I've been in wholehearted agreement with the sentiment that HQ crisis teams are too expensive, for two reasons. First, of course, because you don't get anything meaningful for the ten point surcharge, other than opening up the armory. And second, is of course the access to the armory...Bodyguards, when taken, tend to pork up on "cool guy gear." In the points-starved condition of our army, we just can't afford to blow ten points a model, let alone take suits with excess garbage strapped on, they need to be lean and mean.

I've come up with a reason to take one set of bodyguards, without excess wargear, and I thought I'd bring it up for discussion. It's Dawn of War. Deploying just a leader suit (and a kroot screen) is a gift to the enemy, of course. Deploying nothing lets an enemy who has nasty troops and/or HQ start on the centerline 100% of the time. Conversely, a properly screened crisis team in the enemy half of the board on turn one not only pushes the enemy back to his board edge (if he chooses to deploy at all under those conditions), but has the potential, should you choose to exercise it, to put a well-screened crisis team into the enemy half of the board on turn one. Of course, having denied the enemy (half the time in 1/3 of scenarios, so in 1/6 of games) the opportunity to deploy agressively, nothing prevents that "pushback" unit from falling back towards the support of the rest of the army....

In any case, at a cost of 20-30 points, it's worth thinking about, and not just when you've filled your three elites slots with crisis suits and are hungering for more...

Interesting ideas, for me, I'd be reluctant to take something that will work 1/6 of the time though. Personally I like bodyguards and just kind of make them my default suit units, usually only taking 1 or 2 elite slots of non-HQ suits. They are expensive but I don't mind paying for increased odds of hitting and the ability to take more drones to help them survive.

I think the big issue with what you're suggesting here is something you sort of elluded to. You said a single suit is a [victory point] gift, but against most armies we face...so is a unit of them once we get assulted! Against BA, GK, Tyranids, Orks... it won't really matter how many suits are in the unit once they get in cc with it.

Perhaps I might have been more clear...since kroot are troops, and you are allowed to deploy two troops choices as well, the crisis team need not be any more vulnerable to assault than it would be in any other game. My comment about a solo leader suit being a gift of VP was intended to mean that the enemy, due to nightfight rules, won't have much else to shoot at on turn one, and a concerted effort to torrent that "alone and unafraid" leader suit would surely succeed. In any case, even if you deploy as suggested to keep the enemy off your centerline, what's to stop you from falling back on turn one in order to have your cake (push the enemy back) and eat it too (not get shot at in the darkeness)?

You know after thinking about this a bit more I think it would be a pretty good move but it would depend upon many factors obviously. If the XV8 HQ unit could do something very significant with their shooting in turn one it would really be worth it, for example if they could use missile pods to hit a couple of transports, or maybe use an airburst frag to hit that annoying troop unit deployed in cover (or both). To make sure this would work though you'd probably want to put darksun filters on them, which wouldn't make it too many more points. Also I think you'd want to make sure you had some drones in the unit there since they are going to be the primary target of whatever 1st round shooting does make it to them. I think if you were just going to have them up there to take 3 plasma shots at a group of assult marines or something like that it wouldn't mess with your opponents plans too much to just lose 1 or 2 members of the five man squad, so you'd want to make sure you really did something significant with that 1st round of shooting.

Like I said, I typically take two HQ crisis suit units each with two body guards anyway so I think next time I find myself in a dawn of war deployment I might pursue this idea and put my Fireknife XV8 HQ squad forward... depending upon who my enemy is!

While I don't typically use XV8 Bodyguards, I do often deploy my DoW deployment far forward in order to push the enemy back. This works extremely well vs most armies, especially hordes. However, as I don't have any Kroot (assembled) I typically use a small unit of Fire Warriors with a Markerlight or a full unit of Carbines, and supporting Devilfish for a quick evac, and whatever unit I have used for my HQ (Shadowsun makes a great candidate for this as she has many drones to help push back the enemy deployment when spread out to full effect). If done right, you can effectively give your opponent a 6" deployment zone on his table edge. However, in order to cover the entire front line, you will need to have ~20 models (assuming a 25mm base). If you include a full unit of XV8s and 2 Drones as your HQ unit, you can spread them out enough to require only ~14 Kroot to fill the rest of the table's front line. Does this mean you need to cover the entire center line of the table? No, not really, but this is what you would need if you did want to. If you decided to use those same 14 Kroot to cover a balanced line on the center of the table, they would still be able to significantly push back the deployment. I can't do the math required to give an accurate answer, but with a ~8.25 buffer on either end of the Kroot to the table edge, and the enemy must be deployed 18" away, the radius of your deployment "push-back" should be enough to keep the enemy away, even if they deployed to the farthest corners of their adjusted DZ.

