Other than Ebay for $5, is there any market whatsoever for last edition codices? I have a bunch of army books gathering dust.
Asuma on
"Extremism is so easy. You've got your position, and that's it. It doesn't take much thought. And when you go far enough to the right, you meet the same idiots coming around from the left." -- Clint Eastwood ***
Well a melta is still one shot, I think it really comes down to if I want to diversify the squad to take tanks. Even against marines a flamer will probably take one or two if you can get a good number under the template, and it will be fantastic against orks (right now against them I intend to use my tornadoes to heavy flame units to soften them up for the rest of the army.
Interesting Azrael.
I have a couple tornados but I have never even thought of using Heavy Flamers.
How are they working for you?
I have the Ass. Cannon/H. Bolter Combo with swappability for a Multimelta.
Lord Baelzebub on
0
Gabriel_Pitt(effective against Russian warships)Registered Userregular
Other than Ebay for $5, is there any market whatsoever for last edition codices? I have a bunch of army books gathering dust.
You mean 3rd edition? Not that I can think of. 2nd edition still has some viability to it, because it's more or less a whole different game, but I can't think of ever heading anyone playing 3rd over 4th.
Marine Unit 1: 55 pts
Sergeant, with bolter
4 Marines
- 1 Heavy Bolter (Master Crafted)
Marine Unit 2: 55 pts
Sergeant, with bolter
4 Marines
- 1 Heavy Bolter (Master Crafted)
total: 501 points.
I figure I get an epic amount of shots a turn, which should vaporize most of his troops. I'll be sure to hit the genestealers first. What say ye?
Legoman05 on
0
UtsanomikoBros before DoesRollin' in the thlayRegistered Userregular
edited March 2007
I think points are being wasted on Terminator armor for the Captain and his command squad. Nothing's going to be doing enough damage to seriously warrant it, and it makes them a jucier target to tie up in CC.
I typically field something like 15 Tactical Marines and 5 Assault Marines in 500pts.
I wanted the terminators for mobility with the assault cannons - the idea was to use one of the other units to tie up HIS dudes down in melee, and then be able to move and let fly with 8 shots from the assault cannon - with the terminator armor, I think that heavy armor can move and shoot.
And, the captain doesn't have term. armor, I don't think.
But, I'm open to the idea of three marine squads and one group of assault marines. I guess with the assault guys I could put heavy bolter on all of them...
Quick question: I'm planning on fielding a squad of Warp Spiders in my new army, and I thought I might deck out an Autarch with a jump generator and a fusion gun (and shuriken pistol? Chainsword thingie?) to make them really nasty.
My question is two-part:
1) What's the 'magic number' for these guys? 6? 8? 44? How big do I need to make this squad for maximum effectiveness? Is there a general rule of thumb for figuring that out?
and
2) Would putting a WS Exarch in the squad be overkill/a waste of points? Is it even legal?
Ermm... I guess that there were really four or five questions in there. Sorry about that.
GrimmyTOA on
0
UtsanomikoBros before DoesRollin' in the thlayRegistered Userregular
You can give regular marines master-crafted weapons?
Yep, but not the best use of the upgrade IMHO. On the other hand, Terminators can only be joined by a character in power armor, so that's a bust for that current list. My concern was the sheer cost of simply getting a +2/+5 armor, move-n-shoot unit to carry two assault cannons. Going by point cost a better means would likely be a pair of Land Speeder Tornadoes. Or maybe a Dreadnought, which would be difficult for a small nid horde to crack open.
Utsanomiko on
0
Der Waffle MousBlame this on the misfortune of your birth.New Yark, New Yark.Registered Userregular
edited March 2007
Remember, though, that Landspeeders are AV10 all around, which is pretty fragile compared to 3+ ablative terminator wounds.
Remember, though, that Landspeeders are AV10 all around, which is pretty fragile compared to 3+ ablative terminator wounds.
Of course, but we're talking versus a dozen Termagaunts with 12" guns. Six might hit and one will be lucky to glance, assuming they don't just hang out at 24" and kite the fuck out of the nids with 8 S6 rend shots and two Heavy Bolters.
Er, no, master-crafted needs access to the wargear list, that's veteran sergeants and characters. No master-crafted heavy weapons.
Heh, I thought he meant normal Marines with access to the armory. As opposed to wargear listed as HQ-units only (Inquisiton and IG has a lot of these, off the top of my head). Didn't even cross my mind he was asking about non-veteran Marines' normal weapon options.
