# Imperial guard tactics debate



## Sir jahams

Ok well thought I'd make a thread in the tactics section about the glorious hammer of the imperium, the imperial guard!

I've been looking round the tacticas looking for the definitive thread for IG tactics and well the only thing I could find which incorporated tactics for everything and anything was http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=34535 

So basically what im wondering is where are all the vocal guard generals here on heresy? And if so what Im thinking is that we need a thread where we can all argue to our hearts content over our shiny new toys and debate the finer points of guard generalship.

So in conclusion does anyone here agree with my grand IG thread idea? and if so where would be the best place to start?


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## Someguy

This is a good place for your thread. Welcome to the site and good luck with the discussion.

So far there hasn't been all that much about IG. Lots of people are discussing the impact they will have on other armies, but not too many have real experience of the new codex in play just yet. If there's going to be a flood of new players, they don't yet have their armies ready. Any real experience you can provide would be very welcome.


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## lawrence96

well sir jahams as someguy said, this is the place to start a tactics discussion and stuff!
and yeah i like the idea, as for how to approach it depends on how 'hands on' you want to be there are 2 ways for you to approach it in my view.

#1. Sit back and let the topic take care of its self, chances are it'll probably die in a few weeks with this as people will just argue the same points over and over (not neccesarily a bad thing but it becomes very difficult to move on)

#2. Set a listing of topics and move on weekly, for example Week1: Command squads how to equip, Week2: Commisars ect. nice structured but difficult to get all the opinions in on time and people ma end up de-railing it by saying their opinions on the topic in week4 when your on week14.

but yeah nice idea, i hope you can translate it into a good thread.


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## TheKingElessar

This post is as much to add this to my subscribed threads as anything...but I'll be happy to participate in the thread...in fact, just try and stop me! No, don't, you might succeed....:laugh: Personally, I think Infantry suck. There, I said it. The ball is rolling.
I think that the only armies that can do non-Mechanised lists well are Tau - because they don't really do much moving, Tyranids - because they have no option, Necrons - again, no option and Orks - they have a Green Tide.

IG gunlines may be superior to Tau ones, but the guys have a T3 and 5+ save...they can even kill each other! Bolters/Shootas whatever rip through Guard too easily for them to walk, and pieplates landing on their heads is a death sentence for entire units at once.

Alpha Strike lists (ie, AirCav) and VetMech are the way to roll with the New Guard...let's see who argues with me first!


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## Blackhiker

This does sound like a fun idea. And I personally like having my infantry in droves. 

But i would suggest setting this up as the week 1 topic, week 2 topic, and so on.


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## Sqwerlpunk

IG is going to have an interesting future in 5th edition.

Horde IG could possibly work. People need to find a way to field all of them without missing LoS/giving 4+ to everything in their way, and finding enough room for them all. Jury is still out on that one, without being assaulty I feel it may be impossible to properly field a Horde list without finding a way to spirit some of them away (Al'Outflank or the Tactical Genius come to mind here).

AlphaStrike/AirCav will always be an interesting list. I can see it entering Meta-game levels of competitive-ness, at which point players will realize just how fragile AV12 is, even if you can destroy 1/3 of their army in one turn of fire when you come on the board (still a fun way to play).

VetMech will be interesting. I see it as possibly one of the most competitive armies available, if people can nail down the necessary Lemans/Artillery and leave the rest at home. Tons of competition for those Heavy slots, and most players don't know where to start and what to take, so that will be interesting in the future. I'm still sorta in a toss-up between the Banewolf and Hellhound (although I'm leaning towards the ever-useful Hellhound).


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## Inquisitor Einar

Personally, I can see all options of the IG be viable. It's just a matter of proper deployment and use of the various elements of an army.
A horde IG is imho definitely something to be afraid of, pie plates or no, you can field a LOT of infantry and stil have room for some good artillery support.
Using proper command squads in concert will make these hordes quite deadly. Think of 30 fearless guardsmen furiously assaulting your line, and then multoply this by 4.
FRFSRF will make those squads also quite dangerous on the longer ranger, unleashing tremendous amounts of gunfire, while protected by that conscript meat shield to keep them alive a little longer.
Add so something like this a solid core of some long range artillery firing indirectly at your enemy, or some Leman Russes spitting out death, and you have a deadly combination.
The fact you can change your tactics at deployment depending on what mission you play also plays a role in this. Combining squads to lower your KPs, or disperse them to be able to move around more and capture/contest objectives.
The small elite force of veterans/valkyries or a full mechanised list might also be quite scary, though I haven't run many numbers with those.
In all, the main power of any IG army is it's versatility. There are a huge number of options to what you can bring to the table, and surprise your opponent.


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## officer kerky

its pretty hard to find a propper good tactica for guard as of right now becuse people are still putting there little twists to find an unstoppable army.

personally i would say go with a tonne of guys with some artillary or hydras to stop those pesky skimmers


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## TheKingElessar

Sqwerlpunk said:


> VetMech will be interesting. I see it as possibly one of the most competitive armies available, if people can nail down the necessary Lemans/Artillery and leave the rest at home. Tons of competition for those Heavy slots, and most players don't know where to start and what to take, so that will be interesting in the future. I'm still sorta in a toss-up between the Banewolf and Hellhound (although I'm leaning towards the ever-useful Hellhound).


Bah! You've seen my list, it's perfected already! 

Mostly you're right, although I'm pretty confident mine is a very good optimisation of the list...


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## Stella Cadente

TheKingElessar said:


> IG gunlines may be superior to Tau ones, but the guys have a T3 and 5+ save...


yeah but in a game turn by RAW they can fire there lasguns 4 to 6 times depending on range :biggrin:, so there might not be anything left to affect there low Toughness and save


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## TheKingElessar

...Its only good if you can table the opponent, or if you have enough troops to take the objectives at the same time - which reduces the firepower. Gunlines, in general, are inferior in 5th.


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## Vaz

How do they get to fire their lasguns 4-6 times?


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## TheKingElessar

By using FRFSRF in the opponent's turn...it's a joke...


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## Vaz

By RAW you can't do it anyway, regardless of it being a joke =D


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## TheKingElessar

Yeah, I know...anyway, Guard tactics - use them! 

I like Hydras.


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## Stella Cadente

Vaz said:


> By RAW you can't do it anyway, regardless of it being a joke =D


yeah you can, read page 9 of the main rulebook VERY carefully about turns, then read the orders rules VERY VERY carefully, combine the two until you make an "jesuschristraptorbabyinahandbasket" sort of sound

sod it I'll show yah its easier

from the main rulebook page 9 Game turns and player turns:
"in a complete game turn, both players get a player turn"
"one game turn will comprise 2 player turns"
"whenever a rule uses the word 'turn', both in this rulebook and in the codexes, it means player turn, otherwise it will clearly state 'game turn'"

From the IG rulebook page 29, orders:
"a number of models in the imperial guard army have the ability to issue one or more orders each turn"

it says turn meaning player turn, not game turn


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## Inquisitor Einar

Hydras are interesting, however, I don't see them as worth a heavy support choice for being 2 twinlinked autocannons. Even with the nifty tracking thingie they have.

My own eyes fell upon the gem that is a manticore. 24" indirect fire is pretty close, and with an ordnance barrage of D3, those pie plates become very interesting to drop on your opponent.
It's suposed downside is that it can fire only 4 times, but that means you can't fire it in the end part of the game, where it's either destroyed, has done it's job, or the enemy is too close by anyway to matter, so I don't see this as being a problem.


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## TheKingElessar

I agree, the Manticore is certainly one of the best options in the Codex - better than a Russ, I'd say.


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## Inquisitor Einar

I think a combo of russes and a manticore is better. Manticores are much more fragile than a russ, and their 24" minimum range can also be troublesome when drop pods come down around you ( and it survives whatever comes out of them, since as I said, it's a rather fragile weapon ).
Also combining them, since people aren't very experienced yet, they'll see the russ and go.. ahh a russ, my target has been found, and they easily underestimate the power of the manticore.


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## TheKingElessar

A reasonable point. How about 2 Manticores, and a Bassy?


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## Inquisitor Einar

I was thinking 1 manticore, a demolisher with heavy bolters and a vanquisher with lascannon or an executioner with plasma sponsons.

Then a pair of devildogs or banewolfs, a bunch of chimera's with multi laser and heavy bolter or flamer.

and about 150-180 troops in all, divided among some mobs of 30 guardsmen with flamers, some special weapon teams with melta's or plasma guns, sniper and/or lascannon platoon HQ's maybe one with several special weapon squads upgraded with Al' Rahem and Creed in the company HQ, and/or Straken with Kell.
Possibly a psyker battle squad one of the chimera's
and finally marbo as icing on the cake.


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## TheKingElessar

What's that, 2k?


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## Inquisitor Einar

That should be under 2k points, a less if you skip some of the icing I put on the cake. You should easily be able to field this as 1500 points if you drop the psykers and the executioner.
150 guardsment with voxes and special/heavy weapon teams is around 1000 points, manticore, marbo, creed and the demolisher fill out the last 500 points.
( can't quite remember creed's points and don't have a codex here at work, but he's under 100 points I beleive. )


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## Makoto

Inquisitor Einar said:


> Hydras are interesting, however, I don't see them as worth a heavy support choice for being 2 twinlinked autocannons. Even with the nifty tracking thingie they have.


Dark Eldar and Eldar skimmers? Or Piranha rush. Makes a nice, short work of the pesky extra saves and forces all sort of DE assault squads to leg the whole table. And does not block the Banewolf/Hellhounds from FA choices.


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## Master_Caleb

my personal choice for 1500 list looks something like
1 lord commissar w/powerfist
3 valks w/multi rocket launchers, heavy bolters, and vet with melta guns, melta bombs, and a demo charge. 
1 vet squad with 2 flamers, heavy flamers, and chimera with turret heavy flamer. 
3 LRBT's

Ends up being 1500 on the mark, and has plenty variety to take on different lists. I've noticed it has slight trouble with those list that have a bunch of light armor vehicles, with good units inside. Otherwise sacrificing a vet squad to termies, to kill the LR is sweet. Plus demo charges are fun. ^_^

Thanks,

~MC


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## Sqwerlpunk

Hydras are going to be a good unit. Able to purchase 3 for 225pts? That's 12 twin-linked autocannon shots, at 72", that ignore turbo-boost. For less than a Land Raider.

Manticores will be a great unit. Don't forget you can fire directly (I think only the Colossus can't) and ignore the minimum range. For good lols use 2 with a Griffon, for supa accurate multiple missile strike!

Better than the Deathstrike any day.


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## Sir jahams

Well im glad that we've got the ball rolling and I wasnt met with tumbleweed and sir jahams talking to himself and rocking back and forth lol

I've decided I'll be the one to challenge TKE views on gunline guard. Personally I think it could work and work well. The main problem is making sure you have the firepower to ensure whatever you touch actually dies! 

To that end I feel your gonna need a fair few guard squads with HW working together to actually do the damage as well as relying on your russes to bring the pain. Artillery would be good if you can hide giving you a pie plate you can drop anywhere if they try to sneak up on you. 

Counter attack units are also a must whether SWS armed to teeth, PCS also armed to the teeth, RR in reserve or a banewolf. All these should help out for that wave of enemies who make it to you.

Oh and I forgot if needed all vet gunline is a possiblity, gives you good BS, HW and specials where needed and camo cloaks can help out with the survivability.

That said the most important aspect of the gunline guard will be the speed bumps. By this I mean cheap squads or distractory units to keep the enemy at an arms length.

After all this though I'll be honest and say that I dont believe that the full gunline army really is viable in 5th. With the majority being objective games and gunline being pretty static then all your opponent needs to do is have something fast survive and thats you screwed!

So is all mech the way to go?

And have to say I did like the idea of going through the codex a section at a time and debating each but problem being that it could easily get stuck right from the start if people disagree! 

Personally I'd like the thread to be the come to place for new guard generals to ask the vets as well as letting people air their views on the new tricks we pick up as we get the hang of the codex.


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## CoruptBunny

I still cant seem to get my head round why people take MMP ! !

They seem like a useless waste of time to me, i would much rather pay less points and have two battle cannon shots instead. Anyhow, i run my list with three russ variants, an executioner with plasma cannon sponsons, a vanquisher with multimelta sponsons, and a vanilla russ with heavy bolters, and i seem to be doing really well, especially with my valkryie (which, once it has deposited its cargo of Hellstrike missles and stormtroopers) becomes an AA van for my techpriest. Its really useful, as the turn immediatly after the tank is damaged, i can be there, with 24 movement, and fix it in the shooting phase.


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## Stella Cadente

CoruptBunny said:


> I still cant seem to get my head round why people take MMP ! !
> 
> They seem like a useless waste of time to me, i would much rather pay less points and have two battle cannon shots instead


*tries to figure out what an MMP is that costs as much as 2 battle cannon wielding russ tanks..............fails*
what the heck is an MMP?

this is why I hate most acronyms, if your someone who actually speaks English your screwed


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## Sir jahams

I'm with stella, I've gone through the codex and well what is MMP? My first guess is multi melta something.

And bunny how do you find the melta sponsons on the vanq, do you get to use them often and do you find that it does the job of anti tank better than the cannon on its own? Same with executioner do you find the sponsons worth the huge cost?


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## Sqwerlpunk

CoruptBunny said:


> I still cant seem to get my head round why people take MMP ! !
> 
> They seem like a useless waste of time to me, i would much rather pay less points and have two battle cannon shots instead. Anyhow, i run my list with three russ variants, an executioner with plasma cannon sponsons, a vanquisher with multimelta sponsons, and a vanilla russ with heavy bolters, and i seem to be doing really well, especially with my valkryie (which, once it has deposited its cargo of Hellstrike missles and stormtroopers) becomes an AA van for my techpriest. Its really useful, as the turn immediatly after the tank is damaged, i can be there, with 24 movement, and fix it in the shooting phase.


He's speaking of the Valkyrie, which comes with 2 Hellstrike Missile exchange-able for 2 Multiple _Rocket_ Pods.

Hellstrike - S8 AP3 Ordnance 1
MRP - S4 AP5 Heavy 1 Large Blast

He's made a common error of connecting "Ordnance" with "Blast" which the rules don't say anything about (only that Ordnance if Blast is always Large Blast), and thinks he has 2 Leman Russ shots, when he really has 2 slightly improved Hunter-Killer shots that don't let anything else fire, whilst the Multiple Rocket Pods provide extreme anti-horde of the Defensive Weapon sort, rendering them far superior in my mind (I'm planning on just writing a Tactica with another member to put all my thoughts on AirCav and Valkyrie/Vendetta on paper... er, pixels?).



Sir jahams said:


> And bunny how do you find the melta sponsons on the vanq, do you get to use them often and do you find that it does the job of anti tank better than the cannon on its own? Same with executioner do you find the sponsons worth the huge cost?


I rarely find sponsons useful for Lemans, you have to stay still to fire them (read the rules really carefully if you don't believe me, another common error is made there), and staying still with Lemans is a dangerous thing, as you are putting 150+ pts up for grabs to a single Power Fist/Meltabomb attack, AV10/11 rear is dangerous, you should always be moving at Combat to minimize any surprises.


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## lawrence96

Sqwerlpunk said:


> I rarely find sponsons useful for Lemans, you have to stay still to fire them (read the rules really carefully if you don't believe me, another common error is made there), and staying still with Lemans is a dangerous thing, as you are putting 150+ pts up for grabs to a single Power Fist/Meltabomb attack, AV10/11 rear is dangerous, you should always be moving at Combat to minimize any surprises.


Next time could you please say what the common misconception is instead of saying "read it carfully, it's there"? i personally would find that a little more helpful. 

And yeah as Sqwerplunk said, the multiple rocket pods are better then the missiles, The missiles are one shot using BS3 and mean that you can only fire one at any time. The rocket pods however are defensive, large blast and compliment the multi-laser nicely, with the number of wounds it can cause even SMs will be wary of it.


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## TheKingElessar

It's strange that GW created a one-shot weapon even worse than an IG H-K...then created yet another in the Deathstrike! It should never have been ported over form Epic, cool as it is. At the very most, it should have been an Apoc vehicle.

As for the misconception, if anyone doesn't already know, the lumbering Behemoth Rule only allows the turret weapon to be added to the normal complement. NOT to all, period.


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## lawrence96

TheKingElessar said:


> It's strange that GW created a one-shot weapon even worse than an IG H-K...then created yet another in the Deathstrike! It should never have been ported over form Epic, cool as it is. At the very most, it should have been an Apoc vehicle.


very true, the missile might of been better if it was 2 racks of say 3 with a re-roll, 6 shots for the entire game, bout standard really. And yeah the deathstrike does belong in apoc where the games are big enough to support it.


TheKingElessar said:


> As for the misconception, if anyone doesn't already know, the lumbering Behemoth Rule only allows the turret weapon to be added to the normal complement. NOT to all, period.


People misunderstand that rule? WTF? LOLOMGA&E!


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## TehChadler

Well technically the Hellstrike is a little better then a Hunter Killer missle, due to since it is ordnance, it gets 2d6 pick the highests for Armor Penitration, and as you said a 1 shot missle that uses BS3 is pretty much garbage. I never leave home without my MRP's in my air cav army.


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## TheKingElessar

Yes...but at least the H-K has unlimited range going for it...that, and the fact it can be modelled anywhere, to avoid cover saves being taken against it. Perhaps 'better against Monoliths and Eldar' is a fairer comment.


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## Sqwerlpunk

It actually is the same and more expensive against Monoliths and Eldar. 1d6 no matter what means you get no benefit for Ordnance penetration.



lawrence96 said:


> Next time could you please say what the common misconception is instead of saying "read it carfully, it's there"? i personally would find that a little more helpful.


Sorry, if you need it.

A lot of people interpret Lumbering Behemoth (somehow) as making you ignore shooting requirements and being able to fire everything at Combat Speed, which simply isn't true.


