Hjaltland LI

 So to start my talk through of the changes I've made to my armies, I will be starting with the Hjaltland LI, the original guard army I started many many years ago. Now, I will warn you that this and the various posts to follow will most likely be very wordy, with few pictures. Hopefully you'll be able to follow along as I ramble about my little men.

The old force was considerably over the 2000 point mark, up to about 2500 points I think and had a number of units that didn't really get used much but I had for the versatility. I t eh force were:

Company Commander (x3)

Platoon Commander (x2)

Command Squad: Heavy flamer, Medi-pack, Regimental Standard, Vox-caster

Command Squad: 4x Plasma gun

Primaris Psyker (x2)

Lord Commissar

Master of Ordnance

Officer of the Fleet

Ogryn Bodyguard

Commissar

Ministorum Priest (x2)

Infantry Squad: Flamer (x4)

Infantry Squad: Flamer, Autocannon (x4)

Veterans: heavy flamer, 3x Meltagun

Special Weapons Squad: 3x Sniper Rifle

Special Weapons Squad: 3x Grenade launchers (x2)

Special Weapons Squad: 3x Flamer

Heavy Weapons Squad: 3x Missile launchers

Wyverns (x2)

Scout Sentinels (x3)

Valkyries

Vendetta Gunship 

For reference the numbers before (eg 3x plasma) mean the number of something in the squad, the numbers after (x3) means how many of that unit.

The new force however looks very different in places but very similar in others:

Platoon Command Squad: Platoon Commander, Master-Vox, Medi-pack, Regimental Standard, Heavy Flamer, Master of Ordnance, Officer of the Fleet, Ogryn Bodyguard

Platoon Command Squad: Platoon Commander, Grenade launcher, Flamer, Plasma gun, Sniper Rifle (x3)

Primaris Psyker (X2)

Infantry Squad: Flamer, Vox-caster (x4)

Infantry Squad: Flamer, Vox-caster, Autocannon (x4)

Commissar

Regimental Preacher (X2)

Scout Sentinels (x3)

Field Ordnance Battery: 2x Bombast Field Gun

Field Ordnance Battery: 2x Malleus Rocket Launcher

Heavy Weapons Squad: 3x Missile launcher

Heavy Weapons Squad: 3x Heavy bolter

Valkyrie

Vendetta Gunship 

This force is actually just under 2100 points so some units would be dropped to get under the 2000 point mark. Most likely to be dropped are a command squad or heavy bolter heavy weapons squad. 

There are some key changes to note, the introduction of the field ordnance Batteries is far more thematic than optimal, as I always thought having two vehicles in a fully infantry list was not ideal but I have nothing that I could replace them with but with the FOB's I do! I don't know if these will be as effective, mostly as the rocket launchers don't have the ability to fire indirect, which is a shame. This means that I only have the field guns to take out troops hiding in cover but it should be an overall increase in firepower.

In addition to this the loss of the plasma command squad and the melta wielding vets is a big hit and I don't really have anything in this current list that can replace them. These units were core to the operation of the list and had a big role in how the army played. One option that I have is to replace the 4 non heavy weapon infantry squads with other squads, namely 2 Cadian and 2 DKoK squads. The two Cadian squads would be equipped with two flamers, to act in the same way the the standard infantry squads did. Why Cadian and not Catachan if their carrying two flamers? Well, because Catachan are more expensive and you loose the exploding 6's to hit when shooting, which is better than exploding 6's in the combat I will be avoiding. The two DKoK would be armed slightly differently, one with plasma and melta and one with vox and grenade launchers. These would be DKoK squads to get the extra special weapon in one the squads and the extra rules to make them a little more resilient when they attack. 

The three command squads are also very sub optimal and I really don't know if I actually need that many. With the way orders now splash across units I could probably cut down the number of command squads by one or even two. The command squads weapon options are also very sub par, being made up of what I as to hand, rather than what would have been good. I really wish I could get more snipers in there, as one sniper is just useless, with at least 3 it might actually be worth while taking. I may have a rejig of some of the command squads anyway to try and get some more vox casters in there, to give me some redundancy for pushing orders out further if needed.

Overall the whole feel of the army has changed, moving from an elite core supported by massed infantry to a more general infantry list. I am not sure that I like this new feel but there is little else that can be done with the guard codex to change that feel without significantly changing the composition of the army or the idea behind it.