Making LSG viable

[English 2000]

Yep, We're in agreement. Now to get GW to issue an errata...

[Nagashias]

Perhaps even look in a different direction?

LSG may shoot as if volley firing, even if having moved. If moved less than 3 inches, they also do not suffer -1 to hit.

[Tullarion]

My main problem with that, is that it makes the Sea Helm unnecessary. If they can stay in "spearmen" formation and get decent shooting even while moving, why have the Sea Helm? Also, three inches seems weird... it's not connected to anything. Up to three, no -1, three to five, -1, and five plus getting no shots (marching) seems... strange. It just seems cumbersome, rules-wise.

[Vermillion]

Thinking on it today decided probably the best use would be a seahelm BSB in them, held back deployed wide with a bowline, when the opponent charges in they reform deep. Still going to play around them in and MMU and see if their dual purpose tax comes in handy or not as my shooting usually does bugger all anyways . Fair bit of painting off being able to test it though...

[Nagashias]

My main problem with that, is that it makes the Sea Helm unnecessary. If they can stay in "spearmen" formation and get decent shooting even while moving, why have the Sea Helm? Also, three inches seems weird... it's not connected to anything. Up to three, no -1, three to five, -1, and five plus getting no shots (marching) seems... strange. It just seems cumbersome, rules-wise.

It was to avoid 2½ inches (half normal move), that would be weird .


Perhaps make the Sea Helm a LSG champion instead of a hero?

[Vermillion]

Binding the rule to the champion as an upgrade choice could be an interesting idea yes

[Nagashias]

Binding the rule to the champion as an upgrade choice could be an interesting idea yes

Another rule that could be viable, would be for all of the LSG to make a Stand and Shoot reaction, always. Also in all ranks.

Making them an offensive spearmen unit (expensive one!) that wants to be charged, yet can provide a Little bit of firepower if not being charged.

[Tullarion]

Thinking on it today decided probably the best use would be a seahelm BSB in them, held back deployed wide with a bowline, when the opponent charges in they reform deep. Still going to play around them in and MMU and see if their dual purpose tax comes in handy or not as my shooting usually does bugger all anyways . Fair bit of painting off being able to test it though...

Except you can't reform deep. That's the biggest problem. If you're wide to get the most out of your bows, and you're charged to the front, you can't then reform deep if your models are in base to base, because you can't remove models from combat, even with the seahelm reform. So, if you're ten wide and three deep (unit of thirty) to get all your shooting... and you're charged by a unit eight wide... you may want to reform five wide and six deep to get all those spears and steadfast, but you can't. You can't move a single elf, because everyone is in base to base.

And unfortunately, that's the EXACT scenario everyone was hoping you could do when they first read the rules for the seahelm... and then depressingly let go of as soon as they realized it didn't work because of the way naval discipline is written. That's why people think he's tenuous at best, and definitely garbage in a seaguard unit.

Binding the rule to the champion as an upgrade choice could be an interesting idea yes

I think it's too powerful a rule to give to a mere unit champion, as you are effectively giving the rule to the unit... especially since all the army books now have all unit champions as a standard ten point upgrade, that ability would be no way reflected in that cost.

Another rule that could be viable, would be for all of the LSG to make a Stand and Shoot reaction, always. Also in all ranks.

Making them an offensive spearmen unit (expensive one!) that wants to be charged, yet can provide a Little bit of firepower if not being charged.

I think those rules would end up coming with very steep point costs, and since those rules would only come into play on maybe one or two turns of the game (if at all), it would make seaguard even less worth taking.

[Nagashias]

Tullarion -> 10 pts upgrade yes, but highly easy to kill. It will basically only be on the first charge, as he will be killed very fast. Also, armies have access to lore of death, sniper rule in general, can charge in with chaff etc.

About the stand and shoot -> It would be about the same point cost. They are horrible at it is now. Paying 3 pts per model for a rule that only comes into play when being charged in the front, just requires opponent NOT to charge in front. And honestly, a 300-400 pts unit should have that effect.

[Tullarion]

Tullarion -> 10 pts upgrade yes, but highly easy to kill. It will basically only be on the first charge, as he will be killed very fast. Also, armies have access to lore of death, sniper rule in general, can charge in with chaff etc.

About the stand and shoot -> It would be about the same point cost. They are horrible at it is now. Paying 3 pts per model for a rule that only comes into play when being charged in the front, just requires opponent NOT to charge in front. And honestly, a 300-400 pts unit should have that effect.

I don't know how easy the unit champion would be to kill... most armies don't have access to lore of death, and don't have sniper. Also, you're going to charge a large group of chaff into seaguard in order to kill the champion seahelm? That means you have to charge from the front in order to allocate attacks against him... meaning you get to take a stand and shoot (at full ranks because of his rule) then take ASF martial prowess spears to the face... there's not going to be much chaff left to "easily" take him out... it's chaff after all. Nevermind that the whole reason you're trying to take him out is so that he can't do exactly what he just did.

And I couldn't be comfortable essentially giving seaguard a souped up version of naval discipline (something the seahelm currently pays DEARLY for) for "about the same cost." And your whole reasoning behind why that isn't broken is that your opponent is just required "NOT to charge in front." Sure. Just outmaneuver High Elves. Easy.

And sure, a 300-400 point unit should have power comparable to its point cost (as should everything), but a CORE unit shouldn't necessarily come with gamebreaking special rules for little to no points increase. I think your suggestion is too much, and vastly overcorrects their problems.

[Vermillion]

Not giving the champion the rule as standard, have it as an upgrade which could be added for x points, something like the annoying scream the DE witch elf has.

