Help deciding on a guard army

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Hi folks,

 

So I've always liked playing around with the idea of converted guard and things that aren't the norm but never could quite find what I wanted to do for a project. With the blackstone fortress traitor guard and now the contrast paints making it actually feasible to paint up a guard army I build I'm wanting to revisit the idea of adding regular guard to my ramshackle/mad max styled tempestus (most of that theme comes from the converted tauroxes). I'm thinking of either going full hog on them being traitor guard and leaving the blackstone models as they are, or removing the spikes and making them able to fit more with imperial armies.

 

So after reading a thread on here about rough riders (and death riders) It's got me wanting to include those fast and furious lads in and in general a fast paced, close quarters style guard could be really fun. Now I understand close quarters will more have to be close ranged powerful guns as I've yet to find a way to see guard feasible in melee, though a supporting knight gallant could help fix that hole.

 

A big thing I'm wondering is whether I should go with a normal Astra force and use regular rough riders as some harassing units or whether a better idea would be to make the army using the krieg codex so I can use death riders as I know they're a fair bit punchier. My ideal would be not having too many models on the board, and being able to get quite stuck into the thick of things as much as possible. I get the feeling having fast zippy units to go for objectives would be quite fun and understand I'm heavily limited on infantry special/heavy weapons by using the blackstone models. 

 

Any tips or advice on good units or regiment rules for them would be appreciated!

[Halfpint100]

Rough riders using the cult jackels with their motorbikes and quad bikes (which could be a sentinel) would fit your mad max style theme.

 

Catachan would fit in the theme with them, with a tank commander as the HQ, fast and hits hard

[WarriorFish]

Indeed, the GSC range is great to steal for Guard regiments especially if you're after the more "rough and ready" approach ;) Rough Riders aren't really a combat unit, they're better thought of as a counter charge unit - or as a mobile fire base for special weapons.

 

It does sound like you might want to use the Krieg rules, if you want fewer units - it's also the only way to do a cavalry army (and generally better way to do cavalry anyway). The good thing is you can have your cake and eat it, as there's nothing stopping you from switching between codices (or allying between them) :D

 

Do you have any details for how you want them to appear yet, or colour schemes?

[apologist]

Rough Riders are a hell of a lot of fun, and en masse I imagine they could be surprisingly effective. Being able to bring on twenty or thirty fast-moving figures is great for claiming or contesting objectives, and there's a lot to be said for the element of surprise! In the context of the relatively fast list that you describe – I think they could work very nicely to help shore up areas that get overwhelmed. 

 

With that said... I've run them since Rogue Trader, and they've never been particularly good. Characterful? Sure. Fun? Definitely. As long as that's your aim, you'll be gold :)

 

Given that the army in general is quite swift, have you considered using the Tallarn rules? They'd fit the Mad Max-style background nicely, complement the speed of your list, and also allow you access to both normal Rough Riders Mukaali Riders. Sharing a lot of the Rough Rider rules, these are more resilient (increased T, W and Sv) than typical horse-mounted troops.