Here's some of the regular ol' Boyz - 20, to be precise. Nothing really special out of the lot save for slightly reposed arms and the fact that everything is pinned. Looking back at these photos, I can actually spot one or two guns I forgot to drill out. I'll be adding extra bitz to them as I go - I'm particularly waiting to see some of the new Black Ork stuff be released before I paint everything up, as there are some bitz on there I am fond of. In general, my generic boyz are unhelmeted, save for a couple that slipped in there anyway, but a bit of variation is good for Orks anyway so they'll probably end up staying.
The Trukk Boyz squad now numbers 10 as well, though they are nowhere near done, either. I plan on taking some of the 'regular' spears and converting them still - one into a streetsign, and the other into probably a chunk of concrete on the end of a very large pole, as though he ripped it out of the ground. Some tweaks will be eventually done here and there to the weapons as well.
Lastly, I started working on some Flash Gitz that are going to be hanging out with a Big Mek on the back of my squiggoth. There's going to be 8 total - four to man the Bolt-On Big Shootas, 4 with their own Big Shootas, and the eventual Big Mek will end up firing the 5th on the Squiggoth while providing a KFF save. I'm having trouble coming up with what I could do to make them particularly 'flashy' - I'm giving them all hair as I imagine Flash Gitz would be the orks in my warband that would buy hair squigs for themselves in such a fashion (and I don't really like the heads mixed into my normal squads). I think they're going to get the goggle treatment, as well, and maybe shoulder pads if I can find styrene tubing large enough to suit my needs. These are the 4 without Big Shootas.
On a slightly related note - my god, those shoota arms are a pain to get lined up properly! When they're holding the gun, either their head gets in the way, or their legs block the guns. I've got a couple small gaps in the arms I'm going to have to greenstuff later.
Right, so go with a dread then... What would be the best weapons to toss on that sucker? I take it I'll probably want the power-fist to manage the horde up close - the las-cannon seems like overkill, would missile launchers be the best bet there?
If I'm ditching the terminator squad, and the (non-eligible) weapon upgrades, then what would be the best use of those points? I need to get more fire on those 'nids, but with an extra 30 points floating around, should I put that into a bike?
Legoman05 on
0
Gabriel_Pitt(effective against Russian warships)Registered Userregular
edited March 2007
Being that they're flash gits, is it possible to give them sunglasses, or somehow otherwise make the goggles 'cool?'
I've been thinking of picking up a new 500 point 40k army, mainly for painting, to give me something other than wow to spend my time on.
For traitor guard, what is a better choice, in your all's opinion, a standard IG list, or using the Lost and the Damned list? I quit 40k around the time they were first released, so I don't know their strengths.
I'm thinking Tzeentch would be fun to paint. Lots of blues.
well I decided to break out and paint a space marine dreadnaught
I lost one of the kneepads so I am trying to think of what I can do to replace it
I will take a better picture in morning and replace this one
You can also see how dusty this house is in the background
If you have use for the Ravenwing sprue it has 2 dreadnought kneepads/shinguards on it, one with a neat bit of parchment on it (the other is the DA logo). The other stuff on it lets you upgrade a normal landspeeder set into a typhoon or the Master of the Ravenwing setup (twin heavy bolter, twin assault cannon), with some purity seals and books you're not going to have a problem finding use for in a Templar army.
Quick question: I'm planning on fielding a squad of Warp Spiders in my new army, and I thought I might deck out an Autarch with a jump generator and a fusion gun (and shuriken pistol? Chainsword thingie?) to make them really nasty.
My question is two-part:
1) What's the 'magic number' for these guys? 6? 8? 44? How big do I need to make this squad for maximum effectiveness? Is there a general rule of thumb for figuring that out?
and
2) Would putting a WS Exarch in the squad be overkill/a waste of points? Is it even legal?
Ermm... I guess that there were really four or five questions in there. Sorry about that.
I love using warp spiders so for me the magic number is "as many as I can afford." I've generally used 2 groups of 6+ex though with pretty good success. the ex, given the right ability, can remove the squad from melee if you happen to get ambushed, which is quite handy but not always worth the points. Just keep in mind what you want the squad to be doing... if they are to wipe out softer targets you might want to adjust the autarch for something more appropriate, right now he's set up for tank hunting which the spiders are only good at if it's a light vehicle or they can get in a rear armor shot or 20.
