Army showcase: Urash's Marauders

Hey everyone, this is KrautScientist again. After my initial post (showcasing my World Eaters), I would like to show you the other chaos army project I am currently working on: My growing force of Traitor Guard, called “Urash’s Marauders”.

Infantry Platoon: Where size -does- matter. Part 3

Welcome back to Infantry Platoon, for those of you who have not read the previous two entries i suggest taking a look at Part 1 and Part 2 and sorry for the delay on this part three but things have been very busy with 'ard boyz and other local events.

Part 3 will discuss the final three options in the Infantry Platoon: The Heavy Weapons Squad, the Special Weapons Squad, and the Conscripts Squad.

The Heavy Weapons Squad:

Made up of 3 heavy weapons teams of mortars the HWS is an essential to the imperial guard gun-line lists. They can have mortars, heavy bolters, autocannons, missile launchers, and lascannons in any combination, mixed and matched. They are also able to be equipped with krak grenades (though why you ever would is beyond me, i guess if someone decided to assault them with a walker?)

In my own lists I happen to enjoy all the different sort of weapons and prefer to keep my squads all the same type, though something can indeed be said about putting a lascannon with two missle launchers in order to protect the lascannon. With orders these squads can tear down enemy vehicles or squads with great efficiency. However they must be protected by those infantry squads or perhaps the conscripts.

Another tactic i have heard used, but never tried myself yet, is to load these heavy weapons teams up in chimeras bought through your infantry platoons, though that would no longer allow them to receive orders, this would provide them with a bit of extra protection.

Over all I -love- these guys, they rip through everything and are worth the points!

The Special Weapons Squads:

Special weapons squads are cheap methods of death dealing craziness, they are made up of 6 regular imperial guardsmen and three of them -must- take a special weapon. They can take flamers, grenade launchers, sniper rifles, meltaguns, plasmaguns and even the dreaded demolition charge.

Having not experimented to much with these, I have not quite made up my mind on them, though the cheapness of the squad itself combined with the amount of possible firepower protected by a chimera bought through the infantry platoons or through a valkyrie or vendetta can make them quite potent. After all who wants to see 3 large str 8 ap 2 blast templates tossed at them from a squad? Or three meltas on a tank? or three plasmas?

However I do not think the flamers or grenade launcher options are worth much here, though i can see the validity of having 3 snipers in some situations but it seems still a bit of a stretch.

Over all I want to see how these work on the field a bit more before i five my final answer.
The Conscripts Squad:

This squad of bodies can consist of anywhere between 20-50 bodies of WS and BS 2 imperial guardsmen with no possible upgrades unless you have Commander Chenkov in your army to give them the Send in the Next Wave option. With their low leadership of 5 it might seem like something you would not want to field, but once again just think about 50 bodies there to help plug up that front line and provide you cover, or stop an assault on your good troops. Then if you do have Chenkov in your army, they become infinitely better due to the fact that they can keep coming in over and over again! Plus with 1st Rank Fire, 2nd Rank Fire! you have got up to 150 las gun shots, which makes the BS 2 thing a bit more palatable.

Over all I would not consider using these all that often in competitive play, however in a game that is for fun with a friend, these fellows can provide endless (literally) entertainment.

That is all for now folks, let me know if there is anything specific you want me to cover otherwise I will be choosing my next topic soon.


Until next time, burn some heretics, kill some mutants, and do it as always...

FOR THE EMPEROR!

Infantry Platoon: Where size -does- matter. Part 2.

O.K. Folks, on my first post I covered the basics of the Infantry platoon and then the Platoon Command Squad itself, so this time I will be covering the next part of the troop choice.

The Infantry Squad

So first the basics, the squad consists of 9 regular guardsmen and 1 sergeant, with a single troop choice you are forced to take 2 of these at minimum up to a max of 5. The squads themselves have the normal option of trading 2 guys for a heavy weapons team, but unlike the Vet Squad you can only have 1 special weapon. Each squad can also be assigned krak grenades, a vox caster, a commissar, and a chimera and based on what you plan on doing with said squads will highly influence if you indeed want to take any or none of these.

