New to IG need advice

[rayvn70]

As stated I'm new to the current IG army (played them in 2ed) so I need some advice. I'm getting a little bored with my Blood Angels as they kinda turned in a "wash-rinse-repeat" army and I have had a lot of success with them, so I decided on an Imperial Guard army, some of you may have seen some of my models already and I'm still painting them up, but that's beside the point. My main idea was a heavy base of infantry supported by ordinance, but am beginning to feel the pull of tanks. TANKS!

First allow me to explain my idea on characters, all of them are pretty nice in their own way and I'm building a "Catachan" army in look only so I'm using those models as I prefer the look and creating my own using their rules. The theme I came up with is a desert type of force as that's the planet they come from, still working on fluff for them. so on to the list I think.



HQ
Commissar Yarrick                                                                              185

CCS: Creed, Kell, MoO,  Vox, Plasma Gun                                             275


Elite
Marbo                                                                                                  65

Ratlings x10                                                                                       100


Troops
Veteran Squad: Harker, Vox, Shotguns                                                 160

PCS: Vox, Plasma Gun, Las-cannon                                            
Squad x2: Vox, Plasma Gun, Las-cannon                                              250                      

PCS: Vox, Plasma Gun
Squad x2: Vox, Plamsa Gun, Las-cannon                                              230   


Fast Attack

x3 Armored Sentinel: Plasma Cannon, Hunter Killer, Spotlight                258


Heavy Support

x3 Basilisk                                                                                         375

Aegis Defense Line: Quad-gun                                                         100


Total:                                                                                                1998


I don't own all the models yet as I'm still building the army up, just trying to find a good solid base to start from so I am open to suggestions on the build and willing to change it up to try something. I haven't played a game with them yet either


        

[maxz]

Maybe take a leman russ executioner instead of the armoured sentinels? then you can outflank it with creed, does basically the same thing as they would, but it doesnt overheat and its av 14!

[Paimon]

You could take 9 basilisks, that's like having lots of tanks, but without all of the silly line of sight nonsense.

[WestRider]

Your Platoons, Elites, and Heavy Support are decent so far as they go, but you've sunk way too many points into your HQ, and the Armoured Sentinels, at only 2HP each, are kind of ridiculously fragile. And with the Plasma Cannon on there, they're a really high priority target, too, so they and your Company Command Squad are both likely to die very quickly in most Games.

I would ditch all the Special Characters (except maybe Harker), the Voxes (Ld9 is good enough most of the time) and the Armoured Sentinels. Pick up a couple more Infantry Squads for each Platoon, and add a Commissar for every two Squads. Use Combined Platoons to blob them up in pairs, or big 40s if you really need the resilience.

Harker's Squad should have some Special Weapons. Sniper Rifles if you're going to hang back, Plasmaguns if you want to stay mobile.

Might want to do one Platoon up with Autocannon and one with Lascannon. There are a lot of situations where the extra shot is really worth more than the extra Strength or AP.

Company Command Squad - I tend to run mine one of two ways these days:
- First is basically as a Special Weapons Squad. Load them up with Plasma or Melta, have them trash anything that gets close to my lines. Works best when the Company Commander isn't my Warlord, as they tend to die a lot in this Role.
- Second is as a Support Unit. Possibly a MoO, maybe another Advisor, Standard, and we're good. Try to keep them mostly out of Line of Sight (remember that you can poke out in the Movement Phase, issue Orders, and then Run back out of sight if you're not using the MoO). Much easier to keep alive if the CC is my Warlord.

Maxz's suggestion of an Executioner is a good one if you want some Plasma Cannon. They're a lot of fun.

For Fast Attack, I find that the Hellhound-class Tanks or Scout Sentinels (Outflanking with Autocannon or Multi-Lasers, plus Hunter-Killers) are decent, but the Vendetta is the real winner here, providing mobility (load up some cheap Scoring Units like PCS with 4 Flamers, or even no gear at all) along with very efficient firepower.

Heavy Support: We've touched on a few points, but keep the Manticore and Girffons in mind. Yeah, they're only AP4, but they can both still rack up serious amounts of Wounds, and cause a lot of damage just by forcing ridiculous numbers of Saves. Particularly with a Squadrons of Girffons, given their re-rolls.

[Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four]

My thoughts mirror WestRider's. You have far too many points tied up in the HQ special characters--ditch them all and take more squads for your platoons, and gear one platoon for anti-infantry/light vehicle hunting with ACs, and set the other up with lascannons to hunt more armored targets. Marbo is pretty hit or miss, in my experience--he usually pops up and then tends to die horribly. He can be a distraction, but don't expect him to achieve glorious results unless you get really lucky with a scatter roll on the demo charge. I've done Harker with shotgun vets in the past, stuck in a Chimera, and it didn't work that well. The old consensus seemed to be that it's better to kit them with longer ranged weapons and then stick them in cover where they can be pretty hard to shift, but if they do have to move can still take advantage of Harker and Payback.

[treadiculous]

It'd b e great to know what you do already own, that way we can go to town on how to use and what to get next at each point increase, 500, 750, 1000 etc with the eventual goal of 2000 point army.

[Trooper One-Nine-Seven-Four]

Another thing that occurred to me is that if you want to be more aggressive with your platoons, drop the heavy weapons from them--consolidate them into heavy weapon squads--and mount 'em up in Chimera APCs, or blob 'em to tarpit things. That way they can move around, but you won't be snap firing with the heavies, and they heavies will be able to concentrate their firepower on things that matter/that the platoon's lasguns would have a hard time hurting.

[treadiculous]

I would also recommend trying to stick to your chosen theme as much as you can, with lots of great advice you may end up with another very competitive 'rinse and repeat' list.

The Guard are great in that you can successfully field a wide variety of themed armies and still have great battlefield success, air cav, mechanised, armoured, infantry all work well on their own.

The hybrids lists certainly cover more of the most effective units though do so at the cost of the theme and narrative your army may have.

[rayvn70]

I don't own very much, I have a basilisk, aegis defense line, armored sentential and I bought a catachan ambush patrol with extra command squad. Might be enough for an ally for my blood angels, but as I'm not wanting to show this army to my LGS till it's completely painted and ready to field I'm building it in secret and with the help from you fine folks I may have a good opening day with them and may even win!

[treadiculous]

Well it sounds like you're off to a good start - I love barrage and artillery mixed with infantry (see commissar.proboards.com/thread/17880/guard-1500-pic-heavy ).

I've often considered placing some basalisk behind my infantry to add to the anti-tank role.

I also find it quite easy to envisage the catachan fighting through dense terrain supported by off map artillery (hence why I like the master of ordnance)... with the basalisks range in consideration it isn't too unreasonable to think that they are in base camp firing shells on to the front lines, guided by the active spotters and snipers.

[dougeye]

with the new escalation rules its almost a given you will need a BANEBLADE in your army! (or a variant) I personally have a stormlord for my tallarn dessert raiders. stick a platoon in that and roll it up the field!

[rayvn70]

Those have a transport ability?

[treadiculous]

oh yes!

a mighty 40 men can fit in a stormlord.

which means you can get 18 heavy weapons in there (6 heavy weapon squads).

[rayvn70]

well looks like 1-2 of those just made the "things to buy" list

[dougeye]

2 would be cool for the theme but you'll only ever get to field 1 outside of apococolypse games.

[rayvn70]

I think I'll build one as a Stormlord and the other as a normal Baneblade as use them depending on what I'm facing. I plan doing a theme but with mainly just the model "type" if you will. One reason I like Creed is the fact he gives one unit scouts, which I think allows them to outflank, is that correct?

[jenburdoo]

You can field two in a 2K game as that can have two FOCs.

[rayvn70]

Ok, so I redid the list, I'm hoping to use outflank and surprise tactics as much as possible not sure if it's possible with this list maybe some more advice is in order

HQ

CCS: Creed, Kell, MoO

Elite

10x Ratlings

10x Storm Troopers: Krak Grenades, x2 Plasma Gun, Power Sword

Troops

PCS: Vox, x3 Plasma Gun, Al'rahem

x2 Squad: Vox, Plasma Gun, Melta Bombs 

PCS: Vox, x3 Flamer

x2 Squad: Vox, Plasma Gun

x10 Veterans: Harker, Shotguns, Democharge

Heavy

x3 Leman Russ Executioner with Plasma sponsons

Fortification

Aegis Defense Line with Quad-cannon

Totals  90 models    2000 points

I should have all the foot sloggers by Christmas, might need more later, but I'm going to focus on vehicles next, I like the plasma Russ but am open to suggestions. Only faced IG from one player at my LGS and he's a pretty straight forward type player: pound you with vanquishers till close to the end of the game then move his troop loaded chimeras to take objectives. I'm hoping to show him a different style and seeing how I'll be the new IG in town maybe steam roll some people in the process   

  

[WestRider]

Still looks really light on Scoring Units. You also have no answer whatsoever to AV14 outside of Harker's Squad Charging it with their Meltabombs. And no Anti-Air apart from the one Quad Gun, which ain't enough. Almost no firepower at all past 36", and most of what you have out that far is small Blasts, which are really weak against some builds.