Alternatively, you could use those same 14 Kroot to force a pseudo-spearhead deployment, although this wouldn't work 100% as you would be 1) going first and 2) the majority of your enemy's army would be arriving from reserve. Even so, it may work for those few starting units that are deployed first, especially if you deploy a decoy unit in the proper corner of the table.

Another note about your first turn of shooting, you have to remember that all your Kroot are going to be putting out their firepower, and as has been argued in the past, their output cannot be entirely discounted.

I have taken to always bringing a single HQ with bodyguard complement. The whole thing costs about 250-300 points, which is a lot for our army, but only a bit more than others' HQ choices, and less than some.

The primary reason is that a Shas'vre or Team Leader is the ideal candidate for Helios or Fireknife configurations, and putting them in Elites requires either less-effective Helios/Fireknife on the others in the team, a Mon'at team, or just not using those configurations (which are relatively powerful, against MEQ/TEQ.)

The secondary reason is that it gives me a flexibility to my army, allowing me to have a serious threat that I can deepstrike. It's rare that I actually DO this, but sometimes dropping these guys in my opponent's backfield and finding that they can drop around 6-8 TEQ in one shooting phase is demoralizing and gamechanging. At the very least, it forces division of fire between them and my broadsides.

The final and tertiary reason for a Single HQ choice, and not a Mon'at, is this is my fast-responder team, able to handle a wide variety of units, though some better than others. (Focused on MEQ/TEQ usually, but can provide light vehicle support or horde control support.) This allows me to use my other FOC slots to be specialized at one job, allowing this 'Linebacker team' to go where I need them. I can use Deathrains or Firestorms more often, without having to worry about my anti-MEQ/TEQ effectiveness, basically.

(And speaking of (American!) football metaphors: Linemen = Kroot/Pirahnas, Linebackers = Fireknife/Helios, but other Crisis configurations too, Safeties = Broadsides, Pathfinders, SMT, Hammerheads. ;D ... FIRE WARRIORS HAVE NO POSITION IN FOOTBALL!! I guess they're running backs. Halfbacks, not fullbacks.)

Bodyguards have the highest chances of survival and access to the best gear. so I always take them. just think about it. All you need to do to ensure all the suits are unique is to stick the drone controller on a bodyguard as opposed to the commander, or to push it further, 1 hw drone controller and 1 drone on the commander AND one bodyguard.. Voila, no extra parts to spend the few extra points on. Each one has access to the targeting array for legitimately good accuracy. which means the most important weapons need less markerlight support to do the job right. It might not seem like much, but the elite 3 man teams will very commonly run at bs3 and with identical gear across the board, you'll have 2 suits that match up, survivability goes down and the leader taking a targeting array is often negated by the fact that you already know you're going to devote atleast 2 markerlights to it for bs boosting anyways, making the TA bonus a waste in half the situations. not a problem when everyone can take it.and thus mitigate your needs.


I find that helios and fireknife configs make for the best HQ and bodyguard loadouts, and I leave the deathrains and fire-forge monats to the elite section. It's rare that you'll need to put up with a bs3 crisis suit in this way.

Something to keep in mind here is that, for two-weapon setups, the percentage cost added by the 'vre promotion, HWMT and TA is almost exactly balanced by the percentage increase in firepower*. So taking the suits as 'vre bodyguards gives you the same firepower per point as an elite squad, just with fewer wounds/models. If you have a good reason to take the HQ squad, such as freeing up room for single-model suicide elites, greater turn-1 presence in DoW, etc, it's a perfectly legitimate choice to make.

Of course planning for DoW specifically may not be the best idea. Even if you include it in your list of potential missions (the mission sucks, many tournaments use custom missions, and many casual gamers pretend it doesn't exist) it still only appears one third of the time, and you only get the first turn half the time. And of course not all opponents want to deploy something as far up as possible even when they have the option to do so. So you have to ask yourself: is it worth making significant list changes to handle a situation that happens less than 1/6th of the time?


*Ignoring markerlights, since there is no universal agreement on how to include them in this kind of comparison.

