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Greetings all,

I have been brainstorming ideas for the Astra Militarum, trying to find the toughest unit combos.
The first unit combo I’ve been thinking about (and this has been mentioned by others when Inquisition came out years ago)….
Infantry blob/conscripts with Psyocculum.

50 man infantry blob with (5 plasma guns, 5 lascannons, priest), ordo hereticus inquisitor with (psyocculum, 3 servo skulls, lvl 1 psyker) 544pts (Includes PCS)

That’s a lot of points to be sure, lets list out some pros and cons.

Pros
*BS10 which means your lascannons and plasmaguns will hit 97.22% of the time.
*Hidden lascannons and plasmaguns, you have 35 bodies to spare.
*Large enough to bubble wrap your entire deployment, ensure no deepstrikes near tanks.
*Fearless, Stubborn, Psyker, Zealot, Hyms
*The Inquisitor can be your Warlord and thus hidden quite well.
*Leadership 10 for orders. “Fire on my Target!”
*Objective Secured
*Servo Skulls will prevent scouts and infiltrators from getting close giving you more time to shoot.

Cons
*544 Points!
*Hassle to set up and move. Time sink in tourneys.
*If you don’t have the models the cost of buying makes it not worth it.
*If you group your lascannons together a barrage could neuter your firepower.
*If they have no psykers than you wasted 25 points.
*Bottom Line

Many threads here on dakka have people playing with lascannons blobs already, why not spend a few more points for everything the Inquisitor does. If you already add primaris psykers to your blobs than pay the extra 5 points to get a better psyker.

You can scale down the blob, not give them plasma which could make the price point more manageable. 3 infantry squads w/lascannons, inquisitor, PCS is 329pts

I'm looking for more unit builds/tactics for the Astra Militarum. I'm sure there are some players out there that have found some things that work to make AM more competitive.

So just some notes.

First your aren't leadership 10 for orders. Under orders it says you take the highest leadership of the Astra militarum which the inquisitor is not so you only use his leadership for moral, pinning and fear and all that jazz but not for orders.

Also I see you mentioned it in the cons but yes you are only bs10 against units that contain psykers.

Also unless you have krak nades or melta bombs you can't harm walkers and if something is too high of toughness you won't even get swings back. So I suggest metla bombs.

Also upgrading the psyker is pointless if you don't have other psykers for additional warp charges. Here's why because your using the psyocculum to target psyker so essentially you want enemy psykers. But if there are enemy psykers your one warp charge can get denied pretty easily. I know this from experience. 1 psyker with 1 warp charge is pretty useless. As you will be denied even if they don't have a psyker and if they do there's a chance you won't ever get powers off. So now your tax for this goes up as you need to include more psykers.

Also I suggest a vox caster as guard blob really relies on those tank/monster hunter and ignores cover orders. So if those orders don't go off it can really make the difference of whether a unit survives or you kill it.

If you use a commissar so you don't fall back I suggest making sure there isn't a psyker in the unit because if the psyker perils the commissar kills him immediately. If you use the inquisitor make sure you either have a priest so they can't fall back your your company command squad has a banner for rerolls as I've had a blob with just an inquisitor fail their leadership 10 and since the blob is usually against the table edge they run off and yea it sucks a lots when such an expensive unit runs away. This is why I've typically run it with a commissar.

All the suggestions I mentioned above are because I've been using a blob of 4 squads, 4 lascannons, 4 sergeant with melta bombs and a vox in the unit. I switch between an inquisitor, a commissar or a priest and psyker. I've been playing around with this blob for around half a year now and these are all things that I would recommend as I've had plenty of experience with it.

Another good counter assault or forward objective grabbing unit would be 30+conscripts with a priest. They are mandatory in any foot guard list as they are dirt cheap and won't run away and if they charge something that they can hurt they will certainly do some damage. They are also good for locking up an expensive unit in assault as well.

Very good points, and come to think of it most psykers are going for invisibility which would negate bs10 anyway. What do you use for your other troops choice Tankboy145?

To be honest I always try to get that lascannon blob in my army as that's usually the anchor that holds down the deployment zone and their platoon command squad usually has 4 Flamers and rides in a chimera or vendetta.

Then I usually switch things up a little. If I want to run pure foot guard I add another blob usually 3-4 infantry squads like the lascannon one except with autocannons as that's what I have for models. And from there I like to throw in a 30 man conscript unit with a priest.

If I want more mech I usually try a mix of melta and plasma vets in chimeras.

40 man platoon.
-Ordo Xenos Inquisitor ML 1 with rad and psychotroke grenades
-4 Power Axe sergeants
-1 Power Axe Commissar
-1 Priest
-4 Meltaguns

Run this twice with a Librarius Conclave that floats around between them. There is probably something I'm missing but I'm working right now and don't have time to dig through everything. This is the jist of it though.

 Ignatius wrote:
40 man platoon.
-Ordo Xenos Inquisitor ML 1 with rad and psychotroke grenades
-4 Power Axe sergeants
-1 Power Axe Commissar
-1 Priest
-4 Meltaguns

This looks pretty sweet. Daemonology/biomancy conclave or a GK libby would make these guys pretty fierce. I just wish inquisitors could take biomancy : /

Don't forget that primaris psykers come with a forceweapon ws4 and 2a.

Why melta guns? I feel like flamers/combiflamers could be handy.

 tankboy145 wrote:
So just some notes.

First your aren't leadership 10 for orders. Under orders it says you take the highest leadership of the Astra militarum which the inquisitor is not so you only use his leadership for moral, pinning and fear and all that jazz but not for orders.

