The Greater Good pt2

Following on from my post last week, this is the second half of my look at the new Imperial Guard rules found in the lastest Psychic Awakening book, the Greater Good. This post will focus on the Militarum Tempestus rules. This will mostly focus on the new Doctrines for the Scions, turning them back into a full fledged force in there own right, similar to how they were in 7th.

There are some good options here and some that aren't quite so good.

First up, for no other reason than it's the first picture blogger put in and it just happens to be the standard Doctrine, well almost anyway. This is slightly revised as it goes from generating an extra hit roll to a straight extra hit. While extra hits are good, in theory though it's only going to come in to play at less than nine inches and it doesn't solve the main problem with Scions, there short range.

In contrast, this does exactly the opposite, adding that much needed range. Adding 6 inches to the range of all rapid fire weapons brings hotshot lasguns up to the range of the volley guns and more importantly, brings the rapid fire range up to 12 inches and means that you can now reach out and touch targets from deep strike. I do like this doctrine as it does fix the biggest issue for me, the lack of range.

These guys are the current poster boys for the Tempestus Scions and their doctrine is a little odd. Firstly there are two parts, the only one that does. Secondly, the first half has a very specific effect, as it effects heavy type weapons, of which the Scions have only one, the Volley Gun. Now, does this signal a change and we might be getting heavy weapons teams for Scions? I doubt it, which I guess is why we get the second part, that when exiting a transport, they get a +1 to hit. This is pretty good, bringing there hit rolls to a 2+ when they disembark. However, it then does limit there options for deployment as the majority of the time they will gain no benefits from the doctrine. They only way to run these I think is from a taurox or more likely a Valkyrie and drop them point blank range, with a command squad full of volley guns.

This is probably the only doctrine that I don't really understand. To my mind, you are going to be running these guys against Marines (of both varieties) and they have both high leadership and ways to re-roll that leadership, so the effect of moral is lessened. Where this trait would be best is in lower leadership big squads, such as guard, eldar guardians, Tau fire warriors, chaos cultists and the likes, where two or three casualties will cause the squad major problems in moral but then these are not really the primary targets for hotshot lasguns. I'm really not sure about this tactic and it's the only one I don't see how I could use.

Again, this doctrine confused me at first but once I'd considered it for a while, it does make more sense to me. It brings the lasguns and pistols up to AP-3, where I think they should have been all along ( well they were S3 AP3 under the old system), putting MEQ's under more pressure. In addition it brings some much needed AP to things like bolt pistols and flamers, as well as grenade launcher. This really does help these weapons but it does push these forces in to two different directions. While it does help with there primary role taking out Marines, it also means that they are better at taking out Guard equivalent units with grenade launcher and flamers. If your going up against chaos with a mix of Marines and cultists, then these are the guys to take.

The last doctrine is very similar to the first but with a minor adjustment. Instead of granting extra hits on 6's within half range, the extra hits are generated when targeting the closest unit. This means that you could generate extra hits at any range, just as long as it's the closest unit your shooting at. While it's always useful to get extra hits, this doctrine does push you to target the closest unit in order to get any benefit from the doctrine, so you are probably going to have to choose, closest with benefits or proper target without.

In addition to the doctrines, we also got new relics and warlord traits, one for each regiment.

The relic we're given is for the Thetoid Eagles and is a replacement for a hotshot laspistol. Not only does it double the number of shots but also increases the range. What attracts me to this pistol is the simple fact that every hit causes a mortal wound, removing the second weakness of the hotshot weapons (first being range), their strength (S3). Definitely a good relic in my opinion.

The warlord trait is from the Kappic Eagles and ties in well to their doctrine. More often than not your going to deploy these units from transports and they are generally going to be quite dispersed, giving your warlord a 24 inch range for voice of command and the option to issue orders from inside a vehicle means that you can keep him in contact with other units very easily and not need to expose him unnecessarily. I think this is a good trait to have for these units, however unless your running a pure Scion list, I still wouldn't have my warlord in the Scion detachment.

