Sword Brethren - Vigilus Special Detachment - And You

[Iago]

I’m thinking a chaplain will be a god baby sitter for the combat sword brethren as they don’t have any shooting.

[Acebaur]

I’m thinking a chaplain will be a god baby sitter for the combat sword brethren as they don’t have any shooting.

Yeah he would definitely be useful but Helbrecht makes them just silly.

[Medjugorje]

 

I’m thinking a chaplain will be a god baby sitter for the combat sword brethren as they don’t have any shooting.

Yeah he would definitely be useful but Helbrecht makes them just silly.

 

Grimaldus could be a thing.

[SydonianDragoon404]

I played a 1600 point game today against Thousand Sons. This was my list:

 

Double Battalion

 

Helbrecht

Marshal Law (Teeth of Terra, Jetpack, Plasma Pistol) 

Lieutenant

Lieutenant 

 

3x 5 Scouts

5 Crusaders Plasma, Combi Plas, MIssile

5 Crusaders Flamer, Combi Flamer, Heavy Bolter

5 Intercessors

 

5 Company Veterans (Sword Brethren) Power Fists, Storm Shields

 

2 Rhinos

Repulsor (Dakka loadout)

 

Hellblasters 

Rapier Quad Mortar

 

The Thousand sons are really tough customers, they can bring a lot more than they used to be able to now. Rubric Marines are absolutely not to be underestimated as they've had some point decreases as well. Without getting into too much into what my opponent brought here are some thoughts. I obviously used the Sword Brethren detachment and used Rhinos to transport my crusader squads, Helbrecht, and the Sword Brethen from place to place. 

 

Using the Sword Brethren with Helbrecht and our new stratagem Suffer Not the Unclean to Live was absolutely key to my victory. I had scouts sitting on an objective in my deployment zone continually gaining points for me, and turn 2 some scarab occult terminators ported in by them and cleared them off with ease. I couldn't allow my opponent to have that objective, to do that would have lost me the game so I was forced to dedicate my sword brethren and Helbrecht to them. 

 

I overkilled them slightly. I wanted to be absolutely certain that I cleared them in one turn, and the additional attacks and rerolling wounds did exactly that. 

 

They then hopped back into their Rhino, and rode toward the middle of the board to meet a Daemon prince and a large squad of rubric marines. 

 

Helbrecht finished off the wounded Daemon Prince, and the sword brethren actually slaughtered all of the Rubrics except for their mini sorcerer sarge model. Return damage was none due to storm shields. 

 

Guys this might be controversial so I'm going to be conservative with my statement here by clarifying that this isn't something to be used for top table tournament domination. It's not going to win you a GT. However, this unit + stratagem synergy has finally given us what I feel like we've always wanted, a worthwhile melee unit. 

 

It won't slaughter an ork horde or bring down an Imperial Knight in one turn, but I can tell you right now that vanguard vets, and assault terminators wouldn't have done what these guys did. Especially not against Thousand Sons legion units like Scarab Occults and Rubrics. The power fist build is at its exact target of opportunity against elite infantry or tough vehicles/monsters with a low invulnerable save. The additional attack per man with rerolling all failed wounds without needing a lieutenant nearby is a gift from the emperor in improve the reliability of getting damage to stick. 

 

Again these guys aren't Death Company, its a very different unit from those guys, different even from Sanguinary Guard as well, they work in a different way. And when using the comparison to Sanguinary Guard in terms of making sure you have Helbrecht nearby and proper transport, I would actually favor the Sword Brethren. Who gives a crap about a 2+ save and 2 wounds anymore, doesn't do for terminators and it doesn't do much for Sanguinary Guard lots of times either, I'll take the 3+ invulnerable save from a 2 point storm shield with both of the blood angel units I mentioned can't take. 

