Sternguard, not the same ol' stuff

[Driftster]

I know i know everyone's sick of hearing and seeing the cookie cutter sternguard deployment..

 

I've been looking for sternguard tactics, and all i see is Pedro pedro pedro, lysander lysander lysander..

 

The repetition is uncanny.

 

But how else can these versatile units be strategically advantageous without being such a points sink.

It's not as though they aren't a large enough point sink on their own, but to tag along a 150-200pt character just to make them a "bit more useful" seems completely unreasonable, especially in moderate games like 1500-1750

 

How useful are they as just a ten man with the rest of the tacs..with an accompanying fire-magnet razorback?

 

How useful are they as a LONE drop pod in an army with say a 6-7 man group designed to just thin ranks and cause some disorientation and dependably pop a tank or two.

 

I know a lot of people seem to hate the idea of suicide squads, and i do to...

So really, they're versatility..Where does it come in without a major points sink, because really ANYTHING can be versatile if it costs 350+points...

 

Are they more of a "great on paper, poor in execution unit" or do they really shine in some situation i'm not thinking of, and no i'm not forgetting their ability to deal +4 hell and poison rounds on MC's, but then again you're relying a fair bit on their "Delivery system" and they are just Marines.

 

I'm putting together a new 1500+ list, and i'm teetering on their justification...

 

convince me for or against...or just shoot the -ish on why you think they're valuable/replaceable...WITHOUT using the "pedro/lysander/10+Libby drop pod" 400 point kamikazee's

[LardO'Blood]

I enjoy a 10 man squad outfitted like a tactical squad. Missile launcher for some AT, powerfist for some CC punch, a flamer for template goodness and a combi-plasma for anti TEQ. Runs at "only" 290 points without a transport.

If you want give them Kantor for scoring. I usually just play them with a librarian with smite/VoD and gate.

[Seahawk]

I never run anything cookie-style, as it just spreads crumbs and is ugly (yay metaphors!).

 

One way you could do it is 10 men in a rhino. Or, 9+ Librarian and Gating around for kicks where needed. Locator beacons become invaluable as you can home in on them with the Gating.

[Driftster]

I never run anything cookie-style, as it just spreads crumbs and is ugly (yay metaphors!).

 

One way you could do it is 10 men in a rhino. Or, 9+ Librarian and Gating around for kicks where needed. Locator beacons become invaluable as you can home in on them with the Gating.

 

Nice metaphor

 

As for the 9+ libby Gating that's a great idea and such, but this also depends on locator beacons...Which are only on Drop pods, or scout bikes, which again would go against the rule of no single drop pods....And thus would require, something else to be DROPPED in the pod, ie another "suicide points sink" just to make the libby/stern gate squad safe and effective..

 

So now you're left with a drop podding sternguard gating around their OWN pod....or a dreadnaught in a drop pod so you can once again, gate around a drop pod..

 

I love the gate idea, but the "following deep strike rules" makes drop pods a necessity for it..

[Mezkh]

Gate without locator beacons. Necrons do it all the time with the Veil of Darkness and it works fine.

 

Gate's great because you can stick your libby with them and either retreat from any CC units that try to get close, or Gate in close to a target of opportunity and waste it. Set them up in a nice piece of cover on your side of the board and they can contribute early with Heavy weapons or just 30" Bolters.

 

Like anything 'awesome' in this game, there's a slight element of risk.

 

If I played Codex Marines I'd be all over Libby+Gate+Sternguard. But Blood Angels have no gate sadly.

[Seahawk]

True, you don't need the beacons at all; it's just a convenient thing if you're already playing a drop pod army.

 

But gating them around anyway is useful for bouncing them wherever you need them.

[Xeonic]

I use a unit of 9-10 in a rhino(with or without a libby), they tend to attract a lot of attention and usually do a good deal of damage before they inevitably die. I have used Gate and it's risky but doable and -very- devastating with vengeance/combi-melta/plas/flamers vs targets of opportunity in the open(remember you can also gate and run to get cover saves/spread instead of shooting). Prime targets of Gating are vehicles, troops getting an obscured save vs troops moving normally, and MCs of any kind(hooray hellfire!). However the squad is quite expensive(+100 pts for the libby) and gating is risky even without the prospect of return fire.

Other than gating I use them as a super tactical squad(about half of mine have combis), mainly debarkation rapidfires in support of my tacticals.

 

I have built them a "counts-as" Kantor model, but I haven't fielded him so I cannot comment on that aspect.

