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I'm thinking of adding a squad of deathwatch to my guard, mainly because I just want to more than anything else, but was curious what the most effective equipment and use are for them. I was originally tempted to run a pricey melee squad w/ a champion, but when it all adds up it easily hits 200 points for 5 marine bodies (squish) that will be walking up the board (double squish), and you can't take anything but a flyer in imperial agents, right? Almost completely deletes that plan, unless there's a better way to move them.

What I am considering is 5 stalker bolters, worth taking? I normally lean away from snipers, but 2 shots and optional AP3 sounds promising, as I don't have any dedicated marine killing outside of battle cannons (and the obvious laser light show, but what does that ever kill?). The unit will be able to sit in my deployment and plink away at whatever, cover my artillery a bit, and still be screened from melee units by the wall of guardsmen.

Yea, or nay?

1 Drop pod equipped with 2 or 3 frag cannons, 2 or 3 stormshields and a lib ML2 roll on telepathy. Invisibility with 4 to 6 shots str 9 ap2 it's delish

stewe128 wrote:
1 Drop pod equipped with 2 or 3 frag cannons, 2 or 3 stormshields and a lib ML2 roll on telepathy. Invisibility with 4 to 6 shots str 9 ap2 it's delish

I like this, or some version of it. Frag cannons are basically the best thing in the book so why not take advantage. Also they will kill marines easily.

If I complete my orks I intend to begin a Steel Legion mechanized army along with an Inquisitor (plus retinue) from Ordo Xenos and at least one DW kill team.

stewe128 wrote:
1 Drop pod equipped with 2 or 3 frag cannons, 2 or 3 stormshields and a lib ML2 roll on telepathy. Invisibility with 4 to 6 shots str 9 ap2 it's delish

What is that though, 350 points? At that point I might as well just get grav centurions, shouldn't I? Considering 15 grav shots is miles ahead of 6 (12") lascannon shots against anything that isn't 5+ armor or T4 multiwound.

They can be S6 Rending flamers too though.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
They can be S6 Rending flamers too though.

When are those more useful though in my situation, though? I've already got the best anti-horde in the game in the form of wyverns, I can run a squad of 3 for 195. As for non-horde armies, the frags would be better than the grav against a poorly spaced 10 man tac squad, but most people don't run full squads and they have to be in template range, where the gravs they just have to be somewhere within 24", maintaining their usefulness after the initial drop. The only instance that I think frag templates are better than grav is a non-invisible ravenwing deathstar, but that's a very specific case that I'm currently not building for.

In general I'm just really not sold on frag cannons, especially paired with a guard army. If I'm podding something in it's going to be 100% a fire magnet, guaranteed dead the next turn, as nothing else in my army can make an immediate threat for the first 2 turns. To make the unit worth the investment they need to take out something vitally important, and again, outside of a supremely expensive jinking unit frag cannons just won't cut it, while grav cannons can take out any vehicle/MC/GMC as well as most expensive units in the game in one go. And even then they only need to be within 24", not in their face, so they might survive into a second round to shoot again, where you need to fully invest in a vet squad to keep your frag cannons alive (making it a 450 point unit).

I think taking them with stalker bolters is fine, but what do you plan for them to do? Ideally they should be filling some certain role. Being able to shoot bikes or hovers that jink is nice with the ignore cover shots and the poison ammo let's you mow down some problematic thing like assault squads. If the guard wanted anyone though and if you have the point flexibility I would take them and also take inq. Coteaz. Then you can put him in their group and sit them on top of your armor, which would also give you deepstrike protection.