Hey, new to the forum, first post, I'm starting to get into epic after not having played games workshop stuff for a few years.

My reason for registering was to get some feedback on the idea of having imperial guard Rough Rider units modelled as acting like dragoons; mounted infantry who dismount to fight and then use horses to move around quickly.

The inspiration for that comes from the following minis from baccus6mm.com: (photo attached)

I figure that the higher CC rating and First Strike attributes of the Rough Rider unit can be approximated by the higher skill of Dragoons in closer-range combat and their rapid response and hit-and-run tactics respectively.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? I just never liked the idea of guys riding on horses with spears as regular and standard units in the imperial guard in the 40th millennium. I mean I could see a couple of more feral and backwater worlds having regiments with this kind of thing, but not regiments like the DKoK or the Baran Siegemasters or the Steel Legion

In the original SM1 rules, you could dismount and fight on foot. The only bad thing is you couldn't remount. But I'd think you just have to mark the "Horses base" with a counter. And remount like with an APC ... Of course you'd have to have the dismount infantry stands too. Which would now move and shoot as a separate unit. Just like when dismounting from a APC. And the "Horse" base would have no firepower, just maybe a "close combat" rating ... My DKoK Cav ... to dismount I'd need place 4 stands of Infantry on the board ... again mounting and dismounting just like from an APC ...

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

"Counts-as" is a fully kosher thing in EA (actually it's even encouraged in the original 4th edition rulebook). You can use any amount of handwavium to explain why your model matches those particular statistics. The army structure, costs, and stats of the units are what is balanced so if you want your rough riders to be dragoons in spaaaaaaaace, go for it! As long as it is readily apparent to an opponent what is what, you should be fine.

For instance in my own collection, I absolutely detest horses as completely immersion killing for myself. Therefore my "rough riders" are actually guard bikers (which do not have any modern equivalent). However in all gameplay and list building terms are RR units. Any opponent facing off against me get's this pointed out really quick in the 5-min warmup that all these bikes are RR stat units. No one sweats me as it's totally apparent what it is.

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oh, I wouldn't be attempting to actually have rules for dragoon-type units, it's more just using mounted infantry to represent rough riders

yeah for sure, I just wanted to see if anyone else has done similar things.

and yeah, it would of course be made obvious to any opponent. And I agree on the thing that horses kill the immersion a bit, and I can see the appeal of using them as bikers.

The nice thing is that the set from baccus6mm includes 2 command strips of 4 soldiers, 6 infantry strips of 4 soldiers, and 2 horse-holder strips, for a total of 40 individual soldiers. And it only costs around 5$ CAD. If I cut up the strips of soldiers, I could easily get 2-3 rough rider platoons, or at least one full death rider company.

That is basically what I'm advocating ... It's just how you want to do it in the game ... Infantry should be able to mount and dismount from horseback just like from APCs, IMO ...

And I have both Cav and Bikes in my IG. And use them similarity ... But the Bikes can move faster than horses for one. And both can dismount as well ...

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Personally I would refuse to play anyone with the audacity to try and pass off mounted infantry as cavalry. Sir you bring this game into disrepute.

Well ... as you know both Dragoons and Light Horse are basically mounted Infantry and operate as such. Just like Air and Armored CAV generally have the same traditional missions of Horse Cav.

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Well, Epic/40k is basically WW2 in space and the Polish in WW2 used Cavalry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_cavalry#World_War_II

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Schoenfeld

So, while odd to see horses in sci-fi future war, they're not completely absurd to see in industrial firearms warfare.

I believe the point of the OP is that a proxy without a lance is not a perfect fit for the rough rider stats. I think that most people don't care. I think that if it matters to you, it may help to imagine that the lanceless proxies have some special grenades that achieve the same effect.

I've always thought of the RR Lance as maybe something like a staff weapon like we see on Stargate in movies & TV ... Just a thought ...
And in the future, as we see in much of the Sci-fi media. The relative tech level of a planet and it's various races, cultures, etc. will not always be the same. Between the denizens of that planet or say ... the "aliens" that arrive from space, stargates, etc. ...

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

yeah I don't have a problem really with lances being used in the 40k universe. I mean, the most elite special combat forces in the universe use giant Combat Knives and Chainsaws for primary close combat weapons. Guys using lances makes as much sense. It's just a personal thing. I've never much liked the idea of humans on horses charging into combat against like, Tyranids, or whatever.

as for the proxy, yeah, I'd probably just explain it as "using their horses to rapidly deploy to attack the enemy at close range, then re-mounting to run away to cover" allows them the "First Strike" ability. As for the CC vs FF values, same explanation. They specialize at getting right up into the enemies face, getting into close-range shootouts, while if they get caught at firefight range (say 50-200m), they're lighter armor and weapons, combined with the vulnerability of the horses, means they will lose. Hence 4+ CC and 6+ FF.

I've made up a list of which miniatures from Baccus6mm can represent which units from a DKoK army. Basically all the infantry and artillery and support can be covered, and they're affordable too. Only thing I'd need would be vehicles.

Harnis, you officially"get it", mate

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He's a lawyer and a super-villian. That's like having a shark with a bazooka!

-I HAVE NO POINT
-Penal Legion-Fan list
-Help me make Whitescars not suck!

Just a word of warning though. The baccus infantry measure 6mm to the eyeline so my colonial British with their big pith helmets come out looking quite big next to onslaught and DiD infantry for example. Wonderful detail though

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good to know, thanks. Does that mean that if I used them for IG, they'd look strange alongside space marines?

My other option is the Novan Infantry lines from Vanguard. I like the look of those.