# Close combat based IG



## fuzzawakka (Nov 16, 2008)

Is it worth trying to make a list with IG that is based almost all with close combat in mind? Or is it a complete waste of effort as they are known for shooting and sucking at close combat


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

No.

Blah limit.


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## fuzzawakka (Nov 16, 2008)

lol wth...blah limit?  I sort of thought so but maybe someone had a more creative imagination then i have seen


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## Underground Heretic (Aug 9, 2008)

_If_ you can make a cc guard army, here is what you are looking for:

Straken: Furious Charge and Counter-Attack are a major bonus and will buff any and all units in range.

Commissars: These will give you access to Stubborn leadership and power weapons and fists

Platoon Command Squads: You need to have a commissar attached to one of these or be a lord to have access to a powerfist. The upside is that commissars (except Lords) are upgrade characters and therefore cannot be singled out in CC.

Ogryns: S5 T5 with multiple wounds, they can suck up a power fist and not suffer Instant Death.

Penal Legion: Even if they roll Assault 2 Lasguns they can be decent in CC.


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## arhain (May 6, 2008)

Chenkov + Conscripts + Straken = :alcoholic:


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

It might work ok if your opponent didn't have cc troops of his own, or shooty troops, or vehicles.

Failing that, no.


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Is it possible to create an Imperial Guard army that focuses on close combat? Yes.

Is it possible to create an Imperial Guard army that focuses on close combat and will function well in anything but the most relaxed, laid-back settings or against the most inept of players? No.

Unfortunately the Imperial Guard don't offer many point efficient assault units. Of the few Imperial Guard units that can assault decently, they're either extremely expensive or are designed to charge into close combat supported by other units. Filling up your slots with say, Ogryns, Rough Riders, Straken and some Infantry Squads while running at your opponent is going to lead to disaster very quickly.

If you'd like to play an army of humans that do well at close combat, maybe take a look at the Ork Codex and use those rules to field a "counts-as" army of human barbarians or something. It's not uncommon for Imperial Guard regiments recruited on the most feral of worlds to use primitive technology and tactics, so Codex: Orks should do well in this regard.


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## Winterous (Mar 30, 2009)

A WHOLE army based on CC? No.
An army which has CC centric aspects? Yes.

Don't underestimate the power of 20 S4 attacks, Furious Charge is a nasty bitch.

Rough Riders are also a magnificent unit, while they frankly kamikaze and little else, they can -demolish- a squad of Marines for half the cost; especially with Furious Charge (I know I've disagreed with that in the past, but based upon the fact that various GW-written rules have RR with FC, I say yes, it does)


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

Someguy said:


> It might work ok if your opponent didn't have troops of his own, or Monstrous Creatures, or vehicles, or in fact anything on the table apart from his cheeseburger and coke.
> 
> Failing that, no.


Fixed. :laugh:


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## Inquisitor Einar (Mar 6, 2009)

IMHO, an IG CC centric army is very possible. Straken doesn't only give himself furious charge, but also units near him, Lets say. That combined squad of 50 guardsmen with a commissar.
And against Marines, you'd rather be in CC than shooting them anyway, because then you'll get your 5+ armour save against their regular attacks.

Another good option is to use Creed.. his 'For Cadia' order gives furious charge to any 4 squads in 24" range of him. Using combined infantry squads to make large mobs of 30-40 guardsmen, giving them a single vox, this is very effective.

An 'Elite' CC gods army.. no.. but guardsmen never really are about small 'elite' forces.
A horde of over a hundred guardsmen charging at you from across the battlefield, supported by some heavy artillery and heavy weapon squads? VERY possible, and imho quite viable.


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## Overfeind (Apr 4, 2009)

i use this tactic i give an ip at lest 2 Commissars or 5 depending on the points a priest and all the Sergeants and Commissars have a pw, behind them i have a Command Squad with Colonel “Iron Hand” Straken in a Chimera so on the charge that's up to 44 s4 pw attacks with a re role to hit and if that dus not do the job there is up to 90 normal s4 attacks with a re role, that just one platoon.

or have creed and do the same thing but he lets one unit outflank so the unit above can outflank or give it to some Ogryns, 10 Ogryns outflanking is nasty and take an austro path so thay show up early and you can re role the dice for witch table side thay will show up on.

one last thing people don't expect an cc ig army it is very hard army to master because it tends to all relay on you getting the charge so up against an inexperienced player that will tire to avoid your huge mob of men (i played one ork player that was running his full unit ork nobs away from them lol i did wipe them out in one round of combat without taken any losses) but people in the know will know to charge you.


