Tactics for the New C:SM....

[L30n1d4s]

Given that Vanguard, Assault Centurions, Assault Terminators, and Sternguard are all competing for Elite slots, perhaps a good alternative is Honor Guard for a CC component to your army.

 

While they require a CM to unlock, I think pound for pound they may be one of the most cost-effective units in the new codex.

 

For the price of a fully kitted Tactical Squad (10 Marines, Vet Sgt, LC, Plasma, PF, PP, Drop Pod, Deathwind Launcher) you can get 10 Honor Guard, including one of them upgraded to a Chpater Champion and another with a Chpater Banner (for +1A throughout the squad).

 

That makes for 2+ save, Veteran stats, 4x PW attacks base and 5 PW attacks on the charge... mix Power Axes and Power Swords and you have quite a unit that can threaten multiple different enemy, all for a very reasonable price. You can also load this unit into a Land Raider or Stomraven for better mobility and protection, as required. Either way, since HG don't take an Elites slot, you can load up on Sternguard, LotD, etc.

[Brother Captain Andrew]

Given that Vanguard, Assault Centurions, Assault Terminators, and Sternguard are all competing for Elite slots, perhaps a good alternative is Honor Guard for a CC component to your army.

 

While they require a CM to unlock, I think pound for pound they may be one of the most cost-effective units in the new codex.

 

For the price of a fully kitted Tactical Squad (10 Marines, Vet Sgt, LC, Plasma, PF, PP, Drop Pod, Deathwind Launcher) you can get 10 Honor Guard, including one of them upgraded to a Chpater Champion and another with a Chpater Banner (for +1A throughout the squad).

 

That makes for 2+ save, Veteran stats, 4x PW attacks base and 5 PW attacks on the charge... mix Power Axes and Power Swords and you have quite a unit that can threaten multiple different enemy, all for a very reasonable price. You can also load this unit into a Land Raider or Stomraven for better mobility and protection, as required. Either way, since HG don't take an Elites slot, you can load up on Sternguard, LotD, etc.

Yeah, I'm thinking Honor Guard too. I just have to make a decision between giving them a landraider or a stormraven. The landraider is the better transport option, but the Stormraven provides the superior Anti-armor/anti-air platform and saves points.

[Ishagu]

Models that look extravagant enough to be honor guard are hard to come by...

[Disruptor_fe404]

Models that look extravagant enough to be honor guard are hard to come by...

 

And that's half the fun!

[Ishagu]

I wish gw would just release a 5 man set... some that look as good as the ones you get with Calgar :-(

[Grizzly_bear]

In the current dex I've run a 10 man honour guard unit, with a basic chaplain in a LR with kantor in a rhino x 9 sterngaurd near by and let me tell you that HG unit is a beast, expensive....yes....but über awesome.

 

That's 54 attacks re rolling (on the charge) to hit whilst 9 of those attacks are at S6

Will be even better if this -10points per HG is true.

[Axagoras]

I kit bashed some honor guard from Iron hands bionics kit and forgeworld MK 3 set, they look beastly with mechanical looking weapons to round em out. Thats the fun in it is making your own decked out unit.

[Azash]

While Honor Guard don't use up a valuable elite slot they cost you a heavy slot to get them into the fight since they can't take a LR as a dedicated transport. So in terms of force org HG vs Termies or assault centurions is a wash. Maybe the CM can take an LR as a dedicated but um not holding my breath.

 

Needing an assault vehicle is a given. The 6th ed meta being more shooty oriented it makes the god hammer variant more attractive. That is where the reduced transport capacity makes HG an even more valuable option now cause we can fit the unit and our HQ in a good shooting assault vehicle. Won't work with termies.

[Bjornas]

Has anyone had any thoughts on Khan and how to equip his command squad? I'm thinking Powerlances :)

[WarriorFish]

They'd be pretty effective on the charge as you'd imagine, especially on bikes but I think the biggest positive is how cool they'd look. Very fitting if you were running them as White Scars too :)

 

My Honour Guard started with the Sanguinary Guard bodies and legs (cleaned up), I was working on them until I heard good rumour of the plastic Vanguard so now I'm awaiting getting fancier bits from them. I modded some normal arms but they felt a bit too plain. Cleaning them up so they were less BA wasn't even that big a task either so I'd recommend it :)

[Captain Idaho]

I rarely have points for the full 3 Heavy Support slots in my lists anyway so I'm not too bothered by having to use one for Land Raiders.

[Azash]

I rarely have points for the full 3 Heavy Support slots in my lists anyway so I'm not too bothered by having to use one for Land Raiders.

Oh it's a problem for me especially in this edition and especially since the major competitive armies in tournaments tend to be Tau, Eldar, Necrons, and army x with blob guard allies. Then throw in the utility of the ADL and yeah I use up my heavy slots quick. All those things to me spell "Whirlwind". They were cheap and effective at 85 pts now that they are dropping 20 pts its shameful not to have two on the board.

I mean your getting wounds on 2's, ignores armor, ignores the ADL, pinning, and it can snipe out special characters or special war gear. Not to mention your forcing your opponent to spread out that blob to avoid the pie plate so they start fill up the entire ADL or they clump and your taking 6 to 10 models off the board per shot. Being able to do that twice per turn for 130 pts from 48" away is pure win!

Throw in a Storm Raven for good tank hunting and anti air and bam there are 3 heavy slots and you haven't even broken 500 pts!

