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Thanks Aecus.

I've been comparing Rough Riders to Death Riders, and it's close but I reckon Krieg wins. They are the same points

Pros
+1 wound, 5++ fnp, +2A from horse, outflank

Cons
-1A (though not on the command squad), worse lance that needs to charge, can't take orders, yet.

With a squadron commander giving orders to a command squad (after we get the FW keyword update) I reckon Death Riders might be competative.

Rough riders win and it's not even close. You give up some durability vs. a unit that still isn't all that durable and you gain massively better offense. You gain +1 attack, WS 3+ instead of 4+, S8 instead of S5, AP-4 instead of AP-3, D3 instead of D2, the ability to fight at nearly full effectiveness even if you didn't charge, an alternate anti-horde profile, and lasguns on every model for bonus damage. And then you also get +2" of movement and immunity to move/charge penalties to make sure you get the charge. Outflanking is of negligible value now that the new mission pack makes reserves free, and you're rarely going to want to outflank them and try for a 9" charge without orders. You're much better off hiding them behind LOS blocking terrain as a counter-charge threat and using your order to either buff their offense or give them extra movement range to make those longer charges more reliable.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

DeadliestIdiot wrote:
I could see a heavy weapon squad of mortars being a go-to indirect for mopping and holding the home objective. They're relatively cheap and are probably sufficient to harass other cheap home objective holders. That said, I'm not particularly experienced at competitive list building, so I'm prepared to be wrong on that

It's not a bad idea. It won't do much damage since you aren't buffing it (which would make it no longer a cheap home objective holder) but minimal damage is better than the zero damage you'd get out of an infantry squad camping on that objective. The main issue is that you're burning a full heavy support slot for that 55 point unit and there's a lot of competition for those slots. AoO gives you more slots and helps with this, but it does mean committing to having heavy support be your mandatory three and might leave you tight somewhere else.

I was going to say maybe it's a nice to have if you have the spare points, but then I remembered sentinels cost less and are probably a better use of those points in most cases.

Aecus Decimus wrote:
Rough riders win and it's not even close. You give up some durability vs. a unit that still isn't all that durable and you gain massively better offense. You gain +1 attack, WS 3+ instead of 4+, S8 instead of S5, AP-4 instead of AP-3, D3 instead of D2, the ability to fight at nearly full effectiveness even if you didn't charge, an alternate anti-horde profile, and lasguns on every model for bonus damage. And then you also get +2" of movement and immunity to move/charge penalties to make sure you get the charge. Outflanking is of negligible value now that the new mission pack makes reserves free, and you're rarely going to want to outflank them and try for a 9" charge without orders. You're much better off hiding them behind LOS blocking terrain as a counter-charge threat and using your order to either buff their offense or give them extra movement range to make those longer charges more reliable.

Fair points. Didn't see they were WS 3+. I can still see a use for an outflanking command squad with a death rider commander in once they get orders. You don't lose the attack - in fact you gain 2 horse attacks - and s5 -3 d2 is plenty is good enough for lots of targets. Outflank = any board edge from turn 2 allows you to threaten opponents home objective which reserves couldn't do in the missions we have (one objective in the middle of the deployment zone). Then with 3 wounds and the fnp they might stick around.

 PaddyMick wrote:
Fair points. Didn't see they were WS 3+. I can still see a use for an outflanking command squad with a death rider commander in once they get orders. You don't lose the attack - in fact you gain 2 horse attacks - and s5 -3 d2 is plenty is good enough for lots of targets. Outflank = any board edge from turn 2 allows you to threaten opponents home objective which reserves couldn't do in the missions we have (one objective in the middle of the deployment zone). Then with 3 wounds and the fnp they might stick around.

Remember that if you outflank you can't receive orders, you can't get onto objectives unless you're playing a non-standard mission, and your odds of a successful charge are poor. Most of the time you're going to want to use LOS blocking terrain for protection while 12" move gets you into position, outflanking is of very little value.

And the stat differences are very relevant. Going from S5 to S8 against MEQs is a 25% increase in damage. Against T8 targets it's 50% more damage, and against T6-7 targets you're literally doubling your damage. And then D3 vs. D2 is huge against anything with W3+, damage reduction, or FNP.

OK Aecus, cheers, I take your points. Reckon the only use then is to run a squad of 10 up a flank as a distraction 'cos the oppo thinks they are rough riders and they soak up a ton of firepower! Death Korps like getting massacred.

Wait for the FW FAQ to tweak the Death Rider keywords. They certainly won't be as damaging as Rough Riders but you could take both.