 

One build I've been meaning to try is paired heavy weapons in a 5 man squad with no other upgrades, basically fulfilling the role of "demi-devastators". Since they have 30" bolters and a points break on heavy weapons, they should be really potent in this role. I'm thinking paired plasma cannon personally. HQ would be either Kantor buffing other elements possibly so they can hold the home front, or a MoTF granting them a 3+ coversave+3rd template.

[DarkGuard]

I love Sternguard, they are seriously one of my favourite entries in the Codex, and perhaps the entire game. Plus I love the models I made for them, all Dark Angel Vets with storm bolter clips for ammo on normal boltguns with sights :lol:.

 

As to how I outfit them, recently I've been running a 9 man squad with two heavy flamers, four combi-meltas, a power fist and a Rhino, accompanied by a Librarian with Null Zone and Avenger. The Libby is only really there as he needs a ride and a bodyguard if he gets into trouble, and normally stays in the Rhino to use Null Zone, boosting my abilities against things like Thousand Sons, Terminators, Zoanthropes, Flicker fields, especially considering I have two Vindicators in the list.

 

The Sternguard, on the other hand, are somewhat the crux of my attack. With two heavy flamers and their boltguns they can lay down a lethal hail of fire, while their combi-meltas let them deal with tanks. Though I don't put power fists in my Tactical squads, I do put them in big Sternguard squads as this unit will invariably get assaulted by something nasty. The heavy flamers are especially fantastic, as they can both fire out the top hatch, and ignore cover, allowing them to flame things like Eldar Pathfinders and Scouts out of cover and off of objectives. Their special ammo allows them to threaten a wide range of targets, and combi-meltas are handy for killing off that one tank.

 

As they're in a Rhino, I pretty much play them as a 'super' Tactical squad. They have similar equipment (my Tacticals have combi-flamer, flamer, multi-melta, Rhino), and so are just more mobile than them and can do the job better, while the Tacticals can back them up. I did use Pedro Kantor for a tournament, and honestly he ended up being the key to success, as I run the last game thanks to the Sternguard being counted as scoring. Interestingly I always kept him in the Rhino as well. Now I'm considering running Vulkan with them, as my entire army is full of flamer and melta weaponry. Having already used Vulkan with a small 5 man squad with two heavy flamers I can tell you that Vulkan really makes them scary, provided you outfit them properly.

[Shadowstalker Grim]

I find sternguard a little steep in price too, 250 points for a squad with nothing and just 10 men? Thats a heck of a price! What can we actually expect from them in a fight and how many upgrades do they need to be effective? How many men do we need, is 10 too many or just right?

 

I like the idea of sternguard, I just get a little woozy thinking about all their possibilities and where they're best suited.

[Captain Juan Juarez]

I never run anything cookie-style, as it just spreads crumbs and is ugly....

 

The cookie is not ugly :)

 

:)

 

 

Sternguard:

 

Treat them like a mini Dev Squad - couple of cheap heavy weapons, maybe a combi-weapon or two, and take advantage of Special Ammo still.

[DerekLee688]

I've had bad experiences with gate just with a tac squad, there's no way I'd put 25pt. models to the mercy of psy-test, drift, and misshap. Melta/Flamers/bolters don't have enough range to compensate for poor drift.

 

The discount you get with sternguard is 2 attacks and dirt cheap combi-weapons. They're a point cheaper if you had to pay the srg. cost to equip a regualar tac marine with one. 10 is a nice round number but isn't nessecary for either heavy/special weapons or number of CC attacks. Drop two and pick up a MMAB? Sure, I might as well drop one more to put 5 combi-weapons in the squad to offset the loss of the other two and now you have plenty of room for HQ in rhino.

 

I'm considering my own C:SM Razor spam. 6-man units with 3-5 combi's each to off set the lack of numbers + Pedro to make them scoring and add an extra attack. I know this is a huge undertaking in points and probably won't try it in under 2000pts.

 

Otherwise, I usually run mine in a 9x squad with Librarian in a rhino.

[Gen. Confusion]

I ran Vulcan in a razorback with 5 sternguard with 3 combi meltas and 2 heavy flamers once. I tell you what, that is a nasty unit. It took out a demon prince of nurgel and his 10 berserker friends with only the loss of 3 sternguard.

[DarkGuard]

I ran Vulcan in a razorback with 5 sternguard with 3 combi meltas and 2 heavy flamers once. I tell you what, that is a nasty unit. It took out a demon prince of nurgel and his 10 berserker friends with only the loss of 3 sternguard.

