More Fun With Sabres

[Caitsidhe]

As some of you know, I'm a big fan of the Forge World unit called the Sabre. These units can be added to a standard IG Platoon. I prefer the Twin-Linked Lascannon configuration but other weapons can be used. The Sabre is an Artillery unit and as such has a Toughness-7 and two Wounds. It comes standard with a single Trooper who fires the weapon. Each Platoon can have up to five distinct units of Sabres added and each unit of Sabres can have up to three Sabres in it. This means, of course, that you could have up to (15) Twin-Linked Lascannons available. The key thing is they have both Skyfire and Interceptor.

This would, of course, be crazy expensive. I'm not suggesting that. What I am suggesting is that you:

1. Buy as many distinct units of Sabres as you can. This means they can't silence your guns by engaging them all at once and must spread fire to target them.
2. Buy a Searchlight as a second Sabre. It is relatively cheap and when placed forward that is two more ablative wounds for your Lascannon against shooting.
3. The Searchlight also is useful in night fight. Obviously.

You can also, if you so choose, increase the number of Troopers by one per Sabre so you could add up to (2) more Troopers to a unit that has one Searchlight and one Lascannon. These act as even MORE ablative wounds. What we are talking about is an Artillery line which cannot be easily silenced by your opponents shooting. When placed behind an Aegis, you are talking about crazy durable Artillery. One of my newer CSM/IG 1850 lists uses (4) such units, each with a Lascannon and a Searchlight. I also have a Quad Gun down with the Aegis. I man the Quad Gun with the IG Lord Commissar because he is BS-5 and creates a bubble of Stubborn for all the Platoon and various artillery pieces. Interestingly enough, since Sabres come with a Platoon, each one is scoring. Your backfield goal keepers are already in place.

[Madcore]

As some of you know, I'm a big fan of the Forge World unit called the Sabre. These units can be added to a standard IG Platoon. I prefer the Twin-Linked Lascannon configuration but other weapons can be used. The Sabre is an Artillery unit and as such has a Toughness-7 and two Wounds. It comes standard with a single Trooper who fires the weapon. Each Platoon can have up to five distinct units of Sabres added and each unit of Sabres can have up to three Sabres in it. This means, of course, that you could have up to (15) Twin-Linked Lascannons available. The key thing is they have both Skyfire and Interceptor.

This would, of course, be crazy expensive. I'm not suggesting that. What I am suggesting is that you:

1. Buy as many distinct units of Sabres as you can. This means they can't silence your guns by engaging them all at once and must spread fire to target them.
2. Buy a Searchlight as a second Sabre. It is relatively cheap and when placed forward that is two more ablative wounds for your Lascannon against shooting.
3. The Searchlight also is useful in night fight. Obviously.

You can also, if you so choose, increase the number of Troopers by one per Sabre so you could add up to (2) more Troopers to a unit that has one Searchlight and one Lascannon. These act as even MORE ablative wounds. What we are talking about is an Artillery line which cannot be easily silenced by your opponents shooting. When placed behind an Aegis, you are talking about crazy durable Artillery. One of my newer CSM/IG 1850 lists uses (4) such units, each with a Lascannon and a Searchlight. I also have a Quad Gun down with the Aegis. I man the Quad Gun with the IG Lord Commissar because he is BS-5 and creates a bubble of Stubborn for all the Platoon and various artillery pieces. Interestingly enough, since Sabres come with a Platoon, each one is scoring. Your backfield goal keepers are already in place.

Being an imperial guard and a CSM player, i find this very interesting. If i am not mistaken a guy at adepticon finished in the top 5 using saber platforms and thudd guns....

Could you please let me know where i can find the rules for these? I might be interested in taking those for my IG..

Tks

[DarkLink]

Sabers are like the only Forgeworld unit that are legitimately gamebreaking.

[Caitsidhe]

Sabers are like the only Forgeworld unit that are legitimately gamebreaking.