 

To put things even more controversially, I'd say we've arrived. The sword brethren may not blenders of apocalyptic annihilation, but they're certainly something we can work with when equipped correctly and utilized in a proper manner with character and stratagem support. Something I can't really say for any of the other melee centric units we have available to us in the space marine codex. 

[Honda]

First off, thank you brother for that assessment of the new capability. It would seem that this thread should probably continue to be  the  collecting point for observations from battle reports.

 

It won't slaughter an ork horde or bring down an Imperial Knight in one turn, but I can tell you right now that vanguard vets, and assault terminators wouldn't have done what these guys did.

 

 

So you know that I am a big proponent of assault terminators, especially TH/SS equipped. What I am curious about is what makes you say the above. So, I'm not challenging your assertion, only seeking to understand why you feel this way.

 

To help the reply, is it because:

 

a. Because ATerms don't get the buffs and therefore don't deliver as much damage?

b. The new formation is cheaper than termies, but gives the equivalent point output?

c. Can be transported cheaper and therefore is a better QRF, alternately, doesn't depend on deep strike?

d. Something else or all of the above?

 

Really curious about this. I will end up building this force, but also want to understand what drives the beatstick.

 

Cheers,

[Mordian Glory]

Posted this in the other thread, but as this thread is becoming the repository I will post it here too.

 

So I tested out "Marshal Law" tonight. Ran him bare bones with bolt pistol and Teeth of Terra. I wanted to see how the cheapest loadout would work, use that as a baseline and then see if he needed a few points spent on him to up his killing power.

 

Well all I can say is the guy is an absolute blender! I ran him in my Black Tide and used a couple of crusader squads as a screen/delivery system. I faced against our rivals the Blood Angels. He cut down 5 Death Company, 5 Assualt Marines and about 10 tacticals. He must have killed more than 300pts. I only got to use the Sword Brother Stratagem 2 times out of 4 combats. So even without the extra attack and reroll wound Marshal Law can do work. I found the biggest thing was I was getting 1-2 sixes each time I swung, which meant I was getting 8-9 hits each time I attacked.

 

I am going to find a way to get him along side Grimaldus in my list and turn him into a woodchipper!

[SydonianDragoon404]

First off, thank you brother for that assessment of the new capability. It would seem that this thread should probably continue to be  the  collecting point for observations from battle reports.

 

It won't slaughter an ork horde or bring down an Imperial Knight in one turn, but I can tell you right now that vanguard vets, and assault terminators wouldn't have done what these guys did.

 

 

So you know that I am a big proponent of assault terminators, especially TH/SS equipped. What I am curious about is what makes you say the above. So, I'm not challenging your assertion, only seeking to understand why you feel this way.

 

To help the reply, is it because:

 

a. Because ATerms don't get the buffs and therefore don't deliver as much damage?

b. The new formation is cheaper than termies, but gives the equivalent point output?

c. Can be transported cheaper and therefore is a better QRF, alternately, doesn't depend on deep strike?

d. Something else or all of the above?

 

Really curious about this. I will end up building this force, but also want to understand what drives the beatstick.

 

Cheers,

 

To answer the question as to why Sword Brethren are better than THSS Terminators IMO is for a few reasons:

 

1) Price. The price you pay for Sword Brethren with a power fist and Storm shield is significantly lower. You are also not having to pay the price for the extra wounds/armor save that often times in my experience does not end up helping you.

 

2) Killing power. The extra attack and re-rolling to wound helps the damage "stick". What I mean by stick is that you are less dependent on your initial die rolls to deal actual damage that goes through your opponents saves to remove models or wounds. 

 

5 THSS Terminators: 

 

11 Attacks, average of 6 hits on a 4+, 8 hits with a reroll. 

Wounding on a 3+ (Because your targets are not often toughness 4 and below, otherwise you have made a mistake with your targeting priority) means you will get 5 wounds through. No rerolling to wound because no stratagem. Then take into account your opponents saves.