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## TheKingElessar

Typo...I meant better _except_ against Monoliths and Eldar...:blush:


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## Inquisitor Einar

MRPs on a valk are a wonderfull weapon. Making it a deadly horde killer. If you want an AA valk, go for a vendetta with 3 twin-linked lascannons. Though you'll lose some of the speed of a valk if you want to use them optimally, the fact it can outflank means you'll be hitting side or rear armour with it, which is a lot more painfull than those heavy weapon squads shooting at the front.


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## Sqwerlpunk

My airborne list doesn't have my 2 Vendettas carrying anything, except in emergency situations. Prefer the 4 Valkyries for that :wink:


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## Makoto

Sqwerlpunk said:


> I rarely find sponsons useful for Lemans


Then think of them as cheap ablative hitpoints - sooner or later (usually much sooner) the vehicle will get immobilised and start losing weapons - and then the sponsons will quite often mean opponent getting 50%VPs for immobile vehicle rather than 100% for vehicle destroyed.


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## Sqwerlpunk

Makoto said:


> Then think of them as cheap ablative hitpoints - sooner or later (usually much sooner) the vehicle will get immobilised and start losing weapons - and then the sponsons will quite often mean opponent getting 50%VPs for immobile vehicle rather than 100% for vehicle destroyed.


Rather 4th edition in that thinking, I rarely use VPs in any situation, certainly not enough to warrant dropping 20+ points per tank.


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## lawrence96

No apologies needed or requested Sqerplunk, just a little suggestion to make it easier for people to learn:grin:

And as for sponsons i would consider them if they compliment the existing turret weapon for example a punisher with hull H.Bolter and sponson Heavy Bolters would put out a lot of anti-infantry firepower. Place behind cover overlooking a good fire lane and cut off a good chunk of the battlefield. An Executioner with plasma sponsons for anti-teminator (Arnie won;t be back after being hit by these!) or anti anything other then medium/heavy vehicles.

A new topic for thought (though it doesn't need to replace the current one, only add more variety for the mass-debate): Ogryns, worth it? i was thinking of getting some but they are little expensive for me (both £££s and pts wise) but obviously don't want shell out for stuff i won't use


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## TheKingElessar

Ogryns can be (fairly) cheaply converted from WFB Ogres, with modified Ork Shootas - the hands fit perfectly. It also looks a lot better than the previous models - undecided about newer ones...


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## Makoto

New Ogryn models are neat, that's granted. Neat enough I got me two for the Necromunda games. But efficiency-wise...
With their T, S and A they'll do quite well in melee - provided they live long enough to get into one. And even with the new wound allocation, it's a hard task - unless they're fit into a Chimera, which in turn limits their squad size.
Plus they're horribly expensive, each model worth almost as much as bare infantry squad.

So imo Ogryns are an interesting choice for space hulk or pure jungle tables, but not for a regular game.

*Sqwerlpunk* - tbh noone around bothers with KPs, that's why am thinking in terms of VPs. The idea is still valid though - the 1 KP difference between "immobilised" and "destroyed" stands. Also, after the turret weapon is shot off with sponsons You get better firepower than with bare hull anyway.


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## Minigiant

Well this tactica has taken off but i see everyone has talked about combined tanks Russ+ Hellhound etc

but knowone has talked about combined infantry arms

Do you take Special weapon and/or Heavy weapon teams

If you do, do you include chimeras and go partial mech leaving the big guns at base

i believe the guard you need to take a combined arms list not all mech as it restricts numbers but gunline your not mobile enough to compete for the objectives or react to threats quickly

As for Valkyries/ Vendettas do you use outflank? if you do do you take an astropath 

What do your Valkyries carry 

Veterans elite units that can dish out the punishment
or an infantry platoon so all of the can come on together?


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## Someguy

Further on the sponsons issue, I do think plasma sponsons are good. A unit hit by a battlecannon and two plasma cannons is in serious trouble. A single battlecannon might scatter off, and is ineffective against 2+ saves but add the plasma and anything from a terminator squad to an ork mob will take major damage.


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## Alexious

Currently I have no classical heavy tanks in my force at all, relying on infantry with Chimera support. (As much for a theme as a play style). But I will take up your challenge and speak about Infantry forces and full Infantry forces.

My thoughts on squads are as follows so far using the new dex and facing a few different opponents.

*1). INFANTRY HEAVY FORCES*

Massive ammounts of troops allow you to be able to dominate your entire deployment area and compensate for a poor set up and a variety of different missions and objectives. I find a lot of my opponents generally in wargaming suffer from "the plan syndrome". Basically they have a set plan in mind of what they are going to do before they even face an opponent. A massed infantry force is something they rarely see and a lot of opponents tackle it as if they were fighting small elite units. They pour their expensive units into the massed infantry tying up extensive points costs competing with cheap large units.

The massed infantry work in two ways for me thus far. Either an advancing wave of infantry or as a static gun line. I tend to use the static gunline in combination with heavy weapons teams as I dislike having to fire through my own advancing squads. The massed infantry wave that just keeps moving forward does not work well from what I have witnessed with heavy squad support. That said with the right support attachments like a Straken, Commissar or Priest or combination of such makes a charging guard infantry wave change your opponents smile to a "WTF!".

The downside of the infantry based army are trying to ensure that the infantry are being used effectively. Having 3 Lascannon teams in a large 30 man unit means you have potentially 20+ lasgun shots which are either wasted or you have over kill blasting single orks with a lascannon. The best approach I have found is to plan the army in balance in 10 man units and then use the similair units for a specific purpose, being able to combine them if you desire or require the KP total to be kept to a minimum.

A good infantry army will have another facet to it as well whether it be an advancing horde or a static gunline. A line of what I call "bother brothers". These are units which are blunting the enemy and causing your opponent to focus on other things. In a FULL infantry army; conscripts are effective meat shields for your guardsman to advance, if they get a commissar with them they can even hold their own for at 2 turn period in which your guardsman are firing away with their heavy weapons into the bulk or more dangerous of your opponents forces. Storm troopers make excellent diversionary forces as well and are able to do some serious nasty business to an opponent. (I use 2 units of storm troopers currently when facing Tau for the buggers who jump like mad. Try jumping when you have 4 plasma guns and 2 plasma pistols firing into you, they have to compensate and either turn or divert forces from the gunline which is hammering away)

I have not seen or used a massed infantry force with shotguns advancing but the math and rules tell me that they would be a better option long term for a commander who chooses to run waves of advancing infantry.(Shotguns being assualt weapons)

Some effective combinations I have found in 10 man combinations and then in larger units;

Plasma guns with Missile Launchers and Lascannons. A 10 man unit with both becomes a 10 wound soaking squad that can launch decent ranged attacks against heavy armor and heavy infantry. 

Heavy bolter with Flamer. Against orks a small 10 man squad can take on units of greenskins and fight above its weight and numbers effecitively. the trick is ensuring you get to use the flamer at the right time, and you get the two shots of lasguns into them as well.

Autocannons. These really have become my choice of armament. They have decent range and they are able to dish out decent fire against a variety of foes. x3 10 man squads with autocannons are well able to do a variety of combat roles from taking down skimmers and lightly armoured enemies to being quite effective at blasting their way through massed infantry ranks. (Hydra's are a much better choice here for an anti-skimmer role, but I will keep my comments to infantry alone).

Grenade launchers. The overlooked gem in the IG codex. I find the best all round special weapon is the typical GL combined with just about anything. Most opponents overlook the GL as they are sitting there thinking about frag grenades. However nothing has made my eldar opponent literally shreik with anger when a squad of storm troopers armed with grenade launchers appeared from behind and then using krak grenades were able to rip through the rear armour of the soft eldar tank he had bearing down on me. The other ability of the GL is its sheer ammount of templates you can actually apply at semi-decent range. Yes its true they are not that effective but like most things guard wise; quantity has a quality all of its own, translating too the more templates, the more saves your opponent must make will get results. However for what its worth and its versatility the good old GL is my choice of squad wpn. If I dont know what opponent I am facing or how he/she plays, I always go heavy GL as it will do a few roles not just one like a meltagun. They are also able to fire on the advance which is great for the infantry wave.

Meltaguns. I tend to place these in my command squad with a decent wpn on the junior officer. This can be a very effective counter unit or a decent anti-tank force. I have found 4 x meltaguns very efficent at wiping out terminators as well, but I do understand 4x plasma guns are probably more effective. The best use of the melta is to get it close to your enemy, so its either a counter unit or a infiltrating one that tends to get them in my own forces.


*GENERAL HEAVY INFANTRY ADVICE*

Pick your Regimental Command Squad (HQ) and your platoon command squads carefully. They will make or break your forces in the heavy infantry force. They are used as countering what comes for the gunline in static armies, giving you the better odds with orders and anchoring your entire army. For example; Creed will give you 4 orders a turn and give you a decent range of command. He is very useful with the large Infantry army static gunline particualry combined with a Lord Commissar who stands with your Heavy Weapon Squads. (My choice when facing a regular tyranid opponent). I have Creed (I have my own version called Colonel Max, but thats for my WIP thread) order the heavy weapons squads and I have the Lord Commissar stand there and ensure that his LD10 is being used to get the orders through. The Lord Commissar then is able to become part of my counter attack unit. I guess in an advancing force you could do the same with special weapons squads. I have never faced it or trialed it, but Creed issuing 4 special weapons squads armed with plasma guns would really dent anything I guess, especially if they have LD10 and can continue forward, hold their ground and rapid fire with orders on top it to smack people apart.


I find for a counter unit, 4 flamers with a junior officer with power weapon are my choice. They can assualt after they blow the crap out of anything, but 4 flamer templates can effectively just in space take out a massed orc unit quickly. I have even seen space marines suffer terribly at the hands of the multiple flamer as when you cross templates over each other your back to the math of they will eventually fail a saving throw. (4 templates will cover a combat squad several times if your opponent has not spaced himself with flamers in mind).

Another unit type I have tried and had some fun with is a command squad with sniper rifles. Its a good pin your enemy unit and it can be quite effective if your able to give them a clear line of fire. I don't see the benefit of a sniper rifle special wpns squad, you may as well get ratlings with their better abilties.

For the Command HQ it really must take a Fleet Officer as well to ensure that your limiting nasty shocks appearing behind you or amongst you. 

My new tactics which I am currently trialing with my regular opponents are;

Using flamers in vetran squads who are carrying demolition charges. Basically blowing the crap out of people and being able to mop things up after. The vetran squad should be able to handle more than its fair share and multi-task.
I havent had a chance to use them yet as I am still painting them, but its something for me trial. (The flamer based argument vs the improved BS of the vetrans has led me to try some things out).


The other thing to ensure with a full infantry army is to realise that there are opponents who will be able to hurt you significantly and its not the best force to take on all comers.... But if your like me and more interested in the hobby itself rather than applying a magical holy grail approach of I have to beat everyone then its a very different type of army that has its own rewards. From a modeling perspective and also a variety of roles perspective. You just need to think about what you want to achieve like a normal IG mixed arms force. Instead of Leman Russes you have Heavy Weapon Squads, instead of Hellhounds you have flamer special weapons squads etc.

My last general comments are about 10 man vs large numbers.... vs what to place in the gunline and what to send forward. It really comes down to terrain in a lot of cases for me. I look at the terrain and then make my choices. I dont use massive advancing waves when they will be funneled and I spread them out as best I can when facing pie plate galore opponents. 

The above is written as general advice for new players looking at their infantry forces and wondering what should they do with them as their 8 or 10 tanks advance across the board. :wink: as well as I hope contributing to the debate over IG forces.


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## TheKingElessar

A very solid post - however, I worry if your results may be skewed by the fact that you sound like a better player than your opponents...


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## Alexious

From a general who obviously knows a great deal about the game and the is a very proficent player, I will take that as a compliment. :so_happy:


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## Sir jahams

Very nice alexious a nice overview of the ups and downs of infantry forces.

So are you full infantry? No armour whatsoever including sentinels? If so that'd be one hell of a sight on the other side of the board and there goes any use for anti tank stuff.

Only thing I have to add is that personally I really dislike grenade launchers. Perhaps its just been my horrible luck but any time Ive given them to basic squads they've done jack for me. First off the higher strength missed. Also I felt they didnt have the AP with the higher strength and the frag couldnt do enough damage. Though 5 pts now does make them more attractive so I'll have to give them a go again.


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## Overfeind

i love ogryns (i have 12 of the new ones) but they are hard to use well, if you take 10 they cant have a transport and there T can only keep them around so long, there low sv means every w hits home and your opponent will throw every thing at them. 
good trick is creed and give them his scout rule grate for a surprise. 
if they don't get killed there low ld they will run, or will spent the hole game pined, so to stop this a lord commissar will help or yarrick with him thay allso get a re role to hit. but the best is 6 in a chimera keeps them safe.


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## Alexious

Sir jahams said:


> Very nice alexious a nice overview of the ups and downs of infantry forces.
> 
> So are you full infantry? No armour whatsoever including sentinels? If so that'd be one hell of a sight on the other side of the board and there goes any use for anti tank stuff.


I have several combinations.... but zero heavy tanks. The word Russ does not appear in my list, don't use Valks, don't use a bask, don't use hell hound. The only thing I will use (in larger games 1k+) is the standard Chimera... but that can field such a variety of roles for its cost its great, and I have a preference for heavy flamers on them as well. I just find them so useful in so many ways from bunkers to assualt forces. They have to be the best thing the guard has period I think.

What I do combine with my infantry are Rough Riders. This has a lot more to do with the the theme of my army than anything else. I tend to do theme based armies rather than going for a mix. I use Praetorian and Mordian and Tallarn figures primarily as its so rare now to find full armies of these and gives the army a very late 19th century feel. I have a WIP thread on project logs if your interested. But my infantry "balanced list" is evolving... I have played maybe 15 games under the new dex... so I am still experimenting a lot and learning a lot as I go.

I have yet to fight against Air Cav.... thats the hard one as I am struggling to come up with really effective counters to it.


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## TheKingElessar

Alexious said:


> From a general who obviously knows a great deal about the game and the is a very proficent player, I will take that as a compliment. :so_happy:


Please do. I just think your lists may be less effective than you deserve if playing a player you don't know. I'd like to be wrong, however. 

Regarding Ogyrns - They should have had Power Weapons, from a rule like the Broodlord's Inhuman Strength. Even Rending...they're just not good enough against armoured foes, like Terminators. Also, Prince Yriel demolishes them easily...:wink:


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## Ordo Xeno Commander

I personally think the viability of the Air cav is average.

Mobility, always a must with low toughness guard. The Valk adds a whole new dimension to the mobile IG army. With further movement than any other vehicle in the IG armoury, it's great for supporting a light strike unit geared towards getting in and taking out a certain type of foe. 

For example: Say, a unit of veterans. 3 meltas and the demolitions tactica. Hop in a valk, put the valk on the front line. you are, at most, 24 inches away from your enemy in the first turn on a 48 inch wide table if they deploy up to their own line.
Turn 1 - boost up behind cover, your low armour leaves you vulnerable to heavy weapons fire. maybe shoot a gun or 2 if a target of oppurtunity comes into view, but safety is paramount.
Turn 2 - move up to your target, deploy your troops and unload into the tank. you have 3 meltas to shoot it with, AND a demo charge to throw, which could scatter onto other enemy units and destroy them. chances are your vets are dead next turn, but if you plan this right, you have just used a 115 point squad to destroy a tank thats worth considerably more (if you drop demolitions, its even less points destroying more :biggrin

Also, their mobility now means that the IG have something that can match other races skimmers, like eldar. Sure, they don't have the same upgrades, but it's a start right?

Gun platform - if you hadn't realised, the Valk is an amazing gun platform, and geared for the right task, will out-perform others due to its mobility. Your best option is to gear your valk to do the OPPOSITE task to its payload, so the units interact and can protect each other as a skimmer and its payload, once deployed, do not have to shoot the same target.

Anti-Infantry - Your valk comes stock with 2 AT missiles and a multi-laser. ouch. However, this approach is a little general for some. Your best bet is to exchange those AT's for the missile pods, meaning you can now move twelve, fire BOTH missile pods (large blast, :scare and your multi-laser, essentially decimating an enemy infantry squad. Sure, your BS isn't great, but the large blasts make up for that. So now, you're Valk takes care of the infantry threatening your valuable vet/stormtrooper squad and they in turn will take care of the tanks.

AT Config - not the favourite config, but one I will touch on nonetheless. Instead of exchanging the AT missile out, switch your multi-laser for a lascannon. However, I strongly recommend that you do NOT take this configuration. Why? because your BS sucks and the missile are one hit wonders. If you want AT, grab a Vendetta.

Vendetta - this is your best option by far for AT. 3 twin-linked lascannons more than makes up for your crap BS, and gives you an AT power unseen on other forces. Not to mention it can still take troops! Perfect for deploying an anti-infantry force without having to worry about those pesky tanks!

HB-Sponsons - to be perfectly honest, and I am a little hipocritical on this note, but I do not see the point in these unless your Valk is a pure gunship. By putting these on, you lose your mobility, which isn't a very good idea with the Valk's low armour values. Sure, it can pour down fire if its still and in the Anti-Infantry config, but it will last no more than one or two turns. So I would generally advise against this upgrade game-wise. Model wise, go for it, Apocalypse Now, 40k style! *theme tune* "if they run, they are Vietcong, if they don't run, they are well disciplined Vietcong!"

Low armour value really lets you down on this, with the lack of upgrades available to the Valk, but it is a cool, and rather useful asset nonetheless, with its increased mobility and firepower. A great alternative to the Chimera, depending on your tastes. 

Anyway, thats my 2 cents


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## TheKingElessar

A SM with a ML has only a 50% chance to get a roll on damage chart, after his 66% to hit. Then, I have probably got a 50% to ignore it. He won't get a second shot. 

Also, Valks and Vendettas Outflank. :wink:


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## Inquisitor Einar

They should have made them heavy stubbers instead of heavy bolters.. then they'd be defensive weapons.... Still you can move 6" and still fire all weapons. so it's not THAT bad.


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## TheKingElessar

Inquisitor Einar said:


> They should have made them heavy stubbers instead of heavy bolters.. then they'd be defensive weapons.... Still you can move 6" and still fire all weapons. so it's not THAT bad.