Death Rider close combat was never amazing but if they can take new orders after the FAQ then they'll finally be able to hit on 3+ and get extra AP on their melee weapons. They will likely go back to the best FW unit we'll have.

Then don't forget the Death Rider Officers. Which will likely have their keywords updated too.

Is it never worth it to use autocannon hwt?

epaemil wrote:
Is it never worth it to use autocannon hwt?

Correct. Or any HWT bar maybe Mortars if you have a spare slot. Otherwise the most fragile points in your army.

Gotta work if you keep them in an infantry squad tho

epaemil wrote:
Is it never worth it to use autocannon hwt?

Nope. Now that HBs have D2 ACs have no reason to exist, they're just HBs with equal or worse performance against everything but T6 targets. HWS get mortars since indirect fire from behind LOS blocking terrain is their only hope of staying alive long enough to give you reasonable value, infantry squads get LCs because it's the most powerful gun for free.

Wait are mortars even worth it too? With the -1 to hit and AP decrease for indirect?

epaemil wrote:
Wait are mortars even worth it too? With the -1 to hit and AP decrease for indirect?

If your opponent are MEQ in cover, it will not get worse for you than save 2+ anyway. For other targets, it will be a problem for sure, but it's better to have your backline firing some inaccurate shots than nothing. Additionally, if you build a mortar pit (group of 2-3 mortar squads) it will be very effective to add a platoon command squad near them. The "take aim" order seems to have been purposedly made to compensate the indirect fire nerfs, with +1 BS and AP-1.

Asked before, but no one seemed to know. If you have a Baneblade and give it the Tank Ace: Vaunted Praetorian. Can it then give an order to itself?

Agusto wrote:
Asked before, but no one seemed to know. If you have a Baneblade and give it the Tank Ace: Vaunted Praetorian. Can it then give an order to itself?

From what I have heard from context creators, yes it can.

Agusto wrote:
Asked before, but no one seemed to know. If you have a Baneblade and give it the Tank Ace: Vaunted Praetorian. Can it then give an order to itself?

Yes. Vaunted Praetorian says that the order can be issued to any IMPERIAL GUARD TITANIC unit and the Baneblade has both of the required keywords.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

epaemil wrote:
Wait are mortars even worth it too? With the -1 to hit and AP decrease for indirect?

Potentially. You probably want some indirect fire to deal with targets you can't otherwise reach, since even shooting with reduced effectiveness is better than not shooting at all and leaving a vital target untouched. Mortars are a decent option for this, especially if you're using them as cheap objective fodder to stand on your home objectives or occupy a table quarter. Ineffective mortar fire is better than the nonexistent shooting you'd be getting from putting an infantry squad there instead. But you definitely don't want to invest heavily in indirect fire units. They're a tool in your tool box, not the core of your plan.

Thanks

Aecus Decimus wrote:

Potentially. You probably want some indirect fire to deal with targets you can't otherwise reach, since even shooting with reduced effectiveness is better than not shooting at all and leaving a vital target untouched. Mortars are a decent option for this, especially if you're using them as cheap objective fodder to stand on your home objectives or occupy a table quarter. Ineffective mortar fire is better than the nonexistent shooting you'd be getting from putting an infantry squad there instead. But you definitely don't want to invest heavily in indirect fire units. They're a tool in your tool box, not the core of your plan.

Ironically, mortars are still our best indirect fire unit. When a Leman Russ is only 15 points more than a Basilisk, doesn't suffer from the indirect fire rule, can move 10 inches, then advance and still shoot. What's the point of a Basilisk? The only issue with mortars is how many HS slots they take up.

Russ doesn't suffer because it can't shoot at all indirect.where russ can shoot so can basilisk without minuses

Help me out fellas. I'm scratching my head over how to run mechanised guard, and I don't know how I'm going to get orders to the infantry once they disembark. I know that a disembarking officer can issue a single order to a single unit when he disembarks, but it's going to be expensive, each unit having a babysitter.

Best I can come up with is change the plan. Turn 1 move up and disembark behind the transports, T2 get orders if alive.

Same but worse for deepstrking scions. Am I missing something? Anyone got any thoughts on how to run these units?

Best you can do is squeeze in a castellan (command squad) with a 10man squad in a chimera/Valkyrie (Or Banehammer/Doomhammer/Stormlord/Crassus/Gorgon), and both have the mechanised infantry doctrine, so they can both get out after the transport has moved and then issue one order from the castellan to that squad.