The extra stat bonuses are really just a freebie, you're really paying points to get a multitracker and a targeting array together, and as Peregrine says - it comes out pretty much even (if I remember correctly the HQ squad is a tiny bit more effective, taking down an extra marine every 40 games or something silly). The extra surcharge is worth it, albeit not an absolute bargain. By no means are they a 'bad' choice or the rip off they seem at first glance.

Whilst they are more expensive per wound, you also need to bear in mind that this corresponds with an increase in the concentration of fire or a smaller footprint. If you can keep your Fireknives safe from harm, then doing exactly the same with a retinue unit means you are effectively getting around an extra suit's worth of firing.

They're expensive, but no more so than regular crisis suits for the fire power they kick out. The questions to ask before getting them are;

Can I afford to spend that many points on Fireknife firepower or is some other critical part of the list going to suffer for it?
Do I need that extra bit of firepower, or is that overkill for what I want them to do?
On a similar note, do I have enough markerlights to support everyone or do I want a relatively independent unit?
Is there some reason that I want my Fireknife firepower in a particular slot (HQ or Elite), specifically am I running out of elite slots or there something my 'El wants to be doing where he's not going to want a squad with him?

The whole pseudo-spearhead thing really only affects the max of three units he gets to deploy...you actually get the opposite effect for the rest of his army, since you roll on first, he gets to react to your deployment!

As for DoW not being used in tournaments, I've had a DoW mission in like seven straight...it definitely needs to be a planning factor!

Which you should be planning for once you deploy, right?

Of course! I was only saying that if you're lining half of the centerline in the hope that the enemy will choose to deploy (including the part of his army that can't come in until turn one) in the other half of hte board, then you haven't thought things through...he's only pushed back during the deployment phase, there's no further benefit once the game starts. You're still keeping him from getting uncomfortably close to your "chosen corner" with the three units that he is allowed to deploy, and that's important, I'm just warning against the temptation to assume "well, he's in that corner and I'm in this one. After all, if you deploy first and do elect to push him back, what's to stop him from declining to put out ANY of the three units, give you zero to do on turn one (except fall back and roll on), and deploy based on what he sees at the end of your first turn? That's the smart thing for the enemy to do, and it sounds like it's crummy for us...but it sure beats him dropping Ghazkul and 60 boyz on the centerline! It's bad enough when he gets to do that because he gets first deployment, but when you get to drop first and decline? Yuck, then the green tide is starting the game 18", or 24", if he doesn't put them out at the back of his deployment zone, closer than necessary.

So there's definitely a purpose to deploying something in DoW when you're going first, the question is whether it pays to drop 20 or 30 extra points to elevate a crisis team from elite to bodyguard status in order to drop not just kroot, but also a healthy HQ choice.

I happen to think that it is worthwhile, which is of course the point of this thread.

It doesn't seem unreasonable, assuming you do other stuff to make it worth upgrading them to bodyguard status. They have armory access at that point, so might as well throw on the bells and whistles. Either Helios or Fireknife suits with both Targeting Array and Multi-Tracker yield very nice returns on points (as compared to either suit without the Targeting Array).

[Rough math: You get 33% more firepower for ten points. In a squad of 3, that amounts to the firepower of a full additional suit for 30 points.]

I'm not saying I like bodyguard suits generally, as it's a lot more points per model on the board, which has its own advantages. What I am saying is, if you're already putting the points into bodyguard status, that cost is already sunk and you might as well take advantage of it.

Don't forget, you have to include the cost of the promotion to 'vre in addition to the TA, since you can't take HWMT/TA without it. The result is that you break even, but you don't really come out ahead. It's enough to justify the bodyguards if you have another reason to take them, but not enough to make them an automatic choice if firepower efficiency is your only concern.

Exactly. If you're going to get the bodyguards anyway, might as well upgrade. Bodyguards with extra gear are a bargain compared to bodyguards with stock equipment.

Well obviously you upgrade to HWMT/TA, it would be incredibly stupid not to. However, the question in this thread is whether you should take bodyguards at all, not whether or not you should take obvious upgrades once you do so.

Also, when you say "so might as well throw on the bells and whistles", that implies doing more than the bare minimum of HWMT/TA.

No no no, the bells are the Multi-Tracker and the whistles are the Targeting Array. Thought this metaphor was obvious.

@Marnepup:
I agree with what you said re: the 1st turn, which is why I described it as a "pseudo-spearhead". It's almost like it, but not really. But, as you've said, if the enemy isn't on that center line, that's what really matters. If he puts nothing on the board instead of putting it at the 6" mark, then that's 6" more of table space he has to cover in order to get to your lines.