Lastly we have a couple of stratagems, two of the eight universal stratagems that are available to the Scions. In addition there are 6 regiment specific stratagems, one for each regiment.

I don't know what the other stratagems are yet but this one is very, very good. Being able to drop just 5 inches from an enemy units from a Valkyrie,without having to worry about loosing anyone is amazing and will be used pretty much Everytime anyone deploys units in Valkyries. Now, the big question I have, is how does this actually work. I can see it working two ways right now; firstly, you select the flyer and a unit inside gains the benefit of the stratagem or secondly, you select the flyer and every units inside gains the benefits. The way I read this, every you select the flyer and every units on board (with aerial drop) gains the benefit of the stratagem, meaning you could load up a Valkyrie with two command squads and a tempestor with command rod, drop them at point blank range and unload. Now the 5 inch is key, as it puts you in to melta  range for those sweet damage rolls. In addition, I would assume that this will combine with the Kappic Eagles trait as well for a +1 to hit as well, meaning g you'll be hitting on 2's, with potential rerolls from your tempestor. This is going surpise a number of people.

This another good stratagem and can tie in well to the previous stratagem as well. Whether Dropping in you character with something like Old Grudges, or just bolstering a flank with Draconian Discipline, the options are all good and for a CP this is pretty much a must take. 

From the previews shown here, there are a couple of combinations that really stick out to me. The aforementioned Kappic Eagles doctrine combined with Precision Drop and a Tempestor with Progeny of Conflict, using Old Grudges and issuing the Take Aim order to two command squad. This will give you two units of 4 special weapons, hitting on 2's, rerolling 1's and rerolling wounds. Whatever you hit is going to have a really bad day. Yes this is a one hit wonder, but the units probably aren't going to survive until the next turn anyway, so it's a case of hitting the priority target hard and doing everything you can to make sure you eliminate it. Another way to run the Kappic Eagles would be to load up in Taurox's and using the warlord trait and their doctrine, charge forward before disembarking and unloading while the warlord issues orders from the safety of a transport. The final way I think you can think to run things, from what we've seen so far anyway and that's to use the Lambdan Lions or psion jakals , use a Valkyrie to drop in a large squad with flamers or grenade launcher just behind an enemy squad, using Precision Drop to get in flamer range and then go to town on the unit. This would work best on large squads, such as conscripts or a full squad of warriors, or something similar. 

While we still have a lot to see, this is shaping up to be a very good addition to the Scions and maybe a sign of the Militarum Tempestus gaining there own codex again, or more likely a codex supplement, along the lines of the recent marine supplements.

The greater good

So it has come around to the turn of the guard to get some goodness from the Psychic Awakening series. To be honest I haven't taken much interest in this series, as I don't really like supplements and the whole extra rules and such that come with them. I liked the whole point that 8th was going to be a streamlined system with out needing 20 thousand books to play. Ok, so that's a bit of an exaggeration but at the rate were going it won't be for long.

For this review, I'm not going into the full details, which are up on many sites and YouTube as well (check out Winters SEO for a good review on YouTube). This will just cover the Warhammer Community page releases and my own thoughts in the new stuff. Also this post will just cover the main guard releases and not the Scions, which will be in the next post.

First up the new Regimental Doctrines. We saw this in the Space Marine codex, where you could customise your chapter tactics and we all expected the system to get rolled out to all armies eventually and here are the guards version. While not as numerous as the marines, the guard have 12 options to choose from and the two that were previewed we're Gunnery Experts and Disciplined Shooters.

Gunnery Experts effects vehicles from your army and enables you to re-roll the dice when determining the number of shots a weapons has, such as the LR Battle cannons D6 shots.

The other doctrine we get is Disciplined Shooters, which enables units to effectively rapid fire out to 18 inches, weather than the standard 12 inches and as is pointed out in the Community article, combined with the First rank, Second rank order could see an Infantry unit shoot four shots out to 18 inches, so somewhere between 24 and 36 lasgun shots for a regular Infantry squad. 

