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Sir Biscuit
11-30-2010, 01:36 PM
I have a 1000 point tournament coming up in a few weeks, and I'll be borrowing a friends guard for the event. (I've found marines don't tend to perform as well at 1000 points, as tactical squads need a lot of support before they come into their own.)



Here's what I've come up with:

HQ

Company Command Squad

+4 Plasma Guns

+Chimera (ML/HF)

+Hunter-Killer Missile

Troops

Infantry Platoon

Platoon Command Squad

+4 Flamers

+Chimera (ML/HF)

+Hunter-Killer

Infantry Squad

+Power Weapon

Infantry Squad

+Power Weapon

Infantry Squad

+Power Weapon

Infantry Squad

+Power Weapon

+Commisar

+Power Weapon

Special Weapons Squad

+3 Meltaguns

Heavy Weapons Team

+3 Autocannons

Veteran Squad

+3 Meltaguns

+Chimera (ML/HF)

Fast Attack

Vendetta



1000 on the nose. The squads in italics combine, and the special weapons squad jumps in the Vendetta, to either make it scoring or to bash something first turn with an alpha strike. I've played with this kind of list before at higher points, and it works well as a steamroller, I'm hoping people will be favoring melee units at the lower points level and get eaten, and I believe I can still hurt most ranged lists.



Thoughts?

Commander Vimes
11-30-2010, 06:01 PM
The hunter killer missiles are pretty much a waste and buy that combined platoon some special weapons. Flamers would be good.

scadugenga
11-30-2010, 06:52 PM
I'd also suggest dropping a p-gun from the CCS, giving the Co. Commander a plasma pistol, adding a medic, and carapace armor. Makes them more survivable and infinitely less likely to self-immolate due to a "gets hot" roll.

Tynskel
11-30-2010, 08:15 PM
yah know, I think you could probably ditch all of the power weapons (50 points) and replace those points with a Rough Rider Squadron (55 point). Then you are getting a much better CC attack unit.

At that point, you could drop one infantry squad to equip the other infantry squads with special/heavy weapons, spending the rest of the points on the Rough Riders.

Nungunz
12-01-2010, 12:02 AM
You know with a huge super-blob like that you might as well take Straken.

You could easily scrap the special weapon squad for the points since it has to walk across the board. Scrap all of the hunter killers.

That way you could grab straken and fit special weapon (melta, GL, or flamer) on all of the infantry squads and maybe a few models with meltabombs in case you meet some walkers.

Personally I'd swap the flamers on the PCS for meltaguns. You can't count on people focusing on melee at 1000 points. At 1000 I usually field a mech list with 5 or 6 vehicles and there are others that field more.

Commander Vimes
12-01-2010, 12:41 AM
The power weapons are good. They mean you can actually kill most things with that blob. If you can find the points for Straken to go with them then great. I'd dropping the Hunter Killers and the Special Weapons team, and replacing the Command Squad's plasma with melta to fit him in. Your close combat skill will outfight a lot of armies that will assume they should be charging you.

Sir Biscuit
12-01-2010, 01:21 AM
In a higher points game I would agree with you- Straken is well worth his points to buff a squad like this in 1500+. However, Straken also costs 95 points, which is 9.5% of my entire army in this case. To make him combat effective as well, I would need to take a medipack as well, for another 15, and a bodyguard for another 15. Straken's command squad would then come in at a cool 235 points before transport. For that much, I could take a second blob. Straken's buffs simply aren't worth it at 1000.

The special weapons squad has a very important job: be scoring. or to be more accurate, make my vendetta scoring. The meltaguns are there in case I really need to destroy something across the table. (IE Land Raider with hammer unit.)

Rough riders have two big flaws: only one turn of decent melee that is very conditional, and they die as easily as every other guardsman. Also, do the math: the rough riders only inflict one more wound on the charge than the blob does when they get charged, when the blob charges, they are MUCH more effective.

I'd love to add carapace armor and a medi-pack, but I'm not finding the points. Honestly, I'd rather have the two hunter-killers than the medpack. They're also pretty safe if I choose my targets carefully, as I can have them order themselves to Bring it Down! when shooting at vehicles and MCs, reducing overheats dramatically.

I do, however, like the idea of giving the blob squad two special weapons instead of the hunterkillers. I just realized they're BS3, not 4. I think 2 meltaguns, as the flamers are really overkill when the squad can FRFSRF for about a billion shots against light infantry. The ability to hurt tanks, and especially to bust open transports, could end up being critical.