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## Minion_1981 (Dec 20, 2007)

IG CC army is possible if you field it right. I believe if you use Creed and issue for the glory of cadia, on appropriate squads when the timing is right and if you have enough 10 man squads you can out number and out kill anyone, even the best CC armies. you just need to spread your models out right so they can't engage more than one unit at a time when they get near you. Then you retaliate with 2 or 3 units using for the glory, and you win.. Just make sure to equip a power sword on the sarges'. I am also talking about taking 3 full platoons with 55 men in each all with power weapons and about 15 lascannons to make them come to you.


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## heliosmj12 (Mar 30, 2008)

I don't play IG, but I have the IG Codex, but I would say that taking full squads of ogryns in chimeras as your 3 Elites would make IG a possible CC army, but you would need to cover them with fire from a long distance.


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## Winterous (Mar 30, 2009)

heliosmj12 said:


> I don't play IG, but I have the IG Codex, but I would say that taking full squads of ogryns in chimeras as your 3 Elites would make IG a possible CC army, but you would need to cover them with fire from a long distance.


Attaching a Priest to them would help immensely!
*cough*
Just checked, it doesn't work on them D:


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## Overfeind (Apr 4, 2009)

a priest dus not but Commissar Yarrick works and he will do same job bit more expensive thou.


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## Winterous (Mar 30, 2009)

Overfeind said:


> a priest dus not but Commissar Yarrick works and he will do same job bit more expensive thou.


Aah yes, very true.
He does have that ability.

He'll also make the Ogryn Fearless, which shouldn't be a penalty with their Melee effectiveness.

Hmm, I think we've just stumbled upon an extremely effective IG CC unit.


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## Grimskul25 (Feb 17, 2009)

As much as Ogryns seem attractive with their amazing stats and multi-woundness...*cries in corner* I think the one thing that makes them ineffective is that their ridiculous points cost, lack of a good armour save and that they don't have PW. Ad with their Low Ld and Iniative, well...as a CC unit its alright but its not a truly dedicated assault unit. I guess this is enough for guard but personally something more reliable to me would be a staple 50 man platoon with a comissar, yeah its not really original but two major factors at in, the sheer amount of atacks you get, High Ld Stubborn in comparison to Ogryns, add in Furious Charge from Straken or Creed and you have a killer unit, if you want to add some more punch give some of your sergeants or the comissar a PF or PW. If you want to go overkill you could go ahead and add Yarrick instead of Comissar. Funny thing is even with a Comissar and a 50 man Platoon its only slightly more than 5 ogryns and its scoring!


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Winterous said:


> Aah yes, very true.
> He does have that ability.
> 
> He'll also make the Ogryn Fearless, which shouldn't be a penalty with their Melee effectiveness.
> ...


First thing I spotted, and no, it's not very effective. It's 400+ points for it, and not worth it. 400points of other specialised assault units wipe the floor. Give them a 4+ Save, or FNP, then yes, they'd be worth it, but compared to Nobz (who also get Power Klaws) are outclassed so badly it's painful.


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## Winterous (Mar 30, 2009)

Vaz said:


> First thing I spotted, and no, it's not very effective. It's 400+ points for it, and not worth it. 400points of other specialised assault units wipe the floor. Give them a 4+ Save, or FNP, then yes, they'd be worth it, but compared to Nobz (who also get Power Klaws) are outclassed so badly it's painful.


Efficient is different from effective 
I prefer Ogryn to Nobs, sure Nobs get all the weapons and stuff, but Ogryn first of all have a great gun, decent BS, and are tougher/more wounds/higher strength.


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## Pauly55 (Sep 16, 2008)

Are you guys kidding? The Conventional Wisdom is dead wrong here. All infantry foot guard IG is one of, if not the best CC army in the game.

Ogryns be damned.
With Straken, Each infantry Platoon is a CC monster. You take 3 squads of 10. Mob them up. Attach a Commissar and give Power weapons to the commissar and each sergeant. Now you have a unit which will never run. They dole out 12 power weapon attacks (more on the charge) plus a crapload of other attacks. Throw in a couple grenade launchers, and you have a squad that will beat anything this side of a dreadnaught in CC with a comparable points cost. Orks have a chance to beat them, but not if the IG charge, or get off a round of shooting. Even then it will be close on account of the initiative. 