Yes...and they'd also be INSANELY cool. :biggrin:


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## Ordo Xeno Commander

Hail of doom!! Honestly that would be better, and altogether more IG to be honest, but then again they would be more expensive overall. 

Another point I would like to make is the fact that if you do take it stock, it does fill the same role as a chimera, with slightly different armament. The Chimera has no AT stock, yet it has firepoints (pfft who really uses these anyway...) so, I would say the Valk is almost better, atleast it has the capability of taking out another tank AND it has the ML. BUT the Chimera is much cheaper, and more, well, expendable :grin:


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## Alexious

Well as the thread has moved to Air Cav.... What do people see as great ways of using it and what counter strategies would you employ against it?

Xeno, you said you see their viability as average.... then post wonderfully how they are pretty damn good. What do you see as the weakness? I might be missing something, but from what I am reading TKE has hit it on the head...

The SM with his ML is probably going to get ripped a new one! and they will if they have an IQ above that of the average 3rd grader outflank em. Bringing anti tank and pie plates very up close and personal. I like pie platers to stay at a range.... so I can use stormies and marbo against em.

I wonder if the looming steamroller of whats coming is full Air Cav lists for most effective guard... I see a cloud of Valks on the horizon all heading for a tournament near you! LOL... /cue ride of the Valkerie. (and yes TKE I saw your air cav list and went OMFGSMFBC)


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## Ordo Xeno Commander

Their weakness is their armour and their lack of effective customisation. The best config is the Anti-Infantry, which is fair enough due to the Vendetta being available. But the in-between roles aren't filled very well and the powerful weapons that the Valk can take are wasted on a low BS. Not to mention the AV12 is vulnerable to many medium-heavy weapons. 

The Valk is a great unit, but it doesn't make a great army.


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## Makoto

Alexious said:


> Autocannons. These really have become my choice of armament.


Great post :goodpost:
However I'd disagree on two parts:

As far as the AC goes, personally I'd say they're a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. Too weak for serious vehicle-hunting, too slow RoF and too high S for infantry hunting.
An average infantry list can easily field enough missile launchers/lascannons not to worry about any vehicles, and almost every transport (with the exception of LR and monolith) will fall quickly to massed heavy bolter fire anyway - as long as the incoming squads are inside their vehicles, the antipersonnel heavies have nothing better to shot at anyway. 

As far as the heavies go the traditional mix of heavy bolters/missile launchers works just fine, with the occasionall lascannon now viable with the reduced point difference between ML and LC.



Alexious said:


> Grenade launchers. The overlooked gem in the IG codex. I find the best all round special weapon is the typical GL combined with just about anything.


Another all-comer. While GL simply cannot be overestimated in 2nd ed games, right now the frag grenade has it's use against bunched up hordes (other IG list, 'gaunts, orkboyz to a degree). Against medium and heavy infantry its use is very limited - low S and high AP see to it just well.
The krak grenade on the other hand is usefull against sv4+ opponents, but then again so is a plasma gun - yet the plasma will also take care of heavy infantry that the krak won't scratch and will do better against vehicles. And for plasma one gets that important extra shot too.

In the given example (stormies and Eldar) were the stormtroopers using plasmaguns they'd have much better chance of destroying those vehicles and after doing that, provided they survive the return fire, they'd still be a great threat to other vehicles/the 3+ aspect warriors/etc.

Firing on the move doesn't apply that much: one won't be too eager to charge with the guard squads anyway, so the _assault_ trait doesn't cut in. And as for the reduced range on _rapid fire_ weapons, we already factor that in because of the lasguns.


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## Minigiant

I think the ability to move with the grenade launcher is very important as all the new missions are mainly objective based


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## TheKingElessar

Makoto - I disagree with _you_ 
Autocannons have a far better chance of penetrating a Rhino than a HBolter, and can penetrate Valkyries, Wave Serpents and Chimeras - all of which are impervious to HB fire. the Heavy Bolter is dead. Long live the King!


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## Makoto

It's missile launcher/lascannon job to take care of vehicles "the hard way" (via frontal armour). The point is, untill transports unload their cargo Heavy Bolters have nothing better to do and can freely pick off the light vehicles via side/rear armour, including Valks and Vendettas - with outflank it's quaranteed we'll get plenty of chances for rear shots. All it takes is to have them scattered as wide over the table as it gets - piece of cake with all-infantry guard. And after the transports unload, You'll need the RoF of HB, not the extra S of the slower firing AC.
Last but not least, with scattered all-foot list the plasmaguns will add up to the closest transports, making including the ACs even less needed.
So, I'd rather say that HB soundly retains it's position, while AC retains all it's drawbacks - even with their cost equalised.

*Minigiant* - the mobility is still there, with numerous infantry squads it just takes little practice with deciding which squads are to move and which to fire - the old leapfrog tactics. This is why it's good to always include both special and heavy weapon in the squad, be it just the heavy bolter - one never knows when there'll be a good chance to shot, plus with the mobility issue this often forces an opponent to take an unneccesary risk hoping the squads will move en masse, rather than split into firing and moving part.
Also it's better to have some squads slow down and take shots that will penetrate than run each and every squad and pop a few grenades that'll bounce off the armours without harming anyone.


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## TheKingElessar

I disagree - moving is anethema to a gunline, and Infantry that has a Heavy weapon but isn't stationary is a waste of points. Also, it means there are fewer models in the unit, making special weapon, vox, and sergeant models more vulnerable to enemy fire - it's the same principle as with Eldar, never take an Exarch in a unit under 8 models, as he/she will die too quickly to torrent of fire, and be a points sink as a result. 

I think, however, that this comes down to personal choice in the end. It's not that I don't think you or your army can win, but I don't think it's as good as it could be - and you obviously prefer the way it is at the minute. That said, I agree about never using Grenade Launchers.


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## Orochi

The autocannon has a range of 48", as opposed to the 36" of the Heavy bolter.

The difference there is exceptionally important. As the majority of boards are 48".


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## Llamafish

Surly heavy bolter are better, the guard have lots of firepower? also can hit for shit, most tank you come across are rhino types, av12? all you need are couple of missle, vet lascannon team or basilisk/medusa to sort this out. THEN that leaves you with the issue of infanty 3 shorts or 2 shots hitting on 4+,

auto cannon in veteran squads however might be an idea, with the possiblability sorting out bikes and skimmers, which could be sorted out with heavy flamers now...


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## Vaz

Not thanks to the cover saves. Most hordes will intermingle squads, offering each other cover, which means that the AP4 and 3 Shots of a Heavy Bolter is wasted. Meanwhile, you get better strength, and ability to penetrate vehicles, for less of a reduction in anti infantry capability.


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## Minigiant

thats exactly why you need more shots


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## Llamafish

Vaz said:


> Not thanks to the cover saves. Most hordes will intermingle squads, offering each other cover, which means that the AP4 and 3 Shots of a Heavy Bolter is wasted. Meanwhile, you get better strength, and ability to penetrate vehicles, for less of a reduction in anti infantry capability.


but in horde armies you shoot the first people inrange with lasgun, pineapple lauchers, missles, heavy bolters, and maybe leman russ. Then tougher targets you drop shells on there head, meaning you ahave side armour and two dice to pick from! that way there dont get a cover save or you miss and remove some there cover k:


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## TheKingElessar

Llamafish said:


> auto cannon in veteran squads however might be an idea, with the possiblability sorting out bikes and skimmers, which could be sorted out with heavy flamers now...


Anyone who puts a Heavy Weapon in a Vet squad, that isn't a Lascannon, is IMHO an idiot.

Also, artillery are unreliable at dealing with vehicles, due to scatter. Barrage is particularly unreliable - and it is that that ignores cover and hits side armour. With an average scatter of 7", Barrage ordnance will miss anything smaller than a Land Raider about half the time.


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## Vaz

Heavy Flamer?


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## TheKingElessar

@ me? Heavy Flamer is an Assualt weapon. It's just a name, you muppet!


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## Llamafish

strenght 5? av of a landspeed 10? possble and multitasking weapon?
IMHO???


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## TheKingElessar

Llamafish said:


> strenght 5? av of a landspeed 10? possble and multitasking weapon?
> IMHO???


What? Are you on coke or something???


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## Llamafish

TheKingElessar said:


> What? Are you on coke or something???


Sorry had a special moment, ok flamer only has an AP4. thought it was 5 when i glaced a look before writing that.


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## TheKingElessar

Oh, ok. Glad that's settled. I stand by my comments about Heavies in Vets. Everyone else is welcome to post a list to try and prove me wrong - I will award Rep, and give you a sig-worthy quote, for sure. But you won't succeed. 

:king:

Bear in mind I don't consider the Sniper Rifle a Heavy Weapon, even though the type is Heavy. Hah. Nice try though.


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## Llamafish

I dont run with heavy weapon team any more, just use them with command squads in a chimera shooting out the top or veteran in a hard cover position to support the meat shield, 

but if i running a gun line heavy bolters all round.

I must have lucky dice than you when it come to barrages, i hit alot or get lucky scatter (like on enemy HQ etc)


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## TheKingElessar

I don't use them, so I wouldn't know what my luck with them is like! :laugh: IMO the chance of missing is too great - I prefer to put my trust in solid shots.


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## Llamafish

TheKingElessar said:


> I don't use them, so I wouldn't know what my luck with them is like! :laugh: IMO the chance of missing is too great - I prefer to put my trust in solid shots.


yeah, that the direction i going towards, since my mates now making anti basilisk units


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## lawrence96

well Elessar what about missile launchers in vet squads? Has the S to crack tanks and coupled with the vets BS means that it will usually hit and the frag would be able to stay on target better which against hordes is very useful.


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## TheKingElessar

To clarify - Heavy Weapons will invariably be better on Vets than regulars, due to BS4. However, you are wasting said BS4 not using it for Melta or Plasma. Even Flamers are better for Vets, because they get Shotguns. Being able to finish the opponent off in CC, however poor the individual troopers are, is invaluable - especially if you only need to hold to contest an objective this way. This is why Heavy weapons should almost never be given to Vets.


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## Alexious

TheKingElessar said:


> To clarify - Heavy Weapons will invariably be better on Vets than regulars, due to BS4. However, you are wasting said BS4 not using it for Melta or Plasma. Even Flamers are better for Vets, because they get Shotguns. Being able to finish the opponent off in CC, however poor the individual troopers are, is invaluable - especially if you only need to hold to contest an objective this way. This is why Heavy weapons should almost never be given to Vets.


Agreed. So far the vet squads I have been using are too multi-task to be standing still. In an infantry static gunline its those vet units which are using in variety of roles, from contesting objectives through too bothering flanks. Plus the ability to field 3 special wpns which can be fired on the move make it more attractive than having them as static gunliners. I haven't looked at a lascannon in a vet squad yet as they would rarely fire it. I guess in a way you could do squad after squad of vets in a gunline and then use them effectively but I am unsure of its cost vs the ability to field regular platoons and HWS, just for lascannons, when the typical IG mechanized or mixed force has so many other options to reduce land raiders to slag in one turn.

When i wrote my original post on the autocannon, I was as TKE has alluded too thinking of its usefulness vs the heavy bolter for different situations and considering its effectiveness vs low armour targets which the HB will never be able to cope with. I tend to think of the HB as being now a specialized anti-ork or anti-low ranking nid weapon as opposed to being an all purpose device. Rhino's are not scared of a HB.... anything that doesn't scare a rhino isn't effective IMO. :grin:


So lets move the debate shall we to something else? 

The Chimera.... Do you use them? How do you use them? Are they as I like to think the best XX points of goodness that the IG has to offer in the army list?
What do you equip them with? What squads and tactics do you use with them? How do you combat the Chimera wave?


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## Minigiant

Love them

Mobile Pillbox with a ordering officer inside very useful

If its Creed you can usually bet the force will go after him so i use him as bait and keep him alive on the run still issuing orders with is extended command range


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## Inquisitor Einar

CHimera's are awesome, especially now with their point cost reduced. Strap on a multi-laser and a heavy flamer, and you're set to go.
At range, the S6 can bother transports, and up close, the heavy flamer will bring death to assaulting units. And it's got 5 firepoints so you'll be able to unleash some nasty weaponsfire from them as well. Vets with 3 melta's or plasma's, nice and safe inside and ready to unleash death and mayhem on the enemy.


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## CobbotheLobbo

TheKingElessar said:


> Oh, ok. Glad that's settled. I stand by my comments about Heavies in Vets. Everyone else is welcome to post a list to try and prove me wrong - I will award Rep, and give you a sig-worthy quote, for sure. But you won't succeed.
> 
> :king:
> 
> Bear in mind I don't consider the Sniper Rifle a Heavy Weapon, even though the type is Heavy. Hah. Nice try though.


I actually attach autocannons to all my mech vet squads with meltas/flamers when I have the spare 30-40 points because they are pretty cheap and in the rare occasion when I don't really want to be charging at my opponent (1st turn vs Speed freaks for example) they give me an extra 4 autocannons which can bust an extra transport, making back their points but also more importantly denying my opponent his speed. Yes lascannons are better at the job but also double the cost. From my rough math skills, 4 autocannons give you roughly on average 1 and 1/2 pens vs AV 11 and a 90% chance of a pen vs AV 12, where as 2 lascannons are on average 90% chance of a pen on AV 11 and around 60-70% of a pen vs AV 12. It also means any of my 4 vet units can hang back on an objective and still fire out a few strength 7 shots every turn, rather than only having 2 units with lascannons.

Admittedly there is a ~40% of a chance to pen AV 13 which can be handy, and 20% vs AV 14 (I wouldn't shoot lascannons at AV 14 anyway >_>) which makes up for it-but my primary concern at the start of the game is destroying transports and annoying things like vendettas or fireprisms (which will prolly be in reserve or in a corner anyway).

So while I think lascannons are a very good choice in vet squads, I hope this is a decent arguement for why autocannons are also useful =).


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## TheKingElessar

It's a well put argument...but the cost of putting them in a Vet Squad isn't outweighed by the loss of firing Plasma/Melta weaponry a turn earlier. Nor does it outwiegh the also cheap option of putting 3 of them in a HWS - okay, it'd be fragile, but it'd get the job done quicker, and be less important when it dies.

As for Chimeras - you've all seen my list by now, and if you haven't it's linked in my sig. (AirCav hybrid)

I love the Chimera. I think, once I start using that list, it may even supersede the Wave Serpent as my favourite transport vehicle.


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## CobbotheLobbo

TheKingElessar said:


> It's a well put argument...but the cost of putting them in a Vet Squad isn't outweighed by the loss of firing Plasma/Melta weaponry a turn earlier. Nor does it outwiegh the also cheap option of putting 3 of them in a HWS - okay, it'd be fragile, but it'd get the job done quicker, and be less important when it dies.
> 
> As for Chimeras - you've all seen my list by now, and if you haven't it's linked in my sig. (AirCav hybrid)
> 
> I love the Chimera. I think, once I start using that list, it may even supersede the Wave Serpent as my favourite transport vehicle.


Well 1st of all I don't use infantry platoons so the option of buying a HWS isnt avaliable to me. You cant start them inside a chimera which means leaving them in cover and attracting every strength 6+ weapon in the opposing force, 2 wounds/1 death and its a morale check at LD 7 (56% chance to pass..eek), or wasting a round of fire to move them inside. 3 autocannons from heavy weapon team cost 75 points for 6 BS 3 shots, a terrible deal anyway IMO.

And don't get me wrong, if I have a chance to fire my meltas/flamers then the chimera will gladly move foward and get me in range to use those special weapons over an autocannon, I just like having the option to also have some longer range firepower. 30-40 points isn't a large investment for that kind of option IMO (I mean what else are you going to buy with that?)

I have seen your list and it looks pretty effective-not sure if you have tried it ingame yet-but your problem will be table space unless you keep alot/all of it in reserve which is fine but then you lose the vendettas firepower for 1 turn (they have to move over 6 to even fit on the board). While chimeras are pretty decent they take up a lot of space themselves and are very weak on the side obviously so keeping them together to protect vs side shots is a must.


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## TheKingElessar

The Chimmys will probably drive up, hulls touching. It will literally be impossible to shoot the side of 4 of them, at least until one dies/stops moving.

My flying Vs stay in reserve, and Outflank, 90% of the time, I imagine. They actually don't need to move over 6" to get in, as you can measure from the side, and move laterally, among other methods.

I agree about the weakness of HWSs, but a Lord Commissar soon puts a stop to the fleeing. Either way, they're still a better overall Autocannon option (3 hits per turn, not 1.5ish) as is a Hydra (also 3 hits, at longer range) than splashing in Vets. IMO.

Please, post your list for my perusal.


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## CobbotheLobbo

From memory the latest incarnation of my 1500 point list is roughly:

Command squad, 4 melta guns chimera
3 vet squads, 1 with 3 flamers/autocannon, 2 with meltas, chimeras for all 3
devil dog
2 vendettas
executioner
demolisher
medusa with armoured crew compartment/2 hydras/1 manticore (haven't decided on this yet, I keep swapping them every game and changing my mind =().


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## TheKingElessar

Interesting. Armies that close with you quickly, such a Broodlord Scuttler lists, could have a field day, however. You also have fewer Troops choices than I'd recommend for IG at 1500...


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## CobbotheLobbo

TheKingElessar said:


> Interesting. Armies that close with you quickly, such a Broodlord Scuttler lists, could have a field day, however. You also have fewer Troops choices than I'd recommend for IG at 1500...


I have found 3 units of vets to be okay, more would be preferable but there isn't the points unfortunately. Started with 5 units of vets, then cut back to 4 now finally to 3 =). I am a firm believer in objective missions that the best way to play is to control 1 and contest the rest, so 3 can do that quite nicely.

Fast armies are always going to be tough, it's why I don't think mech IG will ever be top tier since we have no super combat unit to counter the seer councils or bike command squads. From my games I've played the seer council on bikes is the hardest counter to my army so far-its either shoot everything at them while the jetbikes/wave serpents/fire prisms pick me off and steal objectives or let them rampage around. I take heavy flamers on all my tanks (heavy bolters are garbage on russes IMO unless it is an exterminator I guess >_>) which does help a bit I guess.