ElCheezus
12-01-2010, 10:35 AM
Agree with ditching HKs, but disagree with everyone else's suggestions. Rough Riders are a support unit to break up a CC that blobs are stuck in, not a replacement.

Taking gear just to prevent Plasma burns means you're too much of a pansy to use plasma, it just wastes points. Keep 4x in your list and take your hits when they come. Usually Plasma does its damage in the first or second round of shooting, when there are three or four guns anyway. 4+ armor and FNP is worth it if you have a CC oriented CCS, but not any other time.

Giving the blob special weapons is a waste. These guys should be running in and assaulting. That cuts out Plasmas, as they're not assault weapons. If you want Meltas, take MeltaBombs, they're cheaper and hit rear armor (plus help against walkers). GLs are single-shot AP 4, which helps against. . . . nothing. Flamers have potential, but a savvy enemy will just remove models that are in charge range, hurting your blobs actual purpose. Each weapon is bad for its own reasons.

The thing I will suggest would be dropping the HKs, finding a few more points, and getting another Commissar, even if he doesn't have a power weapons (though ideally he should). This will give you two things: First and foremost, the ability to have two units instead of one, if there are objectives to be claimed. Flexibiliy and options like that win games. The second is protection from the few abilities that can pick a Commissar out of the squad and kill him. If that happens, your blob will run screaming from the next assault.

If you really need to scrounge for points somewhere, I think the HWT is your weak link. They don't have all that much firepower, won't be in range of your CCS after a turn or two, and the rest of your army will be advancing. Leaving a single unit alone in the backfield means they're likely to be picked off pretty quick.

Sir Biscuit
12-01-2010, 01:29 PM
Interesting suggestion on the second commissar, I hadn't thought of the flexibility that might grant. Then again, I'm not too convinced of the durability of a 20 man guard squad even with a Commissar, fortunately I can playtest before committing.

An interesting option could also be to take a Commissar Lord as well and give him a camo cloak, which would provide the whole squad stealth. Not entirely sure where I'd find the points for that, though. Also kind of a free kill point, so maybe not worth it.

Special weapons in the blob squad isn't bad, necessarily... though I have been VERY underwhelmed by flamers in a blob when playing guard in the past. 2 melta>4 meltabomb, being able to hit vehicles that moved 6+ inches is critical, and meltabombs can't until you throw a bunch. (Like demo vets do.)

I'm really hesitant to cut the HWT, as I really do need firepower to make sure the enemy is forced to engage me. While the HWT doesn't cause much damage to infantry (averaging 1 marine kill per turn) they're quite effective against transports. Dropping them means that my long range firepower consists of only the vendetta and the chimera multilasers. (This is, incidentally, the reason I put some hunter-killers in in the first place.) The HWT is scoring as well, and though it dies easily, it still takes some effort to remove at cost to my opponent. I'll test it out, and if they underperform, they'll get the cut, but right now they're my best option for long range anti-transport.

Honestly, I think my best cuts are the special weapons squad's meltaguns (meaning they're naked, but still make my Vendetta scoring) and the HK's right now, which gives me 50 to play around with. So, I can do another commisar + PW and have five points left over. (Probably turn into a dozer blade.) Or do you think it's better to keep the option to suicide charge alpha-strike with the special weapons squad?

ElCheezus
12-01-2010, 05:11 PM
I'm fairly sure you have to have weapons on a SWS, you can't just run them bare. At least, Army Builder never lets me. I don't run them often enough to know if it's right, though. I think I like them as suicide, though.

My Vendettas are usually either empty or carrying a CCS. They end up picking up Veterans if they need to for a last turn objective grab, though. If your Vendettas hang out in back most of the game, you could use the HWT as a way to make them scoring. Again, my vote is still to keep the SWS, but there are options.

I've only seen 20 man blobs run, actually. Guy at our game store runs four of 'em. Opponents can usually kill one or two, but very rarely do they all get taken out. And that's at 1850. If you take a LC and then split the blob into 2, be careful of CC with the LC's blob. He can be picked out in close combat since he's an IC. So a savvy opponent will single him out, and you'll lose high leadership and stubborn unless there's another commissar in there. In general, I've never really seen LCs as a good investment for blobs.

Also, I've never been convinced that a Lord Commissar will pass Stealth onto the rest of a squad he joins.

