Any advice for building an army ?

[alexander452]

Before you read the rest, im sorry if my english is terrible. Im trying my best.

So, i have recently started playing warhammer 40k together with some of my friends. 

I went with the imperial guard, i liked the idea of alot of infantry that floods the enemy, and at some point your opponent simply can't roll enough armor saves. 
so i decided to build a platoon...slowly
im using the cadian models.
Currently i have 2 standard infantry squads and a platoon command squad, in total it gives me 177 points. 
Im not the most wealthy person, so im starting out small, but on the positive side that leaves me with time to plan ahead.

I have alot of people telling me not to further expand on my platoon as it would prove useless against almost everything. 
Everyone i talk to just say me to "buy lots of tanks and forget about the infantry".

Is infantry really that useless?

i have played a couple of matches and i have lost nearly all of them, mostly because i was playing against tau and i could not get into range before they shot my guys to ashes. 
That was most likely due to my lack of knowledge. (meaning i charged them in open field, i had no idea how to play).
I was playing against my friend, that also just had started, so i learned some things from my losses.

But is there anyway that a platoon could be useful? 

[vulpine]

In my opinion, infantry is the best bargain in 40k.

5pts each for a plucky guardsman and his lasgun!

• Wargear
I tend to keep my army's very basic, I'm not saying no heavy weapons or special weapons in squads. Or even heavy weapons squads.

I'm thinking more... Dose that
Sargent need a bolt pistol? Dose my officer/commissar need a power weapon? These points add up fast and can be the cost of one or more infantry squads. I don't like to spend a pt unless I think that model on a avrage game will get that pt back!

• Tanks
Tanks, this is a area I don't mind spending in. I'm not into hellhounds and such but I'm not against. But I do like a Russ.

Any Russ in fact, all are good at different things. Close Platton support like Demolosher/exacutioner with some Bolter or Plas sponsons and a stubber are fab. If your fighting hords or Nids/orks perhaps a punisher.. Anti tank you have the Vanq and I would leave this without sponsons and with a hull lass and then against transported armies and/or Eldar the annihilator with hull las and some sponsons. If in doubt on who your fighting I would go Battle tank or Demolisher.

• Transport
In my opinion. Pt to pt the Chimera is the best tank in the game. Half decent armour, Decent turret and hull weapon and I often add a stubber. It a heavy wepon team on tracks and cheaper. If you also want you can transport guys in the back!


• Elite
Comming back to me being tight with points. All of these options seam like a waist of points that could be spent on infantry squads. The only one I would be tempted with are a squad of rattling to pin enemy advances.

• Infantry
In my eyes, if you spend any points on other things you should say... How many squads can I get for that? If you spend 170 odd pts on a elite squad or somthing, you should say.. I can get three squads of guard with heavy/spacial weapons. Keep that equation in your head and you should spend points correctly.

• Heavy weapon and Heavy weapon squads.
Heavy weapon squads are fab.
- Las cannons are nice ways of having some anti armour.
- Auto cannons I like to stick in my platoon command squads to take out transports (basically so you have a 1-5 ratio to heavy Bolters).
- Heavy Bolters, HW Squads are fine and blaming infantry, but usually I stick there in infantry squad. Reason being, the rest of the squad with las guns will almost certainly be firing at infantry, so the heavy Bolter is fab!
- The missile Launcher ain't bad either, as it's effective agaist infantry, elite infantry and tanks. However I tend to put these in squads of there own. Still able to support the infantry squads in anti enemy infantry but can turn to take out tanks if needed.
- Morta. It's cheap, I would only have Mortas in HW Squads and only if I had loads of them.