 

5 Sword Brethren with Suffer not: 

 

16 Attacks, average of 8 hits, 12 with a reroll. 

Wound on a 3+ (assuming tough target) means 9 wounds, rerolling to wound means an average of 11 wounds. 

 

That's more than double, for much cheaper and much easier to transport. Yes you can't teleport but I would rather put these guys plus helbrecht, plus a lieutenant, plus another squad with some supporting firepower and cram that down my opponents throat. Could take a drop pod as well. 

 

And you could outfit yours with thunder hammers instead of powerfists, but I like it as the cheaper option for a comparable damage output. I won't be sending these guys in against The Swarmlord, or a Grandmaster DreadKnight with a 3+ invuln save, but they'll tear apart most other non-high invuln save tough stuff or elite units. 

 

I love my TH SS terminators Honda don't get me wrong, they're beautiful models especially with the forgeworld BT shields and pauldrons, but they have just never accomplished anything in the games that I've tried them. The Sword Brethren actually wrecked face. 

[Medjugorje]

I am not sure about this...  Each wound would help a lot. Company Veterans will die by overwatch of bolters,.... Terminators not.

[Schlitzaf]

Now here the thing, with the comparison let’s look at this way;

Thunderators - 41 Points

HammerBros - 32 Points

FistBros - 25 Points

 

Thunderators to HammerBrothers are 9 points more for an additional wound and 2+ Save. An extra wound is worth somewhere between 3-5 points, deep striking 2-3 points, and the 2+ is generally considered worth 1-3 points. Meaning that in comparison to HammerBros, Hammerators are better or atleast point equivalent. We get usage of our new Strategems (Suffer Not notably). And 5+ FNP is good vs small arms. But FistyBros?

 

Here where the comparison becomes interesting. A FistyBro is 25 points. That is 16 points less then an Hammerinator. Now a lot of the same points apply to the thing above. Leaving us 7 points you are paying for static 3 over 1d3 (average 2) damage. That is not worth the extra few 7 points. Or put another way. If I have 1 Hammerator, or I could 1 FistyBro and 1 Storm(Shield or Bolter)Bro. Same wounds, same invulnerable, less net save. More bodies.

 

Second given our army rules this editions lends themselves to Tiding between Helm, Crusader Squads and Cenos. One thing we lacked which was espacially relavent for Helbrect, was lacking of good buff targets characters aside.

 

Helbrect himself suffered from this the most. As he was an excellent character but didn’t belong in a Templar list that focused on using our advantages. Sword Brothern change that. And this is the one time having our tiny squad squad maximum (and by extension MINIMUM) is important. You couldn’t fit a Shooty Stern and Melee Vang into a Pod or Rhino. You can however fit a Shooty Vet and Melee Vet plus a couple characters. This cannot be emphasis enough.

 

The three basic (non-scout) troop setups for us are as follows

Tide Crusaders- 180-200 Points (2-3 Squads)

Faux Devi - 100-120 Points (3-6 Squads)

MSU Intercessors - 85-100 Points (0-6)

 

Sterngaurd minimum is 80 Points

Vangaurd we are talking likely around 100-120.

 

These two squads compete with Intercessors or Faux Devi (Stern) but lacking the wounds or long range damage ability. Or a Tide/Dbl Intercessor, but lacking the wounds & attrition, and as center units, lack objSec.

 

Company Veterans looking at our 3 loadouts

Fisty/Shield 70-130

Sword/Shield 60-100

Stormie (Bolter/Shield) 50-90

 

Note the lower end of the spectrum (3 man) are well below the equivalent Stern/Vang. While lacking the squad size your method of deployment being something like Pods. Makes that less of an active detriment. Secondly, where you end up taking larger squads of Vang/Stern you end up having direct competition with our troop choices. And most cases our troop choices even with the reductions for Vets. Win out.

