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So I primarily play around 1850-2k point games. I really enjoy the fluff of the Cadians and have my army themed off of them. So with that said I haven't had much success with running the detachment. What do other people use and what tactics do you go by?

I typically play maelstrom games.

Last army I gave a shot to was the high command being a company command squad. The core being the tank company, and the auxiliary being 2 emperors shield infantry platoons.

High command CCS had: 2 plasma, vox, regimental standard, astropath(psychic shreek things that get close)

Tank company was:
Vanquishser:MM sponsons and hull LC/ partner was a battle tank
Battle tank
Eradicator: HB's all around
Eradicator:HB's all around
Tech priest

Both shield platoons had an armored sentinel with an autocaannon.
Both platoon command squads were: banner, vox, and 2 flamers
The 10 infantry squads were split up as half all had a grenade launcher or flamer, 3 had melta guns, and about half had autocannon heavy weapons.

I need to fix the list as it is not mobile at all. I also had played 3 games. I won against deathwatch, and then I lost the 2 after to orks and nids. The loss to orks was because I spread accross my whole deployment instead of bunching up but I was afraid to do so because I try to space out. But he didn't really have many flamers or blasts so I should have castles up and picked his force off in two pieces. He also had a whole army in trucks and buggies. So with that said I'm considering all my infantry squads to include an autocannon.

Against the nids my loss was because he had 2 flyrants and I didn't have the anti air to deal with them. On top of that I need to consider somehow getting more ap1-3 in the lists as grenade launchers struggled against the big bugs. The flamers threatened the orks.

So what's everyone else's input and suggestions as well as tactics? How to make this work?

I've played the detachment once or twice and formations from it on other occasions. In my experience the Emperor's Shield is interesting but not amazing; Move Through Cover isn't that great on Guard generally, and I'm not all that impressed with the extra order, although in the right game it could be good. The full Company might be ok but I've yet to try it. The Russ formation is interesting because in my game, it absolutely kept my tanks alive for a couple of extra turns with the Techpriest bubble, but as usual once they got charged it was over very quickly. Still not sold on Russ-heavy lists unless you keep them well behind your troops. The detachment benefits are really strong though- a near auto-pass on Orders is great, and so is Sharpshooters. I've had very good luck using Conscripts in my Platoons, and the Assault Company- I think they are both surprisingly good. Conscripts that reroll ones with FRFSRF are very cost effective, much more than you'd think. Adding a Commissar is actually pretty good in the unit too. Maybe not as much as a Priest if you use them as a speed bump. I think Helhounds are honesty way better than most Russ just due to sheer accuracy and piling on wounds- against anything not in Power Armour, three of them rerolling ones to wound is an absolute nightmare. Then you get four Chimeras and a bunch of Veterans, that is a LOT of firepower with Preferred Enemy and it's pretty mobile too.

The problem with hellhounds is that there are wiverns. The only thing wivern's can't do is get No escape wounds on units in opentopped transports or buildings. But against anything else they're like 5 times more killy and have superior range and sniping abilities. Oh, and almost 2 times cheaper to boot. When i see hellhounds with my orks, it's easy game cause i know they'll kill 2-3 spread out boyz after fnp and than get wrecked in melee. But wiverns...my only hope is lobbas with s5 barrage.

At least the two don't compete for the same slot.

 koooaei wrote:
The problem with hellhounds is that there are wiverns. The only thing wivern's can't do is get No escape wounds on units in opentopped transports or buildings. But against anything else they're like 5 times more killy and have superior range and sniping abilities. Oh, and almost 2 times cheaper to boot. When i see hellhounds with my orks, it's easy game cause i know they'll kill 2-3 spread out boyz after fnp and than get wrecked in melee. But wiverns...my only hope is lobbas with s5 barrage.

The formation allows you to take banewolfs and devildogs, so there's that too.

 koooaei wrote:
The problem with hellhounds is that there are wiverns. The only thing wivern's can't do is get No escape wounds on units in opentopped transports or buildings. But against anything else they're like 5 times more killy and have superior range and sniping abilities. Oh, and almost 2 times cheaper to boot. When i see hellhounds with my orks, it's easy game cause i know they'll kill 2-3 spread out boyz after fnp and than get wrecked in melee. But wiverns...my only hope is lobbas with s5 barrage.

