Infantry Squad vs Cadian Shock Troops

[Malakithe]

Since I dont have the book yet im just going off what battlescribe has. Whats the pros/cons of both? Does it matter? Are they both just speed bumps anyway?

[greatcrusade08]

infantry sqaud has the option of heavy weapon and sergeant can take a boltgun and/or power sword

cadians can have two special weapons

[sairence]

Cadians also get access to some additional strats, most importantly Cadia Stands, which can give a unit transhuman for a phase and is always nice to have as an option.

 

The Shocktroops also get exploding 6s on Lasguns.

[Slave to Darkness]

2 hours ago, greatcrusade08 said:

infantry sqaud has the option of heavy weapon and sergeant can take a boltgun and/or power sword

cadians can have two special weapons

Missed the boltgun on sgt's... Off to my bits box!!!

[greatcrusade08]

I know right. When I saw that my brain exploded 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

CSTs

2 specials(more mobile firepower)

sgt can take autogun (extra shot)

exploding 6s for lasguns

strat support

 

IS

HWT special weapon(greater static firepower)

sgt bolter or upgraded melee options

[Hfran Morkai]

I would have hoped CST Sergeants would get more options.

[Malakithe]

Hmm....well im going vehicle heavy but with 6 units of infantry...trying to decide on which versions

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

On 1/21/2023 at 6:47 PM, Malakithe said:

Hmm....well im going vehicle heavy but with 6 units of infantry...trying to decide on which versions

What kind of vehicle heavy?

tank heavy, or lighter armor heavy?

 

either way, how id proceed is infantry squads (unless you’re going with a lot of transports)

 

take armored superiority either way.

us your infantry squads to zone out as much of your DZ as possible, take mortars  and GLs and just hide them in the back, while your armor maneuvers up head killing things and taking objectives.

 

I also think the the infantry squad now needs to be renamed to avoid confusion.

 

battle line squad, infantry line squad, idk but something aside from the simple and generic infantry squad

 

On 1/21/2023 at 2:10 PM, Hfran Morkai said:

I would have hoped CST Sergeants would get more options.

Eh, personally guard sgts with power weapons of any sort doesn’t seem right to me. I’m not a fan of guard sgts getting fancy upgrades. 
boltgun and/or autogun seem plenty fine for firepower upgrades. Chainsword seems just fine for a melee upgrade, etc.

Edited January 22, 2023 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[Malakithe]

5 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

What kind of vehicle heavy?

tank heavy, or lighter armor heavy?

 

either way, how id proceed is infantry squads (unless you’re going with a lot of transports)

 

take armored superiority either way.

us your infantry squads to zone out as much of your DZ as possible, take mortars  and GLs and just hide them in the back, while your armor maneuvers up head killing things and taking objectives.

So far im planning 3 Russ's, a Baneblade, and 3 Hellhounds....I was thinking the bodies would be screens and/or objective sitters

[crimsondave]

Drum fed autogun is only available on the Cadian Sgt. I believe.  I don’t have the book in front of me to verify.

 

Have to say, the new guard infantry models are amazing.  I had no intention of getting more past what came in the Cadia Stands box until I started assembling them.  I had to do a ton of cleaning crazy mold lines and buy 3rd party conversion parts to make my old guard models look like I wanted.  These new ones are basically trim off where you cut it from the sprue and glue it together.  I had barely any mold lines to clean.  They look superior to my old ones with barely any work.

[Emperor Ming]

17 minutes ago, crimsondave said:

Drum fed autogun is only available on the Cadian Sgt. I believe.  I don’t have the book in front of me to verify.

 

Your right

[Minsc]

Personally, if Shock Troops didn't have exploding 6's with lasguns I'd say they and Infantry Squads are on par; one can take 1 heavy and 1 special, one can take 2 specials - they're equally good depending on the circumstances and what you want them to do and both have their own unique stratagems (Shock Troops get Transhuman, Infantry Squad can shoot again.)

But since Shock Troops do have exploding 6's with lasguns (for amazing synergy with FRFSRF) I consider them to be superior to Infantry Squads in pretty much every way unless you absolutely want something with a heavy weapon to sit far back and babysit an objective.

I've played a few infantry-focused lists (using all 12 troop-slots, thank you Arks of Omen) and I usually end up with 8-10 Shock Troops and 2-4 Infantry Squads, but honestly the lists would probably be better if I just went all in on Shock Troops. 

Edited January 22, 2023 by Minsc

[Malakithe]

7 hours ago, Minsc said:

Personally, if Shock Troops didn't have exploding 6's with lasguns I'd say they and Infantry Squads are on par; one can take 1 heavy and 1 special, one can take 2 specials - they're equally good depending on the circumstances and what you want them to do and both have their own unique stratagems (Shock Troops get Transhuman, Infantry Squad can shoot again.)

But since Shock Troops do have exploding 6's with lasguns (for amazing synergy with FRFSRF) I consider them to be superior to Infantry Squads in pretty much every way unless you absolutely want something with a heavy weapon to sit far back and babysit an objective.

