Codex: Astra militarum - my armies

Hjaltland LI.
The Hjaltland LI have been  my go to army for the last two editions, since I got back in to the game. In this time they have evolved but overall they have remained along a similar structure, that of an infantry based army. The latest incarnation on the force and the one that has been used for the longest period consists of numerous infantry models, two flyers and 2 wyverns. This is a pretty short list of units but it still means that choosing what doctrine to use is not as easy as it first appears. When we look through the list, there is only one that can be discounted straight away, that of the Militarum Tempestus, as it only applies to the Scions and would give nothing to a force of Guard. So that leaves us with 7 choices. The Catachan doctrine is probably the next to get dismissed, as although this does give the benefit of +1 leadership and also the option to re-roll the number of attacks for the vehicles, the rest of the doctrine and the stratagem and order are not going to be very useful to the force, neither is the relic. So that leaves 6. The Armageddon doctrine is on the face of it a good one, as it give a greater range for the rapid fire lasguns, of which there are quite a lot, however, with no transports in the force, both the order and stratagem are useless. The relic and warlord trait are not as bad, but I don't see much of a place for either in the force. The Tallarn doctrine is also not really suited to the force, with the order being a tank order and having no tanks, and the doctrine itself being more geared towards vehicles and the wyvens wont be moving, so wont gain any advantages from it.. The Stratagem could be useful but it doesn't really fit in with the play style of the force.

This leaves 4 options; Cadian, Vostroyans, Mordian and Valhallans. While all of these would work for the force, some are better than others. The Cadian doctrine would work well, as the force has a large number of static elements, which would benefit from the bonus to "Take Aim", but as i'm not bringing tanks, the order will be redundant. However, the stratagem and the relic would work well with the army. The added bonus to using Cadian is that I could use Creed as my warlord, something that I have done a lot in the past, to great success. So Cadian in an option. The Vostroyan doctrine is also a good choice, as the added range to most weapon systems is useful, giving the ability to out renage most other armies on the board. The stratagem, relic and order are also good and would be very useful for the army, especially the relic to keep the warlord alive longer. After initially discounting the Vostroyan doctrine, I am now quite a fan of it. The Mordian doctrine is another option, although I think it is one of the weaker options on the final list, as it really only affects overwatch, although the leadership bonus is good. Athough the stratagem and relic are good, I think there are better ones out there and the order is quite situational and cant be used on the best weapons, such as the heavy weapons. So although the Mordian doctrine is good, i think that i will not be using if for the Hjaltland LI. The last doctrine to look at is the Valhallan doctrine. With the Valhallans doctrine, it affects moral and damage to vehicles, both of which are useful traits. The stratagem however is completely useless, but at least the relic and order are pretty good. So what do I do? Caidan for more reliable shooting, Vostroyan for longer range or Valhallan for better moral? Not sure really, I think I may have to have a few games with each to really get an idea of what I want to use but at the moment I am leaning towards the Cadian doctrine, the Vostroyan Doctrine a close second.

Hrossey Yeomanry
The Hrossey Yeomanry is split in to two distinct parts, the infantry based part and the armoured based part. I'll start with the infantry based part of the list, mostly due to the fact that which doctrine to take is pretty clear. The doctrine in question is the Armageddon doctrine. The reasons why are clear, the infantry units are all based in chimera's, and while the doctrine itself does not do anything specific for mechanised infantry, although both the extra rapid fire range and reduced damage to vehicles do help, the order "Mount Up" and stratagem 'Armoured Fist" both help a lot. With all of these elements taken into account, the Armageddon doctrine is the best one for a mechanised infantry unit and therefore the best for the Hrossey Yeomanry.

But what about the armoured part of the list? Well, this is a little bit harder to pin down. There really are only 3 doctrines that help out an armoured list, these being Tallarn, Valhallan and Cadian. I'll start with the Cadian doctrine, as there are only two main reason for including this in the list. Firstly, Pask. Now Pask is a big force multiplier and a 2+ to hit is always going to be a good thing on a LRBT. The Cadian order is also a very good tank order. In addition the relic and stratagem are also useful, as is the doctrine itself. However, the doctrine does not do anything specifically for the tanks themselves and this is where I think that the other two doctrines come in to there own. The Tallarn Doctrine and order give a significant boost to the LRBT's, giving extra movement and greater fire power/efficiency and the stratagem allows for a good option for deployment. This means that that over all the tanks are faster and hit harder, something that you want from you tanks. With the extra movement on the order being key as it enables you to use the full grinding advance rule and still get your full movement. On the other side of the coin you have the Valhallan doctrine. Now this does not do anything for movement and does not give an additional tank order, but what it does do is keep your tanks firing at full efficiency for the majority of the time they will be on the table. For a LRBT, this means dropping 9 wounds off the vehicle before it starts to degrade its BS and movement, not an easy task with a T8 12 wound model with a good 3+ save. So the real issue is whether to take the Vahallan doctrine for extra resilience or Tallarn doctrine for extra movement. Personally as the tanks are going to be supporting the infantry and not out on there own, I am leaning towards the extra resilience to keep them firing better for longer.

Dagr Ormr MT with Hildasey PDF
Well this is going to be two detachments straight from the off, as there are units of both Militarum Tempestus and also Imperial Guard. The choices for which doctrines to run for each is very different. For the Dagr Ormr is obvious and easy, they will be run using the Militarum Tempestus doctrine. I'll not go to deeply into​ the reasons, as they should be fairly obvious, they are after all a Militarum Tempestus force.

The Hildasey PDF on the other hand do not present such an obvious choice. There role will be to sit back and give supporting fire, mostly from heavy weapons teams, So that in itself limits the number of doctrines they are going to  a be useful and  I when we look through all the options, were are really only left with Cadian, Valhallan, vostroyan and Mordian. While the Valhallan doctrine could be useful, there is one drawback to it. Most of the units will be heavy weapons teams, consisting of 3 models and Ld6. Now this means that loosing a model forces a moral test but it will only fail on a 6. Most of the time you'll not need any moral boosts, as you'll either be fine or you'll be destroyed. Therefore the Valhallan doctrine is not a good option for the force. The Mordian doctrine is also one that on closer inspection is not a great option, as although it does offer some good bonuses, it does have one big drawback​for heavy weapons squads and that is placing them in base to base. With infantry units, you can string them out but still be in base to base, with 3 60mm bases this is not quite so easy, especially when your in ruins. This means that you could be severely restricting you deployment options for a bonus that you may not use. So that leaves use with Cadian and Vostroyan doctrines. Both of these are going to be good options, with the extra range of the Vostroyans being very useful to the likes of mortars and heavy bolters but the re-rolls from the Cadians will be useful to all units. When you consider all the other bits and pieces, the Cadians seem to edge ahead, with a better stratagem and more useful relic, but i think that the Vostroyan doctrine will actually be the better doctrine. I will however try running both of them over time and see which is best.