Rethinking Inducted IG Platoon

[Aidoneus]

Used to have a friend who played Witch Hunters a lot. He'd consistently take 2 Armoured Fist squads with lascannons, and a Leman Russ. Those 20 men and 3 tanks, put in with his horde of sisters, handful of ISTs, and maybe 4 Sisters vehicles made for a formidable army. His mobility and decent range let him play reactively, which I find is always a good thing. I don't think my Tyranids ever beat him, although my Chaos and Necrons did more often than not.

 

From my own, Daemonhunter, perspective, I have found through (admittedly limited) playtesting that inducted IG can be helpful. I've tried out both mechanized (2 as heck squads, Leman Russ, and GKs in Raiders) and horde (lotta PAGKs, inducted platoon, dreads) variants, and they've both faired pretty well. I'm personally a bit of a treadhead, both for the visual appeal and for the mobility, so clearly I prefer the mech version. But to be completely honest, I find myself drawn back to pure DH (nearly-pure GK, in fact) again and again. Something about the ultimate amount of flexibility just really fits with my playstyle.

[Cath]

Those Leman Russes are also Public Enemy #1. If you're going to take a Russ keep it to the bare minimum. Everything the enemy has will be thrown at your Leman Russes, missile launchers, meltaguns, lascannons, etc. They're a huge threat, and make good fire shields.

[Rangeltoft]

The only downside of inducting IG platoons is that they give up alot of kill points, 1 for the officer, 1 for his command squad, and then 1 each for the normal squads for a total of 4 KP.

 

But for me they are still worth it, the ability to bring out the heavy weapons are great, also if you use two inducted units you can have rough riders, sentinels and ofcourse the leman (actully, you can have 3, if you use FW).

 

In my armies they serve as objective holders close to my deployment zone, and they do this much better then any unit in the Inq. list (simply because there is so many off them).

 

Their role might change when the new IG dex comes out, but according to the rumors it will only work out better, if you are like me and use them for heavy weapons mainly.

 

/Cheers Rangeltoft

[Bucky]

Speaking of which, how do you outfit the command squad?

I've been thinking of the 4x flamer Command squad as "a poor man's Dominion squad".

What do you think?

 

I played against this last night. He used a cheap squad as a speed bump. After you "get out" of the rhino or assault the bump, he moved up with the four flamers and let me have it. It was pretty brutal. He was sitting on the objective and playing for a tie. So I had no choice but to get up and personal.

 

Very effective.

 

Now with that being said, I'm not sure that inducted guard would be for me. I'm pretty much a faith point whore and any point not spent on a sister takes away from that......

[Inquisitor Fox]

I'm still not sold on the idea of using the standard platoons for heavy weapons support. In all my games with my guardsmen (either as an IG army, as inducted forces, or in a combination Apocalypse game) I have had more success leaving the guardsmen squads as anti-infantry units, thus maximizing the use of their lasguns (often 1 sergeant with close combat weapon and laspistol, vox-operator, grenade launcher, everyone else with their standard issue lasguns). I intentionally don't give them heavy weapons. This keeps them cheap, and allows them to do what they do best; combine the fire of the entire platoon against individual enemy infantry squads.

 

Since they don't have the ability to "combat squad" themselves I find the heavy weapon has several effects I don't like. These include:

 

* spend a lot of points (3 to 4 guardsmen worth) on a heavy weapon that misses 50% of the time.

* make me disinclined to move the squad, thus limiting their mobility heavily and makes everything hinge upon solely initial deployment and available lanes of fire

* make 9 models stand around all day without shooting at all

* compromise their strengths for a negliable benefit: it makes you try to turn an anti-infantry unit into an anti-armor unit

 

While playing as a guard army I concentrate all the heavy weapons in additional Support Teams. This allows me to get the most benefit out of my shooting phases, by granting me units that can tear up enemy infantry instead of standing around hoping Bob with the lascannon kills the tank while playing Poker with themselves :P

 

As my Inquisitorial force, I use the lascannons on my Inquisitor's Land Raider, meltaguns, Seraphim, and psycannon fire from Grey Knight Terminators to go after enemy light and heavy armor. This allows me to use the inducted platoon to do what it does best: provide a verifiable horde of men on the cheap to throw against enemy infantry and claim ground.

 

I may be the only person on the planet that doesn't put heavy weapons in my guardsmen squads (I usually throw an autocannon in the Officer's command squad), but it's been working and I'm very happy with the results and much more mobile guard army it grants me.