Do the math out. Even if a mob of 30 orks (the best unit to kill IG hordes), who wins depends on who charges.

The only way to beat foot guard is burna boys, Destructor warlocks, Sisters Dominions, and similar units with multiple flamers.


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## Winterous (Mar 30, 2009)

Pauly55 said:


> The only way to beat foot guard is burna boys, Destructor warlocks, Sisters Dominions, and similar units with multiple flamers.


Not if you space them decently.
And you failed to mention having Straken on hand 

Shoota Boys would mow them down pretty well, if they rolled decently, and then charged.


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## Minion_1981 (Dec 20, 2007)

Guard CC is going to win most of the time, because before the turn in which close combat even happens, the guard have probably over the past 2 turns or so been shooting the crap out of whatever army is coming and have sufficently weakened their numbers. My horde CC IG army consists of 5 heavy weapon teams all with Lascannons. Thus forcing my opponent to come my way, great, come on over .. I use Creed and Kell to make sure the Lascannons are twin linked all the time. It's brutally effective.


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## Pauly55 (Sep 16, 2008)

Winterous said:


> Not if you space them decently.
> And you failed to mention having Straken on hand
> 
> Shoota Boys would mow them down pretty well, if they rolled decently, and then charged.


True, Good spacing would cut down on flamer death, but thats what you use tankshock for. Bunching them up.

Straken is pretty much a must have. He is what, 40 pts over a normal command squad? He acts as a Hive Tyrant in CC. That would be worth it alone, but Counter Attack, and Furious Charge Aura? No brainer.

And if you give shoota boys a round of shooting, you would have to do the same for the guardsmen, and give the guardsmen their round first, since their range is better. 

Thats the thing, Orks are the best basic counter to IG horde, but even then they need some sort of advantage (charging, shooting first, etc) to actually win.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Shooty Guard outstrips CC Guard in all respects. Combined arms... Nah. It's either or the other. Spacing units out, so they've got the maximum allowed distance, just means I have fewer people in range when I charge in, not to mention it stops them shooting me.

30 Orks may struggle to defeat 3 30 Strong Blob Squads with Straken. But then there are also 5 other Ork squads to counter it with, usually.


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## MaidenManiac (Oct 2, 2008)

Creed will also make horrible things out of combined huge IG units thanks to his "For Cadia Order"(or whatever it is exactly called). 4 huge IG units with commissars, lots of PWs and with furious charge is hell on earth to chew through

Isnt huge piles of dirt cheap models that get access to extremely good special rules fun:read:


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## Pauly55 (Sep 16, 2008)

Vaz, the thing is that with the addition of like 50 points, your unit can do both extremely well. Sure the shooting is respectable, but the point is that you don't have to just shoot or just go melee with a unit. They are excellent at both, and with straken, Guardsmen are better in Melee than most other armies CC specialists for fewer points.


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## Inquisitor Einar (Mar 6, 2009)

The scary part of a horde assault IG army is that it can adapt. Hordes of lasguns firing at the enemy that you don't want to get close to, or when it's not advantageous to assault or move closer, while when it matters, they can bring in 'For CADIA!' and do the CC thing.
Add to that the fact that after you field say, about 200 guardsmen, with a bunch of heavy weapons and Creed, you still have room left for some nice artillery.
So you can soften them up and mess them up, forcing him to you, where you can send in the CC mobs.
( and TBH, 'For Cadia!''s 2nd bonus, fearlessness is a disadvantage. Those mobs have LD9, stubborn and can reroll leadership, so no need for fearlessness in fact it will kill more of your guys.)


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## MaidenManiac (Oct 2, 2008)

Inquisitor Einar said:


> ( and TBH, 'For Cadia!''s 2nd bonus, fearlessness is a disadvantage. Those mobs have LD9, stubborn and can reroll leadership, so no need for fearlessness in fact it will kill more of your guys.)


Only if you lose combat:wink:

The way to go against IG is to nuke their HQ section until dead the first thing you do, to prevent shit like this hitting your fan. That is atleast how I play. Dead commanders tells no orders:laugh:


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

No, CC guard still doesn't work.

