Jump to content

New Guard Codex


pretre

Recommended Posts

Regiment Focus: Vostroya

AMFocus_Vostroyan_Boxout1kec.jpg

Vostroyan armies are well known for their ornate appearance, both in the background and on the tabletop! Armed with ornate weapons and wargear that hearken back to ancient eras of warfare, the Vostroyans are obsessed with duty and lineage.

AMFocus_Vostroyan_Image7ens-500x333.jpg

Indeed, every Vostroyan goes to war armed with priceless heirlooms, built and maintained to a much higher standard than that of the rest of the Astra Militarum. On the tabletop, this is represented by Heirloom Weapons:

The Regimental Doctrine

AMFocus_Vostroyan_Boxout1ems.jpg

Heirloom Weapons is one of the simplest of the Regimental Doctrines, providing a flat bonus to your entire army. At the most basic level, having 30″ of range on your lasguns allows you to keep your guardsmen a little further away from the enemy, while shorter ranged Heavy weapons will be able to reach targets across the tabletop.

Best Units

AMFocus_Vostroyan_SubHeader2jca.jpgAMFocus_Vostroyan_Image9fjx.jpg

Heavy Weapons Squads are already very handy in an Astra Militarum army – throw in Heirloom Weapons and they’ll be even better. Few enemies are going to be able to escape a 54″ lascannon, while if you get charged, the Vostroyan order, Repel the Enemy, is potentially punishing.

AMFocus_Vostroyan_Boxout4jed-500x64.jpg

AMFocus_Vostroyan_SubHeader3kda.jpg

AMFocus_Vostroyan_Image6kdx.jpg

Scout Sentinels are a great choice for a Vostroyan army, thanks to their huge threat range. All the sentinel’s weapons (barring the heavy flamer) benefit from Heirloom Weapons, while the Scout Sentinel’s Scout Vehicle ability gives it a free 9″ move before the game begins – that’s effectively an extra 15″ worth of range.

AMFocus_Vostroyan_Boxout5jrnc.jpg

Combine this with the Go! Recon! Stratagem and there are few places on the table your enemy can hide.

AMFocus_Vostroyan_Boxout8djxc.jpg

If you want to outrange your opponents (or just need an excuse to pick up some beautiful models), start playing Vostroyans! Don’t miss tomorrow’s preview, where we’ll be looking at the Valhallans, the highly anticipated changes to conscripts, and the return of a classic and much-loved rule…

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

AMFocus_Valhalla_Banner5kdc.jpg

AMFocus_Valhallan_Image4kdns.jpg

The Valhallan Ice Warriors are ruthless, even by the standards of the Astra Militarum, and are renowned for their willingness to expend the lives of their troops to secure victory for the Emperor. On the tabletop, Valhallan armies can keep fighting regardless of horrific casualties, fire directly into units engaged in close combat and even return destroyed units to the field. Not bad!

The Regimental Doctrine

AMFocus_Valhallan_Boxout1ewd.jpg

Grim Demeanour helps make up for the generally poor morale possessed by Astra Militarum units – after all, the last thing you need on the battlefield is for a few casualties on a unit of Veterans to cause your key special weapons to flee. Similarly, vehicles in the Valhallan army have a much longer effective life span than others, meaning your opponent will be forced to fully destroy them rather than just relying on crippling you.

Best Units

AMFocus_Valhalla_SubHeader7ems.jpg

AMFocus_Valhallan_Image10hds.jpg

Conscripts have seen some changes in the new Astra Militarum codex, designed to make them fit their background more appropriately. If you’ve got loads of these guys on hand, don’t worry! They’re still a very handy unit (particularly in the Valhallan army). Firstly, Conscripts can only be taken in units of 20-30, reducing the effectiveness of stacking orders on a block of 50. Secondly, orders only work on Conscripts on a 4+, and, should they fail, no more orders will work on the unit for the rest of the turn.

Conscripts are still very useful, and in a Valhallan army, we’d recommend using yours to hold enemy units in place before using Fire On My Command, the new Valhallan Order, to shoot into the combat. In this way, you can neutralise an enemy unit’s shooting without any loss of effectiveness for your own!

AMFocus_Valhallan_Boxout4ks.jpg

Should all your conscripts die, you can always Send in the Next Wave! – this stratagem is also a great way to recoup the loss of an expensive unit of Veterans, or a Command Squad.

AMFocus_Valhallan_Boxout3ob.jpg.jpg

AMFocus_Valhalla_SubHeader6le.jpg

AMFocus_Valhallan_Image8eja.jpg

What better way to transport your infantry to the front than with the Stormlord? With more than enough room for almost an entire platoon of Guardsmen, this tank suits the close-assault tactics of the Valhallans to a T, while Grim Demeanour ensures that even devastating damage won’t stop you from making the most of the Vulcan mega-bolter. What’s more, the Steel Behemoth rule has been updated so that Baneblades of all types don’t suffer penalties for shooting Heavy weapons after moving. 

One very scary combo with the Stormlord involves a deadly new vehicle stratagem, Crush Them! All Baneblade variants are equipped with adamantium tracks and have 9 Attacks, but only have a Weapon Skill of 5+. With Crush Them!, all your attacks will be hitting on a 2+, and you’ll be able to advance and charge. Use this to get your Stormlord across the table quickly, destroy a key enemy unit and then disembark your infantry next turn before falling back and firing on the enemy.

AMFocus_Valhallan_Boxout2rf.jpg

Valhallan armies are perfect for you if you want a truly relentless regiment. Tomorrow, in the last of our previews of the codex, we’ll be checking out the armies of Armageddon, and looking at how the warping of Armageddon has changed how this regiment fights.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, Frowbakk said:

I forsee someone misreading the Grim Demeanor rule to claim their Valhallan vehicles have 2x the wounds of non-Valhallan vehicles, rather than if a vehicle has 3 wounds remaining it counts as if it had six wounds left ONLY for determining how far it can move/how well it can shoot, etc.

Yeah, too me a minute to figure out how that rule worked. It's wonky and very open to mis interpretation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am very happy that my Valhallans get regiment rules again! That's not the regiment rule that I expected but it's pretty good. I like the return of "Send in the next wave", the new Valhallan order, and the updated rules for Baneblades removing the movement penalty. Lots of good stuff in this book so far.

 

Very excited to get my guard on the table with new rules!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, fluger said:

The conscript nerf is perfect.

Not really. All it does is increase the army Drop count which already was high but in the world of just +1 means almost nothing. Additionally, they seem to still benefit from Commissar which was what was really OP. Coupled with the Un-restricted abuse of FW Artillery has achieved the proverbial little.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, MikhailLenin said:

Not really. All it does is increase the army Drop count which already was high but in the world of just +1 means almost nothing. Additionally, they seem to still benefit from Commissar which was what was really OP. Coupled with the Un-restricted abuse of FW Artillery has achieved the proverbial little.

Losing orders and dropped squad size does eliminate some of the strength they had but yeah if commissars still apply it changes little. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...