Commander Vimes
12-01-2010, 05:50 PM
The Commissar Lord doesn't have Stealth, he has +1 to his cover save, which he does not pass on to his unit.

Meltaguns are better than melta bombs. I take enough casualties from my own vehicles exploding, piling my guys around one and then intentionally blowing it up to lose a sixth of the squad is just bad news. Meltaguns also help kill heavy things like Plague Marines and monstrous creatures.

I think Rough Riders are poor. I've tried very hard to make them work, but even with furious charge, two attacks at WS3 just doesn't do enough damage. And they are useless after that one charge.

Sir Biscuit
12-01-2010, 06:00 PM
Ah, look at that... you DO have to give them weapons. Useful information. =)

The Lord Commissar absolutely passes on stealth to any unit he joins. Under Camo Cloak (Pg. 71):
"A model wearing a camo cloak has the Stealth universal special rule."

And the main rulebook FAQ at the bottom of page five, it clearly says that if some models in a unit have the stealth special rule, all members of the unit are granted it. It's pretty clear cut.

Regardless, the Lord Commissar is to expensive for my tastes and he's certainly not making it into my 1000 point list.

Thank you for the advice on the Vendetta pickup, it's actually a very good option. I'm considering it, I'll be playtesting what I have now soon and I'll let you know my thoughts on changes.

Commander Vimes
12-01-2010, 09:03 PM
You're right that it is Stealth, but he does not confer it to his unit. Check page 48 of the main rulebook under Special Rules.

"The character's special rules are not conferred upon the unit"

Axel
12-01-2010, 11:13 PM
Your list seems uninspired. Some points that come to mind:

- I suggest putting some meltabombs into your combined squad, or krak grenades. Were I to fight against your list, my armoured sentinel would bum-rush you (hopefully not near any objectives) and utterly frustrate you for the whole game. Similar results, though more dangerous for you, can occur using Marine dreadnoughts (evil, good and sparkly flavour), Kans, Wraithlords (melta bombs won't help) and so on. You have nothing in your list that can extract your blob from this situation, leaving me to kill your Vendetta/SWS and two Chimerae, sit on an objective and win. Commissar blobs are awesome. People should use them more often. They do need some thought put into them to be effective. The two-Commissar approach suggested above is a good 'un (otherwise you will hate Telion).

- 51-man squads are bloody hard to maneuver around the battlefield. It's very easy to get bunched up by terrain and flamed/barraged/mangled. It's even harder to get all 6 power weapons into the 2" assault radius at the same time against anything except a large Ork mob.

- Against any non-mechanised list (swarmy 'nids, Orks on foot, Guard on foot...anything on foot) you're going to struggle to kill anything worthwhile. Where is the thundering Ordnance of the Guard?

ElCheezus
12-02-2010, 11:38 AM
Vimes' arguments for meltaguns against bombs are poor. If you're afraid to assault (in this case vehicles) for fear of losing modles, you should be playing a jetbike council that fortunes itself over and over again. Guard blobs are literally made of extra wounds.

The main damage-dealer is the power weapons, and any wounds that stick from the rest of the dudes are bonus. This is also why "meltas for killing plague marines" is a bad argument, too. Power weapons will kill them and ignore FNP just fine. Except that there are 4 attacks with each PW, and only one BS 3 melta shot.

Against MCs, the blob slows down a lot, but can still drag them down. I've had a half-power blob eat through two TMCs, one after the other. Their low number of attacks actually make MCs not that big of a threat. Wraithlords are an exception to this, of course. That's why you stay away from them. The game is won or lost in the movement phase, after all. If you ever get stuck on a walker or a wraithlord, have the Commissar take the wounds so you can break and shoot at the offending unit the next turn. That is, unless you actually like having it tarpitted and locked down. Don't forget that putting a walker or a wraithlord in a blob takes them out of the game, too.

Commander Vimes
12-02-2010, 06:49 PM
A single power weapon does .33 wounds to a T5 or T6 opponent on the charge. The Meltagun does .42. So putting a couple meltas into a monstrous creature or unit of Plague Marines or another similarly touch opponent before you charge can significantly shorten the amount of time you are going to be stuck in combat. Winning the combat sooner opens up a whole range of new options. BS3 on the meltas isn't great, but with three or four in a unit, it's worthwhile to give the bring it down order. I've killed three Daemon Princes in a game with a 30 man Melta/power weapon blob before because I shot the crap out of them before I charged, so I wasn't stuck in combat forever.