You need a way to make them come to you. Great. 5 Lascannon you say? You mean those T3 heavy weapons that get instant-death from any 48" gun in the game? Ok, so I shoot them with MY heavy weapons, and I'm very sure I'll win that competition. You now have lots of guard that cannot hurt vehicles in any way. Oh, and the vast majority of armies apart from Nids these days are mech? Ah.

And you give orders with a commander / have Straken? I guess I'll shoot them with snipers or template weapons or suicide charge them with my mech CC unit and wipe them out on the assault. You now have lots of guard who are terrible in combat.

Oh, and if I charge you with a Wraithlord/Dreadnought/Armoured Sents/T7 Model and you lose the combat, every combat, taking morale checks while you do so. If you have any heavy weapons left, they can't shoot my walkers. If I don't have any walkers then I just drive around flaming/shooting your squads.

If you take enough units to cover these weaknesses, then it becomes a bad standard Guard army instead of a CC one, so you may as well just build a good Guard army instead.

Sorry, it just doesn't work. Fun? Yes. Win even vaguely serious games versus a sane opponent with a decent army list? No.


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## Minion_1981 (Dec 20, 2007)

It all depends on your set up and the terrain and if you have enough units to get in the way of crap when it comes down, it wasn't 5 lascannons its 5 teams, thus 15 lascannons, I have run this in a few tournaments and it works fantastic, against mech it dominates. You just have to use orders correctly, doesn't work every game, but its effective none-the-less. at least for me , The most annoying thing for the opponent from what I'm told is that every guard basicly has a 4+ cover save or better if you use the orders right  hehe. 

oh p.s. as far as the lack of anti tank or anti high str weapons you could just go ahead and put a melta gun in each of the squads too, and a few in the PCS and CCS /shrug, just another option.


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## Pauly55 (Sep 16, 2008)

Minion_1981 said:


> It all depends on your set up and the terrain and if you have enough units to get in the way of crap when it comes down, it wasn't 5 lascannons its 5 teams, thus 15 lascannons, I have run this in a few tournaments and it works fantastic, against mech it dominates. You just have to use orders correctly, doesn't work every game, but its effective none-the-less. at least for me , The most annoying thing for the opponent from what I'm told is that every guard basicly has a 4+ cover save or better if you use the orders right  hehe.
> 
> oh p.s. as far as the lack of anti tank or anti high str weapons you could just go ahead and put a melta gun in each of the squads too, and a few in the PCS and CCS /shrug, just another option.


Correct.
Coverhammer is what makes CC guard almost unbeatable. Its ridiculous easy to get 1/2 of a 30man squad in cover.

And that cover save? its actually 3+. You can go to ground and use the other HQ slot to wake them up with "Get Back in the Fight"

Also it was mentioned that someone would just have their heavy weapons shoot down the guard heavy weapons.....Yeah....Right. Try chewing through 30 models to get to the heavy weapons. Never Ever use Heavy weapon teams, only basic guard with heavy weapons. More ablative wounds, better at taking orders.

I have a friend going to the American East Coast GT with an all infantry CC themed guard list. Ill let you know how it works, but this guy dominates.

IG tanks are generally overpriced in points and infantry are underpriced. Why wouldn't an all infantry army be superior?


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## Grimskul25 (Feb 17, 2009)

"Also it was mentioned that someone would just have their heavy weapons shoot down the guard heavy weapons.....Yeah....Right. Try chewing through 30 models to get to the heavy weapons. Never Ever use Heavy weapon teams, only basic guard with heavy weapons. More ablative wounds, better at taking orders."

Wait, if you're using your own heavy weapons, which in most cases are long-ranged, why would you have to go through a 30 man squad? They could just through shoot them. Plus not all things have to go through the platoons, ever heard of Snikrot? Or outflanking troops and among other things jetbikes and jump infantry that can go OVER the platoons? >


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## Pauly55 (Sep 16, 2008)

I think you are misunderstanding me. The foot infantry guard list does not use heavy weapons teams in the list. You put your heavy weapons in the 30 man squads (made up of 3 basic guard units mobbed together), and then the heavy weapons/Sargent/commissar has ablative wounds.

I have indeed heard of snikrot. He would get trounced by a 30 man guard unit. 
A 30 man guard unit is 150 points base (as you add upgrades, the efficiency of the squad vrs orks decreases, while it increases against most other opponents). That's almost enough points for snikrot and 6 kommandos. Tell me who wins in a fight. 