Unfortunatly regimental tactics is disabled, so you cant chain the order on to other squads nearby.

Otherwise you are taking two transports, one for the castellan/command squad and the other for the squad you want to give an order to. Again with the mechanised infantry doctrine on all involved.
edit: or have multiple officer units in one transport, and multiple infantry units in another, all with mechanised infantry. Each officer that disembarks after moving can issue an order to each infantry that disembarked after moving. double up on those large capacity transports for an aggressive move and dump
edit2: like a chimera with two command squads and a castellan, moving up with 3 other infantry mounted transports. You would have to be super good at hiding that command chimera from being sniped

You cant unfortunately move up an officer in a transport, and then have him disembark and issue an order to a deepstriking unit, as deepstrikes appear at the end of the movement phase, and the officer has to issue his order when he disembarks before they are on the table

Otherwise yes you are restricted to having both units on the field in your command phase to be eligble.

n.b. in case you were thinking it, commissars cant get doctrines, so no mechanised infantry for them

Sergeant Harker can be a niche include if you have Catachan's as he can issue one order to them, and doesn't have the commandant keyword and he benefits from regimental doctrines.
so two units and Harker & Commandant figure in a 25 slot transport are the most optimum single grouping (one being Catachan) (banehammer/doomhammer/stormlord are 25)
or you return to like above, and have a 10 man unit, Harker & Commandant in a 12 slot transport, and another unit nearby in a 10 slot transport. (one being Catachan)
or two separate chimera's split between Harker and Catachan's and a Commandant and whatever acting seperatly.

You could take straken/ursula creed for their multiple orders, but they cannot themselves issue the same order they have already ordered. Which is a shame, because you pretty much only want take aim for a jump out and shoot action.

Thanks for that Porkandbeans, reckon you've come up with the best that can be done. Reckon the key might be to have units that don't necessarily need orders, like krieg combat engineers - assuming they get the Regimental keyword.

Jarms48 wrote:
When a Leman Russ is only 15 points more than a Basilisk, doesn't suffer from the indirect fire rule, can move 10 inches, then advance and still shoot. What's the point of a Basilisk?

That isn't a valid comparison. You take indirect fire units for situations where a direct-fire unit doesn't get to shoot at all. Obviously if you compare an indirect-fire unit to a direct-fire unit in a direct-fire role the unit that is specialized for something else will lose. You have to compare indirect-fire units to indirect-fire units. Basilisks to Manticores and mortar HWS, not to LRBTs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 PaddyMick wrote:
Help me out fellas. I'm scratching my head over how to run mechanised guard, and I don't know how I'm going to get orders to the infantry once they disembark. I know that a disembarking officer can issue a single order to a single unit when he disembarks, but it's going to be expensive, each unit having a babysitter.

Not entirely accurate. A disembarking officer can issue orders. Units that can issue multiple orders per turn get to issue all of them.

As for the general question, the answer is that you provide order support to your offensive threats (Kasrkin typically) and you don't worry about the objective fodder. 1-2 units will use their transports to aggressively move into attack range with an officer babysitter to maximize their firepower, your basic infantry squads will mostly just use the transports to move up onto objectives and hide behind the transport. Their shooting isn't all that great anyway so not having an order buff isn't a huge problem.

The problem with the Basilisk (and the Manticore/Wyvern) is that it's pure garbage when shooting indirect; hitting on 5+ and losing a point of AP makes it very unreliable, especially for it's cost.

On the flipside, if you find yourself in a situation where you can shoot direct, it's literally a LR but worse.

I enjoy our new codex overall, but the internal balance is horrendous.

 PaddyMick wrote:
Help me out fellas. I'm scratching my head over how to run mechanised guard, and I don't know how I'm going to get orders to the infantry once they disembark. I know that a disembarking officer can issue a single order to a single unit when he disembarks, but it's going to be expensive, each unit having a babysitter.

Best I can come up with is change the plan. Turn 1 move up and disembark behind the transports, T2 get orders if alive.

Same but worse for deepstrking scions. Am I missing something? Anyone got any thoughts on how to run these units?

Sadly whilst thematic, the current game works for on foot infantry with little to no advantage of being mechanised. Play though on say a 8'x6' or 12'x4' (long ways in both cases) and they become awesome.

Thanks Aecus, I was confusing the rule for disembarking officers issueing order with the rules for them doing it inside a chimera.

 PaddyMick wrote:
Help me out fellas. I'm scratching my head over how to run mechanised guard, and I don't know how I'm going to get orders to the infantry once they disembark. I know that a disembarking officer can issue a single order to a single unit when he disembarks, but it's going to be expensive, each unit having a babysitter.