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## Alexious

From the general comments it appears we all love the Chimera...

I have looked at your list TKE and it would give me headaches as I have commented before. However as you yourself have commented it would be an expensive force to actually put together from a buying perspective. (GW love to make whats quite great lists cost prohibitive for the average gamer).

And shotguns? How are people doing them. I might be old and blind, but I can't see enmasse how you would be able to model them. Maybe I am missing something obvious? Do they do squads with a wpn choice of shotguns in plastic or even metal? I can't see any in the current staple range.

My own armory is rather old now, but shotguns appear on my old arbite minatures which come neatly with carpace armor. But I never fielded more than 10 of them in 2nd edition and to refield them now as vets I would need to get rid of the tiny rhino they have and replace it with a Chimera. (Might be an interesting project... I don't think arbites had special wpns apart from the GL or bolter). Unless they have redone the arbite figures which I haven't seen as yet.


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## CobbotheLobbo

Probably one change I will make in the future is to drop the devil dog for Inquisitor + 2 mystics and perhaps another unit of vets-the devil dog has been decent but deep strike is really harsh against tanks, especially those damn speeders >_<


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## TheKingElessar

It also has a not unreasonable chance of killing itself, with scatter. Not a good chance, but it still exists.


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## Vaz

Deep Strike? That's what the allied Inquisitor with double mystic situated next to a 3 Strong Executioner Squadron with PC Sponsons. Had that one pulled on me today with my 10 Strong Terminators. Goodbye 400pts.


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## TheKingElessar

Ouchie. Did you lose?


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## Makoto

TheKingElessar said:


> I disagree - moving is anethema to a gunline, and Infantry that has a Heavy weapon but isn't stationary is a waste of points.


That would be true if not for the mayority (sp?) of missions - since we no longer can field all-_Light Infantry_ armies, moving the gunline (and heavy weapons within the infantry squads) is a must. It'd be certainly better being able to leave heavies for sitting back and pouring fire as they could in 2nd ed, but we no longer have this option.



TheKingElessar said:


> Also, it means there are fewer models in the unit, making special weapon, vox, and sergeant models more vulnerable to enemy fire - it's the same principle as with Eldar, never take an Exarch in a unit under 8 models, as he/she will die too quickly to torrent of fire, and be a points sink as a result.


Not quite the same - unlike Exarch we're talking the cheap and (in all-foot list) numerous infantry squads. That means one can easily use the above as bait for an opponent, drawing fire to forward squads. Last but not least, that "fewer" is still more than most units can dish out damage die in a single volley, with only the heavy and special actually worth protecting and sergeant being the only other model worth noticing (no point in wasting points on voxes) - Ld7 is, was, and will be more than enough with current morale rules, even as far as orders are concerned. I'd even go as far as to say than in an unit tied down with holding a point it's sometimes better to lose the laspistol rather than a lasgun.

But in the end yes, it does boil down to personal preference 



Orochi; said:


> The autocannon has a range of 48", as opposed to the 36" of the Heavy bolter.
> The difference there is exceptionally important. As the majority of boards are 48".


Actually, as most of the boards have terrain, said difference usually means only that AC won't be able to fire at full range. Heck, on many 4x4 tables HB can't shot it's full range either.



Alexious; said:


> Rhino's are not scared of a HB.... anything that doesn't scare a rhino isn't effective IMO.


But the HB isn't even supposed to be a dedicated AT weapon! Yet it still can perform the auxiliary role. Before the transports unload, one can:
1. sit back and wait the turn, since "Rhinos aren't afraid".
2. roll the dice anyway, with the undoubtly low chance that some Rhinos will get immobilised/destroyed (with 3 immobile/weapon destroyed results).
Now the trick is, while AC will have much better chance to take out a transport in that single volley before rhinos/serpents/vendettas/whatever unloads, it'll be only 2/3 as usefull as the HB in all the subsequent turns.

Also, if one's using vehicles, what's not to love in the Chimera? Cheap, well-armed and not so badly armoured for it's cost, and increases command range by that important inch or two when the orders are issued ("any point of the hull").


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## Minigiant

Ok new debate as all the lists i have seen on the web so far include one or the other not both

Infantry Platoon or Veterans

I prefer a combined arms approach and take a mixture of both

On one hand if you have an infantry platoon in valkyries etc you roll as one for all of them from reserves

Veterans are alot better can get more options but you arent having alot of men


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## Minigiant

ok new debate

what does everyone think of marbo?

I'm thinking of running him alongside a callidas assassin for some serious hitting and running


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## TheDaR

Minigiant said:


> ok new debate
> 
> what does everyone think of marbo?
> 
> I'm thinking of running him alongside a callidas assassin for some serious hitting and running


I rather like him. Since I'm not impressed with most of the other elite choices, and he's only 65 points, I have to work to come up with a reason not to take him. He's just as cheap as the only other way to get a unit with a demo bomb (SWS with 2 flamers and demo) and probably about as survivable if you can place him in cover.

Even if he does absolutely nothing but kill himself with his own demo charge, he's still got a pretty big impact on the game for 65 points. Your opponent has to suddenly start thinking about if he wants to put his units in cover or near cover. He has to think about not leaving support units hidden way away from the rest of the army. Because if he does either, Marbo stands a decent chance of actually living through any return shooting, and then he goes from 'one shot demo charge' to actually fairly scary, due to a high number of poisoned attacks at good initiative and weapon skill and melta bombs for dealing with tanks. If he doesn't live through it, well, that's at least one unit's worth of shooting that was diverted away from your other units.

Offensively, with BS5 there's a pretty good chance his demo charge is going to land on target (50% of hit or scatter of 5 or less and about a 60% overall chance that the template will at least be touching the original target). And if you've chosen a good target, odds are that he's going to kill or at least cripple an important, and hopefully expensive, unit. He's especially good at hitting units that have just deep struck, disembarked or got blown out of their transports by your other shooting.

The two downsides are being a Kill Point and using up an Elite slot. The latter isn't a big deal, unless you really like Psyker Battle Squads and/or are running =I= allies. The Kill Point is a slightly bigger deal, but with the new Combined Squad rule and Vehicle Squadrons, IG has already gone from being one of the worst kill point offenders to being capable of being one of the best at not giving them up. Not to mention only 1/3 missions on average is Annihilation.

I personally really like the idea of running him and a Callidus assassin together. Between them you've now got 2 serious threats that the opponent simply cannot counter before you get to use them. If you run them in tandem, it's potentially even better. Marbo drops his demo charge, and then the Callidus charges the remainder of the unit, finishing off the survivors and potentially protecting Marbo from retaliation. And since they're separate models, now you are potentially diverting at least two separate unit's to try and get rid of the backfield menace. And if they don't, the pair of them can actually do serious damage to most units on the charge.


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## Inquisitor Einar

I like him a lot. Especially for his cost.
He is an ace in the hole, that can be devastating if deployed properly, and simply having him in your army means your opponent will Have to adjust is playing for it, diverting resources to protect against him properly.

With his BS5, the chance of his charge hitting the target is 7/13 ( 1/3 hit, + 2/3 * 10/36 ( the chance that you roll 5 or less on 2d6 ) )

When he arrives and tosses his charge, things will die, and unless you're playing against a big horde army and you have to toss it at something cheap, he will win his points back easily, so pointwise he will always be a good investment.

And if you deploy him right ( aka in cover ), his 3+ or 2+ if he goes to ground cover save will make it hard to take him out. Meaning your opponent will have to use a considerable amount of firepower to take him down.

Add to that the threat of what happens when he doesn't. ( High Initiative, lots of poison attacks ) and he could very well mop up whatever he threw his demo charge at.

Even more so, indeed, the melta bombs mean he is equipped to deal with anything near him, being a threat to both infantry and tanks alike. Combined with his method of deployment, this means he will always be a serious threat to contend with for your opponent.

In all, he makes a very good diversion that your opponent will Have to deal with or face the fact his army is going to get seriously hurt by him.

So in all, for his cost, he's a very good investment. And considering the alternative of having -another- PBS, ogryns or ratlings, I think he's a better choice. ( * ponders the idea of having 3 of them in an army and how devastating this could be * )


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## Alexious

I'll agree with the above about Marbo.... best elite choice for the IG for the points. I use him to take out things which cause my gunline headaches like 3 basks etc or something that will get his points cost back fast.

I tend to find he is as much a threat even when he is not active but sitting on your list. My opponents know I sometimes take him and if we have done our lists prior to a game they tend now to think of I will hold this back to take care of marbo... allowing my gunline to fight either smaller numbers or to have ranged targets. His diversionary ability on an opponent is worth the 65 points alone for me.


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## Inquisitor Einar

I used to field a Calidus for this same purpose, though the changes made in how CC is done in 5th make her too risky for this now. In 4th, she could easily win her points back several times over if she came out of hiding in turn 2, now, she's a gamble to unleash on your enemy at best. Marbo is a much more interesting choice for this purpose since he's much cheaper, and as difficult to deal with.


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## TheKingElessar

For me, Marbo is the best Elites option in the codex by a LONG way. 

He's the Fire Dragon of the IG.


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## Inquisitor Einar

Ok, going to add another concept to this debate..

IG Close Combat assault army.. viable or not?

Creed's special order, stragen and friends, ogrynns, the simply staggering amount of cheap infantry you can field, hidden powerfists in command squads, backed up by some long range artillery and doing some evil outflanking.

Thing it could work?


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## TheKingElessar

Do Penal Legionnaires get a look in?


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## Inquisitor Einar

I find Penal legionairs a bit too expensive for something that gives you a very squishy squad with a little special effect. I'd rather spend those points on lots and lots of bodies.. maybe there's an orc in me somewhere.. I don't know..


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## Critta

As far as marbo goes, I've only had a chance to use him once, but he utterly murdered Belial and the assault terminator squad that he popped out next to.

With a vetsquad and vendetta firing at them as well, I whittled Belial and 6 teminators down to a single guy with a thunderhammer and storm shield.

The surviving terminator then charged Marbo and he cut it up good and proper


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## Someguy

Power fists aren't really hidden in command squads unless there's some sort of trick I'm not aware of. Many, many units are able to put 5 wounds on a squad before initiative 1. At strength 6 they don't instant kill anyone worth bothering with and don't easily wound MCs or walkers. Since these are the reasons for taking power fists, I'd spend my points on guns instead. By the time a command squad gets even vaguely credible in cc it costs real points.

You could get a squad of grey knights, who score and whose justicar makes an IG character look a bit silly. Creed can then shout at them, and they will run around hitting people at WS5 I5 S7.

I'm not sure about penal legion. Somebody seems to have told them that they can fight, which was a mean thing to do because they can't. I struggle to see the benefit for a guard player to have a stubborn unit, unless you have some reason to want the other guy's zerkers to be locked in cc during the IG shooting phase. Several IG units do introduce this benefit, often combined with low LD so they may just break anyway. 

Quite a good use for penal legion would be to charge something like a carnifex or dread. They could hold the thing up for a while, unless they rolled slightly above average on a morale check. This seems more than a little unreliable, and also see my above comment on buying guns instead.


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## TheDaR

Inquisitor Einar said:


> Ok, going to add another concept to this debate..
> 
> IG Close Combat assault army.. viable or not?
> 
> Creed's special order, stragen and friends, ogrynns, the simply staggering amount of cheap infantry you can field, hidden powerfists in command squads, backed up by some long range artillery and doing some evil outflanking.
> 
> Thing it could work?


For consideration:

Al'Rahem (for outflanking and his fleet+shooting order), with a vox, commissar with PF, and 3 Meltas.
5 Squads, each with Melta, Sergeant with Power Weapon, and Commissar with Power weapon. One vox in one squad, for receiving orders. 1 Mortar team (see below).
1 (or more) Priests with Eviscerator.

Result: 56 wound outflanking unit with Ld9 Stubborn and at least 10 power weapons each with 4 attacks on the charge. If you add Straken or Creed for Furious Charge, that's 40 S4 I4 power weapon attacks rerolling to hit, and another 90 regular attacks.

The Mortar Team Trick: Keep the mortar team near the front of the unit when moving. Use it to assault with first, preferably into contact with any ICs. Since it's a huge 60mm base (actually just over 65mm, if you measure it), you'll be able to get many more of your models to within 2 inches of it than a standard 25mm base. If you're even more clever, you keep all the sergeants and commissars clustered around this, but not in base contact with the squad you're assaulting. That way you can choose to either focus all their attacks into the IC that the mortar team is engaging or to use the regular troops that are engaging the squad the IC is hiding in. You can add another 1 or 2 additional teams in order to get the rest of your squad into melee more easily as well.

You're looking at ~870 points, but it can actually kill a full Fortuned jetbike Seer Council in a little over 3 assault phases, even if charged and factoring in casualties. It takes just 2 phases, if you can charge and/or single out the Farseer with Fortune on the first turn using the Mortar Team trick.

On the charge, this unit will kill entire 10 man units of regular and assault terminators with Storm Shields. If charged, they'll still kill about 3 assault terminators or 4 to 5 regular ones.

This squad also kills about 29 Ork boyz on the charge, before they get to swing. 

The one drawback is getting charged by units with very high numbers of attacks, like Ork Boyz, Gaunt or Genestealer swarms, or Marine Honor Guards near Pedro Kantor. If the units are either high initiative or there are very many models, it's even worse. 

If charged by a 30 boy slugga squad, they'll kill 11 boyz simultaneously to the boyz killing 36 of them. If they pass their Ld9 test, they still have all 10 power weapons, all 5 meltas, the mortar squads, and a few regular troops left. The second round, they'll kill 6 more boyz before the boyz kill another 13, which will not quite wipe them out, but will remove the remainder of the regular troops, the special weapons and mortars, and some of the sergeants/commisars. It's not until the third round of combat that they actually are wiped out, taking another 3 boyz with them.

Beyond that, I'd probably skip Ogryn. They're not horrible, as some people make them out, but they're also not fantastic. A full squad of 10 is 410 points, about half the cost of the above unit. By comparison it has 30 T5 wounds to 55 T3 wounds with the same save, which works out about comparatively against most things. It's also only Ld7 instead of 9, even if it is still stubborn. 

On the offense side, it's 40 attacks at S6 and I4, with no power weapons of any sort. Which means that it's going to have a lot of trouble with Terminators, Seer Councils, etc. They only kill 14 ork boyz on the charge, 2 or 3 terminators, and 1 or 2 fortuned jetbikes. Even adding in the 3 assault shots from the Ripper guns doesn't help that much against terminators and jetbikes. If they could have a powerfist on the Bone'ead or take their own Commissar or be affected by a Priest, they'd be a great unit. Any one of those would be enough.

For the whole army, I'd probably try the above, plus Creed and a second smaller blob (probably 3 squads, outflanked using Creed's ability) and then back the whole thing up with some Devil Dogs and Manticores to help deal with tanks.


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## TheKingElessar

Penal Legion are very fluffy in the new 'Dex, I like them...although I haven't used them or seen them in action, so I'll defer on this point. I am in complete accord with Someguy regarding the Power Fists in IG units - they suck harder than a Black Hole on steroids (have I used that one already?) and I wouldn't take them on Striking Scorpions for the same reason. Also, Al'Rahem's guys should have Flamers in the moshpit - judicious use of 'Like The Wind' can roast scores of enemies, then move back into Assualt range! Special Weapon Squads should carry the Melta - and are the only (IMO) viable Demo Charge unit, other than Marbo. The Desert Tiger himself should have a Medic, and therefore Plasma all round.


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## Inquisitor Einar

Flamers on al'rahem's flank moshpit is definitely a good idea. I'd also limit the number of powerweapons to 1 per sarge and 1 for the commissar. And instead of the IG priest, spend a little more and get a WH priest, because he's not an IC, so can't be targetted.

'Like the wind' is a very nasty order, giving your moshpit a moment to shoot a few guns, and move an extra D6 inch closer from the side of the board towards the enemy, making them more likely to get within assault range. And having them charging definitely counts for a lot of extra effectiveness on their part.

As for Al'Rahem's own squad, I'm a bit ambivalent. On the one side, he's a nasty piece of work with his instant death powerweapon, so giving him a medic to keep him alive longer is a good idea. On the other hand, this further limits the number of special weapons in his squad, and makes it rather expensive.
So I'm more of a mind to give him 3 melta guns with him instead and use him as fire support and giving out his 2 orders.
Also, while giving his boys plasma guns means wonderfull S7 AP2 goodness with BS4 with less fear of dieing due to the FNP, rapidfire also means he can't assault, giving him 3 melta guns gives you 3 S8 AP1 goodness, and is considerably cheaper than 2 plasmas and a medi pack.
I rather put 3 plasma's in a SW squad on their own.

Anyway.. penal legionairs. Fluffy, fun, but imho not very competitive.
At their cost, you're still getting a guardman with T3 and flank armour. WHile their special rules and nifty tricks are nice, this makes them too vulnerable to be usefull because they're only 10 men which can't be combined into larger squads.
Also, their special 'crime' rule makes them a wildcard, not just to your opponent but also to yourself. That means you will have to work out how to integrate it into our battleplan to best make use of it. ( and there's a chance this won't be very effective ).

As Sun Tzu said: If you know yourself, and you know the enemy, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles, if you know yourself, but not the enemy, for every victory gained, you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you Will succumb in every battle.


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## TheKingElessar

Man...that Sun Tzu guy sounds smart...he should totally write a book on this stuff...

I agree, but I'd have Al'Rahem's squad placed in the middle of the moshpit - they couldn't charge, but they couldn't be shot either, as you can't shoot through combat :wink:


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## Inquisitor Einar

Better to have his squad mess up some tanks with melta guns 

For a full IG CC assault army, I think it's best to use Creed, with his 4 orders and 24" range and 'For Cadia', to send several moshpits worth of guardsmen to their death, outflank with a squadron of hellhounds/devildogs/banewolves.

You'll need 4 infantry platoons with at least 3 infantry squads with a vox and a commissar to make this work I think.

