40K: Victrix Honor Guard Tips & Tricks
The Victrix Honor Guard are fantastic support for your Ultramarine Characters. They hit pretty hard and are very tanky for a pair of Marines. However, if you want to get the most bang-for-your-buck, we’ve got a suggestion or two you might appreciate.
Arriving along side Marneus Calgar, the Victrix Honor Guard seem to be tailor made to travel with the Chapter Master of the Ultramarines. And why not – they make an excellent trio of combat prowess. However, the Victrix Honor Guard aren’t limited to JUST helping Calgar. They can link up with any other Ultramarines Character and keep them in the fight.
For starters, they come with a 2+/3++ thanks to their armor and Storm Shields. They also have 3 wounds each. That puts them on the level of an Assault Terminator as a tank. They also come standard with Power Swords and 4 attacks – they aren’t slouches in combat, either. Now – you do get a bonus if you run with with Calgar (as they don’t take up an Elite Slot) but don’t limit yourself. Their “Honour Guard of Macragge” rule applies to ANY Ultramarines Character with 3″ of them.
There are a LOT of Ultramarines characters to choose from. Aside from all the generic characters (all of whom pretty much have a ‘classic’ version and a Primaris version now), you’ve also got all those named Ultramarine characters, too. Did Tigurius lose a wound due to a warp headache? Well dump those wounds on the Honor Guard on a 2+ now. Need to keep Telion safe and in cover for another round – dump those wounds on the Honor Guard (why do you have them near a Scout, I don’t know. But you can do it). The only character that this doesn’t really apply to is Chronus as he has to be on foot for it to work. Sorry, your Land Raider with Chronus Upgrade does NOT get 6 more soak wounds.
I gotta be on foot for that to work? Nah, I’ll stay in my Land Raider.
However, we think that the Big Man himself would appreciate the extra ablative wounds and punching power:
“Sure, that seems pretty obvious – what else do ya got?” Great question. Have you also considered running a Primaris Apothecary with them? Maybe you should.
The Narthecium ability, besides being a wall of text, is actually really useful. Basically you can Heal D3 wounds at the end of any of your movement phases off any Infantry (the Victrix are Infantry) or Biker units. Or you can return a single dead model to a unit on a 4+ and the model comes back with 1 wound remaining.
Why people aren’t running this single $35 dollar model I have no idea…Oh.
This isn’t a game breaking combo or anything. It’s been around since pretty much forever. But suddenly you’ve just provided your opponent with some very problematic options. They can’t target characters (unless they are snipers) and Robbie G and the Apothecary both have less than 10 wounds. They could shoot the Honor Guard but the are rocking a 2+/3++ as mentioned above. Do they really want to dedicate that much shooting to kill two models? And if they don’t wipe the unit, the Apothecary will just heal them back on the next turn.
If they shoot the Apothecary (somehow) then you can transfer the wounds to the Victrix Honor Guard. If you shoot Robbie G, have fun dealing with that guy (and he can still dump wounds on this squad). This two man squad basically gives you 6 extra wounds for the low cost of 70 points and they are still pretty mean in a fight! They can heroic intervention so if your character gets charged they can dive in and help out, too.
How do you get a 15 wound Robotue Guilliman on the table? Victrix Guard.
