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7th Edition Review: Astra Militarum: Cadian Battle Group Detachment

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#1 · (Edited)
With the next book of war zone Damocles about to release, the internet is live with information gleamed from this newest addition to 40k. Chief among those are the two new detachments, the Astra Militarum's Cadian Battle Group and the Farsight Enclave's Dawn Blade Contingent.

The Cadian Battle Group is a formation detachment, a detachment comprised of formations rather than individual force organization selections; commonly referred to as a decurion style detachment after the Necron Decurion detachment (the first of the formation detachments released in 7th.) Like all decurions so far, the Battle Group is broken down into core, auxiliary, and command sections; however the Battle Group has two major differences compared to previous decurions.

The first is the detachment containing two core options, where all previous entries have only had a single (reclemation legion for the Necrons, slaughtercult for Khorne Daemonkin, or demi-company for Space Marines.) These options are the infantry focused Emperors Shield Company and tank oriented Emperors Fist Armoured Company. Like other decurions, core choices are required to take auxiliary formations however the Battle Group's core choices do not unlock as many slots as other formation detachments. Where a Necron reclamation legion or Khorne Daemonkin slaughtercult unlock upwards of eight auxiliary slots, the shield and armoured companies each only unlock three slots.

The second, and perhaps the bigger difference of the Battle Group, is that not only can more than one command section be taken, at least one is required for a Cadian Battle Group. Where most decurions are a mandatory one core and one auxiliary per detachment, the Cadian Battle Group requires at least one command section, a Battle Group Command formation, in order to unlock core slots that in turn unlock auxiliary slots.


The Cadian Battle Group has three command benefits:
High Command - The company commander from the Battle Group Command formation can issue three orders and has his order range doubled.

Battle Group Vox-net - Orders issued to units in this detachment test on a 3d6 and discard the highest result.

Sharpshooters - Models with lasguns and hot shot lasguns reroll 1's to hit.

These benefits greatly favour spreading out command elements or making use of large groups of infantry.


However despite those benefits, this detachment is not for the faint of heart. With few exceptions, the options in this detachment are quite point heavy investments with many averaging 250 or more points. Even the core options, at their cheapest, weigh in at 670 points for the armoured company and 1005 for the shield company, plus the cost of a Battle Group Command.

If you choose to use a Cadian Battle Group, be prepared to either have few upgrades either a fairly large force or rather tough one.
 
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#3 · (Edited)
Battle Group Command

The head of any Cadian Battle Group and the detachments only required element, Battle Group Command sections are one of the most lethal weapons in the Astra Militarums arsenal here.

When playing a Cadian Battle Group detachment, each Battle Group Command allows for up to three core selections to be taken. A Battle Group Command section can either be comprised of a company command squad or tank commander squadron, with up to one lord commissar able to be taken per command section.

Though this formation includes no additional rules of its own, this is where most of the detachment benefits come into play. The High Command additional order and order range pertain to any and all Battle Group Command company commanders, and both the company commander and tank commander are officers and so make use of the Battle Group vox-net benefit.

In a detachment where there are very few low point options, this is probably the cheapest of them all, and one that any Militarum player will want to keep alive for as long as possible. For maximum order coverage, I would recommend either sticking one of these in the center of the Militarum line, or as one of two on each side of the board for far reaching orders.


Potential builds:

Suicide anti armour squad


Suicide elite squad


Sit back command

@Battman, are you referring to detachments being better than a combined arms detachment? Because the benefits that they come with are in place of rerolling warlord traits and objective secured.

While the high command benefit of this detachment is very good, the sharpshooter benefit is far more situational and is on a gun that is usually wounding on a 4 or 5 against a majority of targets.
 
#4 ·
What disappoints me here is the same as what disappoints me for the Craftworld Warhost; it's tailored towards certain options, and yet gives you options for others that are worthless.

The Cadian BG gives you the option to go full tilt Armored Company if you want... but the benefits aren't useful because a Tank Commander doesn't count as an officer.
 