I always have good luck with Hellhounds. Even Power Armour doesn't like that Str 6 Torrent stuff. But there's not a tank in the army that Orks won't ruin in close combat, Wyverns included. Deff Koptas and Drop Pods make it pretty hard on Barrage tanks these days, I really don't expect them to hang out for long. Wyverns are great, absolutely. But I've got one of those and three Hounds. Also, Shred and wounding on 2's with rerolls is pretty similar, while the Hound have better AP and can set the Boyz in their rides on fire. Am I missing something? Most people that properly space also claim that you'll only hit like two guys with a small blast, what's the difference with a Torrent template? Either way FNP saves your guys sometimes. I guess I've never played Green Tide so maybe there's something I've missed.

My issue I have is that the. Jesper core choice being the 5 russes isn't that great as it needs infantry to support it from the enemy getting too close. But to use the auxiliary for infantry means you won't be able to fit the artillery formation in to get wyverns as that's the only way using this detachment.

My biggest issue is they are all or nothing formations. There's a lot of tax units like command squads and sentinels. All the formations are around 500 some points before upgrades!

Hey Tankboy, i have been a die hard cadian lover for years and have been using the Mont'ka formations in virtually all my games for almost a year now. My go to formation is the Assault Company which i think is pretty solid and underrated, you get 4 obj sec units and a really big preferred enemy bubble, I have had some success with Hellhounds but I am totally in love with the Banewolf, I usually always deploy it in reserves, especially when i am going second or even first if i am facing someone with drop pods, usually the banewolf gets his points back with 1 template vs these armies and if they are within 6 of an objective its GG.
I have used the Armored company a lot as well as my meta is hard MSU and i rarely see any super hardcore deathstars, so they just sit back and target all the anti armor and I've played enough games with them now to know that if all 5 tanks shoot for 2 turns I win 95% of the time.
My standard Assault Company looks like this:
CCS, Plasma, Heavy Flamer, Chimera, Dozer
Vets 1: 2 Melta, Heavy Flamer, Taurox
Vets 2: 3 Melta, Taurox
Vets 3: 3 Plasma, Taurox
Banewolf: Hull Heavy Flamer, Dozer.
Its cheap and effective, mobile and with decent orders and special rules it holds its own.

My standard Armored company is:
Tank Commander: Exterminator, Hull Lazcannon, Sponson Multi Meltas, Dozer
Buddy Eradicator with heavy bolter sponsons, dozer.
Eradicator with Heavy bolters all round and dozer.
Demolisher with dozer
Vanquisher with Lascannon, multi melta sponsons.
I used to run the vanquisher with the tank commander but he was always the first tank to die so i put the eradicator in there because he is cheap and i now get alot more milage out of the vanquisher with BS4. I have also been known to take a executioner and i have found it to be amazing but my last two games he rolled 2 and 3 1's on turn 1 and barley did anything.

Hope that helps, happy someone else is looking at this decurion, its not great by any means but its got some little gems if you are willing to put some effort into making them work.

MrCalamari how do you like the taurox vs the chimera? I'm still very indecisive on which one I like more. The front 12 armor is the hard factor I'm trying to get past.

Also I will say I might have to go back and give the assault formation another try. The one time I used it before it worked very well for me.

And I do see what you mean with thebtank commander and vanquishser. People do target him pretty often. I've just always gone with it for a fluff perspective lol. But I'm thinking of keeping the tank commander as the vanquisher. As for the remaining russes I really like the battle tanks but I'm thinking I'm going to swap them for exterminators with hull LC and sponson MM's then the last 2 russes will be eradicators with heavy bolters all around.

Hey Tankboy, I like taurox's over chimeras for the vets mostly because it saves me 45 points and they do drive by's just as well as a chimera, but when i use the assault and armored together i find the opponents anti armor is far to busy trying to pop Russ's to go for Taurox's so they pretty much get free reign. Also if i am honest the opponents that wreck Taurox's wreck chimeras just as well, not because of the front armor difference but because scatter lasers, crisis suits and all manner of grav rhinos really don't have that much trouble getting side armor.

Man i think apart from the Emps wrath the assault formation is probably the best thing in that book by far, mind you the emps wrath is far above the assault comp.

