Best Chapter for All Vanguard?

[Charlo]

What the title says, what's the best Chapter for play a mostly Vanguard army?

 

Feeling like a themed army idea :)

[Lukoi]

Do you mean Vanguard detachment (aka 6 elite slots), or more like Vanguard Veteran centric?

[Charlo]

Neither!

 

I mean the Vanguard Space Marines, e.g. Phobos Units, suppressors etc

[Karhedron]

Raven Guard certainly strike me as being a fluffy choice for a Phobos-heavy army. They can do some nasty tricks with snipers too IIRC.

 

Just beware you will probably need some more conventional units in backup. Your anti-tank is limited to Las Fusil Eliminators and most Phobos units hit like a wet noodle in melee.

[Captain Idaho]

Raven Guard certainly strike me as being a fluffy choice for a Phobos-heavy army. They can do some nasty tricks with snipers too IIRC.

 

Just beware you will probably need some more conventional units in backup. Your anti-tank is limited to Las Fusil Eliminators and most Phobos units hit like a wet noodle in melee.

This.

 

You get some tricks but ultimately have a jaw that has most of the teeth blunted.

[TheNewman]

Let's not forget the Invictor Warsuit. It's not great in melee but it at least punches like a Dreadnought.

 

How far are you willing to stretch the theme? Landspeeders and Stormspeeders are kind of scout units, depending on how you look at it.

[Charlo]

I'm mostly interested in which chapters suite of strats, relics and warlord traits, doctrine etc support the vanguard units the best

[phandaal]

Raven Guard certainly strike me as being a fluffy choice for a Phobos-heavy army. They can do some nasty tricks with snipers too IIRC.

 

Just beware you will probably need some more conventional units in backup. Your anti-tank is limited to Las Fusil Eliminators and most Phobos units hit like a wet noodle in melee.

Raven Guard are ironically the chapter that needs Phobos units the least. They can do all the Phobos tricks with any unit.

[jaxom]

I'm mostly interested in which chapters suite of strats, relics and warlord traits, doctrine etc support the vanguard units the best

 

My gut reaction is Ultramarines or White Scars; leaning towards WS. Movement shenanigans, hit-and-run from engagements with Incursors, etc. 

[Closet Skeleton]

I want to say Space Wolves but have no idea.

 

But i find Incursors and Infiltrators pretty good in melee so maybe I don't know anything.

 

Ultramarines have the best Suppressors thanks to the fall back and shoot and 2 turns of ignoring movement penalties and it helps the eliminators as well. Their redeploy strat is also really good with warsuits so its probably some kind of ultramarine successor which is a really big pool so you can have anything you want really.

 

Something like:

 

Phobos Captain

Relic: Soldiers blade, an ultramarine relic that can replace a combat knife so is the only real way to improve the Phobos Captain's combat potential.

 

Reiver Lieutenant

He's got the shock grenade keyword that's handy on occaison but his HQ slot might be better taken up by a second librarian.

 

Phobos Librarian

He's really good. Armour indomitus is a good relic for defence on him.

 

Troops

 

10 Infiltrators with helix gauntlet

 

5 Incursors with mine

 

5 Incursors with mine

 

Elite

 

3 Invictor Warsuits

 

10 Reivers if you want to fill out the range but their best use is keeping cheep, staying in your deployment zone and counter charging later.

 

FA

 

3 Suppressor squads, they're vanguard but not phobos

 

HS

 

3 Eliminators with lastalons, maybe at least one with the carbine on the sergeant

 

That's 1320 points before adding in the Reivers and troops, 1980 afterwards, 2000 if you give the Reivers deep strike ability

[BloodyB]

My first instinct is to take custom tactics, going with Long Range Marksmen and Stealthy. Phobos units struggle so much in CQC that the extra range can be vital.

 

Having said that, I have had some luck playing BA successor vanguard a few times. It was a fairly casual setting, but Infiltrators and Suppressors worked well with Reivers (I know, shocking) to break apart quite a few defensive lists. For those battles I used Fearsome and WoR, and had a single unit of Sanguinary Guard for support.

 

Sadly, every time I met a tank or monster, I had to sit around and throw every bolt and bullet in my army at it, Las fusils might ostensibly be Anti-tank, but any kind of invul just makes them soooooo bad.

[Gamiel]

I'm mostly interested in which chapters suite of strats, relics and warlord traits, doctrine etc support the vanguard units the best

lorevise do Wolfspears feel fitting, think they have some fitting rule/s

[Charlo]

 

I'm mostly interested in which chapters suite of strats, relics and warlord traits, doctrine etc support the vanguard units the best

lorevise do Wolfspears feel fitting, think they have some fitting rule/s

 

They have a couple, but the SW suite overall feels pretty lackluster in it's use.

[killersquid]

The latest Wolfspear suppliment for space wolves has some support for Phobos units, and artifacts and abilties which compliment them. 

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

First Foundings

1) White Scars - between advance and charge, and their super doctrine vanguard units gain a lot. The damage boost alone helps address a lot of their issues. 

 

2) Ultramarines - I think the super doctrine is super useful, and they have some good relics. There is a reason they've been mentioned so much.

 

3) Salamanders - If you love Invictors these guys may be better than Ultras. Re-rolling a wound roll per unit is going to do a lot work with all the small units your going to have. Ignoring AP -1 is also going to put pressure on your opponents (lots of 2+ cover saves). The relics aren't the greatest but the stratagems are strong. Crucible of battle is just great, the flamer strats work on salamander models not just infantry, and relentless determination is great for Suppressors. The super doctrine works well with the invictors as well, and if your open to storm speeders the hammerstrike would benefit. Personally I think you should its not like suppressors have the phobos keyword either, and it makes sense that the speeders would support a vanguard force.

 

Successors

1) White Scars - I think the damage boost from the super doctrine still makes Scars the best option. Ultras are probably still in the discussion but I think the extra damage just opens up so much. 

 

Rule of Cool

1) Wolf Spears or Raven Guard - Wolf spears offer an aggressive Hero Hammer take on phobos and Raven Guard have more of a ranged look. I just don't think either chapter is that great at it (which hurts Raven Guard are obvious, but wolves have had elite scouts as well). I do think if you run some non-vanguard units (maybe convert some Reivers into blade guard) both get better but honestly that probably applies to the other chapters as well.   

[Helias_Tancred]

Like others have mentioned, I see Raven Guard and/or White Scars as being two of the foremost. 

[Karhedron]

My gut reaction is Ultramarines or White Scars; leaning towards WS. Movement shenanigans, hit-and-run from engagements with Incursors, etc.

White Scar Incursors hitting at AP-2 with 2D in the Assault Doctrine are actually quite effective.

[Tokugawa]

Black templars! Since such army don't shoot well, don't fight well and don't hold objectives well, templars 5++ and fnp chants could help you lose the game less quickly.