Blood Angels: Why do we use Honor Guard and Vanguard Veterans?

[Wolf 11x]

Even in DoA lists, why do we take Honor Guard and Vanguard Veterans?

I don't mean to infringe on ToU, so let me know if this post is too detailed, but I think it's important to discuss points.

Assault Marine - 18 points each - WS4, A1, LD8
Honor Guard - 33 points each - WS4, A2, LD9, Come with a hidden priest, Locked at 5-man squads, Access to special and close-combat weapons
Vanguard Veterans - 33 points each - WS4, A2, LD9, Can charge when they arrive via Deep Strike, Access to close-combat weapons

For 15 more points per model, you're essentially gaining +1 attack and squad-wide LD9. 15 more points per model. Yes, Honor Guard can take up to 4 Melta per squad to ensure that vicious tank is dead. I rarely, if ever, see an opponent with one specific tank that must die above all else. When really thinking about it though, I can't tell you when 2 Meltas haven't gotten the job done. This is a thought widely echoed by a lot of the community. I've seen a lot of mention of taking Honor Guard with 4 Plasma or 2 Melta / 2 Plasma. For a mere 30 more points, 4 Melta Honor Guard can turn into a 10-man Assault Squad with 2 Meltas and a Power Fist (that can combat squad).

Vanguard Veterans pay an extreme premium to be able to charge when they land. Besides Long Fangs, how useful is this? I don't see a lot of Devastators. DakkaDreads won't penetrate your armor, even if the annoying Psybolt Ammo will mean you don't get FnP. Lootas can't get through your army or FnP. There are a lot of horde-type armies you won't want to use Heroic Intervention against. When you don't DoA with the squad, you're not even using Heroic Intervention. I've seen suggestions of "decking them out." A squad of 5 VVs with a Power Fist is already 175 points. A Storm Shield is 20 per model. Power Weapons and Power Fists run the normal rate for Sergeants. I'd rather just take 5 TH/SS Terminators. Sure, they scatter 2D6". However, they're paying a mere 45 points per model for a 2+/3++.

I must conclude that I don't feel Honor Guard or Vanguard Veterans are worth it. I think these points could be better spent on even more Assault Marines.

[Volandum]

Well, a flying priest IS 75pts, right?

[Thud]

With all due respect, I don't think you understand 40k very well.

You take one unit (Assault Squad) which has one role and then you compare other units (Honour Guard and Vanguard Veterans) toward that role. You're getting too caught up in the old forum fallacy of "unit A does X and costs Y points whereas unit B does X and costs Z points, ergo unit A is superiour.

What is useful in 40k analysis is not unit to unit comparisons, but total army composition which addresses what your army needs of tools, how they work together and what's the most efficient way of getting these.

So then, let’s look at Honour Guard vs. Assault Marines. The former with jump packs and four meltaguns and the latter with two meltaguns and a power fist on the sergeant. They’re both in the same point range, 205 and 235 points respectively, but their roles are not the same. It’s not like you figure out which is the best, at some arbitrary definition of best, and then go for two of that one. Instead, in this example, you might want to take one of each and have them work together as that would give you two anti-tank units with FNP, one of which is scoring and the other packing twice the heat, one being decent against horde units, the other being decent against MCs, and together they’re able to go up against most things.

This doesn’t mean that this is always the case; it very much depends on how the rest of your army is built; but pitting two units against each other with an arbitrarily defined “best” very rarely leads to great army lists.

[sean_scanlon2000]

@ thud

I'm in total agreement. people always try and compare one unit to another vs cost of effectiveness but never consider what that unit does in the army. where in one force a unit of mm toting honor guard may be lack luster in another list they will shine. to truly look at the effectiveness of any unit you have to look at the composition of the army and go from there. running a single ac/lc pred may be bad in some list or good in others if that list is filled with lots of armour or maxed out on baal preds.

[Navigator19]

Furthermore, you're neglecting the fact that each unit is not set in stone. You don't necessarily have to purchase 2x Melta+P-fist Assault Squad and 4x Melta-gun Honor Guard.

Currently, I run two full squads of Marines, one with 2x Melta+Power fist, the other with 2x Flame Thrower+Power Sword. IF I take an Honor Guard Squad (Big if, I tend to run my Librarian with a Sternguard Squad), then I give them the following kit out: 2x Melta Gun, 1x Power Fist, Chapter Banner, Company Champion.

Weirdly, the actual fluff in the Codex gives you some good ideas for your Honor Guard. I tend to use them as an anchor unit in a battle line, advancing in a razorback alongside Tac Squads in Rhinos and airborne Assault Marines. It pretty much guarantees my morale across a large swath of the board.