[Prince of Spires]

Mod hat on
May I point out that this is a Tactics discussion on the usability of LSG, not a wishlisting discussion about what LSG should ideally do in a perfect universe? Please stay on topic a bit. For wishlisting, let me direct you to our lovely ideas forum which exists for exactly this purpose.
Mod hat off

Regarding the stand and shoot, I don't see what all the excitement about it is. 15 shots (assuming 5 wide, which is pretty standard for LSG), that hit on 4+ or 5+ (depending on long or short range) and wound on 4+ or worse and allow armour saves don't often kill very much for me. Yes, you don't want to charge a small unarmoured t3 unit in short range into them. But other then that I've not realy seen anyone worries about S&S or actually killed very much with it. Killing 1.67 SM is not impressive or worriesome. Somehow, S&S always promisses more then it actually deliveres.

Rod

[Krede]

If only you could give them a razor banner ...
I think lsg could benefit greatly from it working both at shooting and in cc

[SpellArcher]

Razor only works on close combat attacks.

But please see Rod's comment above...

[Krede]

Razor only works on close combat attacks.

But please see Rod's comment above...

Sorry about that . I mentioned the razor banner because I was tempted to put it on a bsb and stick it in a unit of 40 or so lsg. But i dropped the idea as the bsb would get slaughtered in the first round of combat. I did not know the razor banner was cc only. The banner text just say " gains armour piercing " .... but reading the actual rules of the game clears that up for me.... thanks

[Nightwing]

I personally like sea guard. I feel that I get what I want out of their ranged abilities, plus they provide ranks to break steadfast, and more attacks than archers.

Tactically I really don't see the problem with them. You get a unit that can perform the roles of two units for nearly half the points.

A 30+ block of sea guard can't be ignored, and if they're being targeted, my cavalry, elites and monsters aren't.

Two things I do with sea guard. A) park them in the centre of my line next to my Sisters, move them forward 6" and shoot any chaff and or monsters that are in LOS. B) park them in a flank where they can hold it down (at least for a while), and if they're relatively unopposed they usually get a steadfast breaking and disrupting flank charge.

My only issue is fluff wise, it makes no sense for marines to fight with bow and spear in ankle length mail. Also it makes no sense for a "declining race" to send its citizens off to battle, in paper armour, to die in droves (citizen levy), if it were up to me they'd have a shield wall rule (+x? Save in a specific formation) and or a version of ambushers like wulfrik the wandered, but that's for another thread.

Wish listing again, sorry Rod.

*edited for typos

[Francis]

What Nightwing said. I also sometimes put them in 50 and from today (I just finished painting the last 10 ) 60 strong units. An enemy (even experienced ones) will often be a bit worried by such a large unit. You can also toss a Wyssan's Wildform or Occam's on them and watch them demolish stuff. Even Hand of glory is great on the LSG since they are one of few units who can both fight and shoot.

That's it for the tactics and now for the wishlisting (sorry Rod and SA): I don't have a problem with them using spears since I imagine that they will switch to shortswords when boarding an enemy ship. That said I really really would love for them to have Heavy Armour and be a proper elite unit (give it to spears as well, it just doesn't makes sense that elves would put rubies the size of my fist on their armour and not be able to afford proper protection for their close combat troops).

The fact that they are on a ship also isn't much of a problem, since GW keeps telling us how light Ithilmar is I can't see why they shouldn't be able to swim with heavy Ithilmar armour.

[SpellArcher]

OK, all in good spirit and I understand that but Rod made his point.

Any more wishlisting and I'll have to lock the thread.

SA

[Francis]

Sure sure, to get it back on the rails, I was wondering what you guys think about running my 60 LSG in 3 units of 20 all with full command (just to be clear this is for 3000p+ matches). I really like the big horde idea, but if I split the units, I get more drops, and the ability to split fire and maneuver better, I just think it could work and be a real boon in the chaff game.

[English 2000]

I would go 2 units of 30. They're a much more credible threat in CC and the enemy has to commit something half decent to get rid of them.

Also, hand of glory is much better on 30 then 20.

I've done a lot of mathhammering on a unit of 30 in an isolated box against units that I commonly face. They're decent, but not great.

I still don't think they're a great choice in a tournament or competitive setting, the level of wishlisting on the thread just goes to show that a lot of us think they're an almost good unit, but that there are better choices for our core.

That being said, they're going to shine against Dark Elves. According to my mathhammer my regular DE opponent will hate LSG

[Tullarion]

2 x 30 for sure.

[cptcosmic]

there is a very simple way to make LSG viable.

1. play for fun. having a nice looking & fun unit > winning everytime
2. or use shadow magic and get the best of both worlds

[Zefiris]

Personally I think LSG should have Longbows upgrade option at a +1pt, that itself will fix LSG perfectly to where people would want to take it. Expensive yet not too expensive

Currently I myself think LSG is better in decent sized attachments than a big block.

[cptcosmic]

Personally I think LSG should have Longbows upgrade option at a +1pt, that itself will fix LSG perfectly to where people would want to take it. Expensive yet not too expensive

Currently I myself think LSG is better in decent sized attachments than a big block.

I think option for a banner and the seahelm special move working before the enemy has moved would already make them plenty viable imho. I think GW missed a great opportunity to make a great fluffy unit that is well reprensented by the game rules. also keep in mind that not everything is 2+ AS with T4 or T5. LSG can be as great as swordmasters against some units.

[Nagashias]

Guys, stop wishlisting please. We already got plenty of moderators warning us about not posting more of these. No reason to get the thread locked.

[SpellArcher]

Locked.

Anyone who wishes can of course start a new thread here about the tactical uses of LSG as they stand. Or one where Rod said about how they could be improved in the rules.

SA