I've talked about my breachers and how great I think they are however they have a glaringly obvious weakness in the fact that they are slow (and more so when using the Stone Gauntlet if I don't want them to lose their bonus). When playing the Stone Gauntlet, I like to have a rapid response squad to either support my slower moving breachers when charged by an enemy unit or to advance on a distant objective otherwise out of the reach of my breacher squads.
Sometimes I use veteran tactical squads in Rhino APCs for this purpose but I find assault marines are great for this role.
Bikes could also fill this role but I like the fact than my assault squad could be used to charge in and finish off a combat that is otherwise tying down my breachers. Power weapon options allow me to more effectively take on terminator armoured squads for instance (instead of purely relying on volume of attacks). They are also useful as a counter assault unit if you really want to slow down or otherwise stop that huge tactical unit from approaching your lines.
What do you guys think? Do you make use of other squads for this kind of role on the battlefield?
Until next time!
Hector Cephas
Planning on a unit of 20 for Emperors Children (+1 initiative charge, crusader mop up, Phoenix Power Spear oh my!), but I'm desperately holding out for plastic mkIV assault armour, no way I can afford 20 resin ones right now :P
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't hold my breath to get them any time soon tbh. Maybe we will get jump-pack upgrade kits one day though :)
DeleteAh well, may have to leave the assault marines for a while then :/
DeleteI will be using the veterans in rhinos tactic eventually, as I think that they seem to be the most tactically flexible units equipment wise.
ReplyDeleteNice tactic! I like how they are a compliment to the breacher squads! How many do you tend to use in a unit? I've got 2 15 man squads that I made ages, that I'm debating using for my green sons of Horus .
ReplyDeleteI go for 20 men (admittedly I just have the one squad). I use them as a sledgehammer as if they get into combat without resistance, that is potentially 20 Hammer of Wrath hits followed by another 61 attacks (of which a quarter of these are power weapon/fist attacks). That'll even give a terminator armoured squad a bloody nose.
DeleteMy counter assault is generally Templar Brethren or my Huscarl's in terminator armour in a spartan. I have made another unit of 9 bikes to fulfill this role as well, but haven't had the opportunity to paint them as of yet.
ReplyDeleteThey are great for this role too however the only problem is that you are reliant on the Spartan (particularly if your Huscarls are in Cataphractii plate) - a lot of people target a Spartan as priority target whereas assault marines don't have that limitation. Once your Huscarls or Templar Brethren get into combat though, they will be much more effective than my assault marines so worth the risk if you want to spend the points on them :)
DeleteWould you be willing to share how you went about painting the bases? They look really good with lots of different colors, depth, and the transitions are organic and interesting.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, mine is just texture paint and a white drybrush highlight...I've tried a brown wash and some dead grass tufts since I'm using Armageddon Dust yellow for my bases but the result doesn't look anywhere near as nice as yours.
It's not to dissimilar to what you're doing already:
Delete1) Blackfire Earth (Technical)
2) Agrax Earthshade (golden daemon standard shading in a single pot!)
3) Ushabti Bone (layer paint but drybrushed on - the softer colour helps here rather than going for a white drybrush)
The hardest bit I have to say was waiting for the texture paint to dry before shading and then the shade to dry before drybrushing - it just takes so long :p