I don't think they are game breaking at all. They are just a nasty surprise for people who spam fliers and/or spam FMC. It costs me 80pts for each Sabre as I have described above (i.e. 1 Lascannon w/Searchlight). That means it cost me as much as a damn Helldrake for two of these and my net gain is two twin-linked Lascannons shooting at BS-3 but can Intercept and Skyfire. It is hard to silence them. They are scoring. Good? Yes. Broken, no.

You also have to remember that Sabres have IG Leadership and if you try to use your extra Troopers as ablative wounds you better have the Lord Commissar or another Officer in range to keep them from breaking. Sabres rock the house when they show up because for some reason they just don't show up that often. :) Nobody knows how to deal with them and those people who have been getting an easy ride suddenly find themselves facing AA that matters.

[Caitsidhe]

Being an imperial guard and a CSM player, i find this very interesting. If i am not mistaken a guy at adepticon finished in the top 5 using saber platforms and thudd guns....

Could you please let me know where i can find the rules for these? I might be interested in taking those for my IG..

Tks

You need the newest Imperial Armor book.

[Garradh]

Aren't they a little bit on the "ridiculously cheap" side? Cheaper than a Sentinel for a single TL lascannon with T7?

[Roadkill Zombie]

They are game breaking enough that some larger tournaments and grand tournaments are banning Forge World completely simply because so many people can take those. I fail to see how you can say they are not game breaking considering the number of toughness 7 models you will have on the table. Most armies will have a very hard time putting enough high strength shots into that unit to neutralize it.

[Tynskel]

They are not game breaking. People banning forgeworld because the TOs are lazy and don't bother to learn the rules.

The reality is that you need to use some sort of flanking unit and kill the T3 crew. Besides, you kill one gun, and now you are majority T3...

[Aegwymourn]

Besides, you kill one gun, and now you are majority T3...

That's not how artillery work anymore "If shooting at an artillery unit, the toughness of the guns is always used whilst at least one gun remains" pg46 BRB.

Do I think Sabre platforms are game-breaking, maybe. They are certainly extremely good at the very least since they are scoring artillery units.

[Caitsidhe]

Sabres (and I use them often) do not bother anyone except people who rely on Fliers. I've yet to hear a complaint from anyone about their being broken EXCEPT from those who field/rely on fliers to make their lists work. My own review of them is that they are great if I run into the right opponent, but very pricey against the majority. I take them in many lists for better AA in an all comer situation, but they most certainly do not go into every list I build.

Remember that Sabre's ability to dish out punishment isn't nearly as good as its ability to absorb it. We are talking about GUARD shooting (even if twin-linked) and even then the volume of that fire isn't impressive.

[Garradh]

I think it boils down to "are you paying an appropriate price?" AAA isn't expensive to begin with, but considering how much you can take with Sabers, is it expensive enough, points-wise?

Because I want to buy some!

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

Not even remotely broken. those who are complaining are the same people who threw away most of their str 8-9 long range dedicated anti tank weapons in favor of spamming str7. it all comes do to if you truly take a balanced list then you should have reliable high str weapons.
And with the actual model cost of sabers you won't see people running around with a million of them. and honestly a guard player can just as easily spend those point to get vendettas. Air supremacy had its day now you have sabers which people are starting to use and what about tau? ever try flying around when alot of their suits can get a cheap sky fire upgrade? dish out a ton of twin linked shots? can you se more reliable AA then a sabre.

[Aegwymourn]

LOL at cheap skyfire for suits. I guess an almost 100% increase for a crisis suit is cheap (or a 30% increase for a broadside).

As I pointed out above the only issue I really have with Sabre platforms is the fact that they are scoring artillery units. That makes them incredibly durable and scoring options for an army that generally does not have one (other than the infamous blob formation, which still costs a fair number of points). The fact that they have good twin-linked weapon options with both skyfire and interceptor (which are both currently the most sought after special rules) is just gravy.

Also making your own home version is not that expensive. A friend of mine plays chaos with allied imperial guard and is making some. Unless you are limiting yourself directly to GW or Forge World it is not that bad to find similar replacement parts (or have an extensive bits box of GW stuff).