Is Heroic Invervention really that reliable ?

[Tame]

Hi,

 

New to 5th edition here. (I stopped playing when 3rd came out, and started again with Space Hulk and the new BA Codex :-) ) I'm rebuilding my Blood Angels army, and decided to be heavily jump pack oriented. I've seen lots of threads mentioning Vanguard Veterans as a must because of Heroic Intervention. But I'm wondering, isn't Heroic Intervention a little too risky?

 

Let's look at the facts:

- You need to decide to use HI before rolling for scatter

- Even though we have Descent of Angels, there is still 1D6 scatter. And 4 chances out of 6 to actually scatter (and can't fix that with Dante, they'd lose HI)

- You can only assault, so you have to have one model at least within 6" of the target unit

- You don't want a Deep Strike mishap to happen, so you don't want to land within 1" of an enemy model

 

That sounds pretty hard to use for me : Unless you somehow manage to have locator beacons on your target (which seems pretty unlikely, unless you just landed a Drop Pod in front of them), there is a great chance that you'll either land too far... or too close.

 

I haven't played in a real game with them yet, this is just me thinking out loud. Anyone has had some luck with theirs ? Am I completely missing something ?

[KhorneHunter57x]

I've actually had quite a bit of luck with my Codex Marine Van Vets (pretty much the same, just without Descent of Angels) when I have used them.

 

IMO they are great, but they are best used in 5-man squads (to reduce the risk of bad scatters), usually with one Thunder Hammer and one Power Weapon to keep the cost down in case you do lose them to a bad scatter.

 

Yes, Heroically Intervening does have risks, but the rewards can be much greater. It takes a bit of practice to learn how to use Van Vets well, but they can be one of the most devastating units when used right.

 

 

And a tip- if you use the metal Van Vet minis, make sure to pick up some plastic Jump Packs and build them with those (the mini is top-heavy enough without the Pack, but with the metal JPs they fall over a lot).

[Zeller]

It's as reliable as a scatter dice can be. There really isn't much beyond that besides maybe setting the dice in your hand a certain way and letting it roll gently from your hand so that it does what you want it too. Of course that player would be botched asap.

[Demoulius]

if you want to use heroic intervention you might want to consider a pod or cheap scout squad with a beacon. ou can just place them within 6 inches of the thing and its the thing landed close enough to your opponent you can then get a guaranteed charge off :)

[JamesI]

My experience says that Heroic Intervention is pretty unreliable, even with DoA. I still like my Vanguard, but most of the time I don't even consider Deep Striking them.

[KhorneHunter57x]

if you want to use heroic intervention you might want to consider a pod or cheap scout squad with a beacon. ou can just place them within 6 inches of the thing and its the thing landed close enough to your opponent you can then get a guaranteed charge off :)

The only problem with this is that your Pod or Scout Squad (or StormRaven, if you wanted to go that route) has to sit within Rapid Fire/Melta range of your chosen target for a turn, and if your opponent knows what you are planning then they have a full turn to kill your Scouts or Pod (or, if it is a Pod, just run away). Usually, the target of your Van Vets will be something that has a lot of firepower but is weak in CC, and so your target will probably have enough firepower to do the job in the 1 (or more, if your reserve rolls are really bad) turns that the beacon has to sit there.

 

Remember that DSing happens before regular movement, and the Beacon has to be on the table at the start of the turn that it is used in.

[Vilicate]

For fun games, I built a unit of 5 with Storm Shields and Power Weapons (1 Glaive and 1 TH). Hopefully I'll get to try them out soon...it's still a 340 pt unit!

 

Not that I'm trying to make them super effective or anything, plus they look really neat.

 

I would say overall though, after finally getting back into playing 40k with my eldar, heroic intervention is fairly annoying from an opponent's perspective. You can't really make a contingency plan for it, because in reality, they can just do it wherever they like and hope for the best. I think about it this way - placing them about ~6-7 inches away, roll for scatter. 1/3 of the time, they're just going to hit where you want, and you can then build your circle towards the enemy to gain a couple inches. 1/3 of the time, they're going to scatter closer, and if you played you cards right, 50% of that time you'll just move closer without having to roll a mishap. The final 1/3 of the time, they'll just scatter away, and you should be able to assault next turn.

 

And all of this is assuming that you're not just going to use a locator beacon and get them exactly where you'd want them to go.

 

It's definitely a wild-card type unit that does quite a bit. They're even better with BA with as many locator beacons as they have, and THEN they've got decent of angels, so you have a better chance to get them exactly where you want them.