 

Company Veterans do not ever reach beyond 130. Meaning they don’t ever really compete with tide or our other troop choices. Going back to HammerInators. A HammerSquad runs you around 200 points. That is directly competitive with a tide squad. While in contrast you can get two 4 Man FistyBro Squads. While that squad also ‘competes’ is not 1 five man hammerator squad, likely to fail a 50% charge roll. It’s now 2 4 Man Bros. Additionally you can have one of the squads be a Shooty, Stormie Setup. To save points and allow the squad to emulate what a tide would do here.

 

So while I kept trying to put my finger on it why it’s good we have ourselves ‘limited’ to Company (to be clear I’d rather it also apply to Terms, and have Company be 2-10 (and not have Sargeants but that is my ocd), Sydonian think explained exactly why this is an amazing change for us.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I got to spend today modelling and painting for a change. (I'm already on my Christmas break.)

 

In addition to getting Helbrecht way further along. (Anyone else think Helbrecht is a massive PITA to paint?) I finished the spare magnetised backpacks for my Vanguard Vets so they can now be played as Company Vets. 4 with TH/SS, one with Sword and Grav Pistol. (That build makes more sense as VV with Relic Blades)

 

 

I then raided my unpainted projects and bits to build these guys:

 

 

5CVs with Power Swords and SS. (I ran out of swords hence the blokes who aren't strictly WYSIWIG.)

 

I also converted a Chainsword onto the old Draco model to count as ToT Marshal.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job.

[Marshal Arthur]

I’ve gone through and magnetized my vanguard so now they can be company vets. I even added some new models to put me at 15 vets, not counting the sword brethren leading my crusader squads. I know most people are going a little more conservative on thunder hammers but since my two regular opponents run imperial knights and burgle (focused on Mortarion and other big models) I’ve found myself relying heavily on that flat 3 damage. That said it felt really nice to make some sword and board vets and actually have a use for them.

[TheOneTrueZon]

I have a whole box of sternguard that I was contemplating selling off, luckily they are all magnet-ready, and a box of bits to accommodate.

 

Got an 3,000 pt 3v3 apocalypse game on Saturday and I hope to do a massive black tide.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

Now. I'm more or less brand new to Warhammer in its entirety, and I only have a beautifully painted E-bay army and a self-made starter box to my name, but why is nobody suggesting storm bolters and power axes on vets? The survivability does go down, but you don't want to put these guys out in the open anyway, and the potential damage increases drastically.

 

 

For example, I'm currently running 5 sets of Company Vets with storm bolters. The 3 SGT have power fists, while the remaining 12 have power axes. that works out to 60 bolter shots, and 33 melee attacks with a minimum strength of 5. If I put Helbrecht with them, that's a re roll to both the shooting and the melee, as well as +1 strength, meaning that they wound Plague Marines on a 3, two for the fists. If I really need the extra oomph, I can also nominate one unit with Suffer Not, and explode something even more violently. Also, there's nothing saying you have to shoot and charge the same unit, meaning your tactical choices go up when engaging.

 

 

On a similar note, I've been considering another set of 3x Vets, SGTs running plasma pistols and chainsword, while the rest run double chainswords. That comes out to 60 chainsword attacks + light plasma sniping from the SGTs. This is an extremely cheap way to run them, and if we put Helbrecht with this group they gain the melee potential of Khorne berserkers.

 

 

I can recognize that both blobs might be a little goofy, and they don't lend themselves to wars of attrition, but with our new strats we can give ourselves good survivability or bump damage where it's needed, and neither of these methods are all that expensive compared to Terminators.

 

 

The only thing I've been struggling with is delivery. The LRC is a beautiful machine, but it draws fire from everything on the board. If I'm lucky, I might be able to hide it out of LOS turn one, and get the hit squad most of the way there before it comes under fire. If not, I can at least keep them safe from turn one shooting, though it's an expensive sacrifice to make. The rarest of situations sees me trundling around the board dropping these guys off while also getting to fire all guns on the crusader, which helps to drive home why the damn thing is well over 200 points.