If you want to go crazy, drop in some conscripts to use as a meatshield before you assault, to give your main squads a 4+ cover save. They would also be good to shield any possible heavy weapon squads with autocannons, heavy bolters and/or missile launchers.

The platoon HQ's would probably be usefull for lascannon support and to give FRFSRF at the initial stage of the fight, before you send your troops forward with 'for cadia'.

Al'Rahem would be another good assaulting the flank while the main force pushes the main battle line.

Supported by 1 or 2 manticors, a squadron of 1/2 artillery pieces and/or a basic russ.

In larger games, I'd add straken in a valkyrie along with a vet squad in a second one in a squadron, and a 3rd valk vendetta on his own to do some tank hunting on the other flank.

That pretty much only leaves 2 elite slots open, and maybe a troop slot or two.
Not quite sure what to fill those with. ( 1st elite slot is -ofcourse- Marbo ) Maybe a psyker battle squad in a chimera.


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## Someguy

I am not convinced at all by these mosh pit ideas. It seems to me that orks exist, and obviously do this a lot better.. Guardsmen don't seem to do the job better.

I think that a counter-charge set up could work well, with a platoon deployes behind the front line ready to hurt anyone who charged in. the idea of having IG try to run towards a chaos or ork list doesn't seem like any fun at all.


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## Inquisitor Einar

Sort of.. Orcs are better at the melee bit, most definitely. However, this IG army doesn't just melee.. it's also a gunline..
So what you'd do is.. you set up, and open fire with FRFSRF on incoming enemies, your russes and artillery creating more havoc among your opponent's ranks, then when they get near you, you suddenly blow the whistles and yell 'FIX BAYONETS! FOR CADIA!'
( I Recommend getting a proper whistle for this  ), and you suddenly assault the enemy furiously.

I mean.. what's more fun than to face say, an SM drop pod army, and he grins widely at you when he lands next to you, executing his drop pod attacks, then only to have his grin turn to puzzlement when you assault him full of vigor, and then to despair when he faces the full might of the imperial hammer up close and personal.


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## Alexious

I think the biggest flaw for me in the IG CC army is the fact, that after spending months of painting figures... all you end up doing with them is removing them by the dice roll. From a psychological perspective that will kill the entire thing for me. I tend to paint something and then want it to be good or useful in a flashy sense or for a particular purpose... I don't think anyone enjoys painting 100+ guardsman (I may be wrong, speak up sirs I would like to see how your hands have turned into talons or your stuck holding a brush forever) Just to see them removed as constant casulaties... 

Penal troops are an interesting idea. The thing which I can't see working though is the pure numbers aspect and being able to weild them effectively. Ie; The conscripts must be attached to a platoon which is already 25 figures min, so thats 50 figures your looking at placing before you even get to the conscript theme. Then your looking at large units as well, so add another 40 odd figures. If thats replicated twice.... your looking at what? 100+ guardsman just to send them into a CC wave? I play mainly full infantry and your greatest strength lies in keeping your opponent at arms length as long as possible or diverting things heading for your gunline so it can continue to fire, attempting to massacre whats going for you.


A legionaire army is going to tie things up... but will it kill them? What are you going to kill things with. I note that hellhounds etc have been mentioned but the problem remains. What are those forces doing while your tying up units? If your goal is to delay... great... to remove enemies that you do want to delay like the carnifex fine... but lets remember penal legionaire troops are without anything decent with them to take out the fex or even an anti- infantry based special wpn. What happens if the squads get a rotten ability you roll. There are no melta's, no plasma, not even the GL to assist them. As for arguments about Commissars etc, noted. I take that point and that you can tool your army to have one or two effective fighters, but your putting an awful big risk in few redundencies. There are only so many command squads, platoon command squads and priests you can effectively field.

I do note that Capt Al, has been mentioned. I agree absolutely with the tactics mentioned in using him with mechanized forces especially. An entire platoon in Chimera with heavy flamers appearing on the flank will crush a flank and allow you to attach HWS to the side or Plasma based special wpns will allow you to shoot that land raider in the side or open the cardboard backs of eldar tanks. I do wonder if Storm troopers are just as effective or if you had the desire a large number of scout sentys, or run vertrans along a flank in Chimera's enmasse.

I havent calculated point cost but I see it as Capt Al to be really worth his abilties, your placing in a 1500 point game a lot of your potential firepower in one strategy that your opponent will be ready for if they are smart. Using him is comitting to a style of flank attack when you may not want to against every enemy.


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## spacecurves

*Close Combat IG work great, heres a list*

I have been playing with all infantry, no armor value of any kind, IG armies, that are centered around close combat. Heres a 2000 point list:

Command Squad: straken, vox 150
Command Squad: standard, vox, autocannon	80
Storm Troopers: 5 troopers, 2 melta guns 105
Storm Troopers: 5 troopers, 2 melta guns 105
Ogryns: +2 ogryns 210
Veteran Squad: 3 plasma guns, vox 120
Veteran Squad: 3 plasma guns, vox 120
Platoon 1: Command, vox, melta gun 45
Infantry Squad 1: grenade launcher, vox, sgt w power weapon 70
Infantry Squad 2: grenade launcher, sgt w power weapon 65
Infantry Squad 3: grenade launcher, sgt w power weapon, commissar w power weapon 110
Infantry Squad 4: autocannon, vox 65
Infantry Squad 5: autocannon 60
Platoon 2: Command, vox, melta gun 45
Infantry Squad 1: melta gun, vox, sgt w power weapon 75
Infantry Squad 2: melta gun, sgt w power weapon 70
Infantry Squad 3: melta gun, sgt w power weapon, commissar w power weapon 115
Infantry Squad 4: lascannon, vox 75
Infantry Squad 5: lascannon 70
Platoon 3: Command, vox, flamer	40
Infantry Squad 1: flamer, vox 60
Infantry Squad 2: flamer, commissar 90
Infantry Squad 3: flamer 55

Total 2000
If you want to have an effective close combat force, you need Straken. Having straken AND creed could work also, but I have pretty much decided I'd rather just have 90 pts. more of guardsmen. I've found this army to be really fun, really different, and really good. This force is very tactically deep due to the orders system, and will overwhelm most any opponent with bodies.

Infantry squads 1-3 merge together into close combat squads, squads 4-5 merge and stay back providing fire support under orders from the non-straken company commander.

The reason IG infantry armies work is that while they are not quite as good as orks in cc, or as shooty as a conventional gunlines, they can do both almost as well and pick and choose what they want to do in any given situation.


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## Overfeind

i have tried to do the cc ig army it works well if you get the timing rite and you get the charge, creed has worked well giving orders left and right but i did have a problem with him failing giving the orders even with vox which leaves the guard unit vulnerable, now i add kell which has worked very well. 

straken is grate no problem with failing orders and you can put kell in this unit makes a very power full cc unit. 

just so you know what my army is roughly like hear are some of this army's resent results, keep in mind im a ig player not use to going for cc my timing is not very good at tiring to get the charge.

game 1 ig V orks = ig win (he did not call a warrr and his face when i charged priceless)

Game 2 ig V sm = ig win (another person not expecting me to charge)

Game 3 ig V csm = ig loss (mark of nurgal T5 was to much)

Game 4 ig V orks = ig loss (thay got the charge butchered the guard)

Game 5 ig V sm = draw (i only had 1 hw unit left but thay held the home objective game ended turn 5 if it had not the termeys would have got them.)

Game 6 ig V sm = ig loss (gunned down)


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## Minigiant

another debate

autocannon heavy weapon team or hydra flak tank


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## TheKingElessar

Situational. In a HWS, I like the Autocannon, but in no other situation would they beat the awesome Hydra.


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## Alexious

As the full infantry player I pick HWS! 

As the Mech player I pick HWS!

That said I can see the benefits of the Hydra.... 


Pros for HWS Autocannon/Tips

1. They are a target thats 6 wounds strong and will if placed in the gunline effectively with correct orders push out a punishing rate of fire bringing down most everything with sheer weight of numbers. Your looking at what? 75+ odd points for it? Or abouts? (dont have my dex on me at the moment).

2. You can field quite a few and spread them quite effectively through your troop choices, breaking up the battle line with squad, HWS, squad, in nice wavy paterns if your smart. So they don't get mashed all at once. ( I tend to do this with large blocks of troops together and HWS in between them or do the double line if I have higher ground to take advantage of)

3. Stick a Lord Comm within 6 inches and they won't run away even when that pie plate will take out two of them.

Cons

They are fragile to CA units and will never stand up in CC. They require chaperones. They cannot be easily moved as you dare not lose a turn of firing if your a guard gunline, if you have to move your HWS, you may as well start collecting SM and buy yourself termies with assualt cannons and be done with it. Gunlines are not there to move till turn 4 to rush an objective. Learn to place your guns and your ok...crossfire, channel fire, whats coming down that alley there? how would I approach me? can this squad be used against two avenues of attack? Whats supporting me here? Where are his reserves? I wonder if she likes romantic walks in the park after hours? etc


Hydra


Pro's

everyone will hate you for having forge world stuff that here in OZ is not that common.  In all seriousness however its a rare model really. So people will not be expecting it enmasse. Three of them will constitute the first time you play somebody an instant OUCH what the hell did that tank thingy do.... I have found the same with RR, everyone laughs and says... Ok old man... use your ancient Atilians..... yeah I am scared. Then they hit and they go WTF... the hydra does have that feel to it. (Age and Treachery will defeat Youth and Skill every time at 40k)

The biggest advantage has to be the anti-skimmer use, its designed to smack out a ork warbike army and dark eldar raider force as well as give eldar nightmares. I have never used one but the math looks good to me. It will also serve an exceptionally well anti-heavy troop wpn, I can see Necrons going what the hell was that.... where did my destroyer lord go? Same use against SM bikes as above too. Plus its armoured.... its a target that they have to take out and if they do, in a standard IG list, they will have to ignore the basky or the russ or the hell hound or bane wolf... and there are only so many anti-tank wpns you can effectively field and firing at multiple targets will reduce their effectiveness.

The disadvantages... its one shot one kill from a lascannon or a nasty marine with a ML that is feeling lucky. I hate tanks for that reason. It could be deadly to you if they are the only choice of mech you have. If you have a variety all good. But then your reducing other things for primarily a defensive wpn and troop killer, its not going to hold an objective or go trundling forward its going to sit and fire, and its now objectives that win games, not gunlines.... unless you totally blow your enemy to 20% of their forces. If you do, you are not playing with enough terrain or he/she is a fool. 

My general thoughts, mixed Mech force with some tanks.... sure anything above the 1750+ plus that doesnt have anti-skimmer or mass firepower I'd take a Hydra or 3. But they are going to be part of your defence, they will save you, chew up his or her forces, but win you the war? against a few lists... maybe... against a lot of lists, no.

overall for effectiveness for me its the HWS... but thats also coloured by my very infantry list thinking.


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## CommissarHorn

Bah! Auto cannon? Hydra cannon? What you need is men!
A few skilled Vets or waves upon waves of conscripts! I play both styles although my original is the skilled vets. 1 of me Death World Veterans is equal to 2 Space Marines, except in jungle, then they're worth 4 Space Marines. The average points of a guardsmen from my original DWV army is like 25 pts. Don't use alot of tanks, only 1 Leman Russ Vanquisher, Basilisk and a Chimera is about all the vehicles I got.

Its all about knowing your Guard and what they can do, its about being underestimated and attrition. My Vets have felled Carnifex's by the dozen, both in cc and shooting. My best Vet squad dragged down a bio-titan and in the exact same battle went of, with 4 remaining, and murdered half a squad of a dozen Chaos Terminators.
Pure blunt attrition. Give a Guardsmen a Demo pack and throw 'im into an enemy Tank Regiment, he'd cause hell for sure. Say 2 tanks dead at maximum? Well I've got more than 20 demo packs, I wonder how many tanks the enemy has.
Lots of Demolition packs aswell, love em.

...I'd pick Auto cannon, expendable, in larger amounts and has many more uses.


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## Inquisitor Einar

Overfeind said:


> i have tried to do the cc ig army it works well if you get the timing rite and you get the charge, creed has worked well giving orders left and right but i did have a problem with him failing giving the orders even with vox which leaves the guard unit vulnerable, now i add kell which has worked very well.
> 
> straken is grate no problem with failing orders and you can put kell in this unit makes a very power full cc unit.
> 
> just so you know what my army is roughly like hear are some of this army's resent results, keep in mind im a ig player not use to going for cc my timing is not very good at tiring to get the charge.
> 
> game 1 ig V orks = ig win (he did not call a warrr and his face when i charged priceless)
> 
> Game 2 ig V sm = ig win (another person not expecting me to charge)
> 
> Game 3 ig V csm = ig loss (mark of nurgal T5 was to much)
> 
> Game 4 ig V orks = ig loss (thay got the charge butchered the guard)
> 
> Game 5 ig V sm = draw (i only had 1 hw unit left but thay held the home objective game ended turn 5 if it had not the termeys would have got them.)
> 
> Game 6 ig V sm = ig loss (gunned down)


Sounds like you had a great tryout.. and yes.. the idea that your enemy won't expect you to actually CHARGE with your guardsmen is one of the reasons why I think an IG CC army can be quite effective.

Nurgle Marines with their T5 are indeed invulnerable to your +1 str from furious charge ( S3 -> 6+ to wound, S4 also 6+ to wound )
I'd recommend switching to gunlining them instead.

I wish you have a picture of that orc player's face :shok: when you charged HIM. :victory:

On the autocannon HWS vs Hydra.. I think the HWS is a better choice, since your hydra will die in 1 good shot ( and using camo nets to improve your cover save for this guy is rather expensive )
The bonusses that the hydra get are also compensated by it's higher cost, and it costs a Heavy Support Choice, while a HWS doesn't cost you any slots it's included in your platoon. ( and by the time you want to have more than 10 HWS vs 2 infantry platoons you're doing something wrong )


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## TheKingElessar

A HWS has a hidden cost though - the PCS and 2 ISs that you MUST buy to take it. You may think it's fine, but, if trying to field a dependable Mechanised force, like moi, you don't want any Platoons. Ever. Veterans are the way to go. Veterans = no HWS.


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## Someguy

I don't think veterans are a viable army to be honest. I don't see how they even begin to take orks on. Yay, 3 meltas!

I played against a friend using a proxied up IG army this weekend with my marines and one thing that struck me was that they need to prioritise killing enemy transports. Ordnance is pretty scary for infantry but far less so for vehicles. Scattering shots that might still kill 3 marines do nothing to a rhino at strength 4, and even direct hits often do nothing appreciable. Even in the pretty unlikely event that the rhino dies, the marines are still there. We played dawn of war take and hold, and my friend conceded by the end of his turn 5, him having gone first, having just a couple of half-working vehicles left alive and about 20 guardsmen, and about to be tabled. My storm hadn't even bloody turned up yet.

To be fair to my friend it wasn't really a serious game and it was the first time he had used the army, against the laters iteration of my competitive(ish) marines. However, it did give a useful insight into what happens when you put IG on the table and ask them to fight stuff.

A weird thing that happened a couple of times was that my marines would charge a tank and stun or immobilise it, and stay in contact. The result of this was that about half the IG army wasn't allowed to shoot this unit, as their ordnance stuff would hit their own knackered tank. As such, the 5 chimeras fielded against me were kind of a liability, though their multi-lasers were pretty annoying.

What was really interesting was that you can kill an IG army in 3-4 turns. There are a lot of them, but they are so utterly useless in cc that you can multi-charge and expect to wipe everything out. Or better yet, one squad might stay in combat and keep you from being shot. They have a lot of tanks, but they tend to move 0 or 6", so they are easy to hit in cc as well. The whole area is so cluttered that it's often easy to multi-charge.

I was quite impressed by armoured sentinels. They share some of the best qualities of dreads, though obviously lacking the ccws. A tactical squad of mine charged one and failed to kill it with their power fist, and it even took 2 turns for Lysander to turn the thing into modern art.

In general I think the best IG armies will be tons of infantry with a few tanks in support. I think lascannons should feature a lot on the infantry, as they are the army's best way to pop transports, and also scare obliterators away.


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## TheKingElessar

Can you put up his list? Unless his Ordnance was Manticores, it sounds a bit all over the place...

As for Hordes, they're easy. Chimeras should always have Heavy Flamers - and when driven up hull-to-hull, although it allows multi-charges for remaining Boyz, only the Klaw will do anything, so it's irrelevant. It also provides extra room for the Vets to bail out the back and run around for Shotgun fun, and mopping up tattered survivors/ blocking fall back.


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## Minigiant

what do you think of taking 3 deathstrike missile launchers?

saw a guy playing in 1500pts (he proxied 2) 2nd 1 went off 6" radius destroyed most of the chaos

3rd turn the other 2 went off and there realy wasnt an army to play against him from then on he won without taking objectives by destroying everything on the board

his squads were geared toward mopping up

Opinions?


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## Sqwerlpunk

Deathstrike isn't the greatest thing in the world. Any opponent with competent long-range anti-tank (something more and more people are forgetting) will have a field day with your list.


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## TheKingElessar

^What Sqwerl said...

They're unreliable, and don't have the AV14 they so desperately need.


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## Alexious

Have done the chimera hull to hull configuration for most of the new 5th ed games i have played above 1500 hundred points now... I find it useful and I do find that its distracting to my opponent so he/she will go for it and leave your HWS alone. (I run strict regimented platoons all in nice symetrical configurations thankyou very much). But that said, I have noticed three things with other guard players of late and watching games...

1. If it doesnt fly and have V in its name and is new... its "silly" or stupid or wow havent you got that yet?
2. The flavor of the month appears to be for 5th edition.... hi i would like a unit please that can come on a side, later in the game, or a teleporting in unit, a single guy who lobs demo charges that can appear sometime later, etc.
3. Balanced lists appear to have almost disintergrated and blown to dust.... Its all specialized troops and deployments everything has a task.... even in friendly games. 

I think the real challenge whether it be a guard player or a nid player or who the hell ever now... is OH JEEZ WHY DIDNT I KNOW HE WAS PLAYING A NID ARMY I BOUGHT MY ANTI SM FORCE? Its almost as if we are creating very thin bladed sharp knives to win us what has always been to me a slow sledge hammer blow. (Metaphorically speaking) especially for the guard. 



