Vangurd loadout?

[Lestat]

Greetings Brothers,

 

I have just recieved a box of Vanguard for my birthday and unfortunately I can't currently use them with my Blood Angels. However, they will fit in nicely with the Lamenters I am working on.

I was wondering how other on this forum equip them? I was going along the lines of Sergeant with Relic Blade and four marines with power weapons, and maybe throw in a couple of plasma pistols and melta bombs for good measure. Is that overkill, or just a reason for my opponant to shoot at them - a lot! Now, I know such a small squad stands a higher chance of being wiped out so I intend to add a few more a later date, but any help you can provide with loadout options is greatly appreciated.

 

Lestat

[DarkKnightCuron]

I've noticed the amount of Power Weapon/Plasma Pistol shenanigans you put into a squad directly relates to how much firepower is devoted to killing them.

 

A friend of mine has a full 10-man Vanguard Veteran Squad with Shrike and a Jump Chaplain. Each Veteran had dual lightning claws. He called it 'will it blend' squad.

 

I spent 2 full turns shooting at them. Only at them. Period. I still lost that game, if memory serves.

[Dark_Templar]

Interesting. I will be very interested in seeing the responses to this as I would like to hear some positive tactics for Vanguards.

 

All the best.

[KhorneHunter57x]

I use mine with Jump Packs, Sgt. with Power Weapon and Melta bombs, 1 Thunder Hammer, and 3 with BP/CCW and Heroic Intervention them in. They are cheap enough that if I Deep Strike either too far away or into my target and die it doesn't ruin my plans that badly, but they are good enough to tear through Broadsides/Dark Reapers/Devastators etc.

[juckto]

Rule of thumb for any unit: Ensure that at least 50% of it is meatshields.

[thade]

Rule of thumb for any unit: Ensure that at least 50% of it is meatshields.

^This right here.

 

Vanguard has an added benefit that you can give some of those "meatshields" Storm Shields, so you can have two or three members which can soak armor-ignoring hits for you.

 

My typical vanguard load-out is this (note that I do NOT use Jump Packs):

- Relic Blade

- Two or three marines with a single lit claw or power weapon each

- at least two vanilla marines to soak hits

- at least two marines with storm shields only to soak armor-ignoring hits

 

I put them in a transport too, either a Land Raider or a Rhino.

 

If I do put them in Jump Packs, I seldom risk Heroic Intervention/Deep Striking them. I instead keep them on my side of the table as very mobile melee support for holding home objectives.

[Lestat]

So a better load for me might be Sgt with Relic Blade, 2 Marines with Storm shield and CCW and 2 with power weapons and plasma pistols. Eventualy the unit size will increase to include another meatshield and another couple of power weapon marines.

 

Is it worth giving them melta bombs, or maybe equipping one marine with a power fist?

[JamesI]

I wouldn't want more than about 4 or 5 to be upgraded, with a similiar number of guys unupgraded (not including minor things like Meltabombs).

 

So, a relic blade, a powerfist or 2, anohter power weapon or lightning claws.

[Hubernator]

Do Not overkit them. It isn't worth it. From battle experience one squad with 1 LC each, and sarge with twin LC's and all JP-ed dices one squad no problem, then is shot off the map within the next turn or two. If you want to use them to littlest expense try the standard layout and have 10 of them with JP. 40 attacks on the charge sounds good all of a sudden :) Sure they aren't PW or LC but it's like an ork boyz squad. Massive amount of attacks to counter the lack of reroll hit/wound or negating saves.

[Giga]

I'm currently converting myself a 10 men vanguard unit without jumppacks.

 

The plan is to give the sergeant a thunder hammer, give one guy a power fist, three guys with stormshields and chainswords, and keep the rest barebones.

 

The idea is to use them in place of assault terminators. Stick an IC with them, and put them all in a LR, and charge something. Will be fun to play around a little with wound allocation + the vanguard might actually fare better in a pedro list due to his +1A aura.

 

In reality, I don't think they're anywhere near as good as assault terminators (for 10 more points I could get 8 termies), but then again you don't really take vanguard for efficiency reasons anyway.

 

(I could make the unit better and cheaper if I replaced the thunder hammer with a powerfist, and gave the stormshield guys bolt pistols instead of chainswords, but since I'm doing this unit mostly for casual games, might as well go for the looks ;))

[alloyslayer]

i run a squad of 7 with cassius. sergeant with relic blade-1 power fist-2 power weapons-3 standard in a land raider, it's expensive but hit's like a sledgehammer

[Shadow Captain Corveus]

Having a RG army I've often considered having Vanguard Veterans, but here's the thing: You have to buy the JPs this makes a 10 man squad w/ JPs very expensive without even considering power/plasma weapons or SSs, after having considered their expense and theoretical battle effectiveness (I have none) I would say it's better to have them without Power/Plasma/SSs and just take 10 MBs, they are far more survivable this way seeing as they present less of a target.

 

I'd use them as an ordinary assault squad with the added bonus of being insane Tank-Hunters, this also works great in my RG army where their Anti-Armour threat radius is a minimum of 19"! With this in your arsenal you can deny large areas of the board to enemy tanks...

 

They only work in 1500 pts games seeing as they'll cost 375pts in this way, but it's worth it seeing as everyone seems to be going for mech nowadays...

[captain sox]

With my 10 man squad, I have 10 Plama Pistols, 9 Chainswords and 1 PF on the Sarge. The idea is to kill most of the enemy before assaulting, then finish them off in CC.

 

I try to keep low initiative weapons at a minimum. I'll also run a chappy with them once I aquire one with a Jump Pack.

 

It's a risk/reward kinda thing.

[Lestat]

So the general consensus is to go with the bare minimum of upgrades - just enough to give the squad that edge.

In that case I'll leave the models as they are and won't be converting them which means I'll get around to painting them a bit quicker!

 

Many thanks for the replies.

[thade]

Actually, I often spend too much on my Vanguard, but always on the side of them surviving more than killing (say, 2-3 vanillas, 3-4 storm shields, then a host of power weapons, in a Land Raider with a mean CC IC like Calgar). It's a lot of points in one boat and can REALLY hurt if it doesn't get where you want it. However, the times I have managed to get it where I want it (in the thick of things) that one unit will tie down an entire force on it's own for several turns, buying me a tremendous amount of mobility with the rest of my force.

 

I also recommend trying a relic blade on the serg as they are hard to get on non-ICs and S6 has definite merits. Single Lit Claws are very nice too (don't go for doubles), and I'm hesitant to recommend plasma pistols, especially on power weapons. It's a risk you don't need them to take since they'll be pwning face when they close anyway.