Both of these Doctrines have been seen before, one with the Catachan and the other with the Armageddon Steel Legion, so are not new but being able to swap and change the two parts does make quite a difference.

We also get previews of some of the new options, namely Jury-rigged Repairs and Combined Auspex.

Jury-rigged is a nice little option, giving your units some more durability but I'm a little underwhelmed by this doctrine. Gaining back one wound will not make that much difference in most cases and I expect there to be better options out there

Combined Auspex allows you to fire overwatch on a 5+ for vehicles that are close to other vehicles. However, I'm not sure planning your whole strategy around getting vehicles charged is a particularly good idea.

So far these are a mixed bag, I would like to see what the rest have to offer as I think that these could be very useful indeed. I run a very Infantry based army, so having a doctrine tailored purely to Infantry would be better than what is out there at the moment. However, whether it's worth loosing the other bonus's such as warlord trait and stratagem, I'll have to wait and see.

Another addition to the tool bag are Tank Ace's. These can be used instead of a traditional warlord or for a 1CP stratagem you can include a tank ace in addition to your warlord (or have two tank Ace's). Now from other sources I know that there are different types of Ace's, from tank to support and super heavy Ace's, so lots of choice.

Again, we got a taste of some of the options with Weapon Expert and Steadfast Leviathan. 

This option is for one of your Leman Russ variants and could be useful on pretty much all of them, however I think it will be most useful on the likes of the Punisher, to give it some AP or the auto cannon to push it up to ap-2 and in to battle cannon challenging range. This may sound odd but a battle cannon is S8 AP-2 Dd3 and with this the auto cannon would be S7 AP-2 D2 plus the battle cannon is d6 shots vs the auto cannon is 4. I don't know how it will mathhammer out but it looks good to me.

Steadfast Leviathan is another good trait for a super heavy tank ace. If your running an armour heavy list, this could be very useful for boosting your super heavy to new levels, think of a Valhallan baneblade spitting death in all directions right up until the moment it dies itself. How this ties in with the new Doctrines we will have to wait and see but there is a lot of potential here.

Last up are a couple of new stratagems, I don't remember seeing how many there were going to be but there are three here, two from the Warhammer community post and one from their Facebook page.

The first, splash damage, looks like a good one. Yes, it's a bit situational, as the target unit needs to be in cover, but when your auto hitting, being able to re-roll wounds is great and can really pile on the damage.  

Next up is Strike First, Strike Hard and for me this really shouts to be used on a unit of scout sentinels. I say this because I see it going something like this; take 3 lascannon scout sentinels, deploy the unit last, in a position towards the front of the line, as close to a target as possible. Use the scout move to get the unit in to a perfect firing position and then stay still turn 1 movement. Open up in the shooting using this stratagem, taking the hit roll from a 4+ to a 2+. Yes wounding can be a problem but pick the target carefully, say a rhino or a squad of 3 aggressors, and you've a good chance of a kill. Armoured sentinels could also be used but they suffer from the -1 to hit for moving, meaning they would be hitting on 3's. Not a massive difference but enough. 

Lastly, we have this from Facebook.  Shield of Flesh is used when a Infantry squad is the while it is next to a squad of bullgryns. If the bullgryns are closer, then a -1 applies to the hit roll, as though you've got to shoot past\through the bullgryns and their Shields. The best use for this I can see is to protect a valuable unit, either a character being sniped or something like a plasma command squad, which you don't want to loose early. Combine this with "get down" for a bonus on a save and the target unit could become quite hard to shift.

Overall there looks to be a number of good options in this book but there also looks to be some not so good options. I think until we actually see all the option for the new Doctrines, relics and warlord traits that are in the book it's had to say if this will be a must buy for people. I won't be buying it, regardless of how much of a must buy the book is, as I will just wait until the new guard codex comes out. Next up are the new Scion rules that are also in the book and in my view are the more important and exciting bit of the book.