 

My two cents.

[gustmic]

As said above it is a High risk, high reward.

It is pretty much a must-have in a pure deep-striking (I am currently building one).

Whether or not you are going that way, HI for Vanguard Vets are great for tying up units that you need to stop from firing, e.g. Broadsides, Dark Reapers.

 

A must if you have lots of DS jump suits coming down from the skies.

A fun element when playing as it may bring a nice element of surprise to the table.

I personally love the DS element of the game. For better or worse :blink:

 

/gustmic

[biglou666]

im thinking of getting some vanguards. i played against some the other day, and they died really easily. but, they didnt have storm shields.

 

thats why im thinking, for survivability, all without jpacks, 10 of them, in a pod, with ss's and pw's . mabye a sergeant thammer.your looking at about, say.. 565??? plus pod, 590. expensive, yes, but dangerous, yes. and being in the open for a turn doesnt bother me with a 3++.

[Tame]

With a pod, we are looking at a totally different subject though, since there is no Heroic Intervention possible.

Anyway, thanks for all the replies, it's really interesting. I mostly plan on playing 1500, maybe 1750 pts games, so I probably won't buy them super equipment... but I'll give them a try anyway, however risky, Heroic Intervention does sound fun!

[TrentL]

What I'd do is a 3 pod list 2 Dread's and 1 whatever is cheapest in a pod one of the Dread's has a beacon.

 

More than likely they'll be putting so much firepower on the pods they won't bother with Pods.

 

Then when you land your VV you can charge away!

 

Course I <3 Jump Pack deep strike lists win or lose I like the risk and the fun.

[mysteriousmaskedmystery]

a table top for 40k is a fairly cluttered envirnoment, both with terrain and enemy models, that latter part is actually a good thing, because as i understand it, HI just requires you declare a HI, not your target, someone please correct me if i'm wrong, but as i see if, you just have to learn how to use them so you can drop them and something should be within charge range, might not be what you wanted, but it should be something you can hurt.

 

i know a guy who uses tons of DP in a pedro/SG list with two squads of scouts and two of VV and he is lethal with the vets.

[Jarl Bloodwolf]

Its always worked great for me. And I agree that 5 man squads are the best for this option, I have only had one instance were something unfortunate happened and that was because of a psychic power. So I say use it

[Grey Mage]

Hi,

 

New to 5th edition here. (I stopped playing when 3rd came out, and started again with Space Hulk and the new BA Codex :-) ) I'm rebuilding my Blood Angels army, and decided to be heavily jump pack oriented. I've seen lots of threads mentioning Vanguard Veterans as a must because of Heroic Intervention. But I'm wondering, isn't Heroic Intervention a little too risky?

 

Let's look at the facts:

- You need to decide to use HI before rolling for scatter

- Even though we have Descent of Angels, there is still 1D6 scatter. And 4 chances out of 6 to actually scatter (and can't fix that with Dante, they'd lose HI)

- You can only assault, so you have to have one model at least within 6" of the target unit

- You don't want a Deep Strike mishap to happen, so you don't want to land within 1" of an enemy model

 

That sounds pretty hard to use for me : Unless you somehow manage to have locator beacons on your target (which seems pretty unlikely, unless you just landed a Drop Pod in front of them), there is a great chance that you'll either land too far... or too close.

 

I haven't played in a real game with them yet, this is just me thinking out loud. Anyone has had some luck with theirs ? Am I completely missing something ?

I think you are.

 

When you roll for DS your just going to place one model, wich means that a larger squad, say 8-10 marines, can actually end up with two circles of models- giving you 2" of room to work with. If you place your lead model about 5" away you make sure your in a good spot and get it off about 85% of the time, misshapping about 5% of the time, and being in no mans land one time in ten.

 

To explain it another way: 1/3 youll HIT and be just fine. On scatter going by 45' arcs weve got a full 1/2 of the remaing times when youll scatter relatively laterally and still be in charge range, and of the remaining 1/3 of the time youll end up scattering close enough to assault but not close enough misshap 5/6 times and to far away about 1/2 of the time, leaving you with less than a 1 in 6 chance of having something unfortunate happening to you.

 

Thats not bad, considering the enormous payoff you can potentially acheive with this little maneuver.

