Is it just me...

[Blade_and_Honour]

So, I have been reading some Iron Warriors books to get a much better idea of how I want to do my army. 

Whilst trying to put a "flesh" part to my IW army I have been looking around at allied guard lists... The lists all seem to employ the guard to get siege weapons (the ordnance battery) or heavy tank support (russ). This is cool as it is the only way to get the siege weapons that should be in an IW army. Seems to me that the rest of the IG ends up being "1-2 vet squad with special weapons and a cheap HQ". To me it seems that is to small to really represent the "flesh" that the IW employ. To me, there should be more guard than space marines - being that flesh is cheap and an IW is not. So, to me, platoons should be used instead of  vets (flesh doesn't live long enough to get good)  heavy weapons squads to get cheap alternatives to havocs freeing up HS spots for oblits and preds. 

This is my view on things, What do you guys think on the matter of guard allies for a chaos (mainly IW) army?? 

IRON WITHIN! IRON WITHOUT!! 

 

[AnvilofFenris]

Sounds reasonable to me. It gives the image of hordes of conscripts charging headlong into the breach made by the heavy guns, blunting the defences until the Iron Warriors are ready to strike the killing blow!

[Sception]

The problem you'll run into is one of points costs - all of those guardsmen have to come at the expense of chaos marines. If you want a lot of bodies, you may want to consider cheap cultists from our own book.

 

Otherwise, if the image you want to project is an army of 'flesh' and lesser traitors with big siege engines backed up by a minority elite core of chaos marine veterans, you might want to consider main dexing the guard to begin with, and running your chaos marines as the allied detachment.

[Blade_and_Honour]

See, to me, a ratio of 1 part guard to 2 part chaos is a nice ratio. Command squad with sniper rifles (I like sniper weapons and there cheap for what they do), 2 units of guardsmen (maybe a heavy weapon) and some supporting fire from heavy weapon squads then 1-2 tanks is around 500 - so in a 1500 game, 1000 IW 500 IG, i think is the right ratio. All we need to do is make sure that we use the guard to fill the things that chaos cant do, such as cheaper heavy weapons, extra bodies that don't need babysitting etc - don't get me wrong, cultists are usable to pad out the IG (using some of the suggested 500 points) and free a little more for normal marines.  

[Pariah Mk.231]

I agree with Malisteen on this one, use cultists to make up the main bulk of the chaff, with some Vets representing the 'elite' of the basic human elements of your army. Sure, you don't get access to a bunch of heavy weapons, but you can take 6 shooty cultists for every 5 guardsmen. Choppy cultists have an even better ration of 3:2. A naked platoon will cost you what? About 150? (can't remember how much the platoon command costs off the top of my head)

That will get you a horde of 28 shooty cultists (26 if you go for a pair of stubbers) or a full unit of 35 choppy cultists. The shooty cultists are going to do just as well at their job as a naked platoon of guardsmen. The choppy cultists are there to distract your opponent while your marines do the real work. But anyway, no platoon goes naked, you've got your heavy weapon teams and your commisars to pay for, which just means even more cultists.

 

It's not like us Iron Warriors really arm our meatshields very well, we mainly use them as fodder, slave labour or crew for the big guns. Anything more than an autogun and a reasonable pair of boots each is asking a bit much. Maybe a helmet if we're in a good mood ... which we never are because we're the guys who made being bitter and paranoid into an artform. Their job is simply to live just long enough for us to position the big guns, after that they'll be lucky if we remember to load them back into the ships when we're done.

[Iron_Within]

I'd take a HQ Squad with the Master of Ordinance, a command with Autocannon and 3 squads with Autocannons, comes to 300 points. Add a Manticore and you have two large blast barrage weapons for 460 points. You have 5 troops to hold objectives. Alternatively you could load them with plasma guns for 20 points more in total (don't put them on the HQ, he's there for the barrage and nothing else save maybe giving some orders) or grenade launchers for 20 points less which would give you blob squads that could drive up the centre field.

 

Combine that with a Helldrake, Oblits/havocs/predators/vindicators and you nasty shooty force, or alternatively get some Maulerfiends, spawn, bikes, and you have a very strong elite force that will drive up the centre given target saturation.

[Prot]

You can do it either way, and you can definitely justify it. Not every excursion is an expense of massive numbers of mechanicitions... or cultists.

I do miss when we could take a Basilisk. They aren't really super potent, but a great fluff piece.

The thing about the 'flesh' element is that they really aren't fighting that much. A good deal of them at least are digging trenches, re-loading ordnance, calculating trajectories, or simply dying for the cause. But my point is most of the flesh element is invisible, working behind the scenes, and very hard to represent in game.

Myself, I just look at the Cultists and plop them in an Aegis defense role. They have the feel of wanting to please the Iron Warriors, without getting in their way. It also keeps things cheap without me having to dip into Allies.

Personally I'd love a Manticore though.

[Sception]

for the record, I'm not objecting to guard platoons, I love the 'lost and the damned heretic horde, with the small but elite core of chaos marine masters ruling over them' gimmick. I'm just thinking that if that's what you're going for, you might want to main dex them and bring the handful of elite expensive chaos guys in your ally detachment where you've only got a few open slots anyway.

[Xenith]

Iron hand straken's rules as the CSM slave overseer - (He's like S5, T4, 3+ anyway), add some chaff.

 

Add to IW army.