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So I'm planning on getting the two Legion Astartes books when I get my tax return, but I had a a couple questions concerning their contents:

1: Are the Mechanicum units granted by the Forge Lord and Praevian included in their entries or would I have to get the Mechanicum book too?
2: What isn't in those books yet? Are the TS and SW in there?

Also as some of you might remember, I made a thread a while ago saying I was going to start WE. After asking a lot of people at my local GW their opinion of the 30k WE (they play a lot of 30k there), they all said the WE were lower on the rung in terms of competitiveness and their strategy wasn't all that impressive. Needless to say I was turned off and am looking at other Legions.

3: What Traitor Legions can still function when played as Loyalists and vice versa? Not necessarily going to play a Legion like that but I am curious.
4: What Legions are considered to be good without gimmicky bullgak?
5: Why do Blackshields look like so bad on paper and are they good on the TT?

I'm open to playing any style of army as long as it's not strictly a gun line army or Iron Warriors because the manager at the GW I go to plays pretty much both those and I don't want to have a good old "well you're just mad because your Perturabo is smaller than mine" argument.

1: The Mechanicum units are not in the current red books, you would need the Mechanicum book too. (Unless you're using the two Legion-specific battle-automata, the Iron Circle are in the Legions red book and the Castellax-Achea are in Book 7).

2: The Legions red book is current through book 5, the army list red book is current through book 6. You won't have Blackshields, Thousand Sons, Space Wolves, Dark Angels, Blood Angels, White Scars, or the Knights-Errant, but you've got all the non-unique units.

3: Most of them. There aren't that many things that are core to a Legion and actually Traitor/Loyalist-specific; at the moment the Emperor's Children and the World Eaters are the only Legions that really lose out on much at all by swapping sides.

4: Most of them. Off the top of my head the Alpha Legion, Ultramarines, Emperor's Children, and Thousand Sons are the only Legions that can be said to run on 'gimmicky bullgak', the rest are pretty straightforward (e.g. Night Lords: Stuff Assault Squads down the other guy's throat until he explodes).

5: Flavour/personality reasons. I can't speak to whether they work on the tabletop absent practical experience, but they don't look that bad to me on paper (you may not have Drop Pods or fancy artillery but you do have special weapons in Troops (most Legions need to burn a Rite or take Breachers to do that), you may not have a Primarch but the Nemean Reaver means you're not that much on the back foot in normal character duels, your Troops can run around with free chainaxes...).

I would like to chime in and say that World Eater using Berzerker Assault are terrifying. Chain Axes are pretty amazing too.

Their tactics are pretty straight forward, run to the enemy and hit them with axes. But they're really good at it!

Another chime in to say WE can be super nasty. They're not subtle about it, they're going to shove a bunch of inductii down your throat and you'd better hope you can kill them before they make combat (pro tip: you almost certainly can't) or you're in a large amount of trouble. There's a certain charm to letting your opponent know exactly what you're going to do and having it work anyway.

I think IW lose out on Golg if they go loyalist, WE lose out on their fantastic apoth and again, IIRC, you lose a couple of options for EC if loyalist but then, if you want good legions, I wouldn't be looking at EC anyway (I'm sure they can be made to work, but I can't see it).

Note that there is a specific "traitor loyalist" and "loyalist traitor" rite of war - may be worth looking at that.

Blackshields can be damn nasty - no drop pods, but dreadclaws and kharybdis work, and (for example) s5 t5 infantry are scary as in close quarters.

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
So I'm planning on getting the two Legion Astartes books when I get my tax return, but I had a a couple questions concerning their contents:

1: Are the Mechanicum units granted by the Forge Lord and Praevian included in their entries or would I have to get the Mechanicum book too?

You'd need to get the Mechanicum book too, so take that as you wil.

2: What isn't in those books yet? Are the TS and SW in there?

As Anomander said.

Also as some of you might remember, I made a thread a while ago saying I was going to start WE. After asking a lot of people at my local GW their opinion of the 30k WE (they play a lot of 30k there), they all said the WE were lower on the rung in terms of competitiveness and their strategy wasn't all that impressive. Needless to say I was turned off and am looking at other Legions.

WE are pretty good, if you play to their strengths. Not the strongest Legion, but can easily work if you use them right.

3: What Traitor Legions can still function when played as Loyalists and vice versa? Not necessarily going to play a Legion like that but I am curious.

Well, all Legions can be taken as Loyalist and Traitor. However, I think every Legion gets a bonus to using their "canonical" allegiance, may that be certain wargear elements, Rites of War, or characters.

4: What Legions are considered to be good without gimmicky bullgak?

Well, Thousand Sons are generally good, due to how many psychic powers they can put out compared to every other Legion, Space Wolves also being considerable in CC. Iron Warriors seem solid, as do Death Guard and Alpha Legion. Loyalist wise, Imperial Fists have good bolters, Iron Hands very innately durable, Dark Angels getting some good buffed heavy bolters, and Ultramarines seeming quite dependable.

