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Where to put the icons....


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I'm just asking this question in general as I'm not sure what to do here. I haven't put most of my 'new' chaos together. I'm making an Alpha Legion list (actually I have the list up for review here. ) and I was wondering who should hold the icons? Can it be someone with a special weapon? Should it be?

 

I'm thinking if a squad goes down to 2-3 guys, the icon really kicks in, but if I put it on a non-essential guy, I imagine the icon wouldn't make the last 2-3 models left on a squad. What have you found to work?

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I usually have my icon carried by my champion. I don't know if it's perfectly legit or not, but no one I've played with has ever had a problem with it. I mean, he is, after all, the best warrior of the bunch, so it would make sense that he'd be the one carrying the central focus of the squad's dedication into battle.

 

Other than that, a special/heavy weapon trooper would be best, since the fewer models you have to "shepherd", the better.

It's perfectly legit to place it on the champion but you have to ask yourself this:

 

1. Does my opponent field a Vindicare Assassin?

2. Do I 'shield' the Icon Bearer properly and deep enough within the squad so that he wont be Terrain sniped by long range weaponry?

3. Does my opponent use a lot of template weapons?

 

If the answer to any of the above is yes, I advise you to place the Icon on someone other than the AC.

That way, if one of them dies you won't lose all the benefits to your squad.

 

My 2 Kraks

I tend to stick them on a whole separate Marine. It does mean I've one more that I don't want to remove as a casualty, but the thing is I play this Eldar player with a long-established love of Mind War, and I like him to have to choose which model he snipes out of my units - historically he's always gone for the Champion.
I tend to stick them on a whole separate Marine. It does mean I've one more that I don't want to remove as a casualty, but the thing is I play this Eldar player with a long-established love of Mind War, and I like him to have to choose which model he snipes out of my units - historically he's always gone for the Champion.

That's what I do to. Having the champ with the Icon can make for problems. For example, if the champ is in the thick of close combat you have to hope to scatter far enough away for the demons to actually survive and not get wiped out by the one inch rule. Keeping the icon bearer toward the back on a completely separate marine means you only have to worry about scatter in one direction- toward close combat.

 

Ditto for putting it on a special weapon trooper, but for slightly different reasons. A squad with two special weapons (or a special and a heavy), a champ, and an icon means your opponent has to really think about which one to kill.

Actually Darth, you might be taking unnecessary risks. Re-check your rules for Daemon Summoning (P.61 I think) in your codex.

 

Yea, I'm definitely torn. There is good argument for putting the icon on a special weapon guy, a champion, or an average marine. In my close combat rhino squad I'm thinking the champ though. Any squad that is going to be spending the majority of its time outside of a vehicle will probably have the icon on a normal guy.

 

For 5th edition I'm thinking when it comes to wound allocation, this would be a better idea (putting icons on a normal marine). At least then if you lose your champion, you haven't lost your icon or special weapon, and vice versa.

I would say it depends on unit size. In 5th the wounding specific models will get horrendous for units 6 and less. I mean, almost every time you get 4 saves, one of your three special models will be forced to take a save, and ironicly the icon bearer seems the least needed. So in small units I put him on my special gunner/champion(if no greater daemon is used).

 

Otherwise one on its own models on a unit of 10 or more to be safe. I would suggest 10 man marine delivery systems, or if you run plague marines or thousand sons or even termies/bikes, smaller units are fine on their own model. PA models though, will have it rough in 5th IMO when squads whittle down to below 6.

Simple checklist : Does the icon look cooler on a) my champion. :) special weapon guy c) random johnny ?

 

I generally use Random Johnny so i can model champions, special weapons troopers and icon bearers seperately (don't like cluttered models).

Icon bearing champion feels more fluffy though.

I put the icon on the melta gun or have a seperate icon bearer. I think the champ is too many eggs in 1 basket, but if you have a champ 2 special weops, AND an icon bearer, that's 4 models you are trying not to lose. So I think making one of the special weop guys the icon bearer also in a good compromise.

I converted up icons before the newest codex. They used to be just decrotive and mainly for summoning plaguebearers. I still like the icon on a special model strategy.

 

Reasons:

1) You can take a boring bolter guy and make him look cool.

2) Versatility if you have to lose a guy, you can do the cost benefit analyst of losing your champ, a special weapon, or your icon. This assumes all your joe guys are dead already.

 

I so far have only played all Nurgle armies and the Nurgle Icon is the most expensive so he definitely isn't an expendable guy especially in the 10 model terminator squad I tried once. I tend to use fearsomely large squads regularly and losing the icon especially early would suck. I've yet to field "lessor deamons" or even a greater deamon so the icons have less use for me, I've never been big on teleportation...

 

In my Astronomi-con Vancouver tournament list I'll be using a Havoc squad with an icon and no champ, so I'll be placing the icon on a random bolter guy. I too like the idea of a havoc squad with loads of special weapons and icon and once again wouldn't give it to the champ. The champ should already be cool enough and why handicap him holding a pole when he should be concentrating on leading his squad or killin' stuff in H2H. The bannerbearer is a seperate model from the champ in WFB for what it is worth.

  • 4 weeks later...

I lean towards putting the icon on a regular guy because of the vindicare/mindwar problem

 

Of course, I don't get the problem with having to choose a special model casualty as much because I tend to run larger squads - its rare that a squad would get knocked to five guys or less without my opponent allocating enough firepower to decimate it to the point of uselessness. (A 15 or 20 man squad with the marks of khorne or nurgle is a lot of headache-per-point for most oppenents, especially with a couple lite-weight supporting elements)

 

With the way shooting works in 5th, I predict a lot of people will be moving away from the min/max6 and toward larger squads, so the "where to put the icon" issue becomes less important.

Come fifth, there will really be a toss-up. On the one hand, having your goodies spread out around the squad increases the probability that a model with a goody will be forced to make a save (remember--if there aren't more wounds than you have regular bolter marines, you can just put all the wounds on regular bolter marines and not have to worry about losing your goodies at all). On the other hand, if your goodies are all on one guy and you take enough wounds to force that one guy to make a save, then you might fail it and you might lose all those goodies at once--which would be pretty bad.

 

The point is that the two options aren't really distinguishable in terms of how likely they are to screw you in-game. I wouldn't worry about it. Just go for whichever you think seems more appropriate.

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