whats so cool about sterngaurd?

[Strassa]

I see people raving about sterngaurd? they are good but what is their functionality on the table?

[scythes]

They're special ammo, they have a bunch of different types that do things like ignore cover saves, ap3, stuff like that. Ap3 is awesome against marines, no armour save there. Also you can put a as many combi weapons in a squad as you want so they can blow up tanks or flame things or whatever. They're really quite good.

[Arlins]

Monstrous creatures giving you trouble , high toughness units a pain in the butt , if no one else can help and if you can find them maybe you can hire the sternguard .
Seriously good unit ( see scythes post )

[edmundblack]

What's awesome about Sternguard? What's not awesome?!? For your points you get a veritable swiss-army-knife of a unit that can do pretty much anything and even be OK and support in CC. Hellfire rounds are the dog's danglies of ammo, and even a small 6-man unit is a right royal pain for your opponent. Every Marine army that can have them should have at least a 6-man squad. Try this: http://www.40kforums.com/vb/content....guard-a-how-to for more info.

[Ann]

My husband plays space marines and I play orks (thanks to starting the game with Black Reach) but from the first I've been interested in the tactical possibilities of marines and once I'm done with orks I'll probably start with marines. I was thinking that having a sternguard squad (for the reasons already mentioned) working in tandem with a vanguard squad might be interesting. I think it might be effective to engage a unit with the sternguard and then if you can pull it off have the vanguard guys do a heroic intervention assault on the same turn. Seems like with some good dice rolling against the right foe it might be quite fun.

One question though: The special ammunition rule says "boltgun-armed model" (p. 63) but on p. 136 I see for 5 points you can replace any model's boltgun with a storm bolter, among other things. I couldn't find a reference saying that you get to use the special ammunition with the storm bolter. Normally I would assume you could, but one of the rounds available is the hellfire round and on p. 100 one learns that hellfire rounds "can only be used in a boltgun." So, it would seem pretty rocking if you could fire special ammunition out of the storm bolters, but not very attractive to take them if you can't and the text leads me to assume that the special ammo is boltgun-only, which makes my orks happy but makes my someday-space marines sad.

[jago668]

Only works in normal bolters (aka boltguns), and combi-bolters. No heavy bolters, no storm bolters, etc Load up on combi-weapons and go to town. Provided you run normal marines Chaplain Cassius makes a good complement to them also, since he comes with a combi-flamer and hellfire rounds (he doesn't get all the special ammo).

[Silas]

I like to run a teleporting librarian with mine... moving 24" suddenly to support a squad that needs it, throw in smite on top of that if you've got a more expensive libby and you are dealing out a metric ton of unexpected firepower.

But mostly I just run a 6 man squad. They've never let me down.

[Ann]

Yeah, the special ammo in stormbolters does sound a little too good to be true.

[BrokenWing]

STERNGUARD ARE AWESOME! That's what's awesome about them =).

Seriously, special ammo is amazing, like everyone has said at this point.

Ann, I'd be wary about using them with Vanguard, Vanguard just aren't worth their points by the time you give them jump packs. The jump pack upgrade alone for a full squad is an extra 100 points.

[Ann]

Ann, I'd be wary about using them with Vanguard, Vanguard just aren't worth their points by the time you give them jump packs. The jump pack upgrade alone for a full squad is an extra 100 points.

Seems like it'd be a fun thing to pull off once, but yes, you are right about them being expensive just to get the heroic intervention thing.

[Beaviz81]

*Dakka!! Dakka!! Dakka!! Dakka!! And more Dakka!!*

[Badarmies2]

There is almost nothing in the game the sternguard can't tackle. I have 10 with all combi-meltas. Deploy via drop pod, combat squad if needed. They wreck chit!