Post by Aeon on Jun 18, 2014 6:43:05 GMT -5
This thread is geared towards brand new players, who have either just taken their first step into the 41st millenium and chosen Imperial Guard as their first army, or more experienced players who are completely unfamiliar with the Imperial Guard.
Here, I will discuss every single unit in the Imperial Guard, from H.Qs, to Elites, to Troops, Fast Attack and Heavy Supports. It will discuss our main weapon options as well as our most popular vehicle options, and what each unit and weapon can be used for.
Keep in mind, it will be slightly biased, but it comes from experienced lips. I know that everyone runs their Guard pretty different from the next guy, but I will try to list pros and cons for everything that I mention, to help new Guardsmen understand how the Guard works, and how it doesn't work.
By the way, this is an excellent thread to read, either before or after you read the units guide here
commissar.proboards.com/thread/10241/started-imperial-guard?page=1
Also, some fundamental aspects of building an Imperial Guard list, for any points value:
1) Orders are the key to victory. Keep your officers ALIVE at all costs
2) Don't rely too heavily on vehicles. Leman Russ tanks are very costly and are easily destroyed by weapons such as melta guns and rail cannons
3) Platoons and Veterans are your friend. Elites are not. Storm Troopers, Ratlings and Ogryns are like sprinkles on ice cream: You want more of the latter, less of the former
4) Guardsmen are regular men. They are fragile, and their armour is terrible. Bring strong weapons and blasts wherever possible
H.Q Choices
Company Command Squad
Recommended: Yes
Description: The Company Command Squad (CCS) represents a Captain, Major, Colonel or higher rank on the battle field. He leads your company or even your entire regiment into battle. He is accompanied by 4 veteran Guardsmen with better ballistic skill and leadership than regular guardsmen, who act as body guards and also to carry important gear into battle
Role: a Company Commander's primary role is to give orders to platoons. As a Senior Officer (special rule), he has access to 2 orders per turn instead of just 1, and also can give the best orders, such as "Fire on my target!", which allows a squad to ignore cover, and "Get back in the fight!" which immediately stops a fleeing unit from fleeing, or a pinned squad from being pinned (and also makes a squad that has gone to ground get back up and act normally that turn).
Pros:
- Lots of orders
- Decent leadership value
- Decent at shooting and hand to hand
- Has a built in 5+ invulnerable save
Cons:
- Still a T3 and S3 model. Be careful not to get picked off or locked into combat with something like a Space Marine or Howling banshees
- A very high priority target for an opponent with experience fighting against Guard
Recommended Build:
- Power axes are nice if you can spare the points. If you do get charged, you might deal significant damage before dying
- Carapace armor for the officer or the entire command squad makes them significantly more durable to basic weapons fire
- Camo cloaks, while more expensive for the officer, can give you a 3+ cover save while sitting in a ruin or behind an Aegis Defense line
- Heavy flamer for one veteran means that if you get assaulted, you will deal more hits and wounds than with just snap firing
- Plasma guns and heavy weapons like lascannons and missile launchers with BS4 are quite nice
- Vox caster is a MUST for getting a re roll on orders tests. Give them to surrounding squads to ensure that your autocannons and plasma guns are ignoring cover
- Regimental standard for getting a Leadership re roll on nearby squads. Don't want your heavy weapon teams running away on you
Advisors
Astropath:
Recommended: Yes
Description: A cheap psyker that attaches to your company command squad. Can roll on the telepathy table and has a chance of getting invisibility or shrouded, which are very powerful and useful
Pros:
- Inexpensive
- Psyker
Cons:
- Only 1 mastery level
- 1 wound model
- No way to get prescience (which gives a squad twin linked)
Recommended Uses:
- Psychic Shriek is BALLS TO THE WALL powerful. I have killed Riptides with a single roll from this power. Imagine a regular guardsman statline model killing a fast approaching Eldar Autarch or rampaging Wraithlord with but a single mind bullet
- If you roll invisibility, you can keep your command squad alive much more easily
Master of Ordnance:
Recommended: No
Description: Basically a forward observer for the Imperial Guard artillery corps. He can call in a single shot each turn with the same weapon profile as a Basilisk earthshaker cannon, but it almost always scatters and rarely hits anything
Pros:
- Is basically a Basilisk for the price of a lascannon
- When he hits, he hits hard, and those lucky hits can do a lot of damage
- Inexpensive, so not entirely a waste of points. I never use them because I never hit with them
Cons:
- Will more than likely not land a single shot all game
Officer of the Fleet:
Recommended: Yes
Description: A liason between the Imperial Navy and the Imperial Guard. Allows you to either give yourself a +1 to all reserve rolls, or your opponent -1 to reserve rolls, as long as you can pass a leadership test taken at his Ld value
Pros:
- Can help bring in your Vendetta and valkyrie gunships, outflanking sentinels, and deep striking Scions (storm troopers and kasrkins!)
