Why the Emperor's shield formation wouldn't work in the fluf

[CommissarHughes]

Here's a British guy to explain in detail how the platoon structure actually works: 

 

Summary if you don't want to click the link: A platoon has about 30 men in it because that's about as many men as a single lieutenant can command.

 

There are a few rifle sections and a heavy weapons team or two that will be directly commanded by corporals and the platoon sergeant because the troops have to spread out a bit. 30 men is about as many as you can yell at with one man. By that logic, while you can't do things the exact same way, a more reasonable requirement would be three infantry squads and maybe some free heavy weapons teams.

 

I have my doubts anyone will disagree that the current size, while meant to simulate a platoon at full strength, is just too much of a points sink. While I'd love to run that stupidly many guardsmen on the table, making them actually good makes them expensive. In my opinion making them good requires krak grenades to actually do something against vehicles or MC (perhaps that's my meta and yours may vary), a vox, and maybe a special weapon with a possible melta bomb thrown in for the few anti tank squads.

 

Lot's of points sunk into infantry, to the point where even at 2000 points there's none left for artillery. Something's wrong with this picture.

[greycat]

The problem with 40k as a table top game is that its just representative of the actual fluff. You'll never be able to field a full chapter of marines, you'll never make planet fall with a full guard division, etc.

 

When the guard deploy they can deploy thousands of troops. One book I remember reading they attack a chaos fort with 100 thousand men. I don't think there is a lot of cohesion in those situations probably just speakers giving the order to advance.

 

I have 184 infantry for my guard and I can't field them all until about 2500pts. I played a 2k game recently and had 124 infantry 4 vehicles.

 

I agree with you in that the units can become very unwieldy and forcing us to take full 50 man platoons is ridiculous just for the formation. Personally though I do use a 50 man platoon frequently in game.

[CyderPirate]

The problem with 40k as a table top game is that its just representative of the actual fluff. You'll never be able to field a full chapter of marines, you'll never make planet fall with a full guard division, etc.

 

 

That sounds like a challenge!

[CoffeeGrunt]

Guard seem to organise in a much-more WWII-era Soviet style as-opposed to a much more organised British or American style. While the Soviets did have organisation, it was sloppy and badly-maintained, but also unnecessary to their doctrine. The only thing they needed was to keep up continuing pressure with waves of increasingly veteran soldiers over time which were equipped and trained as cheaply and quickly as possible. Organisation probably doesn't go much further than telling the men what target they need to take out, disseminating that through the ranks, then letting them loose.

 

Could argue that the Orders system represents the few times a Commander manages to get the men to do something more than simply attack.

[duz_]

30 man blobs are about as much as I enjoy moving per turn and no more than two of them.

So I guess I agree with the British doctrine.

[Jolemai]

The problem with 40k as a table top game is that its just representative of the actual fluff. You'll never be able to field a full chapter of marines, you'll never make planet fall with a full guard division, etc.

That sounds like a challenge!

Indeed! I'm fielding ~ 12k of Blood Angels in February so I'm about two tenths of the way to a full Chapter

[WarriorFish]

As grey said the table top doesn't equal the fluff and that is always the case no matter the army. As to a roughly 30 men unit that's how I run my Platoons at their largest usually, plus for game purposes that's normally a good number of troops and all you need along with your other infantry elements. Unless you're going infantry horde of course :P

[greycat]

Well you can field a full chapter but it's pretty difficult to do so. There was a white dwarf around 2003 which showed a guy who had collected the entire blood angels chapter with vehicles.

 

Its possible to field huge armies but probably not advisable, its pretty brutal on the wallet. The way I see tabletop games are either a skirmish or a small section of a larger battle.

[Guardsman1275]

The Emperors Shield is not my cup of tea, I mostly play mech, with one 35 man platoon to put some bodies in between the enemy and my tanks. Personally there is not really a large advantage to taking the new guard formations, playing with the CAD is much more versitile IMO.

[Kilofix]

I still fell like maybe they made a mistake in saying 5 X 10.

 

I fell like they "intended" 3 X 10.

[duz_]

I think in their effort to push sales with these 55/170 man formations all they've done is increased the attractiveness of buying bulk discounted 2nd hand cadians.

 

It would make it slightly more palatable if we knew there was a new codex on the horizon that made these formations slightly more flexible and manageable.

[CoffeeGrunt]

I can't run the Cadian detachment because both the Core formations are far too much for my normal lists. Never going to run that many Guardsmen or that many tanks, my lists tend to have bits of everything in them.

[march10k]

Platoon commanders don't control 30 men.  They control a handful of squad leaders.  It's probable that 30 men will be in earshot, and that he can yell "retreat" or "charge" loudly enough for all of them to hear, but he's not doing that, he's directing squads and maybe crew-served weapons like chess pieces.

 

The emperor's shield platoon would work.  It might be a stretch of the commander's span of control (you shouldn't really personally direct more than maybe 7 subordinate leaders), but he's not personally pointing out targets to 80 guardsmen individually.