I had the idea to dive into Warhammer 40k as Dark Angels several years ago. A year after that, I proceeded to buy and obtain (Deathwing Terminators for Christmas? Thanks daddy!) quite a large amount of models/paints/supplies. Interest kind of died out, then the new rulebook came out and I bought that, and proceeded to plan out all sorts of army lists and probably bought some more models. Through these times I had little 'bursts' of interest and would paint a whole squad in a night till 6AM and such, but never really a lasting interest in actually painting/playing. I would often strip models of their paint because it had been so long since I was interested and knew I could do better, but then I wouldn't be motivated to complete them again.
Anyways, here I am now all moved out and such, and I decide to bring out the 40k stuff. It's very nice to be able to finally set everything up on a giant table (There were five cats at my Mom's house) and just designate it as Warhammer space, and I think that was really all I needed originally. Me doing this surprisingly inspired my room-mate to take out old eldar stuff some guy had given him and put it together, and sure enough he was drawn in and purchased an Aurach, Dark Reapers, and Swooping Hawks. By the time he had them assembled I had begun to paint two tactical squads (or rather, one split into two and using another seargent I had). After that I painted my custom commander, and here I am.
Pics:
I'm quite satisfied with the paint jobs, mainly considering I don't have all that much experience painting minis. (Though that picture just made me aware of how thick/ugly that highlight on my commander's inner-upper leg is :P)
But now, aside from the two plasma-cannon marines I'm going to add to each squad, I'm kind of stuck.
My commander basically has no ranged weapons, so I figure the best thing to do with him is attach him to a squad of close combat veterans and give them a razorback. But I don't really want to use a razorback for them without giving rhinos or razorbacks to the tactical squads either. Another idea I had was to get a Chaplain with a jump pack to replace my commander, and one question I have is can I use assault marines in an HQ unit? I really should get the new SM and DA codexes, but before I spend more money I wanna get a better grip on the hobby as a whole. So for now I'm gonna paint some terrain and hopefully do my first battle against my friend's eldar tonight. I haven't even figured out what exactly my commander is/has point value wise, and how much my force is overall. I've been considering getting some bikes as the one thing I don't have is fast attack, and as I understand it the best thing to do would be make a small squadron of them with an attack bike.
Other than the core force in those pictures, I have:
4 scouts with snipers and one w/ heavy bolter
5 deathwing terminators w/ two assault cannons
1 predator decked out with pure lascannons
1 Rhino
8 marines or so
I'm not sure what to paint out of what I have, and I'm just overall looking for suggestions and comments on building a balanced army (probably gonna go for around 700-1000 points or so).
The thick outline highlights you gave your Dark Angel's really make them pop. On the zoomed out pictures it gives them a pretty neat cartoony feel. It's not a very realistic painting shceme, but I like it and feel that applied uniformally to an army would give them a pretty good look.
Small question, I notice alot of you guys are building/talking about 500pt army lists. Is this a popular format now? I remember back when I played 1,000pt games were the smallest you could hope to get into. But a 500pt army.. that would be cheap and easy to make, and very much piques my interest.
Hmm hmm. Maybe Imperial Guard if I start some 40k.
How many Basilisks can I get if I start at 500 points? :P
1, unless you do combat patrol, in which case you can squeeze in 2.
But if you do 1 in a normal non-CP 500 pts list your required slots will be crazy bare bones.
What I'd recommend is to decide the style of guard you want to start.
Some options are:
Pure catchcans
pure cadians
pure metal guard (vostroyans, mordians, praetorians, steel legion, necromunda gangers, etc, this can get expensive quickly)
Either catchcans or cadians + some other box for flavor (which can be virtually anything, fantasy empire mixes well with cadians, fantasy chaos mixes well with catchcans, space marine scouts work well if you've got your heart set on carapace armor, especially if you want to do custom storm troopers/grenadiers, tau fire warriors are good for a gue'la force if you want to go that route, brettonian men at arms + cadians for ww1 style overcoat guard, you get the idea.)
Buy enough guard for a basic troop platoon. If you're only buying the cadian or catchcan guard box for the weapons each box easilly has enough lasguns in it to fill out 4 10-man squads (32 in total for the cadian box, remember you have to buy the HW teams seperately). The HW team box has enough heavy weapon parts for 4 teams if you have a few extra bases lying around and get creative.