- Can prevent a deep strike heavy opponent from getting his stuff when he needs it
Cons:
- None that I can think of other than that if you fail his Ld test, he is just an expensive laspistol and body for a turn
Commissar Lord
Recomended: Yes
Description: A high ranking Commissar with a CRAZY good statline for an Imperial Guardsman. He nearly rivals Space Marine captains in his skill with a sword, and shoots like them too. He has 10 leadership, and spreads that leadership to the unit he is attached to, and all friendly units within 6" of him. Also, he's stubborn.
Role: As a single model with 3 toughness he is not a 1 man killing machine like a Space Marine captain or chaplain, but, he is a huge buffer to your army's leadership value. He can prevent massive platoons from running away. He goes great in conscript blobs, because otherwise they will run away, and you essentially get 50 men who are nearly fearless for the price of about 25 regular guardsmen. He is also a great character to put in a 50 man blob squad with 5 heavy weapons, thus ensuring that your autocannons or what not will be there the whole game or until they die.
Recommended Build:
- You want him to stay alive. Carapace armor is practically a must
- Power fist, power axe or The Blade of Conquest heirloom. If his unit gets assaulted, his 5 weapon skill means that you have a good chance of ruining someone's day
- Comes with a bolt pistol for free, but a plasma pistol isn't a bad choice either considering he's an ace shot and has the wounds to take the pain of an overheat
Pros:
- Best Ld value in the game
- High Ws and Bs
- Will keep a unit from running away, nearly guaranteed
- Relatively inexpensive for such a badass model
Cons:
- More expensive than a Company Command Squad
- Can't give orders
- Can't be your warlord if you have a CCS, due to chain of command
- Will occassionally execute one of your models for a re roll on leadership save, and occasionally, your opponent will get to pick who dies, meaning you might lose a sergeant, a vox caster, or a special weapon guy
Tank Commander
Recommended: Indifferent
Role: So you get a leman russ tank of any variety with 4 ballistic skill, and the ability to give some semi useful orders to tanks that are part of his squadron (but not to other tanks, for some reason). The reason I am indifferent to recommending him, is because I would rather take a company command squad AND a lord commissar, for leadership and infantry orders, but to each his own. I have had good games with a tank commander. I have also have bad games where my opponent sees that my warlord has 10 rear armor, and sends in swooping hawks or a drop pod filled with melta gun carriers and just kills him in a single turn. Leman Russes are really not that great when they are the greatest threat on the table, because they draw a lot of attention, and are not as hard to kill as you might think
If you take a tank commander, it should be in addition to another, more useful HQ like a company command squad or a Lord Commissar or even a special character. Also, dont use the tank commander in a tank that has a large blast marker, it is a waste of his Ballistic skill upgrade. Take something like a Punisher, Exterminator, Vanquisher or Executioner, that will much better benefit from your tank commander being better at shooting
Pros:
- Pretty durable HQ choice
- Better at shooting, so you'll land more shots with those deadly tank weapons
- Can make his squadron split fire or move and pop smoke, or move more quickly than a leman russ normally could
Cons:
- HUGE target for enemy anti armor units
- Not as durable as I would like
- Doesn't allow you to order other tanks around
- Doesn't gain another hull point or anything to make him more survivable
- Doesn't increase his squadron's ballistic skill at all
Tech Priest
Recommended: Indifferent
Description: A liason between the tech priests of mars, and the Guard. Can repair vehicles like nobody's business
Role: He is there to fix stuff, namely, Leman Russes and artillery vehicles. He is not like a tech marine from the Adeptus Astartes, so he doesn't have access to nice toys like thunder fire cannons and conversion beamers
Pros:
- Doesn't take up an H.Q slot
- Can repair destroyed weapons, get an immobilized vehicle moving again, and restore hull points
- Has a 3+ save so he's relatively durable
- Can take servitors that either shoot up enemies with heavy weapons, or help him fix stuff
Cons:
- 1 wound model
- A bit pricey (not too bad, but he does soak up points that could have gone towards more guardsmen)
- No thunderfire cannon
- No conversion beamer
- Can be a priority target for some people
Primaris Psyker
Recommended: Yes
Description: A (possibly powerful) sanctioned psyker who can greatly buff your squads and platoons, or blast your enemies with mind bullets
