So my mate and I were playing a game the other day when both of us had a total brainfart when it came to the use of stormtroopers. I've never used them or fought against them before but TMG Novan Royal Marines were too good as proxies for stormtroopers not to be bought and used. Which led us to this problem.

Now, when using every other unit in the assault we only use that stands firefight or close combat value to make hits and ignore the ranged weapons completely, that works fine for us 99.9% of the time. The stormtroopers throw up a conundrum in that their plasma guns only have a 15cm range so realistically can only be used in an assault range situation but at AP5/AT5 are completely inferior to the stands firefight rating of 4+. What's the deal here? I cannot think of a situation where you would choose to not charge if you are that close since you know they'll roll over you in the next activation they get if you don't.

I suppose in conjunction with the valks rocket pods you could get somewhere but still it's kinda dodgy feeling to me.

Am I just being dense here? Or have we been playing firefights wrong this whole time up until now and you count ranged weapons rolls and the firefight roll in the assault? That would make sense if you assume the firefight rating is really simulating the use of small arms but I never thought about it until now.

I just can't figure out if there is a spoon or not, so to speak. The outcome of whole series of games called into question based on one misinterpretation of the rules, you know?

No you're doing it correctly. In an assault it's FF or CC, no ranged weapons.

Your question is really, what do I do with 15cm range weapons (incidentally plenty of weapons are 15cm such as the multi-melta)

First, you might want to hold an objective with them after you've taken it. An overwatch shooting attack would be handy, no?

Second, assaults are do or die. Its easy to pull them with a double up near an enemy and shoot from 15cm, laying BMs and perhaps killing some guys. Then you retain with a bigger formation to assault, like a mech company or a warhound and those same stormtroopers can add support to the assault.

Third, 8 dice at 5+ equally good at killing infantry as vehicles mounted up in a speedy skimmer transport isn't a shabby deal. You don't see them quite as much as there's stuff more killy for the points available in Guard armies. That still doesn't make them useless.

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On the off chance you get to sustain fire (not likely, but possible) that'd be 8 dice at 4+ (the same as an engage action), with the benefit of the enemy unit not immediately shooting you back (so if they want to engage or shoot you it'll use up one of their activations).

I can't believe I hadn't considered landspeeders. And you are right of course, I've always used them to give the killing blow tough nut units like Titans and Praetorian class war engines so I suppose I put them in a separate category in my head. Well that clears that up!

Also if you double to get within range to support fire and want to put a bm in something as well.

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