Astra Militarum: The Good, Bad & Ugly | Warhammer 40,000 9th Ed Faction Focus
Spider September 23, 202015
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Bone and Chef sit down to talk about the Astra Militarum in the latest Faction Focus
*Please Note: The Militarum Tempestus will receive their own Faction Focus at a later date*
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I enjoyed the discussion!
I would love to see the super heavies get something like not losing more than 3 wounds in a phase. The high cost, lack of mobility and BS 4+ would be a good balance to the increased endurance.
Love this series and love listening to your guys views.
I have been having a lot of fun with 500pt and 1000pt games between friends, have you guys ever considered doing battle reports at this pt level it would be great to see how you guys would build a list.
All the best and keep up the great content!!
My soul hurts, Tallarn double heavy flamer chimeras is AMAZING! Also, you guys (looking at you bone) always forget the hail of lasgun fire chimera’s can kick out (even when engaged)!
Gents loved this, thanks for covering my beloved Guard in such detail. Can’t disagree with anything you said – and your thoughts in the context of such a broad knowledge of the state of the game is a precious commodity. I cannot wait for the Scions episode!! I’ve just come by 60 metal Kasrkin and three Forgeworld Thunderbolt Heavy Fighters. I don’t care if they’re over pointed. They’re just so cool and with a couple of Officers of the Fleet and vox casters all over the board there’s probably nothing they won’t get at a minimum of 4s re rolling… Read more »
I want (mainly from a fluff point of view) for Platoons and Tank Squadrons to be a thing, if you could make Tanks a ‘unit’ and somehow make the rules align to only give up VP once the squadron/platoon was killed, that would be good. They would need to maintain some sort of overall coherency for it to have a trade off.
Sadly I think its almost impossible to implement interesting fluff based variations like this within the current rules framework.
I said it for 8th, and the blame falls squarely on the TOs and GW: scoring based on killing specific types of units is bullshit and has no place in a strategy game. Achieve the mission, end of story.
Hi Guys, nice Voxcast. I wait for this one. You are absolutly right – specially with the Baneblade. He needs an invunablesave, like a Knight. It is a beautiful Modell, but also a bad joke. In my oppinion it is a hard time to play the Guard. Smaller Boardsize (i think you miss this) is very bad. At the same time not…for some Units (e.g. Hellhounds and Demolisher-/Punisher-Leman Russ). It is weird. You are right at so many points. If i play fun games with my friends, i like to play Astra Militarum. My Core is mostly the same (… Read more »
I have been playing Guard since 8th edition and really love the difference in playstyle vs my imperial fists or custodes. I only play friendly matches so can’t talk about competitive play. The chimera’s with 2x heavy flamer are really nice and also the tank ace for leman russ with 2+ armour save is nice to keep your tank commander alive. I also still run astropaths since they’re just 25points and they can buff my tank with a -1 to hit or +1 to their save. And the new points for special weapons are also a nice improvement. Now you… Read more »
I think a big part of the BS4 issue that Guard share with Orks and Tau is the design of negative to hit modifiers. The issue, as I see it, is that these negative to hit modifiers are supposed to translate units being obscured, evadeing, being in cover, or in a psychic fog or whatever – but what the actual design of the rule does is drastically lowering the ability of the shooting unit to aim. What I mean by that is that a guard or tau unit lose 33% of its efficency, orks 50% but a BS3 army with… Read more »
well done boys, a solid watch. I was a little disappointed Bone had not waxed his moustache for this one, I thought the thumbnail was sneak peak at the whole thing being spoken in ridiculous British accents and that there would furious moustache twisting to punctuate key points. GOOD DAY TO YOU SIRS! I SAID GOOD DAY!
Wait chimeras can take 2 heavy flamers? If they’re Tallarn that’s basically a cheaper and better Immolator. If Immolator spam is so popular for sisters, why don’t we see chimera spam?
Chef about Chimeras: “Can they take heavy flamer turrets ?” -> That’s called a Hellhound 😉
Everything you said is spot on. I do think the access to cheap lascannon platforms can be good too, especially if you lose your big hitters early on. You can take a heavy weapon team with a BS3 lascannon in a command squad for under 40 points. The strat to boost Heavy weapon squad hits and wounds from PA is very nice too, even more so with the new heavy bolter updates. In general game terms the smaller board has not helped guard, it is a nightmare trying to fit everything on the board in a 2000pt game. Having loads… Read more »
Solid discussion and agree with so much and have near identical issues which is reassuring in a way. Totally agree about the Baneblade – be cool if they could make it a commander version – but I have been running a warden and 2 x Warglaives detachment alongside TCs, chimera and troops to get that uniform BS 3s with some success. But as you say there are some hard matches, eradicators can kill all tanks with ease as we have no invuln or FNP which really hurts. Yea we can take a lot but we can be shelled turn 1… Read more »
It’s a pity with the super heavy tanks there brilliant models but there just to big for normal 40k good for a game of Apocalypse maybe but most people don’t play that.
Solid evaluation, guys. Didn’t disagree with a single thing that was said. Of particular note was the judgment of super-heavies. When I started my own Tallarn army it had a Doomhammer in it because the amusement of spending 6CP to ambush it laden with two Guardsmen squads, a company commander and a Command Squad was just too fun, but as the rules altered through 8e into 9e it just became less fun to shoehorn into the game. The revamp on the Supreme Command Squad detachment was the final nail. I don’t really run my AM list to be overly competitive… Read more »
I think the number one thing that hurts guard is going second. They have a ton of output, but they drop like flies. They need first turn so they can do enough damage. if you go first vs guard, you smoke the tank commanders and then they’ve lost their main output.
