Troops

[WickedJester1013]

Now that we have seen blood claws and other first born bumped up and gotten full looks at the codex, what are people’s thoughts on our troops slots now?

[Gherrick]

I think 1 unit of heavy intercessors is a given for guarding our base objective. The other troop choices I think depend more on what kind of strategy you are planning. BCs are solid if you plan on bringing them in via drop pod for early harassment. Incursors are great for getting an early lead on the midfield objectives. I'm not sure about the rest, as they all seem to have their use.

[Dark Shepherd]

I reckon one unit of Blood Claws to combine with Lukas is well worth it

 

Given deployment/first turn setup and cc nerf then incursors/infiltrators dont appeal to me given the short distances to objectives

[Karhedron]

I am going to go out on a limb and say there is still a very good case for Grey Hunters. They do not hit as hard as Blood Claws, they are not as durable as Heavy Intercessors and they don't have the range of regular Intercessors.

 

So what do they have?

 

For 1 point less than an Intercessor you have a model with the same wounds and attacks. You trade an extra point of AP on the Intercessors guns for a point of AP on the Hunters' chainswords. The Hunters can double down on special weapons to compensate for the difference in shooting and can take a tooled up WGPL to reinforce their role. Plus they can fit in Firstborn transports which I think are a lot better for their points than Primaris ones. Grey Hunters are a durable swiss-army knife unit that can do most jobs you want from your Troops without breaking the bank. Point-for-point, I think they are actually one of the best all-round Troop units in the game.

 

If you have a specific role such as T1 charge or holding a backfield Objective then by all means, pick one of the more specialised Troop units. But if you are looking for a unit that can hold its ground in the midfield, Hunters in Razorbacks are a great go-to choice IMHO.

[theprophetofwar]

Granted I haven't played my wolves yet in 9th, but from playing against other marines (loyal and chaos) I have to say I still lean combined arms where sensible. I'm with karhedron, things (troops) look pretty balanced to me across the book, and I'm happy for that. Blood claws and grey hunters still look like a great combo. Let the claws press, hunters secure and support fire. The special weapons are still useful and an advantage over primaris basics. Don't write off rhinos and razors. Just played a grey knights army that had some wild mobility thanks to (constantly lucky: +6, +4, +6)advancing rhinos and a few teleports. That rhino strike squad seemed like it was everywhere, and mostly thanks to the good old rhino.

I have a bunch of mini marines and with all these new releases and the buffs to firstborn, I've been sort of splitting my army. I'm leaning intercessors supporting Incursors/infiltrators for a foot oriented early press, and rhino rush for first born.

It honestly does feel like I can build around my current favorite troops and not feel like I'll have major weaknesses.

[WickedJester1013]

Correct me if I am wrong but grey hunters are only have 1 base attack? Not two base like primaris have

[Shi An De]

Correct me if I am wrong but grey hunters are only have 1 base attack? Not two base like primaris have

Astartes Chainswords give them +1 attack.

[WickedJester1013]

Yeah but that’s the same for the blood claws and assault ints as well

[WickedJester1013]

Ah I see your point, it was only a comparison between grey hunters and ints

[Karhedron]

Ah I see your point, it was only a comparison between grey hunters and ints

 

Yes, I was looking for a comparison for the mid-field role. If you want a melee unit to spearhead your assault then Blood Claws with Lukas are definitely the way to go.

[WickedJester1013]

I recently read the books with Lucas and is easily one of my favorite characters and would love to see him on the field! How many blood claws would you take? And what delivery method?

[TheUnlikelyGamer84]

Drop pods with Lukas and chapter champion inside for charge rerolls. Then either include a Wolf priest in the pods and use the stratagem to auto pass +2 “ charge litany or follow up with Primaris biker Priest and use charge litany. The biker Priest is so fast and the board is smaller now so his range for the charge aura is huge. Especially with the hunter warlord trait and advancing into position. You can extend his litany aura to 9” if you take the trait Saga of Majesty. He can start behind obscuring terrain and then be almost anywhere on the board he wants. 7 inch rerollable charge nice. Edited November 3, 2020 by TheUnlikelyGamer84

[Ragnar69]

I'm planning on taking a Drop Pod full, including a WG leader. Drop it midfield T1, so your claws are 9" from the enemy. Buff them with Canticle of Hate  and Instincts Awoken from a Rune Priest. They should be close enough to be easily in range (Saga of Majesty and bike/JP on the Wolf Priest). Shut off Overwatch with Murderous Hurricane if needed and if you make the charge you could pop that 2 CP strat to get +1 to wound. That are 32 S4 attacks hitting on 2s with +1 to wound and AP-2 plus 7 S8 D2 AP-4 attacks hitting on 3s with +1 to wound, all exploding on 6s. And you could use the Whirwind strat to make a counter-charge unit fight last. And/or the 6" consolidate strat to tag something in the back after killing the screen.

 

That should kill something and force the enemy on the backfoot.

[Squark]

Depends how competitive you are. The current tournament pack and the changes to moving and assaulting coherency, + blast, push MSU really, really hard. And Primaris just play that game better than firstborn.

[TiguriusX]

Blood claws are efficient b/c they are discount assault intercessors  

 

4 attacks base on the charge with the new astartes chainswords is worth the points

 

There are some significant pros/cons because they are first born and not primaris

 

They do NOT have access to all the primaris stratagems

-Transhuman physiology

-Fight twice like assault intercessors

 

 

They DO have transport options

-Turn 1 drop pod assault is something primaris can't do 

 

I'm going to test it out and see how viable it is.  If it pays off I may be purchasing my first ever drop pods

[CaptainStabby]

Im glad I can play a drop pod list again and have it relevant. I have... so many pods, so so many. lol.