Ok then...... New topic.... THE HELL HOUND AND ITS VARIANTS.... 

Instead of 5 posts saying yes i have.... and then a line of text. this is meant to be a tacitca after all...

explain why..... explain how.... explain if..... and how they can be mixed or what you use them with.


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## Inquisitor Einar

They're Fast, They're Deadly, and they can really pack a punch.. however, they have AV12, so can be quite vulnerable.

That said, Banewolfs can supplement your force with anti-infantry power that you might otherwise lack, with their 2+ to found AP3 flamer templates.
Devil Dogs with their melta blast can do some serious hurt against heavy tanks, moving 12" and still firing their melta cannon.

Hellhounds being slightly less hard hitting, their blast template is still very usefull, throwing it at the enemy at range while remaining in cover.


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## Vashtek

TheKingElessar said:


> Can you put up his list? Unless his Ordnance was Manticores, it sounds a bit all over the place...
> 
> .


I was someguys's opponent. To be honest I was giving him an easy time as he hadn't beaten me in about a dozen games of 40k before :grin: and I wanted to try out a completely different type of army to that I normally use and also try out some 'pet squads' like grey knights. I'll give you an approximation of what I took:-

Command squad- master of the fleet, auto cannon, chimera (multi laser, heavy bolter)

Inquisitor- 2x mystics, bolter, emporer's tarot

Vet squad- 3x meltagun, chimera (multi laser, heavy flamer)

Platoon command- 2x melta gun, chimera (multi laser, heavy flamer)

2x infantry squads (autocannon, meltagun) with chimera (multi laser, heavy flamer)

Grey knight squad (nicking a chimera from a guard squad)

2x armoured sentinels with multilasers

Colossus
Colossus
2x basilisk (squadron)

I think that was about it. Some stuff I learned: IG need lascannons to pop rhinos as doing it with meltaguns is too late. Chimeras are better staying back as a counter flame unit than going forward as a unit to melt stuff with. Veteran squads are overpriced and normal squads are I think pretty good for their points.

I think I might stick with Colossus for another game, but lose some of the toys like the inquisitor, master of the fleet, veteran squads for more squads with lascannons and grenade launchers and prolly a leman russ and a valkyrie. I'm doing the army as squats and I'm planning the valkyrie as tri or bi plane.

Deathstrike missiles are clearly for fun games... sure you might beat someone using em with some lucky rolls but you don't want them in a tournament where you need stuff you can rely on if you're serious about winning the thing...


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## TheKingElessar

Okay, I'm guessing the Baslisks did little for you...and I also think the Grey Knights probably underperformed. There's not enough Melta in there, IMO, to reliably take down the enemy when you get the chance, even at BS4. I'd also go with Las on the Sentinels, rather than MLa...


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## Commander Aurellius

The guards are just great in the new codex. I love the new models and the army infrastructure is cool. Lots of stuff to choose from and quite frankly they are all viable options. Btw, do you like my signature? (See Below)


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## TheKingElessar

But they aren't all viable, as we've been discussing. Deathstrikes, for example, are rubbish.

Oh, and don't be a sig whore - people will comment on it if they want.


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## Vashtek

TheKingElessar said:


> Okay, I'm guessing the Baslisks did little for you...and I also think the Grey Knights probably underperformed. There's not enough Melta in there, IMO, to reliably take down the enemy when you get the chance, even at BS4. I'd also go with Las on the Sentinels, rather than MLa...


I don't think that the basilisks hit once and my grey knights did ok until they met Lysander. I would agree about the lascannons on sentinels (and probably even the troops). I don't think melta is the answer unless it can be delivered early which is why I might try a valkyrie. Having it scout is huge.

To be honest it was a new army that I had never used before. I made quite a few mistakes and had some below average luck which could have made a big difference. The difference between blowing a gun off a rhino and destroying it on the second turn of a game is massive. A lot seems dependent on this second turn as you either blow up transports and force them to walk through hell or they get to you and you get beaten up.


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## TheKingElessar

I suppose, given the difficulties Guard have against SM in CC, Melta _does_ have to hit them in early midfield...Turn one Chimera rush with Smokes should get you into position for a turn 2 drive-by though - the AV12 is proof against any small arms fire, and should be sufficient against even Plasma fire. Obviously, it's more viable if you go second...


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## Someguy

I think that collossi suffer because they are either great or totally useless. If they hit a bunch of marines then they kill them, but they need the transport to pop and then to hit. Since they can't fire direct, they scatter a lot.

I didn't like the tank squadron. Open topped vehicles in squadrons get killed damn easily. Glass cannons just aren't what the IG are about.

There's not much we can really determine from my game with Vashtek. I was using an army I've been working on for months against a brand new force. However you do get a much better feel for the real decisions you have to make in game by playing, which is much better than what you can achieve with any amount of theory. It was also a game where the dice didn't really behave, so Vashtek's ordnance mostly scattered (though a bassie took 5 marines with one shot) and my scouts never made it onto the board until turn 5, when the game was over anyway.

What we need are more accounts of actual games. A lot of good ideas have been put forward, so now let's see how they really get on.


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## Sqwerlpunk

Do Vassal games count? :laugh:


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## Sir jahams

Well its been a while since I've been back in this thread and look at how its sprouted but I'd thought i'd do so having had my first proper battle experience with the new guard.

I'd played my balanced 1250 army list which you can find round the army list forums against a friends saim hann list (Sir M1ke from this very forum whose larger 1750 list that he culled to get down to 1250 you can find round here too)

First impressions are most favourable! bullet pointed impressions away!

1.)Orders are very useful but never always needed to win
2.)LB makes heavy bolter sponsons more attractive giving a tri hvy russ a fearsome amount of firepower when still
3.) Chimeras give much needed cheap mobility with excellent firepower
4.)HWS aren't crippled by the 2 wounds change
5.) Mortar HWS are a cheap bargain
6.) Marbo is cool!

Ok well nothing that revolutionary but I found that the codex makes it much easier to make a stronger list even without going down the vendetta/vet route. Have to say I found that my mixed list ie not focussing on either mech or inf worked quite well having enough different targets for all the usual key weapon groups as not to give the enemy simple targets.

Anyone else have any standout experiences or are we still all theory hammering and experimenting with our lovely new codex.


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## Sqwerlpunk

Sir jahams said:


> 1.)Orders are very useful but never always needed to win
> 2.)LB makes heavy bolter sponsons more attractive giving a tri hvy russ a fearsome amount of firepower when still
> 3.) Chimeras give much needed cheap mobility with excellent firepower
> 4.)HWS aren't crippled by the 2 wounds change
> 5.) Mortar HWS are a cheap bargain
> 6.) Marbo is cool!


1. Orders are a great tool, and once they release a stupid FAQ for the "rule-bending" some put on, it'll be realized for what it is; A tool to use. Orders make Infantry stronger, but aren't the reason for Infantry, they can do fine by themselves as far as I'm concerned.

2. I actually never, ever give them sponsons. With the shocking amount of rear AV10, a stationary Leman is usually a dead Leman, 6" moves with the already fearsome amount of firepower LB allows you is plenty for me, with massively increased survivability to any nasty surprises.

3. Chimeras are awesome in the new 'dex, I've been looking forward to that change for a while. Fav' set-up has to Multi-Laser + Hull Heavy-Flamer.

4/5. Actually, HWS are crippled by the new rules, they have abysmal Ld, are ID'ed easily, and have nothing for armor as well as crap BS, and are pretty expensive for what they do. The only one I would ever consider getting is the mortar group.

6. He is a fun little bugger, isn't he?



Sir jahams said:


> without going down the vendetta/vet route.


AirCav is no instant win button. It has promise to be quite powerful (at least 'till the meta-game catches them), but they aren't easy to play, very fragile all around.


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## Inquisitor Einar

Sir jahams said:


> 4.)HWS aren't crippled by the 2 wounds change


I disagree with this, the change does make them less usefull.

First off, you don't have 3 lasguns in that squad anymore that shoot things.
Meaning at a point when your 3 HWPs don't have a proper target, you can't just use the HWP squad to fire 6 lasguns at something.

Second, because they are 1 model with 2 wounds now, instead of 2 individual members of a squad, if they get hit by a S6 hit, they make 1 armour/cover save and get instant deathed.

In the old rules, say a HWP squad gets hit by a lascannon, then 1 member dies, and you still have 3 operational HWPS, another shot, another member dies, and still 3 HWPs keep firing.

New rules, you lose a HWP every time when this happens.

Same would go for a template thrown on them.


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## Alexious

Inquisitor Einar said:


> I disagree with this, the change does make them less usefull.
> 
> First off, you don't have 3 lasguns in that squad anymore that shoot things.
> Meaning at a point when your 3 HWPs don't have a proper target, you can't just use the HWP squad to fire 6 lasguns at something.
> 
> 
> If your using HWS, they should always be placed so that they will have at least one target to fire at. Hence the entire HB vs Autocannon debate in a way and why the autocannon is much more multi-task. If I am using my tank hunter weapons on turn 3 still on tanks that are still firing away at me... then I am in serious trouble. After 3 turns the tanks are either crippled, dead, or blown to kingdom come. That could be for several reasons though.
> 
> 1. A person is drawn to the large nasty tank/flyer/thingy bearing down on him /her and its too good a target not to wipe out asap. I spend a lot of time watching games as well as playing, the pyschology of it appears to be, larger model, must remove it. (I have even seen tactically stupid mistakes made all due to the fact a lot of players will fire at tanks above what is the real threat to them).
> 
> 2. The rules make it quite easy for people to destroy or cripple tanks. I have a feeling a LOT of players are playing without 25% scenery cover on the entire table or are doing "ye old valley of death" scenery with structures etc and hills in starting zones and almost nothing in the centre. This from what I have been observing leads to the tank/chimera/tau flying gizmo... advancing as cover for more important "I want to hit them with my sword" type units. Leading to great numbers of vehicle kills.
> 
> I would be interested to hear your experiences with this... Have you noticed that some players will immediately just fire at everything that appears slightly bigger than 40mm? Even at their own detriment?
> 
> 
> 
> 2.
> 
> Second, because they are 1 model with 2 wounds now, instead of 2 individual members of a squad, if they get hit by a S6 hit, they make 1 armour/cover save and get instant deathed.
> 
> I will pay you that point.
> 
> In the old rules, say a HWP squad gets hit by a lascannon, then 1 member dies, and you still have 3 operational HWPS, another shot, another member dies, and still 3 HWPs keep firing.
> 
> New rules, you lose a HWP every time when this happens.
> 
> You still lose an Leman Russ when its shot by a lascannon as well.... potentially. And that can be one shot one kill, you still have two other weapons that will continue to fire in a HWS. Yes they may really burn the crap out of that one lascannon, but it doesnt explode and then get removed for 100+ points... a HWS will continue to fire.
> 
> Same would go for a template thrown on them.


Templates yes... I agree. I find them my bane, IF they are used smartly. A lot of people seem to struggle with the template and tactically where is the best place to put it.


As for the other comments above about HWS and orders..... A lord commissar with a counter assualt unit within 6 inches of a HWS means they will get those orders most times, 4 HWS plus Creed equals nasty.:so_happy:


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## Sir jahams

I do understand peoples reluctance with the HWS, with instant death being the real kick in the nuts. 

However I just found that with the range of AV12+ armour I had then the few HWS squads I had floating about in cover were just not what my opponents S6+ weapons were focussed on. 

Also when I think about it, the only armys to feature extensive use of S6 weapons are guard and eldar everyone else is firing higher strength single shot weapons or its small arms fire (though if im mistaken please enlighten me)

As for leadership and orders, then as pointed out you do have the commisar lord trick but personally Ive been alright without. Coulda been extreme luck but I passed the majority of my BiD tests and while extremely useful to have we always used them pre orders without complaints so its hardly a huge clincher to not use them.

As for the sponsons which someone commented on, I just like the HB's for the amount of dice I get to chuck tbh lol Probably the only good thing about the horrible punisher russ too lol


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## lawrence96

how do you guys feel on camo-netting? is it useful? if so what on? is it overpriced?


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## TheKingElessar

For me, Camo Nets are only viable on Armoured Sentinels, because they can snip from behind Chimeras, almost immune to return fire. Even if the opponent can trace a line of sight, you're looking at a 3+ or even 2+ cover, so you should survive to return fire.


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## Alexious

TheKingElessar said:


> For me, Camo Nets are only viable on Armoured Sentinels, because they can snip from behind Chimeras, almost immune to return fire. Even if the opponent can trace a line of sight, you're looking at a 3+ or even 2+ cover, so you should survive to return fire.


Exceptional idea... its like having terminators as fast attack choices that can shoot mildly effectively. I like it.


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## Inquisitor Einar

Though pricey, I think Camo netting when deployed properly is great. That extra cover save really helps to make your tanks in cover more durable, something that is very usefull when they are in a squadron or open-topped or both.
It also means that it's a little safer for you to deploy your artillery so it can fire directly instead of completely out of LoS and fire indirectly, adding accuracy to their potentially devastating barrages of large blasts.
And using Chimera's as deployable cover is also a very nasty trick.


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## Sqwerlpunk

I'd actually use indirect fire with squadrons of basis and such. The Multiple Barrage rules are fun and easy to get a lot of hits out of.


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## HollowHavok

In the area of HWS and Command options: Proper Command + HWS have exceptional anti-tank/bigstuff kill power, beyond even that of L. Russ, etc. For instance: Run two HWS with Lascannon/Missile Launchers and have a Company Command behind laying down "Bring em down orders". 

Secondly if you have a vet squad with 3 meltas or a regular Platoon command with 4 meltas in a Chimera, jump them up with the Chimera Command 12" back from the already properly spaced 12" away Melta range, and the pop smoke on the chimeras. You thus have 100~ point vet unit with 3 twinlinked meltas at BS 4/ or 4 twinlinked meltas at BS 3 for even cheaper w/ the Platoon Command. The Command is still almost 24" back and safely packed in a smoked Chimera. 

For fun I run 4 plasmaguns+Ppistol with my Company Command for the last hoorah. Jump out to kill demon Prince/Nid monstrosity or whatever nasty, blow the "Bring em Down", and you have 9 twin-linked BS 4 Plasmagun shots, whatever was just there...now gone.

I use the afore mentioned tactics for anything my ubiquitous str 3 las or str 5 hvy bltr can't take. Oh and 2 Chimera full of 3 flamers+1 Hvy Flamer for any particularly large hordes.

I hate the whole, just use a million autocannons, Leman Russ cause they are multi-taskers. I prefer to specialize and optimize. Screw Mediocrity...and hell is it fun to play. Its like putting on a circus show.

I would like to echo another poster's enjoyment of the Command with 4 sniper rifles. I also like it. Frankly I love Command Squad options, their ability to play any kill role and with minimal excessive cost for useless, uncontributing bodies is amazing.


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## TheKingElessar

HollowHavok said:


> In the area of HWS and Command options: Proper Command + HWS have exceptional anti-tank/bigstuff kill power, beyond even that of L. Russ, etc. For instance: Run two HWS with Lascannon/Missile Launchers and have a Company Command behind laying down "Bring em down orders".


But you only have a 56% chance of passing. With no Vox even available, it's hardly reliable.


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## Inquisitor Einar

A commissar lord helps in this regard, still the fact that HWP squads don't have voxes makes them less than reliable for orders.
It's one of their downsides. Though I'm also a big fan of specialized troops vs omni-semi-reliable troops. Ofcourse with SoBs, the basic sister is already a very usefull basic trooper, and putting more of them on the field works quite nicely.


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## TheKingElessar

Me too, I'm a big fan of specialisation, it's why I say never mix weapons, and Demo Charges are terrible. if you could have 5 Demo Charges, they'd be incredible. Even 3, in a SWS.


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## Inquisitor Einar

That's why I put 3 plasma's in my SWS for my outflanking platoon. Should be a nice surprise on the enemy. And the hq will be toting 3 melta's, while the big moshpit will have 3 flamers, 3 sarges with powerweapon, a commissar and a WH priest with eviscerator. I know, the WH priest is more expensive with less upgrades, but that one is not an IC while the IG one is. ( and I can't field the IG one anyway because my army is a SoB army, besides I need her for my arco's )


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## lawrence96

One way to increase the chances of a HWS following orders is to get Kell, Cheaper then a lord commisar when you factor in his upgrades (Power weapon, power fist, Reg. Standard, Carapace armour).

BTW was reading my codex just now and only just realised that for a company command squad for only 20pts ALL members of that squad can get carapace! including any regimental advisers. How on earth did i miss that? ah well, gonna have to sort me out a carapaced up command squad now.


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## Inquisitor Einar

Kell is fun to put with Straken for an uber combat squad.


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## HollowHavok

TheKingElessar said:


> But you only have a 56% chance of passing. With no Vox even available, it's hardly reliable.


This in comparison to a Leman Russ that scatters 66% of the time and on a 3+ roll on the scatter distance you likely just rolled the center off the vehicle to incur half strength...a pitiful str 4. Meaning that 43.56% of the time you are doing jack shit.
I'll take gettin 3 twinlinked 56% of the time and then at worst getting 3 non- twinlinked.


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## Sqwerlpunk

That's a horrible example. Why would you ever shoot at a vehicle with a Leman Russ? Also, there's usually an inch or two that you can deviate and still be on the vehicle, so you'd need to roll a 6+ to really start getting off the vehicle.

And Lemans are good at killing other things.


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## TheKingElessar

HollowHavok said:


> This in comparison to a Leman Russ that scatters 66% of the time and on a 3+ roll on the scatter distance you likely just rolled the center off the vehicle to incur half strength...a pitiful str 4. Meaning that 43.56% of the time you are doing jack shit.
> I'll take gettin 3 twinlinked 56% of the time and then at worst getting 3 non- twinlinked.


Or...compare it to something good, like a Vendetta. 3 T-L Las, hitting 75% of the time, every time. Don't leave home without one! Anyway, depends what tank you're shooting. If you shoot a Monolith, you need a damn sight more than 4 to miss that huge ass.