So for a beginner I'd buy 1 HW team box, 1 cadian or catchcan box, then enough of whatever bodies you want, which should be 1 or 2 boxes depending on which set it is if it's plastic. Grab 2 or 3 special weapons too if you want something other than 'nades and flamers.
Then buy your basilisk.
This should give you more than enough for a 400 point combat patrol, and should give you a good opportunity to play around with guard and see what you like and need.
Hmm hmm. Maybe Imperial Guard if I start some 40k.
How many Basilisks can I get if I start at 500 points? :P
1, unless you do combat patrol, in which case you can squeeze in 2.
But if you do 1 in a normal non-CP 500 pts list your required slots will be crazy bare bones.
What I'd recommend is to decide the style of guard you want to start.
Some options are:
Pure catchcans
pure cadians
pure metal guard (vostroyans, mordians, praetorians, steel legion, necromunda gangers, etc, this can get expensive quickly)
Either catchcans or cadians + some other box for flavor (which can be virtually anything, fantasy empire mixes well with cadians, fantasy chaos mixes well with catchcans, space marine scouts work well if you've got your heart set on carapace armor, especially if you want to do custom storm troopers/grenadiers, tau fire warriors are good for a gue'la force if you want to go that route, brettonian men at arms + cadians for ww1 style overcoat guard, you get the idea.)
Buy enough guard for a basic troop platoon. If you're only buying the cadian or catchcan guard box for the weapons each box easilly has enough lasguns in it to fill out 4 10-man squads (32 in total for the cadian box, remember you have to buy the HW teams seperately). The HW team box has enough heavy weapon parts for 4 teams if you have a few extra bases lying around and get creative.
So for a beginner I'd buy 1 HW team box, 1 cadian or catchcan box, then enough of whatever bodies you want, which should be 1 or 2 boxes depending on which set it is if it's plastic. Grab 2 or 3 special weapons too if you want something other than 'nades and flamers.
Then buy your basilisk.
This should give you more than enough for a 400 point combat patrol, and should give you a good opportunity to play around with guard and see what you like and need.
That leaves 20 points for special/heavy weapons. :P
I bet you could get all 3 in if you used doctrines..
edit:
Yeah, if you use the grenadier doctrine you can get all 3. 1 command platoon, 2 5 man grenadier squads and 3 basilisks with 60 points left for more grenadiers/special weapons.
Also, on a semi related note, I wrote an IG list that had 157 guys in it at 1500 points. Included 12 missile launchers, 8 heavy bolters, 12 grenade launchers, 10 flamers and 3 lascannons. Plus, you know, all of those lasguns. I contend that it's probably an unbeatable list.
That list has a mindboggling-ly low amount of heavy weapons, Gigglio. It just won't do. It just won't. 3 lascannons in 1500 points? No plasma? No deal.
TheBog on
0
Der Waffle MousBlame this on the misfortune of your birth.New Yark, New Yark.Registered Userregular
Waste of points on anything aside from heavy weapon squads.
Nice but not necessary on LC squads or ML. Doesn't work for plasma or snipers where it would really be useful.
Basically mathematically it just increases your BS to 3.5. So from a base 50% to hit to 58% to hit.
Not really worth it in my opinion.
Edit: Consider for the basic guardsman, they increase the price by about 16% or so (6 to 7), and the chance to hit by about 16% or so (50% to 58% means 16% more raw hits). Its a wash. One more guardsman per squad scores a hit per shooting phase, but at 10 points per squad. If you have 6 squads you could have bought a whole other infantry squad, which in addition to having around the same firepower would also have more wounds and count as another scoring unit, making your army 1/6 more resiliant as well as 1/6 more damaging, wheras sharpshooters only makes it 1/6 more damaging.
Now, on a lascannon squad with 3 HW lascannon teams you're looking at a base cost of 110 points, so adding sharpshooters makes the squad only 9% more expensive while adding 16% to the number of lascannon shots you get, for a benefit of about 7% net cost effectiveness.
The question comes down to whether you want to spend a doctrine point on roughly 7% more effective heavy weapons squads.
Posts
I have a couple tornados but I have never even thought of using Heavy Flamers.
How are they working for you?
I have the Ass. Cannon/H. Bolter Combo with swappability for a Multimelta.
You mean 3rd edition? Not that I can think of. 2nd edition still has some viability to it, because it's more or less a whole different game, but I can't think of ever heading anyone playing 3rd over 4th.
