Email in: Asking for a Honour Guard review (Space Marines codex)

"Hi, Kirby! Sure you're tired to read how awsome is your blog.

A friend of mine has been playing Ultramarines for years and has some Honour Guards in his collection. Recently I passed to him the Space Marines codex reviews on 3++. He was disappointed when he saw his Honour Guard reviewed as bad and the review doesn't specify why. I ask you (or anyone who writes in your blog) to do a rewiew of the Honour Guard stating your opinion about Honor Guard, whatever is good or bad and reasonig both advantages and disadvantages. (If you ask VT2 to do it, please ask him not to do a very long rant as he usually does).

I'm asking this instead of my friend because he is right now very busy moving into another house and he asked me this favour. I thank you in my friend'd name beforehand.


Regards

Victor"

VT2 can be like that, can't he? Honor Guard are bad for two reasons.

1) they can only be taken with a Chapter Master.
2) they're not Terminators.

The first one is the big doozie as Chapter Masters are basically Captains but more expensive and with Orbital Bombardment - yay. Captains are only useful when you're taking them on a Bike so they open up more options. Chapter Masters aren't useful at all - they don't add anything to the army. The only saving grace here is some of the special characters which have uses, i.e. Pedro or Calgar, open up this option.

The second reason is really the gold standard for a combat unit which is close to 40 points in value. Consider, Honor Guard do not have an invul save or high strength with which to bash their enemies. Five points more gets you this for Terminators. They also don't have WS5 outside of their Champion, awesome speed buffs (i.e. assault from deep-strike, jump packs, etc.), an improved attack value (i.e. A3 or 4), any super special rules to set them apart (i.e. FNP) or special weapons which can give them utility in and out of combat (i.e. Powerfists, meltaguns, etc.). Yes, they can sweep in combat and ride around in Rhinos/Razorbacks/Drop Pods, but those advantages are minor compared to a 3++ and Thunder Hammer, particularly without anything else special setting them apart. Relic Blade squads are cute, but not at 50 points a model.

Hope that makes it clearer. They're awesome models, just unfortunately not good on the tabletop. Perhaps use them as Tactical squad Sarges? That's what I did with my 4th ed Tyranid Hunter Ultramarines army.