some breacher siege squad questions

[Dusktiger]

i'm having troubles deciding how to outfit my breacher siege squads.  i'm making an imperial fist legion, but cant think of what optional wargear would be good to give the squads. 

 

i need to field a minimum of 2 10 man squads of them so when i decide to play with their rite of war, i fulfill the cumpulsory 2 breacher squads as my minimum 2 troop choices.

 

what wargear options do you find work well with the squad?

 

also, is it worth playing the orbital assault RoW and giving them drop pods? ignore.

[corai]

Orbital assault won't give them access to drop pods sadly as they cannot take a rhino normally. They can however be mounted in a dreadclaw without the RoW as they are fast attack choices for every legion now

[Dusktiger]

hmmm *nodding*, i missed that last night.  so they only have default access to land raider variants as dedicated transports.

[Dono1979]

Also if you are using the Stone Gauntlet Rites of War, you CANNOT Deep Strike anything, not matter what.

 

The Stone Gauntlet RoW is a very expensive army formation to pull off and it quite difficult to full advantage of without a LOT of Breachers. Sadly though, Breachers are not very effective units compared to most, but they are VERY resilient, especially with the Stone Gauntlet and an Apothecary thrown in.

 

I recently ran a Stone Gauntlet list as a 30K tournament in Brisbane and although I lost, I was playing quite relaxed and there is a fair bit of optimising you could do if you really wanted to make it competitive. The big thing to remember is that you need to field as many Boarding Shields and Storm Shields as possible to take advatange of the T5 and Hammer of Wrath rules, on terminators they are even more potent.

 

The good thing with the Breachers is their versatility in being able to field 1 special weapon for every five marines in the sqaud, giving them a slight edge over the Tactical sqauds for multiple roles. But remember they are still very expensive and a full 20 man tact squad will whittle them down because the Breachers cant hit back as hard. They are objective sitters, Flank denial, choke point uints, they are the anvil, not the hammer. Do not lead an assault with them, support the assault or move them in after the assault to secure the area and allow the assault unit to move forward.

 

With that in mind you can then decide on your special weapon selections. For me in the tournament it was Volkite for the laughs, just to see how it performed and because I have never used it before. Against Marines, regular Volkites are not all that great and two in the squad is hardly noticeable. Other options are;

- Grav, fantastic defensive weapon against both infantry (creating dangerous terrain) and vehicles (haywire blast!) but they are expensive.

- Melta, while a lot of people use Armoured Ceramite, this has created an attitude of not taking Melta guns, and so the Armoured Ceramite is starting to slip away, but it is still an assault weapon which will insta kill most marines so worth considering.

- Power Weapon, a good option if you think the unit might be used in a CC role more often than not, coupled with an Apothecary, Artificer Armour and the Toughness 5, if makes the unit a scary option to assault (you could get 4 Power Weapons, 2 Artificer Armour, all at T5 [except the Apoth]), but remember they still are not an assaulting power house and would struggle to effectively tackle a 20 man squad. Against a ten man squad they will do serious hurt though.

 

So while they are branded as one of the most inefficient units in the game, I love them and will field them in nearly every list. In Zone Mortalis and Strike Force these guys REALLY shine, in big battles where Typhons are roaming around they can be useless.

 

Suprisingly Alexis Polux matches well with them in the Stone Gauntlet because of his Storm Shield and rules, sadly one of his major special rules is nullified (the Deep Strike one), but he is still probably the best priced 'praetor' equipped to suit the army style.