I hate to say it, but most of what I see rolling around as "casual" lists will wipe this, let alone actual competitive lists.

I'd stick with one Executioner. 3 is ridiculously overkill or ineffective against most lists. Add in some Arty, maybe a Manticore, and then more Infantry Squads (seriously, at 2K, if you're not running Mech, you want to be putting something close to 100 Scoring Guardsmen down on the table), with Heavy Weapons, probably mostly Autocannon. Ditch the Voxes, with Creed and Kell together, you don't need them.

[rayvn70]

Ok, so you're saying, put more bullets down range? increase the amount of firing put more boots on the ground and make arty more dominate on the field? so -2 on the russes, add 1 manticore? ditch all vox? why? I don't understand. add some fliers, like 1 maybe 2? I'm confused on how the guard score, one basic platoon is 3 scoring units right?

[WestRider]

Ditch the Voxes, because Creed can already issue enough Orders to cover all of your Army that's going to need them, rolling on his Ld 10 because of Kell. You don't need the Vox re-rolls at that point.

You're right on how Guard Score. You just don't understand how ridiculously brutal 6th Ed can be. There are a lot of Armies out there that will be reliably able to clear out the 60 Scoring Models you're putting down long before the end of the Game. The need for 80-100 is because you need that many to reliably have any left alive at the end of the Game.

A Vendetta or two couldn't hurt, but even just adding in a bunch of Autocannon would help against Flyers, since you can put Bring It Down on so many Units.

[treadiculous]

Guard have some really stong units:

Vendetta (plus a small special wapon squad with flamers for objectives) for Anit Air, Anti Tank and the unit inside is anti infantry objective grabbing.
Manticores for long range large blast barrage (other variants work too, though manticore seem especially popular)
Leman Russ Battle Tanks for versitality and pure suvivor-ability
Large las-gun and las-cannon weilding platoons plus aegis to hide them behind as gunline campers
Forward plasma weilding units for killing terminators, light vehicles and monsterous cretures
Autocannons - because they're cheap - cheap enough to be put into the squads with plasma
Suicide melta veterans delivered by vendetta / valkyrie / chimera



Guard die easily but come with good wargear at low cost.
Guard characters also die easily and you are planning on 4 of them.

I highly recommend taking a singe character at a time so you can see what they each bring and spending the points on more troops. (my personal preference is none as guard rock enough all on their own!)

I'd also consider dropping the executioners, or at least 2 of them, and stock up on something higher strength - you're plasma platoons will provide the S7 AP2.

As you already have a basalisk I'd think about a second one to compliment it, though manticores have the D3 per shot thing, I prefer basalisk. (S9 is handy).

Also.. I'd convert the storm troopers to holding melta guns and run them as a suicide melta vet squad.

Oh.. and when you're building the las-cannon and auto-cannon heavy teams keep in mind the fact you can build mortars too... mortars are awesome, really really awesome and will work well with your basalisks to terrorise everything!

So to summarise:

Another platoon with lascannons
autocannon with the plasma (and maybe a second of these platoons)
Some mortar heavy weapon squads
another basalisk
Leman russ demolisher or battle tanks to soak
vendetta for AA or lots of autocanon teams near a CCS for bring it down Twin Linking

kinda ends up a bit like a generic hybrid list though.

not sure if i've helped!

[rayvn70]

perhaps I should just try to stick to a straight up fight first and work on sneaky stuff later?

[rayvn70]

I bought a Valkyrie and a Vendetta upgrade kit, I like the idea of melta storm trooper squad, so I'll put them in the vendetta? Also I am going to with your suggestion of less is more, so I'll be dropping the named dudes for now so I can field more stuff and see how they fit my style and I should add at a later date. I also have another ambush patrol coming in as well more conversion bits for the troops like heads, torsos weapons and legs. I also picked up 10 kneeling legs for my snipers with a roll of gauze to make the ghille suits for my ratlings

[treadiculous]

sounds like you've been having fun!