# Legion of the Damned



## Goat (Oct 26, 2010)

Ok so the space marine Elite unit, Legion of the Damned. Are they any good? I keep looking at them and wishing that I could use them (for some reason) but I'm not sure if i can justify it. Are there any good times to use them or good armies to have them in? Thanks a lot!


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## Lord Sven Kittyclaw (Mar 23, 2009)

They aren't awful, a 3++ and relentless means they can always be moblile and laying down the hurt. Always arriving by reserves can be a problem however. And in my oppinion they compete with much better choices; Dreadnoughts of any description, and terminators.


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## Stella Cadente (Dec 25, 2006)

you need to justify using some of the few decent models GW has made in years?
the fact the models are gorgeous is all the justification you need.


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## IanC (Sep 3, 2010)

They can reroll the scatter dice, which is very handy. Pop them down in the right place and cause some chaos, thats what I do!


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

It's a Tactical Squad with a 3++. The problem with Tac squads is not their survivability, it's the fact that they don't do anything except camp objectives. LotD don't even do that.


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## Goat (Oct 26, 2010)

Sethis said:


> It's a Tactical Squad with a 3++. The problem with Tac squads is not their survivability, it's the fact that they don't do anything except camp objectives. LotD don't even do that.


yeah that's kinda what i've been thinking too. I guess the 3++ invul save + deep strike just kinda made me happy. But it doesn't seem like they would actually be too useful. However, like ianc said, they do reroll the scatter dice. which is cool.


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## Stephen_Newman (Jul 14, 2009)

Give them a Meltagun and a Multi Melta. They can fire these as they land. Deep strike nearest the biggest vehicle and wreck it. You are quite survivable so you basically operate as abig distraction since no enemy wants to let them run riot near his army. If they survive first turn after landing I suggest siccing them on enemy objective campers in his deployment zone. Whilst they themselves cannot capture these objectives themselves they can deny them to the enemy.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

So 355pts for the above squad buys you 1 (probably) contested objective and 2 melta shots. Colour me crazy, but I don't consider that a good buy.


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Sethis said:


> So 355pts for the above squad buys you 1 (probably) contested objective and 2 melta shots. Colour me crazy, but I don't consider that a good buy.


It's not just you.


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## IanC (Sep 3, 2010)

I just run them as the boxset comes - 205 points total, 5 men with flamer, and one with plasma pistol/power weapon.

Still expensive though. But for fun they are good.


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## Iraqiel (May 21, 2008)

So, don't take them to a tournment, nor build an army around them, just paint them up to show off the neat models and occasionally sub them in in place of a terminator squad for a casual game.

That's pretty much what I'm forced to do with half the chaos models that I own (think posessed).


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## Stella Cadente (Dec 25, 2006)

Sethis said:


> So 355pts for the above squad buys you 1 (probably) contested objective and 2 melta shots. Colour me crazy, but I don't consider that a good buy.





Katie Drake said:


> It's not just you.


so what?, you really go into taking legion hoping for a good buy?, HA you gotta be thick to think that, legion are there for fun, who gives two flying monkey shaped steaming green shits if they end up being a bad buy, you have a fun unit that looks badass on the table, thats waaaaaaaaay more important than being a good buy.

and bollocks to it looking badass might be all someone needs for a unit to be a good buy, you don't need effectiveness to be a justification, buy them because you want them.


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## Unforgiven302 (Oct 20, 2008)

Stella, in his less than svelte ways, has the right idea. LotD are sexy models plain and simple. Unfortunately their rules leave a bit to be desired from a pure competitive view. They do not have a true roll to play other than a distraction unit. They are really nice models and they also have some fun rules that can make taking them advantageous from a purely fun stand point. 

The two best tactics I have seen used for them is to keep them fairly cheap, (as cheap as an expensive unit can be) and;

1) deep strike them in as close to the main fighting or core of your opponents army. From there they can hunker down with their 3++ save and weather a storm of fire thusly freeing up another unit (or more) in the area to make a move for an objective or the like. They can also tie up larger units in CC and effectively stay alive for a few rounds longer than a standard 3+ unit of similar strength. 

2) They can be used to deep strike in between a unit of yours and your opponents to again be a fire magnet or shield in more open style game table. Basically keeping the LotD unit in front of another unit as they make a move on an objective or other such thing. You can do the same thing with a rhino too for a lot less points, but again, this is another option to use them for if you are going to use them at all.

Basically they are like that pesky mosquito that buzz's in your ear and annoys you. Sometimes you can brush it away and not have another problem from it, but usually that mosquito will leave a nice fat welt on your forehead before you squish it. A LotD unit can leave a welt, but it usually doesn't sting that hard.


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## Stephen_Newman (Jul 14, 2009)

Glad to see that those who take things for fun are not yet dead on these forums. Mental note: I need to show D-A-C this....

Just a quick question where has the 355 points come from? I am pretty sure a 5-man squad with a meltagun and a multi melta is not that much.