From what I have seen at Adepticon as well as our own shop the majority of players either enjoy tossing large numbers of Infantry squads together with a commissar and a vox caster together with the combined squad special rule, and perhaps a special weapon or two and using them as a large squad objective holder, with stubborn. Perhaps taking some chimera's from them to stuff the heavy weapons teams into for their own protection, or the special weapons teams at that. The second method is to give each squad a special weapon and heavy weapon, load them into chimera's and have at it, giving the enemy lots of targets to choose from but none a large priority, often causing confusion.

My own method varies slightly from these as I prefer to to grab a medium sized combined squad, maybe 2-3 squads, give them some heavy weapons, a commissar, a vox caster, special weapons and then power weapons to the Sgt.'s and commissar and give them orders as i see fit, mostly to provide a screen of losable men to protect my tanks and the heavy weapons teams I have hiding behind them on the ground (why i leave them on the ground i will cover in their section of posts.)

A fun method, one that is expensive in points, but highly amusing is to run 5 squads, each with a Grenade Launcher, Krak Grenades, Commissar with PW, Sgt. with PW, one vox with 5 Ministorum Priests with shotguns and Eviscerators..... Those along (with the Plat. Comm. Squad) is 935 points of pure fun, but highly ineffective bliss.... I mean common... 60 guys? 15 of which have power weapons of some sort? That is indeed amusing.

Overall the Infantry Squad is quite the varied prankster, able to take orders and deal out tons of lasgun to lascannon firepower. The possibilities for competitive play, and theme for your armies are nearly endless, plus the added bonus of an impressive amount of models to show off.

Until next time, burn some heretics, kill some mutants, and do it as always...

FOR THE EMPEROR!

Infantry Platoon: Where size -does- matter. Part 1.

Well it is finally time to perhaps tackle the largest section of the Imperial Guard army, and to do so will take time, however, I am a kind Lord and will break it down into a few different sections to help keep this short and sweet.

Today's lesson will focus on the different methods of running the infantry platoon and on the Platoon Command Squad.

First there are a few different strategies, overall you can decide upon a few different things with your IG platoon force. The first being that you want to use it as a base for getting a hold on bunches of heavy weapons while keeping a few extra bodies in the way of them getting killed. The second being a mass amount of bodies designed to tear down opponents infantry with volumes of lasgun fire, or large amount of bodies in assault with hidden power weapons. Thirdly a rapid strike force of metlas in small squads or piles of demo charges with bodies to hold objectives. Fourthly, a method of grabbing a hold of lots of cheap armor in the form of Chimera's as each Infantry Squad can have one along with the PCS. Yet no matter the method you go for with this troop selection, all can be equally effective.

Now let us take a closer look at the Platoon Command Squad.

At its low point cost the 5 man squad can be highly effective, though its low model number can often leave it as a easy target, after all no opponent wants to just let you give -another- order. My advice? Don't make them a large threat. Give them a mortar or heavy bolter heavy weapons team (I prefer the former, as pinning can always be nice) and not much else, perhaps a chimera. Yet the squad has so many options available to it that it can be tempting to provide it with 4 flamers or sniper rifles or some such thing but there are after all dangers with this, as described before.

There are some things that just aren't worth it. Such as the Medpak, krak grenades, and (looks over his shoulder to make sure one isn't around) Commissar... i mean who wants to have their Platoon Commander shot in the head and no longer able to give orders? I mean, Imagine if you were running Al'rahem or Chenkov and all those points got jacked by a single failed leadership test? Ouch...

As for those two fellows... well each gives their own unique benefit to your army, after all... squads of outflanking metla/demo wielding special weapons teams and chimera after chimera backing them up?... mmmmm... brings smiles to my face... or endless bodies to throw at the Nids or demons? Lovely....

Look at your platoon command squad as a small bonus order (if you don't have Al'rahem or Chenkov) and nothing really more that is able to hold objectives and try and make them hardly noticeable to try to keep them alive, soon your opponent will realize their error of course, but by then 145 lasgun shots have been plastered into them and their 10 man Tac squad now only has 2 guys left in it... mmmmmm Victory tastes so sweet...

Until next time, burn some heretics, kill some mutants, and do it as always...

FOR THE EMPEROR!