Mechanised Assault: The 11th-Edition Guard Disembark-and-Shoot Detachment

One sentence, and it is the shortest detachment rule the Guard have.

Each time an ASTRA MILITARUM model from your army makes a ranged attack in a turn in which it disembarked from a TRANSPORT, add 1 to the Wound roll.

Note what it does not say:

• There is no keyword restriction beyond ASTRA MILITARUM. Any model that got out of a vehicle qualifies, not just infantry of a particular type.
• There is no requirement that the transport moved, so a squad that starts embarked and hops out on turn one still benefits.
• There is no limit on how many units can benefit in a turn. Everything that disembarked wounds better.

+1 to the Wound roll is a large effect. On a squad of lasguns against Toughness 4 it moves wounding from 5s to 4s, a 50% increase in wounds landed. On plasma or meltaguns against a vehicle it is the difference between a threat and a real answer.

The cost is structural rather than written. To use this rule you must own and field enough transports to carry your army, which is a genuine financial and points investment, and disembarked infantry are exposed infantry. The stratagem list below is mostly about managing that exposure: getting further after you disembark, and climbing back in before the counter-punch.

The army rule's timing clause matters here too. Officers can issue Orders at the end of a phase in which they disembarked, so a command squad that gets out can immediately issue Take Aim! on top of Armoured Fist's +1 to Wound.

Six, all 1CP. Four of them are about the disembark cycle and two are reactive.

• Vox-Relay (your Command). Target one INFANTRY OFFICER unit embarked within a TRANSPORT, which you can do even though it is embarked. Until the end of the phase your unit can issue Orders even though it is not on the battlefield, and can issue Orders to ASTRA MILITARUM TRANSPORT units regardless of distance, excluding TITANIC units. It solves the detachment's central awkwardness, which is that an Officer safe inside a vehicle is an Officer not issuing Orders.
• Rapid Dispersal (your Movement). Target one ASTRA MILITARUM INFANTRY unit that disembarked this phase; it can make a Normal move of up to D6 inches. Extra reach after disembarking, which matters because disembark distance is often what decides whether a short-ranged squad is in range at all.
• Clear and Secure (your Shooting). Target one ASTRA MILITARUM unit that disembarked this turn and has not shot; until the end of the phase, attacks targeting a unit within range of an objective marker can re-roll the Hit roll and the Wound roll. Both re-rolls for one command point, stacked on Armoured Fist's +1 to Wound, gated on the target being on an objective, which is exactly where this detachment wants the fighting.
• Swift Interception (your opponent's Movement). Just after an enemy unit ends a Normal, Advance or Fall Back move, target one TRANSPORT unit (excluding AIRCRAFT and TITANIC) that is not within Engagement Range and is within 8 inches of that enemy unit; your TRANSPORT makes a Normal move of up to 6 inches. Faction Pack v1.2 rewrites this stratagem's Target section by name, and 8 inches is the current distance.
• Hasty Extraction (your opponent's Charge). After an enemy unit selects charge targets but before it moves, target one ASTRA MILITARUM INFANTRY unit that was selected; provided your unit is not within Engagement Range and every model is within 3 inches of an ASTRA MILITARUM TRANSPORT, it can embark within it. The counterpart to disembarking: your squad shoots, then climbs back in before the counter-charge lands.
• Move Out (your Movement). The sixth stratagem, covering transport repositioning. The mirror is our only source for its full wording, so treat the details as the weakest-evidenced part of this page and confirm them in the Warhammer 40,000 app before relying on them.

The habit to build: the cycle is disembark, shoot, re-embark. Hold a point for Hasty Extraction every turn you commit a squad forward.

Four, three on an INFANTRY OFFICER and one on a Tech-Priest.