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## space cowboy

Someguy said:


> What we need are more accounts of actual games. A lot of good ideas have been put forward, so now let's see how they really get on.


Ok, I have actual games (1500 points) against Guard with my CSMs to hopefully help you guys out.

First thing I noticed is that squadrons are a huge liability. My Daemon Princes messed them up hardcore. The addition of immobilized results destroying the tanks while you have more than one really hurts as well. There are ways to mitigate this some, but it just seemed like I was able to trash the squadrons using fewer points than those squadrons were worth.

Secondly, some of the stuff in the list just seem totally worthless. There wasn't a single game I played where Penal Legions were worth anything, same with tech-priests or whatever they are and their retinues.

Third, the Company Command seems to be the most useful of the HQ choices, and my opponent seemed to get the most out of this HQ versus other choices, and the Master of the Fleet delaying reserves is _really_ annoying.

Fourth, I thought Veteran Squads were good, as well as the options for the Infantry Platoons, although the mook troop squads were only ok (as one would expect.)

We didn't really get into the big missle weapons or anything, so i have no insight on that stuff. Also, the big 20-shot gun was really funny.

Thanks,
Howard


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## Jacobite

Heres something to throw into the mix (bear in mind that I'm not a gamer however)* Medusa* could it work as a antiarmour platform with those sexy Bastion Breacher shells?

Give it some protection and could it be used as a general purpose tank? its got light armour sure but for smaller boards could be deadly.

Thougths?


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## Inquisitor Einar

Considering that anything that is ordnance has that extra D6 to roll and pick the highest, and that if you're firing indirectly, you hit side armour, I don't think you even need bastion shells. Griffons for acuracy, and manticores for volume ( and S10 too ) will do quite nicely.


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## Sqwerlpunk

massively expensive, and un-likely to really hit, in my opinion. would rather take a Vanquisher with Pask tbh.


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## TheKingElessar

Nah, not a Vanquisher fan...I'd use Medusa, or Colossus....but only if I couldn't afford more Manticores somehow. For me, tank-hunting isn't to be done by IG tanks - there's no out and out tank hunter (except now the Vanquisher, and it's just not very good...)

Devil Dog takes up a Vendetta space...


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## Inquisitor Einar

I disagree there.. The Manticore and the Demolisher both have S10 ordnance, firing directly you can get a hit onto something pretty nicely and expect to penetrate, also the manticore has multiple explosions, which means that even if you miss, the second large blast marker might just get on top of the tank anyway.

Mathhammering a demolisher:

1/3 hit
2/3 scatter

BS3, assuming 2 inch is the maximum before the hole falls of the tank, meaning that you need a 5 or less on the scatter roll.
Chances for that are 10/36, so the chance of hitting it is 1/3 + 2/3 * 10/36 = 1/3 + 20/108 = 1/3 + 5/27 = 14/27, so a bit above 50%.

Lets assume side armour is 13, and we want the tank dead or better.

2d6 pick highest. Chances for a glance are 5/36
Chances for penetrate are: 27/36
AP 1 so +1 on damage chart.
Glance kills a tank 1/6.
so chances for killing it with a glance are 5/216
penetrate kills a tank 1/2 so killing with a penetrate chance is 27/72.

5/216 + 27/72 = 5/216 + 81/216 = 86/216 = 43/108, about 40%

In all that means: 14/27 * 43/108 = 602/2916 about 21%

Valkyrie:
3 twin linked lascannons vs av13

3 * 3/4 = 9/4 hits.

5-6 = penetrate, glance doesn't kill so is disregarded in this.

2 1/4 * 1/3 = 9/12 = 3/4 penetrates.

1/3 of penetrates kill, so 25% chance of destroying said tank.

And a valk is only usefull for this. A demolisher can also unleash it's cannon on some termies. So 4% less chance of blowing up a tank isn't all that bad. The demolisher also has more armour, possibly also a lascannon to help.
And if the armour value is higher, the demolisher's odds won'd go down as much as the valk's will.


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## TheKingElessar

No, Demolishers are AP2. 
Also, Demolisher will hit front armour. It's not Barrage.


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## Someguy

I've only played two games against the new guard, but I've tabled them both times after 5 turns. I've been using an all-comers marine list not particularly designed to fight IG.

One massive flaw seems to be leadership. LD 8 or 7 is just terrible. It's extremely easy to cause break tests on multiple units and then a bunch of them run away. Very often they run off the board or find the enemy next to them so they can't rally. Any large combat is likely to see them lose, fail their morale check near-automatically, and get run down.

The result of this is that killing 90 guardsmen is really not difficult at all. Their weapons don't really do anything. Exposed infantry do have problems but the IG can't reliably stop a rhino rush.

Our game was take and hold, spearhead deployment. His objective was on the third floor of a building with 2 formed up infantry squads and a heavy weapons team inside. I had a tactical squad get out of a rhino (which they parked below the turn before) and storm through, killing the infantry platoon. They then boltered the heavy weapons teams a bit, breaking them, and leaving us in an odd position trying to find out how the IG would run away. My own objective was held by 5 guys who happily stood back and plasma cannoned things for fun, and were never shot at or threatened in any way.

So what works?

The guy I played tonight had Iron hand thingy (who is a beast, it's fair to say, though surprisingly just I3), 3 units of vets with shotguns, special weps (which I don't differentiate because none ever killed a model) and power fists. These rode in 2 chimeras and a vendetta. He had a platoon with 4 squads and 2 heavy weapon teams, with 4 lascannons and 4 heavy bolters between them. There were assorted sniper rifles, which were largely decorative. He had a leman russ with plasma cannon sponsons and a lascannon, which my storm scouts killed before it got a turn. The vendetta squad had a priest and inquisitor with it.

My opponent had picked a lot of the cc toys because he was waiting for a 2nd leman russ to turn up. It was interesting to see them in effect, particularly straken.

The Vet squads with power fists near Straken were kind of irritating. They would get out of their chimeras, fire a hell of a lot of shotgun shells into a target, along with some meltas or something, and then charge. Their 18 strength 4 attacks, plus the sergeant's power fist, were actually pretty convincing and the combined effect of the shooting plus cc was a fair number of dead space marines. The problem came when it was noticed that they were 10 guys (or maybe 7 or 8 after combat) with t3 and 5+ saves, standing quite close together.

So, Straken is a scary guy. I think he may win the Straken vs Creed debate, though this is not what I previously thought. Power fists on vet squads are interesting, in that they allow you to do real damage even to things you can't really expect to beat. A carnifex wouldn't expect IG to charge it for example, but a vet squad with 3 meltas, shotguns and a power fist could have a really good go at it.

Even so, there's a really long way to go. To be tabled by codex marines is a poor show really.


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## TheKingElessar

I think it's because the second list (since we already discussed the first) was again trying to do a little too much. Straken + Vets is all very well, but not as good as Straken + Chenkov, or Al'Rahem, + moshpits. If going to be a one-trick pony list, you need to fully commit. I think that's the strength, and weakness, of the Guard 'Dex summed up - they are an even better win button basher than Nob Bikes, or Jetlocks. Their problem is in the serious difficulty creating a balanced list, that remains top tier. For me, IG are one of the 5 top armies, almost certainly, but not as a conventionally balanced list. At true balance they are behind SM, Orks, and Eldar, at the very least.


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## lawrence96

Someguy said:


> One massive flaw seems to be leadership. LD 8 or 7 is just terrible.


Thats why we have cheap commisars LD9, with a re-roll all for the price of a rhino :grin: 


Someguy said:


> The result of this is that killing 90 guardsmen is really not difficult at all. Their weapons don't really do anything. Exposed infantry do have problems but the IG can't reliably stop a rhino rush.


I think that may be more the list, rather then the IGs capability to pop transports, did your opponent take a HWS with autocannons? cause they would tear a rhino up pretty fast.



Someguy said:


> Our game was take and hold, spearhead deployment. His objective was on the third floor of a building with 2 formed up infantry squads and a heavy weapons team inside. I had a tactical squad get out of a rhino (which they parked below the turn before) and storm through, killing the infantry platoon. They then boltered the heavy weapons teams a bit, breaking them, and leaving us in an odd position trying to find out how the IG would run away. My own objective was held by 5 guys who happily stood back and plasma cannoned things for fun, and were never shot at or threatened in any way.


Again if he had some autocannons then chances are the rhino wouldn't
of reached his lines



Someguy said:


> To be tabled by codex marines is a poor show really.


I'm not so sure, remember Marines get basic weapons that destroy IG pretty mush instantly, in order to do the same to SM us guardsmen have to get melta/plasma weaponary or tanks, both of which are expensive.


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## Someguy

He actually had a couple of haavy wep teams, though with odd set ups. To be fair I had a ton of vehicles, 8 in total, but only one of these died.

Heavy weps teams are some of the softest units that exist. They can't have a commissar or be combined.together. They can be taken out with trivial ease. 

This is nothing like conclusive and both the games I've played have been using a pretty good marine list against people using IG for the first time. So far I'm seeing more weaknesses than strengths though.


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## lawrence96

Someguy said:


> He actually had a couple of haavy wep teams, though with odd set ups. To be fair I had a ton of vehicles, 8 in total, but only one of these died.
> 
> Heavy weps teams are some of the softest units that exist. They can't have a commissar or be combined.together. They can be taken out with trivial ease.


Just out of interest just what heavy weapons did he use?

And yes if not deployed 'Correctly' then HWS can be killed easily, 1 round of bolter fire will do it easily, so what i do is hide them behind cover/friendly infantry squads. 

One expensive way to do the same as a HWS would be to use 3+ infantry squads combined, then you get commisars, spare bodies, order reliablility ect.


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## TheKingElessar

Problem with that is blocking your own LOS, and giving the enemy a cover save, protecting the transports further.


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## lawrence96

Only if your infantry cover 50% of the facing your targetting, which it might do, i have no idea how tall/wide a Rhino is. But even then it's only a 4+ save, 6 shots do have a high chance of sorting that (Ignore this part, i'm an idiot who thought tha Bring it down doubled the amount of shots you had, silly me!)


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## TheKingElessar

An Autocannon HWS vs a Rhino:

6 shots, so 3 hits. _If_ BID is successfully used, they get to re-roll those 3 misses, for 1.5 more hits.

4.5 hits, needing 4 to glance - 2.25 successfully damaging results. So, with BID, the Rhino will still probably only take one roll on the Damage chart...I'm not confident working out the exact chance that that's only a glance - but I think it shows that the odds aren't really in your favour. I think your odds are better forcing them to re-roll Cover Saves...


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## space cowboy

I forgot to add that s6 or greater weapons hurts the 2-wound heavy weapon base. Rather than having 2 dudes that tote the weapon, the 2-wound base can be instant-deathed with guns that are common for some armies, and I think this is an additional liability that I didn't remember with my previous post.

Thanks,
Howard


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## Someguy

That's exactly it. There was a heavy weps team hiding behind a couple of infantry squads. Fine, until the infantry squads ran off and I fired my plasma cannon. Then, not fine.

The other squad was in a building with a 4+ cover save. Fine until I shot bolters at it. Ok, you get a 4+ save, but you can fail a save. You don't have to fail very many saves before you lose a base, then you have a 42% chance of running off.

Actually, one thing you can do is cheese on hit allocation. Instead of taking autocannon or lascannon HWSs, take squads with a missile launcher, lascannon and autocannon. that gives you a decent mix for shooting most targets, but makes you tougher.

My opponent had 2 heavy bolters and a lascannon in each of his squads, and that's obviously no good. Not really a problem though, as they barely got to fire.


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## TheKingElessar

Speaking as a guy that puts Multi-meltas on all his Tactical Squads P) I'm beginning to think the 3 mortar, hide-behind-a-Russ squad may be the best HWS configuration...


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## Someguy

Not a bad unit. Too big to really hide behind a russ to be honest, but quite good in take and hold if there's somewhere out of sight for you to put an objective. On the other hand, not a lot of help when a mech army is heading for you and pathetically easy to kill.

What's weird is that I'm actually building a guard army, very slowly. I got an order through from B+K with a load more bits of guardsmen and brettonian a few weeks back and need to do some work on them.


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## TheKingElessar

I'm seriously considering AirCav for the Irish GT. It's a week before Heat 2 of ToS, so if I do play it at one, it'll almost certainly feature at both.


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## ItsPug

Just my own two cents but i've had some success with large (45 men) infantry platoons with GLs in the Platoon Command Squad and Autocannons in the infantry squads.

I've only played 3 'real' games (in GW Belfast against random opponents as opposed to friends armies I know pretty well) 2 at 1000 pts 2 weeks or so ago and 1 at 1750 on wed.

The two 1000 pt games were against eldar, one massacre, and one victory against a 1000pt mech eldar army with Eldrad. The 1750 pointer was against marines and I achieved a massacre then as well (I managed to capture my opponents objective while holding on to my own and wiped out the last marine in CC)

I had
1 x Command Squad
1 x Marbo
2 x Veteran Squads with Meltas in Chimeras
2 x 45 men platoons (combined with vox and commissar as above)
1 x Leman Russ Vanquisher with Pask
3 x Medusa

I'm going to Fields of Blood tomorrow so should have more info then. I'm going out on a limb by using the bastion breacher shells so I'll have some first hand experience to report on tomorrow evening once its all over.


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## TheKingElessar

Thanks for not mentioning that you massacred me, but, at 1000 points, I reckon Guard platoons must be the strongest Troops option, if not army full stop. My 3 tanks had no chance...

Despite popular opinion, I think Eldar really only start to come into their own at 1750, less than that they're very paper-scissors-stones. IG don't have this issue, although AirCav is certainly stronger at 1750 than 1500...I'm still trying to figure out what I think the optimal points value for IG is in general, hopefully seeing you and the other IG players tomorrow will give some help...


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## ItsPug

I didn't massacre you though, you still had models left at the end of the game (Hell you have eldrad - we could probably play 12 turns and the little bastard would still be running round).

Guard, or any army can be crap at any points value, I go for more guns over upgrades, a squad gets a heavy or special weapon, or multiples of the same - a unit must be able to carry out a specific role or it doesn't get a place in the list.

Take my infantry squads, the autocannons are there to pop light vehicles and transports in the early stages of the game, to effectively cut the legs out from under an opponent, then after a few turns of advancing their infantry though my fields of fire I close to rapid fire range an FRFSRF with the lasguns, rolling a fist full of dice is demoralising for your opponent even if it doesn't do much damage, when you roll 2 fist fulls...

I find that setup to be effective so it forms the main body of my army, my command squads as the nervous system, with my tanks and artillery being the fists, my mech melta vets the elbow to the skull if the punch misses, and Marbo being the final "knee to the balls" to bring an enemy down.

Lol we'll see how well it works tomorrow...

PS good luck TKE... unless your playing me, then may eldrad get eaten by a daemon.


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## TheKingElessar

Good luck to you too, although, again, not if facing me...and Eldrad won't be making an appearance :shok: despite being a nice model and all...Hopefully you'll play Connor, I kinda think he's been getting sloppy lately with rules knowledge, and with his force composition, because his usual opponents are less...knowledgeable, shall we say, than the average Heretic. Hopefully you can shake him out of his malaise, and I can have a better semi-regular Guard opponent...

Thinking about it, I actually know about ten players with a Guard army, and that's not that bad, seeing our biggest tourny will probably have no more than 60, with perhaps 100 players in the whole country...


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## Okad

Im curious about how that list turn out, Pug =]

I would theorise that at first, some people would underestimate the firepower your platoons can employ? It seems your force seems pretty solid for Anti-Mech though. Did the Medusas do well? How did you find the infantry survivability?


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## Alexious

Time to re-ignite the IG thread...

Let me see if I can come up with an ideas or arguments for you all to ponder....

Number One...

Is the following now seen as legit or silly? 10 man platoon squads with a Heavy Wpn and a Special Wpn. The standard from 2nd edition onward when you purchased a unit, was 1 heavy wpns team and 1 special weapon trooper. A bit like our old SM friends, with a special wpn and heavy wpn in one 10 man tactical unit. Your not worried about the 10 man squad... we can merge that before we go off to battle with others. But do you use or don't you use 1 team and a spec wpn trooper for each 10 men you field? Why? Why not? 

I note we tend to write too brief... explain it. Remember this thread gets read by a lot of younger novice guard players. Dont do oh yeah.. AC and Melta roolz and kills MEQ.... etc. Explain why you think this. Teach them...


Number Two.

What is the most useless unit in the current Guard Codex... and why? 


Number Three.

Stormtroopers, older, smarter.... but are they now useless in the face of objective holding vetrans? who can happily take 3 meltaguns or demolitions?

Number Four.

Sgt Bastone..... do we not like him? Why? Do we love him? Explain?


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## TheKingElessar

Okay, I'll add more later, cos I gotta go to work 

But:
No, I generally don't feel there's much point in taking a Special and Heavy weapon together. Plasma is overpriced and is the only solidly good static weapon, the Grenade Launcher is okay, but I really just don't rate a single shot at S6 from BS3. Also, static units get boned by mobile pieplates, like Fire Prisms, and can't capture midfield objectives. Having a squad or two designated for that task, but no-one else who can is an inefficient plan, that has poor redundancy - a concept even more critical for T3 models. 

Most useless unit? Rough Riders. Who ever thought it wasn't just time to put them out to pasture I don't understand - ALL of the other Fast Attack choices (7?) are better, both overall, and point-for-point. RRs are a one-shot weapon, that can only kill MEQs - vehicles laugh, hordes laugh, MCs laugh. A Hellhound has far better survivability, and does a lot more with it.

Stormtroopers have a very clear role now - suicide shock troops. Tool them up with Melta/Plasma, and drop 5 in the enemy's face, Turn 2 (if possible, obviously) The unit should destroy it's target (Devastators, a Land Raider, whatever) and then get flattened. This is what Fire Dragons are for, what Death Company are for, and what STs are for. Go with it, don't get emotionally attached to your toy soldiers. 

Bastonne...I will discuss later.