Role: In my eyes, a Primaris Psyker (PP) is there for 1 reason: Prescience. This is a power that makes everything you cast in on (including vehicles) twin linked. Got a Rhino problem? No big deal, cast prescience on a 50 man platoon with 5 autocannons, or a Leman Russ of almost any variety, and watch as your army removes a transport every single turn without fail. Just got drop podded in the face with a full 10 man Tactical squad? That's totally ok, because that bane wolf sitting right there is going to re roll those 2+ to wound, Ap3 hits from its template that also ignore cover, and you're going to kill at least half that squad. Prescience is freaking gold, it is the best power you can use for this army, the shootiest army in the game, who also happens to really suck at shooting
Pros:
- Great Ld value, so not so likely to be sucked into the warp
- Can upgrade to level 2 psyker
- A decent shot, and comes with a force weapon for free
Cons:
- Super expensive for a single wound model
- Can only use Prescience once per turn, like all psykers, so you really need to ensure that it goes off
- Commissars will BLAM him immediately if their is one in his squad and he perils
Munitorum Priest
Recommended: Yes
Description: A war chanter who inspires your men in the heat of battle. Useful for a close combat oriented army, or as a potential Leadership buffer (they make men stubborn)
Role: Priests are useful, but they are my least used special HQ choice. They really are only good in close combat, but this can be a good thing if that's what you like to do. They have several different chants, which they can use in the ASSAULT PHASE only, if they pass a leadership test (keep someone with higher leadership nearby, Ld7 is crap).
One chant allows them to give the entire squad they're attached to, re rolls to wound, which is fantastic since S3 is horribad. It makes power swords much more useful, since you'll get a re roll with your measly S3 and still strike at Initiative. Note, power axes are still a much better choice since they're Ap2 and +1 strength, and you'll rarely be going first with I3 anyway
Another chant gives your entire squad re rolls on failed armor saves, which is nice, but generally you're not going to make many armour saves anyway. Useful with a psyker who rolls that power that gives a unit a 4+ invulnerable save. Watch your opponent cry as he is tarpitted into turn 7
Their last chant lets them use Smash, which basically gives your priest a power fist. Not so useful, I'd rather buff my entire platoon
Pros:
- Awesome melee buff unit
- Can use smash in an emergency
- Comes with a 4+ invulnerable save (Rosarius!)
- Is stubborn
Cons:
- Semi pricey for a 1 wound, Ld7 model
- Has an autogun instead of a lasgun, so won't benefit from an extra shot if given First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire
- He is quite easy to pick out and snipe or disable with a challenge
Here, I will discuss every single unit in the Imperial Guard, from H.Qs, to Elites, to Troops, Fast Attack and Heavy Supports. It will discuss our main weapon options as well as our most popular vehicle options, and what each unit and weapon can be used for.
Keep in mind, it will be slightly biased, but it comes from experienced lips. I know that everyone runs their Guard pretty different from the next guy, but I will try to list pros and cons for everything that I mention, to help new Guardsmen understand how the Guard works, and how it doesn't work.
By the way, this is an excellent thread to read, either before or after you read the units guide here
commissar.proboards.com/thread/10241/started-imperial-guard?page=1
Also, some fundamental aspects of building an Imperial Guard list, for any points value:
1) Orders are the key to victory. Keep your officers ALIVE at all costs
2) Don't rely too heavily on vehicles. Leman Russ tanks are very costly and are easily destroyed by weapons such as melta guns and rail cannons
3) Platoons and Veterans are your friend. Elites are not. Storm Troopers, Ratlings and Ogryns are like sprinkles on ice cream: You want more of the latter, less of the former
4) Guardsmen are regular men. They are fragile, and their armour is terrible. Bring strong weapons and blasts wherever possible
H.Q Choices
Company Command Squad
Recommended: Yes
Description: The Company Command Squad (CCS) represents a Captain, Major, Colonel or higher rank on the battle field. He leads your company or even your entire regiment into battle. He is accompanied by 4 veteran Guardsmen with better ballistic skill and leadership than regular guardsmen, who act as body guards and also to carry important gear into battle
Role: a Company Commander's primary role is to give orders to platoons. As a Senior Officer (special rule), he has access to 2 orders per turn instead of just 1, and also can give the best orders, such as "Fire on my target!", which allows a squad to ignore cover, and "Get back in the fight!" which immediately stops a fleeing unit from fleeing, or a pinned squad from being pinned (and also makes a squad that has gone to ground get back up and act normally that turn).