If you have all foot infantry army, the thing is that you have so many models that you can effectively deny the opponent anywhere for jetbikes/ jumptroops to land, so they can never get at your HQs. Each 30 man squad costs somewhere in the neighborhood of 260 points if you upgrade them properly. Thats a lot of models in a 1500 point game, and a staggering amount in a 2000 point game.


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## Minion_1981 (Dec 20, 2007)

yeah, my most current guard lists consists of 300+ models in a 2000 point list, you can fill the entire board and deny outflank and snikrots thing or the space wolves thing. its brutal


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

If you go to ground and get woken up by an officer, you get no movement phase. Movement is quite useful for a cc army.

I'm not seeing it. By the time you have bought commissars and stuff so that your guys aren't auto failing LD checks, you cost as much as orks. You have an HQ that is the key to your army, but which your opponent can remove in any number of ways. 

The claim that this beats ork hordes just seems utterly bizarre. You are up against guys with far superior guns, more toughness, built in furious charge and 2 attacks in cc. They, unlike you, can waaagh to break through the rapid fire zone. They get to shoot first and charge first.

150 IG simply cannot beat 50 space wolves or 40 khorne berzerkers in cc either. Against plague marines they may as well not show up. It will take a couple of rounds for everything to die but not all that many.

This all sounds fine in theory but works far less well in practice. If you cover the board in models you lose any possibility of tactics. Then you find that some killa kan has charged one of your squads, and it's out of the game. Your opponent drops off a couple of units of grey hunters, bolters the hell out of your HQ and dares any guardsman to charge them. A bloodthirster steps onto the field, with a dozen blood crushers behind him. You respond with... what?

A guard cc army has to do one of two things: take on a serious cc enemy or walk across the table towards other IG or Tau. I don't believe it can do either of those things.


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## Grimskul25 (Feb 17, 2009)

Pauly55 said:


> I think you are misunderstanding me. The foot infantry guard list does not use heavy weapons teams in the list. You put your heavy weapons in the 30 man squads (made up of 3 basic guard units mobbed together), and then the heavy weapons/Sargent/commissar has ablative wounds.
> 
> I have indeed heard of snikrot. He would get trounced by a 30 man guard unit.
> A 30 man guard unit is 150 points base (as you add upgrades, the efficiency of the squad vrs orks decreases, while it increases against most other opponents). That's almost enough points for snikrot and 6 kommandos. Tell me who wins in a fight.
> ...


Oh okay yeah i got kind of mixed up with what you were trying to say but you're comparisons make little sense, since when is someone going to only going to have 6 kommandos? Yes in terms of points they might be equivalents but in game you almost never always face off units with other units with the same points costs. Also Snikrot is ON the table edge meaning around Turn 3 or Turn 2 if you're lucky you're infantry would have already moved across the board, your CCS likely in tow at the back giving off orders. Now am I going to move across the board just to randomly attack a 30 man squad or your precious CCS? Plus to charge a 30 Man squad actually with 15 Kommandos and Snikrot isn't that hard, with Snikrot having 6 re-rollable S6 attacks and the Kommandos having 4 attacks each at S4 will tear up a lot of guardsmen and actually the Kommandos might win considering we haven't even factored in any burnas either. Even if you end up filling up the table so much that Snikrot can't get in there are so many things that can demolish this army, sure elite armies like SM might struggle to deal with so many bodies but what if facing artillery all the way in the back behind cover pummeling your lines with ordance, lascannons isn`t gonna save you there due to your guardsmen`s average BS and general unreliability of lascannons for tank hunting.


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## Col. Schafer (Apr 15, 2008)

Hear me non-beleivers! I have played guard CC and *won*!!!

I've said it before, and will say it again, 50 men, mobed, priest evicerator. 50 conscripts, preist evicerator. Two of these and a CCS for HQ.

Kil them with numbers.

AT? I need two 4s to dammage av 14 in assault, and I get three attacks on the charge. Oh, and I have a 50 wound meatsheild, all of witch have grenades (lovely addition that makes transports/ light vihicles a non-isue for assault guard) 

I would note, this model, with unequiped comand squads comes in about 1200 points. 

How many orks is that I ask you? How many times will this army outnumber an MEQ army? In CC, you have that priest makeing multiple S6 attacks each turn, that ignore armor. 

The thing about this is, in anihalation, if your comand squads are well hiden (like, behind your infantry squads) thats only 4 units, with over 50 wounds each (and your priests have a 4+ IV save).