The flamer/melta combo is probably more flexible, though the ones you have will have more range but only really good for infantry.
Apparently this version is the preferred type for Land Speeders in DA armies with the new codex. People have even given it a name. Hellfire.
HQ Unit: 291
Captain, with Bolter
4 Terminator Bodyguards
- 2 Assault Cannon (Master Crafted)
Marine Unit 1: 55 pts
Sergeant, with bolter
4 Marines
- 1 Heavy Bolter (Master Crafted)
Marine Unit 2: 55 pts
Sergeant, with bolter
4 Marines
- 1 Heavy Bolter (Master Crafted)
total: 501 points.
I figure I get an epic amount of shots a turn, which should vaporize most of his troops. I'll be sure to hit the genestealers first. What say ye?
I typically field something like 15 Tactical Marines and 5 Assault Marines in 500pts.
And, the captain doesn't have term. armor, I don't think.
But, I'm open to the idea of three marine squads and one group of assault marines. I guess with the assault guys I could put heavy bolter on all of them...
SoogaGames Blog
My question is two-part:
1) What's the 'magic number' for these guys? 6? 8? 44? How big do I need to make this squad for maximum effectiveness? Is there a general rule of thumb for figuring that out?
and
2) Would putting a WS Exarch in the squad be overkill/a waste of points? Is it even legal?
Ermm... I guess that there were really four or five questions in there. Sorry about that.
Yep, but not the best use of the upgrade IMHO. On the other hand, Terminators can only be joined by a character in power armor, so that's a bust for that current list. My concern was the sheer cost of simply getting a +2/+5 armor, move-n-shoot unit to carry two assault cannons. Going by point cost a better means would likely be a pair of Land Speeder Tornadoes. Or maybe a Dreadnought, which would be difficult for a small nid horde to crack open.
Er, no, master-crafted needs access to the wargear list, that's veteran sergeants and characters. No master-crafted heavy weapons.
Of course, but we're talking versus a dozen Termagaunts with 12" guns. Six might hit and one will be lucky to glance, assuming they don't just hang out at 24" and kite the fuck out of the nids with 8 S6 rend shots and two Heavy Bolters.
Heh, I thought he meant normal Marines with access to the armory. As opposed to wargear listed as HQ-units only (Inquisiton and IG has a lot of these, off the top of my head). Didn't even cross my mind he was asking about non-veteran Marines' normal weapon options.
Here's some of the regular ol' Boyz - 20, to be precise. Nothing really special out of the lot save for slightly reposed arms and the fact that everything is pinned. Looking back at these photos, I can actually spot one or two guns I forgot to drill out.
The Trukk Boyz squad now numbers 10 as well, though they are nowhere near done, either. I plan on taking some of the 'regular' spears and converting them still - one into a streetsign, and the other into probably a chunk of concrete on the end of a very large pole, as though he ripped it out of the ground. Some tweaks will be eventually done here and there to the weapons as well.
Lastly, I started working on some Flash Gitz that are going to be hanging out with a Big Mek on the back of my squiggoth. There's going to be 8 total - four to man the Bolt-On Big Shootas, 4 with their own Big Shootas, and the eventual Big Mek will end up firing the 5th on the Squiggoth while providing a KFF save. I'm having trouble coming up with what I could do to make them particularly 'flashy' - I'm giving them all hair as I imagine Flash Gitz would be the orks in my warband that would buy hair squigs for themselves in such a fashion (and I don't really like the heads mixed into my normal squads). I think they're going to get the goggle treatment, as well, and maybe shoulder pads if I can find styrene tubing large enough to suit my needs. These are the 4 without Big Shootas.
On a slightly related note - my god, those shoota arms are a pain to get lined up properly! When they're holding the gun, either their head gets in the way, or their legs block the guns. I've got a couple small gaps in the arms I'm going to have to greenstuff later.
If I'm ditching the terminator squad, and the (non-eligible) weapon upgrades, then what would be the best use of those points? I need to get more fire on those 'nids, but with an extra 30 points floating around, should I put that into a bike?
I lost one of the kneepads so I am trying to think of what I can do to replace it
I will take a better picture in morning and replace this one
You can also see how dusty this house is in the background
For traitor guard, what is a better choice, in your all's opinion, a standard IG list, or using the Lost and the Damned list? I quit 40k around the time they were first released, so I don't know their strengths.