Hence my dilemma, how do I fit that Land Raider in there?

Whirlwinds are even more win if you consider C:CSM likes to run blobs of cultists as cheap objective sitters behind ADL's. Really the only armies they don't spell pure doom against are Wraith and marine armies. However they are still decent against regular PA troops if you use the lots of shots lots of wounds principal. Since they wound on 3's and you can get 6 or 7 or even 10 hits in one round its pretty normal to get 5 to 8 wounds per round against MEQ. Out of that they are failing 2 or 3 per round and taking pinning checks.

I'm absolutely giddy that they went down in price if you couldn't already tell

[Captain Idaho]

Well with Honour Guard you certainly don't need a 2nd Whirlwind. They power through hordes like a knife through butter. (hence the impression "as hungry as a pig")

[WarriorFish]

Agreed, I could never quite understand why more people didn't take the WW. Even against Marines that's a pie plate of pinning Heavy Bolter rounds so I felt it was pretty good for the points. Now we're getting the DA's brilliant points drop I'm strongly considering getting as second.

 

I can only assume the WW kit just doesn't sell :lol:

[Captain Idaho]

It's a good piece of kit and the 40K rule of 2 comes into play.

 

What I recommend is shoving Honour Guard into a Storm Raven if you can't get a Land Raider. It's all good!

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Agreed, I could never quite understand why more people didn't take the WW. Even against Marines that's a pie plate of pinning Heavy Bolter rounds so I felt it was pretty good for the points. Now we're getting the DA's brilliant points drop I'm strongly considering getting as second.

I can only assume the WW kit just doesn't sell

Because the Thunderfire is a better Marine-killer. Less likely to not hit a thing, a longer range, wounds MEQ on a 2+ rather than 3+, and still have a no-cover shot for when dealing with those pesky infestations of xenos or Traitor Guard. Oh, and they went from ridiculously fragile in 5th to ridiculously tough in 6th thanks to the change in the Artillery rules.

[Azash]

I reason that HG make the best meq killers. Most meq units are marginal at over watch, either they just don't have enough shots or they don't get any special boosts (ie rending or better bs). Once you factor in 2+ saves marines might as well be spitting at honor guard. The units that are most lethal at over watch are all 4+ or worse. You don't want to have to rely solely upon HG to take them out cause they will get whittled down.

 

So a WW which gets an ap of 4 on an ordinance barrage shot. So unless they are in are terrain it ignores cover. So you can whittle down those squads before getting inside the kill radius.

 

As to the TFC it has higher str but lower ap so if you for example fire on tau fire warriors behind an adl the ignores cover shot is ap 6 so the fire warriors get 4+ armor. If you go the str 6 your still no better than a 2+ to wound but they are still getting armor saves on 4+.WW is wounding on 2+ no cover or armor save allowed. TFC has range and durability but not 35 pts worth IMHO.

[WarriorFish]

Agreed, I could never quite understand why more people didn't take the WW. Even against Marines that's a pie plate of pinning Heavy Bolter rounds so I felt it was pretty good for the points. Now we're getting the DA's brilliant points drop I'm strongly considering getting as second.

I can only assume the WW kit just doesn't sell

Because the Thunderfire is a better Marine-killer. Less likely to not hit a thing, a longer range, wounds MEQ on a 2+ rather than 3+, and still have a no-cover shot for when dealing with those pesky infestations of xenos or Traitor Guard. Oh, and they went from ridiculously fragile in 5th to ridiculously tough in 6th thanks to the change in the Artillery rules.

I know that the Thunderfire is good, but I'm not sure that more people are using it over the WW. Granted, that could purely be because the WW kit doesn't make you cry when assembling it... I'm hoping that the Finecast one is a lot less painful when I get it but I'm not optimistic.

[Captain Idaho]

I've seen more Thundefires than Whirlwinds since the former was introduced, at least in competitive environments.

 

I think we'll see more Whirlwinds on the table now, simply because they are so cheap. I'd still choose a Thundefire for my own army if I wanted artillery, but as a player who likes the blitz Space Marines approach I can't ever seem to have enough points spare!

[WarriorFish]

Thunderfires have since been confirmed to have Barrage from someone who got their codex early, so thought will need to be given as to how this changes their effectiveness. Could be quite interesting!

[Iron Father Ferrum]

...that makes me sad.  The great thing about them was that they were *not* Barrage.  Now I don't feel bad about maybe taking a Hunter, Vindie, and LRR for my Heavy slots.

[WarriorFish]

It does make me wonder about the ignoring cover round, but I've not heard anything about the individual rounds changing.

 

Barrage ignoring cover is nice, but I'm not sure about the rest of the implications. Maybe I'll hold off on getting that second TF until we know more.

[Tiger9gamer]

...that makes me sad.  The great thing about them was that they were *not* Barrage.  Now I don't feel bad about maybe taking a Hunter, Vindie, and LRR for my Heavy slots.

how is this a bad thing?

 

 

The only thing to me that will seem annoying is determining where each round hit.

[Molokai]

Firing without LoS is quite handy. Given that this was one of the whirlwinds better points I think the different ammo types of the tfc will make it better again.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Because you dont have control of where the subsequent blasts land. If the first blast scatters horribly, the others are still off target. The non-barrage current version gives you a second, third or fourth chance to correct that deviation and land blasts on target.