I've played a few infantry-focused lists (using all 12 troop-slots, thank you Arks of Omen) and I usually end up with 8-10 Shock Troops and 2-4 Infantry Squads, but honestly the lists would probably be better if I just went all in on Shock Troops. 

That was kinda the plan was to use the squads as speed bumps and objective holders. I feel Shock Troops are more for runnin-n-gunnin. Unless your going super hard into buffing the squads how much work will those bodies actually do?

 

My next question is: what heavy weapon do everyone prefer in Infantry squads?

[Minsc]

1 hour ago, Malakithe said:

My next question is: what heavy weapon do everyone prefer in Infantry squads?

Lascannons or Heavy Bolters. Kinda depends on what your list needs.

Autocannons are inferior to Heavy Bolters against most targets. (Basically anything that isn't T6.)
Krak Missiles are inferior to Lascannons and while the multi-purpose nature of the Missile Launcher with "it can use Frag against infantry" looks nice on paper, I've rarely used Frag Missiles in 15+ years of gaming. (Holy... writing that last sentence made me feel old.)

The Mortar is a waste but I if someone wants to make a case for using a Mortar if you intend to hide the unit behind LoS anyway, while keeping an objective - because at the end of the day, D6 S4 AP0 shots hitting on 5+ is bad but it's still better than nothing - I fully understand and won't argue. It doesn't fit my playstyle though.

Edit:
Did some quick mathhammer on AC vs HB:

AC

2 shots, 1 hit, X wounds against T:
3: 0,83
4: 0,67
5: 0,67
6: 0,67
7: 0,50
8: 0,33

HB
3 shots, 1,5 hits, X wounds against T:
3: 1,00
4: 1,00
5: 0,75
6: 0,5
7: 0,5
8: 0,5

TLDR:

AC is better against T6.
AC and HB are equally good against T7.
HB is better against T3, T4, T5 and T8+
 

Edited January 23, 2023 by Minsc

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

1 hour ago, Malakithe said:

That was kinda the plan was to use the squads as speed bumps and objective holders. I feel Shock Troops are more for runnin-n-gunnin. Unless your going super hard into buffing the squads how much work will those bodies actually do?

 

My next question is: what heavy weapon do everyone prefer in Infantry squads?

Autocannon up front 

mortar for the back

[jarms48]

One big thing many people miss is the actual model count, which is incredibly important in tournament games. 

 

An infantry squad with a heavy weapon is 9 models, one of which has 2 wounds. A cadian squad has 10 models. This allows the cadians to take and hold objectives better than the infantry squad, they are arguably more durable as well, as the heavy weapon team can be killed instantly by any weapon higher than D1. 

[Sawtooth]

2 hours ago, jarms48 said:

One big thing many people miss is the actual model count, which is incredibly important in tournament games. 

 

An infantry squad with a heavy weapon is 9 models, one of which has 2 wounds. A cadian squad has 10 models. This allows the cadians to take and hold objectives better than the infantry squad, they are arguably more durable as well, as the heavy weapon team can be killed instantly by any weapon higher than D1. 

I....had honestly never thought of that. Thank you, good tip.

[sairence]

16 hours ago, Minsc said:

Personally, if Shock Troops didn't have exploding 6's with lasguns I'd say they and Infantry Squads are on par; one can take 1 heavy and 1 special, one can take 2 specials - they're equally good depending on the circumstances and what you want them to do and both have their own unique stratagems (Shock Troops get Transhuman, Infantry Squad can shoot again.)

 

 

Just a note here: All Troop unit minus Scions have the INFANTRY SQUAD keyword. So they can all use the shoot again strat, as the strat uses the bold letters indicating keyword qualifiers, not unit name. 

 

Though tbh, at 2 CP, I've yet to be in a situation where that feels worth it.

[Malakithe]

9 hours ago, jarms48 said:

One big thing many people miss is the actual model count, which is incredibly important in tournament games. 

 

An infantry squad with a heavy weapon is 9 models, one of which has 2 wounds. A cadian squad has 10 models. This allows the cadians to take and hold objectives better than the infantry squad, they are arguably more durable as well, as the heavy weapon team can be killed instantly by any weapon higher than D1. 

Thats a fair point

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

I was just thinking maybe the we should view CSTs more as light infantry and ISes as standard or heavy infantry 

[Malakithe]

Im thinking I might just spam heavy bolters in the squads. They will get penalties for moving but they arent the focus of the list.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

16 minutes ago, Malakithe said:

Im thinking I might just spam heavy bolters in the squads. They will get penalties for moving but they arent the focus of the list.

Are you going for them over the CSTs completely then?

[Malakithe]

22 minutes ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Are you going for them over the CSTs completely then?

Possibly. Im not seeing much use in mixing the different squads. Maybe a couple to sprint up to be screens

[Shamansky]

1 hour ago, Malakithe said:

They will get penalties for moving... 

You can take a Commissar or someone else who can issue PREFECTUS ODRDERS for Forwards, for the Emperor! order which makes units be counted as Remained stationary even if they Advanced 

Edited January 26, 2023 by Shamansky