Assault Tactica in january WD

[experiment 626]

just some thoughts/comments about some of the types of units discussed in this month's white dwarf article on assault units...
first off of course, the guard!

in all honesty, command squads are not the real 'main fighters' of the guard - they are purely counter assaulters, ment to tip the balance of an on-going combat...
then there's the armaments put forwards in the article! now while i whole heartily agree that power fists & eviscerators are great weapons for the commissar and priest, (because they're UC's and no IC's like the officer!) the addition of carapace armour is down right dumb! by having your three main 'heavy hitters' (officer w/power toy, commissar + priest w/fist or eviscerator) wearing carapace, you're now forced to use the mixed armour rules, meaning those supposidly 'hidden' power fists are now easily sniped through use of the 'mixed armour' and/or 'torrent of fire' rules!
(example: a tactical squad shoots it's bolters only, killing say 3, 5+ save guardsmen - this makes the save ratio now 3:1 between 4+ saves over 5+ saves as the unit now consists of an officer, commissar, preist & one guardsman.
now the marine player fires his nearby dreadnought's assault cannon at the unit, meaning those S6 ap4 shots *must* first be taken on the 4+ save characters as they are now the majority save!!!)
as you can see, against anyone who pays attention, the guard player will be royally fethed as the assault cannon also has the strength needed to inflict 'instant death!' on the poor characters!)
also, adding on master-crafting to a unit containing a preist is generally a waste of pts as the priest grants re-rolls already! generally, lots of wargear is a bad thing as it only makes the unit even more expensive... the more expensive a unit, the harder time it will have earning it's pts back!

a better front-line assault squad would be rough riders w/hunting lances... (and they are mentioned naturally!) however the other two main assault units in the guard army aren't given any text surprisingly! namely the conscript mob and hardened vets!

conscripts are a no-brainer: a big mass of cheap soldiers who can't shoot worth crap, but throw out an obseen amount of attacks and have massive numbers to ensure a combat drags on for a few turns! all they need is a bit of help in the Ld department, which can either be provided by a nearby officer and/or an independant commissar hidding in the back of the unit! (remember that he becomes an IC so he can be easily targeted in assaults!)
the only things these guys need to look out for are template weapons and attacks like holocaust... few units have the nessessary firepower to outright kill most of them. and anyways, if your opponent spends his/her entire turn trying to wipe them all out, they're forgetting about your much more valuable heavy weapon squads and tanks!

hardened veterans are better than command squads becuse they have;
a) numbers! upto 10 per squad.
b) infiltrate as standard without having to buy the light infantry doctrine!
getting these guys close to their target is no problem - infiltrate let's you get within 12" provided you're out of line of sight!
the unit can all take pistols & ccw's as standard, or shotguns should you want to throw out a bit more assault fire before charging in! the unit can also take upto three special weapons so can still pack alot of anti-meq fire in the form of meltaguns or plasma guns... (though as a rapid fire weapon, the plasma will prevent you from assaulting that turn you fire!) or else you could go for flamers... best of all, with three special weapon slots and high BS, you can afford to mix-up your weapons to handel a varity of different opponents! (2 meltaguns + 1 flamer are great for thinning out both meq's and hoards!)
best of all, you mandetory veteran sergeant can take 'officer only' weapons and wargear!!! a power fist is mandetory for him and with S6, he'll be able to threaten most monstrous creature now! a trademark item is fairly cheap and will help keep the squad fighting on, even despite the heavy casulties you'll usually take.

i've avoided ogryns simply because they have far too many weaknesses, the main one being their multiple wounds and yet only being T4...
with so many S8 power fists out there ogryns really do get the short end of the stick and are generally now not worth the investment, as a single space marine sergeant can effectively take out half or more of an averge sized unit...


so agree? disagree?
any more thoughts now on the other other armies?!
cheers!

[WNxHasoroth]

Well, your completely right here. I've also found extremely nice counter assualt units to be a Tech Priest Engineer with the Honorifica. A couple of Combat Servitors and you have:

1) A distraction
2) An overestimated threat
3) Possibility to do some damage in an assualt, and a defining factor in counter assualts.

