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[ShinyRhino]

I've been tinkering with ideas for getting my Honour Guard and their attached ICs across the table intact, so that they can chop the bad guys to pieces with volume of attacks and power weapons.

A Land Raider seems like a perfect choice, until you add up the points. I'm toting a large squad of 8 or 9, with one or two ICs. That's a HUGE chunk of change on the unit when you lump in a Land Raider. So, I've opted for a Rhino instead. Some folks claim this is pure insanity, but in the few games I've tried it, it actually worked quite well.

One problem I'm discovering is focused fire on Turn One to destroy the Honour Guard's Rhino. This makes me waste a turn loading them back into another, while piling a Tactical Squad out.

 

I thought of what might be a completely whacky idea to help mitigate this risk: the bus stop.

Essentially, I take three empty Rhinos (or however many I decide to use) and line them up abreast, with about 1" between them.

I then deploy the Honour Guard in a line behind these Rhinos, evenly spaced.

If I have the ability or desire to do so, I line up Dreadnoughts or some other unit that blocks LOS to the Rhinos in front of the "bus stop" to provide cover saves to the Rhinos.

On my first turn, I load the Honour Guard into a Rhino of my choice by moving them all within 2" of the transport, and drive forward as quickly as possible.

 

Essentially, this forces my opponent to kill ALL of the available transports, not just one. Normally, the destruction, stunning, or immobilization of one transport is enough to keep the Honour Guard from rolling out for a full turn as they cannot disembark and reembark in the same turn.

 

However, is this far too gimmicky for actual use? My main concerns are missiles, as that's what everyone fields in my local area, and missiles are a zero-level threat for Honour Guard. It will take three full units of missile firing to down all of my Rhinos, should I fail the cover saves granted by the Dreads. Of course, should the Dreads be immobilized, things get tougher and Imight wish I had left 2" between Rhinos instead of 1".

 

Obviously, I'm not going to use this against any opponent with AP2 barrage weapons, but against the majority of convenmtional weapons, it feels like a safe bet. What do you think? Too gimmicky, or no?

[DarkGuard]

I don't think it's too gimmicky. But I do think it's unnecessary.

 

I've only ever used Honour Guard in a Rhino and hardly have any problems with them. Normally they deploy behind cover or another Rhino, so my opponent can't shoot their Rhino straight away. Between intervening models, cover and smoke I only really give my opponent a clear shot when the unit is in midfield, which is where they excel as a counter-attacking unit.

 

When deploying I'd suggest trying to use as much cover as you can, as well as using decoy units, as that'll also ask more questions of your opponent and potentially increase its life span.

[ShinyRhino]

I don't think it's too gimmicky. But I do think it's unnecessary.

 

I truly hope so! last month when I ran my HG, I ended up on three tables with pitiful LOS-blocking terrain and a lot of elevated positions from which my enemy could shoot OVER the intervening Rhinos to hit the HG Rhino, which is sortof the catalyst for my paranoia, lol.

[DarkGuard]

I know how you feel. I remember a game I had with my Nids against Grey Knights and the terrain did no favours. Ended up on a hill, no LoS blocking terrain, my army was shot off the board by Turn 2.

 

Recently I've tried to ensure the terrain is as fair as possible, that there's a good amount of it, and that a fair amount of it blocks LoS, otherwise it's just boring. Doesn't always help though, my last game had me cram three Rhinos (including the HG Rhino) and two Typhoons into a small space in a corner that was out of LoS of an Imperial heavy weapons team thanks to a building in the centre of the board. Still, they got to where they needed to be. :D

 

Was this at a tournament by any chance? Because I know the tournaments at GW HQ have awful terrain.

[ShinyRhino]

Was this at a tournament by any chance? Because I know the tournaments at GW HQ have awful terrain.

 

Tournament at the FLGS. No touchy the terrain-y! lol

[minigun762]

I gotta agree with Darkguard, its a lot of thought to put into a single unit. Most of the time just camping another rhino chassis vehicle in front will be sufficient. You could try it with dreads as well for a little extra height.

 

A simpler option to what you mentioned would be to just assign (mentally at least) two rhinos to the squad at the start and hope that one of them survives the incoming firepower to embark upon and move out next turn.

[DarkGuard]

Was this at a tournament by any chance? Because I know the tournaments at GW HQ have awful terrain.

 

Tournament at the FLGS. No touchy the terrain-y! lol

 

Next time demand request better terrain. ;)

[Captain Idaho]

Against some armies you are going to struggle to get the Rhino in close from 1750pts onwards, since that sized game players can start to put everything they need into a list, especially if the table is too open.

 

However, if you have multiple threats on the table (a squadron of Typhoons springs to mind) and place another Rhino or Dread in front of the Honour Guards' Rhino, a player with strong shooting won't want to "waste" firepower for little reward when there are so many other threats on the table.

 

Another alternative is Drop Pod a decoy in. I haven't got round to buying a Drop Pod myself, but it's something I've always wanted to try. If a unit of Long Fangs are standing right in front of you with clear fire, place a Drop Pod in their line of sight. Sure it might scatter, but it'll get in other opposing units' way if so.

[ShinyRhino]

I really do need to assemble and paint my one drop pod. I think it would open some interesting deployment options to my largely linear collection.

[Ming]

You can generate some syynergy if you have two tac squads in rhinos co-travelling with the HG. IF they wreck your shiny rhino, on you next turn a tac squad vacates their ride and the HG continues to zoom on.

 

Also, you need another distractor. Some kind of shiny pod or shiny vindicator that will compell the OPFOR to spend fire on that rather than shooting at your rhinos. I've recently been using a blue pod and venerable as my great distractor. By the time the OPFOR takes down the venerable, the pod has been there to beacon in the reserved HF/MM speeders...there are a multitide of turn 1 distractors that will make sure your HG get where they need to go.

 

Note caveat: it appears that embarking will see some rule changes in 6th edition...(rumor has it occur in your "end phase" where you can tidy things up. If that happens it will be awesome, because you can fire a squad (maybe) to full effect before embarking...)

 

Good luck!