This'll be a long one - appologies in advance...
KInG wrote:James... whats with this guard list of yours
I'm sure I beat it with my Khorne, but I already said that and KMB put me right. So what game am I thinking of, was it a doubles game?
Anyways. Im amazed Toby is struggling with it, therefore I challenge you to a game this coming meetup. I wanna see this list of urs up close and personal... what is it: ?
I think we've already sorted this. Ahh, yes Toby remembers! I'm not going to tell you that now am I?
We have only played against each other twice. Once in the 4000 point lolathon of
DA v's =][= where you owned me! And once in the inaugral 1500 point AoS tourney where I was the only person you didn't beat (you fluked a draw after my 2 hellhounds & 2 demolishers & marbo failed to kill 4 bloodletters), but that was a very early incarnation of this list.
KInG wrote:"
HBs on vendettas aren't worth it, the lascannons give it a decent mono-role"
I built my list for the GT with 3 Vendettas in it. I decided to loose one of my inaffective advisors and had 30points left over.
I felt short on anti infantry... so looked at what I could upgrade / buy to add a little killing power against hordes...
That seems reasonable, as an afterthought if you have points left over, but to start out thinking you need them is a less effective way to go. I must admit that I didn't realise you got 2
HBs for 10 points - I thought that they were broken without the upgrades! Maybe I'm wrong in thaty case...
The reason I say that you should mono-role them is:
1) Firing at tanks, the
HBs are very unlikely to do anything
2) Firing at infantry, all the
HBs allow your opponent to do is wrap wounds and save his specialists, or if it's a small squad, wrap all the Lascannon wounds onto a single guy.
3) You have a squad inside which can be more efficiently suited to infantry killing, they score, and they'll shoot at a different target
Anyway, enough of the diversion, lets talk about Moony's Guard. The list is a little earlier, so I won't repeat it here (and it won't prove necessary, as we'll see).
I think we need to get back to basics here. Let's start with a look at the guard army codex & see what's good & what isn't.
CCS - excellent, gives orders to itself & other units to make it worth its points. In
CC it's awful unless you go the Straken route, but to do that you need to build the army around him, so that's out. Shooting is good, but only if you load up on special weapons - a single heavy weapon will do the square root of sod all (we'll see where we can get heavy weapons later). Having it 'naked' to sit at the back issuing orders is viable, this is more commonly seen with Creed & massively infantry heavy armies, which again you don't seem to want, so he's out.
Given that you don't have a high number of infantry models, then a bog-standard special weapon team would be your best bet. But they have to get somewhere to use them, so we'll need a transport of some kind.
All other HQ - lol bad, except the lord commisar who can be useful in a full infantry army as a second
HQ.
Veterans - excellent. BS4, cheap, pack in special weapons - does exactly what it says on the tin. Now, before going on we'll have a very quick look around the codex to find out where our Land Raider killers are:
Manticore
Devil dog
Medusa
Special weapons teams
Stormtroopers
Well, we can scratch special weapons immediately, as they are a similar price, have worse
BS & can't take a transport. The others are all vehicles, one roll on their damage table & the Land Raider isn't going to stop, as they can't shoot, wheras veterans can take a pounding before they start to lose melta guns. The vehicles have a better range, until we consider the fact that the veterans can take a chimera for an effective 21" melta range (12 chimera move, 2" disembark, 1" base width, 6" melta range). The fact that you like vendetta makes them even better. Veterans & vendettas go together like a horse and carriage.
Whether or not you decide to use them as
LR killer, they need to be mounted & they need to be focussed. Once they are out of a transport, they are very vulnerable, therefore they need cover (which a chimera can bring) & they need to kill what they are shooting dead. That means they need orders. And look at that, it just so happens that CCS are the same a veterans, which means that the veterans & CCS can ride near each other & orders are issued as needed. Oh what a glorious day!
There're loads of roles a veteran squad can take - burny (3 x flamer - steer clear of the heavy flamer!), meltary (3 x melta), plasma death (3 x plasma). None of these options are bad, heck, even 3 x grenade launcers have a place, it all depends on what the rest of your army is lacking.
However, I never take the heavy weapon (if I'm moving it's pointless - and I am always moving), I never give them an upgrade (although demolishions isn't bad, carapace is pointless - you're in a vehicle most of the time & I forget what the other one is), and a plasma pistol is a crap upgrade which'll kill your high
Ld sarge - no need.
Vendetta - awsome to the point of brokenness. Guns, transport, fast, cheap. Load up.
Chimera - awsome. I prefer them to the vendetta - they're cheaper, they give cover to other tanks, they give cover to troops, they can tank shock, you can shoot out of the hatch. AND they have good guns.
Platoons - good. Blob, blob & blob. Always give a blob a commissar & a 20 man squad can tarpit most things for 2-3 rounds of combat, 30 man for 3-4 rounds, 40 man all game.
The PCS is fairly useless, the orders are a bit 'meh' and they are BS3 - perfect burny squad & very cheap in that configuration.
Special weapons are a bit crap - veterans do it better for a small points increase - pass.
HWT are good - fragile to heay incoming fire, but the main thing is to ensure that they are focussed. Now seems a good time to talk about heavy weapons:
Autocannon - the go-to weapon, good rate of fire, good suppresion of medium tanks, destroy light tanks, wound most things on a 2+ & cheap as chips
Heavy bolter - worse range than the autocannon, worse strength than the autocannon - these mean that it can perform the dual anti-tank & anti-infantry role that the autocannon does - ignore it
Lascannon - makes a HWT priority 1 - so in my eyes better in blob squads. I don't think they're worth taking at all (especially if your vets are properly configured) the only thing I'd want them on is vendettas where you can get side shots on armour. Good upgrade for
LRBTs, as it stops them being useless once the cannon is gone.
Missile launcher - ok, can do a dual role like the autocannon, but prone to missing & people can avoid the blast by properly spacing.
Morter - only take if you have another 20 morters. One does nothing, 20 is really annoying.
Hellhounds etc - ok. Really they are very overpriced for what they do & as they are competing with the vendetta, they tend not to be seen that often. Best work in an AV12 chimera spam army. Hellhound gives good GeQ killing at range, Banewolf strikes fear into
SM players & the melta dog, well some people swear by it, but why bother when veterans do it better... Really they are a distraction unit.
Heavy support - good. Any of them are good. The stand outs are the manticore (see the veteran section for why) & the hydra (see the autocannon section for why). But they all have a role. The main thing to remember is not to pimp them! You can sink points into this section easily for little benefit. Remember as you build the list - what are they doing?
Stormtroopers - bad, but good in one role -
DS melta. Remember, these guys do something that luitle else can do in the army -
DS. If you can't get LoS to a target, you can't shoot it. Send in 105 points of DS'ing cheese & they sort out the problem. All other varirnts of stormtroopers are rubbish (unfortunately given the number of them that I've got!)
That's it - the other units in the book are good, but not 'core' and can be flitted between depending on how 'hard core' you want your army.
From a quick glance at your army list I'd make the following observations:
CCS - waaaaay to many points - what's staken for - you're paying points to buff other units that don't exist, why the medic, why the sniper, you can't take straken + a power weapon (straken
replaces the Company comader), why the standard?
Veterans need focus & they
all need a transport
HWT can't be taken without a platoon & lacks focus
Vantettas - good
LRs - dump the sponsons, the punisher is horrible unless taken as a full squadron & then does nothing that an equivlant points cost of chimera can't.
Hope that helps.
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