5: Why do Blackshields look like so bad on paper and are they good on the TT?

They lack a lot of the Legion staples, but just have a very different style to the main Legions. A lot more of a CC focus to them, and I'd say harder to use if you treat them like normal Legionnaires.

I'm open to playing any style of army as long as it's not strictly a gun line army or Iron Warriors because the manager at the GW I go to plays pretty much both those and I don't want to have a good old "well you're just mad because your Perturabo is smaller than mine" argument.

I'd say you could use anything pretty much, but as close combat goes, World Eaters could work out, Night Lords too for their speed.

The only legion that really gets gimped going the oposite way are the Word Bearers, as aside from their basic Astatres rules (3D6 drop the highest for Morale, 2nd compulsory Chaplain/Centurion, and re-roll 1s for Sweeping Advance) and maybe Ashen Circle, everything else is Traitor-only.

Ok. Thank you for those clarifications.

Now that I have narrowed my picks down to Death Guard, Iron Hands or Imperial Fists, how well does "turtling" work in 30k? If I base my whole list around guarding a fortification and reducing my enemy to paste from afar (or up close, I'm not picky), will it work out on TT?

Well, Breachers are a solid defensive unit, as are Volkite Caliver Support Squads. Quad mortars would also be good defensive units, or Scorpius Whirlwinds.

If you want to buff the fortification, then Techmarines or Forge Lords would work (and Forge Lords are also one of the few units in 30k which can reach a 3++).

Alright...

Can you take Custodians as Allies or are they some super special solo army?

Custodes and SoS are a seperate army, however, you can take an allied detatchment of them if you are a Loyalist.

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Ok. Thank you for those clarifications.

Now that I have narrowed my picks down to Death Guard, Iron Hands or Imperial Fists, how well does "turtling" work in 30k? If I base my whole list around guarding a fortification and reducing my enemy to paste from afar (or up close, I'm not picky), will it work out on TT?

If you're turtling in ruins or behind an Aegis Defense Line, the first time you face someone with 3 or more quad mortars with phosphex upgrades, you'll stop doing that. It's to the point where if a unit of 2 quad mortars scores a hit on the first shot, I'll just pick up my 10 dudes. Sorry, I'm not standing here for 10 minutes with my thumb in my...ear while I watch you roll dice. Play with yourself at home. I can't wait for 8th edition to remove their damn blast templates.

/rant.

Anyway, I try to keep my Imperial Fists mobile. Rhinos for tacticals, a Land Raider for my Templar Brethren. I do have some Heavy Support squads to take advantage of IF legion rules. The Void Shield generator seemed to help a lot.

 kronk wrote:

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Ok. Thank you for those clarifications.

Now that I have narrowed my picks down to Death Guard, Iron Hands or Imperial Fists, how well does "turtling" work in 30k? If I base my whole list around guarding a fortification and reducing my enemy to paste from afar (or up close, I'm not picky), will it work out on TT?

If you're turtling in ruins or behind an Aegis Defense Line, the first time you face someone with 3 or more quad mortars with phosphex upgrades, you'll stop doing that. It's to the point where if a unit of 2 quad mortars scores a hit on the first shot, I'll just pick up my 10 dudes. Sorry, I'm not standing here for 10 minutes with my thumb in my...ear while I watch you roll dice. Play with yourself at home. I can't wait for 8th edition to remove their damn blast templates.

/rant.

Anyway, I try to keep my Imperial Fists mobile. Rhinos for tacticals, a Land Raider for my Templar Brethren. I do have some Heavy Support squads to take advantage of IF legion rules. The Void Shield generator seemed to help a lot.

What if I did Death Guard? There really isn't an incentive to closing the gap between me and you since the DG are bad at melee.

 Tactical_Spam wrote:

 kronk wrote:

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Ok. Thank you for those clarifications.

Now that I have narrowed my picks down to Death Guard, Iron Hands or Imperial Fists, how well does "turtling" work in 30k? If I base my whole list around guarding a fortification and reducing my enemy to paste from afar (or up close, I'm not picky), will it work out on TT?

If you're turtling in ruins or behind an Aegis Defense Line, the first time you face someone with 3 or more quad mortars with phosphex upgrades, you'll stop doing that. It's to the point where if a unit of 2 quad mortars scores a hit on the first shot, I'll just pick up my 10 dudes. Sorry, I'm not standing here for 10 minutes with my thumb in my...ear while I watch you roll dice. Play with yourself at home. I can't wait for 8th edition to remove their damn blast templates.

/rant.

Anyway, I try to keep my Imperial Fists mobile. Rhinos for tacticals, a Land Raider for my Templar Brethren. I do have some Heavy Support squads to take advantage of IF legion rules. The Void Shield generator seemed to help a lot.

What if I did Death Guard? There really isn't an incentive to closing the gap between me and you since the DG are bad at melee.

What makes you think that? Other than not being so good at sweeping they can be devastating in CC, what with their scythes and the RoW that lets your Sgts all have Rad Grenades.