[Valerian]

Locator Beacons on Drop Pods that arrive First Turn due to Drop Pod Assault pretty much guarantee a safe Heroic Intervention. Someone else mentioned that the enemy can just target all of your Drop Pods to remove this capability, but that isn't really likely to happen. Your enemy is much more likely to target all of the Marines, or perhaps the Dreadnought, that just popped out right in front of their faces first. They are the more immediate threat, and the higher priority target. He's not likely to start trying to clear out the Drop Pods until a couple turns later. By that time, with good Reserve rolls (which Descent of Angels helps to guarantee), it'll be too late.

 

If he goes the other route and simply runs as far away from the Pods as possible to avoid the HI threat, then you don't necessarily get the auto HI, but you've dictated his movement, and have successfully shaped the battlefield - Congratulations! You can then chose the more risky HI without the Beacon anyway.

 

Valerian

[Quantra]

I've used HI with VV 4 times so far. Once they mishapped and my opponent placed them waaaay back in my DZ, even that worked out OK since they made it to the fight just a little late.

 

The first time I used them I took a pod with locator beacon to assure their arrival. However when the time came for them to arrive there weren't any targets near the drop pod as they had all been eaten by the contents of the pod so I used them to HI the other side of the board succesfully. Since then I haven't bothered with the locator beacon.

 

Also I like to run at least 6 in a squad to get that extra guy or 2 in the outer circle. Placing one or two more models is unlikely to cause you to mishap but could make the difference between being in assault range or not.

 

Either way 3 out of 4 times I have used them they have torn apart their target, 2 of those times they have been annhilated themselves on the next turn. So I'm thinking about trying to deepstrike a priest close to them in the future when I get another model made.

 

Overall this is a neat move but I'm not convinced VV are worth their points, since a 6 man unit with fist, power sword and jump pack costs 220 if they don't make this back with their HI they will likely run at a loss. I'd rather put the points into a DC which for me has been much more potent, reliable and has had a much better survival rate than the VV, but I guess that is a story for another thread.

[JamesI]

Quantra, having the Vanguard wiped after they hit was my experience as well. But I've really enjoyed using my Vanguard as a bodyguard for my Reclusiarch rather than counting on HI. Just treat them they way you would have an old VAS and have fun (without meltaguns but with more power weapons).

 

Plus. they can HI if needed.

[Deus_Sanguinius]

Plus. they can HI if needed.

 

But not if they come with the Reclusiarch. :D I like VV but to me they are just too expensive and I have a different army built so they don't fit in quite well. But definetly worth a look at. It's a pitty that you can't add a IC to them without loosing HI.

[vahouth]

I've seen a guy using Corbulo's reroll to help with the DS scatter of the Van Vets and guess what...

It works!! :D

[Quantra]

Yeah I forgot to mention that important factor, using VV to HI is indeed a lot of fun! It adds an extra element of risk to the game and can cause both you and your opponent to change their game plan mid game. Same reason why if I run a Baal pred I outflank, having these uncertainties just makes things more exciting. I will have to try out a VV without DSing them and with an IC or two attached... Really should build the rest of my priests xD

[lunchb0x]

All I gotta say about OPs fear of using HI ....HE WHO DARES, KILLS THE XENO ( and or Traitor ) SCUM.

[JamesI]

Plus. they can HI if needed.

 

But not if they come with the Reclusiarch. :D I like VV but to me they are just too expensive and I have a different army built so they don't fit in quite well. But definetly worth a look at. It's a pity that you can't add a IC to them without loosing HI.

Yeah, but come deployment I can decide to put down the VV with the reclusiarch and a sanguinary priest or keep them for HI and put the reclusiarch and priest in an Assault Squad instead.

[SamaNagol]

I would only use them if I had 3 drop pods in my list already.

 

That means you can drop 2 Dreadnoughts down in turn one, leave them to earn their points back and then drop in the Vanguard off the Beacon in turn 2-3.

 

I was considering running 2 Furiosos in Pods with a unit of Sternguard in another, then two 10 man units of RAS and a unit of VAS and a scouting Baal if I can cram it in

[Thornoo1]

I'm running two VV squads in my all jump pack army and I have to say HI is full of win. HI really allows you to alpha strike that unit that absolutley must take out. With two VV units then you get to see what happens to the first before placing the second so you really do get some tactical flexability.

[SnorriSnorrison]

I think it´s a great thing, or, full of win.

Yeah, unreliable maybe, but the chance to smite one of the most important units of your opponent(a HQ unit, or heavy weapons encased in power armour...) is absolutely worth it. Archangels for the win!

 

Snorri