How to Run a Platoon

I've seen a lot of people trying to run platoons, and I gotta say, I'm not really impressed. There seems to be a lot of this going around:

Platoon Command Squad + 4 Meltaguns + Chimera
10 man squad + autocannon
10 man squad + autocannon
Commisar + Power Weapon

Let me be clear here: this is not good. A 21-man guard squad is not going to be the bubble wrap you need to stop enemies from getting to you, the PCS does the job worse than vets and are much less survivable to boot, and you have hardly any offensive power in the squad itself! If you're looking to block, investing in vets is a better option and gets you more killing power. (The squad above is worth 2 meltavets and change.)

So what is another way to build a platoon? These kind of squads are "cheap", but not really good for their points. We don't want to try and use them to spam chimeras, because vets do a much better job of it. (Since they can pack 3 special weapons per squad, and have the awesome BS4.) So, what does the platoon excel at?

Now, I don't want to give the wrong impression: the platoon is actually a pretty powerful choice if used correctly. The trick is in maximizing all your options. So let's take a look, and we can figure out what the best (or at least a very good) way to run a platoon is.

To start, we MUST take the following options:
Platoon Command Squad
2x Infantry Squads
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Let's start with the command squad.
It's 5 guys, rocking the BS3. Order range of 6". Orders are quite powerful for the options the platoon brings, so we want them to be mobile, and a bit protected. This bit at least, gets a Chimera. (ML/HF of course)

For weapon options, we want to keep it cheap but good. This squad is going to be hanging around the big blob, ideally not advancing forwards to much, so we don't really want meltas. (As they would have to run forward to use them, and will probably die the next turn.) We need a defensive weapon, ideally one that is suited to taking out infantry, since we're guard and we're not really hurting for transport-popping. Oh, and we don't want to try and pretend that we can mix it up in melee with ANYBODY. We also want to maintain a focus, because if we try to make the squad good at a lot of things, we'll end up being very expensive and not good at anything.

Flamers!

4 flamers (or 3 and a HF if you want to spend 15 extra points, I'd probably avoid it) is extremely potent with this squad. Not only do you mitigate the BS of 3, but you get an extremely powerful offensive weapon against any enemy infantry. Remember, they all fire out of the hatch, so when you shoot you place your favorite flamer template and multiply the hits by 4X. That kind of shot not only messes up horde infantry (who evaporate) but it also does a fair number on marines and other 3+ or worse infantry. To add insult to injury, the chimera can help pick on the survivors. It's also nice, because no one snipes the flamer chimera unless they have NOTHING else to shoot at. It's simply not a threat, or a priority for your opponent, until it's too late.
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Okay, got the command squad. Now, what about the infantry squads?

We need to take 2 squads. Putting them in Chimeras is bad, we don't want to do that, as the squad inside is very close to worthless. So what are they good for on foot?

Combined squads is very powerful, as it lets us eliminate the huge kill-point inflation that taking multiple 10 man squads would be, and allows us to affect up to 50 men with a single order. Keep that in mind. As we add more men to the squad, it becomes more resilient, but it's offensive power doesn't increase that much, simply because guardsmen aren't that good at killing things. I mean, yeah, a bunch of lasguns will kill things, but they're not THAT effective, and it won't kill off an assault coming at you. Adding heavy weapons is bad, because then we're wasting the squad shooting at vehicles, or the weapons shooting at infantry. Special weapons have much the same issue, since the squad is slow and unprotected by armor, they're generally ineffective, if they get to fire at all. That's not to say their useless, but the points are probably better spent elsewhere. So, we don't really want ranged weapon upgrades.

What we want is melee upgrades.

First, we need a commissar. It's worthless if we break as soon as we hit CC and get swept. Second, we need power weapons. Power weapons for everyone! Or at least everyone that can take them. So, sergeants.

Now, for the big question: how many guard is enough guard?

40. 40 is the number. (Okay, 41 with the Commissar)

How do I know that? Playtesting. And a lot of it. 40 man has a lot of strength, without getting cumbersome, and allows you to stick around as long as you need to. I'll illustrate why you want this many in a second.