I would like to see your reasoning behind the use of Hardened Veterans as counter assualt units. I'm sure they are but I'd like to hear of the best possible scenarios where it is best to counter attack with them.

[experiment 626]

hmmmm... never thought of the techpriest, mainly because his servitors count as wargear, and the honorifica eats up half his allowance!
a cheap inquisitor can get 3 combat servitors, plus 3 acolytes w/power weapons!

as for the vets, here's how i have mine currently set-up;
veteran sergeant w/power fist & plasma pistol
2 vets w/meltaguns
1 vet w/flamer
3 vets w/shotguns
1 vet w/las pistol & ccw

i usually deep strike these boys if there's a alot of armour in the enemy force or a couple av14 tanks...
otherwise, they infiltrate out of sight and i try to time their strike with that of the other lawn darts! (erm, i mean 'highly trained, elite drop troops!')

every weapon is either a pistol or 'assault' type, and with the high BS4 and 3 special weapon slots, the unit can be a bit of a 'jack of all trades'... plus, being a veteran sergeant, that power fist is hidden! though granted guardsmen don't last long in assaults...
they're top targets are things like wraithlords, 'fexes and such - big death gribblies who lack a large number of attacks and thus will need 2-3 rounds to kill off all the vets. with S6 and the two melta shots before assaulting, that hopefully means the sergeant only needs to cause 1 or 2 more wounds!

the main key for these guys is to support them with another squad and thus reduce the ammount of attacks the vets will receive, while maximising their own attacks!

cheers!

[WNxHasoroth]

Thanks for the quick reply mate!

Well that is a very interesting usage of Hardened Vets. I'm wondering about the possiblities of a Vet Squad armed like yours except with 3xPlasma Guns for tying up Space Marines.

[experiment 626]

Originally Posted by WNxHasoroth

Thanks for the quick reply mate!

Well that is a very interesting usage of Hardened Vets. I'm wondering about the possiblities of a Vet Squad armed like yours except with 3xPlasma Guns for tying up Space Marines.

a rather tasty and effective option! though i would prefer to use a junior officer's command group personally... granted they'll only be BS3, but at least you can take a medic to help with the inevitable overheats!
(i like to roll 1's... lots and lots of 1's!)

the biggest downside doing it that way though is that each casulty will result in you losing a specialist... where as at least the vets can have a few ablative wounds to protect the plasma gunners!

in the end though, it's all a matter of personal preference!

cheers!

[Gnr. Keil]

I used veteran squads like that. Two infact. They are excelent as long as you don't roll more then two ones. Just remeber to roll different color dice the seperate gunners so you know if a gun overheated twice or a two guns overheated once. Unfortunatly they didn't fit with my army fluff so i replaced them.

[hairyyahoo]

just throw in a lascannon and you have a very effective transport popper that battle tanks need to be wary of too

[Grand Master Raziel]

Well, I'm putting together an IG army of my own, so I've been looking at those rules pretty hard. One thing that recently jumped out at me was the utility of the Command Squads as counterassaulters. You have to buy Command Squads anyway, so it makes sense to me to pay the extra points to make them viable countercharge units instead of buying seperate units to put to that use. The Priest with an Eviscerator and the Commissar with a power fist are no-brainers, but you missed one other clever trick: a Sanctioned Psyker with a force weapon. The Psyker is a UC as well, so that gives you a hidden force weapon. Give him the Honorifica Imperalis, and he's got the same profile as a Heroic Senior Officer. Mind you, that is pricey. I'll try it, but if it doesn't seem worthwhile I figure my Psykers might get relegated to the role of expendable extra meatshield.

That said, in order to use Command Squads this way, you either have to use the baseline IG rules or expend a lot of your Doctrine points in buying back the necessary UCs - one each for the Priests and Psykers. The Doctrine list I'm looking at for my IG army is Restricted Troops: Priests, Psykers, and Techpriests, plus Iron Discipline and Sharpshooters.