In objectives, all you have to do is have the conscripts hold your side while your infantry squads charge, a two pronged attack will do magic.

---

To be fair though, this has been tested only once. In vassal. Against 'chrons.


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## Winterous (Mar 30, 2009)

Col. Schafer said:


> _*Against 'chrons.*_


Underlined Italic Bold.
That's why it worked


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## Sqwerlpunk (Mar 1, 2009)

Necrons = the fail CC.

They pretty much weep in joy when they play Tau.


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## Winterous (Mar 30, 2009)

Sqwerlpunk said:


> Necrons = the fail CC.
> 
> They pretty much weep in joy when they play Tau.


They're just like "YAY THERE'S NOTHING TO BASH ME!"


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## Pauly55 (Sep 16, 2008)

Someguy said:


> If you go to ground and get woken up by an officer, you get no movement phase. Movement is quite useful for a cc army.
> 
> I'm not seeing it. By the time you have bought commissars and stuff so that your guys aren't auto failing LD checks, you cost as much as orks. You have an HQ that is the key to your army, but which your opponent can remove in any number of ways.
> 
> ...


I should start by saying that Foot Guard isn't a CC army in the traditional sense of the word. The key is that foot guard outfitted with Power Weapons and Straken are, point for point, better at shooting and melee than comparable troops. They will kill gray hunters easily point for point. Remember, 12 power weapon attacks. Berserkers are closer, but if the guard get one round of shooting, or charge, its game over for the berserkers. 

You make a good point, Guardsmen upgraded to be feasible for CC do cost as much as Orks. However, I don't know why you would think Orks would get to shoot first in a straight fight. 24" Range vs 18". The chance of a kill per shot of Shoota boys vs guardsmen is roughly the same, but once you throw in orders, the guardsmen get the advantage.

Dreadnaughts are pretty much the one thing that will cause foot guard a headache. You are forced to target these first with heavy weapons. But even if the dreads hit your lines, its not game over. Both units will be tarpitted the entire game.

Bloodthirsters are a joke. He would need about 50 attacks to bring them all down. That will take, what, 10 rounds of combat? 5 turns? 30 guard with power weapons will bring him down eventually. 

I know this seems strange, and I didn't believe it would work out either, but I've played a few games against it. When you run the numbers and probabilities to find out the efficiency of foot guard, its pretty amazing.


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## maniclurker (Jun 12, 2008)

This is actually something that I'm very, very seriously thinking about doing. I'm loosely basing my IG army on the Fremen from Dune and various middle eastern armies. My army consists of mortars and rockets for support (I even had a bunch of 40k scale RPG-7s custom made), and I'm going heavy on the melee/suicide bomber (demo squads) tactics that are seen in the Dune novel.


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## Winterous (Mar 30, 2009)

maniclurker said:


> This is actually something that I'm very, very seriously thinking about doing. I'm loosely basing my IG army on the Fremen from Dune and various middle eastern armies. My army consists of mortars and rockets for support (I even had a bunch of 40k scale RPG-7s custom made), and I'm going heavy on the melee/suicide bomber (demo squads) tactics that are seen in the Dune novel.


Demo squads as in Special Weapon squads with 3 demo packs?
Chuck them in a Valkyrie 
I love that idea, it's so ridiculous.


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## Inquisitor Einar (Mar 6, 2009)

Manic, fluff wise, take a look at the 'talarn' IG regiments.. they're the eastern guys.. their models are pretty nifty too. And they have THE platoon commander you will want.. Captain Al'Rahem, El-outlfanko. His order 'like the wind' is golden for you. Move 1d6 Inch AND shoot with my assault weapons before I charge in alike a maniac? YES PLEASE!


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## Winterous (Mar 30, 2009)

Inquisitor Einar said:


> Manic, fluff wise, take a look at the 'talarn' IG regiments.. they're the eastern guys.. their models are pretty nifty too. And they have THE platoon commander you will want.. Captain Al'Rahem, El-outlfanko. His order 'like the wind' is golden for you. Move 1d6 Inch AND shoot with my assault weapons before I charge in alike a maniac? YES PLEASE!


Oh WOW!
I always thought it was shoot then RUN, but it's just shoot then MOVE, so you can charge!


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

I think the sensible thing is to make a proper shooty guard army but give power weapons to sergeants and one commissar per platoon, maybe with Creed or Straken as your HQ. That way you have the option of grouping up your infantry squads and charging stuff, and it won't like that.