So, with 40 men, we have 15 power weapon attacks, 20 on the charge. Not bad, but only S3 though so not really great either. We kill about 2.5 marines with 15 PW attacks and the rest of the squad might bring down 2.

Now, here's the part where people think: That's not a good assault unit. But you'd be wrong there too. Yeah, you, the guy who's running a lab where they're fighting pimped-out Grey Hunters. The blob have a few hidden strengths that aren't immediately apparent.

The first is that it is very good in continuing combats. Most of your killing power is in 5 guys, but your opponent can't even touch them until he kills the 35 that are standing in front of them. That means when you lose 10 guys in your 41 man squad, you don't lose 1/4 of your killing power, you lose about 1/8. This is huge, as it means you get to keep hitting hard every assault phase up until the end.

The second is that you choose when you want the squad to break with a VERY high degree of accuracy. This is why you take 40 men- there's not much that can chew through them in 3 assault phases, even most dedicated melee units will need four. That means you get to stall the opponent until juuuuuuuust before the squad dies, then make sure it happens in the opponents assault phase, leaving them flat-footed, and ready to be shot. (You're platoon command squad excels at this kind of cleanup!) How do you make sure they break? Simple. Assign a wound to the Commissar. You'll almost certainly be testing on Ld2, and you'll break. It'll be good times.

With this setup, you have a huge advantage over big melee units that come after you. You can control when you fight them, (if you don't outright kill them) and they can't slip past the big 40-man barrier to get at the good stuff. This is, in my humble opinion, by far the best "bubble wrap" unit in the game.

While we're on the subject, let's talk a bit about orders and how to use this squad.
First, and a I must stress this again: do not take heavy weapons in the squad. It's wasted points, you'll never fire them. You want to be doing one of two things with the squad, which are summarized neatly by two orders:
1.) Incoming! and
2.) Move move MOVE!

If you just have them stand there, they will die. Fortunately, we have a Commissar there to make sure orders are obeyed (Ld 9) and that they all stay alive long enough to meet their execution to enemy blades.

Generally, you'll want to sit back with them. Let them sit in front of everything! It's not hard to get half the squad in cover, then order Incoming! to give them a 2+ cover save. Want to make sure you get the charge on something? No problem, you can always Get Back in the Fight!

In the rare cases where you feel you must charge the enemy down, the platoon is almost as fast as your mech stuff with Move move MOVE! Be aware that the movement happens at different times, though, so you'll still want to keep it a bit out of the way.

First rank, FIRE! Second rank, FIRE! is okay, but not awesome like a lot of people seem to think. Generally it's better to charge, and at least deny the enemy all those juicy kills. There are situations where it's good, but generally, you should be going to ground or getting into a place where you can set up your own charge.

Finally, I want to throw in a note about dreadnoughts. It'd be pretty rough if one were to hit the squad. So, don't let one hit the squad. You are playing freaking guard, you can take on an AV12 tank that slowly walks towards you. That's pretty much an ideal situation right there. If you can't stop it from happening, here's my advice: shrug it off. Yeah, it's probably not a good trade, but it's one you can recover from. Next time, watch the dread and try to not let it hit the squad.

Of course, you could buy krak grenades, but that's wishful thinking and a waste in my opinion.
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So, what we have so far is this:
Platoon Command Squad
+4 Flamers
+Chimera (ML/HF)

Infantry Squad
+Power Weapon
Infantry Squad
+Power Weapon
Infantry Squad
+Power Weapon
Infantry Squad
+Power Weapon
Commisar
+Power Weapon

That comes in at 390 points. That probably seems expensive, but it really isn't that bad. Remember, the strength of this squad isn't that it's going to kill a huge points value of units, but that it will provide us with a HUGE obstacle that the opponent has to deal with before he can hit our valuable back line. This also makes some choices, like the classic Leman Russ, MUCH better. There's not much that can shoot a Russ to death at long range, and if the enemy can't get to it swiftly... you can wreak some havoc.