Pros:
- Lots of orders
- Decent leadership value
- Decent at shooting and hand to hand
- Has a built in 5+ invulnerable save
Cons:
- Still a T3 and S3 model. Be careful not to get picked off or locked into combat with something like a Space Marine or Howling banshees
- A very high priority target for an opponent with experience fighting against Guard
Recommended Build:
- Power axes are nice if you can spare the points. If you do get charged, you might deal significant damage before dying
- Carapace armor for the officer or the entire command squad makes them significantly more durable to basic weapons fire
- Camo cloaks, while more expensive for the officer, can give you a 3+ cover save while sitting in a ruin or behind an Aegis Defense line
- Heavy flamer for one veteran means that if you get assaulted, you will deal more hits and wounds than with just snap firing
- Plasma guns and heavy weapons like lascannons and missile launchers with BS4 are quite nice
- Vox caster is a MUST for getting a re roll on orders tests. Give them to surrounding squads to ensure that your autocannons and plasma guns are ignoring cover
- Regimental standard for getting a Leadership re roll on nearby squads. Don't want your heavy weapon teams running away on you
Advisors
Astropath:
Recommended: Yes
Description: A cheap psyker that attaches to your company command squad. Can roll on the telepathy table and has a chance of getting invisibility or shrouded, which are very powerful and useful
Pros:
- Inexpensive
- Psyker
Cons:
- Only 1 mastery level
- 1 wound model
- No way to get prescience (which gives a squad twin linked)
Recommended Uses:
- Psychic Shriek is BALLS TO THE WALL powerful. I have killed Riptides with a single roll from this power. Imagine a regular guardsman statline model killing a fast approaching Eldar Autarch or rampaging Wraithlord with but a single mind bullet
- If you roll invisibility, you can keep your command squad alive much more easily
Master of Ordnance:
Recommended: No
Description: Basically a forward observer for the Imperial Guard artillery corps. He can call in a single shot each turn with the same weapon profile as a Basilisk earthshaker cannon, but it almost always scatters and rarely hits anything
Pros:
- Is basically a Basilisk for the price of a lascannon
- When he hits, he hits hard, and those lucky hits can do a lot of damage
- Inexpensive, so not entirely a waste of points. I never use them because I never hit with them
Cons:
- Will more than likely not land a single shot all game
Officer of the Fleet:
Recommended: Yes
Description: A liason between the Imperial Navy and the Imperial Guard. Allows you to either give yourself a +1 to all reserve rolls, or your opponent -1 to reserve rolls, as long as you can pass a leadership test taken at his Ld value
Pros:
- Can help bring in your Vendetta and valkyrie gunships, outflanking sentinels, and deep striking Scions (storm troopers and kasrkins!)
- Can prevent a deep strike heavy opponent from getting his stuff when he needs it
Cons:
- None that I can think of other than that if you fail his Ld test, he is just an expensive laspistol and body for a turn
Commissar Lord
Recomended: Yes
Description: A high ranking Commissar with a CRAZY good statline for an Imperial Guardsman. He nearly rivals Space Marine captains in his skill with a sword, and shoots like them too. He has 10 leadership, and spreads that leadership to the unit he is attached to, and all friendly units within 6" of him. Also, he's stubborn.
Role: As a single model with 3 toughness he is not a 1 man killing machine like a Space Marine captain or chaplain, but, he is a huge buffer to your army's leadership value. He can prevent massive platoons from running away. He goes great in conscript blobs, because otherwise they will run away, and you essentially get 50 men who are nearly fearless for the price of about 25 regular guardsmen. He is also a great character to put in a 50 man blob squad with 5 heavy weapons, thus ensuring that your autocannons or what not will be there the whole game or until they die.