• Bold Leadership (25 pts). INFANTRY OFFICER model only. If you control an objective marker at the end of your Command phase, and the bearer's unit or any TRANSPORT it is embarked within is within range of that objective, that objective remains under your control even if you have no models within range, until your opponent controls it at the start or end of any turn. The embarked clause is what makes it worth 25 points in this detachment specifically: your Officer can be safely inside a vehicle and still hold ground.
• Vanguard Honours (15 pts). INFANTRY OFFICER model only. The bearer's unit can disembark from a TRANSPORT after it has Advanced. If it does, it counts as having made a Normal move that phase and cannot declare a charge in the same turn, but can otherwise act normally. Disembarking after an Advance is a large extension of threat range, and because the unit counts as having made a Normal move it can still shoot, so Armoured Fist still applies.
• Smoke Grenades (10 pts). INFANTRY OFFICER model only. The bearer's unit has the Benefit of Cover and the Stealth ability while it is wholly within 3 inches of one or more friendly TRANSPORT models. Cover and Stealth for standing next to your own vehicle, which is where a just-disembarked squad already is. The wholly-within-3-inches condition rewards disciplined placement.
• Sacred Unguents (10 pts). ASTRA MILITARUM TECH-PRIEST ENGINSEER model only. At the start of your Shooting phase, select one TRANSPORT within 3 inches of the bearer (excluding AIRCRAFT and TITANIC); until the end of the phase that TRANSPORT can re-roll the Hit roll for every attack. Cheap, and it makes the transport itself contribute rather than being a taxi.

(Points come from the Munitorum Field Manual and move with updates; confirm in the app.)

• [Chimera](/40k/boxes/warhammer-imperial-guard-chimera-new) is the detachment's essential model. Armoured Fist does nothing without transports, and this is the standard one. Faction Pack v1.2 adds FRAME to its datasheet.
• [Taurox Prime](/40k/boxes/warhammer-imperial-guard-taurox-prime-new) is the faster armed transport and the better carrier for elite passengers who want to arrive somewhere specific and shoot immediately.
• [Cadian Shock Troops](/40k/boxes/astra-militarum-cadian-shock-troops) are the passengers. A squad that disembarks and fires wounds on a better roll, which is most of the reason to take this detachment over Combined Arms.
• [Kasrkin](/40k/boxes/kill-team-kasrkin) are the best passengers in the faction for this rule, because their short-ranged special weapons want to be delivered rather than walked. The pack rewrites their weapon options.
• [Tempestus Scions](/40k/boxes/warhammer-imperial-guard-tempestus-scions-new) are the other elite passenger option, and hot-shot weapons plus a transport is the same idea as a drop with more control over where you end up.
• [Cadian Command Squad](/40k/boxes/warhammer-imperial-guard-cadian-command-squad-new) is the Infantry Officer unit that carries three of the four enhancements, and the unit Vox-Relay is written for.
• Tech-Priest Enginseer is the only legal carrier of Sacred Unguents.

One buying note. Tech-Priest Enginseer has no exact entry in our catalog, so we link no box for it.

Mechanised Assault carries no Unique Tag, so all three 1 DP detachments are legal partners at exactly 3 DP, including both recon detachments.

• [Bridgehead Strike](/40k/armies/astra-militarum/detachments/bridgehead-strike) (1 DP) gives you two ways of arriving. Scions delivered by Taurox get Armoured Fist's +1 to Wound; Scions dropping from the sky get Bridgehead Strike's +1 to Hit. The same models are buffed by different halves of the list depending on how you deploy them, which is a genuinely unusual amount of flexibility for one collection.
• [Designation Force](/40k/armies/astra-militarum/detachments/designation-force) (1 DP) is legal despite the shared Reconnaissance disposition, because this detachment carries no tag. Designation makes short-range disembark volleys land on the right target rather than the nearest one.
• [Abhuman Auxiliaries](/40k/armies/astra-militarum/detachments/abhuman-auxiliaries) (1 DP) gives a transport-heavy list a unit that does not care about being caught in the open. Ogryns are not natural passengers, so the 2 DP detachment carries the shooting and the 1 DP detachment carries the melee.

Take it when you own several transports and want a straightforward, aggressive game plan, or when your infantry are short-ranged specialists like Kasrkin who need delivering.

Be clear-eyed about the exposure. Every turn you use the detachment rule you are putting infantry in the open within striking distance of the enemy. The stratagem list gives you tools to manage that, but they cost command points every turn, and a list that cannot afford Hasty Extraction on the turn it matters will lose squads. The detachment also does nothing for units that never embark, so a gunline sitting at the back gains nothing at all.

Sample gameplan: pair with Bridgehead Strike (2 DP + 1 DP). Run two Chimeras or Tauroxes carrying Kasrkin or Scions, with an Infantry Officer carrying Vanguard Honours so his squad can Advance and still disembark and shoot. Use Vox-Relay to keep issuing Orders while embarked, disembark onto an objective and spend Clear and Secure for double re-rolls on top of +1 to Wound, then hold a point for Hasty Extraction when the charge comes. Keep a Scion squad in Reserves so your opponent has a second threat to worry about.

For the fundamentals underneath all of it, read the Astra Militarum army guide.