 

 

Drop pods are a much cheaper option, and if the storm bolters are used, it isn't a complete wash if they fail their charge. Even without Helbrecht, suddenly dropping 44 bolter shots on a group of your choosing can be fun, and if you make the charge afterward you can then leverage another 11 s5+ power weapon attacks before considering using any strats.

 

 

Also, I noticed someone above was using a Martial with the Teeth of Terra. I personally run a shield hammer Martial, and give the Teeth to a Company Champion. That spreads out the death a bit more and gives my opponent more units to worry about. If you're also running an EC, then you effectively have two seek and destroy characters worth 75 or less that are more than willing to trade themselves for a big guy on the other team, as well as a big sturdy champion to hold the line with your troupes. I usually don't run a hammer Martial and Helbrecht though. One or the other.

 

 

If any of these choices are tactical mistakes I'd like to know why. I'm still learning. It's likely that I'm missing something obvious.

[AlmightyWalrus]

Even with Helbrecht boosting dual chainsword Sword Brethren we're behind Khorne Berzerkers in power. It's one of my pet peeves this edition. Your Helbrecht-boosted Sword Brethren do slightly less than double the damage than 5 Chainaxe/Chainsword Khorne Berzerkers against MEQ (and that's not factoring in the potential World Eaters Legion trait) while costing more than double, even before adding Helbrecht's cost to the equation. Khorne Berzerkers are still far more powerful than our melee units when spamming low-to-mid-strength attacks. What we can do that they cannot is Fist or Hammer Brethren demolishing high-T targets.

 

Don't get me wrong, Sword Brethren are a much-needed improvement over what we had before, but they're nowhere near Khorne Berzerkers.

 

People are running swords rather than axes because we're more or less all running Helbrecht to boost them to S5 already. S6 is much more niche than S5 since S5 means you wound T4 on 3+ and T8 on 5+, whereas S6 boosts damage against T3, T5 and T10.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

Clearly I need to get better at the wound math. That's an area in which I can improve. I do prefer the axes though. Partly because there is a lot of Deathguard in my local meta, and also because I usually run a Grimaldus with a bunch of chainsword crusaders as a tempting side target. And if there are no Deathguard, I can swap the placement of Grimaldus and Helbrecht for easy efficiency. Sword does have the better AP though, so maybe I should consider it more.

[AlmightyWalrus]

I also suspect that part of the reason swords are more popular than axes is that they're more easily available model-wise and that they look more knightly.

[Schlitzaf]

Now. I'm more or less brand new to Warhammer in its entirety, and I only have a beautifully painted E-bay army and a self-made starter box to my name, but why is nobody suggesting storm bolters and power axes on vets? The survivability does go down, but you don't want to put these guys out in the open anyway, and the potential damage increases drastically.

 

 

For example, I'm currently running 5 sets of Company Vets with storm bolters. The 3 SGT have power fists, while the remaining 12 have power axes. that works out to 60 bolter shots, and 33 melee attacks with a minimum strength of 5. If I put Helbrecht with them, that's a re roll to both the shooting and the melee, as well as +1 strength, meaning that they wound Plague Marines on a 3, two for the fists. If I really need the extra oomph, I can also nominate one unit with Suffer Not, and explode something even more violently. Also, there's nothing saying you have to shoot and charge the same unit, meaning your tactical choices go up when engaging.

 

 

On a similar note, I've been considering another set of 3x Vets, SGTs running plasma pistols and chainsword, while the rest run double chainswords. That comes out to 60 chainsword attacks + light plasma sniping from the SGTs. This is an extremely cheap way to run them, and if we put Helbrecht with this group they gain the melee potential of Khorne berserkers.

 

 

I can recognize that both blobs might be a little goofy, and they don't lend themselves to wars of attrition, but with our new strats we can give ourselves good survivability or bump damage where it's needed, and neither of these methods are all that expensive compared to Terminators.