[Volandum]

I think you're generally forgetting the fact that the HG Priest is hidden so you can often choose to lose him late on. On foot it's 115pts for the Honour Guard compared with 65-155pts for the Assault Marines, and the small difference left over when you've paid for the hidden priest can just go on the veteran statline. Also the special weapon slots are valuable!

[Kelanen]

It’s not like you figure out which is the best, at some arbitrary definition of best, and then go for two of that one.

I'm afraid I can't disagree more - I think that is EXACTLY what you do. Spam <something> is almost always the way to go, it gives redundancy and efficacy. A little bit of everything might make an interesting list, but it rarely makes a good one.

For this reason most top tournament armies will have 2-3 the same unit in several slots.

Your points on making sure you are comparing the right things, and also looking how the army functions as a whole, and making sure you have given it tools to do the jobs you want done are well taken, but within that broad framework, unit vs unit comparison is every bit as important as overall list analysis. In fact I'd argue you can't build up a good list to look at overall without doing a lot of unit by unit (and often gun by gun, option for option) analysis to get you there.

[Nurgling Chieftain]

Blood Angel VV's are a lot better than normal VV's, but they're still too expensive for what they do. ...Which is IMO good because giving Daemon's signature ability to Space Marines while taking it away from Daemons still deeply offends my sensibilities.

Dunno what your problem with the honor guard is, though. That's the only way to take a non-IC cup-of-broken, and it's not even particularly expensive compared to taking a small unit and a priest.

[Thud]

I'm afraid I can't disagree more - I think that is EXACTLY what you do. Spam <something> is almost always the way to go, it gives redundancy and efficacy. A little bit of everything might make an interesting list, but it rarely makes a good one.

For this reason most top tournament armies will have 2-3 the same unit in several slots.

I think you have misunderstood me. I'm not saying you can never compare units, or advocating a little bit of everything as the best way of making good army lists.

What I'm saying is that you can't look at one unit which does one thing, then say another unit doesn't do that as well, and then conclude that the former is the clearly superiour choice. For example, you could say that a BA Rifleman Dread is "better" than two Land Speeders with multi-meltas. Same point cost, but different utilization. But when the rest of your army only has Razorbacks with assault cannons, another two riflemen and some riff-raff, but no melta weapons, it's irrelevant to do a cross unit analysis of which is better: your army needs melta weapons, not another suppression unit.

And good tournament lists don't just spam willy-nilly. They are built around having all the tools required for the job. And yes, this will lead to spamming, as certain units are better at certain things than others, but it won't lead to Astorath, three Chaplains and four units of Death Company with jump packs because they're just so damn efficient at killing infantry. It leads to lists with everything you need to reliably win six games in a row: enough melta to take down heavy vehicles, enough suppression fire to blow up transports and stop enemy vehicles from shooting back, enough anti-infantry firepower to either a) killing infantry, or b) making the enemy infantry managable in assault, ways to secure objectives, and, finally, cohesion to ensure higher degrees of difficulty for the opponent's target priority.

[Toadius80]

VV's are, in my experience used as 5 man unit, very few upgrades. Role- to land behind the enemy and basically attack command or heavy firepower units. Thus forcing the enemy to re-think there battle plan, turn units about to deal with them and generally give me that little advantage. It's not what they kill, it's what they force the enemy to do. Especially 2nd time they play you, always wondering where that un avoidable charge is going to hit, they then use more shielding tactics around there armour/heavy/command. Just for that they are worth their points
HG- please. Honestly you can't see the value of them? Vet stats, always with +1 I&S and feel no pain? Basically how much would 4 jp marines & a jp Priest cost? Oh and use two HG and that's 1 less important Elites slot used and 1 or 2 troops. Priceless
Though lately I've gone back to playing dreadnought heavy in pods with a fast, hard hitting infantry (my regular opponent hates forgeworld dreadnought drop pods, hehe)

[Navigator19]

It's not what they kill, it's what they force the enemy to do.

True, to a point. You have to use VVs intelligently or they're worthless.
1) Use them kinda like they're described in the Vanilla Marine Codex. They're good for anti-elites units like Ork Nobs/Mega Nobs, or Aspect warriors already in an assault, etc. Heroic intervention-ing a 30 man squad of ork boys is a great way to have dead VVs.
2) As far as the argument that VVs can be used to deep-strike behind lines and cause the enemy to re-think their plan? Well, that can truthfully be said for the entire DA army

Personally? I dislike VVs. They're too expensive and too unreliable for not enough 'bang'. Honor Guard though? Not always the perfect choice, but rarely if ever an out-and-out bad choice.

