Bodyguards

Oh yes, let's not forget Bodyguards.

These are good for pumping your squad size up, but in my view...you should ONLY take these in conjunction with a medic in the squad.

Also, only take these if you are running a foot guard army (or semi-mech). The command squad can take quite a pounding from long range fire this way.

The important rule here: You can allocate two wounds from your company commander to bodyguards.

This lets you make the command squad a stand there and get shot squad (people will stop firing heavy bolters at you after a while), alternatively you can make it a semi-CC squad. It's not the awesome pure win, but against things like Tactical Squads...it can tie them up for quite a while.

Anyway, the bodyguard rule is useful for making you able to redirect say two autocannon shots into one bodyguard. It'll probably kill him, but that's ok. That's what he's there for. If you have a big command squad, while not immune to small arms fire...it's a pain in the ass to get rid of with lots of advisors, bodyguards, and 'extras'. Things like GKT heroes with FNP is just shit. lol

Oh, and while it's on my mind--a GKT hero does not confer the Shrouding to said Command squad. You aren't shooting a GK unit, you are shooting a IG unit. Thanks for playing!

BTW remember how this unit works:

I get hit with 2 powerfist attacks on my command squad.

I assign 1 to a bodyguard.

I assign 1 to my company commander.

I re-assign the wound on my company commander to my bodyguard.

Bodyguard dies. I suffered ONE wound because of wound allocation and no overkill credit in 40K.C