"Kirby, I need your expert advice. I'm somewhat obsessed with making Sanguinary Guard work, but as a pure jumper list (so no Devs with MLs). Their fragility has become painfully obvious to me, so I've tried to compensate for that with the use of HG and VV to take out the units that most threaten the guard. Here's what I have so far:
Dante - 225
Librarian w/ JP, Lance and Sword - 125
Honour Guard w/ 4 Meltagun and 1 SS - 225
Honour Guard w/ 4 Meltagun and 1 SS - 225
Sanguinary Guard w/ Power Fist and Chapter Banner - 240
Sanguinary Guard w/ Power Fist - 210
Sanguinary Guard w/ Power Fist - 210
10 Vanguard Veterans w/ 5 SS, Thunder Hammer, Lighning Claw (Sergeant)
and Meltabomb - 465
Sanguinary Priest w/ JP - 75
Total: 2000
Vanguards combat squad, splitting Storm Shields and weapons as needed. Dante goes with one HG, and both HGs and VVs deep strike. Sanguinary Guard starts on the table and moves up when the coast is clear (unless its not safe to start on the table, in which case they deep strike in a safe spot). Librarian and Priest go with the unit with the Banner.
Is something like this workable? I'd like to iron out the details before I start kitbashing the Honour Guards. Do I need the priest? More/less Storm Shields? Move the shields around?
Thanks!"
I've always liked the Bloodwing concept and you can see the linked list is quite similar to yours. Issues with both being 15 scoring bodies just isn't enough at 2000 yet you need the killing power of tanks which multiple Honor Guard squads give you. I think dropping the Chapter Banner here and giving each SG an infernous pistol is a good idea and I'd give the VV two PFists (one on Sarge) so you can split the squads into 1 PFist in each. Otherwise the only option we have for generating points is dropping the Libby or Honor Guard which takes away from our offensive anti-tank and defensive capababilites with less bubbles and no shield.
So I think those little changes to spread the anti-tank across all of your squads will help but the list has issues like any Bloodwing list. It's a great fluffy list to play and adding the VV makes it as balanced as possible but it's going to have issues in a tournament setting and doing well against good lists consistently. You could also drop the VV completely (or just have a single 5 man squad) and add in two more SG squads. You can then overwhelm your opponent with 2+ save models, get a bit more anti-tank, have more combat power but not be able to assault on the drop. You cold then add some SS to the Honor Guard so they can 'deal' with super units but you're still going to suffer with low body count and anti-tank issues. Here's an example list by StJohn of this concept but with Mephiston and no HG.