 

The list I took looked like this:

 

HQ:
Alexis Polux - Rites of War: Stone Gauntlet

Elite:
9 x Terminators w/ 1 x Assault Cannon, 8 x Storm Shields, 4 x Chainfists, (1 x Lightning Claw) (serg)
2 x Apothecaries w/ Augury Scanners (deployed into the Breachers)
1 x Graviton Rapier
1 x Graviton Rapier

Troops:
10 x Breachers (compulsary) w/ 2 x Volkite Chargers, (Artificer Armour, Power Weapon, Melta Bombs) (serg)
10 x Breachers (compulsary) w/ 2 x Volkite Chargers, (Artificer Armour, Power Weapon, Melta Bombs) (serg)
10 x Tactical w/ Rhino,(Artificer Armour, Melta Bomb) (Serg)
10 x Tactical w/ Rhino,(Artificer Armour, Melta Bomb) (Serg)

Heavy Support:
1 x Caestus Assault Ram (used to transport Alexis and the Termies)
5 x Heavy Support Squad w/ Plasma Cannons, (Augury Scanner) (serg)
5 x Heavy Support Squad w/ Heavy Bolters, (Augury Scanner) (Serg)

Fortifications:
Honoured Imperium w/ 2 x Tank Traps

At 2.5K without a Lord of War is suffered a little, plus as I said, it was built as a fun list with the Honoured Imperium giving a themey as well as the fearless buff. I tried to take things which would benefit from the IF and Stone Gauntlet rules, Heavy Support squads, Bolters, Breachers and Storm Shields. The Terminators were VERY effective, and extremely hard to shift.

[Dusktiger]

that's definitely helpful info.  the people that also play 30k here never go over 10 models per squad cause they have had terrible terrible luck with having squads break and run off the table edge from too many casualties.  the one im likely to play most often is playing iron hands, and he has 2 breacher squads armed with graviton guns.

 

what would be a good all-rounder weapon to give my squads?  plasma? melta?  i'll possibly be magnetizing the weapons just in case i change my mind, but i cant decide on what to start trying out on them.

 

i also have 2 squads of terminators, which i'll be adding to the force; one's a tartaros squad of 5, which ill be giving vigil storm shields, probably doing the standard 3 hammer/shield, 2 dual claw loadout.  the other squad is cataphractii, with a plasma blaster.

 

i havent decided yet on my HQ choice; i have been hearing Alexis is good though.  originally i was thinking of Sigismund and some sword brethren, but that piles up fast with points.

[Noserenda]

I use my Breachers a lot with Grav guns, they are essential in the Land Raider heavy meta i seem to be in :/ :P I wouldnt touch breachers at smaller than 15 man though, their surcharge is savage at 10man but the extra guys are all tactical cost, the bigger the unit, the less horrible it is. That said ive had very few morale mishaps on that scale! (Only the one in fact and that was pesky assault marines!).

[Dono1979]

Yeah there are multiple ways of avoiding the leadership mishap, banners, Apothecary to add a second Ld9, Malcador with Command Tank, but honestly it sometimes just happens.

 

I love Grav Guns, but imo, you either spam them or dont take them. They are something that works works in large amounts, as they are assault the sqauds are definitely relegated to a defensive position, which works well for the Breachers, perhaps pairing them up with Dreadnoughts with dual CCW and built in Grav guns for mobile grav or Rapiers (though they are expensive). If you want your breachers to be mobile a lot, than give them plasma and just make sure the serg has a melta bomb.

 

I also agree with the squad sizes, 30K is very well designed in that you pay a very hefty premium for minimum sized squads, try to bulk the squads out and make them more cost effective.

 

I strongly advise against mixing Sigismund with the Stone Gauntlet or really even Breachers. His rules and tactics dont pair well with either. The Templars are exceptionally expensive (though good unit) with, coupled with the Breachers, makes two very expensive troop choices, leaving next to nothing to support them. Although tempting I honestly dont think it could be made to work in anything less than 3,000 and even then it would struggle.

 

As for terminators, if you are running the Stone Gauntlet, give them all Storm Shields except for the special ranged firepower ones, T5 terminators with a 3++ are freaking crazy. Also I dont hold much value in Thunderhammers, they are only effective against multi wound models with a Toughness over 5 or Eternal warrior, far too situational specific. Give the Terminators a mixutre of Chainfists and Lightning claws (or just power swords if you need to shave points). The Chainfists will carve up any vehicles with their 2D6 penetration bonus plus can be used against other 2+ models and then the Lightning claws with assure that you eliminate any 3+ models at Initiative.