I'm thinking Tzeentch would be fun to paint. Lots of blues.
If you have use for the Ravenwing sprue it has 2 dreadnought kneepads/shinguards on it, one with a neat bit of parchment on it (the other is the DA logo). The other stuff on it lets you upgrade a normal landspeeder set into a typhoon or the Master of the Ravenwing setup (twin heavy bolter, twin assault cannon), with some purity seals and books you're not going to have a problem finding use for in a Templar army.
I had forgotten about the Ravenwing things that I could get to make my dreadnought and other vehicles more Black Templar look to my army
I love using warp spiders so for me the magic number is "as many as I can afford." I've generally used 2 groups of 6+ex though with pretty good success. the ex, given the right ability, can remove the squad from melee if you happen to get ambushed, which is quite handy but not always worth the points. Just keep in mind what you want the squad to be doing... if they are to wipe out softer targets you might want to adjust the autarch for something more appropriate, right now he's set up for tank hunting which the spiders are only good at if it's a light vehicle or they can get in a rear armor shot or 20.
Be part of something big, even if you are small.
How many Basilisks can I get if I start at 500 points? :P
^___^;;
I had the idea to dive into Warhammer 40k as Dark Angels several years ago. A year after that, I proceeded to buy and obtain (Deathwing Terminators for Christmas? Thanks daddy!) quite a large amount of models/paints/supplies. Interest kind of died out, then the new rulebook came out and I bought that, and proceeded to plan out all sorts of army lists and probably bought some more models. Through these times I had little 'bursts' of interest and would paint a whole squad in a night till 6AM and such, but never really a lasting interest in actually painting/playing. I would often strip models of their paint because it had been so long since I was interested and knew I could do better, but then I wouldn't be motivated to complete them again.
Anyways, here I am now all moved out and such, and I decide to bring out the 40k stuff. It's very nice to be able to finally set everything up on a giant table (There were five cats at my Mom's house) and just designate it as Warhammer space, and I think that was really all I needed originally. Me doing this surprisingly inspired my room-mate to take out old eldar stuff some guy had given him and put it together, and sure enough he was drawn in and purchased an Aurach, Dark Reapers, and Swooping Hawks. By the time he had them assembled I had begun to paint two tactical squads (or rather, one split into two and using another seargent I had). After that I painted my custom commander, and here I am.
Pics:
I'm quite satisfied with the paint jobs, mainly considering I don't have all that much experience painting minis. (Though that picture just made me aware of how thick/ugly that highlight on my commander's inner-upper leg is :P)
But now, aside from the two plasma-cannon marines I'm going to add to each squad, I'm kind of stuck.
My commander basically has no ranged weapons, so I figure the best thing to do with him is attach him to a squad of close combat veterans and give them a razorback. But I don't really want to use a razorback for them without giving rhinos or razorbacks to the tactical squads either. Another idea I had was to get a Chaplain with a jump pack to replace my commander, and one question I have is can I use assault marines in an HQ unit? I really should get the new SM and DA codexes, but before I spend more money I wanna get a better grip on the hobby as a whole. So for now I'm gonna paint some terrain and hopefully do my first battle against my friend's eldar tonight. I haven't even figured out what exactly my commander is/has point value wise, and how much my force is overall. I've been considering getting some bikes as the one thing I don't have is fast attack, and as I understand it the best thing to do would be make a small squadron of them with an attack bike.
Other than the core force in those pictures, I have:
4 scouts with snipers and one w/ heavy bolter
5 deathwing terminators w/ two assault cannons
1 predator decked out with pure lascannons
1 Rhino
8 marines or so
I'm not sure what to paint out of what I have, and I'm just overall looking for suggestions and comments on building a balanced army (probably gonna go for around 700-1000 points or so).
Small question, I notice alot of you guys are building/talking about 500pt army lists. Is this a popular format now? I remember back when I played 1,000pt games were the smallest you could hope to get into. But a 500pt army.. that would be cheap and easy to make, and very much piques my interest.
1, unless you do combat patrol, in which case you can squeeze in 2.
But if you do 1 in a normal non-CP 500 pts list your required slots will be crazy bare bones.
What I'd recommend is to decide the style of guard you want to start.
