Veteran Squads questions.....

[Abominable Plague Marine]

Ladies and gents.

Let me first give you a bit of background on what Im trying to achieve here before asking anything.

Basically Ive been working on a Traitor Guard Skitarii (Ordo Reductor) army for just over 12 months now. It started out with the 4th ed Guard Codex and when it went to the 5th ed Codex I had to make some massive changes, all for the good mind you. This however had me thinking maybe there is a better option out there to represent Skitarii?

Im now thinking to go the whole hog and have my army represented through Witch Hunters, Space Marines & Imperial Guard Codexes. For now though I dont have time to go off and get some extra models as I wish to make use of what Ive got thus far and assemble it into an effective force for a tournament happening late November.

So Ive been looking at using Veterans to represent my Skitarii and as I havent had much experience with the new 5th ed Codex I thought I would ask her before committing myself to this project any further.

1. Can you have more than 1 Heavy Weapon Team in a Veteran Squad? It just says "replace two Veterans with a Heavy Weapon Team" where as with the Special Weapons, it limits you to 3. Thoughts (did I miss something)?

2. Can you combine Grenadiers and Camo Cloaks? Being a foot slogging army (part of my theme) I was thinking of modeling on my Skitarii like a personal Refractor Field (not as good as the Commanders one, but easily massed produced........for the masses) so that they can either fire for full effect or redivert power (going to ground) and activate the field. Edit: The Grenadiers option is chosen to represent the Bionics and massed conversions Ive done. Thoughts/comments?

Last of all, I would love to hear any suggestions people may have for things to include in my army that would fit with the Skitarii theme from Witch Hunters/Space Marines/Imperial Guard Codexes.

On a side not, Im now steering away from the Ordo Reductor (Seige Specialists) theme a little bit for my army as I dont want to set too many restrictions without know the full scale of all my options yet.

[Abominable Plague Marine]

Nevermind, found the cruddy FAQ, can only take 1 x Heavy Weapon Squad. Hmmmmm, going to have to drop some units me thinks...............

[Magos Bellum]

I totally agree with the carapace armoured vets, I am in fact doing the same thing for the bulk of my skittari, however, with the heavy weapons, your best bet is an infantry platoon comprised of much less converted models, representing newly recruited/equipped troops who are too expendable to waste good armour and bionic enhancement on. Get a platoon command squad and two infantry squads and then up to five heavy weapons squads. The infantry squads can be used as cheap screens for the more valuable units.

As for using grenadiers and sentries, well it would make the squad irritating to kill for things that don't both ignore cover saves and are Ap 4, but there are quite a few of those (Heavy Flamers being the most common) so almost doubling the cost of the squad isn't really worth it in my opinion, although it could be useful on a defensive squad in cover (4+ armour save, 3+ cover save without going to ground and defensive grenades to slow attackers).

I'll get back to the next part in a moment. As you may have already realized, the real issue of the ordo reductor in 40k games is that you can't include what makes the ordo reductor amazing (the ordinati) and are stuck with things like Thunderfire Cannons, Medusae, Basilisks and so on, and are rather limited in the degree of mechanization (which seems to be the best choice overall at the moment). Easy stuff to add for guard would be a 2 vehicle artillery battery, the master of ordinance and a manticore (very good, but rare and difficult to keep in working condition for non specialists....). Beyond that you will probably be limiting yourself excessively.

Wow this is a long post... Moving on to unit ideas, I will go down the list of imperial guard units. Needless to say, many of these do not fit exactly and require some rules not matching fluff or very inventive fluff.
Command Squad-Skittari officer (a tribune if I recall correctly), his bodyguards and ordo representatives (master of ordinance-ordo reductor for example).
Primaris Psyker-Weak Electropriest officer
Lord Commissar-Law enforcement of the adeptus mechanicus guy (I forget the name of the organization)
Ratlings-uh....
Stormtroopers-self explanatory
Ogryns-Praetorian Auxilia
Psykers-Electropriest Battery
Veterans-as you know
Infantry Platoon-see above (conscripts would be cheap servitors used as a meat shield)
Penal Legion-Electropriests in training
Sentinels-as themselves
Hellhounds and variants-as themselves
Valk and Vendetta- anti-grav transports with guns, cover the cockpit with sensors and your good to go
Rough Riders-Some other kind of electropriest/ or soldiers with small track units for their lower body and legs
Heavy Support-as themselves Note: Knights work decentely well with Leman Russ rules.

Hope this helps somewhat.

[Jwolf]

Sounds like Magos Bellum has some good ideas for you, Abominable Plague Marine.

I look forward to seeing pictures of these guys.

[PostWarFolk]

Definitely want to see the finished product.

[Abominable Plague Marine]

Thanks for the comments guys.

As such, I have added a few Blog entries, go check them out and leave your divine wisdom there as to not clog this thread up.