How to: Sternguard?

[Inigo Montoya]

I love them. In my 5 drop pod army:

9 in a drop pod with Kantor, 5 combi flamers

9 in a drop pod with libby, null zone, tGoI, 5 combi meltas

Ironclad dreadnought with melta and heavy flamer in a drop pod

 

Utter devastation turn1. They cannot kill everything, and tend to really go after the dread. After the initial assault, I gate out of harms way and shoot at 30" with the libby squad. It works really well for me.

[Bosco]

I run mine as a unit of 10 with the powerfist and combi-melta as the only upgrades, in a rhino along side a tactical squad (or two) also in a rhino. Ideally they all deploy at once to scour a region with concentrated rapid fire. Opponents often only have one or two units at most nearby which can pose serious threat to a single 10-man unit, at which point they have to choose between a scoring unit and the sternguards. Typically works well, but nothing is a guarantee :D

[Grey Mage]

I think Five Sterngaurd with a good mix of combiweapons and a Power-something on the Seargent make a much better command squad for a normal captain, and can fit in a razorback.

[Firedrake28]

When playing Crimson Fists, I've found that a unit of 10 Sternguard, half with combi-meltas and half with combi-flamers in a Drop Pod to be pretty much the last word in killing... well, almost anything. Pedro often hangs out in this unit too.

 

Against Daemons, I had my pod land near the middle of the battlefield. The Sternguard split into two units, half with meltas, half with flamers. By the end of the shooting phase a unit of 16 Daemonettes had been reduced to ashes (5 flame templates will do that) and a Nurgle Daemon Prince had been reduced to a single Wound. They're expensive, but hit so incredibly hard in a single turn that they can win games.

 

If one wants to be really abusive, they can take Tigurius and put him in the Pod instead of/in addition to (if you really don't mind dumping a ton of points, that is!) Pedro and cast whichever power would be most useful at that particular moment. Against the aforementioned Daemons, Null Zone would have been devastating, but Vortex of Doom or even Smite could come in very handy against the right targets.