I have found the standard Battle tank really underwhelming for its cost, eradicator does the same job and with three heavy bolters in tow it doesn't do that much less damage to MEQ targets and is vastly superior to it vs just any any GEQ.

I do see your point on the chimera to taurox debate. I will certainly have to give that formation a try with the command squad in the chimera and vets in tauroxs.

With that formation you also said you like running the bane wolf. How do you use it? Really aggressively, defensively, and how do you usually keep it alive. Most of the time I run the hellhound my opponent tries to focus it just because it's some of the fastest stuff I got lol.

I will agree the artillery formation is a very great one to use. I just always like to use russes because that model alone got me playing the guard as I love tanks.

For the whole battle group detachment what do you usually run as your high command and how do you equip them.

Also do you use the warlord table or no? I've found most of the traits to be pretty poor?

What about relics? I've found the celritas and wrath of cadia as cheap options when I have a few points left over. I've heard of some good success with people using then tank commander one. The cane is a must if running the artillery company in my opinion.

The Banewolf is really the x factor in that formation and how i run it depends on whats in the rest of the army and what i am facing, against drop pods or deep strikers i will usually leave it in reserves and come on double templating anything threatening my backfield. On the whole i would say i play it defensively its short range gives it limited options but it can be used aggressively really well its a great pressure tool to put on a flank when you are going first, just move it 12 and flat it out another 12 into enemy lines behind some cover and watch your opponent squirm when he has 5 Russ's firing at him from down field but a banewolf in his lines he has to deal with or else.
Hellhounds are 100% aggression, got a great threat range and are great for forcing multiple panic test by covering multiple units.

My high command is either Pask in a punisher if i have the points or just a CCS with auto cannon or lascannon in another chimera, keep it cheap. I usually will always roll on strategic or the Guard Codex traits, i find the cadian one is just a bit hollow.

Wrath of cadia is actually really good and if i have 5 points left over i will usually put it on my Assault company commander. Celeritas is damn amazing on a lord commissar with a blob or conscripts, haven't tried it on a company command yet though. Kabe's Herald cane is an auto include with the armored company, and if you have camo netting on the tanks its gives you a 1 turn aegis defense line from all sides when you shoot and pop smoke, worth it.

I typically have pask as an hq so I alsmost always choose him for his warlord trait but if I'm not using pask I usually went off the cadian warlord table but I will most certainly stick with guard table or the strategic. The guard one isn't bad and adds a little fluff and strategic usually is pretty competitive all around.

And I will certainly take the bane wolf into consideration and see if I can make use of it. I feel like I would be a great unit to protect the deployment zone or harass the opponents like you mentioned.

I will have to give kabes herald a try as well. I feel it would give some good use.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Any other suggestions on the battle group???

Good to know there is another guard player out there willing to give it a crack, I'm finding so many of the solid treadheads won't touch any of the new cadian stuff.

I've toyed with doing the 'Other' core, the full company and i really think with all the layers and layers of special rules and orders it can be really great.
I've done up a few lists and i started buying a gakload of fortifications for one list before i discovered for some idiotic reason we cannot issue orders out of a building so the whole concept of my list went out the window. It was going to be Battlegroup command squad in a firestorm redoubt with lascannon and some relics with the other CCS in a bunker with the standard of the lost 113th making everyone fearless in a large bubble but the GW FAQ killed that as it stopped area of effects from out of buildings and vehicles.
So how i see the full company being playable is if you specialize every platoon, so i was planning to play 1 as a sit right back with lascannons or autocannons and grenade lanchers blob, with either a 30 man and 20 man or a full 50 man, and the second one would be a melee and mid range with some flamers and power axes all round and as you can't take freaking priests in the detachment i took a Lord commissar with a pfist and deathmask of ollanius which makes him pretty beef against stuff that can't double him out, last one was the MSU platoon with all 5 squads having a melta and melta bombs.

I've also been toying with the Battlegroup hammerblow formation that came out as a web exclusive bundle, it gives you a twin linked baneblade and well i didnt need an excuse after i found that out. But its an extremely polarizing list, if they can deal with the baneblade (and the vast majority of competitive lists can) the rest of the army is pretty gak.

So yeah thats my forays at the moment.

I was planning on using some fortifications as I have a bunch of wall of martyrs network pieces but the battle group doesn't have an option for fortifications.