The key thing is to not forget to buy guns. IG still have an easier time shooting than in cc. If you do get to charge some marines then that's ok, but if marines or orks charge you then it's not ok at all.


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## Winterous (Mar 30, 2009)

Someguy said:


> I think the sensible thing is to make a proper shooty guard army but give power weapons to sergeants and one commissar per platoon, maybe with Creed or Straken as your HQ. That way you have the option of grouping up your infantry squads and charging stuff, and it won't like that.
> 
> The key thing is to not forget to buy guns. IG still have an easier time shooting than in cc. If you do get to charge some marines then that's ok, but if marines or orks charge you then it's not ok at all.


That's a good point actually.
To have a valid CC IG army, you don't need to invest a particularly large amount of points TO CC.
Your basic troops are your weapon there, and they're still pretty good at shooting!


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## Pauly55 (Sep 16, 2008)

That is exactly what I have been trying to say. Thanks for summing it up for me Someguy. 

If you go for straight CC then you aren't playing to your strengths, but if you buy the upgrades to do CC and normal shooting, then you have a very powerful core of troops. 

The CC guard army works very differently than any other melee based list. It can outshoot Berserkers and Orks, and can give anything a run for its money in assault.

(And grouping your inf. Squads is usually a good idea anyway.)


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## titan11 (Jul 24, 2009)

You could try this idea. you can say that MOST of your army is inducted IG for a demon hunter army and bring only 20 grey knights with nemesis weapons and ONE HQ choice from their list and use mostly imperial guard units. The codex does say you can do this and so you coveniently get your cc units and very good choices for shooting at the same time.


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

Personally I don't feel that a shooty guard army with a bit of cc ability is a "CC-based" guard army. It's a shooty guard army with some power swords.

That isn't exactly a bad thing. It may even be a competitive list. I'm pretty sure the OP was talking about guys who actually ran up to the enemy and bayonnetted him to death, as their primary tactic. I don't see that working reliably.

Obviously, beating Necrons doesn't count. Probably the only army that couldn't reliably phase necrons out would be other necrons. Guard would out-shoot and out-fight them, because everyone does.


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## Winterous (Mar 30, 2009)

Someguy said:


> Obviously, beating Necrons doesn't count.


Nor does beating Tau really, they're the worst at melee.


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Winterous said:


> Nor does beating Tau really, they're the worst at melee.


Sure, but the Tau can at do something effective during a minimum of 1 phase per turn.  The Necrons aren't always so lucky, depending upon the person playing them and the army itself.


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

The thing is to win a game through CC, not just to have the potential to win a single abstract fight. We know what would happen if 30 IG (set up for combat) charge 12 fire warriors. Can they run across a battlefield and reach those fire warriors though, and what do they do about it if they are in a devilfish. What do they do about a unit of 20 kroot in a forest?

My tau wouldn't be really troubled by IG running at them, given their mobility, firepower and kroot. . I suppose they wouldn't care too much about power weapons on the other side of the board either really, so it's probably not worth spending too much on those.


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## shaantitus (Aug 3, 2009)

The creation of a dedicated cc army from ig just doesn't make sense. It's like trying to build an F1 racecar based on a VW beetle. IG is a shooty army. Yes there are times that cc is important to a shooty army. However the army remains intrinsically a shooty army. All of the suggestions made above should be used in the situations when cc is necessary. However the general attitude of the ig is to shoot the shit out of everything you can and cc the remains if you have to.


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## MaidenManiac (Oct 2, 2008)

shaantitus said:


> The creation of a dedicated cc army from ig just doesn't make sense. It's like trying to build an F1 racecar based on a VW beetle. IG is a shooty army. Yes there are times that cc is important to a shooty army. However the army remains intrinsically a shooty army. All of the suggestions made above should be used in the situations when cc is necessary. However the general attitude of the ig is to shoot the shit out of everything you can and cc the remains if you have to.


The point some folks are trying to make here is that an army with access to Furious Charge and quite a lot of hidden PWs(commisar and sgts in a 30+ man strong IG unit) is an oversight that is a bit too cheap and good for what it can produce. 

This is like the Dakkafex, that obviously shouldnt be allowed as Elite but was missed out in the playtesting and thus will haunt the game till next codex.