Recommended Build:
- You want him to stay alive. Carapace armor is practically a must
- Power fist, power axe or The Blade of Conquest heirloom. If his unit gets assaulted, his 5 weapon skill means that you have a good chance of ruining someone's day
- Comes with a bolt pistol for free, but a plasma pistol isn't a bad choice either considering he's an ace shot and has the wounds to take the pain of an overheat
Pros:
- Best Ld value in the game
- High Ws and Bs
- Will keep a unit from running away, nearly guaranteed
- Relatively inexpensive for such a badass model
Cons:
- More expensive than a Company Command Squad
- Can't give orders
- Can't be your warlord if you have a CCS, due to chain of command
- Will occassionally execute one of your models for a re roll on leadership save, and occasionally, your opponent will get to pick who dies, meaning you might lose a sergeant, a vox caster, or a special weapon guy
Tank Commander
Recommended: Indifferent
Role: So you get a leman russ tank of any variety with 4 ballistic skill, and the ability to give some semi useful orders to tanks that are part of his squadron (but not to other tanks, for some reason). The reason I am indifferent to recommending him, is because I would rather take a company command squad AND a lord commissar, for leadership and infantry orders, but to each his own. I have had good games with a tank commander. I have also have bad games where my opponent sees that my warlord has 10 rear armor, and sends in swooping hawks or a drop pod filled with melta gun carriers and just kills him in a single turn. Leman Russes are really not that great when they are the greatest threat on the table, because they draw a lot of attention, and are not as hard to kill as you might think
If you take a tank commander, it should be in addition to another, more useful HQ like a company command squad or a Lord Commissar or even a special character. Also, dont use the tank commander in a tank that has a large blast marker, it is a waste of his Ballistic skill upgrade. Take something like a Punisher, Exterminator, Vanquisher or Executioner, that will much better benefit from your tank commander being better at shooting
Pros:
- Pretty durable HQ choice
- Better at shooting, so you'll land more shots with those deadly tank weapons
- Can make his squadron split fire or move and pop smoke, or move more quickly than a leman russ normally could
Cons:
- HUGE target for enemy anti armor units
- Not as durable as I would like
- Doesn't allow you to order other tanks around
- Doesn't gain another hull point or anything to make him more survivable
- Doesn't increase his squadron's ballistic skill at all
Tech Priest
Recommended: Indifferent
Description: A liason between the tech priests of mars, and the Guard. Can repair vehicles like nobody's business
Role: He is there to fix stuff, namely, Leman Russes and artillery vehicles. He is not like a tech marine from the Adeptus Astartes, so he doesn't have access to nice toys like thunder fire cannons and conversion beamers
Pros:
- Doesn't take up an H.Q slot
- Can repair destroyed weapons, get an immobilized vehicle moving again, and restore hull points
- Has a 3+ save so he's relatively durable
- Can take servitors that either shoot up enemies with heavy weapons, or help him fix stuff
Cons:
- 1 wound model
- A bit pricey (not too bad, but he does soak up points that could have gone towards more guardsmen)
- No thunderfire cannon
- No conversion beamer
- Can be a priority target for some people
Primaris Psyker
Recommended: Yes
Description: A (possibly powerful) sanctioned psyker who can greatly buff your squads and platoons, or blast your enemies with mind bullets
Role: In my eyes, a Primaris Psyker (PP) is there for 1 reason: Prescience. This is a power that makes everything you cast in on (including vehicles) twin linked. Got a Rhino problem? No big deal, cast prescience on a 50 man platoon with 5 autocannons, or a Leman Russ of almost any variety, and watch as your army removes a transport every single turn without fail. Just got drop podded in the face with a full 10 man Tactical squad? That's totally ok, because that bane wolf sitting right there is going to re roll those 2+ to wound, Ap3 hits from its template that also ignore cover, and you're going to kill at least half that squad. Prescience is freaking gold, it is the best power you can use for this army, the shootiest army in the game, who also happens to really suck at shooting
Pros:
- Great Ld value, so not so likely to be sucked into the warp
- Can upgrade to level 2 psyker
- A decent shot, and comes with a force weapon for free
Cons:
- Super expensive for a single wound model
- Can only use Prescience once per turn, like all psykers, so you really need to ensure that it goes off
- Commissars will BLAM him immediately if their is one in his squad and he perils
Munitorum Priest
Recommended: Yes
Description: A war chanter who inspires your men in the heat of battle. Useful for a close combat oriented army, or as a potential Leadership buffer (they make men stubborn)
Role: Priests are useful, but they are my least used special HQ choice. They really are only good in close combat, but this can be a good thing if that's what you like to do. They have several different chants, which they can use in the ASSAULT PHASE only, if they pass a leadership test (keep someone with higher leadership nearby, Ld7 is crap).
One chant allows them to give the entire squad they're attached to, re rolls to wound, which is fantastic since S3 is horribad. It makes power swords much more useful, since you'll get a re roll with your measly S3 and still strike at Initiative. Note, power axes are still a much better choice since they're Ap2 and +1 strength, and you'll rarely be going first with I3 anyway
Another chant gives your entire squad re rolls on failed armor saves, which is nice, but generally you're not going to make many armour saves anyway. Useful with a psyker who rolls that power that gives a unit a 4+ invulnerable save. Watch your opponent cry as he is tarpitted into turn 7
Their last chant lets them use Smash, which basically gives your priest a power fist. Not so useful, I'd rather buff my entire platoon
Pros:
- Awesome melee buff unit
- Can use smash in an emergency
- Comes with a 4+ invulnerable save (Rosarius!)
- Is stubborn
Cons:
- Semi pricey for a 1 wound, Ld7 model
- Has an autogun instead of a lasgun, so won't benefit from an extra shot if given First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire
- He is quite easy to pick out and snipe or disable with a challenge