I've also experimented with building the infantry company and I think I have 2 platoons with heavy weapons and the last one with flamers and melta running up the board. I think as you said all the special rules with all the heavy and special weapons there could be some merit to running it.

I do like the idea of that lord commissar and will have to give it a try


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've also given the battle group a try. I like the bonuses and it's a nifty little formation that combines multiple elements as that's how I feeel guard formations should be. A little of this and that and get this bonus for them working together.

Couldn't agree more about the battlegroup formation, I think its what all formation should have been, taking less than perfect units and making them viable through cohesion and synergy.

Yeah it sucks that there is no fortification slot, but there arn't any in any other decurion so its not that bad. I've considered a promethium pipeline in a heavy infantry CAD with a platoon for bubblewrap and a bunch of veterans with sentries and heavy flamer double flamer to sit in 3+ cover behind the pipeline spamming torrent flamers, would be cool i think, could also work with special weapon squads.

I've yet to try the Psychana division or the Aerial formations, but i hear good things. Had a dream of combining the Militarum Tempestus ground formation with the Cadian Aerial company for some sweet vendetta spamming and massed special weapons.
Lastly i am planning to run the Recon formation at some point, a unit of 3 armored sents with heavy flamers or just multi lasers and another with either plasma cannons or assault cannons, won't ever be a gold standard formation but i love the models and i think it has some potential.

I've seen good use with the psykanna when it's used for daemon summoning but otherwise I do t think it's really too great.

I'm actually building up to the sentinel formation now. I just need 2 more. I think the best options for them are probably the multi laser or the autocannon. Outflank and get some good side and rear shots and just harass the enemy back field. It should work well with the emperors blade formation.

As for the airborne one I saw use for it but now with the death from the skies book I feel people will take the flyers from that over this, what's your thought on the 2?

Yeah daemon summoning psykana is all the rage at the moment

Really interested to know how the recon formation does for you. Yeah multi lasers and auto cannons are the way to go i think, lascannons are to unreliable on bs 3 platforms, plasma cannons would be sick but the added cost to a unit of 3 kinda puts them over the 'throw away' unit threshold.

Yeah the airborne would be great coupled with acouple of units of vets with tripple melta but your right you can do the same thing with one of the wings from DFTS, i honestly haven't looked that closley at it as my meta has not used it in any games or events yet.

I've used the Recon formation quite a bit and it has never failed me. It's probably my favorite formation. Go with multilasers or heavy flamers for sure. I don't think autocannons are worth it at all because losing that extra shot really hurts when shooting at large infantry squads, but the extra pip of strength does not really make a difference against side or rear armor. I run it with 9 Armored Sentinels. 27 STR 6 shots with PE is quite deadly and front armor 12 makes these guys very resilient even in melee. I don't always outflank them either; I use them to screen the Emperor's Fist Tank formation and they do that job way better than infantry ever has for me. My best IG list has been Emperor's Talon + Emperor's Fist + Emperor's Wrath. It could easily be made into a CBG but I don't think the command benefits are worth it when you are running pure vehicles.

MrCalamari wrote:

Lastly i am planning to run the Recon formation at some point, a unit of 3 armored sents with heavy flamers or just multi lasers and another with either plasma cannons or assault cannons, won't ever be a gold standard formation but i love the models and i think it has some potential.

One of the guys on this forum was talking about how he ran 9 Armored Sentinels equipped solely with multilasers, 27 strength 6 shots per turn. He said that he actually used them over infantry, it is definitely something I want to try but... so many Sentinels XD

EDIT: Oops, missed Fortis's post... silly me.

 Cothonian wrote:

MrCalamari wrote:

Lastly i am planning to run the Recon formation at some point, a unit of 3 armored sents with heavy flamers or just multi lasers and another with either plasma cannons or assault cannons, won't ever be a gold standard formation but i love the models and i think it has some potential.

One of the guys on this forum was talking about how he ran 9 Armored Sentinels equipped solely with multilasers, 27 strength 6 shots per turn. He said that he actually used them over infantry, it is definitely something I want to try but... so many Sentinels XD

EDIT: Oops, missed Fortis's post... silly me.

