Let's Talk Command Squads

[Charlo]

I feel like I'm the only one who associates the legion command squad with the 40k honor guard as opposed to the company command squad.

 

The honour guard were body guards and a seperate organization outside of the company structures, while the command squads were bands of hand picked warriors from the company that fit the captains idiosyncrasies and helped with advice.

 

For this reason I'm not the biggest fan of special weapon guys, or bonus adaptable USRs, or whatever. I also think it'd be a terrible idea to give them implacable advance and get scoring for a ton of hqs. Giving it the downside of the Herald doesn't add up to the same result as the Herald give up 2 VP, and takes a second HQ slot while being less survivable due to terminator armour limits and less wounds from the unit.

Yeah I'm with you on this.

 

The command Squad is very personal to the Preator they accompany in 30k.

 

Is his chosen warrior veterans from the legion, carrying the standard of his division in the legion.

 

Some USR might be nice but Implacable Advance would be the absolute first thing I'd give them.

 

I think limited access to legion specific weapons would be nice too - but then that somewhat diminishes the unique units.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Well my basis is from the 2+ armour both units shared, the fluff blurb on the side calling them bodyguards and the lack of champion, apothecary and special weapon selection. Justaerin, deathshroud, Phoenix guard and all those are equivalents, hence their ability to sub in.

 

Commands are easily are great melee unit; give them terminator armour and chain fists and you have one of the most effective cc unit in the game with ws 5. The main problems are points costs outside of the terminator variant and relative lack of durability due to 5 man cap.

 

The various centurions fill the role of tactical support members of a command group; champion, master of signal, apothecary, etc...

 

Edit: no charlo, I'm saying they're not personal and that the chosen aren't part of the company structures. Think sanguinary guard, Phoenix guard, deathshroud. They're assigned to a prominent commander as a sign of honour, not picked by him to help do...stuff.

Edited December 23, 2020 by SkimaskMohawk

[Indefragable]

@SkimaskMohawk not saying you are wrong, but from a game design standpoint....I think what this thread has shown is that the best hope crunch wise for Command Squads is to make them a bit more flexible, allow people to make them what they want to be (within reason). The sheer number of ideas floating around and the lack of a consensus indicates to me that if anything were to change, giving people options would be the logical route. It's not a case of "well, the red guys really need pistols so just give them pistols and they're fine" or "the Cool Guys unit is great, but so overcosted. Bring them down by 15% and they're golden." 

 

I get what you are saying, but the unit name is literally "Chosen." I think there's absolutely a case to be made that individual commanders would cherry pick the kinds of guys in their own Command Squad. Crunchwise, it kind of has to work that way because otherwise we have the exact situation we have now: they kinda don't really do anything that almost any other unit can't do better (either larger unit sizes to hide Characters in or bigger, burlier, or killier snowflake units). I think there should definitely be the ability to make them the bodyguards you are talking about...but I also think of scenarios where a Commander might not want the best fighters around, but the sneakiest guys to accompany him while he personally infiltrates enemy lines. Or the best riders in the Legion. Or those that know how to thread the needle when jumping from orbit. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

Well their model names are a reference to CSM chosen. A cool continuity thing.

 

In terms of options, the best thing would to be to keep the current wounds but make them characters so they can take legion wargear. You'd get a lot of unique builds out of that and have an increase in damage output a lot of the time without having pure overlap with deathshroud or Phoenix guard.

 

And as to the commander choosing a specialist squad to accompany....that's like any squad. Infiltrators? Recon marines. Highly skilled bikers? Outriders. Drop troopers? Assault marines. Rites gives specialization to an army; the command squad is just his protection detail, not the A Team or a set of mentor characters ready to perform a montage on the rest of your army.

[Indefragable]

Well their model names are a reference to CSM chosen. A cool continuity thing.

 

In terms of options, the best thing would to be to keep the current wounds but make them characters so they can take legion wargear. You'd get a lot of unique builds out of that and have an increase in damage output a lot of the time without having pure overlap with deathshroud or Phoenix guard.

 

And as to the commander choosing a specialist squad to accompany....that's like any squad. Infiltrators? Recon marines. Highly skilled bikers? Outriders. Drop troopers? Assault marines. Rites gives specialization to an army; the command squad is just his protection detail, not the A Team or a set of mentor characters ready to perform a montage on the rest of your army.

 

...speak for yourself! 

 

My dude is definitely accompanied by B.A. Baracus in power armor crashing a black-with-red-stripe 1983 GMC Vandura "Rhino" through enemy lines.