Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey all,

So as a fairly new Guard player, I'm curious as to wether or not it would be worth it to put vox casters in my infantry squads. Are they worth it, or should I just drop them completely?

Drop them and buy more officers to increase your order count (or whatever else you want to do with the points savings).

So would I just keep the officers around the squads I wanted to give orders to?

They're ok on a mechanized platoon. I like to run a Platoon Commander and a Company Commander in a Chimera with 3 guard squads, two in Tauroxes. You can leave the Company commander inside the Chimera and use the Command Vehicle stratagem to order two squads at 18" range from the tank. With the PC that give an order to each squad for only 15 pts.

Velvet_Thunder wrote:
So would I just keep the officers around the squads I wanted to give orders to?

Yes. With order radius it is not terribly constricting.

For reference, 4 vox casters buys you a platoon commander, 6 buys you a company commander. Usually you're better off just buying more officers. There are exceptions however.

The first would be you have a very limited pool of officers due to slot constraints, like some odd ball tournaments that limit your slots or leagues just starting up. In this case you only have a couple of officers and so to deal with the fact they can't be everywhere at once, Voxes let them order wherever it is needed or hide out of the line of fire should your opponent have snipers. This way if your two squads who need orders are on opposite sides of the board, you can still give them orders. This also works for vets that are outflankers or riding up the field in transports although again, normally you'd just bring another officer.

The second, and more specific example, is Cadians. Cadians have a few different ways to spam a stupid amount of orders. Without Voxes, they require you to bunch your army up into a little murder ball that assault units just love to get mixed up in. Voxes let you use "Superior tactical Training" to order units outside of 6" and let your "free" orders affect units within 6", letting officers like Creed or a Master of Command Commander to order a whole platoon around without them having to be bunched up.

Outside of these specific examples, Voxes are kind of situational and usually only brought to look cool or because you have the models. It's nice if you have very tall buildings or terrain to order guys 6" up a building but normally if they're going to need orders you just put an officer up there with them. Perhaps you need to fall back from combat and the officer nearby died in the assault, so now another officer down the line can order them to get back in the fight. The one big use they'd have is if you need a unit to absolutely book it across the table and the officer cannot follow them. They can advance with their first move out of the officers range and then be given "move move move" to move again. Voxes are fine for casual games and a lot of fun to use, but as you can see normally have fairly niche uses and are hardly necessary.

Don't forget the "fire on my position" stratagem. That's always a fun surprise for a vox equipped squad to pull.

 necrontyrOG wrote:
Don't forget the "fire on my position" stratagem. That's always a fun surprise for a vox equipped squad to pull.

Hence my rule of cool comment

I think vox-casters will become much more usefull with the 0-3 limitation in tournaments.

 necrontyrOG wrote:
They're ok on a mechanized platoon. I like to run a Platoon Commander and a Company Commander in a Chimera with 3 guard squads, two in Tauroxes. You can leave the Company commander inside the Chimera and use the Command Vehicle stratagem to order two squads at 18" range from the tank. With the PC that give an order to each squad for only 15 pts.

Well my army is gonna be based around a mechanized framework so that was my more or less my mindset for using Voxes

 Galas wrote:
I think vox-casters will become much more usefull with the 0-3 limitation in tournaments.

Probably, I still dont understand why they didnt just give voxes an unlimited range, for their point cost and the value they add it would be a worthwhile reason to take them instead of covering a very specific strategy.

Velvet_Thunder wrote:

 necrontyrOG wrote:
They're ok on a mechanized platoon. I like to run a Platoon Commander and a Company Commander in a Chimera with 3 guard squads, two in Tauroxes. You can leave the Company commander inside the Chimera and use the Command Vehicle stratagem to order two squads at 18" range from the tank. With the PC that give an order to each squad for only 15 pts.