In short it is your hobby so take what you damn well want. It is how 90% of my army lists are writen as. They don't win all the time but I end up having fun all the time.


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## vulcan666 (Jun 19, 2010)

i run mine with flamer and heavy flamer, which if you combine that with vulkan he'stan then you get something interesting.


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

I agree with using something because it looks cool or you like the idea or rules as a personal thing. Weirdboyz are frickin' awesome.

Midnight


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

vulcan666 said:


> i run mine with flamer and heavy flamer, which if you combine that with vulkan he'stan then you get something interesting.


Really? Don't you find that it's pretty hard to safely get into range to use those weapons?


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

Katie Drake said:


> Really? Don't you find that it's pretty hard to safely get into range to use those weapons?


With a 3++ and Deep Strike? Can't imagine so...

Midnight


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

Goat said:


> Legion of the Damned. Are they any good?
> 
> ...
> 
> Are there any good times to use them or good armies to have them in? Thanks a lot!


People who get defensive about me labelling them as crap may want to consider that the OP noticably did NOT ask "Are they pretty?" or "Are they fun and silly?"

He asked if they are good. They are not. You can try to claim a mythical moral high ground for having more "fun" than me, but at the end of the day you're not helping the OP and so can fuck right off, as far as I care.


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## Unforgiven302 (Oct 20, 2008)

Katie Drake said:


> Really? Don't you find that it's pretty hard to safely get into range to use those weapons?


I can see where being relentless and a decent deepstrike location will help pay off for template weapons. A locator beacon would help greatly for a short range unit like that. Not an optimal loadout, but with the good save the unit has it can absorb quite a bit of heat for a few rounds if the deepstrike scatters or they have a hard time getting within range.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

Only a lot of heat if they aim plasma-type weaponry at them. They go down just as fast to Lasguns or Shuriken as a normal marine.


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

MidnightSun said:


> With a 3++ and Deep Strike? Can't imagine so...
> 
> Midnight


No, I said safely. I mean, yes, the Legion can re-roll the scatter die when they come in, but even still there's a chance that they could scatter out of range, or worse, scatter right onto their target unit. Flame templates are around 8" in length and to hit the maximum number of models you'd probably want to be 5-6" away from your target. That could be pretty risky...

Besides, there are safer means of delivering flame template weapons into range. Like... Drop Pods. Or Land Speeders. Or basically anyone else with a flamer.



Unforgiven302 said:


> I can see where being relentless and a decent deepstrike location will help pay off for template weapons. A locator beacon would help greatly for a short range unit like that. Not an optimal loadout, but with the good save the unit has it can absorb quite a bit of heat for a few rounds if the deepstrike scatters or they have a hard time getting within range.


Only if they're getting shot by AP3 weaponry and nobody's going to aim AP3 weaponry at them if they have any idea what they're doing. The easiest way to see off the Legion of the Damned is to just shoot bolters and stuff at them until they go away.


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## Unforgiven302 (Oct 20, 2008)

Katie Drake said:


> Only if they're getting shot by AP3 weaponry and nobody's going to aim AP3 weaponry at them if they have any idea what they're doing. The easiest way to see off the Legion of the Damned is to just shoot bolters and stuff at them until they go away.


Sure bolters and lasgun fire will bring them down by the sheer weight of the amount of dice rolls they can throw at them, but the occasional vindicator large blast usually causes havoc on a standard 3+ unit where as the LotD can weather that storm a bit better. The casual player usually see's a LotD squad drop in and they get a bit antsy about them. They see them as a threat not to ignore any usually start laying into them with some big guns. That is one of the draws of a LotD squad... fire magnet. A very points heavy fire magnet. :wink:


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Unforgiven302 said:


> Sure bolters and lasgun fire will bring them down by the sheer weight of the amount of dice rolls they can throw at them, but the occasional vindicator large blast usually causes havoc on a standard 3+ unit where as the LotD can weather that storm a bit better.


But... why on earth would someone shoot at Legion of the Damned with a Vindicator?


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## Unforgiven302 (Oct 20, 2008)

Katie Drake said:


> But... why on earth would someone shoot at Legion of the Damned with a Vindicator?


*FEAR...* it can make us do crazy things... _*crazy things.*_


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Unforgiven302 said:


> *FEAR...* it can make us do crazy things... _*crazy things.*_


Come on dude, just admit it... the Legion sucks unless the stars align perfectly or your opponent is really inept. Just say it, it won't hurt anyone, I promise.


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## Unforgiven302 (Oct 20, 2008)

Katie Drake said:


> Come on dude, just admit it... the Legion sucks unless the stars align perfectly or your opponent is really inept. Just say it, it won't hurt anyone, I promise.


By what definition do you mean "suck?" 

Tournament list, yes, they suck. I wouldn't use them at all. They are over priced and underpowered for such an occasion. Many better options for less points in the codex.