[Toadius80]

I kinda disagree, through experience to make them viable of dealing efficiently with elite units they are too much of a points drain, with just a meer thunderhammer or claws on the squad leader they become quite good as a five man unit targeting rear liners as you dont want to destroy the target on the charge, just leave them pretty badly mauled, otherwise they will get annihilated in the opponents turn. What you want is the enemy to know that they will end the combat in there phase thus forcing them to pile in more troops to deal with them or expect another, possibly reinforced (sanguine guard with apoth & banner or th/ss terms) charge. Admittedly the reinforcements can't charge but can still benefit them and thus forming a beachhead' within there lines
Tried and tested to success many many times.

[Navigator19]

Hmm. You raise some good points. Personally, when I'm going with a rear-line strike force I really like a Sternguard Squad w/ Librarian and Sang. Priest landing in a storm-raven. It's an expensive strike-force, but man, the look on the opponent's face when they realize what just landed in their back echelons.

[Wolf 11x]

Rather than discuss styles and mentalities for list writing, I'm going to respond to the points here that correspond with my original post.

When shot, the Honor Guard are immediately losing Melta Guns. Additionally, the "hidden" Priest can't hop to another unit. In a sense, he's unable to "hide." For 30 more points, the squad becomes scoring, gains the ability to combat squad (and melta two targets), and gains a power fist. Not to mention it's 5 more models, which is 5 more base attacks and a larger reach when it needs to multi-charge.

I feel Honor Guard should be fielded with 4 Meltaguns or 4 Plasmaguns. I don't need the extra combat punch in my (DoA) list.

After perusing this thread, I'm leaning towards running one Vanguard squad and two Honor Guard squads with quad Melta.

[Toadius80]

Don't you find the low armour of the raven a problem though? Especially if it's deep striking or moving flat out across the board as it's low armour and the inability safely to deploy or shoot? Though i do find 2 or 3 pods with sternguard, 10 man devis and death dreads work quite well as a turn 1 surprise. Ok the devis may not seem the best but on arrival they fire bolters & pistols, loose about 40% by enemy retaliation then turn 2 open up with the heavy's Tis actually very evil

[Fixer]

I have a 5 man Honour guard squad 4 plasma and banner, which is awesome. A nice way for my otherwise melee orientated army to kill some big scary monsters at arm's length. It's great for a DOA army.

Also the banner stop my guys from running off the board, most of the time.

[Kelanen]

I think you have misunderstood me.

That would appear correct, because I agree with your clarifying post completely, just not the original, so it's down to semantics.

[Bonzai]

Honor Guard are good. First off, they don't take an FOC slot, and can be taken with a Captain OR Librarian in the BA codex. Second, they can be kitted out to fulfill any specialized role in the codex. Lastly, they come with their own priest, which means it really saves you 2 FOC slots. It's about opportunity cost.

Compare them vs Sanguinary guard. If you kit them with Jump packs, power weapons, the banner, etc... they come out to at about the same points. They have about the same number of attacks thanks to having 2 CC weapons. They don't have the 2+save, but they have a priest so they have FNP. A jump priest for the Sanguinary Guard would cost them 75 points more, and take up another elite slot. So they end up having about the same attack power, for less opportunity cost.

Compared vs Sternguard? They are cheaper, but stern guard get their weapons upgrades cheaper so it ends up evening out. Stern Guard have options to take heavy weapons, and can also purchase extra models for ablative wounds and extra bolter shots with special amunition. So they honor guard can't do exactly the same thing, but it can cover the most common use (I.E. special weapon specialists/deep strike suicide unit).

I don't know about you, but for me the Elite slots are the most contested slot in the codex. Furiosos, priests, etc... Honor guard can be kitted to be comparable, for about the same points, and it doesn't compete with any other FOC slots. As other posters have said, they are a nice flexible tool that can fullfill a specific role that your list needs filled, without sacrificing FOC slots that you don't want to give up.

[Navigator19]

Don't you find the low armour of the raven a problem though? Especially if it's deep striking or moving flat out across the board as it's low armour and the inability safely to deploy or shoot?

Not particularly. For the most part, the SR deep-strikes in, drops the Sternguard off on the turn it arrives. The Sternguard deal with any infantry-based anti-tank weapons while the Stormraven fires its weapons at the nearest enemy tank. Remember: Deep striking units count as moving Crusing, and thanks to Power of the Machine spirit, a Stormraven can deepstrike and fire two weapons on the turn it arrives, at seperate targets. I generally kit it with lascannon/multi melta, so when it arrives I blast the two most dangerous vehicles that can harm it.

[Npf6]

Just my 2 cents. Honour Guard are to pricey and so are vanguard veterans. yes running 5 assault squads and combat squading them probably is a good tactic. But! when you need that punch at the last second Vanguard Veterans and HG can do it be it melta on a tank or arriving by deepstrike to then assault that turn a unit of obliterators or long fangs. These things can make all the difference in gaming terms.