Blood Angel Honour Guard Options

Excuse the crappy image and the crappy painting...

When I showed up to my last tournament with my Blood Angels, I got more than a few raised eyebrows when people saw that I was running an honour guard unit. Honestly, I might be missing something... but I'm not sure why more people aren't talking about the honour guard as far as points efficiency.

Compared to a regular five man assault squad with a transport, these guys cost 50 points more  (that's 15 in actual cost plus the 35 point dedicated transport discount). For an extra fifty points, you get:

• Feel No Pain (on a guy who can't be singled out in the assault)
• Extra attacks (if you opt for chainswords)
• Better range and more versatility (if you opt for boltguns)
• Ld 9 regardless of which squad members die
• Much better wargear options

As far as points go, I count the sanguine novitiate as the equivalent of a sanguinary priest... if you look at it that way, each of the other marines in the squad is only 16.25 points each (about the same as a tactical marine but with a better stat line). By gaining all of this cool stuff, the only thing you lose is scoring status.

Personally, I love my honor guard. I run mine with the following wargear, but this is tailored to my local metagame. If you haven't noticed from my battle reports already, I see swarms of boyz and fire warriors in cover more often than anything else, so this is pretty optimal for me.


   1 Honour Guard @ 245 pts (Honour Guard; Honour Guard; Honour Guard; Honour Guard; Razorback)
      1 Sanguinary Novitiate
      1 Honour Guard (Flamer x1)
      1 Honour Guard (Flamer x1)
      1 Honour Guard (Flamer x1)
      1 Honour Guard (Hand Flamer x1; Power Sword x1)
      1 Razorback (Twin Linked Assault Cannon)

Having four flamers really helps me roast boyz and troops hiding in cover. This squad doesn't help me at all to deal with mech, but I just don't see much of it. If I did, I would probably run the following:

   1 Honour Guard @ 205 pts (Honour Guard; Honour Guard; Honour Guard; Honour Guard; Rhino)
      1 Sanguinary Novitiate
      1 Honour Guard (Meltagun x1 or Combi-Melta x1)
      1 Honour Guard (Meltagun x1 or Combi-Melta x1)
      1 Honour Guard (Meltagun x1 or Combi-Melta x1)
      1 Honour Guard (Meltagun x1 or Combi-Melta x1)
      1 Rhino

This squad is actually cheaper, but part of that is running a rhino instead of a razorback. Why a rhino here instead of a razorback? Mainly personal choice and play style, but it boils down to these two things: I'll probably end up running these guys like fire dragons just out of habit, so they need to be cheap, and I've actually found it useful in the past to shoot a meltagun from the hatch of a rhino... I've never felt the need to fire a flamer from the safety of the vehicle.

And then, of course, there's the "if points weren't an issue" dream squad. I think running this would be awesome, a versatile unit that combines the best of both of the last two options and is better in the assault than either one. If only it wasn't so frickin' expensive...

   1 Honour Guard @ 305 pts (Honour Guard; Honour Guard; Honour Guard; Honour Guard; Razorback)
      1 Sanguinary Novitiate
      1 Honour Guard (Hand Flamer x1; Infernus Pistol x1)
      1 Honour Guard (Hand Flamer x1; Infernus Pistol x1)
      1 Honour Guard (Hand Flamer x1; Infernus Pistol x1)
      1 Honour Guard (Hand Flamer x1; Infernus Pistol x1)
      1 Razorback (Twin Linked Assault Cannon)

So am I crazy? Is it just personal attachment that makes me think these guys are awesome? If you're running honour guard in your army, how do you equip yours?

Note: On a completely unrelated note, don't forget that the Christmas giveaway ends today whenever I get home from work (should be around 6:30 or so, Eastern time). If you want to enter, you've got until then!