#5 ·
What I'm refering to is when using formations in tandem with combination with other formations such as the combined arms detatchments. To get the bonuses of both at least this is what i see to be the most effective methods, this proably is in the limited view of ork detatachments insted of the full triarch or whichever the large detachments are known as.
 
#6 · (Edited)
For the sake of simplicity, and despite them all being 'detachments':

Detachments use some type of force organization chart.

Formations list specific units with potential restrictions.

Decurions are conglomerations of Formations which pack on extra special rules.

Why no love for the Auxiliary choices, @darkreever?
 
#8 ·
Decurions are conglomerations of Formations which pack on extra special rules.
Decurion is actually a Roman word. In this case, it's a combination of two different definitions: one is a military officer, and the other was a town or city councilman. So in this case, it's a Military Council. Since Necrons use a lot of Roman terminology (Phalanx, Triarch, Praetorian, etc), it's a suitable definition for them. Sadly, the term stuck, because it was the first one.

I tend to call them Super-Detachment. You could also call them Voltron-Formations, since they're built out of other formations.



To address the differences:

A Detachment is a Force Organization Chart, where you are allowed to select a certain amount of units from different categories, for a Benefit. These will be listed in the codices, usually in the 'Forces of the XXX' page of the book.

Examples: Combine Arms Detachment. Ravenwing Strike Force. Nemesis Strike Force.

A Formation Detachment is a stricter sub-section of a Detachment. Instead of freely selecting models from the different categories, most or all of the units have already been selected for you, or you get limited choices (choose from three of the following). These are found in codices and publications with a special symbol: three skulls in a circle of curved lines.

Examples: Demi-Company Formation, Crimson Death Formation, The Eight.

A Super-Detachment (my term) is a Formation, as listed above, but instead of specific units, it is made of a limited selection of dedicated Formations. These Formation Detachments 'nest', which means that the individual Formation Detachments receive their benefits, PLUS a special benefit for the Super-Detachment and all of its components.

Examples: Decurion, Craftworld Warhost, Hunter Contingent
 
#7 ·
Emperor's Shield Infantry Company

For the Astra Militarum, infantry are the hammer that is broken upon the anvil of their armour. No where is the concept of large groups of infantry coming in to combat an enemy than with an Emperor's Shield Infantry Company. The shield company is one of the two core options available to the Cadian Battle Group, with the second being the Emperor's Fist Armoured Company. Of the two, this is the hammer of the Militarum, consisting of no less than 168 infantry or sentinal walkers, and is akin to a horde army in its own right.

The Shield Company consists of a company command squad and three Emperor's Shield Infantry Platoons. An Emperor's Shield Infantry Platoon is a formation within a formation, it is an infantry platoon that must take five infantry squads and can take between one and three sentinal squadrons plus the platoon command squad. Additionally no squad is allowed to take a dedicated transport, and the normal allowance of special and heavy weapon squads and conscript platoon are allowed.

The Shield platoon comes with two special rules of its own plus a new order, while the Shield company gets an additional rule on top of the shield platoon:

Forward Recon - Infantry units from this formation gain move through cover if they are within 9" of a sentinal from this formation

Marching Drill - In addition to all other orders, a platoon commander can issue the fire and advance order to a single unit in the platoon.

Fire and Advance - The ordered unit must make a shooting attack and always counts as having not moved in the movement phase.

Punishing Fusillade (company) - The company commander may issue 'first rank, fire! Second rank, fire!' to any number of infantry units within the company. This counts as a single order and only one test is made for all the chosen units. However all units must shoot at the same target.


This formation is, in my opinion, to big and takes away to much from the rest of the detachment. Without any upgrades, a bare minimum Cadian Battle Group taking a shield company costs 1065 points and consists of 173 models. If the company only required two platoons rather than three, that would still mean a starting force of 118 models at 750 points. This would make the shield company a much stronger contender for the core slot in a Battle Group.

Potential builds:

Forward support


The Hammers


@ntaw, if your wondering why I haven't said anything about the auxiliary choices, that would be because I have not gotten to them yet. I'm actually very fond of the psykana division, aerial, artillery, recon, and assault companies.
 
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