Um, why wouldn't an IC from a Battle Brother's Codex give Ld 10 for orders?

C:AM wrote: To issue an order select a single non-vehicle unit from C:AM

It's an Infantry Squad from C:AM...the unit qualifies.

C:AM wrote:The Ordered Unit must then take a leadership test to see if the order has been understood and acted upon

BRB pg 100 wrote: Remember that a unit's Leadership tests are taken using the highest leadership in the unit.

The IC is part of the unit "for all rule's purposes." It's still a C:AM Non-vehicle Unit. It takes a leadership test on the highest leadership in the unit. In this case...the Inquisitor.

IC's make wonderful companions for AM non-vehicle units for precisely this reason.

 Ignatius wrote:
40 man platoon.
-Ordo Xenos Inquisitor ML 1 with rad and psychotroke grenades
-4 Power Axe sergeants
-1 Power Axe Commissar
-1 Priest
-4 Meltaguns

Run this twice with a Librarius Conclave that floats around between them. There is probably something I'm missing but I'm working right now and don't have time to dig through everything. This is the jist of it though.

How do you run the Librarius Conclave? On bikes or can you stick them all in a blob (haven't seen the dataslate for them) Also what powers are you trying to get?

On a side note:
Has anyone had luck with Creed? I know you could get a whole CCS plus 2 meltas for his cost but....
He essentially gives out free vox casters to every unit including ones that can't take them like sws and hws. which is really the most important thing he does. So which is better 2 CCS for 4 orders you can spread out or 3 orders with re-rolls.
Or just go with yarrick and throw him into one of the above mentioned blobs?

Lendys wrote:

 tankboy145 wrote:
So just some notes.

First your aren't leadership 10 for orders. Under orders it says you take the highest leadership of the Astra militarum which the inquisitor is not so you only use his leadership for moral, pinning and fear and all that jazz but not for orders.

Um, why wouldn't an IC from a Battle Brother's Codex give Ld 10 for orders?

C:AM wrote: To issue an order select a single non-vehicle unit from C:AM

It's an Infantry Squad from C:AM...the unit qualifies.

C:AM wrote:The Ordered Unit must then take a leadership test to see if the order has been understood and acted upon

BRB pg 100 wrote: Remember that a unit's Leadership tests are taken using the highest leadership in the unit.

The IC is part of the unit "for all rule's purposes." It's still a C:AM Non-vehicle Unit. It takes a leadership test on the highest leadership in the unit. In this case...the Inquisitor.

IC's make wonderful companions for AM non-vehicle units for precisely this reason.

I may have thought about the previous codex or something because I though it had to be the leadership of an Astra militarum model in the unit.

I thought that ICs who join a squad gain all of the rules pertaining to that squad...

 portugus wrote:

 Ignatius wrote:
40 man platoon.
-Ordo Xenos Inquisitor ML 1 with rad and psychotroke grenades
-4 Power Axe sergeants
-1 Power Axe Commissar
-1 Priest
-4 Meltaguns

Run this twice with a Librarius Conclave that floats around between them. There is probably something I'm missing but I'm working right now and don't have time to dig through everything. This is the jist of it though.

How do you run the Librarius Conclave? On bikes or can you stick them all in a blob (haven't seen the dataslate for them) Also what powers are you trying to get?

On a side note:
Has anyone had luck with Creed? I know you could get a whole CCS plus 2 meltas for his cost but....
He essentially gives out free vox casters to every unit including ones that can't take them like sws and hws. which is really the most important thing he does. So which is better 2 CCS for 4 orders you can spread out or 3 orders with re-rolls.
Or just go with yarrick and throw him into one of the above mentioned blobs?

I've tried running creed but for how expensive he is I only use him in games above 2k because his main role is to give orders and you need to make sure you have at least 3 units your giving orders to so you make use of all 3. Also remember creed gets 2 warlord traits as well.

But to be honest I usually always run pask so I usually just make sure I have a generic company commander so I can issue the good orders to my blobs and vets. Too many points Ina fragile company command squad is just wasted points. In my foot list I usually stick with just the banner and a vox and maybe and advisor and that's about it. Otherwise I don't like to draw much attention to these guys as I really try to make sure they keep using the ignores cover and tank/monster hunter orders.

Inquisitor Karamazov plus a two gun squad of Earthshaker batteries.

Cons: 350 points.

Pros: very little that isn't dead dead dead when you issue ignores cover to that deathball.

Pessimism time! I shall go through the AM's strengths, and list the weaknesses below them:

You can take lots of armour, rendering anti-infantry weapons almost useless
-So can everyone else
-Your tanks are weak, overcosted, and have little firepower
-Everyone has Str 6+ on everything (krak grenades, and specialised weapons), easily exploiting that rear armour
-If they have D, don't bother

You can take lots of infantry
-You have almost no firepower, and feth all mobility
-Flamers ho!

You can take lots of artillery
-Good luck being able to fire for more than a turn
-Objectives? Nah.

Autocannons are spammable
-And so is everything that does not care about it

You have a large selection of LoW's
-Most of them are terrible
-The others are things nobody will play against

You can have lots of allies
-To make them effective, you have to spend most of your points on them, and at that point why bother having the AM codex at all?

Independent characters from other factions counts as part of the unit for all rules purposes thus can be used for leadershiptests for orders.

Citation?

Actually orders just specifys that you take a leadershiptest. And that is done with the highest LD in the unit.

"The ordered unit must then take a Leadership test to see if the order has been understood and acted upon. If the test is passed, the order takes effect as specified in its description."