Best I can come up with is change the plan. Turn 1 move up and disembark behind the transports, T2 get orders if alive.

Same but worse for deepstrking scions. Am I missing something? Anyone got any thoughts on how to run these units?

Hey man I'm on a similar page so heres some feedback from my games..

You can issue multiple orders and vox still works so theres that. I've been running mechanized for the last handful of games with 3-4 transports at 1.5k points for reference. Trying a new thing here locally with reduced game sizes.
In terms of raw damage particularly from kasrkin its pretty much strictly worse than born, and for now maybe considered unorthodox. On the other hand there seems to be some real strengths and I could see someone breaking MI wide open, but probably not with just 3-4 rides.

Anyway some of the benefits I've noted to lean into are: Armoured fist strat which is fantastic. Almost makes up for the lack of born although its even better when combined.
The ability to start scoring secondary's like linebreaker from t2 I've found to be very worthwhile (combine with swift as the wind and/or full throttle, or tauroxi if you prefer) and the pressure element of this style really takes heat off your backfield.
Also the ability to reliably double tap with MI doctrine (vs your targets moving out of optimal threat range with ordinary disembark).
Plus the option to use mount up after shooting. Note the rules say cannot embark in the same phase as disembark.
Theres also the benefit of chimeras themselves which I find to be great personally especially now that hvy bolters are back. This new meta that is developing might hate on mech but then russes will also suffer from that too.

Also don't forget frfsrf does not work on the disembark turn per the faq.

As you mentioned you will want a mounted officer. I tried straken a couple times for cool factor and he was pretty damn decent, I'd say worth the extra 25 pts if you have them. And again officers can order 2 units if you end your transports <12" of each other (3" disembark unit + 3" disembark officer + 6" orders). I just keep anything less than 12" in mind. Or much further if mounting a combat oriented cmd squad like dread dog death mask or similar build which is just straight better than a single officer. More expensive but then you can actually plan around rushing midfield with it. And this can much more easily turn on a MOO if your running FOB for example (second cmd squad in the backfield). My last build was 2 meltas, power fist, death mask and dread dog because the plan was to play wider where the banner was less useful.

With that you can still take a barbicants key unit but builds are a little trickier than with born. I'm running a couple variants currently:

Kasrkin romeo- all hotshots, barbicants key, brutal strength. Designed to gain frfsrf before teleporting, can be mounted but typically are not. Take aim is also an option and mathematically better in a vacuum but this is a work around for auspex scan abilities and also keeping in mind negative modifiers which tilts it to frfsrf.

Kasrkin bravo- all hotshots mounted, trophy hunters. This unit can still threaten big targets pretty reliably, designed to gain take aim. Both of these obviously can take overcharged las and this unit also benefits from fisting your opponents lol. I've also experimented with plasma and melta here.

Kasrkin delta- 2 melta, 2 plas, plasma pistol, sniper, heirloom weapons (if I don't take heirloom weapons as my second doctrine in which case vet guerillas). The third unit designed for damage without strats.

And then 1-2 mounted shock troops with double plas and one joined by a single officer or else I use a mounted cmd squad.

Anyway maybe that gives you some ideas. I'm still developing this build so I'd be happy to hear other experiences.

I have a question about indirect fire and stacking +1 to hit. If we start at base bs 4+ and indirect fire gives us -1 bs, would we be able to stack "take aim" and "expect bombardiers" for a net of 3+ to hit or would it max out at 4+ as the indirect fire turned our bs to 5+ and we can only modify that a max of +1? Confused by the wording of +1 to hit and -1 bs.

Edit: related to tactics as I would like to run Krieg in an all infantry list supported by artillery (mainly heavy mortars as the new bombast guns) and was wondering if the bombardiers trait is worth. If it caps at 4+ then what's the point when we have take aim?

Your correct. Reducing BS is much worse as it basically sets the cap at 4+ to 6+ depending on modifiers.

Stacking multiple modifiers can still be worthwhile as at the end of all modifiers the max is +/-1. Depending on the points and opportunity cost.

A master of ordnance would help alleviate that somewhat too with rerolls that don't need to babysit in proximity.

If you took HWS, for whatever reason, then the banner would help as well.

Damn that smells. At least I was understanding it correctly. I don't think it's worth going all in with all of that support when most of my points will go into troops. I do have 1 mortar HWS and 2 autocannon ones (I know theyre gak but the drum mag is kino) but I would rather the banner running up with the troops