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

As for platoon organization, the standard US Army infantry rifle platoon is this: (At least from my understanding)

 

1 Lieutenant (Platoon Leader)

1 Sergeant First Class (Platoon SGT)

1 Radio Telephone Operator

you have 3-4 squads as follows:

1 Squad Leader (Staff Sergeant)

1 Medic

2 Fire teams

Fire teams are:

1 Team Leader (Sergeant)

1 Grenadier

1 Automatic Rifleman

1 Rifleman/marksman

 

Sometimes the team leader will take the grenade launcher, and have two riflemen. The Automatic rifleman carries the Belt fed weapon (M249 SAW). You'll also see the team leader equipped with an MBITR (walkie talkie) with the backpack radio being a platoon asset.You also have at least one antitank weapon (AT4) per fire team.

 

Representing this on the table is hard right now, since squads are base 10 for the guard. Now if we had 5 man squads it'd be easier, then you take 6-8 squads plus a PCS and then you can run all manner of infantry tactics. 

 

A weapons platoon subs out the infantry squads for weapons teams, 2 crew served weapons per 4 men, mortars and medium machine guns usually. 

 

A weapons platoon could be replicated by taking a platoon of HWS's and running mortars and heavy bolters. Alas that's not possible.

 

The Emperor's shield was poorly written IMO, and should cater to a variety of builds. I can't do the cadian battlegroup due to sheer lack of models. I can run a couple of the formations though.

[morroccomole]

It also comes down to how you like to play your guard, since different regiments have differing styles of organization. The Cadians are indoctrinated into military rigors from when they are old enough to walk, so it's not unfeasible that a 55 man platoon could work cohesively through the din of battle. A regiment from a feral world might work more like a mass of rabble, as some have said previously. It's sort of written into the fluff that anything is possible

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

55 men isn't unreasonable, it's a bit on the big side. I mean you have a 5 man "command" section and 5 subordinate squads each with a sergeant. The typical modern platoon is based on the law of averages. It's broken down to the fire team, because it's typically a 1-3 or 1-4 ratio in a reporting structure. 4 people is generally the maximum number of people you want trying to report to you, more than that becomes difficult administratively. Everyone is responsible for their own crap, but one guy is responsible for making sure everyone's crap is sorted. Imagine trying to make sure 10 dudes have their full combat kit (that's a ton of stuff), not to mention making sure that all 10 of those guys have all their ancillary crap taken care of too. It's an administrative nightmare. 

 

 

Now maybe the guard doesn't care about things like having your will updated, or making sure your pre-deployment checklist is completed, or that you draw the appropriate number of lasgun powerpacks from the ASP, or that you drew the appropriate number of rations from supply, or that you have the means to take care of your hygene. 

[Phubar]

I think that guardsmen make their checklist in a sort of collettive prey. :)

[cracklingvoice]

Let's not forget the Vox system. Controlling three to five squads by shouting is difficult, doing it over the radio is much easier. Though, that is predicated on having a radio operator that's worth their rations. You can say "all squads advance, five hundred meters", and the radio operator can relay that to the squad leaders, who carry it out. A 40-man platoon can spread out over a surprisingly large area (3-5 meters between men in line abreast, 20-50 meters between squads, comes out to about 300 to 500 meters of frontage).

Reacting to contact works in pretty much the same way. Say the left-most squad starts taking heavy bolter fire from their left-front, they can call up "taking fire, hostile heavy bolter, front-left, three hundred" and the rest of the platoon knows where it's coming from; and the platoon leader can make a call based on that.

Just my $.02.

[morroccomole]

Now maybe the guard doesn't care about things like having your will updated, or making sure your pre-deployment checklist is completed, or that you draw the appropriate number of lasgun powerpacks from the ASP, or that you drew the appropriate number of rations from supply, or that you have the means to take care of your hygene. 

 

Heh, my regimental version of SGLI is a tontine, but everyone dies, so usually the Administratum clerk on the troop ship in orbit is the one to collect.

[Warsmith Uveron]

Just becuse the operate on the battle field as one unit. Doesn't mean that on a Admin level they are not broken down into very small blocks...

[nismogrendel]

I've been reading the Gaunt's Ghosts series (no spoilers ahead) lately.  The last book I read had Gaunt separated from multiple squads controlling them all over the vox.  I'm not sure if that counts as platoon size... and Gaunt is quite a bit higher ranked than a Lieutenant.  

[WarriorFish]

This is 40k, where aside from the future magic technology and psychic space magic the Imperial Guard is basically a space Napoleonic World War (I and II) army... with different flavourings. Looking into it too seriously is a recipe for disaster :P

[Shamansky]

I just wanted to add my 3 cents.

Last summer we had a tournament and a guy with ~150 guardsmen won the 1st place.

Here's the pict of his deploy

[librisrouge]

Oh, I've wrecked some face fielding 150+ guardsmen before but I'll tell you that your arms will be surprisingly tired for just playing with plastic toy soldiers. It wins because the enemy rarely has the manpower to deal with that many men. However, I achieve a lot of that success because of conscripts that were made fearless by priests, which Cadian Battle Groups restrict.

 

I'd almost be more tempted to run it as fifteen separate units.

[Marshal Rohr]

Imagine being in a Krieg Infantry Platoon.