DC vs. Sanguinary Guard vs. Honor Guard vs. Vanguard Vets

[Gaweda]

I'm very interested to see how your DC does. I've bought Astaroth, but am starting to think about rolling without him.

[Frater Cornelius]

The main problem with Astorath is that he makes them too killy. Ideally, you want to be done in the opponent's turn to avoid fire. With Astorath you will be done in yours.

[ThatOneMarshal]

Would you guys say lemartes would be good with the death company. He has such a lovely model...

Also the problem I have with adtorath is that he is often the only character in the squad so he can easily be challenged out by a better character.

[David Ravel]

Great analysis OP. Some food for thoughts. I still like DC because you can spam Thunder Hammer in small unit. 

 

@Immersturm : You said that Dante is great for tanking with FNP and Eternal Warrior. Are you implying that EW helps him against Str 10 for FNP ? Because it does not. 

 

Instant death in the allocating wound :

 

«Any Wound allocated to a model has the Instant Death special rule (see below) if the Strength value of that attack is at least double the Toughness value (after modifiers) of that model»

 

Therefore Str 10 = Instant Death on Dante

 

Feel No Pain USR :

 

«Feel No Pain saves may not be taken against Destroyer attacks or against unsaved Wounds that have the Instant Death special rule»

 

Eternal Warrior USR :

 

«If a model with this special rule suffers an unsaved Wound from an attack that inflicts Instant Death, it only reduces its Wounds by 1, instead of automatically reducing its Wounds to 0»

 

Therefore Instant Death remove FNP, and EW does not protect against this in its own rule text. 

 

Btw I'm saying this for general information not against you in particular, in case people were protecting their FNP with EW. It doesn't work. 

[Zefert]

I a running four squads of 5. 1 of each type, and it's been working awesome for me. Played two games, and have wrecked face each time.

 

No need to compete, when they all work for slightly different jobs; it also makes them hard to focus. 

[ThatOneMarshal]

Is there any reason to run assualt marines with jump packs in a squad of 10? I've got 40 of them that I have been thinking of using.

[Zefert]

Is there any reason to run assualt marines with jump packs in a squad of 10? I've got 40 of them that I have been thinking of using.

Combat squad them, harder to focus, and can land on my objectives at once.

[Frater Cornelius]

Fancy that. Did they change the wording? I remember it once saying that the model is immune to the effects of instant death. But that wording most certainly does not allow FnP, you are right.

[the jeske]

Is there any reason to run assualt marines with jump packs in a squad of 10? I've got 40 of them that I have been thinking of using.

That depends on the list. But in general 1x10 and 1x5 are enough unless someone plans to use ally or/and bikers. They are mostly extra wounds for special weapons and support units for tacs. They also help with target saturation , considering almost every BA army is going to run a DC and Sang guard.

 

 

As far as units go. DC work awesome with the new libby powers.Sang guard is resilient enough,+2sv and the fact that there are other bullet catchers+DC[and sang guard finaly not being 5 man only] makes them survive long enough to work.

Also I would like to point out that , while maybe not something for the purist players, both DC and SG get buffed a lot by addition of WS or IH libby/chapters masters. And ES smashhammer fixs a lot of the problems with low ap weapons DC/SG may have. To a degree this can also, be done with a BA HQ, but it burns an important BA HQ slot , that may not always be there.

[David Ravel]

Fancy that. Did they change the wording? I remember it once saying that the model is immune to the effects of instant death. But that wording most certainly does not allow FnP, you are right.

Maybe between 6th and 7th, because I only came recently to that when I used FNP on a EW character and my friend told me to check the book as it did not worked like that. So maybe we are used to a 6th or 5th rule. 

[Cronhour]

Vanguard are dead to me

my first thought but a vv unit with a hq packs and axes and storm shields does great work for a club mates raven guard army, the storm shields help a lot not to mention our buff of FnP wS int and str, over the C:sm version seems to just add value.

[Jolemai]

Vanguard are dead to me

Why? They are still a viable choice, they just do a different job than before.

