New Guard Player looking to start an Infantry army

[Turtleboy(AWOL)]

cherub said:

I play mostly infantry and I'll say that 90% of your problem was lack of boots on the ground.

so my new guard army is going to be pretty stripped down where possible then. how do you recommend making points for more troops?

If you are going to go all infantry you are going to want as many guys as you can get. I tend to run 2 full 55 man platoon and then fill in what i'm lacking. No matter what you tool up your officers to do in cc 99% of the time they are going to lose. Just spend those points on getting more guns.

I'm in agreement here - I just played a game vs. orcs and even though I killed a bunch of orcs, it's not something that's ever gonna pay for itself. a 160pt command squad cannot kill enough orcs to make their points, simple as that. one thing I DID realize was a good investment though, is giving counterassault units FRAG GRENADES. if you don't, most often you don't even get to swing with the unit before it's minced up and rendered relatively useless.

The best way to deal with C'tan in with a 10 man ratling sniper squad, most enemy HQs use a melta armed special weapon squad.

never used ratlings, but I have a feeling I will be I've seen the melta heavy command squad before; it's 'ok' but I'd rather have laspistol and chainsword with frag grenades for a lil counterassault punch when it's time for the command squad to die. seems like a good way to save points. taking a moment to acknowledge what you're saying though, this does seem like a prime place to put special weapons a) you're not paying the inflated price like you do in special weapon squads b ) you can take more than a special weapon squad and c) you can take plasma guns too.

so I see your point about tooling command squads for special weapon squad duty. any unit can take frag grenades and throw more attacks into a melee, but if you can blast that unit to the stone age first with a concentration of special weapons then charge the remnants with a normal line squad or two and tie it down to get that volume of regular 'ol melee attacks introduced, then you've still got a command squad lurking around with a can of whoop...

I win games by sheer volume of fire. Though when a cc army hits my lines my guys die fast and in droves.

my issue has been that I can't muster enough to win a game by sheer volume of fire. is this possible to do with maxed out infantry formations? as far as the melee part of things goes: man you ain't kidding.

[Deleted]

For points saving the only upgrades on my chars are the ones on the model so a bolt pistol and sometimes a powersword. You would be suprised on how many points people put in to chars.
Frag is very good for counter assulting, I do very little of it though unless its more of a denining you the extra attack on the charge kinda of thing. I've found and this is very mean, running 4 flamers with an officer that has a powersword is killing a huge number of troops even marines. What I'm liking about it is not having to roll to hit, thats huge when your only hitting on 4's. And to be honest, we are guard. EVERYONE (exept maybe tau but they come with 4+ save standerd) is better in close combat then us. 4 extra attacks really what is that going to do? Even say in a 10 man squad you had all cc weapons. Thats 30 attacks on the charge. Hitting on 4's so you hit 15 times. say you are fighting something that toughness 4, you wound 5 times. They then get armour saves. Orcs its a 6 isnt it? marines get a 3 really how many guys did you just kill for a 10 many squad costing how many points? Even IF you got to attack first that squad isnt going to be around for very long. At most you held them in place and blocked line of sight so something of his cant shoot at you. Guard are only good in cc when you outnumber 2 or 3 to 1 at a min.

In my guard list (I'll take the time this weekend to put it from army builder to post) I have 6 ml 3 lc and 4 heavy bolters. (this is just in the 2 platoons) The first turn I'm usally out of range for the lasguns to shoot so I focus on any groupings of anti infantry weapons such as devy squads armed with heavy bolters or mls. Look at it this way if a squad has 4 lascannons how many guys over the course of 3 turns can they kill? now 4 heavy bolters? 4 plasma cannons? 4 frag firing mls?
When your running all infanty and trying to out shoot someone you really really really have to pay attention to target priority. Its not what can do the most damage to me this turn, but what can do the most damage to me this turn plus next turn plus the turn after that and so on. You need to be thinking at least 2 turns ahead.
The best game I've had that would be a good example of that is against a Ravenwing based DA player. It took me forever to finally destroy all of his speeders but every turn I was at least glancing them and that shut down alot of his anti infantry weaponry. Sure the bike squads did alot of damage but those speeder squads would have and did in the first turn kill entire squads in a single shooting phase.
Look at it another way an good all infantry marine list have around 50 marines in it. A good all infantry IG list in it has around 150 guard. You at that point have 3 shots to every one of his. Yes his gun is better but you have alot more. So what if 2 out of 3 shots kills a guard. Even if he can get all 50 guys in range to fire hes now in firing range of your 150 guard. Guess who is going to win a protraced fire fight?
Plasma. Personally I hate it. Other people say they love it but I hate it and dont have any experiace using it in a guard army.

Quick question though what size army list do you want to see?

[Turtleboy(AWOL)]

cherub said:

...It took me forever to finally destroy all of his speeders but every turn I was at least glancing them and that shut down alot of his anti infantry weaponry.

this is my big gripe about leman russes - so many points and any glance makes it unable to shoot pretty much. they kinda get to be wastes sometimes.

Quick question though what size army list do you want to see?

I'll leave that for the thread's author to decide

[Deleted]

LoL Its 40k night tonight at my battle bunker I'll take a smaller list in and take some pics and do a battle report to show you.

