Weapons Squad, not Team.

With 3 of each(Mortar, Missile, and Tripod mounted Heavy Weapons) that nets you 9 Heavy Weapon Teams or 3 Heavy Weapon Squads.

Only thing you would absolutely need are bases and base models.

Forget I wrote "box", i meant sprue, you get 3 of them.

Each sprue has 1 big tripod for a cannon/HB, and one double-leg stand for missile/mortar, the two share the legs.


In any case, to get the additional bodies the snap-fit box will do. nets you 5 extra bodies to throw around. (labeled as "cadians" in the shop)
Its pretty cheap and a good way to add bulk to your force, but they got pre-set and near identical stances, so you want to mix them into squads of multiparts made differently, and not having big squads of these.

Hmmmmm, can we get back on track please?

Also, thinking of making a rocket launcher team on the move, magnoculars hooked to belts, launcher in hand, bipod folded up. Any idea on how i'd do that?

As an expansion to a footguard army, don't get it.
You get the LRBT free, but if I was going to expand my footguard I would buy:
Command squad boxes for the special weapons,
Snap-fit, if the current price is less than any other way. At current prices, 10-men is £12, not the £18 of the infantry box.

I've heard that the missile launchers can be man-mounted as you say, but haven't seen how to do it. Do a search of the Gallery for HWS- and Missile-type keywords. There's the P&M forum, too.

You can magnetise your tripod and Lascannon/Autocannon/Heavy bolter, and you have 3 options for each tripod.

For Missile launcher you have a hand that holds it, use that, and another hand which is empty and round.

Mortars are for the bipods.

 Dannyrulx wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Three questions:

1) Are you planning on playing a Veteran heavy force or are you looking to go Platoon heavy?
2) Do you already have any Chimeras or Leman Russes?
3) Are you asking in terms of savings or amount of models?

1) Footguard, Platoons over platoons of regular ol' Joes
2) Neither, but looking to buy some Leman Russes, currently use armored sentinels as moving firing platforms, they work quite well actually.
3) Bit of both really

Also, how do you make veterans with shotguns? Just wondering.

And lastly, how good is the LRBT?

For shotguns, trimmed down lasguns with bolter magazines in place of the power pack look really cool in a ultra modern combat shotgun sort of way. Also spacemarine shotguns look pretty cool but need more work.

The LRBT is good, there are better things out there but nothing comes close to having its versatility, from vehicles to infantry, an LRBT will threaten everything on the ground.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dannyrulx wrote:
I quite like to do mini conversions, I have a grenade launcher guy pointing, working on some home-made objective markers (Green Stuff, An old Kroner from a holiday and a hobby knife work wonders) and I'll be starting on a vox-caster planting a las-gun in the ground. But I HATE modelling two-man weapons with one man and that sort of thing. Please don't start on them...

Missiles look cool when the operator is standing, and the kneeling legs can be the operators of the mortar and tripod mounted stuff, with a second crewman standing nearby.

 Skinnereal wrote:
As an expansion to a footguard army, don't get it.
You get the LRBT free, but if I was going to expand my footguard I would buy:
Command squad boxes for the special weapons,
Snap-fit, if the current price is less than any other way. At current prices, 10-men is £12, not the £18 of the infantry box.

I've heard that the missile launchers can be man-mounted as you say, but haven't seen how to do it. Do a search of the Gallery for HWS- and Missile-type keywords. There's the P&M forum, too.

Uhmmm, no. The whole point of guard is to use as many lasguns as possible. Also, why is is bad? You get a Cadian armored fist, LRBT, CCS/PCS and a HWT plus an extra guard squad!

It's good. It saves you I think $40-60 in the long run. If you want a pure vehicle force, it only has one chimera and a leman tank. If you're looking to balance your cadians, it has a nice balance of troops and armor.

Chimera: Mobile command platform, yes please!

Dollars for models, a great deal. For a starter guard player from scratch, a definate way to start as you can have a playable army out of the box for much less. Add to that another 20% from getting online and you have an even better deal. A second one would even be worthwhile or a 3rd if ya got the cash. Beyond that, you may start having too many "men" so I wouldnt go beyond that unless you do a lot of infantry conversions with "trade in" models.