Honor Guard, who takes these guys?

So for the Bugeater GT coming up in Omaha, NE at the end of June, I'm thinking of taking a unit of Honor Guard. I'm running Pedro Kantor in my list, and as chapter master, he may take an honor guard. Yip, I'm taking the bait on that fish hook, for better or for worse. So what do we know about honor guard? I knew nothing. I have never seen them fielded, nor anyone even talk about taking them. They must really stink.



Ultramarine Honor Guard, picture property of Games Workshop.




So who are the Honor Guard, and what can they do for your army? Ok for 115 points you get a Chapter Champion and 2 Honor Guard. For 35 points each, you may add up to 7 more Honor Guard. Holy cow that's expensive! But is it really?

So this squad will cost on the low end, 115 points, and with 10 guys it runs 360 points with no upgrades. Upgrades include, adding relic blades to any member, and taking an auxiliary grenade launchers on any members. Both of these are are pricey and start to add up fast. My plan is to run my guys with zero upgrades.

I'm planning on running just the basic squad of the Chapter Champion and 2 Honor Guard. For 115 points it is not too expensive. I think they are a better buy than a cheap character even. At 115 points you get 3 wounds (one each), and 2+ saves (very nice). Pretty close to a character stats. The Champion has WS 5, that is nice. The real gem is a base of 3 attacks on the Champ and base 2 attacks on the Guards. Their gear is also nice. They come with grenades, frag and krak. The also come with bolters, bolt pistols, and power weapons. So bolt pistol and power weapons, gives them each +1 more attacks.

So this little 3 man squads has 4 weapon skill 5 attacks and 6 weapon skill 4 attacks, all power weapons. On the charge near Pedro, that's 16 power weapon attacks!

 Another option available to them is the Chapter Banner for 25 points. It gives them +1 attack, but I'm running Pedro and the +1's don't stack.

I'm going to run them at minimum with a razorback. I'll put Pedro in the unit to give them a powerfist and my librarian will probably go to. I'm going to take force dome as my second power to give the unit a 5++. While they will not stand up to terminators, I don't expect them to. This unit is to help with Grey Knight squads that want to assault, grey hunters that need to be killed, and any semi tough or large unit that needs to be killed, hello death company.

As a side project my Honor Guard and Chapter Champion will all be named. I plan to keep track track of their kills and follies and maybe write a little report of their experience at the Bugeater. Maybe it will make for good reading.