 

I've been contemplating using this squad again once the new Grey Knights come out allowing me to convert my all plastic Vulkan, although that would mean dropping my Libby who goes so well with Vindys.... However, it if good to hear that other people are having good results with this unit, was a fantastic unit for me a while back and always killed things.

[Shadowstalker Grim]

Another problem I have with the unit is the combi-weapons ironically. Its perhaps their best feature, a special gun AND retains their special ammo, makes them really dangerous for dirt cheap (which is nice since the unit isn't). Reason i dislike it is there is a distinct lack of them drifiting around, if the sarge sprue came with them, i wouldn't care, but you get 2 in the expensive metal box, 2 in the captain box or make your own. Or buy lots of bits, but for something that sternguard seem to scream to use, i would expect a few more of them around!

[Xeonic]

You could do what many have and Make your own(link).

[Shadowstalker Grim]

Yeah we can make our own, but it's something that really, we shouldn't have to do! I'm of the opinion that if GW are going to make it an entry in the codex, they should be available in the sprue for those given models. Ie, if we have a dreadnought with autocannon options, give us autocannons in the box!

 

Still I guess thats just a personal gripe, i'll make some of my own combi-weapons im sure, its just a pain, you get loads of random bits like bolt pistols that have little use and that useful things aren't around....

[Xeonic]

But then GW wouldn't make as much monies selling us devastator boxes to get heavy weapons for our tac squads, or assault/command sprues to get the sergeant a SCCW! They could go out of business!

 

What I personally find atrocious is the lack of a readily accessible combi-flamer at all, there's the one in the chaos vehicle sprue(a bit too big), the one in the chaos terminator box, and a couple metal character ones, as well as the FW resin one. None of which are economical except perhaps the termie one(and it looks very old school and chaosey). Thus to outfit sternguard you must either hack up a bunch of expensive metal models, get teh FW pack(it's a nice pack mind, but spendy), shell out for a bunch of ones you'd need to de-chaosify, or build your own out of spare flamers.

 

One other thing to remember is that the metagame and codex options have changed since 4th or even 3rd when some of these kits came out, and in the 4th edition marine codex the dread had no autocannon option. I really can't fault the new Venerable kit either even though it lacks options for autocannon(aegis defense line, IG HWS, or the classic AC arm are all easy to adapt) or multi-melta(the classic metal one works great, as does the aobr arm with a little modification), it's a fantastic kit*.

 

Anyways, off on a ramble but the point was that it's mostly likely not really financially feasable to have every option for every unit entry in every kit, and as new codices are released we are forced to rely on kits that never were intended to support all options in the first place. This is doubly true of metal kits, you don't really expect GW to release a metal sternguard box with all available options do you? That'd probably end up being a $70+ box with 5 men, 15 combis, 1 each of the heavy and special weapons, and one each of each CCW. And at that to get a full squad you'd have to buy two boxes.

(I'd love to see a plastic one though)

 

*I'd forgotten about the TLHB option, but that's also available as a classic bit and as a FW part, plus being super easy to convert.

[Shadowstalker Grim]

GW aren't clever on the money front anyway, even a £5 drop on most of their boxes and loads of people I know who want to play but think its too pricey would join. I know thats quite a drop, but the prices are very steep and that kills a huge customer base.

 

Still I accept it would be unreasonable to have EVERY upgrade in the sprues, but they could at least do a bits sprue perhaps? Variants like combi-sprue, heavy sprue etc...

 

More on track, you could use sternguard in a similar fashion to an assault squad if you want different uses...

[DarkGuard]

GW aren't clever on the money front anyway, even a £5 drop on most of their boxes and loads of people I know who want to play but think its too pricey would join. I know thats quite a drop, but the prices are very steep and that kills a huge customer base.

 

Still I accept it would be unreasonable to have EVERY upgrade in the sprues, but they could at least do a bits sprue perhaps? Variants like combi-sprue, heavy sprue etc...

 

More on track, you could use sternguard in a similar fashion to an assault squad if you want different uses...

 

Very true, all of it :RTBBB:.

 

On the Assault squad front, I actually replaced my Assault squad with a Sternguard squad. I got a unit with the same amount of attacks, better leadership, better flamers, better shooting and a power fist. When I first used them I had them with Pedro, who made them that little bit harder. Don't get me wrong, Sternguard are best at shooting, but they are also no push overs in assault, and you do need a real combat dedicated unit (like lots of power weapons) to cut through them.