Super heavies further compound this. If guard go second, they lose the baneblade 99% of the time.
Good take! I think the biggest hurt to guard are ITC secondaries and mission scoring in the Command Phase rather than lost detachment types or codex stuff.
Guard bleeds secondaries no matter the build and surviving the enemy turn on an objective is extremely difficult. But both of those things could change rapidly even without a new codex – just changing scoring on some missions to end of your turn makes guard squads with their fast movement and objective secured super good. So we’ll see at the next chapter approved!
I think too mitigate the -1 too hit there needs too be more availability too rr1 and +1 too hit. Almost like tau have their marker lights, guard need better orders or spotters… etc. Also think tank commanders should not be so spamable. Also artillery needs rewrite. They should just flat ignore all benefits of cover. As chef says if they are looking through dense cover they get -1 for some reason. But they can fire over a building with no -1. The only exception is they should not be able too target if in enclosed cover like bunkers. Orders… Read more »
Are hydras that bad? I get maybe not in an all comers list but Eldar, Dark Eldar and Harliquin transports all have the FLY keyword and most of the Tau units do and 8 shots at S7 AP-1 D2 with BS3 (against anything with the fly keyword) must be able to slow these armies down
Guard feels to me like an army purpose designed for Apocalypse and then shoe-horned into smaller versions of the game.
I’m curious if giving the mech units fewer wounds combined with a weaker 5+ invul maybe would be a solution. Would cause them to be less valuable in terms of secondaries but the invul would make up for the drop in wound count? I agree with the endless circle of misery comment and wonder if something like this would break that cycle without creating too much of a points change.
The Super Heavies need to be 2+/5+++. They are supposed to be internally braced, have damage control and fire suppression systems after all…
Like my fellow Guard commanders in the comments, I’ve been waiting in an almost nervous anticipation over what you guys had to say about my favourite 40k faction. I think you hit most of the major points of where Guard sit in 9th. I agree with you 100% Bone- Super Heavies are DREADFUL, and this is from someone that had 4 of them- a mix of Forge World and GW models- so that is close to £450 of fully painted models that will never see the table unless something drastic changes with them… Which hurts. So ‘Ugly’ is one way… Read more »
Chimera can take 2 heavy flamers boys and it is nasty!
Baneblades should be 2+Saves, its supposed to Armored Monstrosities
The Artillery Models arent shooting willy-nilly so they could give them rule that says “This unit can shoot at any enemy models no matter if it has LoS with a -1 to hit unless there is a Troops unit that can see the enemy model that could act as a spotter”
Agree with all your points. Sadly I completely agree about the super-heavies! An invun or a shrug on them would help tonnes!
Okay hear me out: Stormlord has 20 firing ports Inquisition Can board any vehicle. Acolytes can take any weapon. 18 acolytes with flamers ride a stormlord Throwing out 18d6 hits
Been waiting for this one. 🙂 You pretty much got the jist of it. Guard struggles in 9th because it is supereasy to load up on kill secondaries that you can be pretty much guaranteed to max out. Depending on what you have, bring it down can be maxed out t1. I stopped running Sentinels because every single one of them is worth 2 points for Bring It Down. It’s silly. You can pretty much always pick a combo of Bring it down, Thin their ranks, Attrition and Assassinate when facing Guard without even really thinking about it and that’s… Read more »
Just wanted to start by saying; what a great breakdown of the Guard, and Bone please keep bringing those Hellhounds because it is highly amusing watching them explode in your own lines. Guard are my principal army and I love them. However, I completely agree with the issues of the superheavy tanks (which I also am a fan of). I have a Hellhammer which I used to run in a supreme pizza detachment and enjoyed the regimental benefits of such a detachment, (Gunnery Experts, spotter details etc). Now with 3 CP to run in an auxillary for 590 pts, with… Read more »
This was really a great analysis, and all your point sounded really well done to me… I’m sorry I cannot dive into them too much cause I have very little experience with anything guard-related: I always tought that as an army they should play on quantity more than quality, but at the moment that doesn’t seems to work well. And yes, sadly the Baneblade reminds me of the big fat Ork knight that always dies without doing anything… such a sad end for an awesome mini. One day I’ll build a Colonial Marines army to play agains ‘nids. About playing… Read more »
I agree with most everything you guys have talked about. I would definitely add the Leman Russ (non commander type) to the bad section though as it received an undeservedly large points hike while the tank commander only went up a little making the choice between taking a tank commander or a normal tank pretty obvious. I do not think I have run or seen someone run a normal Leman Russ for the past 2 years and I do not see that changing.
Watching this I was wondering whether all the ugly and bad stuff actually needs fixing. Don´t all armies need weaknesses and oddities to make the game interesting? Isn´t it more about balancing those weaknesses, not eliminating them?
Hey Guys I ove these videos, can I ask are you doing something for Ad Mech and if so is there something you can do to get Stig involved maybe even some kind of zoom or skype deal. Is this something you be interested in doing?
Yay Astra Militarum before I’m playing them later ?
And yes, Chimera’s can have turret Heavy Flamers, making them mini Hellhounds with transport capacity ?
Don’t forget when you do the Scions, they can take things like Bullgryns too without losing their doctrine ?