Why Mechanized

[Deleted]

After spending much time planning I have decided to field a mechanized guard army but I have a question (obviously.) Is it worth it to take the mechanized doctrine or should you just save the doctrine point and mechanize your army without the doctrine?

Current Doctrines:
Sharpshooters
Carapace Armor
Mechanized
Storm Troopers
Rough Riders

Any opinions on these choices would be great as well.

[Deleted]

Carapace is a points sink. Sure you get you army best save you can. but its extra points per squad. So for a standard infantry platoon its extra points for the platoon hq, and again for each squad. Then its for everything classified as guard infantry, no picking and choosing.

drop mech and carapace and pick grenadiers. you get the same, have 3 troop choices in better armor and ballistic skill plus mount them in chims. Thats just troops. Then you have your stormtroopers, of which you can have 3. Mount them in chims. Then the command HQ, mounted in a chimera. Thats 7 chimeras with the majority of the army already wearing carapace level armor (make all your guardsman in the command hq vet and give em carapace ) Ok maybe not the hq, but still, 7 chims, ready to disgorge their troops where you want and delivering 42 shots of str5+.

My current list only has 4 chims, but I support 3 leman russes with them.

Does that help?

[Deleted]

Wow, That really did give me alot of direction, being new to the guard. Still my doctrines are influenced by my fluff for the army so I'll have to think it over.

So how about these doctrines?
Grenadiers
Rough Riders
Storm troopers

But what should the last two be? I'm trying to keep the army in with my fluff but competative. After all the rest of the guardsmen need advantages don't they?

Any suggestions? opinions?

[Deleted]

Tough call, seeing as I do not know your original fluff, apart from reading your mind by going over your initial doctrine choices

Now, the skill choices for doctrines (sharpshooters/Light inf etc) apply to your regular guard infantry. The good news is that some of them allow you to choose which of those guard infantry units to apply them.

so with using sharpshooters, your fluff may be that as part of storm trooper training (Grenadiers) Your line troops have to hit the target range more often. To represent this in your competition army, you could have one platoon of two squads that have this extra skill, and having the baility to re-roll ones while firing a heavy bolter is a good advantage.

You'll also see that alot of guard players use the skill Iron Discipline for their officers. Its an inexpensive skill and allows a unit that is under half strength and fleeing, to rally when they are within 12 inches of the officer that has it, using the officers LEadership.

[Turtleboy(AWOL)]

lets keep this topic on the 'why mechanized' topic; if you want to discuss new army ideas feel free to make a new thread about that

[Deleted]

Oh right my bad. Thanks for the help so far, I'll start on a different thread then and get these guys figured out there.

[Commissar]

Not really...
The chimera are real fancy, but you'd best only have a few, so use Armoured fists for that role.
believe me... bad experiences.

[Turtleboy(AWOL)]

envision this if you will... 2 chimerae and a hellhound, side to side to side, like a brick of armor on an extreme flank. 12" rush, pop smoke...weather a beating...you know the hellhound takes fire till it blows up...but you still have your chimerae (which have flamers muahaha). 12" move, dismount pewpew omg infantrymen all over! any chimera that survives can then go about merrily burninating the countryside as your infantry flank the crap outta your opponent.

seems valid, though flak jacket infantry would die horribly being dumped out infront of an enemy rifle line ... seems akin to a firing squad. maybe carapace armor or grenadiers then!

[Deleted]

Heh, that's why I'm looking for mechanized doctrine advice in the beginnners board.

If my guardsmen go in I want them to go in elite and with high survival chances. (Yeah I know we're th guard and I likelihood for survival isn't great but I want us tough enough to dish out the damage.) Oh and Love the tactic idea Turtleboy though it won't work so well in the small games I'm planning to start with.

[Deleted]

Mechanised, gives you more mobility, which translates to running around the field to where you need to be the most..or run away from that scary unit of [X].

Now since you are starting off in small games, the most chimeras you should see are 2. One for the command platoon, and one for the platoon hq and/or grenadier squad/armored fist. Gives you an idea of how to maneauver and use your weapons of destruction with your play style.

[Deleted]

Stormtroopers/Grenadiers in chimeras beat armored fist squads hands down. You could also put veterans in chimeras pop out with 3 plasma : ) that will wipe a squad out.