[FabulousRex]

Depends how competitive you are. The current tournament pack and the changes to moving and assaulting coherency, + blast, push MSU really, really hard. And Primaris just play that game better than firstborn.

 

That very well might be important, but the flipside of that is that our Firstborn are much more dangerous if you want a full squad for whatever reason. 10 Grey Hunters armed to the teeth on an Objective is a whole different can of tuna than 10 primaris of any variety.

[Guest Triszin]

im planning

1x bloodclaws

1x infiltrators

1x heavy intercessors

[Karack Blackstone]

Grey Mage used to swear by 5 packs of 8 GH's, instead of 4 packs of 10; I can see swinging advantages and disadvantages for each side.

 

Contest and capture more objectives, go 5 by 8.

Hold objectives, press harder, not as many chances to press, more solid units, go 4 by 10.

 

That's just using a baseline of what once was a Troops choice every 500 points.

 

Way back when SW units were an HQ every 750 points, about 1 HQ, two Troops, and spare points for gibbuns and guns was always interesting, made picking and choosing forces extremely easy for the first 1500, past that it started to hang a bit. That all typed, the concept translated into the above, 1 Troops choice per every 500 points of army.

 

So, long story short?

What do You, as a Leader, need out of your army?

GH's are a very solid general task unit. For reinforcing any part of your army, I'd figure two GH packs of 10 might really help.

 

I think 2 GH's, 1-2 BC packs, Rhino for 10, 8 +WGPL, +WP; or LRC for 14, +WGPL, +WP, can be a nice press element. Take two Rhinos and you're going to make things pay attention to whatever they decide to go after.

 

Intercessors are great, GH's have more flexibility, while BC's and Assault Intercessors are great for launching charges and assaults, a GH pack to move onto the taken objective to allow the offensive pack to go claim another is always a plus as well.

[One Two Wolf]

Using razorbacks with GH ticks off troops and heavy weapons, and they are kind of ablative wounds for the troops too. They can distract target selection from other units such as dreads which, with cc loadouts, will cause chaos if left untouched when they get intothe midfield.

 

For that reason alone I'm sticking with GH, though I'm tooling up intercessors with old school bolters and CS to count as either them or assault ints; fun to model and paint and will not be redundant (possibly) in the coming few years.

 

While one off units like heavy intercessors to hold home objectives makes competitive sense it loses the thematic style I like about 40k armies, but I know that this is very subjective - and here in small-town NZ the liklihood of playing in a tourney is pretty much just under 0% for me. In fact, so few are the games I get to play that I've been distracted by building some of my hearts desire recently, high fantasy style warhammer village buildings, rather than 40k efforts.

 

Regardless of my meanderings, I think the standard rules apply: Redundancy, MSU (also the name of a slamming local band from waaaaay back, check them out), and characters that make even Abbadon think twice about getting down.

 

Up the wolves.

[Dark Shepherd]

The little nerf in Claws v Inters is Inters have the extra attack built in so they get it if they dont charge, makes a difference with power fists etc on sergeants/pack leaders, also Wolf Guard Pack leaders no longer benefit from bezerk charge which nobody likes

 

Blood Claws shade it for me as they can take 2 power fists in a unit of 6 and the WGBLTDA with SS is tougher than a coffin nail.

[Karhedron]

Very true although the WGPL TDA does restrict them Land Raiders and Stormwolves though. To be fair that may be where you want them anyway.

[Dark Shepherd]

Very true although the WGPL TDA does restrict them Land Raiders and Stormwolves though. To be fair that may be where you want them anyway.

My plan, albeit slightly dictated by what I have, 6 man claw pack in LR (I need the mobile heavy weapons) with Lukas

 

Another 6 man pack to guard backfield/central objective

 

Assault Inters to scoop up behind Thunderwolves on opposite side to Lukas

[Dark Legionnare]

Blood claws are efficient b/c they are discount assault intercessors  

 

4 attacks base on the charge with the new astartes chainswords is worth the points

 

There are some significant pros/cons because they are first born and not primaris

 

They do NOT have access to all the primaris stratagems

-Transhuman physiology

-Fight twice like assault intercessors

 

 

They DO have transport options

-Turn 1 drop pod assault is something primaris can't do 

 

I'm going to test it out and see how viable it is.  If it pays off I may be purchasing my first ever drop pods

I played a game two weeks back with the index and did the exact same strategy. 9 in a pod with a priest. Use the litany strat to give +2 charge.  The 9 guys (including WGPL and the claws sarge each with a fist) did nasty damage.  Like others have said, that backfoot it put the opponent on, was huge.  It was made even more huge by a 3-man thundercav that got a 6 to advance also joining the party on that side with a long-bomb 10" charge.

 

it basically kept that entire flank tied up until turn four with meat-grinder combat. Friend was proxying heavy intercessors and they couldn't get away from my lads without having to feed something else to them to stop that 6" counter-charge.  It was a really fun game, a great showing for the wolves.

 

Now being able to get the claws in Assault doctrine on turn 1 (rune priest buffs, etc...) with the stuff in the new book, those AP-2 chainswords will be even more ridiculously deadly. Not to mention the fists at -4.

 

Edited November 4, 2020 by Dark Legionnare

[littlbitz]

Correct me if I’m wrong. But I think litanies are done in the command phase, so the Wolf priest would not be able to use it on a BC pack drop podding in