Honour Guard Vs. Sanguinary Guard

Now this is a debate that has been thrown around our club once or twice. So I am going to break it down into three categories: Power, Utility, and Models.

Power

Sanguinary Guard have some kick-ass offensive wargear but not a lot of choice. They are restricted to only a few choices in terms of weapons, but I guess that fits their fluff. For ranged weapons they each come with an Angelus Bolter. With a 12 inch range it really only has the ability to shoot pre-assault. Though assault 2 and AP 4 means it puts out a lot of shots that nothing short of a Space Marine will get armour saves against. And you can choose to upgrade the bolter to a plasma, or infernus pistol for more specific enemies, ie MEQ or vehicles. For melee weapons the SG come with Glaive Encarmine! Master-crafted two-handed power weapon! Now this weapon to me seems kinda... lackluster in comparison. You essentially give up the possibility of +1 attack with an extra close combat weapon for one re-roll per model. Seems like six of one, half a dozen of the other to me. And there is the option to upgrade the Glaive Encarmine to a power fist. Cool.


Honour Guard are the jack of all trades. They aren't particularly powerful but they can take nearly any weapon under the sun! Plasma, Meltas, Flamers, Storm bolters, Power weapons, you name it, they can take it. Any type of enemy they can be outfitted for. Nothing too extreme, but not totally inflexible either.

Winner: Sanguinary Guard! By a long shot.

Utility

Sanguinary Guard are severely lacking in utility. One trick pony if I ever did see one. They got one job and they do it well! Assault tough stuff! For wargear options they only have 5. Death masks to debuff the enemy. Company banner, plasma and infernus pistols, and power fists. They aren't much but I understand why the writers wrote them that way. To stay in their allotted groove. All their wargear options only help to cement them in that role.

Honour Guard, as previously mentioned, are the mother of utility. With nearly every wargear option available to them they can be outfitted to nearly any role. Even a shooty one ( which is probably a waste in most cases IMO). And outside of wargear they can take a Blood Champion and a standard bearer. And don't forget the built in Sanguinary Novitiate, thus neatly skirting the Sanguinary Priest's Independent Character rule. Then they have three different options for transportation. Foot slog, Jump packs, of Dedicated transport. Sanguinary Guard have no such luck!

Winner: Honour Guard!

Models

Now in this category it was a bit of a toss up in my mind. Either you have Bat nipples, or no dedicated models at all( I know you could use the Command Squad box, but they don't have any Blood Angel-ish bitz). For both cases I would personally just convert them.

Because of the lack of any really clear pro's to either I am calling it a tie.

~Weigh in! Who do you think is the winner? Have you used both and found one to be more effective then the other?