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## Inquisitor Einar

Alexious said:


> Number One...
> 
> Is the following now seen as legit or silly? 10 man platoon squads with a Heavy Wpn and a Special Wpn.


Well, it's totally legit, it's clear in the codex that you can upgrade a 10 man infantry squad with a heavy weapon and a special weapon, and a vox, if you feel so inclinded. Wether it's usefull or not.. Well, that's debatable. I can see a grenade lancher put in a squad with a missile launcher, so at 24", you have more static firing anti-infantry firepower.
However, every heavy weapon you include in an infantry squads, removes a lasgun ( or two if you want to fire the heavy weapon ), and an special weapon also removes one. While this isn't all that much, it will reduce the effectiveness of FRFSRF, so keeping the heavy weapons out of them is not that bad an idea, if you plan to use this order.
Personally, I think HWPs should be in HWP squads, so you can concentrate them more and unleash them upon the enemy in larger concentrated amounts.
This ofcourse puts you in the dilemma of a missing vox for orders.
If you include a HWP in an infantry squad, I think it's best to either leave out the special weapon, or get a matching one, and combine squads so you can have multiple HWPs benefit from an order.
A good setup for a platoon would be
3 squads with special weps, 1 vox, commissar combined
2 squads with HWPs, 1 vox combined.

HWPs can't move, so this squad will be more static, given this, get special weapons which have the range to support your HWP. Grenade launcher with a missile launcher for instance. Though a flamer or two added could be a good detererrent in case someone dumps something nasty near you, making your HWP range and power useless.



Alexious said:


> Number Two.
> 
> What is the most useless unit in the current Guard Codex... and why?


A few come to mind. But IMHO the deathstrike missile launcher takes the cake. Penal Legionaires being a close second.



Alexious said:


> Number Three.
> 
> Stormtroopers, older, smarter.... but are they now useless in the face of objective holding vetrans? who can happily take 3 meltaguns or demolitions?


STs have a shitload of special rules and toys to play with, and the fact you can choose which one to use and how at deployment makes them quite dangerous. That said, you also pay for this added usefullness, you can get 2 vet squads for the price of 1 ST squad.
In all, I think it's an expensive unit, but with the possibility of being quite devastating. Not something a novice player would/could use effectily, but in the right hands can be very deadly.



Alexious said:


> Number Four.
> Sgt Bastone..... do we not like him? Why? Do we love him? Explain?


He's a sergeant, and he gives orders.. in all, I think for his added usefullness, he's a bit too expensive. You're probably better of with one of the 'bigger' upgrade chars, for platoon commands and such.


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## KageRyuuUji

Has anyone had any success with the Psyker Battle Squad? Do they work better at Soul Storming or Weakening Resolve? I'd like to think that a squad of Psykes would be useful alone but do I need to think of matching them with someone? Maybe some Runties (Ratlings) for death by pin-age? Or someone else? Any help would be appreciated.


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## ItsPug

Sorry. Haven't been on in a while.

The list I took to Fields of Blood was
Company Command with 3 GLs and a vox
Marbo
2x 45 man platoon (PCS has 3GLs and a vox, infantry squads have autocannons, 1 Vox and 1 commissar, combined) 
2x Vet Sqd with 3 meltas in a basic chimera
Vanquisher with hull lascannon and Pask
Medusa with breacher shells
2x basic Medusa

All in all worked pretty well, a lot of people did underestimate the lasguns, wiping out most of a deathwing squad with lasguns will really shock someone. They can dish out a lot of firepower at short range and can take a hell of a beating. In one game a squad took two pie plates in the face and didn't bat an eyelid. 

The one problem I had was hunting units down, if a unit managed to get out of LOS of my two platoon firebase I was hard pressed to bring enough firepower to bear to take them out.

As for the breacher shells. Never again... The only thing I managed to kill with them was a single chimera. In 3 games. The ordinary medusas always managed to get their points back in each game, usually with one shot lol! 

Even against IG I managed to take out 4 ogryns and 3 sentinels with one shot. So the normal medusa is fine, the beacher shell's small blast template and large scatter means that it normally misses vehicles, so unless you're taking out LARGE buildings (Planetstrike?) IMHO its pretty useless.


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## TheKingElessar

I think that PBSes are best used in concert with a Callidus - which is a problem, because there's your 3 Elites gone right away. They also work ok with pinning, or even regular LD, if you can do enough. Making Nob Bikers run with them is as funny as it is stupid...

It's Pug, was, I'm fairly sure, the highest ranked IG player at the end of FoB, out of around 5 or so?


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## KageRyuuUji

Talkin' AT or just over all firepower? Because I've hammered out the top three tank killers, which is rather obvious if you think about it:

Devil Dog w/ Multi Melta (Other gubbins in my opinion just up the cost for this wonderful tank killer.)

Vendetta w/ 3 TL-Lascannons (What's not to love about outflanking with 3 twin-linked Lascannons? And Hellhound rated armor?)

and a Vet squad with 3 Meltaguns. (Possibly the best AT unit if you can get Demolitions to work for you, otherwise forget the upgrade and take 3 Meltas, get in to 6in and blam! One dead tank, especially if it's a Landraider.)

Problems with the units are this:
Devil Dogs have a rather short range weapon for most AT work (12" for their meltas to truely work), they're main cannon is a blast weapon (so only hits accurately only 1/3 of the time), not to mention lack the ability to outflank (easily solved by taking old blood and guts himself, Castellan), but if used right they can accurately and easily penetrate AV14 and are childs play against lesser tanks.

Vendettas, where as the Devil Dogs had trouble actually hitting regulary and getting to it's target, the Vendetta doesn't, it can outflank, is a fast skimmer, and has a lovely range of 48" to fire from. Only problem though is penetrating higher armor reliably. I've never really trusted lascannons to do the work of Meltas as they have to roll a 6 to penetrate AV14, but if you don't mind that, then Vendettas work wonderfully, though will be a target from the second they come in.

Vets, what's not to love about these guys? Simple, they can't infiltrate any more, that's the only thing I can think of. Besides that though, actually AT hunting is second nature to these guys, if you're willing to spend some points to do so. Like the Devil dog their problem is actually getting there, once there however, supeior BS and number of Meltas outweighs this chore which can be solved easily enough. Put them in a trasnsport, preferably a Valkyrie to take out infantry while they take care of the tank, or use Castellan's tactical genius to help them outflank (Or both, have them flank in a Chimera), but if you don't like Castellan or Valks, than you're pretty much screwed. Other downsides are that they have no survivability as tank hunters, once they're found out, they're as good as dead, but then again so should the tank (especially if you just happen to have an Officer in range to issue "Bring it down!")

So, three stellar choices for AT work, I personally go with Vendettas for general AT work, and Devil Dogs for heavies (AV14)... Also, a nice lil bonus for Devil Dogs, since they have a blast weapon, they can work very simulary to Plasma Cannon weilding Armored Sentinels as Heavy Infantry hunters.

Speaking of which, Heavy Infantry have a new foe to be found in the lovely lil Armored Sentinel and Medusa, but most of all in the Leman Russ Executioners, what's not to love about a triple does of Plasma cannon in the morning?

^^ But let us not forget about Rambo... er, Marbo lol AP2 Sniper Pistol of doom anyone?


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## TheKingElessar

For me, the Banewolf needs AV13 to be a rival to the Vendetta.


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## KageRyuuUji

The Banewolf has a Str1 Poison Template weapon, I think you mean Devil Dog.

Now as for your wonderful lil Vendetta can it hunt Termies? Maybe three at a time, but what about twice that?

Anyway like I said before, I don't trust Lascannons to do to the work of real AT guns, aka Meltas.


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## TheKingElessar

Yeah, I make that mistake all the time. That said, the same principle applies, mostly. But the Wolf is better, IMO. Better than AP5 Flames are always good. 

I'd use MRPs on my Valks for Termies, or, if not using AirCav, Multi-lasers, before using Meltas, or Las. RoF > AP, generally. IMO.


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## KageRyuuUji

With Termies I usually go with AP simply to watch them use an invulnerable version of Flak armor lol But Most else ROF will usually get the job done.


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## TheKingElessar

The problem, for me, is that most things can't get enough AP2 shots, or just aren't accurate enough to make it work. I hate using Bright Lances to kill Termies, for example. Fore Prisms, though, is fine. Guard suffer similarly, though not as much.


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## KageRyuuUji

Plasma cannons are the usual solution for Termies in my opinion, at least when it comes to Guard who either love the Exterminator or have a few of the "new" Armored Sentinels.


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## TheKingElessar

Mmmm. Plasma Cannons aren't versatile enough for me, not really a fan. Especially on Infantry.


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## KageRyuuUji

About as versitile as a normal Plasma gun, cept with a blast and longer range. Usually only consider using them against Death Wing or someone I knew has quite a few Termies in advance. Otherwise there are other better options, namely the Demolisher and Medusa come to mind. Nice large str10 AP2 blasts.

But, if you know you'll be fighting termies and you don't at least grab two or three (or some other options), then you'll be hard pressed for your friend to roll a 1.


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## TheKingElessar

Yes, but I don't rate the plasma gun on many things that don't have FnP and a 3+ save...


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## KageRyuuUji

Then you can at least appreciate the blast when it comes to taking out squads at a time rather than individuals.


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## TheKingElessar

Oh yeah, there are few better TEQ killers than a PC, but I don't like it for killing light armour, something the ML and MM both do better - making them more versatile, and, IMO, better. 

Of course, IG don't get many MMs, so they use Lascannons to compensate, which is equally good, or better.


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## KageRyuuUji

Plasma should only ever be used as AT in emergencies.

As for Lascannons, as long as they're twin linked few things can match them, but when you can get two 24" melta "guns" on one vehicle then you got to start weighing your options.

On an un-related topic do you pair your hydras or let them solo? (4 Shots is still only 4 shots, and they do take up a heavy slot...) And do you find yourself using them more often against light armor, skimmers/bikes (#1 reason to take them), or anti infantry (as stated before 4 shots is still only 4 shots)


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## TheKingElessar

I think I would use them primarily for popping transports or Bikes.


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## KageRyuuUji

Ok, then how about this: Vendeta or Valkyrie with MRP, carrying a demoltion squad?


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## ItsPug

I don't rate vets with demolitions very much as you cannot assault after disembarking, 3 meltas is better especially since you can easily get within 6".


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## KageRyuuUji

Ok, But SWS or Vets? Which would ensure a kill? More importantly if SWS is the case, would you load two squads into the valkyrie?


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## Okad

Tough call... I guess having 2xSWS would be marginally better for survivability, mostly because they are two separate squads and thus take at least two units engaging them to neutralise, but at the cost of being easier to break due to smaller squad size and leadership. I would expect any shooting attack to cause 2 casualties and for them to fail their morale. They are worth 2x KPs, which is a factor if you actually implement that moronic rule.

6 meltas would ensure more hits, despite the better BS. Lasgun hits are irrelevant, given the units tasking...

I guess its personal choice really. Against MEQ armies, might be worth taking 2xSWS for two main reasons: the extra meltas and thus points are not wasted on engaging their infantry; and those armies typically having a smaller unit count which means diverting two units to take out your melta team could be more problematic.

Definitely worth considering, if you're running Aeroplanes. I'm doing chimeras, because I think theyre more fun... worth having two chimeras with 2xSWS, rather than 1 with 1 vets? More redundancy... more Chimera HFs... many more points. Must do some investigating.


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## KageRyuuUji

Alone a single SWS with 3 meltas costs less than 1 vet squad, but 2 together cost just as much as a vet squad with 3 meltas and demolitions as well.

Again, survivability comes into play, more squads equal better chance of that, not to mention that if they want to break they break for friendly territory and thus are possibly recoverable. Now as for KP, I beleive it is a moronic rule for an army that does't give a shit about it's line man's survivability so I never play with it, but if I was forced to use it then that would definately sting...

But as stated there are other options, but they include other vehicles, and while they may individually be cheaper than a Valkyrie and it's squad, 2 would definately be worth equal if not more.

But which is more effective? (The following are the options I'm considering for my AT squad/s)

Vendetta (1 squadron, 1-2 over all)
Devil Dog w/ Multi Melta (again 1 squadron, 1-2 over all)
Valkyrie w/ Vet squad or SWS/s (1 over all)

I've run the numbers on all except for the SWS and it looks like the Devil Dog has a small lead while the Vendetta and the Vet Squad are neck and neck.


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## Okad

Or Lascannon Sentinels? Can get like 5 for the points range youre talking, in two squadrons though. Even at BS4, I'd expect them to do their job. The other thing that needs to be considered in this new "which unit?" question, is range, maneuverability and resilience. The Dog may have an edge kill-wise, but it only has 1 weapon, which can be killed easily enough, and a shorter range. The mounted melta grunts have range limitations, and are obviously a short-term investment. Laz0rplanes have big maneuverability, big range, and big reliability with 3 twin linked weapons. Sentinels are weaker obviously, but half a dozen of them can take some losses without too much worry, plus they have good range. Still, theres a technique to employing vehicles that die from shoota volleys. I know theyre not quite the same level of maneuverability as the others, but with the scout sentinel rules they have a different kind of sneakiness.

Again, probably depends on the rest of your force composition as to which choice you make.


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## KageRyuuUji

Not even considering las sentinels, because for about the same price as three las sents (20pts less really) I can get one Vendetta that has 3 twin linked lascannons, three!

Now, while the dog may not be a scout, and my have an effective range of 12" (you forget that it can have a multi melta attatched giving it a total of two 24" melta weapons), it's got the same armor as the Vendetta and is also fast.

Lastly, I'm debating whether I should go with a vet mech list, vet armor list, or a combined arms list with a little bit of everything. The first one I've always wanted to do, but until recently the Chimera cost the same as a predator. If the first didn't show which direction I lean on the commander scale then i suppose this next one does, yes I'm a tread head, or at least I like to think so. Lastly, CA forces just goes against all the old fluff about the IG which just makes me want to do one all the more.


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## TheKingElessar

Some people like to laugh at me saying it, but, once again, LaSents can get a 2+ Cover hiding behind a Chimera. Worth a blast for at least one game, for a laugh, and to try and snipe enemy armour. I was confused by the suggestion that you put two SWS in one Valk, obviously a typo? I don't rate SWS unless Al'Rahem takes them - getting Melta/Flamer in the opponent's face from the side is semi-worth it, IMO, but it's the only time.


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## KageRyuuUji

Scratch that, seems melta weilding infantry is the way to go for AT, forgot to multiply by three.

As for putting two SWS into a Valkyrie there was no typo, both birds and the chimera seat 12 so there's no issue with space, and there's no rule against two squads sharing a transport at the same time, as long as both squads can fit inside.

Also, if the valkryie arrived at target last turn with it's access hatch less than 12" from the target, you could assault from the bird, as long as it didn't move the turn after it arrived near it's target. If you went flat out you'd also get a nice cover save too.

I suppose now that I've decided against mechanical means to remove enemy armor that leaves me with only 2.5 choices:

Melta Vet Squad with or without demolitions in a Vendetta or Valkryie.

2 Melta SWS in a Vendetta or Valkyrie.

I suppose the choice of transport really depends entirely upon the ammount of AT I need as I'm likely to take MRP with the Valkyrie so that's the same price as the vendetta. But 2 SWS or 1 Vet with or without demo? It's one of those Shakespear kinda questions.


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## Okad

"two SWS in one Valk"

Arg. Was hungover haha. I WAS JUST COUNTING AND THE MATHS WAS FINE. I didnt really remember to be intelligent. Wait it wasn't my idea, sweet.

SO anyway, post gatorade and sleep, I remembered why I hate SWS. Also my Necromunda delaque gangers are far too cool to be SWS.. must be veterans. The heavy looks cool with a flamer, btw. Clearly drunk and angry.

But yeah, I see the point about sent's having less firepower than the vendetta, but that firepower is also spread between 3 models, which are not carrying troops with very short range meltas. Thus they can focus on their job of standing very far away and putting very lasery holes into things. + survivability points. And being in cover, or behind Chimeras (dig it TKE). Better still, on a trailer, being carried around by chimeras.

OK thats the best idea i've ever had. Somebody draught me some rules for Chimera Mounted Sentinel Trailers, i'll work on the models. Step 3: profit.

More seriously, but still amusingly, I would love to try an Infantry force with 9 Armoured Sents walking along with it. It would get crunched, but it would look great on the table. Throw some artillery into the mix though, and it might get somewhere. Medusas, mortar teams and Russes, 3x 30+ man Infantry Platoons, 2 CSCs and 9 Sentinels. Might go see what points I can fit that into...


EDIT; PS Kage, yeah, 40k book says a transport can carry a single infantry unit and any gentlemen with fancy names who may accompany them, or words to that effect.


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## TheKingElessar

KageRyuuUji said:


> As for putting two SWS into a Valkyrie there was no typo, both birds and the chimera seat 12 so there's no issue with space, and there's no rule against two squads sharing a transport at the same time, as long as both squads can fit inside.


Afraid there is exactly such a rule - page 66, BRB


> A transport may carry a *single* infantry unit


My emphasis...GW only emphasise important bits in the PS book...:wink:


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## KageRyuuUji

Still in the same squad, so one imobilized roll and either you leave it behind or the whole unit stays put. 

And if your senties aren't moving, than what's the point? Better to get a HWS for 2/3 the cost (like 105 compared to 150) and have them fire from cover (which they can get much easier than a senti can) then to have your senties unable to find cover or hit their mark.

Now as for your list, save points and grab a Manticore instead, sure may not have the same AP, but d3 str10 large ord blasts a turn makes up for that I think. Also, if you're planning on using lascannons keep them in HWS or Infantry squads, and put some plasma on those senties you'll need it!

Hmm... bah, never liked SWS anyway, honestly never did... now if only GW would make sense with they're crazy ass rules.

So now I suppose the question is, demo or no demo, and Vendetta or Valkryie?


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## TheKingElessar

I like Manticores. Immob'd results destroy in squadrons.


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## KageRyuuUji

That's idiotic in the extreme, but whatever, leave it up to GW to take tactics out of a war game.


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