Editing Armoured Fist Squad (section)

==Limited Unit==
Armored Fist Squads tended to be constantly underestimated in early editions. Guardsmen as a whole aren't big threats, but with the right situation can quickly prove pretty dangerous, and giving them the combination of mobility, heavy weapons, and armor that a Chimera provides can actually be pretty intimidating. For points, the Chimera is hard to beat, and Guardsmen, while fragile, pack a lot of [[Dakka]] at a decent range. As such, a Guardsman Squad with a [[Plasma Gun]] or [[Grenade Launcher#Grenade Launcher|Grenade Launcher]], and [[Missile Launcher#Missile Launcher|Missile Launcher]] or [[Lascannon]] is basically equipped to engage almost anything you could encounter on the tabletop. Better still, half the unit could fire from the Chimera without ever having to disembark, and the Chimera's hardy enough to take some punishment, unlike many other transports.

This little feature meant that the Armored Fist Squad was limited to one per Infantry Platoon.

===Ways Around the Restriction===
There actually was multiple ways around the restriction of Armored Fist Squads, back in third edition. The most obvious was Doctrines; by cutting out options your army wasn't keen on using anyway, you could easily grab the "Mechanized" doctrine, and every squad in your army would get its own Chimera, even if [[Awesome|they couldn't ordinarily get one]], which tended to result in [[Lulz|humor]] when you had a squad of [[Ratling]]s roaming the table and [[Wat|sniping from the roof hatches]]. This was the most common way to make a mech-heavy Imperial Guard force.

A similar, if more expensive way of getting around it was the "Grenadiers" doctrine, which allowed you to field [[Stormtrooper]]s as a troops choice. These Stormtroopers couldn't deep strike or infiltrate but you could still take a dedicated transport, so you'd wind up with an even stronger version of the Fist squad with better infantry rifles. The main downside is that [[RAGE|this cost almost twice as much]]. You could alternately do this by taking the "Veterans" doctrine (which made Veteran squads a troop choice) and cramming that in the resulting Chimera. This is a bit cheaper, but still much more expensive than the standard Armored Fist.

A third way, which was even ''more'' points-inefficient (but many armies still did) was take an allied Inquisition detachment and include a Storm Trooper Squad with a dedicated transport Chimera. This was the least common, because essentially it meant that the Guard were taking an allied detachment for a unit it already had access to, and Inquisitorial Stormtroopers tended to use Rhinos rather than Chimeras because they were cheaper, and the last thing its home codex needed was [[Grey Knights|more anti-infantry weapons]].

===The Restriction Ends===
With the 5th Edition Codex, the [[Imperial Guard]] lost the mandatory restrictions for Armored Fist Squads, and damned near anything could (and did) take a Chimera. The entire army could now be mechanized with no problems. Unfortunately, this edition saw the Armored Fist Squad lose its sparkle considerably, as the new [[Valkyrie]] and access to the [[Taurox]] saw the Chimera gradually become a second-stringer.

It still remains popular, however, especially given the oldfags on /tg/, and still remains one of the most efficient uses of points around, so there's that.


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