 

 

The only thing I've been struggling with is delivery. The LRC is a beautiful machine, but it draws fire from everything on the board. If I'm lucky, I might be able to hide it out of LOS turn one, and get the hit squad most of the way there before it comes under fire. If not, I can at least keep them safe from turn one shooting, though it's an expensive sacrifice to make. The rarest of situations sees me trundling around the board dropping these guys off while also getting to fire all guns on the crusader, which helps to drive home why the damn thing is well over 200 points.

 

 

Drop pods are a much cheaper option, and if the storm bolters are used, it isn't a complete wash if they fail their charge. Even without Helbrecht, suddenly dropping 44 bolter shots on a group of your choosing can be fun, and if you make the charge afterward you can then leverage another 11 s5+ power weapon attacks before considering using any strats.

 

 

Also, I noticed someone above was using a Martial with the Teeth of Terra. I personally run a shield hammer Martial, and give the Teeth to a Company Champion. That spreads out the death a bit more and gives my opponent more units to worry about. If you're also running an EC, then you effectively have two seek and destroy characters worth 75 or less that are more than willing to trade themselves for a big guy on the other team, as well as a big sturdy champion to hold the line with your troupes. I usually don't run a hammer Martial and Helbrecht though. One or the other.

 

 

If any of these choices are tactical mistakes I'd like to know why. I'm still learning. It's likely that I'm missing something obvious.

The big thing with our most efficient setup (barring triple infiltrating Strategems Scouts). Tide Squads we have plenty of raw strength 4 AP - Attacks but lack high AP high Damage. Sword Brothern fit a vital niche lacked in our army. And just as relevantly fill something we lacked (Helbrect buff targets).

 

Basically we have tides for anti-infantry.

[Acebaur]

@Valkynhayn You can't have more than 3 squads of vets (rule of 3) but remember that you can take them up to 5 strong.

 

As others have said swords have better AP and if running with Helbrecht are going to be S5 anyway.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

My mistake guys. I typoed. I run three sets of 5, not 5 sets of vets. Just noticed that. Also, just because we can create a tied to march across the field doesn't mean that giving vets the ability to be both anti infantry and anti bigger stuff is a bad idea. One of the primary reasons guard seems to be so potent is the sheer number of dice they can throw around. While we can't make our blobs as throw away as theirs, if we build for redundancy we can at least try and match their volume of fire. I dunno. As much as I like the idea of swords and shields on knights, I'm not convinced of putting shields on our vets. It's a unit that is going to be pretty squishy even with that, and we're chopping off an entire hand of firepower to do it. I might also consider flamers axes, but the range is worse despite the potential for great anti charge. It'd just make the units a bigger target and encourage my enemy to counter me harder. I've found that most people are pretty impassive about storm bolters. They hear Bolter and tune out. But the more saves you force the more they have the potential to fail.

 

Maybe I'll come around to the idea after a few more games. It doesn't help that my army is pretty light on shield models at the moment, though.

[Acebaur]

Well I'm not saying that storm bolters are bad, on the contrary they are amazing for the points. I do think running a squad of Storm bolter vets is a solid idea but I think we should also run a pure melee sword and board unit as well.

[Canadian_F_H]

Well u wrote my first list for 8th. And I've committed to building it. 3 squads of 5 vets, all sword and board except the sergeant is hammer and shield. (I'm not worried about meta... Which if I tell you the rest of the list you'll see how un-meta it is... Lol

[Firepower]

Currently I'm looking at 2 sword and board squads and 1 storm bolter and shield squad...because I don't have a lot of storm bolters :teehee:

 

Besides, swords.  Nuff said.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

One of the irritating things I found when converting mine is that Storm Shields are all left hands, as are the power sword arms from the BT upgrade kit! So I had to cut apart the shields to stick right hands in them. (I took the hands off some spare power axe shafts.)

[Shamansky]

Is The Emperor's Champion worth taking instead of ToT Marshal?