[Shadowstalker Grim]

You could probably have them combat squadded, with an assault flamer/melta unit and a support plasma/bolter unit, as you say they aren't a push over in assault and have access to great gear!

[River Black]

I dont understand why you would want to add a unit to your army with the intention of it having no synergy to the rest of your army. You not adding Pedro or Lysander to the list just to support the one sternguard squad. Their presence on the battle field effects your entire army by giving them stubborn, enhanced cover, more scoring options ect. It the 1 + 1 = 3 theory. All units in your army should work well together and should be able to bring something beneficial to the table not just stand alone and hope for the best.

[Hellios]

What do you want sternguard to do? Lets assume no other character is involved to bolster them or others...

 

If we want 10 men (and by no means do you have to take 10) we have a more expensive tactical squad. What advantages do we have?

Well higher leadership rawr even if the sgt pops it.

An extra attack each...

Magic ammo... Which gives you a longer range and better AP... That might get you an extra turn of shooting and help negate saves of tougher guys... that could make the difference between too many guys making it into assault or an amount you can deal with (The +1 attack also means you can deal with more).

You can make your gun AP3 with some risk to yourself but if you are close to a similiar meq unit you can either try and beat it in combat (if it is a tactical squad for example) and hope you don't get bogged down or you can shoot it (if you can't risk getting bogged down or they are Khorne Berzerkers)... With AP3 bolters you should kill more of the enemy than yourself so even the loss of an expensive model (if the worse happens) is not that bad and since you might have been in trouble if you failed to kill enough what did you have to lose?

You can ignore cover... great for clearing off gribble holding an objective...

Oh wounding on a 2+... nice

and I'm sure other magic ammo has its uses.... and I hope I haven't made any of these up or got confused with the old deathwatch rules.

 

Then you have all the combi & heavy weapons weapons that can help you cover weaknesses or allow you to specialise elsewhere! On the whole most of these upgrades are not bad value if you actually use them.

 

A number of characters as mentioned can help via various abilities and special rules such as bolter drill, null zone, scoring sternguard or salamander style pimped out weapons.

 

In the end having a great quality tool is all good but you have to know how to use it and have a plan in which to use it...

[Shadowstalker Grim]

I dont understand why you would want to add a unit to your army with the intention of it having no synergy to the rest of your army. You not adding Pedro or Lysander to the list just to support the one sternguard squad. Their presence on the battle field effects your entire army by giving them stubborn, enhanced cover, more scoring options ect. It the 1 + 1 = 3 theory. All units in your army should work well together and should be able to bring something beneficial to the table not just stand alone and hope for the best.

 

 

I see NO reason why a special character is needed to make sternguard a worthwhile additon in an army. Heck Pedro AND Lysander change the entire makeup of the army, some players don't want that and have sternguard to operate as a solo unit (so no attached character), but as something that synergises in a list! Sternguard come with enough options that you can tailor them quite a bit to what roles you want them to fill, they are rather a superior unit in that sense. They can work very well alongside both those characters (and lets face it, if you're taking pedro, you're taking sternguard) but by no means would i say that sternguard are lacking without such characters around.

[captain sox]

All units in your army should work well together and should be able to bring something beneficial to the table not just stand alone and hope for the best.

 

I need to heed this advice... very good indeed!

[Captain Juan Juarez]

I dont understand why you would want to add a unit to your army with the intention of it having no synergy to the rest of your army. You not adding Pedro or Lysander to the list just to support the one sternguard squad. Their presence on the battle field effects your entire army by giving them stubborn, enhanced cover, more scoring options ect. It the 1 + 1 = 3 theory. All units in your army should work well together and should be able to bring something beneficial to the table not just stand alone and hope for the best.

 

 

I see NO reason why a special character is needed to make sternguard a worthwhile additon in an army. Heck Pedro AND Lysander change the entire makeup of the army, some players don't want that and have sternguard to operate as a solo unit (so no attached character), but as something that synergises in a list! Sternguard come with enough options that you can tailor them quite a bit to what roles you want them to fill, they are rather a superior unit in that sense. They can work very well alongside both those characters (and lets face it, if you're taking pedro, you're taking sternguard) but by no means would i say that sternguard are lacking without such characters around.

 

Sternguard are the best single Infantry unit in C:SM.

 

As mentioned above they have a number of benefits; one of which wasn't mentioned is the fact they have access to cheap Heavy Weapons.

 

Sterguard are the closest, with the possible exception of the attached HQ units, you can get to the versatility of something like Wolf Guard.