[experiment 626]

the psyker trick is a well known practice in many guard armies! the thing is, like many 'uber characters he's a one-trick poney becaue you'll only ever get to pull your 'pointy death stick trick' once... after you zap say your opponent's chaplain, either every gun in their army will turn on that unit, or else they'll get assaulted by a large squad of basic troops!

you also need to;
a) include more than 1 psyker to ensure your opponent is kept guessing which one is the 'uberfied nasty.
b)be able to get the psyker into base-to-base contact with his intended target, especially in the case of tryign to zap and enemy IC! (and this will leave your psyker vulnerable to being cut down before he can strike as well!)

it's certainly a worthwhile trick, especially if you have no other plans for those nessessary doctrine points. just don't expect the same person to fall for it too many more times after the first!

cheers!

[masterofweirdness]

Originally Posted by experiment 626

a) include more than 1 psyker to ensure your opponent is kept guessing which one is the 'uberfied nasty

cheers!

correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you have to tell what units have what wargear... so the Honorifica Imperalis isn't hidden, the enemy knows exactly which pyker has what... anyways, was the WD article any good, I haven't bothered to read any 'cause people are saying how bad the magazine is now.

[MSguardsmen]

no. you dont. although its easy once you played against me. i paint my weapons in washes. black wash normal weapon, blue wash power, green wash force weapon. helps alot when your playing as grey knights.

but back on topic. you do not have to tell your opponent anything about war gear until its time to beat them with it. or unless its wysiwyg. if they can see a force weapon then they know its coming. however if my commissar happens to be hiding a nuke under his jacket it doesnt mean he has to tell the chaos lord hes fighting until its time to set it off.

[JoeGuardsman]

I have to share my opinions on Ogryns. I agree that Ogryns cannot deal with a power fist and I'll never put then up against one, also they have a small liability to small arms fire and autokilling shots. I love Ogryns it is just that they have to be fielded right. What I tell you is gospel here, 3 Ogryns will always get their point value back. 85 points of str. 6 attacks with an assault 2 weapon and leadership 9. 3 Ogryns become very very sneaky. For whatever reason they are not deemed to be enough of a threat until it is too late, and they are just much easier to hide. Never run them at a Space Marine with a powerfist but laugh at your friends Scouts as they run and hide and probably cry a little.

[experiment 626]

Originally Posted by masterofweirdness

anyways, was the WD article any good, I haven't bothered to read any 'cause people are saying how bad the magazine is now.

nope, you never have to tell your opponent anything about who has what wargear! (besides, telling them only spoils the big surprise now doesn't it?!)

anyways, the article is really nothing special and overall it's quite basic... some of it, like the guard tactics are either plain foolish or else they're no brainers to begin with! (such as the honorifica + force weapon psyker.)
i was quite disapointed with it, though alessio's assault based space marine looks like it could be rather fun and very challenging to take on!

cheers!

[Grand Master Raziel]

Originally Posted by JoeGuardsman

I have to share my opinions on Ogryns. I agree that Ogryns cannot deal with a power fist and I'll never put then up against one, also they have a small liability to small arms fire and autokilling shots. I love Ogryns it is just that they have to be fielded right. What I tell you is gospel here, 3 Ogryns will always get their point value back. 85 points of str. 6 attacks with an assault 2 weapon and leadership 9. 3 Ogryns become very very sneaky. For whatever reason they are not deemed to be enough of a threat until it is too late, and they are just much easier to hide. Never run them at a Space Marine with a powerfist but laugh at your friends Scouts as they run and hide and probably cry a little.

Not my Scouts. They're always accompanied by a Vet Sergeant with a power fist. I've got three Scout Sergeants converted to have power fists. Bring the Ogryn on!

[JoeGuardsman]

Uping the ante there huh...well I'll make sure that I hit them with enough Heavy Bolter fire first to even up the odds. Yeah pretty much I avoid every kind of str 8 powerfist, but surely they can't be in every squad.