Imperial Guard in Depth -- Rough Riders

Posted by Ranillon on 22. May 2009 16:06

I thought I would take some time out to go into more detail as to why I don’t think Rough Riders work well within the dictates of the game mechanics of 40K.  I do still think they are cool models – both in basic design and conversion possibilities.

With Rough Riders you get the following abilities and liabilities:

• Only as tough as a Regular Guardsman
• Possible Charge Range of 24” (6” basic + 12” Assault + d6” Run)
• One shot power weapon at Strength 5 and Initiative 5
• Otherwise, normal attack at Strength 3 and Initiative 3 – do not get bonus for extra weapon
• Possible to take some special weapons, but this is mitigated by the necessity to always move
• Frag and Krak Grenades

The big limitation as I see it is that RRs are so fragile – a few heavy bolter shots and they are suddenly pointless.  That means you are going to have to hide them behind cover while waiting for the chance to charge a particularly appealing enemy unit.  If you can’t do so or decline to do so then expect the enemy to devote heavy weapon fire to whittling them down.  Once they are at 5 members or less they can be effectively ignored.

But, let’s say you succeed in the best of all possible ways and get the drop on, say, a squad of ten Space Marines.  You charge and skewer the buggers.  On average you can expect to kill 6-7 marines with you first charge.  That’s not bad.  You’ve roughly killed 96-112 points worth of the enemy.  Since your squad of ten regular Riders cost 105 they’ve just made their points back.

While that may sound pretty good in reality it’s not.  Remember, this is a best case sort of scenario and you’ve done is recovered the points you spent on Rough Riders.  A one-for-one exchange makes for at best a draw.  It certainly isn’t a recipe for victory.

Ah, but you counter that the group can still kill even more thereby making your points spent/points killed ratio better.  The problem is that you won’t be killing much of anything else.  After their one single grand attack Rough Riders are reduced to fast moving guardsmen with a single close-combat weapon.  They are going to have a hard time even finishing off the remaining Space Marines of their initial target let alone galloping on to further victories.  The classic tactic with close-combat troops is to attack one target after another, in the process hopefully rolling up your opponent’s battle line.  Yet, Rough Riders are one-shot-wonders that don’t have a prayer of doing so.  Once their single power attack is gone they become little more than cannon fodder.

Whether or not your Rough Riders will get to enjoy a best case is highly debatable.  Since they have to hide out before the big charge your options for using them are limited.  It also makes it easier for the enemy to deal with them.  For instance, one good method is to advance toward where the Riders are hiding with an expendable unit of troops or, alternatively, with a heavy vehicle.  The first target is a waste of the Riders’ abilities while the second is going to be difficult if not impossible to hurt.  Yet, they can’t just wait for something better to come along as the approaching unit will soon get line-of-sight and start firing.  You could easily find yourself having to charge a unit all but guaranteed to blunt your Riders’ effectiveness.

To my mind that is the real problem with Rough Riders – since they only have one good shot that really limits their possible uses, so much so that it’s hard not to conclude that some other unit would be better.  For roughly the same cost as 10 Rough Riders with a few special weapons I could get, say, a Hellhound or Valkyrie.  Either choice is going to be superior 9 times out of 10.  They are also less likely to be complete duds.  Remember it takes just one round of bad dice rolling – or good rolling from your opponent – to ruin Rough Riders for the rest of the game.  That just seems like too much of a risk to me.

If I was designing Rough Riders I would reduce their attack to Strength and Initiative 4, but let it count as a power attack for every charge.  Give them hit and run and they would suddenly be a real threat while being able to protect themselves somewhat from fire by always being in close-combat.  Add in scouting (come on, scouting has always been the historical role for cavalry!) and you’d have a useful unit.  Instead, what we have now is at best a borderline Fast Attack choice that the designers seemed to have overlooked while writing the new IG codex.