[Frater Cornelius]

 

Vanguard are dead to me

Why? They are still a viable choice, they just do a different job than before.

 

 

And worse job than DC or SG.

[Jolemai]

If you try and use them that way, perhaps. Why limit yourself so a one dimensional viewpoint though?

[Frater Cornelius]

If you try and use them that way, perhaps. Why limit yourself so a one dimensional viewpoint though?

 

What do you have in mind?

[Jolemai]

The two unique ways I for see using them are as a tarpit unit (think Storm Shields and Melta Bombs) or as a Gunslinger unit (mass plasma/grav and Bolt Pistol shots). Both are very different from anything else we can field.

[Frater Cornelius]

But the costs would be insane, especially gunslinger variant. I can see some merit in the SS variant though, although I am not a big fan of it myself.

[ThatOneMarshal]

You can always use vanguard as vehicles killers 5 melta bombs will destroy most vehicles and it's low key

[Deschenus Maximus]

Unfortunately doing the tarpit gig is done better and cheaper by Command Squads, who can also double up as tank hunters.

 

Command squad - jump packs, 3 meltas, 3 storm shields, 3 meltabombs

[Frater Cornelius]

Unfortunately doing the tarpit gig is done better and cheaper by Command Squads, who can also double up as tank hunters.

 

Command squad - jump packs, 3 meltas, 3 storm shields, 3 meltabombs

 

Too expensive. Get a tanky character up front to satisfy your HQ choice and skip the SS. Good enough for most cases. Won't do much in melee against Knights, but you should not be there in the first place.

[Deschenus Maximus]

 

Unfortunately doing the tarpit gig is done better and cheaper by Command Squads, who can also double up as tank hunters.

 

Command squad - jump packs, 3 meltas, 3 storm shields, 3 meltabombs

 

Too expensive. Get a tanky character up front to satisfy your HQ choice and skip the SS. Good enough for most cases. Won't do much in melee against Knights, but you should not be there in the first place.

 

 

The whole point of the squad is to tie up things you don't want messing with your DC. A tanky character is going to be in for a rough time against knights, wraithknights and the like.

[Frater Cornelius]

If you are engaging Imperial Knights in melee with any army, you are doing it wrong. S-D remove from play on a 6 without any saves allowed and his Stomp can also remove a big chunk from the game without any saves and ignore Invisibility.

No, Knights are to be taken with Meltas from at least two different facings to avoid his shield.

 

I would buy the WK argument though, even if I still consider it too expensive. I prefer DC + Fists in a fight of attrition against a Knight, but generally ignore him unless he wants melee.

[Duke Danse Macabre]

If you are engaging Imperial Knights in melee with any army, you are doing it wrong. S-D remove from play on a 6 without any saves allowed and his Stomp can also remove a big chunk from the game without any saves and ignore Invisibility.

No, Knights are to be taken with Meltas from at least two different facings to avoid his shield.

 

I would buy the WK argument though, even if I still consider it too expensive. I prefer DC + Fists in a fight of attrition against a Knight, but generally ignore him unless he wants melee.

 

Not too sure on this, can you LOS in combat with Knights?

Never came up when i have been running them.

 

Truth be old though, there is a few things that can deal with them in combat, hell this is why I like to run units with 2 to 4 power fists in DC or Sanguinary Guard.

Normally infernus as well, got to make sure they are dead, just the explosions are the pain so got to make sure you have no more use for them.

Wraith knights are kind in comparision, harder to kill and their toughness can be a pain as melta is only 50/50 plus it has a Invun and is cheaper but it does not explode and kill everything. :P

[John_f]

Do you guys prefer deploying or DS?

 

I'm always so hesitate to DS because I never know where to put stuff...

[Frater Cornelius]

Depends on opponents. If he hangs back or has a passive list, I usually reserve to bring meltas where they need to be. When I face an opponent who will be in my face T1, I usually deploy, because he closes the gap for me.

Having said that, bigger melee blobs never deep strike, because they want to assault T2.