It also opens up some neat options for us, now that we've found a way to make a mandatory part good. Like these!:
Heavy Weapons Teams
You can take 5. You will probably never take all 5, but the option is nice.
Run them with autocannons. Nothing else, the other options are not good. (Or at least not very points-efficient) Heavy weapon teams with the Bring it Down! order are a whole new level of light anti-tank, and they won't let you down. An excellent choice for hybrid lists, and generally a better pick than the Hydra in this kind of list. You'll probably have a command squad around them, but we'll get to that in a minute.

If you're buying the platoon, you'd be a bit remiss not to pick up at least 2 autocannon heavy weapon squads.

Special Weapon Teams
This is not, generally, a very good squad. We don't want them in a chimera pretending to be vets, and we sure as hell don't want them on foot. So what are they good for?

One thing, at least. give them 3 meltaguns, put them in a Vendetta. (Not a valk, I mean, we bring enough anti-infantry at this point.) Not only does this net you an awesome scoring flyer for cheap, it also gives you the option of first-turn dropping and alpha striking things like Land Raiders. (All of you should read that article, it pays to know!)

Conscripts
Ahahahahahahahhahahahha
Do not take them ever.
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There's one (okay, it's kind of 2) unit(s) I want to talk about before I go, and that's the Company Command Squad.

Backing this setup with a Company Command Squad is cheap, easy, and gets you something good for that mandatory HQ. The best option, in my opinion, is this:
Company Command Squad
+4 Plasma Guns
+Chimera (ML/HF)

Medipack? F the medipack, we live dangerous in these parts. Also, we don't care, because that squad is going to spend all of it's time doing one of three things.
1) Shooting MCs
2) Shooting light vehicles, like transports
3) Shooting stupid dreadnoughts.
And guess what? We can Bring it down! ALL of those, which wipes out most of our overheat chance! And when we're not firing, we're twin-linking the shots of our heavy weapons teams! Booyah! This command setup is the one I recommend not just for this list, but all guard lists. It works extremely well in mechanized lists too. As a side note, if you bring Vendettas and Valks, bring an astropath. If you have the points, a Master of the Fleet is never a waste either.

The second thing I want to talk about is Straken. Straken is not someone we want to bring if we bring a single platoon, for the following reasons:
1.) He's expensive
2.) He requires an expensive command squad to make full use of his expensive body
3.) We'd really like an anti-tank ranged command squad in most situations.

Now, this isn't to say he always isn't worth it. If you bring two platoons, get him without a doubt. The S4 I4 charge is completely lethal. He's just not worth his cost in one.

This is running long, but I will share the ideal Straken loadout with shortened explanation under each piece of wargear.
Company Command Squad
Straken
+Heavy Flamer (This squad plays it forward)
+Medipack (This squad needs resiliency)
+2 Meltaguns (This squad needs to be able to shoot transports and assault inside in a pinch)
+Bodyguard (We love to pawn off a bunch of that first volley of wounds onto one guy)
+Carapace Armor (So boltguns don't annihilate us)
+Chimera (HF/ML) (Because mech is king)

It's expensive, deceptively good, and not worth it unless it's backing a lot of infantry. Remember this.
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So, in summery, I thought a fun thing to do would be to give you a strong base for a list to build off of. Here we go:
HQ
Company Command Squad
+4 Plasma Guns
+Chimera (ML/HF)
+Astropath

Troops
Platoon Command Squad
+4 Flamers
+Chimera (ML/HF)
Infantry Squads
+Power Weapon
Infantry Squad
+Power Weapon
Infantry Squad
+Power Weapon
Infantry Squad
+Power Weapon
Commisar
+Power Weapon
Heavy Weapons Team
+3 Autocannons
Heavy Weapons Team
+3 Autocannons
Heavy Weapons Team
+3 Autocannons
Special Weapons Team
+3 Meltaguns
Special Weapons Team
+3 Meltaguns

Fast Attack
Vendetta
Vendetta

That comes to 1200 on the dot, unless I miss my mark. See what you can do to bump it up to 2000. If you come up with a list you think is good, or just entertaining, send it to sirbiscuit@gmail.com. I'll post the best ones up with my comments; that sounds like a good time. Until next time troopers!