As Someguy accurately pointed out in a post above it doesnt cost you very much to achieve this, and doesnt affect your army construction to any greater extent. As you said IG are a shooty army with bad CC potential(Ogryns not counted), this squad however throws that reality out the window. This unit is:
Scoring.
Not extremely expensive.
Stubborn.
Filled with PWs.
Most likely at least 31 models strong, so it takes forever to mow down.
Packing 3+3 Heavy and Special weapons.
An ideal Order-recieving unit since so many models gains the bonus from the order at once.

As I wrote somewhere earlier in this thread. Cut of the head, without it the body wont work. Aka kill the damn Company Command Squad ASAP:russianroulette:


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## Inquisitor Einar (Mar 6, 2009)

Exactly, while not as good, I have a setup like this in my SoB army, an IG squad meant to assault stuff. So far, it has worked quite well. The problem people have with such a squad is that it has 4 hidden PWs and a hidden Eviscerator in it, giving it quite a bit of kick in CC. Sure, you'll lose say 10 guardsmen from the initial attacks by somebody, I have plenty more where those came from, this squad will tear a hole in your whatever it is, and bog it down at the same time, and mine doesn't even have the furious charge bit.

Here is my setup:
Imperial guard platoon:
Command Squad
Al'rahem
Vox
meltagun x 3

Special Weapon Squad
Plasma gun x 3

Infantry squad
PW on the sarge
Commissar + PW
VoX
Flamer

Infantry squad
PW on the sarge
Flamer

Infantry squad
PW on the sarge
Flamer

Witchhunter Priest
Eviscerator

I combine the three squads and attach the priest to it.
Al'rahem makes the whole platoon outflank, meaning I will suddenly appear on your side.
3 melta guns, 3 plasma guns => plenty of Anti-tank, especially with the 'Bring it Down' order, that Al'rahem can give.
Also, Al'rahem's special order is very nasty too. Like the wind. Shoot, and then move D6 Inch. So you can fire those three flamers at something, and advance 1d6 inch, bringing you into proper range to assault, giving you an effective assault range of 13-18"" from a flank, just like Genestealers etc.

When this squad assaults, they also have that wonderfull reroll to-hit from the priest's righteous zeal, ensuring that those 16 powerweapon attacks and 3 eviscerator attacks hit lots.

Now, while this unit probably won't 'win' combat, it's LD9 Stubborn Reroll leadership will ensure that they stay put, and keep the enemy occupado. And it has too many models for an enemy unit to kill, unless they are of similar size. A squad of say 10 deathguard will simply get eaten by this, due to sheer volume and attricion.

10 DG => 21 attacks => 14 hits => 9 wounds => 6 dead guardsmen( maybe a little more due to powerweapon or something like that )

16 PW attacks => 8 hits + 4 hits = 12 hits => 2 dead deathguard.
3 eviscerator attacks => 2 hits => 1 dead deathguard
27 guardsmen => 54 attacks => 27 hits + 13 hits = 40 hits => 7 wounds => 2 failed armour saves => 1 dead deathguard.

So you kill 6-7 guardsmen, and I kill 4-5 deathguard, You win combat, but I'm not running, and in your turn, I kill a couple more, while half of your hitting power is gone, most of mine is still kicking, the end result of this fight is inevitable.

The idea behind a IG CC army is exactly the same as this, but on a larger scale, and with nasty stuff like Furious Charge added in.


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## Vrykolas2k (Jun 10, 2008)

A few have been tried against me...

Against my Eldar, they sort of got spammed... quickly. No, I'm not vehicle heavy, but I do run Harlequins, Storm Guardians, Striking Scorpions, and Howling Banshees.

Against my Khorne army, the player threw in the towel on turn 2.

Against my Dark Eldar... my army ran around and bled the player white.

The IG beat my Necrons in close combat...


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## Atsuno11 (Jul 21, 2008)

As I do not own the new IG codex, I am unable to comment in any specifically helpful way except as moral support. 

If the Tau can do it, and I have seen the CC tau, then so can the IG. 
^They killed Kharn in CC. Really good rolls but still, 'nuff said. 

I wish you luck!


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## Overfeind (Apr 4, 2009)

it can work very well but there are many weaknesses and if your opponent knows these then your stuffed.
i use a cc ig army and it only lost 2 times out of 7 games it a really fun army to run.
lots of cinematic moments (had a player run his ork nobs mob away from my ig but my ig court up and puled them apart in one round of combat it was the ork players first game using the orks tho)


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