 

Throwing Polux into that squad then allows you to use him as a Challange beast, with his mastercrafted power fist, he can tackle both 2+ and 3+ models without any fear. For opponents who only have AP3 weapons you can run the risk and choose to swing your Powerfist as standard to get his full Attack profile and pulverise the poor sod and overflow into the squad, or against opponents who have AP2 weapons, use his special ability and swing at I (2 attacks on the charge!!) and get in first.

[Dusktiger]

great tips here, by far the most informative stuff i've gotten in regards to unit design ideas.  especially for Fists, since i'm having a hard time finding other fist players for 30k to discuss tactics with.

 

Dono, what would you recommend as a general guideline for building up my tartaros suits?  they'll be done slowly in sets of 5 at a time, since its not that easy to find packs of the shields and lightning claws for that suit type.  right now i got lucky and bought a pack of 5 claw sets and 5 shield/hammer sets to modify my pack of 5 dudes i bought when the suits were first released.  But one of these shields i'm going to set aside to convert an Alexis; you guys convinced me on making one of him sooner rather than later; the character speaks to me, since Rynn's World is one of the few 40k books i've read.  and i liked it.

 

you guys have also sold me on the idea of 15 man breacher squads.  i'll be working towards 2 squads of these for my troops.  playtesting against a guard army that went russ-heavy with executioners and punishers, i can see the need for the extra bodies per squad.

 

wargear-wise, i think i've settled with the idea of plasma weaponry, with a Vexilla and apothecary in there as well.

 

my main 30k opponent, for literally 90% of games, plays Iron Hands with a pair of 10-man breacher squads rocking graviton guns.  he absolutely refuses to play more than 10 models in any squad he uses cause of the -Ld modifier when he loses combat.  he keeps charging with them cause of the better invul save they get in melee.

 

another player i might play against, if he ever settles on one legion, will likely be playing....lets see, it was sons of horus, then night lords...now word bearers cause of the gal vorbak and the WB mk4 kits.  so i'm trying not to list-tailor against the iron hands player if i can help it.  but its hard not to when your facing an army that makes all your guns -1 str against the infantry models.

[Dono1979]

Magnets..... they are your best friend in the whole world!

 

I have magentised the majoirty of my models, including all of my terminators. That way you just need to build additional arms as your tactics and interests change rather than doing an entirely new model.

 

For starters though, if you are locked into a Stone Gauntlet style list, you need to focus on Shields. That is the core of the list and its primary strength. With Terminators the Storm Shields are immensely good in 30K, not many units/models can get a 3++, let alone one which boosts them to Toughness 5. I find it really difficult to drift away from the following five man setup:

 

Terminator 1: Assault Cannon & Chainfist

Terminator 2: Storm Shield & Chainfist

Terminator 3: Storm Shield & Lightning Claw

Terminator 4: Storm Shield & Lightning Claw

Terminator Serg: Storm Shield & Power Sword

 

Though I normally try to boost them up in numbers so that they are a little further away from that 5 man limit. Plus you pay such a premium for minimum sized squads in 30K.

In regards to Thunder Hammers, unfortunately I dont like them at all. I see very little point in them as they appear to be such a niche weapon that they simply dont get used very often whereas the Chainfists and Lightning Claws do all of the time. Keep in mind though, that that is my opinion and experience, others may swear by them. Plus there is the rule of cool, if you think they look awesome go for it.

[Dusktiger]

Hmm, I'll have to keep that in mind; I'm thinking of the first 5 will be all with shields, then 4 claws and a chain fist. I plan to make that squad bigger, so I'll add in some guys with assault cannons into them.

 

My cataphractii squad will be all basic, but one will upgrade to have a plasma blaster, and another will swap his sword for a chainfist.