Some options are:
Pure catchcans
pure cadians
pure metal guard (vostroyans, mordians, praetorians, steel legion, necromunda gangers, etc, this can get expensive quickly)
Either catchcans or cadians + some other box for flavor (which can be virtually anything, fantasy empire mixes well with cadians, fantasy chaos mixes well with catchcans, space marine scouts work well if you've got your heart set on carapace armor, especially if you want to do custom storm troopers/grenadiers, tau fire warriors are good for a gue'la force if you want to go that route, brettonian men at arms + cadians for ww1 style overcoat guard, you get the idea.)
Buy enough guard for a basic troop platoon. If you're only buying the cadian or catchcan guard box for the weapons each box easilly has enough lasguns in it to fill out 4 10-man squads (32 in total for the cadian box, remember you have to buy the HW teams seperately). The HW team box has enough heavy weapon parts for 4 teams if you have a few extra bases lying around and get creative.
So for a beginner I'd buy 1 HW team box, 1 cadian or catchcan box, then enough of whatever bodies you want, which should be 1 or 2 boxes depending on which set it is if it's plastic. Grab 2 or 3 special weapons too if you want something other than 'nades and flamers.
Then buy your basilisk.
This should give you more than enough for a 400 point combat patrol, and should give you a good opportunity to play around with guard and see what you like and need.
1, unless you do combat patrol, in which case you can squeeze in 2.
But if you do 1 in a normal non-CP 500 pts list your required slots will be crazy bare bones.
What I'd recommend is to decide the style of guard you want to start.
Some options are:
Pure catchcans
pure cadians
pure metal guard (vostroyans, mordians, praetorians, steel legion, necromunda gangers, etc, this can get expensive quickly)
Either catchcans or cadians + some other box for flavor (which can be virtually anything, fantasy empire mixes well with cadians, fantasy chaos mixes well with catchcans, space marine scouts work well if you've got your heart set on carapace armor, especially if you want to do custom storm troopers/grenadiers, tau fire warriors are good for a gue'la force if you want to go that route, brettonian men at arms + cadians for ww1 style overcoat guard, you get the idea.)
Buy enough guard for a basic troop platoon. If you're only buying the cadian or catchcan guard box for the weapons each box easilly has enough lasguns in it to fill out 4 10-man squads (32 in total for the cadian box, remember you have to buy the HW teams seperately). The HW team box has enough heavy weapon parts for 4 teams if you have a few extra bases lying around and get creative.
So for a beginner I'd buy 1 HW team box, 1 cadian or catchcan box, then enough of whatever bodies you want, which should be 1 or 2 boxes depending on which set it is if it's plastic. Grab 2 or 3 special weapons too if you want something other than 'nades and flamers.
Then buy your basilisk.
This should give you more than enough for a 400 point combat patrol, and should give you a good opportunity to play around with guard and see what you like and need.
While I think Echo was joking about the Basilisks, you can get 2 in 500 points even without combat patrol rules.
1 command platoon - 40 points
1 infantry platoon - 160 points
1 conscript squad - 80 points
2 basilisks - 200 points
That leaves 20 points for special/heavy weapons. :P
I bet you could get all 3 in if you used doctrines..
edit:
Yeah, if you use the grenadier doctrine you can get all 3. 1 command platoon, 2 5 man grenadier squads and 3 basilisks with 60 points left for more grenadiers/special weapons.
hah
Why is there long range artillery in a skirmish game?
discuss.
Nice but not necessary on LC squads or ML. Doesn't work for plasma or snipers where it would really be useful.
Basically mathematically it just increases your BS to 3.5. So from a base 50% to hit to 58% to hit.
Not really worth it in my opinion.
Edit: Consider for the basic guardsman, they increase the price by about 16% or so (6 to 7), and the chance to hit by about 16% or so (50% to 58% means 16% more raw hits). Its a wash. One more guardsman per squad scores a hit per shooting phase, but at 10 points per squad. If you have 6 squads you could have bought a whole other infantry squad, which in addition to having around the same firepower would also have more wounds and count as another scoring unit, making your army 1/6 more resiliant as well as 1/6 more damaging, wheras sharpshooters only makes it 1/6 more damaging.
Now, on a lascannon squad with 3 HW lascannon teams you're looking at a base cost of 110 points, so adding sharpshooters makes the squad only 9% more expensive while adding 16% to the number of lascannon shots you get, for a benefit of about 7% net cost effectiveness.
The question comes down to whether you want to spend a doctrine point on roughly 7% more effective heavy weapons squads.