Well my army is gonna be based around a mechanized framework so that was my more or less my mindset for using Voxes

They can be handy on a few squads then. Just remember that with that Stratagem you don't need to have your officer get out of the Chimera.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
For reference, 4 vox casters buys you a platoon commander, 6 buys you a company commander. Usually you're better off just buying more officers. There are exceptions however.

The first would be you have a very limited pool of officers due to slot constraints, like some odd ball tournaments that limit your slots or leagues just starting up. In this case you only have a couple of officers and so to deal with the fact they can't be everywhere at once, Voxes let them order wherever it is needed or hide out of the line of fire should your opponent have snipers. This way if your two squads who need orders are on opposite sides of the board, you can still give them orders. This also works for vets that are outflankers or riding up the field in transports although again, normally you'd just bring another officer.

The second, and more specific example, is Cadians. Cadians have a few different ways to spam a stupid amount of orders. Without Voxes, they require you to bunch your army up into a little murder ball that assault units just love to get mixed up in. Voxes let you use "Superior tactical Training" to order units outside of 6" and let your "free" orders affect units within 6", letting officers like Creed or a Master of Command Commander to order a whole platoon around without them having to be bunched up.

Outside of these specific examples, Voxes are kind of situational and usually only brought to look cool or because you have the models. It's nice if you have very tall buildings or terrain to order guys 6" up a building but normally if they're going to need orders you just put an officer up there with them. Perhaps you need to fall back from combat and the officer nearby died in the assault, so now another officer down the line can order them to get back in the fight. The one big use they'd have is if you need a unit to absolutely book it across the table and the officer cannot follow them. They can advance with their first move out of the officers range and then be given "move move move" to move again. Voxes are fine for casual games and a lot of fun to use, but as you can see normally have fairly niche uses and are hardly necessary.

On your second example, I would be running a Cadian mechanized force, and I don't really enjoy the idea of the murderball, so in that intance Voxes would be okay as my forces would be more spread out

They certainly have uses, as others have said, there's strategem use, and I can come in handy in some builds, but they're not massively useful. So i'd say bring them if you have a specific plan for them in mind. As others have said, you may be better off with more Officers. But at least they don't cost much.

You don't need a murder ball, just officers spread out with 2-3 units nearby. 2 officers and 4 squads on the left, 2 officers and 5 squads in the middle, 1 officer and two squads on the right.

1 Scion Officer and 2 Scion squads to deep strike with.

I do not see a competitive reason to take Voxes.

Voxes would be useful if they weren't more expensive than the man carrying them and required you to either have 2 or a Chimera + Command Point to use. Should probably be 2 points each.

 alextroy wrote:
Should probably be 2 points each.

Or give unlimited order range. It's a friggin' radio. You trying to tell me a RADIO SIGNAL travels a shorter distance than a grenade launcher can shoot? It wouldn't be broken to just remove the distance limit. Hell, I don't think I'd take them even then.

ThePorcupine wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
Should probably be 2 points each.

Or give unlimited order range. It's a friggin' radio. You trying to tell me a RADIO SIGNAL travels a shorter distance than a grenade launcher can shoot? It wouldn't be broken to just remove the distance limit. Hell, I don't think I'd take them even then.

From a rules perspective, guard would become the only army I'm aware of where their commanders would be able to buff units on the other side of the board. I can kind of see why they want to limit the range of orders mechanically but it definitely looks stupid from a gameplay perspective. Considering guard have without a doubt some of the best commander buffs in the game it makes sense they didn't want to give us unlimited range.

I mean after all, if we want to make that argument, why are space marine commanders, necrons, admech, swarmlords, Tau commanders, and every other army limited to 6-12" auras when some random schmuck with a radio on his back gets to go 18"? Even guilleman can't beat IG walkie Talkies technology

I really don't think it would be powerful. You'd be able to what.. give an infantry squad FRFSRF with several lasguns? Reroll 1s on plasma?... Whoop de doo.

Chaos regularly does MUCH worse from unlimited range with veterans of the long war, endless cacophony, etc.

Being able to "move move move" everywhere is the only order I can see causing issues.