It works quite well! I didn't buy GW sentinels either because, though I like the models, the price was just too high for 9 of them. I use Dust Tactics Steel Guard as proxies with an antenna added to bring them up to roughly the same height has sentinels, although this really isn't an issue anyway as you can model a sentinel to be very very close to the ground if you want.

Once I get enough I will certainly give the recon formation a go. It sounds very interesting and using them as cheap to sit on flanks or outflank would benefit guard a lot.

I tried out a list today. It was 1850:
High command:
Company command squad
Chimera
x2 plasma
Standard bearer
Vox

Core: tank company
Tank commander in vanquishser
Hull LC, sponson MM's, kabes herald relic
Exterminator in squad
Hull LC, sponson MM's

Squad 1: exterminator-hull LC, sponson MM's
Squad 2: eradicator-heavy bolters all around
Squad 3: eradicator-heavy bolters all around
Tech priest

Auxiliary: emperors blade assault:
Company command squad
Chimera
Relics wrath of cadia and celeritas
x3 plasma guns
Vox

Vets1: taurox, x3 plasma, vox
Vets2: taurox, x3 melta, vox
Vets3: taurox, x3 melta, vox
Banewolf.

Exterminators did very well! Bane wolf did very well as well and I will certainly have to keep giving him a try. Acted defensively and held in reserves and then had him come up to take out some marines.
The eradicators are where I'm still torn. I'm not sure if I should keep them as heavy bolters all around or give one plasma cannon sponsons. I played against the new blood angels detachment and the eradicators were pretty much stuck shooting at sanguinary guard with 2+ armor and didn't do much. They picked off some models here and there but they didn't seem to pose as a threat to my buddy. They did end up killing Dante at the end of the game and the last sanguinary guard model. They picked off a handful of them over course of the game and a few marines here and there. Suggestions?

Man, good to hear the Banewolf preformed, I am with you on the eradicators issue, but keep in mind they don't function very well against marines, they are their to dump on Xeno's in a big way.
But if you are feeling exposed by having 2 on the board with the same kit by all means take one out, and drop some special weps from the vets for a demolisher or executioner.

Love the army, did you feel like you got much mileage out of the Battlegroup detachment rules?

Honestly I didn't get much use. The orders always went off except one time. (I didn't have vox's initiatlly)

The lasguns didn't have much effect as most squads that got out of the vehicles died the following turn so the reroll 1s for lasguns didn't seem very huge. But the preferred enemy against enemies near objectives was big! It helped a lot with the plasma guns and the banewolf had a lot of fun with some marines on an objective.

I recently tried to find ways to use formations from that book, but in the end found that a simple CAD was better. The tournament that I played, having obsec on my platoons was the key in both of the games that I managed to win.

Of course I focused on the infantry and not as much on the tanks, as I find that in 7th edition tanks are just too fragile and Russes are too slow on top of that.

The other things like banewolves, hellhounds and sentinels are points better spent on thudd guns and artillery carriages. I like the idea of the banewolf as a way to clear your side of the table from marines, but if you use blobs you can easily push out the landing zones far away from anything important.

I will admit having obsec is very important which is why I like the emperors blade formation. But if your using large numbers of infantry and putting a blob or multiple msu's on an objective obsec shouldn't matter as your opponent shouldn't get close enough to the objective.

Granted as well I find blobs can be hit or miss. You clump up too much and blast and template weapons tear the blob apart. You spread out too much and your opponent will hit you on multiple flanks or even use a cheap unit to jump in assault and pull your blob away where it isn't needed.

While I do agree those forge world options are better I strongly believe the codexs standard options should still be just as good on their own and in their own formations.

And yes in the current meta vehicles aren't all that great. But you have to remember to play guard cheap and expendable. We spam multiples of stuff because EVERYTHING in our codex is easily killed.you just have to use your army correctly to make it work. Russes av14 is damn near some of the hardest armor to crack with any shooting weapon at range. So with that said and then being slow keep them back and hold back field objectives and slowly advance to the middle when the time is right. Once the enemy gets close assault, melta, haywire, and grav become issues. This is where your infantry wall wraps around your vehicles to give them a cover save to give them some kind of chance to live. But I'm all reality let them kill your armor. Your infantry are the ones jumping around grabbing objectives. Use the armor to do what it does and soak up fire and hammer at the enemy.