For fun, fluffy, "my army looks drop dead sexy with an extra side of fluff" then no, the Legionnaire's do not suck. 

Are they still a not so good unit to take in any situation like a chaos spawn unit? Depends on how much fluff you prefer in your army or if you really want to challenge yourself by using that option. 

I really like the models and that would be enough for me to use them. If I were to ever build a imperial marine army I might actually try and use them as sternguard unit if my opponent was cool with that.





OK... they sorta suck... :wink:


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## Grokfog (May 4, 2009)

Legion are just so much pure sex, i'm painting an entire army of them (just as vanilla marines with an awesome colour scheme) At the end of the day, the unit itself might not be so good, but i'm just glad to have rules for them this Ed! To sum up, any dyed in the wool Space Marine player that doesn't like spectral, invulnerable, flame and skeleton, midnight-clad marines dispensing the emperors justice is a closet heretic. Play them if you love them, for fun, or for giggles. Or, if you're a soulless, hyper-competetive beard-wearer, grab your slide rule and Thamminators and go...


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

Damn, and here was me hoping I could have giggles while playing competitively.


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## Grokfog (May 4, 2009)

Sethis said:


> Damn, and here was me hoping I could have giggles while playing competitively.


Lol, there's a difference between competetive and hyper competetive. Competetive is playing to win with an army and models you like. Hyper competetive is staying up all night trawling the web for the latest meta-breaking army, writing up algorithms and never painting the models because next month there's a new codex coming out. Both are fine and dandy ways to enjoy the game, after all, its your hobby right? But as far as i'm concerned, its all about the imagery. Without imagery, all we're doing is rolling die and pushing lumps of metal and plastic around a board.


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Unforgiven302 said:


> OK... they sorta suck... :wink:


That wasn't so hard, was it? :wink:



Sethis said:


> Damn, and here was me hoping I could have giggles while playing competitively.


Pft, haven't you heard? You're not allowed to have _any_ fun if you consider yourself a competitive player. Clearly you need to go back to Awful Person school and re-learn everything you've forgotten about being a WAAC jerk. :biggrin:


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## xxedge72x (Dec 21, 2010)

I'm going to give a squad of these a try vs. Tau. I know they suck for the price, but the thing that always kills me with Tau is the volume of AP2/3 firepower they have. It drives me crazy.

So I'm going to pop a LotD squad at 'em and watch 'em soak up torrents of firepower while they harass stuff and hopefully make their points back in distracted firepower alone.


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## Firefighter X (Apr 21, 2010)

Why not buy and paint the minis and play them as regular Loyalist marines? Hell make a whole damned army of the Damned, I would. [ I've got 2 full 10 man squads of old skool LoTD floating around in my bits box somewhere ] Then you can have your cake and eat it too. You get dead sexy mins on the board and they don't suck [ as bad ] when played as BA's, Wolves, Smurfs, BT's, Sallies, or whatever you choose to proxy them as.

Problem solved...nuff said,

FFX


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## Cyklown (Feb 8, 2010)

Grokfog said:


> Lol, there's a difference between competetive and hyper competetive. Competetive is playing to win with an army and models you like. Hyper competetive is staying up all night trawling the web for the latest meta-breaking army, writing up algorithms and never painting the models because next month there's a new codex coming out. Both are fine and dandy ways to enjoy the game, after all, its your hobby right? But as far as i'm concerned, its all about the imagery. Without imagery, all we're doing is rolling die and pushing lumps of metal and plastic around a board.


Yay! The new quibble about what is competitive. Someone who outright admits they don't consider a units effectiveness/value on the tabletop to be it's total value is calling themselves competitive.

Competitive means trying to win and not ganking yourself. If I ask for a competitive game and you field crap, I'm going to have a lot less fun and be a bit shocked that you're fielding crap. We're not talking me showing up and trying to rape people... I mean that "competitive" is a term you use as an agreement to try to give each other the hardest game possible, because for those of us who bandy the term around that's where the fun is.

As far as "meta" goes: fuck meta. You don't know what a gorram metagame is. Go play fucking magic for a while, and you'll see. You'll also understand what a solid set of rules and well run tournaments are. 40k doesn't have a meta. It has 5th ed codices highlighting just how bad some already poor tactics are, but the nub-clubbing tactic of the week being replaced every week isn't a metagame. Nob bikers and chaos were bad, and could be taken. A balanced list can (a reasonable amount of the time) handle just about everything it comes across if used properly.

Blearg.

Plus, yeah, as KD pointed out: torrenting. People making bad moves (like pointing Vindi's at LotD, talk about a triple fail) sounds suspiciously like everyone fielding bad units and then someone thinking one of those units is better because the other person played like an idiot. Your opponent playing like an idiot is not something you should hope for when building your list. Hell, I'd prefer it didn't happen on the table, either.


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## Pearlay (Nov 26, 2009)

Well the Relentless also Means a Heavy weapon that can Walk and first still, that can Be a little Useful. or Rapid Fire and still Assault.


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