[Turtleboy(AWOL)]

cherub said:

Plasma. Personally I hate it. Other people say they love it but I hate it and dont have any experiace using it in a guard army.

the only place I'll take plasma guns is in a command squad with a medic. it's too lethal to our boys otherwise. even at that I won't take more than 2 plasma guns - on 4 dice the chance for 2 overheats is pretty strong at which point you better pray you can pull a save.

[Deleted]

my infantry guard works pretty well. (I have tanks but my when I play guard I ussually 90% of the time go all infantry)

for mobility you need infiltration or drop troop (minimum storm troopers with 2 meltas is a staple for me) hardened vets can infiltrate.

I run LC and ML in my HQ platoon and HW platoons. I put HB and AC in the normal squads as putting a LC in normal squads is a wast. wither it shoots at tanks and no one else gets to shoot or it I shoot at infantry and the high firepower is overkill on little guys

[Deleted]

Guard vs Blood Angels

Table: Standard 4x4 table

Terrain: 5 buildings on 1x1 footprint. Played real line of sight. Footprint gave 4+ cover vehicles rolled for obscured if line of sight went though footprint.


We played the seek and destroy at gamma level

Guard List

HQ: HSO:ps, bp, carapace armour, squad has a lascannon

Troop x2: command: bp on officer, squad has lascannon
squads 1-3: ml
4,5: HB
one officer has honorific Imperialis

Yes that means I played with no doctrines, no special weapons and had 115 guys on the table in 1000 pts.

BA

Chappy with jp
3 death company with jp
baal with heavy bolters and extra armour
10 man assualt with packs, pf, pp
10 man assualt with rhino
5 man tact with melta in razorback tlhb

Start of the game 115 guard to 29 marines and 3 vehicles.




She won table side so I deployed first and I won first turn and gave her first turn.

Turn 1
Rhino over charged engines and went 18 toward my right firebase (AHHHHHHHH), Baal, razor moved into firing lanes and everything else moved up.

Baal and Razor killed a whooping 6 guys between 2 squads and I failed the leadership for 1 squad and ran 6 inchs away.

No movement for the guard.

Lascannon from the Alpha Platoon command squad destroyed the razorback killing 1 guy inside., krak missle from alpha killed a dc
Krak missle from Beta platoon destoyed the rhino (rolled a 6 on the table) killing 3 marines. Rest of the fire from the 2 platoons accounted for 1 more dc, 3 jp guys and 3 more from the rhino squad.

Second Turn

BA

The 2 squads that were not entangled moved very close to my command squad with the HI and the left had firebase.

After making 7 out of 9 cover saves my command squad was wiped out and the chappy, dc and assualt squad consolodated into my firebase.

Guard

Passed my rally test ;D I moved 2 squads into position to assualt the chappy, dc and assualt squad.

Shooting was unimpressive only killing 1 guy and Immobolizing and stunning the baal.

Her death company and chappy managed to killing 1 guy between them, the 5 man assualt squad killed 5 though. My return attacks? 28 guys with 20 of them charging in? Wiped out the 5 man jp squad but seeing as how I lost combat 6-5 I had to make 3 leadership tests......and some how managed to pass them all.

Third Turn

BA

Her remaining assualt troops on my right charged into combat and killed 2 guys.

Guard

Moved guys closer to combats and stunned the Baal once again stopping it from shooting me.

Combat ended with 4 dead marines including 1 dc and 7 dead IG. And me failing a leadership test and running 3 inchs away.

Fourth Turn

BA

5 dead guard (4 to the chappy finishing off 1 squad) with no dead marines. And once again I managed to pass all my tests.

Guard

Lost 1 guard and wiped out the remaining 2 jp marines. Though I'm down to a LMS serg with a death wish on my right flank.

Turn 5

BA

Tactical squad makes it into shooting range and kills 1 guard and the charges into combat killing another 3. I failed my leadership test and she wiped out the rest of the squad and consoladated back into cover. 2 more guard died to the chappy. I still cant wound that stupid guy.

Guard

LMS serg failed his test and booked it back to base with my remaining troops passing their rally tests or moving closer to the remaining marines.

Shooting accounted for 1 tactical marine with a lasgun.

Lost another marine to the chappy and just managed to make it into combat with my powersword toting HSO. Lost 2 guard to the tactical squad only managing to take 1 marine down.....and JUST passed my leadership test.

Pile O'Dead


Sixth Turn.

BA

With only 3 marines left on the table and over 60 guard left it was looking pretty grim. The marines didnt do very well only killing a couple of guard before a squad managed to bring down the chappy and the HSO stepping up and killing the last 2 tactical squad members.



Comments?

[Turtleboy(AWOL)]

HELL yeah

love the pics, love the easy to read synopsis, love seeing painted minis, love seeing the city fight table. lots to love, nice work!

TB

PS. would you mind copying this post and sticking it in a thread in the 'after action reveiws' subsection of the forum?

[Deleted]

I'll copy it over.

I thought it might be nice for people to see what a close combat army does against that many guard. Really when each marine has to kill 4 guard each it gets pretty ugly. Is there anything else you wanted to see? different units? different armies?

As for my city fight table wait till its done. I'll post some pics when it gets a little closer to being done. Those 5 buildings are not even half of what is going to be on that table.