Meltaguns are also much better than meltabombs at killing vehicles. If you're in range to charge, you're in 2d6 melta range. A meltagun will hit just as often as a sergeant with a melta bomb against a vehicle that moved 6". It will hit a lot more if that vehicle moved over 6". The only time the melta bomb comes out ahead is against stationary vehicles. The meltagun is also AP1 while the bomb isn't.

Yes Guard blobs have a lot of wounds before they start losing important models, but there isn't a need to blow up vehicles in your own face if shooting them is just as workable. I've had plenty of games where it's the last 6-7 guys from a 40 man blob that stagger onto the objective, so saving 5-6 guys by shooting a vehicle instead of blowing it up with melta bombs can be important.

You are right that you should be able to avoid things like Walkers and Wraithlords in the movement phase. Such units are slow, and the Guard should have plenty of shots to deal with them if they are a priority target. This is why I don't spend points on meltabombs just in case I get charged by a Dreadnought. I just have to, as you said, kill the Commissar and shoot the unit next turn, or bog that unit down the rest of the game depending on the circumstances.

ElCheezus
12-03-2010, 01:25 PM
A single power weapon does .33 wounds to a T5 or T6 opponent on the charge. The Meltagun does .42. So putting a couple meltas into a monstrous creature or unit of Plague Marines or another similarly touch opponent before you charge can significantly shorten the amount of time you are going to be stuck in combat. Winning the combat sooner opens up a whole range of new options. BS3 on the meltas isn't great, but with three or four in a unit, it's worthwhile to give the bring it down order. I've killed three Daemon Princes in a game with a 30 man Melta/power weapon blob before because I shot the crap out of them before I charged, so I wasn't stuck in combat forever.

Meltaguns are also much better than meltabombs at killing vehicles. If you're in range to charge, you're in 2d6 melta range. A meltagun will hit just as often as a sergeant with a melta bomb against a vehicle that moved 6". It will hit a lot more if that vehicle moved over 6". The only time the melta bomb comes out ahead is against stationary vehicles. The meltagun is also AP1 while the bomb isn't.

Meltaguns have benefits, I won't deny that. What I don't put stock in is their economy. If you're spending the last 20 or 30 points, I don't have a problem with Meltaguns in a blob. Like you say, they kill things even with a crap BS. However, in terms of the minimum equpment a blob must have, I don't list any special weapons, but I do put meltabombs. Meltaguns are better than bombs against vehicles, that's true. They also cost fully twice as much. That's what I consider them better. Both would be welcome, to be sure.

There's also a situation I'd like to mention with Meltaguns that wouldn't happen with Meltabombs. If you shoot a Meltagun at a tank, you have to assault the tank. If it explodes and either wasn't a transport or the dudes are now too far away, you can't assault that turn. With meltabombs, you can assault (getting 6" of movement) or even multi-assault to tie up other units. The movement from assaulting can be important to blobs, since getting around can take some time if your run rolls aren't too hot. Also, the point of power blobs is to get into assault, so losing the opportunity because 1/10th of your guys decided to shoot instead kinda seems like a waste.

More on topic- I think the list as posted has a good number of ways to deal with vehicles, so spending 40 points on BS 3 meltas would be a waste if there are other places to spend them. And actually, if there were 40 points left over, I'd look for 5 more for a Priest. Rerolls are fantastic (especially on MeltaBombs :D). An eviscerator is better (again, if there are points)

ColonelElibas
12-05-2010, 10:28 PM
The problem with Meltas in Guard is not from BS; it's from the actual Guardsman. Having a platoon command consisting of four meltas is risky because it doesn't have the benefit of Combined Squads, so they can be picked out individually before they get there.

At Toughness Three and a +4 Cover Save from the mob, the lowly melta-toting Guardsman isn't exactly stalwart.

Melta Bombs are more effective with Veterans and their Demolitions doctrine, especially when a Priest is attatched. Not to mention the demolition charge is a nice last ditch effort (and fun at that).

How I see armor killing power in Guard is very specific. Usually Melta's are effective in independent Platoon Squads or sprinkled into a Company Command Squad. Melta Bombs are really good in Veteran Squads since all the veterans are equipped with them AND have the demo charge.

Las Cannon Teams and Leman Russ Vanquisher's are more potent than 'walk-across-the-field' meltas too.